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  Copyright © 2015 by Allan Stratton

  Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  www.sourcebooks.com

  Originally published in 2015 in the United Kingdom by Anderson Press Limited.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stratton, Allan, author.

  The dogs / Allan Stratton. -- [First American edition].

  pages cm

  “Originally published in 2015 in the United Kingdom by Anderson Press Limited.”

  Summary: Cameron is used to moving at a moment’s notice because he and his mother are always running away from his supposedly violent father, but he is disturbed by their latest refuge, a creepy, deserted farmhouse, haunted by bloodthirsty dogs--and when he sees a boy hiding in the barn, and finds an old picture of the same boy, he starts wondering about the possibility of human ghosts.

  (alk. paper)

  1. Abusive men--Juvenile fiction. 2. Fathers and sons--Juvenile fiction. 3. Mothers and sons--Juvenile fiction. 4. Haunted places--Juvenile fiction. 5. Detective and mystery stories. [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Fathers and sons--Fiction. 3. Mothers and sons--Fiction. 4. Haunted places--Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S9109Do 2015

  823.914--dc23

  [Fic]

  2014044059

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For my stepfather, Alex, the best dad in the world

  1

  It’s ten p.m. Mom’s at the living room window staring at the car across the street. She’s been there for an hour. Our lights are out so no one can see her.

  I’m downstairs in the rec room playing Zombie Attack. No sound. I don’t want Mom to know, although I’m pretty sure she guesses. The longer we’re quiet in the dark, the creepier it gets.

  Mom’s imagining things.

  But what if she isn’t? I focus on the zombies. More silence.

  “It’s probably nothing,” I call up.

  “Shh. Keep it down.”

  “I’m in the basement, Mom. You think someone outside can hear me?”

  “Stop it, Cameron. Turn off that game and go to bed.”

  “Aw, Mom—”

  “Cameron.”

  A zombie jumps from behind a tree and rips my head off. Thanks, Mom. Way to help me concentrate. I turn off the game and head up to the living room.

  Mom’s squeezing her phone. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Why?” I try to sound normal. “They won’t come for hours. By the time they do, whoever’s there will be gone.”

  “It’s not ‘whoever.’ It’s him. I know it.” She dials.

  “Mom, it’s a street. People park there.”

  “Not in neighborhoods where they don’t belong. Not opposite the same house three nights in a row. And they don’t stay in their car either. It’s only a matter of time before he does something. Hello, police?”

  I can’t breathe. I go upstairs and brush my teeth while Mom gives her name and address to someone who’s apparently deaf. The more they tell her to calm down, the angrier she gets.

  Go to bed. Everything’s fine.

  Mom’s room is at the front of the house. I sneak to her window and peek down at the car. It’s out of the light, in the shadow of the trees on the other side of the street. Is there really someone inside?

  Even if there is, so what? They could be waiting for a friend.

  All night?

  It’s not against the law to sit in a car.

  That’s not the point.

  Stop it. Don’t be like her.

  The car drives off like it did last night and the night before that. I go to my room and crawl under the covers. Two hours later the cops arrive.

  Mom’s ballistic. “I called hours ago. We could be dead.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. It’s been a busy night. Did you get the license number?”

  “No, I didn’t get the license number. He parks in the shadows. You want me to go out and check with him sitting there waiting for me?”

  The cops ask more stupid questions. I stick my fingers in my ears and pray for everything to be over.

  The cops leave. Mom slams the door. Next thing I know, she’s sitting on the side of my bed, holding my hand. “Cameron, honey. We have to go. Get your things.”

  “Go? What? Now?”

  “I don’t know how long we’ve got.” She gets up and heads to her room. “He could be anywhere…around the block, who knows. But he’ll be back. You can count on it. And the police will be too late.”

  “Mom—”

  “There are things you don’t understand, Cameron.”

  Oh yeah? I understand lots, Mom. I understand I’m scared, for starters. But why? Because he’s tracked us down? Or because you’re crazy?

  My clothes are already in a suitcase under my bed; Mom made me pack two days ago, just in case. There’s room in the car for our bags, some coats, a box of dishes, some sheets and towel
s, and the little TV. My grandparents will store the rest of our stuff in their basement. There isn’t much, since the places we rent come furnished. I wish we could go to Grandma and Grandpa’s. Mom says we can’t. She says that’s the first place he’d look.

  He—him—the guy in the car: Dad.

  Mom backs the car onto the street. I look at the house. After a year, I was getting used to the place. This city too. I’d actually started making friends at school. So much for that.

  We drive away slowly with the headlights off.

  2

  Mom left Dad when I was eight. She says he’d been acting strange since forever. I have flashes of things, but I’m not sure what’s real and what are dreams. And what are things I overheard Mom say to my grandparents.

  Anyway, Mom moved us far away. Dad came to see me a few times on supervised visits at some government building. Then all of a sudden we moved again. According to Mom, Dad did things she’ll tell me about when I’m older. So—hey, Mom—when’s older? This is our fifth move, and nothing’s changed except I’m more messed up than ever.

  Mom says change is great: “Embrace change.” It’s like her motto or something. Only for Mom, change means planning where to run next before we’ve even unpacked. From the get-go, she’s scouting escape routes “in case of an emergency.” So I’m hardly surprised she knows where we’re going.

  She shows me the virtual tour on her laptop when we stop for gas and a doughnut. “It’s perfect. Eight hundred miles away—far enough for us to disappear—the rent’s a bargain, and it comes furnished. What do you think?”

  “Guess.”

  “Please don’t be like that.”

  “Mom, it’s a farmhouse.”

  She pretends not to hear me. “The real estate agent says the owner lives on the next farm over if there’s ever a problem. He works the land but keeps clear of the house. So we have privacy and security. Isn’t that great? Think of the fresh air, the scenery. Think of the fun of exploring the woods beyond those fields.”

  “How am I going to make any friends on a farm?”

  “There’s a town not far off that’s right by a lake and has a recreation center and a new school and—”

  “Hello, I don’t drive. I’ll have to take the bus home right after.”

  “Lots of kids take school buses.”

  I turn away.

  Her shoulders sag. “Cameron. You have to try.”

  “Fine, I’ll try. Does ‘Farmer Brown’ have cows? I’ll make friends with them.”

  Mom closes her laptop. “I know this is hard. But living in the country there’s less chance of meeting people who know people who know people. Also it’s harder for him to prowl around unnoticed.”

  “Yeah, right, whatever.”

  “Cameron, don’t give me that look. Please. You know what he did on Facebook. We can’t be too careful.” She presses her napkin to her eyes.

  “Mom, please don’t.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

  Mom freshens up in the bathroom, grabs a coffee for the road, and we drive into the next day. I try to stretch out in the backseat, but it’s not as easy as when I was a kid, so I end up playing video games. Mom says it’s bad for my eyes, what with all the bouncing around, but I have my earbuds in and pretend not to hear her.

  Somehow I fall asleep. I wake up as the sun’s going down. Everywhere are cornfields and shadows. “Can we stop someplace? I have to pee.”

  “Don’t worry. We’re almost there.”

  What? We’re moving near here?

  After ten more minutes of country, we pass a high school and football field in the middle of nowhere. A few hundred yards beyond, Mom pulls into an old motel. It’s covered in big white shingles, with a little diner at the side and a red vacancy light in the office window.

  Up ahead there’s an old iron bridge that crosses a river ravine into town and a sign at the side of the road: Welcome to Wolf Hollow.

  The room we get is a cheapie, all beige and banged-up furniture, with twin beds, a phone, a TV, and a coffeemaker.

  Mom calls Grandma and Grandpa on her phone to let them know we’re all right. We never use motel phones—any that aren’t ours, for that matter. That’s another rule: “If your father bugged Grandma and Grandpa’s phone, he could track us down from the motel’s number.” Mom’s made sure both our phones are unlisted so they don’t show up on caller ID. She says keeping mine with me at all times is a matter of life and death: “You need to be able to call for help if your father ever attacks you out of nowhere.”

  “So everything’s fine,” Mom tells Grandma and Grandpa on speakerphone. “We’re in a really nice motel, and I already have a lead on a terrific house. The agent will be taking us out tomorrow.”

  “Oh, good,” Grandma says. “And how’s Cameron?”

  I look up from my video game. “Cameron’s fine. He’s never been better.”

  Mom gives me a look. She says we always have to sound cheerful when we talk to Grandma and Grandpa. Otherwise they’ll worry. Well, if I was Grandma and Grandpa, I’d be worried about things like why we’re so happy if we’re running from a maniac.

  “Seriously, Grandma, this is the best place yet,” I say in my I’m so happy I can hardly believe I’m alive voice. “One day you’ll have to visit. I can’t wait.”

  “Maybe this Christmas?” Grandpa asks. Right. Like that’s going to happen.

  “Let’s see what the fall brings,” Mom says.

  Even when we talk on Skype, these check-ins make me lonely because what we say to each other is totally fake. It’s nothing but lies so we can pretend we’re feeling things we aren’t. I mean, I get we don’t want Grandma and Grandpa to worry, and I get they don’t want us to think they’re worrying. But not being honest makes all of us worry even more. With everything a secret, who knows what’s real? Not us.

  The grandparents I remember were actual people. The ones I talk to now are cardboard cutouts. The more I talk to the cutouts, the less I remember the real ones.

  “We’ll call again next Sunday,” Mom says.

  Over and out.

  3

  Mom’s in the passenger seat next to the real estate agent, Mr. “Hi-I’m-Ken” Armstrong, a.k.a. C.B.—short for Cowboy Boots. He picked us up after breakfast to show us our new home. Mom says nothing’s official until we see it, but I’m not stupid. What I am is slouched in the back, wondering how far from town he’s going to drive us.

  C.B. is super loud and cheery for first thing in the morning. Not to mention for inside a car. He’s like the guy with the big warehouse sale on TV, only instead of a ten-second spot he goes on forever and there’s no fast-forward.

  “The town’s called Wolf Hollow,” he says, “but there haven’t been any wolves since the pioneers cleared the land. There’re coyotes, but they keep to themselves pretty much. All the same, you should keep any pets indoors to be safe.”

  “It’s okay. We don’t have any,” Mom says.

  “One thing you will have is snow.” C.B. grins. “Usually not till November, but we get the odd whiteout in late October. Great for cross-country skiing. Art Sinclair, the landlord, has left an old Ski-Doo in the barn. He says you can use it.”

  Mom gives me a hopeful smile. “You’d enjoy a Ski-Doo ride, wouldn’t you?”

  The way she says it, it’s like I’m five and she’s talking up a ride on the merry-go-round. I stare out the window. “Sure.”

  “Oh, and Cameron,” C.B. announces, “you’ll also be pleased to know the town has a new school and a recreation center. There’s also a lake—pretty cold, but in summer great for swimming.”

  I sigh enough for Mom to hear but not enough for her to say anything. “Yeah, I heard.” As if C.B. cares what I think. The only reason he included me is so he’d look cool to Mom. Yeah, way cool, with his boots, leather jacket
, and bleached teeth.

  “Here we are,” C.B. says like it’s Christmas.

  We turn onto a gravel lane. The corn’s pretty high on either side, so I don’t see much till we drive into the yard and get out of the car. Then—

  Whoa! Somebody! Put this place out of its misery! It’s two-story, like in the picture, only you can see things in real life that don’t show up on the website. For starters, the bricks are fake, printed on tar paper that ripples under the roof’s gutters. Plus the paint on the door and window frames is stripping off. And the yard’s a patchwork of potholes, stones, dirt, and crabgrass, stretching back to a wobbly rail fence. The barn beyond is missing a few boards, and the top part slopes to the left.

  I toss Mom a Right, like we’re really going to live here look. She glares a Behave yourself, Cameron right back.

  “It could use some work,” Mom says politely. “But it’s not like we’re buying.”

  “Art will do repairs,” C.B. says quickly. “His farm is next door. When he was a kid, his father took over the property to double the Sinclair spread. I think Art lived here for a while, but he moved back to the family home maybe ten years ago, after his parents died. As you can see, he hasn’t paid much attention to it since. Even the barn is abandoned.” C.B. grins. “Which accounts for the low rent.” If he ran a restaurant, he’d serve grilled turd and call it steak.

  We cross a sun porch and enter an oversized kitchen. Flowered wallpaper and speckled linoleum are everywhere, and in the center of the room there is a metal table surrounded by six chairs with plaid vinyl seat covers.

  On our left are a narrow stairwell going upstairs and a door to the basement. On our right, an archway to the living room and a door to the bathroom. Opposite, a window over the sink looking out to the barn, and a door to the back shed.

  Something’s missing. A dishwasher. Seriously. Where’s the dishwasher?

  “It’s very spacious,” Mom says. “I like a big kitchen.”

  “People spent most of their winters in this room,” C.B. tells me, as if I care. “If you look closely, you can see where Mr. Sinclair’s plastered over the hole in the ceiling that used to let the heat up to the bedrooms.” He looks at Mom. “Come, let me show you the rest.”