The dust beat on us as we stood outside our wounded vehicle.

With one tire blown out we were stranded, and with so much dust in the air it was unlikely anyone could see us.

In the storm, I heard the song of a truck engine drawing near. For just a moment, I dared to look up at the approaching vehicle. It was a blue Toyota with a dent in the fender, and through the windshield I caught a glimpse of the tan cowboy hat.

Holding the toolbox in both hands, I looked away, hoping the pickup would simply pass us by. Maybe, in all of this confusion, he wouldn't recognize us. My cowering palms wept, and the toolbox started to slip from my grasp.

My father worked at the jack to get the minivan off the ground so he could change the tire out for the spare we'd packed.

I kept my back to the pickup truck and one hand on a wrench inside the toolbox, prepared to use it as a weapon to at least slow down the gnasher if he got out of the truck.

As the blue Toyota slowly rolled by behind me, I caught sight of his leering eyes in the reflection in the minivan's window. I felt his gaze on my back as if he were holding two daggers under my shoulder blades. Air came in quick, shallow breaths, and my pulse beat in my neck. My own heartbeat became a banging drum in my ears, a reminder of how delicious I must seem to the gnasher in the vehicle behind me.

The pickup's breaks creaked as it came to a slow halt just ahead of us. The truck turned to block the road forward.

No no no!

The door clicked open. My father looked up with a hopeful expression, as if he thought this stranger was coming to help us.

But I knew better. In all this dust, no one could see us. He could kill us both in the middle of the street and none would be the wiser. I could already see the headlines, "Father and Son Mauled by Coyotes."

The gnasher's pointed-toe cowboy boots clopped down on the pavement, and he stepped out into the storm, his brown trench coat billowing behind him.

All my fears of my father's judgment and the side-effects of bygone medications melted away, giving way to one simple sentence repeated over and over in my brain.

I don't want to die!

Without another thought, I dropped the toolbox with a loud clang and sprinted off in the opposite direction of the pickup truck.

Sand whipped my face and dust filled my mouth and nose. I choked and coughed, but kept up my blind dash down the streets of Lusk.

Behind me I heard an engine roar, followed by the screeching of tires.

The low growl of pistons working overtime barreled after me.

I glanced over my shoulder for just a second to see that it was, as I feared, the blue Toyota bearing down on me, the gnasher behind the wheel.

In seconds I felt the heat from his engine touch the backs of my legs. In a panic, I dove off the road and onto the sidewalk.

My knees smacked the concrete and the pickup tore past me.

The shrieking of his brakes pierced my ear-drums and caused my spine to twitch.

With a hand shielding my eyes from the dust, I searched my surroundings until I saw a back alleyway where his truck couldn't follow.

The engine roared again as he threw the vehicle into reverse. Then came that piercing scream of his brakes once more.

The truck door opened and slammed shut again. As I ran down the alleyway, I heard his racing footsteps behind me.

Still in a full sprint, though finding it harder and harder to breathe, I knocked over one of the trash-cans in the alley, hoping to slow him down. I didn't dare look back to see if it had worked.

I heard labored breathing.

Mine or his?

Hungry or desperate?

His fingers fell on my shoulder, then immediately slipped off again.

Laughter escaped his lips, a giddy giggle like a child enjoying a game of tag.

Yet I could barely breathe.

I'd never outrun him.

Knowing this, I stopped dead in my tracks and immediately dropped to a crouch.

His knees smacked me in the kidney. He toppled over me and crashed face-first into the dirt.

With him on the ground in a heap in front of me, I turned and ran the opposite way, then darted down the sidewalk.

I couldn't run forever. I'd need somewhere to hide.

Salvation came in the form of a glowing red and blue sign.

"Open."

I dashed through those doors and slammed them shut behind me.

Inside stood the store clerk behind the counter, dozens of bikers taking shelter from the dust storm, and a few other customers. All of them turned to stare at me as I stumbled in, fighting to catch my breath.

Good.

The gnasher wouldn't dare attack me with so many people watching. They might not be able to see his teeth, but they'd certainly see a middle-aged cowboy biting a teenage boy.

The questioning looks on their faces demanded answers.

"There's a man..." I choked out between gasps, "...trying to hurt me..."

From the crowd there stepped forth a familiar face. A bearded face, upon a man in his thirties with dark hair, wearing a leather jacket.

Harry was it? The probationary bandit?

He held out his hand to me and said, "Kid, I gotcher back," and he said a few things I didn't completely understand. "Come over here," he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and led me further into the store.

It was only then that I actually stopped to take in what sort of store this was. In the back I saw a man in a white coat behind a counter. All across the walls were advertisements with soft, calming faces and colors.

Aspirin.

Advil.

Ritalin.

Folgers Coffee.

The street names of a multitude of drugs. Some I'd become addicted to myself.

This was the corner drugstore.

Harry walked me over to the pharmacy, to the machine in the back that measures blood pressure. There sat Sheila, her hair in a tangled bun atop her head. She turned to me and grinned. The dust on her face had the surprisingly flattering effect of bring out her green eyes and perfectly white teeth.

"You found him?" The device released her arm and she rubbed the inside of her elbow.

"Yeah, this is the kid," said Harry as he guided me to the chair in front of her and I took a seat.

Harry sat across from me and held Sheila's hand. She crossed her legs.

"How'd you find him?" Sheila asked.

Harry made the sign of the cross over himself. "Dude just wanders in, know what I'm saying? Freaking miracle!"

He might not have said freaking.

"Miracle..." Sheila repeated, "Another one."

Dave had told me this might happen. peacemakers tend to do exactly what the name suggests they should. Make peace. They do so by closing up wounds. Everywhere he goes, a peacemaker will find allies.

But still, how could Harry and Sheila, tough as they seemed, be of real help against the supernatural? "Doesn't feel like much of a miracle to me." I shook my head. "There's a man out there, and I think he's trying to kill me."

"I hear ya, kid." Harry nodded. "The store manager's calling the cops, and we'll keep an eye on you 'til they can make it."

Only then did it occur to me that it would be a while before the police could arrive. Because of the storm, there were probably disasters all over town they had to deal with. "A freak storm," my mother had called it. None of these people were prepared for this just yet.

Especially the various motorcycle clubs and gangs who'd just been passing through on their way to Sturgis.

Now that I looked around, I noticed that many of the bikers present had the tags of different gangs on their collars.

"The Sons of Darkness."

"The Heathens."

"The Sinners."

The whole place was a den full of gangs who hated each other. A powderkeg from which smoke arose.

Trying to keep my mind off the multitude of dangers around me, I looked for something else to focus on. My eyes spotted something yellow. A wet floor sign next to a mop bucket. The janitor dipped his mop in the bucket, then brought it out to scrub the floor.

The janitor noticed me watching him, looked up at me, and smiled.

My blood froze.

Teeth like needles.

And unblinking eyes.

Then I caught sight of a man wearing a leather vest with a patch on it that said, "Air Cavalry," on the top and "Vietnam Veteran" on the bottom. A bushy mustache hung over his lips, and underneath those lips: fangs.

Another gnasher stood near him, wearing a leather vest with the words "The Sinners" across the chest.

Gnashers... Oh, God! Help! They're everywhere!

Another in a baseball cap and a t-shirt that said, "Jesus saved me, bro." His hair fell down ragged curls around his fearsome, piranha jaw.

Another dressed as one of The Sons of Darkness by the candy rack.

Another an old woman with a walker by the emergency exit in the back.

And outside I knew there was the blinding storm, and the gnasher cattleman. I was surrounded.

Harry and Sheila were my only hope of protection. Otherwise, being unable to kill anything, I was easy prey. But they couldn't see the gnashers. How much could I get them to trust me about?

"Hey, you spacin' out on me, man?" Harry waved his hand in my face. "Or is something wrong? Spill it."

I tried to return eye contact to him, but the predators all around me drew my gaze back to them every few minutes. The old woman snapped her walker loudly on the ground as she shuffled over to a sunglasses rack. The Sinner popped his knuckles one at a time, the sound echoing over the calming, jingling music in the background.

Wind rattled the glass in the drugstore's every wall. Pebbles cracked against it, leaving the tiniest of chips. A shadow passed by in the dust.

"Honey," said Sheila, as she placed her hands on mine. My eyes leapt back to hers, and she locked on with me, saying, "You can trust us. You saved us, in more ways than you know." For just a moment, the roaring of the dust storm outside quieted, as did the sounds of the gnashers all around me. Sheila spoke to me with a tone of voice that felt like a warm blanket around my shoulders on a cold day. "Honey, our marriage has been rough lately. Years ago, used to be better. We thought a trip together would do us some good."

"You know, bring back some old memories," Harry interjected, with a wink.

"But until you laid your hands--" Sheila held out both of her scarred wrists to me. Both of which were only raised skin by now, all the darkness had gone. "--until you laid your hands on me, we were certain we were going to be divorced."

Harry patted me on the shoulder. "Now, this is the part that might scare you."

"Oh, it's far too late for that!" I laughed.

Harry brushed his nose with his thumb and sniffed. "No, you see, I ain't believed in God for years. Then I see you, comin' in... you grab my wife's wrists, and at first I think you're trying to hurt her. I was ready to kill ya. But then... the cuts closed up, kid. And you stand up with this... this look on your face like you knew that was gonna happen. Then you run off with this other look... like you just saw your ex or something."

Sheila nodded, "When we couldn't figure out where you'd gone, we came here. You know, so Harry can check me out, see if I'm ok. As far as we can tell, everything's fine with me. Even my blood-pressure's normal. Which it hasn't been for years."

Without warning, Harry pulled me into a tight hug. Despite the musky smell rising from under his arms, the embrace was surprisingly comforting. Until I looked up, past him, at the Son of Darkness gnasher playing with his pocket knife.

My panic rushed back with a vengeance.

But the gnasher's eyes were not upon me. They gazed across the drug store to something red.

I followed his gaze. It was a figure in the red hoodie. The same one from the gas station earlier? I couldn't be sure. It seemed like too much of a coincidence.

"Check out Revelation 9:6," my youth pastor had told me, just before my father took the phone away.

Harry released me at arm's-length again. "I ain't never been so happy as when I had my baby returned to me, man. You restored my marriage and my faith."

My eyes scanned the gnashers all around. All of them seem fixated on this figure in red. Sure, they'd glance at me, or others in the drug store. But their eyes always returned to leer at the red hood standing by the painkillers rack.

"So, tell us, what's got you so worked up," whispered Sheila.

"Check out Revelation 9:6"

Looking at Sheila's face, all I could think about in that moment was "what caused her wounds to begin with?"

Revelation 9:6...

In my back pocket I kept a Gideon's Bible, which included only the New Testament. I so rarely actually opened the thing up to read it, but even I knew where Revelation was. If I took my eyes off these gnashers I might only have a few seconds before they were upon me. Even with Harry and Sheila's protection.

"Hey, kid?"

I eyed the grandma gnasher by the back door.

Then the front door, where the gnasher cattleman's shadow passed by again.

The janitor gnasher glanced out the front door, at the cowboy.

"Honey? What's wrong?"

Oh, God help me!

They were hunting as a group. Coordinating the attack.

Not only did this mean they could probably kill every person in this store if they wanted to, but it also meant that something about this person in red was more important to them than all the rest of the blood in here. Even mine.

I had to know. I pulled out my Gideon Bible and started reading aloud, in spite of the confused looks on Sheila and Harry's faces.

Revelation 9:6.

"And in those days there are those who shall seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them."

When I looked up from the pages, I was met with confused, and even somewhat terrified, stares from Sheila and Harry.

"Ok..." said Harry, "Where did that come from?"

I leaned in closer and whispered. "Ok, I don't have much time to explain this, so please listen and don't ask too many questions." I glanced back and forth across the room, and spoke in a low tone between my teeth. "A lot of the people in this room are basically monsters. There's one outside too. The one chasing me. But most of them in here are after the... " I jumped at the sound of the granny gnasher's walker smacking into the vitamins and supplements rack. A bottle of Flintstones tumbled to the floor.

"After the what?" Harry leaned in closer, his brow furrowed in concern.

"The person in the red hoodie," I whispered.

I started to look up, but Harry hissed, "Well don't look now..."

His eyes searched in the opposite direction, then at his wife, then around the store to the figure in the hoodie.

"Why?" he asked.

I shrugged. It wasn't a lie. I hadn't really figured out what the Scripture meant yet.

"...shall seek death, and shall not find it..."

It looked to me like death was certainly about to find her. All these gnashers about, chomping at the bit to get her blood. All they needed was a moment to strike.

I jumped at two loud thumps on the roof.

Footsteps?

Or just noise from the storm?

"That looks like a kid..." Harry whispered, glancing again at the red hoodie.

"Oh..." Sheila gave a look of recognition. "When you said 'monsters,' you meant... oh, geez..." She went to stand from her chair, but Harry gently held her down at the shoulder.

He looked from her eyes to mine. "I gotcha. So, obviously, we can't let them get 'em."

I nodded to him.

"Ok." Harry scratched his head. "I'll go see if I can talk to 'em."

"No, you won't." Sheila held her hand to his chest. "I'm gonna go see if I can talk to the kid in the hoodie. You might scare someone."

Harry glanced around the drugstore, "Babe..." he groaned and gave her a worried look.

"You keep an eye out," she said, gesturing at the strangers all around us with her eyes.

Sheila leaned in and quieted Harry's protests with a kiss, then turned and walked toward the red hoodie.

Harry stood and his eyes did not leave her as she walked away. He kept his gaze low so bystanders might think him merely admiring her curves rather than watching her like a guard dog.

"Which ones are bad?" he whispered.

I braced myself for a slew of questions and doubt, knowing my list would sound insane. "The janitor, the veteran, the Sinner, Jesus shirt, the Son of Darkness, the granny, and outside there's a cowboy."

But Harry didn't ask any questions about my strange list. He repeated the nicknames I'd given them under his breath. Not even the prospect that an old lady with a walker could be dangerous seemed a shock to him. "Janitor, Veteran, Sinner, Jesus Shirt, Son of Darkness, Granny, Cowboy... Janitor, Veteran, Sinner, Jesus Shirt, Son of Darkness, Granny, Cowboy... Janitor..."

Sheila gave the figure in the red hoodie a gentle tap on the shoulder. Pill bottles crashed to the floor in a pile as red hoodie jumped and whipped its head to look up at Sheila.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," I heard Sheila say. She bent down to help pick up the medicine bottles from the floor.

Three.

Four.

No, as many as seven bottles of different painkillers.

Red hoodie trembled, and I caught a glimpse of long, blond hair wisping out from under that hood.

A girl?

Maybe not. After all, I myself had long hair.

Then red hoodie's hand raised to brush back the strand of hair. I was certain that was a girl's hand.

What was she so nervous about? Did she know about the gnashers? Or had she simply been caught trying to shoplift all those pills?

As red hoodie turned, I saw her face. She was, indeed, a girl. Her nose looked like someone had pressed upward on the tip, exposing her nostrils. It was a cruel thing to think, but it resembled a pig's snout. She had a slight overbite, which her upper lip barely concealed, and her eyes were a dark shade of blue with hints of yellow around the pupil.

Thump.

Thump.

The banging on the roof made me jump again.

Sheila and the girl in the red hoodie continued their conversation. The girl in red laughed at something funny Sheila said, and the two smiled at each other.

Harry's eyes darted around the drugstore, from one predator to the next. His right hand remained in his coat pocket, likely on the butterfly knife.

I pondered how much I needed to tell him. His knife would only hurt the gnashers, it wouldn't actually kill them. Maybe he needed to know that. But would he believe me? I had told him that the people in the drugstore were secretly monsters, but both he and Sheila seemed to think I meant they were awful people who preyed on children.

But they had seen me heal Sheila's wounds, and believed it was a miracle from God. If they were ready to believe in miracles and the Almighty, maybe they were ready to believe in curses, monsters, and the Devil too.

I opened my mouth to speak to Harry, but before the words left my lips darkness fell over the store. The only light was what little shone through the dust storm outside, and the calming music was gone, replaced by howling wind. And heavy, wet breaths through mouths full of fangs.