Alex Van Helsing ran. He ran instantly and without a second thought in the direction of the scream, bursting from the side of the road into the trees as fast as his legs could move, rubber soles churning against soft earth and leaves slick with dew. The sun had barely risen, and in the woods it was still dark. He heard the shout again—someone screaming out hoarsely, a voice that sounded raspy and male.

Alex had been walking the tree-lined road that ran from the gate of his new school, shivering slightly in the predawn cold. He’d been at Glenarvon Academy for all of two miserable days, and already he could tell he was going to have to make a change. Unable to sleep, he’d snuck from his bedroom and out, through the deserted hallways and then the grounds and the front gate, onto the road. Not far away, he could hear the distant sound of loons on Lake Geneva, the occasional croak of frogs. Other than that, all had been silent but his own soft, steady breath.

Then the scream from the woods split the air.

Alex picked up his pace as the sound grew more desperate and then cut out. Running, he wove his way under low-hanging branches, one of them smacking his ear.

He leapt over a log, reached a clearing, and froze, stumbling to a halt.

There in the woods, he saw a body.

It was male, probably in his forties, wearing a boat painter’s cap and overalls. The victim’s beard was drenched in blood, and there was steam rising off the body. Even without the scream Alex had followed, he knew—this death had just occurred.

Alex’s eyes darted around the clearing and back to the body. He was not afraid of the dead; at fourteen he had already trained in mountain rescue in Wyoming, had already participated in search operations. Some of those had ended badly. But nothing he had seen in Wyoming had ended like this.

Then came another sound: static, a jagged, dark whisper in his brain that jolted his head for a moment. Alex blinked, staggered by the feeling, losing his balance for a second. Set it aside. Pay attention.

A wisp of leaves curled and lifted, and Alex’s eyes flicked toward the movement. Then he saw something that raised the hairs on the back of his neck: A figure in white slid behind a nearby tree.

In that split second he saw that it was a she, and she started to run.

“Hey!” Alex shouted, taking off after her. She was insanely fast. “Hey!” he called again, leaping over underbrush, gauging the ground and the trees and the branches with every running step.

She might have been involved, might be a witness, might be a scared daughter or girlfriend. She must have seen something. Now and then Alex could glimpse, by trickling early light, a leg here, a flowing sleeve there, now nearly a hundred yards away. Catch her. Catch her.

They broke into another clearing and she was exposed in the dimness. This time she had nowhere to go—she had reached a rock formation that cut off her escape and now she spun around, slapping her hands back behind her against the rock, facing him.

As Alex slid to a stop he took her in: white boots, white tunic, white leggings, even a short, white hood. She wore white gloves—no, not gloves, those were her hands, bone white as well.

“Hey,” Alex said a third time, less forcefully. His brain was buzzing more strongly now, whispering and pounding against the inside of his head and against his eyes and contact lenses, and he swallowed the feeling down.

She was leaning forward, mouth barely open, teeth clenched. Her eyes were so dilated that they shone. She stared wildly at him, and he thought for a moment that she had been severely traumatized and struck dumb.

He said gingerly, “Do you know what—”

And now she snarled, and as she opened her mouth, he saw that her teeth were enormous, white and sharp. Not quite teeth. They were fangs.

Alex felt his own mouth hang open, and he was already twisting, finding his footing as he spun around, and running as she leapt at his back.

It wasn’t a girl, it was an it, he thought, still unwilling to believe. It wasn’t a girl; it was a thing. That’s crazy. That’s crazy and it’s at your back! He felt her close behind as he ran through the trees. Rapidly he tried to retrace his steps. He didn’t know these woods. He had just followed a scream because it was the right thing to do and he had no idea—

Feet churning, Don’t look back, she’s still there, I turned this way—the road is that way.

He could hear the road, a few hundred yards off. He could hear early morning traffic. Alex turned toward the sound, losing his footing for a second. He reached out to steady himself but overbalanced.

Slow motion. Falling, he began scanning. As he smashed into the forest floor, his face just missed a long, narrow tree limb lying on the ground. Alex grabbed the limb, lifting it as he rolled, bringing it around as the girl leapt for him.

He swung the limb around, catching her in the knee, and her momentum sent her sprawling past him.

As she hit the ground she tumbled and righted herself. He was still trying to rise when he saw her taut muscles bunch through the white leggings and she jumped at him—her sharp nails catching him in the shoulders.

Alex felt the air shoot from his lungs as she drove him back against the earth. His mind raced. The world won’t slow down, but your mind can. What do you do?

She tried to pin him—close now, her face an arm’s length from his, his shoulders and shoes digging into the forest floor. But he wouldn’t be pinned. Not now. Alex swept his feet out and around her legs, then to the side, and she lost her balance and fell. He rolled, kicking her away, and now she did a wondrous thing, he had to admit: While still in the air she spun like a cat, like a freaking cat, and she was coming again.

Sharply, Alex realized that she wasn’t just the random attacker or tweaker at the beach he’d prepared for in self-defense classes. She was something else. And there was something else in him clicking in on how to deal with her.

He felt himself reaching for the downed limb again, certainty driving his actions as surely as certainty had driven him off the road to pursue the scream.

In the fraction of a second as she leapt, Alex brought the limb in front of him and locked his arms. He felt it drive into her chest as she landed.

Her face registered shock and anger. She was snarling, white eyes blazing in the dimness, and then she was on fire.

A moment later, she burst into dust.

Alex kicked and crab-walked back as the cloud of dust settled over him, landing on his slacks and shirt. He got to his feet, shaking his head: No, no, no. This doesn’t happen.

He ran for the road, staggering out of the woods and tripping, spinning onto the asphalt.

A flatbed delivery truck swerved around him, barely missing him. As Alex rose, still staring into the woods, he realized the driver was yelling at him in French.

The driver stopped shouting when he took in the sight of Alex—torn and muddy pants, scrapes and cuts from the trees. Alex gestured mutely, Can I have a ride? even as he was grabbing the edge of the truck bed and jumping on.

“Where do you need to go?” the driver asked in French.

“My school—école,” Alex answered in his beginner’s French. “Um, Glenarvon. Glenarvon Academy.”

He watched the woods race by the half mile back to the gate, all the while thinking, This doesn’t happen. This didn’t happen.