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.Jessie ran up the porch stairs to the side panel of glass beside the front door so that General Lee might see her.Still his barking continued.When she thumped gently on the glass, the yelping ceased momentarily, and his face appeared through the thin lace curtain that covered the glass pane.“General, it’s just me,” Jessie whispered.“I want you to keep real quiet.Sis is upstairs, probably still sleeping, and I don’t want you to….”A voice interrupted her from behind them: “Don’t want him to do what?” It was the man they’d come to know as Jack White.Upon hearing his voice, Jessie jumped up and spun around.Billy was equally startled, although he only turned to face the stranger and said nothing.“What are you two doing?” the man asked.His accent was back to its New England version.Jessie walked to Billy’s side and took her beau’s hand in hers, though her wrist trembled.She was captivated by the stranger’s striking features, but his eyes were so troubling to her that she could never look straight at him for too long.When she did, she concentrated on his nose, mouth, and perfect teeth.His eyes caused an unease in her that made Jessie’s heart pump as fast as it would have had she run up and down Holly Hill six times.As Jessie and Billy observed the man, she thought of how a short while ago they were ensconced in the maple.There, while in Billy Norwin’s arms, she felt safe from the stranger.Now, frozen on the Benson porch, she couldn’t wait to be rid of the man.As he stood before her, she felt as vulnerable as she had ever felt in her entire life.To Jessie, Jack White ignited an erotic spark in her, but it was as if the cost would be a high degree of fear and uncertainty.She tightened her grip on Billy’s hand as Jack White spoke.“I asked you two a question.And seeing as how I’m the adult and you are children, I believe it’s only proper for you two to answer to me.”Jessie was about to speak, but Billy interrupted her.“Never you mind what we’re doing.This has nothing to do with you, mister.Just take yourself back over to the rectory where you belong and leave us alone.”The stranger’s face revealed no expression.He simply continued to stare at them without so much as a twitch of his mouth or a blink of his eyes.Billy stared back the same way, but after twenty seconds his eyes began to burn.The stranger didn’t blink once, even after Billy had retreated a step.Within seconds the stranger began to walk up to them.He climbed the first step slowly, then the second.The two backed up.They could hear General Lee start to bark wildly again as he took note of the approaching stranger.“I don’t like people staring at me, boy.And you, missy! You shut that dog up,” the man said in a southern drawl, “or I’ll rip his lower jaw right off his head.”Billy jumped in front of Jessie as Jack White came within almost three feet of them.“Aren’t you a little too old to be picking on young kids and old dogs?” Billy said bravely.“Why,” the stranger began, “I was just kidding with you all.Shit! Can’t a fella have any fun around here? You two are easy prey for any guy with a sense of humor, that’s for sure.”The continued barking from General Lee caused the man to turn his attention briefly away from Billy and Jessie.When he stared steadily at the dog, the barking turned into a ferocious growl.General Lee showed the stranger his teeth in a wicked snarl that Jessie had never seen him do before.“General!” she said loudly.“What’s the matter with you? Stop.You’ll wake Sis!”“You would do well to control your animal,” Jack White snapped.His smile was gone now.“Dogs like that have been known to get a bullet in their heads for much less.Maybe he’s got the rabies.Maybe I need to be the one to put that bullet through his brain.”Billy cocked his head at the man and said angrily, “You keep away from her, the dog, and me.Do you understand?” Billy didn’t know it, but his index finger was prodding White’s bare chest.The man’s arm swung up and knocked Billy’s hand away.He then grabbed hold of Billy’s hair and threw him over the stairs and off the porch.Jessie screamed for him to stop, causing General Lee to start jumping up against the glass.The stranger jumped from the top step onto the grass, as if aiming to land on Billy’s head.Billy moved just in time, but Jack White still pursued him and seized the boy by the throat.Squeezing it tightly, he said in a hissing whisper, “Nobody touches me, boy! Nobody!”Billy couldn’t break free of the man’s grip on his neck.He writhed on the ground, trying to pry the man’s hands off, but White merely shook his head and tightened his stranglehold even more.Incredibly, White didn’t appear to be using that much force on the boy, yet it was enough to cause Billy to squeal and struggle.“Looks like you got shit for brains, piggy,” he whispered to Billy.“NOBODY TOUCHES ME!” he repeated loudly.Billy was turning blue.When Jessie leaped off the porch and onto the man’s back, he released his right hand from Billy’s throat, threw his arm up, and corkscrewed his body so violently to the right that Jessie flew into the rose bush by the front porch ten feet away.The stranger was now strangling the boy with one hand.“Now Billy,” he said calmly and patronizingly.“Put both hands at your side, and I’ll only squeeze a little more as payment in full for your touching me.Keep fighting, and I’ll kill you.”Billy was on the verge of passing out.The boy’s hands fell to his side, and the stranger squeezed a few seconds longer.Then, feeling Billy’s heartbeat in his neck begin to slow, he released his grip and tossed Billy’s neck aside.“Good boy,” Jack White mocked.Jessie crawled over to Billy, who was unconscious.While she placed Billy’s head on her lap and stroked his cheek, a shadow loomed over them, eclipsing the sun whose rising she and Billy had watched just a few hours before.The man looked at Jessie, and she at him.His face was hard to make out.The glare of the sun behind him obscured his expression.“He’s going to be very sorry he did that, missy.”“My name’s Jessie,” she said bravely, and bent forward to bring her face closer to Billy’s.“Oh, yes.Jessie.I remember… Jessica.”He left them alone on the front lawn of the Benson house and walked back to the rectory.Jessie didn’t take her eyes off him for one second.This time it wasn’t out of titillation but rather sheer hatred.She watched as he paused near the rectory’s entrance and tilted his head to the left, as if looking at the lattice that covered the hole to the crawlspace.She prayed that he’d go no further, fearful that he’d catch Sue Ellen down there with one of her clients.As the man continued up the stairs, Jessie gave a sigh of relief.Contrary to what she supposed, however, Jack White knew all too well what was going on beyond the lattice under the rectory.He was just getting warmed up
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