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man slapped the hood of the car in a slow beat. “Bam, bam, badda, bam, bam,” he murmured as he thumped out a rhythm, his eyes locked with Jack’s, a grin spread across his lips. “Feel helpless Jack? You don’t mind if I call you Jack, do you?”
    “How the hell do you know our names? Who are you?”
    “Oh, I know more than that about you. I know what you dream about at night. I know the secret you keep from California. That dark detail about yourself you don’t want anyone else to know.”
    “I don’t know what--”
     “Jack, you don’t really think you can stop the devil, do you?”
    Jack froze. “What did you say?”
    But the man wasn’t listening. He continued to beat out a rhythm on the hood, striking the car harder with each beat. Badda, bam, bam . He paused and held both fists out toward Jack. “Let’s find out, shall we?” His fists crashed into the hood. BADDA, BAM, BAM.
    On the last beat, he ducked down behind the car and was gone. 
    “Shit.” Jack scrambled into the car and shut the door. He dug at the controls on the armrest to make sure the doors were locked. They were. He looked across to the passenger side. The door shook from the man tugging on it. The girls screamed. Jack dug his hand into his pocket, desperate for his keys. Nothing. He looked on the floor, on the seat. He pressed his face against the window and looked on the ground outside. They weren’t there. When did he have them last?
    Dreading what he would see, he raised his head to look through the windshield at the building in front of him. There, on the ground next to the payphone, were the keys to the car.

 
    ELEVEN
     
    Jack beat his fists into the steering wheel. He had searched everywhere in the car he could think for the spare key. Nothing. He looked back up at the keys on the concrete not more than thirty feet from him.  He must have dropped them when he first saw the man next to the car. The girls choked back on their sobs, more scared by their dad’s outburst than anything. He noticed the silence in the back seat and turned around in his seat to face the girls. “Hey, easy now. I didn’t mean to scare you. Everything’s O.K.”
    Becky spoke first. “Who is that man?”
     “Listen, that man was probably someone who doesn’t have a home and he was caught in the rainstorm. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”
    Sarah whispered something. Jack leaned toward her. “What did you say, sweetie?”
    She didn’t answer him but just stared out of the window, shaking her head slowly.
    “Sarah, honey. It’s O.K. Talk to me.”
    The little girl kept looking out the window. She whispered, “No, I don’t want to.”
    Jack was confused. “You don’t want to talk to me?”
    Sarah turned away from the window. “Not you Daddy. I wasn’t talking to you.”
    Jack leaned into the back seat to look out of her window. There was nothing there. “What do you mean, sweetie. Who were you talking to?
    “The man. I was talking to the bad man.” Before Jack could say anything she turned to him and whispered. “And you’re wrong Daddy. He does want to hurt us. Especially you.”
    “Sarah, honey, that’s not true. Why would you say that?”
    “But it is true, Daddy.” Her eyes welled up with tears as she pointed out the window. “The bad man just told me so. He said he’s gonna take me with him. Is it true, Daddy? Is he going to take me?”
    “No honey. It’s not true.”
    “He said I should open the door or I’d end up like Melissa. Who’s that, Daddy? Who’s Melissa?”
    For a few seconds all other noise faded from the world. The only sounds Jack heard were his own breath and the blood pounding in his temples. He stared at Sarah trying to understand how those words could have come from her mouth. Becky stared at her little sister and then back at her dad, her eyes wide. Thunder tore through the sky above them, so close that it felt like an earthquake. The girl’s squealed and Jack jumped in his seat.
    “All