Introduction

The town was dark and heavy with doom. Hate, generations old, flowed through it like a malevolent river. Julie knew the force of that hate... and the violence which had issued from it in the past. It could erupt again; she lived in terror.

The Encounter

Ben, the stranger, saw Julie and fell in love. A secret voice warned him to stay away, but he did not. They clung together in the darkness; meanwhile, through the midnight shadows of the town a killer moved to wreak his vengeance on them both.