Date: 2019-09-27 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Fiction; Horror; Paranormal
Description: From the award-winning author of the bestselling CHRONOS Files comes a chilling story of altered reality and psychological terror. Chase Rey sits perfectly still, his thumbs traveling across the screen of the broken computer tablet, stuck in the nexus between two worlds. Haddonwood isn’t real. It can’t be. Another world, another reality, hovers just beyond his reach. He can see it sometimes. He can almost touch it. In that world, things are in balance. The dead stay dead and the creature feature remains safely on the screen. That world isn’t a patchwork quilt of every scary book or movie he’s
Publisher: Starry Night Books
Rights: Copyright 2019 Rysa Walker. All rights reserved.

As the Crow Flies

Enter Haddonwood Book One

Rysa Walker

Caleb Amsel

Copyright © 2019 by Rysa Walker and Caleb Amsel

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locations, events, or people, living or dead, is coincidental.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews.

For information:

www.rysa.com
www.enterhaddonwood.com

For every child who has sought refuge from real terrors
between the pages of a scary book.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

1. ENTER HADDONWOOD

CHAPTER TWO

1. CHASE

2. DAISY

3. BEN

4. TUCKER

5. DAISY

6. RAUM

CHAPTER THREE

1. DAISY

2. TUCKER

3. ZOPHIEL

4. BEN

5. JULIE

6. DAISY

CHAPTER FOUR

1. JULIE

2. CHASE

3. TUCKER

4. DAISY

5. BEN

6. RAUM

CHAPTER FIVE

1. CHASE

2. JULIE

3. DAISY

4. BEN

5. TUCKER

6. ZOPHIEL

CHAPTER SIX

1. CHASE

2. TUCKER

3. DAISY

4. JULIE

5. CHASE

6. BEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

1. DAISY

2. TUCKER

3. LUKE

4. BEN

5. TUCKER

6. JULIE

7. DAISY

8. TUCKER

EPILOGUE

COMING SOON

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Also by Rysa Walker

About the Author: Rysa Walker

About the Author: Caleb Amsel

PROLOGUE

The old woman sits perfectly still except for her left hand, which drags the stub of a pencil across the paper, leaving a trail of tiny precise circles in its wake. She doesn’t look down at the pad but keeps her eyes fixed on the tree outside the window. When her hand reaches the edge of the paper, she pulls the pencil back to the left, forming a thin line beneath the row of circles she’s just finished. Once the pencil enters the left margin, the process begins again. If the lead breaks or goes dull, she carries on, the circles growing fainter and fainter, sometimes becoming mere indentations in the page, unless one of the attendants notices and swaps the used pencil for a fresh one.

Sometimes, Maggie draws squares or triangles instead. Long ago, it was crochet that occupied her hands, but the staff grew tired of ripping out all of those chain stitches to keep her equipped with a steady supply of yarn.

These days, her hands are too gnarled and twisted for crochet, anyway. She clutches the pencil with a death grip, and even a casual observer would suspect this task is excruciating for fingers so clearly arthritic. But Maggie Yarrow persists, circle after painstaking circle.

Maggie still has good days, now and then. Days when she snaps out of it long enough to play a game of Scrabble or canasta with some of the other patients. But more and more often over the last few years, Maggie sits with pad and pencil, all of her processing ability focused inward, with only her active hand and the occasional blink of her powder-blue eyes linking her to this world.

Her remaining days, good or bad, are few. The deceptively young-looking woman sitting next to Maggie knows this. The medical staff here call this young woman Sophie and believe that she’s Maggie’s niece. But Maggie outlived all of her actual family members. She’s been a ward of the State of Tennessee since her father died in the 1950s, back when hospitals like this one were more often known as sanitariums.

If someone decides to do an autopsy when Maggie is finally gone, or if the hospital donates her brain to a university, scientists will discover a surface that’s a bit smoother than most, the folds between the gyri too shallow in many places to form solid and reliable connections. A brain poorly suited for Maggie to function normally in a complex world, to be sure, but it was exactly what Sophie had been seeking. And soon, she will have to find another one, although that’s not a hard task in a place like this. She’s already scouted out a few possibilities.

Had Sophie not intervened when Maggie was a young girl, her tantrums and seizures would have inevitably led doctors to employ the cutting-edge treatments of that era. Literally cutting-edge in the case of lobotomy, but also shock therapy. Drugs so strong they could render a horse into a stupor. Left to the whims of 1920s psychiatry, Maggie would likely have spent her life in cages far less pleasant than these somewhat austere but sun-filled rooms. This is why Sophie doesn’t waste much time on feeling guilty about Maggie’s condition. Her situation could have been far worse.

But a trickle of guilt does creep in from time to time. Had she been wrong all those years ago to listen to the small, still voice that told her this was Divine Will? Was that little voice nothing more than her ego, bolstered by a vain desire to right the balance that she knew, knew at her very core, was slipping?

Maybe. But those were questions for before she made her choice. Now it is after, and the deed is long since done. Someone out there might be able to unwind time, but that was, as the saying goes, above her paygrade. Above the paygrade of any member of the Seventy-Two, for that matter.

Sophie leans forward to place a tender hand against the side of the old woman’s face. She feels a rush of almost maternal affection for Maggie, whose own mother fought for nearly forty years to have her daughter released. What kind of monster, her mother had once cried, would willingly lock her child in a cage?

And that’s really the question at the core of everything, isn’t it? What kind of monster indeed?

CHAPTER ONE

* * *

FIVE YEARS LATER

One

ENTER HADDONWOOD

The crow sails through the broken window, pointing her sleek black head downhill toward the trees. Inside the frail body, her tiny heart pounds rapidly. Too rapidly? Perhaps. Something feels off this morning. She doesn’t think she was detected coming through. And even if she was, she has the right to observe.

Soon the crow is soaring above the autumn-fire branches now becoming visible against the dawn sky. Below her, the woods break apart, first in small patches and then completely, giving way to cornfields and meadows as she glides on. A town emerges, rising from the mist in little pinpricks of light. There appears to be no order, no pattern or plan in the layout of the town. It looks like something that happened organically over the years, with one shelter following another and then another as new roads cut through the farmland.

That’s how it looks. But the bird knows better. She’s seen the schematics.

Sycamore Acres, near the edge of town, is the crow’s first stop. She lands on the edge of the window, wishing it was a house with actual wooden ledges instead of a trailer with just this narrow strip of metal. Clutching the rim with her talons, she inches to the left in order to peer through a tiny gap in the broken plastic blinds.

The boy, Chase Rey, sleeps on a narrow mattress supported by brightly colored milk crates. His older brother glued them together a few years ago to give Chase a spot to store books and toys he’s outgrown but isn’t quite ready to throw away—battered trucks, a stuffed bear, a scuffed-up baseball. There’s also a toy monkey in the mix that used to grin and clap its cymbals until the boy broke its arm off, more or less on purpose. The monkey was a rare gift from their father, who knew full well it would creep his youngest son out. Chase keeps the thing in the crate under his bed, not from any sentimental attachment, but simply to show Ralph Rey that he did not win that round. It’s a feeble act of defiance, but one of the few that Chase can risk without fear of reprisal.

Across the small room, the second bed is empty. Ben, the boy’s brother, is already up. The crow can hear water running in the bathroom. She can also smell the dried blood on the pillowcase and sense the rage just below the surface of the older boy’s thoughts.

These vibes that the bird picks up in her surveillance are not things a normal crow would intuit. But the part of her brain that is a normal crow is not engaged today. It sleeps, metaphorical head tucked under metaphorical wing. This morning, the bird is less crow than living drone. A spy, if you will. She is here as an observer, to ensure that everything is in proper order.

The part of the crow that is not-crow would like to believe that, after all this time, her surveillance is no longer necessary. But they wouldn’t even be in this situation if Raum always adhered to the rules. She knew from the beginning that he would tilt toward the dark by nature. It was in his very name when he arrived, unplanned and with barely any warning.

Still, she’s been known to bend a rule or two herself. If she had stayed firm, if she had stuck to the letter of the law, this child tossing restlessly in his bed would be irrelevant. If she hadn’t let Raum convince her that he needed more, that he needed a real challenge, this slip of a boy would never have broken through. But eight decades of stability have a way of lulling one into complacency.

As the crow watches, the boy shivers, pulling the covers close around his pale shoulders and pressing his back to the thin plywood wall. Does he sense her watching on some subconscious level? Has a curious crow entered his dream?

Perhaps. He is no more an ordinary boy than she is an ordinary bird.

* * *

Now that the crow is certain that the center continues to hold, she flies at a more leisurely pace, circling the small town. Most of Haddonwood’s residents are still asleep, but a few lights are beginning to blink on. It is October thirty-first, six in the morning. Autumn has kissed the land overnight—late, some would say—turning all the green shade trees to fiery orange and crisp yellow. The world from the day before, the one that was gripped tightly in the hands of a brilliant Indian summer, is gone.

As she nears the edge of town, the crow spots a tall black man in his early twenties standing on the back deck of his house. A tiny red dot hovers in front of his face like a scarlet firefly, growing brighter as he inhales. Luke Randall is the first person up this morning. The first person up every morning. He stares across the barren plot of land he can’t afford and should never have bought, wondering how he ended up in this utter shitshow of a marriage.

The crow lands on the deck a few feet away from Luke, who takes one more long pull on the cigarette before crushing it out. He promised Carly he’d quit when the baby was born, but he still sneaks a smoke in the morning if he manages to get downstairs without waking Carly or the baby. One or two at work, sometimes, depending on how long it is until payday and how much of his next few paychecks Carly has already spent. God knows he needs something, some little thing to look forward to after hours of shoving plastic bits into the grinder.

Luke is thinking (not for the first time or the last) that he will leave Carly. He’ll move to Atlanta, where he won’t be forced to live a lie. But that thought is followed by a flash of memory from the night before—a chubby hand grasping his finger, two solemn brown eyes staring up into his own—and his resolve fades away.

When he notices the crow near his feet, he stares at her for a long time, even says hello in a voice hoarse from sleep and last night’s screaming match. If the man senses her otherness, her not-crowness, he shrugs it off, preoccupied with his thoughts of the long day and the long years ahead.

Nothing has changed at the Randall house. Nothing ever really has, and the crow doubts that it ever will.

And so she flies on.

Across the cornfield, just beyond a narrow patch of trees, a light flickers on inside a small kitchen. The crow perches on the elm tree in the backyard and watches as Scott Jenkins makes coffee. His mind is on the sermon at last Sunday’s service, which, like all of Reverend Kennedy’s sermons, had no fire, no whiff of brimstone, not even a mention of the wages of sin. And that simply will not do.

As Scott toys with the idea of calling a meeting of the church deacons to consider the preacher’s removal, his daughter Marybeth sleeps on in the next room, still dreaming. These days, very few of her dreams, whether asleep or awake, feature Benjamin Rey. But she hasn’t found a way to tell him that yet.

It would be easy to get caught up in their thoughts and dreams, but the Jenkins family is not on the crow’s to-do list. They are merely a curiosity. Peripheral, at best.

And so she flies on, peering briefly into a few houses along the outskirts of town as their occupants rise, stretch, and get ready to begin another day in Haddonwood. She would like to listen in, because she is curious by nature. But they are not on her list.

Her next official stop is inside Haddonwood proper. She lands on the top of the police cruiser parked outside the home of Tucker Vance. Tucker, the youngest officer on Haddonwood’s three-person police force, is frying an egg while his coffee brews. There’s usually little to see or hear at the Vance house. Most mornings, Tucker simply goes through the motions as though he’s in a holding pattern, waiting for…something. This morning, however, the hand holding the spatula shakes as it flips the egg. Something has rattled him. The bird doesn’t know what that might be, however. Tucker’s thoughts are oddly opaque this morning. The only flash she picks up is a red handprint.

This inability to read him bothers her. But she can’t really afford to hang around. There are more stops on her route. Raum might be resting now, but he won’t rest all day.

And so she flies on. Not far this time. Just a few flaps of her dark wings and she’s perched on a branch outside Daisy Gray’s bedroom. A moment later, Daisy pulls back the thin curtain and looks out at the house next door. There is no barrier to Daisy’s thoughts, and the crow rides the stream of the girl’s internal monologue as easily as a wind current. Like Raum, Daisy isn’t a big fan of early mornings. But Tucker’s shift usually starts at seven, and her day always feels wrong if she isn’t awake in time to spot his police car in the drive. She doesn’t have to actually see him to lift her mood, although it’s a plus. The sight of the car, the visual reminder that he is still there, just as he was when she turned in for the night, is enough to ease her mind.

Daisy doesn’t linger at the window. Her other incentive for rising early is the home’s pathetically small water heater. She’ll be rinsing the soap away with ice-cold water if her sister beats her to the shower. That rarely happens, though, and it seems especially unlikely this morning. Dani is in her room with her black comforter scrunched up around her like a shroud, catching as much sleep as she can after what was apparently a late night. She told their dad she was studying with friends, but Daisy knows better—her sister cracked more beers than books last night.

She slides her feet into the pink raccoon slippers Dani gave her last Christmas, wondering (not for the first time) why her sister picked pink raccoons. Wondering, for that matter, why they even make pink raccoon slippers. But the slippers are warm, and that’s the important thing. She hates the icy chill of the hardwood floor in the mornings and wishes her mother hadn’t yanked up all the carpet in the house the year before she died. Jenny Gray had spent the whole summer sanding and polishing these wooden planks, claiming that carpet was harder to keep clean, and wasn’t it a shame to hide such beautiful wood? The renovation was hot, dirty work, and most of the time, her hands had been chafed raw by nightfall. She’d tried and failed to interest her daughters in the project. They’d been around fourteen at the time, and Daisy feels a twinge of guilt as she remembers how, despite having nowhere to go and nothing to do, she had found every possible excuse to avoid helping her mom.

Such thoughts are not a good way to start the morning, however, especially on a day that will be packed from start to finish. An interview for the school paper. A math test, for which she’s mostly prepared. And once school is over, she still has several hours of work ahead to get things ready for the FrightFest, something she’s been looking forward to ever since she began the part-time job at the Hart Theater a little over a month ago.

As she heads for the shower, she hears the morning news on the tiny kitchen TV. The smell of coffee wafts up the stairs in a delicious wave. A homey scent. Comfortable. She passes her sister’s room, which is still dead silent, then steps into the bathroom. Once the water heats up, she slips beneath the spray and lets her thoughts roam, totally unsurprised to discover that they’ve roamed next door to where Tucker is probably having breakfast. She pictures him with cereal instead of the egg and toast that the crow observed, but she nails the feeling of loneliness. Tucker’s mom and dad were killed in a car accident only a few months before he finished high school. Daisy remembers sitting in the sanctuary with her parents and Dani, never imagining that in a few short years, it would be her own mother lying in a coffin at the front of the church.

The thing she remembers most, though, is the blank, numb look on Tucker’s face as he sat in the chapel. Her father had whispered something to her mother and joined the boy, who was alone on the front row. Daisy had wanted to join them, too, had wanted to find some way to comfort him. Because even then, at age twelve, she had been hopelessly in love with Tucker Vance.

Tucker finished high school and two years at the community college in Woodsboro. Once that was over, he left to attend the police academy in Knoxville. Her father looked after the house while he was gone, mowed the yard and kept the utilities up, refusing to take any money.

“No one’s using anything, for Christ’s sake,” he’d told Tucker on the phone one evening as Daisy hovered in the nearby doorway. By that time, she had given up any pretense of trying to be stealthy. “It’s not that big of a deal, Tuck. You worry about you. I got this.”

And that was the end of the argument. Tucker had learned something Daisy had known for years—when Bill Gray set his mind on something, it was best to let it roll.

Daisy had volunteered to check the mail and water the two houseplants while Tucker was away. Just to help out, she’d told her dad, although she could tell from Bill Gray’s amused look that she was fooling no one. Daisy never worked up the nerve to go farther into the Vance house than the living room and kitchen, but sometimes she would stop briefly in the living room and sit in the recliner, where he sat while he watched TV. It wasn’t much, but it got her through the three long months until Tucker returned.

Once he was home, Daisy fell back into her routine, looking out the window at night before bed, and again in the morning. Even with two other bedrooms in the house, including the larger master, Tucker stayed put in his old room, the one with the window opposite hers. Daisy was just fine with that.

And this is exactly where the one-sided romance of Daisy Gray and Tucker Vance remains. She thinks about Tucker constantly and stares out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, while he goes on about his life. Sometimes she’ll see him in town, and he always smiles. He always asks how school is going, and she always says fine, even though she hates that question, especially coming from him. It reminds her that he still thinks of her as a kid, which is doubly annoying now that she’s eighteen. Just a silly schoolgirl with a raging crush on the cute cop next door—although she really, really hopes he doesn’t know that last bit. Occasionally, he’ll tell her that he’s watched or read another horror classic from the checklist she made for him the year before, when they’d discovered a shared love for the genre while chatting at a neighborhood cookout. Tucker calls it The List. She can hear the caps in his voice when he says the words, and it always makes her smile.

Daisy cuts the water off and dries as quickly as she can, wrapping the towel around herself and stuffing her feet back into the ridiculous pink raccoons. She wipes down the mirror with the end of the towel, managing to knock one of the vast array of bottles off the counter in the process. It’s hard to breathe in the tiny bathroom without knocking something over. Every square inch of space on the counter is taken up by the hair gels, makeup, and various other potions that gobble up most of Dani’s allowance. Daisy stopped buying any of that stuff long ago and just adopts whatever shampoos and makeup her sister abandons in the ongoing quest for cosmetic perfection. They’re twins, but they sure as hell aren’t identical.

Back in her room, Daisy pulls on her favorite pair of jeans, the ones with the butterfly embroidered on the back pocket. They’re worn almost threadbare, and they’re comfortable as hell. But that’s not why they’re her favorites. These jeans were the last thing her mother bought for her, just a week or two before she died. And even though she lives in a house filled with things that her mother bought or created, the jeans are a talisman that Daisy is unwilling to let go. Wearing them is almost like starting the day off with a hug from her mom, and Daisy can’t help feeling that when these jeans finally wear out, she will have lost the last remaining piece of her mother.

Jenny Gray hadn’t even had the common courtesy to haunt her. Daisy had secretly hoped that would happen—especially in the long, bleak months after her mother’s death, when the house was achingly silent. She had wanted that haunting. Begged God for it, even, because that would mean there was something more. That maybe this wasn’t the end after all. That maybe she’d see her mother again one day.

A crow is just outside her window, peeking in with unabashed curiosity. Daisy pulls back the curtain to get a better look, smiling at the creature, which stares back at her with intent gray eyes, its tiny head cocked slightly to one side. This time last year, Daisy would have wondered if the crow was her mom. Jenny Gray had always enjoyed watching birds, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that she’d come back as a bird to watch over Daisy and her sister.

But if a haunting, befeathered or not, was in the cards, Daisy’s pretty sure it would have happened already. She once made the mistake of telling Dr. Norcross that she hoped to see her mom’s ghost. That she thought maybe if she wished hard enough, it would actually happen. He’d smiled patiently and told her that it was normal to miss someone you loved. But, he added, magical thinking wasn’t healthy. So she hadn’t mentioned it again, although she couldn’t really see how wishing her mom would come back as a ghost or a bird was all that different from wishing she’d be reunited with her in heaven if she prayed hard enough. And Daisy doubted the doctor told people who believed in the power of prayer that they needed to avoid magical thinking.

She lets the curtain fall back into place and takes a deep breath, shoving all the troublesome thoughts into the NOT TODAY closet. There’s an excellent chance she’ll see Tucker tonight. Why jinx the day with depressing thoughts?

It’s gotten easier to keep those thoughts at bay. In the months after her mom died, even getting out of bed felt like an insurmountable chore. Her sister seemed to snap out of grief a little faster, but then Dani had always been the more social one. The one who had a cluster of friends, not just a select few. Maybe that helped her deal with the loss. Dani had only gone to one session with the grief counselor, and she’d never needed anything to help her sleep or to get through the day. Although, maybe that’s not entirely true, since Dani drinks herself into a stupor on a fairly regular basis.

After three sessions with Dr. Norcross, Daisy’s dad had agreed to let the doctor prescribe some pills. “Just to take the edge off. To give you space to heal,” the doctor had said.

And it helped. Slowly, but surely, things got better. Daisy still has the little bottle of Xyleva in the drawer of her nightstand, but she hasn’t taken one in nearly six months. They helped her cope back then, but they also made her feel a little loopy and detached.

She steps out into the hallway, thinking she should probably tap on Dani’s door, just in case she forgot to set her alarm again. But as she turns, the mirror at the end of the hallway catches her eye.

There has always been a mirror at the end of the hallway, and one half of her mind insists that it has always been this mirror—this large, ornate monstrosity with its intricately carved wooden frame that twists and winds around the glass. It seems to hulk over her, sucking all the oxygen from the corridor.

The other half of her brain, however, remembers a very different mirror. A plain rectangular mirror in a narrow gold metal frame.

Daisy squints as the reflection changes around her. She still looks the same, in her well-worn jeans and a sage-green sweater. But instead of the hallway, with the door to Dani’s room and the staircase beyond, she sees a different door behind her. Painted above it are the words Every Day a Brighter Day at Hillcrest, written backward.

Redrum, she thinks automatically. Then she takes a step backward and feels the doorknob to Dani’s room against her wrist. It’s cold. It’s real. It’s…there. Not in the mirror, though. The mirror still shows the other room with the backward motivational sign painted above the door.

Looking back over her shoulder, she sees the hallway of her house. Dani’s door. The door to the bathroom. The staircase. Everything exactly the same as it’s always been. Well, except for the floor, which used to be carpeted.

When she turns to face the mirror again, the backward sign is gone. The reflection shows only Daisy, standing in the hallway of her house, her wrist brushing against the doorknob, her sneakers bright against the dark wood floor. She reaches out toward the mirror, her hand shaking. As her fingers tentatively brush against the glass, she half expects her hand to disappear inside. Or for something to grab her arm and yank her clean through the mirror, through the wall, and into that other place she’d just glimpsed.

But it’s just a mirror. A mirror that has always been there. It had to have been, right? Otherwise, why would it look so familiar?

She needs a cup of coffee to clear the cobwebs out of her head. A tiny voice tells her that she might also need one of those pills stashed away in her nightstand, but she shuts it down firmly. The mirror has always been there. Whatever else she thought she saw was a trick of light.

A trick of light that forms words on a wall. Yeah, right.

In the next room, Dani’s alarm clock begins to wail. After a few seconds, it stops, either because Dani turned it off or threw it against the wall hard enough to shatter it. Daisy continues toward the stairs, and as her ears adjust to relative silence, they pick up a familiar and far more pleasant sound. This is a sound she hasn’t heard since her mother died, and it pushes aside all thoughts of the mirror and the bottle of Xyleva.

Downstairs in the parlor, someone is playing the piano.

* * *

The crow takes off when the first notes from the piano begin. She follows the river, stopping at a modest two-story brick house with a lawn that needs mowing. The Reverend Julie Kennedy has been thinking for the past month that she should hire one of the boys from church to take care of the damn task, but she promptly forgets once she pulls out of the driveway in the morning. And the chore doesn’t register again until she pulls back into the driveway at the end of the day, usually carrying a takeout bag from Chickwich or Viola’s Bakery and realizes once again that the grass is halfway to her knees. It doesn’t help that lately she’s had other things on her mind. Those things are far more pleasant to contemplate than an overgrown lawn, especially for someone who was right on the verge of thinking that romance was not in her cards.

Julie is dreaming of these far more pleasant things when the crow perches on the oak limb just outside her window. For the first few moments, a tiny smile plays on the woman’s lips. Then she startles, which in turn startles the crow. Julie clutches the covers to her chest as the pleasant dream of a moment ago slips into a nightmare. A very familiar nightmare.

She’s a child again, sleeping in the loft of her grandparents’ farmhouse in Oklahoma. The loft is dark, but she isn’t scared. Her grandfather is nearby. She can hear him below, softly snoring.

The bed is familiar, and her grandmother’s quilt wraps around her body like a favorite pair of blue jeans.

Jeans her mother bought. The ones with the butterfly embroidered—

That odd thought very nearly pulls her out of the dream. Julie’s mother never bought her jeans, and certainly not jeans with an embroidered butterfly. She tosses again, uneasy, now in that half-dream state where she’s in two places at once—here, in her own bed, and there, a thousand miles and thirty years away, with her grandparents sleeping below.

When the dream takes her again, it quickly goes sour. She feels a presence. Hovering over her. Watching.

Adult Julie, the Julie Kennedy who will be late if she sleeps much longer, whimpers and kicks away the quilt. It’s the same quilt she clutches in the dream, now worn at the edges, but still her favorite possession.

Something is different. Something has changed.

The darkness is scary now, too quiet. It takes a moment to figure out what’s missing, but she finally nails it down. Pa isn’t snoring.

Don’t you want to know why, Julie? Come see. Come see.

She wants to scurry down the ladder and crawl into bed with her grandparents. They’d grumble, just as they always did, and then make room. But the half-window above her bed—where the glass is now dirty and streaked in a way that her grandma would never have allowed—seems to be beckoning.

Julie obeys the call. Rising up on one elbow, she looks out on the empty backyard below. Pale light washes over her swing set, standing guard against the dark cornfield and even darker night. The swing moves slowly, gently in the night breeze, as if the ass of some unseen phantom has just vacated the narrow seat.

Of course it’s moving, Adult Julie thinks. Is there ever a swing in a horror movie that doesn’t move?

But as little Julie looks out the window, she realizes something is missing, and it’s not just the sound of her grandfather snoring. This time, it doesn’t take nearly as long for her to pinpoint, because the thing that’s missing is the thing she hates most in all the world—the scarecrow.

“But why?” her grandmother had asked. “You liked the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.”

Julie had liked the Scarecrow, in both the movie and the book versions. This scarecrow looked nothing like that one, however. Julie was pretty sure this one already had a brain. A very devious one, too. But like the Tin Man, he wouldn’t have a heart if he got her in his clutches.

While her grandmother had been sympathetic, she was also practical. The corn needed a guardian. But she made a few concessions to Julie’s fear. Who could be scared of something named Mr. Giggles? She even stitched on a big, supposedly friendly smile to make the creature less scary.

It still made Julie nearly pee her pants every time she saw it.

The scarecrow always seemed to watch as she played in the backyard. Even at night, as Julie tried to sleep in the loft, she could feel him out there. Most of the time, Mr. Giggles wasn’t even watching the cornfield. No matter how many times her grandparents turned the creature back toward the corn to ward off the crows, Mr. Giggles would pivot back around on his spike so that he faced the house. Some nights, when Julie dared to look out the little window, his head would be turned upwards, the large straw hat hiding the flat black eyes that she knew were fixed on her window. Watching. Waiting.

Julie tells herself that the stupid thing just fell. The wind knocked it down. She doesn’t want to check to see if that’s true, though. What she wants is to slide back into the bed and pull the quilt over her head.

But her feet seem to have a mind of their own. They swing over the side of the bed and carry her across the room, the floor cold and rough beneath her bare feet.

Why did Mom yank up the carpet? Where are my pink raccoons?

These two questions appear out of nowhere, and neither makes any sense to the logical, adult Julie. The loft was never carpeted and…pink raccoons?

But her younger self is climbing down the ladder now. In the silent, snoreless night, each creak of the rungs echoes loud enough to wake the dead.

With that thought, a chill hits Julie so hard that she almost lets go of the ladder. She clutches it tighter after that, her breath coming in gasps that hurt her throat and chest.

It’s too quiet. And the scarecrow is gone.

Another thought tickles the back of her mind. Mr. Giggles pushed the swing as he walked by. Or maybe he was swinging, trying to get a bit higher so that he could see in her window while she slept. If she had looked ten seconds earlier…

I’m watching you.

Come out, come out, little Julie. Don’t you wanna play?

Now the house reeks of him—a moldy, slightly sweet scent that she has caught faint whiffs of when she’s outside and the wind blows in from the direction of the cornfield. There’s another smell, too, even more familiar. But she can’t quite place it. Each time she comes close, her mind snatches it away.

She knows why the scarecrow isn’t in the cornfield.

He’s in the house.

Adult Julie whimpers again in her comfortable bed. Her bedroom, in the home she has built for herself so far from Oklahoma and the plains, smells distinctly of old straw at this moment, wet and decaying. The scent will be gone by the time she wakes. Almost. A trace always lingers after these dreams, like perfume from an unwanted night guest.

As her feet hit the floor beneath the ladder, she hears a gurgling sound like water bubbling up from a choked drainpipe. It’s coming from her grandparents’ room. Ma and Pa Kennedy are asleep just beyond the darkened archway on the other side of the wide living room. Even in the darkness, Julie knows the path—the steps to take around the low coffee table so she doesn’t bump her shin, the floorboard to skip because it screams like a banshee, the steps (four little girl ones) from the arm of the couch to the lamp on the table against the wall. She knows all of this, but that noise…it’s new. It sounds like water, but there’s no sink in their bedroom.

Adult Julie thrashes in her bed. “No,” she mumbles. Her head jerks from side to side on her pillow. “No!”

The sound of water bubbling up. The scent of Mr. Giggles in the darkness. And now, growing stronger, that other smell, the one her mind won’t let her remember. Her grandfather’s pipe, making s’mores—

NO! Danger, Will Robinson. Here there be dragons. Do not enter. Keep out!

She obeys the warning, shoving the thoughts down deep, but she can’t block the sound of Mr. Giggles, still coming toward her—shuffling across the living room on stick feet, dragging himself forward. The floorboard, the one she knows to skip, lets out a half moan even though the scarecrow is light, mostly clothes and the blackened straw that pokes out of his sleeves as he grabs her neck and—

GAME OVER.

“NO!” Julie Kennedy’s eyes fly open as she screams, but the thing she sees is not the scarecrow, not Mr. Giggles, as she fears. A bird flaps its wings nervously, startled by her scream. It’s just a crow, right outside her bedroom window, silhouetted against the early morning sky.

Despite her fear, or perhaps because of it, Julie utters a shaky laugh. The wheel has turned. Now she is the scarecrow, striking fear into the hearts of crows.

She lies back on her pillow and stares at the ceiling for a moment, giving her breath a chance to catch up. Her legs are damp and cold with sweat.

Thirty years ago. Thirty goddamn years and still…

There’s a click from the nightstand beside her head. The radio announcer’s voice is deep but chipper. Who in their right mind is that cheerful at six twenty in the morning?

“—blast from the past now. Here’s Warren Zevon bringing you a little Werewolves of London. Happy Halloween, everybody!”

Julie rolls over and hits the top of the radio. “Yeah. Happy frickin’ Halloween.”

* * *

In the very heart of Haddonwood, at the intersection of Main and Cobb, the town’s lone traffic light is flashing yellow. Each time it flashes, a low buzz fills the air.

The crow swoops down and parks on the mast arm just as Luke Randall pulls his battered Silverado up to the light, taps his brakes gently, and then sails on toward the county line and ten fun-filled hours at the plastics plant. Her eyes follow the taillights for a moment, a vague premonition hovering just beyond the reach of her not-crow brain. She gets those occasionally. Luke is going to have a very stressful day. But that’s Raum’s business, and there’s not much she can do about it.

Cassandra Lovett, Sandra to her friends, emerges from Viola’s Best Bakery and Café to set up her chairs, tables, and chalkboard sign. The heady aroma of sugar, butter, and fried dough wafts through the air, and even though the bird is here on vital business, the part of her brain that is still simply a bird understands that a body needs fuel to fly. Perhaps a generous (or clumsy) customer will provide her with breakfast.

And so the crow circles back around and lands on the mast arm of the traffic light. The not-crow doesn’t quarrel with this decision. She has one last bit of business to attend to before departing, anyway. Raum has assured her that everything is stable, and he seems to be correct, at least on the surface. But the balance can tilt in a heartbeat. Things always seem to fall apart much more quickly than they come together, and in her experience, it never hurts to have an insurance policy. A backup plan. And before she leaves Haddonwood, she needs to be sure the pieces of that plan are coming together, connecting.

At the far end of Main Street, the steeple bell of the First Community Church strikes seven. A few seconds later, the traffic light issues a faint click and switches to daytime mode—green on two sides and red on the others.

The crow’s black head cocks to the side as the library doors swing open, and Barb Starrett exits, huffing and puffing as she tries to maneuver an unwieldy book cart down the ramp.

“LordhelpmeJesus. This thing weighs a ton!”

Sandra hurries over to help the librarian, taking the front end of the book truck. Together they wrestle the heavy cart down the sidewalk and park it against the brick wall between the library and the bakery.

Barb tucks a stray piece of hair back into her bun. “One day that old cart will take me with it.”

Sandra retrieves the one book that bounced off while Barb takes a Mason jar from the bottom shelf and places it on top. Gently Used Books—$1.00 OK TO MAKE CHANGE.

“Can’t lose this one,” Sandra says, handing the librarian the worn paperback copy of As I Lay Dying. “Clarence isn’t done yet.”

“Or maybe I should give him the darn thing,” Barb says, placing the novel next to the change jar. “He needs a good distraction to forget. Dealing with his mother can’t be easy.”

Even though the doors of the library won’t open for another hour, Barb always arrives early so that she has time for coffee and a nice, gossipy chat with Sandra before starting her day. The crow could easily slide into either woman’s train of thought, if you could really call it that in their case, just as she had with Daisy Gray. Just as she had with Julie Kennedy. But the crow loses interest quickly. These two are merely bit players. Barb will push her cart out of the library again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Each day she’ll praise Jesus that the cart didn’t drag her into traffic, and each day she’ll talk with Sandra about some mutual acquaintance. Each day, Sandra will bake her pastries and brew her coffee. Each day, Clarence will arrive around noon, sit in the chair closest to the book cart, and read. When he finishes As I Lay Dying, he’ll replace the book on the shelf and grab the one next to it. Sandra will refill his coffee. He’ll tell her that she sells the best coffee in town, and she will laugh and tell him thanks, but it’s easy to take first place when you don’t have any competition. Each day, with minor variations for the weekend, some version of this scene will take place. There will be nothing new here. There can’t be.

Other people begin to appear on the sidewalks, popping into view in clusters of two or three, as if by magic. Soon the little town is buzzing with folks on their way to work, to school, or out on errands. These people do not interest the crow either, aside from their potential as bringers-of-breakfast.

Julie Kennedy is late, which is odd. But when the minister finally rounds the corner, she is smiling. Fresh air and sunshine seem to have chased away any lingering threads of her nightmare. She crosses the street humming “Morning Has Broken,” a hymn both Julie and the not-crow think is perfectly suited to this brilliant autumn day.

She stops into the bakery for a coffee, and as she selects six pumpkin-spice muffins, the not-crow picks up the current of her thoughts. Bill says she’s trying too hard, and maybe she is, but it always feels weird to stop by in the morning without something for him and the girls.

It’s still a little early, though, so Julie finds a seat near the window that overlooks the small park across Cobb Avenue and takes one of the muffins from the bag. She gazes out the window at the fountain, bubbling away in the sunlight, and is a little unnerved to see a crow sitting on the top level, its black head cocked to one side, almost as if it’s watching her. Is it the same crow she frightened earlier?

Julie leans her satchel against the wall, debating whether to pull out a book. But there will be time enough for that later. The morning is too pretty to ignore. After she stops in to tell Bill goodbye, she’ll head for her favorite alcove at the library to work on her weekly message. She has an office at the church, with her name on an engraved plate in the center of the door. But there always seems to be a distraction when she’s there. Her mind just works better in the library, maybe because it reminds her of her seminary days.

Back then, she’d retreated to the local off-campus library for the sole purpose of escaping her classmates. She was the first female student admitted to the sacred halls of the Asheville Theological Seminary, shortly after her denomination reluctantly endorsed ordaining women. The men in her classes hadn’t been hateful to her face, but she had a stack of notes in her desk back at the church that she received during her four-year tenure at the school, many with biblical passages designed to put her in her place. Verses like 1st Timothy 2:12—Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. She fought their evangelical furor with the sword of sheer determination. By the time she graduated, she’d gained the respect of a few colleagues and professors, but she was still treated as a token. She was introduced more times than she cared to admit with the words, “And this is Julie. She’s a lot prettier than the rest of us.” Laughter would ensue, and some would shake their heads. A sign of the times, she’d heard several of them mumble, with the clear implication that what they really meant was a sign of the end times.

A few people in her local congregation seem to agree with that assessment. Mostly men, but a few women, too. At the front of the pack is Scott Jenkins, who clearly feels a woman’s place is in the pews, not behind the pulpit. Julie still hopes to win them over—even Jenkins—but it has been slow going. It probably doesn’t help that she and Jenkins have decidedly different views on the role of preacher. For Julie, the ministry is mostly family psychology, with a side of social work. Her Sunday messages—she can never quite bring herself to call them sermons—are more about applying the Golden Rule in the here and now than about fire and brimstone in the hereafter. That doesn’t sit well with the Scott Jenkinses among her parishioners. They want less smiling and more smiting. She’s surprised that they haven’t abandoned First Community for a different church.

Except…there are no other churches in Haddonwood. They only need the one. The residents barely fill the pews as it…is…

Julie stops with her coffee halfway to her mouth, confused at the stray thought. Of course there are other churches. No matter how small the town, there has to be at least two, right? As the old joke goes, you need one that says there ain’t no hell, and one that says the hell there ain’t. So there must be others.

The other four churches pop into her memory. How could she forget First Presbyterian, just down the block? That’s where Bill and the girls go, on the rare occasions they attend services. Also, the tiny Catholic church near the high school. The Baptists. The Methodists. The names of their ministers come back to her as well, along with the ecumenical service they held last Christmas.

This lapse of memory is unnerving. She’s not even forty. How could her mind be going already? To forget one church, one minister, would be understandable. But to forget all of them? Last night’s lousy sleep seems to have rattled her more than usual.

The glitch worries the crow, too. This isn’t her first surveillance, by any means, and she’s seen gaffes before. Some small, some large. But she’s not quite sure what to make of this one.

Julie gathers her things and steps outside, still eating the last of her muffin. Maybe she’ll take the longer route to Bill’s house. Get a little more exercise, a little more fresh air, to clear out the cobwebs.

She can still feel the crow watching her. There was an article online a while back about crows and their uncanny ability to remember a face. Maybe she’d fed this crow once, and it is waiting for more. Or maybe it’s just pissed that she’d startled it earlier.

The last thing she needs is another enemy in Haddonwood. So she gives the bird a shaky smile and tosses the last bit of muffin onto the sidewalk. The bird flies down to retrieve the offering, but instead of the quick retreat Julie expects, it looks up at her with solemn, slate-gray eyes. Measuring her.

“Sorry, little guy. That’s the last bite.”

The bird stares at her for a moment longer, and flutters its wings once, almost as if to say thanks. Then it flies back to the fountain with its prize.

There are more people on the street now. More cars. Almost in defiance of her thought that the town had shrunk down to a skeleton crew, Main Street is teeming with vibrant life. The sun is shining, spilling down on the town in that special golden way that only happens in autumn. It really is going to be a beautiful day. Midsixties by the afternoon, the trees a blaze of orange and gold against a bright blue sky, with just a few puffy white clouds.

Fall in all her crisp glory. A perfect Halloween.

* * *

The crow watches as the woman turns onto Elm, where she will deliver her offering of pumpkin spice to the girl. Connecting. That’s good.

And perhaps her insurance plan isn’t even necessary. Maybe Raum is right. Aside from a few minor glitches, he seems to have everything under control. Perhaps the balance will hold despite the addition of the boy, and their secret will remain safe.

With her surveillance of Haddonwood now complete, the crow flies back toward the hill where her journey began. More than a hill, really, but too small to sensibly be called a mountain. Is there a word for that? If so, the bird doesn’t know it.

The house lies near the top of the hill, a large miserable thing falling down impolitely beneath the gravity of time. It looks down on the town season after season, year after year. Long ago, it housed a family. Later, it was a retreat for those who could not adjust to the expectations of the world beyond its walls. No one has lived there in decades, no one has taken care of the beast, and the whole structure has gradually collapsed inward, giving up the ghost one shingle and splintered piece of wood at a time.

Despite the years of neglect, the house remains, watching over the small patchwork quilt of homes, stores, and trees that make up Haddonwood. In turn, every structure in the city seems to lean away from the hill, trying desperately to creep inch by inch toward the river and the woods. Anything to escape the watchful eye of the house on the almost-mountain.

The crow comes to rest atop one shingled turret and gazes down at the front lawn, where a gravel path curves around the fountain before doubling back the way it came. It’s a large fountain, with four descending tiers. The basins are filled with rainwater that has grown black and brackish over time, to the point where no sane creature would drink from it. Intricate angel carvings encircle the lower pool. Their cherubic faces look sad, with gouged-out eyes and weathered cracks carved into their cheeks.

Beyond the fountain, the once carefully manicured lawn has turned brown. Nothing remains that is fresh or good. Tall witchgrass, the height of a grown man’s chest, sways on either side of the gravel path.

Usually, when she sits atop an old house, even an empty shell like this one, she can pick up echoes. There’s a sort of energy that lingers behind in houses. Piano music and singing inside Daisy Gray’s house. Laughter from years past in the hallways of the house where Tucker Vance lives. Tears and anger inside the trailer that houses Chase and Ben Rey. And farther back, fainter, there are echoes of others who came before.

But this house is different. The bird feels only a void, as though no one ever lived here. And then, almost as if conjured by her own thoughts, something inside the house moves, sending a faint vibration through the crow’s talons. Laughter. Sorrow. Joy. All of the energy she’d thought missing only a few seconds before is suddenly, amazingly there.

The bird leaves her perch and flies down to the narrow ledge above the front door. It’s the opening closest to her portal, and while she could enter through any of a dozen other shattered windows, she is a creature of habit.

When she lands on the ledge, however, she sees that the window is now intact. This is perplexing, and her beak bumps against the glass as she moves in for a closer look. She finds the room in full shadow, but then there’s a slight shift, a tiny gleam in the darkness. Another burst of laughter. Children, she thinks, running through the corridors. Talking. Singing. The bird cocks her head, straining to make out the words.

What she hears next are the footfalls, not of children, but of a single child. A young girl steps out of the darkness into a patch of space faintly lit by the morning sun. Her dress is ragged, dirty, and threadbare. As the bird looks more closely, she notes that the girl herself seems pretty threadbare too.

The girl-thing’s cheeks are sallow and sunken, and her head lolls from side to side as she shuffles across the room on two legs that are spiderlike, broken. At first, the crow thinks the child is Raum, in one of his many guises. A macabre guise, to be sure, but it is Halloween, and the holiday seems to play a role in this latest pastime he’s created. But then the creature looks directly at the crow, with eyes that gleam a red-streaked white in their sockets, like a flashlight smeared with blood.

The girl-thing’s hands are hidden behind her back at first, and when they come into view, they are barely recognizable as hands at all. Ten small digits, as crooked as her legs, wrapped around a slingshot.

Not Raum, but his father.

Which means the center did not hold. Andras has found them.

The shock of this realization overwhelms the bird’s tiny processor. Before she can muster the sense to fly away, the girl-creature pulls back the band of the slingshot and fires. The bird caws, her wings beating the air, as the window shatters.

Despite the wrecked state of her limbs, the girl scurries toward the broken window with uncanny speed, stirring up the inch-thick carpet of dust on the floor as she goes. She looks down at the bird, which lies on the small balcony, surrounded by shattered glass. Its right wing, a dark-purple velvet in the glow of the morning sun, is stretched out, quivering.

As the girl reaches through the broken window, her face splits into a toothless grin. The crow rights herself and backs toward the edge of the balcony. This wing will not hold her weight, but falling would be infinitely better than—

The bony hand strikes like a viper and seizes the crow, laughing as the bird struggles and pecks wildly at the misshapen fingers tightening around its body.

Game over.

Andras wins this round. She must go.

The not-crow is now a tiny speck of amber light. She has a brief moment of pity for her host as she darts away from the window. The crow has done nothing wrong. It’s just a bird, and now it will suffer.

But she had no choice. There is simply too much at stake.

One quick squeeze later, the bird’s steel-gray eyes close, and its heart stops cold. The girl-creature smiles and squeezes again, more gently this time. As she does, the hand holding the bird dissolves, along with the rest of the girl, into a cloud of bone-white dust. The crow’s body falls to the balcony, lifeless. Then it shudders violently, and the eyes snap open—no longer gray, but now the same blood-streaked white as the eyes of the girl.

The crow shrugs its broken wing back into place with a faint snap and swoops down from the balcony. Over the fountain. Down the hill-that-is-almost-a-mountain toward the small town below.

Game ON.

CHAPTER TWO

* * *

One

CHASE

Chase Rey sits on his bed with his tattered Transformers blanket pulled tight around him, staring uneasily at the bathroom door across the hall from the bedroom he shares with his older brother.

Something is not right. Something is off.

The bedroom is wrong, for starters. Everything in the room is pale, transparent, almost like it will shatter into dust if Chase moves even the tiniest bit from his spot on the bed. So he tries to remain perfectly still, pulling in shallow breaths to keep from disturbing the air around him.

Ben is wrong, too. Even over the sound of the shower, he can hear his brother’s muffled groans. Chase is certain he should know why Ben is in pain. But he can’t quite put his finger on it, and it feels like he’s missing something important.

The one thing Chase does know for certain is that he can’t just sit here. He has to get dressed. His brother will be out of the shower soon, and they’ll need to get going so Ben can drop him at school.

No. The bus. I take the bus.

That feels right.

It also feels wrong.

The room shimmers around Chase, like a mirage that could vanish at any moment, a bubble that could pop, stranding him in this strange and unforgiving landscape. For the past few days, this is how it’s been when he first wakes up. Nothing seems real. Each time, the uneasiness, the sense of wrongness, has gradually faded away. And so he sits on the edge of the bed, waiting for the world to turn right-side up again.

The shower cuts off, breaking Chase out of his trance. He moves frantically to the dresser and begins yanking clothes out, like he does every morning. That’s true, regardless of whether he’s in the world where Ben drops him off or in the one where he takes the bus. It’s the first thing that’s felt normal since he opened his eyes, and the routine calms him.

It’s Halloween, he thinks. There’s going to be a party at some farm. Ben says he’s taking me trick-or-treating first, although Marybeth probably won’t like that much. She doesn’t like me much. I’m in the way.

Chase is tempted to tell Ben that he’s too old for trick-or-treating. Or, at least, too old for someone to take him. At his age, he should be hitting up the houses with a posse of friends, laughing at the narrow-eyed looks from people who think you’re past the proper age for this activity, even though they don’t quite have the heart to deny you the candy.

But Chase doesn’t have a posse. He doesn’t want to go alone, and he doesn’t have anyone other than Ben. While he could live without the candy, he’s not willing to pass up a chance to get out of the house without a fight. Because his dad—

No. Ralph Rey is not his dad. That’s wrong, too. Not real.

Chase pulls his sweater the rest of the way down just as the door opens. A cloud of steam billows into the hallway and through the bedroom door. Chase watches, horrified, as the steam morphs into ghostly claws that slash through the cold air toward his brother. Then the illusion fades, and it’s just Ben standing there with a towel wrapped around his waist.

But what he sees when Ben turns to shut the door is worse than some imaginary phantom. Ugly red welts—welts that Chase knows from experience will soon turn purple—cover his brother’s back.

“What’s wrong?” Ben rummages through a plastic hamper of clean laundry shoved into the corner next to a busted tennis racket and an old Louisville Slugger.

You, Chase thinks. You’re wrong.

And it isn’t just the marks on Ben’s back. He seems different. Younger, maybe? But this is something else that seems true-but-not-true, like this room and the bus that Chase takes-but-also-doesn’t-take to school.

“Nothing,” Chase says. “What happened to your back?”

“You don’t remember?” Ben puts on his jeans slowly, wincing with the movement, then looks toward Chase, waiting for an answer.

Chase shakes his head. He doesn’t remember, but he feels like he should.

“Then I guess it’s not important.” But his brother’s gray eyes—eyes that look older than his seventeen and a half years—are worried.

When Ben lowers himself gingerly to the side of the bed, Chase starts to ask him if he fell down the trailer steps outside like Aileen—who he can’t quite think of as his mom—did the year before. And then he remembers that Aileen didn’t really fall down the steps. That’s just what she told people.

Your daddy’s a good man. He don’t mean nothin’ by it. It’s just the way he was brought up.

Chase’s stomach clenches, and his brother raises his eyebrows.

“Okay. Out with it. What’s wrong?”

Chase considers telling him nothing again, but he doesn’t like lying. “I don’t know. I just feel…weird.”

“Weird like sick or just weird like you are every day?” Ben grins, and Chase tries to respond in kind. But his face feels frozen, unable to form a smile.

My head feels weird. You look weird. The bedroom is weird. There was a weird ghost hiding in the steam just now, trying to grab you, to gut you with its claws, but you didn’t see it, and that’s weird, too.

Ben presses one hand to Chase’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm. And you know how Mom is. Unless you’ve got a fever, get yourself to school. Plus…” He trails off, looking toward the hallway and the living room beyond, where Ralph Rey is almost certainly sprawled out on the sofa, sleeping off last night’s bottle of Old Crow.

Chase, who definitely doesn’t relish the thought of spending the day with the man, says, “I’m okay. Anyway, it’s Halloween. If I stay home, Mom won’t let me go out tonight.”

“Ah. Priorities.” Ben laughs and then stands up slowly, one hand on his back like an old man. He doesn’t groan again, though. Not with Chase watching.

“Do you think we could do that movie thing tonight?” Chase asks. “The FrightFest or whatever? I’m too old to trick-or-treat, and it sounds like fun.”

“You want scary movies after the dreams you had last night?”

Chase rolls his eyes. “Movies aren’t real. Anyway, you know the ones they show will be baby stuff.”

“So, no costume? No candy?”

Ben looks a little sad when Chase shakes his head, and while it could be because he won’t get his half of the loot, the expression triggers that odd feeling again. The one that tells Chase that something about his brother isn’t right. Not in a dangerous way, or at least Chase doesn’t think so. Just different.

“Fine,” Ben says. “We’ll do the movie instead. But get your ass in gear so we can go. I’m thinking doughnuts this morning. What say you?”

“If we stop for doughnuts, you’ll be late picking up MB.”

Ben reaches for his leather jacket on the back of the door. “Not if you hurry. And anyway, we need doughnuts. Marybeth can wait a few minutes.”

Two

DAISY

Daisy leans against the wall, listening to the piano. She’s trying to muster up the courage to go downstairs when she hears a loud thump from her sister’s room. Something hitting the floor. No. Someone hitting the floor, judging from the stream of curses that follows.

She opens the door to find her sister sprawled on the throw rug next to her bed, her legs tangled in the bedcovers. The room is dark, thanks to the blackout curtains Dani prefers, so Daisy flips on the bedside lamp. Only then does she get a clear look at her sister’s face. Dani is deathly pale, with damp strands of hair pasted to her face. She looks awful. Still pretty, of course—Dani was pretty even when she had the stomach flu the previous summer—but it’s clear that something is wrong.

Dani scrubs her mouth with the back of her hand, like she’s tasted something horrid. Her eyes flash around the room, disoriented, as she unwinds herself from the quilt cocoon.

Daisy reaches a hand down to help her up. “Sick? Or just hungover?”

“That music. Do you hear it?”

Daisy smiles. “Yes! Isn’t it great?”

“Great? It sounds like something out of a slasher film. That’s probably what gave me the nightmare.”

“I don’t care what it sounds like. Dad’s playing again. Come on!”

Daisy decides not to mention what she’d thought initially when she first heard the music. How she’d thought that if she held the image of her mother at the piano in her head until she was downstairs, then maybe, just maybe, it would be her hands moving across the keys. She knew it wasn’t rational. It was, to use her doctor’s phrase, a lapse into magical thinking, in response to hearing the piano come to life for the first time in two years.

They find Bill Gray in the parlor, already dressed in his suit and tie. A steaming cup of coffee is on top of the piano, next to a stack of music books. He doesn’t notice when they enter. Daisy stops Dani as she reaches out to touch his shoulder, nodding toward the loveseat against the far wall. They sit down to listen, both of them still and silent. The air feels fragile—almost as if one wrong breath would shatter the morning, the music, and maybe even their father.

As delighted as Daisy is that he’s playing, she has to admit her sister is right. This song is a major downer. Before, back in the good days, they often awoke to the sound of the piano. Some mornings it was their mother playing, sometimes their father. Occasionally, it was a duet. Both girls complained from time to time, especially when the song was the ragtime or boogie-woogie stuff their dad favored, but Daisy had secretly loved it. She’s certain that her sister did too, although getting Dani to admit something like that is next to impossible.

When Jenny died, the piano became a piece of furniture that Bill Gray dropped his coat onto at the end of the day. Daisy stopped playing, too. She’s missed it, but somehow it felt wrong to sit down at the keyboard again when her dad still couldn’t.

The song morphs from the minor-key dirge that Dani had complained about into something more cheerful and melodic, and after a few minutes of that, Bill reaches for his coffee. That’s when he catches sight of the girls, and he startles so badly that coffee nearly sloshes onto the top of the piano.

“Holy—” he says, laughing. “Where did the two of you come from?”

“What was that first song?” Dani asks. “I’ve never heard it before.”

Bill shrugs. “I don’t know. Something I dreamed, I guess.”

“Me too,” she mumbles.

“Sorry if I woke you.” He looks down at his watch. “Yikes. Gotta finish packing. And you girls need to get a move on, too.”

He turns back to the keyboard and pounds out the opening riff from Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll,” the song he’d often played to jar them out of bed in the mornings when they were small. Dani groans, but they all smile, and it helps to ease the eerie feeling that permeated the room as he played that first song.

When he’s gone, Dani turns toward her sister. “That was…weird.”

Daisy crosses over to the piano and closes the case over the keys, brushing her fingers across the wood for the first time in ages. “I know. When I first heard the music…” She shrugs but doesn’t finish the thought.

“You thought you’d come down here to find Mom.”

“Yeah. Isn’t that stupid?”

Dani sits down next to her. “Not really. I dreamed about her last night. Then I woke up to…that.”

“What happened in your dream?”

“Don’t remember.”

Daisy cocks an eyebrow at her sister. “You know I can tell when you’re lying, right? Your mouth does that little twitchy thing.”

“Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Mom always said if you don’t talk about a bad dream, it’ll come back.”

There’s a long pause, and then Dani says, “Okay. Fine. It’s like…I was digging at a gravesite. Mom’s gravesite. Only it was next to a lake. Or maybe a river. I could see the water in the background. Smell it, even.”

Daisy’s heart stops. All she can think about is the mirror in the hallway. Which is weird, because there was no lake in the reflection she’d imagined. Just the room with the reversed sign over the doorway. Every Day…something, something. It’s slipping away, too, almost like a dream.

You could always go look again, says a snide little voice inside her head.

“Anyway,” Dani says, “Mom was there. Alive…sort of. Telling me to keep digging, while she played the piano. While she played the same weird song Dad was playing. It was a different piano, and she was different, too. Like it was her, but also not her. There was this bird, and then the bird was dead, and it was me in the grave. I woke up with the taste of dirt in my mouth.”

“God. No wonder you freaked.”

Bill calls from upstairs. “Get moving, Dani. It’s after seven.”

“Shit,” Dani mutters. “Can I just, like, not go today?”

Daisy snorts. “You say that every morning.”

“I mean it every morning.”

“It’s Halloween. That’s gotta count for something.”

Dani rolls her eyes. “So? I doubt that old bitch Kennedy is bringing candy for all the kiddies today. And if she did, it would be poisoned.”

“Who?” Daisy asks.

“Kennedy. Every day is Halloween for her. I mean, the office used to be a fucking morgue.”

“You mean the principal’s office?”

Dani gives her a look that clearly says duh.

“The morgue was in the basement,” Daisy says. “And why would Julie Kennedy even be at the high school?”

Dani looks utterly confused for a moment. Her face goes blank after that, almost like someone wiped her expression away with an eraser. And then she’s back with yet another eye roll.

“Snyder. Kennedy. Same thing. You know who I mean.”

Daisy’s not at all sure why she would know that, since Snyder and Kennedy don’t sound anything alike. Plus, Dani had said bitch and she. Snyder is a guy. A royal jerk, and definitely male.

“Can’t believe you mixed up Dad’s girlfriend with Principal Snyder,” Daisy says. “Geez, how much did you drink last night? You know that stuff kills brain cells, don’t you?”

The sliding glass door in the kitchen thumps open, causing both girls to startle. They can’t see the door from the stairwell, but it’s instantly clear who it is.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice calls from the other room. “Bill? Dani? Daisy? Anyone home? I brought muffins.”

“Speak of the fucking devil,” Dani whispers. “Do you think she poisoned them?”

Three

BEN

Ben is late, and despite what he told Chase, he’s certain that Marybeth will be livid.

It’s seven thirty, fifteen minutes until the first bell, when he finally turns his rusted-out truck into Marybeth’s driveway. It’s the last house on the left, a two-story cottage with gingerbread-colored trim and a small front porch. He honks twice, expecting Marybeth to storm out immediately, ready to rip his head off. But they can still make it on time if she hustles.

The only movement, though, is a big orange cat that emerges from under the porch, its bushy tail twitching.

Ben’s head is pounding, his mouth is dry, and he’s exhausted. Chase tossed and moaned all night. The kid is prone to nightmares, but this was way beyond his typical bad dreams. He’d even talked in his sleep. Pretty loudly at times, too, but his speech was so slurred and sleep-drugged that Ben hadn’t been able to piece together what was troubling him.

The kid had been strange this morning, too. Ben guessed all twelve-year-olds were strange from time to time, but this was different. He acted like he had no memory of the night before, even though he’d definitely seen the start of the fight. In fact, he’d been about to get whacked hard before Ben stepped in and told him to get the hell out of there.

Ben honks again, even though he has half a mind to reverse the truck and drive right back to Chase’s school. Have a talk with the guidance counselor and make sure everything is okay on that end. But giving the school a reason to look into their home life seems unwise. It’s a blue-eyed wonder they aren’t poking around already. Best not to draw too much attention, at least not until he’s eighteen and can get them both out of the situation.

He shifts in the driver’s seat, pain shooting down his back and legs. That’s the other reason he hadn’t slept worth a damn, much more so than Chase’s tossing and turning across the small room. No matter how he tried, Ben had never found a comfortable position. It’s hard to doze off when you have to get up and piss a stream of blood every thirty minutes or so.

Hard to sleep when you’re filled with rage, too.

He honks the horn a third time. Where the hell is she? After another minute, Ben groans and pulls himself out of the truck. Football practice is going to be a bitch this afternoon.

He raps on the door three times with his fist. Pauses. Raps three more.

“Babe?” he yells to the closed door. “Hey, MB, open up. You overslept. We’re gonna be late.”

Bam, bam, bam. He bangs the side of his fist against the door.

“Shit, Marybeth. Come on.” Ben presses his face against the cool wooden door for a moment. Then he steps back and peers through the curtain into the dark, still living room. Empty.

She’s either comatose or she took off without him. Walked, maybe, or called one of her friends for a ride.

Ben has no problem imagining the scene ten minutes ago, or whenever it was that she decided she’d waited long enough, damn it. He can see her angry expression, her long blonde hair catching the breeze as she slams the door behind her.

He steps off the porch, ignoring another wave of pain, and shuffles back through the leaves. The orange tabby appears again, seemingly out of nowhere, and jumps onto the railing of the porch like it owns the place. Watching him with its unblinking amber eyes. Was it a stray? Or had MB gotten a cat without bothering to mention it? It’s the kind of thing you’d think she might tell him, since she knows he’s allergic.

“Hell with her, then.” He gets back into the truck and slams the door. Flakes of rust drift from overhead into his lap, but he hardly notices. If Marybeth wants to get good and pissed at him, fine. She doesn’t know what his night and morning have been like. Not MB Jenkins, who lives in a cozy-ass cottage with a man who never even raises his voice to the Princess and certainly, oh yes, you can bet your ass, would never raise a hand no matter how much spare the rod and spoil the child he might spew to others.

His back twinges again. One more point on his old man’s scorecard. That kick had been hard, fast, and unexpected, but at least Ben had been the one to take it instead of Chase.

His old man, though? Oh, he had gotten it, too. You can bet your ass on that one, as well.

Ben smiles slightly at the memory.

I might be walking around with a bruised kidney, pissing blood by the buckets, but you’re waking up with two black eyes and a nose caked with dried blood. Cheers, old man!

He’ll be eighteen in January and he’ll graduate in May. Then he’ll get a job at the factory—they’re usually hiring, and his friend Luke can put in a good word. As soon as he has a steady paycheck coming in, he’ll move out and take Chase with him. No way is he leaving the kid behind. Their old man sure as hell won’t care. And their mother? She hasn’t done a damn thing to shield Chase, so she’ll just have to deal with it.

He feels his insides go cold at the mental image of his mom’s face. There was a time when his dreams of moving out included her, too. He would be the hero. He would save them all. But somewhere along the way, he’d realized Aileen Rey didn’t want to be saved. Ben didn’t know if she still loved the son of a bitch, but she had cowered too long to imagine anything else.

He don’t mean nothin’ by it, Benjy. Just brought up that way. We have to love him no matter how he acts. The Good Book says to honor your mother and father. You don’t want to disappoint Jesus, do you?

As he drives, Ben blinks away the memories and his mother’s voice. He thinks about his brother. He thinks about Marybeth, and the anger he felt a moment ago slips away. He can’t stay mad long, not at her. And she can’t be that pissed about him being late, can she? He’ll make it up to her tonight at the bonfire down at Tower Farm.

Because Marybeth is a part of his plan, too. Or at least he hopes she’ll be.

Things are going to get better. They have to.

Four

TUCKER

“Gone,” Tucker Vance says into the phone. “As in not here. Both the body and the vehicle.”

The parking lot of the Pinewood Motel, conveniently located next to the Pinewood Diner, is empty this morning, except for the two patrol cars and two other vehicles near the back. One of those belongs to the dayshift waitress, and the other belongs to the short-order cook who is called in when Neil Prescott, the owner, is sick or just needs a day off. Today is one of those days, and that doesn’t surprise Tucker in the slightest. The guy found his first murder victim last night, and it wasn’t exactly a clean kill.

“Did you check with the coroner?” Sheriff Hoyt asks.

Haddonwood doesn’t have a coroner, as Hoyt well knows. The guy who owns the funeral home, Hank Andrews, generally handles the work, unless there’s some reason to get the county or the state involved.

“I called Hank. He didn’t pick up the body. Hank did exactly what you told us to do—leave her until your team could get here. I sealed off the room and also the one next to it. The tape is still there, but the body and the car are both gone. And the room has been wiped clean.”

There’s a short pause, and then Sheriff Hoyt says, “You sure the woman was dead? Her car’s gone. Maybe she decided to just drive home.”

Tucker can hear the amusement in Hoyt’s voice. The man is one of his least favorite people in the world, and the fact that the son of a bitch was recently reelected significantly lowered Tucker’s opinion of the collective intelligence of the good people of Viola County.

“She was dead. You got the pictures I sent over, right? I’d think those would be graphic enough to elevate this to priority one.”

“Yeah, I got ’em.” Sheriff Hoyt pauses to blow his nose so loudly that Tucker can almost feel the blast through the phone. “And you got my email, right? Two officers have got this flu that’s going around, plus another guy’s out on training. The county commissioner has my balls in a vise with this latest budget cut, so I didn’t replace the deputy who quit last month. Like I said, the soonest we coulda got someone over there was this afternoon. Not my fault if you let the body get away in the meantime. Maybe you oughta call Craven back from vacation, son. Although, let’s be fair. He prob’ly woulda lost the body, too.” The sheriff laughs and then calls out to someone in the office. “Hey, Peterson, might wanna give the CDC a call and let ’em know we got a Walkin’ Dead situation over in Haddonwood.”

Tucker is about to hang up when Hoyt adds, “Seriously, though, you ever stopped to think about the possibility that somebody is playing a trick on you? Sounds like the kind of thing someone might do right around Halloween, especially with Craven out of town.”

“It wasn’t a trick.” Tucker cuts the call and shoves the phone back into his pocket. He looks again at the row of doors, a dozen in all. Pinewood is the only motel in town, and most of the married couples in Haddonwood rented a room here on at least a few occasions while they were dating. Quite a few of them still visit from time to time, usually with someone other than their spouses. Neil Prescott’s financial security lies in his talent for keeping secrets, and also in the fact that he makes a damn good cheeseburger next door at the diner.

Two of the twelve doors were blocked off with yellow police tape when Tucker pulled away last night, long after the neon sign had sputtered to life, painting the night sky around it a dull red. He remembered thinking that it looked quite a bit like a certain iconic movie set.

“So Hoyt’s guys didn’t take her?” Marty asks.

Tucker bites back a sarcastic response. Marty had undoubtedly heard Hoyt’s side of the conversation since, like many people with hearing loss, Hoyt seems to think everyone else is half deaf as well. Even if Marty hadn’t heard the sheriff yucking it up, he’d have been able to figure out that much based on Tucker’s side of the conversation alone. But Tucker has learned the hard way never to overestimate Marty’s cognitive skills.

“That’s right,” Tucker says. “Hoyt thinks maybe it’s a prank.”

“Well, it does sound like the kind of thing someone might do right around Halloween, especially with the chief out of town.”

“Mm-hmm. Funny, that’s exactly what Hoyt just said. Except you and Hoyt weren’t here yesterday. You didn’t kneel down on a blood-soaked bathroom floor to check the woman’s pulse or try to get a rough count of the stab wounds. You didn’t have to rummage around in there with the stench of blood while looking for identification—”

“Hoyt don’t like us digging around.”

“For identification,” Tucker continues, “so we could notify next of kin. I know how to look for evidence without disturbing a crime scene, Marty. And we both know Chief Craven would have looked for ID, no matter what Hoyt says.”

“Probably. But Tuck…there’s nothing here. Maybe Neil decided to punk you while Craven’s gone. Or it coulda been somebody else. Anyone in town got a reason to be mad at you?”

“It wasn’t Neil.”

Tucker’s positive on that point. He’d sidestepped a pool of the man’s vomit outside the door of Room 1 yesterday. Neil’s not that good of an actor, and anyway, he’s not going to be inclined to piss off any member of the police force since he occasionally needs their help with patrons who get rowdy or whose stay extends beyond their credit card limit.

The only two people Tucker can think of who might have that sort of grudge against him are Marty himself, who wasn’t at all happy with the fact that even though he has eight years seniority, it was Tucker that Craven left in charge. And then there’s Ralph Rey, who’s still pissed about the drunk-and-disorderly charge earlier this year and the not-so-subtle threat from Tucker that he’d be spending more than a single night in the drunk tank if he didn’t stop using his wife (and kids, quite possibly) as punching bags.

But Marty is too stupid to set up anything this elaborate, and Ralph Rey can barely stay sober long enough to tie his shoes. Plus, there’s no way either of them has the resources to rent a classic car, let alone locate a cadaver and a gallon or so of blood, hire a cleanup crew, and so on.

“How about I drive over to Neil’s place and take his statement?” Marty asks. “Or did you do that last night?”

Tucker ignores Marty and walks around the side of the motel. He’s not even sure what he’s looking for at this point. Tire treads, maybe. Footprints. Blood. But there’s nothing. Someone even cleaned the spot where Neil upchucked.

The neon sign buzzes again. Tucker looks up, startled. The sign is still lit, which means the sensor must be broken. Or maybe the thing is too old to even have a sensor, and Neil just forgot to flip the switch last night. The effect is less eerie than it was the night before, but now he can see the Grimshaw house looming in the distance. And yes, the house sits on a much higher hill than the one in the movie, but it’s still one more creepy similarity. One more thing to suggest that they’re dealing with a copycat killer.

Tucker jogs to the far side of the parking lot and pulls out his phone to snap a few shots that include all three—the motel, the sign, and the Grimshaw house. Just as he’s about to take the last picture, a crow lands atop the sign, staring down at him. You’d think the sporadic buzz would scare it off, but it’s a single-minded creature, following him with eyes that look almost white in the glare of the morning sun.

“What you doin’?” Marty asks.

“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing, Marty? Taking pictures. It’s called documentation. Supporting evidence. You might want to try including it in your reports sometime.”

“You really gonna write this up? There’s nothing here, Tuck.”

“Then that means two crimes were committed. A murder, and a cover-up. So yeah, I’ll be writing a report.”

“Your call, I guess. You want me to interview Neil?”

“No, I’ll do it. Why don’t you clock out for a while? I’ll need you on traffic duty once the kids start hitting the streets around dark.”

Marty, who actually prefers traffic duty to anything less mundane, pulls away, churning up a cloud of dust and gravel in his wake. Tucker opens the door of his car, about to follow suit, when he hears another buzz from the hotel sign, accompanied by a loud caw.

He turns just in time to see the crow swooping down toward his head, claws extended.

Five

DAISY

Daisy steps through the back door into the brilliant autumn morning. The air is fresh and ripe with the harvest of the field that borders their backyard. This is one of Daisy’s favorite things about living in this house. From the front porch of the Gray residence, she can clearly see the tops of the buildings on Main Street. From the deck, however, there’s nothing but Teddy Martin’s ten acres of rolling farmland.

This year, Teddy is growing corn, Daisy’s favorite. She loves listening to the wind as it slips through the tightly plotted stalks. On cool nights in the autumn, she cracks open her window so that she can fall asleep to the whispers of the corn. Soybeans will come next spring.

Soybeans put nitrogen in the soil, Teddy once told her. Corn uses nitrogen. That’s why we rotate. But soybeans don’t have the same majesty as the corn stalks that tower over her head. Soybeans don’t whisper in the wind. And they do nothing to block the one thing she doesn’t like about their backyard—the view of the Grimshaw house off in the distance.

“Hey, derp,” Dani says from behind her. “I figured you’d already be in the car.”

Apparently, Dani had found time to do her hair. It falls around her shoulders in lustrous light-brown waves, like she just walked out of a frickin’ Pantene commercial. As usual, she’s carrying nothing but a small purse. No books at all. Dani views homework as cruel and unusual punishment. If an assignment can’t be completed in class or using Wikipedia, the odds are exceptionally good that it won’t be completed at all.

Daisy looks at their mother’s old car—a beat-up (thanks to Dani) Kia Sorento—and shakes her head. “Like I told you before, I have that interview with Martha Yarn for the paper, so they’re letting me out of my first two classes. And it’s a beautiful day. I don’t mind walking.”

“It has to be at least two miles from her house to the school.”

It’s actually more like two and a half, but Daisy just shrugs. “The weather will turn shitty soon enough, and I’ll have to risk my life every day with you. I’m happy for the chance to walk.”

“Suit yourself. But be careful.” She drops her tone to a conspiratorial whisper. “I hear Miss Martha lures children inside that house and bakes them into pies.”

“First, if I’m a child, then so are you. And second, Martha Yarn isn’t a witch.”

“Oh, she’s a witch, Daisy. Everyone knows it.”

This is actually a fair point. While most people in Haddonwood probably wouldn’t go so far as to actually call the town’s oldest resident a witch, Martha Yarn is widely believed to have a healthy dose of second sight. She almost always has a pie or cake baked and waiting when news reaches her that someone in the town has died, even in the cases where the death was sudden and unexpected. A skeptic might argue that this can be chalked up to the fact that Miss Martha is a prolific baker who could easily have already had those pies cooling on the stove. But does that explain why she always has the baked goods already wrapped in foil with a condolence card for the grieving family taped to the top? Back in the era of the party line phone, the standard explanation was that Martha Yarn was a snoop who listened in on calls not intended for her. But party lines have been a thing of the past for decades, and she still has that uncanny knack for knowing when Death pays a visit to Haddonwood. When Daisy’s mom died, they’d barely been home from the hospital ten minutes before the mailman pulled up with their daily allotment of bills and junk mail, along with two freshly baked pies he’d agreed to deliver.

But Martha Yarn isn’t just the local harbinger of death. She’s also the person you turn to if you need to find a lost wedding ring or a missing pet. Occasionally, she doesn’t have the answer, and far more frequently, she doesn’t have the answer you’re hoping to get. But there are plenty of tales where she’s met someone at the door with a smile and instructions to look under the car seat, before the person even gets the question out. And the ring is under the car seat, of course.

“Fine,” Daisy says. “But if she’s a witch, she’s a good witch. She’s one of the sweetest old ladies I know.”

“Well, of course she is. You have to be sweet to lure in unsuspecting children and bake them into pies. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs, okay? Maybe I’ll come looking for you.”

Dani grins and then skips down the three steps to the gravel path that leads to the driveway. She disappears into the vehicle, starts the engine, and guns the Sorento backward like a rocket, not even bothering to check the rearview mirror.

The back door opens once again. Her father steps out, checks to be sure it’s locked, and then gives her an extra-long hug. “There’s money under the coffeepot. The one place I know Dani will never find it.”

She kisses him on the cheek. “You already gave us money, Dad.”

“Yeah, but Dani will probably blow through it. She doesn’t really plan things out, and if I left it up to her, you guys would go hungry the entire time I’m gone… But, hey, that’s what makes her Dani, right? The name of the hotel is on…”

“The fridge,” Daisy said.

“And you’ll call my cell…”

“If we need anything. Got it.”

He sighs. “I worry about you girls. That’s all. Give a dad a break.”

“We live next door to a freaking cop.” Daisy smiles as a brief vision of Tucker floats through her mind.

“And he’ll let me know if y’all get too crazy.”

She laughs. “As if.”

“He will be checking on the two of you.”

And now she’s very glad that Dani has already left, sparing her from listening to the inevitable snide comments about Tucker checking on her in front of their dad.

“We’ll be good. Have fun, okay?”

He chuckles, and she almost laughs herself. A banker’s convention sounds like the most boring thing in the world.

“Sure…tons of fun. I hope FrightFest goes well. Oh, I asked Julie to check in on y’all, too.”

“Really?”

“Hey, you’re lucky she’s not staying over. If it were just Dani, she definitely would be.”

“Oh, Dani would love that.”

“Be nice.” With another peck on the cheek, Bill Gray ambles off the back porch toward the garage, letting himself in through a narrow door on the side. A moment later, just as she’s coming off the deck, the garage door opens, and his SUV emerges. He honks the horn, two short beeps, and backs out onto Elm.

Daisy turns her face to the sky, enjoying the mix of warmth from the sun and the slight chill of the wind. It’s a gorgeous day. As she reaches the sidewalk in front of her house, her dad’s taillights blink twice at the stop sign, turn left, and disappear.

Her happy mood evaporates in an instant, replaced by an iron fist of fear. Not about being left alone for a few days. This isn’t the first time she and Dani have been on their own. She knows the drill.

No, it’s more the fear that she is totally alone. Stranded, in a world with no light. No hope. Her father and Dani have been snatched away by the same vengeful, uncaring force that took her mother. It’s her fault, too, and if she could only get out of this pitch-black room, out of these restraints, she would find a way to join them. A way to stop the pain.

She stands stock-still, arms rigid at her side. Unable to move. Unable to breathe.

Then the spell breaks, ending as suddenly as it began. She’s once again on the sidewalk. She breathes deeply, slowly, until her pulse returns to a normal pace.

Everything is fine. It’s a bright, glorious morning in Haddonwood. Autumn, her favorite time of year. Her father will be back in a few days. Dani is on her way to class, perfectly safe, although Daisy’s less certain of the safety of any pedestrians who might be between here and the high school.

And it’s Halloween. She’s been looking forward to this day for weeks. Tucker will be coming to the FrightFest. And if she’s really lucky, maybe he’ll stop by and help her decide on a few more clips to add to the scream reel.

It’s going to be a good day.

Her mother is still gone of course. Nothing can change that.

But life goes on.

Six

RAUM

Zophiel had been in Haddonwood. Raum could feel her. Snooping. Prying. Poking around in the bushes. Rummaging through his closets, so to speak. Looking for chinks in his armor. Glitches. Gaffes. Any excuse to tighten the old thumbscrews. She’d probably flown in before daybreak to make her rounds, planning to slip away while he was still resting.

It isn’t the first time she’s come sniffing about, of course, and he doubts it will be the last. But in the past, Raum never had any problems keeping things in equilibrium after her little surveillance trips.

Today feels different. Everything is just a bit off now, like she crapped in his waterways and left behind a nasty case of mental typhoid. Nothing he can’t handle, but it’s annoying. Discourteous. Rude.

And yes, he knows she means well. They always do. He’s read a lot of history in his time. Observed a fair bit, too, albeit through a glass darkly, as they say. All the busybodies of the world, all those who would curtail your freedom, your autonomy—they always mean well, don’t they? When Maggie Yarrow was a girl, her mother called those arbiters of morality and the greater good Mrs. Grundys. The Mrs. Grundys come in many stripes, but the one commonality is that they all have some grand cause, some noble purpose. They always believe they have the answers. They always believe they are on the side of the angels. Or rather, on the side of the better angels. Because there are angels of many stripes, too.

And there, of course, is the very crux of the matter. How do you define better? Better for whom? Because better for some is easy. Better for most is tough. Better for all…is that even possible?

What baffles him most is how the busybodies can be so damned certain that their way is the right way, the virtuous way, the One and Only True Way. No shades of gray at all. No complexity. Right and wrong, good and bad, clearly demarcated by two solid yellow lines running straight down the middle of the road.

But she’s gone. Or at least, he’s fairly certain she is. And even though she left him with a bit of a mess to clean up, clean it up he will, because clean it up he must.

She can fly away.

He fucking lives here.

CHAPTER THREE

* * *

One

DAISY

Daisy waits a moment and then knocks again. Ninety-three-year-old bodies can take a while to get to the door.

The bell is clearly broken. She couldn’t hear even the slightest sound when she pushed it. Apparently, neither could the big orange cat snoozing in the wicker rocking chair on the far side of the porch. It didn’t even flick its tail in annoyance when Daisy knocked.

She pounds on the door a third time, a bit harder now, beginning to worry both about the possibly comatose cat and Miss Martha. While it’s true that ninety-three-year-old bodies often move slowly, it’s also true that they frequently stop working in the middle of the night.

But then the doorknob turns. Martha Yarn gives her a radiant smile that lights up her pale-blue eyes and sets in motion the fine lattice of wrinkles on her cheeks.

“Daisy Gray. Come in, come in.”

Daisy wipes her feet on the welcome mat and steps inside. The house smells like gingerbread. She stifles a laugh, remembering Dani’s comment about leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

It’s been a while since she smelled anything this good. Her father cooks, but the only baking that has occurred in the Gray house since her mother died is the occasional batch of chocolate chip cookies, and usually half the dough gets eaten before the cookies ever hit the oven. By Dani, mostly, when she’s on one of her sporadic binges.

Martha laughs when she sees Daisy sniffing the air. “Let’s have our chat in the kitchen, shall we? I baked your favorite ginger cookies, and there’s a fresh pot of coffee. I figured you could probably use a second cup with that math test coming up later.”

“That would be…great,” Daisy says, wondering how Martha knew about the math test. She’s pretty sure she didn’t mention it when she called to ask about doing the interview. In fact, she wouldn’t even have known about it herself, since the test was originally scheduled for last week. The class had gotten a short reprieve because the teacher was out with the flu.

For that matter, how did Miss Martha know that this would be Daisy’s second cup of coffee? Or that ginger cookies were her absolute favorites?

Leave a trail of breadcrumbs…

Daisy takes a seat at the table. An aluminum pie tin of cookies sits in the center of the table, on top of a large Ziploc bag. The kitchen is decorated in muted shades of green and yellow, from the olive-green wall-mounted phone, complete with coiled cord, to the yellow Formica countertops. The only splash of vivid color in the room is the collection of alphabet and number magnets on the lower half of the fridge. Even these are faded, and Daisy wonders how many years it’s been since they were moved. Most of the letters are scattered randomly, but near the middle, five magnets are clustered together to form a single word: BAKER.

That seems a little ominous after Dani’s joke. But it only takes one bite of the ginger cookie for Daisy to decide the word is simply Martha’s well-earned badge of honor. There are far worse ways to go than being fattened up with these cookies and baked into a pie.

“You’re right on time,” Martha says as she pours the coffee. “I’m not surprised in the slightest, of course. Your grandmother, Elizabeth, God rest her soul, was never late when I taught her. Not even once.”

“You taught my grandmother?” The question is more idle curiosity than anything else. Daisy has seen pictures of her grandparents, and even heard a few stories. But all four of them died before she and Dani were born, so she doesn’t have any real emotional attachment to their memory.

“I most certainly did,” Martha says. “Class of 1963. Her face has been gone for a while, though. And I taught both of your parents, of course, in 1984 and 1986. When we’re done here, you can see them on my Wall of Fame, if you’d like.”

Daisy nods, although several things in that sentence make no sense to her at all. But she guesses you’re entitled to a few oddball comments when you’re ninety-three.

“Oh, I can’t believe I forgot!” Daisy says. “Happy birthday.”

“Why thank you, dear.” Martha puts two cups of coffee on the table. Not mugs like the ones at Daisy’s house, but china cups with dainty handles that don’t look dishwasher safe. “It’s a bittersweet day, really,” the woman continues, “since it will be my last, but…most people don’t get ninety-three birthdays, so you won’t catch me complaining. Although now I really do wonder how many of them were real…”

The revelation about Miss Martha’s health takes Daisy by surprise. “I didn’t know you were ill.”

“Oh, I’m not! That’s another thing to be thankful for, isn’t it? I’m a bit creaky in the joints when I get up in the mornings, but otherwise, I’m fit as a fiddle. And my arthritis is so much better now. I can even crochet again.” She holds her hands up for Daisy to inspect. “Now what did you want to ask for this paper of yours?”

Daisy is now more confused than ever, but she pulls her notebook and a pen from her backpack. She’s put a good deal of work into these questions, which range from what life was like when Martha was a girl to her experiences teaching during the years where children practiced ducking under their desks to protect themselves from the prospect of nuclear annihilation. But as they talk, Daisy grows increasingly worried that Martha Yarn might have had a stroke recently.

“You know, I’m really not sure about that,” Martha says when Daisy asks where she went to college. “I’m beginning to think that part of my life wasn’t given very much thought. I do think I went to college—and really, I must have in order to have gotten my teaching position, right?”

“So…you don’t remember what college you attended?”

“It was a state school, and I was a B student,” Martha says immediately. But she doesn’t offer a name and can’t even dredge up a college mascot when Daisy asks, so she moves on to the next question.

The most interesting part of the interview for Daisy is when Martha talks about how much Haddonwood’s downtown area has changed over the years, especially when she begins reminiscing about the Hart. “I was so sad they closed down. When I was younger, we’d go almost every week. But then your cable and your Netflixes came along, and I guess that’s good, because old ladies like me find it a lot easier to watch movies at home. It’s just not the same, though. When you watched at the theater, everything seemed so much richer because it was shared. You could feel everyone else’s emotions…the way everyone sniffled when that boy had to kill Old Yeller, and the way everyone jumped when the knife came through the shower curtain.”

“I know!” Daisy says. “That’s exactly what I said to my sister a few months ago. Did you really see Psycho at the Hart?”

Martha smiles. “I saw everything there.”

“You know it’s reopening, right? The renovation is almost complete. We’re doing a FrightFest tonight as sort of a sneak preview. It starts at eight. You should come!”

“Oh, I wish I could, sweetie. I’d love to see the place again. But I’m afraid that will be too late for me.”

Daisy hadn’t considered the fact that bedtime probably comes early when you’re ninety-three. So she nods sympathetically and scans back through her list of questions to see if she missed anything.

“I guess that’s it,” she says. “Thank you for making the time to talk with me.”

“Oh, no! Thank you. I’ve enjoyed our little chat. And these are for you to take home.” Martha slips the pie plate into the plastic bag.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I have another batch all ready to pop into the oven before my other guests arrive this afternoon. You should finish off your coffee, though. We need to have you out that door by 8:47 if you’re going to catch your ride.”

Daisy frowns. “I’m not expecting a ride. It’s such a nice day that I was going to walk back.”

“Not if we have you out the door by 8:47.” A mischievous twinkle lights up Martha’s blue eyes for a moment but quickly fades as she leans in toward Daisy. “None of us have as much time left as we might think, Daisy Gray. I know a lot more about our Maker than I used to, and I’ll just say that you have to find happiness where you can in this world. If you love that young man, don’t let your chance slip away.”

Martha emphasizes this last point by squeezing Daisy’s arm. She leaves her hand there for a moment, and her eyes grow wide. Then she tucks her hands back into her lap. “Oh my. That…wasn’t in my visions at all. Are you the only one?”

“The only one what?”

The old woman gives Daisy a look like that’s a silly question.

“Do you see the boy, too? With the noose?” She smiles sadly at Daisy’s look of alarm. “Oh, I guess not, then. Never mind. But come…let me show you those photographs I mentioned on your way out.”

Daisy shoves her notebook back into her bag and gets up to follow Martha. The magnets on the fridge catch her eye again as she turns to go. After a moment, she realizes why. Some of the letters have moved. The B in BAKER is now on the floor. In its place is the letter M, changing the word to MAKER.

The only logical conclusion is that she read it wrong the first time. Maybe she saw the B on the floor and her mind just changed the words around. Martha is the only other person in the house, and she hasn’t been anywhere near the fridge.

It’s the only explanation that makes sense.

And yet the explanation feels wrong. She stares at the fridge, mentally daring the letters to move.

Which is stupid, but the creepy letters on the fridge thing is a pretty standard paranormal trope. Bag of Bones, Dead Like Me, and she’s pretty sure there were a few others, too. If you’re watching a scary movie and there are magnets on the fridge, it’s a safe bet that at some point, they’re going to start moving.

“Daisy?” Martha calls out from the other room. “Are you coming, dear?”

She gives the magnets another wary glance, then follows Martha into the bedroom. The old woman positively beams as she surveys row after row of brightly colored frames that occupy the upper half of the room’s walls. Those frames make Daisy uneasy for a moment, and she’s not sure why until she remembers the colored alphabet magnets.

Damn it, she thinks, the word was BAKER.

“I keep these pictures in here so I can see their smiling faces each morning when I wake up. Of course, most of the faces aren’t actually there anymore, but I remember them well enough. Let me see…1963.” She scans down one row and then taps the glass inside one of the frames. “Here we go. Your grandmother is right there, near the end of the second row. The girl with the blonde braids.”

For a moment, Daisy can’t breathe. She can’t pick out any features, any faces, aside from those of the woman, a much younger version of Miss Martha, who is standing behind a sign:

Mrs. Yarn’s Fifth Grade

1963–64

Haddonwood Elementary

All of the children look like they are wrapped from head to toe in a tight rubber sheet. Like mummies. Two dozen or so faceless, formless masses arranged in three rows. But then their features begin to emerge, a few children at a time. First her grandmother comes into focus, and then the children around her. It only takes about three seconds, but the wait seems interminable. And even after the faces are visible, the figures seem to flicker.

“I know,” Miss Martha says with a sympathetic smile. “The pictures never used to be like this. It’s a sign we’re near the end, maybe. Although, I really don’t think this happened the other times. This feels…new. Anyway, your parents are right over here.” She taps two photos for the fifth-grade classes of 1984 and 1986.

This time, a few faces are visible from the very beginning. Her dad. MB’s dad. A younger Eddie Furlong, her biology teacher. But she’s seen all of them recently, and in the case of her dad and MB’s father, she’s seen pictures of them as kids. There’s a framed photograph of MB and her dad in the hallway of their house, because he thinks they looked so much alike as little kids, although Daisy honestly doesn’t think the resemblance is all that striking.

Daisy moves on to the picture with her mom. It takes a fraction of a second longer, and then the image is fully…developed? That’s the only word that Daisy can think of to describe the effect. It’s like those old Polaroid pictures she’s seen in movies.

And just like the older photograph, the one with her grandmother, these seem to flicker in and out. It’s kind of like when her computer monitor had a wonky cable. The whole thing makes her head hurt.

“I…I need to go,” she says.

“Oh my, you’re right. Would you look at the time?”

Daisy hurries back into the kitchen to grab her things, determined to ignore the letters on the refrigerator. But of course she can’t resist.

The letters don’t say MAKER anymore.

They’ve rearranged into a new pattern. Most are positioned around the edges of the fridge now, but the cluster in the center reads OLD TIME R0CK AN. As she watches, most of the letters crash to the floor. Only four remain, and they move to the center to form the word RAUM.

She takes a step back and bumps into Martha, who is standing directly behind her. “Now what on earth does that even mean?” the old woman asks in a petulant voice. “RAUM. That’s not a word. Unless it’s one of those texting words you kids use, like LOL.”

Daisy shakes her head. “No, ma’am. You saw them, though, right? You saw the letters move?”

“Well, of course I did. I’m old, but I’m not blind. Would you be a dear and pick up those infernal letters before you go, so that I don’t slip on them? That would sure mess up my plans for the day. Don’t worry about putting them back on the fridge, though. I won’t be needing them anymore, so just dump them in the trash. Unless you want them?”

“No, thank you.”

What Daisy really wants to do is get the hell out of this house. She would sooner grab an angry rattlesnake than touch those letters. But Jenny Gray’s ghost would definitely haunt her—or at the very least, haunt her conscience—if she made a ninety-three-year-old woman clean up this mess by herself. “Do you have a broom and dustpan?”

When she’s finished scooping the letters up, she dumps them into the trash, half expecting the damn things to jump back out. But they just lie there, inanimate, among the coffee grounds and other debris.

Martha hands her the plate of cookies and walks her to the front door. “You be careful, okay, Daisy? And don’t forget what I told you.”

Daisy isn’t sure exactly what she means, since the old woman told her a lot of things over the past forty-five minutes, some of which didn’t make much sense. But she doesn’t ask for clarification. There’s so much adrenaline coursing through her system that she can barely keep from shoving through the door and barreling down the sidewalk at full speed.

She manages to restrain herself, however.

“Yes, Miss Martha. Thanks for the cookies.”

Two

TUCKER

Tucker digs around in the console, hunting for the stack of fast-food napkins he keeps stashed there. He didn’t even realize he was bleeding until he was half a mile away from the Pinewood.

That was one crazy fucking bird.

Blood trickles down the side of his face, which means it’s going to be on his collar, and this is his last clean shirt. He’s just thinking that he should pull off the road and actually look for the damn napkins—how many wrecks are caused by this kind of distracted driving?—when his fingers brush against the thin paper beneath the phone charger.

His cruiser is already half a block past the girl before he realizes it’s Daisy Gray. She’s leaning against a light post holding a plate of something, and she looks… Tucker can’t really define that look, but it worries him. So he backs the car up and rolls down the window.

“Always thought it would be Dani I’d have to haul in for truancy.” He gives her a grin. “Need a ride?”

Now that he’s closer, he sees the trace of fear in her eyes and wishes he’d kept driving. Is she on to him? Does she think he’s a creeper for being interested in a girl still in high school? Maybe he needs to dial it back?

But then her fear gives way to relief. Daisy steps forward and opens the car door, glancing nervously back down the block before getting in. Tucker looks in the rearview mirror and sees Martha Yarn’s screen door closing. The sound seems to have startled the cat sleeping on her porch. It jumps down from the rocker, arches its back, then takes off like a bullet to hide beneath the house.

“Did you and Miss Martha have this arranged?” Daisy asks. “Like, you saw her earlier this morning and she…Oh my God, Tucker! You’re bleeding. What happened?”

“Long story that ended with a kamikaze crow. I’ve had a hell of a morning.”

“That makes two of us,” Daisy says, glancing again toward Martha Yarn’s house.

“So…am I taking you to school or back to your place?”

“My place first so that I can disinfect and bandage that cut.” Her face grows red. “I mean, unless you were planning to go to your house or back to the station to do that, in which case…”

“No,” Tucker says quickly. “I don’t think I have disinfectant at home, and that would save me a trip to the office. Plus, if those cookies were baked by Miss Martha, I’m going to expect at least two as payment for this taxi service.”

“You might want to test them for LSD first.”

“Martha Yarn? She’s in her nineties.” He laughs and then gives her a confused look. “Wait…you’re serious?”

“Well, not about the LSD. At least, I don’t think so. But there is some truly weird shit going on in this town.”

He’d been thinking the same thing only a few moments ago. It’s both troubling and reassuring to hear her echo those thoughts.

“Such as…?” He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at her. Her eyes are narrowed in concentration, like she’s weighing her options. Trying to decide what to tell him. Whether to tell him the truth. He doesn’t like that, because it probably means she’s thinking of him more as an adult or an authority figure—both true, says that annoying voice in his head—than as a friend.

Finally, she smiles at him, a smile that lights up her dark-green eyes, despite the underlying current of worry. “I have an hour before I’m due at school. If you can take a break, I’ll make coffee, and we can swap stories about our mornings over delicious-but-possibly-acid-laced cookies. After I patch up your head, that is. But first, I need to check something.” She pulls out her phone and says, “Call Dad.”

The phone obeys, but her father doesn’t answer. So she sends a text, but that doesn’t seem to be getting through either.

“He’s heading to Atlanta, right?” Tucker asks when he notices her frown. “I don’t know what plan you guys are on, but coverage is horrible along some stretches of I-40.”

She nods but is clearly still thinking about it, because she doesn’t say anything else until they arrive home. He parks the car in his own driveway—no need to give nosy neighbors extra cause for speculation—and then they walk next door to her place.

Five minutes later, when his forehead is patched and the coffee brewed, Daisy slides the plate of cookies across the kitchen table. “Okay. Story time.”

“You first. I have cookies to eat.”

“All right.” Daisy pulls in a deep breath. “I was at Miss Martha’s to interview her for the school paper. Today is her ninety-third birthday, and it’s one of those human-interest stories that Mrs. Farmer pushes us to do because they’re the kind of heartwarming thing that all high school students are into.” Her tone is so sarcastic that he laughs.

“I was fine with it, though,” she continues. “Anything after eighty is a milestone, and I like Miss Martha. But as soon as I get there, she starts making a bunch of really strange comments—”

“Well, that’s par for the course with Martha Yarn, from everything I’ve heard.”

“This was weird even for her, though. The stuff about this being her last birthday I sort of shrugged off.”

“Because she’s ninety-three?”

“Yeah. Also because she’s always had that knack…” Daisy trails off, and he suspects she’s thinking about when her mom died. “But there were a lot of questions she answered oddly. Weird memory lapses, too. I’m a little concerned she might have had a stroke, even though she insisted she’s perfectly healthy.”

“Does she use…Doctor…” Tucker stops. The local doctor’s name is on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t find it. “Damn, what’s his name?”

Daisy opens her mouth to answer, but she draws a blank, too. They just stare at each other for a moment, and then she laughs. “Whoa. Apparently, Martha’s memory lapse thing is contagious.”

He glances down at the cookie in his hand, now actually wondering if it isn’t laced with something. “Dr. Loomis,” he says when the name finally comes to him. “That’s right. Do you know if she’s his patient? Or does she see someone in Viola City?”

“No clue,” Daisy says. “But Julie Kennedy might know. Miss Martha is a member of her church. I doubt she makes it to services all that often anymore, but I do know Julie checks in on her from time to time. She’s at the library this morning, so you might be able to catch up with her there. But, anyway, Martha acting weird was just the tip of the iceberg. She’s got these alphabet magnets on the bottom half of her fridge, and when I first arrived, I noticed that some of them spelled out the word BAKER.”

She continues, telling him how the letters kept changing into new words, once right in front of her eyes. “And yes, I know how crazy that sounds. It’s almost like the letters were responding to our thoughts. I don’t know what the word RAUM means, and I don’t believe Martha did either. But I was thinking about her baking when I came in, because the place smelled like gingerbread. I remember her mentioning something about meeting her Maker, too. Plus…my dad played a few bars of ‘Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll’ before he left for his convention this morning.”

“That’s why you tried to call him.”

“Yeah.” She pulls out her phone to check her messages. “And…still nothing.”

“Bill’s okay, Daisy. He’s only been gone a few hours.”

“I know. The thing with the song just has me rattled.”

“I’m sure. The whole thing is freaky. Didn’t something like that happen in—”

“Bag of Bones, yes. And several others. It’s a pretty standard trope. But there’s more. Martha wanted to show me pictures of the students she taught. There’s this whole wall of class photos in her bedroom, from back in the 1940s through when she retired. One of my grandmothers was in her class. Both of my parents. But all of their faces—really, all of the details—in those photos were sort of blurred.”

“Faded?”

“No. Blurred out. Like—”

“The Ring,” he says. “There was another one where that happened, too.”

“Yes, but this was more like… Did you ever see Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Not the old black-and-white one, but the one from the 1970s?”

He shakes his head. “I read the book, though. Pod people.”

“Right. The movie’s good. You should see if it’s streaming somewhere. Anyway, it was more like when the pod things in the movie start turning human. They’re this shapeless mass, and then they begin to look like the person they’ve taken over. After a moment, I was able to make out most of the faces in the images, but they still seemed to kind of flicker—not in and out of view, exactly, but more like when the refresh rate is wrong on a monitor.”

Tucker is silent, trying to think of some rational explanation. But he really can’t.

“If you’re trying to figure out how to respond,” Daisy says, “I’m pretty sure this is the part where you tell me there’s a good psychiatrist over in Viola City.”

Tucker snorts. “How about we hold off on any conclusions concerning our sanity until after you hear my story? Maybe we can find a place with group rates.” He stirs some sugar into his coffee, takes an experimental sip, and then adds a bit more. “It’s actually a relief to be able to talk this through with somebody. The chief is out of town, and…I’ll be honest, Marty is about as sharp as a sack of warm Jell-O. Anyway, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there was a murder at the Pinewood last night.”

She shakes her head, and he goes on. “The worst thing I’ve ever seen, Daisy. I mean, we don’t get many murders around here—only one actual murder since I’ve been on the force. But I have worked a couple suicides and some pretty grisly wrecks. And I’ve never seen this much blood.”

“Was it anyone we know?”

He shakes his head. “California tags. Antique car. Neil said she came in around ten, night before last. He was busy at the diner yesterday, didn’t even think about the fact that the woman never checked out until around dinner time. You know how the Pinewood is. Those rooms are hardly ever rented overnight except on the week…ends.”

Daisy grins. “You don’t have to look embarrassed, Tucker. I’m eighteen, not eight. Half the kids in the senior class have spent at least a few hours at the Pinewood.”

Tucker really wants to know if Daisy is in that half. He also really doesn’t want to know, so he goes on quickly. “Neil went in after closing up the diner to see if maybe she’d just left the key on the dresser. Her car was still there, but she could have taken off with someone else. When he gets there, he finds the light on in the bathroom. Someone had stabbed her repeatedly. In the shower.”

Daisy winces. “Let me guess. The car was a 1957 Ford Custom 300 Fordor.”

“It was a 1957 Ford, and it…had four doors, yes. How did you—”

“No. A Fordor. F-O-R-D-O-R. That’s the car from the movie Psycho. I know you’ve seen that one.”

“Yes,” he says, a little defensive at having his horror-film creds called into question. “Original and remake. I’m not a giant geek like you are—”

“You mean expert?”

“—who remembers the specific make and model of freakin’ cars, but I saw the similarities. I told Neil when I was at the scene, and later Marty, that it looked like we might have a copycat situation going on.”

“Do you have any leads?”

“Not a one. But here’s where things start getting weird. Sheriff Hoyt told me last night he wouldn’t be able to send forensics over until this afternoon. He’s got people out with this flu and a bunch of other excuses. So I cordoned off the room, and the one next to it, with police tape. This morning when I go back, there’s no body. No car. The tape is still in place, but that hotel room is fucking spotless. I checked with the county, and also with the funeral home. No one admits to taking the body.”

Daisy is silent for a moment, thinking. It’s one of the things Tucker has always liked about her. Even when she was a kid, she’d stop and think before she spoke, rather than rushing in to fill a silence.

“You don’t think this was someone punking you?”

“I don’t. Or rather, if it is someone punking me, they killed a woman in order to do it. She was dead. And human. A very dead human.”

“How did that happen?” she asks, pointing to his forehead.

It takes him a second. Reliving last night had almost erased the incident with the bird from his mind. “It’s unrelated,” he says, although part of him isn’t really sure that’s true. “I was with Marty, taking a few more pictures at the former crime scene, and this crazy bird swoops down from the hotel sign. A crow, I think?”

“Can I see the pictures? Or are they…evidence?” she adds when he hesitates.

“I can definitely show you the ones I took this morning. Maybe you can keep an eye out for the bird on the sign so I can haul his feathered ass in for assaulting an officer. But you probably shouldn’t scroll too far back. The ones from last night would give you nightmares.”

She slowly raises one exaggerated, sardonic eyebrow, and he laughs. He’s perfectly willing to admit that Daisy’s expertise far exceeds his own. There are quite a few films and an even greater number of books that he’d never have found if she hadn’t recommended them—and they range from subtle thrillers to full-scale hack-’em-ups. The girl doesn’t scare easily.

“Seriously, Tucker? I’ve spent the last week after school going through the film collection Trent Jackson inherited along with the Hart, trying to weed out the ones that are too scary for the festival. There were quite a few splatter classics in the mix, including Blood Feast, which was bloody disgusting. So…I think I’ll be okay.”

Tucker is tempted to tell her that it’s different when the blood and the bodies are real. He knows this from direct experience. But the words, even though they are very much true, seem a little condescending, especially given that Daisy is also no stranger to death. So he just pulls up the camera roll and pushes his phone toward her.

She scrolls through the images. The glare from the light above them reflects onto the screen from his angle, so he can’t see exactly what she’s looking at. He can, however, see the confusion growing on her face.

“Are the interior shots all from this morning?” she asks after she scans through a good thirty or forty frames.

“The first dozen or so before the exterior shots are. After that, it’s photos from last night. They’re pretty easy to distinguish.”

“But aside from the fact that it’s nighttime and the lights are all on, they really aren’t easy to distinguish from the ones you took today.” She pushes the phone back toward him and gives him a sad smile.

“I meant the body. And the…blood…” He stares down at the screen. The body, the blood, even the suitcase is missing. “But…Marty saw the pictures! I emailed them to Sheriff Hoyt. They thought maybe the body had been fake. That someone was punking me, like you said. But the pictures? Both of them saw those. The actual pictures from last night.”

He stops and runs one hand through his hair. “This phone hasn’t been out of my sight, Daisy. I have to keep it on the nightstand in case the office calls me out on an emergency. How could someone have changed out the images?”

“Maybe someone came in when you were in the shower?”

“The door was locked. It’s always locked. And even if someone found a way to get to my phone, it still doesn’t explain what happened at the Pinewood. I know what I saw. I’m not crazy.”

“Hey…” Daisy reaches forward and squeezes his hand. “You don’t have to convince me. I just saw photographs of pod people and self-animated fridge magnets. I believe you, okay?”

Tucker looks up from the phone and meets her eyes. She’s telling the truth. And…

She pulls her hand away from his arm and looks down at the table, but it’s a split second too late. Tucker saw something else in her eyes. Something he didn’t expect. Something that makes his breath catch in his throat.

Daisy Gray is in love with him.

When did that happen?

This isn’t something he merely suspects. It is as clear as day, an unmistakable fact.

And what amazes Tucker most is that this fact—this indisputable, universe-shattering fact—doesn’t worry him nearly as much as he feels it should. He should be thinking about their age difference and what he knows people will say, but those thoughts barely even register. He refuses to let in any doubts or any thoughts suggesting that what he saw in her eyes is a bad thing.

Because it’s not.

In fact, Tucker thinks it may be the only truly good thing that’s happened to him in a very, very long time.

Three

ZOPHIEL

Zophiel jumps sideways to the safety of the grass, arching her tawny back and hissing at the car that swerved onto the sidewalk, barely missing her. It was a warning shot, which means it was most likely from Raum. If Andras had been in control of whoever was driving the vehicle, it would simply have flattened the cat, and she’d have been forced to search for yet another vessel.

The cat was the nearest creature to the portal when Zophiel shed the crow’s body. Or, more accurately, when Andras squeezed the crow and popped her out like a cork from a bottle. She would have preferred another bird simply for the ease of transportation, but that would also have made her easy for Andras to spot if he decided to take over the body of a hunter for a bit and do some target shooting.

Andras can’t kill her, but…

At least, he can’t kill her out there. It’s strictly against the rules. But she’s no longer out there. Do the same rules apply in here? Zophiel is not entirely sure, and a shiver runs down the cat’s spine as she remembers her narrow escape from the crow earlier. From the car, too.

Even if he can’t kill her, Andras can wreak havoc here.

More to the point, he can wreak havoc with Raum. And he can make getting home much more difficult. The bright blue light seeping through the windows of the house worries her. Has he set up camp in the old house?

Not that she could leave while Andras is mucking around in here. There’s too much at risk. On the plus side, if she and Andras are both in here, things should be fairly stable out there.

But they won’t be if Andras has his way. He’d like nothing more than to make his Council of Seventy-Two into a Council of Seventy-Three. And if he can eliminate her and make her side a Council of Seventy-One at the same time? So much the better.

Veering to the west, Zophiel sticks close to a narrow strip of woods that runs along the back of Martha Yarn’s neighborhood. She’s nervous, partly due to the close call with the car, but also to the nature of the vessel she’s chosen. There are far too many sayings about nervous cats, twitchy cats, cats on edge and ready to pounce, for there not to be at least some truth to them.

The cat’s brain seems a bit more complex than that of the bird Zophiel commandeered early in the day. She’s always believed animals to be mostly creatures of instinct, with limited free will, so she was a bit surprised to discover that the cat had memories. Not just of this town, but of the one before it, when it lived in a house and spent much of its time purring on the sofa. In this town, however, the cat is a stray, stealing from trash cans behind the bakery to stay alive. The creature had been a bit unnerved when it realized there were no other cats, no dogs, and barely any rats or birds roaming about. On the plus side, however, that meant less competition for the meager scraps the baker tossed into the dumpster each night.

Zophiel is impressed at the level of detail put into the cat, especially since it seems to be the only feline in Haddonwood. Is the cat a glitch? Or perhaps a little side project? Did Raum keep her around out of sentimentality like he had Martha? Normally, she might consider that a good thing, but now she’s not so sure. Emotion of any sort could be a liability right now. It’s another tool that Andras can use.

The cat’s speed is limited, and Zophiel doesn’t especially care for the way the brush tickles her undercarriage as she hurries toward town. The woods don’t feel empty, either, and every rustle of breeze in the brush makes her skittish.

But the cat is one of the few forms she can take without bending the rules beyond recognition. Zophiel doesn’t like bending rules. It’s too risky. There’s only so far you can bend a rule before it breaks. She’d thought she was merely bending the fraternization rule back in 1922, a rule that has been bent by nearly every member of the council from time to time. The job can get tedious. It can get lonely. The only time she ever sees her own kind is at yearly convocations.

There are no rules against taking human form for a few hours. In fact, it’s often part of the job. And if you happened to encounter a handsome vocalist in a jazz club in Memphis while you were in human form, and nature happened to take its course, there was no real harm. No risk of offspring from a brief dalliance with a human. No risk of the Seventy-Two becoming the Seventy-Three.

It was just a bit of fun. Everyone did it. Everyone still does it. It’s barely even bending the rules.

But someone else had been bending the rules that night, too. The devilish gleam she’d seen in the vocalist’s eye hadn’t been simple animal magnetism. And no wonder his voice had seemed familiar. She’d heard it at countless convocations.

He’d been a silver-tongued devil in more ways than one. And it was only after, as she looked up into the face directly above hers, that they’d both realized that this time, they weren’t simply bending the rules by fooling around with one of the more than one hundred million humans in their territory.

She’d calculated the odds. Even rounding down to one hundred million, they were astronomical. There was virtually no chance they’d ended up together by sheer coincidence.

Andras had spoken a single sentence. “If there’s a problem, you will take care of it.”

If she’d had any doubt at all about his identity, it evaporated with those words.

“Take care of it how, exactly?”

But his human form vanished before she could even get the question out, replaced by a giant crow. Its talons scratched at her bare breasts as it pushed off and flew through the wall of the hotel room.

On that night, nearly a century ago, she’d learned that bending the rules can be dangerous. But she likes breaking them outright far less. Hiding Raum had no doubt broken the rules, but…surely the Head Office knew? Otherwise that whole omniscient thing seemed a bit iffy. And if the Head Office knew, they could have prevented it. She’d have been transferred, at a bare minimum. The US-East and US-West looked down their noses at her territory, but looked at from a global perspective, US-South was a damn good assignment.

For whatever reason, the fact that she had crossed the line with Raum was being overlooked or ignored on purpose. Had her interference with the old woman crossed the line yet again? Martha Yarn, or someone very much like her, had once had free will. Not much of it, not as much as your average person walking the street, due to an accident of birth. But there were days when she’d made choices on her own, and her life had been, in its own way, a happy one.

Martha’s last decision felt like a product of free will, too. Zophiel didn’t force her in any way. Would not have forced her if she balked. Could not have forced her without shattering the rules. And there’s still a chance the old woman will change her mind. Sticking around to make sure she followed through felt wrong. It felt invasive. Coercive.

But she did make sure the old woman understood what was at stake. She did lay out the options in full detail. And then she left, leaving whatever animated the old woman, whether it was free will or simply her basic programming, to make the decision.

If the woman does as Zophiel believes she will, Raum will be furious at her interference. There’s a chance that Raum’s anger will work against her. It could push him right into the flight path of a certain white-eyed crow. But what choice does she have?

What choice has she ever had?

Even if she had been inclined to harm Raum, to take care of it as Andras had insisted, how do you kill an immortal?

Four

BEN

Ben backs out of his space in the unmarked high school parking lot, nearly scraping the side panel of the shiny new Nissan, whose owner apparently decided it was a fabulous damn idea to wedge into the tiny space between Ben’s truck and the one on its right, which is almost as beaten up as his own. He’d have been halfway to Chase’s school by now if that privileged asshole had been willing to walk an extra twenty yards or so.

The call that has him back in the truck came over the intercom about twenty minutes into third period. Susan Snell, the guidance counselor at Chase’s school, was on the phone. Chase had experienced some sort of episode in class. That’s all she would tell him. When he asked to speak to Chase, Snell said he was with the school nurse—and was there any possibility Ben could come pick him up? She’d like to chat with him for a few minutes.

To be honest, Ben’s relieved that they called him, but it’s all kinds of weird. He’s certain the standard protocol when dealing with a sick kid is to contact the parents before pulling an older sibling out of class. Their mom might already be at the diner. Sometimes Neil Prescott gives her an extra shift if one of the other waitresses calls in sick. But his dad is at home. Which either means that Ralph Rey was too drunk to answer or in too much pain in the wake of their boxing match last night. If there’s any frickin’ justice in the world, it’s the latter.

Or—and this is what really worries him—Chase might have confided in Ms. Snell. She has a friendly smile. Kind eyes. And Ben is pretty sure that she actually is a nice person. The problem is that even though Chase has a decent ability to read people, he’s still a kid. He doesn’t realize that no matter how nice a guidance counselor may be, she’ll still have to report any signs that Chase is being neglected or abused. That could land him in a foster home, probably somewhere outside of Haddonwood. On the one hand, it might not be worse than the situation the kid is in now. There are good foster parents out there. But there are also bad ones. At least at home, Chase has one person in his corner. One person who can shield him from the worst of it and who will get him out. Just a few more months to go.

Ben is almost certain there are no bruises on the boy. Kids heal fast, and he managed to intercept the blows that good ol’ Ralphie aimed at Chase last night. But there’s always a chance that something happened when Ben wasn’t around. Chase could be wearing a yellowed remnant of an angry wallop from a week or so back. He doesn’t think so, but he knows it’s possible.

When he pulls into the school parking lot a few minutes later, there are only three kids on the playground, which seems kind of odd. Usually it’s either empty or packed. But then a side door opens, and a few dozen kids shove their way through, swarming toward the play fort at the center of the field.

The crowd on the playground still isn’t as large as he remembers. People are moving away. Finding jobs and raising their kids elsewhere, like Marybeth clearly wants to do. Like he should want to do. There’s nothing anchoring him to this town aside from Chase. No jobs worth having. They’d all be better off somewhere else. He knows that, but the plans he makes in his head all seem to revolve around Haddonwood.

Maybe it’s just a residual desire to take care of his mom. Ben might not be able to save her, but he could stick around to keep an eye on her. Drop by the diner during her shift. Stop by the trailer and beat the shit out of his old man if it looks like he’s crossed the line again. You know…the good life.

But the idea of moving away also scares him a little. Life in a bigger city is more complicated, and he’s not sure he’ll know how to navigate out there. And maybe there’s even a bit of nostalgia in the mix. Things have never been simple for Ben—that’s just not possible when you’re Ralph Rey’s son—but at least it was simpler when he was at this school, on the little kids’ playground. Who you were and what you had in life didn’t matter as much when you were that age. Everyone called him Benjy back then, at least until fifth grade, when his old man made one of his rare appearances at a Little League game. Ralph had told the coach, in front of the entire team, that Benjy was a fag name. Then, he’d demanded his son’s name be listed on the roster as Bingo, which was the pet name he used for Ben when he was drunk or just pissed off and looking for someone to wale on.

The coach, who was a decent guy, had gripped the clipboard holding the roster so hard it looked like it was going to snap, and then asked Ben how he wanted his name listed. Ben had shrugged and said Bingo was fine if that was what his dad wanted, partly because he suspected there would be trouble if he told the coach otherwise. Some of the kids snickered, and Carson Weeks said Bingo was a dog’s name, but then he’d said that about Benjy, too.

Ben felt like he had won that round, simply by letting his father know he didn’t care one way or the other about the stupid name. It was a giant fuck-you to Ralph. Your nickname doesn’t scare me, old man. I OWN it. And the coach had quietly changed it back the very next week, without Ben even asking. Ralph wasn’t in the bleachers for that game. It was right after his mom’s payday, and Ralph had celebrated in his usual fashion by tipping back an entire bottle of Old Crow.

Luke Randall had moved to town at the beginning of summer that year, into the trailer three lots over. There were only three black families in all of Haddonwood back then—not that there are many more currently. Luke was just two years older. Their friendship was one of convenience at first, and if Ben is being entirely honest, he has to admit that he’d started hanging out with Luke partly because he knew how much it pissed off his old man. But they’d spent the better part of that summer fishing, riding bikes, and tossing the football around, and it was a solid friendship by the time school started up. A few kids made cracks about it from time to time, but Ben had gotten pretty damn good with his fists, and even Carson Weeks, who was a grade-A asshole, generally steered clear of his bad side.

Luke’s got a place of his own now. Married—although Ben can’t see how he puts up with the woman—and a brand-new baby. In a couple of years, Luke’s daughter will be one of the little tikes climbing on this play fort. Luke makes pretty good money over at the plastics factory, and Ben thinks if he can just get a job there, get out of the trailer and away from his dad, Haddonwood could be a decent place to live.

As Ben walks toward the entrance, a blur of pink fabric on the playground catches his eye. It’s a blonde girl of around six or seven, in a pink dress. The dress isn’t an especially vivid pink, and he’s not sure why it caught his eye until he realizes that there are at least five other identical dresses on the playground. The girls wearing them look the same, too. Surely he’d have heard if someone in Haddonwood had identical—what would it be…sextuplets?

A flash of reflected sun hits his eyes. He winces, holding up his arm to block the glare. When he looks back at the playground, he realizes he was wrong. Yes, there are a half dozen or so girls in pink, but they’re all different shades and patterns, and only a few are wearing dresses. Christ. This day is going to be murder, thanks to no sleep. It’s not even noon, and already his eyes are playing tricks on him.

He only half believes that, though. Some stubborn part of his brain insists that he saw exactly what he thought he did. Six identical girls in identical pink dresses.

This sense of confusion mixes uneasily with the feeling of dread that hits Ben as he steps inside the main office of the school. It’s mostly remembered dread, because one of the most vivid memories from his childhood is walking through this door when he was in third grade to find his mother waiting with little Chase propped on one hip. She’d been crying, and even at eight, he could spot what would soon be a nasty bruise blooming high on one cheek. Her lip was split, too. The ancient secretary—the same one currently behind the desk—kept her eyes averted, pretending to be involved in some fascinating paperwork, while Aileen Rey signed him out.

When Ben followed his mom outside, he found pretty much everything they owned crammed into the car. There was barely enough room for him to squeeze in next to Chase’s car seat. He had no idea where they were going, but he didn’t care. All he had felt in that moment was joy and an overwhelming sense of relief that she was finally going to do it. That they wouldn’t have to live with his father, that he wouldn’t have to lie awake at night worrying that this time his dad would actually kill her.

His mom cried all the way to the county line and then pulled off the road. They sat there for the longest time before she put the car back into gear and turned around. That’s when Ben started crying, pleading with her. But it didn’t matter. Aileen Rey drove back to their trailer at top speed, so fast that Ben was terrified they’d have a wreck. She told him to help her unpack the car when they arrived, but he refused. Normally that would have earned him several sharp whacks on the bottom—his mom was nothing like his dad, but she didn’t shy away from a spanking if she felt he needed it. But that day, she just told him to stay out of her way and keep an eye on Chase if he wasn’t going to help, and then she went about the work of putting their belongings away.

Later that night, she told him that one day he’d be an adult, and he’d understand. Ben will be an adult in just a few months, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever understand the choice his mother made that day. The choice that she made over and over again. Ralph is dead weight. They’d have been better off—financially, physically, and emotionally—if she’d had the guts to cut him loose back then. But instead, they fell back into their normal pattern. His old man apologized. He’d had a job back then, and he splurged on flowers for Aileen and a giant Hershey bar for the boys, even though Chase was too young to eat chocolate. Ralph’s display of emotion was disgusting, and Ben saw right through it. The worst part of the memory, though, was knowing that he’d eaten the damn candy, rather than flushing it down the toilet as he’d briefly thought of doing. He’d eaten it because it was chocolate, but mostly because, just like his mom, he had wanted to believe.

“You’re here for Chase Rey?” the secretary asks.

He looks directly at her for the first time, expecting to see the same look of pity on her face, a look he still remembers vividly from that day nearly a decade ago. But the secretary just gives him a perfunctory smile and points him toward the visitors’ sheet. Maybe she’s forgotten. Maybe it’s a common occurrence for teary-eyed women with battered faces to yank their kids out of school midday.

When Ben finishes signing in, she tells him to take a seat. He does as he’s told, feeling eight years old again. Nothing much seems to change in this place. He doesn’t remember a security camera pointing at the front entrance when he was a student, but otherwise, everything looks the same, including the holiday decorations. Black balloons and orange streamers hang from the ceiling. A line of construction paper cats stretches down the hallway between the office doors, their arched backs displaying a multitude of colors and levels of ability with safety scissors. It’s definitely the same paper skeleton on the wall next to the trash can—Ben remembers its taped-on arm, the result of some mishap that occurred even before his time. The skeleton’s smile looks a bit more sinister than before, but that’s probably just due to anxiety about whatever Chase has told the guidance counselor.

Fortunately, Ben doesn’t have to wait long. Ms. Snell opens the door of the second office down the hall and motions for him to join her.

“Where’s Chase?” he asks when he realizes that it’s just the two of them. “Is he okay?”

“He’s with Nurse Harper, Benjamin, and he’s fine now. I just thought it might be best if we spoke privately for a few minutes before he joins us.”

Ben braces himself, because he can’t think of any universe in which Chase’s guidance counselor wanting to speak to him alone could possibly be a good thing. “Sure. What exactly happened?”

“Well, that’s part of the problem. We’re not entirely certain what happened. They were working on fractions when Chase stood up in the middle of class and said he wasn’t supposed to be there. That he was in the wrong place. Not just the wrong class, but the wrong school. Mrs. Gorf tried to get him to sit back down, but he started to panic, so she called Nurse Harper, who then called me, since it didn’t seem to be anything physical. He just seemed to be very… confused. He didn’t recognize anyone. The only thing he said that made any sense was that we should call you. He asked for you by name.”

Ben nods nervously. “I guess he knew Mom and Dad weren’t home, so—”

“You see, that’s the other thing that had us a little baffled. He asked us to call his father, Benjamin Rey. Said that you work at”—Ms. Snell stops and looks down at a slip of paper on her desk—“Hillcrest Hospital in Knoxville.”

“Huh. Well, it would probably be better than the minimum wage Blake Sherman pays at the gas station.”

“Chase even gave us a telephone number. Obviously, we didn’t call,” she says with a little smile, “but I checked online, and the place exists. It’s a mental health facility. Whatever is going on in Chase’s head, he’s done his research.”

Ben doesn’t know how to respond to that. He just gives Snell a weak smile and waits for her to continue.

“So, I called your house instead, and spoke to…well, I believe it was your father. He seemed a bit…out of sorts, though. It’s possible that I woke him. Anyway, I decided maybe Chase was right. Maybe it was best to call you.”

“My dad has the flu,” Ben says, then remembers he just said his parents weren’t home. “He was…I thought he was going to see the doctor today.”

Ms. Snell gives him a sympathetic look. “There is a nasty flu going around. Nurse Harper thought maybe that was the issue with your brother at first—a fever, delirium. But he seems okay, and whatever was troubling him, it cleared up a few minutes after we got him here to the office. In fact, the nurse and his teacher both seem to think maybe this was just a stunt. A way to get attention. But Chase doesn’t really strike me as that sort of kid—”

“He’s not. Chase wouldn’t do that. I think maybe he is coming down with the flu that my dad has. Maybe he just doesn’t have a fever yet. I’ll drive him home.”

Ben starts to get up, but the guidance counselor motions him back to the chair.

“Are you sure there isn’t something else going on, Benjamin? Although—you go by Ben, don’t you?”

“I go by both,” he lies. “Chase sometimes calls me Benjamin. So does our mom. And no, really. Everything is fine, except for Dad being kind of sick.”

Ms. Snell stares at him for several seconds. Ben can tell from the set of her mouth that she doesn’t entirely believe him. But he can also tell that she’s not going to press the issue…this time.

She taps a button on her phone and says, “You can send Chase in now.” And then to him, “If there are problems, Ben, I hope you’ll remember that there is a system in place to help students.”

He nods and braces for the next part of the spiel. He’s heard it before, and he knows that’s not the last line in the script. But the door opens without even a knock, and Chase steps inside. Bursting in like that is not really Chase’s style—if anything, he tends to lean toward excessively polite. Ms. Snell frowns, and Ben half expects her to reprimand Chase, but she must figure he’s had a tough enough day.

Chase gives him a worried glance, and Ben responds with what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Hey, kiddo. Sounds like you might be coming down with that bug that Dad has. Let’s get you home, okay? You got all your stuff?”

His brother nods and adjusts his backpack on his shoulder. Ben thanks Ms. Snell, and then they make a quick exit. As soon as they’re outside, he opens his mouth to ask Chase exactly what happened, but then his eyes fall on the playground, which is now totally empty. He was inside ten minutes, tops. And so the question he asks Chase instead is “How long is recess these days?”

Chase gives him a confused look. “I don’t know. Probably twenty-five minutes. Same as it was for me back when I had recess. Why?”

Ben shakes his head. “Just wondering why there’s no one on the playground. Didn’t hear a bell ring, and…” He shrugs.

“Did you see kids disappear?” Chase asks. “I’ve been seeing that a lot lately.”

“Not…exactly,” Ben says, opening the passenger-side door. “You mean, you’ve actually seen people vanish?” He tries to keep his tone neutral, because he wants Chase to be honest about what’s happening. But he’s pretty sure he’s failing miserably.

“Only when they’re in big groups,” Chase says. “Like the assembly last week. And occasionally in the hallways. Sometimes kids blink out. And there are a lot of duplicates.”

“Duplicates?”

“Yeah. Xerox copies.”

Ben’s heart quickens as he backs the truck out of the parking space. The play fort is empty now, except for a crow perched atop the awning, staring back at him.

Identical blonde girls in identical pink dresses.

“That’s…um…that’s not really possible. You know that, right?”

There’s a very long pause. Then Chase says. “Of course I do. Are we actually going home?”

Ben takes one hand off the steering wheel to reach across and press the inside of his wrist to Chase’s forehead, the way his mom used to do when they were small. It’s a bit clammy, but no fever. “Not unless you think you need to go to bed.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Okay, then. Maybe we grab some lunch and hit the library. I’ve got that biology test tomorrow. I could use some extra study time.”

“Your test is today,” Chase says. “You mentioned it last night.”

Ben debates doubling down on the lie. He hadn’t wanted Chase to feel responsible for him missing the test, just in case Mr. Furlong is in a pissy mood tomorrow and won’t let him take a makeup. But he just gives his brother a quick you-caught-me look. “Still could use the extra study time. So, what actually happened in class?”

The silence that follows is long enough that Ben is tempted to nudge Chase again. But he resists the urge. Eventually, Chase exhales loudly through his nose and says, “Sometimes it feels like this place isn’t real. Everything here is all wrong.”

“Wrong…how, exactly?”

“Different. Me and you. We’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be my brother.”

Ben feels defensive at first, like Chase is pushing him away. But then he remembers what Sue Snell said. “So, I’m supposed to be your father instead? How does that work? I mean, sure, folks start early in Haddonwood, but not at age five.”

He hopes the lame joke will at least earn him a begrudging grin, but instead he gets an eyeroll. They drive in silence until he parks in the lot at the library. An orange cat slinks along the side of the building. Ben’s pretty sure it’s the same one he saw at MB’s house earlier. A stray, then, he thinks with a touch of relief, partly because it means she’s not keeping secrets from him and partly because he won’t have to worry about his eyes burning anytime he visits her.

Chase stares blankly out the passenger-side window as Ben cuts the engine.

“I get it, okay?” Ben says. “I never wanted him to be my dad, either. But I am going to get you out of there. We just need to hold on a little longer. I’ll be eighteen in a few months, and as soon as I get my diploma—”

Chase whirls around, practically shouting, “You’re not supposed to be turning eighteen! You’re supposed to be turning thirty-four. You’re a counselor in Knoxville. I was born your last year of college. This is all wrong.”

Ben doesn’t really know how to respond. The first thing that pops into his head is to make a joke and try to coax him out of it. He could ask who Chase’s mom is in this scenario and whether she’s hot, maybe. But Chase doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood for jokes.

“Maybe…maybe you fell asleep in class, Chase. Maybe—”

“I didn’t fall asleep.” He spits the words out, and Ben gets a crystal-clear image of the angry teenager his brother will soon be. It’s a year or two early, but living with old Ralphie doesn’t really allow for a long, leisurely childhood. “All of that is real. As real as this is. Realer, even.”

“But…look at me. Do I look thirty-four? And if that stuff is all real, why don’t I remember it?”

Another long silence follows, punctuated only by a single tear coursing down Chase’s cheek. It makes no sound, and yet it echoes in Ben’s head. Chase hates to cry. Hates it with a purple passion. Any other time, Chase’s hand would have jerked up automatically, flicking away the tear before it could betray him, before it brought down the wrath of Ralph. Cut out that baby shit. Unless you want me to give you something to cry about.

“I don’t know,” Chase says. “Maybe because you don’t want to remember. Or maybe I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not going crazy,” Ben says automatically, simply because he knows it’s what he should say. That it’s the supportive thing to say. “It’s just stress. And I need you to hang in there a little longer, okay?”

Chase nods, and they head into the library. But Ben can’t quite shut down the voice in his head saying that Chase could be right. Maybe the kid is going crazy. Maybe they both are.

Five

JULIE

Every week when Julie Kennedy sits down to write her Sunday message, she thinks that this week she’ll actually do it. She’ll go against her instincts and add just a touch of fire and brimstone to the mix. A little dash of cayenne pepper to appease Scott Jenkins and his crowd. Something to show them that she actually has read the Old Testament and knows that the God in that part of the Bible had a bit of a temper, and that He didn’t suffer fools or infidels gladly.

It will not be this week, however. Julie thumbs through Leviticus, which is no doubt Scott’s favorite, but finds no inspiration. Instead, her mind wanders over to a chapter in Psalms that talks of mercy, and then to a few Buddhist quotes on the same, and even a line from one of her favorite Jodi Picoult novels. She’s certain the latter will have Scott’s faction frothing at the mouth, and she’ll probably skip right over it when Sunday actually comes in order to keep the peace, but she’s growing more and more convinced that there will be no meeting that crew in the middle. Even if she marches in on Sunday morning and declares that Hell is real, and everyone (except for her congregation, of course) is on the fast track to a fireside seat, it will never be enough. The only way Scott will accept her at that pulpit is if God rolls time back thirty-seven years to when Julie Kennedy was in the womb and sees fit to give her a penis—something she’s never wished for and which would undoubtedly complicate her current relationship with Bill Gray.

Julie chuckles to herself. The library is mostly empty today, aside from a young mother pushing her daughter’s stroller through the children’s section, and Barb Starrett behind the desk. Good thing they’re not psychic. Would they be amused or horrified to know where Reverend Kennedy’s mind has wandered?

Her mind has been wandering all morning, unfortunately. Sometimes to Bill, sometimes (especially when she’s hit by another yawn) to the dreams that robbed her of sleep last night. It’s already nearly noon, and she would normally be close to finished. But all she has is this motley assortment of quotes and a vague notion of how to piece them together.

A flash of movement outside pulls Julie’s eye to the window, which looks out over Main Street. She smiles at the marquee of the Hart. The building has been empty for as long as she can remember. Now it reads Halloween FrightFest, 8:00–11:00 PM. The place won’t officially open for a few more weeks. Daisy says that tonight is a sneak preview of sorts. It’s partly a fundraiser for the school band and partly a way to lure people in for the grand opening. Get them used to the idea of there being a theater in town again.

For some reason, much of the work for the event seems to have fallen on Daisy. She’d seemed a little stressed about it at breakfast, telling Bill that she’d learned the day before that she’d need to get the concession stand set up on top of everything else. So Julie had volunteered to stop in and help out for a bit. Daisy seemed grateful, something that would not have been the case if Julie had offered to help Dani. At this point, if Dani Gray was drowning, with no one else around to save her, she’d probably still slap Julie’s hand away.

Julie watches over the railing as the young mother piles a small stack of brightly colored books onto the checkout desk. The kid seems much more interested in the red balloon tied to her stroller than she is in the books.

“It seems this little girl knows what she likes,” Barb says. “It’s always Dr. Seuss or Click, Clack, Moo.”

The mom laughs. “I show her different books each time we’re here. She never wants to check out something new.”

The conversation has a rhythmic quality, which sounds to Julie almost like a heartbeat. Da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum. The toddler in the stroller tugs the balloon up and down to that same sleepy rhythm, almost as if it’s been choreographed.

Julie yawns again.

“Guess Emily has learned that books are friends.” Barb smiles as she slides the books over the barcode scanner. “You rarely want to trade the old for new. Oh, I have something in for Emmy’s dad. That documentary on World War Two.”

Barb crouches down behind the desk to search for the reserved item as Julie replays the librarian’s words in her head.

Oh, I have some-thing in for Em-my’s dad. Da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum.

That doc-u-ment-ar-y on World War Two. Da dum, da dum, da…

The rhythm lulls Julie, and her eyelids drift downward.

…dum, da dum, da dum.

It’s fifth period, and Ms. Darbus has been delayed at her doctor’s appointment, so Julie is at the whiteboard, accenting the syllables to illustrate Shakespeare’s use of iambic pentameter. English lit is not her field of study, but the assistant principal, who usually gets stuck with this duty, is out on maternity leave. A low hum runs through the classroom while she writes, as students talk among themselves. The chatter dies down quickly when she turns back, their faces morphing into the standard mask of bored adolescence.

“Okay, let’s read together now,” Julie says, tapping her palm with the marker on each accent.

Two HOUSEholds, BOTH aLIKE in DIGniTY,

In FAIR VerOna, WHERE we LAY our SCENE,

From ANcient GRUDGE break TO new MUtiNY,

Where CIVil BLOOD makes CIVil HANDS unCLEAN.

When they reach the end, one of the juniors, the star center of the basketball team, raises his hand. Julie nods, and he leans forward.

“So hold on now, and let me get this straight.

This Shakespeare has a beat stuck in his head.

And all these folks are chattering in verse,
while swords are flying round, and streets run red?”

He grins and turns to the kid next to him, who gives him a high five.

Music comes out of nowhere, and a cheerleader near the front begins to sing, without even raising her hand.

“Juliet is hangin’ out the window.

And Romeo is chillin’ on the street.

Tryna find a way to say I love you

That doesn’t interrupt the steady beat.”

Julie taps the desk with a ruler that seems to have appeared out of nowhere, trying to restore order. But the entire class is now singing:

Da dum da dum, da dum da dum da dum

And Romeo is chillin’ on the street.

Da dum da dum, da dum da dum da dum

Now everybody’s rappin’ to the beat.

Two verses later, music has taken over the classroom. Students are dancing on and around the desks, everything perfectly synchronized. Her own feet turn traitor by the final coda, and the basketball player whirls her into a dip as the class belts out the last round of da dum, da dum, daaaaa…

“Aaaah! You get out of here, you stupid bird!”

For a moment, the words blend in with her dream. Then Barb screams again, whacking a broom against the bookshelf behind the circulation desk. A large black crow is perched on top. It must have come in through an open window.

Or maybe Barb has decided to turn the library into a petting zoo. She’s never seen an animal in here before, aside from Mrs. Johnson’s service dog. But in addition to the crow, a fluffy orange cat is sleeping in the chair behind the librarian’s desk. It seems completely unrattled by the noise.

Julie leans toward the railing as the last remnants of the bizarre dream fade away. The bird doesn’t seem concerned with Barb, even though the bristles of her broom are only inches away from its feet. It glances at Julie, but only for a moment. Then its eyes, which are reflecting an odd shade of white from the lights of the library, shift a few tables over to where Ben Rey is sitting. She feels a disconcerting wave of déjà vu when she sees a Haddonwood High jacket hanging from the back of Ben’s chair, just like the one the basketball player was wearing in her dream. Ben’s younger brother, Chase, is at the table with him. They seem to be arguing about something.

The bird’s eyes are fixed on the boy. Chase’s eyes, however, are firmly fixed on his brother.

“I’m not five years old anymore, Ben. I can stay in the library by myself. Go take your test. Go to practice. You had to miss because of work already this week, and—”

“I’m not going anywhere. I can take a make-up on the test, and Coach will understand if I miss practice.”

“No, he won’t,” Chase says, clenching his jaw. When he stands up, the bird’s head follows him. “Fine. I’ll go home, then. You go to school. I’ll hang out with Dad.”

“Damn it, Chase, would you just sit down?” Ben sounds exhausted. “You know I can’t let you do that.”

Julie has heard the rumors. Everyone in town has. Ralph Rey has even gotten a visit from the local police a time or two. No one really doubts that he beats his wife, but there’s not a lot they can do when Aileen Rey will find a ten-foot-high stack of Bibles upon which to deny it anytime the subject is raised.

She knows this from personal experience, because she pulled Aileen aside after a service not long after the woman allegedly fell down the steps in front of the family’s trailer. Aileen and the boys had never attended services regularly, maybe once every couple of months. And even though Julie broached the subject of Aileen’s “accident” as delicately as she could, it had been enough to frighten her away. The Rey family hadn’t been back to the church since.

Julie had really hoped, however, that the abuse didn’t include the kids. Aileen had sworn that it didn’t, but then she’d sworn Ralph had never hurt her, either. The snatch of conversation Julie heard between the brothers just now, however, makes her fairly certain that Aileen was lying about that, too.

She stares a moment too long. When Chase catches her eye, Julie smiles at him, then looks back down at her notes, hoping he won’t realize that she overheard him talking with his brother, because there’s no way she’ll be able to continue ignoring what she suspects. She’ll either call Chief Craven when he gets back into town or maybe talk to that deputy who lives next door to Bill. Tucker, the one Bill once referred to as his future son-in-law. She still isn’t entirely sure if Bill was joking about that.

Julie startles when she realizes Chase is standing next to her.

“You’re that lady preacher, right?”

When Julie nods, he goes on. “I had a problem at school today. I’m a little bit sick, I think. Nothing catching, but they called my brother. And…he’s got a test last period, and…”

“And you’re wondering if I’ll tell your brother I’ll keep an eye on you.” She takes a deep breath. “Normally, I’d be happy to, Chase, but I’m only going to be here for about another hour. After that, I’m supposed to go help Daisy get things set up for the FrightFest over at the Hart.”

“I could help you. I’m a good worker.”

“I’m sure you are…” Julie begins, preparing to give the boy some reason that this is a bad idea.

In the end, however, she pushes the excuses aside. Maybe this is her chance to do a little good today. Maybe she can get him to open up to her, or at least lay the groundwork for him being willing to talk to someone.

“We could use another pair of hands,” she says, smiling. “Let’s go talk to your brother. Then we’ll see if we can’t help Ms. Starrett evict that crazy bird.”

Six

DAISY

“I’ve been looking all over for you.” Daisy plops down next to Marybeth, whose legs are stretched out in front of her on the grass. It is finally lunch, praise the Lord, which means half of the day is over, in the can, complete. “I wish you’d let me know where you’re going to be next time.”

MB tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder as she tilts her face back to soak up the sun. “We’ve been friends literally forever. By now, you should know that you will always find me wherever I can catch the most rays. So that’s one wish granted. What are your other two?”

The question is kind of flip, even for MB. Daisy used up all of her wishes when her mom was sick. And MB understands what it’s like to be without a mother, since MB’s own mom took off when she was a toddler. She and her dad haven’t heard from the woman since.

Daisy ignores the question and takes a slightly crushed bag of Doritos and a bottle of water from her backpack. The water is healthy, and the chips, not so much, so that counts as a balanced lunch, right? She was surprised to find the Doritos on the floor of the pantry. If they hadn’t fallen from the shelf, Dani would have devoured them days ago, and Daisy would have been left with plain old Lay’s. As she tears open the bag, she half expects Dani to drop from the sky, Mission Impossible-style, extend her well-manicured claws, and snatch the bag away.

MB takes one Dorito from the bag Daisy holds out and proceeds to nibble along the edge, as she does anytime Daisy offers her a chip. The girl is living proof that you can indeed eat just one.

“Where were you first period?” MB asks. “I waited by the lockers so long I was almost tardy. First Ben keeps me waiting, then you.”

Daisy raises her eyebrows. “I told you yesterday. The interview with Martha Yarn for the Howler?”

“Oh. Right.”

“So…Ben isn’t back yet?”

“Back from where?” MB asks. “All I know is that he didn’t pick me up this morning. I had to walk. And since he no longer has a working phone, I couldn’t even call to yell at him about it. Did he skip class?”

“Either that or he was called home,” Daisy says. “I saw him driving away when I arrived just before third period. Why didn’t you call if he was late? Dani would’ve given you a lift.”

Marybeth laughs. “Fat chance. Your sister hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Dani answers automatically and then laughs, too. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“Anyway, having actually been in the car with Dani before, I’d rather be late. Life in Haddonwood may be dull, but I’m not looking to check out early, if you know what I mean.”

Daisy nods. She does know.

“Did your dad leave town this morning like he was supposed to?”

Daisy closes her eyes and sees her dad backing out of the driveway. Hears the two short beep-beeps from his horn. And then she remembers that weird feeling that washed over her as she stood on the sidewalk watching him drive away. She fights the urge to check her messages again, even though she checked them as she left the building. Even though the phone would have buzzed in her pocket if a text or call came through.

“Yeah,” she says. “Atlanta. He’ll be back Monday night.”

“That’s good. I’d say we should throw a party but having Officer Sexy next door kinda kills that idea. Annnd…now I know the answer!” MB rolls over onto her tummy. Her long legs are stretched out behind her, drawing stares from a group of guys walking past. One of them whistles, and Marybeth flips him off, the response so automatic that Daisy isn’t even sure MB is aware she did it.

“The answer to what?”

“Your other two wishes.”

“Shut up.” Daisy knows where this is going.

“Tucker dressed and then Tucker naked. Am I close?”

Yes, Daisy thinks. “No,” she says.

“Bullshit. I know you.”

“Can we move on, please?”

“Nope,” Marybeth says. “Anyway, it’s not like I blame you. I mean, sweet baby Jesus…if I had that living next door to me.”

“He barely even notices me.”

Is that true, though? Earlier today, Daisy would have sworn that Tucker would never see past their age difference. But he’d actually talked to her like she was an adult this morning. Like an equal. That’s not something she’s ready to share with MB, though.

“Well, then,” Marybeth says, “you have to make him notice. We need to come up with a strategy.” She reaches over and hooks one finger into the neck of Daisy’s T-shirt and tugs down, revealing several extra inches of cleavage and the top half of Daisy’s bra.

Daisy squeals and yanks the shirt back up. And then they both end up with a case of the giggles, like they’re back in middle school.

“I’m serious, though,” MB says. “You need lessons in making Tucker notice. Lucky for you, you have an expert at your beck and call.”

“And who might that be?” Daisy says. She knows perfectly well that Marybeth means herself, and she also knows that Marybeth has never been at anyone’s beck and call. Even her father jumps when she snaps her fingers.”

“Oh, you are fun-ny, Daisy Gray. When it comes to guys, trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing. Your lessons start tonight at the bonfire. What time are you planning to get there?”

For a moment, Daisy is silent, waiting for Marybeth to remember. She’s spent most waking moments for the past few weeks working on the FrightFest. MB even offered, a bit grudgingly, to stop by and help with some of the last-minute sprucing up of the theater, since the construction people had cleared out a few days later than expected and left behind a major mess.

MB picks up on the silence, but not the reason. “You are going to the bonfire, aren’t you?”

“Sure. I’ll probably be there by around eleven. Need to be sure Dani doesn’t get drunk and fall face first into the bonfire. Dad will shit if he comes back to Freddy Krueger for a daughter.”

“You should come earlier,” she says, pulling her sunglasses down so that she can look Daisy in the eye. “This is our last bonfire before graduation. I need my bestie there to help me make fun of all the drunk people.”

Daisy is sorely tempted to point out that the bestie train only seems to be running in one direction these days. Otherwise, MB would be a little more attuned to things that are actually important in Daisy’s life. It occurs to her in that moment that her best friend and her sister are actually a lot alike. The epiphany is one of those things that seems painfully obvious after the fact but never dawned on her before. No wonder the two of them don’t get along. They’re both too self-absorbed to want to share center stage with anyone else.

She wants to remind MB that she made a promise. Beyond that, she wants to remind her that showing up for an event your best friend had worked on for weeks on end was definitely in the BFF job description, most likely in big bold print. But the bell is about to ring, and the day has been too weird for Daisy to want to stir up any additional drama. So she just says, “I’ll do my best. What about Ben?”

“We can make fun of him, too. He’ll probably be one of the drunks by the time you arrive. You know how he gets when he’s around his football peeps. That’s why you need to be there earlier. There’s only so long I can listen to bullshit tales about the three true loves of the great American male—cars, guns, and boobs.”

Daisy sighs. It’s a pretty solid description of the interests of most guys she knows in Haddonwood, with one notable exception. And Tucker may well have been like that in high school, at least before his parents died.

“They can’t all be like that, can they?”

Marybeth pushes her sunglasses back. “I hope not. Because if so, I’m seriously considering becoming a lesbian.”

“So that’s why you grabbed my shirt. Sneaking a peek.”

“You wish. I’ve seen everything you’ve got, girl. If I switch teams, I’m holding out for at least a D-cup.”

Above them, the bell rings, and Daisy feels the vibrations from the wall against her back.

“Back to the grind,” Marybeth says. “I’ll call you after school.”

Finally Daisy caves and drops one last, painfully blatant hint. “I probably won’t have time to talk. I’ve got to get things set up.” When MB gives her a blank look in response, she spells it out explicitly. “For the film festival. Remember?”

“Damn it!” Marybeth slaps the palm of her hand against her forehead. “I forgot that was today. So that’s why you won’t be at the bonfire until late. Do you still need help this afternoon?”

It’s clear from MB’s tone that she really, really hopes that Daisy says no. And Daisy would rather have no help than unwilling help, so she says, “No. I think we’ve got it covered. Some band members said they’d stop by. As they should, since Trent is donating part of the proceeds to new uniforms.”

This is kind of true. There was a sign-up sheet, and seven people had added their names when she checked last week. But most of them made excuses over the past few days, with several saying they’re sick, although she’s pretty sure all of them will make a miraculous recovery just in time for the bonfire tonight.

“Great! Have fun.” Marybeth disappears through the doors, swallowed up by the throng of students filing into the dark interior of the building like cattle through a kill chute.

Daisy stops short of joining the line and throws one last glance back at the football field, where lazy leaves are tumbling across the turf. The Grimshaw house lurks off in the distance, the hill forming the throne that the old pile of wood and rubble sits upon. It can be seen from virtually any point in town, and that’s always bothered Daisy. She wishes someone would buy the place, move in, and give it new life. Make it welcoming. A new coat of paint. Hell, anything to keep it from looking haunted.

Would it be worse seeing lights up there every night, though? Would they look like the house’s eyes, watching her every move with dark silhouettes behind open lids?

It takes a concerted effort, but she pulls her gaze away from the house and up toward the clear autumn sky. At that very moment, a white gash streaks across her field of vision. There’s no crackle. No thunder. Not even a rumble far off in the distance. The lightning—if that’s what it is, and what else could it be?—hangs for a moment just above the Grimshaw house, thinner fragments sizzling and fanning out like a spider’s web. She thinks she hears static and maybe screaming, but it’s too far off to tell. Which isn’t surprising, since the house is much too far away for her to be able to hear anything.

The second bell rings, and all other sound clears instantly. The not-lightning fades away, leaving the sky unscarred and unclouded. But the large windows in the Victorian up on the hill are now glowing a vivid blue. Even with the autumn sun shining down in full force, Daisy can see the light. It’s impossible, and yet…there it is.

Behind the windows, the light flashes once, twice, almost as if the house itself is trying to tell her something. She sways on her feet and almost falls, but the brick wall catches her and holds her upright.

Is anyone else seeing this?

She looks around. The grounds are empty now. Everyone is inside, and she is late for class.

Still, she stands staring up at the house, her back pressed against the bricks.

The windows do indeed look like eyes. Electric-blue eyes, glaring down at Haddonwood. And Daisy can’t quite shake the feeling that those eyes are looking straight at her.

CHAPTER FOUR

* * *

One

JULIE

The sound of wings flapping is followed by another shriek from the librarian, who is still standing on the circulation desk. Julie wishes she’d thought to get Chase’s brother to help them clear the creature out of the library before he left, but he’s barely going to make it before the fifth-period bell as it is—

Where the hell did that thought come from? She’s quite certain that Ben didn’t mention the period or what time he needed to be there. Julie never went to Haddonwood High. She didn’t even move here until… Her mind scrambles for the date, but it slips out of her grasp like a wet noodle. Even if she had gone to school here, she wouldn’t remember the bell schedule twenty years later. But she’s dead certain that fifth period starts at 1:10. Odd that her mind would latch on to a useless bit of trivia like that and yet be unable to recall the date she moved here.

Chase looks over the railing at the bird, which is still staring directly at him. “Can crows have rabies? That one looks sick. Its eyes are all weird. Do you think maybe it’s blind?”

“Not rabies,” Julie says, as they walk toward the staircase. “Only mammals carry rabies. You’re right about the eyes, though. I thought it was just a reflection.”

She doesn’t think it’s blind. It’s tracking them too closely as they move downstairs. No, not tracking them. The bird is tracking Chase.

Could the boy have done something to injure it? She thinks again about the article she read. Crows have long memories, especially for those who wrong them. Chase doesn’t seem like that type of kid, but it wouldn’t be the first time a child who suffered abuse decided to pass the pain along to an animal.

Julie suspects Ben is taking the brunt of the physical abuse, however. She saw him grimace when he got up from the library chair, moving like he was fifty years older with a bad back. Ben is likely stepping into the fray on purpose, judging from his protective attitude. He accepted her offer to watch Chase reluctantly, sizing her up as Chase told him about the plan. But he was nervous about missing his test, so he finally scooped up his books and told Chase he’d see him immediately after school.

Chase had glanced at Julie, then reminded Ben about football practice. Reminded him that he’d be benched if he missed again. That the team needed him.

Julie realized then that she was dealing with a skillful negotiator. The original hour or so for his brother to take a test had just been extended to an entire afternoon of babysitting…although she guessed you couldn’t really call it babysitting with a kid Chase’s age. Somewhere between babysitting and Bill asking her to check in on the girls while he’s in Atlanta.

She told Ben to meet them at the Hart when he was done with practice. He protested, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. After all, they couldn’t risk the Howlers losing a game by having one of their starters benched.

She’s almost to the bottom of the stairs, with Chase just behind, when the librarian hurls a book at the bird. The creature caws loudly and swoops across the room, narrowly missing the woman, who shrieks again. Julie hurries over, hoping to help Barb down from the desk. She’s freaking out considerably more than the situation would seem to warrant. Her hair, normally done up neatly in a bun or twist, is wild around her face, and it seems to be crackling with static electricity.

Barb bends down to grab another book from the desk, nearly losing her balance in the process. She brandishes the book like a weapon, shaking it at the bird, which is now on the second-floor railing, just inches away from the desk where Julie had been working.

The librarian’s eyes move away from the bird, and she begins swatting the air in front of her. She hits a few motes of dust but nothing else that Julie can see. The woman must be seeing something, though, because a victorious look crosses her face before she turns a few degrees to the right and swats the air again.

Julie instinctively extends her arm to keep Chase back and then takes a step toward the circulation desk. “Barb? It’s Julie Kennedy. Why don’t we go next door until someone can get the bird out of here, okay? Sandra should have a fresh pot of coffee by now. Or maybe some tea? A nice cup of chamomile to—”

The bird lets out another loud caw, and a split second later, Julie feels the breeze of its wings as it again strafes the librarian’s head. Barb falls ass over teapot, tumbling off the desk and landing hard on the marble floor. Her eyes fly wide open as a tiny beam of golden sunlight hovers just above her head and then vanishes.

Apparently, the sound of the librarian crashing to the floor rouses the cat. It hops onto the desk and stares intently at the crow, orange fur raised in a spiky ridge along its spine. The crow makes a sound that almost sounds like a laugh and perches on one of the hanging globes near the exit.

Julie kneels down next to the librarian. “Oh my God. Are you okay, Barb? Is anything broken?”

Barb stares blankly at the ceiling. “Did you see that bird? It tried to kill me. And the eyes. All the eyes. Eyes everywhere.” She grabs Julie’s arm, digging her nails in so hard that they cut through the weave of Julie’s thin black sweater and into her skin. “Won’t you pray for him? Pray for the devil.”

“The…bird? You want me to pray for the bird?”

“No! No! Pray for the boy who stumbled in. The boy who stumbled in and broke the world.”

Barb’s eyes are glassy, and her voice still has that same singsong quality—da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum—although the rhythm is a bit off now, and rhyme seems to have been abandoned entirely. Julie can’t be sure, but she thinks maybe Barb has been speaking this way all day.

Da dum da dum, da dum da dum da dum

Now everybody’s rappin’ to the beat.

“Dial 911, Chase. I think she hit her head.”

Julie half expects him to break into song or Shakespearean verse, but he just says, “I don’t have a cell phone.”

“Mine is in my bag up—” Julie stops, remembering the way the bird eyed the boy. “No, wait! Use the phone behind the desk.”

The bird continues to watch Chase with laser-like intensity as the boy picks up the phone.

Its eyes really aren’t…normal. They’re white with odd streaks of red. Julie wonders again if maybe it is blind and was just using its sense of smell or hearing to attack Barb. She was certainly loud enough. But Chase is barely making any noise at all, and the thing follows the boy’s every movement.

The boy who stumbled in and broke the world.

A few seconds later, the front door opens, and Tucker Vance enters. Julie’s first thought is that it’s a really impressive response time, even for a tiny place like Haddonwood, but Chase is still holding the phone. He’s not even talking yet, apparently waiting for someone to pick up. Tucker must have been headed here already for some other reason.

“Oh, there you are,” he says when he sees Julie.

She’s about to ask why he’s looking for her, but then he rounds the corner of the desk and sees the librarian on the floor.

“What happened?”

The crow answers his question. Not with words but with another hoarse screech and a dramatic swoop from the globe light down toward his head.

“Son of a bitch!” Tucker’s arms immediately fly up to protect his face, which is already bandaged.

The bird doesn’t actually touch him. It just circles the library a few times, like taking victory laps, then once again perches on the second-floor railing, its head tilted sardonically as it watches them.

“Sorry about the language, Reverend,” Tucker says.

If Julie could change one thing about her job—well, one thing other than having Scott Jenkins in her congregation—it would be the pedestal that everyone puts preachers on, especially women preachers. Anytime someone curses or shows the slightest bit of human weakness, they seem compelled to apologize to her.

She smiles weakly and gives him her stock response. “It’s just Julie. And no worries. I’ve said far worse.” She nods at the bandage on his forehead. “Judging from your reaction, I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’ve already had an encounter with our feathered friend.”

He touches the bandage reflexively. “Feathered fiend is more like it.”

Barb nods frantically. Her eyes are still locked in the general direction of the bird, but they are now dazed and lack focus. “A fiend indeed,” she says, “with mayhem in its heart. A feathered demon, wild and wicked smart.”

Tucker frowns and gives Julie a questioning look.

“It may be a concussion,” she says slowly, not wanting to admit in front of Barb that the woman had been acting strangely even before she fell. “She was up on the desk, and when the bird attacked—” The bird caws loudly, almost like it’s thanking her for giving it credit. Julie narrows her eyes and continues. “When the bird attacked her, she fell off the desk.”

There’s a movement off to the right. She’d almost forgotten Chase was there, but now she sees that he has crossed behind the desk and is shoving the book cart against one of the double doors at the front entrance to hold it open. She catches a quick glimpse of an orange-and-white-striped tail as the cat darts through the door.

“Maybe the bird doesn’t know how to get out,” Chase says.

“Good point. But get back behind the desk, okay? I’m starting to think you might be right about that bird being diseased.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you call 911?” Tucker asks Julie. “You might want to use the landline. Both my department phone and personal phone seem to be on the fritz.”

“911 didn’t answer,” Chase tells him. “It just kept ringing. You want me to try again?”

“Try calling the office directly and see if they can patch you through,” Tucker says, giving the boy the number. Then he kneels down next to Barb. “Mrs. Starrett, I need you to stay still and calm, okay? We’re going to get somebody over here to check you out. If Chase can’t get through to 911, I’ll go find Dr. Loomis.”

Barb nods again, and Tucker turns to Julie. “That reminds me. Daisy Gray was over at Martha Yarn’s house this morning, doing an interview for the school paper. I talked to her afterward, and she’s worried about Miss Martha. Thinks she might have had a stroke, said she was…” Tucker glances at Chase, who is still waiting for someone to answer the phone, then down at Barb, who seems pretty out of it. He’s apparently trying to decide whether to talk in front of them. After a moment, he lowers his voice and adds, “Said she might be depressed. Maybe even suicidal. She told Daisy this would be her last birthday. Anyway, Daisy said you might know which doctor she sees, and thought maybe you could stop in and check on her. Just to be on the safe side.”

Julie nods. “I’ll head over as soon as I leave here.”

Barb is mumbling now. “Pray for Martha Yarn, and pray for Daisy. But don’t forget the boy who wears the noose. The father, the son, the brother of none. The boy who brings the birds all home to roost.”

Tucker raises his eyebrows, clearly wondering if Julie has any idea what Barb is talking about. She gives him a shrug. The last part doesn’t make any sense at all to her. And even though she knows that Barb probably picked up the bit about Martha and Daisy from what Tucker just said, the librarian’s singsong voice is giving Julie the creeps. She’ll definitely be checking on Martha and following that up by checking on Daisy and Dani, too.

But Barb is her priority until they can get someone here to help. “Shh,” Julie says. “I’ll pray for everybody. I promise. You just relax, okay?”

“You still not getting a response?” Tucker asks Chase.

When the boy shakes his head, Tucker motions for him to hang up. Then he turns back to Julie. “Can you wait here with Mrs. Starrett while I go see if I can find Dr. Loomis?”

“Sure. Barb’s daughter, Carrie, works over at the…” Julie stops. She’d been about to say over at the IGA. That’s not right, but she can’t for the life of her remember the name of the supermarket where she shops at least once a week. The only supermarket in town, and yet it takes her several seconds to pull up the name. “At… at Blaine’s. Blaine’s Grocery. Maybe see if you can get Carrie over here, too?”

Tucker nods and starts to rise from the catcher’s squat he’s been in since he saw Barb on the floor. But the librarian’s hand whips out, grabbing at his belt. The movement nearly knocks him off balance, and Julie reaches out a hand to steady him. Only then do they realize that Barb has his handgun.

The librarian is on her feet faster than Julie would have thought possible. She whirls toward the crow and fires. Julie yells for Chase to get down as the bird emits a startled squawk and swoops from the railing toward the open door. Barb tracks its flight path with the gun and fires again, but the bird is already gone.

“Ms. Starrett.” Tucker approaches the librarian, both hands up. “The bird is gone now. It can’t hurt you. Give me the gun, okay?”

“Listen to him, Barb,” Julie says. “You don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“The scarecrow walks. A boy hangs from the tree. No body, no car, no moon in the sky.” Barb smiles first at Julie and then at Tucker as she speaks. There’s no madness in the smile—it’s the same smile she wears most days when Julie comes through the library doors. Her voice is level and calm, as though she’s directing someone to the children’s section rather than babbling nonsense. She was looking straight at Julie when she mentioned the scarecrow, however, and all Julie could think was she knows.

“Wind on the pumpkin, twins on the screen. Engage the dragon, game over, you die.”

The librarian turns Tucker’s gun to her own neck. And then, still smiling, she tilts it slightly upward and pulls the trigger.

Two

CHASE

“Are you sure you’re okay, Chase? Do you want to talk about it?”

What Chase wants is for the preacher to keep her eyes on the road instead of glancing over every second or two to see how he’s handling things. It’s the third time Julie Kennedy has asked if he’s okay since they left the library.

The answer each time has been that he’s fine, and he is. He’s not so sure about her, however. Her face is flushed, and she’s breathing hard. True, they’d had to walk up the street from the library to the church where her car was parked, but she’s not old or out of shape, and the walk hadn’t been that strenuous.

She’s probably just upset because she witnessed the librarian’s death. Chase feels like he should be upset, too. But he really isn’t. He’s not glad that the woman died or anything, but none of it feels real.

“It’s important to talk about things,” the preacher says. “Trust me, I know. If you don’t, it’ll just grow into this heavy feeling inside your chest, making it hard to breathe.”

Chase doesn’t want to talk about it, though. He’s a little worried that talking about what happened might make it feel real. The scene at the library is already taking on the sepia tone of an old photograph in his mind, and that makes it easier to pretend it never happened.

The bigger issue, though, the one he can’t really explain, is that he really doesn’t think it was real. Chase doesn’t doubt that something happened back at the library, but it didn’t feel like a death. He has memories of interacting with Ms. Starrett, and he’s sad for her family, but he can’t shake the notion that what happened in the library isn’t the actual problem. It’s just a symptom of something much bigger.

Another symptom of that bigger problem is ahead, just beyond the stop sign. A body dangles from an overhanging tree branch, twisting gently in the breeze.

The scarecrow walks. A boy hangs from the tree.

He doesn’t know squat about the scarecrow or any of the other stuff the librarian was rambling on about, but that’s his body. His neck inside the noose. He knows this even though he can’t see the face, because he recognizes the bright-orange shoes. His dad—not his dad here, but his dad on the other side—found them on one of his trips with his girlfriend. Chase has never worn those shoes in Haddonwood, though. Until this moment, he’d have sworn they didn’t exist here.

Chase watches his body swaying above the pavement of Hammond Street. It almost looks peaceful.

Reverend Kennedy puts a hand on his shoulder. “Chase?”

He can tell she’s trying really hard not to ask again if he’s okay, and he’s grateful for that. A lot of people who don’t have kids seem to get stuck in this pattern of treating every child like they’re mentally deficient. But Reverend Kennedy—who says he should call her Julie, and maybe he will—doesn’t seem to be one of those adults. She’s worried about him, yes, but not in a condescending fashion. And she seems here in a way that most of the others in town don’t.

“Sorry,” he says. “I guess I was daydreaming.”

Julie smiles. “That’s okay. We can talk about all of this later. If you want.”

Chase considers asking whether she sees the body hanging from the tree, but he knows it’s a dumb question. If Julie could see it, she’d be as horrified as she’d been when Mrs. Starrett killed herself.

“I’m sorry about dragging you with me,” Julie says.

Chase shakes his head. “I don’t mind.”

“At least Miss Martha usually has cookies or cake on hand. Amazing that she can still get around well enough to bake at ninety-three, but I guess it gives her something to do. And she likes to make people happy.”

“Maybe we should’ve brought her something,” Chase says.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s her birthday. And you said she’s depressed. Maybe a gift or something would make her feel better.”

Julie’s face falls. “That’s an excellent point. But…we sort of are bringing her something to make her feel better. She loves company, and she loves kids. You’re not much older than the students she used to teach. Seeing you at her table eating cookies will brighten her day, especially if you can tell her some stories about school.”

Chase inhales sharply, and Julie quickly adds, “Or about anything, really. Doesn’t have to be school. What books you’re reading, maybe.”

He nods. Books he can do. School, though…that’s tricky. He keeps getting school here confused with school there. And no one would believe him if he told the truth, if he told them that the entire school ceased to exist this morning. He doesn’t think it was gone for long, although it’s hard to judge time exactly when there’s no light, no sound, no gravity, no nothing. What scared him worst of all was that he couldn’t even see the other place, the good place. Okay, the mostly good place. The place he wants to get back to.

Then, just as suddenly, everything and everyone had popped back into existence. His teacher, his classmates, all acting like something was wrong with him, when they were the ones who had entirely ceased to be. He’d been so confused that he blurted out the wrong information, wrong for Haddonwood, at any rate. And then someone had laughed at the idea of Chase Rey’s dad having a job, of him being anything other than a drunk. He probably should have backed down then, but that just pissed him off, so he repeated the story.

Which led to the school calling Ben, him staying with Julie, and seeing a lady shoot herself. And now, seeing another version of himself twisting in the wind, wearing the orange sneakers that he knows instinctively fit a whole lot better than the hand-me-downs on his feet right now.

Chase wants to get back to that other world. But he’s beginning to get the sense that the only way out is through that noose, or something like it, which scares the hell out of him. Was Barb Starrett trying to get back to some other world, too? The way she was raving, she sure didn’t seem to belong in this one.

Julie parks on the street, next to Martha’s mailbox. Chase follows her up the sidewalk and waits while she rings the doorbell. And then rings it again.

“I don’t hear anything,” he says. “Maybe it’s broken?”

She knocks, and the door opens with a creak as soon as her knuckles hit the wood. They both jump back, startled. No one is on the other side.

“Guess it wasn’t shut all the way.” Julie laughs nervously, then pushes the door open a bit farther to reveal a spacious living room with pale-blue walls.

Chase likes this room. The place looks the way a living room should look. Not like his family’s trailer, with its dark paneled walls and the smells of smoke and beer hanging in the air. This room smells like gingerbread. Underneath, however, there’s a faint aroma of something else. A sweet smell, but not in a good way. More a chemical odor than cookies or cake.

“Miss Martha?” Julie says. “It’s Julie Kennedy. I’ve got a friend with me. We wanted to wish you happy birthday.”

As they walk toward the kitchen, Chase’s eyes fall on the television, an ancient beast that sits on the floor, encased in a boxy wooden cabinet. The screen is dark, but for a brief moment, the darkness twitches. A half second of gray static cuts through the blackness, accompanied by a faint, almost imperceptible, popping noise. And then it’s gone.

Julie calls out for Martha again, then turns to Chase. “I’m going to check the rest of the house. She could have fallen in the bathroom or something. Wait here, okay?”

The second Julie leaves the living room, the television clicks on again, and his head is filled with music. Weird music. He’s not entirely certain whether it’s coming from the TV speakers or playing inside his head. A spinning door is centered on the screen as a man in a dark suit talks about keys to the imagination and different dimensions. The voice seems familiar. He thinks it’s a show his mom watched. But…not the Aileen woman. His real mom.

The man steps closer to the screen. “Chase. We need to talk. You’re not supposed to be here, but—”

Whatever he says after that is drowned out by Julie’s scream. The man on the TV, the one who just said his name, glances toward the kitchen as though he can hear what’s happening. His mouth presses into a thin, firm line, and he says, “Well, fuck.” Then the screen goes black again.

Chase runs toward the kitchen, but Julie meets him at the doorway. Her arms and legs are stretched to block his entry, like a giant four-legged bug caught in a spider’s web.

“Don’t go in there,” she says, on the verge of tears. Chase leans to one side, trying to see around her body. “I’m serious, Chase. Do. Not. Look.”

Chase doesn’t look on purpose, but her body isn’t wide enough to block his view, and he’s already seen what Julie had clearly hoped to spare him. Martha Yarn is half inside the oven and half out, as though she wanted to curl up in there and take a nap, but she dozed off before she could pull her legs inside.

Gas. That’s what he smelled when they first stepped into the living room.

“You shouldn’t have looked,” Julie says sadly. “You’ve seen enough for one day. Come on. Let’s get you outside.”

She pushes him toward the exit, leaving the door open behind them. “I turned the gas off, but the place needs to vent. And I have to call Tucker.”

Outside, Chase waits by Julie’s car while she dials Tucker’s number on her cell. He can see the outline of Martha Yarn’s TV through the open door, but it’s still completely dark.

“Damn,” Julie says. “I’m not even getting his voicemail.”

Chase nods down the street toward a house near the end. A police cruiser is parked at the curb. Four or five other cars are clustered in and around the driveway. “Pretty sure that’s Mrs. Starrett’s house.”

Julie follows his gaze and then rubs her forehead. “You’re right. Come on, we’ll just walk.” She starts down the sidewalk but turns back when she realizes Chase isn’t following. “What’s wrong?”

“I’d rather wait here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I don’t…I don’t want to see her family. They’ll be sad and crying and…” He shrugs, hoping this convinces her, because it’s the only thing he can think of.

Julie hesitates for a moment. “Okay, but don’t go anywhere. Just stay by the car. I’ll be right back.”

He watches as she walks down the street and rings the doorbell. It takes about a minute—a minute in which Chase keeps shooting glances back toward Martha Yarn’s TV, which is still dark. Eventually someone opens the door at the Starrett house. It looks like Scott Jenkins, Marybeth’s dad. He’s not sure why Mr. Jenkins is there, and for a moment it seems like he’s not going to let Julie in. But then he steps aside and slams the door behind them.

Chase thinks about the body hanging over the street less than half a mile away. The body is new, but he’s been seeing the noose for a while. He knows the noose is a symbol of death, and walking into that house could be every bit as risky as hanging himself.

But he needs answers, and it’s now or never. So he pushes rational thought aside and runs up the walkway onto Martha Yarn’s porch.

The living room seems darker than before. Maybe a cloud passed over the sun, or maybe it’s just his imagination messing with him. He stands in the doorway, uncertain, then takes a step forward. And then he takes another step, and another, until he’s directly in front of the old TV.

“Hello,” he whispers. “Are you there?”

Nothing.

Hand shaking, he reaches out to twist the knob.

Still nothing. It doesn’t even turn on.

Chase looks around. If the guy inside the TV has something to tell him, he needs to hurry. Julie will be back with Tucker soon.

He gives the television a kick. No response, but a second later he hears a noise in the kitchen. It’s sort of a sliding sound, almost a squeak of metal on metal. Then something hits the floor with a clatter.

Chase sighs. He does not want to go into that kitchen, but he’s not sure he has a choice now. His feet are already headed in that direction. As he gets closer, he sees a small metal table with two chairs and one of those old wall phones. On the table is a plate of cookies. An index card is propped up against the plate: Chase and Julie. And beyond that, what he glimpsed earlier—Martha Yarn’s body sprawled across the oven door. It’s a bit like a scene from Hansel and Gretel.

The squeaky sound comes again, followed by another faint clatter and ping. Chase has no doubt now that to see where it’s coming from, he’ll have to go into the kitchen. He mutters a curse under his breath and steps through the door.

A flash of red draws his eye…not blood as he fears, but a bright-red letter Y. It slides to the right to make room for a yellow O, a yellow U, and a purple R.

Then, directly below, a purple F moves up, followed by a green V, which pauses in place and then spins upside down, and then a purple L and an orange T.

YOUR FALT

It’s misspelled, but he doesn’t see another U on the fridge or on the floor. The meaning is clear either way. And just in case he was wondering if the message was for him, the letters rearrange to spell his name. CHASE.

The number one slithers up from the bottom as he watches it turn on its side, joined by the green V, also flipped sideways, stained with something that looks like dirt or maybe coffee grounds. Together they form an arrow that points at the body hanging out of the oven.

Then all of the magnets slide to the bottom of the fridge except for three—a purple L, and a yellow I and O. Instead of spelling out a word, however, the L flips on its side, and the I and O line up vertically beneath, pressed flush against each other.

It doesn’t spell a word, and for a moment, Chase is confused. Just as he realizes that it looks a bit like a dangling noose, the fridge door shakes, and all of the letters shuffle.

He backs slowly toward the living room, watching as the letters rearrange several times, cannibalizing the earlier words as needed.

N0T

YOUR

FAULT.

B3 CAREFUL

And then four more words: RAUM LIES, followed by SOME, and then TIMES.

Or at least he guesses that first one is a word. A name, maybe?

The letters then shift and divide into a multitude of letters before his eyes, forming a thick multicolored frame around the edge of the refrigerator. Now there’s only a tiny blank square, just large enough for the words GUESS RAUM GOT IT FROM HIS MAMA.

“I don’t understand,” Chase says as he backs away from the fridge. And he doesn’t. Not at all. First it is his fault. Then it isn’t? He has nothing to do with Martha Yarn. He barely even knew her. How could her death be his fault?

The letters continue to multiply, moving up to the freezer and around the sides. Seeing them move on their own was weird enough, but watching them stretch and divide like giant multicolored amoebas is a whole new level of freaky. He has to get out. It was a stupid move to have come in at all.

As he backs into the living room, however, the TV hums to life. The man’s voice he heard earlier says, “You need to try harder, Chase.”

When he turns toward the television, the man isn’t there. Just the spinning door, and it’s no longer exactly on the screen. It’s more like a hologram, half inside the TV, half out. Sort of like Miss Martha in the oven.

Chase moves closer. He’s pretty sure that if he touches that spinning door, he’ll tumble right through.

“They’re squabbling,” the voice says. “I think they do that a lot. Your fault, not your fault. Doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. The one thing they’re right about is that you aren’t supposed to be here. Everything is twisted now, like one of those Möbius strips.”

He opens his mouth to ask what a merbius strip is, but the Door Man plucks the thought from his mind.

“Doesn’t matter. The point is that you’re not supposed to be here. But you already know that, don’t you?”

When Chase doesn’t answer, the Door Man continues. He sounds a bit annoyed now. “Martha wasn’t supposed to die. She was almost to a hundred. Do you have any idea how much effort that took?”

Chase shakes his head. “Why did she do it?”

“To save you, apparently. Someone was worried that you were going to be stupid enough to step into that noose. But it was under control. I could have managed.” His voice is strained now, like he’s barely holding back from yelling. The perpetual spin slows to a halt, and now the door is no longer shades of gray. It’s glowing deep scarlet, almost like a beating heart.

Chase doesn’t get the sense that the man, or whatever this is behind the door, is talking to him anymore. Those last words were aimed at the They he mentioned. The Ones Who Squabble.

They must think the same thing, because there’s another clatter from the kitchen. It’s much louder this time, as though all of the magnets, which must number in the hundreds by now, hurtled to the floor at the same instant.

And then he hears a single word: GO!

The word echoes from all corners of the room, although if he’s being honest, it sounds more like it’s coming from all corners of the universe. It’s not the Door Man’s voice this time, or at least not just the Door Man’s voice. Chase doesn’t hear the command with his ears. It’s more like he feels the word with his entire body. He turns and has taken four long strides toward the door when he hears the whooshing noise behind him.

A large hand hits the center of Chase’s back and shoves him out of the house, off the porch, and into the air. He hits the lawn, rolling toward the sidewalk, as the entire house erupts into a ball of flame. Heat sears his skin, and he smells his clothes and hair burning.

He opens his mouth to scream, and then everything flickers.

The fireball is gone. It’s just Martha’s house again.

He’s not even the slightest bit singed.

And beside him on the lawn is the plate of cookies, still neatly wrapped in foil.

Three

TUCKER

Tucker is beginning to wonder if anyone outside of Haddonwood is alive. Three times, he’s tried to call Martha’s family in Viola City. Three times, the call has clicked directly over to voicemail. When he tries the chief, he doesn’t even get voicemail or an automated message about the party being outside the coverage area. It just keeps ringing. On and on and on.

Haddonwood isn’t very lively, either. Downtown seems about as busy as usual for midday, but the roads heading in and out of town are deserted. So is the parking lot outside the station. The Haddonwood Police Department is housed, along with several other town services, in what used to be the old elementary school, before they built the elementary and middle school complex. On any normal afternoon, there would be at least one cruiser here—usually Chief Craven’s—along with the vehicle for whichever dispatcher was on duty, and four or five cars belonging to people in the other municipal offices. And yet the lot is completely empty.

What’s most baffling to him, however, is the utter lack of curiosity about the gunshots at the library. Haddonwood is a small town. It doesn’t see much excitement. And sure, the reasonable thing to do when you hear gunshots is to keep your ass inside. But nosiness generally outweighs reason. The only other occasion he’d dealt with gunshots downtown had been some numbnuts nearly shooting off his toes when the gun in his pocket went off. No one knew it was accidental until after the fact, and you’d think people would have had the good sense to stay inside. But pretty much everyone within three blocks had been peeking out the doors or lining the sidewalks when he arrived on the scene, determined to find out every little thing. Gossip is a form of currency in small towns, and people will take a little risk to fill their pockets.

He’s not sure why he even pulls into a parking space, given the completely vacant lot. Force of habit, mostly. And as soon as he steps through the door of the station, Tucker can tell that no one has been in at all today. For one thing, he doesn’t smell fresh coffee. Lucy Brennan isn’t at the desk, and she should be working. Even though the 911 calls weren’t answered, Tucker had hoped it was just the system that was down, and not an actual problem at the station. He reaches for his cell phone, which has everyone’s numbers programmed in, then remembers that he left the now-useless thing in the car. The desk phone is dead, too. So is the computer. The radio seems to be functional, but all he’s picking up from the scanner is a word or two mixed with a ton of static.

Tucker considers the possibility that Lucy checked out early because the equipment was down, but she’s worked with the department for twenty-five years. She might file her nails on duty and watch cat videos on her phone when things are slow, but she wouldn’t leave her post. Someone is required to be on dispatch at all times. Elise, the night dispatcher who was on duty when Tucker signed out around midnight, shouldn’t have left until Lucy’s butt was in that chair. And she wouldn’t have if Craven was here. It’s almost like they’re schoolkids trying to see how much they can torture the substitute teacher.

Except that doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right at all. Whatever his problems with Marty, the dispatchers are conscientious, dedicated public servants. He likes both of them a lot. Neither woman would pull a stunt like this.

Tucker finds a yellow legal pad and jots down Lucy’s address. Elise lives a good fifteen miles outside of town, almost to Viola City, so he doesn’t bother with that one for the time being. Marty’s address he already knows. He went over for a beer a couple of times right after he joined the force, during that brief window before they both figured out that even though they had to work together, they simply didn’t have enough in common to be friends.

A quick drive by Lucy’s house reveals that she’s not home. The house is completely empty. So he heads over to Marty’s place. He’s beginning to wonder if Marty has disappeared too, when the deputy finally stumbles to the door, squinting at the sunlight.

“What the hell, Tuck? I just fell asleep.”

“Need you to get down to the station.”

“You ever hear of this thing called a phone?”

“Phones are down. So’s the internet. Lucy didn’t show, and I need you to cover dispatch until Elise comes in.”

If Elise comes in, he thinks.

“What’s the point if the phones are down?”

“Somebody needs to be there. We’ve had two suicides in town since you went off duty.”

Marty’s eyes go wide. Tucker gives him a brief rundown but can’t quite bring himself to mention Barb grabbing his gun. It will be in his full report, and Marty will find out all the minute details eventually, but right now Tucker can’t deal with it.

The safety was on. He’s one-hundred-percent certain on that point. How had she managed to turn it off without him noticing?

“I’ve already left a message with Hank about picking up the bodies,” he tells Marty. “Keep trying to get Sheriff Hoyt and give me a shout on the radio if you reach him. Assuming it works.”

“Where are you going?”

“I still haven’t made it out to Neil Prescott’s to get his statement about the Pinewood.”

“You need to just drop that, man. Somebody punked you good.”

But Tucker can’t drop it. Even with everything else that’s been dumped onto his plate in the past few hours, he has to nail down what happened to that woman’s body and her 1957 Ford Fordor. Because she sure as hell didn’t drive it away.

Fifteen minutes later, Tucker is in front of Prescott’s house, which is little more than a shack. That strikes Tucker as odd. The man owns the Pinewood Motel and Diner, both of which do decent business given the limited options in Haddonwood. You’d think he could afford a nicer place. What does the guy do with all that money?

The white cinder-block house has two windows and a door smack in the middle. Rising rainwater and mud have stained the bottom rows of block a pale brown. A tin roof sits atop the squat, square building, with specks of coppery rust scattered across the otherwise drab gunmetal gray. Prescott’s front yard isn’t much to look at, either—dead grass cut short to the point of dust and a few anemic-looking trees.

But the backyard is a different story. The ground drops dramatically via a series of rock ledges, almost like stone steps, leading down to the river. A faded wooden dock stretches halfway out into the muddy water. At the end, a rusty lawn chair is parked next to a small cooler.

It’s not perfect, and the mosquitos are probably a bitch in the summer, but Tucker can definitely see the appeal. This far off the main road, the only sounds are those of nature. He could get used to this.

The front door opens before Tucker is even out of the car. Neil Prescott wears a pair of baggy boxers and a loose black T-shirt that billows in the wind around him. Apparently, he wasn’t expecting company.

That also strikes Tucker as odd. Neil knew he was coming by to take his statement. True, he should’ve been here a few hours ago, but…

Thinking about why he’s late brings up the image of the dead librarian. The image of Martha Yarn follows, her legs sticking out of her oven like an illustration in some fucked-up fairy tale.

“Afternoon, Deputy. What can I do you for?” Neil doesn’t seem that happy to see him, and under normal circumstances, Tucker would sympathize with that point of view. No one likes to see a cop until they need one. But Neil is fully aware of why Tucker is stopping by.

“I ain’t done nothin wrong. Pretty sure of it.” Neil gives a half-assed laugh at the end. Both of them know there are at least a dozen charges he could be arrested on in any given week if the Haddonwood Police were inclined to make trouble. Prescott isn’t a member of the town Chamber of Commerce, by any means, and there are more than a few people who would like to see his motel shuttered, given the pervasive rumors of drugs and prostitution. Chief Tobe Craven fields several of those calls each month. But the chief also knows that many residents consider the Pinewood an institution of sorts—maybe not one you’d put on a tourism brochure, but an outlet that every town needs, nonetheless. There’s a good deal of nostalgia in that point of view, since a decent percentage of Haddonwood’s population—and possibly Chief Craven himself—lost their virginity in one of the Pinewood’s rooms. Tucker suspects that quite a few townspeople were conceived there, as well.

“Sorry I’m late,” Tucker says, walking toward the house, where Neil has something cooking. Bacon, judging from the smell. Tucker’s stomach growls. Aside from a couple of cookies, he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. “It’s been one hell of a morning. You want to do the statement here or inside?”

“Statement? What the hell you talkin’ about?”

Tucker frowns. “You’re kidding, right?”

Neil just stares at him.

“The murder. The body you found last night.” Tucker takes another step forward, mostly to see if he can smell alcohol over the pervasive scent of bacon. It’s past noon, and Neil has been known to knock back a few.

“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about. But come on in. My damn bacon is burning.”

He follows Neil inside. The man shuffles through the sparsely furnished living room and kitchen combo, takes the pan of bacon off the burner, then cuts the gas. Tucker shudders, again thinking of Martha. But that’s not the body he’s here to discuss.

“So, you don’t remember a murder last night?”

Neil chuckles. “You sound like a broken record, son. There was no murder. No guests, even. Calm as a cucumber all night. Spent most of it finishing off that new John Sandford book.”

“You called the station, Neil. A woman was dead in the bathroom of cabin number one. So much blood that you puked your guts out in the parking lot.”

Neil laughs, glancing up at the bandage on Tucker’s forehead. “Damn. You must have hit your head hard.”

“A dead woman in cabin one,” Tucker repeats. “Stabbed at least a dozen times.”

Tucker fights the urge to pull out his phone, to show the man the actual pictures that he, by God, took last night, but he knows the photographs currently on his phone aren’t going to help him make his case.

After everything he has seen today, he probably should have been prepared for the possibility that Neil wouldn’t remember. Hell, he should have expected it.

But he hadn’t allowed himself to expect it. He was still hoping for a rational explanation. Still is hoping for it. LSD in the water supply. Terrorism. Something that will explain all of this, and preferably something that doesn’t involve multiple people conspiring to gaslight him.

He has a brief flash from a few hours earlier, when he and Julie had found Chase Rey sitting on Martha’s lawn, mumbling it’s not real, over and over. Denial wasn’t an unusual reaction, given that the kid had witnessed not one, but two, tragedies in a single day. But now Tucker’s kind of wondering if maybe it wasn’t more than just denial. Maybe the boy had also seen something that he knew couldn’t be real.

“A body in cabin number one. Sounds like you been watching that Bates Motel show a little too much,” Neil says. “That thing’s messed up. Incest and murder and all sorts of crazy shit. Makes you wonder what the world’s comin’ to when they show that kind of—”

Tucker cuts him off. “You’re seriously telling me you don’t remember calling me last night?”

Neil narrows his eyes. “I am. And to tell the truth, I’m gettin pissed about this little prank of yours. I’ve got a good mind to call Chief Craven and—”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that,” Tucker says on his way to the door. “I’ve been trying all damn day.”

As soon as Tucker steps outside, he spots the crows. Three of them, perched on top of his cruiser. His windshield is splattered with white bird bombs, far more than he’d have imagined three birds could carry and still actually fly.

Tucker draws his gun on instinct. If the birds are at all alarmed at the sight of him raising the pistol and taking aim, they hide it well. The crow in the middle, the one from the library, with its odd white eyes, flexes a wing and—he would swear this on his parents’ graves—actually winks at him.

Tucker aims carefully, itching to pull the trigger.

“I don’t know,” Neil says conversationally from behind him. “Looks kinda risky to me. Unless you’re a damn good shot, you’re likely to hit your own car. Don’t think Craven would be too happy about that.”

Neil reaches back and slams the door behind him, hard. Two of the pests head for the sky. The third crow, the one with the weird eyes, takes wing as well, but just circles overhead. Tucker keeps the gun out and walks to his car, watching the bird warily. As he’s turning the car around, the ringleader of the flock lands on Neil’s battered roof and is quickly joined by half a dozen more.

Neil gives Tucker a sarcastic little wave as he pulls away, but he can barely see it through the spattered windows. It takes several minutes and exhausts most of his wiper fluid, but by the time he reaches the main road, he’s managed to clear away the worst of the mess. The windshield is still horribly streaked, but at least he can drive without ducking his head to peer between globs of grayish-white.

Before he turns onto the main road, Tucker reaches for his phone, hoping to try Craven’s number one more time. But apparently his phone is as tired of this game as he is, because the screen is now black. He pushes the button on top to try and reset it, but it doesn’t respond. Glancing down at the useless piece of tech, he laughs out loud. It’s a shaky laugh, though, and it deeply worries the part of his brain that is still trying to be objective about this literal shitstorm of a day.

The squawk from the radio is so loud that he jumps. Marty’s voice comes over the air, saying he’s managed to contact the sheriff’s office, but they told him that Hoyt went home sick a few hours ago.

“Are they having the same communications issues we are? Phones and internet down?”

“I don’t know,” Marty says. “Didn’t ask. You just said get in touch with Hoyt.”

Tucker cuts the call without signing off, reflecting yet again on the man’s utter inability to take the next logical step. Whatever you told him to do would generally get done, but he was incapable of taking even the slightest initiative.

Tucker has every intention of returning to the station to get started on paperwork, but his brain seems to have other ideas. When his car reaches the edge of town, he finds himself turning instead toward Haddonwood High. Daisy might have caught a ride with her sister, but the Hart is less than a mile from the high school. It’s a beautiful day, crazy occurrences notwithstanding. Tucker thinks the odds are good that she’ll choose to walk.

By the time he spots her, she’s barely a block from the Hart, so he can’t really offer a ride. But he needs to talk to her. While his reasons are partly selfish, he also doesn’t want her to find out about Martha Yarn from anyone else. She’s going to feel awful. Like she didn’t do enough to keep it from happening, since she was almost certainly the last person to see Martha alive. It will be upsetting no matter who tells her, but maybe he can soften the blow.

He pulls up to the curb in front of her and watches in the side-view mirror. A horrible thought hits him—she’ll walk right past. Not only will Daisy have forgotten their conversation this morning, she’ll have forgotten him.

Then she smiles and picks up her pace. He rolls down the window, but she’s already opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat.

“What happened to your car?” She laughs. “It looks like—”

It rips Tucker’s heart to see her smile fade when she reads his face.

“What’s wrong? Is it Dad?”

“No!” he says quickly. “No. Not your dad, and not Dani. It’s just…” He pauses for a breath, then asks the only question that really matters right now. “Do you remember our conversation this morning? After you patched up my head?”

She gives him a perplexed look and for a moment, he’s scared she’s going to say no.

“Of course. Even leaving aside the insane bits, I wouldn’t be likely to forget you scarfing down half a plate of cookies. Why do you ask?”

He sighs in relief. “I’ll explain later. I just wanted to let you know…Miss Martha’s dead. Suicide. Also Barb Starrett, the librarian.”

“Martha killed Ms. Starrett?”

“No! Maybe I should start at the beginning.”

Daisy is in tears by the time Tucker reaches the part where he followed Julie Kennedy into Martha’s house and found the old woman’s body. He wants to pull her into his arms, to at least try to comfort her, but there are people—mostly schoolkids—walking past.

“I should have called 911 immediately,” she says. “Maybe someone could have gotten to her in time.”

“Don’t, Daisy. Don’t do that. You couldn’t have gotten through anyway.” He nods at his phone on the console. “Mine’s not working at all, but we tried landlines, cell phones—no response. Internet is down, too. I’m about to go to the station and see if I can find out what the hell is up, but…I didn’t want you to hear about Martha from anyone else.”

“Thank you,” she says, wiping away a tear with her sleeve as she reaches for the door.

“Daisy.” He takes her arm. “Seriously. You did absolutely everything you could have done. If anyone is at fault here, it’s me. I could have gone straight to her house instead of trying to find Julie Kennedy. If I’d done that, they might both be alive. Barb Starrett…” He exhales shakily. “I can’t believe she grabbed my gun. There will be an investigation once Craven gets back, and—”

“Hey. You couldn’t have known.” She stops and takes a deep breath. “Let’s make a deal. We both stop blaming ourselves and try to figure out what the hell is going on here. Because something is most definitely going on.”

“Yeah. Leaving aside the whole thing at the Pinewood, two women who live in the same small town kill themselves within hours of each other. That’s a very odd coincidence, but it could still be coincidence. Two who live on the same street in that town, though? Unless there’s some sort of suicide pact we don’t know about, it seems really, really unlikely. Plus we have communications down at the same time. People having hallucinations—not just you and me, but also Barb. Even the birds are acting bizarre.”

Daisy wrinkles her nose. “They certainly seem to have a grudge against your car. Do you think maybe it’s a terrorist attack? Maybe they put some sort of drug in the water supply? Hit the communications grid to isolate people? And that flu you mentioned could be a biological agent. Maybe we should cancel the film festival tonight. Reschedule Halloween and the bonfire at Tower…Farm.”

She frowns as she says the words, like something is scratching at her memory.

“You okay?” Tucker asks.

“Yeah. Just tired, I guess. My brain seems to be on the fritz. I keep having those moments where it’s trying to make a connection, but then it sort of slips away.”

“God, you and me both. I’m not sure how we’d put a quarantine in place, though…we just don’t have the manpower with the chief gone. As for canceling tonight, canceling anything at this late hour would probably be impossible, especially with communications down. And…I don’t know. Maybe we’ll learn something by having people together. There could be others who have questions about what’s been going on. Julie Kennedy told me Barb was acting weird…speaking in verse…even before the bird attacked her.”

“Could the bird be the problem? You said it looked sick. Maybe it has some sort of a bird flu that transmits to humans…making them…talk in verse.” Daisy shakes her head. “Never mind. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Tucker says.

“True.” She glances down the street toward the Hart. “I need to get to work. Some volunteers from the band said they might stop by to lend a hand. I doubt Trent even has the doors open yet.”

“Sure. But…talk to Trent, okay? Talk to your sister, if you see her. Your friends. See if you can find out whether they’ve been experiencing anything odd without…you know…”

“Causing them to think I’ve lost my mind?”

“Exactly. I’ll check back with you in about an hour.”

Daisy gives him a little grin. “Does this mean I’ve been deputized?”

“Deputy Daisy. I kind of like the sound of that.”

“Yikes. That sounds like a character in a bad cartoon.” She laughs as she slides out of the passenger seat. “Deputy Gray works just fine.”

Tucker watches from the curb until Daisy is safe inside the theater, then turns around to head back to the station. When he arrives, he finds Marty snoozing, feet propped up on the dispatcher’s desk. Fair enough, since he’d been hauled out of bed earlier.

Tucker goes back to the small office that he shares with Marty, and for the next hour, he fills out paperwork. Three bodies. Three reports. The one about the woman at the Pinewood is probably an exercise in futility, but he fills it out anyway. It’s almost an act of defiance, as if failing to submit the report would be an admission that it never happened. And it fucking happened.

By the time he finishes at a little before five, he’s exhausted. Also hungry. It’s going to be a long night, and he needs fuel. He scratches out a note for Marty, props it on the desk next to the man’s boots, and heads back into town.

The fridge at his house is down to beer and mustard, so he doesn’t even bother going home. What he really wants is one of Sandra Lovett’s roast beef sandwiches and a giant coffee, but he’s resigned himself to a Chickwich and fries, since he’s pretty sure that Viola’s Best Bakery will be closed. The last time he saw Sandra, she was sobbing in Reverend Kennedy’s arms. Sandra and Barb have known each other forever, and it was a rare day that the two of them didn’t spend at least a half hour outside the bakery, sharing the latest gossip.

To his surprise, however, the bakery is open. It’s not one of the part-timers filling in, either. Sandra herself is behind the counter, talking to Principal Snyder—who Tucker still thinks of as “Old Man” Snyder five years after graduation. He doesn’t even know the guy’s first name, although he kind of feels like he should. Even though Tucker was pretty much a model student who was never once hauled into the office, being in the same room with Snyder puts him on edge. He half expects the principal to turn around and start yelling at him. Was the safety on, Tucker Vance? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?

“…about poor Martha’s death,” Sandra is saying as she runs Snyder’s credit card. The charge goes through instantly, which seems strange to Tucker given that the internet was still down last time he checked.

“So sad, but what a peaceful way to die. No pain. No blood.” Snyder peeks inside the bag. “Did you forget the pie?”

“Oh, drat. I think I’ve lost my mind today.” She laughs, shaking her head. “I’ll have to run your card again, okay?”

Tucker pauses at the far end of the counter, looking down at the menu even though he knows it by heart. Something is very, very wrong with this scenario. Sure, people often throw themselves into their work when someone they love dies. He finished his last semester of high school with straight As because the only way he could forget about his mom and dad’s death was to lose himself in studying.

He definitely wasn’t laughing the very first day, though. Or even the first week. It was months before he could laugh without feeling guilty. Yes, losing your parents is a bit more traumatic than losing a best friend, but still. Barb Starrett’s body is barely even cold.

But it’s not just Sandra’s casual banter that catches his attention.

It’s the rhythm.

Da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum.

The rhyme.

Die, pie. Today, okay.

His stomach churns when he thinks of the scene in the library this morning. Roast beef is no longer appealing. A Chickwich—deep fried to the point where you can’t tell it was ever a living creature—seems much more likely to stick with him. He puts the menu down and begins to back away from the counter.

Sandra says, “Hold on. I’ll be with you in a second.”

Tucker is scared to speak, half convinced that whatever comes out of his mouth will be another verse in this bizarre skit. He just gives her a little wave and pushes the door open.

Barb Starrett steps aside, narrowly avoiding a collision with Tucker as he spills onto the sidewalk. His hand moves down to his gun, holding it in place, but the very-much-alive librarian seems to have lost interest in suicide. She heads into the bakery, shaking her head in amusement. “Lordhelpme! He’s in a rush, I reckon.”

Four

DAISY

Daisy yanks the tape from the cardboard box, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Trent Jackson, the owner of the Hart, drops another box next to it and heads back to the storage closet for a third.

“I wish you’d mentioned these last week,” she says with a touch of annoyance. It’s probably not the best tone to take with your new boss, but Trent isn’t going to fire her. He spent the past few weeks teaching her how to use this ancient equipment. It’s too late to train someone else, and there’s no way that Trent is going to work it himself. She’s pretty sure he’s claustrophobic—he doesn’t come into the projection room unless he has to.

Unfortunately, that’s not his only quirk. His moods shift like the wind. Most of the time, he cheerfully goes about the task of renovating the place. But every now and then, she’ll catch him looking around the theater in abject horror, like he’s wondering why in hell he’s here. Daisy mentioned this to her dad when he asked how she was liking the job. He said Trent probably took out a big loan in order to fix the place up and is terrified it won’t make enough for the venture to pay off. And while her father quickly added that he didn’t know that for certain—it was just a guess—the man works at the bank. Which means he probably does know for certain, but there’s some sort of banker’s code, like attorney-client privilege or doctor-patient confidentiality, that means he’s not supposed to say.

Trent adds the new box to the stack. “I told you before that Jill had hundreds of them. Just stick with the stuff you picked earlier. Nobody’s going to know one way or the other.”

“I’ll know,” Daisy says. “There could be another Hitchcock in here. We’re at two hours and nineteen, with the cartoons. I could splice in a few more scenes.”

“Suit yourself,” he says. “This is your shindig. I don’t care which clips you show. I’m going to run home for a bit. Get some food, maybe a shower. Keep an eye on that kid, okay? Don’t let him do anything dangerous.”

Daisy glances through the window that looks out over the auditorium. Chase Rey is pushing a broom through the aisles, a job that the contractors who refinished the seats should have done before they packed up and headed back to Knoxville last week. He and Julie showed up at the Hart shortly after Daisy arrived. Julie asked to borrow her cell phone, hoping that she might be able to get through to Martha Yarn’s family in Viola City, but Daisy’s phone was as useless as Julie’s and Tucker’s.

“I really, really hate having to go back on the promise to help out,” she told Daisy. “But someone needs to tell them, and it should be me. Would it be okay if Chase takes my place?”

At first, Daisy was a little annoyed, since Julie’s offer to help seemed to have morphed into Daisy helping her by watching Chase. But she instantly realized how totally unfair that was, both to Julie and to Chase. They’d been at the scene of two separate tragedies today.

She told Julie of course it would be okay. And Chase turned out to be a surprisingly good worker. Definitely better than the one band member who showed up for fifteen minutes and left without even saying goodbye. She just walked around the corner and disappeared, probably sneaking out through one of the side doors. It was as if she’d never shown up at all.

In fact, it was eerily like that. Daisy could remember that someone came, but she couldn’t remember who the girl was now that she was gone. And Haddonwood High is tiny. Everyone knows everyone. She knew the girl. But now her face is blurred in Daisy’s memory, almost as if the girl was one of those faceless, formless students in Martha Yarn’s class photos.

The thought is unsettling, and she shivers. She feels a sudden need for some sort of human contact, so she taps on the intercom. “Hey, Chase! Meet me in the lobby when you finish that, okay? We’ll start the popcorn machine.”

Chase begins to turn toward her, and for a moment, she’s terrified that his face, too, will be blurred and featureless. But it’s not.

“Sure,” he says, smiling up at her in the booth. “I just have two more rows.”

“It looks really good!” And it does. It’s amazing how much better the auditorium looks without a layer of sawdust on the floor, not to mention with new seats, a new screen, and a new curtain.

She still has a hard time believing that the theater is reopening. Only a few months ago, she’d walked past the shuttered doors with Dani and MB, saying how it would be cool to see old movies in the theater.

Dani had rolled her eyes. “As compared to watching any movie I want when I want on my iPad? Yeah, right.”

“It’s not the same,” Daisy had argued. “You don’t get the group experience. It’s different. You know that—you get twice as scared when we go see something at the theater. It’s like you can smell everyone else’s fear.”

Marybeth had snorted. “And their cheap cologne, and bad breath, and popcorn farts. Bleh.”

It was one of the few times that MB and Dani had ever agreed on anything, so Daisy had dropped the subject. Clearly, they’d thought she was crazy. Martha Yarn had understood what she meant, though. Of course, Martha had killed herself a few hours after sharing that thought with Daisy, so maybe that wasn’t the best example to use in defense of her sanity.

The next time Daisy had walked past the Hart after that conversation with Dani and MB, the marquee was no longer blank. It read:

REOPENING SOON

YOUR FAVORITE CLASSIC FILMS

And directly below that:

PART-TIME HELP WANTED

The door had been partially open. When Daisy looked inside, Trent was on his knees, happily stripping up the ancient carpet. And when she left the building ten minutes later, she had a job. The next day, she was right there with him, ripping up carpet and getting the place ready for the renovation crew that was due to arrive the following week.

Her dad had been proud and also a little worried, cautioning Daisy that she’d have to keep her grades up if she wanted to work. Dani was horrified at first, clearly scared that she’d be expected to get a job, too. But then her view shifted, probably because she realized her dad would never allow it given her subterranean GPA. A job meant more money in Daisy’s pocket, and Dani had always considered Daisy’s pocket a natural extension of her own. Daisy didn’t mind sharing. She hadn’t taken the job for the money. When she’d stepped through the door that afternoon, it had felt almost like…destiny. Like she had pulled this place out of mothballs through the sheer force of her imagination. That sounds a little crazy, even to her. But it also sounds right.

She selects another case of film reels from the box, wondering again how Jill Hart came by this collection, and whether Trent had really gotten permission to show them in public like he told her. Most of the movies are still under copyright, and she has the vague sense that even though the previous owner left this collection to Trent, he was probably breaking quite a few laws by showing them and charging admission. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that there will be anyone from the FBI or the Motion Picture Copyright Association or whatever in the audience. This is Haddonwood. They’ll be lucky if they manage to pull in anyone from outside the city limits.

Daisy flips open the case and finds that the mystery prize is Double Indemnity. Trent’s benefactor seemed to have had a thing for film noir, as well as horror. Daisy is less familiar with that genre, but it might be good for another film festival later on down the line.

The writing is faded on many of the canisters in the box. A few don’t even have labels. She’d been surprised to learn a few weeks back that the films weren’t on a single reel. In fact, most of them were five or six reels long. Trent had shown her how to load the film and watch for the cue to switch from the first to the second projector. Then, you’d set up the other machine and chill for a few minutes until it’s time to switch over again.

From what she’s read online, virtually everything in this booth is obsolete. Theaters are digital now, with the movies loaded onto a server. Even at the large multiplexes, someone just hits a couple of buttons, and all of the shows, including trailers, are set up for the week. On the one hand, that would be a lot easier. But now that she’s gotten the hang of it, she likes the rhythm of threading the film and waiting for just the right moment to switch over when the cue pops up on the screen.

What Daisy has enjoyed most, however, is the splicer. A Guillotine splicer, to be precise, which she thinks is an appropriately eerie name for a tool used to create a Halloween scream reel. At first, it felt wrong, almost sacrilegious, to cut chunks out of the films, but Trent said that if you were careful to make the cuts precisely, the splicing wouldn’t really affect the movies because you could just splice the clipped section back in.

Daisy had originally planned to just pick the two scariest films in the box and be done with it. But the goal of this sneak preview was really to draw attention to coming attractions, so once Trent showed her the neat little splicing gadget, she decided it might serve their purpose better to create a scream reel with some of the scariest moments from the entire library that Jill Hart had left behind. That had taken far longer than the first option, and she’d felt a little bad about logging all of the extra hours. Even though Trent hadn’t actually complained, she’d done most of her research on her own time at home, watching YouTube clips and Netflix versions to decide which bits to use and where to use them. Then she’d pulled out the Guillotine the next day to slice, dice, and splice together the actual film for her horror movie mixtape.

She puts Double Indemnity in a separate stack that includes a couple of Bogart films and hauls out a second case of reels. This one doesn’t have a label at all—just numbers. Curious, she loads the reel in the canister marked 1 and turns on the projector. It makes a flip-flip-flip sound and then opens in the middle of a scene with a convertible driving along a winding road. Apparently, it’s not the first reel after all. Daisy recognizes the movie as soon as the shot zooms in on the driver—a blonde woman in a fur coat. A bird cage lies on the seat next to her.

It is another Hitchcock movie. Not one of the minor films, either. It’s one of her favorites, in fact. But she won’t be showing this one tonight. While she hasn’t actually seen Tucker’s crow nemesis, he said it played a role in Barb Starrett’s breakdown, in addition to slashing his forehead and crapping all over his car. Showing a clip from The Birds would be in exceptionally poor taste.

She rummages through the remaining boxes and finds a few additional B movies and one Hammer classic, but nothing that she thinks would be worth the twenty minutes or so it would take to find the right frames and patch them in. So she removes The Birds from the projector and sets up the two cartoons—one Porky Pig with ghosts and one Bugs Bunny with a mad doctor. Then she stacks the reels that she’s spliced together nearby so that she’ll have everything ready to roll once the audience arrives.

Or maybe if the audience arrives. The foot traffic on Main Street seems really light, especially for Halloween. Maybe it’s just this flu, or maybe word has gotten around about the suicides. That’s bound to put a damper on the evening’s activities. In a small town like Haddonwood, most people will know one if not both of the victims. Heck, half the town is probably related to one of them.

Chase is already in the lobby when she gets downstairs. He looks a little pale, but that’s partly due to the dust he’s been sweeping.

“I bagged up some of the bigger pieces,” he says. “The rest of it I just pushed out the back door. Hope that’s okay.”

“That’s perfect. It’s sawdust. It comes from trees. Don’t see how anyone could call that littering.”

He gives her a brief smile, and she fights the urge to ask if he’s okay. Julie asked him that question twice before she left, and Daisy had noticed Chase’s mouth twitch the tiniest bit with annoyance. It’s been a hell of a day for him, but she remembers how tired she got of hearing that same damned question over and over after her mom died. Even knowing that everyone meant well, it was tiresome. You want to scream of course I’m not okay, you fucking moron, but that’s not the polite answer, and you know they mean well, so you just nod.

Instead of asking the dreaded question, Daisy tells him to pour himself a soda. “And then I’ll show you how to work this beast.” She pats the side of the popper. “We’ll get you all trained, and then maybe Trent will hire you in a few years.”

Chase has acted very mature over the past hour. Once he has a cup in hand, though, he does something that definitely marks him as still very much a kid—he tops off the crushed ice with a mixture of three different types of soda.

He’s quiet for a moment, just drinking his soda concoction as he watches her measure out the oil and pour it into the machine. Then he says, “You were at Miss Martha’s house earlier today, right?”

She nods.

The boy falls silent again, and she gets the sense that he’s sizing her up. Deciding whether to trust her. Finally, he blurts out a question. “Did you see anything weird?”

Now it’s Daisy who is sizing him up. “Weird…how?”

When he doesn’t respond, she takes the plunge. “Yes. The fridge magnets. They didn’t want to stay put. Martha had me throw them in the trash.”

“They didn’t stay in the trash,” he says. “And there are a lot more of them now. What about the TV? Did it…talk to you?”

“No. The TV wasn’t even on.” She pours in the popcorn and flips the metal switch.

“It wasn’t on when I was there either, and it still talked to me. Like, directly to me. By name.” His voice takes on a panicky note. “I know that sounds like I’m crazy, but something really strange is going on. Miss Martha had a plate of cookies on the table with my name and Julie’s. Even though there’s no way she could have known we were coming. Plus…”

He stops, and Daisy can tell that there’s something he’s decided not to trust her with. Which isn’t surprising, really. He’s tagged along with Ben to a few school functions, but she’s just another one of his older brother’s friends. It’s not like he knows her all that well.

“Chase, you’re not going crazy,” she says, hoping to reassure him. “Or at least if you are, you’re not alone.”

Daisy has just begun telling him about the school pictures with their odd, featureless faces when Tucker shoves through the front door. His eyes are wide as he looks from her to Chase.

“Tucker? What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer but crosses over to the section of the counter where Chase is standing. “You were there this morning. Tell me. What happened at the library?”

The question strikes Daisy as a bit callous. Why on earth would Tucker want the kid to relive that?

Chase seems surprised, too, but he answers. “There was this bird. And Ms. Starrett was talking crazy, stuff about twins and pumpkins and scarecrows. She was asking Julie to pray for”—he stops, biting at his lip—“to pray for the bird, I guess? Then she grabbed your gun and shot herself.”

Tucker leans down, resting his elbows on the counter, and rubs his face. He looks miserable, and any annoyance Daisy felt at the harsh tone he used with Chase evaporates.

“What happened?” she asks. “Did someone else die?”

He gives a shaky laugh. “No. Kind of the opposite, really. Barb Starrett just walked into the bakery, very much alive. No bullet wounds. Not even a scratch.”

“That’s not…” Daisy shakes her head. “I was going to say that’s not possible, but this day has kind of moved the bar on that. Did she seem…normal?”

“Yes. Totally normal. Way more normal than she did at the library…although there’s still that whole rhyming thing. But Sandra Lovett and Old Man—” He glances at Chase and then says, “Principal Snyder were doing that, too. Or it felt like they were. It’s been a long day, though. I could just be imagining that part.”

Chase shakes his head. “I heard it, too. At the library, I mean. And one of my teachers was doing it earlier today right before—” He stops abruptly.

“Before what?” Daisy prods gently, both because Chase has been through a lot and because he seems like the type of kid who might fold in on himself, retracting into his shell like a tortoise if pushed too hard. He appears to be on the brink of doing exactly that for a moment, as he looks back and forth between Daisy and Tucker.

“Before everything at school went black,” he eventually says. “They all disappeared. I’ve seen a few kids blink out now and then, and a whole lot of duplicates, but this was the first time that everything was erased. It was scary, but it didn’t last long.”

Daisy exchanges a look with Tucker. “And you’re sure you didn’t just…”

“I didn’t pass out,” Chase says. “I’m certain. I know it sounds weird, but not any weirder than Tucker seeing Ms. Starrett walking around after her brains were…” He pulls in a ragged breath, and Daisy can tell he’s fighting back tears.

“You’re right, Chase. Tucker and I have both seen stranger things than that today. We believe you. I don’t know about Tucker, but I’m still not convinced this isn’t in our heads. Maybe we’ve been drugged or…something. At first, I thought it was Miss Martha’s cookies, but—” She stops suddenly, looking at Tucker with wide eyes. “Is your car outside?”

“Yeah. Just down the block. Why?”

“Come on,” she says. “Both of you. If Barb Starrett just walked into the bakery…”

Tucker finishes the thought, already heading for the door. “Maybe Martha is still alive.”

As they pass Viola’s Best Bakery, Tucker slows the car down and nods toward the large plate-glass window. Principal Snyder is sitting at one of the tables, eating his dinner. Behind him, near the counter, a short plump woman with her hair pulled back into a gray bun is chatting with Sandra Lovett.

Even from the side and from this distance, the woman is obviously Barb Starrett.

“I don’t think Miss Martha is alive, though,” Chase says from the backseat.

“Why not?” Daisy asks.

Chase just shakes his head and continues to stare out the window. Daisy is tempted to press the point, but she doesn’t believe they’ll get any more out of him. And they’ll know soon enough anyway.

Police tape is still across the entrance when they arrive at Martha’s house. The lights are out, too.

“Looks like you were right,” Tucker tells Chase. “I need to see if Hank ever made it around to pick up the body. You two wait here.”

Daisy and Chase say no at the same time.

Tucker raises an eyebrow and taps his chest. “This is a police uniform,” he says with exaggerated patience. “That yellow ribbon is police tape indicating that only police can enter. Last time I checked neither of you”—he forks two fingers and points at them—“were police.”

“That’s true,” Daisy says. “But we are clearly not in a world where normal rules apply. What if something happens, something you can’t explain? Don’t you wish someone else had been with you at the Pinewood last night?”

“Someone was,” Tucker mutters. “Even if he doesn’t remember it.”

“I mean someone who…”

“Someone who can see the truth,” Chase says. “Someone like us.”

Daisy nods, although an annoying voice in her head suggests that the more logical alternative might be someone who is equally crazy.

“What were you saying about the Pinewood?” Chase asks.

“We’ll explain later,” Daisy says and then looks back at Tucker. “If you go inside, I’m going with you. And I’m not leaving Chase alone, so…”

Tucker just stares at them for a moment and then sighs. “Fine. But we’re not going inside, then. We’ll go around to the kitchen door and look in through the window.”

It’s getting close to dark, so Tucker grabs his flashlight from the console between the seats, and Daisy and Chase follow him around the side of the house. They’re all walking quietly, almost on tiptoes. Daisy flashes back to pretty much every Scooby-Doo episode and fights off a nervous laugh.

They approach the two low wooden steps that lead up to a platform that’s too small to be called a deck but a bit larger than a stoop. The orange cat Daisy saw earlier is perched on the railing. It arches its back and hisses as soon as their feet touch the bottom step, then bolts toward the large oak in the backyard.

Tucker shines the light through the window into the kitchen. Chase’s prediction is correct. Martha’s body is still there.

“She’s not in the oven anymore,” Chase says.

“Yeah. I…um…had to make sure the gas was fully off. Anyway, I couldn’t just leave her in that position. I took pictures first.” Tucker’s voice sounds a little guilty as he says this, so Daisy suspects he broke some sort of rule by moving the old woman’s body. But it hardly seems relevant in the face of everything going on.

She reaches out and squeezes his arm. “We should go.”

Tucker nods, and they turn to leave, but the flashlight reflects back from the refrigerator. He stops, scanning the beam across the words near the center.

STOP XYLEVA

“That’s…different,” Tucker says. “It said something about Raum before.”

Chase nods. “Raum lies. And something about him getting that from his mother.”

“Yeah. Anybody know who Raum is? And for that matter, who the hell is Xyleva?”

“I don’t think it’s a who,” Daisy says. “Xyleva, I mean. I don’t know about Raum, aside from seeing the word when I was here. But Xyleva is a drug. For depression, I think. I’ve…seen commercials.”

Daisy can’t quite bring herself to add that half a bottle of Xyleva is in the drawer by her bed. Tucker will think she’s weak, that she needed a crutch. He got by without drugs when his parents died. So did Dani.

And the stupid poltergeist or spirit or whatever that’s writing these messages clearly needs a better source of information. She did stop Xyleva, nearly six months ago.

“We should go,” she repeats. “I need to get back to the theater.”

Tucker nods, and they both turn to leave. But Chase is now parked on the top step, facing the oak tree in the corner of Martha Yarn’s backyard.

“Chase?” Tucker says. “You coming, buddy?”

The boy doesn’t answer. It’s almost as if he’s been frozen in place. His hands are propped on his knees and clasped into loose fists with his thumbs on top. The only thing moving is his eyes. They jerk about erratically, without blinking, landing on various points near his hands. Oh, and his thumbs. They move, too, almost as if he’s texting.

Tucker repeats the kid’s name and then glances over at Daisy. “It kind of looks like he’s watching something on a device…a phone or tablet.”

Daisy nods, but she’s thinking that Chase’s expression also reminds her of the scene in A Clockwork Orange, where Alex’s eyes are held open as he’s being programmed.

“More like he’s playing a game. On a hand…held…” She stops. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Music.”

Tucker shakes his head. “What sort of music?”

She thinks for a moment trying to place the tune. “The tinny kind. A bit like…” There’s an odd tickling sensation at the front of her brain, and she struggles to grasp the train of thought. “I don’t know. Maybe like an ice cream truck.”

She’s pretty sure it’s not ice-cream-truck music. That’s just the only image she could come up with. It is connected to a vehicle, though. There’s sort of a slide whistle noise, and it brings with it a memory of the smell of chocolate, which could be why she was reminded of ice cream. And then even that sliver of thought is gone.

“It doesn’t matter.” She crouches in front of the boy, running her hand between his face and whatever he’s watching. “Chase?”

His eyes continue to twitch, unblinking, as they stare straight through her hand at something neither she nor Tucker can see.

And then Daisy is hit by a wave of déjà vu so powerful that it feels like a physical force. She takes an awkward step backward from her crouched position and lands on her ass, so hard that her teeth sink into the side of her tongue.

Aside from the sharp physical pang of her injured tongue, the feeling is almost identical to the one that hit her on the sidewalk earlier in the day. She’s not in restraints this time, but the sense of hopelessness and helplessness is almost overwhelming.

The memory—and it really does feel like a memory—fades quickly, though, just as it did before.

What remains is the knowledge that she’s seen Chase in this exact position. In the corner. Sitting in the chair by the window, wearing orange sneakers, staring down at a tablet that isn’t even charged. He wasn’t like that all the time. Chase had good days, and on those days, they’d sit and talk. Sometimes about movies and books. Sometimes about other things. Most days, however, well over half the time she’d known him, Chase sat in the chair, silent and unmoving except for his thumbs, which traced an unending pattern along the bottom of a tablet that wasn’t even charged, and his eyes, which traveled incessantly across the blank, black screen, tracking things no one else could see.

Five

BEN

Steam and acrid clouds of Axe body spray fill the locker room as Ben steps into the hot water streaming from the rusted showerhead and closes his eyes. Outside the stall, someone snaps a towel, followed by laughter and a string of taunts, mostly about who has screwed whose mother, sister, or girlfriend. This is one thing he will not miss. A voice in his head says he outgrew these games long ago. On days like this, when he aches from every pore, his body says it has outgrown not just locker room games, but football, too.

Practice was god awful. Even knowing Chase was safe with Julie Kennedy, Ben hadn’t been able to focus, and after several bad reads off the QB, the coach had told him to take the bench. Part of it was probably lack of sleep. On two separate occasions, he ran to block someone he clearly saw in front of him only to lunge forward and grab nothing but air.

About forty-five minutes into practice, Principal Snyder came slithering out of the building and whispered something to Coach Willis, who then pulled Aric Conner aside. Aric’s face was ghostly white when he followed Snyder back into the school. Chad Voorhees, who was closer than Ben, overheard a bit of their conversation and said he thought there was a death in Aric’s family.

A few minutes after that, Coach Willis stalked off the field, saying he was disgusted with the lot of them. That they were hopeless. Some of the team said they should keep practicing, claiming it was a test to see who was really committed, but most of the guys just headed to the showers. Pretty much all of them had plans tonight. Might as well make the best of Coach calling practice early. The only reward the suck-ups remaining on the field were likely to get was a cold shower because the hot water never holds out for the entire team. Ben knows that for a fact, because there have been plenty of days when he waited for most of the others to leave, reluctant to display the patchwork quilt of bruises on his back. Some could be passed off as football injuries. Others, not so much, and he suspects that’s the case today. But he’s too tired to give a damn what his teammates think and too sore to deal with a chilly shower. He’d skip it altogether if not for the fact that he needs to stop by and talk to Marybeth on his way to pick up Chase, and she’d wrinkle her nose and kick him out instantly if he showed up grungy.

The temperature goes from blissfully hot to pure ice, almost as if the water heater read his mind. Ben jumps back, colliding with the wall behind him, which is as inexplicably cold as the water pouring from the spigot. Stranger still, everyone else in the locker room has gone quiet. All he hears is the spray of frigid water against the cement floor at his feet.

The shower room is engulfed in steam so thick that Ben can barely make out the sickly green cinder blocks of the now-empty stalls. He turns off the water, and the locker room falls utterly, oppressively silent.

“Hello?”

No answer. How could everyone have cleared out that quickly?

Although, maybe not everyone. Ben squints, trying to focus through the fog on someone off to his left. The figure isn’t moving. It’s slumped against the wall, arms extended.

“Hello?” he repeats, moving forward a few steps. He can now tell it’s a man. Naked, and not old, but definitely not young enough to be one of his teammates. There’s a hint of middle-aged flab at the waist and along the man’s outstretched arms, which are chained to the wall on either side.

“Coach?” Ben asks, even though he’s instantly certain that’s wrong. This guy is thinner. He still has all of his hair, too. The man’s back heaves, and even though his breathing is strained, Ben’s relieved that he’s alive.

A screech of metal on metal fills the room. Ben takes another step forward, and at the same instant, the fog clears, revealing a second person in the room, on the opposite side of the chained man. The new guy’s face is shaded by a black fedora, but it can’t hide the ropes of scar tissue extending down his neck.

He’s seen this man before. And he’s definitely seen the glove on his right hand. Four wicked blades protrude from the fingertips.

Ben huffs, realizing he’s been had. This is way beyond anything he’d have thought his teammates capable of, but someone seems intent on getting full Halloween mileage from his expensive new Freddy Krueger costume.

“Okay. Yeah. You got me good.” Ben reaches out, not sure if he’s going to rip off the mask or punch the guy. But Old Dreamweaver also raises his hand and steps toward the chained man, now fully awake.

Fully awake and eerily familiar.

Ben’s first thought is that it’s his dad, but Ralph Rey hasn’t looked this good in twenty years, if ever. No, the face looks much more like the one Ben shaves each morning. Just older and terrified.

The man screams, the voice also oddly like his own, as pseudo-Krueger lunges forward. Ben expects to see the knives retract when they hit the man’s back—they can’t actually be real—but they slice cleanly into his flesh, once, twice. Blood spray fills the air, along with the captive man’s screams, as his body jerks away, testing the limits of the bonds holding him to the wall.

Ben grabs for the attacker’s arm and then stops cold.

Krueger is gone. The glove is now on his own hand as it again swipes at the chained man’s back. Ben falls onto the floor and scurries backward, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the bloodied corpse—because he’s quite certain it is now a corpse. The glove comes with him, however, trailing blood, and he screams again.

“Ben. Ben! What the fuck, man?” Rough hands shake him, digging into his shoulder. “Ben. Snap out of it!”

He opens his eyes. People are staring at him—some amused, some concerned. For a moment, he can’t recognize any of their faces. Cold water continues to gush into the shower stall. He’s naked, and the floor beneath him is icy, but the hand attached to his arm is just a hand. There’s no blood. No corpse. No Freddy-fucking-Krueger.

Chad lets go of his shoulder and asks in a low voice, “What’s going on? You get hold of some bad shit?”

Ben still can’t find his voice. He just shakes his head and takes the towel Chad hands him.

“Come on, then. Let’s get you up, bro.” He turns around to face the others. “Show’s over. Give him some privacy.” One by one, the others go back to their business.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Ben wraps the towel around his waist and heads toward the lockers. “I’m fine. Must’ve dozed off. Didn’t sleep so well last night.”

“Your dad again?”

Ben blinks. He’s about to deny it, but Chad rolls his eyes.

“We can all see the bruises, man. You didn’t get those during practice. Can’t keep a secret in Haddonwood.”

“It’s not a problem,” Ben says, snatching clothes from his locker.

“All I’m saying,” Chad continues, “is if you need some help, ask for it. I have a nine millimeter and a shovel. I think Ralph Rey is a lot like that Dixie Chicks song about Earl. Nobody’s gonna miss him much if he just disappears.”

Ben snorts. “Thanks. I’ll take that into consideration.”

“Right now, though, get your ass in gear. We’re drawing to see who gets to visit the Grimshaw house tonight.”

“Wonderful,” Ben replies without even a hint of enthusiasm.

Ben is pulling on his blue-and-yellow Howlers tee when Chad comes back in, holding his scuffed football helmet out in front of him. He pauses in the middle of the room and raises the helmet like a trophy.

“Gentlemen. Behold.” A chorus of yelps and knee-drumming fills the room, and he continues. “We will now begin the drawing of lots…an ancient Haddonwood tradition.”

Ben thinks ancient is probably an exaggeration. But it’s apparently been around for at least a few generations.

“You guys know the drill.” Chad shakes the helmet and tips it slightly so that everyone can see. “Inside are exactly seventeen pieces of paper. All are folded and all are blank…except for one. Whoever draws the paper with the black dot must deliver our tribute to the Grimshaw house tonight or else be forever branded a fucking coward.”

This is the fourth year Ben has taken part in the drawing of lots, and every time he reaches into the helmet, he thinks of the short story they read in lit class a few years back, where this small town has an annual lottery. Not the kind where you buy a ticket and someone wins a million bucks or whatever. In this case, you’re forced to take a ticket, and if you’re the one who draws that black dot, your neighbors kill your ass. He suspects that if he researched the origins of the ancient Grimshaw lottery, he’d find that this tradition started right around the time that story was added to the high school curriculum.

“Here we go,” Chad says, passing the helmet around. “No one peeks until everyone has drawn.”

Ben takes a piece of paper along with his teammates. When everyone else has drawn, Chad takes his helmet back, draws the remaining square, and looks around. “Let’s do this.”

Ben stares down at the paper in his hand. It’s plain cardstock, offering no clue as to what’s inside. He has a bad feeling, though, and when he unfolds the paper, he’s stunned and relieved to see that the slip is unmarked. But then he blinks, and the blot he’d expected to see gradually appears. He blinks again, hoping it will disappear, but no such luck.

A chorus of who got it goes around the room. For a second, Ben lets them wonder, then says, “Looks like I’m the lucky one.”

The others exchange a look. Chad crosses over to Ben and nods toward the door.

Once they’re in the hallway, he says, “I’ll go. The others won’t mind.”

“What? No. I drew the damn thing.”

Chad looks uncomfortable, but he doesn’t back down. “With everything going on at home and what happened today, I thought maybe you’d rather just sit this one out.”

Ben feels anger bubbling up, and his fists curl into balls at his sides. “I’m not a fucking coward.”

Chad looks down and takes a step back, raising his hands in surrender. “Never said you were. If you don’t want me to go instead of you, maybe we could redraw. I’m sure the others won’t care.”

Ben doubts that’s true. If he doesn’t go, the word will spread all over the bonfire before the first beer has been ingested.

“It’s just a house,” he says.

Chad laughs, but there’s a nervous undertone. “Fine man. Suit yourself. Just don’t forget the candle. No point in going if the candle isn’t lit. And…don’t let it go out.”

Ben shakes his head in amazement. “You really believe this shit?”

Chad’s face reddens slightly. “I drew the lot two years back, remember? Couldn’t drive yet, so my cousin Jess went with me. That place messes with your head, Ben. Whatever bad stuff you’ve got rolling around inside your mind feels all too real when you’re up there. Jess felt the same way. Said if I’d taken ten seconds longer, he’d have driven back without me.”

And now Ben feels pretty rotten about getting mad. A moment ago, he’d resented Chad for taking pity on him, for thinking that he’d be scared of a stupid house. But apparently Chad is also scared of that stupid house and was a good enough friend that he’d been willing to face it again in order to spare him.

He wasn’t going to let Chad do that, partly because not everyone would be as nice about him backing out, and partly because he now feels like it’s a personal challenge being tossed down to him by the rotting hulk of a house up on the hill. Or maybe from the whole damn universe.

“Thanks, man. Really. But I’m heading out. I’ve got a pumpkin to buy.”

When he reaches the parking lot, he’s surprised to see Luke Randall’s Silverado parked next to his truck. His wife drives a shiny new Acura—only the best for Carly, even though Ben’s pretty sure she’s never worked a day in her life—but Luke’s still in the battered old Silverado. Ben had helped him mow lawns to buy that truck the summer before Luke turned sixteen, and Luke had returned the favor two years later to help buy Ben’s rust bucket. Ben felt like he’d gotten the better end of the bargain, since he’d had a ride anywhere he wanted to go during his freshman and sophomore years.

Luke gets out as he approaches, and Ben smiles. He hasn’t seen Luke in nearly a month. The guy doesn’t look so good, though. He’d played both basketball and football in school, and he’s managed to stay in decent shape. But he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.

“Man, fatherhood does not agree with you,” he says, clapping Luke on the shoulder. “You look like shit.”

Luke laughs half-heartedly. “Hey, at least I have an excuse.”

“Baby not sleeping?”

“Nah, Aali’s fine. Just…other stuff. What’s up with you?”

Ben digs the lottery stub out of his pocket and holds it up so that Luke can see the black dot. Luke winces.

“Yeah,” Ben says. “Lucky me. I’m heading to the store to buy the damn pumpkin now. Maybe MB will help me carve it before I go off to face my untimely death.”

“Man, don’t even joke about that place,” Luke says. “I’d offer to go with you, but we all know that brothers don’t make it out of haunted houses. Just…get in and out quick, okay? I’ve heard some stories about that place.”

Ben, who has also heard stories, waves it off. “Not planning on hanging around. Gonna drop the jack-o’-lantern on the porch, take a photo, and head back down to the party.”

“Speaking of,” Luke begins.

“No way! You’re kidding. Carly’s letting you out for the bonfire?”

“Uh, no. Actually, Carly appears to have gone to visit her sister. Unannounced. Her car’s still under the shed, but she and Aali are gone. Didn’t even leave a damn note. But it’s not the first time. You know Carly. She does what she wants.”

“Yeah. So then I’ll see you at—” Ben cuts himself off as he catches the gist. “Ah. Got it. I won’t see you there, but if anyone happens to ask…”

“Exactly,” Luke says. “Like I said, she’s gone, but if she comes back and I’m not around, I may need cover.”

Ben shakes his head. “You know I’ll cover for you, man, but why not just end it now? If you don’t love each other, you’re not doing that baby any favors in the long run.”

“And never see my kid again? Not happening.”

“You don’t know that for certain. If you pay child support, Carly won’t have a choice, right?”

Luke’s mouth twists. “She’d find a way. You know Carly.”

Ben does know Carly. And he also knows Luke well enough to suspect that there’s one thing that might weigh in Carly’s favor with some of the bass-ackward judges in the state. They tend to favor moms over dads in custody battles on general principle. That would go double if there was even the slightest suspicion that dad was gay. So he just claps Luke on the shoulder again and says, “Consider it done. If anyone asks, I’ll say we split a six-pack and talked football. I’ll even mention your name to a few people. Say they just missed you. Give you a little extra cover.”

“Thanks, man. I just need some time away. Today has been…crazy.”

They both pause, and Ben gets the sense that Luke is on the verge of saying more. But given how weird Ben’s own day has been, he’s not sure he could be properly sympathetic. And he doesn’t have time, anyway. He’s got to pick out a pumpkin and smooth things over with MB, and he’s already late picking up Chase.

“Tell me about it,” he says in a tone that means the exact opposite as he slides behind the wheel. “Have a good time, man. We need to go fishing again soon and catch up. Assuming I make it down from Grimshaw in one piece, that is.”

Luke nods, giving Ben a look that’s an odd mix of worry and relief. “Sure thing. Be careful up there tonight, okay?”

When Ben gets to Blaine’s Grocery, he picks out a small, pathetic-looking pumpkin from the dwindling stack outside the store. It’s the last of the five-dollar pumpkins, and he can barely afford it, let alone one of the ten-buck monstrosities that are still plentiful. Sure, there are a few soft spots on the smaller one, but that could be a mixed blessing since he thinks there’s a decent chance Marybeth will shove the thing into his face.

When he pulls into the Jenkins’ driveway ten minutes later, MB is reading on the porch swing. She doesn’t look up from her book, even though his truck is far too noisy for her not to have heard him arrive. Operation Cold Shoulder has begun. With a sigh, Ben gets out of the truck and crosses the front lawn toward her, dinky little pumpkin in hand.

“Hey, babe.”

She holds up a finger, and he’s actually relieved, since it wasn’t the finger he was expecting. He places the pumpkin on the top step and waits patiently until she closes the paperback—I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid.

Well, that’s not at all what he wanted to see. He smiles grimly. “Good book?”

She looks down at the cover—a car buried in snow next to a glowing streetlamp—and shrugs. “Yeah. A little unnerving, though.”

He reaches for it, relieved when she doesn’t snatch it out of his hands. She can’t be too mad. Tapping the title, he says, “Are you trying to tell me something?”

MB doesn’t crack a smile. “Not everything is about you, Ben. Sometimes a book is just a book.”

And sometimes it isn’t, he thinks. But he’s smart enough not to push it.

Ben reaches down and takes her hand, pulling her to her feet. The paperback slides from her lap, landing on the porch with a soft thud. He wraps his arms around her body, and for a moment he can feel the old MB there. The one who laughed at his stupid-ass jokes. The one whose superpower was long kisses in a dark movie theater or the back of his truck. As she relaxes into him, Ben feels time rolling back, all those years tumbling like dominos until they are back when love was everything, and the only thing MB wanted was him.

Years? Wait…where did that come from? They’ve been together thirteen months. Almost exactly thirteen months.

Marybeth stiffens and pulls away. Maybe she picked up on his confusion, but probably not. This is their pattern now. A short hug, a chaste kiss. Occasionally something more if she’s in the mood or—Ben hates this but knows it’s true—simply in the mood to spite her father. But it’s always quick and perfunctory. Almost impersonal, like he’s not even there.

“What’s with the pumpkin?” she asks.

“Well,” Ben says, picking it up from the step, “I know you’re still pissed at me for this morning. I’m really sorry I was late. And I was thinking it might be therapeutic for you—and safer for me—if you take out your anger on this guy instead.”

She raises an amused eyebrow. “This is your idea of a peace offering? I haven’t carved a jack-o’-lantern since I was a kid.”

Ben frowns. They carved a pumpkin last Halloween with Chase. It was one of the first things they’d ever done with him after they became a couple. He’s pretty sure she said they should make it a tradition.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, giving her his best smile. “Just a bit achy from practice.”

Marybeth looks at the pumpkin doubtfully. “It looks a little…rotten. What if we cut into it and spiders and snakes crawl out?”

“Spiders and snakes? Inside a pumpkin?”

“Like that Halloween movie. I don’t know which number. The one with the masks but without Michael Myers. When the kids put the masks on, they turned their brains to mush.” She gives a playful shudder.

“Didn’t see that one—and I’m actually glad I missed it. Since we aren’t planning to wear the pumpkin, I think it’ll be okay, but…I probably do need to let you know we can’t actually keep it.” He pulls the slip of paper from his pocket and shows her the black dot.

Her reaction surprises him. He was expecting her to be at least a little pissed that the pumpkin wasn’t entirely an apology gift, but her eyes light up instead. “We’re going up to the Grimshaw place?”

Ben thinks back to Chad’s face when they were talking in the hallway. The guy wasn’t the type that he’d have thought of as superstitious, but something up there had frightened him. And even though he’d love the company, especially her company, he’s not sure taking Marybeth is a good idea.

Her eyes narrow. “Oh no you do not, Benjamin Rey. This pumpkin doesn’t make up for you ditching me this morning.”

“I didn’t ditch you. Really. I was just running a few minutes—”

“But,” she continues, “taking me with you to a haunted house…might. It’s totally unfair that this tradition is just guys, and we’re going to fix that. Tonight.” She gives him a smug smile. “I’ll run and grab a knife and something to catch all of those spiders and snakes when they come wriggling out.”

The door has barely banged shut behind her when a car pulls up. Marybeth’s father, Scott, revs the engine of his newish black BMW, then screeches to a halt in front of the mailbox. Ben gives him a half-hearted wave, which Scott doesn’t return.

“Nothing I love better than parking on the street in front of my own house.”

“Sorry about that, sir.”

“Why are you here?”

Ben clears his throat. This is the standard ritual. He’s been dating the man’s daughter for over a year, and not once has there been a congenial word. Scott Jenkins always looks at Ben like he’s something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

“I brought Marybeth a pumpkin. Thought we could carve it together. For Halloween.” Ben doesn’t mention the Grimshaw house. He’s guessing that MB, who is now standing in the doorway, won’t mention it either. Or at least not until the deed is over and done, when she decides to brag about it to her father to show that he doesn’t control her, and she will do whatever she pleases, thank you very much.

Right now, however, she has on her best little-girl smile. “Daddy! What are you doing home so early?”

Scott returns the smile. “I was under the impression that I live here. Although”—he casts a sideways look at Ben—“you’d never know that from where I was forced to park.”

“I thought you had a meeting at the church.”

“It was canceled. I’ve been over at Barb Starrett’s house. Just awful.” He glances at MB. “I take it you haven’t heard, then. Suicide. Two in one day, actually. And both of them women who know it’s a sin against God to take your own life.”

Jenkins pauses for dramatic effect, clearly waiting for one of them to ask the obvious question.

MB obliges. “Oh my!” she says in her prim daddy’s-girl voice. “But who was the other person?”

Scott sighs. “Miss Martha. Today was her ninety-third birthday, but I guess she thought she knew better than the Lord. Stuck her head in the oven and turned on the gas.”

“Oh, no. Daisy was just there this morning interviewing her for the paper,” MB says. “Ms. Starrett lives on that same street. Was she in the house with her?”

“No,” Scott says. “The other incident happened at the library. Starrett snatched that Vance kid’s gun out of his belt and shot herself. Reverend Kennedy tried to say she might not have—”

“Do you know if my brother was with her?” Ben interrupts, certain that it will piss off both MB and her father. But he has to know.

“Oh, yes,” Jenkins says. “He was there.”

A knot of guilt twists Ben’s stomach, and he sends up a silent prayer, hoping Chase didn’t actually see the woman kill herself. That he hadn’t been in danger. Damn it, he should never, never have left him there.

“That’s why I was doing the lion’s share of ministering to a grieving family today,” Scott continues, “even though I’m not the one who gets the paycheck. The good Reverend was too busy—”

Ben interrupts again. “MB, I have to pick up Chase. Is it okay if I bring him back to help us carve the pumpkin?”

Marybeth’s mouth twists. “I guess you’re planning to bring him with us to the…party, too? At Sidney’s house?”

There’s no party at Sidney’s house. Ben doesn’t even know a Sidney, so this must be some cover story MB concocted to get out of the house tonight.

“No. I…um…”

But he can’t really say what he’s going to do. Not until he sees Chase to be sure that he’s okay. And Marybeth knows him well enough to tell what he’s thinking.

“Don’t worry about the pumpkin,” she says breezily. “Daddy will help me carve it, won’t you, Daddy?”

Scott beams at her. “Sure, baby. We’ll take it out on the back deck like we used to when you were little.”

“Perfect!” She flashes Ben a tight smile. “Go, then. Take care of your brother. But don’t be late picking me up. Again.”

Ben is certain he’ll lose points for not apologizing, for not groveling, but he’s already in his truck by the time the last word leaves her mouth.

Six

RAUM

HEY ZO:

I know you’re in here. Skulking about in your orange fur, sticking your nose into things that are not your business. We had an agreement that you would observe, not interfere. Your little stunt with Martha has taken us well past trust but verify.

Consider yourself lucky that I’m rather fond of the cat you’re wearing. She’s been with me since 1.0. Otherwise, you’d have been smashed flat on the sidewalk and would have had to find an ant or an earthworm for transportation. Oh…that’s right. No ants, earthworms, flies, gnats, or even pesky mosquitos in this iteration. Either way, I’m not sure how you’re planning to get back to the portal without the crow you rode in on.

Except the crow isn’t the only thing you brought in, is it? Ol’ White Eyes was right behind you.

We had an agreement. This world is MINE.

I want both of you out. And since you’re the one who apparently left the door cracked, I expect you to deal with the vermin that wandered in.

If you can’t find a way to fix this, I will. But I don’t think you’ll like my methods.

CHAPTER FIVE

* * *

One

CHASE

Something flashes in Chase’s peripheral vision. At first, he thinks it’s the cat again. He turns away from the window looking into Martha Yarn’s kitchen toward the tree in her backyard, even though he’s afraid he’ll see bright-orange sneakers and his body dangling from one of the branches.

What he sees instead is a pale-pink pulse of light.

Chase moves to the edge of the tiny deck and sits on the top step. Behind him, Daisy and Tucker are talking about the new message on the fridge. About something called Xyleva. Daisy isn’t exactly lying to Tucker. It is a medication. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s one that he’s taken himself, back in the other reality. But Daisy isn’t telling Tucker the whole truth. Chase isn’t sure how he knows this, but he does.

Their conversation exists only as a faint echo in his head, however. It fades away completely as he focuses on the ball of light, which is gradually morphing into the shape of a woman.

Or, to be more precise, a witch.

He’s only seen the movie once, back when he was a little kid. Ben thought he would like it, but he really didn’t, although some of the songs were pretty good. Chase can’t remember the witch’s name, only that she’s from either the North or the South. A good witch. The bad witches were East and West. The good witch in Martha’s backyard is wearing the same costume as in the movie, with a tall silvery crown and a skirt so wide that half the population of Munchkinland could easily hide underneath.

He thinks the woman was in a bubble in the movie. She’s not in a bubble here, but she floats toward Chase nevertheless, hovering a few inches above the ground, blocking his view of the tree. Or at least, his view of where the tree was, because the twilight is rapidly fading to jet black. He blinks, and he’s once again in the void, like he was at school earlier. Daisy, Tucker, and Martha’s house have completely vanished.

Only this time in the void, he’s holding a tablet computer like the one he owns in the other reality. The tablet his dad gave him for his tenth birthday. He remembers breaking it, but he can’t recall how.

The witch woman—Glinda, that’s her name—is inside the tablet now, staring back at him. This means he’s not completely alone in the void like he was last time, but Chase isn’t sure that’s a good thing. Glinda the Good Witch creeped him out almost as much as the one with the green face. It was mostly her voice, high and saccharine. He guessed she was supposed to sound kind, but it rang false to him even as a little kid. She seemed like someone who would smile blissfully as she shoved you into Martha Yarn’s oven.

The witch woman inside his tablet stops, cocking her blonde head to one side, and then huffs in frustration. Her form changes again, not just once but several times. All of the images are female and vaguely familiar, like he’s seen them in a book or movie, but there’s no one he fully recognizes.

Finally, the woman takes the shape of someone he does know. The resemblance isn’t perfect, but she looks a bit like Molly Weasley from the Harry Potter movies, and he’s watched those movies more than once. He likes Mrs. Weasley. If he could pick a mom from any fictional world, it would be her. Even when she was yelling at her kids, you could tell she loved them. She was yelling because she loved them. Because she wanted them to be their best. And she’d put a major hurt on anyone who ever tried to harm them. Or anyone who tried to harm Harry, for that matter.

The woman who resembles Molly Weasley smiles, clearly more confident now that she sees the recognition in his eyes. He thinks she took a gamble with the first one and then cycled through her database of “good witch” images until she found one that made him comfortable. One that he might trust.

That fact makes him decidedly uncomfortable and untrusting. It feels like he’s being played. The woman’s face falls, and her shape wavers again before settling back on Almost Molly.

“Please,” she says. “I was just searching for a form that would reassure you.”

Her mouth moves in time with the words, but he doesn’t hear the words so much as he senses them. It’s like he’s experiencing her thinking the words, but there are also visual elements, too. It’s a strange feeling, and it makes his head throb.

“Maybe try being honest,” Chase suggests. “Instead of hiding behind a disguise.”

“No. You would be frightened. Overwhelmed.”

Chase, who had half expected this answer, says, “Then I can’t trust you. Even if you do look like Mrs. Weasley.”

“Things that appear frightening are not always evil, Chase Rey. And things that are pleasing to the eye—”

“Can kill you,” he says. “No kidding. But I’m tired of lies, and the face you’re wearing right now is a lie. Not a very good one, either, since you’re pulling it from my memory, and it’s been a while since I watched those movies.”

Almost Molly sighs, and then her form sort of dissolves until he’s looking at a ball of light. Not pink this time but a rich amber color, swirled with flecks of brighter gold. The light isn’t exactly inside the tablet, but more where the tablet was, as if the ball of light has become the tablet. He can’t feel it in his hands, though.

“No lies,” she says.

Chase doesn’t respond, because he thinks the ball of light is probably still not the truth. And the woman—he does still get the sense that the ball of light is female—probably knows that he knows it’s not the truth. But he guesses he can overlook this one lie.

“You are not supposed to be here,” the light says, pulsing slightly with each syllable.

“I know I’m not supposed to be here. What I don’t know is how I got here. Or how to get back. I tried the whole ‘tapping the heels of my sneakers together three times and saying there’s no place like home’ thing.” This is true. He’d felt really stupid, but it had been worth a try. “I’m still here. Have you got a portkey or floo powder or something useful?”

The ball of light changes from golden to a murkier shade. He’s apparently pissed her off by being sarcastic. That’s probably not a good idea, since he doesn’t even know what she is. But it’s been a long day. He’s tired of games. Just plain tired, really.

“Tell me what you are,” he says. “Are you a witch? An alien?”

“That depends on how you define witch and alien. You can obviously see that I have abilities you think of as magic, otherwise I would not have taken the form of a witch in your mind. And I did not originate on Earth as you imagine it. Alien, angel, demon, fairy, witch. Take your pick. They are only words.”

“Tell me who you are, then. If you can’t give me a face, at least give me a name.”

There’s a long pause, and then finally, an answer of sorts. “Some have called me Zophiel. That name will do as well as any, if your mind requires one. Do you believe there is both good and evil in the world, Chase Rey?”

The sudden shift from answering his question to asking her own takes Chase by surprise. He considers for a moment and then says, “Good and evil and a whole lot in between. Mostly it’s the in-between stuff.”

“But you can tell the difference?”

“Of course. I’m old enough to know right from—” He stops, thinking about his father…or rather the father he’s stuck with in this place, whatever it is. Ralph Rey is clear-cut evil. No matter what that Aileen woman says, Chase has never known the man to do anything out of sheer kindness, without an ulterior motive. Ralph Rey is a bad man. Chase has no problem labeling him as such.

He can’t think of anyone he knows who is fully good, though. Maybe someone like Julie Kennedy. She was kind to him today, and preachers are supposed to be good, right? But he doesn’t know her well enough to say for certain.

Everyone he knows aside from Ralph seems to be somewhere in the center.

“I know the difference at the…at the two ends. At the extremes, I guess. But as you get closer to the middle, it’s not as easy. People are complicated.”

“You are thinking of your brother,” Zophiel says.

“He’s not my brother.”

“Fine. But you are thinking of him. He is complicated.”

“Yes.”

“And he is why you are here. Why Raum could not respect the boundary and why you have put the entire balance at risk.”

These aren’t questions, and even if they were, Chase doesn’t have answers. He’s not even sure what she’s talking about. So he remains silent, even though the ball of light called Zophiel is pulsing a bit faster now. Does that mean she’s angry? Or scared? He thinks perhaps it’s both.

“And now, the decisions he makes place everything on the precipice. This man who is complicated has drawn the black dot, and he must face his fears. There is no stopping it. The dark inside him could tip the balance. Not simply the balance here, but out there as well. In the place you think of as good, even though you were willing to risk leaving it to get his attention.”

Those last words cut Chase, and tears sting his eyes. He’s about to protest that she’s wrong, that she’s not being fair. But then his memories of that other reality recede, and he’s not even sure why her words hurt him so badly.

“So everything that’s happening in this place, everything breaking down. It’s my fault. That was your message on Martha Yarn’s fridge.”

“No. That was Andras’s message, not mine. The choice Martha made was her own. The choices you make are your own, too, Chase Rey, although—”

HEY ZO: I KNOW YOU’RE IN HERE. SKULKING ABOUT IN

The words seem to ricochet off the walls of Chase’s skull. Impossibly loud. And then the witch woman huffs in annoyance, and the screen he’s holding goes dark and silent. He waits, unsure whether she’s coming back. Kind of wishing she wouldn’t and that the world would fill back in. But the world out there isn’t the real world. It isn’t the reality he wants. Maybe he’s better off in this nothingness.

And with that thought, Chase hears music. Just a few discordant notes, and then the silent blackness again.

The dark only lasts a few moments. Then his screen lights up again.

“Where was I?” The amber light pulses a bit more intensely now.

“You were pointing out that my choices are my own,” Chase says drolly. “Do you want me to go sit in the corner and think about them?”

Zophiel is silent, and he has the sense that she’s combing through his memories for the source of the comment. It’s an uncomfortable, intrusive sensation. He doesn’t much care for it, so he pushes out a string of faces—teachers, his dad, his guidance counselor.

“You do need to think carefully,” Zophiel says, “but what I was going to say is that you might have been dealt an unfair hand. I may have…overestimated your ability to handle certain challenges. The fault for that is my own, but that fact will not make your choices any easier or your path less fraught with peril.”

“What choices? What path? Stop talking in riddles and just tell me what I need to do to get home.”

The ball of light rises from his tablet and glides off in the distance, where it turns pink and once again morphs into the glittery witch with the trembly voice. “Dorothy clicking her heels three times was not what allowed her to return home. She was able to go back only because she realized an important truth. A truth that she had to learn on her own.”

“Yes, I know. There’s no place like home. I said that part, too. I want to go home.”

“But that was the truth that Dorothy had to find. Your truth is different, Chase Rey. And you have not yet found it.”

The Glinda image fades around the edges as she speaks, growing smaller and fainter.

“Wait!” Chase says. “I have more questions. What do you want me to do? And who is Raum?”

Her voice is softer now. “I cannot tell you what to do, Chase Rey. That is the beauty and the tragedy of free will. And you already know the answer to the other question.”

The blackness is complete for a moment, and then Chase is once again in Martha Yarn’s backyard. Daisy is now in front of him, sitting on the ground. She looks like she’s in pain. Tucker crouches next to her.

“What happened?” Chase asks.

“I just…lost my balance,” Daisy replies, rubbing the side of her mouth. “What happened to you?”

Her expression suggests that she’s not telling the entire truth. Again. Chase is pretty sure that Tucker is thinking the same thing, judging from the frown he wears as he looks at her. But then he turns his attention back to Chase.

“Yeah,” Tucker says. “Where’d you go? Because you didn’t seem to be here.”

“I wasn’t,” Chase says. “Not exactly. It was like what happened back at school today. Only I wasn’t alone this time.”

Chase starts to explain what the entity told him, but he realizes that there’s just not a lot he’s willing to share. He’s afraid to tell them that this Zophiel seems to think he’s the reason everything is broken and off-kilter. If he does that, he’s worried they’ll blame him. Most of all, he can’t mention her comment at the end, because Zophiel is wrong. He has no clue who Raum is.

And the other stuff? About not belonging here…about there being some other reality? If Ben didn’t believe him, why would they?

Except…he’s pretty sure Daisy is in that other place, too. She might believe him. Some instinct tells him that she’s not going to admit that in front of Tucker, though.

And is that other place a better place for her? He thinks maybe it isn’t. Even if she believes him, that could factor into her willingness to help him look for this truth he’s supposed to find.

“It was just this ball of light. Or energy, maybe. I think it’s connected to what’s going on. It said something about my brother drawing a black dot and facing his fears, which I didn’t understand. And that we need to find the truth. That seems kind of obvious, so it wasn’t really much help, I guess.”

None of that is a lie. And maybe he can find the courage to tell Daisy more eventually.

“Drawing a black dot?” Tucker asks. “You mean like, drawing it with a pen?”

Chase shrugs. “I don’t know. But I don’t think so. I got the sense it was more like…drawing something out of a hat.”

“Out of a helmet, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

Tucker turns to Daisy. “The Howlers’ yearly tradition. They put slips of paper in the football helmet. One has a black dot on it. Whoever draws that is the lucky soul who gets to take the pumpkin up the hill to the Grimshaw house.”

“So that’s how they choose,” Daisy says. “Are you going to lose your Man Card for revealing locker room secrets?”

Tucker rolls his eyes and is about to respond, but Chase cuts him off.

“I’m okay now.” He stands and brushes off the seat of his jeans. “We need to get going, like Daisy said. Ben will be wondering where I am.”

Tucker and Daisy exchange a look, but Chase ignores them. He begins walking back to the car, knowing they’ll follow. And they do. As he gets into the backseat of Tucker’s car, he risks a look down Hammond Street. Just as he expected, the body is there, hanging from the branch, same as before. He can’t see the sneakers in the dim glow of the streetlight, but the shape is familiar enough by now that he really doesn’t need the confirmation.

They head back to the Hart, each lost in their own thoughts. Neither Tucker nor Daisy pay any attention to the body swinging from the tree as they drive past. Tucker’s eyes are pointed directly at the tree when they pull up to the stop sign, so there’s no logical way he could miss seeing it.

It’s not there, Chase thinks. That’s why he doesn’t see it. It’s all in your crazy head.

Tucker stops at Daisy’s house on the way back so that she can run inside and grab something. She looks both pissed and amused when she comes back out carrying a plastic bag. Tucker asks what’s in the bag. She gives him a cryptic little smile and says he’ll find out later. Her smile is a lot like the one that he’s seen MB give Ben, which he finds a little surprising, because Tucker is older. Not old old, but not in high school, like Daisy. Maybe age and time are a little wonky for other people in this reality, too, not just Ben.

When Tucker finally pulls up in front of the Hart, Ben’s truck is already at the curb. His brother is rattling the theater door, which Daisy locked on their way out, and peering through the window to see inside. He comes running over when he sees Chase getting out of the police car.

“What happened?”

Chase pastes on a smile. “Daisy had to pick something up at her house, and they said I could ride along since I’ve never been in a police car.”

“You were supposed to stay with Reverend Kennedy,” Ben says. “Marybeth’s dad said there was an…accident…at the library?”

Chase exchanges a look with Daisy and Tucker. Barb Starrett’s miraculous recovery makes it hard to know how to answer.

To Chase’s surprise, they seem to be leaving the decision up to him. “There wasn’t an accident at the library,” he says. “It was at Martha Yarn’s house. She’s dead.”

“Yeah, he mentioned that, too,” Ben says. “But he clearly said Barb Starrett grabbed Tucker’s gun and shot herself.”

“I just saw Barb over at the bakery,” Tucker says.

“She’s fine,” Daisy adds. “You know MB’s dad. He’s kind of weird.”

Ben nods in agreement, but he’s clearly confused.

“Julie had to go break the news to Martha Yarn’s family,” Daisy continues. “She was supposed to help me with the FrightFest, so Chase volunteered to take her place. He’s been a big help.”

“I’m having fun,” Chase says. “Can I stay?”

Ben looks from Daisy to Tucker, and then back to his brother. Chase is pretty sure he wants to say yes, but he’s conflicted. “How about we come back later? When the movie starts. I need to get you something to eat. Maybe we could drive down to the Pinewood first. Grab some bacon and eggs.”

“Sure,” Chase says. He’d prefer to go across the street to the bakery, but he knows money is tight. As long as they don’t make a habit of it, and they order the cheap stuff, Neil Prescott has always been cool with Aileen extending her employee discount to cover their meals.

“You’re going to the Pinewood?” Tucker asks, his voice rising nervously at the end.

“Yeah. My mom works there,” Ben says, apparently picking up on the odd tone in Tucker’s voice. “Why?”

Chase feels a tug of guilt. He didn’t even think about Aileen when Tucker and Daisy said something happened at the Pinewood earlier. True, she isn’t really his mom. He’s not even sure that she’s real. But he feels like it should have crossed his mind that she worked there. The name of the place barely even registered then, but he can now feel a memory taking shape. He’s sitting in the booth, mopping up fried eggs with his toast. Aileen is in her waitress uniform, pouring him some more orange juice. Brushing his hair out of his eyes like she always does.

The memory feels real, but it also makes his head throb the tiniest bit. It’s a sensation not unlike his conversation with the Zophiel woman back at Martha’s place, when she was pushing her thoughts to him.

“Could I suggest an alternative?” Tucker digs into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. “I buy, you fly. I told Daisy I’d help her with a couple of last-minute things for the festival, but I’m starving. She probably is, too. And Chase has to have worked up an appetite pushing that broom. Maybe you could drive down to Chickwich and grab sandwiches for the four of us? Some fries, too.”

Tucker holds out three tens. Chase can see Ben wrestling both with his pride and with his feeling that something is going on behind the scenes that he’s not entirely following.

“Thanks, Officer Vance! That sounds good,” Chase says before his brother can object. “I’ll ride with you. Come on, Ben.”

His brother reluctantly takes the money, but once they pull away from the curb, he gives Chase a questioning look from the corner of his eye. “Spill, Chase. You’re wearing your fake everything’s just great expression. It might fool Daisy and Tucker, but I know you.”

He stares out the window to avoid Ben’s eyes. “I’m okay.”

“Bullshit.”

“I saw my first dead body, okay?”

That’s not entirely true, if you count his own dead body hanging from the tree. He pushes the thought aside and goes on.

“I thought nothing happened at the library.”

“Yeah, but I was with Julie when she found Miss Martha. And this whole day has been weird.”

“Maybe we should just go home after we deliver their food,” Ben says. “You’re right. It’s been a hell of a day.”

“I don’t want to go home. Helping Daisy at the theater keeps my mind off all of it. And…you can’t go home, anyway. You have to deliver the pumpkin.”

“How did you even know about that?” Ben begins, and then says, “Never mind. It’s goddamn Haddonwood. I told Chad it would be all over town if I didn’t do it. I don’t care, though. They can kiss off.”

Chase doesn’t know how Chad Voorhees fits into the picture, but he remembers what Zophiel said—that this was a test Ben had to face, that everything could hinge on his choices. “I could go with you. If you want.”

“No.” Ben’s answer is immediate, firm, and definitive. “You’re not going up there.”

“But you’re going, right? You’re not actually scared of that place, are you?”

It was kind of a mean thing to say, but Chase isn’t sure he has any choice. Zophiel didn’t seem to think that not going was an option for Ben.

“I’m not scared,” Ben says. “It’s just a dumbass tradition.”

“Yeah, but you gave your word. Anyway, I don’t want to go home. So either take me with you or let me stay and help Daisy in the projection booth.”

“You’re not going with me.” Ben rolls the window down as they approach the drive-thru menu. “I guess you can stay at the theater, though.”

Chase feels a surge of relief, but he can’t help feeling disappointed, too. Not disappointed that he’s avoiding going to the Grimshaw house—that place is beyond creepy—but disappointed that he still doesn’t feel like he can confide in Ben. Chase knows deep down that Ben has seen some of the same things that he has. Ben is aware that something is very, very wrong in Haddonwood. But he won’t admit it. Maybe he can’t admit it. Maybe the part of his brain that accepts this sort of weirdness is just too hard, too inflexible, now.

Ben wouldn’t make fun of him if he told him about the body hanging from the tree. But he wouldn’t really believe him, either. He’d find a way to push it aside. To forget it. To cover up the strangeness with a thick blanket of nothing-to-see-here-folks.

He’s complicated, like Zophiel said. And he’s definitely not ready yet.

Two

JULIE

“You’ll need to turn left about a mile up ahead,” Scott says. “Slow down or you’re going to miss it.”

Julie, who has lived in Haddonwood for several years and has driven to Viola City countless times, doesn’t respond. She knows she has only herself to blame. Once she finished speaking with Barb Starrett’s daughter, she could have kept driving. No one forced her to stop by Scott Jenkins’s house and ask him to come along to visit Martha Yarn’s family. It just felt like the right thing to do. Martha’s niece moved out of Haddonwood before Julie took over as pastor, and she doesn’t really know Julie. She’d remember Scott, though. And this isn’t the sort of news that should come from a stranger.

Julie knew Scott would be pissed when she insisted on driving. Truthfully, she’d probably have given in on that count if Marybeth, who had been arranging a newly cut jack-o’-lantern on their porch step, hadn’t taken her side. Apparently, Ben failed to pick her up this morning, and she wanted backup transportation if he was a no-show again, since her own car is in the shop. Scott caved at the first little pout from his daughter and climbed into the passenger seat of Julie’s car without complaint. But not being the driver clearly bothers him, so he’s decided to pretend he’s running the show by being the world’s most annoying GPS.

To be fair, though, anything Scott Jenkins says would set her teeth on edge. She shouldn’t let him get to her this way.

Love thy neighbor.

Love thine enemy as thyself.

Patience is a fucking virtue.

She gives a half chuckle, imagining Scott’s expression if he heard that last bit.

“Something funny?”

“Not really. Just an odd thought.” She leaves it at that, knowing it will bug the hell out of him. That probably isn’t very charitable, but it’s been a long, long day.

“Can’t see what there is to make light of. Not given where we’re going and why. Her suicide didn’t really surprise me, of course. I saw it coming. This town has been sliding into godlessness since Reverend Crowe passed.”

Julie tries to think of a civil way to make the obvious point that Reverend Crowe was, like herself, only one of five preachers in Haddonwood. It seems unlikely that either of them held the fate of the town’s collective soul in their hands. But Scott, as usual, doesn’t pause long enough for her to reply.

“Perhaps Martha’s death is not a direct reflection on you,” he says, shifting in his seat. “But people need a strong hand. Tough love, as it were. Especially in perilous times—end times—like these, Ms. Kennedy.”

She has told him repeatedly to call her Julie. He never does. In the past, it’s always been Reverend Kennedy, with a slight sneer on the Reverend. But now he’s apparently decided she doesn’t merit the title at all. On the plus side, he seems to be blaming her for Martha’s death only. She’d been fairly certain that Barb Starrett’s suicide would be added to her list of crimes, as well, especially since she’d been in the room when it happened.

“People have been talking about the end of time since the very beginning of it,” she tells him. “Surely you know that, Mr. Jenkins.”

He ignores her comment. “The devil comes in many guises. Adultery, homosexuality, false idols…and yes, even suicide. Haddonwood was once an oasis in a world of sin. But it slides closer to Sodom and Gomorrah every day.”

She flips on her turn signal just before he says, “That’s the left I mentioned, coming up.”

No shit, she thinks. “Sometimes,” she says, “people focus so hard on identifying every little thing that’s bad in the world that they fail to celebrate the good.”

He snorts. “As you’ve said many times before. I do listen to your sermons on Sunday, even if I don’t agree. But here’s the thing—and please, don’t take offense.”

Julie believes please, don’t take offense may be one of the most offensive things anyone can say, but she holds her tongue.

“You’re good with the encouragement stuff. I think you would’ve made a great kindergarten teacher. Leading a congregation, though…especially in times like these? The town is falling apart. Soon, there will be a reckoning. And you’re out of your depth.”

That’s when Julie finally realizes something crucial—something she probably should have understood the very first time she met Scott Jenkins. She will never win him over. Leaving aside his sexism and his enormous ego, there is simply no common ground upon which they can build. His god of reckoning cannot coexist with her god of reconciliation.

“You’re too weak to do the job. As Reverend Crowe once said, the fires of hell burn hot for the leader who delivers his flock into temptation.”

Julie is surprised that her voice remains level when she responds. “If you’ve really been listening to my weekly messages, you know I don’t believe in a physical hell. We each make our own hell, in our own minds. Hell is living in the absence of love and kindness.”

“And you’ve just proved my point. That kind of talk is the reason you and I are in this car. If you had made it clear from the pulpit that suicide is a sin, a sin with actual consequences, you might have spared that poor woman’s soul. Add to that the torment of her family knowing that Martha cannot enter heaven, and we are in a—”

“Hold on! Wait just a damn minute, Scott. We’re not going to have any of that talk in front of her family. I mean it. Our purpose tonight is to give comfort, not for you to bombard them with your twisted interpretation of scripture. If you’re not down with that, I’ll turn around right now. It’s getting late, but I can go see them tomorrow.”

“Don’t be stupid. We’re halfway there. Do you really want them hearing about Martha’s death through the grapevine?”

Julie doesn’t, although she has a sense that the grapevine might be out of commission tonight. “Fine. But here’s the thing,” she says, mimicking his words from earlier, “and please…don’t take offense. The flashlight in my coat pocket doubles as pepper spray. One unkind word from you, and as God is my witness, I will unload the thing square in your eyes and give you a nasty little preview of that hellfire you keep talking about. Are we understood?”

Silence falls over the car, although Julie is pretty sure she can hear Scott’s blood boiling. This outburst will not make her life easier in the long run. She’s certain of that. But damn, it felt good.

And it shut him up, which should surely count as a miracle.

Julie relaxes a tiny bit, watching the road stretch out before her with gentle rises and falls, dips and hills, almost as if she is driving on the spine of some long-buried creature. Off in the distance, she spots the large oak tree she’s always used as a visual warning that the turn onto the main highway is coming up. The tree sits off to the right just as the road curves sharply to the left. There are several dents in the tree, gouges in the bark left by the cars of distracted drivers who kept going straight instead of following the road. Bill once called it the killer tree—it took the lives of two of his friends back in high school—and said he wished whoever owned the property would cut the damn thing down.

The tree is pretty, though, especially in the summer, when its long thick branches extend over the road to provide a canopy of dark-green shade. Tonight it shows a different kind of beauty—a stark, skeletal lattice backlit by the glowing moon.

As Julie draws closer, she spots the first car they’ve encountered since leaving the Haddonwood limits. A sick feeling spreads through her stomach.

It’s not. It can’t be.

It is, though. At first, she thinks that he actually hit the tree. But as she pulls up next to Bill’s SUV, she sees that there’s a good four or five feet between the bumper and the tree trunk.

“Why are you stopping?” Scott asks.

“That’s Bill Gray’s car,” she says, flipping on her high beams as she cuts the engine. “He left this morning for a convention in Atlanta.”

“Why would he be parked all the way out here?”

Julie is out of the car before he finishes the question. Her legs shake beneath her as she peers into the passenger side of the SUV. It’s too dark to see the inside unaided, so she fishes the flashlight out of her coat pocket and aims the beam through the window. The first thing she sees is Bill’s iPhone lying face down in the passenger seat. She looks through the backseat next. His briefcase is in the floorboard. The keys are in the ignition.

Bill, however, is nowhere to be seen.

“Damn,” Julie whispers, her eyes stinging with tears. But she’s not going to cry. Not here, and definitely not in front of Scott Jenkins, who is now standing next to her.

“Maybe he had a medical emergency,” Scott says as he leans down to look inside the car. “Chest pains or something, and he wandered away from the car.”

“I need to call Tucker,” Julie says. “Or maybe the sheriff’s office. Is your phone working?”

Scott looks surprised. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

It isn’t working, though. She knew it wouldn’t be even as she asked the question.

The wind whistles through the trees around them, an audible reminder to Julie that the wilderness spreads for miles in all directions. Off in the distance, an owl hoots, as if to hammer the point home. Driving this far would have taken Bill less than ten minutes, which means his car has been sitting right here all day. If he had a medical emergency this morning, the odds that he’s still alive are very slim.

Unless someone picked him up. Took him to the hospital in Viola City. With the phones down, the hospital wouldn’t have been able to reach her or the girls. He could be okay.

Scott is still fighting with his phone, clearly pissed that yet another thing isn’t bending to his indomitable will. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” he says finally. “They won’t do anything until he’s missing for forty-eight hours.”

Julie glares at him. “He isn’t just missing. His car is right here. I think that’s suspicious enough that they’d at least check the hospitals.”

Scott looks up from his phone, and she can tell that he’s planning to argue the point further, because he’s Scott Jenkins, and of course he’s going to argue. But then his eyes narrow, fixing on a point behind her.

Julie turns. Something sways from the large branch that extends out over the curve in the road. It looks like a bag of some sort, jostling and twisting in the wind. And it wasn’t there a moment ago. She’s quite certain of that. It would have been right in the path of her headlights.

Cold dread washes over her, because it really doesn’t look like a bag. That’s just a lie she’s telling herself to keep from freaking out.

It looks like a body.

From this angle, however, she can’t really tell for certain. Not with the tree trunk blocking her view.

Scott holds out his hand. “Give me the light.”

Julie ignores him and begins moving forward. Scott huffs and follows, muttering under his breath. She wouldn’t have given it to him even if it was just a flashlight, but after their conversation in the car, he knows it’s also pepper spray. So he can fuck right off.

Had it been any other person standing next to her, however, Julie would have handed the light over and done so gladly. She really doesn’t want to see what’s hanging from this tree. When she awoke this morning, she would have sworn that her worst nightmare would be to see that damned scarecrow coming at her. It would be far worse, however, to step around this tree and see Bill’s body at the end of a rope.

But in the end, she has to know. So, she angles the light upward once they reach the tree.

Her first emotion is relief. The body isn’t Bill’s. It’s much too small.

What’s hanging from the tree is actually worse. The coarse rope snakes down from the lowest limb of the oak to grip the neck of a child. Gravity tugs at the bright-orange sneakers, pointing their toes downward toward the double yellow line. His head is bowed, loose hair falling over a face that is splotched purple and black.

“Chase!” Julie runs toward the body, moving so quickly that she doesn’t see the object in her path. A bolt of pain shoots up her leg as her shin connects. She pitches sideways, trips, and lands on her back on the grassy side of the highway.

As she stares upward, she realizes that the moon, which she had just spotted behind the tree, is now gone. So are the stars. The sky is utterly black. There are just two points of light in the unrelenting darkness—the flashlight she’s holding and the faint glow of Scott’s cellphone.

Scott’s hand appears above her. Reaching up, she takes it, and he pulls her to her feet.

The thing she tripped over is a small red table with yellow legs. It looks vaguely familiar and yet completely out of place sitting in the road. It also looks exceptionally lightweight, and she’s amazed it didn’t go skittering across the road when she collided with it.

It’s like the table Dani and I had, Julie thinks, and then shakes her head.

Like the table DAISY and Dani had, she corrects, only that’s still off. There’s no way she could know about this table. She hadn’t met them as children. In fact, she’s never even seen any of the toys they owned. They were well past that stage by the time she first visited the house.

And yet, the memory is there—faded around the edges and foggy, but still stuck inside her brain like an old film clip playing on loop. It’s there as surely as the stray thought about the jeans this morning, the ones with the butterfly.

This was…mine. Mine and Dani’s. LEGOs and Play-Doh and My Little Pony. Dad gave it away after the acci…dent…

What accident? Julie tries to latch on to the memory, to search it for details, but she can’t. It’s not her memory. It’s—

Daisy? Are you there? Can you hear me?

Julie? Where—

And then the voice, the connection, is gone, and she’s staring at the table. It was empty only a moment ago, but now an ancient-looking Ouija board sits in the middle. It’s not the standard out-of-the-box Ouija she’s seen in stores. This board has been carved out of a block of wood, with each letter of the alphabet burned onto the face. The planchette looks hand carved as well, and the words MYSTICAL EYE are stenciled carefully just below the small viewing window.

“Where did that come from?” Scott says, his voice rising. “It wasn’t there a minute ago. There was nothing on that table. Did you set this up? Trying to creep me out on Halloween? Test my faith with an occult prank?”

“If it’s a prank, it’s on me as well.”

“Oh, sure. You suddenly decide to extend the olive branch, to actually allow me to take a tiny part of my rightful role in this congregation, and this just happens—”

“Shut up,” Julie says flatly, and walks back toward the tree. The body can’t be Chase. He’s at the Hart. It’s a prank all right, and in really poor taste. She risks another look upward, cringing at the sound of the rope creaking in the wind.

The child’s hand is directly over the board, one finger pointing at the table below. Julie takes a step forward and touches the planchette. A cold tingle runs up her arm.

“Stop that!” Scott says, using much the same tone as he would with a three-year-old. “Why would you touch that tool of the devil? We need to leave right now.”

But she doesn’t listen. The wood grows warm beneath her fingers and begins to vibrate.

“Is anyone there?” Julie doesn’t know if this is the right way to approach a spirit board. She never played with one as a child. The planchette moves, gliding as smoothly as a bird around the edges of the board. Then the glass eye begins to pause over certain letters.

“C-H-A-S-E,” Julie spells out aloud. “W-A-S. N-E-V-E-R. H-E-R-E.”

The mystic eye grows warmer, until it’s too hot to hold. When she’s finally forced to let go, the planchette continues to move.

DAISY

DANI

WHERE R THEY

“Bill? Is that you, Bill?”

The heat is so intense now that Julie begins to sweat. She takes a step away from the board, but not so far that she can’t see the letters.

GAME OVER

Then the glass eye zooms toward the bottom half of the board, running back and forth over a single word.

GOODBYE

GOODBYE

GOODBYE

Scott is mumbling something. A prayer, probably, but Julie isn’t paying attention. Her eyes are still on the board where the planchette now glows a hot reddish orange. The glass in the middle of the eye shatters, and then the wooden spirit board snaps and bursts into flames. Scott screams, stumbles backward, and lands on his ass in the middle of the road.

The table beneath the burning board begins to melt. Julie backs away and watches the red plastic bend and curl, folding in on itself and sending the Ouija board tumbling onto the asphalt.

Above, a cold wind whistles through the branches, causing the rope to creak loudly. Julie looks up an instant before it snaps. The body comes crashing to the ground on top of the flaming board. As it falls, it morphs into an almost-weightless mass, and then it’s nothing but a heap of clothes and two orange sneakers draped across the smoking remains of the table.

“Scott?” Julie senses movement to her left and shines the light in that direction. He’s standing in the middle of the road, looking straight at her. His face is pale, but not nearly as pale as his eyes.

His eyes have gone white.

“Scott?” She takes a step toward him, moving the flashlight down slightly so that his eyes don’t reflect back the light. But the color barely changes at all—still white, with faint streaks of red.

Like the crow in the library.

Then Scott’s entire body begins to flicker, in and out, glowing brighter until he’s nothing but a streaky white mass hovering above the pavement. Julie covers her eyes to shield them, and when she moves her hand away, Scott is gone.

But not just Scott. Everything is gone.

Her car. Bill’s car. The killer tree.

Julie now stands in the middle of a void as black as the starless, moonless sky she noticed moments before. The ground below her feet is pitch black, and there’s absolutely nothing visible aside from her body. She whirls around, pointing the flashlight frantically in all directions, but the beam just extends forward until it fades into nothingness.

Then, just as she’s about to scream, she sees a tiny flash of amber light. Her hand is shaking so badly that it takes a moment to locate the light again, but once she does, she picks out a second amber dot beyond that.

Reflectors. One of her friends in high school had called them drunk bumps—those reflective dots positioned between the lines in the center of the road that help you stay in your lane at night.

Aside from her pepper-spray flashlight, those dots on the road appear to be the last spots of light left in the universe. They’re only on the road leading into town, though. When she steps from the second reflector to the third, she shines the light behind her and finds that the first two reflectors have vanished.

For a sickening, heart-stopping moment, she imagines the scarecrow stepping out of the pitch black. Lunging at her, ready to rip her into shreds. Only his face is now Scott’s face, with those eerie white eyes.

But nothing reaches out at her from the dark, and once she recovers from her panic, she turns back to that line of tiny amber dots. She will not think about anything she’s seen. Not about Chase, because that wasn’t Chase. Not about Bill or the girls, because they are all okay. And definitely not about her stupid childhood fears. These tiny lights in the dark are all she has, but they are a sign that she is not entirely alone.

She has to believe that following these tiny pinpoints of light will lead her out of the darkness, if she can just continue to put one foot in front of the other.

And so she follows.

Three

DAISY

At seven forty-five, Daisy runs a brush through her hair and debates fastening one more button on her light-blue shirt. Under normal circumstances, she would search on her phone for an image from the movie to check whether Laurie Strode left one button or two undone. Sure, no one else will know, but she’d have a certain satisfaction from knowing she had it correct. She’d feel more Laurie Strodish, and she would therefore be more convincing. Right?

But that’s not a possibility today. Since they’ve been plunged back into the Dark Ages, she’ll have to rely on her memory. Or better yet, just take the advice MB gave her at lunch. Make him notice. She grins at her reflection and decides that accuracy to the movie is secondary to what might catch Tucker’s eye. The second button remains undone.

Her costume is simple—so simple, in fact, that she’s guessing a lot of people won’t have a clue she’s even wearing one. High-waisted navy jeans with front slash pockets, in addition to a sky-blue button-down shirt with a very different kind of slash running down one sleeve.

It’s not the costume she’d planned to wear, but she’s okay with it. She and Dani had decided months ago that they’d dress up as scream queens. Dani had called dibs on this outfit, since her hair is a little lighter and has more natural curl, a bit like Jamie Lee Curtis’s hair in the first Halloween movie. So Daisy had ordered a chin-length blonde wig, complete with 90s-style chunky bangs, and a cream cable-knit sweater. She dyed part of the front blood red, so that she could be Casey Becker, the Drew Barrymore character who gets offed in the opening scene of Scream.

But when Daisy ran into the house to grab her costume on the way back from Martha’s, the blonde wig was missing. Everything else was there for both costumes. Only the wig was gone.

It was a typical Dani move, and normally, she might have been pissed about it. But Daisy had wanted to be Laurie Strode in the first place. Laurie was smart and strong, and she lived to see the sequels. Daisy would like to believe that Dani picked up on the fact that she really didn’t want to dress up as Casey Becker and left the other costume out of the goodness of her heart. But she knows better. The far more likely scenario is that Dani decided to do something entirely different at the last minute and needed Daisy’s blonde wig to complete the look.

And so, Daisy had shoved the blue shirt and jeans into a plastic bag and ran back out to the car where Tucker and Chase were waiting, avoiding the urge to look back at the mirror in the hallway. She couldn’t have said why, but it felt unwise, maybe even dangerous when it was dark, and the house was empty. Because the mirror-that-had-always-been-there hasn’t always been there. It’s wrong, just like the letters on Martha’s fridge and the pictures of her pod students.

This outfit is a better choice, anyway. All of the advertising for the FrightFest has encouraged people to come in costume, but a blood-spattered sweater would have been a bit tacky given that she’s working tonight. And even if no one else gets what she’s wearing, Tucker will know exactly who she’s supposed to be when he gets back from making the streets safe for trick-or-treaters. Marty started patrolling around five, but peak trick-or-treating was usually between seven and nine, and Tucker said both of them needed to be out there.

Chase is waiting on the staircase that leads up to the projection booth when Daisy exits the restroom. He looks at her quizzically. “I thought you were putting on a costume?”

She grins. “This is a costume. One day, when you’re older, you can watch the movie it’s from. Are you sure you want to be up here in the booth, though? It’s kind of stuffy. Trent said you could help him collect tickets. Or you could just watch from the theater. You put in some sweat equity today—I think you should get the best seat in the house.”

“I’d rather be in the booth. Anyway, I told Ben I’d stick with you. He was a little pissed that I didn’t stay with Julie Kennedy like I said I would.”

“Okay, then,” she says, giving him a smile. “Let’s grab a soda, and we’ll head up.”

When Ben and Chase had returned with dinner from the Chickwich, Ben had told them that he had indeed drawn the black dot and was headed up to the Grimshaw house to preserve the honor of Haddonwood High. He’d said the last bit jokingly, and Tucker had joked back, asking if he wanted a police escort. Daisy could tell from looking at both his face and Tucker’s that this was one of those stupid masculine things that she was never going to understand. Ben didn’t want to go. That much was obvious. But he was also bound and determined to follow through, more scared of being declared a coward than he was of the supposedly haunted house.

Before today, Daisy would have emphasized the supposedly part. As much as she enjoys horror, she’s always been a skeptic about the supernatural. A hopeful skeptic in the case of her mother, but a skeptic, nonetheless. The Grimshaw house gives her the creeps, though. It gives everybody the creeps. There’s just something off about the place, even on ordinary days when everything else in the universe is operating in a sane and logical fashion.

The Hart feels a little off tonight, too. Daisy has spent close to a hundred hours here over the past few weeks, many of them alone. The place never spooked her in the slightest, even when she was scanning through some pretty scary films. Tonight, though, there’s a different energy in the theater. Or maybe it’s just an aftereffect of everything else she’s seen today. Either way, she’s glad Chase is here. It’s nice to have someone around who isn’t totally oblivious to the day’s actual events.

A small voice inside keeps insisting that continuing with the FrightFest is a bad idea, given everything that’s going on in Haddonwood. Even if it’s too late to notify people of a cancelation, they could have posted signs on the doors. CLOSED DUE TO FLU. People would have understood. Someone at school had said classes were canceled today in Viola City because so many teachers were sick.

Daisy hadn’t even bothered to suggest canceling the show to Trent, however. He’d arrived at the theater in a burgundy velvet tuxedo. It seemed a bit over the top to her, but then she realized it matched the seats and the curtains that hid the movie screen. Maybe that’s what ushers had worn back when the place was open. And tuxedo aside, Trent was definitely in one of his manic phases, rushing around to make sure everything was ready. He’d been positively beaming, and there’s no way he’d have agreed to cancel or postpone. She just hopes enough people come to make their effort worthwhile.

When she and Chase round the corner, Daisy can see that her fears about a small crowd are unfounded. Trent hasn’t opened the doors yet, but a line of people are waiting on the sidewalk. She’d also expected Trent to be the only person in the lobby, but to her surprise, two teenage guys she’s never seen before are manning the concession stand. One of them looks a lot like her biology teacher. But if Mr. Furlong has a son her age, she’s never seen him. Maybe he’s homeschooled?

She and Chase get drinks and a bucket of popcorn. Then she heads over to where Trent is fanning out a stack of photocopied programs on a side table.

“I thought you were just going to work the concession yourself,” Daisy says, nodding toward the counter. “They haven’t been trained or anything.”

Trent waves a hand. “They showed up earlier today. And they have experience. It’s not exactly rocket science.”

“Yeah, but…do you know them? I mean, you’re trusting them with the cash register.”

He laughs. “Daisy, Daisy. Always watching out for me. Everything will be fine. You’ll see. Now you two scat so I can let our audience in.”

They both move back toward the stairwell as Trent unlocks the doors and steps behind the podium that they’re using as a temporary ticket booth. A steady stream of people begins to pour into the lobby. She feels Chase tense up next to her.

“Let’s head back to the booth,” she says.

Once they’re upstairs, she looks down at the people filing into the auditorium. She’s mostly looking for MB and Dani, both of whom said they’d stop by. And, to be honest, both of whom she fully expects to skip.

What surprises her most, though, is the fact that she doesn’t recognize anyone. There’s usually a decent turnout for school fundraisers. That’s one reason she’d talked Trent into promising a donation for the band uniforms out of the proceeds. Parents, teachers, students—most people will put in an appearance simply out of a sense of loyalty. But so far, there’s not a single familiar face in the crowd.

That feeling is back, that sensation of a connection her mind is almost making. She looks back down at the audience, trying to force her brain into action. But the thought floats away into the ether.

“The ad in the Vanguard seems to have paid off,” she says to Chase. “I’ve never seen this many out-of-towners here. Viola City folks usually act like any event in Haddonwood is beneath them.”

She feels Chase’s eyes on her. He looks away quickly when she turns to face him, but she caught a quick glimpse of his expression. It almost looked like pity, but she can’t imagine why Chase would feel sorry for her.

“What?” she asks. “Do you see people you know down there?”

Chase shakes his head. “No. You’re right. They’re strangers.”

Almost all of them are wearing costumes, too. The advertising flyers she’d helped Trent put together had offered a dollar off a large popcorn for those in costume. She’d expected to see the usual array of plastic superhero and monster masks, but there’s not an Iron Man or werewolf in the bunch. Most of the crowd is in historical attire. One man is dressed in what appears to be a leisure suit. A girl at the edge of one of the aisles is wearing a full pink skirt, and the guy with her has his hair slicked back and poufed up on top, kind of like Elvis.

The girl glances over her shoulder, and Daisy gets a clear look at her face for the first time. Or rather, a clear look at where her face should be. It’s like the photographs at Martha’s house for a moment…just a featureless blob. And then the details fill in, from the bright pink lipstick to the poodle appliquéd on the side of her skirt.

Daisy tells herself it’s a trick of the lighting, but she doesn’t believe it. She begins scanning the audience, looking for more of what she’d described to Tucker as pod people. But everyone is now facing forward, waiting for the show to begin.

At five minutes after eight, Trent walks down the aisle, stopping to chat with a few people along the way. Finally, he steps onto the stage at the front of the theater and gives the little speech Daisy has heard him practicing for the past few days. It’s mostly about Jill Hart, the woman who owned the place back when he was in his teens, and how happy she’d be to see all of them here.

When he finishes, Daisy pushes the button to open the curtain. Even though they’ve practiced this several times, the movement startles Trent. He hurries off stage, looking nervously over his shoulder, as if he’s being chased by something far more sinister than half of a velvet curtain. The genial host who was chatting with the audience vanishes as Daisy lowers the lights, replaced by a frightened rabbit of a man who seems to want nothing more than to get back to the safety of the lobby. His sudden change of behavior would be odd if she hadn’t seen his mood shift so many times. Her dad must be right. Trent probably has every penny he owns tied up in this place.

Daisy starts the movie, her stomach twisting at the stray thought about her dad. But she can’t focus on that right now. The cell phone networks will be back up soon, and she’ll talk to him. He knows how much effort she’s put into the festival, and he would have called by now if he could, to wish her luck on opening night. Which means he’s probably even more worried than she is. And while she hates thinking of him being worried, the fact that he’s somewhere in Atlanta feeling the same way she does is oddly comforting.

Daisy jumps, bumping into a stack of film cases, when Chase laughs at the scene where Porky Pig drags his terrified cat, Sylvester, back down the stairs to sleep in the kitchen. The boy has been so quiet that she’d almost forgotten he was in the booth.

“Are you sure you don’t want the chair?” Chase asks.

“I’m fine. I need to move around to switch the machines over anyway. But I will take some of that popcorn.”

She grabs a handful. It smells good, but it’s oddly stale for having just been popped.

When the first cartoon is over, Daisy switches projectors and begins the process of changing reels. About halfway through, she hears a soft tap at the projection booth door. She reaches over to open it, and Tucker steps inside.

“Thought you were going to be out until around nine?” she whispers.

“So did I.”

“Hold on,” she says. “I’ve got to finish getting the next reel set up.”

Tucker leans against the back wall while she threads the film into the machine. When she rejoins him, he touches her torn shirt sleeve.

“What happened?” he asks, clearly worried.

She gives him a little smile, realizing he probably can’t see much in the dim glow of the projectors. “I ran into this guy with a knife…and a mask.”

It takes him a moment, and then he returns her smile. “Was it the boogeyman?”

“There’s no such thing.”

They watch the cartoon for a moment, although Daisy is really watching Chase watch the cartoon. He’s enjoying it, and it’s nice to see a smile on the kid’s face. These two cartoons were new to her, although her dad remembered both of them when she described them to him.

“You okay?” Tucker asks.

She nods. “Just thinking about Dad. Are the trick-or-treaters finished already?”

“Must be. Marty said he saw a couple of groups around dusk, and then two or three later on. I didn’t see anyone. The only activity seems to be here and down at the bonfire, which is huge. I hope they keep it contained.”

Daisy holds up a finger for him to wait and then steps forward, watching for her cue. When the number pops up in the margin of the screen, she switches to the other projector to start the main attraction. The first frames are a countdown, and then there’s a bit of film from years ago with The Hart in large letters.

The next reel is a compilation of teaser trailers, including one she found for William Castle’s Macabre. Dramatic music is followed by an announcer informing the audience that a one-thousand-dollar life insurance policy has been taken out for anyone who dies of fright during the screening—unless they have a heart condition or are so scared they commit suicide. And then William Castle himself, the poor man’s Alfred Hitchcock, promises their money back for viewing Homicidal, if they are too frightened to watch the last few minutes.

A wave of nervous laughter runs through the theater, and Daisy grins up at Tucker, who is standing just behind her. “Are you sure you can handle this, Officer Vance?” she whispers.

“If not, I guess I can get my money back.”

Daisy feels his breath against her ear as he responds, and she’s suddenly very aware of how close he is. It’s unavoidable in the small room. Not that she would change it if she could.

Tucker seems to have noticed the same thing. She hears him pull in a ragged breath, and then he runs one hand gently, tentatively, along her shoulder, his fingers brushing her bare skin when they reach the slash in the costume.

Daisy leans back against him, watching as the film moves from trailers to the clips of actual movies that she spliced together. The first section is classic opening scenes to set the mood. While most of her personal favorites are too new to be in Jill Hart’s collection, there are some really creepy films in this scream reel. Mostly B movies, but a few major productions as well, with some big-name stars.

She’s seen the clips so many times that she’s barely paying attention, but that’s also partly because she’s so very conscious of Tucker’s nearness. Daisy can feel his heart racing against the back of her neck. After a few minutes, the hand that he’s been resting on her shoulder slides down her arm, and he laces his fingers through hers.

When Nosferatu appears out of the shadows, Tucker and Chase both jump. Daisy chuckles softly, and Tucker whispers, “You did a good job. Hard to believe you could do all of this with just film…without a computer.”

“The real fun is going to be splicing all of the pieces back in,” she says, nodding toward a stack on the floor next to the projector table. “Each one is in its own separate bag, but it’s still going to take days.”

As the words leave her mouth, she’s hit with the absolute certainty that she will never splice these films back together. Her regular routine of school, work here at the Hart, and then going home to her dad and Dani is a thing of the past. Nothing will be the same after this day. It’s like a curtain has been ripped back, and everything she thought was real is an illusion.

On the plus side, Tucker is no longer a silhouette against the window next door who occasionally speaks to her. He’s here, his hand warm against her own. Tucker is the only thing she’s certain of right now.

And Chase. He’s real, too. But everything else…

Her eyes go to the screen again, because something is wrong. This scene is one she knows. She watched it because it was listed in her Compendium of Horror Classics as the first of the psycho-biddy movies of the 1960s, with gothic plots and grand dames of classic cinema camping it up. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? is silly in places, but there are some genuinely tense and scary scenes.

The scene that’s currently showing, however, is kind of boring. She doesn’t remember including it. It’s just where the car crashes into a gate.

Or at least that’s what is supposed to happen. Instead, the gate morphs into an embankment, with a partial view of a river beyond. The car doesn’t stop. It sails over the edge and into the river. The next shot is the rear of the car sticking up from the water as the vehicle is sucked down, with two small hands pressed against the rear window.

“No,” Daisy says in a tiny voice. “That’s not…”

Tucker asks if she’s okay, but she barely hears him. The scene shifts to an interior shot, the one that she did intend to include from the movie. Bette Davis stands in the doorway, looking back at her wheelchair-bound sister, played by Joan Crawford.

“Hey, Blanche,” she says, “you know we got rats in the cellar?”

Only it’s not Bette Davis. The body is the same, but the face…it’s Dani, or at least what Dani might look like when she’s seventy. And the woman in the wheelchair is a much-older version of Daisy.

Tucker draws in a sharp breath, and Chase turns back to look at them, confused.

“How did you do that?” he asks.

“I didn’t,” she replies.

Bette/Dani crosses over to her sister, grabs the handles of the wheelchair, and begins running toward the windows.

Joan/Daisy screams, crossing her arms in front of her face.

And then her sister laughs. Trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.

There’s a crashing noise as the wheelchair hits the glass, and then the film shifts to an outdoor scene that Daisy is positive she didn’t include, because it’s the one she was watching earlier today. A road winds along a rocky shore. Only the convertible is gone. It’s now a very familiar SUV making its way along that road.

A voice in her head, a voice that is very clearly Julie Kennedy’s, says, That’s Bill Gray’s car.

Tucker’s arms tighten around her, and Daisy knows that he’s also recognized the car. It rounds a curve to reveal a big tree on the edge of the road. An empty noose hangs from one of the larger branches. The SUV veers sharply, skidding off the pavement and into the tree.

Daisy screams, the sound echoing in the tiny room.

“It’s not real,” Tucker tells her. “None of that is real.”

A man, who is very clearly her father, climbs out of the car. There’s a cut on his forehead, but otherwise, he’s fine. Daisy’s knees go weak with relief. But then a dark cloud rises up from the tree, hovering in the air above him. Daisy’s scream now blends with her father’s as the crows descend upon Bill Gray in a whirlwind of black feathers.

Daisy breaks loose from Tucker’s arms and yanks the projector plugs from the socket. But the power keeps flowing, despite the two cords dangling from her hands. When she looks up, the image on the screen has now shifted to a desert where a man and woman are fleeing from a giant ant. This one is familiar. It’s the first part of the creature feature segment she prepared, although she’d have sworn that the clip was on one of the reels still stacked up next to the projectors.

But the scene doesn’t cut away like it’s supposed to as the huge ant approaches. The movie is black and white. So was the ant, but it’s now an odd greenish-purple shade, with stark white eyes. Two more giant ants are visible behind it.

“Those eyes,” Chase says, looking back at Tucker. “They’re like the crow in the—” His voice is drowned out by the screams from the audience below them. One giant hairy leg impales the female scientist in the foreground of the movie as the other slams through the theater screen and onto the small stage in front.

Screams rise from the theater below as the crowd presses toward the exits. Daisy yanks the reel from the projector and begins tugging at the film to stop it. The sharp edges slice into her palms, but she finally manages to pull the film from the machine.

Inside the theater, the monster is pulling the rest of its body through the screen. The female scientist from the movie, who is still in black and white, hangs from one of the creature’s legs as it clambers across the seats. Its bloodshot white eyes ignore the throng of shrieking theatergoers. Instead, they’re fixed on the projection booth.

Chase is now next to Daisy. Tucker steps in front of them, aiming his pistol at the white eyes staring into the booth. He fires once, twice, and everything falls silent except for the sound of breaking glass.

There’s no giant ant staring back at them.

No crowd of screaming people shoving through the exit.

Just Daisy, Tucker, and Chase in a tiny pitch-black room.

They stand huddled together, frozen. Daisy presses her bleeding palms against her thighs. She’s scared to breathe, terrified that the movie will start again, and they’ll be face-to-face with the massive ant or some even worse abomination.

Seconds pass, and she risks a shallow breath. The room smells of mold and rotting wood. She feels Tucker’s arm move toward his pocket and hears the rattle of keys. Then the area around them takes on a bluish-white glow.

Tucker shines the keychain flashlight around the projection room. Cobwebs extend from the equipment to the walls, and a thick layer of dust covers everything. One of the projectors is upright, but the other is on its side, the casing shattered. An empty Smirnoff bottle lies on the floor near their feet.

The popcorn container is gone, as are the two cups of soda. All of the film reels are missing as well, except for one, which lies on the table next to the projectors.

“We should go,” Tucker says, motioning toward the door with his gun. He starts to hand Daisy the flashlight, but then sees the blood on her hands and curses softly. “How bad is it?”

“They’re shallow cuts,” Daisy says. “There are just a lot of them.”

“I can take the flashlight,” Chase tells him.

And so they make their way down the stairs to the lobby, which is empty aside from scattered debris. The carpet that she clearly remembers seeing Trent remove still covers the floor, and the exit is boarded up, just as it had always been before Daisy wished the place open.

Tucker examines the door and the tall windows on either side, and then says, “Chase, keep the light on that window, okay? I’m going to try and kick the boards loose. You guys might want to stay back, though. There’s still some glass in the frame.”

He levels a strong side kick at the window. The tinkle of glass breaking is followed by a slight creak from the wood. Tucker kicks again, and the board begins to give.

Daisy is seized by a sudden fear that when it finally breaks loose, there will be nothing on the other side.

“What if it’s all gone? What if it’s just that black void you mentioned earlier?” Daisy feels guilty as soon as the words leave her lips. She’s an adult. Just barely, but still. She should be offering comfort, not seeking it from Chase.

“It won’t be,” Chase says, but she’s not at all sure he believes his own words.

The truly scary thing is that a tiny part of her wants the world outside to be gone, because she’s increasingly certain now that it is a world in which her father is dead. Quite possibly Dani, too. Maybe it would be better for there to be nothing on the other side of that window except a black hole where she, too, can simply cease to exist.

Tucker kicks once more, and this time the plywood falls away, crashing to the sidewalk below. It is dark out there. No streetlights. There doesn’t even seem to be a moon.

But the flashlight Chase is holding reflects back from a car parked at the curb. The same police cruiser that Daisy has checked on each night for the past several years, making sure it’s in the driveway next door. Making sure it has delivered Tucker, safe and sound, before she turns in for the night.

“Daisy?” Tucker frowns in concern and then leans forward slightly, so that his face is level with hers. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you home. Get those hands patched up.”

Tucker smiles when she looks up at him. She sees relief in his blue eyes. And even more important, she sees a glimmer of hope.

Hope is something she desperately needs right now.

And so she follows.

Four

BEN

“I feel like we’re driving up to Hill House,” Marybeth says.

Ben glances at her from the corner of his eye. “Hill House?”

“A book I read last year. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.”

“Hey! I know her. Well, I don’t know her, know her, but I’ve read something by her. I was just thinking about it earlier today. A story called ‘The Lottery.’ I liked it. It seemed kind of fitting for this whole pumpkin tradition.”

“I guess it’s a Shirley Jackson kind of evening.” MB smiles at him. It’s a genuinely happy smile, and it occurs to him that maybe he should read more often. At least try the stuff she enjoys. It would be something they could talk about that wasn’t school. In a few more months, they won’t even have school in common.

But it’s not just the fact that he dropped a literary reference that has her smiling. MB is in better spirits tonight than she’s been in weeks. Her moods can spin on a dime, but she seems actually happy to be here, with him.

“Does it all work out?” he asks. “The Hill House book, I mean?”

Ben can’t quite decipher her expression. “Not really.”

“That’s it? You’re not going to tell me?”

“Nope. Guess you’ll actually have to read the book, Ben.”

“Or I could just read the summary on Wikipedia. Or see if someone made a movie.” He grins as she punches his shoulder. “Or, yeah, I could read the book. Do you still have it?”

“I think so. I’ll check when I get home.” She scooches over a bit on the bench seat and rests her hand on his thigh. They ride along in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and Ben feels more at peace than he has for a long time. His other problems, even his worry about Chase, fade to the back of his head.

Unfortunately, the ride is not as comfortable as their silence. The road leading up to the Grimshaw house is muddy and washed out in several places. Thanks to the piss-poor shocks on his truck, they feel each and every bump. When the truck passes through a section choked by briars, Ben winces at the scraping noise.

MB has a death grip on the edge of the seat, and Ben can’t really blame her. His own knuckles are white against the steering wheel.

“You were right about not taking Daddy’s car.”

Ben is a little stunned at this admission. MB rarely owns up to being wrong. It’s true that Scott’s car might have handled the bumps a little better, but Ben doubts it would have made it up the steep hill. Not to mention that Scott would have exploded if he got home and discovered his Beemer covered with mud and scratches.

The incline is so steep that the road seems to disappear completely up ahead. Through the windshield, all Ben can see is the sky filled with stars and a full white moon. It kind of feels like they’re flying, except for all of the bumps.

“Easy to see why they can’t sell this place,” he says. “It’s got nothing to do with ghosts. Can you imagine what a bitch it would be to try and get up or down this hill in the winter?”

MB grins. “That’s true. And it’s going to make the truck a lot less useful in our escape.”

“Escape?”

“The deranged masked killer in the house will make better time on foot. He’ll climb in the bed of the truck, slide open that little window behind your head, and rrrnnk, rrrnnk, rrrnnk.” She mimics plunging a knife into his chest with each sound, and they both laugh.

“You’ve seen too many slasher movies,” Ben says.

“That’s the downside of being friends with Daisy Gray. I still can’t believe they’re opening that creepy theater back up. Daisy keeps gushing about her film treasures. You’d think she owned the place instead of working for minimum wage.”

Ben doesn’t want to talk about Daisy, because it reminds him of Chase and responsibility, and he really wants to make the most of his time with MB. So he changes the subject back to her haunted house scenario.

“Anyway,” he says, “if there’s a psycho killer up here, we both know the truck isn’t going to start. We’ll be stuck in the driveway.”

“That doesn’t sound entirely awful. Maybe we could hang out up here for a while?” Marybeth runs her finger over his thigh. Her nail scratches faintly against the grain of the denim, sending his entire body into gooseflesh.

He clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. “I thought you were in a hurry to get to the party?”

Now her fingers are making lazy figure-eights along his inner thigh. God help me.

“Just a few minutes up here won’t kill us. Well, unless the aforementioned psycho killer shows up. We haven’t really had much time alone lately. Just the two of us.”

He can’t deny it, but he also can’t help it. There’s school, work, football. Only the last one is optional, and MB wouldn’t want him to quit football. Cheerleaders only date football players. He’s pretty sure it’s an actual law.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Things will be better once the season is over. We’ll have more—”

“Shhh.” She laughs, placing her finger on his lips. “You worry too much.”

The road levels out in front of them, and the Grimshaw house, in all its dilapidated glory, comes into view.

“Holy fuck,” Marybeth says. “It really is creepy.”

She’s right. Ben has never seen the house this close up before. Looking at it from town is entirely different from staring at the beast straight on.

Ben parks the truck next to the broken fountain and stops the engine. With the headlights off, the front yard is bathed in an eerie midnight blue. Something leaps from the black water in the fountain, and Ben rolls up the window.

“So…we have to take it all the way to the door?” Marybeth’s eyes are wide, and her laugh sounds a little shaky. “Do you think that wood will support us?”

Ben drums his fingers on the steering wheel. The prospect of spending any more time than he has to at this place, even with Marybeth, is as appealing as a rotten apple.

“Let’s get it over with,” he says, sliding his arm around to give her a quick hug. “We can find a spot for some alone time once we’re back down this hill. And if we don’t put in an appearance at the bonfire with the proof of this little expedition, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Fine. But…just so you know, Daddy believes you’re a bad influence on me,” Marybeth says as she swings her long legs out of the truck.

This is not a new statement. She tells him some variant of this at least once a week, often during or after they’ve done something that would have Scott Jenkins coming after him with a shotgun.

“I’m stunned, I tell you. Stunned.”

“And,” she adds, once he joins her at the front of the truck, “this is one of those occasions where I think he may very well be right.”

“Hey. I tried to talk you out of coming, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Marybeth places the pumpkin on the hood of the truck and pulls her phone out of her pocket. “How did the chosen Haddonwood Howler prove he braved the Grimshaw House on Halloween before the era of the cell phone?”

“I don’t know. Polaroids, maybe?”

Ben studies the jack-o’-lantern. The mouth is a little lopsided, but he thinks MB did a decent job. He doesn’t like the way the thing seems to be staring at him, though. Sneering, almost. The expression kind of reminds him of MB’s dad. Which is probably fitting, since the man helped carve it.

“I’ll be glad to get rid of this thing,” he says.

“Ha. You weren’t the one that had to ride with it between your feet all the way up that damn hill. My ankles are going to be covered in bruises.”

“You can just tell your dad we had kinky sex with shackles.”

MB snorts. “Do you want to keep your balls?”

“Oof. Point taken.”

Ben draws in a deep breath of autumn air and then wrinkles his nose. It doesn’t smell as fresh up here as it did coming up the hill, when the breeze was blowing through the window vents of his truck. It’s probably the stagnant water in the fountain.

He looks down the hill toward Haddonwood off to the right, and the bonfire off to the left. A stab of guilt slices into his heart. Even if, by some miracle, MB is still in the mood after this, it will have to be quick. He needs to get back to town. The film festival will be over soon, and yes, Daisy offered, but he can’t expect her to keep an eye on the kid all night. Chase is his responsibility.

Guilt gives way to resentment and then back to guilt again. He loves his brother more than anything. But shouldn’t he be allowed a few hours away without feeling that he’s letting him down? In a fair and just world, he’d be able to trust his parents—or hell, at least one of his parents—to take care of their own damn son. To pick him up from the theater. Make sure he gets home safely.

But it’s not a fair and just world. It’s a world where Ralph Rey exists. Where his wife is unwilling to press charges, even though that’s the only hope of keeping her kids safe. It’s a sucky world, and neither of them can help the way things are. They just have to find a way to live in it.

“Ben? Could we just do this already?”

He turns to see MB holding the jack-o’-lantern in front of her. It’s now lit, and her face is bathed in the glow of the candle. She’s never looked more beautiful.

He takes a step toward her. “I love you. You know that?”

A smile lifts one corner of her mouth as she holds out the pumpkin. Then a cold gust of wind whips around the side of the truck, causing the candle to flicker.

“Careful!” she says. “Don’t let it go out.”

The flame inside the gourd sputters once, twice, and then it’s gone. A thin wisp of smoke curls up and exits through the right eye socket.

Marybeth’s eyes go wide, and then her face twists in pain. She opens her mouth to scream but nothing comes out.

He calls out her name as her body begins to flicker like the candle, in and out, and then she, too, is gone. The smoking pumpkin hangs in midair for a split second before crashing to the ground at Ben’s feet. It lands with a wet plop and splits down the middle.

Ben looks around him, almost expecting to see MB come from behind the truck, laughing at how she scared the holy hell out of him. But she’s gone.

A loud sucking sound draws his attention toward the Grimshaw house just as the door bursts inward. The open doorway is filled with a staticky blue glow, the light shining feebly through the grimy windows as well. Someone stands just inside the doorway, a familiar shape silhouetted against the light.

Chase.

When Ben calls out to him, Chase doesn’t seem to hear. He just steps into the hazy blue light.

Ben stands frozen for a moment, then sprints across the lawn and up the rickety porch steps toward the door where his brother disappeared. The wood groans beneath his weight, but it doesn’t have to hold him for long—two giant strides and he’s inside the foyer.

He hears a slight rustle and turns, expecting to see Chase. But it’s MB—or at least something that looks like MB. Her clothes are in tatters, and her hair lies plastered against her face as if she just crawled out of a lake. She’s also not entirely solid. The weird blue light that fills the room shines through her in patches as she flickers in and out of view.

Behind her is Chase, standing next to a door with his hand on the knob. He is looking at Ben now, and his face wears the same haunted expression it did this morning in their room.

Chase opens the door and goes inside. Ben moves to follow him, but MB steps into his path.

“Make your choice.” Her voice has an odd reverb effect that echoes in the room. “Me or Chase, Benjamin. Make your fucking choice.”

“Move.”

She reaches for his waist. Her translucent fingers brush the front of his jeans and grab for his belt. “No. Stay with me.”

She’s doing her little whine-and-pout routine, the one that works so well on her father. The one that actually turns Ben off, not on, every time she tries it on him. But he always ignores it and gives in, because she’s MB. Because he loves her.

This isn’t MB, though. This is just a fucked-up copy. A paper-thin facsimile. And even if it was MB, even if this was the flesh-and-blood girl he loves standing in front of him, it wouldn’t matter.

There’s no choosing between them. Chase needs him. End of story.

He pushes MB aside, expecting some physical resistance, but his hands sail through her apparition so easily that it nearly knocks him off balance. She falls backward but doesn’t exactly hit the floor. It’s more like the floor swallows her up.

Ben goes after Chase, avoiding the spot on the floor where MB fell through. It looks solid enough, but he doesn’t want to touch it.

That wasn’t MB. It wasn’t.

When he enters the room, he sees Chase sitting on a long sofa, staring down at his feet, which are clad in sneakers Ben has never seen. They look pink or maybe orange. It’s hard to tell which in the bluish glow that permeates the room, reflecting from furniture draped in moth-eaten white sheets.

“What the hell are you doing here, buddy?”

“I don’t know.” Chase’s shoulders sag beneath some invisible weight, and he still doesn’t meet Ben’s eyes.

“You’re supposed to be with Daisy,” he says.

“I am.”

That doesn’t make any sense at all, but Ben doesn’t press the point.

“You didn’t go back to the house on your own, did you?” Ben drops to one knee and tilts his brother’s face toward him. He doesn’t see any bruises, not at first glance, but he knows that doesn’t prove anything. Ralph Rey is a seasoned pro. He doesn’t leave marks where people can see them.

“No,” Chase says. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know that. But it’s pretty clear that something is wrong. I need you to talk to me, kiddo. Did you have another episode? Like at school today?”

Chase stays silent.

“Let’s go, okay? We’re done here.” Ben’s mind strays to Marybeth, who is also apparently done here, too. Done in here, by this house, but if he stops to think about what he saw he will scream. He will lose his fucking mind, and he has to focus right now on getting Chase to safety. “Come on. Let’s head home. Mom will be worried.”

Chase shakes his head. “No, she won’t. She’s not even my mom.”

“Yes, Chase! She is your mom. She’s got her faults, but she loves you. We can talk about this on the ride home.” He reaches down to pull his brother to his feet.

“I’ve tried to talk to you!” Chase wrenches away, gripping the edge of the couch. The cloth falls away from one arm, revealing a worn velvet tapestry with dark tassels along the edge. “I’ve tried over and over. But you never listen. She’s not real, just memories in your mind. Why can’t you let it go?”

Ben sighs. “I’m trying to get you out—”

“No! You’re not listening.”

“I’m listening, but you’re not making any…sense.” Ben pauses at the sound of familiar footsteps above them. Steel-toed boots. Work boots, which is ironic since their owner hasn’t worked in years.

“That’s not real,” Chase says. “He’s not real, and you’re still not listening.”

He’s right. Ben can’t hear anything other than those boots. He’s pretty much forgotten everything else—MB disappearing, the house, the stupid leering pumpkin shattered in front of his truck. Ben Rey is nearly eighteen, three inches taller than his father, and thanks in part to Coach Willis, his weight is muscle, not the beer flab his dad carts around. But the sound of those boots still turns his bowels to water, and he hates himself for that.

Ben takes his eyes away from the doorway for a moment. “We need to go,” he tells his brother in a low voice. “Not the way we came in, though. There has to be a back door, right?”

“It won’t matter,” Chase says. He doesn’t look frightened, just resigned, and Ben is struck for the first time by how frail and thin the boy is. No, not just thin. Chase looks used up, emaciated, barely alive. Almost transparent, the way MB looked outside, right before she disappeared. The way she looked in the foyer.

Two things stand out very clearly, though, and Ben would swear that neither of them were visible a moment ago. There’s a deep purple bruise on Chase’s left jawline, in almost the exact spot where Ben touched him just now. Even more alarming, however, is the rope tightening around Chase’s neck.

The footsteps are no longer above them. They’re off to the side, coming down the stairs.

Ben grabs for the noose, trying desperately to slip his fingers beneath the rope. He’s having no luck at all. The rope pulls tighter and tighter, and then he’s grasping at nothing but air. Chase is gone. The rope is gone. The cloth-draped sofa remains, but it’s empty, and the edge of the sheet that Chase had tugged loose while angry is back in place.

“Chase?” Ben yells, frantically checking behind the couch, the chair, even though he knows it’s pointless. Chase is gone, vanished like MB.

And the room has changed, too. All of the dust covers are gone. For that matter, all of the dust is gone. It’s still bathed in that odd blue glow, but there are books on the shelves that line the walls. A ping-pong table is in the back corner, and there’s a chess set on the coffee table that’s now in front of the couch. Above the door, someone has painted a small mural. A hill rises up from the lintel of the door frame, with the sunrise—or maybe it’s the sunset?—peeking out on the right side. The words Every Day a Brighter Day at Hillcrest are painted in white on the grass-covered hill.

But there’s still no sign of Chase. And Ben can still hear those boots on the stairs.

When he reaches the foyer, his father stands at the foot of the staircase, in jeans and a flannel hunting jacket. Or at least, he thinks it’s his father. The man looks a bit thinner. Younger. Somewhere between Ralph Rey and the older version of himself that Ben saw in the locker room earlier.

The eyes are wrong, though. His pupils are entirely missing. All that stares back at him is bloodshot whites.

A rifle is strapped across the man’s chest, and he caresses the walnut stock with his free hand. Even without pupils, it’s clear that those eyes can see just fine. He racks the slide and aims the gun straight at Ben.

Or at least, he aims at where Ben was the second before. As soon as he saw the gun, Ben stepped backward into the parlor.

Except it isn’t a parlor anymore. Not the version with the ghostly white-draped furniture or the one with the oddly cheerful mural over the door. That room has vanished completely, replaced by the battered sofa Aileen Rey has patched so many times it’s mostly duct tape. The entire room has morphed into the living room of his parents’ trailer out in Sycamore Meadow. Ralph’s voice seems to come from everywhere at once, echoing in the cramped space littered with beer cans and greasy crumpled chip bags.

“There was a farmer had a son and Bingo was his name-o.”

Ben runs. Even though logic tells him he should run to the front door that he clearly sees off to his right, or the back door, which is to his left, he does neither. Because Chase could be here, too. And so he runs through the crushed beer cans that scatter like roaches beneath his feet, down the small hallway toward the bedroom he shares with Chase.

“B.”

The crack of the rifle is followed by particle board splintering to the right of Ben’s head.

“I.”

Ben trips and sprawls to the floor, landing hard on his jaw and sending his teeth through the side of his tongue. He draws in a sharp breath filled with the pungent scent of spilled beer and piss.

“N.”

The ceiling above him explodes in another gun blast.

“G.”

Ben rolls over and crab-walks backward to the closed bedroom door, quicker than he’d ever have thought possible.

“O.”

As he reaches up for the doorknob, the rifle cracks again. A thick, heavy ringing fills Ben’s ears and rattles his teeth. The door behind him gives up the ghost, just as the ceiling had before it, shattering into a storm of wood shrapnel that falls from the frame like rain from a summer sky. The splinters slash into his palms as he crawls backward through the rubble.

That gun can’t do this much damage. No way.

But it can, and it does here in this trailer. No. Not in the trailer. He’s still in the Grimshaw house.

The man—who might be his father, or who might be some fucked-up version of his future self—stands smack in the doorway. He lowers the gun and aims. This time, Ben knows he won’t miss.

The white-eyed thing laughs, shaking his head. “You’re poison, boy. Just like your goddamn father.” He raises the gun and finishes the song, “And Bingo was his name-OH,” as the rifle explodes one last time.

Five

TUCKER

Tucker takes a deep breath of the night air as he kicks away the last fragments of glass and plywood blocking the window. Then he turns back to the others. Chase is wasting no time heading for the exit, but Daisy stands frozen, her eyes fixed on the water-stained carpet. She’s clutching a film reel from the projection room to her chest. Her hands and shirt are smeared with blood, but that worries him far less than the look on her face.

He could have sworn he’d seen and mentally catalogued all of Daisy’s expressions. The smiles are his favorite, of course, but he’s seen her anger—usually directed at her sister—and he saw plenty of grief after her mom died. There had even been a brief period where he’d thought she was slipping into the same depression that hit him hard after his parents’ wreck. But much to his relief, she’d snapped back.

This look frightens the hell out of him, though. It’s almost like Daisy’s body is a shell she’s left behind. There’s no light in her eyes as she stares down at the carpet. And her lifeless, hopeless expression is triggering a memory.

Daisy sits behind a wall of glass, in a chair painted that horrid shade of pale gray-green that hospitals and schools seem to buy in bulk. Her face is slack as she stares toward, but not really at, a TV where several people are watching Family Feud. He wants to go in, to talk to her and try to snap her out of it. But he can’t risk it.

His eyes go back to the group around the TV, and he sends out a silent prayer that Macy, the bossy one with a nasty temper, will decide she wants to watch something else today and snatch the remote from whichever person is holding it. That would certainly start a fight, and if there’s a fight, he’d have a logical excuse to go in. Break it up.

And then on the way out, he could say a word or two to Daisy, to see if he could spark a bit of light in her eyes, since no one else seems to be trying today. He’d also speak to the kid by the window, mostly for cover, even though he knows it’s pointless in that case. If it’s one of his gone days, nothing you say will snap him out of it.

Tucker shakes his head, shoving the weird thoughts away. Or was it a vision of some sort? Either way, he’s certain it has never happened. It’s just his imagination playing tricks. He’s never been in that place, wherever it may be, and right now, he needs to focus on getting them out of this place, which seems to be ground zero—or at least he hopes it is—for whatever is causing the group hallucinations.

Daisy’s eyes are still locked on the moldy carpet below her feet as he approaches. She doesn’t respond when he says her name, so he bends down a bit to look her in the eye. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you home. Get those hands patched up.”

She blinks and then finally looks up. He tugs at her arm, and she follows him outside.

Except for the window that he kicked open on their way out, the Hart is the same dark, abandoned hulk that it has been for most of Tucker’s life. As he taps the button on his keys to unlock his car, however, the marquee above the entrance lights up, so stark and vivid against the otherwise darkened Main Street that Tucker has to squint.

The words have changed. Instead of the sign announcing FrightFest, it now reads:

COMING SOON

THE BIRDS

Daisy gives the marquee a venomous look. Then she slides into the passenger seat and checks her phone as he cranks the car.

“Still not working?” It’s a dumb question, and he knows that even before the words leave his mouth. But he has to say something. Daisy is on the verge of tears. Maybe even outright panic. It’s better than the blank, empty expression she wore in the lobby, but it still worries him.

She’s gripping the cuffs of her blue denim shirt to stop the bleeding from the cuts on her palms. The one film reel that remained in the projection room when everything changed is in the floorboard by her feet. There’s no label, just a bloody handprint from where Daisy picked it up.

“I can’t reach Dani,” she says, her voice tight. “I can’t reach Dad. I can’t even reach Julie.”

“I’m sure Dani’s at the bonfire,” Tucker says, pulling away from the curb. “We’ll head out there and check, but first, we’re stopping by your place to bandage your hands.”

Daisy looks numbly down at her blood-soaked sleeves. “Okay. But…what the hell was that, Tucker? I’ve worked to get this theater ready for over a month. I watched the construction workers come through and repair the place. Chase swept up the damn sawdust from that same construction today. This doesn’t…it just doesn’t make sense!”

Tucker thinks it’s a bit odd that the theater being closed up is the thing that jumps out at Daisy as not making sense. Personally, his brain is having a harder time reconciling the appearance—and disappearance—of an ant the size of a city bus, not to mention the entire theater full of screaming people who vanished along with it.

“It’s not real.” Chase stares out the back window at the empty sidewalk as he speaks.

This isn’t the first time the boy has used that phrase. He’d said the exact same thing earlier in the day when Tucker and Julie found him sitting on Martha’s lawn. Tucker suspects it might just be a mantra Chase is repeating to keep himself from freaking out, but he says, “You said that before, Chase. At Martha’s, after you went back inside to fetch those cookies. Yes, they’re damn good cookies. But going back into a house reeking of gas to get them wasn’t what I’d call a smart move. The place could’ve gone sky high.”

“I didn’t go back in for the cookies. They just sort of…came along for the ride when the house blew up.”

“Except…it didn’t blow up.”

Chase gives him a weary look. “It did. And then it unblew up. It was like the giant ant. Like Barb Starrett being dead and then not dead.”

Daisy looks back at the boy and asks, “Did you eat or drink anything at Martha’s house?”

Tucker shakes his head. “That can’t be it. The whole Pinewood thing was before I had any of the cookies. And I’ve never even heard of a drug that can make people share a hallucination—”

“I know,” Daisy says. “But the only other explanation I have is a lot more unsettling.”

“And what is that?” Tucker asks.

She sends a pointed glance toward the backseat and then says, “We can talk later.”

“I didn’t eat anything at Miss Martha’s house,” Chase says. “But Tucker’s right. It’s not the cookies. It’s not something in the water or the air or some flu. It’s just this place. This town. It’s out of his control now, and I think maybe there’s only one way—” The boy stops abruptly, shaking his head. Although it’s actually more of a shudder.

Tucker wants to push him a bit, but they’ve arrived at Daisy’s house, so he decides it can wait a few minutes. Maybe he can get the boy alone for a couple of minutes and see if he’ll open up. He thinks the odds are good that Chase doesn’t have any actual information, but you never know.

Daisy swings her legs out and stops, laughing uneasily as she stares at her front door. “Great. My keys are in my bag. Which is at the Hart.”

“Should we go back?” Tucker asks.

“No. There’s an emergency key inside the ceramic turtle. Second shrub on the right. But I’ll go back later. I have to. My jeans are there. I can’t lose them. They’re my…favorites.” She looks down at her feet, almost like she’s embarrassed to have admitted that. “Of course, it’s also possible that they don’t even exist. That my bag doesn’t exist. My keys don’t exist. Maybe that’s not really a door, and we can just waltz straight through without even opening it.”

Tucker reaches under the bush Daisy had indicated and grabs the little green garden ornament. He tips the turtle to one side, and a key falls out.

Chase is standing next to Daisy at the door when Tucker looks up. The boy presses one hand against the wood. “Don’t think we can walk through. It’s seems pretty solid.”

“Are you sure about that?” Daisy says. “Maybe it’s like the entrance at Platform 9 ¾ in Harry Potter, and we have to get a running start?”

Tucker snorts and inserts the key into the doorknob. “Maybe we should patch up your current injury before you add another one by crashing through a door.”

He turns the knob, and they step inside. The first-aid kit is on the kitchen table, right where they left it, along with an empty aluminum pie plate—well, empty except for a few crumbs.

“Dani’s been here,” Daisy says. “That’s her trademark move. Empty the plate but leave it on the table.”

When Tucker disinfects her hands, Daisy barely winces, which is good in one sense but also has him worried. Her face is still slightly dazed, and he’s pretty sure she’s thinking about what they saw back at the theater. The cuts from the sharp edges of the film crisscross her palms and fingertips. He wraps her hands with gauze and medical tape, then applies adhesive bandages to the three deepest cuts on her fingers. When he’s finished, he grazes his thumb along the underside of her wrist and waits for her to meet his eyes.

She does, and her expression is so raw that it twists his heart. He’s seen that look on her face before, nearly two years ago at her mom’s funeral. What he’d wanted then more than anything else was to wrap his arms around her and tell her he understood. That it would get better in time. He didn’t, though, because there were people watching, people he worried might question his motives. And he doesn’t now, because there’s a twelve-year-old kid watching.

But he wants to. Dear God, how he wants to.

Instead, he gently squeezes her two uninjured fingers. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get this figured out.” He looks over at the piano bench where Chase is sitting and adds, “The three of us—together—will sort this out.”

Daisy gives him a whisper of a smile and nods toward the hallway. “I’m going to rinse off and change. This look might be appropriate for Halloween, but it’s getting chilly out there. And I’d rather not get blood on my jacket.”

Once she closes the bathroom door, Tucker sits on the arm of the sofa across from Chase. “I think you know something.” He holds a hand up when the boy starts to protest. “I’m not blaming you for holding back. But you were kind of evasive, avoiding our questions—”

“Yeah, I know what evasive means.”

Tucker ignores the interruption but makes a mental note that he’s not going to win any brownie points by talking down to this kid. “You were a little evasive,” he repeats, “when Julie Kennedy and I found you on the lawn this afternoon. And in the car, a few minutes ago, you said this town is out of his control now. What did you mean by that? Were you talking about this Raum…person?”

Chase clearly doesn’t want to answer. His eyes travel toward the door, causing Tucker to wonder if the boy is actually considering making a run for it. But then his shoulders slump, and he starts talking. “I don’t know anything. If I’m being evasive, that’s why. I’ve just been seeing things. Same as you. Same as Daisy. I saw messages on the fridge—saying Martha dying was my fault, and then the letters switched and said no it wasn’t. Then the letters changed again while I was staring right at them. They said Raum lies. But I think maybe they lie, too.”

“Who are they? Who is Raum?”

“I’m getting to that part, although I don’t really know for sure. Like I told Daisy earlier, I saw something on the TV at Martha’s house. Someone. There was this guy in a suit and a spinning door and weird music.” He hums a few bars.

Tucker nods. “Sounds like The Twilight Zone.”

“Maybe,” Chase says. “I don’t know. The guy in the suit said my name, but I think someone was just talking through the TV man, if that makes sense. Like those…what do you call them? Deep fakes. It was a black-and-white show, so the actual person has probably been dead like forever. And then later, when I’m heading back outside, it’s not the man anymore and not exactly inside the TV. Just a voice behind the spinning door. Saying I should ignore the messages in the kitchen. That they argued all the time.”

“That who argued?”

“One of them was the…ball of light that spoke to me at Martha’s. She called herself Zophiel. I don’t know anything about the other one, but if I had to make a guess about him, I’d say that he’s the thing with white eyes. The crow. The giant ant. And the guy inside the door blamed both of them. Said that they screwed everything up, that he’d had everything under control. But it didn’t sound to me like he really did. The Door Man was just pissed because they interfered.”

“Interfered in what?”

Chase shrugs. “This. Us.”

“And you think this Door Man…is Raum?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t belong here. I belong in the other place I keep seeing.”

“What other place?” The question is from Daisy, who is now standing at the foot of the stairs.

“Just…the other place. That’s all I know.”

The kid is holding something back. Tucker can tell from looking at him. His instinct says not to push, and under normal circumstances, he’d follow that. But these aren’t normal circumstances. So he goes back to what the kid said on the drive over.

“Back in the car, you were about to say there was only one way out, weren’t you?”

Chase shakes his head. “I don’t remember. We should go. Ben will be at the bonfire any minute now. He’ll be looking for me.”

Daisy’s brow furrows. “Okay, Chase. But if you don’t want to talk to us, you need to talk to somebody. Your brother loves you—”

“My brother?” The boy laughs, but it’s not a happy laugh. It’s more of a right on the verge of losing his shit laugh. “He’s not supposed to be my brother. He’s supposed to be my dad, okay? And yes, I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s like there are these two different realities, and in this one he’s back in high school, and he’s fighting these stupid battles with his mom and his dad, and I’m stuck in the middle. I’ve tried, okay? He’s not ready to listen.”

Tucker and Daisy exchange a look, and Tucker can tell exactly what she’s thinking. On the one hand, everything Chase has just said should have them seriously questioning the kid’s mental health. On the other hand, nothing he’s said is any weirder than things they’ve both seen in the past twenty-four hours.

“These two realities,” Tucker says. “Tell me about the other one.”

“I can’t. I can think of it. Sometimes I even kind of see it. But only in small bursts. When I try to pin it down, though, when I try to talk about it, everything goes fuzzy.” Chase squeezes his eyes shut, and a tear escapes. He wipes it away angrily.

“It’s okay,” Daisy says. “You don’t have to—”

Chase clenches his hands and then blurts out, “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. I know that.”

“Ben?”

“No! Raum. He messes around with our heads sometimes, but this isn’t happening because he wants to hurt anyone.” When Daisy casts a skeptical glance down at her bandaged hands, he adds, “I don’t think that was Raum. That was the thing with white eyes. The one who said all of this was my fault. Could we just go? Please? I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

And so they head to Tower Farm. Daisy is clearly nervous about her sister, and what energy Chase had seems to have drained away. Tucker listens to the lulling road noise and glances at the boy in the rearview mirror.

About halfway to the farm, Chase’s expression changes. He had been staring out the window, but now he’s facing straight ahead. His eyes are moving erratically, as if he’s looking at something other than the backseat, the same way he’d appeared in Martha Yarn’s backyard. And his hands are again clutched in front, propped on his knees, with just his thumbs moving.

Tucker nudges Daisy and motions for her to look.

“Should we…” she begins, whispering.

He shakes his head. “Just keep an eye on him. I need to watch the road.”

And he does need to watch—he’s already missed the turnoff to Tower Farm. Cursing under his breath, he backs up, then puts the car into drive and turns onto the nondescript dirt road. It’s little more than a path, really, with tall rows of corn bordering each side. Off in the distance, a pale red-orange mirage of light hovers over the stalks.

A few hundred yards down, Tucker hits a rut hard enough to throw Chase forward. He’s glad the kid has his seatbelt on, because he’s almost deadweight. His head whips forward, but the jolt doesn’t snap him out of the trance.

Different sneakers.

He’s not sure where that stray thought came from, but it’s accompanied by a thwacking noise, and then a bounce, like someone playing ping-pong. Chase hasn’t been anywhere he could have changed shoes. Tucker doesn’t even remember specifically noticing the kid’s sneakers, and he can’t really see them now in the dim light of the backseat. But thinking about Chase’s expression, and yes, his shoes, gives Tucker the same weird sense of déjà vu that hit him in the lobby of the Hart earlier, as Daisy stared mutely at the carpet.

His tires graze the edge of the corn, the husks whacking against the side mirror. He directs his attention back to the road and the red haze that’s growing brighter up ahead.

A few minutes later, Daisy taps one bandaged finger against his arm and nods up at the rearview mirror. Chase seems to be back in the house, so to speak. His eyes are focused now, and he’s once again looking outside the window.

“Hey, man,” Tucker says. “You okay? It was kind of like you left us for a while.”

“I guess I dozed off,” Chase says.

Daisy’s eyebrows go up, but she doesn’t say anything. Tucker agrees. That wasn’t dozing off. He’s not sure what it was, but it wasn’t sleep.

The rows of corn fall away now, emptying out into a large clearing. Dozens of cars and trucks are parked on the hard-packed dirt, silhouetted by the bonfire up ahead. Except it’s not just the usual bonfire. A large statue, made completely of logs and sticks, stands in the middle of the pyre. It’s huge, maybe fifty feet tall.

“What the hell…” Daisy is staring up at the monstrosity, transfixed.

Tucker shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s supposed to be a Viola City Viking?”

“No,” she says. “I know what it is. It’s a wicker man. You’ve seen it, right? British, 1973. The remake was awful, but the original is good. Really good.”

“Was it on The List?” When she nods, Tucker says, “Must be one I couldn’t find.”

She shakes her head, puzzled. “Until a few minutes ago, it just looked like a bonfire. A big one, sure, but…”

Tucker had been thinking the same thing, but he says, “Maybe the corn was blocking our view?”

Chase looks up at it warily. “It’s not going to come marching toward us like the Stay-Puft guy in Ghostbusters, is it?”

“Not if we’re following the movie script,” Daisy tells him.

Tucker parks the cruiser at the very edge of the clearing. Normally, he wouldn’t come down here at all. He’d just patrol the road so that he could pull over any cars that were weaving. Unless they were totally blitzed, he’d offer them a safe ride home. His goal was a safe Halloween, ideally one without any confrontations that left him no choice but to write the kid up.

Daisy has her door open almost before the car stops. She takes off running through the rows of dusty cars and dented trucks toward the crowd gathered around the fire. He wants to follow, but Chase, who has just gotten out of the car, turns away from the fire, looking off into the distance.

Tucker follows the boy’s gaze toward the Grimshaw house up on the hill. The dark shape has taken on an eerie blue glow in the moonlight.

“If you’re worried about your brother,” Tucker says, “he’s probably back by now and bragging about how brave he was to the rest of the team. Let’s go see if we can find him.”

Chase doesn’t look convinced, but he follows Tucker toward the fire. Music blares from unseen speakers mounted on someone’s truck. Tucker can’t place the music at first. He’s not even sure it is music. It sounds like a bunch of angry bees, or maybe static. How could you even dance to that? But if the gyrating shadows are any indication, they’re dancing. He feels out of place and wishes he’d thought to change out of his uniform.

Despite the racket, Tucker can still hear the tall stalks whispering in the wind. He thinks of an old movie, Children of the Corn. Chase looks a little like the kid from that movie. Ivan, or maybe it was Isaac. Is He-Who-Walks-Between-The-Rows watching them?

They catch up with Daisy at the edge of the bonfire. She circles the crowd until she spots her sister at the far side, dancing with Chad Voorhees, quarterback for the Howlers. Both of them are decked out in fifties greaser costumes. Dani is wearing a blonde wig and a leather catsuit that shows off each and every curve. Tucker wonders how she’s able to breathe, let alone dance, in the thing. Her body is pressed against Chad’s, moving together as if they were a single organism.

Daisy lets out a sigh, managing to sound both relieved and annoyed. She takes a few brisk steps forward, then halts when Dani turns to face them. For a split second, Dani’s face is transformed by the glare of the fire. It’s almost a kabuki mask, and her smile is eerily reminiscent of the clip they saw at the Hart, when the camera closed in on Dani’s aged, heavily made-up face, laughing as she tormented a wheelchair-bound Daisy.

Tucker is apparently not the only one who sees the resemblance, because Daisy stops cold. He grabs her for support, and then the light shifts again. It’s just Dani, dragging Chad behind her, both of them looking like they’re about to break into a rousing chorus of “You’re the One That I Want.” And just as that thought runs through his head, the music actually does shift into a sort of generic bop with do-wahs, although he can’t really place the song.

Daisy pushes past. “Where the hell were you? You said you’d come to the show.”

“Sorry,” Dani says. “Something came up. But I see you got a ride.” She winks at Tucker, not even bothering to hide the beer she’s holding.

“Cut the shit,” Daisy says. “You’ve been acting weird all day. I leave you a note, saying I can’t get in touch with Dad. That I’m worried. And you can’t even take a minute to stop by the theater and check in?”

Chad backs away, standing off to the side with both hands shoved into his pockets. What’s really weird, however, is the rest of the crowd. They’ve shifted toward the other side of the fire, and they’re still dancing. That could be because they spotted a cop in their midst, but it’s more like they’re just…supposed to be in the background. He can’t even make out any faces.

And they’d be gathered around by now. Some smart-ass would have made a crack about a catfight or started placing bets on which sister would win. But they’re just hanging out on the far side of the bonfire, like shadows behind a movie screen.

Dani sighs dramatically and takes a pull from her beer. “News flash, sister. The world doesn’t fucking revolve around you. I don’t have to check in with you. You’re not my mother.”

On the last word, Daisy recoils, almost as if she’s been slapped. After a moment, she gives Dani a hard, tight smile. “You’re right. And for once, I’m glad she’s not here. At least she doesn’t have to see you looking…like this.”

“Like what?” Dani says, getting right up in her sister’s face. “Like a whore? Little Miss Innocent can’t even say it. You, on the other hand, look exactly like someone who would bring a cop to a party. No offense, Tuck.”

Tucker doesn’t respond. His attention is now on the far side of the circle, where the tall corn stalks are jittering back and forth wildly. A few seconds later, Ben Rey stumbles out, trips, and falls flat on his face.

Chase runs toward him as Ben gets slowly to his feet, dusting off the front of his shirt.

Tucker considers running after the boy and pulling him back. Alarm bells are sounding in his head. Something seems off about Ben’s expression, almost as if he’s not even seeing Chase.

In the end, he doesn’t exactly run after Chase, but he does head toward the two of them, on alert. Daisy follows. Dani has drifted off again, apparently reabsorbed by the faceless crowd.

When Chase reaches his brother, Ben falls to one knee and grabs the boy by the shoulders. He studies the kid closely from head to toe, like he’s worried that Chase has been injured.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks, looking like he’s on the verge of tears.

“What happened?” Daisy asks once Chase has assured Ben that he’s fine.

Ben doesn’t answer. He simply gives his brother a tight hug and then stands back up, wiping at his eyes.

Tucker clears his throat. “You look like hell, man.”

Ben turns toward him. His body is taut, ready to bolt at any second. Is he on something? Tucker thinks it’s entirely possible.

“What happened up there?” Daisy repeats. “Where’s Marybeth?”

“Marybeth?” Ben sounds dazed as he repeats the name. “Um…I don’t know. Guess she’s still pissed at me. She wasn’t home when I went to pick her up.”

Daisy frowns. “Really?”

“Yeah. I went up to the Grimshaw house by myself. Had to walk back. Truck wouldn’t start.”

Ben shuffles from foot to foot as he talks. A bead of sweat runs down his face.

“You want me to go take a look at your truck?” Tucker asks. “See if we can get it running?”

A look of fear crosses Ben’s face, and he shakes his head. “No. I’ll wait ’til morning. That road is a bitch in the dark. I need to get Chase home, though. Maybe you could give us a lift?”

“Sure.” Tucker turns to Daisy. “You ready to go?”

She glances back at the bonfire. It’s impossible to even pick Dani out of the crowd from this distance. A bitter look crosses her face. “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

They hike back to the car, and Chase crawls into the backseat with his brother. As Tucker drives away, the wicker man becomes smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror until he turns a slight curve, and it disappears altogether, and not even the glow that they saw above the corn while driving into the field remains. Even the moon seems to have vanished.

The silence in the cruiser is heavy, crushing almost, and the trip into town seems to take forever. Tucker glances back at Ben every few minutes, the guy’s strange behavior gnawing at his subconscious like a rat. What’s most odd is that after being so worried about Chase, he hasn’t looked at or even spoken to his brother the entire drive. It’s like his mind is somewhere else entirely.

As they glide slowly up the hill toward Ben and Chase’s trailer park, Tucker can’t take it any longer. “Did you see something up at the Grimshaw place, Ben?”

Ben’s head jerks up. “What? No.”

Tucker exchanges a look with Daisy and then catches Chase’s eyes in the mirror. “It’s just…there’s been a whole lot of strange stuff happening around town today. You wouldn’t be the first to—”

“I didn’t see anything, okay? Went up there, put the pumpkin on the porch, and then the damn truck wouldn’t start. So I walked back down the hill to the party. That’s it, Tuck. That was my night.”

They pull up next to the trailer. A single light is burning in a small window that Tucker assumes looks into the kitchen.

“Hey, kiddo,” Ben says with a smile that seems a little forced. “Looks like Mom’s home. Maybe she’ll make you some hot chocolate.”

“Yeah,” Chase says flatly. “Because she always does that.”

The sarcasm is thick, but Ben just nods and bails as soon as Tucker opens the back door. As Chase walks away, Tucker taps him on the shoulder and sticks out his hand.

“Thanks for your help tonight. If you need anything just—” He’s about to say just call. Force of habit, and totally meaningless tonight. Chase gives him a weak smile and shakes the offered hand.

“If you need anything,” Tucker continues, “I’m half a mile down the road.”

“Me, too,” Daisy says. “Julie Kennedy’s house is even closer.”

Chase winces slightly when Daisy says Julie’s name. Tucker makes a mental note to check in on her before he goes off duty. Maybe check on Marybeth Jenkins, too. And definitely check in at the station. See if Marty needs a pillow or anything, since he’s probably back at the desk again, sound asleep.

“Chase will be fine,” Ben says with a touch of annoyance. “He just needs sleep. We both do.”

“Thanks.” Chase leans in as Ben walks away and adds in a whisper, “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.” Then he follows his brother into the trailer, stopping on the bottom step—the one Aileen Rey claims broke her rib last year—to give them a final wave.

Tucker and Daisy get back into the car.

“Do you think he means Ben or this Raum guy?” Daisy says.

“I don’t know. Starting to wonder if they aren’t one and the…same.” He pauses before the last word because a phone is ringing. Daisy’s. She gives him an astonished look and then pulls it out of her pocket. Dani’s name and face flash on the screen.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she says, grinning. “We’re back in the twenty-first century. The only question now is whether to answer it or just let her bitchy ass stew for a while.”

After a couple of seconds, she answers, as Tucker knew she would.

“What the hell do you want?”

It’s not on speaker, but Tucker can pick up Dani’s end of conversation anyway, partly because Dani doesn’t have a volume setting below nine.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m really, really sorry. It was the beer talking, and I’ve been missing Mom all day. You know how much she loved Halloween, and I got depressed. And I’m worried about Dad now, too, so… Anyway, I was a bitch to you, and I’m so, so sorry.”

His eyes stay on the road, trying to give her a bit of privacy, but Tucker can feel Daisy’s resolve and anger melting away. It was a physical presence, taking up a good half of the front seat as soon as Daisy saw her sister’s face pop onto the screen. And now it’s gone. Vanished.

“It’s okay,” Daisy says. “I understand.”

“Are you at the house?” Dani asks.

“Not yet. We just dropped Chase off. I’ll be there in like two minutes, though.”

“Good. I’m heading home, too. I’m going to make a big batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and eat it straight from the bowl. Want to share?”

Daisy laughs. “Yeah. Sure. Hey, at the party, did you—”

The line goes dead. Daisy tries to redial. Then she tries another number. Tucker knows without asking that she’s calling her dad.

“And Verizon is a graveyard again. Zero bars, no voicemail. Damn it.”

“Well, at least Dani was able to reach you,” Tucker says. “Listen, I need to check on Julie Kennedy. Make sure she made it back okay. And I should drop by the station.” He doesn’t mention Marybeth. Daisy’s got enough stressing her out without him reminding her that MB’s boyfriend is acting very suspiciously. “I take it you want me to drop you off at the house first?”

There’s a flicker of hesitation, but she nods. “Yeah. Dani and I have some patching up to do.”

Tucker thinks most of that patchwork needs to be coming from Dani, but he’s smart enough to keep that opinion to himself. A wise man does not step into a sister squabble, and he’s pretty sure that goes double for twins.

“Looks like we beat her home,” he says when they pull into the driveway. “You want me to wait? Given everything that’s going on, I could even come over and sleep on the couch if you guys want.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “Dani will be here soon. Go check on Julie. Tell her to stop by in the morning, because we need to compare notes. Figure out how to…fix…whatever this is.”

He walks her to the door and insists on checking the place out, even giving the attic a quick pass with the flashlight. It feels silly, because the gun he’s wearing would be no match for that giant ant they saw biting through the screen. How do you even fight an opponent who can shift your perception of reality?

As they’re coming back down from the attic, his flashlight catches a gleam from the mirror in the second-floor hallway. He stops and turns back. The frame seems oddly familiar. It takes a moment for him to place it, and then he gives a bemused chuckle.

“Is that just for Halloween, or do you leave it up year round?”

Daisy, who is already halfway down the stairs, gives him a confused look.

“The mirror,” he says. “Didn’t know you had a replica. It’s from that movie you recommended, right? I don’t think it was on The List, but you mentioned you saw it on Netflix. Octo…something?”

“Oculus.” Daisy joins him in the hallway, and she’s saying something else, but he doesn’t hear her. His attention is focused on the mirror. The reflection ripples slightly. He still sees himself, and Daisy, too, but everything has changed. He’s behind a glass wall now, staring at the room he saw in the vision earlier. Daisy is seated in the chair, with blank eyes and a slack jaw, like she’s drunk. Or drugged. Chase sits across from her, tapping the heels of his orange sneakers together as his thumbs travel across a computer tablet. Beyond them, a cluster of young people sit in front of the TV watching a game show. Macy, who has a vicious temper, has just snatched the remote from the new girl, who responds with her fists.

He has to get in there. Break it up. And then on the way out, he’ll stop and say a few words to Daisy. See it he can snap her out of it.

And then it’s gone. He’s back in the second-floor hallway. When he starts to look back at the reflection, Daisy yanks his arm, half pulling him down the stairs.

“You’re right,” she says. “I couldn’t place it earlier, but that’s the mirror I saw this morning. It’s the one from the movie.”

“What do you mean, the mirror you saw this morning?”

“All I saw a minute ago was a plain rectangular mirror in a gold metal frame. The mirror I’m pretty sure has been in that hallway since we moved into the house. But this morning, I saw the mirror from the movie. The reflection was…different.”

“Yeah,” he says. “For me, too.”

There’s a long pause as he debates whether to tell her what he saw. Maybe she’s debating the same thing. But is this really the right moment to tell her he just saw her as a patient in what he’s pretty sure is a mental hospital? He’s seen as many crazy things as she has today, and yet he was on the other side of the glass door, in a security uniform.

“Maybe…um…maybe you shouldn’t go back upstairs,” he says.

“Yeah. I was okay earlier. I just didn’t look at the thing. But you’re right. Maybe I’ll convince Dani to camp out down here with me. We can pull out the sofa bed. Eat cookie dough and have a slumber party while we watch TV.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

She pushes him toward the door. “Go. Do what you need to do, Tucker. Then get some sleep. Dani will be here any minute, and we’ll be fine. Just…could you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Drive by and check on MB? I know it will mean possibly incurring the wrath of her dad if he’s already asleep, but—”

“I was already planning to stop by. Ben seems…off tonight. And I knew you’d be worried.”

Daisy takes a step closer, her eyes shining softly as she looks up at him. “You’re pretty damn awesome. You know that, Tucker Vance?”

A cloud covers her face as soon as the words are spoken, and Tucker is taken aback, wondering if he did something—or didn’t do something—that erased her smile. But then she leans forward, presses her lips briefly against his, and closes the door.

Six

ZOPHIEL

The cat shivers beneath the porch of the small house. It’s partly due to the cold, but also from sheer exhaustion. Zophiel is beginning to worry that she’s wearing the creature out. Not just from the physical effort, even though she doubts that the cat usually covers anywhere near as many miles as she’s put on its paws today. While it’s somehow appropriate for the cat to be stalking a bird, tracking Andras all day, following him from one act of malice to the next, has the cat’s muscles aching. But the cat is also struggling with the mental stress, if you can call it that, of accommodating Zophiel’s presence. Of sharing its brain with a usurper.

Andras is nearby, though. She can sense him, although she’s not sure if he’s wearing the crow now or one of the men. He’s been flitting in and out of the beings in this town on a whim, shedding them like snakeskins along the way.

On the other side of the portal, Zophiel doesn’t have to deal with this sort of frustration. She can take any form she chooses, or none at all. All it takes is the mere thought of any location within her territory, and she’s there in an instant.

But this is not her world, as Raum correctly noted. In here, she could get lost among the gyri. Tangled up in the neurons. Having a corporeal form keeps her grounded, keeps her from floating away like an untethered balloon.

She feels caged inside the cat, though. Constrained.

She can almost hear Raum saying, Welcome to my world, Zo.

It’s a fair point. For the first time, she truly understands the limits Raum has endured, even though she has no idea what else she could have done. This was the only option she’d come up with at the time. All these years later, it’s still the only way she knows to maintain the balance.

She needs to find another host. Something, or more likely someone, who can get her back to the portal at the top of that enormous hill.

But the experience with the librarian rattled her. She’d only spent a few minutes in that one, but the poor thing had gone haywire as soon as Zophiel made her exit. To be fair, though, she hadn’t seemed very coherent to begin with. Barb Starrett was little more than a shell, less complex than the cat, even. Just a bunch of behaviors and clichés bundled together and tossed among the shelves of books. Maybe she’d been more complicated a few iterations ago, or maybe she’d always been a cipher. She wasn’t pulled from the memory of one of the five, so maybe she’d always been nothing more than a placeholder. A throwaway character with no need for a detailed backstory. It hadn’t taken Raum long to have her back up and running again.

But he doesn’t have the resources to keep doing that. He’s already cutting corners. Dropping unnecessary algorithms in order to accommodate six mostly independent variables instead of the five he had planned for. Pulling from previous iterations to deal with the addition of the boy, an addition that has twisted his reality inside out, resulting in something like one of those odd M.C. Escher drawings where the staircase appears to go both up and down.

And that’s why Martha Yarn had to go. Raum had taken care to give Martha as much of Maggie Yarrow’s personality as possible. She’d had all the things Maggie had wanted in life. A place of her own, where she could cook and knit. Memories of the teaching job she longed for but would never have been allowed to hold. But all of those details, all of those quirks, were a drain on limited resources.

It had been a bit of sentimentality on Raum’s part, this effort to preserve Maggie’s memory. He’d spent a lot of time and effort on this Martha Yarn character so that she could serve as a memorial to the woman who had been his host for over eighty years. That’s not the sort of thing his father would do. Not the sort of thing any member of Andras’s Council of Seventy Two would even consider. It required empathy, something every single one of his lot lacks.

But Raum has it. Maybe not a full portion, but it’s there. And this gives Zophiel hope.

CHAPTER SIX

* * *

One

CHASE

ring at a spot on the wall where the paper is peeling away.

“Jesus,” Ben hisses. “You scared the hell out of me, Mom.”

Aileen doesn’t respond or even look up.

“What are you doing in here?”

Aileen blinks, but her eyes are still vacant, far away. “I can hear them coming. From outside. Can’t you?”

Chase listens, even though he has no idea what she’s talking about. He can’t hear anything but muffled snoring coming from the living room.

Ben sighs and turns to Chase. “Looks like she’s been drinking again.”

Aileen Rey doesn’t get drunk often, not like Ralph. But she’s been known to have a few shots after a long day. The worst times are when they both drink, because sometimes she forgets to hold her tongue. Sometimes she engages the dragon.

“Don’t call me Mom,” Aileen says in a flat voice, her eyes still fixed on the wall. “You’re a therapist, for fuck’s sake. Can’t you even take your own advice?”

Ben takes two steps back, jerking away as if she slapped him. He’s staring at her as if he’s seeing her for the first time.

Chase looks at Aileen, too, but he doesn’t see anything different. Just a tired woman who might have been pretty once. She’s not even middle aged, really. About the same age as Julie Kennedy. But she looks wrung out.

The words she just said, though? Those are familiar. He’s heard them before. Not in this flat, lifeless tone. Yelling. Angry.

His real mother said those words. Not this woman.

Chase squeezes his eyes shut, blocking out the memory of that argument. The memory of glass breaking, muted by the thicker walls of the house in that other place, but still audible.

The better place, he thinks wryly.

And then glass is breaking for real, echoing his thoughts. The tiny window above Ben’s bed shatters into fragments that rain down on Aileen’s head. A crow falls to the mattress, flops once, and then rights itself.

Chase knows even before the bird’s eyes open that they will be a bloodshot white. They’ll be the eyes of the crow in the library. The eyes of the ants crawling through the screen at the Hart.

And he’s right.

A voice inside his head booms out a warning.

DON’T TOUCH IT.

GET OUT.

The voice in his head isn’t his own, and it’s not that Luke guy’s voice either. It sounds more like the Door Man, the one in the TV at Martha Yarn’s house. Raum, maybe?

But the voice is no longer talking casually about keys of the imagination. It’s screaming at full volume, even though he doesn’t really need the warning. Chase is already halfway to the door.

Ben snatches the Transformers blanket off the bed and begins moving toward the bird. “Get out of here. Both of you. It’s…sick. Rabies or something. I’ll take—”

“What the everlovin’…” Ralph’s voice, thick with sleep, is accompanied by lumbering footsteps in the hallway.

The bird flaps its way to the dresser, its head flicking back and forth between Chase at the door and Ben in the corner.

Chase pushes the button to lock the door a split second before Ralph turns the knob.

“What’s going on in there?” Ralph jiggles the knob again, then pounds the door with his fist. The flimsy wood shakes in the frame. “Whoever locked this damn door better open it right now.”

Chase glances toward Ben. They both seem to realize at the same instant that the bed is now empty. The sheets are still littered with glass, but Aileen is gone.

There isn’t much time to contemplate this fact, however. The crow swoops down from the ceiling, launching itself straight at the door. Chase dives to the side, expecting the crazy bird to fall to the ground, but it sails through the wood and vanishes. The door trembles under the weight of Ralph’s fist one more time and then opens inward, toward Chase, even though the hinges shouldn’t move that way. Of course, a bird shouldn’t be able to fly through a wooden door either. The laws of physics seem to have taken a timeout. At this point, he thinks they may be lucky that gravity is still working.

Ralph stands a few feet back from the now-open doorway. It’s hard to see around his bulk, but Chase tries, searching for the bird. It’s nowhere to be found. Maybe it flew into the living room.

The voice in his head disagrees, however.

No. The bird was just the shell.

When Ralph takes a step forward, Chase understands. White eyes stare back at him, but not from the crow. Whatever was inside the crow is now inside Ralph.

Ben must have missed the crow’s vanishing act, because he’s still holding the Transformers blanket, looking around the room. “There was a bird—” he begins, just before Ralph’s fist catches him in the jaw.

Ben stumbles backward, landing on the floor. What scares Chase most is that Ralph didn’t seem to have put much into that punch. He’d barely pulled his arm back at all. And now he’s casually strolling into the room, whistling that stupid song he always sings when he’s about to kick Ben’s ass.

Fear ripples across Ben’s face. He lifts himself up from the floor and moves in front of Chase, pushing him back into the corner. Chase’s foot catches on the basket of clean laundry. It topples over, and he lands next to the pile of clothes.

“Sorry we woke you up,” Ben says. “We just want to go to bed, all right?”

Chase isn’t sure why Ben is trying to reason with Ralph. It’s not a tactic that works even when the man is sober. Even when his eyes aren’t stark white. And it doesn’t work now. Ralph moves forward and cuffs Ben again. Harder this time.

Ben’s head snaps sideways, and he lands on the glass-strewn floor. He twitches once and then lies still.

Ralph barks out a laugh. “That all you got, boy? Not as tough as you were last night, are you? Get up and make this interesting.” He pulls back one foot and lands a solid kick to Ben’s stomach, but he still doesn’t move.

“Get up, Ben,” Chase whimpers.

Ralph turns toward Chase, his white eyes seeming to pin him in place. “You need to keep out of this, son. Ain’t none of your business. You and me will have our talk once I’m done here.”

It’s Ralph’s voice, and the words are ones Ralph would use. Has used, Chase thinks, although the Rey family fight nights are more something he knows about than something he remembers. But there’s an odd vibration underlying the voice. It’s almost an echo effect. Almost as if that white-eyed thing was talking through Ralph.

This doesn’t surprise Chase, because he knows this man can’t be real. Ralph Rey died two years ago, at the age of sixty-seven, from liver failure. Alone in a nursing home, somewhere in West Virginia. And good goddamn riddance, too, Chase’s dad had said at the time.

The man standing before him is a figment of Ben’s imagination. And who knows? Maybe this younger version of Benjamin Rey is a figment of Chase’s own imagination. He doesn’t know what to believe anymore.

All Chase knows is that his father’s waking nightmare is staring down at the body at its feet—the body that might be his dad—with renewed interest. It seems to be ready to finish the job it started.

And he can’t let that happen.

He’s not sure what he can do to stop it, but he has to try.

Chase puts one hand on the wall to pull himself to his feet. And when he does, the Louisville Slugger that has been propped up in the corner for months slides down the wall and onto a pillow of spilled laundry, as silent as a snowflake.

The Ralph-thing crouches down and slaps Ben’s face. “Get up, wuss. It’s no fun if you don’t fight back.” It watches for a reaction, and when nothing happens, it heaves a sigh and reaches toward Ben’s neck.

Chase wraps both hands around the grip of the bat, exactly the way his mom—her name is Meredith, not Aileen—taught him. Grip it and rip it. But he can’t quite bring himself to swing. He’s scared he’ll miss. Or he’ll hit the thing just hard enough to piss it off.

Engage the dragon. Enrage the dragon.

If that happens, if he misses, the dragon will finish Ben and come after him.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. It would be quick. Easy. Almost as easy as the noose.

Then he looks down at Ben’s face. At the hand slowly squeezing the life out of him.

Something inside him roars to the front, pushing his own thoughts aside. This anger feels foreign. Alien. It screams inside his head.

It screams MINE.

Chase swings, and—
for a split second, he’s back in the graveyard. His hands, larger and several shades darker, are wrapped around the wires of a giant birdcage. He swings hard, and then the birdcage is gone, and his hands are his own, and—

The wooden bat connects with the Ralph-thing’s head so hard it nearly knocks Chase off balance. He finds his footing and swings again. The man falls. His legs fly out behind him and into the milk crates under Chase’s bed. The grinning mechanical monkey topples out, along with a box of Hot Wheels. A few of them land upright and go skidding across the floor.

Chase’s knees feel weak and shaky. He drops onto the mattress, now tilted at an angle, and stares at the bat in his hands. A red smear runs down one side. He feels sick even touching the thing and tosses it onto the bed.

Then the Ralph-thing groans. It’s a feeble sound. Almost a wheeze. It might even be a death rattle. But that tiny sign of life brings on another surge of anger from inside Chase. It’s bigger this time. Stronger.

His hand wraps around the toy monkey on the floor, and then he begins crawling toward the body. Although it feels more like he’s being pulled. He doesn’t want to go anywhere near that thing, especially without the bat in his hands, but he doesn’t have a choice.

Brass cymbals wink in the lamplight as Chase’s arm raises the monkey high into the air. “I will not be like you,” the voice inside him says as he brings the wooden base of the toy down squarely onto the back of Ralph’s head.

The voice rips through Chase’s throat again, louder this time. “I.” He bangs the monkey down again. “WILL NOT.” Thump. “BE.”

But you are, Chase thinks. You are. This is exactly like him.

His arm stops mid-swing. He can still feel the hot, tight ball of fury, but it’s no longer controlling him. Chase drops the toy and scuttles away from Ralph’s very clearly dead body. His hands and clothes—the entire floor, in fact—are spattered with blood.

I will not be like him, the voice says. But its confidence is gone. There’s a tiny hint of question in the words, and it slides back where it belongs, deep inside the confines of Chase’s mind.

He needs to check on Ben, but every bit of strength has left him. The room is spinning, and all he wants to do is sleep. Curl up right here on the floor and not wake until the morning light spills through the broken window.

None of this is real. Not real. Everything will look better in the morning.

Every day a brighter day…

Chase closes his eyes, and the world falls away.

Two

TUCKER

He doesn’t even need to knock to realize that Julie Kennedy isn’t here. This house is nobody’s home. Much like the now-defunct-again Hart Theater, the small two-story is boarded up, and the front yard is choked with weeds. Two large NO TRESPASSING signs sit at either end of the archway on the front porch.

Tucker knows this is an illusion, just like what happened at the theater. He’s driven by Julie’s house countless times over the past weeks, even a few times today. The place looked completely livable, warm and friendly. Sure, the grass had needed a cut, but it was nothing like…this.

The only other explanation I have is a lot more unsettling, Daisy had said earlier. We can talk later.

They hadn’t really gotten into it, though, and Tucker is pretty sure that whatever explanation Daisy has come up with, it’s not going to be a rational one. There isn’t any rational explanation for what happened at the Hart. Or at her place, with the stupid mirror. Or back at the Pinewood. Or Barb casually strolling back from the dead. How do you rationally explain an entire town sliding off into The Twilight Zone in a matter of hours?

He backs out of the driveway and heads over to check on Marybeth, as promised. As he approaches, he breathes a sigh of relief. MB’s house is the complete opposite of Julie’s. Every light seems to be burning.

Scott’s BMW takes up all of the comically short driveway, so Tucker parks on the street. The neighboring houses are silent and dark. Not shuttered, like Julie’s place, though. And it’s late, so they could just be asleep, but aside from this one brightly lit exception, the street looks abandoned.

The houses seem to leer at him, narrowing and stretching out as the earth tilts beneath his feet. He leans back against the car, closes his eyes, and takes a few deep breaths, in and out, and when he looks again, the street is just a street. Still dark, of course, but unmoving.

Sweet Jesus, this day needs to end so he can get some sleep.

A huge orange tabby slinks down the sidewalk. It pauses in front of the mailbox and eyes Tucker coolly. They stare at each other, both barely breathing. Finally, the cat blinks its amber eyes and darts across the Jenkins’ lawn, vanishing into the shadows of a hedge.

Something about the cat strikes him as odd. He can’t quite put his finger on it, though.

With one last look back at the street, Tucker makes his way to Marybeth’s front porch. He pauses on the top step, where a rotted pumpkin sits, the flickering light inside pulsing through a crooked smile and lopsided eyes. It’s unsettling, but Tucker can’t figure out why. Then he hears a whisper, a faint hiss on the wind—don’t let it go out. A chill slides down his spine as the candle inside the pumpkin shudders and almost extinguishes, before flaring back to life.

Tucker knocks, and Scott Jenkins answers almost at once.

“Evening, Mr. Jenkins.”

“Tucker. What brings you out here?” A ripple of worry crosses Jenkins’s face. The man glances over Tucker’s shoulder to peer down the walkway. “Did something happen with Marybeth?”

“Oh, no,” Tucker says quickly, hoping that’s true. “I was actually coming by to see if she’s home. But I’m guessing from your question that she isn’t.”

“No. Come on in,” Jenkins says, moving to the side. “It’s freezing out there.”

A huge grandfather clock catches Tucker’s eye as he enters. For a moment, he’s lost in the rhythmic sway of the pendulum. He can see his reflection in the long, narrow window of the clock. It almost looks like the pendulum is swinging through his body.

“You said Marybeth isn’t home,” Tucker says, pulling his attention away from the clock. “When was the last time you saw her?”

Jenkins scratches the ghost of a beard on his cheek. “A few hours ago. She was going to a party with that…boy. Ben Rey. I’m sure you know his family.”

Tucker doesn’t care much for the man’s tone. He’s never liked Scott Jenkins, and this kind of thing is precisely why. “I do,” Tucker says. “Ben’s a decent guy. He takes good care of his brother.”

Jenkins ignores this. “Why are you looking for Marybeth? Did he get her into some kind of trouble?”

“No one is in trouble. I just wanted to ask her a few questions.”

“Like what?”

Tucker sighs. “Your daughter is eighteen, Mr. Jenkins.” He’s not entirely sure that’s true, but Jenkins doesn’t correct him, so he continues. “And since she’s an adult, I’m not allowed to discuss her business with you. When do you expect her home?”

From the corner of his eye, Tucker glimpses movement inside the clock again. Not just the pendulum, but a reflection of something behind him. He resists the urge to turn around and look but keeps one eye on the clock as Jenkins talks.

“They were going to a party. At Sidney’s house. Or maybe it was Cindy.”

“You don’t know?”

The reflection in the glass moves again. Tucker does turn to look this time. The orange cat he saw on the lawn is on the porch rail, looking in through the window. It almost looks like the damn thing is smiling.

Scott gives Tucker a smug look. “Marybeth is an adult. As you noted a moment ago, Officer. ”

“Right. Do you have a last name for this Sidney or Cindy, Mr. Jenkins? Because, I know pretty much everyone in Haddonwood, and I don’t think—”

“My daughter is at a supervised party, Officer Vance.” Scott Jenkins’s tone, which had already bordered on snide, takes a turn toward livid. And his eyes are now flashing.

Literally flashing, from a normal hazel to the bloodshot white of the crow.

“Maybe you should focus on the fucking bonfire?” the man says.

Tucker takes a step back and reaches for his gun. If the eyes hadn’t given away that this isn’t Scott Jenkins, the language would have.

“Underage drinking, sex, and a fire in a cornfield,” he continues. “We’ll be goddamn lucky if the fire doesn’t burn the town to ashes by sunrise.”

Scott’s eyes go a brilliant, almost blinding white this time, bright enough to light up his entire face. For a split second, Tucker could swear he sees the skull behind the man’s skin.

He begins backing away, but before he’s taken more than a couple of steps, the window at his back shatters. Cold air rushes in, and something agile and furry sails past his arm, launching itself straight at Jenkins. A howl fills the air as the man rocks back and forth, fingers dug in between the orange tabby’s soft underbelly and his face, trying to free himself from the creature’s claws.

Tucker’s shin bumps a table as he takes another step toward the door. Something shatters onto the floor, but he doesn’t pause to investigate. The doorknob is at his back, and he turns it, escaping onto the porch. He doesn’t pause but runs toward the cruiser. By the time he reaches the car, the howling inside has stopped. A streak of orange and white flies through the door and around the corner, and the street is once again eerily silent and still.

Tucker’s hand is on the button to start the engine when Scott yells from the porch. “If you see Marybeth, tell her to come straight home, okay? I’m worried about her.” His eyes are now normal, as far as Tucker can tell. He gives Tucker a little wave, then steps back into the house and shuts the door.

Tucker heads toward town, holding the steering wheel in a death grip, and fights the urge to turn on the interior light of the cruiser. He isn’t worried about distracting other drivers. The road is empty. And he’s not worried about what anyone might think. He no longer gives a single fuck about that.

In the end, he doesn’t turn on the light for the same reason that he doesn’t look in the rearview mirror. Absolutely anything could be in the back of his car or following him down the road—giant ants, people with eyes that glow brighter than his headlights, dead bodies that vanish without a trace.

He keeps his eyes pinned to the road in front of him and tries not to think.

By the time he pulls into the station, his heart has slowed to normal. Marty’s car is in the lot, and for a second, he’s able to convince himself that everything is normal.

But only for a second. A steady pulsing glow is visible through the glass doors of the station as he gets out of the cruiser. Flickers of yellow and orange. Darkness and shadow.

What the hell are you up to, Marty?

The lights are completely off inside. Candles, hundreds of them, are positioned throughout the foyer and office. Wax drips onto the floor, onto cluttered desks and loose sheets of paper. The air is warm and heavy with the scent of burning wick. Merry phantom-shadows dance wide and tall on the walls.

“Marty?” Tucker’s voice cracks slightly. The room is so smoky that he considers propping open the front door, but he’s also a little worried now, so he keeps moving. “Marty, where are you?”

The door at the back of the office is standing wide open. Candles are positioned on the landing, heading down to the basement and the holding room.

By process of elimination, since Marty isn’t in here, he must be downstairs.

But Tucker really doesn’t want to go check. Every nerve in his body is telling him that’s a truly bad idea.

Walk out. Get back in the car and go home. Forget responsibility. Forget Marty. You know that’s exactly what he’d do if the situation were reversed.

But he can’t, damn it. Marty’s car is outside, which means he’s here. And he might be in trouble.

Tucker draws his gun. The memory of Scott Jenkins’s blazing white eyes fills his mind, and he wonders why he didn’t pull the gun there. He reached for it, but that was as far as he got. Could he have actually pulled the trigger? If he had, would he have been firing at a man or a hallucination? And should someone who wonders if he might or might not be having hallucinations even be carrying a gun?

The questions are making his head hurt, so he pushes them aside. He’ll just go check. Marty probably decided that crashing in the holding cell would be more comfortable than sleeping at the desk. But he’s going to burn the damn place down with all of these candles.

Where the hell did they come from, anyway? There isn’t a store within a thirty-mile radius that could handle this kind of order. Dozens of the damn things. It must have taken Marty a half hour to light them.

The staircase is warmer than the office, partly due to so many lit candles in the narrow space. Beads of perspiration pop up on Tucker’s forehead, and he feels the first warning of panic begin to worm its way up through his gut.

He pauses on the landing and stares down into the basement, where only flame shadows are moving, deciding not to call out again. If Marty was going to answer, he would have done so by now. And if there’s anyone else down there, it would be best not to let them know he’s coming—although yelling when he was upstairs has no doubt tipped his hand in that regard.

Tucker takes the stairs slowly, setting each foot down carefully so his boots make as little sound as possible on the steel plates. The smoke triggers a cough at the back of his throat, and he fights to keep it back.

When he reaches the cement floor at the bottom, something crunches beneath his feet. Glass. The ground is peppered with it, and he grinds a few more pieces under his heel as he turns toward the two holding cells that take up the entire left side of the basement.

A figure is hunched in the dark corner of one cell, just beyond the reach of the candlelight. Tucker squints to get a clearer look and is able to make out khaki pants.

“Marty?”

The figure stands up, and the sound of cracking joints and popping bones mingles with the sound of crunching glass as Tucker takes a step back. He starts to draw his gun to fire at the shadow but stops himself.

It’s Marty. Does he really want to shoot the only officer he has right now?

“What the fuck, Marty?” Tucker says, keeping his voice as level as possible. “What happened to the lights?”

The man doesn’t answer, but he does turn around. His face is still shrouded in darkness, but two red eyes stare back at Tucker, who is momentarily relieved to see that the eyes aren’t white. But red’s not so good either, especially given that the cell door is partially opened. He doesn’t know what the hell is wrong with Marty, but he’d feel a lot safer if he were locked in.

Tucker judges the distance and figures his odds are about fifty-fifty of reaching the door first. He takes a tentative step forward. The creature mirrors his action, almost as if it’s taunting him.

At least now he can see the face. If he’d had any doubt it was Marty, or at least that it used to be Marty, that’s dispelled by the word Martin on the name tag.

But he can now see that it’s also not Marty. Marty’s usually tanned face is deathly pale, except for large bruise-like patches that circle his red eyes. He stares at Tucker without blinking. Without moving. Then the corner of his mouth twitches. Marty pulls his lips into something that’s more snarl than smile, revealing blistered and blackened gums and two long fangs that protrude at either side of his mouth.

Vampire. Not the sparkly Edward Cullen variety, either. Old school. Nosferatu, like in the film clip at the Hart tonight.

Marty’s hands have changed, too, replaced by longer fingers. Much longer, more like claws now, and one of those claws is wrapped around a headless—and apparently bloodless—rat.

Hey, Blanche, you know we got rats in the cellar?

Tucker fights back a wave of nausea, worsened by the fact that the cell door appears to be getting farther and farther away. The bars stretch out to his right, a seemingly endless line of steel and flickering shadows. It feels like he’s inside the mirror maze at a carnival.

Marty snarls again, and Tucker decides it’s now or never. The door trembles in his vision, and he holds one arm out, ready to slam it home as soon as he feels the bars in his hand.

A rush of wind on his left carries the putrid smell of long-dead flesh, as the vampire zips past, reaching the door a second before Tucker. The metal bars fly outward, catching Tucker in the face and knocking him flat on the concrete.

Tucker gets back up and lurches toward the stairs. His feet slip, sending him crashing to his knees. He tries again and manages to hook his fingers into the metal grill of the lowest stair just as Marty’s icy claws close around his leg. A cold so deep that it burns runs through his body, but he focuses on the candle on the bottom step, which is almost within reach.

Tucker kicks into the vampire as his hand closes around the candle. Swinging his arm backward, he shoves the flame into Marty’s face, catching him perfectly in the mouth. Marty howls, releasing Tucker’s leg to clutch his singed cheek.

Tucker grabs another candle and throws it backward without looking. He scrambles up the stairs, scattering candles in his wake like a bowling ball crashing through pins.

Just as Tucker’s feet hit the landing, the creature’s hands grasp his shoulders from behind. The thing is strong—far stronger than the human version of Marty. It lifts him off the floor, squeezing his arms backward toward his spine so hard that Tucker is afraid his bones will break.

Then, with a foul-smelling hiss, the vampire hurls him across the room. Flickering lights blur past, and he lands on top of a desk. The cheap wood buckles under his weight. It pitches sideways, neatly snapping both legs on the right side, and dumps Tucker to the floor.

Candles blink out one by one, leaving the station in almost total darkness. Those red eyes probably see just fine in the dark, but Tucker is struggling as he tries to pick out the vampire’s location.

A braying laugh comes from behind him.

Aside from a superficial resemblance, the thing he saw back there doesn’t really look much like Marty. It smells far worse than Marty, and it’s about ten times as strong. The laugh, though? The laugh is 100% Marty.

Tucker reaches for his gun again, quite certain that he could now pull the trigger. But he’s seen too many movies and read too many books to believe for one moment that a bullet is going to stop this thing. He’d be better off running. He drops his hand to the floor, getting ready to push himself up and bolt for the door.

His fingers brush against a chunk of wood from one of the desk drawers, and he halts. The piece under his hand won’t work as a weapon, but one of the desk legs just might. Tucker feels around frantically until his hand closes around the makeshift stake. It’s not sharpened to a perfect point, but it’s jagged and sturdy.

Straight through the heart. He’s seen this a million times in movies and in countless episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Can’t be that hard.

Tucker pulls the desk leg toward him and waits, scared to even blink for fear of missing his chance. Keeping his breath as shallow as possible, he listens for movement in the silent station.

It’s possible that the thing left. Went back down into the basement to fetch its rat snack. Or maybe it simply vanished like the ant in the theater.

But is he willing to test that theory? Absolutely not.

So he waits, gripping the stake so hard that his hand cramps. He repositions it, causing a splinter to jam deep into his palm.

Deep enough to draw blood.

Tucker bites back a cry of pain. But it doesn’t matter. If the tiny sound didn’t give him away, the smell of blood did. He hears a sigh of anticipation, and the vampire appears seemingly out of nowhere. Maybe literally out of nowhere, because Tucker didn’t see any movement. One second the space in front of him is empty, and the next it’s filled with red eyes and fangs.

As the Marty-thing tilts his head sideways to move in toward his neck, Tucker jabs the shard of wood into its chest.

The vampire falls toward him, and Tucker pulls back to stab him again. But there’s no need. A split second later, Marty vanishes into a puff of gray ash.

Exactly like the vampires on Buffy.

Exactly.

Tucker hears a faint trill of music. Not from the TV show. More like…victory music. He whips his head around, looking for the source, but there’s no movement.

The stake that killed Marty is now nothing more than a jagged piece of broken furniture, clutched in Tucker’s no-longer-bleeding hand.

That seems like an important point, but Tucker’s brain is too exhausted to explore it right now. Coughing, he stumbles toward the two glass doors leading to the moonlit parking lot. For a moment, they look like two white eyes, but then the smoke shifts, and they’re just doors again.

When he reaches the exit, Tucker pushes on the bar, certain it will be locked. Certain that he’ll look over his shoulder and see an entire army of Marty-things coming at him. But the bar gives way, and he tumbles out onto the pavement.

The air is blessedly cool against his face. He pulls in deep breaths, both to clear the smoke from his lungs and to steady his pulse. When he can breathe normally again, he realizes he’s still holding the shard of wood.

Tucker considers tossing the stake aside, but he grips it tighter instead.

Might be a good idea to hold on to the thing for a bit.

Three

DAISY

She glances down at her phone again. Zero bars. No messages. And it’s now thirty-seven minutes since her sister said she was heading home. No matter where Dani was when she called, she should have been here ages ago. You can drive anywhere in Haddonwood in half that time.

Just like Daisy, the ingredients for the cookie dough are waiting.

Well, except for the bag of chocolate chips. It’s open on the coffee table. Every few minutes, Daisy grabs another handful. If Dani makes her wait too much longer, the cookie dough will be chocolate chip-less.

On the one hand, Daisy is worried. What if her sister was in a crash? With Dani, that’s a very real possibility. But the even more likely scenario is that she was driving Chad home when she called, and they decided to make a side trip to Rich Road, the local make-out spot.

Which, of course, leads her to a secondary version of that scenario. Maybe Dani never planned to come home at all. The only reason she called was to mess with Daisy’s head. She’s in the backseat of the Sorento, making out with Chad, and they’re both having a big laugh at the idea of her sitting here on the couch.

Waiting.

Daisy tries to tell herself that Dani wouldn’t do that. And this is more or less true. The sister she sat next to this morning in this very room listening to their father play the piano would never pull a stunt like that.

But the Dani they’d encountered at the bonfire? She’d do it in a heartbeat. That girl had seemed like a grade-A bitch.

In fact, the girl at the bonfire hadn’t seemed much like Dani at all. More like a caricature. Like someone had removed all of the good parts of Dani Gray, then bundled the bad parts together and squeezed them into a black leather catsuit.

You’re not my mother.

Every time she thinks about that snide comment, Daisy wants to punch something. The girl at the bonfire had been every bit as spiteful as the Bette Davis character in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

That thought takes her back to the Hart, and the fact that she’s apparently spent the past month in a condemned building, stuck in some sort of bizarro fantasy world. She simply walked by and wished the place was still open. That she worked there. And the next time she walked by, a Help Wanted sign was in the window. That’s some major wish-fulfillment action.

She glances at the clock again and grabs some more chocolate chips. If Dani doesn’t show up soon, she’s going to barf. As she pops the chocolate into her mouth, though, it occurs to her that her palms aren’t hurting anymore. The cut on her finger is still a bit sore, but the palms are just itchy. True, the cuts had been shallow, not much deeper than paper cuts, really. There had been dozens of them, though, and she’s had paper cuts that throbbed for hours.

Daisy pulls the tape loose and slowly unwraps the gauze on her right hand. The cuts are still there, but they’ve scabbed over. The same is true on the left hand. She starts to rewrap them, but there really doesn’t seem to be any need.

What had she done to gain extra health points? This question leads straight to the idea that’s been lurking at the back of her head since midafternoon. Every time she got close to the thought, however, it felt like it was yanked away.

The answer feels painfully obvious now, and yet utterly impossible.

“We’re in a game.”

She says the words aloud, to absolutely no one, before they can slip away. “We’re stuck in a freakin’ game. Do I level up for knowing that?”

There’s no response, although she’s not really sure what she expected. A voice shouting Ding-ding-ding, we HAVE a winner, maybe? Or the victory fanfare at the end of the Mario Kart game that she and Dani used to play when they were little?

That was the tinny music she heard at Martha’s house earlier, wasn’t it?

An old memory hits her like a gut punch.

She’s lying on her back, propped up on her elbows, waiting for Dani to finish her turn on the time trials. Dani’s wearing a Lilo and Stitch nightgown, sitting with her legs sprawled out in front of her, as she feverishly pushes the buttons on the game controller. A bowl of Cocoa Puffs is next to her.

Daisy is bored. She wants to play something else—something two players can do at the same time.

Or better yet, go outside. The tree swing Dad put up earlier in the summer spins slowly in the wind. She can see it through the sliding glass door in the dining room. Taunting her.

Only, there are no trees in their backyard. There never have been, because the land the house sits on used to be part of the cornfield before Teddy decided to sell off a few acres to put his son through college.

Where is that memory coming from, then? It feels absolutely real. But then so did the entire month of working at the Hart. So did the people in the audience.

Figuring out that she’s inside a game is only a tiny fragment of the puzzle, though. The real questions are still unanswered. Leaving aside the obvious one—how the hell does someone end up inside a game?—she needs to figure out what kind of game this is. What is the objective? How do you win?

And…is it multiplayer?

Being trapped in a game is frightening enough. But being trapped in a game all by herself? That scares the holy hell out of her. Earlier, when Tucker was leaving, when she told him he was awesome, her mind ventured briefly to the possibility that maybe he was too awesome. That maybe he wasn’t real.

She pulls in a shaky breath, remembering the scene in the mirror and the vision, or whatever the hell it was, from this morning, the one that left her frozen in place on the sidewalk.

Alone. In the dark. Mom. Dad. Dani. All of them gone.

Maybe Tucker, too. Everyone she loves is gone.

Daisy brings her arm to her mouth and bites down as hard as she can. It’s partly to keep from screaming, but also to remind herself that she is real. She can feel pain. She can feel.

And while she can’t be certain about anyone else, she has to believe that Tucker is real. Maybe Chase, as well. Tucker and Chase both saw what happened at the theater. They didn’t vanish when everyone else did.

Daisy glances out the front window, hoping Tucker’s car will be in the driveway. It’s not. He said he was going to check on Julie and Marybeth. Neither of those stops should have taken this long. She doesn’t know what he had to do at the station, though. Why hadn’t she let him talk her out of waiting here alone?

She paces the room for a few minutes, trying to fight down a panic attack. Deep breaths, in and out, like the therapist said. It doesn’t seem to be working, though, and her mind flashes to the bottle of Xyleva in her bedroom. She even takes a few steps toward the hallway before she remembers the warning on the fridge at Martha Yarn’s house…STOP XYLEVA.

Well, there’s a nice little conundrum.

The game that she’s trapped inside tells her to stop taking a medication that she actually stopped taking months ago. Maybe that means she should take it? Maybe this is all part of some post-traumatic psychosis and stopping the medication has driven her stark raving mad. It’s the most logical explanation for seeing giant ants crawling out of movie screens and crowds of people—non-player characters, she supposes—vanishing into thin air. The most logical explanation for seeing her father featured in a Hitchcock film. Seeing magnetic letters moving on their own. Seeing pod people.

But the one thing she remembers about the Xyleva is that it made her a little loopy. The doctor had to reduce her dosage during the daytime because she was finding it hard to focus in class. And right now, she’s absolutely certain that she needs a clear head.

Daisy goes into the kitchen, drops the bag of chocolate chips on the counter, and unplugs her iPad from the charger. The most important thing at this moment is to stay occupied. Find something constructive to do until Dani or Tucker get back.

And right now, the only constructive task at hand is to figure out the rules of this game. The theme is obvious, and Daisy suspects that one is on her. She’s spent the past few years watching horror movies, reading the classics, and compiling lists of every sub-genre. It was an interest even before her mom’s death, but it became something very close to an obsession afterward. Her dad had seen it as evidence that she wasn’t handling the loss well, and he was right in one sense. But the therapist had helped them both to see that the movies and books weren’t the problem. They were simply a coping mechanism.

Scary books and scary movies end, he’d said. They’re manageable servings of grief and terror, and when they end, you look around and see that the world isn’t quite as bad as you thought. Or, at the very least, you know it could be much, much worse.

Games end, too. Win or lose, they end. You just have to find the clues. Collect the treasure.

She curls up in her father’s chair, partly because it smells faintly of his cologne and it makes her feel safe, and partly because it faces the living room window, so she’ll be able to see the flash of headlights when Dani and Tucker finally come home. Once she settles in with the throw blanket tucked in around her feet, she opens the checklist she made for Tucker.

And then Daisy starts ticking off every element of every horror classic that she’s noticed in the past day, starting with Oculus and The Wicker Man and working backward. This includes a few that she hadn’t noticed at all before this and others that she’d noticed long ago and joked about. No horror fan worth her salt could attend a high school led by a Principal Snyder and not make at least a few jokes about the Hellmouth. She’d also joked about the fact that the annual Halloween bonfire was held at a farm owned by Charles and Mandy Tower, but no one had actually called the place Tower Farm until she pointed this out a few years back after watching Halloween V.

She jots down names, places, events. Are they clues? Daisy doesn’t know, but she makes a note of anything that seems even remotely connected. Occasionally, she checks her Compendium of Horror Classics for specifics, wishing the damned internet was working. The book is a few years out of date, and a Google search would also be so much faster than manually searching through the book.

Daisy doesn’t realize she’s drifted off until she hears the thud of her iPad hitting the floor. Her first concern is whether the thing is broken—it’s not—but then everything that has happened in the past day comes flooding back. She picks the tablet up and checks the time. Nearly one. If Dani was coming home, she’d have been here by now.

And if Dani isn’t home, she’s either in trouble or she’s not real.

Either way, Daisy’s not staying here alone. She grabs Tucker’s spare house key from the hook in the kitchen, pulls on her boots, and heads next door.

The night sky seems strangely truncated. A full moon shines down from above—almost directly above—along with a sprinkling of stars. But beyond that cluster of light, the sky is black. Blank. As though the other stars have been erased from the galaxy.

She starts to slip the key into the lock, but something stops her. As much as she doesn’t want to wake Tucker, is it wise to sneak into the house of a man who sleeps with a gun within easy reach? Probably not, and that goes double when he’s had a day at least as stressful as her own.

So, she rings the bell and waits, even though her imagination jumps at every tiny sound, every faint breeze. When Tucker opens the door, she steps inside and into his arms.

This time when she kisses him, there is no hesitation on either side. His lips are fierce, almost desperate, as if he needs to answer the same question. As if he needs to be sure that she is real. That he is not alone.

He stops once on the way to the bedroom, to ask if she’s sure.

“We can wait,” he says. “I love you. I want you. We don’t have to rush things, though. We can take it slow.”

But there’s a hint of doubt in his voice, and she can tell that he’s thinking exactly the same thing she is. After a day like today, they can both easily imagine quite a few scenarios where there is no tomorrow.

Find happiness where you can in this world.

Daisy smiles as she thinks of that bit of advice from Martha Yarn. She doesn’t know why Miss Martha made the choice she did, but those words were probably the last bit of advice she handed down. It would be a shame to let them go unheeded.

“No,” she whispers into the hollow of Tucker’s neck. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to wait. But I’m okay with taking it slow.”

They do take it slow. Time seems to stretch and warp, and for a brief, endless moment, Daisy forgets everything else. There is only Tucker. His touch. His breath against her skin. They are like that tiny circle of night sky above Haddonwood, outside of which nothing else exists.

And when reality, such as it is, settles back in, Daisy is certain of one thing. She might not be able to prove it logically, but it is the one true thing she knows beyond all doubt.

She is not alone. At the very least, this is a two-player game.

Four

JULIE

Julie collapses onto the couch in the darkened living room of Bill’s house. She stopped here partly because it was closer than walking all the way home, but also because she really, really hoped he’d be here. That he somehow survived and walked back, the same as she had. Or at the very least, that the girls would be here.

It’s well after one in the morning, however, and neither Daisy nor Dani are home.

“No need to stay over,” Bill had told her. “Daisy is pretty darn responsible. Just check in on them and make sure Dani hasn’t burned the house down. We have insurance, but I’d rather not have to use it.”

Being out this late doesn’t feel very responsible to Julie. She rubs the back of her neck where a knot of tension has been steadily growing over the course of the day and pulls her sore feet onto the couch. She’ll wait. They’ll come home eventually, and when they do, they’re going to get a piece of her mind for worrying her.

And she is worried. She tries to keep her mind focused on the best-case scenario—the girls went to a Halloween party, probably that bonfire they have each year. They lost track of the time. Or just didn’t see the need to come home, since they’re free agents this week. Maybe they slept over at someone’s house.

Julie can’t quite convince herself that this is the most likely scenario, however. Not after today…although that was technically yesterday now. Starting out with a dream about that damn scarecrow was bad enough, but things actually went steadily downhill from there.

She walks into the kitchen to get something to drink. Water. Something stronger, maybe, although she’s not sure if Bill even keeps anything like that around with two teenagers in the house. A stiff shot of bourbon would be heaven right now…and it’s not like she’s going to be driving in the foreseeable future, given that her car is quite literally no more. It has expired. Gone to meet its maker. It is an ex-car.

The fact that she is making Monty Python jokes in her head at the end of this abysmally long day is proof that she needs that drink. But sadly, there is no bourbon. No beer. Some cooking sherry, but she’s not that desperate.

Apparently, the girls weren’t here long. The kitchen is clean, except for a familiar-looking pie tin in the sink and baking items lined up neatly on the counter. Eggs, butter, sugar, and half a bag of chocolate chips. Looks like someone was planning to make cookies but changed her mind.

Julie sticks the eggs and butter back into the fridge and grabs a La Croix. As she’s cracking it open, her cell phone rings in her pocket. She jumps, sloshing the drink onto her shoes. The noise startles her more than usual, partly because the house is so quiet, but also because her phone hasn’t worked all day.

She stares at the screen, relieved to see Dani’s name at the top. Which is odd, because she doesn’t remember putting Dani’s number into her contacts. But she must have, at some point, because there she is.

“Dani,” she says. “Thank God! I’ve been worried sick about the two of you.”

There’s no answer from the other end. Julie sits up on the couch. “Dani?”

“Can you come get me?” Dani’s voice is ragged, like she’s been crying. “Please, Julie. I’m in trouble.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the school. The principal’s office, I think… I see Snyder’s name on the desk.”

“At the school? Why? It’s after one a.m.”

“I don’t know. When I woke up, I was here. I feel strange.”

“Strange how?”

“I don’t know. I think someone drugged me. Maybe at the party?” Dani begins to cry on the other end. “Oh God. Dad is going to kill me…”

“No, he won’t. I’m on my way. Stay on the line, though, okay?” Julie rummages through her pockets for her keys as she closes the front door behind her. She remembers that her keys were in the Camry—the Camry that disappeared—at the same instant that her right hand closes over the keyring.

At the same instant that she sees her Camry, parked at the curb.

Her feet are sore and blistered from the walk back into town, the walk she’d had to make because her car disappeared. And yet here it sits.

A tiny, very reasonable voice in her head points out that it might not be a good idea to drive a vehicle that has a history of vanishing into thin air.

Right now, however, she’s willing to overlook that little flaw.

“See if you can get to an exit and then tell me where you are,” Julie says into the phone. She pauses as she gets into the car, looking at Tucker’s cruiser in the driveway next door. Maybe she should walk over and ask him to come with her, just in case there’s a problem.

But this is the first time Dani has trusted her. The first time Dani has asked for her help. And Julie knows instinctively that Dani wouldn’t want her pulling in Tucker Vance or anyone else, except maybe Daisy. And since Daisy isn’t here…

“The office door won’t open,” Dani says. “I can’t get out.”

Well, that could be a problem, she thinks. But then she catches sight of her purse on the backseat, where she placed it before her car disappeared and then fucking reappeared five miles and more than four hours later. And she knows beyond any doubt that the keys to the school are in there where they’ve been since…before. Since when the nameplate on the principal’s desk read Kennedy instead of Snyder, and the teenagers at Haddonwood High rapped their way through a lesson about Romeo and Juliet.

“I’m on my way, Dani. I’ll be there in two minutes. Keep talking, okay? Tell me about—”

But the phone goes dark. Julie throws it onto the passenger seat in frustration and whips around the corner at a speed that would be dangerous if Haddonwood hadn’t morphed into a ghost town in the past twelve hours.

The lot is empty when Julie arrives at the school. She parks in the spot closest to the front door and then realizes the sign reads Reserved for Principal. Fighting back a laugh, she snatches her purse out of the back and begins feeling around at the bottom for the keys. I have the keys, so I guess I get the parking space, too, Snyder.

A strong sense of foreboding hits her as she stares at the building. It’s completely dark. Even the security lights are out. She really doesn’t want to go in. Dani’s in there, however, and she’s in trouble or at the very least in emotional pain. Even if she wasn’t Bill’s daughter, Julie would have to go.

When Julie looks down at the fat ring of keys in her hand, she doesn’t hesitate. She knows it’s the one with the neon-orange cap on the key head. And she’s right. It fits perfectly.

She pushes the door open and stares into the darkened hallway.

Step on in, little Julie. Nothing can hurt you here. Nothing at all.

She takes a single step inside, looking left and then right. Nothing comes barreling down the corridor toward her, and she feels silly for being so on edge. Leaving aside the whole issue of keys and iambic pentameter—and her certainty about all of that is fading away like the aftermath of a dream—she’s been here dozens of times for school board meetings, to vote, and on a few occasions to comfort or counsel someone who was grieving.

But the place seems different in the dark. Shapes lurking inside the open classroom doors—chairs and desks, things she wouldn’t even notice in the daylight—look like caged animals waiting for an opportune moment to spring forth and rip her to shreds. The next person through the door would likely find an arm here, a leg there, and her severed head, half chewed and dripping with saliva over by the Coke machine.

Julie gives herself a mental kick. How has she managed to creep herself out about walking into a dark building? She hiked for miles in the dark earlier, with nothing but a tiny flashlight, after everything around her vanished.

Then she gives herself a second mental kick for leaving that tiny flashlight on the counter at Bill’s house.

All she has to do is get to the office, though. There’s an entire box of flashlights behind the secretary’s desk on the bottom shelf. Julie can see them perfectly in her mind’s eye. The school is a designated emergency shelter. They have to keep flashlights on hand.

She hurries down the hallway, her shoes clacking loudly against the polished floor. The door is unlocked, fortunately. Finding the right key in the dark would have been next to impossible, let alone getting it into the slot with shaky hands.

Once inside, she holds her arms out, feeling her way toward the counter. Her shin bangs into the edge, and she bites back a curse. Dropping to her hands and knees, she inches along the wall to the box of flashlights, which are exactly where she thought—no, where she knew—they would be. Although, if this were a movie, one of those crazy slasher films, the flashlights would have been gone.

The logical part of her brain insists that she was just lucky. She must have seen the flashlights behind the counter on one of her trips to the school. And that’s certainly possible.

Of course, the logical part of her brain has no explanation for why those keys were in her purse, or for any of the other insane things that have happened since she woke up this morning.

Julie grabs one of the flashlights. It’s the old-fashioned type, large and heavy, and its heft feels reassuring in her hands. She stands up and clicks the gadget on. A ray of deep-red light shoots from the end, and she frowns. It’s obviously a red filter, the type that you use to maintain night vision. But it bathes the room in a hellish crimson glow that isn’t very comforting right now. She bends down and tries another one, but they all have the filter attached, and whoever screwed the headpiece back on must have had the world’s tightest grip, because she can’t get it to budge.

It will have to do. She shines the light down the hallway leading to the principal’s office, which somehow exists in her mind both as my office and Snyder’s office. The door is open, and she thinks of something that probably should have occurred to her back at Bill’s house when she first answered the phone.

This is a joke. Dani’s back at home right now—up in her room laughing her ass off at the thought of stupid, stupid Julie Kennedy, running around pitch-black halls in the middle of the night.

Julie shakes her head. She doesn’t know Dani all that well, but she does know Bill, and he’s talked about the girls a lot. Yes, Dani is wild, and she occasionally gets into trouble, but she’s not cruel.

“Julie?”

Julie screams and drops the flashlight. It spins, casting dim red light onto the counter and walls.

For a second, she doesn’t recognize the girl. Her hair is a pale blonde bob with bangs. But then she realizes it’s Dani. This must be a Halloween costume of some sort.

“Dani! You scared the hell out of me. I thought the office was locked. How did you get out?”

The girl takes a step toward her. “I don’t know,” she says, sounding confused. “I woke up here a few minutes ago. I heard noises upstairs. Who else is here?”

Julie hasn’t heard anything since stepping through the door. “I had to unlock the door, so unless someone broke in, we’re probably alone. How did you get out of the office?” she asks again. “When you called me, you said you were trapped.”

Dani frowns. “I didn’t call you.”

“Yes, you did. Not even ten minutes…” She trails off as another possibility occurs to her. The girl on the phone had never said she was Dani. What if it was Daisy who called? What if she has Dani’s phone?

“Someone else is in this building,” Dani says. “We need to get out, right now.” She shoves past Julie toward the hallway.

“Dani, wait!” Julie reaches out and grabs the girl by the shoulder. “Someone called me from here. Someone with your phone. I thought it was you. And…Daisy wasn’t at the house.”

“I just want to get out of here,” Dani says. “This place creeps me out.”

“I’m not going until I look around. Your sister could be here. Someone called me. She sounded…hurt.”

“Okay,” Dani says. “But we need to hurry.”

Dani follows behind Julie as she checks the rooms in the school office complex, including the principal’s office. Her flashlight picks up the nameplate on the desk—Principal Snyder—but she can remember a different nameplate with her own name engraved on the metal.

Julie is more and more convinced that Dani is playing a game. Punking her, as they say. She called, and now she’s lying about it. But if so, she’s a damn good actress. The girl on the phone had sounded terrified.

“See?” Dani says. “She’s not here.”

They leave the office area, but Julie doesn’t head for the exit. Instead, she turns right, toward the classrooms. She shines the flashlight around in a sweeping arc. Nothing but empty desks and someone’s jacket hanging by the door.

“She’s not here,” Dani whispers from behind her. “Can we just go?”

Julie nods toward the exit. “Go on, then. The car is unlocked. Wait for me outside.”

“Are you kidding? I’m not going out there alone!”

And then they both hear a noise. A shuffling sound up ahead. It’s low and muffled by distance, but it sounds like someone moving.

“This way,” Julie says, turning toward the noise. Her beam lands on a poster—HAPPY FALL Y’ALL.

“No,” Dani says. “Are you crazy? You never follow the noise!”

Julie whips back toward her, eyes blazing. “It could be your sister,” she hisses. “Unless you know something I don’t? Unless this was all a big joke you planned with your friends.”

Dani shakes her head. “I told you. I never called you. Why the hell would I call you, Reverend Kennedy?”

The sneer when Dani says those last two words reminds Julie of Scott Jenkins, but she ignores the girl and pushes open the double doors that lead into the gym. Dani mutters a few choice words under her breath and follows.

Fuck it, she thinks. I can’t check the entire school.

“Daisy! Are you here?”

No sound but her own voice echoing back.

“Have you never watched a horror movie?” Dani asks. “This is how people get killed.”

Julie shines the light onto the basketball court and spots a girl kneeling in the center. She’s not moving, and Julie is pretty sure it’s not Daisy. The girl is in a Haddonwood Howler’s blue-and-yellow cheerleading uniform.

“Are you okay?” Julie calls out.

The girl pops up, revealing a set of yellow and blue pompoms. She looks like something from The Walking Dead. The left side of her face is missing. Her right eye, perfectly clear and blue, is trained directly on Julie, while the other hangs loose from its socket.

Julie bites back a scream and pushes Dani toward the exit. Six more cheerleaders, in various stages of decay, cartwheel onto the basketball court from both sides of the gym and take position around the first girl as the cheer begins:

HOWLERS, HOWLERS

WE’RE THE BEST!

WE OWN YOUR SOUL.

THE DEAD DON’T REST.

WE FIGHT,

WE BLEED,

WE AIN’T ALL RIGHT.

WE’RE THE HOWL

THAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT!

The cheer ends with cartwheels and backflips, accompanied by thunderous applause that seems to come from the empty bleachers. Then, without warning, the cheerleaders simply vanish into the shadows.

Something else is coming from the far side of the gym now. It’s tall—over seven feet—with a solid black cowboy hat atop its misshapen head. It wears the same pair of mud-caked jeans that she remembers from her nightmares. The shirt is different, though. It’s always been a plain red-and-brown plaid work shirt. Now, the scarecrow wears a blue-and-yellow jersey, with the words HADDONWOOD HOWLERS looping and scrolling across his chest.

A buzzer goes off, and the scarecrow zips toward them, moving across the court with uncanny speed. Julie grabs Dani’s hand and pushes her through the double doors into the dark corridor.

She takes a wrong step on the way out. A bolt of pain shoots through her ankle, and she goes down. The flashlight skitters off into a corner.

“Get up, get up!” Dani yells, sounding a lot like the zombie cheerleaders as she pulls Julie to her feet and toward the front door of the school.

The scarecrow is now trying to squeeze through the gymnasium doors. Loose straw spills from the cuffs of his pants onto the floor. Julie has a clear view of the thing’s face now and can see that something other than the jersey is different. The scarecrow’s eyes are no longer stitched on. They’re very much alive, and glowing white in the darkness.

It’s made of straw! Julie tells herself as she runs. Turn around and face it, for God’s sake. Tap your inner Wicked Witch and find a lighter. How ’bout a little fire—

With this thought, Julie’s feet skid to a halt so quickly that she nearly plants face first onto the tile. She watches as Dani rams her shoulder into the front door, pushing the bar down. It’s almost like everything is in slow motion as her mind tries and fails to stitch together some missing piece.

She can even hear failure music. Womp, womp, womp.

“Help me!” Dani screams as she tries again. That snaps Julie out of it, and she adds her weight against the door. But it’s no use. It’s locked.

Julie pulls Dani back toward the long hall lined with classrooms. She glances over her shoulder and sees that the scarecrow has now squeezed himself through the door. The floor around him is littered with straw, but it doesn’t seem to have lessened his bulk in the slightest.

And Mr. Giggles is not alone. A swoosh of wheels announces the cheer squad, now clad in roller skates and armed with knives, hurtling directly toward them.

“WE GOT SPIRIT, YES WE DO. WE GOT SPIRIT, HOW ’BOUT YOU! ”

Julie hooks sharply into an open classroom. A member of the cheer squad whizzes past, narrowly missing them as she yanks Dani inside. The fingers of another cheerleader graze her sweat-slicked hair. She slams the door, and a third fiend on wheels hits it with a loud thump.

That’s not the sound that has her worried, however. The door might hold against the Howlers on wheels, but she doesn’t think it will hold against the scarecrow.

Which is stupid. He’s made of straw.

“Julie…” Dani’s voice is faint, like she’s choking. When Julie turns, she sees that the girl’s face has gone pale. A red splotch appears in the middle of her white sweater. Dani coughs, and when she stumbles forward, Julie sees the hilt of a knife in the girl’s back.

The door makes a cracking noise as Julie takes a step toward her. It’s like she’s moving in slow motion. Dani gasps again, then slumps down the side of the desk and onto the floor.

“No,” Julie screams. “Please, no!”

But Dani is silent as the wood creaks again and dust falls from the top of the doorframe.

“LITTLE PIG, LITTLE PIG, LET US IN,” the chorus sings from the hall.

Another crack from the door, but Julie’s eyes are on Dani.

She’s changing. Flickering in and out like a flame.

Glitch, Julie thinks, the word popping into her head.

Here. Not here.

Here…but now the blood on the white sweater is missing.

One final flicker, and now Dani is missing, too.

Julie stares at the empty spot on the floor until another crack behind her jolts her into action. A window is in front of her. Julie doesn’t stop to see if it’ll open. She hunches forward and crashes through the glass as the classroom door finally shatters.

It’s the easiest decision she’s made all day.

She lands on her hip, and something hard jabs into her thigh. But she’s up quickly, running toward her car as best she can on the sore ankle. As soon as she’s in the car, she looks back toward the building, expecting to see the scarecrow and the cheer squad from hell pouring through the broken window.

But the window is whole, and no one is there.

No scarecrow.

No zombie cheerleaders.

No Dani.

Five

CHASE

Chase walks down the very center of the road. It’s partly because he doesn’t like being close to the woods, but he also likes following the pattern of broken lines and reflectors. It gives him something to focus on. White stripe. Yellow dot. White stripe. Yellow dot. There are no cars out tonight—he’s pretty sure on that point—but if one does appear, he’ll hear it. He can step out of the way.

Or not. He isn’t entirely sure what he’ll do at this point if he hears a car coming.

When he curled up under the blanket on the floor of his room, he’d really hoped that he wouldn’t wake up at all. But the joke was on him. He couldn’t sleep. Instead, he drifted in and out of memories that he wanted to erase. The day had indeed been a total fuckery. Being in the void was scary. Seeing his own body twisting in the wind…that was scary. Half a dozen other things had been scary since he woke up yesterday morning.

But having something take control of his body and kill the Ralph-thing? That was terrifying.

What terrifies him most, however, is knowing that it was also exhilarating. Liberating. Not knowing what would happen next, not being able to control it. Being swept away in a roaring tide of sheer, raw anger. Embracing it, even.

It had been a wild ride.

A wild, terrifying ride.

It’s only a half mile to Tucker’s house. He’ll just tell them what happened. They’ve seen the thing with white eyes. They’ll understand. He just wishes he’d thought to stop long enough to at least wash his hands before leaving the trailer. Maybe grab some clean clothes. The only thing he paused to do was check on Ben. He was out cold, but Chase could feel a pulse.

The only thing he could do for Ben was go and get help.

There had been no point checking Ralph Rey. You could look at him and see that he was dead.

“I could fix that. If it bothers you.”

The voice, coming from a spot just to his right, startles Chase so badly that his heart stutters, and he very nearly screams out loud. When he turns, he sees the kid from the noose. There’s no rope now, and his face seems fairly normal with no bruises or blotching, but he’s wearing the orange sneakers, with a light-colored tee and jeans like the ones Chase has on. Unlike Chase, however, his clothes are not spattered with the gory remains of Ralph Rey.

The boy looks like Chase, but he doesn’t sound like Chase. His voice sounds older. More like the Door Man at Martha’s house.

“Well? Do you want me to fix it?”

“You mean getting rid of this blood?”

“No. I meant Ben’s dad. If what happened bothers you, I could reboot him. Eventually.” He gives a half shrug and then says, “Probably. This is new territory. If things were operating normally, I could be more certain. I could get rid of that blood, too, even though it takes more effort to change things when it’s us. Or one of the others. With the real players, there’s a lot more to reset, and you risk them becoming aware. Several of them already are, and that’s going to be really hard to fix.”

The kid huffs, clearly not happy about that situation. “Ralph is different, though. He’s just…I guess you’d call him an NPC. He’s a bit more detailed than some in the game, because he’s based on Ben’s memories. So it’s not like rebooting some anonymous guy that none of you know on the street. Or even the librarian. Putting Ralphie back in the game would take resources, and those are a little scarce right now, but if killing him really bothers you that much, I could try.”

“No,” Chase says. “I don’t care about him. Even if he wasn’t an…NPC, he was bad. He’d have killed Ben. Probably would have killed me, too, if he had the chance or if he was drunk enough.”

“Well, yes. That’s true now because everything is out of whack. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. This was just going to be a fun round. I figured Daisy would like opening the Hart, and the last game with the singing and the iambic pentameter was boring. Sure, I added in some scares, because…it’s Halloween, right? I thought we could have a little fun. Maybe make a little progress at the same time.”

None of that makes much sense to Chase. He opens his mouth to ask questions, but in the brief moment when he’s trying to decide which question to ask first, the boy cuts him off.

“But then you screwed up. You screwed up, and it threw everything out of balance. Otherwise, he’d never have gotten in. I’m not blaming you, it’s just the truth.”

To Chase, it sounds very much like he is being blamed, but he lets it slide because he’s pretty sure the kid is now talking about something he needs to understand. “You mean the white-eyed guy? The one you killed while it was inside Ralph?”

The boy snorts. “You think we killed him? I doubt we even slowed him down. We killed Ralph Rey, sure, but he was just the shell. And I’ll emphasize the we in that sentence, because you weren’t simply a spectator, little brother. Make no mistake. You’d have killed him, or more likely, you’d have died trying.”

“Maybe. But I wouldn’t have…enjoyed killing him.”

All he gets is silence from the other kid, although he suspects there was an eye roll he just couldn’t see in the dark.

“I wouldn’t have enjoyed it the way you did,” Chase amends. “And that last part, with the monkey, that was all you.”

“Bullshit. You hated that ugly thing as much as you hated him.”

“Yeah, I hated it. And I might have burned it. Or buried it. Or peed on it. But I wouldn’t have smashed it into a dead man’s head over and over again until it was nothing but pulp.”

“The monkey or the head, baby brother?” He skips in front of Chase to walk the white lines, holding his hands out to the side like he’s balancing on a tightrope.

“Don’t call me that. I’m not your brother. You’re Raum, aren’t you?”

“In the flesh.”

Now it’s Chase’s turn to roll his eyes. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

“Oh no, little—” Raum glances back at him, giving him an apologetic nod. “I mean, Chase. I am very much in the flesh.”

Chase is pretty sure that he’s talking in riddles, so he shifts to a different tack. “What are you? And don’t tell me you’re human. Or that you’re me. Because I’m not buying either of those.”

“Fine. I’m not human. And I’m not you.” He doesn’t say anything else for a moment, just continues walking the white line. Chase is about to repeat the question when Raum finally continues. “What I am is a prisoner.”

“Why are you a prisoner? What did you do wrong?”

Raum tsks. “The first question was a good one, but then you had to slip in an assumption. A very judgmental assumption, too, I might add. Why do you assume that I did anything wrong?”

“Well, usually that’s why they put people in prison. Plus, you just bashed someone’s head in, and…every other time I’ve seen you like this”—he points to the clothes and sneakers—“you’ve also been wearing a noose. Did you leave it back on the tree?”

“The noose wasn’t my idea. You’ll have to take that up with Old White Eyes. I think he’s just taunting you. Taunting us. The last thing I want is you pulling another stupid stunt like the one that got us into this mess. I’m having a hard enough time patching things up as it is.”

Chase has a vague tickling sensation at the back of his head. It’s a thought that he really doesn’t want to examine further, so he pushes it aside.

“Oh, come on!” Raum says, turning around to face him. “Avoidance? Do you really think that’s going to work? Everyone you know, including me, is in danger because you popped one pill too many. And if your friend Zophiel is right—”

“She’s not my friend.”

“Well, she’s sure as hell not mine. But if she’s correct, and if I can’t get this game back on track, everything could come crashing down.”

“Good. That’s fine with me. Then I can get back to the other place.”

“Right. Because you’re so damn happy there that you gulped down a bunch of pills.”

“I’m done talking to you,” Chase says. “You’re just in my head.”

“True. But now you’re in mine, too. And therein lies the problem.”

More riddles, Chase thinks. Because that’s really what I need right now.

Raum’s clothes morph into a green suit covered with question marks.

Riddle me this, Riddle brother…

And apparently it doesn’t matter whether Chase talks to him or not. Raum knows what he’s thinking.

“I’m not your brother. Just tell me how to get home or else go away.”

When he turns around this time, Raum is still in the costume, but the green mask can’t hide the frustration in his eyes. “I don’t know how to get you home, Chase.” He continues walking backward, still toeing the white line as he speaks. “Zophiel clearly thought that Martha taking an early exit would restore the balance, but things haven’t exactly gotten better. HAVE THEY, ZOPHIEL?”

Raum shouts those last words up at the night sky and waits, as if he’s expecting a response. When he gets nothing, he stops walking and points upward, waving his finger in a circle. “Do you see that, Chase? Do you see that pathetic excuse for a sky? A dusting of stars and the moon, right here over our little town. I could expand the sky, make it stretch out as far as your eyes can see, but that would come at a cost. It might mean that I couldn’t maintain the air in this little section of the game.”

With those words, Chase realizes he can’t breathe. It’s like something sucked all of the air away. No matter how hard he tries to pull air into his lungs, there’s just none to pull in.

He stares, wide-eyed, at the kid in the Riddler costume for several seconds. Raum isn’t breathing either, and the half of his face that is visible below the mask is turning red. Then Raum flicks his finger, and the air is back. Chase takes several deep, glorious breaths. Tears sting his eyes. He doesn’t say fuck you, but he definitely thinks it.

Raum gives him a grim smile that lets Chase know he got the message, loud and clear. But he does lose the costume. Chase is once again staring at his twin. Who, thinking back on the message at Miss Martha’s house—RAUM LIES—is quite possibly his evil twin.

“Of course I lie,” Raum says. “Everybody lies. The operative questions are when and why? And I’m sorry for stealing your air, but I had to make a point. We’re on a budget. I have to conserve resources. That’s why everybody in Haddonwood seems to have turned in early tonight. Why Daisy’s precious theater is back to its default setting, along with most of the town.”

They walk along silently for a couple of minutes, as Chase tries to get his breathing back to normal. Something rustles in the trees off to the right. He thinks maybe it’s the wind, but the night is totally still. Maybe wind is one of the resources he’s conserving, too.

“That’s what happened at the school, isn’t it?” Chase asks, keeping one wary eye on the trees. “With the duplicates. And kids blinking out. You were saving resources.”

“Yes. It was a place I could cut corners. You were the only one at the school who would notice. At the high school, there were two players. Plus, you were already questioning things anyway.”

“What I don’t get is why you can’t just end it. Stop playing the game. Let me go home.”

“Me, me, me,” Raum says. “You’re so selfish. Getting home isn’t the most important thing right now. You were willing to risk your life to save Ben back at the trailer, but it’s not just Ben who’s at risk. Not just you. It’s Daisy. Tucker. It’s everyone in the game. If you believe Zophiel,” he adds in a louder voice, “and I’m not sure I do, everyone outside the game is at risk, too.”

“I’m not trying to be selfish,” Chase says. “You’re acting like this is some game where I know the rules. I don’t want anyone to be hurt. But…I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Just stop fighting me. I’ve tried to get you—to get us—there twice now. I pulled you out at the school. And again when you were in the police car. But you keep clawing your way back.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t if you’d tell me what’s going on! Are you saying I’m like…in The Matrix or something?”

Even though Chase hasn’t seen the movies, he knows the memes. Real world, fake world. That Morpheus dude in the black glasses holding out his hands—choose the red pill or the blue.

Chase hears the noise again from the tree line, but he doesn’t pull his eyes away from Raum. He can almost see the calculation going on behind Raum’s eyes. Truth or lie? Trust or deceive?

And Raum can obviously hear that thought, because dark glasses appear out of nowhere. Raum’s eyes are totally hidden, and all Chase can see is his own dimly lit reflection. In the left lens, he’s standing behind a hand that holds a blue pill. Same thing in the right lens, except the pill is red.

“You’re not in The Matrix, Chase. You are the matrix. You’re breaking down, and you’re going to take us all…with…you…” Raum’s head jerks toward the trees, and then he takes three rapid steps forward. He places both hands on Chase’s chest and shoves him backward.

Chase expects his ass to hit the pavement. But it doesn’t. He keeps falling into blackness.

Directly above him, through a Chase-shaped hole, he sees hundreds of crows lift off from the trees to descend on the spot in the road where Raum had been standing.

But Raum is gone. The only thing he left behind is the pair of bright-orange sneakers, which tumble into the darkness along with Chase.

Six

BEN

Ben wakes to a whistling noise. A teakettle, maybe?

His eyelids flutter, but opening them seems like a gargantuan task.

No. Not a kettle. It’s the wind. A tiny trickle of memory says it’s coming in through the window above his bed. The events of the past two nights seem to be mashed into one confused, sodden lump, and he can’t quite piece together how the window got broken. Wasn’t his fight with Ralph in the living room?

But he fought Ralph at the Grimshaw house, too, right? Which had suddenly turned into a hospital or maybe a school, and then this trailer. Ralph had raised the gun, and Ben had squeezed his eyes tight, dead certain that it was the end, that he’d feel buckshot ripping him in half.

When he’d felt nothing after the gunshot, he’d cautiously opened his eyes to find himself on the floor of the Grimshaw house, mere inches from the spot where Marybeth had been swallowed up. No gun, no Ralph, no trailer. No rising-sun hospital sign over the doorway.

Just an abandoned house that stank of rot, mildew, and God only knew what else. Ben had staggered out the door. No pumpkin. No Marybeth. Even his goddamn truck was gone. So he’d taken the only option left and began walking down the hill.

Walking? That was a joke. He’d run, stumbling to the ground more than once. Not just to get away from the Grimshaw place, but because he needed to find—

Chase. Because Chase needs you. Wake up, Benjamin.

The voice is familiar. He was dreaming about her when the wind woke him up. She was trying to tell him something, but he can’t remember what. If he focuses, maybe he can follow that thread back into sleep.

Wake up!

Ben tries to lift his head, but it’s heavy. Swollen. And even though he’s freezing, he doesn’t want to move. He wants to crawl back into that dream. There was a woman. It definitely wasn’t his mom. Was it Marybeth? He doesn’t think so.

Is MB even real?

The memory that spurred that question shocks him fully awake. He’s still dizzy, and his head hurts like a son of a bitch. Yesterday’s events begin to fall into place, but he pushes them aside, trying to focus.

Chase. Where’s Chase?

Ben opens his eyes slowly. His bedroom. He’d know this dirty and threadbare carpet anywhere. The lamp is still on, casting a dim glow across the room. His father lies next to him. Facing him. Ben stares at the matted hair and clotted blood on the man’s head.

Close your eyes. Go back to sleep. You’re still dreaming.

Another whistle cuts through his stupor. The window is broken. He remembers the window breaking. His mother was there. And a bird. The bird from the library, with the white eyes. Then his father came in, and…

Dreaming. Maybe you can get back to that other dream. That was a better dream. You know her voice. She’ll help you. Help you find—

Chase.

Ben opens his eyes again. This time, he props himself up on his elbow, even though it hurts like hell. His muscles are stiff, and his joints are locked from the cold.

For a moment, he thinks he’s found Chase, but it’s just the kid’s tattered Transformers blanket. Bits of the broken window glass litter the carpet around it.

The weird toy monkey lies on top of the blanket, now so misshapen that Ben wouldn’t have been able to identify it at all if not for the brass cymbals. One of the arms is partially detached from the body, and the monkey’s brown fur is matted and stained, its cymbals and wooden base smeared with blood. Did Chase do this? Or maybe it was his mom. Maybe she came back and—

No. Aileen Rey didn’t kill Ralph. He’s not sure she could kill him, but the monkey makes him certain that it was Chase. He hated that thing with the same fury he hated Ralph. Ben feels a nervous laugh rising in his throat, wondering if the tiny cymbals clashed when Chase brought the thing down on Ralph’s skull.

Ben glances back at Ralph’s body, wondering if he should check for a pulse. He doesn’t want to touch him, though, and there’s really no need. It’s pretty obvious that the man is dead. Ben’s only question is how? The monkey isn’t all that heavy. How could it have possibly done that much damage?

Then he sees the baseball bat on Chase’s bed. Hair and blood cling to the smooth wooden surface. Did he start with the bat or the monkey? Ben really hopes the bat was first. Otherwise, Ralph would have fought back. And Chase…

“Chase?”

But Chase doesn’t answer. Ben calls out his name a few more times, then slowly pulls himself to standing. He makes it as far as the bedroom door before the dizziness takes hold and he has to stop, leaning against the frame until the world stops spinning.

When it does, he risks a look back at the bedroom, hoping Ralph will have vanished like before. But no such luck.

Ben surveys the room again, trying to think through his options. He could call Tucker. Say he killed Ralph in self-defense. In defense of Chase. Of his mom, wherever the hell she is. He thinks there’s a chance he’d get off with little more than a slap on the wrist. Like Chad said earlier, it’s an open secret that the man is abusive.

He could torch the trailer. Pack a bag for him and Chase…

Chase.

Ben drags himself into the hallway. He checks the other bedroom, then the bathroom. For once in his life, he’s glad the trailer is so tiny, because there just aren’t many places to hide. By the time he reaches the kitchen, Ben is certain that he’s the only person in the house…or at least the only one still drawing breath.

He finds a bottle of ibuprofen, shakes three into his palm, and hunts for a clean glass. When the search comes up empty, he dry swallows them and sinks down into one of the kitchen chairs.

Chase must have panicked once he realized what he’d done. Panicked and ran. But where? And why hadn’t he waited until Ben was conscious?

Maybe Mom had—

No. None of what you’re seeing right now is real, Ben. Focus on what’s important. On the one thing that’s real.

The voice in his mind is the woman from the dream. But focusing isn’t exactly an easy task at the moment. Ben read the Signs of Concussion checklist they passed around on the first day of football practice, and he can tick off most of them right now. Ringing in the ears? Check. Blurred vision? Check. Temporary loss of consciousness? Check. Headache? Check, circle, and underline.

You just focused enough to remember the signs of concussion, the woman in his head says. So fine, stick with lists. List all of the things that cannot be real.

It takes a moment, but he finds a pen and an old envelope in the stack of junk on the end table. And even though it hurts to focus his eyes, he does, and begins writing in chronological order.

Playground. The crowd pouring out the door as soon as he thought about how odd it was to see only a few kids. Identical pink-clad sextuplets. And it wasn’t just him who saw that. Chase had confirmed it in the car later, without Ben even mentioning that part. He said he’d seen duplicates and had also seen kids vanish. Ben had written that off as crazy, but he’s seen more than one person just flat-out disappear in the past twenty-four hours. Chase had said a lot of other stuff in the truck as they drove to the library, and he’d written all of that off, too. Stuff about Ben being his dad, not his brother. That still feels false, but why does he keep seeing these older versions of himself? Even as a dead body, Ralph Rey looks more like Ben than he did in the one…

…the one photograph he’d kept hidden in a dresser drawer, rolled up inside a sock. Ralph and Aileen Rey on their wedding day. That sock had followed him each time he moved. Through college, marriage, divorce…

Ben shakes his head, sending a ripple of pain from temple to temple. The thought dissipates, scattering like raindrops. All he can remember is the word sock. He jots it down below the word playground. Maybe it will come back to him later.

Locker room. He underlines those words twice, because everything that happened after he stepped into that shower felt wrong, like a living nightmare. From Freddy Freaking Krueger to the blood to the black dot slowly appearing on his lottery ticket. None of it felt real.

Grimshaw. Marybeth vanishing. Chase appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing. The painting over the door—Every Day a Brighter Day at Hillcrest—and then he’s in this trailer, eyes squeezed shut, expecting Ralph’s gun to blow his head off.

Truck. Gone, even though he knows damn well he didn’t walk up that hill.

Bird. Not a normal bird. And whatever that was in their bedroom last night, it hadn’t been Aileen Rey. The white-eyed thing that had punched the living hell out of him hadn’t been Ralph, either. And it wasn’t just the eyes. Ben remembered when the Ralph-thing landed the first punch. It felt like his father’s fist had morphed into lead.

Ben scans back through his list of not-real things. The only thing connected to this trailer that feels real to him is Chase. Not the weird ghostlike Chase who was at Grimshaw, but the solid flesh-and-bone kid who shares a room with him. The kid who has been trying to tell him that none of this is real. The kid who has been begging him to listen.

And the kid who had to kill the monster back there in the bedroom all on his own, because Benjamin Rey was too lost in whatever godforsaken fantasy this is to pay attention to his own son.

His son. Not his brother.

Find him. Find Chase.

The woman’s voice again. The one he still can’t place. But it doesn’t really matter whose words they are. All that matters at this moment is that she’s right.

He pushes himself to standing and goes to the back door. The clock over the microwave says it’s nearly two in the morning. What time did Tucker drop them off? He can’t remember, but he’s pretty sure it was before midnight, which means he was unconscious for a couple of hours, at least.

He pushes the back door open, expecting to see the front of another trailer, as always. There are fourteen trailers on this lot. Someone with a perverse sense of humor named the place Sycamore Meadow, but there’s no meadow, and if there ever was a sycamore tree, someone must have chopped it down so they could squeeze in another mobile home.

But there’s nothing outside.

No trailers, no cars, no moon, no stars.

The rhyme catches Ben off guard, and he barks out a laugh. That has to take the prize for the bleakest Dr. Seuss book ever written. He stands there, staring out into the void, and remembers the playground when the kids came rushing out the door, almost as if he’d willed them into existence.

It’s worth trying. Ben squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds and imagines the other trailers. But when he looks again, it’s still the same sea of total blackness.

He closes the door and opens it again. No change.

“Chase?” he yells. “Are you out there? Can you hear me?”

He gets back nothing. Not even an echo.

That seems like a pretty clear message to him. You’re going the wrong way.

But what if he opens the front door and finds nothing there, either? That prospect fills him with pure terror, and he runs to the front door so fast that he bangs his shin on the edge of the couch.

When he flings the front door open, a wire fence stares back at him. For as long as he can remember, he’s hated that their tiny strip of front yard looks straight into the backyard of the trailer in front, owned by the woman who runs the place. Norma had been known to call the cops from time to time if the noise level at the Rey house exceeded her expectations, and she would rip your head off if you were tossing the ball around and it happened to roll across the narrow gravel drive and onto her turf. She’d finally put up that ugly chicken-wire fence to keep kids off her lawn.

He’s never been so happy to see anything in his life.

Beyond Norma’s trailer, he sees the sky. A sprinkling of stars. The moon. And below that, the road into town.

If you need anything, I’m half a mile down the road.

That’s what Tucker had said to Chase when he dropped them off. Daisy had seconded it and noted that Julie Kennedy’s house was even closer. Which is true, but it’s in the opposite direction.

Ben closes the door of the trailer behind him and heads toward the road. He looks left, toward the preacher’s house. Personally, Ben thinks heading to the preacher’s house would be the smarter move for a twelve-year-old boy covered in the blood of someone he’d just killed. She could probably offer him sanctuary or at least help him talk to the authorities.

But even in his thoroughly muddled state of mind, Ben hadn’t missed that there was a connection of some sort between Daisy, Tucker, and Chase. Maybe they’d listened to him when Ben hadn’t.

He’s also fairly certain that Daisy and Tucker are somehow connected to whatever the hell is happening in Haddonwood. What he’s not entirely certain about is which side they’re on.

So, Ben reverses course, back toward Casa del Rey, as his mom had occasionally called the trailer. In a perfect world, he’d never step foot in the place again, but he needs to grab a few things.

Ben goes first to the bedroom, snatching the Louisville Slugger from the bed before he even looks at the body on the floor. The corpse is in exactly the same spot it was before, but he’s not turning his back on it. He grabs a change of clothes for him and for Chase from the pile on the floor and shoves them into a pillowcase. Then, he moves on to his parents’ room. The shotgun is where it always is, under the bed. Loaded, of course, despite the fact that there’s a kid in the house.

What the hell good is an unloaded gun?

Ralph’s voice is so clear in his mind that Ben whirls around with the gun, finger on the trigger, certain his father will be standing at the door. But he can still see the man’s body sprawled out across the hallway.

Ben curses under his breath, fighting the urge to shove the gun back under the bed. It feels wrong in his hands. What if he’d turned just now and someone had been there? Given his current state of mind, he thinks there’s a damn good chance he’d have pulled the trigger instantly. What if it had been Chase?

But in the end, he grabs a few more rounds from the nightstand, along with his father’s wallet. Two twenties—Ralph’s emergency booze and cigarette money—are tucked behind the expired driver’s license. He puts the shotgun shells and the money into his pocket, along with the list of not-real things. If his brain starts getting fuzzy again, he can pull that out as a little reminder.

As he leaves the trailer, he notices that the stars and the moon seem to have contracted into a smaller circle. It’s almost as if there’s a doughnut-shaped cloud surrounding the town. The night is eerily still, too. No noise, and no trace at all of the wind that finally woke him up as it whistled through the bedroom window.

Ben just wishes he had a grenade or a Molotov cocktail to toss over his shoulder. He’d walk backward all the way into town just so he could watch the trailer burn. But he needs to keep his eyes on the road. Chase could be hiding in the woods. Or if Ralph got in even a few punches before the Louisville Slugger turned the tide, the kid could be lying on the side of the road.

With that thought, Ben picks up the pace. Maybe it’s the ibuprofen, but his headache seems to get a little better with each step he takes away from the trailer.

He adjusts the shotgun and moves into a light jog. It’s probably not the smartest thing to approach a cop’s house toting a weapon, but his options are limited. Ben likes Tucker. He likes Daisy, too. But his goal is to find Chase and get him the hell out of here. And if Daisy or Tucker, or anyone else for that matter, looks at him with bloodshot white eyes, he’ll be ready.

CHAPTER SEVEN

* * *

One

DAISY

Daisy snuggles her head into the hollow of Tucker’s shoulder, pleased to discover that it fits there quite nicely. She can’t count the nights she lay sleepless in her bed, just beyond this window and across the way, imagining that her pillow was Tucker’s chest and her quilt was his arms wrapped around her.

Sometimes her thoughts had wandered into other territory as well. And she was delighted to find that the reality was even better than her fantasy.

She didn’t get the sense that this had been true for Dani. Her sister had crept into Daisy’s room a little after midnight a few years back and crawled into the bed. This had been a common pattern long after their mom decided, when they were around seven, that they might argue less if they had separate rooms. They did argue less, but they’d shared a bed since before they were born, so it was a bit of an adjustment. For years after that, one of them—usually Dani—would tiptoe across the hall at some point during the night if she had a nightmare, or suspected there was a monster under the bed, or just wanted to snuggle or giggle under the covers.

After their mom died, it had been Daisy who slipped across the hall more often than not.

On that particular night when Dani showed up, it had been at least six months since either of them had ventured out of her own bed. Daisy had scooched closer to the wall, making room. A few minutes later, her sister had said, in typically blunt Dani fashion ,“We did it.”

Daisy hadn’t needed any clarification. The other person was obviously Tommy Doyle, three years older and not someone her sister was supposed to be seeing. And Dani had been debating whether or not they were going to do it for the past three weeks. Daisy, who really didn’t know how to respond, had asked if she was in love with Tommy.

“Remember a few years back when you practiced that Beethoven piece for a solid month?” Dani had asked, after she finished laughing. “Why didn’t you wait and play it for the first time at the recital?”

“Because I would have sucked at it.”

“Ding-ding-ding. The first time is always going to be two people fumbling around in the backseat of a tiny car, bumping your head on the door handle, and freezing your ass off. When I meet Mr. Right, I want to know what I’m doing. And speaking of freezing my ass off, gimme some of those covers.”

Daisy hadn’t bothered to ask what it was like after that. If Tommy’s tiny backseat, bumping her head, and a cold ass were Dani’s main takeaways, it had probably been a rather disappointing experience overall.

Now she’s torn between wishing Dani had waited until she found someone she loved and thinking that there’s a very real possibility that her sister is no longer alive. Maybe it was better with Chad than it had been with Tommy, even though she was pretty sure Dani didn’t love Chad, either. Still, what Dani had with them was probably better than nothing.

Find happiness where you can in this world.

“What are you thinking?” Tucker asks, pulling her closer.

“That I love you.”

“Okay, now you have me worried, because there was a sad little frown right”—he kisses a spot on her forehead—“there.”

“I was kind of worrying about Dani at the same time. And thinking that we can’t hide out here in your room forever.” And so she reluctantly asks the questions she really doesn’t want to ask, both because she’s afraid of the answers and because she knows it will break the bubble keeping the rest of the world at bay. “Did you find Julie? Or MB?”

Tucker sighs. “No and no. Julie’s house looks like no one has lived there in months. And MB didn’t come home last night. Her dad was there, though. Said she’d gone to a party. Do you know someone named Sidney? Or Cindy?”

Daisy shakes her head. “Gotta be a fake name. MB has to jump through a lot of hoops to keep her dad thinking she’s Little Miss Innocent.”

“Yeah, well…I hope she’s okay, but I also really hope she doesn’t go home.” Tucker begins telling her about his run-in with the white-eyed version of Scott Jenkins.

Just as he reaches the part where the cat sails in through the window, his doorbell rings. They both jump and lie stock-still for a moment. Then, Tucker groans and starts pulling on his pants. He grabs the pistol from the bedside table as the bell rings again. “Stay here, okay?”

She doesn’t argue, mostly because she’s fumbling around in the dark trying to find her own clothes.

“Hang on,” Tucker yells down the stairs. “I’m coming.”

It must be someone Tucker knows, because Daisy hears voices downstairs as she tugs her sweater over her head and runs her fingers through her hair to smooth it. She walks into the hallway and stands at the top of the stairs, trying to figure out who’s there and what they’re saying as she debates whether to stay put. The two of them haven’t really discussed how public they’re going to be with their relationship, and while she really has no issues with the entire world knowing—okay, maybe she’s a tiny bit worried about telling her dad—she doesn’t want to make things difficult for Tucker.

But then she hears him at the foot of the stairs. “Daisy? Can you come down? I think you need to hear this.”

Luke Randall is seated at Tucker’s kitchen table. There’s a half-empty bottle of water in front of him. He looks pretty beaten up. Clothes torn, covered in mud, and maybe blood, too, although she can’t really tell in the dim light from over the stove. What’s more troubling, though, is the look in his eyes. He seems to be on the verge of shock.

She sits down in the chair next to him. “Hey, Luke. You okay?”

“I’ve been better. How about you?”

“I’m okay. But…it’s been a crazy night. What happened to you?”

“Truck went into a ditch, for one thing,” he says. “The rest of it, though…I don’t think you’re gonna believe me.”

“Luke,” Tucker says, “in the past twenty-four hours, I’ve seen the dead come to life, shot at a white-eyed ant the size of an elephant, and watched a vampire cop turn to dust when I staked him. Daisy’s seen some truly weird shit today, too, so…I think you might be surprised what we’d believe.”

Luke draws in a sharp breath through his nose as Tucker speaks, looking back and forth between the two of them. For a minute, Daisy thinks he’s going to burst into tears.

“Then maybe I’m not going crazy.”

“Well, we can’t guarantee that.” Daisy gives him a little smile. “But we can tell you that you’re not the only one heading in that direction. You’ll have company on the drive, if that’s any comfort.”

“You have no idea,” Luke says. “I thought it was just me.”

“We need to compare notes,” Tucker says. “There are some things I haven’t had a chance to tell Daisy yet, and she said earlier that she has a theory about what’s going on, so—”

Daisy nods. “I do. But it might be easier if I get my tablet and book from my house.”

Luke says he needs to clean up anyway. Tucker points him toward the bathroom, then he and Daisy head next door. As soon as they step inside, she realizes someone has been there. The eggs and butter are no longer on the counter. At first her heart leaps at the sight—her dad must be back, because no way would Dani have put the ingredients away. But then she sees the open can of LaCroix, which her dad doesn’t drink, and the small flashlight-and-pepper-spray combo next to it. She’s never seen the flashlight before, but there’s only one other person who might have a key to their house, and she does drink seltzer.

“Julie was here,” she says, glancing around for any other clues. They make a quick run through the house, keeping their eyes firmly averted from the mirror in the second-floor hallway. But nothing else has changed.

Daisy grabs her book and tablet, and they return to Tucker’s place. As they cross the strip of lawn that separates their houses, though, she notices someone walking up the road toward them. Tucker’s hand moves toward his gun and closes around the grip when he realizes the person approaching them is armed.

He pushes Daisy behind him, but she calls out, “Is that you, Ben?”

Tucker keeps his hand on the gun.

“Yeah. I’m looking for Chase. Is he here?”

“No,” Tucker says as Ben steps under the streetlight. “What happened to your face?”

“My old man happened. Sort of. It’s…been a weird night. I guess if Chase isn’t here he must have gone to the preacher’s house. I need to find him, so—”

“Julie was just at our house. I seem to have missed her, but she’s probably looking for me and Dani. She told Dad she’d check in on us, and…” Daisy gives an embarrassed little shrug. “Maybe Chase is with her?”

Tucker motions toward the house. “Why don’t you come on inside? Luke Randall is in there, and we’re going to compare notes. Maybe you can fill us in on what happened with you and Chase. We’ll see if Julie shows back up and then figure out next steps.”

Ben nods and follows them, but Tucker holds up one hand when they reach the porch. “No offense, but I’m going to need to get you to either unload that or leave it outside.”

Reluctantly, Ben unloads the gun and props it up against the side of Tucker’s couch, where Luke is now sitting.

“Oh, man. That looks bad,” Luke says. “I’m not even gonna ask who used your face for a punching bag. But at least you gave him a taste of his own medicine.”

Ben gives Luke an odd look. “Tried to. Chase seems to have picked up the slack after he choked me out. That’s why I’m worried about where he went. What happened to you?”

Luke glances over at Daisy and Tucker, then back at Ben. “I think I killed Carly. But she was more like a zombie when it happened…and she had a whole backup group of zombies, too. Weird stuff has been happening all day. At work, then out at the Pinewood.”

“The diner or the motel?” Tucker, who has pulled over one of the kitchen chairs so that they all have a seat, leans forward.

“Motel.” Luke looks down at the carpet for a moment. “I was meeting someone. Things aren’t good between me and Carly. Never have been, really…”

“Not judging,” Tucker says. “Just tell us what happened.”

“Well, I had a bit of an argument with the person I met there. Partly about Carly and the baby, but…” Luke shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m getting dressed, and they decide to take a shower before heading back home. Then I see this woman with a knife heading into the bathroom. I swear it was like a scene out of—”

“Psycho,” Daisy says. “And let me guess. Both the body and car disappeared. Probably the old woman with the knife, too.”

“Well…the body disappeared. And the woman with the knife. Gotta admit I didn’t even check on the car, though. I was too busy getting the hell out of there. Why? What else happened at the Pinewood?”

“I worked a case there last night,” Tucker says. “A woman was murdered, but when I went back this morning, the place was wiped clean. I sent pictures to the county sheriff, but they think I was being punked…and I kind of doubt they even remember it now. Neil Prescott found the body and called the station to report it. He was pretty shook up at the time, but now he has no memory of it ever happening. Daisy, our resident expert on all things horror movie, described the car from the Hitchcock film, and it matches the one the victim was driving.”

Luke and Ben both chime in at the same time, but Daisy holds up a hand. “Could we go in order? I don’t really care what order, but one at a time. Tell me about your day…or day and a half, I guess, in Tucker’s case. Every detail you can remember. Because I’ve got a theory, and I want to see if your experience fits before I explain it to everyone.”

They agree, although she senses a bit of reluctance on Ben’s part. He keeps glancing out the window, which she totally gets. She’d taken the chair facing the window on purpose, so that she could see if headlights pulled in next door.

For the next twenty minutes, the four of them rehash their own personal living nightmares from Halloween in Haddonwood. Daisy takes notes as they talk, filling in the makeshift chart she’d started before she fell asleep earlier at her house and marking an asterisk next to several points she wants to look up in her Compendium of Horror Classics.

Luke goes first. It seems to Daisy like he wants to get everything off his chest, including the fact that he hates his wife and has had idle fantasies about killing her. Daisy, who could never figure out what Luke saw in Carly anyway—well, aside from the fact that she’s gorgeous—can tell he’s struggling with admitting that, but then he looks over at Tucker.

“That’s the reason I came here, Tuck, instead of going home. I don’t know where Aaliyah is. I don’t even know where Carly is, truth be told, only that I whacked some demon that looked like her upside the head with a giant birdcage, and then she…vanished. I came here to get you to lock me up, because I can’t find the baby, and I still think that’s the best course of action. I’m scared I did something to hurt Aaliyah, too—or that I might. I love that kid, and I wouldn’t hurt her for the world when I’m in my right mind. But even if all of you have gone crazy, too, I’m clearly not in my right mind today.”

“Locking you up might be a bit of a problem,” Tucker says. “I’ll take it from the top, like Daisy asked, but I think you’ll understand why I’m not inclined to lock anyone in the Haddonwood jail by the time I’m done.” He starts with an overview of what happened at the Pinewood, including his bout with the crow, at which point both Luke and Ben jump in to talk about their experience with the bird.

“Mr. Crow has been busy,” Tucker says. “He was also at the library when Barb Starrett killed herself.”

“You said—” Ben begins, but Tucker holds up his hand.

“Barb didn’t stay dead.”

After he explains that bit, he summarizes the events they witnessed at the Hart, his run-in with a white-eyed Scott Jenkins, the orange cat coming to his rescue, and being forced to stake Marty at the jail.

“The problem is, Scott Jenkins seemed normal enough by the time I left his place. So Marty might have eventually been okay, too, and maybe now he won’t be. But either way, I’m not inclined to lock anyone in that jail unless they look back at me with those white eyes.”

Ben snorts. “Good luck with that. My old man’s eyes were that blood-streaked white when he came after me. His punch packed a wallop when he was his normal brown-eyed self, but I’ve never felt anything like his fists tonight. I was pretty sure I had a concussion when I came to. But…I’ll get to that in a minute. Ladies first. What kind of crazy shit have you seen today, Daisy?”

She can’t help but wonder why he’s being so chivalrous. Ben’s a nice enough guy, but he’s not exactly the type to rush ahead and open doors. Well, except for Marybeth. And what she really wants to do right now is grill his ass about exactly where her best friend is. She’s pretty sure he knows more than he let on when they picked him up at the bonfire. But she nods and starts recapping her day.

“Part of my story dovetails with Tucker’s. And Chase’s, too, so I’ll fill in what he told me he saw.”

Ben’s eyes open a little wider at that point.

When she gets to the part about them staring through the window at Martha Yarn’s house, she hesitates. At some point, she will tell Tucker about taking the Xyleva. But it’s not a conversation she wants to have in front of Ben and Luke.

“And that was my insane day in Haddonwood,” she concludes. “Or maybe I should say my insane month. Because I’ve been at the Hart pretty much every day since the third week of September, helping Trent get ready for the opening. And it’s shuttered up tight now, same as it’s been for as long as I can remember. Inches of dust coating everything. Tucker had to kick the boards away in order to get the three of us out. So, you’re up, Ben.”

But a light from outside slashes across the dimly lit living room before he can begin. It’s Julie, pulling into the driveway. Daisy runs to the door and waves to get her attention.

She’s stunned to see how exhausted Julie looks as she gets out of the car. Sure, it’s nearly four in the morning, but Julie doesn’t just look like she’s been up all night. The woman almost looks like she’s in shock, and she’s limping. Not hard, but Daisy suspects she’s been on her feet most of the night.

“What happened?” Daisy asks, running toward her. Tucker follows, and they help Julie into the house.

“Have you seen Chase?” Ben asks before she’s even through the door.

Julie shakes her head as she sinks into a chair. “Not since I left the theater. Although…” She looks around at the others. “I did think I saw him. But it was an illusion. I don’t know how, but… Jesus, I think I’m going crazy.”

“Was it vampires?” Tucker asks. “Or zombies? Whatever you’ve seen, Reverend Kennedy, we’re not going to question your sanity. First, you’ll be glad to know that Barb Starrett is alive.”

Julie’s mouth drops. “But…she can’t be. We saw her. You and me and Chase—”

“Yeah,” Ben says. “Not trying to be rude, but could we get back to Chase? You said you think you saw him?”

“No. I saw something that I thought was him, but it was just a cruel joke.”

Ben gets a temporary reprieve from telling his side of the story, as Julie relays her terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Her eyes shoot toward Daisy as she begins talking about finding the car on the side of the road, clearly not wanting to say what Daisy already suspects based on the bogus film clip she saw at the Hart. Even though she really doesn’t want to speak the words, Daisy takes pity on her.

“It was Dad’s car, right? I sort of know that already.”

“How?” Julie asks.

“Long story with many parts,” Daisy says, looking around at the others. “We’ll fill you in when you finish. But just to be clear, I really do think Dad is okay, Julie. I think he’s outside Haddonwood, but he’s okay. Because…” Because I’m unwilling to admit any other possibility, she thinks. But since she can’t bring herself to say those words, she just leaves it hanging.

Julie’s story gets weirder after that, and eventually, everyone is talking over each other. Daisy starts to lose track of things she needs to jot down. Luke jumps in to confirm Julie’s comment about the stars disappearing. Tucker jumps in when Julie says she thinks Scott Jenkins is dead to tell her he’s not exactly dead.

When he mentions the orange cat again, something that kind of nagged at Daisy earlier hits her like a sledgehammer.

“There are no pets.” Everyone turns to look at her.

“What?” Tucker says. “No pets?”

“Do any of you have a cat? A dog? Or even a frickin’ goldfish?” They all stare back blankly, so she pushes the point. “Do any of you know anyone with a pet? Because we all know that Martha Yarn should have had a whole houseful of cats. And the only animal I’ve seen, aside from birds, is the same orange cat that several of us have seen. It’s been almost as many places as that crow.”

“I’m pretty sure I saw the orange cat you mentioned at MB’s house earlier today,” Ben says. “But…yeah. You’re right. I don’t know a single person with a pet. I do remember having a dog, back before my old man started drinking so heavily. Her name was Josie, but…”

“Somebody forgot to write them into the script,” Luke says. “We’re in a damn horror movie, and someone forgot to give us pets. I don’t know how we wound up inside a movie—”

“No. Not a movie. A game.” Daisy reaches over to pull the bandage from Tucker’s forehead.

Tucker touches the spot. “Why’d you take it off? Is it…bleeding again?”

“Is what bleeding?” Ben asks.

“Exactly,” Daisy says. “That’s where the crow attacked him this morning. It was deep enough that I was worried he might need a stitch, but as you can see, it’s pretty much healed.”

She holds her hands up, and they all stare at the faint pink lines that crisscross her palms. “These were bleeding like crazy a couple of hours ago. I took the gauze off to check them around midnight when I realized they weren’t hurting anymore.”

Tucker raises his eyebrows. “Wow. I’d forgotten all about the bandages with everything else going on.”

She colors slightly. He would have definitely noticed the bandages if she’d been wearing them earlier, given the fact that her hands had traveled pretty much the entire length and breadth of his body.

“We’re in a game,” she says. “I think Luke’s point is dead-on that someone forgot to write pets into the script, except the script isn’t for a movie. I don’t know if we get extra lives—”

“Barb Starrett apparently did,” Julie says.

“True,” Daisy admits, “although I think it would be risky to assume that’s the case across the board. Someone does seem to have programmed in healing points, though.”

“A game,” Luke says softly. “Engage the dragon. Game over. You die.”

Except for Daisy, all heads whip toward Luke.

“What did you say?” Ben asks.

“Just something that’s been running through my head for a while.”

“Barb Starrett said that at the library,” Tucker says. “Right before she shot herself.”

“Hey, I don’t know anything about that,” Luke says quickly.

“No one’s blaming you,” Julie notes. “Barb said a lot of stuff. She mentioned Daisy. Chase. The pumpkin. The stupid scarecrow from my nightmares. Other things, too. I can’t remember it all. It sounded like nonsense, but I’m wondering now if it wasn’t more of a data dump.”

Everyone is silent for a moment, then Luke says, “But, yeah. Daisy’s right. This feels more like a game. Maybe that’s why I kept thinking that phrase, but every time my head would try to wrap itself around the idea that something was off about this place… ” Luke shakes his head.

“I know what you mean,” Daisy says. “Something kept pushing me away from admitting to myself what was going on. It’s like my brain would reset every time it tried to go there.” She turns to Tucker. “Chase said it was happening to him, too, didn’t he? When you were talking to him in the living room?”

“Yeah. It sounds like all of us have been having weird memory lapses.”

This feels like a separate category to Daisy. Less like a memory lapse and more like a purposeful erasure. But she nods. “Whatever it is, though, it doesn’t seem to be working very effectively right now. I mean, we’re all here, sharing information.”

Ben pulls a folded envelope from his pocket. “If we’re in a game and something—or someone—can mess with our thoughts, what does that make us? Leaving aside everyone else in town. I’m just talking about those of us in this room right now.” He taps the back of the envelope. “I’ve got a whole list here of things that just plain cannot be real. But they happened. So…I think I believe the game part. But I guess what I’m asking is whether someone inside a game can still be human?”

There’s a long silence as everyone considers this point.

“We’re human over there,” Luke says finally. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got memories that don’t fit. Different town. Time passing differently. An entirely different marriage, different job. Aali’s there, but she’s older.” He looks around at the others. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s been dealing with two sets of memories. Because even though I kept telling myself that other place was just a fantasy, I’d be a whole lot happier if this was the fantasy and we could find a way to get back to wherever there is.”

Daisy doesn’t respond, but the visions she’s had are definitely on her mind. Whatever that other place is, it doesn’t really seem like a better place to her. She remembers being strapped down. And feeling sad. A deep, overwhelming sadness and loss, like she felt right after her mom died. When Luke’s eyes fall on her, she opens her mouth to speak, not sure if she’s going to tell the truth or lie.

But Ben speaks first. “Chase has been telling me that this place isn’t real. That there’s some other reality where I’m his dad, which…sounds weird, I know. Apparently, we live near Knoxville.”

“Yeah,” Daisy says, and she fills him in on what Chase told them in the car. “He seemed pretty adamant that none of this is real. I think maybe he has a better idea of what’s going on than any of us.”

Ben looks a bit ill at that comment. “I’ve…got some jumbled memories, too. Things, people, that don’t quite fit. What about the rest of you?”

Julie shrugs. “I remember being the high school principal. But that was here. In Haddonwood, not somewhere else. And there were some very unreal aspects to those memories.”

Tucker looks over at Daisy, holding her gaze for a moment. “There have been a few times where I had some pretty vivid—well, they seem like memories, but I know they never happened. Nothing that’s really clear, though. It’s just flashes.”

He seems to be waiting for Daisy to add something, but she can’t. Not in front of everyone else. So she looks down at her notes and then at Ben. “We still haven’t heard your story. And maybe you should just jump to the part where you tell us where the hell MB is. Because I don’t think you were being honest with us last night.”

Ben gives her a look that’s equal parts hurt and anger. And even though what she said was true, she feels a wave of remorse for turning on him like that, especially since it was partly because she wanted to change the subject.

“I don’t…I don’t know, okay?” Ben says, looking like he’s about to cry. “Yeah. She went with me. Up to the Grimshaw house. She was all gung-ho about going to a haunted house, but then she just disappeared. And I don’t mean she ran away. I watched her simply…vanish. One second she’s holding that damn pumpkin and the next it’s shattered on the ground and she’s just gone.”

Ben tells the rest of his story then, and by the end, he is in tears. “I don’t know where MB is. And Chase… I’d be dead if he hadn’t stepped in. I’ve spent so much time trying to protect him, and now he’s the one who had to kill the bastard. I need to go. I need to look for him.”

“You’re right,” Tucker says. “And we’ll help you look for him. For Luke’s daughter, too. But we need a plan. If this is a game, we need to figure out how to win it. Or at the very least, how to quit.”

Daisy nods. “I was thinking about all of this earlier. Luke’s comment about horror movies wasn’t entirely wrong—he had the genre correct. I’ve tallied up dozens of different things that are from films listed in that book on the coffee table. The magnets on Martha’s fridge are one example. The statue at the bonfire is from The Wicker Man, where this cult used the thing for human sacrifices.”

“That bitch from Psycho at the Pinewood is another,” Luke adds.

“And that graveyard you described a minute ago,” Tucker says. “That’s straight out of Pet Sematary. Although I’m not sure why we’d need one in Haddonwood, given the lack of pets.”

“‘The Lottery,’” Ben says. “That’s horror, right? The Shirley Jackson story.”

Julie nods, leaning forward. “Zombie cheerleaders. I don’t recall the name of the film, but I definitely remember seeing them on a movie poster from a long time ago. Oh, I didn’t get to that part yet, did I?” She stops as they hear a car pulling in next door.

But Daisy is already up. She knows who it is without even looking. Tucker probably does, too. They’ve both heard those tires come to a squealing stop in the driveway of the house next door pretty much every day since Dani Gray learned to drive.

Two

TUCKER

Tucker watches as Dani sinks down onto the couch between Ben and Luke. “We had to walk all the way to Chad’s house and get a can of Fix-a-Flat from his dad’s garage and then walk all the way back to the car. And the tire is already half flat again. What a sucky Halloween.”

It’s hard for anyone to disagree on that final point, but Tucker’s bullshit detector is flashing code red. Dani is lying. He’s certain of it.

“I called you,” Dani says to Daisy. “Over and over. Why didn’t you answer?”

Daisy’s reaction is a verbatim repeat of the scene in the car when Dani called to apologize earlier. She’s so relieved to see that Dani’s okay that she’s almost giddy, and she immediately launches into an explanation about the phones being out.

Daisy’s emotions are getting in the way of clear thinking. Tucker knows she’s too smart for Dani’s story to hold water, so the only logical conclusion is that she must desperately want to believe. Otherwise, she’d have questions.

Because Tucker sure as hell has questions. For one thing, he wants to ask why Dani had to walk back to the car from Chad’s house. Walking to his house, okay. That might make sense if they’d actually had a flat. But he’s pretty sure Chad’s parents have a car—two, in fact. Chad drives one of them around most weekends, if he hasn’t done something to piss his mom off during the week. Why wouldn’t they take one of those cars and drive back to fix Dani’s tire?

Also, Tucker knows Bill Gray. Dani has a spare tire in her car, and her father taught both girls how to change a tire before he let them get behind the wheel.

But he suspects that asking Dani those questions won’t win him brownie points with Daisy. And even more importantly, he doesn’t want to worry her. Julie finding Bill’s car at the edge of town is troubling, especially after that horrible film clip on the scream reel at the Hart. That has to be eating away at her, and he doesn’t want to make things worse.

All of this would be easier, though, if Daisy wasn’t inclined to automatically assume the best-case scenario when it comes to her sister. Because if Tucker was forced to bet, he’d wager not just that Dani Gray is lying, but that Dani Gray is not real. She’s an NPC. He could pull out his pistol and shoot her, and she’d show back up tomorrow saying it was just a flesh wound. Or talking in fucking iambic pentameter.

Not that he would ever do that. Even if she wasn’t Daisy’s sister, even if she is a non-player character, whatever the hell that means in this context. He’s lived next door to her forever, and while he considers her flaky and a little mean-spirited, he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

But that doesn’t mean he trusts her.

What he finds surprising is that Julie Kennedy appears to be thinking the same thing. She hasn’t taken her eyes off Dani since the girl walked into the house. At first, Julie seemed shocked to see her, but gradually that shock started looking more like suspicion. Ben and Luke seem a little wary, too, which means that everyone except Daisy isn’t entirely buying Dani’s song-and-dance routine.

“So,” Dani says, “have any of you figured out what in holy hell—sorry, Julie—is going on in this place? The Hart is completely closed down. Chad and three other people told me that Aric Conner’s grandma, the librarian, killed herself, but Aric was at the bonfire like nothing happened, and Chad’s saying now he never told me that. He got all mad like I was the one making things up. And I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but the sky is weird—the moon and stars are in one little cluster. Oh…and you guys saw that giant stickman at the bonfire, right?”

“Yeah,” Daisy says. “There’s no way anyone from the school built that. It would have taken weeks. We were comparing notes on all of this before you got here. This is going to sound truly insane…but we think we’re stuck in a game.”

Dani stares at her for a long moment, and then rolls her eyes. “You’re right. That sounds truly insane.” She glances at Ben to her left and Luke to her right. “Although I will say that these two had better hope they’re in a game, preferably one that lets them push the reset button on their love lives. Because otherwise they are so screwed. Marybeth says you abandoned her up at the Grimshaw place. She came down the hill a few minutes after you guys left the bonfire, crying her eyes out. Aric drove her home.”

Ben is speechless. He manages to get out a strangled noise before Dani turns to Luke. “And as for you, I hope you’ve got money saved up for a divorce lawyer. Carly was at the party last night with some guy I’ve never seen before. He was hot, too, and she was hanging all over him.”

“I don’t care,” Luke says. “What about the baby? Was Aali with her?”

Dani looks a little perplexed. “No. At least, I didn’t see a baby. And Carly wasn’t dressed like someone out with a kid. She had on this red dress cut down to here—”

“I don’t give a damn what she was wearing! What were they driving? What time did they leave?”

Dani shrinks away a bit at Luke’s intensity. “How would I know? I only saw her for a minute.”

For the first time since Dani walked in, Tucker sees a whisper of doubt in Daisy’s eyes. They just watched Ben in tears, telling them about MB disappearing, and Luke definitely wasn’t lying when he told them about Carly. Everything both of them said happened was batshit crazy, but they were in a town filled to the brim with batshit crazy right now. What Ben and Luke told them felt genuine—a lot more genuine than Dani’s comments just now.

Daisy’s frown only lasts a moment, though, and then she seems to shake it off.

Julie, who has been watching quietly, stands up, careful not to put too much weight on her ankle. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving. There should be enough eggs and bread at Bill’s house for us to feed everyone if we all move next door. Then we can figure out a…” She shrugs. “A game plan, I guess.”

“I don’t have time for brunch,” Ben says. “We need to—”

“I’m not talking about fucking brunch!” Julie snaps, surprising everyone. “I’m talking about putting fuel into your body so that you can think clearly. A jolt of caffeine wouldn’t hurt either, since I doubt any of us has slept. You going off half-cocked without any idea of what we’re facing isn’t going to help Chase. Same goes for Luke and his baby. Whatever the nature of this game we’re in, our odds of helping those children—and ourselves—are better if we work together.”

“She’s right,” Dani says. “It’s not brunch if you eat if before dawn. I’m not even sure you can call it breakfast.”

Julie gives Dani a look that Tucker can’t interpret, then says, “That’s not at all what I meant, but I guess it’s a valid point. Anyway, if you guys want to take off on your own, without support, without information, there’s the door. But me? I’m going to go scramble some eggs.”

A contrary idea thumps about inside Tucker’s head. If this is a game, if they aren’t actually living, breathing people—something every rational part of his mind wants to reject—then food probably isn’t relevant.

His stomach, however, begs to differ. It growled at the mere mention of breakfast.

“Let’s go, then,” he says. “The best I can offer is Cheerios, and you’d have to soak them down with beer or water.”

Ten minutes later, the coffee is brewed, Julie is scrambling eggs, and Dani is stacking the last few slices of toast onto a plate. Daisy pulls six mugs from the cabinet next to the stove and reaches for the coffee pot.

Tucker puts his hands on her shoulders. “I can do that. Go get your notes together so we can work while we eat.”

Daisy gives him a smile. “Thank you. I’ve got the butter and jelly,” she tells Dani. “Just bring the toast.”

Tucker fills the mugs, and as soon as Daisy and her sister are out of earshot, he leans over to whisper to Julie. “What’s up with Dani?”

He sees hesitation on Julie’s face. She glances toward the dining room and then back down at the eggs she’s stirring.

“You don’t think she’s real, do you?”

Julie ignores him as she searches through the cabinet to find a bowl for the eggs. “I don’t know anything for certain,” she says softly, and he realizes her search for the bowl had been, at least in part, to put a cabinet door between their faces and Dani’s line of sight. “Something happened at the school. A lot like what Ben said about Scott’s daughter. I thought the girl who was killed was Dani, but—”

He mouths the word shh when Daisy approaches and says, “Hey. Just looking for the sugar. Is it on the table, or…?”

“Table,” Daisy says, giving Julie an odd look. “I was coming to grab the milk.”

They carry the eggs and coffee into the dining room, and for a few minutes, the only sounds at the table are of food being wolfed down.

When the chewing slows, Daisy grabs her tablet from beneath her chair. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I know horror movies. And books. Tucker and Dani can attest to that.”

“Yep,” Dani confirms around a bite of toast she’s spread with peanut butter and a handful of chocolate chips from the bag on the counter. “My sister is a walking encyclopedia of blood and gore.”

“But…” Daisy continues, “I’m not an expert on gaming. Dani and I used to play—” She cuts herself off, frowning, and then goes on. “We used to play a few console games when we were little. And something online called Club Penguin. But that’s it. What about the rest of you?”

Ben shakes his head. “I’ve played a few first-person shooters over at Chad’s place.”

“Overwatch,” Dani says, holding her hand up to high-five him across the table.

He leaves her hanging for a second and then returns it. “Yeah, once or twice. Others, too. I never had much time for it, to be honest.”

“Me, either,” Tucker says. “Played a bit of World of Warcraft back in high school. The past few years, though, if I play anything, it’s solitaire on my phone.”

“Well, we do know a few things,” Luke says. “First, we can assume it’s multiplayer. Otherwise, what’s the point of this meeting, right? I’m thinking it’s not massive multiplayer, because even though we’ve got a ton of NPCs running around, we’ve only encountered a handful who seem to be real. It might be a role-playing game, although if so, I think it has to be random character assignment. Because if I’d been given choices, there’s no way in hell I’d be married to Carly and working at the plastics factory.”

“Sounds like you’ve played a bit,” Julie says.

“Some. But…it does kind of shape how you think. Like I said before, I tend to make some parts of my life into a game. Makes it easier to get through the day.”

Julie nods. “Rewarding yourself for hitting certain objectives.”

“I guess. Or just avoiding having to think about my failing marriage and my boring-ass job.”

“Stress avoidance is a reward, too,” Julie says. “And I think that leads us to one of the things we need to figure out about this game. Is it one with rewards? Are there quests and side-quests? Key goals and objectives? Or is it more like The Sims?”

Daisy looks a little amused. “Do you play?”

“Occasionally,” Julie says. “I like Skyrim. A few others. And I played Dungeons and Dragons with a group of friends back in the day. But the notion that we exist inside a simulation, and that there might be multiple simulations going on at the same time, is a theological debate. Maybe God is just a dungeon master or an alien with an infinite number of games playing simultaneously. That’s not the kind of speculation the folks in my congregation would approve of. I’m sure Scott Jenkins would even call it heresy. But it’s a good mental exercise to think about things like free will—” She stops, giving them a nervous smile, and Tucker notices that her eyes linger for a moment on Dani. “Sorry. I tend to go off on tangents when I’m tired. To get back to the point, though, I think we have to assume that this is a game with objectives and end goals.”

“Why?” Ben frowns. “Why do we have to assume that?”

“Because otherwise, what’s the point?” Luke says. “It’s the same as with real life. If there’s no objective, no purpose, we might as well just end it. Assuming the game lets us end it. Maybe we’re stuck in purgatory or hell, or whatever. And yeah, I can’t believe I’m the one saying that instead of the Reverend. I’m barely even religious.”

“Not all preachers believe in heaven and hell,” Julie says, “let alone purgatory.”

“No heaven or hell?” Dani rolls her eyes. “Where’s the fun in that? It’s like a season of Survivor where no one gets voted off the island.”

Tucker can tell something about that comment bothers Daisy. She gives her sister an annoyed look and then says, “We heal faster than normal, or at least some of us do. There seems to be some evidence, based on Barb Starrett, that at least the not-real characters can be resurrected. So maybe those are rewards. Because as Luke said, if there are no goals, no way to win, no way to break free, what’s the point? We’d just be…prisoners. I think we need to assume we’re in a game with a finish line.

“Or maybe an escape hatch,” Tucker says. “We haven’t checked all of the roads. There could be a physical way out of here, and if so, our goal should be finding it. But we also need to find Chase and Luke’s baby.”

“And…we need to at least check on Marybeth,” Daisy adds. “I know what you said, Ben, but…”

“You think I want MB to be…gone?” Ben asks angrily. “Or not real? If Dani says she came down to the bonfire, then we need to check. But I know what I saw. And either way, my first priority is—”

“Chase,” Tucker says. “Absolutely. So, we have three objectives. First, look for a way out of town. There are only a few roads leading out, even if you count dirt and gravel. I’ve got detailed town maps, the paper kind, in my cruiser, so I can handle that. Second, find Chase and Aali. We’ll all be on the lookout, obviously, but that clearly needs to fall mostly to Luke and Ben, since you’ll have a better idea where to look. You’re going to need a vehicle, though—”

Luke cuts him off. “Carly’s car is at my place. I want to check there again anyway, so me and Ben can walk over and get it once we’re done here.”

Tucker nods. “And finally, we need to check on MB, although I’d change that to a general check through the town. Two hours ago, we had no idea that Luke knew about any of this. There could be others. I think we should split into three groups.”

Daisy’s expression grows uneasy, but whatever she was about to say is cut off by Dani’s dramatic sigh. “Which means I’m stuck with the Rev. No offense.”

“Not necessarily.” Daisy looks over at Tucker. “I guess Julie could go with you, and I’ll—”

“Oh, puh-lease.” Dani gives her sister a sly grin. “You and Tucker have that whole afterglow thing going on. It was cute for a little while, but I’m about maxed out on adorable. Julie and I will be fine.”

Daisy’s face turns a deep shade of pink, and Tucker feels a blush creeping up his own neck. He could cheerfully throttle Dani right now. On the other hand, the comment is actually more like Dani Gray than most of what she’s said since she came through the door.

“We’ll be fine,” Julie echoes, holding Dani’s gaze. “It will give us a chance to talk.”

The first rays of sunlight are peeking in the windows as they pile the dishes into the sink. Daisy glances up at the clock over the stove. “Five twenty? Is that correct?”

Julie confirms the time on her watch and says, “Yeah. Looks like the sun is a bit ahead of schedule.”

“Definitely.” Luke looks out the window over the kitchen door. “I usually get up around this time. It’s still dark until about six this time of year.”

He opens the door and steps outside. Tucker follows. The sun isn’t quite above the horizon yet, but the lower half of the sky is now a deep blue with a streak of pinkish orange just above the rows of corn.

The early arrival of the sun isn’t the oddest thing in the sky, however. Even more strange is the shifting nature of the light. A black porous cloud hangs directly above them, with small chunks of color shifting in and out of focus.

It takes Tucker a moment to realize it’s not an actual cloud. “Those are…birds,” he says.

Luke looks up. “Holy fuck. I’ve never seen that many.”

The others join them on the deck. Daisy tugs on Tucker’s arm and nods to the west, away from the rising sun. While they’re harder to see against the darker backdrop, birds cover that part of the sky as well. He turns slowly to get the full view. The birds hover, thousands of them, for as far as he can see.

“I guess the marquee at the Hart wasn’t lying,” Daisy says.

Ben leans back against the deck railing. “What’s really weird is that they look almost…peaceful. It’s kind of hypnotic.”

“Not if you watch horror movies,” Daisy says. “It’s not just The Birds, either. I keep remembering that scene from The Dark Half. Sparrows, not crows, but they ripped the bad guy to pieces and carried him off to hell.”

“Psychopomps.” Julie laughs softly at their questioning looks. “Many cultures have legends about beings that carry souls to the afterlife. They’re called psychopomps—soul guides. Swarms of birds are fairly common. They don’t generally rip the soul to shreds in the legends, but…I don’t think we can assume these birds are friendly, even if they look peaceful right now. Ben and Luke might want to take Dani’s car instead of walking.”

Dani pulls the keys from her pocket and holds them out. “Good luck. Like I said, that tire is crap. You may end up walking anyway.”

The six of them go back through the house and out the front door, moving slowly and watching the skies as they approach the vehicles. A trio of birds dips down lazily toward Ben as he walks over to grab his gun from Tucker’s house, but it’s less an attack than a casual taunt. They caw merrily when he ducks and then head back up to join the rest of the flock.

Daisy is walking ahead with Dani, so Tucker hangs back for a moment to speak with Julie.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” he asks, nodding toward Dani.

Julie nods. “Regardless of how I may feel about Scott Jenkins, Marybeth is a member of my congregation, too. I need to check. As for Dani, it’s possible that she’s real or at least a friendly. And if not…” Julie tips her hand toward him, and he sees the little flashlight-pepper-spray combo that Daisy had noted on the counter earlier. “Just hope it works on NPCs.”

Tucker slides into the car. Daisy is waiting on the passenger side, watching miserably as the other cars pull away from the curb.

“You okay?” he asks.

Daisy nods. “Yeah. But I can’t shake the feeling that this is a mistake. Splitting up, I mean.”

“Divide and conquer, right?”

“Maybe. But it never seems to work that way in the movies, does it?”

Three

LUKE

Luke glances uneasily at the black cloud of crows circling above the Sorento. Twice now, when he’s slowed down to make a turn, one of them has broken from the flock to divebomb the tires.

“Maybe we should head up to the Grimshaw place first.” Ben’s eyes have been fixed on the old house since they got in the car. “You said you already checked your place. And…Chase is up there. I know he is.”

“This piece of junk won’t make it up that hill, Ben. It doesn’t even have all-wheel drive. We’ll be lucky if Carly’s Acura makes it.”

Another feathery black bomb zips down from the sky. This one, however, miscalculates. There’s a thud and a tiny bump as the Sorento’s tires flatten the creature.

“Good,” Luke says. “Any of you other fuckers in the mood to play kamikaze?”

He can see the downed crow in the rearview mirror. Was it the same bird who sat on his deck the previous morning? The odds seem slim given that there are thousands of birds circling the town.

This time yesterday, he had been clocking in at the plastics plant, pushing through the tall metal turnstile. Listening to the officious little beep and whirr of the bars as the next person followed him inside. Looking forward to seeing Kyle later. Dreading the confrontation with Carly. Aside from that, it had started out as an ordinary fun-filled day of shoving little bits of plastic into the chute.

Things got weird fast, though. Anytime he thinks about work, all he can see is the bloody handprint on the inside of the chute. A woman’s handprint. One long streak, as if the hand had been struggling to gain purchase on the smooth metal surface. And then the print was gone.

By the time he left the factory around two, he had almost certainly lost his job. Worse yet, he was half convinced that the handprint (now you see it, now you don’t) belonged to Carly. He’d killed her the night before and disposed of the body at the factory.

And if he could do something like that, maybe he’d killed the baby, too.

Never mind that he doesn’t have a key to get into the factory after hours. Never mind that both Carly and Aaliyah were alive and well when he left for work.

By the time he met Kyle at the Pinewood, he’d managed to convince himself that it had just been stress. That he was only a little bit crazy. Then that horror movie reject appeared in the hotel room with a butcher knife, and it was Kyle bleeding out in the shower (now you see him, now you don’t). Only now, he’s pretty sure Kyle was never there at all. He’d left the Pinewood in such a panic that he wound up crashing his truck. And the thing he regrets most about that is that his guitar was in the truck, quite possibly wrecked. Right now, that guitar seems like the closest link he has to that life he keeps getting glimpses of. The one where he and Kyle are together and raising Aali. The one where he’s on the verge of being able to make a living with that guitar, instead of shoving chunks of plastic down a chute for ten dollars an hour.

He’d capped off the previous night by hitting his zombie ex-girlfriend in the head with a freakin’ bird cage.

Wife, dumbass. She’s your wife. Was your wife.

But ex-girlfriend still feels correct. Maybe that’s what she is in this other world. Either way, he’d bashed in the head of someone or something in that graveyard. And he’d had the odd sensation of watching someone do the same to Ralph Rey, at almost the exact same moment. Not with a birdcage, but with a baseball bat. He’d assumed it was Ben, but…

“So…Chase was the one who took Ralph out?” Luke broaches the subject tentatively, knowing it’s probably a sore spot with Ben.

And he’s right. Ben gives him a sour look and then stares back out the window. “Yeah. Or at least I assume he was. Son of a bitch knocked me unconscious. Last thing I remember was taking a second punch to the head. When I woke up, Ralph was dead, and Chase was missing. So I sure as hell hope Chase took him out, because otherwise…” Ben turns to look at him. “He asked about you. Chase, I mean. A couple of minutes before all the insanity with the bird started. Said he heard you saying something about a dragon.”

“Yeah,” Luke says. “I think I heard him, too. Maybe another one of those glitches. One second, I was in a weird graveyard running from that Carly thing. Next thing I know, it’s like I’m in your trailer, with my hands wrapped about a baseball bat. Only they’re not my hands…I thought it was you, but come to think of it, the hands were kind of small. And then I’m back in the graveyard, swinging a birdcage instead of a bat. Would rather have had the bat, to be honest, but the birdcage did the trick.”

He shudders, remembering the sound when the cage hit Carly’s face. But there hadn’t been any blood. She just poofed out. Vanished.

Another bird dips down from the black cloud. Luke swerves slightly to avoid it and then quickly pulls the car back into his lane. He’s not sure why he bothers. They haven’t encountered a single car—or a single person, living or dead or undead—since they left Tucker’s house.

Is this what the end of the world looks like? Most of the houses are empty, more like facades than actual places where people live. They have an almost two-dimensional feel. Luke looked back in the mirror once, right after they passed the Weavers’ house, and the building disappeared for a second before grudgingly popping back into view.

There are some odd details, though, like the trash bag fluttering across the road up ahead. It’s one of those pumpkin-shaped bags people use to hold dead leaves in until the truck picks them up. This one, which seems to have lost its leaves, snags itself on a fallen branch at the edge of the road and billows out like an orange flag.

His memories have that same two-dimensional quality. It’s like there’s all this stuff he’s supposed to know about living in Haddonwood, and he does know it, but only in the vaguest sense. He knows he was on the football team when he was in high school. Basketball, too. Not the best on the team in either sport, but he was more interested in them than he had been in his classes. He has a very vague memory of a few games. Carly cheering on the sidelines. And he knows he dated two girls regularly before Carly…but he couldn’t tell you their names if someone held his feet to a blowtorch.

Luke is pretty sure he grew up in a place like this town. Some parts of it feel right. A trailer park in a small town. Small family. And he does get the sense he knew Ben, which has him wondering if maybe they’re connected over there. On this other side that all of them—well, all except for the preacher—seem to remember.

He glances at Ben, wondering what he’s thinking. Pretty sure that it has something to do with that goddamn house up on the hill. But apparently Ben’s thoughts were on pretty much the same path as his own, because he says, “We used to ride bikes out this way. Remember?”

“Kind of,” Luke says, pulling up one of those tissue-thin memories. “But I don’t think it was…here.”

Ben gives him a questioning look. “Not here? Maybe you’re right. Might have been on the other side of town. Maybe I rode down this way with my brother.”

“No, I mean not here. Some other damn universe, but not here.”

Thinking about all of this makes Luke’s head throb, and it doesn’t help that Ben keeps…hell, he doesn’t even know what to call it. Relapsing, maybe? One minute, he’s talking about Chase like he’s his brother. The next, he’s saying the kid is his son. Which would normally inspire Luke to make a joke about redneck family trees, but the guy is serious.

And what’s doubly weird is that he’s pretty sure Ben is right. Chase isn’t his brother in that other place. Just inside this fucked-up game.

“If everything is so great in this other reality you guys keep talking about, why does anything that happens here even matter? What if we’re just supposed to let things play out? What if we’re just supposed to do…nothing?” Ben asks.

Luke frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, if all of this really is a game…some fill-in-the-blank horror story where we don’t even really get to choose our own adventure, then does it really matter if you find Aali? You said she’s older over there. I’m guessing that means you are, too. I’m apparently middle-aged, with a twelve-year-old kid. So does it really matter if I find Chase here? Or if you find Aali? We don’t even know if they’re real. Hell, we don’t even know if we’re real.”

Luke pictures his daughter’s face as he saw her yesterday morning, her dark eyes sparkling up at him from her crib.

And then he gets a flash from that other life.

He’s in Kyle’s apartment—no, their apartment. It’s not a party, really. Just a few friends on a Sunday evening. And yeah, they’re more Kyle’s friends than his, but then Kyle is the social one.

He’s playing his guitar, and no one’s really listening, but that’s okay. Luke is only half listening to their conversation, so it evens out, and he doesn’t mind being their background music. They’re engaged in one of their philosophical debates, tossing around questions that have no answers, about the nature of life, the nature of God, other realities. Someone mentions an article she read suggesting everything on earth is just a highly advanced computer simulation. Someone else laughs and says whoever’s running the thing must have taken a bathroom break and let his kid take over. Or maybe his dog.

Which is funny, but then one guy says if that’s true, he hopes he never finds out. And a few others chime in and agree. What would be the point of going on if nothing was real?

Kyle shakes his head, though. “I don’t think it would change anything for most people. Sure, it would be a shock at first, but then they’d just keep on playing the game. Living their lives. Taking care of the people they loved and finding whatever joy they could in living each day. Like people always do. It would be real to them as long as they were with the ones they loved.”

Luke looks up from the guitar. Smiles over at Kyle and the little girl curled up, sound asleep, with her head in his lap.

“That’s bullshit,” he says to Ben. “If we do nothing, we might as well just grab that gun from the backseat and blow our brains out. It’s the same sort of cowardice.”

Ben bristles at the word cowardice. Luke kind of expected he would, and he doesn’t really want to piss him off, so he shifts to the other point. The reason he’s not willing to just sit it out. “Aali is real. In here. Because she’s real to me. And out there, she’s real to both me and Kyle.”

“Who’s Kyle?”

Luke feels like an ice cube has just slipped down his throat and into his stomach. This is the hardest part, he thinks. Just say it.

“He’s a law student. We met in Atlanta.”

“You mean, here in the game? Or out…there?”

“Here. There. Both, I guess?” He sighs. “I wasn’t quite honest about what happened at the Pinewood. I was there with Kyle. He’s the one who vanished. I think maybe we’re married in the other reality.”

There’s a long pause, and then Ben says, “Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it?”

“Well, yeah. What else do you want me to say?”

“Don’t know. I thought you might be shocked. Disgusted, maybe. Or hell, at least surprised.”

“To be honest, I thought you were at least bisexual. That’s one reason I was surprised when you wound up with Carly. Didn’t seem like a good fit to me.”

Luke feels himself tense up. What had he done wrong? What had given him away? But he’s not sure why it even matters.

“Well, you were right about me and Carly. In more ways than one.”

“So…you made the same mistake out there, too? With Carly, I mean.”

Luke shrugs. “I must have if Aaliyah exists. Only…like I said, she’s older. And I’m pretty sure she was with me and Kyle, so maybe Dani was right. Maybe Carly found someone else over there, too. Someone who didn’t want to be saddled with a kid.”

That feels mostly right to Luke, but also a little off. Like his memory is purposefully leaving out some piece of the puzzle. But he doesn’t have time to ponder it, because they’re turning into his driveway. And looking at the house at the end of the drive, he’d rather be pretty much anywhere else.

He’s already looked here for Aali. As soon as his boss kicked him out, he headed home to find them gone. And the house wasn’t simply empty. It had that stale smell a place gets when it hasn’t been lived in for a while.

“Come on,” Ben says when Luke seems to hesitate. “Might as well get this over with.”

“I don’t think they’ve come back,” Luke says. “The place is dark. Carly never turns out a goddamn light.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe they’re not here. But we need Carly’s car, so we need her keys. Your truck isn’t going to roll itself out of the ditch, and mine apparently vanished into thin air.”

Luke knows Ben is right. Hell, he’s pretty much repeating his own words back at him. But he’s still on edge.

The wind whistles across the yard, sending a cluster of leaves scurrying across the gravel drive. Off in the distance, Luke sees the forest, and he’s struck by the fact that most of the trees are bare. Yesterday, as he sat on the deck looking out at those same woods, the leaves had just turned to orange. Someone must have hit fast-forward, because it looks more like the end of November than the beginning.

He pulls the Sorento well past the tree where the white-eyed crow was hiding yesterday. The crow had dive-bombed him, ripping his shirt. He’s relieved to see there are no birds perched on his roof, even if there are thousands of the damn things circling above.

Ben grabs his rifle from the backseat, and they head toward the house. Luke is unnerved to see that the front door is ajar. He’s positive he locked up when he left to meet Kyle the night before. He nudges the door open a bit more with his foot and steps inside. Nothing happens when he flicks the light switch, so he and Ben stand in the living room silently for a moment, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the dark.

“Carly’s keys are probably on the kitchen counter,” Luke says. “Go ahead and grab them if you want. But I have to check upstairs first. Nobody’s here. I know that. But…I’ve gotta check.”

“Sure,” Ben says. “Let’s go.”

They creep upstairs and pause on the landing. Luke’s bedroom door is straight ahead. The room is empty and, unlike yesterday, impossibly neat. The bed is made. All of the clothing on the floor is gone.

The door to Aali’s room is shut. That’s weird, because he’s positive it was open before. In fact, it’s always open. There are few things in life that he and Carly agree on when it comes to the baby, but neither of them likes closing that door.

“Something wrong?” Ben asks, his hand sliding toward the shotgun slung across his shoulder.

“Maybe.”

When Luke opens the door, he can almost feel Aali’s presence. Her crib is against the wall—empty, of course. He steps inside and rests his hands on the wooden railing.

Where are you, baby girl?

Yesterday, the room smelled stale, like no one had been there in weeks. But now, it smells like Aali. Lavender. Johnson & Johnson Bedtime Bath. A faint whiff of her diaper rash cream. But mostly, just her.

“Aali?” Luke turns in a complete circle, taking in the room. The open closet door with only a few baby clothes hanging from their tiny hangers. The wallpaper with zoo animals running amok above the chair rail. Ben, standing in the doorway, looking helpless.

The crib again, still empty.

Luke stares at the ruffled bedding. “This may sound crazy. I can smell her now and…yesterday I couldn’t. Yesterday, it was like she’d never been in this room. She’s been here since then. Jesus fucking Christ, she was here, and I missed her.” He leans against the wall, and tears begin streaming from his eyes.

This is what the end of the world looks like.

“Hey, man, it’s okay,” Ben says. “She was here. That’s good, right? Maybe Dani was wrong about Carly running off with that guy.”

Luke is far less worried about Carly running off with some guy than he is about her being the Elvira-Mistress-of-the-Dark wannabe he encountered in the graveyard last night. If she ran off, the baby is probably okay. If she’s a zombie—dead or alive or something in between—then who knows?

“Hell,” Ben says, “Dani may have lied just to rile you up. Wouldn’t be the first time she’s done something like that. We just need to keep looking.”

Luke nods and follows Ben down the stairs. He grabs the keys, which were on the counter just as he’d thought they’d be, but there’s a strange new addition to the keychain. Before, the ring had held the house keys along with an electronic key fob for the Acura, a flashlight that’s not much bigger than the key fob, and one of those squishy rubber puff balls so Carly could find the keyring when it fell to the bottom of her purse. But now, there’s a third ornament on the ring—a crude little statue of broken twigs, wrapped in brown twine.

“Where the fuck did this come from?” Luke asks.

“It’s that wicker man,” Ben answers. “From the bonfire last night. You know, the bonfire I’m supposed to tell Carly you were at if I ever see her.”

“If what Dani said is true, I don’t think we need to worry about you covering for me. And after what I saw in that graveyard last night, I’m gonna say that if you ever see Carly again, you might want to run.” He stops, dropping the keys back on the counter like they shocked him. “No, no, no, no. The wicker man. Isn’t that the thing Daisy said they used for…”

Luke can’t finish the sentence. All he can see is a giant version of this bundle of sticks on that keychain. He can almost smell the wood burning, see the smoke rising, and hear his little girl screaming inside while dozens of high school students dance around the flame.

He punches his fist into the wall.

“Calm down.” Ben moves forward and picks the keys up. “We’ll go check, but there were people everywhere last night. They’d have heard a baby. And I mean, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t like her, but…you know Carly wouldn’t do that.”

But Luke doesn’t know that. Maybe in the real world. But here? Who the hell knows?

“You drive,” he says. “I can’t.”

A line of crows is waiting on the roof of the shed over the car. Five of them. They begin to caw as they approach, although it sounds more like a cackle to Luke. A very human cackle.

It must sound that way to Ben, too. He stops a few feet away from the shed, whips the shotgun up to his shoulder, and aims at the crows. “Something strike you as funny?”

“Whoa,” Luke says. “Probably not a good idea, man. They’ve got friends.” He nods up at the cloud of black feathers in the sky above them.

The birds begin to caw again when Ben lowers the rifle, louder now.

Luke slides into the car and slams the door. He can still hear the crows laughing as they drive away.

Four

BEN

Ben sees the wicker man as soon as he rounds the curve approaching Tower Farm. The tall altar of sticks and firewood stands at the base of the hill on the other side of the cornfield. Beyond the statue, at the very top of that hill, is the Grimshaw house.

The house continues to lurk in his field of vision as he maneuvers the car along the dirt path between the rows of corn. It occasionally dips below the tall corn stalks and pops up again like a foul black jack-in-the-box.

His gut tells him that he shouldn’t even bother with the farm. He knows Chase is up there.

But the farm is more or less on the way. It’s Luke’s car. Plus, Chase is twelve, and Aali is a baby. If she’s somewhere on her own—or even with Carly, from what Luke has said—she can’t take care of herself. Which serves as a guilty reminder that Chase had to take care of himself last night. Had to take care of both of them, since Ben let Ralph get the upper hand.

As they draw closer, the wicker statue blocks his view of the Grimshaw place. The thing reminds Ben of a taller, thinner version of the gingerbread man from the Shrek films. Or maybe a more sinister version of that Groot character.

Something about it is off, and it tugs at the edges of his mind as they drive closer. When it finally sinks in, he slams on the brakes.

Luke jerks forward against his seatbelt. “Why’d you stop? What’s wrong?”

“That statue was burning last night. I saw it in flames as I ran down the hill from the Grimshaw place.”

“You sure? Maybe it was just the bonfire, and you were seeing the flames through the wicker.”

He hears a note of hope in Luke’s voice. If it was never on fire and Aali is inside, then maybe she’s okay. But he’s not going to lie to him.

“No. They were both burning. I didn’t exactly stay to see it turn to ash…but it was definitely on fire when we left. Now it’s not even scorched. It’s regrown an arm, too.”

“Okay. So it was burning, and now it’s fine. Not the weirdest thing either of us has seen in the past twenty-four hours,” Luke says. “Not even close.”

That’s true. It’s barely even the weirdest thing about the wicker statue. Like Daisy said back at Tucker’s place, it strained the imagination to believe this thing could ever have been built by the crowd that puts the annual bonfire together. Party prep usually involved a few dozen people showing up early to drink beer and gather sticks from the woods nearby, along with dried corn husks from the fields to help get the fire going. The final step was syphoning off a bit of gas from someone’s tank if the weather had been at all damp. You could always spot the bonfire prep crew for the year, because they were already drunk off their asses when the party was just getting started. No way those dipshits built this thing.

So. None of what you’re seeing right now is real, Ben. None of it. Focus on what’s important. On the only thing that’s real.

Ben puts the car into park and pulls out his list of not-real things. He hadn’t even jotted this monstrosity down. Minor crazy seems to be blending into the atmosphere, much like those damn birds swooping around in the sky above the cornfield. They’re not normal. Ben’s pretty sure they’re not even real. But a massive crow cloud is low-level, penny-ante crazy compared to white-eyed demons, Freddy Krueger impersonators in the locker room, zombie ex-wives, or giant insects climbing out of movie screens.

“You got a pen or pencil in here?”

Luke arches an eyebrow, but he finds a pen in the console and hands it to him. Ben writes Wicker Man under the last entry, Birds. Then he holds the pen and paper out to Luke.

“There’s room if you want to write yours down. All the not-real stuff. So we don’t forget.”

Luke shakes his head. “Don’t need it. I’m not gonna forget anything I’ve seen in the past day. I’ll be lucky if I don’t dream about it for the rest of my damn life. And if there’s some sort of reboot to this little game, I’m pretty sure that envelope will be back on the kitchen table or wherever you grabbed it from without a single word written on the back.”

Even though he knows Luke is probably right, Ben gives him an annoyed look as he shoves the envelope back into his pocket. “Seem to remember you saying something about how we couldn’t just do nothing. Even though all of this might not be real. Even though this whole thing might get rebooted or whatever. Well, this list is me doing something.”

“Fair point,” Luke says as Ben begins driving toward the statue again. “But I don’t need a list.”

When they reach the edge of the clearing, Ben parks between the wicker creature and the barn. Last night, both sets of double doors on the barn had been propped open, and he vaguely remembers seeing people inside as he hurtled down the hill toward the bonfire. It was more shapes of people, really, silhouetted against the raging fire as they danced to some weird techno-shit he wouldn’t even call music.

Someone had left the double doors on this side open to the wind, but the doors on the other side are closed, and the place is pitch dark. It’s not a quiet darkness, though. The space seems to churn and move, at least to his tired eyes.

Chase isn’t in there. He doesn’t think they’ll find Aali in the barn here, either. In fact, he has a very strong feeling that this search for the baby is nothing more than a snipe hunt. She probably isn’t real. Luke even said she’s older outside the game, so how can this version be real?

Then Chase’s words from yesterday pop into his head. You’re supposed to be turning thirty-four. That pokes a pretty sizeable hole in his logic.

And even though Ben’s mind keeps inching in that direction, he’s not going to start down the road of questioning whether he himself is real. Because if he’s not real, none of this matters. Like he said to Luke earlier, if that’s the case, they might as well quit. Curl up into a ball and wait for the damn game to regenerate him or turn him into one of those stupid Pokémon creatures.

Focus on what’s real.

As soon as he puts the car into park, Luke pops the trunk, pulls the keys from the ignition, and gets out of the car. A flashlight is tucked behind the jack inside the trunk. He tosses it to Ben, who clicks it on. Luke does the same with the little LED flashlight on the end of Carly’s keychain. Both beams are bright and clear, the little keychain light almost blinding.

“Should we check the barn first?” Ben asks, even though he doesn’t think either of the kids are in there. They have to start somewhere, however, and a barn seems like the sort of place someone might abandon a baby. But there’s something about the blackness inside the place that he doesn’t like, even with their flashlights in hand.

“I guess,” Luke says. “Not even sure how we’d get into that wicker thing.”

Ben points around to the side of the barn. “There are doors in the back. They were open last night. Maybe we can get a little sunlight in there.”

“A little is about all we’ll get.” Luke casts a wary eye upward. “Not much coming through the bird screen right now. But opening up a second exit seems like a good idea to me.”

When they get around back, however, they find the doors padlocked. Why would someone lock the back and leave the front doors wide open?

It makes no sense from a practical standpoint. But it makes perfect sense if the place is a trap.

“It’s a trap,” Luke says, echoing his thoughts.

So they head back around to the front, and Ben starts walking toward the wicker man. Luke, however, heads toward the open barn doors.

Ben grabs his shoulder. “What are you doing, man? You said it yourself. It’s a trap.”

“Yeah. So if you’re setting a trap, where do you put the bait? Inside the fucking trap. If that is a trap intended for me, then there’s only two things they could use as bait. Aali or Kyle. And either way, I have to go in to save them. Chase could be in there, too, you know…”

“Chase is in the Grimshaw house.”

“Fine,” Luke says. “Then I guess you better start up that hill. Me, though? I’m heading into the barn with or with…out—” He stops.

“What?”

Luke puts a finger to his lips. “Listen.”

Ben does listen. He hears absolutely nothing. There’s no wind, no bird calls, insects, or noise from the distant road. The quiet is absolute aside from the sound of their breath and a faint rustle from above that must be coming from the bird cloud.

“Luke, I don’t—”

“Shut up.” Luke cocks his head to the side. “It’s Aali. She’s crying.”

“I’m not hearing anything. Think about what you said a minute ago. Someone is setting you a trap.”

Luke ignores him and takes off running. Not to the barn, as Ben expected, but in the opposite direction, toward the remnants of the bonfire and the wicker man.

“Aaliyah?” Luke circles the base of the thing, looking for an opening in the web of sticks and twine that form the legs. He apparently doesn’t find anything, because before Ben can reach him, he jumps up to grab the ropes and begins scaling the side up to an opening in the torso.

“I’m coming,” Luke yells.

A strong gust of wind hits Ben out of nowhere, almost as if Luke’s voice summoned it. The pinpoint blast seems to be aimed directly at the statue. Luke digs his arms into the rope bindings and continues to climb as the structure sways back and forth against the gray sky.

Wind whips toward Ben, and it now carries more than just Luke’s frantic cries. The slick scent of gasoline hangs in the air around him.

Luke is still calling out to his daughter as his head disappears into a gap in the wicker, followed by his shoulders.

“Wait!” Ben screams. “Luke!”

At the exact second Luke disappears inside the statue, a flash of lightning cracks across the sky. The crows, which had been silently circling until now, send up a volley of cries as some of them—a dozen, maybe more—begin to fall. The birds spiral toward the earth with wings on fire.

Ben calls out to Luke once more, but the man is oblivious. And so he tosses his gun to the ground, grabs the side of the structure, and heaves himself upward, fingers clutching at the ropes and broken branches as his feet struggle to find purchase in the tiny spaces between. The gas fumes are stronger now, making his eyes water, and causing everything—including the Grimshaw house off in the distance—to shimmer like a mirage.

Another bolt of lightning brings a second round of cries from the birds. Thunder crashes, shaking the ground so hard that Ben almost loses his grip. From a gap in the wicker man, Ben watches as another flaming bird falls from the sky, this time landing at the base of the statue. With a hiss and a thump, fire begins to creep up the leg on the opposite side.

Leaning against the thick pole supporting the statue, Ben looks up at the scaffold of rope and branches above him. The soles of Luke’s boots are only a few feet out of reach.

“It’s okay.” Luke’s voice is hoarse, either from crying or the fumes or both. “Daddy’s here. I’m coming. Just hold on, baby girl.”

There’s nothing in there, though. Nothing and no one.

“Fuck,” Ben says, making a grab at Luke’s foot. “She’s not in here, Luke! We have to get out now. You’re going to get us both killed.”

When Luke doesn’t respond, Ben jumps upward. His right hand closes around Luke’s ankle, and he punches through the twigs and twine to grab it with his left as well.

“Let go!” Luke screams. “She’s right there! Are you fucking blind?”

Then Luke loses his balance. The branch supporting him—now supporting both of them—snaps in half, and the two men fall, thumping through the brush and scaffolding like rocks cascading down a mountain. Luke tries to grab the ropes on the side, clearly hoping to pull himself back up, but Ben now has a grip on his shirt. The branches and sticks give way, and they tumble to the ground as debris rains down around them.

Fire chomps greedily through the base of the structure where they were standing only moments ago. Ben hears another whoosh as the left leg ignites. He rolls himself and Luke away, over the jagged rocks arranged at the bottom, as one of the arms—the one he saw fall last night—comes crashing down a few feet away.

“What the fuck?” Luke’s right fist connects squarely with Ben’s left eye. “She was up there. You killed her. You fucking killed her.”

He goes in for another punch, but this time Ben is ready. He ducks and then charges into his friend, his shoulder catching Luke in the stomach. He lands face down, then rolls both of them over so that he can wedge his knee into the small of Luke’s back.

“Stop it,” Ben says, but he doubts Luke can hear him. Behind them, the bonfire is now fully engulfed in flames, roaring like a summer storm. The back of his head catches a blast of heat. They’re still too close, so Ben stands up, grabbing Luke’s shirt to drag him away.

He keeps his guard up, though, a little worried that Luke will tag back in for round two. But his friend just staggers away from the blaze and drops to his knees. All the fight seems to have gone out of him.

“I. Saw. Her.” Luke rolls over on his back. “Aali. She was crying. I heard her.”

“No one was there, Luke. I swear to God. Like you said before, it was a trap.” He offers Luke his hand. “Come on. We need to get away from here before this thing falls.”

Luke stares up at his hand for a moment and finally takes it. Ben pulls the shaking man to his feet, and they retreat toward the car.

A chattering noise fills the air above as Ben opens the door to the Acura. He looks up and sees that the birds aren’t circling lazily above the town anymore. Instead, they’ve formed a single dense mass, moving purposefully across the sky toward the Grimshaw house.

“Holy shit,” Ben says as they watch the cloud drop into a funnel shape. The tornado of black birds swirls and skates across the horizon and then swallows up the house on the hill. “We need to go.”

“Up there.” Luke’s words aren’t a question, but rather a numb acceptance of a reality he’d much rather avoid.

“Yes. Aali could be there, too, Luke. This wasn’t just a trap. It was a distraction.”

But as soon as Ben cranks the engine, a splash of orange deep in the woods behind the barn catches his eye. It’s a bright neon shade, or else he’d never have seen it through the haze of smoke. At first, he ignores it, thinking it must be one of those orange property marker flags you see occasionally on empty lots.

But his eye keeps being drawn back to the woods. The orange thing is too high up to be a property marker. It’s swaying in the wind. And as he gets closer, that flash of bright orange twists something inside of him. It’s not rational, but his mind connects the color to Chase.

He accelerates right up to the tree line, then slams on the brakes. The car skids to a stop.

“What the hell?” Luke says.

“It’s Chase. I see him.” Ben half tumbles out of the driver seat, scrambling to stay on his feet as he runs toward a dark figure hanging from the tree branch.

Luke calls out, “There’s nothing there.”

But Ben doesn’t stop.

Five

TUCKER

Tucker skirts the edge of the downtown area, which is completely abandoned. There’s still just the one light—the theater marquee—shining through the early morning gloom. It’s too far away for him to read, but he has an odd feeling that the words above THE BIRDS have changed from COMING SOON to NOW PLAYING.

Daisy stares out the window, biting the side of her forefinger. When she catches him looking at her, she says, “What if there’s no way out? What if the roads are all blocked, or—”

“Then we come back.” He tries to make his voice reassuring, but he’s tired and pretty sure she can hear the fear underneath. “We regroup. Strength in numbers, right?”

She gives a hollow, bitter laugh. “Which brings us back to what I said a few minutes ago about splitting up not being the best idea.”

They fall silent for a moment, and Tucker watches as the trees pass by in a skeletal blur. As a child, he was terrified of the dark knot of trees that circles the town. His dad hadn’t helped. Tucker’s bedtime stories often featured witches and monsters, ghouls and ghosts that roamed the woods, especially at night. He’d thought that was to keep him from wandering into the woods. Now, he kind of wonders how many of his dad’s stories were true.

He also wonders how many of those memories are false. A little backstory for a peripheral character. Something to pad him out, make him seem real.

Tucker shakes the idea off, because there’s not a lot to be gained from that line of thought. Daisy is here, with him. That’s real. He reaches over and takes her hand to ward off his anxiety. It’s not like he needs to keep both hands on the wheel with the road so completely empty.

When they reach the junction with State Route 217, Tucker flips the left blinker on, planning to head north. Going right would take them south toward Viola City and past the tree where Julie saw Bill’s car. They’ll have to check it eventually, but he’s not looking forward to putting Daisy through that. And Julie didn’t get out that way. He’s holding out hope that one of the other roads will be…what? Will be open? Will be there? Will be anything other than a giant black void?

Daisy squeezes his hand. “Turn right. We need to check the route Julie took first. Maybe Dad’s car is there again. Maybe he’s…” She takes an uneasy breath. “Maybe he’s on the side of the road, and Julie just couldn’t see him in the dark. He might still be alive.”

“Okay,” Tucker says. “If you’re sure. I was just—”

“I know. You were hoping to make it easier for me.”

And so he turns right. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“When we were talking about other realities earlier, you kind of…dodged the question. But I could tell you were thinking about something. Something that bothered you.” He feels her shrink just the tiniest bit toward the passenger-side door, so he adds quickly. “If you don’t want to answer, that’s—”

“No. It’s okay. It’s really not much to tell. There were a couple of times where…where I saw a hospital. I’ve never even been a patient in a hospital—well, except as a baby, I guess. I don’t like them, because we were there so often when Mom was sick. But I get the feeling that I’m actually in the hospital in this dream or vision or whatever it was. That I’m a patient. Everything is fuzzy, though, like…” She stops, as if she’s remembering something.

“Like what?”

“Fuzzy like when I was on too high a dose of the antidepressant. I didn’t want to tell you—I was embarrassed—but after Mom died, I just needed something to get through. It was so hard to sleep, and I was having really…dark thoughts. Dad took me to a therapist.”

“That’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Daisy. God, there were times after my parents died that I couldn’t even see the point in going on.”

“But you got through it. Like Dani did. You didn’t need—”

“Stop,” Tucker says. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Well, I’m not on them anymore. At first, they had me on a higher dose, but we cut back because it made me loopy. And eventually I quit altogether. I haven’t taken Xyleva in nearly six months.”

“Xyleva?”

“Yeah. The message on Martha’s fridge said STOP XYLEVA. But…I already stopped, ages ago. So it doesn’t make sense.”

“Can you describe the hospital?” Tucker asks.

“Just…institutional-looking, I guess? I’m in a recreation room of some sort. And Chase is there. It’s kind of weird. He’s wearing these neon—”

“Orange sneakers.”

“Yes! You saw the same place?”

“Only briefly. A couple of seconds. Some other people in the room were watching—”

“Family Feud.” Her eyes widen as they round the corner. “Tucker!”

He stomps on the brake. “I see it.”

The road leading out of Haddonwood ends about fifty yards ahead.

And so does almost everything else.

The sky. The trees. The grass. They all disappear completely into a black hole, almost like a tunnel carved into reality. Even the crows circling above them sort of merge into that solid wall of blackness.

Tucker remembers this Road Runner cartoon he saw where Wile E. Coyote painted a fake tunnel onto the side of a mountain, hoping the Road Runner would smack into the rock. Of course, the Road Runner simply gave him a cheery beep beep—which is clearly the Road Runner equivalent of the middle finger—and ran straight through to the other side.

If Tucker hadn’t braked, if he’d kept going, would they have crashed into the wall or sailed through? He’s half tempted to back up, accelerate, and test their luck.

But even if he could screw up the nerve to do that, there’s someone between them and the void. An elderly woman, right in the middle of the road.

“Is that…?”

“Yeah,” Daisy says. “I’m pretty sure that’s Martha Yarn.”

The old woman sits behind a tiny table in the middle of the blacktop, looking very much as she did yesterday afternoon when Tucker pulled her from the oven. Well, except she’s alive now, which is a pretty major difference. She’s wearing the same dress and slippers, though. Same cloud of puffy white hair.

But she doesn’t look quite as solid. Both the woman and the table seem to flicker slightly.

“Stay here.”

Daisy ignores him. “Don’t give me that look,” she says as she meets him at the front of the vehicle. “You knew I wasn’t going to stay in the car.”

Tucker did know that, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. “Fine. But keep close, okay?”

She smiles softly. “That will be my pleasure.”

His right hand slides down to rest on the grip of his pistol, and they begin walking toward the woman, whose eyes are closed. Two kid-sized chairs are positioned opposite her, and three dainty cups are arranged on the table around a plate of cookies in the middle.

Ginger cookies, judging from the smell.

The woman opens her eyes and smiles broadly. “The tea is hot and the cookies freshly baked. But get your hand off that gun, Tucker Vance. You don’t need it here.”

Martha uses her teacher’s voice for the last part, which is probably why Tucker’s hand automatically falls away from the gun. But then he remembers her body lying on the kitchen floor, and he moves his hand back up.

“You’re dead,” he says. “So I think I’ll keep it.”

“If I am dead, what good will it do?”

He doesn’t really have an answer for that. And suddenly he’s wishing he’d grabbed the stake that he tossed into the backseat after his run-in with Marty last night.

“Pssh,” the old lady says. “That would do you no good either, had I any wish to harm you.”

Daisy doesn’t seem to be listening to their conversation. She doesn’t even seem to realize that the old woman just yanked a thought from his head. Instead, she is captivated by the brightly colored plastic table. “It’s like the table Dani and I had. This was…mine. Mine and Dani’s. LEGOs and Play-Doh…and My Little Pony. Dad gave it away after the acci…dent…”

She trails off, looking confused and a little stricken.

“And what accident was that, dear?” The old woman’s amber eyes—eyes that seem oddly familiar to Tucker—shine as she tilts her head to the side. Her expression says that she knows the answer to the question, but she wants to hear it from Daisy.

But Daisy shakes her head. “I…I don’t know. Don’t even know where that came from.” She laughs uneasily. “I only meant that Dad gave it away. He must have, I guess. Why is it here?”

“I…I don’t know,” the woman says, her tone matching Daisy’s exactly.

Is she mocking her?

Daisy certainly seems to think so. “You aren’t Martha,” she says, her eyes narrowed.

“What makes you think that?”

“For one thing, your eyes are the wrong color.” Daisy pulls up one of the chairs and sits down. “As people always say, eyes are the windows to the soul. I’m looking into your windows right now, and you’re not Martha.”

Tucker had never noticed Martha Yarn’s eyes when she was alive, but he had been around her enough to know that Daisy is right. The feeling surrounding this woman…or whatever she is…is completely different. Not malevolent, exactly, but different.

Her eyes still look familiar, though, as does her expression right now. She keeps glancing warily at the sky behind Tucker and Daisy, where the crows continue to circle.

“I never claimed to be Martha.”

“You’re wearing her skin,” Tucker says. “It’s kind of like impersonating an officer. You don’t have to say you’re a cop. Wearing the uniform is proof enough. So if you’re not Martha, who are you?”

The woman flashes her amber eyes toward the crows again. “You may call me Zophiel, the name I gave to the boy. As for this form, I thought something familiar might put you at ease. But as you wish. I can dispense with the niceties.”

With those words, the table disappears. So do the cups, the cookies, and even the tiny chairs. Daisy’s butt hits the asphalt, and Tucker reaches a hand down to help her up. Even though it’s not much of a drop, he’s glad he didn’t bother to sit.

The old woman is gone too, replaced by a ball of light the same amber shade as her eyes. It hovers above the spot where her chair was, pulsing faintly in the early morning light.

So caught up in your own little concerns.

Tucker doesn’t hear the voice with his ears. It thrums inside his head, but also in the air around him. He tastes the words, feels them pulsing against his skin. Sees them being swallowed up by the black void behind the amber ball.

Love. Desire. Loss. Grief.

Daisy’s grip on his hand tightens. Her mouth hangs open, eyes wide. She’s hearing something too, although the word doesn’t exactly convey the sensation.

This is why you fascinate Raum. Why he will listen to you—attend to you—when my words do not reach him. He listened to the boy and pulled all of you in from his orbit. To see what made you tick. To fix your broken parts. Then the fool child stumbled in himself and broke the walls, broke the entire—

“Chase,” Daisy says aloud. “You mean Chase. Is he okay?”

Zophiel ignores the interruption. Her words-that-aren’t-just-words come faster now, tripping over each other, rising in pitch and frenzy.

—world. Andras feeds on your misery and your fear. The boy cannot fix it alone, and you cannot help him if you see no further than your own pain. If he breaks free, the worlds will suffer, every city, every nation, every realm. The Seventy-Two will crumble. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…the darkness drops again…

Something screeches, even louder than Zophiel’s words. Tucker pulls Daisy toward him, and they cover their ears instinctively to block the noise, even though most of it seems to be coming from inside their heads.

The black void behind Zophiel erupts into a shrieking whirlwind of feathers and claws. They crash into the ball of light, and tiny shards of amber fill the sky as it shatters.

Tucker tries to shield Daisy as they run for the car. Crows dive and rip at his back, but the attack ends as quickly as it began. By the time they reach the car, the birds are soaring upward, their attention drawn elsewhere.

Crows continue to fly out of the void, although in smaller numbers now. They join the group above, which is no longer circling aimlessly. Instead, the birds cluster together into a tight knot and pivot toward the Grimshaw house.

“That’s where Chase is,” Daisy says. “We have to help him.”

Tucker opens the door. Daisy climbs in, but he goes around to the back and pops the trunk.

“What are you doing?”

“I need supplies.”

A flash of orange and white shoots out from behind the car when the trunk opens, but it only makes it as far as the ditch beside the road. It’s the cat from last night, and it appears to be injured. Tucker takes a few steps toward it, but the creature hisses, narrowing its eyes.

Its very amber eyes.

And then it’s gone.

Six

JULIE

Julie glances at the girl in the passenger seat, still in costume as a sexed-up version of Sandy from Grease. “Sure you don’t want to go back inside and change clothes? That leather doesn’t look very comfortable.”

The question is both somewhat sincere—the outfit really doesn’t look comfortable—but also because she’s curious about what Dani will say now that the others are gone. Curious whether she’d brave the birds circling the place. Are the birds a danger to Dani? For that matter, are they an actual danger to any of them?

Dani raises an eyebrow in response to her question. “Does my sexy costume offend the preacher lady?”

“Not at all,” Julie says, turning the key. “Just thought I’d give you the option.”

“We can both cut the shit now that Daisy is gone. Although I’ve a good mind to change the story I gave her. I wonder what she’d think about you if she knew that you abandoned me at the high school.”

Well, that answers that, Julie thinks as she pulls away from the curb. Whatever Dani is, she remembers what happened earlier. So they can, as the girl so eloquently put it, cut the shit.

The bravado that Julie felt when she told Tucker she’d be fine with Dani is beginning to fade. “How much of what you said earlier was true?” she asks. “Did you really see Marybeth at the bonfire?”

“Yes.”

Julie can’t tell if the words are a lie. Of course, she probably wouldn’t have been able to tell if Dani was telling the truth back before everything went crazy.

“Do you think she went home?”

“Aric said he was driving her home. That’s all I know.”

Julie is tempted to push further. To ask Dani why she was in different clothes at the high school. To ask what she remembers. Whether she recalls being stabbed by the cheer squad from hell or running from that damned scarecrow.

But maybe that’s something she should raise when they reconvene at Tucker’s place. As much as Julie doesn’t want to have that conversation in front of Daisy, she’s not sure it’s fair to keep her in the dark.

Also, there’s safety in numbers. Based on the conversation back at Tucker’s place, Luke’s wife and Tucker’s fellow officer turned into some sort of monster. Would the same thing happen if she pushed Dani for answers? She could easily see Dani morphing into one of those decaying cheerleaders.

“You’re going the wrong way,” Dani says.

“No. We’re going to drive by my place first. Chase might have gone there, since it’s fairly close to their trailer.”

“Suit yourself,” Dani says, slouching down in the seat and closing her eyes.

Five minutes later, Julie pulls up in front of her house, although it’s hard to recognize it as the same place she left the day before. It doesn’t look like anyone has lived there in years. The strangest thing, though, is the area beyond her house. It’s located only fifty yards or so from a sign that reads You are Now Entering Haddonwood. There’s a copse of trees a bit further down the road, before it curves around to follow the river.

Now, however, there’s nothing but blackness beyond the sign. That blackness makes her want to pop the car into reverse and head back to the center of town as fast as possible. What if it begins to spill into the town limits and swallows her up? But she forces herself to pull into the drive. She has to check. Chase could be inside.

The front door is unlocked, and when she pushes it open, she finds the rooms vacant. She feels a brief pang, wondering what happened to all of the things she’d accumulated over the years. A lot of it was junk that she’ll never miss, but there were a few items, such as her grandmother’s quilt, that can never be replaced.

Chase isn’t there, so she heads back to the car.

Dani continues to snooze, or more likely pretends to, as Julie pulls back onto the road and heads back toward Sycamore Acres. The sky seems to clear up a bit as she drives, and she realizes it’s because most of the birds that had clouded the sky have now congregated into a denser mass, hovering over the Grimshaw house.

When she pulls into Sycamore Acres, her jaw drops. Yesterday, there were more than a dozen mobile homes on the lot. Today, the blackness has gobbled up all but two of them. Or, to be completely accurate, all but one and a half, since the back half of Ralph and Aileen Rey’s trailer no longer exists.

She can’t bring herself to go inside, so she simply pulls up and honks the horn. Once, twice, three times. Dani groans in annoyance. Julie waits and then honks again.

“He’s not there,” Dani mumbles. “Quit honking the damn horn. Ben was right. Chase is at Grimshaw.”

Julie doesn’t ask if Dani actually knows this for a fact, since any answer she gets from the girl is likely to be a lie anyway. She just heads toward Scott’s house, on the other side of town. The center of Haddonwood now looks, quite literally, like a ghost town. Its lone traffic light hangs off-kilter, the fountain is dry, and Julie half expects a tumbleweed to come rolling through the intersection.

A few minutes later, they pull up in front of the Jenkins’s house. “Do you want to wait here?” Julie asks.

“Why would I do that?” Dani, who is suddenly wide awake, gives her a smug little smile. “You’re the one who’s afraid of Mr. Jenkins. Not me.”

“I was thinking more of the birds.”

Six crows are perched along the edge of the small porch. Three more sit atop the BMW. The rest of them now seem to be part of the giant funnel cloud that has engulfed the Grimshaw house.

“I’m not worried about the birds,” Dani says. “Are you?”

Julie actually is worried, but she gets out anyway. Six black feathered heads follow them as they approach the house.

Dani wrinkles her nose and sidesteps the rotten pumpkin at the base of the porch. It looks like it’s been there for days, maybe even weeks, but the light inside is still burning.

The door opens as soon as Julie raises her hand to knock. Scott moves into the doorway and glares out at her. His hazel eyes are a little more bloodshot than usual, possibly due to a lack of sleep, but he’s not the white-eyed creature Tucker described. The only thing that has changed since she saw Scott last night is the crisscross of scratches on his cheeks and neck.

“If you’re here to apologize,” he says, “don’t bother. I’ll be reporting this to the deacons—no, in fact, I think I’ll be reporting this to the entire congregation on Sunday. I’ve been patient with your heretical teaching, hoping that God would remove the scales from your eyes as he did with Saul in Damascus so that you might see the light. But you are too far gone. Leaving me to walk back to town was inexcusable.”

“I’m not here to argue with you, Scott. Dani asked me to drive her over so she could check on Marybeth. Make sure she got back home safely.”

Dani rolls her eyes slightly, but Scott’s attention remains on Julie.

“She never came in. I’ve been up all night waiting for her. She’s probably with that worthless Rey boy. I warned her. I told her he was trouble—”

“She’s not with Ben Rey. Dani said Aric Conner drove her home.”

“Well, I don’t know that for certain,” Dani says with a little smirk. “She said he was driving her home. Maybe she and Aric got a room at the Pinewood instead.”

Scott’s eyes bulge, and his mouth opens, but he can’t quite seem to find the words.

Julie is torn between a grudging admiration at Dani’s ability to get under the guy’s skin and worry that Scott is going to pop a blood vessel. That worry is probably stupid, given that she watched him vanish into thin air last night. He can’t possibly be real. But then neither can Dani.

Something furry brushes past Julie’s ankles. She looks down to see an orange cat, its fur matted with blood. Scott recoils as soon as he sees the creature, pressing his back against the grandfather clock. “Get it out! Get that thing out of here.”

The cat hisses as it passes in front of him and then burrows between the sofa and the wall. Julie could probably have reached the cat before it was fully hidden—the poor thing is limping badly and panting, as if it’s just run a marathon. But she remembers what Tucker said about the cat attacking Scott. Had Scott injured it in their struggle? She doubts that the cat could be much help in its current state, given how slowly it’s moving, but an ally is an ally.

Dani crosses to the other side of the room and begins to tug at the corner of the couch. Julie runs toward her, yelling for her to leave the animal alone. Then a loud caw fills the room, and one of the crows swoops through the open door. It collides with Scott, who startles, slamming one elbow against the glass window of the compartment that houses the clock’s pendulum. The window shatters from the impact as Scott’s body absorbs the crow.

He’s no longer cowering against the broken clock. Now he’s coming straight toward her.

“Get out of here, Dani!” Julie backs through the swinging door that leads into the kitchen. She pulls the pepper spray from her pocket as she stumbles toward the wooden island in the middle of the room.

Scott bursts into the kitchen right behind her. She extends her arm and presses the spray with her thumb, aiming directly for those eerie white eyes. The chemical spews from the small tube a lot faster than Julie expects and hits the target dead on, but he lashes out like a snake, knocking the canister from Julie’s grip.

Howling, Scott swipes at his eyes with one hand while blindly searching for her with the other. Residue from the spray is making her own eyes water. She needs to get out. But he’s between her and the door, so she turns instead to search for a weapon.

Scott’s hand connects with the center of her back, and she falls forward into the kitchen island. Her arms flail, knocking ceramic canisters and a wooden knife block to the floor. Knives scatter across the tiles, their blades gleaming beneath the bright light.

“Bitch.” The words come from Scott’s mouth, but the voice isn’t his. It’s deeper, more guttural, and yet she can also hear a tinny screech in the background.

Julie lands on the floor among the knives. She grabs the largest one she can find, then crawls behind the island and pulls herself to her feet.

Scott’s eyes are still squinted half shut, with tears streaming over the angry red claw marks on his cheeks. Even through the narrow slits, she can see that the pupils are stark white.

“Do it,” the thing says, taking a step toward her. “You know you want to. Just fucking do it.”

Julie tightens her grip on the knife. She does want to.

And then he charges straight at her.

She screams, raising the knife high and bringing it down toward his chest. Her aim is off, though, and the blade sinks into his shoulder.

Julie expects the Scott-thing to cry out, but instead he drops to his knees. Raising her arm, she prepares to strike again if he grabs for her.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he smiles and winks one white eye. Then the crow flies up from the center of Scott’s torso, swooping to the top of the kitchen cabinets. Jenkins slumps into a bloody heap on the kitchen floor just as the door behind him opens.

“Julie?”

Bill Gray stands in the doorway, with Dani just behind him.

“Oh my God. Bill!” Julie’s hand loosens on the knife, and it clatters to the floor. She rushes past Scott and into Bill’s arms, pressing her face into his shirt. It’s him. He’s solid, real. Her hands tremble as they run quickly over his shoulders, neck, and chest. It’s him.

Bill stares into Julie’s eyes for a moment and then pushes her back. He’s no longer looking at her but at the body on the floor. Snatching a kitchen towel from the counter, he yells for Dani to call 911.

The crow is still perched on the kitchen cabinets, watching. It squawks once and then flies out of the kitchen, through the open front door, and into the morning.

“What the hell happened?” Bill asks, pressing the towel against Scott’s shoulder to slow the bleeding. The man moans and then falls silent.

“He…attacked me.” Julie’s knees weaken, and she sinks to the floor. She can hear Dani in the other room, talking to someone on the phone. “Everything…it’s all been crazy, Bill. Where have you been?”

“In Atlanta?” He gives her an odd look. “I came back early because Dani left a message. She said she was worried about you.”

Julie looks beyond him, into the living room, and catches Dani’s eye. A sly smile spreads slowly across the girl’s face.

What in God’s name is going on?

As Bill reaches down to check Scott’s pulse, Julie hears a soft mewing sound next to her. She glances down to see the orange cat, with its odd amber eyes, as the cat crawls onto her lap.

Into her lap.

Into her, vanishing exactly as the crow did when it entered Scott.

Julie can still see Bill, kneeling down next to Scott, holding a blood-soaked towel to the other man’s shoulder. Can still see Dani on the phone, the knives on the floor, and shards of ceramic scattered everywhere.

She can still see all of these things, but the entire world is now suffused in a soft amber glow.

Seven

DAISY

Daisy watches as Tucker shoves two canisters of some sort into his jacket pocket. Then he hands her the other items he grabbed from the trunk—a bright-orange emergency blanket and a gas mask.

“What are these for?”

“If we’re heading up there, we’re going to need protection from those damn crows.”

“Good point. They tore your shirt. You’re bleeding.”

“You are, too,” he says as he gets a clear look at her face for the first time.

Daisy tugs down the passenger-side mirror as he drives away. Her hair is much darker than Tippi Hedren’s was in The Birds. But she now has a cut in the exact same spot just below her hairline. She dabs at it with her sleeve. “Well, at least there’s no need to hunt for bandages. It will probably be healed by the time we reach the Grimshaw house. Why the gas mask, though?”

“Smoke grenades. The blanket will block the worst of it, but one of us is going to need to see in order to navigate…and the mask will protect our eyes.”

“Will the smoke clear the crows out?” Daisy asks.

“I have absolutely no idea,” he admits with a slight grimace. “These were the only three things in my trunk that seemed like they might work.”

“I’m impressed, actually. I didn’t know you had this whole MacGyver side.” She glances back over her shoulder at the black hole, which vanishes as Tucker rounds the corner. “Although I do wish you’d had another weapon of some sort back there.”

“There’s a stake in the backseat,” he says. “Not exactly high powered, but it came in handy for me last night.”

She laughs nervously, but then lowers the bucket seat as far as possible so that she can reach the jagged chunk of wood. It’s not much, but something about its weight feels comforting.

“Sure you don’t have any salt back there? Garlic? Holy water?”

“Nope. Just the stake.”

They drive silently for a moment, and then she asks, “Did you understand any of what she was…saying?”

“No,” Tucker admits. “You?”

“Not really. It was overwhelming. Like she was screaming inside my brain. The center cannot hold part was familiar, though. I remember that from something.”

“From a movie?” Tucker asks.

“I think it was from lit class. A poem, maybe?”

“Well, once we get Chase out of there, we’ll go back, and you can ask her.” He fills her in about the cat’s hasty exit into the woods. “I was tempted to go after it. But if the cat was really this Zophiel…”

Daisy nods. “Yeah. I didn’t understand most of her rant, but I’m pretty sure she’d want us to prioritize helping Chase.”

He turns onto the road leading up to the Grimshaw house, which is little more than a rutted path. The cruiser’s tires hit a crater almost instantly, and Tucker curses. “Chief Craven has been trying to get the council to cough up the money to repair this road since I joined the force. We’re constantly getting calls about lights being on up here, even though there hasn’t been power to the place in a decade or more.”

“Pretty sure the place has its own power source,” Daisy says, thinking back to the vivid blue lights she saw coming out of the windows—hell, out of the very woodwork—the day before.

A gust of wind comes from out of nowhere just as Tucker slows to navigate another hole in the road. It still rattles their teeth at five miles per hour. Then a crack of lightning fills the sky behind the Grimshaw house, and they watch as dozens of birds catch fire and fall from the sky. These tiny orange bombs sink out of sight on the other side of the hill.

“Tower Farm will be lucky if the corn maze survives that,” Daisy says. “Assuming it survived the bonfire last night. Do you think Ben and Luke are there yet?”

Another bolt of lightning crackles, sending another batch of flaming birds tumbling to the ground.

“I don’t know.”

“Why would anyone even build a place up here?” Daisy asks as another bump rattles the car.

“The view, maybe? And the privacy. My mom said it was a fancy retreat of some sort back when my grandparents were young.”

“A fancy retreat in Haddonwood?” Daisy snorts. “Not a lot to do around here. Seems like they’d go to the actual mountains.”

“True,” he says. “But I got the sense it was more of a rehab retreat than vacations with the family. Quiet and boring was probably a selling point.”

“So…a mental hospital? What was the name?”

Tucker shrugs, but it was really more of a rhetorical question. Daisy can picture the name perfectly in her mind’s eye, the letters reversed in the massive not-at-all-creepy mirror (that has always and never been) in the hallway of her house. Every Day a Brighter Day at Hillcrest.

The birds are no longer simply circling. Now they form a funnel cloud, the base of which ends at the top of the hill. They swarm in every direction, their paths crisscrossing in an intricate dance to create a swirling cocoon that encases the entire house.

“How the hell are they not colliding with each other?” Tucker asks.

It’s a good question, and one for which Daisy has no answer. Their movements are, in fact, the most convincing argument she’s seen for them currently being inside some sort of a computer game. The flight path of each bird is planned with minute precision, missing a collision with the rest of the flock by what looks like millimeters. She’s even less certain now that Tucker’s plan to startle the birds will work. These aren’t birds, and she doubts that they’ll startle easily.

The smart thing to do would be to take that circular drive around the fountain in the front yard and just keep moving back down the hill. But she knows they can’t, so she begins pulling the blanket out of the cardboard box. “Do I wear the mask or you?”

Tucker hesitates, and she’s pretty sure he’s trying to figure out which option is safer for her. The mask gives her extra protection, but it also means her head will be exposed.

“You know more about those smoke things than I do, Tucker. So you wear the mask. I’ll keep a hand over my eyes and my head under the blanket. I’ll be fine.”

Daisy keeps her tone upbeat. But she can tell that Tucker shares her very real fear that neither of them will be fine. He stops the car in the driveway. A single white-eyed crow breaks from the mass surrounding the house and perches on top of the fountain next to them, staring directly into the car with its viscous white eyes.

Daisy gives the creature the finger. “Do you think we’d get extra points for killing that one? You could crack the window just enough for the barrel of your gun. Maybe this game is one of those quests where if you kill the leader, the minions die off, too.”

“Pretty sure that would be a bad idea. It could just as easily be the variation where you cut off one head and the beast sprouts two more.”

She looks out at the sheer number of birds, both overhead and in the swarm. How many crows would it take to push two people off this hill? To push the entire car over the edge? While she doesn’t know the exact answer, she’s quite certain the odds are not in their favor.

“Good point. I really don’t want to deal with two-headed crows.” She adds a little smile that makes it clear she knows that’s not what he meant, then says, “Okay, then. I guess it’s time to storm the castle.”

He nods, pulling the black gas mask into place. “I’ll get as close to the porch as I can and still leave room to open your door. Once I stop, I’ll slide over beneath you, and we’ll wrap up in the blanket. We’ll move faster and be less likely to trip each other up if you just turn facing me and wrap your legs around my waist.”

Daisy grins. “That would actually be kind of sexy if you didn’t look and sound like Darth Vader right now.”

He presses the accelerator to close the fifty feet or so between the fountain and the porch. About halfway there, however, a cluster of birds peels off from the funnel cloud like a swatch of black cotton candy being pulled from the cone. They pelt the car from all directions, and he loses control.

Is the car moving backward? Daisy’s not entirely sure. It could just be her imagination. But the image from a few minutes ago of the crows shoving the car off the hill suddenly seems like a concrete possibility.

Tucker must be thinking something similar, because instead of slamming on the brakes as the car approaches the porch, he stomps the gas and yells for her to hold on. The right-front bumper crashes into the steps, sending chunks of wood and feathers flying in every direction.

So much for leaving room to open the door.

“You okay?” he asks.

Daisy is clutching the oh-shit handle, wide-eyed and white-knuckled. “Yeah. Maybe…if we get out on your side we can crawl over the top of the car and climb onto the porch?”

“I don’t think there’s much porch left to climb on to,” he says. “But you’re right. It’s the only option.” He pushes the seat back as far as it will go and pulls the smoke grenade from his pocket. Daisy crawls over to his side, facing him, one hand clutching her stake, and presses a kiss to the front of the mask. “Ready, Anakin?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Open the door, and then cover your ears.” She cracks the door as he yanks the ring on one of the canisters and hurls it onto the lawn. A loud bang fills the air, followed by a whooshing noise as blue smoke rises up from the ground.

The birds squawk in unison, a sound far more deafening than the grenade. Then Tucker shoves the door open and piles out, wrapping the blanket around them as Daisy pulls herself up and wraps herself around him. This plan had been devised for running up the steps, however, and climbing onto the car like this is practically impossible. Tucker winds up shoving Daisy onto the hood. By the time he joins her, the birds are all over them. Even though the blanket is thick, almost like a tarp, she knows it won’t hold up long under this kind of onslaught.

The weight of the birds on top of them is crushing. Daisy screams. Tucker pulls her down to the hood of the car and clutches her close. She wishes he wasn’t wearing the damn mask so she could kiss him goodbye.

Then a voice, louder than the cry of the birds, booms around her, inside of her. Everywhere.

MINE.

The birds halt for a second, then resume their clawing and pecking. Their beaks are like darts pelting her back.

MINE!

This time the birds don’t simply pause. She feels them fall away. Hears their bodies thud against the hood of the car.

Daisy doesn’t know if they’re dead or merely stunned, but there’s no time to waste. Tucker half drags her onto what’s left of the porch. The wood cracks, one of the boards splitting in two and tumbling into the blackness below. But the surface holds long enough for them to get through the door and into the foyer.

At first, she thinks the blue color filling the room is from the smoke grenade. But it’s not coming in from outdoors. It’s pouring out of the room on the left side, and it’s not smoke. It’s light. The same shade of light she saw from the school yesterday.

A flutter of wings comes from behind them. Tucker turns, his hand tightening on his gun. Outside, the birds are coming back to life. Not all at once, but a few at a time. They seem disoriented, but she doubts that will last for long.

And beyond that, a dark-blue sedan is cresting the hill.

“Wait here,” Tucker says, his voice distorted by the mask. “And maybe move back a bit. I’m going to toss the other grenade to try and help them get through.”

Daisy nods and steps back, but her focus isn’t on what Tucker is saying. Chase is in here. She’s certain of it. He’s in the room with the blue light.

She calls out his name and gets nothing but a staticky buzz, almost like a whine of feedback. Still clutching the stupid chunk of wood, she takes a few more steps toward the room. She wishes she had a gun, although it would probably be a liability given that she’s fired a weapon exactly twice in her entire life. The pistol belonged to Chad, and she’d gone target shooting with him and Dani last fall.

The instant she thinks Dani’s name, the blue light seems to separate, forming a frame that’s almost blindingly bright around a pitch-black tunnel. Then the blackness closes in on itself, and her sister steps in front of her.

“Daisy, we need to get out of here. This place isn’t safe.”

It’s Dani…only it’s not. She’s dressed in the stupid catsuit thing she wore last night, but it’s torn along one shoulder. The fabric looks thin and threadbare, as if something had been nibbling away at it for a very long time, and her hair hangs in damp clumps over her shoulders.

“You’re supposed to be with Julie,” Daisy says. “Supposed to stay with Julie.”

“Yes, but you’re in trouble. We need to get out!”

“I need to find Chase,” Daisy says, stepping around her sister toward the blue light.

Dani grabs her arm. Her hands are damp and oddly small. Daisy stares down at them. They’re much too small for an eighteen-year-old. But Daisy knows these hands. She’s seen them clasped around the video controls. Snapping together LEGOs at a small plastic table. Pressed against the back window of their mother’s car as it dipped below the water…

And then the hands are full-sized. Fully manicured. Daisy tries to wrench her arm away, but the scarlet nails dig into the flesh of her arm.

“I need to find Chase,” she repeats, gripping the chunk of wood in her right hand.

“Daisy!” Dani pleads. “Come on. Just trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”

The face in front of her flickers. Dani. MB. Dani. Their voices in stereo.

Trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.

“You’re not real,” Daisy says, her voice barely a whisper. “Not anymore. And I need to find Chase.”

She raises the stake high above her head and brings it down hard into the chest of the impossibility in front of her, expecting Dani to turn to dust the way Tucker said Marty had. But the image just halts, as if the stake is a wedge Daisy jammed between the gears of some clockwork creation. The stake is the only thing that looks completely solid, and the girl’s face is frozen somewhere between Dani and MB.

Daisy pulls her arm away, thinking she’ll hear a rip as Dani’s nails tear through her blouse. But there’s no resistance at all. And the only thing she hears is the explosion as Tucker lobs the second smoke grenade onto what’s left of the porch.

Eight

TUCKER

Tucker thinks it is highly unlikely that the second smoke bomb will be as effective as the first, and that one hadn’t been nearly as effective as he’d hoped. This one will probably only buy Ben and Luke a few seconds of time. Even ordinary creatures adapt, and these birds are far from ordinary. But either way, he can’t stick around. Daisy is already heading into the room with the pulsing blue light, yelling Chase’s name.

He runs after her, barely noticing the frozen image in the center of the room. When Tucker reaches the doorway, however, he hesitates. The room is some sort of parlor, but it’s shifting, and his eyes have a hard time adjusting as it flickers between three different scenes. One second, the furniture is draped in moldy white sheets. Next, it’s a room with the same furniture, only newer, and the blue glow is brighter. And then it’s a much more familiar room, the one he remembers (but also doesn’t remember) from the other reality, where a wall of glass separates him from Daisy.

Two things unite all three scenes—all three realities, he guesses. The first is the sign over the door. Different fonts and slightly different graphics. In the dust-filled version of the room that seems most real to Tucker, the words are barely even legible. But they always read: Every Day a Brighter Day at Hillcrest.

The second, and far more obvious, similarity is the dark void that he saw behind Zophiel back on the highway. Chase Rey is seated in the very center of that void as the three realities shift around him.

Daisy turns back to Tucker. “Look at his feet.”

At first, he thinks she means the shoes. Chase’s feet are clad in the bright-orange Nikes, dangling beneath his body as he taps the heels together. Even though there’s no chair to support him, the boy is seated with his hands in front, clasping an invisible tablet as his eyes and thumbs move back and forth.

Then Tucker realizes that the room is cycling through the three realities in perfect time with Chase’s feet. Each time his right heel taps against his left, the room shivers and flips the channel.

“Chase!” Daisy yells again, trying to get his attention. When he doesn’t respond, she tells Tucker, “We have to get him out of there.”

On the one hand, he agrees. It doesn’t look…safe. On the other hand, he’s a little worried that Chase might be the glue that is holding things together.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A shotgun blast rings out from the front room. Tucker glances back. It must be Ben, firing at the crows. Tucker can barely see the door from this angle, but he can tell that the wall of birds has begun to take shape around the building again.

Another shotgun blast, and a lone crow, its white eyes eerily bright in the dim room, breaks through the doorway beneath the flickering sign that reads Every Day a Brighter Day at Hillcrest. It heads straight for the void and the boy in the center.

Daisy sees the bird at the same instant that Tucker does. But she’s a good ten steps closer.

Chase’s feet continue their rhythm.

Tap. The parlor is in ruins.

Tucker runs toward the void. He can’t stop the crow, but he can stop Daisy from doing something crazy.

Tap again. The parlor is new.

Daisy stands at the edge of the void, reaching out for Chase’s left foot, which is mere inches from her fingers.

The crow zooms past Tucker’s head, toward Daisy and Chase.

Tap again. The rec room. He can even hear a buzz from the game show.

Tucker smacks into the wall of glass at the same instant that Daisy makes her decision.

Tap.

The wall is gone now. Tucker staggers forward as Daisy’s hand latches on to one of the bright-orange sneakers.

Daisy and Chase fall into the blackness.

The crow follows.

And so does Tucker.

EPILOGUE

Fog.

Heaviness.

Daisy’s mind moves through a cold, liquid film.

She was inside a house.

Tucker. Chase. The game. The birds. Dani…

Now there’s nothing but an inky blackness. And…tapping. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

The repetition is comforting, and it almost lures her back into the dark pool of nothing. But then a louder sound breaks through, and she can no longer hear the tapping. Just laughter. Applause.

“Stop,” she mumbles as the rest of her senses slowly engage. Her mouth is dry, and her tongue feels swollen and heavy. “Stop laughing.”

Faint waves of light begin to break through the darkness. She expects to see the parlor of that house…Grim-something. Grimwood? No, Grimshaw. But this room is brighter, with light from a row of windows reflecting off ugly gray-green walls.

Daisy forces her eyes open. Her eyelids are heavy, like window shades threatening to drop at the slightest touch.

More clapping. More laughter. But she can now connect it to the TV. Family Feud. Daisy hates the show, but the other patients love it.

Except Macy. And she’s just a bitch.

She closes her eyes again. Macy? The others?

I’m in the hospital.

Daisy wants to get up. To run. She wills her legs to move, but they don’t obey. They just sit there like lead weights, the muscles barely twitching.

It was a dream. A tear falls down her face. Dani. Tucker. Just a dream.

She can already feel the dream slipping away, erasing itself. The details fade, starting at the edges, but she knows that sooner or later, it will dissolve inward until there’s nothing left but a vague tugging sensation in her mind.

It will disappear. Everything—everyone—disappears sooner or later.

Daisy doesn’t remember making a sound. But she must have, because Macy is in her face now. “Shut the fuck up.”

Macy. Still a bitch. This thought almost coaxes a smile to Daisy’s lips, but she doesn’t want to respond to anything in this world. She wants to crawl back into the dream. The people in her therapy group would probably call it a nightmare, but it wasn’t all bad. In fact—

The room falls quiet for a moment, and she once again picks up the tapping sound. It’s coming from across the room, off to her left, the same rhythmic tap-tap-tap that she heard before the TV chased the dream away.

Daisy turns her head toward the noise. Chase Rey is in the chair next to the window, where he has sat most mornings for the past six weeks, a broken iPad clutched in his hands. His body and the floor around him are bathed in sunlight dappled by the leaves of the oak tree just outside the window.

Chase stares at the tablet intently, like he always does on his bad days. His gone days, as the nurse calls them. Daisy talks to him sometimes, even on his gone days. Tells him the plots of books and movies she likes. Something to help him pass the time until he finds his way back. One of the nurses told her she needn’t bother. And to be fair, Chase really doesn’t seem to hear her. He just stays still except for his eyes and his thumbs, both of which travel restlessly across the screen.

Today, however, his feet—clad as always in the bright-orange sneakers—are moving, too. His heels pat out a simple, repetitive beat: tap-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap-tap.

“Chase,” Daisy whispers. “Hey, can you hear me?”

He doesn’t respond. The tapping sound comes again.

Tap-tap-tap, there’s no place like home, tap-tap-tap…

She wipes away a tear at the corner of her eye, relieved that she can move again. Her arm still feels heavy, but that sense of swimming through lead has passed. Mostly she just feels sad. Empty.

The dream felt more real than this.

True, it had all of the elements of a nightmare—monsters and danger and panic. But she’d been there, in the moment. Even the things that felt surreal, like ants crawling out of the movie screen, were vivid. She’d felt alive.

A flash of black pulls her eyes up to the window, where a crow is perched on the sill. At first, she thinks the sun is playing tricks on her, that the eyes are just a reflection. But then she hears Chase’s heels—tap-tap-tap—and a fragment of the dream comes back. The crow and its white eyes…

Tap-tap-tap.

Her eyes wander away from Chase’s feet, beyond the TV, to the large window that looks into the room from the hallway outside. The guard is there. He’s cute. Nice, too. He sometimes—

Daisy gasps and straightens in the chair.

Tucker. His name is Tucker.

She shouldn’t know that, but she does. Before, she’d thought his name was Vance, which is what’s written on his nametag. He usually stops and speaks to her and to Chase when he has to come into the room. Sometimes she’ll catch him looking at her through the window, and they’ll exchange a smile before quickly glancing away.

Right now, though, his eyes are locked onto hers.

“Tucker,” she whispers. No one in the room hears her over the roar of the Family Feud audience. His eyes widen.

He knows, too. Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe I’m not crazy.

But then Tucker—or maybe his name really is Vance—turns and walks away. She stares at the empty place where he’d stood, closes her eyes, and calls out to him silently.

Please come back. Don’t leave me like this.

“Daisy?”

When Daisy opens her eyes, a thin woman with teased blonde hair straight from the 1980s is smiling down at her. She has a kind smile. Karen. Her name is Karen. She has a son at UT.

The woman’s forehead creases with concern. “Sweetie, what happened to your noggin? We need to get a Band-Aid on that.”

Daisy tries to see around the nurse. To see if Tucker is there again. To see if her mind has somehow managed to conjure him back into place.

“Are you ready to go to your room?” Karen asks.

“Thank God,” Macy says from the sofa. “All that goddamn whimpering. I couldn’t concentrate worth a shit. And take the kid, too. Or at least tie his damn shoelaces to the chair so he quits that noise.”

Karen gives Macy a sharp look over her shoulder and then bends down to help Daisy to her feet. “Let’s get you out of here.”

TAP-TAP.

It’s only two taps this time. Louder, and the noise is coming from the opposite direction.

Daisy looks over Karen’s shoulder. Tucker is at the window again. His eyes are as confused and worried as she feels, but he gives her his best smile. The smile that has made her heart skip a beat since she was in middle school.

He places his palm against the window, holding up a sheet of white paper with black letters scrawled across the middle.

The air whooshes from Daisy’s lungs, and the room tilts. But her eyes stay locked on Tucker as she takes in the two words written on the paper.

I REMEMBER.

COMING SOON

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, a big thank you to Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, Alfred Hitchcock, and all of the other writers and directors who have kept Rysa imagining what might be lurking in the dark and who have given Caleb far too many ideas for novel and gruesome ways to kill people. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) We had a blast tipping the hat to so many of our favorites. At some point, we’ll put together a definitive list of many dozens of Easter eggs in As the Crow Flies. If any of you have suggestions for additions in the next two books, hit us up on social media.

A joint thank-you to our beta readers, several of whom gave feedback on multiple versions of the story: Karen Stansbury, Billy Thomas, Chris Fried, Karen Benson, Fred Douglis, Becca Porter, Kristen Ashenfelter, Dori Gray, Jen Gonzalez, John Scafidi, Emiliy Marino, Nicole Tarife, Heather Jones, Mikka McClain, Cheyenne Chambers, Alexa Huggins, Mark Chappell, Devi Reynolds, Tracy Johnson, Ian Walniuk, Peter Walniuk, and the long-suffering person(s) we’ve almost certainly forgotten.

Thanks to Crystal Watanabe and Pikko’s House for finding our missing words, typos, and other glitches. Any errors that remain are totally on us, and mostly on Rysa, since she did the final pass.

For the many readers whose first questions are always whether it will be on Audible and whether Kate Rudd will be narrating—the delay is totally our fault. We got rolling a bit late, and Kate has been a champ to work us into her schedule. We have absolutely no question that the end result will be fabulous, as always.

* * *

And now for some individual words of thanks. Caleb leads off because this is his first book. (Insert applause.)

Caleb would like to thank:

Rysa Walker for being the best partner in crime an author could hope to have.  When I get lost, I can always trust her advice and instincts to shine a light.

Shannon Sain—because she believed in me first, always takes my phone calls, and is the best friend that I will ever have in this world.

Ann Whitman—the first person to ever put a book in my hands and teach me the power of words.

Angie Kelsey—my mother and the greatest cheerleader on this planet.  I love you, Mom.

Hannah Johnson—sister and “manager” extraordinaire.  Always in my corner, always honest, and a role model for the human I hope to be.

Special thanks to all my friends who listened, read, and helped along the way: Zac Johnson, Eric Eldridge, Justin Adams, Quinn Webb, Stephanie Nuss, Dillon Mason, and everyone else that I know I’m probably forgetting.  I’m sorry, guys… I’m already thinking about the next story.

Also, special thanks to Jake, Bridget, and Tucker.

Thank you to everyone who commented, shared, and conversed with me on social media.  If you’re reading this, thank you, too.  I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Rysa would like to thank:

Caleb Amsel for planting the vivid imagery that brought the town of Haddonwood to life in my head and made me want to join him in uncovering the story. He’s been very patient with my tendency to kill his darlings in the rewrite stage.

Huge thanks to my family, as always, for putting up with my crankiness when I’ve been up writing all night, for bringing me tea and coffee and conversation, and helping in so many other ways. That goes double for the past year, because we all know I bit off way, way more than I could comfortably chew.  You guys are my world.

Mary Freeman has my unending gratitude for her document services. I owe you many margaritas and beach weeks.

Griffin—thank you for snuggles on the couch while I edited this and for reminding me that all work and no play make Rysa go crazy.

Thanks to friends on social media for listening to me when I need to vent and an extra thank-you to the CHRONOS Repo Agents, who are always up for a snap poll on which cover option is best.

* * *

Finally, we’d both like to thank the readers, including fans of the CHRONOS Files and the Delphi Trilogy, who took a chance on a new co-authored series. Book Two is coming soon.

And you might want to buckle up, because all hell is about to bust loose in the South.

Also by Rysa Walker

The CHRONOS Files

Timebound

Time’s Edge

Time’s Divide

The Delphi Trilogy

The Delphi Effect

The Delphi Resistance

The Delphi Revolution

Novellas

Time’s Echo (A CHRONOS Novella)

Time’s Mirror (A CHRONOS Novella)

Simon Says (A CHRONOS Novella)

The Abandoned (A Delphi Novella)

Graphic Novels

Time Trial (The CHRONOS Files)

Short Stories

“The Gambit” in The Time Travel Chronicles

“Whack Job” in Alt. History 102

“2092” in Dark Beyond the Stars

“Splinter” in CLONES: The Anthology

About the Author: Rysa Walker

RYSA WALKER is the author of the Delphi Trilogy and the bestselling CHRONOS Files series. Timebound, the first book in that series, was the Young Adult and Grand Prize winner in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. The CHRONOS Files has sold more than half a million copies since 2013 and has been translated into fourteen languages.

Rysa currently resides in North Carolina with her husband, two youngest sons, and a hyperactive golden retriever. When not working on the next installment in her CHRONOS Files universe, she watches shows where travelers boldly go to galaxies far away, or reads about magical creatures and superheroes from alternate timelines. She has neither the time nor the patience for reality TV.

Amazon

Goodreads

BookBub

Facebook

Twitter

About the Author: Caleb Amsel

CALEB AMSEL grew up in the mountains of Tennessee, where folklore and superstition are traded as truth and ghosts are very real. Raised on a healthy diet of John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Shirley Jackson, and Stephen King, Amsel has been telling himself stories for decades. He thinks it's time to tell them to someone else. AS THE CROW FLIES is his first novel.

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram