“You said the kid was gone,” Derrick replied. “And your dad’s at the movies. He won’t be back till after twelve at the earliest.”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, we can blaze out of here by then. He’ll never know.”
Mallory fell silent, not certain how to reply. She didn’t want to disappoint Derrick, who obviously didn’t think the situation was anything serious, but she didn’t want to lose her father’s trust, either. Then, while her mouth fumbled to find a reply to Chris’s last statement, she suddenly had a brainstorm.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “I know the perfect place to hang out, somewhere we won’t be seen or bothered by anyone. There’s an old barn in the back woods, behind the neighborhood. It must have a dirt road or a driveway that connects to it off one of the county roads. We could go there.”
The group glanced to one another for reactions, and all seemed to like the idea of exploring an abandoned farm.
“Cool, let’s do it,” Adam proclaimed, clearly eager to sample Troy’s goods.
“Sounds like fun,” Lisa added.
Derrick’s friends looked annoyed by the idea of having to relocate again, but they both obeyed when he told them to pack up their shit and get moving.
They all waited for Elsa to collect her clothes then left the yard together, hurrying back through the house and out the front door. In the foyer again, Mallory started to set the alarm—which Lori had carelessly left off—when she suddenly realized they were one person short.
She glanced back into the house while the others continued out to the cars. “Hey, Tim, come on, we’re going to go check out the old barn.”
When he didn’t reply, she walked to the bathroom but found the room empty.
“Are you coming or what?” Becky called from the front door.
“Tim’s gone,” Mallory answered, rejoining her friend. “He must’ve left when we were out at the pool.”
“So?”
“He didn’t even say goodbye. I think he’s mad because of Derrick.”
Becky shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing you can do about it now, right? Make it up to him later. Let’s go.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Exiting the house, she closed the door and locked it with her key, wishing that she’d had at least once more chance to thank Tim for inviting her to the fair. She cringed with another stab of guilt, realizing now that she’d just been setting him up for a fall by going.
She tried not to think about it. Instead, she hurried down the front steps and rounded the Mercedes, eventually settling down into the front seat next to Derrick.
Lori listened to the action upstairs.
The sound of footsteps trailed from one end of the house to the other, accompanied by the muffled noises of half a dozen voices.
She didn’t budge.
Overhead, she caught the clearer sound of a girl calling out to someone named Tim—
Lori remained silent, not daring to speak.
It could be a trick. Maybe the girl was really… that
After a moment of calm, the girl’s footsteps trailed to the front of the house and then came the sound of the front door closing.
Lori remained motionless.
Higher up the wall, she caught the subtle sound of insect legs scuttling over the cinderblock wall, a June bug or some other sizable beetle that had entered through the window frame.
She stuffed a fist in her mouth, knowing that to scream at the bug or to lash out in hope of squashing it would call attention to her location, the same way calling out to the girl moments ago would have done.
Outside, a car engine came to life. Then another.
She listened to car doors closing.
Suddenly, something dropped onto her face, something hard and smooth, about the size of a gumball. Half a dozen prickly legs gripped the skin of her cheek.
Covering the fading whir of the departing car engines, Lori screamed.
CHAPTER 33
Melissa trailed behind Frank when they left the empty ranch house, glad to trade the oppressive silence of its vacant rooms for the noise of crickets singing in the shrubs.
She found the night sky a blank chalkboard, lacking even the slightest hint of the starlight she’d observed earlier. A wind blew across the front yard, blustering her hair. The scent of ionized air carried on its back was the sure forewarning of a storm.
Together, she and Frank had searched the large home from top to bottom, but even their combined efforts failed to locate clues to the identity of her attackers. Against Frank’s recommendation, Melissa planned to use his cell phone to call for backup and request a forensics crew to process the new crime scene. Upon their arrival, she would make sure they scoured every inch of the dwelling for any indications of what had happened.
“I wish you’d reconsider,” Frank said.
She didn’t reply.
The two of them crossed the turnaround driveway in silence, Frank walking beside her without even a glance, preoccupied with his car keys. While he went to retrieve his phone from the Chevy, Melissa stopped at her own vehicle in search of some painkillers.
She dropped into the driver’s seat before she realized the dome light hadn’t come on when she opened the door. Groaning, she dug out her keys and tried the ignition. No response.
“Perfect!”
“The electromagnetic pulse probably fried your engine’s circuitry,” Frank remarked, having returned to her side. He handed her his phone. “Just like it toasted your cell phone.”
She looked up at him from the driver seat. “And I suppose the killer ghost is to blame?”
“In its natural state, the entity is a being of pure energy. At least that’s the theory. If it’s true, then such a creature could conceivably control other electrical forces. That’s how I believe Kane passed through doors sealed with state-of-the-art electronic locks and how he disrupted security cameras to hide his activity; the entity was helping him. But that same energy registers on devices like TriField meters, meaning we can use its own powers against it, as a method of detection; hence the equipment in my truck.”
“Very sci-fi,” she replied.
Lines of frustration marred Frank’s face.
She got out of the car. “Look, I’m sorry. I owe you my life, so I don’t mean to make light of your beliefs. At the same time, it’s not easy for me to immediately agree with your theory of what’s been happening. I just can’t.”
He fashioning a weak smile. “Five years ago I would’ve said the same thing. But”—he tapped his eye patch —“that was before this monster nearly killed me.”
“You mean, before
Frank shook his head, and the added flicker of lightning on the horizon behind him enhanced the already uneasy ambience of her night.
“Have you ever read anything about human sacrifices?” he asked.
She cringed. “Why would I want to?”
“Because it has everything to do with your investigation.”
