Ghost Town

done laundry down in the basement, because she could smell the fabric softener. Too much, as usual. That was Shane’s trademark.

She wanted to go straight up to him, but the stairs seemed like too much. Way too much. She could hardly stand up, much less climb.

She compromised by walking to the couch, moving the game controllers, and collapsing on the sagging cushions. There was a blanket draped over one end in an untidy mess, and she wrapped herself up in it and immediately felt better. Safer.

She wiggled around under the blanket, found the cell phone she’d stuck in her pocket, and speed-dialed Shane.

“’Lo?” He coughed and tried again. His voice was husky and low. “Hello?” He must have looked at the screen, because all of a sudden he sounded wide-awake—and alarmed. “Claire? Where are you?”

“Downstairs on the couch,” she said, and yawned. “Can’t come up. Too tired.”

“Stay there.” He hung up, and she heard the thump of footsteps overhead. In just about a minute, Shane was coming down the steps at nearly a run. His jeans were on, but that was all—no shirt, and it made her warm all over to see him that way. He skidded to a stop next to the couch, staring down at her, then crouched to put their eyes on a level. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

“Sure. Just tired.” As proof, she yawned again. “How long have I been gone?”

“Forever,” Shane said, and there was something wrong with his voice; it sounded strange and choked. “Don’t do it again, okay? Scared the shit out of me. Out of all of us.” He smoothed hair back from her face, and she reached up to do it to him, too. His hair really was getting emo length, mainly from laziness and his never wanting to go get it cut.

“You didn’t do anything crazy, right?” It was hard to keep her eyes open, but touching him felt so good. So amazingly good.

“Michael had to pound me a couple of times to convince me not to go stage a rescue.” Shane shrugged. “He hits like a girl, for a vampire.”

“He was trying not to hurt you, dummy.”

“Yeah, I know. Scoot over.”

She did, and opened up the blanket. He slid in next to her, turned on his side, and kissed her before she could protest about needing a shower and toothpaste and all that stuff.

He wrapped her in his arms, so close, and she felt his breath stirring her hair. “You’re safe now,” he said. “You’re safe.”

She drifted off again in seconds into a deep, warm, dreamless sleep, feeling good for the first time in what seemed like years.

SEVEN

Eve woke them up when she clattered downstairs at ten in the morning. Shane groaned, rolled over, and fell off the couch with a thump, tangled in the blanket. Eve stopped on the steps and leaned over the railing. “Wow, Grace, that was impressive. You really stuck the landing. . . . Claire?” She blinked, then practically flew down the rest of the steps. “Claire! You’re back! You’re okay!” She stepped over Shane, who was still trying to get free of the blanket, and pulled Claire up to hug her like a rag doll. “We were so scared; we didn’t know how to get to you—everybody was looking—” She stopped and held Claire at arm’s length. “Ew.”

“Yeah,” Claire said. “I need a shower.”

“I don’t think a shower’s going to cut it. Maybe fire hoses, and those brushes they use on elephants.” Eve stepped back and offered Shane a hand up as he finally got untangled.

“Speaking of elephants, you sounded like a herd of something coming down the stairs,” he said. “What the hell are your shoes made of? Hooves?”

“And good morning to you, too, grumpy. Nice bedhead.” He flipped her off. “No coffee for you.” Eve turned back to Claire and hugged her one more time. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Claire said, and yawned again. “I will be once I get clean.”

“Yeah, big endorsement of that. I’ll have breakfast ready for you!”

Shane grabbed Claire’s hand. She smiled at him, oddly shy, because the glow in his eyes meant he was up to something, or thinking about being up to something. But he finally shook his head and said, “Go on, before I do something I probably shouldn’t.”

That sounded interesting. She wasn’t that tired. But yuck, getting clean sounded even better. So she kissed him quickly and ran up the steps toward the bathroom.

“See?” she heard Shane yell at the kitchen. “She doesn’t stomp around like a cattle stampede!”

“Bite me, Collins! No bacon for you, either!”

Things were back to normal. Claire breathed a huge sigh of relief, and felt something that had been completely knotted up in her gut start to relax.

The shower felt so good it was hard to actually get out again, but the creaky hot-water heater finally convinced her by spritzing in ice-cold bursts when it was about to give up altogether. The bathroom was wreathed in so much steam it was like a sauna, and Claire enjoyed the feel of it against her skin as she shaved her legs and underarms and applied lotion and generally felt human again.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Yeah, just a minute!” she called. “I’m almost done!”

“Mom?”

Claire stopped in the act of finger-fluffing her hair and turned toward the door. All of a sudden, the heat of the bathroom faded away, and the knot in her stomach came back. “What? Michael, is that you?”

Whoever it was, the voice didn’t call out again, and when she went to the door and pressed her ear against it, she didn’t hear anything at all. Weird. Really weird.

Claire put on her new, clean clothes—jeans, an orange camisole, and a pretty flowered sheer top that she’d scored at the resale shop. She unlocked the door and peeked out into the hallway.

Deserted.

She opened the door all the way and stepped out, accompanied by clouds of escaping steam. All the doors were shut, including Michael’s at the end of the hall. She didn’t see any sign of life up here, but Eve and Shane were still yelling back and forth downstairs.

Weird.

Claire left the door open and went to her room for her shoes. As she opened it, she found Michael standing in there with his back to her.

“Michael?” Finding him in her room was more than a little shocking. He was really good about giving her privacy, even if it was technically his house; he always knocked and waited for permission before coming in, which he rarely did anyway. “Something you wanted?”

He turned slowly to face her. She was blindly afraid for a second that something awful had happened to him, some kind of accident, but he looked . . . normal.

Just kind of dazed.

“What’s happened here?” he asked her. “It shouldn’t be like this. Why is it like this?”

“I—I don’t understand. It looks okay to me. I mean, sorry about the bed. I meant to make it up. What are you—”

“Who are you?” Michael interrupted her, and took a step back when she came toward him. “Whoa. Stay right there. Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?”

Claire’s mouth opened and closed, because she had no idea what to say to that. Was he kidding? No, she didn’t think so—there was real confusion in his face, real panic in his blue eyes. “I—I’m Claire,” she finally said. “Claire, remember? What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t—” He pulled in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and clenched his fists tight. She saw something strange pass over his face, and then he looked at her again, and he was back to being the same Michael she knew.