Ghost Town

her might. He was heavy, really heavy, and it hurt trying to hold on while he thrashed. She moved him another foot. It seemed to take forever.

“Move!” Shane yelled from behind her, and jumped down the steps with a heavy quilt in his hands. He threw it over Michael and started slapping out the flames. “What the hell happened?”

“He . . . he forgot he . . .” Claire couldn’t get her breath. “I couldn’t get him to go inside.”

“Jesus, Michael . . . Claire, go call an ambulance. Hurry.”

She stumbled up into the house and made the call as Shane dragged their friend back up the steps and onto the porch. She hoped she made sense to the emergency services person on the other end. She honestly didn’t know. All she could think about was getting back out there and helping Shane.

It was only as she hung up the phone that she realized her own hands were burned, too. She tried not to look too closely. They didn’t hurt yet, exactly. That was probably shock. She went back out to the porch, and saw that Shane had peeled away the quilt.

Michael was alive, but he didn’t look good. His shirt was covered with burned holes, and the skin underneath looked horrible. So did his face, his hands, his arms—every part of him that hadn’t been fully protected. He was still awake, and his eyes had turned a brilliant ruby red. “I’m not,” he was saying. “I’m not one of them. Shane, tell me I’m not!” He sounded so afraid. His voice was shaking.

Shane’s expression made Claire’s heart ache, and his voice came out rough, but oddly gentle. “You’re not one of them, bro,” he said. “You’re one of us. You’ll always be one of us.”

Michael was crying now. “Get my dad. I need my dad.”

Shane pushed his hair back with one hand, clearly not sure what to say, and then shook his head. “I can’t. He’s not here, Mike. Just stay still, okay? You’re going to be okay. They’ll fix you up.”

“Get Sam,” Michael pleaded. “He’ll tell you I’m not . . . I’m not . . .”

It was awful. Claire wanted to cry, too, but she knew if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Why Michael? God, it was her fault. Hers and Myrnin’s. This was happening to so many people, and she couldn’t take it; she really couldn’t. Michael didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved this.

“Claire, your hands . . .” Shane was looking at her now, and he seemed pale. “You burned your hands.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. It seemed the thing to say. It didn’t look so bad now, in the sun. Mostly they were red and angry-looking, like a terrible sunburn. Well, she’d had those before. “Is he in pain?”

“I’m right here,” Michael said. He was getting hold of himself a little. “It hurts. Not so much now, though.”

“He’s healing,” Shane said quietly. “He’ll be all right.”

But Michael was staring at Claire now, and suddenly he said, “You . . . you did something to me. Poured gas on me. Something. I’m not a vampire. I didn’t just catch fire.”

“No!” Claire was appalled he even thought it. “No, Michael, I didn’t—”

“Get her away from me,” Michael said to Shane. “She’s crazy. She was in the house. She’s one of Monica’s friends. You know how they are with fire.”

“Mike . . .” Shane hesitated, then plunged on. “She lives here, man. She’s got the room at the end. Your parents’ room. She’s okay. Really.”

Michael didn’t say anything to that, just shook his head and closed his eyes. Shane looked at Claire, and lifted his hands in a silent apology. She nodded.

It was a relief hearing the ambulance come screaming toward them.

Shane went with Michael to the hospital, and the paramedics looked Claire’s hands over, gave her some kind of cream, and told her she’d be fine. She didn’t feel fine, but she ignored it. Somebody had to tell Eve, and she didn’t want to do it over the phone. There were some things that just didn’t sound right, and this was a big one.

Backpack and phone back in place, Claire ran the blocks to Common Grounds. Along the way she saw plenty of evidence that things were going even farther off the tracks—lots of police out, people wandering the streets looking lost and upset, people fighting. One woman kept trying to get into a house, and she was scaring the people inside.

Claire didn’t stop for anything.

Common Grounds, on the other hand, was weirdly normal. The overwhelming aroma of coffee hit her like a wake-up call as she came in the front door, and there were plenty of people here, huddled over their mochas and frapps and lattes as they studied or chatted or phoned.

Everybody seemed to be from TPU today. She couldn’t spot a single Morganville resident—but then, it was the middle of the morning, and most people had already left for work, unless they were out wandering the streets, confused.

There was no sign of Oliver in the place, and no sign of Eve, either. There was some other girl working the register. Claire hurried up, breathless, and said, “Where’s Eve?”

“Who?” the girl asked. She looked new. And clueless.

“Eve,” she said. “Tall girl, real Goth? She works mornings. I need her.”

The girl gave her a harassed look as she added milk and stirred, added whipped cream, and handed a cup over to one of the two boys Claire had displaced. “Are you deaf? She’s not here. I don’t know any Goths around here.”

“She works here!” That got nothing but a shrug. Not a very interested one. “What about Oliver?”

“You mean George?”

“George?” Claire stared at her, a sick feeling growing in her guts.

“Yeah, George, the owner. Not sure where he’s gotten off to today.” The girl went to ring up someone else. Claire hissed in frustration and tried to think what to do next; it was clear that whatever memory reset the counter queen had undergone had erased Oliver, too.

Claire headed for the door. She was surprised to hear the girl call after her. “Hey!” she said. Claire looked back. “Some girl came in today and tried to put on an apron. I guess she was kind of Goth; she had black hair, anyway. I told her to go home.”

Claire caught her breath. “Home,” she said. But if Eve had it, too, she might not remember the Glass House as home. Like the woman she’d seen down the street, trying to unlock a door that wasn’t any longer her own.

She’d have gone home home. To her parents’ house. That could be . . . well, either good or bad, depending. Claire wasn’t really sure. She’d been under the impression that Eve’s dad, who’d passed away last year, had been the real trouble in Eve’s home life, but what about Jason, Eve’s brother? Three years ago, he’d probably been a dangerous little creep. It might not be safe for Eve at all.

“The Rossers,” she said. “Where do they live?”

“No freaking idea,” the counter girl said, and turned to the next customer. “Yeah, what do you want?”

Claire was ready to interrogate everyone in the shop for answers, but she didn’t have to after all, because a door opened at the back of the shop, and she saw Oliver in the shadows. He looked odd—tired, wary, and very paranoid. He looked around the coffee shop, frowning, and his eyes fixed on her.

He nodded very slightly.

He knew who she was. That sent a wave of relief flooding through her, all out of proportion to things. She wanted to lunge over and kiss him. Well, ew, not really, but maybe a hug. Or a handshake.

What she did do was walk slowly and calmly over to him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, because the last time I saw you, you had bite marks in your throat?”

He grabbed her wrist and held it very, very tightly. “You’d do well to forget you ever saw any of that.”

“There’s too much forgetting going on already.”

“Certainly true,” he said, and let go. “Were you concerned for me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Wise answer.”

“Michael has it. The memory thing. He doesn’t . . . he doesn’t remember who I am.”

Now she had Oliver’s full attention. He looked at her for a moment, then turned and walked away. She hurried after him to his office. Oliver closed the door behind her, leaned against it with his arms folded, and said, “I thought you and Michael were going to shut down that cursed machine. Haven’t you done so?”