Ricky shook his head. “That’s the thing, though. I think that because I went through it—and the Harpers, and a few other people—it actually puts us in more danger. When those things come back, if we’re still around, they’re coming for us. And worse, when they show up, they’re not just coming for me. They’ll come for Mom and Dad because of the time that we fought the ‘horrible techo-demon’ and they might even come for you.”
Three: Amber
Amber’s eyes opened and she stared at the glow of the streetlight on the wall. Without rolling over, she knew what time it was. She frequently woke up just before three, and it always took her at least an hour to get back to sleep.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Amber reminded herself that she was back in North Carolina, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the Maine countryside where monsters roamed. Gently, careful to not make a sound, Amber swung her feet down to the floor and stood up from the bed. She used the flashlight on her phone to check the window. Her cousin was wrong—it wasn’t birdseed tonight.
Tonight, she had put a little line of rice on her windowsill. It was a tough habit to break. At worst, it was a waste of a tiny bit of food. At best, the rice could delay monsters that might try to creep through her window and…
“Stop,” she whispered to herself.
Amber picked up the wastebasket from next to her bed and brushed the rice into the trash. She rounded the bed to get rid of the other pile and then stooped to scoop what she had put in front of her door. This was a ritual she usually did after sunrise.
After she finished cleaning, she went to the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table. Her eyes just stared at the pages of the book in her hands. None of the words registered except for the occasional piece of dialog.
Cousin Evelyn got up eventually.
Amber started the coffee maker while Evelyn was in the bathroom.
“What are you doing up?” Evelyn asked.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you what happened. I didn’t want to burden you with all that.”
“All what?”
“About what happened to Bill.”
“Honey, dead is dead. It doesn’t get much worse than that.”
“Maybe,” Amber said with a sigh.
Evelyn poured herself coffee. Watching her move around the kitchen, it would be tough to guess that she was blind. After forty years, her hand didn’t hesitate at all when she reached in the fridge and pulled out the cream.
Amber watched her shuffle across to the table and set down her mug before she took a seat.
“I’m not sure how to get past this,” Amber said.
“And you think that telling me will help?”
“I don’t know what else to do. You’ve always given me such good advice.”
Evelyn sipped the coffee and set down her mug again.
“But you don’t want to burden me.”
“Exactly.”
“Then don’t,” Evelyn said. “I don’t have to know what happened in order to tell you what to do.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not. You don’t toss and turn and then get up in the middle of the night because you don’t know what to do.”
Amber studied Evelyn’s glass eyes. They moved back and forth like she was reading something that was written large on the wall behind Amber.
“You toss and turn because you know what you should do but you’re not brave enough to do it.”
Amber looked down.
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“Who are you trying to convince?”
“You’re assuming that this is a problem that I could try to fix. Not everything is like that. Some things are bigger than us. Some problems don’t have solutions.”
“Big, world-changing problems, you mean? Life and death stuff?”
“Something like that,” Amber said.
“Then why are you tossing and turning? If there’s nothing you can do, then why is your head torturing itself over it?”
Amber thought about that question until she thought she knew the root of the problem.
“I guess I’m afraid that they’re going to come back and kill again. Why wouldn’t they? I just barely escaped. They got Uncle Bill, John, Jennifer, and the rest. What if they come back for Ricky?”
“And nothing is going to ever stop it?”
Amber thought again. She pictured the thing that had invaded her uncle’s house after the sun went down. It was John, but it was also not John. The thing that she had stabbed in the eyes was unrecognizable as a human being. As impossible as it seemed, she had grown to accept that the monster she killed had once been her neighbor, John.
“No, there’s something that can stop it. I’ve stopped more than one.”
Evelyn smiled and took another sip of coffee.
“Then that’s why your head is torturing itself. You care too much to let the world turn on its own. That’s a weakness, cousin. With any weakness, you either have to give in or harden yourself. I suggest you toughen up and forget about it.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“I thought for sure you were going to tell me that I should go off and face my fears.”
“Nope,” Evelyn said, shaking her head.
Amber waited patiently until Evelyn was ready to explain.
Eventually, her cousin said, “You just told me that you barely escaped. If you’re right, and the same thing that killed Bill nearly killed you, I don’t want you going anywhere near that place. Not while I’m alive.”
“So I just have to forget about it.”
“Yup. And I think I can help you do it.”
# # #
Amber was driving the next time Ricky called.
She pressed the button on the steering wheel to answer the call.
“Hello Ricky.”
“Hi Amber. You have a second?”
“I have fifteen minutes. I’m headed to work.”
“You’re working nights now? Or did you flee to another continent?”
Amber smiled.
“Working nights. My cousin suggested that if I couldn’t
