The presence she sensed wasn’t Carly.
A shadow stood on the other side of the kitchen, just this side of the open threshold to the living room. The shape was translucent, a vague human form, smoky gray. It seemed to face her, regard her for a moment. Then it turned and walked into the living room out of sight.
Karen stood still. The trash bag was still clutched in her right hand. She felt cold as frost. A chill stirred around her.
After the shape walked into the living room, Karen dropped the trash bag and hurried to the threshold between the two rooms.
No one was there.
CHAPTER FOUR
Monday morning crept over Carson Lake with a pink glow. It cast its luminance over the fresh snow, which coated everything from the yards, trees, and houses in the neighborhoods, to the mountains of Rampart Range on the east and the distant crest of Pikes Peak that swept high above town to the west. As the sun crept higher, the skies turned from pink to orange, and finally blazed through icy blue skies to illuminate the mountain valley community in a cold white light.
Carly stood on the street corner across from Abigail’s house, squinting across the road against the stark white snow. The street was lined with huge old trees, snow-heavy bare branches bent over the street to create an arched hollow. Occasionally, a large chunk of snow fell with a thud into the street. A red car came by, tires hissing through slush on the street, as Abigail appeared on her front porch.
Abigail was a bit different, and made a point of flaunting it. She wore an olive drab military field jacket with a zipped on fur-lined hood. She wore loose blue jeans and Converse high tops, her curly black hair wild about her plain, un-made-up face. Carly had tried to talk her friend into dressing up a few times, she’d even given her a make-over one weekend and tried to teach her how to walk in high heels in time for the Junior prom. It broke Carly’s heart when nobody asked Abi to go, and she had to tag along with her and Ethan. It was a bit of vindication for her, however, when Abi showed up in a dress, with make-up, her hair done, and looking pretty damn good. She wasn’t a beauty queen, but she wasn’t the homely girl everyone had come to expect. Of course, the whole night she just skulked around, talking about how ridiculous she thought she looked.
Standing on the freshly shoveled sidewalk speckled with salt to melt the ice, Carly could hear Abigail yelling goodbye to her mother as the front screen door swung shut and banged against the old wood frame. Abi swung her backpack over her shoulder, ran down the front steps and didn’t even look before she ran across the street to meet her best friend.
“You seem a little rusty on your pedestrian safety tips, this morning.”
Abigail caught up with her, breathing heavy. “I should be so lucky as to get hit by a bus.”
“What now?”
“That stupid research paper for Leonard’s class. I didn’t get it finished, and I’ve got a low C in the class.”
“What did you do this weekend?”
“Well, I watched a bunch of eighties horror movies on TMC’s October FrightFest, surfed the Internet, downloaded some new apps and music for my iPhone, and wrote a new story for the Stormy Nights fan fic site.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Okay, I didn’t really write any fan fic.”
“Why didn’t you work on your paper?”
“I did! It’s just that, every time I’d get a little bit of work done on it ... ugh.” She shook her head in frustration. “It was just so boring. I had to go do something else.”
“Maybe you can get some time in the library before class.”
“Maybe.” Abigail sounded non-committal.
Their walk to school took them through the arched tunnel of snow-laden trees, across the slushy street to a back road that went over Washington Hill. The road that went up over the hill was a muddy mess. They left their neighborhood behind as they ascended the steep grade, walking on the right side of the road to steer clear of Ms. Maeveen’s witch house.
“That thing seems creepier every year,” Abigail said.
The old house dated back to the late 1800s and looked like it hadn’t had much attention since then. Its second story roof was composed of several sharp steeples and a round drum-tower on the corner that looked like it belonged on a castle instead of a ramshackle old house in Carson Lake. The drum tower had a small parapet at top, and some of the steeples had windows thick with grime, framed by dark red curtains. Only one of the upstairs windows had open curtains and they always looked up every morning on their walk to school to see if they could catch a glimpse of Ms. Maeveen. The lower story of the house was harder to see because the land around it was thick with trees, overgrown brush, and vines. From the road, the only thing you could see of the house’s first floor was an aging walkway. The concrete walk was cracked and broken. It led through a choked tunnel of foliage to a pillared front porch, where the gray wood of the house was like desiccated skin. A rickety mailbox on curled wrought iron was painted with calligraphic letters, V. Maeveen.
“No sign of the witch this morning,” Carly noted. Still she glanced toward the upper window, the one with the deep red curtains pulled away. Had a section of glass been cleaned since they last came by? Had some of the grime been washed away to make a portal to the outside world? Carly felt the hair at the back of her neck bristle and crawl.
“What’s got to you?” Abigail mocked her. “Witch magic overflowing from the brushy depths this morning?”
“I swear sometimes she’s up there watching us as we walk by.”
“Maybe she is. Maybe she’s waiting for you to come by alone, so she can snip off your nipples and use them in her bubbling cauldron of everlasting youth potions.”
“Egh,” Carly shivered at the thought of having her nipples snipped off. “Cripes, where do you come up with that stuff?”
Abigail grinned. “I found a new book on witchcraft at the library last week.”
“Are you kidding me? What the heck are you doing with that?”
Abigail shrugged. “Just curious I guess.”
“You’re creeping me out, girl.”
Abigail shrugged with a mischievous glint in her eye suggesting that was probably her intent. “Maybe you’ll come to visit me in twenty years and I’ll live on a house on the hill surrounded by a bunch of gnarly trees.”
“Maybe I’ll think you’ve gone around the bend and need professional help.”
Abigail gave a mock cackling laugh. Carly punched Abi playfully in the arm.
They crested the hill, leaving the old witch’s house behind them. They cut across a patch of woods that came out near the cemetery. As they passed through the snow-powdered field onto the road that went in front of the graveyard, a pale shape appeared in the upper window of the old house, watching them go.
* * *
The high school was a couple hundred yards past the middle school, atop the last hill of their daily walk. The paved road curved up a slope that led past the middle school, with cars and busses going in and out. They jogged through the traffic, breath pluming in the frigid morning. Carly and Abigail cut short their conversation to hurry along the sidewalk and up the front steps to get inside. The iron sculpture of the wildcat, Carson Lake High School’s mascot, stood in mid-pounce on the front lawn, a layer of snow on top like a fleece blanket.
They pushed through the front doors of the school. The mixed smell of bodies and crisp cold joined the dull roar of conversation in the halls. They made their way deeper inside, through the sea of stop and go traffic in the history wing, headed toward their lockers. Heat dispelled the chill of their morning walk. Their cheeks flushed. The echoes of slamming lockers and joking and screaming followed them to their own lockers, which were just a few slots apart.
Carly opened her locker and deposited her books and coat. She pulled out her brush and combed her hai
r in the mirror glued to the inside. There were pictures of her and Ethan together, she and Abi, and one of her mom. She also had a postcard with a picture of Daniel Craig that Ethan was just going to have to allow. Not like she’d end up on a Hollywood set anytime soon, so he’d admitted he wasn’t too threatened.
Not that he’d have anything to worry about, Carly thought, recalling Ethan’s rippled upper torso as he’d stripped off his shirt to lay with her Saturday night. A grin crept across her face at the memory.
She’d just started to thaw out when a group of girls led by star cheerleader Sadie McBay came by. Carly saw them gather around Abigail’s locker a few feet away, delivering the standard litany of insults.
Sadie McBay had a supermodel’s body at seventeen, with a long mane of naturally blonde hair that shimmered even in the dullest light. Rumor among those who hated her was that she’d had a boob job, paid for by her rich parents last summer, but word among the guys (and there were many) who’d experienced them first hand claimed they were 100-percent Sadie. She stood with her hand on one hip, perfect red nails, tight low-rise jeans and black heels. She flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder and batted lush eyelashes over cruelly beautiful emerald green eyes. Three other girls stood nearby, not entirely interested in the insult circus, but sticking around because they felt like this somehow helped their standing. One of them was another cheerleader.
“Nice ensemble this morning,” Sadie said with mock approval.
Abigail visibly shrank before Sadie’s verbal assault.
“Are Army green field jackets all the rage in Homely Girl magazine this season?”
It was hard to say if Abigail’s face was still flushed from the cold, or from embarrassment.
“Ooh, and those Converse. That is so nineteen ninety-four. Looks like they’ve seen their day. Maybe you could complete the outfit by taping them up or something.” Sadie nodded back at the three girls with her, and they joined her in a grin. “Frumpy Walmart sweatshirt and ripped up baggy jeans complete the ensemble. Wow, if you bothered to do anything with your hair or face I’d be threatened. I suppose the guys are just falling all over themselves to get a date for homecoming.”
Sadie threw back her head and gave a wicked laugh. Abigail was silent and turned her back on the girls, sorting desultorily through her locker for her books. Carly could see her friend’s throat working as if she was upset and didn’t trust herself to say anything lest tears came instead of any worthwhile defense.
“Sadie, don’t you have anything else to do?” Carly looked at her watch. “Oh, I see it’s too early to give blow jobs in the locker room. Still, you should get there early. I saw quite a line.”
Sadie looked like she’d been slapped. Her jaw dropped and the angle of her head changed to whole new kind of what-the-fuck-did-you-just-say attitude. Carly set her jaw and didn’t back down.
“Well,” Sadie said, evil creeping back into her eyes. “I suppose I could always ask Ethan if he’d like one, since he’s not getting anything from you.”
“I’m sure he’s not interested in any of the diseases that have made your mouth their home.”
Sadie arched an eyebrow and set her wet tongue to the tip of her perfectly white teeth. “I’m sure he’d be interested in plenty of what I’ve got.” Sadie’s eyes ran up and down Carly in a challenge. “One taste of me and he’d forget your name.”
Carly’s face flushed with heat when she spotted Ethan and his friend Ryan coming down the hall over Sadie’s shoulder. When her eyes met his he waved and hurried over.
Ethan stood a full foot taller than Sadie. He looked at her and the other girls who’d gathered there. A small crowd had stopped by to witness the bitchfest, but now began to disperse, sensing it ended with Ethan and Ryan’s arrival.
“What’s going on, ladies?” Ethan gave Sadie a meaningful look.
She gave him a deadly smile, perfect white teeth, red lips. Her eyes flashed in the dim light of the hall and she titled her head, lightly touching Ethan’s hand.
“See you around, handsome.” Sadie lightly brushed the sleeve of Ethan’s letter jacket with her breasts as she turned and strutted away, taking her puppies with her.
Carly gave a disgusted sound.
Ethan’s eyebrows went up. “I shudder to think what that was about.”
Ryan turned to watch Sadie strut away. Carly punched him in the shoulder. “Subtle,” she said.
“Hey, have some compassion,” Ryan said. “Not all of us are fully attached, here.”
Abigail sulked. She clutched books and laptop close to her chest. Her eyes flashed darkly after Sadie and her gang, but she recovered pretty quickly.
“Hi Ethan,” Abigail said.
“Hi Abi, how’s it going?”
She laughed bitterly. “Just fine until we got here. Carly, I’ve got to try and get some work done on my paper, so I’m sneaking off to the library. Are we still on for lunch?” Abi looked between her and Ethan. Carly felt a pang of regret that Abi saw Ethan as stealing her friend away, but at least they got along okay. For now. There’d been comments here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be solved by a girl’s night out now and then.
“You bet,” Carly said. “I’ll meet you up by the office after fifth period.”
Abi smiled and skittered off through the hall like a mouse seeking its hole.
“Ryan,” Carly said, “You ought to ask Abi to homecoming.”
Ryan groaned. “I was planning to ask Wendy.”
Carly gave him a look of disapproval, but she knew he liked to party and smoke weed. Ultimately, Abi probably wouldn’t have been into that. Carly grabbed her books and closed her locker, walking with the guys toward the cafeteria. Ethan took her books and she smiled, locked her arm in his.
“Ryan told me what happened Saturday night,” Ethan said. “When your dad got that call in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah,” Carly said. “He mentioned something about it. All he said was some kids were killed at a party up there at Rainbow Falls. He couldn’t talk about the specifics since it’s under investigation.”
“Three people,” Ryan said.
“He was there and saw the whole thing,” Ethan said conspiratorially.
“You were there?” Carly said.
“Yeah, and it’s about the goddamn worst thing I’ve ever freakin’ seen.” He recounted the whole story for them. How Mason and Raylee were in the back of Jack’s truck making out when the door ripped off the camper and the iridescent green fog-shape slipped into the back of the truck. Then the slaughter began.
“Green fog?” Carly said.
“I swear. I wasn’t the only one who saw it. And another guy was killed, too. Decapitated. We didn’t recognize him at the time because well, we were all pretty freaked, but we’re all pretty sure it was Kyle Okposo. He was tripping on some acid he scored down at Acacia, and had wondered off into the dark last anyone saw him alive.”
“Decapitated?” Carly’s face registered shock.
Ryan nodded emphatically.
“Your dad didn’t say anything about this stuff when he got home?” Ethan said.
“No! Good grief, he wouldn’t have talked about that to me. I mean, he let me know what had happened, and warned me to be careful. But I never go to parties, so ...”
They reached the cafeteria. Ethan set her books down at the corner of their customary table.
“Do we have enough time for a donut?” Ryan asked.
“I’ll buy,” Ethan said.
“Awesome,” Ryan sat down across the table from Carly. Ethan offered to get her something but she shook her head. As soon as he headed off to the front counter, Ryan launched into a detailed description of all the grisly details of Saturday night’s slaughter.
It was a long day till the dismissal bell, but even then, pe
ople walking out to catch their busses or go home were still whispering about the deaths.
CHAPTER FIVE
In her bedroom after school, Abi rolled over the beanbag chair, a pile of books, and a stack of comics, grabbing the ringing phone from her bed. She caught it halfway through the second ring.
“Yo,” she said, flopping onto her back, staring toward the ceiling at the fan that hypnotically rotated on high speed.
“Hey. Working on your paper?” It was Carly.
“How’d you know Leonard gave me an extra day?”
“Because he told me he gave you an extra day. He asked me after sixth period if there was anything going on with you.”
“What’d you tell him?” Abi rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up with one elbow.
“I laughed and said there’s always something going on with you.”
“Wow, thanks for that.”
“Well, what was I supposed to tell him? I didn’t know what you told him so I didn’t want to blow it for you.”
Abi shrugged. “That’s good, I guess.”
“How did you get that old grouch to give you an extra day?”
“I told him my dad was out of work and my parents were having marital problems and that things were a little crazy at home right now. All of which is the truth.” Abi absently stacked her comics, neatly aligning the stapled edges. The brawny form of Conan glared moodily at her from the cover of the top comic. Where was a hunky, hot barbarian when you needed one?
“Sorry, Abi, I—”
“Hey, no biggie. Anyway, to answer your question, I am working on my paper. It’s not a masterpiece or anything, but I think I’ll at least pass.”
“You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, you know.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt my intelligence. I just hate the stupid crap they make us do in school. School is so archaic. The rigid system limits creativity, puts students in a box, constrains free thinking—”
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