Saturday, 8:05 a.m.

I woke up to the sound of birds squawking. I figured there must have been about a hundred of them sitting outside my window. I rolled over in bed and tried to go back to sleep, but they wouldn’t let up. It was like having an alarm clock with no snooze button. After a few minutes, I got up, grumbled my way over to the window and pulled up the wooden blinds. Instead of a flock of birds, there were only three little gray feather-balls outside, standing on the edge of the roof that was overhanging the porch below. I pounded on the window, and they turned and looked up at me with their black eyes. I pounded on the glass again. They stood their ground and stared.

“I’m trying to get some sleep in here!” I shouted.

They chirped at each other a couple of times, just to irritate me, and then flew away. I watched them flap across the front yard and land in one of the huge trees growing on the other side of the lawn. Then they went back to their squawking.

I closed the blinds and was making my way back to bed when Johnny burst in.

“Rise and shine, bro!” he cried, stomping across the room and throwing open the blinds again. “Let’s get some grub!”

“It’s summer vacation,” I said, flopping into my bed. “Why are we waking up with the freaking birds?”

“Up with the birds? You kill me, Chuck. The birds have been awake for, like, four hours. It’s eight in the a.m.”

“Get me some takeout and leave it outside my door. I don’t do breakfast in the summertime. I do brunch, like any civilized human being.”

“Get up, Charlie, we’ve got work to do,” Mom said, rushing in. “This is the start of our new life.”

“I liked our old life,” I said, putting the pillow over my head. “We stayed at resorts with room service, we slept in and we didn’t renovate broken-down inns.”

“Get dressed,” she said, pulling the pillow away from me, “or we’re going to carry you down to the truck in your underwear.”

“Come on,” Johnny said. “I haven’t seen you since Christmas, bro. We have some serious catching up to do. Plus, I don’t want to see you in your underwear. Lilith’s pajamas were weird enough.”

“We can do it after 10:00 a.m.,” I said. “Now, make like a tree and scram!”

“It’s make like a tree and leave, bro.”

“It’s too early to argue about insults. Just go!”

“Can you give us a minute alone, Johnny?” Mom asked.

“You bet, Ma,” he said and left.

Mom closed the door behind him.

“Why can’t we just check into a hotel?” I groaned. “At least until the renovations are done. I mean, you’re not serious about us fixing up this place, right? I can barely tie my own shoes.”

“We can’t afford it, Charlie,” Mom said, sitting down on the end of the bed.

“Huh?”

“There’s no more money. It’s all gone.”

“What? That’s impossible,” I said, sitting up. “Dad’s a bestselling author. He’s famous. I mean, he spends all his time giving those self-help, feel-good conferences to rich schmucks. He’s on a round-the-world honeymoon with Mindy, for goodness’ sake. The money can’t just disappear overnight — we have maids and cooks to pay. They have to make a living, you know.”

“First of all, we didn’t lose it overnight. Your dad made a lot of bad investments, he wasn’t paying his taxes and there were a whole bunch of shady deals that I’m not even going to get into. Trust me, it’s all gone. And, for the record, he’s not on his honeymoon. Mindy left him when she found out about the money problems. Now he’s kind of on the run, I guess. It’s bound to come out in the news any day.”

“But you must have money from the divorce?”

“Not as much as you’d think,” she said. “And I sunk most of it into this place. So it’s kind of important for you to get up and help out. This inn is all we have left.”

“What about your family’s money?”

“My dad was a softy and not very savvy when it came to business. The money he inherited from my grandfather kind of slipped through his fingers. If you want a new phone, then you’re going to earn it.”

“That’s harsh, Ma.”

“That’s reality, Charlie.”

“Do Johnny and Lilith know?”

“I’ll tell Johnny today,” she said, “but I don’t want you to tell Lilith yet. She idolizes your father, and I don’t know how she’s going to take this.”

“Not well,” I said, sitting up. “Does this mean I won’t be going back to Choke?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Can I burn my uniforms?”

“I wouldn’t. You’ll need something to wear until your clothes arrive.”

Saturday, 8:22 a.m.

I threw on a wrinkled white shirt, wrinkly khakis, a pair of slightly stinky brown socks and my student handbook–approved dress shoes, then grabbed my toothbrush and headed for the bathroom at the end of the hall.

The bathroom renovations were only half done. Most of the yellow-white tiles on the floor were cracked, and the old-fashioned tub, which had paws on the ends of its stubby legs, looked grimy, but the sink and toilet were shiny and new. I brushed my teeth, did my business and headed downstairs.

Lilith’s door was closed as I strolled back down the hallway, but I could imagine her room being so neat and tidy it would be impossible to tell a human being had ever been inside. Johnny’s door was wide open, on the other hand, and it was so messy it looked like he’d been attacked by something during the night. His bag was lying in the middle of the floor, clothes spilling out of it, the sheets and blankets from the bed were crumpled in balls on the floor, and two pillows were propped at the bottom of the door, apparently to keep it open. It was so cluttered, I couldn’t even guess what hotel room Mom was trying to copy.

At the top of the stairs, I considered sliding down the banister. It felt solid enough, but I didn’t want to risk it collapsing, so I went down the old-fashioned way. I was going to go straight outside but stopped and glanced into the drawing room instead. There were two large windows along the front, with a variety of sofas and chairs lining the walls, and in the far corner was a baby grand piano. The wall to my immediate left was covered by a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, only the shelves didn’t contain books — there were antique dolls on them, all sitting in rows, staring into the room with their shiny, empty eyes. Most of them were wearing frilly dresses and had tiny, puckered smiles and abnormally long eyelashes. Some of them had fancy hats, with bows and ribbons hanging off the brims, propped on their heads. How long had they all been sitting there, staring? Twenty years? Fifty? I was just adding get rid of dolls to the top of my mental to-do list when my stomach grumbled.

It was hot when I stepped outside, and a million crickets were chirruping in the long grass, almost drowning out the squawking of the birds that were back outside my bedroom window.

“Hurry up, bro!” Johnny yelled from the truck. “I’m starving.”

Johnny was in the front, and Lilith shuffled over as I squeezed into the back.

“There must be a million crickets in the grass. That sound could drive a man batty,” I said, sliding in.

“They’re cicadas, not crickets,” Lilith said.

“Whatever. They’re bugs and they’re loud,” I said, as Mom backed out of the driveway. “By the way, that’s some collection of dolls in the drawing room.”

“They belonged to my great-grandmother. They’re extremely valuable.”

“They’re extremely creepy,” Johnny said.

“They’re antiques.”

“They’re still creepy, Ma,” Johnny added, and we started down the street.

Elm Street is one of those old country roads that looks like it’s just about to be overrun by the trees on either side and is covered in long cracks that run through it like veins.

“In episode seven of Vampyre Hunter,” Johnny said as we drove along, “I had to deal with a horde of possessed dolls. By the time we wrapped up shooting, I was totally freaked out.”

“I’d be careful, Johnny,” I said. “According to Miles Van Helsing, those things are vicious.”

“Miles Van who?” Johnny asked.

“Forget it,” Mom said. “Great-grandma Autumn’s dolls aren’t possessed.”

“They’ve been sitting there, alone, for a long time,” I said. “Maybe they’ve, you know, awoken. No wonder Hal walks around with a shotgun.”

“You might be right, bro,” Johnny said. “The research dude on our show says there’s a lot of weird stuff that goes on in the world that can never be explained, like frogs raining down or people randomly bursting into flames.”

“Are you still wearing your uniform?” Lilith asked, cutting into our conversation. For the record, Lilith was decked out in skin-tight black running pants, a high-tech black running shirt and black and yellow sneakers with individual toes.

“Lilith, unlike you, I don’t strut around in thermodynamic pajamas or a running outfit that looks like it was built for Catwoman. Plus, Sterling forces me to wear a uniform when I arrive at Choke, I’m forced to wear it every stinking day that I’m there, and he makes sure I’m wearing one when I leave, so I don’t see the point in packing civilian clothes.”

“You pack them because, eventually, you’ll go on summer vacation,” she said. “Like Dad said in his book The Way of the Wise, the prudent warrior always plans ahead.”

“Sometimes the prudent warrior doesn’t have a strong grasp of reality,” I mumbled.

“You’re the one talking about dolls coming to life, Charlie. I’d say you’re the one losing your grasp of reality.”

“Reality can be surprising,” I said, “and sometimes people aren’t what you think they are, Lilith.”

“Charlie,” Mom snapped, “that’s enough.”

“Right … fine,” I said, biting my lip, “I guess I wasn’t expecting to be exiled to the edge of the world for the summer without access to my clothes.” A big part of me wanted to tell Lilith that Dad wasn’t the glowing superhero she thought he was, but I’d promised Mom that I’d keep it under wraps, so I kept my mouth shut and looked out the window.

“You look ridiculous,” Lilith mumbled.

“Guilty as charged,” I said. “But at least my teeth are clean.”

“Did you use the sink in the upstairs bathroom? You know there’s something wrong with the plumbing, right? Mom thinks the water might be contaminated,” Lilith said.

“Contaminated?” I asked, running my tongue along my teeth. “Mom, you didn’t tell me that.”

“It’s not contaminated,” Mom said, coming to a stop sign at the end of Elm Street. “There was something wonky with the water pressure, so I called the plumber, and he’s coming this afternoon. The pipes are pretty old, and until he figures it out, we’ll have to avoid having showers. We probably shouldn’t drink or brush our teeth with it either. I’ll buy some bottled water today.”

“I already brushed my teeth,” I said, and tried to roll down the window in the back, but it wouldn’t open.

“Mom, undo the child-lock. I need to spit.”

“Relax,” Mom said, taking a right off Elm Street and starting down Oak Avenue. “It’s nothing to worry about. Plus, we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Contaminated is a worry, Mom. Let me roll down the window. I need to spit.”

“I’m not driving into town with you spitting out the window, Charlie.”

By now, houses were appearing on our left and right. They were big old country houses with front porches, huge lawns and white picket fences.

“Please, I think I’m dying back here.”

“Didn’t you say there was toilet water mixed up with the sink water, Mom?” Lilith asked.

“Do you want me to throw up?” I said, turning to Lilith. “Because I’ll throw up all over you if that’s what you want.”

“That’s not true, Charlie,” Mom said.

“In episode nine of Vampyre Hunter, I ended up in a town where all the residents had been changed into zombies because of contaminated drinking water,” Johnny chimed in. “I got to use a crossbow in that episode. It was totally rad.”

“Open the window!” I cried.

“We’re almost there,” Mom snapped, as we reached a three-way intersection at the bottom of Oak Avenue. Across the street, directly in front of us, was a garage.

“There she is,” Johnny said, pointing at a black and red motorcycle that looked like it could probably go about a thousand miles an hour. “I guess they haven’t had a chance to fix it,” he mumbled.

“I really need to spit,” I said, as we made a right onto Church Street, which was obviously the main drag in Rolling Hills, judging by the number of people who were already milling around. “I need to purge!”

“We’re almost there,” Mom said.

“Where is there?” I asked.

“Here,” she said, and pulled up to the curb next to a restaurant called Romero’s.

I threw open the door, jumped out and started spitting like crazy all over the sidewalk.

Saturday, 8:32 a.m.

Romero’s was housed in the same type of brick-front, two-story building that lined both sides of Church Street. Sure, there were little differences: the awning at Romero’s had white and green stripes and the one next door had yellow and red stripes, and some of the places didn’t have awnings at all, but by and large, Church Street consisted of the same neat and tidy building repeated again and again.

“It hasn’t changed a bit since I was a kid,” Mom said, getting out of the truck.

Church Street was about five blocks long, and at the end was a red brick church, with a tall white steeple jutting, like a giant needle, straight into the sky. Black iron lampposts arced over the street, and the occasional maple tree stood here and there. The sidewalks looked clean enough to eat off of. Well, they were clean enough to eat off of until I spat all over them.

Mom stopped admiring the view and turned to me. “Charlie, this isn’t the kind of town where you just spit all over the sidewalk.”

“I’ll make sure to do it in the road the next time I brush my teeth with toilet water.”

“Let’s just get something to eat,” Johnny said, and we all filed into Romero’s.

The place was filled with old-timers eating big platefuls of bacon and eggs and sipping from steaming mugs of coffee. Mom insisted we sit at the front counter, just like she and Hal used to do when they were kids. The locals stared at us as we made our way to the stools and took a seat.

A few seconds after we sat down, our waitress — a husky woman with gray hair and a name tag that read Mabel pinned to her white shirt — bustled over. She handed out the menus and filled our cups with coffee without asking if we wanted any.

“Back in a sec,” she said and left.

“Try the blueberry pancakes,” Mom said. “They’re delicious.”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking around. “I think we might get run out of town if we don’t order the bacon and eggs.”

“I’ll get both,” Johnny said, putting his menu down.

“Don’t you have to watch your figure for your fans?” I asked.

“The producers want me to beef up a bit for next season, so I’ve got to increase my calorie intake.”

“They want you to beef up, Johnny, not pork up.”

“Don’t worry about me, bro,” he said. “I’ve got some killer workouts that’ll keep me a lean, mean, vampire-fighting machine. You should join me, Chuck, you’re looking a little soft in the middle.”

“The Ping-Pong coach at Choke likes me to carry around a little extra weight, you know, for reserve energy, in case I get caught in an extra-long match.”

“We didn’t have a Ping-Pong team at Choke, did we?” Johnny asked, but before I could explain, Sheriff Dutton walked in and strolled over.

“Morning,” he said, nodding at us.

“Good morning, Sheriff,” Mom said, swiveling around on her stool.

“Please, call me Rick.”

“As long as you call me Claire. Catch any monsters last night?” she said, grinning.

“Can’t say that I did, but I had my hands full. There were plenty of calls. Some of the local kids were out celebrating the end of the school year.”

“Speaking of trouble, I’m not sure my brother, Hal, came back home last night. Do you think he’s okay?”

“Well, you know Hal, he’s a … little eccentric, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“It’s just the truth,” Mom said.

“But he knows the woods around these parts better than most folks,” he added, and took a business card and pen out of his pocket. He scribbled a number on the back and handed it to Mom. “If he’s not back by dinner tonight, give me a call and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks,” Mom said.

“What can I get you, Sheriff?” Mabel asked, wandering back with her pot of coffee.

“I’ll have a big cup of joe and some blueberry flapjacks,” Dutton said. “You all have a good day,” he added and then took a seat at a booth in the back.

“He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?” Mabel said, winking at Mom. “And he’s single, too, if you can believe it.”

“Do you have any vegan options?” Lilith blurted.

“Eggs?” Mabel said, shrugging.

Lilith frowned. “I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal, please — no milk.”

“I’d like the bacon and eggs — and could you put some extra bacon on the side?” I said, looking pointedly at Lilith.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Mabel said, while Lilith glared at me. “It’ll be a bit of a wait — we’re a little backed up today. One of our waitresses called in sick. I think she came down with a bad case of celebrating the end of school.”

Mabel wasn’t joking. It was almost an hour before we got our food. While we waited, Mom went over some of the renovation plans and assigned a few jobs. She’d hired some locals to handle most of the work, but we’d be helping out with a bit of the painting, the mowing and the general tidying up of the place. She said it was the perfect opportunity for some family bonding.

Spending my days doing manual labor with my family sounded like about as much fun as hanging out with Stanley Peck back at Choke for the entire summer, so when everyone piled into the truck after breakfast to go pick out paint, I convinced Mom I needed to peruse the shops on Church Street for some new clothes.

There weren’t any of the usual clothing stores or fast-food joints along Church Street. They were all local operations with names like Frog Brothers Café, Rosemary’s Roses or Eats Like a Bird Sandwich Shoppe. In fact, the only clothing store I saw was called Chaney’s Fine Garments, and it looked like it sold clothes that were made sometime in the mid-1940s. I needed new clothes, but not that badly, so I decided to wait for my stuff to arrive.

The only place on the street that really stood out was a restaurant called The Opal. The front was all sleek steel and glass instead of brick, and it was twice as wide as the stores around it. More importantly, one of the cars parked out front was a shiny red Porsche. I decided to saunter over and casually press my face against the restaurant’s front window to see if Elizabeth was inside, but before I had a chance to make myself look like a crazy stalker, she strolled out the front door with a tall man dressed in a gray suit and wearing a fedora.

“Hi, Charlie,” she said, smiling. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail and was wearing cut-off shorts and a white tank top.

“Wow, what a surprise,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“This is my dad,” she said, gesturing toward the older man. He was probably a few inches over six feet and had the kind of tanned, chiseled face that you only expect to see on mountain climbers or people who have sailed around the world a couple of times. I could see that his hair under the fedora was black with streaks of gray.

“Dad, this is Charlie Harker. He’s Johnny’s brother.”

“Mr. Opal,” I said, shaking his hand, which was massive and looked like it could crush mine if he sneezed the wrong way. His grip was surprisingly limp, though, and his skin felt clammy.

“Charlie,” he said, staring down at me from behind a pair of aviator sunglasses.

“Dad’s not feeling well. I’m sending him home.”

“It’s nothing,” Opal said in a flat voice.

“Sounds like something’s going around,” I said. “I just spent an hour at Romero’s waiting for my breakfast because one of the waitresses called in sick.”

“Our maître d’ is sick, too,” she said, looking a little concerned.

“It’s just a head cold. It’s nothing,” Opal said, still staring at me. I saw myself reflected in the silver sheen of his glasses and thought I looked like a person who’d been living on the streets for a few weeks.

“It’s probably a migraine,” Elizabeth said, as Opal headed for a black Mercedes. “He could barely walk when he woke up this morning, but he seems to be getting better. At least he says he’s feeling better.”

“I am feeling better,” Opal added drily, getting into his car.

“I’m going to follow him home,” she said, as he started up the car and pulled away, “just to make sure he makes it okay.” She was about to get into her Porsche but stopped and added, “Say hi to Johnny for me, okay?”

“Sure. Will do,” I said, smiling like an idiot and giving her a thumbs-up. This was the story of my life. In any town we’d ever visited, some girl (or girls) would fall for Johnny, and I’d end up relaying their messages to him. I’m not going to deny it was slightly annoying to be consistently overlooked for my golden-boy older brother, but what really cooked my craw was when they started cutting into my nap time, or my floating-in-the-pool time, or my lying-in-the-hammock-doing-nothing time to pick my brain about what Johnny was “really like” or ask if he’d been talking about them around the dinner table. I was hoping it didn’t come to that with Elizabeth Opal.

She drove away, and I continued my walk along Church Street. I wandered past a few more stores and then spotted a knee-high chalkboard, propped up against a wall at the mouth of a narrow alley that ran between Brooks Books and R. Sterling’s Fine Jewelry. Scrawled across the board in yellow letters were the words Voodoo Juice Bar. Under them, a yellow arrow pointed into the alley. I figured an establishment that was located in an alley was the perfect place for a fine young man like myself to escape family bonding time, so I headed down to check it out.

There were a few other arrows, drawn on the walls and along the ground, that pointed the way past the back of Brooks Books, around a corner and into another alley. That’s where I found a green wooden door held open with a brick. There was no sign above the door, but there was an arrow on the ground, pointing inside. So, I followed it in.

The walls in the Voodoo Juice Bar were deep purple, and the only light in the place was coming from a bare lightbulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. There were three tables, surrounded by folding lawn chairs, and a ragged-looking couch pushed into the back corner. The bar was on the other side of the room, and there were shelves stacked behind it, packed with jars, boxes, shakers, vials and beakers. One of the larger jars had five or six tarantulas inside, floating around in a clear, thick-looking liquid. Above the shelves was a blackboard with about fifty different drinks scrawled across it in yellow chalk. The drinks had names like Pinpricks, Zombaid, Undead-Colada, The Vortex and my personal favorite, The Re-Animator. I was still scanning the list when a man’s head poked through a set of red beads hanging from the doorframe of a back room. He had white hair that puffed off his head like a fluffy cloud and was wearing black-tinted goggles over his eyes.

“What are you here for?” he blurted.

“Uh … a drink, I think?”

“What? Why are you here? What’s your name?”

“His name is Charlie,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned and saw Miles Van Helsing standing in the doorway. He looked like he was wearing the same black clothes as the night before, only now he had on a black baseball cap.

“He’s okay, Dr. Vortex,” Miles added, coming toward me.

“I’m not sure you’re qualified to make that kind of judgment call, Miles,” I said.

“Trust me, Doctor,” Miles said, pulling a twenty out of his pocket and laying it down on the bar, “he’s clean.”

“What’ll you have?” Vortex asked, stepping out from behind the red beads. He was lean and tall, and wore a pair of big black rubber gloves and a white lab coat.

“We’ll take two Re-Animators,” Miles answered.

“That doesn’t have any spiders in it, does it?” I asked.

“Just the fangs,” Vortex said, staring at me from behind those black goggles.

My eyebrows shot up.

“He’s joking, Charlie,” Miles said, slapping me on the back. “Let’s have a seat.”

“Good, because spider venom this early in the morning gives me a headache.”

Vortex pulled the goggles down and smiled. His eyes were a brilliant blue. “Me, too,” he said and started grabbing jars off the shelf behind him.

“Dr. Vortex is a genius,” Miles said, leading me to one of the tables in the back. I sat down in a lawn chair across from him. “He’s a scientist, a brilliant inventor, and he makes the best drinks in town. On top of that, he could help us out of this mess.”

“What mess?”

“Were you not listening to me last night?”

“The sheriff said it was just some local kids blowing off steam.”

“He’s wrong,” Miles said, as Vortex started a blender behind the bar.

“Is this just some prank you play on all the new kids in town?”

“This situation is as far from a prank as you can possibly get.”

The blender stopped, and Vortex brought over two large jars filled with a greenish-brown mixture. He put them down and left, disappearing behind the beads and into the back room.

I sniffed my drink. It smelled like dirt.

“It tastes better than it smells,” Miles said.

“Better than dirt? I find that hard to believe.”

He grabbed his, gulped back half the glass and slammed it back onto the table. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

I nodded and took a sip. He was right; it tasted a whole lot better than it smelled.

“I’m not crazy,” he said.

“No, you’re right. It kind of tastes like a Creamsicle mixed with —”

“I’m not talking about the drink, Charlie. I’m talking about last night. I’m not crazy — there’s something highly irregular going on with our mutual neighbor, Mr. Ted Baxter.”

“I don’t suppose he’s connected with the antique dolls you told me about?”

“The antique dolls?”

“That stuff about the Holscombs. I didn’t hear how it all turned out.”

“Oh, right. Well, they hadn’t been seen for a few days, so the cops took a look inside. All the clothes were folded and put away, the fridge was full of food, the TV was on, et cetera, et cetera, but there was no sign of the Holscombs. They found the dolls tucked under the covers of Mr. and Mrs. Holscomb’s bed … But forget about that. The Baxters are the immediate problem here.”

“So, you actually think the dolls murdered the entire Holscomb family? And then what did they do? Bury them in the backyard?”

“Forget about the Holscombs, would you!” Miles said. “We can go into the long and sordid history of antique doll murders some other time. Right now, I need you to focus on the Baxters.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, taking a bigger sip. “I’ll stay clear of Mr. Baxter. Consider me warned.”

“No, no, no,” he said, “I’m not talking about staying away from the man. I’m talking about doing something about this situation. Do you understand me?”

“Not exactly,” I said and took another sip. I was starting to think that Dr. Vortex’s Re-Animator might be the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

“Last night,” he said, leaning in, “at 8:58 p.m., I was finishing up my nightly ten-mile run —”

“You should be talking to my sister,” I said.

“I think it’s important to stay fit for emergency situations.”

“So does she.”

“Just listen.”

“My apologies,” I said and nearly finished off the Re-Animator in one big gulp.

“I was finishing up my run when I noticed a man, dressed in a navy blue suit, sprinting through Mr. Baxter’s backyard,” he said, and looked at me like this should mean something.

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t you see? Adults in suits don’t sprint through other people’s backyards unless they are highly motivated.”

“Highly motivated?”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Highly motivated by what?”

“Now you’re asking the right questions,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t have to wait long to find out because about three seconds after the man in the suit ran by, Mr. Baxter and his wife emerged from the corner of the house, chasing after him toward the rear of their property. And do you know what they were wearing?”

I shook my head and considered getting another Re-Animator.

“Their pajamas,” he said triumphantly.

“Their pajamas?”

“Don’t you see? Pajama-wearing adults do not chase suit-wearing adults through their backyards — it just doesn’t happen. Mr. Baxter wasn’t even wearing a shirt, just some blue pajama pants. And Mrs. Baxter was wearing a pink housecoat and pink fuzzy slippers. And, even if pajama-wearing people did start chasing suit-wearing people off their properties every night of the week, it wasn’t just what they were wearing that was significant, it was how they were moving that really stood out.”

“How were they moving?”

“They were moving at an incredible velocity,” he said, his eyes getting wide. “If I didn’t know better, I would’ve guessed they were Olympic sprinters on some powerful, performance-enhancing drug. But they didn’t have the smooth movements of trained athletes — they were kind of jerking, like they were being pulled along by invisible strings.”

“And they were chasing the man in the suit?”

“That’s the kicker,” he said. “This man was extremely large. I would estimate he was at least six and a half feet tall and muscular. He was bigger than Mr. and Mrs. Baxter put together, but he was scared of them, really scared. I saw his face before he ran into the woods behind the property, and he looked terrified.”

“Well, that’s a scary story, Miles,” I said, getting up. “Good luck with everything. If I see Mr. and Mrs. Baxter running around in their underwear, I’ll be sure to get out of the way.”

“Their pajamas,” he said, standing up, too. “Look, I’m telling you this because we need to do something. We need to warn people!”

“I’ll put it at the top of my to-do list,” I said.

“You don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head in frustration. “Look, later that night I went back to investigate the situation. I hid in one of the trees at the rear of the Baxter property and observed the house. At precisely 10:48, Baxter came out of his house and walked to the small barn at the back of his property. When he came out, Mrs. Baxter and the man in the suit were following him. They were walking in single file.”

“Wow, single file — that’s pretty weird, Miles.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said, “but it gets worse. They heard me, I don’t know how, I was thirty yards away, staying perfectly still, but they heard me. About halfway to the house, they all stopped walking at exactly the same time and turned around. I don’t have any definitive proof, but I’d say they’re sharing what is commonly referred to as a hive mind. They stopped, turned and then, without saying a word, they started marching toward me. That’s when I took some serious evasive action, my friend, and a few minutes later I was trying to explain what happened to you and your uncle.”

“I’ll make sure I stay on my toes, Miles,” I said, heading for the door. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Did your uncle come home?” he asked, just as I was walking out.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“I think he knows something is wrong, Charlie. That’s why he left. He knows.”

“Sure,” I said, and left Miles standing in the middle of the Voodoo, looking worried.

I headed back to Church Street, which was still busy. It wasn’t New York City–busy, not by a long shot, but it had a certain bustle about it. It was a relief to see there were a few people around under the age of fifty. There were even a few under the age of eighteen, but I didn’t feel much like making friends, not in my slightly ripe Choke clothes. So I headed back to the inn.

About two minutes into the hike up Oak Avenue, I realized they should have called this town Tall and Steep Hills instead of Rolling Hills. It hadn’t seemed like Oak was straight up and down when we were driving in the truck, but it was a different kettle of fish when you were on foot. The fact that the day had quickly gone from mildly hot to scorching wasn’t helping matters — and as delicious as the Re-Animator had tasted, it wasn’t doing much in the way of Re-Animating me. I would have curled up and turned into a puddle of goo on one of the big front yards, but I thought it would reflect badly on Mom, so I kept trudging onward and upward, withering away a little with every step.

Saturday, 10:35 a.m.

By the time I staggered back into the driveway, I was soaked in sweat. I kind of noticed the beat-up red pickup truck parked beside the inn, and some part of me realized there were four men sitting on the steps of the front porch, but I was too exhausted to really care.

“Kind of hot,” one of the men said, standing up as I wobbled toward him. He was tall, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, but that was pretty much all I registered.

“I’ve seen hotter,” I said and wiped the sweat off my face with my shirt.

“I’m Jake,” he said, holding out his hand. “Jake Steel. We’re helping out with the renovations.”

“Charlie,” I said, pushing past him, stepping around the other three and lying down in the shade of the front porch.

“Is your mom around?”

“Paint …” I mumbled.

“What?” he asked, but luckily that’s when Mom pulled into the driveway. I was too tired to answer any more questions.

“It was nice to meet you, kid,” he said, and walked away.

I heard Mom introducing Lilith and Johnny to Jake, and then they headed back my way.

“This is my other son, Charlie,” she said.

I opened my eyes a crack. Jake, his three helpers and Mom were standing over me.

“We’ve met,” Jake said, smiling.

“Charlie, get up,” Mom barked. “I need you to help Johnny and Lilith put the paint cans in the cellar.”

“Just give me two more minutes,” I said.

“Up!”

Using every ounce of my will, I sat up and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. Jake and his crew, who were all men who looked like they’d enjoy shoveling rocks just for kicks and giggles, shuffled by in dusty work boots. That’s when I noticed a fifth man who was with them. He was leaning against the wall by the front door, deep in the shade. He was wearing the same kind of dusty boots as the others but was wrapped up in a black jacket with the hood up. I started to sweat more just looking at him. Under the hood, he was wearing a Boston Red Sox ball cap, the brim pulled low, and under the hat he had on a pair of black wraparound sunglasses. He stared at me for a few seconds and then went inside after the others.

“Get up, Charlie,” Lilith said, walking by with two cans of paint in each hand and going inside, too.

“Bro,” Johnny called from the back of the truck, “get over here and grab some cans!”

“Easy does it, Johnny,” I said, getting up and dragging myself over to the back of the pickup. “Not all of us ate a five-thousand-calorie breakfast.”

“You could use the exercise, Chuck.”

“There’s got to be thirty cans of paint back here,” I said, looking into the back of the truck.

“Thirty-five,” Johnny said.

He handed me a can, and I started back toward the front door.

“Seriously, you can handle more than one, right?”

“I need a bit of a warm-up,” I said. “I don’t want to pull any muscles.”

Johnny passed me on the way to the porch. He was carrying three cans of paint in each hand, but the front door was closed, so he had to stop and wait.

“You see,” I said, opening the door, “it’s a good thing I kept one hand free. Otherwise you’d be stuck out here for who knows how long.”

“You’re a genius, bro,” he said, marching inside and down the hallway to the kitchen.

“Sarcasm isn’t your thing, John-John,” I said, following behind him. “Leave that to me and Lilith.”

“What?” Lilith grumbled. She was standing in the far corner of the kitchen, in front of a door that was only about four feet high. The paint cans she’d been carrying were at her feet, and she was holding a flashlight.

“Did those cans get too heavy for you, Lilith?” I asked.

“I’ve finished four triathlons this year, Charlie. I think I can handle it.”

“Did you carry any paint cans during your precious triathlons?”

She frowned and handed me the flashlight. “Here — you have an extra hand.”

“And a good thing, too,” I said. “Otherwise, who would be here to carry flashlights and open doors?”

Lilith growled a little, opened the door and then picked up her paint cans. “After you,” she said, nodding into the darkness.

I turned the flashlight on and aimed it inside. About twelve wooden planks, masquerading as stairs, led down to a dirt floor. The ceiling over the stairs was only slightly higher than the door, maybe five feet high, and the walls were so close together that Johnny and Lilith would have to walk sideways in order to get the cans down the stairs. It looked more like a narrow chute than a stairway.

“Move it, bro,” Johnny said, nudging me forward.

“How long since anyone’s been down there?” I asked.

“Go!” Lilith barked, and pushed forward until I was forced to step through the door and onto the first stair. It creaked and bent a little under my foot, but it didn’t break.

“I don’t think we should —” I started, but they were pressing in from behind, so I had to keep going.

I moved quickly, the stairs groaning under me, and was surprised when I reached the bottom without a broken ankle. It smelled like dirt down there, but it was damp and cool, which was a nice break from the heat.

“Well,” I said, “I guess we can leave the cans here.”

“Not here,” Lilith said. “We keep going until we get to a door.”

“Yeah, Mom gave me the key,” Johnny added.

“And you’re going to follow orders like a good little Johnny, aren’t you?”

“Keep moving!” Lilith barked.

I shuffled down the passage for about twenty feet before I had to take a left. The stone walls seemed like they were closing in on us ever so slightly with each step. By the time we finally arrived at an ancient-looking wooden door, I was feeling a little cramped and a whole lot claustrophobic.

“Do you have the key?” I asked.

There was no way for Johnny to squeeze by me, so he handed it over. The key was long, made out of iron or steel and felt cool and significant in my hand. I’d just slipped it into the keyhole, when a small herd of mice darted across my foot and went squealing down the passage behind us.

“I think we’re going to need to buy a cat or three before the guests arrive,” I said.

“Just open the door,” Lilith snapped.

I opened it, and we shuffled into a room that felt big. I couldn’t really tell how big because it was pitch-black inside, except for a thin slash of light that seemed to be floating in the far right corner. Below it, the dirt floor was cut by a similar slash of light.

“That’s got to be the door to the backyard,” Lilith said, putting her cans down and snatching the flashlight out of my hand.

“Why didn’t we just come in there?” I asked.

“Because it’s bolted from the inside,” Johnny said, dropping his cans and following Lilith.

“Of course it is,” I said, putting down my can of paint and starting after them.

Unfortunately, Johnny and Lilith had hustled across the room so quickly I was left mostly in the dark and ended up running into a wooden box, cracking my shin. I limped to the side, tripped over another box and fell. I landed sideways on something metal and rolled onto the dirt floor, gasping for air.

“You okay, bro?” Johnny called.

“No,” I wheezed.

“Hold on a sec,” Johnny said, and the doors opened.

The slash of light turned into a giant square of sunshine and I saw I was surrounded by boxes, old furniture and stacks of dusty books. The metal thing I’d landed on was part of an old bed frame.

“You hurt, Charlie?” Johnny said, rushing over.

“I’m good,” I said, sitting up. “I just need to take a breather for a few hours.”

“Suck it up, Chuck,” Lilith called, starting out of the cellar. “Those paint cans aren’t going to move themselves.”

“Need a hand?” Johnny asked and offered to help me up.

“Give me a second.”

“Sure, bro,” he said and went outside, too.

“I’m right behind you,” I called.

I eased my way up, wincing a little, and was about to head outside when I noticed a wooden trapdoor in the floor a few feet to my left. The dirt around it had obviously been scuffed up recently and the iron ring that was sitting in the middle had a rope tied to it that looked brand-new. I was heading over for a closer look when Lilith arrived with four more cans of paint.

“Move it, Charles,” she said, “or I’m going to make sure all your best buds back at Choke know that you make your little sister do all the heavy lifting.”

“Why do you think they need a cellar under a cellar?” I asked.

“Quit stalling,” she said, dropping the cans.

“I admit it, Lilith, this would normally be an excellent stalling tactic, but I’m legitimately curious,” I said, but she was gone, and Johnny was on his way in with six more cans of his own.

“We could use a hand, bro.”

“Sure,” I said, adding find out what’s under the cellar to my mental to-do list.

Saturday, 11:05 a.m.

After we finished with the paint cans, I went back to my room and changed into some clothes that weren’t drenched in my own sweat. Unfortunately, the only things I had in the ball of dirty clothes I’d stuffed into my bag back at Choke, besides khaki pants and white shirts, were my blue gym shorts and a matching blue tank top, with CHOKE printed across the front in thick white letters. I must have left my sneakers back at school, and I didn’t really want to traipse around in dress shoes and shorts, so I rolled back outside in a pair of worn-down flip-flops I’d stashed at the bottom of the bag.

“Looking good, bro,” Johnny said when I stepped onto the front porch. “Coach is out back. He says calisthenics start in five minutes.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “That’ll be a lot more fun than moving paint cans with you two.”

“You only moved five cans,” Lilith said. She was sitting cross-legged on the front lawn.

“Sure, but they were the heaviest ones,” I said. “Plus, I was just getting warmed up. What’s next?”

“Scraping,” Mom said, coming outside. “There’s a high-pressure water sprayer in the back of Jake’s truck. Johnny will be in charge of that.”

“Why does the TV star get the cushy job? Did he bribe you?” I asked.

“Yes, and he paid a lot more than you can afford. Where are your shoes, Charlie?”

“I’ve temporarily misplaced them, and I refuse to wear brown dress shoes with shorts — not until after Labor Day, anyway.”

“You kill me, bro,” Johnny said, laughing as he headed for Jake’s truck.

“Here,” Mom said, handing me and Lilith a paint scraper each. “I’ll call you in for lunch.”

Johnny got busy hosing the paint off using the high-pressure sprayer, while Lilith and I took off the leftovers with our scrapers. About ten minutes into the job, I was drenched again, in a combination of sweat and the blowback from Johnny’s sprayer. Five minutes after that, my arms felt like wet noodles, and my shoulders were starting to cramp up. Pieces of gray-white paint were sticking to me like giant flakes of dandruff, and I was seriously considering taking a break, when Johnny turned the sprayer off, the engine rumbled to a stop and I heard a high-pitched whine coming from somewhere down the road.

“What’s that sound?” Johnny asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, taking a few steps toward the road. It sounded like a lawn mower engine that was about to explode, and it was getting closer.

“Sounds like a —” Johnny started, and then Miles roared into the end of our driveway on a miniature motorcycle, about half the size of a regular motorcycle, that looked like a bunch of old pipes, pieced together. He left the asphalt, hit the gravel, skidded, straightened out and then shot into the front yard. I ran to the corner of the inn just in time to see him hit something hidden in the grass and go flying over his handlebars.

“Snap!” Johnny said, running up beside me.

“Miles?” I yelled.

Miles sat up and shook his head, like he was trying to clear some water out of his ear.

“Are you okay?” I asked, running over to him. His minicycle was lying about ten feet behind him in the grass, wedged up against a large branch that had fallen off of one of the trees.

“I need to buy a helmet,” he said. He looked a little dazed, but other than that, he seemed fine.

“That was a humongous wipeout, dude,” Johnny said, helping him up.

“I’m okay,” he said, shaking his head.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I wanted to see if your uncle came back.”

“I don’t think he did.”

“I need to find out what happened to him last night.”

I wiped a few flakes of paint off my arm and stretched out my shoulders. They felt shaky. Summer was not supposed to be about getting covered in paint chips and working until your shoulders were quivering uncontrollably. Summer was a time for sleeping and swimming and watching three really bad horror movies back to back to back. Summer was a time when you should be able to go check on your crazy uncle Hal, just to make sure he was okay.

“You know, Miles,” I said, turning around, “that’s an excellent idea. I’m taking a quick break, everyone.”

Lilith, who had been standing a few feet behind us, stepped in front of me. “Hal didn’t come back.”

“Miles, this is my sister, Lilith.”

“Hi,” Miles said, but Lilith didn’t look at him.

“He didn’t come back.”

“You can’t know that for sure, Lilith.”

“I do.”

“Well, I’m going to check on him, just the same. So, if you’ll kindly excuse me,” I said, brushing past her. “Come on, Miles.”

“Mom said it’s important for us to give Uncle Hal his privacy,” Lilith said, marching along beside me.

“I thought you just said he wasn’t home. How can I disturb him if he isn’t back yet?”

“The mindful warrior does not stir the wasps’ nest,” Lilith said, but she’d stopped following me.

“We’re just going to check to see if he’s in his room, Lilith — that’s all,” I said, marching onto the porch. “We won’t bother any wasps.”

“Your sister’s quoting Richard Harker,” Miles said. “He’s one of my heroes.”

“You need to find a new hero, Miles,” I said, going through the front door and starting down the hall to the kitchen.

“Hold on,” he said, suddenly stopping. “The guy out front … the one who helped me up … that was … that was Johnny Harker! Oh my God! That was Johnny Harker, wasn’t it? Damn it, Charlie, your last name isn’t Autumn, it’s Harker! Am I right? I’m right, right?”

“That’s what it says on my birth certificate,” I said.

Upstairs, Jake and his men were busy hammering away at something.

“That means your father is Richard Harker,” he said, his face lighting up.

“Nothing gets by you, Miles.”

“That’s incredible! I’m a huge fan! Is he coming here? Would he sign a copy of his books for me? When do you think he’ll get here? He’s coming, right?”

“If he ever gets here, and there’s probably no chance of that happening, I’ll make sure he signs all your books. Now, can we move along and check on Hal?”

“Sure, sure,” he said, nodding and starting toward the kitchen. “You don’t suppose Johnny would give me an autograph, do you?”

“I’ll get the whole family to give you autographs when we’re done,” I said, heading through the kitchen and across to the pantry door.

“Richard Harker! This is incredible,” Miles mumbled. “But wait — why does your mom go by Autumn? She kept her last name, is that it? My mom changed hers back when Dad died …”

“Another mystery to add to your files,” I said, and knocked. “Hello? Uncle Hal?”

I stopped and listened, but there was no answer. “Uncle Hal! Uncle Hal!” I cried and then turned to Miles. “He’s kind of deaf.”

“I observed that last night.”

I pounded on the door. Still no answer.

“I guess Lilith was right. Looks like he’s not back.”

Miles reached by me, turned the doorknob and pushed the door open slowly.

A part of me, a large part of me, was expecting to find Hal sitting in the middle of a room wallpapered with tinfoil, aiming his shotgun at us. Instead, I was staring into a pantry absolutely stuffed with canned food. There were cans of peas, corn, peaches, pears, beans, chili, Spam and ham. There was tuna, salmon, sardines, shrimp, tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, ravioli, spaghetti, coconut milk, powdered milk, powdered eggs and even cans of whole chickens. Cans of everything you could imagine were jammed onto shelves on either side of the room, which was basically just a long, narrow closet. And at the end of it was another door.

“I’d say he prefers canned food to fresh or frozen,” I said.

“Yeah, it looks like he’s stocking up,” Miles said.

“For what?” I asked, stepping over to the door at the back.

“Nuclear war, super flu, alien invasion …”

“Are you sure you want to disturb a man who’s stocking up for an alien invasion?” I asked, holding my hand up to the door.

“You didn’t see what I saw last night. Something dangerous is happening in Rolling Hills, and we have to find out if he’s been in —” He stopped suddenly and glanced at the floor, then looked back up. “Well, I need to know if he’s all right.”

“Uncle Hal?” I called, knocking. “Uncle Hal, it’s me, Charlie. Are you in there?”

I knocked again, but there was no answer.

I tried the door. Surprisingly, it was unlocked, too. Hal didn’t seem like the kind of man to leave his door unlocked, and I immediately got nervous. I had a vision of Hal crouching inside, surrounded by an army of antique dolls. But the door opened into an almost completely empty room.

“Looks like he moved out,” I said.

Miles squeezed past me and went inside. It wasn’t a big room. There was a cot in the corner, with a mattress still on it, but no sheets. There was a nightstand beside the cot. Miles rushed over to the cot and looked underneath it.

“Nothing,” he grumbled, standing up and yanking open the drawer on the nightstand. I guess he didn’t find anything in there either because he slammed it shut. There was another door in the far corner of the room, and that’s where he headed next.

“What’s in here?” he asked.

“Probably a portal to another dimension?”

Miles knocked on the door. “Mr. Autumn, are you in there?”

“Uncle Hal!” I yelled. “It’s me! Charlie! We’re going to open this door! Don’t shoot!”

There was no answer, so Miles eased the door open and peered inside. I took a step back.

“Just a bathroom,” he said, and marched back into the middle of the room. “This doesn’t make any sense. I thought you said he was living in here.”

“That’s what my mom said, but who knows.”

“Maybe he’s set up camp in the woods,” Miles said. “It would explain why we haven’t seen him since last night.”

“Yeah, maybe, but why would he have a lifetime’s supply of canned food stuffed in the pantry if he was living out in the woods? That doesn’t seem normal, does it?”

Miles was about to answer when Mom marched in, making my heart actually stop beating for about three seconds.

“What are you two doing in here?”

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” I said, pounding on my chest to get my heart started again. “Especially when they’re busy snooping around in a crazy man’s room.”

“I thought I told you to respect Hal’s privacy,” she said.

“Aren’t you concerned about your brother’s welfare?” I asked. “Your only brother’s welfare? I hate to break it to you, Mom, but he may have disappeared.”

“He hasn’t disappeared just because he’s not in his room.”

“There’s nothing in his room,” I said. “Isn’t that strange?”

“When it comes to Hal, that’s only a little strange.”

“He might be hurt,” Miles said.

“Thank you for your concern, Miles,” she said, “but unless you’d like to pitch in and start scraping paint, I’m going to have to ask you to come back another time.”

“I’d be happy to help,” Miles said.

“Oh man, that’s a huge mistake,” I said.

“I can’t pay you anything,” Mom added.

“That’s fine, Ms. Autumn. I love manual labor. Plus, maybe this will make up for the way I disturbed you last night.”

Mom sighed. “I think we have an extra scraper in the truck.”

“You’re not seriously going to spend your day scraping paint?” I said, trudging back into the kitchen behind Miles.

“It’ll give me a chance to see if Hal comes back,” he whispered. “I need to know.”

Saturday, 4:05 p.m.

We spent the rest of the afternoon scraping paint off the exterior of the inn, and I felt like a huge wad of Jell-O when Mom finally called us in at four o’clock. There was a cooler, stuffed with bottles of soda and ice, sitting just inside the kitchen door. Johnny and I each grabbed a bot-tle, Lilith declined (adding that she’d never contaminate herself with that junk) and Miles stood in the doorway.

“Charlie, did you put on any sunscreen today?” Mom asked.

“A smidge,” I said, opening the soda and chugging back half the bottle.

“When?”

“About six hours ago,” I said and burped loudly.

“You should have reapplied,” she said, frowning. “You look like a boiled lobster.”

“I feel like one, too,” I said, and finished off the rest of my drink. “Maybe I should take the day off tomorrow. You know, just to make sure the skin peels off evenly.”

“We talked about this, Charlie. We can’t afford to have you take a whole day off.”

“Have you seen Mr. Autumn yet?” Miles asked, cutting in.

“I’m afraid not,” Mom said. “Help yourself to a drink, Miles. You did a lot of work today.”

“Thank you, but I have to get going,” he said. “However, if you don’t mind, I’d like to drop by later this evening.”

“Just make sure it’s before nine, okay? I’m beat.”

“Sure,” he said. “And thanks for the autograph, Johnny.”

“De nada,” Johnny said, and Miles left.

“Is the shower finished?” Lilith asked.

“The plumber was sick today. We’re hoping to have it fixed by tomorrow.”

“Oh snap, Ma,” Johnny said. “I totally reek, and I’ve got a date tonight.”

“A date?” I said. “How did you line up a date? You haven’t been here for twenty-four hours, and you’ve spent most of the time blasting paint off of the side of the inn.”

“I got a text from Elizabeth,” he said, shrugging.

“That reminds me,” I said, turning to Mom. “I need a new phone.”

“I told you, Charlie, I’m not buying you a new phone. You’ve got your computer and your tablet. You don’t need another phone to lose.”

“I can’t walk around with a tablet in my pocket, Mom. And during my long and arduous walk home today, I was thinking that I should probably have a phone in case I get into some kind of trouble or get lost. I mean, what if there’s an emergency?”

“It’s a small town, Charlie. The people are friendly. I’m sure you’ll manage,” she said.

“What about the shower situation?” Johnny asked.

“Go down to the river. There’s a place called The Bend where I used to go swimming. Take the truck.”

“Look,” I said, “bathing in the river is all well and good for the television star of the family. Apparently he can line up dates standing on the side of the road in the middle of the night, but how am I supposed to meet anyone if I’m walking around in Choke clothes and smell like a mix of BO and dirty river water? I say we book into a hotel while we wait for this place to get fixed up.”

“First, Charlie, the river’s not dirty,” Mom said. “And second, the bathroom will be done by tomorrow. There’s no reason for us to leave.”

“Not yet, anyway,” I said. “Not yet.”

Saturday, 4:40 p.m.

Lilith stayed behind with Mom while Johnny and I piled into the truck and headed down to the river. I’d been picturing a private little watering hole, with birds singing in the trees and fish swimming around us. Instead, the road was lined with cars, and The Bend was absolutely packed with people.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why it was called The Bend — it was just a long curve in the Rolling River that would look like a giant C from above. The inside part of the C consisted of a smoothed-down, solid ledge of rock that gradually sloped down from the woods behind it into the water. The ledge was covered with people, lying on towels. We were standing on the road, on the outer edge of the C, looking down on them. On the other side of the guardrail was a high cliff that dropped straight into the river. A gang of kids was standing on the edge and taking turns leaping into the air and screaming their way down into the water. The river was about as wide as the road, and there was a mix of people floating around on air mattresses, inner tubes or just swimming lazily in the black water.

Up the river and to our left, there was a wooden bridge that you could cross to get to the rock ledge on the other side. Johnny headed for the bridge, but I was feeling lazy, so I got in line with the ten-year-olds on the edge of the cliff. When it was my turn, I kicked off my flip-flops and took a flying leap into the water.

I’m not sure if my sunburn was a factor, but the water was like ice, and I think I had a minor heart attack when I went under. It was pitch-black down there, and the water got colder and colder the deeper I went. By the time I came back up, I was gasping for air and quickly turning from red to blue.

“Are you all right?” a kid on an inner tube asked, paddling over.

“I’ll be fine, as soon as my heart starts up again,” I said, breaststroking my way toward the ledge on the inside of the C.

Five feet from the water’s edge, I could stand up on the part of the rock shelf that extended into the water. I eased my way up onto dry ground and lay down to bask in the sun.

“Nice entry, bro,” Johnny said, sitting down beside me.

“Thanks, I’m in training for the next Olympics.”

“Oh yeah? For what event?”

“The Jumping-Into-Ice-Cold-Water event. How did I look?”

“Fearless,” he said.

That’s when I heard someone behind us say, “Isn’t that Jaysin Night?”

“I think you’ve been spotted.”

“I think you’re right,” he said, as people started murmuring behind us.

“By the way, the water’s just a smidgen on the chilly side.”

“Thanks for the warning, bro,” he said and yanked his shirt off. Johnny’s ripped, of course, and I heard the murmuring behind us get a little more frantic.

“Hop along there, Cassidy, or they’re going to get to you before you can get into the water and wash off all your Hollywood BO.”

Johnny marched into the river, dove under and came up on the other side, grinning.

“That is most definitely Jaysin Night,” someone said behind me.

“Are you sure?”

“I’d recognize that body anywhere. What’s his real name?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think it’s Jack.”

A second later, four girls in bikinis padded by me and slipped into the water.

“Hi!” one of them called as they swam out to meet Johnny.

“Hi,” Johnny said, and they giggled a little.

Interrupting them now would be bad form, so I lay back, closed my eyes and was drifting off when someone sat down beside me.

“That must get annoying.”

I opened my eyes a crack and saw Elizabeth Opal sitting next to me. Her long red hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was wearing a black bikini.

“Nah, not really,” I said, springing up and into a sitting position. “Even before Johnny was a big star, he had gaggles of girls following him around. I really wouldn’t bother with him if I were you. I’m sure there are far more interesting people to get to know.”

“They’re behaving like idiots,” she said as the girls all giggled again.

“They’re not your friends?”

“Not really,” she said. “I grew up in Rolling Hills, but I don’t go to school here, so I always feel like a bit of an outsider.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“Winehurst Girls’ Academy, but my dad almost sent me to Choke,” she said, nodding at my T-shirt, which I hadn’t bothered to take off.

“Winehurst is a fine institution.”

“I suppose,” she said, looking out at Johnny, who was now sitting near the edge of the water, saying something that was making all the girls laugh harder. “Most of the people there are snobs, and I hate the uniforms.” She glanced back at me. “I guess you don’t mind yours.”

“Sure, I love gallivanting around in my uniform! Heck, I wanted to go swimming in my full uniform — blazer and tie. But my mom wouldn’t allow it. She said it would be too pretentious. What do you think?”

“I think you’re crazy.”

“Or a fashionable trendsetter.”

“Hmm. Or maybe you got too much sun today.”

“Are you saying that sunburns aren’t in style in Rolling Hills? They’re all the rage at Choke.”

“Are you always so sarcastic?”

“Only when I’m talking to the most beautiful girl in town.”

“See,” she said, “now I know you’re just being sarcastic. Do you take anything seriously?”

Johnny had left his harem of starstruck fans behind, and he sat down beside Elizabeth.

“You didn’t tell me Charlie was so funny,” she said to him.

“He never quits,” Johnny said, grinning.

“I don’t think those girls are going to quit either,” I said, nodding at his fans, who were getting out of the water, too.

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess we’re going to have to come here when it’s not so busy.”

“Wait until July, when the tourists arrive. You won’t be able to find a square inch of space to sit down in,” Elizabeth said.

“And when they find out that Jaysin Night enjoys the occasional midnight skinny-dip, they’ll have to sell tickets to this place,” I added.

“Come on, bro. Cut me some slack.”

“He’s right, though. Maybe not about the skinny-dips — I wouldn’t know about that …” Elizabeth said, blushing a little. “But you’re big news, Johnny. And I think they’re going to want a few pictures.” She nodded toward the girls, who were now coming our way with their phones.

“Time for me to go,” I said.

“Me, too,” Elizabeth added, and we both got up. “Are we still on for tonight, Johnny?”

“You bet,” he said.

“I’ll meet you at The Opal at eight. Bring an appetite.”

“Will do,” he said. “Why don’t you stick around, bro. I can give you a lift back.”

“No, I’ve been in enough pictures with you, Johnny. I’ll walk back to the inn. It’ll help me thaw out.”

That’s when the mob arrived. It included the four girls, with phones, and about seven other people who had recognized Johnny. They jostled around, trying to get a picture with him, while I wandered away with Elizabeth.

We crossed the bridge and looked back down at The Bend. The crowd had gotten bigger, and Johnny was busy being a good sport and smiling for the cameras.

“What’s he really like?” she asked.

My heart sank. It was a question that a hundred girls had asked me over the years. I had been hoping Elizabeth was going to be different.

I was about to answer when she laughed. “I’m kidding, Charlie. That’s got to be the single dumbest question I could possibly ask.”

“Beautiful, smart and funny,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re a triple threat, Winehurst.”

She laughed. “Do you want a drive home?”

“No, I think I could use a little more sun. Plus, Johnny will find a way to escape from his groupies in a few minutes.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, smiling. “I’ll see you later, Charlie.”

“Later, Winehurst,” I said. Then I watched her walk back to her Porsche and drive away for the second time that day. I didn’t actually think Johnny would be done with his fans in a few minutes, but Elizabeth was clearly more interested in Johnny, and I really didn’t want to compete for her attention. I’ve learned you can’t play that game against Johnny Harker and come out on top.

Saturday, 5:45 p.m.

Instead of milling around by the river, I decided to start walking back to the inn. I figured Johnny might get caught up posing for photos for ten minutes, but ten minutes came and went, and there was still no sign of him. Twenty minutes passed, and then thirty, and every time I heard the sound of an engine coming down Elm Street my heart did a little dance (my feet were too tired to dance). Two cars passed me, but neither was a giant black pickup truck with a television star behind the wheel. The second one was a Jeep filled with local yokels about my age. The guy in the passenger seat gave me the finger on the way by, proof that Rolling Hills was a normal enough kind of place after all. I thanked him for his kindness and continued to trudge along the gravel shoulder. Thankfully, the trees were tall enough to keep me in the shade, because it was still stinking hot outside, and my sunburn was starting to irritate me. After forty minutes with just the sound of my feet scuffling along, I was lulled into a partially hypnotic state. I have no doubt I would have wandered by the Baxter place without even knowing it if Miles Van Helsing hadn’t snapped me out of my trance.

“Psst,” he hissed.

“Huh?” I said, looking around.

“In here,” he said, and a hand reached out of a nearby bush and dragged me off the gravel shoulder.

Miles was still dressed in black, only he had his baseball cap on backward and a pair of binoculars around his neck.

“The Baxter residence,” he said, pointing behind me.

I turned and saw a two-story house at the top of a low hill across the street. It was an old country house, but well cared for, painted white with green trim. There was a porch out front with four green wooden deck chairs, two on each side of the front door, which was also painted green. The lawn was immaculate and there was a green mailbox at the bottom of the driveway with The Baxters painted along the side.

“That’s where the monsters live?” I asked.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” Miles said, in not much more than a whisper.

“No, Miles, it’s not creepy. It’s ridiculously normal.”

“That’s why it’s so creepy.”

“I can’t believe I nearly fell for all this,” I said, and started back for the road, but as I was walking away, a man came out the front door. He was wearing a straw fedora, sunglasses, a long-sleeve blue dress shirt and khaki pants. He looked about as average as average can get.

“Baxter,” Miles hissed, pulling me back behind the bushes.

Baxter walked to a black Volvo parked beside the house, got in, started it up and backed down the driveway. He pulled onto Elm Street, stopping for a moment to switch the car from reverse into drive. He was only a few yards away from us, and I got a pretty good look at him. I didn’t notice any glowing red eyes or fangs, and he wasn’t moving with jerky spasms. He was just an average Joe going for a drive. I watched him for a moment, and then he drove away.

“I’m leaving, Miles — and you should, too. Go back home, blog about your paranoid conspiracy theories and then have a nap. You need to clear the cobwebs out of your brain.”

“You can’t go that way,” he said, grabbing my arm. “You’ll blow my cover.”

“There’s no cover to blow, Miles. People around here already know you’re certifiable,” I said, yanking my arm free. “Plus, Baxter just left — or did you miss that?”

I was just about to step out onto the gravel shoulder when he grabbed me from behind. “Mrs. Baxter is still inside,” he hissed.

That’s when Johnny finally drove by in the truck.

“My ride!” I barked, struggling out of his hold. “I just missed my ride, you nut-bar!”

“Oh, sorry, Charlie … Uh … why don’t you borrow mine?” he said. “It’s just up this way.”

I almost turned down the offer out of pure frustration, but my feet wouldn’t budge, and my sunburn was starting to throb nicely.

“Fine,” I said.

Miles smiled. “Follow me.”

We walked for about a hundred yards through the woods before he cut up toward the street and arrived at his minicycle, which was propped against a tree a few feet off the road.

“This is Shelley,” he said, wheeling it toward the road. “I built her myself.”

“Out of what?” I asked, glancing at the black tubing that wound its way into the shape of a frame and surrounded a block of an engine.

“I pieced her together, using parts from this and that. Bring it to the Voodoo tonight. I’ll be waiting,” he said, wheeling it onto the side of Elm Street. “Do you know how to drive a motorcycle?”

“Sure,” I said, hopping on. I might not have my driver’s license, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t had the opportunity to ride a few motorcycles in my time. I’m not saying that’s a smart thing to do — it’s not. In fact, all three times I’d driven a motorcycle I’d just about killed myself, but you can only travel around the world so many times with your family before someone, somewhere, asks if you’d like to hop on their ride.

I got on and started up the engine. It gave a chugging roar.

“Go easy. It’s got a little more juice than you think,” Miles said, and darted back into the trees.

I kind of jerked my way down the road at first but got comfortable pretty fast and upped the speed. Miles wasn’t lying; it definitely had some kick, and by the time I got back to the inn I was buzzing along nicely, the breeze soothing my sunburn. I didn’t really want to slow down and I would have barreled into the driveway except I remembered what had happened to Miles. So, I let up on the throttle and rolled cautiously into the driveway, not much above a jogging pace.

Mom, Lilith and Johnny were all sitting on the porch, eating pizza. When Mom spotted me, her expression hardened, and she leaped out of her chair.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing driving that thing without a helmet?” she yelled.

“It was only a couple of minutes, Mom, and in case you didn’t notice, it’s not a long fall off of one of these things,” I said, slowly riding the bike down the gravel walkway and right up to the porch steps. “I wouldn’t have had to use it in the first place if Johnny hadn’t abandoned me.”

“Don’t go there, bro,” Johnny said. “You were the one who abandoned me. I was stuck signing autographs for almost an hour.”

“My heart bleeds for you,” I said, stepping onto the porch.

There were two pizza boxes sitting on the floor. I opened the first one, but there was no cheese on it.

“Life’s too short to eat pizza without cheese, Lilith,” I said.

“Life is empty with no standards, Charlie,” she said.

“Is that one of Dad’s famous sayings?” I said, grabbing a slice from the other box. Not only did it have cheese — lots of it — but it had pepperoni, too.

“You really need to read his books,” she grumbled.

“You don’t ride that thing ever again — do you understand me, Charlie?” Mom barked.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I said and ripped into the pizza.

Mom let it drop, and we ended up sitting around on the porch, eating pizza and chatting. It was nice not to have to rush anywhere or do anything. It felt like the first time in a very long time that we all just sat around without a care in the world.

“Now this is what summer is supposed to be like,” I said. “Why don’t we take a break from the scraping, just for a few days … for the weekend, at least? I’m sure Jake and his boys can handle it.”

“You know we can’t do that, Charlie,” Mom said.

“Nice try, bro,” Johnny said, standing up. “And it’s been a blast, but I’ve got to get changed for dinner.”

“Didn’t we just eat dinner?” I asked, holding up a half-finished slice of pizza.

“I’m bulking up, bro,” he said, heading for the front door. “Are you still taking me into town, Ma? Elizabeth said my flat tire’s fixed.”

“Sure, I’d like to go and grab some ice cream,” she said, getting up, too. “Who’s with me?”

“Can I rub it on my skin?” I asked. The sunburn was really starting to sting now.

“You deserve that burn,” Lilith said. “It’s not a joke anymore, is it?”

“Don’t be so sure, Lilypad. In a week, when my skin is done peeling away, we’ll have a good laugh about the day Charlie got scorched. You wait and see.”

“Unless you get skin cancer.”

“What a wonderful outlook you have,” I said, but I don’t think she heard me because they’d all gone inside.

Saturday, 7:40 p.m.

By the time I’d eased my sore skin into a wrinkly pair of khakis and a not-quite-clean, plain white T-shirt, the sun was starting to dip beneath the trees. Mom had cajoled Lilith into joining us, even though she didn’t eat ice cream thanks to her wacky vegan diet. She also insisted I return Miles’s minicycle ASAP, and I told her I thought we could bring it to a place on Church Street where he hung out. So, we loaded it into the back of the pickup and headed for downtown Rolling Hills.

We dropped Johnny off at the garage, so he could pick up his precious motorcycle, and then turned onto Church Street, which was hopping. Cars were cruising up and down the street, folks were wandering along the sidewalk, popping in and out of stores. Lots of people were just standing around, chatting or sipping sodas or coffee. We couldn’t even find a parking spot until we were past The Opal, which was okay by me because it put us closer to the Voodoo Juice Bar.

We hoisted the minicycle onto the sidewalk, and a group of about ten girls, all around my age, wandered past and down the alley toward the Voodoo.

“I’m going to drop this off to Miles,” I said. “I’ll meet you back at the inn.”

“Don’t you want some ice cream?” Mom asked.

“I’ll take a rain check,” I said, starting toward the alley.

“I thought you said the walk home was too hard from down here,” Lilith added.

“It’s not that hot anymore now that the sun is a little lower,” I said without turning around. Which was true; it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been that morning, although my burn wasn’t exactly cooling me down.

“Don’t be too late,” Mom called as I wheeled the bike into the alley.

I heard the Voodoo before I saw it. Some kind of electronic music that sounded like it was made by a deranged robot was wafting down the alley. I propped Miles’s bike against the wall outside and went in. The place was packed. I recognized a few faces from The Bend that afternoon. Apparently a few of them recognized me, too, because as soon as I started for the bar a group of three girls ran up to me.

“Oh my God! Is Jaysin Night going to be here?” one of them asked. She was short, with shoulder-length brown hair and big brown eyes.

“Unfortunately, he has to do battle with a pack of vampires in another small town,” I said.

“Oh no, really?” she said, her shoulders slumping.

“But hey, I’m his brother, Charlie. Why don’t we grab a seat, you could buy me a Re-Animator and I could tell you all about him.”

I think they were about to take me up on my offer when Miles Van Helsing stormed between us and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Thank God you’re here. I could really use your help.”

He was wearing the same black clothes as before, only now he had a black backpack strapped on.

“Miles, you’re seriously cramping my style. I was just about to sit down with these lovely ladies and enjoy a delicious Re-Animator.”

“What? Who?” he said, and seemed to notice for the first time that I’d actually been talking to someone. “Well, can’t you do that later? I need your help.”

“It’ll have to wait,” I said and tried to shuffle by him, but it was too late. The girls were already walking away.

“Did your uncle Hal get back?”

“No,” I said, watching the girls sit down in the corner. “Your Harley’s out in the alley, by the way.”

“Her name is Shelley, not Harley,” he said. “Why don’t you buy yourself a drink and meet me outside in five minutes.”

“I don’t …” I started, but he was already heading for the door.

I ordered my drink from Vortex, who was still wearing a white lab coat. A minute or two later, he handed me a Re-Animator in one hand and a note in the other.

“What’s this?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but just walked away and took another drink order.

I took a sip of the Re-Animator and was pleasantly surprised to find it tasted even better than the one I’d had that morning. Then I opened the note. It read: Notice anything strange?

I hadn’t noticed anything strange, and part of me didn’t want to humor the man by looking around. I was already too caught up with Miles; I didn’t need Vortex making me edgy, too. But it’s hard to get a note that says, Notice anything strange?, and not look around, so I did.

At first I was relieved, because I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I took another sip of the Re-Animator and scanned the room for the girl with the big brown eyes. That’s when I noticed three guys standing in the far corner, all with jackets on, hoods up and still wearing their sunglasses despite the fact that the Voodoo was a pretty shadowy place to begin with. It wasn’t just the hoods and the sunglasses, though. What really got me was the way they were standing — stock-still against the wall, with a look of utter boredom on their faces. No, it wasn’t boredom; it was a wooden, completely emotionless look. The kind of look the bodyguards you see surrounding important politicians have — you know they’re watching, but they look like they couldn’t care less about anything that’s going on around them. You could almost have taken them for a bunch of mannequins, but even in the semi-darkness of the Voodoo I could tell they were real people. I didn’t like admitting it, but Dr. Vortex was right — they were strange, and not in a good way. That’s when Miles came back in.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I’m going to get some proof — some video evidence — and post it online. But I need help. I need your help, Charlie.”

“Why me?” I said, thinking that, despite the creepy mannequin gang, I’d still rather go sit down with the girl with the big brown eyes.

“I can’t drive and record those things at the same time.”

“It’ll have to wait,” I said, and started toward the brown-eyed girl’s table.

“No, no, no,” Miles said, scampering beside me. “This can’t wait. I have a working hypothesis that after sundown, those who have been … um … well, changed … become physically stronger somehow. I think it has something to do with UV rays. So, it’s imperative that we’re present before and after the sun sets.”

“Look,” I said, turning to face Miles, a few feet from the girls’ table. “During summer vacation, I like to sleep in, relax, maybe make a few friends, like the fine individuals sitting behind me. What I don’t like to do is invade people’s privacy by secretly recording them with the town lunatic while they change into some kind of imaginary paranormal whatever.”

“So, you admit that people are changing into some-thing.”

“I believe, wholeheartedly, that you believe people are changing into something. But that does not mean there is a we, Miles. You believe people are changing, and I believe I’d like to sit down and meet the girl with the lovely brown eyes sitting behind me.”

“There’s nobody sitting behind you.”

I turned. The brown-eyed girl was gone, along with her friends.

“I could really use your help,” Miles said.

I glanced around the room. It was no good. They were really gone. And the three mannequins that had been standing by the wall were gone, too.

I threw back the rest of the Re-Animator and slammed the jar down on the bar.

“The three guys with the sunglasses — what happened to them?” I asked, pointing at the back wall.

“They left.”

“When?”

“At the same time as the girls. Right around the time you were telling me about what you like to do during your summer vacations.”

I rushed across the room and out into the alley. It was empty. The sun wasn’t down yet, but the light was fading.

I ran around the corner and back out to Church Street. It was still busy; I couldn’t spot the girls or the three mannequins. A moment later, Miles ran up beside me.

“How could you just let them walk out like that, with those three guys hanging around?” I snapped.

“They didn’t leave together — not exactly.”

“They were obviously …” I started and then hesitated. “They were clearly … well, they seemed a little odd.”

“Yes, they were odd,” Miles said seriously. “Something bad is happening, Charlie. This is my hometown. I know these people,” he said, gesturing toward the street with his hands, “and I don’t want them to get infected.”

“Infected?”

“It’s just a hypothesis,” he said. “We have to test it first, and then show the evidence to the world. We need to move, Charlie, or it’s going to be too late.”

I took one last look along Church Street for the girl with the brown eyes or the mannequin triplets. I didn’t see any of them.

“Fine,” I said, “but I want the record to show that the only reason I’m doing this is because I’m lazy and don’t want to walk all the way back to the inn.”

“Done!” he said.

Saturday, 8:30 p.m.

Miles led me back down the alley, past the Voodoo and a couple of stores, and over to a collection of garbage bins that smelled like coffee grounds. His minicycle was parked just beyond the garbage cans, but now there was a red wagon attached to the back.

“What’s the wagon for?” I asked.

“For you,” he said, sliding his backpack off. He unzipped it and pulled out a small handheld video camera. “You need to record what we see.”

“Are you sure Shelley has enough juice to pull me?” I said, taking the camera.

“I’ve made some adjustments to the engine,” he said, putting on the backpack. “It’ll do the job.”

“This thing isn’t going to fall off halfway up one of those hills?” I asked, climbing into the wagon.

“Not a chance,” he said, starting up the bike and sliding on a dark green helmet that looked like it was issued by the military in about 1943. There were old-style goggles wrapped around the helmet, which he slid down over his eyes.

“Shouldn’t I be wearing a helmet, too?” I asked, but Miles just revved the engine and tore off down the alley.

I jangled along, gripping the sides of the wagon as we hurtled by garbage bins and the rear doors of the shops that lined Church Street. We were driving away from Oak Avenue, toward the other end of Church, and I could see the end of the alley speeding toward us when one of the rear doors flew open and a man wearing a white apron stepped in front of us. I would have screamed, but I didn’t have time. Miles swerved toward the brick wall on our right, missed a collection of garbage bins by the width of my fingernails and torpedoed past the man.

“Stupid idiot!” the man roared.

A half second later, Miles whizzed out of the alley and onto Maple Drive without slowing down. We careened off of the curb, and I was sure the wagon would split apart, but it held, and Miles scooted into the middle of the road. A minivan was about 2.3 seconds from hitting us, and the driver laid on the horn, but Miles managed to pull a shockingly quick turn back to our side of the street, with me and the wagon skidding along sideways behind him.

“Moron!” the driver hollered as he drove by, shaking a fist at us.

“It’s clear sailing from here on,” Miles shouted back to me, apparently unconcerned by the fact that we’d almost been killed twice in the last thirty seconds.

Saturday, 8:45 p.m.

Maple was lined with two-story houses with large lawns, most of which were surrounded by white picket fences. Occasionally, there’d be someone out front, chatting with a neighbor or doing some yard work, and they’d stop what they were doing as we approached, the lunatic screech of the engine preceding us. I waved at a few of the gawkers, but I mostly just held on to the sides of the wagon for dear life, bouncing along with the camera in my lap. At the top of Maple, we came to a T-junction with Elm Street and took a right, heading back toward the inn. Seven or eight minutes later we drove past the Baxter place. About fifty yards beyond their driveway, Miles pulled over.

“Just made it,” he said, cutting the engine and hopping off the bike.

He was right: the thinnest slivers of red sunlight were glinting through the trees.

“Now what?” I asked, getting out of the wagon.

“Now we sneak around back and catch them in the act,” he said, leaving his helmet on.

“The act of what?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But we’ll know it when we see it.”

“That’s very scientific, Miles.”

“This will provide us with an excellent opportunity to film them while they’re moving.”

“What do you mean ‘moving’?”

“When they’re pursuing us,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound like a good plan, Miles, not good at all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have a feeling we’re just going to end up with a couple of angry, middle-aged people on our hands, but if they are something else and they can move as fast as you say, then that’s not a solid plan at all.”

“Don’t worry, Charlie, my bike can move pretty fast. You just make sure you keep filming. Is the camera on?”

“Sure,” I said, pressing Record and aiming it at Miles.

He straightened up, flipped his goggles up onto the helmet and looked directly into the camera. “This is Miles Van Helsing, June twenty-fourth,” he started, then glanced at his watch, “at 8:47 p.m. I’m about to investigate the Baxter residence for signs of paranor-mal activity and the presence of unknown humanoid creatures. Assisting me will be Charles Harker, who is behind the camera.”

“Good luck, Van Helsing!” I cried.

He grimaced and ducked a little. “Keep it down.”

“Good luck, Van Helsing,” I whispered.

“Just keep the camera rolling,” he said and jogged up the driveway, his backpack bouncing up and down behind him. I turned the camera around and held it out at arm’s length.

“This is Charles Richard Harker, on June twenty-something at a quarter past a mole. I’m currently standing at the bottom of the Baxters’ driveway. Miles Van Helsing, a Grade A nut-job, is here searching for people who can run very fast. I suggested he’d have more luck at the local running track, but he insisted on inspecting his neighbor’s house for signs of abnormally quick individuals. I, for one, hope he finds what he’s been looking for so that I can go home and go to sleep. Over and under, Charles Richard Harker.”

I lowered the camera and took a look around. The sun was almost gone now, and the trees that lined the Baxters’ driveway were sending long black shadows across the pavement. The Volvo was back, parked at the top of the driveway beside the house, but all the windows were shut and the curtains were all closed. There wasn’t a single light on inside. It made me think that the Baxters were probably out, maybe taking a long walk, which would be good news because it meant that Miles would be done here soon. Then I could go home and laze around until I fell asleep. A solid night’s sleep would be sweet. Tomorrow, if we went back to Romero’s for breakfast, I’d hop down to the Voodoo and ask Vortex if he knew the brown-eyed girl’s name. Then, who knows? Maybe I could track down her phone number. That’s what I was thinking about as I meandered up the driveway, listening to a crow cawing somewhere close by. Other than that, the evening was silent. It was silent, that is, until I heard a small, short scream that made me freeze. The crow flapped away, and a second later, Miles sprinted around the back corner of the house. I say he was sprinting, but it was more than just sprinting; he was practically falling the whole way down the driveway, his mouth wide open, like he was about to scream.

“Run!” he barked, eyes bulging out of his head.

Before I had a chance to react, three people came around the same corner of the house. They were running in single file, which I had to admit looked pretty creepy after all. They were moving incredibly fast — faster than I’ve ever seen anybody move in my life. Faster than Miles, and it looked like he was about to start flying. Despite how quickly they were sprinting, their faces looked completely blank, like they were sitting on the couch watching paint dry. Baxter was leading the way, wearing the same blue dress shirt and the same khaki pants that I’d seen him in earlier. The man behind him was a big bear of a man, with short black hair and wearing a navy blue suit. The last one was a woman wearing jeans and a white blouse.

“Run, Charlie!” Miles screamed, racing past me.

I turned and tore into the road right behind him, still holding the camera.

“Hurry!” Miles cried, glancing over his shoulder. His eyebrows were so high on his forehead they were practically touching his hairline. “Hurry!”

Miles reached the minicycle, started it up and pulled away when I was still five or six feet from the wagon. That’s when I made the mistake of peeking over my shoulder. The three of them were only about ten feet behind me. Panicked, I dove for the wagon and landed with a thud in the middle of it, my legs hanging out the back. The bike and wagon wobbled dangerously to the left and then the right, and I thought Miles was going to wipe out, but he managed to straighten up. Unfortunately, all that wobbling cost us speed, and Baxter was suddenly running right beside me.

He looked down, his face still completely blank but turning a deep crimson. He was running at a tremendous speed, a ridiculous speed, and beads of sweat were pouring down his head and into his eyes. He reached for me.

I dropped the camera, which clattered into the wagon, and batted his hand away. He stumbled, lost some speed and then caught up again.

“Faster!” I yelled, and Miles must have changed gears because we shot forward.

Baxter fell back again, but another hand grabbed the back of my shirt, this time from the other side of the wagon. I was being lifted up and turned to see the Man-Bear in the navy blue suit. He was hoisting me out of the wagon with one hand.

“Miles!” I yelled, grabbing on to the sides of the wagon. “Faster!”

Miles glanced back, his mouth dropped open and he revved the engine until it sounded like a whistle that was about to explode. We picked up more speed, and Man-Bear fell back a little, but he didn’t let go of my shirt. He was pulling me out, and my hands slipped along the sides of the wagon. I looked up at his face, where a vein had popped out in the middle of his huge forehead. Up until now his mouth had been shut, but now he opened it wide and sucked in air. That’s when I saw his teeth. There were normal teeth in his mouth, but there were other teeth in there, too, slipping out of his gums. They were scattered here and there, white and sharp, like thick pins. He started pulling me back harder and at the same time lowered his head toward me, his mouth wide. He was going to try to bite me!

One of the things I like least in life is being bitten, so I snatched up the video camera and chucked it at Man-Bear’s face. It hit his right eye and bounced away. His mouth snapped shut, but he held on to me for another second, his expression staying absolutely empty despite being corked in the face with the camera. Then blood poured out from a cut just under his eyebrow and he let go. I fell back into the wagon and pitched to my left, which sent the wagon reeling onto two wheels. I rode it like that, sure that we were going to flip over, for what felt like three and a half hours before Miles veered to the right and the wheels crashed down.

This time I was sure the wagon would fall apart, but it held together again. I made a mental note to send a beautifully worded thank-you letter to whoever made that wagon, and Miles managed to pick up a little more speed. I looked back — the three of them had stopped chasing us and were standing in the middle of the road. They stared back at me as the shadowy twilight moved toward full dark.

Saturday, 8:58 p.m.

Miles didn’t slow down until we were back at the inn. When he finally eased off the gas, Shelley chugged in fits and coughs into the middle of the driveway.

“I think I might’ve killed her,” he said, getting off the minicycle.

“Better her than us,” I said, jumping out of the wagon.

“You saw them, right?” he muttered, as we made a dash for the front door. “You saw them.”

“I saw them,” I stammered, glancing back at the road.

We ran onto the porch and I grabbed the doorknob, praying Mom had left it unlocked. She hadn’t.

“We’re out in the middle of nowhere. Why would she lock the doors?”

Miles didn’t respond; he just crouched behind one of the rosebushes that lined the other side of the railing.

“Did you hear that?” he asked, his head cocked toward the trees, his eyes somehow growing even bigger, making him look like a terrified human-owl hybrid.

I hadn’t heard anything, but I was so jacked up on adrenaline by that point, I wasn’t sure any of my senses were working properly, so I hid beside him and we peeked out over the bush. The porch, the lawn, the driveway, the road, they were all empty.

“Where’s the video camera?” Miles whispered, still peering into the night.

“Gone,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I had to use it on the Man-Bear,” I said. “Otherwise I’d be toast right now.”

“But the recording! The proof!” he cried, standing up.

“Don’t freak out,” I said, pulling him down. “They probably just left it on the road.”

“Don’t freak out! On the road!” he said, standing up again. “Charlie, we need to get it!”

“No, we don’t, Miles,” I said, pulling him down again. “Not now, we don’t.”

“Nobody’s going to believe us without some evidence. We need to show people what’s going on around here, Charlie! You saw them — they were changed. We’ve got to get that camera!”

“You want to go out there again? You said it yourself — your minicycle’s practically dead. Those people, whatever they are, will chase you down in three seconds flat.”

“I don’t care, Charlie,” he said, slinking over to the porch stairs. “We need to warn people. We can’t just sit in here and hide like a couple of chickens.”

“What are we going to tell them, anyway?” I said, grabbing his arm. “I mean, what did we just see? Three people who were ridiculously fast and strong, who just happened to have pointy teeth sticking out of their gums?”

“Fangs?” Miles asked.

“I barely know what I saw anymore. I mean, I was pretty amped up. It was dark — I was probably imagining things.”

“No, no, that makes sense. It’s the type of anatomical changes I would expect under the circumstances.”

“What circumstances? Maybe they just have a bad case of rabies,” I said. “Or they’re hopped up on some drug.”

“Rabies doesn’t give you fangs, and it can’t make you move that fast, and I don’t think there are any drugs that would do that either.”

“I’m pretty sure there are a few drugs you can buy to make you run faster.”

“I’m not talking about steroids, Charlie. I was going close to thirty-five miles an hour, for Pete’s sake.”

“That’s pretty fast.”

“Pretty fast? After what I saw last night, I looked up how fast the best sprinters in the world can run. Do you know how fast they go?”

“Thirty-five miles an hour?”

“Around twenty-four miles an hour. That means the man in the blue suit was running eleven miles per hour faster than the fastest sprinters on the planet, and he was doing it while he was lifting you up with one hand. That’s not human, and it’s not rabies or drugs,” he said. “Do you know what they were doing when I found them around back?”

“I don’t think I want to know,” I said.

“They were standing in Mr. Baxter’s barn, in a triangle, staring at each other. They weren’t talking — they were just standing and staring. That’s classic hive-mind behavior.”

“Okay, so what do you think we’re dealing with?”

“I don’t want to make any outlandish guesses, but I’d say we’re definitely dealing with some kind of vampire- or zombie-like transmutation. Possibly even an extraterrestrial infection.”

“Whoa, whoa there, hoss,” I said. “Do you hear what you’re saying? I don’t think anyone’s going to believe a vampire-zombie-alien transmoosomething theory, with or without video evidence. We’ve got a seriously messed-up situation on our hands — I’m with you on that — but I don’t think we need to tell anyone that there are vampires running around Rolling Hills.”

“Actually, I think their attributes are more closely associated with zombies,” Miles said, looking thoughtful. “The blank looks on their faces, their jerky movements, the strange behavior, it’s almost as though they’re being driven beyond normal human limits by some other entity. It’s like they’re puppets. Perhaps it’s a mind-control drug or a secret government implant of some sort?”

“Or maybe they’re just good-old-fashioned crazy, Miles.”

“Insanity is a possibility,” he said, “but that wouldn’t explain the fact that it seems to be spreading. I’ve never heard of insanity being passed from person to person.”

“How do you know it’s spreading?” I said, scanning the front yard for any signs of movement.

“Last night, when I first saw the Baxters, they were chasing the large man in the navy blue suit. Later on, and tonight, he was working with them. Plus, Dr. Vortex and I have noticed a few other people in town acting in a rather peculiar way. Even you noticed those guys at the Voodoo.”

“Sure, but they might’ve just been antisocial.”

“That’s why you went running after them when they left?”

“Look, Miles, it doesn’t matter if they’re crazy, on drugs, or if they’re vampires —”

“More like zombies,” he said, cutting me off.

“Vampires, zombies — call them zompires for all I care!”

“Zompires? That’s a ridiculous name.”

“It doesn’t matter! When my mom gets back, I’ll tell her what happened, and we’ll get the sheriff up here and he’ll investigate. Then, we’ll all check into a hotel about five hundred miles from here and forget about all this over a frosty lemonade by the pool.”

“I couldn’t run away like that, and I can’t hide anymore, not with my camera out there somewhere,” he said and peeked out at the front yard again.

“Don’t be crazy,” I said, taking a quick look myself. There was no sign of any movement; the leaves weren’t even rustling in the breeze. The only noise was the crickets chirruping.

“Miles, don’t be crazy,” I said again, but he was already slinking down the porch steps.

“Don’t!” I called, rushing after him.

Miles was already at the bottom when I heard the sound of a truck coming down the road. A few seconds later, the glow of headlights appeared, cutting through the night.

“It’s my mom,” I said, and then realized that the Baxters and Man-Bear could be lurking close by, ready to spring.

“We’ve got to warn them,” Miles said, obviously thinking the same thing.

I bounded off the porch, and we sprinted across the lawn. We were about fifteen feet from the driveway when Mom pulled in and immediately ran over the wagon attached to Miles’s minicycle. There was a popping crunch, and she backed up.

“What the devil was that?” she asked, bursting out of the truck.

“My wagon!” Miles cried, running over. “My wagon!”

“Why is that thing parked in my driveway?” she asked.

“Keep it down,” I said, grabbing her elbow. “We need to go inside and call the sheriff.”

“Why was there a wagon in the middle of my driveway?” she said, pulling her arm away. “Is the truck okay?”

“You don’t understand,” I said, glancing around. “We need to call the sheriff immediately. Miles was right — there is something weird going on in this town.”

Lilith hopped out of the truck and kicked the tire that’d done the damage to the wagon. Then she squatted down and ran her hands over it.

“I think the truck is fine, Mom,” she said, standing up.

“We’ve got to go inside,” I said. “We’ve got to call the sheriff.”

“Look, Charlie, I’m going to park this truck, then I’m going to go inside, put my feet up and relax. Then, and only then, will I permit you to explain to me what you’re babbling about.”

“Sure, sure,” I said, grabbing her elbow again and hustling her back to the truck. “Let’s just get inside, fast.”

“Move that miniature motorcycle, Miles!” she yelled, climbing in behind the wheel.

I winced, sure that the Baxters and Man-Bear were going to come tearing into the driveway at any moment.

Miles grabbed Shelley and the wagon, which was no longer attached to the minicycle, and rolled them into the grass, glancing left and right like a nervous rabbit.

Mom parked, got out and headed for the front door. Lilith was right behind her.

“This is good,” I said, trotting along beside them. “Let’s all get inside.”

“Wait!” Miles said, as we started onto the porch. “Wait! You could drive me back to the Baxters’ house. We could get the camera. Collect the evidence.”

“What’s he talking about, Charlie?”

“They chased us,” Miles blurted, before I could answer. “They attacked us. If we drove back in the truck, I could get the camera and show you the evidence, Mrs. Harker … I mean, Ms. Autumn.”

“Who attacked you?” Mom asked, actually looking a little concerned.

“The Baxters,” I said, glancing around. “Can we talk about this inside, please?”

“Why would the Baxters attack you?” She’d unlocked the front door, and her hand was on the handle, but she wasn’t opening it. “What were you doing?”

“We were simply investigating their property,” Miles said. “A routine investigation.”

“With a video camera?” Lilith asked.

“We were gathering evidence,” Miles said matter-of-factly.

“So, let me get this straight,” Mom said. “The two of you were snooping around the Baxters’ property with a video camera, and you want me to call the sheriff because they chased you away?”

“They attacked us,” I said.

“How exactly did they attack you?”

“Can I explain it inside?” I asked.

“No, you can’t,” she said, taking her hand off the handle and turning to face me.

“Well, you see, they had a friend with them, a big guy, and he grabbed on to my shirt while I was in the wagon you just ran over. He lifted me out of it with one hand.”

“For the record, he was running beside us at approximately thirty-five miles per hour,” Miles added.

“So,” Mom said, her eyes narrowing, “you trespassed on our neighbor’s private property, got chased away and then you escaped in the wagon?”

“It was attached to Miles’s minicycle,” I said. “The guy would’ve killed me, too, if I hadn’t thrown Miles’s video camera at his face.”

“There’s no way that toy motorcycle can go thirty-five miles per hour,” Lilith interjected.

“It can go faster than that,” Miles said, puffing out his chest a little.

“Charlie,” Mom snapped, “you obviously annoyed those people by invading their privacy, and then you threw a video camera at their friend’s face. It’s a good thing I didn’t call Sheriff Dutton.”

“But they’re not normal,” Miles said.

“I’ll admit it, Miles, it sounds like they overreacted,” Mom said, “but I don’t know how long you’ve been bothering them. Quite frankly, if you keep showing up around here at night, I might think about chasing you down the street, too. Especially if you start snooping around with a video camera.”

“But —” I started.

“No! No buts,” Mom barked. “Miles, go home,” she said, pointing into the night. “Charlie, come inside. We’ll work this thing out with the Baxters tomorrow.”

“You can’t send him out there now,” I said. “At least give him a drive home.”

“No,” Miles said. “I can get home on my own. It will give me the opportunity to collect the camera on the way. Then I’ll be able to show you the evidence, Ms. Autumn.”

Before I could stop him, Miles bolted off the porch and disappeared into the dark. A moment later, I heard his Frankencycle sputtering to life again.

“Don’t do anything crazy, Miles!” I shouted.

“I think you’re too late,” Lilith said and followed Mom inside.

I listened to Miles’s minicycle chug and cough its way out of the driveway, and then went in, too, locking the door behind us.

“Leave the door unlocked,” Mom said. “Johnny doesn’t have a key.”

“I’ll wait up for him,” I said.

“Fine,” she said, “but I’m going to bed, Charlie. It’s been a long day, and I’m dead tired.”

I watched them trudge up the stairs, and then I scuttered into the sitting room and waited for Johnny to get back.

Saturday, 10:53 p.m.

Not long after Mom and Lilith had gone to bed, I dragged a chair over to one of the tall windows that looked out over the front yard and Elm Street. I sat down, waiting for Johnny to arrive, and I guess at some point I must have dozed off. It was Johnny’s voice that finally woke me up.

From somewhere, way back in my mind, like a cloud crossing in front of the sun, I heard him saying, “Hey, dude, can I help you with something?” And then, in the same dark recesses of my mind, I was getting up, unlocking the front door and telling him to get inside. I could see the Baxters and Man-Bear marching across the lawn, straight at Johnny, their faces blank, their pointy fangs glinting in the moonlight. But I was already there, dragging him inside and locking the door behind us. Only, I realized I wasn’t awake and dragging him inside, I was still asleep, sitting in the chair. I knew that — I knew I was still asleep. That’s when I woke up.

I jumped out of the chair and looked out the window. A full moon was perched low in the sky, floating up there like a giant, glowing balloon lighting up the porch and the front yard. There was no one out there, but Johnny’s motorcycle was parked on the edge of the driveway, beside the truck. That proved he’d been outside. But when? Where was he now?

“Charlie!” a voice hissed.

I jumped and realized I had to pee really badly.

“Charlie!” the voice said again, and Lilith slipped into the sitting room. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“It was Johnny,” she said, sliding over to me and glancing out the window. “He was outside.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, he was talking to someone.”

“Who?” I asked, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer to that.

“Come on, let’s go,” she said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the front door. Before we plunged outside, though, I pulled back.

“Lilith, I wasn’t joking tonight. There’s something weird going on with the neighbors. I had a dream … I think … I think they were just here.”

She furrowed her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Then we should hurry,” she said, yanking me toward the door and throwing it open.

The first thing I noticed was the utter silence. There weren’t any crickets chirruping anymore.

“It’s this way,” Lilith said, and she pulled me off the porch and across the lawn, toward Johnny’s motorcycle.

“How do you know?” I said, glancing around.

She pointed down, and I noticed a series of light indentations in the long grass that were clearly going toward the driveway. It looked like there might have been four or five people out here. Seeing those tracks made my bladder ache. If the Baxters showed up now, I was going to need a new pair of pants.

“There,” Lilith said, pointing at a spot in the trees on the other side of the driveway where a few of the branches were broken and bent. “They must’ve gone in there.”

“We should tell Mom.”

“No time,” she said, letting go of my arm and sprinting for the trees.

“Lilith!” I barked, but she didn’t stop.

I didn’t want to go in after her. I thought there were probably about five thousand better ways we could handle this situation, but I couldn’t let her go by herself. So, foolishly, and with a bladder that threatened to explode with each step, I followed her into the trees.

“Lilith!” I hissed, barreling along blindly, hoping I wouldn’t run smack into a tree. “Lilith! Where are you?”

She didn’t answer, but I figured she must be close.

“Lilith!” I yelled, a little louder.

No answer.

My swollen bladder jiggled in my gut.

“Lilith!” I cried.

No answer.

I ran through a spiderweb and was busy wiping the sticky threads off of my face when I tripped over a branch and fell sprawling, face first. Thankfully the ground was covered in about an inch of spongy leaves and didn’t do any damage, but I couldn’t ignore my need to pee any longer. I jumped up and relieved myself, keeping a lookout for anyone trying to sneak up behind me. There were no angels singing this time; I was all business.

“Lilith?” I called when I finished. “Lilith!”

Nothing. No answer. Utter silence.

It was darker in the trees, with only slivers of moonlight flickering through the leaves.

“Lilith?”

She didn’t answer, but I did hear a shuffling sound off to my right. I spun around, trying to see what it was, but could only make out the black silhouettes of the trees. The shuffling came again, behind me.

I whirled around, squinting, trying to pick up any movement in the darkness.

“Lilith, is that you?”

Shuffling to my left … or was it from my right? I couldn’t tell. I listened, I waited, my hands out in front of me.

“Lilith?” I hissed.

More shuffling, closer this time.

A shadow moved. A large shadow, about ten feet di-rectly in front of me. It was too big to be Lilith.

“Hello?” I croaked.

The shadow flitted away.

I couldn’t stand still any longer. I ran.

I sprinted through about a dozen spiderwebs, not bothering to wipe them off. Low branches swatted and scratched my face, I ran into trees, bounced off of them, staggered, ran some more. I trampled over bushes and through clumps of knee-high ferns. I ran and ran, hoping (praying) that I was heading in the general direction of the inn. But the trees never ended — in fact, they seemed to be getting closer together, blotting out most of the moonlight and smacking me with their leaves and limbs. I kept glancing back over my shoulder, always expecting to see the Baxters or Man-Bear closing in. I would have kept on running like that, full tilt, until I collapsed or puked, except I glanced back one too many times. One second I was hurtling forward through the woods, the next I was falling backward.

“That was a big tree,” I groaned, and the world went from very dark to pitch-black.

Saturday or possibly Sunday

I don’t know how long I was lying on the ground, knocked out. There was no way to gauge time in the woods. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was covered in mosquitoes when I came to. They were on my face, my neck, my arms, buzzing in my ears — they were everywhere. I sat up, swatting them away, and the ground tilted. Orange stars popped out of the darkness in front of me. For about five seconds, I thought I was going to pass out again, and then the world came back into focus. I rubbed the side of my head and felt a cartoonish egg-sized bruise under my hair. That’s when I remembered why I’d been sprinting through the woods in the first place and slowly got to my feet. I scanned the trees for shadows and listened. The crickets were back, and about ten thousand mosquitoes were buzzing around my head, but there were no more shuffling sounds, and there were no more shadows. I was alone.

“Lilith?” I called, knowing that it was ludicrous to keep yelling for her. Lilith was gone. Heck, maybe she’d managed to save Johnny, and they were already back at the inn, kicking back with some cold pizza and a bottle of mustard, wondering where in the world I’d run off to. And that was an excellent question, wasn’t it? Where was I?

I took a long look around, hoping I’d spot some lights glimmering through the trees, but all I saw were more trees, and I couldn’t even see a lot of them because it seemed to be getting darker by the second.

I swatted a mosquito that had landed on my neck and tried to think of a way to get back to civilization. According to all the brochures, Choke was the finest private school in the country, but they didn’t spend a lick of time on what to do if you got stuck in the woods in the middle of the night. I added complain about lack of survival training at Choke to my mental to-do list and tried to come up with some way to get out of here before the mosquitoes drained me of all my blood.

Of course, if I’d had my phone, I could have figured out where I was with the GPS, or, oh, I don’t know, called somebody to let them know I was lost in the wilderness. I tried to remember any movies or TV shows I’d watched that involved finding your way out of the woods, but anything that came to mind usually ended with the main characters being captured by serial killers or monsters — usually zombies — and I thought that might actually be the type of predicament I was dealing with, so I tried to think of something else.

I considered yelling hysterically, but I was still a tad terrified of being discovered by the Baxters and Man-Bear, and there was no guarantee anybody else would hear me. I thought about climbing a tree and trying to spot some signs of civilization, but the branches were either too thin or too high up for me to get a start. I did manage to make it halfway up one of the trees, but then I was attacked by some kind of rodent. It was small but surprisingly feisty, and I ended up falling most of the way down to the ground just to avoid its sharp little teeth. That’s when I had to admit I probably wasn’t going to make it out of the woods until sunup and considered lying down and sleeping the rest of the night away. It was tempting, except for the hordes of bloodthirsty mosquitoes swarming around me. It was only because of them that I decided to keep moving.

I didn’t go in any particular direction, and I didn’t do it fast, but it was better than sitting still.