AERIN AND THOMAS didn’t say a word to each other on the bumpy drive out of town past a few lonely farms and through the entrance to the wetlands. She tried to distract herself by looking around the interior of his car, an old Ford Focus with window cranks and manual transmission. There were a bunch of library books and DVDs littering the backseat. She spied an Agatha Christie paperback that she’d read, too, and considered mentioning it, but then realized she was way too keyed up to make idle chitchat.

A big sign alerted them that they were now in protected space, so no hunting, littering, or trespassing was permitted. “There,” she said, noticing something brown and pointed just over the trees. As they rounded the corner, a broken-looking house stood down a dirt road, in a clearing. The windows were boarded up, and the roof was black with rot. An old pickup truck, long rusted away, slumped in the gravel driveway. So did a big buzzard, chewing on the remains of a dead animal.

Thomas pulled onto the shoulder and hit the brakes. “Let’s park here. This car will get stuck in the mud if we go any farther.”

“Okay,” Aerin whispered.

“Do you think we should call the cops before we go in?”

Aerin rolled her jaw. “What if Brett’s in there and sees the police lights and kills her? Or what if just Chelsea’s in there and Brett’s watching from a remote location and he see the cops and hits some sort of detonator and blows us all up? Or what if—”

“Got it,” Thomas interrupted curtly, seeming nervous, too. He opened the car door. The buzzard lifted from the ground, flapping its enormous wings. The air was so still and quiet, Aerin could hear the thudding of her heart. She glanced at Thomas. His jaw was taut. His eyes focused straight ahead. He was all business.

He started up the driveway. “Stay with me at all times, okay? I’ll lead. You follow. Don’t get out of my sight. Getting separated could be really dangerous.”

Aerin scrambled after him. The air had a strange smell to it—like sulfur, wet asphalt, and burned electronics. The wind picked up suddenly, brushing the blades of tall grass together. There were weeds all around the house, growing into the foundation. As they got closer, the shack creaked and moaned. It was even more dilapidated than she’d first thought—definitely uninhabitable-looking. No one had lived here in years.

Aerin stood on tiptoe and tried to peer into the single dirty window on the first floor that wasn’t covered in cardboard. Was Brett in there? Chelsea? She stared hard, trying to make out shapes. She thought she caught something moving and widened her eyes, but it was too dark to tell.

Something fluttered in the grass, and she snapped up. How long had she been standing here? Thomas was gone. She could hear distant footsteps, almost out of earshot. Her throat felt dry. There was no way she was going to call out to him.

She tramped around the side yard. The grass was even higher, and there was a fence a few feet away that seemed to have been chewed apart by something huge and carnivorous. Part of the shack’s siding had eroded straight through to the fiberglass. There were thick patches of weeds—and probably poison ivy—under Aerin’s feet, but she trudged through them anyway. The wind swished eerily again, blowing her hair into her face.

Clang. She jumped and spun around. In the backyard, a rusted rooster weather vane mounted on a stump swung wildly with the wind, haphazardly knocking into a pile of junk behind it. Aerin’s gaze scanned the heap: There was a rusty saw, some clamps, and an iron mallet that looked like it weighed more than she did. They reminded Aerin of torture weapons. An unsettling frisson fluttered up her spine.

Flies swarmed feverishly around something just out of view. Swallowing hard, she crept around the pile of rubble and looked down. The first thing she saw on the crumbling brick slab was a splotch of blood. She jumped back, bile rising to her throat. When she peered again, she swallowed a scream. Bones lay on the ground, the flesh picked clean away. Aerin raised a hand to her mouth. They looked huge. Maybe someone’s legs. A forearm.

Something flashed behind her again. In the window? Aerin craned her neck, staring hard until her vision blurred. Her fear was doing a number on her balance, and she took a wobbling step back, nearly toppling over. This was a terrible idea. They couldn’t be here. They had to leave, now.

And then she heard Thomas’s scream.