“Maybe we should stop coming to Nights,” Nate said.
Shark groaned. He raised his beer bottle to his mouth and drained it. “Why should we have to give up our secret life?” he said, shaking his head. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“There’s a murderer out there,” Nate said, looking pale and frightened in the dim light of the bar. “He’s murdering our friends one by one, Shark. Maybe it’s not safe for us to be sitting here in the middle of the night. Maybe we’re sitting ducks.”
“Quack quack,” Shark said without smiling. He signaled Ryland to bring him another Budweiser.
It was a week later, a week after the horrible fire and murders at the pep rally. The principal had pulled the basketball team out of the tournament. The high school was closed for three days. Counselors were available for any kids who wanted to talk to them.
The police questioned us all, everyone who had been at Miller’s Farm that night. No one had seen anyone suspicious lurking around the field or barn. No one had seen anything that might help the police find the murderer.
Of course, Dana and I knew the murderer couldn’t be found.
The murderer was a hundred-year-old ghost. Or maybe two hundred-year-old ghosts.
Dana and I knew why Aaron and Galen died. We were the only ones who knew.
And what we knew was driving us crazy.
No way we could explain it to the police. Or our parents. Or even our friends.
We hardly believed it ourselves.
In the days after the bonfire, I moved between dark clouds of shock and anger. Sometimes my world was a total blur. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t see straight.
Mom saw the trouble I was in. She wanted to take me to Dr. Fineman, our family doctor. I argued her out of it. I knew he’d be useless.
“Dr. Fineman, my friends are all being killed by Simon and Angelica Fear. I know they’ve been dead for a century. But they came back to murder all of us who broke into their house last year.”
Yeah. For sure.
Jamie has gone Looney Tunes.
When I wasn’t lost in a haze, I felt only anger, the strongest, bitterest anger I’d ever felt in my life.
How could this happen to me and my friends?
It was so unfair. So tragic and unfair.
And who would be next? Would it be me?
Dana’s way of dealing with it? She shoved it all aside. I don’t know how she did it. But most of the time, she swept it to the back of her mind.
Was it because she’d had so many other bad things happen in her life?
I couldn’t explain it. I guess I admired her for being able to go on as if things were almost normal.
I couldn’t do it.
So we all gathered at Nights to talk talk talk. All the Night People. Trying to talk our way through the horror. Trying to explain it away somehow.
Everyone wants to wake up from a nightmare. But what if the nightmare refuses to go away?
We’d pulled our chairs together at the back of the bar. No separate tables anymore. We knew we were all in this together.
Shark and Nate, grim-faced, baseball caps pulled down over their foreheads, sat together in one corner. I kept thinking there should be a chair for Nikki. But of course she would not be arriving.
Clark had his arm around Dana. He kept leaning against her and whispering in her ear. Dana kept glancing over to me.
For some reason, Lewis seemed very distant tonight. He sat away from me, across from Shark and Nate. And he didn’t say much. He sipped a Diet Coke and kept staring at the neon Budweiser sign at the front of the bar, as if hypnotized.
“I heard a rumor that Kristen Blake’s parents are suing the school,” Clark said. “You know. For negligence. Because of her burns.”
“Lotsa rumors going around,” Lewis muttered without looking at anyone.
“Don’t you think Aaron’s parents will sue?” Shark said. “And Galen’s?”
“Sue who?” Nate said. “Sue the murderer?”
“Coach Murphy may get canned,” Clark said. “That’s totally unfair.”
“Nobody holds him responsible—do they?” Dana asked. She glanced at me. She knew who was really responsible.
It was so hard not to stand up and just blurt out the truth. But I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.
I didn’t want them to know I’d been inhabited by Angelica Fear. No way. I didn’t want them to know I’d gone back into the Fear Mansion. I’d seen Simon Fear.
Hel-lo. Who would believe a story like that?
Was I being a coward by not revealing the truth? Or was I being brave, keeping it to myself?
“We’re all that’s left,” Shark muttered, motioning with his head. “Just the six of us.” He spun his beer bottle between his hands.
“The last of the Night People,” Nate said, eyes lowered to the floor. He sighed. “This used to be so much fun. All of us sneaking out at night, having the whole town just to ourselves.”
“Clark and I weren’t here when you guys started doing this,” Dana said. “Jamie told me you started out meeting inside the Fear Mansion. Before it was torn down.”
Hel-lo. Was that why Dana was handling all of this better than I was? Because she knew she and Clark weren’t there the night we looted the Fear Mansion?
Did she feel safe? Did she think Angelica’s revenge had nothing to do with her?
In a way, I hoped she was right. I didn’t want any harm to come to my cousin.
I didn’t want any harm to come to any of us.
Suddenly, as they chattered on, I knew what I had to do.
I jumped to my feet. I turned and hurried toward the front door.
“Jamie—?” I heard Lewis call.
“Where are you going?” Dana shouted.
“Home,” I said. I pushed open the door and stepped out into a cold, clear night.
Yes. Clear. Suddenly it all became clear to me.
I couldn’t sit around drinking beer and talking about how sad I was and let Simon or Angelica or whoever kill us one by one. I had to do something.
This all started at the Fear Mansion. And I knew it had to end at the Fear Mansion. . . .