five

L

auren saw her mother and brother come out of Frank’s deli and walk toward the Sweet Shoppe. She wrinkled her nose a little and turned her head away, even though there was little to no chance of her mother seeing her through the

window in the dim interior of the arcade.

She stood next to Miranda, who was standing very close to Tad, the greasy-haired (and also greasy-faced, Lauren thought) object of her affection who did not look at all like Matt Dillon.

On the other side of Tad was his friend Billy, who also did not look like Matt Dillon and who seemed to have about as much interest in Lauren as she did in him—that is, none at all.

Tad was very involved with his latest round of Karate Champ and they were all supposed to care just as much as he did.

Lauren didn’t see why they couldn’t all at least go and play their own games as long as they were in the arcade, but Tad liked to have a cheering section around him.

Billy would shout and clap when Tad got a good hit on his opponent, and he apparently understood that as his role. Maybe cheerleading Tad’s skill at the joystick was required if you were permitted to ride in Tad’s Camaro. Miranda had pointed at the car out front as they entered the arcade, and the only thing Lauren noticed about it was that Tad hadn’t bothered to put it in between the diagonal parking space lines.

She didn’t think Miranda was interested in the outcome of the latest match. Her friend did seem to enjoy brushing her breasts against Tad’s arm as he played the game, though, and Tad didn’t tell her to get off so he must have been enjoying it, too.

What would happen if I just left without saying anything? Lauren wondered. Would Miranda notice right away, or only when she wanted to drag Lauren to the bathroom to touch up her lip gloss and talk about Tad?

She’d just about resolved to do it—slip away without telling Miranda—when the howl of an ambulance siren made everyone crane around their video screens and look out the window. The ambulance flew down Main Street, a notable occurrence by itself in a town with few emergencies, but the fact that it was followed by both of the Smiths Hollow Police Department cars had everyone muttering.

“Whoa, wonder what’s happening,” Billy said.

“We should follow the police cars,” Tad said, and looked ready to abandon his game and run outside to jump into his car.

Lauren knew that if that happened, Miranda would want to follow, and she decided right then that she wasn’t going to go with them. She was not going to get herself trapped in Tad’s car and then wind up someplace she really did not want to be, like the mall in the next town or at the Make-Out Field. The way that Miranda was rubbing herself against Tad meant the Make-Out Field was a distinct possibility, and Lauren planned on escaping before anyone expected her to kiss Billy.

“They’re long gone, man,” Billy said. “We’ll never catch them.”

“The Camaro could,” Tad said belligerently, as if Billy had somehow questioned the masculinity of his car. “Sure,” Billy said. “But if you chase the cops at that speed you’ll end up getting a ticket.”

Tad’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah. And if I get another ticket the Mother Monster said she’s going to take away my car keys.”

Miranda trilled a long laugh at this. “Mother Monster. That’s a good one.”

“She’s always ragging me,” Tad said, and his voice became high-pitched. “‘Clean up your room, cut your hair, work more hours at your job.’ Jesus Christ, it’s summer. Can’t she lay off for five seconds?”

“Yeah,” Miranda said. “You already work a lot at Wagon Wheel.”

“Not that much,” Tad admitted, sliding another quarter into Karate Champ. “I was thinking of applying at someplace in the mall.”

Lauren felt a headache coming on. It was brewing behind her eyes and soon it would clobber her there, making her feel nauseated and dizzy as it pounded the back of her eyeballs. She’d been subject to these headaches occasionally as a child, but lately they’d become more frequent. If she didn’t get home soon she wouldn’t even be able to ride her bike without falling over.

She started to say something to Miranda, who was deeply involved in the discussion of Tad’s future employment prospects.

“What?” Miranda asked, flashing Lauren an annoyed glance.

Lauren jerked her thumb at the food counter where some bored teens dispensed popcorn and soda and candy. “I’m going to get a Coke. You want one?”

“No,” Miranda said. “You shouldn’t drink soda, either. The sugar will rot your teeth.”

Lauren knew she’d added this last bit because she was irritated that Lauren interrupted her conversation with Tad, and it was the best insult Miranda could come up with on short notice.

“Okay,” Lauren said, not caring about Miranda’s attitude. She just needed to get away from the noise and lights of the Dream Machine as quickly as possible.

Lauren drifted in the direction of the food counter, glancing back over her shoulder. Miranda, Tad, and Billy were all absorbed in the game. She changed direction and darted for the front door.

As she stepped into the obscenely bright sunshine she wondered how long it would take for Miranda to notice that Lauren wasn’t coming back.

She closed her eyes for a second, because the glare of the sun was especially sharp after the dim interior of the arcade, and light always made her headaches worse. When she opened them again her gaze darted along the diagonal parking spaces across the street. Her mother’s station wagon was gone, so she and David had gone home.

It was too bad, because Lauren would have liked a ride from her mom at that moment. She wasn’t sure she would be able to ride her bike without puking.

Her father had always worried about these headaches, speculating (quietly, to her mother, when he thought Lauren couldn’t hear) that Lauren had some kind of neurological disease.

“They’re just migraines, Joe,” Mom would say in that scathing tone that she reserved for moments when she considered Dad especially stupid. “Lots of girls get them, especially after their periods. It’s hormones.”

Her dad would always shuffle around then and mumble that he was just worried. Discussing hormones and training bras and anything else that meant Lauren was becoming a woman made him profoundly uncomfortable.

But Lauren had gotten the headaches even though she was still waiting on her period, so she thought it couldn’t just be hormones the way her mother said. Sometimes it felt like there was something else living inside her skull that was trying to break out. She’d never told anybody else this, because she knew it sounded stupid.

Lauren cupped her hands around her eyes like binoculars to shield them from the sun and jogged across the street. The up-and-down motion made the peanut butter sandwich and chips she’d had for lunch rise up in her throat, but she swallowed hard and the feeling went away.

She slipped in between Frank’s Deli and Best Electronics even though she didn’t want to run into any rats while she was on her own. It was the fastest way back to her bike from there, and the only thing that mattered at the moment was getting to her cool, dark bedroom as soon as possible.

She was so intent on reaching the woods that she didn’t even glance at the back door of the electronics shop. She didn’t realize Jake Hanson was standing there again until he said, “Hey, Lauren,” in his lazy drawling way.

It startled her, and she gave a little clipped-off scream. Her heart pounded in her chest and she knew there was no help for it now. She stumbled a few feet forward, crouched down, and put her head between her knees.

“Lauren?” Jake asked, and to his credit he didn’t sound drawling anymore—confused maybe, or concerned.

She shook her head from side to side, though she didn’t know if she was trying to stave off the inevitable vomit or just Jake’s approach.

Then it came, and her cheeks burned with humiliation as she puked out her lunch a few feet away from Jake Hanson, wishing all the while that he would just go back inside and leave her alone.

She vaguely heard the sound of the back door closing, and thought, Good.

After a few minutes she thought she was done, but then her stomach did that tricky thing where it reminded her that there was still a teaspoon of half-digested food left inside her, and she gagged and coughed and out came the rest.

She stayed where she was, waiting to see if there was anything else. Cold sweat beaded on her temples and pooled in the small of her back and soaked the underarms of her T-shirt. She smelled the baby-powder scent of her deodorant and the sharp tang of bile and the garbage rotting in the cans behind the deli.

“Here,” Jake’s voice said behind her.

Lauren nearly tipped forward into the pile of her own puke. She hadn’t heard him come out of the store again. A second later she felt one of his hands on her back, and then a plastic cup of water materialized in front of her face.

“Thanks,” she said. Her voice sounded croaky, not like her own.

His hand on her back felt huge and hot and she couldn’t decide if she liked it or if she wanted him to stop. The point was moot a second later because he took his hand away and said, “Better?”

She nodded. Her face felt redder than it had ever been, like it was literally on fire. The only thing that would make this worse would be if Miranda suddenly showed up. Lauren glanced fearfully over her shoulder then, as if just the thought of Miranda would summon her.

Miranda wasn’t there, but Jake was crouched next to her. He didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered by the fact that Lauren had gotten sick in front of him. She hoped he wouldn’t tell his friends about it later.

“Can you stand?” he asked.

She nodded again and dug her hands into her thighs as she pushed up. Everything swam before her for a second, including Jake’s blue eyes (they really are very blue, she thought, dark blue, like sapphires) and then the world righted itself. Now to get away as soon as possible.

Jake had been really nice, really cool actually about the whole thing, but that didn’t mean Lauren wanted to stand there and have a conversation with him while she was pale and shaky and badly needed a toothbrush.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I get, um, headaches,” Lauren said. “Really bad ones.” “Migraines,” he said, nodding wisely. “My mom gets them, too.”

Lauren squinted at him, because the sun was still high and bright and opening her eyes too wide made her head throb. “Well, thanks for the water,” she said, flapping her hand at her side nervously.

Why doesn’t he go back inside? she wondered. Wasn’t he supposed to be working? Why was he just standing there looking at her like she’d just flown in on an alien ship?

“I get off in a half hour,” he said. “If you want a ride home instead of walking.”

“Oh,” Lauren said. “Um, thanks, but I left my bike in the woods. I have to go get it or my mom will freak.” “You spend a lot of time in the woods, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, wondering why he was trying to have a conversation with her. “Brave girl,” he said.

She didn’t know what to say to this. She knew that her opinion of the woods was not a majority one, but she didn’t think a guy like Jake Hanson would be afraid of a few trees. Then again, she’d been shocked to discover that her father hadn’t liked the forest, either.

“Thanks again,” she said, and turned toward the woods, giving him a little half wave. “See you around, Lauren,” he said softly.

She didn’t look back over her shoulder, but she was sure he watched her until she disappeared from sight.

The shade of the trees made her feel better almost immediately, although the headache didn’t disappear—just receded a little bit, like a fighter taking two steps back before charging in again with a flurry of punches. Still, she thought she might be able to get to her bike and make it home without fainting, which was the key thing.

Lauren had almost reached the ghost tree and her bike when she felt it—a strange sort of shifting, although the shifting wasn’t anything external that she could tell. The trees all stood in their usual places and the wind rustled their branches like always and her feet were firmly planted on the ground and her stomach wasn’t even queasy any longer.

But still—there had been something. A feeling that made her skin prickle and her left eye twitch and cold sweat pool at the base of her spine.

She shook her head even though it made her headache feel like it was knocking from side to side inside her skull. Those were all things that happened to other people when they walked in the woods that bordered Smiths Hollow. They got spooky feelings and broke out in a sweat and talked about ghosts and devils in whispers. But Lauren never felt these things. The woods had always made her feel safe.

Even when they found her father dead under the trees with his heart torn out, Lauren had never blamed the woods. How could it be the fault of nature if her father had gone out in the middle of the night for some reason that her mother would not discuss?

But she’d felt something just now, something like a . . .

A presence.

But that was beyond stupid. There was no floating presence out here, only Lauren and the trees and the chipmunks scampering into the brush.

And then her head exploded, a pain like she’d never experienced before. She dropped to her knees in the dirt, both hands pressing into her head, wishing for anything that would make it stop.

Just make it stop, she thought, and she heard herself whimpering as she fell forward, grinding her face into the dead leaves and soil, trying to tunnel into the cool ground in hopes that the darkness would close around her like a grave and make it stop, just make it stop.

There was something inside her brain trying to get out, something with a chainsaw and blood in its teeth, something howling, but the howling wasn’t pain—it was the kind of howling that meant laughter, and the laughter wasn’t the kind that invited others to laugh but the kind that you ran from while your heart slammed against your ribs and your legs moved of their own volition.

Then she saw them—the girls. But she didn’t really see them. It was like she was watching a replay of someone else’s memory. There were two girls in the woods, walking together and wearing backpacks. Lauren didn’t recognize them—they looked a little older than her, and they were probably not from Smiths Hollow. One of the girls had very short blond hair cut like a boy’s, and the other had her brown hair tied up in braids that draped over her chest. Something about the girls— maybe the heaviness of their packs—made Lauren think that they were runaways.

The girls didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular, just ambling along to a place where people wouldn’t ask them questions, wouldn’t wonder where they were going and what they were doing. They both shared the same expression—a kind of half-worried, half-happy wrinkle in their brows, like they were glad to be doing things on their own terms but not sure yet what those terms would be, or if they would be successful.

Then Lauren was aware of another presence, something that didn’t see the girls as girls or even humans. It saw them as meat, beautiful bloody red delicious meat.

No! Lauren cried out. Run away!

But the girls didn’t hear her, because Lauren wasn’t really there and because they weren’t worried about a monster eating them up. They were worried about someone finding them and making them go home, home where they had been so unhappy and sometimes afraid, and they weren’t going to be afraid anymore.

Lauren knew all of this, knew what the girls were thinking and what the thing was thinking and she knew what would happen next and she didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know any more. Why couldn’t she just imagine that the girls had gone on happy together, that they made a new home for themselves somewhere? Why did she have to see what happened next?

It didn’t matter if she closed her eyes because the scene was under her eyelids, imprinted on the inside of her brain. It didn’t matter if she covered her ears with her hands because she heard the braid girl scream as her friend was torn in half by claws that were from no animal Lauren had ever seen.

But there was something funny about those claws, too, Lauren thought, part of her sunk in the horror of it all but another part dispassionately noting that there was something out of place. Just for a second she thought she’d seen a human hand underneath the claws.

A person? A person was doing this?

How could a person tear up two girls and then eat bits of them and then deliberately drag the remains to a place where they would be found?

Lauren watched—it felt like she was watching even though it was only a scene pressing on the inside of her brain—as the thing gathered up what was left in a canvas sack. The sack left a trail behind as blood drained from what was left of the girls, the half-happy girls who’d walked in the woods.

The vision—if that was what it was—stopped as abruptly as it had started. Lauren sat up and peered around, half expecting that there would be a monster there, a monster with sharp claws and bloody teeth. But there was nothing and no one—not even, Lauren realized, the remnants of the migraine that had left her feeling so crippled just a short while earlier.

The side of her face felt gritty, and she swiped at it with her hand. It came away covered in dirt. She must have ground her face into the soil, trying to escape the things she saw.

The images were fading quickly now, so fast that it was almost like it hadn’t happened at all. All that was left was a hollowed-out feeling and an intense exhaustion that made her want to stay right where she was and take a nap.

“Well, no wonder,” she said to herself, forcing her feet and legs to move and stand. She’d gotten sick and had the mother of all headaches and then had what amounted to a waking nightmare where pretty girls got slaughtered by monsters. Of course she wanted to sleep.

Despite the strange thing she’d just seen—imagined?—the woods still seemed to be the same refuge they’d always been for her. The rustling of the leaves and the chirping of birds washed away the last vestiges of the nightmare. That was what she decided it was, after all. Just a nightmare brought on by the headache and nothing to worry about at all.

She found her bike leaning against the ghost tree exactly where she’d left it and grabbed the handlebars, pulling it away from the shade of the tree’s branches. It was then that she noticed something on the seat.

The seat was dark blue, so it was hard to tell exactly what it was. She leaned her face closer, then reared back in horror.

There was a handprint on the seat, a handprint that almost looked human, with very long fingers that tapered into sharp points.

But that wasn’t what had Lauren dropping her bike and backing away. It was because the print had been stamped in blood, and the blood was still fresh.