The Town

1

Sasha was grateful for the beginning of school.

Moving to McGuane had been a complete and total disaster, and not a day went by that she didn’t wish she had followed through on her threats to run away. She could have gotten a job, found an apartment. She probably could’ve even stayed with Amy’s family for a few weeks until she got settled. It was not as if she was still a child. She was a senior, almost eighteen, an adult for all intents and purposes, and she could easily have continued on, uninterrupted, with her existing life, sans parents.

And she should have.

But she was a “good girl,” and the truth was that she didn’t have the guts to disobey her mom and dad. In her mind, her future life had always unfolded in a series of orderly steps. She would go to college, then move out of the house and, with the help of her parents, find her own place to live, meet a man, get a good job, get married, and live happily ever after in Newport Beach or Brentwood or someplace like that. There’d been no disruption anywhere in her vision of the future, and this sudden uprooting had caught her totally off guard. She’d never prepared for it and didn’t know how to react to it.

Now she was stuck in the armpit of America, in the middle of this stupid desert, in what was practically a ghost town.

God damn the lottery.

At least school had started, at least she had a chance to meet some other people her own age, backward hill-billies though they might be, and while nothing could erase the horrible mistake her family had made, it did serve to lessen the impact.

Back in California, she’d always gotten good grades, had always hung out with the right crowd, and she didn’t know if it was some type of subconscious rebellion against her family or an attempt to punish her parents for moving here but she now found herself aligning with a different group of students—the losers, the tokers, the sluts, the people who hung out on Turquoise Street, behind the gym. Part of it was practicality. This clique was looser, less organized, more open to new kids and outsiders. But part of it was also the fact that, emotionally, she felt more in tune with the outcasts. A newly developed disdain for play-by-the-rules goody-goodies had tainted her outlook, and she now viewed with scorn the type of perfect little teacher’s-pet students who had until recently been her choice for friends.

She slammed her locker shut, walked alone through the crowd of students to the sidewalk that circled the school, and started toward the gym. On Turquoise, most of the kids were stubbing out their cigarettes and starting to wander off toward their classes, but Cherie Armstrong leaned against the side of the building, rummaging through her purse, showing no sign that she was planning to leave.

It was Cherie she had come to see, and Sasha walked over to her. “You going to PE?” she asked.

Her friend snorted. “What for? So that dyke teacher can check out my crotch while I’m changing? No way.”

Sasha tried to smile. The thought of going to PE alone did not sit well with her, and although she knew she’d better leave now if she hoped to get to class on time, she hesitated for a moment.

She looked at Cherie, nonchalantly searching through the contents of her purse. She had never ditched class before, but she had always hated PE, and if she was going to skip a period, this would be a good one to start with.

The other girl finally found what she was looking for and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

The bell rang, and there was a last-minute flurry of students running to their classrooms.

Cherie smacked the pack against her palm, withdrew a cigarette. “Want a smoke?”

Sasha hesitated only a second, then moved next to her friend and leaned against the gym wall, holding out her hand.

“Sure,” she said.

2

Their new home still made her uncomfortable.

Julia lay awake, listening to the muted electric hum of the alarm clock on the dresser. It was the only sound in the room, the noise of its imperfect workings absurdly amplified against the silence, and she stared into the darkness, trying not to hear it. She still wasn’t used to the quiet out here, the absence of nighttime traffic and city sounds, and these low, isolated noises seemed more intrusive to her than all of the cacophony of Southern California.

The electric clock was keeping her awake, making it impossible for her to fall back to sleep.

Well, that and the fact that her bladder was full.

But she was afraid to get up and go to the bathroom.

She was ashamed of herself. She was a mother, for God’s sake. She was supposed to be the one reassuring her children that there were no ghosts or monsters, that the world was the same at night as it was during the day, that darkness hid no terrors.

But she could not even make herself believe it.

She did not understand what it was about the house that unsettled her so, that engendered within her this feeling of dread, but it was there, and it had not abated one whit since their arrival. If anything, it had grown stronger. There’d been no incidents since the dishes, no overt examples of anything unusual occurring, but as much as she tried to discount what she felt, as often as she attempted to ignore her feelings and write them off as the result of culture shock or emotional strain, she could not.

Which was why she was lying awake in the middle of the night, afraid to go to the bathroom.

Was their new home haunted?

It was what she kept coming back to.

She had never been superstitious, had never even been totally convinced of the existence of God. Anything beyond the physical world had been, to her, entirely theoretical and more in the realm of fiction than fact. But that attitude was changing, and, as ridiculous as she would have found it a month ago, she was now seriously considering the possibility that some sort of ghost or spirit was living in their house.

A ghost or spirit? Was she serious?

She sighed. Hell, maybe it was stress.

Earlier, she and Gregory had lain awake for a long time, talking. It was the only time they really got any privacy these days, and once they were in bed, they snuggled together to share the thoughts and feelings they did not want to discuss in front of Gregory’s mother or the children.

When he started talking about the café and his plans to make it into a nightspot, an entertainment venue that would lure name acts to this little corner of the state, she suggested that perhaps she would find something to do, too.

“You want to help me out with the sound system?” he asked.

She shook her head, smiled. “No. I was thinking more like volunteer work.”

“I thought you wanted to—”

“I’ll get around to that,” she said quickly. “But I need some… adjusting time.”

“Volunteer work, huh? Let me guess. At the library.”

“Or Teo’s school,” she said defensively.

He chuckled.

“I want to be here when the kids get home in the afternoon.”

Gregory nodded, still smiling. He pulled her closer, kissed her forehead. “Whatever you want.”

His condescending attitude annoyed her, and she dropped the subject, letting him drone on and on about the café before they finally made love and went to sleep.

Or rather he went to sleep.

She was still awake.

And had to go to the bathroom.

She remained in the bed, wide awake, and it was another half hour before she finally gathered enough courage to get out of bed and walk across the hall to the bathroom, “accidentally” waking Gregory up in the process so that he would be conscious should anything happen. It was another forty-five minutes before fatigue finally overcame her and she fell asleep.

At breakfast, Gregory’s mother talked about angels.

She was telling Teo and Adam a story about how a guardian angel had saved her from falling off a boulder into a cactus patch, and between bites of cereal, the kids asked clarifying questions that indicated they believed every word. It was not the first time this had happened, and Julia felt a little uncomfortable having so much religious talk in the house, but she understood that if her mother-in-law was to live with them, this was something that she would have to learn to put up with. She and Gregory exchanged a look, and he shrugged resignedly.

Besides, who was she to say? Maybe there were angels. A completely separate race of beings existing on some other, higher plane. It was something that a lot of people seemed to believe in. But would angels take such an interest in specific individuals that they would monitor a person’s every move? It didn’t make any kind of logical sense, but perhaps angels sat around and discussed the impact of things upon people just the way people sat around and discussed animals and the environment. To a race of beings that advanced, humans would be like pets, like lower life-forms, and perhaps their intervention in human affairs would be the equivalent of saving redwoods or protecting the denizens of natural wetlands.

Sasha walked downstairs, poured herself a glass of orange juice, and quickly downed it. “I’m off,” she announced.

Her grandmother frowned. “You need good breakfast. You eat breakfast.”

“No time!” She was out the kitchen door and into the living room. “See you this afternoon!”

Gregory pushed his chair back and stood. “Come on,” he told Adam and Teo. “Better get ready.”

“How come you have to drive us?” Adam said. “How come I can’t walk to school like Sasha?”

“Because she’s in high school. Go brush your teeth and get ready.”

“No good,” his mother said, shaking her head. “Breakfast important.”

“I don’t want to brush my teeth!” Teo announced.

Julia pulled back her daughter’s chair, lifted the girl out and set her on the floor. “You brush them anyway. Hurry up, you don’t want to be late for school.”

Ten minutes later, both children were in the car, and Julia waved to them as Gregory pulled out of the drive. She turned and walked back into the house, where Gregory’s mother was already clearing the breakfast table and preparing to wash dishes.

Julia picked up her cup and sipped the still-warm coffee, sitting down at the table and glancing through first the Food, then the front-page sections of the Los Angeles Times that they’d received yesterday in the mail. They’d fallen into a pattern: she made breakfast and Gregory’s mother did the dishes afterward. She and her mother-in-law took turns cooking dinner, and Gregory and the kids alternated with the washing. Which meant that she was only really stuck with cleaning the lunch dishes.

It was the one part of their new domestic arrangement that was an improvement on the way things had been before.

From out on the road, there was the sound of a rattly pickup truck passing by. Julia glanced up from her paper and over at her mother-in-law. They were alone, the old woman had just been talking about angels, and this was a perfect opportunity to bring up what she’d been thinking about. She sat there for a moment, finished off her coffee, then took her cup over to the sink. She placed the cup in the sudsy water and cleared her throat. “Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked.

Gregory’s mother looked at her, but did not answer immediately. She rinsed the plate she’d been washing and placed it on the rack. “Why you ask?” she said finally.

This was her chance. She could come clean, tell her mother-in-law what she’d been thinking, what she’d been feeling, but her American attitude was too firmly ingrained for her to drop the facade, and she was disgusted with herself as she said, “I was just curious.”

The old woman nodded, as if this was what she had been expecting. She looked at Julia. “There are things,” she said earnestly. She paused, thought. “Father, before he die, he saw brother George. He die long time ago, when he was ten years old. Poor ragged clothes. Father in bed, and brother George came to the room and he gave Father a key and disappear. Father dying and he told Mother, said, ‘He give me the key, the door’s open. I’m going to die.’ And he did. He said brother George look exactly the same, same ragged clothes. So those things happen.”

Julia felt a chill pass through her, though she could tell that her mother-in-law had meant the tale to be reassuring, not frightening.

Those things happen.

She thought about the uncomfortable darkness of the house and the uneasiness she’d felt here ever since they’d arrived, about the box of dishes that had fallen from a place where it had not been put, in a room that had no one in it.

There was the sudden sound of their van crunching gravel in the driveway, and Julia jumped, startled. Gregory’s mother looked at her, and there was a knowing expression on her face, a look that said she knew what Julia had been thinking and why she had really asked about ghosts.

Julia turned away in embarrassment.

“Hey,” Gregory said, walking into the kitchen and dropping his keys on the counter. “What’re you guys talking about?”

“Ghosts, the afterlife, the usual stuff.” Again, Julia was disgusted to hear the flippant tone of her own voice.

“I tell her about Father. How he see brother George before he die.”

Gregory poured himself the last of the coffee. “What about Aunt Masha’s husband? He died when she was really young, didn’t he?”

A cloud passed over his mother’s face. “That was no good.”

“Still, it happened. Tell Julia. It’s interesting.” He smiled at Julia, and she suddenly hated that smug, superior look on his face, the same exact look she knew was all too often found on her own. For the first time, she saw things from the perspective of their parents, and she thought that Gregory’s mother had been uncommonly patient with them and their intellectually snobbish attitude, far more patient than she herself could ever be.

She gently took her mother-in-law’s arm. “Tell me about it,” she said.

The old woman sighed, nodded. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel, then followed Julia back to the table, where the three of them sat individually, like the points of a triangle, facing each other.

“Masha’s husband, Bill, see, he die. At thirty. She took it too hard. She cried every single day. Was losing her mind, she cry so much. Then she said she hear so much noise from the back room. Always noise. But nobody was there. Then she call Father and say she saw Bill in a black suit. When she told Father, Father said, ‘We have to have prayer’ ”—she clapped her hands together firmly—“ ‘That’s it.’ They have a prayer, and she never saw him, never dream, never notice him again. Gone.”

“He was a ghost?” Julia asked.

“No. No ghost. No such thing as ghost.”

Gregory sipped his coffee. “Father told me, ‘If I can come back and let you know, I will.’ ”

His mother’s expression was determined. “He’s not going to come back.”

“So there are no ghosts?” Julia said. “Dead people can’t come back?”

“Sometimes they come… but in the form of angel. Then you know it’s not a devil.”

“So when dead people come back, those are evil spirits?”

The old woman nodded. “Yes. See, when somebody dying, they always see someone. Like my father see brother George. And when my grandmother’s father dying, he said, ‘There’s your mother, standing by my feet.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Right there.’ ” She leaned forward intently. “He saw. Nobody else saw, but she was there. When you die, somebody’s there with you. You don’t die alone, but other people cannot see it.”

“What if a regular person sees a ghost? What if someone who’s not dying sees a ghost?”

She shook her head. “Ghost is nothing.”

“I thought you said Masha saw her husband dressed in black. Wasn’t that a ghost?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It was evil spirit.” She thought for a moment. “Devil like mean things. He want to disturb her more and more and more, see? That’s why you have to pray. It happen to Sonya, my cousin. She live in San Diego and her mother die. She so close to her mother. She lost husband on account of mother. She take care of her mother, husband took other lady. So after her mother die, she said, ‘My mother came and visit me and she talk to me.’ When she told her father, he said, ‘What you mean, you talk to your mother?’ They have to have prayer, too. See, it wasn’t her mother but the form of her mother. Because she cry too much. You don’t cry. Well, you cry, but not everyday everyday everyday, you know?”

Julia felt chilled. “So when you have too much grief, they come back?”

“Evil come back. That’s why when John die, I pray every single night. It’s hard, but it’s easy. If you say prayer, he not going to come in. When you pray, they don’t like it. The devil will leave.” She leaned back. “Those things happen.”

Those things happen.

Julia was glad that Gregory and his mother were here, that she was not alone in the house.

“Anyway, that’s what I believe. That’s what I think happen.” She gave Julia a meaningful look, then stood and walked back over to the sink. “Dishwater getting cold,” she said.

Gregory drank his coffee and shrugged apologetically, but Julia ignored him, looking away, watching his mother’s back as she began washing plates. She felt bad about the way they’d treated the old woman over the years, guilty for the manner in which they’d automatically dismissed her obviously deeply held beliefs.

Was Julia a believer now herself?

No, not really. She was spooked, yes, but she still thought that it was probably due to the fact that she was spending too much time in the house. That was what was at the root of the problem, not anything supernatural. She just needed to get out, meet some people, find something to do.

Maybe volunteering wasn’t such a bad idea.

But she had a newfound respect for her mother-in-law, and as she walked out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom to change out of her pajamas and bathrobe, she vowed that she would no longer disparage the older woman’s convictions. After all, this was her culture as well. She was American, but she was Molokan, too, and perhaps it was time she started honoring her roots.

She walked into the bedroom. The drapes were open, but it was still dark in here, and Julia shivered involuntarily as she quickly flipped on the light.

3

There was a letter waiting for him when he got home from school, a letter from Roberto, and Adam took it immediately into his bedroom and closed the door. He plopped down on the bed, tore open the envelope and read. Roberto had written a hilarious account of the first day of school, catching him up on what all of the other kids had done over the summer, how Sheila Hitchcock had ballooned up even more and now looked like a white whale, how the sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Mejia, wiggled her butt when she wrote on the chalkboard and how Jason Aguilar stood behind her and did a killer imitation and then quickly sat down in his seat before she turned around. He’d included, as promised, a Spiderman card, a new one, and Adam immediately added it to his collection, placing it on the top of the rubber-banded stack on his dresser.

He reread the letter, then lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling.

As much as he liked Scott, he wished Roberto was here instead.

He missed his friend.

He missed California.

But he was getting used to McGuane, and already his feelings of homesickness had faded from the peak intensity of that first week or so. He broke out his English notebook, ripped out a page, and wrote Roberto a reply, describing his own first day of school, what the kids were like here, Scott. He embellished and exaggerated, made everything sound a lot more exciting than it actually was. He considered telling Roberto about the banya, but he didn’t quite know what to say or how to describe it, and he decided to save that for another time.

It cheered him up, writing, and he felt good as he addressed the envelope, slapped a stamp on it, and carried it up the drive to the mailbox. He popped up the little red flag on the box to signal the postman that there was outgoing mail, and then jumped as a hand smacked the back of his head.

“Loser,” Sasha said.

She started down the drive to the house, swinging her backpack, apparently having forgotten that he even existed, and he was tempted to run after her and smack her in return. Maybe knock her backpack into the dirt, but even though she was a girl, she was still bigger than he was and could easily kick his ass, so instead he waited by the mailbox until she was halfway to the house before following.

He walked slowly, looking down at the ground, kicking small rocks ahead of him. His birthday was coming up soon, in a few weeks, and he found himself wondering what they were going to do about it. Ordinarily, his parents took him and a group of friends to Chuck E. Cheese or someplace like that, someplace with pizza and video games, but this year there were no friends to take. Scott, maybe, but that was it. He half hoped they’d simply ignore his birthday this year. The thought of going someplace with just his family depressed him, and he didn’t want anyone from school to see him sitting in some crappy restaurant with Babunya and his parents and his sisters like… well, like a loser.

He’d rather not celebrate his birthday at all than be humiliated.

But his parents probably had something planned, and he thought that he’d better let them know he just wanted a quiet celebration at home before they went out and made reservations at some embarrassingly public place.

It was Friday, and although there were Fox shows he wanted to watch, when Scott called after dinner asking if he felt like hanging out, checking what was happening around town, Adam agreed to come over.

He knew his parents wouldn’t want him to go, so he put the best spin possible on it as he presented the plan to them. “Scott asked me to come over,” he said.

His mother frowned. “Now? It’s getting dark.”

“So?”

“I don’t want you wandering around out there at night.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“Why don’t you just stay home?”

“I thought that’s why we moved here. So we could do things like this.”

“There may not be gangs in McGuane, but there are coyotes, snakes, drunk rednecks, who knows what all.”

“And perverted cowboys,” Sasha said, grinning.

“Sasha,” his father warned.

“Scott was born here. He knows this town. And, besides, we’re not just going to ‘wander.’ I’m going to his house, we may walk down to French’s and get a milk shake or something, and that’s it. Then I’ll come home.”

“Why don’t you have your father drive you?”

Adam grimaced. “Why don’t you just hang a big sign on my back that says ‘Mama’s Boy and Wuss’?”

“We could do that,” Sasha said agreeably.

Teo laughed.

“Knock it off,” his father said. He turned toward Adam. “What are your real plans?”

“That’s it! That’s the plan! God!”

His parents exchanged a glance.

“Be home by eight-thirty,” his mother said.

“That’s only an hour and a half!”

“How much time do you need to get a milk shake?”

“It’s that or nothing,” his father said. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

His father grinned. “If you’re five minutes late, I’ll be out in that van looking for you, asking everyone I see, ‘Do you know where Adam Tomasov is? His mommy wants him to come home.’ ”

Teo burst out laughing.

Adam kicked the sole of her tennis shoe as he walked by, pretending to be annoyed, but he was secretly pleased. Things had gone a lot smoother than expected. He grabbed his comb and wallet and was out of the house before his parents could change their minds.

Scott was waiting for him on the low wooden fence that encircled his yard. From inside the set-back house came the loud, angry voices of a man and a woman arguing, and Scott said, “Let’s hit the road. My old man and old lady are going at it, and, believe me, you don’t want to be around when that happens.” He jumped off the fence and led Adam across the street and through the yard of a darkened home abutting a dry ditch.

They hopped into the ditch and followed it behind a line of houses and buildings, emerging in the field behind the high school. Scott led the way through the school grounds onto Malachite Avenue, and they walked down the sloping street toward the center of town.

“Can you believe this place is so dead?” Scott said disgustedly. “The whole town closes up at six. What a fucking hellhole.” He looked over at Adam. “I bet it’s not like this in California.”

Adam laughed. “No, it’s not.”

But he went on to tell his friend how they wouldn’t be able to walk around like this at night in Southern California. There were gangs and drive-bys, sickos and psychos.

Scott was incredulous. “You can’t go out at night?”

“Well, you can if you have a car. I mean, my dad or my sister could drive us places like movies or malls or something. But you can’t, you know, just wander around like this.” He grinned. “This is bitchin’.”

Scott nodded, smiled. “Yeah, it kinda is.”

They reached the shopping district and walked down the intermittent sidewalk through the center of town. There were lights on in a few of the stores, but French’s was the only business actually open, and even it was devoid of customers. They stopped by the restaurant, bought two Cokes and split an order of fries to go, then continued on, eating out of the greasy bag they passed back and forth.

At the park, Scott sat down on top of one of the picnic tables. Adam tossed the empty bag into an adjacent trash barrel and leaned against a chain-link backstop. The park seemed different at night, its contours changed, its boundaries expanded by the darkness. They were the only ones here, but while that would have been a plus back in California, where any gathering of two or more people at night signaled possible gang activity, in this place it only served to heighten the disquiet that Adam felt. Leaning against the backstop, he was facing Scott, facing the street, but the bulk of the park was behind him, and he didn’t like having all that empty darkness at his back. Casually, he moved over to the picnic table, sitting next to his friend.

He hadn’t planned on bringing it up, but Scott said, “This place is creepy at night.”

Adam played it cool. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“It’s supposed to be haunted, you know.”

Goose bumps popped up on Adam’s arms.

“A long time ago, two miners were supposed to’ve gotten into a fight. One killed the other one, and before the sheriff could get out here, a lynch mob hung the killer from a tree.” He gestured around. “Supposed to be one of these trees here in the park. Ever since then, people’ve said this place is haunted.”

“You ever seen anything?”

“No. But I’ve never been here at night before, either.”

There was a sighing in the leaves at the top of the closest cottonwood.

Scott leaped off the picnic table. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Adam quickly followed suit. “Wise decision.”

They ran back out to the sidewalk and hung a left, slowing down only when they were safely in front of buildings again, past the periphery of the park.

Scott bent down, breathing heavily. He grinned. “I didn’t want to say anything,” he said. “But you felt it, didn’t you? There was something there.”

Adam nodded.

“I just wanted to test it. I was too chickenshit to go there myself at night, but I figured with two of us… well, I didn’t think I’d get that scared. And I knew I’d get an honest reaction from you, especially if I didn’t say anything about it.” He looked over at Adam. “You were freaked, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Adam admitted.

“Cool.”

They remained in place for a few moments, catching their breath. From somewhere far off came the sound of a car engine, followed by the sequential barking of dogs up the canyon. Adam felt good. This was more fun than hanging out at the mall or going to a movie any day. This was exciting. He thought that maybe he’d ask his parents if Roberto could come and visit during Christmas or Easter or next summer. He knew Scott and Roberto would get along, and he knew that Roberto would think this place was totally kickass.

He glanced over at Scott. “So what now? What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know. We could—”

Scott broke off in midsentence, his head jerking to the right, and Adam quickly followed the direction of his gaze.

There was movement in front of the mining museum across the street.

His heart jumped almost all the way up into his throat, and his first thought was that it was a ghost, a vampire, a monster, but he saw almost immediately that it was only a group of high school students, hanging out.

There were no lights here, no streetlamps, merely light from the moon and dim illumination from inside the closed assaying office next to the museum, but that was enough to see by, and he noticed now that a group of tough-looking teenagers about Sasha’s age were leaning on the oversized mining implements arranged in the small open space in front of the building. The four girls all looked the same: dyed black hair, black clothes, black lipstick, pale skin, broad white-trash features. Of the three boys, one had long, stringy hair and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, one was bald and shirtless and heavily tattooed, with pierced ears and nose, and one had a spiky punk haircut and was wearing a creased leather jacket far too heavy for this weather.

He and Scott started slowly forward, moving up the sidewalk the way they’d originally been headed, away from the park, away from downtown, trying to be inconspicuous, trying not to attract attention.

A loud male voice rang out from the direction of the museum. “Well, well, well! What do we have here?”

Caught.

Adam looked at Scott, who stopped, turned around. They both faced the building across the street.

The bald pierced guy laughed loudly. “If it isn’t the pussy posse!”

The rest of the high schoolers joined in the merriment. “Get ready to run,” Scott whispered.

Adam’s mouth was suddenly dry, and panic threatened to rise within him. “What?”

“Just follow me.”

Scott moved into the street, into the open, away from the shadows of the buildings, and held up a middle finger. “Fuck you!” he called. “And fuck your mama, too!”

He took off, dashing back onto the sidewalk and up the hill, darting into the small space between the hardware store and an arts and crafts shop. Heart thumping crazily, Adam chased after him.

There was the sound of running feet behind them, boots pounding on pavement.

“You’re dead, fucker!” one of the boys yelled, and a girl laughed drunkenly. “I’ll kick your ass so hard your fucking sphincter’ll be pressing out your lips!”

Scott kept running, and Adam followed, moving as fast as he could, feeling the night air burn into his lungs, the muscles of his legs straining so hard they threatened to cramp at every step. He had never been this close to actual danger, had never physically pushed himself to this extent, and the irrational thought occurred to him that he might keel over from a heart attack.

But he knew he couldn’t stop. He had to keep going, and he was right behind Scott as the other boy slid down the rocky slope that led from the back of the downtown stores to the dry wash at the bottom of the canyon.

There was no noise directly behind them anymore, but from the top of the slope came an angry male voice. “I’ll get you, you little shit!”

The two of them scurried through the darkness of the canyon floor, occasionally bumping into rocks and brush but not slowing or stopping for anything. Scott was little more than a gray blur in front of him, and they ran for what seemed like an hour before reaching a road that crossed the wash and led up to McGuane’s east residential district.

They waited for a moment, listening to discover whether they were being followed, but Adam could hear no noise above the ragged sounds of their breathing, and he sat down on a rock to rest. Scott plopped onto the sand.

“What’re we going to do?” Adam demanded.

“What do you mean?”

“What if they see me walking home from school or something? What if—”

“They didn’t see you at all. And they won’t even recognize me in the daylight.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve done this a thousand times.”

Adam wasn’t sure he believed that, but he wanted to, and he was willing to let his friend have the benefit of the doubt. In his mind he went back over every second of the incident, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Scott was right. Hell, the high schoolers hadn’t even chased them down the slope. They’d only run across the street and behind the buildings before stopping. It had been nothing more than a laugh for them, a joke.

Most of them were probably so high they wouldn’t even remember it tomorrow.

Scott let out a wheezy, winded laugh. “Had enough exercise for one night?”

“I’ve had enough for a month.”

They both laughed and sat there for a few moments longer, breathing heavily, not saying anything but remaining unmoving, looking back down the canyon floor to make sure no one was coming, until their breaths grew more shallow and finally faded into normal silence.

“What time is it?” Adam asked. “You got a watch?”

“No. Why? What time do you have to be home?”

“Now, probably.” Adam stood. “Come on, let’s head back.”

Scott got up off the ground, brushed the sand off his pants, and the two of them started up the curving road toward the tiered rows of houses above.

“You heard about what happened to Mrs. Daniels, didn’t you?” Scott asked as they reached the first home.

Adam shook his head. “Never even head of her.”

“She was pregnant and she went into labor, and she was supposed to have a little girl.” His voice lowered ominously. “But it wasn’t a girl.”

“What was it? A boy?”

“It wasn’t even a baby.” He pointed toward the next house up, a small wood-frame home with darkened windows. “It was right there, man. Right in that house.”

“You’re crazy.”

“It was a cactus. She gave birth to a cactus.”

“No way!” Adam said.

“That’s what happened. They’re trying to keep it secret and not let anyone know, but she had a saguaro instead of a baby. A little saguaro cactus with a baby’s face.”

“How do you know?”

“My dad’s friend is a paramedic, and I heard them talking about it. He said it was the freakiest thing he’d ever seen.”

“Was it… alive?”

“I guess not. But she was all cut up, and it came out of her, and it had, like, little feet and hands and a face.”

“Jesus.”

They were silent for a moment as they walked past the house.

“This whole fucking town’s haunted,” Scott said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause.

“Your house is haunted.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“Really?”

Scott nodded. “No one’s been able to stay there more than a few months. The people who lived there before, the original people, were all murdered. The dad offed the rest of the family while they were sleeping and then wasted himself. Ever since then, people only last a little while. They get scared off.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Scott shrugged. “Didn’t think you could take it.”

“So they, like, see things and hear things? Like ghosts and stuff?”

Scott nodded. “You ever see anything?”

Adam thought about mentioning the banya, but he didn’t feel like talking about it right now and decided to save it for another time. He shook his head. “Not yet.”

“You will. Take my word for it. Your house is haunted.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

Adam looked at him, and the corners of his mouth slowly turned up in a smile. “Cool,” he said.