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  She dropped to the floor, her knee finding another ceramic shard. Sobbing deep and loud, Ginny cried. She collected the pieces of her daughter that she could reach, stopping when the knock came at the door.

  The microwave clock read: 12:45.

  Who would be out at this time of night?

  Turning to the living room, Ginny hoped Michael would stir to life. She waited for the visitor to knock again.

  Nothing happened.

  Had there even been a knock? Maybe the wind?

  She stood, placing the ceramic pieces she’d gathered on the kitchen table.

  Jennifer?

  A sliver of hope crept like a thousand tiny spiders up next to the cold fear, neither replacing the other, but rather, sharing the same space.

  She drifted into the living room and stared at the wooden cross hanging next to the door. Her gaze fell to the door knob. She crossed herself and sent up a prayer for her baby as she walked over and opened the front door.

  There was nobody there. She poked her head out, surveying the yard. Despite being in her nightgown, not that it was anything provocative, just flannel and ankle length, she stepped outside and stood barefoot.

  The night was pleasantly warm for fall. She leaned against the porch rail and admired her neighborhood under the cloak of midnight. Even the Rotenberg’s appeared cozy tonight. Two windows, their living room and one of the upstairs bedrooms (probably Bruce’s), giving of a soft glow, projected an air of warmth and heart.

  Ginny felt a smile beneath her face, but refused to let it come.

  She was lost in the Rotenberg’s upstairs window when the dank, earthy scent enveloped her.

  “I know where your daughter is.”

  The boy, the missing Hickey child, stood at the foot of her steps. His eyes were shining green in the dark. Mesmerized and slack jawed, Ginny’s gasped. Greg Hickey had been missing for two weeks. Yet, here he stood, offering a hand to her, answering her prayers.

  “Where?”

  “Come with me.”

  She took his hand.

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s better than okay.”

  “What? Is she…is my Jennifer all right?”

  “Come with me.”

  They reached the corner of the house, the woods and lake waiting beyond, when she changed her mind. She yanked her hand from his and stumbled to her ass. The dewy grass was cool beneath her.

  The green haze in the boy’s eyes intensified. She needed to get away. Needed to get Michael.

  Climbing to her feet, reality buckled. Terror rushed up within her, as the boy’s hand extended, transforming before her eyes. A dark tentacle shot forward and wrapped around her head. She tried to grip the slick appendage, felt its strength, and was defenseless against it. The tentacle slipped between her lips, the cold, wet touch hitting the back of her throat. She felt the tendril spewing mucus down her esophagus.

  Her eyes bulged, her breath stolen, his eyes pulling her in. She could no longer feel her body as her head seemed to float to the clouds, a balloon set free on the wind.

  At death’s doorstep, the bizarre appendage retracted. Ginny fell into the boy’s waiting arms, all strength and resistance drained. She paid no mind as he dragged her into the woods. They reached the lake and entered its warm waters. Her mind in a fog, she thought nothing of the fact that they were completely submerged. Darkness swallowed them both as they disappeared into the depths.

  At dawn, Ginny, back on solid ground, returned home, wandered passed her sleeping husband and into the first-floor bathroom. She closed and locked the door, then filled the tub with lukewarm water. She let her soaked and filthy nightgown fall to her muddy feet and climbed into the bath.

  Sliding below the water, Ginny let the change come. Michael would be next. The lady of the lake needed him.

  …..

  Jason Rotenberg never gave into sleep. His nightly battle with insomnia kept his nerves on edge and his itchy eyes begging for relief. He was sitting in a lawn chair in his backyard, under the dark purple sky of the coming dawn, working on his last Budweiser and smoking a Newport, when Ginny Neilson appeared from the trees. Bare foot and dressed in a wet nightgown, he watched his waif-thin neighbor disappear around the corner of her house.

  “I must be fucking hallucinating.”

  He finished the beer and tried to get up.

  Something wet and heavy slapped around his forehead, strapping him to the chair.

  “Hey, what the fuck?”

  His legs and arms flailed as a second serpent-like shape slithered over his chest, up the side of his neck, and paused at the corner of his mouth. He inhaled a scent like mud and rain, along with an undertone of something sweetly sour, like fermented cider. A dribble of urine squirted free in the front of his underpants.

  “Jesus Christ, no…”

  The tentacle probed his cheek before diving into his pleading mouth.

  Moments later, his thoughts scrambled, and treetops passed before his bloodshot eyes. He felt the warmth of the lake and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Who’s Veronica Mars and why do we care what she would do?”

  Michele shook her head and waved off the question. “It’s not important, I was just thinking out loud. Just something I’ve been saying to myself the last couple weeks, kind of like a mantra.”

  Her cousin Laura sat at the edge of the bed looking completely confused. “A what?”

  “Never mind. The main focus here is that we need to go back out to the lake.”

  “What? No way. You heard what your dad said.”

  “But my father doesn’t believe me. He’s convinced that Greg was kidnapped or something.”

  Laura’s gaze fell to her magazine in her hands.

  “Oh my God. You don’t believe me, either.”

  “I…I want to…”

  “I can’t believe you.”

  “Michele,” Laura pleaded finally looking her in the eyes.

  Michele stood, crossed her arms over her chest, feeling the river of hurt and anger make its way through her. She should have known Laura would cave to the adult way of thinking. Hell, who was she kidding? She would have probably thought they were crazy if Laura, or one of her friends came out with such a wild story.

  Something pulled him into the lake and he never came back out.

  The messed up part was that something really had taken Greg into the water. She was there. She’d seen it.

  “Listen,” Laura said, “I don’t really know what to think. These last few weeks have been crazy. First Greg, now Jennifer…”

  Laura set the magazine aside and joined Michele.

  “I’ll make a deal with you.”

  Michele, still fuming like a dragon, took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “My mom wants me to visit Aunt Ginny. You know, stop in and see how she’s doing. I don’t like going over there by myself. You come with, and I’ll help you figure out what Vanessa Mars would do.”

  “Veronica.”

  “Right. Deal?”

  Michele didn’t blame Laura for not wanting to go alone. Their uncle Mike was a jerk. Her dad hated him. Michele had overheard her dad call him a drunk asshole one night arguing with her mother. Aunt Ginny deserved better. And she deserved some company.

  “Okay,” Michele said, extending a hand. “Deal.”

  They shook on it.

  “So, which do we do first?” Michele said.

  It was a twenty-minute walk to Melbourne Street. Michele spent the time explaining her current TV obsession to Laura, but could tell Veronica’s fearlessness and empowerment was lost upon her cousin. Laura’s favorite show was Once Upon a Time. It could be worse though, her mom didn’t really allow her to watch anything remotely edgy. Not even Bones and definitely not The Walking Dead. Michele had only seen a couple episodes of the zombie show her dad was obsessed with. He’d let her stay up during the Halloween marathon last year. For the next week, she had enough nightmares to fill
the rest of her life. She could watch scary movies, but there was just something truly horrifying about zombies. She was not on the Zombie Apocalypse bandwagon. She would rather be stabbed to death than be eaten alive by something that was already dead.

  She shivered.

  “Are you okay?” Laura said.

  “I’m fine.”

  They stopped at the end of the empty dirt driveway. Uncle Mike’s pickup truck was gone, which meant he was too.

  “After you,” Michele said.

  “Hi, Aunt Ginny, can we come in?” Laura said.

  Aunt Ginny, with her stringy auburn hair, pale complexion, and large green eyes tied in place by the prominent red streaks surrounding them, looked like she’d been awake for days. Worse yet was her smile. Like someone had carved it upon her face. It set slightly crooked, and hungry. Michele no longer wanted to be here, and she certainly didn’t want to follow this creepy version of her aunt inside.

  You’re just being stupid. It was all those zombie thoughts on the walk over.

  Of course Aunt Ginny looked like hell. Your child disappearing has got to be one of the hardest things a parent could ever deal with. She remembered when she had freaked out her mom and dad in fifth grade by running away for the night. Sure, she had only gone to her friend Beth’s house, and it wasn’t even all night, but her parents ripped her a new one when they came to pick her up at ten-thirty at night. Hell hath no fury like a parent put through a night of torment only to find out their child was simply mad and being hateful. She’d succeeded in hurting her father and pissing off her mother. On the ride home, after the tongue lashing and grown up remarks about disappointment, her mother cried. That was the shock that struck Michele fast and hard in the heart and had her bawling and saying sorry the rest of the night.

  Her cousin Jennifer had been missing for three days now. The likelihood of her being found, or found unharmed, dropped with each day that passed.

  “Hello, girls. Come in, won’t you?,” Aunt Ginny said. She opened the screen door that looked ready to fall off its rusty hinges. The nasty creak it made as she welcomed them in made Michele squirm nearly as much as the woman’s strange smile. She hurried behind Laura into the little house’s living room. The old flat screen Magnavox sat quiet and dark against the far wall. Some sad country song played from an unseen device in another room.

  “Where’s Uncle Mike?” Michele said.

  Aunt Ginny shuffled

  --like a zombie—

  toward the kitchen, either not hearing the question, or pretending to not.

  “Do you girls want something to drink? Water? Tea? My daughter loves a nice cup of Chamomile after school…”

  Michele watched the half-there woman stare off into a space they could never imagine as her statement hung in the air between them like a spider on a thread; waiting in our world, peeking into another.

  “No, we’re okay. Unless you want some tea, in that case we’d love to join you,” Laura said.

  Aunt Ginny’s eyes blinked as if she was just waking up. “I’m sorry, which did you say you’d like?”

  That damn smile slid back into place as something wet moved across her eyes, a wet shadow, darkening the emerald eyes like weeds in the lake.

  Michele broke the entrancing gaze.

  “Tea. We’d love to have a cup of tea with you,” Michele said, moving toward the pea green gas stove to her left. “L-let me put some on.”

  She gripped the handle of the tea kettle to steady the shakiness infiltrating her hands.

  “Oh, that’s so nice,” Aunt Ginny answered.

  “Come on, let’s have a seat,” Laura said. She led the frail woman toward the little round table set against the kitchen’s lone window.

  Michele put water in the black kettle, placed it on the back burner to heat, grabbed three mugs, and sat them down next to the box of tea. A broken mug set next to the sink, a pile of jagged ceramic bones. She joined her aunt and cousin at the table while their silence filled the empty space.

  “What happened to the mug by the sink?” Michele said.

  Her aunt’s awful grin fell, but she stayed silent.

  It wasn’t until the kettle whistle blew that Aunt Ginny finally responded.

  “You girls are so sweet.”

  Michele remembered Aunt Ginny as the odd but caring Aunt. The woman’s awkwardness had certainly been passed down to her daughter–both would stop mid-sentence and stare off into space–but they were as sweet as could be. Jennifer’s quietness was often seen as shyness. The girl was a straight A student. Her silence and mid-sentence breaks weren’t her being shy, that’s just what she did when she was thinking. She liked to put her thoughts together before she spoke. That’s what she’d told Michele during a family gathering last summer. Michele hoped she’d be as thoughtful at sixteen.

  Jennifer also shared her mother’s wispy red hair, long nose, and green eyes. Looking at Aunt Ginny right now should have stirred sadness in her, but it was something altogether different and unexpected—fear.

  Aunt Ginny gazed at her.

  Michele got up and fixed their tea. After returning the kettle to one of the cool burners on the stove, she brought the steaming mugs to the table.

  “Mmm, what kind of tea is this?” Laura said.

  Michele looked to her, but her attention was stolen by the vehicle parked in the backyard. Her uncle’s Ford was parked at the edge of the back lawn, its grill shaded beneath the trees.

  A hand, cold and clammy, clenched her wrist. Michele jumped.

  “Is there something…wrong?” her aunt said.

  “Oh, I…uh, I just remembered that I’m supposed to help my dad…”

  “What?” Laura said.

  Michele tried to back away but her aunt refused to let her go.

  Her hands are so cold, and oily?

  “Nonsense, you can visit a bit longer. Come, sit. Finish your tea.”

  Michele fought against the overwhelming need to flee. Part of her wanted to run as far and fast as she could away from here. Away from her oddly grinning, dark, and bloodshot eyed aunt with the gait and touch of the walking dead.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” Laura said.

  “I…I’ll be fine. I just….” Michele felt lightheaded. “I just need to sit down. I didn’t eat much for breakfast.”

  As she eased into the chair, her aunt let go of her wrist.

  Staring into her tea, Michele couldn’t stop the question from escaping her mouth: “Where did you say Uncle Mike went?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Is he…here?”

  “Michele,” Laura said. “His truck’s gone, remember?”

  The room swayed. Michele didn’t want to tear her eyes from the mug between her hands. There was warmth there. If she let go, or looked over at her aunt…the coldness would sink in.

  “Michele? You’re white as a ghost,” Laura said.

  “Maybe you should lie down,” Aunt Ginny said, her voice suddenly filtered through a thick layer of phlegm.

  Michele stood, the chair sliding back.

  “No, I’m-I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  She didn’t look toward the shadow of the woman sitting across from her. She couldn’t. She’d have nightmares again, she knew it.

  Michele hurried to and out the front door, grateful for the warmth of the sun.

  “Michele?” Laura cried.

  She was halfway down the street when a hand snatched her arm.

  Jerking free, Michele pulled her fists up in a fighter’s stance, ready to swing.

  “What the heck was that all about?” Laura said.

  “She’s lying.”

  “What?”

  “Uncle Mike’s truck was parked out back, halfway in the trees.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She couldn’t think straight.

  “There’s something weird about Aunt Ginny.”

  “I don’t… I don’t know. Jennifer’s missing. That’s why we
were there, remember? Of course she’s messed up.”

  “No, that’s not it.” But Michele couldn’t be sure. What if it was just her mind playing tricks on her? So what if her uncle’s truck was out back. He probably came home drunk and is inside passed out, sleeping it off. Maybe her aunt just didn’t hear her when she asked where he was?

  And those cold, clammy hands?

  “Let’s just go back to my house,” Michele said.

  “No way, we’re not leaving like this. You owe Aunt Ginny an apology.”

  Michele shook her head. No way was she going back there.

  “I have to go.”

  Laura crossed her arms over her chest and furrowed her brow. “That’s really crappy of you.”

  Michele dropped her gaze to her sneakered feet.

  “Well,” Laura huffed. “I guess I’ll just go apologize for you.”

  “Sorry, Laura, I just can’t. I know it sounds stupid.”

  “It is stupid. I don’t even know what you’re all freaked out about, but you know what? Go home.”

  “Laura…I…” she didn’t know what to say.

  “Whatever.” Laura turned. As she headed back to their aunt’s, she said, “Deal’s off. You can go to the lake by yourself.”

  Am I the one being crazy?

  Laura didn’t seem concerned.

  Michele kicked a rock some kid had colored in pink chalk across the street and turned for home. If she could talk to her dad, maybe see if he’d go check on her aunt and uncle, maybe that would settle the hyper-active paranoia in her head.

  The blue sky above was being soiled. A set of dark gray clouds were marching in.

  It wasn’t long before the first drops of rain fell.

  Her mom was on the couch, book in hand, waiting for her when she entered the house.

  “Where were you?”

  Michele unzipped the thin sweatshirt and tossed the wet garment on the back of the sofa. The rain had kicked into full downpour mode just as she reached her driveway. “I went to check on Aunt Ginny with Laura.”

  “Oh, well, how was she?”

  Really freaking weird, zombie-like, spaced-out and freaky, oh, and full of crap.