Page 45 of Sweet Nightmare

It’s just birds taking shelter from the rain, I tell myself. Maybe even a few bats discombobulated by the preternaturally dark sky. Either way, it’s just nature. Nothing to get freaked out about.

But my heart rate picks up a little anyway.

I speed up a bit more, but before I can go more than a few steps, a wild gust of wind sweeps through the trees above me. It’s so hard and fast that I swear I can hear branches cracking. My stomach flips sickly. That strange hollowness spreads out from my midsection to my limbs, and even though I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, I can’t help but glance over my shoulder.

There’s nothing there but tree trunks and shadows. Absolutely nothing to worry about.

And still unease dances around me like the wind.

I skirt the tree that Caspian, Jude, Carolina, and I built a treehouse in when we were little. The treehouse is long gone, but the blocks of wood we’d hammered into the tree trunk for a ladder are still there.

I let my fingers run over one of them as I walk by, memories of my cousin welling up inside me. Her face dances in front of my eyes, and I finally admit to myself that she’s the real reason I don’t like coming through this forest anymore—not the fact that it borders teacher housing. Carolina and I spent so much of our childhood playing together in this forest that walking through it is filled with the ghosts of what used to be.

Sometimes I miss her so much I can barely stand it. Not getting to say goodbye, not even knowing she was dead until Remy came to tell us… Some days it really is unbearable.

A sob wells up in my throat, but I swallow it. I’ve already shown way too much weakness today. It stops now.

I weave around the large rock in the middle of the path—and totally ignore the fact that it’s got all of our initials carved into it. Three sets of C.C.s and a J.A. from that day we were playing hide-and-seek and all got lost in the forest for hours.

All of a sudden, the picture of the four of us shimmers in front of me like a movie. Nine-year-old Carolina crouches down to carve her initials first while the three of us wait excitedly for our turn. But then something nebulous and icy dances across the nape of my neck, and the image dissipates like mist.

I turn away, jumping over the large hole in the path that’s been there as long as I’ve been alive. As I do, I refuse to think about the way Jude used to swear it was made by a meteor.

Old memories are just that—old. They don’t have any bearing on—

Something suddenly whooshes by my face, so close that I can feel the chill of it brush against the hot skin of my cheek.

At first, I think it’s a ghost, but when I look around, no one is there.

I shrug it off—probably just the wind—and keep going. But I’ve barely made it twenty yards before another one slides by on the right, its coldness slicing my biceps like a knife.

I whirl around to see what it is—and where it went—but it’s gone, too.

What the actual fuck?

Every hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up now, and I spin in a circle, flashlight lifted, as I scan the darkness.

But there’s nothing in front of me but inky blackness and the crooked oaks.

Maybe it was some freaked-out bird, I tell myself as I keep walking. Or perhaps a ghost?

Definitely nothing to worry about.

But that doesn’t stop a bead of sweat from rolling down my spine any more than it keeps my heart from hammering in my chest. Still, I keep moving, a little slower now that I’m sweeping the flashlight all around the forest in front of me, but moving all the same.

It’s just a little bit farther, I remind myself. Just a half mile or so more and I’ll be out of here.

Not a big deal.

At least not until a strange, staticky sound fills the air around me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DIS-ASSEMBLY

I whirl around again, trying desperately to figure out where the sound is coming from. But, again, there’s nothing but trees. Nothing but shadows.

Until something else darts by my face, so close that the cold of it burns against my temple.

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