Page 6 of The Nightmare's Kiss

I pause for a second, expecting her to go on, but apparently that’s all she’s got. I lean back in my chair and repress a sigh of disappointment. For a second there, I thought I was going to hear some real evidence. “Okay,” I say slowly. I already regret engaging with this, but she’s still looking at me expectantly, and I feel obligated to hear her out. “So assuming there were disappearances, how do you know they’re linked to the Facility?”

“Officially? They’re not.” She folds her arms over her chest. “But who else would be powerful enough to sweep all of that under the rug?”

It’s not exactly compelling evidence. Still, right now, I’m just grateful to have someone willing to talk to about this. “So what’s the internet’s theory, then? What are they doing there?”

“There are a couple different schools of thought,” she says. “But if you ask me? The most likely one is that they’ve got a portal toHellin there. And every thirty years they need to make sacrifices to keep the devil from escaping.”

I finish my coffee quickly and get out of there.

I drop by a few other local businesses, visiting old acquaintances and buying treats I’ve missed in the city. Along the way, I pepper in questions about the Facility whenever I can. But over and over again, I face the same responses. There are the people who refuse to talk about it, like Eloise, and the people who are too eager to discuss their outlandish ideas about it, like Blaire. Each new conspiracy theory is more ridiculous than the last. The Facility is really housing a secret military prison, or a luxury bomb shelter for the rich and famous, or an experimental government program developing superhuman soldiers.

A man in sweat-stained overalls at the deli tells me he occasionally catches snippets of coded messages on a radio station late at night. A nervous woman at the local donut shop insists we both turn our cell phones off before informing me in hushed whispers that she was once abducted by aliens, and swears the Facility had something to do with it.

The more nonanswers I receive, the more curious I become. The Facility has been here for decades. How is it possible that nobody has concrete information about it? Nobody even knows what the place is actually called or who owns it. Aside from Ethan, nobody local works there or knows anyone who does. His name comes up several times, often with a curious side-eye as they realize I’m his ex-girlfriend, but nobody knows what he does there or why he was hired when no other locals were.

By the time I get home, I’ve sweated through my T-shirt from the heat of the day, as the poor old AC in my mom’s car struggles to combat heat over 100 degrees, and I’m no closer to an answer. This is probably the point where a normal person would give up. But I am a bored, unemployed, understimulated, stubborn person, and my spite is renewed with every admiring mention of Ethan being the only local to work there, so I dig deeper.

I check local new outlets for coverage. Nothing. I travel to the library—and say a quick hello to my mom behind the counter—to search their records. Nothing. I scour the internet. Nothing.That’s even stranger than the rest. The Facility is missing from Google Earth and Maps, and there’s nothing about it on the website for Ash Valley or anywhere else I search. As though its very existence has been carefully wiped away.

The only place I find any traces of it online are some ten-year-old local message boards where the users are all anonymous. The original user posed the question:Anyone been hearing strange noises at night in Ash Valley?The conversation that follows starts off normal—people suggesting that it might be a mountain lion that wandered too close to town, or a pack of coyotes, or some bored local kids causing a disturbance. But then someone mentions a couple of local disappearances, and someone else brings up the Facility, and the conversation quite quickly derails into conspiracy theories and urban legends.

Not too far out of the ordinary for the internet. The stranger part is that the last three pages of the conversation are all deleted messages. When I click on the usernames, I see that none of them have posted on the forum since this conversation happened. Frowning, I scroll back up, and stop at one of the last messages before all of the deletions.

“THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHING.”

I stare at it, tapping my fingers on my mouse.

I don’t want to believe Ethan’s hints at his own importance…but I’m starting to feel like whatever is happening in that building, it’s quite a lot bigger than our humble little town.

At dinner, I tell my parents about my findings—or lack thereof—over a delicious dinner of steak and potatoes. I expect them to laugh either at or with me, but instead they both seem nervous when I tell them some of the ridiculous theories I’ve heard.

“I think you should be careful who you talk to about this, sweetie,” my mom says, giving me a pained smile. “There are a lot of weirdos in this town with strong opinions about that place. You don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.”

I give her an incredulous look and then direct another at my dad, who is conspicuously silent at her side. He grumbles quietly, looking down at his meal instead of at me.

“I don’t know what’s going on in that place, and I don’t want to know,” he declares.

The theories may be different, but it seems that everyone here feels the same: some mysteries are better left unsolved. Even my normally grounded parents are no exception. It should probably encourage me to give up. But stubborn bitch that I am, it only makes me want to do the opposite.

The next day, I wake to a knock on the door. I drag myself out of bed and shuffle out in my pajamas and slippers, ready to inform whichever neighbor or delivery person is here that my parents are out for the afternoon. But when I open the door, I’m faced with a stranger.

That’s odd enough, in a town this small. But even odder is her style.

Her sharp heels, crisp trousers, and silky blouse have no place among the farms and mom-and-pop stores that make up most of Ash Valley. Her clear-framed glasses and elegant dark bob look too modern for the place too. She comes off wealthy and educated, and something about the casual way she drapes her blazer over one shoulder feels intimidating—especially becausenobodywears a blazer in Ash Valley, especially in the summer. When her eyes meet mine, the hair on the back of my neck stands up, and I feel a chill despite the already-warm morning air.

The fact I don’t recognize her, plus the too-professional clothes, can only mean one thing in this town: she’s from the Facility.

“Hello, Samara,” she says, as though we’re old friends rather than total strangers. “I think it’s time we had a chat.”

4

Chapter Four

I shouldn’t let her inside. I know I shouldn’t. Everything about her and the fact she’s on my doorstep screamsdanger. But I’ve been hunting for answers, and I have a sneaking suspicion that she might be able to provide some. So, despite my better judgment—and my embarrassing Hello Kitty pajamas—I soon find myself ushering her out of the heat and into my parents’ house and offering coffee. Once it’s ready, I meet her in the dining room with two cups, feeling as though I’m walking into a spider’s web.

As I set her cup in front of her, my eyes rake over her in a search for any hints about the nature of this visit. Am I in trouble? In danger, even? But I find nothing in her expression or demeanor. She’s middle-aged and frankly gorgeous, with perfectly manicured fingernails and a watch that looks expensive. She smells faintly of tobacco smoke and floral perfume.

I slide into the seat across from her, sip my coffee—bleurgh, fake pod machine coffee—and say, dumbly, “Hi. We don’t know each other, do we?”

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