Page 112 of Middle of the Night

“And you have no idea where he could be?”

Ashley shakes her head. “I searched the entire house. My dad hasn’t seen him, either. I thought maybe he came out here to see what was happening with the police. Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”

I’m sure, which doesn’t mean he’s not out here somewhere. I’d been too focused on watching Russ be led out of his house by police to pay attention to much else. There’s a good chance I missed Henry as he roamed the cul-de-sac.

“He’s got to be around here somewhere,” I say, suddenly remembering the pings that came from my phone as I confronted Russ. There were three of them, each one alerting me to activity in the backyard. Likely all were the work of Henry.

“I think I know where he is,” I say as I pull out my phone and check the trail cam’s app. Sure enough, there are three new photos. I tap the first to be taken—an image of Henry making his way to the tent. Caught mid-step, a Goosebumps book in hand, he eyes the camera with a look of worried guilt. A kid who knows he’s just been caught doing something he shouldn’t, even if that something is as innocent as sneaking away to read by lantern light in a backyard tent. The only thing he should feel guilty about is worrying his mother.

I show Ashley the image and she lets out a huff of relief. “Thank God,” she says. “I’m sorry for freaking out like that.”

“Completely understandable,” I say.

We make our way to the backyard, rounding the side of the house via the driveway. At the garage, our movement triggers the security light, which flicks on with a startling glow. It’s not lost on me that this whole long, strange week started with similar lights turning on around Hemlock Circle. Now that it’s come to an end, it all feels hazy. A dream, if not The Dream.

“The police at Russ’s,” Ashley says quietly. “Does that have something to do with Billy?”

“Yes,” I say, knowing that single word doesn’t come close to telling the full story.

The backyard is pitch black, save for a light on inside the tent. The LED lantern, which makes the orange tent glow like a campfire. I picture Henry inside, stretched out on a sleeping bag, holding his book near the lantern so he can see better. It’s only when Ashley approaches the tent that I realize something’s not right about the scene.

“Ashley, wait.”

But it’s too late. She’s mere feet from the tent now, passing in front of the trail cam. The phone in my hand pings as I receive a still picture of the action unfolding right in front of me.

Ashley at the tent.

Parting the front flaps.

Peering inside as she says, “Come on, Henry. Let’s—”

She stops talking, processing what I already know. If Henry were inside the tent, we would have seen his silhouette from outside. But there is no silhouette, no shadow. Just the unobstructed glow of an interior that’s completely empty except for a slim paperback sitting spine-up.

“He’s not here,” Ashley says with renewed panic. She scans the yard, her head jerking like a startled bird’s. Even her movements are birdlike. A hopeless, helpless flapping of the arms.

“Henry!” she yells into the night.

“Let’s not panic,” I tell her, even though I can feel it rising in me as well. I’m hit with a strange sense of déjà vu, like I’ve been hurtled back in time to thirty years ago. In my chest is the same dread I felt the morning I woke to find Billy gone. With it comes confusion, uncertainty, and a bubbling panic that I know will soon reach full boil if I don’t do something about it.

I rush to Ashley, also setting off the trail cam. I hear the slightest of clicks as it takes my picture, followed by the near-instantaneous alert to my phone.

Ping!

The sound reminds me of the two additional alerts I received whileconfronting Russ. Since one of them pictured Henry entering the tent, the others might show him leaving and the direction he went after that.

I raise my phone and check the app, swiping through the most recent pictures. When I get to the one I’m looking for, my legs almost give out.

“What is it?” Ashley says. “What do you see?”

I hold out the phone so she can see what was captured by the trail cam—a dark figure wearing a hoodie, presumably a man, parting the gash in the side of the tent so he can push his way inside.

Ashley emits a strangled choke, making me terrified to check the next image from the trail cam. My index finger shakes uncontrollably as I swipe to it. In the photo, Henry and the dark figure both stand outside the tent. The man has a tight grip on Henry’s hand, which the boy seems to be fighting. Henry’s face is set in a defiant scowl as he looks at the trail cam, knowing it will immediately send the image to my phone.

A solid plan on his part. It would have worked, too, if not for two things that went wrong. The first is that I didn’t check my phone until it was too late. The second was that Henry’s gaze at the camera made the man with him aware of it, too.

He joins Henry in looking at the trail cam, his face slightly blurred by the quick turn of his head.

“Oh God!” Ashley shrieks when I show it to her. “Whoisthat?”

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