Page 43 of Middle of the Night

“Scream and run away,” I said. “Wouldn’t you?”

Billy shook his head. “I’d try to talk to them. That’s all they want, really. To be acknowledged.”

“But what if they tried to kill you?”

“Most ghosts can’t hurt you,” Billy said, as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

That, plus his obvious sincerity, prompted me to say, “You know ghosts aren’t real, right?”

“Yeah, they are.”

“Then why don’t we see them everywhere?” I said. “Why aren’t there, like, ghosts walking down the street? Or in the supermarket?”

“First of all, a lot of ghosts are invisible, so you can’t see most of them,” Billy said, making his point by stabbing the air with his candy bar. “Second, theyareeverywhere. I bet there are ghosts roaming these woods right now.”

The very thought gave me a full-body shudder. Unlike Billy, I’m not a fan of ghosts, then or now. I spent that Halloween night burrowed under my covers, too scared to even glance at my bedroom window for fear I’d spot a ghost on the edge of the woods.

“All ghosts really want is for you to know they’re there,” Billy continued. “They’re not intentionally trying to scare people.”

“Well, I think everyone’s scared of ghosts.”

“Not me,” Billy said proudly.

Ping!

The alert stops the memory cold, and I grab my phone again, this time annoyed. Whatever animal is in the backyard, I’d love it to leave. But when I open the app, I don’t see an animal.

I see Vance Wallace.

He stands between the magnolia tree and the woods, seemingly oblivious to the camera. He’s dressed like a man who’s been startled awake—pajama bottoms, gray T-shirt, hair standing off his head at multiple angles. Slippers cover his feet. Grass clippings from yesterday’s mowing cling to the soles.

I’m outside in thirty seconds, tentatively crossing the lawn. When Vance spots me, he lurches my way. Up close, he looks addled. It’s the only way to describe it. There’s no recognition in his eyes, even though he saw me yesterday and stares directly at me now.

“Mr. Wallace?” I say. “Are you okay?”

“Did you see him?” he says in a voice too quiet to be a bark and too gruff to be a whisper.

“See who?”

“That Barringer boy.”

Unlike Vance Wallace, I do whisper. “Mr. Wallace, Billy’s dead.”

Vance reaches out and seizes my forearm in a death grip. His mind might not be all there, but Mr. Wallace’s muscles are working just fine.

“I saw him,” he says. “I followed him here. He’s back.”

He turns to face the woods, now crowded with shadows. I see nothing in the gloom. Just trees stretching for miles, turned pale from the moonlight.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a deer or something?” I say.

“That was no deer,” Vance growls. “The Barringer boy is up to no good.”

In the distance, I hear the slap of footsteps on the grass. Turning, I see Ashley running around the side of the house with Henry straggling behind her. Instinctively I know why she’s here and why she brought her son with her. Much like Mary Ellen Barringer when she crept into my backyard with Andy, Ashley doesn’t want to leave her son unattended.

“Dad?” she says, out of breath from exertion and exasperation. “You’re not supposed to leave the house without telling me.”

“But I saw him again.”

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