Flint Maxwell

About half a dozen bodies were piled near the store’s entrance, the red of the blood a stark contrast to the white of the snow. There might’ve been more buried deeper, I wasn’t sure.

The wind whistled over Lake Prism, rocking the house, and not long after, I heard the dead boy calling my name. He sounded sad that he’d just missed me.

“Fuck off,” I mumbled as I lay down. “Fuck off.”

I thought it was a good idea, a logical idea, but I wish I had never turned back around. I wish I would’ve just left. Because, If I had done that, I would’ve never seen the man standing in the shadows.

The man grinning at me from the back-left corner of the store.

In the freezing back room, we played Rummy 500, a game my grandma taught me many years ago. Stone already knew how to play it, thanks to me, and Eleanor had heard of it before, but the version she knew was slightly different than the one I knew.

I stepped over the threshold and immediately froze. I was looking ahead, at the door, which was no longer barricaded. There was a crack large enough for someone to slip through. I ripped the gun from my pocket and aimed it in front of me. Had another crazy person come for us? Was it the wraiths?

I got my answer soon enough. All I had to do was look down.

“Are they?” Stone whispered. Ell and I were both looking at him. The beam illuminated his haunted face. The color of his dark skin had blanched. His eyes were as big as his gaping mouth.

Then he pointed.

I turned to see what he was pointing at, but I didn’t have to. I already knew what it was. I heard it. I heard its bulk sliding across the floor, the dull thud-thud of its steps. I heard the saliva dribbling from its mouth and slapping the tile. I heard the growls coming from deep within its belly.

“Holy shit,” Eleanor whispered. I thought she was going to pass out.

My eyes settled on the thing. It was so much worse than my imagination could conjure. And I thought I was gonna pass out, too.

She dropped her knife at her side. It hit the hardwood, clattered, and spun around. She knelt down, saying, “Aww, you poor thing.”

Then I saw it.

The cause of all that ruckus wasn’t a wraith or one of their ghostly projections. It wasn’t an insane person, either.

It was a dog.

Long black fingers worked beneath the frame, wedging themselves under the wood, creating a small gap

Stone saw right through it, I could tell, but he kept quiet. For Eleanor’s sake.

Besides, as it turned out, I was wrong.

A few seconds after I spoke those words, I heard a loud but muted clank, and all the power in the house went out.

I turned to Stone, and we both said the same thing:

“The generator.”

We were winning. We were going to get out of this.

But my optimism was crushed when Helga turned around, her haunted face in full view