“You know. The man. Sitting next to you. The vanity. That whole thing.”

“What time is it?” He could hear her shuffling on the other end. “Are you fucking kidding me, Walter?”

“I need your help, Carol. Tell me how you handled it. How were you able to sleep in your room that night? Tell me. Why aren’t you afraid of being scared to death?”

“Is this about Mom, Walter?”

“What? No.”

“Then what the fuck? Did you see a ghost tonight?”

His heart thundered. Sounded like the footsteps of an angry tribe.

“Carol, don’t say that! Please, just tell me how you did it. You went straight to sleep that night!”

“I never saw a ghost, Walter.” An alarm went off in his bedroom. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek. “I was probably trying to scare you. That’s what big sisters do.”

“That’s impossible,” he said, trying to remain calm. “And look, I need your help on this.”

“I’ve never seen a ghost, Walter. Trust me. I’m sure I’d remember it if I had. You’re reading too much history again. Goblin has…gotten into your bones, man.”

Another alarm went off.

“What did you say?”

“What the fuck is all that noise? Walter, call me tomorrow, huh?”

Kamp looked back toward his bed. The alarms sounded like a tribe shrieking, coming for the pale shades who didn’t believe in ghosts, weren’t wise enough to sense them.

“Carol,” he said, trembling now, “I need to know the secret here. I need to know how you handled it. I—”

“I was trying to scare you, Walter! That’s what big sisters do!”

“But that’s crazy. You all saw ghosts.”

“All who? Mom? Dad? David? Nobody saw any ghosts, Walter. We tell stories. Like every other normal human being. Are you okay?”

A third alarm started.

Walter stared at his bed. Had he set three so close together?

He lifted off the couch a bit, leaned forward. Was that something under the bed?

“Walter?”

Yes. There was. There absolutely was something under his bed. Something that shouldn’t be there.

“Walter?”

He hung the phone up.

He stood up. The alarms played together, out of tune, loud.

NEEP-NEEP-NEEP!

He heard footsteps in the hall. He started for his bed.

He thought of Son of Blackwater. Thought of how angry he must’ve been when he pulled that contract out of his satchel and saw the white man’s name was no longer there.

He leapt onto the transparent mattress. On his knees. He grabbed the line-switch.

“This land is no place for human beings!” he cried, fortifying himself for what he would see beneath his bed. “This land is…”

He flipped the switch, flooding the bed with light.

He pulled the blanket aside.

“Ah!” he cried.

He put the blanket back.

Turned the light off.

There was something. Something.