After the fifth ring, the machine picked up.

A man’s voice spoke. “Hello, Mr. Finn, this is Harry Christiansen. You called about some repair work. Look, I don’t know how to say this except … you really need to get out of that house. It’s a bad place, pure evil. Nothing good can come of it. Just take your kids and don’t look back. I mean, thanks for the call. I really do appreciate the offer for work in these tough times. But please, don’t call back.”

CLICK.

He hung up.

Kelly closed the book. She stared at Liam, a question in her eyes. They played the message over again.

“What a creepster,” Kelly concluded.

“You don’t believe him?” Liam asked.

Kelly shrugged.

“I just wonder,” Liam said.

“Yeah?” Kelly asked.

“Like, who lived here before us,” Liam said. “And what happened to them?”

5. The Night Message

5

THE NIGHT MESSAGE

Liam lay on his bed, the blankets tossed aside except for one thin sheet. The night air was sweltering. Liam felt like bread warming in a toaster. He rose to plug an old fan they’d found in the closet into the wall socket. It made a horrible clatter—loose screws and rattling metal. Liam unplugged it. No way could he sleep through that racket.

He collapsed back into bed. Liam turned over his pillow again and again, searching hopelessly for a cool side.

He thought of his mother. She’d been gone for almost two years. Liam was in first grade when she died. At the time, he felt so lost and confused. Kelly reacted differently. She got mad—angry that her mother left, angry over the long illness. And though Liam’s father tried his best, he grew withdrawn. On many mornings, Liam found his father sitting at the breakfast nook, food uneaten, staring into space.

Everyone crawled into their own shells. And burrowed deep, like turtles in mud.

It had been a long, sad year—but eventually Mr. Finn emerged from his gloom, like a new bud shooting forth after a cold, hard winter. “We’re moving to Upstate New York,” he announced one night. “I got an offer for a job as a foreman in a new chemical plant. They promise better hours, more pay. It’s too good to pass up.”

And so here they were. Somewhere in the gray middle of nowhere, called Upstate New York.

Liam shifted in his bed, stared out the bedroom window into the night sky. It was crowded with stars. Little pinpricks of wonder, lit at an impossible distance from home.

I wish I may, I wish I might. His lips moved soundlessly.

Liam drifted off to sleep.

He half awoke, groggy at first, to the sensation of cool air across his face. He lifted his head and saw the fan’s blades, rotating in a blur. But something was different. What was it? Silence. The old fan worked noiselessly.