They walked faster now. It took all of Amy’s willpower not to run off wildly into the furniture, screaming and making noise so that some human sound would fill the vast emptiness. Abandoned aisles curled off the Bright and Shining Path like arms pointing the way into dead ends and cul-de-sacs, the ends of beds peered at them from doorways as they went by. They passed an information pillar, and wooden yardsticks hanging from a peg gently clacked together in the air conditioning. The rustle of their clothing felt too loud. The blood humming in their ears drowned out any sounds. Ruth Anne kept twisting around to make sure no one was behind them.

A movement caught Amy’s eye.

Up ahead, something was squirming on a Müskk bed. A hairy ball writhed on the pillows like a nest of rats, and then it pinched itself in two, the shapes leaping off the bed and scrabbling backward. Amy blinked. She couldn’t tell what she was seeing.

Then one of the shapes unfurled a limb and waved.

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Matt called.

Breathless, he wiped at his beard. On the other side of the bed, Trinity was pulling down her black T-shirt.

“Hey,” she said, red faced.

Ruth Anne let out a sob of relief and gripped Amy’s arm.

“What the hell?” Amy asked.

“We’re setting up base camp,” Matt said.

“On a Müskk?” Amy asked, incredulous. “You broke into the store to hump on a filthy Müskk? Do you know how many kids have wiped their boogers on that thing?”

She sank down on the edge of a Sculpin display platform and started to laugh. Ruth Anne took a big ragged breath and started laughing, too. It felt good. It felt like a living thing to do in this sea of dead furniture. Trinity blushed, and Matt gave an embarrassed grin.

“We didn’t break in,” Trinity said after everyone settled down.

“Then how’d you get inside?” Amy asked.

“Hid in a couple of Liripips and waited for the floor to clear.”

“So technically we didn’t break into anything,” Matt said.

“Basil is going to be pissed,” Amy said.

“You can’t tell Basil,” Trinity said.

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t understand. We’re here to conduct a complete parapsychological investigation.”

Amy and Ruth Anne just stared at her.

“In layman’s terms,” Matt explained, “we’re ghost hunting. This place is teeming with potential paranormal energy, so we brought the necessary equipment to measure it.” He gestured to four enormous black gear bags lying beside the bed. “MEL meters, infrared cameras, portable motion detectors, voice-activated recorders for EVP, the works.”

“How’d you squeeze those into a Liripip?” Ruth Anne asked.

“They were out in the car,” Matt said. “Once the coast was clear, we snuck down to the partners’ entrance and brought them in.”