This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 by Avery Flynn. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Preview of Back in the Burbs © 2021 Aver`y Flynn and Tracy Wolff

Entangled Publishing, LLC

10940 S Parker Rd

Suite 327

Parker, CO 80134

[email protected]

Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Liz Pelletier

Cover illustration by Elizabeth Turner Stokes

ISBN 978-1-68281-488-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition June 2020

Dedication

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” —Arthur Ashe

Chapter One

Chapter One

Shelby Blanton was never going to sleep again.

She should have known better than to watch a double feature about possessed houses while staying alone in a rented cabin out in the middle of snowdrift-covered nowhere.

Yeah, that had definitely been mistake number one.

The other big, bad move on her part had been that after-dinner espresso. She was a green tea drinker, but the cabin came with an espresso maker and it had totally seemed fancy and fun at the time but oh my God… She could practically hear her heart beating now and her eyes were all, Blinking? It’s for the weak!

So now here she was, starfished on a king-size bed, practically vibrating from caffeine and wondering if every creak and groan of the cabin in the dark was actually a malevolent force waiting for her to fall asleep so it could steal her soul. The tick, tick had to be the huge grandfather clock—complete with antlers—in the living room. The intermittent hum was the heat kicking on and off. The shuffle of steps had to be—

Shelby jackknifed into a sitting position, one corner of the thick down comforter clutched to her chest, and told herself it wasn’t an ax murderer.

Steps? It was her imagination. Or the wind. Or the pipes. Or—

Holy fuckballs, there it is again.

The noise was coming from downstairs. All of a sudden, the back-to-nature thrill of being in a cell phone dead zone without a landline became a cold blanket of dread that covered her from her chin to the little hairs on her toes. Focus glued to the bedroom door that was open—of course—she reached over to her purse on the nightstand and fished around in it until her fingers brushed by the cool metal of her flashlight stun gun. It wasn’t a rock salt safety circle and a blowtorch, but it would at least give her a running start as long as the intruder was human and not a one-eyed ghoul with a grudge.