“Guys, I told you I heard it’s some big deal who bought the place,” a third voice, deeper and softer, said. “She’s probably got a security system. Let’s just go someplace else.”

Maggie chanced a peek around the corner, and in the scant moonlight, she recognized the small group of teens from the café during her first night in town.

Cody, the only name she knew, had his hands in his pockets and was still on the steps.

The rest of them were on the porch. Her porch.

Cody’s flannel-wearing pal with homemade tattoos feigned a tap dance and held up both middle fingers. “Fuck off, security cameras,” he sang. Maggie wondered if he’d had formal dance training as a kid or if he’d studied ironically for just such an occasion.

“Ugh! Why do we even come here?” a girl in jeans and a sweatshirt six times bigger than it needed to be pouted as she took out a tube of too-dark lipstick and started to write on the front window.

“It’s our thing,” Tattoo Boy insisted.

“We need to get a new thing,” Lipstick Artist whined. “This place is so creepy. I bet it’s haunted. There’s probably chopped-up bodies in the basement.” She looked like she was hoping Tattoo Boy would comfort her.

Ah, to be young and dumb again.

“I always expect some kind of zombie to climb out of the basement,” said Girl 2, who had waist-length black hair and her face glued to her phone. Her thumbs moved so fast that they were a blur.

Tattoo Boy switched to zombie mode and approached her, groaning and hissing while he dragged one leg behind him.

“Stop it! You’re creeping me out,” Lipstick Artist whined.

He gurgled convincingly and then pretended to eat Girl 2’s arm like it was a corn cob.

By this point, Maggie felt reasonably certain she was in no real danger and began plotting out the best way to terrify the little shits.

“Are we going in or not?” Girl 2 said, ignoring the zombie apocalypse and her impending loss of limb. “Because if we’re not, my friend Madison just found her mom’s Valium prescription.”

“The door is locked, smart-ass,” Lipstick Artist reminded her. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Then just break a fucking window,” the bored girl said without looking up from her phone.

They wouldn’t be so hell-bent on window breaking if they knew how much a plate glass window that size cost to replace. None of them looked like they’d be good for the cost of the window either. It was time to make her move.

“Yeah. I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Maggie announced, snapping on the flashlight as she jumped around the corner. She shined it right in the bored girl’s face. The kids froze comically. Except for Girl 2, who finished her text first.

“Zombie!” Lipstick Artist screeched.