And then I remembered what we were really doing out there. We weren’t on any late-night joyride, nothing fun about it. We were casing a strange town for clues about our dead mother and our weird haunted grandmother and this mysterious preacher child I was seeing in my visions, who I wouldn’t tell my sister about. I didn’t like having all these secrets from Murphy. I wanted to tell Murphy everything, I truly did, but something in me refused to. Maybe it was the Spirit, or maybe I was just being paranoid, but part of me felt that if I told Murphy all this stuff, it would put her in some kind of danger.

But danger from who? Grandma? There was no way. Grandma loved me more than anyone on this earth ever had. She was the first person ever to make me feel, if not normal, at least beloved for who I was. Mom never did anything like that for me.

Not even Murphy did, not really.

In fact, out of all the times Murphy snuck out at night back home, this was the first time she’d ever invited me along. She only asked me tonight because she needed me, because she was afraid to do it alone. Maybe I was right for not telling Murphy all that I knew. Maybe I couldn’t trust Murphy after all. Not with everything, anyway.

Benign was dark, and I mean completely dark. Streetlights were virtually nonexistent, and what light there was came only from the moon and stars, casting a ghostly unreal glow over everything. The streets were completely deserted. I didn’t even see a stray cat roaming. Everyone was shut inside, lights off and doors locked. The houses were blank, not even a television light burning through a window. It was like the whole town had vanished in the darkness, like they were all hiding from the night.

We rode past the gas station we’d first seen when we came to town, but it was closed too.

“Shit,” said Murphy. “Does this whole town shut down at nine P.M.? What do the kids do for fun around here? Isn’t there at least a parking lot they hang out in?”

“We could try that Sonic we saw.”

“Good thinking,” she said. “At least the loser kids would be hanging out at Sonic on a summer night.”

But when we glided by, the Sonic was empty, parking lot abandoned, all the neon shut off and forlorn like a carnival closed for the night.

“This is ridiculous,” said Murphy. “Something’s got to be open.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “It’s almost midnight. Things close down early in a town this small.”

“There has to be somewhere,” said Murphy. “Small towns are full of drunks. They have to have a gathering place, like religious folks have church. Let’s try the outskirts.”