He stepped out of the car and walked over to the gate, retracing steps he took as a boy. The gate had looked so big then, so imposing, as if it held back all the demons of hell. But now . . . well, now it was just an antique, corroded by time and the pollution-tainted elements. He peered through the bars at the shadowy woods beyond as Papaw’s words came back to him and Pa’s voice after that, repeating the same litany as they sat around the fireplace. Don’t go near it, Charlie. The land is astink with evil. It’s in the soil, in the roots, and the groundwater. He planted it there, he did, Sebastian Danner. And it’s his ghost that’ll reap its unholy harvest for all of eternity.

But there was no harvest evident through the gate, except for the milkweed and poison ivy that had grown wild and uninhibited through the years. It was just woods. A little gloomy, but that’s all.

He looked at the bars, then at his own moist palms, remembering smaller hands that had shook at the prospect of touching them. This time he didn’t hesitate. He reached out and grabbed the bars. And gasped. But because they were cold, nothing more. There was no squirming evil inherent in the metal, no malignant charge of energy to course through his palms and along his spine.

Nothing.

He walked back to the car, satisfied that he had finally outgrown childhood fears and superstitions, and yet somehow disappointed. He had always given the stories a sort of reverence, no matter how much he scoffed, because they were tradition. His mother and father had believed, and their parents before them. Now, standing there in front of the gate and feeling not even an inkling of fear, he realized he’d just proven them all fools.

He climbed into the cruiser and drove back toward town, wishing he hadn’t even gone out there in the first place.

As soon as the deputy’s car was out of sight, a pair of headlights flashed to life back in the underbrush across the road from the Danner gate.

3

Chapter Three

The T-Bird eased out of hiding and parked in front of the gate where the Torino had sat minutes before. Tommy Whitten cut the engine and sent a stream of tobacco juice through the gap in his teeth. “Jeez, thought they’d never leave,” he sneered, tipping his dad’s flask to his lips. He leaned across the other two teens sandwiched into the front seat and peered out the passenger side. “So that’s the Danner place, huh? I don’t know, Miller. Looks pretty spooky to me.”