He did not like Norton, he realized, and as embarrassed and apologetic as the old man was, Stormy detected something hard and dark beneath that surface contrition, and he felt uncomfortable being in the same room with him.

He edged a little closer to Laurie.

“So what next?” Laurie asked after Norton had finished talking. She gestured toward the sitting-room window. “It’s light out there. Anybody want to try to go outside? See if we can finally get out of here?”

“Count me in,” Stormy told her.

“The doors are open,” Mark said. “There’s nothing holding you here. You can go.”

Laurie looked at him. “ ‘You’?”

Mark cleared his throat nervously. “I’m staying.”

They looked at him.

“What?” Stormy said, incredulous.

Norton sucked in a deep breath. “I am, too.”

“This is crazy!” Stormy looked from one man to the other. “Have you both lost your fucking minds? Billings is dead. Donielle’s dead. The Houses are open. There’s nothing keeping us here. We’re free! We can go back to our normal lives and pretend this never happened!”

Mark’s voice was quiet. “Yes, Billings and the girl are gone, but we don’t know what that means. What we do know, is that with someone living in at least one of the Houses, the barrier holds.”

“You still want to stay? After everything that’s happened to you here?”

“Especially after everything that’s happened. Think of what we’ve seen. Think of what we know. Can you leave here with a clear conscience, knowing that if the Houses are empty it’ll all happen again? You had dead people popping up on your Indian reservation. And that kind of shit was happening all over the country, all over the world maybe. You know what would happen if the border fell entirely?” He shook his head. “I can’t let that occur.”

“We’ve been prisoners here!”

Norton smiled sadly. “I’m not a prisoner anymore. This time it’s my choice. And perhaps, in some small way, I can make up for… for what happened before.”

Laurie faced him. “Penance?”

“If you like.”

Stormy waved his arms, exasperated. “But maybe normal people can live here and it’ll do the same thing. Hell, they don’t even need to know about it—”

“It’s still on the borderline,” Mark said. “They’ll still see things they can’t understand. It’ll still be haunted.”

Norton shrugged. “Besides, I’m up for it. I’d like to explore this border. I’m not that far away from passing over to the Other Side myself, and I’d like to know where I’m going, I’d like to find out a little bit about it first.”

“Well, my duty as border guard is over. I’m through with this shit.”