She’d finally started feeling comfortable around Kletter and the other old people—most of them having made the leap from suspicious creepers to sketchy acquaintances—when all hell broke loose. She’d had a good rest. Her legs feeling like pounded meat from all that walking—after all that sitting on a boat—she’d been slouched next to Carson and Lacey for at least a half hour in complete silence. Carson was asleep, his head leaned back against a tree, mouth open, snoring just loud enough to be heard. Just loud enough to be annoying. Lacey sat with her legs crossed under her, picking at the sparse grass, lost in her thoughts as usual.

There’d been a little commotion. Isaac and Sadina went to explore an old house that looked as haunted as Peak’s Graveyard back on the island, then Trish had yelled at them and been ignored. When Kletter herself jogged over to the dilapidated front porch and climbed up the rickety steps, through the tilted doorway, into the darkness, Jackie first wondered what in the world was going on. She didn’t have long to ponder before several alarming sounds erupted from that twisted mouth of the house.

A shout; a scream; more shouts—muffled, this time—all words indecipherable.

Jackie leaped to her feet, smacking Carson’s shoulder on the way up. He grunted, flinched, started to say something, but Jackie was already on the run, following Lacey, who’d somehow beat her to the punch. But in front of all of them was Trish, sprinting pell-mell as if an expanding sinkhole collapsed behind her every step. Others joined the rush toward the house—Miyoko, Dominic, Old Man Frypan, everyone—the air suddenly pulled taut like cloth, making it hard to breathe.

Carson yelled her name from behind. She ignored him, tried to catch up with Lacey. They were in the yard now, weeds grabbing at their ankles. Trish cleared the steps of the porch with one jump but then ground to a halt right before the yawning maw of the doorway. Lacey stopped just short of the porch, Jackie right next to her. Ms. Cowan, Frypan, that old bald dude she didn’t much care for—they all gathered there in seconds, watching Trish’s back, which had gone rigid. Then someone stepped out of the house.

Kletter.

A soon-to-be-dead Kletter.

The woman’s eyes were wide, the whites of them like full moons partially eclipsed by round shadows. Her skin was slick with sweat, her lips as pale as a pig’s underbelly. And her neck . . . that was the bad part. The really bad part. It had been slashed with something sharp, from one side to the other like a necklace, and blood poured down the front of her body in gushes.