She was looking for him.
Tonight she was going to kill a ghost.
Edie didn’t realize how long she had been driving until her favorite Jane’s Addiction song looped for the third time. Edie was beginning to wonder if she was going to find him at all, as she passed the rotted twin pines that marked the halfway point between the two nothing little towns—when she saw him. He was standing in the middle of the road, on the wavering yellow carpet of her headlights. His eyes reflected the light like a frightened animal, but he looked as real as any boy she’d ever seen. Even if he was dead.
She slammed on the brakes instinctively, and dust flew up around the Jeep and into the open windows. When it skidded to a stop, he was standing in front of the bumper, tiny particles of dirt floating in the air around him.
For a second, neither one of them moved. Edie was holding her breath, staring out beyond the headlights at the tall boy whose skin was too pale and eyes too blue.
“I’m okay, if you’re worried,” he called out, squinting into the light.
Edie clutched the vinyl steering wheel, her hands sweaty and hot. She knew she should back up—throw the car into reverse until he was out of sight—but even with her heart thudding in her ears, she couldn’t do it.
He half-smiled awkwardly, brushing the dirt off his jeans. He had the broad shoulders of a swimmer, and curly dark hair that was too long in places and too short in others, like he had cut it himself. “I’m not from around here.”
She already knew that.
He walked toward her dented red Jeep, tentatively. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
It was a question no one ever asked her. In elementary school, Edie was the kid with the tangled blond braids. The one whose overalls were too big and too worn at the knees. Her parents never paid much attention to her. They were busy working double shifts at the refinery. Her brother was the one who wove her hair into those braids, tangled or not.
“I’m fine.” Edie shook her head, black bobbed hair swinging back and forth against her jaw.
He put his hand on the hood and bent down next to her open window. “Is there any way I could get a ride into town?”
Edie knew the right answer. Just like she knew she shouldn’t be driving on Red Run in the middle of the night. But she hadn’t cared about what was right, or anything at all, for a long time. A year and six days exactly—since the night her brother died. People had called it an accident, as if somehow that made it easier to live with. But everyone knew there were no accidents on Red Run.
That was the night Edie cut her hair with her mother’s craft scissors, the ones with the orange plastic handles. It was also the night she hung out with Wes and Trip behind the Gas & Go for the first time, drinking Easy Jesus and warm Bud Light until her brother’s death felt like a dream she would forget in the morning. The three of them had been in class together since kindergarten, but they didn’t run in the same crowd. When Wes and Trip weren’t smoking behind the school or hanging out in the cemetery, they were holed up in Wes’ garage, building weird junk they never let anyone see. Edie’s mom thought they were building pipe bombs.
But they were building something else.
The blue-eyed boy was still leaning into the window. “So can I get a ride?” He was watching her from under his long, straight lashes. They almost touched his cheeks when he blinked.
She leaned back into the sticky seat, trying to create some space between them. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”
Would he admit he was out here to kill her?
“My parents kicked me out, and I’m headed for Baton Rouge. I’ve got family down there.” He watched her, waiting for a reaction.
Was this part of the game?
“Get in,” she said, before she could change her mind.
The boy walked around the car and opened the door. The rusty hinges creaked, and it reminded Edie of the first time Wes opened the garage door and invited her inside.
The garage was humid and dark, palmetto bugs scurrying across the concrete floor for the corners. Two crooked pine tables were outfitted with vises and tools Edie didn’t recognize. Wire and scrap metal littered the floor, attached to homemade-looking machines that resembled leaky car batteries. There were other salvaged and tricked-out contraptions—dials that looked like speedometers, a portable sonar from a boat, and a long needle resting on a spool of paper that reminded her of those lie detectors you saw on television.
“What is all this stuff?”
Wes and Trip glanced at each other before Wes answered, “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
Edie took another swig of Easy Jesus, the liquid burning its way down her throat. She liked the way it felt going down, knowing it would burn through her memories just as fast.
“Cross my heart and hope I die,” she slurred.
“It’s hope to die,” Trip said, kicking an empty beer can out of his way. “You said it wrong.”
Edie stared back at him, her dark eyes glassy. “No, I didn’t.” She tossed the empty bottle at a green plastic trash can in the corner, but she missed and it hit the concrete, shattering. “So are you gonna tell me what you’re doing with all this crap?”
Wes picked up a hunk of metal with long yellow wires dangling from the sides like the legs of a mechanical spider. “You won’t believe us.”
He was right. The only thing she believed in now was Easy Jesus. Remembering every day to forget. “Try me.”
Wes looked her straight in the eye, sober and serious. He flicked a switch on the machine and it whirred to life. “We’re hunting ghosts.”
Edie didn’t have time to think about hanging out with Wes and Trip in the garage. She needed to focus on the things they had taught her.
She was driving slower than usual, her hands glued to the wheel so the blue-eyed boy wouldn’t notice how badly they were shaking. “Where are you from?”
“You know, you really shouldn’t pick up strangers.” His voice was light and teasing, but Edie noticed he didn’t answer the question.
“You shouldn’t get in the car with strangers either,” she countered. “Especially not around here.”
He shifted his body toward her, his white ribbed tank sliding over his skin instead of sticking to it the way Edie’s clung to hers. The cracked leather seat didn’t make a sound. “What do you mean?”
She felt a wave of satisfaction. “You’ve never heard the stories about Red Run? You must live pretty far away.”
“What kind of stories?”
Edie stared out at the wall of trees closing in around them. It wasn’t an easy story to tell, especially if you were sitting a foot from the boy who died at the end of it. “About twenty years ago, someone died out here. He was about your age—”
“How
