crazy, Edie. He cooks meth back there at night, and he’s convinced people can smell it. He’s always been paranoid, but after being cooped up in a tiny cabin with those fumes for years, it’s gotten worse.”
Edie remembered the nauseating stench of melted plastic. She never would have recognized it. Still. The man was pacing in front of the car, wringing his hands nervously. There was something off about him. But then again, he was facing off against a ghost.
Tommy was still talking. “That’s what he was doing the night I got lost in the woods, only back then it was something else. He’s been cooking up drugs in his cabin for years, supplying dealers in the city. I was looking for this girl who wandered off, and I got all turned around. I didn’t realize how far I’d walked. There was a cabin.” He paused, looking out at the man in the green cap. “Let’s just say, I knocked on the wrong door.”
The man stopped in the path of one of the headlights, a beam of light creating shadows across his face. “You can’t trust the dead. No matter what they say, sweetheart.”
Edie reached for the door handle.
Tommy—the boy-ghost—grabbed her other hand. For a second, Edie thought she felt the weight of his hand on hers. It was impossible, but it gave her goose bumps all the same. “He beat me to death, Edie. Then he dragged my body all the way back to the party, and left me in the middle of Red Run.”
Edie didn’t know who to believe. One of them was lying. And if she made the wrong choice, she was going to die tonight.
Tommy’s blue eyes were searching hers. “I would never hurt you, Edie. I swear.”
She thought about everything Wes and Trip had taught her, which boiled down to one thing: You can’t trust a ghost. She thought about her brother lying in the road. I should have listened. He could’ve been talking about the man in the green cap—the one begging her to get out of the car right now.
What was she thinking? She couldn’t trust a ghost.
Edie threw the door open before she could change her mind. The smell of burnt plastic flooded into the Jeep.
“Edie, no!” Tommy’s eyes were terrified, darting back and forth between Edie and the man in the road. In that moment, she knew he was telling the truth.
She reached for the door to pull it shut again as the man in the green cap rushed toward the driver’s side of the car. When he passed through the headlights, Edie saw him grab the buck knife from his waistband.
Edie tried to close the door, but it felt like she was wading through syrup. She wasn’t fast enough. But the man in the green cap was, his arm coming around the edge of the door. His knife was in his hand, reddish-brown lines streaking the dull blade.
“Oh, no you don’t, you little bitch!” The man grabbed the metal frame before she could close the door, the blade of the knife waving dangerously close to her face.
Tommy appeared just outside the open car door, only inches from the man wielding the knife. Before the man had a chance to react, Tommy rushed forward and stepped right through him.
Edie saw the man’s eyes go wide for a second, and he shivered.
“Back up!” Tommy shouted.
Edie didn’t think about anything but Tommy’s voice as she turned the key, grinding the ignition. She threw the car into reverse, slamming her foot on the gas.
The man swore, his hand uncurling from the handle of the knife. He tried to hold onto the doorframe, his filthy nails clawing at the metal.
Then his fingers slid away, and Edie saw him hit the ground.
She heard the scream as the Jeep bucked and the front tire rolled over his body. Edie didn’t stop until she could see him lying facedown in the dust. She could see the crushed bones, forced into awkward angles. He wasn’t moving.
Edie didn’t notice Tommy standing next to the car. He pulled the door open, bent metal scraping through the silence, and knelt down next to her. “Are you okay?”
“I think I killed him.” Her voice was shaking uncontrollably.
“Edie, look at me.” Tommy’s was calm. She leaned her head against the seat, turning her face toward his. “You didn’t have a choice. He was going to kill you.”
She knew Tommy was right. But it didn’t change the fact that she had just killed a man, even if that man was a monster.
Tommy’s blue eyes were searching her brown ones, their faces only inches apart. “What made you trust me?”
“Your eyes,” Edie answered. “The eyes don’t lie.”
“Even if you’re a ghost?”
Edie smiled weakly. “Especially if you’re a ghost.”
She looked out at the road. For the first time in forever, it was just a road—dirt and rocks and trees. She tried to imagine what it would be like to spend every night out here, so close to the place where you died.
“You’re the first person who ever believed me,” Tommy said. “The first person I saved.”
“Then why did you stay here for so long?”
Tommy looked away. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Edie remembered Wes telling her that most ghosts couldn’t leave a place where they had died traumatically. They were chained to that spot, trying to find a way to right the wrong.
When he turned back to face her, Edie noticed the sadness lingering in his eyes. And something else. . . .
Tommy was fading, flickering like static on an old TV set. He stared down at his hands, turning them slowly as if seeing them for the first time.
“I think you can move on now,” Edie said gently. “You know, to wherever you’re supposed to be. Red Run doesn’t need protecting anymore.”
“I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. But wherever it is, I’m not ready to go.” Tommy was still fading. “There are so many things I never had a chance to do.”
Edie ran her hand along the black paneling inside the Jeep, and looked at him. “Get in.”
Tommy hesitated for a second, smiling. “Just don’t take me to meet the friends who made that stuff.”
Edie smiled back at him. “You can trust me.”
As she drove away, Red Run disappearing into the darkness, Edie felt the weight of this place disappear along with it. “So where do you want to go?”
Tommy was still watching her.
The girl who wasn’t afraid to hunt a ghost.
“Maybe I’ll hang out with you for a while.” Tommy put his hand on top of hers, and she didn’t need to feel the weight of it to know it was there. “There are always things that need protecting.”
