The creaking had stopped, and Bruce dangled in midair, a piece of fiber-coated electrical wire wrapped around his neck and tied to the light fixture. His black tongue protruded, and his blank eyes bulged, the flesh around them sunken and purple. Flies buzzed around his head and his skin was the color of cottage cheese.

Christ—

Before she could decide whether to touch him or if he was too far gone, the lights went out.

Christ and back again.

She didn’t know whether to retreat or feel her way forward. The afterimage of the light burned orange blobs behind her eyelids, but the image of the dead boy burned just as brightly.

You’re cracking up, kiddo, just like Bradshaw said you would. Too much imagination. Too much fantasy. Too much believing in the monsters you make.

Too much being the Digger’s daughter.

Her cracked laughter sounded too loud in the dark room.

It wasn’t real. She could make it to the light switch, get the room back in working order, and find some way to jam the lock so Bruce wouldn’t bug her anymore. And as soon as Dad came in, she’d make him report the little twerp to the hotel staff. Surely they had some sort of security, even if it was just that old mummy of a manager. One scowl from her wrinkled, witchbag face would scare any kid straight.

Yeah. Logic and reason. Much better than the koo-koo choo-choo to Nutsville.

One hand in front of her, she took brief steps forward across the carpet, mapping the room in her mind. The beds were over there, coffee table and TV cabinet to the left, an open path in the middle, right where Bruce would be hanging--

He’s NOT hanging, damn it.

Still, she slowed a little and waved her hand in front of her. Despite the lamps outside that girded the walkway to the hotel’s front entrance, the room was way darker than it should have been.

She thought of that screwy line the ghost hunters used when they were ushering a restless spirit to peace in the Great Unknown: “Go toward the light.”

Count to three and do it.

Count to three....

Stay and play with Mommy and me.

“Kendra?”

The woman’s voice froze her heart in mid-beat.

She couldn’t quite place it, but she couldn’t quite forget it, either. The familiarity was stored in her cells, at a genetic level, and she’d heard it on a few of Dad’s home videos on those late nights when he wanted a serious dose of melancholy. She’d heard it as a she sat on a warm, loving lap and painted herself into a hundred corners.

“Mom?” Kendra whispered, which was plenty loud enough in the stillness of the room, practically a scream that tore the faded, rose-patterned paper from the walls and sent gypsum snowing from the ceiling.

Kendra wrapped herself in the shadows of the room, waiting for a response, dreading it and wanting it all the same.

If I’m stepping on the koo-koo choo-choo, at least I’m going with a smile on my face. Reunited and it feels so good. Even if it feels so wrong.

In the solitude of her childhood, browsing through her mother’s artifacts and parental love notes and even the last letter penned on the deathbed, Kendra had often considered the many questions she’d never gotten to ask. All that mother-daughter talk, all the advice and wisdom, all the scolding and conflict, all the wonder and mystery of that special bond—all interrupted, all stolen away by some asshole in the Great Unknown, a punitive, sociopathic little Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain and pulling strings, giggling all the while.

Digger said she was here. But when can you ever trust Digger?

“Mom?”

No response.

Thirty seconds.

Someone was breathing in the corner of the room.

Which made no sense, because dead people didn’t breathe.

Games. More goddamned games.

Bruce.

Feeling silly now for thinking her mother would actually come back as a ghost like some trucked-up “Touched By An Angel” episode, she marched across the room, steady, steady, steady. Lunatics likely felt no shame, so her embarrassed rage was proof of her sanity.

The light switch would set things right, make it just another room, just another lonely hour with her sketch pad, painting herself into corners.

Before she could reach it, the door handle clacked and the door swung open, something thumping heavily against jamb. The wedge of light that cleaved into the room lit up the person crouched in the corner. Not Mom, not Bruce, not the Wizard of Oz.

It could only be Rochester, and he was even worse than she’d drawn him.

Then the light flicked on, Rochester was gone, and the real horror began.

Dad staggered in drunk as a senator, mushing out an atonal jumble of song. “...shaw her faysh...muuuh bweever….”

The koo-koo choo-choo had just derailed.

Chapter 30

“I haven’t seen him in a couple of hours,” Burton told Ann Vandooren.

She blinked at him as if waking from a nap. “This is important.”

“He had something come up,” Burton said. “Trust me, Digger wouldn’t bail on a conference without good reason.”

“Do we tell them?” Duncan said.

Burton looked from the woman to her young companion, then at the stack of video gear on their desk. “Tell us what?”

Cody, who had been with Burton in the control room when Duncan burst in, glanced at the computer and the various firewires and cables that protruded from the machine’s ports. “Nice system.”

“What’s the deal?” Burton asked. Ann looked like she’d aged a couple of decades since he’d last seen her, or maybe she’d taken off her make-up. She was hollow-eyed and evasive, a junkie without a fix.

“I’m possessed,” she said.

Drama queen. There was one at every conference, usually more than one, sometimes entire bus loads. Somebody had to be the most sensitive, see the most ghosts, endure the deepest sympathetic link with the dead. He wouldn’t have figured Ann for it, because his money was still riding on that fat loudmouth Amelia G. But she was the first to declare herself possessed, and that counted for something.

All Burton could do was humor her. “Is this a demonic possession or more of a communing with the dead?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s the difference?”

Cody, who had moved closer to the computer set-up, said, “Demonic possession is subtle and insidious. It’s not like a boogieman jumping into your skin and yelling, ‘Hey, Lucy, I’m home.’ Demons tend to find the weak, search the brick wall for chinks, and then hitchhike into your soul by way of your worst traits.”

“Hey,” Duncan said. “I understand psychology, but we’re not talking a meltdown here. I tell you, I saw a black halo over her head.”

“I saw it, too, in the mirror,” Ann said. “You can’t convince me we’re both cracking up. We’re scientists, for god’s sake.”

“Science,” Burton said. “The last refuge of the faithless.”

“Look at this,” Cody said, pointing to the split screen on the computer. “You’ve got a camera in the attic.”

He reached for the keyboard as if to click the image to full resolution.

“Get away from there,” Ann said, leaping at him with her fingernails extended.

Burton moved forward to grab her, but Duncan reached her first. She shrugged him away and reached for the computer. Cody turned at the motion and her fingernails clawed his cheek. Ann slammed down the lid of the laptop, mashing Cody’s fingers.

“Jeez, lady,” he said. “I’m trying to help.”

“Ease up, everybody,” Burton said. “Look, it’s the middle of the night. We’re all a little tired. Why don’t we get some sleep and work this out in the morning?”

“And let the demon get even deeper inside me?”

“We’ve got a guy on staff who’s an expert on such things. The Roach will be glad to talk to you, no matter what the problem is.”