Page 3 of Paranoid

The brackish smell of the river was thick as Rachel caught up with her friend at the largest of the buildings, a hulking barn-like structure built on now-rotting pilings. It rose dark and daunting, a huge, decrepit edifice that had been condemned years before.

“Great.” Lila’s tone was one of disgust. “Everyone else is already here.”

“How do you know?” Rachel spoke in hushed tones, afraid that someone might hear her. She glanced around the empty pockmarked lot surrounding the long-vacant buildings, but saw no one. Still the back of her neck prickled in apprehension.

“I just do, okay?” A pause. “Listen. . . . Hear that?”

Sounds emanated through the ancient wooden walls. Muted voices, running footsteps, even a staccato Pop! Pop! Pop! Not like real gunfire. Just loud clicks.

Air guns.

Safe.

Still. It made her nervous. Rachel’s stomach was in knots.

Another burst from an automatic.

Heart pounding, Rachel watched as Lila unzipped her own pack and pulled out a pistol, one that glinted in the bluish glare from the thin light of the single security lamp.

Rachel swallowed hard. Though she knew Lila’s gun was just a replica that shot pellets, not bullets, it looked real. As did her own.

“I don’t know—”

“What? You’re going to wuss out now?” Lila said, unable to hide her disapproval. “After all your talk about wanting to do something ‘outside the box,’ something that would shock your mom and dad?”

“No, but—”

“Sure.” Lila wasn’t buying it. “Fine. Do what you want. You always do anyway. But I need to talk to Luke.”

“Here?”

“Wherever.”

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

“What the hell is that?” Rachel demanded at the loud, quick-fire reports. “A real gun?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Then what?”

“Shit. It could be Moretti. Nate said he and Max were going to bring firecrackers to, you know, make the game more ‘real.’ Like it’s not scary enough.”

“What?”

“I know. Crazy, right?” Lila seemed undeterred. “Nate’s such a dweeb! Never knows when to dial it back. He even has one of those things that make the gun sound louder and spark, y’know.”

This was sounding worse by the minute. She knew Nate. The son of a doctor, he was Luke’s best friend even though they had been in different classes in high school. “I think we should forget this—”

“I can’t. I have to see Luke.” Before Rachel could come up with any further arguments, Lila slipped through the narrow gap where the huge barn door hung open. Stomach churning, Rachel followed after.

Inside, the cavernous building was even eerier. Maybe it was her own mind playing tricks on her, but Rachel thought she smelled the remains of ancient fish guts and scales that had been stripped from the catch and dropped through open chutes in the floor to splash into the water below, where waiting harbor seals, sea lions, seagulls, and other scavengers snatched the bloody carcasses.

All in your mind. Remember that. This place has been abandoned for years.

That thought didn’t calm her jangling nerves.

Just inside, Rachel paused at the door, getting her bearings. What no one else knew, not even Lila, was that she’d been here earlier, in the fading summer daylight, scoping out the interior to give herself a bit of an advantage. She had tried to embed in her mind a map of the hazards, the treacherous holes in the floor, the stacks of rusted barrels, the ladders and pulleys. Though she couldn’t see anyone, she heard the others. Whispered conversation, footsteps scurrying along the ancient floor. The thud of feet climbing a metal ladder or shuffling across a catwalk overhead. The noises were barely audible over the wild beating of her heart.