Page 81 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

Does any of this make sense?

Maybe I really am losing it.

“I’m getting my phone,” he says. “Come with me.”

I do, and once he has it, he says, “Stay close.”

“You, too.”

A sound between a snort and a gruff laugh, as if to say he’s hardly worried about himself. But he should be. My gut says he should be. My gut also says that I can’t trust him to be. I can trust him to worry about me but not about himself.

That makesnosense.

He doesn’t give a shit about me.

Maybe not, but he gives even less of a shit about himself.

Where the hell did that come from?

“Sam?” he says, squinting at me. “If you took something to help you sleep, just say so. I’d understand.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t. I’m just a little… off-balance. Things are happening and… and—” I blurt the rest before I realize what I’m saying. “I think I might be responsible.”

I have no idea what I expect him to say to that, but he only looks out at the water. “Did you put lights out there?”

“No.”

“Then come on.”

Twenty-Four

I go back inside to put in my contacts first. I’m no longer taking any chances that what I see is the result of poor eyesight. Then we walk to stand on the lakefront, and all I want to do is drag Ben away from the water. I can’t look at the lights. I can barely force myself to glance at them.

“Weird,” he says as he snaps pictures. “When you mentioned it, I pictured lots of lights. Maybe reflections? But there’s only a few. You thought it was something bioluminescent?”

I force myself to nod as my brain screams to get him away from the water.

“Could be,” he continues. “But I’ve lived near the lake my whole life, and I’ve never seen this. It’s like there’s something under the surface.”

Before I know it, he’s walking into the surf.

I lunge. “No!”

He glances back.

“Please,” I say. “Don’t go in. Not at night.”

“Not…?”

“Maybe I am losing it. I think I am. Just please, please, please stay out of the water. Out of the water and out of the woods. At least at night.”

He tilts his head, and I see myself in his eyes and shrink.

“I’m not making sense,” I mumble. “I know that.”

“Just tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I—I don’t even know. Just… my grandfather always said to stay out of the woods and the lake at night. So did my parents.”