Page 50 of The Midnight Knock

Hunter grabbed for him again. “Where the hell are you going?”

“The office. The twins.”

“Why bother? We don’t have anything to tell them.”

“No. They have something to tellus.” Ethan swallowed. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say, and yet he knew, somehow, that it was true. “They’ve trapped us here. Just like they trapped the people in 1955.”

ENDGAMEETHAN

11:40 p.m.

The twins had unbolted the door of the office. They were ready for him. Ethan found Thomas and Tabitha already standing behind the desk, lit only by a dim lamp with a green glass shade. The fire had died. The room was freezing.

As Ethan walked, he felt something gummy cling to the soles of his boots. It was Ryan Phan’s blood.

Ethan looked at Tabitha. “How did y’all do it?”

She tilted her head. “Do what, Mister Cross?”

“The same thing y’all did to those folks in the fifties.”

The twins exchanged a look of raw, unvarnished surprise. Tabitha almost looked proud. “You’ve never figured that out before.”

Before.

Kyla shuffled into the office looking, as always, like she desperately did not want to be here. Hunter and Fernanda followed a few steps behind her. If Ethan was crazy, he’d have said that Hunter looked afraid.

The time was 11:42.

Ethan felt a sudden, new cold spread up his spine at Tabitha’s words. “What do you mean, ‘before’? I’ve never been out this way in my life.”

The twins traded one of their mute shrugs. Thomas said. “We are in some disagreement on this.”

“Like much in philosophy, it hinges on the question of the soul,” Tabitha said.

“Does it exist?”

“In what form?”

“Does it survive death?”

The lamp on the desk sputtered and whined. The generator wasstruggling to keep the motel lit. Standing at the window by the fire, Fernanda said, “One of the lights outside just died.”

With a flurry of scratches and bangs, the thing in the back of the officeSHRIEKEDbehind its walnut door. The creatures outside answered.

There was no hiding it now: Hunter was frightened. “Ethan, come with me. Comeon.”

Ethan didn’t budge. He didn’t turn away from the twins. “What does a soul have to do with any of this?”

“Everything, Mister Cross.” Tabitha looked almost astonished by the question. “The soul—or whatever exists within the human form—is a source of immense power. A catalyst waiting to be sparked.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ethan said.

“I’m inclined to believe that the soul persists after death,” Thomas said. “One permanent soul. That’s what the people in the city seemed to believe.”

“I was always the stricter scientist,” Tabitha said. “I’m not sure it’s the same souls every night. I’m not even sure it’s the sameguestsevery night. Not in the strictest sense.”

Another moan from the mountain shook the earth. Time took a giant step forward. 11:47.