Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

Matt saw Meredith glance at him uneasily — but Meredith didn’t know Mrs.

Flowers as well as he did.

“You don’t really think it’s a ghost,” he said now.

“No, I don’t. Mama hasn’t said a word about it, and then it’s your house, Matt, dear. No gruesome murders or hideous secrets in its past, I should think. Let me see…” She shut her eyes and let Matt and Meredith go on with their tea. Then she opened her eyes and gave them a puzzled smile.

“Mama says ‘search the house for your ghost. Then listen well to what it has to say.’”

“Okay,” Matt said poker-faced. “Since it’s my house, I guess I’d better search for it. But when? Should I set an alarm?”

“I think the best way would be to arrange a watch rota,” Mrs. Flowers said.

“Okay,” Meredith agreed promptly. “I’ll take the middle watch, from midnight to four; Matt can have the first one; and Mrs. Flowers, you can have the earlymorning one, and get a nap in the afternoon if you want.”

Matt felt uneasy. “Why don’t we just break it up into two watches and the two of you can share one? I’ll take the other.”

“Because, dear Matt,” Meredith said, “we don’t want to be treated like ‘ladies.’ And don’t argue”—she hefted the fighting stave—“because I’m the one with the heavy equipment.”

Something was shaking the room. Shaking Matt with it. Still half-asleep, he put his hand under his pillow and pulled out the revolver. A hand grabbed it and he heard a voice.

“Matt! It’s me, Meredith! Wake up, will you?”

Groggily, Matt reached for the lamp switch. Again, strong, slim cold fingers prevented him from doing what he wanted.

“No light,” Meredith whispered. “It’s very faint, but if you come with me quietly, you can hear it. The crying.”

That woke Matt up the rest of the way. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

Doing his best to walk quietly through the dark halls, Matt followed Meredith to the downstairs living room.

“Sh!” Meredith warned. “Listen.”

Matt listened. He could hear some sobbing all right, and maybe some words, but they didn’t sound all that ghostly to him. He put his ear to the wall and listened. The crying was louder.

“Do we have a flashlight?” Matt asked.

“I have two, my dears. But this is a very dangerous time of night.” Mrs. Flowers was a shadow against darkness.

“Please give the flashlights to us,” said Matt. “I don’t think our ghost is very supernatural. What time is it, anyway?”

“About twelve forty A.M.,” Meredith answered. “But why do you think it isn’t supernatural?”

“Because I think it’s living in our basement,” Matt said. “I think it’s Cole Reece.

The kid who ate his guinea pig.”

Ten minutes later, with the stave, two flashlights, and Saber, they had caught their ghost.

“I didn’t mean anything bad,” Cole sobbed, when they had lured him upstairs with promises of candy and “magic” tea that would let him sleep.

“I didn’t hurt anything, honest,” he choked, wolfing down Hershey bar after Hershey bar from their emergency rations. “I’m scared that he’s onto me. Because after you hit me with that sticky note, I haven’t been able to hear him in my head anymore. And then you came here”—he gestured around Matt’s house—“and you had amulets and I figured it would be better to stay inside them. Or it could be my Last Midnight too.”

He was babbling. But something about the last words made Matt say, “What do you mean…‘your Last Midnight too’?”

Cole looked at him in terror. The rim of melted Hershey bar around his lips made Matt remember the last time he’d seen the boy.

“You know, don’t you?” Cole faltered. “About the midnights? The countdown?

Twelve days till the Last Midnight? Eleven days till the Last Midnight? And now… tonight is one day till the Last Midnight…” He began to sob again, even while cramming chocolate into his mouth. It was clear that he was starving.

“But what happens on the Last Midnight?” Meredith asked.

“You know, don’t you? That that’s the time when…you know.” Maddeningly Cole seemed to think they were testing him.

Matt put his hands on Cole’s shoulders, and to his horror felt bones under his fingers. The kid really was starving, he thought, forgiving him all the Hershey bars.

His eyes met Mrs. Flowers’s eyes and she immediately went to the kitchen.

But Cole wasn’t answering; he was mumbling incoherently. Matt forced himself to apply pressure to those bony shoulders.

“Cole, talk louder! What’s this Last Midnight about?”

“You know. That’s when…all the kids…you know, they wait up and at midnight… they get knives or guns. You know. And we go into our parents’ room while they’re asleep and…” Cole broke down again, but Matt noticed he had slipped into saying

“we” and “our” by the end.

Meredith spoke in her calm, steady voice. “The children are going to kill their parents, is that right?”

“He showed us where to slash or stab. Or if there’s a gun—” Matt had heard enough. “You can stay — in the basement,” he said. “And here are some amulets. Put them on you if you feel like you’re in danger.” He gave Cole a whole packet of Post-it Notes.

“Just don’t be afraid,” Meredith added, as Mrs. Flowers came in with a plate of sausages and fried potatoes for Cole. At any other time the smell would have made Matt hungry.

“It’s just like that island in Japan,” he said. “Shinichi and Misao made it happen there, and they’re going to do it again.”

“I say time’s running out. Actually it’s already the Last Midnight day — it’s nearly one thirty in the morning,” Meredith said. “We have less than twenty-four hours.

We should either get out of Fell’s Church or do something to arrange a confrontation.”

“A confrontation? Without Elena or Damon or Stefan?” Matt said. “We’ll be murdered. Don’t forget Sheriff Mossberg.”

“He didn’t have this.” Meredith tossed the fighting stave into the air, caught it neatly, and put it at her side.

Matt shook his head. “Shinichi will still kill you. Or some little kid will, with the semiautomatic from Daddy’s closet.”

“We have to do something.”

Matt thought. His head was pounding. Finally he said, head lowered, “When I got the herbs I got Misao’s star ball, too.”

“You’re kidding. Shinichi still didn’t find it?”

“No. And maybe we could do something with it.”

Matt looked at Meredith, who looked at Mrs. Flowers. Mrs. Flowers said, “What about pouring out the liquid in different places in Fell’s Church? Just a drop here and a drop there? We could ask the Power in it to protect the town. Maybe it would listen.”

Meredith said, “That was the exact reason we wanted to get Shinichi’s and Misao’s star balls in the first place. The star balls control their owners, according to legend.”

Matt said, “It may be old-ways thinking, but I agree.”

Meredith said, “Then let’s do it right now.”

While the other two waited, Matt got Misao’s star ball. It had a very, very little liquid on the bottom.

“After the Last Midnight she plans to fill it to the top with the energy of the new lives that get taken,” Meredith said.

“Well, she’s not going to get a chance to do that,” Matt said flatly. “When we’re done we’ll destroy the container.”

“But we probably should hurry,” Meredith added. “Let’s get some weapons together: something silver, something long and heavy, like a fire iron. Shinichi’s little zombies are not going to be happy — and who knows who’s on his side?”