Deception Cove

Chapter 29

WHEN HE EMERGED FROM THE BATHROOM FOR THE second time that night, he automatically looked out the window. The unnatural darkness still cloaked the town.

He started to turn away and go back to the bed but a flicker of light at the far end of the street made him pause. He took a closer look. The golden glow of an amber lantern appeared briefly again in the distance.

“What’s wrong?” Alice asked.

“Looks like someone is wandering around outside in the fog with an amber lantern,” he said.

“That’s strange.” Alice got out of bed and made her way to the window. “I can’t see anything.”

He draped an arm around her bare shoulders and rezzed a little of his talent. “How’s that?”

“Much better. Okay, now I see the light bobbing around at the end of the street. It’s a lantern, all right. Whoever is out there must be terribly disoriented. Probably scared out of his wits.”

“I’d better go see what’s going on.”

“I’ll bet that accounts for the ghost,” Alice said.

He turned away from the window and grabbed his pants. “What ghost?”

“Today I heard a couple of the kids talking about the ghost that haunts Shadow Bay. I assumed they were just telling stories to scare each other as a means of dealing with their fears. But maybe one or two of them happened to see someone walking around at night with a lantern.”

“I’ll check out our ghost,” Drake said.

He dressed swiftly, took one of the fire-starters out of the pack, put on his glasses, and opened the room door.

“Drake,” Alice said urgently.

He paused in the doorway. “What?”

“Be careful.”

She looks so serious, he thought, smiling.

“I will,” he promised.

He let himself out into the lantern-lit hall, descended the stairs to the lobby, unlocked the door, and went outside into the foggy night. Eerie, menacing visions swirled in the atmosphere. Fragments of his dream of the endless hallway lined with doors that opened onto blinding sunlight as well as Zara’s laughter whispered to his senses.

He removed his glasses, put them in his shirt pocket, and jacked up his talent to suppress the hallucinations. He started toward the spot where he had last seen the lantern.

But there was no sign of the flickering light now. Whoever had dared the night with a lantern had disappeared. Probably gone back indoors, Drake thought.

He walked the length of the street through the senses-chilling fog and turned the corner. In the dark light of night he could make out two stone pillars that formed an entryway.

The words engraved in the sign above the gate read: SHADOW BAY CEMETERY.