Page 101 of Some Kind of Haunted

I manage to smile. Something about the rocks steadies me. “Just nearly taken out by that group.”

Harrison sighs heavily. “Tourists.”

But there are none of those around the clock tower, like everyone who visits feels the same way I do. That we shouldn’t be anywhere near it.

I catch up to Harrison, eyeing the clock tower warily. It stands on a kind of raised dais made of concrete, punching up into the night.

I want to take off running—and screaming—in the opposite direction. The way I feel right now, I could run all the way back to Des Moines without stopping until I get on a plane.

But that is not an option tonight.

Still, I don’t want to do this. Whatever this is. I wrap my arms around myself.

“Where are we supposed to meet Jack?” I ask as Harrison takes the first step that will lead up to the base of the actual tower. I do not follow him. Even if it is all lit up like a beacon.

Because who knows what it’s a beacon for, except maybe demons.

“He must be inside.”

I take a step back without meaning to. Inside is a hard no.

“Harrison, I don’t think this is a good idea.” At all.

But the old man is moving up the stairs, a lot more nimbly than he came down the stairs in the antique store. Then he walks right up to the base and somehow . . . opens a door. Even though I didn’t see a knob or anything.

Or a door, for that matter.

It’s a heavy cement door, apparently, and it creaks and groans as Harrison struggles to open it.

In any other situation, I would jump forward to help him, but the door opens into an empty black void.

I can see the void, but I’m a little more concerned that it can see me, too.

I’m shaking my head without realizing it, but Harrison never looks back. He simply steps right into the dark, terrifying maw of the clock-tower doorway.

Leaving me out here on the streets of Midas, within touching range of this creepy clock tower, all alone.

I can’t quite breathe, can’t quite scream, can’t quite bring myself to act. I want to run, but I can’t leave him here.

I should go and grab him. Pull him back out and demand we go back to the diner and wait there for Jack. Or go somewhere else, anywhere else, and find Jack.

But Harrison said Jack was here. With Logan.

My heart feels like it stops.

I did not think he meant inside the thing. Because who would go inside the demon slurping station from hell?

My heart kicks back in, at high gear—especially when I hear a kind of thud.

I can’t see Harrison anymore.

I hear a moaning sound and I want to run in the opposite direction. But I can’t possibly leave Harrison in there—whether he fell and broke a hip or the demons got him, I have to save him.

He can’t end up like Cleo. I can’t let that happen. I would never forgive myself.

But I’m also too aware that there’s hair on my neck that isn’t mine, whispering against my neck like it’s escaped the bonds of the locket.

I make a command decision. I might hurt an old man’s feelings, but I’ll do my best to save him, so hopefully that will even it all out.