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“I’m on the sixth step, I’m on the seventh step, I’m on the eighth step!” Kyle declared in a rush.
The boys leapt to their feet as if yanked by strings, crying, heads jerking around, searching vainly for escape but the hedges loomed, branches sticking out like skeletal arms.
Kyle’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m on the ninth step…”
James started to worry a little. They couldn’t have these dumbasses charging off in all directions in the dark. “Siddown!”
“I’m on the tenth step…and now I’m walking down the hall…I’m outside your door…I’m pushing it open…cree-eeaa-kkk!”
It sounded sorta dumb, James thought, the way Kyle did it, but it sure as hell did the trick. The kids started scattering like cockroaches, shying away from the dirty old statue of that lady, screaming and blubbering. James and Kyle started laughing. They couldn’t help themselves. That ratcheted the boys to near hysteria, and Mikey stumbled right into the statue-the idiot-and knocked the damn thing to one side. The bulldozers had been at the site. The school was being razed and they were taking down the maze as well. That’s why Kyle had come up with the idea in the first place. One last spooky hurrah where they could scare the snot out of the little kids.
“Moron, you knocked over the old lady,” James said in a long-suffering tone.
He went to pick up his younger brother while Kyle corralled Tyler and Preston, who were crying like the babies they were. Mikey had practically turned to a statue himself. He stood frozen, staring. He slowly lifted one hand as James approached, pointing toward a mound of earth that had humped up when the statue tilted.
“Bloody Bones,” he whispered, his finger quivering.
James looked in the direction he was pointing. From the ground a skeletal human hand lay upturned, its bones both dirty and oddly white, its fingers reaching upward, as if for help.
James’s eyes bugged out. He started shrieking like a banshee and couldn’t quit.
Kyle gazed on in raw fear. “Shit,” he quavered.
Little Mikey grabbed James’s hand and hauled them both out of the maze. The rest of the gang thundered behind them. They all ran for their lives, the cold touch of Bloody Bones feathering their napes all the way.
Chapter One
I feel it…that change in the atmosphere, subtle but strong, like the slight tremor of a gentle earthquake with its aftershocks. I know what it means.
I knew it would happen.
Was waiting.
Flinging off the covers of the old bed, I listen to the howl of the wind as it rushes from the west, driving inland, churning up the water. I don’t bother with clothes as I open the door from the old keeper’s quarters that lead into the lighthouse itself. Quickly I take the circular stairs, running up their rusted steps, ignoring the metal as it groans against my weight.
Faster! Faster!
My heart is pumping and all the restlessness I’ve tried to contain, the impulses I’ve kept at bay, are now set free.
The stairs curl more tightly as I ascend to the landing where the once-vibrant beacon lies dormant, its huge lens giving off no illumination, warning no sailors of the impending shoals.
I fling the door open and step onto the weathered grating. Rain spits from clouds roiling in the heavens, wind tears at my hair, and the night is dark and thick with winter. A hundred and thirty feet below the surf churns and boils in whitecapped fury around this small, craggy island that has been abandoned for half a century.
No one inhabits the island.
The lighthouse is off-limits to the public, guarded judiciously by the Coast Guard and a tired, twisted chain-link fence as well as the dangerous surf itself.
A few have dared to trespass.
And they have died in the treacherous currents that surround this sorry bit of rock.
Even in the darkness, I turn and view the mainland. I know they’re there. I’ve taken as many as I can. Their fortress can be breached, though I bear the scars of battle and I must be careful.
Tonight, no lights glow from their windows. The forest covers them.
As I face the sea, I tilt my head, lift my nose to the wind, but I smell nothing other than the briny scent of the Pacific crashing a hundred feet below. I close my eyes and concentrate. As the wind tosses my hair into my eyes and my skin chills with the frigid air, the blood in my veins runs hot.
I imagine the scent of her skin. Like a rain-washed beach. Tantalizing…
