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“What woman?” asked Mark. “I’m coming out of
the tub, Jeremy. Put the razor down and tell me what’s going
on.”

“No!” Jeremy pressed the blade against his
throat. “You stay there. If he comes back, we have to pretend like
everything’s the same. Daddy, you’re going to get us killed again.
If the woman comes, she’ll try to grab us.”

“What woman?” asked Mark.

“The melting one. She hates the children.
She wants to carry us away.

“Jeremy, nothing you’re saying makes any
sense. I don’t know what’s going on, but something is messing with
your head. There’s no Skeleton Man, there’s no woman that wants to
kidnap you. You’ve got to believe me, son. Please.”

“Dad, you don’t know what’s in the fog,”
said Jeremy. “We do.” He was crying as he held the razor to his
throat. “It’s better not to see.”

Jeremy pressed the razor into his skin. Mark
cried out in horror as his son sawed at his own throat. The boy
fell to the floor and the other children scrambled to get the
weapon, anxious to die next rather than face the coming shroud.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

3:14

March 12th, 2012

Stephen led them through Widowsfield, down
side streets and alleys, through yards and a park. It was a small
town, quaint but with everything a family would need to live happy.
There was a grocery store, now blackened within as if it had
suffered a fire; a plumber’s shop, with windows still intact but a
sign that dangled from a single rusted loop; a flower store, with
weeds around the foundation and vines creeping up the façade; and
they saw a fire station, with a fire truck still parked in the
garage as if no one was interested in salvaging any equipment at
all from the town. If all humans were to disappear from the planet,
Widowsfield is what the world would look like a decade later.

“This makes no sense,” said Paul as he held
Alma’s hand. “Why would they just leave everything here? You can’t
tell me there isn’t a fire station around here somewhere that
could’ve used that truck.”

“No, this isn’t how it was when I came back
the first time,” said Alma. “The buildings were boarded up then. It
wasn’t like this.” They spoke in hushed tones, afraid to alert
anyone to their presence.

“It’s almost like they tried to get the town
going again at some point,” said Jacker. He’d been eavesdropping
and snuck up behind them with Aubrey to talk about what they were
seeing.

Stephen cut around the side of the fire
station and motioned for them to follow. He had two bags strapped
to his back, filled with equipment that he’d gathered from the van.
Paul and Jacker were similarly loaded, but the girls were only
asked to carry the clothes and a few light bags.

“Does he know where he’s going?” asked Alma
about Stephen.

“Yeah,” said Jacker. “He’s been studying
maps of Widowsfield. He talked about it in the van on the way here.
I think he wants to check out Main Street first, and then head out
to the elementary school that your cabin was near.”

“He’s going to get us busted,” said
Aubrey.

“Do you remember it always looking like
this?” asked Alma. “When you came here with your friends the last
time, were all the buildings boarded up or were they like
this?”

“Like this,” said Aubrey. “I think the
company that bought the land did it.”

“That’s fucked up,” said Paul. “This place
gives me the creeps.”

“Welcome to the club,” said Alma.

Stephen led them behind the station and then
stopped and retreated a few steps as he waited for the others to
catch up. “This is Main Street,” he said when they gathered around
him.

“You sure this is a good idea?” asked
Rachel.

“No,” said Stephen, although he had a giddy
demeanor that unsettled Alma. “Jacker, can you give me the green
bag? There’s a camera in there. I want to get some shots of Main
Street.”

“Why?” asked Alma. “What’s so important
about this spot?”

“Well, the rumor is that the emergency
services in the area had a new computer system installed that
recorded all of the conversations that happened in their station
here. That’s the station over there.” He pointed across the street
to a plain, brick building. A bank shared a parking lot with the
emergency services building, and there was a digital clock on the
sign near the road, but it didn’t display any numbers now.

“So, what?” asked Paul. “Are you planning on
breaking in there or something?”

Stephen looked confused by the question.
“No, of course not. I just want to get some shots of it for the
story. The central commans was outside of town, that’s how people
found out about the tapes.”

“What tapes?” asked Jacker.

“The recordings of the calls that came into
the center. Aren’t you guys paying attention? They recorded
everyone’s 911 calls, and apparently they had some fucked up stuff
on them.”

“How do you know?” asked Paul. “Did you hear
them?”

“No, the tapes all mysteriously
disappeared,” said Stephen as if he didn’t believe the tapes
vanished at all, but were acquired as part of a conspiracy to hide
the truth. “Just like everyone in town.”

“I hate this place,” said Rachel. She
crossed her arms as if cold even in the midday sun.

“Come on,” said Stephen. “Don’t wuss out on
me now.” He got his Canon digital video camera and started to get
it ready to record. It wasn’t the type of camera you’d see a
tourist use, and was like a miniature version of something you
might see on a movie set. It had a handle on the top that Alma
assumed was to help it act as a steady cam and Stephen quickly got
the machine up and running. Alma had forgotten that this used to be
his profession, before he took on the mantle of a ghost hunter.

“Shit,” said Stephen after a few minutes of
filming.

“What is it?” asked Rachel.

Stephen closed up his camera and pointed
back toward the fire station. “Go, go, go.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Rachel as they all
rushed away from Main Street.

“Security truck coming this way,” said
Stephen.

They ran around the back of the used book
store that they were beside and listened as the truck passed. It
moved fast, and Alma saw the alley brighten with yellow, flashing
light as the truck drove by.

“Okay,” said Rachel. “We need to get
somewhere safe. It’s bad enough that we’re here, but now we’re
sitting out here in the open, just waiting to get caught.”

“I think you’re right,” said Jacker. “That
truck was booking, man. They’re looking for someone.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said
Stephen. “We don’t know what’s going on.”

“Damn it, Stephen,” said Rachel. “We’re
going to the cabin now. Alma, can you lead us there?”

“I think so,” said Alma. “If you can get me
to the elementary school, I think I can get us to the cabin. I
remember the kids walking home from school. We watched them from
the cabin.”

“All right,” said Stephen. “It’s not far
from here.”

They went back to the field beside the fire
station and Stephen led them past a small pond and through a
children’s park. He pointed up the hill to a building in the
distance. “That’s it.”

“Are there people in there?” asked
Aubrey.

Stephen squinted to try and see what the
blonde bartender was apparently able to discern. He took his camera
back out and used the zoom feature on it to get a better look.

“Fuck me,” said Stephen. “She’s right.”

Everyone knelt lower in fear of being
seen.

“What should we do?” asked Rachel.

Stephen continued to study the people in the
school. “They’re not moving. I can’t see them real well; they’re
just shadows in the windows, but Aubrey’s right. There’re
definitely people in there.”

“And they’re not moving?” asked Alma.

“No,” said Stephen.

Alma looked at the camera’s screen and saw
the silhouettes that Aubrey had spotted. “That can’t be people.
They’re just standing there.”

“Well, let’s not take a chance,” said
Rachel. “Let’s go around the school and try to make it through the
woods back there.” She pointed to the wooded area that sat beside a
soccer field. There was another building that looked like a school
as well on the other side of the field.

They followed Stephen to the woods where
they took a short break. Rachel took her shoes off and complained
about not being told there would be hiking involved in this trip.
Paul was silent, and barely spoke even as Alma wrapped her arms
around his waist. She was thankful for the chance to stop walking
for a bit. The cut on her foot was still bothering her from two
nights ago. Jacker and Aubrey were investigating the area together
while Stephen toyed with his camera.

“Holy shit,” said Stephen. He was sitting on
a stump with his camera in his lap. “Guys, guys, you need to see
this.”

“What’s up?”

He flipped the viewer on the camera shut and
looked up at Rachel, Alma, and Paul with wide, excited eyes.
“You’re not going to believe this shit. I can’t even believe it
myself. This is nuts.”

“What?” asked Rachel.

“You guys ever hear of orbs before?”

“Yes,” said Rachel.

“I know you’ve heard of them,” said Stephen.
“I was asking them.” He pointed at Alma and Paul.

“No,” said Paul.

“Orbs are something that appear on camera
when ghosts are around. They’re little balls of light that zip
around that some people think are actually entities.”

“And sane people think they’re just little
bits of dust that the camera is picking up,” said Rachel, ever the
skeptic.

“Oh yeah,” said Stephen as he opened his
camera back up. “Look at this and tell me what you think.”

They crowded around him to look at the
viewfinder. At first, Alma thought there was a reflection on the
screen, but then she saw the mass of light shifting, revealing
thousands of tiny globes of light spinning in circles.

“Holy shit,” said Paul as he backed away.
“I’m starting to fucking hate this place, man.”

“Wow,” said Rachel as she leaned in closer.
“You swear to God you didn’t mess with this somehow? This is
real?”

“I didn’t do shit,” said Stephen. “I swear!
You guys were with me. This is the first time I’ve looked at it.”
He started to take the camera away to look at it himself, but Alma
stopped him.

“Look in the background,” she said and
pointed at the screen.

“What?” asked Paul as he returned to see
what Alma had pointed out.

“There’s a man back there, by the building
you were filming. And there’s a time on the clock in front of that
bank. I know there weren’t any numbers displayed on there when you
were filming.”

“Where?” asked Stephen. “I don’t see
anything. All I see are these balls of light.”

“Rewind the tape,” said Alma. “There’s a
moment where the lights disperse a little and you can see through
them to the building. There, there, stop,” she said as Stephen
rewound the recording. He played it in slow motion until Alma said,
“Stop!”

A dark shape stood beside the door, a shade
instead of a man, but clear enough to distinguish a head, body, and
long, thin arms. The brick sign in front of the bank had a time on
it that was reflected in the window beside the shadowy figure.

The time was 3:14.

Rachel yelped when she saw him and backed
away with her hands over her mouth. “I want to go home.” Her voice
trembled. “Stephen, I want to go home. I don’t want to stay
here.”

“Are you insane?” asked Stephen. He was
overjoyed by the discovery of the spirit he’d recorded. “This is
the greatest fucking thing that’s ever happened to us.” He couldn’t
stop smiling, even as Rachel was near tears. “You’re out of your
mind if you think I’m leaving now.”

“You’re going to get us killed,” said
Rachel. “We’re getting into evil shit here, Stephen. Don’t drag us
into this.”

He looked bewildered at his wife and then at
Paul and Alma. “Are you nuts? This is one of the biggest
discoveries ever.”

“Yeah, and it’s a discovery that some people
are really serious about keeping secret,” said Rachel. “Stephen, we
need to get out of here. That’s not normal. What you just showed us
isn’t fucking natural.”

“God damn it, Rachel, I know that. That’s
the whole damn reason we’re here. You’re not going to back out of
this now. No fucking way.”

“Maybe she’s right,” said Paul. “This is
more than we bargained for, man. I don’t know what it is you caught
on tape, but it was staring right at us. What the fuck was that,
man?”

“I’m not leaving,” said Alma. Her bravado
shocked even herself, but she’d never been more certain of anything
in her life. “I can’t go, Paul. I understand if you want to run,
but I’m not running anymore. Something happened here that ruined my
life, and I’m going to find out what it was.”

“Alma.” Paul was going to try and reason
with her, but Alma stopped him before he could get started.

“No, Paul. No. I’m not leaving. Not
now.”

“You two are insane,” said Rachel. “You can
go by yourselves. I’m done. How stupid would I have to be to stay
here overnight after seeing that.” She pointed at the camera. “Fuck
that.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Jacker as he returned
with Aubrey.

The young girl’s lipstick was smudged and
Jacker was rubbing his lips clean.

“Stephen just caught a ghost on camera,”
said Paul.

“No shit?” asked Jacker. “Let me check it
out.”

“Hold on,” said Stephen. He pointed out
towards the fire station that they had been near moments earlier.
“I just saw the security truck headed that way.”

Alma looked back to see if she could see the
truck. “I don’t see it.”

Stephen packed up his camera quickly. “I saw
it headed over there, and there was more than one. This is our
chance to head out to the cabin. Come on.”