Page 60 of Waysider
She was still straining to see anything when a figure stepped out of it.
Cass must’ve made a sound, because she sensed every head in the room swivel toward her. She dared to take her eyes off the revenant, wondering why none of them were saying anything. But… they were still looking at her, and not the dead woman coming toward them. Even Camila was frowning in confusion.
Cass started backing away. Her voice was hushed, as if speaking too loudly would make the revenant startle like a wild animal. “Don’t… don’t you see her?”
“What do you see, Cass?” Sinister asked, his voice steady. She felt his warmth beside her.
But Cass couldn’t take her eyes off the revenant now. It was still shuffling across the room, coming closer, closer. She’d been young when she died, only thirty, if Cass had to guess. She had dark hair, cut into a bob, and she wore a lace-edged nightie that had been pink, once. Now the silk was covered in dark stains. There was a small pile of brain matter on the woman’s shoulder, and it looked like part of her skull had been smashed, or blown all to hell.
Cass was about to answer Sinister—or try to, anyway—when the revenant stretched her arm out to the figure standing closest.
“Chad, watch out!” Cass cried.
The guy moved fast, she’d give him that. Without pausing to question or doubt her, Chad recoiled, retreating so quickly that his sneakers twisted on the rug and he nearly fell. He put himself behind the wall of voyants, shouting something, but Cass wasn’t paying attention. She wasn’t paying attention to anything other than the thing in front of her.
At the sound of Cass’s warning, the revenant’s gaze swung toward her, and their eyes met. The dead woman’s eyes were a pale, pale blue, and there was no sorrow or humanity in them—only a sharp, manic light. Before Cass could react, the revenant’s jaw unhinged, and she let out the most chilling sound Cass had ever heard. She clapped her hands over her ears and screamed. Someone said her name, but Cass was finally moving, instinctively backing away. Her back collided with something hard and warm.
She was about to run when the revenant’s body gave a violent twist, and her limbs began to stretch like pulled taffy. Cass heard a horrible crunching sound, as if the woman’s bones were breaking. Her head snapped at unnatural angles and her eyeballs popped out of their sockets. Black liquid poured out of the gaping holes.
Within seconds, the woman in the nightgown was gone, and a creature straight out of a nightmare had formed. It moved like a spider, even had legs like one, but spiders weren’t covered in tar. It dripped off the revenant, great blobs of it that made Cass dimly think of drool. She watched as the thing pushed itself into a standing position, and its eyes zeroed in on her again.
“Oh, fuck,” Cass heard someone say. Guess they could see it now, she thought dimly, terror roaring in her ears.
Before she could even move, the monster launched at her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He’d lied to Cass. Again.
Cal wasn’t sure why, exactly. He hadn’t lied before, when he was alive. He hadn’t needed to. He got decent grades, he always wore a condom, and he was home by curfew every Friday and Saturday night. There was nothing to hide.
But earlier, when Cass asked what he’d be doing while she was at the Haunting, Cal told her he’d probably just watch TV with Justin. He didn’t even consider telling her the truth, not for a second. Maybe he was just avoiding the look Cass got whenever he mentioned anything about that night. Like he’d brought her right back there, and their world was shattering all over again. All Cal knew for certain was that he didn’t want to tell his sister about what he was doing with Laura, and he didn’t plan to anytime soon.
He also hadn’t told her about Teddy Crane. Cal had recognized the diner guy immediately, that day they’d almost passed each other on the sidewalk. Cass was paranoid enough as it was, and Cal couldn’t spend another second in her tiny bedroom. If she found out one of her classmates could see him, Cal would never hear the end of it.
As he walked to the bus stop, he decided he didn’t want to think about his sister or his guilt. Tonight, Cal had bigger things to focus on.
Laura had agreed to help him find the boy on the bridge.
They’d made a plan before Cal left. The first step was finding out if the boy was even alive. It didn’t matter either way, since apparently Laura could find anything with a soul. But she’d claimed it would help her search. At first, she had been insistent that she needed something that belonged to the guy. Impossible, Cal insisted back, over and over. They didn’t know who he was, much less where he lived.
So they’d moved on to Plan B, which was using the only connection they had to the nameless boy, in hopes of finding him in the spirit world—Cal.
“I don’t know if it will work,” Laura had warned him.
“Do you have any better ideas?” Cal countered.
She didn’t.
Cal would’ve started right then and there, but Laura told him to come back on the full moon. Then she’d opened the door to make her point. Cal’s brows rose as he walked toward her. “The full moon? Seriously?”
“Some of the clichés are actually true,” Laura said with a small, fleeting smile.
That smile had made Cal’s steps slow. Later, he’d worry that he openly stared at her. But he couldn’t help it; he’d been caught off guard.
Laura Stag had a fucking gorgeous smile.
Cal reminded himself that her smile didn’t matter. He couldn’t exactly take her on a date, and she loathed him, anyway. He left and tried not to think about her again.
