Sara (27 page)

I stared at it. It was Sara. My hand started shaking. “So, when Zack and Noah and Randy started causing trouble for him…he created Sara to take care of them?”
It can't be true, it can't be true
kept running through my mind.
Not Glenn. He can't be responsible for this, he just can't.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Someone spray-painted
faggot
on his locker—he was pretty sure it was Noah and Zack, maybe Randy,” I replied. My head was spinning.
Glenn is a powerful witch, but he doesn't know he has powers, his mind created Sara to be a kind of enforcer, to avenge Glenn by hurting the people who treated him badly.
“He and Zack got into a fight the day Zack killed himself.” I bit my lip and said out loud what I didn't want to think. “Mr. Lockhart, the police said there was nothing wrong with Glenn's brakes when we had the wreck. Are you saying that he tried to kill me?”

He closed his eyes. “I didn't want to believe it. I know he loves you like a brother.”

He used to love Randy Froelich like a brother, too
, I thought sadly. I heard her horrible laugh over the sound of the truck's brakes again.
Why, Glenn? Why did you want me to die? What did I do?

“Why did you tell me all of this?” I closed my eyes. My mind and body felt numb, like I was going into shock or something.

He smiled, a tired smile. “I wanted to see if I was right.” He stood up. “And now that I know I'm right, I know what I have to do.” He walked over to the door.

I sat there silently for a while, my mind racing. This could not be true. It couldn't be. It was crazy.

Was it any crazier than anything that had happened so far?

It was no crazier than what the girls and I had been theorizing earlier.

Then I remembered that Candy had gone to the Sterlings'.

She was in danger.

“Mr. Lockhart, you need to take me somewhere.” I said, my voice shaking. I reached for my crutches and swung my legs around. I pulled off the hospital gown.

He paused at the door. “Where? Is it okay for you to leave?”

I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and eased them over my legs. “Can you hand me that sweatshirt, please?” When he handed it to me, I pulled it over my head, relieved when my ribs protested only slightly. I lifted myself carefully onto my crutches. “My girlfriend went over to the Sterlings' to talk to them about Sara. She's staying with them, she's supposedly their niece.” My voice sounded thick and my head spun as I hoisted myself up onto the crutches.

Candy had no idea what she was walking into. I was supposed to be released the next day anyway. I picked up my cell phone and called her. It went straight to voice mail. I tried Laney next—and it went to voice mail also.

“We have to get over there, Mr. Lockhart. Something—something bad's going to happen. I can feel it.”

“All right.” He opened the door so I could hobble through on my crutches.

Panic rose up in me as we headed for the elevator.
Stay calm, stay calm, everything's going to be fine. We just have to get over there as quickly as we can. I know we can make it in time to save the girls.

And maybe, just maybe, I could save Glenn as well.

The twenty minutes it usually took to drive from Kahola to Carterville seemed to take an eternity.

Impatient and nervous, Laney was afraid to speed. She couldn't forget Noah had rolled his truck and been killed. Tony was in the hospital because of a car accident. She'd always been a good driver—obeying the rules of the road, never speeding—but she was being especially cautious. The road was empty once she got off the highway and turned onto the Carterville road, but she kept looking in the mirrors anyway. She kept the speedometer steady at fifty-five miles per hour. Her palms were sweating, and she was gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. Her heart was pounding so hard it seemed like it might jump out of her chest. Her headlights cut through the darkness, and her eyes kept moving from side to side. Her left foot rested on the brake pedal, in case she needed to stop suddenly.

She breathed out a sigh of relief she saw the
Speed Zone Ahead
sign, which meant she was getting closer to town. She went over the last small hill and saw the houses lined up with lights showing in the windows. She slowed down to twenty-five as she passed the
Welcome to Carterville
sign. She made her way through the streets until she reached the one that led out into the countryside, where the Sterlings lived just outside the town limits.

She braked to a stop and pulled over to the side of the road opposite the dark Sterling place. She dialed Candy's number one more time. Once again, it didn't ring—just went right to voice mail.
Hi, this is Candy and I can't take your call right now. Please leave a message and I'll get right back to you!

She thought about calling Tony but decided against it. “You're procrastinating,” she scolded herself, “because you don't want to go out there.”

Maybe it was just my imagination, a bad dream of some kind.

Yeah, this time it was a bad dream? You know damned well Candy's in trouble, Sara has her, and you have got to save her. Tony can't do anything from a hospital bed. It's up to you.

She took a deep breath and opened her car door.

The wind almost knocked her off her feet, her hair flying in several different directions at the same time. The wind was cold, and she gritted her teeth as she crossed the road.

“Please let me be in time,” Laney said to herself as she reached the foot of the Sterling driveway. The house was completely dark and silent. Something about the house didn't feel right to her. She walked up the driveway, her feet crunching on the gravel. The corn rustled to her right and she swallowed, ignoring the growing sense of terror. “I never should have watched those stupid
Children of the Corn
movies,” she chided herself as she reached the carport at the top of the drive.

The house remained silent and dark.

“Candy?” she called out softly. “Are you here? It's Laney.”

There was no answer—not that she expected there to be one. She muttered a brief prayer under her breath and started walking around the side of the house. There wasn't a path; she had to walk through the grass. It was very dark, so dark she could barely see. She pulled out her phone and touched the screen. When it emitted a faint glow, she found the flashlight app, which wasn't as strong as the real thing but provided some illumination. She held the phone in front of her and walked around to the back of the house.

The backyard was maybe twenty yards across before ending in the cornfield. But the corn wasn't very deep—maybe three or four rows, tops. And she could see an open field back behind it.

She heard something and froze in place. Goose bumps rose on her arms and the wind made a weird whistling noise as it picked up.

“Candy?” The word came out as a weird croak, and she took another deep breath. The wind blew hair into her face, and she pushed it aside.

“Laney?”

Her knees almost buckled with relief. Candy's voice was coming from behind the rows of corn. She ran across the yard to the first row of corn.

“Where are you?” she shouted as loudly as she dared. She strained to hear over the wind rustling the corn.

“Go home. Laney! It's too dangerous!” came the response. “Get away while you can!”

As she pushed her way through the stalks, a dog started baying somewhere nearby. The sound curdled her blood, and she stopped for a moment.
It's just a dog, nothing to worry about
, she reminded herself and stepped through the last row of corn into the empty field.

The wind was even stronger out here in the open, and it almost knocked her off her feet. She put her head down and took a tentative step forward. The bare ground was hard under her feet. “Candy?” she called out tentatively. Movement ahead and to the right caught her eye—someone was moving out near a stack of hay bales. She headed in that direction, and as she drew nearer to the bales the wind inexplicably died down. “Candy?” she called out again in a louder voice. “Where are you?”

A figure crept around the bales and into the dim light of her phone.

“Laney?” Candy asked. “Is that really you? What are you doing here?” She brushed hair out of her face.

“I was worried about you.” Laney stepped closer to her. “I had the most horrible dream, that Sara was killing you. I'm so glad to see you're okay.” She gestured back over her shoulder toward the house. “Where are the Sterlings? What are you doing out here in the field?”

“You need to get out of here—it's dangerous here.” Candy grabbed her arms. “Your dream was right—she
was
trying to kill me, but I managed to get away from her—I was hiding out here, waiting for my chance to get away.” She looked around. “I don't see her anywhere, do you? Maybe your being here chased her off.”

Laney tilted her head to one side. Something—something didn't seem right. She took a small backwards step. “Candy, is everything okay? Are you sure you're all right?”

“I'm fine.” She looked around again. “Now, come on—you need to get out of here. Before she comes back. It's not safe here for you here.”

Laney stared at her in shock. “If it's not safe for me, it's not safe for you. You said she's already tried to kill you. Come on, let's get out of here. I'm not leaving here without you. Tony would never forgive me if something happened to you.” She grabbed Candy's arm, but Candy shook her off.

“I can handle her,” Candy insisted. “Now, you need to get out of here. Go!” She pushed Laney a bit, and Laney took another step back.

Something is definitely wrong here.

“You think you can handle her?” Laney stared at her, taking another backwards step. “That's crazy, Candy, and you know it.”
Turn and run, get the hell out of here, something's really wrong, Candy is not acting like herself, why would she want me to get out of here but want to stay herself?

“She hates you a lot more than she hates me,” Candy replied, smiling. “I never did anything to Glenn. That's what she's doing, you know.” She took a step forward. “She's punishing them all, everyone who ever hurt him, was mean to him, did anything to cause him pain. You think she wants to kill me? You have no idea how much she hates
you
.” Candy took another step forward. “You hurt him more than anyone else. The way you just kept him on a string last year, playing him? Does she love him, does she not?”

Run!
Every instinct in Laney's body was screaming at her to get out of there, to turn and run, to get in her car and not stop until she was as far away as she possibly could get, that she was in danger.

But somehow she couldn't. She couldn't turn, she couldn't take her eyes off Candy as she took another step forward, still talking.

“He was gay, he always was, but he still cared about you a great deal.” Candy's eyes were locked on hers, and Laney tried but couldn't look away. “And you made him the laughingstock of Southern Heights High School, didn't you? You always said you cared about him, didn't you? But where were you last summer when he needed you? When he came out and everyone was calling him names,
where the hell were you?
”

“You—you're not Candy.” Laney finally managed to get the words out. Her mind was racing. Everything Candy had just said, was it true? That's what Glenn thought about her?

“So, you're not as stupid as you seem.” Candy threw her head back and laughed.

It took all of Laney's self-control not to scream in horror.

She—she
wasn't
Candy.

Candy or whoever or whatever she was grabbed Laney's arm. Laney tried to pull away but Candy was too strong. “Now you start to understand.” Candy's mouth opened in a broad smile, and to her horror Laney saw that Candy's teeth weren't normal—they were sharp, like a wolf's.

“Of course I'm not Candy.” Laney choked off a scream as the red hair began to grow longer and her face started to move and shift, like the skin was made out of plastic. It bubbled and boiled, the bones changing shape right before her very eyes. The red hair drained of color, getting lighter until finally it was the silver-blond she knew so well. The skin and bones in her face stopped shifting.

Laney pulled her arm free and screamed.

“Now, when it's too late, at last you begin to understand what I really am.”

Laney turned, and began running. She made it about three steps before she tripped on something in the dirt. She immediately sprang to her feet and started running again, heading for the rows of corn separating the field from the Sterlings' yard.

Behind her, she could hear the laughter, that evil sound that pierced to her soul.

Candy must be dead
,
oh my God, what is she? What kind of demon is she? And what does she have to do with Glenn? I have to get out of here, I have to get back to my car, I've got to get as far away from here as I can, she wants to KILL me, my God, my God…