Phantom Traces by Jessica Hawke

Author:Jessica Hawke [Hawke, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mighty Fine Books, LLC
Published: 2018-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Saturday—3:01 a.m.—Fourteen Hours Missing

AS I WATCHED MICHAEL’S TAILLIGHTS recede and eventually disappear into the dark of night, I regretted telling him to leave. Kale might have been there for moral support, but he didn’t have heat.

My breath puffed in a plume of fog as I sighed and turned to him. “Guess it’s me and you.”

Kale smiled. “Then we’re both in good company. You better than me, of course.”

“Hey now.”

His grin made me feel warm and fluttery. “This way.”

Kale moved quickly toward the dense wall of trees at the edge of the small parking lot. A brown-painted wooden sign with blocky yellow letters read Hiking Trail. Wooden planks laid into the ground provided the first few steps up to the trail, but beyond that it was all nature.

A chill ran over my skin that wasn’t entirely from the winter weather, although it was miserably cold outside. This wasn’t the half-dark of city life, where there were streetlights and lit windows, and everything simply seemed muted by night. This was shades of black, where I could barely make out the sharp outlines of leaves and the tall, columnar silhouettes of the barren trees. My heart thumped as I stared into the darkness, hoping for a miraculous three-hour advance on daylight.

“You know, I really need to put a flashlight in this bag,” I told Kale.

“I’ll make a note,” he replied.

Instead, I took out my phone and switched it to airplane mode to preserve its battery. Michael wouldn’t be able to contact me out here even if he tried, so there was no point in wasting all the battery life searching for a signal. I turned on the phone flashlight and held it out in front of me, casting a pale blue glow on the damp asphalt in front of my feet.

“Technology really is amazing,” he said.

“So what did they have when you were alive?”

“Certainly not that.”

“So you were alive at one point?”

“What is it, really, to be alive?”

I groaned. “Why are you so sly?”

“Why are you so nosy?” he replied. “Come on.”

“Someday,” I said to myself. One of these days I was going to trick him into revealing more about himself. “Lead the way.”

He hurried ahead, drifting above the ground. Though he glowed faintly, he didn’t cast light on the ground beneath him. I tried to keep up with his pace, swinging my phone in wide arcs to illuminate the way ahead of me. A narrow path of damp earth and water-logged pine needles had been worn into the ground, curving gently between the trees as it rose slightly. The ground was wet, but it hadn’t yet been covered in snow. I pointed as much out to Kale.

“It’s still warmer here than in town,” he said. “That’s one thing in our favor.”

“It’s something. How far are they?”

“I’m really not sure. Distance doesn’t feel the same to me as it does to you.”

“Corey! Diana!” I called. My voice died out immediately, like it was swallowed up by the night. My heart thumped, blood roaring in my ears as I stood there, waiting for an answer.

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