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Once the sunlight goes to bed, that's when darkness wakes the dead.
When a series of grisly deaths devastate 19th-century New England, sixteen-year-old farm girl Faith must outsmart the Undead to ke...
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As the wind presses against me, I pull my overcoat closer and cross the frozen pasture. It's the kind of blistering cold that gets inside you; under your clothes, behind your skin, until it works its way into your bones.
Snow blankets the pine trees ahead, making them bend in ways they shouldn't, their branches like bony fingers reaching toward the earth. Once I'm inside the forest, evergreens block the wind, the gray haze of afternoon slanting through their spindly needles. I move forward, stepping over fallen logs and tangled roots, slick with ice and moss.
It's been months since I've traveled this route, and even longer since I've snooped around the old mansion. I'm curious what the property looks like covered in a silvery cloak of frost.
Papa said the Fournier house used to be beautiful. Perched on a rocky ledge overlooking South Harbor and the waves of the Atlantic below. A cobblestone path winding toward a covered porch, the exterior fashioned in polished rock. There's even a statue in front but I've never understood what it's supposed to be. Salt from the sea has eroded its detail, leaving behind a clump of dulled stone.
My stomach squirms as I trek uphill, each footfall a whisper to turn back. It doesn't take long before the estate looms in the clearing, like a fairy-tale dragon from another world. The corroding walls like overlapping scales, the entryway a mighty jaw waiting to clamp down on its victims. The image sends an uneasy jolt down my spine.
Kids in town say the ghost of Carlton Fournier haunts the property, his spirit returning after he died in the war. When we were younger, we'd scare each other with spooky stories and then poke around the outside of the house, daring each other to peek into the windows. Searching for spectral mists or disembodied moans of the dead. We never did find anything, but it always felt like someone was there, creeping around the fringe, beyond my field of vision. Watching. Waiting...
Puffs of air rush from my mouth as I reach the edge of the woods, my legs fatigued after traveling through the uneven terrain. As I duck beneath an archway of prickly twigs and dormant vines, a massive cloud of black steam billows up from the mansion's chimney. It circles the stone tower then separates, fanning out against the sky.
Except it's not smoke. It's...solid.
Before I'm able to make out any details, inhuman screeches ricochet off the low-hanging clouds, like hundreds of doors opening against rusty hinges. The thick mass dodges through the air like a swarm of angry bees.
Bats.
My eyes follow the winged goblins as they change direction at the same moment as if sharing identical thoughts. They don't usually come out in the winter, or even daytime for that matter. Something must have spooked them.
A prick of unease cuts through me.
Years ago, I reached inside the tangled leaves of our grape arbor for a piece of plump fruit, but my fingers curled around a long-eared creature instead. When our eyes locked, it let out a horrific scream. I stumbled and fell back as it swooped over the top of me, its body brushing against my head before disappearing into the rafters of our barn.
