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Chapter Twelve
Richard’s house wasn’t far from the Johanssons’. We pulled
into the driveway of the white ranch style home in about ten minutes.
I’d relayed the story to Ethan, who, as expected, had a lot of “What
the hell?” and “No f’ing way!” responses. When we got out of the
car, he immediately started inspecting Tucker just as I had done.
“I’m fine,” Tucker insisted. He was definitely returning to
normal; the glaze in his eyes had disappeared and his voice sounded
the same as it usually did.
Daisy opened the front door as we climbed onto their
wraparound porch. “Hi, guys. I just got back from training.” When
she saw the expressions on our faces, she immediately demanded,
“Is everything okay?”
“We think so,” I answered wearily. Even once the house had
disappeared from view, the images of the walkie-talkie bursting into
flames, the closet door nearly slamming closed on Tucker’s head,
and the invisible force hurling his body against the wall, were still
playing over and over on my brain’s film reel. Add in the sound of
the eerie laughter on loop and there was pretty much a horror movie
going on in my mind.
The couple led us into their family room, which was barely
big enough to hold all of us. Adrian, Ethan, and I sat down on the
white couch, and I pulled Tucker onto it with us. Richard and Daisy
sat down in the matching loveseat.
In a matter of minutes, I had explained everything that
happened in Timmy’s room. As predicted, everyone wanted to see
for themselves, so they plugged the video camera into Richard’s
laptop. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch it all happen again, so I
watched Tucker’s reaction to it instead. There was a barely
noticeable smile tugging the very corners of his mouth upward. In
spite of having been thrown into a wall, he was still enjoying this.
Was the evidence of a spirit more important than his own safety?
Once the footage had finished, the silence that fell over us
was worse than anything they could have said. I wasn’t sure I wanted
to know what they were thinking.
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