Page 6 of The Midnight Order
“Hm?”
“What happened to my aunt, exactly?” I ask her.
Her eyes look haunted as she stares at me with rapt attention. “Hun, those are the questions you don’t want to be asking around here. Being that you’re an outsider and all.”
Her advice causes my insides to twist into a knot, and I swallow, even when my mouth is as dry as sandpaper.
“Have a good day, now! Come back and see me.” She smiles cheerfully, and I fight a shiver at the sight.
What the fuck is wrong with this town?
The Radio hutis on the corner of Main street, and I push inside with my coffee, perusing until an older gentleman finally comes out of the back and spots me.
“Anything I can help you with?” he asks.
This time, I spy his name tag straight away. The strangeness of this town and the mounting questions about what happened to my aunt have me on high alert.
“Well, yes, Ed. You can. I’m staying at the Dormund place, and I can’t get a signal on my cell phone at all,” I start.
He smirks. “You wouldn’t. Cell coverage doesn’t reach.”
I clear my throat, trying to be as kind as possible in this new place where I’m an outsider, living amongst people I don’t know or trust.
Funny, I never felt this unsteady in the city.
“I’m wondering how in the hell I’m going to make phone calls,” I finish.
His face is kind, and he doesn’t give off a creepy vibe like Karen, but there’s just something…
“You’ll need to hook a home phone to the line old lady Dormund had set up. I suspect it’ll still be active. Our phones here are attached to the electricity, and her electricity’s still running.”
That has my heart in overdrive.
How does he know I kept the electricity on?
I swallow, trying to keep my cool. “Yeah, it’s still on. I don’t know if she has a phone, though. I haven’t heard one ring.”
He laughs, bending over to slap his knee before straightening again. “Well, why would you? She’s dead. Who’d be calling her?”
My heart hasn’t stopped racing since I drove into this town, and every interaction I have feels so contrived that I don’t think it ever will.
He seems to notice my demeanor and clears his throat. “Sorry. That was insensitive of me. My wife would have my… Well, I’m sorry. We’ll leave it at that. What we can do is I’ll sell you a new phone. Most phones in Blackmoore are mounted in the living space, typically in the living room or kitchen. If youfind it, and it has a working phone attached, bring the new one back for a full refund.”
I plaster on my best fake smile as my latte sours on my stomach.
Ed rings me up for a red, corded house phone for the price of ten dollars and some change, the cheapest phone I’ve ever seen. Then I’m back in Tahoe, looking around with investigative eyes at the town.
People are walking every which way. Twinkly lights braid from one building to the next, and fall decorations litter light poles and storefronts. Everyone seems nice enough, normal, even, but there’s this underlying current I can’t help but focus on here.
I don’t know what it is or why I’m so homed in on it, but I can’t let it go.
Karen walks out of the coffee shop in front of my Tahoe, looking around before she hurries down the street and pushes inside the Radio Hut.
I back out of my spot, following down the street slowly to see if I can glimpse what she’s doing, but once I get in front of the electronics store, Ed is drawing the blinds closed, his shifty eyes giving away that he’s up to no good.
If it were just one interaction, that would be one thing.
Something is wrong in this town, and I know Dr. Greer told me not to fixate, but this might be my next obsession.
