PROLOGUE

A blurred form darted out from the forest, zeroing in on the woman sunbathing on the rocks.

It moved with blistering speed, kicking up dust whirlwinds and breaking the stillness of Ember Lake.

It swerved toward the young woman, whose eyes were still closed, absorbing the last rays of the sun before evening fell. The sound grew louder, stirring her. In a rush of power, it collided violently with her exposed leg.

Ava Mitchell lifted her sunglasses and saw the remote-controlled car that had hit her thigh. Her brother, Adam, walked over, holding the control and a beer, and said with a laugh, “I wanted to aim for your butt, but it’s so big it wouldn’t be a challenge.”

“Do you always have to be so annoying?”

“Pretty much.”

She pulled her sunglasses back on and said, “Where’s Sarah?”

“Asleep. I gave her some of your anxiety meds so she’d mellow out.”

“You can’t just give other people’s meds to your girlfriend. We don’t know how she’s going to react.”

He shrugged. “She’ll be fine. What’s with the ghost stuff?”

“She thinks our cabin is haunted.”

“That’s stupid.”

“She’s your girlfriend.”

He raised the beer to his lips. “Yeah, whatever.”

She sighed and rose. “I’m going to take a shower. You could make yourself useful and get started on dinner instead of playing video games and drinking my beer if, ya know, you wanted to.”

“Nah.”

Ava ruffled his hair on the way to the cabin, which sat inside the forest, only ten yards from the dock.

Entering the two-story cabin, she tossed her towel on a chair and shed her flip-flops. She sighed, regretting her decision to chaperone her freshman brother and his uninteresting girlfriend, Sarah. With no cell service, she was stuck with them.

Ava took the creaky staircase and passed the first bedroom, where Sarah lay on her side, her back to the door and the curtains drawn. Normally, Ava would have kept going, but something caught her attention: Sarah’s ragged breaths.

“Hey,” Ava said, “how many of my pills did he give you?”

The girl didn’t move.

Ava stood at the foot of the bed. “You okay?”

There was no movement.

Ava circled the bed and shook Sarah’s shoulder. No response. She rolled the girl over.

Blood pooled on the bed, sticky and crimson. The girl’s throat had been nearly ripped out, still pulsing a stream of hot blood onto the white sheets. As she attempted to speak, a fresh gush of blood spilled from the wound, silencing her.

Ava wasn’t fast enough to scream.

She felt a tingling warning at her neck. Her eyes darted to the room’s dark corner. A figure stood, hands at its sides. Even with the shadows, she knew it wasn’t her brother.

Ava bolted for the door. The figure lunged, missing her by inches. Her scream echoed off the walls.

Ava leapt down the stairs, tripped, and tumbled, hitting her shoulder and then her head. Wincing in pain, she looked up—no one followed. She scrambled to her feet, dashed past the living room, and burst through the front door, screaming into the warm air.

Sharp gravel bit into Ava’s feet, one stone even causing her to stumble. Ignoring the pain, she kept running.

“Adam!”

Adam was sipping beer, annoyed, until he saw Ava’s face. Then his eyes widened. “What happened?”

“She’s—”

A gurgling sound came from behind her. Ava turned to see Sarah, hand on her bleeding throat, eyes wide and wet, trying to run from the cabin toward the dock.

“Sarah?” Adam said in shock.

Adam tried to grab her, but she fell into him and he lost his grip. She plunged into the water with a loud splash.

“Sarah!” Adam shouted, dodging Ava’s grasp to dive in after the girl.

Ava looked back to the house. A shadow moved across a window.

“There’s somebody here!” she shouted.

Adam surfaced, holding Sarah, and struggled to backstroke to the dock.

Ava was about to jump in after him when she heard a door creak. She looked back; the cabin door was open.

“We need to go!”

“Help me get her out.”

Ava waded in to help Adam get Sarah to the dock. After Adam climbed up, he pulled Sarah out of the water. Her face was pale and her mouth moved, but no words came. Deep bruises surrounded her neck wounds.

“What happened?” he shouted.

“I don’t know. There’s someone in the cabin.”

Sarah’s eyes fluttered, and she became unresponsive.

Adam ripped off his shirt and wrapped it around her neck to slow the bleeding.

“Hold the shirt on her neck. I’ll go get the truck.”

“No, Adam, there’s someone here. We have to get help.”

“You wanna walk two miles carrying her like this?”

Ava didn’t say anything.

“Didn’t think so. I’m pulling the truck around to the dock. I’ll be right back.”

Her voice, laced with desperation, echoed behind him as he sprinted toward the cabin.

Ava held her brother’s shirt to the wound. Sarah’s lips had turned a deep purple. Blood had soaked her clothing and dripped with the water rolling off her. So much blood and she was still alive. Ava had never realized how much blood the human body contained.

Sarah’s eyes opened, but she was too weak to say or do anything.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the encroaching darkness began to shroud the woods around them.

“Hang on, okay? Just hang on.”

Ava looked up at the cabin.

“Adam, hurry up!”

There was no response, and it was almost dark. Ava wrapped the shirt a little tighter across the wound.

“I have to leave you, okay? I’m going to be right back. Just keep your hand here, just like this ... okay? I’ll be right back.”

Sarah was trying to speak, terror in her eyes, but no words would come out of her throat.

Ava ran to the cabin, the coming darkness making it impossible to avoid the sharp rocks, causing her own injuries to sting with every step.

The cabin was quiet.

“Adam?”

He didn’t respond. Only one light was on and it cast a soft glow, darkness puddling in corners she couldn’t see.

“Adam?” she said from the front door.

The truck was in the garage, which was through the kitchen, but there was a window around back. She hoped Adam had been smart enough to go that way instead of through the cabin.

Ava cautiously went around to the back of the cabin near the garage without going inside. She paused outside the garage’s single window, listening intently. A breeze rustled a nearby tree branch, creating an unsettling scraping sound against the wooden exterior.

“Adam, where are you?”

Ava noticed a shape on the ground a few yards past the corner of the garage. Silently, she edged closer. Adam lay motionless, face down in the dirt.

“Adam!”

She ran to him and rolled him over. What she saw was a horror show. His face was a mask of blood, his skin torn and shredded. His neck was a gaping wound. He tried to inhale, but no air could get in. Instead, a soft gurgling escaped his lips.

She heard footsteps in the dirt behind her as someone approached.

Without looking, Ava bolted deeper into the forest.

She sprinted through the thick underbrush, screaming for help, aware the nearest neighbor was two miles away. Her parents had bought this cabin for isolation.

A camping area wasn’t far and, especially during the summer months, was frequented by families. Ava could get there at a good pace during daylight, but at night, with fear and adrenaline pumping through her, maybe she could get there faster.

After being scraped by branches, sharp bushes, and thorny flowers, she got to a campsite with no cars or people around. She saw a few items of trash smoldering in a firepit. Panic was growing. She would have to run all the way to the first cabin to find someone, and if Sarah and Adam were both bleeding out right now, she didn’t know if she would make it in time.

“Hello!” she shouted. “Anyone here?”

Running to the next campsite, she spotted three tents circling a dying fire and a discarded ice cooler. The first tent was empty, just a shell in the dim light.

By the time she got to the last tent, she heard the branches crackling behind her as someone made their way toward the site.

She jumped into the tent, quickly zipped it up, and retreated to the corner. Without her cell phone, she had nothing to hold, so she wrapped her arms around her knees. Outside, footsteps approached, and she heard someone closing in. The footsteps paused in front of her tent.

She held her breath and prayed.