LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Waking Up

The worst may still be waiting for you ...

As I'm standing in the Shermans' front yard with Grim, the porch light glowing up ahead of us, Loomis' words keep bouncing around inside my head.

Everything seems all weird now. It's kinda like when you get up in the middle of the night and you feel like you're the last person on Earth. You almost want to make a sound, just to hear something, anything. But you're scared that as soon as you do, everything'll shatter.

Grim pipes up when I don't say anything, "Come back sometime, okay, Dylan? To Belle Lake? Or we could bug Loomis some more on another night. Maybe Belle Lake ... I already said that, right?"

Staring out into the dark, I nod. Grim and me both know that he can't hang out in front of the house long. The last thing we need is for somebody to see us. But I kinda wish that someone would. I want someone to see. I want someone to understand what's really going on. Maybe that's why I had him warp me here and not just in the house somewhere.

Then I look over to Grim and say, "You could come by here sometime. Just don't let Diane and Tim see you."

He's grinning and nodding so hard that I'm getting worried that his head's gonna pop off.

I don't know if those Stone Hounds will be too awful quick to tell the Stone Men about me and Grim, since we got away from them. But I don't want to risk it.

So I say, "You better wait about a week before you come around here again. Just to be safe, okay?"

"Sure," he says. Then he adds, "I really should go now, though."

"Yeah."

Then he fades away to Belle Lake, and I wish like hell that I was going with him. But neither one of us wants the Stone Men and their hounds to come plowing through Belle Lake looking for me.

Sighing, I climb the porch steps and get ready to go inside. When I reach for the door handle, I notice a piece of paper stuck to the door. It's one of those Lot's Mountain pamphlets that the guy had this morning. There's an address on it. Damn, that's just at the end of the street.

They're letting me know they're here, that they're watching me. Jesus, the Glass Man has already had his cronies walk up to me on the street. Now, they're knocking on our door. Where was Stone?

I know what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to show this to Tim and Diane so that the Stone Men will handle it. That's how the Shermans want it. That's how the Stone Men want it, too.

Then I look down at my wrist. Ever since the Old Bone Woman gave me this damn thing, I've been waiting for bad things to happen.

All I have to do is turn the doorknob and go into the house. Then I can go to sleep in my room. But have I ever really woken up in the first place? Is Loomis right that we're all like ghosts and are sleepwalking through things?

If nobody else is doing anything, who's to say that I can do a damn thing to help?

So I should go into the Shermans' place, right? But why can't I? Several of the lights are on, so the Shermans are still up. Diane's silhouette haunts the window as she ghosts by the closed shades. She's probably on her way to the kitchen to make brownies or a cake or something like that. Tim's probably staring at his computer, reading the news online.

In a way, I wish the hounds had ripped me up more tonight. Then I could burst in and bleed all over Tim and Diane's pristine house. I want their stupid white floor to get all messy. Yeah, Diane sweeps and mops all the time, chasing any little speck of dust, any little bit of imperfect, right off the white tile. She even gets down on her hands and knees with a toothbrush to blot out any streak from a boot or sneaker. I'm a jerk, I guess, but I want them to admit just how not-perfect things are.

I want Grim and Loomis to be okay.

Seeing those ghosts at Grief's Dawn has made something click in my head. I slip the bracelet off my wrist and toss it in the bushes. Screw it. I'm going to meet the Glass Man when I say it's time, not because some bracelet says it's time.

It's time to do more than sneak around.

Loomis used to just be a chunk of stone, and then one day he just woke up.

I'm going to wake up, too. Tonight.

For better or worse, it's time for what comesnext.