Middle of the Night

by Riley Sager

In truth, the day Billy vanished had been anything but ordinary. And I knew something was off the moment I woke up.

Ethan can only remember one other time when his dog growled—at Fritz Van de Veer during the Fourth of July picnic, for reasons no one could understand.

the Hawthorne Institute, which Ethan knows nothing about beyond the fact that it exists and that he’s not allowed to go there.

Unlike other kids his age, he doesn’t find the forbidden tantalizing.

“Yesterday morning, human remains were found in the area.” Ragesh pauses and the whole room tilts. “A boy. Probably around ten years old. They’re still checking dental records, but I’m pretty sure we found him, Ethan. We found Billy Barringer.”

“Where was he found?” “The base of the falls at the Hawthorne Institute,”

That the world was filled with entities who were here but invisible, present but ignored.

“When someone shows a book this much love, they deserve a copy just for them.”

Rather than delay it—worrying and fretting and ultimately losing the doll before she was prepared to say goodbye—Mary Ellen decided it was best to take matters into her own hands.

When it was over, Mary Ellen gave Stacy a kiss on her delicate cheek and smashed her porcelain head in. After that, she worried no more.

“I know what happened to Claudia, Ethan,” she says. “I know she died.”