Middle of the Night

by Riley Sager

He is in a tent. In his own backyard.

Completely alone. But when he went to sleep the night before, there had been someone else with him. Someone now gone.

Moving from house to house, searching for another child to snatch.

By the time it fades, I know I’m mistaken. Such a scenario is impossible. It can’t be Billy. He’s been gone for thirty years.

A one-man neighborhood watch.

Not a cliché was what I told her as we walked back to campus—that the summer I was ten, my best friend was taken from a tent in my backyard and never seen or heard from again.

Accurate, yes, but only scratching the surface. I know, for instance, that the black T-shirt had a small white stain on the chest, the shorts were made by Umbro, and the sneakers had come off an hour

Bro r u gay

Unspoken but abundantly clear is that the neighborhood was to blame. Especially my parents. And especially me.

I open the page I wrote on earlier. Had The Dream again. Beneath it, I add, Billy is NOT out there.

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.

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

There, resting in his cupped palm, is a baseball.

“I dunno. I wanted it to be, like, a secret message. Whenever you find the ball in your yard, it means you need to come over and find me.

in. He’d feel completely alone if it weren’t for Ethan,

Not much of an age difference now, but completely out of my league when I was ten and, despite my present-day denial, hopelessly in love with Ashley Wallace.

Ashley was genuinely kind. Any boy my age couldn’t help but fall in love with her a little.

Why did Fritz Van de Veer mention my mother but not my father?

she reaches the front door of her house and notices that one neighbor remains outside. Someone who hadn’t been there earlier. Fritz Van de Veer.

“This is Ethan Marsh, honey. I used to be his babysitter. A long, long time ago.”

“Dad,” Ashley says, her voice low with concern. “Billy wasn’t outside last night.” “He was so. I saw him running through the backyard.”

“Billy hasn’t been around in decades, Dad,” she says. “You know that.” “And I know what I saw, dammit.”

That the impossible has indeed happened. Billy’s back.

“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.”

Billy is dead.

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

“I get why you’re not as impacted by what happened as I am,” I say. “But I assumed you at least thought about him from time to time.”

He’ll mourn Billy to a point. As much as any neighbor would. But he won’t let it consume his life. Just like I shouldn’t.

“Ethan, don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!”

“Two, I know because the stranger in camouflage was me.”

“I don’t think my husband would approve.”

Because of all the people on Hemlock Circle, I knew what it was like to lose a best friend.”

The chanting. The robes. The blood.

Maybe Billy wasn’t the intended target. Maybe I was.

“Mr. Van de Veer?” he says, stunned. “What are you doing here?” “Please, son,” Mr. Van de Veer says. “Call me Fritz.”

If you like ghosts so much, why don’t you just die and become one?”

“It was you,” I say. “It was all you.”

“I’m okay, Jen,” Russ says, keeping his gaze fixed on me. “Ethan’s just confused.”

As the car gets closer, Billy steps into the road, his eyes focused only on his destination, and how when he reaches it, he’ll be accepted at last.