“Did they sting you?” I asked between chokeholds of air.

He shook his head violently, unable to speak.

I looked back at the cloud of smoke. It was spreading. The pot and bag were all burned up but now flames were jumping onto the boxes of straightjackets. That wasn’t exactly good.

“Uh,” I said, pointing at the new fire. When Dex was able to get enough air, he looked up, his face contorted and a scary shade of blue in the darkness.

Just then, the zombie rat came screaming out of the darkness toward us, on fire, with insects popping off its back and scattering on the concrete floor like wayward sparks.

I scampered to my feet, hoisted up Dex, and without thinking, I half ran, half dragged him toward the basement door. When we couldn’t go any further and my lungs burned, we stopped and watched. The rat had run straight into the wall beneath the windows and was lying on the ground twitching as its own fire died down. A terrible, sick smell, like someone was roasting bad meat, filled the air along with the smoke from the boxes, which were now totally on fire. The flames leaped out from around the corner and into the basement, illuminating the space around us.

I leaned against the door after trying to open it one last time. Dex was hunched over, leaning forward with one arm propping him up against the wall. He was spitting on the ground and trying to compose himself.

“What are the chances of this place going up in flames with us stuck down here?” I asked uneasily.

Before he could look at me and answer, a deafening ringing sound broke out, blasting through my eardrums. It was the fire alarm. One second later, we were being doused with water.

I looked up and through drops of icy water, saw a never-ending spray spewing from the ceiling. The sprinklers had gone off.

Dex suddenly sprang into action and ran over to the camera and EVP, which he had left against the wall where we had slept. He scooped them up and buried them deep beneath his singed jacket in order to protect them from the water.

I wiped my face and looked back at the corner of the room. The flames were dying quickly under the deluge.

Dex watched the light die, holding his stomach to prevent the equipment from falling out beneath his jacket. He looked like a drowned, pregnant rat.

“What are the chances of this place flooding while we are stuck down here?” I asked about our brand new predicament and for some reason, I started laughing.

Dex looked up at me sharply. I couldn’t help it. The situation, everything that had just happened, was so absolutely ludicrous.

He shook his head, droplets of water flying everywhere. Then, as if on cue, the sprinklers and the alarm stopped. We were left soaking wet. I was impossibly cold. But at least the fire was out. The wasps were gone. And both of us were alive.

When I gathered my wits up enough to keep the inane giggles at bay, I reached over and brushed his wet hair off his forehead. He looked extremely sexy when wet. A part of me wanted to physically attack him. Not out of anger, and not really out of lust, but just out of still having him standing beside me. I was so close to losing him. The reality of that made my nerves feel like they were still lit with flames.

He hadn’t said anything yet. I wondered if he was shell-shocked.

“Dex?” I said, letting my hand slip down to his neck. I traced his wet skin with my fingers, feeling for any signs that the wasps had been there at all. It felt smooth and slick and the blood pumped furiously along his jugular.

“Are you OK?”

He nodded quickly and eyed my hand uneasily.

I took it back. I wanted to say so many things to him but I wasn’t sure how.

And I didn’t have to. Through the leftover drips from the sprinkler system, we heard the pitter patter of feet from the pavement outside, a flash of a shadow as it passed in front of the lights and the sound of the main door opening.

I looked behind me at the door’s window. Roundtree was running down the stairs with a large spotlight and a security guard in tow.

She flung the door open and gasped when she saw us standing there like waterlogged ghouls.

“What on earth?”she cried out. The security guard raised his own flashlight on us and brought out his walkie talkie.

“We had an accident,” I said as lightly as possible, feeling like the master of the understatement. She growled under her breath and pointed to the top of the stairs like she was my mother or something. We were more than ready to comply. We ran up the stairs, into the hospital foyer and out into the fresh night air.

We were going home.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

When I came to, I was in an unfamiliar bedroom. There was a poster of Ryan Reynolds on the wall, a collage of photos and some arty framed works of Parisian landscapes. The wallpaper was yellow with tiny roses.

I blinked hard at the overhead light and slowly eased myself onto my elbows. I was lying on a single bed and was alone. I looked around the room again. The dull thud of music reverberated throughout the walls. It matched the pounding in my head. I wasn’t in pain but I could feel my heart hammering away upstairs in the thin space between my forehead and my skull.

What the hell had just happened? One minute I was talking to Jacob outside by the side of the house and the next I was in Adrianna’s bedroom. At least, that’s what it looked like from the mass of pictures on the wall, her tanned, smiling face with a gaggle of different kids I went to school with.

I rubbed at my forehead to get the pounding to stop. What had we been talking about anyway? Why had I just fainted?

Seriously, I’m quitting drugs tomorrow, I thought. At least cutting back.

I got off of the bed and vigorously rubbed my face up and down, stretching my jaw open and shaking my arms back and forth. A beer would put me right. Maybe a line if I happened to run into someone I knew.

Of course, it was more than likely that Jacob had a bit of coke somewhere. But I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. He had been creepy, he had been talking about…demons? Was it demons? And then I ended up here. No, the coke wasn’t worth it, not from him.

I opened the door and poked my head out into the hall. The sounds of the party came at me. At the end of the hallway, a couple was making out against a door. Pretty hardcore from the looks of it. The guy was getting a handjob at least; the blonde girl’s hand was well into his pants and working him back and forth. I wanted to tell them the bedroom was free if he didn’t want to make a mess in his pants but I kept it to myself and crept past them. They didn’t notice anyway.

I reached the stairs and was met with a party that showed no sign of slowing down. If anything, people were more wild than before. Someone was sitting on top of the television, the beer bong had made its way into the kitchen, everyone seemed to be dirty dancing with anything and everyone. The girls’ tops were all yanked down lower, their makeup smudged beneath their eyes. The guys were all ridiculously loud and I could see every single one of them had a boner in one form or another. Booze was spilled, smoke from pot and cigarettes filled the air. And by the door, a couple was getting into a yelling match that was eclipsed only by the music. People walked past them and took no notice. Everyone had other things on their mind. Mainly, getting fucked; in more ways than one.

I didn’t recognize anyone I knew. Not Jacob. Not Tara. Not even Adrianna or her boyfriend Angus.

I sighed and continued to walk down. I was almost at the bottom step when a strange sound caught the tip of my ear. It had come from behind me.

I turned and looked. The couple that had been heavy petting had stopped and was standing at the top of the stairs. The guy with his Linkin Park T-shirt seemed frozen on the spot, like he was in mid-embrace. But the girl, the girl with her long blonde hair, she was…growling. And unlike the guy, she was moving. She pushed him backward toward the room I came out of, and he walked backward, as if on autopilot or under a spell.

Then she changed before my eyes. Her skin fizzed like acid was poured on it. Her eyes and her nose disappeared until she was just all mouth, with jagged teeth, her skin suddenly the smooth alabaster of fine porcelain. And then she dissolved before my eyes. All that was left was this sickening growl and the guy who was being shoved backward into the bedroom by some invisible force.

This had nothing to do with drugs. This was actually happening.

I whirled around to look at the party, expecting them to all be watching what I was watching. But everyone was carrying on as usual.

I looked back at the stairs. The door was shut. I had to know what was going on. If what I saw was correct…was real. I didn’t care if I interrupted their sex session.

I walked back up the stairs and paused at the door. I couldn’t hear anything except a strange sucking sound, like a vacuum was running on high power.

I took in a deep breath and was about to enter the room when something touched my shoulder.

Before I could scream a hand was around my mouth, squelching the sound.

I was turned around to see Jacob standing there. He had a gas can in his hand.

Do you see now? he whispered. But his mouth didn’t mouth. The words just entered my head, as if he was in there.

I told you that’s where I came from. That others would be here.

“What are you?” I asked, though my voice was muffled by his hand, my lips tasting the strange, sickly sweet flavor of his hand. It was a ridiculous question to ask. But suddenly, nothing seemed ridiculous. I saw a girl disappear in front of my eyes.

I’m a ghost, he projected, the words shooting into my head as clear as day. I died a long time ago. I don’t know what happened. I killed myself and now I’m stuck. Between here and the other world. The other world is much worse. Black and white.

It was too much. I wanted to run, to flee, but he kept his hand at my mouth.

You’re not going anywhere, Perry. You’re special. I knew it from the start. You’re the only one who can see me. And the only one who can help me stop them.

Stop who? I thought.

Stop the demons, he answered and I realized my thoughts were being read. We aren’t the same.

Overwhelmed, I shut my eyes hard until all I saw were sparks of light behind them. I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, with anyone else. I concentrated really hard, wishing I had the power to just change things. I felt the ground rumble lightly under my feet and the pictures on the hallway wall rattled. An eerie cry shot out from behind the door.

“Stop it!” Jacob yelled out loud. “You’re attracting them!”

My eyes flew open and I glared at him. I reached up with my hand, grabbed his disgusting scarred wrist and yanked it away from my mouth.

“Attracting who!?” I yelled back.

Suddenly the door opened and the blonde girl stuck her head out. She looked like a normal teenage girl again except a trail of blood dripped out of the corner of her mouth. She scanned the hall before her eyes settled on Jacob and me.

She made a move for us, but Jacob quickly threw the can of gas toward her, a gush of acrid liquid flowing out of the spout and onto her, the walls and the floor.

She screamed, more in shock than in pain or anything else.

“Perry!” Jacob yelled. “Send her back!”

He reached into his pocket and tossed a lighter at me. I caught it somehow but I wasn’t about to follow his orders.

The girl was writhing on the spot, the gasoline flowing off her toned body and staining the plush beige carpet beneath us. But she was normal. Aside from the blood, which could have been a result of rough, drunk sex or whatever, there was nothing strange about her anymore. She had eyes, heavily made up with green eye shadow, a pert nose and a normal mouth. I could see the traces of auburn lip liner beneath her lower lip.