By the time she makes it back to the parking lot, the sunshine filtering through the clouds has dulled to a dark blue, the twinkling lights of the diner across the lot are in full swing, and still, her father's red pickup isn't there. Usually she'd be fine with waiting, but the clouds are knit together thick and gray, and the wind is picking up, just like the weatherman promised.

Swaying sleepily to distant jukebox tunes, she hardly notices when her phone starts blaring in her pocket. Lacey fumbles with it, fingers cold, and says wearily, "This is the office of attorney general Lacey Waits, how may I be of service to your criminal needs?"

"Uh, right. Well, ah, I got held up at work, so hopefully the state doesn't decide to lock me up for not being there on time. And, ah, dinner might be late tonight. We've got no real food in the house so it's either nighttime grocery shopping or really sloppy fast food."

Dad's voice is strained, embarrassed by this small fact, and Lacey chews the inside of her cheek. He's trying. I can help. Plus, plus! It'll give me some alone time. To think. "I can get groceries, no biggie. There's a supermarket just past the diner and I'm standing out here anyways. I can walk home, too."

"I- I don't like that idea so much. I don't want you walking alone with everything that's been happening."

Lacey smushes her tongue against the roof of her mouth, contemplating. Well, then. Lie. "I won't be completely alone, though. Elijah's still here. He can walk me most of the way home, can't he? 'Course he can. What's on the list of goodies to snatch?"

Dad sighs on the other end. "Fine, fine. If Elijah's there. You've got money?"

She confirms that she always does, somewhere, and with that knowledge, Mr. Waits relays all that they need. Lacey retains this to the best of her ability (which isn't much of an ability in comparison to some other skills) and begins to walk through the lot towards the supermarket.

As she lumbers along, she keeps her chin down, eyes locked on the mucky yellow of her shoes. With some newfound peace and quiet, it's time to plan, to scheme, to click her fingers against the little lightbulb and watch it gleam above her head! A to-do list formulates itself in her mind: regain the better natures of those wispy friends of hers and, by default, regain protection; with security at her side, she'd then be able to go out and look for Erie - to an extent. She wasn't trying to be caught by some psycho murderer or pedophilic sociopath; too many spirits held the same titles, and too many more had been victim to them. That's why she needs to get that angsty little girl off her back. The young ones are tough, though; they cling to life without realizing there's no way to get it back. Pesky ones, they-

"Dear god."

The chime of a bell sounds as someone leaves the diner, and Lacey glances briefly to the left. Two people stand there, a man with his back to her, and a woman with her back to the door, fingers curled under the collar of his button-up. The door hardly clangs shut before her lips are on him. Red lips, dark and cleanly painted. They detach. "Dear god," the man whispers again. There's desperation in his voice. Right here, in a parking lot. Decorum, Lacey wants to say, where's the decorum?

The blonde woman takes the lead and drags him along by the front of his pants across the parking lot. Lacey ducks her head, tries to hurry past once they've gone ahead of her. But they're in her peripheral vision now, pressed up against the hood of some narrow clunker from the late 90s at least. One of them gets loud and she looks up, alarmed, to find the woman shushing the man. "Ah, ah, ah, I'll need payment first, honeybee. You know the deal."

This time Lacey doesn't see pleasure on the woman's face; it's creased and serious, and the clean markings of red on her lips are smeared to the chin now. She has a hawk's demeanor, and when she turns her head, those eyes catch the distant white light of the diner and point sharply at Lacey, like little pinpoints. The woman's lip wiggles disdainfully, and she narrows those brightened pinpoints as if in challenge. Walk away, little girl, they say. Walk away now.

"Dolly," the man whines, clutching tightly to the groove of the hood. "Can't we do this after?"

"No," she says firmly, slender nose swiveling to face him head on. "Quit bellyaching and act on the terms that were set. Now or not at all. Besides, that gives us time for our company to skedaddle."

"Dolly" says this without looking at Lacey, but she knows it's directed at her, and with a fresh flush of panic in her chest and redness in her cheeks, stout legs carry her into a jog, and the jog carries her out of the diner's parking lot only to leave her in an even larger parking lot. Thankfully, this one is mostly desolate, save for the late-night mothers bumbling their carts to their minivans and an elderly man steering his station wagon home. There's another elderly man sitting against a cement lamp post, but he only flickers into Lacey's vision when the light flickers off. Whenever it comes back on, he disappears. It's a rapid here-gone-here-gone deal, so he looks like one of those flip-books in how he sees her, opens his mouth in horror, and folds into himself so he doesn't have to look at her. Like it's a crime to look. As if she were the ghost.

"Oh, to hell with you," she mutters his way. "I have macaroni to buy, anyways. So you're the real loser."

Lacey passes under a luminescent "KELLY'S" and through two luxurious automatic doors that need a bit of nudging before working properly. Once inside, she blinks against the bright lights and tugs her sweater down, stretches it, clears her throat. It's just as cold in here as out there, just as drafty. Just as empty. "Let's make this quick and painless," she pipes, gracefully lifting a blue basket from the stack and nearly toppling the whole thing in the process (thankfully, her entire being saved it, but a tired cashier still squinted her way before returning to his textbook).

Lacey slips into an aisle, trying to balance a budget, taste, a plan, and stepping onto every single colored tile in sight all at once. Macaroni, I could persuade them with a well thought-out argument, a carton of orange juice, what if I flattered them with my stunning personality?, bread and accompanying bologna, or I could trick them, I could "solve" the murder with a bunch of little pieces that don't really exist, coffee, I should really get this for Dad, he looks tired, bland off-brand cereal because it was cheaper, negotiation is always on the table.

As her brain fills, so does her basket, and the early stages of a genuine idea begin to formulate as her stubby fingers grip the handle of a cold-foods cooler and yank it open. Cold hisses out and someone else does too, sucking the cold between their teeth. "Gordy, I've said it a million times. You can't keep takin' the fish sticks out and then puttin' 'em back for chicken nuggets. I told your mother I wouldn't let you get both, now come on, we've been here all damn night. She's waitin' in the van."

A high-pitched whine fills the aisle, followed by a childish stomp - like the little girl, there's the gooseflesh - and Lacey looks, sees a tow-headed boy with crossed arms and a crinkled face. "But why? Nefyn, can we just get both? We don't have to tell her!"

Then she sees the man in the wheelchair. He isn't old, but maybe middle-aged, only a few greys sprouting against the slicked-back black of his hair. He slouches like an old man, though, and holds a grumpy expression like one too. An exasperated sigh leaves his thin lips, and bony fingers scratch at his stubble. "I promised your mother. She don't want a mess and wants you eatin' healthy. It's the least I can do, doin' what she says. Now hurry up, it's s'posed to thunderstorm bad here."

"But..." The little boy, no older than five, rubs a red thumb over his cheek. "But you don't have to tell her. It's not like you're my dad or nothin'. She don't have to know. We could be like spies. Sneaky." The boy then proceeds to stalk around the wheelchair, like a spy, Lacey guesses, and it's kind of cute, for a moment. But then,

"I said no, Gordon! And no means no, so just go grab one and we'll be on our way, please!" His hands grip the armrests tight, knuckles white.

What crawled up his ass?

Another round of whining and loudness from the little boy surpasses that of the man's. Lacey flinches and the man flinches too. But when his cringe is over, he meets Lacey's stare, and his expression goes from being all twisted up in irritation to being all flattened in a state of hardness. He presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek and his Adam's apple bobs in his throat. "Just grab both. C'mon."

The noise ends immediately, and the man rolls away, head down, with a very pleased young child galloping behind, making sure to step on every single colored tile in sight.

Lacey's lips purse dramatically. Wonder what his deal is. A stare lingers after them, but there's a tap on her shoulder and she yelps.

"Ma'am." It's the cashier from before. "Are you looking for something? You've had that door open for quite a bit now. It's near closing time."

She blinks. "Yeah, yeah, no, I was just...surveying my options." Her speckled arm snatches up a couple boxes of microwavable dinners. The door hisses closed but the cold mist continues to envelope her; she walks away, but still the frigidity remains.

She splays her choices on the conveyer belt and gets them scanned and paid for. Balancing multiple bags, she nudges her way through the automatic doors, pieces of shit that they are. It's even colder now than ten minutes before, and the dark blue of dusk had fallen to the black of night. Something cold and wet and small falls upon her cheek and she wipes it away. A few more honey her hair with moisture. Rain. Perfect. What a day.

Hastily, she trudges her way through two parking lots. The elderly man sitting against the lamp post recoils at the sight of her just like the first time, and, just like the first time, "To hell with you" follows.

She's pleased to find that the hawk-eyed woman and her companion are gone, along with that noisy clunker. The diner's jukebox tunes fade into the night, and the fluorescent lights inside shut off as she passes, only a bright pink sign lighting the way up front.

The plastic of the bags flaps in the wind that presses against her chest. Drizzles fall against her eyes and she blinks to try and block it out. Blinks to try and block out the sight of the forest to her left as she walks along the little road beside it, too. From there, it seems dark and empty, but she knows those bony spirits are galivanting inside, arm in deathly cold arm, swinging and dancing now that nobody is there to see. Maybe they'll finally make a sound too, something like a squeal or cough.

This is all hypothetical, of course. She's never heard or seen anything like that.

What if Erie dances with them now?

A shiver rolls up and through her, and she takes a right as soon as she sees the turn, eager to remove herself from a place of such discovery. Bloody shoe, maybe a ghost saw something, bloody sock, she needs to get them talking again.

This is so fucked. It's starting to sink in. That he's gone and probably hurt. Or he hurt someone else. But he'd just texted me about his fucking cat- Christ, it's starting to come down now. Her entire sweater is soaked through to the middle, to her skin, and it hangs sopping and heavy, weighing her down. The rain keeps coming faster and faster, and the wind forces thick branches overhead to thrash against one another. If she looks straight ahead, she can see a little pebbly clearing with a streetlight keeping guard. The lamp catches the heavy rain and turns it gold before it feeds the earth.

Lacey knows this route. A building sits right in front of that clearing, a stout building of three stories composed of brown brick - some wretched place they probably used for storage once - and behind that building is a drop-off, scattered with jagged rocks that could kill a man quickly and violently, wow!

There's also a shed, but that isn't nearly as interesting.

Regardless, she welcomes the golden light as she steps into it. The clearing curves down into another much narrower road, and from what she can see from the top of this hill, the next streetlight is quite a ways away. "Might as well enjoy it while I can." The words get lost in the rain. With fake bravado, she twirls, and bends her knees to finish it off with a curtsy.

A crack of thunder shakes the ground and shakes her soul and she stumbles forward, barely catching herself before toppling into a fat puddle. The streetlight above flickers for just a moment, but it's enough to make her inhale a sharp mouthful of rain from the sky. It returns, though. She catches her bearings. One, two, three. I'm fine. Just get home. The water's gonna soak through the microwave dinners if it hasn't already.

She skids down the pebbled road carefully until it flattens into real asphalt. Some rocks bounce and get stuck in her shoe, and that's all fine and dandy, and she jogs until she's a decent distance from the little rocks in general.

But because she's a decent distance from the little rocks in general, it makes no sense for a handful of them to fly and hit her in the back.

It's a hardly noticeable thing and could've been rain to someone else, except that a few fall down her collar and skid, wet and slimy, down her spine. Whipping around, stringy hair flying along, she looks at the bottom of the hill where she'd just been, then the middle, and then the very top, where the streetlight still glows bright. Nothing there.

They probably just fell down the hill or something. It's fine. I'm fine. Fingers clench around the bag handles.

Another bout of thunder shakes the world, and the streetlight flickers out again. It doesn't come back on, not immediately. Everything is blackened by the night and by clouds and by rain. Then the lightning strikes, and it's so quick that it's hard to tell, but she could've sworn that when that flash tore across the sky that she saw a dark figure standing at the top of that hill where the golden glow once was.

Lacey does not fuck with dark figures standing atop hills.

Without wasting another second, she power-walks as fast as she can down the length of road remaining before the next turn. But the other streetlight is out now too, so she can't tell very well where that turn actually is, or how far away. Trees shake like wet dogs on either side. Heavy scoops of rain plop around and upon her, ice-cold. It doesn't matter. Her mind is elsewhere.

I don't have salt with me. I should've bought some 'cause at least the storebought shit can hold them off for a few seconds. She shakes her head violently. It could just be a person. Like, a real human being for once. Those exist, yeah?

The streetlight up ahead blazes with light, and Lacey head swivels on her neck to survey the top of the hill. Whatever it was, it's there now, standing stiff and stern right where she'd last thought she'd seen it. It's all black. No face, no hair. But that could just be the shadows. The shadows, yes, so maybe it could be a person-

Except people aren't eight feet tall and they don't stare at you late at night in the middle of a fucking thunderstorm and they don't lumber down hills that fucking fast oh my god-

Thunder roars and Lacey sprints. Cold blood, hot blood. Fast heart, dun-dun-dun-dun, fucking go! Rain slams her skin with harshness and it should've hurt, but she couldn't feel it. She only feels the hard pump of her legs and the nails digging into her palms as she grips onto the bags like a lifeline. She can't hear footsteps behind her but oh, Christ, she feels the presence slinking up around her. She always can with these ones.

Malevolent spirit.

Shingles flew off roofs. The houses are spread out sparsely and every time she passes one the lightning comes down and she sees the bony fellas perched up on the rooftops watching her flee and doing nothing. It's all a show to them.

"To hell with you!" Lacey screams. But there's the turn, the turn onto her street!

As she makes the turn, her periphery gets a glimpse. The figure lumbers after her. Its head is ducked but in the light she sees no eyes. No eyes, but still it sees her, and she knows it does because the pleasure and hunger radiates off of it like manure. A crack in the middle of that charred face sits jagged but smiling. I've got you, it pulsates.

It crosses the street at a casual pace, but its proud strides still propel it at the same speed of Lacey's Olympic sprint.

The bags slam into her legs with every step. Everything clings to her like a slippery sickness, and her insides burn with exertion and the words of a demon stringing itself up from organ to organ, liver to pancreas, "All the things I'll puncture and burst," it throbs in her skull.

"Carol!" Lacey roars in the night. "Little girl! Carol!"

Neither comes to her aid. In a passing car window is the twitching reflection of something right at her heels. To the right, a branch snaps free of its mother and scrapes concrete. The melting breath of something heats the back of her neck and she swings one heavy grocery bag right into the long face of that fucker lingering behind.

Citrus explodes across the road. Plastic slips out of her grip and she takes off, beating the orange juice in its race to the curb. "Fuck you!"

There's her house. Two yards away. Her house.

A high-pitched whistle sounds from behind and bark flies off a tree as the spirit slices its hand across it. Lacey's fear has morphed into pure I'd better not die here or I'm gonna be pissed. Her face is set, nostrils flaring, chest heaving, cheeks puffing. She crosses through the neighbor's front yard and that's a mistake, a huge fucking mistake as her shoes slide across the slick grass and send her flailing to keep balance. Don't fall. Don't you dare fucking fall!

Something snips the back of her shoe. She scrambles. Across the neighbor's driveway, through her yard, kicking up a drenched flower in her father's sad garden-

It touches her. Just a moment is enough to sear an elongated fingerprint into her shoulder, and she screams. The whole neighborhood would wake had the thunder not covered it up. She leaps onto the porch and it grabs her ankle. That also sears itself into her skin, and the beast makes to drag her off but then she sees it, little white specks glued by moisture to the porch, salt that'd been breathed but not blown away. Her knees strike the cement. One free hand scoops up the salt. The demon yanks her but she has that handful of salt ready: she flings it right into the thing's gaping mouth.

The pressure leaves her ankle. She scrambles up. Grabs the doorknob, twists it, and pushes.

Lacey presses her back against the door. She waits and listens. Waits for it to crawl up and throw itself at the door. Waits for a window to shatter or the floors to splinter.

But it's warm and dry in here, and nothing happens.