The Dead and the Dark(58)

Bug tried Ashley’s phone again. It rang a handful of times before dumping her into voice mail. “Hey, it’s me again. I texted you. You’re probably asleep. I’m at the motel to do some spy work and thought you might wanna come help.” Bug looked at her phone and frowned. “Anyway, uh, see you tomorrow.”

And then she spotted it.

Parked over three spots on the far end of the Bates parking lot. A massive red truck gleamed in the yellow light, tucked into the shadows like it thought it could hide. Bug narrowed her eyes, because she knew that truck, and it wasn’t supposed to be here. Not at this hour. And not if Ashley wasn’t answering her phone. Bug scowled and opened her text window.

BUG: are you HERE???

BUG: i see your truck in the parking lot

She prepared to call Ashley again, but something rustled in the bushes at the far side of the motel. Bug pocketed her phone and warily approached the noise. There were all kinds of animals that prowled around Snakebite at night, but Bug didn’t think this was an animal. Its rustling was sporadic, more like the sounds of a person adjusting their limbs than a lost animal. She cast a glance at the room she assumed was Logan’s.

Maybe Ashley was in there now.

Maybe she knew what was creeping outside the motel.

Maybe that was why she was here.

Bug held up her phone flashlight and scanned over the bushes. In the murky yellow light, she finally saw the source of the rustling. A creature squatted near the lit window, half shrouded in bushes. Bug squinted and realized the thing wasn’t a creature—it was a man. He stooped along the motel wall with his fingers latched on the windowsill.

Bug’s heart came to a crashing halt.

She took a step back, trying her best not to breathe.

Her car was only a few feet away. She’d had nightmares like this before, meandering through the dark only to realize she wasn’t alone. But she wasn’t asleep now. The oil-slick pavement was real under her sneakers. The night air was warm and sweet, carrying the whistling moans of the wind through the valley. This was real, and so was the strange man staring into the motel.

He was real, and he was moving again.

If the tremor in her heart meant anything—if the instinctual twisting in her gut was real—it meant he was the killer.

Bug ducked around the abandoned pizza stand and sank onto the pavement. The night wasn’t just night, now. She felt something here in the dark. The shadows were thick, smeared across the pavement like molasses. Bug clasped a hand over her mouth to keep quiet.

There was no more rustling in the bushes.

There was no sound at all.

Bug pulled her phone from her back pocket and typed a text to Ashley.

BUG: there’s a man out here please come outside

She stared at the message for a moment, eyes fixed on the flickering cursor at the end of the text. She backspaced the message and tried again.

BUG: there’s a man out here. don’t come outside.

She sent the text and closed her eyes. If she was quick, she could make it to the car before the man saw her. But he wasn’t alone out here. The night was heavy, and the shadows were on his side.

It occurred to Bug that this might be it.

Without another thought, she ran.

Or, she began to. Before she made it to her feet, a fist knotted in the back of her T-shirt and threw her to the ground. Her skull cracked against the pavement and she gasped at the shock of pain, blinking up into the yellow light. A silhouette hovered over her, at once a man and a shadow. Bug fought to sit up, but the man wrapped his hands around her neck, thumbs pressed into her throat. Her scream came out as a croak.

“No,” the man huffed, not to Bug but to someone else. Someone she couldn’t see. He closed his eyes and snapped, “No.”

Bug Gunderson hadn’t given much thought to how she would die. She especially hadn’t pictured it like this: alone, writhing against the pavement of the Bates Motel parking lot, watching the white stars overhead blur and slip away into the dark. Bug gasped once, twice, and then there was no more.

She had one thought before she faded away.

She recognized her killer’s face.





24


On A Cold, Bleak Morning


Logan was aware of two things when she woke up. The first was Ashley’s limbs, warm and soft and tangled with hers under the comforter. The second was blue-and-red lights flashing against her closed blinds. In her hazy half-dream, she wasn’t sure which was more alarming. She pressed her face into her pillow and burrowed under her blankets. The motel room was cool and dewy with morning, gray shadows casting sharp lines across the wall. It was red, then blue, then red.

Logan abruptly sat up.

Police lights were definitely the more alarming thing.

She threw the blankets back and gave herself a quick once-over. She was still dressed in the clothes she’d been wearing the day before, though her sweater was crumpled and her skirt had rotated halfway around her waist.

Ashley sat up and slowly blinked to life.

“What…?” She trailed off. Logan wasn’t sure if the confusion stemmed from the police lights or the room she’d woken up in.

Logan motioned to the closed blinds. “Apparently we have visitors.”

“I don’t—” Ashley wearily peeled away the blankets and looked down at her legs. Her lips twisted into a scowl. “I slept in jeans.”