Kai was waiting for him. Or, at least, the woman he'd known as Kai was waiting for him, right at that lip of pavement where the resort road met the public lot, that threshold into hell. She was so entirely different in affect and attire, and yet this woman--this chic, elegant woman--was exactly whom he'd have expected to bite him like some vampire. He'd existed alongside the resort long enough to know its people were mendacious and corrupt, that they weren't at all what they seemed to be. Kai, she'd been warm and kind; she'd genuinely cared about him. Besides Caroline, Kai had been the first person to show him patience and understanding.

But she'd never existed, of course. And maybe that was fitting--people like that, who operated from some inner goodness without any reservation or expectations--they didn't, couldn't exist.

Jeremiah arrived alone; Crystal had never responded to his messages, and neither Kevin nor Heather had answered his calls. It seemed, truly, as if Cris had just disappeared. And so he'd biked into town by himself. Behind him, quite a ways behind him, were the party lights and banging band and smoking grills and colorful tents of the annual Maritime Festival. Walking through it had been something of a sadistic exercise, as his last experience with the festival had been on one unfortunate Fourth of July fifteen years prior, and while he'd been recognized by a few people and recognized a few himself, there were many more he no longer knew. The festival, for all the high-tech updates of the world beyond, was still as stubbornly local as it always had been with its backyard games and giant inflatables, its lighted boat parade and raffles, its glow-sticks and kettle corn. How like a small town, to mutate into more versions of itself rather than anything new. And Port Killdeer was a pro at mutation; why, it'd been eating itself only to regurgitate itself since its inception.

Jeremiah had brought nothing with him. He understood he'd not be going home once he arrived, said goodbye to the father he'd never quite known and the mother he'd never felt had quite known him. Weapons would've been useless, for how could he fight nothing and everything at once? Perhaps one of the most insidious aspects of everything that had happened was that the thing had stripped him and the others of hope. Up until that night at the lighthouse, they might have thought there'd be a way to fight back; if it had been only the resorters, the people-- but he couldn't defeat a monster he couldn't define, one who'd taken the liberty of defining him. Because whatever it was, the source and fount of all despair, all unbearable veracity, it knew them. It knew him. It knew him inside and out, every intricate, dissolute chamber and corridor, what stimulated each nerve and fueled his nightmares. It knew each layer of the shadow in his heart, and it wouldn't let him go.

"I'm so happy to see you've come," Kai smiled, and he considered with great sadness those perfect lips, the ones he'd pondered many times as she'd sat across a table from him.

Jeremiah didn't want to reply. He wanted to cold-shoulder her, but his inherent politeness wouldn't allow him to do so. "I didn't really have a choice."

"No. No, you didn't." Kai reached out her delicate fingers, nails polished into perfection, and brushed them along his neck, her eyes sparkling when he flinched. "Seems to have healed nicely, then." She crossed her arms. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to get so carried away. But you're so . . . interesting. They'd told me. I wanted to know. You were my favorite."

What was she talking about? He didn't want to ask. In fact, Jeremiah asked none of his copious questions as Kai walked him down the road, past the children playing, ghosts amongst the trees, their laughter more unsettling than joyful. The cottages were lit from within, glowing against the dusk like dim lanterns. The forest thinned to his left, where the land descended into beach and lake, and between the buildings he caught sight of sparklers zipping past in the hands of invisible revelers and a fire lit in a circular pit, the figures of adults in deck chairs around it. So many stars against the night, so much contentment atop the desolation. Kai did not stop at the dining hall or at the casino, as he'd expected her to (though truly, he had very few expectations). Instead, she continued down the road, greeting various resort members. Even in the dimness, Jeremiah could make out their inquisitive faces; he was a curiosity to them, no doubt. Did they pity him? Did they despise him? He couldn't tell.

Stopping at length at the path leading to one of the cottages past the tennis courts, Kai turned and reached for his hands, but Jeremiah pulled away. If the woman were put off, she maintained her aplomb. "They're on the front porch, waiting for you."

"Wh-who?"

"Your friends."

Friends. It was a strange word. Jeremiah didn't think of the others as friends, and yet Kai's comment gave him hope that Cris was there. He looked to the cottage and saw no one seated outdoors, but then he recalled that for the houses facing the lake, the road-sides were considered the backs of the buildings. So he hurried off the pavement onto the hair-soft grass, passed a small carport housing two golf carts, and rounded the cottage to its front, seeing clearly in the moonlight two forms seated on a porch swing.

They had their backs to him, but when he came up the steps and they saw him, both Heather and Kevin stood. Had they been able to read his heart, they would've known his disappointment that neither of them was the person he wished to see.

Heather called his name, and Jeremiah wondered at the almost-excitement in her voice. "Come on, sit down. We were just talking about you. Where's Cris?"

"I don't know." He took a seat on a stump-turned-stool across from them, and Heather sat back down, while Kevin remained standing, his back against the wall. A sudden shiver of relief shook Jeremiah's shoulders; they remembered Cris! She wasn't entirely gone.

The three were quiet for a moment, and Jeremiah began to sense that the two held something between them, something he couldn't quite recognize. "Well, what do you think they'll do?" he asked at length, as pragmatically as he could. "They might take us back out to that lighthouse, put us back down there. Or maybe they'll kill another counselor tonight--maybe kill us. It is the Fourth, after all. What do you think?"

"Oh, no. They won't kill anyone tonight."

Jeremiah narrowed his eyes at Heather. A copper lantern radiated a golden light from the table between them. "How do you know?"

Heather smiled ever so slightly. She twiddled her fingers as her hands lay clasped in her lap. Jeremiah saw the glance she darted to Kevin, and he became immediately suspicious.

"What do you two know that I don't?"

Kevin looked about to say something, but Heather beat him to it. "Listen, Jeremiah--we've been here for a few days, and they've kind of explained some things to us. It's hard to tell you all of it because I'm still trying to understand, but--but everything they do, it's all to keep peace. They aren't trying to hurt people; they're just trying to . . . to please it. Oh, it sounds terrible! I can't think of words for it all. It's too difficult to explain."

Jeremiah looked to Kevin, who remained silent, staring at the ground. "What are you talking about? They killed that counselor! We saw them! And what they did to us--all of it--"

"I know. I know! It's just . . . they had to. We've misunderstood them from the start. I think they wanted us to be afraid. But they aren't the bad guys, here! They've been trying to stop it, that's all!"

"That's bullshit, Heather." It was the strongest word Jeremiah had used in most of his life, and he spoke it with conviction. "Ryan--"

"It killed Ryan, not them. It woke up and . . . I guess he made it angry, or maybe it was just convenient."

"Fine! The counselor?"

"Well, yes, they technically killed him. "

"Yeah, brutally, and--and weirdly, the naked stuff and the . . ." Even now, the memory agitated him. He shifted his position on the stool.

"Jeremiah," Kevin suddenly spoke up, "we don't understand it. I personally hate it; I hate them. They've tried to explain it all as what they do to keep it happy, but I agree, it's bullshit. Whatever they say, they do these things not just for the good of humanity or whatever but because I'm sure they get off on all of it--blackmail and manipulation and the kinkiness, like the counselor. They tried to tell us what we saw that night, with that fucked up ritual or whatever, that it was somehow to remember the kids who'd gone missing, and they said it was about sacrificing one person for the good of everyone else, that if they didn't do it, the thing would hurt more people and--"

"Wait, hold on. What kids went missing?"

Kevin sighed. "Some kids in Halloween costumes--well, it was the Fourth, but they were dressed up for something, and they disappeared. Resort got scared it would start taking more of them, so they started doing it themselves, helping it. They said they've found over the years that it likes people without anything like clothes, that it likes them--Jesus, they used the word raw. And they said they killed the counselor for us. On purpose, to bring us there."

Jeremiah attempted to process, but he had no reason not to believe what Kevin was saying. They'd all been lured to the casino that night; it had felt inevitable. "But they were . . . when they stabbed him . . . why did they have to do it like that?"

None of the three said anything, recalling the night, but a voice suddenly wafted through the screened door leading into the cottage. "Gets the blood flowing," the woman's voice purred, smooth as honey. The door squealed as she pushed it outward and stepped onto the porch, managing to look glamorous in spite of the door's protest. Kai seemed to relish her explanation, licked her teeth as she elaborated. "It appreciates a sort of, heightened experience. Fear or shame or pleasure--it laps it all up. My Nan was really the first to recognize that, and I must say, pain and arousal go hand in hand quite nicely, wouldn't you agree, Jeremiah?"

He swallowed, mortified, but gained some courage.
"I'm done with all this. Where's Cris? What did you do to her?"

"Me? I didn't do anything."

"But she's gone!

"I wouldn't be concerned. She's where she's supposed to be, I presume."

Jeremiah didn't understand. "Why doesn't anyone remember her, in town? Her house is gone--"

"Is it?" Kai crossed her arms, mused over his statement. "Well, I'm not surprised. It covers its tracks. Why do you think your town doesn't recall any of the other missing? Why do you think no one investigated your counselor?"

Heather, who'd been staring into her lap, nearly whispered, "What about Ryan? Everyone still remembers."

"Do they, though? Or is it mostly just you? He'll fade the moment you're gone. Even you two will fade." She indicated Heather and Kevin with a flick of her wrist.

"When we're . . ." Jeremiah closed his eyes. He didn't want explanation anymore. He didn't want Kai's attempts to reason away everything that had happened, because to do so would minimize something too terrible for even her to understand. The resort's depraved obeisance to what lay below said more about them than it did about the thing itself, but he was tired, so tired. "I don't care about any of this. I just want to be done with it all."

"But, Jeremiah," Heather stood from her swing. "We don't have to go, not if we stay at the resort. Right, Francesca? Tell him what you told us."

"No," Kai said, and Jeremiah had little concern for the name he didn't recognize. "Not him. It wants what's his and what's hers. He doesn't get to stay."