Troy had some serious trouble getting his car out of the parking lot. He didn't talk to me at all as he tried to maneuver his piece of junk around the other, nicer cars. Both of us were soaking wet from running out of the gym. The rain was pouring in heavy sheets and the wind was so strong I'd had trouble running straight. Now, the two of us were getting the seats of his car nice and damp. The inside smelled like smoke and sour milk anyway, so I didn't think the scent of mold would really bother Troy. I'd been in his car quite a few times for Sloppy Soldiers rides. I was always in the back while Adam was up front, so to be riding shotgun was kind of a new experience. More than once, I sort of wished I was in the back. The front window gave a much larger view of the storm, and it was the freakiest thing I'd ever seen.

Troy must've been driving ten miles an hour, but the wind was so strong and the roads were so covered in rain that his car skidded sideways pretty often. I didn't even ask him where we were going because I didn't want to break his concentration. He looked super scared, like he was standing face to face with the devil or something. I just kept my eyes off of him as much as I could and watched the outside with growing fear. Driving through town was a trip. Buildings were hurt from fallen branches and a lot of wires were shaking. But I didn't see any real tornado damage. Nothing like roofs being ripped off houses or trees being uprooted. I didn't think the real trouble had hit yet, if there was going to be any at all.

We made it out of town safely, but most of that was because we were the only people insane enough to be out on the road and there was no chance of us getting in an accident with someone else. It took about twenty minutes, but Troy finally made it to the four-lane road we Goldenrock inhabitants called the highway. Once we were on that, driving was a little easier. He couldn't go too fast, but there weren't things blocking our path like there were in town. Plus, the highway was up kind of high, so the rain wasn't flooding it.

Another half-hour and I saw what had to be our destination. I hadn't said a word to Troy the whole drive, so when I started talking, he practically jumped in his seat, like he'd forgotten I was there. "Is that it?" I asked him, not caring if I'd startled him. "The Coach Motel?"

He nodded nervously, his shaggy brown hair flapping wetly against his cheeks. "That's it. Dropped Nyler off here several days ago. He paid me to get him a room. Wouldn't take money from a kid, you know. So I did it for him. Number fourteen's his."

"Why would you get him a room?" I asked. "Don't you know how much people are worried about him?"

Troy shrugged, keeping his blank expression. "Nyler's got his own ideas. Like me. You got to honor a man's individualism."

I shook my head. "Whatever. Just drop me off outside his room."

We'd gone down the exit ramp and were approaching the ratty-looking, one-story motel. A light flickered at the office, and there were little bulbs outside every door, but other than that, it was pretty dead. The sky was dark and the weather was terrible, so I almost didn't want to get out of the car when Troy parked in front of room number fourteen. "What are you going to do?" I asked, not even really caring about his answer.

"Me? I'm going for cover. Not here, though. I'm off. Don't ask me to wait, cause I'm not going to."

I didn't respond. I didn't care if he waited or not. I'd find my own way home, and I was going to have to, too. Right when I got out of the car, Troy turned the junker around and got right back on the highway. It was just me and the door to room number fourteen. A dim light was on in the room window, but it was hard to see because thick curtains were pulled across it. I stepped up onto the stairs so I at least was covered from the rain by the small roof overhead. I was sure my steps creaked as I went toward the door, but the wind and thunder and rain muffled them. For some reason, I was really scared to go into that room. I guess it was because I didn't know for certain what I'd find in there. Adam, hopefully—but all the cops' talk about finding his body freaked me into thinking I would enter the room and find him lying dead on the floor. Or dead in the closet. Or dead in the bathroom. Or maybe I wouldn't even see him at all. Maybe he skipped out of the motel. Caught a ride somewhere else. Maybe he hitched a ride to Florida or something.

While I stood there wondering, the rain slanted sideways and started pelting me again. I had to go in. To stand there thinking about what might be beyond that door was stupider than just busting in. I was all ready to throw myself against the thing, too, but it wasn't locked. It opened right when I tried the doorknob.

I pushed the door in real slowly. The first thing I saw was a snowy TV. It must've gone fuzzy because of the storm. There was a wall sticking out to my right where the bathroom was. It blocked my view of the room. I had to go in further. "Adam?" I said as loud as I was brave enough to talk (which wasn't very loud). The only things I could hear were rain and the crackling TV. At first glance, I didn't see him in the main room. All my eyes caught in the yellow lighting were a bed, a heater, and the television. That worried me a little, but I hadn't checked the bathroom. I closed the front door so rain couldn't come in, and then I flipped on the bathroom light and went inside. In one blink I saw that nobody was in there. It was just a tiny shower, a toilet, and a sink. That was it. No person—dead or alive.

About ready to head back into the main room, my eyes caught sight of something that made me feel sick. I had to go closer to the sink so I could see inside of it, but I'd been right about what was there. Red spots were all around the white porcelain sink bowl. Large, dried, red spots. Some the size of irregular quarters. It had to be blood. I knew it when I saw it. But it wasn't recent. It was from a while ago. Still, the person hadn't bothered to wash it out. It couldn't have been Adam. Why would he be bleeding?

I was starting to freak out. Things seemed really wrong. Had Troy been lying? Was this really where he'd dropped Adam? I backed out of the bathroom and right into the wall opposite, which I noticed was a closet door from the way it rattled. I hadn't seen it coming in because the front door had hidden it. After finding the blood in the sink, the image of Adam's body being stuffed in the closet was suddenly twenty times more real in my mind. I didn't want to open it, but I had to. I grabbed the handle on the door. Taking several deep breaths, I pulled all my guts together and yanked the closet open.

Something came tumbling out at me from a shelf inside, and I jumped back. When my heart got its beating back on track, I realized it was only an old pillow. Nobody was in the closet. There was nothing there but the hangers hanging under the shelf and the pillow that had fallen out on me.

I was beginning to lose hope. I didn't see Adam anywhere and there was blood in the sink. Before I shut the closet, I peered closer inside it. Something in the dark corner on the floor resembled a small pile of papers. Normally, I would've left them alone, but for some reason, I bent down and pulled the stack out into the light. They were torn and stained and crinkled, but there were hand-written words filling the fronts and backs of every sheet. The writing looked familiar, too. The papers were out of order, but as I shuffled them, I began to grow more and more alarmed. There were titles on some of the papers. One was called, "The Vandalizing of the March House." Another was called, "Ghost in the Graveyard." I skimmed both of them. The first concerned Dylan Doyle TP-ing my house. The second one was about Adam and me in the graveyard. Names weren't mentioned, but it was so easy to tell what exactly was happening. They could only have been written by someone who was there. Someone who had witnessed both of those events.

Suddenly, I thought of what the Ham had said to me about watchers. About Adam being outside my house the night Dylan and his cronies had their toilet paper party. Ideas were starting to form in my brain . . . in some way I was starting to feel like a majorly big idiot.

A hand rested on my shoulder, practically knocking the bones out of my body the way it startled me. I spun around, and there was Adam. Or, at least, someone who slightly resembled Adam. To be honest, the way he looked scared me. Really scared me. He was paler than I'd ever seen him and his hair was greasy and messy. His black T-shirt and dark jeans were dirty and wrinkled, like he'd been living in them for the last five days. And he probably had. Just by looking at him, I bet he probably hadn't taken a shower or changed clothes since he'd left home. He wasn't wearing any shoes, and his eyes were really dark. He looked like he was sick. Like he needed to throw up but didn't have anything inside of him to get rid of.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me real quietly. His voice was kind of hoarse. It didn't sound like him.

For a minute, I could only continue staring. Who was this kid, anyway? He couldn't be my friend. He was too scary looking. "Adam," I said, my whole face frowning and worried, "what's wrong with you?"

He blinked, but it took him a ton of effort, I could tell. He kind of swayed a little when he answered me. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"Yeah right!" I cried loudly. He turned away from me. "Where were you, under the bed?" He nodded his head and sat down on the lumpy mattress. He pulled his legs up so he was sitting cross-legged. I knew why he looked so sick. "Have you eaten anything over the past five days?"

He sniffed. "Sure," he whispered. "Water."

"That's not food! And why is there blood in the sink, Adam? Is that yours?"

He didn't answer me right away. He waited, his eyes staring off into space. He looked down at his T-shirt. Maybe blood was on it, but it was hard to tell because it was black. Adam put a hand on his forehead and closed his eyes tight until they were dark slits. Water squeezed out of them and ran down his cheeks. I didn't know what to do. I'd never seen Adam cry. He hadn't even cried the time we were nine and he sliced his knee open on a nail. He'd had to get a tetanus shot and eleven stitches, and the stupid thing kept re-opening because he bent his knee a lot. He'd never cried. At least, not around me. So to see tears come out of his eyes was as weird as watching an alien worm come out of his stomach. I was too startled to say anything.

Finally, though, he gave me an answer. He didn't say anything; he lifted a hand and brushed away the dark hair covering the right side of his face. I sat down next to him and looked at his ear. Up high, where the cartilage was, a long slit had been cut from the tip of his ear about an inch inwards. It was long, and it was more than deep – the entire top half of his ear was sliced through. I was surprised it was even still there. Only a small part of it was attached, right near where the ear met his head. It wasn't bleeding fresh, but it had been bleeding. The whole ear and the hair around it and the side of his face was covered in dried blood.

I didn't touch it. It was nasty looking, and I didn't want to hurt him. My eyeballs were practically falling out of my head. "What did you do?" was all I could say.

He shrugged like it was no big deal. "I . . . tried to pierce it."

I snorted, not trying to sound rude but probably coming off that way. "With what—a hatchet?"

Adam hung his head. I could tell I wasn't too far off from the truth and gasped in shock. He played with his fingers. "I used my pocket knife. Thought I would just kind of twist a little hole . . . you know? But it . . . slipped. Sort of hurt, at first."

"Yeah, no joke!" I cried, still full of disbelief. "Holy crap, Adam! How could you be so stupid? You're lucky you didn't stab yourself in the head!"

"Well I didn't try to chop off my own ear!" he snapped, turning toward me full of an anger that had just shot into him. He might have looked sick, but there was still enough life in him to argue. "If you just came here to get on my case then you can leave." He looked back down at his lap.

I felt bad. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to act like you meant to do it. I just . . . it creeped me out, ok?" He didn't say anything. I just wanted to know a lot of things like why he'd left and what he'd been doing for five days and . . . and what exactly was going on with the papers. I still held the ones from the closet in my hand. Taking a better glance around the room, I noticed something that I hadn't thought much of before. There were papers on the floor by the wall. Papers on top of the TV. Papers sticking out from under the bed. And a lot of them had been written on. I felt like I was beginning to understand something that had been really unclear for a long time. Looking at Adam, I said very quietly, "What about these?" and I waved the stack of papers at him. I pointed at the scraps on the floor and on top of the TV.

Adam lifted his head and stared me right in the eyes. He was all serious, suddenly. "What do you think?" he asked me.

"I think you'd better tell me who's been writing them."

"Me," he admitted without any trouble.