"Great," Ethan muttered, kicking a tire. "How are we supposed to get back to town? Hitchhike with a ghost?" He said the last part weirdly louder.
"Shut up!" I snapped, harsher than I meant. My mind was still on that bony hand, the voice that knew me. I glanced at the trees, half expecting a pair of eyes to glow back at me.
Headlights sliced through the dark, and a rusty pickup truck rumbled up the gravel road. Relief hit me, but I grew suspicious. "Isn't this too coincidental?" I wondered. Who would be out here at midnight? The truck stopped, and the driver's window rolled down, revealing a girl our age, maybe nineteen, with dark hair tied back and eyes that caught the moonlight, sharp and wary.
"You two look like you saw a bear," she said, her voice dry but not unkind. "Need a lift?"
Ethan, ever the charmer, flashed a grin despite his pale face. "More like a zombie. You're a lifesaver...?"
"Lilia," she said, glancing at me. Her gaze lingered, and I felt a stupid warmth creep up my neck, even with my heart still racing from the whole Witch's Hollow situation. "Get in before you freeze."
We climbed into the cramped truck, Ethan up front, and me squeezed beside him. Lilia's truck smelled of pine and old leather, a faint comfort against the dread clinging to me. A charm, a small, carved stone, dangled from her rearview mirror, oddly familiar.
"Live around here?" I asked, trying to sound normal. My voice cracked slightly, and her lips twitched, almost a smile.
"Edge of Cloverton," she said, shifting gears. "Saw your car's lights earlier, figured you were ghost-hunting idiots. Guess I was right."
Ethan laughed, but I caught her eyes in the mirror, steady on mine. Something about her felt safe, like she knew more than she let on. I wanted to ask about the charm, but the words were stuck as the truck jolted, hitting pavement with town lights flickering in the distance.
Then the radio crackled, unprompted, spitting static laced with that same guttural whisper from the hollow. Lilia's hands tightened on the wheel, her charm swinging wildly.
"You hear that?" I asked, my voice low.
Her jaw clenched. "Yeah. And it's not the first time."
Before I could press a button on the radio, something slammed into the truck's tailgate, hard enough to make us to lose control.
Ethan cursed, twisting to look back. In the rear window, a shadow loomed tall, jagged, moving too fast for a human. Lilia hit the gas, but the whisper grew, curling around my name like a promise.