Chelsey Robertson woke up and remembered everything. Her eyes were sore from crying through the night, and her hair was a complete mess. Stevey had died and hadn't come back. That had been five days ago. She still couldn't believe it. It wasn't supposed to be like that.

Chelsey sat up from her bed and slid on her glasses. The blurry room came into view. It was the same as it had always been, but somehow Chelsey thought it looked different. She pulled on some clothes from her drawer and half-heartedly pulled her hair into a messy ponytail.

She stopped with her hand pressed against the door. Mark would be out there by now. Just the thought of that liar made her bubble with rage and sorrow. He had lied to them all and gotten someone she cared for hurt. Her mind went back to the night she first came to Paradise. The night all her hope and naiveté were shattered in a vicious burst of mockery and laughter. They had lied to her too, just to hurt her. Mark was the same. She didn't know how she hadn't seen it before.

With a final deep breath, Chelsey opened the door. She didn't find Mark or Grace waiting outside. Instead, Henry sat on the couch, working on some kind of net trap. Henry turned to look at her as she entered the room.

"Are Mark and Grace up yet?" Chelsey asked.

“No. You're awake. The first up, besides Wendy that is. I'm not sure she sleeps,” Henry said.

“She doesn't… At least, I don't think she does. I'll have to ask her. What's that you're working on?” Chelsey asked.

“A bird trap for the coalmine canary I'm supposed to catch. I figured we'd spread some seeds around and wait for a bird to come along. I’ll pull this string and bam," Henry pulled the string which knocked the stick free, and dropped the net, “We'll have a canary for our coal mine.”

“Where did you learn to make this?” Chelsey asked in wonder as she studied the trap.

“Tv,” Henry answered honestly.

“Huh, and you think that trap will work?"

“Don't know. We'll find out. Me and Wendy are trying it out today,” Henry answered.

If both Henry and Wendy were leaving for the day, then Chelsey would be all alone with Mark and Grace. That sounded like hell to her. While the idea of going with them to hunt birds was frightening, somehow it seemed better than the alternative. The last thing she wanted was another awkward conversation with Mark where he justified himself. Just the thought of it made her blood boil.

“Would you mind if I tagged along?” Chelsey asked.

“It wouldn't bother me, but it could be dangerous. What if we run into the Skeleton Man again?”

“It's a possibility, I guess. But Wendy said the skeleton man claimed he wasn't going to kill me,” Chelsey replied.

“In that case, it's fine with me. You may want to ask Wendy first. She's out front. I'll be there in just a second. I have to tweak just one thing,” Henry said.

He twisted a bit of rope tighter around a small piece of wood. He made a grunt that seemed to mean he was happy with the results. He moved on to the next trap and started again. Chelsey moved towards the mouth of the cave.

She found Wendy leaning against the front of the cave, staring out at the ocean. Wendy turned to study her and frowned.

“Rough night?” She asked.

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“Is it that obvious?” Chelsey asked as a blush formed on her cheeks.

Wendy nodded.

“If it makes you feel better, I'm not much better. I hate that he's gone. It feels unfair. I thought killing the bastard would make me feel better… but it didn't. I don't know what to do to make this feeling go away,” Wendy said.

“It's not going to go away, Wendy. You're grieving, and the sadness is a part of it."

"Well, it sucks.”

“Ya, it does."

The two of them stared out at the ocean together. It was surprisingly calming. It was hard to believe that there was a time when Wendy terrorized them. She was so kind and thoughtful now that it was easy to forget she wasn't like them. She wasn't human.

“I wanted to ask if I could come with you and Henry today,” Chelsey said.

“Too dangerous. The skeleton man is hunting you. Unlike Henry, you won't come back if he kills you.”

“Come on. The Skeleton Man already told you he doesn't want to kill me,” Chelsey pointed out.

“He could be lying. He's a Ghost Story. We lie all the time. It's what we do. Anything to hurt you. I don't want to lose another friend."

“I can't stay here anymore, Wendy. I'm tired of hiding in my room to avoid Mark. Tired of being trapped inside,” Chelsey said.

“If I say no, are you just going to follow us?” Wendy asked.

“Probably,” Chelsey answered honestly.

“Fine. But you stay close. If there's any kind of trouble, you leave us and run as fast as you can,” Wendy said.

“Of course. I'm not suicidal, just bored."

“And don't tell Mark.”

Chelsey laughed.

“Trust me. You don't have to worry about that.”

***

Two hours later, the three of them sat concealed behind bushes, watching the homemade traps. She and Henry were sharing one, and Wendy had taken her own, overlooking a different trap. They'd placed them in a clear patch of grass deep in the Camp Zone. Birds chirped and sang in the trees above them, but none had yet gone for the bird seed they’d left in the traps. It was a very frustrating experience for Chelsey. She had hoped to escape the crushing boredom and isolation of the cave by coming on what they had dubbed the bird run. Instead, this whole thing was proving to be much of the same.

She knew it was better for it to be boring than dangerous and exciting. Stevey’s death had shown them that if she died, not only would she not come back, but Wendy would cease to exist as well. She would not let that happen. Despite all of her many, many past transgressions, Wendy was kind. Now that Stevey was gone and Mark and Grace had betrayed her, she didn't have too many of those left. She liked Henry fine enough, but she barely knew a thing about him. There was a sense of familiarity with him. She suspected the two of them were similar people when you stripped all the superficial things away. He had that same lonely look on his face that she often saw reflected back in the mirror.

As if reading her boredom on her face, Henry turned to her and whispered a question.

“Can I ask you something strange?”

“Sure, Henry, Ask away,” Chelsey replied.

“After you die here, Do you ever dream in the time between life and death?” Henry asked.

Dream? She had no idea what he was talking about, but she was curious.

“No… I can't say that I have. What kind of dream?” Chelsey asked.

“It was strange. It felt so real at first, but that changed the longer it went. I was hunting something… Something I knew was dangerous. There were people with me, but they had no faces.”

“No faces?” Chelsey asked.

“Yeah, no eyes, no mouths, no noses. All there was on their faces was skin. Then I saw the Skeleton Man standing at the end of the street. He had… He was holding Stevey’s head. When I turned back to the others, I saw him…” Henry paused.

“Who’s him?” Chelsey asked.

“The man with red eyes. It was just like the night I first saw him. I felt that same dread when I looked at him in the dream. He terrified me, Chelsey.”

“What happened next?” Chelsey asked.

“I heard the sound of clocks ticking over and over. I knew somehow that my time was running out, but I couldn't understand for what. The red-eyed man pointed to me just like before, and I woke up.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that happening before. For me, it's just darkness until I wake up. It's almost like being asleep.”

“That’s what it was like the first time,” Henry said.

“I hate to even suggest this, but you should talk to Mark about it. He clearly knows more than all of us. Maybe he can tell you what it meant,” Chelsey suggested.

She turned her eyes back to the trap just in time to see a songbird land next to the bait seed pile. The little blue songbird hopped his way across the ground to where the seeds were. He ate a few, then moved deeper into the trap. Right when the bird reached the deepest it could, Henry pulled the string, and the trap dropped down on the bird. It tried to flutter free but was trapped by the net. She and Henry crept from the bush, carrying the birdcage they’d taken from Brightshore Pet Supplies. Henry carefully untangled the bird from the net, and then freed it into the cage.

The bird fluttered around the cage, looking for any way to escape back to the freedom it had known in the woods. Try as it might, Chelsey knew there was no way out for the bird. Eventually, the bird realized it too. It landed on the perch and seemed to settle into its new home. With a shutter, Chelsey understood that they were just like that bird, trapped with no way out. For a time, she had even been happy with that. Content in a prison cell. She hated herself for it. She couldn't believe that she had ever seen good in a place like this.

“Well, that’s one,” Henry said, missing the look of horror on her face, “Three more to go.”