Following Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci Read Free Book Online Page A

make a gazillion dollars off getting Chris Creed's ghost on tape."
    I found the moon and paused for a moment, making sure I appreciated what people were saying about Justin Creed. Apparently the kid wielded a lot of influence, and his self-assurance—which may just be a synonym for my word,
energy
—must have been off the charts. Somehow, I didn't feel it was his corpse we just saw, and it was something beyond the female undergarments. Gut instincts, I guess.

FIVE

    W OULD YOU PREFER NOT TO GO? " RayAnn asked Katy and Chan as I got out with Lanz. "Because Mike and I can—"
    "We'll go," Katy said, giggling nervously. "I just can't promise we'll go with you all the way into the Lightning Field, or how long we'll stay."
    The trail was marked with bright splashes of glow-in-the-dark white paint on the trunk of one tree after another. It would be hard to get lost even if RayAnn's flashlight were to give out. We walked along in silence, and I tried to see something beyond the splashes of neon in RayAnn's flash
light beam. I relied more on Lanz than I ever had before. But he kept going slower than I wanted him to, and after ten minutes, I felt like I was half carrying him by the harness. My arm hurt, and he was whining.
    I finally stopped, rubbing my tricep. "What's up, buddy?"
    He stood rooted, his legs slightly trembling, so that I could feel the vibes against my thigh. They had said at Seeing Eye that a dog can sense your mood and become nervous simply because you are. But I didn't feel nervous. I felt a little tired, as jet lag was starting to set in, and a little annoyed that RayAnn's friend who'd "rented" us her car hadn't owned a Jeep so RayAnn could blaze this trail. My legs were tired, but my brain was curious. I wanted to get a feel for this place that Justin Creed called holy and everyone else called hellish.
    Lanz let out some short whines.
    "Can't pets, like, feel everything?" Katy whispered. "He senses something ... dark. Let's go back."
    "He'll follow me." I ignored her premonitions, dropping the harness handle and stumbling ahead. My tunnel vision could get worse in the dark, but I could make out a break in the trees coming up by standing still and moving my head slowly, allowing my brain to process the scene in frames. The large moon now painted a jagged glow, separating the dark sky and the ultra-black treetops. Moonlight struck the wet and shining ground at the edge of the forest, revealing an open space as big as a football field. Sure enough, Lanz came after me, whining and panting, and the girls followed to get closer to him.
    We came into the clearing, and I stood there, taking it in frame by frame, not knowing what to make of this place.
    "It's ... full of tree trunks," RayAnn reported to me in a whisper. "There are a dozen or so ... scorched, pointy, hollowed-out tree trunks."
    "They're black?" I asked, and felt her staring at me as I whipped off my glasses, blinking away a dozen twinkles.
    "They're kind of, like, petrified, the trunks," Chan whispered. "They turned a grayish white over the summers instead of staying black."
    White
burned tree trunks? Lanz whined and nudged my hand for comfort, so I dangled my fingers and stroked the top of his head, taking in frame after frame. He wasn't buying into the idea we were safe, probably because we were in a petrified forest.
Will somebody explain that, please?
    "How do burnt tree trunks turn white?" I asked.
    "The only thing known to do that is lightning—if they were struck by lightning before they burned," Katy said. "Somebody brought up the question in science class, and that was the only answer Mr. Kingsley had."
    I took in the six or seven tall, shimmering trunks point
ing jagged fingers up to the sky like skeleton ghosts. "Must have been a hell of a lightning storm."
    Lanz did his best to guide me around larger rocks, stumps, and budding baby trees, but his mind was elsewhere. I finally let go of his harness again and stumbled close to one tall, shining