Prologue

Chapter 1

It all began with a laugh, a cry, and a thud. The laugh was so loud it made Zane sit up in bed. It came from across the street and it sounded like the laugh of a madman. It gave him the creeps. Before Zane could lie back down, the laugh was replaced by a desperate, piercing cry. The cry of a wounded animal. Or of a man reduced to the state of an animal. The cry was followed by a thud so heavy it could have been a boulder falling to the floor. Or a dead body. Zane ran into his sister's room. A drastic measure reserved strictly for emergencies. "Ally, wake up." "Go away." Ally tried to bury her head in her pillow, but Zane gave her a hard shake. "It's important." "What is?" He told her what he'd heard. She cocked her head, listening. All was silent now. "And you're sure it was him?" She gestured in the direction of the house across the street. "Uh-huh. C'mon- we have to do something!" Grumpily, Ally followed Zane downstairs. Hearts beating fast, they cracked open the front door and peeked out. There was a full moon and they could see as clearly as if it were daytime. And yet there was nothing to see. The house across the street looked completely peaceful. Ally stared at it, more curious than she'd let on. Their new neighbor had moved in two months earlier. They knew next to nothing about him, only that he was supposed to be some kind of author- a profession that might be suspicious in the eyes of some but that intrigued her greatly. "Maybe he was reading one of his books out loud," Ally suggested. "I heard writers do that." "It wasn't words; it was a laugh, and then a scream, and then-" "So what do you want to do? Knock on his door?" Zane shrugged unhappily. He didn't know what he wanted to do. "He won't let anyone in during the daytime," Ally continued. "Can you imagine how nad he would be if somebody barged in on him in the middle of the night?" "He won't be mad if he's dead." Ally rolled her eyes. "Maybe he was watching a sitcom and that was the laugh you heard. Then he switched to a horror movie-" And then what- he knocked the TV over?" "Why not? Aren't all writers supposed to be crazy?" Zane laughed, his mind turning to the mystery series he was reading: A Series of Secrets by I.B. Anonymous. If their neighbor's books were anything like I.B.'s, then their neighbor must be completely nuts. His sister was right, though Zane: in a writer's house, sounds didn't necessarily mean what you thought they did. Remembering all the twists and turns and zany reveals in I.B.'s secret stories, Zane allowed Ally to lead him back upstairs. Shortly afterward, the door of their neighbor's house opened, and a pair of eyes peered out into the night. Satisfied that he wasn't being watched, the owner of those eyes crept out of the house. A moment later, he had vanished. Out of the distance came the sound of a dog- or was it a wolf?- howling at the moon.