Stranger by Megan Hart Page A

was an advantage to having a real boyfriend, but then again, that had its own price, and one more steep than what Jack charged to make me happy.
    I was often alone, but tonight for the first time in as long as I could think, I was also lonely.
    My book, a tome I’d picked up from the library, had promised action, adventure and romance. So far there’d been a lot of pining and a little bit of angst, and I was already nearly a hundred pages into it. Since my thought was that by a hundred pages in, someone ought to have already died or gotten laid, I closed the book and put it aside.
    Which left nothing but the TV. I flipped channels. Nothing of interest by the time I hit the top limit of channels. I held my television viewing to the same standards as my book reading—if nobody was dying or fucking by the time I reached a hundred, I was done.
    Just before I reached my limit, I paused on a popular ghost-hunting show I’d heard about but never watched. A mixed team of psychics and unbelievers visited locales supposed to be haunted, each team seeking proof of the supernatural or attempting to debunk it. They always went in at night, of course, as if spirits couldn’t be arsed during daylight.

    I don’t believe in fate, but there’s no denying serendipity. Though the show took place all over the country, tonight, the first episode I’d ever seen, had been filmed at the now-closed Harrisburg State Hospital. It was jarring to see familiar street signs and landscapes as they drove to their targeted spot. I’d never been inside the place myself, but I knew where it was and had driven past a few of the buildings. The Angelina Jolie film Girl, Interrupted had been filmed there, and a bunch of my friends and I had tried to catch glimpses of the movie stars working on the project.
    Maybe it was because I could too easily associate this location with my life, or maybe the episode was particularly scary, but as I watched, by myself in darkness, the creeps that usually left me alone sneaked up and down my spine.
    I should’ve turned it off. This wasn’t like watching cheesy horror movies in a packed theater. This was chilling, and downright disturbing, but like a child afraid to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night for fear the monster under the bed will reach out to grab her ankles, I pulled my knees up to my chest and hid my face behind the crocheted throw from the back of the couch. Of course, hiding behind a crocheted blanket didn’t offer much protection, since it was a series of holes linked together to form a pattern, and I saw everything. Yet, though I told myself I was being absolutely ridiculous, I couldn’t stop watching until the program was over. At the end of the show, in daylight, each team was supposed to present their evidence. Tonight’s program ended in a definite decision of “paranormal” even the unbelievers couldn’t disparage. Too much creepy shit had happened.
    And now it was all in my head, in the dark, alone. Three floors above a room filled with corpses.
    It had never bothered me before and I was determined not to let it bother me now. I turned off the television and turned on the lights. I picked up that book and tried to read. Curse my small bladder, though, and the effects of the tea, because no sooner had I turned a page or two than I had to get up and go to the bathroom again.
    All I have to say is, if you’re going to have the piss scared out of you, the bathroom’s the place to be.
    I’d just finished washing my hands when I heard it, the soft plink-tinkle of music. I froze while scalding water made pink gloves of my hands. I hissed and turned off the water.
    Listening.
    I heard nothing for long enough to convince myself it had been my imagination, but a second after that I froze again as the faint but unmistakable sound of musical notes drifted to my ears. I leaned toward the tiny, stuck-shut window, thinking the noise could have come from traffic, but heard nothing. Not even a