One year later, Hunter Westlake is at school. It's Halloween again, and Hunter is dressed as a scarecrow. He is an unusual child, with very few friends. The other kids think he is creepy because he likes to play over at the Seven Sleepers Cemetery. If anyone thought to ask him about this, Hunter would say he likes it there because he feels safer around the dead than he does around the living.
The other kids also look sideways at Hunter because they know his mother runs the All Souls Nursing Home, and that his grandfather is a tenant there. Everyone knows All Souls is really just Full Circle Sanitarium under a different name. The Quantamaker Group disappeared, Logan Westlake purchased the property, and it has long since become a safe and happy home for the elderly.
But there is still a sense that something about All Souls isn't quite "right," especially among the children of Wyrdham. No one has ever seen any of the tenants sleep or eat. They must be the most agreeable caregiving patients ever, since they never appear to die or even get sick. They never go outside, they never have visitors, and they never speak. They never seem to do anything at all, really, but sit and stare out their windows, watching. Waiting.
The kids at Colonel Bruce Middle School are having lunch in the cafeteria now, and Hunter is sitting by himself. He is soon joined by Hank, the toughest bully at the school, who is dressed as a skeleton. Hank thinks it's funny to taunt Hunter about his mother and grandfather; he thinks it's a total riot. But he doesn't laugh for very long. He suddenly feels a presence behind him, cold and dark. He turns around to see a seven-foot tall scarecrow standing right behind him.
"That's my Grandpa," Hunter says, smiling at Hank. "And he really hates bullies."
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