The Bone Artists (8 page)

Ollie—

I know it's been a few days since I said I'd be in touch. Okay, scratch that, a few weeks, but I needed time. I think you did, too. But I've been thinking about you and your dad, and I wanted to tell you how sorry I am and that I know what you must be going through. It sucks to feel alone. It sucks even worse to think you're alone because of something you did or didn't do.

I'm not emailing to tell you how to live your life, but it helped me to go forward. Juvie was shit at first, then I realized it could be fine. It could be whatever I wanted it to be. So I kept my head down and I worked hard and that got me friends where it counted. Good behavior. That's all it takes—in life, in work, in juvie, in whatever.

I heard through the grapevine that you're not going to Austin. That's a mistake, Ollie. You have to move forward. It's the only thing that helped me. Look, I'm moving forward, okay? Part of that means coming to grips with the truth. The truth is, I was drunk and irresponsible that night with Diane and she died because of it. That's my burden, and I accept it. I don't know how your dad got into that collision, but it was an accident and that's what killed him. Mistakes happen. Accidents happen. You have to let all this conspiracy shit go. Sometimes it's hard to just accept that the world isn't fair, that it's a screwed-up place.

But it can be a good place, too. Hell, I'm going to college. Me! Can you believe it? A decent one, too. The dean at this fancy-pants New Hampshire college reached out, heard some nice things about me from an old boss. See? Good things can and will fall in your lap, Ollie. I can help them fall in your lap if you want me to, but I know you're probably still sore and that's fine.

Think about what I said, okay? I miss you, man.

You take care of yourself, Oliver.

Micah

T
his novella wouldn't have been possible without the inspiration and guidance provided by Andrew Harwell. Additional thanks to Kate McKean and Olivia Russo for all their hard work, and to the Wilder family in Frankfort for showing me all the haunted locals for inspiration. Claudia Gray provided valuable insight into local hangouts in New Orleans. As always, the creative team and HarperCollins deserve heaps of praise. And finally, none of my work would exist without the continued love and support of my family and friends.

W
HEN
D
AN
, A
BBY
,
AND
J
ORDAN TAKE A SENIOR ROAD TRIP TO THE MOST HAUNTED CITY IN
A
MERICA—
N
EW
O
RLEANS—SOME LONG-BURIED SECRETS AND TERRIFYING NEW ENEMIES CONSPIRE TO MAKE IT A TRIP THEY WILL NEVER FORGET. . . .

Keep reading for a sneak peek at
Catacomb
, the bone-chilling third installment in the
New York Times
bestselling Asylum series.

T
hese w
ere the rules as they were first put down:

First, that the Artist should choose an Object dear to the deceased.

Second, that the Artist feel neither guilt nor remorse in the taking.

Third, and most important, that the Object would not hold power until blooded. And that the more innocent the blood for the blooding, the more powerful the result.

A
t first the idea of a cross-country road trip had been hard to stomach. If sleeping in a tent wasn't horrible enough, Dan had felt anxious, almost sick, at the prospect of being away from his computer, his books, his
alone time
for two whole weeks. But that was the deal Jordan offered when he wrote to them with the big news: he was moving to New Orleans to live with his uncle.

Perfect chance
, his email had said,
to have some time together. You two nerds can help me move down there, and we'll get a last hurrah before we all traipse off to college.

Dan couldn't argue with that, or with any reason to spend more time with Abby. She'd visited him in Pittsburgh once a few months ago, and they'd been talking online more or less every week. But two weeks away from parents and chaperones . . . He didn't want to get ahead of himself, but maybe their relationship could finally flourish, or at least survive, with some much-needed quality time together.

The Great Senior Exodus, Jordan had called it. And now, a day after leaving Jordan's miserable parents behind in Virginia, the trip was finally starting to live up to that name.

“These are incredible,” Jordan was saying, flicking through the pictures Abby had taken and then uploaded onto his laptop for safekeeping. “Dan, you should really check these out.”

“I know it's kind of cliché, photographing Americana in black and white, but lately I've been obsessing over Diane Arbus and Ansel Adams. They were the focus of my senior project, and Mr. Blaise really loved it.”

Dan leaned forward between the seats to look at the photographs with Jordan. “They're definitely worth the stops,” he said. They really were something. Open landscapes and deserted buildings—through Abby's eyes, they were desolate, but also beautiful. “So Blaise finally gave you an A, then?”

“Yup. No more stupid A minuses for me.” She beamed. Jordan offered up a high five, which Abby managed without taking her eyes off the road. “He actually grew up in Alabama. He's the one who gave me ideas for sites to photograph.”

They had already stopped a few—well,
many
—times to allow Abby to take photos, but Dan didn't mind the extra time on the road. He could ride forever in this car with his friends, even if his turns driving got a little tedious.

“I know it's lame to take us so far out of the way, but you're not in too much of a hurry to get there, are you, Jordan?”

“You've already apologized about a million times. Don't worry about it. I'd say something if it was annoying.”

“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “I'm sure you would.”

If he was honest, Dan wasn't in too much of a hurry to get there, either.

It had been nine months since they'd watched the Brookline asylum burn to the ground. The three of them had barely escaped with their lives, and they'd managed that much only with the help of a boy named Micah, who had died trying to buy
them time to escape their pursuers. Micah had had a rough, short life, and he'd grown up in Louisiana—a fact Dan had never told Abby or Jordan. Now, just when it seemed like the ghosts of the past were finally content to leave Dan and his friends alone, the three of them were headed to the most haunted city in America. It felt like they were tempting fate, to say the least.

“You okay back there?” Abby asked, cruising smoothly down Highway 59.

“Yeah, I'm good, Abs,” Dan said. He wasn't sure if that was a lie. But before Abby could call him on it, Jordan's phone dinged—or rather, a clip of Beyoncé fired off loud enough to make all three of them jump.

Dan knew what that meant. “You're still talking to Cal?”

“On and off,” Jordan said, quickly reading the text message. “The on part is why Mom won't pay for school. Not sure what I'd do without Uncle Steve.”

“You could stop talking to Cal,” Dan suggested.

“And let my parents
win
? Not likely.” He peered around the center console at Dan, his bare feet propped up on the dashboard. Late afternoon sunlight glinted off the shiny new black lip piercing Jordan had insisted on getting in Louisville. “He says physical therapy is a real shit show sometimes, but his life feels like paradise after New Hampshire College. Hey! I just realized that at Uncle Steve's, I'll be able to Skype with him without my mother the drama queen bursting into tears.”

Dan shifted again, even antsier now at the mention of New Hampshire College. If he let his mind wander or dwell, he would feel the heat of the flames that had engulfed Brookline and everything in it. He wanted to believe that Brookline's
effect on him had ended that day—that the evil had died with Warden Crawford and Professor Reyes—but his last moments at the college had given him cause to doubt.

He'd had another vision. He'd seen Micah's ghost, waving good-bye.

He hadn't had any visions since then, and for that, Dan was grateful. It felt like a signal: it was time to let it all go and move on. Even the files and journals he had saved from the ordeal held no interest anymore.

Well, except for one small thing.

Before the trip, Abby and Jordan had threatened to subject Dan to a search of his things for any junk he might have brought from Brookline. They'd said it like a joke—like, no way Dan would really do that to them, right?

But in the end, they hadn't dumped out his bag, which meant they hadn't found the file he had brought along. The one that had been folded in half at the bottom of the stack they'd rescued from Professor Reyes's things. The one labeled
POSSIBLE FAMILY / CONNECTIONS?
, inside which he'd found a paper-clipped pile of papers, connected by a name that had made his heart shoot into his mouth.

MARCUS DANIEL CRAWFORD
.

Nine months ago, that pile of papers had seemed like a gift, the reward at the end of a long, hard search for answers about his mysterious past. A sparse family tree had confirmed what he'd already suspected: Marcus was his father, and he was also the nephew of the warden through the warden's youngest brother, Bill. But a single line had also been drawn from Marcus to someone named Evelyn. Was that his mother? It seemed
so incomplete. He'd tried to find any Evelyn Crawford online who seemed like a match, but with no promising results and no maiden name, he hadn't had much else to go on.

There was more in the stack—an old postcard, a map, even a police report detailing a time his father had been arrested for breaking and entering—but maddeningly, nothing that would help him pick out his father from the numerous Marcus Daniel Crawfords he found online, and nothing else about his potential mother.

Still. Even after the pile of papers had come to feel less like a gift than a curse, he'd kept the folder hidden. And when he'd packed his bags for this trip, the thought of Paul and Sandy going through his room and finding the folder had been enough to make him bring it—to keep it in sight.

As if on cue, Dan's phone buzzed, not with Beyoncé but with the more subdued jingle indicating Sandy was texting. He checked the message, smiling down into the faint glow of the screen.

How are the intrepid roadtrippers doing? Please tell me you are eating more than beef jerky and Skittles! Call at the next good stopping place.

Dan texted back to reassure her that they were doing their best to eat actual, normal food.

“How's Sandy?” Jordan asked, craning around to look at him again.

“She's good. Just making sure we aren't stuffing ourselves with junk the whole way to Louisiana,” Dan replied. He flicked his eyes up to see Jordan swallowing with some difficulty—the insides of his lips were a guilty shade of Skittles orange.

“It's a road trip. What does she think we're going to do?” Jordan asked. “Boil quinoa on the radiator?”

“That's not a half-bad idea,” Abby teased. “We are
not
stopping at McDonald's tonight.”

“But—”

“No. I checked to see if there was anything to eat other than fast food on the route. Turns out we can avoid the Montgomery traffic and stop at a cute little family-owned diner off 271.”

“Diners have hamburgers,” Jordan pointed out sagely. “So really, that doesn't change much.”

“Hey, I'm just providing a few more options. What you stuff down your gullet is none of my business,” she said.

“And thank God for that,” Jordan muttered. “Quinoa is for goats.”

“I'm with Abby,” Dan said. “I could use a salad, or just, you know, a vegetable of any kind. I'm starting to shrivel up from all the beef jerky.”

He heard the satisfied smile in Abby's voice as she sat up straighter in the driver's seat and said, “That's settled then. The place I found is called the Mutton Chop, and the same family has owned it for generations. We can get a little local history for my photography project
and
a decent meal.”

“I'm still getting a burger,” Jordan muttered. He twisted to face the windshield, sighing as he slid down into his seat and began to text at lightning speed. “Soon I'll be on the all-gumbo, all-jambalaya diet. Gotta get my burgers in while I still can.”