Perry shuffled his cards suggestively. No one took him up on the unspoken offer.

"I know," Junior said, scrambling for his backpack. He pulled out a couple library books. Further searching turned up a small flashlight. He shoved the flashlight under his chin and turned the beam on. The golden light played across the planes of his face, turning his eyes into cavernous hollows.

"You're a pumpkin?" Flynn asked. "You want to play Halloween?"

"No, you cretinous moron," Junior said in disgust.

Flynn stood up, rising to his full, impressive height. "Talking like that is gonna get you thumped."

Junior flicked the flashlight off as if trying to vanish into the night's shadows.

"Flynn crush," Perry said, laughing derisively. "Flynn destroy."

Flynn shot Perry a venomous glare. "I get done here, I got plenty left over for you, geek."

"Not Halloween," Michael said, trying to bring the conversation back to the subject of distraction rather than destruction. "Ghost stories."

Junior flicked the flashlight on again, highlighting his face once more. "Bwah-haaaa-haaaaa!" he bellowed.

Despite his rough-and-ready act, Flynn was startled and jumped back at the outburst. The instinctive retreat caused Perry and Tiller to laugh. Michael grinned wider, but really wasn't looking forward to ghost stories, which he considered almost as boring as the argument between Flynn and Junior. Still, he was glad someone had thought of something to do.

"Think you can handle it, Flynn?" Perry taunted. "How many times have you been out in this part of the desert? They got all kinds of spooky things supposed to be rambling around out here."

Tiller joined in, obviously enjoying the challenge of rattling Flynn. "The Mesaliko Indians believed in shape-changing monsters with a taste for human flesh. And there are all kinds of stories about murders on trail drives and wagon trains rolling into California during the gold rush." He nodded at the hills surrounding the campsite. "Maybe you don't know what's really out there."