Jason

"'Who would whistle back right now?'

Matt snapped, but his voice shook.

The whistling stopped.

There was a pause, a shifting kind of silence, like something outside our circle was thinking.

Then, from directly behind me, in my voice, "'This is stupid.

It's just echoes.'"

I felt my guts drop like I'd stepped off a cliff.

The others all stared at me in horror because I hadn't opened my mouth.

The words had been mine, down to the exact annoyed tone I'd used earlier that day.

But I hadn't said them.

I didn't, I started.

Shut up, Aaron hissed.

The thing that sounded like me laughed.

It was a perfect copy of my laugh, the little snort at the end, except for the part where it went on a fraction of a second too long, stretching into a dry, crackling wheeze.

Then it began to circle us, invisible, my voice moving from behind Dylan to above Becca to somewhere out in the dark.

"'You guys are such babies,' it said, still using my voice."

Old guy at the gas station tells one spooky story and you all freak out.

It's just the canyon.

It's just the wind.

Relax.