The Haunting Read online

  Despite the aftermath, he didn’t deserve to stay hanging up there. If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed with losing Neive, I might have thought of that earlier. Regret stabbed, and I turned to cut him down. It was cruel for Damien to display him like that. Cooper wasn’t a plaything. His body deserved more respect than this.

  As I pivoted, the front door slammed shut. The edge of the door was close enough to blow my hair back from my face. I felt it scrape the tips of my toes, not close enough to clip them, thankfully. Jumping, I heard the bolt as the door locked me inside.

  “Took you long enough,” Phoebe’s voice called behind me.

  Wiping my face free of forgotten tears, I turned to see them all there.

  Joel leaned against the farthest wall between two chairs. Arms crossed over his broad chest, he still favored his injured hand, but I noticed new wrappings. He was looking up at me, thick eyebrows furrowed and disgruntled as usual. His tan wasn’t pale anymore.

  One of the antique chairs beside him was exposed. The wooden buttons in the backing and wooden frame were coated in a shining dark stain that I decided not to think about. Its sheet was on the floor. I could see where they’d torn it for new gauze.

  Phoebe brushed a strand of her greasy blonde hair away from her face and avoided my gaze. A new bandage was tied around her ankle. Red veins weren’t spiderwebbing up her leg like it had in my dream, but she still kept her weight off of it.

  “Why?” I asked. “How long have you been waiting?”

  Robin Thurston answered, her usually loud voice strained and hoarse. “Felt like over an hour. But Cody and I have been here for a while.”

  “Yeah,” Joel sneered. “They figured out the Challenge. That screaming baby was what we should have gone after.”

  Phoebe snorted and rolled her dark green eyes as if they’d argued about this before.

  Cody shifted on his feet, jostling Robin, who was leeched to his side. Her hip came up to his thigh. Her head didn’t reach much past his armpit. Usually she wore heels to match their height, but she’d lost them somewhere in the Challenge, which left her barefoot.

  Robin nodded, her bobbed hair looking as though it housed mice. “Cody said some poem, and poof, it disappeared and we walked through a door to here.”

  Could it have been Bess who did that? She’d showed me how she died. Showed me a piece of Joel’s ugly past.

  As a teenager, Bess became pregnant with Joel’s baby. When he left, not wanting the responsibility, she committed suicide in a swimming pool. I got to see the whole thing first hand because I tried to save Joel. Stupid me.

  “Why didn’t you come back for us is what I want to know,” Phoebe piped up, unimpressed.

  Robin’s pale green eyes flashed annoyance. “Who knows how long that door would be open? Besides, we called for you guys, and no one answered.”

  “We thought we lost you guys,” Cody said, scratching his bare stomach. He’d lost his shirt in the zoo. His eyes were still red with popped blood vessels, making it hard to look him in the eye.

  “Well, I’m glad you all made it,” I said numbly, searching the room for clues.

  It was a creepy old house. It definitely squashed Aidan’s grandpa’s house.

  Our little group huddled in the foyer, but all around us were doors instead of the doorways I’d seen before. But then, I hadn’t seen my friends until the front door slammed shut. I noticed none of the possibilities were black doors like I’d been accustomed to.

  Nailed on each door was a wooden sign with a word. They had a similar likeness to the one over the front door.

  The first one nearest Joel read: Dragon.

  The second: Wasteland.

  The third: Bloodwork.

  Fourth: Dead.

  And finally the fifth door read: Reaper

  “Not very inviting, are they?” Phoebe said.

  I glanced at her, but she avoided my eye. “Any clues?” I asked.

  Robin vibrated and all but raised her hand before saying, “When Cody and I got here, Damien came to give us a clue.”

  At the mention of his name, I winced. The tender scar he’d created pinched.

  Phoebe and Joel both noticed my recoil, though they both responded differently.

  “What did take you so long?” Phoebe asked.

  At the same time, Joel growled, “Scared? Was he a little rough with you this time?”

  If I had something in my hand, I would have thrown it at him. Ignoring them both, I asked, “What was the clue, Robin?”

  I saw out of the corner of my eye that Joel had started to grin. He’d gotten under my skin with that comment, and he knew it.

  Robin’s gaze flickered between Joel, Phoebe, and me. “Uh…” she said before focusing back on me. “Six, two, one, and one.”

  “What have you come up with so far?” I asked.

  “Well, with no help from you—”

  “Shut up, Joel.” Phoebe’s voice cracked the air like a whip.

  Joel rolled his eyes and leaned his shaved head against the wall, still smirking.

  Robin looked between the tanned, thumb-less jerk and me with a meddling interest. “Well, we tried, like, figuring out which letter it is in the alphabet.”

  “But in the end it spelled F-B-A-A,” Phoebe interrupted. “Even as an anagram, it’s useless.”

  “Like I said, it’s four letters. Let’s just pick the door with four letters,” Joel said, his voice still edged with aggression. To Phoebe, he said snidely, “That would be the one marked ‘Dead.’”

  That stung even me. I glanced at Phoebe, who finally made eye contact, but it was wounded and brief.

  “No,” she snapped. “We’re not doing it that way. You be my guest.” She motioned him toward the door, her eyes wild with anger. “Better yet, jump in first and tell us if it’s safe.” She wiggled her thumbs up for him to see and said with false enthusiasm, “Oh look, opposable thumbs. I’ll open the door for you.”

  Robin scolded her. “Phoebe, that’s not nice.”

  “Neither is he,” she said, not looking away from him.

  They stood opposite each other, both tensed and aggressive.

  Phoebe was just defending me. I needed to stand up to Joel myself, and here I was allowing Phoebe to fight my battles for me.

  Stepping up beside the bronze blonde, I said, “Leave him alone. He just wants attention.”

  “You should talk,” I heard him snort.

  I spun on him. “Pick the door you want and let us figure out what we’re doing, will you?”

  “Hear, hear,” Cody added, which earned him an elbow in the stomach from his girlfriend.

  Phoebe had her eyebrows raised until he looked away. Falling silent, he pouted in the corner, and I turned to face Phoebe, Cody, and Robin. We were all on edge, not just Joel.

  Robin motioned to Joel with her head. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing,” I snapped. “He didn’t like me from the start.”

  Cody nodded in mute confirmation.

  “Anyway,” Phoebe said after an awkward silence, “we searched the whole room here for maybe some type of clue.”

  “There isn’t even gum under the chairs.” Robin pursed her lips. “I mean, there was blood on that one chair, but I’m not touching it. And like the signs don’t even make sense with the number he gave us. I thought maybe there would be graffiti or something behind…”

  “The sign.” I pointed to the front door. “Like the one outside?”

  Robin blinked, confused.

  “I didn’t see a sign,” Joel started.

  “I did.” Phoebe interrupted him before he could begin his conspiracy rant. “It said: Intruders Beware at Dusk, right?”

  Robin’s shoulders sagged. “That’s doesn’t help much either.”

  I said, “Actually it does.”

  All eyes turned up to me. Rounding the letters out in my head, I counted on my hands to try and get the right sequence. “The sixth letter in Intruders is D. The second in
the word Beware is E and so on.”

  “I guess you were right.” Phoebe snorted as if she shouldn’t believe it. “Looks like we go through the door marked, Dead. But not just because it has four letters.”

  Joel shrugged. “What does it matter? I was right.”

  I motioned to the door. “We cannot split up this time, okay? This is our last chance to get everyone back.”

  Phoebe cracked her knuckles, looking at the floor.

  Robin’s lower lip trembled. “You mean, if we’re not all back, we’re stuck here for good?”

  At my silence, worry crinkled her forehead until she looked up at Cody as if he could do something.

  “Does everyone know about the rings?” I asked, and everyone but Phoebe nodded. At least that was one thing I didn’t have to explain. “Alright, let’s go.”

  I turned to the door and half expected Phoebe to shoulder me aside. She’d done this throughout the whole second Challenge, but this time she didn’t.

  Gripping the cool doorknob, I took a breath and opened it.

  Squinting as if that could stop whatever horror from seeing me, I saw a railing ahead of us.

  Taking the first to step onto the half-circle balcony, I shuffled closer to the elegant wooden railing. Cobwebs and dust marred the carved details between the rails.

  Somewhere in the distance, a violin played a low, eerie tune, enhancing an already intense ambiance.

  Beside me, Robin breathed, “Wow.”

  Lined up along the edge, we overlooked a dreary spider-web-infested ballroom.

  But that wasn’t the interesting part.

  Below, transparent people in Victorian dresses and suits danced. The music wafting up dictated each graceful step.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The ethereal, grey crowd twirled past the ghostly violinist who stood near the furthest wall. The translucent females wore sweeping long dresses with corsets and flowers in their curled hair. The male ghosts wore suits with high collars. Their hair was slicked back by gel or in a ponytail.

  Robin was right to sound impressed.

  “A ballroom full of aristocratic ghosts,” Joel said, sounding strangely reflective.

  “There’s a catch,” Phoebe said, scanning the ballroom.

  I glanced behind us to see a red velvet curtain. Pushing away from the railing, I ignored the fear of what could be behind and jerked it aside. The exit had been boarded up with enough protruding nails that it would be impossible to remove without a tetanus shot.

  “How do we get down?” Cody asked. Phoebe’s sharp intake of breath caught my attention.

  Hurrying to the edge, I followed her gaze to color amidst the grey. Sprawled in the middle of the dance floor, what she was looking at was barely visible through the semi-solid dancers. I could make out black hair and jeans. “I bet it’s Read,” I whispered. Either that or it was Damien, but I doubted it.

  The figure appeared unconscious. He lay still while greyed skirts and feet swept gracefully through him.

  “How do we get down?” Cody asked again.

  I checked the balcony and saw no ladder. We were at least twenty feet above the floor. Below us, rounded tables and chairs surrounded the dance floor and two large sofas, one level with the balcony.

  Joel pointed to the sofa. “What about that?”

  Only two of the three cushions remained, and they were torn. Springs protruded and stuffing billowed out of the cracks.

  Robin shook her head. “Are you kidding?” Her slender fingers curled around the railing. “I’m not falling onto a hard sofa from up here.”

  I looked from side to side. “Can you see a better way?”

  Robin’s full lips pursed, almost touching her nose. “There has to be another way,” she said, determined.

  Cody thoughtfully placed his hand on the sturdy wood railing. “You know, if we had a saw, we could cut the railing and use it as a ladder or something.”

  Robin and Joel shook their heads. “Too rickety,” Joel said.

  “You watch too many cartoons,” Robin said.

  Appraising the height, Cody finally said, “I think I can make it.”

  I rolled my eyes, not thinking he was serious until he crawled over the railing, long legs easily clearing it.

  “Holy crap, Cody.” I grabbed his arm while Robin snatched his other one.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in a hushed voice.

  I looked to the ballroom and was grateful to see the ghosts still oblivious to our presence.

  Standing above the sofa, Cody glanced back at me then to Robin. “I’ll be landing on cushions,” he argued.

  “Unless your aim is off,” Joel grumbled under his breath.

  “You could still hurt yourself,” Robin said.

  “Cody, you don’t have to,” I assured. “I’m sure that if we looked a little harder, we could find another way down.”

  Cody raised his eyebrows at me and said plainly, “I really don’t see another way down. We don’t have a lot of time. I mean, Phoebe’s been poisoned…”

  Phoebe’s lip curled. “You mean dead.”

  “What?!” Robin’s whisper exploded, losing all sense of secrecy.

  “…and Joel needs someone to look at his hand. I’m not about to let one of you girls take the jump in case it isn’t safe,” Cody said.

  He started to look back to the couch before twisting with a snap. His blood-blistered eyes focused on Phoebe. “What do you mean, dead?”

  Phoebe nodded to me without looking at me. “Ask her.”

  Everyone’s attention shifted, and I shrank back, letting Cody go.

  “You knew all this time,” she accused.

  “No,” I whispered. “I didn’t.”

  “After that…” Phoebe swallowed, “…it was dark. Until I woke up to find Read and Robin.”

  “By the hotel,” Robin confirmed. “We found you in the dumpster.”

  “After that,” Phoebe continued, “parts of me didn’t work right.” She looked to her hands, squeezing them tight as if to make sure they were still functional.

  “You died?” Joel asked, staring at Phoebe in awe. “Are you sure?”

  Phoebe jutted her chin toward me. “I overheard her talking to Damien. When I leave, I’m leaving as a corpse.”

  Feeling the intensity of their gazes again, I felt the warmth in my stomach churn on defense. “I don’t know what happened,” I lied. “Damien happened to tell me.” A loose lie. He told me I brought her back with my powers. I pressed my hand just below my breasts to calm the warmth within. Glancing from confused to accusing face, I felt my mouth go dry.

  “And you didn’t say anything.” Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. “Who else is dead?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Just you, I think.”

  Joel took a step forward as if to block Phoebe from me.

  My eyebrows furrowed, and I felt a surge of betrayal. “It’s not like I killed you.”

  “She’s right,” Robin said, her voice loud enough to get their attention. “It’s not her fault. You opened that door…CODY!”

  Seeing that his girlfriend had been distracted, Cody took the opportunity to drop over the side. Robin nearly flipped over the rail when she slammed into it. Phoebe took one big step and swooped one arm around Robin’s waist, as if she thought Robin might jump.

  To my utter astonishment, Cody landed on the sofa, on his back. If he’d missed, he would have splattered all over the dusty hardwood. Cody bounced once on the sofa and rolled onto the floor with athletic grace, landing on his knees. He tilted his head up to see the four of us slack-jawed and shrugged. The ghosts continued their waltz, ignoring his presence as he raised both hands and gave us a thumbs-up.

  “That lucky bastard,” Joel rumbled.

  “Why did he just do that?” Phoebe wondered.

  “To stop us from arguing,” Robin said, sounding numb. “He hates that.”

  I shook my head, bewildered. Cody had always played it safe and quiet
at Robin’s side. Robin could draw the attention and hold a conversation so Cody didn’t have to. For him to just leap over the edge of a balcony and trust the fall enough to land on a sofa backwards was insane.

  Worry edged my mind. It wasn’t completely disturbing to know that this place changed us; it was just realizing how much.

  Cody gestured frantically for us to follow.

  Robin quivered as she lifted a curvy leg over the railing.

  “Let someone else go second,” I urged her.

  She didn’t look at me; her knees were shaking so hard I thought they’d collapse and send her cartwheeling over the side. Phoebe’s arm, though still around her waist, wasn’t restraining her.

  “I can do this.” Robin glared at Phoebe.

  Robin let go of the railing and teetered on the tiny edge outside of the railing. “Let me go, Phoebe,” she urged. “I’m not leaving him down there alone.”

  Phoebe glanced at Joel.

  Glanced at Joel instead of me for an answer, I realized. The stab of that ran deep, and I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling my muscles harden.

  Joel nodded, giving his consent.

  “No,” I whispered harshly. “What if she breaks her leg or something? We can’t risk jumping. Cody was lucky, he…”

  Phoebe let her go, and Robin disappeared over the side.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I held my breath, feeling the air form a bowling ball in the center of my chest, and waited for the worst.

  Like the little gymnastics instructor/ex-cheerleader that she was, Robin landed on her feet. She somersaulted off the couch and popped up on her feet in a fluid, single motion. Adjusting her tight summer dress, she wrapped Cody in a triumphant hug.

  “Show off.” A half-smirk tugged at Phoebe’s mouth.

  I felt ashamed; I was scared to do this, and Robin of all people volunteered. Throw Robin in a social situation and she could dazzle a room, unafraid. Throw her in the Demon’s Grave and she was a blubbering catastrophe.

  It’s the height, I reminded myself. One December, an airplane trip to my uncle’s ended with me hyperventilating, so we had to road-trip it. The thought of the plane crashing and the thousands of feet between me and the ground put my seven-year-old self on the verge of panic.