The Fade

by Demitria Lunetta

  This is too much. “Look, whoever is down there, this isn’t funny.”

  Two hands are on my back and I’m airborne. I roll down the stairs, hitting every step on the way. Pain explodes in my limbs and my neck, and I try to protect my head, but my arms aren’t fast enough. The back of my skull hits the floor with a loud crack and I drift into darkness.

  WHEN I WAKE up I have a horrible headache. How long have I been lying on the floor in the dark basement? I hurt everywhere, and I feel queasy. I cradle my head in my hands, waiting for the waves of nausea to pass. I try to stand, but I’m light-headed and have to sit back down.

  Eventually, I leverage myself against the wall and use the banister to make my way up the stairs. It’s slow going. I must have only been knocked out for a little while, because it’s still light outside and there’s no trace of Dad or Shannon.

  The stairs up to the second floor are a little easier to handle. I stumble to my room and fall onto my bed. I feel for my phone on my nightstand and just manage to grasp it. I try to dial, but the numbers float in front of me. I’m so tired. I let myself close my eyes and return to nothingness.

  * * *

  I jolt awake in my bed. The sheets are plastered to my sweaty arms and legs. I peel them off my clammy skin and sit up. Rain pelts my window, and a thunderclap shakes the house.

  I untangle myself from the bedding and stand groggily, unable to shake the sleep from my body. At least my head no longer hurts. I walk unsteadily out of my room to the stairs. There are no lights on in the house, and I call out, uncertain, “Mom? Dad? Shannon?”

  My voice echoes through the house and bounces back to me. I check their rooms, not believing that they would go out in this weather, or leave me sleeping, alone, without waking me, without even leaving a note. Mom should be home from work, and Dad and Shannon should have come back from lunch by now. I try the lights, but we’ve lost power. Lightning flares, sparking the empty house in an eerie glow.

  I make my way back to the stairs and put my hand on the cold wooden banister. Another flash of lightning reveals that my fingers are covered in black dust. I rub them together. When was I last drawing? Why can’t I remember? Did I black out again and sketch another one of the girls? That would explain the charcoal covering my fingers.

  I go downstairs to the front window to check if Mom’s or Dad’s car is there, but the rain has fogged the glass. Desperate, I open the front door and am about to take a step outside when the doorknob is wrenched from my hand and the door slams shut.

  “It’s just the wind,” I whisper to myself, because I’m not willing to believe the alternative: That Chris was wrong, and the ghosts that haunt this place do mean me harm. They pushed me down the stairs, and now I’m trapped here.

  I tug at the door, but it doesn’t move. Panicked, I run through the living room, past the stairs, and into the kitchen to the back door. I pull with all my strength, but it refuses to budge as well.

  I move on to the window and manage to unfasten the lock and lift it a few inches before it also slams shut. Trying to pry it open, I scratch at the molding before giving up and scurrying to the corner of the kitchen. Huddling with my arms around my head, I rock back and forth.

  Where are my parents? Where is my sister? It’s those thoughts, midwhimper, that get me to my feet. Did they really leave, or has something happened to them? Another clap of thunder shakes the house, and the wind beats the windows mercilessly.

  “What do you want?” I ask softly. Then, louder: “What do you want?” Finally, I scream it, my voice rising above the howling of the storm. “What do you waaaaaaant?”

  A girl appears before me. Blond and tall, wearing leggings and a large white T-shirt that hangs off one shoulder. I’m so shocked I am frozen in place, gaping at her, while she stares—not quite at me, more like past me. I blink, because she’s hard to look at. Like when my camera takes a pic in low-def, kind of fuzzy around the edges. I realize I can see the kitchen counter through her transparent form.

  “What do you want?” I ask again, desperately.

  Her eyes snap to mine and her mouth widens in an O. I stalk toward her, but she scrambles back and disappears.

  And I am left alone.

  I MAKE MY way back up to my room, uncertain of what I should do. I shut the door behind me and lock it, knowing that it won’t make me safe.

  Maybe I can escape through my bedroom window, shinny down the tree. I’m so clumsy I’d probably fall, but at this point I’m willing to do anything. I try the window and it won’t budge, so I pick up my faux-wood desk chair and hold it above my head. When I throw it, I’m not surprised that instead of shattering the glass, it breaks uselessly and crumbles to the ground.

  I kick the flimsy wood aside and try again to unhitch the lock. A bolt of lightning streaks across the sky and illuminates the yard. Someone is down there, standing in the rain, staring up at me. Someone with yellow hair and black basketball shorts. Coop.

  I pound on the window and shout. I wave frantically at Coop and hope he figures out I need help. He doesn’t seem to understand, though, or he’s scared, because he backs away, toward the trees and his home.

  “No!” I shout. “Please, come back!”

  I hear a noise outside my door. I think about hiding in my closet, but what would that accomplish? I can’t stay there forever. Shaky, I walk across my bedroom, and before I lose my nerve I jerk open the door.

  Blackness.

  * * *

  When I wake, I am once more on my bed. Wrinkled drawing paper covers my bedspread.

  “No.” It’s happened again.

  I seize the papers, crumbling them in my grip. Most of what I’ve drawn are bare sketches; disjointed lines; long, desperate slashes of charcoal. I shuffle through them, trying to understand.

  It comes to me all at once. It’s like a puzzle. I sweep the paper onto the floor and try to connect the lines. When I’m done, I take a step back in disgust.

  It’s a depiction of my parents’ bathroom. Their shower. I’ve even roughly sketched the flowers on the curtain, swept back to make room for the horror I’ve drawn there.

  It’s my mother. Dangling from the shower curtain rod, an electrical cord around her neck. Her hair hangs limp around her head and shoulders. The face is bloated, distorted, but I know it’s her because she’s in her scrubs. Her feet lie outside the tub, lifeless.

  “No!” I scream. I must take a step back, because I fall on the carpet. I can’t take my eyes off what I’ve drawn.

  Why would they make me do this? Is it a warning? Is it a threat?

  Or is it already done?

  Is my mother dead?

  SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND.

  She thinks we want to hurt her.

  She has no idea what she really is.

  Our plan (his plan) hasn’t worked.

  He twisted what we needed.

  He didn’t understand, or he understood only too well.

  We feel the pull of her and she of us, but we cannot break through the armor she has surrounded herself with.

  She is so strong.

  Stronger than us.

  We must make her see.

  Before another one dies.

  “HALEY, WHAT ARE you doing?”

  I look up into my mother’s eyes, trying not to think of my drawing, in which they were dull and bulging. That was just a picture. A sick, twisted joke played by the Grabbed Girls. This is real, and she’s standing in front of me, full of concern.

  “You’re okay?” I ask, uncertain.

  “I’m fine. Why are you in here?”

  “I…I’m not sure.” I’m on my parents’ bed, but I don’t know how I got here or what time it is. After the horror of drawing my mom hanging from the shower rod, I don’t remember what happened. I must have gone to the bathroom to make sure she wasn’t ther
e, then collapsed on her bed in relief…or maybe it was shock?

  I reach out and hug my mom, tears stinging my eyes.

  “Where were you?” I ask shakily.

  “I had a double shift at work. I told you.”

  “I forgot,” I say.

  “Did something happen?”

  “No,” I lie.

  Chris was absolutely wrong that the ghosts don’t want to hurt me. First they make me fall down the stairs and nearly kill me. Then they lock me in the house and try to scare me to death. Last they take over my body and make me draw horrific pictures. Why? What do they get out of it?

  My mom puts her hands on my shoulders, holds me at arm’s length to study me. “Were you really that scared? It was just a storm, Haley.”

  “Yeah, just a storm,” I repeat. “But what about Dad and Shannon?”

  “They’re in Madison. Shannon wanted to see the campus. They’ll be gone till tomorrow.”

  “At a hotel?” I ask. We don’t have money for that.

  “They’re staying with Shannon’s high school friend. They’re going to be on the college soccer team together next year. Haley, do you pay attention to anything anyone tells you?”

  I choke out a laugh. “I guess not.”

  She hugs me close. “You must have thought we all abandoned you,” she jokes.

  “Yeah, that you moved back to Chicago without me.”

  “I wouldn’t move anywhere without you,” she assures me. “I’ll always be here for you.”

  I hug her again, glad she’s safe.

  THE NEXT DAY the rain clears and the sun dries everything, as if the storm never happened, but I can’t shake my anxiety. Part of it is worry about what my ghostly roommates have planned for me next, but part of it is a deep-down unease I just can’t shake.

  I keep going to my bedroom window, just to make sure the latch unlocks and I can push it open. My mom must have cleaned my room while I slept, because the splintered mess of my chair is nowhere to be seen.

  I go to the window again and find Coop staring up at me. I wave and he takes a step back. “Hold on!” I yell as I push open the window.

  He pauses, looks around, then up at me and gives a tight nod.

  I make my way down the stairs and outside. He hasn’t moved an inch. I stop a few feet away from him and he stares at me apprehensively.

  “What are you doing creeping around in my yard?” I ask.

  “I wasn’t creeping around,” he says with a blush that travels up his pale cheeks to the dark roots of his spiky frosted hair. “I was…I was trying to see the girls.” He sighs loudly. “That does make me sound like a total creeper.”

  “So have you decided that Chris isn’t delusional?”

  “No, he definitely is.” He looks slightly ashamed.

  “Coop, you are acting so weird,” I tell him.

  “Sorry, I just…I didn’t expect you to see me and come down here and ask a bunch of questions.”

  “Well, you’re in my yard, outside my house, staring up at my window, so I think I can ask you whatever I want. You’re lucky my mom didn’t see you.” I say. “She still hasn’t met you, and after Mr. Grant called the cops about your break-in…” Mom would march out here and ask who the hell Coop was.

  “Your mom’s in there?” he asks, eyeing the house.

  “Still sleeping, I think. She had a long shift at the hospital yesterday,” I explain impatiently. “Look, I have a lot to tell you. You won’t believe the weird shit that happened. And my dad went on a trip, so you don’t have to worry about him kicking you out of the house.” Coop looks so put out…and I thought I’d be the one that needed to be comforted from all that happened last night. “Okay. What’s going on?”

  “Haley, I’m so sorry. I haven’t been a hundred percent honest with you.”

  “About what?” I ask, dread filling my body. “What are you lying about?”

  “It’s not that I lied, exactly. It’s just…when you said all that stuff about Chris, I didn’t tell you that…” He pauses, the words stuck in this throat.

  But I already sense what he’s about to confess. “You see dead people too,” I say at last.

  He barks out a laugh. “Yeah. Like that movie. ‘I see dead people.’ ”

  I don’t know what movie he’s talking about, but this is huge. I need a second to process it.

  I walk toward the swing set and take a seat. Coop follows slowly.

  “You and Chris have the same ability?” I ask.

  “No.” He shakes his head. “That’s the thing. Chris doesn’t have the ability at all!”

  “I don’t understand,” I admit.

  He sits next to me and explains. “When Emily went missing, I was the one who could see her. Not Chris.”

  “But he…,” I start, but stop when I catch his look. His face is scrunched, his eyes closed. “That must have been terrible.”

  “It was.” He rubs his face absently. “It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a ghost. But for it to be my own sister…and my parents had no idea. They thought she might still be alive. I couldn’t tell them the truth. It was torture. And poor Chris. He was so close to her. He kept thinking she would come home at any moment. I thought it would be better for him to know.”

  “So you told him what you could see?” I ask gently.

  “Kind of. I told him that Emily was dead but not gone. That she stayed over here now and was happy. He’d sneak out all the time, trying to find her. It freaked my mother out so much. After Emily disappeared, she wanted to know where we were at all times. But Chris would still try to get a glimpse of her, and eventually he decided he could see her too.”

  “But he couldn’t?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “She would be right there in front of him and he’d have no idea. Then later he’d tell me about how she visited him in his room or at school. Places he wanted to see her. Places I didn’t think she could go. She always was here, stuck in the house, or sometimes in the yard, but I’ve never seen her anywhere else.” He stops fidgeting and looks at me, desperation in his eyes. “I’m the reason he’s so messed up, Haley. I told him things I shouldn’t have. I know that now.”

  I nod. How could I judge him? He was only trying to help his little brother.

  He nods. “It was always between us. Our little secret. Then our grandma died and I thought again that I could help him. I told him exactly what I saw. He told our parents and they freaked. He shouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone. I told him not to, but…he’s just a kid. Telling our parents was the worst thing he could have done.”

  “So you let your parents think he’s seeing things?” I ask, horrified. Poor Chris. Shannon may be the most annoying big sister on the planet, but she would definitely defend me if she knew I was right.

  “It’s not as simple as you’re making it sound,” he says miserably. “What was I supposed to do? If I said it was all true, but that I was the one that could see ghosts, I’d look just as crazy as Chris!”

  “You’re right. Sorry. I couldn’t talk to my parents about this either. Or my sister. I’m lucky I found a few friends who believe.”

  “What friends?” he asks, confused. “Someone believes you besides me and Chris?”

  I hesitate. But he came clean with me, so I owe the same to him. “Sera and Josh.”

  “Of course.” He sighs. “Did they mention watching a ton of Serial Killer Files as their source of expertise?”

  “They might have.”

  “That show’s a load of bull.” His shoulders relax slightly.

  “I haven’t seen it,” I admit. “I don’t watch much TV.”

  Coop kicks the dirt under the swing. “You said you wanted to tell me about something that happened?”

  �
�It’s pretty messed up,” I warn.

  “More messed up then catching occasional glimpses of your dead sister and her three dead friends?”

  “Fair enough.” I tell him about my miserable night and the horrible puzzle-piece drawing. How I was so afraid that my mom had actually died. How I don’t understand what the girls want. “I don’t know why they want to torture me.”

  “Maybe they want to tell you something, but they don’t know how.” He’s staring at the house, transfixed.

  “Why were you looking for the girls?” I ask at last.

  “I’ve seen them…God, you have no idea how good it is to tell you…I’ve seen them around more lately. They’ve been a lot more active. Something’s happening.”

  “Like what?”

  “Who knows?” He smiles at me, this time sadly. “They’re becoming more see-through. I think they might be getting weaker.”

  “And what happens when they fade away altogether?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they become nothing.”

  “That’s horrible.” A thought strikes me. “Can you talk to them? Communicate with them?”

  “I’ve never been able to before,” he says. “But sometimes I get a feeling they want something from me, that they’re trying to tell me something.”

  I can’t hide my disappointment. How easy would that have been? Coop could just ask who killed them and be done with it. But of course, he would have thought of that years ago.

  “If I knew what they wanted, I would do it. I would do anything for Emily.” He catches my look. “They’ve haunted me for years and I’m useless.”

  “I want to help you figure out what they want,” I tell him.

  “You do?”

  “I already was trying, for myself and my family, but now I also want to help them for you and your family.”

  “It would be great if we worked together,” he says, still looking at the house.