by Amy Cross
“Did you watch it?” I add. “Honestly?”
“Everyone at school has seen that video,” he replies. “It's a rite of passage.”
“You've seen all of it?”
“The whole thing.”
“Every second?”
“I barely even blinked.”
“That's sick,” I point out.
“Which is why it's a rite of passage,” he says pompously. “There's a ton of stuff on the internet, dude, and most of it's fake as hell. But everyone knows, because even the cops have admitted it, that the Molly Holt video is 100% genuine. Nobody knows who filmed it, nobody knows who killed her, nobody knows who put the video online. Nobody even found her body after. But everyone, and I mean everyone, knows that the video is ninety-four minutes and sixteen seconds of pure, unhinged depravity. It's even worse than the one with those Ukrainian dudes and the hammer. It's part of internet folklore by now.” He pauses. “The screams, man,” he adds. “Her screams in that video are fucking haunting.”
“And that makes you want to watch it?” I ask.
“You can't know how bad it is until you watch it. Trust me. No matter how awful you think the Molly Holt video is, it's worse. It's way worse. It changes your perspective on humanity, to see what two people could do to a nice girl like that.”
“That doesn't mean I want to actually see it,” I reply. “I can get all that just from knowing that it exists.”
“You really can't, dude. You're -”
Before he can finish, there's a brief, loud bump from somewhere downstairs. I turn and look toward the top of the stairs, but now the house has fallen silent again. No matter how much I want to seem calm and collected when I turn back to Freddie, my heart is pounding and I'm certain he can tell I'm scared.
“Maybe that was her,” he whispers.
“As if.”
“You can't prove it wasn't. Maybe her ghost is here, waiting for justice.”
“You're crazy,” I tell him with a sigh. “You know that, right? You're completely crazy.”
“You care about doing the right thing, don't you?” he asks, and now his voice is noticeably lower.
“Sure, but -”
“If this is the house where Molly Holt was killed, maybe we can help the cops find her body. And maybe we can help her family get some closure.”
“We're sixteen years old,” I point out. “Anyway, Molly Holt was kidnapped hundreds of miles away.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly?”
“Which is why nobody looked for her here,” he continues, with a tone of voice that makes it sound like he thinks I'm an idiot. “Obviously the kidnappers brought her across the country so they could do those evil things to her. I mean, this house is perfect for stuff like that. It's remote, it's abandoned, it's not exactly gonna attract attention. There are no lights, so nobody from town is ever gonna notice that people are suddenly here. I bet when those freaks found the place, they thought it was Christmas! I mean, if I was gonna kidnap and murder a girl, this is where I'd do it for sure.”
“You really worry me sometimes,” I tell him.
“You're just not used to hanging around with a genius.”
“No, I just -”
“The basement, dude. That's where the proof is. Like, the definitive proof. I should've taken you down there first, but I thought this room would be enough. I thought maybe we wouldn't have to go to the basement, 'cause hell, even I don't wanna go down there.”
“Why not?” I ask cautiously, although I think maybe I already know the answer.
“Because the basement,” he continues, “is where Molly Holt was actually killed.”
“I'm not going down there,” I tell him. “No way.”
Chapter Three
“So why did we come out here at night, again?” I ask as I stand at the top of the basement steps, watching Freddie's flashlight as he starts making his way down. “Why couldn't we have come during the daytime, when we can see properly?”
“Wouldn't help much with the basement,” he replies, and his voice is already starting to echo slightly as he gets closer to the bottom. “There are no windows down here, my friend.”
“Sure, but it'd make the whole thing less creepy. Less like we're in a haunted house.”
“We are in a haunted house!”
“No, we're not, we're in an abandoned house. There's a difference.”
I wait for another smart-ass reply, but all I hear is the sound of his footsteps reaching the bottom of the wooden stairs, and then the sound of his feet against what sounds like a concrete floor. A moment later, his flashlight moves to the right and then abruptly disappears as he goes around a corner.
“Freddie?” I call out. “What did you find down there?”
I can still just about make out a faint glow from the flashlight, but the glow is getting fainter as – I assume – Freddie makes his way further and further into the basement. Finally the light disappears entirely.
I wait.
Silence.
“Freddie?”
I wait a moment longer, but I know full well that he's going to make me go down there after him. I take a step forward, placing my right foot on the first of the wooden steps, and then I press down for a moment as I check that the wood isn't going to suddenly split beneath my weight. Sure, Freddie's a little heavier than me so I guess I should be fine, but maybe he weakened the stairs and now I'm going to go crashing through. The first step seems pretty firm, however, so I cautiously start making my way down toward the bottom, shining my flashlight at the bare, cracked concrete floor that awaits.
I swear, half the wooden steps are bending under my weight.
“Freddie?” I call out with relief when I finally reach the bottom.
I turn and shine my flashlight along what turns out to be a narrow, low-ceilinged concrete corridor. The corridor only runs for about ten or fifteen feet, before stopping with just a gap in the wall on the right-hand side. The air down here feels a little thin and damp, and I think I can smell, like, concrete dust or something. Cobwebs are hanging down from the cracked ceiling, and a moment later I see that there are several dark puddles on the ground, as if water has been leaking down here over the years.
I reach out and flick a switch on the wall, but of course the bare bulbs in the ceiling are long-since dead. Not that there's any power out here, anyway.
“Man,” I mutter under my breath as I make my way along the corridor, taking care to side-step the puddles, “do I not want to be here. I could be at home right now, watching Voltron.”
Reaching the corridor's far end, I turn and shine my flashlight into the next part of the basement, and I immediately see that Freddie is standing in the middle of the room with his back to me, holding one of the print-outs in his left hand.
“Are we done?” I ask. “Can we go now?”
I wait, but he doesn't reply. His flashlight is aimed at the farthest wall, where a set of plaster-boards look to have been installed across the original concrete.
Over in one of the corners, there's an old wooden chair.
“Freddie?” I continue. “Seriously, can -”
“Quiet!” he hisses, suddenly raising his hand as if to shut me up.
“Why?”
“Just be quiet!”
I wait, but all I hear is the sound of my own breath. After a few seconds I start making my way into the room, stopping as I come up behind Freddie.
I wait again, but I genuinely don't hear anything at all.
Only silence.
Just as I'm about to ask what's going on, I look down at the print-out and see that it shows a bare concrete wall, complete with a couple of large cracks running up from the floor. The wall in the print-out has no plaster-board, although I have to admit that the rest of the picture – including the cracked floor and the concrete pillar in the corner – looks very similar to the scene that's in front of us.
“I was right,” Freddie whispers, with a hint of awe in his
voice.
“It's not the same wall,” I point out.
“Exactly. Someone went to the trouble of changing it.”
“That's the worst logic I've ever heard in my life,” I point out.
“Can't you feel it?” he adds, turning to me. “Can't you feel it in the air all around us?”
“Feel what?”
“That this is where something awful happened. It's like the walls are still shaking in the aftermath of her screams.”
“Are you sure you're not imagining things?”
He stomps past me and presses a hand against the nearest concrete wall.
“I swear,” he says solemnly after a moment, “I can feel it right now.”
Sighing, I follow him over and place my hand next to his. The concrete is damp and cold, but that's all I feel. There's no shudder at all.
“There are no vibrations,” I point out after a moment.
“Yeah, there are,” he replies. “The walls are still shaking after Molly Holt's final scream. That's ten years ago, man. Ten years, and her scream was so powerful that it's still echoing here today.”
“You're full of it,” I mutter, moving my hand away and taking a step back.
“Don't blame me if you can't sense it,” he replies. “Maybe you're not sensitive enough.”
“And I'm out of here,” I reply. “Come on, Freddie, this has gone on long enough. I admit the house is creepy, but that's all. This stuff about vibrating walls is taking it too far, okay? You're starting to imagine things.”
“You wish.”
“That's how it works,” I point out. “The power of suggestion makes you imagine crazy stuff.”
“You haven't seen the video,” he says as he moves his hand further along the wall, toward the section with the plaster-board. “You haven't heard her screams, so you don't know what it sounded like while she was dying. Trust me, I have watched that video, and I have no doubt that she must have left some remnant of her final moments in this house. How could she not?”
I can't help shaking my head. He's delusional.
“I'm gonna prove it,” he adds.
“No, you're gonna come with me and we're gonna go home,” I tell him.
I wait for him to admit that I'm right, but after a moment he simply turns and heads over to one of the other corners, where he crouches down and starts comparing the concrete floor to the picture on the print-out.
“I think this is the same spot,” he says cautiously. “It's hard to tell for sure, but the way the floor dips down slightly right in the corner seems the same as in the photo. And I think that wooden chair might be the one she was tied to. There's not really a clear view of the chair in the video, but the chair being here seems like too much of a coincidence.”
“Well, I'm off,” I reply, turning and heading back out into the concrete corridor. “Are you coming, or do you want me to leave you here?”
Convinced that he'll come running after me, I head around the corner and along the corridor. I slow as I reach the bottom of the stairs, however, and then I turn and look back the way I came.
There's no sign of Freddie.
“Come on,” I mutter under my breath, “you can't be serious.”
I wait, and after a moment I see a faint glow from his flashlight brushing across the wall. He's still in that room and he's doing something, but I really don't feel like indulging him by going all the way back and asking. Freddie likes causing trouble and he loves to annoy people, and I'd be playing right into his hands if I stuck around whining and begging him to leave. I always fall for Freddie's tricks, but not this time.
He shouldn't get to decide everything we do.
“Bye, then!” I call out, before turning and stomping loudly up the wooden steps, although I stomp a little more carefully once I get halfway up, just in case the boards break. They're bending more than ever beneath my feet. “Goddamn lousy idiot.”
Reaching the top, I turn and look back down toward the basement, but there's no sign of Freddie coming up after me.
“Fine!” I yell. “I'm really gonna go this time, and you can just stay here all by yourself! And if you get murdered by hobos or drug addicts, I won't even feel guilty! 'Cause you're choosing to do this!”
I wait.
Silence.
Well, almost silence.
I can hear him bumping about down there, no doubt getting wildly enthusiastic about some new theory. Sometimes I think Freddie is simply out of his mind, that he latches onto this crazy ideas because he's bored with the world as it really is. The problem is, I always manage to get dragged along on his adventures.
Fine.
I'll call his bluff.
I mean, sure, I'm not actually going to go all the way back to town without him, but I'll make him think that's what I'm doing. And then I'll let him panic a little, just enough that he'll hopefully stop being such an idiot in future.
Turning, I head toward the front door.
And then I let out a startled gasp as I see a silhouetted figure standing right in my way. For a moment, all I can do is stare in horror as my heart starts pounding faster than ever before.
“Relax,” the figure says finally, before stepping forward and grinning at me. It's only Becky. “I didn't fancy the walk home alone after all. So did I miss anything cool?”
Chapter Four
“Have you heard any bumps since you came into the house?”
“No.”
“Any scratches or shuffling sounds?”
“No.”
“What about footsteps?”
“No.”
“Mysterious coughs?”
“No. There's been nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Well,” Becky mutters, shining my flashlight around the dilapidated old kitchen before turning and aiming the bulb straight at my face, “that's disappointing.”
“Yeah, kinda,” I reply, turning and shielding my eyes for a moment until she lowers the beam. There are bright blotches of light covering my vision, and when I look back toward Becky I can't see her at first. “This house isn't haunted. It's just old.”
“What's that around your neck?”
“Huh?”
She steps toward me and takes hold of the silver ring that hangs on a chain around my neck.
“It was my father's,” I tell her, feeling a shudder pass through my chest.
“Was?”
“He died.”
“Let me see.”
“I'm not -”
Before I can finish, she lifts the chain over my head and turns away slightly, taking a closer look at the ring as it rests in the palm of her hand.
“It's just something of his that I like to keep close,” I explain. “There's nothing wrong with that.”
I reach out to take the ring, but suddenly she slips it into her pocket.
“I'd like it back,” I tell her.
“And you'll get it,” she says with a faint, knowing smile. “When you've earned it.”
“What does that mean?”
She shines the flashlight toward the ceiling. “You don't believe in ghosts?”
I open my mouth to ask her again for the ring, but deep down I'm worried I might accidentally offend her.
“Tim?” She glances at me. “Do you believe in ghosts, or not?”
“No. Of course I don't.”
“Huh.”
I wait for her to continue, but now she seems to be simply watching the cracks in the plaster. I think maybe she's disappointed by my answer.
“I mean, I haven't really thought about it very much,” I continue, hoping to sound open-minded even though I honestly think ghosts are a load of rubbish. “I guess you could say I'm a very open-minded kind of guy. But ghosts are pretty hard to believe in. I mean, it requires a lot of mental gymnastics to believe that kind of thing. I always think the simpler explanations are the most likely.”
Again I wait, but she's still just looking at th
e cracks.
“It's pathetic, really,” I add.
“Pathetic?”
“The way people would rather believe in something absurd and unlikely, rather than facing the truth that's right in front of them. They're just scared. They're taking the easy way out.” I stuff my hands into my pockets. “The other day I saw the cover for some hokey ghost novel. I don't remember the title, but the cover showed this creepy dead girl crawling through mist. I mean, what kind of person could possibly believe that something like that is real?”
“You seem kinda closed-minded, Tim.”
“Why? Do you believe in them?”
“Do I?” She finally looks at me again. “Well, I honestly haven't made up my mind.”
“Is that why you changed your mind and came back to the house?” I ask. “Were you scared to walk through the forest alone?”
“As if! Anyway, even if ghosts were real, I wouldn't be scared of them. No ghost has ever pissed me off or threatened me or whacked me about. No ghost has ever given me a black eye just 'cause he's drunk and can't remember where he left the remote control. People, on the other hand, scare the crap out of me.”
She wanders across the kitchen, and I watch as she wipes a hand across a counter that's covered in thick, greasy dust.
“Gross,” she mutters, wiping the dust off on the side of her jeans. “I wonder who owns this place. I mean, it's kind of weird for a whole house to just get left alone and ignored. Sure, it's out in the middle of nowhere, but you'd think someone'd do it up and either sell it or rent it out.”
“I don't know what the story is,” I reply. “I think -”
Before I can finish, there's a brief, loud bumping sound from beneath our feet. For a fraction of a second, I actually feel a little nervous, before remembering that Freddie's still down there in the basement.
“What's he doing down there, anyway?” Becky asks, leaning back against one of the counters and aiming the flashlight toward my chest.
“He still thinks this is the house where Molly Holt was murdered.”
“But the photos don't match?”
I shake my head.
“He's kind of an idiot, isn't he?” she continues.
I nod.
