“Wow,” Hendricks said, struggling to keep up with Miriam in her own clumsy, too-big boots. She hit a particularly slippery patch of grass and skidded a little too close to a goat, who danced away from her, grunting. “That’s . . . that’s sort of cool.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Miriam said, beaming. “We help adults who’ve been diagnosed with everything from major depression and bipolar disorder, to schizophrenia, like Sam.”
Schizophrenia. Hendricks tried to keep the excitement off her face as she added this new piece of information to the growing list of facts she knew about Sam.
Cheerleader. Not a lot of friends. Schizophrenic.
She even knew a little about schizophrenia. She was pretty sure it was the disease where you heard voices.
“Did Sam have any friends here?” Hendricks asked.
Miriam frowned. “No, Sam pretty much kept to herself. Reality was . . . tricky for her. As I’m sure you know.”
She darted a look at Hendricks, as though to confirm that Hendricks did, in fact, know that. Hendricks nodded. But her mind was reeling.
Miriam continued the tour, pointing out the greenhouse, a cracked, dirt-smudged glass building with walls covered in creeping vines, and explained that residents were encouraged to grow their own plants. She showed Hendricks the decrepit barn where they helped take care of the farm animals. Every now and then, Hendricks would spot another resident, and they would wave and smile back. They were strange smiles, though, the corners of their mouths pulled too wide, their eyes not quite focusing on Hendricks’s face.
Eventually, Miriam led Hendricks back to the main farmhouse, the tour winding down. “Our highly qualified staff creates an environment of caring and acceptance while providing first-class, licensed mental health services at our CARF accredited mental health treatment center,” she said in her soft, even monotone. “If you think your mom would be interested in any more information, I’d be happy to send you home with some brochures.”
“Uh, yeah, sure, brochures would be great,” Hendricks said, not wanting to blow her cover. Miriam told her she’d be right back and disappeared inside.
The second she’d gone, Hendricks felt uneasy. The gray sky seemed a bit lower than it had a moment ago, the far-off fields and goats and horses just slightly closer.
It was as though, now that Hendricks was alone, the farm itself was closing in. She thought of a hand reaching up from behind her, fingers slowly closing around her neck . . .
A shudder moved through her. She whipped around, eyes ticking off the horses and fields and fences. All right where they were supposed to be.
Of course.
Hendricks knocked her boot against the side of porch, trying to shake the feeling off.
Then a noise on the other side of the house, a soft cough. Fear shot through her.
“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself and poked her head around the side of the house.
A girl in her early twenties was sitting on a bench, watching a crowd of chickens peck at the ground. She was a little pale and thin and super freckly. The freckles covered her whole face and both of her arms—almost but not quite hiding the cuts crisscrossing up and down the skin between her wrists and her elbows. She wore a loose-fitting tank top and sweatpants, no shoes. There was mud dried to the bottoms of her bare feet, between her toes and under her toenails.
Hendricks hesitated at the side of the house, wondering whether she should say something, when the girl said, without looking up, “This isn’t a zoo.”
Hendricks started. “Uh, what?”
“This. Isn’t. A. Zoo,” the girl repeated, slower. “It’s rude to stand there and gawk at the freaks.”
“I didn’t mean to . . . gawk,” Hendricks said. She was about to go back to the porch when the girl scooted over on her bench, wood creaking noisily beneath her skinny thighs. Hendricks went and sat next to her.
“Sid,” the girl said. Her voice was low and scratchy.
“I’m Hendricks.”
“Inmate or a visitor, Hendricks?”
“Uh, visitor?” said Hendricks hesitantly. “What do you mean inmate? Isn’t this place nice?”
Even as she asked the question, Hendricks thought of those strange, too-wide smiles, the skeletally thin animals.
“Maybe if you’re willing to drink the Kool-Aid like the rest of the zombies.” The girl leaned back against the bench, long, skinny arms stretched along the back rungs. “But if you don’t get all hot from mucking up animal shit and planting pretty flowers, it’s not exactly the place to be.” She cut her eyes toward Hendricks. “Who are you visiting?”
“Oh, no one?” Hendricks said. “My mom wanted me to check this place out for, uh, for her brother, just to make sure it was nice, you know.”
Sid raised her eyebrows, the corner of her lip twitching. “Is that right?”
Hendricks’s cheeks flared. She felt caught.
“Look, I’m not going to bust you,” Sid said, her voice a touch softer. “Honest. But why are you really here?”
Hendricks rolled her lip between her teeth. It’s not like she had anything to lose. She’d been about to take off, anyway, and if this girl was one of the residents here, she might be willing to divulge a bit more information that Miriam had been.
“Did you know Samantha Davidson?” Hendricks asked.
Sid lifted her eyebrows. “No shit. You knew Sam?”
“I know someone who’s looking for her. I came here to see if I could figure out why, but Miriam is being a little cagey.”
“Yeah, well, Miriam’s a bitch.” Sid sniffed and turned back to the chickens. After a long moment, she said. “I miss Sam, though. She was the only person around here who was actually interesting.”
“So you did know her?”
“We weren’t bestest friends or anything, but we talked, yeah.” Under her breath, Sid added, “She was the only person in this place who acted like I was even there.” And she thumped the heel of her bare foot against the bench, so hard it made the wood tremble.
“What was she like?” asked Hendricks.
“Batshit crazy.” Sid laughed, staring off at some distant point in the muddy field. After a moment she added, almost like a dare. “Sam used to say she could see the other side.”
Hendricks’s heart hit the back of her throat. “The other side? You mean . . . ghosts?”
“If you believe in that crap.” Sid pulled her feet onto the bench and hugged her knees to her chest. “Sam was cool, though. She was this hot shit cheerleader back in high school, but then she had a total mental break and had to be sent here. She used to run around this place with, like, knives and shit, trying to defend herself from the evil spirits.” A wicked grin. “It certainly made the farm more interesting.”
“That sounds awful,” Hendricks said.
Sid shrugged. “Depends on your definition of awful. I thought it was amazing. This place has totally sucked since she left. No one’s any fun.”
There was a noise, the sound of a door swinging open and shut, and then footsteps coming around the side of the house. Hendricks turned just as Miriam reappeared, a bunch of brochures fanned between her fingers.
“There you are! I see you found Sidney’s bench,” Miriam said, picking her way around the side of the house. “I’ve always thought it was such a nice spot to just sit and think.”
Hendricks nodded. “Yeah, we were just talking.”
Miriam frowned deeply. This wasn’t her small, pouty frown, but one that seemed to involve every muscle in her face. Her eyes pinched, and the skin beneath her brows furrowed.
“Right,” she said, like she was choosing her words very carefully. “Anyway, you’ve got the brochures. The office number’s on the front, just there.” She pointed to a number at the bottom of the brochure. “Give me a call if you want to schedule something more official, o
kay?”
Her eyes flicked to something behind Hendricks, and then settled back on Hendricks’s face. A quick smile, there and gone, and then she was hurrying back around to the other side of the farmhouse, like she couldn’t get away from Hendricks quickly enough.
“You’re right,” Hendricks said, turning back to Sid. “She really is a—”
The word bitch died in her throat as her eyes landed on Sid’s face.
Sid had . . . changed. Hendricks stood up quickly, stumbling back from the bench. But she couldn’t bring herself to look away. Deep wrinkles had appeared around Sid’s eyes and mouth. Her skin looked dull and dry. She stretched her thin lips into a smile and her teeth had turned yellow.
The longer Hendricks looked at her, the more she noticed. Like the mud on Sid’s feet . . . it wasn’t brown, it was green, and it smelled putrid, like sewer and garbage disposals and rotting trash. And now she was way, way too thin. Not thin in a skinny way, but in a substantial way. Hendricks could actually see through her.
Hendricks tried not to gag. Sid didn’t seem to notice. She slapped at something on her wrist. A small buzzing fly.
Hendricks suddenly noticed that there were lots of flies around her. They swarmed around Sid’s hair in a gray cloud. They landed on her ears, wings twitching.
“See what I mean?” Sidney said. Her words had grown slow and slurred, stretched out like taffy. “Miriam acted like she didn’t . . . even . . . see me.”
The word me had barely left Sid’s tongue when she was suddenly . . . gone. What was left of her thin, wispy body broke apart, becoming a thick mass of buzzing flies. Hendricks leapt back, horror climbing her throat. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, forcing herself to breathe through her nose.
There was something small and glinting on the bench where Sid had been sitting. Nose wrinkled, Hendricks leaned closer to see what it was. A plaque.
IN HONOR OF SIDNEY RADLEY, the plaque read. BELOVED DAUGHTER, TRUE FRIEND. YOU WILL BE MISSED. 1968–1986.
Hendricks read the inscription twice. It took a long time for her heartbeat to steady.
CHAPTER
17
By the time Hendricks got back to her car, she had five new texts, all from Portia.
Are you going to prom committee today after school?
I left the binder with Oliver, but I was hoping he could hand it over to you
Are you still pissed because of what I said last night?
Look, I’m sorry, but I’m being HAUNTED.
And finally, Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it anymore? At least until the ghost is gone? I don’t want to wreck our friendship.
Hendricks sat in her car for a long moment, staring at her phone. She wanted to tell Portia what she’d learned about Samantha Davidson and the farm and the freaking ghost she’d just had an entire conversation with. Even Portia had to admit that this had nothing to do with Eddie. How would he have even met Samantha Davidson?
Her fingers hovered over the keypad, trying to figure out how she could put everything she had to say into a text—
And then her eyes flicked back over Portia’s messages. Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it anymore? I don’t want to wreck our friendship.
She felt her shoulders slump. Portia was right. Every time they talked about the ghost, they fought. Hendricks didn’t have a ton of friends in this place. She couldn’t afford to alienate any more of them.
I’ll be at prom committee, she texted back. Stop freaking out.
And send. She dug her teeth into her lower lip, watching her message disappear into the ether. It felt weird to be keeping so much from Portia, but she knew that for now at least, it was the right thing to do. She might know a little more about Samantha, but she still didn’t know who this ghost was or why he was after them.
Until she found out, she’d just have to keep her research to herself.
* * *
• • •
Hendricks stood in front of the prom committee after school, trying to balance Portia’s massive binder in one hand while she scanned her friend’s impeccably neat, color-coded notes.
“Okay, uh . . . it looks like we need an update from the decorations committee?” she said, glancing up.
The gathered students all looked at each other, and then back at her again. Without Portia there to lead them, they seemed a little lost.
“Portia was going to see whether we had any leftover decorations from last year’s production of Anything Goes,” Oliver offered. “It was, like, this musical set on a cruise ship, so she thought they might have some cruise stuff we could use. Did she tell you whether she had a chance to check the props closet?”
“No.” Hendricks chewed her lower lip, thinking. “But I could go take a look now. Someone just needs to tell me where the props closet is.”
“End of the hall, down the flight of stairs, and to the right,” Oliver said.
Hendricks dumped Portia’s prom binder into his arms, grateful to unload the responsibility of leading the committee onto someone else. “You guys keep going. Portia’s pretty much written step-by-step instructions on what’s supposed to happen next. I’ll be back in a bit.”
She made her way past rows of lockers, empty classrooms, steadily dripping water fountains. The sun was just low enough that it shone right through the glass doors at the far side of the school, illuminating each individual particle of dust in the air. Shadows cut down the hall like long, thin blades. Hendricks heard distant laughter, the sound of someone slamming a locker door shut, the snap of metal on metal making her flinch.
She rubbed the nerves from her arms. She hadn’t really spent a lot of time in Drearford High after school hours. It felt a lot different than it did when it was filled with people. Older.
Hendricks hadn’t given much thought to what Oliver meant by “down the flight of stairs” until she actually reached the staircase. Drearford High only had one story. So, “down the flight of stairs” meant the basement. Hendricks peered into the dark, windowless stairwell, and wished she’d sent someone else to find the damn decorations. Since coming to Drearford, she hadn’t had a lot of luck with basements.
“Don’t be a wuss,” she muttered to herself and placed one foot onto the top step. The wooden stair groaned beneath her sneaker, a warning. She snatched her foot back, swearing under her breath.
It’s just a creaky old wooden stair. It’s totally normal.
She leaned into the stairwell and groped along inside of the wall until her fingers found the light switch—there!—but when she flicked it up, down, and up again, nothing happened.
She glanced over her shoulder, thinking. She could go back now, tell them she looked but she didn’t find anything. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t a life-or-death situation, after all, it was prom, and if they didn’t have enough cardboard anchors, it really wasn’t the end of the world.
As if on cue, music suddenly poured down the hallway, coming from the gym.
This is what it sounds like . . .
Hendricks felt her shoulders inch up toward her ears. Her heart beat steadily in her palms. She’d heard that song recently. The radio in the Subaru was still broken, playing old eighties music on a loop.
She walked down the first five steps. Nothing happened. Okay then. She took the last four steps quickly, holding her breath, and then she was in the basement, and the props closet was just around the corner.
She inhaled, deep. The air down here smelled off. It made her nose wrinkle. She found a door and reached inside, her fingers quickly locating another light switch on the wall. This time, when she flicked it on, a dull glow filled the space. Hendricks turned in place.
She was standing in a narrow room filled with floor to ceiling shelving. All around her were vintage hats and bags and shoes, racks of musty clothes, ancient-looking television sets and lamps and record players. There were c
ardboard boxes covered in scrawled handwriting. Ancient Rome—Antigone read one. Another, Mental Hospital—One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Hendricks felt a little overwhelmed. She wasn’t sure where to start.
She turned in place, eyes moving over the scattered props, when something leapt out of the darkness above the door, something with thick fur and long, sharp teeth—
Hendricks screamed and slammed into a shelf. Metal jammed into her back, sending pain shooting down her spine.
The lion mask from the school mascot uniform hung above the door. Hendricks shuddered and turned away, but she could feel those empty eye sockets following her as she moved around the room. Watching.
Goose bumps climbed her arms. She didn’t want to spend any more time down here than she had to. She moved quickly around the small room, gathering anything that looked like it might belong on a cruise ship: sailor’s hats; a life raft; an oversize, fake champagne bottle (they served champagne on cruises, right?). And then, satisfied that she’d made enough of an effort, she headed for the stairs.
The song drifting down from the gym started over again.
Hendricks’s eyes drifted up, up, toward the ceiling. Why did they have it on repeat?
The prop closet must’ve been directly under the gym because she could hear the prom committee moving overhead. Footsteps thudded, and voices rose and fell above her. It didn’t sound like a half a dozen students quietly discussing prom plans. It sounded like hundreds of students, dancing.
Hendricks’s heart started beating a little bit faster. Something was . . . strange. She inched toward the stairwell, suddenly wanting to be upstairs again, in the sun, where there were other people and . . . and light switches that worked, and no freaking lion masks hanging from the wall above her, staring down with strangely vacant eyes and those long, curved teeth, teeth that seemed really inappropriate for a school mascot now that she actually stopped to think about it. She reached the door, stepped into the hall.
The prop closet lights switched off.
The Unleashed Page 15
