by P. J. Night
Crunch. Crunch.
The movement was deliberate. Was it an animal? she wondered. She gritted her teeth, staring into the never-ending blackness. What kind of animal? Please let it be something small, she thought.
She squinted into the darkness, but she couldn’t make out anything. The shadows morphed about her. Varying tones of gray and black obscured all objects in the yard. The branches bent and swayed under the weight of the wind. She focused through the falling snow on the tree line to her right. A thick row of pines bordered her family’s property with their neighbor’s. Something was working its way through the pines. Steadily crunching. Its steps heavy. It wasn’t a small animal, that was for sure.
She eyed the distance to her house. The yellow glow of the light shining through the large kitchen window suddenly seemed miles away. She knew, though, that it was only about sixty yards. Safety wasn’t far.
The movement in the trees grew louder. Heading her way. For a moment, she wondered if it was Chrissie.
“Chrissie? Is that you?” Her voice sounded thin in the wind. “Are you out there?”
She shivered and listened. The movement quickened. Thudding steps of some kind. Too heavy for slight Chrissie. Whatever it was, it was big—and heading for her. “No!” she cried. The force of her scream took her by surprise, waking her from an almost trancelike state.
Her feet started before her brain could catch up. She ran through the snow. She had to get away. Her father’s big, heavy boots felt like cement slippers, weighing her down. Each step required extreme effort. Pulling the boot up, out, and over, then sinking back into the wet snow. Her legs trembled. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades and coated her skin, leaving her clammy.
She pushed forward, running. The footsteps in the trees quickened their pace, and all at once she knew. She was being chased.
With a crash of branches, the something broke free of the trees and thundered across the open yard. Within seconds, it was behind her.
Kelly panted, struggling to breathe. All her energy was directed toward moving her feet. Faster. Faster. She had to get away—had to get back to her house. Her left boot stuck in the snow. She wobbled, and her knees began to buckle. She threw her arms forward to break her fall.
No, no, no, no! her brain screamed. If she fell, it would be all over.
She managed to right herself and regain her balance. The footsteps crunched faster through the snow behind her. Closer now. She could hear the creature’s breath exploding in jagged puffs. So near. She wanted to look back but knew she couldn’t risk it. She had to keep going.
Her chest heaved as she ran. Her side knotted in pain, but she could see the door now. The window with its glow of safety. Only feet away.
And then she was there.
Her hand reached for the door handle, and she twisted anxiously. Her frigid fingers, white with cold, slid about on the cold metal. At first nothing happened. Dread overcame her, as she tried the handle again. Twisting and twisting. It wouldn’t budge.
She frantically twisted the other way. It was stuck.
She was locked out.
She felt the creature’s hot breath on her neck. She gulped, alarm overtaking her body. She squeezed the handle, refusing to let go of her way in.
“Please, oh, please,” she whispered.
“Kelly, it’s me.”
She spun around. “Gavin! You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry.” His cheeks shone bright pink from the cold, but he wore a black parka and gloves. “Why were you running?”
Kelly hesitated, uncertain how to explain. “I was looking for Chrissie. She’s gone. She disappeared in the snow out there.”
Gavin nodded. He didn’t seem surprised. He waited, not speaking.
She gazed over his shoulder, back toward the pine trees. “Where’s Spencer?” Her hopes lifted at the thought of seeing her friend. She knew he’d keep his promise.
“I don’t know,” he said flatly.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I mean I don’t know.” His gaze jumped to her hand still gripping the door handle. “I’m freezing. Can we go inside?”
As much as she wanted to get inside, out of the wind and snow, she suddenly wasn’t sure that she wanted Gavin inside with her. She squinted at him. “What’s going on, Gavin? Where’s Spencer?”
Just then a muffled noise broke through the whistling wind. She strained to hear. A song . . . no, it was a melody repeating.
The haunting melody from Chrissie’s phone.
She listened closer to be sure. The muted, evil melody had to be coming from inside.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He took a step closer. “You should open the door.”
“I think I locked myself out.” She stayed where she was, blocking the path between him and the door.
She thought of Mary. Trapped in the snow. Freezing to death slowly, painfully. The snow draining the warmth out of her. Was that what was going to happen to her, too? Locked out in the snow . . . But how did Gavin fit in? Was he here to save her? Or was he here to—
She could no longer hear the melody. The phone had stopped ringing.
“Kelly, let’s go inside,” Gavin said. He stomped his boots impatiently in the snow. “Move over. Let me try.”
She couldn’t stay outside in this horrible cold. She knew that. “Where’s Spencer?” she demanded again, refusing to move.
“He was behind me when we crossed the street. And then I looked back and he wasn’t there,” Gavin explained.
“But that was a long time ago,” she said suspiciously. “You guys left his house a long time ago.”
“I know.”
“What were you doing sneaking around my yard in the dark?” She couldn’t figure out what Gavin was doing here. Alone. Without Spencer.
“I wasn’t sneaking around. I was searching for him.”
“But you were chasing me.”
“Because you started running.” He stepped forward, and she let him pass. She wasn’t sure what to do. Indecisive, she stood meekly behind him and watched over his shoulder.
He tried the handle. The cold metal slipped through his nylon gloves. He pulled off his gloves and shoved them into his parka pocket. Then he blew on his hands and rubbed them together. His hot breath loosened his fingers.
He tried the handle again. He threw what little weight he had into the door and twisted.
The door swung open.
They both nearly fell inside, stumbling into the brightness. Kelly closed the door behind them, shutting out the storm.
The house was quiet.
She blinked hard at the empty room. Her stomach dropped with disappointment. She’d secretly hoped that everything would have returned to normal—that she would have opened the door and been greeted by Chrissie and Ryan. That life would’ve gone back to the way it had been before she’d decided to play that silly game with her friends.
She shrugged off her coat and the boots, now dripping with snow. Her flannel pants clung damply to her legs. The front of her shirt was wet from where she had failed to zip her jacket. The chill of the storm clung to her. She longed to take a hot bath and wrap herself in her warm, fuzzy robe.
She scanned the kitchen, still littered with the contents of her mother’s desk, for Chrissie’s phone. She didn’t see it anywhere.
The sound of someone behind her jerked her away from her thoughts. For a moment, she’d forgotten about Gavin.
He still wore his damp black parka, although his boots now lay beside hers. His white athletic socks were frayed at the heels. He stood, hands buried in his pockets, and watched her.
She stared at him for a few minutes, trying to figure out if she trusted him. His eyes held that same intensity that had unnerved her earlier in the night. He blinked several times in uncontrolled spasms. He seemed to give off an electric-like current that made the little hairs on her arms stand on edge.
Using her fi
ngers, she brushed through her damp, tangled hair, slicking it back from her face. “So you don’t know where Spencer is?” she asked again.
“No.”
“June or Paige?”
“No.” He gazed at her with glassy eyes. “It’s just you and me now.”
CHAPTER 14
“Coldness is coming,” Gavin continued, his voice drained of all emotion.
“Huh? What are you talking about?” She gulped, trying to control the trembling in her voice as she remembered what Spencer had told her earlier about Gavin acting strangely.
“It’s so cold out there. In the snow. Cold and dark.” His voice was flat. His brown eyes held a haunted, faraway look.
“Y-yeah. Yeah, it is.” Kelly stared in horror at him.
“You can’t be here,” he told her.
“What? Why not?” she demanded brusquely, but the squeaking of her voice betrayed her panic.
“So what should we do?” he asked suddenly. His tone had changed abruptly, as if life had been injected back into it.
“About what?” She looked around. If she needed to, her best bet would be to run for the front door, she decided. She had a good twenty pounds on Gavin. I could push him down, she thought. He may be crazy, but he doesn’t look too strong.
“I don’t really know where to look for him anymore. I’ve been all over. I even went back to Spencer’s house. It’s like . . .” He hesitated, and his shoulders slumped. “It’s like Spencer, his mom, his brother . . . It’s like they completely disappeared.”
“It’s weird,” she agreed. She took several steps backward, away from him. Flipping open her phone, she checked desperately for messages. Nothing. Not even a text. “Maybe they’ll answer now,” she said hopefully, more to herself than to him. She kept her eyes trained on Gavin as she tried each of her friends’ phones again. She listened to them ring. Two rings. Five. Eight. No one was answering.
She and Gavin really were all alone.
That was when she noticed the silence.
The TV was quiet. Had Ryan turned it off? Maybe he had snapped out of his trance.
“Ryan?” she called. She hurried toward the family room, leaving Gavin behind. Her bare feet slapped against the wooden floor. She burst inside.
And stared.
The room was empty. The television was dark. She could make out the faint impression of Ryan’s legs on the overstuffed sofa cushions, but he wasn’t there. No one was.
“Ryan!” she called again. She felt as if she’d been calling for people all night.
Silence once more.
Her heart began to beat so fast she was sure it might burst. The room started to spin. Slowly at first, but soon the colonial crafts were in full whirl. The floor tilted toward the ceiling. She had to sit.
She dropped into a blue gingham armchair near the sofa. The checkered pattern danced before her. She tried not to let the panic overwhelm her.
She had to find her brother.
She was in charge of him even though her parents had hired Chrissie. Not that she had done any good tonight.
She wondered what happened to a person’s body once he or she was snatched by a spirit. Did the spirit claim just the person’s soul or their whole being, too? And why had Mary—assuming it was Mary—come for everyone except her? Was she next?
And then she thought of Gavin. He was here too.
She remembered the bizarre things Gavin had been muttering. Coldness is coming and all that. What did it mean? Could the spirit of dead Mary have somehow gone into Gavin’s body? And through him preyed, one by one, on her friends . . . ?
She shook her head violently. She had to stop thinking such crazy thoughts. Gavin was just a boy. A friend of Spencer’s. Maybe he was little weird, but that was all. She had to get a grip.
A small moan escaped her throat. She had so many questions. She tried to order her thoughts. She gazed about the room, the dizziness going away.
She sensed him before she saw him. Gavin stood in the doorway, silently watching her. He waited and said nothing. She could feel the force of his gaze penetrating the back of her head. She willed herself not to acknowledge him, not to turn toward him. She didn’t like him. She wasn’t going to obsess about why. He was probably harmless, but she couldn’t handle his weirdness right now.
She stood shakily, holding the upholstered arm of the chair for support. She rested her phone on the cushioned seat. Then she walked to the television and stood directly before it. She raised her palm to the screen. It still felt warm. Ryan had been here not too long ago.
Upstairs. That was it. She sighed with relief. Ryan had probably gone upstairs to bed. She wanted to slap herself for being so silly.
“You okay?”
She turned toward him. Gavin had taken off his parka and was wearing the same T-shirt and jeans from earlier.
“I need to find my brother,” she murmured, not meeting his questioning gaze. She headed through the foyer. Gavin stayed behind for a minute, then followed.
She climbed the stairs methodically. She could hear Gavin climbing two steps behind but ignored him. She wanted to tell him to stay away, but she didn’t want to be alone, either.
Midway up, she stopped when she smelled the peppermint. The odor came from behind her.
Her fingers danced nervously on the banister. Gavin had stopped climbing too. He waited one step below. What did the odor mean, coming from Gavin’s direction? she wondered.
“Kelly, what’s wrong?”
Was the odor linked to the spirit of Miss Mary? she wondered. Then would that make Gavin—?
“Do you feel okay?” His voice betrayed genuine concern.
“Do you smell that?” she blurted out. “The peppermint?”
For a moment, he looked confused. “You mean my gum? Is it bothering you? Do you want a piece?” He slid a slim foil pack out of his back jeans pocket and held it up to her.
Kelly flushed, feeling like a fool. She noticed now that he was chewing gum. Mint gum, obviously. “No. I’m good.” She continued up the last few stairs, refusing to look back at him.
At the landing, she turned left. Ryan’s room was the first one. His door was closed. An old handwritten KEEP OUT sign from last summer was taped crookedly in the center.
She knocked. Twice.
Silence.
She pressed her face against the door. “Are you in there, Ryan?”
She waited. Please, she thought. Please be in there.
“I’m coming in,” she warned.
She waited a moment, then pushed open the door.
The pain was immediate.
Sharp claws slashed through her sweatshirt, piercing the skin on her shoulders. She shrieked in agony. Her arms flailed frantically. She fought to release herself from the lethal grip.
And then she heard the high-pitched wail. A bone-chilling, inhuman sound like she’d never heard before.
CHAPTER 15
Was this how it was going to end for her? Had June and Paige been attacked too, before disappearing? She squeezed her eyes closed.
“Get away! Get off her!” Gavin cried. His quick hands grabbed the creature, releasing her from its painful grip.
The creature hissed violently, struggling to free itself, yowling in protest. Turning, Kelly caught a glimpse of thrashing black fur, whiskers, and bared teeth.
Ezra.
The cat must be totally spooked, Kelly thought. Just like me.
Gavin tossed the thrashing cat into the hallway, where it darted away, ears flattened, tail held high.
She knew she should thank him, but try as she might, she couldn’t force the words out. Instead she gently rubbed her back where Ezra’s claws had scratched. It throbbed slightly.
“There’s some blood on your shirt. Not much. A few drops,” Gavin remarked.
“It’s more the sting. His claws don’t cause too much damage,” she said. “I’ve had it happen before.”
“Do you want to get some Band-Aids or something? Or wash
it off?”
“In a minute,” she replied, suddenly remembering why she was in Ryan’s room.
She lifted the light switch, and the answer was painfully obvious. Ryan wasn’t here. He hadn’t been here all day. The piles of clean, folded laundry his mother had set on his bed before rushing off to the airport remained undisturbed. His laptop was shut.
She swallowed hard. “If he’s not here, where is he?” she cried.
“I don’t know,” Gavin said.
She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It hadn’t been her plan to confide in Gavin.
“Ryan’s your younger brother, right?”
She nodded. “I just don’t understand. Where is he? And Chrissie? They wouldn’t just leave me here, alone, unless something bad happened. Right? I mean, you don’t think so, right?” She knew she was babbling, but for the moment it just felt good to have someone else there witnessing the craziness. She didn’t care if it was Gavin.
“No. I don’t think so,” he said carefully. He eyed her with concern again, and she wondered why he wasn’t looking more concerned himself. True, it wasn’t his family, but his friend was gone too. “I told you what I thought, though.”
She paused. “You think we did this—with the chanting and the spinning.”
“I do.”
“You think we brought her back. And then she . . . what?” Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears, but she just needed him to say it—to say the outrageous things she’d been thinking.
“She was killed too young. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way she was ticked off, you know? It wasn’t fair.” Gavin blinked quickly for a few seconds. “I think she’s after a little justice.”
“Justice?” she repeated sharply. “What’s just about taking innocent people and . . . doing . . . well, I don’t know what! Where are they?”
Gavin nervously blinked his eyes again. “I didn’t say it made sense.”
She looked sideways at him. “And what about you? Why are you still here . . . with me?”
“No idea.” He reddened slightly, as if embarrassed. “It’ll all be okay.”
“Okay? Okay? You think this is okay?” She could hear herself screaming. It felt as if she were watching herself from the other side of the room. As if this scared girl were no longer connected to her. She squeezed her eyes tightly and let the waves of fear run through her body. She felt Gavin’s hand lightly pat her shoulder, but she quickly pushed it away. She didn’t want him touching her.
