Return to the Dark House

by Laurie Stolarz

  While Taylor proceeds down the hallway, I poke my head into a few of the rooms. You can tell that the core of this building was probably once a mansion. Though set up with school desks and chairs, most of the rooms have hardwood floors, ornate pillars, and sculptured fireplaces.

  I step inside an office, noticing a shiny red apple sitting in the middle of an ink blotter. I point my flashlight at it, trying to see if the apple’s real. I pick it up. It’s definitely real. I puncture the skin with my fingernail; the juice pulls away on my thumb. I go to put the apple back.

  And that’s when I notice.

  The ink blotter is actually a calendar. It’s set to April 1966. There’s an illustration of storm clouds and rain droplets decorating the April heading.

  “April showers,” I whisper, flipping the page to May. Daisies and daffodils frame the page. Bring May flowers.

  A giant X is marked over May 9th.

  “Will you help me?” a male voice whispers, from behind, making me jump.

  I turn to look.

  A girl with swollen dark eyes stares back at me. Her lips are chapped. Her cheeks look sallow and sunken.

  I take a step closer, suddenly realizing that the girl is me—my reflection, my ghostly appearance, my ratty hair. I’m looking in a full-length mirror. The words SAVE THE DATE are scribbled across my image. I reach out to touch one of the letters. A smear of red comes away on my finger.

  “Knock, knock.” Another voice. It steals my breath, even though I recognize it right away.

  I open the door.

  Taylor’s standing there. “What gives?” she asks. “And why do you look all Laurie Strode?”

  “Laurie who?”

  She rolls her eyes. “From Halloween…Jamie Lee Curtis’s character. She always looked so haunted.” Taylor continues to ramble on about some bedroom scene and the boogeyman.

  I’m only half paying attention, trying to listen for that male voice—the one that asked for help.

  “So, do you want to find room F or what?” Taylor asks.

  I nod and move back into the hall, slamming the door behind me.

  From the Journal of E.W.

  Grade 7, August Preparatory School

  WINTER 1972

  “You’ll die in here too,” a voice whispered, over and over, eventually waking me up.

  It was Ricky’s voice, hours ago. I shot up in bed.

  Ricky’s face stared back at me in the window glass.

  I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but the image of him wouldn’t go away.

  I got up and went to the door, turned the lock, and tried to get out. But the knob wouldn’t turn, even when I moved the lock left and right.

  I pounded on the door, flashing back to being locked in my room years before. “Somebody get me out of here!” I shouted, glancing back at the window. Ricky was smirking now.

  Mother had been like that too.

  Finally, Mr. Shunter came. He opened the door without a problem. By that point, Ricky had vanished.

  “Can I sleep in your room?” I asked him. “I’ll bring my blanket and pillow. I can sleep right on the floor.”

  “Go back to bed, Ethan,” he said, turning away and going back down the hall.

  I’ve been under the covers since, adding to my prayer cards. Here are a couple that I’ve been working on:

  RICKY, GO AWAY

  This is my fortress.

  You can’t touch me here.

  Protection is all around me.

  Within these walls, I have no fear.

  The guardians are watching down.

  The gods are listening in.

  Go away, go away,

  For you will never win.

  YOUR MISERY EVER AFTER

  You made your choice.

  I can make mine.

  Might as well stop haunting.

  In my fortress, I’m divine.

  I may never rest.

  But you will never sleep.

  How is that for irony?

  A life in Limbo you will reap.

  “WE NEED TO FIND ANOTHER part of the building,” Taylor says, pointing toward the room numbers. “Nine, ten, eleven, fourteen…”

  I nod. She’s right. “We need to find the lettered rooms.”

  We move down the hall. A sign for the dormitory points us back downstairs. On the first floor again, I notice a door to the left without a room number over it. I open it wide.

  This isn’t a classroom or an office. There’s a narrow hallway with a low ceiling and a ramp that leads downward. “Come on,” I say, wishing my flashlight beam were brighter.

  The dormitory must’ve been added on. I picture us moving through a tunnel, into another building altogether.

  “Talk about a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare,” Taylor says.

  I’d have to agree. There are no doors or windows, and there’s barely enough room for two people to pass through, headed in opposite directions.

  “Where are you going?” a male voice stutters out.

  I stop. And look back. Taylor shines her flashlight all around. But we don’t see anything. There doesn’t appear to be anyone.

  We continue through the tunnel. The sound of footsteps follows us.

  “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” the same voice whispers.

  Someone screams. A female voice. A piercing blare that burrows into my heart.

  I stop again. Taylor’s right behind me. “Who was that?” I ask, my mind zooming to Natalie and Shayla.

  Taylor shakes her head.

  I turn back around, finally reaching the other side of the tunnel. There’s a pocket door. I slide it open and then slam it closed behind us, trying to catch my breath.

  There’s a staircase that leads upward and a crude cement hallway—cracked floors, visible overhead pipes—that goes to the right.

  Taylor shines her flashlight over a sign by the stairwell, welcoming us to the dormitory and pointing us upstairs. “Jackpot,” she says.

  My adrenaline pumps as I move up the steps, finally reaching the top. There’s another narrow space. A long skinny hallway. I search the room numbers. They’re in alphabetical order.

  The door to room B is open. There are two single beds, two dressers, and a small corner desk. Like the rest of the place, the windows have been boarded up.

  “Room F,” Taylor says. She’s moved down the hall, standing outside the room.

  “Welcome to the dormitory, Princess.” The killer’s voice is a soft purr; it stops me in my tracks. “Nice work finding Ricky’s room. I made up the bed, especially for you. But don’t get too comfortable yet. Don’t forget about Ricky’s note.”

  “Is he talking to you right now?” Taylor asks.

  I nod, moving forward again. I stand by Taylor’s side to peek inside the room. There are spotlights over the bed and on the desk illuminating the space. There are also candles lit on the dresser, several more on an overhead shelf, and a bunch of tiny ones on the windowsills.

  “What’s he saying?” Taylor asks, grabbing an earpiece to listen.

  “Be sure to blow out all the candles before you lay down to sleep,” the voice continues. “And turn off all the lights, including flashlights. It’s important that things are completely dark for shut-eye, wouldn’t you agree? Lastly, I’ll need you to close the door, leaving Taylor outside. Do all of that now.”

  Taylor shoves her hand over the camera lens. With her other hand, she blocks the mic to muffle our voices. “Don’t close the door,” she whispers. “It’s not like he’ll know.”

  “Have you not noticed the thing on my head that you’re currently blocking? It’s not exactly a tiara.”

  “So, what if you close the door and then I’ll wait a few seconds and open it back up? If you’re laying down, your camera’s focus will be at the ceiling. And even if there are other cameras, the focus is going to be on you.”

  “Okay,” I nod, more than anxious to get this over with. I close the door behind me and move into the room.


  I unfold the note and set it on the bedside table, beside a book with gold trim. If only Ricky had done the same years ago, maybe people would’ve found his note. Maybe it would’ve become public. Maybe we wouldn’t be here right now.

  “Everything okay?” Taylor shouts.

  “Just dandy,” I mutter, shining my flashlight all around. The inside of the room looks a lot like the first one I looked at, with the exception of two beds; this room is a single.

  “Ivy?” Taylor shouts again. The knob jiggles back and forth. She can’t get the door to open.

  My heart tightens. The room starts to tilt. I move back to the door. “The knob won’t turn.” I try to twist it, pull it, and wrench it with all my might. But nothing makes a difference. The door won’t open.

  I take a step back, wondering if the killer’s here somewhere, in this room, under the bed. Could he be using a remote control? I try to maintain normal breath, but it gets caught in my lungs. I press my forehead against the door and silently count to ten.

  “Do you want me to go look for something to break the lock?” Taylor asks. “Or I can stay right here and talk to you the whole time. Just tell me whatever’s best.”

  There’s a broken-glass sensation inside my chest. I look toward the bottom of the bed and scoot down, shining my flashlight beneath it. But I don’t see anything.

  “Ivy?” Taylor calls.

  “I’ll be fine,” I call back, suspecting what this is about. The door won’t open until the killer gets this scene.

  I blow out all the candles and click off both spotlights. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I close my eyes, preparing myself for the darkness. I breathe in the scent of the blown-out candles, trying to think of happier times, like my purple birthday cake two years ago and the wish I made for someone like Parker to come into my life.

  I run my lips over his T-shirt bracelet, imagining that it still smells like him—a musky, salty scent. I click off my flashlight and open my eyes, almost unable to believe what I see.

  There are numbers scribbled across the wall: 843.8, the call number for Madame Bovary. The digits glow in the dark. They’re written all over—again and again and again—in different sizes, without spaces: 843.8843.8843.8843.8843.8843.8843.8843.8843.8…

  Beneath a heading that reads BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU DREAM are the images that represent the nightmares of all of us contest winners: an eel (Parker), an ax (Garth), a bear (Taylor), a tombstone (Frankie), a broken mirror (Natalie), a noose (Shayla), and a pair of demon eyes (me).

  There are more images too: a carousel with a possessed horse, and a boy and a girl holding hands at the entrance gate to an amusement park, separated by bars.

  “Ivy?” Taylor shouts.

  “Hurry up now, Princess. Be a good girl and get into bed.”

  My teeth clenched, I peel back the covers. There are glow-in-the-dark words there too, scribbled across the sheet. Ricky was here, but now he’s dead. Nobody ever listened to a word he said.

  I wheeze—an air-sucking noise that doesn’t sound human.

  “Ivy?” Taylor’s pounding on the door now. “Say something. Tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine,” I try to shout, but the words are barely audible.

  “Are you all snuggled up now, Princess? Snug as a bug in a rug?”

  I lay down and reach for my flashlight, just to know that it’s there. But I can’t seem to find it now.

  “If you haven’t already guessed it, this was my room as well. I was the first student at August to be assigned to room F after Ricky. And so I slept in Ricky’s bed, wrote in my diary at Ricky’s desk, put my clothes away in his drawers, walked in his same path.”

  My mind zeroes in on the book on the night table. Could that be the diary he’s talking about?

  “It wasn’t long before I became haunted by Ricky,” his voice continues. “All because he wanted me to find his note. I’d wake up to the sound of Ricky whispering in my ear: 843.8, help me, find it. I started to see flashes of that number everywhere: in class, on the radio, in phone numbers and zip codes. I’d look at the mirror and it’d be scrawled across the shower steam. Then I’d blink and it’d be gone. Imagine what that was like for me, Princess—for a twelve-year-old boy to try to make sense of that madness: 843.8,” he whispers. “Help me, find it. 843.8, help me, find it. 843.8, help me, find it. 843.8, help me, find it…”

  “Hello?” Another voice; it calls out over his whispering.

  I sit up, like a reflex, and rake my fingers over the bedcovers, still trying to find the flashlight.

  “Are you there?” the voice asks.

  Shayla?

  It sounds like it’s coming from somewhere behind me or under the bed.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” a voice sings.

  “Garth?” I climb out of the bed and get down on my hands and knees. I reach beneath the bed—as far as I can stretch—picturing a scene in one of the Nightmare Elf movies, when Annie’s Chatty Cathy doll comes to life, hides in the middle of the night, and stabs Annie’s searching hand with a pair of scissors.

  “Hello?” Shayla says again.

  I crawl out and squat down by the bedpost. There’s glowing writing on the wall: 36 L. I touch the spot, running my fingers over a series of slats. This must be a heating vent. “Shayla?” I call, suspecting her voice is coming from the other side of it. “Can you hear me? Is Garth there too?”

  “I’m downstairs,” she says.

  “Where downstairs?”

  “Come out here and I’ll tell you.”

  “What? Out where?”

  A knocking sound comes from the other side of the room—against the wall, by the door; a hard, frantic pounding.

  “Taylor?” I shout, wondering if the sound is from her.

  “Your role has been cut, Ms. Belmont,” the Nightmare Elf says, his voice coming from the heating vent.

  A motor revs, making it hard to hear anything else. I recognize the sound. A chainsaw. Like in Nightmare Elf. It’s coming from the vent as well.

  Shayla lets out a scream—a thick, throaty wail that rivals the rev of the motor and slices through my chest. “No!” she screams.

  A few moments later, the chainsaw motor stops.

  “Shayla?” I place my ear against the vent, desperate to hear even a breath. Instead, I hear music.

  Instrumentals.

  Song lyrics.

  A woman’s voice.

  An old tune from an old movie: “Baby, can I play for you? I’ll dance and sing and play for you. Just pull my puppet strings, and I’ll do anything. Oh, Baby, I can play for you.”

  My nostrils flare. My lips bunch. A hand touches me from behind.

  Taylor’s hand.

  Her familiar face.

  I can see.

  “Ivy?” she says.

  Her flashlight shines, fading the glowing words.

  “What happened?” she asks, kneeling at my side. She pulls something from the wall, by the heating duct. An envelope with the number 13 inked onto it. She tears the envelope open, revealing a tarnished key ring with two keys attached.

  I don’t speak. I don’t have words. I just crumple into her arms and wait for the music to stop.

  THE MUSIC HAS FINALLY STOPPED. Ivy’s face has lost all color.

  “Shayla’s here,” she whispers.

  “How do you know for sure?”

  “I heard her. She spoke to me.”

  “Or it seemed like she spoke to you,” I say, ever the bearer of reasonable doubt. “What if it just sounded like her voice…like if it was an actor or something, and the voice had been prerecorded?”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? I heard Garth’s voice too.”

  I bite my tongue and look down at the key ring in my hand. There are two keys attached, one bigger than the other. “Any guesses as to what these might go to?” I ask, dropping them into her palm.

  “Maybe room thirteen,” Ivy guesses. “Maybe that’s where the others are being kep
t.”

  I bite my tongue harder and peer around the room. Without the candlelight, or aiming my flashlight at the walls, I can see pictures and writing everywhere—done with glow-in-the-dark paint. The words WHY?, I CAN’T, and I HATE IT are splattered by the door.

  “We need to go downstairs,” Ivy insists.

  “Okay,” I say, getting up, checking my watch. Two and a half hours left.

  “How did you get the door to open?”

  I pull a hairpin from my pocket. It’s been bent into a lightning bolt. “In the words of Sebastian Slayer from Forest of Fright: ‘Easy as squeezy. I love bein’ cheesy.’ A little trick I learned in acting camp to sneak into the green room after hours.”

  “I think that’s the clue,” she says, nodding to the heating vent, not even listening.

  I shine my flashlight over it, unable to see a thing. “Am I missing something?”

  She points my flashlight away so I can see 36 L written across the vent in the alien-green paint.

  “Okay, no doubts about it,” I say. “This is definitely part of a combination code for a lock or safe: twenty-eight R, thirty-six L…but we still need one more number. I’m telling you, somewhere in this creepy-ass place, there’s a padlock with our names all over it.”

  Ivy takes her notepad from her bag and adds the new clue to her list, as well as the date May 9.

  “What’s that for?” I ask.

  “The day of Ricky’s death. April showers bring May flowers….”

  “Oh, right, how silly of me.” I roll my eyes, completely oblivious.

  “We need to go down to the basement,” she says, ignoring my sarcasm, refusing to explain. “We need to—” She stops short, touching her earphones.

  “What’s he saying now?” I scoot back down to listen.

  “I haven’t even told you how Ricky died yet, have I, Princess?” he says. “Let me assure you that he made quite a statement. Awkward, introverted, did-all-his-work/never-sneezed-too-loud-or-laughed-too-hard/ate-every-last-morsel-on-his-plate Ricky chose center stage for his death. On the night of his suicide, he went down to the locker room and took a hot shower. If you haven’t already seen signs for the locker room, it’s two floors beneath you.”