I’ve got to be brave. It’s just water. This stupid fear has lasted long enough. Nolan set his jaw, clenched his teeth, and risked another step forward.
“Good job, Nolan!” Nellie gave him a thumbs-up. “Want to go a little farther?”
Each step drained him, and by the time the water reached halfway up his chest, his entire body told him to flee. His heart raced like a speeding train, and sweat dripped down his forehead. He squeezed Nellie’s hand so hard it must’ve hurt terribly, but she kept on smiling at him.
“Hey, dude, great job!” Sam swam toward him. “You’re doing awesome.”
“If you let go of my hand, you can play with the others. It’s hard to catch a ball with one hand.” Nellie winked at him.
“No!” Nolan snapped at her before he could stop himself. “I mean, I can’t. I’m... I’m scared.”
“I’ll be right here. We can try it, and if you get scared, just grab my hand again.”
“Okay, I guess.” Nolan took a deep breath, trying to calm the raving storm inside his mind. Stop being scared. He pulled his hand away from hers and....
...nothing happened.
The water didn’t turn into an ink-black mass, and the ground didn’t disappear under his feet. He could still stand up straight in the water, which reached almost to his shoulders.
Nellie smiled at him. “See? You’re safe. I’ll stay right here with you.”
He nodded. Fear crawled into his chest, making his heart beat twice as fast, but he took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
“Catch it, Nolan!” Sam yelled before he threw him the ball.
Instinctively, he reached for the ball, taking a step backward, and....
He tumbled into nothingness.
The soil beneath his feet vanished as the ball landed a few feet away from him. He thrashed his arms through the air. The water turned to blood, thick and dark.
“Help!” he shouted, but the water pulled him under. Below the velvet curtain of water, something grasped his leg, scratched him, pulled him down.
Someone reached for him and tried to lift him up from above the surface.
“He’s stuck!” Panic rose in Nellie’s voice, and she sounded miles away. “Help!”
More pulling, more shouts, a symphony of voices.
Below him lingered nothing but silence. A threatening presence surrounded him, wrapped itself around him.
All the times he’d been afraid to swim, this was what he’d been afraid of—not water, not swimming, but drowning. He’d anticipated this moment from the first time he entered a swimming pool.
Mom, Dad, I’ll miss you so much. I... I can’t breathe.
Right at that moment, fresh air filled his lungs as he coughed and spit out water.
Nellie lifted him up, held his head high above the surface, and started dragging him to shore.
It took forever until she got him out of the lake. He lay flat on his back, his head throbbing, his lungs burning.
“Are you okay?” Nellie asked in between deep, rapid breaths. “I couldn’t.... You were stuck. We didn’t get you out right away. I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay.” Nolan shook his head. “Not your fault.”
“It was my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go. The lake has some deeper spots, and you must’ve tumbled into one when you walked back. You went under in a matter of seconds, and then when we tried to pull you out but....”
“I know. Something grabbed hold of me.” He raised a hand to his chest. His lungs were still on fire. “It scratched me.”
“Scratched you?” Nellie looked down at his leg. “But....”
Jane appeared behind her. “We need to get you to the infirmary right away,” she said before Nellie could say anything else. She lifted him up as if he weighed nothing.
Leo stood at the edge of the lake, his skin the color of a blank canvas. He shivered all over and stared at a spot right behind Nolan. “She’s right behind you,” he whispered at him as Jane carried Nolan away.
Chapter 8
“You’ve got some nasty marks on your leg.” The nurse looked at him. “But apart from that, you seem all right.”
“Yeah.” Nolan followed her gaze to the raw, bloody marks on his legs. Four marks, burning from pain, were carved in his flesh, almost like a human hand had clawed at him.
“Well, I’ll put some disinfectant on them.” She also bandaged his leg, her blonde hair bobbing up and down while she moved.
The door opened and Nellie walked in. Her trademark smile had vanished, and she had dark circles under her eyes. “How are you?”
“Shaken up, but I’m okay.”
“He’s good to go,” the nurse said. “If he runs a fever, you bring him straight back to me, all right?”
“I will.” Nellie held out an arm for him to lean on. “Come on, I’ll take you back to your cabin. You missed dinner, but I grabbed you some snacks. In about half an hour, everyone will gather around the campfire. You don’t have to be there, but it’ll be fun. We’re going to tell ghost stories.”
“Ghost stories?” Nolan grimaced from pain when he stood on his leg. “Any stories about camp?”
“About camp? No idea. You’ll have to wait and see.”
They stumbled to the cabin, Nolan’s leg hurting with every step, and by the time they reached it sweat rained down from his forehead.
“Well, see you later.” Nellie opened up the door for him, waved at the other boys, and walked away.
“You’re back!” Sam rushed toward him and put an arm around his shoulder. “I was worried about you. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” Nolan smiled, then immediately turned toward Leo. “Do you still see her near me?”
“No, she’s gone. I’m sorry. I have no idea why she’s fixated on you all of the sudden.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.” Nolan threw his hands up in the air. “Instead of worrying who’s responsible for what, we should start trying to figure out why this is happening.”
“Why what is happening?” Peter put his hands on his hips, eyes hard and cold. “You got stuck in some sort of plant and nearly drowned. There’s no why. It was an accident.”
“It wasn’t a plant.” Nolan tore off the bandage, revealing the bloody claw marks.
“Holy moly.” Sam bent over to look at the wound up close.
“Something scratched me in the lake. This is the proof.” He looked up at Peter, challenging him. “Do you still believe it’s all one big accident?”
“It could be an animal.”
“An animal living underwater that can do this? Right.” Nolan’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “There’s something eerie going on, and I plan to find out what. Tonight they’re telling ghost stories around the campfire, and what do you want to bet there will be a story involving this place—the lake, that abandoned cabin, everything?”
“Why would you think that?” Sam asked.
“Because it can’t just be a coincidence, Leo’s ghost showing up here, targeting me, something in the lake scratching at my legs.”
“You sound completely paranoid.” Peter threw his hands up and huffed. “First Leo sees spooks everywhere, and now you.”
“What’s your problem?” Sam clenched his fists and turned toward him. “Every time someone mentions ghosts, you turn into a bully. Are you scared of ghosts, is that it?”
Peter snorted. “I’m not afraid of something that doesn’t exist. The three of you want to see conspiracies everywhere, go ahead, but I’m not in the mood for it. I’m staying here.” To demonstrate his point, he lay down on bed, crossed his arms behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling, ignoring them.
“Fine.” Sam turned to the other two boys. “Guess we have a campfire to attend.”
***
Nolan nervously played with the sleeves of his shirt. They’d listened to a dozen ghost stories so far, and none of them even mentioned Lake Weird Camp.
Then Jane cleared her throat. “To wrap
up our ghost story night, I’ll tell you a story about a spot all of you are familiar with—our very own Lake Weird.”
She lowered her voice. “About half a century ago, a family lived near the lake, the Haidles. They were a normal, loving family, two parents and their three beautiful children, two twin boys and one older girl named Tracy. One night, the parents had to go out, and the girl had to babysit the twins.”
An ice crystal tumbled down Nolan’s back, and his heart beat as loud as a drum. This story sounds familiar.
“That night the boys kept nagging Tracy to take them swimming in the lake, saying they couldn’t sleep because of the heat. Tracy knew it wasn’t a good idea—the lake is dangerous after dark—but they kept on nagging her, and eventually she gave in.”
Nolan swallowed. The memory of nearly drowning resurfaced in his mind, and he fought against it, tried to focus on the story.
“One of the boys disappeared underwater. Tracy dove after him, tried to save him, but she could barely see anything in the dark. Meanwhile, the little boy fought against the water rolling over him and struggled to get out.”
A bile taste rose up in Nolan’s throat, and the burning sensation he’d felt while drowning reappeared in his lungs.
“Just when he thought he’d die, when the thick water streamed into his lungs, his twin brother managed to pull him free. Together, they swam to shore and started shouting for their big sister. But Tracy was nowhere to be found.”
Jane paused and looked at the campers, her eyes wide, her smile completely vanished. “Nobody ever heard from Tracy again. Her parents thought she’d drowned in the lake, trying to find her little brother. Divers looked for her body, but couldn’t find anything, because the bottom of the lake is too dark to make out anything. So her body could still be in there, at the bottom of the lake, waiting to rise back to the surface one day.”
Nolan trembled all over. He felt eyes on his back, and turned around and gazed into the darkness behind them. Nothing.
“What happened to the parents and brothers?” Leo asked.
“I’m not sure. Since this happened so long ago, the parents probably passed away. The family moved far away from here soon after Tracy’s death.” Jane shrugged, as if what happened afterward with the family didn’t matter at all.
But it matters. It matters a lot.
Once more the tingling sensation of being watched rolled over Nolan. He turned around, and for a flicker of a second, he saw her—a transparent specter with long, black, dripping wet hair covering most of her face. She wore a simple white dress, soaking wet, which reached to the ground.
Then the ghost looked up at him. The remnants of skin were spun too tight around her skull—eyes peeling out, mouth too large to be human. She smiled at him, but everything about the smile looked wrong.
Then she vanished.
Nolan swallowed and clenched his hands until his knuckles turned white. Don’t scream. Don’t be afraid.
When he turned around, Leo looked straight in his eyes. “Did you see her too?”
Nolan nodded. “And she saw me.”
Chapter 9
“We have to get to that house,” Nolan said while they walked back into the cabin. “That’s the only place where we can find answers.”
He opened up the door to walk inside the cabin, and his breath froze in his throat.
Peter stood at the end of the room, back pressed against the wall, shaking like a leaf in the wind. He pointed a shaking finger at the bathroom door. His skin had turned ashen white.
“What’s wrong?” Nolan ran toward him.
“Bathroom.” The older boy choked out the words, then let out a loud sob.
Nolan rushed to the bathroom and threw the door open. With all the lights on, the entire room bathed in unnatural light, he peered at a message scrawled across the bathroom mirror.
‘Brothers.’
His mouth dropped open and he started to take a step back, but Sam and Leo walked in.
“Oh my God.” Sam’s jaw dropped to the floor. “Is that... blood?”
“I think so.” Nolan rushed out of the bathroom and stormed toward Peter. “Do you still doubt if it’s real or not?”
“I—” Peter stammered. “I think it might be real.”
“Great. At least we’re on the same page.” Nolan rolled his eyes and turned to the other boys. “Leo, got any idea why the ghost would leave us a message like this?”
“I’m not sure. Brother would make sense. But brothers? And what’s the connection with the lake?” He sighed.
“I think your ghost is the ghost from the story,” Nolan thought out loud. “And she had two brothers.”
“But that happened more than fifty years ago.”
“What are you talking about?” Peter squeaked out the words, sounding several years younger than usual.
Nolan filled him in on the story as quickly as he could.
“Well, then it all makes sense, right?” Peter shrugged. “You’ve been afraid of drowning for as long as you can remember, so obviously you were the kid who almost drowned.” He waited for anyone to interrupt him, but when nobody said anything, he continued. “And you, Leo... well, you’re the other brother in the story. What the ghost probably doesn’t know is that you’re not really her brothers. You’re the reincarnated version of her brothers.”
“So you believe in reincarnation but you draw the line at ghosts?” Sam looked at the older boy as if he’d smelled something unsavory. “What kind of messed up logic is that?”
“It makes sense though.” Nolan licked his lips. “Tracy is a ghost, so she doesn’t know anything about time. She thinks we’re her actual brothers, but we’re not. That’s why the lake and the cabin looked so familiar, even though I’d never seen them before.”
“But how could she find me, and not you?” Leo shook his head.
“Maybe she could, but I just couldn’t see her. There must be a reason why I’ve been having all these nightmares.”
“She lured me here.” Leo’s mouth dropped open and his eyes shot wide. “I came here to find out more about family, to stop her from bothering me, but she’s not my family at all. I mean, she was, but not... not the family I was looking for.”
“Heck, maybe she lured me here too.” Nolan grabbed the other boy’s shoulders. “The question is, why would she bring us here?”
“Because she wants revenge.” Sam hadn’t spoken in minutes, so when he did, all the other boys jumped up. “She wants revenge because she died, and you didn’t.”
“But....” Nolan frowned. “She’s my sister. Why would my own sister want me dead?”
Peter nodded as if it all made sense now. “She already tried to drown you once, this afternoon. She’s out to get you.” He turned to Leo. “Maybe she’s after you too. Either way, I doubt she wrote that message on the bathroom wall because she loves you both so much.”
“My guess is she’s probably mad because you two kept nagging her to take you swimming while she knew it ranked up top on the bad ideas list.” Sam scratched his head. “She died, and the two of you lived. She probably wants to even the score.”
Nolan’s nerves kicked in and he let out a loud, sobbing laugh. “How do we stop her? Anyone got any experience stopping ghosts out for revenge?”
“No, but I think I know where to start,” Leo said. “We take it back to where it all began—the cabin in the woods.”
“Good idea.” Sam nodded at him. “We’ll check it out first thing tomorrow morning.”
“No. Not tomorrow. Now.” Leo almost snapped. “We have to go right now.”
“Why?” Nolan blinked, not a fan of the idea. “It’s about a thousand times more dangerous in the dark.”
“Because we can’t wait another night.”
“Why the heck not?” Peter raised his voice. “I have zero intention of playing ghost bait in the darkness, when I can’t see three feet in front of me.”
“Why?” A white cloud escape from Leo’s lips. “Bec
ause she’s here.”
All four boys silent.
Peter’s eyes turned so white they almost burst out of his head. “She’s here? In the room?”
Leo nodded. “So you want to get going?” he whispered.
“Yeah.” Sam got up and raced for the door.
Nolan bolted out right behind him.
Chapter 10
The pale moon served as the boys’ only guide as they stumbled through the woods, tripping over rocks and bushes until they reached the lake.
Sam inspected his knees. “I have about a dozen cuts thanks to these thorny bushes. This better be worth it.”
“Would you have preferred to stay in our cabin, and have a chat with our ghost?” Nolan arched an eyebrow.
“Point taken.”
A low fog had descended upon the lake, wrapping it like a deadly Christmas present. Shivers ran up and down Nolan’s spine, and his hands trembled as they followed the long, narrow path along the lake.
“I can’t see anything,” he muttered below his breath.
One wrong step and he could end up in the lake, where those phantom fingers would grasp his leg and pull him under.
The house loomed up in front of them. In the darkness, it no longer looked like an abandoned cabin—more like a soulless monster, an evil shell, its door an open mouth into hell. The windows stared back at them as shadows moved inside, memories of the past.
“I take it nobody thought to bring a flashlight.” Nolan swallowed his fear. His mind jumped back across half a century, pictured the house before it had turned to its crumbling state—a cozy holiday home for a family, instead of this tragic shell.
“I always have one with me.” Leo fumbled through his pockets and conjured a mini-flashlight. “I woke up several times in the dark with Tracy staring at me. That made me kind of nervous.” He grinned, but his hands shook when he handed Nolan the flashlight.
They stepped over the rotten door carcass, into a large, spacious room crawling with cobwebs and dust. The remains of a couch, with one side crumbled to the floor, stood in the middle of the room. The cushions looked as if someone had puked on them.
Weirdville: Drowning in Fear (Lower Grade Spooky Fun Adventure) Page 4
