by Brian Rowe
But Brin was occupied with something else entirely. She pushed her forehead against the window and slanted her eyes a bit. She tried to make out the weird apparition in the distance.
Out to the left, beyond a small ice-covered lake, stood what looked to be a man, standing upright, staring curiously at the vehicle.
It almost looks like he’s staring at me, she thought.
She blinked a few times, turned away from the window, then looked back toward the lake. The man was still there, and staring.
“Dylan,” Brin said. She elbowed him in the ribs, but this action only made him snore louder. She lightly slapped his left cheek, and he awoke right away. He blinked his eyes, licked his lips about a dozen times, and turned to her.
“Did I fall asleep?” he said.
“Yeah.” She grabbed hold of his head and pulled it toward her.
“What are you doing? Are you trying to kiss me?”
“Not a chance, gay boy,” she said. She pushed his face up against the window. “Look! Do you see that?”
“See what?”
“By the lake over there.”
“What lake?”
“The one by that small bed of bushes.”
“Oh, that,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it a lake. It’s more like a ditch filled with ice.”
“Whatever. Do you see that person?”
“A person?”
“Yes,” Brin said. “It looks like he’s wearing a black suit.”
“Uhh, no.”
“What?”
Brin turned back to the window. She could still see the lake. But the strange man had vanished.
“Brin,” Dylan said, “you’re not hallucinating, are you?”
“Don’t be smart with me. I know what I saw!”
“What’s going on back there?” Anaya said, turning around.
“Brin’s seeing ghosts,” Dylan said. He crossed his arms, set his head back, and closed his eyes. He was snoring again five seconds later.
“I’m not seeing ghosts,” Brin said. “I just… I saw a person out there.”
“You saw a person?” Anaya said. “In the snow?”
“Yes. It was a man.”
Anaya burst out laughing, and Sawyer joined in. Chace and Lavender didn’t laugh; they peered at Brin like she was crazy.
“Well, if your little ghost friend wants to introduce himself when we get to town,” Anaya said, “then tell him he’s more than welcome.”
“I saw him,” Brin said. “Guys, I’m not kidding.”
“Then where is he now?”
Brin turned to the back window. She looked all around. The mysterious figure had disappeared. But Brin didn’t care anymore; her focus was on a new threat to her safety.
“Oh no!” Anaya shouted. “More snow? You have to be kidding me!”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Sawyer said.
“Doesn’t matter. Keep driving!”
Brin could feel her heart beating faster. The sight of that ghostly man swept a noticeable wave of fear over her body. But now the falling snow was making her feel trapped.
“Anaya, come on,” Brin said. “We have to turn around.”
“What?” Anaya looked ready to kill Brin with her death scare.
“This movie isn’t worth us getting stranded out here!”
“Shut up, Brin.”
“The snow could trap us! What if we get stuck, and we have no way to—”
Brin stopped rambling; she couldn’t believe her eyes. Anaya kicked her backpack, binder, and shot list to the floor in front of her and started crawling to the back of the van, even while it was still in motion, even as they continued to climb the never-ending hill toward Bodie Ghost Town. Lavender and Chace didn’t try to stop her; they just sucked in their guts and pressed their backs up against the windows, to make enough room for the big girl to make it to the back seat.
“What are you doing?” Brin said, the rage on Anaya’s face scaring her now far more than the snow or the ghost.
Anaya pushed the sleeping Dylan to the side and grabbed Brin by her shirt. Anaya was huge, but not even Brin assumed the girl had this kind of physical prowess.
“I have had enough of your shit,” Anaya said. The girl’s breath smelled awful. Brin tried to avoid it, but to no avail. “Have you ever seen the movie Vacation? With Chevy Chase?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Remember that scene where he snaps at his family for wanting to turn around? After they’ve spent weeks traveling across the country? When they’re just hours away from their destination?”
“Yeah.” Brin did. It was one of her favorite movies.
“Yeah? Well, this is that moment. This is that scene. I’ve spent three hours in this van listening to you whine and complain and be a pain in my fat ass. And with just minutes away from our destination, you want us to turn around? I don’t care if the world started imploding on itself right now. I am going to make my movie, do you understand me? This is no longer a homework assignment. This is war. And you want to pull out our troops just before the last second. You’re nothing but a coward, Brin. And I’m not gonna put up with your shit anymore. Shut your mouth. Do what I say. And we will get through this day without me pummeling your ugly ass face into the ground.”
Anaya might have said more, but Brin would never know. When the van reached the top of the hill, the front tires plunged downward into a yard wide wedge of sunken mud.
The van abruptly stopped, Sawyer exclaimed a vicious expletive, and Anaya went flying forward, her head smashing against the back of the driver’s seat.
“Owww!” she screamed. “What the hell!”
“I think…” Sawyer said, fear and confusion in his low voice. “I think we’re stuck.”
Chapter Eleven
“I trusted you to get us there, you dumbass!” Anaya screamed.
“I got you there,” Sawyer said. “We just… we may have to walk the last quarter mile.”
“My head…” she said as she stumbled toward the front seat. “Move over, damn it.”
“What?’
“I said, move it!”
Brin didn’t realize she was holding Dylan’s hand until Anaya shoved Sawyer into the passenger seat and failed to back the van out of the ditch. Anaya tried, probably a dozen times, before she screamed real loud, pounded her fists against the dashboard, and slammed her forehead once real hard against the steering wheel.
“We’re walking!” she shouted. “Everybody get your stuff! We’re walking!”
“How far is it?” Chace said.
“It’s not far, quarterback! If I can walk it, you can walk it.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Chace said, chuckling to a smiling Lavender.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Brin turned to her right to see that, miraculously, Dylan was still sleeping. “Are you serious?” she said.
Dylan didn’t answer.
She slugged him in the shoulder, and he immediately woke from his dream state. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning? Come on. We’re all getting out.”
“Where are we going?”
Brin shook her head and tumbled forward toward the sliding door, which Chace had opened, letting Lavender out before himself.
“Anaya?” Brin said.
“What?” Anaya was already started to march toward the ghost town.
“Do you have my outfit for the movie?”
“It’s in the front seat,” she said. “Grab it, will you?”
Brin really didn’t want to. She didn’t want to wear the period clothes; she didn’t want to act. How did I get here? she thought as she grabbed the crinkled black dress and departed the van. How has everything in my life led to this god-awful day?
“Where am I supposed to change?” Brin shouted, but Anaya didn’t hear her. Anaya, Sawyer, Chace, and Lavender were walking hastily toward the ghost town, while Dylan was still waking up and gathering his things for the li
ttle jaunt.
“Come on, let’s go,” Brin said, reaching inside the van to pull the tired Dylan outside.
“I got it, I got it,” he said, slapping her away. He stepped out onto the snow and shivered overdramatically. “Oh my God, it’s freezing out here!”
“Tell me about it.”
“What is this? Are we making a movie or are we taking part in a group suicide?”
“If it were up to me, we’d go back. Shoot the movie in Grisly. But it’s too late now. We’re stuck.”
“The van’s stuck?”
“It is.”
Dylan turned around, his arms crossed, his teeth chattering.
“Are you guys coming?” Lavender shouted from afar.
“Be right there!” Brin hooked her arm inside Dylan’s, hoping his layers of clothing pressed against hers would increase both of their body temperatures.
The walk to the ghost town wasn’t as tumultuous as Brin thought it would be. Within five minutes, the quiet, eerie town could be seen in the distance. The quartet up ahead hadn’t stopped, but Brin and Dylan did, for a fleeting moment.
“Look at that,” Brin said.
Bodie was a true ghost town in every sense. Brin had expected a few worn down buildings and water wells, but this abandoned town was expansive and huge. It all started with a giant cemetery on the left side of town, which was surrounded by tiny black gates and extended all the way up another hill. In the center at the lowest altitude was the heart of the ghost town, with its church, hotel, firehouse, various homes, wells, jailhouse, tourist museum, and more, all appearing like products of the late 1800’s. On the right side of the town was the largest building on site, a silver mill that looked like a giant factory. This town had been home to hundreds of busy lives back in the day. Now it was the site for a student film.
“We’re lagging,” Dylan said. “Come on.”
As they passed the unofficial entrance of the ghost town, Brin couldn’t help but keep her attention on the spooky cemetery on the left. She darted her eyes in every direction with the hopes that she would spot that ghostly figure again, but he was nowhere to be seen. There were no odd sightings, no weird sounds or smells. This was nothing more than a quiet, insignificant plot of land; Brin knew there was nothing to worry about.
Except for finding our way home, she thought. That might be a challenge.
She kept close to Dylan as they made their final long trek into the center of town, where the other four had stopped. Brin could see Anaya already playing with the video camera.
Anaya waved, and not in a friendly way. “Let’s go!” she shouted. “Come on you guys, let’s make a movie!”
---
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Brin said, awkwardly pulling the old-school black dress over her head as she hid in the muddy alley behind the jailhouse, so as not to be seen by Anaya’s HD camera.
Brin poked her head around the corner to see Sawyer filming a scene with Chace and Dylan. Both men were dressed in clothes that didn’t so much suggest 1800’s period attire, like the girls’ outfits, but more professional modern wear that would keep them warm in this freezing weather. Chace had on a pair of gray slacks, with at least three layers of black clothing up top, including a tight polka-dot vest and an extra-large bow tie. Dylan looked even gayer—how appropriate, Brin thought—with a white tuxedo-like jacket over a pair of black slacks. He too had a bow tie, his bright red.
Brin didn’t look gay or straight—she looked frumpy. Her face was devoid of make-up—an Anaya choice, not surprisingly—and her white, long-sleeved collared shirt was tucked in under her dress, which reached all the way to the ground and made her ass look humungous.
She ran her hands through her hair a few times and started walking past the jailhouse, out to Green Street, where Anaya was making the entirety of the movie.
Brin looked out. She didn’t see anyone.
“You guys done filming the shot?” She turned to her left. Anaya and the gang were nowhere to be found.
But as she kept peering to the left, a group of people came into view—three, in fact. And they weren’t members of the cast or the crew.
She looked up at the second story window of the house across the way. It looked more like a barn than a home. The windows on the first floor were sealed, as was the left window on the second story. But the window on the right was wide open. And Brin could see, clear as day, three small children pointing at her. The first was a little boy, dressed in a black suit, dangling his feet off the edge, smiling ominously at her. The other two were twin girls, both wearing tight blue dresses, their hands pressed against their mouths as they softly giggled.
I’ve stepped into The Shining.
“Hey!” Brin shouted, stepping out onto the dirt road. “Hey! You!”
“BRIN!” She had never heard her name screamed so loud in her life, not even by her own mother. She turned around to see Chace and Dylan sitting on a rock across the way, the video camera shoved into their faces. Anaya stormed past them.
“Oh!” Brin shouted. “Sorry!”
“You just ruined my shot!” Anaya screamed in dismay. “Do you want to stay out here all day, or don’t you?”
She shook her head. “I really don’t.”
“Now I have to start all over. Thanks a lot.”
Brin was more than tired of Anaya’s attitude. She wanted to invite Anaya’s attitude over for dinner and poison it with a potent dose of arsenic.
“You’re welcome!” Brin shouted. “Always here to help!”
Anaya didn’t respond. She shook her head and ran back to the actors.
As soon as Anaya re-focused her attention on the filming, Brin turned around and looked back at the second story house. The kids were gone.
“I know I saw them,” she whispered to herself. “I’m not crazy.”
She raced forward—a difficult task considering the length of her skirt—and pounded on the front door. It was boarded up from the inside.
“Hello? Who’s in there?”
Brin waited for a response but didn’t hear a thing. She turned to her right and pressed her ear up against the door.
“BRIN!” Anaya shouted again from afar. “Move out of the shot!”
“Sorry!” Brin said, slowly stepping around the house. “You crazy freak,” she added in a whisper.
She moved out of the camera’s eye-line and tiptoed to the back of the home. She looked up. There were two windows on the second level in the back, but those were boarded up, too.
Then Brin looked down. A small window on the left side was boarded up, but ineffectively so. There appeared to be enough room for her to crawl inside.
Brin didn’t have to think about it. Before she could count to three, she was already punching the small board out of the way. She looked inside the large, abandoned home. It was pitch black.
“Hello?” Brin said. “Kids? Are you there?”
No response.
“I know someone’s in here!”
Again, nothing. Brin leaned forward.
“Please say something! I don’t want the others to think I’m crazy—”
Before Brin could say another word, a small hand popped out from the dark and pulled her inside the house.
Chapter Twelve
Brin curled herself up into a ball and covered her hands with her face. She didn’t scream, and she didn’t shout for help. She didn’t know what to do, so she remained still, waiting for someone or something to inflict pain on her.
But there was no pain. Not even the fall had hurt. The only thing she had to fear now was the darkness.
“Who’s in here?” Brin said. She could barely see her own hands in front of her face.
Brin sat up. She heard footsteps coming closer and closer. But before the three children reached her, they started running, in circles, all around her. They were giggling.
“Stop, please,” Brin said. “I want to talk to you.”
Her heart was beating fast now. She didn’t
think whoever was in this room wanted to hurt her. But she also didn’t like the pitch black enveloping every inch of her body.
Nobody knows I’m in here, she thought. Brin started crawling toward the opening.
The giggling increased in volume, and she started feeling hands touching her arms and shoulders in quick, frantic swipes.
And then, as her hands reached the bottom of the opening, the giggling stopped. She heard the little girl say, “Oh no.”
The girl’s pleasant voice was replaced with a low growl, quiet but discernable, coming from the other side of the room. It didn’t sound like a human. It sounded like a vicious, flesh-hungry wolf.
I’d kill for a pair of night vision goggles about now.
Then the unthinkable happened: the ground beneath her started to shake.
“Oh my God,” she said. It started softly at first, but then the dirt started slipping through the cracks beneath her. “What the hell!”
She tried to get up on her feet, but the ground wouldn’t stop shaking. The whole building seemed to be moving. She couldn’t tell. All she could stay focused on was that opening in the corner. It was mere feet away.
The ground kept on shaking. And the low growl, so quiet before, started intensifying.
“Welcome to Hell,” Brin thought she heard a voice say.
But Brin didn’t stay to chat. She leapt with all her might toward the opening and landed on top of the sill. She pushed herself forward and fell to the ground below, her right arm striking the ground with a tough, painful blow.
“Owww!” Brin shouted. She looked up, not knowing what she had seen or heard, but certain it had been real. She waited for another hand to pop out of the darkness. But none did.
She jumped to her feet, rubbed her aching arm, and started running away from the house, as far away as she could get.
Anaya and the gang were in the distance, all standing around like they were waiting for their number to be called for an intimate dinner gathering. Anaya turned to Brin as she ran up to the group.
