The Haunted

by Bentley Little

  She had never felt so much stress in her life as she had the past two weeks, and it was a wonder she hadn’t snapped. This was what they never showed in movies, the contorted and convoluted rituals that had to be instituted in order to deal with everyday life in a haunted house.

  After breakfast, after everyone was up and there was noise in the house, after the sun was high and night was truly vanquished, after the house was as safe as it could possibly be, it was time for Megan to take a quick sponge bath and get dressed. Six days a week, she took only sponge baths, not wanting to use the tub or shower, not wanting the glass in the bathroom to become fogged up. She was down to a single hot shower a week, and that one she took on Sunday afternoon, in the warmest, brightest part of the day. Her mom thought that was strange and had asked her about it, but her questioning had seemed more nervous than concerned, the queries of someone worried not because she didn’t understand but because she did. Megan had almost broken down and told her mom everything. But she’d flashed on that message—

  I will kill you both.

  —and saw in her mind’s eye an amorphous shape disengaging itself from the wall and killing both her mother and herself, and had purposefully thought up a lie, saying that she’d read that Sunday afternoon was the best time to take a shower because it required less energy to heat the water and was good for the environment.

  Now she went back up to her bedroom, picked out a new T-shirt and underwear (she was planning to wear the same jeans) and carried her clothes into the bathroom. She let the tap run until the water was warm, then stopped up the sink, filled it, and tossed in a washcloth, getting everything ready so she could take her sponge bath as quickly as possible. She always bathed in shifts—bottom half, then top half—so that a portion of her body was always covered and she was never completely naked.

  She did her usual swift survey, making sure nothing was out of place, confirming that there was nothing creepy or unusual within sight distance, before deciding to work today from the bottom up. Pulling down her pants, she was shocked to see cuts on her legs, long red slashes that she had not noticed earlier. Where had they come from? Had they been there while she was going to the bathroom? If so, she hadn’t seen them. Her legs suddenly hurt, though they hadn’t only seconds before. Seeing the wounds had made her aware of them, and she felt the pain, though the cuts were not deep and there was virtually no blood, only a thin dried line over each slash.

  Using the washcloth but not using soap, she gently dabbed at the cuts with warm water before patting her legs dry with a towel. She found some Neosporin in the drawer and, using her finger, carefully smeared the medicine on the wounds. After changing her underwear and putting her pants back on, she took off her old T-shirt, washed the top half of her body, put on deodorant and quickly slipped into her new T-shirt.

  The cuts bothered her.

  And scared her.

  Her first thought was that she was being punished, that, even though she’d obeyed orders and done nothing, the thing in the house knew what she’d been thinking and wanted to prove that it could get to her whenever it wanted, despite all her precautions. If true, what would happen to her if she dared to tell her parents about the slashes on her legs? What would happen to them if they knew? The safest thing would be to maintain her silence and suffer.

  There was a nagging notion in the back of her mind, however, that the cuts had not been inflicted on her by some outside force but that she had made the cuts herself. In a way, this idea was even scarier. Because, try as she might, Megan could not remember doing such a thing and could think of no reason why she would.

  Maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe none of the things she thought were going on were really going on. Maybe she hadn’t received any of those weird texts. Maybe there’d been no camouflaged monster at her sleepover. Maybe …

  No. Her mom had seen one of the texts—

  Take off your pants.

  —as had James—

  I will kill you both.

  —and her friends had all gotten spooked by that out-of-control Ouija board even before they’d fallen asleep. These things were real.

  Megan leaned forward, looking at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t crazy. She was just caught up in a crazy situation.

  But what could she do about it?

  She went downstairs, where her mom was already waiting for her. “Are you ready?” her mom asked.

  “Yeah,” Megan said.

  The two of them were planning to walk downtown together, her mom to go to work, she to go to the library. She’d finished another book, and was due a prize from the summer reading program. The program was nearly over, so prizes were getting down to the bottom of the barrel, and she wanted to make sure she got something decent. Of course, the library wouldn’t be open for another hour, but she could hang out at her mom’s office and the two of them could get in some mother-daughter bonding time. They could talk, and maybe she could even …

  Megan thought of the cuts on her legs.

  No.

  They were already out the door when her mom realized at the last minute that she’d forgotten to bring along her flash drive, so Megan waited outside, standing in the front yard while her mother went back into the house. She pushed at the tire swing, wondering why her dad hadn’t taken it down, since neither she nor James used it. Then she wondered why James didn’t use it. The swing was something he should have loved.

  A man walked slowly past on the sidewalk, making an almost comically obvious effort not to glance at their house or yard. Megan frowned. There was something familiar about him, and she tried to remember where she’d seen him before. He was an older guy, wearing a backward yellow baseball cap, and though she was almost certain he did not live on this street, and he did not seem to have any reason to be here, he walked by, then crossed the street and walked by in the opposite direction, the way he had come, still not looking at their yard.

  That was weird. But then her mom came out, and she forgot all about the man.

  “Let’s go,” her mom said.

  Away from the house, Megan felt better. The fear was still there—it was always there these days—but she felt lighter, physically as well as mentally. She noticed the difference only when she left, but at home there was a heaviness to everything she did. Her thoughts were slower, her movements more sluggish. It felt completely normal to her while there, but the minute she was off the premises, it was as if she’d lost twenty pounds and gained twenty IQ points.

  What in the world was wrong with their house?

  It was a question she carried with her, one that was always in back of every thought. She had still not come up with a satisfactory answer, but it seemed clear to her that whatever plagued their home was far more than just a simple haunting. No ghost or spirit could do all … this.

  Her mom seemed in a better mood, too, away from the house. As they walked through the park, she began asking Megan about school. It started in only two weeks, and usually by this time they were going shopping for clothes, had started to pick up supplies and were getting ready. But this year, school didn’t even seem to be on the radar. Even when they weren’t distracted by other things, the subject just never came up, and it felt good to be finally talking about it. Reassuring. She herself had been so focused on events at home that she’d given very little thought to her entry into eighth grade. It was going to be her last year in middle school, and while, ordinarily, that would have made her anxious, excited or something, this summer it had hardly registered.

  So it felt great to be talking to her mom in a normal way about normal things.

  She realized that it was time to start getting seriously busy. Especially in the clothes department. She’d grown since the spring, and the only pants that didn’t make her look like she was waiting for a flood were the jeans she had on now. All of her shorts still fit, but …

  Megan was brought down to earth at the thought of the slashes on her legs.

  She couldn’t wear shorts, she r
ealized.

  “I noticed The Store was having a back-to-school sale,” her mom was saying. “You’re old enough to expand your wardrobe and not wear T-shirts every day. We should …”

  Megan nodded, kept a smile on her face, but she wasn’t really listening, and it wasn’t until they reached Old Main and ran into Julie and her mom in front of the closed thrift store that Megan snapped back into the here and now.

  Julie’s mom greeted them with a wide smile and a friendly “Hello,” but Julie’s face reddened and she looked down at the sidewalk, embarrassed. Her family was poor, and it was obvious that she and her mom were waiting for the thrift store to open. Probably to look for clothes.

  Megan was embarrassed, too, not because her friend had to buy used clothing but because she was embarrassed about it, and, like Julie, Megan stared awkwardly at the ground and said nothing.

  The two mothers had no such qualms, however, and Megan’s mom nodded toward the closed front door of the thrift shop. “Monday morning’s a good time to come here. That’s when Rebecca puts out all her new items. But the first Tuesday of each month, she always has a two-for-one deal. Sometimes it’s jeans, sometimes it’s housewares, sometimes it’s books, but if you keep your eyes open, you can get some real bargains.”

  Julie’s mom smiled. “That’s how I got this top. Three dollars. And one for Julie as well.”

  Mortified, Julie looked as though she wanted to sink into the ground.

  Megan’s mom nodded approvingly. “You know, last winter, I got a Liz Claiborne coat here that someone had given away, and it was in perfect condition. Liz Claiborne! Ten dollars! Someone must have gotten it for a present and didn’t like it, because it looked like it had never been worn.”

  Her mom did sometimes buy things from the thrift store, although Megan had never felt comfortable about that. The clothes, she had to admit, were always nice—her mom had good taste—but they didn’t have to shop there, and Megan would have much preferred if her mom bought only things that were new. Now, however, she felt proud of her mother, and she even found herself relenting about the used clothing. She knew that coat, and she thought it was very stylish. It also looked very expensive. She’d been under the impression that her mom had bought it new, and to find out that it had cost only ten dollars was very impressive.

  Maybe she could stretch out her own clothing allowance if she bought some of her back-to-school things here rather than at The Store.

  Julie no longer seemed so embarrassed, and she and Megan began talking about school and the classes they hoped they’d get. They’d both signed up for the ultrapopular Electronic Publishing as an elective, but neither of them had gotten their schedules yet, so they didn’t know whether they’d make it in.

  There was a metallic rattling of key in lock as the door to the thrift shop was opened from the inside.

  “Well, I need to get to work.” Megan’s mom smiled and nodded at the elderly woman opening the door. “Good morning, Rebecca.”

  “Hello, Claire. Nice day.”

  “Yes, it is.” She looked at Megan. “I’m going to my office. If you’d like to stay with Julie and see if you can find anything in Mrs. Fischer’s store, you can.”

  Megan smiled, giving her mother a quick hug. She was one of the good ones. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

  All trace of embarrassment gone, Julie led the way into the thrift shop, and the two of them began searching through the shirts and blouses hanging from a series of racks on the right side of the store.

  They looked through everything. Julie picked out an impressively hip outfit that one of Jardine’s richer high schoolers must have recently donated, and even discovered a couple of pretty good CDs in the bargain bin. Megan found a cool top that fit her perfectly, and she told her friend to wait while she rushed over to her mom’s office to get some money.

  Julie had always been the most casual member of her trio of BFFs, but Megan had a newfound respect for the girl, and after this morning felt much closer to her. They emerged from the thrift shop to see that the north end of Old Main was being blocked off and vendors were starting to set up for the farmer’s market. Julie’s mom said she was going to go over and check it out.

  “I need to go to the library,” Megan told Julie. “Want to come with me?”

  Julie looked at her mother, who nodded her approval.

  The two girls went to the library, where Megan got her reading program form signed by one of the librarians and received her prize: a “Night at the Movies” pass, which included free entry to the theater, a free small popcorn and a free small drink. “Wow,” Julie said. “I didn’t know they gave out such good prizes. I’m going to do the reading program next year.”

  The librarian smiled. “Tell your friends.”

  They went on one of the library’s computers, sharing it, and checked out the Facebook pages of some of their frenemies until Julie’s mom found them and told Julie it was time to go.

  Megan walked out with them to the parking lot, where Julie’s mom had parked her car. “I had fun,” she said. “We should do this more often.”

  Julie smiled. “Yeah.”

  They said good-bye, and Megan walked back to her mom’s office. She expected to see a client or two, or find her mother on the phone, but her mom was alone and writing something in longhand on a yellow pad of paper. Megan went to the bathroom, and at the same time checked the cuts on her legs. Once again, there was a vague stirring in the back of her mind, a sense that she had inflicted those wounds upon herself, though she still could not remember doing so and had no idea why she would.

  They looked ugly, she thought, and that was good. It made her look ugly. Now maybe whatever had been exhorting her to take off her pants would not want her to do it any longer. In fact, maybe if she cut herself some more, it would provide her with additional insurance and keep that thing away from her.

  Was that the reason she had done it in the first place, if she had done it in the first place?

  No.

  Something told her that if she had cut herself, she had done it because she wanted to, because she liked it.

  Liked it in that way.

  Horrified, embarrassed, ashamed, Megan looked up from her bare legs and focused her eyes on the bathroom wall. That wasn’t possible, was it? People didn’t really do things like that for those reasons, did they? She didn’t see how, but something about it still rang true, and she was even more afraid of the house than she had been before. She did not want to go back, and wondered whether she could camp out here in her mom’s office, convince her parents to let her have a sleepover here with her friends, and then perhaps stretch that out to a week or so.

  She was being ridiculous. Nothing like that would ever happen. She had to face the fact that she had to live in the house.

  But maybe …

  Reaching over, she started opening the drawers in the sink cabinet. Most of them were empty, but in one she found an old box of Band-Aids, a tube of Neosporin and a small pair of scissors. She took all of them out and placed them on the edge of the sink. The scissors, she saw upon further inspection, might be short and thin, but they were sharp, and the blades came to points. She picked them up, then looked down at her thighs. Her legs were ugly now, but she could make them even uglier, so that nothing would want her to pull her pants down.

  She gathered her courage. Grimacing, she pressed the blade against her skin.

  Pushed it in.

  And, biting on her hand to keep from screaming, quickly pulled it through the flesh toward her hip.

  Twenty

  The man with the knife was named John Lynch.

  And he had been released from jail two days ago.

  Julian learned about it only because he called the police station and asked to talk to Officer Rodriguez in order to find out the status of the case. Claire was at work, Megan was with her, and James was at his friend Robbie’s. For the first time in three days, Julian had the house completely to himself, and, taking advantage of
this temporary freedom, he decided to check on his would-be attacker and see what was happening. He was shocked to discover that, contrary to what he’d been told, the man was neither in jail nor in a psych ward but had made bail and had been released on his own recognizance.

  Rodriguez was on patrol and not available, but the case was no longer his anyway and had been assigned to a Detective Pena, who was the one to take Julian’s call. Pena was understanding and apologetic, but Julian was still angry that Lynch had been released, and he started lecturing the detective, describing in detail how he’d seen the man with the knife staring in at him while he was eating lunch. All of this was no doubt in the report, but Pena listened patiently before explaining that because there had been no specific verbal threats made and no overt attempts to attack, Lynch had been automatically eligible for bail.

  “He was holding a knife!”

  “I understand that, Mr. Perry. And he will have a trial, and even if there is a plea deal, I can guarantee you that he will serve time. But until then, he is out on bail. If you see him again, however, if he makes any attempt to contact you, let us know immediately. In that case, we may be able to do something.”

  “So if he terrorizes my wife or stabs my children, then you’ll be able to put him away. That’s good to know.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Perry—”

  Julian hung up on him.

  Immediately, he went outside and walked around the house, checking behind bushes, in the garage, even in the alley to make sure that that lunatic wasn’t lurking about. He’d asked the detective whether the police had any idea why Lynch had come to his house with a knife, but Pena said that the man had offered no explanation, had seemed confused, and had claimed that he meant no harm.