by Rachel Rust
Before his retirement, Grandpa owned a small real estate office in town. My dad had worked there part-time in high school, but he fled Villisca a week after graduation and never moved back. Dad once told me that small towns have highways leading out, and no perimeter walls keeping people in, but they’re still damn hard to escape.
David watches the slow-moving waters, and I wonder if he’s going to flee after turning eighteen. Or will he be one who struggles to escape?
“Are you going to college in the fall?” I ask.
His jaw clenches and I take his non-answer as a no—and immediately want to know why. Why would someone not use college as the perfect opportunity to get away from tiny-town living? Though plenty of answers fill my mind. He can’t afford it, or his grades aren’t good. Or maybe he thinks the family store needs him more than the academic world.
“Are you going to stick around here and continue working for your dad?” I keep my voice chipper to cheer him up. But the lightness in my voice doesn’t ease the tension around David. His jaw is set, and he keeps his gaze out at the river—away from me.
“I’m more of a one day at a time kind of guy.” He reels his line in and checks the hook. His worm is gone. “Our days are limited. We’re not guaranteed a future—or even a tomorrow, so why bother worrying about it?” After hooking another worm, he recasts.
His words roll through my mind again and again…We’re not guaranteed a future—or even a tomorrow…and I wonder how someone gets so jaded. What had happened that made a small-town-Iowa boy so hopeless?
For the next two hours, I’m too apprehensive to ask. We meander around our muddy little patch of river’s edge, catching a couple of catfish that David throws back, declaring them too small. The overhead sun is hot, bearing down relentlessly and leaving its bronzed mark on both mine and David’s skin.
We switch from fishing to skipping rocks. He tries to show me how to do it, but I remind him that I’m from Minnesota, land of ten thousand lakes. I know how to skip rocks.
Neither of us make any mention of college or the future, or why I’m staying in Villisca, though the topics never leave my mind, and they don’t seem to leave David’s either. Through his smiles and laughter, his eyes remain bleak.
We both have our secrets and sorrows.
When he drops me off at my grandparents’ in the early evening, he once again parks a block away.
“Thanks for taking me fishing,” I say. “I almost kind of enjoyed it.”
“Almost kind of,” he repeats with a laugh. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I really did have fun hanging out with you.” My cheeks blush as I say the words, but I’m hopeful my sun-kissed skin hides my bashfulness.
David’s lip curls up. “I had fun hanging out with you, too.” He pauses. “You’re definitely a Carpenter, even though you hate fishing.”
I smile back, unsure of what he means. There’s an intimacy that comes with his words and the way he says “Carpenter.” And then he smiles, and I’m once again struck by an odd sense that I’ve met him before.
“Did we ever play together when we were little?” I ask.
“I don’t think so.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, thinking back to younger days when I’d visit Villisca on the Fourth of July. The playground, the ice cream sundaes at the now-shuttered Mary Moo Ice Cream parlor, the fireworks show at the edge of the town. I have no memories of a brown-haired boy in any of those.
“Weird,” I say. “Sometimes, it feels like I’ve hung out with you before. But that sounds dumb, huh?”
David’s smile disappears and he turns away from me. “You should get back home before your grandma thinks you’ve run back to Minneapolis or something.”
My hand hooks the door handle.
“Chessie.”
The brusque tone of his voice makes me turn to him. His face is solemn.
“Midnight.”
A chill runs down my spine. I give him a slight nod. “Midnight.” I exit the vehicle without another word. My phone shows that it’s nearly six o’clock. I have six hours to figure out how to sneak two boys into my room.
Shit.
Chapter Thirteen
My bare feet pace the living room with no sound. That’s rule number one: no shoes. Rule number two is for David and Mateo to use the front door, not the back door. At midnight, the squeak of the back screen door would wake the entire neighborhood.
Other than those two rules, I still haven’t a clue how I’ll sneak the boys into my room. But it’s too late for planning, because two dark shadows are standing on the front porch.
The front door hinges are silent, giving no indication that two more people have now entered the house.
“Shoes,” I whisper.
They quickly rid themselves of footwear—Nikes for David, black boots for Mateo.
We head up the stairs single-file, taking the steps slow and easy. But it’s damn near impossible not to make any noise, and we squeak our way to the top. I put a hand out to keep them behind me, hidden from my grandparents’ bedroom door. A low, slow snore gives me the green light to lead them into the hallway where I quickly shove them into my bedroom.
In the dark of my room, the three of us stand, unmoving without a word. Listening for sounds of old people needing to pee or sounds of Grandma ready to beat down the door and drag two no-good boys out of the house by their ears. My muscles twitch with anxiety.
But Grandma and Grandpa don’t come. They’re asleep on the other side of the house. I switch on my light and roll a T-shirt into a log and then stick it against the bottom of my door to keep the light from shining into the hallway. Mateo unloads a pile of technology onto my bed and David appraises my handiwork with the sliding lock on my closet door.
“It works,” I snap, frazzled by nerves.
He raises both hands in mock surrender. “I never said it didn’t.”
I shirk back, embarrassed by my outburst and mentally punching myself over yelling at him.
“I’m sorry, I’m just…”
His lip curls up a bit. “No worries.”
“So, where do we start?” I ask Mateo. My heartbeat is increasing as the adrenaline of sneaking people into my room wears off and is replaced by unmitigated fear of the unknown. What are we about to do? What if we unleash horror onto the world via my simple little closet? I’ve seen Poltergeist. Closets are scary.
“Everything’s charged and ready to go.” Mateo pushes a button on the heavy-looking handheld device and the screen blinks on. “I’ll be monitoring the room through this to see if we get any heat signatures.” He hands David a small voice recorder. “You’re in charge of the recordings.”
“What about me?” I ask, rocking up on my toes. “What do I get?”
Mateo’s mouth twitches. “Um, you don’t need any equipment.” He casts a nervous look my way. “You’re the element.”
“The what?”
“Element.” Mateo wipes his brow. It’s not terribly warm, but there’s a bead of sweat forming in his hairline. “You’re the key to getting them to come out tonight.”
“The children, you mean.”
He looks at me full-on. “We don’t know what they are. Remember that.”
“They sound like kids.”
“And the gray haze? Is that nothing but innocent kids, too?”
I don’t answer because I don’t know how to explain the putrid hazy entity that had choked me. It was so different from the innocent little giggles.
“The giggling and the haze might be the same entity,” Mateo says. “I’ve done a lot of research on spirit communication, and sometimes they’ll gather their strength together—like synergy—in order to create a stronger force.”
He reaches around me, unbolts the closet door, and throws it wide open, nearly hitting David. Beyond the pale colors of a few hanging clothes, the dark interior wood stares back.
We stand quiet for several seco
nds before Mateo finally speaks again. “We don’t know what’s in there.”
“Or who,” David adds.
“Exactly,” Mateo says, as he spins around and grabs the covers of my made bed. “Like I said, Chessie, don’t believe the voices. They’re not necessarily as sweet as you make them out to be.” He yanks the blankets down and pats the mattress.
I cock an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“Gettin’ you in bed.”
“Excuse me?”
David shoots him a nasty look. “God, Mateo, have a little tact.” He turns to me. “He wants you to pretend to go to sleep, like any other night.”
Mateo turns his hands palms up. “That’s what I said.”
“No, it’s not,” David and I say in unison.
I huff in frustration but get into my bed—only part way. Enough to pull my covers up to my waist, but I don’t lay down all the way. Not with David and Mateo in the room. Pretending to be in bed is embarrassing enough, like I’m a specimen being examined. No way am I cuddling up to my pillows with an audience.
Mateo motions for David to sit against the bedroom door—to be a last-ditch line of defense in case my grandparents decide to kick their way in. Mateo sits on the far side of the room, near the window and directly across from the closet door. Without being asked, David reaches up and flicks the light off.
“I’m going to ask questions,” Mateo says. “Try and be as quiet as possible.”
I nod and assume David nods as well, but he’s hard to make out in the dark. The dull yellow of the streetlamp from the window is barely enough to make out the contour of his brown hair against the bedroom door.
Mateo begins asking simple questions. Who are they? What are their names? And then he begins a line of questioning that brings a tingle to my spine. Why are you talking to Chessie? How long have you been watching her? What do you want from her?
By the very mention of my name, something clicks deep down inside, I’m a part of this—whatever it is.
Or maybe not a part. Maybe I’m the part.
I’ve been singled out. For years, I never really believed my dreams of the house meant anything. But clearly they do. If ghostly children need help, they could have asked my grandparents a long time ago. But they don’t giggle at Grandma and Grandpa. They giggle and coalesce around me. I’m the dream girl. The girl with the connection to the Moore house.
If only I knew what that connection is.
I have nothing to do with this town. I’m not special. I’m just a girl from Minneapolis, here against her will, with no love for Villisca or most of its people—dead or undead. The axe murders and missing girls are distant stories to me. They’re not part of my story. I don’t know the missing girls, and the axe murder legend belongs to the town. And I do not belong to the town. We’re separate entities, the town and me. I don’t need this town. And it doesn’t need me.
Surely, little ghost children could find a better-suited candidate to help them.
Mateo continues a round of questioning. But the room is completely silent. No answers. And no giggling. His questions end and we sit in silence for several minutes. Somewhere outside, a dog barks.
“Now what?” I whisper. My eyes have adjusted to the low light, and I can make out David’s face. His head is leaned back on the door.
“Mateo?” I ask. “What now?”
Mateo doesn’t answer.
I turn to look at him. “Ma—” My throat cuts off with one glimpse of his face. Seated against the wall, he is silent—but only in sound. His eyes are wide with fear, peering over my shoulder. His mouth opens and he points a trembling finger.
The muscles in my body all clench, as though they can protect me from the sudden gush of fear coursing through my veins. Mateo is pointing to something on the other side of me.
Where my closet door is.
I force my head to twist its direction. My fingers curl into my blankets, and I find myself slinking down farther into bed, pulling the covers up to my neck, unsure of what—or who—is going to meet my eyes.
The closet door is ajar, as it had been since Mateo unlatched it. But the darkness of the interior wood is blotted out by a gray mist. The same mist that had slinked into my window is now oozing out of my closet like a snake, coiling its way across the room.
David lurches to the side, jumping to his feet. But the gray tendrils pay him no attention.
Because they’re coming for me.
The once-singular mass of shadow has split into long finger-like wisps. Snaking along both the floor and ceiling, they slither my direction.
“Mateo!” David whispers frantically. “Do something.”
But Mateo’s not going to do anything except piss his pants. This is out of his depth.
The veins of gray reach down from the ceiling, only a few feet from my head now. The floor creepers are at my bedside. I roll the other direction, ready to clamber out of bed and huddle with Mateo on the other side. Except that plan is stopped short by gray fingers curling up on the other side, having gone underneath the bed, and now circling me on all sides. From the ceiling, the tendrils curl and knot into a thick mass.
The mass lowers itself within inches of my face. The shape over me twists and ripples, sinking into itself until two shallow eye sockets appear.
“David, help,” I whisper.
A ragged mouth materializes under the eyes, as though having been split open with a knife. I try to twist away, but I can’t move. And I can’t look away because my eyes won’t blink. The mouth twists into a snarl. The smell of death hits me, penetrating my skin, enveloping me inside and out. A growl rumbles through the room, rippling the curtains.
“Stay away,” it orders.
Tears stream down my cheeks and everything inside me is two seconds from bursting—from fear, from the smell of putrid, rotting flesh, and from confusion.
Stay away from who? The words are only in my head, but I know it hears me.
David steps toward my bed. A gray barb darts out, hitting him in the chest and hurling him back against the wall. He lands with a grunt.
It growls again. “That boy!”
Pain echoes across the gray hazy face, as though its energy is dying. The eye sockets splinter into puffs, and the ragged mouth sinks inward. It slinks back the way it came, uncurling its fingers from my bed, until it rapidly retreats back into the closet—as though being sucked in by an unseen force.
The closet door slams shut, and the bolt latches with a quick squeak, making David flinch.
Mateo slides up the wall until he’s standing. “Fucking hell. Everyone saw that, right?”
David and I nod.
My heart is pumping so hard it threatens to crack a rib. “What do you think it meant by ‘stay away’?” I ask.
Mateo shoots David a perplexed look.
David’s face matches his confusion, and he turns to me. “What do you mean? You heard it?”
“Of course I heard it!” I shout in a whisper, suddenly remembering my grandparents are down the hall. “It spoke to me!”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Mateo says.
David shakes his head. “Neither did I. It didn’t make any noise. It just floated above you.”
My eyes close in disbelief. How could they not have heard that? It rattled the whole damn house. I steal a quick glance at the closed closet door, realizing that whatever kind of entity that was, it had materialized to communicate only with me.
“It told me to stay away,” I say.
David’s eyes narrow. “Stay away from who?”
I hold his gaze—a hint of anger blazes behind his eyes. I decide to lie, and with a shrug, I say, “I don’t know.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe me. How did he know it was a who that the gray form had warned me about? It could have been a place for all he knew. Stay away from Dotty’s, stay away from the park, stay away from the river…
The river.
A chill runs through me. The thought of its cold wa
ters and the bloated face of Amelia fresh from those waters is too much, and I close my eyes. When I open them again, David is watching me. The growl reverberates in my head. Stay away from that boy.
“Um…maybe you guys should go before that thing decides to come back,” I say.
David and Mateo offer to stay with me overnight, though Mateo’s weak voice says his offer is lukewarm at best. Considering it takes him all of about two minutes to collect his gadgets, his mind is already out the front door.
I turn down their offers. I don’t want to be alone, but I also don’t want to be around them anymore…the ghost hunters. That boy.
We sneak our way back downstairs and out the front door. David and Mateo drive away, and I’m happy to see them go. My nerves are on edge, and the only thing in my mind right now is that gray hazy face, enveloping me, roaring at me.
My fingers curl into fists. I want to yell and pout and stomp my feet that I’ve had it with this stupid town and its stupid-ass ghosts. I want to throw things at the ugly house across the street and scream until I wake up in my bed in Minneapolis. I can put up with arguing parents—been putting up with it for years. But angry spirits and sleepless nights? Screw ’em.
I flip off the house across the street, then head back into my grandparents’ house. I sleep on the sofa, my head under a blanket.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, Grandma doesn’t scold me for sleeping on the sofa. She flips a pancake onto my plate and goes about washing the skillet. She must be getting used to my unorthodox sleeping pattern.
I don’t go upstairs, which means I don’t shower. I don’t change into new clothes, and I don’t even brush my teeth. My brain is not in the mood for normal life, consumed with images of that gray face hovering over me and confusion about that boy.
I walk to Dotty’s in a fog, barely registering the sights and sounds of the town around me. A couple of people wave to me, a small boy nearly runs me down with his bike. I pay them no attention. My feet trudge forward in a zombie-like fashion.
