Party Summer (20 page)

Cari's back itched—both her shoulders ached. She had a sudden impulse to start running, to run blindly through the dark, twisting tunnels.

But, of course, there really was nowhere to run, she knew.

“We can hide, but we can't run,” she said, not realizing she was speaking aloud.

Eric put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She couldn't help it. She laughed bitterly. “Okay? In what way? Define
okay?”

She didn't mean to sound angry at Eric. It just came out that way. She apologized quickly. His eyes studied the dark corridor that stretched before them.

“Will we be able to hear the police from here?” Craig asked.

“I can't hear
anything,”
Cari said in a loud whisper.

“We need a flashlight,” Craig said as they started slowly down the long, narrow tunnel, keeping close to the wall.

“Maybe you should run up to your room and get one,” Cari cracked.

“Very funny,” Craig muttered.

Pressed against the wall, they followed the tunnel. They moved in silence, listening as they walked, listening for footsteps, for Edward, for Martin. Every breath, every step, every sound was amplified to Cari, as if someone had turned up the volume control in her head.

She thought about Edward and Simon. How had he been able to fool them so completely? How could one person have both identities? The two brothers had looked so unalike, had acted so unalike, had even sounded so unalike!

If only Simon had won out, Cari thought. If only Simon had been able to drive Edward away….

Cari scolded herself. These thoughts weren't getting
her anywhere. Simon or Edward, or whoever he was, was crazy. Totally crazy.

And deadly.

He fired the hunting rifle in his own hotel lobby.

He didn't care. He didn't care what he wrecked. Or who he shot.

He only cared about the hunt.

He only cared about his prey.

Cari tried to force these thoughts from her mind as she continued to lead the way through the dark passageway.

And then she stopped.

Ohh … What's that?

Her face tingled. Something was tickling her face. Stringy things. Sticky stringy things.

They seemed to grab at her, choke her, enfold her as if trying to wrap her in a cocoon.

Cari raised her hands to fight them off, flailing the air wildly.

“Cari—what's wrong?” Eric called.

“Help me! Oh—help me!”

In her panic it took Cari awhile to realize that she had stepped into a massive tangle of thick spiderwebs. With both hands, she pulled at them, trying to clear them off her face. But they stuck to her skin, to her hands, to her hair. And the more she pulled, the more entangled she became.

“Spiders! Oh—help! I've walked right into those spiderwebs!”

“Cari, not so loud,” Eric warned. “Edward might hear you.”

“Spiders! Oh, please! The spiders!”

Eric helped to pull the cobwebs off her hair. She
shook her hands hard, trying to toss off the sticky webs, desperately rubbing her hands against her clothes.

And then she felt something on the back of her neck.

Something prickly.

Something moving, crawling down toward her shoulders.

She opened her mouth to scream, but managed to hold the scream in.

She slapped at it. Slapped it hard. Once. Twice.

She got it with the second slap. She could feel it in her palm. Warm and wet.

“Ohh.” She shuddered. A spider. It had to be a spider. An enormous spider.

Eric and Craig huddled around her in the darkness. “Cari, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I guess,” she said, feeling the darkness swirl about her, the endless walls close in on her. “I … I can't stand spiders!”

“Yuck,” Craig whispered. “How big was it?”

“Big,” Cari said, still shaking all over.

As big as a tarantula, she thought.

And then her mind flew off in another direction. We're caught in a web too, she thought. We're caught in Edward's sticky web. We're trapped here, trapped in his web, waiting for him to crawl over to us and finish us off….

“Hey—this door opens!” she suddenly heard Eric call in a loud whisper, startling her out of her morbid thoughts.

Cari hadn't realized that the boys had moved a couple of feet down the passageway. She hurried up
to them, her neck still itching, her whole body tingling.

I'll never feel normal again. Never.

They stepped through a doorway into an empty room. Eric tried the light switch near the door, and a dim yellow bulb, suspended from the ceiling, came on.

The room was small, but not so bare as the room that had contained the sticky skull. It had a double bed, Cari saw, and a nightstand, a two-drawer dresser, and a—telephone!

“Look—” she cried, scratching at her forehead, still trying to rub away the feeling of spiderwebs.

“Is it hooked up?” Craig asked, following her glance.

Cari reached it first and eagerly picked up the receiver.

Silence.

“It's dead,” she told her friends glumly.

As dead as we are, she thought.

“Of course it's dead,” Craig said. “The phones here all go through a switchboard, remember?”

“Huh?” Eric cried.

And they all realized at once how foolish they had been.

“You're right! The switchboard in the front office!” Eric said softly.

“All calls have to go through it,” Cari said, still holding the dead receiver. “Including the call we made to the police on Willow Island.” She replaced the receiver and dropped down onto the bed, weak and defeated.

“Simon came out of the office,” Craig remembered, sounding as glum as Cari. “Remember? He had that odd smile on his face?”

“I get it,” Cari said, shaking her head miserably. “I get it now. I wasn't talking to the police. I was talking to Simon the whole while.”

“So there's no one coming to rescue us,” Eric said, plopping down beside Cari.

“We're on our own,” Craig muttered, glancing nervously toward the door.

“Aunt Rose,” Cari muttered, staring up at the ceiling.

“What?” Eric asked.

“Aunt Rose. All the calls Jan made to her. Simon must have been on the switchboard then too. And I'll bet he didn't let those calls to Aunt Rose go through. That's why Rose and her sister never answered. He didn't want Rose here. He was happy she'd gotten sick. It meant she wouldn't interfere with the … with the hunting party, so he—”

“Let's move on,” Eric said, standing in the doorway, scanning the passageway. “We're still too close to the dining room to suit me.”

“What's the point?” Cari asked glumly.

“Maybe we can make it all the way to the beach,” Eric replied. “We did it once before.”

“What choice do we have?” Cari said.

Cari clicked off the light as she followed the others out of the room. The tunnel seemed even darker, even hotter. A sour aroma of decay hovered in the air.

“Look—” Eric whispered, pointing.

Cari saw it immediately—yellow light spilling
out from a crack under a closed door a few yards ahead.

They stopped, staring at the thin yellow line.

Cari heard noises from inside the room.

Footsteps. A cough.

“It's the ghost!” she declared, her eyes wide with fear.

“I
t's the ghost,” Cari insisted. She remembered the hoarse whisper following her down the hall, the eerie whisper calling her by name.

The three friends huddled close in the dark tunnel, staring at the thin band of light under the closed door.

“Ghosts don't cough,” Craig said, unable to hide the fear from his voice.

“Maybe it's Martin,” Eric suggested.

“It sounded like a woman's cough,” Craig whispered.

“The woman in Simon's room!” Eric cried. “Come on—I'm opening that door.”

“Hey—Eric—wait!” Cari called. “It's too dark. We've got to stick together.”

But Eric ignored her and jogged toward the door.

Cari and Craig hurried to catch up to him.

Suddenly Cari heard a cry.

She and Craig stopped a few feet from the door.

“Eric?”

Cari spun around. Eric wasn't at the door. Had they passed him somehow?

“Eric?” she called again.

“Hey—” Craig called in a loud, frightened whisper.

Cari gasped as she heard more footsteps on the other side of the door. Another cough.

“Eric—where are you?”

“I don't like this,” Craig whispered right behind Cari. “Where did he go?”

“Eric? Eric?” Cari called.

She grabbed Craig's arm and held on tight. “Where's Eric? He's—disappeared!”

“H
e disappeared into thin air,” Craig said, his voice filled with panic. “Come on. We've got to do something!”

“But where—” Cari started, but she was interrupted.

“Help me!”

“Eric?” Cari cried.

“Get me out of here!”

Yes, it was Eric's voice. It sounded as if it were coming from the floor.

“Where are you?” Cari cried.

“Be careful. There's a big hole in the floor,” Eric called. “A trap of some kind.”

Cari and Craig turned and found the hole in the floor against the wall.

“I think it's some kind of vent,” Craig said, bending down. “Someone left the cover off.”

“I don't care what it is,” Eric grumbled. “Get me out of here!”

Cari and Craig bent down over the vent, grabbed Eric's hands, and pulled. A few seconds later he was standing beside them.

“For a little guy, you weigh a ton,” Craig grumbled.

Eric started to reply, but was interrupted by a voice from inside the lighted room.

“Is somebody out there?” It was a woman's voice, muffled and distant, even though it came from just beyond the closed door.

“Yes! We're here!” Cari called.

“Help us! Please!” the voice called.

Stepping away from the open vent, Eric hurried over and tried the door. “Locked.”

Craig moved up beside him and pushed against the door with both hands. The door seemed to give a little. “We can break it open,” Craig said.

Eric pushed against the door, giving Craig a doubtful look.

“Use your shoulder,” Craig said. “The wood is wet and weak. If we both hit it together, it should pop open.”

Eric looked back at Cari. “Get ready to see your ghost,” he said.

“Can I help?” Cari asked.

“There really isn't room,” Craig replied. “Come on, Eric. Let's give it a try.”

They backed up a few steps, then came lunging at the door, hitting it together hard with their shoulders. Both boys cried out on impact.

The door gave way easily.

All three of them cried out in surprise when they saw who was in the tiny room behind the door.