The Haunting

Music echoed off the starry sky, drowning the lyrics in the chaotic bass. Silhouettes danced near the windows, oblivious to the group standing just outside. Multi-colored strobes flashed to the rhythm, illuminating the weather-beaten bricks surrounding the window frames.

Boom, boom, boom, boom
.

“Lots of people,” said the nervous, delicate girl with shoulder-length chestnut hair. Robin’s pale eyes appeared brighter with the layers of black eyeliner.

I gave her a second glance. She wasn’t tattered and scraped but in a costume. She slid closer to Dracula - or rather, her boyfriend.

Cody Lewis sucked on a pair of plastic fangs noisily, making his narrow face appear skeletal. His bleached blonde hair, which was usually spiked, was slicked back for the part. He wore dark clothes and a high-collared cape, which clashed with his white sneakers. Cody was never a Halloween type, but Robin loved it.

Robin, a vampire’s victim, wore a low-cut white dress that showed off the top of her lacy black push-up bra. Just a few minutes earlier, Phoebe had berated that Robin was, “falling out,” and it was making her uncomfortable. Robin kept pulling it up for Phoebe’s benefit, but it’d fall back down on its own for Cody and Read’s.

“I didn’t think people would know this place,” Phoebe said, stepping ahead of us. Her limp was noticeable.

She hadn’t dressed-up. Phoebe hated Halloween. She used to say: “
It’s an excuse for girls to dress up like sluts.
” Phoebe wore the same soiled tube top and shorts she wore into the Demon’s Grave. I noticed the spiderweb veins running up her right leg from her ankle.

“Shouldn’t we get that looked at?” I asked her.

“No,” Phoebe answered over her shoulder, honeyed locks waving. “This is a dream, Fuller.”

Joel’s bulky shoulder pushed past me, probably trying to knock me over as he met up beside Phoebe. He also wasn’t dressed up. He’d fashioned a scarf to sling his arm and keep his mutated hand up. The cloth around his missing thumb wasn’t as soaked through as the last one. “This is stupid,” he said. “Where are we?”

“Come on,
girls
, are you just going to stand here and talk, or are we going to the party?” Cody asked and began to walk toward the slanted porch. There was something different about him. Cody rarely spoke, and when he did, it wasn’t sarcastic.

Maybe Phoebe was right and it was a dream.

Joel growled at being called a girl but otherwise left it alone. His tanned skin had paled, making him look more like a corpse. “What are you staring at?” he asked me.

Sighing, I looked away and noticed someone behind us.

Aidan sat against the hood a red Maserati, elbows on his knees.

“Aidan!”

He didn’t appear to hear me. He had his head tilted back as he stared at the second floor of the house. His dark roan-colored hair looked brown in the night. However, his icy blue eyes reflected moonlight and appeared to glow.

It had to be a trick of the light, and I tried a different angle. The effect remained the same.

“Aidan, come with us,” I called.

He waved at me to be quiet and pointed at his late grandfather’s house.

The party within was full despite the lack of cars in the driveway. Only the Maserati was there, making me nervous. It tried to kill us once.

Looking to the tower at the edge of the house, I focused on the third floor. A forbidden place for Aidan as a child. Now we all knew why. It housed the Demon’s Grave.

“We can’t let anyone get up to the third floor,” I said.

“We? You mean Aidan. Besides, he’s already too late,” Read said from the front yard.

Encased in the wooden fence-line was a fake cemetery. Tall, uncut grass had fallen over in yellow strips, revealing the plastic headstones and stick crosses. In the center of this display, Read sat cross-legged. His dark, usually primped, hair was matted to his skull. Read’s sculpted cheekbones seemed to cave in even further than I remembered, and there were dark rims under his eyes. “Don’t go in,” he said, his thin eyebrows raised worriedly. “Just leave it alone.”

“We can’t,” I said softly.

“Not dressed like that,” Read countered.

“What?” I glanced down and saw the costume.

It was a baggy clown costume with the large, puffy, multi-colored balls for buttons and a ruffled collar that itched my throat.

My feet were loosely enclosed in the oversized red shoes. Reaching up, I touched my face and felt the red ball on the tip of my nose. Plucking it from my face, I said, “Of all the costumes, I got a clown? What kind of subconscious is this?”

The knocking sound made me look up to see Phoebe rapping on the front door while balancing on the precarious porch that leaned dramatically to the right.

“Wait for me!”

The door swung open, and Phoebe didn’t look back.

People laughed and screamed inside, barely audible over the rhythmic beat.

I heard her shout one word before bolting inside without the rest of us. “Read!”

My head snapped to Read, who was still sitting in the graveyard. He shook his head at me, disappointed. “It’s not me.”

“Come on,” Cody said to me and led Robin toward the front door.

“Aidan?” I called over my shoulder.

He didn’t answer. In fact, he and the Maserati were gone.

“Read?” I asked and saw that he too had disappeared.

Swallowing hard, I hurried to catch up with the two on the slanted porch. It was hard keeping any dignity while scrambling in the clown shoes. But somehow I managed to stumble inside.

I ran right into Claire, who stumbled back, arms windmilling and auburn mane flying.

She wore slim-fitting jeans and had tied the pink zip-up hoodie around her narrow waist. Her tight t-shirt was ripped at the sleeves, but I didn’t think it was part of a costume.

“No!” she shrieked as the front door slammed shut and disappeared into the wall. “It was the only way out! You left Joel!” she yelled, tears smearing her face and darkening around her eyes, making them look huge.

“No, he’s here. We’re going to get you out,” I tried to explain as she backed away, hugging herself. She bent as if suffering a stomachache.

“Claire,” I protested.

Sobbing, Claire ducked out of my reach and disappeared into the crowd. I started to follow, but the damn shoes caught on everything, making me slow and cumbersome.

To my surprise, all of the party-goers were black shapes, like shadows. None of them had faces or distinguishing characteristics outside of their silhouettes. They danced with each other as if I wasn’t even there. I scanned the crowd for any sign of my friends. They should stand out in the crowd at this point, but I didn’t see any of them—not even Claire, who’d just been there.

Alone, I spun around to see the staircase.

Standing upon it was a willowy figure with waist-length, dark brown hair and sad brown eyes. She motioned for me to follow.

The shock of seeing my twin sister again launched me forward.

As I brushed against the shadows, I realized they were solid. They bumped into me and I them as I shimmied my way toward the staircase. By the time I reached it, Neive was gone.

Carefully, I stepped over and around the people—or shapes of people—that sat on the steps. “Neive,” I called. “Wait for me!”

I kicked off the shoes, surprised that I could. For some reason, I had the idea that I couldn’t. Freed of their weight, I rushed up the stairs in my socks.

The crowd on the second floor was even more claustrophobic.

I had to twist my body to avoid the people in the hallway. Though I was close enough to hear voices, I couldn’t decipher what they were saying. It wasn’t English. It wasn’t any language I could distinguish.

I staggered past a couple making out—at least that’s what I hoped it was. I sidled around the oversized, shadowy, writhing mass and flung open the first bedroom. To my surprise, the bedroom was empty.

This was weird. The entire house was jammed tight, and everyone avoided the chance to fill up the space of the bedroom?

Making my way back into the hallway, I checked every curiously vacant room until I noticed the staircase leading to the third floor.

I hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. It was forbidden to go up there. Was it still?

Someone bumped me from behind, making my decision for me. Stumbling up a few steps, I flailed for the walls for balance. I glanced back; it was hard to tell who pushed me. Nothing but shadows milled about, oblivious of me.

Okay
, I thought to myself, attempting to steady my erratic nerves.
This is just like Phoebe said. It’s just a dream. Nothing can hurt you in a dream.

I took a few cautionary steps up the circular stairs, one hand on the gritty brick wall for balance.

I could see in the dark, but I wasn’t sure how.

The archway leading to the top floor was a brick, circular room devoid of dust. The roof arched to a point above my head.

Inside, the dark room had a singular window allowing streaming moonlight. It was just enough to see the shape of the old familiar room.

Aidan and I had come back to check this room when we were searching for the Grave the second time. There was, of course, nothing to help us. We had to find the hard way back in.

Here I am, except it’s just a dream
.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the threshold.

Dread crept up my spine as I twisted to see the wall had replaced the door I’d come through.

Trapped, I wrung my clown suit with my hands, my palms damp. “Well?” I asked the dark and cleared my throat. “Are you going to come out?”

It was as if he were made of the shadows. Solidifying from a blacked mist, the shape melded together to form his outline and fade into colors.

Damien’s pale skin was the first noticeable attribute, followed by the high cheekbones, low brow, and straight black eyebrows. A smug smirk creased his full lips, and I felt my heart squeeze. It was so easy to forget how handsome he was sometimes.

The long-sleeved shirt couldn’t hide the broad build to his shoulders and V-shape of his body. He wasn’t built like Joel, who was broadly muscular, but Damien wasn’t lean like Cody either. Black pants matched the short raven hair and the bottomless eyes that gauged my outfit with nothing short of amusement.

The man was perfection. Nothing should look like him. Nothing human anyway. It was unnerving to see him all over again, and I took a deep breath to disguise the fact that I’d stopped breathing for a heartbeat or two.

“Where’s Neive?” I asked, trying to ease the terrible sound my heart made in my ears.

A few strands of his shiny jet-black hair fell over his stark forehead when he canted his head.

“My sister,” I said cautiously.

“Hm.” Damien’s obsidian eyes glistened like hot tar.

Feeling the frustration build, I glowered at him. “The girl who was sacrificed. She’s trapped here. Why?”

“She was sacrificed, Nora. Given to me willingly.”

And thought to be dead for the last sixteen years
, I thought bitterly.

“Does that mean she’s your Neophyte?” I asked. “Your apprentice to this place?”

He shook his head, the smile disappearing. “No one ever said she was trapped here.”

“If she can escape, then why is she here? If she’s not your Neophyte…” I raised my eyebrows, trying to sort it out in my head. I’d never come back if I had a choice. Why would she?

“Neive is sometimes unpredictable. Like you, she has demonic blood. She has the ability to manipulate the Challenges and sometimes
other
people with demonic blood.”

“Like you and me?” I asked, feeling feverish.

“Yes, like you and me,” Damien replied patiently. “But I’m stronger.”

“Then you
let
her go?” I asked. “Could she join us in the Challenge?”

“No, she has a nasty habit of influencing the games.”

Somehow, the memory of vomiting the long hair surfaced. It had been a punishment for Neive, not me. Did that mean Neive still cared? She tried to jailbreak me just before…I glanced around the dream…
before this
.

Seeing Damien’s scrutinizing gaze, I asked, “What about when we win? Could she come with us?”

Damien’s eyebrows raised, humoring me. “Thinking you’re going to win already? You haven’t even seen what I have in store for you.”

Taking a step back, I realized he was right. I was being cocky. I shouldn’t do that in front of him, of all people. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

There was something frighteningly predatory in the way he stepped toward me. “Of course you didn’t.”

I stepped back and hit the wall behind me. “You won’t hurt her, will you?”

The smile grew wider, flashing teeth. “Concerned? You barely know this girl. What makes it so important that she comes with you?”

“She’s my sister,” I said, as if that should explain everything. “Did you have siblings?”

Damien narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t answer.

I hugged myself, and the puffy buttons from my costume squished uncomfortably against my chest. “Well? Are you going to hurt her?” I asked, harsher than I’d intended. His proximity was beginning to grate my nerves. He wanted me scared, and much to my dismay, I was thrilled with his closeness rather than scared.