The store manager was at the front with the other cashiers, waving their flashlights around and calling out directions to the patrons. His voice was calm and soothing, but Carmen took no chances, rushing past him with her brother and heading for the exit. The automatic doors didn't work without power, but someone who'd already gone ahead of them had pried them open, and Carmen and her brother slipped out into the night.
She stumbled forward and twisted around, facing the store, her lungs heaving as she panted for breath.
"What's the matter?" Tommy asked her. "Why are you so worked up?" He looked down at his wrist in the dim light of a nearby streetlamp, rubbing the skin where she had roughly jerked it.
She didn't say anything, just regaining her breath at first as she stared at the entrance and exit of the store with wide and suspicious eyes. She was waiting for that intangible black and terrible thing to come out of there and attack them, but nothing ever did. Had she imagined it all? After all, she hadn't really seen or heard anything in the first place. But it was a feeling that she couldn't shake.
She rubbed her head. "What is going on around here?" she asked herself aloud.
Tommy stood next to her and solemnly looked up at her. "Maybe we should try to find Dad."
"Maybe," she said.
"Brett told me what happened there."
"At the school?"
"Yeah. He said the janitor got set on fire."
"What?"
Tommy just nodded.
Carmen racked her brain. She didn't trust Brett as far as she could throw him, but her dad had gone to the school for something, and nothing had been in the news yet. If it was true, then it was just another item to add to the long list of bizarre occurrences that had been happening lately; odd sensations that she couldn't explain, a missing child, bizarre symbols, and now a man being immolated? A pang of fear tapped on each disc of her spine, climbing from her lower back up to the base of her neck. The words of Peter, the man in the jail cell, echoed in her head and she shivered. Maybe the witch was real...
She turned to her brother. "Yeah, I think it's time we went to the school."
Clues in the Dark
They crossed a row of tall trees and the school came into view. When they saw that the parking lot was empty and there were no flashing lights, their hearts sank.
"They're already gone..." Tommy said.
"Maybe Brett was lying," Carmen suggested.
Tommy squinted through the darkness, spotting something. "No, look!" He pointed his finger toward the front of the school in the distance. Carmen strained to see it, but Tommy took off running.
"Hey, slow down!" The night was bitterly cold and Carmen already had a bad feeling about this.
When they crossed the parking lot, the truth came into focus for them. Yellow police tape stretched across the entrance like a spider web.
"So they were here," Tommy said. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a magnifying glass, dragging it along the tape and inspecting it with a keen eye.
"Why on Earth do you have a magnifying glass?" Carmen asked with a smirk.
He turned to her as if she had just asked the most foolish question. "Every good adventurer should have a magnifying glass." Carmen shrugged, and Tommy started to duck under the tape.
"Hey!" she shouted, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him back.
Tommy stumbled and then righted himself. "What was that about?" he asked.
"You're not going in there. Are you crazy? We came here to see Dad, not go skulking around a dark school... a crime scene."
"Well, Dad's not here," he said. "But... we are. Shouldn't we at least take a look?"
"No!"
"But didn't you say you wanted to know what's going on?" he argued. "I mean, don't you want to know what the witch is doing and try to stop her before she hurts more people?"
Carmen grimaced. Sometimes she really hated her little brother, but it was a hate that came out of love, a paradoxical concept that made sense only to her. She looked around at the dark schoolyard and the empty street. There was no one in sight, and the night seemed peaceful aside from the bone-rattling cold chill that swept through them. She turned back to the police tape and stared at the dark entrance to the school behind it.
Carmen pulled out her phone and looked at the time. "Five minutes," she said to her brother. "After five minutes, I'm pulling you out of there and we're leaving, no ifs, ands, or buts."
Tommy nodded. "Deal."
Carmen carefully climbed through the police tape without tearing it. "Oh, I can't believe I'm doing this." When she was through to the other side, she gingerly pulled the tape apart just a little so that Tommy would have an easier time getting through. When they were on the other side, both of their hearts beat madly. They felt like rebels—Carmen like a criminal, and Tommy like a treasure hunter. Slowly, they both turned and faced the darkened mouth of the school.
"I don't suppose you have a flashlight, do you?" Carmen asked.
Tommy's eyes went wide and he shook his head. "Crap, I didn't think of that." He slid his magnifying glass back into his coat, making a mental note to carry a flashlight on him as well from now on.
They cautiously stepped into the school, and when the door slammed behind them, they both jumped.
Carmen unlocked her phone and used it for light to see in the darkness. The blackness was overwhelming and smothering, like a thick paste was swimming through the air, making each breath harder than the last. To Carmen it had already felt like five minutes, though they had just stepped in.
"Let's make this quick," she said. "Where did this guy die?"
"Near the furnace," Tommy replied.
"Where's the furnace?"
"In the basement, I think."
"Of course it is," she muttered. "Do you know how to get there?"
Tommy thought for a minute, his face tilting up and his eyes looking through the darkness wistfully, as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Hmm, I think it's that way." He pointed through the dark.
They followed the hall in that direction, turning a corner and seeing another long stretch. They were both taken aback by how quiet it was in here and unnerved by how they could hear each of their own footsteps clapping in their ears like a pair of hands right next to them.
"I still want a Halloween costume," Tommy said, still upset that they had to ditch his Spider-Man costume in the panic of the grocery store.
Carmen rolled her eyes. "Not this again. We'll get you something; stop worrying about it. In case you haven't noticed, we're a little busy right now."
"A good adventurer always keeps his eye open for opportunity," he replied as he marched through the darkness.
She nudged him in the ribs. "What would I do without you?" She smiled and continued down the hallway with him.
Tommy carefully searched each door and room, trying to remember where he would occasionally see the janitor disappear.
"Right there!" he exclaimed, pointing.
Carmen looked at the door ahead carefully. "Are you sure? Because I don't want to be getting lost in here."
He thought for a moment, then he nodded.
"Okay..." she said. Severe apprehension expanded in her chest like a balloon, and she felt herself get lightheaded. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around the cold metal of the handle, then she slowly pulled it open, like if she took any action too quickly, the evil lurking in the darkness would be roused and come after them. When they were through the door, she found a light switch and flicked it, but nothing happened. She made a disapproving noise then looked at her brother. "Hold my hand."
He grabbed it, and she carefully led him down the stairs, making sure he didn't tumble and hurt himself. The air became colder once they reached the basement, almost feeling like they were outside again. Carmen couldn't understand why that was, and her teeth chattered. She looked at her phone. "Has it been five minutes yet?" she muttered to herself.
"Look at that!" Tommy said.
Carmen moved the light from the phone ahead of them and they saw black marks of some sort painted on the floor. They crept forward and took a closer look, Carmen glancing around each corner as they went, expecting something to jump out at them. Upon closer inspection, the black marks appeared to be scorching and soot.
She pressed her hand to her mouth. "Oh my God. This is where it happened. But Dad must have moved the, uh... body."
"Hmm," Tommy said, pulling his magnifying glass out again. "Let's take a look over here."
"Yes, Chief Inspector," Carmen said sarcastically.
They rounded a corner and found a small room. The smell was terrible, like the whole building had been used as a barbecue. Carmen pinched her nose. "That is awful," she said.
But Tommy didn't seem perturbed. The light shone on the furnace ahead, and he approached it.
"Don't get too close," Carmen warned. She stepped into the room to meet him, and held a hand on his shoulder to make sure he didn't stray.
The mouth of the furnace was horribly warped, and the door was missing. The fire inside was out, and heavy black scorch marks and soot were everywhere. Carmen moved the light up the wall, seeing the extent of the damage, then she passed it over something strange and stopped.
Tommy immediately walked up to the wall and stretched up on his toes, holding the magnifying glass to his eye.
"What do we have here?" he asked inquisitively.
"Is that... another symbol?" Carmen asked, seeing the scorched heart with a dagger through it plastered on the wall.
"It's from the witch," Tommy concluded.
"What does it mean?"
Tommy racked his brain. "There was a rope on the tree where Jeremy disappeared, there was an antenna thingy in the town square under the pumpkins, and now there's a heart by the furnace..." He thought for a long moment, but he couldn't come up with an answer.
"And what's this?" Carmen asked, bending down low and turning the light to the floor. Just inside the doorway, there was a strand of timothy-grass. "Dad must've missed this," she said.
Tommy bent and inspected it. He picked it up and twisted it in his hand. "It's not burned," he remarked. He looked around. "If there was a big fire here, this would be burnt to a crisp, but it looks like it was just picked."
Carmen narrowed her eyes. "Where have I seen this stuff before?" In fact, there was only one place she had ever seen it, only one part of town where this grew, but at the moment, she couldn't place it. Tommy was similarly stumped, then Carmen looked at her phone and saw that their five minutes had passed. "Okay, time's up," she said, feeling the heaviness on her heart alleviate a little. "Let's get out of here."
Tommy didn't want to leave yet, but he knew better than to cross his big sister. He snatched up the strand of timothy-grass and carefully slid it into a pocket in his coat.
They left the school quickly the way they had come and slipped through the police tape. Their hearts settled down almost immediately, but their brains still raced, trying to understand what it all meant.
Menagerie
When the two of them headed home, it was just past nine o'clock. They walked through the town streets hardly saying a word to each other, each of them too busy thinking about what had gone on lately, and it took quite a few blocks before Carmen stopped, noticing how peculiar everything was.
"Does something seem strange to you?" she asked her brother.
Tommy looked around. "Like what?"
"Well, where is everyone, for one?" She checked her phone and saw that though it was late, there still should have been a little bit of activity in the town. But ever since they'd left the school, they hadn't seen a single soul. It was like they had stepped through a portal when they left the school and been transported into a ghost town. "Like, where are the search parties looking for that boy?"
They both stayed silent and listened, trying to hear the call of the boy's name. They glanced around, but they saw no flashlights anywhere, no patrolling police cars, nothing.
"I don't know," Tommy said. But now he fully realized the oddness of the situation.
The only sound that could be heard was the gentle wind rolling across the town in waves, lingering in tree leaves before flitting off into the darkness.
They both gulped at the same time, and they carried on silently, each of them suddenly aware of how alone they felt. The streetlights glowed dimly in the dark, and they didn't provide them much solace from their feelings of uneasiness.
As they continued their trek home, a stray cat walked out from behind a building up ahead. It crossed the street to their side and stopped on the sidewalk in front of them.
Carmen and Tommy lurched to a stop.
The cat turned and looked at them, then it arched its back and hissed at them.
Carmen waited, finding the situation strange, but assuming that the cat would move on. But it didn't. In fact, it started walking toward them, slinking one paw at a time, closer and closer and never taking its eyes off them. It hissed again.
"What's it doing?" Tommy asked, frightened.
"I don't know." She grabbed her brother's hand and pulled him onto the road. They quickly skirted around the cat and continued along the sidewalk, increasing their pace. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the cat had turned and was still slinking toward them. But it was moving a lot more slowly than they were, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she looked forward again.
More cats came out of the woodwork ahead, most of them stray and mangy. They came from all directions around them and slowly closed in, all of them staring and hissing.
"What's going on?" Tommy asked.
"I don't know!" Carmen repeated. She gripped her brother's hand tighter and they broke into a run. The cats followed slowly, only slinking after them, and somehow that made it even scarier. Their path was choked out ahead by more felines, and now there were about three dozen of them getting closer. Carmen stopped and looked around, seeing a house up ahead on their left whose entire yard was fenced in with short chain-link. "Over here!" she cried, pulling her brother to the gate. She opened it and ushered Tommy into the front yard, then she spun and clasped the gate shut.
They backed away as the cats clustered on the other side, but the felines didn't try to jump over or get through; they just stopped and sat up, their tails seductively gliding from side to side.
The bitter cold nipped at Carmen and Tommy and made them shiver, and they turned away from the gate as a sea of glowing eyes watched.
"We've got to get out of here," Carmen said. The property was dark, and it seemed like no one was home. They traipsed around the side of the house to the backyard and spotted a short stack of old truck tires sitting next to a shed and the tall wooden fence closing them in. "I think we can get out there," she said. "Do you think you can get over it?"
He looked up at the fence like a challenge. "A good adventurer—"
"Yeah, yeah," she said, cutting him off. A wave suddenly washed over her and she stumbled, feeling lightheaded.
"What is it?" Tommy asked, concerned.
"I don't know," she replied. "My heart's still beating like crazy from those cats, and suddenly I don't feel so well. It's hard to describe. I just don't feel right." She let the feeling roll through her and pass, then she took a moment to compose herself.
A dog house sat next to them that neither of them had noticed, and a pair of glowing eyes appeared as the canine's head rose.
A loud, sharp bark pierced the night and made the two of them jump.
Carmen and Tommy looked over their shoulders and saw the flash of eyes for only a second before the dog lunged out of the house and attacked them. A chain was attached to its collar, and it stretched out and snapped taut just as the dog's teeth chomped at Carmen's neck, narrowly missing it. She fell to the ground and scrambled across the cold grass, pressing herself against the fence.
The dog kept at the end of his leash, fighting against it and jumping and gnashing his teeth madly. Carmen and Tommy only
had about a foot and a half of free space between the fence and the dog, and they tried to sidle over to the tires as quickly as possible.
But they could hear the wood in the doghouse that the other end of the chain was attached to starting to warp and crack from the force of the mutt.
"Get up here!" Carmen shouted frantically as she ushered her brother onto the tires. The stack was wobbly with someone standing on it, but she braced him. Reaching up, she helped give him a boost as he jumped up and grabbed the top of the fence, slowly pulling himself over. He swung his legs over the top then fell to the other side and disappeared from view.
She could feel the dog's hot breath on her ankles as it jumped and snapped its teeth behind her. She scrambled onto the tire stack, and she felt it wobble severely under her weight. It felt like if she made any sudden movements, the stack would slide out from under her.
The dog lunged again and the wood broke apart, freeing it from its tether.
Carmen's heart seized and she made a panicked jump for the fence. The tire directly under her feet slid off the stack and she lost her footing, only getting a halfhearted jump. She stretched her arms out in desperation and hooked them over top of the fence, but the rest of her body was hanging limply against the face of it.
The dog lunged forward and snapped at her ankle, catching her by the cuff of her jeans. She screamed and Tommy yelled from the other side, asking if she was okay. He jumped up and tried to help her, but he couldn't even reach her arms.
Carmen pulled with all of her might to get up and fight against the dog, kicking her leg and trying to get free. Her body slowly rose, a feat that she would normally not have the strength for, but she did now in her desperation just like a mother suddenly gaining the strength to lift a car off her baby. The dog yanked its head one way and pulled her back, and she swung her leg out in a wide kick and pulled the dog the other way, finally breaking its grip on her pant leg.
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 7