Ready for a Scare?

by P. J. Night

  “We were upstairs when we heard the noises at the back door. Grunts. Pounding. We huddled together. Terrified. It was here. It was coming for us. There was nowhere to hide. And then we heard the splintering of wood. . . . ”

  Kelly could hear the scraping of the creature’s claws. The cracking of the door as the creature banged its way into the cabin. So close. Scraping, scraping.

  She let out a low moan as the sound grew louder. The creature was coming.

  Suddenly she knew. The scraping wasn’t part of Gavin’s story. She could hear the sound. In her room. Behind her.

  Something was trying to get in. Something was trying to get her!

  She whirled around.

  Nothing.

  She scanned the darkness. Her monitor threw off enough light to make out the outlines of her bed, night table, and dresser. Gavin continued to speak, but she tuned him out. Slowly she stood. Her legs trembled as the scraping came again.

  From the window.

  Her hands freezing with fear, she edged away from the desk and stepped silently toward the window.

  CHAPTER 5

  Kelly gazed though the window and jumped back. Bare branches slapped at the glass.

  She shook her head at her own stupidity. How could she have gotten so sucked in by Gavin’s story? It was just the wind causing the trees to scrape the windowpane. No one was there.

  “Kelly? What happened? You okay?” Paige called out.

  She was glad she was out of view. I’m supposed to be the one doing the scaring, she chided herself. Not the one being scared. Such an amateur move. From now on, she’d take control of the sleepover—at least, the scaring part.

  She pulled the cord, closing her shade to the movements of the night. “Just checking on the storm,” she called back. “Wind’s picking up.” She returned to her position in front of her webcam as if she’d merely taken a casual stroll across her room. She’d missed the end of Gavin’s story. She wondered what happened, although now, by the grins on her friends’ faces, she suspected he’d been making it all up. Figured.

  “I have an idea.” Paige leaned toward the monitor. “We should summon the dead.”

  “I like it.” June nodded with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Who should we bring back?”

  “John Lennon?” Spencer suggested.

  Gavin elbowed him. “Oh yeah, he’s a real scary music dude.”

  “How about Cleopatra?” June said. “She had the coolest jewelry.”

  “No way,” Gavin retorted. “A mummy would be creepy. Not a queen.”

  “I think we need someone we have a connection to. You know, to make it mean something,” Paige said. “Someone from around here. Maybe someone who died a long time ago in a strange way or—”

  “Guys!” Kelly interrupted. “I have the perfect person.” She closed her eyes, bringing forth the pretty face in her mind. The clear, innocent gaze. She’d never been one to believe in fate and all that. She was a straightforward facts kind of girl. But this felt as if it was meant to be. As if there was a true connection. “We will call forth the spirit of Miss Mary Owens.”

  “Who?” all her friends wanted to know.

  “I’ll tell you about Mary.” She paused as the old heater in the attic above her clanked, revving up to fight the cold creeping through the ancient wood siding. The wind gusted, and the branches rattled against the house. “She died on a night like this.”

  “How do you know about her?” Paige asked.

  Kelly told them about the article she’d read that afternoon. “The year was 1966. Mary was young, like Chrissie’s age. She’d come to our town to visit her aunt for the holidays. Her aunt lived out past the MacMaster farm, near the base of the big mountain. Back then there were no strip malls. Just houses and farms. And in Vermont, in the winter, there was snow. Lots and lots of it.”

  She paused to recollect the story. “Her aunt threw a large party. Lots of people. Caroling and food and holiday cheer. Mary had an eye for beauty. She decorated her aunt’s tree with dozens of candy canes. She wove garlands with those round red-and-white peppermint candies and strung them throughout the rooms. Guests remarked on the scent of peppermint that filled the house. Mary even placed mints on a string and wore it as a necklace, surrounding herself with the holiday aroma.

  “Now, crafty is nice where grown-ups are concerned, but Mary was beautiful, too. So, of course, the local boys at the party noticed her. And, of course, the local girls noticed the local boys noticing Mary, which didn’t go over so well. Especially when some of those boys were the boyfriends of some of those jealous girls.”

  Kelly pictured Mary sitting by the fireplace, in her red-and-white dress, laughing lightly as a group of boys brought her punch and iced gingerbread cookies. Good for Mary. Not so good for the ignored girlfriends.

  “During the party, the phone rang. The caller asked for Miss Mary. Mary took the call in the privacy of the kitchen, but she didn’t go back to the party. No one noticed it at the time. She immediately went out the back door, wearing only her party dress. Snow had started to fall, and more was on its way. No one would ever know who called or what the caller had said. But something drove Mary to walk through the snow, without a coat, to the shed at the farthest part of the property in the darkness of a freezing winter night.”

  “What happened then?” Spencer asked.

  “Before this, there had been days and days of storms. Wet, heavy snow was piled everywhere. A huge mound of snow and ice had accumulated on the shed roof. Mary entered the rickety shed alone. Why? Who knows. The door must’ve slammed behind her, setting off an avalanche of the snow on the roof. The rumbling was deafening. There was no time to run. Nowhere to go. Tons of snow crashed in a wave as the roof crumbled.

  “Mary was found the next morning. The article said the smell of mint filled the destroyed cabin. She had tried to claw her way out of the suffocating whiteness, and her bare hands were frozen in place. Her mouth was forever stuck in a horrified scream. She had been buried alive.”

  The faint whirring of her computer was the only sound Kelly could hear. Her friends remained silent, their thoughts with the helpless girl.

  Kelly continued. “Some of the girls from the party were suspected of luring her out there. But no one could prove anything. It could have been anyone. A secret past, perhaps? And no one could have known that all that heavy snow would have thundered down. The case is still unsolved.” She took a deep breath and stared straight into the camera. “People say that Mary’s spirit hasn’t left the area. They say that she wanders about on the snowiest nights. They say that she strikes out at the young, trying to take their life the way her life was taken tragically early.”

  “I say we find Mary.” June’s eyes widened with excitement.

  “Definitely,” Paige agreed.

  “But how?” Spencer asked.

  Kelly waited for Gavin to say something, but he remained silent. She took this as agreement. “Here’s what we do.”

  She frowned at Paige. Sprawled on her bed, her friend’s fingers tap-danced across her phone. Paige was an obsessive texter. “Put down the phone. Put down everything. Full concentration is needed.”

  Paige rolled her eyes, finished her text, and rested her cell on her night table.

  Only the dim, greenish glow from the monitors illuminated each room, casting sickly shadows on the friends’ faces.

  Kelly recalled all she knew about summoning spirits of the dead. “Next we each need a reflective surface.”

  “What about our screens? I can sort of see myself in mine,” Spencer said.

  “That should work,” Gavin said. His face appeared strangely pale. Bad lighting for them all.

  “Okay, to call back Miss Mary, each of us must chant her name thirteen times as we spin in a circle. One chant per turn, our voices growing louder, drawing her to us. On the thirteenth time, stop spinning and stare at the reflective surface.” Kelly surreptitiously placed the little scream machine out of sight on th
e edge of her desk. Her plan was to press the button and sound the bloodcurdling scream at just the right moment to freak out her friends.

  “Clear your minds,” Gavin instructed solemnly, as if he’d done this before. “Think only of poor Mary. Trapped in the snow. Alone. Focus on her tortured soul.”

  Kelly bit her lip in anticipation as they began. Standing in the darkness, she slowly turned in a circle. “Miss Mary.”

  “Miss Mary.”

  “Miss Mary.”

  Around and around they spun. Some standing, some sitting on revolving desk chairs.

  “Miss Mary. Miss Mary.” Their voices rose, calling the name of the dead girl. The eerie green glow was the only beacon in a spinning whirl of darkness.

  “Miss Mary. Miss Mary.”

  Kelly was losing count. Losing balance. The face of Miss Mary swam before her eyes. Drowning in an avalanche of green light. Pulling her under. Down, down. Around.

  “Miss Mary.” Calling for her. “Miss Mary!”

  Louder, louder, their voices crying out in unison. Reaching beyond the years. Reaching into the depths. The air crackled around them. An electric current sent jolts throughout her body.

  The final dizzy turn.

  The screech of her name ripped from their throats.

  And then the gasps. Kelly blinked, disoriented, hearing everyone gasp. Desperately she tried to focus on her monitor. She was dizzy. Oh, so dizzy.

  “Kelly!” June’s face froze in wide-eyed horror. “S-she’s behind you!”

  CHAPTER 6

  Swallowing hard, Kelly peered over her shoulder. Darkness greeted her. Her eyes roamed the room. Silhouettes of stuffed animals on her bed. The lump of her school bag on the floor.

  No one.

  She sank into her chair, pulling her monitor close. Her heart beat fast. “Who? Who did you see? There’s no one here.” She glanced again to be sure.

  Shadows. The rush of the wind.

  “She was there. Behind you.” June trembled.

  “I saw her too,” Paige said. “For a second, she appeared on your screen. Then she was gone.”

  “That was so weird,” Spencer murmured.

  “Who? What did she look like?” Kelly wavered. Were her friends tricking her? She wanted to believe so, but their faces told her otherwise. They had seen something.

  “More of a shadow than an actual person,” Paige murmured.

  “But it was definitely a woman,” June added. “I could see her silhouette. Hovering there. Just for a second. Oh, wow, Kel, she was totally in your room.”

  A chill ran down Kelly’s spine. She hugged her arms around her chest, trying to make sense of it all. “Do you think it worked? Do you think we really brought her back?”

  No one wanted to speak first. To say the thing they all felt, yet couldn’t explain.

  “I saw it . . . her . . . too.” Gavin broke the silence. “The last time we said Mary’s name. She was there. She was real.”

  “Awesome!” Spencer’s spark returned. “We did it. We brought back the dead.”

  “I think it’s creepy,” Paige said. “Don’t you, Kelly? I mean, she was in your room.”

  Kelly reached over and ran her fingers along the tiny black plastic box on her desk. She’d never pressed the button and sounded the scream. She’d never had the chance to pretend the supernatural could be contacted, because . . . it might have really happened. She shifted her weight in her chair. She was unsure of what she felt. She wished she had seen what they’d seen. “Let’s do it again.”

  “What?” June sat straighter.

  She shrugged. “To be sure. Let’s see if it’s really her. Do it all again. The chanting. All of it.” She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, suddenly excited by the idea.

  “Sure.” Spencer was up for anything.

  “It was freaky, but okay.” Paige was in.

  “No way.” Gavin nudged Spencer into the shadows, making sure Kelly could see him on her monitor. His beady eyes bored into the screen. His face remained grim. “You don’t mess with the dead.”

  “Oh, please!” Paige snorted, no longer scared. “Let’s do it.”

  “I’m serious. Once was enough.” Gavin blinked quickly many times. “Trust me.”

  “Why? What makes you an expert?” Kelly wanted to know.

  He cast his eyes downward for a moment, still blinking nervously. “Nothing.” He paused, cracking one knuckle, then another. “You made contact. You’ve started things in motion—”

  “What things?” she demanded.

  Gavin shrugged. “Things we don’t understand. Things from beyond. Things that should be left alone.”

  He’s so weird, Kelly decided. She thought of texting Paige and seeing if she thought so too. It didn’t feel natural to have him here with them. What right did he have to dictate what they could do?

  “Well, I—” She stopped, suddenly hearing a faint melody. The notes repeated. An unsettling tune.

  “You know,” June began hesitantly, “I sort of agree with Gavin. I don’t think we should do it again.”

  “Really?” Kelly asked. She was surprised. June usually liked adventure.

  “I felt something,” June whispered. She looked embarrassed.

  “What?” Kelly and Paige asked in unison.

  June gnawed a hangnail on her thumb. “Didn’t you? A tingling kind of thing? Right before she appeared?” She gazed at them hopefully.

  Kelly hesitated. Had she felt something? She wasn’t sure. Maybe . . . maybe some static electricity. But did ghosts give off that kind of energy? And sure, she was dizzy, but that could’ve just been from the spinning.

  “I felt it,” Gavin replied.

  Paige shrugged. So did Spencer.

  Kelly shook her head. “No way. It’s all in our heads. Come on. One more time.” Suddenly, for some unexplained reason, she wanted to show her friends that it had just been a weird group hallucination. That it couldn’t be true. She would do something the next time that would scare them—the fake growl, perhaps—and then they would know it wasn’t real and—

  The melody sounded again. Louder this time.

  The same eight sinister notes. A haunting tune.

  “What’s that song?” Paige asked. “Kel, did you put music on?”

  “No.”

  Everyone listened as the tune repeated twice more. So loud. As if right outside her door.

  “Probably something Ryan is watching,” Kelly guessed. “I’m going to check. Be right back. Don’t do anything without me, okay?”

  She walked across her room and rested her hand on the door handle. Straining her ears, she listened for the melody. The low buzz of garbled TV voices was the only noise she could make out from downstairs. The music had stopped. She pushed open her door and poked her head into the darkened hallway.

  The smell immediately overwhelmed her.

  Inhaling, she felt weightless, spiraling back in time. To a farmhouse in the snow. To a party filled with cheer . . . and despair. The scent surrounded her. Made her dizzy. She grasped the door handle to anchor herself.

  She drew her breath in again, just be sure. The smell was undeniable. Peppermint.

  The icy mint aroma filled her nostrils. And she knew: Miss Mary is here.

  CHAPTER 7

  She froze in the doorway, unsure of where to go or what to do. Her eyes darted about the hallway and over her shoulder, into her room. She had no idea what to look for. Her heart beat rapidly.

  Peppermint. She smelled peppermint.

  Would a ghost leave behind an odor? she wondered. Did it mean Mary’s spirit was here? Now?

  She wanted to run to her computer and tell her friends about the peppermint smell. She could hear the murmuring of their voices coming from her computer speakers. June’s high-pitched giggle. The lower tone of Gavin. A sudden overwhelming wave of logic and disbelief prevented her from turning back.

  She shook her head, trying to straighten out her thoughts. Get a grip. There is no gh
ost, she reminded herself. I told the story from the newspaper to scare everyone else. Not to scare myself.

  She inhaled again. The crisp scent of mint wafted around her.

  Then it hit her. Chrissie must be baking something with peppermint in it, she thought. Maybe chocolate mint cookies or hot chocolate with peppermint oil.

  Much relieved, Kelly padded down the stairs in her fuzzy socks. She stopped midway, her hand resting on the oak banister. Drawing in another breath, she noticed that the peppermint was no longer as overpowering. The farther down the stairs she moved, the more the scent weakened. At the bottom, it was almost nonexistent.

  She glanced out the front window, watching as the wind swirled the flurries in crazy circles. Under the glow of the streetlamps, the snow appeared as a magical coating decorating the walkway. It reminded her of the silver glitter she used to pour onto school projects. Mounds of shiny flecks piled on gobs of white glue.

  She turned toward the back of the house. To her left, she could hear the TV in the family room. Two men arguing on the screen. She continued into the kitchen, expecting to see Chrissie by the oven or stove.

  “Whatcha baking?” Kelly called out.

  She was met with silence. The lights were on, but the kitchen was empty.

  She could detect the slight smell of the pepperoni from tonight’s pizza. No peppermint. No aroma even vaguely like peppermint.

  The large chrome stove and double oven on the far left wall of the farm-style kitchen was dark and cold. Nothing cooking. The granite counter on the center island held only today’s mail and a pizza box with uneaten crusts. Her mother’s desk on the far right wall appeared to be in the same state of disorganization as earlier. The door to the basement at the right of the desk remained firmly shut. Even though her parents had bought sofas, a Ping-Pong table, and a foosball table to make it into a “playroom,” she and Ryan rarely went down there. Calling it a playroom did nothing to disguise the dank basement smell and the permanent chill. It was like playing Ping-Pong in Siberia.

  The only sign of life in the kitchen was on the oversize wood table. At the head of the rectangular table, a high-backed chair was pushed away, slightly askew. Her mother had bought the six mismatched chairs at yard sales. She’d delighted in sanding and staining each, and the contrast of each of their designs made them strangely go together in a homey kind of way.