by P. J. Night
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation. At this point, she was even willing to take sort-of reasonable. Maybe they all decided to go to sleep and shut every light—even the outside ones? Doubtful. Especially since Spencer had promised to run right over.
She hooked her mind around the promise. Of all her friends, Spencer was the one she could count on most to keep a promise. If he said he was coming, then he’d be here. He always came through. She would wait.
The hum of the television penetrated her muddled thoughts.
Ryan. She’d go hang out with Ryan until Spencer showed up, she decided.
She entered the family room from the foyer. The overhead light blazed brightly in here, and the heat seeped through the vents. Her mother had a passion for Americana crafts. A painting of an American flag done on a large, weathered, wooden plank hung over the sofa. The other walls held needlepoint reproductions of colonial samplers. Carved, narrow benches and corn-husk dolls decorated the area near the stone fireplace. On most other nights, Kelly felt as if she were living in a museum. She often teased her mom about it, calling it “Ye Olde Family Room.” But tonight being surrounded by all her mother’s trinkets felt soothing.
Ryan sat on the sofa, exactly in the same position as before.
“Hey,” she said.
He continued to stare at the TV.
She was about to make a sarcastic remark about whatever alien sci-fi movie he was captivated by when she stopped—and took a second look at the screen.
Three women in shorts and colorful tank tops stood in a row. They squatted in unison. Together they kicked their legs and counted the repetitions. Was Ryan really watching an exercise show?
She examined the women for another minute. They weren’t even young or cool-looking. They looked like her grandmother’s friends.
“Hey, you, why are you watching this?” she asked.
Ryan didn’t answer. His eyes never left the screen. He appeared mesmerized by the middle-aged women, who were now jogging in place. Retro eighties music played in the background, but the women were hopelessly off the beat. There was absolutely nothing interesting in this show. And it wasn’t bad enough to be funny. It was just bad.
Kelly narrowed her gaze at her brother. She was so not in the mood for his tricks. “Answer me,” she demanded.
He stayed mute. Unmoving.
She studied him. Was this a joke?
“Stop it, Ryan.” She waved her hands in front of his unblinking brown eyes. He didn’t flinch.
“Can you hear me?” she cried. Her heart began to beat rapidly. From anger. From confusion. “Move!” she screamed, her face centimeters from his. “Move!”
He remained frozen. She could hear him breathing. The air slowly traveling in and out of his nostrils. She grabbed his shoulders with both her hands and shook him hard. Again and again. “Answer me!” she screamed frantically.
His body felt limp in her hands. He gave no resistance. His glassy eyes focused vacantly on the TV. The three women crossed their arms and legs, counting out the fifteenth jumping jack. Their perky voices filled the silence of the room.
Her heart beat all over her body. Her thoughts jumbled around her brain. Nothing was making sense. Why was Ryan like this? It was almost as if he was . . . as if he was . . .
She hesitated, not wanting to complete the horrible thought. Fearful that if she thought it, it would be true. For the only thing she could come up with was that Ryan was . . . possessed.
She stared suspiciously at his zombielike figure. He had never acted like this before. “Ryan.” Her voice came out as a whisper. “Ryan, please.” She could no longer disguise her fear. “You’re freaking me out. Please.”
He didn’t respond to her pleas. Immobile, he stared into nothingness. Vacant.
She needed help. Now. She knew that.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her fingers automatically dialed her mom’s cell.
“Hi, sweetie.” Her mom’s voice, so near yet so far, made her legs weak.
“Hi, Mom.” Her voice caught, and she swallowed hard.
“Is everything okay? What are you doing?” The line crackled.
“Well, you see—” Static filled the airwaves, then disappeared. It disguised the terror in her voice.
Kelly hesitated. She started to tell her mother that everything wasn’t okay. That their babysitter was depressed. That her friends weren’t texting her. That the house smelled weird. That her brother had become a zombie.
No. She couldn’t tell her all that. She was the one who would sound crazy. Besides, what did she expect her mother to do so far away? She’d totally freak out and insist on driving home in this weather.
“Fine,” she answered instead. “Everything’s fine. Just watching TV.”
“Good. Stay inside. The weather’s bad.” Her mom went on to tell her about the motel room and the lack of little shampoo bottles, soap, and shower caps in the bathroom. She hated motels without amenities. “Does Chrissie want to talk to me?”
Her mother’s voice faded in and out. The line buzzed with static.
That was it! Chrissie would help, Kelly realized. She might be acting a little strange but she was older. She’d know what to do. She would confide in Chrissie. She didn’t have to worry her mother.
“Can you hear me? Kelly, are you there?”
“We have a bad connection,” she said. “I’ll call back later. Everything’s okay. Love you.” She clicked the phone off, even though she suspected the call was dropped before she’d said good-bye.
With a backward glance at her brother—still sitting, still staring—she tucked her phone back into her pocket and headed across the room to the archway that connected the family room with the kitchen. Even from here, she could see the kitchen was dark. Was Chrissie even in there?
The babysitter’s name formed on her lips, but she didn’t call it out. She suddenly had the strangest sensation that she shouldn’t scream. Slowly she treaded silently toward the entrance.
A breeze wafted across her body. She shivered. Where was the cold air coming from? What was in the kitchen?
She tiptoed into the darkened room. A biting coldness descended on her. Goose bumps tingled her skin. All the lights were off. But even in the dimness, she sensed that something wasn’t right. The wind that had been beating against her bedroom window reached out its powerful arms and grabbed at her. The force of an unexplained squall pulled her farther into the kitchen.
She reached instinctively for the switch on the wall. Instantly the kitchen was bathed in the artificial overhead light.
Kelly clapped her hand over her mouth in complete amazement.
Her eyes followed the paper tornado churning about the room, as if guided by a supernatural hand. White napkins rose to the ceiling, then circled back around, dipping down before another gust lifted them again. Sheets of paper—lined notebook paper, colorful school flyers, old receipts—twirled across the floor and the table. The lighter pieces joined the napkins in a crazy Tilt-A-Whirl of motion.
Kelly’s gaze darted to her mother’s desk. The surface was wiped clear by the windstorm vacuum. The piles of paper were now airborne.
The back door banged savagely against the wall. The door itself lay wide open to the approaching storm and the night. The wind rushed into the house as if shooting through a tunnel.
After a few seconds of shock, Kelly jumped into action. Racing across the kitchen, brushing the paper out of her path, she pushed at the door. The wind created a force she had to blindly throw her full weight against. As the door latch finally clicked into place, the paper storm died. Napkins fluttered lazily to the floor.
Kelly lay, panting, with her back against the door and surveyed the mess before her. Paper littered the kitchen. A cold wetness seeped through her fuzzy socks, chilling her toes. She gazed down. Small puddles of water dotted the floor near the door. Why had the door been wide open?
“Chrissie?” The urge to sc
ream that she had suppressed only a few minutes ago let loose. “Chrissie! Chrissie!”
Her cries echoed through the empty house.
“Chrissie! Where are you?”
Only the faint undertones of Madonna’s singing and the women counting off lunges on the TV could be heard.
The cool glass of the door’s small window sent a shock through her body. Every nerve was alert.
What now? she wondered. What do I do now?
Her frantic gaze circled back to her mother’s desk. With a jolt, she realized that the desk wasn’t completely cleared of all its papers. She blinked in disbelief as she noticed one piece of paper sitting directly in the center, as if carefully placed or somehow attached.
She made her way through the carpet of trash and stood before the desk. Its distressed painted wood gleamed in the light. She rested both palms on the surface. Bending down, she stared at the lone paper.
The chills ricocheted throughout her body in an electric current much like the one she’d felt earlier in the night.
She carefully placed one finger on the paper. It yielded to her slight push. It wasn’t taped into place. It stood squarely on the desk as if held there by unseen hands.
She wanted to flee but couldn’t move. An energy—a force—pulled her toward the paper.
Down, down.
Kelly stared at the face on the page. The soulful eyes beckoned to her once again. The rest of the world faded into the distance. She and the girl were together. One. A bond unbreakable.
“Hello, Mary,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 12
Mary Owens. The newspaper clipping that had once hung on her mother’s bulletin board—the one she vividly remembered pinning up there just that afternoon—rested on the empty desk.
She couldn’t explain how it had gotten there or how it had stayed there, but suddenly she felt sure of one thing: She and her friends had called back Mary’s spirit. Upstairs, together, they had summoned the unhappy soul of a girl who had died a horrible, suffocating death.
Miss Mary, Miss Mary. She remembered how they’d chanted, their voices growing louder and louder.
And now all her friends were missing.
And her babysitter.
And her brother . . . was no more than a hollow shell.
Her hand rested on the receiver of the house phone. She would call the police. They would help her. They would have to.
Lifting the receiver to her ear, she listened to the steady buzz of the dial tone.
Did the supernatural count as an emergency? She feared they would laugh at her almost as much as she feared staying by herself in this house. She pictured the police cars skidding up the driveway. The blaring sirens and flashing lights rousing the neighbors. People gathering on the lawn, watching in curious fascination as the officers stormed the house. And she would tell them all about what had been going on tonight.
Bad idea, she knew.
Kelly gently returned the receiver to the base.
She wiggled her toes against the dampness of her socks and thought about the puddles by the door. Maybe Chrissie went out, she thought. She’d been wearing boots—and she certainly had been outside earlier. Chrissie could have left the door open by mistake. That was it.
An encouraging warmth spread throughout her body as the explanation unfurled in her brain. It was the same feeling she’d gotten when, at age five, her father reached for her mittened hand with an everything-will-be-okay smile every time she fell learning how to ski. She was overreacting, that was all.
She flung open the back door. The force of the wind struck her full on. Strands of hair blew about her face. She pushed them away from her eyes. Turning on all the lights in the yard, she saw that the snow hadn’t begun falling too thickly yet.
She scanned the yard. The snow by the door looked trampled and kicked about. There was no question now that someone had been outside. A set of boot prints led away from the house, zigzagging across the white expanse. The tracks disappeared into the darkness. The spotlights attached to the back of the house shone only a short distance. There was no telling where the tracks led.
Still safely planted inside the doorway, Kelly scrutinized the boot prints. They weren’t the deliberate prints of someone walking slowly through the snow. They were smeared and very close together. The snow was more compacted at the front of the boot print. The person had barely pressed any weight on the heel. Excess snow sprayed around the back of each print. She understood immediately. The person had been running. Fast.
Was it Chrissie? It had to be, she reasoned.
But why was she running? Was she running to something? Or was she being chased?
“Chrissie? Chrissie? Are you out there?” she yelled into the darkness.
The wind swallowed her cries.
“Chrissie?”
Her voice echoed back to her. Her throat grew dry and scratchy again. Panic pushed its way up.
The snowflakes fell silently from the sky. The yard remained frozen and eerily quiet.
Why would Chrissie leave?
“Ryan!” she screamed. “Ryan, can you hear me? This is an emergency!”
She waited. The television hummed in the house behind her. Her brother didn’t come.
She strained her ears, hoping against hope that Spencer and Gavin would ring the doorbell. Everything would be okay if they’d just show up, she decided. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t will the doorbell to ring.
She was overcome by the need to do something. She was fed up with waiting. Waiting for her friends to show up. Waiting to understand what was going on.
Her father’s black rubber snow boots sat to the right of the door. He’d been outside shoveling yesterday. Suddenly it seemed like years since she’d seen her parents.
She peeled off her damp socks and shoved her feet into the oversize boots. The nubby, frayed lining scratched her toes. The boots were far too big, but she didn’t want to waste time running to the front hall to look for her own boots. She grabbed her green parka with the faux-fur-trimmed hood off the back of the chair she’d thrown it on earlier. She pulled it on, not bothering to trouble with the zipper. She stepped outside, closing the door tightly behind her.
For a moment she stood, trying to formulate a plan.
But she realized she had none. The plan was to find Chrissie. Beyond that, she had no idea.
Unaccustomed to the weight of her father’s boots, she wobbled as she moved into the snow. The frozen top layer crunched as her soles broke through it. The wet, heavy snow and the weight of the wind made each step forward feel as if she were pushing against a brick wall.
The cold cut through her thin flannel pajama pants, stinging her legs. She shoved her bare fingers deep into her parka pockets. Swirling snowflakes coated her hair. Huddling against the cold, she pushed on.
Stepping in the boot prints left by Chrissie made walking easier. She placed each foot carefully, working her way farther and farther from the warmth and safety of the house.
The shadows of the trees tilted over the snow-covered yard, making it hard to follow the prints. She squinted through the frozen flakes lining her lashes. The light from the house grew dimmer and dimmer as she trudged forward. The moonless sky cast no light on her path.
Kelly concentrated on following the prints. Up, over, and down, she dragged each heavy boot. Her hot breath came out in puffs against the cold night air. Her cheeks tingled painfully. She knew they must be bright red.
“Chrissie?” she called again and again.
The wind howled mournfully. The trees shook their snow-caked branches at her. Never before had she felt more alone.
She shivered and dug her hands deeper into her pockets. She leaned into the gusting wind. Print after print. She followed the path, each step bring her closer to . . .
“Chrissie!”
CHAPTER 13
Kelly stood in the far corner of her yard and screamed her babysitter’s name. “Where are you?”
She stared
blindly at the snow.
There were no more prints.
Gone. The prints were gone.
The vast whiteness stretched unbroken by human feet. Turning in a slow circle, she squinted through the steady snowflakes. Though there was only the slightest glimmer of light this far from the house, she was sure: The boot prints had abruptly stopped.
Forbidding darkness pushed toward her from the evergreen-lined edges of her large yard. She wished she had thought to bring a flashlight. The pines whispered, warning her away.
She knew Paige’s yard lay behind the thick expanse of trees her parents had planted years and years ago for privacy. But tonight it seemed miles away. She shaded her eyes with her hands, momentarily blocking the blinding snow. She looked at the last boot print. What had happened? Had Chrissie disappeared into thin air?
A wave of chills raced through Kelly’s body, and she stood shaking. She remembered promising her mother after school that she wouldn’t leave the house. Now here she was in the darkness, in the snow, outside, alone. If she had known back then how the night would turn out, she would’ve made her parents take a dogsled back home.
Turning, she began to trudge back the way she’d come. She kept her head down, eyes on the snow. She focused only on the warmth and light of her house. Everything else was too horrible. It was better not to think about it. Just move forward.
She had gone only a few feet when she heard the noise. A movement. A faint rustling in the trees. She jerked up her head, suddenly alert. The rushing wind made it hard to hear. She waited as the wind enfolded her, whistling about her. The gale skidded the fresh snow about the yard like a desert sandstorm. A covering of white dusted over her big black boots. She bowed her head, protecting herself from the icy squall.
Everything was silent again.
She began to move forward. One step, then two. And then the unmistakable crunch of snow, coming from her right.
She was not alone.
Kelly sucked in her breath, not daring to move a muscle. She stayed rooted to her spot in the snow.