Home, Sweet Haunt

by P. J. Night

  The hallway was nice, and freshly painted. Family photos hung on the walls. When they reached Caitlin’s room, Nora was shocked. It was a mess. Messier than Lucas’s room had ever been. Messier than their whole apartment had been after the firefighters broke down the door and soaked everything with water. Nora had never seen such a disaster.

  Clothes were spread on the bed and on the floor, and the closet door couldn’t close. School papers and books were scattered over the desk. There was a cleanish pathway through the room, from the bed to the desk to the door.

  A black cat had made itself comfortable on a pile of Caitlin’s clothing and was snoozing happily. When Nora walked in, the cat shot to attention, arched its back, and hissed, teeth bared.

  “Whoa,” Nora said, backing away. “You have an attack cat?”

  “I wish. An attack cat would be cool. Bitsy has no nerves at all,” Caitlin said. “She’s a true-to-life scaredy cat.” She clapped her hands and the cat scurried into the corner, where it curled up under a few used towels and immediately went back to sleep.

  Nora had to move a stack of gymnastics leotards to sit on Caitlin’s beanbag chair, while Caitlin crawled under her bed. “I know they’re here somewhere,” she said. Her legs stuck out into the room as her head disappeared. “I have these cute black lace-up boots I wore last year when I dressed like a witch. They’d be perfect.” Caitlin scooted farther under the bed until she vanished entirely.

  “Caity!” A red-haired girl wearing glasses entered the room and dodged around an empty laundry hamper. She was petite and thin and dressed up as a witch. Behind her was a mummy. Nora had no clue what the mummy girl really looked like because she was wrapped head to toe in white gauze. Only her eyes and lips peeked through.

  “Hi,” the witch said. “You must be Nora.”

  “Hi,” Nora responded. She never felt nervous about meeting new people, but the costumes threw her off a bit.

  “I’m Lilly Loughlin. Everyone calls me LL.” The witch pointed to the mummy. “That’s Aleah.”

  “Everyone calls me Aleah,” the mummy said totally deadpan. Nora giggled and the mummy giggled back.

  “Where’s Caity?” LL asked.

  “Under there.” Nora tipped her head toward the bed.

  “Figures.” LL shook her head. “I worry that she might get lost in here and never find her way to the door.” She waved her hand around the room. “I mean, if anyone ever puts something down and blocks the pathway, Caitlin won’t know which way to go.”

  Nora laughed. She liked Caitlin’s friends already.

  “I call here every night after practice to make sure Caity made it from the door to the bed,” LL said.

  “I should write a Halloween story about a girl who gets buried alive, trapped under the weight of her own dirty clothes. That would be scaaarrrryyyy.” Aleah chuckled. She explained that she did gymnastics because her parents wanted her to exercise. Aleah’s real love was writing stories. She wanted to be a novelist, or maybe a journalist. Or maybe both at the same time. “Do you like being scared?” Aleah asked Nora.

  “Love it!” Nora said. “You?”

  “Horror stories are my specialty,” Aleah said.

  “Ridiculous.” LL put her hands on her hips. “I don’t believe in ghosts or zombies or aliens or any of that. My mom is a scientist and she taught me only to believe in what can be proven.” She added, “I’m going to be a scientist too. Gymnastics is just for fun.”

  “Did Caitlin tell you about the ninth floor?” Nora asked LL. Scaring someone who didn’t believe was the best kind of scaring.

  “What about it?” LL asked.

  “Shoes!” Caitlin thrust her arm out from under the bed. She was holding two long black boots. Nora reached down to take them. Caitlin was right. They were perfectly vampirey.

  Caitlin slithered to the center of the room.

  “When I write my story,” Aleah told Caitlin, “you’ll be trapped under the bed forever, never to return. Ha-ha-ha-ha.” She cackled like a witch.

  “Hey, that’s my laugh,” LL said, adjusting her black pointy hat and giving Aleah a small shove. Aleah’s legs were wrapped together, so she tumbled back onto the bed, asking, “What sound do mummies make, then?”

  “Uh, uh?” Nora suggested.

  “That’s a zombie,” Caitlin said. She stood up and shoved out her hands in a dead walk. She had a fresh layer of under-bed dust covering her already mud-crusted zombie outfit. “Uhhh. Uhhh.” Lowering her arms back to her sides, she said, “See? I think the mummy goes, ‘Oooooh, oooohhh.’ ”

  “Oooh?” Aleah replied. “That’s definitely a ghost.”

  “No way.” Nora was reminded of her conversation with Lucas. “I’ve never heard a ghost sound like that.”

  “You’ve never heard a ghost say anything at all,” LL put in. “Because they don’t exist.”

  “Oh yes they do!” Caitlin went to her closet to get the last pieces of her zombie costume. “The ninth floor of this building is totally haunted!”

  While Caitlin slipped on a ratty jacket that looked like her father had run over it with the car, Aleah went to the desk and searched for a pen and paper. When she was ready, Aleah told Caitlin, “Tell us what you know and I’ll write it up.”

  “I don’t know much,” Caitlin admitted.

  “Because there isn’t anything to know,” LL tossed out.

  “Spoilsport! Don’t ruin the fun!” Aleah turned away from LL and asked Caitlin to give every possible detail. “Go on.”

  “Okay. I overheard my parents talking the other night. They recently met the people who live in 9G,” she began. Caitlin didn’t move her clothing off the bed, just sat on top of a pile. “They’ve lived here for a few years and love the building, but lately some strange things have been happening.”

  She paused to let the spookiness of the moment sink in. “They hear things through the walls.”

  “What kind of things?” Nora said. She could feel the hairs on her arms standing on end.

  “Pounding, scraping, and squeaking,” Caitlin said, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering.

  “Ghosts?” Aleah asked.

  “It’s mice.” LL was certain.

  “They’d have to be huge mice to make these kinds of noises,” Caitlin said.

  “Okay, then rats,” LL corrected the analysis. “There are extra-big rats in the city. I saw pictures once in one of my mom’s Science Monthly magazines.”

  “Eww.” Nora would totally rather see a ghost than a rat.

  “It’s time for trick-or-treating,” Caitlin interjected into the conversation.

  Aleah said, “There’s only one way to know if there’s a ghost on the ninth floor or not.”

  Nora slipped on her mask and picked up her empty pillowcase.

  Aleah suggested, “While we are out, we should check out Caitlin’s story. They said they heard the sounds through the walls?” She held up the notebook and pen, as if she were a detective ready to investigate a mystery.

  “Yes,” Caitlin agreed.

  Nora laced up Caitlin’s boots. They fit.

  “We should start on the tenth floor, then,” Aleah said. “In the apartment above 9G. Maybe the ghostly noises are coming through the ceiling.”

  “Uh, Aleah?” Nora knew who lived in 10G. “Hate to be a downer, but Mrs. Daugherty lives in 10G. She’s alive. And lives alone. The noises can’t possibly be coming from her apartment.”

  As far as Nora knew, Mrs. Daugherty never talked on the phone. She didn’t have kids. No one came to visit. Nora’s parents had often said that Mrs. Daugherty was a good neighbor because she never played her TV or radio loudly. Mrs. Daugherty was very quiet.

  “We need to snoop around to be sure,” Aleah said. She opened the notebook to a blank page and announced, “We’re going on a ghost hunt.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Do your parents let you leave your room like that?” Nora asked Caitlin as they went out into the hallway.

  �
�Caitlin’s room is the scariest thing you’re going to see this Halloween,” LL remarked. “It’s totally frightening!”

  Caitlin laughed. “They gave up a long time ago.” She shrugged. “When we moved in to this new apartment, I tried to keep it clean, but that lasted about a week. I’m barely ever home. Between gymnastics and school and homework, I don’t have time to clean it. They told me they’d rather I get good grades than spend my time folding and straightening.”

  Aleah said, “After I heard about Caitlin’s deal, I tried the same argument with my parents. Instead of giving me a pass, they sent me to my room with a dust cloth and a broom.”

  LL shook her head. “My mom would kill me if I didn’t use my drawers or closet.”

  “Mine too,” Nora agreed. Plus, she’d learned the hard way about leaving her stuff lying around in the living room.

  The elevator dinged and the four girls got inside. Aleah pressed the button for the tenth floor. The girls chatted about their favorite candies while the elevator moved slowly upward.

  As they passed the ninth floor, a rattling sound echoed through the elevator shaft. It didn’t sound like a normal elevator sound, more like chains hitting iron.

  “What was that?” Aleah looked at Caitlin. “Did you hear that noise?”

  “Rats,” LL said assuredly, with a told you so expression.

  “No way,” Caitlin said. The noise sounded again. It went creak-creak-chug-chug-clank-clank, pause. Then it started again in the same pattern. “That is no rat.”

  “Yes it is,” LL said, though Nora could see she was not as certain as when she’d first identified the sound.

  “It’s a ghost,” Caitlin said in a whisper.

  “Or ghosts,” Aleah corrected.

  LL sighed and shook her head. The sounds had stopped. “R-A-T-S,” she said, pointing at the page in Aleah’s hand. “Write that down.”

  Aleah rolled her eyes. “Don’t ruin the fun, LL. The ghosts know when there are doubters. They won’t show themselves because of your negative energy.”

  “Negative energy? Don’t get me started,” LL huffed as the elevator came to a stop.

  LL and Aleah ended their argument when Caitlin asked, “Do you want to trick-or-treat at your apartment, Nora?” She glanced up and down the hallway at the different numbers on the doors. “Which one is yours?”

  Nora didn’t say which and she definitely didn’t want to knock on her apartment door. It was still such a disaster inside. Plus she wanted a night away from her family. She simply told them the truth. “My parents never buy candy. My mom’s a health freak.” She explained that in the past, her mother insisted they hand out something with fewer calories and more nutrition, like carrots. Her dad was the one who let them eat junk on Halloween, but only on that night. The next day whatever Nora brought home (that she didn’t hide in her jacket pockets) would be rationed one piece at a time.

  In fact, Nora should probably bring a few pieces of whatever she got tonight to Lucas. That would be nice. And she did owe him.

  “No offense, but we don’t want carrots,” Aleah said.

  “I don’t want them either,” Nora replied, sticking out her tongue and gagging. “Although my mom insists they fit the night because they are orange.”

  “Let’s start at Mrs. Daugherty’s apartment,” Caitlin suggested. “If she doesn’t answer, we’ll know that she died years ago and no one noticed. We can say hi to her ghost.”

  LL snorted.

  “Hmmm.” Nora considered that it might be possible. Mrs. Daugherty could have died. Nora hadn’t seen the old lady and her pink bathrobe since that night she was interviewed by the TV reporter outside Nora’s bedroom window.

  They gathered around the doorbell at 10G.

  “Who wants to ring?” Caitlin asked. “It’s good luck to do the first ring on Halloween.”

  “You’re making that up,” LL said. “No such thing as luck. Not good or bad—”

  “I’ll do it,” Nora cut in. To convince her parents to let this be her first outing, not her last, Nora was going to need some good luck.

  She rang the bell.

  “Who is it?” the old lady asked from inside the apartment.

  “Trick or treat,” the girls sang out together.

  “Oh.” Mrs. Daugherty pretended to be surprised to find them all at the door. She opened slowly and peeked through the crack before swinging the door all the way open.

  “Let’s see here. What do we have this year?” Mrs. Daugherty was wearing a floral dress with the same pink slippers she’d worn on the night of the fire. She glanced around at the four girls. “A zombie.” Leaning forward, Mrs. Daugherty put a silver-wrapped piece of chocolate in Caitlin’s bag.

  “A witch.” She gave licorice to LL.

  “A mummy.”

  Aleah got a gumball.

  “And”—she looked at Nora’s mask—“what are you dressed as, young lady?”

  Nora thought it was obvious. “A vampire, Mrs. Daugherty,” she replied politely. In a Transylvanian accent, Nora added, “I’ve come to drink your blood.”

  “Ha-ha,” the old lady chuckled. “So you know my name?” Mrs. Daugherty took a closer look at Nora. “Who is behind that mask? Is it Susie from 4B?”

  “Nope.” Nora shook her head at the old lady’s little game.

  “Or Paulina from 6E?”

  Nora shook her head again.

  Mrs. Daugherty sized her up. “Let me see. You look to be about eleven years old?”

  “Twelve.” Nora corrected, giving her a hint.

  “I don’t know.” Mrs. Daugherty rubbed her forehead. “Who could it be under the vampire mask?” She shook her head and said, “I give up.”

  Nora laughed. “Mrs. Daugherty, it’s me! Nora Wilson!” She raised the mask so Mrs. Daugherty could see her face.

  “AHH!” Mrs. Daugherty screamed. “Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahhh!” She was stuck like a broken record, repeating the same shrieking sound over and over.

  “Are you all right?” Nora was concerned. She reached out to touch Mrs. Daugherty’s hand. It looked like the woman might be having a stroke. Or a heart attack. Or a seizure.

  “No!” Mrs. Daugherty pulled back so fast she stumbled backward into her apartment. “Go away. Leave me alone.” She began muttering. “Stay away. Don’t come again. Be gone.” The door slammed.

  Caitlin looked at Nora with wide eyes. “That was weird! Let’s get out of here.”

  The girls grabbed their candy bags and rushed to the elevator.

  Mrs. Daugherty’s door was closed, but her insane ramblings followed them through the hallway.

  LL stabbed the button with her finger, trying to get the elevator to come faster.

  Mrs. Daugherty cracked open her door and peeked out into the hall, rubbing her eyes. “It can’t be,” she mumbled. “Impossible.” She blinked a few times, and then began to scream again.

  The elevator wasn’t coming fast enough. The girls decided to take the stairs.

  With Caitlin in the lead they ran, leaping two steps at a time until they reached the ninth-floor landing. Only then did they stop to catch their breath and talk about what happened.

  “I don’t get it,” Nora said. She had goose bumps down her spine. “Mrs. Daugherty has always been so nice to me.”

  “That was crazy,” Aleah agreed.

  “Totally bizarre.” Caitlin leaned back against the wall.

  “She’s bonkers!” LL had no doubt. “That woman needs to see a shrink.” She added, “Don’t eat her candy. I bet it’s poisoned.”

  They all dumped the one piece out of their bags. Except Nora. Mrs. Daugherty never gave her any candy.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” Aleah said, making a note on her paper. “The old woman in 10G is definitely alive.”

  CHAPTER 7

  They opened the stairway door and headed on to the ninth floor. Caitlin led the way and Nora brought up the rear. She was out of breath from running down the stairs . . . and from the fright th
at Mrs. Daugherty had given them.

  “The Hall of Haunts,” Aleah said. She had her pen ready to take notes about anything they saw or heard. “How do we get a ghost to show itself?”

  “We should just get to the trick-or-treating,” LL said. “Look how bad the ghost hunt turned out for us upstairs.”

  Nora grimaced. “I had no idea I lived next to such a weirdo. She always seemed so nice.”

  “Ahhh. Ahhh. Ahhh.” Caitlin imitated Mrs. Daugherty’s shrieks.

  “Very funny, Caity.” Aleah laughed. “Now, about conjuring these ghosts.”

  “I know how to do it,” Nora said. She remembered a movie she’d watched with her ex-friends. “We need a Ouija board.”

  “I had one of those once,” LL said, surprising everyone. “It’s a game board covered with letters. You touch this pointer thing lightly and the ghost is supposed to move the arrow to spell words.”

  “Did you ever use it?” Aleah asked, her pen poised to take notes.

  LL nodded. “A few times, but nothing ever made sense. I thought the ghost was a terrible speller. Then my mom came in and showed me how I was actually moving the pointer myself. Turned out I was the terrible speller.”

  “Nora, Caity, either of you have a Ouija board?” Aleah asked.

  Neither of them did.

  “Next idea?” Aleah asked, crossing off the Ouija board from her list.

  “I heard that you can conjure ghosts by simply leaving your shoes on the floor. If you want them to stay, line up the shoes neatly, but if you point the toes in different directions, they’ll get confused and won’t ever come back to that same room,” Caitlin said.

  “Any ghosts in your bedroom must be super confused,” LL said.

  “Now you know my secret,” Caitlin joked. “That’s why there are no ghosts in my room.”

  “That’s absurd.” Nora laughed. “Any ghost who needs to borrow shoes would probably come to your room first. All that stuff all over the place . . . it’s the perfect haunt for the fashionable deceased.”