Home, Sweet Haunt

by P. J. Night

  “Glamorous ghosts,” Caitlin said with a smile. “They are welcome in my room anytime.” She called an invitation into the hallway. “After trick-or-treating, we will be downstairs in 2H. Come visit us.”

  “I got it! I saw another movie,” Nora said, then corrected herself. “Actually, I’ve seen every ghost movie ever. I think we should try a séance.”

  “Good idea,” Caitlin said as a group of little boys dressed as ninjas knocked on a door nearby and ran off with their bags full of chocolates. She waited until the kids moved down the hallway, then suggested they do the séance around a dark and quiet corner.

  “We need to hold hands,” Caitlin said. They were standing in front of an apartment door, but the hall light had burned out. It was hard to see down the dim corridor.

  At first LL refused to join the circle. Aleah convinced her by saying, “This is a scientific experiment to see if it’s possible to call ghosts.”

  “Okay, as long as it’s science,” LL said, taking hands with Nora on one side and Caitlin on the other.

  “Talk nicely to them,” Nora told Caitlin once they were all connected.

  “Of course,” Caitlin replied. “I’m always nice.” She dropped her voice to a husky whisper, then said, “Oh, mighty ghosts of the ninth floor, we come in peace.”

  LL rolled her eyes.

  Caitlin went on. “We want to be friends. Show yourselves.”

  The girls all looked around the hallway.

  When nothing happened, Caitlin tried again. “Reveal your kindly spectral spheres of light.”

  “Kindly what?” Aleah interrupted.

  “I was giving ghostly compliments,” Caitlin explained. “Nora said I should be nice. I was planning to use ‘radiant ecto-mist’ for a pretty ghost, and for the very intellectual ghost, ‘haze of genius.’ ”

  “This is ridiculous.” LL dropped hands and broke the circle. “Experiment over,” she said. “No more ghosts. It’s candy time.”

  “Come on, LL. Just one more minute,” Nora said. She only had another couple of hours to hang out and they still had empty candy bags, but she wasn’t willing to give up quite yet.

  LL gave in. She rejoined hands with Caitlin and Nora.

  “Go ahead,” Aleah told Caitlin. “Conjure up a ghost.”

  Caitlin pressed her lips together, obviously taking the time to plan what she was going to say. “Ninth-floor ghosts,” she began. “Hey there, Happy Halloween.”

  Nora nodded. It was a good beginning.

  “We ask that you show yourselves on this special night.” Caitlin paused. It was very quiet in the hallway.

  “Give us a sign.” As she said that, the lightbulb that the girls had thought was burned out flickered on, then went dark again.

  LL squeezed Nora’s hand. “Probably just coincidence,” she whispered. “Electric surge.”

  “Can you get the ghost to do it again?” Aleah asked Caitlin.

  “I don’t know.” Caitlin stared at the light fixture. She said loudly into the hallway, “Um, hate to be greedy, but would you mind giving us another sign?” With a glance at Nora, Caitlin added, “Please.”

  The light flickered the same as before.

  “Might be a storm.” LL began to pull her hand out of Nora’s but Nora held firm. “Anyone see the news? Was rain predicted for tonight?”

  Caitlin was honest with the ghost. “Not to be insulting, but my friend doesn’t believe in you.” She tipped her head toward LL. “Would you mind doing something else? Something different?”

  Behind LL’s back, the doorknob to the apartment rattled. LL jumped so high, she nearly bumped her head on the light fixture.

  “The ghost is trying to get out of the apartment,” Aleah said, pointing to the doorknob. It was shaking wildly!

  The girls all dropped hands and began to back away from the door.

  “Do you need help?” Caitlin asked the ghost. “Are you trapped?”

  Clangs came from behind the door.

  “Chains,” Aleah said. “Ghosts always shake chains.”

  “It sounded like a spoon hitting a pan,” LL said, tilting her ear toward the door.

  Nora thought that LL was right, but that didn’t make it any less scary when the clangs happened again.

  Suddenly, smoke came from under the apartment door. White and thick, it filled the hallway. The chains’ rattle became constant. The lightbulb went on and off, flashing like lightning. And the door creaked against its hinges as the doorknob twisted and turned.

  “Maybe a séance wasn’t such a good idea after all,” Nora admitted.

  “It might still be a nice friendly ghost like Casper,” Caitlin was saying, when the apartment door flew open with a bang and clatter.

  “Or a brain-melting poltergeist,” Aleah muttered on a sharp inhale of breath.

  There in the dim light, shrouded by the fog, was a short figure in a wispy white cloak. The girls froze as the ghostly apparition took a step forward into the hall and said in a raspy voice, “Boo!”

  LL, Aleah, Caitlin, and Nora didn’t wait around to find out if this ghost was friendly or not.

  They ran, screaming just like Mrs. Daugherty.

  CHAPTER 8

  Back at Caitlin’s the girls took off their costumes. They hung out in the TV room and sorted through their treats.

  Without all that gauze around Aleah’s head, Nora could now see that she was Vietnamese. Her dark hair was cut into a cute bob. Her bangs were mashed flat from being wrapped up for so long. Her brown eyes sparkled as they talked about what had happened earlier on the ninth floor.

  The ninth-floor “ghost” turned out to be the old man who lived in the apartment near where they’d had the séance. He played pranks on kids every Halloween. Since Nora had never trick-or-treated in her own building, she hadn’t known. When they went running, screaming, down the hall, they’d run into other kids who had fallen for the joke the year before.

  LL continued to insist she’d known it was a joke all along.

  “You screamed the loudest,” Caitlin reminded her.

  “It was because he jumped out at us, not because he shouted ‘Boo!’ ” LL told Caitlin. “I was just surprised, not scared.”

  “If I ever make a haunted house, I’ll come up with something scarier to say than ‘Boo,’ ” Nora said as she sat back on what must have been the most comfortable couch in the history of all couches. She put a few of Lucas’s favorite candies aside and opened a square of taffy for herself.

  “What would you say?” LL asked. “ ‘Oooooh?’ And rattle some chains?”

  “ ‘Gotcha!’ ” Nora suggested.

  Aleah wrinkled her nose. “How about ‘AHHH!’ ”

  “That sounds like the ghost is scared of me, not the other way around,” Nora said.

  “Well, since there is no such thing as ghosts, I don’t think it matters what the ghost says,” LL said firmly.

  “ ‘Boo’ is the best,” Caitlin said at last. “Dogs go ‘ruff.’ Cats ‘meow.’ Ghosts say ‘Boo.’ That’s how the world works.”

  “I guess,” Nora said as she, Caitlin, and LL started trading candy.

  Once everyone had a pile of favorite snacks, Aleah pulled out the laptop she’d brought with her sleepover stuff and logged on to Caitlin’s Internet.

  “What’s the address here?” she asked Nora while her fingers flew over the keyboard.

  “One-one-four-four Third Avenue,” Nora replied. “What are you doing?” With the sticky taffy in her mouth, it sounded like “Wawa fofo whar yadoin?”

  Aleah kept her eyes down. “I’m looking up the history of the building to see if we can track down the ninth-floor ghosts. Maybe if we know how they died, we can do a better job contacting them.”

  “Great idea!” Caitlin rushed over to where Aleah sat on the TV room floor. She sat cross-legged slightly behind Aleah so that she could see the screen. Caitlin and Aleah both ignored LL when she reminded them that there were no ninth-floor ghosts.

  “
What’s that?” Caitlin asked.

  “There was an unsolved disappearance in apartment building 4411,” Aleah said. “Not yours.”

  “Oh.” Caitlin was disappointed. “How about that one?” She pointed at another website link.

  Aleah let the page load. “Hmmm. There was a severed finger found in the sandbox at the playground across the street.”

  “Gross!” LL said, holding up her candy sack. “Don’t ruin my appetite.” Earlier, LL had explained that like Nora’s parents, hers would take away whatever candy she brought home. LL’s goal was to eat everything in her bag before sunrise.

  “So we’re looking for a nine-fingered spirit?” Caitlin said. She called out into the room. “Welcome, nine-fingered ghost from the ninth floor. . . .”

  “Forget it,” Aleah said, scanning the rest of the site. “The finger was plastic. A prank.”

  “Whew,” LL said, stuffing candy corn into her mouth.

  “A deadly carbon monoxide gas leak was reported a few months ago in the neighborhood news,” Aleah said, then shook her head. “Last week, an elderly man died of natural causes, but he was already in the hospital.”

  “Seems like the grim reaper has been busy,” Nora commented while she stretched out on the couch and closed her eyes. She knew she had to go home soon, but she was tired. The couch was so comfy.

  “Most of the buildings in this area were built in the 1930s. Generations of people have passed through these halls,” Nora explained.

  “I can’t find anything that would help us identify the ninth-floor ghosts,” Aleah said. “Let me try a different search. Instead of looking for stories about people who died, I’m going to look up ghost sightings in the area.”

  “Find anything?” Caitlin asked after a few quiet minutes.

  “Two blocks over,” Aleah reported, “there was a spectral sighting in an Italian restaurant.”

  “If you’re going to tell ghost stories,” LL challenged, “try to scare me. That means you’re going to have to do better than haunted meatballs.”

  “I’m on it.” The keyboard clicked under Aleah’s fingernails. “How about a disembodied clown that appears at kids’ birthday parties?”

  “Clowns are scary,” Caitlin agreed. “So are floating heads.”

  “True.” LL checked her arms. “But I don’t have goose bumps.”

  “Plus, that sounds pretty far-fetched,” said Nora sleepily. “Let’s hear a real ghost story.”

  “Hang on!” Aleah said as she scrolled the cursor around the page. “Here’s something really frightening. It’s a neighborhood legend. And it is said to have happened only a block away from here.”

  “Tell us,” Caitlin said, stretching her legs out.

  Aleah scanned the facts, then told the story in her own way. “A woman met a traveler on the street. He was carrying a worn duffel bag and wearing a tattered army uniform. The man asked the woman for directions. She couldn’t hear exactly what he said. He was speaking so softly. She moved closer, and that’s when she felt the cold. It was like an icy wind that swept off his skin. She wrapped her light sweater around herself as he spoke again—”

  A scratching noise came from inside the wall behind Nora’s head.

  “Huh?!” Nora sat up. She wasn’t tired anymore. “Was that one of you?” She scanned from LL to Aleah to Caitlin.

  “No,” Caitlin said. Then, “Shhhh.” There was the unmistakable clink of chains rattling.

  “It’s the giant rats,” LL said, walking over to the wall. She pounded a fist against a built-in cabinet door. “Back to the sewers!” Then LL turned to Aleah. “You’re a good gymnast, but an even better storyteller. I’m not scared, but this one has potential.” She gave a fake shiver.

  Aleah went on. “ ‘I am lost, ma’am,’ he said with a strong foreign accent. His accent was thick, and though the woman was well-traveled, she couldn’t figure out where he might be from. ‘Can you show me—’ ”

  The scratching noise behind the wall grew louder.

  There was a bang and a scrape followed by a rattle.

  “It’s the ninth-floor ghosts,” Caitlin said with certainty. She faced LL. “See that panel on the wall?” She indicated a large square cabinet door set into the wall where the noise was coming from. “My mom told me it used to be an old dumbwaiter. Like a mini elevator used to cart up supplies from the basement back in the olden days. She said it was sealed.”

  The panel began to shake.

  “There’s something—no, someone—in the dumbwaiter!” Aleah pushed back her computer and grabbed Caitlin around the waist.

  The door rattled more as whatever it was in the wall tried to get out. The painted-over edges of the panel began to peel away. Whatever was back there grunted as the wood began to crack with the force from behind.

  “No way,” LL muttered in a whisper. “Not scientifically possible.” She tilted her head when the next creaks began to ripple through the walls.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Caitlin said, breaking away from Aleah and excitedly rushing to the panel. She was the only one to step forward. Everyone else moved back. Caitlin dragged the couch away from the wall to get closer to the wooden square.

  “I did it!” Caitlin announced. “I invited the ghosts and they came.” She faced the girls in the room and said, “Happy Halloween!”

  “Now I have goose bumps,” LL said. “Not even scientific curiosity could get me to open that panel!”

  “I’ll do it,” Caitlin said, her voice strong and fearless.

  “No!” Nora and Aleah shouted. But Caitlin ignored them.

  Nora’s heart raced. Her skin felt cold. But she couldn’t look away or even blink. Nora was frozen to the spot, watching, waiting, wondering, as Caitlin slowly reached her arm forward.

  CHAPTER 9

  With a creak and a crack, the panel shook again.

  “I can’t do it,” Caitlin said as she backed away from the panel. “Is it too late to cancel the invite?” She shouted to the wall, “Stay on the ninth floor, ghosts!”

  Aleah started packing up her computer. “I think we should get out of here.”

  “Rats!” LL said, shuddering. “Gotta be rats.”

  “I’m being silly,” Nora said. She liked scaring people and she loved being scared herself. She was going to face the ghost.

  Gathering her courage, Nora approached the panel in the wall.

  Behind her Nora’s new friends had gathered near the door, so if things turned badly, they’d be the first ones out of the apartment, out of the building, out of trouble. Nora would be sacrificed to the . . . thing.

  “Uuggghhh,” the ghost roared as the chains clanked loudly behind the wallpaper.

  Nora didn’t stop to think about what she’d heard, or wait for the ghost to groan again. If she waited, even a second more, she would lose her nerve. She grabbed a loose corner of the large wooden square and yanked the panel open. She was surprised to find it was hinged on one side like a cabinet door. The door swung open.

  Caitlin, Aleah, and LL all shrieked as the ghost tumbled out of the wall and crashed with a familiar heavy clump to the wooden floor.

  “Friend or foe?” Caitlin asked, her eyes closed.

  “Foe,” Nora said without hesitation. “Definitely the enemy.”

  Lucas lay on the floor behind the couch, rolling around and laughing so hard he had to hold his belly.

  Nora stared down on her brother and let out a long breath. “What are you doing here?”

  “Did I scare you?” he asked, standing up and surveying each girl’s face. “I heard screaming, but it was hard to tell through the wall. Did I? Were you?”

  “No!” Caitlin and Aleah declared, glancing tentatively at each other.

  “Not me,” Nora told Lucas.

  “How about you?” He turned to LL. “Were you scared? How about when I shook the panel? That was terrifying, right?”

  “A little brother! Ugh. I should have known better,” LL said. “When I think that I was almost su
cked into this nonsense.” She stood straighter. “My mom would be so disappointed. She’s one hundred percent right. There is no such thing as ghosts.” LL put her hands on her hips and snarled at Lucas. “Yes,” she admitted. “You got me this time, but it won’t happen ever again!”

  “One out of four’s not bad,” Lucas said casually.

  Nora could tell he knew he’d really scared them all, even her, a little. He had that twinkle in his eye. She’d never say it out loud, but Nora had to admit that it was a great prank.

  “How’d you know about the dumbwaiter?” Nora asked.

  Her brother had feathery white dust in his hair and black grease stains on his jeans.

  “I told you about the building plans,” he reminded her. “The dumbwaiter is in your room, since that’s how the butler would get groceries in and send the trash out. Small things would be hauled up and down this elevator shaft.” Since Caitlin’s apartment was the same floor plan, they were standing in her old butler pantry too.

  “Clever.” Caitlin stepped to the opening and stuck her head into the shaft. “It’s dark in there.”

  Lucas shrugged. “I’ve been experimenting since I first found the panel. It’s a tiny space, so I don’t really need any light. I sit on the open platform and can move myself up and down, floor to floor.”

  LL started to reason it all out. “The clanking of the chains must be the sound of you raising and lowering yourself. And the scratching and the rattling, that’s you too.”

  Aleah opened her notebook and reviewed all the things the neighbors on the ninth floor had reported about the ghosts. Nora watched as she crossed off all the clues that were now solved by this discovery.

  “No ghosts in the building,” she declared.

  “Oh man,” Caitlin said. She’d gone from determined to find ghosts, to scared to see them, to disappointed they didn’t exist, all in one night.

  “Told you,” LL declared.

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t tell stories to scare us all out of sleeping. Don’t forget, there’s still the legend of the lost army soldier,” Aleah said.