The Haunting of Hounds Hollow

by Jeffrey Salane

  “It was Silas’s last order.” Lucas ran his hands over the clear packing tape that glazed the box. Raindrops rolled down the sides of the seemingly waterproof tape. How much did his family really know about the man whose house they were living in? Not much at all.

  “Well, then, I’m glad you delivered it in one piece,” said Dad as he swept Lucas and his mom into a soaking-wet group hug. “I’m also glad you two are safe. Crash the car, lose all of our earthly belongings, I don’t care as long as you’re both here with me.”

  Mom snorted. “The movers will get here eventually, but I don’t know how to fix you sounding so incredibly cheesy!”

  Dad squeezed them once more and let them go. “Listen, I went ahead and found bedrooms for us, keeping to the front of the house like we talked about. This place … this place is practically a museum! I mean, look at these paintings! They’re probably worth money, don’t you think? Come with me!”

  Dripping-wet Lucas was dragged to a room to the left side of the stairs. The wood door had circular designs etched into its surface that looked like moons laid on top of other moons. Each circle intersected the other, creating a wave of lines that almost vibrated. Lucas wasn’t sure whether to be amazed or seasick.

  “This is your room, son.” With a twist of the crystal knob, his father opened the door. “Well? What do you think?”

  It was blue. Like stepping into the ocean, Lucas held his breath. The murky wallpaper cast an underwater sensation over everything. The four-poster canopy bed was like a ship docked against the back wall with a well-cushioned chair next to it like a lifeboat. There was a dresser with claw feet, like a strange sea serpent with seven hungry drawers waiting to eat his clothes. And there was one full-length mirror against the far side of the room. But the strangest thing Lucas noticed was the five square spaces on the wall that were a lighter color than the rest of the room.

  “It’s … is it missing some pictures?” Lucas walked over and placed his hand on the mysterious spaces. “I mean, it’s cool. I like it.”

  “I took the paintings down,” his father explained. “I would have taken the mirror down, too, but it’s on there pretty good. Stronger than your old bed, even.”

  “Why did you take down the pictures?” Lucas asked.

  His father nodded. “Yeah, they felt, I don’t know, intrusive.”

  “Intrusive?” repeated Lucas.

  “Creepy,” Mom said. “Your dad means that they were creepy.”

  Dad nodded. “They were all portraits of … well, of dogs. I was making your bed and suddenly it felt like I was being watched. It was the paintings. All those dog eyes, I don’t know. I figured you’d want a room without animals staring at you all the time.”

  This time Lucas nodded. He’d been to Disney World before. He’d ridden the Haunted Mansion ride, though he freaked out the first time and made his parents leave. On the ride, there were statues of people’s heads where their eyes followed you wherever you went. Lucas shivered thinking about it. “But the pictures … what about Silas’s rules?”

  “Huh? Oh, what Eartha was talking about?” Dad smiled and waved off Lucas’s worry. “This is our house now. I think bending the rules a little bit will be fine. They’re just pictures, right?”

  The room was like a palace compared to Lucas’s old room in the city. Then he saw his backpack sitting on the bed with Lucky curled up next to it. Lucas couldn’t explain it, but having his backpack there was like planting a flag in the ground. This room was hereby property of Lucas Trainer. He was home.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Mom clapped and gave her husband a hug. “Okay, now I’m excited to see our room.”

  “This way,” said Dad as he guided her out the door.

  Alone, Lucas squeaked over to the well-cushioned chair by his bed. He sat down and pulled off his wet shoes and socks. There was a towel next to his backpack. His dad must have left it for him. He dried off and grabbed his Haunted History book to read about haunted houses. Sweetwater Manor definitely fit the bill. Then he flipped through the pages, looking for any stories about the forest. There were well-documented histories of gnomes, fairies, witches, and even a thing called the New Jersey Devil. But he couldn’t find anything that matched what he had just seen in the car accident. Maybe his doctors were right. Maybe he was starting to blur the real world with his imagination.

  Lucas shut the book and pulled out his tablet to start playing one of his favorite games, Wolf Life. In the app, you lived a wolf’s daily life. Hunt. Eat. Fight. Run. Live with your pack. That’s all. Still, he loved it. Roaming through the digital forest, pouncing, stalking, even howling, it relaxed him. Maybe that was because he had never really lived in the woods before. But even now, in the heart of the forever forest of Hounds Hollow and in the underwater world of his brand-new room, the game cheered him up.

  An hour blew by before Lucas knew it. Standing up, he realized he was still in his wet clothes. Pulling out the middle drawer from the dresser, Lucas was surprised to find his own clothes, neat and folded. A note was on the top shirt. It was from his father:

  Here’s to finding a new home that fits like your favorite shirt. Love, Dad.

  Lucas put the card back in the drawer and closed it with a thump. The dresser was sturdy, but it was also heavy and the drawers had been warped by time.

  Another thump echoed behind him. Lucas whirled around to see Lucky on the floor, stretching as if he’d just woken up from a nap.

  “Lucky.” Lucas exhaled. “Stop sneaking up on me like that.”

  The cat looked at him a moment, then padded over and nuzzled against his leg. Lucas petted the cat’s back, then went to examine the lighter squares of wallpaper. He wondered how long a painting had to be on the wall before the color change was so visually different. Without the pictures he could tell that something was missing in the room. He wished his dad had just left the dog portraits hanging and followed Silas’s rules, even if they were bizarre.

  Lucas caught sight of himself in the mirror. His shaggy hair had been made worse by the deadly combination of the rain and sitting in the chair for an hour playing video games. He patted at his cowlick, but it was untamable.

  Suddenly his reflection shook. It was a small tremor, but Lucas noticed it right away. He stopped and stared at himself in the mirror. It shook again, just slightly. Lucas touched the reflective surface with his palm and felt the glass. As soon as he did, the mirror pulsed again, sending a jolt through his arm like a shock of electricity. Lucas expected to see a burn mark as the feeling of pins and needles surged in his fingers, but his hand was fine. He clenched his fist until, slowly, the sense of feeling came back. Trying not to touch the mirror itself, Lucas felt around the wooden frame, pulling on it, but it was glued to the wall just like his dad had said. Then, carefully, Lucas touched the mirror again, but this time there was no shock. He leaned and pushed against it. With a click, the mirror opened toward him. It was another door.

  A breeze of heated air blew in Lucas’s face. It smelled awful and rotten. Lucky curled between his legs, sniffed at the darkness, and skittered into the new hallway.

  “Hey, no, bad cat,” Lucas said. “Get back here!”

  Without thinking, he stepped inside, too. A light dangled overhead with a beaded chord attached to it. Lucas tugged at the chord and the bulb popped on. The hallway was shorter than he thought, but it led to a bigger room. Even with cracks of light stippling through the slat board walls and tall roof above him, Lucas had no chance of finding Lucky in the shadows. He searched for a light switch by the doorway and found a large, brass knob. Instinctually, Lucas turned it and a hissing sound erupted. The smell of gas replaced the rotten stench. Seconds later, light fixtures against the walls flickered to life.

  “Whoa, gas lamps?” Lucas shook his head. “This place is old.”

  Gas lighting wasn’t new to Lucas, but he’d never seen actual, working gaslights. Before the invention of electricity, people depended on candles for light. Then
came the concept of lights that could be run by gas. At first, the streetlights used gas, but after a while, buildings in the city adapted the new technology. Tubing was placed in the walls to run the gas directly into the lights. Then, when the world switched over to electricity, many of the old gas tubes were used to run the electrical wiring. He’d learned all about it while living in the city. His own building had been wired that way and it drove his mom crazy. She constantly thought that she smelled gas when she turned on the lights in their apartment. She called the gas company at least once a month to come check for leaks. Their solution always pointed back to gas tubes used in old buildings.

  But this was real gas. The lights on the walls flickered a bluish flame. Of all the things to have in a house that burned down, working gas lighting was the last one Lucas expected to find. He stepped farther inside.

  The new room was a huge barn with vaulted ceilings. It echoed the hissing from the lights like a chamber of snakes. There were small stalls running along both sides of the barn. They looked like horse stalls, but smaller. Each spot had a copper number plaque nailed to wooden gate doors that were waist high. Lucas clicked one of the black bolts that held each stall shut. The metal hinges turned smoothly as the gate swung open. Above the doors, black bars rose up to create a tiny jail cell for whatever had been stored there. He’d seen bars like this before. They were just like the wrought-iron fences outside fancy brownstones in the city. The bars curved upward, creating a beautiful design. Lucas ran his hands over them. They were still smooth, as if they’d been polished recently.

  “Lucky!” Lucas whispered, his tiny voice bouncing around the room.

  He walked up and down the row of stalls, searching for his cat. There were fifteen empty stalls. Lucas counted and read the numbered plaque above each one.

  Mmrreow. Lucky poked his head out from the top of a stall.

  “How did you get up there?” Lucas found a stool and used it to reach Lucky, but the cat jumped back from him. “It’s all right. C’mon, it’s just me here. Let’s go. I’ll give you a treat.”

  As soon as he touched Lucky’s back, Lucas could feel the vibrating fear inside his cat. Lucky’s tiny cat heart pounded against his rib cage like a mini time bomb ticking toward a massive hissing fit. And then it happened.

  Lucky bared his teeth and narrowed his eyes, heaving out a hissing warning that sizzled over the gas lanterns. Lucas jerked back his hands just in time as the cat’s claws came out with a swipe. Then, gracefully and furiously, Lucky bounded down the top of the stall railings, leapt to the ground, and darted back into his room.

  Lucas wheeled around to see what spooked the cat so much, and a bright flash went off from the other side of the barn.

  “Who’s there?!” Lucas hollered as he jumped down and ran to the large closed doors. His heart thumped harder in his chest with every step. Lucas crashed into the doors, but they didn’t fly open like he thought they would. Instead they buckled and pushed him back to the ground.

  From under the slatted doors, Lucas could make out a shadow of someone running so fast that they slipped first, then scrambled back up, kicking dirt that puffed into the barn. Whoever it was, Lucas must have scared them.

  By the time Lucas found a knot in the wood to peek through, the stranger was gone. A chain was locked around the barn doors’ handles, holding them tightly shut. Lucas wished he’d noticed the chain before he tried to crash through the barn like the incredible Hulk. As he sat there, his heart steadied, and Lucas wondered what he would have done if the chain hadn’t been there. In a huff, he turned and went back the way he entered, through his mirror. But not before he turned off the gaslights, dimming the barn into the darkness from which it came.

  Safe in his room, Lucas shut the mirror door and pushed the heavy dresser in front of it. Moving the giant piece of furniture left four deep scratches in the wood floor. Lucas sat against the dresser, breathing hard and feeling his muscles burn all over. Under his bed, a set of eyes glowed. It was Lucky.

  The cat jumped onto Lucas’s lap and curled up into a ball. Both of them bristled with the same nervous energy.

  “It’s okay,” said Lucas, even if he didn’t really believe it. He stared at the mirror, waiting for it open. Lucas held his breath. It was one way to stop his wheezing. He felt the silence all around him, but stayed focused on the mirror. Then Lucky launched from his lap with a hiss and scrambled out of the room. Lucas heard the cat’s claws sliding along the wood floor in a frantic escape. But escape from what?

  He looked back toward the mirror. It rattled in its doorway, shaking the reflection of the entire room. The sound of heavy breathing was muffled behind the thin glass. Whatever was hidden there had come for Lucas.

  He slowly backed away from his room to the front of the house. Lucas told himself there must be a logical explanation for this. Maybe one of the workers was adding a fountain back there? Maybe they were taking down a wall somewhere that was causing the mirror to shake? But the “better not be too logical if you want to stay alive” side of Lucas wanted to get out of Sweetwater Manor immediately. He reached the front door, pulled it open, and stumbled backward with a gasp.

  Bess was standing in front of him with her hand raised, about to knock. She didn’t jump, but instead smiled. “How’d you know I was here? Were you spying on me?”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Lucas snapped. His cheeks started to burn. “Is this all a joke to you? Are you trying to scare me out of here?”

  Bess’s eyebrows rose. “What’s that now?”

  Lucas cut her off. “In the barn. Did you, like, take a picture of me or something? There was a flash and the doors were chained and the mirror shook.”

  “Slow down, city boy.” Bess raised her arms gently like she was trying to calm a frightened animal. “I don’t know anything about a barn and I’m not taking pictures of you. What kind of weirdo do you think I am?”

  Lucas wasn’t sure if she really wanted him to answer that. “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I brought you a bike.” She pointed behind her. “Like I promised.”

  “What?” Lucas shook his head. A black BMX bike with dark blue tires leaned against the porch railing. “You came over? With a bike? In the rain?”

  “Rain? It’s not raining.” Bess was right. The evening was clear, and the sun was dipping just beneath the trees. “It hasn’t rained all day.”

  Lucas patted his shirt; it was still damp from the sudden storm that afternoon. “Yes, it did. My mom and I, we were in an accident. We hit some animal with our car. Then there was a thunderstorm, rain everywhere. We barely made it back here.”

  Bess gasped. “Whoa. You hit an animal? What did it look like?”

  “Big? I don’t know. Big enough to bounce off our car and then run into the woods.” Lucas nudged past her out onto the porch as he closed the door.

  “Hmm,” Bess said. “It sounds like you had a wild day. Maybe if we just go back inside, then—”

  “No,” Lucas interrupted her. “I have a better idea.” Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the stairs. They raced around the house in the direction of Lucas’s room.

  “Where are we going?” asked Bess.

  Lucas waved off her question and motioned for Bess to keep quiet.

  Bess dug her heels in the dirt and stopped immediately. Then she shook her hand out of his. “No, you can’t tell me to shut up,” she snapped. “Either you tell me where we’re going or you’re on your own. I don’t do the sidekick thing.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Sorry. Like you said, it’s been a wild day.”

  Bess kept him locked in her stare. “Yeah, Hounds Hollow will do that to you. Where are we going … and why?”

  Lucas’s eyes skittered around in his head as he tried to think of the most sane way to tell her what had happened. “I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise to keep an open mind.”

  She nodded. “I promise.”

  “Right, well …” L
ucas paused before launching into the long-winded replay of his day. The secret room, the stalls, the rain, the accident, the flash, the shadow, Bess listened to all of it without saying a word.

  “So you want to see if someone’s spying on you?” asked Bess.

  Lucas nodded.

  “You should have said so in the first place,” said Bess as she took the lead and started running again. “He could be anywhere by now.”

  Lucas rolled his eyes and darted after her. “You should have said so in the first place,” he mimicked under his breath.

  Bess made it to the barn doors first, but no one was there. “Looks like they’re gone now. You said there was a flash?”

  “Yeah, like a camera, but it was super bright,” Lucas huffed as he caught up to her. He bent down and put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Running wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered. Neither was running to catch potential maniacs. Suddenly he realized exactly how crazy and dangerous it was to run after this stranger.

  “And you didn’t see them?” asked Bess. “Was it a worker? Was it the boy in the suit you saw earlier?”

  “I don’t know, but—” Lucas spit into the dry dirt underneath him. “Wait a minute. I didn’t tell you that the boy was wearing a suit. How’d you know?”

  “Sure you did, didn’t you?” Bess said. “I thought you did. So it was him.”

  Lucas was certain he hadn’t told Bess anything about the suit. “All I saw was a pair of legs and a bunch of dust kicked up near the barn doors.” He walked over and studied the ground. “Hmm.”

  “Hmm you found something or hmm I haven’t run in years and now I’m going to keel over and have a heart attack?” Bess joked.

  “It wasn’t a worker,” Lucas confirmed.

  Bess joined him as they both knelt close to the ground. “How can you tell?”

  “The dirt,” said Lucas as he pointed to a set of footprints that danced in the dry ground. “It tells us three things. One, whoever was here was a kid. Look at these Nike shoe prints. Workers wouldn’t wear sneakers like that on-site, and they definitely don’t have feet this small. Two, look at how the prints are repeated in the dirt. That means it’s only one kid.”