The Haunting

by E. M. MacCallum

  “Why would he want to give her one? It would mean she could go home,” Joel argued. “He was more than happy to trade her before.” His stony expression never wavered. “What did you two talk about? When he’s stealing you off while we’re left behind?”

  Robin opened her mouth to ask when Cody touched her arm, silencing her.

  “We talked about the Challenge,” I said slowly. It wasn’t exactly a lie. I tried to think of what to do. Face the truth and risk them leaving me behind? I felt sick at the thought. I knew Joel would drop me the second he could, but would Phoebe? Phoebe, who turned around to come back for me? How about Cody? Who had helped me escape the wolves in the first Challenge? Or Robin, who was scared of everything except balconies? Then there was Read, who had always been my buddy in the real world, but here things were different. Survival meant a lot to us as individuals rather than the group. We could die here. Cooper never had a chance.

  “What about it? What couldn’t you discuss in front of the rest of us?” Joel loomed like a menacing shadow.

  I glared up at him, standing my ground. “We talked about…” I saw all three of my friends staring at me as I answered as cryptically and simply as I could, “…me.”

  “You?” Joel gritted his teeth, unsatisfied.

  “Yes and it’s none of your business,” I snapped.

  “Why would he want to talk about you?” Joel continued, ignoring my demands completely. “What is so special about you? He could talk about any one of us, but he keeps choosing you.”

  I realized that I didn’t want to tell Joel. If it were just me and my friends, I might have been able to spill the truth easier, but with Joel’s accusing stares and snide remarks, I wasn’t sure if I could reveal the power. “We talked about my sister.”

  “Mona or Caitlin?” Phoebe asked.

  I shook my head, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at them.

  Neive had disappeared when we were five. The loss of her had stricken my parents so much that they had decided to move to Leland. Only one picture in the house saluted her memory.

  “No,” Phoebe whispered, understanding. “Your twin?”

  I nodded, squinting through my lashes to look at her. “My aunt,” or rather our mother, I shuddered at the thought, “knew about the Demon’s Grave. She tried to break into it. As a sacrifice, she had to use one of her own flesh and blood.”

  Robin pressed her hands to her mouth.

  I hated the dramatics and wanted Robin to turn her teary pale eyes away. I should have hated her for leaving me behind, and instead I wanted her to stop looking so sad.

  “Neive died, and I got away. At least I thought she had died. She’s here.”

  “Like here?” Robin’s bottom lip trembled. “In the Demon’s Grave?”

  I avoided meeting her gaze, fearing that the sight of her tears might spring my own. “Yeah. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was the tiger. I met her for the first time before this Challenge started.”

  “Was she older?” Phoebe asked. At Joel’s queried eyebrow, she added, “Time is different here. Maybe she was still a kid.”

  “No.” I waved my hands to stop her. “She looked the same age as me.”

  “Sooooo.” Joel stared at me, the malice melting away. “What happened to your aunt?”

  “Mental hospital,” I answered coolly, keeping my tone in check. “Aidan and I had to visit her to find out how to get back.”

  “Back to the Demon’s Grave. For us,” Phoebe whispered.

  Before I knew it, Robin knocked into me. If I hadn’t already been against the door, I might have been thrown onto the floor with the force she drew with her. She may be tiny, but the girl was a fierce hugger. “I’m so sorry, Nora,” she said.

  There it was. The shame that came from my self-righteous mental babble. They were scared and so was I. None of us were prepared for this, and if I wanted a group, I had to stop blaming them.

  I hugged her back, my arms easily wrapping around her. “That’s not all,” I said reluctantly.

  Robin loosened her grip but didn’t let me go as she leaned back to peer up at me.

  “There’s something about Neive and me that you guys should—”

  Before I could finish, I was interrupted by a sudden, bloodcurdling scream.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Pushing away from the door, I scrambled to the corner where Cody, Read, and Joel were already crowded. At the end of the hallway, I saw Claire. She was running, auburn hair flying behind her like a flag. She was moving so fast and hard that one trip could be dangerous.

  “Claire!” Joel bellowed, giving me a start.

  Claire flailed her arms. “Run!” She sounded as if she had been screaming for hours.

  At first, nobody moved until we saw the eight foot tall man stomp around the corner. This new monster wore oversized black boots and torn, dirtied clothes that were held together with suspenders and a rope belt. He was pasty, almost a stark white compared to his clothes. His skin was pinched with brutal scars and thick black stitches. Unfocused eyes swept the new hallway as he rounded it. He could barely turn his head due to the metal bolts on either side of his thick neck.

  “Holy crap, is that Frankenstein?” Phoebe asked.

  He was, but at the same time, he wasn’t. His head was a normal shape, but his body was overly large. He made two of Claire’s long runner’s strides look like a casual step.

  Cody fumbled to grab her arm along with Robin’s for a quick getaway.

  Joel broke from the group, running to grab Claire’s hand before spinning around to join us.

  We didn’t wait for them.

  Cody and Phoebe took the lead, having the longest legs. Robin was half dragged, half flying behind Cody. Read and I followed with Joel and Claire wheezing at our backs.

  I heard a gruff roar behind me as I sped through the endless hallways that bent in all kinds of ways to confuse us. I could only hope that we could find our way back to the door.

  Feeling weighed down by the cloak over my arm, I flung it at the wall. Lighter, I gained on the others. Read was falling behind. “Come on!” I shouted. “It’s no time to get tired now.”

  Read nodded slightly, his face drained of color but not of determination. Despite this, I still passed him, and Frankenstein was not slowing. The heavy tromping footsteps echoed down the corridors like death drums.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him again. His stitched, placid face remained emotionless even in triumph as he reached out a meaty hand for Claire. The monster nearly entangled sausage-fingers in her flying hair. Above his wheezing gasps and footfalls, I heard his unearthly groan. It was like creaking wood and rusty door hinges.

  I swallowed my panic just as I heard a yelp ahead. My foot caught something before I could register that it was Robin. I cried out as I tripped over her fallen body. I think my foot had snagged her shoulder as her scream was abruptly cut short. My toes throbbed as I rolled to the side just as Joel leapt over Robin, not bothering to stop.

  Claire didn’t either. Tears streaked her dirt-smeared face. She took a long jump over Robin’s fragile little figure without a downward glance. Fearing that she’d be trampled by the monster, I reached out for her, knowing in a way that I would never get to her in time. It was instinctual, hardly practical. Dazed, Robin’s clear green eyes met mine just as the monster’s hand reached down and caught her arm, swinging her up effortlessly.

  Robin’s high-pitched scream echoed down the hallway, halting everyone who was several feet ahead.

  Staggering to my feet, I used the wall to steady myself against the wave of dizziness.

  The monster was awkward in a way, his movements stiff, slower, but his size and strength was incontrovertible.

  I stared at Robin, helplessly aware of the vivid memory of abandonment.

  His pinched, stitched flesh stretched as Robin made to claw at his face, shrieking and whimpering. Steel staples could be seen at the base of his throat. The flesh stretched loose and
folded over them whenever Frankenstein tilted his head forward. Turning as if the rest of us didn’t exist, Frankenstein lumbered back down the hallway with the same hurried, thunderous strides.

  Cody nearly ran into me. “Stop that thing!”

  Phoebe bolted past all of us and raced down the corridor. Cody fell in behind her without a word.

  “Nooooo,” Claire moaned, gripping Joel’s shirt so hard her knuckles turned white.

  “We can’t let it take Robin,” I said over my shoulder. Read stared wordlessly down the corridor, his handsome face emotionless.

  I started to run until Read’s gray eyes met mine. He turned around with Joel and Claire, who were moving in the opposite direction.

  Let them go, I thought and hurried after Phoebe and Cody.

  My legs were beginning to feel like jelly as I rounded the first corner. All this running tightened my chest and sapped what little energy I had left. I tried to keep up, but they were too far ahead. At each corner, I’d catch a glimpse of a leg or blonde hair as they’d round the next corner, but catching up proved impossible. We backtracked through the labyrinth of corridors, but every hallway looked the same.

  Gasping beside me, Read slumped and said, “Where did they go?”

  I looked to him, stunned. “I thought you were going with them.”

  “Couldn’t leave you guys behind,” he said, drawing in a ragged breath. Read was never much of an athlete. He was the artistic type with fashionable hair, good looks, and a wiry physique. He drove most girls at our college crazy.

  “Thanks,” I said to him and patted him on the back. Catching my breath, I called, “Phoebe?”

  “Cody?” Read shouted, then he lapsed into a coughing fit.

  We walked slower, rounding the next corner to see a door. It was wedged between two windows, much like the one we’d left behind, except this was our way out. And here we were separated and scattered throughout a castle. As I rounded that corner, I saw Phoebe slumped against the wall. I couldn’t see Cody, but I could hear his shouting. Cody was a soft-spoken person; I’d rarely heard him shout or scream or rant. But, at this moment, his voice sent shivers up my spine.

  Speeding up to a rough jog, I reached Phoebe before Read. “What happened?” I asked.

  Read collapsed next to Phoebe, looking ready to hurl.

  “It went into that study.” Phoebe gestured and flopped her arm back down in her lap. Sweat gleamed across her forehead, and her lips looked pale. Read patted her leg, and she grimaced at first before offering a weak smile. “Hi, buddy.”

  “Hi,” he said, a rattle in his throat.

  I went to the T-intersection that we’d originally started in, listening for Cody. I peered around a corner and saw Cody punching at the closed door to the library with all his might, then ramming his shoulder into it. Bouncing off, he clutched his shoulder as if it’d betrayed him.

  “Locked?” I asked, looking back to Phoebe and Read on the ground.

  Phoebe raised her eyebrows at me as if to say, “What do you think?”

  “So Frankenstein has Robin?” Claire asked.

  I startled; I hadn’t even heard the two of them approach. Standing straight, I eyed the two of them. “Decided to come back?”

  “There was a dead end,” Joel muttered.

  Claire pointed to the hallway where Cody pounded on the door. “Frankenstein has her, though?” she repeated.

  “Well,” Read said, “Frankenstein’s monster.”

  Joel’s face pinched as it usually did when he was ready to start an argument. “That thing wasn’t Frankenstein?”

  “Misconception.” Read struggled to catch his breath, paling. “Frankenstein is the name of the scientist who made the monster. The thing he created was never named.”

  “How do you know this?” Phoebe asked, brushing perspiration from her brow.

  He shrugged. “Did a paper on Mary Shelley once.”

  “So how do we get Robin back?” Cody demanded, striding down the hallway, his hands balled into fists. Both of his bare shoulders and fists had bloodied, peeled skin on them.

  Claire’s face contorted, and she started crying all over again, deep shuddering sobs. She buried her face in Joel’s neck.

  “What?” Cody asked, sounding impatient.

  Joel shrugged.

  “We can’t get her back!” Claire wailed.

  We all stared at her, waiting for her to continue.

  She kept her face buried, her knees threatening to collapse if it weren’t for Joel’s arm secured around her waist.

  “Why won’t she come back?” Cody asked, a vein in his temple pulsing.

  “Claire…” Phoebe warned.

  Claire lifted her head, brushing strands of her auburn hair away. On any other day, I may have gained a bit of pleasure seeing her runny make-up and ripped manicure, but today it made her look broken. Cowering, she began to shiver. “Frankenstein or whatever wanted a bride. He needed more girls…” She swallowed hard, her lips trembling. “I watched him…I watched him…” She struggled to take a breath.

  “Were there other girls in there with you, Claire?” I asked.

  Phoebe stiffened on the floor, watching Claire closely.

  Claire nodded and broke down into tears again.

  “Holy crap,” Phoebe said softly. “He chopped one up in front of her.”

  “Claire,” I said as calmly as I could. Despite the minor tremble in my voice, I was a little proud of how easily I said her name. “They weren’t real. Those girls aren’t like you and me.”

  “No,” Cody broke in. “But Robin is. That thing has Robin.”

  “The girls were made-up?” Claire asked, hands on her face.

  I nodded and could only pray that I was right. The men who’d kidnapped my sister and me had been real. What others could be here for the eternally punished? Who needed Hell when there was the Demon’s Grave?

  “That doesn’t mean that we can’t get her back,” Cody said. “There’s still time.”

  Claire’s eyes shifted sympathetically up to him, but she was wise enough to keep her lips sealed.

  I turned to Read, who still sat on the floor next to Phoebe. “What can you tell us about Frankenstein?”

  Read stared up at me with glassy grey eyes, then looked to Cody uneasily. “I don’t know how we could save her,” he said.

  “No,” Phoebe started. “You don’t have to. Just educate us. Maybe there is some way we can get Robin out of there. You said that Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the monster.”

  Read nodded. “His creator was Victor Frankenstein.”

  “It wasn’t green,” Claire said suddenly, stopping our conversation cold.

  After a pause, Phoebe asked, “What did you say?”

  “Well,” Claire’s eyes darted from face to face, “in the old movies, he had green skin.”

  “It was black and white movies, Claire,” Joel pointed out.

  Read held up his hands. “No, no. She’s right. The actor wore green paint for skin. The posters also showed him with green skin.”

  I lowered myself beside Read and Phoebe. It was obvious we wouldn’t be springing into action right away. Joel and Claire sat opposite us beside the niche’s opening. Cody stayed standing, tensed and cautious.

  Read touched his lip with his thumb for a second as he thought it over. “Um…Victor was supposed to be rich. He went to school and started experimenting with reviving dead matter. I think it was Darwin’s theory or achievement or something at the time. Not ‘evolution Darwin,’ his grandpa, I think. I wrote this paper like three years ago.”

  “It’s ok, Read, keep going,” Phoebe encouraged.

  The corner of his mouth twitched as Read began again. “Hollywood really started this whole pieces of different corpses and stitching them together thing. There isn’t a reference to that in the book. I think that Shelley called him a golem.”

  “Golem?” Joel asked.

  “Yeah, kind of a big head, big shoulders,
dumb…kind of like you, Joel.”

  Oh, so they did know each other. I smirked and pretended my nose was itchy.

  Claire grabbed Joel’s hand before he could get up.

  “A golem is this creature being created from matter. Something living out of something…inanimate. Usually they’re rocks and sometimes stupid.” Read’s eyes flickered towards Joel but restrained from striking the punch line we were all waiting for.

  “Unlike a golem, the monster became intelligent,” Read continued. “It hid and watched a family for a year. It learned from them and became self-aware. In the end, it sought revenge on its maker, Victor. It killed his younger brother, a maid, and then his bride on their wedding night.”

  “So what kills it?” Cody asked. “Fire?”

  “Maybe,” Read said with a grimace. “But that’s mostly Hollywood again. In the book, Victor chased the monster to the Arctic and eventually died aboard the ship. The monster finds his dead maker and disappears into the tundra.”

  “What about Franken…the monster’s bride?” Phoebe asked.

  “Hollywood,” Read answered. “I mean, the monster demanded that Victor make him a companion, but Victor had been so disgusted by the idea that he refused. That was kind of the end of it.”

  “Then why does that one want a wife?” Claire pointed towards the niche behind Cody. “He told me what he was doing with us. There was…bits all over the table.”

  “Bits?” Phoebe threw up her arms to stop Claire from explaining further. “So this thing that got Robin. It was sewed together and wants a bride. But it didn’t have green skin or a square head. It’s like a mix of the two, the book and movies.”

  “Looks that way,” Read agreed.

  “So,” I said, clasping my hands together, “we have to find Victor.”

  Read stared at me, dumbfounded. “What?”

  “When he dies, the monster does too.” I glanced at Cody to see his eyes wide with hope. “I mean, it makes sense. Doesn’t it? It walked off into the Arctic, probably to die, and maybe Victor can help us find it.”

  Phoebe nodded at me with a smirk. “Okay, let’s go see what we can find.”

  Phoebe and I stood up together. Read was slower. Claire and Joel helped each other to their feet, whispering softly to each other. Looking back, I saw Cody striding down the hallway. I tried my best to keep up with him. Cody rounded the corner and staggered back with a yell. His face reddened with fury as he ran back and kicked at something solid.