Since there was no sound from the entire village, it was easy to hear her.
“Poor children?” Phoebe asked in a whisper.
I shook my head and reached out to tug at Phoebe’s shorts. “We don’t exactly look like we belong.”
Phoebe in her short blue-jean shorts and tube top. Read in his ripped shirt and jeans. Cody without a shirt and blood smeared on his face, chest, and jeans. Then there was Joel, who held a bloody rag around his finger. Claire in her slender dirtied jeans and tight-forming t-shirt. Then there was me in my penguin pajama shorts, T-shirt, and socks. Oh yes, we were quite the sight.
The man on the buggy had to be in his forties. He leapt out of his seat and scrambled to another man with a dark, bushy beard. The rest of the men migrated toward the conversation, their eyes flickering between us and the older gentleman with the beard.
“This can’t be good,” Cody said, goosebumps prickling up his arms and chest.
I agreed with him.
“Told you we should’ve scouted it out,” Joel said.
“And let them find us? That’s a great first impression,” Phoebe said. “If they’re nice, they’ll show us right away.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Joel waved it off. “This isn’t a town near Leland, you know.”
Sneaking a peek at the villagers, our anxiety settled back into place, and we fell awkwardly quiet.
“I think we should just start walking,” Cody whispered to us, his eyes intent. “If we ask around, maybe we can locate Victor Frankenstein.”
Phoebe stepped forward, hesitated, and glanced back to me. “What do you think?” she asked.
I nodded, not feeling confident. “Okay.”
Joel was left sputtering; I could only assume that he protested the idea.
Cody started to approach the closest individual, a girl no older than sixteen. She immediately recoiled when she saw him.
Phoebe stepped in front of him. “Scare the girl to death, will you? You’re half naked.”
Cody crossed his arms over his bare chest, blushing in the moonlight.
Phoebe edged towards the girl, holding up her hands as a sign of peace. “I just want to ask a few questions.”
The girl’s eyes shifted between our faces uneasily.
“We were wondering if you knew a man named Victor Frankenstein?” Phoebe asked.
The girl bit her lips together, eyes shifting to the grouped men. They were still submersed in their conversation.
“Please,” Phoebe implored.
A woman approached, grabbing the girl’s arm and pulling her back with them. The women were beginning to draw back into the houses. This wasn’t good.
“Excuse me!” I startled not only the group of men but my group as well.
The eldest man looked up, his spiky eyebrows furrowing and his eyes grim.
“We’re looking for someone. Just one question. Then we’ll leave you alone. I promise,” I said to him, anxious to avoid problems.
The man held my gaze until I looked away, much to my chagrin. He a stern look that reminded me of my dad.
He stood amongst the men, hands on his hips, and eyed us all up as if we were a bunch of criminals. “What question?” he said at last.
Cody asked this time. “Do you know where we might find Victor Frankenstein?”
The man paused, eyes never wavering. “Yes,” he answered at last.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cody breathe.
“Where?” Phoebe asked.
The man scowled at Phoebe then at me. “Do you let these women take charge?” he asked Cody. “Are you not a man?”
Phoebe’s face turned scarlet. I grabbed her arm to warn her. We couldn’t make a scene, not here, not with these people. Apparently, my warning wasn’t good enough.
“Want to see my fist take charge of your face?” she snapped, stepping forward.
Immediately, all the men except the eldest stepped back. One whispered, “Bitch.” I was surprised I could hear it over the din of voices that protested Phoebe’s claim. The old man nodded to the whisperer behind him.
“Did he just…?” I began.
“We’ll take you to him if it means you won’t come back,” the eldest man said sternly.
Phoebe nodded vigorously. “You bet.”
The man motioned for us to follow.
As we walked through the village, everyone that we passed gave us the third degree. The women closed the shutters or curtains as we passed. The bustling streets were swiftly subdued and quiet.
Finally, we reached the outskirts of the town and saw the tree-less graveyard. Tall tombstones that varied in size spanned the edge of town. Stabbed in the middle was a lanky, straw-stuffed scarecrow. His arms were hanging lifeless at the elbows. Nails had been lodged into the arms and throat of the scarecrow to keep him upright. The pole it draped on was crudely shaped like a Christian cross.
“Why would Damien put a scarecrow in a cemetery?” Phoebe asked.
Read shrugged. “A pesky crow problem?”
I shook my head. “Better question. Why crucify it?”
Phoebe and Cody gave me a funny look. I ignored their confusion and stopped on the edge of the grass. No fences housed the cemetery here.
“He’s in there. Past the scarecrow. Don’t come back.” The man turned to face us as he spoke. His eyes darkened as he repeated, “Don’t—come—back.”
Phoebe smiled bitingly. “Oh, we got it.” With a final gloating gesture, she waved the man off. “Guess it’s time for you to leave.”
He gave Phoebe one last stern look before turning and heading back into the village. He ducked into one of the houses on the empty street, never looking back.
Read spoke first. “Okay, but remember, nobody can split up here. We’re in here together.”
We all nodded in agreement, except for Joel.
“Do we just walk in?” Cody asked.
A heavy fog hid half the cemetery, higher and thicker than what had appeared in the first cemetery I’d walked into. It reached as high as the sky, nearly smothering the moon.
Claire whimpered behind me. “This isn’t good,” she said.
“Okay, let’s go,” Phoebe said and motioned for us to follow her.
We followed in our tight little group. Not a single person dared to be out of arm’s reach of one another.
“Should we call his name?” Cody asked.
Joel snorted. “That’s right. Let’s draw attention to ourselves.”
I grimaced and tilted my head back to look up at Cody. “I hate to agree with him, but let’s stay quiet for now. We don’t know what could be out here.”
Cody leaned closer to me to whisper, not that it could conceal our conversation from the others. “If Damien kept your sister for this long, maybe he doesn’t mean to kill Robin.”
“Cooper never made it.” Joel’s eyes were steely. “He’s dead. If this bastard wants to kill your girlfriend, he will.”
Cody grit his teeth but didn’t say anything further.
Filled with an awful silence, I tried to count how many tombstones I could see before the thickening fog blurred them into shadows. I counted twelve rows. It was nice to be able to avoid the thought of Neive.
A sharp peel of laughter squealed in my ears. The sound threw itself around us as if bouncing from surround-sound speakers. We stopped dead in our tracks. My hair bristled, and I expected something to come flying out of the fog. Instead, everything went quiet.
“What was that?” Claire whispered.
“Sounded like a woman,” Cody said softly.
“I knew it,” Joel grumbled. “We shouldn’t have trusted that guy. I bet Victor isn’t even in here.”
Read shrugged. “Who knows? Though the books didn’t really say that he robbed graves, the movies did. He still could be here.”
“Like he’s in trouble?” Cody asked.
Read shrugged.
The sharp laughter erupted again, sounding closer than before, and it wasn’t a sol
itary voice. Several female voices joined in the shrieking amusement.
“Sounds like witches,” Phoebe rasped, eyes wide.
The laughter had been so loud it was as if the women had been right next to us, but as they faded, they could have been back in the village. Where were they coming from?
Claire shuddered. “Is that the next challenge? Witches?”
I felt a jolt as I recalled the man in the village. “One of those guys back there. I thought he called Phoebe a bitch. He must have said witch.”
“Why call me a witch?” Phoebe asked with raised eyebrows.
Read crossed his arms over his chest as the fog’s moisture chilled the air. “Maybe this is where they keep witches?”
“How are we going to win against magic?” Cody asked. “I mean, I saw some of those cheesy witch movies before. They don’t seem that easy to kill.”
We all turned to Read. His eyes widened. “How should I know? I did a paper on Mary Shelley, not witches.”
Claire raised her hand to catch our attention. “I might have an idea.” She continued in a low voice. “Salt. Witches hate salt.”
“Are you sure?” Cody asked. “I mean, we can’t take chances here.”
Claire nodded. “I know, and I’m sure about this salt thing. I saw it in a movie once.” She turned around and started to back track.
“Wait, a movie once isn’t sure,” Cody argued in a hushed voice and reached out to snatch her before she wandered too far from us.
Joel swatted Cody’s arm away and went for Claire himself. “Where are you going?”
Startled, Claire half turned so the rest of us could hear. “I’m going back to that village. They’ll have salt there. At least, they should.”
Phoebe frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know about you guys, but I remember telling that old man that we wouldn’t come back. I don’t think that they’d like us very much if we waltzed back in. They might end up being more dangerous than whatever it is out here.”
“They just didn’t like you,” Claire defended. “What could they possibly do?”
“Mob mentality,” Phoebe smiled at Claire as if she was a child.
Claire swallowed loud enough for me to hear.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Cody chimed in.
Joel’s eyes narrowed. “What if a guy went? Just by himself?”
“Are you volunteering?” I asked.
He glowered. “Say that I am.”
“That’s splitting up,” Cody said.
“Not if you guys stay at the edge of the cemetery. We could still see the houses from there. If something happens…” Joel trailed off as his imagination filled in the rest, rendering him speechless.
“Okay.” I rubbed my arms against the cold. “Let’s say for argument’s sake you go back into the town. What would you buy the salt for? You think these people will just give up goods for free?”
“Well, I have a quarter.” Claire dug into her pocket and pulled out a shiny coin.
Read was shaking his head already. “They won’t have our currency. If this is near Geneva or something like that, it would be different.”
“I don’t know.” Claire threw up her hands. “You have any better ideas on defending ourselves against these things?”
“If they are witches. And let’s say salt does work,” Phoebe said out loud. She grimaced at the idea but nodded. “I’m not seeing a whole hell of a lot of choice.”
Read didn’t appear pleased with the result, and neither was I. I glanced over my shoulder to see that I could count eight rows of tombstones. “The fog is getting thicker. If we do this, we better be fast about it.”
Joel took Claire’s elbow in his good hand and pulled her along with him, back the way we came. The rest of us followed on their heels.
“Hey, but what if something happens?” I asked as we strode towards the edge of the cemetery.
Phoebe prodded me with her elbow, a humorless smile stretching across her face. “Then we run.”
“You can’t expect to walk through this challenge without running,” Cody agreed. The two of them shared the amusement. I wasn’t sure what they found so funny, but I wasn’t having a good time. Maybe it was the stress of being here. A little beguilement amongst all this horror may be what they needed.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I grumbled, rubbing my arms. My legs had sprouted with goosebumps at this point. I noticed that no one seemed that comfortable with the temperature change.
Phoebe scrunched up her face before saying, “Alright, Joel, you’re right. We’ll just get the salt. It’s better than going with nothing at all.”
Lining up along the grass at the edge of the cemetery, we all stared at Joel as his attention was fully on Claire. She smiled warmly at him, kissing him on the lips before he let her go. It was still shocking to see their affection. Without a backwards glance, Joel took long, purposeful strides into the town.
Phoebe shuffled closer to me. Taking her lead, I motioned for the others to come closer. Cody was freezing; his arm felt like ice. It took some willpower not to wiggle away from him. Claire clung to Read. Read kept glancing between us and Joel, who stalked towards the closest house, his head lowering the nearer Joel drew to the home. A single light was on inside to let us know at least not everyone was asleep. Also, I was sure it wasn’t the home of the eldest man who had warned us not to return.
Joel knocked on the front door. He still refused to turn his head in our direction as we watched with bated breath. He stood there for a long time—or maybe it just felt that way to me—before he knocked on the door again, louder this time.
I saw a flicker of light from a house across the street. The curtains moved, but otherwise there weren’t any disturbances.
The house that Joel stood at remained quiet.
“This is a bad idea,” I heard Phoebe whisper. I couldn’t agree more but kept it to myself.
Joel gave a start as the door he was in front of opened with a jerk. Collecting himself, he spoke to someone out of our sight. He kept his tone soft at least. We couldn’t see who he was talking to, but it felt like his conversation lasted an eternity.
I glanced over my shoulder at the thickening fog. I counted eight rows of tombstones instead of ten. Turning back to the scene, I saw Joel was gone. “What happened?” I whispered sharply.
“He went inside,” Phoebe answered.
The light inside cast shadows on the curtain, but it was hard to tell which was human and which was an object. Then movement revealed a struggle.
Claire gasped. “We have to help him,” she squeaked but didn’t move.
From where we stood, I could hear the shouts beginning to echo from the house.
“Let’s run,” Cody suggested.
“And leave him there?” Claire snapped.
Phoebe took a step forward. “Let’s get him out of there and—”
She never was able to finish her sentence. An explosion erupted from inside the house. It took a moment for my mind to register that the sound belonged to a rifle.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Joel!” Claire screamed and started to bolt forward. If it wasn’t for Read’s reflexes, she might have been out of our reach before any of us recovered. He caught her around the waist and lifted, swinging her back into our circle, kicking and shrieking.
The shrill rifle-shot still rang in my ears as Phoebe grabbed my arm to pull me back toward the cemetery. “We can’t let them see us,” she said, tugging furiously on my shirt. Unfastening my legs was harder than it should’ve been, but I turned with her.
Joel burst from the house, something large and heavy clutched to his chest. He started running toward us, head down, body hunched as if preparing for a tackle. Claire was the only one who waited, and Read released her to run with the rest of us.
I looked over my shoulder and nearly lost my balance.
Someone had burst from the house after Joel. A boy, he couldn’t have been older than four
teen, held a rifle in one hand and gave chase, his face twisted in fury. We weren’t as far ahead of them as I’d hoped.
Joel held a white sack under his arm like a football, catching up with Claire, who was several steps behind us.
I focused on what was in front of us just as we came upon the scarecrow.
The gunshot went off again, and I heard Claire’s scream. Phoebe and I both skidded to a stop and turned around to see Claire crumpled in the grass. Phoebe bolted past me and reached Joel as he half dragged, half carried the weeping Claire along the grass. She took Claire’s other arm, and together they picked up their pace.
I turned to start to run again when I found myself face to face with a wall of thick fog. It had built up rapidly while my back was turned. Without warning, two shadowy figures appeared in front of me, running from the fog. I held my breath, and with no time to move, I braced myself for an impact.
Read and Cody almost ran into me as they burst from the fog. Water glistened on their hair, skin, and clothes. “Jesus, that came from nowhere,” Cody gasped.
“Well get ready to run through it,” I said and took Read and Cody’s wrists. Trying to catch my breath, I commanded, “Cody, grab Phoebe. We can’t lose anyone in here—”
“Wait!” Read snapped.
I followed his gaze to see the villagers had stopped and were staring at the scarecrow just in front of me. Disgruntled, they started to back away, eyes flickering to us in disgust. Something behind us was far more dangerous. That is a comforting idea, I thought. Joel and Claire reached us, collapsing by the scarecrow’s wooden pole.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Her leg,” Phoebe answered. She inspected Claire’s bloodied calf as Claire groaned in protest. “Doesn’t look like anything went in, though.”
“You’re lucky,” Read said to Claire in a comforting voice.
“Why didn’t you drag her along with you?” Joel snapped.
“Because I wouldn’t have let them if they tried!” Claire pounded her fist into the grassy earth as Phoebe wrapped Cody’s shirt—which had been tied around her snake-bite from the last Challenge—around Claire’s calf.
The Haunting Page 8