8 Souls

by Rachel Rust

  “I um…” David stares down at the lock for a moment before finishing his thought. “I could come over and do it for you.”

  My face flushes at the thought of him stepping foot into my bedroom. But then another thought invades—Grandma would beat him senseless if she found him in my bedroom.

  “No, I’ll do it myself.”

  He stares down at his shoes. “Okay. Sure. It was a dumb idea any way.”

  “Not at all,” I say with a smile. He meets my gaze and smiles back. “It wasn’t a dumb idea. It’s just that my grandparents are a little…old-fashioned.”

  His smile widens. His hair is short and parted to one side. A bit old-fashioned itself and certainly different from the mop-top boys at my high school. I get the feeling that he really does think it was a dumb idea, him going into my bedroom. Like it was somehow improper.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  “Seventeen.”

  “What grade?”

  “Just graduated this past weekend,” he says. “I’ll be eighteen next week.”

  I huff. “Lucky. I bet you can’t wait to finally be an adult. I have to wait until November.”

  David doesn’t react, as if turning eighteen is no big deal. What kind of person doesn’t get a thrill out of the idea of being an independent adult? I’m counting down the days until my November birthday. Only 158 days to go until adulthood. Then it’s so long high school, hello college, and goodbye Mom and Dad.

  David continues with his uncomfortable silence, so I point to the lock in his hands. “How much?”

  He glances at his dad who’s still outside. “Don’t worry about it.”

  My eyes widen, as though he’s telling me to steal it. “No, seriously. How much?”

  “No seriously.” He mocks me with a little laugh. “Don’t worry about it. Your grandpa’s in here enough. He’s due a credit. Even if it is for a lock he doesn’t know about, to keep things hidden in a super-secret closet.”

  I shake my head. “Not super-secret, it’s…never mind.”

  He stares at me for what feels like forever, and I guard myself against him asking nosy follow-up questions. I really don’t want to talk about the giggly ghost child, or the fact that I may be going legit crazy. But he doesn’t pry. Instead, he walks me back to the front of the store and stashes the lock in a white plastic bag. As I take the bag from him, he pulls his hand back, as though not wanting to touch me.

  Old-fashioned, indeed.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’ll let you know how the installation turns out.”

  He grins. “Good luck.”

  I say goodbye and walk out, making the bell go twice. As my feet shuffle down the sidewalk, my head is still in the hardware store, staring at those brown eyes.

  The same brown eyes I’ve seen before. If only I could remember when and where.

  Chapter Seven

  I take the long way home, down the main street of Villisca. Past the Sally Jo hair salon. Past the Rolling Stone Café. Past the Rusty Nail bar, which is closed, but someone is spraying water on the side of the building. Probably puke or piss from last night…or both.

  I walk by the small city park and the Lutheran church and then make a wide circle through residential streets, passing by houses and a few open lots. To my right, off the sidewalk, begins a tall chain-link fence, overgrown with vines. I place my fingers against it, letting them drag across the fence, bouncing off each metal coil as I walk. The vibration of the fence goes up my arm, lulling my senses.

  When the fence ends, my fingers slip off it, into empty space. The sidewalk has also ended, and there’s gravel under my feet—a driveway. Through the empty space of the fence, I expect to see a house. But headstones stare back.

  The town cemetery.

  The open space of the cemetery sends a gust of wind straight into me, as though banishing me from its presence. My feet pivot toward the headstones and start down the gravel drive, despite my pleading mind’s desire to move away from dead people.

  The headstones vary in age. Some are new with twenty-first-century dates and sharply etched epitaphs. Others are white with 1800s dates, their etchings worn down, making names hard to read.

  I walk through the grid-like rows, ignoring the thoughts of bodies under my feet. Although, most are probably skeletons by now—not that bare bones are much comfort. Worse, actually. What I hate most about skeletons is their smile. They all smile. They can’t help it.

  I stop at a low headstone that stretches several feet in length.

  The Moore family.

  Husband and wife, Josiah and Sarah. Their kids, Herman, Mary, Boyd, and Paul. The long piece of rock doesn’t say how they died, but it doesn’t need to. Everyone knows. They were killed with an axe in 1912—across the street from my bedroom window. Hacked to death in my dream house. They are the bodies I sometimes see when I close my eyes at night.

  I kneel and remove a string of dried grass from across Paul’s name. He was only five when he died. Nearly a baby. I wonder if his knuckles had been dimpled like Amelia’s had.

  I circle around the Moore family and find another familiar name: Stillinger.

  Sisters Lena and Ina are buried side by side. Also victims of the axe. Just twelve and eight years old, respectively, when they died. The Axe Murder House wasn’t even their home. They had been sleepover guests. A horrific case of wrong place, wrong time.

  Eight people perished in one quiet night, their lives stolen away by an unknown killer.

  Wind hits my back, sending all my hair flying. A flock of black birds takes off across the cemetery and I jump.

  “Hey, you!” a stern voice calls out. I whip around, nearly losing my balance. An old man in a black T-shirt approaches. His face is gaunt with deep wrinkles, and he looks half-dead himself. “Watcha doin’ here?”

  “Um, I was taking a walk.”

  He nods to the Stillinger headstone and grumbles, “They get enough grief with looky-loos, so go on and leave ’em alone.”

  I step back.

  “Go on!” he shouts, raising his hand toward the opening in the fence.

  I spin on my heel and retreat. I don’t look back at the old guy as I turn the corner out of the cemetery. In fact, I don’t look back at all as I head straight back to my grandparents’ house, walking faster than normal.

  When I get to the house, I find Grandma and Grandpa outside, standing by their backyard fence, talking to the neighbors.

  It’s the perfect opportunity for my stealthy plan.

  I sneak into the garage and open all the cabinet doors, only to find old cans of paint and car cleaning supplies. But on the corner of the workbench sits a black briefcase-like container, and inside is a yellow and black cordless drill.

  I rush into the house and up the stairs. The installation of the closet lock goes pretty well. The lock isn’t lined up perfectly, so it catches a little, but it works. I close the door all the way, slide the lock, and the door doesn’t budge.

  “Good luck opening that, whatever you are,” I whisper.

  But my voice quivers. Things are escalating quickly—in ways I don’t understand and for reasons that escape me. I can only hope that a cheap hardware store lock will help.

  I sneak the drill back into the garage. As I reenter the house a few minutes later, Grandma calls out to me.

  “Chessie, set the table, please. Lunch will be ready in about ten minutes.”

  “Okay, just a sec.”

  I tiptoe upstairs where the hallway and adjoining rooms are filled with sunshine and smell grandma-clean. I slip into the bathroom to pee, but as I wash my hands, something foul hits my nose, causing it to twitch.

  “Gross.” I step into the hallway, where the air is now heavy with the smell of pungent flesh. Raw, rotted meat. Like bloody steaks left out in warm temperatures. On top of that is a sharp metallic scent. Blood. Lots of blood. As if the entire upstairs is soaked in it.

  I walk toward my bedroom door, barely able to take a breath without gaggi
ng.

  The curtains in my bedroom are wide open, and sunlight pours onto the floor. Nothing looks amiss, but the smell is emanating from that space—my cheerful-looking bedroom. It’s as though the scent is coming in waves through the open door, inviting me in the most dreadful way.

  I don’t want to walk into the bedroom, but my feet shuffle closer. Something tells me I have to be in there. Whatever’s in the room, it’s waiting for me. This knowledge doesn’t come from my mind like other bits of information. It’s intuition, springing from my inner core. Whatever is in there, it wants me, and I have no choice.

  The grotesque air swirls around me. My arm tucks up under my nose to stifle the putrid scent that is stronger now, making me heave and cough.

  All my muscles go rigid as I step inside the room.

  The door slams shut behind me. I grab the knob and try twisting it, but it doesn’t move, as if glued shut. I scream to Grandma for help, but the sound of my voice is absorbed into the thick stench all around me. I pound on the door and try in vain to force it open, but I’m trapped.

  A soft shudder behind me makes me spin around. The wood molding around the windowpane vibrates in its tracks as the window raises all the way up. A rush of warm outside air infiltrates the room, along with another shot of rotting odor.

  The stench is coming from outside. My curiosity takes a step toward the window before the rational part of my brain can stop it.

  A wave of undulating heat slithers like an iridescent ribbon from the Axe Murder House to ours. It ebbs and flows, snaking its way toward my window.

  On the sidewalk, two little boys are riding their bikes—about to cross right through the ethereal waves.

  “Stop!” I scream at them, but they don’t react. My voice is once again absorbed by the heavy air around me.

  The boys ride right through the shimmering stretch of twisted heat, seemingly unaware of its presence. They don’t see it. It doesn’t affect them.

  It’s only for me, I think, taking a step back—and not a moment too soon.

  A gray mist reaches my window, split at the ends, like long fingers, grabbing the walls, pulling itself inside.

  I press my back against the door, as far from the grim form now gliding across the wood floors. The doorknob still won’t budge.

  The form isn’t in any familiar shape. It glides in all directions, filling the floor. It inches closer to me. I pull my feet in, but I can’t outmaneuver it and it wraps around my ankles. Warm, wet, and smelling of decay.

  From the window, one last tentacle of gray oozes down the wall. The window slams shut.

  I scream again, but the sound is cut off by an impenetrable wall of rancid air. The char of death fills my nose like hot smoke, choking me. I stumble, unable to breathe, unable to expel the rot from my lungs. The combination of fetid flesh and metallic blood trembles down my entire body.

  I collapse onto my knees, coughing and gagging.

  The misty smoke gathers like clouds, coalescing in the middle of the room, rolling and swirling as a large mass. The new sliding lock on my closet is undone with a sharp squeak of metal, and the door bursts open on its own. In a flash, the undulating mass of gray is sucked into the closet. The door then slams shut and relocks itself.

  The putrid air is ripped out of my lungs, and I take in a ragged breath of fresh air.

  I struggle to my feet, relieved to be free of the haze and its foulness. But my knees are weak.

  Then the room goes black and I collapse.

  …

  I stare up at the ceiling of my bedroom. My bones are brittle, as though charred black and ready to crumble. I’m not sure how long I was unconscious, but Grandma hasn’t checked on me yet, so it couldn’t have been that long.

  Everything around the room is normal. No mist. No open closet door. I roll onto my stomach, then hoist myself up onto my hands and knees. Using the wall, I scale up and get back onto my feet. My head is light, and I cling to the wall all the way downstairs.

  Lunch is soup and sandwiches. I sip lemonade and eat micro bites of bread, forcing a smile as Grandma discusses her plans for a new flowerbed around the garage. I say nothing about the events in my room. What was I supposed to tell them? Oh hey, guys, I might be having hallucinations, and a gray cloud of death tried to choke the life out of me. Hell no. I like my freedom, and I don’t want to end up back in a psych office.

  After years of hiding my secret recurring dreams, I’ve gotten really good at acting normal on the outside while scared and confused on the inside. Everyone has a talent, right?

  Grandma tries to get me to eat more than a few bites of sandwich, but my body simply won’t accept it. The back of my tongue is singed with the taste of blood. Not mine. That would be bad enough. But the taste of someone else’s blood is the most revolting thing I can think of. I swallow my last bite, trying not to gag.

  I help Grandma plant her new flowers after lunch. My body works on autopilot as I dig in the dirt, because my mind has shut down, unable to process the images and memories from earlier in the day.

  But my reprieve from reality doesn’t last long. After a late dinner and the evening news, Grandma shoos me upstairs for bed, saying I need to shower the dirt off and rest up.

  I take a long shower and then tiptoe into my room. Nothing looks or smells weird, but once in bed, I hoist the cover to my chin. Eyes wide, I stare at the ceiling, unwilling to look around, afraid of what I might see, and unwilling to close my eyes, afraid of what I might not see.

  I fight sleep, even though manual yard work has exhausted my body.

  The giggling starts almost right away. But tonight, it’s not one voice, it’s two. Two little giggles. Two kids. The melody of little kids is all around, as though an ingredient of the air itself.

  Above the giggling comes a new noise. A rustle on the floor. A soft grazing, like little bare feet shuffling around on wood floors, except it doesn’t seem to be moving in a single direction. It’s just there, all around me. All of the noise—the shuffling of feet, the giggling, the sound of children talking—it’s not coming from one particular place. It’s every direction all at once.

  I pull the covers over my head and sink down into my bed. The noises are muffled through the fabric, but they don’t waver. I’m staring at the blackened underside of my blankets when I hear it. A metal-on-metal squeak.

  My head shakes. No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to look. I don’t want to know what’s going on, I don’t want to see or smell anything weird again. I want to fall asleep and be a normal person and wake up in a normal house.

  Seriously, is that too much to ask?

  The squeaking stops. I slip the covers away from my face, my curiosity overcoming my fear. The closet door is wide open. I sit up with a start, hugging my covers to my chest. The blackness inside the closet is darker than the rest of the room, like a thick wall of tar. My clothes hanging inside aren’t visible—there’s only an undulating black mass of emptiness.

  A warm rush of air blasts from the blackness of the closet, whipping my face. I scramble off the bed. Digging my heels against the floor, I scoot back on my butt until I hit the far wall. My arms fly around my bent-up knees. The bedroom door is right in front of me. I want to run.

  But I can’t move, pinned down as though gravity has increased one hundred-fold.

  Heat creeps across the back of my neck, under my left ear. Something nudges my earlobe and I flinch.

  “Chessie,” a girl’s voice whispers into my ear, so close the hot breath tickles my skin.

  My hands fly up over my ears, but it doesn’t do any good. It’s as if she’s speaking from inside my ear—inside my head. I shake my head rapidly, as though that could expel her.

  “Help,” she says.

  “Help with what?” I whisper. I don’t mean to respond; it’s more of a random thought that escapes my head.

  “Help,” she whispers back.

  “Please stop!” I plead. My next words have to break through a barrier of fear
, because I don’t really want to know. “Who are you?”

  The closet door slams shut.

  I bolt to my feet and am out the door in two strides. I fly down the stairs and curl up under the quilt on the sofa. The heat is gone from my neck. The downstairs is calm. Nothing but the sound of CNN on the TV, the faint tick-tock of the clock—and the rapid pace of my heart.

  I tell Grandma and Grandpa that I’m fine, that I just can’t sleep. They don’t seem convinced but say nothing as I remain huddled under the blanket, watching TV. When they head to bed, they leave the remote in my hands. I channel surf but nothing holds my interest. The girl’s whispering is stuck in my mind. I hear her plea—Help.

  What does it mean? Help with what? And why me?

  I sleep with the sofa quilt over my head.

  In the morning, I dial a phone number I had been hoping I didn’t need.

  Chapter Eight

  It’s twelve ten in the afternoon, and I’m sitting in the Villisca City Park. It’s humid and cloudy, and the air is filled with the scent of fried grease, courtesy of The Rolling Stone Café across the street. I’m alone on my park bench, and an ancient-looking dude with his head hung to the side is on the next bench over. If not for the snoring, I’d assume he’s dead.

  The phone number from the GHOST911 flyer was answered by a boy named Mateo. If he had tried to contain his excitement over receiving a phone call, he didn’t succeed. After giving me a location, we set up a time to meet at noon. Which means he’s late.

  I feel stupid for having called the phone number. I’m used to dealing with things on my own—the recurring dreams, my parents fighting. And never before in my life have I ever come in contact with anything supernatural. Hell, I used to laugh at the absurdities of horror movies and all those cheesy ghost-hunting shows on TV. And I’ve been to Grandma and Grandpa’s house several times before and have never had any weird experiences. But something is messing with me now, and I have a feeling they won’t stop until I do whatever it is they want me to do.

  The sky is beginning to grow dark and weird-looking clouds are rolling in.