He turned away from his parents’ door. If he reached Robbie’s room and his uncle was in there, what then? That would leave far fewer options, and answer one, the primary one, being that there really was an intruder upstairs. He guessed then he could just wake Robbie up for protection. His uncle was, at least for the most part, more physically intimidating than his dad was.
But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
He neared his uncle’s room and felt his pulse quicken. He now hoped much more that his uncle wouldn’t be in the bedroom. The idea of going upstairs and asking Robbie to chill out so he could get some sleep seemed a lot easier to tackle than waking Robbie up to combat an intruder.
The bedroom door was cracked open just a few inches, which Toby didn’t remember seeing during his return from the bathroom. He nudged it open just a little further, just far enough to peek his head in like a gopher out a hole and get a look around the room. It was empty.
A barely measurable wave of relief surfaced under Toby’s skin. He pulled in a breath and laughed silently at how childish he was behaving. Of course it was Robbie upstairs and not some burglar. He had allowed his imagination to get the best of him. If it were a burglar, why in the world would he have been in the attic? Even if he was here to steal, there wasn’t anything to steal up there. He continued past Robbie’s room a little more confidently and then stopped at the attic door.
He started to turn the door handle but thought he heard a sound and let go, whipping around to face Paisley’s bedroom. He stood a moment, staring at the door, but didn’t hear it again. It was probably just his little sister rolling over in bed, sleeping, exactly like Toby should have been doing.
He twisted the attic door handle slowly and pushed it open. A bitter chill rushed out to meet him. That was it. At least one problem was solved. The cold air was definitely coming from the attic. He shivered, hugging himself for warmth, considering for a moment returning to his own room for a hoodie.
The door at the peak of the stairs was open. He wondered if that was the way he left it when he had hurried out to meet that girl. The room at the top was enveloped in darkness. The stairs were not as loud and creaky as he had expected them to be. He pushed the second door open slowly, surprised his uncle hadn’t heard him coming up and moved to meet him at the door.
No one was there to meet him, just the darkness and the strange cold. He glanced at the two windows. They were closed, of course. Everything was quiet. He couldn’t quite see into the second room from where he stood, the room above his own, and wondered if maybe Robbie had already gone back to bed.
What was also strange was that the attic was bone-chillingly cold, but he didn’t feel a breeze at all, not even the slightest sign of air circulating in from the outside. But sure as hell, the cold was there, and it was spreading and freezing the rest of the house.
He walked quietly over to the door separating the two parts of the attic. He wasn’t going to stick around long, not really wanting to wake Robbie if he had gone back to bed. He wasn’t actually mad at his uncle for being loud. Half the reason he got up from his bed, now that he really thought about it, was because he was bored and wanted to do something. Had he ever really thought there was an intruder? It seemed like a silly thought now.
As soon as he stepped through the doorway, he froze in place. He wanted to be afraid, but his mind could not seem to manage even that. It just shut down, frozen along with the rest of him. A woman stood in front of the window, one of the windows that faced the road out front, doing something in front of her that Toby couldn’t entirely make out but could still see because, impossibly, Toby could see through the lady. Her insides were like a nearly transparent curtain, a thin layer of fog standing there in the shape of a person. She was going at something wildly, whining and crying as she did so.
First, he took a step back, thinking that his best option was to run and get help. Just because this person, or thing, was a girl didn’t mean she was safe. But it wasn’t a girl. It couldn’t have been. You can’t see through a person.
It was as if the woman hadn’t even noticed he was there yet. She just continued with what she was doing, hunched forward, focused in on whatever was in front of her that had her attention. His curiosity pulled him forward. He stuck close to the wall and maneuvered to the left to catch a glimpse of what she was doing. As he got closer, just inches away from being able to see, a thought shot through his mind of a massive butcher knife in her one hand, a sharpener in the other, as she drew the knife into a wicked, razor-sharp blade.
But it was the window’s latch that she was working at. In her hand was not a knife, but rather a screwdriver, which she appeared to be trying to wedge underneath the latch. She continued her whining, clearly upset that whatever she was trying to do was not working. Just as he reached forward, ready to touch her shoulder and stupidly ask what she was doing, she turned, shooting a glance at him.
But it wasn’t anger or murder in her eyes like he had expected but absolute fear, on a level that he had not only never seen but couldn’t even imagine. And she wasn’t looking at him; she was looking just to his side, at the door he had just entered through.
She mouthed something like “ow” or “how.” He wasn’t sure. Then she jerked back around and slammed the screwdriver into the window latch and started jamming it under like something incredibly important was stuck beneath the window. Toby didn’t move. He couldn’t process what was happening. He just stared at the transparent woman as she tried so hard to get the window open. He hadn’t even realized these windows opened to begin with. They were just so large; it didn’t seem likely. But upon further investigation, it looked like they did. The lower half should slide upward.
She looked back again, the same fear etched into her face, her eyes wide. She stepped away from him, but there wasn’t really anywhere to go. A second passed and then she dove at the window again, but something seemed to stop her before she could go at the latch. Suddenly, she dropped to the floor with a loud thud. It startled Toby, and he stepped back, bumping into the wall.
She reached but there was nothing to grab. Her entire body jerked back as if something were grabbing her and dragging her. Her mouth was wide in screams of horror, but no noise came out, only a terrible, shrill silence. He moved forward, reaching down to grab her hand, even though part of him knew that what he was seeing wasn’t real and his hand would probably just go right through her. But now, what he was seeing wasn’t some scary intruder or some murderous woman, but a terrified lady being dragged away by some known entity that he could not see.
But before his hand could reach her, the girl was jerked back further, just out of his reach. She dug her fingers into the wooden floor. And, before his mind could scramble for another way to help, she was pulled through the door and was gone, leaving gouges in the floor behind her. He shook in place, but not because of the cold anymore, but like a terrified little child. He thought he heard thuds moving down the stairs as if an actual, physical thing was being dragged painfully down the stairway.
He turned to run out the door, but just as he was moving away, he thought he saw something out the corner of his eye. He turned back around, and there was the woman, standing before the window, frantically working away at the latch. She passed through the same motions again, turning and looking to the doorway where he now stood, their eyes meeting, hers expressing that same terrible fear, his lost and unsure.
She didn’t wait, exactly like before, going back to her task, destroying the latch on that window. He knew then what she was doing, though. She wasn’t trying to break the latch for the sake of breaking it.
No.
She was trying to get out.
She looked back at him again, the fear growing substantially. She stepped back. Then, as she leapt for the window one last time, he felt an intense, deadly chill pass through him, as if all the cold in the room had focused into one spot and entered his body through his spine and then exited through his front.
12
Toby blinked in the daylight. Wooden beams lined the ceiling above him. It was strange because he didn’t remember his bedroom’s ceiling looking anything like that. And his back was sore.
He jumped to his feet like he had just spotted the world’s largest spider crawling next to him. The roof didn’t look like his bedroom’s because he was in the attic. He surveyed his surroundings, the events of the night before rushing back like torrents.
His eyes found their own way back to the window where he had seen a woman standing, desperately trying to get out of the attic. The space was empty. Light shone in from that window, and the others, dressing the long attic in the day’s clarity. He saw dust particles dancing in the rays of light, floating there weightlessly.
The cold was gone, along with the night, as if it had never been there at all. As if none of it had been there. He stepped toward the doorway leading into the other half of the attic but then stopped. It was true that there was nothing in front of him, no ghostly figure trying to break the latch on the window free, but the unease he felt the night before still there, still had a strangle hold on Toby’s courage.
He stepped back, away from the scene he had witnessed the night before, away from the stage where it had all taken place. Something felt off about the area, like if he were to stand where she had, he would be walking on some sort of holy ground, a place so sacred and meaningful for reasons he couldn’t even begin to explain that he might burst into ashes right there.
An aroma caught Toby’s attention, or, more accurately, his stomach’s attention. It rumbled the moment it picked up on the scent of bacon floating gracefully in the air. A yearning pulled him to the attic door and down into the house.
He opened the door to an empty second floor. All the bedroom doors were wide open as if everyone had left in a hurry. He swallowed hard, possibilities floating around in his head, his imagination taking hold. He remembered the ice cold that slithered up his body the night before and closed his eyes, trying to shake the thought from his mind, telling himself that whatever it had been likely wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been.
He allowed the aroma to guide him downstairs. In the dining room, everybody sat around a table eating eggs, bacon, toast, and little breakfast sausages. They all looked up as he entered, various abnormal expressions on their faces.
“Well, where the hell have you been?” Robbie asked.
“Where were you?” his dad echoed almost simultaneously.
“The attic,” Toby said.
He knew they were about to ask why, and he couldn’t rightfully say watching a ghost try to escape. He would sound just as insane as he felt. He had to think fast.
“Why? What were you doing up there?” his mom asked. “You weren’t in your room when I went to wake you for breakfast.”
“It was…warmer up there.”
Everyone stared at him like he had just told them there was a ghost up there and he was watching it try to escape. Except that wasn’t what he said.
“Warmer?” his dad asked. There was a brief pause as his father mulled over Toby’s words. “Did you sleep up there?”
Toby just nodded, his cheeks reddening in embarrassment. It had been cold in his bedroom, and he almost wished he had a heater despite it still being too early to get out such a thing, but the attic definitely wasn’t warmer. He hadn’t considered the correlation until right then as his family looked upon him like a mental patient pleading to be set free, but he suddenly thought he may know why the attic was so icy cold. He didn’t know much of anything on the subject, but he had heard through various horror films and haunting shows that an area could get abnormally cold if a spirit was present. He had never seen a spirit before, but what he had seen the night before sure seemed like it could be one, which would explain the cold. That’s if what he had seen had been real to begin with, which he still wasn’t entirely convinced of, either. And if so, why had his bedroom been almost just as cold?
Toby took his place at the table, struggling to avoid eye contact with the others. There were no positives that could come out of continuing the conversation. All he could do was make himself look even crazier.
“Guess he didn’t take a walk,” Robbie mumbled.
His plate was already there. The food had smelled so delightful minutes before, but now he couldn’t imagine putting it down his throat. He just wanted to be someplace else. He considered taking the food and heading up to his room, but he was sure his mom would trail shortly after asking if he was okay or if he needed to talk about anything. She was a good mother like that.
He stabbed a sausage with his fork, watching as grease oozed up from between the metal prongs and the meat. His stomach groaned. Maybe he was hungry. A mildly painful pang had been taking shelter in his stomach since the moment he had woken. He peeked up from his plate and saw that everyone had gone back to eating their own food except Paisley, who was staring at him with a strange, almost upset look in her eyes. But she diverted her gaze as soon as their eyes met. When she didn’t return back to him, he finally shoved the sausage in his mouth and chomped down on it. It was just as delicious as it looked. He poked the egg, and the bright yellow sun burst, golden yolk pouring down each side of the tiny mound like a volcanic eruption. He grabbed a slice of bread from the small saucer next to his plate and dipped it into the golden goodness. For the rest of breakfast, he basked in this glory, filling his stomach to the brim.
For that time, those long, precious minutes, he had forgotten about all the strange things that seemed to be happening to him—until the doorbell rang. Everyone looked toward the door, then at each other, all of them unsure of who would be ringing their doorbell. His mother, who was already standing up, collecting some of the items on the table to return them to the kitchen, started toward the door.
Toby wondered if Paisley or Trevor had made a friend already, not having mentioned it to him because, well, they didn’t mention much of anything to him. Or maybe it was some lady for Robbie, who had always had at least one woman under his arm since Toby could remember.
“It’s for you, Toby!” his mom called back over her shoulder.
Toby’s insides sank, not from fear, but because he had absolutely no idea who it could be, and he didn’t need yet another mysterious thing happening to him. As he stood from the table, he heard his mother offer whoever it was an opportunity to come inside, but whoever it was must have declined because nobody entered, and his mother turned toward him and waited for him to come to the door.
His mother grew a wide grin as he approached. He could feel everyone else staring at him from behind. When he rounded the corner to the front door, he felt like he was seeing yet another ghost. His heart started up like an engine. Just outside the door stood Addison, or Addy, he recalled her saying was what people called her, her blond hair practically sparkling under the glaring sun. Behind her, quite a bit behind her, actually, stood someone else, a boy about Toby’s height and size, maybe a bit bigger, his hair brown and his face scruffy, the shadow of an incoming moustache on his upper lip just barely visible from where he stood.
Addy was smiling, but the boy, he didn’t look happy at all. Toby even wagered that he looked angry. Then it struck him. Maybe he was angry. Maybe Addy was here to confront him because she had noticed his staring the night before as she undressed in her bedroom. And this guy behind her, who suddenly looked a little larger than he had before, his farmer’s tan and dirty jeans showing that he was an outdoorsy person while Toby spent most of his time sitting on his ass, may have been her boyfriend there to kick his ass.
He stopped himself from stepping back, his head suddenly feeling light. If he had to fight this kid, he was fairly certain he would lose. But as long as he stayed in his house, this guy, who seemed to be staring at him with such contempt, couldn’t get to him, not without getting himself in some serious trouble. He knew how weak he sounded, even in his own head, but if he were to pretend he wasn’t nervous and was ready to fight this kid, he woul
d only be lying to himself.
“Hey, Toby,” she said, flashing her white teeth.
“Hey,” Toby replied, feebly at best.
“You want to come hang out?” she asked.
He looked at his mom, who was still smiling wide, probably just as surprised as he was that a girl was at the door looking for him. He could make up an excuse right then, say he was busy, but what he was feeling radiating off Addy wasn’t anger. She seemed to genuinely want him to come hang out.
He glanced back at the kid in the back and saw that he had diverted his gaze elsewhere. “Yeah, sure, just give me a minute to get ready.”
Now that he had talked himself out of thinking she was there to castrate him, he managed to feel proud, proud that a beautiful girl like Addy was at his door looking for him. “Did you want to come in and wait while I run upstairs really quick?”
He knew his mom had already asked this, but now that he was in the moment, he wanted her to come in, shamefully, so he could show her off to the rest of his family. He could already imagine Robbie and Trevor gawking at her, in shock that she was there to see Toby.
“Yeah, sure!” she said to Toby’s surprise.
“Great!” his mother said, too enthusiastically, he thought.
Addison stepped inside and gave a quick wave and smile to the rest of Toby’s family. His mother stood there, holding the door, waiting for the other kid to step forward and come inside, but he didn’t move.
“He wants to wait outside,” Addy said, maintaining the same smile she had been wearing since he first came to the door.
13
Toby had hurried up to his bedroom, thrown on some cleaner clothes, bolted into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and even used mouthwash. Then he rushed back downstairs like he was fleeing from a fire to find Abby standing pretty much where he had left her, talking to the others.
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