FOUR
Kerri’s world had shattered before her eyes. Tyler was dead. Stephanie was dead.
Shit happens …
Stephanie had been her best friend since kindergarten. They’d gone to the same classes at St. Mary’s Catholic School from first grade through seventh, at which point they’d both switched to public school. They’d studied together. Grown up together.
Kerri’s breath caught in her throat as Javier urged her along through the darkness. Although their vision had adjusted, their only source of light was Javier’s cell phone, which he held open. Her hands were shaking too much to hold her cigarette lighter. Kerri heard Javier’s nose whistling as he breathed. She tried to speak, tried to tell him to slow down, to ask him if he’d called 911, but she couldn’t find her voice. Kerri shuffled forward a few more steps and stopped. She felt dizzy all of the sudden. There was pressure building behind her eyes.
She closed them, hoping the pain would go away.
Maybe Steph wasn’t dead. Maybe she was still alive back there. After all, she and Javier had been fleeing. Maybe what she thought she saw happen hadn’t actually occurred.
Kerri heard the sound again. That awful noise the hammerhad made when it …
Tyler and Steph …
Steph and Tyler …
They were definitely both dead. And she’d done nothing to help them. Instead, she’d run away. How was that possible?
Tyler had taken Kerri’s virginity. Steph was the one who listened to all the details afterward, just like she had when Steph lost her virginity under less pleasant circumstances a few years earlier. Steph was her sister in every way that mattered and now she was dead.
Tyler wasn’t just her boyfriend. He’d been her world. Yes, things had been difficult lately. They’d been fighting a lot. Fed up with his immaturity, she’d been thinking about leaving him. But all the arguments and annoyance—those things just proved how much they’d really loved each other. You didn’t fight with somebody if you didn’t care about them. And now he was gone. Dead. Lying on the floor at the front of the house, cooling and coalescing, his blood mingling with Steph’s.
The pressure in her head boiled over. Kerri opened her eyes and screamed. It was a deep, raw, throat-stripping shriek that seemed to go on forever—
—until Javier clamped his hand over her mouth and pressed tight.
“Stop it,” he whispered. “Just stop.”
She struggled against him, and his grip tightened. Kerri felt her snot running between his fingers. She tried to talk, tried to tell him that they had to go back for Tyler and Steph, but he stared into her eyes, unblinking, and shook his head.
“I know. I know. I’m feeling it, too. But we’ve got to keep going. Got to find Heather and the others, and then get out of here. You keep screaming and that fucking
thing
will find us first. Now, stop it. Okay?”
His long-fingered, almost feminine hand remained on her mouth, but the pressure decreased. His eyes glittered in the open cell phone’s dim light.
Kerri blinked.
Javier removed his hand and she sobbed. He pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her again.
“No. Not here. Not anymore. We have to leave here.”
After a moment, Kerri nodded. Javier removed his finger. She regretted it almost immediately. His touch—that tiny bit of human contact—had been reassuring. Now panic and grief threatened to overwhelm her once more. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “Did you call someone?”
“I can’t get any bars in here. Old place like this? Probably asbestos in the walls or some shit.”
Kerri frowned. Could asbestos block cell phone coverage? She didn’t know.
“What now?” she asked.
“We sit a minute and listen. I think it went after Brett and Stephanie.”
“Steph’s … it got her.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it as we were running away. It … that thing smashed her head with the hammer.”
“What about Brett?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shit.” Javier took a deep breath and paused. “We need to find Heather. Then we find a way out.”
“What about Brett? And we can’t just leave Tyler’s and Stephanie’s bodies behind.”
“We’re not going to do them much good if we’re dead.”
He beckoned her to follow him, and crawled behind an old couch that had been covered with a filthy, moldy tarp. Kerri crawled along behind him. They sat there, huddled together in the darkness, and waited. They heard no sound, save their own breathing. Kerri glanced around the room, trying to discern their surroundings. She couldn’t see much. The shadows were too thick. Maybe it had been a living room at one time, but now it was a junk heap. The very atmosphere seemed full of the same despair she felt inside. Garbage lay strewn across the dirty wooden floor—empty cans, broken bottles, shattered drug vials, a shriveled condom. She wondered what had happened to the people who’d left the trash there. Had they been slaughtered, just like Tyler and Steph? In addition to the sofa they were hiding behind, there were a few other pieces of broken furniture in the room. She could make out their shapes, sitting beneath tarps in the gloom. Above her, a cracked, smudged mirror hung askew. The nail it was hanging from was slowly working its way out of the plaster. Kerri considered that they were lucky their passage through the room hadn’t caused it to crash to the floor, alerting their pursuer to their location.
She pulled out her lighter and flicked it. The small flame did little to dispel the gloom, but it made her feel better.
They spotted a few bloody footprints on the floor, but there were less of them now. Kerri assumed that Heather’s wound had started to clot.
Javier held the phone up to his face and squinted at the display. Kerri stared at him, hoping to see a positive expression. Instead, he merely frowned and shook his head.
She looked up again and caught her reflection in the cracked mirror. Her blue eyes were nearly perfectly round and the freckles on her face stood out in the faint cell phone glow and lighter flame like black spatters of paint. There were dark circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there an hour before.
Javier lowered the phone again. Then he grabbed Kerri by her elbow and forced her to move, directing them to another door on the far side of the room. She put her lighter back in her pocket. They crawled on their hands and knees, and Kerri winced as a long splinter of wood pricked her palm. She pulled it out with her teeth and spat it aside. A thin bead of blood welled out of the cut. She glanced back down at the floor and saw another drop of her blood there. As she watched, it disappeared, almost as if the floorboards were drinking it up.
Maybe that’s why we’re not seeing as many of Heather’s footprints,
she thought.
The house is gobbling them all up.
They reached the open door and Javier leaned forward and peeked around the corner. Then he nodded at her, indicating that the coast was clear. They crawled through the doorway into another hallway. Above them, an ornate lamp hung from the ceiling, draped with spider webs. The floor was covered with worn, stained carpet the color of lima beans. Several closed doors lined the narrow hall. Kerri shook her head, trying to get a sense of the house’s layout.
Javier must have been as puzzled as she was. He said, “Place is like a goddamned maze. I can’t figure it out.”
“Well, we know what’s back that way.” Kerri pointed.
“Yeah, but we don’t know what’s ahead. Or where Heather is.”
“She’ll be okay. We’ll find her.”
“I hope so,” Javier said. “I don’t know what …”
His voice trailed off, choked with emotion. Kerri felt him trembling beside her. She touched his shoulder.
“It’ll be okay,” she whispered.
He glanced up at the ceiling and frowned. Kerri followed his gaze. A crude string of electrical cords and bare lightbulbs dangled from the ceiling. They didn’t look like part of the house. To Kerri, it appeared as if they’d been added as an afterthought.
“Weird,” Javier muttered.
She nodded.
Javier stood and helped Kerri to her feet. Moving cautiously, they tried the first door. It opened easily, revealing a brick wall.
Javier grunted. “What the hell is this shit?”
Kerri tapped him on the shoulder. “Do you think Heather came through here?”
“Through the wall?”
“No! Through this hallway.”
Javier shrugged. “She must have. I don’t see any more footprints, though.”
“Maybe her foot stopped bleeding.”
He turned back to the bricks and placed his palm against them. Kerri studied them, too. The mortar was cracked and covered with moss and mold, but the wall still stood firm.
“We can’t just stand here,” she said. “That thing could come back at any minute.”
Nodding in agreement, Javier started forward. The floorboards creaked slightly as they walked. They froze, waiting to see if the sound had attracted attention. The house remained quiet. Kerri pulled her lighter out and flicked it on again. Dust swirled around the flame. Moving on, they stopped at the next door, on the opposite side of the hall, and listened. Hearing no sound from inside, they opened it.
Kerri slapped her hand over her mouth and bit down, trying not to scream.
Beyond the door was a small room devoid of furnishings save for an old, rusty heater sitting against one wall—
—and the scattering of bones that littered the floor.
There was no question that they were human remains. The two and a half human skulls were a dead giveaway. The other bones were too big to belong to an animal—at least, any kind of animal that would be found in a Philadelphia ghetto. One of the hands still had a wedding ring on its finger. The flame from her lighter glinted off of it.
“Jesus.” Javier turned to her. His eyes were wide and wet. “Jesus Christ, Kerri. What the fuck have we stumbled into here? What is this?”
The scream she’d been suppressing turned into a giggle. The sound alarmed her, but she couldn’t help it.
“It’s like you said, Javier. Shit happens.”
Then the laughter bubbled over. Javier hissed at her to shut up. Kerri could tell by his expression that she was freaking him out. Hell, she was freaking herself out. But the laughter came anyway, and echoed off the walls.
It didn’t stop until another door on the other side of the hallway crashed open and a figure jumped out at them.
FIVE
Perry Watkins peered out his smudged window and shook his head. Behind him, his wife, Lawanda, made a clicking noise with her tongue and mirrored the motion with her own head.
“What the hell was that all about?” Lawanda’s tone was shaken. “I heard shouting. Those slingers fighting for the corner again?”
Perry shook his head harder, picked up an empty beer can, and spat a wad of phlegm into it. His heart was beating fast, and his knees felt weak and rubbery. The house at the end of the block had always had that effect on him. Had since he was just a little boy. Still did. Especially when someone went inside.
“Damn fools. That’s what it’s about. Goddamned fools.”
“Who?”
“Bunch of white kids. Looks like their car broke down or something. Leo and that group of kids he hangs out with tried to help them, but the white kids run off.”
Lawanda paused. “Which way did they run?”
Perry lowered his voice. “Guess.”
“Oh Lord.” Lawanda’s eyes grew wide. “No one goes near that building. Not if they want to live. Everyone round here knows that place is haunted.”
“Everyone around
here
,” Perry stressed. “But I’ll be damned if them kids were from around here.”
“Come on, baby.” Lawanda pulled nervously at his shirt. “Get away from the window. Somebody might see you.”
Perry resisted the urge to pull away. “Who’s gonna see me? The ghosts in the house? They’re busy right now. They’ve got … company.”
“You know what happens when folks don’t mind their own business with that place.”