Welcome to the Dark House (16 page)

A ladder leads underground. I grab the shovel and flashlight and begin climbing down,
my adrenaline peaked. It’s dark at the bottom, but there are spotlights placed about,
helping me to see.

I’m in a giant underground room, dug out of the dirt—like an abandoned mine. There’s
a wooden frame with strapping overhead and along the walls, holding the space together,
so it doesn’t come caving in.

There are headstones lined up in rows with a single red rose placed at each site.
Tarantula-shaped trees border the graveyard, just as I described in my essay.

I look beyond everything, trying to assess how extensive the space is—if there might
be a network of underground tunnels. But the lighting only goes to the edge of the
cemetery. Beyond that is total darkness.

A blue teddy bear with no mouth and only one eye—just like the one I had when I was
five—sits propped against a headstone. I grab it and make my way toward the back row,
where there’s a gaping hole in the ground.

There are two headstones behind the hole—the only ones without roses. One of them
reads
PETER RICE
, my uncle’s name. The other stone has a skull etched into the surface. There’s writing
beneath the skull, only it’s too small to see from this angle. I move closer and scoot
down, able to see:
FRANKIE RICE
engraved in the granite. Below my name is my date of birth—followed by today’s date.

The sight of it freaks me out.

I look down into the hole. It’s at least five feet deep and eight feet long and wide.
A phone rings, again. It’s coming from inside the hole—buried beneath the dirt. I
point my flashlight, but I can’t see a phone. I crawl forward on my hands and knees,
trying to get a better look. Nothing. It must be buried pretty well.

Still holding the shovel, I slide down into the hole, ignoring the tiny voice inside
me that says it’s going to be a bitch to climb back out. The dirt is dry and powdery
around me. It crumbles like a landslide, creating a pile at the bottom.

Still focused on the ringing, I aim the blade of the shovel into the dirt, knowing
what I have to do. It feels good to dig—like in some weird-fantastical-surreal sort
of way, I’ve been given a second chance to answer the call I missed thirteen years
ago, when I couldn’t wake up from my nightmare. What awaits me on the other end of
that line?

My forehead is sweating. The muscles in my shoulders ache as I get deeper into the
hole, on one hand driven by the ringing, on the other hand maddened by it. It’s getting
louder with each shovelful of dirt. I dig faster, sweat dripping from my forehead.
About eight feet deep now, a dusting of dirt gets into my eyes. I drop the shovel
to wipe my face.

At the same instant, I hear it. A clamoring sound: metal hitting something hard. My
eyes stinging with dirt, I grab the shovel and continue to dig, finally finding the
source.

A dark mahogany casket. The phone must be inside it. With trembling fingers, I dust
it off and open it up. The hinges whine.

There’s the phone.

There’s Uncle Pete: a skeleton lying on a bed of creamy satin, dressed in a navy blue
suit and a red tie. There’s a watch around the skeleton’s wrist. The strap is braided
like his actual one. I slip the watch off and turn it over in my hand, feeling its
weight. The back is blank, unlike my uncle’s, which was engraved. The difference is
reassuring, but still I feel like I’m going to be sick.

The phone rings and rings. It’s tucked beneath Uncle Pete’s arm. I pick it up and
click on the receiver. “Hello?” I answer.

“Did you find your teddy bear?” a woman’s voice asks.

“I did,” I say, looking around for it.

“You’ll always be my special boy,” she says. “Frankie and Mom. Mom and Frankie.”

Mom.
The word has become somewhat foreign to me over the years. It feels weird to hear
it directed at me now.

“Why did you leave?” I ask, unable to help myself.

There’s silence for a moment as I wait for her response.

“Did you find your teddy bear?” she asks again.

I search around some more, inside the hole. No bear. “I must’ve left it above…outside,
I mean. Should I get it?”

“You’ll always be my special boy. Frankie and Mom. Mom and Frankie.”

The receiver still gripped in my hand, I scurry to climb upward, out of the hole,
to get to the bear. The dirt is powdery and light. The walls break apart beneath my
grip and I fall to my feet.

I jump up, using the pile of dirt as leverage.

My fingers graze the top of the hole. Still holding the phone, I try to struggle up
farther, but then something in my shoulder pops. A throbbing ache. My bicep quivers.
I slide down again.

I get up and plunge my foot into the wall, but I can’t get a good foundation. My foot
falls away as the dirt slides down.

“Help!” I shout. The phone slips from my grip. I scramble to pick it up. A dial tone
plays.

My one-eyed bear comes flying into the hole, landing on Uncle Pete. I can see a network
of wiring above, just beneath the wood-strapped ceiling. A spotlight shines over it
all, giving me a view of a pulley system. A giant bucket inches across it. Someone
must be up there.

“Hello?” I call out.

The bucket wobbles from side to side and then turns over completely. Dirt comes raining
down—on top of my head, surrounding my body. I try to wade through it as I struggle
to get back on the wall, to work my way to the top. But the pulley continues to crank
forward and soon another bucket appears. Fresh dirt comes pouring in, knocking me
down against the coffin. I fall to my knees.

“Wait!” I shout. “I need help. Someone get me out of here!”

The skeleton’s covered now. Dirt gets in my mouth, my eyes, my nostrils, my ears.
The dial tone turns into an off-the-hook buzz, and then it becomes muffled by dirt
as more of it comes piling in.

I crawl out from a heap. For just a moment, I think I’ve got a solid grip on the wall,
only to realize that it’s the floor. I’m turned around, upside down, unable to see,
completely in a panic.

Just then, I hear someone running. I can’t tell where it’s coming from—if it’s above
or below me.

More dirt comes, weighing me down. Lying on my stomach, I struggle to turn over. But
it’s like a giant pig pile with me at the bottom. I can’t move. I can hardly breathe.
Please,
I pray inside my head.

I don’t want to open my mouth. It’s already full of dirt. I try to move my leg, but
there’s too much weight on top of my limbs. And still I feel more dirt coming down.
Please,
I pray some more, but I’m not sure if anyone’s listening.

The last thing I hear is the muffled laughter of the Nightmare Elf.

Giggle.

Giggle.

Giggle.

I
COULD TELL THAT
F
RANKIE
was anxious. His lip started twitching and his face lost all color. I’m feeling anxious
too. I haven’t been to a cemetery since Dara died, and Frankie’s Graveyard Dig is
bringing me back to that day.

I remember how people kept coming up to me:
Dara’s parents, her relatives, teachers, mutual friends, those I didn’t know, faces
I’d never seen before. They offered tissues, a place to sit, shoulders to cry on,
someone to talk to.

“You were her one and only true friend. Please, Shayla-honey, you have my number;
feel free to use it.”

“You must be devastated to have lost such a close friend. You two were like inseparable
sisters.”

“Please, Shay-Shay, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Their kindness was too much to bear, but I didn’t deserve any of it, and I wanted
to feel all of it—all the pain, every bit of the heartache.

What Frankie doesn’t know is that I
am
affected by her death. And that I
do
feel bad about the way things played out. My nightmares don’t need to tell me anything,
because deep down I already know. Deep down I’ve always known. I wasn’t a true friend,
but that didn’t mean she had to die. And it doesn’t make me responsible for her death.
As guilty as I sometimes feel.

I could see Dara slipping deeper into depression, spending more of her time alone.
I thought that maybe I could be friends with her in secret, when nobody else was around.
But then Dara’s parents announced that they were getting a divorce and she needed
me full-time. Even though my heart told me otherwise, I wouldn’t make myself available
to her, except for when it was socially safe. Obviously no one at Dara’s funeral had
been aware of any of that, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered with me.

The fog in the graveyard is thick, making it impossible to keep track of Frankie.
“I promise,” I call out again, hoping that he hears me.

I’d made a promise to Dara, too. Just before she transferred to my school, over hot
fudge sundaes with candy canes sticking out, we made a whipped-cream-with-maraschino-cherries
vow to always be there for each other, no matter what.

Parker peers through the bars. “Frankie, how’s it going?” He squints hard, trying
to see through the clouds of fog.

But Frankie doesn’t answer. There’s a deep
thwack
sound, like something heavy hitting against a slab of wood.

“He must be inside that shed,” Ivy says.

I look around at the headstones, wondering what this ride could possibly be—maybe
a mind challenge of some sort or an underground haunted house. I pull up on the lid
of the mailbox, half expecting a voice to say something, but it remains silent.

Ten minutes later and I’m feeling completely restless. Natalie and Garth appear to
be restless too. While she paces back and forth, Garth won’t stop squawking about
his growling stomach.

“I gotta eat,” he says, finally heading off to find food.

I walk around the perimeter of the gate to where Ivy and Parker now stand, on the
other side of the ride. The back of the shed is in full view. “Frankie?” I call.

A moment later, there’s a ringing sound, like someone’s phone. It’s followed by music
from
The Wizard of Oz
. “Ding dong! The witch is dead!” Only the music isn’t coming from the graveyard.

I turn to look out into the park. Garth is at the nearby snack shack. Amusement park
rides continue to bing, blink, and blare—only none of the sounds seems to match the
Wizard of Oz
tune.

“Where’s it coming from?” Parker asks.

Ivy takes her bag from around her shoulder and holds it up to her ear. “Here.” She
squats down, dumping the entire contents of her purse onto the ground. But still there’s
nothing to explain the sound.

She fishes inside an interior pocket, finally finding the source. A cell phone. With
a leopard-print cover.

“It’s Taylor’s,” Ivy says. “I forgot that I shoved it in here.”

“Well, answer it.” I squat down beside her.

Ivy clicks the phone on. “Hello?” she says, switching over to speakerphone mode.

“Who is this?” a female voice asks.

“Ivy. I mean, that’s my name…Ivy…Jensen.” Ivy makes a face, realizing that she’s not
exactly killing it on this call.

I hold out my hand, silently offering to take the phone from
her.

But then: “How did you end up with my cell phone, Ivy?” the girl asks.

“Taylor?” Ivy’s eyes widen with alarm.

“Yes.”

“You left it,” Ivy says; her hand begins to tremble. “When you went for a walk…you
left it behind, in our room. I’m your roommate for the weekend—at least, I was supposed
to be.”

“Except I didn’t go for a walk, Ivy. Please tell me that you aren’t at the Dark House
right now.”

“I’m not,” Ivy says, locking eyes with me. “We’re at an amusement park.”

A couple of seconds later, Garth approaches, holding a piece of fried dough. He takes
a giant bite. “Shit, this crap is cold,” he says, spitting it out for the camera’s
sake.

I shush him, nodding to the phone, and Parker pulls him out of earshot. Meanwhile,
Ivy is on the verge of panic. Her chin quivers. There are hives all over her neck.

“Who brought you to the amusement park?” Taylor asks. “Is it part of the contest?
Are you alone or are others with you?”

“Where are
you
?” Ivy asks. Her phone-holding hand continues to shake.

“If the park is part of the contest,” Taylor says, “then you’re in serious danger.”

“Wait,
what
?” Ivy’s face goes flush. Her breath starts to quicken. Her eyes widen and her face
is flushed. She looks like she’s going to faint.

I grab the phone from her.

“Listen to me,” Taylor continues. “Get out—
now
. If it isn’t already too late. Didn’t you get my message?”

I click off the speakerphone option and stand up. “What message? The one in the closet
or—”

Before I can get the latter question out, Taylor is already talking. But there’s another
voice too. Maybe there’s a crossed line, or maybe Taylor isn’t alone. There’s static
on the phone, making it hard to hear.

I move away, searching for the hotspot, blocking my free ear.

“Do whatever you can,” she tells me.

“Whatever I can to
what
?” I attempt to ask, but only part of the question goes through. The call is dropped.

“Crap!” I shout.

I start to look up the recent calls when I hear a banging sound come from the graveyard.
“Frankie,” I say, my voice barely audible. I look at my watch. It’s been twenty minutes
now and he still isn’t out.

And I’ve broken yet another promise.