The house sat back from the road, separated from its neighbors by overgrown fields on each side. It looked as spooky as I’d imagined it would. I didn’t want to be here. I had enough real fears—passing Chemistry 101 and college Algebra—without looking for cheap thrills. But when I tried to opt out, my friends heckled me.
“Come on. Be a good sport. It’s almost Halloween. We’ll go for burgers afterward.”
I was already the least adventurous of the six of us, the girl known for having her nose in a book. My big brother, who’d graduated last fall, had lectured me that college wasn’t all about books. It was about making friends and connections, having some fun, too. So I’d put on my I Can Do This smile and piled into Trixie’s minivan with the others. I mean, how bad could it be?
We’d read the poster for the haunted house on the bulletin board in the lounge of our dorm. Obviously, lots of people had. A yard full of cars were parked helter-skelter on the dead grass that had once been a lawn.
We walked to the front door, propped open, and peeked inside. No one stood there to take our money. Maybe someone had been called away for a second or needed a quick bathroom break. Silence so heavy it pressed upon us made us glance around nervously. The sign in the foyer read Enter If You Dare. Then a shrill scream split the air.
Trixie grinned. “Yup, this must be a good tour.”
“Help! Help me!” came a terror-filled voice.
My friends’ grins grew wider. I cringed. But Trixie grabbed my arm, pulling me farther into the room. “There’s nothing better at Halloween than a good scare.” Then silence reigned again.
“Hello?” Chuck, the phys. ed. major, raised his voice. “Is anyone selling tickets here?” He was the most vocal of us. Dark-haired and lanky, he was flirting with my roommate, Chiffon. Her name fit her—frilly and girly. And she was plenty attracted to Chuck, but was playing hard to get. They both enjoyed the game.
When no one replied, Zeke the Geek tried. “Hey! We’d like to buy some tickets!” No one listened to him at school, and no one listened to him now.
Deb shrugged. She was studying to be a nurse, and I’d never met anyone as practical. She often told us, “Define the problem, then deal with it.” She looked around the empty entry. “We tried. They must not want our money.” She pointed to arrows duct-taped on the floor. “I say let’s follow the blood-red tape and have some fun.”
Chuck took the lead and we filed behind him. I could feel my muscles tense, waiting to see what jumped out at us, what special effects made the person before us scream. I didn’t want to be the sniveling coward of the group. I put on a brave face, curled my fingers into fists, but my stomach tied itself in knots. I never went to scary movies, didn’t want to watch someone with a chainsaw slash people to pieces.
When we turned the corner to a long hallway, lined with too many doors, the lights went out, and we were pitched in darkness. I don’t like darkness. I don’t like feeling my way and hoping I don’t trip or run into something. I touched the wall and trailed my fingers along it. It felt slick and sticky.
“If each person puts their hand on the next person’s back, we can stay together,” Deb said.
I reached forward and grabbed a hold of Zeke’s hoodie. Behind me, Deb grabbed a knot of my sweater. With my other hand, I reached for my cell phone and pushed on its light. I couldn’t stop a gasp. The wall was painted with splatters of red. Blood? Where I touched Zeke’s hoodie, I’d stained it crimson. I hoped whatever the creators of this freak house used to turn the wall into a crime scene washed out.
Deb called, “Sandra’s using her cell phone to see. A good idea. Let’s all do that.”
Cell phones held high, we started forward again. I braced myself when we approached Horror Door Number One on the right side of the hall. This whole house had been set up to scare us. Something was going to leap out at us, and I steeled myself not to scream.
Eerie music filled the house, as if the creepy darkness wasn’t enough! My older brother used to watch old horror movies late on Fridays when we were kids. Didn’t that music go with an old Vincent Price black-and-white movie? Or was it one of the many mummy ones he watched? Before we reached the door, a howl echoed down the hallway.
Wait a minute. The howl came from upstairs. I was just raising my head to glance to the second-floor landing when something huge and hairy landed with a thud behind us. I whirled to see it throw Trixie against the wall and slash sharp claws across her throat. More blood gushed across its peeling paint to splatter even higher than before. Trixie let out a strangled sound, then crumpled. The thing caught her before she could fall, heaved her over its shoulder, and leapt to the top of the stairs.
“Stop! Bring her back!” I took a step forward. The beast’s gaze met mine, and it grinned. Long, sharp fangs gleamed at us. Its yellow irises glowed in the deep shadows and then it turned and disappeared.
I started after it. “We have to help her!”
Chuck laughed, and Deb yanked on my arm. I spun to glare at them.
Chuck shook his head. “Don’t you get it? It’s part of the show. Boy, they made it look real. Right now, the werewolf’s probably carrying Trixie to the exit to meet us when we’re done. She’s going to miss half the fun.”
Fun? I blinked. Trixie’s face had drained of color. Had it all been just because she was so afraid? I could have sworn that had been her real blood. “He ripped out her throat.”
“Probably ketchup in a plastic bag, and it burst when he popped it,” Deb said. “Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to stage this house.”
I felt silly. My friends knew more about haunted houses than I did. I was a novice, and I’d shown it. It wouldn’t happen again.
I forced myself to swallow my fear. This afternoon was showing every sign of being one of the worst of my life. I’d never go to another Halloween house. Chuck gave me a pitying look. “It’s okay, Sandra. We’ll help you through this. Once you get used to it, you’ll enjoy the adrenaline rush.”
Not likely, but I bit back my comment. It would just make me look worse, more gullible.
“Come on, guys. Let’s see what they throw at us next.” Chuck started forward. Before he reached the next door, a floorboard squeaked and a voice floated through the darkness.
“Turn back now and save yourselves.”
I automatically started to turn, but Deb gave my shoulder a push. “Don’t chicken out now, weenie. You can do this.”
But did I want to? Zeke reached behind him and grabbed my hand, pulling me after him.
Before we’d taken three steps, the second door on the left slammed open and a tall man with vacant eyes, tattered clothes, and a flat-footed shamble reached out for Chiffon. A dim light from the room he’d occupied backlit his sallow skin and rotting flesh.
Chiffon screamed. “Help me! Zombies creep me out.”
Chuck lunged between her and the monster, but the thing threw out its arm, and Chuck flew toward the entrance of the hallway. He landed hard and shook his head, stunned. The thing wrapped its arm around Chiffon in a disgusting hug, lifting her off her feet, and carried her, sobbing, into the room. The door slammed behind them.
I rushed to it and pushed against it. It didn’t give. Chuck joined me. We slammed our shoulders against it. The door and hinges were too solid. The sobbing inside the room turned to groans of pain and then silence. I turned to the others. “This isn’t fun. Help us get her out of there.”
We all slammed against it in unison. The wood didn’t crack. The hinges held. The locks didn’t break. We huddled together, defeated.
I’d had enough of this adventure. “I’m going back. Poor Chiffon is going to have nightmares for months. This is ridiculous.”
The others turned with me, but the front door of the house slammed, the noise reverberating through the entire space. This time the voice intoned, “Too late. No turning back now.”
Oh crap. I licked my lips. I pointed a finger at Zeke. “You were closer to Trixie than any of us. What was she most afraid of?”
He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and frowned. “She had a thing about werewolves. Said she read Stephen King’s CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF when she was in grade school when she was way too young. It stayed with her forever.”
I raised an eyebrow at Chuck. “And Chiffon?”
He swallowed. “Zombies.”
I didn’t like this trend. How would the people who put this tour together know which of us feared what the most? “And you?” I asked.
He looked down, embarrassed that anything scared a big, brave man like him. Finally, he said, “Ax murderers. I talked my babysitter into letting me watch a horror movie once when my parents were eating out, and it scared the crap out of me.”
“You?” I pointed to Deb.
“Vampires. I know they can glitter or be sexy as hell, but I watched 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, and those vampires were just killing machines.”
I opened my purse to dig through it. “Do we have anything silver we could use to protect ourselves?”
Chuck’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I didn’t bring a silver stake with me. Did any of you?”
I held up a metal nail file I’d found in the bottom of my bag. Shivers went through me when a deep laugh surrounded us. Before we could move, a man popped up beside Deb, sank his fangs into the base of her neck, and noisily sucked. That sucking noise made my skin itch with fear. She grew weaker as I watched. I gripped the file and rammed it into his temple. Then stared. It didn’t seem to bother him. When he finished draining my friend, he calmly stood, pulled out the file while his skin healed around it, and handed it to me. He smiled. “You might need this later.” Then, he picked up Deb’s body and disappeared.
My knees gave, but Zeke caught me.
“Was that a special effect too?” I demanded.
Chuck and Zeke looked uneasy. Chuck put a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know how they’re doing what they do, but let’s get out of here. You’re right. This walk is too much for me.”
I stared at the doors still lining the rest of the hallway. “Let’s go out the front. There was a window next to the front door. We can throw something through the glass if we have to.”
Both guys nodded, and we retraced our steps. When we got to the arch that led to the foyer, heavy footsteps started down the stairs. We turned in unison to see a hulk of a man, wearing a mask, carrying an ax.
“Run,” Chuck told us. “He’s after me. I’ll stall him while you two get out.”
“We’re not leaving you.” I kicked at one of the stair rails, snapping it off its base. I wrestled it off the handrail and raised it as a weapon. Chuck stared at me, but did the same. So did Zeke, even though he was trembling from head to foot. Then I dug in my purse again, and this time, I found my can of pepper spray. I handed it to Chuck. “You’re taller than I am. You have a better chance of reaching his eyes.”
We stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Chuck’s boogie man. I’d never been more scared in my life, but I wasn’t about to leave my friend to die. I was tired of being picked off one by one. Maybe together, we could save ourselves.
The man raised his ax, and I ducked under his arm and hit him, as hard as I could, in the stomach. When he glanced my way, Chuck ran forward and sprayed him directly in his eyes. Zeke hit his knees, and by the sound of the thud, I expected his bones to break. The man just laughed, swung his ax in an arc, and cut off Chuck’s head. I watched it bounce across the foyer. It landed near the corner, facing us, staring with unseeing eyes.
I threw up. I couldn’t help it. And then I lost it. I ran forward, hitting the man over and over again with my railing. He just stood there and let me. When I was finally too tired to swing one more time, he patted me on the head, turned around, and went back up the stairs.
“Damn, damn, double damn!” How did we stop these guys?
I looked at Zeke and the front door. Could we make it? I grabbed his hand and we ran. Relief flooded through me when we yanked the door open. Sunshine greeted us. Fresh air. And then we heard huffing.
“Huffing?” I looked at Zeke, but he’d gone completely white, drained of all color. My stomach plummeted to my shoes.
A dragon that looked more like a reptile with bumps and horny skin stalked toward us. I stared at Zeke.
“Game of Thrones,” he said.
Too violent for me. But I got the idea. I stepped in front of him. I stared down the giant serpent. “He’s my friend. You can’t have him.”
The dragon opened its mouth and fire engulfed me. The heat made me cry. It felt like my blood was boiling. But then it stopped. And when I looked down, I was untouched. Joy surged through me. We’d made it! We’d survived. I turned to Zeke, but he wasn’t there. Looking down, all I saw was a pile of ashes.
No! I sagged to my knees. I should have saved him. How did the fire get past me to burn him?
I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I looked up again, I saw Miss Winthrop weaving between parked cars, stalking toward me, holding her red pen. I rubbed my forehead. Was my English 101 professor really my scariest fear? She was shaking her head and pointing to the most recent paper I’d turned in for her class. Lord, I detested that woman.
I’d had enough. She got close enough to do her usual sneer, and I drew back my arm and punched her right on the bridge of her nose. Blood spurted from her nostrils, drenching her stupid, frilly blouse, and I laughed. She fell backward and tried to get up, and I walked past her.
Trixie wasn’t waiting by the minivan. None of my friends had returned, laughing, to tell me that this was the best haunted house ever. My eyes scanned all of the cars parked on the dead grass. Had they entered the house never to exit either?
Anger flamed inside me. This house had claimed all the victims it was going to. I ran to the trees at the back of the property, the weedy fields. I carried one armload of dead branches to the foundation of the house after another. I piled dead weeds under and around them. Then I flicked my lighter. Flames licked at the clapboards, climbed toward the roofline, and soon, the house was engulfed in fire.
I couldn’t save my friends, but maybe I could save future victims.
By the time I heard sirens race toward the house, I was already eight blocks away. I had a long walk back to campus. And when I got there, I decided never to mention what happened to anyone. Who’d believe me?
It was two weeks before a new sign showed up on our dorm’s bulletin board. Haunted House. Last Three Days—If You Dare. I stared at it. No, it couldn’t be. Could it? I ripped the thing down and threw it away, but it was there again the next day. And the next. And then Halloween was over. And hopefully, no one from our building had visited the horrid place.
Would it be back next year? Or did it change locations? And how many people would it claim? My friends had disappeared and never returned. Police had found lots and lots of empty cars at the site of the burned house, but no bodies. No one knew what happened to the people who’d ventured there. I did. But I wasn’t telling. As I said, who’d believe me?
“Come on. Be a good sport. It’s almost Halloween. We’ll go for burgers afterward.”
I was already the least adventurous of the six of us, the girl known for having her nose in a book. My big brother, who’d graduated last fall, had lectured me that college wasn’t all about books. It was about making friends and connections, having some fun, too. So I’d put on my I Can Do This smile and piled into Trixie’s minivan with the others. I mean, how bad could it be?
We’d read the poster for the haunted house on the bulletin board in the lounge of our dorm. Obviously, lots of people had. A yard full of cars were parked helter-skelter on the dead grass that had once been a lawn.
We walked to the front door, propped open, and peeked inside. No one stood there to take our money. Maybe someone had been called away for a second or needed a quick bathroom break. Silence so heavy it pressed upon us made us glance around nervously. The sign in the foyer read Enter If You Dare. Then a shrill scream split the air.
Trixie grinned. “Yup, this must be a good tour.”
“Help! Help me!” came a terror-filled voice.
My friends’ grins grew wider. I cringed. But Trixie grabbed my arm, pulling me farther into the room. “There’s nothing better at Halloween than a good scare.” Then silence reigned again.
“Hello?” Chuck, the phys. ed. major, raised his voice. “Is anyone selling tickets here?” He was the most vocal of us. Dark-haired and lanky, he was flirting with my roommate, Chiffon. Her name fit her—frilly and girly. And she was plenty attracted to Chuck, but was playing hard to get. They both enjoyed the game.
When no one replied, Zeke the Geek tried. “Hey! We’d like to buy some tickets!” No one listened to him at school, and no one listened to him now.
Deb shrugged. She was studying to be a nurse, and I’d never met anyone as practical. She often told us, “Define the problem, then deal with it.” She looked around the empty entry. “We tried. They must not want our money.” She pointed to arrows duct-taped on the floor. “I say let’s follow the blood-red tape and have some fun.”
Chuck took the lead and we filed behind him. I could feel my muscles tense, waiting to see what jumped out at us, what special effects made the person before us scream. I didn’t want to be the sniveling coward of the group. I put on a brave face, curled my fingers into fists, but my stomach tied itself in knots. I never went to scary movies, didn’t want to watch someone with a chainsaw slash people to pieces.
When we turned the corner to a long hallway, lined with too many doors, the lights went out, and we were pitched in darkness. I don’t like darkness. I don’t like feeling my way and hoping I don’t trip or run into something. I touched the wall and trailed my fingers along it. It felt slick and sticky.
“If each person puts their hand on the next person’s back, we can stay together,” Deb said.
I reached forward and grabbed a hold of Zeke’s hoodie. Behind me, Deb grabbed a knot of my sweater. With my other hand, I reached for my cell phone and pushed on its light. I couldn’t stop a gasp. The wall was painted with splatters of red. Blood? Where I touched Zeke’s hoodie, I’d stained it crimson. I hoped whatever the creators of this freak house used to turn the wall into a crime scene washed out.
Deb called, “Sandra’s using her cell phone to see. A good idea. Let’s all do that.”
Cell phones held high, we started forward again. I braced myself when we approached Horror Door Number One on the right side of the hall. This whole house had been set up to scare us. Something was going to leap out at us, and I steeled myself not to scream.
Eerie music filled the house, as if the creepy darkness wasn’t enough! My older brother used to watch old horror movies late on Fridays when we were kids. Didn’t that music go with an old Vincent Price black-and-white movie? Or was it one of the many mummy ones he watched? Before we reached the door, a howl echoed down the hallway.
Wait a minute. The howl came from upstairs. I was just raising my head to glance to the second-floor landing when something huge and hairy landed with a thud behind us. I whirled to see it throw Trixie against the wall and slash sharp claws across her throat. More blood gushed across its peeling paint to splatter even higher than before. Trixie let out a strangled sound, then crumpled. The thing caught her before she could fall, heaved her over its shoulder, and leapt to the top of the stairs.
“Stop! Bring her back!” I took a step forward. The beast’s gaze met mine, and it grinned. Long, sharp fangs gleamed at us. Its yellow irises glowed in the deep shadows and then it turned and disappeared.
I started after it. “We have to help her!”
Chuck laughed, and Deb yanked on my arm. I spun to glare at them.
Chuck shook his head. “Don’t you get it? It’s part of the show. Boy, they made it look real. Right now, the werewolf’s probably carrying Trixie to the exit to meet us when we’re done. She’s going to miss half the fun.”
Fun? I blinked. Trixie’s face had drained of color. Had it all been just because she was so afraid? I could have sworn that had been her real blood. “He ripped out her throat.”
“Probably ketchup in a plastic bag, and it burst when he popped it,” Deb said. “Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to stage this house.”
I felt silly. My friends knew more about haunted houses than I did. I was a novice, and I’d shown it. It wouldn’t happen again.
I forced myself to swallow my fear. This afternoon was showing every sign of being one of the worst of my life. I’d never go to another Halloween house. Chuck gave me a pitying look. “It’s okay, Sandra. We’ll help you through this. Once you get used to it, you’ll enjoy the adrenaline rush.”
Not likely, but I bit back my comment. It would just make me look worse, more gullible.
“Come on, guys. Let’s see what they throw at us next.” Chuck started forward. Before he reached the next door, a floorboard squeaked and a voice floated through the darkness.
“Turn back now and save yourselves.”
I automatically started to turn, but Deb gave my shoulder a push. “Don’t chicken out now, weenie. You can do this.”
But did I want to? Zeke reached behind him and grabbed my hand, pulling me after him.
Before we’d taken three steps, the second door on the left slammed open and a tall man with vacant eyes, tattered clothes, and a flat-footed shamble reached out for Chiffon. A dim light from the room he’d occupied backlit his sallow skin and rotting flesh.
Chiffon screamed. “Help me! Zombies creep me out.”
Chuck lunged between her and the monster, but the thing threw out its arm, and Chuck flew toward the entrance of the hallway. He landed hard and shook his head, stunned. The thing wrapped its arm around Chiffon in a disgusting hug, lifting her off her feet, and carried her, sobbing, into the room. The door slammed behind them.
I rushed to it and pushed against it. It didn’t give. Chuck joined me. We slammed our shoulders against it. The door and hinges were too solid. The sobbing inside the room turned to groans of pain and then silence. I turned to the others. “This isn’t fun. Help us get her out of there.”
We all slammed against it in unison. The wood didn’t crack. The hinges held. The locks didn’t break. We huddled together, defeated.
I’d had enough of this adventure. “I’m going back. Poor Chiffon is going to have nightmares for months. This is ridiculous.”
The others turned with me, but the front door of the house slammed, the noise reverberating through the entire space. This time the voice intoned, “Too late. No turning back now.”
Oh crap. I licked my lips. I pointed a finger at Zeke. “You were closer to Trixie than any of us. What was she most afraid of?”
He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and frowned. “She had a thing about werewolves. Said she read Stephen King’s CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF when she was in grade school when she was way too young. It stayed with her forever.”
I raised an eyebrow at Chuck. “And Chiffon?”
He swallowed. “Zombies.”
I didn’t like this trend. How would the people who put this tour together know which of us feared what the most? “And you?” I asked.
He looked down, embarrassed that anything scared a big, brave man like him. Finally, he said, “Ax murderers. I talked my babysitter into letting me watch a horror movie once when my parents were eating out, and it scared the crap out of me.”
“You?” I pointed to Deb.
“Vampires. I know they can glitter or be sexy as hell, but I watched 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, and those vampires were just killing machines.”
I opened my purse to dig through it. “Do we have anything silver we could use to protect ourselves?”
Chuck’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I didn’t bring a silver stake with me. Did any of you?”
I held up a metal nail file I’d found in the bottom of my bag. Shivers went through me when a deep laugh surrounded us. Before we could move, a man popped up beside Deb, sank his fangs into the base of her neck, and noisily sucked. That sucking noise made my skin itch with fear. She grew weaker as I watched. I gripped the file and rammed it into his temple. Then stared. It didn’t seem to bother him. When he finished draining my friend, he calmly stood, pulled out the file while his skin healed around it, and handed it to me. He smiled. “You might need this later.” Then, he picked up Deb’s body and disappeared.
My knees gave, but Zeke caught me.
“Was that a special effect too?” I demanded.
Chuck and Zeke looked uneasy. Chuck put a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know how they’re doing what they do, but let’s get out of here. You’re right. This walk is too much for me.”
I stared at the doors still lining the rest of the hallway. “Let’s go out the front. There was a window next to the front door. We can throw something through the glass if we have to.”
Both guys nodded, and we retraced our steps. When we got to the arch that led to the foyer, heavy footsteps started down the stairs. We turned in unison to see a hulk of a man, wearing a mask, carrying an ax.
“Run,” Chuck told us. “He’s after me. I’ll stall him while you two get out.”
“We’re not leaving you.” I kicked at one of the stair rails, snapping it off its base. I wrestled it off the handrail and raised it as a weapon. Chuck stared at me, but did the same. So did Zeke, even though he was trembling from head to foot. Then I dug in my purse again, and this time, I found my can of pepper spray. I handed it to Chuck. “You’re taller than I am. You have a better chance of reaching his eyes.”
We stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Chuck’s boogie man. I’d never been more scared in my life, but I wasn’t about to leave my friend to die. I was tired of being picked off one by one. Maybe together, we could save ourselves.
The man raised his ax, and I ducked under his arm and hit him, as hard as I could, in the stomach. When he glanced my way, Chuck ran forward and sprayed him directly in his eyes. Zeke hit his knees, and by the sound of the thud, I expected his bones to break. The man just laughed, swung his ax in an arc, and cut off Chuck’s head. I watched it bounce across the foyer. It landed near the corner, facing us, staring with unseeing eyes.
I threw up. I couldn’t help it. And then I lost it. I ran forward, hitting the man over and over again with my railing. He just stood there and let me. When I was finally too tired to swing one more time, he patted me on the head, turned around, and went back up the stairs.
“Damn, damn, double damn!” How did we stop these guys?
I looked at Zeke and the front door. Could we make it? I grabbed his hand and we ran. Relief flooded through me when we yanked the door open. Sunshine greeted us. Fresh air. And then we heard huffing.
“Huffing?” I looked at Zeke, but he’d gone completely white, drained of all color. My stomach plummeted to my shoes.
A dragon that looked more like a reptile with bumps and horny skin stalked toward us. I stared at Zeke.
“Game of Thrones,” he said.
Too violent for me. But I got the idea. I stepped in front of him. I stared down the giant serpent. “He’s my friend. You can’t have him.”
The dragon opened its mouth and fire engulfed me. The heat made me cry. It felt like my blood was boiling. But then it stopped. And when I looked down, I was untouched. Joy surged through me. We’d made it! We’d survived. I turned to Zeke, but he wasn’t there. Looking down, all I saw was a pile of ashes.
No! I sagged to my knees. I should have saved him. How did the fire get past me to burn him?
I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I looked up again, I saw Miss Winthrop weaving between parked cars, stalking toward me, holding her red pen. I rubbed my forehead. Was my English 101 professor really my scariest fear? She was shaking her head and pointing to the most recent paper I’d turned in for her class. Lord, I detested that woman.
I’d had enough. She got close enough to do her usual sneer, and I drew back my arm and punched her right on the bridge of her nose. Blood spurted from her nostrils, drenching her stupid, frilly blouse, and I laughed. She fell backward and tried to get up, and I walked past her.
Trixie wasn’t waiting by the minivan. None of my friends had returned, laughing, to tell me that this was the best haunted house ever. My eyes scanned all of the cars parked on the dead grass. Had they entered the house never to exit either?
Anger flamed inside me. This house had claimed all the victims it was going to. I ran to the trees at the back of the property, the weedy fields. I carried one armload of dead branches to the foundation of the house after another. I piled dead weeds under and around them. Then I flicked my lighter. Flames licked at the clapboards, climbed toward the roofline, and soon, the house was engulfed in fire.
I couldn’t save my friends, but maybe I could save future victims.
By the time I heard sirens race toward the house, I was already eight blocks away. I had a long walk back to campus. And when I got there, I decided never to mention what happened to anyone. Who’d believe me?
It was two weeks before a new sign showed up on our dorm’s bulletin board. Haunted House. Last Three Days—If You Dare. I stared at it. No, it couldn’t be. Could it? I ripped the thing down and threw it away, but it was there again the next day. And the next. And then Halloween was over. And hopefully, no one from our building had visited the horrid place.
Would it be back next year? Or did it change locations? And how many people would it claim? My friends had disappeared and never returned. Police had found lots and lots of empty cars at the site of the burned house, but no bodies. No one knew what happened to the people who’d ventured there. I did. But I wasn’t telling. As I said, who’d believe me?
