“Remember the nightmares we used to have up here?” Tad said in a voice so quiet that his words were almost lost.
Kent nodded and began walking toward the carriage house, and without a word, Tad followed.
Eric hesitated a moment, his gaze shifting toward the edge of the woods where a handmade cross still tilted over Tippy’s tiny grave, then he, too, started toward the old brick building.
THE OUTSIDE DOOR still scraped along the concrete when Kent opened it.
Deep in Eric’s mind, a memory stirred.
A memory of voices.
But not voices, really. Something that sounded like voices, but without any distinct words. Now, as the door opened wide, Eric listened.
And heard only silence.
Slowly, reluctantly, he stepped into the shadows of the carriage house and turned right.
Toward the storeroom.
A moment later they were there. Eric could feel Tad and Kent right behind him, feel the same tension emanating from their bodies that was making his own feel as if it was almost vibrating.
He reached out to touch the doorknob, his mind already filling with memories of what lay on the wooden panel’s other side. Just before his fingers closed on the knob, he hesitated, his fingers tingling in anticipation.
Anticipation of what?
Energy!
Yes, that was it. There had been a strange energy in the doorknob five years ago. An energy that had run through his whole body and amplified the voices that seemed to whisper to him out of nowhere.
He forced his hand to close on the knob.
Nothing.
No voices. No energy running through his hand as he gripped the doorknob.
Nothing at all.
“It all feels so different,” Tad whispered.
“We’re not kids anymore,” Kent said. “Maybe we imagined it all.”
Eric opened the door and turned on the light.
Everything was exactly the same. The same jumble of furniture, the same piles of cartons stacked against the walls.
Even the photo album still sat on top of the little desk in the corner.
And the sheet of plywood was still against the far wall, just as it had been the first time they came into this room.
And now Eric remembered what lay behind that sheet of plywood.
A door.
A sealed door they never should have opened.
“I don’t believe it,” Kent breathed, slowly scanning the contents of the room. “It’s all exactly the same. Exactly.” He walked over to the photo album and turned a couple of pages. “We were probably the last people ever to be in here.”
“Remember how weird it was?” Tad asked. “It always seemed like we lost track of time when we were in here. Hours and hours.”
“We were kids,” Kent said, waving Tad’s word’s dismissively away. “Come on — let’s move that plywood and take a look in the other room.”
Neither Eric nor Tad moved.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Tad said.
Ignoring Tad’s words, Kent grasped the sheet of plywood and pulled it, sliding it along the wall.
And all three of them froze at what they saw.
Instead of the open doorway to the tiny chamber that they were certain lay behind the plywood, all they saw was the faint outline of a small doorway that had been filled in with brick.
Brick that looked like it had been there for decades, not mere years.
Kent gazed uncertainly at Eric and Tad. “Didn’t we unbrick this?”
Eric said nothing, his own mind still grappling with the same question.
“Maybe the whole thing was a weird dream,” Tad said. “Could that be?” He walked forward and put his hand on the bricks. “This looks like old mortar — I mean, really old.”
“We should open it up again,” Kent declared. “I’ll bet that’s where the axe is — right back inside there with all the other stuff.” He stepped toward the door.
Suddenly, Edna Bloomfield’s words echoed in Eric’s mind: All things have their cycles.
“No,” he said, reaching out and putting a restraining hand on Kent’s shoulder. “Let’s leave it alone.”
Kent turned, his brow furrowed. “Leave it alone?” he repeated. “Why?”
“Let’s just leave it,” Eric said. “Let’s just leave it all and go.”
“I’m not exactly sure what happened when we were inside there,” Tad said when Kent still seemed unconvinced. “I don’t remember a whole lot about all of this. But I remember the nightmares. I remember the nightmares, and I never want to have them again. I think Eric’s right.”
Still Kent hesitated, putting his hand on the bricks and running his fingers down the poorly mortared joints.
And as he watched, Eric had a déjà vu flash.
A flash of Kent, his expression as mesmerized as it looked now. But in the flash, Kent wasn’t running his fingers over mortared bricks.
He was running them over the surface of a cracked Formica tabletop.
More images flashed through his mind: scalpels, and blood streaming from a gaping wound. A rusty hacksaw. A severed arm.
And a lamp shade.
A lamp shade made of—
As if to shut the images out of his mind, Eric grabbed the edge of the plywood and shoved it back across the doorway, knocking Kent’s hand away.
Kent jerked back. “Hey!”
“Let’s go,” Eric said, his voice suddenly hard. “Let’s go right now.”
He held the door for Kent and Tad, and when they were in the open doorway, Eric took one last look around the storeroom.
Then he flicked off the light and closed the door firmly behind him.
But as he started back toward the car that would take him forever away from Phantom Lake, he turned and looked back at the carriage house one last time.
And wondered how long it would be before the next cycle began.