Cold. Shivering.
We have to find Tugger.
Darkness in front of us. Can’t see the cat.
Can’t see anything.
Still reaching for the light switch, we feel the wall under our fingertips. Paint, bumpy and smooth at the same time.
We run our hand over the wall, trailing our fingertips, grasping for the switch that we know is there.
Then we feel… something.
We don’t know what it is at first. Smooth, but not like the wall. Bumps, but not like the wall, either.
When we realize that it’s skin under our hand, we can’t even scream. We can’t do anything but drop our phone.
Slick, wet skin, like there’s something all over it.
God, there’s a nose… a mouth… and the mouth’s open because we feel the teeth, like something’s smiling—
As our hand pulls away from the wall, the lights flash on by themselves for an icy, thrusting instant.
Then we see it.
A face.
A woman with red-matted blond hair, wide blue eyes, and a grotesque smile.
Elizabeth?
We scream as the lights go out. We fall to the floor, scrabbling backward, full of coldness, away from the face as the lights go on again, showing only a head mounted on the wall.
As the lights slam off, it’s not our screams we hear now, but Elizabeth’s—
Farah’s mind went blank.
Stuck in sheer blackness, I jammed out of her, then floated above her body, seeing her lying like a used rag doll on the carpet. She’d fainted, for God’s sake.
I gave myself a quick check, too, but instead of being drained or scared by that awful, uncontrolled hallucination, I was fizzing, nearly giddy with the rush of what I’d been able to do.
Mainly, though, it’d been her fear that pumped me up.
But damn it, I couldn’t get an empathy reading from her now. Would I be able to get inside her subconscious for a dream, though? Or for anything since I’d gotten her mind on Elizabeth and could now witness what Farah might know about her?
I didn’t have the chance to find out, because the door opened wider behind me, bringing slightly more light into the room.
Noah came in, dressed in boxers and a T-shirt. “Farah?”
I zoomed toward the corner, letting him run to her and get to his knees. As he shook her, Scott and Twyla entered, floating near the doorway.
“We didn’t stop him,” Scott said casually. “We thought you might want an interview, but I have to say it looks like the last one didn’t go that swell.”
Twyla hopped up and down. “Check you out, Murph! You made that chick faint! What did you do to her, you exquisite bitch of terror?”
Twyla’s excitement gave me a reality check. As the high from Farah’s fear mellowed in me, I looked at her splayed on the floor, looked at Noah lightly slapping her face. Maybe I shouldn’t feel so good about doing this to anyone but a real suspect… .
“I’ll tell you the gory details later,” I said. “Just keep an eye out for Gavin. I suppose Noah heard Farah scream and that’s why he came.”
“We saw him rushing out of the house when she started up,” Scott said. “He must’ve come downstairs for a glass of water or midnight snack or to see if Farah was still up.”
Twyla said, “Any way you slice it, Gavin wasn’t with Noah. But I volunteer to try and go in the house to see if he’s there, you know?”
“No.”
Scott was shaking his head, but Twyla simpered away from him.
“I already know the layout, loser,” she said, “and I couldn’t care less if I get belted out of there because of that cleaner’s incantations or purified water or… whatever. They’re not directed at me, like, anyway. You can come with me if you want, but you’re not keeping me out.”
Twyla was unstoppable, and telling her no just made her determination flourish.
Scott sighed. “Just don’t go overboard in there. You remember what happened a couple years ago when we came across that converted church… .”
“Oh, eat my shorts,” she said, turning on her heel and swishing out the door.
Noah was still trying to awaken Farah, and he’d started to panic. His fear warped me, addicted me. And I couldn’t resist it.
“Just keep an eye on Twyla,” I said to Scott.
“Roger that.”
He paused, giving me a welcome-to-Boo-World-for-real look, then grinned. But there was more to this for me than just being a ghost and amusing myself.
Elizabeth needed this. I needed this.
The door stayed gaped as Scott flew off, leaving me with Noah.
He’d stood up, going toward an antique phone, probably to call an ambulance. His dark hair was wild after digging his fingers through it in fright.
I positioned myself at Farah’s side and threw some sound out.
Her voice.
“Noah?” I imitated.
Right away, he forgot the phone, dropping it as he went back to his sister. “Farah… ?”
Then he realized that she wasn’t moving.
When he got to his knees next to her, I smiled, feeling his unadulterated fear, as pure as iced volts. In my state of highness, I wallowed in his mounting quivers. I couldn’t stop it. I wanted to really scare him, getting this mystery solved. I wanted to know what he knew about Elizabeth.
“Noah?” I said again. But this time, it was in Elizabeth’s voice.
His eyes widened in incomprehension, then terror, and I leeched hard to his cheek, scaring him even more.
Someone is in the room with us.
And we aren’t sure where.
We scan the near darkness—the unlit corners, the spot behind the sofa that we haven’t checked yet, the gnarled shadows from the wavering pool water light that’s coming through the door, like fingers clawing down the wall.
“Who’s there?” we ask.
The spirit from earlier? Had it hurt Farah?
Should we be running away?
Our heart beats so hard that it slams our chest, wailing to get out. Our limbs feel cold, like if we moved them they would crack like icicles.
“Is anyone there?” we say, louder.
Silence. The sound of our short breathing.
Then, little by little, the sound of someone else’s breathing.
Move, we think. Why can’t we move?
As we hold our breath, we see something rise from behind a kitchen counter in the faint trail of light from the open doorway.
It has blond hair wetted down by fresh blood.
A demonic, smiling face that we should recognize but don’t, because its skin is blue, and who has blue skin?
Even worse, a red-soaked rope is tied around its neck so tightly that we can’t help thinking that this thing must’ve been choked to death.
As we watch in frozen horror, its tongue lolls out of its mouth.
Before we can yell, it flies at us, the tongue whipping out, wrapping around our neck, squeezing, cutting off oxygen. We fall to the floor, grabbing at that tongue, but there’s nothing there.
Nothing at all.
Still, the face is hovering over ours, and the thing is laughing, and the laugh sounds so familiar. Musical. A song.