The Haunted Read online

  James nodded, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I won’t, Dad.”

  Still worried, still concerned, Julian forced himself to smile, wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulder and steered him back toward the house. “Wash your face off, then. I’ll make us some lunch.”

  They went inside. Julian prepared macaroni and cheese, the only food he really knew how to make, and the two of them ate in the living room while they watched an episode of The Twilight Zone.

  When Claire and Megan returned, James was upstairs in his room, playing some game. Julian didn’t say anything about his eating dirt, but he did tell Claire that he’d made the rounds and invited their neighbors to the housewarming party, and that most of them would be coming. Except the Armados. And the people next door.

  He did not tell her what Cole had said about the homeless man dying in their basement.

  “That’s great,” she said happily. “I’m glad Pam talked me into this. I think it’s going to be fun.” She gave him a quick kiss on the nose.

  “Yeah,” he said. He kissed her back. He realized that he was keeping a lot of secrets from her all of a sudden.

  He didn’t like that.

  But he had no choice.

  On Monday, Julian called Gillette Skousen, the realtor who’d sold them the house. She didn’t sound happy to hear from him, her chipper greeting transforming into distant formality as soon as he identified himself. “What can I do for you?” she asked coolly.

  “I have a few questions about our house—” he began.

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  That was certainly suspicious. “About what?” he challenged her. “I haven’t asked you a question yet.”

  The realtor was silent.

  “I just want to know if there’s a way I can get in contact with the previous owners.”

  “There are privacy issues. …”

  “You thought I was going to ask about the dead man in the basement, didn’t you? The one you didn’t tell us about.”

  She was silent again.

  “I just want their e-mail or a mailing address or a phone number. That’s all I’m asking for. They sold their house to us. I have the right to contact them.”

  Gillette sounded angry. “Fine.” After spending several moments looking up the information, she gave him all three: e-mail address, mailing address, phone number.

  “Thank you,” Julian said.

  Gillette hung up on him.

  The previous owners, Bill and Maria Worden, had moved to Colorado. Although Julian initially thought about calling them, he could think of no way to ask what he had to ask without sounding … well, stupid. So, forgoing the instant gratification a phone call would have given him, he did the next-best thing and sent an e-mail, which allowed him to compose his thoughts in a logical manner yet still transmit the communication instantly and, hopefully, receive a quick reply.

  He spent the latter half of the morning carefully wording a message that started out by saying how much they loved the house and then gradually segued into a recitation of some of the odd experiences they’d had here. He mentioned that Cole Hubbard had told him how the couple who’d lived in the house before them had discovered a dead man’s body in the basement, and he wondered whether they had ever experienced anything unusual while living in the house.

  The e-mail’s tone was friendly and mildly inquisitive, filled with none of the worry that he actually felt, and he sent it off immediately after proofreading it.

  Instantly, a message popped up on his screen telling him that the address to which he’d sent the e-mail did not exist. He checked it against the address he’d written down, but the two were identical. He hadn’t accidentally left out a letter or put in a wrong number; he’d typed exactly the same e-mail address Gillette had told him. Frowning, he thought about dialing the realtor again to double-check, but, looking at the screen, he saw his thoughts laid out logically and decided to call the Wordens directly and just read his letter to them.

  After half a ring, three discordant tones rang in his ear and a woman’s voice announced: “I’m sorry, but the number you have called is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again.”

  This time, he did call the realtor, but she insisted that even if the information she gave him was not correct, it was the only information she had. He hung up, frustrated.

  There was one option left, and Julian converted his e-mail into a Word file, added a return address and a phone number, and printed it out. He drove to the post office to mail the letter, and waited anxiously all week for a phone call or a return letter, all the time checking his e-mail.

  Several days later, as he’d feared, his letter was returned, a red post office stamp on the envelope stating that it was not deliverable as addressed.

  That night, he dreamed that the Wordens called to say they were coming over. They had important information to tell him. They promised to arrive by midnight, but he waited and waited and still they did not show. Claire and the kids were asleep, so he went around the house, checking doors and windows, making sure everything was locked. In the kitchen, he saw that the door to the basement was open, and he walked down the steps to make sure nothing was wrong.

  At the bottom, he found the Wordens, both naked, sitting in opposite corners of the room, dead.

  Maria Worden looked like Claire.

  Bill Worden looked like him.

  Thirteen

  Although Megan had always taken baths and showers before bedtime, like her mom, lately she’d begun doing so in the morning, like her dad. She told herself there was no real reason for the switch, that it was merely more convenient to do it this way, but the truth was that she no longer felt comfortable taking showers at night.

  She no longer felt comfortable taking baths at all.

  The bathroom scared her after dark.

  That was it exactly, though it embarrassed her to even think such a thing. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry, and while Megan might be self-conscious about the reasons for altering her schedule, she was not at all sorry that she’d done it.

  After breakfast, she went upstairs to take a shower and get dressed.

  Lately, she’d begun to think about boys while she washed herself, and today she remembered the way Brad Bishop had looked in the restaurant when she’d seen him there with his dad. She wondered whether he would be going to her school this year and, if so, whether she’d have any classes with him. The thought made her feel tingly, and she stayed under the water several minutes longer than usual in an effort to prolong the feeling.

  When she finally came out of the shower, the bathroom was steamy, the mirror all fogged up.

  And there was a face on the glass.

  Megan gasped, her heart thumping wildly. Instinctively, she pulled the towel around her, covering up, even though she knew there was no possible way that this … drawing could see her.

  Except it was not exactly a drawing. It didn’t look like someone had used a finger to depict a face on the glass, but rather as though a face had been pressed against the moisture on the mirror. For every feature was visible, down to a dimple on the narrow chin.

  She wiped the face away with her hand, but the bathroom was still steamy, and the mirror fogged up again almost instantly.

  The face reappeared.

  Only it was different this time. Something about it had changed, and it took her a moment to realize what it was.

  The face was smiling.

  And its eyes were looking … lower.

  She held the towel more tightly against her, wanting to run, wanting to scream, not knowing what to do. This wasn’t really happening. Her imagination was working overtime, seeing things that weren’t actually there. She was just scaring herself, her mind playing tricks on her the way it did after she saw a scary movie or TV show.

  She thought of that thing—

  monster

  —she’d seen at night when her friends had stayed over. She’d told no
one, not even Zoe or her mom, and she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she’d really seen what she thought she’d seen. It had been late; she’d been tired; it might have been a dream. … There was a whole host of possibilities.

  But that list of possibilities was getting shorter by the second.

  Because the steam in the bathroom wasn’t dissipating the way it should, wasn’t going away. Instead, it was getting thicker and … moving. A long, slender section that resembled an arm moved toward her. She backed against the counter and saw the steam behind the arm thicken and coalesce into something that looked almost like a man’s body.

  Almost.

  For there was something off about the form, a subtle mistake in proportion that resulted in a too-small head on a too-big body and an arm that resembled an anaconda. She remembered the tentacle that had slipped under Zoe’s sheet. This reminded her of that, though the steam figure was smaller and more humanoid than that thing in the night had been.

  The arm reached for her, its misty white fingers undulating and wavy, like strands of seaweed in a strong current.

  Megan dashed to her left and yanked open the door, although she was wrapped in only a towel, ready to scream for her parents, ready even to accept the humiliation if James came up and saw her. But the instant the door opened, all of the steam in the bathroom shot out into the hall, pushing past her with a whoosh she could both hear and feel, as though a giant fan had turned on and propelled all of the air out of the room. The steam disappeared, evaporating in the dry atmosphere of the hallway. She turned in a circle, searching for the figure she had seen, but it was gone, and when she poked her head into the bathroom, she saw that the mirror was clear, no face.

  Feeling braver, no longer needing to call for her parents, she walked back into the bathroom (though she kept the door open, just in case) and breathed on the mirror. She expected the condensation of her breath to reveal the outline of the face once again, but there were no lines on the glass at all. It was as if none of it had ever happened.

  Still, she felt uneasy, and she grabbed her hairbrush and clothes and went into her bedroom, where she closed the door, quickly got dressed, then opened the door again, combing her hair as she hurried downstairs.

  She wasn’t sure what she should tell her parents, or whether she should tell them anything, but that problem was solved for her when she found that her mom had already left for work, James was in the garage playing in his stupid clubhouse, and her dad was on the phone, deep in conversation with some computer guy. Megan went into the living room to watch TV, and by the time her dad got off the phone and announced that he was going upstairs to work in his office, the entire experience in the bathroom seemed much less threatening and barely worth mentioning. She had a hard time believing it had happened herself.

  But when ten o’clock rolled around and she decided to text Zoe and Kate about their plans for the day, the nervousness returned. Her parents had given her cell phone back a few days ago, but Megan was warier of using it than she had been before and now did so only when other people were around. With her mom at work, she went back upstairs where her dad was. She’d do the actual texting in her room, but he’d be in his office, close enough to save her if she needed help.

  She didn’t need help this time, but her muscles were tense when she first turned on the phone and waited to see whether there were any mysterious messages waiting for her. Luckily, there weren’t, and she let out an honest-to-God sigh of relief as she typed out her texts.

  As it turned out, neither Zoe nor Kate had any plans, so the three of them decided to go to a movie. Megan suggested they invite Julie to come along as well, but Julie answered neither text nor phone message, so the three of them opted to go it alone. Zoe texted that her mom could drive them, so Megan went across the hall to ask her dad whether it would be okay for her to go. “Zoe’s mom’s driving,” she added quickly.

  “When are you going?”

  “Now.”

  “What about lunch?”

  “We’ll have Taco Bell.”

  “You have enough money?”

  “Of course!”

  He smiled at her. “It’s okay with me. But check with your mom before you go. And make sure you’re back before dinner.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Megan called her mom, who of course said it was okay, and she met Zoe’s van out in front of the house some fifteen minutes later. Zoe’s sister, Kristi, was with them, which was kind of annoying, but she remained up front with her mom, and Zoe, Kate and Megan sat in the back and ignored her.

  Since the movie didn’t start until two, they had plenty of time to kill, and after they’d eaten lunch and stretched it out with endless soda refills, Zoe’s mom drove them to The Store, where she and Kristi looked for shoes, leaving Megan, Kate and Zoe to wander the aisles. They ended up in the electronics department, browsing through the DVDs and covertly checking out the hot high school guy who worked behind the counter.

  “I think he’s looking at us,” Zoe whispered as she picked up an Avatar DVD and pretended to read the back cover.

  Megan peeked over her shoulder, but he was bending over to take a camera out of the display case for an elderly man to examine. She kept watching, though, and, sure enough, the second after he handed over the camera, he glanced in their direction. She quickly looked away, giggling. “He is!” she whispered.

  Kate said nothing, but moved away from the two of them as if they weren’t together. She ended up in the children’s section, looking at little-kid movies, and both Megan and Zoe laughed at her.

  Moments later, the old man gone, the clerk walked over. “Can I help you young ladies?”

  Mortified, Megan said nothing, but stared unseeingly at the row of DVDs in front of her. She could feel the heat as her face turned red. But Zoe calmly said, “Do you have this in Blu-ray?”

  “No. Only the more recent titles or the more popular older titles are in Blu-ray.”

  Megan had no idea which movie Zoe was asking about, and she was not brave enough to look, but she was both amazed by and envious of her friend’s composure. Maybe Zoe would have talked to Brad if she’d been the one to see him in the restaurant. Megan suddenly felt awkward and backward and far more immature than her friend.

  The clerk walked away to help another customer who was standing in front of a locked case holding smart phones, and the two of them motioned to Kate and left the electronics department, walking slowly and casually until they were in sporting goods, hidden behind a tall rack of shelves. Zoe’s eyes were wide. She held a hand dramatically over her heart. “Oh. My. God!”

  “I don’t believe it!” Megan said. They were talking low, not wanting anyone else to overhear.

  “He was interested, right? He was into us?”

  “I was too scared to look!”

  “He wasn’t,” Kate said matter-of-factly. “He was just doing his job.”

  Zoe ignored her. “I think he thought we were older. Do I look older? Do you think I could pass for sixteen?”

  Megan didn’t have a chance to answer, because Zoe’s mom and Kristi suddenly appeared at the end of the aisle. The three of them immediately cut off their conversation.

  “We’d better go,” Zoe’s mom said. “I need to make a quick stop at the library first. Then we’ll stop by Circle K and get some candy for you guys to smuggle in. Those prices they charge at the theater are outrageous.”

  They were still early for the movie, but the theater showed some cool commercials for new movies and TV shows, so they had something entertaining to watch.

  The movie itself was a horror flick, a PG-13 remake of a German art-house hit she’d read about but hadn’t seen. She was the one who’d picked it—Zoe and Kate had wanted to see a romantic comedy that looked bad even in the trailers—and as she watched the film, she realized that it was the type of movie her dad would like, the kind the two of them might watch together on HBO. They were the ones in the family who liked scary things, and when
there was a clever visual reference to Frankenstein that only she seemed to get, Megan knew she had to tell him about this.

  Zoe’s mom had taken Kristi to see a Pixar movie on the next screen over, and that film had ended earlier, so the two of them were sitting on a bench, waiting, when she, Kate and Zoe came out into the lobby.

  Megan arrived home after four, Zoe’s mom dropping her off first, before taking Kate to her house. A monsoon had come up while they were in the theater, and thunder pealed loudly as she got out of the van. They’d missed the rain, although wet streets and a gushing gutter told her that it had really come down, but dark clouds still blocked the sun, and the occasional thunderclaps testified to the intensity of the afternoon storm.

  Megan said good-bye to her friends, thanked Zoe’s mom for the ride, ignored Zoe’s sister, then turned toward her house. It looked creepy, she thought as she walked up the driveway toward it, and wondered if maybe they should have seen the romantic comedy. She walked slowly up the driveway. The gray clouds and dim light lent the house a gloominess she’d never seen before, and a chill passed through her as she noticed that none of the lights were on. There was a perfectly logical explanation for that—James liked to watch TV in the dark, and her dad’s office faced the rear of the house and was not visible from here—but she could not help thinking that the house was empty, that everyone was gone.

  Dead.

  She refused to even go there.

  Still, she stood for a moment on the front stoop, listening for sounds. If the house was empty, she was not walking in. Luckily, she heard her dad’s music from upstairs—he liked to crank it up when her mom was out—and, relieved, she went inside. As she’d suspected, James was lying on the couch in the darkened living room, watching cartoons, an open package of Doritos on his chest.

  “Is Dad upstairs?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.