The rabbit looked up at him. “It is if you’re scared of rabbits.”
Tanith nodded. “You’ve got to admit he makes a good point.”
“You talk funny,” said the witch. “Where are you from?”
Tanith smiled. “I’m from London.”
The pirate frowned. “Is that in France?”
The Mad Hatter scowled. “It’s in England, dummy.” He looked at Tanith. “You’re English. Why do you have a sword?”
“Because I’m an English ninja,” Tanith replied. “We’re just like regular ninjas, except we wear leather and flirt more.”
The kids nodded, satisfied with the definition, and then rattled their buckets again. “Trick or treat,” they chorused.
“This isn’t actually our house,” Tanith told them, “but whatever you find in there is yours to keep.”
The pirate perked up. “Even the TV?”
“Especially the TV.”
The kids glanced at each other, then stormed the house. Tanith waited a moment, watching them approach Jerry’s headless corpse warily. The rabbit hesitated, then nudged Jerry’s head with his fluffy foot. The head rolled in its own blood, and the rabbit shrugged. “That’s so fake,” he said, and turned to help the pirate with the TV.
very town has a haunted house, I guess, and Bredon, small as it was, was no different. My older brother and his friends used to go up there, dare each other to knock on the door. He told me once that when his time came, he accepted the dare like there was nothing else he’d rather be doing. He’d mocked others for being scared and he wasn’t about to turn around and show anything like that kind of fear in his own eyes.
He said one Wednesday night, at the height of summer, they sneaked out and cycled over by the light of the full moon. Full moons were important for this kind of thing, he said. We were kids, and we knew this stuff. They reached the house a little before midnight and waited until Ryan Sanderson’s brand-new digital watch beeped 11:59. My brother now had one minute to open that gate, walk up that weed-cracked path, and knock on that door. Midnight was important for this kind of thing. That was something else we knew.
So my brother pushed open the iron gate that creaked with rust and age, and he laughed at how creepy it was. Behind him, his friends laughed, too. He pretended the path was one big hopscotch game, and he jumped and hopped the whole way up to the sound of laughter and cheers. But my brother wasn’t laughing any more. He told me he’d nailed that grin to his face when he felt it starting to slide off. He told me the closer he got to that door, the more real it all became. All the stories. All the rumours. All the scary, scary dreams.
He reached the three steps that led up to the front door. This close, he could see how old the wood was. He could see the broken doorbell with the wires hanging out. This part of town was all dark. No streetlights. Behind the house were the woods, and the trees there never seemed to grow any leaves. They stood against the dark sky and didn’t move, like they were waiting for something bad to happen.
All these thoughts, my brother said, flickered through his mind. Them and more. The biggest and darkest thought, and the heaviest, the one that pressed down on all the others, was the feeling that he was being watched by someone with no goodness in them. He felt eyes on him that were mean and greedy and so full of hate, and he felt like the house would swallow him up if he got too close.
So he stood on the first step, leaned in as far as he could get, and knocked three times on the door.
Three loud knocks, so loud they could have woken the dead and, even though he was one who made it, the noise broke something within him and he turned tail and bolted, back to the hooting and hollering of his friends, and they grabbed their bikes and cycled away from there like the devil himself was on their tails.
All this he told me one Saturday night years later, right before he went out with his college buddies. This was his version of a pep talk, because tonight it was my turn to knock on that door and my brother knew it, and he went away laughing at how white my face had gotten.
I told my parents I was going to bed early, and my dad grunted like he’d barely heard me and didn’t lift his head from the book he was reading. My mom didn’t drag her gaze away from the TV. She was watching some game show. Her favourite was Wheel of Fortune. Dad said he hated game shows, but I caught him enough times glued to Jeopardy! that we ended up watching it in secret, just us. That’s one of my fondest memories of my dad, even now.
I went to my room and turned out the light and got into bed fully dressed. I don’t know why I did that. My parents never checked on me, anyway.
At 11:20 pm, I got up. I could still hear the sounds of the TV from the living room. I put my flashlight in my pocket and climbed out the window, scuttled across the garage roof, and dropped down to where my bicycle lay. I cycled over to Pete Green’s house, and together we cycled over to the school. Pete had been my friend since we were little kids. We liked the same things. We liked skateboards and comic books and Star Wars movies and arcade games. Haven’t had a friend like him since, and I doubt I’ll find one now.
When we got to the school, Benny and Tyler were already there, waiting for us, and so was Chrissy. I hadn’t expected Chrissy to be there, and neither had Pete. She was something else we both liked.
Pete braked and brought the rear wheel of his bike around in an impressive skid. If I tried that, I’d have ended up on my face, so I slowed and stopped normally. I looked at the guys, pretending not to notice Chrissy or else I’d start blushing.
“Ready for this?” Benny asked, his grin in place.
I gave him a shrug, doing my best to act cool.
“He’s peeing his pants,” Pete said, laughing, and I laughed along with them just to show what a joke it was. As much as we were friends, I’d found it best to laugh along with Pete. He had a sharp tongue that’d turn on you if you weren’t careful.
We rode up along Mulgarvey Street, got to the edge of town where the Streets started becoming Roads, and ended up on King Road. We turned off that before the junkyard, cycled on for another few minutes, and we came to the house at the very top of King Hill.
It stood on its own like a bad idea. It was dark and ramshackle, with some boarded-up windows and a boarded-up door. No graffiti, though. I didn’t know of any kid brave enough to tag the yellowing sides of this house.
We left our bikes on their kickstands, and I went to the gate. Going to the gate was the easy part. Looking brave doing it wasn’t much of an effort, either. It was the passing through the gate that was the problem. The house had a feeling about it. The closer you got, the more you felt it. It was a sick feeling, made you queasy and light-headed while your arms rippled with gooseflesh. It was a bad house. Everyone knew it.
But I guess I had a secret weapon. I had Chrissy Brennan watching me, and I knew there was no way, there was just no way, that I was going to chicken out in front of her. My hand went to the gate, pushed it open.
It creaked, just like in a horror movie.
I didn’t look back. They’d see how white I was. How scared. I took my first step on to the garden path – though there’d never been much of a garden and there wasn’t much left of a path. A few paving stones, islands in a sea of long grass. I stepped from island to island, focusing on that, letting my mind slip away from the house that suddenly seemed to loom over me. Island to island. Step to step. I was dimly aware of how much time I was taking, and when I looked up I was dismayed to find out I was only halfway there.
Something in me faltered.
“You OK, buddy?” Pete called.
I nodded, and looked back. Chrissy stood surrounded by the others, clasping her hands at her throat.
“He’s too scared!” Benny cried.
“No, he isn’t,” said Pete, and to my horror he kicked the gate open and strode up the path after me, waving his hands in the air. “Ooooh, Bubba Moon! We’re so scared of you! We’re so scared of you, Bubba Moon!”
And then he was stridin
g past me, and I stood there like the paving stones had latched on to my feet, and there was nothing I could do as he bounded up those steps and slammed his fist against the door.
“Yoo-hoo!” he called. “Anybody home?”
The cold feeling in my chest was gone, and in its place was a dreadful hollowness. He’d robbed me of my moment. I didn’t have the words back then and I didn’t have the frame of reference, but walking up that path and knocking on that door was a rite of passage for kids like me, and my friend Pete had denied me that one small foothold into adulthood and, I suppose, manliness. And he hadn’t done it for me. He hadn’t done it as a show of solidarity. He’d done it simply to show off to Chrissy, who hadn’t come along the first time he’d knocked on that door, three months earlier.
“Come on, buddy,” he said, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me forward. “Show Mr Moon we’re not scared of him!”
I didn’t want to, there was no point in it, but I knocked, anyway. It was a feeble effort. I couldn’t believe Pete had done that to me. He wrapped an arm round my shoulders and turned me to face the others.
“See?” he said. “He did it! Happy now?”
“Yeah, big deal,” said Benny. “Bet you wouldn’t break in, though.”
I was a good kid. I never shoplifted, I never spoke back to teachers, I never even carved my name into my desk at school. I obeyed the rules and I never got the feeling I was missing out on too much by doing so. Obeying the rules meant a smoother life, all things considered. But when I saw the look on Pete’s face, when I saw how truly scared that idea made him, I saw a chance to prove myself.
“Sure I would,” I said, and I started round the house, testing the windows, seeing if any would open. When I got round the corner, I lost the confident smile and started praying that I wouldn’t be able to find a way in. It was dark round here, so I took out my flashlight, which glared back at me from the grimy window panes as I looked in.
Pete and the others came after me and I ignored them, adopting an air of casual indifference. They weren’t speaking. Not even Pete. Chrissy was wide-eyed. Three windows in a row were boarded up, so I could skip them, but I made a big show of trying to force open the ones on either side. Sadly, my burglary skills were not up to the task, and I stood back and exhaled in exasperation.
“Hey, look,” said Tyler. “You can get in here.”
He stood by the wall, lightly nudging open the narrow window at his foot. The basement window.
Everyone knew the story of Bubba Moon. When he died, they found all kinds of black magic stuff in his house. There were books and scrolls and all sorts of daggers and things, and there were jars of preserved human remains. That’s what my brother said, anyway. He said Bubba Moon used these human remains in his satanic rituals. I didn’t know how much of that was true, but what I did know for sure, what everyone knew for sure, was that when Bubba Moon’s dead body was found, it was found in the basement.
“Don’t,” said Chrissy.
“He said he’d do it,” said Benny. “Let him do it.”
“Will I be able to fit?” I asked, struggling to keep the tremor from my voice as I wandered over. It was pretty obvious I’d fit, but all I needed was for one of them to say something like I was too fat, or I’d get stuck, and that’d give me reason enough to back out.
“You’ll fit no problem,” said Pete. It had to be Pete.
I crouched, lifted the window, and shone my light in. There was a load of junk piled up, just like in any other basement.
“If there are rats in there, I’m not going,” I said. “I hate rats. No way am I going in if there are rats.”
The others crouched down beside me. More flashlights flicked on.
“Can’t see any rats,” said Benny.
“They’d hardly come out to see what the fuss was about,” Tyler said. “They’re probably scampering off into the corners or something. You’ll be fine.”
“This is stupid,” Chrissy said. “You might cut yourself on a rusty nail and need a tetanus shot. And we don’t know if there’s anybody in there. There might be homeless people living here.”
“Or the ghost of Bubba Moon,” Pete said in a scary voice.
“Shut up,” Chrissy said sharply, and Pete laughed, but I could tell the laugh was forced. He wanted her to like him as much as I wanted her to like me.
“Hold it open,” I said, and I lay down on my belly. Tyler did the honours, and I slithered forward, my flashlight in my lead hand. There were a load of cobwebs that I had to brush aside, and I forced myself not to cry out when I saw the huge spider scurrying away from the destruction of its home and dinner plate. I got my head through, shone the light on the floor below, making sure it was clear. All I saw were small piles of dead, dried leaves. No one waiting to grab me.
I brought my legs up and turned, lifting my hips slightly to avoid the latch, and let my feet go first. I was looking back at my friends as I lowered myself down. There could be anyone sneaking towards me now, any number of gnarled hands reaching for my ankles.
When my legs were down as far as they could go and I was halfway in, I glanced up and for the first time looked Chrissy right in the eyes. She had such beautiful blue eyes. Her dark hair fell in slight waves to the middle of her back. She was as tall as me and so pretty. She was the prettiest girl in school, but she refused to act like it, and here she was, out with a bunch of guys at a haunted house at a little past midnight on the weekend, and she was looking at me like she was scared she was going to lose me. I’d never felt braver.
I let myself go, and dropped into the basement.
I turned quickly, adding my beam to the shaking lights held by my friends. I wished they wouldn’t shake like that – it threw moving shadows across the far wall. I took three small steps, making sure there was nothing waiting for me in my immediate vicinity, and then broadened the sweep of my flashlight. My fleeting moment of bravery was gone, replaced by a flesh-rippling fear that was creeping up behind me no matter which direction I faced.
“See anything?” Tyler asked.
“Junk,” I managed to say. My voice sounded weird. Strangled.
“Any black magic stuff?”
I shook my head. My shadow, which was the biggest and starkest of them all, replicated the movement right in front of me. It occurred to me that someone could literally be hiding in my shadow and I’d never see him. “Just old lamps and furniture,” I said. “A table. Sofa.”
It was a big basement. My light couldn’t even reach the side walls.
“If you see a Ouija board, grab it,” said Benny.
“Don’t you dare,” said Chrissy. “My aunt did the Ouija board once and she doesn’t believe in any of that stuff, but she said that Ouija boards are actually dangerous.”
“Can’t see any,” I said, taking a single step to my left. Twenty more seconds and then I was done. Twenty more seconds.
“Can you see the circle?” Pete asked.
I knew what circle he meant. We all did. Bubba Moon had been found lying on a blanket in a circle he’d painted on the floor.
“Can’t see it,” I said.
“Go in further.”
I took another step, sighed, and shifted my weight, did my best to look energised. “Nope,” I said. “Just junk. It was years ago, anyway. It’s probably faded away to—”
One of the lights jiggled fiercely, and before I even looked back I knew what was happening. Pete was crawling through the window. He was taking my moment away from me again, and I was too weak to stop him.
He dropped down. “Right,” he said, walking past me like he didn’t have a care in the world, “where is it?”
The others came after him. I don’t know how. Didn’t they feel the same cold, sickly dread that I did? Didn’t they feel that something in this house, something down here in this basement with us, was just fundamentally wrong, and out of step with how the world was supposed to be?
I could feel the unnatural malevolence that hung heavy in the air,
but I’d forced myself to come down here because I needed to do it. I needed to do it to prove to myself, and to Chrissy, that I could. That I wasn’t about to let my fear beat me. Pete was probably the same, but Benny and Tyler and Chrissy herself? Why they came down I will never know. They regretted it, though. Later, they regretted it.
We spread out. The basement wasn’t that big, not really, but there were moments when it looked big. There were moments, glimpses out of the corner of my eye, when the walls disappeared and the basement went on forever.
“Found it,” said Chrissy.
Nobody rushed to her side. We all walked like condemned men, each step like wading through treacle. We joined our light to hers. On the floor before us was a circle that had maybe once been red. Time and dust and air and whatever had turned it dark, almost black. It was a wide circle, big enough for a tall man to lie down and die in. There were symbols on the outside. Black magic stuff. Satanic stuff. Not that any of us knew what satanic stuff looked like.
Not back then.
“I didn’t think that part was true,” said Benny. He sounded quiet. He sounded young.
We stood there and looked at this circle. Later, I asked the others if they felt what I felt, that electric tingle of panic beginning to crackle at the back of the neck. They all had. None of us let on, though. It was just an empty circle, after all. There was nothing in there that could hurt us.
“Big bad Bubba Moon,” Pete said in a soft voice.
“Don’t tease him,” said Chrissy.
The softness left Pete’s voice, and he laughed. “Tease him? He’s dead, Chrissy! He’s not around any more!”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Chrissy said, defensive, her face flushing in the light.
“Don’t tease him!” Pete cried, laughing again. “Don’t make fun of the poor dead guy! We’ll hurt his little dead feelings!”
“Pete,” I said, “stop.”
“Don’t tease him, she says!” Pete continued, howling with laughter.
I knew what he was doing. I’d gone into the basement first, I’d gotten her attention, so this was his clumsy way of pulling her pigtails, of getting her to notice him again. That probably made him do what he did next. He was just showing off. He didn’t deserve what happened. He was just showing off.