“I feel something,” she whispered. “I’m serious, Lewis. I sense something strange, something very close.”
“I don’t see anything,” I whispered.
“Shhhh.” She shoved me in the ribs. Her whole body went stiff. She kept her eyes straight ahead of her. “Who are you?” she called out. “I know you’re here. Cindy—is it you?”
Silence.
I watched for a shiny orb of light, but I didn’t see one.
“Are you there?” Jamie called, her voice just above a whisper. “Cindy? It’s me. Are you there?”
No reply.
We sat there some more, breathing softly, not moving.
Finally her tape recorder made a loud click. “End of tape,” she said. “Let’s see if we got anything.”
I clenched and unclenched my fingers, trying to get some feeling back in them. I’d been gripping the camera so hard, my fingers ached. My knees cracked as I climbed to my feet.
“I’m totally frozen,” I said. “I can’t stay out here in the cold listening to the tape. Besides, we didn’t see or hear anything.”
Jamie grabbed my arm. She pressed her cold cheek against mine. “Let’s go to my house, Lewis. We can listen in my bedroom.”
“You’re kidding, right? If your parents catch me in your bedroom . . .”
“They’re heavy sleepers,” Jamie said, stepping over a pile of bricks, heading to the street. “How do you think I get out every night? It’s almost three-thirty in the morning. They won’t wake up till their alarm goes off at seven. Trust me.”
* * *
We crept up the stairs to Jamie’s bedroom, leaning hard on the banister so the steps wouldn’t creak. We tiptoed into her room; it was all pale yellow and white with an old X-Files poster framed on the wall.
Jamie shut the door carefully. I slid my arms around her waist and started to kiss her, but she pushed me away. “Not now, Lewis. We’ve got to check this out.”
We both dropped down on the edge of her bed. She removed the cassette from her tape recorder, turned it over, and slipped it back. Then she pushed play.
I could hear the wind on the tape. Then I heard Jamie and me talking. I was complaining about how cold I was. Then there was a long silence.
“Fast forward,” I said. “There’s nothing there.” I reached for the tape player, but she slapped my hand away.
“Just shut up and listen. I felt something, Lewis. A presence. Maybe it was Cindy. Maybe she left something for us on the tape.”
So we sat in silence and listened to the wind on the tape. I couldn’t help it. I started to yawn. I wanted to curl up and go to sleep.
I felt myself drifting off . . . when the voice came on.
I sat up straight. “What was that?”
Jamie let out a gasp. She jumped to her feet, alert now. She gripped the tape player tightly in her hand. And we heard the voice again.
The voice of a ghost. . . .
3
“Back it up. Back it up,” I said, my voice suddenly hoarse and breathless.
Jamie stared at me. “You heard it too?”
I nodded.
“I thought maybe I imagined it. The voice . . . it seems so far away,” Jamie said. “I couldn’t tell if it was Cindy or not.” She rewound the tape and we listened again, pressing our ears close to the little speaker.
A roar of wind. And then a woman’s voice, faint, so distant, rising over the wind.
“Mine. . . . Did you take mine?”
I think that’s what she said. The voice was so soft.
I swallowed hard. My throat suddenly felt dry and tight. I grabbed Jamie’s arm. “Play it again.”
“Sshhh.” She shook her head.
The tape rolled. Silence. Then the woman’s voice again.
“. . . pay. If you took what is mine, you will pay.”
Then silence.
Jamie and I stood frozen in the middle of her room, staring at the tape player. My heart was pounding. I felt kinda light-headed, as if maybe I was dreaming this.
A voice from the other side?
Jamie gripped the tape player tightly. I could see that her hands were shaking.
We listened to the silence. Occasional bursts of wind.
Then I heard Jamie’s voice on the tape. A whisper: “I feel something. I’m serious, Lewis. I feel something strange, something very close.”
She pushed stop. “I was right,” she said. “There was someone close. That woman. I could feel her there, Lewis. I knew I was right.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I don’t believe in ghosts. At least, I didn’t believe in ghosts—until then.
“Play it again,” I said finally.
Jamie rewound it, and we listened to the faraway voice again. And again.
“. . . pay. If you took what is mine, you will pay.”
I shivered. “What does that mean? What is she saying?”
Jamie shook her head. “She sounds so angry.” She set the tape player down on the bed. “It’s not Cindy. Do you think maybe it’s someone from the Fear family?”
“I . . . I just can’t believe we recorded the voice of someone who’s dead,” I said.
We stared at each other. We were both thinking hard. Thinking about ghosts. . . .
Jamie rewound the tape, and once again we listened to the wind—and then the woman’s cold, distant voice.
“. . . pay. If you took what is mine, you will pay.”
Jamie clicked off the tape player. She held it tightly in her lap and turned to me. “You know what this means, don’t you, Lewis?”
“No. What?” I said.
“Someone was trying to contact us. Trying to connect with us. We have no choice. We have to go back there.”
4
Jamie and I didn’t get back to the grounds of the Fear Mansion for another week. She had the flu for a few days, and I had to go with my family to visit my cousins near Detroit.
The next Friday night, we both sneaked out of our houses a little after one in the morning and met on Fear Street. To my surprise, a lot of work had been done in the short time we were away.
The ground was still littered with roof shingles and shards of window glass. But most of the bricks from the walls, the floorboards, and the slabs of sheetrock had been hauled away.
And as Jamie and I made our way over the front yard, we saw a mountain of dirt beside a deep hole. The workers had begun to dig a foundation for the new building.
Stepping over broken shingles, we made our way to the edge of the hole and stared down. Jamie held her tape recorder in one hand. She grabbed my arm with the other hand and held on to me.
A dog barked somewhere down the street, the only other sign of life. We were surrounded by dark trees, still in a windless night.
“This mansion had such a reputation,” Jamie said softly. “So many rumors and stories. And now look at it. It’s just a pile of dirt and a hole in the ground.”
“Did you play the tape for Christa and Elena?” I asked.
She shook her head. She had a floppy, purple cap over her hair. She wore a baggy sweater pulled down over her jeans and had a long scarf wrapped around her neck. “I was sick, remember? I told them about it, but I couldn’t play it for them.”
“Aaron and Whitney said they were here Wednesday night,” I told Jamie. “I didn’t tell them about the ghost or anything. No way they’d believe me.”
“What were they doing here?” Jamie asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. She let out a soft cry and dropped to her knees.
She stared into the hole. “Hey, Lewis—what’s that down there?”
I squatted beside her. At first I didn’t see anything. But then I saw a dull sparkle in the dirt. “Just a piece of metal, I think.”
“No,” she whispered, leaning into the hole. “It’s a jewel. Some kind of jewel.”
I squinted into the darkness. The object had a blue glow.
Jamie lowered her fee
t into the hole and started to slide down the side. “I’ve got to check it out,” she said. “Look. It is a jewel. I think it’s a pendant or a pin.”
“No—wait!” I shouted. “What’s that?” I pointed.
Something curved and pale poked up from the dirt floor of the hole. “Jamie—wait.”
She saw it too. She stopped her slide, but remained perched on the edge with her feet dangling down. “Whoa, Lewis—” She let out a sharp cry. “Is it a bone?”
“I . . . think so.” I poked my head over the side of the hole. A cloud rolled away from the moon. Yellow light washed over us, and suddenly the floor of the hole came into sharp focus.
And I saw bones . . .
. . . a lot of bones—ribs, maybe. Two sets, side by side. And a long arm bone poking up from under the ground. And beside the ribs, two skeletal hands, curled tightly as if gripping the dirt.
“Are they human?” Jamie asked in a tiny voice. “Human bones?”
“Yeah,” I murmured. It was suddenly hard to breathe. I had to force air in and out of my lungs. “Human bones. Two skeletons, I think. Let’s go, Jamie. I think we should—”
“Fears!” Jamie exclaimed. “Don’t you think? Members of the Fear family who were buried beneath the house? Oh, wow. Lewis. Maybe it’s Simon and Angelica Fear. Maybe it’s their bones. The workmen accidentally uncovered their graves.”
My chest ached. I still had trouble breathing. This was a little too creepy for me. I didn’t want to admit that to Jamie. She thinks I’m some kind of macho guy because I like to climb mountains with my family and hike out in the woods for days and stuff.
But I really didn’t want to be here staring at two skeletons half-buried in the dirt.
“Jamie, let’s go,” I said. I tried to tug her arm. But she jerked it away from me and started to slide down the dirt wall, into the hole.
“Hey—stop! What are you doing?” I cried, and made another grab for her.
“The jewel,” she said. “It’s a pendant. It . . . it’s beautiful. I have to try . . .”
“No, wait—”
She started to slide fast. She flung out both arms to slow her fall. Her floppy cap caught on a twig poking out from the dirt wall and lifted off her head.
“Hey, NO—” Jamie uttered a cry as she landed hard on the bottom. Her knees gave way and she toppled forward.
I gasped as she fell on top of one of the skeletons. She landed face-down over the curving ribs. “Oh, help!” she cried, struggling to pull herself away.
Then I froze and stared in disbelief as a skeletal hand started to move. The hand slowly lifted itself from the dirt. The bony fingers uncurled—and grabbed Jamie’s scarf.
“Ohhhh.” A moan escaped my throat as I saw the other bony hand reach up. The hands grabbed Jamie’s scarf and tugged hard.
In the bright moonlight, I saw the confused expression on Jamie’s face. Saw her eyes bulge in shock. It took her a while to realize what was happening.
But I saw. I saw everything!
And then the skeletal hands. . . .
The hands. . . .
They wrapped around Jamie’s throat.
I leaped into the hole. I flew down the wall of dirt and landed hard on my feet beside Jamie.
Pain shot up my legs. But I ignored it and grabbed the skeleton hands. I struggled to pull them off Jamie’s throat. But the bony hands wrapped tightly around her neck and held on.
I couldn’t budge them.
And before I could try something else, the dirt beside me shifted. I heard a sick, hollow groan, like air escaping from a balloon. And the other skeleton—bones cracking, cracking, and crackling as it moved—lifted up from the dark floor of the hole.
I felt cold, hard bony fingers tighten around my neck. I fell to the ground, twisting and thrashing, trying to squirm away, trying to fight it off. But my whole body was heavy with panic. And I couldn’t breathe . . . couldn’t breathe. . . .
Beside me, I saw Jamie—eyes wide, mouth locked in a wide O of horror—being strangled . . . strangled by the skeleton, a hideous grin on the dirt-caked skull.
The strong, bony hands tightened around my throat and squeezed.
Twisting to pull free, I felt something drop onto my back. And then something hit my shoulders. I saw dirt flying . . . dirt falling into the hole. Falling on my head, my back. . . .
I couldn’t breathe . . . couldn’t breathe at all.
The dirt fell into the hole from above.
And over the roar, I heard that ghostly woman’s voice: “You’ll pay . . . you’ll ALL pay now . . .”
The mountain of dirt was flying, flying and falling, filling up the hole again.
The two skulls grinned. The hard, bony hands tightened and squeezed.
And the dirt rained down.
My last thought: Jamie and I . . . no one will find us.
No one will ever know where we are.
We are being strangled—and buried alive!
PART TWO
ONE YEAR LATER
5
Ryland O’Connor, the bartender at Nights, flashed me a thumbs-up as I stepped into the bar. “Hey, whussup, Nate?”
“Not much. The usual,” I said. We bumped knuckles.
Ryland is a tall, stocky, red-faced guy with spiky blond hair, a silver ring in one ear, and crinkled-up eyes that always seem to be laughing. He has three tiny, blue stars tattooed on his right temple. And a long scar on one cheek that he won’t tell anyone how he got.
He wears tight muscle shirts so everyone can see he works out. Most nights he wears torn shorts and sandals, like he’s going to the beach.
Ryland is a good guy.
He knows we’re high school kids, and we flash him phony IDs whenever he remembers to card us. But he doesn’t care. He serves us our beers and winks about it as long as there’s no trouble and kids don’t start acting crazy.
Besides, the Night People are the only ones who give him an excuse to stay open all night. Everyone else in the town of Shadyside is asleep.
I stepped past the bar and glanced around, squinting in the dim, red glow of light. “Shark here yet?”
Ryland nodded. “The booth in back. With a girl.”
A girl?
“Not Candy, right? Any sign of Candy?” I asked.
Ryland pulled a bottle of Coors from the bar fridge, popped the top, and handed it to me. “Which one is she? The kinda chubby one with the black curls?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s her.”
He took a sip of club soda. Ryland only drinks club soda. “Haven’t seen her tonight.” He grinned at me and brushed back his spiky hair. “That the one you’re hot for, Nate? I thought you were into the tall one with the long blond hair. Whitney Something.”
“Whitney’s going out with Aaron,” I said. “And no way, man. I mean about Candy. No way. Really. She’s bad news. Ask Shark.”
I saw Shark sitting with a blonde-haired girl in the red vinyl booth at the back wall. “Yo—Shark!” I called to him and started over there.
But Ryland called me back. “Nate, you forgot something.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I reached for my wallet.
“No. Not that,” Ryland said. He gestured with his head to the brass plaque on the wall next to the entrance.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” I backed up and kissed the plaque. Kissed Angelica Fear right on the lips.
The plaque shows the two original Fears, Angelica and Simon. Just their faces, young faces, like they’re in their twenties or maybe thirties. Underneath the picture it says, FIRST SETTLERS OF SHADYSIDE. FEAR MANSION BUILT ON THIS SPOT IN 1889.
We all kiss the plaque when we come into Nights. I mean, just about everyone kisses it. Partly as a joke, and maybe some of us think it keeps bad luck away.
“Hey, Ryland,” I said, “you ever feel funny about this?” I pointed to the plaque with my beer bottle. “I mean, this bar being right on the spot where the Fear Mansion used to stand? Does that ever creep you out?”
/> “Ooh, I’m scared. I’m totally scared,” he said, pretending to shake. His grin faded. “Like, no way, man. I could care less about the stupid old legends and scare stories.”
Ryland scratched the scar on his cheek. “Look at this place. The bar is doing business big-time. Fear Street Acres is amazing, man. I mean, the crowds are unbelievable. Talk about changing a whole part of town. Who remembers the old Fear Street? Nobody. That’s ancient history.”
“That’s great, man,” I said, glancing at the blank-eyed faces of the Fears on the plaque. Shark and Aaron and I and a few other kids spent one Halloween night in the Fear Street woods when we were in sixth grade. And I still remembered the strange howls and cries we heard coming from the Fear Mansion all night long.
We were scared that night. No kidding.
When they tore down that old house, I expected them to find a huge pile of dead bodies inside. And I expected weird creatures and mutants and vampires and things to come flying out.
But none of that happened.
It was kinda disappointing. Just piles of bricks and shingles and broken glass, chunks of plaster, and wallboards. And a lot of old junk in a hidden room that used to belong to the Fears.
I took some cool, old photographs. And I found a belt that had a silver skull for a buckle.
Shark has a pistol he found in that room. He says Simon Fear probably killed dozens of people with it. He showed it to his dad, and his dad made him put it in a lockbox in the basement.
I glanced at the yellow neon Budweiser clock hanging on the wall behind the bar. It was a little before two in the morning.
I had to grin.
My parents are divorced, and my mom doesn’t get home from work till seven every night. Sometimes she tells me I look tired and should get more rest. She doesn’t have a clue that I have this secret night life. None of our parents do.
Yeah, we’re all wrecked a lot of the time. But it’s totally worth it.
I took another sip of my beer and headed to Shark’s booth in back. He was busy talking to the blonde girl, spinning his beer bottle between his hands and tapping his feet. Shark is a tense guy; he’s always moving.