“It’s a Pinnacle tradition,” she said with a flirty smile as she tossed her ponytail. “Every newbie has to go ghost hunting on Halloween night.”
“Really?” I said, not sure if I should believe her.
“Yeah. It’s really fun.”
“Have you ever done it before?”
She shrugged. “It’s not my first time.” She gave me a conspiratorial grin and leaned across the library table toward me. “I’ll bring some of my mom’s secret stash of vodka and we’ll make screwdrivers and stuff.”
I wondered if she understood what this sounded like. Me and her, in an abandoned house on Halloween night, drinking vodka. “You aren’t worried about your reputation?” I said, a slight smile on my face.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. You can tell me all about your life in California and I can introduce you to Pinnacle’s finest ghosts.”
I studied her face for a minute. She was all shiny-eyed confidence, and warmth spread through me as I thought about it. Yeah, I wanted to spend Halloween night with McKenzie Wells in an abandoned house drinking vodka. I definitely wanted to do that. “Okay,” I said, and something like triumph flashed over her face before she gave me a dazzling smile.
“Awesome.”
But that brief flash of triumph I saw stuck with me, chipping into my anticipation over spending Halloween night alone with McKenzie. The only time we’d gotten together outside of school was to work on a physics report at the library. This was totally different. As much as I wanted to believe McKenzie wasn’t entirely straight, I didn’t think I should count on it. So I did some research on the guesthouse, just in case. I might be new to Pinnacle, but I wasn’t born yesterday.
That’s why I decided to go on the ghost tour. I figured I’d get a sneak peek at the place before McKenzie showed up. I like to be prepared.
The guide finally finishes his boring recital of the guesthouse’s history and says, “Let’s head upstairs and I’ll tell you all about the ghost, all right?” We follow him down the hallway and crowd into a room overlooking the street. There’s nothing in the room but an ancient armchair that nobody moves to sit in. “I’ve brought you in here because we can’t all fit into room number three down the hall, which is the site of one of the two deaths that this guesthouse is known for.”
He tells us that in the fall of 1897, two young women boarded here, one of them a teacher, the other a seamstress. They shared a room because neither of them could afford her own, and because back then it was safer for two women to board together than alone. One night, the teacher came back from work to discover that the seamstress was dead—shot by a gunslinger who mistook her for a prostitute who had turned him down. A few days later, the teacher herself died.
“She took her own life,” the tour guide says, and the whole group is silent. “We’ll never know why she decided to do it. Perhaps her delicate feminine sensibilities were too upset by the untimely death of her roommate. Just before Halloween, she hanged herself in the cellar.”
A noticeable shiver ripples through the crowd, and I wrap my arms around myself.
“Now, who’s up for checking out the deceased’s room?” the tour guide says cheerfully. Nervous laughter titters through the group. “It’s pretty small, so you’ll need to take it in groups of four or five.”
Everybody starts moving toward the hallway, and since I’m on the edge of the group, I get pushed out of the room first, bumping into one of the boys standing just outside the door. They’re all wearing puffy down jackets and ski hats, and I separate them out as Tall, Medium, and Short.
“Dude, watch out,” Tall says.
“Sorry.”
“Hey, do you go to Westfield?” he asks. “I don’t recognize you.”
“I go to Coal Creek,” I say, pitching my voice lower. I know he doesn’t realize I’m not a guy, and I don’t think I want to deal with him figuring it out. A thick rush of homesickness fills me. I’m so sick of being new all the time. I miss my friend Jada with her blue hair, and Kendall who’s obsessed with anime. I miss the warm weather and I miss—God, I miss Angie. Even if she never really liked me that way, at least she didn’t think it was crazy that I liked her.
The shortest of the three guys comes back from looking over the railing at the foyer and says, “Hey, do you remember seeing that door down there? I bet it leads to the basement. Wanna go check it out?”
“That’s where the tour guide said that chick killed herself,” Tall says.
“Duh,” says Short. “That’s why we should go down there.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” says Medium enthusiastically. “This tour is boring.”
Tall gestures at me. “Hey, dude, wanna come?”
I glance over my shoulder at the tour guide, but he’s busy corralling the crowd in small groups into the bedroom. “Yeah, okay.” The guys are right. This tour is boring, and I want to check out the rest of the house before McKenzie shows up.
We go back down the stairs as quietly as possible.
“What’s your name?” Tall asks.
“Ty.”
“Hey. I’m Brian. This is Chad and that’s Jason.”
“Hi,” I say, nodding to them.
“What are you doing on this tour?” Brian asks.
“Just moved here. Wanted to see what it was about.”
Jason’s already at the door they spotted. It has a latch holding it shut, and when he lifts it, the door springs open. “Whoa,” he says, and shines his flashlight down the stairs. I see dirt at the bottom; the basement’s not finished.
“That’s creepy, man,” Brian says.
Chad is apparently the one with the most need to prove himself, because he shoves his way to the front and says, “Whatever. Don’t be a chicken.” He heads down the stairs, and Brian and Jason chuckle nervously before following.
I trail them down the steps into the cellar, the smell of damp dirt surrounding me. The space is pretty small, but as they shine their flashlights around the room, I spot a door on the far wall.
“Check that out,” Chad says. “That is awesome.”
I try to suppress the shiver that runs over me, but I can’t. I’m not cold, exactly, but there’s definitely something eerie about the air down here. It feels thick against my face, as if I’m walking through fog.
Even Jason seems a little freaked out. “Dude, do you really—”
But by then Chad has already crossed the basement and opened the door in the wall, and the scent that spills out is foul.
“Something must’ve died in there,” Brian says.
We all go stiff with silence, until Chad says, “Yeah, dude, like a rat.”
Jason gives a nervous laugh and joins Chad at the threshold. They sweep their lights through the space. I’m standing behind them, beside Brian, but I can see a little. It’s a big room; I think it goes underneath the whole house. There are several piles of furniture in it, chairs and tables and an old tufted armchair that must have once been pretty nice but is now clearly a nest for whatever died.
Something flutters at the edge of the flashlight, and Chad curses out loud, bumping into Jason. “Dude, get away from me,” Jason growls.
“Shut up—check that out.” Chad shines the light up, and for one terrifying second I think there’s a body hanging from the rafters. “It’s a sheet,” Chad says triumphantly. “Somebody tied a freaking sheet to the ceiling.”
The boys start laughing, and I join in—I can’t help it—it’s just a sheet nailed to the rafters. It’s not a ghost at all; it just looks like one.
Something touches my back, and I glance over at Brian, who’s closest to me, but he’s at least three or four feet away.
I freeze.
There’s something behind me. I want to turn around but I’m paralyzed. The boys are joking about how someone got that sheet up there in the first place. They don’t notice that I’ve stopped laughing. The impression of five fingers on my skin—even though I’m wearing my own puffy jacket—is unmistakable. And then I feel someone lean over my shoulder, an unseen weight bending toward my head. I feel breath against my ear. Even though I want to scream, I don’t, because of that hand pressing against me as if to say, Don’t say a word.