Panic(31)

Immediately, Heather smelled it too: mouse shit and mildew, rot, like the smell of a mouth closed up for years.

Jagged beams of light zigzagged across the halls and through dark rooms, as the other players slowly spread out, trying to stake out their own corners, their own hiding spots. Floorboards creaked and doors moaned open and closed; voices whispered in the dark.

The blackness was as thick and heavy as soup. Heather felt her stomach pooling, opening with fear. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone. Nat had the same idea. Nat’s face was suddenly visible, lit up from underneath, her eyes deep hollows, her skin blue-tinged. Heather used the feeble light from her phone to cast a small circle on the faded wallpaper, the termite-eaten molding.

Suddenly a bright light flashed on.

“Flashlight app,” Dodge said, as Heather brought a hand to her eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t know it would be so strong.”

He directed the beam upward, to the ceiling, where the remains of a chandelier were swinging, creaking, in a faint wind. That was where three Graybill men had hanged themselves, if the rumors were true.

“Come on,” Heather said, trying to keep her voice steady. The judges might be anywhere. “Let’s move away from the door.”

They advanced farther into the house. Dodge took the lead. Footsteps rang out above them, on the second floor.

Dodge’s flashlight cut a small, sharp blade through the blackness, and Heather was reminded of a documentary about the wreck of the Titanic she’d watched once with Lily—the way the recovery submersibles had looked, floating through all that dark space, crawling over the ruined wood and the old china plates, which were covered with mossy growth and underwater things. That was how she felt. As if they were at the bottom of the ocean. The pressure on her chest was squeezing, squeezing. She could hear Nat breathing hard. From upstairs came muffled sounds of shouting: a fight.

“Kitchen,” Dodge announced. He swept the beam of light across a rust-pitted stove, a tile floor half ripped up. All the images were disjointed, bleached white, like in a bad horror film. Heather pictured insects everywhere, spiderwebs, horrible things dropping on her from above.

Dodge aimed his beam in the corner and Heather almost screamed: for a second she saw a face—black, pitted eyes, mouth leering.

“Can you stop pointing that thing at me?”

The girl raised her hand in front of her eyes, squinting, and Heather’s heartbeat slowed. It was just Sarah Wilson, huddled in the corner. As Dodge angled the light down, Heather saw that Sarah had brought a pillow and a sleeping bag. It would be easier, far easier, if all the players could huddle together in one room, passing Cheetos and a bottle of cheap vodka someone had stolen from a parent’s liquor cabinet.

But they were beyond that.

They passed out of the kitchen and down a short set of stairs, littered with trash, all of it lit up in starts and jerks: cigarette butts, brittle leaves, blackened Styrofoam coffee cups. Squatters.

Heather heard footsteps: in the walls, overhead, behind her. She couldn’t tell.

“Heather”—Nat turned around, grabbed Heather’s sweatshirt.

“Shhhh,” Dodge hushed them sharply. He shut off the flashlight.

They stood in darkness so heavy, Heather could taste it every time she inhaled: things moldering, rotting slowly; slippery, sliding, slithery things.

Behind her. The footsteps stopped, hesitated. Floorboards creaked. Someone was following them.

“Move,” Heather whispered. She knew she was losing it—that it was probably just another player exploring the house—but she couldn’t stop a terrible fantasy that seized her: it was one of the judges, pacing slowly through the dark, ready to grab her. And not a human, either—a supernatural being with a thousand eyes and long, slick fingers, a jaw that would come unhinged, a mouth big enough to swallow you.

The footsteps advanced. One more step, and then another.

“Move,” she said again. Her voice sounded strangled, desperate in the dark.

“In here,” Dodge said. It was so dark, she couldn’t even see him, though he must have been standing only a few feet away. He grunted; she heard the groaning of old wood, the whine of rusted hinges.

She felt Nat move away from her and she followed blindly, quickly, nearly tripping over an irregularity in the floor, which marked the beginning of a new room. Dodge swung the door closed behind her, leaning into it until it popped into place. Heather stood, panting. The footsteps kept coming. They paused outside the door. Her breath was shallow, as though she’d been underwater. Then the footsteps withdrew.

Dodge turned on the flashlight app again. In its glow, his face looked like a weird modern painting: all angles.

“What was that?” Heather whispered. She was almost afraid neither Dodge nor Nat had heard.

But Dodge said, “Nothing. Someone trying to freak us out. That’s all.”

He placed his phone on the floor so the beam of light was directed straight up. Dodge had a sleeping bag stuffed in his backpack; Heather shook out the blanket she’d brought. Nat sat down next to the cone of light, drawing the blanket around her shoulders.

All of a sudden, relief broke in Heather’s chest. They were safe, together, around their makeshift version of a campfire. Maybe it would be easy.

Dodge squatted next to Nat. “Might as well get comfortable, I guess.”

Heather paced the small room. It must have once been a storage area, or maybe a pantry, except that it was a little ways from the kitchen. It was probably no more than twenty feet square. High up against one wall was the room’s single window, but the cloud cover was so thick, barely any light penetrated. On one wall were warped wooden shelves, which now contained nothing but a layer of dust and yet more trash: empty chip bags, a crushed soda can, an old wrench. She used the light of her cell phone to perform a quick exploration.