The Quarry Girls(17)

It wasn’t coming from the Pitts’ door like I’d first thought.

It was coming from the direction where we’d stumbled over the vagrant.

The extra-spooky end.

A breeze licked my exposed neck. I whirled around, shining my light. “Hello?”

No one. Behind me, the sound repeated. I spun back, my shoulder muscles pulled as tight as guitar strings. I was being silly. There wasn’t anyone in the tunnels but me, Brenda, Claude, and Junie. Sure, I’d never walked to this end alone, but I wasn’t alone. My friends were here, probably hiding around the next corner. I shined my flashlight straight ahead.

“Ready or not, I’m coming for you!”

The more I walked toward the haunted end, the louder the noise grew, but it was still muffled, and it had a distinct beat. I knew what that sound usually meant: someone was hosting a basement party. Well, that was their right. I beamed my light above the doors I was passing. Most of them had the numbers removed, but every fifth one or so was there.

I heard a scream—music? Someone was really rocking it. I covered a lot of ground quickly, trying to reach the source of the party sounds, see if I knew who it was. Maybe we could switch to playing word hunt, like Junie had begged us to.

I was smiling, thinking of the phrase we’d use, when a cold hand latched on to my wrist.





CHAPTER 9


Brenda dragged me into an alcove and flashed her light in her face, her finger over her lips. She then lit up Claude and Junie, who were crouching next to her and staring straight ahead. Brenda led the light to the opposite wall to show me why.

The bronze knob on the door was moving.

Above the ornate door—one of the originals, like mine and Claude’s—all but the number 23 was chipped away. I knew this general area even without the full house number, so I did the math quick. We were dead center in the haunted section. Because no kids lived down this way, that meant a grown-up was going to come through that door. We knew most families in Pantown, but we didn’t know them all. I felt a twinge of fear.

The wiggling stopped. I audibly exhaled.

“They’re really going to town in there,” Brenda whispered.

Music—Elvis Presley, which guaranteed whoever was partying on the other side of that door was old—some cheering, male laughter.

Something about the noises made my skin get up and crawl. “We should go,” I said.

Claude nodded. Brenda too. All three of us felt it, oily black gunk oozing out along with the twangy music and the growling laughs. We’d spied on plenty of parties playing word hunt. This was different. Something bad was happening on the other side of that door.

But Junie didn’t sense the threat. It might have been her age, or her personality. She’d never met a stranger, Dad always said. Or it might be that she was excited to be with us and wanted to show off. Whatever drove her, she acted before I could stop her, dashing across the tunnel, the side of her face glowing from reflected light.

“I’m going to haunt the knob,” she whispered. “Get ready to run.”

Haunt the knob was another one of our games. We’d listen at a basement door until we were sure there was someone on the other side and then twist the knob. We’d run off squealing, telling ourselves the homeowner must think it was a poltergeist. Dumb, but in this moment, it was even more than that.

It felt dangerous.

“Junie! Get back here,” I hissed, lunging for her. I was suddenly desperate to get us out of there, but the air pushed back at me, turning everything into slow-motion jelly.

Junie reached the knob, grasped it, turned. Her flashlight transformed her face into a grinning jack-o’-lantern. She glanced in my direction, and her glee switched to confusion as she saw me flying across the tunnel to reach her. Her light beam dropped, but her hand was on automatic and kept turning that knob.

The door cracked open.

Brenda, Claude, and I inhaled in shock.

Strangers’ doors were not supposed to open.

None of us had ever tried, not that I knew of. We assumed they’d be locked.

Music poured out of the opening door, music and cigar smoke and something salty and sweaty, but I could barely catalog the smell and sound because what I was seeing punched me in the face.

Strobe lights.

A row of three men.

No.

Flashes of brightness then darkness scissoring them, illuminating only their waists to their knees, that same light slicing my chest, revealing the TAFT patch sewn into the borrowed fatigues.

Elvis, singing. Well, that’s all right, mama, that’s all right for you.

No no.

A girl on her knees, her head bobbing at the waist of the center man.

That’s all right, mama, just anyway you do.

Her hair long and blonde.

Flash. Strobe.

Feathered, with green streaks.

The hand at the back of her scalp pressed her face into his crotch. He was wearing a copper bracelet that looked familiar.

No no no no no.

I couldn’t hang on to a thought, my mind erasing what I was seeing while I was staring at it.

Well, that’s all right, that’s all right.

“Close it!” Brenda screamed, and the girl on her knees whose face I did not want to see was turning, her chin, her cheek, her profile appearing. In a second she and I would be staring straight into one another’s eyes.