Chapter 13: Fun and Games
The living room had become a tomb.
Six of them now, huddled together on the frayed couch and the mismatched chairs they'd dragged into a loose circle, their faces illuminated by the weak, flickering glow of candles that seemed to dim and brighten with every breath of air that moved through the room. The storm had settled into a steady, oppressive rhythm outside, rain drumming against the windows like impatient fingers, and the old Victorian house creaked and groaned around them as if it were alive, as if it were listening.
Evette sat wedged between Chloe and Nancy, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs. She couldn't stop shaking. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Clara kneeling by the bed, those dark, patient eyes scanning the shadows, that terrible smile spreading across her pale face. She saw the yellow dress, the waterlogged skin, the way the girl had moved through the house like she owned every inch of it.
Because she did. She owned all of it. She owned them.
Sheryl stood by the window, her back to the room, her arms crossed tight over her chest. She'd been standing there for the past ten minutes, staring out into the rain-smeared darkness, watching the silhouette of the old well at the edge of the yard. She hadn't said a word since Clara had left them alone. None of them had.
Tanya was the first to break the silence. "We need to call someone. The police. Anyone." Her voice was sharp, edged with a desperation she was trying to hide behind her usual biting tone. She pulled out her phone, her fingers trembling as she unlocked it. "There's no signal. There's still no goddamn signal."
"Clara did that," Maya whispered. She was curled up in the corner of the couch, her sketchbook clutched to her chest like a shield, her dark eyes wide and unblinking. "She controls the house. She controls everything in it. She probably controls the phones too."
"Don't say that." Nancy's voice was thin, almost pleading. "Don't say she controls everything. There has to be something we can do. There has to be a way out."
"There is." Chloe's voice was firm, but Evette could feel the tremor hidden beneath it. Chloe was scared. They all were. "We just have to figure out what it is. We have to figure out what she wants."
"She wants us to play with her," Evette said softly. The words felt like ash in her mouth. "She wants us to be her friends. Her forever friends."
A chill ran through the room. The candles flickered, their flames dancing in a breeze that shouldn't have existed, and for a moment, the shadows on the walls seemed to shift, to twist, to take on shapes that weren't quite human.
Then the door at the top of the stairs creaked open.
They all froze. Six heads turned toward the staircase, toward the darkness at the top, and Evette felt her heart drop into her stomach. She'd been so focused on the living room, on the safety of the huddled group, that she'd almost forgotten Clara could be anywhere. Everywhere.
Small feet padded down the stairs, unhurried, patient. The yellow dress came into view first, stained and waterlogged, clinging to the child's pale frame. Clara descended the stairs with a gentle, almost sleepy grace, her dark hair dripping water onto the floorboards, leaving a trail of damp footprints in her wake.
She was carrying something. A cordless phone. The old one from the kitchen, the one that sat in its cradle by the landline, the one that Evette had never seen anyone actually use.
Clara stopped at the bottom of the stairs and smiled at them. It was a sweet smile, a child's smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes were dark and depthless and patient, and they swept across the group with a hungry kind of curiosity.
"Have you thought about it?" she asked, her voice light and musical. "About calling your friends? About inviting them to play with us?"
Sheryl turned from the window. Her face was pale, her jaw set, her hazel eyes blazing with a defiance that made Evette's breath catch. "No," she said, her voice shaking but firm. "We're not calling anyone. We're not dragging anyone else into this. You're not going to hurt them too."
Clara tilted her head, studying Sheryl with those depthless eyes. Her smile didn't waver, but something flickered in her gaze. Something cold. Something patient.
"But they're already part of the game," Clara said, as if explaining something obvious to a slow child. "They were here last night. They slept in this house. They saw me. They just didn't realize it."
The words hit Evette like a physical blow. Last night. They'd all stayed over last night, the six of them crammed into the living room with sleeping bags and pillows, laughing and talking until the early hours of the morning. The boys had left around midnight, joking about the weird creaks in the walls, teasing each other about the cold spots in the hallway.
They'd been here. They'd been in the house. They'd been with Clara, and they hadn't even known it.
"Please." Nancy's voice cracked. She stood up, her hands clasped in front of her, her freckled face twisted with desperation. "Please, Clara. Please don't involve them. They didn't do anything to you. They don't even know you exist. Just let them go. Let us go. Please."
Clara's smile softened. For a moment, she almost looked sympathetic, almost human. "But I'm lonely," she said, her voice small and sad. "I've been alone for so long. I just want friends to play with. Friends who will stay with me forever."
Tanya shook her head, her jet-black hair whipping around her face. "No. No way. Nope. We're not doing this. You can't make us."
Clara's smile flattened. The sadness in her eyes curdled into something else, something darker, something that made Evette's blood run cold. The candles flickered violently, their flames guttering as if caught in a wind, and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
"Then I'll ask them myself," Clara said, and her voice was no longer small and sad. It was flat, cold, and utterly patient. "I don't need you to call them. I can call them myself. I know their voices. I've heard them. I've learned them."
Before any of them could respond, Clara raised the cordless phone to her ear. She pressed a button, and the phone began to ring, the sound tinny and distant in the heavy silence of the living room.
When she spoke, it wasn't Clara's voice. It was Nancy's.
"Larry? Hey, it's me." The voice was perfect. Inflection, warmth, the little lilt Nancy always had when she talked to Larry. Clara stood there, the phone pressed to her ear, her pale face expressionless, and Nancy's voice flowed out of her mouth like honey. "Listen, I know it's late, but something's come up. Can you come back to the house? Yeah, the storm's getting really bad, and we're kinda scared. Yeah, I know, I know it's silly. But we'd feel better if you were here. Yeah. Okay. See you soon. Love you."
She pressed the button to end the call and lowered the phone.
Nancy's face had gone white. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide and glassy, her hands trembling at her sides. "That's not fair," she whispered. "That's not fair. He thinks that was me. He thinks I really called him."
Clara smiled. Then she pressed the button again and dialed another number.
This time, when she spoke, it was Sheryl's voice.
"Josh? Hey, it's Sheryl." So casual. So natural. The voice of a girlfriend calling her boyfriend late at night, concern and warmth mingling together. "Something's wrong out here. The storm's really bad, and the roads are flooding. Can you come get us? Yeah. The old Victorian on Birch. Yeah. Hurry. Please. Bring the truck."
The phone clicked. Clara lowered it, her smile widening.
Sheryl's face was a mask of horror. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, her knuckles white, her sharp hazel eyes burning with a fury that was also, unmistakably, a desperate, drowning fear. "How did you do that?" she demanded, her voice raw. "How did you do that?"
Clara ignored her. She pressed the button again. Dialed another number.
This time, the voice that emerged was Tanya's, sharp and demanding, with that edge of impatience Tanya always carried when she was frustrated.
"Kyle, where are you? We've been waiting. No, I don't care about the rain. I don't care about the roads. Get your ass over here. Something's wrong. I can't explain it over the phone, just come to the house. Now. Don't make me ask twice."
Click. The phone went silent.
Clara lowered it and looked at them, her dark eyes glittering with a terrible, childish delight. The phone dropped from her fingers, clattering against the floor, and she clasped her hands together in front of her chest, bouncing slightly on her heels like an excited child.
"They're coming," she said, her voice reverting to its usual sing-song tone. "Larry, Josh, and Kyle. They're all on their way. They're coming to play with us."
The room was silent. The only sounds were the rain against the windows, the faint creak of the old Victorian, and the ragged, shaky breathing of the six women huddled together in the flickering candlelight.
Evette felt something snap inside her. A cold, brittle thing that had been holding her together, that had been keeping her calm and focused and functional. It wasn't a loud snap. It was a quiet, terrible fracture, spreading through her like cracks in ice, and she felt herself start to shake.
She thought of Larry, with his easy smile and his steady, grounding presence. She thought of Josh, with his quiet competence and his calm, dependable hands. She thought of Kyle, with his sharp wit and his restless, questioning mind.
They were coming. They were driving through the storm, through the flooded roads and the howling wind, straight into this house, straight into Clara's waiting arms.
And there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.
"This is going to be fun, friends," Clara said, and her smile stretched wide across her pale, waterlogged face. "This is going to be so much fun."
The candles flickered. The lights surged, then died. And in the darkness, Clara began to hum.
The silence that followed Clara's words was not empty. It was thick, viscous, the kind of silence that pressed against eardrums like water in deep places. Evette could hear her own heartbeat, a dull, rapid thump that seemed to sync with the rain's relentless rhythm against the windowpanes. She could hear Maya's breathing, quick and shallow, a rabbit's breath, and Chloe's, steadier but still too fast. She could hear the old house settling around them, groaning as if it were digesting them whole.
Nancy was still standing. Her face was a mask of horror, her freckles stark against the sudden pallor of her skin. "Larry," she whispered. "He thinks I called him. He thinks I—" She pressed her hands over her mouth, eyes squeezed shut. "Oh God. Oh God, he's coming here. He's coming."
Clara tilted her head, watching Nancy with a curious, almost clinical interest. The little girl's smile had faded, replaced by something assessing, something that made Evette's skin crawl. Clara's eyes narrowed, flicking down to Nancy's pocket, where something metallic glinted in the candlelight.
Evette followed her gaze. Nancy's jeans, damp from the earlier storm-soaked dash from the car, had a small bulge in the right pocket. The glint caught the candlelight again, sharp and bright.
Clara's voice was flat. "You've been stealing."
Nancy froze. "What?"
"My things." Clara's tone was no longer sing-song. It was ice. "You took them. I saw you. In my room. You took them."
Nancy's hand flew to her pocket, her fingers closing around something. When she pulled it out, Evette felt her stomach drop. It was a small collection of items, held loosely in Nancy's trembling palm. A tarnished silver earring, shaped like a crescent moon. A tiny leather-bound diary, water-stained and warped. And a letter opener. Ornately carved, with a polished brass handle and a blade that caught the candlelight like a mirror, sharp and glinting.
"I—" Nancy's voice cracked. "I didn't mean to. I was just holding on to them. I found them upstairs and I—"
"You've been stealing!" Clara's voice erupted, no longer that of a small, lonely child. It was a shriek, raw and piercing, that sliced through the room and made all six women flinch. The candles guttered violently, nearly extinguishing, and the temperature dropped so sharply that Evette could see her own breath misting in the air.
Clara's face had gone taut with fury. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the darkness, her dark eyes burning with a rage that was ancient and hungry and utterly, terrifyingly real. "Those are mine. They're mine. My things. My things. You can't take my things."
Nancy's hand began to rise. Slowly, jerkily, as if it were being pulled by invisible strings. The letter opener glinted in the candlelight, trembling violently in her grip. Nancy stared at her own hand, her face contorting in confusion and horror. "What's happening? What's happening to me?"
"Nobody takes my things." Clara's voice was cold and flat again, her fury curdling into something still and patient. "Nobody takes what's mine."
Nancy's hand moved. Fast. So fast that Evette didn't even see it happen until it was over. The letter opener slammed into Nancy's forearm, the blade sinking into flesh with a wet, sickening thud. Nancy gasped, her eyes flying wide, a choked sound of shock and pain escaping her lips.
The candlelight flickered. The room was silent, frozen, the only sound the wet, ragged sound of Nancy's breathing and the rain continuing its relentless beat against the glass.
Then Nancy's hand rose again. The blade came free, blood blooming across her sleeve, dark and spreading. She gasped again, a sob catching in her throat. "No. No, please. Please, I've sorry. I'm sorry—"
The blade came down again. This time it struck her upper arm, just below the shoulder, and the blood sprayed in a fine mist across her cheek and the front of her shirt. Nancy let out a sharp, keening cry, her whole body shuddering.
"Stop!" Sheryl shouted, lunging forward. But her body froze mid-motion, her muscles locking tight, her eyes bulging. She was stuck, suspended, as if she'd been dipped in concrete. "Let her go! Let her go!"
Clara watched, her head tilted, her expression one of mild curiosity. Like a child watching an ant struggle beneath a magnifying glass. "She shouldn't have taken my things."
The blade came down again. And again. Nancy's body was jerking now, convulsing, her arm rising and falling in a relentless, mechanical rhythm. Once. Twice. Three times. Each strike was precise, deliberate, landing in the soft meat of her arms, her shoulders, her sides. Blood saturated her shirt, turning it a deep, dark crimson that spread like spilled paint across the fabric.
The others screamed. Chloe was shouting something—Evette couldn't make out the words. Maya had closed her eyes, her hands pressed over her ears, her body rocking back and forth. Tanya was straining against an invisible force, her jaw clenched, her eyes filled with a fury that was also a plea.
Evette couldn't move. Her body was frozen, her limbs heavy and unresponsive. She could only watch, her heart hammering against her ribs, her throat raw with screams that wouldn't come. She watched Nancy's face twist with pain and terror. She watched the letter opener rise and fall, rise and fall, glinting wetly in the candlelight.
Twenty times. Thirty. Evette lost count. She lost count of the blood, of the screams, of the wet, rhythmic thud of the blade striking flesh, again and again and again.
Sheryl finally broke free. She lunged, her hand closing around Nancy's wrist, trying to wrench the blade away. But Nancy was too strong. Or Clara was too strong. The arm kept moving, jerking, slamming the blade into Nancy's chest, her stomach, her throat. Sheryl was thrown backward, crashing against the coffee table, her head snapping back.
Nancy's body went stiff. The letter opener clattered to the floor, skidding across the hardwood, leaving a dark smear of blood in its wake. Nancy swayed for a moment, her eyes wide and glassy, her mouth hanging open. Then she collapsed, her body hitting the floor with a heavy, graceless thud.
She didn't move.
The room was silent. The only sound was the rain, relentless and indifferent, and the ragged, gasping breaths of the five women still alive.
Evette's legs gave out. She collapsed to her knees, her hands shaking as she stared at Nancy's still form. The blood was pooling beneath her, a dark, spreading stain that inched across the floorboards, reaching toward the flickering candlelight. Nancy's face was pale, her freckles stark against the waxen skin, her auburn hair fanned out around her head like a halo.
"Oh God," Chloe whispered. Her voice was broken, barely audible. "Oh God. Nancy. Nancy."
Clara stepped forward, her bare feet padding softly through the spreading pool of blood. She knelt down beside Nancy's body, her yellow dress soaking up the crimson, and gently, almost tenderly, brushed a lock of hair from Nancy's forehead. Her dark, depthless eyes were calm, satisfied, like a child who had just reclaimed a prized possession.
She reached out and picked up the silver crescent-moon earring from where it had fallen from Nancy's pocket. She clasped it in her small, pale fingers and tucked it into the pocket of her dress.
"Just a game," Clara said softly, almost to herself. She looked up at the five frozen women, her smile returning, gentle and sweet. "She broke the rules. But you'll be good, won't you? You'll play nice."
Evette couldn't speak. She couldn't move. She could only kneel there, in the spreading warmth of Nancy's blood, and watch Clara's smile widen.
"Good," Clara said. "Now. Let's get ready for the others. They should be here soon."
The five of them stood there, staring at each other, and down at Nancy's body lying motionless on the floor, the bleeding pool spreading wider and longer, crawling away from her like something alive. The blood found the grooves between the floorboards, tracing dark fingers toward the walls, toward the door, as if it were trying to escape the room on its own. Evette couldn't stop looking at Nancy's face. It was peaceful, almost. The terror had drained out of it, leaving behind something empty and quiet and utterly wrong.
"We have to move," Tanya said. Her voice was a blade, thin and sharp, cutting through the thick silence. "We have to do something before those boys walk in here."
Sheryl was still on the floor, propped against the overturned coffee table, her hand pressed to the back of her head. When she pulled it away, her fingers came back red. She stared at them like she'd never seen blood before. "We call them. We warn them. We tell them to turn around and drive straight back to town."
"I tried that," Evette heard herself say. The words came out wrong, flat and distant, like they belonged to someone else. "She already called them. She used our voices. She sounded just like us."
Chloe moved for the first time, her legs carrying her toward the window. She pressed her face against the glass, peering out into the storm. "I can't see anything. Rain's too heavy. Wait—wait, there. Lights. I see headlights."
Her voice cracked on the last word. "They're coming up the drive."
Tanya crossed the room in three quick strides, her hand closing around Chloe's arm, pulling her back from the window. "Don't stand in front of the glass. She's watching us. She's always watching us."
"Then what the hell do we do?" Chloe's voice rose, breaking into something raw and desperate. "We can't just stand here. We can't just let them walk into this. Nancy's dead. Nancy is dead on the floor and she's going to do the same thing to Larry and Josh and Kyle and we can't stop her."
Sheryl pulled herself to her feet, swaying slightly, her jaw set. "We can try. We can scream. We can throw shit at the window. We can barricade the door—"
"She'll just open it." Maya's voice was soft, but it cut through the room like a needle. She was sitting in the corner, her knees drawn to her chest, her eyes fixed on Nancy's body. "She doesn't need doors. She doesn't need windows. She's already here. She's in the walls. She's in the floorboards. She's in that stupid earring." Maya's voice cracked. "Empathy? We're meant to feel for her. And I just watched her stab Nancy twenty times."
Evette's phone buzzed in her pocket. She flinched so hard she nearly dropped it. When she pulled it out, the screen glowed with a message from an unknown number.
He's almost at the door. Don't you want to say hi? It was followed by a smiley face. A child's smiley face, all curves and no corners.
"He's coming," Evette said. "Larry. He's coming up the path right now."
The lights in the living room flickered. Every candle guttered at once, plunging the room into darkness for a moment, a heartbeat, an eternity. When they flared back to life, Clara was standing at the door. She stood there in her yellow dress, her dark hair hanging in wet ropes around her pale face, her bare feet stained with Nancy's blood. She held the crescent moon earring in one hand, turning it over and over in her small fingers.
"You don't want to spoil my surprise," Clara said, her voice sweet and patient. "I've been waiting for them. For all of you. I found this house, and I found you, and now I finally have enough friends."
Her smile widened. "That's what you all want, right? Friends?"
Sheryl stepped in front of Evette, blocking her from Clara's gaze. Her voice was shaking, but it held. "You're not going to touch them. You're not going to touch any of us."
Clara's head tilted slowly, her dark eyes never leaving Sheryl's face. "You don't get to decide that. I do." She took a step forward, her small feet silent on the blood-soaked floor. "I was so alone for so long. But now I'll never be alone again."
She raised the earring to her ear and clipped it on, adjusting it with careful, deliberate hands. Then she looked up at the five women, her smile settling into something soft and almost gentle.
"When I first got sick, my mother put a bell on me. To hear me coming, she said. Because I was always wandering off, always getting lost." Clara's smile faded, just a little. "But nobody came. The bell rang. And nobody came."
The sound reached Evette's ears high and clear and tinny. A small brass bell, ringing.
The rain had followed Josh all the way from town, a relentless, drumming wall of water that his windshield wipers could barely keep up with. He leaned forward over the steering wheel, squinting through the streaked glass, his knuckles white where he gripped the wheel. The truck's headlights cut two weak tunnels through the downpour, illuminating little more than the flooded gravel drive and the skeletal branches of trees that overhung it like grasping fingers.
Sheryl's voice was still ringing in his ears. The call had been short, urgent, her voice carrying that edge she got when something was genuinely wrong. Something's wrong out here. The storm's really bad, and the roads are flooding. Can you come get us? It wasn't like her to sound scared. Sheryl didn't scare easy. That's what he loved about her, that unshakeable composure, the way she could face down anything with that steady, practical gaze and figure out the next step.
But she'd sounded scared tonight.
He killed the engine, and the sudden silence was deafening. The truck shuddered once and went still, the rain hammering against the roof and the hood, a dull, insistent roar that filled the cab like white noise. Josh sat there for a moment, his hands still on the wheel, staring at the house ahead of him.
It was dark. Completely dark. No porch light, no warm glow from the living room windows, no flicker of candlelight or flashlight beam moving behind the curtains. Just blackness, vast and absolute, swallowing the Victorian's silhouette against the bruised, churning sky.
"No lights," he muttered to himself. "No movement. Just rain and silence."
A cold knot tightened in his stomach. Something was wrong. Not just storm-wrong, not just power-out-wrong. Something deeper, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his fingers itch for the flashlight he kept under the driver's seat.
He grabbed it, clicked it on, and played the beam across the front of the house. The porch sagged slightly on its left side, the wraparound deck dotted with overturned chairs and a wind-torn hanging basket that swung violently on its chain. The stained-glass window beside the front door was dark, its fractured colors muted to nothing.
"Okay," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "Okay."
He pushed open the driver's door and stepped out into the storm. The rain hit him immediately, a soaking, horizontal barrage that plastered his shirt to his skin and sent rivulets running down his face. He pulled his jacket collar up, but it was useless. He was already soaked through.
He crossed the drive quickly, his boots squelching in the mud and standing water, his flashlight beam dancing erratically across the wet grass and the overgrown flower beds that lined the path to the porch. The house loomed above him, its peaked roof and gables cutting jagged shapes against the sky, its windows like empty eye sockets watching him approach.
The front door stood open.
Not cracked open, not ajar. Open. Fully open, hanging on its hinges, the dark mouth of the hallway beyond swallowing the rain-swept porch light. The wind gusted through it, and Josh could hear something rattling inside, something loose and metallic, like a chain or a latch.
"Sheryl?" he called, his voice swallowed by the storm. "Sheryl, you in there?"
No answer. Only the rain, pattering on the porch roof, and the drip-drip-drip of water somewhere close, inside the house, a slow, patient leak that seemed to echo through the empty hallway.
Josh stepped inside.
His boots squelched on the floor immediately. The hallway was flooded, a shallow layer of water spreading across the warped hardwood, reflecting his flashlight beam back at him in distorted, shimmering fragments. The air smelled wrong. Damp, yes, and musty, but underneath that, something else. Something metallic and sweet, like the smell of old pennies, like the air after lightning strikes.
"Sheryl!" he called again, his voice tighter now, the fear creeping in despite his best efforts to suppress it. "Evette? Anybody? It's Josh. I got your call."
No answer. Just the drip. The rattle. And then, somewhere above him, high and thin and impossible, a child's giggle.
Josh spun, his flashlight beam cutting across the staircase. The banister swept up into darkness, the steps vanishing into blackness beyond the reach of his light. He swept the beam back and forth, searching for the source of the sound, but there was nothing there. Just the stairs, and the shadows, and the silence pressing in around him.
He swallowed hard, his throat dry despite the damp air. "Look, this isn't funny. If this is some kind of prank, it's not funny. It's late, and I'm soaked, and I just want to make sure everyone's okay."
The giggle came again. Closer this time. From deeper in the house, from the direction of the living room.
Josh moved forward, his flashlight leading the way. The hallway was lined with old photographs, their glass faces catching the beam and reflecting it back at him in distorted, warped fragments. He passed a coat rack, its hooks empty, and a small table that held a dead phone, its cord dangling loose.
He reached the living room doorway and stopped.
The room was chaos. Candles lay overturned on the floor, their flames long extinguished, wax pooling in thick, pale puddles across the hardwood. Furniture was shoved aside, the old couch pushed against the wall at a crooked angle, the coffee table tipped on its side. And in the center of the room, spread across the floor, was a dark, glistening stain that his flashlight beam caught and reflected back at him in sickening detail.
Blood. A lot of blood.
Josh's stomach lurched. He took a step back, his hand flying to his mouth, his flashlight shaking in his grip. "No. No, no, no. Sheryl! SHERYL!"
His voice echoed through the empty house, swallowed by the darkness, met with nothing but silence and the patient dripping of water.
Soft footsteps padded across the floor above him.
Josh spun, his flashlight beam stabbing upward toward the ceiling, catching the edge of a shadow that moved too fast to follow. His heart was hammering now, his breaths coming short and ragged, his mind racing through possibilities and landing on none of them that made sense.
He backed toward the front door, his hand reaching behind him, fumbling for the handle. He grabbed it, twisted it, pulled.
The door didn't move.
Panic surged through him, cold and electric. He yanked harder, throwing his shoulder against the wood, but the door was solid, immovable, as if it had been sealed shut with something far stronger than hinges and a lock. He banged on it with his fist, the sound dull and flat, swallowed by the storm outside.
"HEY! HELLO? ANYONE OUT THERE? SHERYL! OPEN UP!"
Thunder rolled overhead, shaking the old house to its foundations. Lightning split the sky, a brilliant white flash that streamed through the stained-glass window and painted the hallway in fractured, blood-red rainbows.
And in that flash, Josh saw her.
A little girl, standing at the top of the stairs. She was wearing a yellow dress, soaked and clinging to her pale skin, her dark hair hanging in wet ropes around her face. She was holding something in her hand, something small and metallic that caught the lightning's fire and glinted.
A brass bell.
She smiled.
The lightning died. Darkness swallowed the stairs. And the bell rang, high and clear and impossibly loud, cutting through the thunder and the rain and the pounding of Josh's own heart.
"Sheryl?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "Please. Please, Sheryl."
The bell rang again. Closer now. And somewhere in the darkness, a child's voice echoed through the empty house.
"You're here now. We can play."
The rain was a curtain of iron, hammering down on the roof of Larry's old Civic as he killed the engine. The headlights died, plunging the driveway into darkness, and for a moment he just sat there, both hands on the wheel, listening to the storm rage around him. The windshield had fogged up, obscuring the house ahead, but he could see enough. The old Victorian loomed against the bruised sky, its silhouette jagged and wrong, like a structure that had been drawn by a child with unsteady hands.
Josh's truck was parked ahead of him, its driver's side door hanging open. The cab light was on, casting a weak, sickly glow across the wet gravel. The interior was empty.
Larry felt something cold settle in his chest. Something unfamiliar. Josh wasn't the type to leave his door open. He wasn't the type to leave anything half-done, whether it was a carburetor or a closed door. The fact that he had—the fact that the truck sat there abandoned, rain pouring into the cab, its engine still ticking as it cooled—sent a spike of unease through Larry's gut that he couldn't quite shake.
He sat there a moment longer than he should have. He told himself it was the rain, the need to brace himself before stepping out into the downpour. But the truth was simpler, and uglier than that. He didn't want to get out of the car. He didn't want to walk up that path. He didn't want to push open that front door.
But Nancy was in there. And Nancy had called him.
Nancy had called him with that quaver in her voice, that little catch she got when she was trying not to cry, when she said his name like it was a lifeline. "Larry? Hey, it's me. Something's come up. Can you come back to the house? The storm's getting really bad." She'd sounded scared. She'd sounded small. And Larry had never, in all the time he'd known her, heard Nancy sound small.
He pushed the door open and stepped out into the storm.
The rain hit him like a physical thing, a solid wall of water that soaked through his jacket in seconds and plastered his hair to his scalp. He shouldered through it, his boots slipping on the wet gravel as he made his way toward the porch. The porch light flickered as he approached, buzzing and stuttering, bathing the wraparound deck in a strobe of yellow light and darkness. Then it died, leaving only the pale glow of the storm behind him.
The front door was ajar. Just a crack, but enough. Enough to see the dark hallway beyond, enough to feel the cold air spilling out from the house, thick with the smell of damp wood and something else. Something faintly metallic, like the air after a lightning strike. Like rust and old pennies and something that had been left to rot in the walls.
Larry stood on the porch, his hand hovering over the door handle, his heart hammering against his ribs. He didn't want to go in. Every instinct he had, every quiet, observant instinct that had kept him safe through a childhood of unpredictable parents and a youth of bad decisions, was screaming at him to turn around, to get back in his car, to drive away and never look back.
But Nancy had called. And Nancy was in there.
"Please," he whispered, the word slipping out unbidden, aimed at no one in particular. "Please let her be okay."
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The hallway was dark, lit only by the weak, rain-filtered glow from the doorway behind him. The floor was wet, slick under his boots, and the air was heavy and cold, pressing against him like a physical weight. The smell hit him immediately, copper and old perfume, a cloying, sickly sweet mixture that made his stomach turn. He recognized it. He'd grown up near the slaughterhouse on the edge of town, and he'd never been able to shake the smell of blood and rot that clung to the air for miles around.
This was that smell. Blood. Old and fresh, mixed together, coating the air like a film.
"Nancy?" His voice cracked on the name. He cleared his throat, tried again. "Nancy? It's me. It's Larry. You called me, right? You said something was wrong."
No answer. Just the rain, hammering against the roof, and the faint, steady drip of water leaking through the ceiling somewhere above.
Larry moved forward, his boots squelching on the wet floor. He pulled out his phone, flicked on the flashlight, and swept it across the hallway. The beam caught the edge of a coat rack, its hooks empty, and a small table that held a dead phone, its cord dangling loose. Then it caught something else. A smear of dark red, glistening on the floor near the base of the stairs, spreading outward in a thin, watery trail.
His heart stopped. For a second—for a single, eternal second—he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't do anything but stare at that dark, wet stain on the hardwood.
A door creaked somewhere deeper in the house. A slow, drawn-out groan that echoed through the empty rooms, followed by a sound that made his blood run cold. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, padding across the floor above him.
"Josh?" he called out, his voice steadier than he felt. "Josh, you up there? It's Larry."
The footsteps stopped. A moment of silence, thick and heavy, and then a voice drifted down from the top of the stairs.
"Larry?" It was Josh's voice, but it was wrong. Too quiet, too measured, as if he was trying to keep himself from screaming. "Larry, get out. Get out of the house. Now."
"What? Why? Where's Nancy? Where's Sheryl?" Larry moved toward the stairs, his boots sliding on the wet floor. "Josh, what the hell is going on?"
"It's not safe. It's not—" Josh's voice broke off, and there was a sound like a strangled breath, a gasp that was half sob, half terror. "There's something here. Something in the house. It's not human. It's—"
The sound of a door slamming shut above them cut him off. Loud and final, shaking the walls, sending a shower of dust and plaster drifting down from the ceiling. And then silence. A silence so complete, so absolute, that Larry could hear his own heartbeat, could hear the blood rushing in his ears.
"Josh?" His voice was barely a whisper, his throat too tight to force it louder. "Josh!"
No answer. Just the rain, and the drip, and the faint, unearthly hum of something that sounded almost like a lullaby, drifting from somewhere upstairs.
Larry was moving before he could think about it. His boots pounded on the stairs, his phone flashlight stabbing through the darkness, casting wild, dancing shadows across the peeling wallpaper and the faded photographs that lined the walls. He took the steps two at a time, his heart hammering, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
He reached the top of the stairs and stopped.
The hallway was dark, but he could see enough by the light of his phone. Doors lined the corridor, all closed, all silent. The wallpaper peeled in long, wet strips, hanging from the walls like the skin of something dead. The floor was wet, a thin sheen of water covering the warped hardwood, and the smell of copper and old perfume was stronger here, so thick it coated the back of his throat.
The humming stopped.
Larry stood in the middle of the hallway, his phone shaking in his grip, his eyes sweeping from door to door, searching for any sign of movement, any sign of life. "Nancy?" he called out, his voice cracking. "Nancy, please. Please answer me."
A door to his left creaked open. Just a crack—a sliver of darkness—but enough to make his breath catch in his throat. He took a step toward it, his hand trembling as he reached for the handle. He pushed it open.
The room was dark, lit only by the weak glow from his phone. It was a bedroom, old and musty, the bed covered in a heavy quilt that sagged with the weight of years. The windows were shuttered, the curtains drawn, and the air was thick with the smell of dust and decay.
And lying on the floor, in the center of the room, was a body.
Larry's mind had registered it before his eyes had time to process the details. The white sneakers, the jeans, the hoodie she'd been wearing when she'd left the house. The auburn hair, fanned out around her head like a halo, dark and matted with something that gleamed wetly in the phone's light.
"Nancy." The name left his mouth in a barely audible whisper, a sound of disbelief and denial that shattered something inside him. "No. No, no, no, no."
He crossed the room in three strides, his legs collapsing beneath him as he dropped to his knees beside her. His hand reached out, trembling, hovering over her shoulder, afraid to touch her, afraid that if he touched her, it would make it real.
"Nancy, please." His voice broke, tears streaming down his face, hot and raw against the cold air. He touched her shoulder. It was stiff, unmoving. He rolled her over.
Her face was pale, her freckles stark against the waxen skin. Her eyes were open, glassy and unseeing, staring up at the ceiling with an expression of utter terror. Her shirt was soaked, dark and heavy with blood, her arms and chest covered in wounds. Too many to count. Too many to process.
Larry screamed. A raw, ragged sound that tore itself from his throat and echoed through the empty house, swallowed by the storm and the silence and the darkness closing in around him.
And then, behind him, a door slammed shut. Loud and final, shaking the walls, cutting off the light from the hallway and plunging the room into darkness.
Larry spun, his phone clattering to the floor, the flashlight beam stabbing wildly across the room as he scrambled to his feet. He lunged at the door, grabbing the handle, yanking it, throwing his shoulder against the wood.
It didn't move.
The door was sealed, immovable, as if it had been locked from the outside by something far stronger than a latch and a handle. Larry pounded on it, his fists bruising against the wood, his screams raw and desperate. "Let me out! Let me out!"
The only answer was the rain, drumming against the windows, and a faint, childish giggle that drifted through the house, high and thin and cold enough to stop his heart.
The rain had been relentless for the last twenty minutes, hammering against the windshield of Kyle's beat-up Honda Civic with a fury that made the wipers feel useless. He leaned forward over the steering wheel, squinting through the streaked glass, his jaw tight, his knuckles white where he gripped the wheel at ten and two.
Tanya's call had been short. Sharp. Demanding. "Get your ass over here. Something's wrong. I can't explain it over the phone, just come to the house. Now." She'd hung up before he could ask a single question. That wasn't like her. Tanya never hung up first. She always had to get the last word in, always had to make sure her point had landed. The fact that she'd cut him off, that she'd sounded genuinely rattled, had been enough to get him out of his apartment and into the storm before he'd even fully processed what was happening.
He'd tried calling back. Four times. Each call had gone straight to voicemail. The first time, he'd left a message. The next three, he'd just hung up, the silence on the other end of the line more unsettling than any words could have been.
The road had flooded in three separate places, forcing him to take the long way around, and his tires had lost traction twice on the slick gravel, the car fishtailing dangerously before he'd managed to regain control. By the time he turned onto the narrow, tree-lined drive that led to the Victorian, his heart was hammering and his palms were slick with sweat.
The house loomed ahead of him, a dark silhouette against the bruised, churning sky. The porch light was out. The windows were dark. No warm glow, no flicker of candlelight, no sign of life at all.
And there were already two vehicles parked in the driveway.
Josh's truck sat closest to the porch, its driver's side door hanging open, the cab light casting a weak, sickly glow across the rain-swept gravel. The engine was still ticking as it cooled, a faint, rhythmic sound that was barely audible over the storm. Larry's old Civic was parked behind it, its lights off, its engine silent.
Both vehicles empty.
Kyle killed his engine and sat there for a moment, staring at the house. The rain drummed against his windshield, a dull, relentless roar that filled the cab like white noise. His hands stayed on the wheel, his knuckles white, his breathing shallow.
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones, in the cold knot that had been tightening in his stomach since Tanya's call. Larry and Josh had both beaten him here. Larry and Josh had both gone inside. And neither of them had come back out.
He grabbed the tire iron from the passenger seat floor. He didn't consciously decide to pick it up. It was just there, cold and heavy and reassuring in his grip, and his fingers closed around it like it was the only solid thing left in the world. He pushed open the door and stepped out into the storm.
The rain hit him like a wall, soaking through his jacket in seconds, plastering his dark curls to his scalp. He didn't bother with a hood. It would have been useless against this downpour. He just shouldered into the wind, his boots squelching in the gravel, his tire iron held loose at his side, his eyes fixed on the dark mouth of the porch ahead.
The steps creaked under his weight as he climbed them. The porch light hung dead from its fixture, the glass cracked, the bulb dark. The wraparound deck was littered with debris—overturned chairs, a wind-torn hanging basket, leaves and twigs and something that looked like a child's mitten, sodden and forlorn.
The front door was ajar.
Not cracked open. Not blown by the wind. Open. Fully open, hanging on its hinges, the dark hallway beyond swallowing the storm's weak light. Kyle stood there for a long moment, his tire iron raised, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.
"Tanya?" he called. His voice was swallowed by the storm, thin and reedy against the roar of the rain. He cleared his throat and tried again, louder this time, more demanding. "TANYA!"
No answer. Just the rain, drumming against the porch roof, and the slow, patient creak of the old house settling around him. And underneath it, faint and almost imperceptible, a child's voice humming a lullaby.
Kyle stepped inside.
The hallway was dark, lit only by the weak glow filtering through the stained-glass window beside the front door. The glass was fractured, its colors muted to nothing, casting deep, blood-red shadows across the warped hardwood floor. The air was thick and cold, heavy with the smell of damp wood and something else. Something metallic. Something sweet.
His boots squelched on the wet floor as he moved forward, his tire iron sweeping in a slow arc in front of him. The hallway was lined with photographs, their glass faces dark and reflective in the gloom. He passed a coat rack, its hooks empty, and a small table that held a dead phone, its cord dangling loose.
He almost missed it.
A phone. Not the dead one on the table. A smartphone, lying on the floor, its screen glowing faintly in the darkness. Kyle knelt down, his tire iron still raised, and picked it up. It was Larry's phone. He recognized the cracked case, the faded sticker of a cartoon cat on the back. The screen was lit up, showing a text message from an unknown number.
He's here. They're all here. Come see.
Kyle's stomach dropped. A cold, nauseating dread flooded through him, making his hands tremble, making his breath catch in his throat. He stared at the message for a long moment, reading it over and over again, his mind racing through possibilities and landing on none of them that made any sense.
Behind him, soft and close, a child giggled.
Kyle spun, his tire iron raised, his heart slamming against his ribs. The living room doorway loomed ahead of him, dark and empty, the shadows beyond it shifting and writhing like something alive. He swept his gaze across the room, searching for the source of the sound, but there was nothing there. Just the darkness, and the silence, and the oppressive weight of the old house pressing down on him.
"Who's there?" His voice was shaking. He hated it. He gripped the tire iron tighter, the cold metal grounding him. "I'm not playing games. Where is everyone?"
No answer. But the shadows near the fireplace shifted.
Kyle saw it out of the corner of his eye. A flicker of movement, a shape that was too small, too quick, too pale to be human. He turned, his tire iron raised, and the shape was gone. Vanished into the deeper darkness, leaving only the faint impression of something that had been there moments before.
His breath was coming in short, ragged gasps now. The air was cold, too cold, and the smell of copper and old perfume was so thick it coated the back of his throat. He took a step forward, then another, his tire iron leading the way, his eyes sweeping across the living room.
It was chaos. Furniture overturned, candles scattered across the floor, their flames long extinguished, wax pooling in thick, pale puddles across the hardwood. The couch was shoved against the wall at a crooked angle, the coffee table tipped on its side.
And in the center of the room, spread across the floor, was a dark, glistening stain.
Kyle's mind registered it before his eyes could process the details. The color, the consistency, the way it pooled and spread and reflected the faint light from the hallway. He took a step back, his stomach lurching, his hand flying to his mouth.
"No. No, no, no."
His voice was barely a whisper, a sound of denial and disbelief that shattered the silence of the empty room. He backed toward the doorway, his tire iron shaking in his grip, his eyes fixed on the dark, wet stain on the floor.
Then he heard it.
Footsteps. Pounding down the stairs. Heavy and frantic, accompanied by a voice he recognized. A voice he'd known since elementary school.
"KYLE!"
Kyle spun toward the sound, his tire iron raised. Josh burst into the foyer, his face pale, his eyes wild, his shirt soaked with something dark and wet. Behind him, Larry stumbled into view, his face a mask of horror, his hands shaking, his mouth hanging open.
"Josh!" Kyle lowered the tire iron, relief flooding through him like a physical thing. "What the hell is going on? Where's Tanya? Where's Nancy? Where is everyone?"
Josh didn't answer. He just stood there, staring at Kyle, his eyes wide and glassy, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
Larry spoke instead. His voice was a broken whisper, barely audible over the storm. "Nancy's dead."
The words hit Kyle like a physical blow. He staggered, his hand finding the doorframe to steady himself. "What?"
"She's dead." Larry's voice cracked, his face crumpling, tears streaming down his cheeks. "She's upstairs. She's dead. There's blood everywhere. Someone—something killed her."
Kyle's mind reeled, struggling to process the words. Nancy. Dead. The bubbly, laughing, carefree Nancy who always had a joke on her lips, who always knew how to defuse a tense moment with a well-timed giggle. Nancy, who had been alive just hours ago, laughing and smiling and making them all feel like everything was going to be okay.
"She's still here," Josh said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "The girl. The little girl in the yellow dress. She's still here."
Kyle turned to him, his brow furrowing. "What girl? What are you talking about?"
"She's a spirit," Josh said, the words coming out flat and hollow, like he was reciting a fact he didn't fully believe himself. "She drowned in this house. Years ago. She's been here the whole time. And she's been playing with us. Waiting for us. All of us."
"That doesn't make any sense." Kyle shook his head, his grip on the tire iron tightening. "That's not possible. Ghosts aren't real. They're just—they're just stories."
The giggle came again. Louder this time. Closer. And all three of them fell silent, their heads turning toward the darkened living room.
Kyle saw her first. She was standing by the fireplace, a small figure in a yellow dress, her dark hair hanging in wet ropes around her pale, waterlogged face. She held something in her hand, something small and metallic that caught the faint light from the hallway and glinted.
A brass bell.
"Careful," she said, her voice high and sweet and cold. "You'll break it."
Kyle's breath caught in his throat. He knew that voice. He'd known it his whole life. It was Nancy's voice. Nancy's exact intonation, her warmth, her playfulness, stripped of everything that made it human.
He stared at the little girl, his mind reeling, his hand shaking, the tire iron feeling heavier and more useless with every passing second. "Where are they?" he demanded, his voice cracking. "Where are Tanya and Sheryl and Evette and Maya and Chloe? What did you do to them?"
Clara tilted her head, studying him with dark, patient eyes. She smiled, a child's smile, sweet and innocent and utterly wrong.
"They're upstairs," she said, still in Nancy's voice. "They're playing hide and seek. They're waiting for you to find them."
A cold fury rose in Kyle's chest. He took a step forward, the tire iron raised, his jaw set. "You're lying. You're just a ghost. You can't hurt us unless we let you. You can't make us do anything."
Clara's smile faded. Her expression flattened, the childlike warmth draining away, leaving behind something old and cold and hungry. Her eyes darkened, black pools in her pale face, and the temperature in the room dropped sharply.
"Can't I?" she asked, her voice shifting, losing its sweetness, becoming something deeper and colder and far more ancient. She raised the bell and rang it once. The sound was high and clear and sharp, cutting through the storm like a knife.
Behind them, the front door slammed shut.
Kyle spun, his heart lurching. The door was sealed, immovable, the lock engaging with a heavy click that echoed through the foyer. He lunged at it, grabbing the handle, yanking, throwing his shoulder against the wood.
It didn't move.
A giggle drifted from behind him. Kyle turned, the tire iron raised, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Clara was gone. The room was empty. Only the shadows remained, deep and dark and moving, shifting like something alive, creeping toward them from every corner.
"She's not going to let us leave," Josh said, his voice barely a whisper. "She's not going to let any of us leave."
Larry had collapsed to his knees, his head in his hands, his body shaking with silent sobs. "Nancy," he whispered. "Nancy."
Kyle stood in the center of the foyer, his tire iron raised, his heart pounding, his mind racing. The storm raged outside, the rain hammering against the windows, and somewhere in the depths of the old house, a child's voice began to hum.
A lullaby.
“…London Bridge is falling down… falling down… falling down…”
And the darkness pressed in closer.
“…my fair lady…”
Then the giggle from Clara, “Come find your girls, we all want to play.”