The Haunted

There was no answer, and he moved forward, calling her name again. From the corner of his eye, he saw movement, and when he looked to his right, he saw the door to the basement swing slowly open. He wanted to scream, wanted to run, but he was frozen in place, and in the silence of the house, he heard footsteps, the heavy, deliberate footsteps of a man coming up the cellar stairs.

The grinning man from the corner.

Now he did run. He didn’t want to leave Megan all alone, but his mind tolerated no such conscious considerations. He was acting on instinct, pure animal fear, and he dashed out the door the way he had come, filled only with the need for self-preservation. Ahead of him, past the patio, was the collapsed hole in which he’d almost been killed, and at the sight of it, a bolt of terror shot through him.

Afraid to remain in the backyard for even a second longer, he dashed around the corner of the house as fast as his legs would carry him, speeding down the driveway and out to the front yard, where, hopefully, his parents would be just pulling in. They weren’t. But Megan was sitting on the front stoop, looking down at her iPhone. She looked up at him as he hurried over. She’d obviously been out here for some time, and a cold shiver passed through him.

She hadn’t been inside at all.

He’d been alone in the house.

No, he hadn’t.

The cold intensified.

Megan was not just looking at him, he realized. She was staring at him. Her face was white and her eyes wide.

Like she’d just seen a ghost.

He pushed that thought away. It was not what he wanted to be thinking about right now. Huffing and puffing from his brief, furious run, he stood in front of her, trying to catch his breath in order to tell her what happened. But before he could get a word out, she was standing and holding out her iPhone, that stunned look still on her face.

She showed him the message on the screen: James will die if he tells.

He suddenly understood her fear. He felt it, too.

“What’s that mean?” she whispered. She looked furtively around, as if worried about being overheard. “Tell who? Tell what?”

The message changed.

Hi, James!

He sucked in his breath. “Who is that?” he asked her. “Who’s texting you?”

“I don’t know!” Her voice was still low, but there was a note of panic in it.

Whoever—whatever—it was, was acting in real time. It knew he was here, knew he was looking at the phone. He turned his head from left to right, hoping to spot someone on the sidewalk or in the yard of one of their neighbors. But he knew that no one on the street was sending this, didn’t he? He’d nearly been buried alive, the kitchen door had almost crushed his hand, something had been coming up from the basement for him, and immediately after running out to the front yard so that the second after they returned he could tell his parents what had happened, Megan received the text, James will die if he tells.

This wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t a coincidence. This was a warning.

The dazed look on his sister’s face told him that she knew it, too.

A new message appeared. I will kill you both.

“Shut it off!” James told Megan. He hadn’t meant to shout at her, but his voice came out panicky and far too loud.

His alarm jolted her into action, and she turned off the device, juggling it from hand to hand as though it were hot and burning her fingers.

Before they could say a word to each other about what had happened or what to do about it, their parents pulled into the driveway. At the same time, Robbie’s dad parked next to the curb to drop him off. James turned toward his sister as his dad got out of the van, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes and fumblingly placed the phone in her pocket.

It was rare for James and Megan to be standing together by the front porch, rare enough to be noticed, and, walking over, their father glanced from one to the other. “What happened?” he asked suspiciously. “What’s going on here?”

James shot his sister a look, imploring her to answer for them.

“Nothing,” she said. Her voice sounded a lot calmer and a lot more normal than it should have.

I will kill you both.

James looked guiltily away as his dad frowned at him. “Is that dirt on your clothes? Were you digging again?”

He didn’t respond.

“I’m talking to you.”

I will kill you both.

He noticed his dad examining his mouth, trying to determine whether he’d been eating dirt, and James wanted to cry, filled with a frustration that could not be expressed any other way. But Robbie was here, and he and Megan had been warned, and he managed to hold the tears at bay.

Robbie started walking up just as Megan came under her father’s scrutiny. The heat off for a moment, James took the opportunity to hurry over to his friend. His mom was by the curb, talking to Robbie’s dad, and this was his chance to dodge both parents and avoid further scrutiny.

“Hey,” Robbie said in greeting.

James nodded. “Hey.”