Defy the Dark (7 page)

“Jeez!” she shrieks.

“Door,” I say calmly, and guide the flashlight beam across the room. I start walking.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to see what's on the other side.” Adrenaline is racing through me now, electric and insistent.

“You're crazy,” McKenzie says, but she scurries after me, keeping the beam leveled at the door.

This one has an old metal knob, spotted with rust. I turn it and push and, at first, the door sticks as if there's something behind it. McKenzie's so close I can hear her breathing, quick and fast. Suddenly the door gives way, and the air that whooshes out is even more musty than the stuff we're breathing already.

“Ugh,” McKenzie groans as she shines the flashlight inside the space.

There's something hanging from the rafters.

It moves in the light before darting back into the dark. McKenzie's hand clamps down onto my arm, her nails digging through the material of my jacket and into my skin. She's mumbling
oh my God
over and over again, pulling me away from the door.

Someone else is breathing down here.

It's not McKenzie's panicked hyperventilating, and it's not my own breath, which isn't exactly steady, either. It's slower, raspier, as if it's coming from an ancient pair of lungs.

“Oh my God, did you touch my back?” McKenzie whispers.

“You're holding my arm,” I point out.

She shrieks and spins around, the flashlight beam jerking around the cellar. The thing hanging from the rafters moves again, and McKenzie screams and runs, dragging me with her, her fingers so tight around mine, it feels like she might crush them.

Upstairs McKenzie sprints for the exit, but I pull away from her.

“Ty! What are you doing?”

“Closing the door.”

She doesn't wait for me. I'm alone in the hallway at the top of the basement stairs. I look back down, hesitating. And then I push the door shut and drop the latch in place.

“Thanks,” I whisper.

 

2. October 31, 10:49 p.m.

T
he Spruce Street Guest House's backyard is full of shadows. Spruce trees are clumped together in one area, and a dilapidated shed leans to one side near the brick wall at the back of the property. It's cold tonight, but at least it's not snowing. From what people have told me, it almost always snows on Halloween. I huddle in the dark corner between the shed and the wall, squatting in my increasingly frigid jeans so I don't have to sit on the even colder ground.

It's not long before the girls come through the broken section of the wooden fence along the right side of the yard. I hear their giggling before I see them, and I wonder if they realize how loud they are. I recognize Kelsey Fisher's voice as she says, “Watch out! Shh!”

Lauren Meier gasps a little, as if she's trying to stop herself from laughing. “Did your mom notice you taking the key?” She seems to be trying to whisper, but the question carries all the way across the yard.

“No,” Kelsey answers. “She's so busy this time of year, she barely pays attention.”

“You guys are being too loud,” says a third girl, and my stomach lurches when I recognize the voice. It's McKenzie. I'm not entirely surprised—she and Lauren and Kelsey are best friends, and they seem to do everything together—but I am disappointed. More than disappointed. A sharp pang goes through me, and I get mad at myself. I don't know why they're here yet. Maybe it's not what I think it is.

They run across the yard, crunching over the fallen leaves so loudly, it doesn't matter that they manage not to say a word. I hear them climb the steps of the back porch, and then more furious whispering as Kelsey unlocks the door. It creaks as they push it open, and one of the girls—probably Lauren—squeals in fright.

“Shh!” McKenzie hushes them. “Let's go.”

I wait till they're inside and then I follow as silently as I can. I'm a lot quieter than they are. They've left the door partly open, and I slide inside by pushing it just a little. It gives a barely noticeable groan.

I look around the kitchen. Luckily there's a half-moon shining through the windows tonight, because I can't turn on a flashlight and expose myself. I don't want them to see me. At first I don't know where they went, but then I hear them going up the stairs, and I pad softly into the hallway after them.

“Did you bring the camera?” McKenzie asks as she climbs the stairs.

“Yeah,” Lauren says. “My brother showed me how to set the timer and everything.”

“Cool,” McKenzie says.

Once they reach the second floor, they disappear into one of the bedrooms, and I tiptoe after them, flattening myself against the wall outside the room they've entered. Something thumps onto the floor, and a bag unzips.

“Give me that,” McKenzie says.

“Jeez, I'm just trying to help,” Lauren says.

“I want to make sure this goes off without a hitch,” McKenzie says. She's definitely in charge, and the disappointment I felt earlier turns toward myself. I should've known better.

The first time I saw McKenzie was on my first day at Coal Creek High. I was walking down the hall outside the school office, reading my class schedule and trying to figure out where homeroom was, and I bumped right into her as she came out of the girls' bathroom.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn't see you.”

She was wearing jeans and a white Oxford shirt, unbuttoned just enough to show a hint of cleavage. Her honey-blond hair hung in loose waves over her shoulder, and her makeup was flawless: not too much, not too little. She was as preppy as it got here in Pinnacle, and I bet she had a closet full of plaid skirts.

“It's okay,” she said, and then looked at me more closely. “You're new.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm McKenzie Wells,” she said, and smiled.

“Tyler White,” I said, “but people call me Ty.”

It took her a minute to figure out that I'm a girl. I knew when it happened, because this tremor went over her face, as if she was buzzed by static electricity. After that, she excused herself, clearly rattled by making such a basic mistake, and I was left standing there in the hallway as she practically fled toward the lockers and her friends.

It bugged me, sure. I'm not the butchest chick on the planet, and in San Francisco, enough people look like me that I'm not an anomaly. But in Pinnacle, girls don't wear boys' clothes and have short hair. I think it's my walk that confuses them the most, though. Girls usually have this swaying motion when they move, so that even from far away, it's obvious they're girls. But I've never walked like that. I walk like my dad.

I think she would have just avoided me from then on, but her last name is Wells and mine is White, so we were assigned seats next to each other in physics and study hall. She was nice enough to me in class, but it wasn't like we were friends. And her friends didn't talk to me. Only she did—usually when they weren't around. She had this way of looking at me, though—kind of under her eyelashes when she thought I wouldn't notice—that made me think she thought I was cute.

I should've known better.

I hear McKenzie and Lauren arguing over where to place the camera. “We can attach it to the ledge here,” Lauren says.

“It's just going to poke out if we put it there,” McKenzie objects.

They decide to stick it on the top of the window. “The tape will hold it,” Lauren says. “We have to point the lens down. Nobody's going to be able to see it in the dark.”

Their lights bob inside the room as they rig the camera over the window. And then Kelsey says, “Look what I got to write on the wall.”

Lauren and McKenzie make appreciative sounds. Kelsey wants to do it, but ultimately McKenzie prevails. “I'll use my own hands. It'll look awesome.”

“Ty's gonna freak,” Kelsey says gleefully.

“Do you think it's too much?” Lauren asks, sounding hesitant.

“Nah,” McKenzie says dismissively. “It's a joke. Wait'll we post the video. Everybody's gonna love it. We have to do a Halloween prank—we live in Pinnacle.”

A Halloween prank. I feel sick to my stomach. This is why McKenzie asked me to meet her here: to play a joke on me. I suspected something like this—that's why I got here so early—but the confirmation sinks inside me like lead weights.

I could go home right now. Stand her up. Never speak to her again. But even though the idea of running is extremely tempting, I'm also pissed. McKenzie Wells might rule the school, but she doesn't rule me.

When I hear them finishing up, I slide farther down the hall, edging into the room next door. It's empty, but out of the corner of my eye I see something move. I almost jump out of my skin before I realize it's a mirror: one of those old-fashioned ones on a wooden stand. Somebody left a damn mirror behind. I let out my breath slowly, hoping the girls can't hear me.

After they leave, I walk down the dark hall, back to the room they outfitted with the camera. I want to check it out, but then I realize I'll be caught on tape. Crap. Something in the house creaks, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

I decide to head outside to wait for my date with McKenzie, and I book it down the stairs in my haste to leave.

 

3. October 31, 9:02 p.m.

T
he tour guide gathers us on the sidewalk outside the guesthouse. This is the second-to-last stop on the tour; after this he'll lead everybody back to the Pinnacle Theater for the Spooktacular Spectacle. I stand on the edge of the group, the hood of my new winter jacket pulled up. The crowd is mostly adults, but there are three boys about my age nearby.

“This is the Spruce Street Guest House,” the tour guide says, “which operated from 1886 to 1923 and then was briefly turned into a sanatorium before it shut down in 1929. While it was a guesthouse, it was operated by Maud Collins, a woman who married a much older man who had made it rich in the gold rush. When he died, she took her inheritance and bought this place, intending to turn it into a high-class hotel. Unfortunately for Maud, Pinnacle was never quite as sophisticated as she hoped.”

The tour guide laughs dryly, but the crowd is getting restless. The boys whisper to each other behind cupped hands. I don't recognize them from school, but lots of people from the neighboring towns come to Pinnacle on Halloween night.

The guide clears his throat. “The Spruce Street Guest House is home to at least one ghost, which was documented three years ago on camera by a ghost-hunting team from the cable TV show
Ghost Seekers
.” The boys shut up, and I shift a little closer to the front. “Before I tell you more about the ghost, let's go on inside and take a peek, shall we?”

An excited murmur goes through the crowd. So far we've only been inside two other buildings—both of them saloons—and this house is way bigger. The tour guide leads us up the path to the front door, which he unlocks and pushes open with a dramatic creak. I wonder if that was staged. The guide switches on an electric lantern and ushers us inside. A few of the tourists pull out their own flashlights, and we crowd into the foyer.

The guide starts up the staircase and tells us to gather around. I stand in the doorway to the front parlor, eyeing the slipcovered furniture uneasily. In the pale light of the lantern, the armchairs look like monsters. The guide begins to tell us about the history of the guesthouse and how Maud Collins was picky about the boarders she allowed to stay here, how she had rules about how late the women could stay out and whether they could be seated next to the men during meals. The boys are clumped together a few feet away from me, talking in low voices and not paying attention.

I don't blame them. Everybody wants to hear about the ghost, but the tour guide wants to set the scene. I zone out because I already read about the history of this place last week, after McKenzie asked me if I wanted to meet her here on Halloween night. Her invitation, during study hall, was delivered so casually that at first I didn't get it, and she had to ask again.

“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.