The cops thought it was just the usual Fourth of July prank. But Heather, Nat, and Dodge knew better. So did Kim Hollister and Ray Hanrahan and all the other players. Two days after the Fourth of July, their suspicions were confirmed. Heather had just gotten out of the shower when she booted on the ancient laptop and checked her email. Her throat went dry; her mouth turned itchy.
[email protected] /* */
Subject: Enjoy the fireworks?
The show will be even better this Friday at ten p.m.
See how long you can stand it. Remember: no calling for help.
FRIDAY, JULY 8
heather
“IT’S TOO EASY,” HEATHER SAID AGAIN. SHE SQUEEZED the steering wheel. She didn’t really like to drive. But Bishop had been insistent. He wasn’t going to make it to the challenge today, wasn’t going to sit around and wait for hours while the players tried to outlast one another in a haunted house. And for once, she’d been able to use the car. Her mom and Bo were getting smashed with some friends in Lot 62, an abandoned trailer mostly used for partying. They’d crawl home around four, or possibly not until sunrise.
“They’ll probably try and screw with us,” Nat said. “They’ve probably rigged the whole house with sound effects and lights.”
“It’s still too easy.” Heather shook her head. “This is Panic, not Halloween.” Her palms were sweating. “Remember the time we were kids, and Bishop dared you to stand on the porch for three minutes?”
“Only because you flaked,” Nat said.
“You flaked too,” Heather reminded her, sorry now that she had brought it up. “You didn’t make it for thirty seconds.”
“Bishop did, though,” Nat said, turning her face to the window. “He went inside, remember? He stayed inside for five whole minutes.”
“I forgot about that,” Heather said.
“When was that?” Dodge spoke up unexpectedly.
“Years ago. We must have been ten, eleven. Right, Heather?”
“Younger. Nine.” Heather wished that Bishop had come. This was their first challenge without him, and her chest ached. Being with Bishop made her feel safe.
They turned the bend and the house became visible: the sharp peak of its roof silhouetted against the clouds knotted on the horizon, like something out of a horror movie. It rose crookedly out of the ground, and Heather imagined even from a distance she could hear the wind howling through the holes in the roof, the mice nibbling at the rotten wood floors. The only thing missing was a flock of bats.
There were a dozen cars parked on the road. Apparently most people felt the same way Bishop did, and most of the spectators had stayed home. Not all of them, though. Heather spotted Vivian Travin, sitting on the hood of her car, smoking a cigarette. A group of juniors huddled not far off, passing around a shared bottle of wine, looking solemn, as if they were attending a wake. For a second, before Heather turned the engine off, the rain misting through the headlights reminded her of thin slivers of glass.
Dodge climbed out of the car and opened the door for Nat. Heather reached for the bag she’d packed for the night: food, water, a big blanket. She would be here for as long as it took to win. Nat and Dodge, too.
Suddenly there was a muffled shout from outside. Heather looked up in time to see a dark shape rocket past the car. Nat screamed. And people were suddenly rushing into the road.
Heather threw herself out of the car and ran around to the passenger side, in time to see Ray Hanrahan catch Dodge in the stomach with a shoulder. Dodge stumbled backward, bumping against the remains of a fence. A shower of wood collapsed behind him.
“I know what you’re doing, you little freak,” he spat out. “You think you can—”
He was cut off and grunted sharply. Dodge had stepped forward and grabbed Ray by the throat. There was a collective gasp. Nat cried out.
Dodge leaned in and spoke quietly into Ray’s ear. Heather couldn’t hear what he said.
Just as quickly, he stepped backward, releasing Ray, who stood, coughing and gagging in the rain. Dodge’s face was calm. Nat moved as though to hug him—and then, at the last second, obviously thought better of it.
“Stay the hell away from me, Mason,” Ray said, when he had regained his breath. “I’m warning you. You better watch it.”
“Come on, guys,” Sarah Wilson, another contestant, spoke up. “It’s pouring. Can we get started?”
Ray was still glowering at Dodge. But he said nothing.
“All right.” That was Diggin. Heather hadn’t seen him in the crowd. His voice was suctioned away by the darkness and the rain. “Rules are simple. The longer you make it in the house, the higher your score.”
Heather shivered. The night of the jump, when Diggin was crowing into the megaphone, seemed like it had happened years ago: the radio, the beer, the celebration.
She suddenly couldn’t remember how she had ended up here—in front of the Graybill house, all its angles and planes wrong. A deformed place. Listing to one side as though it was in danger of collapse.
“No calling for help,” Diggin said, and his voice cracked a little. Heather wondered whether he knew something they didn’t. “That’s it. Challenge is on.”
Everyone broke apart. Beams of light—flashlights, and the occasional blue glow of a cell phone—swept across the road, illuminated the crooked fence, the high grass, the remains of a front path, now choked with weeds.
Dodge was pulling his backpack out of the trunk. Nat was standing next to him. Heather pushed her way over to them.
“What was that about?” Heather asked.
Dodge slammed the trunk closed. “No idea,” he said. In the dark, it was hard to decipher his expression. Heather wondered whether he knew more than he was telling. “The guy’s a psychopath.”
Heather shivered again as moisture seeped under the collar of her jacket, dampening her sweatshirt. She knew, like everyone did, that Dodge’s older sister had gone up against Ray’s older brother two years ago in Joust and been paralyzed. Heather hadn’t been watching—she’d been babysitting Lily that night with Bishop. But Nat had said the car folded up like an accordion.
Heather wondered if Dodge blamed the Hanrahans. “Let’s stay away from Ray inside, okay?” she said. “Let’s stay away from all of them.” She didn’t put it past Ray Hanrahan to sabotage them—jump out at them, grab them or take a swing.
Dodge turned to her and smiled. His teeth were very white, even in the dark. “Deal.”
They trudged across the road and into the yard with the others. Heather’s chest was heavy with something that wasn’t fear, exactly—more like dread. It was too easy.
The rain made the mud suck at her shoes. It would be a shit night. She wished she’d thought to try and sneak a beer. She didn’t even like the taste, but that would take the edge off, make the night go quicker.
She wondered whether the judges were here—maybe sitting in the front seat of one of the darkened cars, legs on the dash; or even standing in the road, jogging up and down, pretending to be normal spectators. That was the part of Panic she hated most of all: the fact that they were always being watched.
They were at the front porch too quickly. Zev Keller had just disappeared inside, and the door swung shut with a bang. Nat jumped.
“You okay?” Dodge asked her, in a low voice.
“Fine,” Nat spoke too loudly.
Once again, Heather wished Bishop had come along. She wished he were next to her, making stupid jokes, teasing her about being afraid.
“Here goes nothing.” Nat took a step forward and heaved open the door, which was hanging at a weird angle. She hesitated. “It smells,” she said.
“As long as it doesn’t shoot or bark, I’m fine with it,” Dodge said. He didn’t seem afraid at all. He moved forward, in front of Nat, and stepped into the house. Nat followed. Heather was the last to enter.
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 submarines 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.
