Nothing existed. It was the deepest black, no hint of a world outside their reach. Their blind screams echoed endlessly in the small cavern. Brit swore again and again, rustling for something in the silt. Heather managed to strike a match, and in the brief flash before it fell into the dirt she saw a shadow darker than night hunched over their crouched bodies. It heaved toward her.
The air in Heather’s throat was rejected by her lungs, too cold to breathe. Something, maybe a hand, closed around her neck. How many seconds had it been? She struck her second match. Her candle flared to life and she gulped in a deep breath of warm air. Relief rode her blood down to her fingertips. But it was short lived. “Oh, Brit.”
Her best friend was crouched in a circle of salt, candle and matches scattered in the dirt, tears pouring through the dust on her face. “Heather,” she choked out. “You need to get out of here.” Heather’s legs twitched like they’d been waiting for the order.
“I can’t do that,” Heather said.
“Please. It’s so close now. It’ll ruin you.”
“Not if I put salt around myself too,” Heather said without conviction. Her candle flame flickered again and something slowly oozed back into the room.
“I’m saying it’s okay, please. I’m begging you. I’m in the salt, I’ll live.” Brittany’s eyes were wide with desperation. “Sera said if we had to use the salt then the worst case we’d have some hallucinations, right? I can handle light mental scarring.” Her lips twitched, maybe it was supposed to be a smile. Heather didn’t move. ”Heather one of us needs to get out of here or all of this bullshit will be wasted!” Brit shouted. “Either draw a circle right now or get the fuck out!” Spittle flew from her mouth and Heather finally started moving. “Hurry!” Brittany shrieked. Heather fumbled with the lock, wanting to get far from Brittany and that look on her face as much as she wanted to run from the whole house. She popped open the latch.
“I’ll come back,” Heather said. ”I’ll find what we need and I'll come back I promise.” But wherever Brittany’s mind was, it wasn’t with Heather anymore.
“No, no please get away from me,” Brittany mumbled as she began to curl herself into a smaller and smaller ball. Heather’s vision faded, the lit edges of her candle flame burned smaller. It was time to go.
Heather scrambled through the dirt, dragging Brittany’s bag of probably useless evidence behind her. A piercing scream, impossibly loud, burst from Brittany. It continued on and on, long after she should have run out of breath. Heather moved faster, slamming the hatch shut behind her. The sounds echoing back did not sound like Brittany, they didn’t even sound human.
In near darkness Heather darted in whatever direction took her away from the monstrous sounds coming from the crawlspace. Her hand shook as she tried the walkie again, but there was no response. She was truly alone.
Something crunched under Heather’s foot, making her freeze. With immense relief she looked down to see a spiral bound notebook. She had made it back to the desk. But the familiarity brought no comfort, she remembered what happened here just moments ago. Where else could she go? She couldn’t just blindly wander.. She needed to think, come up with a plan. She needed time.
Heather pulled the salt canister from her pack and gave it a shake to see how much was left. She drew a salt line in front of the desk, and then behind, being careful not to connect them. “God,” she mumbled. “I hope this works.” Maybe whatever was hunting her would be slowed down by the partial barrier. Unless it was the circle shape that gave protection, and not the salt? No, it had to be both, right? “Why am I trying to force logic into this!”
There was maybe another hour left in the ritual. She could just walk the whole time, not draw attention to herself. Then when it was over she could get Brit out. No, they came here for a reason. She had to make all this worth something. But where to go from here?
The last time they asked for guidance they ended up in the crawl space. Brit had been so trusting of whatever answered her in the bathroom. Was it a trap the whole time? Heather remembered the feeling of something pushing her, guiding her to that awful room as she ran. No, Sera had warned them there might be multiple forces out here tonight. The shadow from the window, the Midnight Man, anything else they let through with the ritual.
Heather decided. Something had wanted them away from this desk, and that was a good enough sign that she was in the right place. She picked up one of the notebooks and started pacing the perimeter, praying the salt was enough.
Heather sped through several books trying to find the drawing she’d seen last time. But David wrote almost every single day, and any entry could be important. His paragraphs sometimes veered from Pokemon training plans to obsessive recitations of dreams, sometimes in the same sentence. Heather never found the drawing, but in a yellow notebook with the shortest passages she found what they had been looking for.
“Dad has been missing for two days.” The date lined up exactly with what Brit found in the newspaper. “I didn’t want to write that, it makes it feel real. But no one will talk to me about it. I hope they’re looking for him.”
David’s style changed after that. It was clipped and sterile. Pokemon was never mentioned again. It was almost like he was reporting on someone else’s life. Except for the night entries. Those were reserved for desperate appeals to God or any higher power willing to listen. David started to blame himself for what happened, and begged to be taken instead. When had he decided his Dad was taken? Heather could barely stand to read it, knowing that no matter how many promises David made, his dad wasn’t going to come back.
The police had to have seen this, right? The yellow notebook was nearing its end, and there weren’t many unopened notebooks left. But the final entry left her with no need for other books. “I haven’t slept since Thursday. My nightmares are back now. Worse than last time. I want to think it’s just stress now that Dad’s not here to calm me down. Now that I’m worrying about him. That’s what mom would say if I told her. But what if it’s something else? I’ve been looking for any history on our house or the woods where Dad went. Anything that might make it all make sense.
“Why are the nightmares back? They came back before we even knew Dad was missing. Dead people, crumbling walls, Indians in my closet. There is something wrong with this place. I think dad knew, and never wanted me to find out. That’s why he left without saying anything. The police aren’t telling us anything. Nobody believes me. But I found something yesterday.”
And that was all. Heather’s blood was pounding, but there were no more pages after that. It looked like maybe some had been torn out, but the notebook was so dirty it was impossible to be sure. Was that everything they could have found here?
Heather grabbed another notebook but quickly realized she’d looked through that one already. How was she supposed to keep all of this straight with just a damn candle to see with? She started grabbing notebooks and shoving them into her sack when something odd caught her eye.
Something was flitting around the edge of the salt like a moth, but it shone brighter than her candle flame. Despite the radiance it was hard to keep track of, like it was phasing in and out of her world. With it came a feeling, a presence so unlike the others in the house, mouse like and feeble. It sheltered next to her, urging her to continue.
She handled the notebooks with more reverence now as she laid them in the sack. She pictured the little boy spending hours and hours writing in them each day as his life was torn apart. He must have had so many people tell him it was time to stop clinging to dreams and ghost stories. Move on, grow up, be a man. But if David had experienced even a fraction of what Heather had...Her heart ached. She pictured him as he was in the family portrait: missing teeth, sitting on his dad’s lap. Still so full of hope and happiness. Now having to deal with all of this, and no one to lean on.
Heather held her candle close to her face, as if its warmth would give her the courage to do what she knew she needed to do. “Is this what you wanted me to see… David?” Her shaky voice was swallowed by the cavernous basement. The mouse-like energy seemed to…pulse. Heather took a slow breath. “Is there more? Can you show me?” Heather waited in darkness. Distantly, almost imperceptibly, she heard the door at the top of the basement stairs scrape open.
Heather stopped pacing. The last time she let something guide her…but her flame was steady and strong. She knew in her gut she couldn’t return to the crawlspace to get Brittany, but could she really leave her down here? Whatever called to Heather was different. If it was David, she had to follow. Time to start trusting her instincts.
Heather moved with purpose up the splintery steps and back into the world above ground. Despite the dust the air felt so much fresher and the low moonlight may as well have been the sun. The basement let her back out into the long hallway. She stood in prepared tension for what might be lurking in the shadowed mirror at the end. But there was nothing. Or, almost nothing. There was no monstrous shape ready to lunge. Instead a small ball of light danced in the silver reflection, clearer now than in the basement. The mote flitted away towards the living room. Transfixed, Heather followed.
She pictured the scrawny boy again, laying on the couch on a Saturday morning. She desperately hoped she was doing this right. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. A creak sounded on the stairs. Heather looked towards the police tape, hoping she’d misheard. But no, footsteps were moving up the stairs one at a time, all the way up, to the third floor.
“Fuck.” Heather whispered, shielding her candle against sudden flickering. It was too much to hope that she’d get through the ritual without going back up there. Something truly evil dwelled there and it had never wanted Heather in this house.
She was aching to try radioing Sera again, but her connection to this path felt so delicate, contacting the outside world would shatter it. She’d go, for Brittany, and for Sera. And if that little ball of light was David, this was for him too.
Heather squared herself to the stairs like she was getting ready to serve, letting the familiar movement center her. Then she burst forward, moving up the steps as quickly as her flame let her. If something was following her, it was going to have to hustle.
She rounded the bannister on the second landing and barely caught the railing before falling on her face. The steps were too old and crooked for running in the dark, she definitely didn’t feel anything grab her ankle.
She kept moving, more carefully but with enough speed to outrun her fear. So fast she didn’t immediately notice the radical change in temperature. She felt it in her feet first, seeping up from the floorboards, turning her socks and ankles to numb ice blocks. She had made it to the Third Floor.
There was only one room down a short hall. The bedroom door stood slightly ajar. She knew she had to go in. She knew every second standing still was a second closer to ending up like Brittany. But moving felt impossible. As she watched the door glided open just a little bit further. She bit the inside of her cheek to stop from swearing, readied her matches, and pushed on.
No booming voice threatened her when she crossed the threshold. She had time to take everything in. Even by candlelight she could tell the room was huge; it must have been the attic at some point. The dimensions were so unsettling, odd support pillars and bits of wall jutting out so that no furniture could sit evenly. The roof slanted walls caught Heather’s flickering light and threw back twisted shadows. But still, only shadows.
By one of the black shuttered windows was a writing desk, an adult version of the one from the basement. A yellowing Nintendo Gameboy sat on a pile of drawings like a paper weight. Another game system Heather didn’t recognize was attached to a tiny wood paneled TV by the door, its antennae hanging by a wire off the back. The bed was weirdly in the middle of the room, obstructing Heather’s view of anything else. Who could sleep without some part of themselves against a wall?
Beyond the bed was a small bookshelf that seems like it had been emptied except for some well loved stuffed animals. She smiled; old enough not to sleep with them, but not ready to have them gone yet. She remembered her small stuffed dog Meeko still sitting on her nightstand back home.
“Hey kid,” she said, holding her candle high in an attempt to light the whole room. “Show me what I’m here for.” A knock from under the bed immediately answered. Had the knocking in the long hallway been David too?
Heather lifted a faded red bed skirt and peered at her answer. Other than some dust bunnies of monstrous size, there was only a bare floor beneath the bed. She growled in frustration. Then the knocking resumed. A great loud thump that lifted one of the floorboards up.
Heather set the candle down and gingerly slid along the floor trying not to sneeze. She reached for the loose floorboard and heard a scratching noise. Never wanting to touch anything less, she reached her hand into the space anyway.
There was no rotting animated hand, but the hidden space was packed with stuff. Heather pushed the entire bed over and let her candle reveal the sad assorting of things in the cubby hole. A flashlight, a beanie baby, some glow sticks still in their packaging, skinny Scholastic books, and a notebook identical to the ones downstairs, pen still clipped to the outside. The floorboard was labeled with tape, ‘Dark Star 2’. This must have been such a cozy club house once.
Heather touched the notebook and she was 10 years old, small enough to comfortably fit under the bed. She just got home from school and slid into this makeshift fort. Mom still hadn’t turned the radiators on for the season so she hid from the cold October air and opened a new library book, ready to vanish into her own world.
She grew older, and the space was harder and harder to use. One time she stayed there all night, playing Gameboy, reading, recording a radio show, but nothing felt happy anymore. Why did she ever get excited catching a new Pokemon? It was like it was all happening to someone else. The only thing she felt at all was the fear growing in her stomach as the sun went down, knowing soon she’d be alone in her nightmare again. She uncapped a pen and reached for-
This notebook. Heather shook her head and grabbed it from under the floorboards. She scrubbed the tears out of her eyes and checked her candle. She didn’t know how long she’d been out of it. But she had what she wanted. There was no way the police or anyone else had ever found this.
Almost like she summoned them, flickering blue lights illuminated the room from behind the curtains.Heather crawled to the window and saw a police car winding towards the house. A massive weight left her. The outside world hadn’t stopped existing at midnight. Someone could help her get Brittany out. Sure, she’d probably be dragged right to the station, or worse, to her parents. But she’d cry and hug them while they grounded her for life. Hopefully Sera was far enough away not to get caught, the consequences would be a lot more dire for her.
The blue lights grew dimmer. Heather pulled her hands back from the window, a sheet of ice was forming on the glass, closing in from the edges. Her clouded breath fogged away the view of Bark Street. Gripping her candle with shaking fingers, she turned to face the only way out of David’s room.
There was no shadow this time. A fully formed man stood filling up the doorframe looking strong and tangible. His features were the absence of light, his eyes bright irisless white. Heather pressed her back hard to the wall. His eyes bored into hers.
Heather fled deeper into David’s room, laying salt behind, desperate to find a weapon or some other way out. And she did. Against the back wall was a door she hadn’t seen before. Most likely a closet, but maybe it could lead her out? The rest of the room was already darkening, falling away. She ripped open the closet door and screamed.
Inside the door was a maw, reflective like a mirror. Reality splintered and atomized around it. Her candle flame flickered, dancing away from the mouth. Things were coming out. There was something wrong here, an unspeakable ageless wrong, and it was pouring into her world unfettered. Is this what their ritual had done?
Tendrils and wisps and ash reached out and met the man behind her, who now walked straight through the salt. Heather heaved the door shut and scrabbled at the window. She pulled, she kicked at it, pounded with her fists. But her blows grew weaker, and the darkness was closer. Soon she felt no more desire to run or cry out. Inch by inch her feet slid out from under her. The man stepped to Heather, darkness unfurling from him like crawling wings. Her flame went out.
Slow hands fumbled for the salt carton, ready to become like poor Brit. This monster had done this to them, and for what? What had they done that was so wrong? It was the darkness that didn’t belong, that shouldn’t be here. How dare it? Heather took up the salt and hurled a fist full at the shadow man. It phased out of sight like someone cutting off a film reel. The room shook.
Life returned to Heather’s limbs and she launched herself towards the door. When she crossed the threshold there was a tremendous roar like a lion’s, and she felt a blow pitch her over the rail. She crumpled down the stairs, bouncing against the wood, losing everything she’d carried with her, but she clutched David’s last notebook. She came to a stop near the police tape. Head ringing she staggered towards a window. It was as stuck shut now as it had been from the outside. She screamed as the unyielding wood bit deep into her hands.
Something solid flew into her legs and Heather was on her back again. A great weight settled on her stomach and spread across her body like a cold blanket of lead. She couldn’t breathe. Every second the pressure got heavier, threatening to sieve her through the floorboards. She prayed, apologizing for every thing she’d ever done or thought of doing. Tears leaked down her face into her open mouth, frozen in a silent scream. Please. Please.
Something dragged Heather by her arm away from the window, deeper into the house. Phantom lips pressed themselves to hers and sucked the small amount of air she had left in her lungs. Her throat was clogged with ice. Another breath was stolen as Heather lost sensation along the edges of her body. Her mind dimmed until her only thought was of breathing. Inhale. Static fuzz crept along the edges of her vision. Inhale. Everything dimmed. Inhale. Dim.
There was a crash and searing light shocked Heather back to reality. Shards of glass and a knobbled rock tumbled to rest by her feet. From the floor she saw moonlight pouring through a hole in the frosted glass, just a second before the whole window burst in. Serafina flew through into the room landing with a crunch and flinging salt in every direction. Heather gasped unobstructed air, but stayed pinned.
Serafina swore when found Heather lying rigid on the floor, mouth hanging open. She dashed to Heather's side, mastering the terror on her face into a more familiar scowl. She encircled them both with salt, pulling Heather into a tight hug. The weight had vanished.
Heather tried to thank Serafina but all she could do was gasp and cry from her shredded throat. She buried her face on Sera’s shoulder and melted into her savior. For a second, everything felt right. But for only a second.
“Heather, where’s Brittany?”