Nothing in Danny’s thirteen years of life had prepared him for this. He was crying, shaking.
All he could think about was how much he wanted his mother. She always fawned over him, but he loved every moment of it. He whimpered as he glanced about the room.
“I wanna go home. I want my mom,” he kept mumbling. At this point, he didn’t care who heard him or what they’d call him if they heard. “I’m scared and I wanna go home.”
He jumped at Heather’s voice. “Whoa! Look at this.” She took a few steps forward, shining her light at the far wall.
As the room became illuminated by her flashlight, the darkness shifted. Slowly, but the room was growing brighter. He rubbed at his eyes as if it were just a trick, yet the room grew brighter still.
“Does anyone else notice that?” he asked. “The room? The light?”
An audible breath came from Clint. He took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with his shirt, then slowly put them back on and nudged them up over the bridge of his nose.
“Yep, the room got lighter,” he said. “Like sunlight. But no window for it to come in through.”
Danny drew back as Heather took a few steps forward.
“Look, over there,” she said, enthused. “It’s a crib.”
It freaked Danny out. She crept forward, the only brave one of the bunch it seemed to Danny, until she was standing over the crib. She reached into it, an act of courage Danny would’ve never done, and pulled something out.
Cringing, he averted his eyes.
“It’s a doll!” she said. “Looks brand new.”
Danny peered at it with one eye still closed. If he hadn’t just seen what he’d seen in the previous room, he might not have been scared. But he knew what he’d seen. It was a demon, the creature that haunted the house. He knew they’d been fools to come. Everyone knew the house was off limits. He wasn’t sure how anyone knew, though. It was just common knowledge, something passed down through generations and widely accepted without asking any questions. Questions they should’ve asked before coming. Why is it haunted? What’s it haunted by? What’ll happen if we go inside?
Heather distracted Danny’s thoughts as she spun around to face the boys, with the doll. She shook it back and forth, and the doll’s head lolled from side to side, its eyes rolling open and shut.
Alex swatted it out of her hand. “Don’t touch anything!”
The doll landed on the floor next to the crib. It lay on its back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
“Anyone notice anything weird about this?” Alex asked. Even with the room illuminated by fake sunlight, he ran his flashlight back and forth from one end of the crib to the other. “Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?”
Heather leaned forward, peering inside it. She swept one of her dark curls out of her eye. “It’s not old. Like, not like the house old.”
Reid stepped forward and ran a hand along the crib. “No dust. And this cloth lining the crib, it’s new. And clean.”
“How did we get into a room like this?” Alex scratched his head. “This shouldn’t even be in this house.”
Danny whispered, “Haunted houses don’t make sense. Maybe we walked through that door and went back in time or something.”
Reid punched him in the arm.
“What was that for?” Danny rubbed his aching arm.
He experienced a fleeting feeling of déjà vu. Like he’d been in this room before. As he continued to rub his arm, he pictured himself at what must’ve been just over a year old, clumsily scrambling down the hall and entering a room he’d never been in. A room that was always closed off. Inside it was a crib that wasn’t his.
“If you say dumb shit, I’m gonna punch you,” Reid said. “It’s that simple.”
Danny scowled. “It’s not that dumb. I mean, this room doesn’t belong in this house, like Alex said. It doesn’t fit. I feel like, like I should know this room.”
Danny glanced around at the cream-colored walls that looked so familiar and a painting of a family. A man with his arm around his wife and her arms wrapped around a baby. He found himself moving closer without meaning to, until he was face to face with the painting. As he studied the man, he could make out his father’s details—the strong brow, the dark brown eyes, the straight line of a mouth that looked like it never smiled. And the woman could’ve been his mother, the more he thought about it. It was almost as if the painting was shifting, molding to his thoughts, memories. But that couldn’t be. The hair that he moments ago swore was dark, almost black, was now blond, falling just past her shoulders. Lips peeled back into that smile that lit up Danny’s world. But the more he stared at the picture, the more it changed. He tried to see his mother’s eyes, but all he saw were dark holes where eyes should be. He took a step back and tripped. Hands struggled to catch him but failed, and he slipped to the floor.
“What’s wrong with you?” Clint pushed his face in front of Danny. “Hey.”
And just like that, Danny’s feeling of déjà vu faded into nothingness. This wasn’t his house.
“I mean, I don’t think I know this place, after all,” he said.
Yet something niggled at the back of his mind. Some memory, some thing.
“Maybe they lived here.” Clint backed away from Danny and pointed to the painting.
Danny sat on the floor, struggling to understand what he’d just seen. He looked back up at the painting, and the man he saw, clearly wasn’t his father. He had dark eyes, thick furrowed brows, and much thicker lips than his father. And the woman in the painting had wavy raven-black hair that fell past her shoulders, soft doe-eyes, and a cute button nose.
“Did anyone else see that?” Danny asked. “The painting. It changed.”
Clint reached out a hand to help him up. “Maybe you hit your head when you fell, huh?”
“No. It was my mom and dad, then it wasn’t. Like their faces melted and changed. As soon as I saw their eyes, they changed. Same thing with their mouths and stuff.”
“I saw it, too,” Alex said. “I didn’t believe my eyes at first. I thought it was a trick of light or something.”
“What did you see?” Heather asked, excited.
Alex looked to Danny, and Danny nodded for him to tell them.
“I thought the lady had curly hair, like Heather,” Alex said. “And then she didn’t. When I first looked at the man, he didn’t have eyes. Wait, no, that’s not right. He had negative eyes. Like two dark holes where his eyes should’ve been. It was like seeing nothing, in the shape of eyes. I don’t know how to explain it.” He looked down at the floor.
Danny got excited. “Yeah, like that. I saw it, too.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Heather said.
Clint poked his glasses higher on his nose and got all history-scholar. “It’s the family that lived here way back then.”
“You don’t know that,” Reid said. “That’s not part of the story. You’re just making shit up now.”
“A man lived here with his family, a wife and baby,” Clint said. “But no one knows what happened to the wife and baby. When King Philip and his men came to burn the house down, there was only one man. Only one person here.”
“Liar,” Reid said.
Clint straightened his posture, sticking his chin out. “You should know more than any of us. I heard that your dad’s family has Indian blood, King Philip’s blood. Maybe that’s why your dad can’t handle his alcohol.”
Danny’s mouth dropped open, and he thought his jaw would hit the floor. The room got so silent he could swear he heard Reid’s blood boiling. Danny took a step away from Clint, like he was contagious and if he got too close he’d catch whatever it was. Reid’s face turned bright red, and for a second Danny thought of those cartoon characters that got so hot under the collar, so pissed off that their heads popped off. He wondered if Reid’s head was gonna pop.
Reid balled his right hand into a fist and charged at Clint. The whole thing happened in slow motion. Danny watched, his jaw still on the floor as Reid pulled his fist back. Knuckles white and shaking, he let it go. It was lined up perfectly with Clint’s face. Danny almost couldn’t watch, and then time sped up again just as Alex leaned in and shoved Clint out of the way. Reid’s punch went wide, and he fell forward and caught himself on the wall.
A muffled sound came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Everyone hushed. Danny strained to hear better.
It grew louder and more distinct until he could clearly hear a baby crying. The crying escalated into wailing.
“Maybe they still do live here.” Danny’s voice sounded rough and unfamiliar to his own ears, like it had scraped against sandpaper on the way out of his throat. “You hear that, right?” The crackle in his voice reminded him of the snap of the fire, and it unnerved him even more. Did I say that?
“A baby crying.” Heather backed away from the crib.
“I told you not to touch anything,” Alex said to her.
“Like me touching the doll did that. Whatever.”
A soft, doleful melody wafted over the child’s cries. A woman’s voice singing, cooing to the child, though no one could be seen. At first, it seemed to come from one corner of the room, then another, then it filled the whole room as if it were coming from speakers lining the walls.
At the sound of the lullaby, chills danced up Danny’s back and neck until he was left squirming as if trying to shake off creepy, crawly bugs.
The baby stopped crying and the lullaby faded into silence. The room grew quiet once more. If the sounds he’d just heard weren’t scary enough, the silence became more frightening. It pushed unnaturally at Danny’s eardrums.
“Can you hear that?” Clint asked.
No one moved or said anything.
Danny listened closer, afraid to breathe.
“No, I don’t hear anything.” Reid tilted his head from side to side.
“Exactly,” Clint said. “No sound at all. The air in here feels weird. Like it’s pushing on my ears. I can hear my own heartbeat. Dag, my own breathing, even. Like too much pressure.”
Heather leaned her head forward, stretching her neck out. “I hear that, too. But what if…what if that’s not our own heartbeat we’re hearing, but, like, the baby’s or something. Or the creature’s? Or the lady’s, even?” Heather cupped her hands over her ears, creating a suction, and pulled them away. She did this a few times.
“We just have to figure it out. Like a puzzle or a maze maybe.” Clint stroked his chin. A pose he used when deep in thought, working on a scheme.
Danny had seen it a million times when they were up to no good. He sighed, hoping his clever friend might be able to work this one out.
Clint spun about, taking in the room. “Okay, so this room looks about the same size as the other one, except this one looks new and the other was old. What’s possible? Did we end up in a secret room? Another world? I don’t believe we can think logically here.”
“Okay, Mr. Spock,” Reid said. “Logic wouldn’t have a door in a wall one moment and then disappear the next.” He massaged his knuckles and finished with a crack.
Danny hoped he wouldn’t haul off and try to punch Clint again.
“Yeah, like that’s the weirdest thing so far.” Heather snorted, shaking her head. “Boys. Logic. This could take a while.” She moved back to the crib, leaned over and looked inside. Nothing. “Hey, la-deee. Creepy sing-ing la-deee,” she mocked. “I think I see your baby in the crib. Yeah, right here. Pretty little baby!”
Danny cringed at her mocking. Always had to be the tough girl.
Alex scurried to her side and peered in the crib. “What’re you doing? You crazy? There’s no baby in there. And don’t do that!”
“Don’t do what?” She tiptoed her fingertips along the rail of the crib.
“Taunt the ghosts.” Danny’s voice cracked.
Heather lowered her voice. “But if the lady comes into the room, maybe she’ll use a door.” Her eyes grew wide and she wagged her eyebrows.
“And maybe she’ll just appear or float through the wall,” Danny said. “You don’t know anything about ghosts, do you?” He wrinkled his eyes, fighting back tears. His mouth turned down, tugging at the corners of his lips. He wanted to scream at her, curse her for being so calm, so jokey in a situation like this.
“Pretty baby!” Heather continued in a baby coo-like voice. “Where’s a pretty baby?”
Reid shoved her, and she landed on her ass, next to the crib.
“Ow, jerk!” she cried.
“Stop being so stupid.” Reid crossed his arms.
“You’re just scared. Big scared bully Reid. Ha!” Heather leaned forward onto her hands and knees. She stopped. “Hey, guys, look here.”
It was a crack in the wooden floor that wasn’t just a crack.
Reid was on the ground beside her first, running his hands over the floor. “It’s a door.” His fingers played over a little catch in between the floorboards.
“So open it.” Clint sank to his knees and got a better look.
“But guys,” Danny said, “maybe the next room will be worse than this one. This one wasn’t really that bad, after all. Crying invisible ghost baby and momma. What if…if…if that thing comes back,” he whispered. “You know, the dark smoky creature.”
“I think our best bet is to keep moving,” Alex said. “There’s obviously no going back, so we have to keep trying to move forward.” He kneeled, pried his hands in between the floorboard and the wooden hatch, and gave it a tug.
No wonder they’d missed it at first. Although it was entirely possible that it wasn’t there until it was. The house seemed to have a way of doing that to them.
A small two-by-two hatch was visible in the floor, only slightly darker than the boards. Rusted metal hinges held it at the corner. The wood was withered and weak, and made Danny think of cockroaches and termites. Creepy crawly critters. He shivered.
The floorboards creaked but wouldn’t give.
“Since when did you become the boss?” Heather put her foot over the door in the floor. “What makes you think we should all just blindly get in there? What if it’s a box full of rats? What if it’s, like, a tomb of some sort and we get sealed in there forever?”
Danny hadn’t thought of either of those possibilities. “She’s right. We should just stay put. There are worse things than this.”
Alex called to Reid, “Give me a hand.” He pushed at Heather’s foot until she finally stepped off.
Just before Reid could wedge his fingers in between the cracks, footsteps sounded but no one was moving. Alex was next to Reid. Heather behind her brother, next to Clint. Danny was leaning over them all. He glanced around the room, half-expecting to see someone coming at them, and half-hoping he wouldn’t see anything.
“Who moved?” Heather whipped her head around.
“Nobody,” Clint said. “I mean, none of us did.”
When sight failed, Danny froze, trying desperately to hear any little sound. He held his breath until he thought he’d pass out.
And then it started again. Heavy, shuffling footfalls moving across the room, toward them. The boards creaked and bent under the invisible weight.
“Let’s not wait to find out what it is!” Alex yelled at Reid. “Get this thing open. Pull, on three. One…two…three!”
They both yanked and the door in the floor finally budged, spilling them backwards to the floor. It smacked all the way open, cracking down into the floor with a reverberating thud.
The footsteps were now just feet away.
“Go, go, go!” Alex yelled.
Everyone hustled to climb down into the doorway in the floor. Clint first, then Heather, but Danny remained frozen. He knew he should be moving, but he couldn’t.
He slipped into that déjà vu moment again, back when he was a baby in that off-limits room, and footsteps were coming down the hall. Moments later, his mother peeked her head around the corner, a worried look on her face. She hurried toward her little boy, Danny, her arms outstretched. He could almost feel her hands on him, so warm.
“Move!” Reid shouted.
But Danny stood still. Stuck in between a memory and the moment.
He wished he could be that little baby being discovered by his mother instead of being in this awful house with this awful creature and no way out.
“Alex, get in. I’ll grab him.”
Reid’s voiced wafted through the memory, tickling Danny’s ears, yet he couldn’t let it go.
He watched with a faraway stare as Reid jumped to his feet, grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him to the doorway. Danny thought he felt his mom’s hot hand on his arm. She always had such warm hands.
Reid jumped down inside and pulled Danny in beside him.
The footsteps seemed to stop just short of the door. The floorboards creaked as if someone was waiting, shifting their weight in that spot.
Then the door slammed shut.