He had him running in two nights. And looking back now, he knows he shouldn’t have gone down so easy.

--

“This place needs cleaning, Colin...” His mind mimics his mother’s voice. “The Letzers are coming tonight, and they’ll want to take a look around, so if you don’t mind...”

His mother told him to clean, and he knows what she means when she says ‘clean’. The whole place, every room, because God Help Them the Letzers are staying for the weekend for the first time since the Dolliers dropped the house in their laps and fled, and he knows why they’ve waited so long to reappear, but maybe, if the whole place is polished and Windexed, just maybe they’d forget for two seconds that somebody died in this place last time they came to visit.

That’s how it works, right? Somebody dies, the next owner does their best to forget about it.

His iPod blares in his ears and he places his hand on the doorknob, feels the cold, snatches it away. It’s like feeling heat and knowing there’s fire. But there it is, that chill down his spine that’s kept him from entering since that first time he tried. The music, someone shrieking something to a tune, is static in his ears as he tentatively reaches out again. It’s freezing, so he figures the room must be as well. Does he really have to? The Letzers don’t come until tonight, and it’s not like they’ll be eager to see “the room that kills people”. Unless they’re just that weird. Hell, they were there when the last one happened, right? They wouldn’t want...

It’s like the knob turns beneath his fingers, all on its own. But he feels his hand move with it, and soon he’s sliding the door open and standing on the precipice, not ready to jump but forced to anyway. It’s morning, right? Nothing happens in the morning.

It is cold. The window curtains are open wide, spilling sunlight in, and the rest is covered with dust. He can see it from here. All the greys are faded, all the golds are musty. The furniture is begging to be polished. Even the mirror is darker than it should be. He takes a step inside, pale of cleaning supplies with him, and marvels at the thought of what this room once was. It was probably... elegant. And sharp, with its deep golds and edgy greys. Staying here was probably a treat for those with wealth back in the day.

He feels the door give against his back and close, slow and deliberate. There’s a creak and he makes a mental note to oil it later. The cold touches his neck, pricks down his spine. He hates the cool weather, and this room seems to attract it. He quickly shrugs it off, reaching for the pale and taking brisk steps toward the bathroom.

Just as he finds himself at the bathroom door, he stops and looks in. A lurching feeling pulls through the center of his stomach and he realizes, fuck, if he has to clean this room he’s not going to deal with the damn bathroom. It doesn’t need any help. In fact, it looks like no one’s touched it in years. He’s not going to be the first, especially not now. So he turns back and looks around, trying to decide where to start.

Cursing his mother ten times over, he begins his work with the dusting, starting with the overly-plush bed. He remembers clearly the day he sat at the edge of the mattress, giving his statement as a coroner snipped Thierry’s belt. The thought makes him remember where he is, and his actions grow careful and soft. Thierry... That wide-eyed face is burned into his brain now. He can’t stop seeing it, day and night, in his awful dreams. He knows that face better dead than alive.

Fist curling around the duster, he beats the bed with it, watching motes flicker in sunlight, swinging through the air toward their next landing place. A boy died here. Not even old enough to drink, and he gave up on living. The knowledge is heavy in his chest, and he decides he shouldn’t have to clean such a creepy room anyway, but when he turns toward the door he hears it.

“Hey... You gonna look at me...?”

It’s blasting through his mind, shaking all other thoughts away, and his spine is freezing on the impact. He’s shocked still for a moment. The hoarse, chilling voice echoes and slants through his brain, trembling inside his head and making his breath quicken. He takes a step and feels dizziness like he’s never felt before in his life.

“C’mon...”

His neck turns his jaw, which turns his face, which turns his eyes, and he can stop none of it. There’s a shadow. It’s casting darkness onto the lace curtains, a pointed jaw and crooked nose, hair that rolls to its shoulders...

... No.

He feels sick because he knows that smile, and he’s never seen it before in his life. His heart loses interest in keeping up, and he knows he’s in trouble because he starts feeling really dizzy, like he’s going to faint or throw up, and he can’t decide which is worse. But he settles for keeping his body alive, running for the hall and sticking his head outside to let loose on the floor, spitting the bile his throat has unlocked. The taste is acrid on his tongue and he suddenly knows, feels, he can breathe again.

He looks back. Nothing.

For a second, he decides he’s nuts. Then shoves the thought away as the new mess takes over all other things.

--

His mother tells him he needs to help Steve move in the old furniture. She’d had the worst of it taken to get refinished, but since the Letzers are on their way, she wants the whole place just how they left it. Only cleaner. And with less bodies.

Shoving a hand through his hair, he strolls back outside and heads for the truck again. Steve stands behind him, arguing with one of the movers, probably over money. He snorts to himself, because

honestly? Steve can be as stingy as he wants, he’s not going to impress mom by being cheap. And he’s not going to impress him either.

There’s a footstool that he can probably lift on his own. Polished oak and ornate velvet upholstery, a light silvery violet with golden accent designs. Probably made in the early 1800's, reupholstered to make it look more expensive later. It isn’t very big, but-

“Oh, ‘scuse me!” A hand lands on his shoulder, just hard enough to make him jump. He turns quick and found himself looking up at...

... Well.

He’s tall, too tall to stand straight in doorways, and that gangly kind of thin that makes his arms look impossibly long. His hair is dark brown, it curls around his face in wisps, and silver-framed glasses perch on his long, crooked nose.

His smile sends a wayward shiver down his spine.

“Your mom’s the owner, right?” He asks, smiling lopsidedly as he reaches into his jumpsuit pocket.

“Yeah,” He nods, forcing his eyes from his face to the ground. Be Cool... It’s a loss. “Why?”

Shrugging a little, he pulls a thin stack of papers out of his grey jumpsuit’s pocket and hands them over. “We found these when we were fixing a hole in that thing’s upholstery. Stuffed between the springs.”

“Really?” He asks, eyes widening, probably taking on that salacious little glint he got every time he watched History’s Mysteries. Dork... Schooling his features back to normal was damn near impossible. But he tries anyway. “Cool. Lemme look...”

The papers are dusty, faded off-white with little black flecks of soot here and there. But the writing on them is splotchy, spidery, careless and scribbled until it was near illegible.

I will be there later, waiting for you

-W

He frowns, flipping to the next one as a tiny chill curls up his back.

I waited over three hours. Where did you go?

-W

Squinting at the writing, he grips the pages carefully and takes a slow breath. But it feels strange, like his lungs refuse the air. Like his body doesn’t want it.

She looked at you like she had you. I beg you, stay away from her.

-W

A quick, uncomfortable sensation sways through him, niggling slowly at the back of his skull and climbing through his brain like a bug. Cold, freezing, and it makes him shudder because he feels it sink through his body so easily...

She tells the gnats she’s going to leave with you. Tell me the truth, is that your intention? There is far too much at stake now, you know that.

-W

“Dude, you okay?”

He doesn’t even hear it as a shudder rocks through him. When did it become winter? When did his blood decide to freeze? His breath is coming out in short puffs, and he can’t seem to see straight. But he steels himself and reads the last one, even as his stomach starts to seize with chill.

My love, you leave me no choice.

-W

“Dude?”

“I-” Colin whispers, breathing out the word because he wasn’t sure he could speak. “I’ve gotta-”

“Hey,” Steven calls to him, and his head whips around. “You gonna stand there all day?”

His legs crack, feet shuffling forward as he reaches for the footstool, bending as though his body isn’t screaming with a burning chill. As though he was still okay.

He’s imagining it. He knows he is.

--

“Still a pit.” The snotty blond growls into his cellphone, casting glares to the whole room. “Swear to God, what mom loves about this place I’ll never know.”

“Douglas,” Joanne Letzer sends her son a look of distaste. Her carefully quaffed hair bounces nicely to hide the lines of her immaculate face as she frowns. “It’s impolite to talk on the phone at the dinner table.”

Rolling his eyes, the little blond punk growls into the phone. “Mom’s being a bitch. I’ll call you later.”

“Honestly!” She sighs as he hangs up, and Colin diverts his gaze to his soup. “Douglas, you’re sixteen! Show a little respect! These people have-”

“Jesus, mom...” He sighs back, and lets it drop off unfinished.

It’s not the first argument Colin and his mother have beared witness to tonight. They’re beginning to think it’s the only way the Letzers know how to communicate.

“Well, you know.” Colin’s mother fiddles with her salad fork, using it to rub a stray piece of lettuce over a spot of French dressing. “We just had the furniture restored.”

“I thought so.” Mrs. Letzer replies politely. “It looks just like new.”

Trying very hard not to look at either of them, he takes his soda and rises from the table. He can’t help feeling trapped. The Letzers on one side of the table, hissing like cats, and his mother and

Steve on the other, pretending they don’t notice. It’s stupid and tiring, and he wants to get out of there. Find a quiet place...

The kitchen door swings open and he drops his glass on the counter, turning back to watch it close. God, he wishes he could stay in here all night. Forget about this stupid dinner. Go to his

room and sleep. Hands reaching out to grip and lean on the counter, he stares at the glass, willing it to give him an excuse. Break, spill...

“Hey...”

He stiffens, and the ice cubes in his drink make a dull clinking sound, slowly melting into each other. With a quick breath, he tells himself that’s what it was. But when he tries to breathe again...

“Hey, look at me...”

... The air in the room is gone. All of it. Every last breath of it, sucked away, and he’s staring down at the glass as the ice as his knuckles turn white and his fingers...

“Colin, c’mon...”

... His fingers are cramping up. Gripping the counter steel-hard, little dots of pain shooting through his hands. He’s staring at the glass, because fuck, he feels something. Something in the shape of someone. And he can’t turn around, no, because then he would see...

“Colin...”

His hair is in his eyes, obscuring the glass in a mess of brown, but he can’t blink right now. He can’t even move. His breath is stuck dead in his lungs. There, but not leaving. And not letting another breath come.

“Look At Me.”

It moves in a blur, and all he hears is the sound of something breaking. He gasps, whipping around.

Nothing’s there. But the glass is on the floor in several pieces, bleeding cola and ice.

His hands are shaking, and when he kneels down to collect the pieces, he realizes his fingers are blue.

--

When they first moved in, Colin had stepped into the Daffodil Suite on his own. Just... Just out of curiosity. Just to see. It was late that night, and when he’d pushed open the door he nearly jumped at his own shadow, a bizarre black cut-out stretching over the floor. The hall light and the street-

lamps outside gave the whole room a vague glow. He remembers, there were dust motes clinging to the air, flying with the barely-there breeze his entrance had provided. There was gold and faded grey. There was a wing-back chair in the alcove, casting a bat-like shadow. He remembers his eyes darting to the mirror as an errant car’s headlights splashed it with white. He remembers closing his eyes and seeing nothing, while his eyelids projected the sight of Thierry’s fish-like gaze, the way he stared at that mirror as he hung from the fixture. He’d shut the door then, determined never to approach the room in darkness alone again.

He doesn’t know why he’s breaking his own rules. But here he is.

The door is unlocked, and the knob is freezing brass beneath his fingers. The threshold is the last stand, they say. And once you cross it, it holds you. You’ll always be here, even when you leave. Colin knows the stories, hell, he’d had a good laugh over them when he was searching for his grandmother’s history. But then Thierry hung himself, and it wasn’t so funny, so now he’s just... aware. Always aware of what time it is, and how far beyond that threshold he has crossed.

Tonight, though...

... Steeling himself with a breath, he takes one long step into the room and immediately feels...

... Nothing.

Well, fuck, what was he expecting? Ghostly visions? Spooky lights? Rattling chains?

Decidedly underwhelmed, he took another step to spite all those ‘Ghosts of Cape May’ websites, and another just for fun. See? It’s just the same at night as it is during the day. Just darker. And

colder, fuck, it’s like a freezer in here. Jesus, what was he so frightened of this morning, huh? Frostbite?

He chuckles at himself for being so stupid all day. What’s wrong with him? He must be ill. Hearing things, the chills, getting sick in the hallway... Fuck it. It’s the Letzers being here, that’s all. Bringing back memories and getting him all freaked out...

When he sits down on the edge of the bed, it creaks in the predictable way. Not too loud, but it echoes because it’s all so quiet. And for some reason he finds himself sitting ramrod straight, unable to calm himself again. That chill he’d been waiting for all day creeps up on him slowly, and the second he notices, he tries in vain to shake it away. This is Fucking Ridiculous... His mind sighs, annoyed. And just to spite it all, the flops backwards and lets his head hit the mattress, springs creaking obnoxiously loud beneath him.

And he forces himself to get comfortable, because being scared of a person is one thing, but being scared of a room is a whole new level of crazy. Seriously, has he always been this fucking childish? Next he’s gonna start checking for monsters under his bed every night. Christ. It’s long past time he got over this shit. He isn’t a toddler.

Yeah, let’s do this... His mind eggs him on, and he kicks his sneakers to the floor, throwing his legs up onto the bed and turning onto his stomach, stuffing his face into a pillow. One night, and you’ll see...

But he must be more tired than he thinks, because as he lays there, he starts to feel his body melting. All the tension in his back, his neck, rolling away as if the stale, dusty air is massaging his muscles. Ever so slowly his vision begins to blur, and he lets his body sink into the springs until it feels like...

... Like it’s made of sand; weak, limp, heavy...

His eyes close, and they close so easily... But when he tries to open them it gets harder and harder. Until finally he can’t.

He can’t open his eyes.

He can’t open his eyes, so he wonders if he has dust in them, so he tries to turn over. Tries to. Tells his mind to tell his body to. But his body doesn’t move. It doesn’t even twitch, and he’s suddenly aware of the heartbeat and the blood-flow and the in-and-out of his breaths because they’re the only things doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Unconsciously, without being told. The rest of him, no. This limp, doll-like body, no. It can’t move, it won’t move, it’s so heavy...

And that’s when he panics. His heart starts to race. His lungs start aching and he can’t move, can’t move to breathe, and that’s what’s scaring him, because he’s awake, dammit, and this feels awake, but it can’t be ‘cause he can’t fucking-

There’s a sound. A static-like buzzing. It tugs past the panic, dripping over his ear and growing loud, loud, louder. An alarm, so soft, yet so indecently shrill, peeling through his brain and dulling it with sick, gray noise...

... It stops. Just as quickly as it comes, it stops. And the stand-still shakes through his nerves, though his body never echoes. Somehow that makes it worse. A ghost of a shiver, possessing him as his body stays heavy and motionless. And now, Jesus, he hears something different. The creaking of the door he’d forgotten to oil, now magnified to a near deafening squeak. His eyes open now of their own accord. Just in time to see that door shut itself, just in time to see the room get ten times darker. But everything is screaming now; the color of every shadow, the sound of the lock clicking in place, the faint scent of fried onions lingering on the pillow... All far too big and bright and loud. All stinging his senses when they should be nothing but whispers.

And now, as much as he tries to close them, his eyes stay open. He’s trying to squeeze them shut, mentally freaking ten times over, because his body is acting like it’s in a coma, but his mind is going too fast, too fast, like mile a minute fast. Like, What the- Why- Oh God, I Can’t- Why am I- Oh Holy-

It all stops. The buzzing, the creaking, the tightening in his lungs. And a new sound begins. Slow and methodical, beat-pause-beat-pause-beat... Footsteps. Deliberate in their noise and drawing closer as he stops trying to close his eyes and concentrates on gulping in the air he needs.

The steps stop. And he feels a cold pressure sliding right up his spine, like a hand dipped in ice water. He sucks in a breath, but finds his lungs crushed beneath him. Too weak, too small; they were only balloons in his chest. In his delirium, in his panic, he marvels at this. It’s funny, we forget just how fragile humans are. How we’re all made of skin and bones and blood, and our

bodies are just begging to be ripped up and down. How our skin turns brilliant colors when it’s bruised or burned, how our veins are raised and so easy to trace with their pretty dark blue. How our necks are such tiny, barely-there things that can snap with very little effort.

“God, look at you.”

The voice... It groans through his ear in a breathy whisper, and it freezes his breath.

No...

No, this isn’t real...

“Laid out like this...” He laughs, and another deathly cold hand trails down his spine. “Just for me... Almost makes me feel special.”

Letting out a soft breath, he tries to close his eyes again. It doesn’t work. Then, as if to prove the failure, a pale white hand grasps his chin and drags his face up.

Fuck, God, No...

Long mousy-brown hair, tinted with highlights of a putrid yellow, curling long around his face. White skin, moonlit-pale, marked with a long ring of bruising around his neck. Wide bloodshot eyes, coal-black in color and fixed on his face. He smells of onions, duck broth, and flour.

He tries to scream, gasp, but his voice seems to be locked in his throat.

Thie-

“Yeah, Colin.” He whispers again, and that voice is all he knows. Everything he knows. “Remember me?”

The hand lets go, and his face drops into the pillow. He breathes it in, that tangy-sweet smell of fried onions, and quivers as he wills his body hard into motion. But it doesn’t move. It Doesn’t Move. And God, Fuck, he has to run, he has to wake up right the fuck now because he’s scared out of his mind and he should be MOVING-

“I hope so.” The Thierry-Thing whispers, trailing a cool nail down the back of his neck. “God, I really hope you do. I hope you remember me every night. See my face every time you close your eyes.”

He feels this cold heavy pressure of nothing dig into his throat, and he gasps. His mouth pops open and digs into the pillow so he can’t breathe anyway. The Thierry-Thing, voice ever soft and easy, leans over his ear to whisper to him. Behind that pretty voice, however, there’s an edge. It’s hidden behind a gauzy curtain, but it’s certainly an edge. “You owe me that much, don’t you? You owe me.”

Scrambling, flailing, his mind is screaming for his body to move, to run away. To get the fuck out. But it’s not obeying him anymore. Its limp and pliant and choking like a fish out of water in that cold, unreal grip. His throat makes a sound, finally, but it’s not a scream or a strangled cry. It’s a deathly, almost hollow groan that he’s never heard from himself before.

The thing laughs, its greasy locks falling to skim his shoulder as he whispers. “I knew you had it in you. I knew it. I could see right through you that morning. That strange look in your eyes as you stared at me.”

That funny doll-like gaze falls into his mind and his whole body shudders, because it’s ghastly and grotesque, but he still thinks about it every day. Every day, all day, every hour on the hour as he passes the Suite in his rounds. That face is there. In the back of his mind, haunting his eyes so that every time he blinks it flashes behind his eyelids.

“You felt ashamed...” It continues, stroking a long, cool touch down his back with its other hand, the first still making an example of his neck. “‘Cause I was on our mind the night I died. ‘Cause while I was hanging in here, you were fucking yourself, thinking of me...”

Fucking God, the air in the room burns away.

No, God, How...?

His body starts to shake. His hands clench into the bedding as this phantom’s fingers tap out a tune on his vertebrae. “Jacking off, thinking of my voice... How it’d sound, saying the nastiest things...”

How could it know...?

The touch does not stop at the middle of his spine, but it slows, so deliberate, so calculating. Meaning to drive him insane. His body feels every little caress, hair standing on end as goose-bumps form inch-for-inch within his skin. “You liked me. You liked the way I didn’t like you. Liked how hot my skin felt when you brushed against me, accidentally-on-purpose. But you thought about me ripping you up, blackening your skin and calling you the sickest names...”

Oh My God... It comes to him again, that night, that fantasy... Please, God, Christ, Help Me...

“Well, guess what, Baby? Guess what?”

He felt his body arch, throat locking down a scream as this being digs its nails into his neck, hard enough to bruise. Then harder, harder, until all at once he feels his neck coming apart at the seams.

“It’s your fault I’m here, you piece of shit. And I’m gonna own you for it. I’m gonna make you-”

In a rush, everything changes. He hears the thing gasp, feels its fingers yank away and suddenly he’s very, very dizzy. And he jumps for it, clawing at the chance for escape as he feels his mind connect again, climbing through the murkiness until he-

- God Please-

-“Fuck-” He gasps, his body jolting up and awake. The sheets are clutched in his fingers, which are stiff and blue and cramped with lack of blood.

“Jesus!”

He whips around. In the doorway is Douglas Letzer, staring wide-eyed at him as he runs a hand through his white-blond hair.

“Dude, you sleep in here?” He asks, rolling from shock to sneer in a heartbeat. “That’s fucked up.”

Annoyance settles in, covering his shakes for a moment as he stumbles off the bed to collect himself. Because he can’t be scared. He can’t. It’s a stupid fucking nightmare.

“What the-” The kid frowns, eyes zeroing in on him. “What happened to your neck?”

His eyes pop open wide, and against his better judgement he allows a hand to reach back and inspect. A shot of pain thrums through him, and he feels something warm and sticky. He bites his lip. “I don’t know.”

Letzer glares, turning on his heel and leaving him there as he mutters to himself. “Whatever. Fucking creep...”

Within seconds he’s out of that room like the devil’s after him. And by the time he’s in his own quarters, shakily turning on the bathroom light as he looks in the mirror, the blood is dry on his fingers.

And that’s when he wonders what the fuck Douglas was even doing there. At All.

--

The next morning, breakfast is absolute torture. The kind that makes it hard to imagine a good day after.

He sits at the table feeling lower than dirt, eyes stark on the place-mat, hand barely conscious of its movements as he slices his omelet into tiny pieces. Ham and sharp cheddar ooze from the eggy folds with every slice, almost satisfying in a way, because across the table Douglas stares from him to his plate, from him to his plate, as though he expects him to start using the knife on people. Wary grey-blue eyes had been watching him all morning. Kid was totally freaked, and yeah, maybe that gave Colin a little satisfaction.

Serves him right. The little brat.

“They closed Winnie’s?”

“Oh, yes, they couldn’t keep it up, not with that Starbucks right across the street. Tiny little bakery like that?” His mother nods emphatically. “So sad.”

“So sad.” Mrs. Letzer echoes, shaking her head. “They made the best coffee cake. I don’t know how they did it…”

Their mothers prattle on, leaving them in their mutual mistrust. Douglas doesn’t hear a damn word, or if he does, he’s not reacting. Just picking at his pancakes and staring like he might be Satan or something. But right now, as his hand comes up to touch the fresh scabbing on the back of his neck, he doesn’t give a fuck what this stupid kid thinks of him. He doesn’t care about much of anything. What he cares about is the sleep he never got. And the dream. And the marks he’s praying no one will notice.

That dream… It curls serpentine through his consciousness, interrupting logical thought every so often to make him shudder. It scares him, God, makes him gulp a breath of air and force his stomach to unclench. He has no appetite, the omelet tasteless on his dry tongue as he chews. And he’s wired, jumpy, completely awake one moment and dozing the next. Even now, as his gaze falls to his food…

“… You’re the one who…”

“… I didn’t bring you here to…”

He snaps himself awake, grasping for his orange juice and swallowing a long gulp of the stuff, hoping the bitter acidic taste would at least keep his eyes open. Douglas watches him as he swallows, gaze falling from his face to his lips to his neck as it moves… For a moment Colin thinks he might be staring a little too hard.

“Well, Colin’s been doing what he can, you know, helping take care of the place.” His mother sighs. “He has school, of course, but he always makes time.”

“It’s wonderful.” Mrs. Letzer beams at him, genuinely pleased. “My father used to do a lot of work here when I was a girl. I always feel better knowing someone’s keeping it in shape. When we sold it to the Rawlings, they didn’t lift a finger, and the whole house went to hell.”

Colin nods, a little proud but mostly just hoping she stops looking at him.

After a moment, she does. “But once we saw that, we made sure they were out within the month.”

“Oh, that’s when the Dolliers bought the place?”

Mrs. Letzer nods, sipping her tea. “Yes. They were absolutely thrilled with it. And that boy took such good care…” She trails off, eyes softening as she remembers. “Oh, but that was so sad.”

“Oh, lord yes.” His mother sighed. “That poor, troubled boy…”

“… Tough shit, you twisted motherfucker…”

He jumps as the words shoot through his skull like a bullet. Douglas tenses across the table, hand dropping to his napkin, gripping the holder like he might throw it and run. The kid’s so freaked, it’s almost amusing. But he’s not laughing right now. Right now, he’s choking on a bite of omelet and trying to pretend he didn’t just hear that voice loud and clear.

“You know, he was never one to complain.” Mrs. Letzer reaches for the salt. “Always so quiet… He used to wait the tables every once in a while, and man the front desk, and when he wasn’t busy with all that, they had him fixing windows.”

“I heard that. From what everyone says, I can’t imagine why he would…”

“Oh he was troubled. No doubt about that. His father…” She leans in, as though she’s sharing some hot piece of gossip. “His father shot his mother dead in the middle of their living room. They say he was right there when it happened.”

“No!” Colin’s mother is aghast. Colin’s head whips around as though it might fall off. What?

“Oh, yes.” She nods, setting her fork on the table. “That’s why he was living here. With his aunt and grandmother. The bastard should’ve been put away for life, but he’d only just been released the week before when…”

“God, that’s terrible!”

Colin’s mind fixates on it. Christ, seriously? Go through all that, no wonder you…

“… Fucking got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

“… This isn’t what I wanted you for…”

“ … Too bad, so sad, next time remember this…”

Launching to his feet, he turns completely around, slamming his chair into the table and making Douglas scramble back. But as he stands there, running a hand through his dark brown hair, he searches and searches every single shadow with his eyes.

Nothing.

Fucking son of a bitch.

His mother looks up, frowning at him. “Colin, honey, you okay?”

He gulps in a breath, curling his fingers into a fist. They’re shaking, and with a stark chill he realizes they are completely numb.

“I just remembered…” He trails off, knowing it’s lame. “I have to write a paper.”

“Oh, dear, when you’re not busy, there’re some books in the basement I’d like you to bring up.” His mother smiles. “Photo albums. They’re in a cardboard box at the bottom of the stairs. Steve was going to bring them up, but…” She sighs, rolling her eyes at the thought of him.

“Douggy, why don’t you help him carry it up? I’m sure it’s heavy.”

Douglas glowered, looking deathly miserable.

Colin agreed wholeheartedly.

--

The box is probably one of the two dozen at the foot of the stairs, the ones that Steve the Stupid had left there with the vague thought of cleaning out the basement. At the moment, Colin would rather eat sand than go through the stuff, considering he has to do it with the brat, whose mother had all but threatened to stop paying his phone bill if he didn’t cooperate. Apparently the only thing Douglas actually cares about was that annoying green Sidekick and its thrash-metal ringtone.

Said brat looks down at the boxes and sniffs with distaste. “Whatever. Which box is it.”

It’s more a demand than a question, and Colin feels the strong urge to slap him.

“I don’t know.” He tries to be civil. “Lemme find it.”

“You do that.” The blond yawns, thumbing the texting buttons so fast it should be painful.

He grimaces. “Yeah, okay.”

Pulling the first box from the pile, he throws off the lid and sighs. Christmas decorations. He pushes that aside and moves to the next one... Christmas decorations. He pushes that one aside... Thanksgiving decorations. For a moment he wondered whether or not he’d have to get a huge black marker and label all of these himself, since apparently no one saw fit to do that before. Three steps above him, Douglas sneers.

“Your mom seriously hangs that?” He asks, pointing to a gilded wreath laying among the Christmas stuff. Colin feels himself nod, even as he’s thinking Drop Dead. Douglas doesn’t seem to be a mindreader. “That’s so lame.”

He ignores him, throwing the next box to the side. Oh, look, all the old holiday cards Mom never throws out. All the gift cards to Bath & Body Works that she never uses. But no photo albums. With a heavy sigh, he throws that one to the side as well.

“Dude.” Letzer toes one of the half-open boxes, letting the lid slide off as his phone makes a beeping sound. “What is this?”

He’s pointing to an old, broken ceramic jack-o-lantern. Its color was faded from orange to a soft gold-ish. Turning to look, he frowns, not quite remembering where or when they’d added it to the collection. His mother collects decorations like some people collect stamps. “That would be a jack-o-lantern.”

Douglas snorts as though he just said ‘That would be a pineapple’. “Does your mom, like, deliberately find this shit? Or do they just stick it in her shopping bag and hope she doesn’t notice?”

Gritting his teeth, he turns back to the next box and finds the cookie cutters his mother had torn up half the house looking for in August. He sets those aside and moves the rest of the box out of the way.

“It’s broken.” Douglas continues, crouching down to pick it up. “You’d think that would be a good excuse to throw it out. Christ, this family has no taste.”

“Okay, that’s it.” He tosses the next box aside without even looking at it, because it’s so fucking past time to say this. “You’re a fucking jerk with nothing to do but make everyone around you miserable. And I’m tired of the attitude. Either shut up and help me find this Goddamn box, or go upstairs and leave me alone.”

“Dude, chill! It’s just a pumpkin!” He looks near unfazed by the outburst, blinking a little and turning away, eyes warily turning back to him after a moment. “Freak...”

Exhaling a long, highly irritated breath, he turns to Douglas with a pissed off sneer, probably the only kind the boy even understands. “Oh, yeah, you’re the one who bullies his own mother to death and I’m the freak.”

“You’re the one sleeping in a dead kid’s room.” He shoots back, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing at the jibe, rearing for a fight.

Colin glares. “So, then what were you doing there at two a.m.?”

“None of your business!” He hisses, gripping his phone in his fist as he steps a little closer as though this may lead to blows.

“What? Goin’ to visit Thierry or something? Pay your respects?” He presses further, wanting more than anything to make him mad. Mad enough to get the fuck out of his house. “In the middle of the night? I’d say that’s a little creepy.”

“I wasn’t the one in his bed!”

“So what? At least I fucking admit it!”

“Jesus Christ! I had a nightmare, I got up, I wandered!” He finally yells, looking like he wishes he had snake fangs or something. “I didn’t go there on purpose, freak!”

He wants to curse at him. No, actually, he kind of wants to punch him. Strange. He’s never actually itched to punch somebody before.

He kind of likes it.

Instead he swallows it down and turns away. “Whatever you say. Freak.”

Instantly he’s awash with a terrible guilty feeling. The kind that accompanies any serious violent thought. So as he opens the next box (winter clothes, scarves, gloves, that hat he hasn’t worn since freshman year of high school) he sighs, running a hand through his chestnut hair. “What was the nightmare about?”

“None of your business.” He glowers, shaking his white blond locks out of his face as he thumbs a text into his phone.

“Fine.” Putting the winter clothes aside, he moves on to the next tower of boxes and throws the lid off.

For a moment, it’s all silent. There’s a little bit of rustling as Colin thumbs through a stack of old magazines, but then it’s dead. Douglas doesn’t even look at him, toeing the stupid jack-o-lantern and worrying his lower lip as though, maybe, he feels guilty too. But then Colin remembers he’s a sixteen year old kid, or maybe the spawn of Satan resurrected as a sixteen year old kid, and decides maybe he shouldn’t be so harsh...

... “Was it-”

“No.” He cuts him off, soft, withering, like he’s not sure why he’s talking at all. “No, it was a man, but it wasn’t him...”

“Who was it?” He feels his throat grow dry all at once, and he feels like he’s choking, choking on sand...

“I dunno.” Frowning hard, he turns away and shoves the box a little with his foot. “Some guy. Tall. Black hair. Big nose...” Eyes narrowing, he sucks on his lower lip and finally succeeds in kicking the box into the wall. “... Shaking me. Telling me to get up.”

Giving him a look, Colin tosses the old Christmas lights into what seems to be turning into the ‘done’ pile. “That’s a nightmare?”

“Yeah.” He defends himself, eyes flitting from his phone to Colin and back. “It was creepy. He kept shaking me, yelling ‘Get up! Ya gotta get up! Someone’s gonna die!’” His hands fly in a ‘spook’ motion. “S’fuckin-”

The first box in the third column falls down with a resounding, echoing smack. The lid flies off, the contents spill, and there, on the floor, are the pictures.

Colin nearly has a heart attack, tripping and stumbling over the box of cookie cutters. Douglas jumps about a foot in the air. Then seems to assume it’s Colin’s fault.

“Graceful.” He snickers, although it seems to have less bite than before.

Still unnerved, he gathers his mother’s pictures and throws them in the box. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

As they tromp up the stairs, he turns out the light. And when he looks back down he sees a shadow that seems darker than the rest.

It chills him. He doesn’t look back again.

--

He’s standing at the door, trying to decide if this is really as scary as this feels.

Honestly, he’s not sure what to think anymore. He remembers that dream as clear as anything, freezing him right down his spine and making him so scared he can’t breathe. He remembers the Thierry-Thing’s non-eyes, bearing down on him in ethereal power, shaking him up with every touch of his hand. His dangerous hand.

Was this what killed all those men before?

But Thierry...

... That isn’t right...

He clasps the icy knob in his fingers, twisting it hard and walking inside. And this time he shuts it behind him on purpose.

The room, all its shadows, they seem to grow exponentially every inch the door closes. Until finally the lock clicks into place, the hall light sweeps away, and they become huge, monstrous things. They own the room, linking and melding together as the streetlamps outside cast ghoulish reflections.

He swings his gaze over each and every shadow, leaning back against the door until he...

... What, was he expecting to feel calm now? More at ease?

Not fucking likely.

Chills bleeding through him with every tiny breath he takes, he forces himself away from the door, tamping down his nerves and touching the nearest surface just to feel something tangible. Something real. He finds his hand on the night stand, fingers shaking over the cool wood...

“... Hey, Colin...”

He loses his breath, hand stilling upon the surface of the night stand, body freezing.

But this is what he’s been waiting for, right...?

“Yeah?” He murmurs, sliding his fingers over the edge of the table and onto the bed, smoothing out the sheets still a little wrinkled from the night before.

“... Colin...”

“What do you want?” Voice harsh in the air, he feels his body begin to feel...

... heavy...

... No...

“What do you want?” He asks again, forcing his eyes open as he lets his body fall onto the bed, shoes kicked to the floor. “What do you want from me?”

And then his throat begins to grow dry. Dry and dead until it’s like his mouth, his tongue, feels coated in cotton. And he tries to swallow, tries to breathe, but he just feels his throat begin to wheeze and cough. And contract... Like someone’s stepping on it...

The bed moves, shifts beneath him, and his eyes roll up to the darkness of the ceiling. And then they meet dead, cold white.

“Colin...” It whispers, looking down at him with a joyless smile. “I just want to take what you owe me.”

“I-I,” His throat is raspy, painful as hell. “I don’t-”

Greasy brown hair falls into his face as the thing leans down, smelling like fried onions as he nips Colin’s lower lip, running his tongue over the nerve between his teeth, sucking... Something in Colin shudders so hard it wakes every nerve in his body. With that, the thing pulls back. “You owe me a hell of a lot, Colin.”

He gasps for air, eyes going wide, fishlike as they lose their oxygen. “I didn’t even-”

“You touched me.” It hisses into his ear, clawlike fingers gripping into his shirt as he says the words. “With your slut grandma’s blood coursing through your veins.”

It’s getting harder now; harder to breathe, to see, his vision’s going dark. But he’s acutely aware of the pungent fried onions in the air, the duck broth taste that haunts his lower lip. And he still feels his fingers... Digging in...

“Do you know what he made me do?” It’s harsh, heavy, but it’s quivering, like it might just break. “Just to keep my mind? Do you know what it took, just for me to be here, and not locked in the damn walls like all the rest?”

“Stop-” He tries to move, tries to push him off again, but his limbs are like sandbags now. And his throat is closing...

And all of a sudden, it does. The fingers in his chest retract, scramble, but pull away so quick it leaves him reeling. His throat bloats like a balloon, gulping air as he jolts up and looks...

... There’s a man.

He’s got the Thierry Thing by the arms, and he’s bodily pulling him from Colin’s prone form. It’s kicking, flailing like angry cat as he swings his legs and arms in anger. The man simply holds him. Lets him scream this... This horrible, unearthly scream...

“Let Me Go!” He’s yelling, swaying in his grip, trying to kick, bite, anything. “THIS IS MINE! IT’S FUCKING MINE, GODDAMN YOU!”

The man... The black-haired man with the long Roman nose and sharp, boney features... He looks him dead in the eye as he holds the phantom back.

“Run, Colin.”

He does.

--

When he doesn’t come down for breakfast, doesn’t come down for lunch, and doesn’t come down when his mother calls up the stairs to get him to help the Letzers pack their car, they decide to check on him.

His door is unlocked, and when they enter they find it a mess. Drawers open, clothes all over the floor, all his things in a pile on his bed.

On top of the pile there is a note.

Mom,

Lock the Daffodil Suite. Tell Doug Letzer to get out too.

I’ll miss you.

Be back soon

Colin Sellers-Pike

Forty miles west, Colin is parked at a gas station just outside Cape May.

He finally stops shaking. But his hands still feel like they’re made of ice.

--

To Be Continued in Chapters Throughout the Next Year

Happy Halloween!