The NoSleep Podcast - S18 Ep25: NoSleep Podcast S18E25

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Tune in to the Season 18 finale for some spirited ghosts.“For Sale” written by Ariana Pickard (Story starts around 00:02:10)Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Narrator – Ilana Charnelle“The Black Woods of Batternton” written by Ceia G. (Story starts around 00:05:50)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Melody – Wafiyyah White, Eliza – Erika Sanderson, Man – Atticus Jackson“Haunter’s Game” written by Justin Arnold (Story starts around 00:36:50)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: The Ghost – Sarah Thomas, Mabel – Jessica McEvoy, David – Graham Rowat, Connor – Dan Zappulla, Jan – Kristen DiMercurio, Connor’s Friend – Jeff Clement, Miss Black – Nikolle Doolin, Charles – Jesse Cornett, The Nun – Erin Lillis, Schoolgirl – Nichole Goodnight, Tyler – Kyle Akers, Junior – Elie HirschmanThis episode is sponsored by:ZocDoc - Zocdoc is a free app that shows you doctors who are patient-reviewed, take your insurance, and are available when you need them. Go to Zocdoc.com/nosleep and download the Zocdoc app for free. Then start your search for a top-rated doctor today.Quip - Quip is the good habits company for oral health. With their leading-edge electric smart toothbrush combined with dentist-recommend scheduled replacement plans for brush heads, toothpaste, floss, chewing gum, and mouthwash - Quip makes oral care easy and affordable. And if you go to getquip.com/nosleep right now you'll get your first refill FREEClick here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to learn more about Ariana PickardExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“Haunter’s Game” illustration courtesy of Alia SynesthesiaAudio program ©2022 – Creative Reason Media Inc. – All Rights Reserved – No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The No Sleep Podcast has reached the season 18 finale. This one is full of ghostly spirits to torment your dark hours. It's fun being ghosted, right? Well, and not if it means you can't get a hold of someone important. Like, say, your doctor, don't let the old doc ghost you and you need them the most. Use Zoc Doc. With Zoc Doc, booking an appointment with a doctor that suits your needs, fits your schedule, is in your network and in your neighborhood.

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And now it's time for horror. you'll be right at home with this one. No one had lived in the house for years. When the family arrived, they filled it with joy. The house watched, slowly, patiently. Soon, the wife put the heat far too high for the house's liking, choked on a midnight snack. Her husband found her cold in front of the open fridge.

The boy began acting out in his grief. scribbling, stomping and slamming. The house watched the boy tumble headfirst down the stairs. He never liked that rug. The house regarded the father and the girl, malevolent in its slow, deliberate way. Cautious, paranoid. The father monitored the girl closely as he helped her bathe.

He must have ignored his chest pain the police would surmise until it was too late, for him and for his daughter. too small to get out of the bathtub. The house accepted its examination, its fame, its reputation. And again, the house began to wait. We desire a glim of the wild for the no sleep.

Look after your house and your house will look after you. That's what we learned from author Ariana Picard, from the tale which was this episode's cold open. For sale, performed by Elena Charnel. Welcome to the No Sleep podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. As the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future are all around us, we've reached the end of season 18.

And we feel it's only fitting to conclude the season with some ghosts of our own. We hope you'll find this season finale to be specter-tacular, as it were, as we get ghostly for you. A season reaches its end and passes on, so to speak, how appropriate for it to leave some ghosts behind. And so, dear sleepless listeners, our stories are starting. But don't be bereaved. Our ghosts are real, and they want you to believe. In our first tale, we meet a woman who has returned to her family home.

But it's a home in name only, because no one lives there and is. longer? It's deep in the woods, in an area even the locals leave alone. And in this tale, shared with us by author, Sia G., the woman soon discovers why the area has a very important rule. Don't go outside once the sun sets. Performing this tale are Wafia White, Erica Sanderson, and Atticus Jackson. So let's venture into that dark, desolate area. amongst the trees, deep into the black woods of Batterington. This is probably the last time I can ever return to this house. I don't want to sell it, but no one likes coming out here.

I didn't think I could make it this last trip, but it was like the stars aligned and here I am, driving down the forested back roads. I hate these back roads. The hills roll through the landscape like snakebacks. Sometimes the road cuts right through one, and the high sedimentary sides act like an open top tunnel. My mother called them reverse canopies. I don't know how they made them

or why some hills were climbed and some were plowed straight through. I just know that no one, not a single member of my family, ever. drove through it at night. When I say I grew up in Batterton Woods, I get a range of the usual looks, a curious glance from the newcomers in the areas, sifled terrors from the ones my age,

and pity discomfort from the older generation. Batterton Woods, its indigenous name, long-lossed-out, was a land of nightmarish myths and gruesome occurrences. Many who visited never came back, and most smartly avoided it like the plague. It was the namesake of James Batterton,

a colonist who arrived in the area with his family of eight and 40 other settlers. He was found four months later on the outskirts of Northwest Virginia, mute. His arms were severed at the shoulders, and the souls of his feet had been walked to the bone. He died before they even made it to the nearest town. A rescue party went to find where the settlement would have been.

They returned quietly in the night, two members and four horses less. Each sworn to secrecy and a vow of silence. Not a single one would utter or write a single word of the incident. and not a member survived another five years. Most left the earth by their own hands. Some took a few with them. Following that time,

the only people deemed unfit enough to build on the land at that time were the free men and the escaped enslaved that ended up in the area, either by their own volition or dumped there by well-meaning but uninformed abolition. surprisingly they held a peaceful existence in the tormented area my ancestors were among them a code was spread amongst the community guidelines for safety one do not go outside once the sun sets if you are home stay home if you are away stay away until dawn two if you get a strange feeling eyes three feet ahead of you on the ground.

Do not look up until you are back home. Three, if something is behind you, run and pray aloud. Four, if you hear it, if you see it. No, you didn't. With these four rules, the people live quietly and somewhat thrived. There were nearly 70 years of peace, though the people in the surrounding area started to euphemistically referred to the area as the Black Woods. This was until the new people to the area began to covet the lands for development.

As they moved in and pushed the free people out, the activity started en masse once more. A whole new church was found dead after the pastor poisoned the communion. He was found licking the cold cheeks of the deceased children. Their parents crumbled beside them. After some time, a boy locked his family in a barn and burned them alive with some of the cattle. He sat curled in the lap of an effigy, an eight-foot tall man of hay, whose arms he wrapped around himself in a loving embrace as they watched the flames. As quickly as people moved in to Batterington Woods, they moved out.

out. At first, convinced it was all superstition, and then, becoming very superstitious themselves. There were those, though, that caught on and mimicked and sometimes intermixed with the freemen until once again there were some semblance of peace with the occasional terrifying event. Batterton Woods was still not a place one would choose to grow up in. Children were homeschooled in groups. The offspring of newcomers explicitly excluded. There was a schoolhouse built in the 60s, but a new teacher from Richmond tried to lead the whole fourth grade class into a pawn.

She got two. Two was enough. There were shops and a short main street, but every store closed 30 minutes before sundown, and opened 30 minutes after dawn. The code was long, no matter what. There were no childhood dares of bravery to open doors. Once, when I was little, my mother couldn't pick me up in time for sundown,

and I had to stay in the home of the Rises, as Miss Rice had played schoolteacher that day. A visiting nephew of the family tried to scare me. He couldn't believe that we all didn't go out at night. He was from the city, and at that age where cruelty comes so easily. I begged him not to go outside, but he fanged reaching for the knob, laughing as I shook with fear. I don't even know if I knew why I was afraid, only that I should be. His fingers slowly caressed one lock, turning it slowly so that I could hear the audible click.

His hands lowered to the second lock. ready to turn. I jumped at the sudden crack of a fist against a boy's cheek as he flew into the wall of the entryway. Mr. Ice quickly relocked the door and stood over his nephew, incredulous, with righteous anger. Boy, how dare you even! A sudden bang at the door cut him off. A seething, hissing sound cried from the other side.

The whole door began to move. It shook violently against the hinges as if someone or something was trying to rip it out of the frame. But this was an old baddinton home, built to withstand. My eyes dropped to the ground, three feet ahead, and I ignored the sounds. From the corner of my eye, I could see the nephew scrambling backwards, crying. The seat of his pants dragged and extended the yellow pool of urine beneath him. I don't remember when it stopped, only that it did. I don't remember the boy's name, only that he left after dawn and never returned.

I do remember seeing the deep claw marks in the Rice's door when my mother came to retrieve me. There were also little bits of fluff all over the ground here and there, some different shades of pink. I would later find out that it was all that was left of the rices rabbits that were kept in the hutch outside. My father brought and replaced their door the same day as a thank you for watching over me. It's memories like these that make my skin itch as I pull up to my family home. It's empty. Surprisingly, there wasn't anything supernatural about my parents' deaths. cancer, one after the other, breast, colon.

Maybe it was the stress of living in an area like this that brought it on. Maybe it was just nature. Regardless, I get screened every year now. Our home was one of the bigger ones in Batterton, more than enough for myself and for older siblings, none of whom liked returning. An English paternal great-great-grandfather moved to the area with his wife. The manor was a wedding gift of sorts.

I'm not exactly sure how she died, but his second wife was a free woman from the area. My grandfather told me he would hear his grandmother having conversations in the solarium on the top floor, a place explicitly forbidden for anyone but her after dark. She would then come in and whisper things to his old Englishman grandfather. Sometimes he'd cry, sometimes he'd laugh, but he'd always thank her and kiss her. In a rare bout of curiosity, my grandfather spied an eye into the room. He said a blonde woman and a white dress with half a face and no fingers was floating outside the glass.

She stared directly at him and nodded her head in acknowledgement before the door was shut in his face. His grandmother stared down at him in stern disapproval but didn't punish him. In his words, knowing that she'd never tell him who or what the woman was was the punishment in itself. I just remember how meaty and wet the nethered. nubs of her hands were, like they were still bleeding, but I could still see through them. His voice still ached with the thought. His death had been peaceful and asleep. I checked my watch, and the time to sundown is in the corner, a little less than two hours away.

I don't know anyone who grew up here that doesn't check for sunrise and sunset obsessively, religiously, even after moving away. I opened the trunk and grabbed my bags. I'm only staying overnight. Maybe two days. But I always pack for a week. You can't trust that you'll be done with your task and able to be out of town before dusk.

Better to play it safe and wait, leaving when dawn has settled in. Closing the door, I grab my bags and do a small balancing act. pressing my key fog to lock the car with a small bebop. I half trip up the brick and stone stairs to the wraparound porch of the old Victorian. I sat down my suitcase and fumble through my purse for my keys,

unlocking my door. I can't quite flip them back in and just shove them in my pocket for convenience. I click up the handle of the case to roll it in, closing the door behind me. I freeze in the foyer. The manor feels off. No one has lived here for quite a bit, but I feel uneasy.

My eyes extinctively go to the ground ahead, but I know I'm already home. And light is still out. I do see two things that shake me to my core. The triangle of light on the pallor floor from the open back door, and the rushing of men's boots before a sudden aching thud right across my skull. My world goes dark. I awake as my watch begins to buzz and vibrate against my wrist.

Dusk has fallen. As my eyes open and slowly adjust to the darkening room, I can see a man pacing and smacking his head. He's not from here and he's high. I can see that from a mile away. He's dressed like he comes from the city, maybe New York even. His bottle blonde hair is missing a patch recently yanked. His eyes are wild, and he is frightened, deeply and utterly frightened.

He's dragged me into the pallor. The back door is still ajar. Please shut the door. is the first words I can mumble out, still dazed by the blow. Shut up! He's still pacing. What the fuck? What the fuck?

Ronnie and Jack are gone. They're just gone. What is fucking wrong with this place? Please, please, please, please, shut the door. Tears are full. warming in my eyes, starting to stream in hot rivers down my cheeks. He spits at me, and I curl from him. This is supposed to be easy.

We do the job, we hide out here. No one comes out here. Or burglar, maybe. He could have been a hit man. Either way, I didn't care who he was or where he was running from. Okay, just shut the door, please. In his haste or confusion, he hadn't tied me up. I do my best to lift myself up.

He begins to stalk towards me, fists cocked. I said, shut! We both hear the eager scrambles of something tearing across the forest floor. The open back door, a willing invitation. I throw myself headlong for the foyer as the thing burst through the door, as it wiggles into the too small frame. I cannot look. In my spirit, in my soul, I know not to look directly at it.

Catch a glimpse of it in the mirror on the pallor wall. It is bony and the size of a horse. It is pale and wet with slime or mucus. The four limbs are bent, unnaturally and wrong. Like a broken spider. but they move quickly. It doesn't even wait for them to reset from its squeeze through the door. I tried to army crawl forward towards the front door,

but a sudden weight on top of me knocks my air out. Oh no, you tealed that thing. The man grabs my shoulders, turning us and presenting me to the beast. Instinctively, my eyes shut. and my head turns away. I can feel and smell its rotting breath on me. Sticky, slimy spittle

flies against my face, but I refuse to acknowledge it. Even as the man shoves me against it, and I feel my cheeks scrape and open against one of its teeth, I refuse to see it. I refuse to

perceive it, or the searing pain on my face. It roars at me. and I can feel it's flim like acid in the womb, but I will not be new. I open my mouth and begin to pray. At first, under my breath, and then louder. I mention no God. I call no names, but the prayer rings out nonetheless.

I am loved and protected. I pray that you guide me, deliver me, and bring me to safety. Guide me, deliver me, and bring me to safety. Guide me, deliver me, bring me to safety. I am screaming my prayers now, and the man beneath me suddenly lurches. I'm tossed aside, and I open my eyes to stare away from the sound. I stumbled to my feet, eyes ahead on the ground, ignoring his whales, and their sudden stop, as a loud, wet crunch fills the air.

I hear dragging as the man is pulled out. My feet feel like concrete and I can't move. I want to move. I need to move so badly, but my heart thuds and my body locks. I hear my name. Suddenly spoken, barely a whisper. Just ahead of me, across the floor, a sheer, gauzy white fabric drifts into view. My eyes stay low, but the cloth beckons still.

And finally, a gentle feminine voice with an English accent tickles my ears once more. Come on, Melody, darling. Look at my dress and nothing else. I do as I'm told. It is the only thing that will move me from that spot. I trust in that dress, even as it pulls me away. from the front door and out the back. We do not descend the stairs into the woods beyond.

We turn right, moving around the wraparound porch, going slowly, taking our time. The surrounding forest is a cacophony of noise and movement. There are creatures in the trees shaking the branches, things scurrying across the forest floor, Something so large, around eight feet or taller, is walking beside us. It's so large that it blocks out the moonlight. It careens its giraffe-like neck down and sniffs at my face. But my eyes are only on the wispy white fabric of the dress. It's so translucent I can see the legs underneath.

One calf is missing a chunk of flesh, and there are claw marks across the thigh above. Through those legs, I can see the boards of the porch. She pretends to walk for my comfort, or my guidance. But I know her feet don't touch the floor. We are almost in the front now. The giant has gone away and let us be. A fingerless palm reaches back to stop me. The wounds still look wet with blood, and I'm sure my shirt feels moist. under it. From my peripheral vision, I now see why we took the long way around. A second creature, like the first, is squatted in front of the door, eager and waiting. Occasionally, a too long tongue laps at the knobs in anticipation.

I made that mistake long ago, darling, and I've enjoyed watching you grow too much to lose you in such a manner. If you return, please come talk to me in the Salarium one evening. I've been so lonely and would love to speak to someone again. Her pretty lilt is soothing to my ears. Your car, dear. I tap my pockets and find my keys. Grateful, I couldn't put them up earlier.

The car unlocks, the sound drawing the creatures momentarily. But they wonder off again. as there is nothing to eat within. You will run and you will drive. Eyes down. If you hit something? No, I didn't. The reply is automatic.

Goodbye, child. Through me is fine. I don't need more prompting. I take off as fast as I can, breaking through her with small effort like wet tissue paper. I even feel some of her claim to me. My eyes are still low as I slide across the leaves and around the car. I can hear the creature at the front door doing its best to turn around.

It's long limbs clinking and clacking against one another as it nearly breaks them to come after me. I slide into the driver's side and lock the door. The car is luckily a push start and I'm screeching out of my driveway even as the creature claws the exterior. My eyes locked on the steering wheel as I drive through the back roads. I now understand why some of the roads just cut right through the hills. Whoever designed them wanted to be able to get out of Batterton Woods as quickly as possible, and I was flooring it. I keep driving until the ghostly blood on my shirt and the monstrous mucus on my face suddenly disappears.

I pulled over into a motel parking lot and cried and sobbed in my car until sunrise. I drove back to the manor, eyes swollen and car clawed, to gather my things in the sunlight. The rices were already there, cleaning up the blood and refitting a new back door. They hugged me in relief that I was still alive. I didn't need to explain anything to them. I just needed to get back out of town before sunset. They made sure of it. Eventually, I did return to the manor.

I couldn't sell it. I told my siblings would happen, and they understood my reasoning. In a way, only growing up in the Black Woods could allow. I now spend a night there every few months. Sitting in the solarium talking to Eliza, my great-great-grandfather's first wife. I sometimes look through her ghostly form to the maddening visions of the creatures below.

She says that's the only way to see them fully without going homicidaly insane. Even in death, she doesn't know how they got there or why this is. I see others like her now and then, the torn apart colonists, the dripping wet, drowned school children, the seared family, and the sad, sickly churchgoers all moved through

the beast that ended them so brutally or caused others to do so. Well, I say that I see them, but then again, no, I didn't. I guess you could say there was a whole manner of ghosts in that story, right? Like a manner filled? with ghosts? No? Well, let's travel away from those dark woods as we take a quick break. Ghosts can inhabit almost any place you can think of, so don't let these holidays fill your mouth with foul spirits. From the sweet treats to the long travel, good oral care habits can fall by the wayside over the holidays. Quip makes it easy to stay on track by delivering all the healthy mouth essentials you need for the holiday season and beyond. You're

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Trust me, you've got to try it. Go to get quip.com slash no sleep right now for your first refill free. Plus, shop quip's lowest prices of the year this holiday season. That's G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash no sleep. Quip, the Good Habits Company. Now let's get back to the season finale. For the final tale, I hope you're game to play. In our final tale, we visit a house quite haunted.

Oh, but don't worry, that's not much of a spoiler. You see, it's not the new tenants of the house we're interested in. It's the old tenants, the long-lost ones who are ready to have their fun with the new family. And in this tale, shared with us by author Justin Arnold, the ghostly shenanigans might seem playful at first, but we soon learn how deadly serious. they are. Performing this tale are Sarah Thomas, Jessica McAvoy, Graham Rowett, Dan Zapula, Kristen DeMecurio, Jeff Clement, Nicole Doolin, Jesse Cornett, Aaron Lillis, Nicole Goodnight,

Kyle Akers, and Ellie Hirschman. So, as they say, it's all fun and games until someone, well, until someone realizes they're playing The Haunters. game. The game begins with a van rolling up the long drive. That sound wheels on bumpy and time damaged pavement is the firing shot. And they're off.

The ghosts take the lead. The song of commitment sung. The horn of the natives, restless and ready. It has a lake monster painted on the side, that van. A happy lake monster bringing our new play things. From my

spot in the Upper East front room of Buckley Hall, I hear the stirrings of all that is here, all that I try to ignore, as I watch the unwitting pawns, the next sacrifices, or possibly new teammates, get nearer. I just hope there's no small children this time. Mabel slips into the room with me. I note the drop of frost that appears on the window pane when she gets too close. Aren't you going to grade them? She asks in her game voice, that innocent, dopey voice.

of an heiress without a clue. I shake my head. Don't even look at her. Can't stand to now that the game's begun. Mabel sighs. Don't want to go alone, Bunny, baby. Another moment of silence, and she goes. The frost's the only evidence of her visit. That's all we are anymore. Frost. Our new tenants won't even notice. Not at first. They'll be too distracted by the thought of a new home, our old house. Probably never even thought about dying, these people. I hadn't. I don't think I have sense. Don't think I ever will, really. The van stops when a second, much smaller vehicle, pulls next to it. This one is compact, slick, and shiny. I lean closer to the window pane, tilt my head until my hair nearly passes through the glass. This is the vehicle that holds the true

treasure, not the happy lake monster. This one holds the lives. They take their time to get out. Must be talking or scrolling on those infuriating telephone things. Waiting for them to emerge is like waiting for the sun to rise at midnight, far off and never coming. Why do I care who they are this time? They won't be here long. The game will end and will be alone yet again. Nothing ever changes in eternity. A woman steps out of the car's driver's seat. Her choppy blonde hair, the gray slacks, no eyes behind richly dark sunglasses. I hate her already.

She'll be the oblivious one. The ghost will have to pull it out big to convince her of anything that lies beyond her perfectly contoured nose. She walks to the van in her torture device heels, the kind that spear the soil as she walks, and meets the man who's getting out. He's handsome, in a botherly way, the type who wants to be your friend, but not afraid to give you a slap when you deserve it. I've seen his type a lot too. Too many times have I known this man.

For that reason, I can't hate him, though I should. It's the one in the passenger seat of the car that I see next. The frost glazes the window as my hand reaches out to the glass. Only a glimpse is what I get, but it's all I need. Tall and pale, with dark waves of hair. The gray eyes, I think they might have been gray, wander immediately to the third floor, to my window, I think. One of my own age?

Possibly? Voices below, oblivious to the shadows, to the souls blocking around them. Lions eyeing antelopes, cannibals around a shipwreck. The game has begun. But the boy is mine. Mine. Not hungry. The boy stares at the telephone thing in his hand.

Pizza untouched on the plate in front of him. You're doing that on purpose. The mother now. He's doing that on purpose. She looks to the father, who is also staring at his telephone thing. It's fine, Jan, seriously. The mother, the Jan, throws her hands in the air. Oh, okay then.

It's fine. Just fine. Well, all right, then, Connor, I guess you can go text your air quotes with her fingers. Internet friends in your room. Just don't make messes and do that hiding of stuff. I'm not hiding stuff. The boy stands and makes his way out. I'm just worried.

You didn't come with instructions. But the boy is gone. He's doing it all again. She drops her voice so that only the father, and me in the corner can hear. He's fine. The father still isn't looking up, so he doesn't notice me listening in the corner,

or the man in the bowler hat peeking around the archway next to me, nor has Jan noticed Mabel in the reflection of the pie-safe glass next to her husband. He is not, and we can't overlook it. Boys can have these problems, too, and I've been reading... Oh? The husband lifts his eyebrows. Reading. Well then, must be true if it's on Google. David.

He needs space, Jan. He makes sure to say her name with the hard push, as though to make her smaller. Father types do things like that. He's 16. Now, if it keeps going, then maybe let's talk. But for now, he's 16. In a new house, a large and old one at that. And you need to leave it alone. He doesn't want to do stuff with us anymore. When did he? Flipping houses isn't fun for him.

Hell, it isn't fun for us. It's work. Jan Scals. I'm worried about you too, you know. The man, the David, smiles. I've never been better, honey. You know what I mean. In fact. He stands.

I feel so good that I think I'm going to go upstairs to the master suite, where in five minutes or so you might find that I'm in the... the bed, wearing Neri a thread. Jan grins. So does Mabel. Oh, really? Jan flutters her eyelashes. Quite possibly. David kisses her cheek and leaves the room. And here we have their first evening in our house. They didn't notice a single one of us. The sun has the bedroom that once was mine, the Upper East one I watched them from just this morning. The bed remained. The bed remained. the small vanity, the wardrobe, but now it has evidence of another life,

a new television with video games. I've seen these before from past tenants, and a laptop computer. Oh, that I'd had one of these. Electric windows to see the world without an airplane ticket. He has little plugs plunged into his ears, a white coil string running to his telephone thing. If he is still,

I hear the faint rumbling of drums, and guitars that pipes into his head. If he rustles, I hear the Jan climbing the main staircase, where the David and Mabel, most likely, are waiting. The boy is doing push-ups, sit-ups, anything that keeps his arms moving. If he stops doing that, for a break or even from pain, he organizes his clothes in my wardrobe, or type something on his laptop computer, anything to keep moving, to keep busy, to be busy, to be.

burn away the energy that britters inside his dissatisfied shell. In the mirror of the vanity, he inspects his face, twisting his pink lips around, watching the way this pulls the flesh of his cheeks against the bone, inspects how much padding there is beneath his chin. There isn't much there, but his eyes, which I can see now that he is closer, are frosted and velvety brown, my favorite eye color when flesh once blessed me, and his nose wrinkles. at the sensation of feeling beneath that chin, as though there was anything there to be disgusted by. He is thin and has a little muscle.

What is there to feel concerned about? His telephone thing lights up, flashes. Without removing the plugs from his ears, he slides a thumb across the screen and holds it to his lips. Hello. So, nothing? Our boy paces slowly. In the new room.

How's that? Not yet. Dude, you need to look closer. I look this place up. It's like fucked up, dude. My being prickles at this. Do people on the outside talk about us? We've had visitors who knew about us,

wanted to see us for themselves. A television show even starred us. We gave them nothing but a hint for their troubles. What is so fucked up? Well, we've been here all day and no scary shit, yet. What? Well, the sun just went down, so... It's Ben Down, East Coast, dumbass.

I don't live there. It's the eight to your nine central. Our boy's eyes crinkle when he laughs. His smile isn't worth a slot in Vanity Fair, but it's an honest smile, at least. It's kind of cute. That really fucking suck. I can't promise, but I'll certainly try, old sport.

Fuck you, Conner. No, thanks. Had some. The boy on the other end starts to talk about something that happened at his school, about a teacher making out with one of the students. That sort of thing would have been the talk of my universe for months, something I would have relished with all of my girlfriends. I'd have adapted it into a saucy cereal for our underground literary paper, the wet rag, we called it.

Me and Betty and Suzanne. Whatever happened to those girls, I wonder. Do they ever think of their old pal? If they saw me right now, would they say, Bunny girl, you haven't changed a bit? Or are they dead too, but corroded beyond you, the side effect of a full life? Did they move on?

After a while and a handful of goodbyes, our boy, whose name is Connor Blyte, clicks off his telephone thing and hangs up the line. Almost by impulse, as though he felt or heard my curiosity, he grabs his laptop computer by hand and settles on the bed. A few typed words and his eyebrows raise, though he doesn't seem too impressed.

I slide nearer to him, careful not to be too close and make him feel my chill. And there it is, Buckley Hall, a large brick manor, a perfect square the shape of a Christmas gift box, the guest house, its younger sibling, just to the side. Trees fail to hide it in this photograph, though it stays mostly obscured from the road.

But the sights this boy clicks on, methodically and slowly, aren't the kind I hoped he'd click. This one is ridiculous, with a black background and white blocks of text, save for the name that television show christened our home with, in a font that Dracula would approve of, smeared with red. Death House. Connor Stiffens. He doesn't want to be looking at this, doesn't want to know about any of it. It's that other boy's fault.

If he hadn't have said anything, hadn't have told him not to die, this wouldn't be happening right now. Connor shivers, stands and paces the room, still unaware that I sit on the bed watching. He slowly looks around the room, scanning for anything strange. His chocolate-laced eyes lock on me three times, yet he chooses not to see. see. I like when he looks at me. Maybe if he'd seen me in the malt shop, he'd have been pleased to see me, too. He tugs at the waist of his sweatpants, like a movie Western hero, as though to show us he's not afraid, and just casually going about his business. He turns on one of his video games. But I can tell, in the stiff way he sits and the way he checks over both shoulders now and then, that he has not

forgotten what he has read, nor can he choose not to believe it. Not now that he has read it at night, when the sun can't blind what is real, when explanations don't distract suspicion. From my perch on the bed, I can see the excerpt he was reading on the screen, the part about the door, that damned door. If Charles hadn't had it, there are some tenants that they really should not play games with, no matter what. Charles, well, he's one of them. The picture is outdated, though. The door is more polished, more inviting.

How times have changed. Passing by with scratches and screams, though years of silence have been the welcome alternative. I look at Arconnor, who was curled on the ground with his game, the digital version of him, some character, running around the base of a mountain with a long sword. The flesh on the back of his neck is tightening. Connor, not the character.

He runs inside a cave, the character, not Connor. And be it an inspiration or the birth of a terrible idea, Connor puts his gaming controller down. He stands, and now he is heading from the room. I want to stop him. It is safe in here with me, not out in the halls. I have no final claim there. He is down the corridor.

I am behind. Down the stairs to the second floor. The little cat is licking its paws on the bottom step. Connor doesn't see our little cat, and his foot goes straight through its body. The cat shrieks, but Connor doesn't hear. Just keeps walking. I lift the cat and hold it like a baby in my arms as it pants. And together, we follow the boy.

He stops at the master suite for a moment. shivers. The sounds of giggles and heavy breathing trickled through the wide crack beneath the white-painted door. Conner makes a heaving sound on purpose as he resumes his trek, and I stifle a laugh. We pass the old nun on the steps, and she smirks at me as I hand her the little cat. Connor doesn't notice. He, of course, can't see the nun. He also doesn't see the albino hand reaching towards his ankle from between the step rails. It's amazing what one overlooks when on the hunt for something. It's at this landing, the middle one before you reach the main floor,

the middle of the back staircase, where there is only a window that the small door waits. When polished, it appears almost whimsical, like a bit from Carol or Travers. But now it is merely wood. Scraps of several coats of paint and polish all in thin helter-skelter lines of dishevelment. Connor reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out his little telephone, takes a flashing picture of the door. Then he reaches out. No! I want to scream as he puts his hand on the knob.

He pulls, starts to open the door. I throw myself against it, passing through him as I do. He doesn't even notice the chill. perplexed by the door jam as I hold myself against it, using all of my energy as he pulls. I feel weaker after a moment. I look up. There's the nun, her rotten smile shining below the black eyes, petting the little cat. Well?

I ask of her. She puts the cat down and jumps over the stair railing backwards. Then she's against the door with me, and we make ourselves a fantastimal barricade against Conner's prying hand. He sighs finally, let's go of the knob. He stares at us, past us, at the door. He runs his fingers through his hair and sighs, turns, goes back up the stairs, a retreat. Thank you, I whisper to the nun.

Her voice becomes a hiss as she adds. She does the sign of the cross, the father, the son, and the holy you know what, and is gone. I follow Connor back to his room. He is shutting his laptop with a grand harshness and placing it back on the vanity. Then he pulls out his telephone and thumps his fingers furiously on the screen. Finally, it flashes, vibrates simply, and he puts it to his ear. No, I'm not fucking with you. It was opening and then bam, like something pulled it.

I'm fucking telling you, something pulled it. My heart drips into my stomach. I didn't mean to scare him. I wanted to protect him, and I did. But now he is scared of me, isn't he? Connor's voice has ascended an entire octave. It's not that, but like, what if there's some psycho hiding in there and coming to kill me? No, I can't go get Mommy and Daddy.

They're, they're indisposed. Yeah, fucking sick. My mom's what? Fuck you. After a bit, the talk goes back to the, that teacher in the school. Connor has to remind his friend that he doesn't know these people. He doesn't go to school anymore, remember?

And it's like it never happened. He's a normal boy in a normal house. And a dead girl in a cliched white dress isn't watching. A green-skinned nun isn't chanting Latin out in the hallway. And there definitely is no scary door on the bottom landing at the back staircase that they do not want opened. Mr. Buckley built the house. He built it good and strong. Mrs. Buckley loved the house her entire life long. Buckley Jr. hated it all. He hated everything, except the knives and axes and blades. Those he loved to sling. The Amosons, now they were a match.

with a beautiful daughter too. She was so pretty. Her daddy was scared. He'd lose her, and so he knew. The only way to keep her there was with the mortar and brick. And as she slept, the room became darker. Just her, daddy, and his prick. Little Meggy, she was so cute, with Bobby socks to boot.

Her bright eyes were green, a smile serene, till her sadness drove her mute. A bottle of poison. A bottle of gin. A bathtub full of blood. The spirits they did it. Her blood, they spilled it. For that's how the game is won. The blades they slung them, the mortar they make.

The guest house, the nuns, the door. Don't stay too long, dear, or else you'll belong here. That's how the game is won. The spirits they did it. The blood, they spilled it. For that's how the game is won. After much tossing back and forth, my boy, Connor, is asleep. time for me to bathe.

Miss Black thinks me to be one of her pupils, one of the young girls brought here over 150 years ago to become a finished young lady, prim and lovely. I have no intention of playing that game with her, usually. But tonight, I allow myself to play along. I let her scrub my face and arms with the rough-ligh silk. Her pinched, long and stony face scowling at me would meet that tight high bun on the top of her head.

At last when she's finished, I can sink into the tub built with blood. I can relax, feel at peace. Miss Black goes about her own business, sitting rigidly atop the back of the toilet, tugging and tying at a silver-hased rope in her long crooked fingers. Had to do it. Had to do it. Wanted to do it. Did it? I did. I stare at the ceiling, my own blood bobbing against my fleshless being. When Mabel waffes into the room, I cover myself. Ain't nothing I ain't already seen, Bunny.

She waves my modesty off, tosses her head towards Miss Black. Besides, you let the old manatee see you. Miss Black doesn't take the bait. Had to do it, did it, I did. I've been getting the grime on the plate toys. Mabel sits on the edge of the tub and wades her hand into the bloody water, as though she were a starlit lounging poolside at a Hollywood glamour party. Mama ain't so matronly.

Not in the sack. She grins. Regular manmaker, that one. I roll my eyes and rest my head against the backside of the tub. Is that all you ever talk about? Hey, we all got our tricks? Well, most of us anyways. What you got lined up for the game?

I don't know if I will play. I hesitate. I... I guess I'm just not bored enough like the rest of you. I'm fine with these live ones. So long as he's a live one, hey, Bunny? Mabel laughed so hard, her red curls bounce. Say, Manatee.

You gonna do us a reenactment in the guest house? Been a while. Did it I did. Leave her alone. I pull the bathtub plug with my toes, and the tub starts to drain, leaving droplets of scarlet in a ring around the porcelain. Mabel doesn't listen.

Maybe you's just jealous. He got a prick and you ain't. Mabel goes closer to Miss Black, who stares blankly ahead. Mabel? Or maybe. Mabel grins at Miss Black. She wants a prick from him herself.

You shut your dirty mouth. Miss Black's eyes are gold with buyer. She springs from the top of the toilet, slams Mabel into the wall. Get off of me! Get off! Or do you like it, rough? Miss Black looks around, bewildered and frightened. Now you've hurt her. Good.

She knows what she'd done. Miss Black pleased the bathroom and Mabel follows her to the doorway, screaming. Got my daddy thinking he'd brick us up! That's what she'd done! You better run! I stand. Pulling my white sundress back on and Mabel turns, all smiles again. Oh, darling, did you got a new dress?

Mabel grins and lounges atop the sink now. She's playing her favorite game of pretending to be a fresh, live, happy flapper again. This little number? I flutter my eyelashes. I've had it on for decades. Oh, it is so becoming. She offers her arm and I take it, stepping out of the time. tub. Like the flicker of a bulb in a storm, Mabel's expression goes somber.

That's why we play the game, ain't it? Stick around. Makes us known. You get the guy and you just go, poof, gone, poof, right out, quick and simple. She sits me on the edge of the tub, hands wrapped tightly around my arms. Scaring ain't killing. Scaring ain't no hurt. You just got to give them a good screaming and you're good to go on till the next holiday chair boy howdy you are i can't bear when she gets like this so worked up so i lie all right all right i pet her hand no worries i'll play you'll give a screaming i'll give a screaming mabel grins swell bunny just swell say we gotta get a move on This first witching hour is almost on us And I ain't got my good stockings on

I walk with her from the bathroom But we part at the stairs I'm going to my room Mabel nods That's fine Maybe knock on the walls or something I'm going to the master suite Gonna see what I can do with the Mr. and Mrs.

Swell I turn and go up the stairs to the third floor My ivory tower My daddy had called it I wonder whatever happened to him in the end. Step monster is in hell, I'm certain. When I enter my room, I poise my hand to knock on the wall, but I stop. Connor looks too peaceful, finely sleeping.

He looks dreamy in this moonlight. Scott is on all fours over him, his head hanging low, swaying slowly back and forth, dangling that ungodly long tongue over Connor's face. You, get out! Scott sways his head to look at me, eyes wide. Get out! He runs, head bobbing back and forth, just as Connor sits up, reaching for the light. His breathing is heavy, fast.

He sends a message to someone on his telephone and curls up against the headboard. My heart sinks. I gave him a screaming, didn't I? Many assume midnight is the magic time, a dark hour. That is not altogether false. Midnight is indeed a special time. A time that bore an infant day, an hour that births a year. It's the time Cinderella fled her prince, the guts of pumpkins smeared on her bare heel.

But the time most people imagine is that of a less romantic number. The number two. Two begins the witching hour. when the game gets going. The witching hour is what thins the veil and allows a witch to ride her broom, an incubus its fertile power, a ghost to do its worst.

They won't do their absolute worst, not quite yet. It is only night one. Why kill the mouse so soon, when it's all the cat has to play with? The boy lies, his arms and legs paralyzed within the deepest part of sleep, long after he heard me whisper,

He is totally restrained in that sleep. He's his very own kidnapper. He's taken himself far away into a land of dreams. He gets to do this every night. I can't even dream myself away. I sit rigid against the headboard next to him, but staring out the window. The rhythm of his mortal breath, confirmation that it's only us. I don't have to turn around to see that snow has begun to fall outside.

flakes that and cheery falling in a sheet. The month is September and autumn is late. The house does it. That's snowfall. Something to do with the amount of chill we go spring at witching hour, the number of us, the scene and unseen. Snow falls and sleeping boys breathe. In.

Gain a second of life. Out. Three seconds of life now gone. In, you've gained two seconds of life. Out. Six seconds of life gone again. In, from youth and time and the crib. Out to bitter ends and the dark.

In, a snowflake falls. Out, a snowflake falls. It all goes on just the same. I gripped the edge of my side of the mattress, the side closest to the door. Something stirs at the stair. You will not scare my boy. He's mine. Go away, whichever you are.

I stand. Go to the door. I do not reach for the knob, but bend to it, fixing my eye at the keyhole. On the stair ahead, thanks to the moon from a landing window, the shadow of the specter sweeps its knife along the old wallpaper. The shadow of the blade slicing the painted white pattern, of dubs as it goes.

Connor stirs. I look back to him. His head is starting to move just the tiniest bit. He's bound to get up, and then he'll see Junior and be frightened. I rush to the bed and throw myself on top of him, straddle his waist,

and pin him with as much energy as I can. His eyes open wide and lock with mine, but he doesn't see past. By fate, misfortune, his mind, half drunk on sleep, has chosen to see me. His mouth twitches, but his lips don't part. The deeper part of his arm muscle pushes against me, but nothing moves.

He is still paralyzed. A noise from the bottom of his throat, a whimper, noises that will never be words. His fingers twitch, slowly at first, and then violently. His arms awaken and break past me. He sits up, and I feel his warmth as he passes through me. He gasps for air. Three seconds of life gained. Nine seconds out to the inevitable.

I want to tell him. I didn't mean to scare you. I want to keep you from fear. But I don't have the energy anymore. He sees the snow fall outside the window. Three seconds of bewilderment. Then he's back in a fitful sleep. The light remains on for the rest of the night.

Seriously, it said get out. Something did. Connor doesn't say this out loud. He sends it as a message on his telephone. It's amazing how fast he types with such tiny keys. He's talking about me, of course, about how I said, get out last night, and he heard me. He thinks I said it to him. I did more scaring in the game last night than I'd planned.

Others did less. Well, they weren't as theatrical as usual. Let's put it that way. They usually start with the little things, the calisthenics, if you will. A missing bracelet, a child's ball rolling past a door, nothing too interesting. Not yet. The snow hasn't melted yet. It's 75 degrees outside, according to the man on the television set in one of the main rooms on the first floor.

Connor hasn't messaged his friend about seeing me, though. Not yet. I wonder if he remembers him. that. And if he does, does he believe it? Jan and David are talking about drywall, the basement. They want to do something to the basement. Are you certain you should, Jan? David. You don't look good. Jan stares at her son as we enter the room. Gee, thanks. Connor makes his way to the kitchen, to the coffee pot, without looking his mother's way. You know what I mean. What did you do last night? Not sleep.

This is untrue. I made sure he was able to sleep plenty and deeply. Well, as deeply as one can in an unfamiliar place, he just doesn't remember it. He wants to tell them about what he read, about the door on the back landing and the voice whispering in the night. Maybe the girl above him. I can tell by how his thumb hovers over the screen of his telephone. The black background of the ghost website already pulled up. But he says nothing.

He pours hazelnut-flavored cream in his mug until the coffee looks more like the snow outside than coffee, and then heads to the stairs. I look back at his parents. Jan is doing stretches on the ground, and David holds a newspaper with slightly shaking hands. Connor stops at the steps. Don't you think it's crazy that there's snow?

David doesn't break from his reading. We're in Bluegrass, Kentucky, son. First thing to learn is that weather patterns are a myth. Uh-huh, sure. Conner's halfway up the stairs. The man in the bowler hat passes us on the steps. He grins at me and Connor as though he's in on a private joke. Sure. Connor glances behind him, straight through me, and continues his climb. A bit more quickly now. Connor is asleep, napping deeply in the safety of daylight. I have no worry they will attempt to harm him, not with the sun's rays out in full vengeance, melting the snow.

So I journey below. Jan and David are in the basement. Jan draws large squares on pieces of paper, while David busts up the old ceiling, yellowed and stained with time and the urine of mortal fear. Best he doesn't know about that last bit. Maybe we should have left him in school. At least he'd keep socialized.

I don't think it matters either way. It's that time of life, Jane. Jan. Anxed, moods, and embarrassing erections. Don't be crass. Jan cradles her arm like a wounded bird, the way people do when they feel watched. Little does she know that I am watching her,

staring at the back of that horrible choppy haircut, like a dried-up flapper caught in the rain. David is grunting and grumbling. Jan pretends to help for a bit, clearing piles of discarded ceiling away and sweeping away dust and ashes, some human and some not. She mostly draws, though, rooms of Buckley Hall, but different, lighter and cheerier, the way she would have them. I'd have the opposite, just despite her. Finally, David insists she'd go and rest. He loves her. I can see it in his eyes,

shining when he looks at her. I still don't like her. She seems like the type to go to the diner and complain that her malt is too malted. She looks like she wants to speak to my manager. I put my foot forward when she approaches the steps, and she tumbles forward, but catches herself. Are you all right? David rushes to her. Oh, yeah, I just, I don't know, tripped.

David kisses her forehead, and she goes up the stairs. I decide to stay with David. He continues slinging his hammer, breaking the plaster of the ceiling this way and that, raising the height to make a proper den, I think. Thouack, goes the hammer, and schlick goes the plaster. Thwack! Shlick, thwack! The hammer knocks something out of the ceiling, and it crashes down onto the floor.

A wooden box. A tiny trunk with brass hinges. It was a matter of time before he found it. I wish he wouldn't open it. He's too curious. He calls for Jan, but she can't hear him now. He pulls at the lid of the trunk, but it's locked and its hinges nearly rusted. He lays it on the floor and sizes it up.

Buckley Hall would like to welcome to the stage for a limited engagement, the toast of the town. Ladies and gentlemen, Pandora and his box. That's something Charles would have said. Could be something he's saying right now, somewhere. Who knows? David's hand shakes as he lifts his hammer. With a quick, heavy slam, the lock comes undone.

With a creak of hinges, David lifts the lid. I peer inside with him. A remote control. Two crisp $20 bills, series 2005, a plain brass key, and an unopened bottle of whiskey. The young man on the other end of the base. the one that you hadn't noticed yet, looks at it all, recognizing the contents of the box instantly. He sinks beneath the basement floor into the cold ground. Where else would you retreat if your

bones are there to welcome you? It's the bottle of whiskey that David chooses to pick up. He rolls it over in his shaking hands, rubs the glass against his cheek, then shoves it back in the box. He's muttering something about showing Jan. Should get rid of it. He's. He's rid of it. He mumbles. Gotta get rid of it. And now. Doesn't control me. Doesn't control me. He pockets the 20s, hides the rum in a nearby crate, and takes the rest of the trunk upstairs. I follow him, but I don't care about Jan's reaction. Instead, I go to the third floor to check on Connor. No snow today, but the sky is threatening to storm. Clouds rolled in early this morning, and their dark cover allows our ghosts to

roam a little longer and stick their emotions, their sadness, onto everything they pass, like a skunk spraying the road. It clings, that energy. Think about it. When you walk into a room after an argument or a forbidden trist, you can still feel it hanging on, like that feeling you have minutes after walking through a spider web. It's off you and no spider is hiding in your hair, yet you just feel it's still there. Such a feeling you have minutes after walking through a spider web. It's off you. It's off you, you, the feeling of living with the dead. Such is worse on a rainy day, a day leading up to a great storm.

Connor wakes slowly. His mind is awake, gear spinning and thoughts swirling pure and crystal like a fresh spring, but the body doesn't want to move. It's the closest he'll get to being a ghost while that body still hangs on. No courses on the laptop today,

for today is Saturday, and even the homeschoolers get to relish it. We always cherish what childhood told us to cherish, even if we don't get to partake in it anymore. Like snow days and summer breaks. Like Saturdays. I still enjoy Saturdays. I enjoy all days of the week. Knowing what day it is keeps them from running together.

I could let myself be seen this morning. Let him get a good look when his mind is still crystal clear and pure and tranquilized by gloom. but instead I slip away into invisibility. The idea of him seeing me feels funny, almost shameful, exposed. I just want to watch. He stirs, more animated now, at last lifting his head. His hair disheveled from the pillow and his face disoriented and lost, as though he forgot where he was, a benefit of the deep sleep I gave him.

After a few minutes of scrolling on his telephone, he pushes the comforter off and stands, leaves the room. I follow him down the back stairs, past the nun who is praying silently on her knees, to the bathroom. I look away as he discards his clothes and steps into the claw-put tub, pulls the curtain around, and I don't look until I hear water pulse through the showerhead. The window behind the tub allows a bit of gloomy light to wade in, casting Connor's silhouette on to the white plastic curtains. Like the strange art house films my old pal Betty used to drag me too. I like his long form, the curve at the base of his back.

To be honest, if to none but myself, I always favored the bottom half of a man's mortal coil, and Conner's bottom half suits him very much. The last thing he does is wash his neck, one hand around it, soap rubbing on the Adams apple, an apple I would love to smell. to bite into. I look away,

rearrange the toiletries on the little wicker ottoman that Jan moved in. How does she need all these beautifying products if she never even uses them? The water stops running, and by instinct,

I look over just as the curtain is pulled, and I quickly look away again. But not before I've been clapped with the lasting glimpse of him, naked and wet and clean, as he pulls the towel to himself. Oh, that I could have been a towel in this afterlife. Fingers to my lips, I shush the impending laughter I've brought on

myself. He stops moving, but I don't look. I just keep still. Did he hear me? I risk his privacy for confirmation and look over at him. He isn't concerned with me or the noise. He's wrapped in his towel now and has turned to the tub, leaning close to the faucet. A second later, he pulls back, looking over the rest of the tub, the curtain, the showerhead. He reaches for the pile of clean clothes he left on the sink, and the towel drops. I look away. The sound of cloth pulled against skin. He's dressed now, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, leaving the bathroom quickly, stepping with a mission. He marches down the rest of the back stairs, with a glance at the little door on the last landing, and goes into the kitchen.

Did anyone shave in the bathtub? David and Jan are stirring their coffee. Married couples always stir their coffee together when they play house. I noticed this so many tenants ago. My legs. Did you cut yourself? Jan looks concerned at Connor, as though he's playing a dark game or wants to admit something. No?

There's blood in the tub. What? David asks. It's painfully ridiculous the way David asks, as though he's actually saying, How dare you? It's on the faucet and a faint ring around the edge of the tub. You bathed in it?

With blood in it? Jan now. Disgusted. Assuming. Know it all. I hate her. I didn't see it until after. It's probably rust. David stands and heads to the stairs. Gotta be. He's gone and Jan is following.

And Connor goes to the coffee pot because he already knows what he saw. What is he thinking? I wonder. He's pinching his own arm now, digging fingernails into tender flesh. He does this when he doesn't want to think or feel anything. He stands. I watch. Sipping the coffee, white with cream, he is otherwise motionless as he stares out the window, rain tickling the pain away. It began a few minutes ago, as he stared. Elbows propped on the edge of the sink. The kitchen, saved the yellow bulb above, is as dim as dusk.

Shouts from above, from stress, of the inability to simply scrub my blood off the porcelain and metal of the tub. Can't understand what they're saying. Don't care. Connor's feet start to bend up and down as though he can pedal himself out of the way.

I enjoyed wandering the grounds once when I needed an escape from the noise. To my right, the small doorframe into the mudroom, littered with still-packed boxes, Not living essentials, just things that people such as our tenants might use. Rolls of paper and blueprints, tools, odd-sized nails and a few what-chima collets. Also, there's an umbrella.

I go to it, tip it forward with one index finger, and it bounces onto the floor. This brings Connor back to the present. Looks around for whatever rodent must have done that. Yet all is still again when he comes to inspect. Must have been gravity. That's it. The umbrella only just now gave. A tricky bitch, that gravity.

But Connor simply picks the umbrella up and lays it long ways on a box. I place my index finger and roll it forward. He grabs it immediately and puts it back. And I roll it again. He puts it back. I roll it. A sock of frustrated breath. He picks the umbrella up.

Stressed voices above. The gloom closes in as our power flickers for one brief second. Into boots next to the door. Don't know if they're his or not. It doesn't really matter, though. They're his for now anyways, because they're on his feet. A walk in the quiet. That's what'll do him good.

The idiots can't bother you in the quiet. He goes out of the mudroom door into the frisly haze of the lazy rain. I follow, supernaturally. The grounds are wet already. And what little bit of rain can get through the treetops drips down and dapples the umbrella. Though it's been a long time since rain could bother me, I stay beneath the umbrella, right behind Connor as he walks. I like to watch him walk. He's almost an entire head taller than me. I can see that now that we stand so close. My nose just almost gently brushes against the spot

between his shoulder blades. Nicely formed ones, I might add, if a bit bony. Walking in this way, through the trees of Buckley Hall, it feels almost as though he's leading me for a change. It feels safe. Maybe he's protecting me from the house, just as much as I am protecting him. Maybe more so. He reaches the guest house, sitting empty and tall. When the main house is finished, they'll soon start on this one. But for the time being, it is empty.

He turns the knob of the front door. Locked, of course. Maybe ask for the key later. We'll make an escape. It can be our house, Connor. There are fewer spirits here. Miss Black and Scott, they like the company of the main residence.

They won't get us here. Connor starts around to the other side of the house, to the kitchen. I wonder, what should happen if you were to find the back door unlocked? And it is, for you didn't see Connor what I did. How I was able to flip it from the other side and be back behind you without a second loss to time.

The door opens, and here we are in the kitchen. Well appointed, for it was hardly used, even when Miss Black had it. It's really kind of adorable, isn't it? The flowers on the wallpaper, cheery even on mornings as dismal as this. You sit down, dear. Let me make you dinner. Then we can watch Lucy and Danny Thomas and laugh before. retiring. There won't be any children to distract us, but he's already gone. He's found the switch and the lights of the main room are on. He's wandered in there. His hand runs a finger along the

thick dust that frost the upright piano. So my housekeeping isn't great. I'll learn to manage, dear. I wish he'd stop walking. He's heading to the stairs now. Emotions are overtaking me, but they are not my own. Emotions, events, they have their own ghosts that linger. We are, all of us, everything in the universe, be us a living thing, broken chair, or even a ghost, susceptible to picking them up.

Ghosts such as we are not the only thing stuck on a hamster wheel. Don't go up there. Connor, no, let's walk again. I'll lock the door. I'll never unlock a door again. He's up the stairs. I grip the banister as though I can even feel it now, as though I ever were here. I gripped my eyes shut tight. Oh, but sweetie pie?

A feminine voice in my ear, a songbird tone. You are here. I open my eyes. The guest house is alive once more. The electric bulbs are gone, replaced by the oil lamps of yesteryear. Miss Black is snoring in the armchair, a well-worn copy of David Copperfield open and leaning against her stomach, the culprit for her early slumber. Look, she's asleep. No one's here. She'll never know. I don't see the speaker, for now I am the speaker, someone else entirely. My hair with its schoolgirl curls, my starch white collar tight on my neck. But my shoes are already unbuttoned, slipped off my feet to step quietly.

I've been dared by the other girls, and I want to succeed. I didn't even need to be dared. I'll do it because I want to. I'd have done it anyways, sweetie pie. Up the steps, softly, to find Connor, or whoever, whatever. He's in one of the bedrooms. I see him in there through the half-open doorway. looking like a scarecrow in ill-fitting boots.

He turns his head, freezes. He sees me. Yes, indeed, he does. He sees me coming, but he doesn't move, doesn't even really react to me, except for his widening eyes. The door pulls open the rest of the way, be it by the wind or a disembodied hand.

I'll let you decide. I enter, and my white collar with the thick long dress is gone. I enter in my corset and long underwear, holding a candle so that the wax strips hot along my fingers. And Connor does something he probably wouldn't do if he wasn't overtaken by the ghost of memory. He smiles, and I smile, putting one finger to my lips, and I blow out the candle and set it on the floor softly. I walk to him, take his base in my hands, and I kiss him, and I can feel it, soft and hard. There is stubble beneath my fingers, stubble radiating from his clean-shaven face.

I don't truly feel him. I feel the memory of Scott. This is my first kiss. It's my first kiss. This is my first kiss. I'll choose to enjoy it. He drops his mug of coffee, either because he is so impassioned, or because his hands as Scots did. I could guess correctly, but I choose to believe its passion. His hands are on my

waist, on my breasts, his fingers binding the ties of my stays, his tongue on mine. One eye open and there is Connor, closed eyes. The other eye open, and there is Scott, in the gray tweed flat cap, unbroken, all those years ago. By true feeling and by someone else's memory, I can feel I want them both. In this moment, I will admit I love one of them. My stays undone, falling silently to the floor. My hands bumble with the buttons of his shirt, buttons that aren't really there, and I pull the shirt off so that his warm bare chest is against mine. I can feel his heart beating, loudly and wildly like it has never beat before. This is Conner's own heart, and it pulses with either fear or excitement.

They both feel the same. It pulses even in his neck. I can feel it beneath his veins, still so full of life's blood. His hands on my thighs. He sinks to his knees, kisses the top of these thighs so tenderly, as I brush away the invisible flat cap and tugged gently at his thick hair. Touches so tender. Feelings of passion, so violent.

Enough of standing. I need to be under him. I need to feel him on top of me. I dropped to the ground to be alongside him. And, grabbing his face hard, I pull him down as I sink to the floorboards. Fumbling with the buttons of Scott's trousers, I yanked down Connor's sweatpants, feel him bulging, throbbing against me. He groaned softly. I can't take any more of this sweet lover's waiting.

I turn, toppling him completely onto his back. and I throw myself on top of him, pulling my bloomers all the way off, and thrust him, Scott's memory, not Connor, inside of myself. The memory of the pain, but also the lingering butterfly of the pleasure, splitting my brain open, the fire in my gut, the exploding colors in my mind. Connor's eyes light on their own flame. Scott's face twists in its century gone pleasure. pleasure, passion, pleasure, passion, pain. My favorite words now, I'm so close to the edge of some unknown thing, the something, too good not to be a sin, threatening to arrive, to break in me and steal everything from me,

all that is good, and chase away all that is bad, all that I want riddance of. Connor is tight beneath me, so taken by what he doesn't understand, the fantasy that come true, the nightmare that is his reality. His face twists up, the irises of his chocolate eye seeming to melt, and his body is tighter and tighter, and the pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, he starts to scream. Oh, how beautiful a sound, that scream. I'll make him scream again and again. Give him a good screaming. Screaming ain't killing, and screamin ain't no hurt. Lightning breaks loud and sudden, and the room fills with white, and I fill with white. The thunder drowns us out and the rain pours heavy,

heavy enough to wash all of Conner's white away, out of me and onto his abdomen, hot and flowing. The white, the thunder, the bam, and the red, then the black. Now I'm on the ceiling looking down. The one who called me Sweetie Pie is below me in my place. Her face is gone. blown to bits. Connor is gasping, retching.

Miss Black's rope around his neck as she pulls him away, her sawed-off shotgun smoking in her fist. Except it isn't Connor. It's Scott, and he's half dead. Connor sits in the corner, hugging his knees, eyes hidden, sobbing. He'd fallen asleep and dreamt it. That's all. That's what he wants to think.

He's not going insane. I want to hold him and shush him and make it all over. I want to forget it all now, whatever horrible round of the game was just played. Ghosts, victory, mortals, bow. But deep down, and more strongly, I really only wish to hear his beautiful screams again. Connor runs. Somewhere between Scott's last gasp and Miss Black's fading declaration of what sin is, he found a way to stand and bolt from the room and down the steps,

before my biggest toe even touched the ground. Wait, does this mean you won't call me tomorrow? Reluctantly, I follow. Truly, I would rather stay and relive this memory over and over again because I could feel him, some version of him, and because it felt like life. Yes, even more than when I had life for myself. But he has run, and I must follow.

He's made it out of the guesthouse now, brandishing that umbrella like a sword, running through the hard rain that has opened up on us. Lightning threatens the world, promises to bring him into my world if he doesn't get away fast enough. He looks over his shoulder, back at the guesthouse, trips over some tangle of brush and falls on his bottom, throws himself into a push-up and is running again, his ill-fitting boots clomping and bending as he goes. Could he have seen me following? Walking, not running. I keep up with him either way.

Thunder claps when he reaches the door to the mud room. At last, he is back inside, away from one horror and into the next. Shouting, our dear David and Jan, of course. They're in the dining room. Jan screaming, where is she? And David insisting he doesn't know who or what she's talking about. What do you mean? She was right here.

I'm not a fucking idiot. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. She was blowing your brains. out. Jan's voice is going to shatter glass if she screeches any higher. Well, wouldn't I know that? It's been so long. Don't you dare. Believe me, I'd remember it just now. What's going on? Oh, what? Is she prettier, younger, cuter? There was no one there, Janice. Are you out of your fucking mind? They stand at opposite ends of the dining room table. Connor stuck leaning in the doorway. No one cares to notice Mabel, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand in the glass

reflection of the Pye safe. You promised me, David. You swore you'd never. And I've never! I can't believe you did this. But do you really see that? My mother was right. No, you don't see it, ladies and gentlemen. Today's episode of Jen... And she's so much prettier than me. Rup to you by Target. Can you fucking stop? They noticed Connor for the first time. Go to your room. Can you stop acting like your lives are so fucking hard? You dropped half a million on this hellhole, so just fucking stop it. You watch your mouth.

This isn't about things, Connor. It's about our marriage. Connor's eyes wide, quiet. But not about our family. Your fly is down, dad. This, of course, starts more arguing. Connor goes up the back stairs, me right behind him. The shouting becomes just that as we climb.

I'm shouting, no words, just sounds, the sounds of souls and pain, a sound I'm used to. Back in my, his, our room, the door slams. Fists go to skull, to wall, to floor, he does violent and furious push-ups. Drop and give me 10, 20, 50, until exhaustion gives way, until you burn the whole tablespoon of cream in your coffee. Until you're so thin you could disappear Until you're so thin As thin as the bones laid all over this house Go on I'll wait Finally he stops stands and paces

To the window pane to the wardrobe Forehead gently against wardrobe He goes to the bed and drops so he lands on his back It doesn't feel as soft as it did in his memory He lays anyways uncomfortable, because he thinks he deserves to, because he feels like he's done something wrong. I go to him and lay at his side, shivers from his torso as I curl around him, the scent of soap and springtime, the salty smell of his soul. He shuts his eyes as his fingers push beneath

the stretching band of his sweatpants. Must be thinking of the guest house, I hope. I'll leave him for now. For just a moment, though we've shared so much, it feels wrong to watch him now, to take his privacy as well as his innocence, though he stole mine just the same. Without a sound, I'm out of the room. The shouting has died away, but is replaced by banging, the banging of boxes, of ceilings, the banging of anger from the body of a silent mouth. Jan is in the mudroom, making sense of unpacked boxes, and wondering out loud what happened to her umbrella. David is in the basement. I go down to him.

He's working hard. The madman's glimmer in his eyes. His hands are shaking, too. My eyes ball on the bottle of whiskey, the one from Charles's box. Must have given that up for Jan too. What's wrong, Jan? Not healthy?

Too much sugar? Isn't organic enough? Or sit well with your yoga or latest cleanse? Not okay for a person to live their life around you, is it, Jan? Tell me, honey, do you know it deep down that all that help bullshit hurt your baby? That all this paranoia about what you put in everyone's mouth has caused fingers down throats and head slapping and push-ups to the point of collapse? Well, maybe we need a second opinion. I say live and let live.

I roll the bottle of whiskey out into the open. This man needs a drink. David turns at the sound, surprised to see the bottle. He looks up. Do you think that's funny? What is it? Some fucked up game for you? He stooped to pick up the bottle.

He places it with a thud on a nearby box. Fuck you, Jan. He goes back to working. Stops. Jan? Oh, Mr. Sinatra, how I remember your songs. He'd approve, David. He'd be okay with it.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. A finger on the cap. A breath shaking as it races from lungs. Drink it for yourself, to relax. You've been working so hard, and you've done such a good job. And you know what? It's really stressful. Everything. It just closes in until you can't even think anymore. And everyone's always wanting something and you just don't have anything left to give. You have to do something for yourself. people stretch themselves for others, like an ancient artisan pretzel. Some have a drink. I push the bottle up, just a tad, just enough to help his hand tilt it just right, so that a fiery shot pours in his mouth. Oh, sweet heaven, that's good. I think David hears me humming as he swallows fire.

Funny bunny, look at you, honey. Mabel follows me in the shadows as I ascend the staircase, the front one, I stop on the first landing. Just what are you talking about? You, silly goose! You're really getting them going. That pop is so uptight. I tried to unwind him, I sure did, but he was higher strong than a wanted pirate. And that mama, well, she sure didn't like me one bit.

I just thought he deserved to relax. Mabel pushes me against the wall. You ain't fooling me, Bunny. No more. did what baby brown's up there. I can tell these things. She grins. I'm so proud.

She spins around. You're practically a lady now, ain't you? I didn't mean to. It wasn't really us. We got caught in Miss Black's loop. It'll matter none. Mabel shakes her head. Now the game is really going.

What do you think will win it? Who drives a more mad? Me? or you, Papa, Mama, or Junior. Not Connor. No one can have him. Instead of saying this, I push Mabel off of me. I just want to be left alone.

Please! Thunder and lightning flash in concert, and the doorbell rings. A strange, hellish sound meant only for the living. Mabel and I both lean over the banister immediately. Jan comes to the door, peeks through the spy hole, and slowly creaks open the door. The chain securely in place. Can I help you?

Yes, ma'am. Is a man of the house around? Why? You see, I have a curious proposition for him. I do ask that you let me in. Who are you? Step aside, ma'am, and let me inside. Jan's knees start to shake.

Go or I'll call the police. She slams the door shut, as though that would keep him out. Well, looks like you've done something. Mabel is not amused. Look who you've called up with that damn whiskey bottle, bunny. I quiver in my shroud. How could, but it was just a bottle. Why didn't I think about this?

David, get up here. I go down to the main floor. I can hear David and Jan bickering in the basement below, while I watch the tall shadow of the man drifting past the window. There's a man outside. What man? He's trying to get in. And he will, Jan.

Mr. Charles is here, and he would like his box back, please. The shadow fades away from the windows, but Charles will not be leaving. He's just waiting for a moment, for a crack in the door. After an immeasurable time, Jan makes her way slowly upstairs. looks carefully from the doorway to the basement, but no one is around, no one that she can see. Finally, she sidesteps to the stairs and is up and out of sight as fast as she can go. Well, it surely is getting interesting. Mabel licks her lips.

And I thought the naughty, spicy stuff was all happiness was. Shut up, he'll go away. He ain't going away. Just go on and open that. door. Go on before you make him mad. I will not. I shake my head. He can stand out in the rain if he wants. Rain doesn't bother us. Now, you're going to open that door? Or should I? I'll do it, of course. I know that I have to. To tell him to go away that it was a silly mistake and no one meant to call him. Sorry, wrong number. Operator, get me the police.

With a sigh, mostly for Mabel's benefit, I go to the front door. The chain of the deadbolt scrapes as I pull it along the track and pluck it out. With a groan, the lock clicks. I turn the knob, and with a tiny whine, the whimper of a dying creature, the door is opened. There he stands, tall, taller than he ever was in life. With his thick mustache and playing gingerly with the gold chain around his neck, His other arm held dramatically at his waist. Thank you, darling, the mister inn.

His voice is an oily, backwood's drawl. I'm afraid there's been a mistake, I say, words said a thousand times. No one meant to call you. No one, Charles. He grins. He looks like a rat, and not just because of the rat tail growing beneath his mullet. Even my own mama never meant to call me. He puts a black-booted foot in the threshold.

No living person called you. I braced both arms on the doorframe. I brought him the bottle. You opened the box? No. My arms stay firm. You opened that bottle? Yes.

You lying. He leans closer. I don't move. Go away. I grit my teeth. Charles looks at both my hands, looks at me. You really think I can't get through? He slides through me with ease.

I whirl around to find him laid back, legs wide open on the couch. You forgetting what we are. No one wants to play with you. Mabel breaks her silence, goes toward him with hands waving dramatically. You play dirty. No one around here likes baby Charles in his mean old games. So you just pick up your toys and shoe on home.

Charles snaps up. A spindly hand to Mabel's throat and he has her in the air. She gags, legs kicking against him. I am home, sugar. Charles drops her and laughs. Then he looks at me. Have a good night, honey. And he exits through the basement door and out of sight.

Footsteps on the back staircase, a soft moan of breath against the sound of rain. A moan I felt treasured in my ear. Connor. Devoted to my lord, I will spend all eternity devoted to my lord. I made vows to my father, his son, And the holy you know what. I was born Eva Brown. Now I am Sister Mary Eunice.

I do not play games. I am honest when I say this. There are some who are not. I like my staircase. It is where I pray. I pretend the window is stained glass and it is a cathedral. Some days it is the divine Notre Dame. Some days it is the gift.

of my ignorant hometown. I pray, and I pray, I pray for all of our souls. I heard the one called Charles come inside. Seems he is to be feared. I do not fear him. Though I aided the harlot in keeping his door shut on the back staircase, that was for the innocent boy. Young boys and girls need not be corrupted by videotates. There is enough corruption surrounding them. Tiny computers in their pockets. Hornography, a click away. What was that song that the television crew played on their little radio

when they set up the equipment? Rape, murder, it's just a shot away. I liked that song, though it is not a hymn. I like things that tell the truth. Sometimes I leave my staircase. I go to other parts of the house. Once, I enjoyed going out into the world. I liked to get my hands dirty as I cleaned the sin up.

I did it for my lord. I enter the master's suite. A soul is pained inside. She weeps, and I let her weep. I know what the blonde one did, and I know what the Mr. drank. I like this woman, the one they call Jan. She knows she is a woman, and so she is haunted in the worst way. I've met this woman many times over.

The woman who burns to be strong, but must be cold in process, whose love is mistaken for judgment and whose means of business. and whose means of being whole are chastised. I know exactly what that is. I am a nun, you see. I know this woman will most likely stay in this house with us all. I pray that I am wrong, but I doubt that I am. I do not approve of gains, even ours.

I kneel and I pray. In the dim light of the sun. Sweet, the woman who weeps at her vanity, lifts her head to the sound of my whispered prayers. She sees me on the ceiling where I have knelt for prayer. My rotting form. Once peachy flesh, now green, my tree bark scales. She screams. I do not stop praying, but I know that I must leave.

From the ceiling, I drop to the floor and crawl backward. Never turn your back on the afraid, I say. Show them that you carry no hatchet from the room as she screams. As I pray. The boy, somewhere else in the house, screams too. Maple squeals. Usually she does this from delight, but right now it's from fear. She stays on the floor, shaking and squealing,

muttering unintelligible nonsense sounds. Stop. But she does not stop. So I bent down and grueling. wrap her by the shoulders. Shake her. Pull it together. I wanted to win this one. I wanted to win so bad I did. Now it's just going to be the same winner as last time. I pull her to her feet. Charles is here and Connor is still inside. We need to get him out of this house. Do you care? Mabel wipes her smearing mascara.

What do any of us care? There's no point in Karen. All I wanted to do was make some good screaming. All I got was do. Mabel, please. I'm done playing this time. I'm just not so good at it like I want to be. There ain't no point. Don't go!

She had floated over to the dining room, stepped one foot in the Pye Safe Glass. She looks at me over her shoulder. Better look next time. Night bunny. And she's gone. I stand up. alone now. Just the sounds of the thunder, the pipes of Buckley Hall, banging. Just me, a dead serial killer, and the family. My Connor, unknowing in the kitchen. Have to get him out,

have to get him safe. Sying in the kitchen. Rain on the window pane. Silent steps as I move toward the far dining room archway, the one that allows me to see into the kitchen. There he is, my Connor, a glop of peanut butter off a spoon. Have to get him out. Have to leave this place. But how? With the rain and the lightning? And where could we even go?

Not the guest house. They would all just find him there. And I couldn't do that to him again. Today, you know what you have to do. It's the only thing left to do. The door to the basement creaks open. David is there. Charles behind him.

David doesn't even know what ghost is behind him. Because he's behind his eyes, somewhere, watching, feeling, puppeteering his every move. He's just standing there, staring straight ahead, at everything and at nothing. Does he even realize what he is doing? Or as something completely snapped inside to reveal his true being? Have to get Connor to move now. Have to get going. I walk through the dining room just as David's head slowly turns. whispering, heading straight into the kitchen.

Connor stops licking the peanut butter and turns his gaze. He sees me, the gray girl in the sundress, splattered in blood, my red eyes. Get out! And he screams. Jan, upstairs, screams. The storm outside claps thunder. And Connor stops screaming, because it's too late. David stands over his son's unconscious body.

the shovel in his hand. Want to play catch sport? He laughs and grabs Connor by the legs, dragging him toward the back staircase, to the door that I can't keep locked anymore. Want to play a little game. The toy room, an unfinished crawl space tucked behind that door,

is washed blue with light from the old television set. Charles' drawl fills it with the past, broadcast from the screen. Stop it! The crying college boy, Tyler, is tied up. He's blindfolded, but tears roll out freely. You're fucking sick. Shut the fuck up.

Charles slaps the boy hard with his back hand. Then he gently brushes the dull edge of a knife down the boy's cheek. You in my house, son. Connor, unconscious, lays before the television. His blush is blue in the light. and he looks so peaceful, almost too peaceful. On the screen, Charles continues. We're going to play how you be daddy, and I'll be baby,

and we'll find out how you die. Connor's eyes are open now, bewildered, unbelieving. He slides them about the room, landing on the television set. Mr. Buckley built the house. Charles recites the goddamn poem that television program made up for the ghost show all that time ago. He built it good and strong. Mrs. Buckley loved the house her entire life long. Tyler screams as Charles scratches his chest with the pocket knife.

Buckley Jr. hated it all. He hated everything. Charles cuts at the ropes around Tyler's wrist. Tyler is still screaming, kicking and riding. His sobs broken into almost hysterics. I cover my ears, though it doesn't do any good. Connor is crawling backwards on his back, but the massive television can't be eluded.

Not in Charles's theater. Charles sings, his voice strained, half drunk on his whiskey. Except the knives and axes and sword. Those he loved to sling. Mr. Buckley built the house. He built it good and strong. David, somewhere in shadow, under his breath, gravel on the throat,

a live symphony to Tyler's broken sobs on TV. Connor jumps. Mrs. Buckley was a cunt her entire lifelong. Connor is pressed against the wall now, nowhere else to crawl to. Buckley Jr. hated it all. He hated everything. David steps forward, illuminated by the blue light. His eyes wild. So Daddy thought, let's play a game. Make it a family thing. He grins, waving something in the top.

dark. It's not my best, but I ain't no poet. His voice has changed. Oily, a drawl. Daddy? It's all Connor can manage. A broken whisper in the dark. Hey, chav. David steps forward. The object in his hand illuminated. Mom couldn't make game night. Just us dudes. Conner screams as David drops Jan's bloody foot onto his son's lap. In his other hand, he waves a bloody meat cleaver. He laughs hysterically as he starts to cry. I just want us to be happy. He wipes his nose on his sleeve.

The drawl and oil gone from his voice. Then it returns. You'll never be sad again, boy. You'll never be sad again. Never ever again. He screams with surprise as the television set topples over onto his bath, sending him to the floor. Thunder booms and the power blows. The television shatters shatters' shatters' scream is exquisite in the blackness. When a soul is faced with terror,

it has two reactions it may choose from, and only those two. There is bite, in which the soul stays put in an attempt to bend off what is terrorizing it. And then there is blight, in which it chooses to run away, getting out at all costs. It is not up to the bodily owner which the soul chooses. In this moment, Connor's soul chooses blight. He runs, his telephone device serving as a flashlight. Running behind him, I see some sort of recording devices going, capturing it all on his telephone, as Charles did after that fucking television show inspired him. recording like Tyler never got the option to choose up the back stairs he runs why do they always go up the stairs and not out the front door in his room mine our room good boy smart boy i can keep you longer that way clicking the telephone the sound of a message sent a video leaving the house then silence just whimpering no light now just the lightning casting a lightning casting a message sent a video leaving the house then silence just whimpering no light now just the lightning casting a

singular line through the closed closet door, enough to illuminate the gray girl just for a second. Connor starts to scream, and I press one finger to his lips and another to mine. I lean into him, a hand caressing his neck, and I put my lips to his ear. Once, I whisper, there was a girl. She lived in this room. She was the same age as you. Her father had been kind. That was before he married the girl's stepmother, who was pious and cruel. The girl was no longer allowed to have friends. She wasn't allowed to talk to boys either.

One day, the girl was asked to a dance by a handsome boy with dark hair and chocolate brown eyes. A lot like yours. But her stepmother would never approve of it. so the girl had to keep it a secret. She made her dress from the white furniture covers in the attic. She rehearsed climbing down the tree from her bedroom window. I slide my eyes towards the closet door. The shadows of the tree branches swaying in the storm,

slice through the crack in the door, washing Conner's base and dark light. But on the night of the dance, the night the girl would finally have friends, finally have a life like the one she used to have. Something bad happened. You know the wardrobe? Just beside this closet? Connor nods, shakily. There was a mirror on it once. When the girl was in her new attic sheet dress, admiring herself in the reflection of that mirror, her stepmother came into the room and caught her. She grabbed the girl by a

fistful of her hair and smashed her face into the mirror. It cut her face. all over. I paused to wipe a trickle of blood that is seeping out of my cheekbone. No one wanted to be around the girl then. Her face so covered with cuts and scars from the mirror. The cuts, they webbed and wove all over her face like a spider web, like a shattered mirror. Her face looked like a shattered reflection. That's what it looked like. And so the girl's sadness grew worse. And the whispers and the whispers in the house asked her if she wanted to be free. So she said yes, and she slit her wrists in the bathtub, and sometimes her blood still fills that tub. Connor shudders in my arms, remembering the splatter he had seen only just this morning. Eventually, the stepmother and her father went away,

leaving the girl in the house. But she isn't alone. I near my mom. I near my mom. I near my My lips to Connor. You aren't alone, my dear. My tale is cut short by the silence of the house broken. Someone has cranked up the old phonograph downstairs, and song is filling the house. Ladies and gentlemen, all blue eyes. Heavy footsteps, one after the other. Connor's face is twisting up, his lips squirming and fluttering as tears squeeze from his eyes.

The guest house? You? I barely nod. I hope he sees the love in my eyes. My name is Meggy. I'm pleased to spend an eternity with you, my Connor. Not even blinking. Connor just stares back,

the black of his pupils growing wider as he sees me or through me. What happens inside when you die? A blood-laced silver tear rolls down my cheek. I don't remember. The closet door swings open. David grabs the wrong victim, and I'm tired of this year's game. The struggle is violent and hard as he tries pulling me down the hall. My hands wrap around his throat.

He gags. I squeeze, and I squeeze, and I squeeze. I squeeze until I can see Charles himself pushing from David's bulging eyeballs. Fuck you, bitch! Charles darts to the corner. Always so sore, that one. You're an asshole when you drink, Charles. My Conner's alive, the final boy.

Is that what they call the survivor of a game of horrors? I walk back to the bedroom. Stiffin. There's my Connor, pin to the wall, whimpering, too afraid to even sob. With Junior Buckley holding a knife. to his throat. We likes the skins off. We likes the meat's better without the skins.

Poor Connor wets himself. I feel the anger rise inside of my shroud, and I bolt to Junior, grab him by both ears, and toss him to the floor. Connor runs then, out of the room, out to the landing where he trips over the corpse of David, shrieks.

I sigh, slowly go to him. Charles is shaking his head with disbelief. They ain't fair. It ain't fucking fire. Connor turns to me, his back against the stair rail. See you soon, baby. I hold my palm out. Good night.

I gently push my fingers against his chest. A quick tumbling of the mortal coil over the rail. the crunch of skull and spine on the stairs below. I slump against the rail, exhausted. God damn it. God fucking damn it, son of a bitch. He comes to the rail, peers over with me. The song ends on the phonograph and the rest of the record plays,

no longer trapped on the same tune now that the game is done. I bobbed my head slightly to the tune, Soon as we stare down at the beautiful smashed corpse of Mike Connor, his warm blood christening the stairs of our home, my most beautiful prize. You won, you bitch! Charles shakes his head. You fucking won. I slowly look at him, grinning. Don't I always?

The game begins. two years after the last one, with a car rolling up the long drive, the firing shot, and they're off, the ghosts take the lead, the song of commencement sung, the horn of the natives, restless and ready. From my spot in the Upper East Front Room of Buckley Hall, once my bedroom, I hear all the ghosts stirring, Mabel and the Nun, Tyler and the Man in the Buller Hat, Junior, Miss Black, Scott, Jan, reaching for her foot. David, coughing and scratching at his throat. A pair of hands wrap around and grip my waist from behind.

Connor rests his chin on my shoulder, his cheek sliding against me. Do we have company, darling? Yes, dear. Finally. I feel his cheek broaden as he grins. The car stops and a young man steps out. I knew he wouldn't stay away. Conner's grin slackens a little.

It's his friend, his best friend when he was alive, the one he'd spoken to on the telephone with that very first night. It seems like a lifetime ago. The young man unloads equipment from the car, a camera, a computer, just another television appearance, I suppose. He's come to find me, you know. He thinks I'm just a ghost now.

I don't believe in ghosts. Connor chuckles, kisses my temple softly. We'll have to give him a good show. Yes, it's why I bathe in blood in the same tub I died in. My little tradition, it's why Mabel has to talk herself into it. Screaming ain't no hurt. Stay remembered and don't go poof, begging me to just give him a screaming. Or did you think she was trying to continue?

convince me to play at all. Hmm? You have much to learn if you're going to haunt my house. But no box in the basement this year. I promised Connor, promised the parents. We'll see if I keep it. The shadows begin around the car, the ghosts coming for a look,

cannibals around a shipwreck. The game has begun, and I'll win this time. I always win. Come, dearest. I take Conner's hand. Let me show you how it's done. We will win.

Won't we always? For horrific tales are what we compile. They're all right here on the No Sleep files. The No Sleep podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Olivia White. Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy.

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