Ghost town, p.16
Ghost Town, page 16
Part of her dreaded seeing the others, just in case someone else had gone missing, but mostly she was desperate for company. She didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. Thoughts of Johnny skateboarding. Johnny laughing as she beat him at every arcade game. Johnny calling his stupid GPS Stacey.
“Hi,” Blair greeted her in the hallway. “I was just coming to check on you.”
Despite everything, the fact that Blair cared about her made Leif feel warm inside. “Thanks,” she replied. “How are the others doing?”
“As well as can be expected,” she said. “I had to get out of there and take a walk, you know? It’s just a lot of tension in one room. Rose and Rachel kept crying and then Rose disappeared to the washroom. Gen got back a few minutes ago, but she’s still really upset.”
“Let’s go down, I guess,” Leif said. She’d prefer to just stay upstairs and play pretend with Blair. But people were depending on her. She needed to be responsible.
“Hey, everyone,” she said as she entered the room. “How are we all holding up?”
“Not great,” Gen said. “Do you have a plan for what we’re going to do?”
Why the fuck did it all fall on her shoulders to make a plan? Leif frowned, ready to get into a fight, but she made herself take a breath.
“First things first, we need to find Johnny,” Leif said. “He had a working vehicle, but someone could have headed him off at the road.”
“He’s at that creepy place in the woods,” Rachel said. “I can feel it.”
“You sound like Psychic Rose,” Gen said. “What do you mean you can feel it? He’s probably just out driving off his angst. He’ll be back by dark.”
Leif frowned. Was Gen being purposefully obtuse? People were dying. This wasn’t Johnny just having a breakdown. This was something else. Something worse.
“He’s not some teenager,” Rachel said. “Something happened to him. He’s in danger.”
“Yeah. We all are,” Leif agreed. Though, speaking of Rose, where was she? “Rose should be back by now, shouldn’t she?” Leif asked. “When’s the last time someone saw her?”
“I saw her maybe an hour ago now,” Rachel said, with the air of someone realizing that more time had passed than she’d thought. “She was heading to the washroom.”
“Yeah, that’s the last I saw of her too, before I went for my walk,” Blair said.
“You don’t think…” Gen said.
“Fuck,” Leif swore.
Leif took off down the hall, slamming her way into the open bathroom. It was empty.
Leif heard the others behind her. They were all silent for a moment, staring at the empty bathroom.
“Spread out. Check the whole house,” Blair said. Leif nodded and sprinted toward the stairs, taking them up two at a time.
“Rose?” Leif called out, hearing the name echoed around the house as Rachel, Gen, and Blair searched. “Rose? Are you here?”
She rushed her way into each bedroom, each fucking useless bathroom, and whatever the hell other kind of rooms it was that rich people had. Empty. Empty. Empty.
Rose was nowhere to be found.
Leif slowed her walk, breathing heavily as the last room proved to be empty yet again.
“Goddamn it,” she swore to herself. “God-fucking-damn it.”
She made her way back down to the parlor where she heard Blair, Gen, and Rachel talking. Against all odds, she hoped that she’d turn the corner and find Rose sitting on the couch, contrite that she’d worried them all. But when she entered the room, Blair shook her head. Rose wasn’t there.
“Fuck,” Leif said, pressing her hands against her eyes. “I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight.”
“It’s not your fault, Leif. We didn’t think about having bathroom buddies,” Rachel said.
“If someone took her,” Blair said, as though something was dawning on her. “Did they take her from the house?”
Rachel’s expression fell, and she looked horrified. “Oh, God. There’s nowhere safe,” she said. She sounded panicked, and Leif didn’t know what to do. How could she calm Rachel down when her own heart was pounding like she’d just run a marathon?
“We would have heard someone in here,” Leif said, though she wasn’t sure. Rose wouldn’t have gone outside, would she? But if she hadn’t, that meant someone had been creeping around the house, and had managed to take her without making a single sound.
“We definitely would have heard someone kidnapping her,” Gen said. “She would have yelled.” But she didn’t sound sure. She sounded scared.
“We have to go after her,” Blair said. “If that facility has anything to do with all of this, we have to go there. We have to get Rose and Johnny back.”
“We might be the next ones to go missing,” Leif said.
Blair looked at her and grinned, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “At least we’d be going out on our terms.”
“I like that,” Leif said. What she really meant was I like you, but that seemed too forward at the moment. And maybe too sudden. Would Blair be confused by the feelings Leif had for her? Leif sure as hell was. She’d thought she hated Blair, but maybe her friends were right. Maybe it really had been sexual tension all along.
Anyways, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about sexual tension. Rose was missing, and unless they acted fast, Leif had no doubt they’d be finding her body in the woods next.
“Okay. Let’s go back to that creepy facility and see if that’s where they’ve taken her,” Leif said.
“No,” Gen said. She was looking between them with a worried frown. “It’s too dangerous!”
“We can’t let Rose and Johnny die like the others. Not if there’s a chance we can stop it,” Leif said.
“Should I come?” Rachel asked, and though she looked scared, she had her expression set in determination.
“Are you sure, Rach?’ Leif asked.
Rachel dithered for a moment, and Leif could tell that she didn’t want to come. But they shouldn’t break up the group.
“If you stay here, arm yourself, and lock yourself in a room that doesn’t have any windows,” Blair said. “You’ll be safer that way.”
“If you’re dead set on doing this, I’ll stay here with Rachel,” Gen offered. “I don’t think any of us should be alone right now.”
Maybe it was better to split up. That way if they didn’t come back, at least Gen and Rachel would live on.
“Maybe you two should just stay here too,” Rachel said. “It’s dangerous to just charge right in, isn’t it?”
“Of course. It’s dangerous as hell. But if we don’t at least try, Rose will be the next body we find,” Leif said. “We have to do this.”
Rachel nodded. “I know, you’re right. I’m just so fucking scared.” She took a deep shuddering breath, then turned to Gen. “Okay. I’ll stay here. Gen, let’s find something we can defend ourselves with. There are a few rooms here that don’t have any windows in them. We can lock ourselves in one.”
“Okay.” Gen nodded. “Let’s go. Good luck, you guys.”
Rachel threw herself into Leif’s arms and squeezed her tightly. “You had better come back in one piece. Or I’ll kill you.” Rachel laughed. She was crying now, and Leif felt tears prickle her eyes as well.
“I’ll do my best,” Leif said.
Rachel let her go and moved to hug Blair as well. Gen moved forward awkwardly and gave Leif a weak hug.
Gen’s hug with Blair was a little firmer and lasted a little longer. “Be safe,” she said quietly. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
Rachel and Gen headed toward the kitchen, talking quietly about finding weapons. Leif watched them go with a pit in her stomach. What if this was the last time she’d ever see her friend?
When she turned to look at Blair, she saw the same fear reflected on her face.
“I’m scared,” Blair confessed.
Leif closed her eyes, letting herself just feel for a moment. She felt so goddamn sad. So scared too. She never could have imagined something like this happening. She opened her eyes and took in Blair’s face.
“Me too.”
Blair nodded and reached out to grab her hand. “Okay. Then we’ll be scared together. That’s what being brave is, right? Being scared but doing it anyways? So, let’s do this.”
Leif squeezed her hand, her mom’s words fortifying her more than she thought possible. She had to make it out of here and see her mom again. She’d make sure to thank her for helping her to be brave, even in the grimmest of situations. “Let’s do this,” she said.
The walk into the woods was far more gruesome now that the bodies of their friends had started to decay and the animals and insects had begun to feast. The smell as they approached each body was enough to make them both gag. Unfortunately, they couldn’t risk leaving the path and getting lost in the woods. They’d know the hidden path when they saw the strange three-pronged burned tree.
Now that Leif knew that the forest sounds were going to fade away, she was much more aware of it as they headed down the secret path. The closer they got to the facility, the fewer birds there were chirping. It felt like every step was laden, and the silence felt heavy and oppressive. Like the birds and bugs and animals were all watching them silently, a crowd growing hushed as a prisoner approached a hangman’s noose.
No deer jumped out at them this time as they approached the tree. Leif wasn’t sure if she was grateful for that, or if it would have been better to have something, anything, break the quiet.
As they walked, Leif considered their options. They had no idea how many people they might find inside. They would have to be stealthy. As they approached the edge of the clearing, Leif put her hand on Blair’s shoulder to stop her.
“The front is all glass,” Leif said. “We should sneak around the back. Less chance of being caught.”
Blair nodded and followed her as Leif made her way through the brush around the perimeter of the building. The brush was thick in this area, and it took longer than Leif would have liked to make their way around to the back.
When she got there, she stopped in her tracks, staring.
“Oh,” Blair said. “That’s worrying.”
The back door stood wide open like the maw of a beast, just waiting to swallow them whole. Leif wasn’t sure what to make of the door being open, but she couldn’t think of any nice reasons it would be. All she could picture was Rose being dragged through that door, screaming and thrashing.
Still, they had to save Rose, and this was their way in.
“Let’s go,” Leif said, waving Blair forward.
“Hold on,” Blair said. “What if it’s some kind of trap?”
“I don’t think they know we’re coming,” Leif reasoned. “Besides, we have to go in there some way or another, right? We have to get Rose and see if we can find Johnny.”
“Right,” Blair said, though she sounded worried. “Okay. Let’s go.”
They moved quickly and ducked through the door. Leif expected to be met with alarms or security, but the facility was silent and empty. The long hallway they entered into had plain white walls and white linoleum flooring. It looked almost like a hospital hallway, with harsh fluorescent lighting and a generic feel.
As they moved forward, Leif took in the few posters that were pinned up along the walls. They all had to do with lab safety, except for one that had a smiling worker on it and simply read Tannincorp: Illuminating the Future for Us All.
“I don’t like this at all,” Blair said. “It’s some kind of lab.”
“How sure are we that this is an evil lab and not, like, a nice one?” Leif asked.
Down the hall there was the shrill and unmistakable sound of a scream.
Blair looked at her, her eyes wide. “Respectfully, I think it’s definitely the bad kind.”
Chapter Twelve
Video Recording Tape 1
(The interior of a car, the camera swings between Leif, Rachel, and Johnny.)
We’re off on our adventure! How do y’all feel?
Excited!
Nervous. Not of the ghosts, but of Johnny’s driving.
Ha ha, very funny. I’m nervous about the farts that are going to fill this car after we all had that egg salad Leif brought.
Ew, Johnny.
Despite our gross ass friend here, we are excited to bring you exclusive footage of Masonville! A real-life Ghost Town!
July 18, Masonville
Blair was having a bad time.
The facility in the woods was a lab. Nothing good could come of there being a secret lab in the middle of the woods. Blair had no idea why or how Tannincorp would have built something like this, but she highly doubted that they’d have built it in Masonville, way out in the woods, for any good reason.
She’d watched enough Scooby-Doo as a kid to know that this was hinky.
Blair followed Leif down the hallway toward the sounds of screaming. It was Rose’s voice. Hoarse and frantic though it was, Blair recognized it.
The hallways were thankfully empty as they made their way as quietly as they could. The lab might look empty, but that didn’t mean it actually was. And Rose’s screaming only covered so much sound.
They reached the door where the sound was coming from and found it cracked open, just a bit.
Blair peered around the frame and bit her lip to keep from making a sound.
Inside the room was an operating table with Rose laid out on it. Her hands and feet were strapped down. There was a man standing over her with his back to them. Just looking at him made Blair’s skin crawl for some reason.
Between them and the man there was a counter.
Blair waved Leif forward, and the two of them snuck into the room through the cracked open door and ducked behind the counter. It doubled as a shelf for all sorts of scientific equipment and didn’t have a back to it. Which meant that beyond the microscope and the various beakers, they could see Rose and the man looming over her.
“Demon! Oh, God help me, it’s a demon! Help me, please!” Rose screamed while thrashing against her bonds. Her voice was raw and her eyes bugged out in fear. She looked crazed, like the deer that had jumped out at Blair the last time they’d come down the path to the facility. Pure terror.
“He must have given her some sort of gas. Nitrous oxide maybe?” Blair whispered. “She’s hallucinating.”
“What the fuck is he doing to her?” Leif asked.
Blair shook her head. “I don’t know. But she should be falling asleep. The gas.” Except that Rose didn’t look like she was tired. She looked wide awake and terrified.
Upon closer inspection, the man at the table’s shirt was covered in blood. He also had a gaping wound near his elbow, that was just barely covered by a few bandages. It was almost as though someone had bitten clean through his flesh. He was covered with various scratches along his arms and hands, and Blair thought back to the blood under Abe’s nails and around his mouth. The way Abe was a fighter. How he’d told her once that he’d fought like a lion when he’d been attacked at a nightclub. She had no doubt that it was Abe who must have wounded whoever this was.
Despite the horror of the situation, she felt immensely proud. Before this was all over, she vowed she’d hurt the man too. That she’d get at least some kind of revenge for Abe, even if it was just a minor injury before the police came to take the man away.
The man was disheveled, his long hair greasy and stringy. It looked like he hadn’t washed his clothes in a long, long time. His movements were jerky and odd, as though he’d been injured further, though she saw no sign of blood on his legs.
“You believe in me,” the man said. “You believe I am not from this world?”
“Yes,” Rose said, turning her head as though she couldn’t bear to look at him.
“Your belief will open a portal for me. Your belief will bring others like me here. Believe. You are the key,” he said.
Then, in a more frantic tone, he added, “It’s going to be all right. It won’t hurt, I promise. I can’t sedate you or it won’t work, but the procedure is painless. You won’t feel a thing. It’ll be like you’re falling asleep.”
Blair frowned. His voice was oddly familiar. Where had she heard that voice before?
“It has to work this time. Bring more than one over. Keep it open. I know that the tweaks I’ve made will work,” he said as he walked over to a machine and began jabbing at it. “And your name will be remembered. I promise you that.”
Blair wished desperately that she could see what he was doing, but his body was blocking the screen.
“We just need to wait until the room is empty, then we grab her and run,” Leif whispered as Rose began to scream for help again.
“She’s going to be dead weight. How are we supposed to carry her out of here?”
“There are two of us. We have to at least try.”
Leif was right. They couldn’t leave Rose in the grips of this man. He was the one who’d killed Abe. Probably the one who’d killed Jessica and Ivan too. If they left Rose here, she’d end up dead in the woods.
“Yeah. We can do it. We just need him to leave,” Blair said. She wasn’t sure that he would. What if he stayed in the room until Rose was dead? Maybe they needed to cause a distraction.
But just as she thought it, the man turned and began walking toward their hiding spot. His movements were normal now, a stark contrast to the almost robotic way he’d been moving before. “I’ll retrieve the next vessel,” he said over his shoulder to Rose. “I won’t be gone long. You’re okay, it’s all going to be okay.”
Icy cold fear gripped Blair as he got closer and closer to where they were hiding. But he was looking at the door, not at them. Then she saw his face fully, and Blair just barely managed to stifle a gasp.
