door. It was securely locked, as was the door to what had once been the dispatcher’s office. After trying two more doors, they jumped off the dock, rounded the corner of the building, and started walking along a newly cleared path that paralleled the side of the building. Halfway to Prospect Street they came to the metal door that had always before been carefully locked.
Today the lock was open, hanging loosely from the hasp.
“See?” Jeff asked. “What’d I tell you? It’s not even locked up. We can just walk in.” He reached out and grasped the knob, then twisted it.
It turned easily.
“H-how
Jeff’s eyes raked him scornfully. “It’s not locked because the workmen were too stupid to lock it,” he said. He pushed the door open, and stepped through, but Brett still hung back. “You coming, or not?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Brett suggested. He glanced to the west, where the sun was sinking toward the horizon. “Isn’t it pretty dark in there?”
“You can see fine.” Jeff sneered. “Either come in, or stay out, but I’m gonna look around.”
Struggling against his fear, Brett stepped through the door and closed it behind him. For a moment the deep shadows blinded him, but then his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the interior, and he looked around.
Somehow, he had expected it to be empty.
But it wasn’t.
Already, the floor had been subdivided by the skeletal shapes of newly constructed framework, and in the roof, several holes had been cut for skylights. Now, in the late afternoon, little light came through the holes, and it seemed to Brett that all they did was make the place even spookier than it already was.
And the framework, he realized, was almost like a maze. Almost anywhere, there could be someone hiding.
In the silence, Brett could hear the pounding of his own heart.
“Hey!”
The sudden sound jabbed Brett like a needle, and he felt his whole body twitch with a sudden release of tension. Then he realized the sound had come from Jeff. “Jeez!” he whispered loudly. “What did you do that for?”
Jeff gazed at his friend with disgust. “Because,” he explained, “if anybody had answered, we could have said we were looking for someone, and then left. No one ever thinks you’re sneaking in somewhere if you make a lot of noise.” He called out once more: “Anybody here?” A pair of pigeons, frightened by the sudden disturbance, burst from their nests in a flapping of wings.
When silence had fallen once more, Jeff raised his hand, pointing toward the rear wall. “If there’s anything in here, I bet it’s back there,” he said.
Brett gazed into the gathering gloom, and saw the top of the stairs that led down into the basement below. It was in the basement, his father had told him, that Con Sturgess’s body had been found. Brett’s heart pounded harder, and he felt a cold sweat breaking out on his back. “I bet there’s nothing there at all,” he said, though his voice quavered slightly in spite of his efforts to keep it steady. Jeff, catching the slip, grinned.
“Scared?”
“Hell, no,” Brett lied. “What’s to be scared of?”
“Ghoooosts,” Jeff intoned, then snickered. “Come on.”
They started toward the back of the building, with Brett following reluctantly. They had gone only a few yards when Brett felt his skin crawl.
He had the eerie feeling of unseen eyes watching him.
He tried to ignore it, keeping his eyes on Jeff’s back, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Instead, it got worse.
There was something else in the mill — he was sure of it. But he couldn’t be sure where it was. It seemed to be all around him, following him. Suddenly he could stand it no longer, and whirled around to face whatever was stalking him.
Nothing.
His eyes scanned the tangle of structural supports, searching for a movement, but there was nothing there. Nothing, at least, that he could see.
And then, once again, the hair on the back of his neck stood up, and his spine began to tingle.
There was a sudden feeling of movement behind him. His stomach lurched. Something touched his shoulder.
Screaming, he jerked free, and whirled once more.
Jeff was staring at him, laughing. “Gotcha!”
“Jesus Christ! You scared the shit out of me!”
Jeff regarded him with knowing eyes. “You were already scared, weren’t you?”
“I … I thought I heard something,” Brett lied again.
“Well, you didn’t, ’cause there’s nothing here,” Jeff replied. “Let’s go see what’s downstairs.”
Without waiting for Brett to reply, Jeff headed once more for the staircase. Brett, unwilling to stay where he was, or admit by leaving that he was frightened, followed close behind. But when Jeff started down the stairs, Brett stopped, peering fearfully into the blackness below. “I’m not going down there.”
“Chicken,” Jeff taunted.
This time, Brett ignored the taunt. “It’s dark down there, and you can’t see anything.”
“I can see all the way to the bottom of the stairs, and I’m going down whether you come or not.”
Brett said nothing, only shrugged. He was staying where he was.
Jeff started down the stairs, but with each step he took, a little more of his confidence slipped away.
He began to wonder what might actually be waiting in the darkness below.
According to Beth Rogers, there was a ghost here.
But that was ridiculous. He didn’t believe in ghosts.
He tried to remember how funny the ghost story had been a couple of hours ago, when they’d all been lying around on the floor of Tracy’s library.
But it didn’t seem so funny now, not with the dank gloom of the old building gathering around him.
In fact, now that he thought about it, the darkness itself was almost like something alive, reaching out for him.
He stopped near the bottom of the stairs, and tried to shake the feeling off.
He wasn’t scared of the dark. He’d never been scared of the dark, at least not since he was a baby.
But now, here, he found that the dank blackness below was something very much to be afraid of.
Here, he didn’t know what the darkness concealed. It wasn’t at all like being in the dark at home, where you knew everything that was in the room around you, and could identify every sound you heard.
Here, the darkness seemed to go on forever, and the sounds — the little rustling sounds he was beginning to hear now — could be anything at all.
Mice. They could be mice, or even rats.
Or something else.
Something you couldn’t touch, but that could touch you.
He wanted to go back now, but it was too late. Brett was waiting above, and he’d laughed at Brett. If he came back up now, and admitted he’d been afraid to go any farther, Brett would never let him forget it.
Holding his breath, he took another step.
He listened to the noises, and began to imagine that they were voices.
Voices, whispering so quietly he could barely hear them.
He took another step, which brought him to the basement floor. Bracing himself, he edged into the horrible blackness around him.
And then, out of the darkness, he sensed something coming for him.
He opened his mouth, but fear choked his throat and no sound came out. From behind him, he felt himself being pushed. He staggered in the darkness, and reached out to find something to brace himself with.
There was nothing.
