blue ones gazed back at us.
Jared pulled me closer.
The taller child lifted a thin arm. A plastic IV port was taped inside the crook of his bony elbow. He pointed at the other end of the room, where the remaining children were lined up.
“What do they want?”
Jared pulled my hand behind his back and drew me closer. “Something happened here. I think they need us to bear witness so they can rest.”
The child was still pointing.
“Should we do what he wants?”
“Spirits of children are unpredictable, but I don’t think we have a choice. There are too many of them. If they get agitated…”
I nodded. “Let’s go.”
Turning my back on those children-that-weren’t-children was terrifying. I kept thinking about the girl in the yellow dress at Lilburn, who had looked so innocent right before she tried to kill us.
We walked closer as the flickering bulb bathed the room in pale light. An IV pole was positioned at the head of each dented bed frame, the canvas straps pulled tight across the stripped mattresses, as if they were still restraining bodies beneath them.
Yellowed newspaper clippings were taped to the walls. I scanned the chilling headlines:
I couldn’t stand to read any more.
I looked back at the rows of hopeful eyes. Without a word, each child extended an arm. A piece of tape secured an IV port inside every elbow. One of the frailer children handed me an amber bottle with block lettering typed on the yellow label: STRYCHNINE.
Jared rubbed his free hand over his face. “Strychnine causes muscular damage—” As he spoke the words, their eyes widened. “They were poisoned.”
Bile rose in the back of my throat. “And those people got away with it.”
“No,” Jared said, his eyes full of anger. “My dad used to say the evidence of evil can be hidden, but it always leaves a stain. We’ll tell someone what happened here.”
The older child behind me walked toward the other children, beckoning us to follow.
We reached the last bed.
The wall behind it was cracked, like someone had tried to break through. A hole about the size of a small doorway revealed the wooden framework within the wall, and the brick behind it. Whoever started the hole had never finished it.
I heard a sound. It started out faint and intensified. “Is that—?”
“Scratching.”
It was coming from inside the wall.
The kids around us scattered, cowering behind the aluminum frames of their beds. A figure emerged from the hole.
A boy.
He was older than the rest of the children—maybe thirteen or fourteen. It was hard to tell, but he was much taller than the others, with sharper features and vacant eyes. A sledgehammer rested against his shoulder.
He stepped closer, his clothes coated with dust and debris from the crumbling bits of concrete. “I tried to find a way out, I swear. But the brick was too thick.” The boy’s voice wavered, a crazed look in his bloodshot eyes. “Now I’m the only one left.”
Did he think he was still alive?
“Father will be angry if he finds out you were down here. He’ll punish me.” The spirit paced back and forth in front of us, muttering to himself.
“He’s gone,” Jared said. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
The spirit’s eyes narrowed. “Strangers lie. If I watch over what’s his, he’ll come back for me. He promised.”
The boy had to be referring to the other children. Was he responsible for keeping them down here until his deranged father killed them?
Jared raised the semiautomatic paintball gun, shoving me behind him. The spirit vanished as the paintball cases exploded against the wall, brown holy water running down it in streaks.
An arm swung around my neck from behind. The point of something thin and sharp pressed against the skin below my ear.
A needle.
Every breath brought the point closer, and I imagined it puncturing my skin and filling my body with the poison that probably killed every child in this room.
Jared tossed the gun. It spun over the footprints on the concrete floor. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want.”
The spirit’s hand moved as he spoke and the needle threatened to puncture my skin. “I have to protect it. Then I’ll be free.”
“I can get you out of here,” Jared pleaded.
“It’s too late for that,” the boy whispered in my ear, the warmth of breath absent. He pushed me forward without compromising his grip. “Move.”
Jared backed up slowly without taking his eyes off me.
The spirit tightened his arm around my neck and nodded from Jared to the crumbling hole in the wall. “Get inside.”
Jared stepped into the hole without hesitating, a doorway leading nowhere. I waited, praying I wouldn’t feel the prick of the needle on my skin.
A second passed, then another.
One hard shove and I stumbled into the crude opening. Jared pulled me toward him. We were trapped in a cage of wooden framework no bigger than a phone booth, with nothing but solid brick behind it.
Jared locked his arms around my waist. “You’re okay.”
I looked up at him in time to see his expression change from relief to terror. He spun me around so that my back was against the brick wall. Now I was facing the hole. Jared’s body wedged between the vicious spirit and me.
“What are you—” I gasped as a board smacked against the opening, and nails pounded into the wood. “He’s closing the hole.”
My throat closed along with it. The darkness, the memory, the terror closed in on me. Dizziness tugged at my equilibrium.
Another board hit the wall.
“No!” I threw my hands against it, pushing with all my strength. The wood vibrated each time the hammer hit a nail. Jared turned around so we were both facing the slices of the room that were still visible.
I couldn’t see the spirits of the other children anymore, only glimpses of the bare bulb and the head of the hammer.
Jared pounded his fists on the slats of wood, but they didn’t give. “The nails shouldn’t be this strong.”
The sledgehammer hit another nail.
The sound reminded me of the bolts hitting the floor of the warehouse when they had unscrewed themselves from the window. It had been impossible for Lukas and Jared to hold them in place.
Was the boy’s spirit strengthening these nails the same way?
Another board slapped against the opening, eclipsing the last sliver of light. The hammer hit the wood over and over. I counted every nail.
Twenty-seven.
That was the count when the last one plunged into the wood, trapping us inside.
