The car lights fade away, leaving me standing in the darkness.
A cruel chuckle comes from somewhere, and goosebumps line my arms.
“Who’s there?” I whisper, too quietly for anyone to hear, and it blends in with the wind.
There’s no answer. Still no sign of the clown.
Spinning around, I freeze in the doorway to two familiar small girls. Katie and Amy look at me with a mix of pity and amusement.
“He’s gonna get you. The mean clown is gonna get you.”
“Yeah, like last time, and you’ll be back in that basement. Or you’ll die here, like we did.”
“No,” I answer them both, stepping back.
A phantom touch graces my shoulder, and I spin around, twisting too fast so that I fall down the porch steps.
Trees blow, creating ominous shadows that stalk toward me.
Forcing myself onto my feet, I stumble back to the house. Katie and Amy no longer block the doorway as I rush inside and turn the key.
That vicious laugh sounds again, rumbling through the house. I creep into the reading room on slow feet.
A shadow that’s shaped like my father rushes out of view, moving into the kitchen.
My chest aches with each breath as I follow it, moving deeper into the back of the house. My throat dries.
What if it isn’t him?
“Dad?”
No one responds.
Everyone was upstairs a minute ago, had been for a while, maybe asleep already.
The dining room is dark and empty of people, no traces of the dinner I’d shared with my family earlier. The kitchen is pretty much the same, lit only by a light that hangs over the stove.
“I’m in the house. Do you know where I am?” the voice morphs from Dad’s, and I recognize it from a time in my childhood I wish I could forget.
Silently, I pull a small but sharp kitchen knife from its holder and move to the living room.
Flicking the switch without the dimmer option, I illuminate the room. The old sofa dents, fully occupied by shadows. Heads without faces turn to me, and I fall back into the door.
“What’s real, Dollancie? Are we real, Dollancie?” so many voices ask at once.
Dad would say no.
Mom would smile and say that my imagination has always been crazy.
That word… that exact word.
Have they truly never seen them, all the ghosts in this place? All the children that I’m looking at right now who didn’t make it out alive. Have they never heard the ghost stories?
Maybe it’s me who’s haunted.
The first of many shadows, leading all the others, takes the first step toward me, and I bolt from the room. Knowing my blade won’t work on shadows, I yank open the refrigerator as fast as I can, clutching a single sprig of sage that my parents humor me by buying weekly.
There’s no time to close the door as shadows appear there, even as the refrigerator shines light on them.
