just brave enough not to run out of the room.
They moved to the floor, gathering around the Ouija board. The rug wasn’t particularly comfortable and Erin had a hard time figuring out how to sit in her short skirt and enormous boots. She ended up kind of awkwardly kneeling, while nervously sucking on a Tootsie Pop.
“What should we ask it?” Eric asked.
“Is there anyone else here?” Mica suggested.
They placed their fingers on the planchette, and before Mica even asked the question again, the small, heart-shaped piece of wood shot across the board to YES.
“The cats,” Noah said, smilingly reassuringly at Erin in a way that made her think she must look as terrified as she felt.
“Are there any ghosts here?” Mica asked, more specifically.
YES.
Then the planchette started moving without a question having been asked. It slowly slid across the board from one letter to another, spelling out a word.
O-U-R
H-O-U-S-E.
The red floor lamp flickered, and then went out. Mica gasped.
“I don’t want to play this game anymore,” Erin said.
Noah got up and turned on the overhead light. “Which one of you did that?” he asked Mica and Eric. “That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t me,” Mica said.
Noah scowled at Eric.
“What? I didn’t do it.”
“Right. A ghost did it. I don’t want to play this game anymore either. Let’s go get something to eat before the movie.”
There was a creaking, shuffling sound that sounded like someone walking around upstairs.
“I want to see the rest of the house first,” Eric said. “Will you show me?” he asked Erin.
Erin didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.
“There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s probably just the cats. Don’t you want to see them?”
Erin looked to Mica for help.
“Don’t look at me,” Mica said. “I’m scared of cats. I don’t want to go looking for them in a haunted house.”
“I’ll go with you,” Noah said, protectively.
Making sure Eric wasn’t looking, Mica smacked him in the head.
“You have to stay here with me. I’m too scared to stay by myself,” she said.
Mica shot Erin a look behind Eric’s back, and Erin realized this was her chance to be alone with him.
“Um okay,” Erin said. “I’ll show you the rest of the house.”
Eric put his arm around her as they walked from room to room upstairs, turning the lights on as they went. Half the rooms Erin had never been in before, having been too scared to explore the house by herself. They still didn’t see any of the other cats.
“Where’s the room with the door you can’t open?” Eric asked.
Erin showed him to the door at the end of the hall that Barnabas always scratched at. She wondered where Barnabas was. Eric laid his hand on the doorknob.
“Should we try it?”
He twisted the doorknob, and gave the door a little push.
The door opened.
“It’s open,” he said, pausing dramatically before opening it all the way.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Erin said.
She was scared enough to run away, and would have, if Eric wasn’t holding her.
“Come on,” he said, laughing, holding onto her to stop her from leaving.
“No way,” she said, sliding out from under him.
She grabbed him by his jersey and tried to drag him away from the door. They were both laughing now, and she was half-serious, half-kidding when she told him she would scream. Driven by equal measures of excitement and panic, she did something she normally never would have done. When he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, trying to push her back toward the door again, she turned around and kissed him. Eric looked seriously shocked for a moment, and then with a shrug like, “why the hell not?” he kissed her back.
She had wanted to kiss him since the beginning of high school, so her heart was pounding, even though it wasn’t that good. His kisses were awkward, and his hands seemed to be more into it than his mouth was. In Mica’s boots, she was taller than Eric, and when he half dipped her to kiss her again, she got the feeling that he was trying to make her smaller.
“Hang on,” she said.
Wrapping her arm around his neck, she hung off him as she unzipped a boot, teetering, as she tried to get it off. She hadn’t had that much to drink, but she had also eaten nothing but candy. Her head was spinning a little. By the time she finally managed to kick both boots off, she was out of breath, and leaned into Eric for support.
“Better?” Eric smiled.
She nodded. He kissed her again; better this time. He pushed her against the wall. Suddenly feeling brave, she felt around behind her for the door.
“Wait,” he said. “Let’s not go inside.”
“Why not?”
“You’re right. It’s too creepy. Let’s go somewhere else.”
He kissed her again, trying to guide her away from the door.
“It’s okay,” Erin said, confused.
“Don’t go in there!”
Something in the harsh tone of his voice pissed Erin off, and she turned around and opened the door wide.
When she saw what was in the bedroom, Erin felt the blood drain from her face. She swayed, suddenly cold and clammy. Written across the bedroom floor were the words, “GET OUT.” Erin felt herself sink to the floor. Against one wall of the room there was a hospital bed. Through the corner of her blurry vision, she thought she saw an old woman lying in the bed surrounded by her cats. Then everything went black.
When she woke up, Noah and Mica were shaking her. Erin unsteadily sat up. She waved away the caramel Mica was trying to give her, and then on second thought, took it. As she slowly chewed on it, the three of them stared at the words “GET OUT” written across the floor. Eric stood uneasily over them. The words were written in some sort of grey powder. Noah bravely crawled over and felt the powder with his fingers. He smelt it.
“What is it?” Mica asked.
“Ash,” Noah said.
“Like from the garage that burned down?”
“I think you should call your boss,” Noah told Erin.
“I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
“You don’t have to tell her we were here.”
Erin felt like she was going to cry. Trying not to cry only made her eyes water more. Then she was crying.
“Shit,” Eric said. “I didn’t mean—I did it.”
“What?” Erin was confused what he meant at first.
“Excuse me?” Mica said.
“Some guy gave me five hundred dollars to scare you away.”
“What?!”
“I was working here. A man came up to me when I was raking the lawn. He said this was his house, and he wanted to put the cats in a shelter, but he had to get rid of the cat sitting service first.”
Erin realized he must be talking about Mrs. Brittle’s son.
“He gave me keys and told me to write, “get out” in this room.”
“You’re a dick,” Noah said.
“So that was you?” Erin asked, feeling more than a little betrayed that Eric had been terrorizing her for more than a week. “All the noises? Turning the radio on? You hid in the house while I was here?”
“What? I didn’t do any of that,” Eric said.
“What was that?” Mica suddenly said, her voice small.
From under the bed and out of the shadows and in through the door, cats began to creep into the room. Tabby cats and Siamese, Calicos and Persians, ginger cats and tom cats, long haired and short haired; cats of every shape and size padded softly into the room, heading toward Eric. Barnabas led them, as they circled him, growling lowly, some hissing.
“What’s going on? Ow!” Eric said, as Barnabas took a swipe at his leg.
Eric re
treated, stumbling out of the room. Erin, Mica, and Noah followed, all of them too shocked to know what to do.
“Get them away from me!” Eric said.
The cats cut him off, getting in his way, scratching and biting him. He slipped, and slid partway down the grand staircase, clinging to the stair railing.
“Stop it,” Eric yelled at Erin.
“I’m not doing anything. I’ve never even seen these cats before.”
Eric half-ran, half-tumbled the rest of the way down the stairs. Erin hurried down the stairs after him, followed by Noah and Mica. Clutching his arm like it was hurt, Eric stumbled out of the house. The front door slammed behind him by itself. At the bottom of the stairs Erin, Noah, and Mica stopped and looked up at the staircase together. The cats sat calmly, regally on the steps of the grand staircase, looking down on them. Then all the lights in the house flickered and went out. Thirty-seven pairs of cat eyes glowed in the dark.
“What’s going on?” Mica said, her voice small.
“I think the power went out,” Noah said. “Maybe it’s just a fuse. There’s probably a fuse box in the basement.”
“I’m not going in the basement. Let’s get out of here,” Mica said.
“No,” Erin said.
“What?”
“I always quit everything. I’m not quitting this job. I’m not leaving.”
“But—”
“Screw this, we’re asking Mrs. Brittle,” Erin said.
Mica and Noah looked at her like she had lost her mind, but she dragged them with her into the living room anyway and made them sit down at the Ouija board. Noah held up his phone, so they could see the board in the dark, and they laid their fingers on the planchette again.
“What do you want?” Erin asked Mrs. Brittle’s ghost.
The planchette slowly slid across the letters of the alphabet printed on the board.
H-E-L-P.
“How?”
C-A-T
D-R-E-S-S.
“She