“Does it look like anybody has lived there for years?” he replied. “No car in the drive. No lights. It’s practically falling apart. We just want to look around inside.”
“Yeah, and if anyone sees us go in, the cops get called and at the very least, I lose my job with the admissions office.” Micah frowned, turning his gaze to the house. “Then again, I s’pose I didn’t lead you all here thinking we were just gonna admire the view.”
“That’s the spirit,” Jordan said drily. “Can we get off the sidewalk now? We’re not exactly being subtle here.”
Jordan didn’t wait for consensus. He took off down the side of the driveway, sticking to the edge of the pavement where the overgrown grass encroached. This block in general looked more run-down than the last, with fewer cheerful houses and more old, dilapidated Victorian homes that didn’t have pumpkins or lights. Nothing about these houses felt welcoming. Even with cider still warming his blood and the comforting scent of burning leaves in the air, he couldn’t shake a sense that whatever was wrong with this house had spread, poisoning more than just its own crumbling clapboards.
They snaked along the drive to the garage and, next to it, a chain-link fence and a gate. It was one of those simple closures where you could just reach over and pull the latch, the kind that could only keep in small children and dogs. Jordan pulled the latch and the gate swung open with a piercing screech.
“That sliding door doesn’t look secure,” he whispered, holding the gate for them. “I’ll try it—otherwise we’ll have to use a window.”
Micah hesitated at the gate, looking Jordan over with a snort. “You three do this kind of thing often?”
“My parents don’t like me leaving the house unannounced,” Jordan replied coolly. “I learned to circumvent their rules.”
“Hey, man,” Micah said with a laugh that was either defensive or amused, Dan couldn’t tell. “Circumvent away. I just didn’t know you were some kind of Houdini fan.”
“Not much Houdini to this.” With just a short tug on the handle, the sliding door jerked open. Jordan gestured inside, grinning. “Abracadabra?”
“Keep it down,” Abby cautioned. “The neighbors could still be up.”
Dan led them into the house, relieved to find his suspicions were correct; nobody was home, and nobody had been home in quite some time. About thirty years, judging by the brown shag carpeting and retro furniture. They crowded inside and Jordan closed the door behind them, leaving them standing in a dining area that transitioned into a kitchenette.
“All the pictures are missing,” Abby said, going to a low, decorative table. She grabbed a dusty picture frame, the white backing showing through the glass. “And look . . .” She put down the frame and crept through an archway to the mudroom and then the living room beyond. “Everything is packed up. These look like moving boxes.”
Dan followed. Dust flickered on the air. White sheets had been drawn over the couches and chairs. Even without the signs of abandonment, Dan felt the solitude of the place. Houses were meant to feel lived in, cozy. This one just felt . . .
“Cold,” he whispered, watching his breath billow out. “It’s freezing in here.”
“I’m going to check out the bedrooms,” Jordan said, passing by and disappearing down a dark hallway. Dan saw the bouncing light of his mobile as he went.
“I’ll take the upstairs,” Dan said, eager to make a quick round and then leave. He didn’t know if he should trust his instincts, but if he did, those instincts were telling him to flee.
“What exactly are we looking for?” he heard Micah asking as he rounded the corner and found the stairs.
“Pictures, scrapbooks,” Abby said, her voice fading as Dan left it behind. “You know, something spooky to commemorate the evening.”
Their voices died away entirely, replaced by the sound of his own breathing and the soft tread of his shoes on the stairs. He could see the years of foot traffic worn into the wood. At the top, the landing was cramped, the ceiling low. There was a bathroom immediately in front of him, empty except for a heavily rusted claw-foot tub. He shined his mobile around, using the light app to illuminate the white and blue tiles and the porcelain sink with its ornate tap and handles. He moved on down the hall. The ceiling slanted and then cut away, a narrow hall opening up on his left. There he found a bedroom, or what remained of one, which was just a big bed frame and a collapsing mattress. Much like downstairs, a few picture frames still hung on the wall, clinging for dear life at skewed angles. There were no photos in them.
Dan retreated back down the hall, dodging left to check the last room. The floor creaked under his weight. The last door was small, hardly tall enough for an adult human to fit through. He had to stoop to get inside. His little light bounced like a glow bug around the room, showing him two sets of cramped bunk beds and a child-sized table hand painted with fire trucks and baseballs. Dan stood completely still in the center of the attic room. The ceiling sloped to a point like a barn’s roof; the trunks and beds and leftover junk made the space feel utterly claustrophobic.
He went to the grimy window between the bunks and looked out at the house directly across the way. The houses were so close together there wasn’t much of anything to see but wall. Sighing, he turned and made for the door. This house was a bust. Unless the others had found something downstairs, this was just an abandoned, empty time capsule, with no photos, no letters, no clues of any kind.
Swearing, Dan stopped, catching his breath as his shoe dragged across a loop-stitched rug. After regaining his balance, he realized he’d kicked the rug just enough to slide it over, and underneath where it had been, the scuffed boards had been decorated with paint. He knelt, his pulse coming quicker as he ran his fingers over the newer, shinier wood. The rug had preserved the spot well, and the figure there, too. Some small, meticulous hand had painted the outline of a little boy. A boy Dan recognized from the stripes on his sweater. The pads of Dan’s fingers touched something slightly cool, and he squinted into the low light, noticing a tiny catch.
Dan pulled on the hook, revealing a small rectangular hole. Dust came up from the darkness and choked him, and when he directed his phone inside, he found a tiny hiding space, just big enough for the cloth-wrapped metal box within. An old candy tin, perhaps, roughly the size of a shoe box, the stripes still bright and perfect. Dan cracked the lid carefully, revealing a child’s journal, a satchel of marbles, a few playing cards, chewing gum wrappers. . . .
There was also a collection of old photographs, tied together with string. Judging by the photo on top, of a costumed little boy shoving a sword down his throat, Dan wasn’t sure whether he wanted to see the rest. But his curiosity won out, and he untied the string with trembling fingers.
Whoever had collected these photos seemed to have been drawn to acts of the macabre. Pictures showed a woman who had thrown axes and daggers at a performing partner; a woman who stood balancing a series of torches on her body; and then, near the end, the creepiest combination of a fortune-teller and a clown that Dan had ever seen.
Shaking, Dan replaced the photos and set down the box, keeping the journal. It made perfect sense that he would be the one to find it, as if it had called to him, had known he would come for it.
Dan blew on the book softly, watching a veil of dust lift and shimmer in the air. The inside cover of the journal was worn but he could clearly read in huge red letters:
DANNY CRAWFORD’S! PRIVATE!!!
Today the carnival is here. Patrick says it is a circus but he is dumb and even if he is older than me and says he knows more he is wrong. It is not a circus. A circus has animals like lions and giraffes and this year the only animals at the carnival are a few birds and the raccoons that get into the bins.
Patrick and Bernard go on the rides all day. Mom is too busy with the baby to notice that they steal coins from the saving jar under the sink to go again and again. They saw me when they took the coins and made me promise not to tell. I promised. They put
a dirty sock in my mouth and held me under the bed anyway. I did not tell. I did not tell but I want to.
The rides are stupid. The only Good thing is the man in the hat. He did not make fun of my sweater even if it has holes and he said I was a very smart boy, smarter than my dumb brothers. He was Very Nice. There is a watch inside his coat and when he uses it he can make a woman flap like a chicken or a shy boy sing nursery songs. He said he would teach me how and show me his secrets.
I listened, I didn’t forget a single word. I hope now I can make other people Do things too. Patrick and Bernard will have to shut up and listen to me now. They will have to do what I say.
There is a red rock on the back of his watch. It looks like a shooting star when he swings it. A bright burning star.
I hope the carnival never leaves.
But even if it leaves, I will still have the secrets. The secrets will never leave.
Dan flipped to the next page, his heavy breathing ruffling the pages. Young Daniel Crawford had dated the entry not long after the first, and it began, Today I took the swinging rock and tried to make Patrick cluck like a chicken. Tomorrow I will make him go up on the roof. Patrick? Who was Patrick?
“Hey, find anything up here?”
Micah. His timing seriously couldn’t be worse. Dan cringed, nudging the striped box back into the hiding place and slipping the journal inside his coat. He turned and smiled thinly up at Micah.
“Just some old junk. Must be where the kids slept,” Dan said, standing and kicking the trapdoor shut. He couldn’t do anything to hide the misplaced rug or the paintings on the floor, so he made no attempt to cover them up. “What’d you guys find downstairs?”
“Lots of packed boxes. Empty frames. I wouldn’t wanna live here either, can’t blame them for wanting to leave.” He cast his eyes around the room and shivered. His eyes looked glassy, almost empty. Dan chalked it up to a trick of the dim light. “Kids lived in here? What the hell?”
“Creepy, right?” Dan nudged by him, ducking out under the door and into the hall. “Might as well have raised them in a broom closet.”
“I didn’t see any trace of that missing girl,” Micah said, following him to the stairs. “Are you sure this is the right house?”
“They probably left town after she disappeared,” Dan replied. “I can understand why they might want to move on.”
“Really? I think they’d stay. I mean, what if she came back? If they were gone . . . Hell, that’d be so sad.”
Dan didn’t want to discuss it or quibble. He had his hands on the warden’s childhood journal, a book that could give them all kinds of insight into the warden’s mind. Whatever had turned that man into a monster could very well be hidden in those pages, and Dan felt jittery, almost hyper now that answers seemed so close at hand.
I should have listened to them. Bringing Micah along was a mistake.
But what could he do now? They went back downstairs, where Abby and Jordan were waiting, and not patiently. Jordan’s eyes burned into his. He would show them the journal later, after he had a chance to look at it himself. Showing it around now, especially with Micah there, felt risky. He wanted badly to trust Micah, to think that they had another mind, another ally there on campus, but Dan wasn’t even sure he wanted to show his friends the journal.
It was private.
“We found the address for one other house,” Dan explained. “I doubt it’s far.”
“I need to lead the next round of tours,” Micah replied. He pushed back the sleeve on his coat to check a watch. “That’s in half an hour. I don’t mind covering for y’all for a few minutes, but the other volunteers will be pissed if I don’t come back.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with the other volunteers,” Abby said, and though she was smiling, Dan thought it was pretty plain she wanted him to leave.
“Well,” he said, smacking Dan lightly on the shoulder. “What’s thirty minutes more? They won’t mind. This is kinda fun and creepy. I’m hooked.”
“Oh.” It was Jordan, his eyes wide as he took out the Google map and handed it to Micah. “You . . . are?”
“Yeah! It’s Halloween, man, this is a thrill.” He leaned in close to them, closing his hand around the map and laughing, even adding a conspiratorial wink. “And I may have, you know, had a little something before the tour. Just to relax. Nothing too hard, just some recreational enhancement, eh?” He mimed puffing on a cigarette, though Dan assumed it was not plain old tobacco that had caused his easygoing mood.
Well that explained the glassy eyes.
“So . . . You’re not going to snitch on us for leaving campus?” Jordan asked slowly.
“Hell no. That’d land me in hot water, too. Nah, I’m along for the ride tonight. Where to?”
Dan breathed a little easier, though he couldn’t fully relax, not with the warden’s old journal hidden in his coat.
“There,” Abby said shortly, pointing out their next destination. She hopped from foot to foot. Dan felt the time crunch, too. “Do you know the way?”
“Piece of cake. Follow me.” Micah spun on his heel, taking the map and leading them through the house and back to the busted sliding door.
But Abby slowed her steps, tugging on Jordan’s and Dan’s sleeves, pulling them in close to her sides. “Doesn’t he seem just a little too eager?”
“He’s stoned,” Jordan whispered back. “He’d probably be excited to watch grass grow.”
“Guys, I know you don’t want him along but this is our out,” Dan added, keeping a close eye on Micah to make sure he didn’t overhear. “He can’t get us in trouble. Not now. We have leverage.”
“And who do you think the school would believe? A bunch of prospies or the admissions office golden boy?” she hissed.
Dan shrugged and quickened his pace. “There’s no time to second-guess. We’ll just have to take our chances.”
“Ticktock,” Micah called from the door. “They’ll do a head count back on campus in twenty-five minutes.” He was grinning, and for a second, Dan wished he could experience this trip the way Micah was experiencing it—like something fun and dangerous to do with your friends. But Dan didn’t have that luxury. With any luck, the journal pressed against his chest would help him close this chapter of his life—explain why he could see the things he saw, and maybe even help him stop seeing them for good.
And if Dan was really lucky, he might still have some friends on the other side of all this. If they could just forgive him for bringing Micah tonight.
“All right then,” Dan said. “What are we waiting for?”
A stiff wind chased them down Blake Street. Dan clutched his jacket and the journal closer to his body and shivered with the others outside a redbrick house with boarded windows and doors.
“Do you think it’s condemned?” Abby asked, hesitating on the edge of the lawn. “It might not be safe to go inside.”
“We have to,” Dan said. Now more than ever he felt convinced they were on the right track. Felix’s addresses had led them to Harry Cartwright’s house and then Warden Crawford’s childhood home. However Felix had come by those coordinates, they weren’t coincidences—they were a constellation that just wasn’t complete yet.
“Huh?” Micah turned around from where he was studying one of the boarded-up windows.
“Nothing . . . I said, um, we don’t have to.”
“How would we even get in?” Jordan led them around the lawn and driveway to a side door with a striped canvas overhang. They huddled around the door and Jordan kicked lamely at one of the boards holding it shut. “It’s going to take more than a lockpick to get through that.”
“Here,” Micah said, grabbing one of the two-by-fours nailed to the frame. “This one looks loose. If we can get it free, I might be able to pry the other boards off.”
It was then that Dan realized how screwed they would have been without Micah. None of the three of them was strong enough to pull the board loose or use it to po
p off the other well-secured boards. They would have been stuck trying to climb in a window.
Dan communicated as much to Jordan and Abby with one raised eyebrow.
“Whatever,” Jordan muttered under his breath. “I’m not that impressed.”
“I would’ve found another way in,” Abby added.
“In those mittens?”
She didn’t respond.
Meanwhile, a few steps away, Micah was using the loose board as a kind of giant crowbar, wedging it into the gap between the doorframe and the boards and pulling them loose. The boards groaned and then splintered, a little shower of dust falling to the ground like snow.
“There!” Micah grunted. “Just one more . . .”
The last board came free with a crisp popping sound. Dan, Abby, and Jordan ducked and swiveled in unison.
“Damn, that was loud.” Micah stepped back from the door and dropped the two-by-four, scratching at the back of his neck sheepishly. “My bad.”
“And now we wait for the police sirens,” Jordan said.
Dan kicked the fallen wood closer to the house and nodded to the door. “Let’s get inside. Someone will spot us if we keep skulking outside the door like this.”
With a nervous glance around, Jordan slid up to the door. “Let’s just make this fast.” Even with the boards removed the door wasn’t going anywhere. Jordan knelt, fishing the lock-picking set out of his pocket and going to work. The knob turned suddenly a second later, rusted and loose. He stopped with his eyes closed, mouthing words Dan couldn’t make out.
“What are you doing?”
“Praying that some kids are dumb enough to egg a house or smash some pumpkins right now and take the heat off. . . .”
“I don’t even hear any dogs barking, and no lights came on,” Dan pointed out. “Come on.”
Jordan climbed quickly to his feet and shouldered open the door. By now, Dan was familiar with the smell of musty, deserted houses. The air hung heavy and sour from the mold and decaying wood.