“It’s a big deal when they come to the house and make scary noises in the middle of the night,” Hannah said, gesturing to the front door. She moved closer, and her eyes widened with concern. “You won’t go anywhere alone, will you? Nancy. That would be a very bad idea. Please, promise me.”
I looked up at her. “Okay,” I whispered, “I promise. Don’t worry, Hannah.” I crammed the note back into the envelope and shoved it into the pocket of my robe. “I’ll deal with this later. We can both go back to bed.”
Hannah looked a bit skeptical at first, but then she nodded and smiled. “I know you are a smart girl, Nancy,” she said. “All right. Sleep well, then.”
She headed down the hallway toward her bedroom off the kitchen, still carrying her rolling pin.
As soon as she was out of sight, I darted back upstairs to my room and began throwing on the clothes I’d been wearing that day.
I hadn’t lied to Hannah—I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going anywhere alone, per se . . . but I was definitely going to have to sneak out of the house.
After waiting long enough for Hannah to fall back asleep, then sneaking as silently as possible out the side door and hopping into my car, I watched George pull into a small parking lot at a church we’d found about a block from the house on Heliotrope Lane. Bess waved at me from the passenger seat, her mouth tight. I knew she couldn’t be thrilled to be back here—the last place on earth she wanted to go.
The truth was, I wasn’t really either.
I walked over to their car. George unlocked the doors and I slid into the back seat.
“So what happened exactly?” George asked.
“Yeah, you confronted Izzy?” Bess demanded, giving me a quizzical look. “You confronted Owen?”
I tried to explain the events of the afternoon as briefly as possible: how I suspected that Owen was profiting in some way from talking up the haunted house and spreading rumors, and how I was almost 100 percent sure that Izzy was faking her “possession.”
“And then you got a note?” George asked, the streetlights from the parking lot casting her face in sharp shadows. “They just left it at your front door in the middle of the night?”
I pulled the envelope from my jacket pocket and handed it to George. “They made a big point of waking me up with creepy cackling,” I said. “They also woke up Hannah, unfortunately. I had to be a little misleading with her, to get out of the house.”
Bess raised her eyebrows at me. “A little misleading?” she asked. “Is that Nancy-speak for lying?”
“No, not lying. I just told her I wouldn’t come here alone.”
George, who’d been studying the note, shoved it at Bess. “Well, I’m glad we’re here, under the circumstances,” she said. “Who knows what Izzy and Owen are up to?”
I nodded as Bess took the note and read it over, biting her lip. “They must know I’m on to them, or at least part of what they’re doing,” I said. “Now I hope I can get to the bottom of this, once and for all.”
Bess finished studying the note and handed it back to me with a little disbelieving shake of her head. “What would you like us to do, Nancy?” she asked. “If we go in there with you, they’ll know right away you didn’t follow their instructions.”
“But you can’t actually go in alone,” George insisted. “That’s way too dangerous.”
“That’s why I have a plan,” I said, taking out my phone. I dialed George’s number, held it up to show them, and then pressed call. George shook her head, then scrambled for her phone, which was in her car’s cup holder, and picked it up.
“Hello, Nancy?” she answered. “I’m right here. You could just tell us your master plan.”
“This is my master plan,” I said into the phone. Then I clicked the sleep button to darken the screen and stuck my phone back in my pocket, zipping it shut. “This way, you guys can listen in on my visit from your car. If you hear anything strange, you can run in after me—or call the police.”
George put her phone back into the cup holder, nodding slowly. “Not bad,” she said.
But Bess’s furrowed brow told me she was still skeptical. “I dunno,” she said. “It’s not a perfect plan. If you got clonked over the head with a pipe or something, it would be too late for us to help you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be on the lookout for swinging pipes, just for you, Bess.”
Bess sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, Nancy. The phone plan is probably better than nothing.” She paused, then added earnestly, “But if you’re gone more than twenty minutes, we’re coming in after you. Got it? No exceptions.”
“Thanks, Bess,” I said. “It means a lot to me that you’d charge in there after me, knowing how much you hate the place.”
Bess nodded, but I saw her shiver a little. “I wish I could say that feeling has changed, Nancy, but it still feels—”
“I know,” I said, cutting her off before she could say the word “evil.” I wanted to believe there was nothing evil about the house. That it was all part of some elaborate plan.
But my gut had other beliefs.
“Anyway,” I said, “I think I’d better get in there. But thank you, guys. You always have my back.”
“Anytime, Nancy.” George pointed to her phone. “You’re not alone. We’re just a few seconds’ run away.”
I tried not to think about how far the church was from the house, really, and how much could happen in a couple of seconds. It’s fine. It’s just some teenagers playing games.
“I’ll remember,” I said, opening the car door and climbing out. “Thanks again.”
I walked back over to my car and drove the last block to the Furstenberg house. Surprisingly, there were no other cars parked nearby. Assuming Owen is involved . . . how did he get here?
As I got out of the car, I noticed that the block was entirely silent—not a bird chirping, no breeze stirring the trees. It felt like the neighborhood itself was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.
I looked at the house. I felt the same sick feeling in my gut that I’d had the first time I saw it. It looked so sad, so abused . . . if I were an angry ghost, this is where I’d live. I felt a coldness wash over me, and gave an involuntary shiver.
I’d all but proven that Izzy was faking her strange behavior—which meant Gavin probably was too. But that didn’t explain the eerie feeling I’d had of being watched when I picked up my car here before, or how unsettled I felt inside. I remembered standing with George in the basement, trying to open the locked room where Mrs. Furstenberg’s body was supposedly found. Who’d locked the room, when none of the rest of the house was protected from trespassers? And why?
Did something terrible happen to Mrs. Furstenberg in this house? And is she trying to tell someone about it?
Forcing my feet into motion, I stepped onto the lawn and began walking around the house, toward the back and the open window.
I intend to find out, I told myself.
CHAPTER TEN
Answers
IT’S JUST A HOUSE. IT’S just a house.
I tried to remember my dad’s words as I climbed through the broken window alone, for the first time, and came to stand in Mrs. Furstenberg’s living room.
I took in a breath. The living room looked much the same as it had when Bess, George, and I had come here before, though there were a few new empty soda cans scattered on the tables, and a huge, half-empty bag of potato chips. I saw something quarter-size skitter out of the bag and run under what was left of the stained, blue-flowered couch, and I felt a shudder run through my body.
Oh, please let this be quick.
I looked around, wondering where Owen or Izzy or whoever planned on confronting me would be. There was no sign that someone was currently here in the house—all the furniture, or what remained of the furniture, was as we’d left it. I glanced at my reflection in the shattered mirror and shuddered. I remembered the lack of cars in front and wondered, all at once, whether this was all part o
f the elaborate practical joke: convince everyone the house is haunted, and then drag poor Nancy Drew there in the middle of the night to freak herself out. Was somebody filming me right now? Was I going to end up on America’s Funniest Home Videos?
With a groan, I realized that I’d been so intent on getting here quickly, and coming up with the phone plan, that I’d forgotten to grab a flashlight. With shaking hands, I unzipped the pocket of my jacket and pulled out my phone, waking it up and then pressing the touch screen to turn on the flashlight feature. A narrow beam shot out of the back. It wasn’t as bright as a real flashlight, but it would do.
So where are they? I shined the light down the hallway toward the bedrooms, and then gingerly stepped closer. The smell of mold filled my nostrils, and I looked around at the peeling striped wallpaper. I walked down to the first bedroom—Henry’s, I remembered—and stepped inside.
It was the same as the last time we’d been there: wooden bed with broken slats, dresser, Blood Fight poster. Now I noticed that the Blood Fight poster had been vandalized with some kind of tag in silver Sharpie. I suddenly remembered the rodent trespasser we’d found in this room when I’d come with Bess and George, and I quickly backed into the hall.
Nothing to see here. Wouldn’t want to wake anyone up. . . .
Wait, rats were nocturnal, right?
I shivered and hustled down the hallway.
I thought I heard something move in the living room and froze. I took in a slow breath through my nose, trying to calm myself, and glanced back, but there was no other noise. I was figuring I’d imagined it when I looked into Mrs. Furstenberg’s bedroom and stifled a scream.
COME TO THE BASEMENT was spray-painted on the wall in bloodred paint that dripped down onto the wallpaper.
AAAAAUUGGH!
I felt my heart leap into my throat and dropped my phone, which of course made a huge clattering noise. When I leaned down and picked it up, still breathing hard, I could hear George asking, “Nancy? Are you okay?” even though I didn’t have the speaker on.
“I . . . everything’s going fine,” I stammered, realizing at the last second that I should make it sound like I was talking to myself, just in case anyone was watching and listening. “Nothing to be afraid of. It seems like they want me to ‘come to the basement,’ so that’s what I’ll do, no need to fear.”
Slowly, I stepped out of the bedroom, then down the ruined hallway back to the living room. I half expected someone to be hiding behind the edge of the couch, watching me, but there was no one and no sign that anyone had passed through there in the last few minutes. I walked through the living room to the kitchen. A tree right outside the window swayed in the breeze, casting flashing, deep shadows across the room.
The narrow door next to the stove was closed. I walked over to it and put my hand on the knob.
Don’t do this, said a voice deep inside me.
Doing my best to ignore that voice, I pulled the door open.
Inside, the basement looked impossibly dark. I aimed my phone-flashlight down, but the beam was only strong enough to illuminate a couple of steps in front of me. As I descended, I looked around the big main room, but no one was there.
Or no one wants me to know they’re there.
I had a sudden horrible feeling. What if they’re just waiting in the dark—waiting to grab me when I walk by?
Panicked, I reached the foot of the stairs and began frantically beaming my faux-flashlight all over the place, trying to discern anything that looked out of the ordinary. But there was nothing. Now that my eyes were beginning to adjust, the moonlight shining through the tiny window illuminated the room just enough to see—
—there was no one there.
COME TO THE BASEMENT. That’s what the wall said, right?
Why?
Then I glanced over and saw it. The tiniest sliver of flickering light—shining through a cracked door.
The door to the room where Mrs. Furstenberg’s body had been found.
The room that had been closed off the last time we were here.
The light flickered again, and I felt my heart contract. My legs felt like lead. As much as I understood that I needed to go in there—that going inside was the only way to get the answers I so desperately wanted—not a single part of my body felt like that was a good idea. I wanted to run, screaming, up the stairs. I wanted to dive through that window, bolt across the lawn to my car, and jump in and drive.
And never come back.
But, said a tiny voice inside me. But Willa.
I knew I needed to get answers, if not for myself, then for her. Even if Izzy was faking it, I believed that the fear Willa felt for her friend was real. She deserved answers, just like I did. Just like the police did.
Just like Mrs. Furstenberg did.
I lifted my phone closer to my lips. “Okay,” I said, and my voice came out all high and shaky. “It seems like someone’s in this little room, the one that used to be closed. Crazy! But I’m sure there’s nothing to be afraid of. Here I go . . .”
I forced myself to move, and then I heard it again. Cackling. The same evil laughter I’d heard outside my front door earlier. But this time, it wasn’t a sharp sound—instead, it seemed to travel all over the room. Hoo hoo ha HA HA HA . . . I couldn’t tell where it was coming from—from behind me on the stairs, from outside, from inside the tiny, formerly locked room?
Or from inside your own head, Nancy?
Maybe all of the above.
It felt like someone was not only watching me—they were laughing at me.
Somehow, moving more slowly than I would have thought possible, I reached the edge of the door. The flickering light seemed brighter here—candles, maybe? I could smell something dry and sulfuric inside. I reached out my hand, trembling like crazy, and pushed open the door.
“Okay,” I said shakily, stepping over the threshold. “Here I come . . .”
I could just make out dark walls illuminated by a flickering light.
Before I could see anything else, I was suddenly grabbed from behind, and a huge, black-gloved hand was clamped over my mouth!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Guess Who?
I WAS TOO STARTLED TO even try to scream.
Whoever grabbed me turned me around to face them and I stood staring, the gloved hand now firmly holding onto my arm.
I was facing someone—a teenager or adult, from the size of him or her—wearing a black sheet and a terrifying monster mask. The mask depicted a demon-type creature with red eyes, gray skin, and curving horns. Then the figure let out a low laugh—deep, raspy, the same gargling-with-rocks effect that Izzy and Gavin had used when they were acting “possessed.”
It was male, I was pretty sure.
He suddenly started patting me down with his free hand, like I’d been pulled out of the TSA line at the airport for a “special screening.”
“What are you doing?” I shouted and instinctively pulled away, but it was too late.
He’d felt my car keys and phone through my jacket and shoved his hand into my pocket, pulling them out. He held them up, dangling them in front of me, and slowly shook his head. When he saw the phone had a call going, he very purposefully poked a finger on the end call button, hanging up on Bess and George.
I watched him type a message to George from my phone: EVERYTHING’S OKAY! JUST SOME PRANK. LOW BATTERY. LET’S MEET AT MY HOUSE IN THE MORNING. Then he turned my phone off.
My heart fell into my stomach. Would my friends believe that?
“What are you doing?” I demanded, summoning up all my anger and courage to glare at him. “You can’t do that!”
But the figure didn’t say anything. He just released my arm and stood back, watching me through the eyes of that creepy mask. It was too dark to make out his eye color. But I could hear his breathing, even and loud in the near-silent basement.
He wasn’t feeling nervous. He was in control.
And I was getting the message loud and clear. If I
wanted my things back, I wasn’t getting into that room. And I would never learn the truth about what was going on in this house.
I hesitated. A huge part of me wanted to take my things and go. Whatever creepy game this guy was playing, I didn’t need to be part of it. I could be home, fast asleep and not worrying about ghosts or haunted houses or cranky teenagers at all.
But then I sighed, realizing that I couldn’t do that. Because I thought of Mrs. Furstenberg, who had lived a huge part of her life in this house, even died here. This was her home, and now it was being destroyed by vandals. Nobody even knew the truth about how she died.
I owed it to her to find out what I could.
I owed it to Willa to find out why her friend was scaring her.
It was time somebody got to the bottom of this. And it looked like the only willing “somebody” was me.
So I put my hands down and nodded at the demon—okay.
He nodded back, seeming satisfied, and pushed me toward the door to the smaller room.
I walked inside very slowly. The room was very small and was lit by a single candle sitting on a stool in the middle of the room. The walls were dark cement, like the rest of the basement, lined with empty metal shelves.
At first I didn’t see anyone. A shard of panic pierced my heart, and I swiveled back toward the door, wondering if the demon was going to lock me in—
But then I heard soft laughter, and turned back around to see another black-sheeted figure—this one wearing a zombie mask with yellow eyes and a deep cut down the side of its face—step forward from the side of the room. As my eyes adjusted, I saw two more black-sheeted figures, these ones wearing a witch mask and a werewolf mask, still standing in the shadows. And the figure who had grabbed me outside followed me in without shutting the door.
“So you think you know the truth.” The one in the zombie mask suddenly spoke, using the same “possessed” voice that was so familiar to me now—the same one, I now realized, that had been used in the cult horror movie Final Warning.