Trespass Against Us, page 13
The group had retired back to the chapel, despite Riley’s reluctance after Ethan’s initial reaction to it when they’d arrived. They’d unloaded their sleeping bags from the car, but it was too hot to even consider crawling inside. Instead, the bags had been unzipped and piled in the middle of the floor like a nest, an effective barrier between them and the splintered floorboards. Riley’s camera sat atop the stand in the pulpit, ready to keep watch through the night. They had a single flashlight on, illuminating the chapel in a wash of pale light.
“I thought you wanted to do another walk-through at three a.m.,” Colton said, sprawled on his stomach as he fiddled with the spirit box, determined to fix it. “The devil’s hour and all that.”
“I do!” Vee protested. “I just think . . . I might need a nap first.”
Riley was on his back, head pillowed in Ethan’s lap, drowsy and fighting it. “I’ll go with you, so long as you wake up.”
“Me too,” Ethan said, carding a hand through Riley’s hair. “It’s a big house. I’m sure we’ve missed things.”
“Maybe we could break down some of those locked doors,” Colton suggested.
“I’m sure we’ve missed things that don’t require destruction to find,” Ethan amended, and Colton grinned up at him, unapologetic.
Despite himself, Riley was feeling the pull of sleep. His eyes were bleary, and the rhythmic stroking of Ethan’s fingers through his hair made him feel safe. “Maybe just for an hour or so,” Riley relented. “We’ll set an alarm.”
Vee swiped through her phone. “Done,” she announced, flopping down on her back. “God, I didn’t realize walking through the same house a dozen times telling ghost stories could be so exhausting.”
“Yeah, I’d have thought you’d be used to it. You already talk so much,” Colton said and barely managed to dodge the sharp jut of Vee’s elbow.
“Maybe Colton should sleep in the car,” she said. “Or alone in the house.”
“At least I wouldn’t have to deal with your snoring.”
“Kids, I will turn this car around and no one will go to Disneyland,” Ethan said.
Riley laughed. “Even me?”
Ethan pulled at his hair gently. “Even you,” he said, but he was smiling.
“All right,” Vee said. “Flashlight is going out. Everyone go the fuck to sleep.”
The flashlight clicked off. The chapel plunged into darkness, broken only by the moonlight seeping through the open doors and stained-glass windows. It painted patterns across the floor that made Riley’s head spin.
Even with that, the darkness was deep. Suffocating. A black hole. Riley’s heart sped up without his say-so.
Colton cleared his throat. “Maybe—?”
“Yeah,” Vee said and turned the flashlight back on in a hurry.
“Okay,” Colton said. “Good night for real, assholes.”
Riley dreamed deeply and he dreamed strangely.
Dominic House was alive around him but in muted colors with muted noises. He stood in the middle of the foyer and watched as people bustled about. When he turned, the front door was closed, its window clean and clear, the handle unblemished by age.
He reached for it. It rattled in his grip but did not open. He tried again. Again. Again. Again—
In the window, somebody was watching him. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Riley opened his mouth to say something.
The figure brought a finger to its lips.
Riley’s eyes snapped open. For one bleary moment, he was confused, and then he heard the blaring of Vee’s alarm, and reality reasserted itself. It was dark. At some point, the flashlight must have gone out.
There was a rustle of movement beside him followed by cursing. “Vee, turn your phone off or I swear to god—”
“I’m getting there, hold on.” The alarm cut out. More rustling, and then searing light as Vee flicked the flashlight app on. She looked sleep mussed and exhausted, her mascara smudged in spiderweb patterns on her cheek. “I feel like hell.”
Colton struggled upright, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah.”
Riley rolled over, blinking up at the ceiling. His head was throbbing, and he had the notion that he’d dreamed of something particularly awful. On instinct, he reached beside him but encountered nothing but sleeping bags. “Ethan?”
Vee flashed her phone in his direction, illuminating . . . nothing.
Ethan was gone.
Eleven
Colton is not in the dormitories, the kitchen, the dining room. He is not upstairs, somewhere Riley knows he would never have willingly returned to regardless, and he is not, Josh swears, anywhere on Dominic House’s grounds where he’d last been seen.
Josh is almost as inconsolable as Vee. “He was right there,” he insists, frantic in his worry. “The whole time, he was right behind me, and then when we came back to the house, he was just . . . gone. I barely took the camera off him—I barely took my eyes off him.”
They’re in the auditorium, Alejandro religiously rewinding through Josh’s footage for any sign, supernatural or otherwise, of Colton. Jordan sits in one of the shitty folding chairs, legs crossed as she taps her fingertips atop her knee. Despite the dust in her hair from tromping around a haunted house in search of a wayward teenager, she’s unshakable, the eye of the storm. “We can’t rule out the possibility of a prank,” she says. “If anyone would do such a thing—”
“He wouldn’t,” Vee interrupts, vicious. “Not in this house. Not to us.”
Alejandro and Josh exchange a look Riley does not miss, and Jordan’s mouth purses. “I understand you’re upset—”
“You don’t understand anything,” Vee snaps. “Something happened to him, and we’re wasting time just sitting around.”
“Vee.” Riley lays a hand on her elbow. “We’ll keep looking, okay? We’re not going to stop.”
Just like that, the fire that had chased her tears burns out. “He wouldn’t prank us,” she insists. “He wouldn’t.”
“Yeah,” Riley says. “I know.”
In the wake of Colton’s disappearance, Jordan seems to have forgotten the episode upstairs. Nobody’s asked him a thing about it, as if Riley locking himself away in a derelict classroom is nothing out of the ordinary.
Ethan’s lips still linger on his skin. Riley can’t think about it. He can’t stop thinking about it.
Ethan Hale had felt so alive for a boy everybody had told him was two years dead.
Riley glances over his shoulder to the windows lining the auditorium. They’re pitch-black. Nothing stares back at him. Not Ethan. Not Colton.
Riley doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
You shouldn’t have come back, Ethan had said. You need to go.
“I can’t find anything,” Alejandro says, voice tight like a bowstring. He tosses the camera back to Josh, the most careless he’s ever been. “The footage is all the usual shit. Josh was right: one second Colton’s in it, and then he’s not.”
Josh looks to Jordan. “Boss . . .”
Jordan sighs. “I know,” she says, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I know, okay?” She turns to Riley. “Looks like you’ll finally get your wish.”
Riley frowns. “What wish?”
She smiles thinly. “Shoot’s over. Missing kid trumps haunted house tour. I’m going to call the authorities, and then I’m going to call our agent and let them know that the most anticipated episode of our whole season has just been canceled.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Vee says. “Your fucking show?”
“No,” Jordan says, getting to her feet. “But it’s easier to be mad about that than it is to think about the fact that one of the kids under my supervision just vanished.”
Vee blinks, taken aback, and Jordan crosses the room, pulling her phone from her pocket and dialing. Vee glances to Riley.
Tired, Riley says, “She’s not a bad person, Vee.”
Vee’s shoulders sink. “It’s not like that. It’s just . . .”
Riley wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah. I get it.”
She leans on him, staring at the far wall. Quietly, she says, “It’s happening again, isn’t it?”
Riley doesn’t know how to reply to that. “Vee,” he says. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Vee frowns, turning her head to look up at him. “What?”
Riley tightens his arm. “Upstairs. Before. I—”
“What do you mean you don’t have signal? You have a fucking satellite phone!”
Alejandro and Jordan are arguing, Josh circling them like an uncertain shark. “Alejandro, calm down—”
Alejandro thrusts his phone in Josh’s face. “I haven’t got a signal, Jordan hasn’t got a signal, the emergency satellite phone doesn’t have a signal, and you want me to calm down?”
Vee and Riley exchange a look. Riley’s phone is in his pocket still, and when he slides it free, he knows what he’s going to find before he flicks the screen on.
His wallpaper stares back at him. A generic black texture that came as the default. He has no messages, no calls. Contained in its little black bar, the signal is punctured by an exclamation mark.
Vee says, “How long did that take?”
Riley thinks back to their arrival. “I don’t know. How long have we been here? Four hours? Five?”
Vee smiles. It’s more resigned than anything else. “Quicker than last time.”
Last time most of the night had passed before they’d realized anything was wrong, too focused on the camera instead of their phones. By the time Riley was screaming Ethan’s name in the courtyard, their phones were as alive as anything else in the building.
The floor creaks and Riley looks up to see Jordan stomping back over to them, face grim. “Get up,” she says. “We’re leaving.”
Vee startles. “We can’t leave—”
“The nearest town is half an hour out. We’re heading there now,” Jordan says. “You kids can’t stay here. We can get some help. Josh, Alejandro, and I will come straight back, okay? We’re not leaving Colton behind, but there’s not much more we can do at this moment.”
Vee looks fit to argue, but Riley grabs her hand. In the back of his head, he hears Ethan, the ghost of a ghost.
Leave. Don’t come back.
Riley doesn’t want to do either of those things. He doesn’t want to leave Colton behind any more than Vee does. He doesn’t want to leave Ethan behind.
The way Jordan is looking at him tells him he doesn’t have much of a choice. Riley gets to his feet, numb all the way to his toes. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
They don’t bother to collect their equipment from the house; the LEDs stay in the auditorium, and Josh’s prized thermal cameras remain where they’ve been left. Jordan surges down the hall and to the front door, one bag of spare gear slung over her shoulder and the other over Alejandro’s.
Riley feels disconnected from the moment. As they step out onto the porch, he can’t help but glance back, but the window of the front door is as dark as every other one he’s seen.
Outside, the LED Josh left by the van has gone out. None of them seem remotely surprised by this. Instead, their flashlights cut ghastly paths through the gloom. Everybody follows in Jordan’s footsteps, barely an inch between them. Vee’s hand is sweaty in Riley’s grip, but he refuses to let go.
The van is right where they left it, parked crookedly several feet from the house. “Oh thank god,” Alejandro hisses and drops his bag to sprint the remaining distance, overtaking Jordan. He slams into it with a thump, hands already ripping the front door open.
A hand lands on Riley’s shoulder and he jumps, but it’s just Josh. “We’re fine,” Josh tells him. “We’ll be out of here in a moment, and then we can bring a search party for Colton. Everything is going to be fine, yeah?”
Vee and Riley exchange glances. “Yeah,” Riley says.
He does not say what happened the last time they left a friend behind to come back with a search party.
The sound of Alejandro shouting makes all of them flinch, and Riley whips around to see him retreating from the van, face creased in frustration. “It’s ruined! The whole van’s ruined!”
“What do you mean, ‘it’s ruined’?” Jordan demands, dropping her own bag and beelining for the driver’s seat.
Alejandro steps aside for her. “Somebody’s been in here. They’ve ripped the whole dashboard out. It’s a mess.”
Josh’s hand falls from Riley’s shoulder. “You can still get it to start though, right? Just try it!”
Alejandro shoots him a look of pure venom. “Even if I knew where to put the damn key, I’d have a hell of a time getting the engine to turn when every wire in the car is mangled.” He runs frustrated hands through his hair, pivoting on the spot. “Fuck! Fuck!” He slams his boot into the tire, and the whole van rocks with the movement. “Fuck this van, fuck this stupid fucking house, and fuck you for making us come here.”
Jordan steps back, slamming the door closed. “I didn’t make you come anywhere,” she hisses icily. “We’re a team—we decide where to go together or not at all. Do not put this on me.”
Alejandro bristles, and before the argument can escalate, Riley drops Vee’s hand, lurching in between them. “Hey, the last thing you should be doing right now is picking fights.” Riley levels Alejandro with a look. “That helps nobody.”
Alejandro’s fury holds him righteously tight for a second—two—but then it leaches out of him all at once. His face falls, and he passes a tired hand over his eyes. “Shit. Yeah. You’re right. I know you’re right.” To Jordan, “Sorry. I didn’t mean any of that. I’m just . . .”
“I know,” Jordan says, reaching past Riley to squeeze Alejandro’s arm. “It’s okay.”
“Well, if you two are done bickering,” Josh says, “can we figure out what the fuck we’re going to do now?”
Vee folds her arms, looking pensively down the winding road to the gates. “I could walk to the highway for help,” she says. “Somebody will pass by eventually.”
Riley’s stomach lurches at the idea of letting her out of his sight. “No,” he blurts.
She glances back at him, but the dark of her eyes is steel. “I can do it. I did it last time, didn’t I?”
She had. And by the time Riley had gotten to see her again only a few hours later, they were both different people entirely. He doesn’t know if he can live through that again.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jordan says. “I can’t let either of you do that. You’re under my care right now; you need to stay where I can see you.”
Unable to help himself, Riley snaps, “Oh, like Colton?”
Jordan flinches, but she doesn’t back down. “You’ll stay with me. Nobody is leaving anybody’s sight.”
“Jordan, that’s great team spirit and all, but it doesn’t solve the issue,” Josh says. “Somebody needs to go.”
Alejandro holds up a hand, stepping away from the van. “I’ll do it.”
Jordan spins on her heel to glare at him. “Because splitting up is always the best option in situations like this.”
“What situations would those be?” Josh asks. “Situations where either we’re being harassed by some kind of psychopath or—”
“Don’t—”
“—the haunted house we’re messing around in might be actually haunted?” Josh hoists up his bag, camera poking from the unzipped pocket. “The shit I’ve caught on film tonight really makes me think we might be leaning one particular way on this one.”
Riley can see the stress fracturing Jordan’s perfect foundations. “There’s no reason to jump to conclusions.”
“Are you serious?” Vee asks, cutting in. “Are you fucking serious right now? Colton’s gone, something happened to Riley upstairs—we’ve been here for hours, and everything has been a mess the whole time. And you want to look me in the eye and say that we’re jumping to conclusions.”
Jordan grimaces. “That isn’t what I said.”
“No,” Vee snaps. “It’s what you implied.” She turns to Alejandro and says, “It’s about an hour to walk back to the highway. Last time, it took two more before somebody would stop for me.”
Alejandro nods, grim faced and serious. “What are my chances of it taking half that?”
“Hopefully better than mine were,” she says. “Stick to the road and you’ll be fine.”
“Right,” Alejandro says with a weak grin. “Be prepared for the long haul, got it.”
Jordan sighs, pinching her nose in frustration. “Alejandro—”
“I’m going,” Alejandro says. “Somebody has to, and it shouldn’t be the kids. Josh is better in a crisis than me anyway. I’ll be back with help, okay? If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to sit on me, boss.”
Jordan rolls her eyes. “I was going to say, ‘For the love of god, be careful.’”
Just out of sight, Riley feels the looming cross of the chapel watching them, and he shudders. “Let’s not bring God into this,” he says. “I don’t know how welcome he is here.”
“With that cheery thought,” Alejandro says, stooping to pick up his bag and sling it over his shoulder, “I’ll be off. Try to all be here when I get back, yeah?”
It’s a joke that falls flat. The absence of Colton is a fresh bruise between them, and Riley’s had more than his fair share of experience in how long those take to heal.
The Spirit Seekers trade a few things among themselves—two phones go to Alejandro, in case he stumbles upon a signal, and anything that might weigh him down stays with the crew. Vee and Riley huddle together, watching the trio talk in soft voices.
“He’ll be fine, right?” Riley asks, not loud enough to be overheard.
“I was,” Vee replies, which doesn’t sound like an answer at all.
Josh tugs Alejandro in for a hug, slapping him on the back, and Jordan squeezes his elbow with more affection than Riley is used to seeing from her. Finally, Alejandro pulls away. He offers Riley and Vee a smile. “You’d think I was going off to war or something, huh?”
