worse than any horror I could ever imagine—worse, even, than that scream the man screamed realizing he’d just taken another man’s life with his car. The sound makes me want to tear my skin off and gouge out my eyes.
I look over at the huddled figure by the fire.
I see my father standing, hunched and rocking back and forth, sweat covering his face—his hair dripping with it—his pale skin almost translucent in the firelight.
“Dad!” I shout, startling myself.
My dad turns to stare at me, though his eyes are milky and vacant. He teeters and stands slack-jawed. Slowly he begins stepping toward me.
Unable to take it one more fucking second, I run and switch the player off.
I look up from the turntable just in time to see my dad walking dazedly out of the room, muttering to himself, babbling. I call out again, but he keeps walking. I hear him stumbling from room to room.
I turn the heavy vinyl over in my hand, then, before I can stop myself, throw it in the fire.
A cold wind tunnels through the rooms as I hear the heavy front door, swollen in its frame, pushed open—followed by more footsteps down the front stairs and out into the night. The rain smells sweet through the open door and the wind carries fallen leaves into the front room.
My stomach lurches, and I rush back inside to the downstairs bathroom—cramped and narrow—just managing to turn the faucet on before vomiting up what feels like the entire contents of my stomach. I’ve been throwing up so much at this point, it feels like . . . what’s that expression? Old hat? But, no, that’s not true. It sucks as much as always. I choke and spit and flush the vomit down and then lie on the cool tile.
Soon there is a knocking at the door.
“Jen, are you okay?”
It’s Christy’s voice.
Then I hear Candace ask, “Was it the movie?”
And Mercedes says, “Can we get you anything.”
It makes me feel kind of good, honestly, that all three of them came to check on me. Though maybe it’s just that none of them wanted to be left alone in this supposedly haunted fucking house. Either way I appreciate it.
“I’m all right,” I call out. “I’ve just been sick recently.”
“Maybe she’s pregnant,” I hear Candace say.
“Yeah, right,” says Mercedes.
The thought chills me. But I shake my head and try to forget it. I get up off the bathroom floor and go open the door.
“Sorry,” I say, sweating a little. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“We were just worried about you,” Christy says.
I turn back to the sink and splash some water on my face and drink from the faucet before turning it off.
“You want to go get some air?” Mercedes asks. “I think it stopped raining.”
“I’d kill for a cigarette,” I say.
“I have a pack of Lucky Strikes,” says Mercedes.
“Lucky Strikes,” I say. “Those are like old-man cigarettes.”
“I stole ’em from my grandfather,” Mercedes says.
I laugh.
“All right, but if we go outside, my dad’ll hear us. He’s a total creeper. Let’s go down in the basement. It’ll be warmer anyway.”
“The basement!” Christy says, kind of horrified-sounding. “Really?”
“Why? Are you scared?” Mercedes asks her, smiling.
“No . . . yeah . . . kind of.”
“Come on,” says Candace. “It’ll be all right.”
“Okay,” I say. “This way.”
I lead them down the uneven, splintered wooden stairs, turning on the bare overhead lightbulb and making my way over to a small rectangular window. Piled everywhere are cardboard boxes and more furniture covered in white linens and stacks of shelving with more boxes. The smell of mildew is overpowering. A complicated maze of different pipes and wires runs the length of the ceiling—the insulation is exposed and even falling down in places. The concrete floor is stained and cracked and there’s about an inch of brackish water pooled in one corner.
“Your dad may be a creeper,” Mercedes says, “but it’s pretty damn creepy down here, too.”
“It’s not any warmer, either,” says Christy.
She’s right, of course. The cold is penetrating. And the mildew smell is mixed with that same rotting-animal smell.
I go quickly to the window and open it.
“Here,” say Mercedes, handing me a cigarette.
She takes one herself and so does Candace. Only Christy declines.
We light the cigarettes with an orange lighter Mercedes has in her purse.
I inhale and exhale.
“What’d you guys think of the movie so far?”
“Scary,” says Christy.
“Really scary,” says Candace. “I remember my dad telling me after he and my mom saw it in the