James pushes open the door and steps out, disturbing the mist on the ground. The headlights are still on, lighting up the front of the property as he pops his head back inside. “Let’s go.”
I exit the car, reluctantly shutting my door, the dark windows giving me the chills. Brielle is right. The house looks like it’s barely standing. The glass is long gone from some of thewindows. The roof sags. Tiles have slid off and lie buried in the tall grass.
“Is it even safe?” Brielle asks, motioning to the house. “I don’t think we should enter.”
“Of course it’s safe,” Timothy says, looping his arms around her and steering her toward the house.
“It looks like it’ll collapse any minute and bury us in the rubble.”
“Trust me, babe. It won’t.” Their voices drift away.
James joins me, and I try not to blush when he brushes his shoulder against mine in a playful way designed to make me loosen up. “You’re thinking too hard.”
“I’m not…” I clear my throat. Truth is. I am. And I hate that he thinks I’m boring compared to the usual girls he dates. I’m nothing like them. I don’t even know why he’s here. With me. Well, that’s a lie. Timothy and Brielle dated for less than a month when James suggested we visit the abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Not only is it next door to a notorious serial killer’s farm—though the farm has long since been demolished to allow nature to erase its ugly past—but this house in front of us has its own dark history. “You’ve heard the rumors. Maybe we shouldn’t be here.”
He interlaces his fingers with mine and pulls me forward. “I’ll keep you safe, Grace. I promise.”
I don’t believe him any more than I believe my dad when he promises to spend more time with me, but I allow James to lead me to the house. I’m tired of doing everything that’s expected of me. James makes me feel like I can be anyone I want to be. And I want to be like the girls I’ve seen sitting on his lap in the cafeteria. Those girls would be excited to enter this house. They would giggle and flick their glossy hair.
“What do you know about this property?” he asks as we ascend the rotten porch steps. Miraculously, they don’t collapse. I shiver despite the muggy heat. “A family disappeared.”
“See that tree?” he points to a large oak tree out the front. Behind me, Timothy opens the door and enters with Brielle. “Mr. Kriger hung himself after murdering his family. They found him dangling from that tree.”
I really don’t want to look at the thick, crooked branches any more than I want to enter behind Timothy and Brielle.
James lights a flashlight and puts it beneath his chin. “Mr Kriger murdered his family and then committed suicide. But one of the daughters survived and was found wandering in the woods, muttering to herself about a demon. Crazy shit that no one believed. She was sent to Cross Hills Asylum, where an evil doctor impregnated her.”
“He died from a snake bite,” I reply when he takes my hand and guides me into the musty-smelling house, leaves crunching beneath my feet. James slides the flashlight’s beam across the hallway. The wallpaper is gone, torn away in great strips, and the walls are covered in black mold and vines that have somehow found their way inside.
“Before Magdalene Kriger died, she gave birth to a daughter—Camryn Barker. Birth nameKriger.”
“I know this story,” I reply, removing my hand from his to hug my arms around myself. It feels wrong to be here, almost like we’re trespassing. “Camryn, her boyfriend, Dominic, and three friends were found murdered twenty years later. Anyone who lives in our little town or watches true crime stories on YouTube knows this.”
“That’s true. Then you also know that on the one-year anniversary of their deaths, her adoptive mother hung herself from the tree outside. History repeats itself.” James looksexcited, but I feel sick. “Camryn and her boyfriend bled out on the floor over there,” he says as we enter the kitchen.
Timothy places his six-pack of beers on the island.
“There are different theories, of course, as to how they died,” James continues.
Brielle lights candles around the room, drifting around me like a ghost. Speaking of ghosts, I swear a cold breeze sweeps past me. I shiver almost violently.
“Some say Dominic flipped and killed them all before he self-mutilated himself with a saw.”
“That’s a ridiculous theory,” Timothy says, using the island’s edge to flick off the beer lid. “He had been shot, stabbed, and tortured.”
“Maybe they were defensive wounds?” Brielle suggests, shrugging.
“So you’re saying he stabbed one of the victims to death with a knife, took a hammer to one of the other victims, and then axed his girlfriend before finally shooting himself in the shoulder and using a saw to try to cut himself in half?” He chuckles, shaking his head. “Unlikely.”
“You believe the demon theory?”
He rights an upturned, rotten chair and tests its durability. When he’s satisfied the legs won’t snap, he sits down. “There was a salt circle on the floor beside the bodies. Why else would they paint one unless they were trying to trap a demon?” He takes a swig of his beer. “According to the reports, they researched demonology in the weeks leading up to the death.”
“Besides,” James says, pulling me against his chest and wrapping an arm around my waist, “we all know the rumors about this town. The mysterious, quite frankly weird shit that happens here. It’s like the land is cursed or something. Who knows what evil has been drawn here.”
I like his heat behind me. I like how small I feel in his arms. What I don’t like is how the candles flicker around us, as if we’re not alone. This room’s windows are still intact, so there’s no breeze.
“Think about it. Maybe the police were right, and the boyfriend murdered everyone. But what are the odds the Kriger family was murdered and buried beneath the floorboards in the basement, and then the youngest Kriger grows up and moves here—to this little town andthishouse—with her adoptive mother? Months later, she’s dead. A year after that, her adoptive mother hangs herself from the tree—the very same tree where Camryn’s grandpa hung himself decades earlier. You can’t deny that it’s weird.”
