Page 61 of Ghost in the Night

“Is your name Tim Truman?”

Nothing.

Myah sucks her teeth. “Mr. Truman, we don’t have time for games. Jabari is missing and your family is worried sick. What happened the night you were—”

Something shifts upstairs. Footsteps right above us, walking fast. Oh no. Someone isdefinitelyin the house!

Right as I turn my attention back to the monitor, a hand grabs the robot and the camera goes dark.

“Harmony,” Robby whimpers, looking up at me wide-eyed, and I stop breathing. We stare at the open door of the room, but that’s all I can manage to do. I can’t move a muscle.

“Mr. Truman,” Myah whispers, her voice quivering. “Is that you?”

Suddenly my side cramps up, like I ate too fast and went for a jog. I wince, grabbing it as if I can stop the pain.

I know this pain. It’s the same pain I had the last time I was near this house.

Am I feeling a ghost?!

I glance behind me at Myah’s Ouija board.

The heart piece wiggles to the wordNO.

Myah blinks, her eyes taking up her whole face.

More steps from upstairs. Ghosts aren’t this aggressive. Ghosts don’t make this much noise. That’s when Myah’s grandmama’s words come back to haunt me.

“You may think you talking to a ghost, but you really talking to a demon.”

This isn’t a ghost. This is a haint!

At that very moment, I spot Myah’s paint bucket and grab it, rushing to the door of the room. I flip off the lid, dunk in the brush, and start slapping paint on the door.

Robby stands up. “What are you doing?!”

“Trying to protect us!” The door is half finished, myhands covered in thick blue, the room filling with its eye-burning scent.

Robby frowns. “I thought you paint the door blue to keep the haints OUT. But …”

The brush falls out of my hand as I gasp.

If the haint’s already in here … it means I just trapped us with a haint!

“No. No. No. No,” I mutter, desperate for Robby to be wrong. But I know he’s not.

Something is coming down the stairs, creeping slow. Robby grabs one of the flashlights, pointing it at the door.

“Get behind me,” I say, pushing him back.

The footsteps stop and I’m too frozen to move, to run or hide. There’s not even a window for us to jump out of.

We’re trapped.

Myah is breathing hard and loud. We stare at the door for eternity.

That’s when a little face peers into the room and tips up his glasses with one finger.

Myah jumps to her feet.