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“It’s an old cabin in the woods that’s haunted by some of Jake’s ancestors,” he said. “Not a big deal.”
“Where is it?”
He poked at the fire with a stick, making a shower of sparks rain down near the rocks that lined the fire. “A couple of miles into the woods,” he said.
“Have you ever been there?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “Do you want to go?”
“What are we going to do there?” I asked.
He shrugged. “No idea. But Jake is always interested in summoning ghosts.”
I shivered at the thought. “Do you want to go?” I asked hesitantly. Jake and Katie were already getting up and dusting off the butts of their shorts, and Lynda and Aaron were debating about it. “I’m not sure if my mom and dad will let me.”
“They’re playing cards with my mom and dad,” Aaron reminded me. “They’ll never know.”
I nibbled on my thumbnail until Eli gently reached up and pulled it away from my mouth. He held my hand tightly and gave it a squeeze. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” he said quietly. He stared i
nto my eyes as we stood there in the dark, and he offered me an out. I didn’t take it, though.
Instead, I said, “I’ll go.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. He gave my hand that squeeze again.
“I want to go,” I said a little more loudly.
So Jake had gone and gotten us all flashlights, and we’d ridden our bikes until the road ran out. Then we left them leaning against two posts that blocked the way to the little shack, a heavy cable pulled between them. Eli reached out to hold me steady as I climbed over it, and I remembered him being larger than life in that moment. He was everything.
The cabin wasn’t much farther, but the darkness and unfamiliarity made it seem like it took hours to get there. The steps creaked as we walked up the rickety entryway to the little cabin.
“My great-great-grandfather used to come here when he wanted to get away from my great-great-grandmother,” Jake said as he turned the handle to the door. It didn’t open, so he gave it a push and turned a little harder, and the door handle freed up. “Nobody has been here in a long time,” Jake said in a hushed tone.
“He died here, you know,” Aaron added, his voice little more than a stage whisper.
I froze. “Who died?”
“The great-great-grandfather,” Aaron said.
“How did he die?” I asked, and my teeth started to chatter. Eli’s hand landed solidly on my back and I felt it all the way to my bones. I willed my teeth to stop chattering, but it was hard.
“Somebody killed him, I think,” Aaron said casually. “Man, this place is creepy.” He gave a dramatic shiver that I could see in the dim light from the moon through the window.
The cabin wasn’t very big. It was just one room with a rusty old cook stove on one side, a dilapidated canvas cot on the other, and it didn’t even have electricity or running water or a bathroom.
“I think there’s a candle here somewhere,” Jake said, and he went to a cabinet and opened it up, shining his flashlight into the opening. He reached in, pulled something out, and turned to face us. His eyes lit up as he flicked a lighter and lit the candle, his face distorted by the flame. “That’s better.”
“It is not,” Katie said quietly. “I don’t want to stay here.”
An eerie moan filled up the little room. “Do you hear that?” Jake whispered. He looked around, his face even more grotesque as the flame’s pattern on his skin changed when he turned his head.
I grabbed onto Eli’s arm and plastered myself against his side. “What’s that noise?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“They say that you can hear him calling for help,” Jake said. “He does it for hours on end.”
The moans grew louder, and then suddenly softer, more like a whisper. Then they started all over again.
“I don’t like it here,” I said, beginning to tremble.
