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“People say that sometimes my great-great-grandmother comes and knocks on the door, looking for him. He died before she did, and she never got over it.” At once a knock sounded on the front door. It was a harsh, fireman’s knock that seemed like it shook all the walls.
Everyone jumped.
A faint high-pitched voice called out, “Jasper, are you here?”
“Oh shit,” Jake whispered. “Jasper was his name!”
Lynda squealed as Aaron grabbed her and put her between him and the door. She batted at him behind her, but he deflected her blows, holding tightly to her hips to keep her between him and the entryway. He laughed out loud as he did it, and she just got angrier and angrier.
I wanted desperately to run out the door, but that’s where the knock and the voice had come from. I looked around frantically, but there was no second exit. “I want to go,” I insisted. Eli thrust me behind him, and I buried my face between his shoulder blades, my hands clenching fistfuls of his shirt.
“Jasper’s not here!” Jake called out loudly.
The knocking stopped, and so did the voice.
“She must have left,” Jake said with relief.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Lynda added quickly. “Let’s do that too.” She slapped at Aaron’s hands. “I can’t believe you, you coward,” she hissed at him.
“What if she’s still out there?” Aaron whispered loudly.
“I think she left,” Jake repeated.
“I’m leaving,” Eli said. “This is bullshit.” He walked toward the door and I followed, my face still buried in his shirt. I followed him all the way to the edge of the porch, where I had to finally open my eyes, afraid I’d fall. I walked down the steps, my legs trembling with each creak of the boards.
At the bottom of the steps, Eli stopped and said, “We should wait for everybody else.”
I saw the room go dim through the open door as Jake blew out the candle, and the others all rushed out of the cabin. They all got to the bottom of the stairs, and then that tiny voice asked again from behind us: “Jasper, is that you?” A shadow moved on the porch.
I never ran so fast in my life. I ran all the way back to the bikes. Then I pedaled like the devil was chasing me all the way back to the campground. When we got there, I jumped off my bike, threw it to the ground, and looked up to find Mr. Jacobson standing there. He shined that humongous spotlight he had on each of us in turn.
“Where the hell have y’all been?” he bellowed, more bark to his bite than usual.
“Just riding bikes,” Jake replied breathlessly, heaving from our mad dash back to the campground.
“You expect me to believe you were riding bikes in the dark?” the old man asked. He shined the light on Jake’s face, which made Jake squint and try to block the light with his hand. “I think you’re lying. And I hate a liar.” He pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket and stuck it into the corner of his mouth.
“We’re not lying,” Jake said, but he was visibly shaken by the inquisition, so Aaron took over.
“We rode our bikes down to the haunted shack in the woods.” He grunted as Lynda elbowed him in the side, bending over a little in the middle. He let out a gurgle.
“I told you kids to stay away from there!”
“We were only there for a minute,” Jake said. One thing Jake refused to do was lie to Mr. Jacobson. He said he always found out anyway, and if Jake told the truth, it would go easier on him. “We just wanted to see what it looked like.”
“And? What’s it look like?” Mr. Jacobson asked.
“Like dead people live there,” Lynda muttered.
I shivered again, and Eli’s arm wrapped around me, holding me close.
“You kids stay away from there,” he said firmly. He shined his spotlight in each of our faces, one by one, and waited until we’d all nodded.
“Yes, sir,” I replied. He didn’t have to worry about me ever going up there again.
“Do I need to tell your parents where you’ve been?” he asked.
“No, sir,” we all said at once.
