Becca dropped her spoon in her bowl. “I wish she’d stop. I hate her this way.”
I hated her that way, too.
Becca stalked over to the shelves and came back with a book I recognized from the picture on the front. Rachel said Ted Bundy was cute, which was gross because he was a killer and old enough to be our dad, but his eyes freaked me out.
When Becca finished reading aloud the part about the bloodstained sheets on Lynda Ann Healy’s bed, she said, “You can’t ever tell anyone about her. Promise?”
I knew she wasn’t talking about Lynda Ann Healy. “I told you a gazillion times, I won’t.”
“Promise again,” she said. “Cross your heart and hope to die.”
I made an X over my chest. “I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
She grabbed her bowl and told me to bring mine. We could faintly hear her mom’s television playing and didn’t speak while we rinsed our dishes. After, she grabbed the wine bottle from the fridge.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Shhh.” She unscrewed the cap, spit in the bottle, and pushed it toward me.
I stepped back. “I can’t do that.”
“If you’re my friend, you will,” she said.
“I am your friend.”
She shoved the bottle in my direction again.
“Fine.” I had to try three times, but I spit a little. My mom would kill me if she knew. It didn’t matter that Mrs. Thomas was the way she was.
“Ugh.” She took the bottle back and spit in it twice more. “Want to go to the house?”
“What about your mom?”
“She’s probably asleep and won’t wake up, or if she does, it’ll only be to get more spit-wine.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I half wanted to go and half didn’t. Her mom was acting really strange tonight—I’d never been scared of her before—so maybe going wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But it was late and the house seemed safer when it was all four of us, not just two.
“Oh, come on. I’ve done it by myself.”
“You have?” I said.
“Yes.”
But she’d be too scared to go in the house by herself, wouldn’t she? Except sometimes when she was lying, her face said she was, no matter what her mouth said. This time, I couldn’t tell.
“What if I promise to tell you more of the story?” she said.
“Gia and Rachel will be mad.”
“Not if you don’t tell them.”
Five minutes later, shoes on, we were outside. The neighborhood was all shadows and cricket chirps and we walked fast. By the time we got to the house, we were panting. When Becca locked the door behind us, my arms went all-over goose bumps. The house was pitch-black. I waved in front of me and felt air on my nose but couldn’t see at all. There was nothing in the dark that wasn’t there in the light, but it felt different. It felt alive. It felt hungry.
“Scared?” Becca said.
“No,” I said, but my mouth was dry and papery.
“Liar.”
We fumbled through the darkness, Becca in front, groping the walls.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Let’s go back,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s creepy,” I said.
“It’s not that scary.”
“Yes it is. I can’t see anything.”
“We’re near the kitchen,” she said. “Once I turn the light on, it’ll be fine, and we’re together, so …”
I squeezed again, trying to make her stop, but she kept moving. “Don’t you remember the house in Florida where Ted bashed all those girls in the head? They were together, too.”
“They were sleeping, and there’s no Ted Bundy in Towson.”
“How would we know?” I said.
“Because there’d be bodies and missing girls.”
“There was one last year.”
“She ran away and they found her and brought her back,” Becca said. “Hold on, here’s the basement door. Don’t push so close; I’ll fall down the steps.”
The dark turned the sound of her fingers moving along the wall into skittering mouse feet. I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, pushing my lips into my teeth. With a tiny click, a pool of yellow light appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
“See? We’re fine,” she said.
Even with the light, the basement was shadowy and gray, especially in the corners. It smelled even worse than it had the other day. I tried breathing through my mouth, but it tasted like wet, smelly socks.
“Becca, it smells really bad.”
“You’ll get used to it in a few minutes. It’s like when you poop. At first it stinks, and then you can’t even smell it.” She sat down, curling her fingers around my wrist so I had to, too. The floor was even colder now.
“We didn’t check the rest of the house,” I said. “What if someone’s hiding upstairs?”
“There’s nobody here except us.”
“If there’s a killer hiding here and he gets us,” I said, pulling up my knees and resting my chin between, “it’s your fault.”
“Have you ever thought about it?”
“About what? Killers hiding in this house? I just did.”
“No, I mean killing someone,” she said.
“You’re joking, right?”
She touched the tip of her tongue to the bow of her lip and scratched the house key back and forth across the carpet.
“Right?” I said, trying to ignore the key. All I could think of was being buried alive, scratching at the coffin to get out and no one would ever hear.
“No,” she said, setting the key aside. “I’m serious. Have you?”
“No. That’s awful. I thought we came here so you could tell me—”
“I have.”
“No you haven’t,” I said.
“Yes I have,” she said. “And I bet I could get away with it, too.”
I snorted. “Ted Bundy couldn’t.”
“I’m smarter than he was.”
“But you’re not crazy. You have to be crazy to do that to people.” I swirled my finger near my temple.
“Maybe, maybe not.” Her face went blank, like someone took a squeegee and wiped it away.
“Becca, that’s not funny.”
Her eyes were empty and reminded me of a house with no one home. She was only goofing off, but it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I pinched her arm. “Becca, stop, that’s freaky.”
Her face rearranged itself the right way. “Pretty good, right? I practiced in front of the mirror.”
“Why would you even want to do that?”
“Why not? It’s fun.” Becca moved her jaw from side to side, looking at the ceiling. “Anyway, what Red Lady story should I tell you?”
“It better be good, after all that.”
“Okay,” she said, scooting closer. “So you already know when the people in the village buried the Red Lady, they didn’t kill her. That’s why the hole was empty. If she was dead, they would’ve found her body.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.