“What’s that?” I whispered to Eli after I imparted the invitation to him.
“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 into 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.
“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.