Hidebehind

Forty-One

"It's Penny!" I cried, and somehow, the brother in me overcame the terror, and my limbs started working again. I tore free of Maisie and Alex, though they grabbed at me and begged me to stop. "I have to help her!"

It followed me. Once I'd broken away from my friends, my back was as open as the forest, and it was behind me. I felt it breathing against my neck, heard it rushing through the leaves behind me, and I never ran so fast in my life as I ran from that monster. My only consolation was that if it was after me, it had left Maisie and Alex alone. It was my monster, after all, as I'd suspected—it wanted me.

I raced down that overgrown path, through the grasping hands of the trees and brambles, stumbling but never falling more than once, heading where I hoped Penny's scream had come from, and it ran, it ran . . . it was at my back the entire way . . . but I kept on. I pushed forward, though my lungs strained to catch air and my legs began to feel more like pudding than bones. What seemed an eternal run from some infernal creature took me exactly where I wanted to be, though, and as I burst into the clearing where Luther's house sat like some evil, crouching giant, I spun around in joy and to try to catch sight of the beast behind me. I couldn't of course—not a real glimpse, just little bits of it in the corners of my eyes, because it darted too quickly for all my dexterity. But it was no longer my main concern. I had to reach that house.

"Penny!" I shouted as loudly as I could. I approached the house, slowing my pace but turning in circles to keep the monster on its toes. I couldn't feel it anymore, couldn't catch a shadow of it, either . . . I felt that it had disappeared, and yet, I couldn't trust anything in that dim nightmare. "Penny! Where are you?"

I moved closer toward the house, and in that moment, Jay stepped through the door on its porch. I froze where I was and stared at him; he glowed, faintly, like one of those universe stickers you'd put on your wall at night so you could feel as if you were floating in space—that's what he looked like, and for a moment, I felt as if I were somewhere else, somewhere not on Earth. Somewhere far away.

"Where's my sister?" I gulped.

He just looked at me.

"Talk to me!" I yelped.

He still just stood there.

"What, is there some ghost rule, that once I know what you are, you can't talk to me?"

His features didn't seem little-kiddish to me, anymore, the way they'd seemed when I first met him. He still had that pug nose, those freckles, that mop of hair, and he was still quite a bit shorter than I was, but there was something so much more serious about him, now. That goofy kid who'd pestered me since I'd arrived—he was gone, and in his place was someone older somehow, someone who'd been through much more, who knew much more.

Still not speaking to me, he shook his head slowly, sadly, and pointed to the back of the house. In the darkness, I could see his hand quite clearly, and though part of me wanted to stay there and try to get something from him, I knew that Penny had to come first.

I gave Jay one more glance, then jogged away. The shadows immediately consumed me, and I found that my eyes needed to adjust again. What was there, at the back of the house? Weeds, a dilapidated porch so caved in I couldn't stand on it if I'd wanted to, some broken windows . . . and the cellar stairwell. In the dark, the water that rose two thirds up to the top of the doorframe was pitch, like the blackest ink just sitting there after eating half of the steps, as if it had grown too full. I remembered seeing it in the daytime and how strange it had made me feel then, strange to wonder what lurked there beyond the door . . . and now that door was open, or missing—it was hard to tell. Paralyzing fear crept into every part of me as I realized that this was where Penny had to be.

I couldn't go in there . . . the water . . . so black . . . I'd never seen anything, and who knew what was in it? Snakes, monsters . . . maybe the very monster that had been after me. I just, I couldn't! How could the world expect this of me? Did I have time to run back to the house and get Great Grandma? Tell the officers? Maybe . . . and yet, I hadn't heard anything from her but that scream several moments ago . . .

Oh God . . .

My brain had to silence itself. My body just moved. It stepped down, down, down in the gray, and some small mercy arrived in the sliver of moon that peeked suddenly from the sky above and gave me a slice of light less dark than what was around it. Cold water seeped into my shoes. It squelched as I moved, shaking, lower, so that the ink-water covered my ankles, my shins, my knees. Don't think about what's in it. Don't think about what's in it. Just Penny. Just Penny. You'll be in and out. Just think about Penny.

I was up to my waist, my shoulders, when I reached the door into the deep cellar.

Somewhere I heard my name called. Somewhere from above. But I couldn't answer it. The blood rushing through my head was louder than anything I could have ever imagined, drowning everything but itself, and so I entered through the iciness into the bottom of Luther's house.

Cold. Beyond dark. Eerily silent, except for the water as it moved in ripples around me. I waded through water up to my chin, and even on the very tips of my toes, I risked sinking. I could barely move, the water was so frigid, and my floating arms more than once thought they felt plants and other strange, slimy things sneaking by. The snakes . . . the poisonous snakes . . . but I couldn't think.

"Penny! Are you here?"

"Rob!"

Everything in me shuddered. My sister's weak voice came from somewhere that sounded so far, and I could see absolutely nothing. "Where are you? I can't see you!" The water and the close ceiling muffled my shaking voice and my words seemed to come back at me.

"I-I d-don't know," came her whimper.

"Just talk to me! I'll move toward you."

It was like moving through space, like being blind—my eyes were useless.

Penny made small noises, like a frightened kitten, noises that were more like crying than any sort of words. But it didn't matter. I moved toward her, and I could see absolutely nothing. How far did this cellar go on? It felt like forever, and I hadn't even thought about how to get back out of it. My clothing was weighing me down, but I dare not stop to try to remove any of it; I had to keep going. I pushed myself, though my teeth began to chatter and my chin shook so violently that my jaw began to ache. My arms grasped in the water, propelled my heavy body slowly, too slowly, and I feared I might never reach my sister, that I'd drown before I made it. That I'd sink into the weeds that were pulling at my legs and be devoured by the strange things I felt moving by me—or was it my imagination?—the things that brushed across my fingertips like silk or perhaps nipped the tip of a finger. But I was getting closer, and when I heard Penny's weeping so close I knew I must be inches away, I felt that tears were streaming from my own eyes and didn't know how long they'd been there.

"I'm h-here! Where are y-you? Can-n you f-find me? We'll get out of h-here. We'll g-g-go back h-home with m-om and da-d. Th-this place is h-h-horri-ble."

She stopped crying, became entirely silent, and for a moment, I was terrified that she hadn't been there at all. I reached up my arms as best as I could lift them, trying to feel for her, trying to find her.

"It's here."

I didn't understand. My brain struggled to comprehend her words. But before I could reply, I felt what she had said. I felt it—my monster.

Behind me—I knew it was there—and then I knew that it had never left me; even when I thought it was gone, it never had been. And though it had never touched me, its arms wrapped around me now, pulled me, dragged me down, so that all of me was engulfed in the dark water.