Lurker

EPILOGUE

Anne laughed, or more rightly, cackled. After a moment, Shirley joined in, showing her white teeth. The lively sounds echoed against the wounded plaster and peeling paint, rising above the rumble of the storm to fill the gloomy room with noise. Pieces of old wood ticked and settled as if the laughter itself had moved the building just a bit.

Finally Mary stood up, annoyed.

“That was awful!” she said, forgetting to whisper. “There was no point! No moral! No spiritual substance. That poor girl died like an animal. Like a rat in a cage.”

Shirley clasped her hand to her mouth to stop her giggles, but her eyes caught Anne’s and she started to guffaw again.

“That’s enough,” Daphne cautioned.

“Check the stats, Mary,” Anne said, dark eyes glowing in the lantern flame. “We all die like animals. You’re just a big rat. A big blond rat with curls.”

Then she started laughing again.

But Mary was upset. “Are you that dead inside?”

“Inside and out,” Anne said, leading to another round of harsh laughter.

“Aren’t you even disappointed it wasn’t your story?”

Anne waved her off. “Not. I don’t expect it to be anymore. I just roll the dice and talk the talk. It’s no PlayStation, but what is?”

As their voices rose, Daphne began shushing them in earnest. “Quiet down now, all of you. That’s enough.”

Shirley exhaled and turned her head sideways to look at the bones. She whispered, “Do you think maybe, even if they’re not ours, the story that comes to us has something to do with us? With who we are? Anne is the darkest of us, no offense.”

“Yeah, because I’ve been dating so much recently,” Anne said.

Mary shook her head and also spoke softly as she repeated her earlier theory. “The only pattern we know is the one that wins. The rest is just guessing.”

“Like rats in a maze,” Anne said. She let out another noisy laugh and buried her head in her hands to stifle the sound. Hearing that, Shirley started giggling again and this time couldn’t make herself stop. She had a serious case, laughing louder and louder until all the girls were shushing her.

Finally, Daphne leaned over and shook a finger in her face. “Quiet! The Headmistress may hear you.”

Anne and Mary simply fell silent at the mention of the name, but Shirley’s eyes went wide. She visibly trembled in the lantern light. “Did you have to say the name? Why did you have to say the name?”

Realizing her mistake, Daphne knelt by her and tried to be calming. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You were getting so loud.”

“Is she here? Is she coming?”

“No, no, Shirley. Just relax,” Mary offered.

“I can’t! I can’t relax if she might hear me! You told me it was safe!”

Anne leaned forward. “Shirley, look, it is safe, if you relax! So will you shut the hell up?”

Mary’s eyes flared. “Anne, that is not helping!”

Far off, there was a different sort of noise. It wasn’t the usual settling of the old building, or the mysterious scraping of rodents. This sounded more like a far-off door opening. They all heard it, but only Shirley was certain she knew what it was.

“She’s coming! She’s coming!” Shirley said, panting now like a sick dog. She rose and looked all around. In an animal panic, Shirley ran straight toward a wall with nary a fingerhold to be seen and started to climb it. She skittered up the smooth white wall, higher and higher, not even disturbing the cobwebs, like a moth trying to get through a window.

Then she vanished into the ceiling.

The remaining three girls stared up at the spot where she’d vanished and started calling to it.

“She’s not coming!” Daphne said, exasperated.

“There might still be time for another story!” Mary said.

The distant creaking came again, followed by a series of leaden thuds, as if something heavy enough to crush the floor above them was walking on it toward the stairs.

Now they all knew what it was, though none of them bothered to say it. As a cool wind swept the great room, the girls scrambled and shouted.

“Grab the bones!”

“I’ll take them!”

“Not you again, Daphne! It’s my turn!” said Anne.

The creaking grew louder. It was still wooden at first, but then it seemed like the bricks and mortar were joining in. The whole building creaked and scraped as if aching to speak its pain and rage in words, moaning so loud, it drowned out even the storm.

On the stairs came the tread of heavy feet. The sound grew louder, carrying the dread of punishment nearer. But the true terror only took hold when the sound stopped.

A thin tearful voice whispered, “She’s here.”

Before the girls could flee, a gust of something cold and terrible hit the oil lamp. In a flash, the small yellow circle of light evaporated as if it had never been there, and a darkness swallowed them all, a great and wonderful darkness that blanketed everything, living and dead, like a coat of rich warm earth packed tightly on a coffin lid.