Panic

FRIDAY, JULY 8

heather

“IT’S TOO EASY,” HEATHER SAID AGAIN. SHE SQUEEZED the steering wheel. She didn’t really like to drive. But Bishop had been insistent. He wasn’t going to make it to the challenge today, wasn’t going to sit around and wait for hours while the players tried to outlast one another in a haunted house. And for once, she’d been able to use the car. Her mom and Bo were getting smashed with some friends in Lot 62, an abandoned trailer mostly used for partying. They’d crawl home around four, or possibly not until sunrise.

“They’ll probably try and screw with us,” Nat said. “They’ve probably rigged the whole house with sound effects and lights.”

“It’s still too easy.” Heather shook her head. “This is Panic, not Halloween.” Her palms were sweating. “Remember the time we were kids, and Bishop dared you to stand on the porch for three minutes?”

“Only because you flaked,” Nat said.

“You flaked too,” Heather reminded her, sorry now that she had brought it up. “You didn’t make it for thirty seconds.”

“Bishop did, though,” Nat said, turning her face to the window. “He went inside, remember? He stayed inside for five whole minutes.”

“I forgot about that,” Heather said.

“When was that?” Dodge spoke up unexpectedly.

“Years ago. We must have been ten, eleven. Right, Heather?”

“Younger. Nine.” Heather wished that Bishop had come. This was their first challenge without him, and her chest ached. Being with Bishop made her feel safe.

They turned the bend and the house became visible: the sharp peak of its roof silhouetted against the clouds knotted on the horizon, like something out of a horror movie. It rose crookedly out of the ground, and Heather imagined even from a distance she could hear the wind howling through the holes in the roof, the mice nibbling at the rotten wood floors. The only thing missing was a flock of bats.

There were a dozen cars parked on the road. Apparently most people felt the same way Bishop did, and most of the spectators had stayed home. Not all of them, though. Heather spotted Vivian Travin, sitting on the hood of her car, smoking a cigarette. A group of juniors huddled not far off, passing around a shared bottle of wine, looking solemn, as if they were attending a wake. For a second, before Heather turned the engine off, the rain misting through the headlights reminded her of thin slivers of glass.

Dodge climbed out of the car and opened the door for Nat. Heather reached for the bag she’d packed for the night: food, water, a big blanket. She would be here for as long as it took to win. Nat and Dodge, too.

Suddenly there was a muffled shout from outside. Heather looked up in time to see a dark shape rocket past the car. Nat screamed. And people were suddenly rushing into the road.

Heather threw herself out of the car and ran around to the passenger side, in time to see Ray Hanrahan catch Dodge in the stomach with a shoulder. Dodge stumbled backward, bumping against the remains of a fence. A shower of wood collapsed behind him.

“I know what you’re doing, you little freak,” he spat out. “You think you can—”

He was cut off and grunted sharply. Dodge had stepped forward and grabbed Ray by the throat. There was a collective gasp. Nat cried out.

Dodge leaned in and spoke quietly into Ray’s ear. Heather couldn’t hear what he said.

Just as quickly, he stepped backward, releasing Ray, who stood, coughing and gagging in the rain. Dodge’s face was calm. Nat moved as though to hug him—and then, at the last second, obviously thought better of it.

“Stay the hell away from me, Mason,” Ray said, when he had regained his breath. “I’m warning you. You better watch it.”

“Come on, guys,” Sarah Wilson, another contestant, spoke up. “It’s pouring. Can we get started?”

Ray was still glowering at Dodge. But he said nothing.

“All right.” That was Diggin. Heather hadn’t seen him in the crowd. His voice was suctioned away by the darkness and the rain. “Rules are simple. The longer you make it in the house, the higher your score.”

Heather shivered. The night of the jump, when Diggin was crowing into the megaphone, seemed like it had happened years ago: the radio, the beer, the celebration.

She suddenly couldn’t remember how she had ended up here—in front of the Graybill house, all its angles and planes wrong. A deformed place. Listing to one side as though it was in danger of collapse.

“No calling for help,” Diggin said, and his voice cracked a little. Heather wondered whether he knew something they didn’t. “That’s it. Challenge is on.”

Everyone broke apart. Beams of light—flashlights, and the occasional blue glow of a cell phone—swept across the road, illuminated the crooked fence, the high grass, the remains of a front path, now choked with weeds.

Dodge was pulling his backpack out of the trunk. Nat was standing next to him. Heather pushed her way over to them.

“What was that about?” Heather asked.

Dodge slammed the trunk closed. “No idea,” he said. In the dark, it was hard to decipher his expression. Heather wondered whether he knew more than he was telling. “The guy’s a psychopath.”

Heather shivered again as moisture seeped under the collar of her jacket, dampening her sweatshirt. She knew, like everyone did, that Dodge’s older sister had gone up against Ray’s older brother two years ago in Joust and been paralyzed. Heather hadn’t been watching—she’d been babysitting Lily that night with Bishop. But Nat had said the car folded up like an accordion.

Heather wondered if Dodge blamed the Hanrahans. “Let’s stay away from Ray inside, okay?” she said. “Let’s stay away from all of them.” She didn’t put it past Ray Hanrahan to sabotage them—jump out at them, grab them or take a swing.

Dodge turned to her and smiled. His teeth were very white, even in the dark. “Deal.”

They trudged across the road and into the yard with the others. Heather’s chest was heavy with something that wasn’t fear, exactly—more like dread. It was too easy.

The rain made the mud suck at her shoes. It would be a shit night. She wished she’d thought to try and sneak a beer. She didn’t even like the taste, but that would take the edge off, make the night go quicker.

She wondered whether the judges were here—maybe sitting in the front seat of one of the darkened cars, legs on the dash; or even standing in the road, jogging up and down, pretending to be normal spectators. That was the part of Panic she hated most of all: the fact that they were always being watched.

They were at the front porch too quickly. Zev Keller had just disappeared inside, and the door swung shut with a bang. Nat jumped.

“You okay?” Dodge asked her, in a low voice.

“Fine,” Nat spoke too loudly.

Once again, Heather wished Bishop had come along. She wished he were next to her, making stupid jokes, teasing her about being afraid.

“Here goes nothing.” Nat took a step forward and heaved open the door, which was hanging at a weird angle. She hesitated. “It smells,” she said.

“As long as it doesn’t shoot or bark, I’m fine with it,” Dodge said. He didn’t seem afraid at all. He moved forward, in front of Nat, and stepped into the house. Nat followed. Heather was the last to enter.

Immediately, Heather smelled it too: mouse shit and mildew, rot, like the smell of a mouth closed up for years.

Jagged beams of light zigzagged across the halls and through dark rooms, as the other players slowly spread out, trying to stake out their own corners, their own hiding spots. Floorboards creaked and doors moaned open and closed; voices whispered in the dark.

The blackness was as thick and heavy as soup. Heather felt her stomach pooling, opening with fear. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone. Nat had the same idea. Nat’s face was suddenly visible, lit up from underneath, her eyes deep hollows, her skin blue-tinged. Heather used the feeble light from her phone to cast a small circle on the faded wallpaper, the termite-eaten molding.

Suddenly a bright light flashed on.

“Flashlight app,” Dodge said, as Heather brought a hand to her eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t know it would be so strong.”

He directed the beam upward, to the ceiling, where the remains of a chandelier were swinging, creaking, in a faint wind. That was where three Graybill men had hanged themselves, if the rumors were true.

“Come on,” Heather said, trying to keep her voice steady. The judges might be anywhere. “Let’s move away from the door.”

They advanced farther into the house. Dodge took the lead. Footsteps rang out above them, on the second floor.

Dodge’s flashlight cut a small, sharp blade through the blackness, and Heather was reminded of a documentary about the wreck of the Titanic she’d watched once with Lily—the way the recovery submarines had looked, floating through all that dark space, crawling over the ruined wood and the old china plates, which were covered with mossy growth and underwater things. That was how she felt. As if they were at the bottom of the ocean. The pressure on her chest was squeezing, squeezing. She could hear Nat breathing hard. From upstairs came muffled sounds of shouting: a fight.

“Kitchen,” Dodge announced. He swept the beam of light across a rust-pitted stove, a tile floor half ripped up. All the images were disjointed, bleached white, like in a bad horror film. Heather pictured insects everywhere, spiderwebs, horrible things dropping on her from above.

Dodge aimed his beam in the corner and Heather almost screamed: for a second she saw a face—black, pitted eyes, mouth leering.

“Can you stop pointing that thing at me?”

The girl raised her hand in front of her eyes, squinting, and Heather’s heartbeat slowed. It was just Sarah Wilson, huddled in the corner. As Dodge angled the light down, Heather saw that Sarah had brought a pillow and a sleeping bag. It would be easier, far easier, if all the players could huddle together in one room, passing Cheetos and a bottle of cheap vodka someone had stolen from a parent’s liquor cabinet.

But they were beyond that.

They passed out of the kitchen and down a short set of stairs, littered with trash, all of it lit up in starts and jerks: cigarette butts, brittle leaves, blackened Styrofoam coffee cups. Squatters.

Heather heard footsteps: in the walls, overhead, behind her. She couldn’t tell.

“Heather”—Nat turned around, grabbed Heather’s sweatshirt.

“Shhhh,” Dodge hushed them sharply. He shut off the flashlight.

They stood in darkness so heavy, Heather could taste it every time she inhaled: things moldering, rotting slowly; slippery, sliding, slithery things.

Behind her. The footsteps stopped, hesitated. Floorboards creaked. Someone was following them.

“Move,” Heather whispered. She knew she was losing it—that it was probably just another player exploring the house—but she couldn’t stop a terrible fantasy that seized her: it was one of the judges, pacing slowly through the dark, ready to grab her. And not a human, either—a supernatural being with a thousand eyes and long, slick fingers, a jaw that would come unhinged, a mouth big enough to swallow you.

The footsteps advanced. One more step, and then another.

“Move,” she said again. Her voice sounded strangled, desperate in the dark.

“In here,” Dodge said. It was so dark, she couldn’t even see him, though he must have been standing only a few feet away. He grunted; she heard the groaning of old wood, the whine of rusted hinges.

She felt Nat move away from her and she followed blindly, quickly, nearly tripping over an irregularity in the floor, which marked the beginning of a new room. Dodge swung the door closed behind her, leaning into it until it popped into place. Heather stood, panting. The footsteps kept coming. They paused outside the door. Her breath was shallow, as though she’d been underwater. Then the footsteps withdrew.

Dodge turned on the flashlight app again. In its glow, his face looked like a weird modern painting: all angles.

“What was that?” Heather whispered. She was almost afraid neither Dodge nor Nat had heard.

But Dodge said, “Nothing. Someone trying to freak us out. That’s all.”

He placed his phone on the floor so the beam of light was directed straight up. Dodge had a sleeping bag stuffed in his backpack; Heather shook out the blanket she’d brought. Nat sat down next to the cone of light, drawing the blanket around her shoulders.

All of a sudden, relief broke in Heather’s chest. They were safe, together, around their makeshift version of a campfire. Maybe it would be easy.

Dodge squatted next to Nat. “Might as well get comfortable, I guess.”

Heather paced the small room. It must have once been a storage area, or maybe a pantry, except that it was a little ways from the kitchen. It was probably no more than twenty feet square. High up against one wall was the room’s single window, but the cloud cover was so thick, barely any light penetrated. On one wall were warped wooden shelves, which now contained nothing but a layer of dust and yet more trash: empty chip bags, a crushed soda can, an old wrench. She used the light of her cell phone to perform a quick exploration.

“Spiders,” she commented, as her phone lit up a web, perfectly symmetrical, glistening and silver, which extended between two shelves.

Dodge rocketed to his feet as though he’d been bit on the ass. “Where?”

Heather and Nat exchanged a look. Nat cracked a small smile.

“You’re afraid of spiders?” Heather blurted out. She couldn’t help it. Dodge had shown no fear, ever. She would never have expected it.

“Keep your voice down,” he said roughly.

“Don’t worry,” Heather said. She turned off her phone. “It was just the web, anyway.” She didn’t mention the small blurred lumps within it: insects, spun into the threads, waiting to be consumed and digested.

Dodge nodded and looked embarrassed. He turned away, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“Now what?” Nat said.

“We wait,” Dodge replied, without turning around.

Nat reached over and popped open a bag of chips. A second later, she was crunching loudly. Heather looked at her.

“What?” Nat said with her mouth full. “We’re going to be here all night. Except it came out, “Weef gonna be hey all nife.”

She was right. Heather went and sat down next to her. The floor was uneven.

“So waf do youf fink?” Nat said, which this time Heather had no trouble translating.

“What do I think about what?” She hugged her knees to her chest. She wished the cone of light were bigger, more powerful. Everything outside its limited beam was rough shadow, shape, and darkness. Even Dodge, standing with his face turned away from the light. In the dark, he could have been anyone.

“I don’t know. Everything. The judges. Who plans all this?”

Heather reached out and took two chips. She fed them into her mouth, one from each hand. It was an unstated rule that no one spoke about the identity of the judges. “I want to know how it got started,” she said. “And why we’ve all been crazy enough to play.” It was meant to be a joke, but her voice came out shrill.

Dodge shifted and came to squat next to Natalie again.

“What about you, Dodge?” Heather said. “Why did you agree to play?”

Dodge looked up. His face was a mask of hollows, and Heather was suddenly reminded of one summer when she’d gone camping with some other Girl Scouts, the way the counselors had gathered them around the fire to tell ghost stories. They had used flashlights to turn their faces gruesome, and all the campers were afraid.

For a second, she thought he smiled. “Revenge.”

Nat started to laugh. “Revenge?” she repeated.

Heather realized she hadn’t misheard. “Nat,” she said sharply. Nat must have remembered, then, about Dodge’s sister; her smile faded quickly. Dodge’s eyes clicked to Heather’s. She quickly looked away. So he did blame Luke Hanrahan for what had happened. She felt suddenly cold. The word revenge was so awful: straight and sharp, like a knife.

As if he could tell what she was thinking, Dodge smiled. “I just want to cream Ray, that’s all,” he said lightly, and reached out to grab the bag of chips. Heather felt instantly better.

They tried to play cards for a while but it was too dark, even for a slow-moving game; they had to keep passing the flashlight around. Nat wanted to learn how to do a magic trick, but Dodge resisted. Occasionally they heard voices from the hall, or footsteps, and Heather would tense up, certain that this was the beginning of the real challenge—spooky ghost holograms or people in masks who would jump out at them. But nothing happened. No one came barging in the door to say boo.

After a while, Heather got tired. She balled up the duffel bag she’d brought under her head. She listened to the low rhythm of Dodge and Nat’s conversation—they were talking about whether a shark or a bear would win in a fight, and Dodge was arguing that they had to specify a medium.…

… Then they were talking about dogs, and Heather saw two large eyes (a tiger’s eyes?) the size of headlights, staring at her from the darkness. She wanted to scream; there was a monster here, in the dark, about to pounce.…

And she opened her mouth, but instead of a scream coming out, the darkness poured in, and she slept.

dodge

DODGE WAS DREAMING OF THE TIME THAT HE AND Dayna had ridden the carousel together in Chicago. Or maybe Columbus. But in his dream, there were palm trees, and a man selling grilled meats from a brightly colored cart. Dayna was in front of him, and her hair was so long it kept whipping him in the face. A crowd was gathered: people shouting, leering, calling things he couldn’t understand.

He knew he was supposed to be happy—he was supposed to be having fun—but he wasn’t. It was too hot. Plus there was Dayna’s hair, getting tangled in his mouth, making it hard to swallow. Making it hard to breathe. There was the stench from the meat cart, too. The smell of burning. The thick clouds of smoke.

Smoke.

Dodge woke up suddenly, jerking upright. He’d fallen asleep straight on the floor, with his face pressed against the cold wood. He had no idea what time it was. He could just make out Heather’s and Nat’s entangled forms, the pattern of their breathing. For a second, still half-asleep, he thought they looked like baby dragons.

Then he realized why: the room was filling with smoke. It was seeping underneath the crack below the door, snaking its way into the room.

He stood up, then thought better of it, remembering that smoke rises, and dropped to his knees. There was shouting: screams and footsteps sounded from other parts of the house.

Too easy. He remembered what Heather had said earlier. Of course. Firecrackers exploded here on the Fourth of July; there would be a prize for the players who stayed in the house the longest.

Fire. The house was on fire.

He reached over and shook the girls roughly, not bothering to distinguish between them, to locate their elbows from their shoulders. “Wake up. Wake up.”

Natalie sat up, rubbing her eyes, and then immediately began coughing. “What—?”

“Fire,” he said shortly. “Stay low. Smoke rises.” Heather was stirring now too. He crawled back to the door. No doubt about it: the rats were abandoning ship. There was a confusion of voices outside, the sound of slamming doors. That meant the fire must have already spread pretty far. No one would have wanted to bail right away.

He put his hand on the metal door handle. It was warm to the touch, but not scalding.

“Nat? Dodge? What’s going on?” Heather was fully awake now. Her voice was shrill, hysterical. “Why is it so smoky?”

“Fire.” It was Natalie who answered. Her voice was, amazingly, calm.

Time to get the hell out. Before the fire spread further. He had a sudden memory of some gym class in DC—or was it Richmond?—when all the kids had to stop, drop, and roll onto the foot-smelling linoleum. Even then, he’d known it was stupid. Like rolling would do anything but turn you into a fireball.

He grabbed the handle and pulled, but nothing happened. Tried again. Nothing. For a second, he thought maybe he was still asleep—in one of his nightmares, where he tried and tried to run but couldn’t, or swung at some assailant’s face and didn’t even make a mark. On his third try, the handle popped off in his hand. And for the first time in the whole game, he felt it: panic, building in his chest, crawling into his throat.

“What’s happening?” Heather was practically screaming now. “Open the door, Dodge.”

“I can’t.” His hands and feet felt numb. The panic was squeezing his lungs, making it hard to breathe. No. That was the smoke. Thicker now. He unfroze. He fumbled his fingers into the hole where the door handle had been, tugging frantically, and felt a sharp bite of metal. He jammed his shoulder against the door, feeling increasingly desperate. “It’s stuck.”

“What do you mean, stuck?” Heather started to say something else, and instead started coughing.

Dodge spun around, dropped into a crouch. “Hold on.” He brought his sleeve to his mouth. “Let me think.” He could no longer hear any footsteps, any shouting. Had everyone else gotten out? He could hear, though, the progress of the fire: the muffled snapping and popping of old wood, decades of rot and ruin slurped into flame.

Heather was fumbling with her phone.

“What are you doing?” Nat tried to swat at it. “The rules said no calling for—”

“The rules?” Heather cut her off. “Are you crazy?” She punched furiously at the keyboard. Her face was wild, contorted, like a wax mask that had started to melt. She let out a sound that was a cross between a scream and a sob. “It’s not working. There’s no service.”

Think, think. Through the panic, Dodge carved a clear path in his mind. A goal; he needed a goal. He knew instinctively that it was his job to get the girls out safely, just like it was his job to make sure nothing bad ever happened to Dayna, his Dayna, his only sister and best friend. He couldn’t fail again. No matter what.

The window was too high—he’d never reach it. And it was so narrow.… But maybe he could give Natalie a boost.… She might be able to fit. Then what? Didn’t matter. Heather might be able to squeeze through too, although he doubted it.

“Nat.” He stood up. The air tasted gritty and thick. It was hot. “Come on. You have to go through the window.”

Nat stared. “I can’t leave you guys.”

“You have to. Go. Take your phone. Find help.” Dodge steadied himself with one hand on the wall. He was losing it. “It’s the only way.”

Dodge barely saw her nod in the dark. When she stood up, he could smell her sweat. For a crazy second, he wished he could hug her, and tell her it would be okay. But there was no time. An image of Dayna popped into his head, the mangled ruin of her car, her legs shriveling slowly to pale-white stalks.

His fault.

Dodge bent down, gripped Nat by the waist, helped her climb onto his shoulders. She drove a foot into his chest by accident, and he nearly lost it and fell. He was weak. It was the goddamn smoke. But he managed to steady himself and straighten up.

“The window!” Nat gasped. And Heather, somehow, understood. She fumbled for the wrench she’d spotted earlier and passed it upward. Nat swung. There was a tinkling. A rush of air blew into the room, and after just a second a whooshing sound, as the fire—beyond the door, edging closer—sensed that air, felt it, and surged toward it, like an ocean thundering toward the beach. Black smoke poured underneath the door.

“Go!” Dodge shouted. He felt Nat kick his head, his ear; then she was outside.

He dropped to his knees again. He could barely see. “You next,” he said to Heather.

“I’ll never fit.” She said it in a whisper, but somehow he heard. He was relieved. He didn’t really think he had the strength left to lift her.

His head was spinning. “Lie down,” he said, in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. She did, pressing flat against the ground. He was glad to lie down too. Lifting Nat that small distance had exhausted him. It was as though the smoke was a blanket . . . as though it was covering him, and telling him to sleep.…

He was back on the carousel again. But this time the spectators were screaming. And it had started to rain. He wanted to get off . . . the ride was whirling faster and faster . . . lights were spinning overhead . . .

Lights, spinning, voices shouting. Sirens screaming.

Sky.

Air.

Someone—Mom?—saying, “You’re okay, son. You’re going to be okay.”