The Haunted

Five

Megan frowned at her iPhone, trying to make sense of the Twitter message on-screen. There was nothing she hated more than those abbreviations made from various combinations of numbers, letters and punctuation marks. Such shorthand had probably been convenient once upon a time, but now using that sort of code was little more than a measure of hipness. Trends these days changed so quickly that she had a hard time keeping up, and when she encountered something unfamiliar, she was afraid to ask what it meant for fear that her friends would laugh at her.

She wondered whether that was what was going on here.

MPD L2? 8LIF (XXXQ) DDF: 3907!

She read the message again, just as confused the second time. She could not even tell who it was from, and finally she exited the screen, deciding to ignore it.

Sighing heavily, Megan shifted on her bed and stared out the window at the wood shake roof of the single-story house next door. The driveway was empty, and she assumed that the people who lived there weren’t home. But, then again, they never seemed to be home. As far as she could tell, the entire neighborhood was filled with old people and shut-ins. The place was like a morgue, and the only time anyone came out was in the late afternoon, when couples walked their dogs or fitness fanatics jogged.

She hadn’t seen anyone here her own age.

She wished that her family hadn’t moved. All of her friends now lived farther away, and seeing them was not just inconvenient; it was downright difficult. That would change once school started, but this summer she felt more isolated and alone than she ever had in her life.

It was James’s fault. If that little punk hadn’t been such a pansy, they could’ve stayed in their old house and she could be at Kate’s right now, watching a movie or … or … doing something.

In two years, she’d have her driver’s license, and none of this would matter so much. But until then …

Her iPhone beeped, and Megan picked it up off the bedspread next to her, hoping it was a message from one of her friends.

I C U

She frowned. There was no sender name, no address.

That was weird.

The phone beeped again as another message came in.

I C U Megan

That was not just weird. It was creepy. Instinctively, she looked around. No one could possibly be watching her here, but she felt as though she was being spied upon, and she had a sudden need to make sure no one could see her. Carefully, she peered out the window again, checking the side yard of the house next door. Spotting no one, she shut the shade and moved to the other window, overlooking the front yard. Staying back in the shadows, so as not to be visible, she scanned the street, the sidewalk, their front yard, the yard across the street.

Nothing.

She shut that shade, too.

Turning around, Megan looked through her open doorway into the hall. It seemed more shadowy than it should, particularly for the middle of the afternoon. “Dad?” she called.

“What?” His reassuring voice answered her from across the hall, and she relaxed, the tension in her muscles dissipating.

“Nothing!” she said gratefully. She turned back toward the center of the room. With the shades drawn, it was as dark as it could get during the daytime, and she was about to turn on the light when the iPhone beeped in her hand.

She looked down at it.

IL C U 2NITE

In one movement, she switched off the phone and threw it on the bed, crying out as she did so and shaking her hands as though to rid them of slime.

“Everything all right in there?” her dad called.

Staring at the phone on the bedspread, Megan thought about telling him, wanted to tell him, but she knew how he got, and she knew what he’d do. He’d take away her phone, which, as far as she was concerned, would punish her, not protect her.

It was better to keep quiet.

“Megan?” He poked his head in the doorway.

She forced herself to smile at him. “I’m fine, Dad. There’s nothing wrong. Everything’s fine.”

Her father had met his deadline and successfully completed his most recent project, so, for the first time in a long while, their family went out to dinner to celebrate. Megan was in the mood for Mexican food, while James wanted to go to Fazio’s because they had pizza, but, as always, their parents were the ones who got to decide, so they ended up at that lame hippie health-food restaurant Radicchio. That was bad enough. But what made it worse was the fact that Brad Bishop was sitting with his dad two tables over. She ignored him, and he ignored her, but Megan knew he saw her, just as she saw him. It was impossible to be cool when you were with your parents, and she settled for acting bored and above it all, as though she’d been forced to come here. She tried not to look over at Brad but couldn’t help glancing up at him periodically. Each time she did, he seemed as bored as she was pretending to be.

Dinner lasted way longer than it should have. Service, as always, was poor, and one of their parents’ friends stopped by to chat, which made her want to sink into the floor with embarrassment. Luckily, Brad and his dad left soon after, and while they passed directly by her family’s table on their way out, neither she nor Brad acknowledged each other.

It had been light out when they arrived, but it was dark when they left, and Megan wondered what time it was. It seemed like they’d been in that stupid restaurant for hours. “Great celebration,” she said sarcastically.

“It was, wasn’t it?” Her dad was either genuinely oblivious or pretending to be oblivious in order to antagonize her, but she refused to take the bait and engage him. Instead, she opened the door of the van and got in.

A few blocks later, near the park, the van’s headlights illuminated a yellow sign at the side of the road: SLOW CHILDREN PLAYING.

“Look out for retarded kids,” she told James.

“Megan!” her dad said sternly.

“That’s what the sign says.”

“I see one!” James announced.

“James!”

The two of them giggled.

They arrived home a few moments later. Her parents never let her keep her phone on when they were out in public doing family activities, so the first thing Megan did when she got inside was turn on her phone and check for messages. There was one text she’d missed, and she immediately announced that she’d be in her room and headed upstairs, not wanting James or her parents to see the message. It was probably from Zoe, and for her eyes only.

There was a split second of hesitation as she reached the top of the steps—

IL C U 2NITE

—but then she heard the sound of James’s footsteps coming up the stairs behind her, she flipped on the hall light, and all was normal. Walking over and into her bedroom, she turned on both the ceiling light and the lamp on her desk before closing the door and checking the text.

?*#%$&?!

It looked like those symbols that were strung together in order to depict obscenities in comic books.

Maybe it was Zoe, she thought doubtfully, although it didn’t make a whole lot of sense and didn’t seem like something the other girl would send.

Megan pressed her friend’s speed-dial number, but Zoe did not answer right away, like she usually did, and after six rings there was a message, Zoe talking in a subdued, dispirited voice: “I cannot use my cell phone right now. If you wish to speak to me, please call my home phone.”

Megan dialed her friend’s home phone, and Zoe’s mom answered. “Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Dunbar? This is Megan. May I speak to Zoe?”

“Oh, Megan! How are you? Hold on a sec; I’ll get her.”

Zoe came on the line, and there were a few moments of awkward innocuous chitchat until her mother left the room. “Okay,” she said finally. “What’s up?”

“Did you text me earlier? About an hour ago?”

“No. How could I? My mom took my phone away because my stupid sister caught me talking to Kate when I was supposed to be pulling weeds. I can’t get it back until Monday!”

“Well, someone texted me, but I can’t tell who, and it doesn’t make sense. It’s like those exclamation points and question marks and apostrophes that they use instead of swear words.”

“You always know if it’s from me. I don’t block anything.”

“Yeah.” She almost told Zoe about the other messages she’d received, but her friend started complaining about her sister and her mom, and it didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up. Zoe went on to tell her that Kate had seen Jenny Sanchez at Dairy Queen yesterday and she had really short hair and it was blond!

“Why would she do that?” Megan wondered.

“God knows.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Megan said. “I saw Brad at Radicchio.”

“When?”

“Just now. We got back, like, five minutes ago.”

“No one’s seen him since school got out! I heard he moved.”

“Obviously not.”

“Who was he with?”

“His dad.”

“His parents got divorced, you know. At the end of last year.”

“I know. And his dad got custody. Which means that his mom must be really …”

“Yeah.” There was a pause. “Did you talk to him?”

“No!”

“I would’ve,” Zoe insisted.

From the hallway outside Megan’s door came the sound of running footsteps as James hurried back downstairs.

She wished he were staying up here.

“Are you still there?” Zoe said. “Hel-lo?”

“I’m here.”

“You should’ve at least waved to him or said hi. This was your chance.”

Megan reddened, glad that her friend couldn’t see her.

From somewhere in the background came the sound of Zoe’s mom’s voice: “Time’s up.”

“I have to go.” Zoe’s tone was formal and subdued. “She times me,” she whispered into the receiver. “I can’t use my phone and I can’t talk for more than five minutes on any phone.”

“Zoe,” her mom said loudly.

“Gotta go. Bye.”

Megan was left holding a silent phone to her ear as the connection was terminated, and she quickly shut the phone off, feeling nervous.

IL C U 2NITE

Even with all of the lights on, the room did not seem as safe as it should have, as it usually did. Looking around, she saw a poorly cleaned section on the drawn front shade, more off-white than the surrounding area, that resembled the shadow of a man’s head. A seeping coolness made her wonder whether the window behind that shade was open. Atop her desk, two books were out that she could not remember leaving there. Had someone moved them to that spot while rifling through her room?

She was being stupid. She was in her own bedroom, in her own house, and it was probably the safest place on earth she could be.

Ordinarily, she would have gone online and browsed for a while, but Megan realized as she looked at her laptop that she was afraid to turn it on. She thought once more of that message she’d received this afternoon—

IL C U 2NITE

—and shivered. Her shades were all closed, but she checked them again anyway, making sure all cracks were sealed and no one could see in. The room seemed quiet, too quiet, and she turned on her iPod.

She knew that other sounds could hide under music, however, and rather than reassuring her, the iPod made her feel even more anxious. She was all alone up here, Megan realized, and immediately she turned off the music, dropped the iPod on her bed and sped downstairs to watch a TV show she didn’t like with her surprised but happy parents. And James.

Two hours of comedies and karaoke contests later, her nerves were calmed, her sense of normalcy restored, and her earlier anxiety seemed like a horrendous overreaction. It was time for bed, and both she and James said good night to their parents and headed upstairs to their bedrooms. For once, she was glad to have her brother with her, and though they didn’t speak as they trod up the steps, she was grateful for his presence and actually bade him good night before entering her bedroom and closing the door.

Often, Megan stayed up later than she was supposed to—that was the advantage of having a two-story house and a bedroom on a floor different from her parents’. She’d read or listen to music or even text her friends if they were still up. But tonight she was tired. It might have been only ten o’clock, but it felt like midnight to her. So she changed into her pajamas, walked down the hall to the bathroom, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth, then crawled into bed. Usually, she liked to sleep with the lights off, but this time she left the desk lamp on. She could hear James moving around down the hall, though he was supposed to be in bed, too. Under normal circumstances, she’d yell at him to go to sleep, threaten to tell their parents, but tonight she was grateful for the noise, and she closed her eyes and within minutes had drifted off.

She awoke in darkness.

She’d been lured out of sleep by the soft sound of an electronic beep, although she heard nothing now. Somehow her lamp had been turned off, and she chose to believe that one of her parents had come in to check on her and switched it off. The thought was comforting.

There was another beep, and Megan rolled over onto her side. She’d turned off her iPhone before going to bed, as she always did, but on the nightstand next to her she could see the light from the screen in the darkness. She sat up, leaning on her elbow, and looked over to see what was going on.

There was a message, white letters against a blue background. Bleary eyed, she read it, her heart pounding.

, it said. I C U!