Dead Voices

Slowly, Seth unfastened the watch from his wrist. His green eye flashed.

Coco understood what he was going to do about half a second before he dropped the watch into her waiting hands. He had promised to give her the watch if she won. He hadn’t promised not to do anything nasty afterward.

Without giving herself time to think, Coco reached out and snatched the watch from Seth’s grip; with her other hand, she reached down and scooped up the Ouija board and planchette, knocking over chess pieces left and right. “Run!” she snapped at Brian. “Run!”

She pelted through the archway into the lobby, not looking to see if Brian was following her. Of course, he was. Brian was leading the whole school district in hockey assists that season. Brian was a team player, as their PE teacher liked to say. And he’d been watching her the whole time. Trusting her. Waiting for Coco to make the play.

Even though she was sprinting out of breath across the lobby, Coco felt a little flicker of pride. She’d made the play, all right.

They flew toward the stairs on the opposite side of the lobby. Brian was way faster than her, but he kept his steps even with hers and they hit the stairs side by side. Then Brian slowed down a little, looking up. “You sure, Coco?” he asked. The darkness in the hallway was thick. “We don’t know what’s up there.”

“Nope,” she said. “We don’t.” But she kept on running up the stairs. She hated to do it. She could see that Brian did too. They were leaving her mom and Ollie’s dad just lying there asleep, defenseless.

But Seth had said the game wasn’t about their parents. Coco believed that. She had to believe that. Because they couldn’t save Ollie and stand watch over the sleeping adults. They needed to get away from Seth and his tricks. They needed to go somewhere private and figure out what to do. Make a plan.

So Coco ran up the stairs, into the darkness, and Brian went with her.

“Why’d you grab the Ouija board?” Brian was taking the steps two at a time, bounding as he talked.

“Because,” said Coco, panting. The Ouija board was awkward under her arm. “I saw it in the mirror.”

“So?” said Brian.

“I saw the board in the mirror. It was reflected in the mirror. In—wherever Ollie was. Nothing else was. Not me or you or Seth or anything. Not the blankets. But the Ouija board was there. I could see it on the floor behind Ollie. That seemed weird. So I grabbed it.”

Brian nodded. He took it from her. “I’ll carry it. You’re clumsy enough without trying to carry anything.”

He wasn’t being mean, just practical, Coco knew. They didn’t need her tripping over her own feet on top of everything else. “Thanks,” she said.

“Don’t mention it.” He didn’t call her Tiny. Coco felt that surge of pride again.

They were halfway up the stairs when she risked a quick look behind them. She didn’t see any sign of Seth. No, the lobby was totally empty and silent. The dead animals were glassy-eyed in the firelight.

Somehow the silence was worse than any noise.

“Brian,” said Coco, frowning. “The black bear is gone.”

Brian had stopped when she did; now he scanned the lobby in turn. “So are the coyotes,” he said. His voice had gone flat and tense.

Coco looked hard, squinting in the dark. Brian was right.

He licked his lips. “You know, Coco, if scarecrows can come to life after dark—”

A long, low snarl sounded through the lobby. Then another. Strange dry growls. A little like a dog, but choked, somehow. Like its vocal cords didn’t work right.

Coco heard nails clicking, like dogs crossing a kitchen floor. The sounds were coming closer. There was a chorus of growls. The shadows in the lobby were moving.

“The coyotes,” Brian whispered. “They’re coming. Coco, Come on!”

He pulled her around and up the stairs just as howls broke out from every part of the lobby and the shadows seemed, all at once, to leap for the stairwell.

Brian and Coco bolted up into the darkness.

Below them, they heard a bark, and an answering howl. There was a louder clatter of dog nails as dead paws slipped on the lobby floor. Coco risked another look back; she heard the coyotes’ panting breaths, but didn’t see anything, and that was the worst of all.

They were at the top of the stairs. The hallway stretched on into the dimness. But, strangely, unlike the lobby and dining room, there were electric lights on up there. The wall lamps were lit. But they weren’t glowing a nice yellow now. Just a faint green. They cast puddles of sickly light, in between stripes of darkness on the carpet. Both Brian and Coco hesitated at the top of the stairs. But then the growling came again, closing in behind them. They heard the padding of feet on the stairwell, the odd creak of formaldehyde-stuffed limbs.

Coco glanced behind. Still didn’t see anything. “Brian—” she began.