Famous Last Words

Reed loomed above me, holding the knife. “Want to know what I’m going to cut first?”

On the ceiling above him, black words bubbled into existence.

Just three short words:

I AM HERE

“Wait, Reed … please.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I just have one question.”

He smirked. “What?”

I took a deep breath. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

His smirk turned to a confused sneer. “Do I —”

There was an explosion of blue light between us.

Reed cried out in surprise, giving me a moment to dash out of his reach. I turned back and looked at him —

At him, and at Paige.

Her ghost stood in the center of the hallway, a girl made of light.

Reed stared up at her in terror. “What … what are you?”

Paige looked over at me. In her gaze I saw sympathy, understanding, sorrow … but also anger. Resolve. Strength.

She turned back to Reed, who was basically reduced to blubbering.

“What is this?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

Paige smiled and took a step toward him. She spoke in a voice of hollow whispers. “This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.”

When he tried to move out of her way, his foot landed on one of the wet footprints and slipped.

He tumbled backward down the stairs.

And then there was stillness.

I crawled to the banister and saw Reed lying unconscious — maybe dead — on the floor of the foyer below.

I glanced up at Paige.

She gave me a look of satisfaction … but also full of regret and wistfulness.

And then she disappeared.

I raced down the stairs, past Reed’s body, and into the guest bathroom.

The faucet was still ru

Oh, God, what if he never woke up?

I could not sit there and watch him not breathe and not open his eyes and not be alive anymore.

It would break everything that was left of me.

“No, no, no,” I said. “No, you are NOT going to die tonight!”

Desperately, I racked my memory for the first aid I’d learned back in ninth grade. I wrestled him into a sitting position and drew my balled-up fists into the soft space beneath the center of his ribs. As I did it, I felt emotions rush through me, raw and unprocessed, and for a moment I closed my eyes and went back to that morning at the YMCA trying to save my father.

Live, I remembered thinking. Live, Dad. Live.

Now I thought, Live, Jonathan.

Please live.

Suddenly, his body began to convulse with a series of racking coughs. I ran out of strength to hold on to him, so I laid him down on his side and watched and waited as he came back to life.

He drew in a huge gasp of air, and his eyelids blinked heavily.

“Willa,” he croaked.

I was too overcome with relief even to speak.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

He started looking around frantically. “Where is he? We need to get out —”

I was already moving toward the door. “I’ll be right back. I have to get help.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, trying to sit up.

“It’s okay. Don’t move. Wait here.”

I got up and walked over to where Reed lay in the foyer. I thought about checking for a pulse, but decided that could wait. I kicked the knife so it slid under the heavy cabinet by the door and went to the dining room for the roll of tape Reed had used on me all night.

I hesitated before grabbing his hands — what if my touch woke him? What if he was only dazed?

I had a feeling that, if he sprang to life, he would have more than enough fight left to finish me off.

“Is he … dead?”

I jumped at the sound of Jonathan’s voice. He was slowly staggering toward us.

“I don’t know,” I said, and my whole body began to tremble. I honestly didn’t know whether to hope the answer was yes or no.

“Be careful,” he said. “Here … I’ll sit on him. Start with his feet, okay?”

I nodded as Jonathan painfully lowered himself onto Reed’s chest.

I wound the tape around his ankles about fifty times.

“Now his hands,” I said.

“We need to call 9-1-1,” Jonathan said.

“This first,” I said. “Here, watch out.”

Jonathan stiffly climbed off Reed, and together we flipped him over. Jonathan grabbed his wrists and held them tight while I circled them with the tape.

“Hold him down,” I said. “I guess I’ll see if he’s alive.”

I lay my two fingers flat against his neck, under his right ear. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to jump up and attack me.

But he didn’t.

“Is there a pulse?” Jonathan asked.

I felt the faint, slow beat of Reed’s blood under my fingers, and my entire body went cold.

“Yeah,” I whispered. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. My eyes felt swollen and painful.

“My phone’s ruined,” Jonathan said, taking it out of his sopping-wet pocket. “Do you have yours?”

“No,” I said. “Reed took it. And the landline is dead. I’ll go outside and flag down a car in a minute, but first … I need the code to get into the garage.”

“Wait … are you okay to walk?” he asked.

I nodded, even though it wasn’t totally true. “What’s the code?”

“It’s four fours. Why?”

I didn’t answer. I left the front door open and staggered over to the garage. Every step hurt, and my head ached from being slammed into the wall. Lights seemed surrounded by halos, and I saw two of everything.

But I managed to type in 4-4-4-4, and the door opened with a rumble. I flipped on the lights and walked over to the corner, where I’d seen the puddle of water that morning.

There was a door in the side wall, behind an old bike. It wasn’t even disguised — it just looked like it hadn’t been used in eons.

The chauffeur’s quarters. That’s where he’d been keeping them, rehearsing with them. Preparing them for their deaths. He had easy access, since he could come and go into and out of the garage as much as he pleased. And it was far enough from the house that no one would hear the girls crying and screaming for help.

I shoved the bike away and pulled the door open.

Stairs.

From the bottom of the stairs came a soft, muffled sound.

“Willa?” Jonathan stood, slightly swaying, in the open garage door. “What are you doing?”

“Marnie?” I called.

The muffled sound stopped, and turned into a muted shriek.

“We’re getting help,” I said. “Sorry I can’t come down for you right this second, I …”

I was so dizzy I could hardly walk. Jonathan slumped against the garage wall like he might collapse at any moment.

“Who’s down there?” he asked.

“His next victim,” I said. “Besides me, I mean. Her name is Marnie.”

The devastated look that came over Jonathan’s face just about broke my heart.

“Could you go down and tell her she’s safe?” I said. “I’m going to get help.”

He nodded and slowly began to descend the steps while I shuffled to the gate. When I pulled it open, I saw headlights approaching from around the corner. They blurred in my vision until they were four bright diamonds of light.

I raised my arms and stepped out into the middle of the street, thinking, Wouldn’t it be just my luck to survive all that and then get run over by some loser checking his text messages?