Creed Read online

  “This is crazy,” I said, exhaling loudly. Taking chances wasn’t something I was good at, and the thought of wandering into this house felt about as wrong as anything had in a while. “Fine, but only because we’re out of choices. And if I hear anything, anything, then we’re leaving. There’s something screwy about this place.”

  I bit down on the inside of my cheek, silently cursing myself for getting us into this mess. On an ordinary Friday night I’d be at home, waiting for Luke to come watch a movie and trying to ignore the smell of Mrs. Hooper’s not-yet-

  perfected veggie lasagna. Right about now, even that smell was appealing.

  Five

  A cold slap of air hit me the second I stepped through the door, the quick chill pushing me back outside rather than drawing me into the safe, dry confines of the house. Luke must have felt it too because he swept his arm backward, tucking me safely behind him. I wasn’t complaining. I was more than happy to let Luke be the first one through that door.

  The breeze quickly died, and the fluttering curtains went still. Mike pushed past me and was ahead of Luke in two strides. “Door,” he said.

  I stood there, silent, with no clue whether I should back out or come in and lock the door behind me. It wasn’t until Mike started walking down the hall that I realized what he’d meant. The entryway opened into a living room. There was a hallway beyond it leading straight to the kitchen and a back door. It was that door that was wide open. The shot of cold we’d felt was a cross-breeze created by our sudden entrance.

  Mike put a finger to his lips, motioning for us to stay quiet as he shut the door.

  “I doubt there’s anybody home,” Luke whispered into my ear. “But stay here and let me and Mike take a look around.”

  I dug myself farther into his side. I wasn’t remotely interested in wandering around this house until we were certain it was empty. And I didn’t want Luke to either. But he smiled and peeled me off him, then motioned for me to stay put as he headed for the stairs.

  Mike returned first, the ease of his stride letting me know he’d found nothing. “I walked around back,” he said as he triple-checked the lock on the front door. “Nobody’s out there. My guess is they left in a hurry when the sirens went off.”

  As much as I wanted to believe it was the sirens that had driven the owners away, the logic of that theory couldn’t compete with my paranoia. “Or maybe they left when they heard us coming,” I said.

  Mike shrugged. “Doubt it. They’ve been gone for a while. If they’d just left, I’m pretty sure I would’ve seen them out there, but there’s nothing but miles of fields. Plus, there’s snow on the ground. I’d see their tracks if they left recently, and there aren’t any.”

  I looked out the front window, searching what I could see of the neighbors’ yards. Nothing but a clean slate of snow marred by our footprints

  “Where’s Luke?” Mike asked.

  I lifted my chin toward the ceiling. I could hear Luke moving around upstairs, the creak of the floorboards and the sound of doors opening and closing keeping me on edge.

  “I’ll check the upstairs with him. Yell if you need us,” Mike said.

  I stood there alone, listening to Mike and Luke’s footsteps above. Their voices were muffled by the ceiling that separated us, but I could make out a few words. Luke laughed, that low rumble of amusement that only Mike could draw out, and I instantly relaxed. If Mike was joking and Luke was laughing, then things couldn’t be that bad.

  The heat clicked on, the soft whine of a furnace finally taking the chill out of the air. It was then, when my mind and body finally eased into the warmth pouring from the vents, that I looked around. I was standing in the living room. A very dull, very boring living room. The walls, the couch, even the curtains were beige. There wasn’t a single picture on the wall or knick-knack on the mantle. In fact, with the exception of the dying yellow embers in the fireplace, the sole color in the room came from the massive gold cross hanging above the mantle.

  I couldn’t help myself. I reached up and touched the bottom of the cross. It was cool despite the fire burning below it. Even the Hoopers, the most religious people I knew—who went to church on Sundays and said grace before holiday meals—even they didn’t having something this big hanging on their wall.

  Drawn to the warmth of the fire, I found myself lingering there, peeling off my gloves as I tried to absorb the heat. I kicked off my shoes and wiggled my toes in front of the flames until I felt the soft, painful tingle of life returning. Once my body no longer burned with cold, I’d be able to focus on the moment and how we were going to get out of this place.

  “All clear upstairs,” Luke said, and I jumped at the sound of his voice, nearly toppling into the brick hearth as I spun around to see him. He reached out to steady me as Mike pulled back the screen and tossed in another log. The fire crackled, the embers suffocating under the weight of the new wood for a moment before flaring back to life.

  “You find a phone?” I asked.

  Luke shook his head. “I didn’t see one upstairs. Let’s check the kitchen.”

  I stripped off my damp socks and laid them out by the fire to dry. No way was I staying here more than a few minutes, but even that could make the difference between my feet being wet or numb. I stepped around the corner, skidding to a stop as I took in the kitchen. The table was set, and something had boiled over on the stove. From the looks of it, they’d been getting ready to eat dinner when whatever drove them away came knocking.

  “Like I told you, someone left in a hurry,” Mike said as he tossed the offending pot into the sink.

  I glanced into the bottom of the pot, the brown, crusted mess on it heightening my fears. The weather may have been nasty, but not emergency-evacuation worthy. And definitely not bad enough to leave food unattended on a lit stove.

  I turned back to the table and counted the number of plates. Three. Three sets of silverware. Three bowls of salad. Three glasses of milk. The napkins were tossed onto the plates and the bottle of salad dressing was tipped over, its contents pooling onto the nearest place mat.

  Not thinking, I went over to the table and picked up the bottle. I used one of the napkins to clean up the mess before putting the salad dressing back in the fridge. I was planning to do the same to the butter and grated cheese when Luke caught my wrist and spun me around to face him. “Leave it, Dee.”

  I yanked my wrist free, a brief flash of panic forcing me to push him away. I rarely reacted to Luke like that, hardly ever let my past override what I knew to be the truth. But here in this house, in this town, nothing felt right.

  Luke held up his hands, the look on his face clearly indicating that my reaction stung. “Dee, I would never—”

  I waved him off, unwilling to allow my issues to make the night any worse than it already was. Truth was, I trusted Luke completely. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Ever.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  Luke nodded, but he kept his distance as I started clearing the table again. It was a monotonous task, something dull and rote to keep my mind off the inevitable. We’d missed the concert, it was freezing outside, and the quick look I’d had of this house told me there was no phone, never mind people. And we were stuck here.

  “There’s no phone,” I mumbled as I dumped the milk down the drain. I quickly circled the kitchen in search of the dishwasher. There wasn’t one. Of course not. Why would there be. “There’s no dishwasher. I bet they don’t even have a TV or a computer.”

  Mike nodded, confirming my thoughts. I sat down right there on the kitchen floor, pissed that the night had been ruined, angry with myself for not checking the gas gauge, and more than a tiny bit scared. I hated feeling like this … like I had no control and absolutely no say in what happened next.

  “It’s no biggie,” Luke said as he slid down in front of me and raised my chin so I’d meet his eyes. “We’ll try
another house.”

  That would be the logical solution, but my ability to reason had disappeared when I’d found myself playing hopscotch in a graveyard. “I don’t get it. Who doesn’t have a phone?”

  “We don’t,” Mike said, and I glared up at him. I wasn’t looking an answer. I just needed to vent.

  “No, seriously, we don’t,” Mike continued. “We haven’t had a land-line in almost two years. We only have cell phones.”

  I knew that, but I looked to Luke for confirmation anyway. “Yup,” he said. “Mom had it disconnected. Said it was useless with how much we were on our cells.”

  The Hoopers had a land-line, one of those old things still attached to the wall. But they could barely figure out how

  to work voicemail, never mind learn how to text. Them having a wall phone made sense. The rest of the world … not so much. “So what are the chances any of these other houses have a phone?” I asked.

  Luke shrugged, that familiar twitch of his shoulders that meant our odds weren’t good.

  “Okay, then let’s go back to the car,” I suggested. “We can flag down the next person who drives by.”

  “I know it seems safer there, but without gas, Dee,

  we can’t turn the heat on. That car is nothing but a metal icebox now.”

  “Then let’s head back into town,” I said. The house we were holed up in may have been warm, and there was plenty of food already on the table, but something about it freaked me out. “We can stay at that gas station until one of the attendants comes back.”

  It was Mike who answered this time. He went over to the picture window and drew back the curtains so I could see for myself. “It’s dark out, and the wind is picking up. My guess is the snow isn’t going to let up for a while, and the last thing we need is to get lost out there.”

  I knew what he was thinking. It was the smart thing to do, the safe thing, but that didn’t make it any less horrifying. “What? You think we should stay here? In somebody else’s house? All night?”

  Neither of them spoke, and that was answer enough. “No,” I said, looking at my watch. “It’s barely seven. We have plenty of time.”

  “No we don’t,” Mike said.

  “But what if they come home? I mean, they aren’t going to be too happy when—”

  “We already locked the doors,” Luke said, cutting me off.

  My eyes trailed to the front door. Not only had they locked it, but Luke had jammed a chair up against the handle. “What’s that for?”

  “Nothing,” Mike said. “We just want fair warning should this town come back to life.”

  I thought Mike’s choice of words was interesting and almost asked him to explain what, exactly, he meant by “fair warning.” But to be honest, I didn’t want to know. Years of zombie movies had warped me, conditioned me to expect moaning throngs of rotting flesh in circumstances like this. And based on the primitive quality of the local cemetery, the dead wouldn’t have far to crawl to get above ground.

  “Fine. Whatever,” I said as I made my way back to the fire. Heat or no heat, I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to spend ten more minutes in this creep-show house, never mind an entire night. “But as soon as the sun comes up, we’re leaving.”

  Six

  I was lying on the couch with my head in Luke’s lap, staring at the front door and waiting for whoever lived here to come back home. The first trickle of true fear had finally settled like a living, breathing hum in my body.

  “Tell me what you had planned for tonight,” Luke said, and I didn’t have to look up to see his forced smile; it rang clear in his voice. I doubted he really cared about our plans. Rather, he was trying to draw me out of my silence.

  “Concert. I got third-row seats to see Mindhole. It was supposed to be an anniversary present,” I said. “Out of all the nights for things to go bad, it had to be this one.”

  “I don’t think it’s that bad,” Luke said. “I’ve got you here snuggled into me.”

  His hand ran the same path across my back as it had for the last half-hour. It was meant to be soothing, but with the wind lashing at the windows and the icy snow pinging off the shutters, it made me more anxious.

  “You know I love you, right?” he asked. “And you know I would never let anything hurt you. Mike either?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I knew that. Some days it was the only thing I knew, the only thing I could depend on.

  “Then relax, Dee. I promise you’re safe here with me.”

  Luke kissed the top of my head, his lips lingering there before moving to my cheek. “If it was supposed to be an anniversary present, then why did you bring Mike?”

  I snorted at his attempt to change the subject. “I kinda needed his help with your parents. Lying to Mrs. Hooper was bad enough, but your parents … well, once I got in front of them, I could barely remember what I was supposed to say.”

  I chuckled, remembering the one fumbling attempt I’d made before breaking down and recruiting Mike for the job. I’d seen Mike lie to teachers about homework he’d forgotten and get out of a dates with a girls he’d accidently asked out when he was drunk. Mike could dance around the truth better than anybody, and, unfortunately for me, I’d needed his skill to pull this off.

  Granted, it meant I had to be willing to put up with him all weekend, but if anyone could construct a web of lies without casting suspicion, it was Mike.

  “His price for lying to your parents was a concert ticket,” I said, leaving out the fact that I’d paid for Mike’s room, his food, and the weed he’d insisted on scoring for the trip. No point in bringing that up, not when Luke was clearly trying to lighten my mood.

  Luke groaned and mumbled something under his breath. I didn’t catch much of it, just the vague promise that he’d make Mike pay.

  I sat up and let my hands drop between my knees as I took another quick survey of the room. Mike was still in the bathroom. He’d spent the last ten minutes digging through the cabinets looking for contact lens solution. His was in the car. Even if he could get to it, it was probably frozen solid.

  “This sucks.” I couldn’t help but feel responsible for the way things had turned out. Mike had originally suggested I forget the whole anniversary-concert-weekend-away thing and have a party with Luke’s friends. He thought we should take the money I’d saved up and bribe his older cousin to get us a keg. I’d brushed off his suggestion and told him I wasn’t interested in spending every last dime I had paying for Luke’s friends to get wasted. I wanted to spend time alone with Luke, not cleaning up after his friends. Besides, some stupid Friday night party wasn’t good enough. Luke deserved something better.

  I hated to admit it, but I was beginning to think Mike was right. We should’ve stayed home and gotten a keg.

  “If I’d gone with Mike’s suggestion, then we wouldn’t be stuck here.”

  “And what did Mike’s plans involve? Beer and a crap-load of his friends?”

  “Pretty much,” I said as I ran a hand across the couch cushion. It was stiff and completely stain-free. Not a pulled thread or worn spot in sight. My eyes traveled to the end table—completely devoid of family pictures—and then to the drab windows. There were no fancy fabrics or colorful patterns, only plain, old, white curtains. Nothing but perfectly boring symmetry everywhere you looked. If these people had any sort of life, you couldn’t tell.

  “It’s not your fault, Dee.”

  “It is my fault,” I said. The realization of exactly how screwed we were was finally settling in. “No one is going to notice we’re missing until Sunday night.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Sunday night’? Is that what you told my parents?”

  “Not me. Mike,” I said, the first tears beginning to pool in my eyes. “I told Mrs. Hooper I was staying at Dawn’s house for the weekend, working on a Spanish project. Your mom thinks you guys are at Syra
cuse for some early admittance football thing where you meet the team and they try to convince you that Syracuse is your best choice.”

  Luke raked a hand through his hair, a character trait that usually meant he was pissed. Not at me necessarily, but pissed nonetheless. “And she believed that? Syracuse is on the bottom of my list.”

  I groaned, fighting the urge to look out the window for the hundredth time. We had no clue where we were. No one knew we were here. And this house wigged me out.

  No matter how you slice it, this sucked.

  Seven

  It was still dark when I woke up. The fire had died out, and the house was totally silent. It wasn’t noise or even my own fear that had startled me awake, just the soft dip in the couch cushion next to me. At first I didn’t realize where I was, but eventually reality came rushing back. I shot up, the blanket covering me falling to the floor as my body instinctively went into a defensive posture.

  “Easy, Dee. It’s me,” Luke whispered.

  It took a minute for the voice to register and my body to relax. Once it did, I threw my arms around him, grateful that it was Luke and not some psycho-nut with a meat cleaver.

  I pulled back quickly, gasping as cold water seeped through my shirt.

  “Sorry,” Luke said, shrugging off his coat.

  “Why do you have your coat on, and why are you wet?” I asked.

  I craned my neck to see the front door, sighing in relief when I saw the chair still propped beneath the handle and the lock firmly in place. I glanced back at Luke, confused. There were drops of water on his coat and his cheeks were red. He’d gone somewhere. Luke had waited until Mike and I had dozed off, and then that stubborn, stupid boyfriend of mine had gone outside.

  “You went outside? Are you insane? What the hell were you thinking?” I yelled.

  Mike woke up, grumbling something about me making too much noise before rolling over and settling back into the floor by the fire. I reached over and yanked his arm. “Luke left the house. Alone!”