Chosen Read online

  “Weird,” Peter offered.

  Ben couldn’t blame him for not having anything better to say; he just kept going. “I didn’t do anything different. I wasn’t thinking about not hearing voices. I wasn’t thinking about that night.” He grimaced. “Not more than usual.” That was what their horrifying experience had been reduced to between them—‘that night’. They hadn’t ever needed to say anything else to know what it meant—the night they’d lost their friends and parts of their minds and almost their lives.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Peter said. “Why us?”

  Running his fingers through his hair, Ben turned a little hesitantly to ask, “You haven’t… heard anything? Seen something else?” Peter shook his head. “Okay. Guess it’s still just me, then.”

  “Guess so.”

  Their heads bobbed together in mutual distraction as they looked away from each other again. After so much time spent avoiding the whole topic with the one person who’d been there with him—the one person who always knew he’d been telling the truth, though it got him nowhere—Ben felt like they were just two dudes forced into the same room together for the first time, trying to lighten the mood with the weirdest conversation-starter ever. He wished they could just get past it already, at least with each other.

  They sat there for a little longer, and Ben twitched when the clatter of new ice falling into the tray in the freezer broke the silence. Thankfully, Peter either hadn’t noticed or decided just to act like it. “April, huh?” he asked, picking invisible dirt out from under his fingernails.

  “Yeah. I met her in the Bursar’s office.” His friend just nodded again and took a deep breath. “She actually, uh… she helped with the whole fire thing. A little.” She’d helped a lot; they’d all be toast right now if she hadn’t thrown that rock through the window. And she’d been fast enough on her feet to splash water all over the girl with her hair on fire, probably even stopped the burns from getting worse. But Ben didn’t want to talk her up too much—not to Peter, and not with this. Peter had been the one who pulled Ben from the demonic house that night; he’d pulled them both out and saved them from whatever agonizing fate the rest of their friends had endured.

  “You tell her anything?” Peter just stared at the floor in front of the couch, hunched over his hands folded in his lap, like he was cold but didn’t want to go look for a jacket.

  “No.” He’d wanted to, for a minute, but that never changed the fact that he couldn’t.

  “All right.” Peter stood from the couch and cleared his throat. “You should probably keep it that way.” Then he pointed with his thumb down the hall. “I think I’m gonna go pass out. You can take the couch if you want.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Ben glanced up briefly to see Peter nod, then turn around and shuffle toward his apartment’s one bedroom. When Ben heard the door close, he kicked off his shoes and grabbed the soft gray blanket hanging over the back of the couch. The thought did enter his mind that he didn’t know how many times Peter had sat on the couch huddled in this blanket, sick and sniffly, or how recently the thing had been washed. But right now, he just didn’t have enough energy to care.

  4

  “Ben.”

  The voice was so familiar, bringing with it a wave of joy, nostalgia, and grief so thick, the feeling had to have its own name. It brought fleeting memories, more emotion than images, like the smell in the air on a random day that reminded people of a past they couldn’t quite grip. Way back when. The good ol’ days.

  “Ben. Are you there?”

  Hearing this voice now made him want to cry, and he didn’t know why. So he stepped forward in the darkness, searching, holding back whatever building emotion threatened to break free, like sand poured into a jar, filling it all the way up until that seemingly long, anticipatory moment between containment and overflowing. Why was he thinking about sand?

  He walked and walked, knowing his legs moved under him but without feeling his feet touch the ground. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t feel his feet at all. And he couldn’t see a single thing through the overwhelming darkness.

  “I waited for you, Ben.” The voice came from the same distance away, even though he’d been moving—or thought he had. “I’m still waiting for you.”

  Then, a few yards in front of him, Ben saw a flash of light. It was tiny—just a speck—but it glittered for a moment from somewhere above before dropping back down into the darkness. He went to it, not knowing what else to do, and saw another sparkling flash drop from above and fall into nothingness. Two more steps, and then whatever floor he walked across creaked under his weight with a long, warning groan. He felt the floorboards shudder with the sound of it, and a wave of dread clawed its way up his spine. That creaky floor was just as familiar as the voice he hadn’t yet managed to place.

  “Why haven’t you come back, Ben?” The words rose now from a low, hollow call to a terrified whine. “I’ve been here for so long. Why won’t you come back for me?”

  Another glimmering flash fell from the darkness, much closer this time and followed a split second later by the plink of dripping water, as if someone had forgotten to turn the faucet off all the way. Ben moved closer, and then two circles of light flashed into existence, one above him just ahead and one on the ground at his feet. The pool in front of him lit up with an eerie, silver-blue glow, rippling when the next shining drop of water fell from directly above it with another echoing drip. Slowly, Ben followed the path of the falling water, up, up to the circle of the same glowing light above him. What he saw there made his knees wobble and collapse completely beneath him; at least, he thought they did, though he didn’t move and his body didn’t slump painfully to the ground like he’d expected.

  “Ian?” he choked, and his voice sounded lost and faraway in all this darkness.

  It was Ian. It had to be. How had he not recognized that voice the minute he’d heard it? After over a decade of wishing he could have his friends back, swearing he’d give anything to see them one last time, the image of Ian now was the worst thing Ben had seen since that night. The glowing pool of light lit up what had to be the wooden slats of a ceiling—so much like the ceiling of that second-story room in the abandoned house, just below the attic. And in it, suspended right in the middle of the slat, hung Ian.

  The wooden slats themselves seemed to have molded around him, like he’d lain down on the floor of the attic, melted halfway through it, then stopped before he fell through the ground to the second story below him. The ceiling hardened around his head like a reverse mask, his shaggy blond hair matted and pressed against his temples. One of his arms hung entirely down from the ceiling, braced to catch the fall that seemed inevitable but never came. The fingers of his other hand protruded through the ceiling by his face, outstretched in a frozen claw like he’d been reaching for something. A jeaned thigh and the white toe of a sneaker were visible just at the outer edge of the light, the untied laces dangling down toward Ben.

  He stared in horror at his friend, frozen in time halfway through the ceiling. The memory of Ian being ripped away from him and Peter by a huge, invisible hand before they escaped through the window came blasting back into his mind with full force. It was like that one horrible, excruciatingly helpless moment had been captured forever in this place, and now Ben had been forced inside it himself.

  Another bright flash fell from the ceiling and into the illuminated pool below, and Ben realized it wasn’t water but tears. Another fell from the corner of Ian’s wide, brown eye, glowed through the light, then dripped down onto the already wet floor.

  “You left me.” The sound of Ian’s twelve-year-old voice coming from behind his clenched jaw made Ben’s throat close. He thought he might be sick. “You guys just left me here, and you never came back.”

  “Ian,” Ben stuttered, feeling his own eyes burn, though they were still dry. “Ian, I’m so sorry. There was nothing we could do.”

  “Wh
at about now?” Another tear fell from Ian’s horror-stricken eye, the echoing drip louder than the last.

  “Now?” Ben swallowed hard. “You’re… you’re dead. I can’t do anything for any of you.”

  Ian’s fingers twitched beside his head. “Nico, Henry, and Max are dead,” he said, his voice breaking with the strain. “I’m not.”

  “What?” Ben felt like he was reeling, spinning down and down, faster and faster, but nothing around him moved. “I watched you… I saw…” But what had he seen that night? Only that Ian was drawn away from them, pulled through the walls against his will, screaming for the last of his friends to save him. Beyond that, Ben had spent half his life assuming the worst. Or at least what he’d thought was the worst—until now. “But that’s impossible.”

  Ian’s eyes widened even more, and his brows drew together in terror and rage. “I’m still alive,” he screamed. The nothingness around them shook and rattled. The floors groaned again. A wave of dust sifted down through the ceiling around Ian’s body. His breath came heavy now, and the slow, steady drip of his tears increased. They fell faster and faster until an impossibly long stream poured from his eyes and into the pool below. “You have to come back to the house, Ben,” he said, panting, his voice rising into a shriek. “You have to come back and find me. You have to save—”

  Then his mouth jerked open, like something was pushing its way up his throat and out of him from the inside, and water gushed endlessly out of his mouth, joining the stream of tears in the quickly growing pool. His arm dangling from the ceiling thrashed and jerked, like he was drowning, fighting to breathe. Then the eerily glowing light grew brighter, whiter, sickly white until every single detail was illuminated in horrifying clarity. The clearness of the water muddied into thick crimson, and blood now poured from Ian’s eyes and mouth, his nose and ears. It fell into the pool below with a sick, wet slap, sending a grotesquely warm wave of it splashing up into Ben’s face, soaking his shirt.

  With a shout of alarm, Ben scrambled away from the red pool, wiping furiously at his face and neck, but he couldn’t seem to get any of it off. Everything around them shuddered and groaned again, and he thought he heard himself scream.

  “Ben. Ben, wake up! Dude—”

  He flailed, and his fist connected with something warm and soft and very real with a dull thump. He jerked again and bolted upright, bouncing a little on the soft cushion of the couch where he now sat. Blinking furiously, he tried to catch his heaving breath and glanced wildly around until he recognized Peter’s apartment. Then he found Peter, who now sat on the other end of the couch, hunched over his lap with blood dripping from his punched nose into his cupped palm.

  The sight of his friend’s blood brought the nightmare tearing through Ben’s consciousness, and for a minute, he could only stare at Peter’s dripping nose. His stomach heaved, and again he thought he was going to puke.

  “Man, I’d hate to be socked by you when you’re awake,” Peter said, his voice muffled and clogged through the blood and sudden swelling.

  That pulled Ben out of his terror, and he immediately opened his hand when he realized he’d been clutching the blanket like a lifeline. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, dude. Do you… do you want me to get something?” He pushed himself away from the couch to try to stand, but Peter just shook his head.

  “Nope. Nope. I got it.” He pulled the sleeve of his hoodie down over his hand, then used that to pinch his nose and leaned his head back against the couch. “It’ll be fine in a sec. All good.” His Adam’s apple bobbed with a squelch when he swallowed.

  Ben sighed, feeling awful for so many reasons—not least among them the fact that Peter was also a hemophiliac. Then he felt a cold wetness on his cheeks. He quickly wiped at them, but his fingers only brought away water. Had he been crying in his sleep? Something thumped into his lap, and he glanced down to see the dark spot on the leg of his jeans. Another few drops fell, and when he glanced up at the ceiling, he saw a pool of water had formed above a stain in the ceiling, now dripping down on him in Peter’s apartment. “What the hell?”

  “Yeah,” Peter said. He jerked a hand up toward the ceiling. “Big storm right now. This apartment sucks. Second leak in like a month.” As if to prove it, a clap of thunder roared outside, and Ben finally picked up the muffled patter of rain. “There’s one in my room too. I came to check out here, and…” He rolled his head slowly to the side so he could frown at Ben. “You were screaming.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost six-thirty.”

  Ben gritted his teeth, then leaned over his legs and dropped his face into his hands. “Sorry.”

  “It’s cool. You can let me punch you back later.” When Ben briefly looked up, his friend’s wry smile beneath his pinched nose faded instantly. “Woah. You okay?”

  “Nightmare, I guess.”

  “Like the ones you used to have?”

  Ben had actually had night terrors through the first half of high school, which was just about the only thing on which he agreed with the doctors and shrinks. The voices were real. What they’d seen that night was real. But the night terrors were understandably a psychological symptom of what they’d gone through—what he’d still been going through even in high school—and with enough benzos before going to sleep, he’d managed to get those to stop by the summer after their sophomore year. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  Peter pulled his sleeved hand away from his nose, looked at it, and wiped the last smear of drying blood from his lip. “What was it?”

  Ben shook his head. “Just a bad dream.”

  “Well, yeah.” Peter prodded his nose with his bare fingers now. “Come on. Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Ben.” He’d obviously meant it to sound stern, but that attempt fell flat with Peter’s nose clogged and his having to breathe through his mouth. “It’s not nothing. You saw another frickin’ demon last night, or whatever they are, and the voices are back. Now you’re screaming in your sleep and punching your best friend.” Ben snorted. “Normally, I’d say keep your weird dreams to yourself, but all this is starting to look a little too much like… before. And if I’m gonna get caught up in some crazy demon bull all over again, probably just by having you hanging around at my place, I think it’s pretty important to know what the hell freaked you out so much.”

  For a minute, Ben just stared at him. Peter was, of course, completely right. Hearing the voices again was one thing. Screaming through his nightmares was one thing. But this wasn’t just one thing anymore; it was all of them, plus the fact that, after eleven years, he’d seen someone else possessed by a demon and had almost been burned alive. And he hadn’t just had a nightmare. This was something totally different. Peter did deserve to know what was going on, because he’d been through the same hell and back with Ben, if they left out the diagnosed psychotic break and the whispers of schizophrenia and the gallons of pharmaceutical “treatments.” They were in this together, and they always had been.

  “Yeah, okay.” He took a deep breath and wiped the phantom water from his cheeks again. “I saw Ian.” Peter didn’t say anything, so Ben looked up to meet his gaze with a hesitant frown.

  “Uh…”

  “Yeah, I know. It was bad.” He rubbed his face, blinked, and sat up against the couch again.

  “Saw him, like, how?”

  “Like he was before we… got out.” Ben shrugged, and Peter just raised his eyebrows. “He was in the house. In the”—he swallowed—“ceiling. He said he was still alive.”

  “Woah.” Peter shifted on the couch a little to face him more directly. “But that’s like…” He jerked his head back in a silent, nervous scoff. “He can’t be. They’re all gone. We saw it.”

  “We didn’t see what happened to Ian.”

  Peter stared at him, maybe guessing where this was going, maybe not. “Dude.”

  “Right. I know. It just… it felt so real, man. As real as the voices. As real as k
nowing it was another demon last night.”

  “It was a dream.”

  “Or not,” Ben said. “Maybe it was something else.”

  “Dude.”

  “Everyone told me the voices were just hallucinations, Pete. We both know they’re not. Maybe this dream wasn’t a dream, like… it’s actually Ian trying to tell us something.” The words came tumbling out of him; he hadn’t had the time to think it over, but the ideas just clicked into place as he spoke.

  “What could Ian be trying to tell us?” It wasn’t a question of curiosity; it was a warning.

  Ben knew his friend well enough to understand that much, but now that he’d stepped down this road, he couldn’t start lying to Peter now. He took a deep breath and forced himself not to look away from his friend. “He said we have to come find him. We have to go back to the house.”

  Peter launched himself from the couch and stormed around the back of it. “That’s crazy.”

  “Wait…” Ben said, lifting a hand.

  “No way. That’s totally crazy.”

  “What if it’s not—”

  “Our dead friend Ian”—Peter slammed his hands down on the back of the couch with a thump—“came to you in a dream and told you we have to go back to that… that…” He stabbed his finger down a few times, trying to find the words. “That possessed deathtrap of a house, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, sure, sounds like fun.’” He turned to pace the other side of the small living room.

  “Pete—”

  “That’s insane!”

  Ben felt the heat rising up the back of his neck and clenched his fists. “Would you stop saying that?”