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Abandoning my curiosity, I exit the room and make my way down the hallway toward the other wing. As before, a cold sensation sweeps across the back of my neck, bringing me to a halt. Like icy fingers dancing over my skin. Palming my nape, I twist around to find nothing but an empty hallway and shadows on the wall, and clamp my eyes shut.

Brain movies, kid. That’s all they are. The sound of Russ’s voice inside my mind is a comfort. Words he often spoke whenever I woke from bad dreams. Sometimes, the head gets bored, so it thinks up its own stories to keep itself entertained.

I wish he were here now. He’d tell me not to be such a chicken shit, and that ghosts should be more afraid of my crazy ass than the other way around. The memory of him saying that to me once has me smiling, and when I open my eyes, I find myself standing in front of the long alcove again. The one with no doors.

Don’t be a chicken shit.

“Easy for you to say, asshole. You’re already dead,” I mutter back, lifting the lantern.

The gold details of the paisley print walls shimmer as I shine the light over them. Of all the nooks and crannies in the house, this space is the most unimpressive. Nothing but an empty hallway that ends at nothing but an empty wall. It’s there I scan the light over a dark spot, maybe a couple of inches in diameter, that I didn’t notice from before, where the wall looks to have been damaged, the wallpaper curled away. Just my luck it’d be black mold growing on the other side, so I don’t bother to examine closely.

Instead, I drag the light over the ceiling, and pause at the outline of something toward its center. Something I didn’t notice the last time I investigated this corridor.

A square. Attic maybe, judging by the small stretch of rope that looks like it’s been cut. With a deep breath, I pad toward the center of the hallway and reach up for the rope that’s just out of my reach. Fingertips swiping for the end of it, I can’t seem to take hold, so I hop up, just brushing my fingers across the frayed fibers sticking down. I hop again and snap my hand closed around it, but the moment my feet hit the ground, it slips out. A third time, and my knuckles burn as I curl my fingers around it, refusing to let go. I give a yank, and the door reluctantly comes loose. With the end of the rope closer now, I give another yank, and it creaks as I widen the opening, revealing a folded ladder that spills out toward the floor.

The same feeling shivers over my skin, as when I used to stand at the top of the staircase leading down to the basement back, when I lived in the cabin with Russ. I used to hate whenever he asked me to retrieve something from down there, in the darkness, where noises always seemed louder, shadows always bigger.

Nabbing the lantern from beside me, I aim the light upward, toward where the ladder disappears into the dark empty space above.

Had to be a creepy as all hell attic.

Blowing out a resigned breath, I take hold of the ladder’s edge, but as soon as I do, an image, words, flash through my head.

“Up you go. Quickly, now!”

My father’s voice.

The pounding in my chest mirrors the anxiety stirring in my gut. Ignoring it, I take the first step. The second. Keeping the lantern above me, in case anything jumps out, I climb the staircase. Once I breach the entrance, I direct the light over my surroundings. Wooden floors. A broken chair in the corner. Half-cocked curtain hanging off the window across the room. The scent of mold and neglect thickening the air.

It’s when I twist around that I nearly drop the lantern.

Across from me stands a small door. Perhaps to the height of my shoulders, though it’s hard to tell while still standing on the ladder. Not red, but maybe that’s just my head’s faulty memory. Every fiber of my being tells me to climb back down and leave this alone, but that key belongs to something. Something my father wanted me to find.

So I climb up into the attic. Thin gossamer strands of cobwebs tickle my skin, as I stand upright, noting the door to be approximately, as I guessed, to the height of my shoulders. There is no lock, only a handle, and as I approach, I notice the hardness of its surface, like steel.

Boards creak below me, marking every step forward, and a cold fist clamps around my lungs when I reach out for the handle on the door.

Fingertips curling around the metal, I screw my eyes shut to another flash of memory.

“Get inside! They’re coming.”

“Daddy, who are they?”

“They’re the bad people. But don’t worry, they won’t find us in here. I promise they won’t get you.”

The fist tightens with a sudden thickness in my throat. I throw back the door and find a small room, perhaps the size of a bathroom, with a cot. A thin, faded, red mattress.

Across from me, wires spill out of a hole in the wall, and as I edge closer, I can see, in my mind, a television monitor. Small, black and white. A security camera. I lower my gaze to a small panel of switches below it, and as I flick one, a memory pops inside my head.

My father flips a switch on the panel and studies the image onscreen, in which the back of the house stands empty. He flips another switch, and the parlor pops up. Another brings up the view of the kitchen. Each switch seems to coincide with a different part of the house, as if every room contains a camera there.

I twist around to see the locks, heavy steel locks, like something one would find on a bank vault, stretched across the inside of the door, and another unbidden memory slips through like photographs falling from my hands.

The sound of scraping metal skates down my spine as Daddy slides the lock into place. “We’re safe, sunshine. They can’t get in. Nothing can get in here.”

“I’m scared, Daddy.”

“Don’t be scared. I won’t let them hurt you.” His arms wrap around me, and I bury my face into his chest, blinding myself to everything around me.