The Ghost Feeder Girl of Hollow Creek

Chapter 1: The Challenge

The jukebox at Tyler's bar, which nobody had updated since the early 2000s, was playing Britney Spears for the fourth time in a row, and nobody had gotten up to change the record. It was Halloween night 2025, and in Hollow Creek that meant carved pumpkins on the windowsills and shaving cream on the windshields, and the long table at the back of the bar taken over by the usual crowd, surrounded by plastic cups and potato chips.

Claire had a crooked cat-ear headband on her long brown hair and a glass of watered-down beer she hadn't touched in half an hour. She had dressed as a cat because Jess had decided they'd do a theme, and Jess always decided. The costume was a short black dress with a fake tail sewn on the back, and on her slim body, with long, lean legs, it hung straight without pulling anywhere. Now Jess sat across from her, red hair loose over her shoulders, smiling with the ready smile she saved for things that didn't cost her anything.

"So it's your turn," Jess said. "We voted."

"You didn't vote. You decided while I was in the bathroom."

"Which is the same thing, right?"

Tyler slapped the table with his palm. His baseball cap had slid back, and his cheeks were red like someone who'd started drinking early. "The Lacey House, Dunn. You've got an hour. You go in, touch the handrail on the stairs upstairs, and come back out. I'll give you fifty bucks."

"You don't have fifty bucks."

"I'll put it up," Jess said. "If you make it."

Someone laughed. Claire looked at the window, where she could see the black hill and, above it, a rectangle of darkness even thicker, which was the house. Everyone in Hollow Creek knew the story, or rather, they knew ten versions of it. A family that had disappeared, a girl found dead in bed, a light on the second floor that came on in October.

"No," she said.

"Come on, Claire."

"I said no. If you want a cat who goes into abandoned houses, get another cat."

Tyler leaned back in his chair, disappointed like a kid whose remote got taken away. Jess didn't flinch. She picked up her glass and looked at it against the light. "Too bad. I thought you were the one who wasn't scared of anything." Then she set the glass down and kept looking at Claire a moment longer than necessary, with the patience of someone waiting to see her give in.

Claire got up and went outside for some air.

The parking lot out back stank of fried food and wet leaves. Muffled music came through the fire door. She leaned against the brick wall, arms crossed over her costume, and breathed, watching the steam of her breath rise and disappear.

Sam came out after a minute. She recognized him by his walk, a little shuffling, and by his hands, already in the pockets of his jacket. He hadn't dressed up as anything, or maybe as a tall, skinny guy with messy hair, which for him was costume enough.

"You don't have to do this," he said.

"I know I don't have to."

"Then why are you out here freezing?"

"Because they're in there." She stayed quiet for a moment. "Did you vote for the dare?"

Sam looked at the ground. "I didn't vote for anything."

"That's not a no."

He shrugged. She had known him since they were six. She could read his silences, and this one had weight. It wasn't just embarrassment.

"Listen," Sam said. "Tomorrow the whole school will know. Jess tells everybody. That you chickened out."

"I'm not scared. I just don't want to."

"To them it's the same." He paused. "I'll go with you. We go up, we touch that... Ten minutes, Dunn."

Dunn. Sam only used her last name when he was in trouble.

"And what if it's true? The story about the girl?"

"It's not true." He said it right away, too fast. "Tyler told me he already checked. He went yesterday with his cousin. They moved stuff around, left a flashlight on the table, and the cousin is hiding upstairs tonight to pull a prank on us. No big deal. Tyler even took the bolt off the front door, so there's no way it can get stuck."

Claire stared at him. "Really?"

"I swear."

He said it looking her straight in the eyes, and later Claire remembered mostly this: that he hadn't looked away for even a second.

"Fine," Claire said. "But ten minutes. And if I see Tyler's cousin, I'm kicking him."

"Okay."

Sam smiled, and to her it looked like a relieved smile, the kind that sticks with you. They went back inside. Tyler made a stadium cheer when he saw them coming, and Jess raised her glass. Claire straightened her headband, grabbed a handful of chips from the table, and ate them all, one after another, without tasting a thing.

They drove up the hill in Sam's car, silent, with the radio off. The road turned to dirt after the last curve, and the headlights pulled a crooked fence and, farther on, a sign with peeling paint out of the dark. Behind them, at a distance, came the headlights of Tyler's car, with Jess in it. Sam parked in the lot in front of the house. Tyler's car stopped at the gate, and neither Tyler nor Jess got out. Tyler rolled down his window and waved a hand, his face white in the dark.

"One hour, you two! Be good!"

The house was bigger than Claire remembered. Three floors with windows missing their glass, and a porch sagging on one side, under the pointed roof that stood out against the sky, only a little darker. The wind made a shutter bang against the wall at irregular intervals.

Sam turned on his flashlight. She turned on hers.

"Ten minutes," he repeated.

The front door gave way with a push. Inside it smelled of dust and wet wood, and underneath, barely noticeable, something sweetish, like fruit left out too long. The beams of the flashlights slid over the floor and the furniture covered in sheets, then stopped on wallpaper that must once have been yellow. A staircase at the far end of the hall climbed into the dark. On the walnut handrail there was a finger's thickness of dust, except in one spot: a clean stripe, as wide as a hand.

"Somebody's already been here," Claire said.

"The cousin," Sam said. His voice was a little low.

They took a few steps. The floor creaked with every step, and the noise seemed to come from several places at once. Claire stopped at the entrance to the living room and saw, in the cone of her flashlight, past the arch, the dining room: a long table with a candelabra in the middle and chairs knocked over all around. Then the door behind them closed.

It closed softly, without slamming, and the sound was that of wood settling into its place, something almost gentle. Then the bolt slid by itself into its slot with a metallic click.

They turned together. Sam got to the door first, his hand on the iron. He pulled. He pulled again. The bolt didn't move, nor the handle, nor the door, which under his hands was smooth and cold as a wall.

"Tyler!" he shouted. "Tyler, open it!"

No answer. Sam pulled out his phone, raised it toward the ceiling, and lowered it again: up here on the hill there was no signal. Claire ran to the nearest window, but the shutters were closed from the outside, and the wood wouldn't give under her nails. She tried the second window, then a door at the end of the hall. Her breath came in gasps. The flashlight shook in her hand and threw shadows up and down the walls.

"You said he'd taken it off," she said. "You said he'd taken it off, Sam."

He didn't answer. He had stayed in front of the door with one hand still on the bolt, and in the beam of her flashlight she saw his face. She understood that there was no cousin upstairs, that nobody had taken the bolt off, and that Sam had always known it.

"Sam."

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice tight in his throat. "Claire. I'm sorry."

She wanted to hit him, or hug him, and she didn't do either. They stayed still in the hall, a step apart, and felt the house breathing around them.

Then, from upstairs, a voice came. Not loud. Almost a whisper, light and cheerful, the voice of a girl leaning over the railing to call to someone.

"Oh my God. Finally."