Eliza shrieked and Mallory turned to look back at her friend, whose foot had gone through one of the stairs. She turned back to help and suddenly the world fell out from underneath her.

It was chaos and cacophony. The flashlight beam flipped through the air, briefly highlighting falling wood and dust and Mallory shut her eyes tight and clamped her jaw shut as she heard Eliza screaming. The thought crossed her mind, ‘I’m dead.’ She felt a slight shock at how ambivalent she was about the fact – accepting even. It took seconds, though it felt longer. She felt strong arms envelope her, felt her stomach give a confused lurch as gravity righted itself, felt her feet placed firmly on the ground. Coughing in the falling grit and sawdust, a moment of panic overtook her as she wondered who was touching her, and she remembered the dark shadow at the top of the stairs. She reached for her knife, grabbed it, flipped the blade out, and slashed – all in a practiced, smooth motion, as she had been taught.

Further confusion – the arms pushed away and she felt like the nerve endings of her fingers all fired at once, the pins and needle feeling of a sleeping limb coming back to life, only a hundred times worse. Mallory cried out as her knife flung out of her hand of its own volition. “Is that any way to thank the person that saved you?” a strangely accented voice admonished.

Mallory looked up, but her eyes were drawn first to what was caught in the light. The flashlight had fallen just right to perfectly illuminate the scene, and with the dust twirling in the air and catching the light it gave everything a more ethereal feel. Standing directly in the beam of the light was Isaac (or so Mallory assumed), his arms tightly around Eliza. He must have caught her, Mallory realized. He was staring straight into her eyes with an expression that communicated surprise and wonder. He did not appear to be bothered by her weight, and was holding her effortlessly, pressed tightly against him. The two stared at each other wordlessly.

Mallory breathed in deeply, which turned out to be a mistake – with all the dust in the air, she burst into a sudden and uncontrollable coughing fit, breaking their reverie. She opened and closed the hand that had seared with pain moments ago, and then started rubbing her palm with the thumb of her other hand – it felt fine now. As Eliza and Isaac sheepishly separated, Mallory looked to her own rescuer, a thin youth of moderate height, with long black hair.

There was something about his features that reminded Mallory of a trickster spirit like Puck – maybe the arch of his eyebrows, or the sharp point of his slightly upturned nose. Mallory was still coughing horribly in the dust, much to her annoyance. Is no one else affected by this shit? she thought to herself. “We should get out of here,” Isaac said, and led Eliza by the hand off toward the stairs to the kitchen.

There was evidence throughout of people having visited the house, such as the pyramid of soda and beer cans on the kitchen counter. Mallory briefly entertained the notion of knocking them down, but didn’t want to fall too far behind Eliza as she was making her way out of the kitchen and into the next room. After all, Eliza had the flashlight. Cigarette butts and broken bits of glass, the remains of beer and liquor bottles, littered the floor, glinting in the light’s beam. It smelled faintly of mold, mice, and piss.

From the spacious living area, there was another arched entry to the dining area. Eliza swept the flashlight back and forth, checking the room carefully. There was no furniture remaining in the house. What little of the carpet was left was rotted and it was impossible to tell what the original color had been. The living room had a wide fireplace darkened with soot and containing the charred remnants of an old fire.

They stood for a moment in the silence. Mallory strained to hear anything that would give away where Isaac and his friends might be, but there was nothing – no voices, no wood creaking under footsteps, not even the faintest breath. Despite that, she felt something… like a presence. Like she was being watched. A chill ran up her spine – Eliza had mentioned feeling the same thing a few times over the summer. Maybe that’s why the thought had even entered her mind.

“Maybe they decided to hide from us?” Mallory said, her voice barely above a whisper. After a moment, she said “Hello?” loud enough to be heard through most of the house. Eliza jumped, then turned to her wide eyed and panicked and making shushing sounds, but there was no reaction otherwise. Mallory grinned at Eliza and shrugged, and then made her way to the stairs. There was a hallway leading off of the staircase that led back to a first floor bathroom and bedroom, but the bathroom had fallen into the basement years ago and the bedroom flooring was also unstable. Mallory doubted anyone would be back there.

As her fingers touched the rail of the stairs, that feeling of being watched overcame her again, so overbearing that she felt the hair on the back of her neck raise. She couldn’t see anyone in the scant light they had, and of course they knew that Isaac and his friends were somewhere in the house… but it felt more foreboding than that. It was like pure and stifling malice. She had to resist the urge to reach into her pocket where she’d put her knife. Instead, she forced herself up the stairs.

Eliza followed her, mumbling something under her breath. Halfway up, Mallory glanced up – for a moment, the bouncing light of the flashlight’s beam caught the outline of a man standing at the top of the stairs. She gasped and froze, but had no time to react because at that exact moment the stairs shifted and there came the loud, alarming sound of cracking wood.

Mallory slowly eased to a stop next to the other car. She glanced over at Eliza, who had sunk far down into the seat, her eyes wide and her entire face flushed a deep red. “They’re not in the car. They must’ve gone inside.”

“Let’s just go! Please, Mallory!”

Mallory shut the engine off and began to calmly reason with her friend. “Listen, let’s just go inside. We can act surprised to see them here and tell them we wanted to explore the place – we’ve done it before. And it gives you a chance to get to know this Isaac guy outside of school.”

Eliza looked halfway convinced, but still hesitated. “You know I’m awful at lying. How am I going to act surprised?”

Mallory shrugged. “How many words have you even said to this guy since the beginning of school?” Eliza frowned. “Come on. If he’s so perfect, let’s go change that.” Mallory opened her car door and stepped out, glancing back at Eliza as she shut it behind her. Eliza scrunched her face and begrudgingly exited the car as well.

From experience, Mallory knew that the inside of the Miller house got quite dark because all the windows were boarded up. Luckily, she kept a flashlight in the trunk of her car. Her father had always lectured her to keep a toolbox, a blanket, and a few emergency supplies with her at all times. “It’s better to have something and not need it than to need it and not have it,” he had always warned her. She popped the trunk open and grabbed the large flashlight, handing it over to Eliza. As Eliza fiddled with it, she also grabbed a folding knife she kept in the toolbox, slipping it into her pocket surreptitiously. She wasn’t expecting any sort of trouble, but at the same time… better to have something you didn’t need, after all.

Together, they approached the house and made their way up the steps onto the large ranch-style porch that wrapped around the building. Mallory opened the door and Eliza shone a beacon of light in through the doorway. They both paused for a moment and exchanged nervous looks. “Clear so far,” Eliza said, ending her sentence on a nervous titter. She was still bright red with embarrassment, but Mallory knew the Miller house itself also made Eliza nervous.

They entered what had once been a large and spacious country style kitchen. The wallpaper was faded and peeling, but had once had a floral pattern that was still visible in some places. Some of the cupboard doors had been broken off or stood ajar at odd angles. There was a large arched entryway that led into a formal dining room off to the right, and a smaller arched entry that led to the living area straight ahead. The last time Mallory had been in the house, a half-sized swinging door had occupied the living area entrance, but it had disappeared since then. The kitchen also had a large walk-in pantry, its door slightly ajar, set next to the stairs leading to the basement. They both stopped for a moment to shine the light at the basement entrance – it no longer had its door, so the stairs descended below into a dark gaping maw.

Another shared glance, and they turned away.

Mallory pulled her car into the dirt lane, slowing to a stop as the dilapidated building crept into view from behind the trees that hid it from the main road. She hadn’t planned to come out here today, but when her best friend had hopped into her vehicle after school and enthusiastically shouted, “Taxi, follow that car!” she had whimsically decided to indulge. After all, she didn’t have anything better to do tonight than go home, and she really didn’t want to do that. Home just didn’t feel like home anymore, and some mild stalking seemed like a fun way to avoid it.

The car in question was old. Very old. Mallory didn’t know enough about cars to identify makes and models, but the metal body was rimmed with rust with only the faintest hints of faded teal paint remaining. The thing had to have been put together in the 50s and likely didn’t adhere to any sort of safety or environmental standards. In fact, Mallory was shocked it was even running. But Eliza wasn’t focused on the car – instead, she was obsessed with the occupants.

Or more specifically, one particular occupant. Isaac.

Since the very first day of their senior year, Eliza had talked non-stop about Isaac. He was new to school. He was in most of her classes. He was tall and mysterious, with a commanding voice and presence. He was dangerously handsome and practically perfect. Or at least that was the case according to Eliza. Mallory hadn’t caught more than the occasional distant glimpse of Isaac.

They had followed the vehicle at a reasonable distance, attempting to keep other vehicles in between where they could manage and drifting back farther as it drove out of town. And then the car had pulled down the dirt road leading to the Miller house.

Mallory came to a stop at the end of the lane. They watched the vehicle turn out of sight behind the trees, and waited as the dust settled. “I wonder what they’re doing here?” Eliza said absently. Mallory eased her foot off the brakes and allowed her car to inch forward.

Eliza glanced at her, her eyebrows climbing toward her hairline. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice jumping up in pitch the way it always did when she panicked.

Mallory grinned at her old friend. “Come on, we’ve come this far. Let’s go say hi.”

“Mallory! Mallory, no!” Eliza was shaking her head emphatically as the other car came into view. There was no one in sight. They both stared up at the wreck of a house.

The Miller house was supposedly named after a family that had been murdered there in the past, causing the home to become abandoned for years. No matter how much searching Mallory did, she couldn’t find any actual records or articles about a family named Miller having lived in the house or of anyone having been murdered there. And she suspected that the many other stories surrounding the place were also merely rumors. She at least knew for a fact that the story of the man-eating goat monster was definitely false, as she had spread that particular story herself. Still, looking at the house as it sat in the shadows of the surrounding trees sent a chill down her spine, and she didn’t consider herself easily scared.  The entire area seemed like a cold, dark spot that stood out all the more against the bright, sunny September day.

The shadow watched patiently. It knew the plan – it had its instructions and it understood that soon it would be time to attack. Even if the plan was already slightly off course. That didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, although it made the shadow nervous. It wanted to confer with its master, but there was no way to do so at this point. The shadow watched the girl swimming in the pool. From Greyspace it was hard to make out conversation in the Enduring world, but if one was very quiet and very close, one could hear the words – softly, like whispers, like voices carried away on a wind. The shadow was close, so close he could reach out and touch his quarry if it were even possible. But it wasn’t possible. And it wasn’t time.

He stood directly behind his quarry where it sat at the edge of the pool, watching the girl. The girl swam up to the edge of the pool where his quarry sat draping its legs in the water. This girl was the one upsetting the plan. He leaned forward to stare at her – her features were hard to distinguish from Greyspace, but he felt a strange spark of something, an emotion, his first: hatred. He hated her. She had the potential to ruin everything. His quarry sighed. “I wish this summer would never end,” it said to the girl.

“Really? I can’t wait to be done with high school,” the girl responded. “Just think – this time next year, we won’t be required to go to school anymore. Not if we don’t want to, anyway.”

“Well, my parents expect me to go to college. I should be so excited to finally get out on my own.” His quarry leaned back, kicking the water absently. Its movement surprised him and she passed through him – nothing in the Enduring world affected Greyspace, but all the same, the shadow nervously shifted its position. It didn’t like occupying the same space as this… thing. “I just feel like… I don’t know. This dread. Like something bad is going to happen soon.”

The girl in the pool pulled herself up and out in one smooth motion to sit next to the quarry. She stared across the pool, where a young male lay shirtless, tanning in the summer sun. If the plan had gone as expected, he would have been…. Well, that hardly mattered now. The plan would still work, even despite this inconvenience. This girl. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” the girl said, so soft that the shadow almost couldn’t hear.

“Oh? For my brother’s sake, or mine?” His quarry leaned forward, giggled as it splashed water at the girl.

“Oh shut up,” the girl spluttered, pushing his quarry into the pool before jumping in herself.

The shadow stood and walked along the edge of the pool, watching, waiting. It stared at the girl, feeling it’s hatred seethe. How had she gotten pulled into this? What made her so special?

She could ruin everything.