Riddle Me This?

Chapter 1

Tap.

The noise jutted into my thoughts, blocking out the story in the pages that lay open on my lap. Was it him? No, probably not. A bug hitting the window, that's all. I let my eyes drift down to the book again.

Tap.

Or never mind. What did he find to throw now?

I stacked the book on top of another one I'd been reading. The old table they rested on wobbled at the weight I added as I crossed to the window.

Tap.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming. . ."

I pulled the blinds up and looked across the short gap between our homes at the infectious grin of my friend Matt Dobken. He gestured for me to open the window. It hissed softly and squealed as I pushed the wooden frame up, letting in a late spring breeze.

"What are you throwing?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Beads or something. Found some in the corner of the hallway. I think the vacuum missed them." He paused. "Anyway, what are doing right now?" He leaned out of the window, his hazel eyes glinting pale in the glow of the streetlight, always reflective in the night, exactly like a cat's eyes caught in some wayward beam. I'd never asked him why. I might have imagined it.

I know that look. "Reading...why?"

"Wanna go do something?"

Something. Right. "It's ten o'clock, Matt."

"So?"

"It's...late." Weak. No, not weak. Books aren't weak excuses.

"It's usually late when we do this." He frowned.

True enough. "I told you, I'm reading." The moon hadn't yet rose up high enough to light us up too much, if we went. This is a pretty perfect night.

"Is the book gonna walk away?"

"Hush." I drummed my fingers on the sill. "What you got in mind?"

"Simpson's store."

Simpson's was the shell of a hundred-year-old country store right down the road. It had closed ten years before, when a fire gutted it. Now it just sat empty and half-rotten and probably not even that safe to go into. Even better. The night air beckoned me, begged me to head down the stairs and out the door and straight to Matt's truck. "How'd you pick that one?"

"It looks haunted."

"Everywhere we go looks haunted. That's the point of ghost hunting."

He shrugged. "Well, we pass it all the time, and we've never gone there. Figured you'd like it, so what do you say?"

"Just the two of us?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. I don't think Brandon'll mind sitting one out."

Come on, take your pick. Yes or no. The answer caught on the tip of my tongue. He figured I'd like it. That was nice.

A scream ripped through the air from the woods behind our neighborhood. I jumped, then froze. Guttural and wild, but unmistakably human, the scream lingered for a moment, muffled by distance, before it cut off. Silence reigned. Even the crickets seemed quiet now.

Matt's wide eyes met mine. I slammed my window shut, saw his follow a second later, and rushed for the hallway, knowing he would follow me.

That had to be a human being, right? What else screams like that?