Jaila looked around where we’d stopped. “This is as good a place as any to make camp. I don’t think we’re going any farther tonight, anyway.”
Cody found Georgia a stick she could use as a makeshift crutch before Jackie led her off a distance to take care of her business, and the rest of us worked on making camp. Jenna collected kindling for a fire, Tino found rocks to circle it with, and Cody went searching for logs he could drag over so we’d have something to sit on. Everyone seemed to know what they were supposed to do, and did it without needing to be told. I went off on my own because I also needed to relieve myself, and I was hoping to find something to eat. But I returned empty-handed.
Sunday was sitting on a log talking to David, who was crying and shaking his head.
“That’s not how it was” David was saying.
“I know, but you have to admit it sounds really messed up.” Sunday was sitting close to David, but not touching him.
“That’s because none of you let me finish.”
“She was your sister, David,” Sunday said. “Can you blame us?”
David shook his head. “But if you just hear the rest of the story, I swear you’ll understand.”
“Tell me, then,” she said. “I’ll listen if you want to finish.”
“BIG BROTHER, PART 2”
by E. C. Myers
I STAYED UP that night, waiting and listening. Allie asking me to check on her made me scared; I almost would have preferred if she was lying to me instead of being just as clueless about what was going on.
When I heard the first sound, a gentle “mmmm . . .” followed by a series of gasps, I noted the time: 2:01 a.m. I hurried to Allie’s room, but I hesitated for a minute outside her door as the sounds intensified. I imagined her sitting in bed and laughing at me when I burst into her room, trolling me. Maybe she’d snap a picture of me with her camera so she could send it to Ryan and Tony. I wouldn’t even be pissed if I found out she was pranking me.
But that’s not what I saw at all when I eased the door to her room open.
Something was hovering over Allie’s bed. It was kind of faint and shimmery. See-through, so I could make out Allie’s Yale pennant on the wall behind it. The thing looked vaguely human-shaped, but it was sort of leaking at the edges like a bad video signal. And each time Allie moaned, it pulsed. Or maybe, each time it pulsed, Allie moaned. She was fully clothed, and she wasn’t touching herself. So that thing must have been doing that to her.
I bet you’re thinking the same thing I did at first. A ghost?
I know what you’re really thinking. He’s full of shit.
I was frozen, peering through the door. Finally, when my brain rebooted, I did the only rational thing. Exactly what you would do in the same situation.
“What the fuck?” I said.
The thing quickly expanded and faded into nothing. Poof! I rushed to my sister’s bed. Her room was noticeably cooler than the hallway, but she was sweating. Her eyes moved rapidly under her closed eyelids, and her lip quivered, like she was freezing, but she had gone quiet again. And I couldn’t wake her.
“Allie. Wake up. Wake up!” I gently nudged her over and over again. Then I started shaking her. I was finally ready to go get my parents, call 9-1-1, when her eyes opened wide and she took a great gasping breath, like coming up for air after diving under water.
“David? What are you—?” She bolted up. “It happened again?”
I nodded. “Um. Do you remember anything? Do you . . . feel anything?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
I cleared my throat. “Like, your, uh, breasts don’t feel sensitive, or you’re, um . . .” I glanced down at her. She was wearing a ratty old Gryffindor T-shirt and track shorts. I’d figured she slept in cute pajamas with cartoon owls on them like she used to, but I didn’t know if she always dressed like this for bed, or at all.
“David!” She covered herself with a sheet decorated with cartoon dinosaurs.
“Sorry. But seriously. How do you feel?”
She shrugged. “I feel normal.”
I pressed a hand to her forehead, the way Mom does when we’re sick. She flinched away from me.
“That was not normal,” I said.
“What did you see?” she asked.
“You won’t believe me,” I said. I told her what had happened.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “That’s a pretty weird story, even for you. What do we do now?”
“Well, whatever it was, maybe it won’t be back again since I interrupted it.”
She scrunched up her face. “Whether it comes back or not, I want to know what it is. Why me? This is . . .” Her voice became thick, like she was trying not to cry. “It’s horrific, Dave. What is it doing to me? Why can’t I remember?”
*
It happened again the next night, a Friday. This time I was ready. I grabbed my camera on my way to her room, but the thing disappeared even before the door opened, so all I caught was more audio evidence. But I also had more information: the event began at 2:01 a.m., just like the night before. And even though I no longer had the file I’d recorded the first night, the video project I was editing had been saved last at 2:07 a.m., when I had noticed the sounds.
Now convinced that something ghostlike was attacking my sister every night, I went into full-on protective older-brother mode. Allie let me bring in Ryan and Tony to help us figure it out. Our parents were at work—yes, even on a Saturday—which let us talk about the situation in Allie’s room without worrying they would overhear us.
My friends didn’t believe me either.
“Is this like your Sasquatch hoax?” Ryan asked.
“First of all, Sasquatch is real,” I said. “I know what I saw.”
“Bad luck that your camera lens was dirty.” Ryan smirked. “And it was conveniently dark in those woods.”
I sighed. She still thought I made up my Sasquatch sighting in another desperate attempt to get more views on YouTube, but I wouldn’t fake a video. People online analyze the hell out of everything, and if they thought you were lying, you might as well change your name and move to another country. The video I shot at the national park was dark and grainy, and yeah, there was some crap on the lens that put a blurry streak through it, but I didn’t make anything up.
“Tony was there. He saw it too,” I said.
“Don’t drag me into this old argument. We were drunk. I was seeing all sorts of things that night, but that doesn’t make any of it real,” Tony said.
“It looked like a bear, maybe,” Allie said generously.
“Sorry, there’s no way that thing in your video is a Sasquatch, Day. I’ll still allow that Bigfoot could be real. But come on. Now you claim you saw a ghost?” Ryan gave a short, derisive laugh and threw up her hands. “Why not aliens?”
“Aside from the fact that there’s no other rational explanation for what’s been happening to Allie—” I said.
“Persistent genital arousal disorder.” Ryan snapped her fingers. “That took me two minutes to find on Google.”
“Is that the technical term for puberty?” Tony chuckled.