The Dead House

“It won’t make a difference to her if I leave after the transition. She can have her fun without me.”


“You know it will. It matters to her what you do. It matters to her what other people think, and if ‘she’ suddenly leaves just after she got there? That would look weird, and you know it. She wants you to come, Kaitlyn, and to have fun. She told me.”

Kaitlyn turns back, and her gaze never flinches. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that. For both of you.”

[END OF CLIP]





From: RealxChick To: AriHait558

Date: 8 Oct 2004

Subject: Weird Developments



My Benevolent Forgiver,


Yes, I realize that my confessions have been infrequent of late. I have a few things on my mind. I haven’t figured out, yet, if you’re cocky enough to think one of those things is you.


One hilarious development is that Naida actually followed me onto the ROOF to hunt me down and practically DEMAND that I go to her party. Have you met Naida yet? You should know that she’s a nut job. She’s probably planning to cut me into little pieces and serve me in a stew.


Grumbling and disgruntled and all of the above, Girl Who Falls Flat on Her Arse





From: AriHait558

To: RealxChick

Date: 8 Oct 2004

Subject: Re: Weird Developments



Miss Clumsy, Bruised-Bum Confessional, Since I don’t know Naida very well (we share no classes)—except that you hate her enough to confess to God-slash-the-empty-or-not-so-empty-confession-booth about her and curse the day Carly (?) met her—I really shouldn’t offer you an opinion.


But since I have far too much opinion for one single person, and since my opinion is usually very insightful, here’s my two pence: GO TO THE PARTY.


Live a little, you weird—YES, WEIRD—secretive girl with no name and plenty of angst. Go to the party, drink a little, relax, and let go. No harm in that, right? I’ll be rooting for your teen-coming-out-into-the-world-of-living-actual-people moment.


Ari


PS—I’m CERTAIN one of the things keeping you up at night is me. ;)





From: RealxChick To: AriHait558

Date: 8 Oct 2004

Subject: Re: Re: Weird Developments



I suppose by “the-world-of-living-actual-people” you’re trying to tell me that you are not, in fact, a living person? How nice for you!


I will give my teen angst some indulgence for a bit, while I consider the impending party of doom.


PS—Is anyone of your gender not cocky, arrogant, and stupid? I’m perfectly willing to take back the stupid once you prove it. But you might be stuck with cocky and arrogant for life, soz.





From: AriHait558

To: RealxChick

Date: 8 Oct 2004



Subject: Death of Vocabulary



Soz? People still say soz??? I fear for the human race. I assume you mean sorry. Now apologize properly, you heathen.





From: RealxChick To: AriHait558

Date: 9 Oct 2004



Subject: Re: Death of Vocabulary



Go to sleep, you (cocky, arrogant, STUPID) vampire! ;)

PS—If I go to this ridiculous, adolescent ritual All Hallows’ Eve party… will you come with me? If by some miracle you will, come at 7:30 pm.





From: AriHait558

To: RealxChick

Date: 9 Oct 2004



Subject: Re: Re: Death of Vocabulary



The apocalypse couldn’t stop me. Come to the chapel now. I’ll bring cookies, and we can wallow in the minutiae of our lives in proper angsty fashion.

Expectant,

Ari





There is no reply from Kaitlyn on the server.





23


116 days until the incident


Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson


Saturday, 9 October 2004, 1:03 am

Attic

The noise was jarring in the silence of the basement, only the creak of a floorboard ahead of me. I stopped midstep and let my foot hang in the air, holding my breath. Every hair on my arms and the back of my neck slowly rose as I peered into the murk, which was nothing but hints of shadow masquerading as light and dark, sharp-looking edges and fuzzy blurs. And the room was still. Too still.

“Hello?”

A sensation, like that of the room suddenly expanding, even though nothing had changed, knocked the breath out of me, and I dropped my foot and hunched my shoulders from some primeval instinct—as though I was about to be pounced on. Then I saw her. The thin rake of a girl, the one I’d seen watching me from the basement, and in the vandalized mirror… She stood at the back of the room, in the shadows.

She was grinning.

“Dee? Is that you?”

And I heard it. A low breathing, slow and humid. The room itself was icy, but there was fever in the breath.

Adrenaline flooded my body, so that even when I looked back at what I had momentarily seen, my vision spotted in front of my eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was moving closer, even though I could hear the creak of weight falling on the wood and the click of nails on the hard surface.

I stumbled backwards and blinked furiously, staring with wide eyes as the dark shape peered around the corner at me—the corner which led to the stairs of the building, the corner which I had to go around—and vanished.