Dead and Buried Part 3

So... I was thinking this would just be a short story thing that I did throughout the month of September. Looks like it might run into October now. Stick with me, kay? I promise it will be good. Enjoy!

Dead and Buried

Part 3

Hannah screamed, and it sounded a million miles away to Paley as the man in the mask lunged for her, connecting a shoulder with her ribs. She felt something crack as she stumbled backward, the world spinning clumsily beneath her feet. She hit the ground hard, cobwebs bursting behind her eyes as her face hit concrete.  She tried to move, but he was on her in an instant, pinning her to the ground with his knees.  

Paley blinked hard, struggling for air, trying to bring the world back into focus. She could see her attacker silhouetted against the night, his identity obscured behind the ski mask. He raised his arm and for the first time Paley noticed the knife in his hand, its razor-sharp blade glinting in the beam of Brody’s flashlight. She tried to scream, couldn’t catch her breath. He plunged the blade toward her chest, and she reached for the ski mask. If she was going to die, she wanted to see her killer’s face.  

Paley plucked the mask off just as the knife hit her side. She bit back a scream, waited for the pain, felt nothing. Confusion knit her brow as she stared into her attacker’s pale green eyes.  He howled with laughter and she scowled, zeroing in on the zit sprouting hairs in the center of his cleft chin. Little gremlin looking freak.  “You’re an ass, Brighton,” she said, shoving him in the chest. “Get off me.” She scrapped herself off the pavement and examined herself for injuries.

“You should’ve seen your face,” he laughed, doubling over. “That was priceless.”

Brighton poked at her again with the rubber knife and she swatted it away, surveying the rip in her jeans. Great! Because she had, like, a thousand pairs of those. The scrape on her knee wasn’t too bad, though it stung like hell. Her cheek throbbed and would probably bruise. She still couldn’t get a full breath. The jerk had probably cracked her ribs. At least she wasn’t bleeding.

                “I had you so scared. You seriously need to grow a pair of balls,” Brighton said, his laughter ebbing.

                “I guess that makes two of us,” she spat, dusting off the back of her clothes.

                 Hannah rushed over, her heels clicking like shotgun blasts against the pavement. She wrapped an arm around Paley’s waist and gave her a plastic smile. “Ignore him. Everyone else does.”

                “C’mon,” Brighton moaned, an inane grin still plastered across his dumb face. “It was just a joke.”

                “Yeah, we know, Brighton. You’re hilarious,” Hannah said with unmasked sarcasm. “You okay, Paley?”

                “Fine,” she said, secretly thankful Hannah came to her defense, even if it was just because she was the only other girl there.

                “Okay, enough games,” Brody said, arms crossed, his cool blue eyes skewering each one of them, silencing them with one hard glance. “Are we going in there or what?”

              Brighton and Hannah nodded, ever the obedient minions.

              Paley sighed. “Whatever. Let’s get this joke of a night over with.”

Brody smiled. “After you,” he said, and handed her the flashlight.

“Such a gentleman,” Paley mumbled as she departed the pathway and picked her way through the knee-high grass toward the lone campanile. Clearly the groundskeeper didn’t concern himself with this area of the school. Indeed, this part of Jackson Hill Academy was in ruins. Dirty, moss-covered bricks rotted and crumbled to the ground. Stained glass windows were cracked and shattered. Paley found the door, a giant, wooden structure hidden behind the weeping branches of a willow sapling. She pushed the branches away and pulled on the brass doorknob. Locked tight.

                “Can’t you just pick it?” Brody asked.

                “I don’t have another pin.” Paley swung the flashlight in a slow arc, spying a partially opened window. “Over there,” she said, wending her way through weeds and broken glass to the grimy window. She handed Brody the flashlight and pushed up on the pane. “It’s stuck.”

              “Now what are we gonna do?” Brighton said, throwing his hands up in defeat.

“I think I can fit,” Paley said to no one in particular. She took the flashlight back and without a second thought, pulled herself up and crawled through. The drop on the other side was higher than she’d expected, and she landed with a roll, wafting up the stench of musty rat feces in her wake. Dozens of the filthy rodents scurried back into their hiding places, yellow eyes peering at her in the darkness.

“Are you okay?” Brody called, looking down at her through the window.

“Sure,” Paley said, standing. A slow throb pulsed through her ribs and left ankle, but she dismissed it. She’d definitely have some bruises in the morning. She’d had worse.

“Can you get us in?”

“Uh, let me see.” Paley scanned the room querulously, the darkness closing in as she pushed forward. Dodging an overturned chair, she stepped lightly toward what must have been a storage room at one time. Rusting file cabinets flanked the wall behind a dusty counter covered in boxes. Long shadows danced and flickered as she swept the flashlight’s beam across the room. A vale of cobwebs covered the entrance to a darkened staircase that probably led to the belfry. No way was she going to venture up there alone. Not that she thought the place was haunted.

"Of course it's not haunted," she whispered, and forced an uneasy laugh. Cold fear slid down her spine. It felt like someone was watching her from the darkness. Ridiculous, she knew. The place reeked of disuse and had probably been locked up for years.

“See anything?” someone yelled from outside. It sounded like Brighton, but she couldn’t be sure. Paley didn’t bother with a reply, just shook off the unwarranted sense of dread snaking through her veins and made her way to the other side of the room. She cleared away a stack of books blocking the doorway and turned the lock. A shadow caught her eye and she turned. Something moved in the darkness. She cast the flashlight in the direction of the movement and the shadow-thing swooped from the rafters. “Jesus Christ!” she shrieked as an owl flew past her and out a broken window, its giant wings knocking shards of glass from the frame.

“What’s wrong? What happened” Hannah called, her shrill voice piercing the night.

“Nothing. It was just an owl,” Paley said. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, then pulled hard on the doorhandle. It creaked creaked open, allowing a cold gust of wind into the room.

“Check this place out,” Hannah whispered, stepping over the threshold and into the darkness. The others filtered in behind her. “Totally creepy.”

Paley agreed. It was totally creepy, though, she’d never admit that. “So, what now?” she asked, hoping the others would see the room and have their fill.

“Now,” Brody said, his angular features glowing eerily in the weak light shifting in through the window, “we find the ghost that's haunting Jackson Hill.”