Chapter Text
Ponyboy was cursed! It was the only explanation for all the stuff that had been happening to him lately. Yeah, that had to be it. He was cursed and it all started with the feeling of dread that he felt when his second-eldest brother, Soda, asked him if he wanted to tag along on his date with this new girl that he met a month ago. To be more accurate, Soda asked him if he wanted to come along on his double date since Steve was still with Evie. In other words, he asked Ponyboy to be the fifth wheel, which he just didn’t find so appealing.
When Soda asked him, Steve was glaring daggers at him, silently telling him that he shouldn’t come, and Ponyboy was just fine with that! He didn’t want to go either. But Soda asked him. Whenever that happened, Ponyboy always found himself accepting.
“Come on, Pony, please?” Soda begged, pressing his hands together like he was praying. He put on the best puppy-dog eyes that he could muster and Ponyboy felt his resolve crumbling in an instant. Why did he have to be so good at that? “It’s going to be a lot of fun, I promise!”
Ponyboy highly doubted that. He was probably going to be miserable and uncomfortable the entire time. He could just imagine it—having to just sit and do nothing but take their glares. He wouldn’t be able to bring a book to make time go by faster because then they would complain that he was being anti-social. He couldn’t interact with them because then they would complain that he was being annoying. There was really no winning for him. Still, he forced out, “Okay, I’ll go.”
He was going to regret this later.
“Tagalong,” Steve bit, rolling his eyes when Soda left with a skip in his step. “Why do you always have to come along?”
“Soda was the one who invited me,” Ponyboy defended with a glare.
“He was only doing that because he felt sorry for you. All you do is mope around the house all day. You should have said no. We’re taking the girls. Do you know how embarrassing it is to tell them that we have to babysit some kid too?”
Ponyboy gritted his teeth and curled his hands into fists. He knew that he should have said no. Soda has been inviting him more frequently these days. At first, he thought it was because he was getting over Sandy, but he kept inviting him. Usually, Ponyboy would have brought Johnny along so he would have some company. However, that was when he was still alive.
It had been a couple of months since both Johnny and Dally passed away and Ponyboy hadn’t been taking it well. Whenever he wasn’t at school, he was in his room doing something to distract himself. The house felt empty these days. A void had been created that could never be filled no matter how loud it was. The gang tried their best to make up for them, but it just wasn’t the same.
“Trust me, I don’t want to hang around you either,” Ponyboy grumbled. “Just one minute is too much.”
“How do you think I feel about you ruining my date?” Steve growled. He opened his mouth to say something else but, before he could do that, Soda returned with a bright smile on his face.
“Ready to go?” he chirped. Steve shot Ponyboy one last glare before he stomped out of the house. Ponyboy dragged his feet after him. He seriously didn’t want to go. Hopefully, time would pass quickly, but he knew that that was wishful thinking.
The date wasn’t fun whatsoever. Just like what he expected, it was miserable and awkward. When the girls saw that he came along, they couldn’t help but express their disappointments. Maggie, Soda’s new girl, was especially upset and she didn’t hold back when it came to expressing it. Her green eyes pierced the back of Ponyboy’s neck and her smile was tight, even when she was talking to Soda. Of course, Soda remained oblivious to it all, too far infatuated with her Shirly Temple curly, blonde hair and her curvy body. In a way, she kind of reminded him of Sandy, body feature-wise. Even though Sandy didn’t end up being the person everyone thought she was, Ponyboy still liked her better than Maggie. A whole lot better.
Somehow though, Ponyboy made it through. Soda tried to make the experience less miserable for him—he really did—by trying to include him in activities and conversations, but none of the other people wanted him there. Eventually, Soda started to catch on that Ponyboy didn’t want to be there either, and planned to end the date a little earlier for him. Pony was almost home free as he sat in the backseat of Steve’s car while they drove the girls back home. That was when Steve grinned at him through the rearview mirror and Ponyboy knew that he was up to something no good.
“Why don’t we stop here?” Steve suddenly suggested, already turning on his blinker to a random, beat-up driveway that led to who knew where. As they drove across it, the car dipped and bumped, tossing the passengers around. Water from yesterday’s storm splashed the tangle of weeds as the tires crashed in each ditch.
“Where are we going?” Evie asked, voice jumping with each bump.
“Yeah, you’re not going to leave us stranded on a random property, are you?” Maggie asked, suspicious of the greasers. A “classy” girl like her must have thought they were going to kill her or something.
“Nah,” Steve answered. “There’s this abandoned house here. I thought it would be fun to explore it.”
Maggie’s face twisted in disgust. Her shrilled voice caused Ponyboy to cringe. Soda deserved someone way better than her. “Ew, no. I am not going inside an abandoned house. There are probably a bunch of hobos in there.”
“Don’t call them that,” Ponyboy said, earning another glare from her.
“That’s what they are! They’re just a bunch of bums who are sleeping in their own waste. There’re probably hundreds of needles everywhere too. It’s gross and dangerous in there.”
“There ain’t no hobos in there,” Steve reassured. “Just ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” Soda echoed, surprised that Steve was even bringing this up. Steve didn’t believe in them, so why…
“Seriously?” Evie giggled as if what he said was the funniest thing in the world. “That’s what you’re going with? Ghosts? Ghosts don’t exist.”
Again, Steve looked at Ponyboy through the mirror. “It’s true. There’re ghosts in there.”
That was when both Evie and Maggie followed Steve’s eyes to Ponyboy, and realization crossed their faces. Maggie, who decided to play along now (probably as revenge for him being there), asked, “Why are there ghosts there?”
“I don’t know, but years ago there were a bunch of disappearances happening.”
“Disappearances?” Soda asked, scratching his head. He clearly was missing the joke. “I don’t remember there being anything like that.”
“I think I’ve heard about it,” Evie hummed, joining in but ultimately hoping that Steve wouldn’t take things too far. “It happened a while ago.”
Steve nodded, “Rumor has it, this was the house that belonged to one of the victims. A young couple just bought it right before they went missing. There was even a huge search for them, but nobody found anything. They just disappeared and people eventually gave up.”
Wait, so Steve wasn’t pulling a joke or anything? This actually happened? If Evie said she heard about it, then this story was possibly true. Ponyboy trusted her a lot more than Steve. He leaned forward in his seat and asked, “So they never found anything?”
Steve held back a smile as he shrugged. “They did find something. It wasn’t too long after did the house went on sale again, and another young couple moved in. They were doing renovations and were tearing down the wallpaper when they noticed that it felt weird. They looked closer and saw some blemishes and hairs, and it was then that they realized…” Steve paused for effect. “It was human skin!”
Maggie shrieked while Evie stuck out her tongue in disgust. Meanwhile, Soda was laughing at Steve’s story since he figured out that it was a joke, while Ponyboy was horrified. Steve had to be pulling his leg and was trying to scare him or something. Who would do that to another person? But his doubt started to go out the window when he saw the house.
“Oh, look, here it is,” Steve announced.
The house was a safety hazard from just looking at it. It was old and half of the roof had already caved in. The outside of it wasn’t in any better shape either. The paint was chipped and, in areas where it was still there, it was faded by the weather—a lively lavender, it seemed like it was before. The windows and door were sloppily boarded up, allowing nothing to enter through those openings besides bugs and critters. Nature had already taken its course on the poor house, causing the structure to be so weak that it looked like the slightest of breezes could capsize it. And, during the dark night, as it was lit up by the full moon and the car’s headlights, the house somehow looked alive as if it was a trap that was waiting to swallow up its next victim.
Ponyboy couldn’t help but gulp, “I don’t know about this.”
“Are you scared?” Steve teased, powering off the car and turning the headlights off. “I knew you were a little kid.”
“I’m not a kid!” Ponyboy instantly defended himself. “I just think it's dumb to go in, Steve. This place looks like it’s going to fall down at any moment.”
“We’ll be fine.”
Soda let out a small chuckle at their antics, and suggested, “It’s getting late. Maybe we should take the girls back home now.”
“It’ll only be for a few minutes,” Steve reasoned, turning his head to address the entire group. “What do you say?”
“We should go home,” Ponyboy said immediately. Please don’t make him go. He didn’t want to go inside!
“I think it could be fun,” Evie said and Ponyboy felt a bit of himself die on the inside.
“I mean, it’ll only be for a couple of minutes…” Maggie muttered.
Then everyone turned to Soda to make the final decision. Ponyboy tried to send silent messages to him, but he remained oblivious to them. It would only take Soda’s decision to change the tide. Still, despite being oblivious, Ponyboy still had hope. But, honestly, he should have learned by now to never get his hopes up.
“Well…” Soda started and Ponyboy knew that it didn’t look too good for him. He looked at Ponyboy with an apologetic look on his face and shrugged. “It could be fun, Pony, and it’ll only be for a few minutes.”
“No, Soda,” Ponyboy whined.
“If you want to stay in the car and wait for us, that’s fine,” Maggie suggested. She continued in a quieter tone so that only Ponyboy could hear her. “It’ll finally give us some space from you, like how it should have been from the beginning.”
Red covered Pony’s ears, and, before he knew what he was doing, he growled, “Fine!”
“Pony?” Soda said in surprise.
“Let’s just get this over with.” Ponyboy opened the car door and stepped out before anyone else could.
The rest of the group exited the car and walked closer to the house. It was hard to navigate the property, seeing how there were no headlights anymore and they had to rely on the dim glow that the moon provided. They pulled on some boards to see if any of them were loose, but none were. They could have tried to pull out the nails, but they weren’t planning on getting tetanus for this. Steve rounded the side of the house where he found a hole created by a fallen tree. He quickly called everyone over and, one by one, they all entered.
Somehow, the inside was in a worse shape than the outside. It was layered in dust, almost making it seem like an indoor snowstorm had hit. Some danced in the air and tickled their noses. There was a lot of graffiti on the stripped walls, depicting creepy images that Pony couldn’t make out. The furniture that was never removed was torn apart and probably had animals living in them. The group kept running into the furniture because of how much darker it was on the inside.
Ponyboy followed closely behind them as they explored. He tried his best to stay as close to Soda as possible, in particular. He didn’t like the place. There was something about it that didn’t seem right, and he didn’t know if that was his intuition or if he was just spooked. Something about it was heavy as if there was a weight on his chest that was so suffocating that it was hard to breathe. His head was spinning, vision swaying so much that he wanted to vomit.
The other four were joking around, which was great for them, honestly. Ponyboy wished he was that carefree. But his active imagination was making everything far worse than it should have been. While he walked, he had to shove his clammy hands into his pockets to hide how much they were trembling.
The floorboards creaked with each step they took, and it was even worse when they walked on the staircase. The boards became bent when they were on them, threatening to snap under their weight. It was when they got to the top did Ponyboy notice something odd.
With each step they took, he heard one extra pair of steps behind them. Ponyboy, who was at the back of the group, looked over his shoulder but didn’t see anything. He knew for sure that there wasn’t someone behind him either. The dark hallways were as empty as they could be. But it could have been nerves that were making him hear that, so he hurried up to catch back up with his brother.
Anxiety crept up his spine like a thousand little spiders, causing his heart to beat in his throat. The longer that he was there, the more things that he heard—footsteps, knocks, doors closing, and incomprehensible voices. And the longer that they were there, the more he just wanted to get out.
“Did you hear that?” Ponyboy whispered after he heard another door close.
“Hear what?” Soda asked, looking over his shoulder. Currently, they were checking out what used to be a bedroom. Soda had been messing with an old radio that wasn’t working anymore.
“I just heard a door open.”
“You’re just imagining things, kid,” Steve grumbled. He opened a closet and started to look through the contents. Suddenly, he chuckled and pulled a box out. He held it up for the group to see and Pony walked closer to read what the box said. It was an Ouija board. “Look at what I just found.”
“What is it?” Soda asked, walking over to get a closer look.
“It’s an Ouija board.”
Soda blinked. “Did you just say a weewee board?”
Steve let out a breath and repeated it but slower. “Ouija.”
“That makes more sense. What is it anyway?”
“It’s a board that lets you communicate with ghosts or something—real occult shit.”
“Thankfully, it’s not real,” Evie added. “People move the planchette to scare their friends. It’s just a prank.”
“A game is a game,” Steve said, that grin never falling from his face. “Why don’t we play for a bit?”
It was just a game—some silly prank that was supposed to scare people. But even if that was so, none of them actually wanted to touch the board. Everyone shifted on their feet, clearly uncomfortable. Maggie was the first to voice her opinions like always, twirling the chain of her rosary with her fingers, “I don’t want to play. Those boards are for Satan worshipers. I don’t want to do anything revolving around demons.”
“We don’t even know if we would be able to speak to ghosts,” Steve began. “But why don’t we find out if this is real or not?”
Being real or not, Ponyboy did not want to get involved in a séance because what if it was true and he was going to be talking to something violent? The darkness of the room seemed to only get darker, closing in on him. And in that darkness, although he was sure he was seeing things, he saw horrific, twisted faces form. They all grinned crookedly at him, the corners of their mouths reaching to their eyes.
Feeling sick to his stomach, Ponyboy shook his head and said, “No. You said we were only going to be here for a few minutes. We should get going now.”
However, Soda shrugged his shoulders and gave him that innocent look again. “It’s just a game. Nothing can happen. This will be the last thing we do before we go, I promise. Nothing will happen to you.”
Ponyboy felt himself die on the inside again. Steve was still smirking as he opened the dusty box and pulled out the board. He fished out a few candles that were also in the closet and lit them with his lighter. The flames that were produced didn’t provide much light nor did they do any good to soothe Pony’s nerves. The shadows danced around them, following the movement of the flames—casting figures that weren’t actually there.
Soda, Steve, and Evie all sat down around it and Maggie plopped down next to Soda with a, “My dad is going to kill me if he finds out about this.”
Then, they all looked at Ponyboy expectingly. The younger boy’s lips pressed tightly together. Standing there while the others were sitting down only made him feel even more exposed.
“Oh, don’t tell me that you actually believe that there’re ghosts,” Steve loudly taunted. Ponyboy felt his ears become red. Sometimes he wanted to glue Steve’s mouth shut forever, but Soda was there so he couldn’t argue.
“Steve, don’t tease him too much,” Soda chuckled and, if possible, Ponyboy’s ears became even redder, hidden by the low lighting. He couldn’t have been more embarrassed. Truthfully, he had believed in Steve’s story. He also believed that there were paranormal forces that nobody could explain. That was why he walked right into Steve’s trap.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Ponyboy defended and sat down hard on the dirty floor. He crossed his legs and gripped his ankles to hide how much they were shaking.
“Sure, kid,” Steve said, putting the planchette, a wooden device that looked like a large guitar pick with a circle punched out in the middle, on the board. The board itself was beat-up and scratched, showing how often it had been used in the past. Carved into it was the entire alphabet, the numbers zero to nine, and the words yes and no on the top corners of it. On the bottom was the word goodbye. That bravado he gained right before he sat down was whisked away just looking at it.
“How do we play?” Soda asked, not one sign of fear on his face.
“Everyone needs to put two fingers on this,” Steve began to explain. He placed his fingers on the planchette and everyone else did the same. “Then we just ask it questions.”
“Seems simple enough,” Evie said. “What should we ask it, Steve? Since you’re the one who suggested we play.”
“Uh…” Steve thought for a moment, not having thought of possible questions beforehand. “Who’s here?”
For a long while, nothing happened and the fast beating of Ponyboy’s heart started to slow down. Maybe there weren’t ghosts after all.
“Maybe we need to ask it in a different way,” Evie suggested. Then she called out. “Is there anyone here that would like to speak with us?”
There was another pause. At first, the planchette didn’t move, but then it did. It was slow, moving at a snail's speed. Ponyboy’s heart must have stopped at that moment. It screeched across the board until the circle in the middle stopped at the word yes.
No way.
Absolutely no way.
This couldn’t be happening.
Ponyboy’s arm went stiff, and his stomach plummeted even more. Something else had its hands on the planchette and was moving it. That thought was almost enough to make him pull away.
“Maggie, why don’t you try asking something?” Soda suggested and Maggie jumped. Her eyes went buggy wide, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish.
“Uh—What’s your name?” she let out, voice squeaking.
Slowly, the planchette moved.
M… A… S… O… N…
“Mason?” Ponyboy repeated. He glanced up at Steve who looked like he was trying to hold in laughter, then everything clicked. He glared. “Steve, you’re moving it!”
“I’m doing no such thing,” Steve defended himself, not even trying to hide his lie.
“You are!”
“Let’s just continue,” Soda tried to mitigate, a trickle of sweat falling down his temple despite the cool temperature.
“What’s the point? Steve’s just going to move it,” Ponyboy mumbled but placed his fingers back on the planchette anyway. He had removed it when he figured out what Steve was doing. Seriously, what was the point of playing? This had been one giant prank since the beginning.
“Ponyboy, why don’t you try asking something this time?”
Ponyboy thought for a moment, brain running blank on questions. Maybe he should pick something that Steve wouldn’t want to answer—something he didn’t like to talk about. But that was another problem. He didn’t know Steve enough. He searched through all of his memories for something that he could use—anything that he could have been related to.
Then a memory came to him that he had almost forgotten due to the effects of time. He remembered a time when his family struggled to pay for food. His parents were still alive at the time. He didn’t remember many details about the event, but, right before their trip to the store, the money had disappeared. His parents tried to search for it, but not even a penny was found. They managed to get food in the end, but it still caused a lot of stress. To this day, Ponyboy didn’t know what happened to it, but he remembered how Steve had acted tense and weird around his family for a couple of weeks around that time.
It was a shot in the dark, but maybe this was able to solve that mystery…
“What happened to the money that disappeared when my parents were alive?” Ponyboy finally asked. Soda and Steve looked at him in surprise.
“You can’t ask that,” Steve said, looking nervous but still holding a smile.
“Why not?”
“You’re supposed to ask about the ghost.”
But weren’t Ouija boards supposed to be used for answering all sorts of questions? Why couldn’t he ask this? Besides, Steve was just going to move the planchette himself. So, why was he so nervous?
Slowly, the planchette started to move. This time, it moved rougher as if it was struggling against a resisting force. Two words were spelled out.
S T E V E
S T O L E
Steve’s smile fell from his lips and his skin turned a sickly green. His trembling mouth opened and closed. His voice shook as he spoke, “How…”
“Steve… You…” Soda started, frowning. “You stole from my parents?”
“I… I…” Steve looked lost, sweat trickling down his temples. “I did but I… I…”
Was this true? Why would Steve even admit to this at all if it wasn’t? If he was acting, he was doing a damn good job at selling it. But Ponyboy had a feeling that he wasn’t because he had never seen him act like this before. Still, Ponyboy had to be cautious. He wasn’t about to be teased again. He glared and accused, “You’re moving it again. How could you even joke about this?”
“W-What? No, I didn’t…” Steve sputtered, snapping his attention to Ponyoby. His eyes were unfocused.
“Seriously, you have to stop messing with us. It’s not even funny anymore,” Maggie said, looking disgruntled.
“I didn’t move it.” That sentence alone sent chills down their spines.
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Sure. Magic moved it.”
“I don’t think he’s messing with us this time,” Soda defended, leaning forward to make out Steve’s features more. He had known him since diapers and had been with him through thick and thin. There was something wrong. Steve wouldn’t admit to something like this, let alone lose his cool so easily. He wasn’t mad about what Steve had done, though he was a bit disappointed. The event happened so long ago and even Soda had almost forgotten about it. During that time, Steve was having family issues, so he assumed that it was correlated with that. But that was beside the point. Were they actually talking to someone? “I think we’re speaking to someone.”
It sounded crazy and all of them wanted to convince themselves that this was a prank because they would all rather deal with that than the paranormal. However, looking at everyone’s pale faces, all of them had to believe in it, even a little bit.
“Should we keep going?” Evie asked and Ponyboy looked at her like she was crazy. If they were actually speaking to something paranormal, they needed to stop immediately. This wasn’t a joke anymore. “I mean, if there’s something here, we might as well ask it questions. That’s the whole point of the board.”
Pony thought that the whole point of the board was to play pranks on other people.
“I don’t know about that…” Maggie murmured.
“Only a few questions,” Evie promised. “If it gets out of control, then we’ll end it immediately.”
Christ, why were they even doing this? They all placed their fingers back on the planchette, but Ponyboy struggled to do so. His fingers were shaking so badly that they couldn’t keep still enough to do so. As soon as his fingertip lightly touched the wood, the darkness around him grew darker.
“Who are we speaking to?” Maggie asked, wishing that nothing would happen.
This time, it didn’t take long for the planchette to move. But, instead of an expected name, what was written out was Y O U K N O W.
“We know what?” Evie repeated but wasn’t answered directly. Instead, a short sentence came out that sent shivers down all of their spines once again.
T H E Y L L
K I L L
M E
“Who’s going to kill you?” Steve questioned, snapping back into it.
It was still. His question wasn’t answered.
“Seriously, we should stop,” Ponyboy said, removing his hand from the planchette. Maggie did too, agreeing with the twerp for once.
“That’s it. I’m done,” she said, standing up. She didn’t even bother to wipe off the dust that clung to her skirt. “This is creepy. I’m leaving and you should all come with me too.”
She started to walk away, and the planchette started to move again in time with the click of her heels.
D O N T
G O
“It said to not go,” Soda repeated, looking back and forth from the board to his girlfriend. Obviously, something wanted them to continue playing. “I think you need to sit down and keep going.”
“No!” Maggie screamed, whirling around. “I want to go home! This was supposed to be a nice date, not some séance. You promised that I would have a fun time and I’m scared, Soda!”
Funny. Ponyboy was promised the same thing.
“But the board—” Soda started, rubbing his arms at how cold it suddenly was
“Who cares about the stupid board or some stupid spirits! Sorry for my foul mouth but they need to screw off!”
At that moment, a door was slammed shut somewhere inside the house. The noise was so loud that they could feel it in their souls. All of them jumped, hearts leaping to their throats. Steve cursed under his breath in time with Maggie’s scream.
“Shit. Goddamn,” he hissed.
“I don’t think it wants you to leave,” Evie gasped, scooting closer to Steve. They should have listened to their intuitions and stopped playing when they had the chance.
Maggie looked conflicted. She looked at the door and then back to the board, biting her bottom lip. She scrunched up her face as she sat back down.
Then things started to get paced differently. Whatever they were speaking to moved the planchette even faster, so quickly that the people who were still touching it almost fell forward. It screeched as it moved, creating new scratch marks on the wood.
“What’s happening?” Ponyboy asked but nobody answered him.
S T O P N O W
What did the ghost want? First, it didn’t want them to stop playing, but now it wants them to. It was pulling them everywhere just as quickly as the planchette was moving.
H E R E
H E S H E R E
H E S E E S Y O U
“Who’s here?” Soda asked. “Who sees us?”
D E M O N
The planchette stopped, screeching to a halt. Everything became absolutely silent—not even a cricket was heard. All of them had the urge to hold their breaths because of it. Even though the heaviness that they were feeling was unbearable before, it somehow got worse. The pressure that was on their chest pressed even harder, making it difficult to breathe.
“We need to stop. We’re saying goodbye,” Soda finally declared, trying to drag the planchette to the word goodbye. However, it just wouldn’t budge, as if it had been super glued to the surface.
NO, the planchette moved to immediately, dragging everyone still connected against their wishes.
Soda clenched his jaw. “Yes. You aren’t speaking to us anymore.”
W A T C H M E
Just as they thought that the planchette couldn’t have done anything weirder, it started to move around again. This time, it only spelled out one word.
L O O K
L O O K
L O O K
L O O K
L O O K
It started off slow, but, with each time, the speed went faster until it was going too fast for anyone to keep up. They were forced to let go, but even though everyone wasn’t touching it, it kept moving.
“That thing is moving by itself,” Ponyboy said, digging his fingers into his arms. “How… How is it doing that?”
“I… I don’t know,” Soda whispered, watching it move around, spelling that same word.
“Look where?!” Steve asked. “Why is this guy repeating this?”
L O O K
L O O K
L O O K
L O O K
“Maybe you’re asking the wrong thing,” Soda tried, gulping. “Who? Who do you want to look?”
Immediately, the planchette slid across the board towards Ponyboy. Nobody was touching it but it still moved as if it was pushed. Ponyboy paled even more.
No.
This couldn’t be happening.
Why him?
He didn’t want to pick it up.
His vision narrowed, eyes stinging as sweat fell into them. Ponyboy swallowed the lump in his throat. He lifted a hand and slowly reached it towards the planchette. He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to be home where it was safe. He was scared but not enough to not pick up the planchette. He didn’t want to make whatever was there angry.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Soda said, but deep down, they all knew that something bad would happen if he didn’t do it. His brother was frowning, eyebrows pinched together in worry. Ponyboy hated to see him look at him like that because he knew that it was him who had caused it. It was his fault that he was so obviously scared. Maybe that was the reason why the ghost chose him—he was the weakest link; the lamb that couldn’t run as fast as the herd.
He could do this. Nothing was going to happen to him. Nobody would allow that to happen. That was what Ponyboy tried to convince himself anyway.
“It’s okay,” Ponyboy forced out, hands shaking just as much as his voice. He could hardly keep the planchette up as he lifted it to his eyes. He peered through the center. At first, nothing seemed to be off and Ponyboy almost let out a sigh of relief. He looked around the room, going from face to face with the people he was with—all five of them.
Five?
Ponyboy went still. Besides him, there were only supposed to be four. He went from Soda to Steve… to Evie… and then his eyes stopped on a figure that was looming over Maggie’s shoulder, arms wrapped around her seemingly unaware body. The figure was like a shadow—all dark and misty—but still so clear and solid. Its neck was long and twisted as if it had been spun around a hundred times, curved so that it could look at Ponyboy with its empty eye sockets. Its mouth was large, and teeth crooked and rotten, smiling cartoonishly at him.
Holy shit. Shit! Shit! Shit! What is that? What the fuck is that?
Tears started to form in his eyes, pupils shrinking despite it being dark. He could feel everything in his body go icy cold to the point where his fingers went numb. Its mouth moved, letting out no sounds but Ponyboy was able to read its lips perfectly, Do you see me?
He tried to rip the planchette from his face, but his arms weren’t listening to him, frozen by his fear.
He could see it! Fuck! He could definitely see it!
“Ponyboy?” Soda asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
But Ponyboy didn’t respond, and the group watched the tears drip down his face.
“Ponyboy! Snap out of it,” Soda tried again more insistently, this time shaking his brother.
“YOU CAN SEE ME,” the figure said, voice now audible and somehow right next to his ear. The head of it spun around, neck stretched long, as it lunged across the group towards Ponyboy. He barely had enough time to throw the planchette across the room. As soon as he did, the figure disappeared.
“Are you alright?” Soda asked, trying to get his brother to look at him.
“I want to go,” Ponyboy muttered, mouth dry. He stood up on wobbly legs.
“What did you see?” Maggie questioned but Ponyboy didn’t answer her. He just turned around and started to walk out the door. The group had to scramble to their feet to catch up with him.
“I want to go,” Ponyboy repeated himself. Soda and Steve glanced at each other. They had never seen Ponyboy act this way—never had seen him so scared that he wasn’t able to look anywhere but forward. They had seen what he was like after his nightmares plenty of times, but this was different. After his nightmares, he was able to snap back to his old self pretty quickly. This time, his face remained impassive despite the shrunken pupils and tears, and his skin was clammy and pale. His entire hands were quivering, unable to still themselves.
They kept asking him questions, but Ponyboy didn’t answer them.
Get out. He had to get out and away from that thing.
Christ, what was that? It almost got him. Fuck, it almost got him!
As soon as they left the house, Ponyboy felt a lot better instantly. The weight on his body lifted and he didn’t have to puke anymore. He wiped the snot and tears from his face as he got back in the car.
It was only when they drove away did Ponyboy feel safe again. It was also when the questions started back up.
“What happened back there?” Steve asked, pressing on the accelerator harder to go faster. “What did you see?”
“I don’t know,” Ponybo replied. Christ, what even was that?
Ponyboy opened his mouth before he closed it again. He didn’t want to think about the figure again. He would have preferred to gouge his own eyes out over that. Talking meant remembering and he wanted to stuff that memory in the darkest corners of his mind. Besides that, would they even believe him? Sure, they all experienced something unexplainable, but what Ponyboy saw went beyond that. He glanced at Maggie, making sure that thing wasn’t still holding onto her. Luckily, he didn’t see anything.
“What?” Maggie asked, giving him a pointed expression. “Is there something on my face?”
Ponyboy sighed, “Nothing. I saw nothing. I was just imagining things and got spooked, is all.”
Both Steve and Soda knew that he was lying. There was no way that his imagination could have spooked him that much. They didn’t push him though and Ponyboy was grateful that they didn’t ask anything else. It was better this way. It was better to just forget that this night had even occurred.
He leaned his head against the window zoned out the entire long drive back.
The next morning, Ponyboy was in the bathroom, pressing the dark bags under his eyes with his fingers. He didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, too scared to do so. He kept his body buried under his blanket, overheating and suffocating. Whenever he poked his head out to cool down and breathe, he saw a dark figure looming over the bed.
He knew that he was just seeing things, but it still creeped the sleep away.
Ponyboy turned on the faucet, cupping his hands to gather water. When the water was overflowing, he leaned forward and slashed it on his face to wake him up.
Forget. He needed to forget.
When he straightened his back and looked at his reflection again, he noticed that something was off. His reflection was staring back like what it was supposed to do, but that wasn’t what the problem was. His features were just… off. He blinked and when he reopened them, his image changed. His eyes were missing, leaving behind bloody sockets. His lips were twisted upward unnaturally. It was his face, but, at the same time, it wasn’t.
“DO YOU SEE ME?” his reflection asked, voice not matching his own. His reflection’s head twitched like a wind-up doll.
Ponyboy’s eyes widened before he quickly rubbed at them.
It wasn’t real. It was just his imagination.
When he pulled his hands away, his reflection was back to normal. He sighed in relief. Just his imagination…
He went to turn around but stopped immediately when he came face to face with a face. It smiled at him, rotten teeth falling onto the tile before dispersing into mist.
“YOU SEE ME!”