Bad Girls Don't Die (29 page)

“Just tell me,” he said. “If nothing else mattered, would you want to go to the dance with me?” I looked into his blue eyes and nodded. “Now, please,” I said. “Go.” He got back in the car and drove away.

Megan and I looked at each other.

“Anything else I should know?” she asked.

“It’s a doll.”

Megan stared at the ground. “I remember a doll. . . .”

“Yeah, your mom used to take pictures of it. It’s the doll from my story and my dream. It belonged to the little girl who died here, and now it’s possessed by her ghost. We have to destroy it.”

She nodded.

“But first . . . we have to find it.” I glanced at her neck. “Keep your necklace on. My sister seems to be totally scared of them. But she keeps getting stronger, so I don’t know. . . .”

We’d reached the front porch. As I extended my hand toward the doorknob, the door swung open all by itself.

Let the games begin.

T
HE SUNLIGHT POURING THROUGH
the front door lit up the foyer, but the hallway faded into darkness. Someone had lowered the kitchen shades and closed the drapes in the living room and the sitting room, leaving the house shrouded.

The front door slammed shut behind us.

Megan stared at it and swallowed hard. “Who did that?”

I looked up at the ceiling of the foyer as if there might be a ghost floating above us. Then I squared my shoulders and focused ahead. “Probably the ghost. But you can’t let it get to you, okay? Try to stay focused.”

Megan gave a minute nod. “All right.”

“Follow me.”

We might as well start, I figured, in the obvious place—my sister’s bedroom.

Kasey never stood much of a chance against an evil ghost who used the power of dolls to lure her in. Come to think of it, maybe that’s how her fascination with dolls began in the first place. Could evil seep through the walls of the house, plant a seed of obsession in someone’s heart?

And what about me and my photography? I was just like Shara.

Dozens of pairs of doll eyes stared at me accusingly, but none of the dolls levitated up from her perch with glowing eyes. I scanned the rows but didn’t see one that was half bald.

“What do we do now?” Megan breathed.

If we couldn’t pin down exactly which doll was the evil one, we’d have to destroy them all. I grabbed one from the top ledge and hammered her porcelain head on the edge of the dresser. Her face cracked like an eggshell.

“How destroyed is destroyed?” Megan asked. “And how will we know when it’s done?”

“I don’t know,” I said, pulling on the head of an antique rag doll until it detached from the body with a
rrrrrrip
!

One thing was certain: we had to get rid of the ghost before Kasey got home. Because if she saw this carnage she would kill us both on sight.

Megan opened a display case and grabbed one of Kasey’s Grande Dame dolls, the fancy kind you order from catalogs with monthly payments. I held my breath as she wrapped her hand in the hair and slammed the doll headfirst onto the surface of the desk. The doll’s face imploded. “What was that?” Megan asked, suddenly looking up. I glanced at the door. I didn’t see anything, but . . . something was wrong. I took a half step out into the hallway, and before I had time to look, something barreled into me, sending me flying to the ground. I propped myself up weakly on my elbows and looked around. Kasey stood at the far end of the hall. “You like that?” she asked. “Want another one?” She held the flat of her hand up in the air and moved it toward me, just an inch, and the impact hit me like a bowling ball. My head slammed into the carpet. “Megan, run!” I shouted. But of course Megan couldn’t run. She had nowhere to go. There was silence. “Come on, Megan,” Kasey said. “Come on out.” Megan stepped haltingly out of my sister’s room. I looked up at her, but I couldn’t find the strength to move.

I expected another long-distance strike, so when Kasey came marching toward us, I knew something was wrong.

I watched from below as Megan pulled on her necklace and held the charm out in front of herself. Kasey paused a few feet away, then lifted her hand.

“Duck!” I yelled. If she didn’t get close enough to feel the effects of the necklaces, they were useless.

We were powerless.

All I could see was a flash of red-and-white cheerleader uniform tumbling to the floor and the charm flying across the hall.

Before Megan could stand, Kasey had reached her. She put one hand on Megan’s throat, under her chin, and hefted her to her feet, slamming her against the wall.

“Your mother should have killed you when I told her to,” Kasey said. “But I guess I’ll just do it myself.”

Megan whimpered as my sister’s hand tightened against her neck.

“Stop,” I said, but I was frozen in place. I tried to move my arms, but they were paralyzed.

A few terrible seconds passed, and I heard Megan’s hands slapping the wall helplessly.

“Hello?”

Kasey spun away toward the voice, and Megan went crashing to the floor next to me.

The heaviness faded from my body, and I managed to sit up in time to see Carter at the top of the stairs.

“Carter, watch out!” I screamed. He saw my sister and turned back to retreat down the stairs, but Kasey had already raised her hand.

“Alexis,” Megan’s shaky voice said from behind me, “the heart . . . where’s the other heart?”

Kasey pushed the flat of her hand toward Carter.

“No!” I cried.

Megan had pulled herself over to me and put her hand on my arm.

Carter seemed to balance in the air for a split second.

And then he fell.

I glanced up at my sister, who, like an angry bull, had already turned back to face us.

“I won’t let you do this!” I said, grabbing the heart out of my pocket.

“Got it!” Megan cried. She dove for me, raising her half of the heart toward mine.

Just as my sister held her hand up, the two pieces came together perfectly.

A flash of brilliant blue light filled the hallway and then faded slightly into a giant blue sphere of energy. It pounced on my sister, lifting her off the ground while she clawed and kicked against the air.

After a moment the whole house shook, and the blue light exploded in every direction, absorbing into the walls, the ceiling, the floor.

Kasey collapsed.

The house kept shaking.

“Alexis,” Megan whispered, pointing to the ceiling. “Look!”

I saw a smaller, greenish ball of light moving frantically around the ceiling. It glowed, but the glow was almost sinister. It seemed to move like a rodent, scurrying away from the blue sparks leaping around from wall to ceiling and back. Finally it disappeared into the ceiling. The tremors stopped, and the house was still.

“Carter,” I said. “Go check on Carter.”

Megan slowly climbed to her feet and limped down the hall toward the stairs, while I pulled myself over to Kasey, whose skin was a dull gray. For a horrible moment I thought she was dead, but then I saw the minutest movement of her chest.

“Carter’s alive,” Megan’s voice called up the stairs.

Thank God.

I went to the top of the steps and looked down at them. Megan sat leaning over Carter’s motionless body. A tiny blue lightning bolt jumped from the railing of the stairs to the carpet, where it smoldered, leaving a blackened spot.

Megan’s eyes met mine. “There’s too much energy,” she said. “It’s like a circuit overloading.”

Suddenly I had an image of our enormous wooden house as a giant pile of kindling.

“I have to find that doll,” I said.

I turned back to my sister crumpled on the floor. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her violently.

“Get up!” I roared. “Wake up, Kasey!”

After a moment her eyes opened. They were blue. They jumped away from me to look at the sparks overhead.

“What?” she whispered.

“Tell me where it is!” I shouted, still shaking her.
“Tell me!”

“Where
what
is?” she said. “Ow, Lexi, stop!”

“The doll!”

“I don’t remember!” she sobbed.

Then she glanced at the attic door.

I jumped to my feet and ran to the top of the stairs. The door to the attic was in the ceiling. Usually there was a string hanging down that you could grab and pull, but it was half broken and out of reach.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kasey repeated. “I’m sorry, Lexi, I’m so scared.”

My first instinct was to snap at her, but something stopped me.

“Kase,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “look at me.”

She raised her tearstained face and stared right at me, like a scared cat that might bolt at the slightest misstep.

“I know you’re scared. But I need your help.”

She sniffled.

“Please come help me open this door.”

“Alexis, what are you doing?!”

I looked down the stairs to see Megan crouching next to Carter, who was looking up at us dazedly.

“Don’t trust her!” Megan said. She started to climb the stairs but stumbled and fell, grimacing.

I turned to my sister. “Megan’s hurt. You
have
to help me.”

Kasey took a few steps forward.

“I need a leg up,” I said. “I just need you to give me a boost.”

“Oh God,” Megan said from the bottom of the steps.

Kasey knelt with her back to the wall, making a stirrup out of her hands.

If she wanted to, she could flip me down the stairs.

“I love you,” I said. “I trust you.”

“Hurry,” she whispered, staring up at the ceiling.

I took a step back and put one foot in her hands.

“Go!” I said, half expecting to fly backward into the air over the foyer.

But I went straight up and grabbed the string from the attic door, and in the next second I was safely back on the carpet.

I grabbed my sister in a tight hug, burying my face in her messy, sweaty hair.

“Good, Kasey!” I said. “Now go, get outside. Call Mom. And stay out. Whatever you do, don’t listen to Sarah. You’re stronger than she is!”

Kasey scampered down the stairs and pulled the front door open.

“Help me get him outside,” I heard Megan say.

“Lexi!” Kasey shrieked. “The kitchen’s on fire!”

“Just go outside!” I yelled.

“Kasey, grab Carter’s legs,” Megan said.

I looked down the hall and caught a flicker of yellow light coming from the study.

But I couldn’t concern myself with that at the moment.

The ladder to the attic slid down and landed on the carpet with a soft thud.

A
PUTRID, SKUNKY SMELL FILLED THE ATTIC.

The smoke alarms in the hallway below me erupted into eardrum-piercing shrieks, one after another.

The whole house was going to burn down.

Couldn’t I just go outside and wait for the fire department to show?

No. It had to be done. Now, by me—or it might not get done at all.

The rotting smell grew stronger and mixed with the heavy smoke. My “flight-or-fight” response leaned heavily toward flight, but I forced myself to cross the room, feeling heat radiating up through the floorboards.

“Where are you?” I demanded.

For a moment all was silent, and then a bouquet of blue sparks flew upward from the far corner like a mini-fireworks display.

I froze.

What if the sparks burned me? What if they were just luring me over there so they could shoot up into my face, leaving me blind and helpless?

Something stung my leg, and instinctively I reached down and slapped the spot as if I’d been bitten by a mosquito. But then I felt the sting again, and then again, and I reached into my pocket and pulled out the two pieces of the heart necklace.

They glowed blue, surrounded by a thick mass of tiny blue flickers.

“. . . Shara?” I asked.

Another spray of blue light exploded in the corner.

She was helping me.

I clenched my jaw, closed my hand around the hearts, and started climbing over and around the eight years’ worth of junk between me and the far corner.

The rotten egg smell acquired a sharp hint of dead fish, and I fought the urge to gag, especially as I drew nearer to the corner.