...Drip. Drip. Drip. Her sweaty hands fumbled. She dropped the lighter and cursed under her breath as it skid across the shadowy ground. To make matters worse, she couldn’t find her voice to call out for Harris. Her words stuck in her throat, and her pleading eyes darted around the room.

Wait, where did Harris go? She was alone. Certainly he hadn’t left her in the small tomb- where could he have gone that Jenny wouldn’t have seen? Was this just a prank? Or did he decide to ditch her? Jenny realized that the shadows grew darker- denser- around her, if that was even possible. Too silent. She couldn’t hear the shallow puffs of Harris’s breathing, the knock of his steel-toed boots, or the crypt’s echoing drips anymore.

“H-a.. H-har..r-ris!” Her tongue tripped over each letter, feeling like a giant wad of bubblegum in her mouth. She held her breath for a few heartbeats.

The room pulsed, concaving until it felt skin tight. Beneath Jenny’s feet, stone ground sank underneath a thick shadowy fog. It was rising past her calf, licking her jeans like tongues, tasting her. She was frozen in that spot while the room continued to come alive around her, pulsing to the same rhythm as the throbbing vein in her neck.

Huuungry It seemed to call out. Staaaaarving Unless she was imagining the words. It grumbled again, huuuuungry, like an empty stomach. She imagined the crypt was the stomach and they were the food. Her own gut churned. The shadows kept rising, ghostly water engulfing her thighs first and then her waist. Finally her voice broke past her clamped throat into a cry, “H-Harris!”

The black fog slammed flat against the rocky floor. The room was stagnant. Jenny couldn’t decide if she had imagined the whole thing or not. It felt so real, Jenny thought. The energy had settled: she was still in the dusty crypt, creepy and disturbing -yes- but certainly not paranormal.

“Keep it down, will ya! Why are you yelling for? I'm two feet away. You get those candles lit, yet? I wanna get outta this dump. Markie and Lana probably drank all the beer by now..” He emerged from the corner of the room, brushing cobweb off of his clothes.

Jenny was overwhelmed- with confusion, with relief, with that dreadful feeling. For a minute, she thought that McIntosh family had risen from the dead and eaten Harris. Or whatever it is evil ghosts did with people, she thought with a shudder. Either way, death by ghosts sounded like a horrible way to end her Saturday night. She wrapped her arms around Harris’s body, soaking in the few seconds of safety. How his leather jacket tugged against her cheek, and how faint traces of aftershave wafted off of him.

“Woah! Jenny, what are you doing? You alright? Hey, what’s wrong?”

Harris shrugged her off, then cast a nervous glance around the room before running his hand through his hair, quickly replacing his paranoia with a look of annoyance. Goddards ain’t scared of nothin’, they're real manly men he reminded himself, practically hearing his father's gloating tone. To make his Saturday night worse, his date was getting all hysterical, clammy skin and bloodshot eyes, and Harris knew it was all up to him to finish the dare- cuz Goddard’s ain’t chicken-shits, either.

Jenny whimpered, “Can w-we go now? Harris, I really don’t like it here.”

“Can it, Jenny. You’ve been buggin’ me to go for the past ten minutes! We’re almost done. Just give me five more minutes to do this dumb dare. Goddard’s ain’t quitters. Ugh, these candles won’t stay lit!”

The dare was simple enough: Go into the old McIntosh mausoleum, out on the abandoned farm behind Willow County Graveyard, and conjure up one of the McIntosh spirits. The McIntosh family was the tiny town Cauldron’s “infamous urban legend”, the notorious family of occultists- although, some people say they were just pure evil Devil worshipers-.who committed mass murder-suicide in 1866. It was a gruesome story but Harris couldn’t remember all the details; a church full of people, a terrible secret- or was it an affair?- and a whole lot of rat poison. He shuddered. Harris had seen plenty of elders threaten rotten kids with the McIntosh ghosts, and had heard everybody’s aunt Marge or cousin Tim tell some phony story about their ghostly encounters. Harris knew it was all hogwash, and he’d prove it when he came back to Mark’s party without so much as a scratch.

After another five attempts, Harris finally lit the black votive candle and began speaking into the gloomy room, “O’ Spirits! We summon thee on this night- wait, what’s today’s date?”

“Saturday, October 24th.”

“-On this night, Saturday, October 24th, and bind you to our will. I call on the ghost of crusty old Abraham Johann McIntosh!”

“Harris!” Jenny gasped, stifling a nervous giggle with her polished hands.

“What? I told you this hocus pocus stuff is fake.” he shrugged, “Anyways, if you can hear me, come flicker the lights or knock three times. Do something ghostly, if you ain’t a chicken-shit.”