Lair of Dreams
Sam flicked his flashlight to the right. The long corridor appeared empty. “Other way,” he yelled, and they ran deeper into the underground.
“I don’t want to say I told you so,” Evie said, her voice bumping with the movement. “But I did, in point of fact, tell you so.”
“Save your breath,” Sam panted. “You’re gonna need it.”
Memphis glanced over his shoulder at the greenish wisps flickering between the underground arches. A pack of them was weaving toward them, jerking and twisting. Their terrible barking grunts rang down the tracks. A warning. Or a call for reinforcements.
“Watch it!” Memphis called, yanking Sam back just before his boot went under the wooden covering of the third rail.
“Thanks, pal,” a shaky Sam managed. “I coulda been cooked.”
“Don’t thank me yet. There’s miles of tunnels down here. Plenty of places for those things to hide.”
“Keep moving,” Theta insisted. “I can see a station up ahead. Gotta be Brooklyn Bridge.”
The bright lights of the station bounced before their eyes as they ran. They were close. A sound like claws clicking across a tile floor made the hair on Sam’s neck tickle. He looked up. Nothing. But just to his right, about three steps ahead, some movement caught his eye. He flashed his beam to the space between arches. Up high, a wraith hissed and scurried down the subway wall in a backbend, like a giant spider, its fingernails clacking against the tile, loud as tap shoes. It hissed again as it dropped to the tracks in front of them. A stuffed rabbit dangled from its ghostly hand.
“What. Is. That?” Theta said, stopping completely.
“It’s a kid,” Memphis said. “It’s just a kid.”
“Was a kid,” Sam corrected, backing away. “Some kind of… demon now.”
“All children are demons,” Evie said, breathing heavily. “This is precisely why I always refused to babysit.”
The night was alive with shrieks and growls and deep-throated calls, a demonic chorus drawing nearer. In front of them, the little girl unhinged her mouth. Blood dark as midnight coursed down the deep cracks lining either side of her mouth; she was like a hungry animal sensing prey.
The ghostly little girl lunged, jaws snapping, but her coordination was off. She tumbled, face-first, onto the tracks. In that split second, Memphis yanked Evie out of the way, tugging her toward the Brooklyn Bridge station. From the tracks, the thing that had been a little girl turned her head toward them, sniffing. Shrieking, she chased after Memphis and Evie. The other things were visible in the tunnel, flickering against the darkness, cutting off any chance for Sam and Theta to follow.
“Come on,” Sam said, leading Theta across the tracks and through the pillars to a connecting tunnel.
“But Memphis—”
“We can’t go that way. Theta!” Sam insisted. “It’s this way or we’re dead.”
Reluctantly, Theta watched them go and raced alongside Sam as they headed into the tunnels, away from Memphis and Evie.
Memphis and Evie climbed onto the platform at Brooklyn Bridge station, pushing through the new coin-operated turnstiles, past the relic of a wooden ticket chopper, and headed straight for the empty ticket booth. Memphis wrenched open the door and pushed Evie inside, following on her heels. He slammed the door and locked it. The glowing wraith was nowhere to be seen. But in a moment, her small hands crept over the edge of the platform as she pulled herself up, crawling forward quickly, like a bug.
“I had a friend back home, Dottie, who was double-jointed, and I thought it was the berries. But that is truly hideous,” Evie whispered.
“Shhh,” Memphis cautioned.
The wraith child sniffed twice, then threw herself at the iron grating of the ticket booth. With a shout, Evie and Memphis fell back against the wall of the tiny space. The wraith’s arm pushed through the tiny cut-out at the bottom where change was made daily. And then it squeezed itself through like a snake.
“I. Hate. Ghosts!” Evie screamed. She yanked open the door and pulled Memphis after her as they ran up the steps toward the street. The first staircase ended in a corridor that branched left and right.
“Which way? Which way?” Evie cried.
It didn’t matter. At both ends, the wraiths were coming. And from below, the little girl had begun her ascent.
“Get behind me,” Memphis said, sweeping Evie back with his arm.