Friday evening descends upon the Mystery Hunters Club much sooner than they expected it to. This late into their senior year, the evenings spent in their little corner of Mrs. Johnson's classroom have become precious for their quickly decreasing number. Leia thumbs over the page of her mystery novel, glancing up across the table. Ava leans her chair perilously far, and Leia wonders how she hasn't tipped herself onto the floor already.

Leia feels Charlotte brush up against her sleeve, and lean over to show Leia something in her book. Leia can smell Charlotte's sugar-sweet perfume, which overall reminds her of the color pink. She wants to comment on it, tell Charlotte how much she likes that scent, and how it goes so well with Charlotte's personality, but loses her nerve. Leia would hate to make things awkward.

"Isn't that so romantic? I wish someone would investigate an old mansion with me someday." Charlotte sighs, leaning into Leia's shoulder, half-closing her eyes and daydreaming.

Leia doesn't bother to read whatever section of the book Charlotte is talking about. Instead, she nudges Charlotte up off her shoulder to meet her eyes."Well, if you can find one, I'll go with you."

Charlotte suppresses a laugh, and shakes her head. "You know that's not quite what I meant, but still. I know you would make it fun...and maybe a little less scary."

"You know it." Leia smiles, but she can't quite shake the lingering feeling of disappointment. She knows it's more than a little silly to want Charlotte to only spend time with her, but she can't help but dread the start of summer vacation, and the end of their senior year. They both had their college acceptance letters already, and the schools were on opposite ends of the country.

Lucas sets his book down on the table with a groan."Man, I just can't get into this one, but at this point, I have to know what happens."

Leia knows the feeling all too well. "That's not the Stephen King one I said to check out, is it?"

"Nah, I haven't gotten to that one yet. Maybe I'll give up and just start on it." He looks towards the yearbook, which has been sitting on the table the entire club meeting. No one has really wanted to talk about it just yet. Lucas decides to make the first move to nudge the group in that direction.

"So...do we have any idea what we wanna do with this thing?" He taps his fingertip on the cover.

Charlotte sniffs. "I'd been hoping we were just going to...I don't know...ignore it?"

Ava lets her chair thump back onto all four legs. She reaches forward, flipping open the yearbook's cover, and reading through the names scrawled inside. "I mean, we could start by looking up some of these names, but that could take ages, and none of them have dates. This book is so old, is there any way to know if they were all written in the same year or not?"

Leia folds her own book shut, careful to slip in her bookmark so she can't forget her spot. "No, there really isn't any way to know for sure, so that's not a great place to start. We could maybe start with Cynthia Davis' family though. See if they know anything about her."

"I think it's optimistic to think they'd still be living here, honestly. Would you wanna hang around in a town where your kid went missing?" Lucas raises an eyebrow at Leia.

Leia grabs the yearbook and flips it closed. "Well, you're not wrong, it's just...I feel like we're losing momentum. We've hit a dead end." She knows Lucas is right, and it's a bit of a lost cause to think it's possible to track down Cynthia's family.

Charlotte packs up her things, huffing as she walks towards the door. "Well, I for one couldn't care less what we do with that book. It's late anyway, so I'm gonna go home." She pulls the classroom door open, then freezes. "Woah, I don't think we've ever stayed this late before."

The rest of the group rises from their seats, packing away their things quickly. They peer out the doorway into a hallway filled with blue-ish grey pre-dusk light. The corners and spaces too far from windows are filled with inky black shadows. The fine hair on Leia's arms rises, responding to a chill she didn't feel a moment before. She can't recall the last time she was in the school when all the lights were off.

Charlotte scowls, watching a shadow skulk down the hallway. It gets far enough away that she has to lean out of the doorway to make out the movement. "Well, it seems like someone is still here, anyway." She walks down the hall at a fast clip, Leia, Lucas and Ava trailing behind her.

She slows down once she nears the figure standing at the end of the hall with her head bowed. She has light blonde hair similar in shade to Charlotte's own. Her soft pink skirt and shirt look dated, almost like the clothes the theater kids wore in their high school rendition of Grease two years ago.

"Um...hey, are you...okay? If you're looking for someone, they probably already went home." Charlotte steps forward timidly, reaching out for the girl.

The girl shuffles on her feet, slowly turning to face Charlotte. A feeling of dread lodges itself firmly in Leia's stomach, and she steps forward to stop Charlotte from touching the strange girl in front of them.

"Charlie," Leia hisses. "Leave her alone." Charlotte gasps when she feels Leia's hand on her shoulder, and is more than happy to step back into the protective huddle of her friends.

The strange girl in question continues her slow turn to face the group. They all collectively take a step back, their heart rates beginning to climb due to the anxiety-inducing behavior of this girl that, while she's certainly no one they know, they all feel like they've seen her somewhere before.

Leia swallows hard. "W-wait. What's on her clothes?" Her whisper is barely audible, and Charlotte is the only one who hears it, being pressed so close their shoulders are touching.

Charlotte takes in the dark stains that cover the girl's skirt and blouse. The entire front of her shirt seems saturated in some dark liquid, the exact shade of it difficult to discern in the darkened hallway. She doesn't reply to Leia right away, letting the girl finish her slow, shambling turn.

The girl continues to hang her head until she's completely turned herself around. Then, sobbing, she lifts her face to finally look at the group huddled together. Her tears cut tracks through the dirt and grime on her face, running down into the ruined gaping slit of her neck. A gurgling wheeze emanates from her, a sure sign of a severed windpipe.

"Oh god, that's blood isn't it?" Charlotte points at the girl's ruined shirt. Hints of its original white color peek out under the dark, dripping, purplish-black stains, a reminder of before the garment was ruined.

"She's hurt bad, we should call 9-1-1 like...right now." Lucas starts fumbling in his pocket, trying to pull out his phone when the girl starts screaming at a glass-shattering pitch. They all clutch their hands to their heads, bewildered that someone that hurt could have that much strength to scream.

While her shriek rattles their bones, the girl begins to levitate, the inches growing between the soles of her shoes and the linoleum floor. Her body goes tense, the joints popping and crackling, limbs lengthening and distorting. The club inches back, their eyes widening and rolling up as they watch this girl's supernatural ascension. She hovers there, blood dripping down her legs and onto the floor, her skin turning shades of purplish-blue cadaver grey.

"We need to run, now." Charlotte shoves the others back, tears streaming down her face. Her heart threatens to leap out of her mouth at any moment. When they don't respond, she sprints away, her own instinct to survive overriding her.

Leia is able to shake herself out of her paralysis, jerking Ava and Lucas with her. They dart down the hall after Charlotte, not daring to look back. The way the screams are following them, the floating girl isn't far behind them. Ava and Lucas find a fresh burst of energy and push ahead of Leia, overtaking Charlotte.

Charlotte makes the unfortunate mistake of looking back at her pursuer, only to see the garish visage of a floating corpse hovering a good foot or more above the floor and flying through the air in her direction. She stumbles, tripping over her own two feet and nearly falling onto her face.

Fear wells up in her chest and pushes its way out as a garbled gasp-sob. Leia skids to a stop when she sees Charlotte fall, and stoops to help her friend back onto her feet.

"Come on Charlie, we gotta go." Leia pulls on Charlotte's hands and arms, half-jerking her to her feet.

"I really wish I wasn't this clumsy," Charlotte mutters, getting her feet back under her. They look up toward the approaching apparition, the distance between them narrowing rapidly.

Leia inadvertently looks into the floating girl's eyes. Where once they had been crystal clear, they were now clouded over with a thin film, the skin around them paper dry, deathly pale, and devoid of blood flow. She's reminded of the whole fish her dad brought home for dinner last week. Just looking at those silver, fishy corpses had made her sick then, and looking at this girl's distorted and damaged face had her stomach churning in the exact same way.

With a stroke of luck, Charlotte and Leia go careening down the hall again, running faster than they ever have before. Leia can feel the burn in her lungs and muscles as her body pulls in as much oxygen as it can to keep her moving forward. Charlotte holds her hand in a death grip, barely a half-step behind her.

They manage to catch up with Lucas and Ava after a few strides, and the group as a whole turns towards the exit, following Lucas' lead. "We have to get out of here and get help. I don't know how long it'll chase us, but hopefully not for forever."

It's fairly easy to agree that exiting the school now is the best choice, so they all push eagerly in that direction. Charlotte lags behind for a short second, and Leia gives her a firm tug, then pushes Charlotte in front of herself. Leia can't stand the thought of Charlotte falling to the mercy of the thing chasing them, so she refuses to allow it to happen.

This is why she's not prepared to stop suddenly and goes flying into Charlotte, who in turn slams into Ava, nearly toppling her. The three girls disentangle themselves from each other, then turn to look at the reason they all came to a screeching halt.

Lucas points wordlessly up at the exit door, his finger shaking. The words "Find Me" are painted across the door, in dripping scarlet blood.

"What?" Leia manages to stumble out.

"F-f-find who?" Charlotte stammers.

Leia shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. She's coming." The screams of the floating girl are coming ever closer, so Leia pushes through the school door, the mechanical clang of the push-handle echoing dully through the hallway. The cool night air rushes over her face, and the others follow her close on her heels. After running for a few more strides, they realize the horrid banshee screaming has finally ceased. The metal flag fastenings clinking against the bare flag post as the wind twists the rope in a gentle breeze is the only thing they can hear, other than their own ragged breathing.

A yellow light clicks on, their movement outside triggering its sensor. It illuminates them all in a soft, discomfiting glow. The school door remains shut, the windows darkened, and no sign of the bloody message scrawled across the inside of it.

They're all breathing heavily from the sudden exertion, and exhaustion starts dragging at their limbs once the adrenaline fades away. Ava leans against Lucas for support, and Charlotte slumps to the ground beside Leia. She brings her knees into her chest, rocking back and forth.

Leia crouches down beside her, gingerly reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Hey, Charlie? It's okay. We're okay." Leia murmurs gently to her friend, trying to pull Charlotte out of her stupor. The faraway look Charlotte has in her eyes rattles Leia to her core.

"Ay Dios mio, are we going crazy? What...was that?" Lucas glances over at Ava, a look of pure disbelief clouding his warm, dark brown eyes.

Ava swallows, trying to catch her breath. "Guys, please don't call me crazy for this...but, I think that was Cynthie."

"Cynthie...as in...Cynthia Davis?" Lucas grabs her shoulders, turning her bodily towards him, she grabs his forearms, squeezing them gently.

"Yeah, maybe. But...that was the girl from my dream. I know it." Her intense gaze would have been uncomfortable in any other situation, but now Lucas just feels his stomach filling with nervous, choking bile, and the certainty that Ava is right.

"I thought I'd seen her somewhere before." Leia groans. "It sounds crazy but...after what's happened, it doesn't seem all that crazy anymore."

"So...the school's haunted?" Charlotte's heart continues thudding rabbit-fast, her breath wheezing in and out in hot, white puffs of air.

"Seems like it." Leia stares back at the school door, the liquid black behind the windows glaring like eyes staring back into hers.

Word Count: 2,313

Word Count (Total): 7,249