Sarah was on a mission. She had to get to a party that may not even have had a location yet. And there was probably only one person left who could get her there.

By the time Caleb had taken off with his parents and left her standing alone on the sideline, the crowd had significantly thinned. But after searching the remaining faces in the stupid band uniforms that looked like they belonged on an eighteenth century Prussian battlefield, she realized that Bennett was now not among them.

If she couldn't catch him in the parking lot, then her plans were totally shot.

Running across the track and exiting the stadium, Sarah frantically looked for the boy among the locals packing up and getting in their cars. Whether by sheer luck or something more deliberate, she found him, putting his silly, feather-topped hat into the trunk of a Mini Cooper.

She could hardly believe her eyes.

"Hey, Bennett!" Sarah called out before rushing over. Three other girls were also standing by the tiny car, all in various states of undress. Not wanting to appear rude, she threw them a collective, "Hi."

"What's up. Hi. Hey," they muttered back with minimal enthusiasm as they either balanced on one leg, had their head stuck in a sweater, or struggled with a zipper.

"Guys, this is Sarah," Bennett said, also tossing his jacket into the trunk before slamming the door shut. "That's Sonja, Venus, and Bess."

On the surface, the kid's introductions were polite, but his mood was definitely more reserved than during their first meeting. He couldn't even muster a smile.

"It's nice to meet you all," she said, stepping to Bennett's side and leaning in so only he could hear. "Is everything okay?"

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Sure. Why wouldn't it be?" he asked before turning away. "So are you guys ready to go or what?"

The girls--now fully dressed in non-band clothes--picked up the rest of their stuff and replied in the affirmative before piling into the car.

Although Sarah had no idea what she could have done to piss him off, she still needed Bennett's help. Grabbing his arm before he could slide into the driver's seat, she made her best puppy dog eyes. "Can I ask you for a really huge favor?"

He stopped with one leg inside the car and looked at her, puzzled. "What? A favor?"

The way he asked made her feel ashamed for even bringing it up, but it was too late now. "Uhm, a tiny one, really. It might not even be an imposition--"

"Hurry up, will ya?" he interrupted, glancing at the others.

She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Right. Well, I need a ride," she said.

He finally smiled, but it was less of a friendly smile and more of a 'you have to be shitting me' smile.

"You need a ride?" he repeated before shrugging. "Then call an Uber."

Shocked at his curt dismissal, Sarah didn't have a chance to reply before he got behind the wheel.

"Wait!" she exclaimed, putting her body between him and the door. "I mean, I don't want a ride home. I need to get to the secret after-party that everyone is supposedly going to."

He furrowed his brows and looked around to make sure no one else was listening. "Who told you about that?" he whispered.

Sarah swallowed hard. Although she hadn't planned on revealing it, she now had no choice. Ugh. This was awkward.

"I got the invite from Caleb, but he had to go home first--"

"Even if I wanted to take you, as you can see there's no room," Bennett said, not even letting her finish.

Bending down, Sarah looked to where he was thumbing. Sure enough, the back seat only had space for two and both spots were already occupied.

Not having any dignity left, she decided to make one last try. "I'm really skinny," she said, pulling her arms close to her chest to appear smaller.

Bennett rolled his eyes and scoffed. After a pause and a sigh, he finally nodded. "Fine. Get in."

Sarah squeezed between Venus and Bess, sitting without a seatbelt on the rear bump.

"Anyone got the address yet?" asked Sonja, riding shotgun as they pulled out of the parking lot.

The girls on either side of Sarah checked their phones. "Nope. Nothing," they said in unison before lowering the devices again.

"So that's how it really works, huh?" Sarah asked. She'd originally been skeptical of what Caleb had told her since she'd assumed that this kind of stuff only happened in movies. Then again, she never had a real high school experience before so maybe it was commonplace.

"Yeah. It's so the cops can't shut us down even before all the fun starts," Bess said before popping a bubble with her gum. The pink of the confection matched the shade of her hair perfectly.

"Less of a chance for people to talk if they don't have the details until the last second," added Venus. "But we should have it soon."

"Why don't you just wait at the stadium until then?" Sarah asked, but she was met with laughter.

"What better way to draw attention to something shady going down than half the town sitting in their cars until they get a secret address, am I right?" Sonja replied, making Sarah blush.

"True," she whispered, thankful for the darkness of the backseat as Bennett continued to drive. Soon, the road became familiar. "Oh, hey. I think this is the way to my house."

"Is that right?" asked Bess, shifting in her seat to get a better view ahead. "All of us are from the other side of town."

Sarah had no idea whether that was good or bad--or even if it meant anything at all--but then she'd remembered something. "So I guess then you wouldn't know anything about this place on the corner?"

"What place? That one?" Bennett asked, pointing to the looming, black clapboard that had just come into view. In the darkness, it looked even creepier than before.

Venus frantically tapped him on the shoulder. "Pull over, pull over," she demanded.

"Why? What do you--"

"Just do it!" she exclaimed, causing him to brake hard in order to make the turn.

After parking at the curb in front of the two story Colonial, they all got out. Only the slamming of the Mini's doors broke the silence. There was no traffic on the two roads framing the intersection. The crickets also had forgotten to start their evening serenades. Even the owls were eerily quiet in spite of the increasingly late hour.

"Permit for demolition," Bess read the sign posted in front that Sarah had seen from afar earlier in the week. "By order of the . . . development, no I mean department . . . of pubic woks. Eh? That doesn't sound right," she muttered and the others laughed because although the partial moon was enough to make out the largest letters at top, she struggled with the rest of the fine print.

"So why'd you make us stop here, Vee?" asked Sonja, drawing Sarah's attention away from studying the looming facade to the girl now clamped to Bennett as if the two had been connected with handcuffs.

Huh. Maybe that explained his dismissiveness from earlier.

"She had asked--"

"Sarah," she cut off Venus to repeat her name.

Venus grimaced. "Sarah had asked if anyone knew about the history of the house. Duh," she said.

Bess leaned with an elbow on the sign. "And how do you . . . oh, crap!" she exclaimed as it gave way and made her jump.

Her friend couldn't be less bothered.

"All I know is that this place came into the possession of a man in the 1950s through an inheritance," Venus began as she walked up the cracked pavement leading to the front door. Dramatically turning on the stoop, she widened her eyes and continued, "And from the first time he set foot in it, he suspected it was haunted."

A chill ran through Sarah.

"Hah, right," Bess dismissed the claim, in spite of the effective theatrics.

"Sure, okay," came a similarly sarcastic reply from Bennett as Sonja snickered beside him.

Venus crossed her arms. "Do you want the story or not?"

"Go on," Sarah urged before any of them could object. Maybe finding more out about the history of the house would help her understand her attraction to--or rather her fascination with--it.

Stepping off the porch, Venus walked over to one of the ground-floor windows. "So anyway, this guy wasn't ready to face his fears alone and didn't want to stay in the house without backup so he invited some friends to stay over," she said, testing the shutter to see if it would open. It didn't. "Luckily one of them was an expert in the paranormal or whatever, so he held seances and experimented with spirit writing among other things to get hard evidence of the supernatural."

Seeing that she still held her audience's full attention, Venus moved to the other window, continuing the story as she fidgeted with a loose louvre. "There were supposedly sightings of ghosts walking the hallways late at night and the usual unexplained noises and stuff, but shit didn't get real until one of the women started to exhibit signs of possession," she said, right as the louvre snapped to reveal a slit in the shutter.

"No way!" whispered Bess with more awe than disbelief.

"Way," Venus said, peeking inside the house through the newly formed gap. "And I heard that it got so bad that the house's owner began to worry for her safety so he made her leave. But as she drove down what used to be this long, private driveway, she lost control of her car and crashed into a big tree."

"Whoa," Sonja exhaled her surprise, whether at the revelation or at Venus' sudden turn back toward them, Sarah wasn't sure. All she knew was that she wouldn't have minded taking a peek at the inside of the house, either.

But Venus wasn't done. "It was officially ruled an accident," she said, walking back toward the group while dusting her hands off. "But some people swear that the girl committed suicide just to get away from the evil spirits that had tormented her."

Sarah wanted to go to the window, too, but her feet felt inexplicably rooted to the sidewalk, so much so that as Venus passed by her, she couldn't make herself move aside.

"Ow," Venus grumbled, looking at Sarah with a dour expression before rubbing her shoulder where the two had collided. "Watch it, yo."

Bennett's slow clap kept the situation from escalating. "That's a nice story, but it's literally the plot of The Haunting of Hill House. We read that shit in sophomore English," he said.

Sonja poked him in the arm. "That's by Shirley . . . what's her name? Shirley Jackson, right?"

He nodded before staring into her eyes for an uncomfortably long time. Sarah feared that he might actually kiss her, but thankfully, Bess jumped in.

"Isn't Hill House about a family though? They move into an old mansion intending to flip it or something, but then weird stuff starts happening," she said. "I think I remember the mom committing suicide and then years later the same thing happens to one of the daughters? Or is that something else?"

Back at the car, Venus opened the door and shrugged. "Well, yes and no. That newer version was loosely based on the original Jackson story, but ..."

She went silent as she picked up her phone from the seat and looked at the screen, immediately forgetting everything else. "Oh, shit. We got the address," she said as her lips slowly curved into a smile. "Next stop: Bedlam Woods, ladies and gentleman."