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footsteps again. Clearly.
    Very close.
    Three steps one way, two steps back.
    Lea looked around expectantly, listening, hoping the noise came from above her, from the roof. Hoping her broken shingle theory would prove true.
    But she knew at once where the sounds were coming from. They were coming from the room, from behind the locked door.
    This is crazy, she thought.
    But she moved to the door, taking off her thongs so she could walk even more silently. She leaned against one of the two-by-fours, pressing her ear against the wood.
    This is crazy. This is
so
crazy.
    She continued to hear the sounds.

    Yes. She heard them coming from the other side of the door.
    Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.
    I must be going crazy.
    This room has been locked up for a hundred years. Locked and blockaded for a hundred years.
    â€œHello! Can you hear me?” she shouted into the door.
    She leaned forward expectantly, pressing her ear hard against the old wood.
    From the other side she heard nothing now. The sounds had stopped.
    Lea’s heart was pounding. She tingled all over. The dim yellow light made everything unreal, as if she were living in a faded, old movie.
    The sounds had stopped, as if in response to her call.
    â€œHello!” she called again, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting against the door.
    Silence on the other side.
    A heavy silence, as if someone was listening. Listening to her.
    And then she heard a soft plopping, a dripping sound.
    Lea raised her head just in time to see the dark liquid begin to ooze out from the top of the doorway. It descended rapidly, in a single wave, flowing straight down the front of the door to the floor, splashing at Lea’s feet.
    Lea screamed and jumped back.
    It was a thick, dark liquid. It was blood. A curtain ofblood. Pouring down the door. Forming a dark, widening circle on the floor at her feet.
    Holding her hands to her face, unable to take her eyes from the flowing waterfall of blood, she screamed again.
    And again.

“D eena, please—hurry!”
    Lea had been screaming into the phone without realizing it.
    â€œJust try to calm down,” Deena said, sounding very alarmed on the other end of the line. “You sound hysterical, Lea. You’re not making any sense.”
    â€œOf
course
I’m not making sense!” Lea shrieked, gripping the phone tightly, gasping for breath. “It doesn’t make any sense! Please—hurry.”
    â€œOkay. I just have to get some shoes on,” Deena told her. “I’ll be right there. Where are your parents, anyway?”
    â€œI don’t know. Someone’s house. They didn’t leave a number,” Lea said breathlessly, staring at the floor in front of her bedroom door, as if expecting the wave of blood to follow her downstairs.
    â€œI hate Fear Street!” Deena exclaimed. “Why doyou have to live on Fear Street? I had a
horrible
experience on Fear Street last year!”
    â€œCome
on,
Deena. I’m all alone here!” Lea pleaded.
    â€œOkay. Bye.” The line went dead.
    Lea replaced the receiver, still staring at the floor by the doorway. Of course my story doesn’t make sense, she thought. How
could
it make sense?
    Footsteps in a room that’s been boarded up for a hundred years? A waterfall of blood pouring down over a door?
    She dropped down onto the edge of her bed, her hand still on the phone receiver.
    She listened. The house was silent now. So silent she could hear the soft ticking of her desk clock. So silent she could hear the brush of wind through the leafless old trees in the front yard.
    It was quiet up there now. But was the blood still flowing? Was it flooding the attic? Would it soon seep through her ceiling and down onto her bed?
    Terrified, she glanced up at the ceiling.
    That enormous, circular dark spot around the brass light fixture—had it been there before? Those long, straight cracks in the plaster. She didn’t remember seeing them,