TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15TH
6:33 AM
LAWRENCE DEMBENSKI'S HOUSE

Watts's grandfather lives on the outskirts of Bradford in a tall, narrow house that matches the tall, narrow man. He's already smiling when he opens the door, greeting Watts with an excited bellow of, "Walter!"

"Zayde, hi," Walter steps up to hug him. From behind their embrace, the warm smell of cinnamon wafts out of the doorway. "I hope it's okay I didn't call first."

"I like the surprise! And you brought company." His eyes look over us as he backs up, waving us inside. "Come in, come in. No point introducing ourselves out in the cold."

The four of us follow him inside, moving through the warm-colored entryway into the small, comfortably-cluttered kitchen. He moves to the oven, taking a second to open the door and peek inside.

"I've got gingersnaps in there," he explains. "I hope you kids have an appetite."

"These are my friends," Watts says, gesturing to us. "Diego, Ambrose, and Renny. We, uh, we're doing a project for school about Vanterbest. And I thought it'd be cool if I could photocopy some pictures from your old yearbook, since it was the first one and all. Do you still have it?"

His eyebrows raise, then he's squinting at us with a knowing smile. "It's Tuesday. You four should be in school, still, shouldn't you?"

Watts cringes, leaning against the beige counter. "Well... you know, with everything going on... we're not doing much in our classes. And we figured it'd be better to come over early, way before dark. Just to be safe."

His grandpa waves a hand, moving over to the empty cookie sheet on the table and scooping out a small ball of dough from the ceramic bowl next to it. "I won't tell," he says, placing the dough down before grabbing more. "Truth be, I'd rather have you here where I know you're safe, anyways. You all stay as long as you like. I know I have that yearbook, still—wouldn't have gotten rid of something like that. It's probably in the attic, in one of those boxes. I've got my hands full here, but you're free to go look for it."

"Thanks," Watts says, leaning over to snag a finger's worth of dough that he plops into his mouth.

His grandpa moves with a laugh, swatting his arm away too late. "It tastes better when it's not raw, Walter. Go on upstairs, they'll be done soon."

"We'll be careful," Watts promises, nodding for us to follow him out of the room. We trail him up a tight staircase to the second floor, where he opens one of the hall's dark wooden doors. The hinges squeak loudly as it opens, revealing another set of stairs. They creak with every step of ours, and the room smells old, like the antique stores Mom used to drag me to when I was a kid.

The attic is bigger than I expected, and neater, too. It's all wood, from the floors and walls to the two shelves on either side of the lone, round window. A few cardboard boxes sit on them, while others are scattered among the room, folded closed. Clouded sunlight leaks in from outside, highlighting the dust that dances in the air.

"I guess we can each start with a box," Watts suggests, walking over to one on the far end of the room. Renny and Ambrose each grab one from the shelves, and I take the one on the floor in front of the window.

"He's sweet," Renny says, waving away a poof of dust that flies up when she pulls apart the cardboard. "It's nice of him to let us look through his stuff."

"I just hope we can find it," Watts says, placing a thick book on the floor beside him. "And that if we do, it answers our questions."

If not, we're at another dead end. I get my box open and rummage around inside, but it's filled with a bowling ball, a few bowling gloves, and an empty carrying case.

"Nothing in this one but clothes." Ambrose closes his box and returns it to its place on the shelf before grabbing another one.

"Mine's mostly knick-knacks," Renny says. "No books."

We keep looking, moving to new boxes when we're sure one doesn't have what we're looking for.

"Hey," Watts calls out from the corner of the room. He pulls out a thick binder from the top of a new box and holds it up to show us. "Photo albums—it might be in here."

He drags the box over in front of the window where he can see better and starts pulling each book out one by one. The three of us crouch next to him, eagerly waiting for one of the books to be the right one. 

Some of the albums are plain, others are marked by simple gold-leaf lettering of the year. The smallest binder has a clear pocket on the front that's stuffed with photos, one of which has Renny gasping and pointing as she lifts it from the pile.

"Oh my God, is that you?" she asks with a laugh, finger hovering above a picture of a dark-haired kid with red glasses. He's squatting, playing with a plastic dump-truck in front of a house—Watts's house. With another gasp and a wide smile, she's moving onto the photo next to it, where a scrawny, pre-teen Watts is standing behind a podium, reading into a microphone with an expression that's all nerves.

He flushes, and as she moves to open it, lunges to take it from her hands before she can look inside. "Okay, no, we're definitely not opening this. The bar mitzvah picture is embarrassing enough."

She pouts as he places the book on his opposite side. "No fun."

Ambrose meets my eyes, then rolls his at their back and forth. With a half-smile and a shake of his head, he takes over Watts's job of looking through the box.

"It won't be fun for me if you come across a baby picture of my bare ass."

With a loud laugh, she's pouncing towards him and reaching for the book. He scrambles to grab it, holding it behind him out of her reach.

"Renny—" his voice tries to be stern, but falters as she practically tackles him. And I thought his face was red before.

"Come on," she begs through hysterics, "Just one peek."

"Guys." Ambrose's serious voice cuts through the light atmosphere. Renny and Watts freeze in their wrestling for the book, heads turning to watch as Ambrose lifts a thin, navy book from the box. Across the hardcover are the words, Joel Vanterbest High, and in smaller font underneath, 1930.

Renny crawls off of Watts and rushes over to sit beside Ambrose, and Watts hurries to do the same. The spine crackles as Ambrose opens to the first yellowed page, which is a title page with a black and white photograph of Vanterbest. On the inside cover, in pristine cursive, the name Lawrence Dembenski is written.

He flips the page, and across the top of the next two, in large letters, is the name of the school again. Beneath that, more pictures. One of the large plaque that's still hanging in the lobby, and one of two men shaking hands in front of a small crowd. On the next page is one of those men standing alone on the steps of the school, holding up a framed piece of paper and wearing a large smile.

"Joel Vanterbest High completed construction on August 13th, 1930, and opened in the following fall, welcoming in students from the surrounding high schools. Together, these students make up the spirited student body known as the Vanterbest Vultures," Ambrose reads the first body of text, then moves onto the next—the caption next to the photo of the two men.

"Pictured are Mayor Philip Moore and Charles Adkins, the winner of the 'What's in a Name' essay contest held by the town. As the winner, Adkins was given the honor of naming the school. Feeling the school deserved a strong, meaningful namesake, he chose the name Joel Vanterbest High to honor a distant relative who, 'sacrificed his life for what he believed in.'"

"Charles Adkins," Renny repeats. "As in Kayla Adkins?"

"It's gotta be." Watts leans in to examine the page further. "Judging by his age in the picture, that'd be her great grandfather."

"A distant relative who sacrificed his life for what he believed in," Ambrose reads again. "Sacrifice. Interesting word choice."

"And a perfectly vague story," Renny comments.

Watts nods. "With a sentiment that no one would feel the need to question."

Ambrose reads the rest of the page, but nothing else matters so much. It's just some information about the construction of the school and how it benefited the community in its first year.

Renny sighs, rubbing her arms for warmth. "Anyone else feel like these pictures are about to start moving? You know, It, Stephen King? That special scared the shit out of me."

"This whole thing scares the shit out of me," I say, standing and brushing off my jeans. "So... what now?"

"Well..." Watts starts re-packing the box as he talks. "We know Kayla's possessed, or was. We saw one of her friends transform and kill Darren. And now we know that her great grandfather named our high school—which was built on the same ground Joan was killed—as an anagram for her name. To me, this is solid proof that her family is involved with Bozzanath's summoning."

Renny stands with a scoff. "I'm not about to argue with that."

A loud thud from the corner of the room has me practically jumping out of my skin, and all four of us turning our heads. One of the cardboard boxes sits alone, inconspicuous.

With another dull thunk, it slides forward a few inches, drawing another flinch from me, a curse from Renny, and urging Ambrose and Watts to their feet.

"It's probably just a mouse," Watts reasons, voice wavering.

The box jerks forwards again, further this time.

Renny steps back. "If that's a mouse, you better ask your grandpa what the hell he's feeding it."

A crash from behind us has us all jolting, turning just in time to see a toolbox, sitting on top of the shelf left of the window, tip over and tumble to the floor. The tools fall out, clattering against the hardwood. Before we can react, the boxes against the wall by the stairs start to shake, contents loudly rattling from the motion.

I back up, but see movement in the corner of my eye—I jump away, just barely getting out of the way as a paint-can falls from the top shelf. I feel the air whoosh by as it grazes my hair before landing heavily next to my feet.

Watts grabs Renny by the wrist, managing to pull her out of the path of a large bowling trophy that jerks off of one of the high shelves behind her. It hits the floor, the base thudding loudly, gold metal clanging on impact.

We're being attacked. Whatever's in here with us is trying its best to hurt us with whatever it can find. The whole room begins to tremor, objects rattling and banging as the four of us huddle back to back, watching the room with wide eyes, waiting for its next move.

Then with one loud squeak, everything stops. Every box comes to a halt, the noise ceasing in an instant.

"Walter?"

I let out a breath, realizing the squeak was the door, that the presence of Watts's grandpa somehow stopped the paranormal activity. I guess Bozzanath doesn't want anyone else knowing about it.

"Yeah?" Watts calls back, voice just barely steady.

"You kids okay up here?" The stairs creak as he starts to head up.

"Yeah!" Watts hurries to pick up the trophy, setting it back in its place just before his grandpa enters, "We're fine."

"Sounded like someone fell," he says, eyes then falling on the scattered tools.

"Sorry," Watts says, crouching down to pick them up. "I bumped into the shelf and the toolbox fell."

His eyebrows raise, but he doesn't look upset. "Must've been some bump."

"Renny was trying to get one of the photo albums from him," Ambrose says with the hint of a smirk. "Wanted to see his baby pictures."

Her eyes go wide and she reels on him, red-faced. It's as if she's just now realizing he and I were witness to her fawning over the pictures.

Watts's grandpa just laughs. "Oh, sweetheart, I can show you plenty of those."

Watts looks up with a dropped jaw. "Zayde!"

"Walter, when a girl wants to see your baby pictures, you don't make her chase you into a shelf to see one." He shakes his head, turning around to head back down the stairs. "Anyway, come down for a while and sit. The cookies are done."

Watts returns the toolbox to its rightful place, all while glaring at Ambrose. "Well, I hope you're happy looking at pictures of me in diapers while we eat."

"Don't blame me." Ambrose raises a shoulder, motioning his chin to Renny. "She's the one who was so desperate to see 'em."

"Ha-ha," Renny enunciates sarcastically, rolling her eyes. But the blush on her cheeks betrays her attempt to act like she isn't embarrassed. "I'm hungry. Can we eat?"

sorry I havent replied to your comments on the last chapter yet!! I've been on a road trip today and just remembered I needed to post! 😳 hopefully I have enough service and this actually goes through LOL 😅💜 love you guys!