“It’s our thing,” Tattoo Boy insisted.
“We need to get a new thing,” Lipstick Artist whined. “This place is so creepy. I bet it’s haunted. There’s probably chopped-up bodies in the basement.” She looked like she was hoping Tattoo Boy would comfort her.
Ah, to be young and dumb again.
“I always expect some kind of zombie to climb out of the basement,” said Girl 2, who had waist-length black hair and her face glued to her phone. Her thumbs moved so fast that they were a blur.
Tattoo Boy switched to zombie mode and approached her, groaning and hissing while he dragged one leg behind him.
“Stop it! You’re creeping me out,” Lipstick Artist whined.
He gurgled convincingly and then pretended to eat Girl 2’s arm like it was a corn cob.
By this point, Maggie felt reasonably certain she was in no real danger and began plotting out the best way to terrify the little shits.
“Are we going in or not?” Girl 2 said, ignoring the zombie apocalypse and her impending loss of limb. “Because if we’re not, my friend Madison just found her mom’s Valium prescription.”
“The door is locked, smart-ass,” Lipstick Artist reminded her. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Then just break a fucking window,” the bored girl said without looking up from her phone.
They wouldn’t be so hell-bent on window breaking if they knew how much a plate glass window that size cost to replace. None of them looked like they’d be good for the cost of the window either. It was time to make her move.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Maggie announced, snapping on the flashlight as she jumped around the corner. She shined it right in the bored girl’s face. The kids froze comically. Except for Girl 2, who finished her text first.
“Zombie!” Lipstick Artist screeched.
“Fucking-A,” Girl 2 said, putting forth the effort to sound at least moderately nervous.
The highest-pitched shriek came from Tattoo Boy, who was no longer proudly waving middle fingers or tap-dancing.
Cody stood frozen on the steps, both hands in plain sight, his face pale.
Maggie heard the clunk of something heavy hit the floorboards and then the clump of clunky, gothic boots as they sprinted for safety.
“Run, Tommy!”
“Don’t say his name, Ashley!”
Amateurs.
“Freeze or I’m calling the cops!” Maggie said halfheartedly. There was no reason in hell why any of them would actually stop. And she didn’t know what she’d do with them anyway if they did stop.
The engine of the little blue hatchback turned over, and three doors slammed.
Cody was still standing on the steps, holding his hands in the air and looking like he might vomit at any moment. A bottle of liquor lay on the porch in front of him.
“Please don’t call the cops,” he whispered.
She could barely hear him over the high-pitched rev of the car engine as it fishtailed away from the house, sending a shower of gravel in all directions.
Maggie sighed. “I’m not calling the cops. But I am confiscating this.” She picked up the bottle and turned the flashlight on it.
Ugh. Mad Dog 20/20. Really she was doing them a favor. A plastic bottle of mango-flavored liquor was never a good idea.
“What’s your name?” she asked, shining the light on the boy.
“Cody.”
“Cody what?”
“Cody Moses.”
The kid must have her confused with actual authority unless he’d given her a fake last name. Either way, he’d stayed to face the music. That was something.
“Well, Cody Moses. Your friends suck.”
There was a hint of a smile curving one side of his mouth. “Yeah. Kinda.”
She remembered that hungry look. The fact that he’d ripped off the phone number for a night shift job. “I’m Maggie. How old are you?”
He winced. “Eighteen.”
Which made him an adult if she did call the cops. It didn’t take much to ruin a life.
“Are you still in school?” she asked.
He nodded. “I graduate in June. Maybe.”
She blew out a breath. “Look, I’m not calling the cops on you. But I also have to set an example so your zombie-fearing friends don’t come back. So you’re going to come back here tomorrow morning.”
He looked at her with suspicion, and she wondered if she looked like the kind of stranger who would chop up teenagers and bury the pieces in her basement.
“Your trespassing punishment will probably involve something with manual labor that I don’t feel like doing myself. How are you at scraping wallpaper?”