The Haunted by Bentley Little Read Free Book Online Page A

enough. But what made it worse was the fact that Brad Bishop was sitting with his dad two tables over. She ignored him, and he ignored her, but Megan knew he saw her, just as she saw him. It was impossible to be cool when you were with your parents, and she settled for acting bored and above it all, as though she’d been forced to come here. She tried not to look over at Brad but couldn’t help glancing up at him periodically. Each time she did, he seemed as bored as she was pretending to be.
    Dinner lasted way longer than it should have. Service, as always, was poor, and one of their parents’ friends stopped by to chat, which made her want to sink into the floor with embarrassment. Luckily, Brad and his dad left soon after, and while they passed directly by her family’s table on their way out, neither she nor Brad acknowledged each other.
    It had been light out when they arrived, but it was dark when they left, and Megan wondered what time it was. It seemed like they’d been in that stupid restaurant for hours. “Great celebration,” she said sarcastically.
    “It was, wasn’t it?” Her dad was either genuinely oblivious or pretending to be oblivious in order to antagonize her, but she refused to take the bait and engage him. Instead, she opened the door of the van and got in.
    A few blocks later, near the park, the van’s headlights illuminated a yellow sign at the side of the road: SLOW CHILDREN PLAYING .
    “Look out for retarded kids,” she told James.
    “Megan!” her dad said sternly.
    “That’s what the sign says.”
    “I see one!” James announced.
    “James!”
    The two of them giggled.
    They arrived home a few moments later. Her parentsnever let her keep her phone on when they were out in public doing family activities, so the first thing Megan did when she got inside was turn on her phone and check for messages. There was one text she’d missed, and she immediately announced that she’d be in her room and headed upstairs, not wanting James or her parents to see the message. It was probably from Zoe, and for her eyes only.
    There was a split second of hesitation as she reached the top of the steps—
    IL C U 2NITE
    —but then she heard the sound of James’s footsteps coming up the stairs behind her, she flipped on the hall light, and all was normal. Walking over and into her bedroom, she turned on both the ceiling light and the lamp on her desk before closing the door and checking the text.
    ?*
#%$&?!
    It looked like those symbols that were strung together in order to depict obscenities in comic books.
    Maybe
it was Zoe, she thought doubtfully, although it didn’t make a whole lot of sense and didn’t seem like something the other girl would send.
    Megan pressed her friend’s speed-dial number, but Zoe did not answer right away, like she usually did, and after six rings there was a message, Zoe talking in a subdued, dispirited voice: “I cannot use my cell phone right now. If you wish to speak to me, please call my home phone.”
    Megan dialed her friend’s home phone, and Zoe’s mom answered. “Hello?”
    “Hello, Mrs. Dunbar? This is Megan. May I speak to Zoe?”
    “Oh, Megan! How are you? Hold on a sec; I’ll get her.”
    Zoe came on the line, and there were a few moments of awkward innocuous chitchat until her mother left the room. “Okay,” she said finally. “What’s up?”
    “Did you text me earlier? About an hour ago?”
    “No. How could I? My mom took my phone away because my stupid sister caught me talking to Kate when I was supposed to be pulling weeds. I can’t get it back until Monday!”
    “Well,
someone
texted me, but I can’t tell who, and it doesn’t make sense. It’s like those exclamation points and question marks and apostrophes that they use instead of swear words.”
    “You always know if it’s from me. I don’t block anything.”
    “Yeah.” She almost told Zoe about the other messages she’d received, but her friend started complaining about her