Chapter Two
It was no surprise that that night my dreams were filled with porcelain dolls with knives and cracked heads, severed bodies, blood-thirsty vampires, and demons who sucked the life out of people. Damn ghost stories…
I woke the next morning in a frightful sweat from my dreams. My skin felt clammy and my heart was racing like I had run around the school track. Careful not to step on my sleeping friends, I clamoured out of my sleeping bag and went to the bathroom to splash my face with cool water and make myself not look like a train wreck.
I returned to the bedroom moments later to find Sam and Tucker awake now, Tucker sitting up and rubbing his eyes while Sam moaned and shuffled in her sleeping bag.
"Morning, guys. Sleep well? 'Because I didn't," I murmured, yawning and running a hand through my messy black hair.
Tucker stretched his arms above his head and sighed contently. "I live and breathe horror movies and even those don't give me nightmares. Those ghost stories last night were a walk in the park," he smiled.
I scoffed and flopped down on my sleeping bag next to him. "Lucky, I had a terrible sleep. I swear, every five minutes, a new ghost or a demon tried to kill me."
Tucker laughed. "You really need to watch more horror movies, Danny. You get scared way too easily."
"So… Does this mean we don't have to go to Costco anymore?" I asked.
"Of course I still wanna go!" he said excitedly, retrieving his hat and putting it on his head. "That is unless somebody doesn't get out of bed," he said and looked over at Sam who had curled so far down in her sleeping bag that you could barely see the top of her head.
"Leave me be," a muffled groan came from the depths of the sleeping bag.
I looked at Tucker with a mischievous glint in my eye. "I say we sit on her."
"I second that," Tucker laughed.
But just as we were gonna get up, the sleeping bag suddenly came to life and Sam scrambled out of it in a frenzy, standing up abruptly as soon as she got out, her hair fluffing up in all directions.
"There shall be no sitting on me today!" she declared, glaring down at us.
Tucker and I exchanged a look. "Fine, you party crasher," he snickered.
Sam childishly stuck her tongue out at both of us, then laughed. "Come on. Let's get some breakfast, I'm starving."
Just as predicted, Jazz was working that day. We found her at one of the cashier lanes where she was serving a long line up of customers. As soon as she saw us, I flicked my head over to the cafeteria area as a sign for her to come over as soon as she was finished. She nodded in understanding and began to work faster.
Unfortunately, the customers kept coming and by the time Jazz could get to us, it was after hours and almost everyone had left the stores except for us. It was her duty as manager to lock it up, but before she did, she came over to us and took the empty seat next to me.
"Sorry to keep you guys waiting so long," she said with a sigh and undid her pony tail, letting her red hair fall down onto her shoulders. "Much better," she added under her breath.
"It's all right," I said and took a sip of my pop that I had gotten from the cafeteria.
"So you guys were just in the neighbourhood and wanted to stop by?" Jazz asked.
"Well, not exactly…" I admitted.
"We wanna hear about the girl," Tucker blurted. When Jazz looked confused, Tucker added, "you know, the girl that died here?"
Jazz's eyes clouded with grief and even a slight tinge of fright. "Oh, yeah, her."
"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to," Sam said. "We were just curious."
Jazz shook her head. "No, it's okay, I'll tell you guys." She took a deep breath before starting. "We call her the 'No Soul Kid' or just the 'NSK' around here. It happened last year around Christmas. A girl and her roommates came in and were shopping for Christmas decorations. She was a bit older than you, probably around sixteen. I remember her face so clearly because next thing I knew, her roommates were running up to the customer service desk and saying that she had gone missing. I don't really remember what happened after that, but at the next staff meeting, the people who handle the ice cream and frozen foods said that they had found a frozen body of a girl in the refrigerator. They said she must have wandered in and then couldn't escape. No one ever found her until a week later. They removed her body, but ever since the incident people have been reporting strange noises coming from that isle. One poor girl claimed she had even seen a face inside the refrigerator."
I shivered at the thought and even noticed Sam nibbling nervously at her fingernails.
"Anyways, that's all I really know. We haven't sold any ice cream in an entire year because everyone's too scared to even go down that isle anymore," Jazz said.
I opened my mouth to say something, but I was interrupted from the loudspeaker above our heads.
"Attention shoppers, please make your final purchases as the store will be closing momentarily. Have a nice day, and thank you for shopping at Costco."
"I guess I should go and deal with a few things then," Jazz murmured. "Thanks for stopping by."
"No problem," I said and got up.
"Thanks for telling us about the girl," Tucker said and stood up as well.
"Sorry if it bothered you," Sam added.
Jazz gave them a small smile. "No trouble at all. Have a safe drive home. See you at home, Danny."
And with that, Jazz disappeared from view as she walked off.
"Happy now?" I asked my two friends. "We found out about the ghost, now let's go home."
I tried to walk past Tucker, but he gripped my arm.
"Wait," he said. "How about we quickly go down to the ice cream section?"
I glanced at the clock. The store would be closing in five minutes. "There's no time, Tuck," I said.
"Oh, come on, it'll just take a second!" Tucker released my arm and before I could grab on to him, he had already raced away in the opposite direction of the exit.
"Tucker, wait!" Sam and I called after her and rushed to catch up, but as soon as we rounded the corner, he was nowhere to be found. We searched up and down numerous isles, but there was still no sign of Tuck anywhere. After a few minutes, I began to panic.
"Tucker, where are you?" I called, but the only thing that answered me was the slam of the front door and the loud clicking as one by one, the lights shut off and left us in complete darkness. I instantly groped around for Sam and I thankfully found her hand searching for me too and gripped her tightly.
"Danny?" she whispered, her breathing beginning to speed up to match my already panicked one.
"Yeah?" My voice came out as a squeak.
"Are we locked in?"
Dread crept its way into my throat and my heart dropped to my stomach at the sickening thought. Although she couldn't see, I nodded and gripped her hand tighter.
"We need to find Tucker," I said and pulled on her hand as we started walking. It didn't take long to find Tucker, though. Hurried footsteps and the sound of someone's panicked breathing came from the darkness ahead told us he was close.
"Tucker?" Sam called out.
"Sam? Danny? Where are you?" Tucker screamed out our names.
A second later, something collided with me and my hand was ripped from Sam's as I crashed to the ground painfully. It was Tucker and his arms were wrapped tightly around me as he drew in shaky breaths; I had never seen him so scared.
"It's okay, Tuck. It's me, you're okay," I reassured him as we both got to our feet.
"I thought I'd lost you guys. I freaked out and got lost," he said breathlessly. Through the darkness, I saw Sam give Tucker a comforting hug and I knew she was equally as scared. At least we didn't end up losing each other. If this was the way that we were going to be for the rest of the night, it was important that we stuck together.
The trio of us trekked through the warehouse like store, trying to spot out blankets and pillows so we could rest, but the inky blackness cut off most of our vision. The only light that we had came from our cell phones which inconveniently had no service in the building. We split up, but all I managed to find was a loaf of bread and a thick sweater which I pulled over top of my t-shirt. I grabbed two for the others and met up with them in the main hallway five minutes later. Sam had found three working flashlights and Tucker brought back three boxes of crackers.
"Do you think we'll actually have to spend the entire night here?" Tucker asked as he pulled on his sweater.
I took a bite out of a cracker before answering him. "Probably, but it's not so bad. I mean, we're warm, we have food, and the people will come for us in the morning."
"What about the NSK? What if she finds us?" Sam whispered.
I had completely forgotten about Jazz's story and a chill raced up my spine. I inched forward so I could be closer to my friends, but I said nothing. Now that the NSK had been brought up, the silence between us all made the fact that we were stuck in her for the night was a very frightening thought.
"I'm going to look for the blankets again. Anyone wanna come?" Sam asked a moment later.
"I'll come," I offered, getting to my feet.
Both of us grabbed flashlights and with a goodbye to Tucker, we left our so called campsite. But as we went further away into the warehouse, not even our flashlights could pick out objects that would be of use. And since the warehouse was so large, it didn't take us long before we had no idea where we were.
"Sam, where are we?" I asked, once again reaching out for her hand to make sure she was there. Her hand reached mine and I pulled her closer to me for comfort.
"I don't know," she murmured, her voice low.
I squeezed her hand comfortingly, now suddenly wishing that we had never gone looking for the blankets. I didn't even want to be in this warehouse today, but it was no time to start blaming my friends for dragging me here.
Suddenly Sam stopped.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"What's that light up ahead?" she whispered.
Following the direction of her head, I noticed that a few isles up, there was a blue-ish white glow of light. Without answering her, I pulled her along beside me feeling drawn to the light. As we neared the isle, my skin began to prickle with uneasiness and I felt Sam shudder beside me.
"Danny…is this…?"
Though she probably didn't notice, I nodded and as much as I wanted to run away, my feet were rooted to the spot.
We had ended up in the ice cream section.