The Ghost in Room 404

The Rent Is Due

My knees were shaking so hard I thought my jeans would rip.

I stared down at the kitchen floor, my hands glued to the edges of the wooden table. The linoleum was splitting open. A puddle of black water was bubbling up from nowhere, thick and sticky like fresh tar, spreading fast toward my sneakers.

This was not a normal leak. Pipes did not bleed black ink.

"Leo," Chloe said.

Her voice was too calm. She sat by the cold radiator, wearing her bright yellow jacket. Her face was pale, like she hadn't seen the sun in weeks, but her eyes were sharp. She always beat me at video games with that exact same look, focused, dangerous, and three steps ahead of me.

"I see it," I said, my voice cracking. I grabbed my algebra homework and crumpled it into a ball without thinking.

We lived in a tiny, falling-apart apartment in Chicago where the rent was always late and the walls always leaked when it rained. But tonight, it wasn't rain coming through the floor.

The black puddle stopped bubbling. A hand reached out of the water. It was long, pale, and wrapped in a dark suit sleeve. Then came a tall man with a sharp jaw and cold eyes that looked like broken glass. He stepped right out of the floorboards, completely dry, as if the kitchen was nothing more than a door he felt like opening.

I backed up until my spine hit the cold refrigerator. My heart was beating so fast I felt sick.

"You are three months late," the man said.

His voice sounded like two rocks grinding together in the dark. It made the hairs on my arms stand up.

"We pay our rent on the first of every month," I said, trying to make my voice sound brave even though my legs felt like jelly. "Mr. Henderson gets the cash. You have the wrong apartment."

The man did not blink. His name was Vane, and he looked like the kind of person who could snap a baseball bat in half with one hand and not even care.

"Mr. Henderson knows nothing about the real rent," Vane said, taking a slow step toward the kitchen table. "You sold a silver compass at the comic shop yesterday. A compass forged from moon-glass. That was my property."

My stomach dropped. I worked part-time after school at an old comic book store downtown. Yesterday, an old man in a long coat had given me a heavy silver compass in exchange for a rare comic book. I didn't think twice about it. I put it in the register drawer and went home.

"I just work the register," I said, holding my hands up. "I put it in the drawer. Take it back. It is still at the shop."

Vane smiled, but his eyes stayed cold. "The shop is empty. The compass is gone. And you are the one who let it out of the vault."

"I didn't know!" I shouted, panic rising in my throat.

"Leo," Chloe said again.

I looked back at her. She stood up from the radiator. She didn't look sick anymore. She didn't look like the girl who spent all day coughing under a blanket. She walked right past me, stepping close to the terrifying man in the black suit.

"He didn't know," Chloe said clearly. "Because I am the one who took it."

The kitchen went dead silent. The only sound was the hum of the old refrigerator.

I stared at my sister. My brain stopped working. "Chloe? What are you talking about?"

Chloe didn't look at me. She kept her eyes locked on Vane. Her fingers twitched near the zipper of her yellow jacket.

"You wanted the compass back?" Chloe asked, and a strange, bright silver light flashed deep inside her pupils. "Too bad. I gave it to the ghosts in the wall."

Vane’s face twisted into real anger for the first time. "You little thief. You think you can hide behind human children?"

"I am not hiding," Chloe said.

She reached out and grabbed my wrist. Before I could ask a single question, before I could run, Chloe pulled me hard toward the living room.

The wall at the end of the hallway wasn't a wall anymore. The wallpaper was peeling away, and behind it was a massive, glowing tear in the air. I could see a strange city on the other side, a city made of stone towers, floating lanterns, and dark, twisting alleys that did not exist on any map of Chicago.

"Move!" Chloe yelled.

We dove through the tear just as Vane lunged forward.

We hit the cobblestone ground hard. Dust flew up into my face, and the smell of ozone and old paper filled my nose. I scrambled to my feet and looked back.

The tear in the wall was closing fast. On the other side, standing in our kitchen, Vane reached out his long hand. His fingers brushed the edge of the closing portal, missing us by an inch.

Then the wall snapped shut.

We were standing in a dark, narrow alley between two crooked stone buildings. Above us, the sky was the color of a bruised plum, filled with strange, drifting lights that looked like jellyfish swimming through the air.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. I looked at Chloe, whose eyes were still glowing that faint, impossible silver.

"Chloe," I said, my voice shaking so hard I could barely get the words out. "Where are we?"

Chloe didn't answer right away. She turned around, looking down the dark alley where shadows were beginning to move toward us.

"We are right where we need to be," Chloe said.

Before I could ask anything else, a heavy, cold hand clamped down hard on my shoulder from behind.