Reggie flung the coats on the rack wide open and stared up at the monster that had taken the form of her mother.
“Regina Marie Halloway.” She put her hands on her hips, then she smiled, and Reggie heard the crackle of ice. “Just what do you think you’re doing under there?”
Henry ducked behind his sister, desperately trying to hide.
“Henry?” Mom said. “I’m ashamed of you. We talked about visitors down here, didn’t we? Do you remember what Mommy said about inviting —”
“Shut your hole,” Reggie said. “I don’t need an invitation. I know how this game of yours works now, and I’m taking my brother back.”
Mom reached out a smooth, dainty hand. “Now, I won’t ever claim to be the perfect mother, Regina.” Her arm stretched like taffy and clutched Reggie by the throat. She yanked her out from under the rack. “But I deserve respect in my household.”
Henry scrambled out. “Don’t hurt her, Mama!”
Mom’s face contorted into a gruesome mask with cheeks stretched upwards, eyes bulging. Her skin rippled violently as she pointed a long finger at Henry.
The boy’s mouth disappeared; from nose to chin, there was only a smooth plane of skin.
“Quiet, Henry dear.”
Reggie scratched at the cold grip on her throat.
“Fight her ... ,” Reggie choked.
Mom’s arm reeled Reggie in. The girl wriggled her feet and gasped for breath as the fog closed in again.
“I don’t know how you got this far,” Mom whispered, “but you’ve failed. And once you’re gone I am going to torture your lit-tle brother in ways you can’t fathom. And it will never end —”
As Reggie hung helplessly in the air, General Squeak scuttled up the mother’s long skirt and then climbed onto her back. Reggie craned her head and caught a glimpse of Henry.
Now, instead of fear, his face was twisted with anger. His mouth rematerialized on his face.
“Put her down,” the boy said. “Don’t you dare hurt my sister.”
Mom’s eyes widened as the rodent scuttled down her outstretched arm.
“Tell it to get off of me.” Mom’s head twisted completely around. “Tell it to get down, or I’ll rip her head clean off.”
“No,” Henry said. “I said, put her down!”
The hamster sank its teeth deep into the monster’s wrist, tearing a long gash down her arm. Mom shrieked as black smoke poured from the gaping wound. Reggie pried the icy fingers from her neck and dropped to the ground.
She staggered to her feet and raced for her brother, who now just stared at the wailing vision of their mother.
“Come on, Henry. Let’s go!” She pulled him to the escalator, and the moving steps quickly carried them away. When they reached the top, they stood in the cold hallway of the hospital. The escalator behind them vanished, leaving only a wall of moldering white tile in its place.
A crowd of children rounded the corner at the hallway’s opposite end and shambled toward them. Gray-skinned and blank-eyed, they wore tattered hospital gowns and suffering expressions. They were dead, and they walked, their wounds leaking vile fluids.
Reggie took Henry’s trembling hand.
“Don’t be afraid. They’re not real. Just follow me, and walk through them.”
They waded through phantoms. With mournful cries, the children reached out with tiny dead hands for the siblings. Henry clung to his sister, trying to look straight ahead.
“Don’t go, Henry,” one of them mewed.
“Stay. Don’t leave us,” begged another.
The children’s sadness churned into anger.
“No way out,” one hissed. Another echoed the words. “No way out.” More and more voices shouted. “No way out! No way out!”
“Come on!” Reggie urged.
Reggie and Henry raced through the crowd, scrambling down hall after hall, but there was no sign of an exit; every turn brought them face-to-face with a horde of ghouls. Then they heard the click-clacking of heels approaching.
The ghouls drew nearer. The clacking grew louder, but Henry could not move.
“Henry, they’re not real! It’s your fear that’s real! Do you understand? That’s why we’re still trapped here! The Vour thinks you’re just a scared little kid!” Reggie took her brother by the shoulders. “Aren’t you tired of being scared?”
“Yes.”
“So don’t be,” she said. “There’s an elevator here somewhere. Where is it, Henry?”
One little girl reached for Henry and her spectral form passed through him. Henry cried out.
“You just have to calm down long enough to see it! These ghosts can’t hurt you!”
Henry clutched his sister’s hand and shut his eyes. The ghouls pushed forward, but broke against the boy’s small body like a wave.
“That’s it, Henry. Show this thing it can’t scare you anymore.”
The ghosts halted, as if an invisible fence stood between them and their prey. Suddenly, the elevator appeared.
“Good job.”