The Ghoul Next Door Read online

  “Um, me.” Melody giggled. And then she noticed Frankie’s urgent text. The debate was over. It was time for their first mission— a mission Candace had code-named NUDI Escape. And it was set to launch in three… two… one.…

  “Mommmm?” Candace shouted from the top of the stairs. “Daaaaaaad?”

  Shielded by her sister’s piercing voice, Melody turned the squeaky knob. The front door clicked open. A storm’s sound track blared outside.

  “Yes?” they answered together.

  “Melly went to sleep and I’m bored! You wanna play UNOOOOOOOOOOOOO?”

  “Sure!” Glory called from the living room, sounding suspicious but pleased.

  “I said, ‘You wanna play UNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?’”

  “Yes!” her mom called again.

  “UNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  Giggling as she closed the door behind her, Melody no longer questioned her sister’s dedication. For Candace, UNO with the parents on a Saturday night was the ultimate sacrifice—proof positive that she was more than a player. She was a team player.

  Outside, the street was chilly and silent. Murky blackness fringed with rain covered Radcliffe Way like a soggy wool poncho. The porch swing creaked in the wind. Branches blew and wet leaves slapped together. Candles flickered behind the neighbors’ dark windows. Just like the night before, when cans had rattled around her feet in the abandoned school parking lot, Melody felt as though she’d stepped onto the set of some tragically uninspired cliché horror film. Still, she wasn’t afraid—at least, not for herself.

  Pausing on the porch, she listened for the wet whoosh of a police car driving by.

  Nothing.

  It was time.

  The wind picked up to a squall. With a flip of the hood of her black sweatshirt, she jumped down the cabin steps, sloshed over the wet lawn, and bolted across the road, quickly soaking her pink Converse.

  Once behind Jackson’s cheery white cottage (which projected optimism even at the bleakest of times), Melody dipped into the ravine.

  “What took you so long?” he whispered from somewhere deep inside the bushes.

  “Where are you?”

  “Follow the glow-in-the-dark heart,” he said, not even stopping for a kiss hello.

  “Wha—?” Melody began. “Oh,” she smiled, spotting the neon green sticker of the human heart on the back of his baseball cap.

  “It came in a box of cereal,” he said, stepping over a patchwork of fallen twigs and glistening leaves. “It’s less conspicuous than a flashlight.”

  “True,” Melody panted, trying to keep up. “How did you sneak out?”

  “I didn’t. My mom knows I’m gone.”

  “She let you?”

  “We have a new truth pact,” Jackson whispered. “No more secrets. Total trust. I told her Frankie needed my help, and she said okay. She’s big on the whole community support thing.”

  Suddenly Melody wondered why she hadn’t thought of that. Her parents had always been open and honest with her. Maybe she’d tell them in the morning… if the cops didn’t bust her first.

  “Wasn’t she worried?” Melody asked.

  Finally, Jackson turned to face her. His geek-chic glasses were spotted with rain. “Freaking was more like it. But I said the only way I could forgive her for not telling me about”—he cut himself off in case anyone was listening—“you-know-what was if we had full disclosure from here on out.”

  And Melody did know what. She knew it all. That he was a RAD. That he was a descendant of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That a chemical in his sweat made Jackson transition into D.J. Hyde. That D.J. was impulsive. That he was a music-loving life-of-the-party kind of guy. And that that was not the life for Melody. So she had to do everything she could to keep Jackson from overheating.

  “Maybe we should rest for a while,” she suggested.

  He ignored her suggestion and continued walking. “My mom told me there are other RADs at our school. It’s not just me and Frankie, you know. How cool is that?”

  A gust of wind shook the drops off the leaves overhead. Cool rainwater spattered Melody’s cheeks. More than the surprise shower, or even the news about the existence of other RADs, it was the sudden pinch of jealousy that caught her off guard. What if he wanted to hang with RAD girls instead of her? They were probably more interesting, and they definitely had more in common with him.

  “Will you please slow down!” she snapped, smacking a branch with the indignation of someone who had just been dumped. “What’s the rush?”

  “The rush?” Jackson snapped back. “Frankie’s house is at the end of the ravine, and the cops are everywhere. They’ll arrest anyone out past curfew and take him to the station for questioning. A little nervous sweat and the heat of an interrogation light and ‘Hello, you-know-who’!”

  Melody raised her eyebrows and folded her arms across her chest. She had never seen him lose his temper before.

  “Sorry,” Jackson said, the crackle behind his hazel eyes calming to a sizzle. “My mom has been stressing. Maybe it’s rubbing off on me.” He stepped closer. “Besides, if I get caught, who’s gonna do this?” He leaned forward and gave Melody a long, soft kiss. Sincerity coated her lips like salve.

  Take that, RAD girls!

  With renewed hope, Melody offered her hand. “We’d better hurry.”

  He pulled her through the thicket, the neon-green sticker on the back of his hat marking her path. Scrambling to keep up no longer felt like chasing—more like following her heart.

  “D, why are you going so fast?” a girl whisper-shouted in the distance.

  Jackson and Melody froze like frightened bunnies.

  “Ahhhh, I just got treed on!” she whined. “My hair is soaked.”

  “Shhh,” said a boy. “It’s just hair.”

  “Spoken by the guy in a hat.”

  Jackson put his lips against Melody’s ear. “Is that Deu—”

  She covered his mouth, goose bumps dotting her arms like Braille.

  “Quiet!” insisted the boy. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

  “No, you are,” the girl hissed.

  “C’mon, we’re almost there.”

  Their tromping footsteps got louder… closer…

  Bzzzzzzzzzz.

  Jackson’s eyes widened in horror.

  “Sorry,” Melody mouthed, quickly reaching into the back pocket of her AG jeans and shutting down her vibrating cell. She didn’t need to check the screen to know who’d sent the message. Her heart, now used to Bekka’s hourly audio texts, beat in time with the message.

  Tick… tick… tick…

  Thu-thump… thu-thump… thu-thump…

  Tick… tick… tick…

  Thu-thump… thu-thump… thu-thump. The footsteps were getting closer.…

  Melody peeked at Jackson slowly, wondering if the sound of her shifting eyeballs would give them away.

  His jaw clenched in tiny pulses.

  She gripped his hand, assuring him that everything would be okay. As if she knew.

  Finally, after several petrifying seconds, the other couple was gone.

  Melody and Jackson ran the rest of the way in adrenaline-fueled silence.

  Ghostly images drifted back and forth behind the frosted-glass window of Frankie’s bedroom. The familiar smell of amber perfume hovered around the rectangular opening like a warning. Melody couldn’t place it, but something about it made her feel uneasy.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” she asked, wishing her parents knew where she was.

  “No.” Jackson sighed, surveying the dark cul-de-sac. “Maybe I should go first.”

  Melody didn’t argue.

  Stepping on a conveniently placed tree stump, he lifted himself up to the window the way someone might get out of a swimming pool, and then wiggled inside. His suede desert boots landed with a flat thwack.

  The rain picked up again.

  “Come on,” Jackson said, offering his hand. “Quick.”

  Melody sh
immied her body through the narrow opening. Jackson gripped her ankles and eased her through like a doctor delivering a baby. Her sopping Converse landed with the same flat thwack.

  The lab that she had visited the night before with D.J. was now teeming with kids from Merston High. Despite the dim candlelight, she was able to recognize most of them but didn’t know any by name. Some wore pajamas; others wore sweats. Some stood in tight conversation clusters; others sat on the floor like delayed passengers at an airport. Some talked freely; others bit their fingernails. But they all soon had one thing in common: The instant they noticed Melody, they stopped what they were doing and looked to one another for an explanation.

  “What’s going on?” Melody asked Jackson.

  He took off his baseball cap and mussed his brown hat hair back to life. “Not a clue.”

  “Voltage! You’re here,” Frankie said with the gracious smile of a birthday girl. Melody was thankful for the hostess’s approval. At the very least, everyone would know she had been invited.

  Conversations halted. Faces turned.

  Melody’s heart rate accelerated. “I thought you wanted us to come over because you came up with a plan,” she said, thrown by the unexpected gathering. “Because time is running out. Bekka will be—

  “It’s okay. I figured it all out,” Frankie assured her. “I’ve been waiting for you to get here so I could share.”

  “Then what are they doing here?” Jackson asked, eyeing the others. “Wait! They don’t know about my video, do they? I thought we were going to keep this just between us.”

  “They are us.” Frankie winked.

  “What?” Jackson asked, confused.

  “They’re RADs.”

  “RADs?” he mouthed silently, resting his hand on Frankie’s green shoulder, which was bare thanks to a chicly belted, drooping hospital gown. “No waaaaaaay!”

  As Melody scanned the candlelit crowd, her skin prickled with a mix of fear and exhilaration. She saw the pale girl from her English class… the pretty girl with the auburn curls and fur boa… the bubbly blond Australian with the glove obsession… the cute J.Crew jocks Candace had flirted with the day they arrived in Salem… omigod, DEUCE! Did I really make out with two monsters in one month?

  “Everyone?” Melody asked.

  Frankie nodded with delight.

  “This is amazing!”

  “Yup,” Frankie said proudly, hugging Jackson tighter than Spanx. “Can you believe it?” she asked him.

  Jackson shook his head from side to side, too overwhelmed to speak.

  The girl with the boa stared at Melody while whispering to the girl with the gloves. Deuce said something to the J.Crew brothers that prompted them to step closer to Melody. Someone tapped Melody on the shoulder. She turned around, but no one was there. Cleo and her friends giggled from a distance.

  Melody reached for Jackson’s hand, but he didn’t seem to notice. It hung clammy and lifeless in her grip, no longer responsive to her touch. He was in Frankie’s arms now. Probably evaluating his future friends. Uninspired by Melody’s predictable gene pool. In search of something more diverse…

  Omigod! What if their entire relationship was a sham, designed to let him keep tabs on the meddling new girl? Maybe she had been lured there as a normie hostage—her life in exchange for the Jackson video?

  It was a trap!

  Panic stirred her blood to rapids. Fear set off alarm bells in her ears. Adrenaline pushed Melody out of the driver’s seat and grabbed the wheel. With shaky force and little thought, she pulled Frankie away from Jackson, held her by the wrists, and glared into her eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work!”

  Heads turned again.

  Frankie pouted, giggling. “You can’t blame me for trying. D.J. already knows everyone here and—”

  “D.J.?”

  “Is that what all the hugging was about?” Jackson asked, pulling away and turning on his mini fan. “You were trying to make me sweat?”

  Frankie nodded guiltily. “I want D.J. to hear my announcement.”

  Adrenaline gave the wheel back to Melody and slipped out, embarrassed. “So I’m not a hostage?”

  Jackson looked at her with bemusement. Frankie burst out laughing. Her mint-green skin was extra smooth now that her stitches had been tightened.

  “You’re healing so quickly,” Melody said in an awkward attempt to start over. “My dad’s patients take weeks to recover.”

  “Really? What does he do?” Frankie asked with genuine interest.

  “Plastic surgeon,” Melody grumbled, pointing at her new and much-improved nose.

  “No way!” Frankie put her arm around Melody’s shoulder and pulled her close. “We have so much in common!”

  Really?

  Cupping her chin in her hands, Frankie batted her lashes. “Face by Dad-deee!” She beamed. Her ability to accept the strangeness of it all with such humor and grace put Melody at ease.

  “Oof!” Someone smacked Jackson on the back, pitching him forward. “It’s good to finally have you in the mix, ya two-faced freak.”

  Melody strained but couldn’t see anyone in the dark. “Who said that?”

  Jackson fumbled to straighten his lopsided glasses.

  “Meet Billy.” Frankie gestured to the vacant space beside her. “He’s invisible. And the most voltage friend a girl could have.” She kissed the air. “Just don’t hug him, ’cause he’s nakie,” she added, giggling.

  “Welcome,” Billy said. A roll of Starburst appeared from thin air. A cherry candy was revealed briefly before it disappeared into Billy’s mouth.

  “Thanks.” Jackson smiled at the hovering wrapper.

  “C’mon, I’ll introduce you to everyone,” Billy said, tugging Jackson into the center of the lab. Jackson looked back at Melody with an expression of dread, yet he made no effort to stay. So she let him go.

  “This is so cool,” Melody said to Frankie, trying to show the gawkers that she could hold her own without Jackson, even though she was completely faking it. Maybe if she introduced herself, showed that her interest was genuine, asked all of them who they were, what they did, who they descended from, and why they—

  “What in Geb’s name is she doing here?” Cleo asked with amber-scented vitriol.

  No wonder that smell had made her uneasy! From the moment they first met, Cleo had treated Melody like a middle-school loser; it was a soul-searing feeling that was all too familiar.

  “Wait!” Cleo stomped her platform sandal. “Don’t tell me she’s a—” Frankie shook her head.

  “So, why is she here?”

  Deuce ambled over with a lit candle. “No way!” He chuckled coolly. “You’re a RAD?”

  Cleo elbowed him. “No.”

  “So, why is she here?” he mumbled. Cleo glared at Frankie for the answer.

  “Because I have an announcement to make, and I want Melody to hear it.”

  “Any other moles in the room I should know about?” Cleo asked, twirling an iridescent snake bangle on her upper arm.

  “Cleo!” Frankie pleaded. “She’s my friend.”

  Melody’s insides warmed.

  “Stein,” Cleo huffed, “we can’t trust her! You’re putting us in even more danger.”

  Frankie sparked. “Actually, I’m about to do the opposite.” She winked at Melody and then walked over to the operating table.

  Cleo yanked Deuce toward the front of the crowd, leaving Melody alone by the window.

  “Can I have your attention, please?” Frankie whisper-called. She pressed her hands on the steel slab and lifted her tiny frame up to sit. Her bare feet swung like a child’s, but the somber expression behind her eyes was serious and adult.

  “First,” she said, “I want to thank Billy for bringing everyone.”

  They began to applaud. Frankie waved her hands, urging them to stop. “Shhh,” she reminded them, with a finger to her lips.

  Wind whistled through the crack in the window, chil
ling the back of Melody’s neck. Jackson waved for her to join him in the tightly packed group, but she shook her head. The chill was a comforting reminder that an escape hatch was only inches away.

  “And thank you all for coming,” Frankie continued. “I know how dangerous it is to go out right now, so it means megawatts that you’re here. I seriously thought you all hated me.” She giggled.

  Melody grinned, tickled by her new friend’s disarming honesty.

  Frankie sighed. “Last night,” she said, growing serious, “I kinda…”

  “Lost your head?” joked one of the J.Crew jocks. His brothers high-fived him.

  Frankie reached for her neck stitches but must have thought better of it and lowered her hand. “I feel terrible that your lives are in danger because of something I did. I’m so sorry. I want things to change around here. I want to stop sneaking around ravines during blackouts. I want to stop wearing normie-colored makeup to school. I want us to be proud of who we are and to be accepted by—”

  “Melodork?” Cleo shouted, pointing at Melody, whose cheeks burned.

  The RADs snickered, quietly at first, but their laughter quickly escalated into hysterics. Not so much because they thought Cleo was funny but because she had said what they were thinking, and they clearly needed the release.

  Suddenly, Jackson appeared by Melody’s side and hooked his finger through her belt loop for support. She was too terror-stricken to thank him.

  “Hey, aren’t you besties with Bekka?” called a girl with a frosty expression.

  “Check her phone!” shouted a beak-faced boy. “I bet she’s tweeting about us right now.”

  “She’s a spy!”

  Melody’s mouth went dry. “No! Bekka and I aren’t friends anymore,” she managed, her voice raspy and unsteady. “I’m new here. When I met her, I had no idea what she was like. Believe me, I want to take her down just as much as you do.”

  “Yeah, right,” said a boy with big feet and shaggy black hair. “She’s probably on her way over here right now with a TMZ crew thanks to you.”