Roth led me into the void, and it was like walking through soup. The air was thick, and it moved, as if it was curling around us. The legs of my pants tugged as if tiny hands were grabbing them. I kept walking. A few more steps, and I felt them, pressing in, crowding us. What felt like a hand glanced off my hip and then my rear.

I was starting to get a really bad feeling about the kind of ghosts that were in here.

“You really can see?” I asked, nervous.

“Enough.”

“That’s reassuring—” A finger glided off my cheek.

“Don’t,” I snapped at the darkness to my right. “Touch me.”

“I didn’t,” Roth replied.

“It wasn’t you.”

“Oh.” His grip tightened on my hand. “Would you think less of me if I admitted I’m kind of creeped out?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.”

“I’m kidding.” The edge of my braid lifted. I snatched it free with my other hand. “If any more of you pervy ghosts lay a hand on me, I will end your existence.”

“Do I want to know what’s happening?” Cayman’s voice came from somewhere.

A high-pitched giggle that sounded neither male nor female answered, and then the air around Roth and I shifted again, as if it were parting as we crossed the gym.

“None of them are approaching me for help,” I said after a moment. “Which I would think they would do if they wanted out of here.”

“One would think,” Roth murmured, coming to a stop. “Cayman?”

“Working on the door now. It’s sealed—” Metal ground together and then gave way. “There we go.”

Dim light poured in, thank baby llamas everywhere—oh, no. This had nope written all over it.

A narrow ledge and a set of steps were in front of us, but they weren’t unoccupied.

Dead people.

There were dead people lining the steps, pressed to the wall. Dozens of them. I’d never seen anything like it. They stared at us as we came in, their faces all wrong. Some showed whatever had killed them. Bullet wounds. Missing cheeks. Skulls. Bruises and bloat. Deformities. Others showed no visible sign of injury, but they smiled at us, reeking of pure evil. I looked up, and my heart nearly stopped.

They swarmed the ceiling like cockroaches, clamoring and crawling over one another. There wasn’t a bare space.

“Can you see?” Roth asked.

“Unfortunately.” I pulled my hand free. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do.” Cayman walked through a ghost that didn’t have much left of its head. It spun, hissing at him before it rose to the ceiling, crawling over the others crowded there.

“No. You do not.” I stepped around one who blew a kiss in my direction. “We should hurry.”

And that’s what we did.