Chapter 1

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Like a disease, stories spread. Urban myths were simply another type of infection. They jumped from person to person, corrupting everyone they touched. Along the way, they changed and mutated, becoming more virulent with each new strain.

When a story was told around a dinner table, it was never clear how far it had traveled or how many hosts it had passed through. But Molly had heard all the stories that were told that night. She knew their history and their etymology. Like an epidemiologist, Molly listened objectively, detached from the grotesque nature of the tales.

She had heard them all. Until the last one.

"If you don't believe me, I'll show you." In his haste to retrieve his phone, Keith slammed his glass down. Chianti threatened to spill over. The deep burgundy fluid sloshed around the balloon of the glass, leaving trails of inky red slinking down the sides.

"No phones." Charlotte scolded him. "You know I hate it when people take those things out in a restaurant."

It was Friday night and they were at the same neighborhood joint the four of them used to meet at when they were attending college together. It was a kitschy Italian place that hadn't changed in decades. It had the same red and white checkered tablecloths and wicker wrapped wine bottles that had been there since before any of them had been born.

There was a strange nostalgia to being back here and being together like this again. It was at the same time both joyous and depressing. There were all those memories bubbling around just beneath the surface that gave Molly a giddy feeling of stepping back into the past. But this night was also a stark reminder that unlike the others, who had moved on to careers and "real" life, she was still treading water at the Milton campus. It was almost as though she was a remnant from those memories of the good old days-a ghost invoked by this séance of wine and pasta.

Kevin, her Kevin, leaned forward putting his sleeve in the scattered crumbs left behind on the cloth. He gave that wry smile of his. The one that caused his dimple to come out and signaled he was about to make a devastating point. "Watching it wouldn't change anything. I'm not going to believe a video you found on the internet. I've seen what a high-school kid with a laptop can do. Nowadays, faking a haunting is easier than putting two holes in a sheet."

"That's just the thing. Nothing supernatural happens on the tape, but it's insanely creepy." Keith grabbed the last cannoli and took a bite of the warming cream filling. "It starts off like this hokey home renovation show. They tear down a wall and behind it is all this freaky occult stuff. It gave me chills, I tell you. You really have to see it."

"If that's all it is, where did you get that stuff about the house being haunted?" Molly asked.

"The website explained what happened to them after the video was shot. After they tore the wall down they suffered one tragedy after another. Someone falls off the roof, there's a power tool accident, that sort of stuff."

"Then what happens?"

"I guess they move. Wouldn't you?" Keith brushed icing sugar from his mustache. "If it were me, I would have moved the second I found that satanic crap."

"If it were you," Charlotte said. "The guy's wife would still be waiting for that wall to get torn down. Home improvements-the horror, the horror."

It wasn't until she laughed that Molly realized there has been a tension in the air. Or maybe it had just been an inner clenching as the possibilities of this story drew her in.

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