“What? D’you see your own shadow?” Josh asked, grinning with glassy eyes. He stood at the back of the room in front of an archway. 

Their flashlights were all carefully pointed away from each other's faces. The naked white walls glowed with the cumulative reflected light. The hardwood floors squished and bowed under their boots. Wires frayed from uninstalled electrical sockets. Water damage stained the ceiling in overlapping bacterial blooms. Dust and mildew hung in the air.

“He wouldn’t have a shadow out there Genius,” Matt said, inspecting the side of a staircase that ran along the right wall. There was almost enough space to tape up his tag.

“Seeing your own shadow means facing part of yourself you don't like.” Eric stayed in the middle of the room to keep the cobwebs out of his hair.

Josh rolled his eyes. “I meant like a groundhog.”

“I doubt groundhogs have inner demons,” Matt chuckled. “Remember the one at Eric’s that wouldn’t let Vic get to his car?”

“It screamed at him every time he got close,” Eric laughed.

“I had to chase it off with my sister's hockey stick,” Josh nodded.

They looked back to Vic expecting a half-embarrassed response. He hadn’t registered anything they’d said. He was too busy listening for the crunch of gravel, or the whoop of a police siren, or the grunt of a bear. The silence stretched on.

“You alright?” Eric asked, genuine concern wrinkling his eyebrows.

“Y-yea.” Vic didn't know where to begin describing what scared him. The sound had been wrong and out of place, but nothing actually happened. He rested his back against the cold wood of the front door. It creaked against his weight. “Josh, you bought fuckin creeper weed,” he said, choosing to believe that was the catalyst. It was probably nothing.

“You have no tolerance,” Josh huffed, unimpressed, and turned towards the room beyond the archway.

He waved his light around looking for something or, more accurately, at the lack of anything. Empty cabinets lined the far wall up until the backdoor. A dusty sink was clogged with leaves and stagnant rainwater from the paneless window above it. Streaks of mildew marred the white panel of the sink cabinet. The peeling paint wriggled erratically, emitting a sour funk that slid down his throat-

“-Ew, fuck,” Josh coughed and covered his nose with the collar of his t-shirt. The paint wasn’t peeling.

“What?” Eric asked, ducking past the archway. The stomp of his shoes made the cabinets rattle. The bullseye of his light met where Josh’s had settled on the sink. “Huh, I didn’t know maggots ate wood.”

“They don’t,” Matt said. The maggots seemed to glow under the growing spotlight as Matt entered the room. Vic quickly joined, not wanting to be left alone.

“Tell them that!” Josh gagged on the stench. It’d stuck to the back of his tongue, haunting his taste buds. He stumbled to the back door. The metal hinges shrieked as he pushed through it to lean out into the backyard. 

Warm clean air caressed his tangled curly hair. There was no fence marking the property line. Saplings and shrubs had moved in from the woods, converting it back to its original state. A sharp corner stood out in the reclaimed land. The top of a roof was buried under the mounds of foliage. His stomach unclenched. He spit into the grass.

“Woodworms?” Vic suggested.

“Nah, woodworms are bigger,” Eric said.

“Aren’t they a type of maggot?” Vic asked.

“No, maggots are squishy and cute. Woodworms are fat and pulpy.”

Vic’s face scrunched. “Cute?”

Josh’s stomach twinged. “Pulpy?”

“Somethin’s probably dead in the water,” Matt said, getting closer to the mosquito nursery. The smell didn’t bother him. It was like a litterbox; he’d gotten an initial whiff that quickly faded into fragrance fatigue. The water was dark and thick with rot. It was impossible to tell if the sludge used to be leaves or something more.

“Looks like there's a shed out here,” Josh announced to change the subject. He didn’t want to think about the sink anymore.

“Wanna check that out after we go upstairs?” Matt asked. 

Josh sighed, stepping out into the yard. “Nah dude, I think I’m done with this one. There’s nothing in there anyway.”

Eric nodded. “Yea, I don’t wanna test the floors up there. There's too much water damage.”

“May as well check it out while we’re here,” Vic said. He hadn’t built up the nerve to go back outside yet. The house felt safer than being out in the open.

“Alright, me ‘n Vic’ll go upstairs while you guys are at the shed?”

“Sounds good.” Eric let the screen door slam itself shut behind him.