After leaving the boathouse it took Sadie fifteen minutes to figure out how to get the tram cage down from the top of the cliff one hundred feet above her. Christophe had left the attic before her and didn't think to send it back down for her. She needed to get the hell away from the attic. There was something evil up there. She knew it and now so do you. After some searching she eventually found a lever hidden in a panel box.

The tram shook it's way down the cliff face and Sadie couldn't help, but think it was going to dislodge from the track and flatten her like Wylie Coyote. But it didn't and she got in, yanked the door shut, and took the terrifying ride back she up to the patio. She tried not to think about anything. Not the seance, not Ingrid, not Jordan, and certainly not the two wretched dead animals in the attic.

She knew the Bailey Estate well enough from parties past to find her way to her Golf without having to go inside and risk seeing any one them.

She ducked around corners, careful not to be seen and found her Golf where she had parked when she was taking in the pizzas. She hopped in and mercifully the residual pizza heat had cooled off by then, although the pizza stank lingered, having decided to permanently haunt the upholstery.

It was full night now, but it was anything but dark. The estate glowed like magic ice cubes. Two huge spotlights on the driveway waved their signals all the way into outer space. And three drones flew high above, casting a laser show of penises and boobs over the circle driveway.

Sadie ignored the juvenile laser spectacular and started her car. It came to life with a chug and she sped down the drive way until she was met by a parade of teens marching up from the gates to the house. The Golf crawled against the flow of human traffic. Teens slapped her hood and pushed their bare buttocks against her windows, which she had to admit was pretty funny. At one point someone jumped up onto her hood and started tap dancing. She slammed the breaks, sending the doucher flying and then continued on her way.

She had just made it passed the front gates when she braked. The hotboxed school bus had parked diagonally across the driveway. A wall of pine trees hugged the curbs. It was a clotted artery and Sadie was blocked in.

"Focker!" she said and slapped the steering wheel. She leaped out of the car and shouted to the few stragglers, "Can some one move this?! Hello!? Anyone?!"

She grabbed a guy in a tinfoil bikini and growled, "Who has the keys to the bus!?"

The blitzed out teen just lolled and drooled. Shit. Sadie released him and he shimmered off.

*

The tailgate had fully emptied out and Sadie sat on the hood of her car, alone, trying to move the bus with The Force.

It didn't work.

Then she spotted something inside the bus. A weed smoke haze still lingered, obscuring everything inside, but through windows she saw a silhouette near the back of the bus.

"Hey," Sadie shouted. The silhouette moved.

"Someone in there?"

The silhouette gave a little wave from the other side of the window.

"You should open that window!"

The silhouette did not respond in any way. Sadie imagined it was some poor freshman who over puffed and passed out, only to wake to find all their friends had ditched them for the party. She could relate.

She trotted towards the bus, but as she neared, she slowed in a sudden fearful apprehension. The silhouette had acknowledged her, but remained seated.

The bus doors were open and wisps of smoke fingered out. She had a bad gut feeling, queasy knots pinched her stomach, but it didn't override the off chance that whomever this was they possibly could have had the keys to the bus. Sadie leaned her head in the retracted door and got hit with the skunky fumes, "Hey, you in there?"

Nothing.

She stepped up into the bus and glanced at the ignition. No keys. Before she took another step and revealed whoever was sitting in the last row, she paused, unsure if she should chance it. The bus felt exactly how it had in the attic. There was the same stomach turning presence, but the alternative was waiting the party out and she guessed that would be 5AM.

She stepped up and...

Moonlight shone in and made the haze more opaque than it had any right to be. The rows of seats were black tombstones.

"Hello?"

She could hear the far off sounds of the party already kicked into high gear. Had she imagined that she saw someone... or was the silhouette hiding behind one of the seats.

"I know you're in there." she said unconvincingly.

Sadie crept closer, passing a few seats, but realized this was stupid and only what an idiot in a horror movie would do, so she retreated. She couldn't get off the bus fast enough, but just before she stepped off, she looked back to make sure she wasn't being followed and saw vicious eyes in the window of the bus's back door.

Her lungs collapsed as she tripped back and tumbled out of the bus hitting the cobblestone driveway hard. She leaped from her splayed landing and ran to the back of the bus to see who had been there. It was a disturbing realization that who ever belonged to those eyes must have stood ten feet tall to see in through the back window. Or was floating. Or...

Or it was like the eyes weren't outside the bus at all. They were in the window. Like the eyes she saw in the skylight. Like how Christophe had described.

A hand grabbed her! She screamed!

"Sadie! It's okay. It's me!" Jordan backed away protecting his face from Sadie's wild punches. She lowered her fists, turning form Jordan to the bus, trying to put together what just happened.

"Hey, you're safe, calm down," Jordan took her arms gently, "What happened?"

Sadie tried to catch her breath. She looked back at the bus and then...

...then she felt like an idiot. She looked around for hidden cameras and cursed Christophe under her breath. Definitely another prank and everyone would be laughing at her in the morning.

"Sadie, I'm worried about you."

"Sorry, I'm fine. The seance just put me on edge."

Jordan let go of her arms and leaned up against the hood of her Golf. He pouted at the bus blocking the drive, "Trapped in Bailey Manor. Dun dun dun!" He said doing his best Vincent Price.

Sadie shot him a look that said not funny.

"Should have left when you still could, Swyft." Jordan pulled two Red Stripe beers from each pocket of his trim leather jacket and offered one bottle to Sadie.

After scaring herself half to death, maybe a beer is exactly what she needed. She took the squat brown bottle and Jordan tossed her a yellow Bic lighter which she used to pop the cap. An old trick that always came in handy. She sipped the foam. Jordan clinked her glass, "L'chaim ya weird turd dog." He said, imitating Christophe.

Sadie laughed, took a swig, and leaned beside Jordan. She motioned to the bus, "What are the chances that Christophe had something to do with this?"

"I have a feeling the seance hasn't concluded yet."

"Shmuck."

"He jumped the shark years ago," Jordan chased his sigh with the beer, "You're stuck now."

"Yup."

"So, we could either do the drama thing. Which is warranted, I'll admit. Or just for tonight, we forget everything and make it like it should've been. We can just do that, you know."

Sadie considered it, but was not convinced.

"You used to have fun."

"And I used to be a piece of shit." Sadie frowned.

"A piece of shit that had fun." Jordan laughed as Sadie punched his arm.

Sadie saw the sadness in Jordan and she knew that sadness, it was the shared what-if between them.

"Please. Just for the night. It's our last. We can make it whatever we want."

Sadie took another swig of the Red Stripe and put some space between her and Jordan.

"Shit." he said, admitting defeat to his shoes.

Sadie strolled casually away, spinning her car keys around her finger. She ambled towards the party. It wasn't until she passed through the iron gates that Jordan clued in. He bounced right up, with the giddy excitement of kid who's just been told he can go for ice cream after all, "Seriously?!"

"Keep it in your pants, Jordy, I'm just going in to find the bus keys."

And of course they both knew that was not true.