Chapter 2: The Midnight Lie

Chapter 2: The Midnight Lie

The next day, Alex pedaled aimlessly, the squeak of his bike chain the only sound accompanying his thoughts. The brief, bright connection he’d felt with Jason had been snuffed out, leaving an ache of loneliness that was sharper than before. He was coasting down Miller’s Lane when a figure stepped out from behind a thick oak tree, making him swerve.

It was Jason. He looked like he hadn’t slept. His dark eyes were bruised with exhaustion, and his face was pale and taut, a mask of grim resolve.

“Follow me,” Jason said, his voice raspy. It wasn’t a request.

Without another word, he got on his own bike, a scuffed-up Mongoose, and started pedaling. Alex hesitated for only a second before following. They rode in a tense silence, leaving the neat suburban streets behind for a winding dirt path that climbed a steep ridge on the edge of town. The air grew cooler, smelling of pine and damp earth.

They stopped at the summit. From here, all of Havenwood was laid out below them like a map, a cluster of rooftops nestled in the valley. A silver ribbon of water, the Haven River, snaked its way along the town’s eastern border, glinting darkly under the afternoon sun.

Jason didn’t look at the town. He stared at the river.

“They found her down there,” he said, his voice hollow. He finally turned to face Alex, his gaze raw and unflinching. “I ran yesterday because you pointed at the door. No one talks about it. No one looks at it. But I have to. It’s all I see when I close my eyes.”

He took a ragged breath, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the open air. “Junie… my sister… she was eight. Fearless. She thought I was the coolest person in the world. And I got her killed.”

Alex listened, his own throat tight. This wasn’t just a story; it was a confession.

“It was my fault,” Jason continued, his voice cracking. “It was all because of a stupid lie. The midnight lie.”

He began to pace the edge of the ridge, his words spilling out in a torrent, as if a dam inside him had finally broken. “A year ago, I wanted to prove how brave I was. I made up a ghost story for her. A dumb, stupid story about the Numberless Locker. I told her that if you snuck into the gym after it closed and knocked on that specific locker three times, the ghost of an old janitor who died there would open it and give you a piece of candy.”

Guilt contorted Jason’s face. “She bought it completely. Her eyes got so wide. She begged me to take her. It was supposed to be a game. We were just supposed to get scared and run home laughing.”

He stopped pacing and stared into the distance, his eyes seeing not the river, but the dark, echoing halls of the gym a year ago.

“We snuck in through a bathroom window I knew didn’t lock right. It was so dark inside… darker than you can imagine. Every little sound was a monster. The hum of the water fountains, the building settling… it all felt alive. We used a tiny keychain flashlight to get to the locker room.”

Jason’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “We stood there, in front of it. That blank door. I was terrified. I wanted to tell her it was a joke and leave. But she wasn’t scared at all. She thought it was a huge adventure. Before I could stop her, she stepped forward and knocked.”

He paused, swallowing hard. “Knock. Knock. Knock. The sound was like gunshots in the silence.”

“For a second, nothing happened. I let out my breath, ready to grab her and run. And then… a sound came from inside the locker. Not a ghost. It was a scrape. A slow, heavy shhhh-scrape, like a block of concrete being dragged across the metal from the inside.”

The memory seized him, and his body began to shake. “We screamed. I grabbed her hand, but it was slick with sweat and she slipped away from me in the dark. I dropped the flashlight. It rolled away, its beam spinning wildly across the floor, and then it went out. We were plunged into total blackness. I yelled her name. ‘Junie!’”

“She screamed my name back, but her voice was muffled, like someone had put a hand over her mouth. It was cut off, short. Then there was a loud bang, like a heavy door slamming shut. And after that… silence. The kind of silence that’s so total it rings in your ears.”

Alex felt a cold dread creep up his spine, colder than the wind on the ridge.

“I was frozen,” Jason whispered, his eyes locked with Alex’s. “I was hiding behind a row of lockers, too scared to even breathe. And that’s when I saw him. Silas. The janitor. He just… appeared. He wasn’t using a flashlight. He walked through the darkness like he could see in it. He stopped right in front of the Numberless Locker. He didn’t seem surprised or angry that someone had been in there. He just stood there.”

Jason’s voice dropped to a barely audible, horrified whisper. “And he smiled. Alex, he smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile. It was… satisfied. Like he’d just finished a job. He reached out and ran a hand over the blank metal door, almost like he was petting it. Then he turned and walked away, disappearing back into the shadows as silently as he’d come.”

Alex could picture it perfectly: the gaunt man from the hallway, his unnaturally clean uniform, the chilling, knowing smile.

“I ran,” Jason choked out. “I ran all the way home and crawled into bed, pretending to be asleep. I didn’t tell anyone. I was so scared. The next day, my parents realized Junie was gone. They organized a search. Three days later, the police found her body in the river. They said she must have wandered out of the gym, got lost in the dark, and fallen in. An accident. Case closed.”

He finally looked away from the river and pinned Alex with a gaze burning with a year of repressed rage and certainty.

“But it wasn’t an accident,” Jason said, his voice dropping low and hard. “She never made it out of that gym. The police are wrong. My parents… they don’t say it, but they blame me. And they’re right to. I led her there with my stupid lie. But Silas… he’s the one who hurt her. He’s the monster. I know what I saw.”

The sun was beginning to set, casting long, distorted shadows across the valley. The river below was no longer silver, but a deep, bloody orange. The whole town looked like it was drowning in twilight.

Alex looked at Jason—at his haunted eyes, his trembling hands, the crushing weight of guilt that had turned a twelve-year-old boy into an old man. The story was insane. It defied logic. But Jason’s pain was real. His conviction was absolute. And that chilling image of Silas, the janitor, smiling in the dark… it felt more real than any police report.

“I believe you,” Alex said, the words coming out with a firmness that surprised even himself.

Jason looked up, a flicker of disbelief and then overwhelming relief washing over his features.

“I’ll help you,” Alex said, his voice gaining strength. “We’ll prove it. We’ll find out what he did.”

On that ridge, overlooking the town that held their secret, a new pact was formed. It was no longer about bikes or video games. It was a promise, sealed in the long shadows of a tragedy, a vow to drag a monster out of the dark and into the light.