Chapter 7: The Haunting at Greenridge High

Chapter 7: The Haunting at Greenridge High

The road on the dead hunter’s map was a crumbling ribbon of asphalt that narrowed until it was little more than a scar in the deep woods. After a final, jarring lurch, the car died for good, its last gasp of fuel spent. Valentine was on foot. The air grew still and heavy, the chirping of birds and the rustle of unseen things in the undergrowth fading into an oppressive silence. Then, through the trees, she saw it.

Greenridge High School rose from the woods like a forgotten tombstone. It was an old brick building, three stories of faded grandeur and shattered windows. Ivy crawled up its walls like skeletal fingers, and the once-proud sign above the main entrance now read only G E N I D G H H G . It was the exact building from the painting in the Terminus diner, right down to the sickly, overcast quality of the light, as if a perpetual, unnatural twilight was trapped under the canopy of the surrounding forest.

The grimoire had called this place a “shredded veil,” and she could feel it. The air was thin, vibrating with a low, dissonant hum, the same static-like energy she had seen clinging to the monsters in the daylight. It made her teeth ache and the fresh scars on her body tingle with a cold, electric fire. This wasn't just an abandoned building; it was a wound in the world.

Clutching the blue leather grimoire to her chest, she circled the building, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. She found a side entrance where the doors had been torn from their hinges, leaving a gaping black maw. This was it. The nest. Taking a steadying breath that did nothing to calm her, she stepped out of the world she knew and into the haunt.

The hallway was a mausoleum of memory. Dust motes danced in the weak shafts of light slanting through grime-caked windows. Lockers stood open like empty iron lungs, their doors scarred with the ghosts of forgotten graffiti. The silence was absolute, yet layered. She could almost hear the phantom echoes of shouted conversations, slamming locker doors, and the squeak of sneakers on linoleum.

She opened the grimoire, flipping to a page near the front. The entry was from the first Blue Belt, A.R., written in a calm, academic script. Certain locations, nexus points, are prone to spectral bleed-through. These entities are not typically physical threats but psychological ones. They are echoes, memories given form and a sliver of malevolent will. They feed on emotion, especially fear and grief. Starve them. Do not engage. Your focus is your shield.

As if summoned by the thought, a flicker of movement at the far end of the hall caught her eye. A girl, translucent and shimmering, stood by a water fountain. She wore a poodle skirt and saddle shoes, a style decades out of date. The girl turned, and her face was a smear of grief, her eyes wide with a silent, endless scream.

Miley.

The name wasn't spoken; it was an injection of pure despair, a phantom whisper directly into her soul. Valentine staggered, her hand flying to her mouth. The grief for her sister, the guilt she had been using as fuel, threatened to rise up and drown her. She could feel the spectral girl pulling at it, drawing on her pain like a leech.

Starve them.

Valentine squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn't give this thing her sister. She wouldn't let it defile Miley’s memory. She focused on the cold, hard rage that had materialized the gun in her hand. She thought of the Imposter’s featureless face, of its mocking whisper. The grief receded, burned away by the white-hot heat of her hatred. When she opened her eyes, the hallway was empty. The ghost was gone, denied its meal. A small victory, but it was enough. She was learning.

She followed the dead hunter's map, deeper into the school's decaying heart. The grimoire had another entry that chilled her to the bone. It was from a different author, the handwriting a frantic scrawl. They crawl in the shadows here. Things with too many legs. Skulkers. Fast. Don’t get cornered.

She heard it before she saw it—a wet, chitinous clicking from the darkness of the school gymnasium. Peeking through the swinging doors, she saw a creature out of a fever dream. It was the size of a large dog, but its body was a segmented, cockroach-like horror of black carapace. It skittered across the warped basketball court on eight multi-jointed legs, its head swiveling, sniffing the air with a pair of long, twitching antennae. It wasn't an echo; it was solid, physical, and hunting.

Valentine backed away slowly, her heart in her throat. Her hand instinctively went to her hip. The holster remained empty. The gun was a weapon of rage, not fear, and right now, cold terror was all she felt. She fled down a side corridor, the creature's clicking growing louder behind her. It had her scent.

The map led to the library. She burst through the double doors, slamming them shut and ramming a fallen bookshelf in front of them for good measure. A moment later, a heavy thud rattled the doors, followed by an angry, scraping sound. It couldn't get through. For now.

The library was a disaster zone. Books lay scattered like dead leaves, shelves were overturned, and tables were smashed into kindling. In the center of the room, a large, dark stain marred the faded carpet—the unmistakable black ichor of a dead Imposter. This was where the previous Blue Belt, the man who had written the entry in her grimoire, had made his last stand.

Her eyes scanned the room and landed on something that made her breath catch. Tucked behind the circulation desk, almost hidden in the shadows, was a faded blue leather belt, identical to her own, discarded on the floor. It lay coiled like a dead snake. He had died here.

Then she saw the chalkboard. Amidst the chaos, it was a single, stark surface. On it, written in chalk with a trembling, failing hand, was a final message to whoever came next.

Too many. The blank faces… they mimic the ones they kill… they learn from us. Watched me kill the first one, then the others used its tactics. Don't fight the nest alone. They adapt. My name is Alex Ryder. Finish the…

The message ended there, the chalk line trailing down the board as if his hand had been dragged away. Alex Ryder. The methodical hunter from the grimoire now had a name and a tomb. He hadn't been defeated by one monster, but by a coordinated pack that had learned from his own strength.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

Valentine spun around, her blood turning to ice. They hadn't come through the main doors. They had come through the walls.

Three of them stood there, silent and still, their forms coalescing from the deep shadows between the bookshelves. They were Imposters, tall and lanky in the tattered remnants of janitor and teacher uniforms. Their faces were smooth, featureless canvases of pale, waxy skin. They spread out, cutting off her escape.

"The little bird is far from her nest," one of them whispered, the voice a dry, sibilant rustle that scraped across her nerves. It was the same voice from the kitchen.

"Alex screamed so loudly," another hissed. "He begged for his life. We gave him a moment of hope before we peeled it away."

They were using Alex’s last moments against her, just as the grimoire warned. They were trying to paralyze her with terror. Her hand flew to her holster, a useless, desperate prayer. Nothing. The gun wouldn't come. She was weaponless, cornered, and facing the same fate as her predecessor.

One lunged, its obsidian claws extended, a mirror image of the attack that had nearly killed her. Panic, cold and absolute, threatened to shatter her. It was over. She had failed. Miley, Alex, herself… all just victims for the grimoire’s next reader.

But as the claws sliced through the air towards her face, something inside her didn’t break. It ignited.

It was not the clean, hot fire of rage this time. It was something different. It was the hum of the school, the static she saw on the monsters, the cold tingle in her scars—all of it suddenly became clear. It wasn't just around her; it was in her. A wellspring of raw, untamed energy she never knew she possessed.

With a scream that was equal parts terror and defiance, she threw her hands up, not to block the attack, but as a pure, instinctual reaction. The air in front of her shimmered, warped, and a wave of invisible force erupted from her palms. It wasn't a blast; it was a physical concussion, a violent shove against reality itself.

The lunging Imposter was hit by the wave and thrown backward as if struck by a speeding car. It crashed into a bookshelf, sending a cascade of rotting paper into the air. The monster lay crumpled, twitching, its form flickering and glitching violently.

Valentine stared at her hands, panting, a wave of profound exhaustion washing over her. The other two Imposters froze, their blank faces radiating a sense of utter shock and… was it fear?

She had done that. No gun. No weapon. Just… her.

The Blue Path wasn't just a mission. The Mark on her blood wasn't just a beacon. It was a power, wild and untapped, waiting for a spark. And in the haunted library of Greenridge High, surrounded by ghosts and monsters, she had just struck the match.