“Okay, where can we go to get water in a broken-down airship?” Holly asks, pacing the dilapidated diner’s floor.

“Well, clearly not the bar,” Cody replies. “Where else would you fill a bottle of water in an airship?”

“A storage room, maybe? A kitchen?”

“A kitchen is a good start. We’ll keep a lookout for any lamps along the way. As far as oil goes, we’re nearly drained. This one’s got a few minutes tops before we’re stuck using moonbeams to navigate.”

“But we don’t even know where the kitchen is. Or if there even is a kitchen.”

“There’s gotta be a kitchen. They served food at the bar, judging by the plates on the floor. It’s probably close, because of how obnoxious it is to carry food long distances. We’ll continue down the long hall we were in.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Of course I am. Stacy is in trouble.”

“Why do you suddenly care?”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t even look her way yesterday, and now you’re helping save her.”

“Twenty-four hours ago, we weren’t crashed in the middle of the desert with most of our classmates dead, Holly! We four have to stick together. It doesn’t matter what we used to think of each other. Right, Tes?”

Please don’t drag me into this.

I nod. Like it or not, he’s right. I do have to care if I want a chance at surviving this hellscape.

“I’m just… worried,” Holly says, cooled down some. “I don’t want you getting hurt. And if there are ghosts, that’s all the worse.”

“We’ll be okay, babe. I promise.”

“Was that our first fight in an old, rotting airship?”

“I guess it was.”

They lean in for a kiss. I lean over for a vomit.

“We’ll, Tes, tell us how you really feel.”

I shake my head, half lying, and make a drinking motion with my hand.

“Yeah, me too. Why don’t you lead the way this time?”

Glad to be volunteered like this.

He sticks the oil lamp out, and I grab it. It’s running on fumes at this point.

Me too, lamp. Me too.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Not wanting to waste any time, I begin our hunt for the kitchen. We move much slower with me in the lead than when Cody was at the helm. I stop to make sure there’s no noises when stepping past the conditionally haunted room before pressing on.

“I truly think this is the Hindenburg,” Holly says to neither of us in particular.

“It could be,” Cody says. “If it is, we’ve made the biggest discovery of the century.”

“Yeah. It crashed years ago, and nobody’s found it since. Hard to believe we’d accidentally stumble upon it when our plane crashed.”

“I wonder if there’s any treasure. Can you imagine? What if we uncover gold?”

“I think you’re being a bit too creative, babe. Why would they carry—”

I lift my finger for them to remain quiet. She stops talking immediately, and we stand silently at the intersection of two hallways. To our right, I notice sobbing again.

Cody appears to go through twenty different emotions in four seconds.

I point at each of us, then motion for us to take a left down the hallway and into the first available room. They nod, and we sneak around the corner on our tiptoes, trying to minimize the creaking of the whittled wood.

There’s a room to our left, so we slip in. I carefully close the door, latching us in without a sound. Two beads of sweat streak down my temple.

“Good thinking, Tes,” Cody whispers. “Glad I put you in charge.”

“Was that what you and Stacy encountered earlier?” Holly asks.

I nod.

“Guess ghosts are real,” Cody says. “That crying was unmistakable.”

I raise the dim lantern light as high as I can. We’re in some sort of lounge area with lockers. Some are still leaned against the wall, but most fell when the ship met its demise or in the time since.

“What is this, a break room?” Cody asks.

“You think there’s a lamp in here?” Holly asks.

“Only one way to find out.”

The three of us search the room for anything of value. I scan the floor and some shelves, Holly checks on some tables and furniture, and Cody goes down the row of lockers, picking them up off the floor.

“Hey, this one’s labeled ‘Chef.’ Why aren’t they all labeled?”

We watch him open the locker. It’s completely empty.

“That was anticlimactic,” Holly comments.

“What, did you want something to come flying at me?”

Well, now that you mention it…

“No. I thought there might be something interesting.”

We keep going, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that there’s nothing of value.

“Now what?” Holly asks.

“I suppose we go back into the hall. Tes, you wanna check to see if we’re in the clear?”

I shake my head, but press it against the door.

Silence. No scraping, no dripping, no sobbing, no screaming.

Somehow, knowing it’s somewhere being quiet is worse than hearing where it is. What if it’s right outside?

The thought sends a shiver down my body. I feel like throwing up again.

I cautiously open the door. It squeaks a little.

We wait with anxious ears. Seconds pass, but it feels like hours.

It must be gone. There’s plenty of airship to wallow in. Hopefully, it’ll stay away from us.

“On to the next room,” Cody says, swinging his arm half-heartedly.

One by one, we sneak out of the lounge and down the hall. Not long after, we come across a set of swinging doors with circular windows on them. I carefully push one open with my shoulder, revealing a kitchen.

“Bingo,” Cody says.

The fire in our lamp breathes its last breath and dissipates, leaving behind a wispy tail of smoke.

“Not bingo,” Holly says.

“And not a moment too soon. I’m sure there’s gas or something for these stoves that we can use in the lamp. We need someone on gas duty, someone on water duty, and someone on ghoul duty. I’ll handle ghoul duty.”

“I’ll look for gas,” Holly says.

That leaves me with water, which is fine by me. I’ll get a chance to drink some that way.

“No way,” Holly says a few short moments later. She lifts a red canister of gas from beside a furnace. “That was almost too easy.”

I dust off a gallon container of some sort of liquid. It certainly behaves like water.

“Hey, uh, Tes? You wouldn’t happen to have any freaky telekinetic powers or anything, would you?”

I glance at Cody and shake my head.

“I think we better leave.” He points behind me. The veins in my face beat hard. I turn slowly. Almost eight feet away, a knife hovers above the ground, blade pointed at me.

And then it launches.