The front door was dark and heavy. We pulled the bell. We heard slow footsteps. A thin man dressed in black opened the door. He silently led us into a room full of books and then left us.

I'm not even sure why we're here. We came looking for our friend, Lucas, but I've never seen this man before. It was just Lucas and his mom that lived here. He hadn't been to school in days, ever since that night in the haunted house. It was Halloween and Harry was nagging us to do something exciting. 

"I'm bored!" squealed Harry, running around the sandbox. "Let's do something!" 

The rest of us were just sitting around the playground. The traditional thing to do would have been to go trick-or-treating but we're fourteen. I mean, c'mon, I'm so done with costumes. 

If it wasn't for Harry, we wouldn't have gone to the haunted house. If we didn't go to the haunted house, Lucas wouldn't have touched that old, moldy book. If Lucas didn't touch that old, moldy book, he wouldn't have gotten sick and missed days of school. If he didn't miss days of school, we wouldn't be visiting his house, only to be invited into a room I've never seen before.

It was Irene who suggested going to the haunted house. She's like that, always trying to push us into doing outrageously risky things as if we're all brave like her. I mean, she asked for skydiving lessons for her twelfth birthday. Twelfth. Asked for. Yeah. But we like her, despite her superhero bravado.

Obviously Harry objected. I was quite glad he did. I didn't want to go either but Harry had already earned himself the title of Mr. Chicken in our group.

"I don't want to go to a haunted house..." he nagged. "There are always a ridiculous amount of cobwebs and spiders. Spiders! Those things literally have eight legs!"

"I'm sorry. I don't think we ordered the chicken," Irene teased. "Come on! It'll be fun! Don't worry, I'll protect you. I just got my black belt."

"Plus, I don't want to be like one of those guys in movies where we go to a haunted house and accidentally wake up some demon child and get hunted down and die a brutal death that was foreshadowed earlier in the film."

I don't remember how Irene convinced us, but we did go to the haunted house. There was no demon child. No one got hunted down.

But there was the book.

It was heavy. For a book, I mean. Lucas was the one who found it. I know, I know. Horror movies have taught us better. If you see an old book that would even remotely resemble the diary of some 18th-century witch, do not touch it.

But he did. He touched it. He opened it. What caught our attention first was the paper. It was like parchment. I had seen something similar in museums before. They were made out of sheepskin but these were different. They were definitely parchment but the texture felt more... fresh.

The writings within were illegible so we didn't read some ancient incantation but it was covered in mold. Page after page, of mold.

The thing was, it didn't seem like any kind of mold we've seen. They reminded me of rashes, like the ones you get after touching something you're allergic to, except these were on the pages of a book. 

The books here reminded me of the book Lucas found. But why would Lucas have these? He didn't before. I've been to this house many times. First the thin man, then the new book, and now the books? Something felt off. 

That's when I noticed it. It wasn't that something felt off. Something seemed off.

I looked around. Was the room growing smaller? Was I getting bigger? We looked at each other and saw fear in each other’s eyes. We rushed to the door. It was locked. The light went out. There was a terrible scream. Was it my friend? Was it me?

I called to my friends. Silence. I felt a prickly sensation at the back of my neck. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. There was a strong smell of decay. 

Where had I smelled this before? It wasn't the first time I had smelled this. It smelled like leather but less... aged. The familiar odor had a scent of... 

Mould.

It was the smell of the book, except it's all around us now, emanating from the books on the bookshelf.

Just as I realized this, I felt a cold strong hand around my neck. I reached up to pry myself free. The hand was dry, almost leathery. Immediately after I gripped it,  the light was back on.

There was no one left. There was no hand strangling me, but I was still gripping onto what was around my neck. I didn't need to look down because I already knew what was in my hands but I looked anyway.

I was holding the book.

That's when I noticed that the door was no longer there. In its place stood the one we came searching for, except his skin was like the parchment pages in the very book I was holding.

"Nice of you to visit, Rose," Lucas said.