"Why did I get picked for this?" Lilly asked as the boy up front unlocked the door of the third-floor science room to let the five students in.

"New students are always chosen. Think of it as a rite of passage. You get to know the history of the school while witnessing it first hand," Hannah said. Lilly wasn't sure why she was there either, Hannah was one of the popular girls. Unless she wanted to prove that she wasn't scared of ghosts.

"Witnessing it first hand? Come on, Hannah, it's all a load of crap. Nothing has ever happened at one of these things, and nothing ever will. Besides Lilly, you didn't have to come if you didn't want to. You could have backed out."

Lilly kept her mouth shut at that. She'd never been one to back out of a dare, and she wasn't about to start now. Ever since she'd transferred to Lakeland High School though, she'd felt uneasy. The longer she attended the school, the greater her unease became. Walking into that room, she felt like her heart was in her throat. It hadn't taken long to hear about the deaths that had taken place years before, mainly because she'd moved in close to the anniversary.

Every year on the same night the two had died, a group of students are dared to stay the night in the science room on the third floor. One person steals the janitor's keys, lets them all in, and then doesn't come back until the next morning.

Chad ushered them into the room before giving them a parting 'good luck', locking the door and taking off.

"Are we going to get in trouble for this?" Lilly asked again as everyone grabbed a stool from the lab tables and moved them into a circle in the center of the room.

"If we get caught, probably," one of the kids said as he took off his sweatshirt and draped it on his stool before sitting.

"I doubt we're going to get in trouble. Do you really think they don't know we do this? It's been going on for years. As long as we don't break anything they won't do anything," Timothy said.

Lilly looked around the room; the group that had gathered was completely mixed. It was a group of students you wouldn't normally see within thirty feet of one another. Timothy, the quarterback on the football team. Hannah, the cheerleader. Sam, the videogame nerd. Chase, the swimmer. Lilly, the new girl. The only two that made sense together were Hannah and Timothy.

"Let's get this thing started," Sam said.

"What's the rush? We have all night," Timothy chimed in.

"The faster we do the stupid séance, the faster we can go to our own little place in the room and wait out the rest of the night." Sam obviously wasn't a fan of having to share the room with two jocks and a cheerleader.

"Okay, let's do this then," Hannah said holding out her hands. Timothy took her hand on one side and Lilly took the other, holding out her free hand as the five made a connected circle.

"How are we supposed to do this?" Chase asked, looking at each person in turn.

"Does anyone know how to run one of these?" Lilly asked.

"If we were allowed to have our phones we could look it up," Hannah grumbled.

"You know the whole point of this is to spend the night completely alone without any outside help," Sam said pointedly.

"Yeah, but still. At least we could've like, gotten some information on how to do this," Hannah said with a glare.

"And if you would have been smart enough to think ahead," Timothy said, "You would have thought to look it up before tonight."

"Well did you?" Hannah shot back.

"I did."

"Then you lead it, babe."

Lilly rolled her eyes and looked to the ground. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to last the whole night locked in a room with these people.

"I think the new girl should do it," Timothy said with a smile in Lilly's direction.

"I don't know anything about this, you're the one who researched it."

"But I'll tell you what to do and you can do it. It's not like you have to memorize a script; you just do it. What do you guys think? Shouldn't we welcome the new girl with the honors?"

Everyone else just shrugged and half nodded. She wished they had been more helpful. She really wished she had turned down the stupid dare. There was no backing out now though, they were locked in until morning, and she wasn't about to let these people think she was scared.

"Fine," Lilly said, determined to do what she needed to. "What do I do?"

"First we're going to join hands and close our eyes. You're going to welcome everyone and encourage the spirit of Betty Harris to come to us. If she shows up, we can start to ask her questions. When we're done, you thank her and dismiss her."

"Seems simple enough," Lilly murmured.

"Alright, let's go, new girl."

Lilly glared at Timothy. She knew the names of all the people in the room and he couldn't bother to remember just hers? She didn't take it too personally, she was fairly certain he didn't know Sam's name either.

The rest of the students held hands and everyone closed their eyes, giving Lilly the signal to start the séance.

"Thank you everyone for gathering here tonight." Lilly paused for a moment trying to fight the urge to stop right then. She sounded completely ridiculous to her own ears; she couldn't imagine what she sounded like to the others.

"We're gathered here tonight on the anniversary—"

"Sixtieth," Hannah cut in.

Lilly wanted to glare at her, but she kept her eyes closed.

"We're gathered here on the sixtieth anniversary of the death of Betty Harris who people believe was murdered here at this school. We welcome Betty into our circle to join us so we can help her."

Silence followed, nearly deafening in the classroom. Lilly opened up one of her eyes to see the others looking around.

"You know for it to work you all have to believe that it will," Timothy said looking around accusingly.

"How are we supposed to believe that it's going to work? It never has," Chase said with a brush off.

"Not with that attitude it won't, dude. Come on you have to believe that it's going to work otherwise your bad vibes will keep the ghosts away."

As the two argued, a cold chill came over Lilly, like a spider crawling down her spine and her stomach sank. She was fairly certain she was going to be sick and there was nowhere to escape to.

Something cold slid along her arm and she jerked to the side, her sudden movement breaking the argument momentarily.

"What the heck was that?" Hannah asked, looking at her like she was contagious.

"Something just touched my arm."

"Yeah right," she rolled her eyes. "I wasn't touching you, and there's no one else between us."

"That's why it freaked me out. It was cold."

"Did the ghost just touch you?" Sam sounded genuinely curious. Lilly could tell that he was completely into the ghost thing.

"I don't know. It was just weird."

"Betty, is that you?" Sam asked to the otherwise empty room. "Are you here with us?"

Everyone else sat quietly, waiting for some sort of sign that there was a spirit with them.

"Dude, what if it's David instead?" Chase whispered.

"Shut up, man! Don't even joke about something like that," Timothy said as he slapped the swimmer.

Lilly was trying to remember the entire story of Betty's death. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't recall it.

"David?" She asked.

"David Nelson," Chase said looking directly at her, his face completely serious. "He was Betty's boyfriend, he was found dead in the school. Everyone believes he's the one who killed her."

"We just did a séance in the school where the body of a murderer was found?" Lilly squeaked. "You had me invite spirits into this place when there was one that killed people?"

"Maybe you should have done some sort of protection thing to keep away the angry or evil ghosts," Timothy said.

"I did exactly what you told me to do! You never told me to do any protection thing."

There was a scrape at the chalkboard up front and everyone's head whipped around to the noise. There on the board was one word written in white.

Hello.

"Dude, we need to get out of here," Chase said.

"We're locked in," Lilly snapped. "On the third floor I might add. There's no way out of here unless you happened to steal a key too."

"Chill, girl," Timothy said. "Let's just see who it is before we freak out. Maybe it's Betty and she'll be cool with the whole thing."

"Or maybe it's some jerk playing a prank on us," Sam grumbled.

"Is that you, Betty? If you're here give us some sort of sign." Timothy stood up from his stool walking toward the board.

In the chalky residue on the board another word started to form.

Yes.

Another chill overcame Lilly and the hairs on her arms stood on end. Everyone looked at one another, sharing glances with wide eyes.

"Nothing's ever happened in the past. Why is she here now?" Sam asked.

Lilly felt something overcome her. It was like she could sense the presence of Betty in the room, like the ghost was trying to communicate with her directly.

"I...I think she wants help."

"With what?" Hannah asked. "She's dead."

"With...finding her body so she can cross."

"Well where is it? And how do you know this?"

"I don't know. It's like I can feel what she wants."

"New girl is officially crazy," Timothy said as he walked back toward the group.

"I am not crazy, and my name is Lilly!"

"Well, Lilly, how does she want us to help her?" Timothy asked.

Lilly closed her eyes and focused on what she was getting from the spirit that had joined them, if that is in fact what and who it was.

"She's trying to show me where her body was hidden."

"Why was her body hidden anyway? I mean if David killed himself then why hide her body?" Hannah asked.

Lilly glared at the cheerleader.

"How am I supposed to know? I'm just trying to help her, if you want that answer then you're going to have to ask the person who did it."

Just then, Lilly felt a shift in the air. Something else had joined them but she couldn't tell what it was.

"Guys," Lilly said as she looked around. "Something else is here."

"Something else? Like what?" Chase asked with a tremor in his voice. So much for thinking nothing was going to happen.

There was a loud crack and everyone jumped, looking back toward the blackboard where the sound had come from. There was a handprint left in the chalk residue that smeared down like the person had been dragged away.

"Someone's messing with us, they have to be," Hannah's voice went up an octave as fear set in. "It has to be Chad."

"Chad's gone. How would he get in the room and do this without us seeing, anyway?" Chase asked.

A beaker that had been sitting on one of the lab tables crashed to the floor, shattering to pieces.