"Mom, Jane's throwing up again!"

Mom whirled around with a handful of McDonald's napkins and a plastic bag. "In here, Janie!" she cried.

It was a few seconds too late. Vomit spewed from between Jane's fingers, spraying the window and the back of my neck.

"Mom!" I yelled.

"Hold on! Peter, pull over."

Dad sighed and pulled off onto the shoulder of the busy freeway. He laid his head on the steering wheel.

Mom unbuckled her seat belt and opened her door. She opened Jane's door and unbuckled her seat belt. Jane's shirt was covered in her last meal and the smell was atrocious.

"This is, what, the eighth time you've thrown up?" I said in disgust. "Today?"

"Hey, you be nice," Mom said. "You know she gets carsick."

"Geez, that quesadilla smelled bad the first time," Hazel said from the back seat. I turned my head a bit to look at my older sister from the corner of my eye. "At least it's not dripping down your neck!"

"Winston, just get out the car and roll around in the grass," Dad said. I complied, trying not to step in the sick.

Jane sat in the sagebrush, face still green. Mom was wiping her up, not looking too hot herself.

"We know Jane can't go for long rides," Hazel called from inside the van. "Why do we keep doing this?"

"Hazel, shut up," my dad said. "We're trying to be a happy family right now."

Mom must've been getting pretty good at cleaning up vomit because we were back in the van and driving in less than ten minutes.

I grabbed the brochure from the back of the passenger seat and opened it. "Experience the beauty of the town of Fallengate," I read aloud. "Witness the re-enactment of the historic gunfight, which killed the mayor of the town in 1876." I looked up. "Why are we going to a haunted town?"

"It's not haunted," Dad said. "It's just a thing they do to trap tourists. Mom and I've been here before. You've been here too, Hazel. When you were two or so."

"We're tourists," Jane said, whose color was beginning to return to normal.

"We're smart tourists," Dad said. "It's on the way to the Grand Canyon. It's like killing two birds with one stone."

"What does that mean?" Jane asked.

Haze jumped in. "Instead of only getting one tourist attraction, we get two on one trip."

"Oh."

The sun was beginning to fall when Dad pulled off onto the exit. We turned into a dusty road that rattled the teeth in our heads.

"A-are you s-sure th-is is the right wa-ay," I said.

"Siri's telling me to go this way," Dad said.

Hazel leaned forward, pulling herself forward on the seat. She must've pulled on Jane's hair because the younger girl hollered and turned around to slap Hazel.

"Mom!" they both cried.

"We're here!" Dad said. Everyone fell quiet as we pulled into the small town. It looked like we ended up in old town Hill Valley. A couple of actors milled about the town, interacting with people in colorful T-shirts and khaki shorts.

"There's where we're staying," Mom said, pointing to the tallest building. It simply read, "Fallengate Hotel."

Hazel gasped. "That's the haunted hotel!"

Jane whirled around as I said, "Yeah, no duh! Why else would we stop here?"

"It's not haunted," Mom said. I could see her roll her eyes through the rearview mirror.

Dad parked the van in a spot by the door and we began to pile out with our bags. Everyone had a faint sheen of sweat on their brow already, the Utah sun blazing down on us.

There was no relief when we entered the dusty lobby. Quiet music played in the background, pulling us closer to the front of the room. A young man in a vintage bellboy's costume stood behind the counter. "Hello, welcome to Fallengate," he said. "Do you have a reservation?"

Mom looked at Dad in a panic. "Did we need to make a reservation? You said we didn't-"

The man raised his hands. "I was just asking. We can just give you a room."

"Don't get 206," Hazel whispered to Dad. I saw the brochure clutched in her sweaty hand, crumpled but the words, "The Legend of 206," was still evident.

"Hazel-"

"We don't typically rent out that room, anyhow," the man said. "It's more of a tourist attraction."

"But could I get that room?" a voice said from behind. We turned around to see an older woman, standing there, without any luggage.

"Excuse me?"

"That room, 206, I would like to rent it for the night."

"We- we don't typically-"

"Please, I was born in that room."

The silence in the lobby was deafening. Even the radio had seemed to stop playing.

"I mean, I guess," the young man stuttered. "No ones rented it out in... 10 years. It was broken into that night too."

"Please." The woman stared steely blue eyes into his brown ones. It was like watching the fights on TV. He got a punch, then her.

"Okay, then." He took the key down from its little box, spider webs stretching down. He set the key on the counter and wrote in his little book. "It wasn't been cleaned in a while because the housekeepers refuse to go in there. You'll have to clean it up yourself."

"That's no problem," the woman said. She took the key, signed her name, and disappeared up the creaky stairs.

"Sorry about that," the man said. "Let me get you a room."

We were given room 200, a quite unhaunted room, he assured us. We set up our backpacks and suitcases and Mom and Dad collapsed on the bed and couch, respectively. Dad was out like a light.

"Mom, could we go look around?" I asked. She opened her eyes and said, "Where?"

"Around the hotel and town. Hazel will come with us."

"I never said that!" Hazel called from the bathroom.

Mom closed her eyes again. "Only if Hazel goes with you."

"Mo-om!"

After a little bit of convincing, Jane and I dragged Hazel down and out of the lobby. We explored the little shops and Jane bought a key chain.

"What are you gonna use that for?" Hazel asked as Jane slid the change into her pocket. "You can't drive."

Jane shrugged and said, "For my backpack, maybe."

Hazel snorted. "I'm bored, let's go back up."

We went to leave but nearly ran over the woman who rented 206. She stared at us and slowly moved out of our way. We ducked our heads and ran down the street a bit.

"She's weird," Jane said. "Who gets a haunted room?"

"Hey," I said, voice low, "Let's check out her room."

"We can't break into a room!"

"I'm not going into a haunted room!"

Both girls exclaimed this at the same moment. I rolled my eyes and began to walk back to the hotel. "I'm going, whatever you say."

"Winston!" Hazel whined. I knew she was in a bind. She said she would watch me and now all she had to do was follow me. So of course, she did.

We climbed the stairs, as quiet as we could, and stopped in front of 206. I gripped the cool knob, that was considerably less worn that the others in the hall. I twisted it. The door creaked open.

I poked my head in. "It's safe," I said. I stepped in. It looked like any other hotel room... except for the newspapers everywhere, pinned to the walls and stuck to the mirror. "Hazel, check these out," I said. I pulled one down from the wall and read it. "Teenager still missing."

Hazel followed me in nervously and gasped and the scene. "These are all missing persons," she said.

"Winston..." Jane said, voice low.

"Yeah?" I turned and saw my little sister pointing at a paper on the wall above the desk. Hazel and I walked to her. Our eyes followed her finger and we gasped.

"That's... you," Hazel said. "Mom has that clipping framed in your rooms. She said it was when you won some, 'Cutest Siblings' contest."

Siblings Still Missing. What could that mean? Us?

Hazel sat on the bed, perched carefully as to not wrinkle the sheets. "What's happening?" she asked.

Jane and I sat next to her. "I'm not sure." I laid back. "I think-"

The bed fell into the floor, dropping us. We screamed and I think I kicked Jane in the knee. We fell, hard, on our backs in a pile of cardboard. My lungs heaved but I couldn't quite draw in enough air. My sisters were having the same problem, it seemed.

Hazel coughed and rolled onto her side. Jane clawed at my shirt. I gulped in some air and patted Jane on her back. "Y-you're okay," I wheezed.

I stared up at the square hole in the ceiling where the bed was. It was hinged back, like a trapdoor. There was a loud squealing and it began to lift back into position. Hazel scrambled to her feet and began to scream, "Wait, let us out!" I joined her, crying, "Help!"

Jane began to cry, fat tears rolling down her pale cheeks.

Lights flickered on and we fell silent. We looked around us. We were in some basement.

"It looks like where we wait in line for the Tower of Terror," I said.

The mustiness was overwhelming. It felt like the wrong kind of air was slipping into my throat.

"I can't breath," Jane said.

"That's just from... getting the wind knocked out of you," Hazel puffed. Jane shook her head. "It's itchy air."

"Itchy?" Hazel coughed and fanned the air in front of her. "Do you smell that, Winston?"

"I don't know," I said. A door with a huge lock on it opened slowly. I backed away. A person with a gas mask walked in, head cocked. Hazel gasped. "Hold your breath!" she said. Jane's cheeks filled with air as she wrapped her hands around her older sister's legs. I filled my lungs with a bit of the itchy air and did my best not to expel it.

The person came forward, their back curved, a cane steadying their thin legs. They said something, muffled by the mask. Hazel took my arm and pulled me away from them. She shook her head. Then she pushed us forward, towards the door. The person hollered in surprise as Hazel kicked the cane out from under them. We ran out the door, while the person in the gas mask scurried like a bug on the dirt floor.

Hazel grabbed the heavy door and pushed it closed, locking it. Jane's face was turning purple. Hazel let out her air and said, "I think it's safe now."

We all coughed and filled our lungs with this new air.

"What's happening?" I asked. Hazel shook her head and said, "I think people were kidnapped in that room."

"We're kidnapped?!" Jane said, crying again.

"No."

We looked around in this new room. Stairs were leading up, our only choice to leave. We walked up them. A door was at the top, locked.

"Now what?" I said.

The lock began to rattle and we backed down the stairs, Hazel holding tight onto us. The door opened, revealing the strange old lady who had booked the room. Jane screamed and pushed us back. We fell backward, in an awkward tangle, down the stone steps. The woman gasped in surprise. She ran down to help us up.

"Goodness, are you okay?" she asked, picking Jane up off of Hazel. Jane squirmed out of her grasp and ran away from her. Hazel and I followed her.

"Are you kidnapping us?" Hazel said, voice surprisingly steady. The woman's face morphed into one of regret. "Oh, no," she said, voice soft. "I was trying to help you! I watched you go into the hotel and figured you were trying to look into the haunted room. I've been investigating it."

"You said you were born in it," Hazel said.

"And I was. Years and years later, my daughter took her two kids here to show them the town where their grandma was born and... they disappeared. They... found my daughter. She was... dead."

Jane whimpered and wiped her face on Hazel's pants.

"I came here to try and figure out where my grandkids were." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled photograph. "This is them." It was the same photo in the newspaper and my bedroom.