~ * ~
“Chrys, wake up.”
Chrys opened her eyes. The journal she had read had fallen on the floor again and she must have kicked it half under the seat. The lantern was still on lighting the whole car cab. Her brother’s face was covered in sweat.
“It’s morning.” Spencer pointed at his watch. It was eight-thirty in the morning. They had slept half the night. “I haven’t heard anything.”
Chrys ran a hand across her face wiping away her own perspiration. “You think it’s safe?”
Spencer slowly pushed the door open. It was still dark beyond the tarp. The smell of dust touched their noses. He pushed the tarp up as high as he could with one hand and held the lantern out in front of him. His foot scraped on the floor. He didn’t know what to expect. Was the ghostly woman going to be waiting for him? Was there a finger eating rodeo clown? What had been upstairs?
Nothing. Some sun rays streamed in through the cracks in the walls and a distorted light came through the dirty window. Everything was still.
Chrys climbed from the car behind him. She flashed her light at the ladder and the hole to the second floor.
“Let’s go.” Spencer grabbed his sister’s hand. They quickly walked back toward the couch. His eyes never left what he could see of it in the grey light. They climbed over and around all of the boxes and items. He left his sleeping bag and the cooler. His hand threw the board away from the door and gave it a hard shove.
Clean fresh air filled their lungs. The sunlight blinded them for a moment.
“What the hell did you two do?”
Spencer blinked quickly. Cam and Jimmy sat on the grass next to their bikes. “What are you guys doing here?”
“What was that scream last night?”
“And the bright light? We were supposed to scare you two.”
“You two were upstairs.” Chrys called them a colorful name.
Spencer turned the lantern off and dropped it into the grass. “What did you guys see?”
“We climbed in through an open window in the loft and walked across it listening to you guys talking downstairs. When we got close to the trap door there was that loud scream and light that you did. We booked it.”
Spencer didn’t know what to tell him. He didn’t know what they had seen. He couldn’t explain it. The journal told of cursed items, but that was ridiculous. Still, it was his job to get rid of everything in the barn so that his dad could sell the property. What if everything in there was cursed by some evil power? He couldn’t let those things go out into the world and start all over.
“Breakfast?” Chrys said with a smile on her pouty lips.
I'm currently a writer of mystery thrillers, but through my twenty-nine or so years of freelance writing I have tried a little of everything. I'm currently working on my first suspense thriller with the characters Chrys and Spencer Alcrest. The opportunity came to join in this YA Horror anthology, so I jumped at the chance to write about these two ten years earlier. I put them together with the thought I had many years ago of a red satin couch found in an old barn and the childhood imagination that maybe inanimate objects had more to them than what met the eye.
If you want to look up my novel, RED ISLAND - and adult suspense thriller or the second novel in that series RED SERGE due out before the end of 2013 please find me on Facebook or check out my blog lorneoliver.blogspot.ca
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