The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors

by Jeff DeGordick

  Trevor had reached the floor of the bay below them. He spun around with his flashlight. He didn't see any sunken ship, though the light from his flashlight was quickly eaten up by the murky water. Instead, he turned his attention to the floor for any glint of light. He swam laterally, sweeping the light left and right like a metal detector. Something ahead gave off a dull sparkle.

  He swam to it and pulled at it with his fingers. The object was dislodged from the crust of the bay's floor and Trevor held it up to the light. It had a green discoloration, but it looked like metal. Trevor brushed some sediment off of it and saw that it was a tarnished gold coin. It was stamped with a strange design, and upon close inspection, he realized it was the same gold coin that his acquaintance had shown him. He turned to Bridgette and Dawson and excitedly waved it at them. He clutched it tightly in his hand and swept the flashlight over the crusty bed to see what else he could find. The three of them searched together, spreading out a little and covering more ground. But all they found in the area was the one coin. Trevor got their attention and pointed up with his finger. They both knew he was telling them to surface.

  They did, and Trevor yanked the breather out of his mouth. "You believe that?" he said, holding the coin up to his flashlight just above the surface. "That's genuine gold. Same as the one I was telling you about. That means there's more here. A whole lot more."

  "A shipload, maybe?" Dawson said sarcastically.

  Trevor ignored him. He scanned the bay. "Let's go down and take a look maybe over—" He paused in mid-speech, his face suddenly going flush.

  "What's wrong?" Bridgette asked. And before anyone could answer, she saw the searchlight from the police boat stretching across the bay. It was coming straight for them.

  "Cops," Trevor said quickly.

  The three of them swam for the boat as fast as they could. The searchlight closed in. They flipped onto the deck like fish and bounced around similarly before finding their feet. Trevor slid into the captain's chair and twisted the keys. The engine roared to life and he shoved the throttle forward.

  A voice came over a loudspeaker behind them. "Stop your vehicle! Turn on your lights and put your hands in the air!"

  "What do we do?" Bridgette asked.

  Trevor didn't answer. He gunned the boat back toward the channel as fast as it would go.

  "This is crazy!" Dawson protested. "Stop the boat, Trevor!"

  Bridgette was torn. She was always up for a good adventure, but this wasn't really what she had in mind. But she decided that she trusted Trevor.

  "Stop the boat!" the voice said. "This is the police!"

  Bridgette looked behind them, but with the powerful light blinding her, it was impossible to tell how much of a head start they had on the cops.

  "I can't believe we're doing this," Dawson said, gritting his teeth and clutching onto the back of the co-captain's chair.

  The light grew bigger behind them. The voice was real loud now; Bridgette recoiled, because it sounded like they were shouting right into her ear.

  "Give it up, Trevor!" Dawson said.

  "Shut your damn face," Trevor barked. He pushed harder on the throttle even though it couldn't go forward any more. The boat skittered into the channel and he picked the first connected waterway he could find, trying to lose himself in the bayou.

  "Stop the vehicle now!" the voice behind them shouted.

  The three of them leaned forward in the cabin as if that would propel them faster. None of them dared to look behind anymore. Trevor turned the headlights back on so he could see and took paths at random, going through big swampy areas and through narrow passageways as low-hanging willows brushed over them. He was forced to slow the boat down so they didn't crash into something. And when Bridgette found the courage to glance behind them, she announced: "They're gone!"

  Trevor shot a look over his shoulder then clapped his hands together in delight. "I told you! Hot damn it, I told you!"

  "We're not out of the woods yet," Dawson said. He looked around at the dark landscape surrounding them while they listened to the buzz of the night creatures. "Where are we?"

  Trevor didn't answer at first. He coasted the boat along, following whatever path felt right. A sinking feeling developed in the pit of his stomach as he realized he didn't recognize a thing.

  "Well?"

  Trevor wore a weak smile. He'd succeeded in losing the cops, but he did a little more on that front than he'd intended. "Lost, buddy," he said.

  Footsteps

  Billy tossed and turned in bed. His nose twitched and he sleepily scratched it. His eyes opened. They adjusted to the dark room around him and he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. He looked next to him and saw Karen. Something was off, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

  Then he saw it, gently pulsing against the wall. The soft green glow, fading in and out. He pushed himself up on his arms, his heart seizing. His throat was dry and when he licked his lips they felt like sandpaper. His eyes narrowed and he scanned them around the room until he found the source of the strange light. It was the amulet sitting on the bedside table next to him. The emerald set into it, which had been a dormant, dark green before, was now glowing like an old Christmas light.

  Billy stared at it, mesmerized. He was afraid to touch it, but the glow captivated him like a moth to a flame. His fingers grazed the surface of the amulet and they shrunk back like he had been stung. Then he put his hand on it softly and saw the glow pulse between his fingers. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand, trying to figure out what had made the strange object do that.

  Tiredness clawed at his eyelids, cooing to them to lie down and slip back into a fanciful dream.

  Billy put the amulet back on the table and rolled onto his side, pulling the covers up to his shoulder. He glanced at it for a moment, then he turned around and tried to go back to sleep.

  Sometime later, he opened his eyes again. He was exhausted, but for some reason he had awoken. He looked around again, but there was no green glow this time. Now there was something else. A soft breeze rolled across his cheek.

  He sat up again. The amulet sitting on the table next to him was dormant, but the window overlooking the rear grounds of the property was open, the curtain gently fluttering in the breeze.

  He tapped Karen on the shoulder. "Sis. Hey sis!" he whispered.

  Karen grumbled and rolled around under the covers. He gently rocked her shoulder back and forth and she started awake. "Don't make me thump you!" she said sleepily. He shook her again and this time she woke up fully and asked what he wanted.

  "Did you leave the window open?"

  "Huh?"

  "Did you leave the window open?" he repeated, not able to take his eyes off it.

  Karen was still. A moment later, she quietly answered, "No," in a tone that suggested she was affronted by the question. Then she rolled over and began snoring again.

  Billy pulled the covers off and got out of bed. Though he was wearing clothes, he felt naked as the breeze from the open window washed over him. The air was warm, but still he shivered. He crossed the antiquated room, his feet sinking into the plush carpet. When he was at the window, his heart beat like mad. He quickly shut it. He stood on his toes and pressed his forehead against the glass, staring down at the grounds around the mansion. The canopy of trees stretching over the bayou spanned as far as he could see. All was still and quiet.

  He turned and stared at the amulet. No glow. It was sitting there just like any other inanimate object.

  Billy quickly crossed the room back to his bed, stepping lightly on the carpet like it was covered in hot coals. He dove back under the covers and pulled them up to his chin, and Karen rolled around and grumbled, giving him a sleepy smack on his arm. "Ow!" Billy said, passing her a sour look. But he was staring at the back of her head and she was asleep, completely oblivious to the horrors of the night that he was encountering.

  He rested his head against the pillow and stared up at the ceili
ng. He knew it was his imagination, but it seemed like the darkness around the room swirled and shifted in his peripheral vision when he wasn't quite looking at it. He pulled the covers over his head. The air soon became stale and sticky, and he tossed onto his side facing his sister and let out a frustrated huff. He licked his lips and his tongue stuck to them like it was glued. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt like shards of glass sliding down it. He moaned woefully, then tossed onto his other side and stared at the amulet and the window.

  All was peaceful and he had no reason to be frightened, but his heart wouldn't settle down.

  Billy thrust the covers off of him and stood up, frustrated that he was jumping at shadows and spooking himself. He needed a drink of water, so he decided to go to the kitchen downstairs. He would only have to walk across the dark mansion by himself with no light to guide his way other than the dim slivers that crawled through the windows and became suffocated in the shadows. He walked to the door and opened it, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he didn't wake Karen.

  She snored, then her breath caught in her throat. She shifted in bed and her eyes strained like she was encountering something unpleasant in a dream. "I'm telling mom," she mumbled, then her breath rolled into ragged snores once more.

  Billy smiled, knowing she was okay. She was older than him by a year, but he always felt protective of his sister. He stepped out into the hallway and gingerly shut the door behind him. He saw the doors to the three other bedrooms that the others had taken were all open. But he had a hard time differentiating between bunched up covers and bodies in the dark, so he continued on.

  He made his way downstairs in the living room and walked around a coffee table and an old pea-green couch to the hallway leading toward the kitchen. His bare feet plodded along the hard marble floors, sticking to them a little from perspiration on his soles. He tried to clear his throat, but it was drier than ever. He needed that water badly. Dim light filtered through the windows overlooking the bay. He walked through the fuzzy patches of light and was unnerved by just how silent the mansion was. If a pin had dropped on the other side of the museum from him, he knew he'd be able to hear it. But instead it was the sound of a boot hitting the floor that rang out.

  Billy stopped.

  The heavy footsteps behind him stopped too.

  He spun around and staggered backward from the horrific sound.

  No one could be seen in the dim hallway. There was only silence.

  Billy turned and hurried along the corridor, frantically trying to remember his way to the kitchen. The map in his head was scrambled in the warping light of his fear. He tried to remain calm, but he couldn't help moving in something between a walk and a skip.

  The footsteps followed him. Billy for a moment wondered if they had been his own footsteps echoing strangely, and he had been working himself up, but they almost sounded wet, like whoever was making them had come in from out of a storm. Or the bay...

  Billy ran into the kitchen and spun around, pressing his butt to the counter. He stared at the open doorframe as his chest heaved up and down, exasperated from his frightful trek.

  The pursuing footsteps had fallen silent. He waited for a long time, but still they never returned. Once he had been standing there frozen like a statue for what seemed like an hour, he began to think that it was indeed all in his head. He must have imagined the amulet glowing, too; the light coming in from the window must have caught it a certain way, plus he'd been taken over by that illogical spell that fell over people when they'd just woken up, not able to discern between dream and reality.

  Billy turned at last and reached into the cupboard to retrieve a glass. He turned on the tap and filled it. He took a drink and swallowed it down. The water tasted bitter, but he thought the taste might have already been on his tongue. He leaned against the counter, slowly savoring the refreshing water. It was like heaven on his throat that so desperately needed it.

  In his tiredness, his mind dreamily wandered back to the haunting footsteps following him, and revelation struck him. They hadn't been the footsteps of some long-dead apparition, nor had they been the amplified echoes of his own footsteps; it was the door. That door that had been banging the day before when they settled in to the dining room to play cards—the one with the broken latch. It was at it again. He felt himself relax. A perfect explanation to assuage his ridiculous fears. Never mind that there was no breeze at all drumming through the bowels of the museum tonight by which to move the door; his explanation would do for now.

  Feeling a little calmer, Billy drained the glass and put it in the sink, then he headed back to bed. As soon as he stepped into the hallway, his bare foot slipped on the floor and he fell to the ground. His heel had caught on something wet, and when he looked down at the floor in the cold moonlight spilling through the windows, he saw a set of wet bootprints leading up to and stopping at the kitchen door.

  Billy scrambled to his feet and backed away from them. He turned and ran through another door. His heart worked itself into a frenzy as he bounced off walls in the dark like a pinball. The blood rushing in his ears made it impossible to tell if the footsteps were behind him now. If there was someone else in the house with them, he had to get his sister to safety. The others, too. It took him a while, stumbling through the courtyard and finding a different set of stairs, to reach the bedrooms. When he did, he slid through the doorway so hard that the carpet burned the soles of his feet.

  "Karen!" he cried, leaning over the bed and shaking her. "Get up!"

  Karen recoiled at first as if she was being attacked. When she saw, half-asleep, that it was her brother, she groaned and tried to pull a pillow over her head.

  But Billy yanked it away. "Sis, get up!"

  "What is it?" she asked, finally realizing that something was wrong. The same fear he had began to drip in her voice.

  Billy opened his mouth to answer, but his breath hitched in his throat. He staggered away from the bed, suddenly noticing the phrase written on the wall above her in blood. It said: GET OUT

  Mist on the Bayou

  "How do we get out of here?" Bridgette asked, looking at the dark maze around them.

  "Good question," Dawson said.

  Trevor ignored them. He had the headlights of the fishing boat on as high as they would go. He turned the wheel slowly and navigated through the swampy waters of the bayou. He held a flashlight in his other hand and pointed it down at the map spread open on the co-captain's chair. Muttering under his breath, he tried to figure out where they were to no avail.

  Dawson walked to one edge of the boat and stared out at the dark silhouettes that made up their surroundings. "We shouldn't have come here." He turned and walked back into the cabin, anger seeping into his veins. "I told you this was a stupid idea! Now look what you've gotten us into!" Dawson gave Trevor a shove and he slid off his seat and bumped into the wall.

  Trevor got up and spun around, giving Dawson a shove back. "Don't give me that crap!" he said. Both of them glared at each other with clenched fists.

  "Stop it, both of you!" Bridgette cried. She wedged herself between them, knowing that if she didn't things would very soon come to blows. "You're both acting like children!"

  Dawson settled down and took a step back, taking Bridgette by the arms and pulling her with him.

  Trevor stood on the spot, narrowing his eyes on Dawson. A self-righteous grin crossed his face. "Everyone can see through your pathetic act," he told Dawson. "You're so afraid to lose Bridgette that you have to put on that sad act. Pathetic." He shook his head and resettled into the captain's seat.

  Dawson gritted his teeth and let it go.

  "If you two lovebirds want to actually do something useful, keep a lookout for the cops and make sure they're not on our tail," Trevor called out.

  Dawson wanted to say, "They couldn't find us if they had GPS and our boat was on fire!" but instead he stood silently on the deck and gazed at the black landscape.

  Bridgette stood at th
e back of the boat, and the tension between them was thicker than the humid air. She didn't know why either one of them was acting the way they were, and this whole trip so far wasn't at all going like she had imagined.

  She tried to take her mind off of it and focus on the water as the boat lazily trudged through. But something about their surroundings unsettled her. She tried to figure out what it was. The air was sticky and hot. The bugs of the night buzzed angrily all around them, creating an uneasy din. Birds flapped from one tree to another, and an owl hooted in an odd key somewhere unseen. The boat slowly churned through the dark water, creating foamy streaks behind them. But in the other areas of water around them where it should have been still, Bridgette occasionally noticed movement.

  She retrieved a flashlight from the diving gear they'd piled in the back corner of the deck and turned it on. She cast the light over the water, trying to catch sight of one of the peculiarities she swore she'd seen. But as soon as something caught her eye and she trained the light on it, the water was still as if nothing had moved at all. The chatter of the bugs seemed to intensify, grating on her nerves and making it hard to concentrate. And suddenly a terrible feeling swelled in her chest like an incredible pressure—not by some bodily ill, but by premonition. Bridgette didn't know why, but she felt like they weren't alone.

  The boat passed under an overarching set of trees. The branches rustled over their heads and Bridgette looked up, but she didn't think to shine the flashlight on them. She assumed it was just the breeze and turned her attention back to the water. Soft thumps played across the deck behind her.

  She twisted around and looked, but there was no one there. Just Dawson still leaning against the side of the boat and Trevor driving it in the cabin. She turned back around.

  The trees rustled again and more tiny thumps. Something touched the bare skin on the back of Bridgette's neck.

  Bridgette recoiled. "Dawson, don't touch me like that. Why is your hand wet?" She turned around, scrunching her face up and disgusted at the slimy sensation only to find Dawson still standing across the deck from her.