"Oh honey," she said, feeling terrible.
"It's okay. When we were diving and found the ship, I saw this sitting on the ridge in front of us. Slipped it under my wetsuit when you weren't looking. Figured it wouldn't hurt to pocket at least one thing."
Bridgette smiled and held her hand out, extending her fingers and admiring the ring. "Now I'll always have something to remember this adventure by," she said. She kissed him again, and then she and Billy helped him up and they all continued down the road.
"Although to be honest, I think I've had enough adventure for an entire lifetime."
"Amen to that," Karen said. "If I ever so much as see a ghost again, I'm turning around and hightailing it out of there. I don't care if it's on Scooby-Doo. The same goes for treasure of any kind. Or mansions. Or maybe even, like, big houses."
The five of them made their way down the lane, and after they rounded a bend in the road, they saw a silver car parked to the side of the narrow way up ahead. When they approached it, they saw someone was sleeping inside on the reclined driver's seat. The man looked disheveled, almost like he was homeless. But there was something familiar about him.
"Who's that?" Janet asked.
"Probably some guy who got kicked out of the house by his wife or something," Dawson guessed.
"No, wait," Bridgette said. She left Billy to hold on to Dawson, then she went up to the car and tapped on the glass.
Simon woke up from his sleep, startled and glancing around at who disturbed him. When his eyes settled on Bridgette, he calmed down and pulled his seat up. A fast food bag slid off his chest and fell onto the passenger seat as crumpled napkins rolled into the footwell. He stuck the keys in the ignition and rolled down the window. A scent of cheap tequila wafted out of the car and Simon's eyes looked like they were still swimming in its effects. "You made it," he said. Then his eyes narrowed and he lifted his finger, counting the five of them. "Well, most of you, anyway. My condolences."
"What are you doing here?" Bridgette asked. "I thought you said there wasn't anything you could do. I assumed you left that night."
"Nothing I could do in there," he replied. "Nothing the cops could do, either. That's why I didn't call them. All it would do is get innocent people killed. But I could still help in other ways." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out Bridgette's grandmother's necklace, handing it back to her.
"But..." Bridgette started. "I thought this was your collateral. I still don't have any cash on me to pay you."
"Nah, I never wanted it anyway," he said. "I just needed a personal item from you. One that you had a deep connection with. Think of it like a direct hotline to you, even if I was sitting in here all night."
"What for?" she asked.
"Protection," he said. "Even though you stiffed me coming all the way out here, I never like to see a dame in trouble. It just rubs something the wrong way with me."
Bridgette suddenly thought back to her encounter with Jasper and how his attack with both amulets on her had inexplicably missed. "How did you do that?"
"I have my ways," he said. "Any dead in there? Well, other than your friend."
Bridgette nodded.
Simon pulled out a cell phone and dialed 911. He told the operator that he heard some kind of scuffle up at the Jasper Museum and that he thinks people were hurt, but that he was an innocent bystander and he didn't want to be involved. He hung up the phone and glanced out the window at the five of them. "Okay, look," he said, "the police don't usually look at you as too mentally well if you start going on about ghosts. Was there anyone human in there that was trying to kill you? I think I saw an old man wander up the road in the night. Looked like he was about two hundred and thirty."
"Yeah," Bridgette replied. "But that was someone else."
"Okay, good," Simon said. "And is the bad guy, um..." He drew a finger across his throat.
She nodded.
"Well, I'd go with that. You were up at that museum for... reasons. You're going to have to sort out the rest. But maybe leave the ghosts out of it." Simon leaned over and looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. "Jesus," he said. He took the bottle of tequila that was sitting next to him in the cup holder and put it back in the glove compartment. "Well, I'd best be off. It was nice meeting you lot."
He rolled up the window and turned the key, turning on the engine. He shifted the car into gear, then he rolled down the lane and disappeared from sight.
With the police called and an ambulance on the way, the five of them sat in the road and waited, none of them really wanting to return to the mansion if they could get away with it. They were all worn and exhausted from their experience, their lumps, and the lack of sleep, but they would all ultimately be okay. And for Bridgette, she suddenly felt that she was ready to settle down and put all of this behind her; she was just happy to find someone like Dawson, and she wasn't going to take him for granted anymore. They kissed and she put her arm around him, holding her hand up to the spots of sun shining through the trees above them and watching how it hit the diamond.
"Ah crap," Billy said. "I left my wallet in the van," suddenly remembering how it had gone up in a blaze. They all laughed and they waited on the lazy morning for the authorities to arrive and to put this chapter behind them for good.
As the days and weeks rolled on, and the authorities cleaned out the mansion and closed it indefinitely, pending the conclusion to their investigation and decision from next of kin on what to do with the estate, the whole place sat completely empty. Not a single visitor came to the mansion, and not a single ghost wandered its halls. Day and night passed over the bay, the wreck of the pirate ship still abandoned at the bottom of it. The days brought blustering sunlight to sparkle over the water, and the nights brought a calm and somewhat ominous chill. And one night when it got stormy and the clouds bunched up together and choked out the moonlight and things got real dark, something somewhere at the very bottom of the bay could be seen if someone was sitting on the water and looked real closely. Through the dark and murky waters, Jasper was trapped in his forever grave. And shining ever so faintly from the abyss, a glint of yellow, as if from some strange gem.
Job Interview
"Bra size?"
"Excuse me?"
The man sitting across the table from her was short and a little stout. He leaned forward. "Bra size."
"Um... 34B." She had an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. "Why do you need to know all this?"
He raised an eyebrow as if she had just asked a strange question.
"It just seems weird, is all," she added.
The man picked up the clipboard sitting on the dining room table and leaned back in his chair. He took off his reading glasses and set them on the table and tapped the paper attached to the clipboard with his pen. His eyes scrolled down the list of things he'd written already, then he scribbled something else.
"I like to be prepared when I hire someone," he said. "I need someone to watch this house while I'm away, and I'm very particular about whom I trust to do so."
Katie shrugged. "Just as long as you don't need a vial of my blood," she said with a laugh.
The man stared at her.
"You don't... do you?" she asked.
"What I need from you is a commitment to do exactly as I tell you," he said.
She swallowed and sat rigid in her chair.
He set the clipboard down. "I'm satisfied with your credentials, Miss Travers. I'll need you to live here for the upcoming week while I'm away on business. It's not going to require much, other than that you be present at all times and watch over the house. I don't like people coming up the drive onto my property and skulking around."
"Is that why you have those bars over your windows?" Katie asked, pointing them out.
He turned in his seat and acknowledged the dining room window behind him. It was shut and there were thick iron bars bolted over it on the outside. The bars were the first thing Katie noticed on all the windows when she walked up
to the peculiar-looking three-story house. The next thing was how the exterior wasn't made of bricks or covered in siding; it was all made of the same finished brown wood, like an old barn.
"Yes," he replied. "Like I said, I don't like anyone poking around. This house is very dear to me."
The wind picked up outside and the house groaned.
Katie looked around. "This house seems pretty old. When was it built? All the walls and ceiling made of wood... I haven't seen that before."
"Ironwood has stood for thirty-six years now," he said. "I had it built when I was just twenty-two years old."
"Ironwood?"
A strange smile came over the man's face. "Yes, that's what I call it. Do you know why?" His eyes widened a little.
Katie shook her head.
He stood up, his chair scraping against the wooden floor. He walked over to the wall and put his hand on it, sliding his rough palm down the wood. "This entire house is made of Australian buloke; ironwood—the strongest wood in the world. Means it's very hard to cut through." The ridge of his hand moved back and forth on the wall in a sawing motion.
Katie swallowed. If her hands were clasped any more tightly together in her lap they may have started bleeding. "What did you say you did again?"
"I'm in sales." He looked at his watch. He had a short layer of hair that wrapped around the back of his otherwise bald head, with a few strands on top. It reminded Katie of the head of a fly.
"You'll start on Monday, then, yes?" he asked.
Katie found herself at a loss for words as he slowly circled the table in the dining room. Everything about the man had given her the creeps since she got there. Alarms were going off in her head and a red flag was being waved in her face like the start of a NASCAR race. When she broke out of her momentary trance, he had a handful of her hair between his fingers, feeling the texture of it.
She bolted backward in her chair. "What are you doing?" she asked, standing up.
"You're free to use the television," he said, motioning to the open living room right next to them. "Any food you use—any mess you make—make sure you take the garbage out on Thursday morning. And make sure you take it all the way out by the road. I don't want the truck coming up the driveway." After a moment of silence, he added, "Monday, yes? Nine o'clock."
Katie's mouth fell open. She backed away from him, slowly at first. Then she found her words and her footing. "I can't. I mean, I don't know. I have other job interviews I have to get to." She pretended to look at a watch on her wrist even though she wasn't wearing one. She nearly tripped over her feet as she turned around and hurried through the kitchen to the front door. She didn't say goodbye or even look back over her shoulder, and then she was running past the blue Volvo sitting in front of the house and down the long and winding driveway through the trees.
The man stood on his doorstep, staring at her until she disappeared from sight.
Those Dreaded Words
Katie headed back for her apartment. She had been so frazzled by the strange man living in his house up the isolated drive in the woods that she forgot she actually did have another job interview lined up right after. By the time she remembered, having already traveled eight blocks past it, she ran back to the bank only to be told that her interviewer had stepped out for the day after she didn't show up. She passed a Waffle House with a Help Wanted sign in the window on her way back and handed in a crinkled résumé she had in her purse. But she was met with only a glum smile from the young and pimple-faced employee who took it from her.
The bus drove by as she walked down Lounds Street on the warm summer day. She didn't have a car and didn't even like to spend the money on bus fare when she could help it, so she was used to walking around town on her own. It looked like she struck out again on the job hunt and she was ready to return to her apartment and crash on the couch. No, the bed, she thought. This kind of defeat called for the starfish position where she would stare up at the ceiling and contemplate where she had gone so wrong in her life.
But her one saving grace for all her disasters and mistakes was her boyfriend Josh. He ran through her mind again and she realized she hadn't heard from him all day. She pulled out her cell phone and punched in a text: I love you.
She slipped the phone in her pocket and kept walking. The memories from the strange house on the edge of town lingered: the odd, almost rotten smell as soon as she had walked through the front door; the strange photos on the wall in the front hallway of a woman smiling (she had been in all of them. Just herself, no one else); the way the house was just a little too cold for comfort.
Katie had already exhausted her job search online and turned to the local newspaper in desperation the day before. In it, she saw an ad in the classifieds for a house-sitting job. The person who listed it gave a phone number and the name Earl. Nothing else. She had taken the trek across town earlier that morning and arrived with thoughts in her head of a whimsical and cozy Victorian-era house. What she found was a peculiar sight. The house seemed a little too tall for its floors. Those barred windows that at first made her feel like she had accidentally wandered into the wrong neighborhood. The way how when she had walked up the very long and winding driveway through the trees and stood before the house, she couldn't hear any of the sounds in town anymore—no cars, no buses, not even the calls of any birds as far as she remembered. It had been beautiful out all day, but when she arrived the sky was somehow dim.
She shuddered from a chill as the sun beat down on the back of her neck and she turned into an alley for a shortcut.
A dumpster sat ahead next to bags of garbage by the back door of a restaurant. The bags jostled and rolled around as she approached and a mangy cat sauntered out of the mess.
Katie turned up her nose at the sorry thing and pressed up to the opposite wall from it until she was out on Facer Road.
Her cell phone rumbled in her pocket and she heard the telltale chiming of Christmas bells—her favorite. Her heart swelled at the sound, knowing it was Josh. She hadn't seen him since Tuesday and after a rough week all she wanted to do was fall asleep in his arms. She took the phone from her pocket and swiped across the screen, smiling in anticipation of his requited profession of love.
The message from Josh said: We need to talk.
The News
Katie rapped three times on the door. Loudly. She waited for Josh to answer and when he didn't she knocked again and took a few steps back on his porch and stared up at his bedroom window.
The mailman walked up the steps behind her without her noticing and slipped a few letters in the box. "Afternoon," he said with a smile, then he walked down the steps and carried on along the peaceful suburban street.
Katie couldn't return the friendliness; she was too angry. She knocked on the door again. "Josh!" she called.
She pulled out her cell phone and texted him: I'm standing outside your door. Come out here. Just talk to me.
His truck was in the driveway, so she knew he was home. She waited on the porch, watching the peaceful afternoon roll by. Some children were throwing a baseball to each other down the road. The birds called and sang from the treetops. She even spotted a butterfly.
But with every second that passed, the anger built in her. A terrible sadness accompanied it, but she knew if she acknowledged it, she would break down into tears right then and there. This wasn't the first time Josh had done this to her; he waffled back and forth in the relationship, sometimes becoming cold and distant to her. Their three-year tenure included something of a break in one period of time for six months where he flat out broke up with her to be with Jenny Stevens instead. Katie always had a few choice words for her, but none that she ever uttered to anyone else. Eventually, Josh would always come back to her when he got lonely and would start to drift away again when he got bored.
The door to the house opened. A woman with wet brown hair stood inside wearing a bathrobe. "Katie," she said, startled. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, Mrs. Reynol
ds... is Josh home?"
"No, I'm sorry. I just stepped out of the shower and didn't hear you knocking. Josh is out with his father right now. Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," she choked out, trying to hide the quiver in her lip. "I just wanted to talk to him."
"Oh, well I'll get him to give you a call when I see him," she offered.
"Thanks, Mrs. Reynolds." And she was already off the porch and bounding down the sidewalk before the tears rushed down her face. Josh's mom stood in the doorway and watched her go, concerned.
Katie walked for a block, not going in any particular direction, before her phone buzzed in her pocket. With a trembling hand, she pulled it out.
I just don't think things are working out between us, the text said. I feel like we've been drifting apart and to be honest ur too needy. I think it's best if we both see other people. Hope u understand.
The only thing that kept Katie from smashing her phone on the sidewalk was the fact that she knew she had no money to buy another one.
From Bad to Worse
Katie walked on the edge of town back for her apartment. She had gone out of her way to get to her boyfriend's—or now ex-boyfriend's; she would never really be sure—house, and her feet were sore. Her purse weighed on her shoulder and she just wanted to crawl into bed and never come out.
She ran over all the reasons in her head why her relationship had fallen apart. Josh had broken up with her, so obviously it was her fault. That was a thought she struggled with for a very long time. Needy, he had called her. That one stung the worst. He had been so direct without any apparent care for her at all. She supposed it was true, and she thought of all the times when she had made that neediness manifest in the relationship. Every time she had tried too hard, put forth that extra effort to love her boyfriend, to be there for him. Was that really so bad?
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 59
