Never Dead (Welcome To Dead House Book 1)

by M. L. Bullock

  “Come out, come out wherever you are,” Paul sang as if we were two kids playing Hide and Seek. I took off again and moaned as a thin tree branch slapped me across the cheek. It stung, and I was sure it had drawn blood. Oh, God, please don’t let me die out here, I thought.

  I kept moving and in a few minutes, I heard the sound of running water. I’d gone in the wrong direction, away from the Crystal Springs Senior Home. I could still make it to the road if I kept going, but I’d have to swim across the creek and climb a steep embankment.

  I was only a few feet from the creek when I heard a thunk and felt warmth on the side and back of my head.

  Everything went black.

  Forever.

  8

  Tamara

  I heard the tornado siren go off before I received a text message from the school district informing me the school would be closing due to inclement weather. I wasn’t going to wait for the bus to bring Chloe home. I would haul ass to that school and get her myself. The sky had darkened dramatically, but I didn’t have a clue bad weather threatened our area. I rarely paid attention to my weather app, and at some point, I must have turned off the notifications. I’d never been one to watch the news, not even local, but after the text, I decided I had to start paying attention to these things.

  Despite the low hum of sirens, the tornado hadn’t hit the Ridaught Plantation, but the school hadn’t been that lucky. There was quite a bit of damage to Crystal Springs High School, according to the kitchen radio. Before I could get to the car, Chloe stomped through the back door, looking as if she’d run all the way home.

  “Chloe, are you okay? Where’s Trey? The school just texted me about the tornado. I can’t believe it. Are you hurt?”

  The teenager’s eyes were brimming with tears, but she didn’t shed a single one. She didn’t seem to want to talk either. I tossed my keys and purse on the counter and opened my arms to her, but Chloe snorted at the idea of hugging and eased around me instead.

  That hurt, but this wasn’t about me.

  My natural inclination was to hold and comfort my late bestie’s daughter, but she rejected any such idea. Despite her terrifying experience with a destructive tornado, she was her typical teenage Chloe Carol self. She stomped her thick-soled shoes as she burned through the kitchen like her skirt was on fire. Unfortunately, she noticed the stack of silver items I had not yet put away. She cocked her head at me as her natural frown deepened.

  “What are you doing in here? Is this some sort of kooky ritual? I don't know how much more I can take, Tamara!"

  I put my hands up as if I were fending off a physical blow. "Ritual? I don’t do rituals, Chloe. I was actually going to ask you about this. Why don’t you just take a deep breath and sit down? Need a glass of water?”

  “I don’t need water, Tamara. What is this?”

  “It’s a...I don’t know what it is. I found it after you left.”

  She paused for a moment and asked, “Have you checked with the ghost? This looks like something he could pull off. Is that silver?”

  “Joey didn’t do this. Why would he? Are you really okay? Is Trey okay? I heard on the news that someone got hurt. You’re acting really weird. Who got hurt?”

  Chloe blinked at my questions and snatched her sagging backpack firmly back on her shoulder. “Mr. Owens, but everyone else is fine. I’m going to my room.”

  “Not until we talk, Chloe. I’m worried about you.” She left me standing in the kitchen with the creepy silver sculpture and murmured something like, "I don't have time for this.”

  “Time for what? Chloe? Don’t you walk away from me.” I followed her into the hallway as she completely ignored me and flounced up the wooden staircase.

  I knew it had been a bad idea to encourage her to pick a bedroom on the second floor.

  After all that happened today, the phantom screams, the poltergeist-like activity, and the tornado I felt really insecure about letting her go back upstairs. I needed to warn her, but first things first. "Come on, Chloe. Give me a break. I’m not the enemy. Please! Hold on a second!” My answer was a slamming door, which I proceeded to tap lightly on. "Please let me in. You shouldn’t shut me out. Come on, Chloe."

  "Go away," the teenager replied as she turned on her radio and turned up the volume. I thought I heard her crying, but it was hard to hear over the stylized vocalizations of her favorite pop singer. My hand reached for the doorknob, but I thought better of it.

  It was never a good idea to force yourself into a teenager's presence. All that would happen was she'd resent me even more than she already did.

  I could get any information I needed from the school. I paused one last time in front of her door and told her, "I'll be in the kitchen if you want to talk." All of my worries from the day dissipated in the presence of this current conundrum.

  How in the world was I going to parent this child?

  Maybe that was the problem. I was trying to be her parent, and she was never going to accept me as such. This wasn’t good. If I couldn't comfort Chloe, the least I could do was figure out what was going on in the house. Something was happening here at the Ridaught Plantation.

  As I went back downstairs, I whispered Joey's name a few times, but I got no response. Not a dang thing. He didn’t pop out of a wall or step in front of me with a big smile on his silly face. It was so strange he wasn’t all up in this mess. Usually, we were together constantly except for my time in the bathroom, which I had firmly forbidden him from entering. Not that he ever listened to me.

  Nobody in this house listened to me.

  What a weird day this had been. To establish a little normalcy, I encouraged myself to act like the grown-up I needed to be for Chloe and me.

  I went to the kitchen and began disassembling the horrible structure on my kitchen table. Naturally, the silver clattered everywhere and made lots of noise, but finally, I got it taken apart and put back where it belonged, except for the silver cup, which I'd never seen before. I still didn’t know where it had come from.

  “Joey, this would be a great time to show up. I need some help here.” Not a word. I grabbed my phone and took a few more pictures, focusing on the bottom of the cup. There was a strange marking, and it didn’t look modern. I was no antique collector, but when I got a chance, I'd check it out. What an odd mark. It was a tiny, twisting fork icon. There were no numbers on the cup and no other marks except lots of tarnish.

  I thought maybe if I cleaned it up, I’d find more clues.

  I searched for the silver cleaner and got to work. A half-hour later, I was looking at a shiny silver cup, but there was nothing else to discover. It was clearly an antique. I took a few more pictures and then whipped up scrambled eggs while I watched the dark clouds diminishing from the bare kitchen window. I’d been checking my phone since Chloe came home, just in case this sudden storm cell erupted again. It fizzled out a bit before moving east. My scrambled eggs were tasteless, and I suddenly felt tired.

  "Joey, where are you? You need to stop playing around. Joke’s over. You got me."

  After cleaning up my lunch, I paced the kitchen, expecting him to reappear with his head in the oven, but nothing happened.

  There was nothing to see or hear except for the sound of Chloe's exceptionally loud radio from the floor above me. She had the world’s most annoying song on repeat, and I had listened to it at least five times.

  No Joey. No Chloe.

  I was supposed to write a few chapters in my book. So far, I hadn’t stuck with that plan, so I headed to the office to try to get a few words in. The day wasn’t over yet. I’d sketched the outline of my ghostly tale a few weeks before, but filling in the blanks had proven to be challenging. Probably because I didn't know where the story was going.

  Very much like my life.

  They say life imitates art. Maybe it was the other way around? I sat down to write something brilliant, but I got nowhere fast. In between writing a few dry sentences, I checked my email, but there weren’
t any responses to my current questions about the silver sculpture. The realty company sent me a few more listings, and I emailed them back, agreeing to show the houses later in the week. I needed a Plan A and a Plan B.

  Possibly also a Plan C.

  Focus, Tamara. I tapped the keyboard to breathe life into my main character, but I wasn’t having much luck. This book wasn't happening today. I had too much on my mind, worry for both Chloe and Joey, to focus on my imaginary world. I found it ironic my character, a young woman named Jennifer, was also trying to solve a paranormal mystery. Jen’s situation paled in comparison to what I faced, though. With a sigh of disappointment, I wandered around the house, sipping my lukewarm coffee. I kept to the bottom floor looking for clues, hoping to see something to explain all this.

  The rain had stopped, and the dark clouds had blown away. There were no more threats of storms or tornadoes or anything deadly. I decided I needed to get out of the house for a while. I would lose it if I stayed there another minute.

  I sent Chloe a text inviting her to tag along since banging on her door wouldn’t get me anywhere. The music was so loud I doubted she'd hear me if I banged on it with a hammer.

  Going to town. Might stop by the library. Want to come?

  No.

  We could grab some coffee or a burger?

  No.

  My thumbs hovered over the phone's keyboard, and I resisted the urge to type in a string of sentences I knew I would regret. Instead, I sent a smiley face and an okay, just like every other parent or guardian of a teenage girl.

  This was my life.

  I grabbed my purse and keys and walked to the back door.

  "Joey? I'm going out for a while. Keep an eye on her, please. Be back soon."

  Nobody answered.

  Great. Even the ghost didn't care. Retrieving my keys and purse from the counter, I gave the kitchen door a good slam as I left the house.

  9

  Kevin

  Crystal Springs wasn't a very large town, but the library was huge, much larger than I expected. To be fair, the Crystal Springs library had inherited a lot of reference books from the neighboring library that had closed its doors about a decade before.

  I learned this from the librarian who lurked over me as I filled out my library card. Imagine having to fill out another library card and being charged for it. I coughed up the $2, and after a few minutes, the librarian returned with a warm, freshly laminated card. I kept losing the damn things. I thanked her and headed toward the reference section. It was quiet today, except for a noisy water fountain. I’d always liked the place. It had a homey, mysterious ambiance about it, and at the end of every bookcase was a Narnia style lamp complete with a flickering light. The signage was quaint, and the place was full of dusty old books.

  Since it was an old fashioned library without a computerized book catalog, locating some of the books I needed proved to be a difficult task at times. I could handle the Dewey Decimal System just as well as the next person, and I was pretty good at locating things on microfilm. I had an eye for scanning, or so I was told by my English teacher who remarked on my ability to comprehend large swaths of text in one sitting. I always suspected I had somewhat of a photographic memory. In a limited way.

  I glanced down at the piece of paper I had brought with me and opened my notebook. If I was going to get answers about who Annie Hensley was, this was a good place to start. Her file lacked photographs, and there were no cuttings from the newspapers. There had been nothing except her vital information in the file.

  Five-foot eight inches tall. One hundred thirty pounds. Relatively good health. Born on March 26th. Enjoyed traveling. She had no living relatives except for a sister who couldn’t be located right away. She was later found serving time upstate for larceny. There was nothing to implicate Annie Hensley, and she’d had no criminal record, not even a traffic ticket. There was nothing unusual about the nursing assistant. Except that she was killed by a gunshot wound to the back of her head. The damage was horrendous. The whole side of her face had been blown away.

  I checked again, but there had been nothing else in the files at the station. I had to do some legwork, and in order to do that, I had to review the newspaper articles. I put in a few phone calls to the law enforcement agencies in her hometown and expected to see some emails when I got back, but sitting around and waiting wasn't my style. I pulled up microfilms from the day Miss Hensley was found and backtracked from there.

  Ten minutes into my research, I found what I was looking for, or at least a start. The body of Annie Hensley had been found on the Ridaught Plantation property, not too far from the house, and very near the creek. I drew back from my scanning session and blinked. I was getting a little headache, probably from too much coffee and not enough rest. I cracked my neck and reminded myself of what the stakes were. Sheriff Jarvis depended on me to solve this case. I was deep into the next few newspapers when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

  Tamara Garvey.

  I’d know that husky voice anywhere. I couldn’t say why. I’d only met her a few times, but truthfully, I was still ticked off by that welfare check call earlier. I guess she thought small-town cops were stupid, and it might be fun to toy with them. She wasn’t alone in that kind of thinking, but pranks weren’t good for the community, and they weakened the local police force. What would happen if a serious call came in while I was answering fake scream calls? I shook my head at the memory and continued scanning the microfilm until I found another article about Annie Hensley.

  In this article, they had the victim listed as thirty-five years old when in actuality, she was thirty-seven. I flipped through my notes to confirm it. Those kinds of errors were common in local newspaper articles. The Crystal Springs Journal had never been the most reliable rag. The Register usually got such details correct. Strange how they shut down and the half-assed Journal kept on printing.

  Annie was a single woman with no children, and she had been a registered nurse, make that a nursing assistant, no surprises there. There was something I had not expected. Although Miss Hensley was found on the property, she didn't work there. The Ridaught Plantation had been empty for nearly twenty-five years before she’d been killed. There was the possibility squatters or unauthorized tenants killed her, but there was nothing to suggest that as a likely scenario. The adjoining property had been a senior citizen’s home and was where Annie worked when she was killed.

  I turned off the machine and jotted down notes in my book. I needed to find a map of the creek or at least a map of that area, then I’d go out and see for myself what I could find on the property. Probably nothing after all this time, but it was worth a shot. At least I’d get the lay of the land in my head. Small details sometimes mattered. I had a ton of questions. The coroner’s report left out too many details. There was no mention of the caliber gun or any kind of gunshot stippling. The investigation file was just as bad as the newspaper reporting. There wasn’t a single person of interest, not even a name on file, which was even stranger. It’s like the community collectively shrugged when this woman was murdered and did not care that her body had been unceremoniously dumped by Black Snake Creek. Was nobody going to be held accountable for this woman's murder?

  "Sorry, Annie,” I mumbled to myself as I collected my things and headed to the map section.

  "Oh, hi, Deputy Patrick.”

  “Miss Gentry,” I said cautiously.

  “It’s Garvey.” She frowned at me.

  “Right. That’s G-A-R-V-E-Y, right?” I asked as I instinctively reached for my notebook to write it down. I knew I hadn’t been spelling her name Gravey or Gravy. Damn it if she didn’t have perfect lips.

  She crossed her arms and stared at me like I was stupid. “I’d think you would have my name, address, and social security number memorized by now. Yes. G-A-R-V-E-Y. Middle initial A. T-A-M-A-R-A. Not Tammy or any other variation of my name. What are you doing here, Deputy? Following me around?"

  I made a whistling
sound at that idea. "I’m pretty sure I got here first. I’m doing the same thing you are, Miss Garvey—looking up stuff. Sometimes we cops get out of the office. I’m here to do some research on a cold case."

  Why did I tell her that? Why were my palms sweating?

  "Me too. I’m writing a book.”

  The librarian eyeballed us but didn’t say a word. She would if we pressed her. “I didn't know that. A writer, huh? What kind of writer?”

  “Fiction. Suspenseful-type books. I’m sure it isn’t as interesting as what you do.”

  “I don’t know. I hate reading true crime since I seem to live it every day. Maybe I should read your books. Have you written anything I might have seen?” I glanced at the shelves knowing full well there wasn’t any fiction back here. I liked making her feel uncomfortable for some warped reason. Her dark lashes fluttered as she avoided my stare. She glanced away and shook her head.

  “Not yet, but soon. I better not keep you, Deputy. I’m sure you’re on some life-saving mission here at the library.” Was she being a smart ass? I decided to ignore the offhand comment.

  “I presume writers need to possess quite an imagination to write fiction. Don’t tell me you write ghost stories. Or murder mysteries. That would explain so much, Miss Garvey. Why else would you want to live in the Ridaught Dead House?” I asked with a half-laugh. I’d honestly never heard it called that. Not since high school anyway.

  Tamara’s hazel eyes flashed green. “Are you joking with me, Deputy? I told you before I didn’t have anything to do with that scream. I’m not lying about that. I have no reason whatsoever to fictionalize what is happening in my own house.”