Gridlocked Guesthouse (Locked House Hauntings Book 1)

by Mixi J Applebottom

"Who did this to Jenny?" Mike said, looking around. There wasn't anyone out there; it was just the three men and the tied-up girl and a pair of goats.

  It's pretty comical, if you ask me. I thought they'd see her and go wildly throwing rocks at her windows and bash them down and drag her out. I really thought they would! But no, they just stood nervously together, totally freaked out.

  Finally, Mike was the one who said, "We're going to have to break a window. Which one?"

  Well, that was an interesting question. A side window would be hard as hell to break because there was no room to swing anything. Hell, none of the three men could even easily fit between the two cars on either side.

  That left the windshield or the back window.

  Unfortunately, the rear window was really damn tiny on her bug. It certainly wasn't "Someone can easily crawl through this, untie you, and then pull you out" big. Which left the only option: Crushing the glass window directly in front of Jenny's face.

  I'm so glad I wasn't Jenny.

  And it was Jenny's car; she might have preferred they did something else--but what? They couldn't call for help (that reminds me, did Ben even bring back Mikaela's phone? I guess I'll tell you about it when we go back inside) and they couldn't walk for help either.

  So...

  Shatter her face glass was the remaining option.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  "Don't go outside," Ben said. "Stay inside. Don't go out there." He was whimpering, frightened and whimpering.

  Rachel said softly to him as she kept washing his wounds, "What happened to you?"

  Even Beezer was silent, listening for Ben's response. But he didn't say anything and started sobbing. "Don't go out there." He sobbed and Rachel promised it would be okay. I don't know why she promised that either. She had no fucking clue what was going on! Why do people say this sort of thing? Is this vague statement comforting?

  If I'm in a haunted house, and weird shit is going on, don't promise that it'll be okay. Say you'll try to protect me, or even the platitude, "I'm here now." You know? Tell me we can slay these demons together. Don't sit there and spout the shit that you can and will make it okay. Nobody can do that unless they have some sort of skills in ghost management. It's not okay, it's not about to be okay. Rachel, don't fool yourself. It's about to be very, very, very not okay.

  Mikaela was washing his arm slowly when it occurred to her, "Ben, where is my phone?"

  He burst into a fresh set of tears; swollen, beaten faces can leak just as well as regular ones. "I'm sorry. I lost it when I was running."

  Beezer let out an exasperated, overdrawn sigh. "What happened? What the fuck, dude?"

  But Ben went silent again. "Try and rest," Rachel said, kissing the swollen forehead. They did not find any ibuprofen and resorted to giving him a strong sip of vodka before they forced more water in him. Soon Ben was resting in a light fluttery sleep that was frightening. He would swing his arms suddenly and then lie limp again.

  "Do you think he just got lost?" Rachel hissed to Beth.

  Beth said in a tired monotone, "Jenny is locked in her car, tied up."

  Lucy was still silent and huddled in her chair. Tiffany and John still sat at the kitchen table. He was silent and stared out the window; his nerves were totally shot and he jumped every time Ben moaned. He was scared shitless.

  Tiffany tried to comfort the man, but then gave up and made another pot of coffee. They didn't need more, but she desperately needed something to do.

  And it occurred to her that maybe Mikaela's phone was on the staircase. The wooden stairs leading to the basement. Maybe the phone was there, maybe it would work now. Maybe...

  She glanced at John, who was incoherently afraid; no, she shouldn't tell him what she was doing. He'd just freak out more. She stepped into the hallway at the top of the stairs. Peering down, it seemed ungodly dark down there, like the light that was pleasant and strong in the hallway couldn't penetrate the ominous feeling. Slowly and carefully, she stepped down each step, searching for the phone with her hands as she scooted. Maybe she'd find something to explain what happened. It was so absurd.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Crash. The glass starred into long, delightful cracks. If anyone had smashed out a windshield before, they would have known it was tempered glass, designed to shatter into the safest shape of glass chunks. It wasn't as likely to become the long, terrifying shards as other types of glass. Anyways, they'd also have known that they probably didn't have to hit it so melodramatically in order to shatter it.

  I wish I could say they took a big ass hammer and slammed it into the window directly in front of Jenny's face and watched her eyes fly wide with intimate fright! Don't you feel with every scream, you know these kids' even better? Do you feel their frightened souls bond to yours? I certainly do.

  But they were, in fact, terribly gentlemanly about the careful destruction of her vehicle. They tapped at the corner farthest from her with a rock, until it suddenly splintered. And once the window was cracking, Zane carefully pushed his body weight on the window, and it started to fold inward, all in one flexing, cracking piece, like a giant, dangerous fabric.

  He realized his error, but it was too late, and the whole pane fell on Jenny. She let out a muffled cry, but other than a few scratches, she was actually fine. I mean, the glass didn't hurt her. She was far from "fine" in all the other ways a girl can be.

  Zane carefully untied her wrists, and the two goats, Cletus and Carson (I can't tell which is which any better than the rest of the young people) scrambled out of the car. Mike caught them both in his big man arms and fumbled with their collars. He wondered where their leash went. But gently he sat on the ground with them. Both goats munched and grumbled at his grip on their collars. They had been locked up a while.

  Zane managed to get her gag off and he helped her climb out of the little bug. She was still sobbing, and he gently brushed the shattered glass off of her when she was out. Both Zane and Ricky hugged her simultaneously; she was a little girl in a man sandwich. And that thought slowly stopped her frightened tears. "I thought I'd never get out."

  "What happened?" Ricky said, his voice soft and warm. "Who tied you up?"

  "I'll tell you inside. I don't want to have to repeat myself--did you leave their leash in the car?" she asked suddenly.

  "What?"

  "That's what was around my hands..." she said softly.

  Zane reached in, grabbed the leash, and noticed the blood stains on the worn leather. He handed the leash to Mike, who quickly hooked up the goats. Zane couldn't help but stare at her wrists. They were raw and bloody. Her face had deep scratches across it. He cringed. What was going on here?

  They walked to the front door and tried to pull it open. But it was stuck. Inside, they could hear screaming.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Inside, there was a ghost finally making itself very fucking known. First Tiffany, despite her careful attempt to descend the steps, fell. She tumbled with no time to scream and thumped hard on the basement door. It was a loud, cracking noise that made the whole house tremor.

  Ben, having heard the crash, let out a frightened scream and batted at the air with his hands. It was too much; he couldn't take anymore. He couldn't do it. He was out of here! He stood up and started to run--fight and flight and all that. He was no longer a person, or a man; he was just a ball of fear running like hell.

  He ran into Beezer, completely mindless and thoughtless, crashing into the couch like it didn't exist. Beezer's broken bone ground against its own raw, jagged edges and he too let out a scream.

  Rachel tried to run to Tiffany, but John was already there. He looked like a wild creature and he was wielding a chair. He charged down the stairs, chair overhead, throwing it forward.

  Rachel shouted, "John, stop! Stop!" Fight or flight, and he was fighting whatever it was he saw. I like to think he saw something, and not that he had the sudden, unrelenting urge to beat the shit out of Tiffany. Rachel screamed at th
e sight of it, completely unable to move. Flight or fright, baby, and she just froze like an ice cube.

  Beth, instead, was the one leaping down the wooden steps, tackling John to the ground, the chair now a splintered mess from his smashing it into the locked door.

  Everyone stopped, though, when they heard it. Beezer stopped screaming, Lucy stopped covering her ears, John stopped attacking Tiffany, and Ben stopped running. All together, they gasped and turned and looked at the thing that was happening.

  The house was moving. The floorboards croaked as it shifted in the dirt. The windows opened and shut quickly, one after another, as if they were dominoes. The basement door had one padlock open and fall off.

  The front door finally popped open and the three frightened men and the one straight-up terrified Jenny stood, a loud crack of thunder behind them so loud and petrifying that they leapt, charging inside. "What's going on!" Mike shouted. Rachel and John hurried to the safe room.

  Beth carried the mangled Tiffany, her thin, bare midriff spiked with little bits of chair. She was sobbing. Beth too was sobbing. But even beaten and terrified, they all instinctively knew they had to gather in the safe room.

  And Jenny started to explain. She was standing next to the bear, the big stuffed, ragged brown bear. God, I love that bear.

  "I went outside last night before I was gonna sleep. I figured Cletus and Carson would like to take a wee." She paused thoughtfully. "I couldn't get back in." She took a deep breath, and everyone settled down. Rachel even brought in a big vegetable platter that she had prepped. Everyone nibbled while they ate, listening to each tale. It might seem odd to you, that after John attacked Tiffany, and everyone went crazy, that everyone suddenly settled down for story time. But I think this was part of it, everything settled, everyone had their heads. Even Lucy, who had been a basket case all evening, suddenly seemed awake. She was present.

  Everyone was.

  And I should tell you about Lucy. You might be thinking, gee her boyfriend overdosed, and it sucks, but surely she could, I dunno, be a human? Maybe she could just breathe a moment. Or get her shit together. And also, why the hell was everyone else taking Rafael's death so damn easy? What was it that made his death a breeze for them and a nightmare for her?

  And the truth is, I'm not sure. It could have been the house, or the situation, or that everyone had a lot of shit on their plate. Like John being pissed and hurt about Tiffany's refusal to marry him, and his dead baby. Maybe he didn't have room on his plate for another feeling like, a guy he knew was dead upstairs, hanging out of a wardrobe.

  Anyways, it doesn't matter. Lucy's plate was Rafael. Lucy, I'd say, was more sensitive to death than the other people. Her mother was dead. Her father was dead. And when she was fifteen, her sixteen-year-old boyfriend was suicidal. There was one day they were wrestling around and he got angry and suddenly barked that he should end it all. He should end it and walk away from it all. And she said no, and he pulled out a gun. She tried to wrestle it from him, and well, even she didn't know if he pulled the trigger on purpose, but his brains splattered her face when the bullet fired. This is the life of Lucy. She and death were intimate. Most of her years, she'd tried to make up for the pain by fucking and kissing and loving the hell out of anyone who would stand still for five seconds. She was the kind of girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, right there, every little tear and kiss and love just beating beneath the surface. She never held back. She didn't become jaded. But she was a broken girl just the same. Really fucking broken. And this was her last straw. She'd be so fucked up from this point forward that nothing would ever be the same for her again.

  But like I said, everyone was suddenly present and accounted for. They were trying to determine what was going on. Eating delicious carrots and ranch, and generally, if you had walked in on them in this very moment, you would have thought they were still mid-party. They seemed almost happy.

  "I couldn't get back in," Jenny continued.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  "I tried the front door. I tried the windows. I beat at them with my fists, and nobody heard me. Nobody heard me!" She paused, but despite her frantic tone, as soon as she stopped for a breath, she was back to calm. "So I was thinking about what to do, try to break a window to get in or what. Eventually, I thought maybe I should just try to sleep in one of the cars. It was pretty damn cold out there."

  She crunched a carrot thoughtfully. She seemed to be building the rest of the story in her mind, looking for a way to form the sentences into a coherent thought. "So, what I'm saying is..." She paused again, crunching. I think she was obnoxiously slow. Get to the point, girl! We're waiting! "That was when I saw Oliver."

  Everyone blankly stared at her.

  "Oliver, you know? The four-year-old boy that was... peeled, I guess is how Ricky put it." She paused again, looking down at her toes before she crunched another carrot. "So I saw him. He was... mid-peel. Skin flopping to the front and to the back of him, and it was terrifying, and I screamed and started running. And well..." She paused for more ranch. Jenny was calm. Her story was calm and just the kind of tale you'd tell that might have a funny punchline. "So then I came back a while later, and I was..." She gestured to her face. "You know, I had run into branches and stuff. That's why my face is tore up. And so then I tried the cars--Ricky's was locked, Rachel's was locked, mine was blocked in..." She paused again, more ranch. "But the van was all smashed up, so it wasn't locked. I climbed in there, and Cletus and Carson snuggled up with me, and then I woke up, in my car. Tied to the steering wheel. I don't know how long I was there." She paused and finally looked up, staring into the eyes of each person slowly before continuing. "Oliver did it. I'm certain."

  The room was quiet (except for the celery and carrots, which were being crunched happily.) "Did anyone move Rafael? How did he get upstairs?" Lucy asked. I think the group was shocked she spoke at all.

  The room grew silent again and nobody even attempted to answer her. "John, can you tell us more about how you got locked in the frozen bedroom? Why were you in the cabinet?" And Rachel almost added, Why the fuck did you attack Tiffany?

  John began his explanation with the part Rachel wanted to know first. "I didn't see her. I mean, I did, but I didn't see her. It wasn't Tiffany. I mean, it was." He took a deep breath, flustered. He was fucking embarrassed to have hurt her like that. "I saw... Richard, I think. I think that's who I saw. He was cold as ice and he was dragging her down the stairs while she screamed, and so I just ran up and attacked him. But the chair... went through him and shattered on the door. And then I kept trying to swing it at him. It had to be the ghost. Nobody else is here."

  Rachel looked down at her feet uncomfortably. Tiffany was still picking bits of wood splinters from her stomach. She was dotted with tiny slivers--she had already pulled out the biggest ones. It was a scary thought. Him hitting her with the chair. But then again, if he had been pummeling her, she'd be more than splintered. She'd have been stabbed clean through by that wooden chair leg. It was a splintery spear after it broke. And sure, John was repeatedly stabbing at her, but right above her, so just the tiny pointed tip dug into her flesh.

  Not the whole thing.

  Just the tip.

  Okay, I know, all of these young people would have been snickering at that particular set of sentences.

  Ben finally spoke up; his face had stopped swelling so badly, and the ice was helping. He could open one eye most of the way, but he had been hit, he had been really fucking hit by something. "I started walking down the road, and I got real far, it seemed. Real far. Hours of walking, and it was cold as fuck, so I kept moving, you know? Trying to stay warm."

  John nodded seriously. He knew what it was like to be cold as fuck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Ben continued, "I started to get worried. I hadn't seen any houses or anything, not a sign or a side road or anything that I could work with. And Mikaela's phone hadn't shown any signal at all. But then, as I held it up, I realized
I had a faint signal. I made the decision to stop following the road and instead follow the signal. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. Besides getting horribly lost, which was absolutely a problem, I started to look at the phone more than I looked at where I was walking.

  "I fell down... something. I'm not sure what it was exactly. A hill, I guess. It hurt and there were these brambles I got caught in." He had a long pause, and even though he wasn't eating carrots or celery, it seemed like a normal pause. A few moments later, he continued, "I don't know how I got at the bottom of the stairs. I thought something was starting to chase me. As I fell down the hill, I was certain someone was chasing me. But once I hit the bottom, I started running and..." He stopped.

  Beth suddenly mumbled, "I've got it!" and everyone turned to look at her. She was holding the clear box. A key was in her hand.

  Ricky said, "I knew that they could get it eventually, Rachel." And everyone smiled.

  Ben's confusing tale didn't explain anything. Jenny's tale meant there was a ghost, but Beth's key meant--well, who knows exactly? Maybe it just meant they could have some fun. They needed some fun after this crazy night.

  And so they started to relax. Ricky brought out the booze and they pretended they were still at a party, still having a fun weekend. They didn't know how to get home. They didn't know who the fuck tied up Jenny. But they just blew off some steam and ate loads of dessert and made out with each other until someone sent them a car in the morning. Nobody died. Nothing else happened.

  I'm lying.

  But if you want to hear these words and stop now, then it might be a good time. Go get yourself an ice cream cone and don't come back ever.

  Honestly, I don't even know how you made it this far. Do you even believe in ghosts? I do, just not the kind that you might believe in. I believe in being haunted by memories and poor decisions. I think that Lucy has ghosts.