Even Jimmy looked like he’d perked up a little when they arrived at the hospital. He was able to walk without any help and didn’t grimace in pain as he slowly made his way through the E.R. doors and took a seat.
It took hours for the doctors to run their tests and check him out but nobody could find any answers. “You might just have some inflammation,” the doctor said at last. All the kids were crowded into the exam room with Jimmy and Jenny. They were bored and tired but all were still in amazingly good spirits. Mary had cleaned out the truck and found a few dollars in change. They’d used it to buy all kinds of junk food from the vending machines and now, high on sugar, the kids were as content as they ever were.
“What can I do about inflammation doc?” Jimmy asked. Thanks to the morphine and Xanax he was feeling better than he had in more than a week.
“I can give you some stronger pain medication and that should help. Use it sparingly though,” he cautioned. “Just take it when you feel the pain is coming on stronger. You should clear up in a few days.”
Although they were down to their last little bit of money Jenny swung by the grocery store. By then she was too tired and weak to go in herself so she handed the wad of cash to Mary and told her to shop wisely. “You know what all we need. Don’t buy a lot of junk,” she said. As Mary started off with the others in tow she could still hear Jenny holler, “But don’t forget the Ale–8s.”
It turned out that twenty–five dollars didn’t buy a whole lot of food for seven people. She managed to load up on spaghetti potatoes, milk, eggs, and bread though and that would last them for awhile. The kids were getting cranky, with Candy and Bobby crying for candy bars and colas by the time they left. Even though Mary had snapped at them more than once and was nervous about not having enough money on her she was still feeling better than she did inside their house. She hated to go home.
From the outside, their house looked the same. The only thing different was that Lulu was pacing slowly back and forth in front of the porch, growling lowly and shaking her head from side to side.
“You think she’s hurt?” Bobby asked, afraid to get too close to her.
“I don’t think so,” Jenny replied weakly. “Probably after a rabbit or something trapped under the porch. Mary, can you bring the groceries in? I’m too tired.”
Mary noticed the note sticking on their front door first. “Daddy, somebody left something here for us.”
“What is it baby?” he asked. He’d slumped into the swing, too tired to make it on inside just yet.
Mary took the note from the door and opened it up. “It’s from Uncle Brian,” she said and began reading to herself.
A few lines into it she let out a horrible, strangled sound and let the note drop from her fingers. The others watched it as it floated to the ground like a feather. Mary stood still, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide.
“What is it?” Jenny asked, on the verge of exasperation.
“It’s–it’s–“ Mary couldn’t get the words out. Saying them would make it real.
Bending over with effort, Jenny picked the sheet of paper up and began reading it aloud.
“Stopped by but you were out. June Bug was hit by a car in the road today. Spent all day in the hospital but she didn’t make it. Please call. Sherry needs you guys right now. Love, Brian.”
Jimmy let out a noise that sounded like something between a sob and a scream. It got lost in his throat and when he swallowed it, it tore an awful hole in his stomach. Bending over from the pain he began to weep loudly, pulling at his hair and stomping his feet on the ground.
Mary and Brenda fell to the dirt and clung to each other, crying aloud. Tears were not enough. Natalie, stunned, quietly turned and walked to the big tree. Nobody said anything as she climbed to the top.
“That baby?” Bobby whispered. “That little baby’s dead?”
“Who dead Mommy? Who dead?” Candy clambered onto the porch and pawed at Jenny’s jean shorts.
“It’s okay baby,” Jenny cried as she reached down and scooped her little one up. She held her tightly, drawing in a whiff of her baby scent and burying her head in her hair. “It’s okay.”
Together they stayed outside, crying and whispering amongst themselves. June Bug was barely three years old. They lived on a road with hardly any traffic and had been there for years. Why now? None of them wanted to think about the awful noises she’d made the day before, or how Jimmy had pressed them to go to their preacher.
Still in shock, it was Mary who finally remembered the groceries. “I’d better get the milk and beef inside before it spoils,” she whispered about an hour later.
Jenny nodded numbly. “Guess we’d better go back out in a little bit and head over to Sherry’s,” she said without any emotion.
Mary tried to imagine what she’d say to her aunt and uncle when she saw them, what she’d feel when she saw the little casket of her cousin. She’d never been to a kid’s funeral before. She knew that kids died but they weren’t supposed to. Jesus was supposed to protect the little kids.
Jenny and Jimmy headed on into the house, leaving Mary to organize the kids. She handed each one a bag and then hopped from the truck bed, trying to figure out what she could make for dinner. She knew they had to eat, even if they didn’t feel like it now.
As the last one in the house, she was the last to see what had happened. She’d thought nothing else could possibly go wrong, not with the news of June Bug’s death. She was wrong.
The others stood in stunned silence, staring at the middle of the floor. The kids had dropped their bags and now a can of corn was rolling towards the staircase. “Be careful,” she snapped, reaching for the carton of eggs from Bobby and hoping none of them had broken.
But then she stopped when she saw what they were all looking at.
The gold and wooden crosses were no longer on their respective walls. Instead, they were lying in the middle of the floor, broken in half. In their place was a smear of red, thick and shiny. Mary watched as it ran down the wall, leaving a line of scarlet behind, and pooled on the floor below.
The crosses weren’t the only things to suffer, however. Last year a bunch of boys in Mary’s class had gotten in trouble for making spit wads and throwing them on the ceilings. She remembered how those wadded up papers looked like rough snowballs. Now it looked like the living room floor was littered with them. The paper was everywhere–on top of the television, on the couch, on the bottom stairs, and all over the floor.
When she reached down and picked one up close to her shoe she carefully smoothed it out. She read aloud the first thing that caught her eye: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Ephesians 6:11.”
It was then that everyone realized that the shredded terrible mess they were standing in was the pages from their family Bible.
“Vandals,” her father spat in disgust. “Some damn kids coming in and trying to make trouble.”
Mary remembered his words much later that night as she lay there in the dark, trying hard to fall asleep. They’d spent the evening at her aunt and uncle’s house, doing their best to console them. She’d helped clean their bathroom while Natalie and Brenda had picked up the living room and vacuumed, getting ready for the guests they were sure to have. Everyone had moved like a robot, nobody saying much of anything. The grown–ups’ eyes were all dull and almost scary looking. She didn’t like looking at them. Sherry had sat in the corner of the living room, holding June Bug’s teddy bear to her chest. She still had some faint streaks of blood across her arm but she wouldn’t let anyone wash it off of her.
And now, at night, she thought about their living room. Her father firmly believed that some kids had broken in, slapped some paint on the floor and torn things up. She wanted to think he was right, wanted to believe that it was someone who had done those things and not something.
But she didn’t know. The stuff on the wall hadn’t looked like any ki
nd of paint she’d ever seen before. She’d never seen those kinds of symbols or words either. They looked like something she’d seen in her history book from Egypt or something. As she’d scrubbed at it with a sponge it had sprang a sickly tart smell, something she recognized but couldn’t put her finger on. Her tummy had gone a little funny then and she’d almost thrown up. Brenda wouldn’t get anywhere near it, although Candy was mighty interested and kept toddling over and trying to touch it with her chubby fingers. Mary had shooed her away more than once, horrified at what might happen if it got on her baby sister.
Natalie’s warm body beside her was comforting. Her breath was soft and the rise and fall of her body made Mary feel less alone. She hated being the only one awake but she didn’t want to waken the others. She could tell that she was the only one in the house awake. Sometimes at night she could hear her parents whispering down the hall. They used soft voices to keep the others from hearing but their voices still carried through the old walls. And sometimes she could hear the squeaks of their bedsprings. It embarrassed Laura to hear it but Mary didn’t mind. To her it meant they loved each other and were happy and that’s what mattered most. (Not that she ever wanted to walk in on it and see it, like Natalie had done once.)
Tonight the whole house was quiet and there wasn’t a single sound other than their fan, not even the chirping of a cricket or the flutter of bat wings against the windows. They’d put up some wax paper where the glass was broken and the bats seemed to like that. They were always flying up against it and trying to poke their way through it.
Mary was just about asleep, somewhere in that twilight period, when a sound in the darkness wakened her. The room was pitch black, the moon hidden by the clouds and blocking out any light. The fan whirled at the foot of their bed, a rhythmic sound that Mary kind of liked. That wasn’t what woke her up, though.
Somewhere over by the other bed currently occupied by Brenda and Candy was a humming noise, like the VCR was overheating and needed to be turned off. Mary propped herself up on her elbows and looked around, her eyes straining in the dark. She couldn’t see a darn thing, not even the outlines of Candy and Brenda.
“Brenda,” she whispered loudly. “Brenda, do you hear that?”
Brenda stirred in her sleep and groaned. Mary’s stuffed teddy bear was still in bed with her. She could hardly sleep without it, even though she knew it was kind of babyish. Picking him up now she tossed him hard in Brenda’s direction.
“Hey,” Brenda yelped. Mary could hear the covers rustling and knew Brenda was awake now. “What did you do that for?”
“Just listen,” Mary hissed. “Do you hear that?”
Both girls were quiet, tuning their ears to the sound. The hum rose louder now, whirring and droning forcefully. “What is that?” Brenda asked, her voice shaking. Mary could hear the fear rising in her voice and felt a little guilty for waking her up.
“Did you leave something plugged in?” Mary asked.
“No!”
Suddenly, the humming stopped and they were left with nothing but the sound of the fan. Mary was able to fall back to her pillow when Brenda gasped and then moaned a little.
Although the room was still as dark as it could be, two red lights materialized by the chest of drawers by Brenda and Candy. They were faint at first, two pinpricks that were barely distinguishable. Mary thought her eyes might be playing tricks on her so she closed them and scrubbed her hands over them. When she opened them, however, the lights were still there and they seemed to be directed at the girls’ beds. As the girls watched in dismay the tiny lights grew brighter and more intense, seemingly hovering in midair. The scarlet lights bore into them, slicing through Mary and making her tingle deep inside. She could feel her heartbeat quicken, her skin grow hot, and a sharp pain digging into her stomach. The hairs on her head were moving, like something was crawling through it and she frantically raked her hands through her curls in an attempt to get it out.
“Eyes, it’s eyes,” Brenda shrieked. Panicked, Brenda jumped from her bed and ran, stumbling in the darkness and landing on Bobby, waking him.
“Hey,” he cried. “Get off me.”
Brenda sniveled and cried but Mary couldn’t take her eyes from the lights. They did look like eyes and they were looking right back at her. Nearly frozen in fear now she tried to get up but couldn’t. She was rooted to her mattress, bound to Natalie’s sleeping figure. Feeling as though she had no other options left, she silently began praying to herself. “Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
Across from her, Candy began making the horrible gurgling sound that June Bug had made just the day before. Brenda cried out again, this time a muffled sound as though her head was buried in a blanket.
With new strength, Mary spoke her words aloud now. On and on she repeated the prayer as quickly as she could, saying the words over and over again by instinct. Her heart pounding, sweat rolling down her face, she forced herself to continue, to pray away whatever was there in the room with them. Something was squeezing her chest in a vise but she ignored it and focused on breathing in and out. She could feel the air around her change, grow thicker and darker. Candy continued to choke and gurgle, fighting against whatever was hovering over her. Something continued to probe at Mary, prickling at her mind as though trying to get inside. Her scalp still tingling like there were a million little bugs crawling around through her hair but she refused to touch it, instead keeping her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
Brenda and Bobby began praying along with her now, their voices blending together and touching one another in the darkness. They were linked even though they couldn’t see one another. Hearing her brother and sister gave Mary extra strength and so she prayed louder, staring at the two lights as she did so. Their voices swelled and filled the room, waking Natalie who sat up in bed in confusion and then gasped when she saw the crimson glows. She buried her head under the covers and wrapped her skinny arms around Mary’s waist, burrowing as deeply into the bed as she could. Their voices carried down the hallway where they woke Jimmy and Jenny. Mary could hear them rushing towards their bedroom door but she forced the sounds out, intent on her prayers.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two that passed but they would all later say it felt like an eternity. When she thought she couldn’t stand another moment without screaming, the bedroom door flew open, the air around her cleared and the bloodshot beams disappeared, fading into the night.
Day 6
Mary was the first one up.
She slid out of bed, got dressed, and made her way downstairs. It was earlier than she usually woke up and the dew was still on the grass when she went out to feed Lulu. For a moment she stood on the porch and let the cool air wrap itself around her. Gentle fog was rolling off the fields as the sun burnt it away. Off in the distance she could see cows grazing and a farmer pulling his tractor across a field. It really was pretty out there where they lived and the house was just the right size. If only it weren’t so dang scary.
Jenny got up next, but Mary had already started breakfast. Letting her do the work, Jenny sat down at the table, her hands wrapped around a hot cup of coffee. She looked tired and fifteen years older but at least she could keep food down now.
“I’m worried about your daddy,” she said at last. “He just ain’t doing so good.”
“What do you think it is?” Mary asked, popping bread in the toaster.
“I think it’s this house is what I think. It got his back and it made me sick. I don’t want it getting to you kids next.”
Mary shuddered. She thought about telling Jenny what happened the night before but she didn’t even want to think about that. She was trying to forget it ever happened. Natalie, Brenda, and Bobby came down later, just a few minutes apart. The kids all sat down around the table, waiting patiently for their food. Nobody spoke.
Finally, Jenny looked at them and asked, “Where’s Candy?”
“She’s still in bed aslee
p,” Brenda answered. “I tried to wake her up but she wouldn’t.”
A flash of fear shot through Jenny’s eyes. In what looked like one fluid movement she was up on her feet and flying through the rooms. Mary could hear her taking the stairs two at a time. Beating herself up for not checking on Candy before she came downstairs, Mary slumped against the refrigerator door. What if Candy was hurt or sick? What if she was…dead? Little kids like that couldn’t just die in their sleep could they?
Fear grew sickeningly in her belly and acrid bile rose up her throat. She gagged on it a little and then spat it out in the sink. Visions of Candy, blue and cold, danced in her head. Her little sister could be a pain, but she loved her.
When Jenny appeared what felt like hours later, Mary was relieved to see Candy in her arms. Her eyes were open and she was alert, scanning the room and letting her gaze land on each of her siblings.
Jenny, however, was pale. Her eyes were bright and shiny and her lips trembled as she sat Candy down at the table. Mary noticed a long, thin scratch on Jenny’s cheek then. It was oozing blood in little droplets and running down to her jawline.
“What happened? Are you okay?” Mary asked, reaching for a piece of paper towel.
“Candy did it,” Jenny replied. She took the offered paper and dabbed at her cheek, leaving a smear of blood behind. “Just reached out her hand and scratched me. I gave her a spanking but she never even cried.”
“What did you do that for?” Mary asked Candy. The toddler gazed at her quizzically but did not answer. There was something different about her, something Mary couldn’t put her finger on. Candy was usually bubbly, laughing and talking at the table and sometimes singing the Smurf song. Today she was quiet and reserved. Mary knew it was crazy but she thought Candy somehow looked older. But that didn’t make any sense at all.
Two Weeks: A True Haunting (True Hauntings Book 3) Page 6
