Sick House

by Jeff Strand

  "Of course."

  "I can't promise that it'll be quick and easy. I could jab a bone through your eyeball and into your brain, but I think I'm leaning more toward very slowly slashing your throat. Not too drawn out, but sufficiently horrible."

  Boyd didn't know what to say. He couldn't fight back. Couldn't run. He certainly didn't want to amuse the asshole by begging for his life.

  There was absolutely nothing he could do.

  Except...pretend that he didn't see Adeline at the top of the stairs.

  She was holding a fire extinguisher. Though Boyd didn't know what she intended to do with it, he was confident that she'd worked out an awesome plan.

  Boyd had let out many winces of pain since the torture process began, but his next wince was the loudest one yet, on purpose. "Enough!" he said. "I can't take this shit any more! Just kill me, for God's sake! Just jam it into the back of my neck and be done with it!"

  "Didn't we just finish discussing this?"

  "It's not going to work, you know."

  "What's not?"

  "The ritual."

  "You don't know anything about the ritual besides what I've told you. What are you trying to do, distract—?"

  It would've been far too much to hope for that Adeline could've actually snuck all the way down the stairs without Maddox noticing. In fact, she didn't even make it down the first step. But once he glanced up at her, Adeline ran down the stairs and let loose with the fire extinguisher, blasting both of them.

  Boyd didn't know if it had an impact on the ghost. It would be delightful to think that the ghosts disintegrated upon being sprayed, but it was unlikely that there was any kind of physical effect. It was a pretty good distraction, though.

  Time to summon that burst of strength.

  Boyd crawled up the stairs as quickly as he could. It hurt like hell to move that rapidly, but this pain was a lot more bearable than spending more time in the basement with Maddox. Adeline kept blasting the ghost with the extinguisher. Presumably she couldn't blind something that didn't have corporeal eyes, meaning that Maddox wouldn't claw at his face screaming, "You've blinded me! You bitch, you've blinded me!" But if she could confuse and disorient him for a few seconds, that might be enough.

  Boyd smashed his already-bleeding chin against one of the steps. He knew he was in very, very bad shape when he accidentally hit his face while crawling up stairs.

  The whoosh of the fire extinguisher turned to a sputter. Was it really empty already? Hadn't Jack checked that?

  Adeline flung the extinguisher at Maddox. Boyd didn't look back, but he assumed that it passed harmlessly through the ghost. Adeline grabbed Boyd's hands and helped him race up the stairs, then slammed the door.

  Boyd wanted to give her a hug. That wasn't part of her plan. She sprinted to their bedroom door and knocked. "It's us! Let us in!"

  The dismembered ghost stood in the living room, looking like it was unsuccessfully trying to pull a couch. Had the entire ceiling collapsed? Boyd had thought it had been a rather eventful day for him personally, but apparently he'd missed out on some stuff.

  The bedroom door opened.

  Adeline and Boyd rushed inside and pulled the door closed.

  "Push everything you can in front of the door!" said Adeline. "Here, we'll start with the bed." Adeline, Paige, and Naomi began to scoot the bed across the room, while Boyd braced himself against the wall to keep from passing out.

  He was covered in his own blood, but he didn't think he was going to die.

  At least, not soon.

  Of course, there was no reason to believe that they'd be free anytime soon.

  * * *

  Once the bed was in place, and a dresser was stacked on top of it, there was time for hugs. Simulated hugs, anyway—Boyd was too torn up to want his loved ones to actually squeeze him. One of Naomi's standard hugs might have legitimately killed him.

  "So do we have a plan of action beyond this?" he asked.

  Adeline shook her head. "No. I'd like to say that we can just wait for help, but..."

  "We murdered a police officer," said Paige.

  "What?"

  "That's not what she means," said Adeline. "But a police officer died trying to rescue us."

  "How?"

  Adeline shared a tale of cars crashing through walls and corrosive ooze eating away members of law enforcement. Boyd felt sick to his stomach, both because an innocent man had died and because this seemed to mean there was no way out. The house was completely sealed.

  "People outside have to be able to do something, don't they?" he asked. "I mean, what would happen if they took a great big wrecking ball and knocked off the roof? Would that gunk seal the whole thing up?"

  "No idea," said Adeline. "I think the ghosts will find a way in here before somebody decides to knock off the roof. My big concern is that somebody outside could try something a little less drastic and have the same thing happen to them that happened to the cop."

  Boyd sighed. He hadn't even considered that more innocent people could die trying to save them. Hopefully the circumstances of the cop's death were bizarre enough to keep anybody from coming too close.

  "So we just wait?" asked Boyd.

  "I'm not going to wait," said Paige. "I'm going to break a hole through the wall. Maybe they all don't work the same way. I won't put my hand through it or anything."

  "It's too dangerous," said Adeline.

  "It didn't squirt out at him. It poured straight down. If I'm careful and know what to expect, I'll be fine."

  "You just said that maybe they don't all work the same way."

  Paige frowned. "All right. But I don't want to sit around until they get us."

  "I don't either," said Adeline. "We'll figure something out. For now, let's get your father patched up."

  Fortunately, their bathroom was connected to the bedroom. It wasn't a fully stocked pharmacy, but there were plenty of bandages to go around. Boyd did not scream when the antiseptic was applied to his wounds. He did shed a few tears, and felt no shame about his daughters seeing him cry.

  "Do you hear that?" asked Adeline.

  "Hear what?"

  She looked up. "Sounds like a helicopter."

  "Attention," said a megaphone-amplified voice from outside. "This is the police. Come out of the residence with your hands in the air. I repeat, come out of the residence with your hands in the air."

  "So," said Adeline. "Did things just get better for us, or a lot worse?"

  * * *

  Gina Atherton was enjoying a hot cup of decaffeinated coffee as she watched Parks and Recreation on television. Binge watching, her nephew Danny had said it was called. She'd never been much of a TV viewer, but being able to choose whatever show she wanted to see, instead of being at the mercy of the programming schedule, and being able to watch all of the episodes in order from the beginning made her truly appreciate the almost magical innovations in technology. Granted, it meant that she was on her sofa watching her sixth hour of TV instead of going out and doing things, but she'd never been a terribly social person anyway.

  When her phone rang, she almost ignored it, but a picture of Jack Ponter appeared on the screen. (Being able to see a picture of whoever was calling her was a wonderful thing. She had no idea how Danny set that up.) She didn't feel like talking to Jack, but he probably needed approval on something for the rental house, and she wasn't going to shirk her duties.

  "Hello, Jack," she said, answering it. She wondered if he was surprised that she knew it was him. Most likely not; he was younger than her and probably knew all about the things you could do with cellular telephones.

  "Hi, Gina. Sorry to bother you."

  "It's no problem at all. How can I help you?"

  "I don't think there's anything either of us can do about it, but police have surrounded the house you rented to the Gardner family..."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  When Gina arrived ten minutes later, Jack, along with numerous reporters and var
ious onlookers, was already standing just outside of a barricade that the police had set up outside of the house. Inside the barricade were at least six police cars and a fire truck. A helicopter circled overhead.

  "What on earth is happening in there?" she asked him. "Why does the house look like that?"

  "I have no idea," Jack admitted. "They can't get in there. Nobody inside is answering. Apparently a cop died—look, you can see the back half of his car."

  Gina narrowed her eyes. A police car was indeed imbedded in the front of her house, but what caught her attention was the black substance that filled in the gaps. It was as if somebody had used tar to repair the hole but forgotten to remove the automobile first.

  She didn't know what it was, but it was not natural. And if something unnatural was happening in the house...well, her night of bloody vengeance over a year ago might have come back to haunt her.

  Gina ducked underneath the yellow police tape.

  "Whoa, whoa, where are you going?" asked Jack.

  "It's my house."

  "That doesn't mean you can just walk through the barricade! It might not be safe!"

  Gina ignored him and kept walking. An officer immediately accosted her. "Stay behind the tape, please, ma'am."

  "It's my house."

  "Come with me, please."

  The officer led her to a gray-haired, tired-looking man with a megaphone. Gina doubted that the cup of coffee he was drinking was decaf.

  "This woman says it's her house," said the officer.

  The man nodded, gulped down some of his coffee, and looked at Gina. "So maybe you can tell me what the hell is happening in there?"

  "Unfortunately, I can't. But I'd like to go inside and find out."

  "We can't get inside. A neighbor says that one of my men tried to shoot through a window and it sealed back up. The people in there aren't talking any more, but apparently they said not to touch the door. Until we find out what that stuff is around the car, we're not taking any chances."

  "I'll take the chance." Gina headed for the house.

  "Hey!" The man grabbed her by the arm. "You're not going in there."

  "Are you really going to physically restrain an old woman?" Gina tugged her arm away from him. "Are you going to shoot me in the back?"

  "You're not that old."

  "Thank you."

  "But I can't let you go in there."

  "I'm not asking you to give me your blessing. I'd just like you not to tackle me or shoot me." Gina resumed walking toward the house. She felt confident that they would not open fire on her, though if somebody chose to drag her away, there was only so much resistance she could put up.

  She made it all the way to the front door.

  "Hold up, everyone," said the man into the megaphone. Gina assumed he was the police chief, but she wasn't an expert on who got to hold the megaphone. "Ma'am, please be careful."

  Gina opened the front door.

  What the hell had they done to her property? It looked terrible from the outside, but she hadn't expected the entire living room ceiling to have crashed to the floor! This was going to cost a fortune to repair! Goddamned tenants.

  Now she was just trying to fool herself into thinking that this damage was caused by excessive partying, instead of something sinister. She closed the door behind her. If things inside this house were as bad as she suspected, she might not want witnesses.

  "Hello?" she called out.

  Somebody answered with a choking noise.

  It was the tall bald one. Cliff Fletcher. The one she'd forced to drown himself in the koi pond. She didn't know if he was a ghost or an astral projection or what, but she could see right through him.

  This was unexpected.

  As she stared at him, he filled in a bit. Became slightly less transparent. She could still see through him, but not quite as clearly as a few seconds ago.

  He seemed to notice this as well. He held his hand up in front of his face, then reached down with both hands and pulled a couch out away from the door of what had been her guest room.

  The door swung open. Hector Clarke, the thin man whose arms, legs, and head she'd chopped off, emerged. "Hey, did things suddenly get easier for you, too?" he asked.

  Cliff pointed at Gina. Hector broke into a huge grin.

  "It's her! Oh my God, it's her! I can't believe it! Hey, bitch, I think your presence just made us stronger!"

  Gina decided that it was time for her to leave now. She'd assumed that the gentlemen she'd so brutally murdered were responsible for what was happening to the house, but she hadn't expected to actually see them.

  She turned around, grabbed the doorknob, and yelped at a sensation that was like getting stung by twenty wasps at once. It left a thick, black burn mark on her palm.

  She wasn't trapped in here, was she? She couldn't be.

  Okay, just because the doorknob hurt to turn didn't mean it wouldn't turn at all. She picked up a wad of pink insulation and used it to protect her hand as she grabbed the doorknob again.

  It didn't work. It hurt every bit as much this time, and though she forced herself to withstand the pain for several seconds, the doorknob would not budge.

  She should not have closed the door behind her.

  "Nobody gets out," said Hector. "Not even you, apparently."

  "Is somebody inside the house?" a woman's voice called out. It sounded like she was behind a closed door in the hallway. Gina had never spoken to her, but presumably this was Adeline Gardner. Gina hoped so; she didn't want any more participants in this nightmare.

  Gina wasn't much of a runner. This was a good time to start.

  She ran. The murderers followed.

  "It's Gina Atherton!" she shouted. "I'm the owner! Let me in!"

  She could hear the sound of furniture being moved. But not nearly quickly enough. She ran into the room next to it instead, slamming the door and locking it. Thank God that doorknob hadn't behaved like the other one. Apparently only doors leading to the outside were supernaturally booby-trapped.

  "Don't open the door!" she shouted. "They were right behind me!"

  "Can you help us?" Adeline asked.

  Gina didn't have a good answer for that. She supposed that she was more valuable than some random person off the street, but she wasn't some amazing spellcaster who used witchcraft on a daily basis. Her sister had been the expert. Gina had never imagined that these three men would return, and she couldn't just snap her fingers and send them back.

  "Maybe," she said.

  There was a black spot on the wall next to the door that she hadn't noticed before. No, wait, now there were two. And they were getting bigger.

  "They're rotting our wall!" said Adeline.

  Ah, so that's what was happening. Wonderful.

  If she'd known that she was going to get trapped inside the house with the three men she'd killed, Gina would have taken the time to formulate a plan before walking through the front door. She had some ideas on how to proceed, but they were all extremely flawed.

  "Mine, too," said Gina. She wished she could speak privately with the family instead of having to be loud enough to be heard through the wall. "I'll meet you in the basement."

  She didn't want to leave the relative safety of the bedroom this soon, but at least she'd sort of have the element of surprise if she left now instead of waiting for the wall to fall apart. She opened the door and ran out into the hallway. Hector tried to grab her but missed. He tried again, and this time his arm stretched out. Well, no, his arm stayed the same length, but whatever that red crap was that held his body parts to his torso stretched.

  By chopping him to pieces, Gina had basically given him super ghost powers. What a treat.

  The other bedroom door opened. The Gardners emerged, and they looked like they'd gone through a war. The father, Boyd, looked particularly bad, but the older girl might have lost an eye. This wasn't Gina's fault. There was no way she could have known. She'd banished three psycho killers from the earth. Thirst f
or vengeance aside, she was trying to save their future victims. She refused to accept the blame for what was happening here.

  Hector was blocking her path to the living room, but luckily Gina wasn't trying to go in that direction. Much more problematic: Fletcher, who'd apparently been the one rotting the wall to the other bedroom, was blocking the path to the basement.

  Even more problematic: their leader, Maddox, who looked as hideous in ghost form as he did when she'd buried him, was also in the hallway, standing behind Fletcher.

  One ghost to the left, two ghosts to the right...

  "Well, well, well," said Maddox. "I didn't think we'd see you here. I thought we'd have to break into your home at night."

  The ghosts were closing in.

  "Can they physically hurt us?" Gina asked Boyd. He was covered in blood, so it had been a silly question.

  The most obvious course of action was to go right the hell back into the bedrooms, but if the ghosts could get through the wall, that was far too temporary of a solution.

  Gina had no power over these men.

  But did they know that?

  "Stop!" she shouted at them, holding up her hand. "Come one step closer and I will send you back!"

  All three of the ghosts stopped.

  "You may have found a way to escape your torment, but I'll return you there if you don't cooperate! Is that what you want? Do you want more hellish torture, or do you want to get the fuck out of our way?"

  "Why are you here?" asked Maddox.

  "I'm here to work out an arrangement with these nice people. They aren't part of this."

  "Yes, they are. An important part."

  Gina shook her head. "You've got it wrong. You're trying to return to physical bodies, right?"

  "That's right."

  "You don't need them. There's another way."

  "Which is...?"

  "Which is to get the fuck out of our way, like I said." Gina considered waving her hand in the air, as if she was about to cast a spell, but decided that would be overselling it.