“Hank.”
“That’s the one.” Moving away from the broken fryer, she smiled at Anna. “He’s a hunk of a man, isn’t he?”
“He’s okay, I guess,” Anna lied, not willing to have that conversation. “Belle told me you might have some work for me to do.
“Sure thing,” she nodded, allowing for the change in topic, “I’m making some more desserts for this evening.”
“Oooh, what kind of desserts?” she asked, feeling her stomach rumble. She hadn’t had anything to eat since early that morning.
“Fried pies,” Val smiled, knowing it was one of Anna’s favorites.
“Chocolate?”
“And fruit.” She moved over to where she’d laid out the dough for the next batch. “These are one of our most popular desserts, and they keep well throughout the evening, so it’s easy to make them ahead of time.”
Oh, how she’d missed Valerie’s cooking. Without her, she and Belle probably wouldn’t have eaten—or if they did, they would have sustained themselves on boxed cereal and toaster pastries.
“Do you remember how to make these?”
“You’ll need to remind me what to do, but I think I’ll remember as we go along.”
“I already have one batch ready to go in the deep fryer, and luckily we have one that still works.” She motioned to the small pocket sized pies, uncooked, already laid out. “Those ones are apple. I was just about to mix up the chocolate filling next. Do you want to do that while I fry these?”
“Sure thing.”
“It’s easy. Just sugar, cocoa, and butter.”
Anna’s mouth was already watering. “On it,” she announced, stepping up to the bowl. Scooping in the sugar and unsweetened cocoa, she blended the two until evenly distributed. Next, she picked up the butter. “Where is the microwave for this?”
“Oh, we don’t melt the butter in the microwave, we do it on the stove.” She set out a pot on one of the burners next to the deep fryer and turned the heat on low. “Put the butter in there.”
Anna obeyed, dropping it in. After a few short minutes, the butter had turned to liquid and she removed it from the stove and poured it into the sugar and cocoa combination. Mixing the ingredients, it slowly formed a dark chocolaty paste.
“Okay, this is ready.”
“Lovely, honey,” Valerie praised her, removing the basket from the fryer and setting it in the holder to cool. “Now, let’s fill us some pies.”
Walking over, she showed Anna how to roll out the individual parts of the dough into perfect circles. “Now, put a small amount of the chocolate filling inside each one,” she instructed, spooning some over one of the pies. “Then get your fingers slightly wet, run them along the edges, and fold the crust in half.
Anna obeyed, doing the same thing she saw Valerie doing.
“Last, seal the edges with a fork, but make sure it looks pretty.”
Both women pressed the edges with the fork prongs, giving the uncooked pies a nice aesthetic. Val moved across the room and began laying the already cooked pies on a sheet to finish cooling. They were perfectly golden brown and filled the room with a wonderfully sweet scent.
“Could you grab the powdered sugar out of the pantry?” she asked. “To sprinkle over the top while they’re still hot.”
“Where’s the pantry?”
Val pointed at the large wooden door that stood ajar across the room. Anna walked over and stepped inside the pantry. She was instantly overwhelmed by the size of it, almost as big as a bedroom, and lined with shelf after shelf of dried goods.
After scanning around, she found what appeared to be a shelf of baking products—bags and cans of cocoa, white sugar, flour, baking powder, etc. The powdered sugar had to be here somewhere.
Standing on her tippy-toes she reached up and fumbled around with the products, pushing some aside until she found something that resembled powdered sugar. Pulling a clear glass container with a white powder towards her, she noticed there was no label on it at all but looked like there had been one previously. A sticky residue was the clue.
“Looks like powdered sugar,” she whispered to herself, unscrewing the lid to smell the contents.
As the lid finally came off, a plume of the white dust came out like a cloud and right into her face. She gasped, feeling her sinuses suddenly tingle painfully and her body go rigid. She tried to cough, but her body wouldn’t let her.
She panicked as her breath stopped coming in and out, caught somewhere in her chest. Her vision started closing in around her, and everything went black.
CHAPTER 8
The scream from downstairs tore Belle completely away from what she was doing at the computer. Leaping up from the chair, she charged through the skinny black hallway and down the stairs.
“Val? Anna?”
“Belle, get in here quick.”
Dashing through the kitchen door, she spotted Val bent over in the pantry door. Then she saw her sister laying on the ground, a broken jar of white powder all over the floor.
“What happened?” she gasped.
“I don’t know. I sent her to get some powdered sugar. The next thing I knew I heard a jar break and came and found her like this.”
Squatting down near her, Belle felt her sister’s skin. It was cold and clammy. “Anna? Anna, can you hear me?” She felt for a pulse.
“Is she okay?” Val asked.
Leaning in as a one last ditch effort, she felt and listened for a breath.
“Call an ambulance,” she ordered. “She isn’t breathing.”
* * *
Anna was in a strange, dark place she hardly recognized.
“Where am I?” she whispered, trying to squint and see her surroundings. Slowly, as if someone was using a dimmer switch to turn up the lights, she found herself in the middle of a tiny spit of land in the bayou. Night engulfed the land around her, masking it in its eerie darkness.
Moss covered trees looked more like reaching arms, and the water looked like black puddles into an unknown abyss.
“Hello?” she shouted over the dull thrum of night sounds. “Anyone there?”
No human voice responded. Only the low howl of the wind through the trees, and the sound of the insects and birds.
“Looks like I’ll have to get out of this myself,” she muttered, looking for the best spot to leap across the water and onto another piece of land.
Carefully, she made each step and jump over the murky landscape, hoping she was heading the correct direction to find civilization. As she made her way into the distance, she spotted shadows on the horizon that looked like buildings.
“Ah, thank heaven,” she whispered, quickening her pace.
Closer and closer, the shadows seemed to grow until finally she emerged among them.
Gasping, she realized it wasn’t buildings at all. It was a graveyard. Mausoleums stood close together, creating a city for the dead who resided there.
In the distance came the low sound of drums on the air.
Anna’s heart quickened its pace. She absolutely hated graveyards. The idea of dead bodies all around her made her sick to her stomach. Turning, she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but soon realized that she was rooted in place.
“What’s going on?” she moaned frightenedly. Looking down, she let out a shrill scream when she realized an arm had sprouted from a doorway of the nearest mausoleum and had a hold of her.
All around her, arms began popping out. Some from the ground beneath her feet, some from the doors of the mausoleums, and some—impossibly—through the stone walls.
“No, no!” she screamed as the arms all began reaching for her. “Let me go. Let me go.”
The drums across the bayou grew louder, like a symphony to usher in the dead.
Realizing she was beginning to sink into the soppy, wet earth, her struggle became more frantic. The mud beneath her feet bubbled around her shoes and up her ankles.
“Help me, please someone help,” she scr
eamed, making herself hoarse. It was no use. She was going down.
“No, no, no,” she moaned. “Don’t bury me.
“I’m not dead!”
CHAPTER 9
Anna’s screams filled the pantry as she sat bolt upright, squirming like she was trying to escape the clutches of death itself.
“Anna, Anna,” Belle shouted, grabbing hold of her sister in a tight hug. “You’re okay. I’m here. I’m here.”
Slowly, Anna stopped her screaming and blinked a few times, taking in her full surroundings. “W-Where am I?”
“You’re here in the pantry at my drive-in,” she hushed her. “We thought you were dead.”
Anna felt her stomach do a flip-flop. “S-so did I.”
“Oh, thank goodness you’re okay,” Val interjected, stepping into the room, her cellphone in hand. “We were just about to call an ambulance.”
Anna shook her head, clearing the nightmare from her mind. “I’m okay now. No need to call anyone.”
“But you weren’t breathing,” Belle argued.
“Really, don’t worry about it,” she insisted, not wanting to cause such a big problem on her first day back in town. Word would get around for sure, and she wanted to stop it if she could.
“What even happened?” Belle asked.
Her sister glanced back at the pile of glass and white powder. “I-I was looking for powdered sugar for Val. I opened a jar that I thought might be it, smelled it, and the next thing I knew I was waking up here.” She didn’t mention the nightmare, assuming it was nothing more than a brief lapse while she was out.
“You smelled the jar?” Valerie raised an eyebrow, looking at the powder on the floor.
“Well, it sort of puffed out in my face when I opened it.”
Val’s face went slack with a sense of curiosity and fear.
“A glass jar?” Belle wondered out loud. “What was it doing on that shelf?”
“Girls, come out of there, fast,” Val grabbed both of their hands and pulled them from the pantry.
“Why? What’s happening?”
Valerie shut the door of the room. “I don’t think that’s powdered sugar.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Daniel Bronson, Valerie’s husband and the police chief of Sunken Grove, arrived at the drive-in with a black backpack, gloves, and a protective face mask in tow.
“Who would put a jar of poison in our pantry?” Belle exclaimed angrily, tapping her fingers on the bar.
“That’s what I called Dan in for, honey,” Valerie said, greeting her husband with a kiss.
“Hiya, girls,” he nodded.
They were a funny looking couple, but homey and comfortable at the same time. Both were somewhat short and pudgy. Dan, dressed in a tight fitting police uniform, was one of only two officers in the town. He was mostly bald on top, his head catching the overhead lights like a well varnished floor. In contrast to his baldness, he had a big bushy mustache. “Two weird things in one day,” he huffed curiously. “At least I get something exciting to do for once.”
“Dan,” his wife scolded, “I wouldn’t call Anna passing out something exciting, especially when she’s only been here for a few hours.”
“My apologies, dear,” he nodded. “It just seems a bit odd.”
“What else happened today?” Anna asked, cutting in.
“Oh, some traveling salesman found a body out on the bayou.”
Anna gasped. “A body?”
“Yep, and not a lick of identification on him. I’m still trying to figure out who he is or where he belongs.”
“Did you consider calling in the state police?” Val asked knowingly as if instructing him that he should do just that.
“Of course not. My first real piece of police business in years? I want to try and handle it myself.”
Valerie rolled her eyes. “If you insist.”
“Now, where is this poisonous powder?” he asked, reaching into the black bag and then brandishing a hand broom and his gloves.
“Back in the pantry, dear,” she informed him leading him from the dining room into the kitchen.
“You okay?” Belle asked her sister who was sitting at the bar having a stiff drink.
“Fine,” she nodded, tipping the glass.
“I’ll be just in there,” she told her, walking into the kitchen.
“Oh my, apple pies,” Dan was exclaiming eagerly with twinkling eyes upon seeing the desserts lined up along the counter.
“You can have one later,” his wife informed him. “But first, get rid of that horrible stuff.”
“What is it even?” Belle asked, still infuriated that someone had left it there.
“Well, Belle, Val has a hunch about it, but we can’t be sure until I’ve sent it in for some tests.”
“Sent it in?”
“Yeah, this is a small town and we don’t have a whole lot of resources at our station here. For stuff like this, we send it to the New Orleans lab for results.” He slipped the mask over his face and headed for the pantry. “Stand back, ladies.”
“How dangerous is this stuff?” she asked.
“Like Dan said,” Val reminded her, “we can’t know for sure until we get the tests back.”
Bending down, he began scooping the dust into an evidence baggie.
“But why would someone leave it in here?”
“Could be completely by accident,” Dan noted, his voice muffled from the mask.
“I’m sure that’s it,” Valerie nodded, catching her husband’s eye.
Belle got the feeling they both knew something they weren’t sharing.
“You don’t think this is somehow connected to the body you found this morning?” she asserted, worried that someone tried to murder her sister—or just as bad, herself.
“Nonsense,” Valerie squeezed the young restaurant owner’s shoulders. “How could it possibly be connected?”
Once Dan had finished sweeping up the dust, making sure he’d gotten it all, he stood up and sealed the bag. “Okay,” he announced, removing the mask. “I’d say go ahead and give the floor in here a thorough mopping, just in case I missed anything.”
“That’s it? Just mop it?”
“I’d also recommend canceling tonight’s show, just in case,” he nodded.
“Cancel the show?” she protested.
“Just in case,” he reiterated, holding up a pudgy finger.
“I agree wholeheartedly,” Val nodded.
They really were like having parents around sometimes.
“I assume you won’t have any other problems for now.” Stepping out of the closet he put the baggie in the black backpack he’d brought. Walking over to the sink, he washed his hands. “Now,” he said. “How about one of those pies?”
CHAPTER 10
As darkness fell over the sky, a low mist found its way across the drive-in parking lot and grounds, giving the whole place a spooky gothic atmosphere. It reminded Belle of another one of her favorite movies, Horror Hotel.
Tonight, however, the thought of witches and murderers was hardly the first thing she wanted in the forefront of her mind. There had been a body on the bayou and her sister had almost died.
It was almost as if some of the horrors from her favorite movies were coming alive.
Shaking her head, she rolled over in her bed to try and fall asleep. She could hear her sister’s heavy breathing in the living room. It seemed she hadn’t had any trouble falling asleep, but who could blame her after driving all night the day before and then almost dying.
Did she almost die? After all, she’d stopped breathing for a few seconds—maybe a minute. It had been one of the most frightening experiences of Belle’s life, taking second place to the moment they found out their parents had died in a car wreck.
Standing up and tiptoeing across the room, she opened the door a crack and peeked out through the opening at her slumbering sister. Another wave of emotion overcame her and she turned away from the door crying.
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She wanted Anna to stay forever, and to never leave her again. She would put up with all the annoying comments, even the harsh judgements, if it meant having her family back together.
Sighing, she decided she needed some fresh air.
Carefully and quietly opening her door all the way, she tip-toed past the pull-out couch.
Anna snorted, rolled over, but didn’t seem to wake up.
Belle sighed gratefully. Heading toward the projection booth, she glanced out the windows looking over the parking area. Something was moving among the shadows and the fog.
Stepping up to the glass, she squinted her eyes to try and see what it could possibly be.
The blacks and whites of the night made it hard to make out, but she was almost certain it was a man. Gasping quietly, she wondered if it was the person who had planted the poison in the pantry, or even worse, if they had murdered the man on the bayou.
Determined to figure out what was going on, she pulled on her rain boots over her socks and pajamas and headed out the door and down the stairs.
Walking through the kitchen, she grabbed a butcher’s knife and stepped out into the foggy darkness of the night. Keeping her eyes trained on the strange dark figure of a man, she moved toward him, brandishing the blade so that it caught the evening’s natural light.
The closer she got, the more she realized he looked vaguely familiar. His black suit and dark hair contrasted the swirling fog around him. Strangely enough, the way the fog touched him made it look almost as if his whole body were slightly transparent.
Once she was almost right up on him, she held the blade out in front of herself. “Who are you and what are you doing on my property?” she barked.
Slowly, the man turned around clearly surprised and confused by the sound of her voice.
Gasping, Belle dropped her weapon.
She was standing face-to-face with none other than Fredrick Loren—the main character from House on Haunted Hill.
CHAPTER 11
“F-F-Fredrick Loren,” she gasped, looking him up and down.
Sisterly Screams (The Dead-End Drive-In Series Book 1) Page 4
