“Oh crap,” Scotty whispered, peeking around Teddy. “There’s somebody in the truck.”
“Stay frosty, boys.” Herding them behind him, Teddy snuck closer with the flashlight out, stopping abruptly when the driver’s side door clicked open. A long squeak scratched the metal walls as the door swung outward on rusted hinges.
Without moving, the person sitting inside the cab stared straight ahead while a paralyzing mixture of fear and intrigue glued the group to the oil-stained concrete floor. Eyes barely shifting, they exchanged mystified glances and startled when a muddy loafer landed on the floor with a dull clap, stirring dust up in the light. Gavin stared at the dress shoe without bothering to breathe. Breathing and thinking were too difficult to perform simultaneously, so he concentrated on what mattered most. The other loafer dropped, joining the first. The truck dipped and a man in torn slacks and a bloodstained dress shirt pushed out of the cab. His yellow necktie was askew and Gavin could see the man’s bloated belly pushing through where two buttons had popped free. Turning to face them, he made no attempt to smooth the salt-and-pepper hair dangling in his eyes. “You here to see the house?” he asked in a hoarse voice, coughing blood onto the floor.
“Sweet gypsy,” Scotty whispered, hiding behind Teddy. “It’s the realtor!”
Gavin’s eyes widened when they found the gun hanging limply in the realtor’s hand.
“J-Just take it easy now, mister,” Teddy squeaked, flashlight trembling in his outstretched hand. “We don’t want no trouble.”
An evil grin slid through the man’s stubble, pulling back a little more on one side than the other. “Look at you, you’ll never amount to anything.” He stared hard at Gavin in particular, making him shrink into his skin. “Just like your trailer trash father.”
Swapping a quick glance with Boone, Gavin’s fist tightened around the wooden stake that was, allegedly, hand-crafted from an ash tree in Scotty’s grandmother’s backyard. There was no way the man could know about their father and it made him tremble.
“Don’t listen to him, boys,” Teddy quivered, nudging them closer to the pedestrian door they just came in through. “He’s just trying to scare you.”
The man’s face slumped in the dim light. He studied them through sorrowful eyes, jowls sagging into his neck. “There is no hope,” he said faintly. “It’s not your fault, but it is your charge to make them pay.” He grew silent, soaking up their frightened expressions. “All of them!” he shouted, sending an echo pinballing off the walls.
Scotty thrust the crucifix out around Teddy’s waist and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Half fair moon, ruler of the night; guard me and mine until the morning light!”
The realtor’s face stiffened. Stepping forward, he raised the handgun.
Instinctively, Teddy widened his stance and cocked the flashlight back. “Stay back now, mister, or I’ll crack your head wide open!”
Opening his mouth, the realtor screamed so loudly the back window of the pickup exploded, showering them with jewel-like pieces of glass. Shaking glass from his hair, Gavin spun back around to see the realtor loosening his necktie. The big man’s oily eyes glistened in the light, voice coming out as a pathetic whimper. “Forgive me,” he said, pulling the necktie off and letting it slip from his fingers to the floor. Aghast, Gavin watched the man’s head slowly slide from his shoulders with a sickening wet sound before falling to the floor with a dull thud. Bouncing like a deflated basketball, the head rolled and came to a stop against a workbench leg. The realtor watched them stare incredulously back, head leaning at an awkward angle with greasy hair hanging in his face. His eyes blinked and all Gavin could think about was how none of them even screamed. Terror strangled his voice. Revulsion stole his thoughts. The torso started walking towards him. Its arms reached out and wrapped Gavin’s coat in its fists. Without thinking, Gavin raised the stake and planted it in the man’s chest. The torso stopped on a dime. Lips moved on the decapitated head but all that came out was a thin trail of blood. The fists around Gavin’s coat loosened their grip and gravity pulled the body to join its cranium in a cloud of dust.
Bending over and planting a foot in the realtor’s bulging stomach, Gavin yanked the stake from the torso’s breastplate with a grunt. He straightened up and turned to find everyone staring at him like he was the monster here. Like he was the one to fear.
Teddy jerked the light back to the head, lighting up the man’s twitching lips. The realtor was trying to tell them something but couldn’t get it out. It almost looked like an apology but with the blood seeping out it was hard to tell. “Time to go,” Teddy said, ushering the group toward the door. “Everyone out!”
“It’s the Devil!” Scotty stared down at the man’s head, clutching the cross to his chest like a newborn. “They’re demons from Hell and we’re all gonna die,” he blubbered, backing into an old bicycle with flat tires and a wicker basket. Jumping, he spun around to face them. “Pincher’s probably already dead and those things will be in my closet when I go to bed tonight and I’m way too young to die!”
Gavin towed him toward the door on wobbly legs, desperate to clear his lungs of the stench of motor oil and blood. Something crawled across his cheek and he smacked it away so hard, he cut his lip. Outside, the sweet smell of rain and chirping crickets helped breathe some normalcy back into the world as he struggled to corral his racing thoughts. Scotty blazed past him, pacing the backyard like an expectant father and muttering unintelligible things along the way.
Teddy blew out a heavy breath that ballooned his cheeks. “We have to get to a phone and call the police,” he panted, looking over his shoulder as if he just heard something inside the machine shed. Something like the realtor coming back to life and reattaching his head with the yellow necktie. “And I mean right now.”
Boone unbuttoned his jean jacket, bangs clinging to his glistening brow. “What the hell was that!”
“That was the realtor’s ghost! Hank must’ve cut his head off with the axe when the realtor tried to kill him!” Scotty stopped pacing and stared at Gavin through the falling rain, voice dropping to an ugly whisper. “We’ll never be the same again. Will we, Gav?”
Gavin looked down at the bloody stake wrapped in his hand, the future playing out before his eyes. He looked up and swallowed against the knot of fear tightening in his throat. “No.”
“Ghost?” Teddy muttered, pulling the flask from his coat.
Scotty pointed to the outbuilding. “I bet he’s not even in there anymore! I bet he’s already disappeared. Hang on,” he said, darting back inside.
“Scotty!” Gavin said, running after him.
Boone grabbed his brother’s arm and stopped him from taking another step.
Inside the machine shed, Scotty shrieked and rushed back outside. “Nope, he’s still there.”
“Was his head still cut off?”
Scotty rapidly nodded. “Like a chicken.”
“I can’t believe it!” Boone gasped, keeping a keen eye on the open door to the shed. “That guy just undid his necktie and his head fell off. How was he walking and talking if his head was already severed?”
“Because his ghost was controlling his body,” Gavin simply replied. “Scotty is right.”
“A real life dead body!” Scotty resumed his pacing, forging trails through the stubborn grass and shaking his head. “This is horrible. Absolutely horrible.”
“And how did he know about our dad?”
Gavin’s eyes snapped to his brother, heart pounding in his ears. “I don’t know, Boone.”
“Fellas,” Teddy said, coughing into a fist. “I realize how troubling that was to watch and I’m sorry you had to see it. But I’m sure half the town’s lookin for that fella.” He thumbed to the outbuilding. “We have to call the police and tell them everything we just saw. And I mean everything.”
“We’ll get busted for trespassing,” Boone replied, pulling his hair into a ponytail. “They’ll think we killed him. Let’s just get
out of here and phone it in as an anonymous tip.”
Grimly, as if Boone didn’t need to twist his arm, Teddy shook his head no. “Nobody wants to do that more than me, Boone, but we need to tell them everything we know. It might help.”
“Even the part about us going inside the house?” Gavin asked.
Pressing his lips together, Teddy thought it over. “Naw, let’s leave that part out or they might throw me in the tank.”
Boone nearly laughed. “And what about your buddy, Hank Vorhees?”
Teddy sighed and stared at his boots. “I’m afraid we’ll have to mention that part. Bobby here might be right, Hank could’ve had something to do with that man’s death. Lord knows he wasn’t himself.”
“Exactly!” Scotty frowned at him. “And it’s Scotty, not Bobby.”
“Well, if Hank did chop his head off, he should be given a medal.” Boone thrust a finger out to the shed. “That realtor guy murdered his own family!”
“Where do we call the cops from?” Scotty asked, looking all around and twisting his fingers. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”
Tapping a finger against his lips, Teddy meditated on it for a few seconds. “I passed a gas station a few miles back on my way here.”
Scotty followed his gaze, eyebrows pulling together. “Where’re you from anyway, Teddy?”
“Me? Tulsa.”
“What’re you doing here?”
He smiled weakly. “Just goin where life takes me.”
“Is that where your family is? In Tulsa?”
Nodding, Teddy looked back down to his boots. “My daughter is married to a financial advisor who can be a real you know what at times.” A wistful sigh escaped him as he turned to the old house sitting across the yard. “Haven’t seen em for a few years, but they have a beautiful three-year-old little girl.” He smiled, a fond look softening his eyes. “Little miss Amber Lynn. Haven’t met her yet but she looks just like her mama.”
“What about your…” Boone said, swallowing what he was about to say and stuffing his hands in his coat pockets.
Teddy lifted his brow. “My wife?” His smile slipped. “Donna passed back in eighty-four,” he told them, pausing to swallow thickly. “Breast cancer.”
Boone hung his head and quietly ran a shoe back and forth through the weeds as the rain lightened up.
“Told us we had it beat, too,” he said softly, watching thin clouds pass over the rising moon. “Don’t reckon she’d be too proud of me these days but after she left, I just…” His voice cracked as he discreetly wiped a tear from his cheek.
“I’m sorry, Teddy.”
Looking up, he tried to smile at Scotty. “Me too, partner. Me too.”
An uncomfortable silence cradled them in its damp arms, smothering any further questions. Gavin glanced back at the house where the upstairs windows were watching him, calling to him. Turning back to the others, he gave his verdict. “We call the police but we don’t tell them about the weird pictures of our stuff or going inside the house.”
“Yeah,” Boone agreed, gravitating toward the tree line. “We tell em we were just screwin around in the shed for Halloween kicks, and on our way out we ran into Teddy who was supposed to meet Hank here. They’ll take our names and stories and tell us to get lost.”
Teddy tapped a finger against his mustache and eyed them over. “You fellas got any change for the phone?”
Chapter Fourteen
The Haunting of Campbell House
Present Day
My pulse pounds in the hollow of my throat and the hairs move on my arms as the cellphone rings in my ear. He has to help me. This won’t be a request. I’m a father now and I have a responsibility to protect this house. I will not – under any circumstance – let our dream home end up like that one on the outskirts of Cottage Grove. The one that killed Scotty. The one that won’t stop there. We’ve come too far to go back now and I won’t end up like that realtor. The phone rings so loudly in my ear I fumble to turn it down, wincing as another ring beats me to it, feeding the headache growing behind my right temple.
Other than get in the car and run, I don’t know what to do. Running is pointless anyway. I’ve tried that by getting as far away from Cottage Grove as humanely possible. It’s instinctive. Fight or flight. No, this time I stand my ground. There’s nowhere left to run. Lightning fractures the sky and the phone finally stops ringing. Everything gets quiet. I can hear the hum of the fridge and a lone cricket chirping somewhere in the house. My hearts sinks. He saw it was me and hit the Decline button. Then, just before pulling the phone from my ear and hanging up, I hear breathing coming through the line and pray it’s him and not his wife. If it is his wife, I’ll know he’s finished with this crap for good because that thing isn’t after him. It’s after me. But he doesn’t know that for sure. Does he? My throat makes a clicking sound when I swallow, reminding me of that…creature with those hands.
“Gavin?”
I send a sigh of relief across miles of space and time, the sound of his voice sweet music to my pulsating ears. “Yes, it’s me.”
“What’s wrong?” The tone coming through the cellphone is laced with panic and alarm, fueled by a sleepy mind unable to assemble the obvious pieces: It’s the first time he and I have spoken in ten years. At four a.m. on a Saturday. The day before the twenty-third anniversary of the worst day of our lives.
“I need your help, Pinch,” I say so quietly, it’s less than a whisper and I hate myself for not finding my voice when I need it the most. Clearing my throat, I try again. “It’s back.” If it wasn’t for the heavy breathing tickling my ear, I would’ve bet a million bucks he hung up and tried going back to sleep, which – I know from experience – would be a futile endeavor.
“Hang on.” Movement indicates his relocating to another room so as not to disturb Natalie at such an early hour on the weekend. I can picture it in my head as I wait with bated breath. If she knew I was calling – after all these years, at such an odd hour – she would smell something fishy. She wasn’t stupid. I met her when we were still taking jobs and she never did care for me. Never even made an attempt to pretend otherwise. Pincher had told her too much and, somehow, the odd looks she got at the grocery store, or the mall, or at her kids’ school were my fault. But I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to be on the front page of The Cottage Grove Gazette or appear on all those news shows. Not without Scotty.
Pincher finally spoke and when he did, there was no hiding the terror in his voice. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Swallowing thickly, I blur my coffee mug into a dark well running into the blackened pits of Hell. I pull in a deep breath to cool my overtaxed lungs and lay my cards on the table. “Three days ago, I found a penny on my doorstep.” I pause to let that sink in. “Tails up.”
Pincher’s subsequent silence was indicative of the heightened alarm quietly rising in his chest. I couldn’t hear it but I knew it was there. “What year?” His voice was stronger now, like he’d found a quieter part of the house his parents passed down to him after their oddly timed deaths. Following the passing of his elderly father, his mother died just four months later and the doctors called it Broken Heart Syndrome. I couldn’t believe Pinch still lived in that cursed town after everything that happened, but he feared change even more than the evil pooling in the corners of Cottage Grove. So, without hesitation, he moved his wife and two little girls into the house he grew up in and, now that we were no longer accepting cases, he was stuck there. We made some money over the years, sure, but it was never enough to combat the terrors waiting for us in our sleep. Last I knew, Pincher was managing a Guitar Center these days and I didn’t blame him one bit. The things that happened back then changed us. Made it difficult to focus on trivial tasks such as managing a successful career when the dead were still hijacking your mirrors.
Me? I got the hell out of Cottage Grove as soon as I graduated from CG High. I didn’t want to end up like Scotty. No way. It was bad enough
being reminded of my old friend every time I went to school or rode my bike to the park. Whenever, God forbid, I ran into his parents at the grocery store or gas station, I could see it in their eyes. Even with warm smiles painted on their faces, I could almost hear them quietly asking themselves why Scotty and not me. I had to get out of there. Thankfully, our cases continued and our credibility grew, thrusting us into the national spotlight. A few years after the fact, Boone’s New York Times bestseller, The Haunting of Campbell House, paid for my college, which, eventually, led to the family and ghost-free career I’d always dreamed about. And I’ll be damned if I let anything take that from me now.
“Gavin, what year?” Pincher asks again, stirring me from my thoughts.
“1964,” I answer, recounting how I used a Jiffy-Lube postcard from the mailbox to flip it over.
“What else?”
I expel a calming breath because I dread telling him this part the most. Because this part solidifies my tale like no other. “The Polaroid started taking pictures again.”
A frustrated sigh tails off into another bout of uneasy silence. “I told you to get rid of that thing!”
“I know,” I say, blinking a tear out. “And I’m sorry.”
Pincher grows quiet, turning something over in his head. A current of silence runs between us like electricity. “I’m coming out there,” he final says. “Today.”
Relief swamps my system and air slips back into my lungs, smelling sweeter than ever before. “Thank you.”
“What about Boone and Teddy?”
“Boone’s already in the air and I can’t find Teddy.”
“Is he even still alive?”
“His name hasn’t been added to the Death Master File so he must be out there somewhere.”
“We’ll find him,” Pincher said, grunting as he moves something heavy. “I’ll catch a flight this morning and be there sometime this afternoon.”
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