“Ah crap!” Tipping his hat back, Gavin massaged the wrinkles from his forehead. “We have to take my bike. There’s no other choice. You’ll just have to ride on the handlebars like E.T.”
“I’ve got a better idea.”
Gavin looked over to see Catwoman and Jasmine stroll from the building’s entrance, smiles lifting into their faces. Boone cranked the window down, letting in the smell of burning leaves.
“Hello, ladies,” he grinned, resting an elbow out the window. “Looking good tonight!”
“Thanks,” Laney replied, tucking a strand of long dark hair behind a cat ear. “I’ve lost circulation in my legs but at least it’s warm.”
Boone creased his brow. “Is that real leather?”
She looked down to survey her outfit. “No, it’s rubber. I made it from a gimp suit I found on clearance at the porn shop.”
“Porn shop?” His eyes slid down the slick material hugging her curvy body to the knee-high boots shaping her long legs. “Incredible,” he mumbled, making her blush.
“I on the other hand, am freezing.”
“Kelly, I told you to put a coat on,” Laney said, adjusting a pointy black mask.
“And cover all of this?” Kelly swept her arms out, exposing the midriff dividing her genie-like outfit in two. With an Aladdin bag hanging in her hand, the hint of a grin tugged at the corners of her lips. “Hi Gavin,” she sang out, staring past Boone and wiggling her fingers.
Gavin swallowed hard and shifted in the seat. “Hey.”
Laney frowned. “I thought you were going to Craig’s party tonight.”
Boone glanced at Gavin. “Yeah well, something came up,” he said, getting out of the car and thumbing to a maroon minivan parked a few spots over. “You think you could, uh, give us a quick lift somewhere?”
Laney looked at her younger sister and shrugged. “Sure. Where to?”
Chapter Twenty
Sonic and Ice Cream
“I can’t breathe back here,” Scotty whined, stuffed in the back with Teddy and Pincher. “Somebody ripped one.”
“Suck it in, Scotty,” Boone yelled over his shoulder, propping his boots up on the sun-faded dash.
“Why should I have to suck it in? It was my ten bucks we used for gas!”
“Yeah, and that gas is all I can smell in here,” Laney replied, cracking the window and glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “You gotta pay to play, Scotty.” Shooting him a smile, she gripped the wheel with skintight gloves. “That’s what happens when you derail our trick-or-treat. Plus, if anything happens to this van my mom will kill me, so I’m taking all the risk here.”
“It was your dad’s money anyway,” Gavin told him, crammed against Kelly in the short middle row.
“So!” he replied, straightening his straw hat.
“So, quit your bellyaching!” Pincher tried elbowing out some more room between Scotty and Teddy in the backseat. “We promised the girls a haunted house they’d never forget and that’s exactly what they’re going to get.” Adjusting his lab coat, he leaned forward and pushed his fake glasses up the bridge of his nose. “And hey, Kelly, if you need a hand to hold onto, I’m here for you, girl.”
Kelly twisted around, the seatbelt cutting into her shoulder. “So, you promise you’re not going to kill us?”
Teddy’s face soured. “Me? Yes, ma’am, I promise.”
“And you really saved their lives?”
Wiggling for more leg room, he scratched at his beard. “They saved mine.”
Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Is this house really haunted?”
“As a graveyard.”
She cocked head to one side. “What happened to your tooth?”
Sighing, Teddy took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “Fell down one night and caught the edge of a truck stop sink.”
Kelly grimaced. “Ouch! That must’ve hurt.”
“It did when I woke up the next morning in the clink.”
“How much longer till we get there?” Scotty asked, checking his Jurassic Park watch. “I’ve already been stuffed in this primordial vehicle with these mutants for over nineteen minutes.” He looked up, face dripping with revulsion. “We can’t get that time back, ya know!”
Kelly flashed Gavin a warm smile. “He makes for an angry Santa Claus,” she said, bringing laughter to Gavin’s lips.
“I’m not Santa Clause,” Scotty shouted, pounding a cane into the floorboard. “I’m John Hammond – CEO of International Genetic Technologies and creator of Jurassic Park!” Sneezing quietly, part of his white beard came off at the corner. “Ah crap!”
Everyone laughed and Laney took a corner too fast, leaving the town lights in the mirrors and making the gas swoosh around in its can in the back. Straightening the van out, she blew a loose strand from her mask and turned to Boone in the seat next to her. “I still can’t believe you guys found a dead body. That is awful.” A shiver wormed through her, pulling the van a little to the left.
Boone stared out the front windshield, watching the headlights sweep down a winding highway. “I can’t get it out of my head. It was…disturbing.”
Pincher turned to Teddy and studied him through his glasses. “What’s the clink?”
“Can I see the pictures again?” Kelly asked.
Gavin looked down at Kelly’s open palm and sighed before pulling the snapshots from his coat. She switched on a nearby dome light and slowly flipped through them, biting her lip a little harder with each still. “This one,” she said, stopping on the shot of them in Gavin’s bedroom with the tall thing standing in the corner. “This one is very strange.”
“It was watching us.”
Kelly looked up at him, her glasses magnifying the terror in her eyes. “But why?”
Shrugging, he turned back to the road. “It wants something.”
“Like what?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out.”
“Turn here,” Boone said, pointing off to the side.
Laney swung her mom’s van onto a side road that made it hard to hear with the gravel crunching beneath the tires. It was pitch black out in the country. Distant. Like no one was left on the entire planet. “This suddenly seems like a huge mistake,” she said, slowing way down.
“Need I remind you, this is the only way to stop it,” Gavin piped in, worried they had told Laney too much. But they had to tell her something or else she wouldn’t drive them past the Tasty Freez on the outskirts of town. She needed more than just some deserted house in the country to preempt their night of trick-or-treating. Something beyond their wildest dreams. The truth. But she had that look in her eyes now. The closer they got to the house, the more that look worried him. He had to choose his words wisely or she might turn around and catch the last hour of beggar’s night. “We have to at least try and stop it or every time we hear about another vanishing or murder in this town, we’ll be just as responsible as the monster that did it.”
Laney’s eyes followed the gray road zigzagging through the open fields and pastures, a churning red cloud haunting the taillights. “I just don’t want to end up one of those people.”
Boone set a hand on her leg and she didn’t flinch. “Listen, we’re going to be fine. We won’t let anything happen to you or Kelly.”
She studied his face for a bouncy moment and looked back to the road.
He squeezed her leg. “I promise.”
“I can’t wait to see this place!” Kelly said brightly. “I always knew ghosts existed.”
“You mind if I turn this?”
Laney followed Boone’s finger to the radio. “Go ahead,” she said, slowing for a bend in the road while Boone pulled his feet from the dash and changed the station.
“Our old house was totally haunted.”
Bouncing with a deep rut in the road, Laney frowned at her younger sister in the mirror. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Doors opening and closing all by themselves,” Kelly said, ignoring her.
“That was the wind.”
“Rocking chair rocking with nobody in it.”
Laney snorted. “That happened during an earthquake.”
“Reflections in the glass.”
“Those were passing headlights.”
“A baby crying in the basement.”
Gavin’s eyebrows dipped when Laney failed to provide a perfectly reasonable explanation to thwart Kelly’s wild assertion.
Laney shrugged. “That one was real.”
He snorted. “Well, wait’ll you get a load of this place.”
“You’re so brave, Gavin.” Kelly took his hand in hers, eyes shimmering in the dashboard lights as Winger poured from the van’s crummy Kraco speakers. “You’re a real-life ghost slayer now.” Puckering her lips, she considered him for a second or two. “Should we get a black lab or a Pomeranian?”
Yanking his hand back, his face folded. “What?”
“You’re right!” She snapped her fingers. “We should get both so they have someone to play with while we’re at the mall.”
Laughing, Scotty leaned against the back of their seat. “Yeah, and you can take her to The Olive Garden for a nice little dinner of Saltine crackers and fine water.”
Pincher threw his head back and laughed, pointing at Gavin. “Ooh burn!”
Kelly twisted her fingers in her lap, staring vacantly out the front windshield and bouncing with the washboards in the road. Skeletal trees slid through the headlights, their hunched figures standing at awkward angles. Gravel popped beneath the tires and shot into the powdered ditches, scaring up some high-pitched wildlife. “We used to have a basset hound named, Tator,” she said in a faint voice that drew Laney’s eyes to the rearview mirror.
Gavin cringed. His mom made quick friends with their mother soon after the girls moved into the complex last spring. They were similar in age, money problems and runaway husbands. Kelly’s father didn’t want, Tator, who, subsequently, ended up going to a complete stranger responding to a classified in the shopper. The apartment complex they lived in was cat friendly and the wound still fresh in Kelly’s eyes. She sniffled and Gavin gave her hand a light squeeze. Looking up, she tried to smile. “I’m actually kind of scared.”
“Don’t be. Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, pulling his hand back. “You just have to have some faith.”
Responding with a shallow nod, she swiped at a tear. “I do. I believe in you.”
Laney turned to Boone. “You’re not really going to burn this place down, are you?”
“You saw the Polaroids, Laney. This house is a breeding ground for evil.” Pulling his hair to one side, Boone blew out a calming breath that couldn’t stop his knee from bouncing. “We have no choice but to send this infestation back to where it came from.”
“And where’s that?”
Boone turned to Pincher crammed in the back. “Hell. Where else, idiot?”
“This is it!” Gavin pointed off to the side.
“Here?” Laney said, slowing to a lazy roll as a cloud bank cleared the moon. “There’s nothing here.”
“It’s on the other side of this field.” Gavin released his seatbelt and traded a nervous look with the others stuffed in the back. “We walk in from here.”
“Walk?” Laney gasped, coming to a stop but not putting it in park.
“Hey Gavin, normally I fully support physical activity,” Scotty said, pulling a salt gun from his backpack. “But tonight, Sonic and ice cream seem a lot better for my health.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Finger-Fangs
The circle drive was clear of green station wagons and cop cars, the old house as dark and quiet as the tree line stretching in either direction. Scotty let a pine branch slip back into place. “I can’t believe I let you guys talk me into this,” he whispered, glancing at the dented gas can sitting at Boone’s feet. “I must be a real idiot. I could be out collecting raisins and apples right now.”
“Okay, first of all it’s not 1952, Eddie Haskell. Nobody hands out raisins and apples on Halloween anymore.” Boone scanned the house through thin eyes. “Second of all, you’re a moron.”
“I should’ve stayed in the van. Maybe I should wait here and be a lookout.”
Teddy stared at Scotty, the polka-dotted bindle resting on his shoulder transforming him into just another fun-loving grandpa in a hobo costume on Halloween. “You want to stay out here all by yourself? Thought you said you wanted to be a hero, Scotty.”
A bashful smile broke across his face as Teddy finally called him by the right name. “I do,” he whispered, glancing at Laney and Kelly. “But in reality, I’ll probably just screw things up.”
Teddy squeezed his shoulder. “That’s not true, partner, you helped save Hank and Pinch. Can’t do it without ya, brother.”
“Really?”
“Listen here, never abandon yer family and friends, Scotty.” He turned to the others. “No matter what happens, you always stand behind yer kin, because without that…” His solemn gaze fell to the worn boots on his feet. “Without that, you got nothin.”
Scotty studied Teddy’s downturned face to the soundtrack of a lone cricket playing somewhere off in the bushes. Moonlight flickered across their faces as a light breeze rustled the branches above, sending determined leaves seesawing to the ground. A shrill cry, like that of a dying animal, lashed out down the tree line, tugging at their attention.
“What was that?” Laney whispered, pulling Kelly closer.
Teddy chuckled nervously. “Just a possum,” he replied, taking a long drink from the dented flask. “Just a possum.”
“I don’t know about this, Gav,” Scotty said weakly, clutching the salt gun to his chest.
“Just remember,” Gavin started, adjusting the silver crucifix to a more comfortable position in his back pocket, “we have what the dead don’t.”
Scotty pinched his eyes together. “And what’s that?”
He turned to him. “Hope.”
“Just remember, if things go south run to the van.” Boone flipped the butterfly knife around like a martial arts expert before shutting it with a metallic click. “Now, let’s go burn this sucker to the ground.”
“Wait, aren’t we going inside first?” Kelly asked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
Gavin grunted. “Trust me, that is the last place you want to set foot in. This is as about as close as we get.”
“But I want to see it!”
“I’m never going in there again,” Pincher said dully, watching the house’s dormer windows watch them back. “I can feel…something in there.”
Kelly’s face twisted in the shifting light. “That was the deal though! We gave up trick-or-treating for this and you’re taking us in there!”
Laney shushed her. “Will you please relax?”
Kelly pushed past her and bolted through the brush, spilling into the moonlit backyard.
Cursing, Boone sprang from the tree line and caught her by the ponytail. “Stop!”
Head snapping back, she screamed loud enough to spoil any surprise they had on their side. “Let me go!”
“Kelly,” Laney whispered loudly, pulling her back by her Jasmine costume. “You take another step and I will tell mom about the Tiger Beats hiding under your mattress. You know you’re not supposed to be reading those!”
Reluctantly, Kelly stopped struggling and straightened her glasses. “I just wanna go inside,” she whined, staring longingly up at the house that seemed larger in the glowing light.
Leaving trails through the weeds, Gavin felt like he was floating on thin air. His head was light and, despite the cold temps, sweat glistened beneath the brim of his hat.
“Everyone stay back,” Boone said, snatching the gas can from Gavin and unscrewing the cap.
“Are you sure about this, Boone?”
“No one lives here, Laney,” he replied, the smell of gasoline mixing with the tension in the air. “The place is abandoned.”
“We’re not going to get into trouble and neither is anyone else after we destroy this place.”
“He’s right,” Gavin interjected, drawing Laney’s worried eyes. “This house is why that realtor’s family is dead, and who knows how many countless others before them. This is our cross to bear and bear it we shall.” His gaze hitched on the rusty clothesline that still gave him the creeps. “Not just for us, but for everyone in this entire town. Tonight, we send the darkness back to where it came. Tonight, we stand united in the face of…”
“Okay, I think we get it,” Boone interrupted, dousing the house’s lower walls with sweeping jerks of the can. The pungent smelling liquid found the shutters, backdoor and crumbling steps. He set his jaw and shook the can harder, splashing his boots and spandex.
“Boone, be careful!” Gavin couldn’t stop pacing through the overgrowth. He had to keep moving in rhythm with his undulating chest, like a shark that can’t stop swimming or it will die.
There was a horrendous crash when Boone threw the can through the window above the kitchen sink. Stepping back and surveying his handiwork work, he held out an open palm. “Lighter.”
Gavin stared at the gasoline running down the walls, darkening the cobwebs and wood, stomach twisting into wet ropes.
“Gavin,” Boone yelled, feverishly gesturing.
Moving at a snail’s pace, if only to give his racing mind a little more time to sift through grim options, he pulled the golden Zippo from the front pocket of his Levi’s. The metal was heavy in his hand, warmed by his leg.
“Come on, Gav! I wanna do this and get out of here already.”
Stepping closer, the dormer windows seemed to narrow in a threatening anticipation. Gavin saw his hand reach out with the lighter in it but he was no longer in control of his motor functions. He was a puppet and Boone was pulling the strings.
Boone snatched the lighter, making him recoil.
“Boone, wait!” Laney cried, holding Kelly against her with the wind pulling at her hair. “This is all wrong!”
Scary House Page 16
