Scary House

by Sean Thomas Fisher

  Snorting, Pincher sets the crucifaxe back on the table. “I’ve got an aluminum baseball bat and suddenly I’m starting to feel very underprepared.”

  “These are my favorite.” Boone grabs a smudge stick arrow and brushes a thumb against the silver tip. “Sharp as hell too. Gavin can hit the head on a quarter at twenty yards out.”

  “Wait!” Kelly shook her head to clear it. “You knew he was still collecting this stuff?”

  “You should see what I’ve got,” he says, pulling a Colt .45 single-action revolver from a shoulder holster hidden beneath his leather jacket.

  Pincher’s eyes got round. “How’d you get that on the plane?”

  “I didn’t. I had it overnighted to my hotel.”

  He reached for it. “Can I…”

  “No.” Boone flipped the chamber open and pulled out a bullet. Holding the shiny chrome up to the light, a slippery grin spreads through the salt and pepper stubble blanketing his cheeks. “Silver bullets dipped in holy water and then blessed by a priest.” Smirking, his eyes jerk to Pincher. “These will put a hurt on those undead bastards in a hurry.”

  Pincher’s jaw comes unhinged. “You’ve tried them?”

  His grin slips. “Not yet,” he answers, putting the bullet back into its home and snapping the chamber shut with an authoritative click. “I just got em from a shaman in Indonesia.”

  “Oh,” Pincher says dully, looking back to the weapons. “Great.”

  Bravely, I glance at my wife who’s still absentmindedly shaking her head while chewing on a nail. “But,” I say, stuffing the crucifaxe into a custom paddle-holster on my hip and turning to a tall narrow safe behind me, “this is our greatest weapon of all.” Cracking it open, I take a small wooden box with Greek inscriptions and symbols carved into it from a high shelf above a row of assault rifles and handguns. Setting the box on the pool table, everyone grows quiet because this was just as much a mystery as the Campbell House. This could talk for the dead. Could see them. Could give horrific glimpses into the past. Inserting a skeleton key into the lock, I turn it until an audible click punctuates the heavy silence pressing against the basement walls. Carefully, as if sweating sticks of dynamite were nestled inside, I pull the lid back and all eyes fall upon the Polaroid Spectra AF. Resting on a pillow of red velvet, it looks asleep and I have to remind himself it isn’t alive. But then again, it isn’t exactly dead either.

  I take it from the box as if it were made of glass and pop it open. Pincher flinches. Setting the camera on a patch of green felt, I free a stubborn breath and wipe my palms on my jeans, staring into the camera’s darkened eye. It had something to tell us. I could feel it. Something we could use to defend this house. My eyes jerk to the picture it snapped three days ago and I know that ghostly grin will haunt me forever. It’s a warning. A game.

  Ready or not, here I come…

  A sharp hiss of static pulses on the baby monitor, drawing our eyes. The green lights climb like a tachometer, cresting into the red before limply falling back to a single green dot. I stiffen and the pool table light flickers before going out completely. Somehow, even though its plugged into the same wall as the light, the baby monitor remains on. Our faces turn green in the screen’s night vision glow. Richie stirs in his crib before settling back into a peaceful sleep. Then, without warning, the remote camera positioned on his bookcase begins panning across his room. Only thing is, we left the remote-control upstairs and the camera is operating on its own accord.

  Like the Polaroid is now.

  My eyes fall to the picture ejecting from the instant camera’s tight-lipped grin, heart thundering so hard in my chest I feel dizzy. Out the corner of my eye, I see my hand coil around a compound bow before realizing I’m even moving.

  “What’s happening?” Pincher whispers, watching the picture fall onto the pool table.

  Turning back to the video monitor, Kelly subconsciously brings a fist to her chest. “The power’s out.”

  Frowning, Boone studies the green screen. “Who’s moving the camera?”

  I look at Boone and he looks at me before pulling the .45 from beneath his coat. Grabbing a flashlight from the pool table, his eyes gravitate to the dark sheet of film where something was materializing much slower than the terror building in my chest.

  The baby camera suddenly stops panning, landing squarely on the mirror above Richie’s long, white dresser. Tunnel vision hits me like never before, sending me flying through a tube-like space at a hundred miles an hour. Everything blurs and stretches around the edges, like shimmering heat rising from a sun splashed stretch of Oklahoma highway. I try blinking the horrid image in the mirror away, certain it’s just a figment of my overactive imagination because this can’t be happening again. But then the clicking starts and I know it is.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  Off screen, Richie starts crying so violently we can hear him all the way downstairs. My tight gaze snaps back to the picture coming to life on the pool table. A soft gasp works free from my lips when I see Teddy sleeping on Jeffrey Campbell’s small bed. With hands folded over a yellow necktie, and boots hanging off the end of the bed, his gray hair is neatly combed and matches the color of his suit. Decay riddles his face and it looks like he’s been there for years. My heart plummets because I know that if I, somehow, manage to survive this next chapter, I will have to go back and check. Dead or alive, I will never leave Teddy trapped in that dreaded house.

  “Come on!” Boone’s voice pulls me back to reality. He’s the first one to the basement stairs, tackling them two at a time with his gun drawn. Snatching up a quiver of arrows, I push past Pincher and Kelly, barking out orders that sound muffled in my head by a sinus cold I don’t have.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Free Donuts and Coffee

  Present Day

  Bursting into my son’s room, I stare at Betty with something large blocking my windpipe, preventing precious airflow I desperately need to think straight. Grinning at us in Boone’s circle of light, she stands with Richie between us in the middle of the room.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  The spiders at the end of her long, slender arms impatiently dance upon the crib rail, worryingly teetering on the edge of falling inside with my twelve-month-old son. The son she wanted. The one I agreed to give her when I was only thirteen-years-old and out of my mind with fear and sorrow. My best friend in the world, Scotty Klinkman, had just been murdered and we were next. All of us. I had no choice but to agree!

  Kelly and Pincher rush into the room and I glance at my wife to make sure this was really happening. To be certain this wasn’t just another nightmare. Kelly doesn’t look back. Instead, she stares in abject horror at Betty, and her twisted face tells me I have plenty to fear.

  Boone doesn’t bother mincing words, sinking a two-round burst into Betty’s chest that actually drives her back two steps. I can’t believe it. The spiders hiss and kick, desperate to free themselves from their fleshy leashes and attack. “It worked!” Boone cries, watching smoke rise from the bullet holes in her gory nightgown. “Give her everything we got!” Unloading the silver bullets left in the chamber, he spends four shots in rapid fire fashion while Pincher hits her with the holy salt gun. Betty slams up against the wall, knocking a framed picture of a boy’s silhouette roping the moon to the floor where it shatters into pieces. Surprise distorts her hideous features, feeding her rampant decay and my confidence in equal parts. The spiders throb on her hands and my heart flutters. We actually have a chance against this monstrosity and I can’t believe it. If the silver bullets work, then…

  Drawing an arrow from the quiver on my back, I nock it and pull my right elbow back until it locks into place. I fill my lungs with a cavernous breath, bowstring taut against my fingers, and release both the breath and the smudge stick arrow at the same time. Hope balloons inside me when the sharpened
point finds the thick part of a spider’s abdomen with a hollow sounding plunk, pinning Betty’s left hand to the wall. The spider squeals as if it were a living thing and not just a hand. Black eyes painfully bulge from their tiny sockets as its glistening fangs stab wildly at the air. Richie starts crying in the crib, drawing Betty’s angry eyes.

  She struggles to free herself from the wall, but the spindly spider legs on her right hand can only helplessly slip along the arrow’s smooth shaft. Click, click, click, click. Without thinking, I sink an arrow into her neck, quietly driving her head back against the wall. A white lotion-like substance oozes out and runs down her filthy nightgown, pooling around her bare feet. Her lips move in an effort to speak or scream or swear but nothing materializes. Just the high-pitched hissing from the spider-hand flailing against the wall.

  “Mom?”

  The sound of Layla’s voice from out in the hallway jumpstarts my brain. She’s only five and can’t see any of this. It will ruin her. “Get Richie and Layla out of here,” I yell at Kelly, smoothly drawing another arrow as Pincher stands by with a dreamcatcher net big enough to pull in a small dolphin. Something bites into the heel of my hand and I scream in pain, tugging at my wife’s worried gaze. Swatting a brown recluse to the ground, I know I have to act fast before the poison starts shutting my body down. And the way my heart is beating, it won’t take long.

  Boone flicks a wrist, slapping the chamber shut on the Colt .45. “Let’s finish this!” Gunshots ring out. Pincher unloads the salt gun. I let another arrow rip and Betty finally finds her voice, shrieking so loudly it makes Richie scream like I’ve never heard him do so before. Forcing her legs across the room, Kelly bends over and sweeps him up from the crib. Betty shoots a free arm out and the pale spider at its end latches onto my wife’s long brown hair, twisting the strands around its thin legs and pulling her closer. Shrieking, Kelly nearly drops Richie to the floor. Releasing the bowstring, I pin Betty’s free wrist to the wall but the spider holds strong, yanking Kelly’s head closer to its venomous fangs. Dropping the bow to the floor, I pull the crucifaxe from its holster on my belt and charge across the room. An IKEA floor lamp rattles with my thundering steps and Betty shrieks so loudly, I nearly collapse into a puddle of despair. Instead, I bring the axe down on the spider’s neck, freeing Kelly to rush from the room with our son cradled in her arms and usher Layla away from this nightmare that will not end. Betty hangs against the wall like she’s nailed to a cross, one hand unmoving and leaking cream; one still writhing in pain at the other end. Her mouth clicks open and shut. White goo runs from the corners of her split lips.

  Stepping closer, I tilt my head to the side and take a moment to study this abhorred creature trapped before me, mystified by its very existence and horrified by its single-minded desire. It had tricked me once before but that wasn’t going to happen again. This was my house. “You can’t have him,” I whisper into her ear, rubbing the silver crucifaxe along her cheek and making her skin smoke. “He’s mine.” Her teeth snap at me and I nearly lose the tip of my nose.

  “Gavin, get back!” Stepping forward, Pincher pulls a second squirt gun from his waistband and jams it in her mouth, repeatedly squeezing the trigger and yelling terrible things at the top of his lungs.

  Thrashing, Betty chokes on the holy water while the injured spider hisses and squeals. Warm tar runs from her eyes like mascara, turning her face into a mask of unspeakable horrors. Pincher keeps pulling the trigger and Betty keeps thrashing. Richie wails out in the living room and we all scream when Betty explodes, spraying us in a gray cloud of powder that smells of death and tastes like spoiled asparagus. Chests heaving, we scan the room through large eyes nestled in ash-covered sockets. We look like 9/11 survivors and I was hesitant to call us survivors just yet.

  “Where’d she go?” Pincher pants, white as a sheet after taking the brunt of the blast.

  Boone jerks the handgun and flashlight around Richie’s bedroom, nearly shooting the floor lamp standing in the corner. Forcing himself to relax, he lowers the weapon and blows out a slow breath that swirls the dust particles floating in the light. “We did it.”

  “Did we?” I ask, pulling a grisly arrow from the wall. With the bowstring tight against my fingers, I take aim at Richie’s closet door, my vision beginning to wane around the edges. If it wasn’t for my racing adrenaline, I would already be feeling the spider poison starting to act. I stare at the closet door and this has to go faster so I can reach the anti-venom downstairs or I’ll be crippled in less than thirteen minutes. “Open it,” I whisper, straining to hold the bowstring back.

  Pincher inches closer, the dreamcatcher net held up high like he was on a serious butterfly hunt. Gripping the knob, he looks back over the shoulder of his Op t-shirt. Boone and I nod back and he whips the door open, letting the glow of the flashlight inside. I see the outline of Betty’s ghastly frame in a jerky flash and release the smudge-stick arrow, sinking it deep into her stomach. Bouncing off the back wall, a giant stuffed bear that Kelly’s mom gave Richie on Christmas pitches forward, falling flat on its face like some Saturday morning cartoon where everything is sunny and bright. Releasing a pent-up breath, I draw another arrow and nock it with the index feather facing me.

  Exchanging puzzled glances, we slip into the hallway and follow Richie’s persistent cries. A stubborn dose of relief tiptoes through me with each framed picture we pass along the way. My son’s crying grows louder and the lights flicker back to life, illuminating the dust and decay covering us from head to toe. I look over my shoulder, certain Betty will be standing in the doorway to my son’s room, ready to strike. But gray footprints are all that remain, tracking us across the dark wood flooring.

  We pass Layla’s bedroom, giving it a cursory look that plays tricks upon my eyes. When we spill into the living room, Layla screams and my wife’s eyes widen with fear. We look like flesh-eating zombies and I can only imagine what’s going through their minds. Finding Kelly’s brown eyes, I finally allow relief to pry open up my lungs, flooding me with a gratitude I’ve never experienced before. This was over and we were free to go on with our lives. That’s all I can think. This is over and we are free to go on with our lives.

  Frowning at me from the other side of the sectional, she holds Richie to her chest with half a dead spider still clinging to her hair. “Where is she?” she whispers, nervously bouncing on the balls of her feet, trying to soothe our distressed son with Layla wrapped around her leg.

  I lower the compound bow getting heavier in my hands. The venom is shortening my breath and I have to get downstairs and inject myself in the thigh before my legs buckle. “We killed her,” I breathe out, blinking a tear down my powdery cheek.

  Richie cries harder and Kelly bounces faster, knitting her brow. “But…she was already dead.”

  I spit vile dust to the floor, wondering if it’s just as poisonous as the spider venom coursing through my veins. “We sent her on to the next world,” I reply, forcing a weak smile. “And this time, Kelly, she’s not coming back.”

  Sharpening her gaze, she strokes the back of Richie’s head, swapping worried looks with Boone and Pincher. “How can you be sure?”

  A smile blooms on my lips, like the sun dropping below a persistent cloud bank, breathing color back into the world just before dusk sucks it dry again. My heart swells with something indescribable and, after twenty-three years of looking over my shoulder, the colors are brighter. Sweeter. I feel light on my feet, like I’m floating on a magic carpet. “Because I can feel it.”

  Boone jams his handgun into its shoulder holster and pulls a hand down his face, clearing a path through the grime. “We should go back in business.” His eyebrows go up. “Ya know, get the band back together.”

  Pincher and I look at each other before blinking back at him.

  “What?” Boone shrugs. “I’m serious, man. We should’ve filmed that for YouTube!” Glancing at Layla hiding behind her mom’s leg like she still doesn’t know who we are, Boone
lowers his voice. “If not us, then who?”

  I try to tell him that this ghost hunting crap is over for me, but my throat tightens, cutting off my words before they can slip past my tongue. Because deep down in places I won’t talk about, I know he’s right. There are more of them out there and if not us, then who? The answer to that question is impossible to compute, especially with my eyelids growing heavy.

  Pincher tosses the dreamcatcher on the couch and lets out a heavy breath. “I think I’ll stick with Guitar Center. We get free donuts and coffee.” His ensuing smile was just as thin as his hair. “Scotty would love it.”

  Exchanging dull looks for a long moment, we burst into a raucous laughter that never tasted better on my lips. My body feels like a feather at the mercy of the wind. The room spins around me and I fall against an arm of the couch.

  “Gavin?” Kelly’s worried voice echoes loudly my ears.

  “I neeb a syrinfe,” I slur, praying Boone understood what I just said because my lips were numb and time was money. Frowning at me, he just stands there, indicating he has no idea what I just said. Groaning, I clear my bone-dry throat to try again and the front door bangs open, letting the wind rush into the room. Kelly’s hair flies up behind her and before she can turn on the heels of her running shoes, Betty appears in the doorway with her rotting toes dangling just above the ground. Her mangled spider-hands writhe in pain at the end of her long, bony arms, somehow both coming back to life. Blinking, I wasn’t sure if I was imagining this or not. To clear things up for me, Betty hisses at us like a coiled viper, heating the room to over a hundred degrees. Kelly and Layla scream as one.

  Pushing off the couch, I leave gray handprints behind and raise the bow with all of my strength. My knees wobble and there are at least three Bettys standing in the doorway now. I just have to pick the right one.

  Betty tips her head down and watches me struggle, peaked lips drawing back into an amused sneer. Her throat had regenerated as well, just enough to speak, and the sound of her voice was the sound of terror, the sound of something out of the deepest bowels of horror. “You breached our contract!” she says in guttural whisper. Wild anger blazes in her sunken eyes as she magically hovers just above the threshold. A wounded spider hand with knobby fingers bent at awkward angles clumsily clicks against itself, trying to point at my wife and children. “Now I take triple,” Betty growls, spreading her long arms like angel wings.