by R. R. Banks
“So, if Steven McAllister lives here, he should be recorded in here.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“There are thousands of names written in here. How are we going to find him?”
Bitsy let out a sigh.
“We start reading.”
We sat down beside each other and opened the book to the first page. Here it recorded the names of Bitsy’s family, the “natives” of the area, and those who established the Hollow. We scanned down the list of names, trying to find any McAllisters. Every few seconds I glanced over at Bitsy, watching as she stared intently at the book in front of her. She was deeply engrossed in reading through the names, finally dedicated to the idea of the haunt and to how we were going to bring her family’s farm back from the brink.
We. Together.
We had been reading through the pages for over an hour when we reached the final page and her fingertips lingered on Lorelei’s name again. Bitsy let out an exasperated sigh and dropped back in the chair.
“Nothing,” she said. “There is nobody by the name of Steven McAllister listed in here at all. There isn’t even a McAllister family. None. Who could this guy be?”
She rested her elbow on the table and ran her hand back through her hair, staring down at the pages of the book as if the name that we were looking for was going to spontaneously appear on the paper.
“Well, let’s go back to the beginning. What do we know about this guy?”
“That he likes to be mysterious and has really nice handwriting, but I think that that is of more interest to his third grade teacher than it is to us.”
“But what else?”
She glared at me and I suddenly felt like the aforementioned third grade teacher.
“What do you mean what else? That’s all. He literally didn’t tell us anything in the letter. Just to look into the history of the land.”
As she said that, she suddenly perked up. Her back straightened and her hand fell away from her head to the surface of the table.
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
“The history,” she said. “The history. Not the people. Not what it is now, but the history of the land where the farm is now.”
“I don’t think I’m following you.”
She jumped up from her seat and rushed to one of the nearby bookshelves. Her fingertips grazed over the spines of the aging books as she read through the titles, finally pausing on one and pulling it down off of the shelf. She brought it over to the table and pushed aside the record to open this book in its place.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The first volume of the history of the Hollow that Miss Daisy Pearl’s family put together,” she told me as she opened the heavy red leather-bound cover. “They talked to the people who were here when they got here.”
“Your family.”
“Yes and no. My family was here on the farm, but there was also a man who lived in a tiny house on the back corner of the lot. I can’t believe I didn’t even think about him before. His father sold the land to my family with the understanding that his only son would be allowed to stay on the land for the rest of his life. I remember my grandparents talking about him when I was younger. They used to talk about how strange he was. He would keep to himself even though they always tried to involve him. He almost never left the house. He never had anyone to visit him and didn’t seem to associate with anyone. When he died, they didn’t even know for almost two months.”
“How did they find out?”
“My great-grandmother wanted to bring him some cookies for Christmas. When she went to the house, he didn’t answer and she noticed that the curtains were pulled tight, but that they looked dusty. She tried all of the doors, but they wouldn’t open. Finally, she had my great-grandfather break down the door and they found him. He was sitting in the living room with a half-carved jack o’ lantern on his lap.”
“He died on Halloween.”
Bitsy nodded.
“When the coroner examined him, they couldn’t find any real cause of his death. They finally decided that something scared him so badly his heart gave out.”
“He was scared to death?” I asked. “On Halloween?”
Holy shit. I didn’t see that one coming.
“That was the story that they told me.”
“But I’ve never noticed another house on the property.”
“It’s way back. Far on the other side. Back beyond the pumpkin patches and the little peach orchard. I was never allowed to go back there. My grandmother used to say that the land where it sat was cursed. That they couldn’t even…”
Her voice trailed off as she stared down at the book.
“Couldn’t even what?”
“Couldn’t even keep a body in it.”
She pointed at the book again and I followed her finger to where it rested on a newspaper clipping. It was from before the days of the Holler Holler and had the name of a nearby town.
“Grave moved for third time.” I read the headline. “What is it talking about?”
Bitsy’s eyes scanned over the article and then came up to me. There was a hint of a smile on her lips.
“The man’s grave was moved twice after being partially dug-up and the headstone damaged. It happened on the same date both times.”
“Let me guess,” I said.
Bitsy nodded.
“Halloween.”
I let out a breath. I had the feeling like I was getting in over my head. This was turning out to be much more involved than I ever would have thought that it was going to be.
“So, the grave had to be moved again. Was it messed with again after that?”
“There aren’t any other articles about it. I wonder where the grave is.”
“I think I might know.”
I stood up and pushed the chair back into place under the table. Bitsy looked up at me questioningly.
“How?” she asked.
“Just come with me.”
She looked unsure, but she stood and carefully put the book back into place on the shelf. Miss Daisy Pearl was standing in the kitchen when we got to the top of the stairs. She glanced over her shoulder at us as she shifted fresh cookies from a baking sheet onto a cooling rack set on the table. The cookies that had previously been occupying that cooling rack were now stacked pristinely on a plate on the edge of the counter.
“Help yourself to some cookies,” she said and I wondered if she could see my mouth watering.
“Thank you for keeping an eye on Lorelei,” Bitsy said as she took a cookie from the plate.
“Did you find what you needed down there?”
“Not quite,” she said. “But we found a start. We’ll probably be back in a while. Would that be OK?”
“Of course, it would. If you’re going to be coming back, why don’t you leave the little one with me? She’s sleeping so peacefully and I wouldn’t want to disturb her.”
“Are you sure that’s alright?”
“I’d love to have her. If she wakes up, we’ll talk about all the great mysteries of life. I’ll let her in on my secrets for how to cheat at poker.”
“Well, just make sure you tell her she’s not allowed to hustle her mama.”
Bitsy crossed through the parlor to kiss the baby where she lay in the playpen and then we headed out of the house. When we got back to the farm, I told her not to park in the usual spot in front of the house, but to continue on toward the smaller home I had been staying in since getting to the Hollow. She looked at me strangely, but followed the overgrown drive along the edge of the property toward the house.
“Go ahead and stop up here.”
She stopped next to my car and we climbed out. Though the weather was still warm, she shivered slightly and wrapped her arms around herself. I could only imagine that it was the memories of the place that were settling in around her that were causing the chill. I wanted to take her into my arms and comfort her, to reassure her and ease the emotions tha
t she was feeling. She turned away from the house, putting her back to all the years that she had spent there, and looked at me.
“What now?”
“Come with me.”
I walked around the back of the house where I had gone a few days before during an early morning jog and led her across the back corner of the farm. The further we walked, the closer she got to me, seeming to close the space between us like she was seeking protection from something.
“Would that path work alright?” she asked.
“For what?”
“If we did a hayride.”
I felt a little spark within me and smiled at her.
“I thought we were going to take advantage of the mowed cornfield.”
“Well…can we do both? Maybe it starts with a hayride and then that drops them off at the corn maze?”
Though she sounded like she was talking to keep herself distracted, I could hear the beginning of excitement in her voice. She was starting to see this as more than just an abstract idea, and that was exactly what I had hoped would happen.
“That would be amazing. We would have to make sure that they come by here, though.”
I gestured ahead of us and Bitsy followed my finger to the patch of high grass I had found during my jog. The very top of a grey stone was visible in the pale green blades. She looked up at me sharply and I nodded. Bitsy walked away from my side cautiously, approaching the stone slowly. When she got to it, she crouched down and reached forward to move the blades of grass out of the way. I could see her hands shaking and I walked up to her side, crouching down next to her so I could see the stone.
“It’s him,” she said, her voice reduced to a whisper. “Look. Steven McAllister.”
Even though I already knew that that was the name that I would see on the stone, I felt a flutter in my chest seeing it etched there again.
“There he is.”
I could feel her trembling beside me and I almost felt as though an eerie chill was settling into the air around us. I was starting to turn toward her when the sound of a sudden explosion made her cry out and jump into my arms.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bitsy
I felt Roman’s arms wrap around me and I buried my head in his chest, hiding from the sudden sound that had terrified me. He patted my back gently and I felt him lower his mouth close to my ear.
“It’s alright,” he murmured. “It was just thunder.”
I pulled back from him, glancing up at the sky. I hadn’t noticed until right then that dark clouds had rolled in, blocking out the sun and creating a heavy, ominous ceiling over us. The atmosphere around us felt thicker and almost like it had gone still. I turned my eyes to Roman and felt a rush of desire surge up in my chest. I pressed forward and met his mouth as if he had been coming toward me in the same moment. Our mouths caught and I felt his tongue plunge between my lips, searching. I pulled up onto my knees and aligned my body with his. My hands ran up over Roman’s shoulders and I found a moment of strength in them as we kissed.
One of Roman’s hands went to the small of my back and he pulled me closer to him, crushing me against his body. Our tongues tangled and I felt myself falling into him the way I had the first night I met him. All of the energy and adrenaline that had built up within me felt like they were pouring out of me and I could barely contain myself as I clutched at Roman’s back and arched to press harder against him. Overhead the sky opened and a rush of cold rain flowed down on us. I gasped and pulled back from Roman, the fire that had suddenly swelled up between us effectively extinguished by the rain. I climbed to my feet and he and I ran for the car, laughing as we hopped inside.
“I guess we should go get the baby,” Roman said.
There was a hint of regret in his voice and I felt it shiver in my belly, but I didn’t let myself dwell on it. The taste of his lips was still fresh on mine, but the moment was over. The impulsiveness wasn’t what I needed right then, anyway. There was much more that needed to be on my mind.
We drove in silence back toward Miss Daisy Pearl’s house, but exchanged a meaningful glance when we arrived. Part of me expected Roman to reach out and touch me, but he didn’t. Instead, he got out of the car and came around to my side to let me out. We walked up to the door and knocked on it, not wanting to startle Lorelei with the sharp sound of the doorbell if she was still sleeping. When Miss Daisy Pearl opened the door, she stared out at us like she couldn’t fathom that we were standing there.
“What are the two of you doing out there in a frog strangler like this? I don’t have time to make up enough chicken soup to fight whatever death you pick up out there. Come inside.”
Grinning at the scolding, I stepped inside the house and brushed raindrops off of my arms. I immediately saw that the baby was certainly not still sleeping. Instead she was scooting around the parlor, seeming to at once chase one of her toys and run away from it. She was smiling, however, and I felt confident that she would get through another few minutes of our research before we brought her home.
“Miss Daisy Pearl, we’re just going to go back down into the library for a few more minutes. Just shout down if the baby needs me.”
She gave a dismissive wave as if she truly couldn’t care less if I ever emerged from the subterranean stacks to claim my child as Roman and I headed back into the basement.
“So, just an update,” Roman said when we got back to the table that we had been using. “You got a letter suggesting that you research the history of your family’s land – apparently from a dead person.”
“A ghost,” I corrected.
“What?” he asked.
“A ghost. I prefer to think of it as a ghost wrote me the letter. It seems a lot less gruesome to have a wispy ghost being all mysterious and writing me a letter than it does to have a body doing it.”
Roman seemed to think this through for a moment and then nodded.
“Fair point. So, we know that apparently a ghost wrote you letter.”
“Yes. The ghost of a man who died in a house on my family’s property.”
“On Halloween.”
“And then had to have his grave moved three times because it was desecrated.”
“On Halloween.”
“Yes. So now we just have to figure out what he was talking about. Could the letter just be talking about himself? That it’s creepy that he died there and everything?”
“I don’t think so,” Roman said, shaking his head. “A guy dying really isn’t enough to build an entire haunted attraction off of. Besides, didn’t you say that your great-grandfather said that Steve McAllister was scared to death? Something had to do that. What could have happened on the land that could have literally scared a man to death?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know.”
I went back to the shelf and pulled out the history volume that I had been reading earlier. I opened the cover to the beginning, where the family had recorded everything that they learned about the area when the Hollow was first established. The first few pages weren’t much. Mostly just sketches of the area and a few grainy pictures of the structures that were around, plus a truly awkward image of a few men posing with old bread over a prone police officer that I could only imagine was promptly followed by a lot of profanity and fighting. Finally, I turned the page and found a picture that looked familiar. I stared at it for a few moments before it clicked that it was a picture of the farm. My grandfather’s house wasn’t there and the trees looked smaller and younger, but it was definitely the farm. I pointed it out to Roman.
“Look at this,” I said.
He turned the book so that he could see the handwritten paragraph beneath the picture.
“Local Farm Owner Tells of Family Tragedy,” he read. His eyes scanned the paragraph and then looked at me, a blend of horror and excitement in them that was at once unnerving and intriguing. “It says that the McAllister family lived here for generations. When Steven was young, his brother had come back to the
farm to take care of him for a few days while his parents went to a wedding a few towns over. On Halloween, Steven convinced his brother to play hide-and-seek with him even though Adam thought that they should stay inside. He went to hide in the big field behind the house and Steven grabbed one of the jack-o’-lanterns that they had carved to use for light while he searched for him. No one really knows exactly what happened, but Steven said that something scared him and he dropped the pumpkin. It had been a dry summer and even drier fall, and the field went up in flames in seconds. Steven was able to get out, but Adam was trapped. There was nothing that the volunteer firefighters could do. They got the flames down as best they could, but it was a couple of days later before it was fully extinguished and they were able to find Adam’s body. Most of it, anyway. For some reason, they never found his head. Some people said that the bones were so damaged by the heat that when the horses for the search party ran through, one accidentally stomped the skull to bits before they realized they had found the body. Others, though, aren’t so sure.”
I felt a shiver roll through me.
“That’s why Steven never left the farm,” I said. “He was too traumatized by what had happened to his brother. He must have blamed himself all those years. But what could have happened to Adam’s skull?”
Roman shrugged.
“No one knows. It wasn’t ever seen again. But I bet that Adam’s ghost wouldn’t have been too happy to see his brother carving a jack-o-lantern.”
“This is it,” I said, pointing down at the book. “This is the basis for our haunt. We’re going to turn this legend into a reality for the people who visit.”
I could see Roman smiling, his eyes sparkling at my enthusiasm. I suddenly understood what he had been so excited about when he first presented the idea to me. This could be amazing. All we needed to do was build it and find enough people with warped minds hungry to be scared witless.
No big deal.
“I think that we should go to the house.”
“And get started on some more plans?”
“Yes, but I don’t mean your granddaddy’s house. I mean Steven McAllister’s.”
