Scary House

  Scary House

  By

  Sean Thomas Fisher

  Copyright © 2017 by Sean Thomas Fisher

  Cover design by Creative Paramita

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For the young and the young at heart.

  Inspired by a true story.

  Contents

  _____________________________________________________

  Chapter One – It’s Back

  Chapter Two – What The Human Eye Can’t See

  Chapter Three – PK Ripper

  Chapter Four – We Have to Go Back

  Chapter Five – Supernatural Chaos

  Chapter Six – Believe Us Now?

  Chapter Seven – Ghost Goggles

  Chapter Eight – On the Lamb

  Chapter Nine – Paranormal Waldo

  Chapter Ten – Microfilm Rules!

  Chapter Eleven – Deliver Us From Evil

  Chapter Twelve – Country Home Magazine

  Chapter Thirteen – Trailer Trash Father

  Chapter Fourteen – The Haunting of Campbell House

  Chapter Fifteen – Catching Out

  Chapter Sixteen – Creamy Peach Roses

  Chapter Seventeen – All Hallows’ Eve

  Chapter Eighteen – The Recluse

  Chapter Nineteen – Black Spandex

  Chapter Twenty – Sonic and Ice Cream

  Chapter Twenty-One – Finger-Fangs

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Crucifaxe

  Chapter Twenty-Three – Free Donuts and Coffee

  Thank you for reading Scary House!

  Hidden Chapter – Es El Diablo

  Chapter One

  It’s Back

  Present Day

  Even after all these years, I still think about Scotty every single day. Wonder what he’d look like. What his family would look like. What he’d do for work. For fun. Yawning, I study the faded Polaroids laid out before me through distant eyes. If I knew Scotty, he’d probably be putting that silver-tongue to good use hawking Camaros and Corvettes down at Klinkman’s Chevrolet, spewing out impressive facts based somewhere between truth and legend. Like his dad, Scotty always had a way with words and we never should’ve stepped foot inside that abominable house. We should have just gotten back on our bikes and pedaled for home. But no, my curiosity got the best of me. Setting a coffee mug on the kitchen island, I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes until I see stars. How was I supposed to know? We were only thirteen and it was Halloween! That’s what kids did back then. But these Polaroids… They should’ve been more than enough of a warning. Yet, somehow, they weren’t. They were more like bait. That entire house was nothing more than a spider web, designed to surreptitiously capture its prey.

  Pulling my face from my hands, I blow out a tired breath and stare at a photograph of a sinister grin. The same photograph the Polaroid Spectra AF took by itself for the first time since I quit the business over five years ago when Layla was born. Without thinking, I flip it over so I can’t see that hideous smile anymore. Or so it can’t see me. At this point, I’m not entirely sure of anything. Lightning flickers, reflecting off the copper backsplash in a stuttering burst, casting me into a temporary world of slow motion that lasts a lifetime. Something shifts in my peripheral vision and I jerk my bloodshot gaze to the patio door. Snatching up the single-action revolver from the island without looking, I scan the rain streaked glass where a swaying branch points to something off to the side of the house. Lowering the gun, I force myself to lean back in the bar chair and relax. Everything seems alive. Inching closer. Out ta get me.

  “My balloon! My balloon!”

  The sound of my daughter’s frantic voice rings out down the hallway, spiking my adrenaline. My wife laughs wildly from our bedroom across the hall, sending an icy finger down my spine. Tilting my head to one side, I listen for Richie to join in the malady but all I hear is the rain beating against the roof and the blood pounding thickly in my temples. Thunder rumbles and everything gets dead quiet again. Nightmares pass around this house like a common cold and I hate It for that. My wife and Layla don’t deserve that and neither does Richie. He’s only a baby. What doesn’t It get about that?

  The wind shifts and raindrops begin pelting the sliding glass door, lulling my vision from focus. I stare at a ceramic pumpkin with a toothy grin, blurring the candle flickering in its hollow into a jittery blob. I hear something and look up, back tightening. Lightning rips across the blackened sky, turning the windows into a kaleidoscope of silver and gray. Blank faces press against the glass and leave handprints in their wake. Shaking my head to clear it, I keep thinking I hear Jake barking out back even though he died this past winter. I’m so tired but I can’t sleep. If only Scotty were here, he’d know what to do because I thought It was gone. But somehow – after all these years – that thing has returned to collect upon our agreement and It could care less I was only thirteen when I made it. I should tell my wife. She deserves to know the truth. All of it. I should’ve listened to Scotty but I was selfish. I can admit that now. Scotty Klinkman’s death is on me. Nobody else.

  Me.

  Thunder rolls, vibrating the house and pulling me back into the dimly lit kitchen my kids will be eating breakfast in soon. I was also selfish to bring them into this world but I thought it was over. Leaning back in a bar chair, I release a long yawn. After waking up in a cold sweat for the second night in a row, I made the coffee extra strong this morning and the only thing it’s doing is messing with my stomach. Or maybe that’s last night’s bourbon.

  My eyes draw to the smartphone sitting next to my Sacramento Kings mug of cold coffee. Without making a sound, the phone is talking to me. It’s telling me it’s almost four in the morning. That it’s sixty-three degrees and raining outside. It’s also telling me it’s time to call him. To quit beating around the bush and make the call I’ve put off for three days now. I know he still lives in Cottage Grove because sometimes I stalk him on Facebook. He’s got a great family and so do I and I don’t want to see that change, so I’ve got to call him because It’s back. Trading the gun for the phone, my shoulders sink when I free a melancholy breath. There’s a good chance he may not answer. After all, he quit the biz before I did and never looked back. In theory, there’s the distinct possibility that, after all these years, I’m on my own and that scares me the most because I have so much more to lose. I’m a dad now. The dad I never had, and I’m just getting started.

  To think this could be the last breakfast with my family makes me sick.

  We deserve more. Much more. Bringing up his contact and hitting the Call button, I press the phone to my ear and hold my breath. My heart beats faster with each deafening ring, increasing my oxygen deprivation. He has to help me. They all do. They were in on it too.

  My name is Gavin Lewis and this is my story.

  Chapter Two

  What The Human Eye Can’t See

  Saturday, October 29th, Back Then

  The back of the old house looked just as dead as the front. Dingy white paint curled against the dry wood like long fingernails, ravaged by the arthritic hands of Mother Nature and Father Time. Crabgrass and ragweed blanketed the circle drive in the backyard where two ring-necks tossed gravel down their gullets to help digest a corn-filled lunch. The game birds snapped their beady black eyes to the shadowy trees when Scotty shifted in his crouch, their red masks brilliant against the lat
e afternoon sunlight.

  “I’m not going in there,” Scotty whispered, mopping sweat from his brow. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

  Gavin brushed chestnut-colored hair from his thin eyes. “You say that about every house.”

  “Yeah, but this time I really mean it. Look at this place!”

  Tossing the last Junior Mint into his mouth, Gavin slid the empty box into an inside pocket of a blue flannel coat. He fought off a shiver and pulled up the sheepskin collar, protecting his neck from a crisp breeze giving the withering foliage around them one last breath. Stubborn leaves clung to their branches, splashing a rainbow of autumn colors down the narrow tree line and not even God knew they were here. “Then don’t go.”

  “Yeah, you can stay here,” Pincher said, absentmindedly plucking an eyebrow hair out and tickling it against his lips. “Guard the bikes.”

  “No way!” Scotty’s face folded. They had one rule: stick together. A single person could derail an entire mission by simply throwing in the terrible towel and going home for dinner. “Come on, guys, let’s get going,” he said, popping open the metal cover on a Jurassic Park watch. “We’re miles from home and it’s almost dinner time.”

  “Not for another hour.” Gavin studied the sunbaked house, its filthy windows miraculously still intact. A rusty clothesline stood guard outside the backdoor, better suited for decapitation than drying laundry. The place was a train wreck and whatever had Scotty so spooked was more than enough for Gavin to proceed with the plan. Scotty’s gut was usually right. “What else are we supposed to do for free on a Saturday? Play soccer?”

  “I hate soccer,” Scotty dully replied, watching the pheasants return to their lazy pecking in the sunlight. Tapping Pincher on the knee, his face brightened. “Hey Pinch, we could go build another ramp and jump some neighbor kids.”

  Pincher blinked blankly at him, rubbing the eyebrow hair against his colorless lips. His insipid skin contrasted with the dark circles always rimming his eyes, leaving him looking like an insomniac. Pitching the eyebrow hair into the brush around them, he got to his feet. “I have to go poop.”

  Scotty’s jaw dropped into the collar of his hoodie. “Again?”

  “Don’t even start, Pinch,” Gavin groaned, unbuttoning his coat.

  Pincher unzipped his windbreaker, exposing a Pearl Jam t-shirt hiding beneath. “I’m serious,” he whispered, jerking his eyes down the tree line like he just heard something. “I really have to go.”

  Gavin pulled a Polaroid Spectra AF from an inside coat pocket, heart beating a little faster when his gaze fell upon the smooth compactible case. He still couldn’t believe his mom got it for him. She probably felt guilty after his brother, Boone, broke his remote-controlled Tyco Ricochet jumping a garbage can last month.

  Scotty threw his hands out. “Let’s face it, guys, we need a new hobby. This haunted house thing is getting old. Nothing ever happens, and the last place we investigated I stepped in a pile of raccoon poop.”

  “That wasn’t raccoon poop,” Pincher replied, dancing from foot to foot. “It was human.”

  Scotty inhaled sharply. “Hey, I know! We could go to The Brass Armadillo and look around a little.”

  Their faces slumped in the shafts of sunlight flickering through the swaying branches.

  Gavin cleared his throat. “You…you want to go antiquing?”

  “You can find some really cool stuff in there, Gav, plus they have free coffee!”

  Pincher flattened his lips and, even in the shade, his face was as pale as a vampire on the wagon. “We’re thirteen, helmet-head. What’re we supposed to do with free coffee?”

  “Drink it,” Scotty replied matter-of-factly, brushing a leaf from his sandy brown head of hair that was so thick it looked like a helmet. “I’m telling you the place is awesome! This one time…”

  “Wait, did you see that?”

  Scotty stopped midsentence, words dangling from his lips. “See what?” he whispered.

  “I just saw someone drag a body into that machine shed.” Gavin nodded to a large outbuilding speckled with rust and decay, its metal roof bowing upward like something was trying to get out. Something big.

  Scotty followed his nod, bangs slick with sweat and sticking to his forehead. Thorny overgrowth protected the shed, making it look just as foreboding as the house. He swallowed dryly. “Seriously?”

  A drawn-out sound like someone letting air seep out from a balloon broke the silence stretching between them. Gavin and Scotty turned to Pincher, who sheepishly shrugged back.

  “What?” he said, ripping another fart. “I’m nervous.”

  “Don’t be,” Gavin told him, jerking his side swept bangs from his eyes with a quick head flip. “We get in, film the place and get out. If there’s something supernatural in there, it will reveal itself to us in the pictures.”

  Scotty chuckled softly. “Yeah right, and maybe we’ll find some Lunchables in the fridge too.”

  “Yeah, and Mountain Dew.”

  “Just remember, what the human eye can’t see,” Gavin said, pausing for dramatic effect, “the camera can. This old rail town is on its last leg, my friends, and if the cops won’t clean it up, we will. The time for talking ends here.” Jabbing a finger into the dirt, he set his jaw. “The time for action is now.”

  Pincher stared at him, cleaning his teeth with his tongue.

  “You really are going to make a great politician someday.” Scotty slowly shook his head. “You could talk Pincher into taking up needlepoint if you wanted to.”

  “Already did.”

  “Did not.”

  Gavin frowned at him. “Really? Then what’s with the framed picture of The Lion King above your bed?”

  “My mom did that!”

  Gavin and Scotty shushed him and turned back to the house, scanning the overwhelmed grounds while Pincher plucked another blond hair from his eyebrow and tickled his lips with its pointy end. Under normal circumstances, they would’ve given him fifty shades of crap for the nervous tic but no one said a word.

  Glancing over his shoulder to the recently harvested cornfield they just crossed, Pincher blew out a steadying breath. “I really have to go.”

  Gavin creased his brow. “We don’t have any toilet paper.”

  “I’ll use leaves,” he replied, carefully maneuvering around their three BMX bikes leaning against a blackberry bush. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Pincher!”

  Scotty watched him disappear down the tree line and sighed before flipping open the metal cover on his watch again. “We’re going to be here all day. We’ve already been here for thirteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds. This is unacceptable,” he said, clicking the cover shut.

  “He’ll be right back. Don’t get your hot pants in a bunch.” Gavin rubbed a finger across the Polaroid’s smooth black case, wanting to pop it open but afraid he’d accidentally snap a picture if he did. He made that mistake once already, wasting one of eight color photographs on the rubber toe of his black Converse.

  Scotty snorted, belly bouncing inside a navy-blue hoodie with Nirvana printed across it in yellow letters. “I still can’t believe your mom got you that for your birthday, Gavin. That is so boss.”

  “Best birthday ever.” Smiling proudly at the instant camera, Gavin blew pocket dust from the tiny buttons in the back.

  The smell of burning leaves drifted past, pulling their eyes back to the sun splashed house with its missing shingles and crooked shutters. Even in the daylight the place looked menacing, like it was watching their every move through the upstairs windows. Like it wanted to swallow them through the backdoor.

  Scotty exhaled a heavy breath. “We’ve been through a dozen of these places and nothing has ever happened.”

  “Yet,” Gavin confidently replied, slipping the camera back inside his coat. “But this is our first time with the camera and I’m telling you, there’s a reason this town is the murder capital of the world and we’re going to find o
ut what why.”

  “Vampires,” Scotty replied flatly, pulling a long piece of grass from the ground and chewing on its end. “Think about it, Gav. The whole town is probably crawlin with them.”

  “Whatever it is, it will definitely be living in a place like this.” His eyes drew back to the house and Pincher burst from the trees, holding his hands out with what looked like brownie batter coating his fingertips.

  “Oh God, I got poop all over me,” he shouted, horror warping his face as he reached for them like a flesh-eating zombie.

  Shrieking, Scotty shot into the backyard and scared the pheasants into flight. Gavin was quick to follow and it looked like they were floating on thin air as they rushed through the waist high weeds.

  Staggering from the tree line, Pincher bellowed with laughter. “It’s just mud!” he wailed, holding his hands out for them to see. “You should’ve seen the looks on your faces!” Inhaling a calming breath and letting it out, he stuck a finger into his mouth and pulled it out clean. “I was kidding. It really is poop.”

  Scotty traded a sideways look with Gavin. “What an idiot,” he grumbled under his breath, turning for the house and narrowly losing his head to the T-shaped clothesline.

  Chapter Three

  PK Ripper

  Crumbling at the corners, the back steps were covered in dirt, leaves, and dried up wasp nests. Gavin tossed a look over his shoulder, eyes following their trails through the tall grass to a weathered birdhouse perched atop a rusty pole – an exact replica of the abandoned house with the same faded paint and two rows of golf ball-sized holes for windows. A hawk screeched above, outstretched wings soaring on the breeze.

  “Oh snap!” Pincher came back up with a dirty penny pinched between his fingers. “Heads up!” He smiled widely. “Must be my lucky day.”