by BL Maxwell
“I’m not camping . . . just saying.”
He turned the key and with a little bit of effort the door popped open. A whoosh of stale air blew out when the door was finally open. The smell was so bad I didn’t want to imagine what it could be. Maybe some food had been left in one of the refrigerators in the kitchen. Or maybe some small animal had died in here recently. Whatever it was had a rotting smell. It smelled of decay and things that didn’t make me eager to be here for the weekend.
Jason poked his head in. “Okay, it’s all clear. Come on, let’s go.” He stood there like he was waiting for me to go first, but there was no way in hell that was happening. This was his show. If he wanted to stay here, I’d go with him, but there was no way I’d be the first one through that door. If something rushed us, my ass would be running like mad back to Placerville. I really had no personal desire to see what exactly was in the house.
That was the one thing I had never been honest with Jason about; ghosts freaked me the fuck out. The idea that something could be there and you couldn’t see it but it could touch you or mess with you scared the hell out of me. Where he found them fascinating, I would have been very happy to not find out anything more about ghosts than I knew now. I was actually glad we couldn’t go back to Winchester Mystery House. That place was creepy as hell, but it had nothing on The Vineyard House.
“Hey, check it out. It’s like they just left everything here.” I followed him in, bumping into his back when he stopped walking to take in the front room. “This looks like where you would have checked in. Let’s leave our stuff here and check out where we should sleep.”
I didn’t have a good feeling about this. Once we had driven down the driveway, we had zero bars for a call. None of this seemed to bother Jason.
“I still can’t believe we’re really here. Let’s go look upstairs first.”
If I had to choose between the basement and upstairs, I would’ve voted for upstairs every single time. We walked farther into the house and started to climb the staircase that led to the second floor. At the top of the stairs was a long hall with six doors on each side and a door at the end. We opened a few of the doors, but the interiors were all pretty much the same. Bedrooms with beds that had been stripped down to just a mattress and frame. Most of them were empty of other furniture, but some had a dresser or bedside table.
When we got to the end of the hall, we opened that door. This room was different. It was fully decorated. Heavy Victorian drapes hung from the windows, a large four-poster bed stood in the middle of the room, and a fireplace took up nearly one entire wall. If it had been a memorable occasion, this would have been the perfect room to spend the night in with someone special. It would have been very romantic to stay in when it wasn’t covered in cobwebs and a thick coating of dust. I was shocked to see so much of it had been preserved in its original condition. It was all very strange.
“This was their room,” Jason said while taking in the room.
“The owners?”
“Yes, the Chalmers. Every person that has owned the house after them kept this room intact. The people that had it last used it as a mini museum.”
“Wait, so this is how it was setup when they were alive?”
“That’s what it says in everything I’ve read about the house.”
“But why would they do that? It’s not like they’re famous.”
“No one seemed to know why. It was something Louise made sure to tell everyone who worked here, and they told the next owners. It continued until the last owners decided they didn’t want to deal with trying to run a business while trying to stop guests from leaving in the middle of the night.”
Suddenly I felt the temperature drop in the room, and goosebumps erupted on my arms. “Do you feel that?” A shiver worked its way down my spine.
“Yes.” Jason once again glanced around the room.
“None of the windows are open, but I would swear there was a draft in here.” I couldn’t control the shiver that once again racked my body.
He let out a shaky breath. “Let’s check out the rest of this floor and figure out where we’re going to sleep,” he said, with a worried look he tried to hide by turning away.
“Somehow I don’t think we’ll be getting much sleep while we’re here.”
We backed out of the room and closed the door behind us, before walking back down the hall. There was a narrow staircase that led to the third floor. After exploring, it was soon apparent the third floor was pretty much like the second floor, rooms with old bare mattresses or just a bare bedframe. There wasn’t another room that was still decorated like the one we’d found on the second floor.
We were just getting ready to walk back down to the bottom floor when we heard a huge bang. I jumped and grabbed onto Jason’s arm. “What the fuck was that?”
His eyes were as huge as saucers, both with excitement and maybe a little fear too. “I’m not sure, but let’s go check it out.”
Now it was my turn to look at him with huge eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Come on, Wade. This is why we’re here, right?”
Well, he had me there. I couldn’t tell him I was only here because it meant I’d have him all to myself for a weekend.
“You’re right. Go ahead. I’m right behind you.” I grabbed the back of his shirt and held on. This was my usual position when we ghost hunted. Using Jason as a shield just in case. I might have had a crush on the guy, but there was no way in hell I was letting a ghost get me first. He crept quietly down the stairs while they creaked with every step. There was literally no way to be sneaky in this house.
When he got down far enough to peek at the bottom, he looked back at me and grinned. “It was the wind. Must have blown the front door shut.”
I looked past him out the window. I didn’t see any wind blowing the trees around. There was a slight breeze, but I didn’t think it was enough to slam a door with as much force as it had sounded like from all the way upstairs. He seemed perfectly at ease with that explanation though.
When we were back down by the front door, he suggested we go check out what had been the restaurant and bar. Normally, I would have thought that sounded like a good idea. Just to poke around and see what was left behind. But in this house the bar was located in the basement. The same basement where the original owner, Robert Chalmers, had died of starvation after being chained up for being insane. Turned out he’d most likely had Syphilis. His wife had just been trying to keep him safe, although why she’d thought he was safer chained up in the basement, I had no clue.
Anyway, I did not want to go down there, and I’m pretty sure Jason knew it.
“Okay, you ready?” he asked me, puffing out air like he was getting ready to run sprints or jump in the ring and go a few rounds.
“Of course. Let’s check it out.” I tried to act like it was no big deal, like I was totally behind Jason, but I’m pretty sure he knew I was shaking like a leaf at just the thought of going down there.
“We won’t sleep there, don’t worry,” he tried to reassure me. He knew I didn’t like basements. But he had no clue how uncomfortable all of this made me. When we’d first started going to places that were supposed to be haunted, it wasn’t so bad. It was usually a restaurant or hotel like the Carey House that was still open and doing business. There were other people around, and it wasn’t just us in a deserted house in the middle of nowhere. This place was a whole different level of creepy. I hoped once again Jason would be disappointed and we wouldn’t actually see or hear anything, but the longer we were here the more doubt I had.
Chapter Four
We made our way to the back of the house. There were stairs that led down to the basement and what had been called the old jail; Jason led the way down the stairs.
“This isn’t what I expected at all,” I mumbled.
“What do you—”
Jason’s words cut off abruptly as we entered the basement and he looked around the area. There wer
e three small windows at the top of one wall letting in enough light that we were able to see the room clearly. His eyes were wide and he had a look of shock on his face. I was surprised to see all the damage and ruin in here too, but I hadn’t expected the house to look perfect after sitting vacant for so long. But this wasn’t just damage from neglect. It was a wreck. There were tables and chairs overturned all over the place. The bar area was covered with broken glass most likely from the bar’s supply of drinking glasses. It looked as though someone had deliberately destroyed everything they could get their hands on.
“Who do you think did this?” Jason asked, still gazing around and looking shocked.
“I have no clue. Maybe some kids broke in and thought it would be fun to tear the place up. Kinda sad. It looks like this place was really nice when it used to be in business.”
“I’ve seen pictures; it was nice. Seems odd they would take the time to break all those glasses. It had to take a while.” He was more suspicious now. “Do you really think it was kids?”
“What else could it be? I doubt a ghost would be able to do this.”
He stepped into the center of the room and turned slowly, taking it all in. “What if they did?”
“What if who did what?”
“What if a ghost did do this?”
I could feel the cold chill of fear creeping up the back of my neck.
“Come on, man, don’t mess with me like that.”
“I’m not messing with you. This place has been locked up for years. If it were kids, they would have trashed the whole house. Why just break some glasses and make a mess down here when they could have destroyed a bunch of stuff upstairs?”
I cleared my throat and tried to slow my heart down that was now trying to beat out of my chest. “Well, I for one am glad we are not sleeping down—” That was all I got out before a glass hurled at my head and shattered on the wall behind me. I practically threw myself onto the ground and frantically looked around for who could have thrown it. I didn’t see anyone. I looked over at Jason to see him standing there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes looking like they could pop right out of his head.
He raised his hand to point at one corner of the room, never taking his eyes away from that area. I was still lying on the floor with my arms wrapped around my head. I slowly uncurled and looked in the direction he was staring.
“Did you see that?” he whispered to me.
“I didn’t see anything except the glass that almost hit me in the head. Luckily, I did see it or it would’ve done some damage.”
He blinked a few times and shook his head. Right before he lunged for me.
“Wade, are you all right? I didn’t realize it was so close to you. Did it hit you?” He started poking at my head, doing the worst job of trying to check on me. I shoved his hands away.
“Back off, Jason, it’s fine. It didn’t hit me. Luckily my cat-like reflexes kicked in, and I hit the deck. Why’d you throw it anyway?”
“I didn’t throw it,” he said, so quietly I had to think about it for a second.
“You what? What are you saying?” I needed him to be clear about this, crystal clear.
“I didn’t throw it. I didn’t see exactly what happened, but I saw it come flying at you from over there. That’s what I was looking at when you ducked down. It just came out of nowhere, and all of a sudden it was flying through the air at your head.”
His eyes were still wide while he was telling me this, but I was reluctant to believe him. He wanted something to happen so badly, but would he try to hurt me just to make it seem like something paranormal happened? I didn’t think so, but that glass had come really close to my head. I needed to keep my eyes open from now on. Not just on the house and all the weird crap that surrounded it, but on Jason too.
I didn’t want to think that thought; we’d been friends since we were around twelve. We’d come together over our mutual love of all things weird. Well, really it was Jason’s love. I guess I was just along for the ride. He was so addicted to it all. When we’d play it was to figure out where some cursed object might be hidden or to walk by some house that was supposed to be haunted. Just to see if we could live through it.
He was really fun. He’d get so excited about whatever new paranormal story they showed on Ripley’s Believe It or Not then we’d spend the whole week trying to learn more about it. And since the Internet wasn’t as available in those days, it wasn’t always so easy. We’d mostly gone to the library and checked out books that had the information we were looking for. Those were some of the best memories of my childhood. We’d really thought we were like the Ghost Hunters, but we were probably more like Scooby Do.
In all that time he’d never tried to hurt me, not physically and not emotionally. He always had my back, just like I always had his. This was no different.
“Come on, let’s go upstairs and figure out where we’re going to sleep,” I said, trying to diffuse the situation. “We’ll get our equipment set up, and then maybe we can take a walk around the property. What do you think?” I waited with anticipation for his answer. Happy for any chance to be out of the house, away from the oppressive feeling of being constantly watched.
He blinked and shook his head again before he faced me. “Yeah—ahem, yes, you’re right. We should get set up and check the property out before it gets too late.”
He seemed so nervous. The glass had nearly hit me, but he seemed just as freaked out as I was. Was he trying to be brave, or had he really seen something?
Or maybe he was just fucking with me.
I started up the stairs. Intent on getting out of the basement as fast as I could. I made it a few steps up when something brushed against the back of my head.
“Knock it off, Jason,” I huffed out, tired of this crap already.
“What?”
“I said, knock it off.” I turned around to face him, expecting to find him smiling at his joke. Instead he had a perplexed look on his face and seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.
“Come on, let’s just go get our things.” He walked around me on the stairs and jogged up to the door.
There was no way in hell I was going to be left in that basement by myself. Even if it was still light out it didn’t matter. It gave me a bad feeling being down there. I hurried to follow him, and when we got up to the top of the stairs, we both spun around to look back down at the bottom.
“Do you feel that?” Jason whispered to me. “Like someone is watching us. I felt it the whole time we were down there.”
“I feel it. I was hoping I was just creeped out but . . . Fuck, let’s go get our shit. I’m not letting something I can’t see scare me.” I tried so hard to be convincing, not just for Jason, but also for the ghosts if they happened to be listening. I had a feeling they were listening to every word, but I also had a feeling they didn’t consider either of us to be a threat. As far as I was concerned, they had already shown us they could do more than just watch us. But how far would they actually go? I dreaded finding out.
We stood side by side there at the top of the stairs for a few more moments then slowly started to back away. No way was I turning my back on whatever it was that was watching us from down in the basement.
We shuffled backwards until we could no longer see the bottom of the stairs, then we turned and speed walked back to the front of the house. By the time we got to the front door, we were both out of breath and sweating from the adrenaline rush.
Jason opened the door, and we stepped out onto the porch. Just being out of the house felt better, lighter somehow. Jason turned to me and grabbed me in a crushing hug.
“Are you sure you’re okay? I was so worried. I saw that glass fly, but I didn’t realize how close it got to your head. If it had hit you, it would have really fucked you up.” Instantly, his hands were all over me again, squeezing my arms, rubbing my head, looking for any injury at all.
Damn him and his caring ways. I let him check me out. I wasn’t
injured, but what was the harm in enjoying his attention for a few more seconds. When he seemed content that everything was okay, he stepped back from me and a look of concern crossed his face.
“Hey, come on, Jason, everything’s fine. Let’s get the rest of our stuff and bring it in. We need to figure out where we should sleep tonight. I have to be honest, though, I probably won’t be sleeping much.” That seemed to vault him into action.
“You’re right. We came here for answers, and we’re not leaving until we have them. Let’s get our stuff and get settled. And Wade . . . thanks.” He squeezed my hand when he walked by me headed to the car. I watched him for a second and willed my feet to move. This wasn’t the time for my feelings for him to take control of my common sense. We’d both need to be very careful while we were here and not let anything distract us. No matter how much my traitorous heart disagreed.
Jason led as we carried the rest of our supplies into the house, picked up some of the bags we’d already brought in, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. We walked down the hall and chose the first room with two beds. There was no way I was staying here if I had to sleep alone. I’m pretty sure Jason felt the same way. He’d seemed a little relieved when I suggested it.
“Should we use the room that’s still set up?”
“I’m not really comfortable with that. It feels like a shrine to them. I don’t want to find out the hard way that the ghost of Louise Chalmers does not like strange men sleeping in her bed.”
He huffed out a laugh but didn’t argue. Something was off about that room. It had a serious stay the fuck away vibe. Louise could keep it. I was more than happy to stay away from it.
“Okay, let’s not worry too much about getting everything set up yet; we still have a few hours of sunlight. Let’s go check out the property. I know there’s a family cemetery near here said to be haunted by Louise Chalmers.”
“Lovely,” I grumbled.
He socked me in the arm. “Suck it up, buttercup. We’re here for an adventure remember?”