by BL Maxwell
He heaved with the exertion, his eyes wild as they darted around the room. “Wade?”
“Jason? Is it really you?” I started to relax my grip on him and immediately he tried to take advantage of the move. But I was faster than him and again pinned his hand to the wall and kept my weight on his chest.
I saw the cut on his hand; it wasn’t too deep but it was bleeding. I turned slightly then shoved his hand onto the cut on my arm, mixing our blood.
As soon as our blood combined, we were both thrown back from each other. He was already against the wall but the force of whatever had happened seemed to flatten him to the wall even more. I was thrown back into the basement. The invisible wall that had been holding me in the cell had now disappeared.
I scrambled to my feet and tried to get my bearings and be ready for whatever came next. I noticed Jimbo was on the ground too. He sat up slowly and looked around the room and then up at me.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked as he rubbed the back of his head.
“It was what we needed to do,” I answered. I realized I didn’t feel Louise anymore. I saw Jason sitting against the wall, his legs sprawled out in front of him and his head tilted to the side.
“Jason.” I rushed over to him and took his face in my shaking hands. “Are you okay? Can you hear me? Jason, you’re scaring the shit out of me here.”
“Wha . . . what happened?” He slowly opened his eyes and blinked at me.
I kept my hold on him and leaned in to kiss his lips and continued to kiss him all over his face. “You scared me half to death. I thought you were seriously injured or something else had happened to you. I don’t know, I just thought you were in danger.” I brushed his cheek with my thumb.
He huffed out a laugh and covered my hand with his. “It’s okay now, Wade. Everything’s okay. Can we get out of here?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was. I stood up and held my hand out to help him to his feet.
“Ow, my hand.” He cringed back from the hold I had on him.
“You cut your palm. Come on, let’s get that first aid kit and get you cleaned up.”
“Are you sure you’re okay, dude? That was the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen. And trust me, that’s saying something.” Jimbo stepped forward and put his arm around Jason’s back to help him walk out of the basement. We got to the door when I remembered the backpack and other things we’d brought down here with us.
“Wait here and I’ll get the backpack.” I stepped back into the space we’d just left and spotted the backpack right where I’d left it. I picked it up, and I grabbed the lantern we’d put on the bar earlier. Before I started to head back toward the door, a noise to my right caused me to turn and look in that direction.
Louise stood there with Robert at her side. He looked at her with complete adoration written all over his face. No longer was he dressed in the clothes that he’d died in. He now appeared as he must have in life. Healthy, strong, and not a hint of the hysteria that had haunted him for all these decades. They both looked over at me and back to each other and smiled. They stood there, arm in arm, looking every bit the loving couple they were reported to have been for so many years before everything had changed.
Louise raised her hand and gave a little wave as they slowly faded into nothing. I paused a second longer and walked back to where Jimbo and Jason waited at the door.
“Everything okay?” Jimbo asked.
“Yes, everything’s great. Let’s get Jason inside and get him cleaned up. I could probably use some help with my arm too, if you don’t mind.”
“I can help you, Wade,” Jason offered and tried to pull away from us.
“I know, but right now we’re going to help you. Then tomorrow you can help me. Sound like a plan?”
He gave me a serious look. “Yeah, I can do that.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Jimbo, you can stay here. The sun should be up in a few hours. How’d you get here anyway? I didn’t see a car.”
“I walked, I didn’t actually plan to come here. I guess Louise maybe encouraged me.”
A few days ago we would have questioned that, but not anymore. We made our way up the steps into the house. As soon as we walked in, the energy felt different. It now felt empty, we were the only ones here and it was just a house. I saw the small smile that played at Jason’s lips.
He felt it too. They’d finally moved on.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll stay. But let’s get both of you guys cleaned up first. You don’t want those cuts to get infected. Who knows what germs have been lurking around here.” He looked around the place with a look of disgust. “This place has really gone downhill from how it was when I worked here.”
“Help me get Jason upstairs. He needs to lie down and rest.” Jimbo nodded and slipped his arm around Jason from the other side, and all three of us started up the staircase together. It was slow going; Jason was barely awake. This had taken so much out of him.
“Thanks, guys. I don’t think I could have made it without you both.”
Jimbo rolled his eyes and tried to get us to move faster to our room. We shuffled down the hall in a line and soon enough we were at the door to the room we’d been staying in.
“Let’s help Jason to the bed, and I’ll clean his hand up,” I directed.
Jimbo helped to ease him down to sit on the edge of the bed.
I found the first aid kit in the backpack Jason had packed earlier.
“Jason, let me see that hand.” He slowly raised his hand and set it in mine. I lifted it so I could look closer. “This looks pretty deep, and it’s packed with dirt. Did you want me to take you into Placerville and have this looked at?”
I took out some disinfectant soap and started cleaning up his hand with some gauze. “I’ll be fine, Wade, don’t worry so much.” He reached his other hand up and pressed his thumb into the crease between my eyebrows. Grabbing his hand and kissing his palm, I set it back on his leg and continued to clean his dirt-crusted hand.
“You know, this would be so much easier with running water?” I said absently while trying to contain the grin that threatened under his teasing.
“Uh, you two want me to leave?” Jimbo said to us with a look of concern on his face.
“Sorry, no. Stay here. Jason, stop making Jimbo uncomfortable.”
Jason looked over at Jimbo and gave him the innocent doe-eyed look that worked on his parents but didn’t seem to fool Jimbo at all. He rolled his eyes and went over to the other bed.
“You guys have anything to eat?”
That made us all laugh. We’d just been through possibly the weirdest experience of all of our lives and he was hungry.
“Yeah, dig around in the ice chest. There’s all kinds of munchies. Help yourself.”
He moved over to the pile of our things and started rooting around looking for whatever seemed good to eat. He walked back over to the bed with his arms loaded with what looked like sandwich fixings.
“I know you two have to be as hungry as I am. It just hasn’t hit you yet. You almost done cleaning up Jason’s hand?”
“I can eat,” Jason popped up.
“Of course you can,” I mumbled to nobody in particular. I finished cleaning his hand and wrapped it tightly in gauze and tape. It was still bleeding, but I hoped the pressure would slow it down. “There you go, feel better?”
He flexed his hand and winced at the movement. “I do. Come here, let me get you cleaned up too.”
We switched places with him standing in front of me while I sat on the bed. He took my arm in his hand and rested my hand in his other.
“This isn’t too bad, with so much blood on your shirt I thought it was much worse. I’ll clean it up and we can eat. Won’t take long.” He smiled at me and squeezed my fingers.
“Thanks, Jason.”
“So, we gonna talk about exactly what the fuck happened down there? I know they crossed over, but any idea why they were here to begin with?” Jimbo asked,
obviously annoyed.
“They were trapped,” I offered.
“No shit. Any idea why or how?”
I sat and collected my thoughts for a second and watched Jason wipe my arm clean of the dried blood and dirt. He raised his brows at me with an expectant look.
“Oh, okay. I guess this is as good a time as any. Apparently when they first settled here, they tried looking for gold but didn’t have much luck. Robert’s family had been wine makers before they came here in search of their fortunes, so when it didn’t work out with the gold he thought they could try growing grapes and making wine. The only problem was finding land that was suitable for a vineyard. One of the places that seemed promising was some land belonging to a small tribe of indigenous people.”
“This isn’t going to be some ancient curse kinda thing is it?” Jimbo asked, looking both awed and appalled. It was a special talent.
“Look, I’m just telling you what Louise told me. Well, she didn’t actually tell me. More like when we were connected I knew everything about her and I knew she knew everything about me.”
“I don’t remember anything except feeling confused and sad. So much loneliness.” Jason sounded so hurt just admitting that to us.
“Maybe because Robert had gone mad years before his death. He really wasn’t in his right mind for a long time. I think since he died in the manner he did, he didn’t seem to realize he’d be okay once he crossed over. He wouldn’t be crazy anymore. Louise tried to tell him but he was so far gone even in death, he couldn’t let himself understand,” I said, thinking out loud to myself.
I blinked and brought myself back to what we’d been talking about. “So, anyway, Robert talked to the elders and worked out a deal where he could use their land, and even hire some of them to help him get his vineyard going. At first it was a good deal. They showed him techniques that helped make it easier for them to clear the land and get the grapes started. They even showed him some wild grapes that ended up working really well for his wine. But he got greedy. They refused to do any work with him and took any chance they could to slow down or damage his operation. What started out as a mutual friendship ended up a huge battle over the land.”
“What did he do?” Jason asked. I could hear the guilt in his voice, as if it were him that had caused all this to fall down on the Chalmers family.
“He rode into Sacramento and came back with some of the settlers and a few soldiers that were stationed at the fort there. They ended up forcing the tribe off their land and strong-arming them to make sure they wouldn’t come back. I don’t know exactly what happened between them, but I know one night a few weeks later, Louise saw a fire burning in the middle of the vineyard. She thought maybe there had been a lightning strike that started a fire, so she sent some men out to extinguish it and make sure it was once again safe. When they returned none of them wanted to talk about what they’d seen. They said that she would have to go see for herself if she wanted to know what they’d found.”
Jimbo looked a little unsure about hearing the rest of the story. Jason on the other hand seemed unable to look away. It was as if he needed to know what happened.
“The next morning she walked up to the area of the vineyard she had seen burning the night before, accompanied by a couple workers. When they approached the area there were a lot of dead grapevines. The workers examined the dead, brown leaves and vines. She asked them what they thought had happened, but none of them had any idea. The closer they got to the burned area, the more dead and decimated plants they found. When they finally reached the area where a fire had been burned, they were shocked to find a pattern drawn around the fire pit. On closer examination they realized it was drawn in blood.”
“What do you mean drawn in blood?” Jimbo was looking a little green.
“It was a lot of blood that someone had poured into a design. They didn’t know what the blood was from and didn’t stick around to find out. They all went back to the house and refused to return to that area. Not long after, the whole vineyard started to die. Everyday they would find more brown leaves, more dead vines. Within a month all of the vineyard was dead.”
“The tribe cursed them?” Jason asked, his eyes wide with shock.
I nodded to him. “They did, and years later, Louise found one of the original land owners at her door. She asked him what he wanted, and he said only this: Only with two lovers’ blood, will the blood of death be washed away.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Jason mumbled, and Jimbo nodded in agreement.
“She didn’t understand what he meant, and she was very frightened to have one of the native people so close to her home and her children. Soon after, their whole vineyard business folded and Robert started losing his mind. She tried everything to help him but nothing made any difference. Eventually he died, but he never left. She didn’t know this until she died and was drawn to him down in the basement but was never able to reach him . . . before we came here anyway.”
“I don’t remember any of his memories. It’s all a jumble, as if someone scrambled them all up and threw them in the air. Do you remember anything else?”
I thought for a moment before continuing, “You know that we broke the curse? You and me, Jason. We were the lovers’ blood.”
He sat with a blank look on his face, seeming to consider what I’d just told him. “So that’s why you cut my hand?”
“Me? Dude, you did that to yourself. You’re the one who cut my arm too. You really don’t remember that shit?”
“I did?” He grasped my hand then and laid his other gauze-wrapped hand on top. “I’m so sorry. I really had no idea it was me that hurt you.”
I reached out with my other hand and brushed my thumb along his cheek. “It’s okay. We helped them move over to the other side. That’s what we were hoping for, right?”
“That’s what we were hoping for.” He smiled down at me.
“Guys, seriously, can you save all this for later, when I’m not five feet from you. Please?” Jimbo said with a pleading voice from his perch on the other bed that was in fact within five feet of us.
His expression and how uncomfortable he obviously was made it too hard not to laugh at him. “Yes, Jimbo, we can wait. But as soon as I get Jason here home and alone, we’re not leaving the bedroom for at least three days.”
“Possibly four or five,” Jason added.
“Guys! Please.” Jimbo grabbed one of the sleeping bags and started spreading it out on the bed he’d chosen for the night.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Once Jimbo was settled in the spare bed, Jason and I followed suit. “Here, let me help you with your shirt,” I offered Jason. He winced as he tried to pull the dirty blood-stained shirt that he still wore, over his head to change.
“Thanks. You’re always there for me.”
I ducked my head, suddenly feeling vulnerable for reasons I couldn’t start to explain. “I try to be.” I rummaged through his bag and found a shirt that looked clean. I walked back to the bed and handed it to him.
“You are, always.” He gave me such an intense look I had to look away. How had so much changed between us in only a few days?
Jimbo groaned and rolled over on his side and pulled the sleeping bag up to his ears.
Jason smiled at me as he pulled his shirt over his head.
“Come on, let’s get some sleep.” I spread out the sleeping bag like we had the night before, and pulled off my shoes, but left my pants and shirt on like Jimbo had done.
I smoothed the sleeping bag down for Jason to lay down then slid in right behind him. I kissed him right behind his ear and snuggled into his neck. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He grabbed my arm and pulled it over him, and hugged it to his chest. That was the last thing I remembered before I fell asleep.
We all woke to the sun streaming in through the bare windows. “Hey, guys. I need to get a ride back to the restaurant. No rest for the wicked.”
“No problem, Jimbo. Do we have time
to gather up all our things first? We still have some cameras and other equipment set up around the house.” I didn’t want to make him late. “I’ll go upstairs and gather up the things we left there. Jason, you okay with getting the equipment from the bottom floor?”
“Sure, but not the basement. I know it’s probably safe down there now, but I don’t want to test that theory anytime soon.”
I gave his hand a squeeze. “We’ll do the basement last, and we can all do it together. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds good to me. Come on, let’s get this done and get home,” he said with enthusiasm I hadn’t heard from him in what seemed like forever but was only a day.
We all split up and made quick work of gathering all the cameras, motion detectors, and recorders we had spread throughout the house.
“When we get home I want to go over all of this data, just to see what we’ve captured. I know we have some really good stuff.”
Jason froze where he was packing away a motion detector and looked up at me. “Really? You still want to see what we recorded?”
“Of course. We might have something that can prove exactly what we saw. And if we do, we can finally prove to everyone ghosts are real. Isn’t it what you’ve always wanted?”
Jimbo stared down at him from the top of the staircase. “Dude, you are one focused motherfucker.”
Jason looked up at him, then back at me and started laughing. I couldn’t stop myself from doing the same. Jimbo and his lack of filter were pretty funny.
“So, besides ‘going over your data’, what other plans do you have?”
Jason and I glanced back and forth at each other, and I shrugged my shoulders. “Just the usual. We both work tomorrow. I guess when we get off work we’ll start going through everything.”