Soon, they found themselves standing at the bottom. Using their flashlights, they took a long look around.
The room itself wasn’t very big, probably 10 X 20. The long table in the middle of the floor took up most of the space. Sherry walked up to it first and gazed down at it. The table was only about three feet wide, but it was at least ten feet long. At one end there was a hole. When she looked down at the floor under it she saw a drain, rusted orange with age and use.
“Hey honey, what do you think this was for?” she asked.
Brian, who was examining the pipes overhead and one big one that ran down the wall shrugged. “Don’t know. Washing vegetables maybe. There’s one of them big old farm sinks in here too. Probably came down here to wash ‘em and maybe can, too.”
One wall was indeed full of old Mason jars containing various fruits and vegetables that had all turned to vinegar over time.
Sherry didn’t like the room at all. Although she couldn’t smell the thing everyone else was going on about she was getting a bad feeling about the place. Sherry’s mother had been one of those women who knew things before anyone else did. She said she could feel things coming to her, things she couldn’t see or hear but felt. Sherry thought she might have inherited some of that, too.
Although the room was dank and chilly, as most basements with stone walls and dirt floors could be, the coldness felt like something else, inhuman. Despite the fact Sherry was wearing jeans and a long–sleeved shirt, the coldness found its way to her skin and clung to it, burrowing down into her bones and making them ache. There was nobody in the small room other than her and her husband but she felt like she was being watched. Not just being viewed, but being studied and monitored. The unseen eyes on her were probing, inquisitive. She walked around the floor, her arms folded tightly across her chest, her flashlight making pale patterns on the floor. Brian kept to himself, kneeling in some places, touching the wall and ceilings in others. At one point he staggered backwards a little, cursing and rubbing at his hand.
“What is it, baby?” Sherry asked, concerned.
“I don’t know,” he replied, shining his light on the spot his hand had just been. “You know how something can be so hot it’s almost cold? That’s what this wall felt like. I don’t see nothing, though.”
Sherry experimented and placed her own hand on the wall. The stones underneath it were jagged and cold and maybe just a little damp. But there was something else, too. A drumming sensation appeared under her palm, like she’d swallowed her heart and it had gone straight to her hand. She could almost see her hand moving up and down over the stones, a rhythmic tremor. Then she realized it wasn’t coming from her hand at all, but from the wall.
Sherry quickly brought her hand back to her chest and folded it up. For a moment she’d been sure the wall had a heartbeat and was pulsating. But that was crazy, right?
“I can’t find nothing,” Brian finally sighed. “I’ll take a walk around outside but if the sewer is leaking it’s not down here. No dead animals, either.”
Brian went up first and Sherry followed him. With her back to the room she felt vulnerable and exposed and was never so glad to emerge into the bright and sunny kitchen.
Day 3
Jenny woke up violently ill on the third day of Laura’s absence.
She was projectile vomiting and running a fever so high that Mary wondered if they shouldn’t take her the E.R.
“I’ll be okay,” Jenny said weakly. She was sitting on the bathroom floor, her back resting on the claw foot tub and her hand on the toilet bowl. She’d spent all morning in there, unable to leave thanks to the alternating between having diarrhea and vomiting.
“You sure you don’t want me to run you a bath or something?” Mary asked. She wished Laura was there. Laura would’ve known what to do.
“No, I’m okay. I don’t think I could sit up in one. But keep Candy away from me, will you? I don’t want her getting sick too.”
With two sick parents who couldn’t do much Mary was now the adult of the household. She burnt the toast and bacon and made the eggs too runny for breakfast. She failed getting Candy dressed because she was unable to find the Alf shirt she wanted to wear. Unable to get the kids to make their own beds, she did it for them.
The rest of the kids did behave well, however, as though they needed to be extra cautious with the adults in the house being in bed. After Mary shooed them outside to play she straightened up the living room and kitchen, trying to remember how Laura polished the furniture and dusted them the right way. Jimmy hadn’t even gotten up that morning and she took the opportunity to change the sheets on the couch where he’d been spending so much time. They were filthy and smelled like a combination of sweat and urine which made her feel even sorrier for her dad.
Once she got them in the washing machine Mary made some Jell–O from a packet and put it in the refrigerator to set. She took up glasses of orange juice and bottles of Ale–8s, but neither Jimmy nor Jenny were able to drink them.
Mary held Jenny’s hair back while she vomited and then wet a washrag and wipe down her forehead. Jenny was pale and weak, her lips dry and cracked. She looked like she might have the flu or a very bad case of food poisoning. Mary was finally able to help her back to bed and, there, she tucked her in and smoothed back her hair as though Jenny were a child herself.
Content that she’d done everything she could possibly do, Mary went outside to play with the others.
Suppertime came and went. Mary was able to open two cans of tuna and make Tuna Helper, her favorite. They followed it with watermelon. Mary was getting nervous, however, because their food supply was low. They barely had any milk left and after tomorrow they’d be out of eggs. There were just a few potatoes in the bin and they’d all grown large eyes. Someone would have to go to the store soon but neither one of the adults could drive. She hoped her uncle would return the next day and take them all out. Jenn hadn’t found a new job yet and Jimmy had called in sick five days in a row. If he didn’t make it back to the car dealership where he worked as a mechanic soon they were going to fire him.
With all of these adult worries Mary was exhausted. When she took the Jell–O upstairs to her dad and Jenny, however, she felt ashamed. They were in much worse condition than she’d thought. Jenny wasn’t even able to sit up in bed to eat, she was so weak and Jimmy had urinated in a cup next to the bed so that he didn’t have to leave.
“I think you should try to go to the doctor tomorrow,” Mary said as she spooned cherry Jell–O into Jenny’s mouth. “You’re likely to get dehydrated if you don’t eat or drink nothing.”
“I feel like my body’s on fire,” Jenny whispered. “Like I’m burning from the inside out. I keep dreaming that I’m being eaten alive by flames.”
“It’s the fever,” Jimmy said, his voice tight with pain.
“I keep seeing things and hearing things,” Jenny said again. “Things that aren’t there.”
Mary shivered and looked around. As it was dark out, she’d turned on a lamp in the corner but it did little to illuminate the room. The bedroom was still full of shadows and dark corners.
“What’d you see?” Mary asked, afraid of what the answer might be.
“There was a woman once,” Jenny shuddered. “She walked to the window and just stood there. When she turned around she didn’t have a face. I knew it was just a dream, probably ‘cause of what Laura said, but it felt so real. And then these voices. Sometimes singing, sometimes…chanting,” Jenny let her voice trail off and closed her eyes. “It reminded me of being in church.”
Back in their bedroom Mary got the other girls tucked into bed and made a sleeping bag for Bobby on the floor. He didn’t need to sleep with his parents that night. There was no use in him getting sick, too.
They’d all settled down and fallen asleep when a banging woke them up.
“Huh?” Brenda asked groggily, sitting up in the bed. Mary and Natalie awoke as well and Mary reached over to turn the light on. “What is that?
”
“I think something fell,” Natalie offered.
But then it came again, the thunderous knocking, loud enough to wake the dead. And it was at their bedroom door.
“That’s not something falling,” Mary cried, jumping to her feet. “That’s our door.”
Standing in the middle of the floor in her white flannel nightgown, her eyes wide with fear, Mary stared at their door, closed shut to keep the cool air in from the fan. Natalie climbed out of bed as well and stood next to her, slipping her small hand into her sister’s. “Mary, who is it?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Mary whispered back.
It came again, then, the pounding rattling the pictures on the wall. Brenda shrieked and dove under the blanket, nothing but the top of her head peeking out.
“It might be Dad or Jenny needing something,” Mary said uncertainly. “Maybe they’re sicker now.”
With cautious steps she walked to the door, dragging Natalie along with her. Her baseball bat was in the corner of the room and she went to it and picked it up, releasing Natalie and raising the bat in her hands. “You turn the knob and I’ll be ready, okay?” she asked her. Natalie nodded.
On the soft count of “three” Natalie swung open the door and Mary jumped forward, ready to strike if necessary. The hall was lit up by a nightlight, but nobody was there.
Mary stepped out and looked in both directions. She didn’t see a soul. The bathroom across from her was dark. She hadn’t heard anyone running down the stairs or walking away at all, and the floorboards were creaky.
“I’m gonna go check on Dad,” she said.
With speed she didn’t know she possessed, Mary sprinted down the shadowy hallway and opened her dad’s bedroom door. Both adults were still in bed, light snoring telling her they were both asleep. The knocking had apparently not awoken them but it also meant that it wasn’t them who did the knocking in the first place.
Next, Mary went back to her bedroom and grabbed the baseball bat again. “Stay up here,” she hissed to the others. “I’m gonna check downstairs.”
“I’m going with you,” Brenda cried, jumping up from beneath the covers. “I’m not staying up here.”
“Me too, me too,” Natalie sang.
“No, one of you has to stay with Candy and Bobby,” Mary said, casting a glance at her little brother who was curled up in a fetal position on the floor, staring wildly at the girls. Candy was still asleep.
Natalie opted to stay so Brenda and Mary took off downstairs, creeping silently down the staircase with their little girl feet barely making a sound.
Mary’d left a light on in the living room and for that she was thankful. Everything was in order. The front door was shut and when she tried the knob she found it locked. Nobody had made a mad dash out the door. When Mary opened the door she was met by the sounds of the cricket and tree frog orchestra, all singing loudly and off key. The night was somehow comforting, the big sky filled with stars and a bright shining moon. She so wanted to run out into the yard, sleep under the sky, and feel safe. Going back into the house filled her with dread and she felt the fear wrap its arms around her and squeeze. She couldn’t leave her sisters and brother.
Back upstairs she shut and locked the door. They kept the lamp on, but none of them were able to go back to sleep until daylight.
Day 4
The 4th day was blessedly quiet.
Jenny wasn’t back to feeling 100% yet but she was able to get up and move around a little. Mary continued taking on the work Laura and Jenny would’ve done and let her rest as much as possible. She continued to worry about her father, however, because he didn’t seem to be improving at all.
Jenny spent most of the day on the couch, watching soaps and talk shows. Mary scurried around, trying to throw food together for the younger ones and checking on her father throughout the day. She had little time to rest or play with so many people needing different things, but the work kept her mind busy.
She told Jenny about the banging on the door the night before but, as she suspected, Jenny hadn’t heard it.
“You don’t need to be up traipsing around investigating by yourself,” Jenny admonished her. “You should’ve woke me up. What if it had been a crazy person?”
Mary shrugged. “I thought you needed the rest.”
The fact was, a crazy person was somehow less frightening than what Mary knew it to truly be–a ghost or even a demon.
“We need to start praying more,” Jenny declared. “That’s the whole problem with this thing. We’re just not praying enough. God might be punishing us by sending demons to us.”
Mary didn’t think God would do such a thing. Even though he was mighty and powerful she didn’t think he could control the demons. Wasn’t that supposed to be the devil’s job? Still, it wouldn’t hurt to pray more. She’d been praying in her head for the past few days. Tonight she’d make the little ones say bedtime prayers before going to sleep.
Mary’s Uncle Brian and Aunt Sherry arrived around noon with their daughter June. June, affectionately known as “June Bug” was three years old. She was the life of the party whenever she was around and the girls always enjoyed having her over. When they’d arrived at the new house she’d immediately ran off to play with the others. Candy, in particular, was happy to have a playmate for the afternoon.
“So how’s it going?” Brian asked. They were sitting on the front porch, as they usually did in the afternoon since it was so much cooler out there.
Jenny had shrugged, feeling more and more irritated by the minute. “I’m about ready to get out of here,” she said. “Things are just getting to be too much for me.”
“Can’t though,” Jimmy said weakly from the swing. He looked pale and bony. Brian later told him he looked like he’d aged fifteen years or more since the last time he’d seen him, just a couple of days before. “All our money’s tied up in the move.”
“If you need a place to stay, man, I’ll find you one,” Brian vowed.
“Naw, we’ll be okay. Just some growing pains settling in here I guess,” he scoffed.
Jenny did not look convinced. There was much she wanted to say but every time she’d brought it up it had started a fight. She knew they were broke, knew they’d spent all their money on the deposit and first month’s rent (not to mention the gas moving their crap over there) and it would be months before they recouped any of that. Maybe longer if Jimmy didn’t get back to work soon.
A few minutes later the kids came flying around the house, panting from exhaustion and excitement. “It’s June Bug,” Brenda gasped. She double over at the waist to catch her breath and pointed behind her.
Natalie, still running but a little slower, was pulling June Bug by the hand as she toddled behind. The adults were startled to see June Bug’s face as white as a sheet, her eyes bulging, and her lips quivering like she had a chill.
“Baby! You okay?” Sherry jumped from her chair and was off the porch in seconds. Sprinting across the yard to her daughter she scooped her up and began whacking her on the back. “Is she choking? What’d she put in her mouth?” Sherry demanded, her own eyes wide with fright.
“Nothing,” Natalie cried, tears running down her face in terror. “She just started making that noise.”
“And her face turned all funny,” Brenda added. She’d walked over to Natalie and grabbed her hand. Together, they watched in apprehension.
The gurgling sounds coming from June Bug’s throat were unlike anything Mary had ever heard. As she gasped and wheezed and panted it did sound like she was choking.
Brian had joined his wife and daughter and was trying to open her mouth to look down her throat. He stuck his finger deep inside to dislodge whatever might be there and June Bug doubled over in pain, letting out a horrible scream that made them all jump a little. At last she stopped and fell limply against Sherry’s side. Brian picked her up and carried her back to the porch swing where he sat down and began to rock her.
“What
was wrong with her?” Sherry cried. Her fear and panic had given way to grief and the tears rolled down her cheeks in quick succession. “Is she gonna be okay?”
“It’s probably this damn house,” Jenny muttered, looking shaken herself. “I’d take her to your preacher and have him pray over her if I was you. We ought to do it to all of us. Especially Jimmy.”
Jimmy looked on in grave concern, his eyes never leaving June Bug’s tired little face. She looked like she’d been through a war. “It’s not a bad idea,” he agreed quietly. “Brian, you know we love you guys and I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t but…”
“What is it?” Brian asked, not looking up from his small daughter nestled in his arms.
“Don’t come back here. We’ll get out as soon as we can. I just don’t want you coming back around. I’d probably kill myself if I thought something happened to you all.”
Day 5
Jimmy was able to get out of bed again and walk around the house on the 5th day.
“These damn pills are making me sleep too much,” he grumbled. “I gotta get back to work or they’re gonna fire my ass.”
“You need to go back to the doctor then and have ‘em take a look at you,” Jenny said. “Or at least go to the E.R. and see somebody else.”
Jimmy’s main bone of contention was that he didn’t have any health insurance and couldn’t pay for the E.R. “Oh, don’t be dumb,” Jenny chided him. “They got them programs at the hospital for us poor people. You wouldn’t have to pay much, just fill out a bunch of papers.”
So, everyone loaded up in the truck and Jenny took off down the road.
Jenny and Jimmy rode upfront, Jimmy’s frail body wrapped in an afghan from the back of the couch. His head rested on the window, banging painfully on the glass whenever Jenny hit a pothole. She was still weak and sickly but could manage to drive alright.
The kids all rode in the truck bed, the girls’ long hair flying out behind them as they sped down the road. Mary thought that being out in the truck, away from the house, was like a slice of heaven. As the wind whipped at her face and forced her eyes closed she opened her mouth to take in big gulps, feeling like she was feeding herself a fresh slice of sunshine. Surely nothing could hurt them now. The farther they got from the house, the better she felt.
Two Weeks: A True Haunting (True Hauntings Book 3) Page 5