Smiling back, she gave in and responded. “I was just thinking about my mom.”
Frank’s lips tightened, and he nodded slightly. “I see.”
“As much as it makes me sad to leave her behind, I’ll be happy to have a drama-free holiday,” she admitted honestly, trying to divert any guilt Frank may be feeling.
He instantly went back to smiling. “Who said there wouldn’t be any drama?”
“No one I guess.” She shifted in her seat. “It’s just, every holiday since my dad left, my mom always has some sort of meltdown—almost guaranteed.”
“Well, she’ll be with friends,” he replied.
“Yes, I know she’ll be fine. I’m just grateful to not have to be on clean-up crew if it happens again.”
“Makes sense,” he nodded.
“I feel guilty saying it, though.”
Frank paused, watching the road and passing trees for a moment. “You shouldn’t.”
“I shouldn’t?”
“Feel guilty. You work hard, you’ve dealt with your father’s absence, you’ve helped your mother through it all, and you’ve still managed to make time for yourself. You are still Sonja Reed, pursuing your dreams.”
Leaning back in her seat, Sonja folded her arms. “I suppose you’re right,” she replied.
“This year, you can just relax and enjoy Thanksgiving. Just think, an entire week without making any waffles.”
At this, Sonja laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“I brought a waffle iron.”
“What?” he demanded.
“I did. I wanted to make some for your family.”
Frank sighed. “I thought this was going to be a vacation.”
“It is,” she confirmed. “I can still be on vacation and enjoy cooking for your family.”
“You cook every day, though.”
“So, why shouldn’t your parents get the blessing of my cooking as well?”
This time, it was Frank’s turn to laugh. “All right, I give up. You can cook for them.”
“Good,” she beamed.
“But you just wait until you taste mom’s food. You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Sonja stretched her arms out and sighed happily. “A whole week of ranch living, great food, and quiet.”
Frank scoffed a little, adjusting his hand grip on the wheel and leaving moist handprints behind. “I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of peace and quiet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sonja turned to look her boyfriend in the face.
“It isn’t just my parents at the ranch,” he informed. “You’ve got any ranch hands who decided to stay behind for the holidays, you’ve got local friends, you’ve got grandparents, and anyone else my mother decided needed a place to eat on Thanksgiving Day.”
“Right, but friends and other invitees won’t be around all week, will they?”
Frank shrugged. “Probably not, but you never know.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
“Well, I hear grandma’s got a new boyfriend.”
Sitting up straight in her seat, Sonja leaned in with interest. “A boyfriend? How old is she?”
“In her eighties, but that doesn’t stop her.”
Sonja let out another small laugh. “A boyfriend, huh?”
“And Mom hates him, says it’s like having an unruly teenager around.”
“Are they staying at the ranch house, too?” Sonja pressed, interested in this new development.
“No, thank goodness. The only reason they aren’t staying there is because you and I are taking up the spare bedrooms. Grandma lives in a trailer about two hours out of Larabee, but I heard that she and her boyfriend are checking into a hotel instead of traveling back and forth. That probably means they’ll spend every possible moment at the house.”
Sonja leaned back in her seat, slightly amused by the unfamiliar drama of a new family. “Well,” she confided, “it sounds like we’ll have a very interesting Thanksgiving.”
CHAPTER 3
* * *
The ranch house was far from what Sonja expected. The windows were boarded up, shingles were falling off, and the whole building was shrouded on all sides in a thick mist. It appeared as if no one were home. “This is where your parents live?” Sonja complained, unable to hide her distaste.
Frank, not hearing his girlfriend’s protest, was already halfway up the rickety steps, the fog swirling around him as he reached the front door.
“Frank, wait for me,” Sonja called out.
Stepping inside the dark house, her boyfriend still declined to reply.
Sighing angrily, she dashed after him, entering through the rotting doorway. “Hey,” she cried. “What’s the big idea?”
Everything was surprisingly cold and damp. Pausing, she looked around what appeared to be a small living room. People sat in chairs and on a cobweb infested couch, all of them with their backs to her. Frank stood in front of the unlit wood burning stove. The baggage in his hand dropped to the floor with a clunk, and his eyes were wide with terror.
Running to his side, Sonja grabbed a hold of his hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Turning, she got a better look at his family and gasped. Four pairs of dead, wide eyes stared at her. Frank’s parents, his grandmother, and the unwanted boyfriend were all dead—bullet holes drilled through their heads.
“What, what happened?” she muttered quietly.
The answer came in the form of horse clomps coming up the driveway, a hollow and foreboding echo. The animal neighed, stopping as the rider dismounted, and the spurs on the unknown assailant’s boots jingling as they hit the ground.
Sonja couldn’t see the person yet, but her entire core was cold from fear.
The jingle of the spurs continued with each step as the person drew closer, mounting the creaking porch steps.
“Frank, let’s run. Let’s get out of here before it’s too late,” she pleaded, but her boyfriend was frozen in place. “Come on,” she shouted.
But it was too late. The outline of a man wearing a black trench coat, a dark cowboy hat, and two holstered six-shooters blocked the doorway with his bulk. The room filled with the smell of sulfur, and the man’s body smoked as if he were burning.
As the figure turned his head, Sonja instantly recognized the man. It was her father.
His eyes were red and bored into the couple in front of the stove. He smiled wickedly.
With lightning speed, the cowboy grasped both six shooters, raised them, and fired. One bullet penetrated Frank’s chest, the other planted in his forehead, sending him flying backward and falling against the stove. His shirt turned a sudden shade of crimson and then he toppled face first onto the floor.
“Noooo,” she screamed, hunching over her boyfriend’s dead and bleeding body.
The dark figure aimed his weapons again and fired.
* * *
“Sonja, Sonja wake up.”
The calm voice rocked the drowsy dreamer from the strange nightmare she was having. Opening her eyes, she realized she was still in Frank’s sports car. Shaking her head, she rid herself of the remnants of the dream and sat up. “Where are we?”
“Just outside Larabee,” Frank replied, his eyebrows raising with a sense of excitement. It was almost cute watching him, like a lost boy returning home for the holidays. “We should be there in ten or fifteen minutes.”
Taking in her surroundings, Sonja drank in the beauty of the sprawling Wyoming landscape. Rolling hills were accompanied by open yellow fields dotted with beautiful trees dressed in auburn. Each gentle gust of wind sent a new ballet of leaves dancing across the air. Patches of white dotted the landscape here and there, indicating a previous snowfall.
The occasional ranch house or barn appeared in the distance, creating a picturesque scene that she had only ever seen in pictures or movies. Having lived so close by all her life, she was surprised she’d never seen this part of W
yoming.
She had driven through the southeastern corner of the state before, which was fairly dry, brown, and barren compared to the lush country landscape she was seeing now.
“My parents live a little way outside of town,” Frank commented. “It’s a beautiful spot.”
“I believe it,” Sonja replied, still watching the red, orange, and yellow scenery go by like a movie.
In the distance, a spot among the tall brown grass caught her eye. A man on horseback rode across the field toward them, dressed in a classic cowboy style with a wide-brimmed hat upon his head, a work shirt overlaid with an old-style leather jacket, and finally denim and chaps. The whole outfit was full black on black, and the horse’s mane too followed suit, making the entire figure appear like a stark smudge of paint along the autumn landscape.
She was about to point him out to Frank when the cowboy looked directly in Sonja’s direction—his eyes burning hot inside of his skull like two red coals. The horse breathed and steam erupted from its nostrils like a furnace blowing off smoke.
Sonja could almost smell it, like a campfire made from dried tinder.
She instantly felt herself gasp, the horrors of her nightmare still fresh in her mind.
The familiar chill crawled along the skin of her back, a feeling she had come to associate with the presence of ghosts.
The supernaturally sensitive woman had come to be okay with some specters, aware that most wouldn’t harm her. However, her experience with ghosts was still slim, and she was still frightened by the fact that some of these things may be dangerous, or try to harm her. The nightmare of her boyfriend and his family dying didn’t help.
The black-clad cowboy’s gaze bored into Sonja, almost as if it were burning straight to her core. For the first time in a while, she felt deathly afraid. The face was a hollowed out, charred skull—not like her father’s face in the dream.
Pulling its gun out of its holster, the demon waved it about like an angry medieval villager with a torch. The skull, despite missing its normal flesh and blood covering, seemed to smile in a maniacal way.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
Then, almost as if the demon were inside her very mind, she heard: Turn back now. Return from whence you came. If you do not heed my warning, only death awaits you.
“Something wrong?” Frank leaned over, trying to see out into the field where his girlfriend had her eyes fixed, but the figure had vanished into the air, almost as if in a puff of black smoke. Similarly, the voice in her head was gone—as if it had never been there at all.
“It’s nothing,” Sonja lied, hoping that it truly was nothing.
CHAPTER 4
* * *
Pulling up the dirt driveway, Frank parked in front of a red two-story ranch house that looked as if it had jumped right out of the pages of a picture book. “Here we are,” he announced, brandishing a smile. “Your new home away from home.”
Stepping out of the car, Sonja stretched and yawned, trying to melt away the fuzz from the long car ride. It was nearly four thirty and the sun was already beginning to wane, painting the landscape in a beautiful afternoon orange.
The front door of the ranch house flew open and a smiling older woman with a long brown braid hanging down her back emerged onto the wrap around porch. “Frank,” she called excitedly, running down the steps.
“Hi, Mom.” Frank raised a hand in greeting.
Embracing him tightly, the mother held on for a good twenty seconds before finally releasing him. “Let me get a good look at you, hon’,” she spoke with a slight southwestern accent, showing the flavor of her background while still sounding distinguished.
“Don’t let her smother you,” a booming voice came from the porch. A tall man with a slight belly and dressed in a plaid work shirt leaned against the doorframe. Sonja tried not to gasp, but the resemblance between Frank and the gentleman in the doorway was astonishing. Even his blonde hair, which had grayed at the temples, was the same shade as his son’s. “You must be Sonja,” Frank’s father said stepping down toward her and holding out a hand.
Reaching out, she took the older man’s hand and shook it. “Hello,” Sonja said, with a slight squeak in her voice. Feeling a little out of place among all these new people, she only hoped she could make a good impression.
“Frank Senior,” the man said with an all too familiar smile. “But you can call me Franky.”
“A pleasure.” Sonja returned the smile.
“Mom, this is Sonja.” Frank Jr. motioned toward Sonja, diverting his mother’s attention off himself and onto the young, new face.
Stepping over, she embraced Sonja. “So nice to finally meet you, dear.”
Finally? She and Frank had only been dating for a few months. Sonja couldn’t help but wonder how often her boyfriend spoke to his family, and how often those conversations somehow involved her.
Letting her out of the embrace, Frank’s mother examined Sonja. “You are certainly a beauty; Frank didn’t lie about that.”
Sonja’s face suddenly grew hot, flushed with a new pigment of red. Shooting a look at her boyfriend, Frank only shrugged innocently in return.
“I hear you are quite the cook.”
“I do my fair share,” Sonja admitted.
“Well, I look forward to cooking together.” She smiled warmly. “You can call me Hannah.”
“Nice to meet you, Hannah,” Sonja replied.
“Frank tells us you are quite the little busy body,” Frank Senior commented out of the blue.
“Dad,” Frank protested a little angrily, his face beginning to match Sonja’s in color.
“Well, that’s what you said,” he defended himself.
Placing her hands on her hips, she looked Frank in the eye. “That’s what you said, huh?”
“How about we get you two settled in,” his mother interrupted, breaking up any potential confrontation and pushing Sonja toward the house.
“Did I say something wrong?” Frank Senior muttered to his wife.
She didn’t answer.
“I think I should get my bag,” Sonja interrupted, breaking free from Hannah and heading back for the car.
“Oh, Frank can get it.” She waved a hand passively.
The sound of hoof beats echoed from around the house and two men on horseback appeared.
“Or one of our ranch hands,” Hannah smiled.
“Hiya, Mrs. Thompson,” the man on the left said. He appeared to be of Native American descent and spoke with a surprisingly deep and gravelly voice. “We just wanted to let you know we finished fixing the fence in the pasture there.”
“Thank you, Hank,” she replied. “I assume you’re off to the Sinful Saloon for the evening?”
“That’s right. Emmy says she needs a second bartender for tonight. There’s a lot of folks in town for the holidays who are looking for a drink.”
“What about you, Ray? Are you tagging along for a free drink?” Hannah teased the second ranch hand, a slightly older gentleman—potentially around the same age as Frank Senior—with a large cowboy hat over his black hair.
“No, I suppose I’m going to just stick around here for tonight. No need having a hangover on Thanksgiving Day.”
“Sonja,” Hannah said turning to his son’s girlfriend. “This is Hank Hawkins and Ray Simon. They are our two ranch hands.”
“Nice to meet both of you.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” both men greeted her.
“Well, we better get the horses put up,” Hank said. Turning their steeds, the two men headed for the large red barn that stood next door to the house.
“They seem nice,” Sonja commented.
“We couldn’t ask for better hands,” Frank Senior beamed.
The sound of tires on gravel drew everyone’s attention. Turning, Sonja spotted a silver vehicle approaching the house, leaving a dust cloud behind it, and stopping next to Frank’s car.
Hannah’s smile instantly faded into a hard grimac
e. “Oh no,” she moaned quietly. “My mother is here.”
“Your mother?” Sonja replied curiously, looking toward the car. Despite Frank’s warning, she had not expected to have to deal with the grandmother—not yet anyways.
In the passenger seat was an older woman, with well-trimmed short hair. Then, glancing at the driver of the vehicle, Sonja felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. Sitting in the driver’s seat was her father.
CHAPTER 5
* * *
“D-dad,” Sonja whispered. The driver side door opened and the man stepped out.
A wave of both relief and disappointment washed through Sonja. It wasn’t her father after all. An older gentleman stepped out, removing the sunglasses which had partially disguised his face. However, the resemblance was still there. Just like her father, this man had a handsome angular face with a pointed nose and chin. If it weren’t for the fact that he was slightly older than her father, and that he was bald on top, Sonja would have sworn this man could be her father. As it was, he could almost be a forgotten uncle.
The biggest difference between the two men, however, was the voice. “Hiya, Hannah,” the man spoke in a squeaky tone.
Hannah was already on the steps up to the porch when she paused. “Hannah, honey,” Frank’s grandmother shouted as she opened the passenger side door.
Frank’s mother didn’t turn around and didn’t acknowledge the greeting.
The elderly woman was dressed in a bright yellow wool dress, her silver hair pulled back in a ponytail and a complimentary blue scarf tied around her neck.
Frank Senior stepped forward in the absence of his wife’s response. “Good afternoon, Larry, Hilda.”
“Who are these two lovely young people?” Larry leaned nonchalantly on the car door and motioned toward Frank and Sonja. “Don’t tell me these are yours, Franky,” he teased.
“As a matter of fact, this is my son, Frank Junior.”
“Franky Junior,” the bald man exclaimed.
Turkey and Terror: Book 6 in The Diner of the Dead Series Page 2