by Nathan Roden
She was obviously no stranger to this type of distraction. As she made her way back to the head of the group she said, “Stay with the group, please. If you’ll follow me down this hallway to the parlor…”
The two young men finally noticed Holly. They stared at her while they whispered back and forth. Their dates glared at them.
Grady and his friend caught up with the group. The girls hurried to keep up with them.
Holly was forced to stop again by another loud noise. The lance belonging to the other suit of armor rolled across the floor and into the backs of my shoes. I ducked a little behind the two girls ahead of me. The girls were not amused.
Thirty-two pair of eyes stared at the lance after it came to a stop. It was thirty feet away from its owner. No one had touched it.
The two girls with Grady and his friend ran behind them, clutching at their jackets. Several others looked uneasy.
“Oh, come on, people,” Grady said. “Has no one here ever been to a haunted house? It’s Halloween, get it?”
Grady’s friend didn’t look as confident but he wasn’t about to be outdone by his fellow letterman.
“Let’s go find Dracula!” he said.
Holly made no move to replace this fallen lance but she glared at it for a few seconds. Well, she was glaring at something in that general direction.
Maybe tours are just like any other new thing. Maybe you have to work the bugs out.
The first tour—the entire first day for that matter—was plagued by little annoyances. Doors refused to open until, all of a sudden, they worked perfectly. Shouts, screams, shrieks, and bangs came out of nowhere. These noises interrupted Holly on multiple occasions. Many of the guests, especially the younger ones, assumed that we had put in some special effects. We hadn’t. Holly would not have stood for it. She was angry about whatever was happening.
This first tour was still a success. It was an impressive place, and as strange as it sounds, it felt like the castle was a participant in the tours. I would swear that the castle seemed to be breathing. I think our guests were impressed as well.
We gathered in the entryway at the conclusion of the tour and Holly began her closing commentary.
Two candles rose from sconces on the wall behind Holly. There was a collective gasp. The candles floated in the air until they were just out of Holly’s peripheral vision on either side of her head. They hovered there for two seconds before they flew through the crowd as if they had been thrown. They passed by the heads of the two girls with Grady Plimpton and his friend. The candles hit the wall with a loud smack and shattered into pieces.
The girls ran away screaming, followed by their bewildered boyfriends. The rest of the group looked to each other for moral support. A minute later, everyone laughed about the incident. They joked about the “realistic ghost” trick they had just seen. Everyone thanked Holly for the excellent job she had done. The tip jar by the exit doors brimmed with a green salad of dollar bills.
We had a thirty-minute break before the next tour. Holly disappeared before I could reach her. I found her alone about ten minutes later.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on here?” I asked.
She was leaning against the wall. She shook her head but wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“You’re doing a great job even if we have been inundated with poltergeists,” I said.
She stood up straight and glared at me, but just for a second. Her eyes softened.
“Thank you, Wylie. Welcome to the glamorous world of the Tour Guide,” she said.
I walked outside for some fresh air, and to see how our first reviews were going.
Elvis Rushmore, his girlfriend, and four of his employees were waiting for the next tour.
“You’re getting some excellent word-of-mouth already, Wylie,” Elvis said. “Only one tour down, and there are a hundred people outside who saw two screaming girls leave here like they were on fire. I didn’t know you guys were going the Haunted House route. Are you trying to put me out of business?”
“We haven’t done anything like that, Elvis,” I said.
I motioned with my head for a private audience with Elvis, and we stepped aside.
“Could I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure, Wylie. What’s up?”
“You’ve been in the ‘haunted’ business for a few years now. So, do you…uh…”
“Do I think any of it is for real? That’s what you want to know, right?” Elvis asked.
I exhaled and looked around.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m asking you.”
It was his turn to exhale and look around.
“Without a doubt, buddy.”
“Great,” I said.
“Yeah, I thought that was him.”
I heard the voice behind me and I knew immediately who it was. Why did I come out here? I turned around—I might as well get this over with.
Grady and his friend. No girls. They were probably shivering inside of a locked car.
“Yeah, I heard that your so-called music career,” Grady said, complete with air quotes, “had gone up in flames. Like that was gonna take a long time.”
“This is the Show-Me State, Westerhouse,” Grady’s friend said. “So you showed Branson what you were all about, and they told you to get off the stage.”
Grady laughed and so did his friend. They slapped hands.
“Oh, but he’s got this great new gig, Bobby,” Grady said. “He walks behind the castle tours, like the clowns that follow behind the parade and shovel up the horse crap.”
“Man, I missed that opportunity,” Bobby said. “I’ve been holding it in for thirty minutes. I could have gone right there on the floor.”
“I have somewhere to be,” I said and started around them. Grady pushed me sideways.
“Hey. We have a date, you and me. I owe you some broken body parts,” Grady said.
“How many times do I have to tell you? You’re not my type.”
I drew back my right fist just to see if he would flinch. He did.
“You’ll never see me coming, Loser. You’ve sucker punched me twice,” he said.
I jerked a thumb toward Bobby, who was not one of Grady’s friends that had been at the Majestic Mizzou.
“Will this guy be a part of your ‘gang’ next time around? You know, some guys feel bad about ganging up two or three on one. Some people have a little more pride than that.”
Grady relaxed his stance. There wasn’t going to be a fight here today.
“I’ll tell you who my type is—that’s your sweet little Cupcake of a boss,” Grady said. He pushed out his jaw and made a show of licking his lips. “She’s taking classes the same nights that I am. Cupcake is on a collision course with the one-and-only, irresistible Grady Plimpton.”
It took everything I had to keep from pummeling that arrogant jaw. Again.
Quentin showed up at four-thirty and accompanied me for the next-to-last tour of the day. He was quite impressed with Holly’s performance. He was concerned when the suits of armor dropped their lances again—thirty feet away from anyone. The candle sconce scene was not repeated.
“How was your party?” I asked as we watched the guests exit.
“It was ‘the bomb’ as you young people say,” Q said. “Those guys know how to work hard and party even harder. The last thing that I remember was Brian standing on a table and leading us in some old Scottish and Irish drinking songs. Most of the men were crying. I know I was, and I’m not Scottish or Irish, as far as I know. It was a shame that you and Holly couldn’t be there.”
Quentin massaged his temples and closed his eyes.
“That needs to happen no more than once a year, though. Extensive recovery time is necessary.”
“Can you imagine the two of us coming in at eight this morning after a night like that?” I asked.
“No. That was a wise career move on your part. Thank you. I’ll be here in the morning, though, you can bank on that.”
>
I patted Q on the shoulder.
“Get some rest, Q, and drink tomato juice. Actually, you should have tomato juice before and after,” I said.
He waved one hand toward me as he left.
“Write that down, somewhere. The sound of a pen scratching on paper would be too loud for me right now,” he said.
The tour schedule was not set in stone past the first two weeks. For the opening weekend, we scheduled one extra tour after dark—a tip of the hat to the Halloween season. There must have been an extra hundred people waiting outside. They were hoping that we might bow to peer pressure and keep the tours going even later into the night. Only about twenty of those left after the doors closed behind the final tour. Holly took a couple of extra minutes to tell them that there would be no more tours that night. She told them that Fire Department ordinances came into play. I’m pretty sure that she was making all of that up on the spot. She’s really smart like that.
And maybe a little prophetic.
Twenty-five
The McIntyre Family
Branson, Missouri
The McIntyre family looked down from the second story balcony. Elizabeth took Dallas by the arm.
“Just look at her, Dallas,” she said. She pointed as Holly paced inside the front doors.
“She’s getting so grown-up,” Elizabeth said. The pitch of her voice rose as if she was about to weep. She reached for Nora and Charlotte and pulled them all together.
“That she is, Lizzie,” Dallas said, “How I do miss her family.”
“Me, too, Father,” Charlotte whispered.
“She’s like our own little girl,” Elizabeth said. “I’m afraid we’re all she has, now.” Elizabeth squeezed her daughters to her side hard enough to make them wince.
“I thought she would be hitched up with the Singing Boy by now,” Arabella said from behind them.
“What Singing Boy?” Elizabeth asked as she turned.
“That one,” Arabella stuck her arm between Nora and Elizabeth to point at Wylie Westerhouse.
“You’ve never heard him singing then?” Arabella asked. “I hear him all the time.”
“And where might this take place, Arabella?” Nora asked in a huff. “Do you spy on him?”
“Don’t go gettin’ your knickers in a bunch, Nora,” Arabella said. “I’m not after your precious little boy, the one who cannot see either one of us. Sometimes he goes off by his-self. He has one of those carry-around music boxes that he plays when he’s alone. Most of what comes out of it sounds like a hundred housecats having their claws pulled out, but sometimes he plays some nice music.
“I was listening to him yesterday when the Atkins cousins showed up. Mr. Scoggins was with them but Butch told him to leave me be. They said that the man singing on the music box was Hank Williams. The Singing Boy knows every word that Hank Williams sings and he has a nice voice. One of the songs that he sings along with made the Atkins’s and Mr. Scoggins cry like little babies. I couldn’t much blame them. ‘I’m so lonesome I could cry’, is what that one says.
“The Singing Boy also plays music by a girl who I like a lot. Mr. Atkins and Mr. Atkins say that this girl looked like me and that we both died when we were young— Patsy Cline is her name. Not that it matters who I look like when we are not capable of picking up a mirror or a hair brush.”
Charlotte slipped a hand into the pocket of her dress and took out a small hair brush. She began humming to herself. She flipped the brush into the air, caught it, and returned it to her pocket. She and Nora giggled as they walked away.
“Elizabeth,” Arabella said, scowling, “do you ever intend to make these little heathens behave?”
Elizabeth sighed, holding back a smile.
“She’s been an eight-year-old for five hundred years, Arabella. Do you really think I have any influence at this point? Perhaps you might think about treating her a little better. I have found that not only can my girls be counted on for a considerable amount of laughter, but—”
Elizabeth ran her hand through her long mane of hair and winked.
“Do you even remember how good it feels to have your hair brushed?”
Butch and Ernest Atkins flew through a nearby window.
“We tried to stop ‘em, Dallas,” Butch said, “but Bruiser’s got about a dozen of ‘em all stirred up.”
“What are you talking about?” Dallas asked.
“Bruiser came by here early this mornin’,” Ernest said. “He found out about…you know…the energy.”
“What energy, Mr. Atkins?” Elizabeth asked.
“I suppose you folks don’t know, ‘cause you all are used to it,” Butch said.
“There’s somethin’ inside this place that puts off a kind of spirit energy—maybe ‘cause it’s so old,” Ernest said.
“It’s like in that movie, ‘Typhoon’, where those aliens was inside of them giant coconuts in the swimmin’ pool,” Ernest said.
“That was ‘Cocoon”, you idiot—one of little Ronnie Howard’s finest films,” Butch said.
“Was it ‘Cocoon’ or ‘Coconut’? Ernest asked. “Because those pods they were inside of looked just like giant coconuts. That was a dang good movie—‘course old Opie Taylor don’t make no junk.”
“You mean Ritchie Cunningham don’t make no junk,” Butch said.
“Well, that depends on which one made Da Vinci Code—because that one was a stinker.”
The cousins laughed.
“If’n I wasn’t already dead, I would’ve gone looking for a tall bridge after seein’ that one,” Butch said.
“Gentlemen!” Dallas said. “A dozen ghosts with trouble on their minds are on the way here? We cannot have trouble here today. The castle is now open to the public.”
“Bruiser is stirred up somethin’ fierce, Dallas,” Ernest said. “He ain’t been right since…well, since the night he died. He was runnin’ toward home from Arkansas with an illegal overload down one of the ugliest mountain passes in the Ozarks. He melted the brake shoes plumb off the wheels.”
“You’ve seen him, Dallas,” Butch said. “I ain’t never seen anybody stand up to Bruiser. He has some trucker buddies that have been looking for trouble since the days they were still drawin’ breath.”
“We cannot stand by and allow these men to disrupt these tours,” Dallas said. “We must reason with them.”
“We’ll be behind you, Dallas,” Butch said.
“Yeah. Way behind you,” Ernest said.
“Is there anything we can do?” Prince David asked as he entered the room. Arabella was close behind.
Delbert Scoggins crept forward and began to sing ‘Crying in the Chapel’. He stole glances at Arabella.
The group heard Bruiser Brady and his friends long before they saw them.
“CAN YOU FEEL IT?” Bruiser’s powerful baritone resonated throughout the castle.
“Be careful, Dallas,” Elizabeth whispered to her husband.
Dallas stepped forward.
“Mr. Brady,” Dallas said. The ghosts behind him went silent.
Bruiser Brady burst into view, followed by his entourage. He threw back his head in a display of complete and utter abandon. His muscular arms stretched wide and he assumed a fearless stance. His head rotated forward on a vein-lined neck as he turned loose a primal scream of defiance. He was the embodiment of a lion that had broken free after a lifetime of captivity.
“Mr. Brady,” Dallas said. He stepped forward.
“Dallas!” Bruiser Brady said in recognition. He stepped toward Dallas and clasped his shoulders.
“What is this obscene power you have brought to us, Brother?” Bruise said. He threw back his head and looked as if he was drawing power in through his nostrils.
“This is the power—the sign that we’ve been waiting for. This is the energy that we’ll use to put these living scum in their place, Dallas! These snobs have kept us in poverty—they have us work our fingers to the bones! All to feed their fat faces in their man
sions where they look down on us. We’ll bring them down—crashing down. Boom!”
The audience of the undead behind Bruiser yelled and pumped their fists in agreement.
“I don’t know what you’re feeling, Bruiser,” Dallas said. “But if there is an energy here, its purpose is not for us to do battle with the living.”
Bruiser turned and spit on the floor.
“I thought you owned a pair, McIntyre,” Bruiser said. “If we’re not here to get revenge for the sorry way we’ve been treated, then what are we here for? There’s not a soul in this town who gave us the time of day while we lived right here in the middle of them! What is this time for if it ain’t our turn to make things right! This is our time to take back our rightful place in this world!”
“We must have a greater purpose than to fight with the living, Bruiser. That makes no sense,” Dallas said, “This castle has been our home for six hundred years. The only way we keep our home is to welcome in these guests. Our home, Bruiser. We would show your home the same respect.”
“Home?” Bruiser said. “You want to show respect to my home? I’ll tell you where you can show respect to my home, Dallas! Follow me home to Carpenter’s Salvage. That’s where my brother had my rig towed to—what was left of it. That rig was my only home for the last eleven years. Inside of that sleeper cab was everything I owned in this world. Anything that wasn’t crushed or ripped to shreds my brother has taken or sold.”
“I’m sorry, Bruiser,” Dallas said. “I can’t change what happened to you, but I hope you can understand that I must care for my family.”
“I feel you, Bro,” Bruiser said. “But I’m not the only one with debts to pay.”
Bruiser turned to stand beside Dallas. He pointed at one of his company.
“May I present—Little Dougie Day. He got on a hot streak shootin’ eight-ball at a little pool hall upstate. A few of the local hot-shots got liquored up and kept puttin’ down money on Little Dougie’s table. Dougie ain’t never had more than two nickels to rub together. He cleaned them boys up for twenty-two hunerd dollars. Except, Dougie never made it home that night. Them boys run Dougie’s truck off the road and they commenced to beat him plum dead. They beat him with their pool cues—like that was the way they thought it shoulda happened. They left him bleedin’ in a ditch with a cue stick planted in his nether regions. The cops never arrested anybody.”