Mysteries from the Keys : A Collection of Short Stories (9781927899410)

by Cushnie-mansour, Mary M. ; Jamieson, Bethany (EDT); Tanguay, Danielle (EDT)

  “I was delayed at the hospital. Stella thought I was giving Kevin too many pills.”

  “You are going to have to do something about her, Mona.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, let me show you the house.”

  drug-induced sleep. He didn’t feel any better, in fact, he felt worse. His head was pounding; his body felt like a piece of lead. Even through his haziness, he was beginning to regret having come to this hospital. He should have just closed up the house and walked away from it. Kevin was starting to think that if he had just done that, he would have been okay.

  He glanced at the side-table by his bed and noticed a sandwich and a glass of orange juice had been left there for him. Ignoring the food, Kevin got out of bed and walked over to the door. He turned the doorknob. It was locked. Of course, he thought as he looked at his window, it was dark outside. Everything in this place shut down before the sun set. He sat down on the edge of his bed and picked up the plate. Kevin unwrapped the sandwich and began to nibble at the crust. It was dry. He took a sip of juice. It was warm. He wasn’t really hungry anyway.

  Kevin walked back over to the door and jiggled the knob. He knocked, hoping someone would be walking by. Then he remembered that he had a buzzer that was to be used should he need something, and he needed to get out of the room for a few minutes. He pushed the button. He waited. And waited. Finally, he heard the lock click and the door opened. An unfamiliar face stepped through the doorway.

  “What can I do for you, Kevin? Is something wrong?” The voice was pleasant enough.

  “I would just like to take a walk down the hallway. I have been sleeping for a while and need to get out of this room,” Kevin said, hope clinging to his words.

  “I’m afraid I cannot do that, Kevin. You know the rules; no one leaves their rooms after 9:00. I did bring you your pills, though. Stella left orders that if you woke up, I was to give them to you.”

  Kevin was angry. “I don’t want any more pills. I’ve had enough of your pills. They don’t make me feel any better. All I want is to take a walk down the hallway!”

  “I can’t let you do that. Now please, here are your pills…”

  Kevin’s hand smacked the pills from the nurse’s hand. They scattered on the floor. He was proud of himself for that move—until her hand reached to a device she had clipped to her belt…

  “Cameron, I need your help in room 86; Kevin is becoming violent!”

  Kevin started to laugh. He was backing away from the nurse as Cameron came bursting through the door. Kevin swallowed hard. What had he done? Cameron was holding a needle in his hand.

  “What’s the matter, Sophie?” he asked.

  Sophie pointed to the pills on the floor and then to Kevin, who was still laughing.

  “I see,” Cameron said. “Settle down, Kevin. If you don't take your medication one way, we have other means to give it to you.” He waved the needle in the air as he advanced toward Kevin.

  Kevin threw his arms up in the air. “Okay, okay, I’ll take the pills.”

  “Too late. They are all over the floor now. This needle will do the job.” Cameron had reached Kevin by this time and taken hold of his arm. The needle was sinking into his flesh before Kevin had time to protest further. He felt himself being directed back to his bed…felt his body flop down on the lumpy mattress…felt himself fading away…saw the blackness coming…

  never really liked Doctor Mona, couldn’t put her finger on the exact reason. Things had changed since the doctor had come to the hospital five years ago. Darkness always seemed to be lurking around every corner. Many of the patients that had been admitted were not really all that bad off. In Stella’s opinion, most of them shouldn’t even have had to be admitted; they could have just done day-programs. But Doctor Mona insisted on in-house treatments. Stella had noticed that many of them got worse as time went by, staying much longer than should have been necessary. And now there was Kevin. Stella felt he didn’t really need all the medication that was being pumped into him. She would address the issue again tomorrow with Doctor Mona.

  house is perfect, but I am not quite ready yet to put an offer on it.” Doctor Mona smiled.

  “Better not wait too long, Mona. Properties like this are in big demand. You know what happened with the last place you waited on?”

  “That won’t happen again, though, will it Joe?”

  force. The eerie, misty figure hovered over him. A high-pitched groaning sound pierced his ears. He felt cold, even though he was sweating. The figure was joined by another, and another, until there were five of them—all faceless. And then he was not in his bed anymore—he was running toward the barn, the apparitions close on his heels. Finally, he reached the barn door. He tried to open it. The handle was crusted with rust. He heard someone laughing. Suddenly, the door gave way and Kevin stumbled inside. He turned, trying to shut the spirits out, but they pushed through, still groaning. He fell backward. A hand reached out to him—a real hand.

  “Let me help you.”

  Kevin looked up into Doctor Mona’s eyes.

  “There, that should settle you. I don’t understand why you weren’t resting with the amount of tranquilizer I prescribed,” Doctor Mona said as she left the room.

  game. He had thought that by now they would have realized a lot more money. He was beginning to wonder if she was actually doing the split according to their agreement. This was the tenth house they had turned over and he had yet to see $100,000 in his account. She was driving a new Corvette; he was driving a six-year-old Buick. She was living in the last house they had turned over—a real beauty. He was living in a one-bedroom apartment. She kept telling him a lot of the money was going into repairs; it wasn’t her fault the houses needed so much work to bring them up to par for resale. He had trusted her enough, up to now, not to ask for receipts. Now, Joe was glad that he had secured himself a bit of collateral.

  back in the receiver. Meagan was getting greedy. If she asked for anything more, Mona was going to have trouble explaining to Joe why he wasn’t getting as much as he thought he should. He was not a stupid man, and he was the realtor who set up and closed all the deals. He knew the profits they were realizing.

  Of course, Meagan said that it was she who took the biggest risk, setting the houses up for the new owners. And, her equipment was not cheap. Mona didn’t understand why Meagan couldn’t just reuse most of it. Meagan had also pointed out that she took an even bigger risk because sometimes she had to get back into the houses to move things along.

  the back of the farmhouse. There were a few items she needed to retrieve. She laughed as she packed her special equipment, the same stuff she used over and over. Her bank account was well over $100,000 and it was almost time to pack up and get on with her plans.

  As Meagan drove home, she smiled, remembering the look on Mona’s face when she had stopped by for a glass of wine after seeing the house last night. “This tastes weird,” Mona had said. Meagan had assured her partner it was fine—maybe just a bit off because she had opened the bottle the night before.

  Doctor Mona threw her keys on the kitchen table. Her stomach had been bothering her all day. Actually, ever since she had drank the wine at Meagan’s house last night. She was tired too, not having slept well—bothered by weird dreams. She threw a frozen dinner in the microwave and picked up the phone to call Joe. She wanted to know how it had gone with Stella. At first, Joe had been hesitant to do away with the nosey nurse, but Mona had insisted she was becoming a problem and now that they were close to clearing out and getting away with everything, she couldn’t take a chance on Stella going to the police with her suspicions.

  Joe answered on the fifth ring. He assured Mona that everything was looked after, but he also insisted that they get the deal done. He pushed her for an answer as to how many more houses before they could get to that tropical paradise she was always dangling in front of him.

  As Doctor Mona crawled into bed, she was wondering just how long she coul
d keep up this charade. Joe and Meagan were becoming problematic. She had done her best to make sure they had never met, but that was getting tricky. And those two individuals meeting was something Doctor Mona definitely did not want to have happen!

  with a horrific headache. She was lying on a cot in a small, windowless room in a basement. There was a dim light on a bedside table. She noticed a note. Make yourself at home; you will be my guest for a while. There is food and drink in the small fridge in the corner of the room, enough to keep you going until I return. Don’t bother trying to escape, I’ve locked the door from the outside. Don’t worry, if you do as I say, you’ll have nothing to fear.

  work again. She had been up three times in the night, each time with worse stomach pains than the time before. When she arrived at her office, she was pale and still shaking. She looked over her appointments and then picked up the phone and called the nurses’ station.

  “I need to cancel all my appointments for today,” she said to the nurse who answered.

  “Shall we reschedule them for you?”

  “No, I shall do that myself. I am not feeling well, so think I am just going to go back home. I’ll call you later to let you know if I will be in tomorrow.” Doctor Mona hung up the phone.

  As she was leaving, Doctor Mona thought to check in on Kevin, but as she neared his room a wave of nausea swept over her and she headed to the washroom instead. She splashed cold water on her face and looked in the mirror. The circles around her eyes were dark, her skin pale. When the queasiness finally subsided, she made her way out to her car, forgetting all about Kevin.

  Doctor Mona backed her car out of its parking spot. As she drove past the visitor parking section, she noticed a familiar vehicle—a black SUV with a personalized licence plate—SHOCKER. What was Meagan doing at the hospital! Doctor Mona hit the brake, put her car into reverse, and returned to her parking spot. She rushed back to the hospital and headed straight for Kevin’s room.

  things up a notch. She had actually observed Kevin during one of the times she had been in the farm house. She had been caught off guard when he had come home early from work. He wasn’t like most of the other ones. In fact, she had gone back several times, after the girl had left, and had just sat and observed Kevin from one of her hiding spots. He was nice—good looking too. And she had decided it was time to move on, and have someone in her life.

  When Meagan had asked the nurses which room Kevin was in, and had told them she was his sister and that she had just found out he was in the hospital, they seemed relieved that someone was finally coming around to see him. They all thought he was a real nice guy. Meagan had asked if she could take him out for a walk and they had seen no reason why not. One had even mentioned that the fresh air might do him some good.

  Meagan was pushing Kevin out the back door of the hospital as Doctor Mona ran in the front door. As Doctor Mona was entering Kevin’s room, Meagan was helping Kevin get into her SUV. As Doctor Mona was racing back to her car, she caught sight of the black SUV leaving the parking lot. Meagan glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw a very frustrated Doctor Mona standing in the parking lot.

  Kevin groaned. He didn’t want to ask this young woman what was going on yet. He was aware of only one thing: she, for some unknown reason to him, was getting him out of the hospital, and that was what he wanted.

  Mona picked up the phone and dialled Joe’s number. When he answered: “We have another problem,” she said. She explained to him that Kevin wasn’t in the hospital anymore. Someone, posing as his sister had taken him out. “No,” she had lied; “I have no idea who it was. I didn’t know he had a sister.”

  “Well,” Joe returned, “maybe we should just forget this house, pack up, and get out of here.”

  “This is the last deal, Joe. That house will turn over a profit like none of the others have. I need you to draw up the paperwork, with the figure we already discussed. When I find out who this sister is and where she has taken Kevin, I will get back to you.”

  After Doctor Mona had finished her conversation with Joe, she called Meagan’s number. Meagan answered on the first ring, as though she were expecting the call. “What the heck are you doing, Meagan?” Mona screamed into the phone.

  “Is there a problem?” Meagan’s voice sounded strange. “Are you feeling okay, Mona?”

  “I’m fine. I just want to know what you are doing with Kevin!”

  Meagan’s laughter rippled over the phone line. “Making a deal, my dear doctor—making a deal.” The line went dead.

  Meagan walked back into her kitchen, where she had left Kevin sitting at the table while she had taken Mona’s call. She turned the coffee pot on and after Kevin had drunk two cups of coffee, his head began to clear. “Who are you?” he asked. “And why did you get me out of the hospital?”

  “First of all,” Meagan began; “I want to let you know that what has been happening to you was really not of my doing, initially…”

  “Initially…happening to me…your doing…” Kevin interrupted.

  “Let me explain. Doctor Mona has had a scam going for the past five years. She scopes out houses that she wants to turn over, as she puts it, and then she sends me in to wire the place up for the new owners.”

  “Wire…”

  “Just let me finish, Kevin. I go in and wire the place with ghostly sounds and images. The haunting is initiated slowly, increasing intensity as time goes. Usually, the new owners leave quite quickly, but you stayed longer than most, so I had to intensify the happenings. After your girlfriend left, I used to hide in the house and watch you—she wasn’t good enough for you, you know.” Meagan reached out a hand and touched Kevin’s arm. He flinched. She shrugged.

  “Anyway, you finally left and Doctor Mona admitted you to the hospital, just like she admitted all the others—some are still there, you know. It is easy for her to manipulate her patients with drugs and keep the hallucinations alive. When she talks to them about the house they just left and finds out that it is haunted, she acts shocked and then she slowly convinces them to put it on the market and sell it. She has a real estate guy working for her; doesn’t know that I know who it is, though. She thinks she has kept us secret from each other. He is taken with her. I have watched the way he looks at her. Poor sod! Doctor Mona gets him to set the price of the house far below its market value and then she swoops in and buys the property. Someone goes in to clean it up and do any necessary repairs, and then she resells it, turning over a substantial profit.”

  “Which she gives you and the real estate guy a portion of,” Kevin stated.

  “Yes.”

  “So what makes you think I won’t turn you in right now? Why are you telling me all this, incriminating yourself in such a scheme?”

  “I want to make a deal with you. I have been quite successful in putting away my portion, plus a little added bonus money for supplies I told Doctor Mona I had to buy. I have a substantial sum of money in a bank on an island where time is of no essence. I’d like you to join me there.”

  “You don’t know me. Why would I want to do that? Why would I even be stupid enough to trust you?”

  “First of all, I do know you. Remember, I have been watching you. Second, I am ready to settle down and I am tired of the single life—I kinda like you. Third, wouldn’t it be nice to take revenge on Doctor Mona for what she has put you through?” Meagan leaned in closer to Kevin. He got a whiff of her perfume. It smelled good.

  “But you were part of it!” Kevin stated matter-of-factly.

  “True.” Meagan was going to have to tread carefully with her words. “But, I am not the mastermind, and I have wanted to get out of this for quite some time—just didn’t know how.” She tried to look depressed about the entire ordeal.

  Kevin was wondering when his nightmare was going to end. “I’ll have to think on this. It is a lot for me to absorb.” He paused. “So do you believe you are going to get away with all this once you expose her? Won’t she turn you in as well?”r />
  “We’ll be long gone, Kevin, and she will have no clue where. Once we are out of the country, she is not going to pursue me, right? That would be incriminating herself.”

  “What about the real estate guy?”

  “He is not of our concern. Anyway, I should let you sleep on this.” Meagan stood up. “Follow me, Kevin; I will show you your room.”

  the room in the basement. Stella was sleeping on the cot. He walked over to her and gently shook her shoulder. She opened her eyes and moved away from him, cowering in the corner.

  “Who are you? What do you want with me?” she yelled, her voice hoarse.

  “My name is Joe, and I want to make a deal with you.”

  Stella listened as Joe told her about Doctor Mona’s scheme. But even with his confession of his part in the plot, she was wary. She had secured her own bit of collateral, which of course was something she was not going to mention—yet.

  “Why did you save my life?” Stella asked.

  “Whatever my part in this has been, it was only done for the money,” Joe answered. “When the good doctor asked me to get rid of you…well, I draw the line at murder. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands and end this.”

  “But won’t exposing her get you sent you to prison, as well?”

  “I’ll be long gone from here. I think Doctor Mona has been cheating me of my share of the profits, but I figure I have enough to start over somewhere else. There are a lot of places where I could disappear and use my real estate skills to make a living.”

  “I see.” Stella had no idea where this conversation was going, nor did she have any intention of fully trusting this man. Even though he hadn’t killed her as Doctor Mona had suggested, there was no actual concrete proof Doctor Mona had asked him to kill her—only his word. At the moment, she would just have to play along, gain his trust, and then try and escape.