by Michael Bray
“I’ve heard that story,” Emma said. “The story goes there was a curse put on the lands forbidding anyone from settling on them. Anyone who did would face terrible retribution. They say it’s why there were so many problems for the people who lived in the house over the years. When you think about it, it’s a hell of a marketing gimmick. You can see why they decided to build the hotel.”
“I heard the people who lived here before, the Samsons, refused to come out here as part of the investigation into why the house burned down.” Alex said.
“A buddy of mine thinks they started the fire because they couldn’t afford to live in the house. He says it was all a big hoax.” Scott countered.
“No, that was the Amityville house with the Lutz family.”
“No, I’m sure it was here too. Same kind of thing. The wife really wanted the place and they bought it without thinking it through.”
“You’re confusing two different stories. As I said, the whole buying and realizing they couldn’t afford thing was the Amityville house. I know, because I read the book last month.”
“Come on, everyone knows you can’t read,” Scott said with a grin.
“Fuck off, Chubbs,” Alex countered. “I know about this stuff. The Samsons got the place cheap by all accounts. Less than it was probably worth because nobody would live there for very long without either moving on or ending up dead.”
“Everybody knows what happened. It was that Donovan guy who started the fire to cover his tracks,” Carrie said, moving closer to Emma and linking arms with her. “They say he murdered more people than he was officially held accountable for.”
“I remember him you know,” Emma said, watching her friends and unsure if she should go on. “When I was a kid. I used to see him all the time.”
“Bullshit!” Alex said.
“It’s true. You forget, apart from Alex, the rest of you are outsiders. I grew up in this town. These might just be stories to you. They’re not for me. Donovan, Annie Briggs, Will Jones. They were all people who lived in the community.”
“I didn’t realize you actually knew these people first-hand,” Carrie said.
Emma was staring at her feet, trying to ignore their eyes on her.
“It’s not something I ever really wanted to mention. I knew these people. I’m not sure I want to be here anymore.”
“Look, we’re here now,” Cody cut in, forcing a smile. “It’s getting dark, which probably isn’t helping with the bad vibes this place is giving off. I say we set up camp and get a fire going.”
“You still want to do this?” Alex said, glancing at Cody with a half-look of revulsion.
Cody held his gaze, and even managed a smile. “Yeah, I’m game if you are. What’s the matter? You scared?”
“No… of course I’m not. Let’s get this shit unpacked and do this.”
Alex dropped his backpack and started to unpack it. Cody followed suit, then one by one, the others joined in as the sun began dipping below the horizon.
III
The tents had been assembled in a rough circle around the small fire which crackled and licked at the air. Emma and Carrie were sharing, as were Scott and Cody. Alex was sleeping alone. The group sat cross-legged around the blaze, each doing what they could to ignore the atmosphere, which was all-consuming despite the light and warmth of the fire. Carrie and Alex were smoking. Cody was staring into the flames as the bottle of vodka made its fifth round of the group. Scott took a swig, finally starting to feel the buzz, then passed it to Emma.
“Just think,” Alex said, flashing a grin which looked ghastly in the dancing shadow of the fire. “This could well be the first fire to be lit here since the one which burnt down the Gogoku village.”
“You really think so?” Carrie said as she took a deep drag on her cigarette.
“Could be, I mean look at this place. It’s fuckin’ creepy. Who’d be stupid enough to come out here?”
“Apart from us?”
“Yeah, apart from us,” Alex said as Carrie passed him the bottle. He took a swig and handed it to Cody, who passed it straight to Scott.
“Hey man,” Alex said. “I don’t have any disease or anything. Are you too good to share a bottle with us now?”
“I just don’t want any.”
“Why, what’s wrong with you? You haven’t said two words since we came out here. This was your idea, remember?”
“Leave him alone, Alex,” Carrie said as she tossed her cigarette butt into the fire.
“I’m not having a pop at him or anything, but he was the one who dragged us to this place and yet he’s acting like it’s some chore to be out here with us. What’s the problem man?”
“Nothing,” Cody mumbled as he stared at the flames.
“Don’t bullshit me, it’s obvious you have some kind of issue. Spit it out.”
Cody looked up from the fire, turning his gaze towards Alex. There was something different about him. Something in the way the flames danced in his eyes, and the way in which the shadows were thrown across his face in an undulating mass by the incessant licking of the fire. For the first time since they’d arrived, the fear of the circle was, for the briefest of seconds, replaced by absolute terror at the bottomless look in Cody’s eyes.
“Drop it. I’m fine. I just don’t want to drink right now.”
“Okay, take it easy, I was just sayin’ that’s all.”
The conversation died off, and the group sat in silence for a while, content to drink, smoke or just stare into the flames.
“Hey Emma,” Scott said, shuffling closer to warm his hands on the fire. “How did you know Donovan?”
“She said she doesn’t want to talk about it,” Carrie cut in.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll tell it.”
She looked at them in turn, and now even Cody was watching her with a dark, brooding stare she was finding more and more attractive by the second.
“I was seven or eight at the time. It would have been maybe a couple of years before everything happened. Do you guys know the smoothie bar at the end of Main Street?”
“Yeah, I know it,” Alex said. “They serve those shitty smoothies that cost too much.”
Emma nodded. “That’s the building which used to be his office. By all accounts, he was pretty good at it. Anyway, my aunt Trudy was looking for a place in Oakwell, and had made an appointment to see Donovan, as he was pretty much the only realtor in town. My mother offered to go along with her to the appointment, as she knew Donovan and thought she might be able to help my aunt get a good deal. Either way, she couldn’t get a babysitter, so I had to go along to the meeting with her and Aunt Trudy.”
“Holy shit, so you actually knew him? Like to speak to?” Alex said, taking a sip of the vodka before sending it on its way again.
Emma nodded. “I was just a kid, although I remember him well enough. He was a big guy with broad shoulders. I remember his hair, blonde and parted at the side like some kind of cheesy game show host. He also smelled of really cheap aftershave. He reeked of the stuff.”
“You must have been terrified,” Carrie said, putting a reassuring hand on Emma’s leg.
“I wasn’t actually. Thinking of it now, of what he did, freaks me out no end. The truth is, back then I wouldn’t have had the slightest clue anything was strange about him.”
“Surely you must have known, I mean someone so disturbed can’t stay hidden completely, right?” Alex said.
“He was funny and charming. He was always telling jokes. My mother and my aunt were smitten with him. They saw him as the most eligible bachelor in town. He and my aunt actually went out once or twice.”
“No way!” Scott said, the booze having loosened his tongue a little.
“Yeah, it’s true. Nothing came of it, just a few dates. Nobody considered it at the time, I remember though when my mother asked her why they decided not to keep seeing each other, my aunt said there was something about him which made her uncomfortable. She said it was almost
as if he were acting all the time he was with her, like he was wearing a mask. At the time they thought he was just a bit odd, maybe just a sign of incompatibility between them and neither of them really worried much about it. After the fire and finding out who he was and what he’d done… it’s creepy. All I know is that the few times I’d seen him, I wouldn’t have thought him capable of anything even remotely close to doing the things he had.”
“You must have suspected something. The guy was a psycho-killer for Christ’s sake,” Alex pushed, grinning like a hyena.
“You can ask anyone who knew him. A lot of people won’t talk about it now. They like to think if they can ignore it for long enough it might go away as if none of it had ever even happened. A lot of the older residents are like that. My guess is they’re either embarrassed about it or just don’t want to discuss it, I don’t really know. I can promise you this, though. Nobody had any idea what he’d done until they’d found his body and started to investigate him. The first reports were laughed off as impossible, then when people started to learn just how bad it was and how they’d lived for so long with a psychopathic killer, everyone clamped up and stopped talking about it.”
“I heard they dug up the garden of his house looking for bodies,” Scott said.
Emma nodded. “It’s true. They didn’t find any people, just animals. Cats, birds. Even his neighbor’s dog, which had been missing for a few weeks. They suspected he’d killed people too, but if he had, he got rid of the bodies elsewhere. They said he was thorough.”
“No loose ends.”
“Say again?”
Everyone looked at Cody, who was drawing with a stick in the dirt. He blinked, and stared back at them. “What?”
“You know what. Why did you say that?” Alex asked.
Cody shrugged. “I don’t know it just seemed to me like that’s what he was doing. Leaving no loose ends for anyone to find out about what he’d done.”
“You don’t know. Nobody knows. Hell, look online. There are pages and pages of info about him with all kinds of theories about why he did what he did. You don’t know shit.”
Cody shrugged. He couldn’t explain to them how, but he did know. He knew with absolute certainty exactly what had happened and why. “Whatever man,” he said, tossing his stick into the fire. “Just my theory. No need to have a tantrum over it.”
“Well, it’s bullshit.”
“So what do you think happened to him?” Scott said, his voice starting to slur. “You seem keen to shoot everyone else down, what’s your theory on it all?”
Emma and Carrie looked on, expecting Alex to get mad. Instead, he smiled his wide hyena smile and shuffled closer to the fire.
“A buddy of mine’s family have a shop on the edge of town. They specialize in occult stuff. Herbal remedies, shit like that.”
“I know it, it’s the one run by witches, right?” Carrie cut in.
“Yeah, that’s the one, although they’re Wiccans, not witches. Anyway, my buddy works for his parents on weekends. I’d started to go in there, just because I liked the feel of the place and it was a cool place to hang out, you know? So this one day I arrive, and my buddy is all worked up and excited. This was a year or so after the fire, when everything was still in the public eye. Anyhow, I’d barely set foot in the door when he pretty much knocked me over. he told me he had something amazing to show me, something he said would blow me away. He went in the back and I stood there at the counter wondering what was causing him to freak out so much. So he brings out this box, right? And inside was this Ouija board. The thing stank of smoke, so I asked him what was so special about it.”
Alex paused to take a swig of the vodka, and returned to his captivated audience.
“My buddy goes on to tell me that Steve Samson had bought the board from the store a couple of weeks before the fire at the house, and had been asking a bunch of questions about haunting and how to deal with paranormal activity when he went in to get it.”
“Bullshit!” Carrie said, lighting up a fresh cigarette.
“It’s the absolute truth, I swear,” Alex replied. “Nobody knew who he was at the time of course, not until later. I even checked with my buddy’s dad, who showed me the credit card receipt he’d paid for the board with. It was definitely him. Anyway, you all know what happened, there was the fire and the murders and nobody thought much about how they linked until later.”
“What happened?” Scott asked.
“It turns out that on the night of the fire, Samson had thrown the Ouija board out with the trash. Maybe the wife hadn’t approved of trying to use it or maybe it just hadn’t worked. Nobody really knows. Anyhow, long story short, the house burns down and as we all know, Donovan ends up dead, Steve Samson ends up burnt to a crisp and is found in the snow outside, barely alive and mumbling about spirits and all sorts of other weird shit with the wife hysterical at his side. Anyway, the investigation takes place, and everything is seized by the authorities who wanted to know what the hell happened. They take whatever they can from the site including the board which, apart from a few scorch marks, was pretty much undamaged. After they were done investigating, the board was returned to the store.”
“This is bull,” Scott said. “It all seems a bit too convenient. It would be such an easy thing to hoax too. How did they even know where the board had come from?”
“The receipt was still in the box. They asked the wife if she wanted to keep it. She freaked and said she didn’t want anything to do with it, so it was taken back to my buddy’s shop.”
“It all sounds too convenient to me.”
“It’s genuine. Check this out,” Alex said, scrolling through his phone and loading an image from the gallery and passing it to Scott. “That’s the police report identifying the item as coming from my buddy’s shop. There’s also the signed release form with it from when they returned it, along a scan of Steve Samson’s credit card copy.”
Scott looked indifferent and passed the phone around the group so everyone could take a look.
“You can’t really tell what that is,” Scott said. “Could easily be a fake.”
“Come on, you can trust me.”
“Sorry,” Scott said as the phone came back to him. He passed it back to Alex.
“Well, if it was a fake,” Alex said with a grin as he reached back into his bag. “Would I have the original?”
He handed Scott the actual plastic wallet, enjoying the stunned expression on his friend’s face as he examined the contents.
“Holy shit, this is real,” Scott muttered.
“Damn right it is.”
Alex watched as the wallet went around the circle, each in turn looking through the documents, all apart from Cody. He was watching Alex with his uncomfortable, bottomless stare.
“This is amazing; incredible. You really have something here, an actual item from the site. This is rare man, really rare,” Scott said as he took another look at the papers.”
“I bought them as a package deal. I guess they count as my certificate of authenticity.”
“Hey, you don’t have to sell it to me. I’m convinced this is legit.”
“Well, there’s more actually. See, my buddy knew I was really into finding out about what had happened at the Hope House site, I was already obsessed with it and soaking up every bit of information I could find. My pal’s parents didn’t want the board in the shop. They didn’t want the vibes or the publicity to reflect back on it. And so …”
Alex reached into his bag again, and pulled out the scorched wooden board, eliciting gasps from his friends as if he had just pulled a rabbit from a hat.
“… I bought it.”
He held the board up to them, displaying it like a trophy in the flickering light of the fire.
“Can I see it?” Scott asked, holding out his hands.
“Yeah, go ahead. Pass it around.” The board made its way to everyone, each of them looking at it and letting their fingers glide across the lettering on its
surface.
“That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come out here,” Alex said as the board made its way to Cody. It was the first thing he’d seemed interested in since they’d arrived, and he took a long while to look at it, even lifting it to his face and smelling the section where it had been burnt on the edges.
“I wanted us all out here because I thought we could use it. I thought we could maybe see if we could contact those same spirits which I genuinely believe were responsible for everything which happened over the years.”
“You want to use a Ouija board… here? Tonight?” Emma said, flicking an uncertain glance towards Carrie. “I’m not that drunk.”
“I am,” Carrie said with a grin, devouring Alex with lustful eyes. “I think we should do it.”
“What about you Scott?” Alex said, still looking at Carrie.
“I… I’m not sure.”
“Come on, I thought you didn’t really believe in this stuff anyway?”
“I don’t, it’s just… I don’t really like the vibe of this place, you know? It feels… wrong.”
“Isn’t that exactly why we should do this? Just imagine if we could capture proof? Absolute, one hundred per cent proof of something else beyond life? We would be superstars.”
“I suppose so…,” Scott mumbled.
“What about the rest of you?”
“Hell yeah, count me in,” Carrie said.
Both of them looked to Emma, who in turn was watching Cody. She was praying he would say no, so she wouldn’t have to be alone in refusing to take part. Cody however was still mesmerized by the board. “I think we should do it.” Cody said flatly.
“That just leaves you,” Alex said, tipping a cocky wink at Emma.
“Come on, Em,” Carrie said, squeezing her hand. “You said you wanted to get scared, right? What better way than this?”
“I just don’t think it’s something we should be messing with. Especially not here.”
“Where else would it be better put to use?” Alex countered. “It seems like the perfect situation.”