by Tim McGregor
“It’s crazy, I know,” she said, desperate to break the silence. “Runs in the family.”
“You’re not crazy, Billie.” Mockler straightened his back. “Confused maybe, but not crazy.”
“You know the difference?”
“Sometimes.” He looked at his wrist but remembered that he had forgotten his watch today. “I need to get back to work.”
They both rose. He strode for the street and looked back over his shoulder. “See ya.”
She waved and watched him turn the corner. She had meant to fix things but the queasy feeling in her gut told her she was way off the mark.
~
By Thursday she was feeling well enough to go back to work, picking up an afternoon shift. The Gunner’s Daughter was steady without being slammed, patrons drifting in for an after-work pint. In her absence, someone had started decorating the bar with paper pumpkins and fake cobwebs in anticipation of Halloween. In the past, Billie noted, this would have pleased her to no end as she had always adored the holiday. This year might be a different story. Bats and cartoon ghouls didn’t quite have the same appeal that it once had.
The sun had already gone down as she restocked the beer before ending her shift. The days were getting shorter, dusk coming earlier each day as the temperature cooled. She kept looking to the front window expecting to see the face of the dead woman who had followed her but no gaunt phantasma materialized in the glass. She could only hope that the ghost’s absence meant she had moved on or was at peace.
“Busy day?”
Geoff swept behind the bar with the spare tray to the cash register in his hands, ready to take over the shift.
“Not really,” Billie said. “It’s picking up now.”
“I heard you were sick.” He opened the register and swapped out the tills. “Feeling better?”
“Almost. I see you guys decorated without me.”
He looked at the plastic skull taped to the top of the register. “That was Becky. I told her we needed to wait for you but you can’t tell that woman anything.”
“It’s fine.” Billie took up her till and folded a pile of receipts into one of the compartments. “I’m not much in the mood for Halloween anyway.”
“You got plans tonight? Big night out with the ladies?”
“The ladies, yes. Big night out, no. Which suits me fine.”
The door swung open and Tammy pushed inside, flopping onto one of the spinning bar stools. She blew her cheeks out in a mock expression of exertion. “Hey sicko. You ready to go?”
“I just need to cash out.” Billie turned to the relief barkeep and nodded in Tammy’s direction. “Get the pretty girl a pint while she waits. Stick it on my comp list.”
“Thanks, honey-bunch,” Tammy said. “Go settle up so we can get gone.”
Billie grinned, hoofing it down to the office where they cashed out the tills at the end of the shift. It felt like eons since she’d had a normal night out.
~
Flames rippled up into the night air, sending aloft tiny embers like pixies that whirled and glowed on the breeze before winking out. The three of them sat huddled around the newly restored barbecue pit in Jen’s backyard, watching the flames crackle and pop.
“What do you think?” Jen asked.
“I like it,” Billie said.
“Very retro,” Tammy agreed.
“Adam will be pleased to hear that. He spent two days rebuilding it.”
The old barbecue pit had sat crumbling since Jen and Adam had moved into the place a year ago. Jen had wanted the eyesore removed but Adam promised he would restore it to its former glory. He had finally gotten around to it and tonight’s re-christening was an excuse to have the ladies over.
“You know,” Tammy said, raising her drink in a salute, “this means you’re gonna have to throw lots of barbecues next summer.”
“I’m counting on it,” Jen agreed. “Time for S’mores?”
Jen was happiest playing the hostess to any gathering, fussing over the details to make everything perfect. It was just who she was. Temperament-wise, they were opposites and Billie often wondered how the two of them had remained close since high school.
Rising out of the creaky lawn chair, Jen fetched a tray from the picnic table and set it on the ground before them. The simple fixings for a gooey treat but since this was Jen, the chocolate was dark and organic, the graham crackers gourmet and the marshmallows home-made.
Tammy tucked in, inspecting a marshmallow before skewering it onto her stick. “Who the hell makes home-made marshmallows?”
“It took forever,” Jen answered. “What a mess.”
Their eyes sparkled in the fire as they roasted their marshmallows over the pit. Tammy cursed when hers caught fire and quickly charred to a crisp. The treats were messy but delicious, everyone licking the melted chocolate from their fingers.
Billie reached for the tray to fix another. “Kaitlin’s gonna miss out if she doesn’t get here soon.”
“Did you text her?” Tammy asked.
“She said she’d be here,” Jen said.
“Text her again.”
“I don’t want to get my phone messy.”
A log in the fire popped, sending another plume of sparks into the night.
Tammy reached for her drink. “What happened to that friend of yours, Billie?”
Billie stiffened up like she’d been caught doing something wrong. “Mockler?”
“No, the English guy. What was his name?”
“Gantry,” Billie replied, the tension easing away.
Jen turned to her. “He was funny. Where did you meet him?”
“He came into the bar one night.” That much was true, Billie thought. Any further details about him might require lying on her part.
Tammy leaned back, causing the chair to squeak. “You should invite him out with us sometime.”
“Is he single?” Jen asked, giving Billie a sly nod in Tammy’s direction.
Oh God, Billie thought. The thought of Jen playing cupid between Tammy and Gantry sent a shiver down her spine. “I think he’s married,” she replied, hoping to politely quash the idea.
“Happily?” Tammy asked with a sly smile.
“You’re terrible,” Jen groaned.
The screen door swung open, delivering Kaitlin into the backyard.
“There she is,” Jen said. “I was beginning to think you’d bailed on us.”
Breathless and somewhat frazzled, she dropped into a chair. “Sorry. Busy day.”
“Bad day at the office?”
“Sorta,” Kaitlin said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
All three of them interpreted that as code. A fight with Kyle.
Jen handed a glass of wine across. “You’re here, that’s all that matters.”
“Wanna S’more?” Tammy offered.
“I’d love one.” Kaitlin perked up a little. She wagged her chin at the reconstructed fire pit. “Looks good. Adam did a great job.”
“I’ll tell him it’s a big hit.”
Sipping her wine, Kaitlin slid back in the chair, almost purring as the warmth of the fire washed over her. “This is perfect.”
Billie studied the newcomer. Kaitlin’s hair was a little untidy and her clothes seemed rumpled. Unusual for a woman who wouldn’t run to the corner store without lipstick on. “You all right, Kay?”
“I am now.”
“Heads up, chief,” Tammy said, holding out the squished mess between graham crackers.
“Thanks.” Kaitlin leaned forward as she tucked into it, letting the drippings fall to the grass.
Jen poked the fire with a stick. “So what are we doing this weekend?”
“Dunno,” Tammy said. “Nothing’s going on.”
“Oh,” Kaitlin perked up, trying to speak through an open mouth. “I have the greatest idea ever!”
The other three leaned in, waiting for her to wipe the sticky mess from her lips.
“Who wants to visit
a haunted house?”
“Not again.” Jen rolled her eyes. “Here I thought you actually had something.”
“I’m serious,” Kaitlin gushed. “They’re tearing down the Murder House. This is the last chance to see it.”
“The what?” Jen asked.
Tammy looked at her. “That place halfway up the mountain. The old house.”
“Who the hell wants to go there?”
“I do. I’ve always wanted to see the inside of that place.” Kaitlin turned to Tammy. “And you could take pictures. Document it before it’s gone forever.”
Tammy brightened, warming to the idea. “That would make for a good shoot.”
“Count me out,” Jen dismissed.
Billie remained silent, her eyes on the rippling flames.
Katlin turned to her. “What do you say, Billie?”
“No thanks.”
“Here, here,” Jen said.
“Oh come on,” Kaitlin pleaded. “You could be our guide.”
Billie glanced at Jen only to see her friend sour at the turn in conversation. “Sounds dangerous,” she said. “Poking around some place that’s ready to collapse.”
Tammy crushed her beer can. “All the more reason to go.”
Billie went back to staring at the fire. She hated being cajoled.
Kaitlin perched on her chair, looking to her friend with big hopeful eyes. This is what she said.
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
…
Excerpted from the short story “We Have Always Lived in the Murder House” by H. G. Albee.
First published in Uncanny Tales, September 1943, three months after the writer’s disappearance.
Reprinted here without permission.
* * *
The woman’s hand is cold as it touches mine but the sensation of her caress induces more than a shudder in me. She grows more beautiful each time she visits me here in this vast room with its books and candles and blasphemous curios. Her features are so breathtaking that I can barely look at her now.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I tell her. It’s the truth.
She laughs at me.
I slip my hand away from hers and there are red marks left on my flesh. Frostbite.
She leans in closer and the hush of her breath against my ear leaves me quaking. There is a war inside my chest. Two sides fighting. I want to ravish her. I want to lash her to a pole and burn her like the witchfinder generals of old.
“Don’t leave me,” she coos. “You can’t.”
“Please.” I sound like a child in my own ears. Begging.
“Bring me what I want,” she says. “You’re the only one who can save me now.”
My hand grips the arm of the chair, turning the knuckles white.
“Then stay with me.”
I look at her. “How long?”
“You already know that answer, pet.”
My lips are dry and my throat constricts before uttering the next question. It doesn’t want to come but I spit it out. “How long have you been here in this place?”
“We have always lived in the Murder House.” Her eyes sparkle as she says this. I look away but she keeps cooing to me.
“We always will.”
Thanks for reading the third book in the Spookshow series. If you have a moment, let me know what you think in a review.
The fourth book is underway now, to be followed by a fifth book. I think book 5 will be the end but you never know. I’m having a lot of fun with this series.
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By the same author
BAD WOLF
PALE WOLF
LAST WOLF
BAD WOLF CHRONICLES BOXED SET
KILLING DOWN THE ROMAN LINE
OLD FLAMES, BURNED HANDS
the SPOOKSHOW (Book 1)
WELCOME TO THE SPOOKSHOW (Book 2)
Available on Amazon US and UK
Tim McGregor is an author and screenwriter. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children. Some days he believes in ghosts, other days not so much.
Timmcgregorauthor.com