The Haunting of Pico (Pico, Texas - Book 1)

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  There was only one way to find out. I brought up Becky’s number on my phone, and paused.

  If she said no, then what? I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to deal with rejection. Plus, if I got shot down, would we still be friends, or would it get all awkward?

  I could always ask Monica, but I didn’t have her number. Besides, chances were that Monica would want to go out dancing, assuming there was anywhere like that to go, and I wasn’t sure my legs could handle it a second night in a row. And, if I asked her out, it would almost certainly be taken for a date—not that I wouldn’t mind dating Monica. If anyone had told me a month ago that I would soon have a shot at a girl like that, I’d have called them crazy.

  But now I couldn’t tell who Richard was interested in. As far as I knew, he wasn’t officially with anyone, so technically both Monica and Becky were fair game. But then again, I was new in town and wanted friends, so not pissing off the one I had made seemed like a good idea to me.

  Then there was Rose. I remembered how she looked sitting in my window, and then leaning over me with those eyes and that extremely low-cut dress…. I shook my head. Something was a bit off with her. She was simply gorgeous, and as much as I wanted to go over and ask her out, little alarm bells were going off in my head that said: warning, this one’s crazy. I decided to give her a pass, at least for now.

  I groaned, tossing my phone on the nightstand as I got up. Relationships with girls were annoyingly complex, and as I walked down the hall in defeat, I decided I needed to make more guy friends.

  In a last desperate attempt to find something to do on a Saturday night, I knocked on my sister’s door. If this didn’t pan out, I was calling Becky—screw complications.

  There was no answer, so I opened the door and looked in. “Eve?”

  She was lying on her bed texting. She had ear buds in, turned up loud enough to tune everything else out. I looked around. Sometime in the last week, without my noticing, she had painted her room lavender.

  Eve turned to me and shouted, “Don’t you knock?”

  I walked up and yanked the cord out of her iPod. “Stop yelling. I did knock. When did you do this?” I indicated her walls.

  She looked down at the cord, then around at her room. “Oh. Last couple of nights. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Charlotte, huh?”

  “Ugh. Please. We do not have a ghost. That’s impossible; they don’t exist. Besides, Mom and Dad haven’t heard it.”

  “That’s because they’re in bed by ten and sleep like the dead. An entire army of ghosts could throw a rave in here and they’d never know it.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “You’re not sleeping either?” Now that I was paying attention, I realized how exhausted she looked. This also explained why she had been more muted than normal lately; her brattiness wasn’t up to its usual levels.

  “Just the last couple of nights since I started hearing the ghost cry. What do you think she wants?” I noticed Eve was not only admitting it was a ghost, but referring to it as a she.

  “No idea. Maybe she works for one of those sleeping pill companies. You know… paid to keep folks up at night. Hey, you want to go catch a movie or something?” I hadn’t willingly gone anywhere with my sister in probably three years, since she had transitioned from cute little sister to Miss Popularity and I was no longer her cool older brother.

  She gave me a funny look. “I have plans.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “What about Becky? She’s not working tonight.” Leave it to Eve to know everyone-who-was-anyone’s schedule.

  “It’s kind of complicated.”

  “No, it really isn’t.”

  “Yeah, it is. Look, Richard might like her, and I don’t want to tick him off by asking her out. Plus, I don’t even know if she likes me. She might just be using me to get to her—” I stopped.

  I realized I sounded just like a girl. It was horrifying. I needed to go do something chock full of testosterone, and fast. Maybe I’d go over and hang out at Sam’s Ammo, Guns and Liquor tonight. That seemed both manly and Texan at the same time.

  “So stupid.” My sister was slowly shaking her head, her eyes shut tight.

  “Yeah, well, try to get some sleep tonight. I’ll deal with Charlotte.”

  I was almost out the door when she offered, “Why don’t you come with us?”

  Stunned, I stopped. “What? You seriously want me hanging out with your friends?”

  “Whatever. Suit yourself. It’s just going to be me and a couple of girls from the squad. We’re supposed to go over to Emma’s house to practice, but her place backs up to a river, and there’s this cool tire swing that goes out over the water, so we’ll probably just end up going swimming.”

  She was a master manipulator. “You don’t think they’d mind?

  “Only if they were smart.” Her raised brows and tone implied that they weren’t.

  There was a honk from outside.

  “Better get changed, bro.” Eve looked around for her backpack. Only then did I notice the swimsuit straps under her tank top.

  I ran to my room and threw on my trunks, barely remembering to grab a towel before I flew down the stairs. I was out the front door in time to see Eve climbing into a black Jeep. It waited for me, and as I sat down I was serenaded with a chorus of “Hey, Chris” from a group of girls I had seen around school, but didn’t know.

  Their confused looks suggested that I was crashing Girls’ Night Out, but no one was upset enough to question Eve. I certainly wasn’t about to let it stop me from going. Spending Saturday night with a bunch of cute girls was a whole lot better than spending it alone in front of the TV.

  The river behind Emma’s house was a lot smaller and muddier than I expected. Still, it had water, and a tire swing hung over it. Apparently no one was in the mood to practice, because within minutes of arriving we were all swimming in the cool water, having a blast taking turns swinging out and letting go.

  Sometime after dark, we finally crawled onto the shore, exhausted. Emma got drinks and wood for the fire pit, while the rest of us sat around and talked.

  I had already been forgiven for showing up uninvited; getting beaten up by Tim Peterson made me a minor celebrity. They all wanted to hear about it, even though most of them had seen it firsthand.

  During the retelling, I was interrupted at least a dozen times by someone putting her particular spin on a detail. Thanks to a girl named Mia, by the end of the story everyone knew I got clocked because I turned to look at Becky. This news flash shifted the topic of conversation over to her.

  I got to hear all about Becky’s past boyfriends. This proved both interesting and painful. Apparently the latest had been a football player from Clarksville High. They were together all last year, even though their relationship was punctuated by a string of blow-up fights. To hear the squad tell it, the guy was a jerk. But I had the feeling that their bent always tended to lean toward their particular audience at the time.

  Eventually, I had heard enough about Becky’s love life. Fortunately, so had they, and the gossip moved on to Savannah.

  I was getting the feeling that all girls did was talk about whichever ones weren’t around. After a half hour hearing about Savannah’s idiosyncrasies (apparently once a month she was totally out of commission, and no one knew if she and Tim had done it yet), it was just Too Much Information. I had had enough.

  First I tried to derail their conversation by regaling them with stories of how cool California was. After that fell flat—they were too pro-Texas to let it be upstaged by California—I brought up our haunted house. That did the trick.

  I told them everything I knew about Charlotte Monroe, and then went into detail about how late at night we could hear footsteps in the attic, and sometimes pounding and crying from the kitchen. I was proud of myself for making it sound creepy while only slightly embellishing the facts.
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  Someone asked what was in the attic, and I told them about it being hidden behind the secret locked door, and then took it up a notch and replaced the AC units and boxes of junk with cobweb-draped chests full of Charlotte’s belongings. Eve rolled her eyes at me, but played along with it.

  Asking if anyone had heard anything about our ghost elicited eager responses. Everyone knew she was a witch, but I got some wild versions of the story beyond that. In one, Charlotte used black magic to trap the mayor in a torrid love affair; another had her bearing the love child of Trevor Collins’ grandfather. In my personal favorite, the girl hanged from the tree was actually Charlotte’s twin sister, and Charlotte was still alive and living in the walls of the house.

  After Eve’s friends ran out of ghost stories, they got even more creative. I found out that witches still lurked in Pico, along with vampires, zombies, werewolves, aliens, and some guy named Elvis. No wonder this town had such a high missing-persons rate: it was like one big horror movie.

  The stories eventually wound down, and we went our separate ways just after midnight. It had been a fun evening, and I was in a great mood until we got home and the door was opened by our fuming mother.

  “And just where have you been, Christopher?”

  I looked at Eve, who shrugged as if to say, “She knew where I was.”

  “Um… I was out with Eve and her friends.” My mom looked at my sister, who nodded. That seemed to calm her down a little. I think seeing the two of us spending quality time together overrode her anger about my forgetting to tell her where I went.

  “Next time answer your phone. I was worried about you.” I frowned, wondering why I hadn’t heard it ring once all night. Then I realized it was still in my room. In my rush to leave, I had forgotten it.

  “Sorry, Mom. I forgot it. You could have called Eve.”

  “I would have if I knew you two were together. It’s not like you ever spend—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. Just be careful, okay? And let us know where you’re going to be. We worry about you. And remember to bring your phone with you; that’s why we pay for it.”

  I put on a repentant face, then went upstairs and grabbed my phone off the nightstand. Six missed calls: five from my mom at regular intervals, and one call from Becky at eight. I sighed. The AC was out again, so I opened the windows. The light in Rose’s room was off, and the outside shutters were closed.

  “So I heard you came over for a visit today.”

  I whirled around to see Rose standing right in front of me.

  “You don’t live there.” I pointed an accusatory finger back out the window at the Givens house, feeling the adrenaline slowly ease out of my body. She was wearing one of her dresses from another era. It was blue with white flowers, knee-length, and cut low in the front, which I knew she used to her advantage.

  “Of course I do. I just like my privacy. I’m busy during the days though, so if you’re going to stop by, do it at night. You’ll get a more pleasant reception.” She slowly circled around me, and I turned with her, instinctively knowing I didn’t want my back to her. Then she stopped, put both hands on my shoulders and gave a gentle push. I fell back onto the bed. She sat next to me, leaving no room for personal space.

  “Who are you?” I asked abruptly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you Charlotte?”

  “Do you think I’m Charlotte?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. You’re about her age, and with all those fifties dresses you wear….”

  She shook her head, looking both amused and a little sad. “Wrong era, dear. I got this in 1934. You should watch more old movies. And my name is Rose. Rose Wright. I’m not Charlotte.”

  “What are you?” I looked at her. She said she got the dress. As in bought it herself, like eighty years ago.

  “I’m your friend,” she said, leaning in close. I felt her lips brush my cheek and then her breath in my ear. “Now, why don’t you get some sleep? I have things to do tonight, but I’ll come back and visit soon.” She got up and turned out my light. I obeyed, and was asleep in seconds.

  Some too-short time later I was woken again by Charlotte. Tonight it was the banging from downstairs. I tried to go back to sleep, but my mind wasn’t cooperating. I thought first of Becky, but her image was pushed aside by one of Rose sitting on my bed, watching as I slept.

  I forced her from my mind and got out of bed. If I was up anyway, I might as well do something productive. Maybe I could figure out what Charlotte wanted.

  As I neared the kitchen, Charlotte added high-pitched cries to the mix. She was going all out tonight. I flipped on the kitchen lights and the noises immediately stopped, replaced by the sound of the AC kicking on for the first time since yesterday. As I stood blinking in the sudden brightness, I reflected on the situation.

  Ghosts haunted the places that were meaningful to either their life or their death, at least according to what I kept hearing. Charlotte was supposed to have been hanged from the tree outside my room, so I would expect something strange happening there; I couldn’t understand what she was doing in the kitchen. Maybe ghosts got the munchies too. My stomach rumbled in empathy, and I grabbed a glass of water and ate a couple of cookies. As soon as I left the kitchen, the AC conked out again. I shook my head and went back upstairs to try to get some sleep.

  Chapter 12

  I woke up just before noon on Sunday with a headache. The temperature was already in the mid-nineties. Even a ten-minute skate was a killer in that heat, and I was soaked in sweat by the time I got to work.

  I looked forward to getting my license in a few months. Now all I had to do was save up for a car—one with working air conditioning. I had some money put aside from birthdays, allowances, and mowing lawns back in California. If I were lucky, that savings along with my bookstore earnings might be enough to get me something that ran. At least prices were lower here, and I didn’t feel the need to impress anyone with my vehicle. As long as it had working AC, I was golden.

  The store was locked when I got there, but Mr. Sherman had given me a key and shown me how to open the place up. There wasn’t an alarm; he said the town didn’t like books enough to steal them.

  A bleary-eyed Mr. Sherman straggled in two hours later, face and arms scratched. I didn’t want to know what he’d done last night. The dude was a little odd, and I figured the answer might disturb me. Seeking a safer topic, I asked him whether the ghost books he had ordered for me had come in. They hadn’t, but he expected them sometime this week.

  Then he surprised me by asking if I could start working on Tuesdays so that he wouldn’t miss his TV shows. We closed at five, but the comics and some other publications came in on Tuesdays, and he usually needed to stay a few hours late to get them out on the shelves for Wednesday morning. The extra time would get me up to twelve hours a week. I jumped at the chance. The dream of a car by my birthday was becoming more real.

  As usual, I stopped by Freddy’s for a cold drink on the way home. I rationalized it as fending off the heat, but in reality that was just an added bonus. I placed my order into a speaker, then sat down at one of the benches under the covered awning outside and relaxed. Becky was working, but they were slammed, with almost all of the stalls filled with trucks and SUVs. My drink order took almost ten minutes, but I wasn’t in a hurry. As I had hoped, Becky was the one who brought it out to me. As she handed me the drink, I told her about picking up Tuesdays at the bookstore.

  “That’s nice.” She seemed a little cool. I wondered if she was upset that I hadn’t called her back. I doubted it, but you never knew with girls.

  “You guys are busy.”

  “Yeah, almost like someone called everyone in town and told them to show up.”

  Oh. “So, um, sorry I missed your call yesterday.”

  “That’s okay; thanks for calling me back. Oh, wait— you didn’t.”

  I cursed myself inwardly. It had been too late to call her last night, and I figured I�
��d just stop by today and see her after work instead. Obviously that was not what I was supposed to do. Someone needed to write an instruction manual on calling girls. I mean, didn’t calling back right away look desperate? Should I have called her at midnight? Or first thing in the morning? If a guy had needed to talk to me, he would have just called me back.

  I tried to look like I was taking this in stride. “I forgot my phone last night and didn’t get back in until late.”

  “Oh. So where did you go?” She said it casually, while pulling coins from one of those cool change machines she wore at her waist. Her calm tone caught me off guard, so my mouth answered before my brain could edit the response.

  “I went to hang out over at Emma’s.”

  She stopped counting for a heartbeat then finished and held the change above my waiting palm.

  “I see.” She flicked open her fingers to drop the change into my hand and said in a measured voice, “Funny. I thought a bunch of the squad were going over there to work on their routine last night.”

  “Nah, we all just swam and stuff.” I was on a roll.

  “That’s interesting.”

  It finally clicked. “I mean, they practiced a bunch. I just swam mostly. By myself. Alone.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Yeah, okay, so no one really practiced much. Or, at all, actually.”

  “Oh, so you spent the whole night swimming with Emma?”

  “Well, and her friends, yeah. I mean that’s not all we did.”

  “Oh?”

  “Wait, no—nothing like that! We just sat around a fire and told ghost stories.”

  She stared at me silently for a good five seconds. Her angry expression had been replaced by something I couldn’t read. Then she just turned and walked off.

  “Well, ah, thanks for the drink!” She didn’t look back.

  Damn. I knew that was an epic fail, I just didn’t see what I did wrong. I left more than a little bummed.