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

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  Eve wandered into the kitchen for a snack during my search and asked what I was doing.

  “What does it look like I’m doing? Trying to find the basement.”

  “Basement?”

  “Yeah.” I filled her in on what Mr. Givens had told me. I thought she’d be happy to hear everything I found out, but for some reason she zeroed in on my going to Rose’s house.

  “Let me get this straight. You lasted, what, an entire day with Becky before you headed straight over next door to talk with the other woman?”

  Okay, that wasn’t fair. A, I hadn’t gone straight over to see Rose; I ate dinner first. And B, I really went over to see Mr. Givens. Well, Rose, too, but only to tell her I couldn’t see her again, so it shouldn’t count. I told Eve as much.

  “Oh, and you have such a great history of self-control around her!”

  “Nothing happened!”

  “That’s a first.”

  “Eve, nothing happened. No kissing, no nothing. I dumped her. Seriously! I told Rose I couldn’t see her anymore.”

  “Really?” Skepticism crept into her voice.

  “Yes. Really.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Not well at first, but I think I got through to her. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because she’s moving soon. It sounds like she’ll be out of town by this weekend.”

  “Where is she going?”

  “No idea. Who cares? Her friends already went and found a place.”

  “Friends?”

  “Yeah, she lived with a couple of other guys and a girl. You probably bumped into them; they were at the post-game parties. Anyway, they already moved into the new place, and Rose said she was going to join them soon. So relax. We don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

  I waved my arm around the kitchen. “Now can you please help me look for this door?”

  I could see Eve wasn’t finished with Rose, but she restrained herself for the time being. We gave the kitchen one more fruitless search. It occurred to me that the door might be on the outside somewhere. I’d seen old houses on TV that had entrances to the cellar outside the house; maybe we had a secret one. If so, it would have to wait until morning, because there was no way I was opening any of Mr. Monroe’s secret doors in the dark.

  Exhausted, we went to bed. I had just drifted off when I got a call from Becky.

  “Hey!” I said, trying to sound more awake than I felt.

  “So, I hear you went next door.”

  Oh, give me a freaking break! I was going to throttle Eve.

  “Yeah, I needed to talk with Mr. Givens about Charlotte. I not only found out that Emily came back to Pico to live with her mom, but this house has a cellar! It’s the last place Mr. Givens saw Emily. Now, if I can only find out how to get down there, maybe we can finally put her to rest and I can get some sleep.”

  “I see.” She hadn’t even heard me. Like Eve, the only thing Becky focused on was Rose. I tried my best not to yawn.

  “And, yes, while I was there I saw Rose. Just long enough to tell her I couldn’t see her any more. You know, like I’m sure you did with Jason.” Okay, that was kind of low, but the double standard was getting annoying.

  It seemed to work. Becky softened slightly.

  “Yeah, I called him last night.”

  “Good. Now that everything’s settled and we’re all exclusive, I don’t have to let you win at Death Karts anymore.”

  “Let me win?” The edge was back in her voice.

  “Sure. I mean, when I was wooing you, I had to let you beat me at games. Now that you’re mine, I can stop pulling my punches. Plus you can start fetching me drinks and stuff.”

  “Fetching you drinks?”

  “While I hang out with the guys and watch football and talk about cars or whatever, yeah.”

  “Well, you sleep tight tonight. Enjoy those dreams.”

  “If they’re about you, I know I will!”

  “Good night, Christopher.”

  “’Night, Rebecca!” I mean, if we were going to use full names….

  She growled something I didn’t catch before hanging up. I was asleep before I could even set the phone down.

  If my dreams had all been about Becky, I would have been happy. Instead, Rose filled them.

  “Did you honestly think I would let you go?” A shadow loomed.

  “Yes?” I tried to think of how to make her leave, but my mind was moving in slow motion. Even in my dreams, I was tired.

  The bed moved as she got in beside me. Her body slid against mine while she kissed my check, slowly working her way to my mouth as she straddled me. Reflexively, my arms went around her to bring her cool body toward mine as we kissed deeply. I was floating, the weight of her body surprisingly light. She rubbed against me, her mouth moving down to my neck.

  I woke with a start. I was sweaty and shivering despite the muggy breeze from the open window. Unsteadily, I rose to a sitting position and took deep breaths. My neck and back were sore; I didn’t think that was supposed to happen until you were old.

  It wasn’t long before I heard what woke me.

  Tonight’s sounds were different; our ghost was getting creative. The noises came from the attic, but it wasn’t the slow footsteps across the ceiling that I had begun to get used to. Tonight was more like someone playing a chaotic game of basketball.

  I slowly stood up and almost fell back down. I leaned against the wall as I fought off the dizziness. All I wanted to do was go back to bed. Instead, against my better judgment, I went to investigate.

  As I passed my parents’ bedroom, I marveled at the fact that the raucous sounds hadn’t woken them up. I was constantly amazed at what they were capable of sleeping through. For a moment, I listened to my dad’s snores ripping through their door, and decided that maybe they’d both gone deaf from years of assault by that sound every night.

  At the attic door I paused, briefly doubting my sanity in going up there alone. I debated waking up Eve, but decided against it. Other than moral support, I wasn’t sure what she could do to help. On the other hand, there was that old saying about not having to run faster than the monster, just the slowest person it was chasing. I could outrun my sister.

  I took a deep breath and triggered the catch. With the door open, the noises became clearer: it sounded as if someone was tossing around the boxes of junk. I flipped on the light, and right on cue the sounds stopped.

  I climbed upstairs to survey the carnage. Boxes were strewn everywhere, battered and broken. We were going to need a whole new batch of ornaments this Christmas, and I doubted if any of Eve’s horses survived this time. I was about to start cleaning the mess when I realized the ghost hadn’t left. It had been quietly working itself up to an even bigger tantrum.

  My first clue was the Ouija board that Monica had left on a shelf near Charlotte’s lab. It flew at me like a square Frisbee. I ducked, only to get clobbered from behind by a box labeled “Eve’s baby clothes.” I threw my hands out, breaking my fall in the nick of time. I was just getting up when a heavy box sent me crashing into a four-by-four support column. Pain shot through me as my ribs took the brunt of the impact.

  That warm welcome was enough for me. It was time to make a hasty retreat. Clutching my side, I stayed low and ran for the stairs.

  Apparently the ghost wasn’t too keen on my leaving, because the barrage picked up. I heard a pop, followed by darkness; one of the boxes must have clipped the overhead lights. Unable to see, I was knocked flat by what could only have been our artificial Christmas tree. It knocked the wind out of me.

  I gasped, heaving off the box. I began army-crawling through the dark, one arm over my head to ward off the blows. I couldn’t see anything, and I started to worry that I would die up here. I wondered if it would be ruled a suicide, and if so, how it would possibly be explained. “He was found lying face down in the attic after pummeling himself to death with boxes.”

  At last, my hand fell on emptiness. I had found the stairs
. I turned myself around and scrambled down as quickly as I could.

  I had only just closed the door when a crash shook the house. This was a testament to old-school craftsmanship. My dad had been right: if this had been a new house with a hollow door, the Dig Dug game would have shot right through it and flattened me against the opposite wall. I had a feeling that old video game machine was never going to be fixed.

  Apparently that crash was enough to finally wake my parents. Whispers filtered through the door as I crept past their room. I slipped through my door and into bed. I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. My ribs were certainly bruised, if not cracked, and my whole body ached.

  I lay listening for a long time, but the house remained quiet. Sleep came an hour before my alarm went off.

  Chapter 29

  I felt horrible. Between the lack of sleep and my battered body, it took all of my willpower to get out of bed for school. Not bothering to get dressed, I grabbed my clothes and stumbled down the hall. As I passed Eve’s door, it opened. She saw me and started to cut me off to claim the bathroom.

  “Fine, just hurry up,” I said, turning back toward my room. Sleep deprivation had taken the fight out of me. But, to my surprise, Eve stopped. She halted mid-step, gaping at me.

  “No, you go first.” I almost fell over from shock when she said it. In fourteen years she had never once willingly given up the bathroom.

  I stared in disbelief as Eve continued to watch me with an odd expression. She was biting her lip and frowning in worry. Then she pulled out the ever-present phone and started texting. Before I could say anything, she had taken a step backwards and closed her door.

  I must have looked worse than I thought, but I didn’t question my good luck. I shuffled into the bathroom and started the shower, and then, out of curiosity, I peered at myself in the mirror.

  I knew something was wrong. I mean, other than the dark circles under my eyes and the bruises from where I’d slammed into the wooden beam last night. But when I tried to focus on what it was, my mind went cloudy. I closed my eyes and rested against the sink, trying to concentrate. I opened my eyes again. There it was! But the moment I caught the thought, it immediately slipped from my mind. I was just too tired to concentrate.

  I sighed. My neck hurt, so I tried rolling my head to work out the kinks, but that made it worse. I looked at myself one final time, but I simply couldn’t see what had spooked my sister. Giving up, I shrugged and got into the shower.

  I turned my thoughts to what waited below our house. Who waited. I was definitely getting in that cellar today. Well, tonight, anyway. Between school and then dinner with Becky and her parents, today was booked. After that, though, I was getting in even if I had to chew through the floor with a chainsaw.

  The morning floated by. I was too tired for active participation, but at least I stayed awake through most of my classes, which I counted as a victory. Monica spent third period alternating between sneaking glances into Mr. Sherman’s book on supernatural weirdness and giving me strange looks.

  I sat down on the wall at lunch and brought out my sandwich. Despite being hungry, it didn’t look appetizing, so I gave half to Richard and forced myself to eat the rest. Monica and Becky were a little late, and when they showed up they had Eve, Trevor, and for some reason Savannah in tow.

  Becky walked straight over to me, grabbed my collar and wrenched it down. Great, I was being publicly checked for hickeys. So much for believing me when I’d said I dumped Rose.

  “What’s up?” I said, batting her hand away. Her green eyes were startled. She opened her mouth and was about to say something when Monica stepped on her foot.

  “What? I told you nothing happened with Rose! Honestly!” I said.

  Becky looked like she might start crying. I wasn’t sure if it was something I did, or the pain from Monica stamping on her foot. But then she swallowed the look, smiled, and grabbed me into a hug so tight it almost crushed me. My ribs screamed in pain.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, pulling away and taking hold of my hand. Concern welled up in her eyes.

  This was weird. I was getting pity stares from Eve, Trevor, and even Savannah. It was like everyone knew I had terminal cancer, but no one wanted to break it to me. Only Richard looked as confused as I did. He just shrugged as if to say “women” and took a bite out of his sandwich.

  The remainder of lunch was closer to normal, though Becky wouldn’t let go of my hand. She was being a little possessive, and I had to figure out how to eat one-handed. The food helped, though, and by the end of lunch I was starting to feel better. I walked Becky to class and gave her a G-rated peck on the cheek.

  “See you tonight!” I said.

  She nodded and smiled.

  After school I stopped by the library. We weren’t due at the Baileys’ until six-thirty, so I had plenty of time. I found Mr. Parker behind his desk, and was a bit shocked to find that he knew what I was looking for.

  “Though you’re the first to want them since I’ve been here,” he said before disappearing into the back room where the library kept its rare books. He came back holding a long cardboard tube covered in dust and cobwebs. We found an empty table, and he extracted a thick roll of blueprints from the tube. The stack contained a few dozen, but the third from the top was the one I wanted.

  It took me less than a minute to find what I was looking for, and when I saw it I smashed my fist into the table, then cursed as pain shot through my wounded side.

  “You okay there, buddy?” asked Parker. It was the fifteenth time I had heard that today.

  “Yeah. I just can’t believe I missed something is all. Thanks!” I left as Mr. Parker tried unsuccessfully to fit the plans back into the tube.

  I had no opportunity to open the basement door before we went to the Baileys’ because my mom was in the kitchen practically the whole time working on the salad she had volunteered to bring. So, instead, I took a page from Eve’s book and pulled out my phone to text everyone, telling them what I found.

  My dad had picked up Eve on his way home, and I felt some guilty satisfaction that she had only five minutes to change before my mom yelled up that we had to go. She still took fifteen minutes.

  As soon as we got in the car, Eve started texting.

  My phone buzzed. I took it out and saw the message from my sister: “it’s in the pantry?”

  I texted back: “yup”

  “s#&! can’t believe we missed that”

  “yup”

  “tonite?”

  “yes. after mom & dad go 2 bed”

  “ok”

  She kept texting, but apparently none of them were to me.

  Dinner was nice. Now that Becky and I had made up, her mom was friendly, and our dads seemed to get along well. We talked a little bit about school and living out in California, but by the time dinner ended, the conversation had moved on to hunting and fishing. The girls couldn’t wait to excuse themselves.

  When the topic turned to cars a short while later, I finally found out what was in the warehouse that sat next to their house. Mr. Bailey had a car collection, and he took my dad and I out to ogle the dozen or so Fords stored in the climate-controlled building. He had everything from a Model T all the way to a white GT.

  When Becky wandered in to ask if she could fetch me a drink, I was too busy looking at an old Thunderbird to catch her tone. I nodded absently, and might have even dropped a “sure, babe,” as I checked out the teal-and-white classic.

  So when she came up to me a minute later, smiling, and handed me the can of soda with a syrupy-sweet “here you go, dear!” I just opened it.

  I wasn’t too upset about the half that sprayed all over me, but I felt bad about the half that spewed all over the car. I looked around in panic. Mr. Bailey had been talking animatedly with my dad by a black Fairlane Thunderbolt. He looked over at us, shook his head once, and then went back to his conversation. My dad, who had crawled halfway inside the engine compartment, missed the whole
thing.

  Becky just smiled, blinking rapidly, and said, “Oops! Want me to fetch you another?”

  “Uh, yeah, I don’t think so.”

  She gave me a satisfied look, then took my hand and stood by my side; her smile turned to a frown as we surveyed the Coke-splattered T-Bird.

  “He’s going to make me clean that up.”

  “I’d feel sorry for you but, well, you know.” I looked down at my wet Ramones t-shirt.

  “Want me to clean you off while I’m at it? I’ll make sure I get every inch.” She said it suggestively enough that I glanced over at our dads, and was relieved to see that they were still engrossed in their conversation about the Fairlane’s 427-cubic-inch engine.

  “Might as well. If you do a good enough job, maybe I’ll let you beat me at Death Karts again.”

  “You know, you’re right. I think a rematch is in order. This time with those stakes you mentioned last time.”

  “You’re on. Saturday night, my place. I can finish counting those piercings,” I said with more bravado than I felt.

  “Then I’ll have to make sure all of them are in.”

  I gulped.

  After the exchange, I helped Becky clean up the car. To Mr. Bailey’s credit, he never got mad. When he noticed we were tackling the sticky explosion, he fetched a bucket and some towels, then put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, son. It’s like taming a wild filly. All you have to do is show her who’s boss.”

  I could hear him chuckle all the way back to the Fairlane.

  We were still working on the car when Eve and Mrs. Bailey brought in a tray with dessert. When my sister saw the mess, she did her best to nonverbally disown me. Mrs. Bailey frowned slightly and told us not to miss any spots.

  When I got home, I tore into Death Karts like never before. I figured I’d give it until midnight before I went into the cellar. That would be well after my parents went to sleep, but before Emily was up and could kill me with one of her temper tantrums.