He looked up to Boone. “Do you think Dad would go to our funerals?”
Watching his uneven steps, Boone frowned. “Not if the Cowboys are playing.”
“Cowboys,” Gavin grunted, kicking up some dirt.
“Oh, thank Jesus,” Boone breathed out, the car’s fuzzy silhouette coming into better view.
Gavin’s night vision was in full swing now and, after a few more steps, told him Boone’s relief was warranted. The coast was clear. Gavin’s watch, however, told a different story. “What do we tell Mom? She has to be home by now.”
“Relax, we’ll just tell her that Scotty got a flat and we gave him a ride home. Which is partially true.”
“We should’ve left a note!” Chewing on a pinky, Gavin stepped onto the lonely stretch of road snaking through the land. Gravel crunched beneath his sneakers and something shrieked off in the distance, making him pick up the pace. He snapped his fingers. “We’ll tell her his mom made us come inside for fondue.”
“Fondue?” Boone shivered and pulled his jean jacket tighter around him as a chill swept in with the clouds muting the moonlight. “The hell is that?”
“Something they eat all the time.” Gavin studied the car through unfocused eyes. “I just can’t wait to get home and look at those pictures with a magnifying glass. I bet you a million dollars there’s something crazy on at least one of them.”
Boone snorted. “Yeah, we just saw it with our own eyes, genius.”
“No, I mean something we missed. Like a creepy old lady peeking through a window or tiny handprints on a mirror.” He shuddered as a cold breeze caressed the nape of his neck.
Boone stopped abruptly in the middle of the road and Gavin froze alongside him. Following his brother’s wide eyes to the Camaro, he nearly had a heart attack when he saw someone sitting in the passenger side with an elbow resting out the open window.
“Who’s that?” Boone whispered, gripping the flashlight like a billy club. “We locked it, didn’t we?”
Gavin stepped backwards, flipping hair from his incredulous eyes. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll call mom to come pick us up.”
“Call from where? A magic phonebooth?” Boone tipped his head down and gritted his teeth. “I’m not leaving my car here,” he growled, cautiously approaching the dream vehicle his mom cosigned for him at a used lot this past summer. Cindy wanted him to get a Chevette, but Boone just laughed.
Gavin followed his brother, dragging his feet and wishing he had some kind of a weapon. His mind conjured up an image of the tall, grinning dad from the pictures inside the house. It was him and Gavin didn’t need ghost-goggles to know it. Pulling the camera from his coat, he clicked it open, determined to catch the supernatural in person. Besides, if something terrible happened to them out here, an instant photograph might be the only record to explain the unexplainable.
“There you are!” The man’s voice was warm and deep. He watched them through the passenger side mirror, smoke streaming out the window and curling into the sky. Boone shone the light on the side mirror, lighting up the man’s wide smile nestled within an unkempt gray beard. Squinting against the beam, wrinkles rippled across the stranger’s leathery skin. He took a long drag from a cigarette pinched between two dirty fingers and exhaled into the breeze. “Thought I’d be here all night!”
Gavin slowly lowered the camera. It wasn’t the dad from the family photos but that didn’t stop the madness of it all from wrenching his insides. He took an instinctive step back, unable to tear his eyes from the alligator skin covering the man’s tanned face and hand.
Boone’s mouth barely moved, unable to latch onto any semblance of words as a deathly silence gripped them with pointy talons.
Tipping a Chicago Cubs baseball cap up, the stranger twisted around in the bucket seat to look upon the Lewis brothers with his own two eyes. He cheered them with a silver flask before taking a long pull. Spinning the attached cap back on, he swallowed with a sigh. “You two headin into town?” he said, punctuating the question with a rolling belch that ruffled his mustache.
“W-Who are you?” Boone stammered, trying to sound intimidating and coming off as anything but.
The man squinted at Boone as if he was pulling his leg. “I’m Teddy,” he chuckled, combing his mustache with a hand. “Who’re you?”
“I’m the guy who owns the car you’re sitting in.”
Laughing, Teddy capped it off with another burp. “Perfect! Let’s get this show on the road, captain!”
“If you don’t get out of my car, I’m going to call the cops.”
Teddy’s smile retreated into a land of confusion, making him appear older than he already did. He opened the car door with a rusty squeak that pierced the quiet night and made Gavin shrink into his coat. An owl called out as the old timer grabbed a backpack from between his long legs and struggled to exit the vehicle. Reclaiming his intimidating height, he smiled down at them, a tattered army coat flapping around his gangly frame. He tugged on the bill of his cap. “Evenin.”
“How’d you get in there?” Boone asked, examining his car for signs of broken glass.
Teddy followed the flashlight beam into the front seats, eyebrows dipping. “The door was hanging wide open.”
Boone looked at Teddy, eyebrows drawing together in disbelief. “Bullshit.”
“Found this on the driver’s seat,” Teddy said, pulling a Hummel figurine from a coat pocket.
Terror coiled in Gavin’s eyes. It was the same figurine Scotty almost took from the house but left behind at the last minute. The same figurine Gavin and Boone just saw sitting on the kitchen counter not more than twenty minutes ago.
“Here ya go,” Teddy said, gesturing for Boone to take it.
Boone’s hand reached out in slow motion, fingertips stretching like taffy toward the porcelain little boy with a top hat and horn. Stopping short, he looked over his shoulder. “Is that the same one from the house?”
“Yes,” Gavin said, taking another step back. “Don’t touch it.”
“House?” Teddy’s eyes lowered to the Hummel and he tossed it into the ditch before wiping his hand on his jeans. “We’ll just leave that there in case ya change yer minds.” Smiling thinly, he stared at them through the dim light. “Well! I do apologize for the inconvenience, my good fellows,” he said, extending an unsteady bow. “Be safe now.” Hiking the frayed pack up his shoulder, he trudged off into the cornfield, whistling a happy tune and stumbling with the bumpy ground.
Gavin and Boone watched the man stagger into the distance, a single cricket gradually replacing the cheery whistling in their ears. When the darkness swallowed him whole, Boone swung the flashlight inside the car for a quick inspection before going around to the driver’s side. “What a jerk,” he grumbled, climbing in.
“Mom is never going to believe any of this,” Gavin panted, sliding in the car and grimacing when he found the passenger seat still warm from the creepy old guy.
“What? No, we don’t tell mom anything, dumbass!”
“Why not?”
“Because she’ll think we’re high! And what purpose could it serve anyway? You think she wants to know her kids are messing around in abandoned houses out in the middle of nowhere?”
“But the framed picture of your car! We have to at least show her that.”
Boone twisted in the driver’s seat to face him and lowered his voice. “Look, it will only make her worry, okay? She doesn’t need that right now. Trust me, she’s got enough on her plate with Aunt Martha’s estate sale and paying our rent.” He ran a hand down his face, pulling a sigh from his lips. “How’d that figurine get in here?” he whispered, resting a hand on the console shifter. “We just saw it in that house.”
“I don’t know.” Gavin pressed his lips together and stared out the front windshield, where the night now held so many more possibilities than it did before. A thin cloud slipped over the moon like a bedsheet and a ghostly figured stumbled from the trees, staggering down the road
way toward them. Gavin sat up straighter in the passenger seat, pulse throbbing in his neck. The man moved with a jerky gate, kicking up gravel with each beleaguered step. The cloud passed, freeing the moon to splash silvery light across the dad’s face. The happy one from the photo album. Bloody gashes raked his cheeks, tearing into his mischievous grin. Eyes filled with an unwavering rage, he snarled at them, exposing a broken fence for teeth, painted in crimson.
Gavin shut his eyes and slowly counted to three. One, two…
“Hey.”
Opening his eyes, he turned to the sound of his brother’s voice.
Boone’s eyebrows went up. “Get your hand off mine.”
Looking down, Gavin’s eyes bulged when he saw his hand resting on Bonne’s perched upon the gearshift. Yanking it back, he snapped his eyes to the road and the dad was gone but the knot of fear was still in Gavin’s stomach, tightening a little more with each shallow breath. Cranking the window up, he locked the door. “We have to tell Mom about the eviction notice. She needs to know, Boone!”
“First of all, take it easy and stop yelling all the time. Okay? Second of all, we will tell Mom after I go to Craig’s Halloween party on Monday night.”
Gavin knitted his brow. “Why?”
“Because mom will never give me her credit card to buy a new costume if she knows about the eviction notice, and…” Boone stopped to lower his voice. “And Brenna is going to be at that party, so I’m not missing it. Comprende?”
“You have GOT to be kidding me.” Gavin leaned back against the headrest and almost laughed. “On a school night?”
“It’s Halloween and my only chance to win her back, Gav!” Boone got quiet and stuck the keys in the ignition. “Look, I’m going to take one more shot at this thing and if doesn’t work out...”
“You’ll try something else stupid.”
“Probably.”
“What’re we going to do about the picture of your car?”
“Pretend it didn’t happen.”
Gavin’s jaw dropped into his lap. “What! Why?”
“What do you want to do, Gavin? Go back in that hell hole and investigate some more?”
Turning back to the road, Gavin half expected the spine-chilling family to be standing directly in front of the car, blocking their escape. “Not really.”
“Exactly.” Boone started the car, bringing the throaty exhaust to life. “Let me tell you something, little brother, that was a framed picture of this car, parked in this exact spot, hanging on the wall of someone else’s house. Which, if you stop to think about it, is, theoretically, impossible! Then somebody – somehow – unlocks my car and puts some creepy-ass statue in here?” Grimly, he shook his head. “There is some messed up stuff going on in that house and, to be honest, I can’t believe it let us go. I mean, I can’t believe we’re not already dead.”
Gavin swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Maybe we are.”
Dropping it in gear, Boone hammered down on the accelerator, spraying the ditches with gravel and leaving God only knows what in the rearview mirror. Bouncing in the bucket seat, Gavin’s eyes fell to the instant photograph of the framed picture of the Camaro. His brother was right. They had their own problems to worry about. Besides, the picture was enough proof that the supernatural existed and Gavin’s legend would live on in playgrounds and schoolyards for years to come. They would name their pets after him and hand over their cookies at lunchtime with sheepish smiles digging into their faces. Sighing, he pulled on the shoulder belt and clicked it into place. They were lucky that house let them go all right, and Gavin would never, ever, step foot inside there again.
No matter what happened.
Chapter Eight
On the Lamb
Sunday, October 30th, Back Then
Struggling for air, Gavin kicked his socked feet against the couch cushions, desperate for purchase. “Don’t take Brenna out on me!” he choked, trying to pry Boone’s fingers from his neck. “It’s not my fault she thinks you’re boring!”
Boone set his jaw and cinched his choke hold tighter, making Gavin’s eyes bulge. Driving a heel into the wall, Gavin knocked a Thomas Kinkade print to the floor where the frame splintered into three pieces. Gasping for breath, he twisted onto his stomach – which only gave Boone better leverage – and kicked a skeleton bride and groom candleholder from an end table.
Footsteps stomped into the sunlit living room, rattling the lamps. “Boys!”
Boone milked the air from Gavin’s lungs with a disturbing pleasure while Gavin wrestled with the arm around his neck.
“Boone!”
With one final grunt, Boone released the hold and got up, knowing his mother’s tone had reached its boiling point. Flipping his long locks back, he straightened a Britny Fox concert-tee while hitting his brother with an icy glower. Gavin was too busy working on wheezing breaths with his hair shooting out in all directions to even notice.
Their mother’s face folded when she saw the broken picture frame and candleholders scattered about the silver carpet. “What is the matter with you, Boone?” she said, drying her hands on a flour-stained apron that was orange and black with a big hairy spider sewn across a web.
“He’s been playing Tecmo Bowl all morning! That’s what’s the matter with me, Cindy. And now the Cowboys game is on.” Boone swept a hand out toward the TV. “And he won’t get off!”
“Well, you don’t have to kill him, for Pete’s sake! He’s half your size.” Setting her hands on her hips, her blue eyes tightened into chilly slits. “And don’t you dare call me Cindy.”
Gavin rolled to his feet and staggered over to his mom, rubbing his neck. “My neck hurts, Mom.”
Cindy blew out a long breath, fluttering a golden bang that had escaped its hair tie. Pulling Gavin against her, she kissed the top of his head. “You poor thing,” she said, turning a glare on Boone. “Boone, I’m sorry about Brenna but you can’t take it out on your brother.”
“This isn’t about…” Boone took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “This isn’t about Brenna.”
“Look at the rings around his eyes,” she said, holding Gavin out by the shoulders. “Poor kid’s got enough problems having nightmares without you piling on.” Kneeling to meet his eyes, she straightened his Aliens t-shirt. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“My neck hurts real bad, Mom,” he moaned, trying to stretch it and wincing in pain. “I think he broke it.”
She hugged him tight and Gavin traded a smug look with his brother that fueled the angry thunderheads churning in Boone’s eyes. Pulling apart, Cindy smoothed Gavin’s hair and kissed him on the forehead. “I think you’ll live, spider-monkey,” she said, standing up. “Now behave or no Halloween cookies for either one of you.”
Pursing his lips, Boone plopped down onto the couch, taking Gavin’s spot and snatching up the remote.
Gavin gave him a hard glare. “Hey, Mom?”
Heading for the kitchen, Cindy stopped and turned to face him.
“About those nightmares last night…”
Her eyebrows went up.
Boone turned the TV up and cleared his throat two times extra loud, hitting Gavin with a serious warning look.
Gavin looked away. “There’s something we have to tell you.”
Folding her arms across the apron protecting a gray tank top and black yoga pants, she shifted in her Nike running shoes. “What is it, Gavin? I’m busy right now.”
“It’s nothing, Mom,” Boone replied. “He’s just being stupid.”
“We found something.” Gavin ignored his brother and swallowed hard. “Something…weird.”
Boone tightened his jaw, popping a tendon in his neck.
Cindy shrugged. “Like what?”
“We found…”
A panicked knock at the front door made them all flinch, cutting Gavin’s sentence off at the pass. At first, he couldn’t breathe because it was either the police here to evict them, or something else. Something related to that
house. Somehow, he just knew it. Breaking free of his temporary paralysis, Gavin rushed across the room with a bad feeling rising in his chest like acid reflux. The knock came again, faster, harder, and Gavin couldn’t imagine who would be knocking like that. Heart racing, he gripped the doorknob, wishing he was tall enough to reach the peephole.
“Well, open it, Gavin,” his mom said, furrowing her brow.
He sighed and barely opened the door. Scotty barged inside and wadded Gavin’s t-shirt into his fists. Slamming him up against a wall, his breath came hard and fast and smelled like coffee. Perspiration glistened across his forehead on shiny droplets. “Turn on the news!” he panted, glaring at Gavin.
Cindy stepped closer and shut the door. “What’s wrong, Scotty?”
“Just turn it on!” he said, face dripping with sweat and horror.
Frowning, she pried him off her son. “Now just relax and tell us what happened. Do you want some water?” she asked, brushing wet hair from his brow.
He shook his head fast, red blotches staining his neck and cheeks. “Something happened. Something terrible.”
Straightening up, Cindy folded her arms across her chest and tried to lead by example with a cool voice. “Okay, just take a deep breath and tell us what happened.”
Scotty turned back to Gavin, breathless and pale. “The guy from Morgan Realty,” he sputtered, gesturing with his hands. “The realtor at the house!”
Gavin’s eyebrows pulled together, heart skipping a beat. “Yeah, what about him?” he said, sounding like somebody else inside his head.
“He’s missing!”
“Missing?” He blinked at Scotty. “What do you mean?”
Scotty gasped at the air around them, bordering on the edge of hyperventilating. “His wife and kids are dead!”
Cindy clapped a hand over her heart. “Oh, my gosh, who are you talking about?”
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