The Hauntings of Cold Creek Hollow (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  Whit met her at the door, and she piled the clothes in his outstretched arms. “Steaks are medium rare and on the table.”

  He started to walk away and asked, “Do you always eat like this?”

  “Nope, eggs were bad,” she explained.

  “Ah, now it makes sense. Where’s my phone... I see it. Later.” He went back in her room and shut the door.

  ~

  “Does Restoration Realty normally leave the doors to the homes in Cold Creek Hollow open?” Tom questioned the staff that had assembled at his request.

  “No, the last person to have a key was Whitney Martin. Maybe he left the house open,” Rose replied, her lip curling.

  “Did Mrs. Martin make an appointment to see the house in question?”

  “No, she did not!” Rose punctuated with a stamp of her foot.

  Tom wondered what was up with this woman. She was pissed. Hell, she was only a secretary - okay an agent receptionist - but still there was an overabundance of malice in her manner. The owners seemed less anxious than this town gossip. Ah, thought Tom, she’s mad because someone else knew something before she did.

  “I think Whit killed his wife,” Rose said to the room. “He was having an affair with Ms. Cooper, and his wife found out about it, couldn’t accept it and took her own life.”

  “That’s a nasty allegation. He has an alibi for last night. Do you?”

  “What! How dare you!” Rose shouted.

  “Well, folks, that’s all I have right now. If you can think of anything, reasonable, please call the station. Oh and, Rose, I expect to have an answer to my question. The rest of you can leave.”

  Rose sat down with a thump. How was she going to explain that she was in the bushes outside the mayor’s house all night trying to catch him stepping out on his wife?

  ~

  “Thanks, Tom, I will,” Whit said as he finished his last call. Mia had cleaned up the breakfast plates and headed into her room to shower and change. He walked over to her door and spied a roll of toilet paper on the floor outside of her room. Nope, he wasn’t going to get in on that flimsy excuse. He picked up the roll and went in search of the guest bath.

  ~

  Mia let the water pour over her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the swinging body of Sherry. This was going to haunt her for the rest of her life. She prayed that Sherry herself wouldn’t.

  ~

  Whit put on his jacket and headed outside to get some fresh air. He walked out on the deck facing the water. He wondered about the shape. It was rounded, as if the house was plopped right on top of a perfect circle. He was walking the perimeter when he glanced in the house. He saw Mia reflected in the bathroom mirror. She was in the shower with her back to the mirror. He wasn’t surprised to see a beautiful firm body with everything in the right place. What surprised him were the enormous bruises on the back of each arm.

  Whit felt shame. Not at peeping at Mia but knowing it was him that put the bruises there.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The phone call to Sherry’s parents was the hardest thing he ever had to do. Whit ended the call with a promise to bring her body home to New Jersey.

  Mia overheard the conversation. What a horrible thing to have to explain to parents. She shook her head sadly.

  “Okay, that’s the last one. Thanks for the hospitality, but it’s time I went home,” Whit said, gathering his gear.

  “You know my door is open to you anytime,” Mia said as she spread a new layer of salt at the back door.

  Whit had to ask - he knew after all she’d done, it was impolite of him - but he had to know. “Why all the salt and brick dust?”

  “I need to be able to sleep at night. If I don’t draw a barrier the ghosts can come right in. Tell me, how’d you feel if you woke up with a dead one staring at you? That’s what the salt is for. Sometimes I have to draw a circle around the truck. Things attach themselves, bad things.”

  “Actually, I saw that salt thing on that television show with the brothers. Seems to work. Now explain the brick dust that circles your house.”

  “Old voodoo protection... I heard tell that anyone meaning you harm can’t cross the line. I think I went overboard with it, but it looked so pretty,” Mia said as she pulled down the tailgate, hopped in the bed and gingerly walked to the tool box. “Just a second, I have to make sure I have everything I need.” Mia unlocked the lid and opened the compartment. She looked at the box wrapped in the altar cloth and saw that it was still secure. She rummaged around a bit for show, dropped the lid and secured the lock. “That should do it.”

  Whit helped her off the back and pushed the tailgate into place. “Mia, I don’t think the brick works.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hurt you, and it still let me pass.” Whit pushed one of Mia’s sleeves up and displayed the bruise.

  “Whit Martin, listen to me. You didn’t mean to hurt me. I’m a tough woman; I’ll heal.” She shook off his hands and pulled down her sleeve. “Come on, Tom’s waiting for me at the station, and I have to drop you off at home first.”

  Mia and Whit climbed in and left the sanctuary without a backward glance.

  ~

  Burt gathered the team together in his room. “I got a call from the local sheriff’s office requesting our presence at the station. Mia says they’re looking for proof we were where we were when we were.” He looked over and saw that Amber had a blank look on her face. “Amber, honey. We have to give them our alibis for yesterday night. I was thinking we could show them our date and time stamp videos. Plus Miss Cooper was with us most of the time. She already vouched for us but...”

  “Listen, we need to cover our own asses,” Mike said. “The Cooper chick is considered a nut job around here.”

  “The unenlightened masses will never understand the special,” Amber drawled. “It’s because she can see the dead, isn’t it? Poor woman.”

  “Okay, let’s head over with all the vehicles. We can depart for April’s after that,” Mike ordered.

  “I thought we weren’t going to go into the hollow?” Burt questioned his partner.

  “If the cops clear us, we go, but no one is ever to be alone,” Mike said and left the room.

  ~

  “Fancy meeting you here.” Mia lowered her voice, “Come here often?”

  Burt swung around to see Mia leaning up against the bars of the holding cell. “Actually it’s my first time. The chap in charge seems to be a good guy. Thanks for the heads up. The boys are showing the deputy the time-stamped videos of all of us, including yours truly.”

  “Hope you caught my good side.” Mia smiled. “What are your plans today?”

  “The boys in beige won’t let us return to April’s place until tomorrow afternoon. They want time to search the hollow for someone, on the possibility that someone may have had a hand in tying the rope around Mrs. Martin’s neck. They’re afraid we’ll just get in the way.”

  “So, looks like you have some free time on your hands?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Would you like to spend the afternoon with me? I owe you a couple explanations, and I would like to pay my debt.”

  “I’m intrigued. If you can drive, I probably can leave in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll wait for you outside,” Mia said and walked through the station, stopping only to say hello to Beth who was busy reading her statement.

  ~

  Mia pulled the truck onto an overgrown lot on a stretch of road populated by large two and three-storied homes. The largeness of the trees all but hid the denizens from the road. She turned off the motor and started talking, “This is where I was born. They called it the Bedford place after the first owners. It burned down. No, I burned it down.” She got out of the truck and slammed the door after her.

  Burt took a breath before following her out into the overgrown lot. “You must have had a pretty big reason.”

  “You might say it was to save my mother.” Mia turned to
Burt. “I’m just going to tell it all to you. I hope you can respect my privacy and keep it off the air.”

  “Go on,” Burt encouraged.

  “I grew up with two moms. One that watched over me, stood over me, sang to me, calmed my fears, and the other who could pick me up. As a baby, my misty mom would be there for me when I woke in the night frightened. Flesh and blood mom thought I was the best behaved baby in the world. I slept through the night and only cried to be changed and fed. As a toddler I was always entertained. I never felt alone. It wasn’t until I was in school that I learned that this wasn’t normal. Sure, some kids had two moms - usually the step variety - but they could touch each of their moms.” Mia squatted down and pointed out some early wild strawberries that had taken hold in the once immaculate yard.

  “As my world grew, so did the amount of misty people I could see. They weren’t nurturing like mom. Some were bad, others needy and, worse, some could hurt.”

  “What about your parents? Didn’t they see you were different?” Burt held his hand out and helped her to her feet.

  “My parents are academics, archeologists. They met on a dig in Peru. Children were the last thing they wanted. If they weren’t consumed by work, it was each other. I was a menopause baby, something unexpected. My mother was ecstatic that there were no other children in the house. She spent all my nurturing years writing articles, planning her and my father’s next dig. I think if they could have kenneled me they would have. It’s not that they were not nice people, just distracted.” Mia held his eyes with hers long enough for him to see the hurt there.

  Burt turned away from her. He felt as if he was trespassing on her pain, instead of a welcomed guest. He changed the subject. “How did two academics end up out here?”

  “My father said one day they were driving in the city and started a discussion that so consumed them that he just kept driving and ended up here. They started out on the south side of Chicago, so it must have been some discussion. Anyway, they liked the small-town atmosphere, and the houses were cheap. Dad kept the apartment by the college for when the college was in session.”

  “You said you were born in the house.”

  Mia walked towards the foundation of the house before replying. “Yes, Mom was busy at the typewriter and thought she would finish the paper she was writing before heading to the hospital. I had the audacity to interrupt the conclusion. She didn’t even call my father when the labor began. She had me on the floor of the den. Tied my cord with a twist tie, cut it with a letter opener, put me in a drawer and finished the paper before calling my dad or so the story goes.” Mia stopped to brush away some of last year’s leaves from what was left of a cement stoop.

  She sat down and patted a spot near her. Burt sat and nodded for her to continue.

  “I was shipped off to Grandma Fred or my pseudo-godparents Bernard and Ralph whenever my parents had better places to be. My parents, they weren’t horrible, just not very nurturing.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Florida of all places. You would think Peru, Brazil or somewhere exotic, but, no, Florida.”

  “Do you visit them?”

  “Rarely. With my condition, it’s hard to travel. I would have to stay in a hotel. Their empty nest has no room for me.”

  “What happened here?”

  “A month before I graduated from high school, I noticed a change in misty mom. She became very agitated, waking me up at night and pointing to the walls. You have to understand something, I can’t hear them. I have to observe them long enough to get even an iota of what they’re trying to tell me. Anyway, she ran through the house as if something was chasing her, pounding on doors and windows, trying to get out. She couldn’t leave.”

  “Burt, she was in pain. She needed to be released. My parents were in the city full-time by then. I was an emancipated minor at sixteen - their choice, not mine. So I read some books, studied the walls, and rigged the biggest electrical fire I could before I left for school. The fire smoldered for a while in the walls, and once it got enough oxygen, there was no saving the place.”

  “Didn’t anyone suspect?”

  “I left everything I had in the house. The place wasn’t insured. No reason to start a fire, plus they determined it was...”

  “Electrical,” he finished. “What did you do? I mean did your parents...”

  “I stayed at a rooming house until I finished high school. After that I went to my Grandma Fred’s until she died. She left me some money, so I purchased the peninsula and moved back here.” Mia got up and stared into the foundations where the house once stood. “I found her bones after the fire. They were scattered all over the house.”

  “Probably happened when the fire collapsed the house.”

  “Ah, one would think so, but I’m an archeologist’s daughter. Her skull in the north corner, the rib cage the south, and so on. There were crude saw marks on the femurs.”

  “How many bones did you find?”

  “All but the hands and parts of the feet. I think they must have been consumed by the fire.” Mia stopped a moment, trying to control tears. “It wasn’t until I held her bones in my hands that I knew what happened to her, why she couldn’t leave, why she clung to me.” She stopped again and waved her hand at her face in a futile attempt to stem the tears.

  Burt moved in, took her in his arms and let her cry.

  “She was pregnant, by her father. Bedford couldn’t let his family be shamed so he killed her. The bastard dismembered her and sealed her in the walls to rot. He lived out his days with the pleasure of knowing she would always be with him, trapped in this house.”

  “And when you were born, she found a purpose. The child she never had,” Burt filled in.

  “I think I gave her some happiness for a time, but she had to move on. It was making her mad.”

  “Where are the bones now?”

  “I gathered them together and took them up to a beautiful, forgotten little graveyard near my grandmother’s house. Bernard has a good friend, a Father Santos, who did the service without questioning why. I buried what was left of her in a grave marked ‘Misty Bedford Beloved Mother.’”

  Burt released Mia and turned to look into the space where the house had stood. He asked, “Did she move on?”

  “I hope so, I don’t know. All I know is that she isn’t here. She isn’t with her bones. She’s gone.” Mia walked over to a pile of stones. “This was the chimney. I still occasionally come out here to search, but I’ll never find those missing pieces.” She shook her head. “I should just give up trying.”

  “Who owns the property?”

  “Oh, my parents do. They’ve probably forgotten it. I’ve been paying the taxes. If it comes to me when they pass on, I’m going to make a park here. Until then, I haunt the place.”

  Burt stood back and surveyed the lot. “Make a grand park, I think.”

  “You’re the only one I’ve told this to.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re the only one who’d understand.”

  “What about Whit?”

  “He’d have me arrested,” she said wryly. “He’s conflicted. We aren’t really friends. He’s the boy who never looked my way in high school. I used to have a crush on him, but now he’s just a guy from my past.”

  “What about Beth? She’d understand.”

  “But she’s moral. It would haunt her until I was brought to justice. Besides, Murphy thinks you’re a stand-up guy.”

  “The wood chopping fiend at April’s house?”

  “Yep, but don’t call it her place when you’re there, it pisses him off.”

  “I appreciate your confidence in me, Mia. But I’m not a stand-up guy even if Murphy says I am,” Burt said. “I spend all my money trying to communicate with things I rarely see. Can’t say I’m much of a law-abider either.”

  “Let’s see, you believe in the paranormal, check. You communicate with ghosts, check. You break the law, check. Lordy, you sound like me
.”

  Burt chuckled. “But am I the man for you? Murphy aside.”

  “Are you good in bed?”

  “We could find out...” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Are you actually leering?”

  “Could be, whaddya say?” Burt moved over to her and picked her up in his arms. “Over there behind the bushes?”

  Mia giggled. Her face lit up, and she giggled again. “Stop it, put me down.”

  He did but not before kissing her long and slow. Mia felt warmth spreading through her, and her body ached for this man. He set her down and grabbed her hand. She leaned into him as they walked back to the truck. She gave him the keys and snuggled up to him while they drove to the peninsula.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Mia rolled over and stared at the man who had just rocked her world. Burt Hicks wasn’t what you would call handsome. His tall muscular frame was covered with thirty extra pounds of fast food and beer. His brown hair was retreating at the temples, styled no doubt by a first-come-first-serve barber.

  “What are you staring at?” Burt’s brown eyes took in the minx and her puzzled expression. He feared he was growing ear hair by the way she was staring. He got up on an elbow and stared back.

  “I’m just looking,” she explained.

  “Are you liking?” he asked, reaching for her.

  “Too early to tell,” she said huskily. “That’s a lie. I liked you from the moment you joined me on the picnic table.”

  “I thought so.” Burt pulled her on top of him. “A guy can tell these sorts of things.”

  Momentarily distracted by positioning Burt inside her, Mia was quiet. “How?” she asked moving against him.

  “It was your cold, distant demeanor... Oh, that’s nice,” Burt purred.

  ~

  “Fucking voicemail again!” Mike threw his cell on the bed, nearly hitting Amber.