by Rachel Rust
It’s now twelve fifteen. I crane my neck, looking in all directions, but I’m not sure who or what I’m looking for. Ghostbusters and proton packs? Doubtful.
Half a block away, Samantha stands in the Dotty’s parking lot, arguing with an older, portly guy. I can’t hear them, but their facial expressions scream frustration. The old guy throws his hands in the air and turns to a small red sedan. His footing is unsure, and he stumbles into the driver’s seat. Samantha reaches for his keys, but he eludes her and slams the car door shut. He swerves out into the street as she kicks dirt his direction.
She leans up against the brick facade of Dotty’s and takes a long drag from her cigarette. Her hair is curly today and sticking up all over like one of those troll dolls. I wonder what my parents would think if I came home with Crayola-colored hair at the end of the summer? My lip twitches up. What a perfect payback for making me spend the summer in Iowa, all because they couldn’t keep their marriage together.
Behind me, footsteps plod across the street in a heavy, clumsy fashion. I twist around to find a boy in black jeans, a black Mythbusters T-shirt, and black boots running my direction. His hair is jet black and his features are dark—dark eyes, black lashes, thick black eyebrows. He’s tall, but his skinny frame and smooth face make it hard to discern an age.
“Are you Jessie?” he asks, out of breath.
“Chessie,” I say with a nod, only half sure if I’m up for dealing with this guy.
“Jessie.”
“Chessie…with a CH.”
“Oh, got it. Sorry.” He stops and bends down, a hand on each of his knees, trying to catch his breath. “I’m Mateo.” He sucks in a quick breath. “Sorry we’re late”—he thumbs behind him—“he got out of work late.”
The he Mateo referenced steps out from behind him. I launch off the bench at the sight. It’s David from the hardware store. He grins, clearly aware that his presence has taken me by surprise.
“You?” I ask, then laugh at my own rudeness. “I mean, you’re a part of this ghost thing?”
David shrugs. “Yeah. It’s Mateo’s group though. He started it a few years ago. He’s the brains. I just help him out.”
“David’s the muscle,” Mateo quips.
David doesn’t refute Mateo’s assertion, but the shrug he gives tells me he’s not overly comfortable with the compliment either.
A loud snore from the old guy on the other bench makes me jump.
“Don’t mind him,” Mateo says, sitting down next to me. “That’s just Old Man Zach.”
“Old Man Zach?”
“He’s the oldest living man in Iowa. Super old, like 140 or something.”
I cock an eyebrow. “I doubt that’s right.”
“He’s 109,” David says matter-of-factly.
Mateo looks at me. “He’s 109.”
I smirk. “You were only thirty-one years off.”
“Close enough. Anyway, you called us. What’s going on?”
My mouth opens, but my brain is not quite ready to spill all the crap that’s spinning around. Recurring dreams. Weird daydreaming. Bodiless giggling. Closet door opening and closing. A ghostly voice that knows my name. And that damn gray mist that nearly choked me to death.
The darkening sky thunders and we all glance up.
David sits on the ground not far from us, leaning back onto a tree trunk. A zippo lighter is in his hand. He flips open and closed repeatedly, like he’s unaware that he’s doing it.
“Do you smoke?” I ask.
David looks down at the lighter, as if surprised to see it. “Used to.” He snaps it shut before shoving it into a front pocket. “Guess old habits die hard.”
Old habits. How old of a habit can an almost-eighteen-year-old guy have?
“So, what do you need our help with?” David asks.
Mateo moves closer to me, fingers twisting together, waiting for a reply. Probably waiting for the green light to go to my house and cross the streams with whatever ghost-fighting contraption he has built in his basement laboratory.
“I’m staying with my grandparents,” I tell Mateo. “There’s been weird things going on and—oh my god, it’s going to make me sound insane.”
“No,” he says, “you won’t sound insane. I believe in a lot of weird things.”
David raises his eyebrows and nods. “He does.”
And maybe they both mean it. But I’m afraid of saying all the things out loud. Afraid of hearing my stories hit the air, because it does sound insane to me. And I don’t want to be known as the batshit crazy girl all summer.
“Does this have anything to do with you wanting to lock your closet?” David asks. “By the way, how’d that go?”
I smile, grateful that he’s making the conversation easier. “I got it installed fine.”
Mateo’s face lights up. “What’s going on with your closet?”
“The door doesn’t latch.” I take a deep breath and lower my gaze to my lap, unable to look at either of them. “I put in a lock, but twice now it’s unlocked itself and opened.”
“Interesting,” Mateo says.
“And I hear things…giggling and talking, all around my room.” My eyes are still looking down. I don’t want to see the look on their faces. Because no one can talk about hearing voices without someone suggesting a psych evaluation. A cool breeze cuts through the muggy air, sending wisps of hair into my face. Thunder rumbles closer than before.
“Do they talk to you?” Mateo asks.
Something about the way he uses the word they makes me shiver. I nod. “A voice said my name. And it asked me to help.”
Things go quiet and I finally look up. David’s watching Mateo, who’s staring up at the tree branches. Cool winds are beginning to whip around us, and the southwestern sky has grown dark gray. Quiet rolls of thunder are rumbling at a near-constant rate now.
“Tell him where you live,” David says to me.
I stare at him and, for a moment, wonder how he knows that I’m staying across from the town’s most infamous house. But he knows Grandpa, so of course he knows where I’m living.
“I live on Second Street.” My words bring Mateo’s gaze back down from the tree branches. He stares at me, clearly knowing what I’m going to say next. “I live across the street from the old Moore house.”
His brown eyes are nearly black. He’s looking at me but not really. Deep in thought, he doesn’t seem to be seeing anything around him.
A drop of rain hits my knee. Another hits my shoulder. A bright flash of lightning makes us all cower, followed immediately by a crack of thunder that makes us jump. Soon the ground—and the three of us—are covered in small, wet circles.
“Let’s go to my place,” Mateo says, practically having to shout over the increasingly loud wind and grumbly sky.
No one objects and we all hop to our feet. I follow them across the street to a white Suburban that is huge and boxy and looks as ancient as Old Man Zach. The bottoms of the doors are rusted, and red tape covers one of the taillights. I’m soaked head-to-toe by the time we reach the vehicle, and the lure of being somewhere dry is greater than the small worry in my head that I shouldn’t get in a car with guys I don’t know.
David takes a wide step around me and opens the front passenger door. I assume he’s called shotgun, but instead he holds the door open, squinting to keep the rain out of his eyes, and motions for me to get in. The rain has matted his hair down and plastered his T-shirt against him. I try—and fail—not to stare at his chest right in front of me.
I hop up into the passenger seat. The inside of Mateo’s car is dry, and the velvety, maroon seat under my butt and thighs is a warm relief.
David shuts the door. He then jogs back to the park.
He’s left me alone with Mateo. Fantastic.
“Where’s he going?” I ask.
“Probably gettin’ Old Man Zach out of the rain. He lives in the nursing home across the street.” The engine of the old Suburban roars to life with on
e turn of Mateo’s key. “He has his own truck. He’ll meet us at my house.”
I nod and watch out the window as David helps Old Man Zach to his feet.
My entire body is one big goose bump as we drive away. My arms wrap around themselves, and I clamp my jaw shut, trying to avoid the chattering of my teeth. My T-shirt and shorts were fine for the forecasted eighty-five degree weather. But it must’ve cooled twenty-plus degrees in a matter of minutes.
A crack of thunder pulsates through the air as a bolt of lightning splits the sky.
Cold air and hot air on their own are nothing to fear. But when they collide at just the right time and place, all hell breaks loose.
Mateo’s truck rumbles along the town’s streets, and he and I say nothing to one another. Not about the storm. Not about being cold. And not about the Axe Murder House.
We pass the last street on the south edge of town and are now surrounded by sloping hills of corn.
“You don’t live in Villisca?” I ask.
Mateo shakes his head, his black mop of hair dripping water with every movement. “A few miles out.”
With every bump of the road underneath us, I grow more uneasy, wondering when I’m going to get back into town. Wondering if Grandma is going to send out a search party if I don’t come home during the storm.
The dark clouds stay behind, hanging heavily over Villisca as Mateo and I drive away.
Chapter Nine
Mateo pulls into a long, gravel driveway and parks in front of a small, tan house. Set farther back is a large garage with a sign overhead: Hernandez Garage: For all your automotive needs.
He kills the engine, and we sit in awkward silence, listening to the wind until David arrives in a green pickup.
Mateo’s house is small but clean and smells like coffee. His bedroom on the other hand? Ick. Clothes are everywhere and it smells like…boy. But not in a good way. It smells like sweaty socks and deodorant and old food. I’ve never been in a boy’s bedroom before, and so far, the reality pretty much meets my messy expectations.
David knocks a pile of clothes off a small, swivel desk chair for me to sit. He then plants himself on the floor, leaning back onto Mateo’s bed. With one hand, he swipes his hair over, creating its usual part down the side. It’s nearly dry now. My hair on the other hand is still wet and frizzing around my temples. I undo the messy bun and re-wrap it into a slightly less messy bun, aware that David’s watching my every movement.
Mateo sits cross-legged on his bed, a notebook on his lap, a pen in his hand. “Okay,” he says. “Tell me everything.”
They both stare intently at me. I take a deep breath to push through the discomfort of being cold, of being in a boy’s gross bedroom, and—mostly—the discomfort of talking about the things that are happening in my head and my bedroom. Because if I talk about them, I make them real. I could leave town now and nothing would ever come of it—it’d be as if they never existed, those voices and that gray mist. I’d just go back to my simple recurring dreams, nothing more. Because telling other people all the details of what’s going on would be breathing life into the very thing I want to get rid of: fear.
But it’s time to share it. Time to let someone else know my secrets before I do actually go crazy.
I tell them everything. Everything. My recurring dreams. The unseen, giggling children. The closet door that opens and slams shut. The voice that knows my name and asks for help. And the gray, death-scented smoke that crept through my window.
Mateo scribbles furiously in his notebook.
“I’ve even had a few random daydreams since I’ve arrived in town. I slip into a trance, dreaming while wide awake, and then I snap out of it.”
David stares at me, saying nothing. I wonder if he remembers me blanking out on him on the sidewalk a couple of days ago. What a first impression that must’ve been.
“Have you guys ever heard of things like that?” I ask.
“Voices, yes,” Mateo replies.
“The smell and the gray mist, no,” David says. “Maybe you passed out first and only thought you saw the mist?” His voice trails off a bit at the end, perhaps afraid that he’s insulting my intelligence.
I shake my head. “No, I saw it. Clear as day. It was real, right in front of me and the smell was…bad. And really strong.”
“Maybe your grandparents cleaned and the chemicals smelled bad? Some chemicals can make you choke and even pass out.”
“It didn’t smell like chemicals. It smelled like death. Like my room was littered with rotting bodies. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of bodies in my dreams over the years—the Moores and the Stillinger girls—but I’ve never smelled them. The mist came from the Axe Murder House, and it was like the bodies were brought with it. My room smelled like that house probably smelled after they were all killed back in 1912. Warm blood and decaying flesh.”
Mateo makes a face, crinkling up his nose, then writes down my words.
“Have you smelled a dead body before?” David asks.
The question startles me. “No.”
“Then how did you know that’s what the mist smelled like?”
“I don’t know, I just knew.”
He and Mateo exchange a quick glance, but I can’t construe a meaning. Do they believe me? Or is this gray mist thing taking things a step too far and they’re convinced I’m a wacko, unworthy of their time?
“I think death is a pretty understood scent,” Mateo finally says. “I bet even people who have never smelled a dead body would know the smell if they were presented with it.”
“Have you guys ever smelled anything like that?” I ask, hoping my nostrils aren’t the only ones with some weird death-sensing knowledge. “Do you know the smell I’m talking about?”
Mateo shakes his head.
David rubs the back of his neck. “No.” His gaze meets mine, but quickly darts away.
“The giggling and the voice that talked to you,” Mateo says, “are they threatening?”
I ponder the question for a second before answering. “No. It’s pretty scary, but nothing’s ever threatened me…not technically.”
“It said your name. Why do you think it’s talking to you? Why isn’t it talking to your grandparents, too?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Isn’t that what you guys are supposed to figure out?”
Mateo and David look at each other and laugh a little.
David gives me a lopsided grin that makes my stomach flip. “We just want your ideas on what’s going on before Mateo here spouts off his opinions.”
“Hey!” Mateo says. “I don’t spout off opinions, thank you very much. I deduce, in a rather methodical way, the most likely reasons behind these kinds of things.”
“These kinds of things? You mean hauntings?” I ask.
“Spectral episodes.”
David laughs. “Dude, just call them hauntings.”
“Shut up.” Mateo hits him upside the head with his notebook before turning back to me. “You said the voices asked for help. Help with what? Did they say what their name was? Any idea who or what it might be?”
I shrug again. “I don’t know. It could be Amelia—the little girl who drowned. I’ve seen her in my dreams, and she giggled like the voices giggle in my room. But that stinky haze came from the Moore house, so it could be them. Or it could be both the axe murder victims and Amelia.”
David face contorts in confusion. “What do the Moores and Stillingers have to do with the girl who just drowned? There’s no connection between them. Why are you experiencing visions and sounds from victims who died over one hundred years apart?”
I shrug. “I have no idea, but they seem pretty serious. And if I don’t do whatever it is they want me to do, I’m pretty sure they’re going to keep bothering me and things will get even worse. Besides, this is your town, not mine. You tell me if there’s a connection between them. Are the missing girls related to either the Moore or Stillinger families?”
“Not that I’ve heard,�
� Mateo says. “But we’re talking generations apart. Hard to tell who’s related to who after so many years.”
“Well, whatever is going on, the voice is child-like and it’s asking me to help them. Whoever they are, they’re not at rest. And the bigger question is why are they interacting only with me? Why not my grandparents or anyone else? And why have I been having dreams about the house for years?”
“I don’t know what to tell you about the dreams…or even Amelia,” Mateo says. He chews his lip a bit. “But the amped-up activity at the Moore house makes sense. It’s nearly the anniversary.”
“What anniversary?”
“The night of June ninth is the anniversary of the Moore family murders. They’re thought to have been killed sometime late that night, or in the early hours of June tenth.”
“That’s in just a few days.”
Mateo nods. “They could be reaching out because of the anniversary. Though I’m not sure we’ll find out exactly what they want, because clear communication is hard for spirits. It takes a lot of energy for them to communicate.”
“But don’t you have experience with this stuff? Haven’t you communicated with things like this before?”
“Well, we’ve tried, but…” Mateo drifts off, drumming his pen on the notebook, seemingly lost in thought.
As I wait for an answer, eager for anything helpful—anything at all—the bedroom door flies open and I jump. A portly man stands in the doorway with graying black hair and a goatee. His Hernandez Garage T-shirt is stained with grease. He reeks of cigarette smoke.
“Can’t you knock?” Mateo asks with a small voice.
“Get your ass outside,” the man says to him with a low grumble, “Garage needs sweeping. Garbage needs taking out.” The man pays no attention to David. His gaze sweeps to me. He scans me head to toe, then leaves without another word.
Mateo tosses his notebook to the side.
“Was that your dad?” I ask. The contrast between the two—chubby versus skinny, brash versus meek—was hard to miss. I hardly know Mateo but don’t like that he has to put up with that guy’s attitude…whoever he is.