Always Dead (Welcome To Dead House Book 2)

by M. L. Bullock

  Even thinking about touching the crystal made me sick. To make matters worse, I saw an odd vibration surrounding Lynn. A black aura grew around my friend’s head like a deathly halo. Death? What was going on here?

  Before I could ask her to stop or warn her about what I saw, the front door slammed downstairs.

  “Lynn! Where are you?”

  “Shit! It’s my dad!” Lynn whispered as she dropped the crystal into my shaking hand. “He’s not supposed to be home yet. Damn! And I’m wearing all this makeup. He’s going to freak out on me! He’s going to totally freak. Be quiet, Chloe. You have to be really quiet. I don’t want him to know you’re here. I’m not supposed to have friends over while he’s gone.” As my friend climbed to her feet, she blew out the candle and raced to her bedroom door. “Don’t move, or he will hear the floor squeak.”

  “Got it,” I whispered as I reached for my backpack and dug in my back pocket for my cell phone. It wasn’t there! My fight or flight impulse was kicking in, but flight was definitely stronger. What was I going to fight?

  The black aura around Lynn grew, and it was beginning to fill the room. Her father was stomping up the stairs, and the sound of his voice wasn’t friendly at all.

  Where was my phone?

  “Damn! He’s coming to my room. Out the window, Chloe. You have to go out the window and take the trellis down! I’m sorry, but you have to go. I won’t be able to protect you if he finds you here. He’s drunk, I can tell. I can hear it in his voice.” Lynn’s hand was on the door.

  I whimpered as I considered her proposal.

  Me, climb down the side of the house?

  There was no time to argue with Lynn and the way her father was roaring, he wasn’t the kind of guy to be reasoned with.

  “Where are you, girl? Your ass better be in this house! You better be...” Jack let out a string of shocking profanities, and a loud boom indicated that he fell. Unfortunately, it did not injure him, not seriously, because he roared her name again.

  In a whisper, I pleaded with her, “How am I supposed to get home? I can’t find my phone!”

  “Get out of here, Chloe! I’ll try to keep him away as long as possible.” She slipped out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. “I’m here, Dad.” He continued to swear at her, and I heard her use similar language. I’d heard her swear before, but this was pretty extreme. I could feel the horrible hatred between the two of them...and something else.

  Suddenly, I felt I had to go, with or without my cell phone. If I could get out without falling off the side of the house, I would find my way to a safe place. I had some change in my backpack. What were the chances I could find an old-fashioned payphone on this block? If I could remember my house phone. I didn’t remember seeing a payphone. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen one in real life.

  I could go to Trey’s house.

  I smothered a moan while I struggled to get the window up. The dang thing finally broke free, but it made a lot of noise. Luckily for me, but unluckily for Lynn, she and her dad were screaming at one another.

  How could I leave my best friend to face that crazy man alone?

  I paused before throwing my leg over the sill. Lynn screamed in pain, and more of her father’s swearing followed the sound of another crash. Lynn’s father was beating the hell out of her. I wasn’t going to leave her to die at the hands of a madman. Before I could pivot myself back into the room, I felt hands shoving me back out.

  It freaked me out so badly I didn’t even consider going back inside. I know I felt hands on me!

  A voice threatened me. The thing that lived here with Lynn and her father Jack knew who I was, and it didn’t like me being here. This was the black aura, the negative energy source that had grown so strong it had its own voice.

  Get out!

  I swore as I clambered down the shrubby green vines that covered the side of Lynn’s family home. I heard her swearing back at him, so she must be okay. No matter what, I was calling the cops as soon as I got down.

  Don’t look down. Don’t look down, Chloe!

  I forgot how much I hated heights. I couldn’t even get on a ladder without feeling nauseated, and here I was clambering down the side of a house in the middle of the night.

  No time to reflect on my bad choices. I needed to focus on getting down. The vine didn’t feel too steady, and neither did the wooden lattice it clung to. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. Ten feet left. I couldn’t look down again. Bad idea, bad idea. I slung the backpack up on my shoulder and continued my journey down.

  It was pitch-black outside, and there was no light on the side of Lynn’s house. I had to be close to the bottom, but I couldn’t make myself look. I just couldn’t do it. I bit my lip as I closed my eyes and felt around for the next handhold.

  That was when I felt the hands on me again. I nearly screamed but remembered to keep quiet. I cocked my head around and breathed a sigh of relief as Trey’s face came into view.

  “It’s me. Let’s get out of here, Chloe. Uncle Jack is dangerous when he’s drunk. Follow me.” Trey took my hand and led me out of the yard. We scurried away, bent over to keep our head beneath the hedgerow. I scurried into the garage and hugged Trey as I caught my breath. He held me tight, and I took comfort in his arms. “You okay? Did he hurt you?”

  I glanced up at him. “No, but Lynn, Trey. I’m sure he’s hurting Lynn. Someone needs to know! We have to call the cops,” I begged as the garage darkened and the heavy door closed slowly behind me.

  “No cops, Chloe. We’ve tried that before. They won’t do a damn thing, and it will only be worse for her afterward.” He released me and shook his head sadly. I stared at him in disbelief and watched as his silhouette darkened.

  “You don’t understand. I seriously think he’s going to kill her, Trey.”

  He swore under his breath and said, “You stay here, Chloe. I’ll try to calm him down. No matter what you hear, stay here—and no cops.”

  “I can’t let you go over there by yourself. Your uncle sounds really drunk. He’s on a rampage! You have to call someone!”

  Trey took my hand. “You don’t understand who I am, who we are, Chloe. You don’t understand my family. We have a reputation in Crystal Springs. Too notorious to call the cops. Just stay here. I’ll take you home after I deal with this. Follow me.”

  Trey led me into his house, and I was shocked again at the bareness of the place. I’d been here before, but we usually hung around in the kitchen or the garage. My home, the Ridaught Plantation, had more than enough furniture, dusty old couches, oversized dressers. This place had nothing much at all except a few bar stools, a bare wooden spool that once held some kind of cable and there was a television in the corner of the room, and a lumpy couch. Talk about depressing.

  “Okay, but be careful,” I whispered as I clutched my backpack tightly. “I warn you, if you’re not back in five minutes, I’m calling the police.”

  “Five minutes,” he echoed as he went out the front door. “I’ll be back, but stay here.”

  I agreed and stood awkwardly in the kitchen as I waited for the other shoe to drop. Maybe I should go ahead and call Tamara now and fill her in on what was happening. A quick visual sweep of the kitchen revealed there was no telephone, no way to call out. Was there even a phone in this house? I’d left mine behind in Lynn’s bedroom, or somewhere. I couldn’t be sure.

  I knew it was bad manners to go poking around Trey’s place when he specifically asked me to remain in the kitchen, but I needed to find a phone. I was serious about calling someone if he wasn’t back in five minutes. At the very least, I would call Tamara.

  True to his word Trey returned rather quickly, but he didn’t stick around long. He looked like he’d been fighting, his face was red, and his hair mussed. Lynn came in and collapsed beside me on the couch.

  “Here, I found your phone.”

  I took it from her, but she fell into my arms and cried her heart out. Luckily, I heard her father’s
big truck crank up next door. Trey went outside and had words with him. I couldn’t hear what they were, but they weren’t polite.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Nothing hurts anymore,” she confessed as she lay on the couch beside me.

  “Should I leave? I can call Tamara. We can both go to my place.”

  Lynn dabbed her eyes with her ink-stained fingers. “No. That’ll just make it worse for me. I have to stay, but you can go. I’ll understand.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Not leaving you. Let’s just hunker down here on the couch. It doesn’t sound like Trey’s coming in. He’s working on that car again.”

  “Thanks, Chloe Carol. You are a good friend. A true-blue friend.”

  “You’re welcome. And so are you.”

  We talked a little while, not about her jerk of a father but about the future. About leaving Crystal Springs and starting a new life somewhere else, maybe as an artist. That was her dream. I didn’t really have a dream. Maybe one day.

  Soon Lynn was snoring, and I spent the night jumping at every sound. Trey came inside about two in the morning, but he didn’t pay me a bit of attention.

  He wasn’t alone.

  The black aura that had attached itself to Lynn earlier was dogging his steps now. He went to his room and closed the door. I breathed a sigh of relief, and right before dawn, I fell asleep.

  4

  Tamara

  I’d gotten up early and added quite a bit more material to the outline despite the fact I tossed and turned all night after the visitation. Before I headed to the office, I tried to grab some EVPs and check the electromagnetic field, but there was nothing unusual to report. It was as if I’d imagined it, but there was no damn way.

  After my failed grab for clues to help classify the activity, I shifted gears. I sucked down a few cups of coffee and tentatively plotted out my book. Originally, I had thought Monday would be a good day to dive in; now I wasn’t so sure. After an hour of typing and deleting notes on my laptop, I got up to work on other things.

  I had a small painting project to tackle, and I needed to make a grocery list.

  I took the table outside and scraped the old paint off and neatly recovered it with clean, blue paint. The table was a yard sale find, and I was excited about freshening it up. I didn’t pay much for it, but by the time I was done, I would have quite a bit of sweat equity tied up in it, and it felt good to work with my hands.

  Between paint applications, I decided to open all the windows on the lower level. It was time to let in some fresh air. As I headed back out, I caught the chandelier moving again, slowly spinning to the left and to the right. The crystals tinkled under the power of an invisible wind. There was no significant breeze today, so what could make this thing move like that?

  I glanced around. The mail on the foyer table wasn’t moving. My half-dead plant beside the mail stack wasn’t budging either. Then the chandelier stopped again.

  I’d have to go upstairs eventually and check out the connector. The last thing I needed was to have a chandelier come crashing down on us. I pushed the troubling thought aside and breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I would check a few things off my own to-do list today.

  That was the single life for you. The only honey-dos I had were the honey-do-it-yourself kind.

  I was feeling pretty good about my progress until the neighbor’s cat descended on my freshly painted table. I’d left the table in the yard to grab a glass of tea when I spotted the animal from the window. For a brief second, I believed the feline perpetrator was a ghost, it looked so much like the cat Joey toted around occasionally.

  Nope. It was Miss Linda’s pet and it had totally messed up my paint job. The furry rascal would have blue paws for a while. No doubt she’ll stomp over here and complain, but it served him right.

  After chasing the animal away, I tried to touch up the tabletop, but it was useless. The paw prints were permanent. That rascal had picked the perfect time to destroy my work. I’d have to start over but not right now.

  It was time to move on to my next project, making that call to the publishing company. I wondered if they were open on weekends. After cleaning my brushes and putting my paint away, I decided to first tackle planting flowers in the clay pots on my porch. I was really stalling. Did I think the letter was a prank?

  Later I would spend time with Chloe. I thought she’d be home by now, but ten o’clock rolled around and Chloe wasn’t home yet.

  I’d gotten up early this morning, a new habit I was trying to embrace. I never thought I would be a morning person, but here at Crystal Springs, I was turning over a new leaf, trying to be an adult and whatnot.

  I walked back inside and washed the dirt off my hands. I sipped the rest of my tea and talked to myself. Actually, I was talking to Joey, hoping he’d show up, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  No Chloe. No Joey.

  I thought maybe I should just get out of the house a while. I really needed to make a grocery store trip, and I’d been planning on visiting the unexplored section at the back of the property. Maybe I would do that and then do the grocery shopping.

  I put my glass in the sink and paused as I listened to a familiar noise upstairs. I didn’t know how Chloe got here without me knowing it. Undoubtedly, she was home because I could hear the upstairs shower running. I paused to listen more intently. That was definitely the shower. The pipes rattled.

  Had Lynn pulled into the driveway without me seeing or hearing her? I guessed it was possible even though Lynn’s car was louder than mine.

  I really needed to buy Chloe a vehicle so she could come and go without relying on her friends for a ride, and since I had potentially landed a publishing deal, it might be possible without tapping into her trust fund. After some hemming and hawing, I called Bright House and left a polite voicemail, but as I suspected, they were closed on the weekends.

  Chloe might have a chip on her shoulder about life—and me—but overall, Chloe Carol was a good teenager. She was a good kid. Tina Louise would be proud of her.

  I might as well bring her laundry up since I was about to put my last load in. I grabbed a stack of Chloe’s lavender towels and her neatly folded shirts. “Chloe!” I called her name as I went upstairs to annoy her through the bathroom door. As soon as I began climbing the stairs, the hair on my arms began to rise as if I’d rubbed one of those old-fashioned static balls, like the kind I used to toy with at the Monroeville Museum. Static electricity was all over my body, and it was a weird sensation.

  “Chloe?” I said in an attempt to feel normal, and feel safe despite the increased electrical discharge. It wasn’t like these stairs were carpeted, and I wasn’t wearing shoes, just thin socks. I had every intention to sweep the floors at some point this weekend, also on my general to-do list. My ever-growing to-do list.

  As I climbed the stairs, the lights flickered, and I paused on the staircase. The lights flickered two more times and then all was normal again.

  The upstairs shower was definitely running. It had to be Chloe unless it was Joey pulling a prank to get a rise out of me. He was definitely not happy with me.

  I hurried up the staircase and waited outside the door for a minute. I wasn’t sure Chloe could even hear me with the shower running. It sounded as if it was on full blast and I could see steam coming out from under the door. Why was my body tingling? I tapped on the door and waited for her response.

  “Chloe? It’s me. I have fresh towels. Do you need one?”

  I expected her to mumble a complaint or tell me to get lost, but neither one of those things happened. Steam rolled out from under the door like an ominous fog.

  “Chloe? Are you okay in there?” I knocked on the door again, pretending I wasn’t feeling tremendously creeped out.

  I heard the shower stop. I even heard the knobs squeaking like Chloe had turned them off. Maybe she didn’t answer because she hadn’t heard me.

  “Hey, it’s me. Can I come in? Should I just leave the towels out
here?” I heard nothing except the faintest whisper behind me. Twisting my neck ever so slightly, I peeked to my left in the direction of the voice, but the hallway was empty.

  “Joey, you better not be screwing with me. Cut it out.”

  Joey did not appear, and I heard no further whispers. I waited to hear the shower curtain slide open. It didn’t happen. Not a dang sound. Nothing at all. After a few seconds, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to make sure Chloe was okay. The door squeaked as I inched it open politely.

  “Chloe? It’s me.” I clutched the warm towels to my chest and whispered her name again. I flipped the light on immediately even though the room was bright and cheerful. There was a high window above the shower. The bathroom had so much steam in it I could barely see. The curtain remained pulled wide so I couldn’t see anyone in the shower. The steam swirled above the curtain, and I watched it creep up and out of the room. There wasn’t a sound. I set the towels on the vanity and swatted at the steam.

  “Chloe? It’s me. I brought towels.”

  I wasn’t talking to anyone. Chloe wasn’t in here. That curtain was still pulled. Did I really want to sling that puppy back? I didn’t know why Chloe would be hanging out in the shower, ignoring me. The faucet dripped, and the steamy air swirled around me.

  “Joey? This better not be one of your stupid pranks. Step out of that shower now!” I threatened my ghostly best friend in the most serious tone I could muster, but he didn’t poke his head out. There wasn’t a sound to be heard except the dripping of water. I took a step toward the shower as the steam quickly dissipated through the open door. Why wasn’t this a glass shower door?

  I thought I saw the curtain move, a slight fluttering of fabric. Chloe’s sugar skull shower curtain wasn’t putting my heart and mind at ease, but this was her bathroom, so I hadn’t made a fuss when she came home with it the other day.