Christmas Eve on Haunted Hill (2 page)

          At the far end of the bar
were two more gray-haired older gentlemen.  Both raised their glasses and
echoed the toast, albeit a bit less heartily than Fatso and Old Guy.

         
What the hell
?
Luke thought.

          He raised his double
whiskey and said, “To alcoholism!”

          He drained the glass and
slammed it down on the bar.

          Stu arched an eyebrow. 
“Refill?”

          “Absolutely.”

          Luke sipped from his
Pabst while he waited for the next double whiskey to arrive.  He listened as
Fatso and Old Guy lapsed into a bit of sports talk.  They had differing
opinions on how the NFL playoffs picture was shaping up.  Years ago, Luke might
have held a reasonably well-informed opinion on that subject himself.  Like
with so many other things, though, he’d long ago stopped giving a damn.

          On a disconnected level,
he was aware of the bar’s front door opening again.  A gust of cold wind swept
into the place, making him shiver.  But rather than looking toward the door to
take in the new arrival, he sat there in silent imitation of the
don’t-give-a-shit stoicism evinced by the regulars.  In the next instant, the
influx of cold air was cut off as the door was eased back into the frame.

          Booted feet clomped
slowly across the hardwood floor.

          Another double whiskey
was in front of Luke now.  He picked up the glass and brought it to his mouth. 
Before he could tip his head back for a swallow, he felt something hard prod
against the back of his neck.

          “Put the whiskey down and
take out your wallet, cocksucker,” a gruff voice told him.  “This here’s a
robbery.”

          Luke slowly lowered his
glass to the bar.

          He let out a big breath.

          Then he spun around on
the stool with his fist swinging.

It was already dark by the time the
Ford Explorer made it to the top of Haunted Hill and pulled to a stop alongside
the porch of the old Herzinger place.  The snow was coming down harder now and
the drive up the winding, pothole-dotted narrow drive had been an unexpectedly
treacherous one.  According to weather reports earlier in the day, a heavier
snowfall wasn’t due to begin until much deeper into the evening, maybe not even
until the early hours of the morning.  But the forecasts had been wrong because
the white stuff was coming down so thickly it’d reduced visibility to almost
nothing.

          On the way up, the Explorer’s
tires lost traction and slid on the decaying stretch of ancient asphalt
multiple times, eliciting screams and shouts of alarm from every occupant but
the driver.  Riding in the front passenger seat, Simone Barclay screamed at
least as loudly as any of her friends, maybe even more so.  Her vantage point
gave her a significantly better view of the deteriorating situation outside
than what was available to those seated in the back.  She saw, for instance,
how close the Explorer’s front end came to actually sliding off the edge of the
road at one point.  If that had happened, the vehicle would have gone tumbling
down a steep slope, resulting in serious injury or death for all of them.  It
didn’t happen, but it was a very close thing.  The brush with near disaster
brought forth her loudest, shrillest scream of the night.

          Spence Chandler, her
boyfriend, was driving, and he kept yelling at her to shut her stupid fucking
mouth.  Under any other circumstances, Simone would have slapped him silly for
talking to her that way, but she was too terrified to do anything but brace her
hands against the dash and pray they made it to the top of the hill safely. 
She felt close to hyperventilating by the time the ground beneath them finally
evened out, allowing the SUV to make the remainder of the journey to the
deserted old house in relatively smooth fashion.

          After Spence pulled up
alongside the porch and parked, Simone shivered in relief and settled back in
her seat.  “Maybe we should go back.”

          Spence scowled.  “After
all that?  Are you shitting me?”

          Simone’s gaze was fixed
on the dark line of trees at the edge of the abandoned property.  The trees
were just barely visible through the gusting snow, more like shadowy
suggestions of trees than the real thing.  The shadowy forms shifted in the
hard-blowing wind, igniting a tingle of unease.  In her imagination, they
weren’t trees at all.  Instead, they were monsters emerging from the woods. 
Soon they would creep up on the SUV and pounce on the helpless human prey
inside.  They could be Bigfoots.  Maybe werewolves.  Or something else big and
scary.  But it was just the hard wind blowing the branches around.  Simone knew
that, but the knowledge made the notion no less creepy.

          Now she slowly turned her
head and leveled a withering glare at Spence.  “I am not shitting you.  Yes,
you got us up here.  Awesome job.  But that pitiful excuse for a drive is only
gonna get worse.  We could wind up trapped up here if we stay too long.  So,
yes, we should leave.  Also, if you ever speak that rudely to me again, you can
start looking for a new girlfriend.”

          “She’s right,” Terry
Cooper said, piping up from the back of the vehicle.  There were two rows of
rear passenger seats.  Terry was alone in the very back.  “I just checked the
updated forecast on my phone.  It’s saying this stuff won’t let up for hours. 
We should definitely head back while we still can.”

          Karen Hogan, who was in
the middle seat with her boyfriend, Bradley Shaw, made a loud sound of
exasperation.  “You’re a couple of chickenshit alarmists.  I want to be here at
midnight and see the ghost of old man Herzinger.  We’ve been talking about this
for weeks.  I’m gonna be really fucking pissed if we actually made it up here
only to turn around and head back.”

          Simone rolled her eyes. 
Karen’s screams of fright during the drive up had been nearly as loud as her
own.  Undoing her seatbelt, she turned about to peer through the gap between
the front seats at the other girl.  She and Karen had been close since grammar
school.  Lately, though, she’d increasingly been making a habit of voicing
views that were in direct opposition to whatever Simone’s position was on any
given thing.  Simone didn’t quite know what to make of it, but the undercurrent
of passive-aggressiveness had become annoying.

          She’d just about had
enough.

          “Hey, I get it, Karen.  I
really do.  You are a tough chick.  Way tougher than me.  I’m a total wimp. I
admit it.  None of which changes the fact that staying up on this hill for
hours in the middle of a damn blizzard is completely fucking stupid.”

          Karen’s features shifted,
pulling back in a look of disbelieving contempt.  “What the actual fuck is your
problem?”

          Simone showed her a
small, frosty smile.  “You tell me.  Honestly, I’m more interested in knowing
what
your
problem is, since you obviously have one with me.”

          Bradley shook his head. 
“Girls, girls.  Can’t we all just get along?”

          Karen shushed him and
glared at Simone.  “That must be your conscience talking, bitch.  I have no
idea what you’re talking about, but obviously you feel guilty about
something
.”

          Simone clenched her teeth
and drew in a breath through her nostrils.  A blowup with Karen had been
inevitable for a while, but this wasn’t exactly the ideal time for it.  She had
no clue what was going on with Karen, except that she clearly believed Simone
had slighted or betrayed her in some mysterious way.  But whatever it was
didn’t matter at the moment, because Simone was now certain they were sitting
on the brink of a genuine crisis.  She needed to somehow defuse the brewing
personal conflict and make these people come to their senses.

          She unclenched her teeth
and blew out a breath.  “I’m sorry about whatever I’ve done to offend you.  I
really am.  But--”

          “
Enough
!”

          Simone winced at her
boyfriend’s shouted exclamation.  She glanced at him and saw him shut off the
SUV’s engine and pluck the keys from the ignition.  “What are you doing?”

          Spence waggled the keys
at her.  “The two of you can argue until you’re blue in the fucking face, but
no one’s going anywhere without these.”  He sneered.  “We’re staying until
midnight, as fucking planned.”

          Before Simone could think
of a response to this, Spence opened the door on his side, stepped out into the
howling wind, and slammed the door shut.

          Karen chuckled.  “Got put
in your place, didn’t you?  Gotta love it when a guy shows a whiny bitch who’s
wearing the pants in a relationship.”  She nudged Bradley hard in the ribs with
an elbow.  “Get out, goddammit.  And grab the beer.”

          Bradley grabbed a case of
Budweiser cans from the floor, opened the door to his left, and got out of the
SUV.  Once again, a chill wind blew into the vehicle, driving out the last of
the warmth that had only moments ago suffused its interior.  Karen wasted no
time following him into the wind and snow.  She reached back inside for a
second and thrust an upraised middle finger at Simone before slamming the door
shut.

          A silent moment elapsed.

          Terry Cooper cleared his
throat.  “So…that was awkward.”

          Simone sighed.  “Yeah.”

          “What do you think her
problem is?”

          “I don’t know.  I really
don’t.”

          Another silence
descended.

          Simone turned her head
and saw the rest of them climb the steps to the long front porch.  She watched
as Spence tried the door and found it locked.  Bradley tentatively tried his
luck with one of the windows, but even from this distance it was clear the
attempt was doomed to failure.  The windows had been nailed shut (or were just
frozen to the frames) and were boarded-up from the inside.  After a few
half-hearted pulls at one of the handles, he gave it up and exchanged a few
words with Spence that were inaudible over the howling wind.

          Spence waved a hand in a
gesture of contempt and turned away from Bradley to face the door again. 
Simone could tell from his body language what he was about to attempt.  She
hoped the door would prove as unyielding as the windows.  Maybe then these
assholes would give up and finally see this mission as the lost cause it so
obviously was.  The door didn’t yield to Spence’s first kick, but Simone’s
heart sank when she saw how it buckled.

          The second kick did the
trick.  The door popped open, revealing a sliver of inner blackness.  Glimpsing
that blackness made Simone shiver.  Given what had happened here all those
years ago, she felt like she was peering into a forgotten dark corner of hell. 
It made her feel like a ghoul.  Back when Spence first suggested they visit the
site of the Herzinger Family Massacre on the night of the bloody event’s tenth
anniversary, she’d thought it sounded like a fun, spooky time.

          But now no trace of that
initial perception remained.

          Spence aimed a flashlight
through the opening and stood just outside the doorway for a moment as he swept
the beam of light over the section of the interior viewable from his vantage
point.  After a moment or so of this, he glanced at Bradley and Karen,
indicating with a tilt of his head that they should follow him into the house. 
Spence stepped through the doorway and disappeared into the blackness.  Karen
was right behind him.  Bradley grabbed the case of beer from where he’d set it
down on the porch and followed them inside.

          A squeak of seat leather
from the rear of the SUV made Simone’s head turn in that direction.  Terry
Cooper emerged from the back and, moving in a crouch, made his way to the bench
seat in the middle.  Clutched in his right hand were the flimsy straps of a
white plastic bag, the bottom of which was strained by a six-pack of that fancy
beer he liked.  He settled into the center of the seat and set the beer on the
floor.

          He sighed and showed
Simone an earnest, sorrowful expression.  “I think Karen likes Spence.”

          Simone frowned. 
“Really?”

          “Yeah.”

          He said it with a note of
sad reluctance in his voice Simone suspected was at least partly contrivance. 
She knew Terry had a crush on her.  In fact, he’d harbored barely concealed
amorous feelings for her going back to junior high.  They were now seniors in
high school.  She supposed anything of that duration wasn’t just a crush.  It
was possible he was actually in love with her.  His big hope here was probably
that she’d get mad enough at Spence to break up with him, then maybe turn to him
for comfort.

         
Silly boy
, she
thought. 
Silly, sad little boy
.

          Simone liked Terry, but
in a strictly platonic way.  Her affection for him was the only reason the
others allowed him to tag along on excursions like this one.  Otherwise they
would have nothing to do with him.  Terry was a sweet boy, but he wasn’t
good-looking enough for her.  Thinking this made Simone feel shallow and
slightly ashamed, but this in no way changed the reality of the situation.

          But she thought maybe he
was right in his suspicions about Karen.  The theory would go a long way toward
explaining the nasty turn in their decaying friendship.  It was possible
Karen’s bad attitude and strange, unspecified insinuations were part of an
overall plan to drive a wedge between Simone and her boyfriend.  If so, it was
kind of working.  And the conniving bitch was in that house with Spence right
now while she was shivering out here in the SUV with poor, deluded Terry.

          She heaved a breath. 
“Fuck it.  Let’s go inside.”

          Terry frowned.  “I know
you don’t want to.  We could just stay out here in the car until those idiots
get tired of banging around in that old dump.”

         
It’s the banging part
I’m worried about
, Simone thought.

          Yes, it was highly
unlikely Spence and Karen would wind up fucking in there tonight.  Bradley
would surely have some strenuous objections to that, after all.  But even the
merest suggestion of the possibility ignited Simone’s paranoia.  She probably
would
break up with Spence someday in the not too distant future, but it would happen
when she wanted it to and on
her
terms, dammit.

          Simone shook her head. 
“I’m going.  Please come with me.  I think I’ll need somebody on my side in
there.”  She summoned her sweetest, most heart-melting smile and repeated the
entreaty.  “Please?  Pretty please?”

          Terry sighed in
surrender.  “Okay.  Fine.  I’d just like my objections duly noted for the
record.”

          “Done.  Let’s go.”

          Simone opened her door
and stepped outside, the cold wind hitting her face like a slap from an icy
hand.