Gridlocked Guesthouse (Locked House Hauntings Book 1) (5 page)

Right now, she was standing in the twins' room with Tiffany, and they were now both screaming. She was standing on the rocking chair in her bare feet and sparkly dress, frightened little sobs bursting out. She was shuddering, the chair underneath her rocking beneath her flailing.

Mike was the first one up the stairs. He was a big man. Tall, yes, but big arms and a big heart. He saw her first. Breathtakingly gorgeous twenty-two year old in a tight sparkling dress, curls flying, and he froze.

It felt so intimate.
Her fear.
He stood, blocking the doorway suddenly. She was intimately afraid. Her bright dark eyes caught his and his heart stopped and started again and everything was moving. Zane was at his back, shoving Mike, who practically fell into the room. Mikaela had tears forming. And Tiffany was standing, her skinny hips and smooth stomach heaving with another scream, holding a toy elephant. "What happened? Why are you screaming?" Zane was the first one with words, and they were big, bellowing man words.

He helped his sister off the chair and she pointed wordlessly at the corner of the room.

Zane turned and saw the creature. It was small, tiny little body with little wings. It was screaming back at them. The sound was unbearable, like trilling high-pitched monsters. Then it took off, launching itself off the wall and down towards Tiffany. She threw the toy elephant and charged the doorway, crashing into Beezer, who was standing there poking his head in. The hit was so hard it nearly knocked Ricky and Rachel, who were behind Ben, behind Beezer, in a long string of nervous young people, down the stairs.

Mike finally got his wits about him and saw the tiny flying rodent. It was on the floor now, half crawling, half running, its tiny mouth opening and shutting as it scurried. It wasn't as fast as a mouse, but the way it moved! Those tiny long fingers and how it scuttled a bit like a crab. Mike reached down and picked it up, and the bat let out another scream. The scream was ear piercing, easily touching notes a human can't quite hear. But it felt ghastly. Mike tried to look calm, despite the fact that he'd never held a bat before, and just opened the window and tossed it out. The bat managed to fly mid toss and moved crazily in the air--more like a butterfly than a bird. Zig-zagging down to the grass where it certainly feasted on delicious bugs and whatever, I don't know. Just, it did bat stuff.

But Mike turned around and tried to look like the big man that his body was, but his insides still felt like that small, lost little boy. And he beamed, a big bright manly smile that women would have swooned over if they had only been looking. Instead, Tiffany sobbed into Beezer, who looked horribly uncomfortable. And Zane held Mikaela.

She whispered to him, "I should just go home; this was a terrible idea." Big sniffles in his ear.

He cringed. "We're all blocked in, so let's just relax. It was just a little bat. It's gonna be okay."

CHAPTER TWELVE

We'd made it to three thirty in the morning on that first night. The ladies were all in the safe room, working on the clear puzzle box with the key, I think maybe they just didn't want to wander around upstairs with an unknown number of bats loitering around the room. And John was mid-nightmare.

Drunk, snoring, and terribly frightened,
as he should be
. His baby was dead, his girl left him, and he couldn't keep his shit together. Even drunk, at a really fun party weekend, he couldn't stop thinking about how she was showing off her stupid stomach. The one that should have been fat with baby. And his heart was broken, trampled, and busted up.

And he was dreaming. About this pain, this big deep hurt. It was always a different version, and he hadn't slept without this nightmare since she told him. In this one, she was knifing her stomach over and over and screaming that she didn't want him, she didn't want it. And she was dying.

He woke with stomach cramps, still drunk and sobbing. He wouldn't have come if he had known she was gonna be here. But once they arrived, he couldn't undo it. Stupidly, he thought he could kiss some other girl or something. Just man the pain away with a hot girl and a stiff drink. His plan wasn't working out. He was in the dark, alone and sobbing.

"You okay?" The words were clear and bright.

He gasped, holding his breath. Begging his emotions to give him a break so he could answer. Begging the pain to wait, just wait a moment. Wait a lifetime. But he couldn't maintain it, and his voice came out in a cracked, obvious sad noise. "I'm fine." But then he added, "I'm cold."

And the air in the room seemed to drop several degrees.

Nobody replied. He lifted his head, but he couldn't see anything in the darkness. The door was still shut. He fumbled, standing up, trying to navigate the unfamiliar bedroom in the dark.
Fuck, it was cold.
He thought he could almost see his breath for a second. "Rachel?" Finally, he started to find the doorknob. His stomach still hurt, as if he had been stabbed in his dream.

He tried the handle in the dark and realized it was locked. But the second thing he realized was his fingertips were literally stuck to the doorknob. It startled him. The doorknob was cold. It was frozen. His fingers had frozen to the doorknob. Fear rattled inside him and he shouted, "Guys?"

And his shout was ice. He could feel the sharp coldness burn inside his nose and lungs as he gathered more air and shouted louder. "Hey, guys?" His booming voice echoed against the walls and he fumbled with his other hand, his fingers firmly stuck to the doorknob still. He'd have to rip the skin to remove them at this point. It hurt. His left hand fumbled in the dark and he touched the light switch. When the light was on, he could see the ice everywhere: on the windows, in the air, dangling down. He shuddered. What the hell had happened?

He started screaming. He screamed and pounded with his left hand, the door still locked, his hand still frozen. His screams were accented by tight gasps of freezing air, his exhales were frost, so cold, that they literally turned into drops of snow falling on the ground in front of him.

But nobody heard him. Because Lucy was screaming. Lucy was screaming because Rafael was dead.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

She had walked into the kitchen, the other ladies still whispering and tossing around the clear box with the key in it. Rachel was sitting with the ladies grinning, and the men were up in the twins' room and the other bedroom. The one that was not safe.

Lucy was alone in the dining room with Rafael, and his pants were wet. That was the second thing that she noticed. But his face was purple, and his skin looked... waxy. And dead. He looked dead. His hands were completely blue now.

She screamed so hard that she fainted.

The ladies panicked and rushed in at her screams, but the men, all upstairs, started to come down the stairs in a big wave, and Beezer, the front of the pack, stumbled, and the men couldn't stop their momentum. Mike was right behind him and tripped too, his body slamming into Beezer, and they were almost rolling down the stairs. Zane couldn't stop; he had been moving too fast and stepped on Mike's back, leaping over the two tumbling men, still running down the stairs, charging into the kitchen. Beezer let out a scream of agony, Ben falling on top of both of them. Ricky was at the top of the stairs, hand covering his mouth as he held back a laugh. It was frighteningly funny.

When the men finally hit the ground, a whole flight down, Beezer's leg was snapped. Ricky's laughter stopped. Zane was already in the kitchen, trying to determine what was happening in there, and Ricky knew that Beezer needed a hospital now. He couldn't walk with his leg snapped at that angle.

Now before I get into what they did--John freezing to death in the master bedroom, Beezer with his snapped leg, and everyone in a tizzy. And Rafael, who I am terribly sorry to say, was, indeed, very dead. It was a bummer, even to me. I'd never want someone to die like that--out of the blue while trying to pretend to be a corpse. You could say he got a little over-committed to the role. Okay, that was a terrible attempt at humor. But who doesn't like humor in times of stress?

Anyways, before I get into all of that, I think I should introduce you to Ben. He was not real tall, not real confident. In fact, both he and Rafael, I'd say I knew the least. Obviously, Rafael didn't talk much with the unfortunately early death and being basically comatose the whole time. But Lucy talked about him some, so I did know some stuff. Like that, he was really good at baseball as a kid and loved toast with his coffee. But not with butter or jam, with butter
and
jam.
I remember that bit particularly because I too like my toast with butter and jam!

Where was I? Oh yes, Ben, now, he was a fellow I didn't know much about. He was quiet, so I imagine he thought through things carefully. He liked to curse, and I'm not sure exactly what his major was, or if he was even in college. I can tell you that he, more than anyone, believed in ghosts. In fact, before they all arrived here, I'm guessing he was the only true believer. Things change of course, as the night progressed and well... I guess we'll get there in a minute.

But one of the reasons I know so little about Ben is because of what he did right now– Beezer with his broken leg, Rafael dead as a doornail, and John helplessly screaming and freezing.

Ben tumbled down the stairs on top of both Beezer and Mike. Beezer snapped his left leg, not the femur, the other bone, whichever the bone next to the calf is. That was the bone that was snapped quite brutally in half. It wasn't poking through his meat, though. No blood, just all internally. I wanted to clarify in case you were wondering for the rest of this tale why there weren't bloody smeared footprints and bloody clothes or why everyone wasn't screaming and putting pressure on his limb.

Anyways, Ben started hyperventilating, then he fainted.

There was hubbub. I'll try to describe it, but it all happened at once--Lucy's nonstop freakish, howling wails picked up the pace as she woke up after her faint. Rachel desperately tried to find a working phone--but she had made a strict rule that nobody bring one. She hadn't considered the idea that they might need one just in case someone died. She was calm under the pressure of the wailing Lucy and the realization that someone died at her party.

That is, until she recognized she couldn't find a phone. She too started wailing hysterically, having a complete panic attack with hyperventilation. She ended up sitting on the floor, head between her knees, gasping and sobbing.

Mikaela, in her sparkly black dress, was examining Rafael with a horrified look on her face. Her examination revealed that he was dead. The man was dead. This was a dead man. The more she thought about it, the more she felt sick to her stomach and ran to the sink, vomiting profusely.

Jenny, the only one of them who lived on a farm, found a jacket and draped it over his face so they wouldn't have to look. Tiffany simply shrieked in short bursts over and over again, pointing and sobbing.

Beth was mute and covering her face, but it seemed like her brain had stopped and she just withdrew.

Zane burst in, while the men still tumbled down the stairs, and he recognized the jacket, the dead man. The man was dead. Brains were crashing with that single phrase, repeating it over and over as if it would make sense to them if they said it again. This man was dead.

This was all happening at once. All of these things.

Meanwhile, at the same time, John was trying desperately to exit the master bedroom, his hand still frozen to the door. Finally, he pulled, ripping the skin from his fingers. He could see it, bits of his flesh stuck to the shiny door handle. He too was screaming, but who could hear him?

Ricky was the closest, still up at the top of the stairs, doubled over in hysterical laughter, suddenly running to the toilet and vomiting. Beezer, the only one in actual, physical pain
(Besides John)
was bellowing like a goat.
(Now that I say this, I can't remember where the goats were during this frantic scream fest).

Mike had the wind knocked out of him and he lay silent and still, slowly catching his breath and holding his aching head. The noise was incredible. It was a full five minutes of chaos. By the time everyone settled, men were sobbing into women's arms and vice versa. Mike had somehow cuddled with both Mikaela and Jenny. He would have been soaring on skies if he hadn't been sobbing because Rafael was dead. Zane was wrapped around Beth like a tortilla around beans. He was consoling her, and somehow, hadn't lost his head entirely, kissing at her earlobes. He decidedly wanted her now.

Ricky was holding Rachel carefully, her body still shuddering with panic. Soon she relaxed enough to regain control. "Okay, guys, I know that at least one of you brought a phone. We need an ambulance." She didn't say "for Beezer" because Rafael should head straight to the morgue. At this point, nobody had noticed the missing John.

In fact, Beezer was still moaning on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Ben was still out cold. Lucy was incoherent and inconsolable. But Tiffany sat next to Beezer, giving him water and carefully icing his leg, as if it was a mere bump to the knee.