Haunted (2 page)

July 10

Red Cay Stop 'n' Shop: 6:35 P.M.

"You're going to die in that house." The cash register chinged, underscoring the clerk's dire words.

David Masters had been watching the old man's arthritic
fingers as he painstakingly punched in prices for the light bulbs, Ajax, paper towels and the rest of the things they might possibly need tonight, but hadn't brought with them in the car. Impatient to be off, to get to the real estate office and pick up the keys, and then to unlock the doors to his new home for the first time, he had paid no attention to the clerk until now, but suddenly, this was one interesting old geezer.

"What did you say?"

"You're gonna die in that house," he repeated. "Be a hell of a lot better off staying at the Cozy Crest tonight. Stay there, go back where you come from in the morning."

"You know who I am?" David asked, intrigued.

"Everybody in Red Cay knows who you are." The old man fixed him with a beetle-black stare and slowly shook his head. "You're the fool who bought Body House. You're gonna die in there."

With those nasty little eyes, the broken hawk nose and gleaming bald skull, the guy would make a great character in a book, David thought. Maybe a hellfire preacher. "How do you know about me?"

"Calla wrote about you in the paper," he answered sourly.

"You're that big time writer, you do all that Frankenstein stuff. Calla, she likes your books." I don't was the unspoken coda. "Been selling a lot of them since the story came out. New one's gotcher picture on the back. Had to special order copies of that old true story one you did about haunted houses. Calla and some of those lunatics up at the High Hooey Center wanted them." He snorted in disgust. "Guess you think you're some kind of expert. They all do, when they first show up."

The High Hooey Center? "I'm not unfamiliar with the paranormal--" David paused to take a deep breath. Don't let him get you, he cautioned himself as he realized he was trotting out his evil twin, the patronizing intellectual snob, to respond to the geezer's not-so-subtle attack. That's not nice, Masters. He exhaled; he could take a little criticism, especially considering the source. "I've seen some interesting things and done a little research."

"Yeah, yeah," said the man as he bagged David's purchases.

"That's what they all say. Then they go in there and die. Research, my ass."

This wasn't just an old geezer, David decided. This was a certified old fart, all judgment and hot air. But fascinating. He smiled patiently. "As I understand it, the only death on the property in recent years was that of the child who fell from the lighthouse a few months ago." He handed the old fart a twenty. "Or has something happened since?"

"Wouldn't know anything about it," the clerk grunted. He laid three ones and change on the counter then pushed it toward David with his fingertips. "Don't care. Ain't none of my business."

Christ Almighty. "Have you ever been in Baudey House?"

David asked, careful to pronounce the name correctly.

"Body House. Plain old Body House." He thrust the bag at David, then crossed his arms and resumed his hard stare.

"Once, when I was a stupid kid, I went in on a dare. Learned my lesson. Never went back."

"Did something happen while you were inside?"

He set his mouth in a grim, uncooperative line. "I warned you. Don't forget I warned you." An instant later, the man's gaze shifted as the market's door groaned on its hinges.

"Dad?"

Amber stood on the threshold, the afternoon sunlight forming a golden nimbus around her long, tawny hair. "Daddy, you said you'd just be a minute."

"Get in or get out, young lady," the old fart commanded.

"You're letting flies in."

Unperturbed, she stepped inside and let the door slam behind her. The clerk glared but she ignored him. "Let's go. We have to check out the high school before dark. You promised." She took the paper sack from his arms and tilted her head toward the clerk. "You can come back for your local color later, Dad."

The old man grunted something that sounded like "fugginwriter," then cleared his throat. "She yours?"

David nodded.

"You intending to take her into that house?"

"Yes."

"When it kills her, you remember Ferd Cox warned you. It's gonna be all your fault for taking her in there."

"God," moaned Amber. "Get a life."

"Amber, hush," David said softly.

Cox turned his discomfiting glare on her. "You don't believe in ghosts, is that it, little girl?"

"Of course not," she replied, her own evil twin gaining power. "Not the kind that can hurt you."

"Guess your daddy told you there was no such thing?"

She nodded. "They're just anomalies. They're simple."

David cringed a little as his daughter fixed Ferd Cox with her straight-on stare and smiled condescendingly. "Only superstitious people believe in ghosts. Let's go, Daddy, please?"

"Okay, I'm coming." David followed her to the door, then glanced back at Ferd Cox. "See you later."

"Not frigging likely."

"Charming man," David said, as they got into the car.

Amber set the bag on the backseat then slid in beside him. She grinned wickedly. "That Cox, he's a sucker."

"I'm your father. Don't talk like that in front of your father." He pulled out onto the little paved road, then added, "Save it for your friends."

"All my friends are in Massachusetts, Daddy."

"You'll make more."

"I doubt it." She stared out the window at a woman in pink curlers stumping down the side of the road. "This place is full of geeks."

"Give it a chance. You know, you were really rude to that man."

"Oh, Daddy, he was really rude first. It's not like I'm a little kid anymore. I'm almost seventeen and I don't think I should have to put up with rude old far-men."

In theory, he agreed with her, but all he said was, "You're a cheeky brat."

"I know." She leaned across the seat and pecked his cheek. "You taught me everything I know."

"Maybe, but learn to exercise some self control, okay? Look, Amber, we're not in a big city anymore. Red Cay has a population of four hundred and eighty-four--"

"Four hundred and eighty-six."

"That's what I'm talking about. Don't keep correcting your elders. In the city, everything's different. Here, you give some old geezer a ration of crap and you're likely to hear your name splashed all over the place as the latest town juvie."

"That might be fun."

"Amber--"

"I'm sorry," she said as they pulled up to a stop sign. She smiled. "You know I'm just teasing you. I promise I'll try not to rile the rubes."

"Okay," David said as he made a left onto Cottage Street. "But you're making me nervous, kiddo. Look, you can call them rubes around me, but don't let them hear you do it. You do understand that, right?"

"Of course, Daddy. You're such a worrywart."

A quarter mile down Cottage, they found the high school. "Looks like they don't have summer school here, Amber. Guess you're brokenhearted."

"Oh, yeah, right
. It's sure dinky. Are you sure they've got art classes?"

It was small, she was right. Low-slung, circa 1940s stucco painted babyshit yellow, and ugly as sin, it was a mini-version of the typical California public school building. "They claim to have several art classes."

"They're probably all doofus fruit-drawing classes."

"Well, Amber, consider it a challenge. You can draw bowls of rotting fruit."

"You're weird, Daddy."

He grinned at her. "If all they have are fruit drawing classes, we'll find you a private teacher."

"Here? In the middle of nowhere?"

"The hills outside of town are crawling with artistic types, remember? I'm sure we can find one."

"Do you think I could take private lessons even if there's a class at school? I'd learn a lot more."

He hesitated, unused to being able to afford things like private lessons. "Sure, why not? Now, let's go get the keys to our new palace."

"Can't we cruise around just a little more?"

"You've seen most of it already," David told her. "And you'll see more on the way to the office-
-Theo's place is up in the hills where all the crazy artists live. Tomorrow we'll check out the town in detail, I promise. Okay?"

"Sure, Dad. Maybe we'll meet some people just as nice as Ferd Cox."

At least she said it with a smile.

They headed into the hills west of downtown Red Cay and spent forty-five minutes attempting to find Theo's place by relying solely on David's memory. This resulted only in a number of snide inquiries from Amber about why he always refused to ask for directions, so he finally gave up, pulled over and consulted the map, an act not quite as humiliating as admitting failure to another human being. Melanie used to say he had testosterone poisoning and never let him get away with it. That was one of the things he liked about his
ex-girlfriend. Actually, there were a lot of things he liked about her--chief among them, he constantly reminded himself, the fact that she was now thirty-five hundred miles away, making her own life in mid-town Manhattan instead of trying to make him feel guilty.

"Dad? Do you see it yet?"

"Oh, uh huh. I think I've got it. Take a look." After she confirmed his directions--she had a knack for reading maps--he checked his mirrors and pulled back onto the road. "Surveyors from Hell designed this place."

The outskirts of town were comprised of a series of vague ovals crisscrossed by a maze of winding roads and passes, most of which they had traveled at least twice in the last thirty minutes. The outermost oval, a paved, two-lane highway, touched the coast on one side and fed from the access road to Pacific Coast Highway, farther inland, on the other. Red Cay proper began at the coast and spread inland for several blocks. Simple to navigate with its straight streets heading in normal directions like north, south, east, and west, it contained businesses, fishing-related and otherwise, as well as older homes which ranged in style from bungalow and sea shanty to elegant Victorian.

As dusk deepened, David switched on the Bronco's headlights. The squirrely area they navigated now was not actually part of the town. Art galleries, expensive private homes, small farms, and ranches were all scattered along the twisting ovoids and switchbacks between the coast and Highway 101. This area consisted of picturesque rolling hills and pastoral meadows, and from time to time, longhorn cattle, horses, wildflowers, monarch butterflies, and any number of other scenic items which helped attract the artists and their patrons to the area. A number of colony-types who thought that Cambria, fifty miles north, had become too commercial, had relocated here and David suspected that, while the merchants in town were happy to take the artists' money, they secretly held them in contempt. Red Cay itself was a fishing town, full of real men and tired-looking women. To the townsfolk, he'd qualify as an artist too, and equally worthy of their contempt, if he wasn't careful.

He knew he'd made the correct tum when he saw The Beings of Light Church. He'd noticed it the first time he was up.

"Look, that must be the High Hooey Center," he said.