Haunting Leigh: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Literal Leigh Romance Diaries Book 4) (5 page)

Chapter Nine

A Call for Help

I sat on the edge of the bed and watched Hunter. He may as well have been peacefully asleep in my bed.
What if Marie was completely wrong and Hunter was only knocked out cold
? I shook him and there was no response. I knew that it was up to me to save Hunter. I would have to trust in Marie’s instructions and most importantly, trust in myself. I finally shook off the pity and jumped to action.

I needed my friends more than ever. In a flurry of phone calls, I summoned Kelly and Lindsey. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get ahold of Gertie or Randy. I also called in to the school district office that I had a family emergency. There was a handy system in place that contacted a substitute teacher. I would just have to make a follow up call with the office first thing in the morning. Then I waited with Hunter.

Kelly and Lindsey stormed through the front door. “Leigh! Leigh!” They shouted in harmony.

“In the bedroom.” I replied.

They froze in place when they arrived at the bedroom door. Lindsey instantly cried out, “Oh my God!” and then just covered her mouth with her hands.

Kelly was a little more succinct with her comment. “You said there was an accident, but I had no idea that you killed your boyfriend. I’ll call my Uncle Carmine. If anyone can help us out, it’s him. The best part is he won’t ask any questions. He may want something in return someday, though.”

“No! No, I didn’t kill him! He’s sort of knocked out. He’s in a state of suspended animation actually.” I knew that I’d have to explain what happened, but I had no desire to relive my act of violence.

My friends walked up to the bed to get a close look at Hunter. Kelly touched his forehead. “Wow! You sure nailed him in the head with something. It looks like he has the Japanese flag tattooed on his forehead. What did you use?” She glanced around the room and spotted the vase before I could answer her. “That? Is that heavy glass vase the thing you drove into his skull? Jesus, Leigh! What did he do to you?”

“Nothing! I mean, at the time I thought he had dumped me and left. I came home after a rough day and he wasn’t here. Luna brought me a note from him that said he found a place and ‘See ya’ written on it. You know I’ve worried that he would want to go back to the original plan and find his own place, but we…I mean, I put that all behind me. He said he wanted to stay here with me, not find someplace else. Then I come home and Luna found this note. I was so mad that I threw the vase at the door. Just as I threw it, he walked in and it nailed him right on the head.”

“Where’s the note? And where did Luna find it?” Lindsey asked.

“It’s on the floor in the living room. I’m not sure where Luna found it. I think she found it in the kitchen, but I’m not certain.”

“Come on, Luna. I want to see this note.” Lindsey picked up Luna and they headed out of the room.

Kelly was still examining Hunter’s head. “I don’t know, Leigh. I never knew you were so athletic. That must have been one hell of a pass you threw.”

Lindsey and Luna returned with the note and a couple of pieces of paper. They were identical to the piece of paper used for writing the notorious note. Lindsey held up the note as if she were presenting crime scene evidence to a jury. “Leigh, is this the note?”

I recognized it instantly as the note I read. “Yeah, that’s it. What are those other papers?”

“I found these on the table in the kitchen. It looks like Hunter was trying to write a note, but his pen wasn’t working. I guess he had just crumpled them up. Luna just brought you that one.” She handed me the other pieces. The scribbles and marks were telltale signs of an uncooperative pen. It was painfully obvious that Lindsey was right. She also handed me Hunter’s cell phone.

I looked at the phone and tried to turn it on but to no avail. “You’re right, Lindsey. I saw only part of what he tried to write. The whole point of his note was to tell me he found a place, but what I didn’t know was that he had found an old house.” I handed her the real estate documents. “From what I can tell, Hunter got in at some auction or something. He picked up a good deal on some house. Most importantly, he had these papers drawn up with both of our names on them. He was planning for our future. You know, serious lifelong commitment sort of thing.” I was afraid to mention the M word. It was already bad enough that I had ruined this. “By the way, where was his phone?”

“Next to the sink. It was wrapped up in paper towels. I think he dropped it in some water and was trying to dry it out or something.” Lindsey flipped through the real estate papers. “I don’t really know how he got the property for sure. It looks like it was being sold off for unpaid taxes. Maybe he took a chance by turning in a sealed bid and got lucky. Of course he is the type to have wanted to tell you the good news himself. I bet he started to write a note and realized he’d go get flowers and make the best of a really romantic opportunity.” Lindsey said and then sat down on the edge of the bed with me.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” I was ready to cry, but I clenched my eyes and held back the tears.

“Damn. I guess he was having a worse Monday than I was.” Kelly remarked, continuing to look over at Hunter. “That was a pretty good hit. Although I seriously doubt it would have knocked him out like this, not unless you’ve suddenly gained a superhuman throwing arm.”

“Exactly. Immediately after he was knocked out, I tried to wake him up. I dragged him inside and kept trying. All of a sudden, Marie appeared out of nowhere.”

“Marie Laveau?” Lindsey whispered in a concerned voice. “Did she have something to do with this?”

“No. She said that my anger had boiled up some sort of witch power. When I threw the vase, all of that built up magic apparently shot out like a bolt of lightning and knocked Hunter’s ghost out of him.”

Kelly tried not to laugh, she honestly did. “I’ve never heard it put that way. I’d say you knocked the shit out of him or something like that.”

“No, she was being serious. His actual spirit, or ghost got literally blown out of him by my magic. She said his ghost should have stuck around, but she couldn’t find it. She was going to just put it back in him, but his ghost was gone. She sensed that some other supernatural force took his ghost. I don’t even know where to begin looking for it. Ugh! As if I even know what a real ghost would look like, even if I did know where to look. He’s been ghost-napped.”

Kelly put the palm of her hand up, facing me like a school crossing guard ordering a car to halt. “Okay. Stop right there, Leigh. You know I would do just about anything for you, but if you’re thinking about changing us all into ghosts so we can go looking for Hunter’s ghost, the answer is no. Absolutely no fucking way am I going to become a ghost willingly.”

“Ghost-napped? Really? What the hell! Can that really happen? And why would a ghost take another ghost?”

“I have no idea, and we are not going to become ghosts. We are going to become ghost hunters.” I picked up the decanter that Marie had given me. “When we find him, we’ll put him in here and bring him back so Marie can make him whole again. Then he will wake up.”

“And
then
he is going to dump you.” Lindsey said flatly. “I’m just being honest, Leigh. Putting a guy in a coma by breaking his skull with a glass vase is one thing, but turning him into a ghost is going to cause a serious issue for your relationship. The resentment will pile higher than Mount Everest, but I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

Kelly shook her head. “Wow. Well, don’t ever judge me for treating men like sexual playthings. I’m always careful to have safe words in place so shit like this doesn’t happen.” She pointed to Hunter’s comatose body and his bruised forehead. “Anyway, count me in. What do we do now?”

“Marie said we’ll need a medium and a Ouija board.” I answered.

“Oh, sure, how silly of me.” Kelly quipped. “Wait a sec. You’re such a vocal Ouija board skeptic, Milton Bradley nearly slapped a cease and desist order on you.”

“To be fair, I never said they didn’t really work. I’m just bewildered by them, that’s all. Seriously, if there really is some magical device that allows you to communicate with the dead, I would expect it to be super rare. I’m talking having to climb a mountain, crawl in a cave, and defeat a dragon in order to get it kind of rare. You wouldn’t figure you’d be able to just pick up such a magical device at any toy store. And you wouldn’t expect them to be made by the truckload by some factory.”

Kelly took a cautious tone. “Hopefully your lack of faith won’t be a barrier to the ghosts, or that it doesn’t piss them off.”

“Can I help find a medium? I hope we can find a cute, tiny lady with a squeaky voice and quirky personality like the one on Poltergeist.” Lindsey added, only she was being serious.

I was getting a headache. “There is only one medium that I know of. And God, how I dread having to make that call.”

Lindsey was both curious and excited to find out who the medium was. “Really! You know a medium? Who?”

“Hunter’s mom.”

Kelly came over and gave me a hug. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Leigh. You’ve been my best friend for a long time. My condolences to your family because when Hunter’s mom sees what you did to her son...she is going to murder you and tap dance on your corpse.”

“Whatever happens, happens. I have to save Hunter and then I’ll take whatever punishment is coming my way. I’d rather have Hunter and his parents hate me than to know he is a lost soul wandering all alone…out there.”

“Meow.” Luna agreed.

Chapter Ten

“Cult”-ure Club

Until this point, I never had to call a boyfriend’s parents. I was dealing with a paranormal emergency unlike anything I could have written myself and it occurred to me that Hunter’s parents might understand. After all, they were into the new age mysticism as well as the old school psychedelic mind bending stuff. Now if they were anything like my parents, I might as well start getting fitted for a straitjacket. They wouldn’t believe a word of it.

I felt bad that I had to look up their number. Hunter said they refused to use cell phones and the only way to reach them was at their store, Head, Bath and The Beyond. I found the number online and gave it a call.

It was the recorded voice of Hunter’s dad, Max. “This is Head, Bath and The Beyond.” He said “The Beyond” in a very melodramatic way. “We are not here, baby. That’s because we are wherever we are supposed to be. Right now we are celebrating the Lunar Eclipse of Looove at the Temple of the Moon in
Teotihuacan! We’ll be back…in the future!”

“Damn! Now what?” I drummed my fingers on my desk and wished Kelly and Lindsey could have stuck around a little longer, but they needed to be on their way with it being a school night. At least I had Luna to talk to. I suppose you could say that Hunter was also being a pretty good listener in his unconscious state. “The Temple of the Moon. But what was the name of the place?” I called and listened to the recording one more time. “Teotihuacan.” I jotted it down and searched the internet. There it was, The Temple of the Moon. An archaeological treasure left by the shadowy first pyramid builders of Mexico.

Next, I looked up when the lunar eclipse would occur. The good news was that it would be early in the morning. “What do you think, Luna? Should we use my broom and fly down there?” Luna sprinted away and quickly returned with my broom. “You really think we should?”

“Meow.”

“I don’t even know where we would find them. It’s almost an hour past midnight already. They might be asleep. How about we wait until the eclipse occurs? Then we’ll know they will be on that old pyramid for sure.”

“Meow.”

“Then it’s settled. We’ll leave at six in the morning.”

I set the alarm clock and we both crawled in bed to cuddle up against Hunter. I worried about him.
How long can he stay like this?
It’s not like he can eat or drink. I hope I can fix this.
I drifted off to sleep for only an hour. When I woke up, I hoped that it had all been a bad dream, which none of this had actually happened, but it did happen. I couldn’t wait for some damn eclipse. It was time to go and find the Kovacs. I got myself ready, grabbed Luna, and double checked the pronunciation of the place in Mexico. I repeated the words that Gertie had taught me. Everything turned pink and I knew it worked.

The smoke cleared and I found myself standing near the top of the Pyramid Temple of the Moon. It seemed as if there were hundreds of people gathered at the base of the pyramid. They weren’t your typical tourists, these were the people that even the hardcore dyed-in-the-wool, hallucinogenic ingesting hippies would consider to be on the fringe. The crowd seemed to be more like a cult than anything. Some people were playing flutes, some tambourines, and others shook, banged, and rattled various noisy things. Above all, they loved cowbells. They must have bought out the global cowbell supply chain. It sounded like hundreds of first graders had raided the music room and then went running through the playground. By the looks of things, Hunter’s parents were certainly among friends in the eccentric group.

A chorus of cheers rose above the din of the ad hoc orchestra when I appeared in front of them. I held Luna close and nervously scanned the crowd for any sign of the Kovacs. I really wasn’t too worried about the crowd itself. My fear was that I’d never find the Kovacs with only the moonlight to illuminate the faces of the spaced out eclipse worshippers.

“Excuse me. Excuse me, I hate to interrupt your…” What was this anyway? A worship service? A cult ritual? I decided on the word festival as it seemed appropriate. “I hate to interrupt your moon festival, but I’m looking for the Kovacs. Has anyone seen the Kovacs? If you see the Kovacs, please send them up here to me.”

The noise immediately changed tone. The racket from the instruments suddenly became feverish and excited. The crowd began to howl out some weird
bacchanalian cry that I didn’t understand.
What the hell did I do?
My thoughts wondered. Did my sudden appearance to the crowd—which had likely just participated in some weird communal peyote ritual—frighten them? I hated to think that I transformed the peace loving partiers into a demonic mob.

Beyond the crowd, there was a cluster of tents. A large, very sweaty middle aged man climbed on top of a heavy wooden table. He wore a silky green robe patterned with Mayan influenced images and he had an absurdly large headdress festooned with wildly dyed feathers. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that same costume on pictures of Rio’s Carnival dancers. Only, I seriously doubt those dancers would have their robe open to display what he had to show off—a huge, sagging, globular, furry belly. Despite his flabby physique, his impressive outfit and commanding presence made it obvious that he was the Grand Poobah of these Moose Lodge washouts.

The crowd had noticed that Grand Poobah had taken to his stage. They murmured and turned towards him. He had a large staff, like a shepherds crook. I instantly recognized it as the same kind used by the guys that dress as Saint Patrick for the big parades in Chicago. He slammed the base of it down in an attention grabbing move and it made a loud thud. The crowd went completely silent as he instantaneously threw his hands out and screamed out a weird phrase. “Aye aye oh oh aye ya.” He commenced to hop around on the table like a giant green chicken trying to hop on one leg. His cape flew about and his feathers bounced around like they themselves were enjoying their own bizarre dance.

A scantily clad woman in a gold toga stood next to his stage. She threw her hands up in an obvious display of confusion at the Grand Poobah’s order, and I could see her mouth moving as she uttered a word. “What?”

He fiercely shouted, “Mutha! Fucka!”

The crowd repeated his singular words of prayer in unison, “Mutha! Fucka!”

“No, fuckheads! My fucking foot! I just ripped off my goddamned fucking toenail you idiots! Look at it! Jesus Christ! God! With this piece of shit staff your brother gave me!” He lifted up the staff and showed the bloodied shaft to the gold toga clad woman. It was obvious he had slammed the pointy wooden end right through the bed of his toenail. He must have ripped that little sucker right out of the meat of his toe when he pulled the staff back up. The Grand Poobah was overwhelmed by the excruciating pain of having just performed a crude self-administered toenailectomy—with a splintery wooden pole no less. He doubled over until he dropped to his knees. “Oh! Aye oh um fuck, fuck.”

The crowd genuflected en masse as they copied their leader’s movement. Grand Poobah heard the shuffling sound of the crowd and he lifted his head up. Through eyes squinting from pain, he could see the flock kneeling just like him. “Fucking idiots!” He shouted at them.

Toga woman ran to a tent and returned with a first aid kit. In short order, she dressed his wound. Grand Poobah returned to his position of authority and pointed his staff toward me. “The Moon Goddess has sent her daughter! Daughter of the Blood Moon, what is your name? What do you seek from us?”

“Hello...your honor.” I didn’t know how the hell I should address this guy. “My name is Leigh and this is Luna. We are here for the Kovacs. They need to come with me.”

Grand Poobah shouted, “Bring me the Kovacs! Leigh, Daughter of Moon Goddess wishes for us to perform the Blood Moon Ritual!” The crowd cheered wildly. Grand Poobah leaned down and spoke to toga woman again.

Soon the teeming crowd began to congregate around one point. From my elevated vantage point, they looked a lot like Koi fish in a pond, gathering around a slice of bread. It became clear to me they had found the Kovacs. Before long, several people led Max and Millie towards Grand Poobah’s makeshift pulpit.

“Give them each two more hits of the Serpent God’s nectar. That should do it.” Toga woman produced a large wooden mixing bowl full of liquid. Max and Millie each took two drinks from the bowl that toga woman had lifted to their lips. Grand Poobah also took a huge gulp or two. I had seen this sort of thing before in a documentary about native shamans of the Amazon. That was exactly how they drank their strange psychedelic brew.

“Woo! Wamma a lamma ding dong! That’s some good shit!” Shouted Grand Poobah.

People in the crowd each drank from their personal stash of the potion they had among them. Once everyone had a dose, the spaced out crowd chanted their leader’s words together in a prayer like tone. “Woo! Wamma a lamma ding dong! That’s some good shit!”

“Whatever.” Mumbled Grand Poobah. He commanded the crowd to lead the Kovacs up the pyramid steps. “Take the Kovacs away up the steps to the Daughter of Moon Goddess.” He nodded to toga woman and whispered something. She followed right behind Millie and Max as they ascended the ancient stone steps. When they were just ten feet away, I spotted something that frightened me. Toga woman had turned to look down below at Grand Poobah. She had been hiding a large sword behind her back.

“Leigh? What are you doing here? Where’s Hunter? Is he with you? And why do you have butterflies for ears?” Millie asked.

Max looked at me with huge glassy eyes. “Well, they go well with the koalas she has for breasts.” He started laughing at something only he could see. “Wow! They can talk! Or is this all just from the drugs?”

“Listen, Max and Millie, there’s no time to waste! I think they mean to make human sacrifices of you…sacrifices to me!” I took out my broom and handed Luna to Millie. I put an arm around Max and lifted his other arm around Millie. We now formed a small circle.

“Yeah! Just like the good ole days! Right, Millie?” Max said exuberantly as he squeezed Millie and me close to him. Luna was somewhere in the middle.

Poof!
We left the crazy cult of the Blood Moon behind and appeared in my apartment. One thing was for sure, from that point on I would never poke fun at my dad for joining The Optimists. I’m pretty sure his fraternal order wasn’t going to get talked into partaking in human sacrifice in the fog of a drug induced psychedelic haze.