Southern Haunts (13 page)

As he clumped up the stairs, he whispered, “Only way is through.”

When Max reached the top, Wayne called from a room. “I’m in here. Where all the action takes place.”

Max didn’t like the sound of Wayne’s voice. It had a smarmy quality that didn’t belong in the man’s mouth. Walking down the hall, Max peeked in the baby’s room, but it was empty. Further down, he reached the master bedroom. He found Wayne sitting on the corner of a king-sized bed.

Wayne looked surprisingly chipper, as if nothing had occurred in the basement. With his bright smile, he waved Max in and patted a spot on the bed next to him. “Have a seat, pal.”

“Hard to look around if I’m sitting.”

Wayne wagged his finger. “Oh, you’re a clever one.” He gave the bed a short bounce. “I’m telling you, if this bed could talk — oh boy, the stories it would tell. Just me and my wife, but man, that woman’s a tiger. I guess when she’s old, she’ll be a cougar.”

Max cracked an obligatory grin.

“What about your wife? Sandra? She’s a hottie. What’s she like in bed?”

Having been through the possession of his own wife, Max’s first thoughts led him along a similar path. Perhaps the attack in the basement had done more than rattle Wayne. Perhaps it had opened him up, made him vulnerable to whatever entity they faced in this house.

Except, Wayne did not behave anything like Sandra had during her possession. Obviously, his drastic change in behavior was odd, but it could have been a defensive reaction to his memories. Overcompensating with bawdy joy in an effort to tamp down his dark thoughts. When he got a chance, Max would have to ask Sandra and Drummond to take a closer look at Wayne.

Throwing his arms about, Wayne said, “You going to look around or not?”

Max poked around the room and checked the closets. “I think I’m more interested in the baby’s room.”

Upon hearing the word
baby
, Wayne’s eyes clouded and his mouth dropped. In a monotone, he said, “Sure. Let’s go check the baby’s room.”

Max returned up the hall, not happy having Wayne behind him. Once inside the baby’s room, he did his best to blot out Wayne’s behavior. He had to focus on searching with care. On hands and knees, he inspected the baseboards, looking for anything he could consider a clue. When he checked the closet, he spied an access panel in the ceiling.

“You have an attic?”

Wayne shrugged. “I think it’s a crawl space. I don’t know. Never went up there.”

“Get me a chair or a step-stool or something.”

Wayne left, and Max watched the access panel for any movement. When Wayne returned with a chair, Max got up, popped the access panel, and hauled himself into the windowless attic. “Why can’t somebody ever haunt a bright, cheery room?” To Wayne, he added, “Is there a light switch down there for this?”

A moment later, a single bare bulb flicked on. Wayne’s hands gripped the sides of the entrance and he pulled himself up.

The attic rivaled the basement in clutter. Mounds of old newspapers and magazines rose from floor to angled ceiling like ancient chimneys. Several paintings had been stacked at one side. Max saw mirrors and drawers and other pieces of incomplete furniture. Three wooden boxes had been stacked to the right. Dust covered every object. Shadows covered more.

Wayne drew a smiley face in the dust. “Man, a person could drown in the stuff the previous owners left behind. They must’ve been real hoarders.”

Max got to work. Coughing as he sifted through one dusty bin after another, he found objects from various decades. Newspapers mostly had dates from the 1940s. Several books in one crate were copies of Dickens, 1930s editions. He even found a woman’s lace gloves. Based on the slim, childlike size, he knew it dated to the 1920s.

As Max continued his search, Wayne sneezed three times. “I’m telling you. This place is nothing but a big mistake. Shawnee and I ought to sell it, move on, and be done.”

“I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to get out of this. But you can’t just go selling it.”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“Well, it’s not like there’s a state law against it, but there’s a moral law that you shouldn’t do it. Or it’d be like selling poisoned food at a restaurant. You know whoever moves in here next will have problems too.”

“I don’t know anything of the kind. I don’t even know what’s really happening here.”

Max held his tongue and continued his search. He tried to stay focused on the present task, but a thought struck him and he couldn’t hold it back. “You know, we found nothing to connect this entity to the house.”

“So?”

“If you move, it might just follow you.”

“It can do that?”

“The world of ghosts is a lot more complex than a bunch of bedtime stories.”

Wayne’s eyes lowered, and lips tightened into a mean, heartless line. “Then you better hurry up and fix this.” He said nothing more as he left Max in the attic, alone.

In mock prayer, Max lifted his eyes upward and froze. His pulse increased. His fingers tapped against his thighs.

The attic ceiling had been built from old wooden slats. Max moved in close. Dark marks ran across several of the boards. Letters, parts of words, a name — ILL UNGER’S G — and beneath that — EST 19 — the rest illegible. If these slats had been reclaimed from old buildings, then perhaps Max had found his clue.

As fast as his hands could move, Max whipped out a small notebook and wrote down the letters exactly as they appeared. This meant something, he knew it. He could feel it. Every researching bone in his body shivered with excitement.

He dropped down into the baby’s room and hurried outside.
Unger
was clearly a name and
ill
could be
Bill
or
Will
or even
Jill
or possibly a longer, odd first name like
Winthill
. The
G
left open a myriad of possibilities, and he would have to calmly think it over — something his brain could not achieve at that moment. With his keys jangling, he fumbled open the lock to his car.

Before he could open the door, Libby Broward approached.

“We may have a serious problem.”

Chapter 15

Libby crossed her arms
over her chest as they walked uphill away from the house. Max waited for her to speak. Mostly, he concentrated on not throwing out a sarcastic comment.

Across the street, homes of brick sat on narrow man-made hills. To his right, they walked by a charming white house with gray-blue painted bricks along the bottom. On the right side of the house, an overhang protected a new, silver BMW convertible.

These were homes of average people living their average lives. Some well off, some struggling. A normal neighborhood.

Max had spent plenty of time dealing with ghosts and witches. But most of those homes had been tucked away; most of the horrors had been underground or hiding in the shadows. He glanced back at the Darians’ house. It stood amongst the others but wore its charm like a mask.

Libby cleared her throat. “Tell me your opinion of Wayne.”

“Now you care about my opinion?”

“I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m asking because we’re on the same side. We’re both trying to help Wayne and Shawnee.”

“Easy there,” Max said, for his benefit as much as hers.

Libby’s arms tightened around her. “Forgive me for not being in a joking mood. Now tell me what you think of him.”

Max thought of the strangeness he had seen in Wayne. “He’s definitely troubled.”

“I’m afraid of the effect the stress might be having on this couple. That’s often how a malicious spirit works — divide and conquer. I’ve seen the behavior changes in Wayne. I think whatever’s attacking them is starting to focus on him more.”

“Isn’t this thing going after Shawnee’s baby? Isn’t that what we’ve all been worried about?”

“There’s more than one way to get at something. Right now, Shawnee’s on alert. She’s actively trying to protect her baby which makes it harder for any kind of malevolence to succeed.”

“You think it’s going after Wayne now?”

Libby stopped and turned Max by the shoulder to face her. “Not just Wayne. We’re all at risk.” She scanned up and down the street as if afraid someone might be eavesdropping. “Not that long ago, I made the mistake of dating one of my co-workers. Not any of these guys here. A man named Keith. We were on a case, and maybe it was the pressure or some survival instinct or I-don’t-know-what, but we ended up together. There was a full-blown poltergeist in that house, and it came after us bad.”

“What do you mean? It physically assaulted you?”

“No. It wormed its way into Keith’s head. Confused him until he saw me as the monster. He started accusing me of sleeping around, he grew paranoid — afraid I might try to kill him — and he became overbearing on a daily basis. None of these characteristics were typical of him. Eventually, well ...” Her hand drifted up to her cheek. “He hit me. Right in front of Carl. Which turned out to be a good thing because Carl tackled him. We tried to get him to see what was happening, to get him to leave the case, but he refused. So, we fired him and ultimately, we had to put a restraining order out on him. Being forced away from the house eventually broke the control the poltergeist had on him, but the damage was done. I’ve never seen him since. The point is that these things can come after us, try to create more strife between us and use that strife to destroy us. I know this is a personal thing to ask, but is everything good between you and your wife?”

Max leveled his best poker face at Libby. “We’re fine. We’ve faced plenty of this kind of thing together. Don’t worry about us.”

He walked back towards his car, leaving Libby alone. As he thumped into the driver’s seat, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her walking further up the neighborhood street.

Driving home, Max’s mind flooded with the serious dangers they faced. He could no longer postpone dealing with the pregnancy test he had found in their house. Part of him had hoped to wait until this case had ended. Part of him hoped never to have to deal with anything. But he knew Libby had nailed the head of the problem. If there was any discord between him and Sandra, whatever lived in that house would find it and use it against them.

Later that evening, when Sandra returned home, Max had a candlelit dinner of Wendy’s combo meals waiting for her — one hamburger, one chicken sandwich, and one beaming smile. She giggled at the sight, but he sensed the caution hiding behind her eyes.

Dumb move, Max.
He had used the candlelit fast food dinner before and this may have been a case of going to the well one-too-many times. Sandra knew something was up.

Still, she played along. “What a thoughtful surprise. I’m famished.” She sat at the table and tucked into her French fries.

Max took the chair opposite her feeling like a player in a chess tournament about to face a dreaded opponent. He hated that such a feeling could be attributed to any interaction with his wife but saw no better way to deal with their current problems. He reminded himself there was no need for nerves. This would be a joyful conversation because he would be opening to her that he was ready to do the thing she wanted — to create a baby.

“I hoped we could have a little talk —”

Sandra clicked her nails on the table before washing down a bit of hamburger. “Before we start that, tell me how the case went today. Did you go to the Darians’ house? And what happened with Mother Hope?”

Max allowed himself to be deflected into this different conversation. He laid out his meeting with Mother Hope, skillfully glossing over the more treacherous details and skipping entirely the promise he had made. He also neglected the phone call with his mother and jumped straight to the Darians’ house. That part of the story he left completely intact.

“So this name, Unger, it was on the wood?”

“Yup. Couldn’t have been clearer.”

“What’s it from? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll find out. For now, I want to talk about —”

Sandra’s body tensed. “Maybe we should put conversations about us on hold until we’re finished with this case. This Unger seems like something we need to focus on.”

Max watched her eyes, wondering what she could be so scared to talk about. “We have to talk about this — for the case. Whatever is attacking the Darians will try to come between us. It’ll sense this unresolved talk, and it’ll exploit it.”

Sandra lowered her gaze, and her hand rested on her stomach. With a shuddering sigh, she said, “Okay. I’ve not been trying to hide things from you. I simply needed to be ready first. And you’re right. In order to help Shawnee and Wayne, we have to clear things up between us.”

“So, there is something between us?”

“Not like that. You know I would tell you any problem I had like that. We’ve come too far to hold secrets from each other.”