Ghost of a Chance Book 1 in Above the Grave Trilogy (6 page)

“I was not doing jumping jacks.” She laughed.
“Please tell me that you love me and you brought a weed eater
and lawn mower.”

“I do love you, and yes I did, but I think that you are
going to need a tractor and a brush hog.”

 

They both stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“Drew, it is probably the creepiest yet beautiful thing I
have ever seen. I still don’t understand how you got it for only
$5,000. It has to be a scam.”

Just
then the girls heard the doors slam
almost
simultaneously on the moving van and then the van peeled out
and headed back towards the gate.

“You want your crap? You come and get it from the
storage shed. You got thirty days free storage. We are getting
the hell out of here.” And they peeled out again, in a hurry
leaving Drew and Liza standing there with their jaws dropped
to the ground.

“What the hell was that?” Liza asked wide eyed.

 

“Hmmm. They must have met my roommate.” Drew
said biting her lip.

 

“You’re what?” Liza asked.

“Well, it’s a long story. Bring the truck up and we will
get the lawn equipment unloaded then I will give you a tour of
the house while I explain.” Hopefully before you find out for
yourself, Drew thought.

Liza’s mouth dropped to
the floor again as soon as she
walked into the front door. “This place is unbelievable, Drew.
I still don’t understand…”

“You know what? Let’s go back outside its really
stuffy in here.” She said and pushed Liza back out the front
door.

“Don’t I get to see the rest of the house?”

“Well,” Drew was saying as she hurried to shut the
front door. “Let me get the place cleaned up and get rid of all
of the dust clothes first, and then maybe next week you can
come back and have a better look at the place.”

“Drew, what the hell is going on?” Liza said, worried
about her friend. “How many times have I helped you move
and clean up your new apartments?”

“Nothing! Nothing is going on. You know what a
clean freak I am, and this time I just want it to look really nice
when you see it for the first time.” Drew laughed.

“Honey, you don’t have the first clue as to how to use a
dust cloth.” Liza said still worried.

 

“Well, I am changing. I want this place to be perfect,”
and not so hostile, she thought. “when you really get to see it.”

With a huff and a shrug of her shoulders Liza backed
away from the house. The girls got the riding lawn mower
unloaded as well as the weed eater, a tank of gasoline for the
mower and a mixture of gas and oil for the weed eater.

“Plea
se
remember
which
fuel
goes
to
which
equipment!
Tim will kill me if you break his stuff, and I will
be back in one week to pick it up. Okay?” Liza warned.

“Got it! I love you! Thank you so much I will call you
tonight!” Drew said as she practically shoved Liza back into
the truck.

“Okay. Are you sure that everything is alright, Drew?”
“Things have never been better.” Drew smiled a very
honest smile then as she knew what she had just meant to be a
lie was actually the truth. She had never been happier in her
life.

She decided that she was going to have to have a
serious talk with whoever
was
left
behind in that
house.
Whoever or whatever it was, was going to have to straighten
their act up and learn to share.
Putting a dust cloth over their
head and coming towards her and her friend was not very
hospitable. Things were going to have to change because she
wasn’t going anywhere, and she imagined that unless she hired
an exorcist neither was her new friend.

It took her almost three hours to mow and weed-eat the
yard area. She was exhausted. There was a lot of acreage, but
she chose to just mow about two of them. She still needed to
mow up towards the road, but that was going to have to wait
until the next day. She was feeling sick and realized that it was
probably because she hadn’t eaten anything since the day
before.

She remembered that she had packed some granola
bars and a couple of diet sodas in her emergency pack. That
was going to have to do until she could shower and then go to
the market place. It dawned on her then that she had more
exploring to do. She had yet to find a bedroom and she had
snuck out behind the privacy fence to pee earlier that day since
she hadn’t found a bathroom yet and hadn’t been in the mood
to deal with any ghostly arguments. That reminded her… she
was anxious to see what kind of shape that swimming pool was
in as well.

As soon as she walked up to the house she found that
her bags were stuck back in the door way again. She shoved
them back inside and shut the door.
“Persistent are we?” she asked.

She dug into her suitcase and found a matching cotton
t-shirt and shorts to lounge in, some shampoo, soap, a razor,
towel, and rag. She grabbed the box of granola bars and the
diet sodas as well and headed towards the kitchen.
She hoped
that whoever had ran off without all of their furniture had left a
glass in one of the cabinets and some ice in the freezer.

The scene in the kitchen was a bit disturbing. Every
one of the cabinet doors was wide open. She imagined that if
she had that little kiddie alphabet magnet set for the refrigerator
they would say LEAVE NOW. She rolled her eyes, and yelled,
“Is that all you got? Dust clothes over your head and cabinet
doors standing open? Please, I’ve seen scarier stuff on the
Disney Channel.”

Just then all of the cabinet doors started slamming
around her. Drew jumped and covered her ears. Goose bumps
climbed her body from the tips of her toes to the top of her
head. It was trying to scare the bejeezus out of her.
It was
working, but she couldn’t back down, no matter what!

“Stop it!” She yelled. The cabinets stopped and they
remained closed. “All you are doing is giving me a headache!”
She waited a beat and hoped that it had used up all of its energy
for the day.

When she finally got to the refrigerator she realized
that it was brand spankin’ new. It still had the stickers on it.
When she opened it though she found that it wasn’t even
working. She thought that she would check out the plug in.
She pulled and shoved until she could get to the back of the
refrigerator.

“Well, damn. It’s plugged in. There must be another
short or, it could be the fuse box.” She said out loud.

Well, she wouldn’t be getting any ice, but she was
determined to find a hot shower. She remembered the hallway
on the other side of the living area.
Surely there was a
bathroom that way. Drew grabbed her shower things off of the
couch where she had left them, and stuffing her mouth with
granola headed towards the hallway.

There was very little light shining in from what looked
like a patio door in a room at the end of the hall. It was quite
dark down there.
She found the light switch finally after
feeling the wall with her elbow, but nothing was happening.

“Great! I guess I need to call the ele
ctric company
after all. No refrigerator, no lights, what next?” It dawned on
her then that there was probably no water either. A couple of
nights stay in a hotel room was starting to sound pretty good
after all.

It was still early enough that she could call the utility
companies and with any luck have them out there that day. She
would have to call information.

After
she
got
off
of
the phone with the electric
company she had been ecstatic.
They would be there this
afternoon as long as she was able to pay the cash deposit to the
electrician. The water company hadn’t been so nice, but when
she told them the address they said that the water had never
been shut off and they would be happy to switch the bill into
her name.

She decided to check out what was in the hall way via
candle light while she waited for the electrician. The first door
that she came to on her left was a very large bedroom.
Of
course everything was covered up, and with only candle light
to see she was pretty much in the blind as to wait lay in the
room. However, she could tell that there was a small desk and
chair that sat in front of what looked like window covered by a
huge, thick curtain.

She made her way across the room to open the curtain,
letting some light in.
When she turned around it took her
breath away. There in front of her was a gorgeous canopy bed
with curtains that were tied together, a very old claw bathtub
that had been updated with a shower nozzle, and a new sink
took up residence in the corner of the bedroom. There was also
a huge chest of drawers, an ancient trunk at the end of the bed,
a very large stand-up mirror, and a vanity. This was going to
be her room she decided. It was way more girly than what she
was used to, but to her surprise she loved it.

She started to sit on the bed, and take it all in when the
curtains over the window jerked shut. This was starting to get
a little old she decided. “This will be my room.” She said
aloud, and watched the stand-up mirror go crashing to the
floor.

Drew didn’
t know that much about ghosts, but she
didn’t think that they were supposed to have that much power.
This one was evidently pissed and packing some energy. The
thought of sleeping another night under its roof was beginning
to make her a little uneasy. If it had enough power to move
things, to slam things, could it have enough power to hurt her?
Of course it could, but would it?

She went back to the hall way and found another door
on the opposite
side.
She assumed that
it
was
another
bedroom, but when she opened the door she found that it had
probably been a walk in closet at one time and was now a
completely updated bathroom.
Good, a toilet and a stand up
shower, she had begun to wonder. Again, the stickers from the
store were still on the shower doors.

There were two more doors, one on each side of the
hallway, they were both bedrooms, and were just as lovely as
the first one. When she came to the end of the hallway she
stood in another sitting room, a little smaller than the front
room and much more personal it seemed. The light that she
had seen was coming from two large glass doors that led to the
back yard.

Her ghost must have tired as she didn’t feel it
following her anymore. Maybe it was a demon, she doubted
that though. Did demons play the piano and dress up in dust
clothes? She doubted that as well.

Through the two glass doors she found the swimming
pool. It looked like it had been redone as well. She could tell
that even though the original stone had been used around the
top of the pool, the inside of the pool and the fact that it had a
new filter (with a sun faded store sticker) had to have been
done in her life time. It had been covered at one time, but part
of the cover had been blown up from the wind letting a little
rain water in the shallow end and lots of leaves.
That was
going to be a nasty slimy mess to clean up.

There was some beautiful patio furniture that looked
like it had been made of a very heavy iron. The whole area
was astounding. How someone could have the money to put
into building a home like this was beyond her imagination let
alone fixing it up and never even getting the chance to live
there.

Looking back at the house, Drew was beginning to
understand a little more why no one wanted to live there. Just
being out from under that roof gave her a sense of aloneness
that she didn’t have when she was inside of the house. There
were eyes on her in there, very angry, irritated eyes.

She uncovered the pool the rest of the way and found
some pool supplies including a net in a little shed near the pool.
The shed was new and so were the pool chemicals and electric
pool cleaners that were stashed in the shed.
Whoever had
bought this house had sure spent a lot of money updating it.
She imagined that they just didn’t want to share.
She still
couldn’t believe that she bought it for only $5,000 though. The
guy must have been really afraid of her roommate. She knew
that he had lost a whole heck of a lot of money by selling it to
her that cheap.

She decided to run through the nasty slimy water,
which was luckily only about ankle deep, with a net and try to
push it down to where the drain was.
She had also found a
broom and a water hose to help clean as well.
Since the pool
hadn’t been too dirty it only took her about twenty minutes to
get it clean enough to start filling it up. She figured that she
would let that little funny crawling pool cleaner suck on the
bottom where the leaves had stained the pool once she had the
pool filled up. She found the plug for the drain in the shed as
well and had just turned on the hose when she heard a doorbell
ring.

The noise just about made her jump out of her boots,
which were slimy from the pool now. She kicked them off at
the back door and headed through the hallway to the front of
the house. The man at the door looked a little uneasy. He had
a paper for her to sign and she had a check already made out to
the power company. They shook hands after a little small talk
and after only about five minutes Drew’s world lit up like a
bonfire. Just as it had been lit up the night before, she thought.
So her guest had some pretty powerful tricks up his or her
sleeve.

She heard the air conditioner kick on and blessed
whoever had installed central air in the place. It hadn’t been
too bad the night before, but she had had her work out that day
and the air conditioner was now a God send.