Gridlocked Guesthouse (Locked House Hauntings Book 1) (9 page)

He considered smashing her windshield, and hesitated. He put his hands out with a hang-on movement. And he charged into the house while Beth screamed, "Jenny needs help! Guys... she..."

Just then, Mikaela and Mike stood at the top of the stairs. "Who put Rafael in the wardrobe?" There was a hurt, horrified tone bellowing out of Mike. He tried to console the pretty girl in her crumpled sequin dress. Lucy let out a scream, covering her ears and shutting her eyes.

"Jenny needs help. Come on." Zane turned, almost ready to run back out; his heart was thumping so hard, he was so frightened. What the hell had happened to her?!

I know that it's not proper punctuation to use question mark-exclamation point, but I don't know how to else write it.

But as Zane turned, mid-holler, he said, "We have to help her."

Ricky came charging into the safe room. He was screaming, "We have to help him!"

And in his arms was the crumpled, bleeding man from the bottom of the staircase. His face was so beaten and bloodied and swollen they almost couldn't recognize him. Mikaela realized who it was first, before Ricky even knew. "Holy shit, what happened to Ben?"

As if on cue, Ben let out a screaming moan. "Stop, please!" It caused goosebumps to crawl up and down the spines of everyone present. He was so fucked up.

Zane's brain was crashing; his fright overtook everything. His hand was still on the door, which cracked open and slammed into him suddenly. He tumbled backwards, trembling with a terrified gasp, fists raised. Beth held the door, her eyes wet. "Jenny needs help." Her voice was barely above a whisper, her tiny little body was trembling, and her hand was bleeding.

Ricky set Ben on the couch and started barking orders, his brain being the first to receive blood flow. "Mike, Zane, let's go help Jenny. Mikaela, take care of Ben."

And he stepped toward the door, to the unknown. Zane stepped out, and Beth hesitated, but as Mike came down the stairs, he said, "Stay inside" to her, and she obeyed. Mikaela grabbed a bowl of water and a rag and started washing Ben's wounds. Rachel had enough wits about her to bring him some water and try to get him to sip. He was beaten to a pulp. His eyes were both swollen shut, and his nose was broken. His face was unrecognizable. He drank eagerly between sobs.

"Do we have ice? Maybe we can get the swelling down." Rachel held the cup gingerly to his lips again as she spoke. "Anyone have ibuprofen? I think we can give him eight, if he'll eat something. It inhibits swelling. That's what they gave my dad when he broke his leg when I was a kid. I remember my mom and dad shouting about it. 'Are you sure you can take eight!''" she parroted softly. Her tone was calm, but her nerves were shot, and her hands were trembling. Ben was in bad shape.

His shirt was filthy and dirty, and she started to slowly remove it and found it was stuck to his skin--no, stuck to his scabs. His chest bled as she carefully removed the shirt. He looked like he had been beaten by branches. Or whipped. Long thin scratches of a variety of depths and lengths ran across his chest and back and arms. They were covered in dirt and blood. Carefully, she started washing them with Beth.

"Jenny is locked in her car. I don't know if they can get her out," Beth whispered.

"Okay." Rachel sounded calm, but uncertain.

Beth tried again. "She's tied up."

Rachel looked up sharply and inhaled. Ben let out a terrified moan. Rachel's calm demeanor started to crack when Beezer shouted, "Did you ask for fucking ibuprofen? Fucking ibuprofen! Do you think that's gonna help him?"

Beezer was scared shitless. He couldn't run, he couldn't help. How had Ben gotten back here!

What happened to him!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Mike, Zane, and Ricky stepped out the front door and stared at the cars. Jenny was in the middle car with both the goats, her mouth still tied up. Her hands were tied too, they saw once they got closer. She was still sobbing.

Ricky's car was on one side of her little bug, and Rachel's was on the other. There was not enough room to open the doors.
(You do remember she pushed it into the spot?)

Mike's van was pressed so tight to that little bug's bumper, opening the trunk would also be impossible.

So what were they going to do?

"Do you think we could pull Ricky's or Rachel's forwards enough to open the door?" Zane said finally. All three men were seriously quiet, staring at the conundrum, and trying several times to open a door. They were locked. Jenny seemed to be trying to unlock her door, but her wrists were tied together and laced to the steering wheel.

She couldn't quite pop the lock pin up with her elbow.

"I think we will have to break a window," Ricky said finally.

"What happened to Ben?" Zane said slowly.

"I don't know," Ricky replied, his eyes locked on the wide-eyed frightened girl with the goats.

"Who did this to Jenny?" Mike said, looking around. There wasn't anyone out there; it was just the three men and the tied-up girl and a pair of goats.

It's pretty comical, if you ask me. I thought they'd see her and go wildly throwing rocks at her windows and bash them down and drag her out. I really thought they would! But no, they just stood nervously together, totally freaked out.

Finally, Mike was the one who said, "We're going to have to break a window. Which one?"

Well, that was an interesting question. A side window would be hard as hell to break because there was no room to swing anything. Hell, none of the three men could even easily fit between the two cars on either side.

That left the windshield or the back window.

Unfortunately, the rear window was really damn tiny on her bug. It certainly wasn't "Someone can easily crawl through this, untie you, and then pull you out" big. Which left the only option: Crushing the glass window directly in front of Jenny's face.

I'm so glad I wasn't Jenny.

And it was Jenny's car; she might have preferred they did something else--but what? They couldn't call for help
(that reminds me, did Ben even bring back Mikaela's phone? I guess I'll tell you about it when we go back inside)
and they couldn't walk for help either.

So...

Shatter her face glass was the remaining option.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Don't go outside," Ben said. "Stay inside. Don't go out there." He was whimpering, frightened and whimpering.

Rachel said softly to him as she kept washing his wounds, "What happened to you?"

Even Beezer was silent, listening for Ben's response. But he didn't say anything and started sobbing. "Don't go out there." He sobbed and Rachel promised it would be okay. I don't know why she promised that either. She had no fucking clue what was going on! Why do people say this sort of thing? Is this vague statement comforting?

If I'm in a haunted house, and weird shit is going on, don't promise that it'll be okay. Say you'll try to protect me, or even the platitude, "I'm here now." You know? Tell me we can slay these demons together. Don't sit there and spout the shit that you can and will make it okay. Nobody can do that unless they have some sort of skills in ghost management. It's not okay, it's not about to be okay. Rachel, don't fool yourself.
It's about to be very, very, very not okay.

Mikaela was washing his arm slowly when it occurred to her, "Ben, where is my phone?"

He burst into a fresh set of tears; swollen, beaten faces can leak just as well as regular ones. "I'm sorry. I lost it when I was running."

Beezer let out an exasperated, overdrawn sigh. "What happened? What the fuck, dude?"

But Ben went silent again. "Try and rest," Rachel said, kissing the swollen forehead. They did not find any ibuprofen and resorted to giving him a strong sip of vodka before they forced more water in him. Soon Ben was resting in a light fluttery sleep that was frightening. He would swing his arms suddenly and then lie limp again.

"Do you think he just got lost?" Rachel hissed to Beth.

Beth said in a tired monotone, "Jenny is locked in her car, tied up."

Lucy was still silent and huddled in her chair. Tiffany and John still sat at the kitchen table. He was silent and stared out the window; his nerves were totally shot and he jumped every time Ben moaned. He was scared shitless.

Tiffany tried to comfort the man, but then gave up and made another pot of coffee. They didn't need more, but she desperately needed something to do.

And it occurred to her that maybe Mikaela's phone was on the staircase. The wooden stairs leading to the basement. Maybe the phone was there, maybe it would work now. Maybe...

She glanced at John, who was incoherently afraid; no, she shouldn't tell him what she was doing. He'd just freak out more. She stepped into the hallway at the top of the stairs. Peering down, it seemed ungodly dark down there, like the light that was pleasant and strong in the hallway couldn't penetrate the ominous feeling. Slowly and carefully, she stepped down each step, searching for the phone with her hands as she scooted. Maybe she'd find something to explain what happened. It was so absurd.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Crash.
The glass starred into long, delightful cracks. If anyone had smashed out a windshield before, they would have known it was tempered glass, designed to shatter into the safest shape of glass chunks. It wasn't as likely to become the long, terrifying shards as other types of glass. Anyways, they'd also have known that they probably didn't have to hit it so melodramatically in order to shatter it.

I wish I could say they took a big ass hammer and slammed it into the window directly in front of Jenny's face and watched her eyes fly wide with intimate fright! Don't you feel with every scream, you know these kids' even better? Do you feel their frightened souls bond to yours? I certainly do.

But they were, in fact, terribly gentlemanly about the careful destruction of her vehicle. They tapped at the corner farthest from her with a rock, until it suddenly splintered. And once the window was cracking, Zane carefully pushed his body weight on the window, and it started to fold inward, all in one flexing, cracking piece, like a giant, dangerous fabric.

He realized his error, but it was too late, and the whole pane fell on Jenny. She let out a muffled cry, but other than a few scratches, she was actually fine. I mean, the glass didn't hurt her. She was far from "fine" in all the other ways a girl can be.

Zane carefully untied her wrists, and the two goats, Cletus and Carson
(I can't tell which is which any better than the rest of the young people)
scrambled out of the car. Mike caught them both in his big man arms and fumbled with their collars. He wondered where their leash went. But gently he sat on the ground with them. Both goats munched and grumbled at his grip on their collars. They had been locked up a while.

Zane managed to get her gag off and he helped her climb out of the little bug. She was still sobbing, and he gently brushed the shattered glass off of her when she was out. Both Zane and Ricky hugged her simultaneously; she was a little girl in a man sandwich. And that thought slowly stopped her frightened tears. "I thought I'd never get out."

"What happened?" Ricky said, his voice soft and warm. "Who tied you up?"

"I'll tell you inside. I don't want to have to repeat myself--did you leave their leash in the car?" she asked suddenly.

"What?"

"That's what was around my hands..." she said softly.

Zane reached in, grabbed the leash, and noticed the blood stains on the worn leather. He handed the leash to Mike, who quickly hooked up the goats. Zane couldn't help but stare at her wrists. They were raw and bloody. Her face had deep scratches across it. He cringed. What was going on here?

They walked to the front door and tried to pull it open. But it was stuck. Inside, they could hear screaming.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Inside, there was a ghost finally making itself very fucking known. First Tiffany, despite her careful attempt to descend the steps, fell. She tumbled with no time to scream and thumped hard on the basement door. It was a loud, cracking noise that made the whole house tremor.

Ben, having heard the crash, let out a frightened scream and batted at the air with his hands. It was too much; he couldn't take anymore. He couldn't do it. He was out of here! He stood up and started to run--fight and flight and all that. He was no longer a person, or a man; he was just a ball of fear running like hell.

He ran into Beezer, completely mindless and thoughtless, crashing into the couch like it didn't exist. Beezer's broken bone ground against its own raw, jagged edges and he too let out a scream.