Jennifer Oneal Gunn
The Revenging the Evil Series
One night of terror brought together two lost lovers—one with the power to see the future and one who seemed ordinary in the light of day—even in the brightness of her beautiful smile.
The night Jake Loughlin saved Holly Mae Darrow from a serial killer lives on throughout their marriage, especially on the nights when her nightmares return. Chase, their son, tries to use his gifts to help his mother's nightmares end.
He starts the ball rolling for Holly and her journey into the supernatural truly begins when she decides to go with Jake and Chase for the first time to lay her best friend's ghost to rest after seventeen years.
Get ready for terror, tears, love, magic, ghosts, and all sorts of antics woven into the entire book series: Revenging the Evil.
The Story of Jake and Holly
The Novella (Book 5)
Revenging the Evil Series
PROLOGUE
Sand blew across the desert as the stars shined overhead in the moonlit sky. Saddam stood on the balcony of the second story of one of his fine homes. He stared up at the stars on that chilly night. His thoughts ran rampant centered around an enormous question. Why was he not able to take out the last defenses of the U.S. Army? He had all but crushed them. Everyone except that one battalion. He used anything at his disposal; children, wives, IEDs, short range missiles. Nothing was working and something was wrong. Deep in thought, he didn’t hear the man he coined as Jimmy Chu when he entered the balcony and stopped to stand beside him.
Jimmy coughed and cleared his throat. His little Asian body wasn’t used to so much sand in the air. Saddam snapped back to reality and glared at Jimmy.
“Jimmy Chu, we have a problem,” Saddam said.
“How many times do I have to tell you my name is not Jimmy Chu?” the short Asian man said.
“Here and now, it is. Because no one will know who you are when it all turns wrong. Things always turn wrong. Why is that last battalion not dead yet, Jimmy Chu?” Saddam asked him.
“I have no idea. Somehow, they keep deflecting everything we throw at them. It’s almost like they have magic.” Jimmy scowled and looked out at the sky.
“Jimmy Chu, that’s nonsense. Magic isn’t real and you know it. So get them, kill them, destroy those Americans or else, Jimmy Chu!” Saddam was angrier than Jimmy had ever seen him.
“We’ve been trying to kill them for weeks,” Jimmy explained.
“Yes, from afar. Perhaps if you got closer, you’d hit the target. I want them dead. Am I making myself clear, Jimmy Chu?” Saddam turned and looked down at the little man standing beside him.
“Crystal clear, sir. We’ll do better next time,” Jimmy said, looking up into the eyes of a devil.
“You’d better or it’s your ass. Do we understand one another?” Saddam asked in a low, guttural tone, almost inaudible.
“Yes,” Jimmy Chu said as he turned on his heel and left the balcony.
Damn Americans just need to die already! Saddam thought.
***
Jacob James Loughlin, Jake to his friends, was stationed in Iraq on his first tour of duty with the United States Army. Every day he awoke at daybreak and if the bombs in the distance weren’t loud, he slept when the sun went down. He worked mostly with the medic, guarding the tents that held patients at first. One day, he got reassigned to a crew that swept the streets looking for jihad and getting rid of them. It was his job to get the bad guy, literally. Anyone he and his crew rounded up was supposed to be taken back to HQ for questioning. Once in a while, they came across a person with a bomb strapped to their bodies.
Before Jake left basic training, he knew how to fight this treat—with a gun and with his magical abilities—which he studied his whole life until he joined the army. When he practiced his magic in the service, he made sure to hide what he was doing from the other soldiers.
Jake used his magic to diffuse bombs when no one was looking his way. This kept the vest wearing jihad and other members of Saddam’s forces from killing his group of guys. No one knew what happened. The other troops thought they got lucky and the bombs didn’t go off. With unknown magic on their side, Jake’s group stayed alive where most of the military forces had casualties. Their sergeant thought Jake’s battalion must have been the luckiest fuckers alive. Jake slipped up once and told his sergeant how they persevered and from that point on, Jake’s unit was used not only to disarm bombs but Jake was used as an Army assassin.
One day, Jake and his crew were out sweeping a town looking for civilians who hadn’t made it to safety when he came across an Asian man lurking in an abandoned hostel building. Most of the hostel was gone, the upper floors were blown into piles of rubble littering the streets. The main floor of the building was standing and part of the staircase was visible from the road. The Asian was hiding in the corner between the stairs and a pile of stones. His black eyes narrowed to near slits as he watched the Americans slowly canvas the area. When Jake spotted the man, his first instinct told him not to trust him. Something didn’t feel right about an Asian man in the middle of the Middle Eastern desert. Especially one wearing a suit minus the tie. He wasn’t dirty, like he hadn’t spent a lot of time in that town. Jake went over to talk to him when Jimmy Chu raised his hands exposing the beginnings of fire in his palms. Jake quickly said a spell under his breath. Before Jimmy Chu could send streams of fire at Jake, he was incinerated. Jake looked around and saw no one in his immediate line of sight. He canvased what was left of the building before returning to his group. As he looked around, he shivered even though it was hot as hell in the daylight in the land of sand.
After a one-year tour of duty and the murder of the mysterious Chinaman, Jake elected to go home. The visions and killer-for-hire status was too much. He also felt it was time to re-acclimate to civilian life. He knew the time was drawing nearer, his visions were getting more specific. He saw the woman’s face and felt her fear now. Another few months and things would become clearer. He needed to be stateside so he could save this woman, whoever she was.
Freed from the Past
The Story of Jake and Holly Book 4
Revenging the Evil Series
PROLOGUE
Five years later:
Just outside Galway, Ireland
The light was fading through the sheer curtains on the turret windows. Lily Loughlin’s dark hair was splayed over the stack of pillows on her bed, which was draped in princess netting and sheer curtains covered the four posts and top railings, tied into the corners. She peered at her mother through the stuffed animals all around her. She was listening intently as her mother told her a bedtime story.
“T’was a place of myth, where the light never truly fades…” Holly said with a sigh. She looked into the big green eyes of her little girl. “A place where fairies roamed and creatures called out into the dark. Realms unknown to mortal man, but they existed, you see. Just like the ghosts Daddy took out of your room,” she whispered to her raven-haired daughter.
“How do you know?” Lily asked her mother.
“Because this is Ireland, the land of magic,” Holly explained.
“That’s what Daddy says.” The little girl’s face brightened momentarily as she smiled at her mother.
“Well, Daddy is wise. As I was saying, sprites and nymphs and many other creatures once lived here. And the Druids, they used to live here too.”
“That’s Daddy,” Lily whispered.
“That’s right. Your daddy is special and so are you.” Holly placed her index finger gently on the end of the little girl’s nose. She smiled. “My baby, you’re a Druid too, just like Daddy.”
“I am?” the little girl asked.
“You certainly are because you’re your daddy’s little girl. You’re very special,” her mother replied.
“Go on with the story, Mommy. Please,” Lily pleaded.
“Yes. Okay, where was I? Ah, yes. Druids, they were teachers and magical healers. Until one day, someone thought they were bad and tried to rid the land of them. That’s when they had to defend themselves. After that, a lot of people thought they were bad. But you know your daddy, he’s not bad, he’s good. And so, for many years, the Druids traveled around trying to stay alive,” Holly explained.
“Oh, that sounds scary,” the little one said as she yawned.
“I’m sure it was. After a time, magic was forbidden. And with it being forbidden, a lot of the people who used to practice it were killed,” Holly said.
“Hey, um, you might want to stop the story right there,” Jake said, as he peeked in on his wife and daughter. “We don’t want her having nightmares.”
“Hi, Daddy!” Lily exclaimed when she saw Jake.
“Hey, Princess. Mommy telling you a good bedtime story?” he asked his little girl.
“Oh, yes! She always tells me good stories,” Lily said, beaming and excited to see her daddy.
“That she does. Mommy has a wonderful imagination,” Jake said as he winked at his wife.
“Well, you, little lass, need to go to sleep,” Holly said.
“I’m not tired!” Lily whined.
“Yes, you are. I see it in your eyes. Just because Daddy came in, doesn’t mean you get to stay up any longer,” Holly said sternly.
“Listen to your mommy. It’s getting late for you, Princess,” Jake said as he tucked his daughter in then sat on the edge of her bed, bending to kiss her forehead. “Good night, my Lily. Sleep well.”
“Good night, Daddy,” Lily said as she wrapped her little arms around his neck and hugged him.
“See you in the morning, Lily, the loveliest flower,” Holly said hugging her little girl.
“Good night, Mommy. I love you,” Lily said between yawns.
“I love you, baby girl.” Holly kissed the top of her little girl’s head.
Jake and Holly backed out of the room, turned off the light, and closed the door then walked down the hall to their room. Night fell once again in Ireland and sleep was nearly upon them.
As soon as the door was shut gently behind them and the light turned on, Holly looked at Jake and smiled. She looked around the room at her enormous bed with the fabric canopy, the tiny sofa at the end, the paintings around the room, their fireplace mantel, and sighed contentedly. She remembered the big move and becoming an Irish citizen when she was heavily pregnant with Lily. She remembered the days she groaned and cried in the middle of the night in pain, when she couldn’t sleep and Jake waking up to find her walking around the house sobbing. He would find her and hold her, try to calm her down, and he would rub her belly, telling Lily to give her ma a break.
“Hey, what are you smiling for?” Jake asked Holly.
“Just remembering,” she said, still smiling.
“Remembering what?” Jake looked at her suspiciously.
“When I was pregnant with Lily. There were a lot of nights toward the end where I would be in so much pain. You’d find me and just be you,” Holly explained.
“Well, you’re my bride. What else was I supposed to do?” He looked at her, wondering why she was thinking about anything from five years ago.
“You were wonderful and that’s why I was smiling,” she said.
“Oh.” Jake took off his glasses and set them on the side table beside his side of the bed.
“You ready for some good old-fashioned sleeping?” Holly asked Jake.
“Oh, hell yeah. I’m tired.”
“Me too. Who knew a five-year-old kid could take so much out of ya?”
“I did.” Jake laughed.
“Well, we ain’t givin’ her to the neighbors now. I’ve grown attached!”
“Yeah, me too,” Jake said as they both laughed.
“You remember what happens in the morning, don’t ya?” Holly asked, smiling at him.
“How can I forget? She got that from you! That blasted jumping on the bed!” Jake looked over
at her.
“Well, at least she got something from me,” Holly stated. She sighed.
“She has your beautiful dark auburn hair as well. To me, she looks just like you, except she has green eyes,” Jake said with a smile.
“Like her daddy.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Jake asked.
“Nothing. Your eyes are beautiful when they’re not violently glowing in the middle of the night or on a mission.” Holly smiled. “Or the middle of the day, for that matter. It’s a wonder they don’t still burn witches over here.”
“I think we hide it well enough most of the time. Sure, we probably still need to take precautions, but one of the reasons I wanted to live here was because they don’t look at us like the Americans would if they knew or believed us.” Jake laughed. “And besides, I’m too old to be foolish and get myself sent to the pyre. Come now…” He laughed again.
Holly laughed a little then said, “Go to sleep, crazy old man.”
“See! I told ya I was getting old!” Jake exclaimed.
“You are not. You just think you are,” Holly said.
“My body tells me, I am, woman.”
“Whatever. Go to sleep. Now, you’re just being silly.” Holly giggled and rolled her eyes.
“Come here, lady.” Jake folded Holly into him, kissed her good night, then released her. She was snuggled against his chest like most nights. Her eyes were closing as she pulled the blankets up over her shoulders.
No Matter What
The Story of Jake and Holly Book 3
Revenging the Evil Series
NSFW
18+ ONLY
PROLOGUE
One Year Later:
United States
Holly stood on the balcony of a hotel smoking a cigarette. She looked out into the quiet night, searching the surrounding darkness. In the distance, she heard the humming and rumble of passing cars on the highway. The glow of streetlights lit up the black ink of the night sky. She heard footsteps.
Jake stood on the landing behind Holly. He felt her nervousness and thought he saw her shiver slightly. Her heart must have been racing.
She felt his presence and stopped moving. She turned around and looked up, turning her gaze from the people below. Holly saw Jake’s face. The widest smile she could conjure spread its way across her features.
Seeing this made Jake happy inside.
Holly whisked her long dark hair behind her shoulders and looked at Jake with her brown eyes burning with desire. She threw her ashen cigarette butt off the balcony and hugged him with crushing familiarity.
Jake hugged her, smiling at her, a look of wonder forming on his face.
Her heart continued to pound as she grabbed his hand and led him to the door of the hotel room.
As nervous as he was, he knew she could feel him shaking.
As she opened the door, she chattered nervously.
Jake looked down at her. “It’s okay, Holly. I’m nervous too.” He continued to smile at her. “I think I might have the answer to this.” Jake went to the mini-bar and opened it. He grabbed a few of the small bottles of liquor and handed her one.
Holly nodded, unscrewed the lid, and chugged the booze.
Jake laughed when she fidgeted afterward.
Holly laughed after he did and everything was calmer between them. They sat at the table for a bit, drinking, laughing, telling stories, and finding their natural place with each other. They were safe in that room together.
A bit later in the evening, she elected to be the first one in and out of the shower to get the sweat off from the long day of travel. She came out of the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel in her hotel robe. The first thing she saw was the fire in his eyes and a smile on his face as he gazed at her long legs. Holly’s smirking smile told him she saw him looking at her.
“See somethin’ ya like?” she asked him, giggling.
“Yes.” His grin gave him away. He was sitting on the bed waiting for her to finish her shower, but he stood up, still smiling. As he walked closer to her, closing the distance between them, her heart started racing and her childish palms started sweating.
“Your turn for the shower, sir,” she said to him, her hands twitching at her sides and her head cocked to the side, looking up into his hungry eyes.
“Uh-huh…and?” He wasn’t thinking about showers, especially if they excluded her.
Holly giggled as she watched Jake. She took the towel off her wet, wavy raven hair and let it hang loose over her shoulders, tossing the towel behind her, into the open bathroom door and onto the floor. His gaze drove her insane, the heat of it made her tingle. Her robe fell to one side, off her shoulder.
His look of desire deepened. He got closer to her. Jake looked deeply into the dark brown pools before him. Holly saw the lights shifting in his green eyes. He could see he lit a fire in her. He touched the side of her face gently, wistfully. He took her tiny face in his hands and kissed her with the pent-up passion he waited so long to unleash.
His hand rested on the base of her spine and he felt her quiver. She put her arms around him, encircling him. He felt her body pressed against him and it brought heat she could feel. His hands slid from her face to her ass and she broke the kiss long enough to whisper in his ear. Jake untied Holly’s robe and pushed it off her shoulders, watching it fall to the floor. He gazed at her, taking it all in. He knew they waited a long time for that day to come and it was finally here. All he could think of was how much he wanted her. He could tell she felt the same by the look in her eyes.
She unbuttoned his shirt as he kissed her and he shrugged it off his shoulders. His hands lightly gripped her face. He pulled her closer until he felt her breasts on his chest, pulling back about half a step, he released her face and cupped one of her breasts in his hand and squeezed it gently. A small murmur of lust escaped her lips and into his.
Her hands roamed his chest, taking him in without using her eyes, learning his body.
They broke the kiss again. He led her by the hand toward the bed and sat her on the edge. He never took his eyes off of her.
She stared up at him and smiled.
He laid her down on the bed, hovering over her, watching her expression change from mischievous to sultry.
Holly reached for Jake and kissed him long and deep. She felt his hardness rubbing against her, still in his pants. She helped him free it from its constraints. She took his cock in her hand and held it, running a finger down the shaft lightly. Then she whispered in his ear, “I want you, baby.”
“God, woman. I want you too,” he told her as he kissed her neck, moving over her body, slowly making her burn a little more with each passing of his lips on her skin. “Bad girl,” he whispered as he lowered his head, kissing her between her breasts and making a beeline down her stomach, as he made his way toward her wet pussy.
“Oh, yes, baby. Very bad. Punish me…”
“Yesss,” Jake said as he passed over her stomach, making his way south, nibbling and kissing the inside of her thighs. Several high-pitched gasps escaped Holly’s mouth and then she softly screamed from him. He looked up at her from between her legs, where his tongue was lazily circling the center of her fire. She arched her back and moved her hips into his face, getting as close to him as she could, his tongue swept the inside of her making her eyes turn as far back in her head as they would go and her ascent to climax louder and closer to the finish.
She reached for his head, running fingers through his blond hair as she came and he licked it all up before stopping and joining her on the bed where he kissed her and she tasted herself on his lips momentarily. He turned into her and grabbed her breast, squeezing and then sucking it as he felt her body shaking softly from coming a few minutes before. She wrapped her legs around him, feeling his hard cock against her opening, as he continued sucking her breasts.
“Baby…”
“Mmm hmm,” he said with her breast still in his mouth.
“Feels so good. I want you inside me, baby. I wanna feel you…” she said breathlessly.
“Mmm hmm…” Jake changed positions and she felt his manhood graze her. A new fire burned inside them both. From her expression, Jake could see she ached for him.
Flushed, Holly sat up on her elbows, watching him. He looked at her, his desire for her spread across his features. He sat up on the bed, sitting her on top of him. She felt his hard cock as he shifted her body. Slowly, he impaled her and she moaned, head pointed toward the ceiling.
She curled her long legs around him, feeling all of him inside her as she placed one hand behind her and bucked against him. As Jake grabbed Holly by the hips, gently rocking her body, she gazed down at him and smiled, biting her lower lip.
The feeling of being inside her, connecting to her in this way made Jake unable to think of anything else but her. Having her, loving her, sating her, lighting her fire. As he sped up, the movement ignited a climax in them both. He could tell she wanted to scream at the last, but she didn’t. She bent over him and kissed him one last time before rising. He pulled her down to him again, kissing her, teasing her some more.
Holly whispered, “Take me, please, baby…”
“No holding back,” Jake whispered.
He rolled on top of her, plunged deep, and she moved her hips into his. The force caused her to grip him and groan a little in his ear. As she lightly dug her nails into his flesh, he went on, deeper and harder, cause a little more pain and pleasure to mix. Holly screamed and shivered the further he went.
Jake already had her heart. Now he had a piece of her soul dangling from his fingertips as he held her close, almost crushing her to his masculine form, firm hands around her. As the climax built in them both again, they made it known what they felt and what they wanted.
Jake stood up with Holly’s legs wrapped around him and her arms around his neck, kissing her with passion, taking her to the vanity in the bathroom, setting her gently on the edge.
Jake suddenly awoke next to his sleeping wife, which he lightly roused. She thought he had a bad dream, so she sat up and turned to him. He smiled at her as he touched the side of her face in the dark and projected his dream into her head. Holly held his hand that rested softly on her face until the dream was over. Then she, too, was smiling at him. He couldn’t see it. He whispered something she could barely hear.
“I want you too, baby. Damn, that was a hot dream,” Holly whispered.
“Mmm hmm,” Jake said as he slipped the shirt Holly wore over her head. He kissed her passionately in the middle of the night. As he slid both of their bodies back onto the bed, Holly drew in closer under the covers, leaving no space between them.
At four in the morning, Jake had his Holly wrapped in his arms, loving her. When the sun rose, lighting up the night, he heard her last orgasmic screams fill the air in their room, bouncing off the ceiling of their otherwise empty house.
“I knew sending the boy off to Ireland for school was a good idea,” Jake said, spent and sweating. “Damn, woman, you’ve been holding back on me.”
“There’s been a kid in the house a few doors down for years.”
“Not anymore.” Jake smiled.
“I know it. You enjoyed yourself too…”
“Oh, yeah…oh, damn…come’ere you.” Holly curled up next to Jake and kissed his lips, seeing his smile in the haze of morning.
“My sweaty man, go back to sleep. We have nowhere to be today that I know of.”
“As far as I know, all the charity funds are dealt with. At least for today.”
“They are. Sleep with me.”
“You got it.” Jake squeezed Holly a little before relaxing his hold on her. She was sweeping her hair off his chest and getting comfortable. As her shaking body subsided, her breathing grew shallow, and Jake closed his eyes.
Tortured Souls
The Story of Jake and Holly Book 2
Revenging the Evil Series
Prologue
Swiftly, she ran down the darkened hallway toward the staircase leading to the upper floors of a sterile hell. Three floors above her, the bell tower sat undisturbed in the darkness of the wooden shaft surrounded by the stone exterior of the Fair Acres building. Holly knew she was trapped within its walls without a means of escape. She glanced around at her surroundings as her feet hit the cold cement floors of the basement level. There was a row of black metal doors on each side of the hallway she was in. Each door had a tiny window to view the person trapped inside. The overhead lights were sparse and dim. Behind her, she heard screeching which turned her blood cold and made her move faster. As she looked for a place to hide, Holly glanced around, turning her head, scratching her scalp. Not only did her head itch but her skin did too. The electrode marks on her temples stung and the patches of dry skin where they once were flaked.
​
Holly reached the stairs to the upper levels not having found a place to hide. She decided to climb the steps and go back to her room; a place where she could at least be alone with her terrified thoughts. Reaching the top of the staircase, she looked through the tiny window in the door to the main floor. Her heart raced in her chest. She saw no one moving about in the hallway. The darkness poured in around the place, hidden were the inner demons, in the shadows cast by the walls. She wrenched open the heavy door and slowly crept into the dimly lit hallway, trying not to slip or squeak across the tile floors. She gently ran her hand along the white paint on the walls, guiding herself toward her room. Her brown eyes filled with tears as she got near the door to her sanctuary in hell. She opened the door and silently entered the place of nightmares. In the dark, as her watery eyes adjusted, she found her bed; a cold steel frame with the fluff of an old camp mattress, a moth-ridden scratchy gray wool blanket, and a pillow filled with down feathers that stuck out of the material it was sewn into. Holly sat on the bed with her head in her hands, sobbing as the tears flowed down her face.
A few minutes passed and Holly let her emotions out until she finally realized she had to figure out how to escape the horrid ammonia, copper, and feces smells along with the crusted paint falling all around her. This ancient place with its decay and rotten wasted spaces wasn’t her home or her family. She stopped crying and looked around in the dark. She remembered the words she transcribed in blood on the wall she sat up against. Jake wouldn’t want to know what she wrote and it would break his heart to see it. Maybe someday she would tell him. For now, she couldn’t think of the copper smell of her own blood or the memory of her first night and the utter sadness running through her mind when she cut herself and wrote the tome into the shedding layers of paint behind her. She had to think of how she was going to be freed of the sheer madness of the place. These people thought she was one of them. Was she insane and her whole life with the man she loved been nothing but a dream? No. Jake was real. The night he saved her was real. Her son was real. Her son...her baby boy. He was definitely real.
I have to get the hell out of here! I need help. What do I do? This flea-infested, piss-soaked, shit-box has to have an exit I can get out of. I just have to find it!
Holly narrowed her eyes as she thought about all the ways she might be able to get out. She pictured the doors, she saw the cameras and the guards. Fat fucking bastards! She saw them fiddle with their keys. A thought crept into her mind then she pushed it away. She knew she couldn’t pretend to like one of them to get those keys. They’d beat the hell out of her and probably worse.
​
Holly smashed her eyes tightly together and thought of Jake. I need him right now! Goddamn it, Jake if you can hear me, I NEED YOU! HELP ME! PLEASE!
“Holly, wake up!” Jake said. “Holly Mae, if you can hear me, please wake up!”
“What the—” Holly said, stirring from sleep. “What’s going on?”
Jake hugged his bride. “Oh, my god, woman. I-I saw something so horrible. So horrible.” He began to rock back and forth holding onto Holly.
“Jake, what the hell are you talking about?” She was confused.
“I saw it. I saw you in the asylum scared out of your mind, calling for me,” he said softly, his heart pounding.
“I’m right here, baby. With you.” She stroked his cheek. “Right here.”
“You know how my dreams are…they—” he said still holding her tightly against his chest.
“I know. We can only try to find out how and where so we can try to stop it. Baby, I don’t what’s going to happen or when, but we’ll face it. You know we will.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said.
“Never,” Holly said, clinging to her husband.
Fire, Ice & Blood
The Story of Jake and Holly Book 1
Revenging the Evil Series
Prologue
Summer 2012:
Chase stood in front of a Victorian house with paint peeling, the grass had grown up several feet in front of the house, the windows were broken, and graffiti marking the front. The once trimmed hedges out front made it look more like a large ramshackle immobile beast with its carved teeth squeaking. It was bad enough that everyone in town knew of the ghost stories about the place, but the damage from the neighborhood heathens was worse.
As the summer breeze blew through Chase’s dirty blond hair, his green eyes sparkled while he stood on the sidewalk in front of the scariest place his parents ever told him about. He was told, his mom’s last night here at this house was the start of their real relationship and eventually the marriage of his parents; his dad saved her life that night.
His mother, a beautiful, almond eyed, raven haired, olive complexioned woman who loved to smile; would often glide her petite frame across the floor when she thought no one was looking. She was sassy when she wanted to be but also loved her family fiercely. She told Chase the story of how she and his father got together many times over the years. It felt like something was always off about the whole thing. It was like she left out a few details or there was something she didn’t know. As Chase stood looking at the old place, he felt the vibrations of the ghosts that still remained in the residence after all this time.
His father, Jake, a family man with a few small secrets, always warned him to never go near the place. Chase used to ask him why and all his dad would say, it wasn’t safe. He didn’t tell Chase it was because he was like his dad and had the power to see things with his mind. Although, that part he figured out for himself when he was younger and kept having strange dreams about people he never knew. Then, watching the news later in the day, Chase would see the people from his dreams in murder photos on the screen flashing through their deaths as if he were standing in the room watching. Once, he awoke from a vision screaming about how he had killed someone. His dad surmised it felt so real to him, he thought he’d actually stabbed someone. It used to upset his mom so he stopped telling her about it and would only tell his dad. Jake understood because it always happened to him too. They shared many stories over the years.
Blinking furiously, Chase decided to enter the house, get to the bottom of the mystery about the ghosts, and maybe even find a way to help the tortured souls rest. As he got closer, the vibes he felt were stronger, he could feel the pain of death from within the walls. It made his heart race as the pain felt of jagged needles flowing through his veins ending up in his chest as the racing continued. His body was filled with the tiny jabbing of thousands of knives from head to toe. For a minute he staggered, reaching for the hedge, waiting for the sensations to die down. He stomped a path in the tall grass and made his way to the porch. The rafters were falling in toward the back and the floorboards were creaking in places that weren’t broken or breaking. He teetered on the creaking mass of old wood as he stood looking at the front door. As he made his way closer, he shuddered, as if it were only thirty degrees, even though it was still eighty degrees in the evening and the light was beginning to fade into the west.
Chase peeked in through the glass portion of the front door to the enormous house. He saw the walls still held the replica paintings of Neo-Classical art depicting angelic scenes with the wingback chairs, chaise lounge, and plush sofa still in place; decay and dust was evident even through the filthy window. No one came to claim the belongings of the people who had once lived and died here.
Chase stomped his way from the porch, through the tall grass, and into the back yard of the apartment house. His dad told him there was a door that lead down to the first floor kitchen. It was as good a place as any to start learning about the ghosts.
Once located, the door stood with its paint peeling and glass severely cracked. The door, like most objects, stood silent in the light of day without anyone around to see or hear the ghosts who constantly opened and shut the door; trying to get the attention of anyone they could. The ghosts, hidden within the house, wanted out but couldn’t leave. They were trapped there; inside their mausoleum.
The piercing silence and the light breeze was all Chase could sense. The breeze died down, as he moved closer to his objective. He stood in front of the door, took off his t-shirt and wrapped it around his tanned hand. He bashed in the glass of the already severely broken pane in the door. After unwrapping his hand, he shook the broken shards from the cotton shirt, hearing them tinkle on the ground for only a moment. He replaced the t-shirt, put his hand inside the gaping hole, and unlocked the door. As he opened the hard wooden door, a cold breeze engulfed him.
Chase entered quickly and shut himself inside a house he was scared to be in. He’d heard too many stories, his mom told him about the slit throat of Cheryl the writer, and his dad told him about the face being ripped off the landlord, the whole thing was a horrific tale of brutal truth. Five out of the six patrons of the place died in one night. One damned night, but why? His mom and dad still didn’t know why the murders took place. No one that came onto the scene after it was over could tell them a thing, it was just gruesome and they were lucky to be alive.