The Elm House Page 16

CHAPTER 13

  Brad and his friends were just minutes from reaching his house when they saw two police patrol cars parked outside Brad’s house.

  What happened? Brad questioned, approaching the sidewalk that lead towards his house’s front door. The front door opened and two officers exited.

  “Well, Mr. Herrick, it happens sometimes,” one officer said to Brad’s father. “It might had been an animal or something, or people thought they heard something.”

  Brad’s father nodded.

  “I understand. Sorry for calling you guys out, I just thought—”

  “It’s completely understandable, sir. Thanks for calling us, we do appreciate it,” the second officer said, turning around to follow his partner.

  “That house gives me the creeps,” the first officer said, softly, but Brad heard him as they passed by, heading back to their patrol car.

  You’re not kidding, Brad thought, heading towards his father.

  “Hey, boys!” His father called out to Brad and his friends, waving at them. “How was school?”

  “Good,” Brad said.

  “What happened?”

  John waved Brad off.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, really. I just thought I heard someone in the house,” he said.

  You thought someone was in the house? Did the attic door open and slam on you? We’re not alone in that house, dad. You can’t be too blind about it now. No, sir! You cannot be absolutely blind about just “thinking you hear someone in our house”, dad. Are you even going to open your eyes and realize the house is tainted?

  “Hey, Mr. Herrick,” Colin and Timmy said in unison.

  “Mother will be home shortly and dinner will be made soon. So… if your friends want to eat over, they’re more than welcomed,” John said to Brad.

  “Okay,” he said, standing in the hallway. “Oh! Colin and Tim wanted to sleep over for Halloween. Is that okay?”

  John nodded.

  “It shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “Ask your mother when she comes home. But I think it’ll be fine.” He closed the door behind him. “You know that you’re taking your sister Trick ‘N Treating, right?”

  Brad nodded.

  “I know…”

  Of course, how could I forget.

  “So, what are you boys up to?” John asked.

  “Just chilling,” Brad replied.

  “Colin and Tim, are you two into sports?” John asked.

  Colin shrugged.

  “Not so much,” he said. “I use to watch it when I was a kid. Well… of course, when the family had their sport gatherings. But I fell out of it.”

  “I’m not either so much, sir.” Timmy shook his head.

  Brad could even imagine Timmy playing football. He looked like the type that’ll do good in football. Maybe even a line-backer, Brad thought. Timmy got enough rolls to steam roll some skinny players right into the grassy field. Maybe by activating Timmy’s crazy “Water Boy” mode could bring Old Willows Brooke High into state championship. Or, Timmy could just stand there and have the skinnies snap their necks like twigs as they attempt to tackle him. Timmy could be nicknamed—The Wall. He could even eat Twinkies during a defensive play, and the skinny players would bounce right off him. Timmy, The Wall, driving Old Willows Brooke High to the state championship—hooray!

  He cracked a little smile at the thought. But, in reality, Timmy couldn’t even run one yard without exhaustion and requesting a breather.

  “Well… if you boys want to join watching the Bears verses the Dallas Cowboys with me, you’re more than welcome to,” John said to the boys.

  “Okay,” Timmy and Colin said, following Brad to the kitchen.

  “Does your dad know the history about this house?” Colin asked, sitting down at the breakfast table along-side Timmy.

  Brad shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “He’ll brush it off as ‘it’s no big deal’ kinda way.”

  For Brad to convince his father that the house was tainted, his father would have to witness a table flying at his face.

  Why were the cops here in the first place?

  Dad thought there was someone in the house?

  Even that didn’t make my father question the possibility of this house being haunted. And if that didn’t register to him, then what will?

  Brad remembered the expression of terror in his mother’s eyes when he came home after school. For the first time and in a long time, Brad witnessed his mother smoking again. She played it off well, but Brad wasn’t fooled. He knew deep down that she saw something. He was right about that notion; she did see something happen and couldn’t explain it away. But now, she apparently could explain it away.

  Clearly—she’s in denial, he thought. The attic door doesn’t just open by itself because of a slight angle of the house. I’ve read where divots and uneven floors cause a “Fun House effect” and throws a person’s equilibrium out of whack. But Fun Houses just throw a person’s gyroscope off kilter, it shouldn’t cause them to visual hallucinate. Why the hell does she want to paint up in the attic? Hell, the attic is the last place that I would want to ever be in. I can’t explain it, but I do know this for damn sure—the attic creeps me out.

  “Space case,” Timmy said, snapping his fingers at Brad. “Earth to Brad, anyone home?”

  “Yeah?” Brad said, confused on why Timmy was snapping his fingers at him.

  “What are we doing when we sleep over on Halloween?” Timmy asked.

  “Uhhhh… I—”

  “Bingo!” Colin said.

  “Bingo?” Brad asked, bringing one eyebrow up, and the other eyebrow down.

  “No, not Bingo… But I know what we’ll do on Halloween night,” Colin said.

  “What?” Timmy and Brad asked at the same time.

  “You guys owe me lunch,” Colin said, punching them on the shoulders.

  “I’m fucking confused!” Brad said. “What?!”

  “Language!” John called out as he headed towards the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out Miller Lite. “Language,” he said. “No, F-Bombs in this house.”

  “Sorry,” Brad said, softly.

  John popped open the bottle and headed back to the living room.

  “We’re going to play—” Colin said, trailing off to have Brad and Timmy guess at what game they’d play.

  “Hide the soul!” Timmy interruptingly said.

  “No!” Colin said. “We’re going to play—the Ouija board.”

  Yeah… absolutely, fun idea. Yup, nothing wrong with playing with the Ouija board. Hey! New slogan for that damn board game company, “Becoming possessed is fun, amirite, kids? Join the fun, today, and become possessed like Little Timmy over there!”

  Brad could already picture the damn television commercial inside his mind’s eye.

  “Hey, dad and mom! Little Timmy got a Ouija board. Can we get a Ouija board, too?” a kid asks his parents, enthusiastically.

  “Sure, kiddo! Heck, we might join in the game too. It’s family fun night, after all!”

  The kid jumps up and down, wearing a fat smile.

  “Yay!” he says as the commercial fades out the scene then fades in with the family playing the Ouija Board. Little Timmy is puking pea soup everywhere, and the kid is twisting his neck around in 360 degrees. The kid’s mother jams the crucifix right into her snatch-hole, begging Jesus to fuck her. Oh, what a delightful scene—the family fun night—has become. A slick salesman enters the camera frame and smiles brightly. So bright, the salesman’s smile was—almost appearing creepy and unsettling.

  “Get the Ouija Board, today. It’s family fun and a heck of a good old time,” he speaks to the camera.

  Yeah, so much fun—alright, Brad whimsically thought. I can imagine this going south very fast.

  “I don’t know…” Brad said. “It doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

  “Ouija boards are just for fun,” Colin said.

  “Yeah… say that to Regan after she got possess
ed,” Brad replied.

  “It’s Halloween night, though,” Timmy whined.

  “And playing with the Ouija board is a good idea?” asked Brad.

  “Of course, it’s fun! Also, the damn box says that it’s family fun,” Colin said.

  “They forgot the disclosure of possibly possession can occur, and use at your own risk. Company isn’t reliable for any one becoming possessed.” Brad smirked.

  Timmy and Colin laughed, and then Brad laughed.

  “Okay, fine. But… I’m hoping things don’t end up going south,” Brad said.

  “It’ll be fine,” Colin reassuringly said to Brad. But he had a bad feeling about it. Almost like a warning shot to his gut, Brad felt pulsate through him.

  What do the morons do in every horror movie? Yeah, they go ahead and do the complete opposite of anything logical. This is us, complete morons, and we’re about to venture down Possession Lane. It’s almost like being in a car wreck that’s unavoidable. Grab your crash-dummy helmet on, we’re going for a ride! Whee!

  Brad was responsible. He fed his pet mouse daily, placed Furball into a hamster ball and let his pet get some exercise. He’d clean his cage from mouse droppings, and he even refilled Furball’s water bottle. But everyone dies sometimes, it’s a shame—though, Brad realized he couldn’t keep his pet mouse, Furball, for long.

  One day, he woke up on a sunny weekend afternoon and thought that Furball was sleeping. But, Furball wasn’t sleeping, he was deader than a door nail. When Brad stroked his fur, his fingertips became chilly. Similar to when a person touches an ice cube. His fingertips felt Furball’s soft fur and his tiny bones as Brad stroked his pet mouse. The spark of life was absent, Brad realized. Furball was gone, forever. A living creature once animated then no longer animated. Similar to a puppet once that sprang into action for a show. Then one day, the puppeteer (animator or God) became bored, placing the puppet on a shelf to rot away.

  Brad guessed that mice didn’t live long as cats and dogs do. That sunny afternoon, Brad retrieved a shoe box that he had lingering around inside his closet, and wrote with a black marker: “RIP Furball, enjoy Mouse Heaven”. After he placed Furball inside the shoebox, he headed outside to pick a spot to bury him in. Brad felt gravitated towards the Elm tree right by his bedroom window. It seemed like the Elm tree pulled his body’s compass towards it. He didn’t pay much thought to it, but he wished he’d questioned it sooner. With a shovel in hand, he began digging.

  Brad remembered the nightmare he had with the boy wearing the newsboy hat. The boy that deteriorated into ashes as he screamed. The boy that stood right by that Elm tree. Was this all coincidence? Brad wondered. He found it strange that he was pulled to the same spot the boy appeared in his dream. There was something to that dream that meant something, but Brad wouldn’t know how it was connected. A dream is merely just a dream, Brad thought. Nothing more than just a dream. Keep believing that Brad, but he (somehow) knew that he was dead wrong on that notion. Dreams—aren’t just dreams, they have a significance meaning behind them. Thera-rapists, shrink wraps—paid professionals that probe a person’s mind for any defects in the mind’s subroutines—will regurgitate what they know from text books. They’d spit out that dreams are the subconscious mind talking with the conscious mind, and they’ll provide an example that seems plausible and acceptable for their client. How would one person explain having same dream over and over again? The boy inside Brad’s dream was vivid, real to the touch almost and seemed almost… alive, at most, until he evaporated into tiny floating ashes. Yup, Brad’s dream meant something—alright. He’ll find that out in just a bit. Maybe he might even put the puzzle together.

  “What are you doing?” Brad’s father asked.

  “Furball died,” Brad replied.

  “Oh,” his father said, frowning, then patting him on the shoulder.

  “Well, nothing lives forever.”

  Brad nodded.

  “I know.”

  “Are you going to do a small prayer?” his father asked.

  Brad shrugged.

  “Maybe.”

  “He was a cute little mouse, wasn’t he?”

  “Sure was,” Brad said.

  “Well… maybe on your birthday next month… we’ll get you a pet. A good pet. Mice are nice, but cats or a dog might be great for you.”

  Brad loved cats, and he liked dogs too. But dogs for some odd reason wore that stupid expression on their faces. For God’s sake, dogs eat their own shit. Cats on the other hand, they take pride in themselves. At least, cats don’t eat their own shit. Cats are attention whores, and dogs seem to be a bit derpy for some unknown reason. At least, cats know how to manipulate the hell out of their owners. Maybe dogs do too, they’ll often make shoes holy when they’re not played with enough, or they’ll just take a nice healthy dump on your favorite lounging chair to give their owner a message. A message that shouts, “Take me outside next time, shit face.”

  Same with cats, they’ll take a shit in a bathtub and give their owner that evil glare. A glare that could kill.

  “I’ll like that,” Brad said to his father. He lifted up mound of dirt and tossed it aside. Three feet deep should be fine, right? He asked himself in his mind. He continued and continued digging until the shovel dinged against something. Is it a root or a stone? It seemed pretty solid, Brad thought. He took more dirt with the shovel and tossed it aside. The object seemed to be a light yellowish color, almost like a faded pee stain.

  “What is that?” Brad’s father asked, bending down with his knees. He brushed some dirt off the object. He reached in the hole and brushed more loose dirt off with his hand. “Oh… well… that’s not good.” He stood up, brushing his hands off.

  “I’m going inside to make a call,” he said, heading back inside the house.

  Brad didn’t know if he was sick to his stomach or the world felt like it spun really fast. This house keeps revealing itself more and more.

  That dream that Brad had—wasn’t a dream at all; it was more of the boy’s cry for help.

  Brad could see the small boy’s skull, and now he knows why that dream repeatedly kept him awake at nights. The boy’s been haunting this house… maybe now he’ll find peace when he’s properly buried.

  The police took the boy’s skeletal remains. And boy, did the house gain attraction. Neighbors poked their nosey-bodies at the house as they stood outside from their houses, and they were heard muttering to each other. On top of that, the Channel 9 news trucks were parked outside the house. The same female reporter from that night, stood out of Ted’s house, now stood at Brad’s house. Her hair, shoulder-length, blew gently across her face. Brad stood in the living room and observed the commotion from the window. Brad saw her step backwards and turn her head in the direction of the house as she spoke in the microphone. Moments later, she walked towards the door, and Brad heard a knock at the front door.

  Oh, boy! Now I’ll be the talk of the century at school. This is what we get when we live at a tainted and damned house.

  The female reporter stepped inside along with her camera man, smiling at Brad. She headed towards him and reached out her hand.

  “I’m Jennifer, reporter for Channel 9 news,” she said.

  Her perfume didn’t smell like a rose garden but of a chocolate factory. She wore red lipstick and light blush on her cheekbones. Jennifer’s eyes were like hazelnuts that sparkled. She was ten times more bonerific looking than Ms. White, except the size of her breasts. Ms. White had a tad bigger breasts than Jennifer. Jennifer seemed to have this energy to her, though. A type of energy that sucks people inward and towards them. She had charisma alright. People with charismatic personalities often to suck others like a vortex, and they’re very interesting people to talk with at parties and whatnot. They are often considered to be attractive—like magnets at a social gathering.

  Brad shook her soft gentle hand.

  “I’m Brad,” he said. She flashed a smile then introduced herself to his parents
and his sister.

  “You’re very pretty,” Jesse said, holding her one-eyed teddy bear in her arms.

  She knelt down and smiled from ear to ear at Jesse.

  “Why thank you,” she said. “Who’s that?” She pointed at the teddy bear.

  “Mr. Winkles,” Jesse said.

  “Hi, Mr. Winkles,” Jennifer said, shaking the teddy bear’s arm. She stood back up and asked for permission to do an interview. John agreed, and everyone else agreed to do an interview.

  Can’t run away from my fears forever, Brad thought. Kids at school would have a field day, now. Or maybe they won’t… maybe they’ll carry on with their own business like usual, or they may even strike a conversation. Shit, I don’t know. But I can’t run away from my fears, forever.

  “Who found the boy’s skeleton?” Jennifer asked, and John pointed to himself then Brad.

  “Brad was outside burying his pet mouse when he came across the remains. I was talking to him about possibly getting a new pet for him on his birthday.”

  Jennifer motioned the camera man to begin filming after the family were hooked up with wireless microphones.

  “When you dug up the boy’s remains, what did you first think? Like… oh my god, is this an animal or a human?” she asked.

  “I didn’t dig up the boy’s remains… I mean… I was digging, but I never removed his remains.”

  “Yeah, okay… you’re right,” she sighed, looking at the camera man and motioning him to retake the scene. After the camera man nodded, indicating for her to speak again, Jennifer turned back towards Brad then smiled.

  “When you saw the boy’s remains, what did you first think?” she asked.

  “I—"

  “The boy’s name is Matt,” Jesse said rudely, interrupting Brad. “And he doesn’t like you. He told me you’re a bad woman.”

  Jennifer looked shaken, pulling her head back with furrowed eyes.

  “Why would you say that?” she asked, trying to put on a sincere smile.

  “You’re a slut,” Jesse replied.

  “Whoa!” John exclaimed, glaring daggers at Jesse.

  “Where in the heck did you learn that language from?” he scowled her.