15 Amityville Horrible (7 page)

It was a walk-up attic, one that had, at some point, been finished into a third floor. The current owners had let it revert to storage, mostly stuffed into one room now for the taping. Following Becky’s instructions, the kids, Sal, Frank and I headed through the first door, into the room she’d deemed “most attic-like.” In other words, it was claustrophobic and dark, just bare walls, no dormer window, with a second door on the other side, leading to another room.

“Okay,” I said as we stepped into our room. “We’ve tried the lights, but they still don’t work. Gregor said they came on for a few seconds, then went out.”

“Just like the basement,” Rory said.

“Yes. We’ll try not to read anything into that. These old places have electrical—”

A light in the next room flicked on.

“I think someone heard you,” Cameron said. He laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it.

“Well,” I said. “As long as that light’s working, we might as well move into—”

The light turned off. I motioned to Sal to tell Becky to cut the theatrics. It was too obvious.

“Seems we aren’t welcome in that room after all,” I said. “Let’s go this way then.” I started toward the next doorway. “It’s rumored that—”

The other light turned on again. I shot an off-camera glare at Sal, who motioned that it wasn’t the crew doing it. Right. That’s the problem with these shows. Because I’m also part of the cast, they’re hoping to get a few startles out of me, too, so they sure as hell aren’t going to admit when the effects are staged. Best to just work with it, as I’d told Rory.

“Is that light a message from the spirits?” I said, looking up. “Telling me they’d like me in that room?”

No answer.

“Okay, but if the light goes off again, we stay out. No one likes a tease.”

Cameron gave a nervous giggle.

“We’ll move in there,” I said. “But be aware that if this is a manifestation, it may not be a friendly one. As I’ve been trying to say—”

“Run,” a voice whispered behind me.

I jumped, stumbling in my heels. Ricardo leaped forward to catch me.

“Okay?” he said.

“I just…” I took a deep breath. “I think I’m spooking myself.” I managed a smile. “Which is really not the point.”

“At least we didn’t all run screaming downstairs like
some
people,” Rory said.

I motioned Frank to cut the camera. Once it was off, I took a deep breath and rubbed my arms. The boys watched me, looking concerned. Rory’s gaze bore into me, her expression guarded.

“You okay?” she said. “Or is this part of the show?”

Cameron snapped, “If it was part of the show, the cameras would still be rolling.”

“I just got spooked,” I said. “It happens, even to spiritualists.”

I wanted to take a moment. Figure out whether I’d really heard that voice. But the cast and crew were waiting with growing impatience.

“Roll on,” I said.

When the camera was filming, I started toward the lit room. “It is rumored that the man who murdered Clara, Polly and Dawn has joined them in the spirit world, and he departed from this very attic. After killing Dawn, he came up here and hanged himself from the rafters. Perhaps…” I stepped into the lit room and motioned up. “These very rafters.”

It was all bullshit, of course. But Becky
had
told me to wing it.

“The family who lived in this house never realized they had a dead monster in their attic. Years later, it’s said that someone working on the house found his mummified remains, lying on the floor, rope still around his neck. The worker raced out and called for help, but when he returned with his supervisor, the body was gone. Worried that they’d be implicated in murder, they didn’t notify the homeowners or the authorities. But they told someone. Maybe a friend, maybe a spouse. And so the story was born. But without a body, it remains just that. A story.”

As stories went, this one straddled the border between ridiculous and ludicrous. I’m a performer, not a writer. As long as I framed it as rumor, though, I’d spare the studio from lawsuits, which was really all that mattered. So I blathered on about the tormented and demented killer, whose spirit was eternally trapped here. Or so I’d heard.

“If it’s true, then what we have here is a very strange and very dangerous situation,” I said. “In the basement, the ghosts of the victims, searching for peace. In the attic, the spirit of their killer. Searching for mercy? For forgiveness? Or endlessly hunting for his victims—”

The door slammed shut. Everyone jumped.

“Th-that’s not funny,” Cameron said, his voice wavering. “Who’s out there?”

“Um, no one,” Frank said. “There was no one outside the—”

Another slam. Then another. Two more in quick succession. In the basement, one of the twins started to scream.

“What the hell?” Rory crossed the room and yanked on the door. It didn’t budge.

Frank laughed nervously. “Well, you kids wanted a haunted house.”

Rory strode to him. “Bullshit. You say no one was at the door? Show me the tape.”

She seemed startled when he lifted the camera without argument. Cameron and Ricardo edged in to watch, along with Sal, who’d been standing off-camera.

I walked to the door and tried the handle. No luck. I tried the other one, across the room. It had been closed when we came in. Closed and locked, as I now discovered.

I glanced at the others. They were watching the tape, saying “Look!” and “Seriously?” and “Play that again,” and I knew what they were seeing. A door slamming with no one behind it.

“Must be a draft,” Rory said. “Old houses are full of them.”

“A draft slammed
all
the doors?” Frank said.

Now, both twins were screaming in the basement.

“They must be locked in, too,” Frank said.

By this point, I was pretty sure I heard Wade’s screams joining the girls’. My team, though, stayed calm. Frank seemed the most panicked. Ricardo just looked confused. Both Sal and Rory were at the door, trying it, muttering between themselves that it was a trick, it had to be.

“It is…ghost?” Ricardo said finally, his accent thick.

“No,” Rory said. “It’s a house built on SFX. Flickering lights? Fine. But locking doors?” She took out her cell. “That violates my civil liberties. I didn’t sign anything that lets them do that.”

She hit speed-dial, then lifted the phone to her ear. After a moment, she pulled it down, frowning, and looked at the screen. I knew what she’d see, but just stood there, blank-faced, bracing.

“Motherfucker! They’re blocking the cell signal.”

The others checked their cells. I did, too, for show, but I knew it was blocked. I glanced slowly around the room.

Ghosts can’t block a cell signal, Jaime. You know they can’t.

And they shouldn’t be able to slam and lock doors. But they had. At the inn and now here.

“Um, our phones have been blocked since we got here,” Cameron said. “I checked. Our contracts say no tweeting or anything, and they’re obviously using a blocker to be sure.”

I exhaled.

Great, but that doesn’t explain the door, does it?

As the others bickered, it was almost surreal. We were in a supposedly haunted house and, except for the cameraman, not one of them seemed to consider that this could be an actual haunting. That’s what I got for choosing the smartest of the bunch.

“You!” Rory said, wheeling on Sal. “You’ve got an earpiece. Tell that Becky chick—”

“I can’t tell her anything. It’s dead.” He took it out and handed it over. “Been dead since the door slammed.”

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on—”

“Of course you do,” Rory said. “It’s a setup to scare us silly. Only, unlike the morons in the basement—” She raised her voice to a shout. “—We aren’t scared. Just very, very pissed off.”

The lights flickered and went out.

“Yep,” Rory said. “Just what we needed.”

“Flashlights on, everyone,” I said. “We’ll just hang tight and wait. Frank isn’t filming, so there’s no footage coming.”

“Sure there is,” Rory said as we turned on our lights. “Hidden cameras.”

“Which work so well in the dark,” Cameron muttered.

“Infrared cameras.”

“Everyone, just stop arguing. Even if Rory’s right, no one is panicking, so we still aren’t giving them
useful
footage. If it’s staged, they’ll give up—”

A yelp sounded, muffled, as if from another room.

I shone my light around. “Where’s Ricardo?”

A panicked babbling in Spanish answered. It came from behind the second door, which was now cracked open. We all raced through.

Our flashlight beams bounced around the dark room, then all settled on Ricardo. He sat on the floor, clutching his side. Blood dripped through his fingers.

I made it to him first. I dropped and tugged his hand away. There was a slice through his shirt.

“Run,” a voice whispered in my ear.

I jumped but, before anyone could ask what happened, I gritted my teeth.

Yep, it’s a ghost. Admit it. Accept it. Deal with it.

I raised Ricardo’s shirt. The wound wasn’t more than a shallow slice, but blood had soaked his shirt and his hand. More smeared the floor.

“How the hell did that happen?” Rory said, her voice rising an octave. “There’s nothing in here to cut him.”

She was right. The room was empty.

“Does anyone have a tissue or—”

Frank passed me a handkerchief. I pressed it against Ricardo’s side, then rocked back into a crouch. When my heels threatened to give way, I yanked them off and tossed them aside. I turned to Ricardo, who stared numbly as he held the cloth against the wound.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I said, speaking slowly, keeping eye contact.

He stared at me.

I fumbled in Spanish, asking roughly the same thing. I got a rapid-fire response far beyond anything I could interpret with two years of high school Spanish—failed high school Spanish.

“He says he doesn’t know what happened,” Cameron said. “He heard a noise and came in here. It was dark. The sound was coming from the other side. He walked across the room and something slashed his side. When he turned, no one was there.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Rory said. “We’re getting out of here. I don’t care if they rip up my contract.” She strode to a door behind Ricardo. “If the front way is blocked, there’s got to be a back—”

As she yanked on the handle, the door we’d come through slammed. Sal raced over to it as fast as his thick legs would take him. The door wouldn’t budge. Neither would.

“Okay, everyone—” I began.

“Help me,” whispered a voice to my left.

I looked over. It was Polly Watson, dressed in her party dress. She was pressed against the wall, her wide eyes fixed on mine.

“He’s coming,” she whispered. “Please, help—”

She let out a shriek. The first knife blow struck, and blood welled up on her dress front.

“What do you see?” Frank asked.

I yanked my gaze away and turned to see every flashlight beam and eye focused on me.

“You saw something,” Frank said. “What was it?”

“Nothing. I was thinking. Now, we need to just stay calm. We’re in a house full of people. We’re just fine—”

“No, we aren’t.” Frank gestured at Ricardo, still on the floor, eyes wide with shock. “Something is going on here. I don’t think any of us—” a pointed look at Rory “—can deny that now. This isn’t staged.”

“Then the plan is the same. We sit tight and wait—”

“And wait for this
thing
to attack someone else?” Frank stepped toward me. “You see ghosts. I’ve followed your career for years. You’re the real deal, and you see something in this room.”

I glanced toward Polly, now on the floor, dying. I swallowed and reminded myself she wasn’t dying, she was long dead, and I had no idea why I was seeing this, but there was nothing—

“What are you seeing?” Frank whispered.

“Nothing.” I paused as I felt their gazes, skeptical, even a little angry, as if I was keeping vital information from them. “I keep thinking I see something, but if it’s a spirit, he or she isn’t coming through. Now—”

Ricardo let out a stream of panicked Spanish and jabbed his finger toward the wall, right behind where Polly’s body was fading. I lifted my flashlight. There was blood on the wall. I’d seen it there earlier, when her ghost had been attacked. It was just like in the basement. Spectral blood spattering the walls and—

“Is that blood?” Cameron whispered.

They could see it? How the hell could they—

I looked again. The blood was different now. Earlier I’d seen spatters. This was thin lines trickling down, as if the drywall was sweating blood. I walked over and touched it.

“Jesus!” Rory said.

I turned. They were all staring at me.

“Guess you’ve seen this kind of thing before, huh?” Cameron said, trying for a laugh.

“Never.” I lifted my fingers to my flashlight. The red was faint. Without a werewolf nose, I couldn’t smell anything, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to taste it. “I can’t tell if it’s really blood.”

“I’m going to vote yes,” Frank said.

“Jaime?” Rory said. “Can you get us out of here? Please?”