Halloween Hijinks (A Zoe Donovan Mystery Book 1) (9 page)

“I really don’t understand why you continue to date her,” I found myself saying, even though it was really none of my business.

“Have you seen her?
”

I had
.

“Okay,
I’ll go.” I looked reluctantly at the darkening sky. “What’s the situation exactly?”

“The neighbors
to the south called and complained that there’s been a dog howling for hours. They think it’s trapped inside the house and asked if we could pick it up.”

“Okay,” I sighed, “I’m on my
way.”

The Henderson house, under any other circumstances, would most likely be considered a quite normal place. Two-storied with an attic, it sits toward the back of a large, overgrown lot surrounded by an iron fence and an impenetrable gate that opens onto a dirt drive leading to a walkway comprised of four rotted steps and an equally rotted porch. Hezekiah had been an old man already when I was a child. A
crazy
old man, I’d like to reiterate. Although he seemed to have adequate financial resources to do whatever it was he wanted, what he chose was to live as a recluse who rarely, if ever, left his creepy old house.

When I was seven
, one of my classmates told me that, in his youth, Hezekiah had murdered and then dismembered over a hundred people. It was rumored that he buried the body parts under the floorboards in the basement and then settled into a life of seclusion in order to maintain the spell he’d used to trap the souls of his victims in a sort of limbo for all time.

As I turned onto the dirt drive
, I reminded myself that the story couldn’t possibly be true. If Hezekiah
had
murdered a hundred people, he surely would have been arrested, and even if he’d managed to avoid incarceration due to some powerful black magic, as many of the kids in town believed, the spell would have been broken and the souls released the moment the old man finally died. As with many local legends, no one in town will admit to actually believing the strange tale, but when Hezekiah died and a distant heir tried to sell the property, no one would buy it for any price. As a result the house has stood empty for more than fifteen years.

As I stood before the
front gate with Charlie at my side, I listened for voices in the inky night. It’s not that I believe in ghosts, exactly, but even the most stalwart nonbeliever would have to admit that in the fifteen years the house has been empty, strange and unexplainable occurrences have taken place within its walls. Hezekiah died when I was nine. For years no one dared enter the creepy structure, but as time went by the rumors ceased, and homeless vagrants began to use the building to ward off cold winter nights. The legend of Hezekiah Henderson and the haunted basement faded and became dormant until I was fifteen and three homeless men were found dead from no apparent cause other than fear-induced heart failure.

When I was seventeen, a group of kids prowling the streets late at night reported
hearing the sound of crying from within the dark walls, and when I was twenty, something that looked a lot like blood appeared on the back exterior wall. According to the authorities, these incidents, as well as several others, had logical and scientific explanations, although no one has actually revealed what those explanations might be. Most accept the vague answers they’ve been given, but there are those of us who wonder if, perhaps, the house really is haunted.

I seriously considered
turning around and high-tailing it out of there when I heard the most sorrowful howling. “So what do you think?” I asked Charlie. “Should we brave the spooky house or come back in the morning when it’s light?”

Charlie barked once and trotted thro
ugh the gate someone had left open. He headed down the rutted dirt drive with nary a care in the world. I thought about calling him back but knew I’d never be able to sleep if I didn’t rescue the poor dog trapped inside the house. I grabbed a flashlight from my truck, worked up what little courage I possessed, and slowly followed Charlie down the overgrown drive.

“I
’m an adult,” I reminded myself aloud. “I no longer believe in ghosts. Creatures that exist only in my imagination cannot hurt me.”

I stopped walking and looked at the dilapidated old house
, which seemed to take on a life of its own the closer I got. I tried to control my imagination as shadows fluttered across cracked windows, and the once stylish shutters hung loosely so as to creak and clatter in the wind. My heart pounded so loudly I could hear it as I stood at the bottom of the five rotted steps leading to the equally rotted front porch. I knew my fear was unfounded, yet I found myself unable to continue on. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called a familiar number.

“Hey, what’s up
?” Ellie answered.

“I’m at the Henderson place.”

“Why?” Ellie sounded as horrified as I felt.

“There’s a dog trapped somewh
ere inside. I need to go in and see if I can find him, but all those stories we told as kids are repeating themselves in my imagination and I’m totally freaking out.”

“Have Jeremy
meet you there,” Ellie suggested.

“He has a date.”

“Okay.” Ellie paused. “Then just wait until morning. I’m sure the dog will be fine.”

I was seriously considering just th
at option when the dog began howling again. “I can’t wait. The poor thing sounds terrified.”

“You can’t go in alone,” Ellie warned.

“I know. That’s why I called you.”

“You want
me
to go in with you?”

“Sort of.” I could almost see Ellie’s look of panic
. “I’m going to go in, but I want you to talk to me while I look for the dog. That way if there
is
a deranged serial killer or vengeful spirit inside, you can call the sheriff and tell them where to find my body.”

“That’s not funny,” Ellie scolded.

“I know,” I agreed in a slightly more serious tone. “I’m going to start up the steps now. It’s dark, so I have the phone in one hand and my flashlight in the other. If I accidently drop the phone while I try to work the lock on the front door, don’t panic.”

“Okay.”

I could hear Ellie breathing in my ear as I carefully made my way up the broken steps and across the rotted porch. I noticed that the front door had been left ajar, saving me the trouble of breaking in. I giggled as I pushed it farther open, and it gave a huge moan, like a bad cliché.

“What was that?
” Ellie must have heard the door as well.

“The front door,” I answered
.

“Are you inside?”

“Yeah,” I answered as I stepped inside. I shone my flashlight around the large entry hall and tried to get my bearings.

“What do you see?
” Ellie whispered.

“Someone has been here recently
. There’s fresh graffiti on the walls.”

“You don’t think they’re still there?”

I hoped not.

“Can you tell where the dog is?
” Ellie wondered.

I listened as the howling
grew louder. “It seems to be coming from the basement.”

“The basement?
” Ellie gasped. “You can’t go into the basement. That’s where all the bodies are.”

“I’m sure if there really were bodies
, someone would have found them by now.” I sounded braver than I felt. “I’ll just pop down, free the dog, then get the hell out of here.”

I stood in the middle of the room and tried to figure out how to access the basement
. Through the kitchen? Seemed a logical choice, although I had no idea where the kitchen was. There were stairs in front of me and hallways to both the left and the right. The basement wouldn’t be up, which left me a fifty/fifty chance of guessing right the first time.

“H
ave you ever been in here?” I asked.

“God
, no,” Ellie said. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to
get into the basement. The wailing coming from the dog is echoing all around me so I can’t tell in which direction to look.”

“Are you sure you don’t just want to
come back in the morning?” Ellie tried again.

Something crashed overhead
. My heart leaped into my throat as I stifled a scream.

“Did something fall?
” Ellie asked.

I couldn’t help but imagine all
sorts of undead creatures prowling around upstairs. I focused on slowing my breathing as I struggled to answer. “It was probably just the wind.”

I decided to take the hallway to the left
. It was dark and narrow. All of the doors were closed. I opened each one as I made my way toward the back of the house. Most of the rooms were bedrooms, covered in dust and cobwebs. There was a small bathroom with something that looked a lot like blood smeared across the front of the sink and onto the floor.

“It looks like
there’s blood in the bathroom,” I breathed as my heart pounded in my chest.

“What?
” Ellie gasped. “Get out of there. Call the sheriff to let the dog out. At least he has a gun.”

“Guns don’t work on ghosts,” I reminded her.

“Maybe not, but they work on maniacal serial killers. I really think you should leave.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

As I exited the bathroom, I noticed that Charlie, who had been walking right next to me as we made our way down the hall, was now sitting in front of a door at the very end. I
really
didn’t want to open it, but my sympathy for the poor dog trapped in the dark won out over my fear. Beyond the door was a stairway leading down, I assumed, to the basement.

“I found the stairs to the basement,” I told Ellie.

“You aren’t going down?”

“I’ve come this far
. Charlie is with me. It’ll be fine.”

“You know that you
’re insane?”

“So I’ve been told.
” I hesitated for just a minute before carefully making my way down the partially rotted staircase. When I reached the bottom I slowly turned the handle on the rusty doorknob. The door was stuck, most likely rusted with age. I put my shoulder into it, opening it just a crack but enough for a medium-sized black dog to rush through. The dog ran up the stairs and I was just about to make my own hasty escape when Charlie ran into the room the black dog had just vacated.

“Charlie,” I whispered
. I have no idea why I whispered. It seemed the thing to do in a spooky old house on an inky black night.

Charlie barked but did
n’t respond to my call.

“What’s wrong?
” Ellie asked.

“Charlie
, come,” I demanded in a much sterner tone.

Charlie whined but refused to obey.

“Are you okay?” Ellie sounded panicked.

“Charlie went into the basement,” I
said. “I’m going to set the phone down while I get him. If I scream, call for help.”

I set the phone on the floor by the door
. It took both hands and most of my strength to push the door open enough to squeeze through. I shone my flashlight around the musty old room. The first thing I noticed were footprints in the dust and a trail of what looked a lot like blood smeared across the floor. I stifled a scream as I frantically looked for any sign of Charlie.

“This isn’t funny,” I insisted
. “We’re in a spooky old house two days before Halloween. If this were a movie, we’d be dead by now. Get your furry butt out here.”

Nothing.

I began to walk forward slowly using my flashlight to search the room, where I found Charlie guarding what appeared to be a very dead body.

After a twenty-minute interrogation by Sheriff Salinger, Charlie and I headed over to our Thursday-night book club meeting at the senior center.

I’m sure you
’re wondering why I didn’t just go home after such a harrowing experience. But the last thing I wanted was to be alone, and Ellie had a date and Levi wasn’t answering his cell. Besides, I find the group of seniors I share this particular hobby with to be comforting. Most don’t understand why I want to engage in discourse with a group of geriatrics, but suffice it to say that as far as I’m concerned, the depth of knowledge and understanding these golden-agers bring to the table by far supersede any communication issues that might exist due to the generation gap between us.

There are seven
human members of the club including myself, and six canine members including Charlie. I settled Charlie with the other dogs in attendance and took a seat between my grandfather, who I refer to as Pappy but others refer to as Luke, and Tanner Brown, a crusty old fisherman who runs charters on the lake.

I’d been instructed by
Salinger not to discuss the murder, a directive I realized was going to be close to impossible to obey.