The Red Light (7 page)

“
Mike, are you alright?”
Sarah yelled.

“
Yeah, I’m fine,” he
sounded startled and out of breath.

She came out of the restroom and found
him sitting on the couch with his hands on his head and his elbows
on his knees.

“
Mike what is the matter?
You’re out of breath and you’re sweating,” she said
concerned.

“
I’m fine, I was down
making sure the furnace is running right and just got kind of
freaked out.”

“
I hate it down there, but
you know I’m scared of basements anyway.”

Sarah got Mike a glass of tea and sat
beside him on the couch, she told him about her day at the food
bank and how rewarding it was for her. He explained to her that he
didn’t feel well and came home early; she wanted to ask him more
about his work but decided to leave him alone since he didn’t feel
well.

Mike took a shower and some cold
pills, then lay down in bed for a while. Meanwhile, the kids
arrived home and Mary was excited about some crafts she made in
school. Teddy was dragging around the house, he was tired from lack
of sleep because of nightmares, but he didn’t tell anyone about
them because he was so scared Uncle Silas would hurt
them.

Sarah and the children ate dinner but
Mike didn’t feel like eating, she felt his head and he was burning
up from a fever so she gave him some more medicine and left him
alone to get some rest.

“
Mommy, can I have a
puppy?” Mary asked.

“
Oh sweetie I don’t know,
who would take care of it if you’re in school and your dad and I
gone all day?”

“
I can stay home and take
care of it,” she said like it was the best idea ever.

“
You can’t even take a
bath alone, how are you gonna take care of a puppy?” Teddy said
with a sarcastic tone.

“
Mom,” Mary hit her hand
on the table.

“
Okay, you two stop it
now, we’ll talk about a puppy later, maybe for Christmas,” Sarah
said trying to get off the subject. After dinner the kids had their
baths and Sarah tucked them in bed, she turned off the lights and
got in bed with Mike, he still had a fever but was
asleep.

Teddy could hear things moving around
on the floor above him, he tried to ignore it but whatever was
making the sounds were very active tonight. Not long after he seen
figures passing his door and going down the hallway, it was like
they were walking by but he couldn’t see their legs or feet, just
from their waist up.

One of them stopped and faced toward
him looking in the doorway, he couldn’t tell exactly if it was a
man or a woman, but it was something floating there looking at him.
He pulled the covers over his head and he heard the door slowly
close, he uncovered his head to peek out and there was the clown
standing there, it was Uncle Silas, and the bright red light shined
from beneath is bed.

“
Hello there Teddy, I came
back to play,” Silas said with a low slow laugh.

“
Go…go away, you’re not
real,” Teddy said stuttering.

“
Oh I’m real boy, and I
brought you a toy to play with,” Silas said as he pulled a bubble
wand out of his pocket. “Oops, I forgot the bubbles. What can we
use to make bubbles, Ted?” Silas said while looking around the room
like he misplaced something. “Oh, I know.” Silas ripped open the
left side of his clown outfit showing his pale white skin, he
shoved the bubble wand into the side of his stomach, it made a
squishing noise as it went in and a thick black substance poured
out and ran down onto the floor. He pulled the wand out and put it
up to his mouth, he breathed in deep and blew toward the wand, a
huge red bubble went floating across the room slowly, Silas danced
as it floated over Teddy’s bed.

“
We made blood bubbles,
boy!” Silas was laughing hard and loud as he blew the bubble toward
the wall.

Teddy watched as it hit the wall over
his headboard and busted. Blood splattered all over the wall and
ran down, Silas kept laughing and dancing around the room and began
blowing bubbles all over the bedroom; they were floating everywhere
and busting, covering everything with the thick blood.

“
Here do you wanna try?”
Silas held out the bubble wand to Teddy.

Teddy shook his head no and covered
his head with his covers again. He could see the red light
beginning to fade. After what seemed like an hour he peeked out
from beneath the covers and seen the room was normal, no blood, no
red light and no Uncle Silas. He was awake most of the night,
listening to the bumping and walking around on the third
floor.

Chapter 12

The next morning Sarah had a hard time
waking Teddy for school and at the table she noticed the black
under his eyes and was concerned. “Oh my God sweetie, aren’t you
getting any sleep?”

“
Not much mom, I keep
having bad dreams,” he wanted to tell her about Uncle Silas but
figured no one would believe him.

“
Me too,” Sarah said, “it
will get better soon, it has too.”

Mike came out of the bedroom, dressed
and ready to go to work, and he seemed hyper this morning, rubbing
the kid’s hair and gave Sarah a kiss before sitting down and
eating.

“
I guess you feel better
today, that medicine must have helped overnight,” Sarah
said.

“
Yeah, I think that
medicine did the trick, I feel great,” Mike laughed.

Sarah found it strange how Mike was
acting, it wasn’t like him to be this way, but it is a new place
with new people, so it can change you, and she left it at that.
Mike headed out for work after the kids were off to school, Teddy
kept falling asleep on the bus and would wake up when it hit a bump
in the road and bounced him in his seat. At school he sat at his
desk in homeroom still dozing off, his friend Jeff came over and
sat down beside him.

“
Hey Teddy, why are you so
tired, bad dreams again?” Jeff asked.

“
Yeah, it’s our house,
it’s haunted,” Teddy said sleepily.

“
Haunted, you have
ghosts?”

“
Yep, and they won’t leave
me alone, keep waking me up almost every night.”

“
I’m glad I didn’t ask to
spend the night with you,” Jeff laughed.

“
Yeah, you wouldn’t want
to see and hear the things I do. I can’t even sleep anymore,” Teddy
said yawning.

Mrs. Clayton, their homeroom teacher
came into the class, she was a newly graduated teacher and was
still fairly young. “Children settle down I have some bad news,
Missy Hayslip was reported missing yesterday morning, if any of you
have any idea at all about where she is please tell me or the
principal. The sheriff’s office and many other volunteers are out
looking for her, let’s just pray that she is safe somewhere out
there.” All of the children were stunned and some became very
frightened and started to cry.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sarah was reading the paper before
leaving for the food bank; she was reading a story about a little
girl missing from town. The paper stated that the child went
missing yesterday morning before school and hasn’t been seen since.
Sarah thought how terrible it must feel to lose a child, not
knowing if they were alive or if you would ever see them
again.

She got dressed and started driving
down the narrow country road toward town, while driving she was
thinking about her children, and the horrible things she has seen
since moving into the old house and how she didn’t want them to see
any of the ghosts that still lurked inside. Sarah reached down to
get her on the go coffee cup and when she looked up there was a
deer standing in the middle of the road, she slammed on the brakes
and swerved into the ditch on the right side of the road sliding to
a stop. The deer jumped the fence and ran off into the trees while
she sat there stunned and thankful that no damage had been done.
She was shaken but was unharmed and drove carefully to her
work.

Once at the church Sarah and Susan
talked about the missing child, it was big news in the town and
everyone was searching for her. While they were talking the food
bank director Stephanie Watts came down to talk to her.

“
Good morning ladies, I
came down to tell you that the criminal background checks came back
clean,” Stephanie said with a smile.

“
Well, you knew it would,
I don’t know why you have to do that anyway, did mine show that I
didn’t put my false teeth in the glass of water last night?” Susan
said teasingly.

“
Oh, I knew Sarah would
check out, it’s just the rules and we all have to follow the rules
you know,” Stephanie said.

“
Well it doesn’t mean that
I have to like them,” Susan exclaimed. Stephanie was used to
Susan’s picking, she acted grumpy but anyone could tell that she
was just playing around and giving them a hard time.

Sarah put in her time at the food bank
and went home, while pulling into the driveway she noticed that
Mike’s vehicle was parked out front just like the day before. She
went inside and looked around for him but he was nowhere to be
found. Sarah went to the basement door and was going to open it
when she seen his briefcase on the table.

She went quietly to the table and
opened the briefcase, Sarah went through the papers and most of
them were case papers from clients, but there was a manila folder
at the bottom of the pile that was separate. She opened the folder
and looked at the top paper, it read like a list.

7:15 A.M. Leaves for
school.

11:35 A.M. Eats lunch
alone on back steps.

3:16 P.M. Walks
home.

3:30 P.M. Arrives
home.

Sarah sat at the table with her mouth
open; this list is someone’s routine. What hit her the hardest is
that it must be a child because it say’s ‘leaves for school,’ she
couldn’t believe this. Mike has always been a normal guy. She heard
something down in the basement and she was shaking as she
straightened up the papers and closed the briefcase the way she
found it. She walked quickly to the sink and began rinsing off the
dishes as Mike came through the basement door.

“
Oh, hey Sarah, how was
your day?”

“
It was good,” she said
trying not to sound nervous, “how was yours?”

“
Good, I came home early
again I’m still not feeling well.”

“
Two days home early in a
row, that’s not like you at all. You must be pretty
sick.”

Mike gave her an uneasy look, a look
like she knew something; he looked down at the briefcase and
wondered if she got into it. He picked it up and walked into the
living room and sat down on the couch.

“
Yeah, I am pretty sick,”
he finally answered after a long pause.

“
Did you hear about that
missing girl?”

“
No, what
happened?”

“
A girl the same age as
Teddy disappeared yesterday,” Sarah explained.

“
That’s terrible, her
parents must be so torn up, I hope they find her,” Mike
said.

The rest of the evening Mike stayed
silent, he was more withdrawn that he used to be and Sarah can see
the major changes in him. Later that night she woke up in bed
alone, she thought he may be in the bathroom and looked over and
seen the light was out so he wasn’t in there. Sarah got up and
peeked around the corner to the living room and seen Mike standing
and facing the fireplace, he was talking as if someone was standing
there beside him.

“
I can’t do it anymore;
you will have to find what you need on your own. I just can’t do
it,” Mike said…. “No, not my children, that’s not an option! …Okay,
okay just give me time to think and I’ll come up with something.
I’ll find another.”

Sarah tip toed back to bed
as fast as she could and covered up, she lay there on her side like
she was asleep but she was wide awake now. He was talking to
himself like something was going to happen to their kids if he
didn’t do something.
There was no one
there, he was talking to the fireplace, oh my God, was he talking
to a ghost?
Sarah thought to herself. Mike
came back to bed about an hour later and went to sleep; Sarah
didn’t get much rest that night she was worried about her children,
and her own safety.

The next morning Mike decided to stay
home from work, he was coughing and sneezing and running a fever,
Sarah gave him some medicine and told him to stay in bed. An hour
later Sarah left for the food bank and just couldn’t get over how
much Mike is changing, he never missed a day’s work before, and she
was wondering what he keeps doing down in the basement.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sarah was sitting on the side of the
bed telling him to wake up while shaking his shoulder. He found it
strange that she would be there because she just left for work; he
rubbed his eyes and when he opened them he noticed that her nose
was blue, he rubbed them again and her eyes and mouth were red but
she still had a big smile and sounded the same as usual. She leaned
close to him, face to face. “Give me a little kiss sweetie,” she
said moving closer.