Sam’s brain swam with exhaustion, his heart thumped with adrenaline, and now here was Alex, waltzing in looking like a Trey clone in his robe and slippers, talking like an old man before disappearing back into his room.
“What the hell is happening?” Sam locked the door and panted at Colby.
Colby shook his head. “Bro, I don’t know. But I feel like I’m in a Jordan Peele movie.”
“Keep the door locked. Let’s try to sleep. In the morning, we can call for help if we need to, but we have to get out of here.”
“We lost a whole day to this fucked-up place,” Colby said, throwing himself on the bed. “I’m not going to lose another.”
“I hear you.”
They got back to bed, but nothing was the same. Sam felt like he’d slipped into the seventh dimension of the underworld. For the rest of the night, he slept restlessly, dreaming of the guest room door opening, of Georgia asking them to carry artwork into the wine cellar, then the cellar doors closing on their own, trapping them inside. He dreamed of the mermaid, fluid and real, swimming at them with alarm and warning in her amethyst eyes.
And as much as he tried to scream, he couldn’t.
Sam’s head pounded. Between the lack of sleep and raging appetite, he couldn’t see straight. Once sunlight filled the room, he and Colby slipped their shoes on, grabbed Alex from his bed, and bolted into the hallway as hurriedly as they could. The daylight had smoothed the lines of the mansion, restored its vibrant beauty, and eradicated its ghosts.
Things almost seemed normal. Sam smelled bacon cooking on the stove and felt his stomach imploding from hunger, but they couldn’t waste more time being house guests.
“What was wrong with you last night?” Sam asked Alex, as they headed down the hall, passing more leather chairs and oddball bone-framed art.
“Which part?” Alex replied dreamily.
“The part where you came in dressed like Clint, talking like you were fifty years old. You don’t remember? You called Colby ‘young man?’”
Colby scoffed. “Dude, for real. I feel like I’m in some fucked-up, never-ending YouTube prank.” His voice was low and groggy. He had severe bed head and didn’t care if he fixed it.
“I don’t remember. I only remember sleeping the most comfortable, well-rested sleep I’ve ever had,” Alex said, a big smile on his doofus face.
“Regardless, we’re getting out of here this morning. Got it? Colby and I had a messed-up night,” Sam told him. There was something naïve about Alex today that he couldn’t trust, like Nate when he’d insisted they accept Trey’s invitation to visit the mansion. Like all was picture-perfect about the Belle Estate.
“But you have to agree there’s fascinating, rare things in every corner.” Alex reached out to touch an odd skeleton mask hanging in the stairwell covered in papier-mâché painted to look crackly.
“No, bro.” Sam smacked his hand away, resentful that he had to keep chastising Alex. “There’s nothing cool about a skull. You don’t know if it’s real, where it came from…now you have its energy all over your hands.”
Sam’s choice of words sounded strange even to himself. Rarely had he ever talked about inanimate things having “energy” before, but nowadays, he believed it. He believed this whole house had the power to affect them, to draw them into its hold if they stayed long enough, and he knew he was scared of the Dark Man haunting these halls more than anything.
Alex stared at him like he’d grown an extra head. “I think all your ghost investigations are making you lose perspective.”
Sam felt struck. In all his years of knowing Alex, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d blatantly fired back this way. Thing was, he couldn’t argue. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Guys, we have to stick together. This house seems to want us to argue. We can’t let it win.” Colby moved ahead of them. His articulation hit the nail on the head, and Sam knew it.
As Alex moved ahead of him, Sam lingered, checking the hall behind him for any signs of the dark shadow entity before giving the skull on the wall an extra hard glare. Who would have a human skull in their house? “What are you looking at?” he muttered.
Downstairs, Georgia and Trey had a breakfast buffet laid out in the kitchen fit for royalty. It was no wonder famous people came here to visit. She could’ve opened a bed-and-breakfast with all this cooking. Again were the little signs: Going Away Brunch! with tent cards indicating what the foods were—French toast, strawberries with Grand Marnier whipped cream, crêpes Suzette, hickory-smoked bacon, and acai bowls.
“There you are.” The tone in Georgia’s voice was less chipper than usual. Was it possible she finally wanted them out of her hair? Had their snooping around the property last night finally made her want them to leave? “Sorry it’s a little more Southern than Hawaiian. You can take the girl out of North Florida, but not North Florida out of the girl.” She gestured to the food and then distractedly leaned into the fridge to check her schedule.
Were they cutting into foot massage time by Clint II?
Steel guitar lessons at 12? 12:01? 12:02?
“Actually, we don’t have time to stay and eat,” Sam said super politely, as though Georgia and Trey had not tried to lock them in a cellar last night. Was nobody going to talk about that? “Tow truck should almost be here.”
“The tow truck will arrive with the convoy,” Trey said flatly. There was no joy in Clint II’s manner, no pride in showing off his paradise home, just an irritated smirk. “Another hour or so. You may as well eat what Georgia kindly prepared for you.”
Sam exchanged a guarded glance with Colby. Kindly prepared?
“Of course,” he said slowly. “Wouldn’t want to be rude or anything.”
Or get locked in the witch’s basement.
Or choked against a wall by an angry spirit.
He was starving, unfortunately, so he reluctantly picked up a small plate and moved his way around the center island picking up a couple bites of everything. His stomach rumbled with impatience.
“This all looks amazing.” Alex cheerfully dug his fork into a crêpe Suzette, whatever a crêpe Suzette was.
For a whole minute, nobody spoke, as they devoured the food like wolves.
Sam was on his fifth bacon slice when Trey held up one of the screenplays, the same one Sam had been reading last night—Diabolical Games about a demon spirit’s quest to materialize into flesh. Oddball fodder that made him shudder more than it gave him insight into Trey’s life.
“You know, in some countries, theft is punishable by death,” Trey said.
Sam’s blood rushed into his ears. “Oh…sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I was just, uh, curious to read them. Hope you don’t mind.” He imagined Trey sprinting across the kitchen to hack off his hand with a blunt cleaver for his crimes, but he only smiled maliciously.
“Not at all, my friend. Not at all.” Trey threw the script onto the kitchen counter, the stack sliding across the marble, fanning out like a deck of cards and landing next to the block of knives.
Sam gulped.
Suddenly, a rattling clamor echoed through the kitchen—the ringtone of an old-fashioned phone with a loud, clanging bell. To Sam’s surprise, Georgia moved to answer an actual old-fashioned phone behind the kitchen wall inside the pantry. “Hello?”
A house phone. Sam didn’t know house phones still existed, especially ones with spiral cords in that dull green color that reminded him of a little old lady living with ten cats, a sunflower clock clucking on the wallpapered kitchen wall.
“Katie…yes, we’re all right. Screaming? No, not that I know of. Oh, right…” She laughed forcefully and leaned against the wall, pressing a hand to her eyes. Even perfect Georgia seemed off her game this morning. “No, no… You know wild green parrots, how they wake everybody up at dawn.”
Sam looked at Colby, who shook his head silently.
Nah. Not parrots. Screaming. Definitely screaming.
“Thanks so much for checking in. Yes, thanks all the same,” Georgia said, nodding and chirping with this Katie person. “Bye-bye now. Say hello to Tom for me.”
Katie, Katie…
Was that the Karen from the beach who’d told them to be nice? The neighborhood watch dog? Sam wanted to run over there, grab the phone, and tell Katie the Karen they needed a ride out of the North Shore, especially since she’d said they should be nice to her because they might need her one day.
But Georgia said her goodbyes and hung up. “That was Katie,” she told Trey, and Sam detected an unspoken message cross between them.
“So, tell me… Your fridge game over there.” Colby pointed across the kitchen with a slice of French toast dangling off his fork. “You play that at 3:33 in the morning, too?”
Sam nearly choked on his bite, but secretly admitted he wanted to know why Georgia and Trey were awake in the middle of the night, in the wine cellar, no less.
“Well, it’s like we told you…” Georgia began.
Trey cut in with his own whack explanation. “As the new moon draws closer, the window closes, you see…”
“Clint,” Georgia sharply scolded with wide, sleep-deprived eyes.
Trey recoiled like an injured puppy. “I mean, it’s nothing. We always check the house at that time.”
“For what?” Colby asked, but was met with silence. “If everything’s so perfect…what is there to check? Or is that like an OCD thing? Do you wash your hands at 4:44?”
Georgia interjected. “He’s tired and rambling. He doesn’t want to tell you that sometimes we get romantic in the middle of the night.” She laughed and waved a hand away. “Don’t make me spell it out for you.”
“In the cellar?” Colby wouldn’t let it go.
“Colby,” Sam murmured.
“No, Sam, I want to know. Trey, what are you guys doing in the cellar, like deep under the ground? And what’s with the new moon? We’ve heard you talk about that a few times already. What happens on the new moon, Trey? Tell us.”
“Colby…” Alex admonished this time.
Sam wanted answers as well. “Yeah, what happens on the new moon, Trey?”
Alex put down his plate indignantly and glared daggers at them. “Guys…that’s enough. You’re treating our hosts with disrespect.”
“Are we?” Colby gaped. “Whose side are you on, brother?”
Georgia threw her hands out. “Enough. Boys, boys…” She laughed nervously. “The new moon is tomorrow at 11:11 PM for the first time in twenty-four years. I’m a big fanatic of New Age spirituality, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by my décor, and of numerology and astrology and all that stuff I’m sure you don’t believe in. But that’s the way we live out here in nature. I guess you could say I’m just an old hippie to still believe in all that Age of Aquarius baloney, but it works for us. Doesn’t it, baby?”
“Yes, dear,” Trey said, still glaring at them.
Sam felt the heat of Trey’s stare melt away what civility he had left.
“Now, please…have breakfast, or I’ll be forced to eat it myself!” She patted her stomach and huffed away nervously, but Sam wasn’t falling for her don’t-let-a-woman-of-a-certain-age-eat-the-crepes-by-herself bit.
Sam didn’t care anymore—about the time, the moon phases, this house, or giving Georgia a proper goodbye. Setting down his plate, he left the kitchen with Colby following close behind. Alex could stay and be Georgia and Trey’s adopted stepchild for all he cared, but he and Colby were vacating this creepy-ass mansion with its creepy-ass art and creepy-ass owners.
“Let’s head to the car.” Trey picked the keys out of the half-skull ceramic bowl. “The truck can meet us there.”
“Sounds good to me.” Leaving this haunted, isolated house inhabited by crazy motherfuckers sounded like a plan to Sam.
He rushed past the set of three leather paintings below the grand mirror, but backed up a step into Colby’s gait when his eyes caught something he hadn’t noticed before. A network of thin blue and pink lines spread out under the leather, as if an old-school roadmap had been covered in gift tissue then sealed with acrylic. Up close, Sam could see the animal skin was like quilted patchwork, reminding him of crude buffalo drawings, stitches, and art from Yellowstone National Park, something western-style.
Creepy.
Of course it was.
Everything in this freakin’ house was creepy. Smoothing the choppy texture of the painting with the tip of his finger, Sam quickly remembered he shouldn’t touch the items, shuddered, then walked through the foyer into the outdoors, taking a desperate lungful of North Shore air with him.