Page 24 of Property of Anchor
Pearl
The haunted house looked different in the morning light.Still eerie, still massive, but less… hungry.The fog from the night before had burned off with the sun, leaving behind dew-speckled grass and a faint smell of sawdust and mildew.I loved it.
We were finally getting down to the nitty-gritty of the work.
“Jake, you’ve got the front porch and left shutters.Molly, I want you inside tackling the entry hallway, test that burnt umber I mixed yesterday.Brian, windows.Clean, prime, first coat of black.”
“And me?”Bernice asked from her seat on a folding stool, her brush kit spread open in front of her like a surgeon preparing for work.
“You’ve got the grand staircase mural.No one else touches it,” I said, pointing toward the house’s wide, warped front door.“It’s your canvas.”
“Damn right it is,” she muttered, selecting a small angled brush and holding it up to the light.“You couldn’t pay me enough to paint a thousand shingles anyway.My knees would file for divorce.”
We got to work fast, falling into an easy rhythm.Ladders clanked.Paint splashed into trays.Brushes slapped against weather-worn wood.There was something therapeutic about it, about watching a space transform under your hands.The haunted house might’ve been worn out, but there was still life beneath the layers of decay.We just had to coax it back.
I was sketching the outline of a new design inside the entryway when I caught the first whisper of tension.Not from my crew.Fromthem.
Anchor’s men moved differently this morning.Slower.Eyes sharper.More aware.I’d seen Prime walk past twice already with a scowl, murmuring something to Post, who had his phone glued to his ear.Skull hadn’t cracked a joke once.And Anchor?I hadn’t seen him yet, but I could feel him.
Or maybe I was just hoping to.
“You notice the guys are acting weird today?”Molly asked as she rolled another layer of texture across the entry wall.
“Weirder than usual?”I replied.
“Yeah.Like, more serious.And they’re all wearing those same cuts again.”
“They live in those things,” I said, even though I’d noticed it too.
“Just saying.Last night they were kind of chill.This morning?Feels like they’re all waiting for something to blow up.”
I didn’t respond.Because she wasn’t wrong.And if I was being honest, I had been hoping Anchor would stop by to check in.Not that I needed him to.But still.
He hadn’t.
And I wasn’t used to that feeling,waitingfor a man.
Around noon, the crew took their lunch break outside the haunted house.Brian had brought a cooler, and we all sat on overturned paint buckets and foam tombstones that hadn’t been installed yet.
“I think the vampire hallway might be my favorite part so far,” Molly said, chewing on a peanut butter sandwich.“The arches?The lighting?It’s like Dracula’s goth bachelor pad.”
“I’m pretty proud of the blood pit room,” Brian chimed in.
“Still mad we’re doing a possessed nursery,” Jake muttered.“Creepy babies scare the hell out of me.”
“Can’t believe we’re painting horror into something that already looks like a crime scene,” Molly said.
“You’re not wrong,” I said with a laugh.
The conversation was easy, light, until the crunch of boots on gravel caught my ear.
I looked up.
Anchor.
He was walking toward us with that same confident stride, hands in his pockets, and eyes locked on me.My stomach flipped.It was ridiculous how good he looked in broad daylight, sunlight catching the edge of his jaw, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, the veins in his forearms standing out as he moved.
I stood before I knew I was moving, brushing my hands on my jeans.
