Page 5 of Destined Chaos
Libby
The day long car ride to Mountain View took longer than I’d anticipated. The icy roads were riddled with accidents. A handful of newly departed ghosts wearing high school football team jerseys were on the side of the road, staring at their crumpled bus in shock. Poor teens. My heart shattered for their lost innocent souls.
I tried to stop to help ease their transition, but the police working the scene ushered me along.
Wheels thumped over the long dirty concrete drive, and bare trees filled the yard. Dead leaves created an unyielding path to the large house that I swore to have finished repairing and sold by now.
Slaughter House loomed in the distance like a foreboding memory trying to break free. I wouldn’t let it. Not now. Not when I was so close to cutting this place from my past. Unease fluttered in my stomach.
A chill skirted up my spine as I parked next to the contractor’s white van. Smoke plumed from the tailpipe, drifting up into the night air. The red parking lights cast a haze into the forming mist.
I got out and eased the car door shut, worried what or who the sound might wake up.
Standing next to my car, I ignored my need to flee. The house keys lay heavy in my grip. I wasn’t that scared little girl anymore, and yet, there was something so unforgiving within those walls that I could feel it deep down to my bones. The worn siding and windows were covered in dirt and in need of scrubbing. Leaves hung from the gutters. My gaze drifted to the second-floor window of my old bedroom. A little blond ghostly girl stood behind the grime of the window pane. Her blond hair hung in soft ringlets down to her shoulders. The pink dress with puffy sleeves looked to be from decades ago. Somehow deep inside, she seemed familiar even if I couldn’t pinpoint how. It wasn’t her appearance that surprised me. Most old houses were haunted, but it was the sadness clouding her angelic face that cut to the bone as she rested her tiny palm on the window.
Her gaze jolted to look behind her. Panic filled her eyes as she vanished out of sight when another apparition took her place.
This spirits in Slaughter House hadn’t moved on. Much like I couldn’t.
The tall ghost dressed in black overalls was staring down at me with narrowed dark eyes. His white hair contradicted his olive completion. The angle of his sharp jaw highlighted the anger on his face. He clenched both of his fists at his side.
He’d grown more menacing since the day I’d left and he looked none too happy that I was back. My heart quickened and it was as though I couldn’t look away. My feet were frozen to the spot. Raw panic flared through me turning my stomach into ice. The need to flee fought with my need to stay.
I knew that angry ghost. I remembered his face and the way his cold hands felt pressed against my back. The sheer panic that stole my breath as a little girl. It was hard to forget the face of the ghost that wanted me dead.
Fear wouldn’t send me running away. Staying at the Mountain View Inn wasn’t an option. This was my childhood home, and my reason for staying away had died six months ago.
My purpose for being here was clear. Fix up this god-forsaken home and then sell the bastard once and for all.
The dim yellow porch light flickered as if the house could sense my return home. The heavy wooden door was the last barrier and chance to change my mind. The freshly painted wood covered dark stains and years of secrets. I stepped up onto the porch and knocked. The partially opened door groaned wider, beckoning me inside.
"Hello," I called out and was met with heavy silence.
"Mr. Gambit. It's me, Libby. The front door was open." I crossed the threshold, shoving the massive door shut behind me. It clicked.
"Mr. Gambit?"
For someone that could predict things for other people, I didn’t know why I was having such a hard time seeing what was going to happen to this house. It should have been easy, but it wasn’t. I hated everything about this place. The contractor had said he was going to occupy one of the rooms while work was getting done. His presence would act as a deterrent for would-be thieves.
That was why his voicemail and text message this morning had been so out of the blue.
Mr. Gambit walked out of the kitchen, carrying his leather tool bag and a closed can of blue paint, which had some dried drippings on the side.
“Good, I’m glad you got my message. I can’t live here, and I’m damn sure not spending another night under this roof,” Mr. Gambit said with urgency in his voice. His frazzled brown curly hair looked as though he’d been running his fingers through the waves. His red bloodshot eyes explained enough. He might have been spending the night under this roof, but he hadn’t been sleeping.
The house was void of all furnishings except in the attic and basement. If Mr. Gambit had moved any personal furniture in to make his stay more comfortable, he’d moved it out just as fast. The nauseating sinking of despair filled my veins. If he left, that made six. Six contractors that refused to work on the premises. Did Mountain View even have more? Or was I going to need to pay extra to bring some to town? No, I needed to fix this fast.
“Mr. Gambit, what seems to be the problem?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Guilt stabbed my chest.
He walked right past me and yanked the door open. It moved with a groan as he left me no choice but to follow.
Another worker wearing the contractor’s logo stood at the back of the van. Mr. Gambit shoved the bag and paint can into his arms. “That’s the last of it.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Mr. Gambit glanced up at the house once more. “You want to know the problem?” he asked as he turned his penetrating gaze on me. “The house wants to kill me.”
“You realize how crazy that sounds?” I asked. “The house can’t want anything.”
