“So we’re headed to the house?” Michelle asked, a small smile on her translucent face.
Cameron looked at Michelle. They were close to the neighborhood with the Wainwright House. “What about school?”
“Come on, what is one more day off?” Michelle asked. “Schools boooorrriing.”
Cameron looked at her. “What’s your obsession with that place? It is—”
“I just think that you can help the ghost, there’s all,” Michelle said with a smile.
He rolled his eyes. He wanted to go back and see the kid Alfredo again. See if he could help him cross over this time. “Fine.”
Steering his beat-up Hyundai towards the Wainwright House. It was a big old mansion, one that was always part of the neighborhood that everyone avoided. Even the ghosts, Cameron noticed, seeing one of the neighborhood ghosts wave at Cameron, yet turn away when he looked at the Wainwright House. Kids would dare each other to touch the doorbell or the doorknocker on Halloween, yet Cameron was always different. He knew what was in the house. He had talked to Alfredo more than once.
The ghost boy was lonely, is all, Cameron thought.
The last time Cameron went to talk to the kid, a sharp, dark spike of dread cut his time short. Something—or someone—far darker was part of the Wainwright House. It was why he didn’t see the young ghost much.
He knew Michelle was right. If he tried, Cameron could get that kid away from whatever malevolent energy existed in the house. Parking the car across the street and opening the door, he took in the dilapidated Wainwright House. A thick, dark wooden gable at the apex of the roof loomed down at Cameron and Michelle. He held open the car door for her. She thanked him with a thumbs up and said , “Thanks, sweetie.”
He watched her cross the street, knowing that he would look a little funny talking to someone that only he could see. He followed her, trying not to stare at her butt in the tight jeans and the obviously sway she put with her hips. Not like he could do anything with her. Plus, there was age difference. He was seventeen, and she was thirty-five.
Enough. Keep to the task at hand.
The front door’s hinges had rusted near shut long ago; however, the back door still had some give to it. He made sure no one saw him making his way to the back door. The last time he hadn’t been as careful, and Mrs. Kowoliski had called the cops. Had it not been for pure luck, Cameron would be in jail instead of getting back into the house now, Cameron realized.
Standing in the shadow of the back door, the small porch covered by choking weeds along the trestles obscured him. The same dark spike of the same malevolent presences struck him. Somehow darker than before. An icy hand of fear gripped his very soul for a heartbeat.
“Don’t know about this, Michelle.”
“Why not?” Sha asked, tilting her head down at him.
“Feels off. You’re telling me you felt nothing?”
“No,” Michelle said after a beat. “I’m not like you. Not anymore, at least. I’m just dead.” She gave a small laugh.
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Cameron tried not to roll his eyes and reached for the knob. He wondered if anyone else was like him? He had heard of people “speaking” to ghosts and spirits, yet when Cameron tried to track down two two people who claimed they could talk to the dead, he found them to be fakes. Worse, charlatans, taking money from those who only wanted to talk to their dead loved ones. He felt sick thinking of trying to capitalize on their gift.
Michelle waved her translucent hand in front of Cameron. “Earth to Cameron, you there?”
“Yeah, sorry,” he said, shaking his head a little.
“Well, come on, you know how I feel about going through shit.”
Cameron sighed and looked at the door. He took the big doorknob, twisted it and pulled it open. There was a creak that made him wince, but then quickly slipped inside with Michelle. She hissed a little when he closed the door too fast.
“Sorry, don’t want to get seen,” he muttered, looking back.
“Don’t worry, I know,” she said, casually waving her hand. “You didn’t do it on purpose.”
Entering the kitchen, with pipes exposed, and walls shredded when people broke in to steal the copper wiring inside. The smell of mildew and decay was harsh and choking.
“Alright, you know where he is?” Michelle asked.
“No. You?” Cameron asked, trying to reach out but quailed at the darkness he felt in the old house.
“No, I’ll go check out the basement. You check the second floor,” Michelle said.
“Sounds good.” Cameron moved through the short hallway, through the living room with its blankets, pizza boxes, other bits of garbage from homeless and teens using the place for a crash pad. Heading to the main staircase of the house in the foyer. Pausing for a moment, Camron marveled at the front room. He wondered what it would have looked like before vacated for over sixty years ago.
Once white marble strewn with trash and garbage from teens using the place as a crash pad. “Using it for all kinds of illegal things,” Cameron heard Alfredo say, though Cameron wasn’t sure the kid knew what the teens were doing. Though he spotted a few used condom wrappers with plenty of tossed beer cans and bottles. A few homeless used the place once and again, yet they never stayed very long if Alfredo didn’t want them to. They left fast.
He plucked up his courage and headed up the stairs. The moment he moved up the stairs, a few pieces of trash rustled and move. A stiff breeze hit Cameron, stinking of garbage, rot, stale beer and vomit.
“Alfredo? It’s me.”
Trash moved around faster, the wind quickly howling. An empty beer can hit Cameron on the shoulder.
“Come on, Alfredo, you know who it is,” Cameron said. “I’m sorry it took longer than I thought to get than I thought.”
More trash swirled around from the first and second floor. More and more of it cycling around Cameron, striking him in the shoulder and head. Suddenly, he heard the rattling of a bottle rolling across the floor. He spotted it as it leapt towards Cameron, flying straight for him. Ducking out of the way, the bottle exploding behind him in a shower of glass shrapnel that luckily didn’t cut him.
“Fuck sakes Alfie, it’s Cameron!”
The trash kept swirling around, yet stopping him as often. He continued up the steps. “ I’m sorry, I didn’t come to see you sooner. Hey, I’m here now! Counts for something, right?”
There was silence except for the rustling of the paper, empty beer cans, and bottles swirling around like a mini cyclone. Cameron thought he heard something, a shout. Focusing for a moment, he heard it more clearly.
“…said you’d be back!”
When Cameron heard that, he also spotted a chunk of masonry hurtling towards him. It clipped Cameron on the shoulder and caused him to lose his footing. Cameron grabbed the banister, his stomach dropping when the wooden banister bowed out like it would break, before it stopped him from falling. Getting his legs under him, he continued to walk up the steps again, keeping a death grip on the banister.
“Alfie, I’m sorry, man. Trust me, I wanted to come and see you.”
Closer to the top of the steps, seeing a six-foot tall cyclone of paper, trash, cans, and bottles obscured a figure inside. It was roughly the size of a ten-year-old boy, arms akimbo.
“Alfie, come on. I’m sorry.” Cameron shouted over the noise A can hit him. Cameron grunted, dropping to one knee at the top of the stairs. He let out a held breath. “Come on Alfie. I want to talk.”