CHAPTER VI
Lights Out
The wind blew though the streets of Hilliard, off of Main Street, and down Wakefield Dr. The dying trees lining the old neighborhood roads let go of their leaves one by one, and they gently road the breeze down to the ground, collecting along the curbs.
A one-story house, midway down Wakefield Dr., sat quietly. Inside, Holly and Kevin Gibson remained on the couch. A kitchen knife sat off to the side of the pumpkin on the coffee table along with a plastic grocery bag for discarding the pumpkins guts, but they had yet to begin carving.
The TV remained on, and they had it back on the horror movie marathon, but neither of them were paying much attention. Holly was leaning her head back on the sofa cushions and Kevin sat back deep in the couch with his feet propped up on the glass coffee table, scrolling through Facebook on his phone.
The TV flickered a few times, catching Kevin’s attention, and he looked to his left out the window. The sky was darkening in the distance and a few light raindrops hit the windows.
Kevin looked back at his phone. The TV flickered again, this time going black for longer periods of time before the picture came back.
Holly leaned over and looked at Kevin’s phone. “What time is it?”
“A little after three. Why?”
“Just wondering,” she said, yawning again.
~
Detective Miller sat in his office at the police station. He was staring at John Kelly’s high school picture on the computer. There were enough similarities from the picture that reflected the muddy corpse at the park. It was definitely him, but how?
Miller minimized the window on his screen and clicked into the next file. He selected all the photos in the file and opened them. Pictures of the other kids and teacher that died on that Halloween popped up – Ava, Mason, Melissa and Corey. Miller studied their faces and then reached for a folder on his desk.
The phone at his desk rang. He glanced at the caller ID. It said: Watkins – Hilliard. He quickly picked up the phone.
“This is Detective Miller,” he said. There was slight static on the other line. “Ms. Watkins?” The static would get louder and then subside to silence. “Elizabeth?” The static returned loudly and squealed. Miller pulled the phone away from his ear and cringed.
He could still hear the static as he slowly put the receiver back up to his ear. “Ms. Watkins, can you hear me?”
With a click on the other line, the call was ended. Miller was confused. There must have been some bad interference somehow. But Ms. Watkins must have needed something – or had information. Who knew, maybe she was even going to confess.
Miller stood up and put on his long coat and fedora that hung on the wall. He grabbed his car keys from off the desk and left his office.
~
Holly dozed off on the couch and startled herself awake to the sound of a woman screaming. She sat up fast and looked around – Kevin was gone.
The woman screamed again and Holly looked at the TV – another scary movie was on and a woman was screaming as she was forced into the corner of a room by the undead. Holly took a deep breath.
“Kevin?” she called out. She looked on the coffee table and the pumpkin was still sitting there untouched. The kitchen knife that was beside it, however, was gone.
“Kevin?” she called out again, slightly more tense. She turned around and saw Kevin coming out of the kitchen with his mouth full of a half-eaten cookie that was in his hand. Holly put her hand to her chest and caught her breath. “You scared me. What are you doing?”
“I was cleaning up,” Kevin said, still chewing. He swallowed hard and continued: “I put the knife away. I figured we probably weren’t going to be carving the pumpkin.”
Kevin sat down next to her on the couch. “I was thinking I might head back to my apartment in a bit.”
“Why?” Holly whined.
“Well, first of all, you’re exhausted. If I leave, you can get some rest. Secondly,” Kevin began, and right on cue, a loud crack of thunder shook the house, “…that. If I stay any longer, I’ll get caught in the storm.”
Holly understandably nodded in agreement. “Okay. You want to do breakfast tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Kevin smiled.
The TV flickered again, and shut off completely this time along with all the lamps. Even the ceiling fan lost power and slowed to a stop. They both looked around, waiting for everything to come back on. Nothing did.
A strong gust of wind blew through the neighborhood and rattled the pictures hanging on the wall. A quick flash of lightening lit up the now dim room.
“Don’t leave yet,” Holly whimpered. Kevin nodded, slightly intimidated himself.
“We’ll need some candles,” Kevin said.
“They’re in my bedroom, I’ll be right back.” Holly stood up and walked off towards her bedroom on the other side of the house. Kevin pulled his phone out of his pocket and double-tapped the screen to turn it on. The screen remained black. He tried again with the same baffling results.
Holly walked through the doorway and into her bedroom. She shuffled straight to the nightstand by the side of her bed and pulled the drawer open. The room began to darken as the storm drew closer. She fished around, blindly, in the drawer for the candles and matches.
A strobing series of lightening flashes lit up the room and Holly jumped back and screamed in fear as she saw a dark decrepit hand reaching for her face.
The series of lightening bolts came to a stop and left the room in ominous shadows. Holly stood up against her closet door with her hand over her mouth, staring at her bed – the hand came from a dark figure laying on it.
“Are you okay?” Kevin called out from the living room. Thunder roared outside and Holly caught her breath. “No…” she said back, her voice shaking in dread. She kept her attention on the bed – something didn’t seem right. There’s no way she could have imagined that.
She took a couple small vigilant steps back towards the bed. A quiet gurgling sound coming from the bed made her stop. She stared into the shadows and the thunder crashed again and another series of flashes illuminated the room.
A rotting corpse lay on her bed, with its arm reaching out for her. Holly screamed again and backed into the closet door again. The flesh on the carcass was falling off the bone and murky water gurgled out of its mouth. The long straggly brown hair on its head made it obvious it was a girl, and the right half of a broken-heart necklace around her neck made it obvious who it was – Ava.
“Ava! Oh my God!” Holly covered her mouth again and ran out of the room. Kevin met up with her in the hallway and grabbed her.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” he frantically asked.
“It’s Ava! She’s on my bed!” Holly said, a hysterical and emotional wreck. Kevin dashed into the bedroom and immediately heard the gurgling sound. A couple quick flashes of light lit up the room and Kevin saw the body. He backed out into the hallway.
“Who is that?” Kevin screamed.
“It’s Ava!”
“It can’t be! She’s dead and buried!”
“It’s her! Call the police!”
“My phone isn’t working, give me yours!”
Holly fumbled in her pockets and pulled out her phone and handed it to her brother. Kevin pressed the buttons on the side and tapped the screen, but her phone didn’t work either.
“We have to go to the neighbors, Holly. C’mon!”
Kevin grabbed his sister by the hand and they ran down the hall and out the front door of the house.
The wind was gusting, blowing dead leaves violently across the yard. Kevin pulled his sister up the porch to the neighbor’s house and pounded on the door. He waited a moment but no one answered.
A crack of thunder shook the earth and rain began to pour from the sky. Kevin and Holly were instantly soaked to the bone. Kevin looked at his car sitting along the side of the road and he felt for his keys in his pocket.
“C’mon!” he yelled over the hard-falling rain, and drug Holly back across the yard by her hand. They climbed into his car and he started the engine and took off down the street.
Kevin turned onto Main St. and followed the roundabout straight through onto Scioto Darby Rd.
“Where are you going?” Holly screamed. “The police department is back that way!”
Kevin had a concentrated look of hostility on his face. He snarled behind the wheel and he stared through the frantic windshield wipers and watched the road. “We’re going to the Watkins house. She’s the only one who can explain this.”
Holly sat back in the passenger seat and looked out the window. She took notice on how dark the storm was making it. It was almost like nighttime. She looked down at the clock on the radio, but it was flashing all zeros.
“What time is it?” she asked.
Kevin first looked to the radio, but once he saw it wasn’t working, he glanced at his watch. “It’s a little after three.”
“It was a little after three earlier when I asked you.”
Kevin looked at his watch again. “The battery must have died. I don’t know what time it is.”
The car splashed down the puddle-riddled road and they came up fast on another car. They were nearing Amity Rd. when the car in front of them put their brake lights on and came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road.
Kevin swerved to avoid a collision, but his car jolted and the engine shut off. Kevin spun the steering wheel and the car slid sideways. Kevin and Holly braced themselves for impact just as their car smashed into the back of the other car. The windows on the passenger side shattered and Holly covered her head with her hands as the glass showered down on her. The airbag on the driver’s side deployed and pushed Kevin back in his seat.
As the white powder from the airbag disappeared, Kevin focused. He looked at his sister. “Are you okay?”
Holly lowered her hands from her head and looked around. “I think so.”
Kevin aggressively opened his door while grumbling under his breath, “Why on Earth did that guy just stop.”
Kevin stepped out of his car and into the cold downpour. The driver’s door on the other car opened and a man in a long coat stepped out.
“Why did you just stop, buddy?” Kevin shouted.
“It was an accident,” the man yelled back, “my car locked up and then shut off. I didn’t have a chance to pull off to the side.”
Kevin approached the man and noticed a police badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck. The man reached out to shake Kevin’s hand.
“Detective Miller. I work for the Hilliard Police,” he said. “Sorry about you car – mine just up and stopped.”
“Same here.”
Miller saw that they appeared to be in a hurry and that Holly had been crying. He became concerned and curious. “What brings you guys out in the middle of this storm?”
“Um,” Kevin began, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“Our sister died ten years ago at the Watkins house, and…well, her dead body is laying in my sister’s bedroom right now.”
Kevin cringed and waited for Miller not to believe him. Holly hung her head and started to cry again.
“I believe you,” Miller said, shocking both Kevin and Holly. “Another student that died in that house appeared at the park earlier today.”
Holly gasped, “That was one of the students?”
Miller nodded. “I was on my way to the Watkins house when my car crapped out.”
“Same here,” Kevin said. “It’s not too far up the road.”
Miller turned around and looked up the dark road. The rain was pouring and lightening flashes lit up the sky. A rumble of thunder shook the ground, startling them. “Follow me.”
Kevin and Holly trekked up Amity Rd., shielding their faces from the hard-hitting rain. They followed Miller who had his flashlight shining out in front of them. Miller was being very cautious. He kept glancing off to either side of the road as something felt off to him. He called back to the siblings:
“Last I checked, before my watched stopped, it was almost five o’clock. That’s way too early for it to be this dark.”
“My watched stopped too – and our cell phones don’t work,” Kevin yelled back over the rain.
“The cars stopped working, the watches, the electricity – what’s happening?” Holly whimpered.
Neither Kevin nor Miller had an answer that would make sense.
“Hilliard is haunted,” Miller yelled over the rain. “I never believed it until tonight. There’re just too many strange things happening that I can’t explain.”
“Yeah – I’ve been hearing things and seeing things all day. And then our dead sister ends up on my bed…” Holly said.
“Elizabeth Watkins knows something. She has too.” Kevin said.
The police SUV where Westman and York were stationed was in sight. Miller picked up his pace to a slow jog as Kevin and Holly tried to keep up.
Miller ran up along side the SUV and looked in the windows. York and Westman were gone. Miller turned around and called for them:
“York! Westman!”
A crack of thunder was the only response. A violent stream of lightening flashes ignited the sky and all of their attention was drawn to the Watkins house, sitting threateningly in the storm. A light in one of the upstairs windows was still on and a dark figure peered out from behind the curtain.
“How does she still have power?” Holly trembled. The curtain in the window closed, leaving only the silhouette of whoever was behind it. Then, the light turned off.