HAUNTED
From where the Irregulars stood on the sidewalk, the house seemed hungry, a beast ready to devour its prey. Shadows danced under its swaying porch light. A throw of late season bats skittered through falling dusk.
"I've never been keen on haunted houses." Arthur shivered against the night breeze. "And aren't we a little early? It's only 7:30."
"We’re going to surprise her." Kavi mounted the steps to Miss Leslie's porch. The first step groaned, "murrrrderrrrr" under her foot. "The publishers are a bust. None of them have even heard of us. Leslie is our last hope. I'll talk to her, distract her, while you two see if you can match Sheila's envelope to something else in the house."
"No." Harris skipped the creaky step and followed. "No-strings attached sex with supermodel is too good to pass up. Wealth to rival Scrooge McDuck is too good to pass up. All-you-can-eat ribeye is too good to pass up. A sociopath's invitation to a haunted house is fucking insane."
"If I get in there and see another episode of 'Geriatrics Gone Wild,'" Arthur said, "I'm gouging your eyes out."
Kavi ran up and jabbed the doorbell. It buzzed like a mechanical hornet, angry and ready to sting. The trio stood at full attention, muscles quivering and hearts sprinting to beat the devil. Icy night nipped ears and noses.
"I knew it," Arthur whispered. "They're fucking."
Kavi stepped back and surveyed Ash Lane. Blue streetlights watched over a ribbon of blank asphalt that melted into darkness. "I don't see Hardcastle's car…"
"I've always wanted to do this…" Harris rolled his head over his shoulders, arms swinging. "Stand back, I'm going to bust the mother down."
Kavi raised a hand to protest—breaking and entering is illegal!—as Harris shot forward. The door flew open with a loud pop! Harris sprawled into the hardwood entry, hands clutching his groin. Splinters and glittering dust floated through the small space.
"My balls!" Harris hissed against the pain. "The doorknob hit my balls!"
Deep, inky shadows dripped through Barbara Ann Leslie's house. Black hole doorways opened to the left and right. A curled balustrade of a staircase ascended to a darkened second story.
"You got it on your first try, Harris." Kavi stepped in and extended a hand to Harris. "Was the door already open?"
"I think it had been busted open." Arthur stooped, nose to door jamb. His fingers read gashes in the wood like Braille. "These look like marks from a prybar. You can see where the teeth dug into the jamb here." With a jiggle, Arthur pulled the scratch guard clear of the door frame and tossed it aside.
"Did any of you bring a weapon?" Kavi asked, body running cold.
"Coppers nicked my gun." Arthur shrugged.
"I have my pocket knife," Harris said.
Panic spiders crawled up their spines. The Irregulars stood totem straight, ears straining into the silence. The house before them felt frozen, trapped in a single moment in time. Their eyes searched the darkness and saw only the ghosts haunting their imaginations.
"Miss Leslie?" Kavi called to the darkness above. "It's Kavia Adnan-Byrne! We know what you did! Come down and we can do this without any funny stuff!"
The silence remained defiant.
"This is bad," Kavi clutched her arms to chest. Her head felt light. "This is very bad. I don't know…"
"We can't just leave." Arthur broke left into the darkness. "Kavi, you go upstairs while Harris and I check down here. Find the fingerprint maker!"
Kavi mounted the steps, leaning heavily on the banister. "Why do I have to go upstairs?"
"This is your dumbass plan," Harris said. "That makes you head dumbass."
Harris broke left to the kitchen and Arthur right to the Parlor. Cutting-edge stainless steel and marble dominated the spacious kitchen. If the exterior shouted 18th century, this kitchen shouted 21st. A collection of copper pots and pans hung from a rack in the center of the room like prey dangling from a spider web. Small touchscreens and LED lights glimmered from brand-new appliances. A half-eaten deli sandwich sat on the breakfast island. Harris rifled through drawers but found only cutlery, place settings, kitchen knick-knacks.
"Nothing in here." Harris called.
The parlor, on the other hand, seemed the bosom of the home's soul. Old world furniture guarded a fireplace along the far wall. Built-in shelves bowed under dusted leather books. In the corner opposite the entry, adjacent to the hearth, stretched a chaise. A book lay open on the white leather. A single page curled up from the spine as if trying to turn to the next but frozen in place. Arthur plucked the book. The Sheik's Pregnant Mistress. Arthur read the hovering page and blushed, the prose full of ‘throbbing members’ and ‘moist, broadening slits.’ The cover was still warm.
Careful to keep the reader's (rather saucy) page, Arthur returned the book and circled back into the entryway. "Wherever Leslie is," Arthur said, "it looks like she just left. I think we should probably—"
A cold, ragged scream cut Arthur short. Harris shot back to the entry, chest heaving.
"Was that Kavi?"
Harris and Arthur looked up the staircase. A black shape churned in the blackness above.
"Kavi," Arthur mounted the first step, hand outstretched. "What the bloody hell…?"
A beast of a man, roughly Arthur's height but with a bodybuilder's bulk, flew down the steps. A long, dark cape flapped in his wake.
"You!" Harris shouted. "The leather duster! You're the elephant!"
The trench-coat man bounded the final four steps in a single, massive leap, collars held tightly to his face.
"Stop!" Harris, a JV defensive lineman in his high school days, lowered his shoulders to tackle the beast. Physics, however, had other ideas. The man bowled Harris hard onto his back. Stars in his eyes, Harris swung for any sort of grip. His hand closed around leather. The coat slipped down the giant's shoulders. Porch light illuminated the man's pudgy cheeks, his doughy brown eyes and a faint, bubbling scar near the man's scalp-line.
"Arthur!" Harris screamed. "Don’t just stand there! Get him!"
Arthur's stomach lurched. It felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach, the breath suddenly gone from his chest, his throat choking for air that wouldn't come.
"Bernard?" Arthur pronounced the name 'berr-nerd.' "Bernard!"
The giant shouldered past Arthur and slid out into the night. Arthur watched, dazed, as the man righted the leather coat over his massive shoulders and face. Leather flowing behind him, the giant disappeared into velvet dark.
"What the fuck?" Harris scrabbled back from Arthur. "You let him go!"
Arthur turned back from the empty doorway. Harris' eyes burned with white-hot rage.
"I…" Arthur's voice refused to work. "I…"
"Help! Help!" Kavi wailed from the darkness above.
Harris sprinted up the steps, Arthur trailing. A black hallway branched to rooms before them. Dusty, spare bedrooms and a gleaming bright bathroom blurred as Harris and Arthur ran toward Kavi's voice. They ran without breathing, without awareness they required breath, the end of the hall.
Harris shot through the door at the end of the hall and skidded to a stop, hands to knees. His chest clenched. The air in his lungs burned like acid.
"Oh God."
Bare wood and ancient, peeling wallpaper made the room seem like a mummy, oilblack skin pulling away from bone. Windows crisscrossed blue light from the street lamps outside. In the furthest corner, Kavi trembled in a heap, dripping with blood. She cradled a limp Barbara Ann Leslie. Her head lolled at Kavi's elbow. A noose circled her neck, its tail slithering through a growing slick of blood.
"Help me!" Kavi sobbed. "She was—swinging… I, I cut her down..."
"It's…," Harris swallowed the sick pushing up his throat. "It's okay."
"It's not okay!" Kavi cried.
Harris tottered over unsteady feet. He stopped where Kavi sat, crouching, unsure what to say, what to do. A bit of metal glinted in Harris' periphery. He reached out and closed his hand around a 12-inch butcher knife. Its black and silver inlay handle matched the set in Barbara Ann's kitchen—except the blade dripped with blood and ragged bits of sinew. The knife fell from Harris' hand, clanged to the wooden floor.
"Oh shit." A wave of sickness pushed up into Harris' throat. "Kavi. We need to get the fuck out of here. Arthur. Arthur’s fucked us. He's been lying to us from the start. His being late on Tuesday, not going back to his house…" Harris shook Kavi's shoulder, tried to rouse her, to get her away from that awful body.
"Kavi," Harris looked Kavi dead in the eye. "Arthur is in cahoots with the murderer. We've got to hightail and then call 9-1-1."
"There'll be no need for that." Alex marched through the doorway. With a grunt, she pushed Arthur, his hands already in cuffs, into the center of the room. "On the floor and hands behind your backs, you two."
Harris flopped to hardwood. The sweet smell of old varnish filled his nose. He writhed, trying to crane his neck to make eye contact with Alex.
"Alex, please…you've got to believe—"
"Shut the fuck up." Alex drew her gun, aimed it square to Harris. "I can't believe I…" A stream of Kevlar-clad officers poured in behind her, guns drawn. "Cuff these bastards and get a medic in here."
"She's still breathing!" Kavi screamed. "Please! She's still breathing!"
Alex holstered her gun as cops wrenched the Irregulars’ arms. Harris and Kavi again felt the sting of handcuffs biting their wrists. A team of medics huddled around Barbara Ann, their voices unintelligible.
"Kavia Adnan-Byrne, Arthur Kite and H…and Harris Kagan," Alex spoke through gritted teeth. "You're under arrest for the murder of Barbra Ann Leslie."
Outside a flashing camera hit like lightning, police vans rumbling ominous thunder.
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