A Little Spooky (Small Town Lovers #7)

Luna 2

“This is crazy,” Bram whispered as Vince pulled out the key for the haunted room we’d made a pact never, ever to go into again. Hell, I hadn’t ever wanted to step foot on the property, let alone enter the room again. “I’m already getting a bad vibe about this, and Vince hasn’t even opened the door yet.”

I’d given them my condition last night, which was to confront our fear of Stoker House and chase wicked Carrie Ann away once and for all. Even though Vince was going to open the place to the world in a few weeks, he still hadn’t stepped one foot inside this room.

The way I had it figured, not only would we overcome our fear, but there might be a chance that we could convince her to leave this place or at the very least, become a more friendly ghost, like Casper, the adorable friendly ghost.

Not that I ever thought for one moment that Carrie Ann could change her colors, but I still believed in miracles, so anything was possible.

None of them, not even Vince, would agree to this adventure until I made it clear there was no way I would step one foot inside that coffin unless we all confronted our biggest fear, Carrie Ann Stoker. At first, I was adamant they would be the ones going into the dreaded locked room, but when that didn’t fly, I agreed to join them.

Now I wasn’t too sure any of this was a smart idea. Not only did they counter my condition with a condition of their own… that we had to spend the night in the room… which I agreed to, but now that we were doing it, I wasn’t certain we were ready for another encounter of the Carrie Ann kind.

Fortunately, Vince had the room renovated along with the rest of the house, so everything inside the old playroom would be brand new, and his cleaning team had set it up for us that afternoon. Still, we weren’t too happy about spending an entire night with a wily ghost floating around, especially me.

What the hell was I thinking?

“Are you sure you can’t come up with something else to jump inside that coffin for the race?” Freddie asked. His normally olive-colored skin seemed pale at the moment.

I took a step back from the door. Now was my chance to get out of this stupid dare, and it was, in fact, a dare… even a triple-dog-dare.

Still, I sucked it up and stuck a hand on my hip, trying to look as badass as I could drum up through my own terrifying fear. “No. Guys. I’m just as scared as you are. We were kids when we saw Carrie’s bloody ghost or at least we think we saw it. It’s time to put that story to rest. Besides, none of the ghostbusters who’ve been in this room have ever seen anything. Isn’t that what you told us, Vince?”

All eyes fell on Vince.

He hesitated, gazed down at the floor, then back up for a moment. I instantly knew something was up.

“That’s not entirely true,” he explained as he fumbled with the key, as if he couldn’t quite find the hole. He chose to keep old-fashioned locks on the doors that required a classic skeleton key. Granted the hallway was low light, but not that low that he couldn’t see where to insert the key.

The room was separated from the rest of the house. It was the largest room on the second floor with the best view of the town. According to what we knew about the various rooms in the house, it had been Carrie Ann’s playroom. Then after her parents, Boris and Carmen, decided she was a witch in her teen years, they locked her inside this room and kept her here until they poisoned her.

Vince had told us that with the door closed and the windows boarded up, no one could hear her screams. Not even her parents. Those boards on the windows were some of the first things that Vince tore down when he first took over the house.

“But you said…” I hated when Vince wasn’t upfront about shit… something he did often enough to keep us always guessing. Vince liked to either embellish a story or ignore some of the details, depending on his audience.

“I said that no one ever saw what we saw. I never said that some spooky things didn’t happen while ghostbusters were inside the room.” Vince finally inserted the key and turned it in the lock. He went to pull the door open with the antique doorknob when Bram put his hand on the door to stop him.

The weird thing about this door… it opened out, unlike the other doors in this house, at least according to Freddie. Probably so Carrie Ann couldn’t put anything up against the door to keep her killer parents out, giving them complete control.

“Let’s think this thing through,” Bram said. “We’re breaking our pact because we want Luna to ride inside the coffin for the race, which she’s afraid of because every year during the race, at least one coffin ends up in pieces when it hits the tree. Does that about cover your reason, Luna?”

He stared down at me as he held the door shut.

“Yes, and no,” I mumbled, refusing to walk away from this horror when we were so close to conquering it. “I think it’s time we confront one of our biggest fears. We’re all grown up now, and what we saw or didn’t see, happened when we were young and impressionable. Hell, for all we know, someone could’ve pranked us, and Vince has been losing money on opening this place because of this stupid scary room. Plus, we’ve always helped each other to face our fears and do it anyway. Well, this is one of those ‘do it anyway’ times.”

“That’s fine for trying new foods or riding a horse or learning how to tango, all of which we’ve done, but this is facing a fear on an entirely different level,” Freddie offered. “We have no idea what waits for us on the other side of this door. I’m warning you guys, this room is creepy. I’ve been in it, and something unsettling lives in this room. The rest of the house seems normal, but this room… something is way off.”

His words sent a shiver down my spine.

“Look, the way I see it, this whole thing is tied to your stupid sex-free pact,” I told them right as the thought raced through my mind. I hadn’t even dwelled on this premise until that very moment. “Like why are you guys so afraid of letting your emotions out? Why are you holding back? Just because we’ve all been torched a few times, doesn’t mean our true love isn’t out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered. So yeah, I made a mistake with Gary, but at least I’m still in the game. You guys have given up even trying.”

“I don’t see how sex has anything to do with entering this stupid room,” Bram countered, while still pressing on the door. “Having sex with a woman, at least for me, taps into shit I might not be ready to deal with, especially if that woman isn’t in the same space as I am. Which has been the fucking case every single time. Granted, I like a lot of sex in a relationship, maybe too much, but I’m working on that. Still, I kept dating women who don’t want a deep relationship. They want everything on the surface. Impossible if you’re having sex a few times a day. Emotions can’t help but get stronger and stronger. I’m not into superficial bullshit, at least not since I hit my thirties.” He dropped his hand from the door. “Fucking fine. Let’s just go inside and set the room on fire with our PJ party. Carrie Ann might like the visitors in her playpen. Let’s get it over with so we can get on with our fucking lives. You’re right, Luna. This room has been haunting us since we were kids. Time to put our fucking toys away and grow the hell up.”

We were all silent for a moment.

Like Bram had sucked the air out of our space.

Like he was angry about it, about that night. He just admitted things about himself he hadn’t ever said before.

“You like to have sex several times a day?” I asked. “And when you say several, what number do you attach to that?”

“I don’t know, three or four times, maybe, but that’s on the low end.”

“The fucking low end?” Vince asked, appearing a bit stunned. “What are you, some kind of sex machine? Are you even human?”

I had a feeling this information took Vince and Freddie by surprise as well. Like they never talked about this stuff with each other. I always assumed they shared everything, even their sex lives.

“Look, it’s what I like, all right? You know I like a lot of sex,” Bram told them, trying to dismiss their inquisition.

“And do you get off that many times?” Vince wanted to know.

“What’s with all the fucking questions? Yeah, I get off, so what?”

“I just don’t understand where you get the time?” Freddie asked, as if the answer was somehow important.

“I didn’t think a guy could come that many times,” I said, thinking aloud. “I mean, doesn’t it take time to build up steam again?”

“Sperm? Yeah, but if you practice a few things like Kegels or stopping yourself from coming the first time you feel like it, you can come more often.” Bram was into it now, like he was giving a talk on the subject. Like he was teaching one of his Zoom classes on photography. Not only was Bram a fabulous nature photographer, he also did weddings, parties, events, and taught photography with online classes.

“It’s called edging,” Freddie said. “I used to do it all the time when I was having sex. Now, I just do it when I’m rubbing one off on myself.”

I was getting turned on, and we had a ghost to deal with. I couldn’t help imagining Freddie naked, jacking off in bed.

Wait! These guys were my best friends, not my lovers. “We should stop talking about this.”

“Why? We’re all adults,” Vince said, a devious grin stretching his oh-so-kissable lips.

“It’s too much. I don’t want to know how you jackoff.”

Freddie stepped in closer to me. “You’re envisioning it right now, aren’t you?”

If he leaned in and kissed me, I would’ve kissed him right back, hard and hot.

“Just stop it. Okay?” Bram ordered, his voice curt.

“Woah, where’s all this hostility coming from? We’re not the enemy. We’re your friends, remember?” Vince said. “We can all respect the fact that you’re looking for a deep, hot, and heavy relationship. I think we all are, but wow, you don’t have to get so worked up about it. We’re on your side, remember? Always have been. Always will be.”

Bram gazed at him, his eyes glassy and wide open. Then, a moment later, he softened, like he was coming out of some kind of fog. “Sorry. Sorry. It just came out. I don’t even know where all that came from. Like I had to make you guys understand my side. It was important. Wow, that was fucking intense.”

He sucked in a deep breath, then let it out while running a hand through his hair.

“Hey… Wasn’t this kind of stuff something like what happened to us the first time we walked into this room?” Vince asked. “Like we all had to tell each other exactly what we were thinking? As if we’d been given some kind of truth serum?”

He pulled the key out of the door, and before he could even turn the damn knob, the door swung open, pushing us out of the way, and hit the wall with a loud bang.

I let out a yelp and backed right into Freddie, who swung his arms around me, as if he was trying to protect me… but against what. There was nothing there.

“Fuck!” Freddie said, as Bram and Vince took a couple of steps back. “This room is still fucking haunted.”

“Let’s think about this. It could have been a draft. I felt a breeze, didn’t you guys?” Vince asked.

“Yeah, I felt a breeze,” Freddie agreed, his voice a bit shaky, as I rested the back of my head against his chest, feeling safe. “But it was coming from in front of us. Not behind.”

Which was absolutely true. As if there was a window open inside the room.

“I’m going in,” I told them, trying to be brave about the whole thing. I stepped out of Freddie’s embrace, walked into the dreaded room, and flipped on the light switch.

Immediately, a warm glow washed over the room, causing it to look inviting instead of scary. Of course, the inviting look could all be since I had three strong men behind me if something scary happened.

“Be careful,” Vince said, confidently standing on the other side of the open doorway.

I turned back to him and grabbed his black tee. “Oh no, Mister Scaredy Cat. You’re coming in right along with me. All three of you are.”

He followed me inside. To my complete surprise, the room radiated serenity. Nothing like I’d remembered it from that brief time I saw it when I was a young teen.

“It’s cozy,” I said while my stomach shook, and my teeth rattled.

“Yeah, it was part of the remodel that Freddie did,” Vince told us.

“I had my crew come in and rip out the original doors, the boarded-up windows, and pull down the awful wallpaper. I never really stepped one foot inside,” Freddie told us. “Just glanced at it during the renovations. Galen replastered the walls, and Anton and his team put in new woodwork and painted the walls. Then Jess Hall and her team decorated it. This is the first time I’m seeing it, what with our pact and all.”

The room had two double, four-poster beds, side by side, with a nightstand in the middle. Woods were dark, and the beds were high, giving that country feel to everything. The décor was like the rest of the house. The colors black, tan, and rose covered everything, with touches of green, sky blue, and white. The curtains were creamy white sheers and billowed on the blond wooden floor. There were a couple of comfy, club-type chairs, a small desk in front of those once-scary windows, an adjustable black chair, and a kid’s rocking horse in the corner, along with a couple of dolls.

“What the hell is all that?” I asked, pointing to the toys.

“I tried to get rid of that stuff, but no one would let me. I even donated it to that second-hand store in town, but the owner brought everything back, telling me that these things belonged in the house,” Vince said.

“And I take it the rocking horse and the dolls belonged to Carrie Ann?” I asked, getting closer to the display.

“I have no reason to believe they didn’t,” Vince said. “They were in this room when I opened it up for the first time. Dirty, torn, and covered with spider webs, but Jess took everything and had it all restored at Giorgio Ballucci’s repair shop.”

Giorgio and his team of brilliant craftsmen and craftswomen were miracle workers with everything from cracked stained glass, to jewelry, to furniture. People came from all over the area, and some from out of state, just so his team could repair their most treasured items.

As I gazed at the display, a sudden memory ripped through my thoughts. “I remember that black dress on that smaller doll. Carrie Ann was holding that doll when we saw her. Holy shit.”

A storm raged outside, and lightning lit up the windows for a moment, right before the house rumbled from thunder off in the distance.

“I don’t remember her holding a doll,” Bram said. “But she was sitting on that horse. I know that for sure.”

“That’s not what I saw. She was sitting in front of the windows, cross-legged, sticking pins in the other doll with no face and the red dress. I remember thinking that doll represented her mother,” Freddie whispered as if someone else might be listening to us.

“All I saw was blood pouring out of her open mouth,” Vince said. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Then he calmly walked out of the room.

“Vince!” I called after him. “Vince!”

None of us had ever talked about what we saw that night, so this was the first time any of us compared notes.

“Let him go,” Freddie said. “Obviously, he had the worst sighting, and it still upsets him.”

“I had no idea we all had a different vision of Carrie Ann,” I told them, feeling my heart race, while the rain pounded the roof. I knew we were in for a big storm tonight, but for some reason, it sounded even more threatening from inside this room.

“That’s because we never talked about it before,” Bram offered.

“Too scared,” Freddie said. “Let’s not do this. Luna, if you don’t want to be in the casket during the race, that’s fine. This is too much.” And he walked out as well.

The windows lit up again from the crack of lightning, only this time, the thunder boomed.

I gazed up at Bram. “Are you going to bail as well?”

“Why don’t we close this down for now? We can stay in a different room tonight. Or we can all go home. Either way, we shouldn’t stay here. It’s too damn disturbing and brings up too many bad memories, not just of that night. I’m sure we all have more shit that we’ve never talked about.”

He was right. I’d seen Carrie Ann through the windows, walking around in other rooms inside the house, even when it was still boarded up. Like I could see through the wooden barriers. I’d seen her out by the willow tree on countless occasions, and every time I saw her, she was always carrying the doll in the black dress. Now I wanted to know what else the guys had seen.

“Okay. This room makes all of us a little twitchy. Let’s see what Freddie and Vince think, but yeah, I’m willing to spend the night here… and not in this room. Besides, I want to know what else you guys have seen. Let’s compare notes. Maybe there’s more to Carrie Ann’s story than we think. And maybe she wants us to stay and help her to make peace with the past.”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the rocking horse moved.

A sharp flash of lightning lit up the entire room, and the thunder was so loud, I let out a little yelp and went right for Bram.

“Shit,” Bram said, his strong arms wrapping around me, and the lights went out. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”