16. Hell House

54 1 0
                                    

The Impala cruised past a sign that read Big Texas Towing and Salvage Yard.

Deanna was driving. She looked over and saw Sam sleeping with his mouth open. She felt around, then gently placed a plastic spoon in Sam's mouth. She grinned as she flipped open her phone and took a photo, then turned music up loud.

Deanna sang loudly, "Fire... of unknown origin... took my baby away!"

Sam jerked up, realized something was in his mouth, panicked, and waved his arms as he spit it out. Deanna air drummed to the song on her steering wheel, Kaden let out a sigh, and grinned as Sam wiped his mouth and turned down the music.

"Haha, very funny," Sam said.

"Heh, heh, heh," Deanna chuckled. "Sorry, not a lot of scenery here in East Texas, kinda gotta make your own."

"Man, we're not kids anymore, Deanna. We're not going to start that crap up again."

"Start what up?"

"Whatever. That prank stuff. It's stupid, and it always escalates."

"What's the matter, Sammy, scared you're going to get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?"

Sam frowned. "All right, just remember, you started it."

"Ah ha, bring it on, baldy."

"Where are we anyway?"

"A few hours outside of Richardson," Kaden replied. "Give us the low down again. No pranking me, please."

Sam read. "All right, about a month or two ago, this group of kids goes poking around in this local haunted house."

"Haunted by what?" Deanna asked.

"Apparently, a misogynistic spirit. Legend goes, it takes girls and strings them up in the rafters. I pity the spirit who tries to get me. Anyway, this group of kids see this dead girl hanging in the cellar."

"Anybody ID the corpse?"

"Well, that's the thing. By the time the cops got there, the body was gone. So cops are saying the kids were just yanking chains."

"Maybe the cops are right?" Kaden questioned.

"Maybe, but I read a couple of the kids first hand accounts. They seemed pretty sincere."

"Where did you read these accounts?" Deanna asked.

Sam, a little embarrassed, said, "Well, I knew we were going to be passing through Texas. So last night, I surfed some local paranormal websites. And I found one."

"And what's it called?"

"Hellhoundslair.com."

"Let me guess, streaming live out of Mom's basement," Kaden joked.

Sam grinned. "Yeah, probably."

"Yeah," Deanna agreed. "Most of those websites wouldn't know a ghost if it bit 'em in the persqueeter."

"Look. We let Dad take off. Which was a mistake, by the way. And now we don't know where the hell he is and in the meantime, we gotta find ourselves something to hunt. There's no harm in checking this out."

"All right. So where do we find these kids?"

"Same place you always find kids in a town like this."

---

The Impala pulled up to the fast food outlet.

---

The trio started interviewing the kids.

Ramble OnWhere stories live. Discover now