What Lies Beneath

Chapter Twelve: Secrets

It wasn't until Karen was back in her room, that she realized she had left the diary behind. Though with everything that had happened, she was sure that it was probably the right move.

Even though she was in her room, she knew that she wasn't safe. This whole house was haunted, and it clearly did not like the fact that she had been snooping around.

Her body was exhausted, but her mind was racing. She knew that someone or something clearly didn't want her to find out what the history of the house was. It was easy to presume that it was the women who owned the house, but then she would be ignoring some very important details. During the time that she had been here, she had seen three ghosts and had been attacked twice.

The ghosts only seemed to come after her when she was trying to investigate a girl named Cassie. The strange thing was that it was ghost who had given her the picture of the girl in the first place. So maybe there were two ghosts, one that wanted her to know and one that didn't.

She supposed that it kind of made sense, but she still had a lot of unanswered questions. Like why there were two ghosts trying to do the completely opposite things in one house.

The thought of leaving crossed her mind once again. She didn't have to stay in this house. She could always leave and-. Exactly, leave and what? She didn't have anywhere else to go. She didn't have any money for a cab or any prospects once she got out of here. In fact, the only reason that she was here in the first place was that she was told that this was a halfway house.

She figured that if she came here then they would teach her everything that she needed to know. That they would help her get acclimated into society, but instead all she got upon arrival were two cryptic old ladies and two ghosts.

Karen flung herself onto her bed. She was too exhausted to think anymore, so instead she went to sleep.

All through the night Karen suffered from bad dreams. She dreamed about being stuck in a fire again and not being able to get to her family. Then she dreamed that she was being chased by ghosts in the woods. For the second night in a row, Karen still did not get much sleep.

At around five thirty she heard a knock on her bedroom door. Her first thought was that it was one of the ladies there to take her to breakfast, but then she realized that breakfast wasn't for another hour and a half.

Curious, she crawled out of her oversized bed and made her way to the door. When she opened it, she was surprised to see that Wyatt was standing there and he looked like crap.

"I believe you." He almost shouted the words at her. So, she had been right, one night was all that it had taken.

"Let's talk." Karen opened the door wider and ushered him in.

"I am so sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to ignore you. It's just that when I got here, I noticed that there weren't animal sounds anywhere and I thought that that was weird and then you were ranting about ghosts. Oh God, what is happening?" Wyatt was ranting before Karen had a chance to shut the door.

"What are you talking about?" His words came out so fast that it had caused her head to spin.

"Yesterday I was so rude to you. I wasn't trying to be rude, but I was. I ignored you and your talk of ghosts, not on purpose though. I honestly just had a lot on my mind. When I had arrived here, I didn't hear any animals which was odd. So, I guess I subconsciously decided to spend the day focusing on that instead of focusing on you. So last night I came by to apologize and you weren't here, or maybe you were asleep. I don't know. In any case, I went back to my room and went to sleep. Then about two o'clock in the morning I heard a banging sound that woke me up. Naturally I was curious about what it was, so I got out of bed and stepped right into a puddle of blood that was coming from under my bed. When I looked under there, I found a huge pile of eviscerated animals. Then there was this pounding sound all night. I don't know how, but at some point, I guess I fell asleep or something because when I woke up the blood and the animals were gone, and the banging had disappeared." The words came rushing out of his mouth so fast that when he was done telling her everything that had happened, he had to take several deep breaths to refill his lungs.

"Let me get this straight. You had dead animals underneath your bed and a mysterious banging noise?" A tone of disbelief rang in Karen's voice.

"You don't believe me?" Wyatt felt like he had been punched in the face. He had only come to tell her because he figured that she was the only person that would believe him, not that he really had anyone else that he could tell.

"I don't know. I mean of course I do, it's just, if there was a banging sound coming from your room all night, wouldn't I have heard it?" Karen didn't want to seem mean, but her brain was programmed for logical, even though logic didn't seem to apply in this house.

"What does it matter if you heard it or not? You were ranting on and on about ghosts yesterday and you can't believe that what happened to me last night actually happened?!" This time he did intend for his words to come out as a shout.

"I saw them with my own eyes. I didn't experience what you did." Karen turned away from Wyatt and walked over to her closet.

"What the hell does that matter? I didn't see your ghosts, and yet here I am telling you that I believe you."

"I suppose your right, but why would ghosts put dead animals under your bed, only to clean them up later?" Wyatt could feel his face turning red with anger. Normally he was such a calm and cool person, but with everything that had happened, he couldn't manage to keep calm anymore.

"I don't know. I suppose you would say that we have to think about this logically, yes?" He paused and waited for her to nod. "Alright then. Logically it was probably either meant to be a scare tactic, or and more likely, it was a warning. The warning of course being leave or I will gut you like your precious animals!" Once again Wyatt found himself shouting at her.

"You could be right, but I still have a lot of questions." Karen seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Wyatt was furious with her due to her disbelief.

"Tell you what, why don't you go ask one of your little ghost friends. I'm done trying to convince you to believe me." With that Wyatt left the room, slamming the door behind him.

For a moment Karen stood in place, shocked. She hadn't meant to upset him, though she supposed that what she was feeling now was how he had been feeling yesterday. She could always go after him and apologize, but something told her that she was going to have to do a lot more than apologize if she wanted him to forgive her.

She supposed that for now it was best if she just got dressed and headed down for breakfast.