Chapter 1

Ghost/Haunted house

 

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it.

Bob Dylan �" Visions of Johanna

I

He turned off the radio and watched the painted lines, like dots, decorate the road. He shut the AC off for a while and wound the window down. Amy would normally give protest to such an act, but she has been asleep for the last 10 miles or so. The road starts to hypnotize like some bad showroom magician around 3 AM. Not many cars on this old stretch of I-90 between New York and Massachusetts, at least not at this hour. He looks over at Amy, curled up in the front seat with her head against the window. She looks so beautiful.

They've been together for ten years, though it feels like forever. They met at Boston University his sophomore year and they've been practically inseparable ever since. “Calvin and Amy, like two peas in a pod.” That's what his mom would say all the time. They never raised their voices to each other, never a cross word between them. Their friends secretly despised them for this; this perfect relationship no one could possible live up to. They were on their way back from visiting Calvin’s parents to tell them the good news. In a matter of a few weeks they bought their first house and found out Amy was pregnant, again. The house was a planned endeavor, the pregnancy, not so much. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing, they had talked about having another little one for a while now, but Calvin was worried about Amy. They had their first child right after they got married, two weeks before Amy’s 23 birthday. He died two weeks before his fourth birthday, hit by a drunk driver, while playing outside of their apartment in the city. She never forgave herself for letting him out of her site, for two seconds, that’s all it took. It took so much more out of Amy then the loss of a son.

A light from an approaching car snaps him out of his daydream; a slight shimmer of light and blurred reflection crept up the windshield. He took a sip of coffee and stared back at the painted lines. Amy told him to get a hotel room for the night, no need to make the drive in one day she said, but of course Calvin didn’t listen. “It is an easy drive and we can make good time at night.” Now he’s kind of regretting that decision, but just another 2 hours until they arrive at their house. Calvin was more excited to begin this new chapter than he thought he would be.
As he drove along, he heard a faint cry of something. It sounded like it was coming from outside and in the car at the same time. He looked over at Amy, but she was still sound asleep. He aimed the 6 year old Toyota to the berm of the road and leaned over to wake Amy up. He shook her arm a little to try to arouse her.

“Honey, honey wake up.”
“What the hell Calvin,” she said in a half daze.
“Do you hear that?”
“What are you talking ab-“
The cry was a little louder this time and it sounded like someone calling for help.
“What is that?”

He saw a figure amongst the tall grass of the field near the side of the road. A blonde woman-no girl, around 13, dressed in a thin white summer dress. Calvin thought she must be freezing. Summer was coming to an end and fall was creeping in like the draft in an old turn of the century house. The days were still nice, but at night when the New England chill starts setting in, it can get damn nippy. “See if there is a blanket or something in the trunk,” Calvin said to Amy, “I'll go see if she is okay.” The grass was about waist high and still a bit damp. The mud splashed up his pant legs and he felt bad as the thought of ruining his new dress shoes crept in his head, especially when this girl could be hurt. As he walks toward her, he can see what looks like red paint on the lower half of her dress. As he gets a little closer he can see that it is dried blood matting portions of her dress to her leg.

Calvin turns in the general direction of the car, “Hurry up with that blanket, I think she might be hurt!” He asks her for her name, where she's from, but the girl doesn't answer, just an eerie blank stare as she looks out toward the horizon and the first ray of daylight creeping from behind the hills. Amy ran toward her husband and the blonde girl with the blanket; a small afghan that Calvin kept in the car when he had to take their dog to the vet or the groomers. Amy wraps the girl around the shoulders and directs her through the field to the car. They set the girl in the back seat, still trying to get a name or anything out of her, but she doesn't even look at them. Her eyes fixated in the middle distance, staring straight ahead.

Calvin rummaged in the glove compartment for the map he always keeps on hand. He has drove on this particular stretch of highway only a few times and can't recall seeing a sign for a hospital. Amy told him to get GPS, but he wasn't a fan of technology. His dad always said a man should be able open a map and know exactly where he is and where he is going. Amy turns in her seat and looks back to check on the girl. She looks over her arms and legs to see if the girl is injured, but she can't find anything, not even a scratch. The whole time the girl just stares into the distance, expressionless, like some apoplectic porcelain doll.

“We better get her to a hospital soon, I'm worried she may be in shock or have internal injuries,” Amy said as she turns back toward the front of the car. She searches through here purse for her phone.

“S**t.”

“What is it?”

Do you have any signal on your phone?”

Calvin reaches into his pocket and pulls out his old flip phone that he has had since college, always amazed that the thing still works .

“No, nothing.”

Calvin looks back at the map, trying to get his bearings, as he props open the driver side door to use the overhead dome light. He can't seem to locate the little blue H anywhere on the map. Amy is becoming more and more freaked out as she looks back at this expressionless girl in their back seat. He finds the icon for a rest stop about 5 miles down the road from where they are.

“Honey, look there's a rest stop just a little ways down the road. We can head there and see if anyone can help us.”

“All right, but let's hurry I think there is really something wrong with this girl.”

Calvin pulls back onto the highway. The morning has arrived stung and stained, as bright rays of light bend through the trees. It would have been a beautiful morning; their first morning in the new house.