Blackwater Springs

Chapter Three

1

    “What do you mean, it’s locked?” Audrey asked. “I just saw it close -by itself, mind you- not five minutes ago. Doors don’t just lock on their own, John.”

    “Yeah, well, they don’t open and close on their own either, but looks like these have done both.” He matched her tone almost exactly.

    “Well, unlock it. You’ve got a key.”

    “Yes, massah,” he said, and Audrey could tell she’d pissed him off. Good, she thought. He’d hurt her feelings, too.

    John unlocked the door and they both stepped inside. Audrey bent down to examine the floor.

    “What’re you doing?” John whispered.

    “Checking for termites,” she replied sarcastically. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m looking for footprints in all this dust that‘s settled.”

    “Oh. How can you tell which are ours, you know, from yesterday?”

    Audrey groaned; she’d forgotten about them both coming in and out through the front door the night before. “I can’t,” she said, rising. “I kinda forgot about us being here yesterday.”

    It was John’s turn to look incredulous. “How did you forget what you did last night?”

    “It was a long day. Plus I didn’t get much sleep. I told you.”

    John didn’t answer, he just walked in to the kitchen. Audrey was close on his heels. She never would have admitted it, not even to her husband, but the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and every little noise made her jump. It’s just this old house settling. If she told herself that enough, she might begin to believe it.

    She and John walked all over the house, save for the attic and the basement. They found no evidence that anyone other than themselves had been in the house in the past twenty years. In the back of her mind, Audrey heard Alan Mills telling her that the house was haunted. At the time, she had dismissed it as folklore, but now she wasn’t so sure.

    Audrey pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and checked the time. Two o’clock. No wonder her stomach was grumbling. “I’m hungry,” she told John, not quite able to keep a hint of the whine out of her voice.

    John looked at his watch. “Yeah, me too. Think we should lock up and go get a bite to eat?”

    “Sounds like a plan to me,” Audrey said. She grabbed the house key and beat John to the door. Both of them were in much better moods, and nothing else had happened. John, ever the logical one, chalked up what he called the incident to the old house; he said maybe the old window frames weren’t sturdy enough to hold the windows’ weight when they were open. However, he didn’t offer an explanation as to how the windows opened in the first place, nor how the door had opened and shut by itself.

    Still, Audrey wanted to believe him, so she did. It was better than the unreasonable conclusion that had begun forming in her head the minute the Mills boy had told her the house was haunted.

2

    The Café was considerably less crowded than it had been the night before; granted, it was two hours after the lunch rush. There were a few old men sitting in the back booth (Marsha Blevins’ grandfather had deemed it the bullshitters’ booth, for good reason, in the forties and the name had stuck ever since) picking at their food and shooting the breeze. A mother and her little girl were at the counter, eating egg salad sandwiches and drinking Pepsi. Other than them, the Café was empty.