Microsoft word winterb.., p.11
Microsoft Word - Winterborn_final-ADRoland, page 11
go to sleep.”
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Chapter Eight
The hallucinations started before they even walked out of the house.
The last few times she'd detoxed, the hallucinations had been simple. Squiggly lines in her
peripheral vision. Bells and tones during quiet moments. Flashes of light, phantom touches on her
arms and through her hair. After a few weeks, after the shakes went away and the headaches weren't
quite so incapacitating, the visions and sounds would disappear. It just took time, and she had to
remind herself, if it looked unreal, it most likely was.
The shakes were so bad she felt like she was vibrating. Her head pounded and breath-taking leg
cramps slowed her down.
“God, oh dear Lord,” she murmured after a cramp dropped her like a rock to the floor in the
bedroom. Sean poked his head out of the bathroom, his mouth full of foaming toothpaste.
“'Aight?” he asked around the mouthful of suds.
“More or less.”
Something ran across the room, claws skittering on wood, and dove under the bed. She saw a
flash of shiny red eyes in the shadows of the dust ruffle that never hung right. Tam jerked backwards,
smacking her shoulder into the dresser. The bric-a-brac on top rattled and something fell over. Sean
looked out of the bathroom again. Naked this time.
“Tam?”
She ignored him and leaned down to peer under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies. No reptilian
little creature with claws that clicked and scratched against wood. Nothing with little red eyes.
“Yo, Tamsyn. You with me?”
“There was...something.”
“What? A rat? Not a rat. Oh no...” He shuddered and went back into the bathroom, shutting the
door behind himself. Tam stared after him.
“You would leave me alone with a rat?” She threw a ball of socks at the door.
“In a heartbeat!”
“What if it was an evil rat?”
“You know where the guns are!”
“Loser.”
Mostly sure she hadn't really seen anything, Tam got dressed and bullied her way into the
bathroom. Sean's shower filled the small room with steam and made the tile floor slippery. She stood
at the sink and sloshed cold water on her face and smoothed down her frizzy, fried hair. It was about
time to re-dye it. She opened one of the drawers in the vanity and picked through the jars of semi-
permanent hair dye in colors like electric sapphire and raven's blood red. The last time she did her
hair, she bleached it, toned it with a really cool pearlescent white, and then dyed bright blue streaks
throughout.
Sean hated it instantly.
He'd hated it when she went magenta. And magenta with black stripes. The green, blue, and
yellow hadn't gone over well either. He liked her regular old blond, and he liked it even better when all her piercings were out. Tam ran her fingers over the ten tiny balls than ran the length of her ear.
Sometimes she wore a long bar between the cartilage and one of the holes farther down the edge of
her ear. At the moment, she had titanium balls that ascended in size all the way up on one side, and
descended in size in the other ear. Her nose was pierced, but she'd let that one close up, like she'd
done with her tongue and eyebrow piercings.
He didn’t say much about her tattoos anymore. For a few years after they got married, she worked
in a tattoo shop. Those years left her with quite a few strange pieces of artwork, many that he objected to, some he just responded to with a sigh. Her favorite was a realistic Spock tattoo that took up most
of her left shoulder blade.
Sean’s favorite one to hate. She smirked and turned to watch him get out of the shower.
One thing she could never deny the fact she’d married one attractive man. The years had
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thickened his narrow waist and broadened his shoulders since the first time she met him. All the
working out and running kept his physique in tip-top shape.
He squeezed by her and out of the bathroom. “Fifteen minutes, babe.” She watched him through
the mirror as he got dressed in a pair of nice jeans and a shirt she hated. “What are you wearing?
Want me to get it out for you?” he called.
“Uh, the red burnout shirt and the long denim skirt.”
It took twenty minutes before they actually got out the door. On edge, Tam waited for his usual
irritable explosion. It never came, and he even seemed to be smiling.
“We're running late.”
He glanced at her when he opened her car door. “I know.”
“You're not mad?”
“Not especially. Too much stuff to worry about that's more important than whether we get out of
the house right when we're supposed to or not.”
****
Henry D’Argent's real estate office occupied the entire body story of one of the oldest buildings in
town. The main strip had about a dozen two and three story structures that dated back to the late
eighteen hundreds. Dargent's family had owned most of them for the last hundred years or so. The
Estate was one of his newer acquisitions.
He invited them into his office, a room ridiculously furnished in huge, dark Victorian pieces. “Sit,
please.” He gestured toward the dainty little loveseat in front of his desk. Sean raised his eyebrows at her as he lowered his leggy frame into the seat. Tam squeezed in next to him.
“So you're interested in the caretaker's position, Mr. Hallert?”
“Yes.”
“Your family has owned the cottage next door to the Estate for close to forty years now. Can't tell
you how many times my father and then myself tried to talk your parents into selling.”
Sean chuckled. “I remember a lot of them. My parents traced our lineage back to the original
overseers and caretakers of the Estate, so it meant a lot to them.”
“I was sorry to hear they passed.”
“Me too.”
Dargent shuffled some papers on his desk and separated one from the stack. “So, you're
interested in taking over the caretaker's position for the Estate?”
“Yes. My father did it until―until that incident.”
“Ah, yes. The deaths of those teenagers and your uncle.”
Sean's clammy hand gripped Tam's, tightly. He nodded. “It was too hard for him to go back after
that night.”
“You were the one that found your uncle's body and the one girl that survived, correct?”
Tam hadn't known that. After twelve years of marriage, she hadn't known that. No wonder he was
so terrified of the Estate! Why in the world was he trying to get a job taking care of the place?
“Yes.”
Dargent leaned back in his seat. The leather and wood creaked and groaned. “And you're fine
with being on the grounds every day, and in and out of the house? You may have to be there some
nights, especially during spring break and summer, when the kids get rowdy.”
Sean took a deep breath. Tam squeezed his hand. He nodded his head again. “That stuff
happened a long time ago. It's just a house. We all have to face our fears at some point.”
“True. Mainly your duties will be opening the Estate up for repair and renovation crews over the
next few weeks and security duty over the weekends. I have an outside company that provides it
during the week. I'm sure you already know that. The place has to be ship-shape by the first week of
December. On the 19th, I'm hosting a Christmas Ball and Haunted Tour, hopefully to attract a
potential buyer.”
“How much renovation has gone on inside already?” Tam asked.
“Well, the place has been in a constant state of transition for the last fifteen years. Since the house
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isn't one that will sell easily, I've been taking my time, renovating as I have the extra funds. I've got four different crews―one for each wing of the house and one for the atrium―coming in to finish it
up.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, ma'am. And I'm still hoping Sean here will sell me that parcel of land you all own, so I can
sell the entire acreage.”
Sean chuckled. “I'm as determined as my dad was to keep that house in my family.”
“You can rent it from me, cheap.” Dargent grinned, joking.
“No thanks.” Sean's grip loosened on Tam's hand. She pulled hers into her lap and massaged it to
get the circulation flowing again.
“Well, Mrs. Hallert, how do you feel about your husband taking this job?”
“I'm glad he's going to be close to home.”
“She has some health issues,” Sean said. “It's pretty important that I can get to her if she needs
me.” Tam flashed the man a weak smile. Milk it, baby.
“I'm sorry to hear that.” Dargent shuffled some papers around on his desk and withdrew one
from the stack. “Well, Mr. Hallert, go ahead and review the terms of your employment, and if you
accept, we can take a ride out to the Estate, so I can show you around the place.”
Tam heard his thin, tense inhalation. “Hold on one second, Mr. Dargent. I need to speak to Sean
for just a second privately.”
“Of course. I'm going to step out anyway for a cup of coffee. Would either of you like any?”
“No thank you.”
Once Dargent was out of the office, Tam turned to Sean. There wasn't much room to maneuver
on the tiny, hard loveseat. She framed his face in her hands, something she hadn't done in a long time.
He used to love it when she would trace her thumbs over his cheekbones and kiss him.
Biting back her pride, she performed that simple private ritual. “You don't have to do this, Sean.
I'm sure I can get a few commissions. People still know who I am.”
“You have to focus on getting better. This will only be until we can get our lives straight. We're
not kids anymore. We've got to do what we have to, to save us.”
“But can you deal with this? It was just last week you had another one of those nightmares. You'll
have to be in and out of that house every day, and some nights, too.”
“I can do it, baby. It's just a house. There have been people in and out of it for the last fifteen
years. Nothing has happened since the night my uncle and those kids got killed.” He wrapped his
arms around her and held her close, forehead to hers. “I'm doing this for you and for Kevin. For us. I
never faced that fear when I was a kid. It's pretty much owned my life since then, and I can't let it do that anymore. It won't be a big deal.”
Tam sighed and hugged him. “Okay. All right.”
“Love you, Tams.”
“I love you, too, Sean.” The phrase felt rusty on her lips, but it surprised her when she realized
she meant it.
Dargent bustled back into the room with a couple of water bottles and a cup of coffee. He passed
the frosty bottles to Tam. “Everything all right?”
“Yes,” Sean replied. “And I want the job.”
Dargent smiled and reached over the desk to shake Sean's hand. “Good, good. I think you'll do a
good job.”
“I hope so.”
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Chapter Nine
The next Saturday, Kevin came home, and all hell broke loose.
It was all emotional, but it was hell nonetheless.
Tam spent the first day he was home, curled up in a ball in her bathroom, fighting a surprise wave
of DT's that kept her shaking, puking, crying, and seeing dark scaly things with red eyes scampering
around the house, in and out of the shadows.
Sean spent the day at Dargent's going over the Estate's floor plans, so he was no help. Kevin
taunted her, or at least it seemed like he did. By midday, Tam's sense of reality was so skewed she
wasn't sure if the nose on her face was her own, or one she borrowed from somebody else, back when
she was a midget in the circus.
She eventually figured out it was her nose, and Kevin hadn't sprouted a few extra long fingers that
he could stick beneath the bathroom door.
In the bedroom the cell phone was ringing and ringing. Sean. If she didn't answer, then he would
drop whatever he was doing and rush home. It might cost him his job if he did that.
Tam crept out of the bathroom, holding the plunger in case the weird scaly things came back.
Everything looked normal. She straightened up and took a deep breath. The phone began to sing
again. “Hello?”
“Tam? Good grief, woman, I've been calling you for twenty minutes straight. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I think I'm okay. Just a rough day with...you know.”
“Do you need me to come home? Is Kevin behaving?”
“Mm-hmm.” She guessed so, anyway, considering she hadn't seen or heard him in a while. “No,
you don't need to come home. You need to be there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, baby.”
“If you need me, you'll call, right?”
Tam nodded and then remembered he couldn't see her over the phone. “Yeah, I'll call.”
Wouldn't be a bad idea to go check on Kevin. Devious little brat. Who knew what he had gotten
himself into?
“Kevin?” she called out. Her voice echoed through the house. “Kev, where are you?”
As usual, he didn't answer.
He wasn't in his room, the playroom, the office, or the kitchen. Maybe he'd gone outside. His red
jacket was gone from the coat rack. He was neurotic about putting his things where they belonged.
His jacket gone from the hook meant he had indeed ventured outside. Tam slipped her flip-flops on
and tugged open the heavy front door.
“What are you doing?”
Kevin was there, laying belly-down on the porch, his head and shoulders off the edge. His entire
body jerked with surprise. “Don't scare me like that!” he cried as he lurched up. “That's so mean.”
“You're supposed to tell me when you go outside.”
He gave her a sullen shrug and leaned on the rickety porch railing. She snapped her fingers at
him. “You know your dad said not to lean on the rail. He hasn't fixed it yet.”
“Sean's not here. You can't tell me what to do. You're not my mom.”
“Hallelujah and praise be,” Tam said sarcastically. “Now, get off the rail. If it breaks and you fall,
you're going to get hurt.”
“Bet that would make you happy.”
“No, it wouldn't. I don't want to see you get hurt.”
“Bet you wish I wasn't here.”
Tam dragged in a deep breath and forced her irritation as far down as she could. “I wish things
had happened differently, Kevin. This isn't exactly easy for any of us. You might not understand now,
but you will one day.”
“I understand you're hateful and mean.”
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“You're not exactly Mr. Sunshine yourself. Just go play. Stay out of the woods, and stay in the
yard where I can see you.”
He scowled at her. “I'm not a baby. I'm almost a teenager, and I can do what I want.”
“Just...whatever.” Frustrated, Tam marched back inside.
****
When it was really dark outside and his dad was snoring and she was sleeping too, Kevin sat up
and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. Outside, the night noises were deafening. The frogs made
so many different sounds that he couldn't think. He had lived in Railley most of his life, but never so
far out in the country. Gram and Pop lived in the rich part of town, in a big house. Too big to hear the bugs and frogs and animals that lived outside.
The wind gusted hard every once in a while, sucking at the plastic taped loosely over the window
that she broke.
“Sounds like aliens ripping out of somebody's stomach,” he whispered to himself. The hairs on the
backs of his arms stood up, and he felt all prickly and nervous. Being lost in space, with aliens living inside his body, and not having any way to save himself, that was scary.
Not loud frogs and bugs and whatever else was out there.
He peered out the window, around the wrinkly edges of the tape. There were lights in the trees.
He’d tried to tell his dad about them, but Sean always said it was just fireflies. Sometimes he laughed
and said it was swamp gas.
Sean didn't believe him, but the lights were real. The things that lived in the woods were real. The
thing that lived under the house, it was very, very real.
It had a name, even. Kevin couldn't pronounce it just right, but it sounded a lot like 'Jake-o'. Jake-
o lived under the house, and he talked to Kevin through a hole in the floor under the kitchen sink. As
long as Kevin didn't look at Jake-o too much, it wasn't so weird talking to him.
Jake-o liked to talk about Kevin's mother. He said he knew Sharla. That once a long time ago, he
was Sharla's pet. He wanted to be Kevin's pet, but he said Kevin wasn't old enough yet. He still had
stuff he needed to learn.
Jake-o said he would teach him those things. He told him special words, but the paper Kevin
wrote them on disappeared. She, he bet. Maybe Jake-o would tell him those words again. Maybe he
wouldn't get mad.
