No Ghouls Allowed (5 page)

“She’s awake and seems alert,” Gil said.

“I’m fine,” I repeated. “At least now I’m fine.”

Heath reached out and took hold of my hand. “You look pale.”

I nodded. I could imagine I did look pale, given how shaky I still felt, but then
Heath was the one with the giant bump on his head, which was still bleeding. He wiped
absently at it, but his focus was still all on me. “I’m fine,” I assured him. “I think
I just need a minute to get my bearings, but I’m okay.”

Heath and Gilley both looked at each other, then back at the house; then both of them
turned to look back at me. “What happened to you?” Gil asked me.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly. “One minute I’m trying to stop that spook from
attacking you, and the next I’m having an OBE.”

Heath’s eyes widened. “You had an out-of-body?”

I nodded. “Yeah. And it was so weird.” I then gave them a brief overview of the encounter
with my mother as a child.

“That’s crazy!” Gilley said.

Heath’s brow was creased with worry. “So you didn’t see this spook that was attacking
your mom as a little girl?”

“No. I mean, I saw DeeDee suspended in midair by an unseen force. She was being held
by the throat.”

Gilley bit his lip and slid his gaze toward the house. “What?” I asked him, and then
I realized I had no idea what’d happened to Gil and Heath while I’d been having my
OBE. “What went on in there?”

Instead of answering me, Heath lifted up my arm and made a face. “That’s a mean-looking
cut, Em,” he said.

I turned my arm and saw that I had a good-sized slice to the back of my arm, probably
from a piece of broken glass. Of course, the second I set eyes on it, the damn thing
began to throb. Clamping his hand over the cut, Heath said, “Gil?”

“Yeah?”

“Do we still have that first-aid kit in the van?”

Gil’s head turned toward the van. “Yep. It’s in the back.”

Heath eyed the house warily and I noted that all the slamming doors had stopped and
the house seemed to be relatively quiet now that we were outside. “Do you think you
can get to the kit while I stay here with Em?”

Gil stood and bounced from foot to foot, eyeing the house, then the van. “Yeah. I
think so.”

“Good man. And see if you can retrieve your phone too,” Heath said. “We’ll need someone
to come get us, and that cut on M.J.’s arm might need stitches. And watch out for
anything coming off that third-floor balcony.”

Without another word, Gil got to his feet and raced toward the back of the van. The
second he was out of earshot, I focused on Heath. “Tell me what happened in there.”

Heath sighed. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

I blinked. “Well, I remember trying to get to Gilley before that spook did, and immediately
after that I was having an OBE.”

Heath’s expression was grim, and the lump above his eye was large and still swelling.
I wasn’t the only one who needed medical attention.

“You went diving for Gil,” Heath said, turning to look back toward the house. “I tried
to stop you, but that damn door was fighting me. I thought if I let it go, we’d get
shut in.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

The corners of Heath’s mouth quirked. “I let go, and we got shut in.”

I eyed the broken window. “But you guys figured out how to break the window and get
us out, right?”

“Not exactly.”

I sighed and rubbed my temples. I was still feeling a tiny bit queasy and I could
also tell I’d have a raging headache before this was all over. “Honey, please just
tell me what the hell happened in there, would you?”

Heath nodded. “Sorry, Em. I’m caught between full disclosure and the possibility of
upsetting you.”

I stopped rubbing my temples and stared hard at my boyfriend. “Spill it.”

Heath cleared his throat and said, “The second you made contact with that spook, you
just went out.”

“Out?” I repeated. “Like unconscious?”

Heath shook his head. “No. Not exactly. Your eyes were open and you were breathing,
but there . . .” Heath paused as if he couldn’t find the words.

“There what? What happened to me?”

He sighed and looked over his shoulder toward Gil, who was rooting around in the van
still. Then he turned back to me and said, “It’s like when we looked at you, there
was no soul. You were totally gone. For a second we even thought you’d died. It scared
the shit out of me, but then I saw you take a breath and I felt your pulse, but you . . .
well, you were gone, Em. Like . . .
gone
.”

“Wow,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

Heath shook his head and cleared his throat. “I gotta tell ya, I’ve never seen anything
like what happened to you and I’ve never been that scared in my life.”

I gazed at my incredibly brave sweetheart. Coming from him, that was saying a
lot
. “How long was I like that?”

Heath’s expression turned grim. “Long enough. And then, all of the sudden, you just
jumped to your feet and started thrashing around. That’s when you broke the window.
I barely had a chance to grab you before you cut yourself to pieces, and that’s about
the time that you started to come around, back to us.”

“Mission accomplished,” we heard Gilley say. Heath squeezed my hand tight and we both
looked to see Gil coming up to us, wiggling his phone.

“Did you call someone to come get us?” Heath asked.

“I called Mama, and a tow truck.”

My eyes narrowed at Gil. He wore a very slight smile and I had a bad feeling. “
Which
tow company?”

Gil pursed his lips to keep from smiling even more. “I called Robby.”

“Oh, Gil!” I snapped. “Why?!”

“What’d I miss?” Heath asked.

Gil folded his arms and looked crossly at me. “If you must know, I called two other
tow companies, but when I told them where the van was parked and what’d happened,
they both refused to come out here to this nightmare on Elm Street. So, as a last
resort I called Robby because we need a tow and I was hoping your history with Robby
would override any fears he might have of helping us out.” Focusing on Heath, Gil
added, “Robby Reynolds was M.J.’s ex-boyfriend.”

I glared at Gil. “He was
not
my boyfriend.” I hated that Gil was stirring up trouble for Heath and me. My sweet
man had had to put up with another ex of mine recently, and it’d caused more than
a bit of tension between us. Turning to Heath, I explained, “Robby asked me to prom
my senior year of high school. Stupidly, I said yes. It was a total crap fest.”

“That’s not how Robby tells it,” Gil said, and I offered him a murderous look. At
least Gil had the decency to appear chagrined and he got busy opening the first-aid
kit and squatting down next to me. “Anyway, he’s reliable and he has a body shop that
should be able to fix the van. He promised to be here in ten minutes to give us a
tow and Mama says she’s on her way as soon as Miss Dalia finishes her hair, so probably
in an hour.” When Heath frowned disapprovingly at him, Gil added, “Hey, I couldn’t
tell her we’d been attacked by some spook ‘cause it would’ve freaked her out. Mama’s
old, Heath. I’m not gonna give her a heart attack my first day back in town.”

Turning to me, Heath said, “Em, we can call your dad or a cab to get you to the hospital
for that cut.”

I twisted my arm a little to take another look at the slice from the glass just as
Gil sprayed it with antiseptic, which had me hissing through my teeth. “Sorry,” he
muttered. He then dug into the kit again and brought up one of those instant ice packs.
Breaking the gel inside, he handed it to Heath and said, “Put that on your forehead,
honey. I’ll clean you up after I help M.J.”

While the two of them were busy with the ice pack, I eyed the cut on my arm closely.
“It’s actually not that bad,” I said. “The bleeding has nearly stopped and I think
we can put a few butterfly bandages on it and avoid the emergency room.”

Gil pulled my arm out straight so that he could apply the first bandage. “Mama can
stitch that up for you if it comes to that, M.J.”

I blinked. Of course she could. Gil’s mom was a retired registered nurse. “What’ll
we say happened?” I asked him. Gil hadn’t been lying about his mother’s reaction;
she was as scared of spooks as Gilley was.

He shuddered. “As little as possible. In fact, the less said the better. I told her
we’d meet her at the bottom of the drive—that way she won’t get too close. And, speaking
of being too close, how about after I help Heath, we head toward the road? We can
wait for the tow truck there.”

I held in a groan. The only thing worse than dealing with a dangerous, havoc-wreaking
spook was seeing my senior prom date after all these years.

Robby had used every trick in the book to try to get me to sleep with him the night
of prom: groping me on the dance floor, trying to coax me into the janitor’s closet,
and repeatedly offering me a swig from the silver flask he’d stolen from his grandfather.
He’d only quit his antics when I’d used a particularly tricky dance move that’d involved
my knee in his crotch. The night had ended abruptly with him doubled over and me stomping
off. It’d been a terrible memory to end my high school career with, and to make matters
worse, the following week I’d learned that Robby had told everyone that I’d gone all
the way with him.

I think I was still a little furious about that because most people believed I’d lost
my virginity to Robby Reynolds, who’d been a good-looking guy but a total himbo, even
back then. I’d only agreed to go to the prom with him because the guy I’d really liked,
Mike Newcomber, had chosen to take “Double-D” Debbie Campbell to prom even though
he and I had gone to the movies and made out a couple of times.

I could only hope that when Robby showed up to tow the van, he’d be sporting a paunch
belly and a receding hairline.

“Come on,” Heath coaxed after Gilley had done his best to tend to his forehead. Taking
my hand, he added, “Let’s get as far away from the house as we can.”

Heath had pulled me to my feet, but I couldn’t help looking back over my shoulder.
The mansion was giving off a seriously sinister vibe, which I hadn’t detected when
we’d first pulled up to it. Turning to Heath, who was also glancing nervously over
his shoulder, I said, “Can you feel that?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty thick, right?”

“What’s thick?” Gil asked.

I shuddered and moved a little faster. “The energy coming off the manor. It’s thick
with something big, bad, and evil.”

Gilley rolled his eyes. “Well,
duh
.”

“It wasn’t like that when we first entered the home,” Heath told him.

I nodded. “Odd that we wouldn’t sense it immediately, right?”

“It is. Energy as thick as that should be oozing from every crack and crevice. We
should’ve picked up on it like a bad smell.”

“What if it was like Godzilla?” Gil said.

Heath and I both turned to him. “Come again?” I said.

He shrugged. “What if it was like Godzilla, you know, asleep, and then we came around—or
rather, you two fools with your abilities to talk to dead people—and that thing detected
that in you and it woke up?”

“You’re seriously comparing that spook to Godzilla?”

“He may have a point,” Heath told me. I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Seriously, Em,
things were a little bumpy in there until all the doors started slamming. Something
shifted. Didn’t you feel it?”

I thought back, but I honestly couldn’t say that I’d felt any sort of shift. “I didn’t,”
I told him. “But then, I might’ve been more focused on getting to Gilley before that
spook did. After that, I ended up on a whole other plane.”

A rumble alerted us to an approaching vehicle. I tensed when I realized it was Robby.

Gil nudged me with his elbow. “Are you wondering if he’s still as gorgeous as he was
in high school?”

“Uh, no,” I said crisply as I reached for Heath’s hand and hoped that he and I didn’t
look too beat up. Little did Gilley know that I was actually hoping Robby appeared
fat and bald.

The person who stepped out of the tow truck was somewhere in the middle of what I��d
hoped to see. “Hey, y’all!” Robby said, after opening the door to his truck and leaning
out to wave at us across the cab.

He looked much as he had in high school, except his hairline was receding (yes!) and
he was a little thicker around the middle (yay!), but there was also that same underlying
handsome smile and twinkle in his eye, which had always made him so appealing to the
girls in my high school (dammit!).

We waved and said hello and then Robby squinted at me. “Well, hell! Is that Mary Jane
Holliday?”

I offered another lackluster wave. “Hey, Robby. How ya been?”

Instead of replying, Robby jumped down from the cab and came racing around, heading
straight for me with outstretched arms as if he fully intended to sweep me up in a
giant bear hug. I braced for impact, but right before Robby reached me, Heath stepped
to my front, squared his shoulders, and thrusted out his hand. “Heath Whitefeather,”
he said, introducing himself while making it
really
clear whom I was currently attached to.

Normally, I would’ve rolled my eyes at such manly theatrics, but the truth was, I
was relieved Heath was acting as a buffer between me and that big embrace. I’d been
through enough for one afternoon, and I wasn’t in the mood to be squished too.

Plus, I still harbored a bit of a grudge against Robby.

For his part, my old prom date stopped short and at first seemed puzzled by the fact
that Heath had stepped in front of me, and then he seemed to get it. Shrugging slightly,
he grasped Heath’s hand and squeezed hard enough for Heath to grimace. And then Heath’s
already pronounced biceps bulged, and I knew he was squeezing back for all he was
worth.

I sighed and pointed to Robby’s truck. “Is your parking brake on?”

Immediately Robby let go of Heath and whirled around, taking three steps toward his
truck. “Wha . . . ?”

I smiled and put my hand on Heath’s back. The ruse had worked, and judging by the
white handprint on Heath’s already injured palm, not a moment too soon. “Oh, sorry,”
I said. “Thought it was rolling forward.”

Even though the truck clearly wasn’t moving, Robby headed there anyway and we heard
him set the parking brake. Then he came back to us. “This is my fourth trip out here,”
he said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Looking nervously down the
road toward the manor, which loomed large and formidable in the distance, he added,
“Ever since they started working on this place, I been gettin’ at least a call a week.”

“You have?” Gilley asked, expressing the surprise I think we all felt.

“Yep. And every time it’s something really weird. First call was for Sean Cadet’s
crew. M.J., you remember Sean?”

“Vaguely,” I said. The Cadets had had six boys come up through our schools, but none
of them had been in my grade. Sean, the oldest of the six, had been a senior when
I was a freshman. “I remember his brothers Steve and Cal better.”

Robby nodded. “Steve works construction for him now, and Cal went off to Florida to
open up a fish shop. Anyway, Sean called me one afternoon and said he’d just gotten
the job to fix up this old place. He was real excited, you know? He’s always been
talkin’ about how much he wanted to see inside of that house, but the Porters, well,
they was a weird bunch. Never invitin’ nobody over who wasn’t filthy, stinkin’ rich,
like they couldn’t stomach the rest of us common folk or somethin’. And all along
they was burnin’ through their money until there wasn’t much left for themselves.”

I mentally sighed. Robby was taking a long time to get to the point, so I thought
I’d help him. “You say something happened to Sean when he came to work here?”

Robby blinked like he’d just remembered what he’d been trying to tell us. “Oh, yeah.
So, anyhow, Sean calls me and says that he needs me to tow three of his trucks. I
say, ‘
Three
of your trucks, Sean? What’cha all been doin’ out there?’ and he was like, ‘Weren’t
us! There’s somethin’ spooky goin’ on with this here house!’ and I was like, ‘How’s
that?’ and he was like, ‘Boy, you’d best come here and see for yourself!’ So I came
and shoooeee! Three out of four of Sean’s trucks had bricks all over their hoods and
smashed clean through their windshields!”

I glanced sideways at Gilley, who’d made a small squeaky noise. He was staring bug-eyed
and pale at Robby. “That’s what happened to our van! Well, except that it wasn’t bricks,
but some pots from the balcony.”

Robby nodded again, like he just knew we’d had trouble like that. “Good thing y’all
didn’t get hurt. Sean lost three members of his crew before he finally called it quits.”

I gulped. “They . . .
died
?”

“Oh, sorry, no. I mean, three of his boys, including his brother, walked off the job.
Said all sorts of crazy stuff was happening inside and they wanted no part of it.
But as I hear it, there’s been a bunch of accidents out here that folks is sayin’
weren’t no accidents. Everything from scaffolding falling, to workers sayin’ they
was pushed down the stairs, to power tools losin’ all their power and the extra batteries
being out of power too. Yep,” Robby said with a sigh. “You ask me, I’d say this place
is cursed.”

We all fell silent as we each turned to look back toward the house, and I couldn’t
suppress the shudder that vibrated down my spine. “Our van is parked in front of the
house,” Gil said after a moment, jingling the keys in Robby’s direction. I knew he
wanted Robby to go take care of it so that Gil could hurry to the road and be as far
away from the house as he could get until Mrs. Gillespie could pick us up.

Robby grimaced when he took the keys. “Gonna make me head over there by myself, huh?”
he said, trying to make light of it.

“I’ll go with you,” Heath told him, and the look of relief on Robby’s face was unmistakable.

“Good,” Robby said. “I’ll need someone to be my lookout so my truck don’t get damaged.”

Heath and Robby set off in the tow truck while Gil and I stood guiltily under the
shade of a tree.

“They should be all right,” Gil said, but not like he really believed it. He then
got on the phone with our insurance company to report what’d happened so that they
could start processing the claim. At one point he covered the phone mic and said,
“I probably shouldn’t say that a spook threw planters at the van, huh?”

I shook my head. “Keep the details to a minimum if you can, Gil.”

“We had the van parked in front of an old historic home that’s having work done to
it,” Gil explained to the insurance rep. “I think the third-story balcony may have
become compromised during the construction, causing the planters to slip down from
the ledge and onto the hood of the van.” I gave him a thumbs-up for that one.

After Gil was finished filing the claim, we both waited tensely for nearly ten additional
minutes until Robby’s tow truck appeared with our wrecked van behind it.

Robby came to a stop next to us, and Heath got down from the cab while I offered up
my credit card to pay for the tow. “You sure I can’t give y’all a lift?” Robby said
as he swiped my card through his portable card reader.

I eyed the front of his cab. There’d be no way Heath, Gilley, and I could all squish
in there with Robby without the aid of a Twister mat. “Thanks, Robby,” I said. “But
Mrs. Gillespie should be here to pick us up anytime now.” At least I hoped that was
true.

“Okay, then,” Robby said, handing me the receipt before offering me a two-finger salute.
“I’ll tow your van to Grady’s on Bemiss.”

We watched Robby pull away and I knew I wasn’t the only one who wished we could’ve
all fit inside his cab.

“Come on,” Heath said. “Let’s get to the road.”

As it happened, we only had to wait a little while for Mrs. Gillespie to show up.
She came plodding along in her trusty white Buick and waved at us as she approached.

Mrs. Gillespie had been driving the same car since Gil and I were in high school,
even though I suspected she was wealthy enough to afford a fleet of cars. She believed
in using things until they wore out, not just until something prettier came along.
I admired that about her. I admired a lot of things about her.

She’d been a surrogate mother to me since my own mother’s death, and because Daddy
had all but checked out of my life after Mama died, Mrs. G. had pretty much raised
me.

She was almost a decade older than my mother had been when she’d had Gilley. Her husband—Gil’s
father—had abandoned the family when Gilley was quite young—around five, I think.
The rumor was that Gilley had insisted on parading about in a tutu and his mother’s
feather boa (which Gil still held a fondness for) and it soon became clear that the
Gillespies’ only child would grow up preferring the company of men to women. This
had caused a rather violent reaction on the part of Mr. Gillespie, but I never knew
the specific details as Gil claimed not to remember too much about it and Mrs. G.
sure wasn’t talking.

All I knew was that she’d come home to find her husband violently abusing her son
(trying to smack the gay out of him, is what I’d specifically heard) and she’d shown
Mr. G. the door that instant. The divorce had been nasty, and I knew that because
my daddy had handled it and once I’d snooped through his old files and read a few
pages of the transcripts. I’d never met Mr. G., but within the context of those transcripts,
I thought that he’d come off as a first-class douche bag.

Anyway, Mr. G. had relinquished all parental rights to Gilley without ever being asked,
and he’d written Gilley right out of the family will. The Gillespies had been worth
a fair amount of money at one time, and it still upset me that Gil would be denied
his family’s inheritance simply because his father was a pigheaded bigot of a man.

Still, his mom had done pretty well for herself in spite of being on her own all these
years. With Daddy’s help, Mrs. G. managed to win a good settlement from her ex-husband
and she’d used that money to purchase several homes that she’d then fixed up mostly
on her own and turned into rentals. She liked to rent to single mothers, and was considered
a very fair and good landlord.

Her real estate ventures had blossomed over the years and now she owned nearly thirty
properties, which she managed almost single-handedly—well, at least the business side.
She had several contract workers who kept the properties up to code and solved any
maintenance issues. Meanwhile, Mr. Gillespie had moved right out of Valdosta and had
never come back. At last word, he was said to be living north of Atlanta.

As Mrs. G.’s car came closer, I felt myself exhale at the sight of her and I smiled
as I recognized the calming effect Gilley’s mom always had on me. Mrs. G. looked very
much like her son; she’s rather short in stature, a little plump around the middle,
and loose curls adorned her head. Her face was kind even if her nose was perhaps a
bit prominent, but there’s always a twinkle in her eye that’s disarmingly charming.
“Yoo-hoo!” she called to us as she pulled to a stop. “My, my! Y’all look like three
lost frogs waitin’ on a lily pad!”

Heath and I chuckled, while Gilley simply got into the Buick’s backseat. He was obviously
anxious to be away from Porter Manor. Heath opened the door to the front passenger
seat for me, and I thought it was cute he was on his best behavior in front of both
my dad and Mrs. Gillespie.

As I got in, she smiled brilliantly at him to show him she approved. “You sure you
weren’t raised in the South?” she asked of him. “Such good manners for a Western boy.”

Heath gave her one of his lady-killer smiles, and bless her heart, Mrs. G. blushed.
But then she squinted at him again and said, “Heath, is that a bandage on your forehead?”

Heath put a hand to his head. “Yes, Mrs. G. I bumped my head on a low-hanging branch.
Gilley fixed it up for me, though.”

“Well, I should probably have a look at that when we get to the house. It looks like
you have a good knot forming under there.”

After Heath got in, we set off and I settled into the familiar leather seat with another
contented sigh. There was something so comforting about the Buick’s slightly bouncy
ride and worn but squeaky-clean interior. “So tell me again what happened to your
van?” Mrs. G. asked.

“It’s nothing, Mama,” Gil said.

“Well, it must be something, Gilley, or y’all wouldn’t need me to pick you up.” Mrs.
G. was not to be so easily dismissed.

“One of the planters dislodged from a third-story balcony and hit the van,” I explained.

“Oh, my,” Mrs. G. said, her hand going to cover her heart. “None of you were hurt,
were you?” I noticed that she was looking in her rearview mirror at Heath again as
if she suspected he might’ve lied to her about the way he got the bump on the head.

“No, ma’am,” Heath said, sticking to his story. “We were all out of the van when it
happened.”

“Well, thank goodness! You know that Porter house is the talk of the town these days.
I can’t believe Christine hasn’t abandoned the place yet. People are saying it’s cursed.”

“Yeah, we heard that too,” I admitted.

Mrs. G. suddenly cut her eyes to me. “Y’all didn’t enter that place, did you?”

“No, Mama,” Gil said quickly. “We stayed outside.”

Mrs. G.’s eyes never left mine, which made riding in the car with her a bit precarious.
Mrs. G. was someone I’d never been able to lie to, and she knew it. “Uh, Mrs. G.?”
I said, extending my hand to steady the wheel as we began to drift a bit to the right.
“The road?”

She sighed and focused back on her driving. After a bit she said, “Mary Jane?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Did you go inside that house?”

I tensed and felt Gilley’s and Heath’s gazes on the back of my head. “I did,” I told
her, trying to leave the boys out of the confession. “But only for a minute. Christine
asked if I could check out the house because a few of her construction crews had been
complaining about strange goings-on.”