Come Alive (Experiment in Terror #7)

CHAPTER TEN

“Dex, wake up.” Perry was whispering harshly, trying to shake me awake.

I slowly opened my eyes, the room dark except for the streetlights that were being filtered in through the gauzy curtains.

“What is it?” Where was I? I sat up and looked around. Perry was beside me in bed, topless, her breasts glowing in the dim light. We were in New Orleans. The bed and breakfast.

“There’s someone on our balcony, she says she wants to speak with you.”

I shook my head, blinking fast, swallowing the terror. “What?”

I looked over to the French doors. There was a silhouette of a woman standing on the other side of them. The curtains billowed, a ghost dance.

Perry whispered in my ear. “She says she’s going to take me with her, all the way to hell.”

I spun around to see what Perry meant by that but suddenly she was gone. I was alone in the bed. The woman wasn’t on the balcony.

My teeth began chattering, my limbs turning to blocks of ice, holding me to the bed. The fear came so suddenly, so strongly, that I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything.

I just knew that someone was in the room with me. It wasn’t outside anymore.

It was in.

“Dex,” Perry’s small voice called out from the bathroom. “Dex, she’s in the mirror.”

I tried to call out to her, but my teeth were chattering too much.

“She says she’ll give me the baby if I step through the mirror.”

No! I tried to scream, but now my jaw was glued shut and my lungs were filling up with internal screams and fluid as cold as dead bones. Dirt began to fill the room, raining down from the ceiling.

“I have to go,” Perry said, her voice just an echo. “I’m sorry, baby.”

I blinked in my rage, and my mother stood at the edge of the bed, waist deep in the dirt that was rising around the bed like floodwaters. She picked some up in her hands. “I’m coming back for all of you, Declan.”

Then she threw the dirt on my head, again and again and again, until it filled my mouth, my nose, my ears, and finally my eyes.

It was all over.

I was dead and buried.

***

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Perry asked during breakfast, gently pushing my hair off my face.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I said right back to her, returning her suspicious look. “You’re the one who had someone die right beside them last night.”

“And you’re the one who woke me up in the middle of the night, acting like you were dying. So that’s two scares for me.”

I looked around the breakfast dining room of the B&B. We were alone, drinking cup after cup of dark coffee and pulling apart flaky beignets, having gotten to breakfast just at the cut-off point. We were probably pushing our luck, but the breakfast server was sitting outside on the veranda and smoking away, not really caring.

“Well I’m fine, I just had a nightmare.”

“How often do you dream about your mother?” she asked. I had to tell her what happened, everything except the baby part. But anyway, it was just a dream; it wasn’t real. When things got real, then that’s when they became something. This was just my overactive imagination coupled with my raging hormones. Weird shit like this happened all the time.

“Not very often,” I said truthfully.

“More after you saw her in the motel in Canada?”

I shrugged, hoping she’d drop it. “Doesn’t seem like it. Hey, are you sure you’re up for shooting tonight? I mean, after last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted to back out of the whole thing.”

She shook her head determinedly. “No, I’m good. I mean, I feel kind of icky, like…dirty. I don’t know, I can’t really explain it. I feel…tainted. Like that’s going to stick in my head for a long time. But I feel okay otherwise. I’m not scared, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m just worried about you, kiddo. And frankly, we want you to be a little bit scared. Haunted house TV show, remember?”

She glared at me mockingly. “Still the sadist, aren’t you? Like the time you made me climb the stairs in the lighthouse.”

“I was just trying to look at your ass,” I admitted, stuffing the pastry in my mouth.

Maximus had left the B&B early, perhaps to visit Rose or stock up on more flannel shirts and pomade. He left a note but all it said was to meet him in the lobby at 7PM, so Perry and I decided to have a nice touristy day in the Big Easy together. Fluffy, sexy fun between the bookends of death.

At least that was the plan. And we did follow through with it, for the most part. We took a ride in one of the red velvet lined, mule-drawn carriages. We had crawfish and Bloody Mary’s down by the river. We watched a few buskers in Pirates Alley and peered in people’s yards in the Garden District. We took the streetcar (wasn’t called Desire, but it did set Perry off on an endless—and terrible—Blanche DuBois impression). We got a bit sunburned and humored a couple of crazy drunks.

But then I got restless and curious. I wanted to find an authentic Voodoo shop and do a little research of my own.

“So much for a happy fun date,” Perry said as we peered into an in-your-face store, Reverend Zombie’s Voodoo Shop on St. Peter Street.

“Well if this place can’t tell us about zombies, I don’t know what will,” I noted, as I spied a sign in the display window among the figurines and potions that said, Come on in and shop for a spell.

We entered the store, surprised again, this time to see it quite busy and not with just tourists. It wasn’t hard to see why: there were tons of statues among all the occult books and unnerving masks. It was a bit creepy having so many eyes on you, whether they were inanimate or not. I felt like nothing was inanimate in Voodoo culture.

There was an adjoining tobacco shop that was capturing Perry’s interest, so I decided to nip it in the bud right there.

“Hey, I saw you have that cigarette last night,” I warned her.

She shot me an annoyed look. “What are you, my dad?”

“No, I’m your concerned boyfriend who doesn’t want you hooked on the stuff.”

She looked up in exasperation. “Right, Dex.”

“Hey, for every cigarette you smoke, I’m going to smoke one too.”

“Now that’s mature.”

“Can I help you?” A mustached, bow-tie wearing, white guy with knee-high Doc Martens stopped right in front of us. He kinda looked like he was heading to a Marilyn Manson concert—in the 1920s—and got lost along the way.

“Can we help you?” I asked.

He smiled. “I work here. My name’s Ezekiel. Let me know if you need any help with anything.”

He turned, ready to go greet the next customers but I reached out and touched his arm lightly.

“Hey, uh, Ezekiel?”

He stopped and smiled pleasantly. I noticed he had weird markings tattooed up and down his neck. “Yes?”

“Hi.” I nodded at Perry. “We’re not from here.”

“I figured.”

“We’re actually visiting friends…and she said she’d heard some rumors about some bad juju going on in the city.”

“Bad juju?” he repeated. I had a feeling I was insulting him.

“Sorry,” I quickly said, flashing him a smile. “I meant, bad…stuff. Regarding local Mambos. Some of them are raising zombies in the ghetto.”

He raised his brows as far as they could go. “Mmmhmm?”

Perry spoke up. “We were wondering if you knew anything about that. We don’t know much about your culture, so whatever you could tell us about what’s real and what’s not would be really, really helpful. We don’t want to go around perpetuating a stereotype.”

“Oh, thank god,” Ezekiel said dryly. He sighed and gently fingered his mustache. “Look here, I’ve heard these rumors too, but they must be just that. There have always been priestesses who try and use the spirits for destruction instead of healing, pain instead of love. They’re in every religion. But even though there are a few of them in the state at the moment, it doesn’t mean they’d bother with zombie rituals. That’s outdated, back to the old days when people owned slaves. That just doesn’t exist anymore. Curses, hexes, those are way more plausible. The zombie rumors are probably just kids on bath salts, that’s all. Everyone points the finger at Voodoo when the first weird thing happens in this town.”

“You say there are a few of them at the moment, a few of the Bokors,” I said. “Could you tell me their names?”

He looked shocked that I asked. “Of course I won’t. I’m not a snitch. Voodoo has a karma aspect to it, you know. Now, if I can interest you in some books on Voodoo, you’ll probably find them a lot more helpful.”

“Is one of them Mambo Maryse?” Perry asked quickly.

We both watched as Ezekiel’s eyes narrowed slightly. Then he smiled. “I have no comment on that.” >

He looked over my shoulder, making eye contact with a couple who had just entered the shop, and muttered, “Excuse me” while he went after them.

“Well, at least we know that’s the truth; Mambo Maryse really isn’t the most popular Mambo in town. Do you know what is the most popular Mambo?”

She nodded then shot me a sly grin. “You’re two seconds from getting that song in my head again, aren’t you?”

“A little bit of Perry in my life,” I sang into her ear. “A little bit of Perry by my side.”

I grabbed her hands and spun her around the aisle, narrowly missing knocking over a few Voodoo statues. Now that would have been bad juju.

After we left the Voodoo store, feeling no better or worse about the whole zombie situation, we headed back to the B&B, grabbing a quick bite of dinner at a nearby café. I voiced my suspicions to Perry about Maryse being behind the walking dead.

“Well, that’s pretty obvious,” she noted over her piping hot jambalaya that I kept stealing bites from. “She’s shunned from the community, apparently for becoming a bad apple. But that Ezekiel dude did say that there were others.”

“Since we have Maryse in front of us though, shouldn’t we start with that?”

Her forehead scrunched. “I thought you just wanted to film the haunted house and get out of here.”

“I do,” I told her quickly, feeling like we were one bad joke away from turning into Scooby Doo. “Really. It’s just bugging me.”

“It’s bugging me too,” she said. “I’d like to poke around a bit more, though obviously Maryse doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

“Ambrosia could probably help,” I said, and got glared at. “What? She did say she’d help us with anything.”

Perry’s eyes narrowed even more. “What if Ambrosia’s the one behind all of this?”

I scoffed at her. “She’s an apprentice; she’s not even a priestess Mambo person. And does she look like she’d try and raise the dead?”

“Yes. She does.”

You’re just jealous, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to start a fight, though I knew that’s why Perry was saying that stuff.

“Even if it were her,” I said, trying to placate Perry, “the question would be why?”

“To prove herself.”

“But why?”

“To show how powerful she is.”

“Kiddo,” I said deliberately, “I think you’re grasping at straws here.”

“Straws are all we ever have.” She shoved a forkful of chorizo in her mouth.

I reached over and put my hand on hers. “Not true. We’ve got this haunted house tonight. We’ll go there and film the shit out of it. Scare ourselves silly. Leave with a pretty f*ckawesome show. Sound good?”

She exhaled sharply through her nose, then nodded and continued eating.

***

“Take a left down here,” Perry said to Maximus as she squinted at the Google Map on her phone.

He was behind the wheel, me in shotgun, Perry in the back. We were allowed to borrow Rose’s truck for the expedition, which was a lot cheaper than a rental car, while Rose had to work at her bar. I wished Rose were with us—not only did she know her way around the city better than Maximus, but she would have diffused the awkward tension between the three of us. Thank god Perry still had no idea what Maximus had warned me about, otherwise the whole thing would have probably been called off. I didn’t even know how I was managing with everything. The only thing that kept me from wanting to kill him was trying to remind myself that he was crazy jealous of us, and I had to just pity him instead.

The neighborhood we were driving in was creepy as f*ck. Half the people looked like zombies already, just sitting on their porches in the dark, watching our truck rumble past. Every second house looked abandoned, with giant red X’s spray painted on them, a haunting reminder of the damage that Katrina had caused. Curiously, some of those houses had people in them, too scared or too stubborn to paint over the markings.

Just as I was about to suggest we head back to the safety of the touristy areas, Perry pointed up ahead at a large, looming house. “There,” she said, “that should be it.”

We pulled up in front of it and got out of the truck. Yeah. This place was definitely haunted.

I’d never been to Disneyland, but from the way Perry was eyeing it, mouth slightly agape, I had to assume it looked like it belonged there. It was too perfect. It was three-stories high with an attic on top, all grey with peeling layers of faded paint, maybe once yellow or cream. The porch wrapped around it completely, and cracked white pillars stood on either side of the wide stairs, supporting the iron-trimmed overhang. On the first floor, all the windows were boarded up while the ones on the rest of the floors were either cracked or broken. The house was completely dark, except for the attic window. I couldn’t tell if there was a little bit of light coming from there or the glass was reflecting the streetlights below.

I nodded up at it. “Do you see that?”

“Yeah,” said Perry, her voice quivering a bit. I guess this was already turning out to be more intense than we planned. “Maybe there are some squatters still inside. Are you sure this is safe?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I couldn’t tell you.” I looked to Maximus. “So what’s the plan, boss?” I asked derisively. The wind began to pick up, a hot breeze that rustled the live oak and weeping willows that lined the house’s yard, obscuring most of the place from the road. Shadowy shapes danced before us.

“The plan is we get set up right here,” he said, gesturing to the overgrown yard. Might be safer than doing it on the street or inside.”

I looked behind us. The street was totally empty, only a lone car parked further down it, by the only dwelling that looked inhabited. Still, considering we weren’t in a good neighborhood to begin with, it made sense to keep ourselves and our equipment away from roving eyes.

“This place is just…” Perry said absently while I fished my camera gear out of the back of the truck.

“Creepy?” I supplied.

“More than creepy,” she said with her eyes riveted to the attic window. “It feels both dead and alive. Not just this house, but this whole street, this whole area. How many people must have died here thinking they were going to survive? How many people must have clung to the hope before they realized that help was never coming? All the regret and death…it’s everywhere.”

“Easy now, kiddo, we’re just here to film this, not make a tribute to the tragedy.”

She looked at me with annoyance. “But people can’t just forget. No one really knows unless they’ve been here and looked around them and felt it. No one understands what was really lost.”

“Except New Orleanians,” Maximus spoke up gruffly. “They all know, every single one of them. And Dex is right. Let’s not make this more than it is. I know you’re feeling things right now, and hell, I am too. Everywhere I turn in this city, I feel like I’m picking up on one more lost soul…”

I turned to him. “You are? I’m not feeling anything.”

Okay, that wasn’t true. I did feel the supernatural layers were thinner in New Orleans, that there was this sick electricity in the air, that I could spot the dead around me if I really wanted to. But I didn’t want to. Because to spot them was to let them all in, especially the ones I wanted to keep out. Her.

“You need to keep your eyes open,” Maximus said after studying me for a few moments. “Retrain yourself. Then you’ll see. You can start with tonight.” He nodded at my camera. “Let’s get this going. I’d rather not be here very long.”

And, as if he’d been waiting such a long time to do this, Maximus launched into our plan of attack. I had to admit he was a lot more thorough than I usually was, and that only made me hate his plan even more. But, as Jimmy had said, he was the boss tonight and I had to bite my tongue until I made it bleed.

There would be no exploring first and filming later. We had only one chance and it had to be our first one. Spirits didn’t reappear twice for the sake of cameras. And there would be more than one camera as well, Maximus was manning the other. Perry would stay with either of us, and she would be silent for most of the filming. We could do a voiceover with her later, but Maximus didn’t want her talking for the sake of talking. He said it ruined the atmosphere for us and the ghosts. Instead, she would just react and use the new infrared device that Maximus had brought, one that not only showed the warmth of objects around us but the magnetic fields as well.

I was given an EVP, to keep it attached to my belt and running the whole time. I knew the shit worked and I even had one of my own that we recorded Pippa’s voice on, but Maximus said our own equipment was probably inferior and possibly warped due to all the data we’d captured on it. Whatever.

“Now are we ready to go hunt some ghosts?” he asked us like the douchiest substitute teacher, trying to sound commanding and relatable at the same time.

“F*ck you,” I said, while Perry sighed.

She reluctantly led the way up the weed-strewn path to the house, my camera on her, Maximus and his camera behind us. The tall grass waved in the wind and tickled my legs, scaring the crap out of me already. The porch swing swung back and forth, as did two rocking chairs. Surely the wind wasn’t strong enough to make those move on their own…

“Are you filming that?” Maximus said from behind me, once again nearly making me shit my pants.

“Yes, jackass,” I sneered. Man, listening to the playback of this was going to be fun.

We climbed up the steps and stopped. The two rockers chairs slowed, then stopped moving entirely.

“Are you getting anything on the reader, Perry?” Maximus roared over my shoulder.

“Jesus, man,” I said, glaring at him. “Do you have to be so loud?”

He gave me a half-smile. “Sorry, I’m excited.”

“Well go be excited somewhere else, and preferably not behind me where I can’t see what you’re doing.”

“I can see two cold spots on the reader,” Perry said, squinting at it, perplexed.

“Really?” Maximus yelped and basically pushed me aside to get to her. He looked down at it and grinned. “Well, I’ll be damned. It’s one thing to know there are two men sitting right there, it’s another to see it.”

“Wait…wait…wait,” I said, throwing my arms in the air. “What?”

“Yeah, what?” Perry asked. “You can see them?”

He nodded. “It’s a gift.”

“We have gifts too,” Perry said defensively. I think it’s the first time I ever heard her get defensive over it, like she was almost proud.

“Well, what are they doing?” I asked. To say it was unnerving that they were there and neither Perry nor I could see them was an understatement. Maybe Maximus was pulling our leg.

“They’re looking at us and shaking their heads,” he said. “They look old…overalls…grey hair.”

“Black or white?” Perry asked.

“Black. Probably from the 1940s. Must have lived here back then.”

“You are full of shit,” I said to him.

His smile dropped and he looked at me. “I can assure you, I am not. I can see things you guys obviously can’t.”

“Why are they shaking their heads?” Perry asked. “Are they warning us?”

“Could be,” he mused, studying them…or absolutely nothing. Or splintered old rocking chairs. “They don’t mean us any harm. If anything they’re trying to tell us something.”

I folded my arms but kept the camera rolling. “Hey, you’re the ghost whisperer, you fill us in.”

He frowned then jerked back. “They’re gone.”

Perry sucked in her breath. “He’s right. Look.” She showed me the gadget. The blue shapes were gone.

“Guess the dead don’t want to talk to you either,” I told him, slapping him hard on the shoulder.

He glared at me and then motioned for Perry to continue inside. The door to the house was boarded up with rotten wood in an X across the window, but the knob was still there. Perry tried to put her hand on it then snapped it away, shaking out her fingers.

“Is it cold?” Maximus asked.

She shook her head and shot us an embarrassed look. “Spider webs. Ugh.”

I didn’t know if she ever saw the day coming where she reacted more strongly to a spider web than she did to some old dead guys, but here it was.

I leaned over and turned the knob, tempted to sneak a kiss on her neck. Then I remembered Maximus was filming us for the show. Then I remembered I didn’t care and kissed her anyway.

She smiled, her eyes twinkling as she gazed up at me, and Maximus was clearing his throat in no time.

“Come on, let’s act professional here,” he drawled.

Yes, because the three of us were such old pros. The only reason we couldn’t compete in the ghost hunter Olympics.

I smiled to myself at my own little joke, but it didn’t take long before my smile faded. The moment we stepped into that house, everything changed. Whatever was on the porch, the old men, whether they did or didn’t exist, that was harmless. That was benevolent energy. Inside, in the dark, coffin-like air, the absence of sound, the house felt like it was holding a hundred ugly secrets, and the moment we walked through the door, through that threshold, it had already begun conspiring to hold us a secret as well. >