Chapter 1
Nick flicked the ash off the tip of his cigarette, a wispy puff of smoke still lingered in front of him, eventually dispersing into the air of Pastor Terry’s office. Well, it wasn’t really a proper office, just a small room in the church with a table and two chairs that Terry used for counseling. The space was usually meant to be a comforting one, but today something felt off. Nick couldn’t put his finger on it, but the air felt colder and heavier, like a feeling of dread had crept in.
As the nicotine filled his lungs, Nick sat back and watched the Pastor, who fiddled with his tape recorder.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on with this thing,” Terry said, eventually placing a new cassette in “I think we’ll have to start over.”
Nick let out a soft sigh, he was tired, and he knew June was too, or well he thought she was, she didn’t talk much these days. She just sat there, her head down and fiddling with her hands, occasionally biting at the skin around her fingernails and mumbling jumbled words and mutterings. This was the second time he had to retake the statement.
Electrical interference or cutting out completely, something always happened. Nick had started to wonder if it all was connected somehow, but deep inside he was afraid of the answer. Although it seemed like Terry was resolute in getting an account from them. Terry placed the tape recorder back on his desk, it made a click noise and seemed to whirr back to life as it started recording again. Nick put his cigarette out, he knew the drill by this point.
Terry spoke “This is Father Terry Hews of the Trinity Church, we will be taking a statement from Nick and June Buck, regarding the unexplained events that have taken place at their home.”
Nick rolled his eyes a bit, unexplained was an understatement, damned horrifying was a more accurate way of describing it, guess the church doesn’t allow cussing though.
Terry went on “Nick, June, why don’t you tell us how you got the house.”
June’s head lifted slighted, her long black hair revealing a slither of her pale pretty face and one dark blue eye. She said nothing, just glanced at Nick and the pastor and dipped almost immediately back down, choosing instead to focus on her incessant fiddling. Nick already knew she wouldn’t say a thing, she hadn’t said anything coherent for almost a week. Apart from some mutterings, usually to herself, she’d basically been mute since the incident.
“I got the house after my aunt passed,” Nick said, glancing back to Terry “We were listed as her next of kin, I guess I was the closest family she had at that point. She wasn’t even full-blooded family really, she was my mom’s half-sister and well, let’s just say they didn’t get along too great.”
Again, that was another understatement. Aunt Ellie annoyed the hell out of his mother, she would drift in and out of their lives, and house at will. She’d stay with them for a few weeks and then disappear again, usually with a new boyfriend to whisk her away. He kind of liked his aunt, she always seemed so cool, she could go and see Led Zeppelin and The Grateful Dead, music he wasn’t even allowed to listen to, and she smoked, which as a dumb teenager was pretty cool to him. Nick missed her in a weird way but he didn’t have time for nostalgia right now.
“My mom was a very strict and religious woman and my aunt, well, she was a real free spirit, mom didn’t approve of aunt Ellie’s lifestyle. I think my best memory of her was when she lived with us for about three weeks, guess my mom still had a little bit of a soft spot for her. My aunt only really settled down after she got pregnant.”
Terry furrowed his brow “Wouldn’t next of kin be listed as her children or her husband then?”
“She never had the baby, and her husband didn’t stick around after that,” Nick sighed “I only took the house because we needed the space, I have three kids and a baby on the way, there really wasn’t space in the apartment for another. When we heard about this house that had seemingly been given to us out of nowhere, we were eager.”
That was a lie, Nick was slightly ashamed of moving into that house, it felt wrong somehow, like they didn’t belong there in the first place. But they were struggling to make ends meet, and well, while the baby was welcomed, it had put quite a bit of extra stress on his thinning budget. He didn’t want to admit it but buying a whole new house or bigger apartment just wasn’t an option.
“Bad…bad, move, bad house,” June whispered frantically to herself, shoving a finger into her mouth, and chewing away at the nail.
The pastor shifted his gaze to June “Guess June didn’t take it very well…” he muttered to Nick.
Nick just nodded “June thought the house was bad from the start, she was always a bit sensitive to things like bad energies and all that. But you know, the way we were raised, weren’t really taught to believe in ghost and such. I should’ve listened though.”
Nick could feel some guilt boiling up, her almost whispered words running through his brain from the first time she stepped past the threshold, ‘This house, there’s bad here Nicky, I feel it…’
