Haunting of the Bell House, Part Two

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A few days later, as you casually drift in the living room watching Bradley and Eve cuddle together on the couch, watching some movie about ghosts in Connecticut, you watch as William enters the room with a very familiar object under his arm. Smiling wickedly, you glide around through the air, allowing your vaporous essence that trails behind you to pass over the lad, sending chills up his spine. Moving a hand into the television, you smile as it begins to warp and crackle, the DVD skipping scenes while the volume goes out of control. The three eventually just settle on turning the TV off manually, as their remote doesn’t work while you’re in contact with the screen.

“Wonder why that happened?” Eve says, looking at Bradley for ideas. Bradley darts his eyes to William and what he’s holding, before looking into Eve’s eyes.

“Eve, how… open minded are you?” Bradley asks, taking her small hands into his larger ones.

“Fairly, I’d like to think. Why? This isn’t anything weird is it?” She asks guardedly.

“We think the house is haunted,” William interrupts, blurting out and addressing the elephant in the room.

“Will!” Bradley hisses, before looking back at Eve apologetically.

“You think our house is haunted, right? You’re kidding me?”

“No, we really think it’s haunted.” Bradley said slowly, rubbing circles on the back of her hands. “There have just been too many strange things happening around here to chalk it up to anything else.”

“Like what? I haven’t noticed anything.” Eve’s face was as solid and solemn as stone.

“Things moving around, or disappearing?” William asked, looking at Bradley for some help.

“Strange sounds in the night?” Bradley offered.

“I haven’t heard anything, and nothings been moved around on my watch.” Eve replies, looking at Bradley with a hint of hesitation.

You smirk. That’s because you haven’t been messing with Eve, at least not overtly. Sure, you’ve rearranged her make-up drawer a few times, and hidden her favorite silver studs above the fridge… but that’s hardly a call for an exorcism in anyone’s book. No, the boys have been a lot more fun to toy with, and easier as well. They like to feel in control of the situation as much as possible, and when they aren’t they get scared fairly easily.

 “What do you say about just playing along with us Eve, and trying to contact the ghost to find out what it wants?” William asked in a pleading tone, holding out a Ouija board. That definitely perks your attention. Slithering through the air, you coil loosely around William, your bony hands hovering over the board he’s holding out. You can feel the tangibility of the board… why you bet you could even knock on it!

No, best not do that… that might scare them all out of the house, and then you’d be out of a steady supply of food. You shiver as William walks through your incorporeal tendrils, warmth suffusing your form for the briefest of moments. William looks like he just got hit with a snowball, the way he’s shivering, looking around.

“What is it?” Bradley asks, a look of concern on his face.

“Nothing, just… just a cold spot or something.” William replies, looking around, a tangible aura of darkness forming around him.

Fear. Delicious, warm fear… three tendrils lash onto William, sapping the psychic energy from him as it continually rolls off of him. This little coward may taste like weak-willed terror, but he’ll suffice until you can get the one you really want to start being afraid, or better, terrified. Merely being afraid is what sustains you; true terror would allow you to manipulate the real world in a significant way.

It’s been so long since you’ve actually been able to kill something other than an animal; you almost can’t remember what it would feel like. You seem to have a faint echo of a memory… is that what others would call joy?

Your attention comes to bear as William lays out the Ouija board on the table as Eve clears it of magazines. Bradley has gotten up and moved into the kitchen, probably to get drinks for them all; they do love their brown bottle beverages.

“Alright,” William says, placing the penchette down on the solid wood of the board. “We’ll try and contact her, and see why she’s haunting us. Eve, make sure you jot down everything she says.”

“Got it,” Eve replies with a roll of the eyes as she pulls a spiral notebook from a book bag sitting at the foot of the couch, clicking a pen once and scribbling a bit to get the inks flowing. You drift over to look over her shoulder, pulling up your hands so as not to cause a cold spot to appear near her. William is already sitting in the middle of a summer’s freeze and trying to disbelieve it, but to no avail. No need to set up another person to drain from at the moment… too much and you’ll get sleepy.

Bradley comes back in the room with three beers, held by the bottles neck between his fingers. He sets them down on the low table and drops down onto the floor to look over the Ouija board, glancing once up in your direction. You’d swear the kid was psychic the way he always seems to peg where you’re floating… but no, a true psychic would have already addressed the elephant in the room that you represent. Sliding through the air, you watch as the teens clear the table and set up the board, all cracking open their beers to take experimental sips as they sit and stare at the spirit board in silence.

“Well… I guess we should try something,” William finally says, setting his beer to the side. He leans forward to take hold of the penchette, urging the others to join him. You smile as you see the goose pimpled flesh beneath his short sleeves, taking a moment to tighten your coils around his body.

“Okay… um, we are calling out to the spirit of Amber Wellsby. If you can hear us Amber, please give us a sign!” William intones.

Amber Wellsby? Who in the blazes is that? More importantly why is it that the warmth you’re supposed to be receiving from William is now gone. Looking around, your eyes widen as you take in the appearance of a truly dreadful creature. Short even by normal human standards and bound with ethereal chains, a woman drifts from the corner of the room, her arms and legs hanging limply as she moves. One of her chains has lashed out and snapped onto your tendrils, strangling the warmth out of them.

Her head lifts up, revealing cracked skin and long black hair, one blazing eye peeking out from the part in her greasy follicles. “You… you killed me!”

Oh dear… “A bit late to be entering the haunting business, isn’t it?” You taunt, pulling your tendrils from William, shaking the gripping chain loose. “I would have thought you’d be on a cloud somewhere, you little bitch.”

“Not that you would care, but my spirit has been bound to this home for quite some time… I’ve been forced to watch you torture these poor boys and been helpless to do anything about it. Until now…”

You spin and look down at the Ouija board, cursing yourself for thinking they would try and contact you. You remember the realtor telling these three about the girl that died here, they knew her name. Of course they would assume it was her that was haunting them.

You look over at Amber as the three humans chatter amongst themselves. “So now what?”