Bad Places Read online

  Bad Places

  by

  Steven Douglas Brown

  ©2018 Steven Douglas Brown

  For those of us who have been there...

  The Haunted House

  by

  Steven Douglas Brown

  ©2018 Steven Douglas Brown

  House; 1999.

  A fog was swirling around the large building. Interior lights were turning on and off throughout the house, sporadically, both upstairs and downstairs. The front door started opening and slamming shut repeatedly, quickly. A family was standing just inside, huddled together, the lights behind them turning on and off. A father, mother, and teenage daughter, all with terrified expressions on their faces.

  Brad Temple tried to grab the door handle, but it was wrenched out of his hand. He watched the opening and closing door for a moment, timing the slams, and then nodded to himself. Brad grabbed his daughter by the shoulders and moved her directly in front of the door.

  Candy Temple looked scared. “Daddy?”

  “You’re going to have to trust me, Candy!”

  Before his daughter could respond, Brad pushed Candy hard, out the door. Brad and his wife, Trudy, both exhaled in relief, seeing their daughter safely on the porch. Then the door slammed shut and did not open.

  Candy pounded on the door. “DAD! MOM!”

  The lights inside the house went out.

  A scream was heard coming from inside the house.

  Candy continued to pound on the door.

  House; now.

  The same house, a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, a SOLD sticker slapped across the face of the sign. A moving van drove up the drive-way and stopped in front of the large house. John Simon got out of the vehicle quickly, looking toward the house. Donna Simon and daughter, Jenny, climbed out of the moving van and joined John. An almost cliche portrait of a family moving into a new house.

  “What do you think?” John asked.

  “It’s big, Dad!”

  “It didn’t look this big online,” Donna said, an impressive tone to her voice.

  “For the price, it better be this big!”

  “Can we go in?” Jenny asked.

  John held up a set of keys and handed them to his daughter. “Go ahead. It’s our place now.”

  Jenny took the keys and trotted up to the front door, inserting the key, and opened the door. She entered the house, paused just inside the door and looked around, before turning and smiling as her parents walked up to the front porch. “It looks just as big on the inside!”

  “Now the fun part...” John said with a grin. “Unloading the moving van!”

  “Can we look around first?” Jenny asked.

  John and Donna glanced at each other, communicating silently, the way long-married couples do, and then John nodded. “Sure, let’s check the place out.”

  Without hesitation, Jenny hit the staircase and hurried upstairs. On the second floor, Jenny moved down the hallway and entered the first room.

  John and Donna looked overhead as they heard the sound of doors shutting, footsteps, followed by another door shutting.

  “She’s being thorough,” Donna observed.

  “Looks like college hasn’t changed her much.”

  “You’re glad she’s back.”

  “Of course I am!” John smiled proudly. “She’s my little girl!”

  “Remember that when she wants to borrow your car.”

  “Not my car!”

  The sound of footsteps coming down the steps and Jenny quickly disappeared up a hallway, continuing her exploration. She moved down a set of steps into the basement. She sniffed and made a face at the stink of mildew that hung in the air. The bare, overhead light bulbs cast a dim light that didn’t seem to reach completely to the floor, as if the dark was like a thick ground fog. “Second floor, main floor... dungeon.” Jenny moved into the depths of the basement, until her father’s voice called out.

  “Jenny?”

  “Yes, Dad?” she called out.

  “I ordered pizza,” John announced.

  “I’ll be right up!” Jenny turned around and was about to move back toward the stairs, when something caught her eye. A cardboard box, by itself, almost hidden in shadows, beyond the dim light of the overhead lights. Jenny walked up to the box. It was filled with VHS videotapes. The labels were marked simply with dates, written in ballpoint pen. Jenny let out a grunt of surprise and picked up the box, taking it with her.

  Jenny entered the kitchen, finding her mother sitting at a small table near the back kitchen door, looking at something on a computer tablet. “Mom, do we have a VCR?”

  “VCR? Does anyone have a VCR these days? Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.” Jenny looked around. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Trying to figure out which room to make his home theater. I think he’s trying to avoid unloading as much as I am!”

  Jenny turned her head slightly for a moment, frowning to herself. “I’m going to see what he’s doing.”

  Donna nodded and returned her attention to the tablet on the table, catching up with her various social media sites.

  Jenny walked out of the kitchen and was walking to the stairs, about to head up to the second floor, when she saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye, coming from the decorative glass around the front door, as if someone was moving around on the front porch. Jenny walked up to the door, just as a loud pounding was heard, startling her. She opened the door and found a pizza delivery guy standing on the porch, holding one of those pizza warmer pouches. “Hi!” the pizza guy said cheerfully. “I rang the doorbell a couple of times, but no one answered.”

  “Oh.” Jenny reached outside and pressed the doorbell button. A chime was heard.

  The pizza guy frowned. “That’s weird.”

  “It happens. How much?”

  Moments later, Jenny was walking upstairs with the cardboard pizza box and found her father in a room, standing near a far wall, with a measuring tape in hand.

  “This going to be the movie room?”

  John tilted his head, as if regarding the blank wall in front of him. “Probably.” But he did not sound completely convinced. He measured again.

  “Pizza’s here.”

  John looked over his shoulder and lets the measuring tape wind back into the holder with a metallic SNAP.

  Later, Jenny and John were sitting on the floor of the empty room, eating slices of pizza.

  “Dad, what did you do with all the stuff that was in my old bedroom?” Jenny wiped her mouth with a paper napkin that had come with the delivered pizza. “I’m talking about the stuff when I was eight or nine.”

  “We still have it. Somewhere in all of those boxes out in the moving truck.” John looked past his daughter’s shoulder, as if able to see the moving truck beyond. “What are you looking for?”

  “Remember that DVD/VCR thing I had with the matching TV? It was pink and sat on top of each other.”

  “Oh, yeah.” John nodded. “It’s out there. Your mom wanted to give it away to one of her co-workers, but I wouldn’t let her. If I didn’t stop her half the time, she’d give away everything we own if someone asked!”

  “I heard that!” Donna said as she entered the room and sat down on the floor beside Jenny.

  “Is it true or what?” John had a smirk on his face.

  “If we don’t need something, we should give it someone who does,” Donna lectured.

  Jenny stood. “I’m going to look for that box.” She reached over and grabbed a slice of pizza, walking out of the room.

  Donna and John both looked at the last slice of pizza in the box, obvious that both want it, but then John slid the box closer to his wife and shrugged.

  Outside, Jenny walked up to the moving truck
and opened the back, struggling to climb up into the vehicle, the interior filled with boxes. Each box had writing on the side, revealing the contents. Jenny looked at box after box, pushing some aside, taking others and stacking them on one side, working her way toward the back. Deep inside the truck, Jenny could be heard behind a tall stack of boxes. “Of course, it’s the last box!”

  With the front door open, Jenny, Donna, and John marched in and out, carrying boxes and setting them down just inside the door. John put down a box and wiped sweat from his forehead, Donna nearby, taking items out of a box. “Maybe you were right about giving away all our stuff! This is still a lot of crap!”

  “Did you see the name on the side of almost every box?”

  “No.”

  “John...John...John...John...” Donna was pointing to box after box.

  “Hey, all of my stuff is important!”

  Donna opened a box and reached inside, taking out an old, dried-up corn cob. “Seriously?”

  “That was the ear of corn Jenny was eating when she lost her first tooth! If you look, the tooth is still stuck in it, and it was a bitch to pull that whole corn cob out from under her pillow without waking her that night!”

  “Oh.” Donna reached into the box again. “What about this?”

  “That was the rock that Jenny didn’t know was in the snowball she threw at me that broke out my front tooth.”

  “Oh.” Donna shook her head. “Never mind.”

  Jenny entered and put down a box. “That’s it for the boxes,” she announced. “The only thing left in the truck are dad’s movie room chairs.”

  “Mark is coming to help me with those tomorrow morning.”

  Jenny smiled at the mention of the name. “Uncle Mark is coming?”

  “Actually, he might show up tonight.”

  “I haven’t seen him since before I left for college. How’s he been?”

  Jenny caught her mother rolling her eyes and John gave Donna a baleful look.

  “Your mother disapproves of Mark’s latest career choice.”

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “Waste management.”

  Donna made a rude sound. “He collects poop.”

  “What?”

  “He gathers... poop at the zoo,” John explained. “They sell it to people for fertilizer.”

  “I thought Uncle Mark was a sous chef.”

  “He said he got tired of it and needed to try something new.”

  Donna appeared annoyed by the conversation and John tried to change the subject. “You better get your room set up before it gets too late,” he said to Jenny.

  “Want me to help you unpack first?”

  “No, you go ahead.”

  Jenny nodded and walked off.

  Donna gave John a withering glare.

  “What?”

  Jenny was standing over the cardboard box from the basement, looking down at the video cassettes. A smell arose from the box, that of mildew and a strange oldness. There were ten separate tapes. Jenny picked up the first one, dated OCTOBER 11, 1999. She walked to the DVD/VHS player on a table and inserted the tape, turning on the small TV sitting on top of the player. Static. Then the small screen showed the interior of the house.

  Brad Temple was stretched out on the sofa, watching TV.

  “Candy, what are you doing?” he asked as the camera recording him moved in close.

  “Mom said I could use it,” Candy’s voice was heard, off camera.

  “Why?”

  “For a school project.”

  “On how to annoy your dad while he’s trying to watch football?”

  “Funny, Dad. No, that this place used to be part of the Underground Railroad.”

  “There’s no train around here!”

  “Ha-ha, very funny.”

  Brad turned back to the TV and waved Candy off impatiently.

  Candy turned the camera on herself and spoke into the lens. “That’s my dad, who obviously has no interest in history-”

  “You got that right!” Brad called out, so as to be heard on the camera’s microphone.

  Candy rolled her eyes and turned the camera around, walking out of the living room.

  Static.

  Jenny turned off the VCR at hearing loud voices coming from downstairs. She smiled. Uncle Mark had arrived. Jenny got up off her bed and hurried out of the room.

  Mark Callahan was standing beside John when Jenny entered the room. Donna was sitting on the sofa, her arms crossed, a perturbed expression on her face.

  “Uncle Mark!”

  “Hey, kid!”

  Jenny ran up to Mark and gave him a hug. Jenny glanced over at her mother and then a smirk appeared. “How’s the poop business, Uncle Mark?”

  Mark took a deep breath, glanced at Donna, and then responded. “Shitty.”

  Donna let out a low moan and got up, walking out of the living room.

  “Your sister need to grow a sense of humor, Mark.”

  Mark grinned at John. “She’s always been that way.” Mark looked at Jenny. “How’s it feel moving back in with mom and dad after being out there in the real world, kid?”

  “I wouldn’t call college the real world, Uncle Mark.”

  “I’d agree with you, but I can barely remember my college days.”

  “Since I was there with you, I can say there’s a good reason why you can’t remember those days.”

  “Hey, don’t make me look bad in front of my favorite niece!”

  “I’m your only niece, Uncle Mark.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Ready to move those chairs?”

  “Is the rest of the HT set up?”

  “All ready to go.”

  “Let’s do it, then! I haven’t seen a good movie since the last time I was in your movie room.”

  “I guess I’ll go back to watching those videos,” Jenny said.

  “What videos?” Mark asked.

  “I found a box of old videotapes in the basement.”

  “Porn?”

  “Uncle Mark!”

  “Hey, you never know when you find an old box of tapes. One time, I put in a tape that I found at work...” Mark shuddered. “Some people are sick!”

  “I think it’s from the girl who used to live here.”

  “Do you know who lived here before you?” Mark asked John.

  “No.”

  “Want me to look into it?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m naturally nosy.”

  “Maybe I’ll watch a movie with you later,” Jenny said, walking off.

  “You’re not going to help?”

  “I’m a girl!” Jenny smiled and walked out of the room.

  Mark shook his head. “Just like her mother.”

  Jenny entered her room and found the TV on and the videotape playing. “I thought I turned that off,” she said to herself, sitting down on the bed and staring at the small TV screen.

  On the video, Candy entered her bedroom, the same room Jenny picked to be her room. Candy placed the video camera on a dresser, aimed at the bed, and then sat down on the bed, staring at the camera. “I haven’t caught anything weird on tape yet.” Candy stared into the camera, silent, and then got up and turned off the video camera. Static.

  Jenny frowned as she continued to watch the static-filled TV screen. “Weird? I wonder what she meant by that.” Jenny picked up the remote control and was about to turn off the TV, when the screen cleared and an image of Candy was seen, a bedside lamp the only source of light in the otherwise dark bedroom. Jenny put the remote aside and continued to watch.

  Candy picked up the video camera and brought it to her bed.

  “I just heard something. I wish there was a way to keep this thing going all night, but the tape only lasts a couple of hours.” Candy slowly turned the camera to show the entire room, still mostly hidden in darkness.

  Jenny leaned forward. “What did she hear?” Jenny whispered to herself. A heavy thud startled Jenny and she leaped off
the bed and hurried to her door, opening it and seeing Mark and John passing the room, Mark hopping on one foot, one of the movie theater chairs between the two men.

  “Damn it, I dropped that thing on my freaking toe!”

  “Are you okay, Uncle Mark?”

  John and Mark turned toward Jenny.

  “I just lost my grip,” Mark said. “That’s all.”

  “Need help?”

  “But, you’re a girl!”

  All three smiled.

  “When we get this chair into the movie room, we’ll be all set,” John told his daughter.

  “Where’s mom?”

  “In the bedroom.”

  “How’s the sketchy videos?”

  “So far it’s just a girl afraid of the dark.”

  “A girl after my own heart.”

  “You’re afraid of the dark, too?”

  Mark nodded. “Yes.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “Better than being afraid of clowns.”

  “Who’s afraid of clowns?”

  “Your mom,” John answered.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You never wondered why we never took you to a circus as a kid?”

  “Mom told me she was allergic to sawdust.”

  John lifted his side of the theater chair. “Come on, let’s get this inside.”

  Mark lifted his side and they moved up the hallway, turning into the movie room.

  Jenny was about to turn around and enter her room, when a heavy thud was heard coming from the other end of the hallway. Jenny looked up the hall. “Mom?”

  When the sound wasn’t repeated, Jenny entered her room and shut the door.

  Candy placed the video camera on the nightstand beside her bed. She was on her right side, looking at the camera, covered with a blanket. “I guess I should talk about why I started doing this video stuff in the first place-”

  Static.

  Jenny sat up at seeing the static on the TV screen. “What?” she exclaimed. “Why did you start doing the videos, Candy?” Jenny pressed the fast-forward button on the remote control, but the rest of the tape was just static. Jenny got up off her bed and walked to the VCR, taking the tape out, looking over her shoulder at the box of video cassettes. A knock at the door and it opened a crack, John’s voice heard.

  “We’re starting the movie, if you want to come watch.”