Page 7 of The Curse of Redwood

Taylor shook his head. “Not on the inside. I’ve only walked around the property.”

“Well, Redwood is…” I searched for the right words to explain the horror of being there. “Dark. Cold. Right when you step inside the mansion, there’s a chill that attaches to your spine and it doesn’t leave until you do. Sometimes not even then.”

His green eyes widened. “Like the chills I just got by hearin’ you talk about it?”

I breathed out a short laugh. “Probably not even close.”

“Are you big into paranormal stuff too?”

“I guess you could say that,” I answered. “I kinda have a hobby where I research the dark history of places and things. When I first moved here, I researched the hell out of Blackwell Manor and found out about the people who died there. I live right down the road from it.”

“No shit?”

I nodded. “I moved in with my grandma, and she told me how no one ever lived there long because of the ghost activity. Then I researched more on my own, finding all kinds of haunted places in Ivy Grove. That led to sites about Redwood and how there’s supposed to be some kind of curse surrounding it.”

“I’ve read that too.” Taylor drank more before pressing his lips together, his cheeks flushed and his eyes glassy. He wasn’t drunk, but I could tell he was getting there. “Everyone who owns Redwood is said to suffer some dark fate, right?”

“Yep. Probably why it’s been on the market for the past few years. The last owner left in the middle of the night without a word to anyone, taking his family and leaving all their stuff behind. The dad had a stroke the following week and died. The wife supposedly went crazy after that, screaming about ghosts, then she drowned in the lake outside their new house.”

“Creepy.”

“What are you losers talking about?” Miles asked, walking up with his arm thrown around a pretty blonde who giggled at his side.

“Haunted places,” Taylor answered.

“Nerds.” Miles grabbed a bottle of Vodka and took a swig.

“You animal,” Taylor said, taking the bottle from him. “At least grab a glass first.”

“Quit bein’ a lil bitch,” Miles shot back. Then he smirked at something behind me. “Man, check out the chick talkin’ to Rich.”

Taylor and I turned around. Rich stood from the cooler of beer that he’d been guarding like a dragon with its gold for the past half-hour and smiled at a pretty brunette. A dopey look crossed his face when she lightly touched his arm and said something.

“Damn,” Taylor said with a laugh. “My boy’s gonna get laid tonight. I thought it wasmybirthday.”

“That’s your own damn fault,” Miles said. “You’ve turned down every girl who’s come on to you tonight, dumbass.”

“Wasn’t in the mood for any of them.” Taylor shrugged. Then he looked at me. “Have you ever played with a Ouija board?”

“Once.” My heart pounded against my ribs at the memory. “That’s some shit you don’t need to mess with.”

“What happened?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I lied, not wanting them to think I was crazy. I already felt like an outsider with my multiple piercings and purple contacts, while they all looked like jocks. With the exception of Rich who didn’t really fit into any group.

“Dude, tell me,” Taylor pressed. “Birthday boy demands it.”

He pouted his bottom lip, and I sighed.

“Fine. It was when I lived in California,” I answered reluctantly. “Some friends thought it’d be fun and I went along with it, even though I didn’t want to. Because I believe in that shit and wanted no part in it, you know? My buddy bought one and invited us to his place. At first, nothing happened. Then the planchette began moving on its own, spelling out a name: Sarah. A girl with us started screaming and said she saw a woman in a white nightgown standing behind me. No one else saw the woman. We found out later that a woman named Sarah killed herself in that room years before my buddy moved in.”

What I didn’t tell them? I had seen Sarah every time I went to my friend’s house after that. She never spoke to me, but she’d stand in the corner of the room and just look at me. Eventually, she began moving closer. And then closer. One night, I had woken up to the feel of someone breathing on my neck. It got to the point where I stopped going over there.

Even back then, ghosts seemed to be drawn to me. Just like the ones at Redwood.

“Bullshit,” Miles said, laughing. “You’ll have to do better than that, Carter. That shit is so fake.”

“Ghosts are real,” Carrie said. “I saw one when I was a kid.”