The Guest House Hauntings Boxset by Hazel Holmes (novel books to read txt) 📕

Brent examined the apartment numbers on the left that ended in odd numbers and stopped in front of door 417. He checked behind him, again finding himself alone in the hall, and then kicked the door down.

The door frame shattered, splinters of wood flying as the door swung inward, denting the adjacent drywall of the narrowed hallway entrance. Brent charged forward, gun already drawn and aimed at the man and woman on the living room couch, their arms in the air.

Brent passed the kitchen, finding it empty save for dirty dishes and trash. With the pair on the couch paralyzed in fear, Brent backtracked, keeping his attention on the couple, and shut the door.

Drug paraphernalia littered the coffee table. Needles, coke, pills, weed—it was a pharmaceutical smorgasbord. However, the pair on the couch looked more like dealers than like users.

Brent remained silent, gun still aimed at the couple, then pressed the barrel of his pistol against the man’s temple. The woman started to cry.

“Where did she go?” Brent asked.

The man was young, mid-twenties at the oldest, and had long blonde hair that had been crimped in what Brent assumed was an effort to detract attention from the large mole that clung to the side of his nose and his harelip. He wore a jacket, but Brent knew that underneath the clothes was nothing more than a skeleton covered in skin, and the bag of bones couldn’t stop shaking.

“I-I don’t know.” He shut his eyes, hands still in the air. “She just said she was leaving, man! I didn’t get a forward fucking address!”

The woman next to the skeleton had curled up into the fetal position. She was small like Sarah, though not as pretty.

Brent removed the gun from the skeleton’s head and then aimed it at the woman, which transformed her moaning sobs into a full-blown hysteria.

“NO! PLEASE!” She thrust her arms out as if she could block bullets with her hands. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she pushed herself backward until she hit the couch’s armrest. “I don’t know what happened to her. Please, she didn’t tell us. She just wanted to be left alone.”

Brent tilted his head to the side. “Alone?” He stepped around the skeleton, the little shit too much of a pussy to protect the woman, as he cowered in his seat.

Brent’s shadow engulfed the tiny woman, her tremors of fear shaking the pistol in his hand as he pressed it against her temple. “Why would she want to be alone?” He arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Because of me?”

The woman shook her head.

Brent lingered for a moment but then removed the pistol. He circled the coffee table and examined the drugs and needles, holding the weapon casually at his side. Large multicolored stains hardened the carpet that crunched beneath his boots.

The place was a dump. Hell, the whole neighborhood was a dump. And despite all his resources and all the eyes and ears he had working the streets, he still hadn’t been able to find her. One fucking woman had eluded him. He had tracked down every lead, spoken to all of her friends, and none of them knew where she’d gone. He was positive they were telling the truth. He needed to make sure that the bums in front of him were telling the truth too.

“So you don’t know where she went, huh?” Brent asked. “And you’re sure you don’t have anything else to tell me? Nothing you want to share before I leave?”

Skeleton shook his head, and the woman only trembled. “N-no. W-we don’t know. I-I promise.”

Brent smiled, revealing white but crooked teeth. “Well, then. I guess I don’t have anything left to worry about.” He paused for a minute and then raised the pistol, aimed it at the woman, and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet went straight through her head, spraying her skull and brains onto the back of the sofa, and sending a few bits onto the skeleton, who’d frozen in shock.

Brent aimed his pistol at the skeleton. “You know how long it’ll take for anyone to come and check on this apartment after that gunshot?” He stepped closer. “Thirty minutes, minimum. And do you want to know why?” He bent over at the waist, shoving his face close to the skeleton’s, where he caught a scent of the warm brain matter speckled on his cheek. “Because no one gives a shit what happens with the people around here, because people like you die in these fucking slums every single day. One more dead body is one less person the city has to support.”

“Jesus Christ, man.” These were the only words that the skeleton could spit out, and he repeated them in the same hysterical laughter that only a person on the edge of madness could utter. He turned toward Brent, looking past the gun pointed at his head, his eyes bulging from his skull. “You fucking killed her, man!”

“I did,” Brent answered, his tone calm. “And I will kill you if you can’t tell me where she went. I’ll give you to the count of three.”

“I told you I don’t know where she is!” His cheeks reddened, and the muscles along his neck and throat strained as he struggled to tell Brent what he wanted to hear. “I’m not lying, man!”

“Two.”

The skeleton slipped from the couch and landed on his knees, clutching his hands together. “Please.” He worked his mouth to try and form words but found none. His knuckles turned white from the pressure, and the skeleton bowed his head and pressed his forehead against the dirty carpet. “I don’t want to die. Don’t kill me, please. I won’t tell anyone you were here.” He grabbed Brent’s ankles, his voice muffled against the floor.

Brent looked down at the cockroach next to his boot, gun still aimed at its head, and then looked to the dead woman on the couch. Her eyes were still open, staring upward to