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

a sound. She wanted to scream for help, but she didn’t know where her captors were, and she didn’t want to draw more attention to herself. So, she took in her surroundings first. She felt a slight bit of heat against her back. Was it something dangerous?

Clara didn’t even want to know. Her brain came up with a million possibilities, none of them good. But she needed to be aware of all the dangers of this situation she found herself in. So, in a quick and careful movement, she rolled over onto her other side.

“Ezra,” she called out. His eyes were closed, his body dead weight. Was he dead though? She wouldn’t be able to make it through this if he were dead. She couldn’t bear to lose her husband. Just the thought of it sent her into a panic. “Ezra, please wake up,” she begged.

Ezra heard Clara calling out to him, but it sounded like she was yelling from a distance. She sounded terrified, and Ezra tried to claw his way out of his black hole to her. He called out to her, but it seemed she couldn’t hear him.

“Clara,” he finally mumbled as he stumbled out of sleep.

“Ezra, I’m so glad you’re okay.” Tears fell freely.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

“I’m okay, but I have no clue what’s happening. I think maybe the ghosts trapped us. I don’t know why they did it, but I’m terrified. What will they do to us?”

As some of the haze was wearing off, Ezra noticed his bound hands and feet and realized they were in the attic. He slowly remembered what had happened right before he passed out.

“I don’t think it was the ghosts,” he said. “I think we were knocked out with chloroform, or something like it anyway. I don’t think ghosts have access to such things. Plus, I don’t think they’d be able to bind us and carry us up to the attic. It seems that they can do some things in this world, but they don’t have as much stretch and autonomy as living people do.”

“Then who did this?” Clara asked. Then, it dawned on her. “I’ll bet it was Nathaniel. I told you we needed to be careful with him! He was probably so angry that he came back to hurt us. Kill us so he can have the property to himself. Do you think Brittany and Sam are okay?”

“I don’t know, but they didn’t answer when we called out to them. It isn’t a great sign. Hopefully, they’re trapped like us but…”

Clara started crying, really crying. It was her worst fear come true. She’d been waiting for this to happen, trying to avoid it. Now she was faced with the terror that plagued her.

“What do we?” she asked.

“We must keep calm,” Ezra replied. “If we don’t, we’ll never get out of this.”

“Oh, you’re never getting out of this,” a familiar male voice said.

“It can’t be,” Clara whispered.

Brittany and Sam were coming up the stairs, guns in their hands.

51

Brittany and Sam stood in front of them, looking at them like they were prey and Brittany and Sam were lethal predators.

“What’s going on?” Ezra asked as some of the shock faded.

“We’re figuring out what to do with you,” Brittany said simply. A sick and twisted smile played on her face. “We can’t kill you the same way we killed Lyla and Richard’s family. It’ll look too suspicious, especially with Billy gone. Especially since we plan to pick up the property as soon as it goes on the market. We want to avoid reopening the case, which is why we have to do this to you now. We can’t afford to take the chance of being looked at too closely. We’re confident in our work, but we understand we’re not professionals. It’s too much of a risk.

“We have to do things differently this time. We must find a way to make it look like Nathaniel killed you. Shouldn’t be too difficult. As you already pointed out so nicely, he does look mighty suspicious.”

Clara and Ezra struggled up to a sitting position. Brittany and Sam watched as if they were amused by seeing them struggle. Doing this simple movement allowed them a moment to ground themselves. Brittany and Sam were here, in front of them. They knocked them out and bound them. They killed Lyla and Richard’s family.

“It’s funny, your worries about Billy,” Brittany noted. “He tried to warn Lyla and Richard about us. You see, we didn’t resort to murder right off. We tried to drive them out first. There are lots of ways to get into this house aside from the front door. There are a lot of hiding spaces. We moved things around, tried to make them think their house was haunted, or that they were going crazy. Anything that might get them to leave.

“It didn’t work, obviously. We stopped when Billy caught us. He went and told Lyla and Richard about us. We explained it away, but he never trusted us again. He proved to be a good scapegoat though, so I no longer harbor any bad feelings towards him.”

The inconsistencies in the ghosts’ behavior were starting to make sense. Sometimes they seemed helpful, kind even. Other times, like when Clara’s dress was laid out on the bed, they were terrifying. She started to realize that the more terrifying times were probably Brittany and Sam trying to scare them away. She wished she let them. No property was worth losing their lives over.

However, she knew deep down that if Brittany and Sam weren’t stopped, they’d likely kill again. So, if she could turn back time and choose to avoid this place, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.

“Why?” Clara asked as she tried to get over her shock enough to deal with the situation in the rational way she knew she should. “She was your friend.”

“She was,” Brittany admitted. “It wasn’t easy to kill her and her family. I wish I didn’t have to