A Place So Wicked by Patrick Reuman (life books to read txt) 📕

said. “I mean, as you said, we’re here. Hundreds of people live here now. Thousands, maybe.”

“Do you believe in the supernatural?” Eli asked.

He asked it to both of them, the words hanging in the air like tantalizing treats. Toby hadn’t before. But did he now? After seeing what he had in the attic?

“Yes,” Paisley said, much to Toby’s surprise. She noticed Toby’s expression and hurried to her defense. “I mean, I don’t know. I believe in something. I’m just not sure what. Do ghosts exist, though? I don’t know.”

Eli nodded, feeling exactly the way Paisley did about the whole question. “Well, as you can imagine, rumors grew. Legends sprang up. What was in Dead Falls that kept everything so dead? Some said demons. Some believed there was some kind of god living here, an ancient pagan thing that fed on the noble Christians that came to settle. Others believe it was simply cursed, by a witch or a warlock. All I know is that we are here now. So, at some point, things stopped dying.”

“Now it’s a fuckin’ paradise,” Toby said, the disdain not hidden in his voice. “That’s the first thing our dad told us about this place, how fricken great it was. Top of the charts. Booming!”

Eli laughed a quiet chuckle. “A perfect paradise.”

“That still doesn’t answer what exactly is going on here, in this house,” Paisley said.

Eli’s shoulder sagged. “That’s another thing I’m not sure about. This house might be the town’s best kept secret.”

“What do you mean?” Toby asked.

“People move in here. That’s it. That’s what I know happens. They move in, and then we know they are gone because all of a sudden more new people are moving in. Nobody knows where the original people went. And nobody asks. Because if you do ask, you’ll disappear, too. This town is plagued by disappearances that somehow go unmentioned, unnoticed by anyone that would do something about it. It’s never in the news. Nobody outside of town ever seems to notice. Nobody asks where everyone is disappearing to. People in the town barely even seem to notice. Or they’re too afraid to say it.”

“When we first moved in, the grass outside was dead. The tree out front was dead, too. Someone had tried to hide it. But now…if you went out there and looked, you’d see it all alive again,” Toby said. “But everybody in here, we’re all sick. Well, not us—me and Paisley. Trevor and Robbie, though, they look like they’re ready to…” He stopped, not able to speak the word his mind was thinking. “It’s like…the house is taking our life, like a parasite. Like we’re…”

“Sacrifices,” Paisley said. “But to what? There are no demons here, or ghosts, or gods, or whatever.”

“I—I’ve seen some things,” Toby said, turning to face Paisley. “Things that I haven’t been able to explain. But none of them looked like vengeful spirits that wanted to kill us.”

“Like what?” Paisley asked.

“I saw a woman in the attic, the night I fell asleep up there, or passed out, rather. But it wasn’t angry. It didn’t look evil. Actually, it looked like it was trying to get out. It was pulling at the window, trying to get it open. She, the ghost, looked terrified.” He remembered the cold chill that had run through his body as he watched the woman back herself into the corner.

Seconds of silence passed as the others considered Toby’s story of the woman in the attic.

“The door!” Toby jumped to his feet. “There is a door in the basement, leading to another room. It’s locked. The terrible smell in here, it’s a thousand times worse in the basement. That’s where it’s coming from. We thought maybe there was a dead animal in there, but the door has been locked so we couldn’t check. Nobody can find the key. Not us or the realtor.”

“You think there is something in there causing all this?” Paisley asked, getting to her feet as well, a tiny spark of hope igniting within her.

“I don’t know,” Toby said. “But there is definitely something down there. It’s a good place to start.”

Paisley didn’t like where this was going. She knew the truth, or at least part of it, and now she wanted to leave. The house was the culprit, that much seemed evident, so they needed to get as far away from it as possible.

“Even if they’re watching us, we can get everybody in the car and go. If we do it quick, we could probably get away. It’s dark out.” She hurried to the window and looked out, not seeing anybody in the street or across the road, or anywhere else. She didn’t see anybody watching them as Eli had suspected.

Eli grabbed her and pulled her away from the window. He didn’t like how hard he did it, but he didn’t want her to be seen. He didn’t want these people to end up like the others.

“You can’t. They’ll stop you! I’ve seen it! I used to take walks at night. I saw a family try to leave once. I saw them get into their car and drive. It never works!” An image of a crashed car flickered into Eli’s head, an old memory he had tried to bury. A memory of wreckage he had seen the last night he ever dared take a walk. He watched from behind some bushes as unknown people looked into the car, checking, he suspected, if the people within were still alive. “There’s no way they’ll let you go now. If only I could have warned you guys when you first got here.”

“We’d never have listened,” Toby said. “I don’t even know if I believe in ghosts now. I sure as hell wouldn’t have believed there was some demon here that was going to try to kill us.”

Paisley was in tears. She turned away