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

faded paint beneath the filth. The grime from the walls ran down in thick, watery streams, making the house look as if it was bleeding tar.

Once she reached the baseboard, she was forced to move the bed’s headboard away from the wall, which revealed an outline of the headboard’s edges, but then she stopped when she noticed something carved into the baseboard.

Sarah dropped to her knees and squinted. Some dust had collected over the engraving, but it looked recent. Sarah swiped at the writing with her sponge, erasing the dust that covered the carved letters, and then cleared away the soap with her apron. The letters were small, but the words were clear.

In the shed.

The letters were hurried, jagged and frantic. They had been written by someone who couldn’t keep their hand still, which meant that they were either angry or scared. Sarah was betting that it was the latter.

Then her thoughts turned to the conversation she overheard the night before between Dennis and Iris. If the groundskeeper were going to hide something, then the shed would make sense.

Maybe that other girl had found it. Maybe that’s the help she was talking about.

“Sarah.”

She dropped the sponge and then shimmied out of the tight space. Kegan was at the door, leaning his head inside. “Listen, I have to head out for the night. I need you to bring my grandmother some dinner. There’s some chicken noodle in the cabinets. She’ll eat that.”

“All right.”

“She eats early, so I’d go and get it ready now. You know where her room is?”

“Fourth floor.”

“Good, and don’t worry, she’s not contagious.” Kegan lightly knocked on the doorframe and then disappeared.

Sarah looked back down at the words scribbled on the baseboard. And she thought of the dream she had last night, and the woman that had been pestering her, and Dennis, and Iris, and the whole damn house.

“Just a few more weeks,” Sarah whispered to herself. “Just get the money, and then run.”

Sarah headed down to the kitchen, prepared the soup, and then located a tray to carry it up to Iris’s room. She was careful up the stairs, making sure not to spill, knowing that she’d get an earful for making a mess.

The fourth floor had the same setup and structure as the others, but the furniture had been polished, the vases filled with fresh flowers, and the runner down the hall was new.

Sarah walked along the runner in the hall and toward the third room on the left, which was cracked open. She knew it was Iris’s from the horrible coughing and hacking coming from inside.

Gripping the tray with both hands, she shouldered the door open and poked her head inside. Iris lay in a white gown, tucked beneath a pile of blankets, with a stack of pillows keeping her upright.

“What are you doing here?” Iris snarled, but the expression disappeared when she viciously hacked into a napkin.

“Kegan had to leave.” Sarah set the tray down on the nightstand next to Iris’s bed. “He asked me to bring you some soup.”

“What a chivalrous gesture.” Iris cleared her throat and shut her eyes.

Sarah took a moment to examine the room, which was surprisingly small considering the old woman’s ego. There was a vanity, the bed, a nightstand, and then a side table which was lined with pictures.

All of them were old, most in black and white, and Sarah suspected that it was Iris’s family. But in three of the family pictures, she noticed that one of the faces had been scratched out. And it looked to be the same face every time.

“That’ll be all.”

Sarah turned back to Iris, who was staring at her, twisting the wooden sphere of jewelry that still hung from her neck. And while Iris tried to maintain her intimidating glare, the intensity was lost in the frailty of the body beneath the covers. She was just an old woman, and from the stained red cloth that Sarah had seen in the trash can, she was also dying.

Without another word, Sarah left the room, closing the door behind her and muffling Iris’s coughs as she returned to her work.

The sponge had leaked a puddle of soapy water onto the floor where she’d left it, right beneath the phrase that had been carved into the room.

A brief thought of heading to the police entered her mind, but she snuffed it out quickly. Talking to the cops would only expose her, and she didn’t need to cause any more trouble for herself.

Sarah grabbed the sponge and returned to work, doing her best to ignore the words on the baseboard and the woman’s request for help. She was an adult. If she needed help that bad, then she could do it herself.

63

Sarah stashed the cleaning supplies back in the kitchen and then made herself a ham sandwich on wheat, complete with lettuce, tomato, muenster cheese, and a generous helping of mayonnaise. She grabbed a bottle of water and then returned to her room.

Sarah opened the curtains, letting the evening light bathe the room in oranges and gold, and then sat cross-legged on the bed, where she ate her sandwich. She gazed out the window, finishing her meal, and wondered how far she’d have to run before she was finally safe.

Eventually he’d give up, right? She thought maybe a year from now she’d be able to relax.

With enough cash, she could buy a new identity. Time and distance were her best friends right now. She just had to ride it out.

Once she finished her sandwich, Sarah got the itch for a smoke. She reached for her backpack on the floor and stuck her arm inside, then froze.

Sarah’s hand groped something foreign, and she trembled when she removed her arm and found herself holding the stack of letters from her dream.

She dropped them, the letters unfolding and spreading over the floor. She rolled off the bed in the opposite direction and kept her distance as she circled around the foot of the bed.

It wasn’t possible. It