LOGINShare
One Bold Move
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56We could hear Isaac’s loud voice from the third-floor landing. Plain to see he and Brandon had already set to monitor the live feeds, because he shut up the moment I opened the study door.
“Come in. It’s safe,” said Joseph right away.
“Thank you, Joseph,” I murmured, looking around at the mess the room was. “How is she doing?”
“She throws things now and then. But she’s still where you left her.”
“By the loveseat?”
“Yes. Be careful.”
“Wish me luck.”
I traded a look with Trisha, who nodded with a quick encouraging smile.
“Cristine, c’est moi, Fran,” I said, facing the end of the loveseat where I’d seen her the night before. “Can we talk?”
Trisha translated. Nothing happened, so I stepped closer. The circle of spices and herbs had been blown away, but Amy had explained to me the oil worked to imprint it on the floorboards and sustain the barrier.
I sat down on the floor, about thr
Related chapters
Haunter Under the Rug
Mike and I left Susan on the second floor, getting ready to start with my room and Isaac’s, and went on to the third floor. The poor man halted at the doorway, gaping at the mess around, speechless. I walked in, looking around too. With the two big shelves up again, the work left was plenty but easier.We decided we should start by clearing the furniture from the front half of the room, so we could pick up all the books Cristine had been throwing around and clean that side. Then we’d move everything over to that side to work on the other half of the study.We’d been working for about twenty minutes, trading occasional comments, when I thought he might know something about the water diviner marks.“D’you know if there was a well in the grounds? One that was dug shortly after the inauguration of the Manor?”Our newfound trust made him take my question like one of my usual weird inquiries, surely related to the ghosts or s
Haunter What Lies Beneath
Brandon paused his camera for a minute, just enough to hand me a tri-field meter on a handle mount that also had a GoPro to film the device readings up close.“There. You man that, I’ll shoot the whole thing.”“Yessir. Where are we going?”“Basement first.”“Shouldn’t we let Isaac and Trisha do it? I mean, at least shoot them doing it.”Brandon looked up at the ceiling, sighed, and nodded. I could see he hated stepping aside, so I grabbed the meter from the mount and handed it to him.“That doesn’t mean we can’t go check it.”He smiled, grabbing the device. “Let’s go.”It was the first time I’d ever been to the basement since we’d released Kujo, and it felt sort of weird. I mean, it was so empty. Just a regular basement full of old stuff. I didn’t realize I’d stopped a few steps in, looking around, lost
Haunter Stars Everywhere
I’m not sure whether Susan was eager to make amends or see what had happened on the third floor, but she volunteered to stay longer to clean up the study. So Mike dropped his gardening plans to lend her a hand.After lunch, I called St. Aloysius to make sure Father Thompson would be there. The old priest was waiting for us, so I helped Brandon load his truck with everything he would need for the interview and tried to send him on his way, feeling he could use a while alone. But he wouldn’t even hear about it.“I have all the time in the world alone back home,” he replied. “So go grab your jacket, ‘cause you’re coming.”“Yessir,” I murmured, spinning around to do as he said, only not that happy anymore about his bossing me around. And ranting to myself about his drama queen ways to speak. All the time in the world alone back home. Sure. Jumping from bed to bed, the bastard.As soon as we
Haunter Halfway
I followed Brandon without a word all the way up to the third floor. He made me walk into the study first and locked the door behind us. Okay, no interruptions whatsoever? What was going on?I was still looking around, amazed to see the large room completely restored in such a short time, when his arms showed up from behind me and wrapped around my chest. The warm touch of his lips brushing my ear caused me a chill.“Let’s talk now,” he whispered. “I wanna clear this outta the way.”I turned my face toward him and brought up a hand to run my fingers through his short hair, kissing him.“I love you,” I murmured.“Me too, kid.” He let go of me to go to the loveseats. “C’mon, let’s have a seat.”“Jesus, you sound awfully serious.”I didn’t dig the way he raised his eyebrows. “Because I am. Come.”Not like I had a choice. I s
Haunter Secret Currents
“Ley lines!”Brandon and I stopped dead halfway down the stairs to the first floor when Trisha jumped out of the dining room with one of her loud cries.“What?” Brandon asked, frowning.Isaac joined my friend with his own exclamations. Weren’t we lucky.“Ley lines! Underground currents of energy!”“Amy says that’s what this could be about.”“Oh, okay,” Brandon murmured.We resumed our way down and they sort of cornered us to make us go into the dining room. Brandon had his phone already in his hand.“Did you film Amy’s call?” he asked, ready to dial the medium.“Of course,” Trisha replied, taking offense.“Well, let’s film this too. Maybe she says something more, or different.”Isaac and Trisha hurried to move the tripods closer to him as I let go of his hand.“I’m gonna
Haunter Morning Run
The next morning, I leveled up in willpower and extracted myself from Brandon’s arms before the Collins arrived. I got dressed in the bathroom to avoid waking him up with my noises, tucked him in and tiptoed out of my room. Trisha and Isaac were still sound asleep too, so the Manor was amazingly quiet.The cat ball flashed the moment I paused outside the east parlor, and I went on to the kitchen with Lizzie, Cristine and the twins, who didn’t leave their new-found aunt’s side come hell or high water. Edward and Joseph joined us a moment later.I wanted to know how Cristine was dealing with her situation, and while I made breakfast, they told me that despite her deep sadness, she felt welcomed and contented with them. Seeing how we were working nonstop to figure out what had happened to her, she trusted we would find a way to help her go back to her loved ones sooner than later.They asked me about our findings, so I told them what little we act
Haunter Tremors
It was sort of consensual that Brandon would make the calls for the next steps, no matter his original plan of staying back as much as he could. He was used to coordinate teamwork in weird situations, so the other three of us turned to him when it came to decide what we should do.And the obvious next step was finding the two last iron stars. They wouldn’t be hard to spot, and Isaac and Trisha went back out while Brandon and I headed upstairs to get rid of our sweaty running outfits.“This wasn’t the idea,” Brandon grumbled from the shower. “I was supposed to just watch you guys work this out.”“Told you about your tyrannical natural leader thing,” I replied, walking into the bathroom. “This turned out to be a lot more than an upset ghost throwing things around, and we all trust you better than ourselves to figure the best course of action.”“Yada, yada, yada,” he grunted, scratching
Haunter Two More Down
I was like a zombie for the rest of the day. Since thinking straight was out of the picture, I decided to make myself useful and joined the Collins outside, for the heinous task of trying to pick up all the shattered glass from the garden. The vacuum helped us a great deal, but we only had one, so Susan steered it, while Mike and I wore thick work gloves and picked up the sharp little pieces by hand.Meanwhile, inside, the other three talked with Amy and tried to salvage the footage from the burned cameras. They were able to do it, and later, Brandon showed me that the devices had registered an abrupt drop in the EM field for two seconds before the blast.“Like a volcano dome that collapses right before an eruption,” he said.He also told me the KII didn’t detect any EM field around the old well in the guesthouse basement, nor at the tool shed, anymore.I pretended to be interested, even impressed, but my head was elsewhere. I didn&rsquo
Latest chapter
Haunter The Third Time's the Charm
The traveling crews came back to Los Angeles for the holidays a couple of days later, and Brandon decided he felt brave enough to host a dinner for all of them at one of the restaurants they used to go to.It would be like his big comeback to society, leaving behind almost four months of reclusion and darkness. And to mark the occasion, he warned me that Cake had leaked the date and place to a few reporters.“Meaning my friends will be there?”“Guess so. The problem is that ban on you. I don’t want them to leave you out of the report. The other way around: I want everybody to know we’re together.”I looked up at him with a heartfelt sigh. But like it always happened over the last week, meeting his eyes focused on mine made me so happy, I couldn’t refuse. So I called Greta Arbosky, who said she would take care of letting them know about this one exception. I disconnected and faced him, raising my eyebrows.&
Haunter The Hard Way Back
Against all odds, Brandon was the easiest, most complying patient in history. I think the scare of almost losing all his sight gave a whole new meaning to this opportunity to restore his eyes to full health. He never complained about the awful cream he had to apply directly on his eyeballs, he never missed drops or meds time, he slept on his belly, and kept his eye shields on around the clock.The first week was the hardest, of course, while he still wore the dressings. However, his determination to walk the line, no matter how hard, annoying or frustrating, helped us find our way around it faster than I’d ever expected. Just like the doctor had said, Brandon had been so stressed up over the last two or three weeks, he was plain exhausted, so he slept a lot over the first three days.My hovering tendencies kept me always within a few steps from wherever he was. At first, I thought he would soon get sick and tired of my relentless watch over him, but it was actual
Haunter A Brand New Day
I jumped to my feet when I heard Brandon move. His fingers flickered slightly and I covered his hand with mine, my heart hammering my chest. His head tilted a little toward me and his lips parted.“Hey,” I whispered. “Easy there.”He tried to speak and frowned.“It’s okay, Bran. The surgery worked alright.”He frowned deeper, trying to press my fingers. I took his hand to my lips to kiss it.“It worked, Bran,” I repeated, just in case. “You’re gonna be fine.”His shaky sigh told me he’d understood. His other hand came slowly up to brush the dressing covering his eyes.“That’s gonna stay there for a few days.”“Did it?” he mumbled, as his fingers explored the dressing further.“Yes, love. It worked. If we do what the doctor says, you’re gonna be fine in a few months. Maybe even better than before the inf
Haunter Better Angels
We woke up early the next morning. Brandon couldn’t have breakfast before surgery, but we were both too anxious to even feel any hunger. Cake arrived as we were coming down to the first floor, looking rested and ten years younger than the night before. On the way to the hospital, I took advantage of being alone in the backseat of the car to send a few texts. To Amy, to let her know I’d gotten to LA fine and everything was peachy. To Isaac, to let him know I was already in town, going with Brandon to the hospital, and I’d text him how the surgery had gone as soon as I found out. And finally to Harry, to ask him to remind Hugo to send all his light and all his angels to come lend a hand.“Who are you texting to?” asked the control freak from the passenger’s seat.“The press, obviously. Your NY Barbie and her gossiping friends will be waiting for us at the hospital.”He turned in his seat, frowning at me from behind h
Haunter Hold On Tight
I woke up at about three. Brandon was sound asleep, so much so that I was able to sneak between his arms without him even flinching. Back from the bathroom, I heard noises downstairs. Then I remembered the disaster zone the living area was when I’d come into the house. I got dressed and headed to the first floor, still trying to tie my hair in a ponytail.Guadalupe had arrived while we were upstairs, and her grin when she saw me threw me off. She and Cake had sort of cleaned up the living area, but the place still looked like the guys from A Clockwork Orange had dropped by to say hi. The kitchen was still a mess, with a lot of glass and smashed mugs all over the floor, wine and all kinds of things spilled on the floor. And when I say all kinds of things, I mean even mayonnaise. So I wore an apron, put on rubber gloves and set to clean up disaster zone number two.Guadalupe and Cake materialized in the kitchen, looking spooked. I faced them with
Haunter Shattered
I had a glimpse of the whole living area completely trashed, like a hurricane had blasted through it, but I couldn’t care less. I rushed to the stairs and up to the second floor, to storm into the master bedroom. I froze just past the doorway. My heart, which was about to crack my chest open, suddenly stopped, and everything spun around me.Because Brandon was lying on his bed, unconscious, a bleeding cut on his forehead that had sprayed blood all over him. Cake was right by his side, lifting his limp legs up to the bed.“He tripped in the kitchen and hit his head with the isle,” Cake managed to say, panting after carrying Brandon all the way upstairs.I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.“Fran! Bring me a wet towel!”His shout made me snap out of my shock. I dropped my bag on the floor and ran around the bed to the bathroom, where I grabbed the first towel I
Haunter The Longest Hours
I sneaked out of the sleeping bag the moment Brandon left his seat.“Gina!” I called, crawling on all fours out of the tent.“What is it, Fran?”“Gina, I’m so sorry, but I can’t stay to come tomorrow night,” I said, wiping my tears away just to make room for more to rain down my face.“It’s okay, Fran. Don’t worry about us.”“Kujo protect,” he said, coming to stick to my side.“You guys sure?”“Yes. Go do what you have to do.”“Okay,” I mumbled, and got back into the tent to grab my phone.The first morning flight from Philadelphia International to LAX was scheduled to live after six AM. Shit. It was hardly past midnight. Whatever. Better late than never. I bought a ticket online, already doing the math. I could check in about five thirty, so I had to leave Pennhurst
Haunter The Redemption
Brandon walked across the Manor garden in the sunset, hands in his pockets, looking around absentmindedly as he spoke.“I had to watch the footage to actually remember what had happened, and her words shocked me. She called me a puppet. She knew what was going on. Back then, I only understood they wouldn’t let me get to her, especially when Isaac turned his back on me. I couldn’t believe it. He’d betrayed me! My best friend! How powerful could this demon be to turn the man who had been my best friend for the last twenty-five years against me? I was trapped, all alone. I might have to fight for my life.” He looked at the camera. “You must be wondering if I stayed. The answer is yes. Why?” He let out a bitter chuckle. “The truth is I have no idea.” He shrugged. “I was so out of my mind that night, I can count at least half a dozen reasons why I stayed. And none of them make any sense.”They cut back to the
Haunter The Demons We Breed
“Here she comes,” Brandon said, his voice reflecting exactly the same as his face. “The little witch comes to protect the demon. Not this time.”I felt Kujo brush his face against mine and realized I was holding my breath, still shaking from head to toe. His warm touch helped me snap out of it.Brandon kept taunting and provoking Kujo until I got there, trying to burn him with his holy water. And then he’d come at me, triggering Kujo’s reaction. After Kujo attacked him, hurting me in the process, I saw him jump back to his feet and try to fight Kujo with his bear fists, punching through him like a madman, almost stomping on me, ‘cause I was pretty much unconscious at his feet. Amy stormed down the stairs as Isaac managed to pull him away from me, and forced the camera into his hands to carry me up the stairs in his arms, while Amy kept Brandon at a safe distance.“Kujo mad.”“But y
