Is There Something in That House?

Carly was having a wonderful morning. The weather was perfect for January in the desert, which meant there was no wind and the sun was warm and bright. She was riding her cruiser her Harley bell tinkling on the handlebars, she had already seen a couple of coyotes and a red tail hawk, there wasn’t any traffic and her thoughts were wonderfully serene.

She pedaled up the small grade on her road and coasted down on the other side. A big motorcycle was coming towards her, and she lifted her hand to wave. The guy on the motorcycle braked so hard he did a doughnut in the middle of the road and came up behind Carly.

Either the motorcyclist was not proficient or the gravel was too deep, whatever, the result ended with Carly on her backside and her beautiful blue Huffy twisted in the dirt ahead of her.

“Oh my God! Are you all right? What’s wrong? I just wanted to speak to you! Please be all right.” said this guy on a bike.

Carly mentally checked everything and found a very tender spot on her butt, other than that, she was fine. She looked over at her bicycle and struggled to keep her face neutral.

“What do you want and why did you think you had to dump me on me…behind to say it?”

The man was trying to help Carly to her feet and check her out at the same time, “I just want to say hey, I swear. I grew up around here, I’m back, and I just wanted to meet you. I didn’t know the gravel was so deep. My bike is new and the back tire got away from me. I can’t tell you how scared I was when you fell off your bike.”

Carly decided she’d give the guy a break. Her laugh rang out over Jamie Road and made the guy feel immediately better.

“My name is Ben” said the motorcycle guy.

“And I am Carly.”

“So, are you OK?

“Of course I am, other than a bruised ego as they say, I am OK.” Carly hadn’t been back on a bicycle for a long time and being dumped on the road was as much due to her inability as it was to the deep dirt and gravel on the side of the road.

Carly squatted down next to her bike. Ben was right behind her.

“Do you live close by? Do you want a lift? Asked Ben.

Carly was looking at the mess of her Huffy and couldn’t help a deep sigh. She loved that bike.

“I live close to here and my husband can come get the bicycle.” Replied Carly.

Ben looked at her ruined bike and said, “No way, you climb on back and I’ll take you home and help your husband come get your bike.’

Carly couldn’t help it, such a perfect opening. “OK, but he’s an old Seal, he loves me and he will kill you.” She was so proud she kept a straight face!

Ben swallowed so hard she could see his throat move. That was the only time Carly had ever seen someone do that!

“Are you serious? I’m really not trying to hurt you; do you really think your husband would kill me?”

“Of course I’m serious. Do you really to look him in the face and tell him you made me fall off my bike? I am his best friend and now you hurt me.”

Carly couldn’t keep it up anymore. This guy made the best faces! She laughed again and Ben relaxed. No one with a laugh like that was serious. She sure had a bad sense of humor though.

“I can maybe stop him short of killing you. He prefers scalping anyway. That way you will live!”

This time both of them burst out laughing and Ben knew he had met a new friend.

“I was starting to worry. Now what did you say your name was and where do you live?” said Ben.

“I’m Carly and my husband is Timothy, or really Tim, and we live about five mailboxes up this road on the left.”

“For real? I knew the guys who grew up there! We were all best friends.” exclaimed Ben.

Carly started to reply with the 'oh how nice type' of remark and then she began to wonder….

“So, say, did you guys ever play Ouija Board in the little house?” asked Carly without looking at Ben.

Ben felt his stomach jump. “Yes, as a matter of fact we did. We messed around with that in high school but how would you know that?”

Carly turned and looked Ben full in the face. “Because you opened a door and I can’t get it to shut!”

Ben heard what Carly said but couldn’t understand what the words meant. Then he remembered. His stomach took another dive towards Mexico and he lifted Carly to her feet in a motion that made her gasp for breath.

“You are going home and I will take my chances with your Timothy.”

Less than five minutes later Carly was standing in front of Tim.

“Move, woman, I am going to kill that piece of meat.” Timothy glared at Ben.

“I told him that’s what you’d do, honey, but I really want you to reconsider.” Carly looked up at Timothy with a smile and a frown at the same time.

“All right. I won’t kill him but I just sharpened my knife. I’ll just scalp him instead.’ Ben stepped closer to Ben and Ben stepped back.

Carly sighed and laughed. Tension left the room immediately. “I told you so, Ben. Prepare for a hair cut the likes you’ve never seen!”

Timothy chuckled and his shoulders came down from around the top of his neck. “You’ll live mister. Come help me get the ole ladies bike. I swear she loves that thing more than me sometimes.”

Several hours later the Huffy was retrieved, both men had made good strides on its recovery and they had had pancakes and link sausages prepared by Carly. To say the atmosphere was better was just putting a dent in it! Carly had been thinking while she was busy with the breakfast of how to approach what she was sure was the reason for Ben’s appearance in their lives. She knew Timothy would be the hardest sell but she had to try. The little casita was weighing on her mind and getting bigger by the day.

Ben and Timothy were already becoming friends. Ben had been in the military as well, serving in the Air Force as a Line Chief. So once the 'where were you' and 'what job did you do' were out of the way and both men knew the other was ‘good to go’ so to speak they settled to football and guns, old cars and bikes. Carly was so happy to see that response in both men. Her Tim was her best friend and she knew he needed a best friend. His best friend had been gone almost seven years now.

Carly cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak.

“Oh god, woman, what is it? When you make that face I know I’m not going to like whatever comes out of your mouth.” Tim smiled and reached to grab Carly. “Ben and I are going to have a major cookout this weekend now so forget that trip to the gem show; we are out.”

“Well I guess I know the way to Milber Street or to 22nd and I-10 all by myself or I might even go to the big show, you know Brenda said she wanted to go to the one in the convention center this year and you sold that monster Cadillac Limo so I have a ton of mad…”

Tim roared, not that that surprised or upset Carly, she loved the reactions her jokes got out of her beloved hubby.

“I can’t believe you said that!”

“What part?” asked Carly with a southern sweet, I am just asking for a bit of clarification, look on her face.

“Don’t look at me like that, you know what part! That Caddie was no monster. It was a 1955 Cadillac Limousine and I bought that car for ten bucks. Do you realize what a piece of history that made it? I’d still have it, in fact, if the parts were still available and didn’t cost an arm and a leg….shit; maybe I should’ve kept it.”

“Oh honey don’t you worry, you’ll find another project car and I won’t spend more than oh, 75 or 90 percent of your sales money. I promise.”

Tim looked over at Ben and grinned. “Hey Ben, how bout a trade? You keep the ole lady and I keep the bicycle, what about it?

Ben smiled. “I think I’ll go out to the garage and get to work on that front rim. See you guys!” All three laughed and Carly saw her way into the conversation she’d been practicing in her head all morning.

“Actually, Ben... I have an even better trade. Come on out to the little house and help me shut the door.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Carly, baby, I love you but I’ve told you there’s nothing wrong with that house! Don’t make Ben here think we're nuts.”

“Well I am NOT the one with the sharp knife and an inclination to lift the covering of a person’s skull.” However, Carly was smiling when she said it.

“welllll….” Was all Tim said to that remark.

Ben took a deep breath, “Look, I have to tell you two I spent a lot of time in this house. I don’t have any brothers or sisters and the McKinley’s here had four boys and two girls. Mrs. McKinley always said one more won’t matter. I was as much a part of this house as my own; more in fact. But, and I’m only saying this cause Carly seems to know already, in the last year of high school, something changed and that casita played a big part of it. We did mess around with Tarot, Ouija, I Ching, and crystal balls. But it was the board that….” Ben just stopped and looked around the big kitchen.

Carly waited. Tim was frowning; he hadn’t expected to hear this.

Finally, Ben started up again, “I know that one night, probably around this time, maybe as late as February, because it was still a little chilly at night and we had the heater running in the hall. We had snuck out some tequila from the big house. We were all five of us guys in the back bedroom, it was our favorite. Mr. McKinley didn’t drink a lot but he kept it for his business buddies, and we were messing with the board. It wasn’t anything we hadn’t done before but this time something happened. “

Ben took the last swallow of his coffee and Carly got up to fill his cup.

“So come on. What happened?” asked Tim.

“We all said what was that at the same time but I don’t know to this day what that was. All I know is from then on we could feel something or someone watching us and it was freaky man.” Ben laughed, “I haven’t said freaky or man in so many years!”

Carly shifted in the chair and looked at both men. “Do you want to go with me and see if we can make it stop?”

Both men said no along with different types of expletives the top of their lungs and laughed. Tim said ”Oh all right honey, you gonna do the same thing as last time?”

“Yes, nothing big, just the 23^rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer and some incense is all. Let’s go.”

The little house was less than 50 feet from the main house. As the group walked up the path Carly thought, the likelihood of this occurrence was probably less than getting struck by lightning. Yet here she was, finally about to clean the casita! She had known the presence was there when they rented the house but thought, well, I will clean it and it will make a perfect place to play my keyboard and cut out my sewing pieces and especially good for sitting and watching the geography channel when Tim was hollering 'YES' at football games.

Carly walked in first then Tim and finally, reluctantly, Ben. All three stood in the big open front room and waited. Nothing happened.

Carly started first with the Lord’s prayer and began to walk through the bathroom off to the left then through the front room, wall to wall and down the hall, into the first bedroom at the west end of the casita, still walking the walls and now she was on the second 23^rd Psalm.

By the time she had done the second bathroom, (this one was her favorite because it had a big tub and a separate powder room) Carly was definitely anxious. The feeling always started in the hall but for whatever reason it had begun on the second wall of the first room! Carly concentrated and tried to focus on just the words….Thou preaparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…and kept walking.

“There Carly, I love you, you know I love you, but it’s just as I said. Nothing in here to bother you. Make this little house all yours. You are just going to love it.” Exclaimed Tim as all three walked out onto the small front porch.

“I think it was all of us doing the housecleaning that did it.” laughed Carly and she pushed her misgiving to the back of her mind.

Ben was looking at the Black Mountains to the south when Tim closed the door on the casita. Ben saw the shadow of a big man out of the corner of his vision in the back bedroom.

He hesitated only a moment then shut the door and put his arm around the woman he loved so much.