Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel (5 page)

Tully reached out a cautious hand and turned the tap on hot, washing out the mug and holding her nose before tipping up the milk carton. It came out in curdled lumps.

‘That is so gross. Where’d you buy it? I’m taking it back.’

‘Dairy around the road.’

‘Yuk.’ She swirled the rotten milk down the drain and turned the carton around, looking for the use-by date. ‘Weird. It says here it’s good for another week.’ The smell was sickening though; there was no doubt it had gone bad. Holding a hand against her nose, Tully opened the cupboard under the sink and dumped the carton in the rubbish. ‘Guess we’ll be having our coffee black this morning.’ She glanced out the window at Matt slouched in one of the sun loungers. ‘Unless you want to start the day off with a beer like our friend Matt.’

Turning around to ask if Toby still wanted coffee, she blinked in surprise. He was gone. ‘Toby?’ she called. ‘Where’d you go?’ There was no answer. She guessed he must have gone back to bed. Maybe it was the best place, he didn’t look like he’d been getting enough sleep. Or he was coming down with something. She sighed, trying not to worry. She wasn’t his mother. They didn’t have a mother
. Their mother had died a few days after they’d been born. Some sort of infection or something – Tully didn’t know all the details – their father didn’t like talking about it.

Tully idly pulled the fridge door open, wondering if there was another carton of milk in there. Just on the off-chance. She hated drinking coffee black.

‘What the hell?’ she whispered, wrinkling her nose again. Bending down, she peered into the white depths of the refrigerator, then dropped to her knees in front of the appliance, hand going to block her nose.

‘What the hell?’ she repeated, her voice still low,
talking to herself.

The lettuce ha
d turned black, sitting in a foul puddle of viscous liquid. Next to it, sliced peaches swam in a muck of grey mould. On the next shelf, the cheese was a block of white fuzz, engulfed completely by creeping mould. Her hand moved to cover her mouth. Last night she’d taken steaks out of the freezer, put them on a plate and wrapped them in plastic to defrost for tonight’s dinner. She’d thought they could have a barbeque. Toss a salad, have the steak. Lara was working the afternoon shift – same restaurant she and Toby worked – and they could all hang out together, shoot the breeze, unwind after the first week at work. God knows they could use the down time. They’d all been more than a little cranky.

The steaks were black, and she could smell the rotten flesh, the blood puddled around them clotted and disgusting with more mould. The stench of dead animal was unmistakable.

‘Toby!’ she called. ‘Oh my god, you gotta see this!’ There was no reply and she twisted around to call again. ‘Toby!

‘Oh my god,’ she said, whispering again. ‘How did this happen? Toby!’ She scooted backwards and got to her feet.

‘What’re you yelling about?’ Matt leaned against the back door, beer bottle in one hand. ‘What’s wrong now?’

Tully couldn’t help it, she glared at him. ‘What do you mean, now?’

Matt just shrugged, stared at her, and lifted the bottle to his mouth.

Shaking her head, Tully looked back at the open fridge and pointed. ‘Everything in there is covered in mould. Everything. It’s all rotted.’

Levering himself upright, Matt stepped forward and peered into the depths of the fridge. ‘But that’s impossible.’ He groped out a hand and set his bottle down on the counter with a clatter, then reached in and grabbed a fresh bottle from the fridge, his mouth pulled down in a grimace as he avoided the plate of stinking meat.

Rocking back on his heels, he held up the bottle of beer.

‘Is there something wrong with it too?’ Tully asked. She wasn’t surprised that Matt had gone straight for his precious beer. She’d thought English Literature students might have a bit more class, but – apparently not.

Matt twisted the top off and sniffed at the liquid, tipped up the bottle and sipped from it. He spat the beer out, retching and wiping his mouth.

‘Fuck! That’s foul! Oh my fucking god, that’s disgusting!’ he spun back from the fridge and dropped the bottle in the sink, turning the tap on full and slurping handfuls of cold water into his mouth, rinsing and spitting.

Tully looked back at the food in the fridge. ‘How can everything spoil like that?’

Matt stood over the sink, still spitting. He shook his head. ‘Fucked if I know. Wasn’t anything wrong with the first bottle of beer.’

‘And Toby said he bought the milk yesterday. It shouldn’t have curdled.’ She waved a hand at the mess in the fridge then closed the door on it. ‘Wow, it stinks so
bad.’ They were lucky they hadn’t stocked up recently. The fridge was almost bare.

Toby hadn’t come when she’d yelled. Wiping her hands on her robe, even though she hadn’t touched anything, Tully backed out of the kitchen and pushed open Toby’s bedroom door.

‘Toby, you’ll never believe it, but all the food in the fridge is rotten,’ she said, sticking her head into the room.

She got only a grunt in answer. Toby was back in bed, a vague shape under the blankets, which he’d pulled right up over his head.

‘Toby? You all right?’ She took a quick look around his room and wrinkled her nose. It smelt stale in there, as though he hadn’t opened the windows for a while. Or done his laundry. Still, it was nothing compared to the stench from the kitchen. She waited a moment for her brother to answer, but all she got was nothing. Backing out of the room, she pulled the door closed, figuring Toby was feeling as lousy as he’d looked.

The kitchen was empty when she got back there. The beer bottle still lay in the bottom of the sink, but the other
one that Matt had been sucking contentedly on was gone. He was gone. She leaned over the counter and looked out the window, and sure enough, he was sitting back in the lounger, bottle at his side, and he was reading a magasine. As though the food in their fridge hadn’t just rotted in the blink of an eye.

Gnawing on her bottom lip, Tully looked around the room and gave an involuntary shiver. She’d have to deal with the mess in the fridge, then go get some more milk. More steaks and cheese and all that stuff too, probably, but she wasn’t doing that without a decent
cup of coffee. Maybe while she was having that, she could figure out how it had happened. She went to her room to get dressed.

Lara sucked furiously at her cigarette while she listened to Tully on the other end of the phone. Finally, Tully stopped talking.

‘You know what it is?’
Lara said. ‘I’ll tell you. It’s the ghost you saw. That’s what’s doing all this.’

Tully’s voice sounded shocked. ‘What?’

Throwing down the cigarette butt, Lara ground it out under her heel, then dug in her pocket for a breath mint. The boss didn’t like them smoking, not even outside, and if she went back in there with less than fresh minty breath, she was just asking for a lecture. And when Marty gave lectures, she could barely keep from laughing out loud at him. Though it really wasn’t her fault that his thick eyebrows danced around on his face like a pair of fat caterpillars.

But that was the least of her problems right at the moment, she reckoned.

‘It’s obvious, right?’ she said. ‘Whatever you saw that night – it followed you home.’ She sniffed and sucked harder on the mint. For summer, she was having a hard time keeping warm. Maybe she was coming down with something. That would be just her luck. But again – off topic. ‘Think about it. Weird shit’s been happening since that night.’

Tully was objecting, and
Lara wasn’t surprised. She loved Tully – they were practically sisters, but despite the fact that the ghost hunting thing had been Tully’s idea, Lara didn’t think she really believed in it. She just missed her Mum, and Lara didn’t guess she could blame her best friend for that. They were all about to turn twenty one, planning a big bash for it, and Tully and Toby wouldn’t even have their mum there. They had a new step-mother, but Lara had met her, and the woman was on the mousy side, completely under their father’s thumb. She’d already spat out one kid, and Lara wouldn’t be surprised if she had a bunch more, chained barefoot and pregnant to the kitchen and all that. Certainly couldn’t be because the old man liked kids.

‘So anyway, it makes sense, right?’ she said. ‘You see that spirit or whatever that night, and ever since then, shit’s been moving around the house – I can’t ever find the bloody car keys anymore.
We’ve all been arguing, and every single one of us bitching like we’re pms’ing. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed? Shit, even Matt and me have been going at it hammer and tongs, and that sure as shit isn’t what we usually go at.’ She paused to draw breath, cracked the mint between her teeth. ‘And now you’re telling me the food all rotted in the fridge. Just like that? I’m telling you – whatever you and Toby saw that night, it’s followed us home.’

For good measure, she pounded a final nail into her argument. ‘And you can bet, it’s only going to get worse.’

Someone tapped on the window beside her and Lara waved in acknowledgement. ‘Yeah, look Tully, I have to get back inside. I’ll pick up some stuff for dinner okay, and you just sit tight. We’ll come up with some sort of plan, no worries.’ Nails tapped on the glass again. ‘Shit. All right, I’m coming! I gotta go. People be needing me. Ciao.’

Sliding the phone back into her pocket,
Lara pursed her lips and pushed through the door back into the restaurant. She’d pick up some more steaks on the way home. Maybe she’d even sweet talk Ivan in the kitchen into letting her have some of his citrus cheesecake –that stuff was the absolute best – and she’d go home and they’d figure it out. Couldn’t be that difficult, surely? They just had to communicate with the thing, tell it that it wasn’t wanted. Had to go back. Hell, she’d even give it a lift back up to Seacliff where they’d found it. She wouldn’t even ask for gas money.

Lara
laughed at that, was still giggling when she entered the dining room, retying the apron around her waist. She’d be off work in a few hours, and they’d get everything sorted out. She was sick of fighting with Matt, though she’d discovered if she got him riled enough, the sex was even wilder than usual. She kinda liked that.

Ivan had proved amenable to doing a little back room cheesecake dealing, and she’d picked up some more steaks, salad stuff,
even some fresh bread. More importantly, she’d grabbed a bottle of wine, and Matt’s favourite beer. There’d be no arguing tonight. Just the good stuff.

She had one more stop to make, and
actually sat in the driver’s seat rubbing her hands in glee before she got out of the car and made for the toy store. It took five minutes of wandering up and down the aisles before she stopped one of the employees.

‘You sell Ouija boards?’ she asked.

The guy looked at her, aghast. ‘Are you kidding?’

‘Ah, do I look like I’m kidding? Why would I bother asking, if I was kidding?’

He held his hands up. ‘Those things are dangerous. Haven’t you ever watched The Exorcist? Jeez. You don’t play around with that shit.’

Lara
stuck out a finger and poked the dude in the chest. ‘Hey, you’re here to sell me shit, not make stuff up. So, you got them or not?’

The shop assistant looked past her. ‘Hey, Damien, this idiot wants to buy
a Ouija board. Tell her it’s a dumb idea.’

Damien wasn’t near as spotty-skinned as the other guy. Obviously didn’t spend all his time in his mother’s basement watching horror movies. She put on her best smile and tipped her head to the side. It was her favourite pose for taking Selfies, so she knew she looked cute.

‘He won’t tell me where I can get one,’ she pouted. ‘I’m not gonna do anything stupid with one, you know. Just the opposite, in fact.’

Spotty guy made a snorting sound. ‘Just the opposite? Wow, are you deluded. There is no opposite of stupid when you’re messing with the Ouija board.’

Lara had to stomp down on the urge to poke her tongue out at the guy. She focused on Damien instead. He looked reasonable. In fact, he was pretty damned hot, and she bet he’d make a lot more sense.

Damien was smiling at her, and his teeth were good – nice and white. She liked a nice smile, was what had first attracted her to Matt.

‘We don’t sell Ouija boards in this country,’ he said.

Her face fell. ‘What? Why?’

‘Because they’re evil tools of the devil, is why,’ spotty face guy hurried to say.

Damien ignored him. ‘Not licensed to sell them here, can’t say why.’ His smile widened. ‘But you can make your own, you know.’

Lara blinked. She hadn’t known. ‘How? What do you use?’

Tucking a hand under her elbow, Damien moved her down the aisle lined with board games. He stopped at the end and waved at the wall. ‘Well, you can just draw up a bunch of
alphabet squares, stick them in a circle and it works, sure. But easier to just use your Scrabble tiles. Pull out the whole alphabet, make a circle with them, set up a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and Bob’s your uncle.’

‘Huh,’
Lara said. ‘That sounds pretty easy.’ She scanned the stacks of games and pulled out a Scrabble box, stared at it. ‘What about the thingamajig?’