Raimy

By Brian Johnpeer

David and Jane are unprepared for the secrets in their new home. A new start becomes a new nightmare as the house steals their children, messes with Jane's psychosis, and sends David over the edge.

What none of them could anticipate, is the retribution of the past being visited on the children of the future.

When the saucepans ring, don't go downstairs!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Johnpeer
• Release date: Sep 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465736871

Book preview

Prologue

Hank and April Little sat in a stuffy real estate office in Elk Grove with their newly acquired realtor, Richard Ormond.

Richard was attempting to convince the Little’s to counter back, to ensure the Kirkland’s would pay full price for their five bedroom - three bath - two story home. But the Littles weren’t game; at least April wasn’t. She was done and wanted out of the house, now. There was no time to negotiate. Ready, she stared at the papers in front of Ormand with eager anticipation, wanting them doled out one after another so she and Hank could sign.

"Look Mr. and Mrs. Little, my job as a realtor is to protect the best interest of my clients. You are my clients, and though this offer won’t make a big difference to my commission, I must advise against it. The property is indeed worth more, twenty-thousand more to be exact," Ormand said.

I don’t give a good God damn.

Can we have a minute to discuss this? Hank smiled apologetically.

Certainly. I have to check on a fax and make some copies. You take as long as you need. Ormand excused himself.

Before he was completely out of sight April turned to Hank.

I am not holding on to that fucking house for a second longer, she said.

April. It’ll only take another day to counter back, then we can at least break even.

"I don’t give a shit about breaking even. I feel guilty as hell selling it to these people in the first place.

One more day is all I ask. Then we -

No! That fucking house is evil.

Shhhh, Hank shifted his eyes to indicate the other cubicles.

We lost four of our children to that house.

You don’t know that for a fact, and they weren’t our children. We were watching them for the State.

It doesn’t matter, Hank! The children were ours.

We’re foster parents for chrissake.

April slammed her hand flat on Ormand’s desk with a smack. I know you didn’t like that the children were disabled, but that was my thing - my gig, and that’s what I got paid to do. I lost those children, Hank. That fucking house ate them up!

Okay. Keep your voice down. Okay. Hank held his hands up as if to surrender. We’ll sign the papers.

"You’re goddam right we will, and we’ll wash our hands of that house and pretend that part of our life never happened."

Hank’s phone jingled to the off-color 1969 Johnny Cash song Cocaine Blues, a ringtone April was all too familiar with - work.

Hello. Okay, well, tell them to use another restroom until I can get there.

Sierra Vista can wait, Hank. It’s Saturday and we’ll sign these papers, and we will do it now, April said.

Okay. I’ll see you in a half an hour, Hank said, while observing a lady chatting with Ormand as he walked to the oversized copy machine in the far corner of the office

I am so tired of them calling you on your time off -

Shhhh, listen.

April looked over her shoulder following Hank's gaze, looking at a young woman speaking with Ormand. What’s -

Is she the one who’s buying the house? Hank asked.

How should I know? April looked over her shoulder again, appraising the woman. She was cute.

Something’s wrong with her, Hank said. She’s too fidgety.

April looked back at her husband. Just because you work at a nut-farm doesn’t mean you’re qualified to diagnose people.

I told you I’ve been going to these mandatory in-services where they teach you all about different behaviors no matter which department you’re in. Just because I’m the maintenance man doesn’t mean I don’t come into contact with the patients and residents on a daily basis, he said. Still scrutinizing the woman, See the way she’s using her hands? Not quite in a threatening manner, but it sure makes whatever she’s saying emphatic.

April looked behind them again. The woman glanced back at her as if she felt eyes weighing heavily upon her soul. She turned to Hank quickly as if she had been caught with her hand in the money jar.

Quit starring at her, April hissed.

Hank looked back at his wife. Now they were the ones feeling the weight of staring eyes.

Finally the woman shook Ormand’s hand and walked out of the building. Ormand straightened what appeared to be twenty sheets of paper, the perfect length of a real estate offer, approached the Littles and plopped down in his swivel chair.

Who was that? Hank asked before Ormand was totally situated in his seat.

Ormand looked first at April, then Hank. She was the potential buyer of your property, Mrs. Kirkland. She came to ask that you pay all the points.

Why didn’t she ask her own realtor? Hank asked.

Ormand took a deep breath as if to steal a private moment. Mrs. Kirkland is- Again he inhaled deeply, Needy. She has good days and then she has days like today when she insists on speaking to me directly. I think, and this is totally between us, that Mrs. Kirkland has something wrong with her. Ormand peered at them beneath mahogany brows and adjusted his wire rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

Hank looked to his wife and flashed a triumphant smile.

It’s probably just anxiety or something. A lot of people get it when they’re going to buy a house, but she seems to be on a different plateau than the typical home buyer.

Wait. Did you say she wants us to pay the points?

Ormand nodded.

No way! Hank said. As his mind shifted gears from diagnosing his potential buyer, to realizing just what was being asked of him.

Where do we sign? April asked.

Part I

1

What? David rolled over to look at his wife after she shook him awake.

Didn’t you hear that? Jane whispered.

I didn’t hear anything. I was asleep.

Shhh, it came from downstairs in the kitchen.

We just moved in, Jane. Maybe you heard the neighbors.

It’s not the freakin' neighbors, David. It’s three in the morning -

" - And I’ve gotta go to work in the morning. This morning."

I heard pots and pans clanging downstairs.

Like last night? Great. I told you not to stop taking your happy pills.

"Yes, like last night. Don’t mock me, David. It’s not because I haven’t been taking my pills. Can’t you go see if everything is all right like a normal husband?"

David flung the white comforter off his warm body in frustration, sat upright, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He reached for his spectacles on the nightstand, fumbled them to the carpet with weak, sleepy hands, managed to pick them up, and put them on. Though it was still rather dark, shadows came into focus as he stood to make the bumbling trip downstairs.

Thanks, David.

Whatever. David rolled his eyes, grabbed his jeans from the floor, and pulled them on. I don’t hear, shit! he said before leaving the room.

He took the stairs carelessly, mindless of Jane’s schizophrenic illusion.

Clang-clunk. Wobble-wobble-wibble-wibble-clink.

His lungs seized up like two rusty motors which haven’t been lubed.

David!

He heard his wife, but the noise from downstairs commanded first dibs for his attention. His heart beat wildly in his chest, and though he was fast asleep just moments ago, he was wide awake now with a fresh surge of adrenaline burning his veins.

Someone is inside the house.

David?

Shh.

Gooseflesh crawled from his wrists, up his arms, and across his back and chest, to meet in a disturbing handshake.

He poked his head into Amy’s room. She was resting soundly.

Somebody's definitely in the house.

David’s heart lodged high in his throat. He tiptoed into Luke’s room, careful not to alert whoever was in the kitchen, and quietly removed the aluminum peewee league bat from beneath the jersey hanging by a peg on the wall.

Descending the u-shaped stairs, he clutched the bat in his left hand while gripping the balustrade with his right. David paused after taking the first tier of stairs, listening for any sounds that would give away the perpetrator’s exact location in the kitchen. Hearing nothing, he continued cautiously down the second flight of stairs.

He had visions of not one man, but two. The smaller and craftier one would be going through the nooks and crannies of the house in search of treasures while the other, the bigger and thicker of the two, stood watch with a Saturday night special, or perhaps a 9mm. Either way, a gun is a gun is a gun, and a twenty-eight inch baseball bat wasn’t going to protect him from even a .25 caliber slug.

Clearing the stairs, David brushed his dark spilling hair from obscuring his view and stood motionless on the landing. With mounting tension he studied the fraction of the kitchen he could see.

This is a joke. These guys are going to have themselves a good laugh just before they shoot me. Hey, get a load of the hero with the glasses and an orange t-ball bat.

He sensed a shadow cross him from above. It was Jane standing in the hall looking over the wooden railing at him, clutching a cordless phone. She put the phone under her armpit and held up nine fingers and flashed one and another one. David scowled, shook his head, then pointed as if he were telling a dog to return to where it came from. She glared back, turned, and went back to their bedroom.

David knew the intruders would hear the numbers as they were depressed on the phone. But wouldn’t they have heard Jane yell for him? No, because if they had, they would be long gone. Perhaps they had left. No shadows fell upon the pie-slice of kitchen floor he could see. Maybe the rolling stainless steel pan on the kitchen tile was enough to send the bastards running. Maybe they thought that . . .

Clang-clunk. Clang-cling. Wobble-wobble-wibble-wibble-clink-cling-clink-cling-ting.

They hadn’t left.

David’s heart pumped harder and his face flushed hot. His mouth became dry. He was no longer thinking about himself. He was thinking about his beautiful wife Jane, and what these assholes might be capable of given the opportunity.

What about Amy and Luke?

I can’t - no, I mustn’t lose. I have to take the fight to these assholes. They’re in my fucking house.

David took the last steps to the ground floor like a puppy which had wet the carpet and was trying to sneak by his master, to get outside before he was banished. He stepped off the final step to the carpet, released the railing and gripped Luke’s baseball bat with both hands in a right handed batter’s stance.

He bravely waved the barrel of the bat in small circles as he approached the blind side of the kitchen. Putting his back against the outside wall of the kitchen near the opening, he released the air he held captive in his lungs, then drew a deep breath. He growled as he spun to meet the intruders with the aluminum bat high above his head.

His knee inadvertently kicked the stainless steel lid from one of Jane’s large sauce pots across the tiled floor, where it came to an ear piercing clamor when it hit a pan and the kick plate of the cabinets. He slashed the bat through the darkness hoping to brain one of the intruders, making the fight at least fair. Air was all he split with the bat. David snapped his head around in all directions like a nervous pigeon before cautiously taking his left hand from the bat and flipping the light switch.

He peered over the island to the living room and down the part of the hall that led to the laundry room and garage door.

Come out! David’s voice betrayed him by cracking like a teen in the midst of puberty. My wife has called the cops!

Stalking slowly through the kitchen to the hallway with confidence now leaning more in his favor, he snapped the hall light-switch on.

Nobody.

He crept to the middle of the hall and looked at the door leading to the garage, it was locked. Dashing back to the living room, nothing was out of place. He turned on the light, lowered the bat to his waist and tapped the carpet with it. The glass sliding-door was also secured.

The front door? The bastards couldn’t - no they wouldn’t have the balls to walk right through the front door - would they? And if so, how would they get in?

He quickly raised the bat as he entered the dining room and fixed his eyes on the front door latch.

Fuck.

Positioned sideways. Unlocked.

Un-fucking-locked. Fuuhck. Shit!

David hinged around to scan the dining room, struggling with a wave of vertigo.

Click.

He flicked to face the sound, bat raised and ready to swing as panic arced tension through muscles.

No one.

Just the front door.

The latch now locked.

Charging to the door he unlatched the deadbolt, flung it open and hopped with aggression over the threshold onto the porch. He scoped the front yard, the bushes, and the street, carefully. The chill of the late September breeze reminded him he was only wearing jeans. The fenced vacant lot across the street yielded no evidence that anyone came close to his front door.

Someone’s got the fucking key to the house. The previous owners? They probably sold the key to some halfwit who isn’t smart enough to be afraid.

Amy shrieked hysterically, Daddy, help me!

The front door slammed closed and the same click which shocked David within the house, now locked him outside.

2

Jane sat on the edge of the bed, phone in hand, contemplating whether or not to dial 911. Sure, David had said not to, but this was serious. This was the second night in a row that pots and pans crashed from the cupboards to the floor in the kitchen.

Last night she dismissed it to poor packing. Perhaps, being in a rush to put things away and start enjoying their new house, she’d clumsily stacked the pots and pans and they slid out of the cabinet onto the tiled floor. But there was no way she made the same mistake twice, and there was no way if she had made the same mistake twice that the pots and pans could have fallen three separate times.

No, someone was in the house, and no matter how good of a reason David had for not dialing, Jane’s reason, family safety, was better. She dialed.

She briefly considered the possibility it might be that she hadn’t been taking her pills. Happy pills is what she and David liked to call them because they kept her schizophrenia tamed, but she dismissed the thought as fast as it entered her mind.

It’s not my pills.

Biting at a nail, she visually guarded the area beyond the open door with wary eyes.

As she awaited the comforting voice of another human being to answer the ring, Jane heard the front door open. Suppressing the urge to call to David again, knowing it would not only piss him off, but moreover, screaming his name might jeopardize his safety. Perhaps the intruders left?

Through the front door, Jane? Get real. Maybe it’s David. It must be David. He checked the downstairs and everything looked good so he wanted to take a peek out front just to be on the safe side. So why am I still on the phone if everything is okay? Because everything might not be okay. Maybe the thieves are inside one of the closets hiding. Isn’t that why we dole out tax dollars, so the police can serve and protect? Let them look in the goddam closets. That’s what they get paid to do - serve and protect.

Answer the damn phone! Jane became aware of the blood she'd drawn from her middle finger.

How are they going to serve and protect if the 911 operators won’t pick up?

Police operator 345, what’s your emergency?

Amy shrieked again. "Daddy, help me! Help me!"

Jane heard the operator, dropped the telephone to the carpet, and sprinted to Amy’s room.

The front door slammed shut with a boom.

Hello…hello, a man’s voice echoed from the abandoned phone.

Jane stopped as if she slammed into an invisible wall inside the room. Amy’s bed