Ouija

By Rena Marin and Skylar McKinzie

Ouija

Dead Oaks Terrors Series Book Two

Rena Marin Skylar McKinzie

Strange things always seem to happen in Dead Oaks. Disappearances, strange deaths, and even murder has plagued the sleepy, mountain town. Sixty years ago, a young girl locked away one of the evils that threatened the town. Over the years, that evil has waited, biding its time till the day it could once again be unleashed...

Hannah McAllister wants to spend her 16th birthday hanging out with her friends. Finding the perfect party game, an old Ouija board, she plans an amazing night. Little do the girls know this is no ordinary game. There are rules that must be followed...

Rules are made for all to obey

Heed them well before you play

Invite a friend into the game

Or your very soul it will claim

Be polite and say good bye

Lest someone shall surely die

Can they survive the terror they have awakened or will the Ouija win?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crazy Ink
• Release date: Apr 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386164746

Book preview

Rena Marin

Skylar McKinzie

For Dustin, Amber, Cody, and Hannah

Thank you for all the inspiration and support! We love you all

In the Beginning

Dead Oaks, North Carolina stood nestled between two towering mountains, making it the ideal spot for a town its size. You would have thought it would have been a peaceful town, full of tranquil streams and lazy afternoons. However, Dead Oaks was anything but tranquil. The town, named for the oak trees that seemed to be everywhere, had its very own deep, dark secrets—secrets yet to be revealed to its unsuspecting residents.

Strange things happened in Dead Oaks; things that seemed to center on the children. Just the children. But why? No one knew, but all its sinister secrets would be revealed in time.

Prologue

Evangeline Owens looked out her front window onto Waverly Lane, wondering why she found it so easy to drift off into memories of the past these days. She’d lived in this town, this house, her entire life. The things she’d seen in Dead Oaks would terrify many of the average folk that had no idea of the secrets the town kept hidden. She hobbled back to her chair in front of the fire leaning heavily on her cane. Her old bones certainly weren’t what they used to be. She settled into the chair with a sigh, picking up the local paper, only to see that another of her school friends had passed to the other side.

At least they had managed to live a long, full life with husbands, children, and grandkids. Others hadn’t been so lucky. Cursing herself for being an old fool, Evangeline wiped a single tear off her cheek and folded the paper, putting it on the table beside her.

The crackle of the fire and the warmth of the flames soon had her drifting off into slumber. As often happened, memories of the past invaded her dreams, just as they often invaded her waking moments. This time the dreams were of that night and the many horrific weeks that followed. Horrific weeks that had seen her friends taken one by one, in violent deaths that she couldn’t stop.

You have to follow the rules, Evangeline muttered in her sleep. Why didn’t we follow the rules?

The voices of her friends seemed to surround her, at first gleeful and full of laughter that only teenagers can carry off, but then those voices turned to screams of terror and then to accusations.

You could have saved us. 

You let the evil out.

Come join us, Evangeline...

Waking with a start, drenched in sweat, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest, Evangeline looking around frantically, expecting to see her friends in the corners of the house they had gathered together in so many times in the past. Fumbling to get her cane and climb out of the chair, she cursed her aged body once again. I have to make sure it’s not out. Did I hide it well enough?

Climbing the steps to the attic was agony, but she had to make sure the board was still hidden. She’d defeated it, put it back in its box many years ago. Not in time to save her friends, but she’d won!

Finally, making her way to the top of the stairs, she turned the old skeleton key in the lock of the door, expecting to be met with dust, cobwebs, and grime. She hadn’t been in this attic since the night she locked away the board.

What met her gaze was a scene from the past. In the middle of the room was the table she’d set up and on that table was the board, the box beside it, and the rules they hadn’t followed, propped up on the corner. Looking around frantically, Evangeline saw the trunk where she’d trapped the board open, the heavy chains and locks that had held it shut scattered around it on the floor.

This can’t be. I defeated you! She screamed.

The whisper that came out of the semi-darkness chilled her to the bone. In the dusty light coming through the broken blinds at the window, the planchette started to move.

No, don’t, she reached out a hand as if she could stop what was coming.

It didn’t work, the whisper came anyway. The whisper that had started the terror so many years ago.

Play.

Evangeline stared at the board terrified, memories from that night battering her mind. She  turned to run, catching her foot on the cane that had, before now, been her protection, then falling headlong to the floor below with an audible crack. Lying in a pool of blood, Evangeline’s last thought was for the poor children of Dead Oaks, the ones the board would come for next.

An eerie silence fell across the house on Waverly Lane.

The planchette started to move slowly across the board.

The whisper filled the otherwise silent home...

Play.

Chapter One

Chelsea Bishop set the last of the boxes that had been delivered to the shop early that morning on the floor in the storeroom, rubbing her aching back as she did. The ache was a constant reminder of friends lost and the terror that had visited Dead Oaks last Halloween. Shuddering at the memory of the hell the twins had gone through, the hell they had all gone through that weekend, Chelsea almost missed the sound of the bell tinkling over the door of her antique shop Wicked Treasures. She pushed the past to the back of her mind, pasted on a wide smile, and went to greet her first customer of the day.

HANNAH MCALLISTER IMPATIENTLY pushed her flowing red hair out of her face, as she slammed the door on her candy apple red mustang and headed across the street to Wicked Treasures. The shop hadn’t been here but a few months and with her parents constantly on her butt about grades and SAT’s, she hadn’t had a chance to check it out.

Rolling her expressive green eyes in a habit that was annoying, and at the same time endearing to her friends, Hannah crossed the street in a few strides thanks to the legs that her boyfriend was always telling her went on for days. At 5’8, Hannah had quickly outgrown all of the other kids in her class and was a shoo-in for basketball from the time she became a freshman at Dead Oak’s High.

Being the head of the girls’ basketball team, a cheerleader, and trying to get the grades her parents demanded from their only daughter sometimes proved too much and Hannah wished it would just all go away. Sometimes she wished she wasn’t the daughter of snobby, rich parents and was instead the daughter of simpler people, like her best friend’s parents.

She sighed, pulling the door to the antique shop open and darting inside; that was a thought for another day. Today, she was on the hunt for something to make her 16th birthday party a roaring success. It was a slumber party, though she was sure there would be a little bit of crashing going on, if she knew Dustin, Cody, and their friends. What she needed was something that would scare the crap out of the girls she’d invited.

Welcome to Wicked Treasures. Can I help you? a voice said as a pretty, auburn-haired woman stepped out from behind a curtain.

Hannah bit her lip, her eyes searching the shop of goodies. She had always loved shops like this. They had so much history. Everything had a story attached to it. Taking in the shelves of trinkets, the antique dressers and chairs that littered the shop, she wasn’t sure she could find anything remotely like what she was looking for.

Hmmm, I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Something to scare the wits out of the girls at my slumber party this weekend. She giggled.

Chelsea surveyed the shop herself. I don’t think we have a whole lot of the scary stuff here, sweetie. Unless you want some useless skulls that came in with the last shipment and a horn that when blown is supposed to call sailors to their deaths at sea.

No, thank you, I’ll pass on the death knell, Hannah laughed, then stopped, her eyes drawn to a box whose edge was just peeking out from under a blanket draped over a rocking chair in the corner. She walked over and lifted the blanket, sneezing when dust filled the air.

Sorry about that. Chelsea rushed over, wiping the dust off the box that was underneath, then wiping her hands on her jeans, leaving smudges. I just got that chair in yesterday and haven’t had time to clean it. I didn’t see the game in the chair when I put it there or I would have pulled it out. I’m Chelsea, by the way.

You’re fine, Hannah laughed, a little dust never hurt anyone. She reached to take the box from Chelsea. I’m Hannah and this is perfect, she said, brushing a thick layer of dust from the lid of a wooden box with the words Ouija: More Than Just a Game written in gold letters dripping in red along its top. Suddenly, feeling as if someone was watching her, she looked over her shoulder. Did you feel that?

Chelsea nodded, having learned long ago not to dismiss any type of feeling when it came to Dead Oaks. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, Hannah, she said pulling the box away from the girl.

No, I’m sure it’s nothing, just a chill, Hannah laughed uneasily, keeping a firm hold to the box. I want it.

Against her better judgement, Chelsea rang up the purchase. She had a feeling that something bad was about to happen in Dead Oaks, and she was once again going to be powerless to stop it.

Hannah paid for her item and hurried out of the shop with the bag before Chelsea could change her mind and take it back. Ooops, she said, as she ran head-long into a brick wall. She would have fallen backwards if hands hadn’t reached out to steady her.

Where are you going in such a hurry, Miss McAllister? Caleb Rollins asked, letting her go when she was steady.

Sorry, Deputy Rollins, Hannah grinned sheepishly. I wasn’t watching where I was going.

Shaking his head, Caleb let her go, watching until she got safely to her car, since dusk was falling and the porch light in front of Wicked Treasures still hadn’t been fixed.

I’m going to come by tomorrow night and fix that porch light, he said stepping into the shop and around the counter to kiss Chelsea on her cheek. They had been friends for years but since the events of Halloween, the two of them had started spending a lot more time together. Something about surviving that night had brought them together, not only in their determination to protect Dead Oaks from the horrors that seemed to constantly rain down on