Perilous Delivery

Chapter 3. Housewarming Party

That night, the family again piled into the minivan so that they could go to the housewarming party together. Pedro and Macrina would play in the playroom with the Holden’s two younger children, and Caleb and Vanessa would enjoy the company of the adults at the party.

They had dressed up a bit. Caleb was wearing his long trenchcoat style raincoat, and his fedora. Vanessa was wearing a beautiful skirt, and a pretty red sweater. Beneath his jacket, Caleb had a blue and grey sweater on, as well as some decent slacks. The children were dressed appropriately as well, having had some help from Vanessa. Everything was shaping up to be a great time, unfortunately, something was wrong, the van wouldn’t start.

“What’s wrong with her?” Asked Vanessa.

“I don’t know what’s going on…” Caleb replied, “But didn’t we just get the van looked at?”

“Does this mean we don’t have to go?” Asked Pedro, who became quiet when Vanessa gave him the mom look.

“We’ll still go,” said Caleb, “we can take my new car. Tomorrow, can you take the van in for an inspection sweetie?”

“I’m sure I can.” Came the soft reply of Vanessa, as they all got out of the van, and walked over to the new car. They had more difficulty getting everyone into the smaller car, but it would do in a pinch, and they Holden home wasn’t too far away.

As they were driving, they put on some music. When they had almost arrived at the party, the channel seemed to begin to cut out, but Vanessa thought she heard a woman’s voice on the radio saying, “I’m coming too.”

“Did you hear that?” She asked, looking at Caleb.

Caleb, meanwhile, was so distracted by the thought of the problems with the van, and having to take it in to get inspected again, that he had honestly not heard anything. He snapped out of his introspections to reply to Vanessa, “Oh, sorry, what?”

“Never mind” she said with a chuckle, and shook her head.

“What?” he asked, laughing, “What did I miss?” She was going to answer, then the gps said, “You have arrived.”

With that, Caleb and crew were getting out of the car. The Holden kids, Sarah and Toby, were excited just to have some other kids to play with, so they came running down the stairs when they heard that Macrina and Pedro had arrived. From there, all the young children ran upstairs into the playroom, where the Holden kids had tons of toys to play with.

Meanwhile, Caleb and Vanessa went into a large living-room where the adults were all gathered, there was a tray with some cookies, and another with sliced summer sausage, crackers, and slices of cheese waiting. Caleb immediately took one of the small paper plates and began to take some of the food. Vanessa did the same, thinking to herself that she was glad that some of the other guests had done so as well, although she knew the Holdens, and Karen Holden in particular was always the sort who wouldn’t allow anyone at a party to be there long without eating.

Before too long, Caleb and Vanessa were locked into conversations with various other party guests. A little later, some more people arrived, somewhat younger than Caleb and Vanessa were, one was named Elias, and his girlfriend was Bonnie, and they had a friend with them named Kim, and her brother Steph had apparently joined the group.

This group of young people were apparently friends of the Holdens through their eldest daughter, Paige, who was off at college. They had a teenage daughter as well, named Savanah, but she didn’t have much interest in the party, she was far more interested in listening to music in her room with her best friend Bethany.

The group in the living-room was having a great time talking about various issues of the day, and the Holdens were enjoying showing everyone their new home. A large estate in Salmon Creek that overlooked a hillside. The house was white, with beautiful pillars on the porch, and a very high ceiling in almost all the rooms. Their walls were covered in family photos, as well as beautiful pieces of art, and some lovely little motivational plaques with statements like, “A thousand men can make an army, one woman can make a home.” Or “Live, Laugh, Love.”

Joseph Holden was asking Caleb what the best stores and restaurants were in the surrounding community. They figured his delivery job would make him knowledgeable on that point, and they were not disappointed. Caleb told them the best locations for great deals, great service, and the places he knew you could go for good food too.

The Holdens and all their friends were laughing and joking back and forth about the merits and demerits of various restaurants and stores, which turned into a funny rabbit trail about everyone’s humorous experiences, as well as some of the strange things that Caleb had seen doing deliveries.

Meanwhile, Savanah and Bethany were upstairs in Savanah’s room. They were listening to some music while talking back and forth about a YouTuber that they thought was hilarious. His gimmick was that he reviewed movies, but he had this sarcastic approach, as well as this over the top goofy style that the girls both couldn’t get enough of. As they joked around back forth, they heard someone walking down the hallway, it sounded like the person was going by very loudly.

Savanah opened her door and the girls looked out of the room, thinking that Karen had come to check on them, or, given the loud stomping, that it may be one of the children running through the hall. Yet, when they looked, there was no one there. They looked at each other and shrugged, but as they were about to close the door, the playroom door opened, and booming against the wall, at which all of the children looked over at it, startled. Thinking that one of the children must have been the one stomping, Savanah yelled over to the playroom, “Keep it down over there.”

All the children looked into the hallway totally confused. Then Savanah noticed that all the pictures and artwork in the hallway had been tilted sideways.

“Hey!” She called out in a scolding tone, “Don’t mess with those pictures! Mom will be really pissed at you.”

At that, Toby said, “OHHHH I’m gonna tell Mom that you said the p word.”

“Shut up, and don’t mess with the pictures!”

“I didn’t, you probably did.”

“Shut up stupid!”

At that Karen, who had actually been coming up to get something from Joseph and her bedroom, came into the hallway.

“What are you kids going on about?” She asked.

“Mom,” replied Savanah, “Toby has been messing with the pictures and stomping around.”

Before Karen could say a word, Toby was yelling, “No, I was not. And Savanah said a bad word.”

“Why are the pictures all messed up then?” Savanah asked with an accusing tone as Bethany laughed.

Before Toby could answer, Karen stopped them and said, “All of you, stop it, I don’t care who it was, don’t be stomping about. I’ll fix the pictures.”

As she straitened the pictures and artwork, the children all calmed down and went back to their business. As she was closing her door, Savanah heard Toby saying, “I really wasn’t out there Mom! And it had to be her because she opened our door, we had it closed.”

Savanah thought that was weird, she had assumed that the kids had opened the door, still, she and Bethany just went back to listening to music.

When Karen rejoined the party downstairs, Joseph asked what had taken her so long, she said, “Oh, just kids being kids.” The guests laughed with her. One of Joseph’s coworkers, an accountant named Tina, said, “That’s funny, but who was the woman that was with you on the stairs? Was that Savanah?”

Karen chuckled and said, “Oh, it must have been, I didn’t see her come out of her room but…”

Joseph interjected, “Oh no worries, if she needs anything she can come down.”

With that, the party continued. However, before too long, upstairs, Bethany looked over and happened to see that Savanah’s door was now wide open.

“Hey,” She said, nudging Savanah, “I thought you closed the door?”

“I did…” replied Savanah, but sure enough, as she turned around, she saw that the door was now, not just open, but wide open.

Bethany laughed and made a joke about how her new house must need better doors. Then said, “Whatever, I have to pee anyway.”

She walked down the hallway to the bathroom. She went to the bathroom, then she was looking in the mirror, making sure all her makeup was still the way she wanted it. As she turned her head from side to side, and ran a finger through her long chestnut brown hair, she heard a giggling sound behind her. Or at least, she thought it may be giggling, it was so faint. She thought that maybe either Macrina or Sarah was hiding in the bathroom to scare her. Startled, she turned around and looked around the bathroom, she didn’t see anyone. When she looked back into the mirror she saw someone standing behind her in the mirror with their head tilted unnaturally to the left side. She spun around, startled, but there was still no one there. When she turned back, the mirror was again empty save for herself. Bethany hadn’t gotten a good look at the person, but it looked like a woman, standing behind her with frazzled black hair, and piercing blue eyes. She now felt completely unsettled. She quickly grabbed her small purse and bolted from the bathroom. She walked very fast to Savanah’s room, and closed the door behind her with a loud thud, almost a slam.

Savanah turned around, “What’s up with you?” She asked, with a note of annoyance because of the slamming, but then when she saw her friend’s face, Savanah’s attitude changed entirely, “Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

Bethany told her about seeing someone in the bathroom, then they both jumped and yelped when, as she spoke, a photograph that was hanging on the wall fell to the floor with a thud, and a cracking sound.

“What the hell?” Savanah blurted out, and then a poster that was beside her bed, depicting a Korean band that she was nearly obsessed with, also fell from the wall. Both girls were shocked. Suddenly feeling a deep sense of dread, they looked at each other, then they ran from the room to the hallway. When they arrived in the hallway, they stopped in their tracks. Every single photograph, every single art piece, everything that had been on the walls, was now laying on the floor facedown beside the wall on which it had been formerly hanging.

The two teens, frozen in terror, just looked from one side of the hallway to the other with their mouths agape.

While they were looking the door to the playroom opened very slowly. Sarah looked into the hallway. Seeing her sister she said, “What are you doing Savanah?”

Savanah couldn’t get her thoughts together to answer, she was still trying to make sense of what she was seeing, then Sarah blurted out, “Hey! You took all the pictures down!” Then Toby jumped into site, “I knew it!” He shouted, then he stopped, his eyes widened. Sarah saw his reaction, then she looked back towards Savanah and Bethany, her eyes grew wide as well, then Pedro looked where they were looking, and quickly slammed the playroom door.

Bethany and Savanah looked at one another, then looked behind themselves. In Savanah’s bedroom window, the two of them could see their reflection, and in between them, was what looked like a third girl, with black, messy, wet hair, cold blue eyes, and a very sinister grin. Her skin was disturbingly pale, and to top it all off, it looked almost like she was outside the bedroom window, looking in at them, but that was impossible, after all, there was nowhere for a person to stand out there.

The girls looked at each other again, then looked back towards the window, scarcely believing what they had seen, this time though, they saw the same woman standing right in front of them. Grinning, and with her soaked hair hanging down, her grey nightgown stained with blood, and soaking wet, as if she had been in the rain. She tilted her head to the side unnaturally, her neck making a grotesque clicking sound, and lifted up her arm as if to wave to the teens. Her hand hung limply, her forearm clearly broken. As her eyes widened and her lips curled up into a disturbing grin, the teens ran down the stairs.

Savanah ran up to Joseph, “Dad!” She nearly screamed. Then she and Bethany proceeded to try to explain everything that they had seen. Joseph didn’t seem to fully understand what they were saying.

“You mean there’s an intruder?” He blurted out shocked, then he ran up the stairs, the girls staying behind next to Karen. He got up the stairs, he ran straight to the playroom, where he found the children huddled in a corner, but unharmed. Then he looked around, the hallway was a mess with photos and artwork still in the positions the teens had seen it. He checked Savanah’s and then his room. Nothing seemed to be amiss now, and all the windows even had screens that someone would have had to have torn through.

Joseph came back down and came to where Savanah and Bethany were, “You two weren’t watching a scary movie, or reading one of those spooky stories in there were you?”

The girls shook their heads, then Savanah became annoyed, “I know what I saw!” She said, with evident frustration. The other guests had now come to see what was going on.

“I understand, there’s no one there now honey.”

Savanah and Bethany went back upstairs, then Joseph made a comment to the guests about how it was getting late, anyway, and everyone started gradually leaving, making sure that everything was okay.

Pedro and Macrina now sat by Caleb and Vanessa, and Toby and Sarah didn’t want to leave Joseph and Karen’s side either. Caleb and Vanessa did their best to comfort their friends and encouraged them to call the police about the possible intruder. They did just that. Around 11pm, Caleb and Vanessa took the kids back home. Finally feeling like the Holdens were okay. As they came home, Stella, their German Shepherd, was growling at the door. Which was totally unlike her. Stella was always calm and sweet.

In all the commotion, they had completely forgotten about the van, and the following day, Vanessa happened to need to take the kids to an appointment, and the van started without difficulty.

Stay tuned for Chapter 4...