River of Ghosts by Gaby Triana

Author:Gaby Triana [Triana, Gaby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: paranormal, ghosts, pirates, everglades, Darcy Coates, haunted house, ghost story, horror
Publisher: Alienhead Press
Published: 2018-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

By sunrise, the rain had slowed considerably enough to step out of the house. Quinn and Kane walked over to the airboat to assess the situation. Also to scoop out rainwater using red Solo cups so we could load the boat up and get the hell out of here. BJ, Sharon, and I dragged all the boxes and bags we could out of Villegas House and set up a triage area.

Inside Villegas House, Linda was dead.

A lifeless body covered with an open sleeping bag.

We didn’t dare move her. Everyone seemed too nervous to be near her, except for Eve, who wouldn’t leave her side and continued to hold the old woman’s hand sticking out under the cover.

Had this happened in our camp to one of our family members, we would’ve cooked for four days as mourning, and part of me wanted to do the same for Linda, but I was not with people of my own tradition, and we’d be leaving soon anyway.

I lingered outside the door watching her still body while Sharon tried getting a signal on her phone.

BJ stood near a tree, talking to himself.

Two hours ago, a sweet woman had been breathing, and now she was gone.

What would we tell her family? Did she have a husband or kids? It made me sad just how little I knew about her. Fifty or so years ago, death had come to my grandfather and others in this same spot. It made sense that the energy of this house wanted more of the same to feed it. This was why my tribe had told me to stay away.

Some houses wanted to be miserable.

Twenty minutes later, Kane and Quinn returned, told us the airboat was ready and that gators had crawled onto the land and piled into a hissing heap.

It was the dead body within olfactory range. We needed to get a move on.

The men all carried the heavy boxes loaded with tech equipment while Sharon, Eve, and I carried the backpacks and lighter items. I heard Kane tell BJ that he’d need to board the airboat first to center his weight so we could load the rest of the items around him. BJ, in massive shock over Linda’s death, more so than any of us, lumbered on without a word.

I watched him.

Head down, mumbling to himself. I wondered if BJ had ever dealt with a death before, if this incident might’ve provoked painful memories of some sort. I could empathize, having witnessed my brother’s death twenty-one ago, but BJ hadn’t spoken or interacted with anybody in hours.

Watching the boat rock back and forth, we waited until BJ centered himself in the middle of the vessel before piling boxes and bags around him. All that was left was one backpack and Linda’s body. Kane wiped sweat from his brow using the hem of his tank top. “Be right back,” he said, and we followed him, slapping mosquitos and flinging away sweat.

I hated the idea of driving the boat along the waterways with a dead body onboard.

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