Ria and the Revenant

  Ria and the Revenant

  Ria Miller and the Monsters, Book 0.5

  Nigel Henry

  Copyright 2017 © Nigel Henry. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, events, or locales, is strange but entirely coincidental.

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  Cover by Clarissa Yeo

  Editing by Teragram Author Services

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Like What You Read?

  About the Author

  Also by Nigel Henry

  One

  I hate Staten Island. Everything about it stinks, from the fact that you have to drive across the forgotten part of Brooklyn to get there to the stupid, long, ugly bridge to the stupid ferry that doesn’t even try running twenty-four hours a day. Nothing good ever happens when I have to go there, so obviously I’m not thrilled to be in this car right now.

  My dad’s over in the driver seat and he’s giving me his usual stony-faced, pursed lips look. He always gets this way whenever we’re about to work a job. Normally he’s all sunshine and rainbows, but the moment we get near some revenants he launches into his “Focus Dad” mode and gets all like: “Okay Ria; remember why we’re here. Stay focused.”

  He hasn’t said anything yet. I consider telling him I don’t want to go to Kennedy next fall; I figure he might not freak out over me wanting to transfer to another high school since we’re about to get into some real trouble. Is it sad that I’m trying to guilt him into going to a different school? Don’t most seventeen-year-old girls try to guilt their parents into cars and stuff?

  Anyway, before I can say anything he just purses his lips even harder, so I just sigh and go back to watching the raindrops as they batter the windshield.

  We finally cross the Verrazano and get onto the Staten Island Expressway. I can’t see much of the night sky through the thick rain, but I don’t really care to. Staten Island’s out there, and Staten Island sucks.

  “We’re almost here,” Dad says as he pulls toward an exit. “Remember why we’re here; stay focused, Ria.”

  I hold back a smirk and nod. Like clockwork. “I know, Dad. We find the revenant that’s haunting this poor guy’s house, torch the sucker and we’re home before Fallon.”

  I check my watch: 9:00 p.m. We should totally make it home for Fallon.

  “Don’t expect it to be easy.”

  “I never do.”

  He doesn’t say anything else in response, he just takes a deep breath and purses his lips some more. That’s my dad; when he gets in one of his moods he can purse his lips harder than anyone else on the planet. My mom always teases him that he looks like a young Barack Obama dealing with congress for the first time. They do kind of look alike, with the same big ears and brown lips from smoking. He always says he stopped smoking when he and my mom got pregnant with me, but that’s crap; I saw him sneak a few packs after my brother Patrick died.

  That’s not right; after my brother, Patrick was torn apart by a werewolf. That’s what put us on this road and made us some weird Cosby Show version of the Winchesters.

  The rain starts to taper off as we pull into a neighborhood with the kind of big homes that you don’t see in East Flatbush; the kind with front lawns and backyards. It looks all Wisteria lane-ish, except with the usual layer of New York grime.

  Dad starts scanning the addresses on homes, but I think I know which one we’re looking for; there’s a creepy-looking dude standing out in front of a house in the middle of the block. He’s got an umbrella, but I can see his face as the car’s lights hit him. He’s a pudgy little white man, with a pot belly that pokes out from between his yellowing wife-beater and blue jeans, and a balding head of hair that really only exists near his ears. He’s got a mean face, with a long, hooked nose and bags under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping. But then again, we wouldn’t be here if he had.

  Dad brings the Honda to a stop in front of the man’s house: a drab, two-story building with white shingles and dark trim around the windows. I can’t tell if it’s red or brown. I don’t really care. There’s a single light on in the house, just behind the front door. A little boy is standing there, watching us from the other side of the white screen door. I hide a shudder. This is a scene out of the beginning of one of those horror films where everyone gets hacked apart. Thankfully, this isn’t my first movie.

  I hop out of the car as soon as we stop and head to the trunk. I don’t pay Mean-Face any attention; he looks like an asshole, and I’m not going to give him the chance to say something that’s going to make me regret the fact that we’re trying to help him. I hear his voice as I go; he must be talking to my dad.

  “You brought a kid? You sure that’s a good idea? She looks scrawny.”

  Yep. Asshole. I ignore him as my dad replies. “She can take care of herself.”

  I don’t bother with the rest of their conversation as I grab a black duffel bag out of the trunk and fill it with the usual supplies: salt, gas, matches, prayer book, flashlights, crowbars. I smile as I spot my slingshot in the corner of the trunk and tuck it into the waist of my jeans. I find the pouch belt a moment later and buckle it diagonally across my chest. A slingshot with salt balls was my own idea; I figured it was a good way to put down ghosts from a distance. I wanted salt shotguns like on TV, but Dad poo-pooed that idea. This was a compromise, and it wasn’t a bad one either. I needed to have both hands to use it, but it wouldn’t make any of the noise that a gun would.

  I sling the duffel bag over my shoulder, hating the squelching sound it makes on my gray rubber raincoat as I follow dad and Mean-Face inside.

  The interior of the house is just as plain-jane as the outside. We enter into an ugly living room with dark brown wood paneling on all the walls and a really gross chickpea-brown carpet on the floor. There’s no TV, just a dark green couch and a reclining chair, both of them covered in plastic. A glass coffee table sits between them, and it's filled with photos of Mean-Face, his son, and another woman that I can only assume is the kid’s mother.

  Mean Face’s wife-beater rides up as he sits down on the recliner and I catch a glimpse of his hairy belly. I fight the urge to vomit and I have a hard time imagining any woman wanting to touch him. Dad seems to ignore it as he gets down to business.

  “Okay, where does it usually appear?”

  Mean-Face squirms in his seat a little bit before glancing down at his son, who looks pale as hell. “Most of the time in here, but sometimes in the kitchen or basement, sometimes in the bedroom or in Jacob’s room.”

  Dad nods. “And when does it usually happen? Middle of the night, just after dusk?”

  “Middle of the night mostly, but it’s shown up just before sunrise a couple of times as well.”

  “Have you seen it tonight?”

  Mean-Face shakes his head nervously. Maybe I should cut him some slack; he’s being haunted by the angry spirit of his dead wife. That would make anyone grouchy.

  Dad’s eyes fall on the picture on the coffee table. He picks it up and stares at it for a moment. “This her?” Jacob’s father nod
s and Dad purses his lips again. “What happened to her?”

  The man looks down at his son and squirms again. He doesn’t want to discuss this in front of the kid. “I can take him upstairs,” I volunteer. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  Jacob’s father looks at me gratefully as I reach out for the kid, who eyes his father. “It’s okay,” he tells the boy.

  I smile. “Yeah it’s fine, we can play trucks for a little bit.” The kid’s face lights up and he takes my hand. Who says kids are hard?

  Jacob leads me up a red-carpeted staircase to a second-floor hallway that is covered in ugly green-and-white wallpaper. God, who’s the interior decorator for this family, “Tacky by Martha?”

  Thankfully, Jacob’s room is kiddie-colored, with bright blue clouds on the walls and a shit-ton of toys scattered all over the floor. I consider taking off my shoes for a minute but decide against it. I know I’ll drop a couple of f-bombs if I stub my toe on a dinosaur, and with what this kid’s been through I figure I don’t want to be the one to start his future life-long swearing habit.

  Jacob grabs two trains and sits down to race them around a wooden track. It’s hard not to see a slight resemblance to his father, he’s got the same hooked nose, which looks out of place on his kid face. He’s also got a mop of blond hair that looks like it gets cut by his father—poorly.

  Jacob offers me a train. I accept it, making sure to sound friendly. “How old are you, Jacob?”

  “Six,” he says proudly, like it’s an accomplishment to have made it that far without dying. Then again, maybe it is. A knot forms in my throat as I think about Patrick, but I push it from my mind and focus on Jacob.

  “Are you going to make Mommy go away?” he asks. I blink. Kid’s not as oblivious as I thought.

  “We’re going to make sure she doesn’t hurt you or your Daddy.”

  “She doesn’t hurt me.”

  “She doesn’t?”

  “No,” he says, without an ounce of fear in his voice. “She’s really nice. She plays trucks with me when Daddy's not around.”

  Now I’m the one with the fear in my voice. “Jacob, how often does your Mom come to see you?”

  “Every night,” he beams.

  “Does your dad know?”

  Jacob shakes his head and his smile disappears. “He doesn’t like it when Mommy comes to visit. It makes him cry.”

  I’ll bet. It’s probably scary as shit to see your dead wife come back to haunt your house every night.

  Jacob choo-choos a train over a make-believe bridge and his shirt lifts up. I see a black-and-blue bruise on his upper back. Holy shit.

  “Jacob, where did you get that? Was that Mommy?”

  Jacob looks supremely worried as he shakes his head. “No, Mommy doesn’t hurt me. She’s nice.”

  My heart breaks a little; the kid is trying to protect his mother’s revenant. I might have believed him if I didn’t know how revenants work. They’re all nice and shit when they first come back because they’re glad to still be around and be seen. But then they get madder and madder and pretty soon you’ve got a disease-causing, vengeful son-of-the-dead to deal with. If she’s hurting him then she’s got to be pretty far along on the vengeful scale.

  Bitch. It’s one thing to be pissed about being dead, but how dare you take that out on your child?

  I try to keep my face blank, but inside I’m promising I’ll send at least one salt-shot through this revenant before we get rid of her tonight.

  Two

  I try to ignore Dad and Mean-Face as they discuss what happened to Jacob’s mother downstairs, but it’s not that easy: sound travels pretty loud through this house. It’s the kind of place where you’d totally get busted if you tried sneaking out. Fortunately, Jacob won’t face that dilemma for years.

  “Ria!” My dad calls me and I know it must be go-time. I turn back to Jacob.

  “I’m heading downstairs for a bit, okay?”

  Jacob nods his head in that bobbly way kids do where their entire body shakes. I laugh for a little bit as I head down. Dad’s waiting at the bottom of the staircase for me. “So what happened?” I ask.

  Dad nods toward Mean-Face. “Derek said his wife was killed by a prowler six months ago.”

  "Yikes. No wonder she's vengeful. You believe him?"

  "It lines up with what Steve told me about the case. He said the detective team looked at Derek as a suspect at first, but he had a solid alibi."

  “And her body?”

  “Said he had her cremated.”

  “So how’s she still here?”

  Dad shrugs. “There’s probably some small piece of her that’s still around, keeping her here. Maybe hair on a hairbrush or something.”

  I groan. Great, we’re hunting for a hairbrush. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Well, he says the revenant shows up in a couple of places: the kitchen, the basement, his bedroom, the kid’s bedroom and the living room."

  “Okay, so we salt everywhere except the bedroom, and when ghost-Mom shows up we trap her, giving us time to play find-the-remains?”

  My Dad actually beams. “I’m impressed. That’s exactly what I was going to suggest.”

  “Aww Dad,” I say, “we’ve been doing this long enough for me to know how the game works. But what do we do about Jacob? I know he’s probably already messed up, but seeing his mother's ghost get torched is probably going to push him into Dexter territory.”

  “Wait, how do you know about Dexter? Your mother blocked Showtime.”

  I smile. “Daddy, please. I can take down ghosts before breakfast. You think I can’t figure out how to watch a TV show?”

  “All right then,” he replies. “I’ll stay with Derek, you keep an eye on Jacob and start salting his room. Scream if the ghost shows up.”

  I nod and Dad lifts the duffel bag and tosses me a can of salt. “Get to work then. And don’t think we’re not going to talk about your TV habits when this is over.”

  I bounce back up the stairs, giving a quick glance at Jacob as he crashes two trucks together with mouthed explosion sounds. He seems no worse for wear, so I pop the top of the salt can and start pouring a large circle around him. It’s big enough that he can run around without scuffing the edge of the circle. And that’s important: you do not want a scuffed salt circle when dealing with a pissed-off revenant.

  My stomach gets a little gurgly as I get closer to finishing the circle, and I hurry before the urge to vomit hits. I wish I could say it was because of Mean-Fa—Derek, his name is Derek—’s belly, but he’s nowhere to be found. That means the ghost’s near. Revenants spread disease along with the whole kill-you thing, so nausea is the first sign that one’s close by.

  Just great. I close the circle before calling down to Dad. “Feeling sick up here.”

  He shouts back from across the hall. “Got it. Almost done. Is the circle finished?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good! Stay inside it!”

  Another excellent treatment plan by Doctor David Miller, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a good thing my father works at a newspaper instead of a hospital.

  I fight my stomach into submission as I check to make sure I’ve got my slingshot and salt balls. Then I sit down next to Jacob and hug my knees as he continues to explode his trucks.

  “Hey Jake,” I say, “which of these is your favorite?”

  He points to a blue monster truck with flames shooting across the side. “This is Carl,” he says.

  “Carl, huh? How’d he get that name?”

  Jacob shrugs his shoulders. “I dunno. Thought it up.”

  I smile. Okay, I take it back. He’s not creepy, this kid is adorable. I reach for the truck when behind him, just outside of the circle, I catch a glimpse of a pale gray woman.

  She’s dressed in a ripped nightgown and her black hair is in tangles and snarls. One of her feet is pointed backward, and her hands are black at the fingertips. Her mouth is open, but there’s no teeth or mouth, just darkness. He
r eyes are jet black and they’re trained right on me.

  I tense up but force myself not to freak out. We’re inside the circle, which means none of the revenant’s ghost mojo can touch us and it can’t get inside. The only way anything could go wrong would be if…

  Right on cue, the ghosts does the one thing I hoped it wouldn’t.

  “Jakey?”

  Jacob turns around and I can hear the excitement in his voice. “Mommy!”

  Without missing a beat, he gets up and starts running toward his dead mother.

  Shit.

  I’m off my butt before I can think about it, desperate to catch him before he breaks the circle and lets the revenant in with us. The ghost’s already got her arms open wide as if she’s ready for a welcoming embrace.

  I grab Jacob by the shirt collar and yank him away at the last second. We both fall backward and my back lands directly on the monster truck. Ouch. Jacob’s kicking and screaming for him mom, but I’m holding him tightly as I sit up.

  The revenant is PISSED. Her eyes go from black to red and her mouth opens twice as wide as before and she lets out a scream that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. She starts moving around the circle, which—thankfully—is still intact.

  “RIA?” Dad yells from down the hall.

  “I got this!” I shout back as I clutch a flailing Jacob with my left arm. My right hand digs into my pocket, retrieving the slingshot. It’s a struggle to pull out the salt ball while holding a screaming child, but I manage it.

  The revenant’s stopped circling; apparently she’s sizing me up now. That’s fine, it makes it easier for me. I drop Jacob and aim for the ghost’s chest. I try to think of something witty to say, but my mind’s too busy being in “don’t die” mode, so I just shoot.

  The shot hits the revenant in the stomach and she goes poof, dissipating in a cloud of black smoke as the salt passes through her and splatters against the wall. Jacob turns in time to see the last of the cloud, and he keeps screaming.