Christmas Eve on Haunted Hill Read Free Page B

floor.
              Another double whiskey
was in front of Luke now.  He picked up the glass and brought it to his mouth. 
Before he could tip his head back for a swallow, he felt something hard prod
against the back of his neck.
              “Put the whiskey down and
take out your wallet, cocksucker,” a gruff voice told him.  “This here’s a
robbery.”
              Luke slowly lowered his
glass to the bar.
              He let out a big breath.
              Then he spun around on
the stool with his fist swinging.
     
     
     

3.
     
    It was already dark by the time the
Ford Explorer made it to the top of Haunted Hill and pulled to a stop alongside
the porch of the old Herzinger place.  The snow was coming down harder now and
the drive up the winding, pothole-dotted narrow drive had been an unexpectedly
treacherous one.  According to weather reports earlier in the day, a heavier
snowfall wasn’t due to begin until much deeper into the evening, maybe not even
until the early hours of the morning.  But the forecasts had been wrong because
the white stuff was coming down so thickly it’d reduced visibility to almost
nothing.
              On the way up, the Explorer’s
tires lost traction and slid on the decaying stretch of ancient asphalt
multiple times, eliciting screams and shouts of alarm from every occupant but
the driver.  Riding in the front passenger seat, Simone Barclay screamed at
least as loudly as any of her friends, maybe even more so.  Her vantage point
gave her a significantly better view of the deteriorating situation outside
than what was available to those seated in the back.  She saw, for instance,
how close the Explorer’s front end came to actually sliding off the edge of the
road at one point.  If that had happened, the vehicle would have gone tumbling
down a steep slope, resulting in serious injury or death for all of them.  It
didn’t happen, but it was a very close thing.  The brush with near disaster
brought forth her loudest, shrillest scream of the night.
              Spence Chandler, her
boyfriend, was driving, and he kept yelling at her to shut her stupid fucking
mouth.  Under any other circumstances, Simone would have slapped him silly for
talking to her that way, but she was too terrified to do anything but brace her
hands against the dash and pray they made it to the top of the hill safely. 
She felt close to hyperventilating by the time the ground beneath them finally
evened out, allowing the SUV to make the remainder of the journey to the
deserted old house in relatively smooth fashion.
              After Spence pulled up
alongside the porch and parked, Simone shivered in relief and settled back in
her seat.  “Maybe we should go back.”
              Spence scowled.  “After
all that?  Are you shitting me?”
              Simone’s gaze was fixed
on the dark line of trees at the edge of the abandoned property.  The trees
were just barely visible through the gusting snow, more like shadowy
suggestions of trees than the real thing.  The shadowy forms shifted in the
hard-blowing wind, igniting a tingle of unease.  In her imagination, they
weren’t trees at all.  Instead, they were monsters emerging from the woods. 
Soon they would creep up on the SUV and pounce on the helpless human prey
inside.  They could be Bigfoots.  Maybe werewolves.  Or something else big and
scary.  But it was just the hard wind blowing the branches around.  Simone knew
that, but the knowledge made the notion no less creepy.
              Now she slowly turned her
head and leveled a withering glare at Spence.  “I am not shitting you.  Yes,
you got us up here.  Awesome job.  But that pitiful excuse for a drive is only
gonna get worse.  We could wind up trapped up here if we stay too long.  So,
yes, we should leave.  Also, if you ever speak that rudely to me again, you can
start looking for a new