A thick layer of dust coated a covered loveseat. It wasn’t the only piece of furniture in the room. There was a stack of uncovered chairs, a massive table covered in a canvass-like material, and three candle operas atop the covered table, the candles themselves melted down to the base of each holder. It didn’t appear as though melted wax was on the dustcloth, but it could’ve been hidden from her view due to dim light from outside. Each piece of covered furniture gave the home a haunted feel. If ghosts were real, Shelby might have been convinced of their existence inside this space. She glared at her boyfriend, Ethan, who was smiling at all the antiques. “Can you believe our luck?” Ethan exclaimed.
“Luck? Tell me how this,” she pointed at the rustic furniture, “is lucky?”
Ethan walked to the nearest candle opera, blowing dust into the twilight air. Sunset light from outside gave everything a reddish-orange hue. If there was such a place as hell, then Shelby pictured it looking like the inside of this abandoned home. She coughed, spewing more dust into the creepy light. “Do we really have to do this right now,” Shelby whined. “Can’t we come back in the morning?”
“Shel, you said you weren’t afraid of ghosts,” Ethan quipped, “right?”
“I’m not,” she protested. “But Ethan, you must admit, this isn’t exactly the cleanest of places.” Shelby wasn’t a neat freak, but growing up with a germaphobe for a mother, the charge nurse of Mercy Hospital, it wasn’t hard to see why Shelby was concerned.
Shelby’s mother, Camile Foster, was raised in a Catholic family, so it wasn’t hard to see her working as a nurse, much less in a hospital. Shelby’s house was immaculate, especially after Michael left Camile. Michael left Camile in the mid-1980s, leaving her with three-year-old Shelby. Camile discovered her cardiovascular surgeon of a husband cheating on her while he was at work. Camile’s divorce attorney, a newly divorced disgruntled surgeon’s wife herself, took it upon herself to personally see to it that Michael felt the pain of the divorce. But with a six-figure income and friends in high places in the Florida medical community, he returned to work in Boca Raton, earning more than double what he made in Missouri. Shelby never really knew Michael, and Michael didn’t take steps to get to know his daughter, even though he regularly paid more than fifteen thousand a month in child support. That was in addition to Camile’s standard alimony payment. Camile could’ve stopped working, living off the alimony for the rest of her life. Instead, she continued working as a nurse at the other hospital in their small community of Cape Girardeau.
Ethan was the polar opposite of Shelby’s mom and dad. He grew up in an educated household, like Shelby. Only his parents worked for Southeast Missouri State University. Ethan’s dad, David, was the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and his mom, Susan, worked as a professor in the English department, hoping to become the Department Chair in less than a year. The students in the college quickly figured out the difference between the two Dr. Parker’s. Susan refused to respond to instant messages, online posts, or emails if there were any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors. David, Dave to family, collegues, and friends, was a bit more lax in communication except with Susan. With Susan even Dave was smart enough to figure out how to speak to her, using complete thoughts and zero emojis. Not so with his students. So, Ethan learned to read and write like a scholar before he was in junior high school. Thanks to his mom, Ethan managed to write freelance feature articles for local and national publications, supplementing his full-time marketing job at a local advertising agency.
As a freelance photographer and videographer, he scouted locations for video shoots. The interior of this dusty home was one location. “Shelby. Don’t mess with the dust! You’ll ruin the aesthetic! And we’re going to need every bit of it.”
“How did you hear about this place anyway?” she asked. “It’s not like it’s in the middle of Cape. But it’s not rundown on the outside, either. How did you get the keys?”
“I asked Ted.”
“Shut up.” Shelby grabbed ahold of Ethan’s hand, pulling him to the door. “We are leaving right now, Ethan. Or so help me.” Ethan pulled her hand from his arm. She left deep, dark red marks on his arm.
“No. We’re not leaving.”
“I told you not to speak to him ever again, didn’t I?”
“And I told you,” Ethan grabbed her hand, pulling her back into the middle of the room, “that it was work-related. Not personal. Remember?”
“No.” Shelby shook her head. “That’s not what you said.”
“Yes, it is,” Ethan said, dragging her through what Shelby assumed was the dining room, the same room they were just in. “But that doesn’t matter because we need to look through the whole house. And it’s going to work great!”
“I don’t want to be here anymore, Ethan. Can we go, please?” Shelby only said please when trying to persuade Ethan to do something he didn’t want to.
“After we check the attic and the basement. Where would you like to start?”
Shelby squeezed his hand. “Can I pick neither one?” Ethan grinned, shaking his head no. “I didn’t think so,” she sighed. “Fine. Upstairs first, then. I guess.”
joeclass3 
Leave a comment