A Grave Halloween in Lost Haven Read online

  He seemed unconvinced.

  “Wait here,” Jenna said. “I think we’re missing the proper motivation.”

  She went behind the counter and rummaged through the stockpile of stuff that would eventually become her Halloween window display. She found what she needed and peeked over the counter: Cabo was still staring at the chair, his back to her.

  Perfect.

  She got within two feet of him before firing up the electric chainsaw, which was shockingly loud within the closed space. Cabo jumped a good foot into the air, sloshing green smoothie onto the hardwood. He bolted forward and tried to tuck his huge frame behind the electric chair. His eyes took up his entire face.

  Jenna killed the chainsaw. “Well done!”

  “What are you doing?!”

  “Giving you proper motivation. In a haunted house scenario, when given the choice to freeze and face the chainsaw or go forward, you always go forward. Which you did. Congratulations!”

  Cabo stood and leaned against the electric chair. “My heart…I think I pulled my neck. And I spilled my smoothie!”

  “Totally worth it. Here, have a seat. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  Cabo sat in the electric chair. “Not scared. Startled. There’s a difference. Being startled is a reflex, a survival response to a threat. It’s there to keep us alive.”

  One…two…

  Jenna nodded. “Of course. We evolved to have fight or flight when facing electric chainsaws.”

  Three…

  “You know what I mean.”

  On four, a low hum filled the room and Cabo shot out of the chair—again spilling green smoothie—and slapped his free hand over his backside. He spun around, wild-eyed and flushed.

  “That thing just buzzed my butt!”

  Jenna hopped up and down, clapping. “Isn’t this fun?”

  “No!”

  “Wait, watch.”

  Cabo took a step backward and glared at the offensive piece of furniture.

  Another hum emitted from it, this one much quieter, and then a piece of paper slid out of a crack in the end of the right armrest. It dangled there like a tongue sticking out, mocking Cabo’s ready stance.

  Jenna plucked the paper out and read, “‘No Sanctuary: Lost Haven’s Most Terrifying Haunted Attraction. This death certificate is good for one free victim admission with the purchase of one victim admission. Enter if you dare, and have a shockingly good time!’ See? I told you it would be worth it.”

  Cabo was not as enthusiastic.

  “It’s a buy-one-get-one-free coupon,” Jenna said. “For tonight.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Cabo said. “Totally not worth it.”

  Jenna’s brow wrinkled. “Hold on. This says ‘Limit one per victim.’”

  “So?”

  “Belma comes in here at least five times a day to sit in the chair.”

  They both studied the chair for a moment, and then collectively decided to never discuss its relationship with Belma again.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Cabo said. “Don’t startle me anymore, and I’ll go tonight. I’ll even listen to the silly drama with these places.”

  “Deal. But there’s nothing silly about embezzlement, a secret brothel, and everyone involved apparently destined to burn in hellfire.”

  Cabo’s eyebrow twitched. “You don’t say?”

  Then Jimbo’s owl-y face popped out from behind the shelves and yelled, “Did I hear a chainsaw up here?”

  Jenna agreed to pay for Cabo’s replacement smoothie.

  2

  Jenna, Belma, and Lawrence burst into the Lost Haven Bodyworks clinging to each other and cackling like lunatics.

  Cabo was placing the last rolled-up yoga mats into a rack. He watched the three alleged adults stumble across the floor and nearly crash into the new Pilates machine before veering dangerously close to the water cooler and skidding to a halt. They broke apart and collapsed onto the wooden cubes used for box jumps.

  “Should I ask?” Cabo said.

  Belma tried to catch her breath. “We’re practicing our flying wedge. Classic haunted house defense strategy. If we’re all huddled together, we can’t be killed.”

  “Or you all get killed at the same time,” Cabo offered.

  Lawrence waved him off. “You clearly have no experience in this. The point of the flying wedge is to be the person in the middle, where it’s safe. The struggle for middle wedge is constant and intricate. It’s like a microcosm of society.”

  “I use my boobs and butt,” Belma said.

  Jenna nodded. “I know who is ticklish where.”

  Lawrence shrugged. “I cover myself in baby oil. Slick!”

  Cabo looked at each of them and decided to change the subject. “It is literally one minute after eight. You people closed early to do this?”

  “Heck yeah,” Jenna said. She slapped one of the Halloween in Lost Haven maps down on the box next to her. “This is our plan of attack. First, we go to the Sanctuary Café, fuel up, and abduct McTavish to come with us if possible. Then we go around Lilac Park, trying not to fall into any of the open graves, and hit Ghost Ship. If we survive, we follow the shore south and east to No Sanctuary. It’s doubtful we’re still alive after that, but if we are, we come back to Main Street. We refuel at the café and drive to the Lost Haven Morgue where we shall forever rest in pieces.”

  “Let’s do it,” Belma said.

  Lawrence asked, “Why are we still sitting here?”

  “Eh,” Cabo said.

  Jenna stood. “We thought that’s what you would say. That’s why we have agreed to grant you middle wedge status for the night.”

  “Guys…” Cabo said.

  The three of them approached him, chanting, “Middle wedge! Middle wedge!”

  “I haven’t showered this afternoon,” Cabo warned.

  It had no effect.

  “Middle wedge! Middle wedge!”

  They huddled around him and began, in a mass of linked arms and hunched shoulders, to shuffle toward the door. Cabo—who could have halted the entire group just by planting his feet—couldn’t help grinning. He went along with it.

  “Middle wedge! Middle wedge!”

  Lawrence whispered, “If you wet your pants, you get moved to the tail gunner position.”

  “What’s that?” Cabo whispered back.

  “Just keep your pants dry, buddy, and you’ll never have to find out.”

  “But—”

  “Middle wedge! Middle wedge!”

  Halloween in Lost Haven carried them out the door into the night, completely unaware of what waited for them across Main Street.

  They paused outside the Bodyworks long enough for Cabo to lock the doors and activate the security system, then shuffled along Main Street to the north end of the block. A small crowd was sitting at the tables in front of the Sanctuary Café, but they were all Lost Haven locals—they recognized the middle wedge and respected it.

  The four of them grabbed an empty table in the corner near a patio heater with a fine view of the mini excavator parked across the lane in Lilac Park. The heavy rains from the past few days had halted the exhumation work, and the pleasant aroma of damp earth and wet leaves drifted on the inland breeze from Lake Michigan.

  McTavish glided out of the café with a white towel over one shoulder, the tiny Mr. Wolfie trotting alongside. McTavish’s expert eye surveyed the other tables, found no coffees, teas, or other cups or plates in need of attention, and turned to Jenna and the crew.

  He spotted the Halloween in Lost Haven map and grimaced.

  “You caved,” he said to Cabo. Disappointment seemed to bring out his Scottish brogue even more.

  “Their strategy is flawless,” Cabo said. “But just so we’re clear, I have middle wedge.”

  McTavish blinked. “Shall I call a doctor, or bring a cake?”

  “It’s a good thing. I think. But no cake. I’ll celebrate with a green smoothie.”

  Everyone else at the table groaned. Ca
bo’s green smoothies were a secret concoction with ingredients known only to him and McTavish, and the two of them constantly tinkered and tweaked the formula trying to find the elusive results Cabo desired.

  In the meantime, the discarded formulas had created several unfortunate side effects. There was green smoothie 3.3, which turned Cabo’s skin a light shade of lime for two days. The Hulk jokes were endless and unavoidable.

  4.2 made his face and feet go numb. That week of Bodyworks yoga would forever be known as “Yergah Clershes.”

  And of course, the infamous 6.0. No one spoke of this atrocity, but the echoes of Cabo’s explosive flatulence still haunted Main Street and the nightmares of those who witnessed it in person.

  “The rest of us will be having espresso,” Jenna announced. “We want our nerves jangling and our adrenaline dangerously spiked.”

  “And no full bladders,” Lawrence added.

  McTavish nodded. “As always, the grace and elegance of this group leaves me speechless. I’ll be off before it overwhelms me.”

  “Can you cut out of here and come with us tonight?” Jenna asked.

  “Oh, lassie, I’ll not be tempting the true wraiths by seeking entertainment with the false ones. The McTavish line thoroughly respects the realm of the dead—it’s what keeps us out of it for as long as possible.”

  He turned and was gone.

  Jenna watched him go and couldn’t help replaying the entire conversation for awkwardness or resentment. She and Cabo had been semi-responsible for putting his former employers in prison—okay, entirely responsible—and she felt guilty about it every time she saw him.

  Plus, it happened right after his long-time employer was murdered.

  It didn’t help that one of the convicts was also Mr. Wolfie’s owner, so the dog probably despised her as well.

  McTavish seemed happy, and he still lived in Horizon House to oversee the massive estate’s upkeep for the historical tours that came through, but Jenna carried the feeling that she owed him something.

  An apology?

  For what, identifying two murderers?

  Money?

  Seems crass. And very Kavanaugh, which will just make it worse.

  “Jenna!”

  She snapped back to the table. “Hmm?”

  “Cabo is asking about the secret brothel,” Lawrence said. “We figure you should fill him in, since you’re a prostitute.”

  “Lawrence!”

  “I mean, the town historian. Sorry.”

  Jenna settled into her seat, loving the autumn chill that slipped past the heaters and made everyone want to gather just a bit closer to each other.

  Where to begin?

  Jenna said, “The Lost Haven Morgue haunted house used to be a meat processing facility.”

  “That’s a nice way of saying it,” Belma snorted. “It was a slaughterhouse.”

  Cabo grimaced.

  “Who’s telling this story,” Jenna said, “me or you?”

  “You, if you tell it right.”

  Jenna continued. “They built it around nineteen fifty when the plot was about halfway between downtown and the farms raising stock to the east, but as the town grew and got closer to the facility, residents started to complain about the smell.”

  “I bet,” Cabo said.

  “So they moved everything to a bigger facility near Holland and shut this one down. This was in the early eighties, so refrigeration and transportation were much better. The building was abandoned for ten years or so, until Martin Ritter asked the township if he could lease it for the month of October. Nobody was beating down the door to buy the place, so they said sure, why not?”

  Lawrence chuckled. “If they only knew.”

  “So Martin opened the doors to his first haunted house in nineteen ninety-three,” Jenna said.

  “Was it scary?” Cabo asked.

  “I was three years old, so I can’t say for sure.”

  “It was scary,” Belma confirmed. “It was all sort of cobbled together and looked very unsafe, so you were never sure if something was supposed to just look like it could collapse on you and burst into flames, or if it actually would. And the actors—you couldn’t tell if they worked there or were some random lunatics who’d been living in the slaughterhouse and you were trespassing in their hovel.”

  “That sounds terrible,” Cabo said.

  Belma nodded. “It was a blast.”

  “What did you think?” Cabo asked Lawrence.

  “I was only eight, but even at that age I looked more youthful than Jenna.”

  “Hey,” Jenna said. “Anyway, if you asked Martin Ritter, he’d tell you it was the scariest haunted house in Michigan, if not the United States, possibly Earth and beyond. And a lot of people seemed to agree with him because they went back year after year, and folks started traveling from Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo—some even from Detroit—because word had spread. Eventually Martin had enough profits to buy the slaughterhouse and work on the haunt year-round.”

  “Martin Ritter…” Cabo said. “I haven’t seen him come in to check out Bodyworks. Or even heard the name before now.”

  “There’s a very good reason for that,” Jenna said.

  McTavish brought the drinks and passed them around, along with a bowl of bite-sized pumpkin cookies from Lawrence’s Elegant Confections.

  “Traitor,” Belma said.

  McTavish leaned toward her. “Mi’lady, you give me a discount on those chocolate bats flying out your door and I’ll be more than happy to fill my bowls with them.”

  “Instead of the cookies?” Belma asked, her interest piqued by an opportunity to supplant Lawrence.

  “In addition to,” McTavish corrected.

  “Never mind.”

  McTavish straightened. “These wonderful, spite-free biscuits are especially delicious when dipped in your piping hot espressos, brewed from fresh beans ground by my own hands mere moments ago. I cannot speak for their deliciousness when dipped in Mr. Cabo’s green…substance…but I feel it’s safe to assume you would regret it immediately. Enjoy!”

  All eyes slid to Cabo as he took his first sip of the smoothie. It was the color of an aging avocado shell with pieces of something that looked like banana strings floating within. He took a huge gulp, swished it around, swallowed, and smacked his lips.

  “Yum.”

  “That can’t be true,” Lawrence said.

  Jenna asked, “Which version is this? 7.3?”

  “8.1,” Cabo said. “We had a full version bump with the addition of sardines. They’ve been a game-changer.”

  “Well, that’s enough horror for me,” Belma said. “I’m good until next year.”

  Cabo halted just before another gulp. “No, come on, finish the story about what’s-his-name. Ritter.”

  “Martin Ritter,” Jenna said.

  Cabo nodded vigorously, his mouth full of 8.1.

  Jenna sipped her espresso and took a moment to savor the heat and the strong, bitter bite that ended with a tiny shiver as the first jolt hit.

  “So this is why you’ve never heard Martin Ritter’s name mentioned in Lost Haven…”

  Jenna said, “Last year, the Lost Haven Morgue had its best Halloween season ever. People came from Detroit, Chicago, even took the ferry over from Milwaukee to get scared by Martin and his professional actors.”

  “Martin’s Maniacs,” Belma added, “all the people who perform in the Lost Haven Civic Theater, plus some high-energy amateurs who passed the auditions.”

  “He had auditions?” Cabo asked.

  Jenna said, “Here’s the thing: Martin was very traditional when it came to scaring. He felt the best way to scare people was with other people—not animatronics. That was a big point of contention between him and No Sanctuary, but that’s a whole different story.”

  “So, what, he brought in professional haunted house actors? If there is such a thing.”

  “Oh, there is,” Jenna said. “Martin’s theory was he’d spend all this time
and money creating the perfect ambience for scaring—the light, sound, texture, even smells—and just when you’re ready to run screaming into the night, someone pops out of the shadows and you’re all, ‘Oh, hi Brad,’ because you see Brad all the time at the grocery store, buying soup.”

  “Soup,” Cabo mused.

  “The point is, it ruins the mood. You know Brad isn’t going to murder you with the blood-spattered hatchet he’s waving around. He’s just going to hit you with some ham and bean breath, maybe ask if you’ve tried the new hearty beef brisket.”

  Lawrence shuddered.

  “So Martin was running a pretty big operation,” Cabo said.

  “Massive,” Jenna said. “He even had brief negotiations with Harrison Kavanaugh to build a permanent haunted attraction inside the Lost Haven Resort, back when it was first being planned.”

  “How brief?”

  Jenna turned to Lawrence. “What would you say? Ten minutes?”

  “Less. I think Kavanaugh’s exact words were, ‘Get this lunatic zombie away from me before I kill him for real.’”

  Cabo frowned. “Zombie?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jenna said. “Martin gave his pitch presentation in full makeup. He never broke character, even when Kavanaugh’s lawyers dragged him out.”

  “You have to admire the dedication,” Belma said. “But…”

  “But?” Cabo said.

  “But then he stole everything,” Jenna finished. “One year ago, on Halloween night, right after the best night of the best season the Lost Haven Morgue ever had, Martin Ritter took all the cash from the entire month and disappeared.”

  Cabo’s eyebrows went up. “How much are we talking?”

  “Just under a million dollars.”

  Cabo almost sprayed green smoothie on everyone at the table, barely averting complete disaster and a potential quarantine of the café for biohazard decontamination.

  “A million dollars?”

  “Poof,” Lawrence said. “Gone. And then things got really weird.”

  “They’re already weird enough. But go ahead, I gotta know now.”