Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
What had this place been? How did it end up like this? And what was going on with that huge house on the property that had clearly once been a beautiful place?
Whatever was going on, I was sure I’d eventually find out, either when Beth Ann was done perusing the inside of the place or when I asked Carter about the property. Someone had to know something about it. And with this much potential lumber, I was sure Carter would be excited to figure it all out.
I went back to the truck and pulled out the cooler I kept on the floorboard of the passenger’s seat. Pulling out a cold soda, I cracked it open and leaned against the hood, waiting for Beth Ann to come back out and decide whether or not I needed to follow her to a hotel in town.
7
BETH ANN
I almost turned around and went back to my car the second I opened the front door.
A giant spider made its way down and stopped directly in front of my face before dropping down and scurrying across the floor.
Nope. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
My hand was gripping the door handle, and my foot was already turned away. All I had to do was shift my weight, let my arm pull the door shut, and then haul ass to my car. I could be in a nice, clean hotel in fifteen minutes. Assuming my car didn’t break down again, that was.
Then I remembered how little was left in my bank account. And how much getting a hotel room for a few days would take out of it. If there was any way I was going to survive down here long enough to get paid again, I was going to need to make do with whatever was going on inside. Spiders and all.
“Alright, little dude,” I said, barely above a whisper. “You don’t bother me again, and I won’t squish you. I really don’t want to squish you. What if I leave the door open? You can walk right out. I won’t stop you.”
While I had my one-sided conversation with the now lurking spider, I glanced at the room and all the stuff in it. It required pushing a bit to get the door open. Boxes and bags had either fallen against the door or had been stacked up near it. Apparently, when fire and rescue got to my aunt, they just moved what they needed to out of their way and got her out of the door, leaving everything else.
Everything else being a cluttered mess that had been pushed through like a bulldozer to get to her.
I was standing in what I assumed was the living room of the trailer. Behind it, I could see the kitchen, which, from what I could see, looked clean. No dirty dishes piled up or anything like that, just a million knickknacks and coffee machines, toasters, and the like filling up all the available shelf space. The living room was similar in that it was certainly cluttered up, but it looked clean. There was just too much stuff. Way too much.
A path wound from the front door to the kitchen and then from there disappeared behind a wall. A door on the left was shut, and a hallway to my right was open, even if there were stacks of boxes on either side like pillars. Cautiously, I stepped over what looked like a box of plastic bags that may or may not contain fragile things wrapped up in them and made my way to the hallway.
Fumbling for a switch on the wall, I nearly tripped over an ancient vacuum cleaner that I was sure was bought back when there were only three channels on the TV. Snaking my way past stacks of boxes, I saw a door on either side of the hall. Opening the one on the left, there was a laundry room, absolutely stacked with cleaning supplies and a shockingly new-looking washer and dryer. Cheap aluminum racks lined the walls and held various boxes of wires and light bulbs along with neatly folded sheets and blankets. A few larger kitchen appliances were in there on top racks, seemingly put there because they weren’t used often enough and because of the already cluttered kitchen situation.
Backing out, I opened the first door on the right. It was a bathroom, which looked like it was in working order and fairly sparse considering the rest of the house. Dresses hung from the curtain rack, seemingly put there so they could dry. The shower didn’t look like it had been used in many years.
Moving down to another door, I opened it and saw that it was absolutely stacked with boxes. Whatever the room had meant to be, now it was a storage space, and I could see dressers and other furniture pushed in against each other. It was like an entire life had been shoved in this room and then the door shut.