Monster mash murder, p.1
Monster Mash Murder, page 1
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MONSTER MASH MURDER
a Merry Wrath Mystery
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
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Copyright © 2023 by Leslie Langtry
Cover design by Janet Holmes
Gemma Halliday Publishing
http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book is dedicated to my dear friend and the best publisher ever, Gemma Halliday, whose publishing company is celebrating its 10-year anniversary! It's been a joy to work for her—here's to 10 more years!
CHAPTER ONE
"EEEEEEEEEAAAAAA!"
I jumped back as a gruesome, headless corpse screamed as it flew out of the closet toward me. Scrabbling backward, I managed to put some distance between the gory body and me before I realized that it wasn't real…because…you know, how can it scream without a head?
"Betty!" I shouted.
I didn't really know why I called for her. This was my house. Well, my old house, which I still owned and was across the street from the house I now lived in with my husband. Betty wasn't even here.
"What?" Betty appeared in the doorway. "Oh. You found it." She looked down the hall. "Guys! She found it."
Inez appeared to join her. She whipped out a notepad and pen. "Were you scared? How did you react?"
"I was startled, not scared," I lied. "What are you doing here, and what is this?"
The girls looked at each other before they were joined by Ava and Lauren.
"It's for the haunted house, of course," Ava, the town's youngest mayor at twelve and a half, explained. "It's one of our fundraisers for the zoo's new aviary. I thought you knew about it."
Did I know about it? I didn't think so. But then, I could be forgetful. "You never told me about it." I went with bluffing, which was usually a safe bet. "Tell me what's going on again…or…for the first time."
"Do we need to tell you about the zoo fundraiser too?" Betty's eyebrows went up.
"She's in her thirties now," Lauren explained to the others. "Which is, like, super old. We have to cut her some slack. King vultures like Mr. Fancy Pants only live twenty years. Which means if she was a king vulture, she'd be dead."
"I'm not super old, and of course I remember that we are helping raise money for the Obladi Zoo's new aviary. I just didn't know about this."
Ava waved me off. "I'm sure we told you. Why wouldn't we?"
I had the sneaking suspicion I was being gaslighted.
My name is Merry Wrath Ferguson, and I used to be a CIA operative. I say used to because after seven years, the vice president "accidentally" outted me on CNN to get back at my senator father. I did what every former spy who retired way before their prime does—slink back to my hometown of Who's There, Iowa, and started a Girl Scout troop. In some ways, working with little girls is a lot like being a spy, and I've learned things that would've been helpful in espionage.
Such as, in cases like this, it was just best to move on. "Anyway…so what's the story with this haunted house?"
Inez puffed up proudly. "We found the best house ever! It's a super old, creepy house on the outskirts of town."
"You probably shouldn't refer to a house as creepy," I spoke up. "How would the owner feel?"
Ava cleared her throat dramatically. "Ahem. The city owns the house. It was abandoned, and Betty found it on a bank foreclosure website."
The tween mayor held out a photo that showed a terrifyingly dilapidated two-story Victorian house. The windows above the door looked like angry eyes, and the porch sagged into a vicious grin. I didn't want to go there, and I'd been to Putin's Perfect Politburo Pajama Pool Party on Halloween, at his secret dacha. I wasn't there as me, but as Olga, a member of the Russian catering staff. It was terrifying because I thought he was going to have me killed on the spot when we ran out of Bugles and squeezy cheese.
"You have keys to this house?" I pointed at Betty.
"Yeah. Why?" She narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious.
"Come on." I herded the group to the door. "I'll drive."
It took five minutes to get there, because it only takes five minutes to get anywhere in Who's There, Iowa. This was one of the many things I liked about my hometown, because going anywhere was so efficient.
Founded in the 1800s by Theobald and Euphemia Peters when they opened a lumber mill and tavern, the central location brought dozens who came to work in the mill and drink in the tavern. It wasn't long before the town developed a reputation because the men who worked in the mill usually had had a "liquid" breakfast at the tavern. This resulted in Peterstown (the original name) having the largest number of accidental amputees in the Midwest.
Things changed when Euphemia took over the tavern. She opened it after five p.m. each day and offered lard sandwiches and half-price drinks. She also invented an unpopular drink called the Cat's Tongue, which was coffee grounds, lard, and gin, which nobody drank…ever.
When did it become Who's There? In the 1950s, the town wanted to change their name to Truth or Consequences, after a TV game show that was offering a prize to the first city to change its name. Unfortunately they were beat out by a town in New Mexico. So, the city council decided to change their name to Who's There, after a different TV show, in hopes the game show would honor them. Unbeknownst to them, the game show was canceled before the ink was dry on the official proclamation. It wasn't the only town in Iowa with a funny name. There was also What Cheer, Gravity, Colo, and my favorite—Lost Nation.
We parked out front of the house. It was worse than I'd thought. In the photo, the house was flat, 2D. But standing in front of the real thing was a completely different experience.
For one thing, a large cloud glowered over the house, which was odd since the sun was shining everywhere else. There were two weed-riddled empty lots on either side of the house, and behind it was acres and acres of dried-up corn. I half expected to see the four Kaitlyns stagger out of the corn like killer kid zombies.
"I don't think I've ever seen this house," I muttered.
Betty nodded. "Nobody else remembers it either. We haven't been inside yet. Let's go!"
I held out my arm to bar her way. "You bought this without seeing inside it?"
The girls looked at each other and appeared to be confused.
"Well…yeah. The foreclosure site said it was okay inside, just a fixer upper on the outside," Betty said before running up to the front door and fitting the key in the lock.
The rest of us ran up in time for the door to creak loudly as it opened horror-movie slowly. For a moment I toyed with dragging the girls back to my minivan. Betty beat me to the punch by pulling a flashlight out of her backpack and diving in.
"Wow!" Ava gasped. "This is even better than I thought."
"Was this place designed by a deranged psychopath?" I might've inadvertently said out loud. The furniture had seen better days during the Nixon administration, and the décor screamed Chechen-dive-bar chic.
"That would be awesome!" Lauren clapped her hands with glee. "We need to look up the history!"
"Let's check it out!" Inez started forward. "Maybe we'll find a body!"
"Girls! Stop!" I shouted as they started to explore. "We don't know how sound the floor is!"
Just the floor? I was pretty sure the walls would disintegrate in a cloud of dust if we breathed too hard.
"Good idea." Inez nodded. "You should check it out, as the responsible adult."
Normally I'd be suspicious that they'd booby trapped the whole house and just wanted me to go through hundreds of jump scares until I had a heart attack. But they had me with the word responsible. My best friend and co-leader, Kelly, was always on me to be more responsible. Do you think teaching the girls how to throw knives/tail a perp unseen/talk about waterboarding is the most responsible thing to do, she was always asking. Checking out the house to make sure it was safe before letting the girls loose might be a feather in my cap.
"Okay." I held my hands up. "Stay here and be prepared to call 911 if anything bad happens to me."
"You think a ghost will kill you." Ava nodded.
"Or there's an axe murderer waiting in that closet!" Inez pointed at the coat closet a little too enthusiastically.
"No." Although those things hadn't occurred to me yet. "I'm more worried I'll fall through the floorboards."
"Won't happen," Betty disagreed. "The website said the house was safe."
Just then, the boards beneath my feet
"Are you dead?" Lauren called out.
"She can't answer if she's dead," Inez corrected.
"Why not? She could be faking it like the Blue Death Feigning Beetle. They just fall onto their back and stick their legs in the air and freeze." The girl pointed down at me. "Like Mrs. Wrath is right now."
Lauren was our junior zookeeper who knew a lot about animals.
"I'm fine," I shouted. To my surprise, I really was. I'd landed on something soft, which was lucky. "Head to the front porch! I'll look for the stairs and come up!"
The basement was very dark and unnervingly quiet, with an odor that implied many a rodent had met a sticky end here. I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on the light app. Very slowly, I shone it on the walls that surrounded me. There was nothing but shelves with boxes. The staircase to go upstairs appeared to be cement, which was good. Aside from it being creepy, it seemed okay. I looked up to see the flashlight still aimed at me and looks of horror on the girls' faces.
"That's so cool!" Betty gasped.
Don't look down…don't look down…I repeated in my head. Whatever soft thing I was on had freaked out girls who never freak out. Slowly, I began to scoot sideways without looking down. And I did okay.
Until whatever was beneath me began to move.
"Wow!" Inez said as I joined the girls on the front porch. "That was fast!"
I doubled over and caught my breath. I didn't even remember running up the stairs.
"What was down there?" I gasped.
The girls looked at each other.
"I don't think we should say," Ava decided.
Betty agreed. "You wouldn't like it. Besides, it'll be gone soon, so you don't ever need to know."
I looked at the girls for a beat before pulling my keys out of my pocket. "Good thinking. Let's go."
We got into the van, and before I started it up, I heard Ava in the back seat talking on her phone.
"We need an exterminator." She noticed I was watching in the rearview mirror. "The biggest guy you have."
"You really want to know what you fell on?" Betty, in the passenger seat, eyed me curiously.
"Nope," I decided. "Let's get you guys home so I can hit the shower with a bottle of wine to forget this ever happened."
CHAPTER TWO
The old house was on my mind the next day, as Kelly and I were getting ready for a troop meeting at the old house. We'd arrived early because I wanted to see what she thought about the headless "corpse" in the closet. And by that I meant I wanted to scare her stupid.
"I think I left something in that closet." I pointed to the door as we entered my guest room.
Kelly, who'd been my best friend since elementary school (and therefore should've known better), seemed to think this was an innocent request and opened the door.
The same scream howled as the dummy flew out at her, but Kelly didn't flinch.
"Ah," she said as she turned to face me. "The girls got the mechanism to work. Wait, did you think you were going to scare me with that?"
"You knew about it?" My jaw dropped open. "How did you know about it? I just found out!"
My best friend shook her head. "It's because you never listen."
"I do too listen." I stuck my chin out and pouted.
I thought for a moment. There have actually been times when I kind of didn't pay attention. For example, I never remembered how cookie sales worked, how much food to take on a camping trip, or which permission form was only for day trips. Maybe Kelly was right?
"Okay, okay." I waved my hands in front of me. "Tell me again. What's going on?"
Kelly told me basically what the girls had, that they were going to do a haunted house for a fundraiser, that they were looking for the right building, and that Obladi Zoo had approved the idea.
Had I been in a coma for the past week? I made a mental note to work on my memory. Then I realized that making a mental note probably wasn't the best idea considering, so I wrote it down.
"You know, then, that they have a house." I put my hands on my hips.
Kelly's eyebrows went up, but she said nothing. Did I know something she didn't?
"And," I continued. "It's very dangerous. I fell through the floor into the basement."
Kelly looked me up and down. "Are you okay?" She'd been an emergency room nurse for years, which made her the best first aid teacher ever.
I held my hands up. "I'm fine. I landed on something soft." I shuddered but didn't go into detail. "But the floor is rotted and the whole building looks like it would be condemned in Chechnya…which is really saying something since there are homes made entirely of branches that are held together with goat saliva."
My co-leader frowned. "It sounds like repairs will cost more than they can make for the fundraiser."
"Ava says it's being handled," I said, even if I wasn't sure I believed it.
"It is!" Ava said as she joined us in the guest room and looked around. "You're in here a lot. We aren't having the meeting in the guest room, are we?"
The meetings usually took place in the living room and, in the summer, in the backyard. My small ranch house had been crowded when we were a bigger troop, but now at only eight girls and two leaders, it was perfect.
It was a warm October, so we decided to have the meeting in the backyard. I'd set up a long table and chairs, and Kelly broke out the paper and markers. Once everyone was around the table, Inez stood, ready to give the assignment.
Kelly and I had been experimenting with letting the girls run meetings, with mixed results. Don't get me wrong—most of the meetings were about Girl Scouty things, but some were not. When Ava ran the meeting, it was about city government, which seemed like a great learning experience in civics. Unfortunately, the real topic was how to get around city policy and how to intimidate city council members so that they did what the mayor wanted and was it possible to brainwash people like in the Manchurian Candidate (a movie the girls had been a bit too interested in lately).
The Kaitlyns ran a meeting where they talked about reading minds. I had four Kaitlyn Ms who looked exactly alike and communicated silently via some sort of hive mind. Lauren ran a meeting on the howler monkey's many surprising and questionable contributions to civilization. But the worst, or most interesting, depending on how you looked at it, was when Betty ran the last meeting.
I'm still not sure why we were raided by the Secret Service, nor how Betty got ahold of counterfeit currency or her guest speaker who was on the FBI Most Wanted List for printing fake money, but after getting my dad, a senator who chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, to intervene and Betty's promise that she wouldn't do whatever she had been planning, things died down a little.
"Guys!" Inez looked serious. "We have to design the scare elements for the haunted house! And they have to be really good because we need to make lots of money for the zoo."
"We've got the screaming headless corpse." Betty shrugged. "It scared Mrs. Wrath."
"Startled," I corrected in a sad attempt to mitigate my shame. "It only startled me."
Inez turned to Betty. "Yeah, but it shouldn't be screaming. It doesn't have a head!"
Did I mention that Inez was the smart one? She was most likely to smash the patriarchy or take over a third-world country someday.
"Yeah!" I had her back. "Which is why it only startled me, because how can it scream without a head?"
Kelly held her hands up. "This is just for fun. People will pay to go through it because it's fun and for a good cause. There's no need to go overboard."
The girls looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. How could my co-leader forget that this troop always went overboard? Like the time we featured Panama for Thinking Day (an annual Girl Scout event) and the girls made a huge, working canal with barges the kids could ride and everything. Of course, we had to pay for water cleanup after the event because the canal sprung a leak. Fortunately, Betty knew a guy who knew a guy, and we got a big discount. The fact that he turned out to be a Russian mob member seemed unimportant at the time.
