Jillian Chantal

The writers of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt Curly this week. I am still plugging away on my spooky story.

Check out the other tales here

The ever sturdy and calm Jacques wouldn’t let me run. He reached for my wrist and held on to it. “Hang on. We have to see what the heck is happening. This is weird. We both know there was nothing there before and now there is. I’m beginning to wonder if someone isn’t playing some kind of joke on us. Did you tell anyone else we were coming out here?”

“Nope. No one. I presume the only people who know are the guy you arranged it with and us three.”

Jacques frowned. “You don’t think Monte was pretending to be afraid and is setting us up for some gag, do you?”

“I don’t know. He seemed legit scared to me. I didn’t think for one second he was faking it.”

“Me either but remember, he was in theater in undergrad. Neither one of us ever saw him in action. He could be that good, right?”

“No clue.” I pointed toward the axe. “It’s still there. Let’s go touch it.” I hesitated a second. “Together.”

He nodded, and not letting go of my wrist, led me toward the axe.

We approached slowly and silently. Like we were Elmer Fudd creeping up on Bugs Bunny.

When we were almost there, to the point Jacques could have reached out and touched it, a wisp of curly smoke rose from the floor and obscured the sight of it for a brief moment.

I waved my hand over the area to dissipate the haze but it hung there for a long time undisturbed.

“What the hell?” Jacques asked.

Before I could say I had no idea, the air cleared.

I looked down. The axe was gone. The floor empty again.

“All right. That’s it.’ Jacques smacked his palms together. “I’m done playing around. This was supposed to be a serious investigation of the reports about this plantation and its terrible history and I’m now convinced Monte is up to something. He had to get some tricks from one of those charlatans in the French Quarter and set this up. I’m going down there and I’m going to knock him in the head so hard he’s going to land in Lake Pontchartrain.”

I’d never seen Jacques this angry in all the years I’d known him. It was almost scarier to see than the craziness going on in this house. Almost but not quite. I wasn’t convinced this was a hoax. It seemed pretty real to me. Of course it could be the atmosphere, darkness, and storm contributing to that, but I was pretty sure we’d find Monte still cowered in the corner where we left him.