Free Cemetery Tours by Jacqueline Smith Page A

room, staring straight at me.  She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but then she just vanished.”
    Mrs. Hampton moved her family out of the apartment later that week, though she continued to pay rent up until her lease expired.  
    “I didn’t want bad credit,” she says.  
    Building 17 of the Riverview Apartment complex is notorious for the “curse” which residents claim is the cause of a variety of technical problems and unexplained illnesses associated with the building.   However, the current tenants of Mrs. Hampton’s old apartment have reported no such difficulties.    
    Kate’s mind was reeling.   “I knew it,” she spoke mostly to herself.  
    “Knew what?” Gavin asked, sounding remarkably disinterested.
    “This!  This article!  Look.  This lady said she saw an apparition here in this building.”  Kate leapt up off the couch and carried her laptop over to the kitchen table, where Gavin sat with his own computer.  
    “A what?”
    “You were right.  It’s not a curse.  It’s a haunting!  I told you!”
    “Kate, are you serious ?” Gavin groaned.  “I thought we talked about this.”       
    “But it makes sense!   On Cemetery Tours , they always talk about - ”
    “Please, do not start quoting that crap to me.  If you want to convince me of anything, those clowns are the last people you should be referencing.”
    “But they talk about how ghosts use energy in order to manifest and to make noises and stuff.   That would explain everything!  It would even explain why you’ve been sick for so long.”
    “You think a ghost is making me sick?” Gavin deadpanned.  
    “Well, the doctors can’t seem to come up with anything else.”  
    “Kate.   This is the last time I am going to have this conversation with you.  There are no ghosts.  There are no curses.”
    “You don’t know that!”
    “ Everyone knows that!”
    “Why are you getting so defensive?” Kate demanded.   “You never used to get this upset before.  And I came to you with some pretty ridiculous stuff.”
    “Because the last time you were this fixated on something, you were nine years old!   You’re an adult now, Kate.”  
    “I know that.”
    “Well you sure as hell don’t act like it.”  For a split second, Kate wanted to hit him, but she knew that wouldn’t do either of them any good.  Gavin must have seen how angry he’d made her because he sighed and held his hands up in mock defense.  “Okay, you want to settle this?”  He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out in a loud voice, “If there are any ghosts in this apartment, we are asking you to show yourself.  Give us some sort of sign.  Rattle the windows.  Open the cupboards.  Anything will do.”  They stood in silence for a few seconds.  Kate strained her ears for a creak, a footstep, anything.  But there was nothing.  Gavin rested his hands on his hips.  “Well, look at that.  Guess there’s no one here after all.”  
    Unable to stomach the condescending smirk on her brother’s face, Kate closed her laptop and retreated into the bathroom for a long, hot shower.   Maybe if she was lucky, Gavin would get abducted by aliens before she finished drying her hair.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 7
     
    The next week was the Fourth of July.  It fell on a Thursday, so Michael decided to take Wednesday and Friday off as well so he could spend the Fourth with his family.  Every year, his mother and all his aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered at his grandmother’s lake house up at Lake Texoma.  His grandmother had passed away nearly ten years earlier, but per her request, they’d kept the lake house in the family.  She’d told Michael about a year or