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I was the very first girl who had ever raced a coffin, but then I was a classic tomboy growing up who rarely played with dolls, unless they were soldiers, and liked aHarleybetter than a bicycle. My dad rode one, and I couldn’t wait to ride it all by myself. My first car was a Harley, a purple one, bigger and more badass than I could ever be. I still had it, along with two more, one cranberry red and my silver streak.
Yeah, baby.
“We’re going to win this year. You can bet money on it,” Freddie said, as he ran his hand over the sleek wood of the newly made coffin. He’d been making our racing coffins ever since he first learned how to build a box out of wood. I had to admit, this year’s coffin was by far his best. “And you’re going to be sitting inside.”
“Maybe,” I told him. “I’m thinking it over.”
“I still say it’s too heavy,” Bram countered, as he stood next to the coffin, checking it out. It was even lined with pink satin on the inside, with a small pink satin pillow, which was my contribution to the endeavor. I had a thing for pink, despite myoutward badass appearance. “And it’s going to be even heavier once we stick Luna inside.”
“Are you saying I’m fat?” I argued.
I knew he wasn’t but still. I barely weighed one hundred and fifteen pounds, and I was five feet, five inches tall.
He tossed me a look, and I knew that wasn’t what he meant. “Get over yourself. You know you’re not fat. You’re perfect, cupcake.”
“I think Carrie Ann would approve of this coffin,” Vince said, using his best scary, deep voice.
Vince was related to Carrie Ann through her father’s brother Bart Stoker, who was Vince’s great-grandfather. Vince had inherited Stoker House when his grandfather died. Vince was fourteen. Vince Sr. wanted nothing to do with the place and refused to let Vince Jr. take it over or go near it until he felt it was no longer a threat to him… whatever that meant. His grandfather had kept it boarded up for almost four decades. Then when Vince Sr. took a job in Singapore a couple of years ago and moved there with his mom, Vince decided it was time to face his fears. He had it renovated, and Stoker House was set to open as a B&B by the end of the year. Freddie did most of the reno, hiring both Galen Murphy and Anton Diaz to help with the renovation, but everyone who had worked on the place ended up creeped out more times than they wanted to admit.
Yes, the place was haunted, but that was also the charm of it… at least for all the ghosthunters who booked a room there for the grand opening in December.
Of course, everything depended on whether Carrie Ann’s ghost decided to play nice or not. So far, none of the ghostbusters that Vince had hired to banish her from the place, had failed.
Not that he wanted her completely gone. He just wanted her to not terrorize anyone. In truth, he wanted Carrie Ann to play nice, and so far, she only knew how to play bad… really bad.
For us, she was a source of true fear, but as we were growing up, we never let fear get in our way to victory. We learned how to overcome our fears… until it came to Carrie Ann.
Then all bets were off. She was our one source of total surrender.
“Fine. I’ll do it, on one condition,” I told them, feeling brave and badass.
“Whatever you want,” Freddie said.
“This is your call, babe,” Vince agreed.
“Just tell us what we can do,” Bram explained.
Oh yeah… I had them by the nuts, and they liked it… liked it a little too much.
Luna 2
“This is crazy,” Bram whispered as Vince pulled out the key for the haunted room we’d made a pact never, ever to go into again. Hell, I hadn’t ever wanted to step foot on the property, let alone enter the room again. “I’m already getting a bad vibe about this, and Vince hasn’t even opened the door yet.”
I’d given them my condition last night, which was to confront our fear of Stoker House and chase wicked Carrie Ann away once and for all. Even though Vince was going to open the place to the world in a few weeks, he still hadn’t stepped one foot inside this room.
The way I had it figured, not only would we overcome our fear, but there might be a chance that we could convince her to leave this place or at the very least, become a more friendly ghost, like Casper, the adorable friendly ghost.
Not that I ever thought for one moment that Carrie Ann could change her colors, but I still believed in miracles, so anything was possible.
None of them, not even Vince, would agree to this adventure until I made it clear there was no way I would step one foot inside that coffin unless we all confronted our biggest fear, Carrie Ann Stoker. At first, I was adamant they would be the ones going into the dreaded locked room, but when that didn’t fly, I agreed to join them.
Now I wasn’t too sure any of this was a smart idea. Not only did they counter my condition with a condition of their own… that we had to spend the night in the room… which I agreed to, but now that we were doing it, I wasn’t certain we were ready for another encounter of the Carrie Ann kind.
Fortunately, Vince had the room renovated along with the rest of the house, so everything inside the old playroom would be brand new, and his cleaning team had set it up for us that afternoon. Still, we weren’t too happy about spending an entire night with a wily ghost floating around, especially me.
What the hell was I thinking?
“Are you sure you can’t come up with something else to jump inside that coffin for the race?” Freddie asked. His normally olive-colored skin seemed pale at the moment.
