Heaven Help Me...part 4

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Heaven Help Me

By
Robin Renee Ray

          From the kitchen entrance Lynn could see the basement door slightly cracked. She turned back to wake Timothy but saw him sleeping soundly and changed her mind. She slowly made her way down the hall, sweeping the beam of light from the flashlight across the floor, looking for anything that might be crawling. As her hand extended toward the knob on the basement door it slammed closed and she screamed, dropped the flashlight and turned only to run right into Timothy. She screamed again and threw herself into his arms.

          “Someone’s in the basement!” she yelled through gasping sobs.

          “Don’t be silly…”

          “They slammed the door in my face, Timmy. I wanna go home. I don’t wanna stay here anymore.”

          “This is our home now, sweetie. We don’t have anywhere else to go. Look, you calm down,” he spoke as he walked her back to the kitchen and sat her down in one of the chairs. “I’ll go down and check it out. It was more than likely the wind.”

          “No! Don’t go down there. Not tonight, please.”

          Timothy couldn’t stand to see the fear on his wife’s face. He knew something had scared her and he wanted to find out what it was but didn’t want to put any more stress on her than she already had. “Okay babe, I’ll go down first thing in the morning. I have to set those bug bombs off anyway, and then you and I can go into town and pick up some groceries.”

          “And a gun. I think we need to buy that gun now.”

          “After all this time, you’re actually gonna let me get a gun?”

          “Yes, you can get two if you want too,” she snickered as she sniffled. “That really scared me, almost as bad as those things in the sink.”

          When they woke Timothy checked the basement, finding nothing but cobwebs and old furnishing. He set the bug bombs off and then they drove the several miles to the closest town to get the things they needed, plus one small hand gun to ease Lynn’s fears. They also stopped by the new OB/GYN office that they had called before they made the move and made a doctor appointment.

          “I’m so glad I don’t have to go in for another month. I just hate all that pocking and probing,” Lynn said as they got back into the car, causing Timothy to crack up.

          “I think it will be safe to go down into the basement when we get back, it’s already been four hours. I want you to see some of that furniture down there, it’s really cool.”

          “After you make sure all the bugs are dead, of course.”

          “Of course.”

~ῲ~

          Four months had passed and Timothy and Lynn had made the old farm house a real home again. They had used all of their own furniture and a few pieces that they had found down in the basement. Timothy had recently brought up an old chest and set it up in the living room as an end table by his easy chair, thinking it looked good with the rest of the antique things they had added to the rustic room.

          One morning when Timothy was out cleaning the barn getting it ready to fill with hay, Lynn was dusting the living room and decided she would work on the latch and see what was in the old chest. She first tried with a butter knife, getting absolutely nowhere. Then she found a screwdriver in her husband’s tools on the front porch. She slid the chest around and sat down on the floor in front of it. She jammed the screwdriver into the small hole and the latch popped open.

          After opening the chest, Lynn put her hand on her swollen abdomen. The chest was full of baby clothes, some lay folded alone and others were folded in bundles. She took out a few of the single items, smiling at the thought of the women that had to have made them. Then she took out one of the bundles. She unwrapped it and frowned at what she found. There was a stained shirt, but it didn’t belong to an infant, it looked like it would fit a small man or a large teen. Under it were several infant size pieces of clothing. “That is so weird,” she spoke softly to herself. Then she took out another bundle finding pretty much the same thing.

          Closer to the bottom of the chest, Lynn found two leather bound books. One was filled with family photos, the other had page after page of letters, each open and pressed to the pages of the book. She began to read. ‘I knew the land was cursed when the blood coated the moon, but I knew for a fact it was true when it took my first born from me. Emma McCormick 1889’. Lynn looked down at all of the bundles of baby clothes and her mind went wild. She flipped through the pages in the book finding another entry. ‘Allen has been taken by the land. He will stay until all my children have been taken from me, I have to get them away from here before they all die to the curse of the blood on the moon. Lucky was his first wife who died in childbirth. Oh God, please heaven help me. Emma McCormick 1893’.

          “Timmy!” Lynn yelled as she picked herself up and ran out the door. “Timmy where are you?”

          “In the barn sweetie, what’s wrong, see another bug?” he laughed coming out of the barn cleaning his hand on a cloth.

          “They died, they all died here…here on this farm.”

To Be Continued…