The Haunted House Kid

By Matthew Gary Milam

Alex Connellys parents are getting a divorce. To make matters worse, they have refused to let him use their garage this year for the haunted house he has put on since he was very young. Fortunately for Alex, he has been temporarily allowed to live with his adoring maternal grandmother, inadvertently gaining himself a new venue for his spooky hobbyhis Grandma Ruths near-empty garage.
When Alexs mom starts acting all kinds of weird, and Grandma Ruth is away from home all the time (because shes managed to pass her drivers license test, after several years without a license) --and he starts to notice strange things going on during the construction of his latest and greatest spook alley--stranger than normal, that ishe considers scrapping the project entirely.
Yet...something is driving Alex to finish his haunted houseat all costs! All he knows is that he has to get it finished by opening nightjust before Halloween!
Meanwhile, Alex--left with a lot of free time to work alone and undisturbed in his grandmothers garage--is worried about his little sister, Maggie, being alone with his mom--who has begun acting very strangely and is gone from home most of the time. And his heart is breaking for his Dad, who is sad and living across town in a lonely apartment. But unbeknownst to Alex and the rest of the family, Grandma Ruth is trying desperately to find a way to keep her daughter, Allison, from embracing the family roots into witchcrafta tradition Grandma Ruth, herself, has spent a lifetime trying to deny, and from which she has always tried to protect her daughter.
Long lost relatives come out of the woodworks. Mythical monsters are being summoned from distant quarters of the earth. Everyone is worried about Alex, too, because of the strange way his mother is acting toward hima well as for the strange way Alex, himself, is acting.
But at least new friends offer comfort along the way.
Alex just hopes that somehow his haunted house is going to save his family!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469188225

Book preview

The Haunted

House Kid

A novel

Matthew Gary Milam

Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Gary Milam.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2012905328

ISBN:        Hardcover              978-1-4691-8821-8

                  Softcover               978-1-4691-8820-1

                  Ebook                    978-1-4691-8822-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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113725

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 1

Since about the middle of August, Alex had been working on the spook alley he put on every year in his garage. To the rapidly shrinking number of patrons who visited during the last two weeks of October each year, his spook alley was fun, but nothing spectacular. Yet, every year Alex poured his heart and soul into the spooky little project. This year he wanted to dazzle his visitors like never before. In Alex’s mind, everyone was always blown away by his spook alleys; this next year would simply serve to top all the glorious previous years of operation. Alex was good at electronics and computers. He prided himself on his technical brilliance. Alex believed this was the reason his spook alleys, in his mind, were so successful. In reality, he was not all that creative or artistic, but he was a skilled craftsman, and that ability usually showed positively in his Halloween garage productions.

For a number of years, when Alex was quite young, his local church let him put on spook alleys in their basement. People were always duly impressed. But by the time Alex was in high school, and had greater skills in all areas required of haunted houses, his local parish had come to frown on what they viewed as the satanic aspects of Halloween, haunted houses and spook alleys . . . and pulled the plug on the one thing Alex lived for all year long.

When Alex was in tenth grade his parents got separated and began the process of getting divorced. He was so mad at the both of them that he asked his maternal grandmother if he might not move in with her. His grandmother, Ruth, was also very mad at her daughter and son-in-law (mostly her daughter), so she agreed. At first Alex’s mom and dad had refused. And at first Alex had not really been in a mood to fight about it. So he only reluctantly let the idea go as his parents held on tightly to their final decision about the matter.

At the time, it was mid-summer and Alex was dreading the idea of not ending the summer with his tradition of starting plans on his spook alley. Attempts at consoling himself by gaining permission to decorate the house for Halloween (using just a portion of his giant collection of props and decorations, monsters and lighting), had failed. Both his mom and dad claimed that they were just not in the mood for Halloween this year. Nor did they wish to advertise to the neighbors that they were in any way celebrating their divorce with any sort of fanfare. Secretly, his dad was ashamed about getting divorced—at least that’s the impression Alex got from his dad—so he wanted to keep a low profile with family, friends and neighbors. In truth, Alex didn’t think his mom cared whether or not he put the decorations up, but she seemed too preoccupied—and seemingly content with the direction things were going—to care. Alex didn’t understand why his parents wanted to make things unhappy for everyone. He wanted to scream at the both of them every time he thought about it. The best he could do, he eventually realized, was to just try to be happy and hold onto his relationship with both of his parents, even if he soon would have to do it separately.

Being angry at his parents, Alex decided that he, himself—the loyal, responsible one—would now be in charge of his little sister’s welfare. He wasn’t sure whether he would be with her all the time, but he was sure going to keep watch over her—no matter with whom she ended up living. His mom and dad might think that they would be the ones who were looking out for her; Alex would always know (even if unrecognized by his sister) that he would be her protector. Deep down he knew his resentment was for his mother. She was the one who had asked for the divorce. He knew his dad was distraught over it. He knew that once his dad got over the shock of things he would be looking out for him and Maggie. But for now, Alex knew he was the one that had to be responsible for his sister. He knew, as well, that his Grandma Ruth would be looking out for the both of them. He knew his maternal grandmother loved them both, but Alex was not ready to recognize this because she was the mother of his mother, the one who was ruining their family. He knew, however, that he would get over this feeling—even if he never got over anything else to do with the divorce.

One night while visiting his grandmother with his mom and little sister, an argument broke out between his mother and grandmother. His Grandma Ruth was not very pleased with her daughter regarding the impending divorce. During the course of dinner, the argument got quite heated. Both Alex’s mother and grandmother appeared to be quite relieved when Alex suggested Maggie, his little sister, go into the living room to watch cartoons.

Not wanting to hear them argue either, Alex went out through the kitchen door to his grandma’s garage. He was miserable this summer. He had had it. He just wanted some peace and quiet—if nothing else.

In the garage, Alex sat at the top of the three steps that came down from the kitchen to the garage. The garage doors were closed and the lights were off, but late afternoon light flooded through the large window in the outer side wall of the garage. In the sunlight, dust motes performed a late summer’s dance in the air of the large, spacious room that housed his grandma’s one small vehicle—a light blue 1963 Dodge Dart. The perfectly preserved automobile had been given to her by her father, who had taken loving care of it for years. The old car still ran great, but his grandma hadn’t had a license for two years, now. There was little else in the garage other than a few tools for the yard, an artificial silver-needled Christmas tree, and some cases of pop that his grandma loved to offer all her guests—Fresca and Pepsi, mostly.

Alex was feeling better—or at least calmer and less depressed. He continued to watch the dust motes dance in the amber light that streamed through the center of the garage. Suddenly he got an idea.

Chapter 2

Allison . . . just let the boy stay with me for awhile. If it makes him happy, why would you object? I’m not going to steal your boy away from you, you know, said his grandmother in a loud, but not rude voice.

Alex, is that what you really want? his mom suddenly acquiesced, sounding very calm and resigned. Fine . . . whatever, she interjected, coldly, before Alex could answer

Just for awhile, Alex answered excitedly. His mom’s sudden coldness was unexpected. But he was too excited about her answer to worry about it. He decided he would not tell his mom of his new plans to relocate his spook alley (when he told his grandma about his plan, he swore her to secrecy). He was worried that his mom would have objected to his new plans because she was still a little mad at his grandmother for offering to take him for a while.

Despite his mother’s apparent willingness to get a divorce—something that was very frowned upon by their church—she still seemed adamant about mirroring their church’s convictions in the area of Halloween and Satan. She continued to be unwilling to let Alex use their garage for what she now referred to as his dreadful haunted houses. If she were to find out about his defiance of her wishes and his plans to continue in his new location, she would make him move right back home. Grandma Ruth seemed to understand this and assured him that her daughter would never find out.

In truth, his dad had not objected to Halloween-as-usual because of their church’s new viewpoint on the matter. For some reason he seemed to feel the need to go along with his Alex’s mother in this situation. Neither did his mother’s attitude about this seem to stem entirely from her allegiance to her church parish. In fact, she had always liked Halloween—a lot! She always had dressed up every year. She encouraged Alex with his preoccupations with Halloween, horror movies, and haunted houses. In fact, their parish minister had merely suggested, that one fateful Sunday, that we might want to be a little less embracing of the more Satanic aspects of the holiday. But his Mom seemed to take the idea and run with it, as if it were her own realization.

Allison did not necessarily embrace all the tenants of their religion. She, as of late, had been going out with her friends instead of attending activities at the church, such as pot luck dinners, leaving Roger and the kids to attend without her.

No. This sudden disdain for Halloween was strange . . . and Alex wasn’t buying it at face value—especially in light of her apparent abandoning of her family. Alex figured that was far worse than putting up with a few monsters in the garage.

Another thing that baffled Alex about his mother’s recent strange behavior was that she seemed to be so easily able to give up on what she used to like very much. Not as much as Alex, but she had always liked to go to scary movies with him. Even when no one else would go with him, she would always go.

And now this.

She seemed almost too content to give up on her relatively enthusiastic passion of the macabre.

Alex had appealed to his dad about the cancelation of the spook alley. He could tell that his dad, under normal circumstances, would have overridden his Mom’s decision. But his dad was just too preoccupied and devastated over the impending divorce. Alex didn’t have the heart to make his dad stand up to his mother when he knew his dad’s heart would not be in it. In retrospect, Alex knew he had given up too quickly.

Alex was sad about his parent’s divorce. He was still very angry about it too. For these reasons he justified drowning his sorrows in the miraculous revival of his spook alley at its new—and he felt, improved—location. He resolved not to feel the least bit guilty about being happy and forgetting his troubles for a time. The only thing that he would allow to interfere with this happiness was his concern over his sister, Maggie, and the fact that he could not keep close watch on her now that he was living across town.

There was another reason why the spook alley was important to Alex. He was not happy about going back to school this year. He had no friends, and now starting high school was something he dreaded. He needed his thoughts to be occupied by ideas and plans for his spook alley; the daydreams would get him by from homeroom to last period each day.

Ruth liked to dote on her two grandchildren. Alex had moved in quickly one day with the help of his dad, grandma and sister (while his mom was off somewhere with one of her friends), and was quite comfortable right away in his new surroundings. One day, in the early afternoon on the first Friday of the first week of tenth grade, when the late summer sun glistened and sparkled on all reflective surfaces and made the green blades of grass of the late summer lawns of Grandma Ruth’s neighborhood glow, Alex got off at his bus stop in time to see his grandma back her pale-blue Dodge Dart out of the garage. Alex was delighted to see her driving it again, but a little worried about where she was going—and without a license!

As she reached the end of the driveway, she stopped and put the car into park.

Grandma, you can’t drive without a license! Alex exclaimed, but with a respectful tone. The sun to the west was bright and warm. The tree in front of his grandma’s house seemed a little more yellow than green, just then. Alex noticed this with a twinge of excitement as the turning of the leaves signaled the coming of his favorite time of year.

Don’t worry, honey, I got my license back! I just went into the DMV and I passed the eye chart, the written test—and the driving test went as smooth as silk! Alex’s grandma exclaimed, with a sparkle in her eyes that she had lacked for months now. As Alex stood at her car window, Grandma Ruth tenderly put her hand on his forearm. Don’t worry, sweetheart, I may have just barely squeaked by on my driver’s test, but at least now I can drive you places when you need me to."

Alex thought about how much he loved his grandma. She had stayed married to his grandfather, Allison’s father, until the day he died. Alex was now forced to wonder why his mom was so quick to accept that divorce was the answer to her problems. Alex lamented this fact and at the same time was very confused about his mom’s motivations. For some reason this confusion gave him a strange hope that things might end up working out with his parents.

And now is one of those times, Grandma Ruth continued with a song in her voice and that same sparkle in her eyes, I’m taking you to get burgers and fries and chocolate shakes—enough of dear Grandma’s cooking for tonight. Then, I’m taking you to the video store; you are going to get any scary movie you want. Even if it’s one of those horrible, gory blood baths you kids like these days. I’m going to watch it with you, too

Alex loved his grandma.

Alex also loved the rest of his family. He always had. But he also loved the old time movie monsters of the golden age. He supposed his grandmother hadn’t realized this. His mother’s simplistic explanation to her mother that Alex just loves scary things probably had led his grandmother to believe Alex loved all the same pointless gore that most boys his age loved. But his grandmother had a pleasant surprise coming when she would find out that her commitment to watch a scary movie with him did not include William Shatner hockey masks, seven-inch, sharpened mechanical finger nails sported by torched-faced men in striped shirts, nor anything involving a saw.

Instead, Grandma Ruth was delighted to be watching The Creature from the Black Lagoon and I was a Teenage Werewolf.Alex loved the old monsters. Freddy, Michael—all the modern butchers and murderers of teen girls—left Alex cold. As he watched with his grandmother, he wished he could conjure up more than just painted paper mâché likenesses of the old monsters. He wished that the Creature from the Black Lagoon, for one, could come to life and be in his grandmother’s garage on the opening night of his spook alley.

Grandma went to bed after the movie. It was only eight forty-five on the first night of the weekend. Alex decided that he would start some of the real hard work he had to do in the garage in preparation for his Halloween engagement of shows in the second half of October. Thus far, he had only been collecting the props he had purchased from the Halloween specialty stores that opened in late summer, and had been painting and assembling them up in his room back at his parents’ house.

He had also spent countless hours sitting in his grandmother’s garage dreaming and planning. Tonight, Alex decided with delight and butterflies in his stomach, he would actually start building the foundation and structure of his wonderful newly-relocated annual project.

Because the temperatures of early September were still somewhat warm—and because his grandmother was still quite enthused about getting her driver’s license back—Grandma Ruth agreed to park her beloved Dart in the driveway. Alex went out to the garage, taking a bag of barbecued potato chips and a glass of ice (he would be drinking more than just one of Grandma’s sodas in the garage), and opened the large door to the garage.

The night sky was deep blue, showing that summer had not quite given up, even though school was back in session. That night there was a full moon. Alex took a gray metal stool from the workbench that was built along the windowed outer wall of the garage and sat in it right in the center of the garage. He had turned up the air conditioning in the house and left the inner door to the house open to cool off the garage. As he sat on the stool, waiting for this to happen, he thought about how he wanted his future spook alley customers to be wildly entertained by his creations—just like he was when he had gone to his all-time favorite haunted house, out-of-state on a trip to see his dad’s parents in Colorado.

That haunted house was state-of-the-art, Alex had thought. Even the wait in line was spectacular. It included dancers (and he certainly didn’t mind that they were young, pretty girls, by the way) who had interpreted the late Michael Jackson’s musical Halloween phenomenon with gusto and professionalism. Alex knew he