Chapter 1 of my current project. The ghost of Jack the Ripper is loose in a small community in Northwestern Ohio. Two twins, Bobby and Abigail Crowe, must find a way to destroy him before he murders an entire town.

Chapter 1

Through bleary, dark-brown eyes, eyes that held just slightly more than a hint of boredom within them, Bobby Crowe sat and watched as the white snow fell outside of living-room-window. He was amazed at how the white clumps of moisture continued to pile upon the already whitened fields outside. He found it captivating, it reminded him of when he was younger and would play with his grandmother’s snow-globes, only to be disappointed when the flakes settled to the ground and none took their place. Though Bobby was more than appreciative of the three-day break from the current school-week, he had already grown weary of every item in his house that usually kept him busy during storms such as these that separated Burgoon, Ohio from the rest of the small cities that comprised the Northwestern area of Ohio. His X-box-360 was collecting dust on the top shelf of his upstairs bedroom, and, as far as Bobby was concerned, it could rot there. Rot right along with every other novelty item or teenage-must have-fad that he had owned and long since abandoned. How was she always beating him? He was fifteen! It was an embarrassment for a boy of his age to be beaten at a video game by a girl, especially when that girl was your own twin sister. Losing at a fighting game was bad enough; at least Bobby could claim that it was just a "button-mashing" game; nothing more than blind luck, but Abby had even beaten him at football! Not once or twice; not by a field goal or a touchdown, but she downright owned his ass! Was there no God?

"Want to play Madden?" Abigail Crowe asked from behind him with a giggle.

Bobby turned and looked at the blonde-haired, female version of himself, a sarcastic frown firmly planted across his face, and a tone to match it. "I don’t think so." He said simply.

"Don’t want to lose to the lowly Browns again?" Abigail hissed in her ever-so-annoying-tone . . . It was so goddamn annoying, enough to make even the most devout of Priests swear aloud.

"The controller is busted." Bobby answered, his quick wits cutting Abigail’s insurgence to the bone, but she was not to be denied. "Come on, I’m bored." Abigail insisted with a huff and a gentle rolling of her hazel eyes.

Like I’m not, Bobby thought to himself. Maybe if you didn’t kick my ass so much, I’d play!

Bobby could handle losing, to an extent, but on those rare occasions that he would actually be winning, Abigail would think up some lame-ass excuse to stop playing. The best of those being that a bird had flown into the window, and she needed to go tend to it. Right. Whatever.

"Are you two going to sit by the window all day?" Patricia Crowe called out in her soft, yet somehow always sarcastic voice, not quite as bad as Abigail’s, but it would still be clear to an onlooker where Abigail got hers. "Because, if you are, why don’t you try washing it?" Patricia finished.

Shit, chores! Bobby recognized chores for what they were. They were unholy festivals of pure evil, created by overworked, underpaid, and overtaxed middle-class citizens as a way of "breaking in the younger folks" to the bullshit world that was waiting just a few years ahead of them.

"We’ll find something to do, Mom." Bobby said as he finally wrenched his staring eyes from the snowy scene outside, turning around to face his sister.

"Any ideas, Abby?"

Bobby knew the answer as soon as he saw that look of mischief in his sister’s eyes. That look meant trouble, and he was usually the one who took the brunt of it. "Oh no," Bobby whispered.

Abbey stared back at her brother with a bright, happy smile, one that seemed to beckon him to take that first-step toward reckless, teenage abandon. "What are you hatching?" Bobby asked as he stared at his sister.

"Come upstairs," Abigail whispered into his ear. "I got something cool the other day from Annie Michaels at school."

Bobby rolled his eyes, he had been down this road many times, and it usually ended in disaster. His disaster. Conversations similar to this usually resulted in his being grounded, television privileges revoked, or any other thing that could cause him grief.

"If it explodes, catches fire in any way, or is sharp enough to remove a digit, I want no part of it." Bobby said, making sure that she knew he was not in the mood to take the fall again if something went awry.

"God, you are such a . . . just come on!" Abigail whispered with another huff. Begrudgingly, Bobby followed the little witch better known as his sister up the flight of redwood stairs in front of them. He slipped slightly as they traversed them and came out onto the landing at the top, just as he always did when he forgot to either put on his shoes or take off his socks. Those damned, slippery stairs were always getting the better of the fifteen-year-old, athletic Bobby Crowe, and it pissed him off to the highest extremes. He didn’t understand how he could dodge linebackers and defensive backs on the football field, but yet a simple staircase seemed to be his Achilles heel.

The tricky, redwood steps at Bobby’s feet gave way to a dark-brown rug that stretched the length of the twenty-foot hallway, indicating the beginning of the upstairs section of the house as his anger at nearly falling dissipated. Intricate designs were weaved in yellow, twisting patters across the rug, but Bobby had no idea what any of them was supposed to mean. It looked Indian, or maybe Aramaic. Hell, he didn’t know, and didn’t really care all that much either.

Abigail, now a full length ahead of her absent-minded, easily distracted brother, pulled open the door to her room, revealing a fifteen-year-old boy’s nightmare: A room colored in pink. Pink walls, a pink bedspread, even a pink night-stand stared back at Bobby from the other side of the open door. The sight of it was nearly enough to choke him. It was God awful. How the hell could Abby stand sleeping in here, or anyone else for that matter?

Bobby’s brow furrowed as Abigail motioned for him to follow her inside. "This had better be good," he warned her as he complied with her request, "It looks like Barney the Dinosaur threw up in here."

"Shut up." Abigail said as she knelt down beside her pillow-ridden bed and tossed the pink cover up that reached to the floor.

"Close the door, you idiot," Abigail ordered as she tugged on something beneath her bed. Unable to come up with a quick, sarcastic remark of his own, Bobby did as told and kept quiet, taking a seat on her bed when the door was securely shut.

"Viola!" Abigail said as she pulled out a long, white box.

Bobby recognized it instantly.

"A Ouija board?" He shouted, almost too loudly.

Abigail smacked him across his knee and raised her finger to her lips. "Shut up, moron! Mom and Dad would kill us if they knew we had this up here!"

As fantastically evil as his sister’s tone was, Bobby knew it was equally correct in its assumption. They would indeed kill them if they found them playing with that thing. Baptists and the occult did not mix well.

"This is so gay," Bobby moaned as Abigail pulled the board from its box and set it on the bed next to him.

"No, it’s not," Abigail corrected as she placed the simple, plastic pointer on top of the board. "It works."

"Whatever." Bobby said as he rolled his eyes again.

"Stop being a baby."

"I’m not being a baby, this is stupid!"

"Yes, you are," Abigail assured. "You’re just scared of it!"

Scared? Did she really just say he was scared? That was it, the gloves were off now.

"Why would I be scared of a stupid little board that doesn’t even work?"

"I told you, it does work!"

Abigail quieted herself as she realized the growing tension and volume in her voice. She took a deep breath and continued, quieter this time.

"Jenny Johnson got sick from playing with this thing."

"Jenny Johnson has mononucleosis! The kissing disease! What are you saying she did? Tongue-kissed the Ouija board?"

Another slap followed, this one hard enough to cause him to jump a little. "Ouch, dammit. That hurt!"

"Well shut up then and put this on your knees!"

There was no use arguing with Abigail, Bobby realized. He never won. He couldn’t think of anyone that ever had, actually. Better to be the right hand of the devil than to stand in his way, he thought as he took the board and placed it on his knees, as per the Wicked-witches instructions. Abigail pulled up a chair, one that, surprisingly enough, was not coated with a pink cover or anything of the like. It was just an ordinary, brown, chair. Thank God for small miracles. Bobby thought to himself before adding, "All right. Now what?"

Abigail looked at him, an intense fury filling her slender, pretty face. "Stop being so fucking babyish about this," she demanded.

Bobby looked back at his sister with surprise. "What?" He asked, genuinely not fully understanding her anger this time. What was so wrong with what he had said?

Abigail shook her head, ignoring her brother and concentrating on the board as she yanked it from him. The moron had the whole thing on his lap, how was she supposed to hold on to half of it when he hogged the whole thing? She hastily realigned the position of the board so that each of them had an equal space to hold onto. With an irritated huff, she placed her hands on the pointer. "Put your hands on it." She ordered.

Bobby shifted his ass on his sister’s bed as a vision of doubt ran through his mind. Something about this whole scenario was starting to strike him as creepy.

"Abby, I don’t think this is such a good idea."

"Just do it." Abigail pleaded, trying an approach that she discovered seldom failed when it came to men, even if it was your brother. "I want to see what this is all about."

Bobby caved into the pressure his sister had so innocently applied. With a noticeable swallow, he let his boney fingers come to rest on the small piece of plastic, lining them up with Abigail’s, and the show began.

"Are there any spirits who wish to contact us?" Abby asked.

Bobby braced himself for some furious wind to come whipping through the room, just like he had seen on television a million times before, but it didn’t happen. In fact, nothing happened.

"This is sooo gay," Bobby whispered as he rolled his eyes and leaned his head back, but Abby shot him a look that silenced him instantly. Better keep the rest of his thoughts to himself, he deducted from her sharp frown.

"I said . . . Are there any spirits who wish to contact us?" Abigail reiterated, slower this time, careful to enunciate each syllable more concisely, unsure if that really mattered at all anyway.

The two children looked down at the pointer and watched in awe as it moved. It did not move far, nothing more than a slight nudge, but it had moved.

The two looked at each other, each one thinking that maybe it was the other who had moved it, but, as they eyed each other, the pointer moved again. Abigail smiled as the pointer began to spin slow circles around the board. She looked up at her brother whom, she could tell by his expression, was equally impressed. Looking back down, she spoke again.

"Is someone there?"

The pointer continued its slow, circular motion, gradually making its way up toward a picture of the sun at the top right corner. It stopped its movement there, coming to rest on the word "Yes," and paused for a moment before the slow cycle of movement began anew.

Abigail looked up at her brother with a shrewd face, one that screamed: I told you so. Bobby didn’t care, he was too involved in what was transpiring to respond to her. "What’s your name?" He asked.

The rhythmic circles increased in speed, pausing on the letters J, A, and K as it swirled around the board. "Do you mean Jack?" Bobby asked.

Again, the pointer went up to the word "Yes" and again stopped. Bobby took a deep breath and glanced up at his sister. What was written across her face was a look of pure awe, like someone who was remembering their best Christmas. He looked back down at the board. Abby seemed too involved in the mystery of the transpiring events to ask her own questions so he continued his own.

"Where are you from?"

The pointer spelled out the word C-H-A-P-A-L. Then paused briefly before following it up with the word W-H-I-T-E.

Chapal White? Where was that? Bobby wondered. He also wondered if the spirit understood his question so he repeated it. The same spelling resulted.

Bobby looked back up at his Abigail, wondering if she knew what in the hell the ghost was trying to spell, but she only looked back at him blankly.

Ignoring Abigail, Bobby refocused his concentration on the slowly moving piece of plastic beneath his fingers. "What did you do before you died?" He asked.

The pointer whizzed around the board at a frantic pace as soon as Bobby’s word were uttered. It began forming sideways figure-eights, each one a little larger than the one that preceded it, the speed of which was so fast, the movements so precise, that both of the siblings now knew for certain that neither of them was doing it.

Abigail looked up at her brother. She was frightened, but she couldn’t allow that to show, he would throw it in her face for the rest of her life. Looking back down, Abigail prodded the spirit further as snottily as she could.

"He asked what you did while you were alive."

Bobby looked back up at his sister in shock. Is she getting lippy with a ghost? He shook his head and grinned as she winked back at him.

The pointer continued its frantic figure-eights, but this time it stopped four times, spelling out the letters, K-I-L-L.

Something below him brushed against Bobby’s leg and he jumped, sending the board, the pointer, and Abigail all flying in three different directions as he screamed and yanked his legs up onto her bed.

Abigail picked herself up off the floor and laughed as she was the first to see what had frightened her brother so bad. It was Gossamer. Her gray, Persian cat that was usually to be found underneath her bed, as was the case here.

"You are so retarded." Abby giggled as Bobby peered down onto the floor and realized what had caused him too nearly shit stones. His face reddening with embarrassment, Bobby responded the only way he knew how. Defiance.

"Well!" Bobby shouted. "What the hell would you have done? That guy in the board there just said he used to kill people, and then that stupid cat rubs up against me . . . I almost shit in my jeans!"

Abigail laughed again. It was a hard, long, infuriating laugh that made Bobby want to curl up in a little ball and disappear, right after posting the contents of her diary on the internet, of course.

"Oh my God," Abigail teased. "He didn’t say he killed people, He only said kills. Who knows, maybe he was a butcher or something."

Driven to new heights of fear, and anger as well from his sister’s teasing, Bobby mumbled one of his typical, incoherent sentences when faced with such humiliation.

"I told you this stupid gay thing was gay!" It was a worse sentence than he intended, he knew, and Abigail laughed at him even harder, infuriating him more, but he sat there and took it.

When Abigail’s fit of rib-wrenching laughter finally ended, and Bobby’s cheeks returned from red to the pale whiteness that they usually held, Abigail picked up the board and pointer.

"Don’t even think about it," Bobby said when he realized his sister’s intentions, "I’m not touching that thing ever again!"

"Come on, you have to admit, it was fun."

Bobby shook his head. What Abigail found fun, most people would consider criminally insane. But as much as it pained him to admit it, Abigail was right, it had been fun. Until the point of Gossamer’s sudden appearance, that is.

"All right, one more time, then we stop before dad gets home." Abby shook her head as her brother resumed his position on the bed. Twenty seconds later and their fingers were on the pointer, ready to roll, but neither of them said anything and the board remained silent. Abby looked to Bobby and Bobby stared back, both of them realizing that they were both scared, no matter how hard they tried to hide it from each other. Finally, Abigail spoke.

"Fine, I’ll do it," she sighed as she looked away from her brother. "Jack," she asked the board. "Are you there?"

Yes.

The pointer moved quickly, almost as if the spirit that was trapped inside had been anxiously awaiting their return. Before Abigail or Bobby could ask another question, the pointer began its figure-eight pattern again, moving even faster than it had before.

J-A-K-I-S-B-A-K . . . J-A-K-I-S-B-A-K . . . The pointer spelled repeatedly.

"Jack is back?" Abigail whispered. A deep feeling of terror caused her to shiver. She looked at Bobby whose mouth hung open, equally frightened. As she looked back down at the board, the pointer flew off the side of it and slammed into the wall, shattering into tiny shards of plastic. The two of them jumped and gasped simultaneously and stared at one another in stunned silence.

"Now that was cool," Bobby said as the terror began to fade away. Abigail looked back at him but, for perhaps the first time in her life, she could not think of anything to say. She tried to remember anything that had ever found to be this creepy but could not.

"Scared?" Bobby asked sarcastically.

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Hah, shoe doesn’t fit well on the other foot, does it?"

Ignoring Bobby’s sarcasm, Abigail picked up the board, set it inside the box, then began picking up the pieces of broken plastic. She was returning this thing to Annie Michaels as soon as the weather broke.