Chapter 95 - 96: New Home

Chapter 95: Chapter 96: New Home

Chapter 96: New Home

After buying the house they wanted, the next problem was transportation. Seth’s old utility truck had finally died after surviving far more abuse than any normal vehicle should have endured, and Miami certainly was not a city where Axel wanted to depend on taxis every time the group needed to move equipment. Fortunately, used-car lots were everywhere.

After nearly half an hour of bargaining and $800, Axel Vance became the proud owner of a battered old box truck that looked like it belonged in a crime museum. The body was covered with dents, scratches, and layers of faded graffiti that hinted at a long and questionable working life. Judging from its condition, the truck was probably older than half the people standing around it.

The dealer swore the engine was tougher than his own heart and claimed the vehicle had plenty of life left in it. He even promised that if it died within a month, he "knew a guy" who could probably find Axel something equally terrible. Lionel Cosgrove looked at the truck and said, "I’m pretty sure this thing could have a heart attack before we leave the lot."

Dr. Seth Brundle circled the vehicle several times, knocking on the body panels and peering beneath the hood with growing interest. After a few minutes, he gave a surprisingly confident nod. "Frame’s usable, engine’s basically sound, and everything else is cosmetic enough that I don’t care."

Axel looked toward the dealer.

"Deal."

He handed over the money and took the keys.

The group returned to Axel’s apartment and began packing immediately. They did not own enough to make the move difficult: Axel had his enchanted chainsaw, several supplies of Holy Water, books, clothes, and supernatural equipment, while Lionel had his backpack and Spirit Binding-related belongings. Seth carried notebooks, research papers, and whatever scientific material he had managed to keep with him, while Carrie’s possessions fit into only a few small bags.

Seth did not even consider returning to his own place. The memory of Dr. Evans looking at him like a dead man who had somehow walked back through the door remained too vivid. Until they knew whether Evans was actually involved with the organization, Seth had no interest in giving anyone an easy opportunity to arrange another "accident."

They loaded everything into the old box truck and secured what little cargo they had. Axel climbed into the driver’s seat, inserted the key, and turned it. The engine responded with several violent coughs, shook the entire vehicle, expelled a cloud of dark exhaust, and finally stumbled into a rough idle.

Lionel stared at the dashboard. "Are we actually sure this thing isn’t going to explode with us inside it?" Seth climbed into the passenger area and replied, "You worry too much."

Then Seth grinned. "I was reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics not long ago, so now I have a completely irresponsible urge to modify a vehicle." He patted the dashboard affectionately. "Give me some time and this truck will become interesting."

"That sentence worries me more than the engine," Lionel muttered.

Axel ignored both of them and pulled onto the road.

The old box truck rattled through Miami before gradually leaving the crowded streets behind. Buildings thinned out, traffic faded, and the scenery slowly changed into long stretches of trees and rural land. The farther they drove, the quieter everything became.

Eventually Axel followed the map onto a narrow dirt road nearly swallowed by weeds. Branches scraped against the sides of the truck while the suspension complained loudly beneath every rut. Lionel stuck his head toward the window and looked around at the surrounding forest.

"This is definitely remote enough," he said. "If we all die out here, somebody might discover us during the next century."

"Comforting," Carrie murmured.

After another ten or fifteen minutes of rough driving, the forest opened into a wide clearing. A large solitary house stood in the middle of it, looming above the surrounding weeds like something that had been abandoned after the final scene of a horror movie. Axel slowed the truck and stared at their new property.

The house was a two-story Victorian-style mansion with a tall attic and a broad front entrance. Paint had peeled away from most of the exterior walls, thick ivy climbed across sections of the structure, and several windows were cracked or completely broken. Weeds had grown so high across parts of the yard that they nearly concealed the lower walls.

The box truck rolled to a stop in front of the mansion.

Lionel jumped out first.

He spread both arms and stared upward with a complicated expression. "This place is several times bigger than my mother’s house. I think the living room alone might be big enough to play tennis."

Seth climbed down next and immediately ignored the main house. His attention locked onto the entrance leading toward the basement. "That basement is huge."

He stepped closer, already thinking several moves ahead.

"More than enough room for a workshop."

Carrie remained beside the truck.

She did not move.

Her face slowly lost color as she stared at the property.

The house itself frightened her less than the disorder surrounding it. Waist-high weeds, broken glass, peeling paint, tangled ivy, collapsed pieces of fencing, and decades of neglect filled every direction she looked. After eighteen years under Margaret White’s suffocating obsession with control and order, the chaos pressed against Carrie’s nerves until her breathing became shallow.

For one dangerous moment, she wanted to make everything disappear.

The weeds.

The broken windows.

The damaged walls.

All of it.

A faint sheen of sweat appeared along her temple.

Deep inside the mansion, something noticed.

A cold, almost invisible presence stirred beneath the silence. It moved through the house without footsteps or shape, sensing the arrival of warm living bodies after years of emptiness.

The presence tested the newcomers carefully.

Axel felt dangerous.

Lionel felt wrong in a different way.

Seth carried something strange.

Then it found Carrie.

Her fear made her look vulnerable.

The hidden force extended the faintest thread of influence toward her mind.

It touched her.

And recoiled.

Whatever existed inside the house expected a frightened teenage girl.

Instead, it encountered an ocean.

In that nonphysical space, Carrie’s power seemed vast and turbulent, with enormous currents moving beneath the surface and violent waves rising under emotional pressure. The probing presence realized instantly that what it had touched was not prey.

It fled.

The cold influence vanished deep into the mansion so quickly that it left behind only the faintest disturbance.

Axel had just reached for the front-door key when he paused.

"Hm?"

A weak supernatural fluctuation brushed across his senses, brief enough to resemble static moving through the air. He turned and looked toward Carrie, but her breathing had already started settling and nothing around her appeared obviously wrong.

Axel looked back toward the mansion.

Considering an entire family had died there, a little residual paranormal activity would hardly be surprising.

He unlocked the broad front door.

"Let’s see what sixty thousand dollars bought us."

The door opened with a long wooden groan.

A heavy musty smell rolled outward immediately.

The entrance hall was coated in thick dust, while most of the surviving furniture remained hidden beneath old white sheets. Sunlight filtered through dirty windows but somehow failed to make the interior feel much brighter.

Lionel stepped inside and looked around. "Yeah. Definitely haunted."

"Probably," Axel replied.

Seth walked straight past them toward the basement.

"Even better."

Moving in took almost no time because they had so little property. Lionel carried his backpack upstairs and claimed the smallest bedroom he could find, explaining that large rooms made him uncomfortable after everything he had experienced. Seth did not even bother choosing a bedroom and disappeared downstairs with a flashlight, already measuring the basement with his eyes.

Axel led Carrie to the second floor and opened a south-facing room. It was dusty, several pieces of old furniture remained inside, and spiderwebs stretched across the corners, but the windows allowed more sunlight in than most of the house. "Take this one. It gets the best light."

Carrie looked slowly around the room.

Her lips tightened.

Then she nodded hard.

Once everyone had claimed space, cleaning became the obvious next job. Lionel brought rags, buckets, and basic supplies in from the truck, while Seth immediately vanished deeper into the basement the moment he heard the word "cleaning." Occasional banging noises from below at least confirmed he was still alive.

Axel looked toward Carrie.

She was already staring at the dust.

Then he remembered the barrier she had created during the explosion.

"Carrie."

She turned toward him.

"Remember the truck?"

Carrie nodded.

"You stopped an explosion with your power," Axel said. "That means strength isn’t your problem."

He gestured toward the room around them.

"Control is."

Carrie lowered her eyes slightly.

Axel continued, "Your telekinesis is part of you. Treat it like another arm instead of something living inside you that you’re supposed to be afraid of."

He pointed toward an old sofa covered by a white sheet near the wall. Dust had gathered across the cloth thick enough to leave visible gray patches. "Don’t think about cleaning the whole house. That’s too much."

Carrie looked at the sofa.

Axel said, "Just focus on that."

He took several steps back to give her room.

"You hate the dust, right?"

Carrie nodded.

"Good. Don’t touch it."

Her eyes remained fixed on the sofa.

"Use that feeling."

Axel kept his voice calm.

"Tell it to move."

Carrie slowly closed her eyes.

She concentrated on the sofa and imagined the dust coating its surface. The familiar discomfort caused by disorder rose inside her, but this time she tried not to let the emotion spread everywhere.

She focused it.

Narrowed it.

Pushed.

The room became very still.

Then one of the sofa cushions suddenly launched into the air.

Carrie’s eyes flew open.

The cushion crossed the room in a blur and slammed into the opposite wall with a heavy bang, leaving behind a perfect dusty imprint.

Axel stared at the mark.

Carrie stared at the cushion.

Clearly, fine control was going to take some work.

[Community Goals Ongoing]

500 PS = +1 Extra Chapter

10 Reviews = +1 Extra Chapter

Reviews are always appreciated.

P1treon Soulforger (20+advance Chapters)