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I spent hours with Buck and then with Carlos, piecing together what happened when Buck rushed Wilma to the hospital due to her injury. Both men agree this is what happened.229Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡorb6KlbYsa
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A dazzling, white blur of the sun rose peacefully over the city, shining its beam through the bedroom window as Wilma sat up and slid her legs over the bedside.
"Buck, wake up!" she cried as she rocked back and forth, holding her hands against her abdomen. "Come on! Something's wrong with the baby!"
Buck pressed the knuckles of his hands into his eyes, rubbing the few pieces of sleep away, then sat up beside his wife. "What's wrong?" He took a deep breath of morning air and gave a hard stretch with his hands extended over his head.
"It's the baby!" The pain could be heard in her voice. "I think I need to go into the hospital. I'm having cramps like I'm trying to go into labor."
"Get ready!" Buck demanded as he jumped from the bed and quickly slipped into his blue jeans and white sports shirt. "We can't take any chances."
Wilma hurriedly put on a blue maternity top with matching pants and combed her hair while Buck woke his mother, asking her to keep an eye on Delta while they were gawn. In a matter of minutes, they were speeding north on I-10 towards Bayview General Hospital on Oakwood Haven.
In less than an hour, Buck had Wilma in the emergency room and she was diagnosed as having premature labor pains. It was August 24, and the due date was not until November 30.
Buck sat in the small, white waiting room that was crowded with red armchairs and a matching leather couch. He thought about Wilma's conversation with him while they drove home from the resort the day before. She had tried desperately to convince him that some force had pushed her down the stairs and that he had to believe her when she said the building was haunted.
He couldn't understand his wife's obsession with the idea that some demonic force was inside the building. But how was he going to convince her otherwise? He had not been attacked by anything, and nothing odd had happened to him, except when he thought he'd seen a teenage girl in the gym the day he first took Wilma to see the place.
That was nothing but my imagination, he assured himself. He had to prove to her that the place wasn't haunted.
As he sat there waiting for word of his wife's condition, he decided to call up Carlos. He wanted to find out what he knew about all of this nonsense. Wilma had told him that if he did not believe her he should ask Carlos. He stood up from the chair and made his way down the hallway to the phone booth where he dialed the resort. No answer. Buck decided to try and reach him at home. He slipped the change into the money slot and dialed Carlos's house, hoping like hell he'd be there.
Carlos was lying on his bed, looking up at the ceiling thinking of a way to exorcise the evil force from the resort when the phone began to ring.
"Gutierrez," he announced.
"Carlos? Buck. I'm at Bayside Hospital with Wilma. The doctor said she's trying to go into premature labor, and I need to ask you something. Do you know anything about a ghost or some demon inside the resort?"
"Um...." Carlos stammered, not knowing if he should answer Buck's question.
"Come on, Carlos," Buck insisted. "Wilma swears something pushed her down the stairs when she was up in the office yesterday."
"Well, Buck," Carlos finally gave in, "there is something in there, yeah. Wilma's been attacked by it more than once, and so have I."
Buck could not believe what he was hearing. It was just too silly---too ridiculous!
"Let's get something straight right now, Carlos," he said with an authoritative tone. "There's no such thing as ghosts! If you have been talking to Wilma about this, quit it. If she thinks she sees or hears anything in there again, I want you to tell her there's nothing there. Do you see the collision course we're on, pal? You're talking to her about something evil being in there, and I'm trying to convince her there's not."
"I know you think I'm crazy, Buck, but you've got to listen to me!" Carlos pleaded. "There's something evil inside the resort. I've been trying to keep Wilma away until I can figure out how to deal with it. I can't keep lying to her. She needs to know what's going on!"
"Have you talked to her about this more than once?" Buck yelled furiously over the phone, his voice seething with anger.
"Yes, I sure have. She told me she was going to find a way to convince you, but evidently, she hasn't."
"If it didn't occur to either you or her that I don't personally give a damn, then let me spell it out for you," Buck snapped, his voice tight with anger and annoyance. "I will not be convinced that my brand-new resort is haunted. Your butt will meet the pavement if you don't do as I ask. I don't want to replace you because you're a good worker, but you'd best keep your ghost stories to yourself."
"Okay, I guess you're right." Carlos gave in. "I won't mention it again, but what do you want me to do if she does?"
"Firstly," Buck remarked, "you tell her it's all in her head, like I said before, and then you come and tell me what she says. I'm going to put a stop to this shit before it goes any further. If I gotta, I'll spend a couple of nights in there by myself to prove to you and everybody else that there's no ghost in the place. Carlos, nothing has ever bothered me when I was inside the building, and don't you think it's a little odd that you and Wilma are the only ones getting attacked and no one else is seeing or hearing anything in there?"
"What about Delta?" Carl asked. "Remember when she got scared and wanted to leave?"
"Sure I do!" Buck scowled. "But she's probably overheard me and Wilma talking about all of this and let her imagination run away with her. Little kids get scared easily.
"Yeah. I guess you're right," Carlos lied. "I'll see that none of this is mentioned again.
"That's more like it!" Buck exclaimed. "I'm probably going to be tied up here for a while. I'll call you back and let you know what's going on as soon as I know something."
"Sure," he said, "if you need anything at all, just let me know." After Buck hung up the phone, Carlos spoke to the empty room. "No ghosts, huh? I might've promised not to talk to Wilma about it anymore, but that doesn't mean I can't do something about it!"
He lay on his bed and pulled a bag off the nightstand, inspecting each item inside it. He had gone to an occult bookstore to find books on witchcraft and demonology, and he had made copies of an exorcism spell he found inside one of the texts. He had also removed his mother's wooden crucifix from the living room wall and placed it in the bag. Inside the cross was a small vial of Holy Water that Buck intended to use to run off the evil spirits inside the nightclub.
Stuffing the items gently back inside the brown paper bag, Carlos stood to his feet and took one more drag off of his cigarette, then crushed the butt into the round glass ashtray on the nightstand.
"It's now or never!" he said as he took a deep breath. "I'm going down there and run that thing off."
The young handyman strolled through the house, out the front door, and headed down Bayou Belt Pike on foot towards the resort. He didn't know if his plan would work or not, but he was sure going to give it his best shot. Someone had to do something to get rid of whatever was in there, and he was that someone!
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