Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
This must be what hell feels like…
That’s all I could think as I checked the date on my phone, confirming it really was only June.
I stood in front of the window air conditioner in my bedroom in nothing but a thin tank and even thinner pajama shorts, cursing the sticky night air that that refused to let me cool off even with the chilled air blasting me in the face, lifting my hair, needling at the sweat that clung to every inch of me, sweat that soaked my clothes and bedsheets the second I tried to sleep.
Making a mental note to press Chase for an ETA on the central air installation, I wiped the back of my neck and went back to my bed, praying the sheets were cool enough for another attempt at sleep.
I was staring up at my ceiling fan, watching the lazy rotation, considering getting up again to check whether the AC was really on the highest setting, when my phone rang. Frowning, I reached for it. My stomach dropped when I saw the caller ID.
Vivian.
What horrible thing did she want to accuse me of that couldn’t have waited until morning?
My first instinct was to send the call to voicemail, but I hesitated when I glanced at the clock and realized that it was after 2 a.m. Even when Vivian was off the wagon, she didn’t have a habit of drunk dialing me anymore.
Hating that I even wondered whether she might actually need help, I took a deep breath, bracing myself, and answered. “Hello?”
Static washed through the line, thick and garbled, but I thought I caught my name somewhere inside the white noise.
“Hello?” I tried again. “Vivian? I can’t hear you. We have a bad connection.”
“Listen!” Vivian burst through, her voice shrill with panic. But the rest came through in broken, lurching fragments. “Need— tell— God— found— hear— devil—”
And there it was.
Clearly, she was calling to give me the same sermon as always—well, more a variation on a theme, really.
But, had to hand it to her, calling in the middle of the night, definitely added a certain flair.
I shook my head, angry that she would pull this shit.
Why call me like this now? Why call at all?
“Vivian,” I said loudly, hoping my voice broke through the static, “I can’t understand you. You’re breaking up.”
The noise swallowed whatever she said next, the words unintelligible. Then there was just a flat, persistent hiss.
But I still listened, despite myself, knowing that if it really were an emergency, I’d never forgive myself for hanging up on her—or anyone in such a situation. The line didn’t improve.
After another few seconds, I exhaled hard, exasperated. “Vivian, I’m hanging up.”
I hit the button, tossed the phone aside, then flopped back onto my pillow, turning and shifting positions until finally finding a cool spot on the sheets. I was just dozing off when my phone rang again. I groaned, snatching it up from the bed beside me.
“What do you want, Vivian?”
Only static answered.
Frowning, I checked the screen. No name this time. Just a string of zeros.
“What the hell?” I murmured. My heartbeat jumped. My mouth went dry as dread crept along my skin, and I slowly lifted the phone to my ear. “Who is this?”
A hellish screech exploded through the speaker, the sound so shrill it seemed to penetrate my skull and pierce my brain. I yelped and threw the phone away, clutching my head with both hands as pain flared behind my eyes.
“Damn it!” I cried, blinking through tears. I glanced around the room, searching for my phone and found it on the floor near the bed.
Shaken by the strange call, I lowered one bare foot until my toes touched the floor. The boards creaked as I put more weight on my foot and then lowered the other. I eased down into a crouch next to the bed and reached slowly for my phone, then froze, my fingers still a few inches from it.
The line was still connected. Static hissed and crackled from the speaker, what sounded like fragments of urgent whispers trying to force their way through.
I stared at it, torn, not sure I wanted to know who was on the other end. But, my curiosity winning, I stretched my fingers toward it.
Without warning, a hand shot out from the darkness under the bed and clamped around my wrist.
I screamed and jerked back, trying to break its hold, but the grip tightened. Fingers mottled gray with decay, nails bloody and jagged, as though they’d clawed their way out of the grave, dug deeper, refusing to let go.
Another scream tore loose from me, and I pulled harder, fighting to get free. A second hand emerged, palm flat on the floor, pushing down on the boards, dragging its body forward. Silver eyes glowed in the darkness, then a wide grin peeled back putrid lips as a half-decomposed face slid into view.
Another ragged, terrified scream ripped from my throat.
My bedroom door slammed open, banging into the wall as Henry rushed in, eyes huge. “Mama!”
My head snapped up, fear for him overriding everything else. I opened my mouth to tell him to run—
But the corpse’s grasp abruptly released me. The thing dissolved into the empty shadows beneath the bed. Gone.
I scrambled backward until I hit the wall. My chest heaved as I gulped in air.
Henry threw himself against me, wrapping his arms around my neck.
“It’s okay, Mama,” he whispered, his little hand stroking my shoulder.
I pulled him close in a tight hug, my gaze fixed on the darkness beneath the bed, trembling, waiting, half-expecting those silver eyes to flicker back into existence.
When I finally convinced myself she was gone and my brain could focus on what had just happened instead of my own horror, I realized there’d been something familiar about the intruder’s face.
But it’d been too dark and the face too decomposed to place it.
Was she the screaming woman? The woman in the bloody nightgown?
Her hair was too dark to be the one in the bathtub.
“Was that the woman in the basement?” Henry whispered as if reading my thoughts.
I pulled back, frowning at him in confusion. “What woman?”
His little body shuddered, and he buried his face in my shoulder. “The angry one.”
I smoothed his curls. “I don’t know, baby. Is that why you didn’t want to go in the basement with me?”
He nodded. “I don’t like her, Mama. She scares me.”
“Well, you don’t have to go down there anymore,” I promised. “I’ll go by myself.”
Henry pulled back and looked up at me with tears in his eyes. “But what if she hurts you?”
Good question.
“She won’t,” I assured him, knowing for a fact that she definitely could. Dark bruises had bloomed around my wrist the moment she’d let go but then faded away seconds later. “Sometimes when a person is angry, they just need to tell someone.”
“But, Mama,” Henry said, his voice small. “What if she’s angry with you?”
I wrapped my arms tighter around him, eyes drifting to the darkness under the bed.
Shit. That was a damned good question.
I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night even though Henry and I decided to camp out in the living room on the couches, closer to the door if we needed to escape.
Every time I dozed off for more than a minute or two, I jolted awake, convinced someone was in the apartment with us.
But each time, the room was empty. Whoever had been under my bed was gone.
More than once, I checked the balance in my checking account as if money might magically appear and give me enough for a deposit on another apartment.
But after I paid for groceries and Henry’s medications and medical bills and other bills that I was behind on and desperately trying to catch up, there wasn’t much left to move over to my savings.
No matter how many times I did the math, no matter how many times I tried rearranging things in my head, the answer didn’t change.
It would be a few more months, at least.
We could make it a few more months, right? Just a few months. Then whatever haunted Dawes House could fuck off and bother someone else.
Of course, as soon as I thought that another realization hit me.
The intruder who’d attacked me at our little house wasn’t native to the property.
She’d come from somewhere else. Had she been a warning?
A premonition of the ghostly women I was to encounter?
A portend nudging me away from Dawes House?
If the last one, then that little clue would’ve been nice to freaking know at the time.
If being a harbinger of doom had been the intruder’s goal, she’d done a piss-poor job.
Instead, she’d scared me straight into what I’d thought was my only option.
By the light of the day, when things seemed relatively normal, it was easier to compartmentalize.
I had a job that I loved. A group of people who cared about Henry and me.
Surely, I could tough it out a few more months.
It wasn’t like we were visited every night, right? We just had to make it a few months…
I had an easier time selling that idea to myself when it was just me I was worried about.
But when Henry began to show signs of exhaustion over the next few days, the skin beneath his eyes sunken and dark, his newfound energy and happiness from playing with Addie fading, his bones beginning to ache once more, the desperation to find another place to live came rushing back with a vengeance.
It had been a week since the last incident when I was awakened from a deep sleep by Henry calling for me, his voice taut with fear. I bolted to his room and flipped on the light, chasing away as many shadows as possible.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked, catching him in my arms when he practically launched himself out of the bed.
“Someone was hurting David,” he said, hiccupping around sobs. “I saw it!”
I sat down on his bed, still holding him, smoothing the damp curls from his forehead. “It was just a nightmare,” I said gently. “I’m sure David’s fine.”
Henry shook his head vehemently. “No, he’s not. She was stabbing him!”
My blood went cold.
Dear God…
“Want me to look around your room?” I asked, part of me praying he’d say no. When he nodded, I tried to seem unbothered as I sat him down on his bed and only hesitated for a few seconds before opening his closet door. Thankfully, it held only what belonged there. Nothing lurking. Nothing watching.
I scanned the rest of the room—no shadows out of place, no intruders making themselves known.
“It’s all good,” I told him, giving what I hoped passed for a reassuring smile.
“Under the bed,” he whispered, his voice tight, thready, his fear causing him to shrink into himself. “You haven’t checked there yet.”
Shit.
My smile faltered for a heartbeat, but I pasted it back on. My stomach clenched as I knelt down beside his bed. I swallowed hard, lifted his comforter, and glanced underneath. An errant sock. A few action figures. Nothing else.
Thank Christ.
“All clear.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Can I sleep in your room?”
Considering what I’d just gone through a few nights ago in my room, I was stunned he wanted to be in there at all. But if it made him feel better and helped us both get some sleep, who was I to say no?
“You bet,” I said, standing and lifting him into my arms.
As we stepped into the hallway, I flicked off his light. I’d only taken two steps when the lamp clicked back on, soft yellow glow spilling out into the hallway. I froze. Then I turned back, scanning the room. Nothing. I flipped the switch off again.
The light snapped back on.
Henry buried his face in my shoulder with a whimper. Irritated, and more than a little afraid, I spun around and glared into the empty room. With a huff, I flipped the light back off.
“Don’t worry, baby,” I murmured, rubbing his back. “There’s nothing there.”
Three pointed taps on my shoulder assured me otherwise.
I gasped, fear lancing through me as I whirled around.
No one was there.
“Fine!” I snapped at the empty doorway. “I get it. You’re here. Now leave him the hell alone.”
Without another word, I hurried to my room and locked the bedroom door behind us. It was a useless measure, sure. A locked door wasn’t going to keep out a spirit who was intent on being noticed, but maybe the illusion of a barrier would be enough to keep us from being haunted by nightmares.
Whether in our dreams or in the putrid, rotting, decaying flesh…