Chapter 17
Seventeen
Sam had a hard time going to sleep. For one, the sleeping bag was narrow and hot, and he was used to sprawling out in his full-sized bed in the small, air-conditioned, unhaunted cabin.
And, yeah, the stories about this house made it difficult to relax, too, as well as the memories that were growing stronger the longer he stayed here.
Every noise made him jolt from his occasional doze.
Erielle’s footsteps. The pipes groaned as she showered, and he swore he heard her humming under the water.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes.
He shouldn’t imagine her like that. Shouldn’t imagine her in the bed above him.
Shouldn’t imagine how much safer she might feel if she were in his arms.
Eventually, sleep dragged him under anyway, with the image of her curled against him.
Until the scream
A horrific screeching tore through the silence, ripping him from sleep, his heart jackhammering. The sound was too sharp, too real to be a dream.
It sounded again, filling the air so he wasn’t sure where it came from, an otherworldly sound that shot terror down his spine, paralyzing him for a minute before he remembered he wasn’t alone.
“Erielle!”
He untangled himself from the sleeping bag and bounded toward the steps, barefoot. He ignored a splinter digging into the bottom of his foot as he took the stairs two at a time, thinking he’d encounter Erielle descending at any moment.
But when he reached the top of the stairs, a white figure hovered near her open door, between him and Erielle.
His body went numb. Memory slammed into him: the night he and his idiot friends had broken into this house as kids, daring each other to find the mayor’s dead wife. She’d come then, too.
And she was here now..
The translucent column made another unworldly sound.
Through the veil of the figure, he saw Erielle slap her hands over her ears, double over as if in pain.
He shouted and the…thing turned toward him, no longer just light.
He could see a woman’s face, ravaged by grief, with rage.
When she opened her mouth to make that sound again, decay and blackness obliterated her features. Despair vibrated in the air around her.
He had to get her away from Erielle. He edged down the hall, away from the staircase, hoping she would follow him and give Erielle a chance to run for the stairs, but she lingered in the doorway, trapping Erielle.
“Come on!” he shouted. “You want to scream at someone? Scream at me. You think you’re so scary.” Really, what did one say to taunt a ghost, especially when every ounce of self-preservation was telling him to bolt?
But he wouldn’t leave Erielle.
The ghost hesitated—he swore that was what it was—then floated toward him. When she was far enough away from Erielle’s door—he couldn’t see Erielle anymore, he shouted, “Run!”
Erielle dashed for the stairs. The ghost advanced, staying between him and the stairs.
Only one way out he could think of.
Go through her.
He lowered his shoulder like he was back playing football, and charged.
He was unprepared for the icy despair he felt as he passed through her.
He staggered with it, dropping to his knees near the top of the stairs, wobbling there, using every bit of his balance not to tumble headfirst down them.
The pain took over every cell of him, dark and hopeless, pulling up every terrible memory he’d ever had.
He looked down to see Erielle paused on the stairs, twisted to look up at him. He drew in a deep breath and pushed to his feet, hurtling down the stairs and catching Erielle’s hand on the way, pulling her with him.
When they reached the door, he couldn’t open it.
The knob felt slimy beneath his hand, the door felt like it was feet thick instead of a couple of inches.
He twisted and tugged and pulled, kicked and pushed, but it wouldn’t budge.
He pivoted his head to look up the stairs, and gave an involuntary shout when he saw the ghost on the landing, moving toward them, one hand outstretched.
This time, Erielle grabbed his hand and pulled. They ran for the back door, wrenched it open and stumbled down the narrow steps of the back stoop. Their momentum—and fear—carried them forward before they stopped in the middle of the moonlit yard.
He struggled to find his breath as he looked over at her. She was so pale, and focused on the house. “Is that what you see every night?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“Her,” he repeated, and bent over, bracing his hands on his knees, shaking all over, nauseated and woozy. “The mayor’s wife.”
She nodded. “I think so.”
He wanted to drop to the ground, just hold on to the earth that seemed to be tilting all over the place like the floor in a fun house.
But he needed to be strong for Erielle. She was terrified too.
He gathered his wits, pushing aside the fear and anguish tumbling together inside him, and straightened.
“I wonder why you’ve never seen her before.”
She rubbed her hands down her bare legs beneath the shorts of her pajamas.
“I don’t know. Maybe she is the one I see, but she’s never made that noise.
She’s always just said my name. But this one felt different somehow.
This one felt malevolent. The other nights, that one didn’t feel like she wished me harm.
” She turned to look at him. “You ran through her. Are you okay? Your hand felt like a block of ice when you grabbed me.”
He tried to take inventory to see if he was indeed okay. He couldn’t be sure. “I think so.” He forced himself to take a step toward the driveway, and his truck. “We’re not going back in there tonight.”
She gave a rough laugh. “I don’t think you’ll fit in my car.”
“We’ll go to my place, then.” They should have done that to begin with. But he’d never expected an encounter like this. Okay, he hadn’t really expected an encounter at all.
“Your place? On the bayou.” She gave a visible shudder.
“Well, it’s that or sleep in your car.” He looked from her to the house. “Which would you prefer? Because I’m not going back in that house until the sun comes up.”
Erielle’s head buzzed on the drive to the bayou.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a full breath—maybe not since before she hit the stairs—and now dizziness swamped her senses.
She rubbed her hand up and down her thigh, trying to soothe the trembling.
When that didn’t do the trick, she reached across the truck’s console.
Samson folded her hand in his, his palm a little clammy. She didn’t care. She just needed a tether before she floated away like the ghost. Honestly, she didn’t know how Sam was able to drive. She was shaking so hard, and was so scared, she wouldn’t be able to find her way home.
The truck rolled to a halt in front of the cabin, illuminated with one lonely porch light against the dark bayou. Neither of them made an immediate effort to get out of the truck. They were safe in here. Safe. Safe. Safe.
Finally Samson let out a breath and pushed his door open, giving her the courage to do the same. Erielle slid out of the truck, cautious about where she placed her bare feet. She kept her spare sneakers just inside the door, but she’d had no intention of going back inside, not even for them.
The bayou was alive with noise. She took a moment to try to distinguish each sound as she looked up at the cabin. Bullfrogs, owls, the occasional splash of something leaving the water, or entering it. And the dampness infused the air with the scent of earth and decay.
No ghostly sounds, though.
He circled the truck and took her hand again, to guide her inside.
She hesitated in the front door for a minute, taking in the scene before her.
Samson’s cabin looked simple and raw from the outside, but once inside she realized it wasn’t the hunting shack she remembered from childhood.
The air smelled faintly of fresh lumber and sawdust, proof he’d been working on it.
A couch big enough to swallow her whole sat beneath the low ceiling, and an equally massive table stood nearby, both obvious hand-me-downs.
Everything about the room was sturdy, functional… like him.
“Did you do this work?” she asked as he nudged her inside so he could close the door.
He nodded, locking the door behind him. She wondered if he often did that. His expression was drawn, his skin pale, exhaustion etched in his features. Honestly, she wouldn’t have allowed him to stay over if she’d thought they’d face that threat. She never would have put anyone through that.
He didn’t seem any more willing to release her than she was to let go of him.
He guided her to the enormous couch, drawing her down and wrapping his arms around her.
She melted into his side, resting her cheek against his chest, against the soft knit of his t-shirt, and listened to the pounding of his heart that matched her own.
The scent of panic clung to him, sharper than his usual clean piney smell. She was sure she matched the scent. In fact,
When she shivered, more a release of adrenaline than a chill, even though the temperature was cool in here, he shifted without hesitation and snagged the afghan hanging over the back of the couch.
With a twitch, he covered her bare legs, tucking the edges around her, cocooning her as they held onto each other.
“We should get some sleep,” he muttered at last, straightening and removing his arm from around her. “I’ll sleep out here. You can have my bed.”
“I’m not ready to be alone,” she said softly.
“We could both sleep in there.” She’d never been anything but vulnerable in front of him, so she didn’t know why this was so hard, but the way he was looking at her, his eyes wide and questioning, prompted her to keep talking.
“Just…sleep. But be there for each other.”