Tentatively Prewritten (User Friendly Guide to Ghosts #2)

CHAPTER ONE

Rocks and pebbles dug into the soles of my feet, but I paid no attention to the minor pain. I’d fallen into a trance, only to blink and stare down an unfamiliar gravel path.

Towering piles of rubble and discarded building materials shaped the trail into a winding, narrow coil that led in one direction. When I glanced behind me, nothing but impenetrable, oppressive darkness stared back.

The hair on my neck rose, as if something dangerous watched from the depths of that black void.

A shiver stole over me.

Onwards it was.

The path took me through a series of twists and turns, and the harsh shadows and low lighting wreaked havoc on my vision.

When I turned my head, the piles of refuse morphed into humanoid bodies and bones, piled high and dripping red, but when I looked again, it was nothing but harmless rubble once more.

Nonhumanoid black shadows darted between the piles outside the path, too fast to catch. Only their colossal size projected the notion that they were not anything I’d encountered on Earth.

Whispers joined the assault on my senses, distorted like someone dialing a radio in and out of tune. Snippets of words would come to me.

“—my son—”

“Help—”

“—to my—”

“It happened—”

“—promised me she wouldn’t—”

“—so fast.”

The chorus of voices and emotions made my brain reel, unable to comprehend what they said.

More and more entities darted around the outskirts of my vision as pressure mounted inside my skull, and my nerves skittered from unease to full-blown panic.

The need to reach my destination grew, provoked by an invisible urgency.

I broke into a jog.

CRASH!

My heart gave a painful lurch.

A pile of waste had fallen, spilling across the gravel and blocking any retreat.

Just beyond it, one of the shadowy creatures stood, eight-foot tall and hunched. The figure bubbled and swayed, making the exact form indecipherable, but it vaguely resembled jagged, rocky outcroppings jutting from an ocean’s surface on the turbulent coastlines of cold, northern seas.

Shadowy was a more apt description than I’d realized.

The bulk of its form was transparent, except for its eye cavities.

Those sat like twin, obsidian rocks amidst its misty face—black holes that seemed to dim the surrounding air.

Despite the many long-fingered claws, some stretching the size of my forearm, the eyes were the most unsettling part.

Just seeing them leech the color from the space around it, as if sucking the life from the atmosphere, instilled an adamant need to run.

Another joined the first, skittering over the rubble as if it possessed true mass. The movements jerked and blurred silently, like a reanimated zombie on mute. I couldn’t tell if it had legs, just that what could be seen of its limbs had those eerie, lethal claws of destruction.

When a third and fourth poured through the opening the first had torn through the rubble walls, I didn’t stick around to see how many would be joining us.

One had been more than enough motivation for me.

“Run, Willa!” a whisperer ordered, cutting into tune so loudly and clearly that I stumbled in my urge to flee.

“Not helpful,” I cried, racing to correct my stride before settling into a pace faster than I’d ever run in my life.

Every twist and turn showed more of the same, and I feared the maze would never end.

To further compound their contradictory nature, the heavy thud of the visually incorporeal creatures’ footsteps approached, growing louder.

And why not?

The beasts were gigantic.

It wouldn’t be long before they’d catch me.

I’m going to die here.

The realization spread through my entire being, suffusing me with dread at the startling truth.

Even now, their putrid breath drifted over from behind, blurring my vision when the scent of a thousand rotting corpses clogged my senses.

Sharp pain lanced my shoulder as something latched onto it, and I yelped, my steps faltering.

Simultaneously, headlights and the whine of an engine appeared from my left, narrowly avoiding crashing into me. The thing that’d locked onto me jerked loose, ripping from my flesh, while an unearthly screech ululated loud enough to shatter glass.

I hunched over, covering my ears, feeling the familiar rhythmic heat of a motor wafting against my back. Once the shrill sound stopped, the pain where the shadow creature had latched onto me overcame the pounding in my eardrums. My free hand cupped the injury as I turned to see what’d happened.

The headlights and engine whine belonged to an old brown truck.

It’d been such a close hit. A split-second difference, and it would have taken me out too.

The engine bay had concaved inward around the creature’s body, which lay over the crumpled hood.

Its long limbs stretched out above the roof, cleared the cab, and draped into the truck bed.

How I’d outrun such massive creatures for so long boggled my mind.

Despite the narrow miss, the driver had saved me.

Familiarity pinged my memory.

I knew this truck.

It belonged to Ben, my boyfriend.

Well, my dead boyfriend…

He’d died in a… car accident.

The wreckage of the truck hit a little too close to home.

Needing to lay eyes on the driver but unable to with the white spiderweb cracking the glass and black wisps oozing over the windshield, I stumbled the few steps necessary to the driver’s door.

The window had been rolled down or shattered into pieces.

Nothing hindered the very clear, very detailed view of my boyfriend, pinned against the seat.

Apart from the paleness of his skin that normally glowed gold from being outside for football practice and a few specks of blood spatter, his face was just as I remembered—gorgeous cheekbones, strong jawline, and handsome masculinity tempered by the humor he could bring to any situation the second his deep dimples popped out in his cheeks.

Those were missing now, slack with… with death, because that was the only part of him left whole.

The force of the impact had propelled the motor straight into the cab. What remained below his chest…

I gagged and screamed at the sight, turning away.

The noise caused movement in my peripherals. Only one creature had been hit. A veritable horde still stood nearby, albeit at a wary distance, but the sound of my grief seemed to shake them from their caution as they picked their way closer.

“Willa,” a raspy voice called.

I whirled, compelled to look where I knew the voice had come from, even as weak and raspy as it’d sounded.

Ben’s head had lifted, and he stared, his eyes fixed on me with laser intensity. Those familiar orbs had lost the milky film of death and were now filled with golden-brown urgency.

“Ben?” I kept my eyes focused high, unable to handle the gory sight of what’d happened to him.

“Willa, run!” he repeated, his voice much stronger.

As if the creatures sensed their prey might slip away from them, they lurched forward.

I took off, sprinting down the path as tears streamed down my cheeks, my hand still gripping the injured shoulder where the creature tried to amputate my arm.

In one breath to the next, the maze ended, spitting me out into a barren clearing where nothing but a looming shell of a multistory building stood, forever unfinished.

The construction site.

The one I’d sleepwalked to, and arguably the catalyst to all my problems. It’d seen me locked up in a psychiatric ward, where Ben might not have wrecked and died if he hadn’t been on his way to visit me.

Go in, a voice urged.

I took two shaky steps to approach before my name, loud and clear, echoed from everywhere.

“Willa!”

I jerked upright with a gasp, dislodging no less than three decorative floral pillows with the startled movement. My breathing came in quick pants as I scoured the darkness for any remnants of the dream—nightmare.

Was that movement? My pupils blew wide, attempting to latch onto the wispy forms of the nightmarish, slavering beasts.

Then, the curtains surrounding my bed yanked back, unleashing a flood of sunlight that killed the lingering shadows of doubt that this was reality.

I was awake.

Nicklaus, my younger brother, stood bathed in the sunlight streaming through our shared window. Judging by the angle of the light, it was early evening. Although, with the onset of October and the shorter days, it could still be late afternoon.

The smartwatch on my wrist beeped in warning. My heart rate was alarmingly elevated, and my body temperature registered at ninety-six point five.

That wasn’t the worst reading it’d ever taken.

I clicked the screen to dismiss the alert. I’d have to remember to silence it before tomorrow.

Nick tilted his head, studying me. If I looked as wrecked as I felt, he was kind enough not to mention it.

He’d been nicer for weeks now, and it worried me, but there wasn’t anything I could do to change that.

My near death had matured him beyond his ten years—no, wait, eleven. He’d had his birthday in June.

Since that was only months ago, it shouldn’t be so difficult to recall.

Was that lapse in memory just the product of an occupied mind or the result of the series of strokes and brain surgeries I’d endured after the chief of police coldcocked me hard enough to nearly snap my neck?

That was the million-dollar question these days.

I ran my fingers through my hair, grimacing at the short length. The doctors shaved a discreet section of it for the procedure, but I’d suffered a severe bout of survivor’s guilt early on and chopped the rest, like some sort of penance.

“Willa, were you sleeping?” Nick asked. “You’re returning to school tomorrow. What are you going to do when you can’t nap whenever you want anymore?”

I scowled at him. “You act like I’ve been on vacation.”

“Hey, don’t hate the messenger. You and I both know you could have started three weeks ago.”