PROLOGUE & CHAPTERS 1 & 2 #3
There was a creepy vibe for sure, and the unsettling feeling fell over us both like a dark shroud.
The place looked like an abandoned hardware store.
A counter ran along one side, and the rest of the space held empty shelves housing nothing but dust, old cobwebs, and empty boxes.
Old signs advertising paint supplies and offers on tools to buy barely clung to the walls. I looked to Stacey and said,
“I don’t think we should…” The idea for us to leave ended the moment a figure emerged from what I gathered was a back room.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone,” a redheaded woman in her fifties said as she approached, huffing and puffing like she had been in the middle of something labor intensive.
Stacey looked down at the coupon in her hand and then handed it to the woman as she said, “Well, I saw this place advertised and… Oh.” Stacey’s words were cut short as the woman turned over the piece of paper and there was a phone number under the single word, ‘Bookings’.
Then her eyes roamed over to me, standing slightly behind Stacey, and the woman was clearly assessing me for something.
Her dark eyes narrowed for half a second before widening, making me wonder what it was she saw in me that had her so interested.
But then after a smirk, her wrist jangled with the many bangles she wore as she tossed the coupon to the floor, telling us,
“No matter, you lovely ladies are here now… shall we?” She held her hand out to the side, telling us the way.
Stacey looked back at me first, no doubt to check that I was still cool with it.
And even though my creep-o-meter was blaring at me, I still found myself nodding, telling her this was her party.
Just because I didn’t want to drink the punch, didn’t mean I would call a cab and call it a bust. So, we both walked toward the back of the store, and before I could ask the obvious, the woman said,
“Sorry for the mess, I only just got the lease to the place so I haven’t had time to renovate.
My temporary space is back here, just through the curtain,” she said, following us as we made our way through the shelves, and what had no doubt at one time been a labyrinth of hand tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplies, paint, and most building materials.
The smell of all these things still clung to the walls.
But the moment we stepped through the heavy curtain, one we had to push aside, we quickly exchanged the scent of varnish, metal, dust, and wood for one of burning incense.
I found myself almost saying, “well this was more like it,” because the room was definitely set up in a way that would be expected for her particular profession.
The walls were covered in drapes of tasseled red velvet, delicate lace, and strings of red fairy lights.
There were candles burning in their various holders that were overflowing with wax, and dark shelves filled with glass jars and bunches of dried herbs.
As for the center of the room, there was very little in the way of furniture, other than where the readings obviously took place. However, there was a little wooden stool in the corner with a colorful glass lantern hanging above.
It was the floor my eyes were drawn to, though, because a large circle was drawn in what looked like chalk. One that had a five-point star in the center. Then around the edge were symbols that looked like runes etched into the wood, with each surrounded with different colored stones.
“Alright, let’s begin, shall we?” the woman said, without introducing herself, but nodding to the small round table in the center of the circle and the two seats that were positioned opposite each other.
Each one was draped in even more lace and cushioned in frayed material.
I shifted out the way, but when Stacey didn’t make a move to sit down, I looked at her face.
“Well?” the impatient fortune teller said behind us, because she had already taken her seat, clearly waiting to begin. But the second I saw Stacey shaking her head looking nervous, I released a deep sigh. Especially when she mouthed a soundless,
“Please.”
So, I turned back toward the fortune teller and took my seat, no doubt with the skepticism written all over my face… something the woman seemed amused by.
“You don’t believe, do you.” It wasn’t a question, but more of a statement, one I merely shrugged at.
“Then you have nothing to fear by giving me your hand then, do you?” she said, the crow’s feet wrinkles by her eyes deepening with her obvious confidence in her abilities. It was like she was secretly saying, “I will show you, non-believer.”
Instead of saying, “No, I just I think you’re someone who perceptively tells people what they long to hear and get paid for it,” I told her,
“I just have no wish to know my future.”
“And what if others wish to?” she asked, surprising me.
However, before I could ask what she meant, she took me off guard by suddenly grabbing my hand and pulling it across the table, making me gasp.
The sensation of cold dread worked its way up my arm as if she had just injected me with pure evil.
Something dark, and foreboding. Like some forbidden otherworldly essence.
One she should not be sharing but still dared to.
It felt like being touched by death.
However, it wasn’t me that ended up screaming.
No…
It was her.
Chapter 2 - Peaches
Suddenly I was up and out of the chair just as the fortune teller did the same. Her eyes were wide and wild, like she could still see whatever horror my life had played out in her mind’s psychic eye.
“It’s… it is impossible,” she stuttered, shaking her head as if trying to rid herself of the memory.
“What is it… what did you…?” Stacey started to ask, only I quickly cut her off.
“No! I… I don’t want to know,” I shouted.
“But…” Stacey tried again, but I turned to face her, and my look must have said as much as the unshed tears did.
“I… I just want to go,” I told her quickly.
“Okay, we can…” Stacey replied but I cut her off again, not wanting to ruin the whole reason we came here in the first place. For her.
“No, just me… you stay here, okay? Get your reading. I’m gonna go for a walk, clear my head… I just need some air,” I told her, and she nodded, despite looking like she wanted to argue more. But she knew me. She knew I liked to be alone whenever my emotions got the better of me. She knew the signs.
“I’m sure your reading will go better,” I said, looking back at the horrified woman who was watching our exchange with a strange look on her face.
It was almost like she knew me now and I hated that. I hated the idea of her knowing anything about me. But my words had been a warning… and one she didn’t miss because she nodded at me.
So, with nothing else to say, I left, feeling like the longer I was there, the more my lungs struggled to breathe. The scent of incense was suddenly suffocating, I left the room and practically ran out the old store, surprised to find it dark already. Had we really been in there that long?
What had she seen? What was so horrendous that she had recoiled in horror? I didn’t know, but it had freaked me out enough that I needed to escape.
Escape… now why was that word striking a chord with me? Why was that one action clinging to me, as if a seed had been planted? Exactly what was I supposed to escape from?
“ARH!” I yelled in pent-up frustration because I just didn’t know.
The icy-cold malevolent feeling still crawled along my skin like I had been infected by a simple touch.
I looked back at the door and wondered if I should have left Stacey in there after all.
Perhaps I should go back in and check on her?
Strangely, the second I thought this, another desire, one far stronger, came over me.
I started walking down the road toward an old cemetery we had passed on the way here, like something was pulling me that way.
The small stone wall was easy enough to step over if I wanted to, but I soon realized that wasn’t where I wanted to go.
So, I continued walking along the sidewalk, glancing nervously at all the old gravestones I could see paled by the full moon.
But even as I asked myself what I was doing or where I was going, my feet continued to walk me closer to what I could now see was a large brick building.
An old warehouse of sorts on the opposite side of the road to the cemetery…
and one I found myself crossing the road to get to.
I looked around, not seeing anyone but hearing voices all the same.
They were muffled, only getting louder as I approached an open piece of fence that surrounded the warehouse.
It was as if it had once been a gateway inside to the back but now it had been taken down.
A sleek black SUV was parked close by, and it looked out of place in this part of town.
What was I doing here…? I just didn’t know. All I knew was that I couldn’t stop. It was like something was compelling me to move closer, despite another part of my brain, no doubt the rational side, screaming at me to run. But run from what?
Or from who?
The thought took me off guard, like somewhere deep within me knew something that the rest of me didn’t.
Like my mind had been carved in two and the less cautious one was now leading the way.
So, I continued walking until I was in full view of the back of the building, one littered with discarded pallets in front of what appeared to be a loading dock.
I spotted a huge industrial sized dumpster, and decided it would be an ideal place to see what’s going on without being seen myself.
Seconds later, I was thankful for my instincts to hide because I wasn’t alone. Three darkly dressed figures came from around another part of the building, and I had to hold back a gasp because the sight was such an intimidating one. I instantly became frightened.