Chapter Three Fright Night #2
Anyway, if she’s going to stroll around naked after all my attempts to communicate, so be it. If she doesn’t want privacy, why should I give it to her?
Man, I would so need to see a priest to confess this if I weren’t already headed to purgatory or something like that.
But since I’m already in this weird limbo that feels pretty hellacious, I follow her into the bathroom.
It’s hot in here. Not just the way she’s pumping out hot water like someone who never grew up with dodgy pipes in a fourth-floor walk-up in Brooklyn.
The way she almost seems to pose. I know she’s not trying to, but damn it.
She leans on one leg and binds her hair up with a big pink silk scarf. Runs her hands down her neck, head back, eyes closed. Hands go over her sides, to her back.
Her lower back and the right side of her hip have tiny little indents like shrapnel or something. Little scars that you’d have to look hard to see.
Yes, I’m looking hard. If I look right at that sweet spot where her back gets narrow and her hips get wide, then I don’t stare at the dark cinnamon colored curls between her thighs or the way her breasts hang, perfect and plump and kind of going off to the sides like the lobes of an upside-down heart.
The little tip of that heart meets at her graceful, slender neck.
And when I look up—her face is a heart shape, too.
And those hips, that big, beautiful rhythm section— that’s another God damn heart, with a long, long taper down those smooth, coppery brown legs.
I swallow and tell myself it’s time to go. It’s time to go right now, because certain parts of me that I thought died off are resurrecting. Hard.
“Ohhhhhh. Ohhh, yeeeeeahhh,” Amber sinks into the hot water, her hair all scooped up like a lopsided pink and gold sundae, her face the picture of bliss—and her mouth opens up to let out a long, low moan of pleasure.
I ain’t never made a woman sound like that.
I’m jealous of a bathtub.
My cock is getting hard, just watching a woman get into some hot, soapy water.
And I don’t move. I sit, and I stare, and I start thinking dangerous thoughts.
Thoughts like... Well, I can get all misty and vaporous.
Why don’t I turn into steam and touch those big, firm-looking titties?
Why don’t I turn into a sheen on that water and go sinking down between those luscious thighs, and see the sights I never got to see in my lifetime?
I got cheated out of a wife, out of all the things beyond a quick fuck and fumble.
Maybe a little harmless exploration is owed to me.
That’s at least ten Rosaries and forty Hail Marys right there.
And it gets worse. I still don’t move. I stay perched in the corner, a floating, half-solid shape of shadow and throbbing cock, and start to think... Well. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she stayed.
I could crawl into her bed. I could...
Yep. Nope.
That’s the fucking limit. That’s the line. Sgt. John Antonio Guisieppi Miller didn’t survive a fucking war and kind of survive a betrayal and murder by his best friend, only to become a slimy perv.
Amber Pierce is leaving this house tonight.
September 25th, 2026
Midnight
The windows in my bedroom open and slam shut—up, down, up, down, up, down—each time harder, each time louder.
It’s a bad dream. The wind couldn’t do that.
I sit up and gasp, because no. It’s not a dream. Lights on.
I bought this cute little pink lamp that just came in the mail. It’s that fuzzy terra cotta color—and it shatters as soon as I turn it on, like it was yanked and thrown down.
Phone.
In my hand—out of it. Flung far.
Panting, sobbing screams rise up in my throat before I can do my mantra of I’m a strong, independent, educated Black woman.
Yeah, no, I’m still fucking trying to run for my life, wearing pink shortie jammies and considering whether or not I should just burn this place down.
You’re running away from the first peaceful place you’ve ever had. Your place of healing.
Why should some dead bitch get to stay here when you’re alive, and you earned it?
You gave up your career. Your health. Your ability to live without pain.
With my hand on the front door, I turn back, still sobbing.
Still screaming. Still on the verge of peeing myself in terror, but I scream, “No, bitch! This is my house now! Bought and fucking paid for with blood, sweat, and tears! I’m not leaving.
You can scare me. You can’t hurt me. Go on.
Do your little light show, girl. I’m not going.
” I sit down hard on my grandfather’s old wingback chair that’s in the living room, cross my arms, and glare, hoping I didn’t just seal my own fate.
Which is exactly when the chair moves. Lifts. Tips, and sends me out through the living room window. It was open, fortunately, but I take the screen with me, and I land a good four feet down in the wet grass.
Oh, perfect. It’s thunderstorming.
“Did that ghost bitch actually toss me out on my ass?” I ask.
Oooh. I stand up and stomp in, feet wet, bonnet torn off and wadded up in my hand. That means we’re gonna fight. “Oh, it’s on!” I yell, charging into the house.
Belatedly, I consider the logistics of fighting someone who I can’t see and who can pick up a wingback chair with my 150-pound ass in it.
Someone who is capable of keeping me out. I hammer on the door with the flat of my hand, jiggling the knob.
Nothing.
Move to the window—it’s shut now. They’re all shut.
“I am getting back in this house!” I screech through gritted teeth, looking wet and terrifying in the black glass surface.
“You aren’t keeping me out! You and your little granny ass need to move on!
Go into the light! Join that heavenly choir!
Cross that River Jordan!” I let out a list of euphemisms as I race from window to window, kitchen door, front door, wet, freaked out, and getting madder by the second.
“Show yourself, you coward!” I finally bellow into the storm, racing in the wet grass as the rain comes down harder.
I don’t know what’s happening at first, but then I’m down, and there’s a searing pain in my toes, and when I slam into the grass, the pain explodes in my jaw and rockets through my head. My vision goes black, and I taste blood in my mouth.
“You’re not gonna win!” I hiss.
I’m going to get up and fight this little old lady ghost—in five minutes.