No Ghouls Allowed (4 page)

“Well, we’re in the thick of it now,” Heath said, his head swiveling back and forth
as he considered which way to go. “There’s nothing left to do but find a way out as
quickly as we—”

At that moment there was a loud
slam
from somewhere above us.

“What was that?!” Gil squeaked.

Heath tilted his head toward the stairs at the end of the entrance hall. “A door slammed
shut somewhere upstairs. The spirit energy in here is pretty active.”

“The ghoulies in this house don’t waste time, do they?” I asked.

As if in reply there came another
slam!

Next to me, Gil jumped and squeezed my hand hard. “Where’s the exit?” he whispered.

Heath moved forward a few paces with us in tow. “Kitchens always have exits,” he said
wisely. “And they’re usually at the back of the house. Come on, maybe we’ll get lucky
and it’ll be down this hallway.”

But luck wasn’t with us. The hallway we were in passed several large, empty rooms
before it came to a dead end with no obvious sign of the kitchen or an exit. Heath
frowned when we came to a stop and muttered an expletive. “I would’ve bet the house
there’d be a door leading out down here.”

“Let’s open a few of these doors and see if one of the rooms has an exit,” I suggested,
pointing to the few remaining rooms between us and the end of the corridor.

Heath nodded, but as we headed to the nearest closed door, we heard another nearby
door open, then slam. Next to me Gilley jumped. “That wasn’t on the second floor!”

“The spook is on the move,” Heath whispered, and he glanced at me as if to gauge my
reaction.

I pointed to my bare arms, which were lined with goose pimples. “I don’t like it,”
I mouthed, careful not to let Gilley know I felt we could be in even worse danger.
He was scared and trembling enough as it was.

Heath still had ahold of my hand and he stepped a little closer to me before whispering,
“Stick tight by my side and keep your antennae up.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. We walked quickly but quietly to the next doorway,
which was the last one on the right, and peered in. To my relief I spied what looked
like an exit in the far right corner of the room. “There!” I said, pointing to it
so the boys would see. “That window looks big enough for us to get through. Let’s
just open it and hop out.”

“Oh, thank the baby Jesus!” Gil cried, letting go of my hand and dashing into the
room. Heath and I were about to follow when the door slammed shut in our faces. It
happened so abruptly that I cried out and stumbled back.

Heath held his composure and reached for the door handle, but the second he laid his
hand on it, he pulled it back and hissed through his teeth. “Dammit!” he swore, shaking
his hand back and forth as if he’d burned it.

“What happened?” I tried to reach for his hand to see.

But he was already focused back on the door. “It’s nothing,” he said, using his shirt
to cover his hand this time as he reached for the handle again.

From inside the room we heard Gilley yell, “Guys? What’s going on?”

“Gil!” I called as Heath struggled with the door handle. It appeared to be locked
tight. “Can you let us in?”

There was a slight pause, and I had a feeling Gilley was weighing whether to come
back to the door and unlock it for us, or dart out through the window to save his
own skin.

“Gil?” I called, trying to ignore the fact that the air all around us had taken on
a fetid sort of odor.

To my relief I heard footsteps approach the door, while Heath tried in vain to get
the handle to turn. And then there was a click, a creak, and another
slam
. Heath and I both jumped. “That was right behind us,” Heath whispered, pointing to
the door opposite us.

No sooner had those words left his lips than there came another
slam!
and then another, and another, and another, until it seemed that all the doors in
the entire house were opening and slamming closed one after another with enough force
to shake the walls and rattle the floorboards. Startled and more than a little scared,
I pressed myself against Heath, who wrapped me in his arms while we waited out the
percussion of sound. But it seemed to go on, and on, and on, echoing all over the
house, and so violent in its nature that I wondered if it ever would stop.

And then . . . abruptly . . . it did.

A silence fell upon us that was startling, given the cacophony of noise from just
a moment before, and I noticed that both Heath and I were breathing heavily. My heart
was pounding away against my rib cage and I felt clammy and dizzy. The air was oppressive
and thick with something dark . . . something evil.

Heath squeezed me in his arms and whispered, “We gotta get out of here, Em. Right
now!”

I nodded against his chest and pulled back slightly, reaching for his hand. He hissed
a little when I took it, and I turned it over to look at his palm. That’s when I saw
raised red blisters on the inside of his hand, and I winced too. But we didn’t have
time to discuss what’d happened to his palm. We needed to get out of that house, so
I stepped back to the room where Gilley was and gave a light tap. “Gil?” I called
softly.

There was no reply.

Putting my ear to the door, I called out to him again, and this time I heard a small
sob. “M.J.?” he said at last. I had a feeling he was pressed right up against the
door.

“You okay, honey?”

“N-n-n-nooooo.”

I looked at Heath and he moved closer to the door. “Gil, we’re gonna need you to unlock
the door, but use your shirt to cover your hand before you touch anything metal, okay?”

I listened close and heard sniffling, then saw the handle jiggle slightly. “You need
a key to unlock it,” Gilley said. “There’s no dead bolt or lock on this side. Just
the keyhole.”

I shifted my focus to Heath. “Can we kick it in?”

With a frown, he stepped back to consider the beautiful antique door with the brass
handle. “I could, but Christine might not be too happy about it.”

Upstairs there came a
slam!
That was followed by another, then another, then what felt like ten more. Reflexively
I squeezed Heath’s arm. This place was starting to get to me. “Kick it in!” I yelled
above the noise as I forced myself to let go of him so he could do the deed.

Heath called to Gilley as he stepped back, “Gil! Get away from the door!” Then he
turned slightly to the side and raised his knee high. Just as he gave a serious thrust
with his leg, the door flew open. Heath’s foot failed to connect and this caught him
off-balance as the thrust of his kick tilted him awkwardly. I reached out to grab
onto him, missed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Gilley standing in the room,
gaping in confusion as Heath tumbled forward, barely able to catch himself from falling
to the floor.

I got ahold of his shoulder to help steady him, and just as I did that, the door came
swinging right at us with terrific force, slamming Heath in the face. There was a
god-awful
whack
and my sweetheart let out a horrible grunt of pain as he was propelled right into
me. We both flew backward, and I hit the wall with a hard knock to the back of my
head. For several seconds I saw stars and my vision closed in around the edges.

To make matters worse, the full weight of Heath’s body was pressed against me, making
it impossible to breathe. Feebly I pushed at him, but he was slow to move off me.
“Can’t . . . breathe . . . ,” I wheezed, but then I realized that Heath wasn’t likely
to hear me above the noise.

It was as if the entire house had come alive and was protesting our presence by opening
and slamming shut every single door in the entire mansion. The walls, floors, and
ceiling vibrated with bone-jarring intensity, and it was almost too much for me. My
vision darkened even more while I struggled to get a full breath.

And then, at last, Heath moved off me, but the uproar around us kept on and on. And
then I felt myself pulled away from the wall, which was shuddering so much that it
was painful to lean against. Immediately, Heath enfolded me into his arms and I managed
to cling to him until my head cleared a little. But still the slamming carried on
and on, and I thought it would never stop.

“We have to get out of here!” Heath shouted.

I nodded weakly. I felt disoriented and my head throbbed both from the noise and the
smack on the head. Belatedly I realized that Heath’s forehead was bleeding. I took
a deep breath and forced myself to focus on his face. There was a huge bump on his
forehead with a jagged cut through the center. I couldn’t imagine how much that likely
hurt, but he seemed somewhat oblivious to the pain while he looked this way and that,
searching for a way out.

The door to the room on the other side of the hallway where Gilley was currently imprisoned
was opening wide and slamming shut in perfect rhythm with all the others in the house,
and I caught glimpses of Gil huddled near the floor, his fingers in his ears as he
squeezed his eyes closed, trying in vain to block out the chaos.

And then a shadow passed in front of the door inside the room and my breath caught.
The shadow was large, in the shape of a man. It was enough to raise every hair on
the back of my neck. “Gil!” I shouted, but there was no way he could hear me above
the noise. The door continued to open and slam closed, offering me only small glimpses
into the room. The shadow appeared in the doorway, then on the other side of the room,
then by the window, then right next to Gilley, and finally, it obscured my view of
Gilley altogether.

I shouted his name at the top of my lungs, trying to get his attention, even though
I didn’t know what I expected him to do. At that moment Heath seemed to become aware
of what was going on too, because he released me, whipped around, dipped his shoulder,
and charged straight at the door.

He caught it just as it was about to slam shut, and the force with which he hit it
sent it flying open to pound hard against the wall. Heath then bore all his weight
on the door, keeping it open while yelling for Gilley.

But Gil was still hidden behind that large black shadow. I didn’t waste another moment.
I flew through the open doorway, heading with bared teeth right for the shadow. As
I approached, it seemed to crouch a little, as if it was anticipating my physical
connection with it.
“Gilley!”
I screamed, trying not to blink while I reached my hands forward, hoping I could
simply push my way through the menacing spook and grab hold of my best friend. However,
at the point of impact I felt the most intense blow to my midsection, which knocked
the wind right out of me. In the next instant, I was sent flying backward for the
third time since arriving at the manor.

I hit the ground in a heap, landing on my right shoulder and hip. My hip took the
brunt of the force and I would have groaned if I’d had enough air to make a sound.
I rolled onto my back in a daze, and reached my left arm up feebly, hoping that Heath
was coming to my rescue. I tried to suck in some air, but my diaphragm seemed paralyzed.
I felt that reflexive panic that comes with the wind being knocked out of you and
you have to consider, however briefly, that this inability to breathe could be a permanent
condition, but then a little air leaked down my windpipe and I closed my eyes to concentrate.
I know from experience that if you push too hard to get your diaphragm to react, you
can further hamper your ability to begin breathing again.

I tried to calm myself, but with the noise of the slamming doors, Heath’s shouts,
and Gilley’s screams, there was just too much chaos, not to mention the fact that
I’d just been hurled across the room by an incredibly powerful—and likely very angry—spook.

Shutting all that out the best that I could, I focused on taking another tiny breath.
I managed that one okay. And then I took another, a little deeper this time. Trouble
was, my lungs were starting to protest mightily. They needed more air. Right. Now.

Around me the noise and chaos kicked up and I knew I absolutely
had
to get my breathing to start again, and I also wondered why Heath hadn’t yet come
to my rescue. It was then that I opened my eyes, but what I saw stopped my breathing
all over again.

With effort I managed to get myself into a sitting position, and take in a few more
breaths. I blinked and rubbed my eyes to be sure I was seeing what I thought I was
seeing, but the scene in front of me remained.

“What the hell?” I whispered as I looked warily around. “Heath?”

There was no reply.

“Gilley?”

Again, no one answered.

My brow broke out into a cold sweat and I drew my knees in close, continuing to look
all around, stunned by what I saw. “I must’ve passed out,” I told myself. And yet
I felt certain I would’ve remembered that sinking feeling that happens right before
you pass out, like the whole world is receding from you until you let go into darkness.

There’d been none of that. Just an effort to take a breath, followed by full consciousness
in an entirely different place.

It appeared that I was in a hallway that was dimly lit by the glow of the moon. How
it’d gone from late afternoon to middle of the night was only one part of the puzzle.
The hallway I recognized by its configuration and the wallpaper. A strip of it next
to me was aglow with moonlight, and there were the telltale bluebirds, hurrying to
build a nest, one with a bit of string and another with a small twig in their respective
beaks. The pattern had fascinated me as a child and it was one I’d spent a lot of
time studying during the lonely days of my mother’s long illness when I’d been sent
to spend time with my maternal grandparents.

I reached out to touch the wallpaper, and it felt real enough. Shakily I got to my
feet and leaned against the wall. “Heath?” I tried again. “Gilley?”

This time my call was answered by a noise from behind a closed door at the end of
the hallway. I felt another cold chill go through me and I shuddered. The sound had
been human—I was sure of it—but it hadn’t belonged to any voice I recognized.

As my heart hammered in my chest, I crept forward, feeling like a cliché right out
of a B horror movie. I got to the door and hesitated. This had been my mother’s bedroom
when she’d been little. I used to sleep in it when I spent the night, but I hadn’t
been in it, or the house really, since my grandparents had passed away nearly a dozen
years ago.

I rested my palm on the door handle, unable to control the shivering of my limbs.
I felt cold and scared and very much like I had when I was nine and knew that my mother
was never going to get better.

For a second I entertained the idea of turning around and dashing down the stairs
and out of the house, but then that noise came again from the bedroom, and this time
it was more distinct. It sounded like a child in distress.

Taking a deep breath, I gripped the handle firmly and turned it. As I entered the
room, I saw the most terrible sight.

Hovering three feet in the air above the bed was a skinny little girl with long dark
hair, a pale complexion, and the most terrified expression on her face. She was dangling
above the bed like a rag doll, held up by an unseen force, but she seemed to be clutching
at her throat, as if an invisible hand held her by the neck.

I took a step forward to help her, but then her eyes shifted to me and I came up short,
stunned to my core. The little girl was unmistakable.

She was me. Eight-year-old me.

I stood there for several heartbeats too shocked to move. And then the much younger
version of myself stopped clutching at the invisible force holding her and she actually
reached her small hand out to me.

I reacted out of instinct. I ran to her with outstretched arms, and as I got to her,
whatever was holding her by the throat suddenly let go. She fell into my arms and
I wasted no time turning tail and running out of the room. Cradling her protectively,
I rushed down the stairs and right out the front door.

I didn’t stop running until we reached the huge elm tree at the edge of the drive.
Once I’d come to a stop, I simply stood there, holding her trembling form and trying
to figure out what the heck was going on.

Everything felt real enough to be an OBE—out-of-body experience—but why I was having
one I couldn’t be sure. And of all the OBEs I’d had in my life, and I’d had quite
a few, I’d never had one with a version of myself in it. I could only wonder at the
meaning of it.

The little girl in my arms trembled and shook and I hugged her tighter. “It’s okay,”
I told her as she cried quietly into my shoulder. “You’re safe now.”

“I’m never safe,” I thought I heard her whisper.

I continued to hold her until she settled down and all the while I kept wondering
what the purpose of this OBE was. “What’s your name?” she asked suddenly.

I wondered what her reaction would be once I told her. “I’m M.J.”

“M.J.?” she repeated.

“Mary Jane,” I said, pulling my head back so that I could look down at her. It was
such an eerie thing to see my own young face staring curiously back up at me.

“That’s a nice name,” she said.

I nodded. “The same as yours, right?”

Her brow furrowed. “No. I’m DeeDee.”

I shook my head a little. “I’m sorry. You’re who?”

“DeeDee.”

For another moment I remained confused, but as I stared down at her, I noticed a few
things that helped me put the puzzle together. It was in the little girl’s nose and
the set of her eyes. Her nose was a little thinner than mine had been at her age,
and her eyes were a bit more almond-shaped. “DeeDee?” I whispered. “As in DeeDee,
short for Madelyn?” My mother’s nickname from childhood had been DeeDee. The story
was that when she’d been a toddler, she couldn’t pronounce her own name, so she’d
introduced herself as DeeDee. For the most part the nickname had stuck, although Daddy
never used it, preferring her given name of Madelyn.

The little girl in front of me nodded and added a shy smile. “Thank you for saving
me,” she said.

For several long seconds all I could do was stare down at this slight, sweet child.
The fact that I was holding my own mother was a bit too surreal for me to really take
in. While I stared at her, she took a lock of my hair and studied it. “I like your
hair,” she said.

I stroked the back of her head. “It’s dark like yours.”

DeeDee smiled again and let the lock fall. “Mary Jane?” she asked.

“Yes, sweetie?”

She lost her smile and her eyes drifted up to her bedroom window. “Don’t make me go
back there.”

My own gaze traveled up to her bedroom. “What the heck was that, DeeDee?”

“The Sandman,” she whispered, and she shuddered in my arms.

I hugged her tightly, troubled by both what she’d said and what I’d seen in her bedroom.
“Tell me about him,” I coaxed, hoping she felt safe enough to trust me.

DeeDee gripped me around the neck and I rocked her back and forth. I didn’t know if
she’d be able to tell me about her experience, but I hoped she found the courage.
“He comes at night to put sand in my eyes.”

“Sand in your eyes?” I asked. What I’d seen in that bedroom had had nothing to do
with the childhood fable.

DeeDee nodded against my shoulder. “He never does, though.” She paused then and I
patiently waited her out. At last she continued. “I tried to tell Mama about him,
but she says I’m only dreamin’. She says the Sandman won’t hurt me. ’Cept he does.
He hurts me every time.”

I hugged DeeDee tighter to me again, and I couldn’t help wondering if I’d actually
entered an alternate reality, or if I was somehow revisiting some element of my mother’s
past.

What troubled me was a memory I’d had when I was close to DeeDee’s age, and I’d woken
up in the middle of the night to find my mother sitting in the rocking chair next
to my bed. I’d asked her what was wrong, and she’d leaned over to kiss and reassure
me, whispering, “Nothing’s wrong, child. I’m just here to keep you safe.”

I’d never asked her what she meant and I remembered only the smell of her perfume
as I drifted back to sleep, but there’d been other nights when I’d awakened to find
her watching over me protectively. And then she’d soon become too sick to continue
the practice.

Still, I also remembered around the age of seven when I’d started sensing the spirits
of our deceased loved ones, how concerned Mama had been. She’d ask me all the time
if any of the spirits I sensed had ever tried to hurt me. None had until I was much
older and started doing ghostbusts with Gilley.

I wondered if any of what I was currently experiencing was part of that vague memory
of my mother hovering close by me while I slept. Could this be just a very vivid dream
instead of an OBE? If it was simply a dream, then it would explain encountering my
mother as a child, but what I couldn’t get over was how
real
everything felt. The little girl pressed tightly against me was as real as real could
be. Her skin was warm, her hair soft, and I could even smell the lingering scent of
soap on her skin.

Tilting my chin up, I could see the stars in the night sky and feel the breeze stirring
the leaves of the elm tree above us. No dream I’d ever had had felt this vivid and
clear.

So what the heck was going on?

And, for that matter, what had my mother experienced as a child?

“How long has the Sandman been hurting you, DeeDee?” I asked softly.

Her small shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know. A while. Ever since Everett told him
to come find me.”

My brow furrowed. “Who’s Everett?” I asked.

“Glenn’s cousin.” She started to say more, but at that moment a light came on in the
house. DeeDee gasped.

“DeeDee!” we heard from inside, and my own breath caught. It was the voice of my maternal
grandmother, clear as day.

“I have to go!” DeeDee said urgently, already wriggling to get down.

“DeeDee!”
my grandmother called again. “Child, stop hiding and come out right now!”

I frowned as I set the little girl down on the ground. My mother’s mother had been
a stern, religious woman. I’d always preferred my father’s mother to her, especially
after Mama had passed away. “DeeDee!” I whispered, catching her hand before she could
hurry away. “I know you have to go inside, but I want to tell you to get some magnets.
Lots of magnets and put them under your bed and in the four corners of your room.”

DeeDee appeared torn between nodding impatiently so she could get back to the house
before she got in any more trouble and wanting to ask me why I was telling her to
get some magnets.

“As long as those magnets are in your room, the Sandman won’t bother you,” I told
her. “His power will drain around the magnets—they’ll stop him in his tracks—so ask
Grandmama—I mean . . . your mama to get you some.”

DeeDee nodded and offered me a tiny smile. “Thanks, Mary Jane.” Then she was off,
racing up the hill toward home.

I watched her slip through the front door just as more lights in the house came on.
I waited until I heard my grandmother exclaim, “There you are! Oh, you bad child!
Why would you hide like that when you knew I was looking for you? And what on earth
has you out of bed at this time of night?”

I frowned again as my grandmother’s harsh words echoed out the open windows. I had
half a mind to march up to that door and to lecture her, but at that moment I heard
the sound of breaking glass coming from right behind me. I whirled around, but immediately
lost my balance and began to fall to the ground. What was even odder was that as soon
as I began to fall, I became totally disoriented, and for what felt like several long
seconds, I had no idea which way was up. Flinging my arms out to try to catch myself,
I felt something sharp cut into my arm and I hissed through my teeth. “Em! Can you
hear me?”

I blinked, but my vision was blurry and the world still felt like it was spinning.
I thought I was about to throw up when I heard Heath say, “Steady, babe. I’ve got
you.”

And then Heath lifted me into his arms and I knew we were on the move. Try as I might,
though, I couldn’t get either my vision to focus or the world to stop spinning. I
clutched at Heath’s shirt and hoped that he’d set me down soon, because I was very
close to tossing my cookies.

And then I was aware that Heath was extending me away from him, and another set of
hands had me under the arms. “Got her?” Heath asked.

“Let her go!” Gil said. “I’ve got her!”

“Gil?” I cried out a little desperately, so happy he was okay and the spook hadn’t
harmed him.

“I’m here,” he said with a grunt, taking firm hold of my torso and pulling me out
of Heath’s grip.

“What’s happening?” I asked, covering my eyes with my hand, hoping that would stop
the spins.

“We’re getting the hell out of here,” he told me, his voice strained as he took my
full weight. “Sweet Jesus, girl. You gotta lay off the cupcakes.”

I smirked in spite of my discomfort. If anyone needed to lay off the baked goods,
it was Gilley. I was the same weight I’d been since high school.

“Heath!” Gil called. “Get out of there!”

I moved my hand and blinked furiously. At last the world came into focus, and just
like that, the spins stopped too. I looked over Gilley’s shoulder as he carried me
away from the house, and I realized the boys had broken a window and passed me through
it to get me out. I looked anxiously for Heath and then he appeared in the window
and began shinnying out of it. I didn’t relax until his feet were on the ground and
running toward us.

Meanwhile, Gil had finally had enough of carrying me, because he was easing me to
the ground as carefully as he could. “I’m okay,” I told him, trying to squirm out
of his grip to make it easier on him.

“Hey!” he barked. “Settle down, sugar. You’ve been out for like five whole minutes,
so just let me put you down, okay?”

I held my hands up in surrender and Gil set me on the ground with another grunt. Then
he held on to my shoulders and peered into my eyes. “Where the hell did you go?”

“How is she?” Heath asked, coming up behind Gil.