Spookygirl - Paranormal Investigator (21 page)

“I don’t want to let him out at all unless something goes wrong. I don’t know how well I can control him when we’re not home.”

Dim yellow light seeped through the windows from a nearby streetlamp, providing just enough illumination to let us move through the house without tripping on any stray renovation material. I discouraged flashlight use
unless it was absolutely necessary—all we needed was for a neighbor to see a light on in one of the windows and call the police. Still, for the sake of the EMF readings I needed to know if the house had electricity. I quickly flipped a few wall switches, hoping nothing would happen. Fortunately, nothing did.

We started in the rear of the house, by the back door. Isobel and I took several readings in each room, noting our findings into the recorders. We didn’t find anything out of the ordinary in the back hall or the grungy kitchen. A spare room across the hall yielded nothing interesting, either. No cold spots, no EMF spikes.

I was checking the last corner of the den when I heard Isobel go “Whoa!” in the hall. She was getting ahead of Tim and me, walking a little too fast. It made me uneasy that we weren’t staying together. I hurried into the hall; Tim followed.

When I saw where Isobel was, I stopped short. She stood at the foot of the main staircase, where the heavy stairs met the scuffed, dusty floor. Exactly where my mother had died.

At first I couldn’t react at all, but Isobel was nodding and gesturing, indicating that we should come over. I forced my feet to move and walked to where she stood.

There was a definite cold spot in front of the stairway. My skin went all clammy, and I shivered.

“What was that?” Tim suddenly yelped.

“What?” I looked in the direction he was pointing, through the doorway of a window-filled room that might’ve been a sitting room or a parlor. He looked terrified, but I didn’t see anything.

“There was a shape. A dark shape! It moved!”

Even though I was about ready to freak out, I felt responsible for my friends. I didn’t want Tim to be afraid because of a situation I’d dragged him into. Besides, I couldn’t see or sense anything coming from the parlor.

“The shadows, Tim. Sometimes they play tricks. It might not’ve been—”

Beside us, Isobel screamed and jumped away from the stairs, holding her arm.

“Something grabbed me!” She whirled around to face…nothing. “I felt it! A hand on my arm. It squeezed really tight.” She rubbed the skin on her upper arm as if she expected a bruise. “Violet, maybe we should—”

But she was interrupted as Tim fell forward with a cry. Buster’s box flew from his grip and skittered across the floor of the front hall. Tim stood up, looking dazed.

“Something shoved me!”

Isobel grabbed my hand. “Violet, we need to go. This wasn’t a good idea.”

I nodded. “You guys go; I’ll grab Buster.” I darted across the room to where Buster’s box quaked angrily on the
unfinished wood. As I grabbed the box and shoved it into the large front pocket of my hoodie, I heard exclamations of dismay from near the front door. I turned and saw Tim yanking helplessly on the knob.

“It won’t open!” Isobel said as I rejoined them.

“It’s just stuck.” I tried to stay calm. “Maybe whoever repainted the trim accidentally painted it shut. We’ll go out the way we came in.”

As I led the way back past the kitchen, I felt a hand graze my shoulder. It was like it tried to grab me and just barely missed. Nails scraped across the cotton of my hoodie.

It made me feel sick. The touch was horrible—so much worse than anything I’d felt in the locker room. The air around us went icy and stale, and a terrible sense of death and darkness rose up and drifted around us like a mist. Something hissed near my ear, something that might have been a voice. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been active when we’d arrived. Our intrusion had woken it up. I glanced over my shoulder as we fled, expecting to see the translucent blue form of James Riley, Jr., but only darkness lay behind me.

In the back hall Isobel dove for the doorknob and tried to turn it. It rattled uselessly in place, refusing to move. None of us had locked it. It wasn’t locked at all. It just wouldn’t budge.

“Window!” Tim said, rushing toward the nearest one,
which was in the kitchen. He slid the latches, unlocking it, and tried to pull it up. The glass stayed put.

No longer caring whether we got caught, I said, “We can break it.”

Tim was already looking around for something to use. In the far corner of the room he spotted a sawed-off scrap of wood left over from the house’s half-done renovations. He hefted the scrap in his hand, then heaved it at the window.

When the wood was a few inches away from the glass, its arc slowed. It stopped, drifting as though caught by invisible hands—but if someone really had caught it, I couldn’t see who. Then, with blinding speed, it flew back at Tim and smashed into his forehead. He crumpled.

“Tim!” Isobel yelled, falling to her knees next to him and turning him over. He blinked up at her. A thin trickle of blood seeped from a gash above his left temple, but the damage looked otherwise minimal. Isobel and I helped him to his feet.

A sudden, bitter wind picked up inside the house. It whirled and moaned around us like an ice storm, the coldness almost sharp enough to slice through flesh.

“We just want to leave!” Isobel hollered into it.

Unseen hands reached for us, grabbing and shoving. Again I felt the clutch of fingernails against my shoulder; this time they dug in until I yelped in pain. Isobel reeled
back as if she’d been slapped in the face. Tim was wrenched away; the wind literally picked him up, throwing him out of the kitchen and into the hall. He bounced against the far wall and slid to the ground, dazed.

I remembered then what I’d read about the nature of the Riley Island haunting—the wrath seemed to focus more on women. This thing had tossed Tim out of the way so it could get to us. I grabbed onto Isobel, hoping we’d be a little safer together. She seemed to understand; as the freezing storm picked up around us, she clung right back onto me. Something pinched and slapped at us, pulling our hair, and a white mist rose around us, cutting us off from the world.

Through the howl of the wind, I heard Tim yelling. His voice seemed to come from far away, as though he was shouting through a canyon, but I understood one word well enough.

Buster.

I’d almost forgotten about the little box in my front pocket. The wind made it impossible to fiddle with the necklace, so I threw the entire box toward the sound of Tim’s voice. Through the mist I heard him yell, “Got it!”

A horrible scream, echoing with wrath and hate and anger rang out, emanating from everywhere in the house at once. I knew that sound, and as deafening and terrible as it was, I felt tears of relief pricking my eyes. It was a
louder, more pissed-off version of the cry I heard every time I threatened to punish Buster.

Instantly, the icy whirlwind and mist disappeared. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but the house was filled with a series of screams and wails and brutal screeches. Some were Buster’s, others were from a source I didn’t recognize. Bangs and crashes resonated throughout the house; the entire structure shook on its foundation. Somewhere on the second floor, glass shattered.

“What’s going on?” Isobel said as Tim ran up and grabbed our hands. It felt safer to be together.

“I think they’re fighting,” I said, and my explanation was punctuated by a mighty howl from Buster.

“Maybe we can get out while Buster’s distracting the ghost!” Tim tried to drag us toward the back door. Isobel followed readily, but I hung back.

“I can’t go without Buster. You guys go.” I was worried about my poltergeist. Some of his screams were victorious and taunting, but others sounded like he was in great pain. I wondered what kind of damage two ghosts could do to each other in a situation like this. Neither could be killed, obviously, but could one somehow destroy the other? Buster had protected us without hesitation; I wasn’t about to leave him behind.

Tim broke away long enough to check the door.
“Never mind,” he said after giving it a few yanks. “It’s still stuck.”

Just then, the most horrific sound I’d ever heard rang through the hall. It was strangled and screaming…and it was Buster.

“No!” I yelled. I tried to run down the hall, even though I didn’t know what the hell I’d be able to do for him. Isobel and Tim held me back.

The house fell silent. Not just quiet, completely dead and still. The fight was over. Tears rose in my eyes again, making my vision shimmery and unfocused.

Then the storm bounced back. Tim’s hand flew from mine as he was once again thrown across the room. When he hit the far wall this time, he fell like a rag doll and didn’t look up.

Something shoved me hard from behind, making me stumble forward. I lost my grip on Isobel’s hand, but I could see she was being similarly propelled. It felt like a thousand hands were pushing and pulling me at the same time, forcing me down the hall.

Don’t go with it,
I thought, feeling strangely detached.
Do whatever you have to to fight back. Resist
. I let myself go limp and fall to the floor. Unfazed, the hands grabbed my legs and dragged me. My shirt rode up in the back, and my bare back scraped across the roughness of the unfinished
wood. Ahead I could see Isobel being half dragged, half carried in the same direction, toward the stairs. She was screaming. It took me a second to realize I was screaming, too.

She was the first up the stairs, lurching up each step before slamming into the wall in the upstairs hallway, where she fell to her knees. I came second, still on my back. The edge of each step was torture on my body; I felt like one enormous bruise. I strained my neck, holding my head up to keep it from bouncing over the stairs. At the top of the staircase, I was tossed onto the ground next to Isobel. I could barely see her in the shadows, but I could hear her crying.

The second floor was freezing. Every inch of me hurt. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move at all. It was like I’d been tied up and anchored down. No matter how I struggled against my invisible bindings, I was stuck.

Finally I gave in and stopped fighting. I lay still.

I heard it in the distance. Thunder. The late-night storms were blowing in as predicted. What time was it? How long had I been lying there? It felt like minutes, but it could have been hours. Somewhere nearby, Isobel was still crying.

I thought of my messenger bag, which was still downstairs with Tim. I thought of Tim, of how he’d just lain there after hitting the wall. I thought of my mother and her black tourmaline. I thought of Buster, who hadn’t made a sound since that last terrible scream.

It was so cold it hurt to breathe; the temperature was freezing my lungs from the inside out. My eyes were used to the darkness, and I could see my breath each time I exhaled.

The thunder rumbled again. Lightning flashed through the windows. Isobel’s cries grew quiet and weak.

I was exhausted and frightened and hurting.

Outside the rain began to fall. I heard it pattering on the roof as I stared up at the ceiling. It fell hard and fast, the kind of rain that hurts like needles. The storm was moving closer. Now when lightning struck, thunder roared at the same instant, shaking the walls and floor. It was directly overhead.

The air warmed, and the weighted feeling slowly dissolved from my limbs. I flexed my arm experimentally; yep, I could move again. I sat up and looked at Isobel, who was no longer crying. The lightning ruined my night vision, but each time it flashed I could see her sitting against the wall. Her knees were tucked up to her chest, and her head was down. Her hair had come undone; it hung limp and snarled over her face. If I hadn’t been terrified out of my mind, I might’ve made fun of her for looking like a reject from one of those Japanese horror movie remakes.

Everything downstairs was quiet. Too quiet. I wanted to hear some sound from Tim. Anything, just to know he was okay.

I turned back to Isobel. She wasn’t moving.

“Isobel?” I asked quietly.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t even lift her head.

Fighting off the pain that tried to seize me, I scooted closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. When she
still didn’t respond, I gave her a shake. Her head tilted to the side, and her body shifted and fell, sprawling and limp. Like a doll. Like a corpse.

“Isobel!” Frantically, I turned her onto her back. No resistance, no acknowledgment, no reply. Only dead weight. Her face was still; her eyes were closed. I said her name again, grabbed her by the shoulders, gave her another jostle. When she still didn’t respond, I put a hand to her throat and checked for a pulse. It was there. A little weak, maybe, but there.

But I didn’t have time to be relieved. Suddenly she gasped, raised her arm and wrapped her hand around my outstretched wrist, her fingers digging tightly into my skin, her long black nails pinching. Her eyes opened and focused on me.

“Isobel! Thank God.” I winced and tried to pull my hand away from her neck. “Can you let go? You’re hurting me.”

She stared at me, her eyes narrowed. “Home wrecker.”

I froze. “What?”

“Home wrecker,” she repeated. “Thieving, corrupting little bitch. How dare you try to take my husband from me?”

“Isobel, it’s me. Violet.”

She sat up, still not letting go of my wrist. Her
nails dug deeper. Her grip was hot and burning, with a sharp, slick wetness that meant she’d drawn blood. Her face twisted, looking entirely un-Isobel-like. Which made sense, because clearly she wasn’t Isobel any longer. Something else had taken hold of her. When I looked closely I could see it—a weak blue glow surrounding her. The ghost was inside of her, and Isobel was just a puppet. She stood, dragging me to my feet with her.

“My James is a weak man,” she hissed in a voice lower than Isobel’s. “What he did was wrong, but it wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so willing.” Her normally brown eyes burned blue with spectral hate.