by Hamill, Ike
Her heart pounded in her ears and she tried to listen for any sounds.
Amber crouched again and reached behind the washing machine. The stake was gone. In her effort to clear out the house, Amber had put the stake and the rest of her monster-hunting gear in the back of her car. The kitchen door was closest. If she could retreat down the hall and go out through the back door, it would be a quick sprint through the dark to get to her car. If she went the other way, she could turn on the porch light and chase away the shadows between the house and driveway.
Amber weighed her options and chose the kitchen. Going that direction, she wouldn’t have to pass by Evelyn’s open door.
Her fingers closed around the knob, but her hand didn’t want to turn it.
There was another option—she had her phone in her pocket. What was the harm in calling the police and telling them she heard a sound? It would be a lie, but what else could she say?
“Hi, I was attacked by monsters a few times last year and now I think maybe one of them followed me back from Maine.”
If she said any of that, they would send the men in white suits with butterfly nets.
But she could lie and tell them she heard the sound of an intruder. People probably told little lies to get the police to their houses all the time.
Amber slid the phone from her pocket and began to dial.
Her thumb stopped before she hit the final button. She remembered placing the same call earlier that day when she was trying to get Shawn out of the house. Fear shifted into anger. Instead of creeping monsters, she imagined Shawn in the house, maybe trying to find some hidden treasure that Evelyn had left behind. He had glanced at Evelyn’s door. It was perfectly plausible that he had wanted to get in there earlier to search for something and Amber had scared him away. The more she thought of it, the more she convinced herself.
Just in case, she kept her phone in her left hand. With her right, she picked up the can of wasp spray from the shelf. It was more than half full. The label on the can said that it would shoot up to twenty-two feet. Amber used it once on the wasps that made a gray paper nest next to the clothes line. Twenty-two feet was an exaggeration, but it would definitely shoot far enough to make Shawn regret breaking in. She shook it up before she opened the door.
Stepping over the cleaning supplies, Amber held out the spray at arm’s length as she angled to get a good look at Evelyn’s door. The lights were off in there, but she thought she saw something moving in the dark.
“Come on out,” she said. “Police are on their way.”
There was no answer.
Advancing carefully, she pushed the door open further with her toe. The source of the movement turned out to be headlights shining through the window as a car rolled slowly down the street.
“Shawn?”
Amber inched forward and flipped the light switch with the back of her hand. Earlier that day, she had put brand new bulbs in the fixture. The lights were as bright as the sun through the clean globe. The bed was gone. The realtor had said it could stay, but Amber had gotten rid of it anyway. That was where Evelyn had died and it seemed wrong to keep it around. The only real furniture in the room was Evelyn’s chair and dresser.
Amber relaxed a little as she turned in a tight circle and realized that there was nobody in the bedroom. She was headed back towards the door—ready to check out the rest of the house—when she heard a thump from the closet. Amber’s mouth curled into a wicked smile as she thought of Shawn packed into that tiny space. He would have to be hunched down below the hanger bar.
“Come on out. You still have time to get out of here before the police come,” she said.
The closet doorknob turned until the latch clicked. The hinges groaned as it slowly opened an inch.
Amber frowned when it didn’t swing the rest of the way.
“Come on, Shawn,” she said.
Another noise made her spin. She turned just in time to see the door to the hall gather speed and then slam shut. Her hand tightened so much on the can of wasp spray that a tiny bit squirted out on the freshly cleaned floor. Amber backed away from both doors to keep the two of them in sight.
When the phone buzzed in her hand, she nearly threw it. The display lit up to tell her that Ricky was calling. She thumbed the button and his voice came through.
“Amber? Are you there?”
“There’s something in the house, Ricky,” she whispered. “Two things. Two. One in the closet, one in the hall.”
“Lights?” he asked.
“All on.”
“Tapping?”
“None.”
“Okay. It’s not them. Hang up and call the police. Stay in the light, just in case. Once you connect to the dispatcher, don’t hang up.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I’m hanging up,” he said. “You call, okay?”
Instead of answering, she disconnected.
The door to the closet began to swing open. Amber moved her hand to point the can of wasp spray at whatever might come out of there. She held her breath with every muscle in her body tensed.
There was nothing in there.
Amber blinked and lowered herself a little so could see up into the space above the shelf. The brand new light bulbs from the fixture over her head cast plenty of light in there. There were barely any shadows to speak of. Amber kept her distance until she worked her way to the wall and the closet light switch. Her hand darted out to flip it up and the darkest corners of the closet were illuminated.
There were no monsters and no sign of Shawn.
That eliminated both the possibilities of…
“No,” Amber whispered as a new idea occurred to her.
# # #
Once it entered her head, the thought consumed Amber.
It had taken years, but the demon had finally caught up with her. She had thought that the thing was gone—either burned up with her mother in the car or plowed under with the house—but it was clearly back. The demon had somehow infested Evelyn’s house now.
Beyond the door to the hall, Amber heard the sound of rolling wheels. At first, she didn’t know what to make of it. Then, she remembered the bucket in the laundry room. It was blue plastic and it was mounted on little wheels so it could be rolled around to act as a mop bucket.
“What do you want from me?” Amber called. The door to the hallway clicked and then began to swing inwards. Still holding the wasp spray out in front of herself. Amber inched towards the door as she considered her options. She barely registered the closet door swinging shut again behind her. With her foot, she swept the door to the hall open the rest of the way in time to see the mop bucket roll by.
The ramifications began to dawn on her all at once. The demon hadn’t been attached to her mother, and it probably had never really been attached the house either. It was her—the demon was attached to her. Maybe she had lost it for a while when she moved, but it had come back to her and she thought maybe she knew why. Talking about it—telling the story to Ricky—had breathed power back into it.
“You have to tell me what you want. I’m not a mind reader.”
She glanced down and saw that the cleaning supplies had been knocked over. The mop bucket had come to rest at the threshold of the living room.
“You want me to clean? You don’t want me to clean? What are we doing here?” she asked, turning her head up slightly to direct her questions at the ceiling. Meanwhile, she was running through her other options. It had taken years to catch up with her less than a hundred miles away. If she moved farther, maybe it would take decades to find her. But that would mean spending the rest of her life on the run. There had to be a way to get rid of the thing once and for all. Now that she knew it was attached to her, perhaps she could leverage that information into some kind of power.
Amber spun left when she heard a knock on the door.
“Is that you?” she asked the ceiling.
Shawn’s voice came through the door. “Amber?”
“Hey, don’t shoot,” he said, putting up his hands and chuckling nervously.
“What do you want, Shawn? I’m a little busy.”
She was still low in her stance, ready for combat.
“I was driving home and I saw all the lights on. I thought maybe something was wrong or whatever.”
He snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait, you’re still on your third shift schedule, I bet.”
“Shawn, this isn’t a good time.”
His eyes shifted and he leaned a little closer and whispered, “Is someone here? Are you okay?”
Amber’s phone buzzed again. She glanced down and saw a message from Ricky. “Are you okay?” It was like he was repeating what Shawn had just asked.
Shawn took the confusion on her face as an invitation. He pulled open the screen door and started to slip inside.
“Shawn, no!” Amber said.
The front door began to slam, gathering speed as it closed. Her negative feelings towards him evaporated in a fraction of a second as Amber pictured him being cut in half, just like her grandfather had been years before. Shawn was fast on his feet though. He practically dove through the doorway before it could break his legs. He rolled to a stop on the floor and turned upwards, utterly confused.
“Amber, what the heck? You could have really hurt me.”
“Shawn, you need to get out, or you will get hurt.”
He tilted his head and studied her face for a moment.
“Amber…” he said with a low voice. He didn’t have to finish the rest of the sentence. She knew precisely what he was thinking. Given their history, even the hint of a threat from her to him would likely land her in trouble. He never took out a restraining order against her or anything, but there were plenty of cops who would remember Amber and her temper.
“Not from me, Shawn—it’s this house. It doesn’t want you here and it’s going to try to hurt you.”
The sad empathy in his eyes made her hand tighten on the wasp spray. With a tiny bit more pressure on the nozzle, the spray would erase that look from his eyes. She angled her hand down to remove the temptation.
“Listen,” Amber said. “Put all of our history aside for a moment.”
“I can’t…” he began to say.
“Just listen, Shawn. You always told me that I carried all my old problems with me from place to place. Maybe you were right. I can admit that. Can you just take my word for once and believe that some of my old problems are here in this house?”
“I’m here to help, Amber.”
“Trust me—the only way you can help is to clear out of here while you’re…”
A thump from the rear of the house made her stop.
Shawn’s eyes went wide.
“Who’s here with you?”
# # #
He got to his feet and moved towards the hall before she could get in his way.
“Could you listen to me, Shawn? Just once?”
“Come out,” he called. Over his shoulder, he said, “You don’t have to hide anything from me. Who’s here?”
The door to Evelyn’s room was creaking open.
“Shawn, don’t go…”
Amber ran to intercept, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch him. Shawn was through the door to Evelyn’s room and the door was slamming shut behind him. Amber lowered her shoulder and threw herself into the door. It tossed her back like she weighed nothing. Slammed against the opposite wall, Amber dropped the can of spray and shoved her phone into her pocket before she twisted the handle and tried to force herself back in.
From the other side of the door, she heard Shawn’s voice.
“Amber, what did you do in here?”
He sounded puzzled and almost amused at first.
Amber slammed her fist on the door.
“Get out of there, Shawn. Get…”
“Amber?”
He didn’t sound amused anymore. Now, he sounded frightened.
“Oh, no, what did you…”
That’s when he started screaming her name, over and over.
“No, no, no,” Amber said to herself. Twisting the handle with one hand, she slammed her shoulder into the door again and again. It didn’t feel like wood attached to metal hinges anymore. This was a solid block of cold concrete that she was throwing herself against. If she ran outside, into the darkness, she knew that the windows would be just as impenetrable. She was a child again, helpless to oppose the forces that had possessed the house.
Amber screamed in frustration, turned, and pressed her back against the door as she listened to Shawn’s cries dissolve into wordless pain.
His voice cut off in the middle of a moaning plea.
Amber turned and put her palm against the door.
“What did you do to him?” she whispered.
The knob turned on its own and the latch clicked.
# # #
Amber bent at the knees and reached down, searching with her fingers until they closed around the can. It made her feel better to have the wasp spray in her hand even though she couldn’t imagine what good it would do against a demon. With her toe, she nudged the door to Evelyn’s room inward. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of Shawn. Curled on his side in the middle of the empty floor, Shawn’s perfectly still body was covered in a layer of ash.
Amber slipped forward. For the moment, she was oblivious to the danger of the door slamming on her. That fear was forgotten as she studied Shawn, desperately hoping that he would move and prove that he wasn’t dead after all.
“Oh Shawn,” she whispered. “What did it do to you?”
The ash had settled on him like a layer of snow. Through the ash on his head she could see his hair. His black hair looked white under the ash.
When she was only a few inches away from him, he gasped, sucking in a breath and letting it out with a sobbing shudder. Amber dropped to her knees and tossed the can aside so she could lay her hands on him and prove to herself that she hadn’t imagined the sound and movement. He shrank from her touch.
“Shawn, I’m so…”
He lifted the arm that was wrapped protectively over his head and he opened red, weeping eyes to look at her.
“Stay away from me,” he said. A line of drool hung from the corner of his mouth.
She raised her hands. “I won’t touch you, I promise. I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
He pushed at the floor, putting more distance between them.
“I have to get out of here.”
“Of course,” she said.
His eyes went to the door and flared wide. Something frightened him, but looking at the doorway Amber couldn’t tell what it was.
“How could you?” he asked. Instead of waiting for an answer, he was already pulling himself towards the door. Shawn struggled to his knees and then got to his feet so he could bolt through the doorway all at once. She heard him run through the living room and she was in the hall by the time he had thrown open the front door and run into the night. The sound of his tires squealing cut through the night and echoed through the neighborhood. Amber stood on the porch, watching his taillights disappear.
With a deep breath, she turned back to the house.
Everything was packed—most of her possessions were already in the car. Amber clenched her jaw and then strode back inside.
Eleven: Ricky
“Ricky?”
He was staring at his phone, looking at the messages—nothing new.
“Ricky?”
Shutting down the phone, he started to slip it back into his pocket when he realized that maybe the phone needed to be rebooted. He held down the two buttons until the logo appeared and
then he…
“Ricky,” his mother said.
“Huh?”
“What is wrong with you? Doesn’t your shift start in a few minutes? Shouldn’t you be on the road?”
“Oh. Yeah. I might have to take the day off.”
“What? Why?”
“My friend. She was having trouble last night and I told her to call the police. This was down in North Carolina. Then she texted me back to say that she was okay. She got away from the house. I don’t know where she went after that though. I haven’t heard anything back and I sent her two more messages and I think…”
“You’re thinking about going back down to North Carolina?”
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “I think I have to.”
“No,” his mother said.
Ricky blinked as he stared at her. “Sorry?”
“No. You’re not going to North Carolina.”
“Mom, I wasn’t asking for permission.”
“I know it’s none of my business how you conduct your life, and I know you’re all grown up and you can make your own mistakes if you want to. I never thought that I would be the one advocating for you to get to your job in the sheriff’s office, but here we are. I’m telling you that you’re not going to North Carolina. You’re going to be on time for your shift and if you don’t hear from your friend by the end of it, you’re going to make another call and then let it go.”
“What? I can’t…”
“You can’t what?”
“I’m not just going to let it go,” he said.
“Good. So we’re in agreement about the rest of what I just told you to do?”
“Sorry?”
“We still rely on each other, right?” his mother asked. After the question, she turned and looked down at Tucker.
“I guess,” Ricky said.
“Good. Then I think you’ll agree that my opinion carries a little weight.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Ricky said.
“One of us doesn’t. That’s for sure.”
His mother turned her head towards the hall before she yelled. “Vernon!”
