Excitement began to bubble up inside me as I started down the sidewalk, back toward Oh! Kay’s. Maybe I could do this. I’d be spreading myself thin for a few months—maybe a year—with running the store and handling the catering on weekends, but it’d be worth it. Who knows. Maybe I’d be able to hire some more employees to help out soon, too. Then weddings, a brand, my desserts stocked on grocery store shelves, and vacations. Lots and lots of vacations. That was the goal, anyway.
I didn’t remember what not working felt like. I’d been on the go…well, pretty much forever. Taking a break wasn’t really in my DNA. At least, it’d been ingrained into it ever since my grandmother was given sole custody of me and my siblings. She worked a tight ship, but while my older brother and my younger sister rebelled, I wanted nothing more than to make her proud.
Grandma Abigail was a Medium, too. And since my sister and brother didn’t share the gift, I got most of her attention. And most of her strictness and rules.
Don’t get me wrong. Growing up with Grandma Abigail wasn’t easy. She was a strong, no-nonsense kind of woman who clung tightly to her traditions, her culture, and her religion. But she was all I had since our mother was…unable to care for us, and I cherished her teachings.
Of course, it was always easier to appreciate someone when they’re gone or when you’re older, but my grandmother’s toughness and hard lessons made me the woman I was today. And there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about her.
Crossing my arms across my chest to keep some of my body heat in as I walked, I thanked our luck that it’d been a rather warm winter. Wet and still bitter cold, but warmer than usual. Because of our closeness to the coast, most of our potential snowstorms had turned to rain.
I wasn’t complaining. While most people were praying for a white Christmas, I’d be okay with skipping the snow and ice part of it. One, because it slowed down business, and two, because I always managed to slip on the hidden ice patches and bruise my bum. Ever since last year’s spill down my apartment’s steps, I was okay skipping something like that again.
Hurrying across the street, static energy tickled across my skin, making me pause on the sidewalk. Pulse jumping into overdrive, I searched the shadows around me. A similar sensation would pass over me every time I walked out of my store. My guess was that it was because of the rip in the veil separating our world and the other side, where all things not alive dwelled. That included Hell, Heaven, the afterlife, and all the mysteries that came after death.
Jade had warned me the opening in front of my shop led right to a Hell dimension and was probably the reason the demon, Xaver, had found me and made me his victim. If my hunch was right, that meant there was another tear in the veil nearby, too. And that was never a good thing.
A chill rocketed through me, confirming my fears. I’d been juggling my Medium gift long enough to know this chill wasn’t from the weather. The goosebumps rising under my knitted blouse and thick coat told me there was spirit activity.
I turned toward the building on the street corner. From the unfinished decking, crumbling front steps, missing roofing shingles, and boarded up windows, it was clear this old Victorian house had been abandoned for some time. Probably during reconstruction, which was a common thing in downtown Fairport. These old buildings costed a lot of money to redo, and most buyers didn’t realize it until too late. Then, they were left untouched. Left as shells.
From my sudden, uncontrollable shivering and the prickling energy skating over my skin, I would say, with certainty, that something big was happening in this one.
Something otherworldly.
Chapter 2
If there was an opening in the veil and spirits lingering near the house, I needed to get away from here. Fast.
As a Medium, I appeared like a beacon to the dead. At least that’s how Jade had explained it. I attracted them, and I didn’t feel like having a spirit tagging along on my walk tonight. Some of them could be really pushy and mean.
A loud boom came from inside the abandoned house, followed by a choir of screams. My heart plummeted. People were inside? From the force of that crash, a wall could have toppled over, or a chunk of the ceiling could have fallen on top of them. Something similar had happened to a church in town during a spontaneous and tragic fire two months ago. It had even taken the life of a churchgoer. It was by some miracle—and by what the survivors had said was a visit from an angel—that most of them had managed to get out alive.
If something like that was happening now… If those people inside were hurt…
I didn’t move. Only listened. But I heard nothing else coming from the house. That only inflamed my worry. Not to mention the shivers cascading through me were intensifying by the minute. My teeth were chattering in my mouth.
I walked over to the front of the house. A beat-up truck was parked there with a running generator cranking in its bed and a bundle of cords leading into the house’s missing front door.
A terrible high-pitched scraping sound and another scream.
Before I knew it, I was hurrying up the steps, making sure to dodge the weak spots and cracked cement. Stepping through the door, I moved cautiously through the small foyer. The flooring was warped, some places having big gaps between boards. Wallpaper peeled from the walls and the dust in the air was so thick, it clogged my nose and stuffed up the back of my throat with every breath.
Here, the bundle of wires split. Most crawled along the staircase to the second floor, while some curved into other rooms on the first. My first guess was that the generator and the cords were supposed to provide power for light, but the place was dark. The only reason I wasn’t tripping over my own feet was because of the glow of the street’s gas lamps peeking in from outside.
So then, if the cords and generator in the truck weren’t for light, what were they for?
When soft whispers and giggles came from the room to my left, I froze in place. Those definitely didn’t sound like screams of fear or pain to me, but the supernatural energy was coming from in there.
I crept closer and peered around the broken column into the room. A group of five college-age kids stood in a close circle, their hands interlocked. Each had one of those expensive, small cameras attached to a band across their foreheads. They all wore the same purple shirts, too, and I squinted to see the wording scrolled along their backs. The only light in the room came from blinking LEDs on the stationary cameras, microphones, and speaker-looking things set up around the room. At least I knew what the extension cords were for now.
Because the group was chatting excitedly amongst themselves and the cloak of darkness, no one had noticed me peeking in on their meeting. When the young man shifted, turning his back fully toward me, I was able to make out what was on his shirt. Believe it or not, it read, “G. O. A. T.” which apparently—according to the explanation underneath—stood for “Ghost Operations Alert Team.”
In other words, amateur paranormal investigators.
I rolled my eyes. The craze to understand the dead wasn’t new, but technological advances and equipment, coupled with popular ghost-hunting television shows, made these spirit-chasing groups spring up everywhere. And since Fairport was a very old city and a central hub for a variety of supernaturals, groups like G. O. A. T. flocked here.
“Go on, Brock, say the prayer again,” a girl said to one of the guys across the circle. “Maybe it’ll happen again if we all follow along.”
Turning on my heel, I headed back toward the door to leave. It was clear I’d been wrong in assuming something had gone wrong here. I wanted nothing to do with this nonsense.
Right before I reached the door, the violent chills of a nearby spirit stopped me cold. At the same time, the chants from the group in the other room grew louder. The language they were saying was unknown to me, but from the melodic tones, it sounded more like a magical incantation than a prayer.
Slowly, I made my way back to my hiding place behind the column and peered into the ro
om where the kids were gathered. Still holding hands, they continued their chanting.
The air around me thickened, the energy building and building. The center of the investigators’ circle, just above their heads, shimmered and wavered. No one else seemed to see the changes though. Only me. And what I witnessed paralyzed me with fear.
A crack formed, glowing eerily with a red light. I was instantly hit was a terrible, sickening feeling. Could this be one of the rips in the veil Jade had been talking about? Was their prayer or whatever causing another one to open?
A gust of wind blew from somewhere, tossing up my hair and making me shield my face. When the others felt the gust, too, they exchanged excited looks and raised their voices. The unseen crack in the veil above them expanded with every passing second.
They were splitting whatever little was left of the protective barrier between the living world and the nonliving dimensions, and they had no idea they were doing it.
When a terrifying, earsplitting screech filled the room, terror seized me. I knew that sound; I’d never forget it. It came from those ugly and deadly Halfling creatures that dwelled in Hell and followed their demon masters. I knew this bit of information because Xaver—the demon who had possessed Laurence, tricked me into getting pregnant with his half-demon baby, and then kidnapped me—unleashed his Halfling minions when Jade had tried to save me.
Just thinking about that night again made me shake all over for a different reason.
The crack opened more, and a shadow passed behind it—an eager spirit, ready to jump out the moment it could.
Panicked, I leaped into the room. “Stop it! Stop it now!”
Every pair of eyes whirled on me. Some of the girls screamed, frightened by my sudden appearance. But at least the chanting had ceased.
I looked up, noticing the glowing opening shrinking and melding back together.
“Who are you?” a short but stocky guy asked, the camera hanging off his forehead swaying with his every movement.
I said nothing until the hole was fully patched and the air returned to its normal density and temperature. God, that was close.
“Is she a cop?” the brunette who had spoken earlier asked her friends.
Everyone was staring at me with confusion and annoyance. Especially the male whose question I’d ignored. He stepped toward me and repeated his question.
“Who are you? And why are you here? This is a private meeting,” he said.
“I-I—” Still stunned by what I had witnessed and the sudden danger we were almost in, I couldn’t find my words. It’s not like I could have explained it either. Not without revealing myself, what I was, and a big part of the supernatural world to these humans.
“Brock…” The brunette came to his side and touched his arm. Her voice lowered but still trembled with fear. “What if she’s the law? I can’t get arrested, Brock. I can’t. My mom will kill me.”
Despite her attempt to whisper, I could hear her loud and clear, and from the sound of it, she was worried about the police crashing their investigation. Meaning, they weren’t supposed to be here.
I could pretend to be an undercover or off-duty officer and demand they leave, but wasn’t that illegal? Impersonating law enforcement? I’m pretty sure it was.
If only Jade was here. She’d know how to handle this.
“I am the buyer of this property, actually.” The words flew from my mouth before they had time to register in my mind. When they hit me, I knew I had to run with it, as silly as it sounded. Being the buyer of a money pit like this was logical, right?
When Brock’s brow raised skeptically, I pulled out my cell phone and waved it at him for good measure. “I’d hate to have to call the cops right now and get you all arrested for trespassing.”
That was convincing enough for the other members of the group. They spun around and began taking down their various pieces of equipment, but Brock was unmoved. He stared me down with narrowed eyes. He may have been younger than me, but that didn’t make him any less intimidating. The moment I showed a smidge of hesitation or weakness, he would pounce on my lie.
“Don’t let this punk bully you.” I could hear Jade’s voice bouncing around in my head as loud as if she were standing right next to me. It was something she would say whenever a spirit would harass me.
My friend wasn’t here now. I was on my own.
Guess I had to follow Jade’s lead and handle this how she would.
“You’re on private property,” I said and met his gaze. “That’s trespassing, breaking and entering… possibly even disturbing the peace, depending on the officer’s mood.” I held my phone up and pretended to dial in a fictional number.
Outside the house, the wails of a police car echoed from a neighboring street. Right on cue.
Finally, the hardness on his face cracked, worry leaking in.
“Fine. We’ll go,” he said. “We don’t need trouble.”
I smiled as Brock joined the others in cleaning up their things and starting to bring it all to the truck. Waiting on the sidewalk, I watched as they loaded everything up. Since my detour had already taken too much time and I didn’t want to stay much longer, I turned to the kids and said, “I’ll have a car pass through here in twenty minutes. That should be plenty of time to clear out.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be gone,” the brunette from before said as she climbed into the back seat.
“And maybe consider a new hobby?” I suggested.
She nodded and slammed the door shut. Two other girls from G. O. A. T. joined her in the back through the opposite side.
Feeling like I’d efficiently gotten my point across, I walked away. That situation could have ended far worse if I hadn’t stopped them. Those college kids had no idea what they were doing. They had been unknowingly opening a portal to Hell. Who knows what terrible creatures could have crawled through. The supernatural was never something to play with. People could have died tonight.
I shook the thought out of my head as I continued down the sidewalk, toward home. Just thinking about the real danger of the situation made me nauseous. I told myself I’d managed to stop it and that was all that mattered. It was over now.
The farther I got from the old Victorian house, the better I felt. No more chills and no more sinking feeling in my stomach, confirming that the worst of it was behind me.
Good thing, too, because after all the stress of the day followed by the night’s excitement, I was more than ready for my bed.
“Yes, of course, Mr. Wallace. We can have all that delivered to you for five. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. Yes. We’ll see you then. Merry Christmas to you, too. Goodbye.”
I hung up the shop’s phone and scribbled down “5 p.m. delivery” on the new order sheet. Then, I clipped it on the hanging line I had designated for catering by the walk-in cooler with the five others I had taken this morning.
I’d woken up to a workday as hectic as the night before. No more members of G. O. A. T. involved this time, thank God, but my phone was ringing off the hook with incoming orders for Christmas Day. I was booking up fast, and if this kept up, I’d have to start refusing deliveries and only accepting pickups.
Since I was determined to spend Zach’s first Christmas morning together with presents, holiday pjs, and whatever other cheesy traditions I could start this year, I was only working a half-day, a late day. Any deliveries had to be done after three in the afternoon, which, to my surprise, hadn’t deterred any customers. They claimed they needed their sweets for after dinner.
My sudden popularity wasn’t expected, but it was sure exciting. The only explanation I could think of was Mrs. Harris. Either her guests had really enjoyed my desserts and wanted to order for their own holiday parties, or Mrs. Harris had spread the word about Oh! Kay’s new catering adventure.
I glanced over at the portable crib where Zack was drinking his bottle and making his normal happy grunts with every gulp. A nap would follow his feeding, and during that time, I could
refill the display cases in the front and check my stock in the back, make sure I had enough ingredients to fulfill these orders.
I could almost bet I needed butter. A baker could never have too much butter.
A chill rocketed through me, and my heart seized, knowing exactly what that meant. I spun around, searching every inch of the kitchen for the intruding spirit. Nothing. Not a soul. Whoever it was, they must have been hiding, which was common. Most didn’t even know people like me—a Medium—even existed. Most didn’t know how to approach me.
At first, I was relieved to see no ghostly figures hovering around my mixing equipment or decorating tools, but then I realized that probably meant whoever it was would probably startle me later when I least expected it.
Either intentionally or unintentionally, as Jade typically did whenever she stopped in for a visit.
However, for some reason, I didn’t get the signaling chill whenever she popped in. Probably because she wasn’t a regular spirit; she was an archangel, something we had come to know recently. So, that could be why she’d gotten away with scaring me half to death whenever stopping in.
At least, with this lingering spirit, I knew they were here. It was just the “when” they were going to reveal themselves that was frustrating. The unknown factor.
Might as well help them come out so they could state their business, and then I could explain that I was too busy to find some lost loved one and pass on a message. Hopefully, they were the reasonable kind that would understand and leave me alone. But those instances were few and far in between.
“Hello?” I said, making sure to keep my tone low. Zach was just finishing up his bottle, his eyelids closing. Carefully, I walked around the kitchen, scanning every corner or potential hiding place for that familiar pulsing glow and transparency all spirits shared. It was their staple. So far, I found nothing. “I know you’re in here. You don’t need to be frightened by me. I’m sure I look a bit confusing to you, too…”
Curse of Christmas: A Collection of Paranormal Holiday Stories Page 22
