The Haunted Reckoning

by Michelle Dorey

  The MedicAlert was red hot in Paige’s hand. A keening screeching voice screamed in her head, Throw it at him, Paige!

  Her hand snapped out and flung it into Cory’s face. Paige saw it spark in midair before landing on his cheek like a branding iron.

  “AAAAAAA!” Cory screamed, clawing at his face.

  “Get him!” Melanie cried out. The two women rushed at him and knocked him to the ground.

  Paige fell on his back. She whipped her arm around his throat, pulling back on his neck. “Get the gun!” she screamed at Melanie.

  Like an enraged cat, Cory rolled over, bashing Paige to the floor. He scrabbled on top of her, sitting on her chest.

  “Daughter!” He grabbed her by the neck and lifting it, pounded her head into the floor. “Father!” He did it again. “Mother! And sister! I’ll kill you all!” Each word was punctuated by the sound of Paige’s head striking the carpeted dining room floor. She saw the MedicAlert bracelet embedded in his cheek, the flesh around it smoking. “I’ll kill all of you!”

  BOOM!

  The force of the bullet knocked him completely off her. Dazed, Paige turned to see Melanie holding the weapon in both hands. She looked back at Cory to see him scrabbling his hand at the top of his chest where the bullet hit him.

  “Don’t you move!” Melanie said.

  Cory didn’t hesitate for a second. He scrambled to his feet, and Melanie shot at him again, missing this time.

  “I’ll be back!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Covering his face, he crashed through the patio doors onto the deck. Like an Olympic runner, he vaulted the railing at the back and dropped over the edge screaming as he fell. A shriek that ended abruptly.

  Paige staggered to her feet, clutching Melanie’s arm. They both ran through the broken glass to the railing of the deck and looked down.

  Twenty feet below them Cory’s corpse was splayed out on the side of the hill. Even from the distance, they could see from the sickening twisted angle of his head his neck was broken.

  Chapter 37

  Six months later.

  “THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF,” MELANIE SAID, draining their now traditional Jack Daniels double. “Your richer than me!”

  They were celebrating the surrogate court’s final decision to award Michael’s estate to Paige.

  “What can I say?” Paige replied. “I’m his only living blood relative, and Mom had all the paperwork.” She sighed. “She didn’t want me to find my original birth certificate that named him as my father. That’s why she kept the trunk locked.” Taking a pull from her own drink, she added, “She told me that she held on to it because one day it might come in handy.”

  Melanie nodded. “The birth certificate was the clincher along with”—she paused— “the blood tests and DNA from the autopsy.”

  Paige blanched at the word. For the last six months she’d gotten pretty good at putting that behind her. Actually, she and Melanie worked hard at putting it behind them. From that horrible afternoon, they had been spending a lot of time together. For the first week they had both slept in the same room at her mother’s home. They were afraid that they’d have nightmares, but none came.

  They slept like babies, and considering what they had been through, it was surprising.

  That week-long slumber party reconnected their friendship to a depth neither of them expected, and both of them treasured. They went through the police reports together, which was a breeze. Law enforcement was perfectly happy accepting their story—all the physical evidence supported it, and to be able to close out the murderous spree of Cory’s without so much as a trial was a blessing as far as they were concerned.

  “I didn’t realize he was so loaded,” Melanie said. She leaned across the table. “You don’t feel guilty taking any of it, do you?”

  “Nope. I am going to split it three ways. A third to my mom. A third to Cory’s mother, and the rest to me.”

  “Still makes you stinking rich.” Melanie shook her head. “Your father—”

  “Don’t use that term. He was a sperm donor, that’s all. He had nothing to do with me and meeting him almost got me killed!”

  Melanie waved her hand. “Yeah, yeah. Well, Michael was some kind of wheeler-dealer. Apartment buildings, vacant lands, a ton of cash we know about. The son of a gun was a real hustler.”

  Paige shrugged.

  “Doesn’t make you feel weird at all?”

  She shook her head. “The weird factor of that is nothing compared to Aubree, hon.” She took a breath. “I can’t get over how I’ve never heard from her again.”

  Melanie snorted. “Me too. The kid moved on.”

  “Yeah…but it’s like she was never here outside of what we both know… They never found that MedicAlert bracelet.”

  It was Melanie’s turn to shrug. “Not to mention there wasn’t a mark on Cory’s face from it.” She toyed with her glass. “We spent hours looking for it from where he had fallen. It’s gone, Paige, and I think that’s fair. That bracelet was connected to Aubree. Aubree’s moved on, and she’s taken it with her, I guess.”

  The two women sat looking at each other in silence.

  “Still weird!” they said in unison and laughed. That aspect of them saying the same thing at the same time had been happening a lot. She’s the sister I never had, each of them thought to themselves.

  “Well,” Paige said, “I’m glad this chapter in my life is over.”

  Melanie shook her head. “I’m not sure about that.”

  “What—you planning on going to law school or something? Come into practice with me?”

  “No… It’s something that’s been on my mind since all this crap started.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Melanie swept her arm around her, gesturing in the air. “I don’t know… It’s just that…” She let out a huff. “Look—up until now, you ever had anything to do with the paranormal?”

  “Nope.”

  “No séances or Ouija boards?” When Paige shook her head again, Melanie said, “That’s my point. A year ago, I went through some hairy stuff with this kind of thing. Then I reconnect with you who’s going through some crazy shit.”

  “You didn’t reconnect, Mel. Aubree called you.”

  “That’s my point! Why the hell me? I mean, we hadn’t seen each other since high school!”

  “We were friends.”

  “Yeah, but why me? I really didn’t do much.”

  Paige burst out laughing. “Just saved my life!”

  “Well, yeah, okay…but nothing ‘ghosty’ or stuff, right?”

  Paige shrugged. Yeah, if there’s one word to describe what was going on…weird surely works.

  She lifted her glass for a toast. “To Aubree. Rest in Peace.”

  “To Aubree, may you stay wherever you are!”

  They smiled and took a sip.

  The End

  Author’s Note:

  First of all, if you enjoyed my book, please leave a review. Not only are they extremely helpful to me as an author, your honest review will help people just like you make their reading decisions. I hope you can take the time.

  Secondly, I invited you to join my readers group! For signing up I’ll send you a free copy of my debut novel The Haunting Of Crawley House. It is a number one best seller, but it’s free for my Reader Group members.

  Just click this link to sign up for my mailing list!

  Finally, you met Melanie in this tale of ‘The Haunted Ones’. She mentioned a terrible experience she had confronting unspeakable evil. Her tale, and those of her closest friends from college is told in my novel The Haunted Gathering.

  It’s available on Amazon, and if you just click this link, you can find out more!

  As always, thank you for your readership. I work very hard at my craft. It’s deeply gratifying to be able to share my stories with you.

  Warmest Regards,

  eckoning