by Blake Croft
Ashley turned back to the sink, her shoulders and back tense as she began to rinse the dirty dishes. Linda had known it would be a lost cause trying to convince Ashley, but she had to give it a try.
Feeling weary and tired, she left Ashley. She didn’t glance at the painting in the living room this time. She simply climbed the steps as fast as she could, avoiding looking at the buxom woman’s portrait on the stairs even though something about that oil on canvas acted like gravity, pulling your attention towards it, daring you to stare into its depths. A full night of sleep did sound like a good idea.
Chapter 18
The bathroom door creaked when it opened. Linda walked to the sink, reaching for her dental floss. She pulled out a short reel and began to floss her upper teeth, her mind elsewhere. It was when she finally focused on her reflection that her hands stopped.
In the mirror, she met a familiar stranger. The girl in the mirror looked like her, but somehow different.
Her hair was the same. Her chin was slightly more pointed. Her eyes were round and then she noticed what was wrong. There were no glasses in sight.
She touched her eyes but her fingers were blocked by her spectacles. She blinked, so did her reflection but the reflection was not wearing glasses.
What was going on?
Linda looked around her, a sense of the surreal washing over her. The bathroom tiles gleamed bright. Her head spun. Her vision became foggy for a second. The floor looked like it would come up to meet her. The ceiling swayed. Frost bloomed on the window, and her skin erupted in goose bumps.
She looked back in the mirror. A peridot pendant in the shape of a shamrock hung around her neck. The reflection could pass off as Linda’s sister or an uncanny likeness but essentially they were different people.
She lifted a hand and touched her cheek. The reflection in the mirror did the same.
She tugged at a lock of hair. Reflection-Linda did likewise.
It hurt. Her scalp prickled in protest.
Linda’s agitation grew. How could this imposter be her? She couldn’t see without her glasses!
Panicked, Linda pulled at her eyelids, removing eyelashes by their roots.
Blood trickled into the whites of her eyes.
She looked back at the reflection.
It was smiling back at her. The woman approached the mirror.
Linda startled awake in her bed. She looked around the room. There was no one there.
She was sick and tired of these nightmares. The fear still lingered in the harried beating of her heart, but her eyes were heavy with exhaustion and sleep, and they took over the dread.
On the edge of deep slumber, something wrenched her back from the fall.
A thin scraping sound was coming from the hall. High and sawing at her nerves, it was a lingering whine that burrowed into the back of her head like a weevil in a grain of rice. Linda checked the time on the carriage clock she had pulled out of one of her boxes.
3:15 AM
An ice cube of terror rolled down her spine.
The curious scrape was joined by a muffled thud.
Linda’s toes curled under the covers.
Her shaking fingers dug deeper into the fabric of her covers.
She didn’t know what the source of the noise was, but she knew it meant danger and she needed to escape. The stairway was the only way out of the house, though, and the noise was coming from the hall.
Gathering her flighty courage, she stepped out of bed. The floor was cold. Pins and needles broke out across her calves. Her toes wiggled to encourage blood to flow freely. Her knees creaked as she got up. She was very aware of all her limbs as she walked to the door and opened it slightly, her senses heightened in the dark.
She peered down the hall through the small crack.
Yellow light came through the hall window that faced the street, long and rectangular like an elongated coffin. The posters on the wall looked skewed in the angled light. The window at the opposite end of the hall was a black space. The hall was empty.
The muffled thud got louder, the screeching scrape an unending sound.
Linda realized she was clenching her teeth, and her nails were digging into her palms. She was too paralyzed with fear to speak.
Anticipation clanged like a hollow moan in her eardrums, and twisted her gut painfully.
The thudding stopped.
The scraping whine broke off abruptly.
A deeper shadow emerged from the staircase’s notch of darkness.
Hair disheveled and completely covering her face, Marisa stood in the edge of darkness as if contemplating the light. Her pajamas hung lose on her body suggesting she had lost weight in a very short span of time.
She must be sleep walking again, Linda thought. We mustn’t wake her or else she might have another episode.
She was about to close the door and get back to bed when the scraping noise began again.
Marisa had begun to walk down the hall, infinitely slow step after infinitely slow step. She hugged close to the wall so at first Linda didn’t see the source of the noise but then Marisa's hair shifted and Linda saw the sharp gleaming point of a kitchen knife scraping gently along the wall.
Heart freezing over and plummeting into her toes, Linda gasped and stepped back as if she had been scalded.
Sleepwalking and hurting yourself was one thing, but Linda didn’t like the look of that knife. Her mind raced with options about what to do and decided to shut her door and let Marisa find her own way back to bed.
Decision made, Linda walked forward but made the mistake of glancing out in the hall.
Marisa stood in front of Ashley’s door, the knife held by her side.
Linda froze. She hoped Ashley’s closed door would deter Marisa, and she would walk on but Marisa extended a hand and turned the knob letting the door creak open.
Marisa rushed inside, knife raised.
Linda cried out and swung her door open.
She was across the hall and inside Ashley’s room in less than three seconds, her mind a blazing red siren. Marisa was straddled on the bed, her back ramrod straight. One hand pinned something down while the other lifted up and plunged down with aggressive speed and intent. Again, and again.
“Ashley!” Linda screamed, waves of horror crashing inside her. “No!”
Marisa stopped.
Her shoulders straightened and her backbone arched extending back, contorting her spine into a deep curve.
Linda’s hackles rose. Marisa didn’t stop, she kept arching her back, a guttural noise accompanying the contortion, until her head touched the mattress and she was looking at Linda, face upside down. Her eyes were wide and gleaming with an insane light, the grin was manic showing all of her teeth.
The bed beyond her was empty, only the stuffing of a pillow scattered along the headboard.
Ashley was nowhere to be seen.
Linda took a tentative step back, mind racing over all the possible escape routes but she hadn’t counted on Marisa’s speed. With an ear-piercing cry Marisa lifted her head off the bed, her spine creaking loudly as it straightened. She bolted off the bed, knife clutched in her hand, and launched herself at Linda.
Stars burst before her eyes as Linda’s head struck the wall. Marisa was skin and bones, but her strength was overwhelming because of her burst of energy. Linda struggled to get away as her back slid down the wall. Marisa scrambled, digging her knees into Linda’s stomach as they both sank to the floor.
The knife hung above Linda's eyes and all the air went out of her lungs.
This was it. This was how she would die.
She should have known it would always end in violence.
Marisa threw the knife away. It clattered against the baseboard.
Linda could hear her own heart beating rapidly. Her breath was caught in her throat, stuck between relief and fear. Marisa swayed a little, her eyes unfocused.
“Marisa?” Linda whispered tentatively.
Her eyes focuse
d on her, and Linda saw confusion and a terror so deep it wrenched an involuntary cry out of her.
“Linda?” Marisa’s hands held the front of Linda’s shirt. “Help me,” she whimpered. Her voice was hoarse as if her vocal cords had been scraped with sandpaper.
“It’s okay, Marisa,” Linda soothed. She ignored the pulsing blackness in her head and touched Marisa’s rigid hands. “Just let me go, okay?”
“I…” Marisa seemed unsure, then her face contorted in a grimace, her eyes wide and large. “She’s coming, Linda! Run!”
“What do you mean?” Linda scratched at Marisa’s fingers, trying to pry them open. “Who’s coming? Marisa?”
But Marisa had gone perfectly still. There was an edge to her silence, a recklessness to her stiff limbs. When she raised her head her hair fell back and her eyes were no longer the vulnerable orbs of someone in great distress, they were slits of calculated malice.
The fingers tightened around her shirt till Linda was sure it would rip. Hands like claws locked around her throat, squeezing tight like a vise.
Linda was taken back to every beating, every instance of being pinned under an aggressor and her own inability to do anything to stop them.
Gasping for breath, Linda rammed a fist into Marisa’s arm trying to dislodge her grip. Black spots converged on her vision. Marisa’s demonic grin became blurry. Linda’s fists pummeled her arm, her face, her torso, every impact weaker than the last.
At least, she knew she didn’t go out without a fight.
“Aaaah!”
A shrill scream tore through the fog. The hands were dislodged. The knees in her abdomen lifted, and sweet, aching air whistled back inside her burning lungs. Coughing and spluttering, Linda sat up. The darkness in front of her eyes lifted with every rapid blink.
Two figures tussled at the far end of the room. Ashley was struggling against Marisa who was spitting and cursing. Linda got up on watery legs to help restrain her house mate.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ashley snapped. “Get a grip!”
“Ash, watch it!” Linda screamed.
Marisa twisted within Ashley’s grip and tore free. She collided with Linda and sent her spinning to a corner before she darted out the door. Ashley ran after her, and Linda followed.
A horrible crunching sound came from the end of the hall. They stood in the hallway hearing Marisa’s thudding feet on the stairs. A large bloody crack bloomed on the hall window beside the stairs. Marisa had tried to jump out of it head first.
The whole night had a dreamlike quality to it. Linda followed Ashley in the semi-dark, her back breaking out in goosebumps, very aware of being watched from behind.
They reached the living room but Marisa kept going, down the dark staircase of the basement.
Linda and Ashley paused at the threshold.
“Are you okay?” Ashley whispered. She took out her cell phone from her pocket. “I’m calling the police.”
Linda nodded. “Where were you?”
“Smoking in the john.” Ashley shuddered. “Do we have to go down there?”
“She might do herself some harm.” Linda chewed her bottom lip. Whatever it was that had Marisa in its grips could damage her entirely. Linda dreaded going down in the dark. Marisa could be lying in wait anywhere in the pitch black down there, but it had to be done. Linda owed her this much; she couldn’t let her come to harm because she had been too reluctant to tell them about her suspicions.
They moved with caution, communicating with silent signs. Ashley grabbed a heavy book from one of the shelves, and Linda extended her arm in the dark to reach the light switch. Linda scrunched up her eyes against the sting of light after being in the obscurity so long. Her whole body ached and her throat was an aching burn.
Ashley went first.
The wood groaned under her weight.
Linda peered over the banister but there was neither sight nor sound of Marisa.
“Where the hell?” Ashley murmured.
They reached the concrete floor.
The basement was empty.
“I saw her come down here,” Ashley hissed. “She can’t have vanished in thin air.”
“She didn’t,” Linda whimpered.
She had seen the feet first.
Sticking out of the darkness underneath the stairs like two tiny headstones were Marisa’s feet.
Trembling from the cold and fright, Linda gripped Ashley’s arm as they inched forward. Little by little, more of Marisa came into view. Her hands were placed neatly on her lap, one over the other. It was unbelievable now the strength they had exuded just a few minutes ago when they were wrapped around her neck.
“Is she… dead?” Linda whispered.
“Her chest isn’t moving,” Ashley said.
And it wasn’t.
Only the barest of light picked out Marisa's face, which was slack-jawed and staring. A thin sheen of sweat covered her lips and brow, but her expressive eyes that had looked in terror at her only a few minutes ago, were now blank and lifeless.
Marisa was dead.
Chapter 19
It was the same scene all over again but so devastatingly different.
Linda stood shivering in the front yard. The night was mild and pleasant, but she was beset by an internal cold. Ashley was standing beside her, a scowl on her face. Stewart was sitting on the porch steps, his face white; he stared off into the distance in disbelief. Officer Carter and Scott were talking to the paramedics that were wheeling a body bag into an ambulance.
“My guess is as good as yours,” the female paramedic was saying. “Her vitals were stable this afternoon, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with her. This sudden fatal relapse is beyond my understanding. We’ll know for sure after the autopsy.”
“I look forward to that report,” Officer Carter said. The female paramedic nodded and stepped inside the ambulance to sit beside the body bag containing Marisa’s body. Linda still couldn’t believe what had just happened. The ambulance door closed. The blue lights flashed once before it pulled away and off down the street.
Scott was busy jotting down notes as he walked towards the manor. Officer Carter was sipping on a coffee, clearly dead on his feet.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ashley asked.
“Yes,” Linda’s voice was hoarse at first, but she cleared her throat trying to get the words out of her aching neck. “The paramedic said the bruising will diminish within weeks.”
Ashley touched Linda’s neck. Linda flinched against the touch. The memory of Marisa’s hand strangling the breath out of her was too fresh in her mind.
Guilt also licked her spine.
Marisa was dead.
Linda shuddered again. She could have warned her; told her about the malicious grey shadow, but she knew so little at this point. And would Marisa have believed her if she had? She had hardly believed her own instincts about the supernatural. But there was no hiding from it now. Only she had seen the shadow, the same shadow she had seen twice before. This was no hallucination, even if she was the only one to see it. It was real.
But if the shadow was real then what other things she had been seeing were real? Were they all supernatural or were they all hallucinations?
Her head throbbed as it whirled round and round these thoughts.
“I’m going to ask Milo about my truck,” Ashley said. “His brother’s the mechanic.”
“Okay.”
Ashley walked off to confront Officer Carter. Linda slid sideways to intercept Scott.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hmm.” He didn’t look up from his notes. He had been distant and cold since he had arrived. She had given him her statement earlier, and he had noted it all down without so much as looking at her.
Stewart sat up straighter on the porch behind them.
“I forgot to mention one thing,” she said, rubbing her palms together to generate heat. “I don’t know how relevant this is but the whole thing, Marisa coming up and acting wei
rd, it all started at three fifteen.”
Scott stopped scribbling and finally looked at her.
Stewart stood up and joined them. Linda didn’t want to discuss this with him within earshot but it didn’t look like she had much choice.
“You’re sure?” Scott said.
“Yes,” she nodded. “I remember looking at the clock when I woke up from my dream. And I would remember the time because we discussed how significant that time is in all of this.”
Scott chewed the inside of his mouth, frowning deep in thought. “So what are you suggesting?”
“I don’t-”
“Because you can’t blame it on some ghost, you know,” he snapped.
Linda was taken aback by his acerbic sarcasm. Blood rushed to her cheeks.
He looked a little ashamed. “I mean, yes, your bruises support your claim but… I can’t trace Shannon Dorothy. It’s like she vanished into thin air six months ago.” Scott closed his notebook with a snap.
Any color that had remained in Stewart’s face vanished. His skin looked like a waxy mask.
A screen door squeaked open behind them, and Mrs. Grady scuttled onto her porch in all her cantankerous glory.
“What… what are you suggesting?” Stewart said.
“I’m not suggesting anything. I just can’t track her down. Her last known place of work was Blackburn Manor; neighbors and close friends hadn’t noticed anything suspicious, but one day she just vanished. And yet no missing person’s report has been filed,” Scott said, seeming to grow taller with every word.
“Are you suggesting I’m responsible for that?” Stewart’s voice rose. “Her term ended and she didn’t want to renew her contract. That was the end of the story for me.”
“But why is her number still calling the house?” Scott asked. He was obviously distressed about this mystery that had no leads and was leading to dead ends. “And Shannon isn’t the only one. Tara Walsh, one of the guests has been reported as missing as well. Her step father filed a report in Portland —where she’s from— when she didn’t answer her phone or emails for over a couple months.”
