The Visitor

by Amanda Stevens

  The spray hit him in the eyes and he fell back into the foyer. I used that moment of shock to grab a nearby lamp and swing it at his head. The blow brought him to his knees. He collapsed between the front door and me so I sprinted into the hallway.

  His hand shot out and gripped my ankle, yanking me off my feet. I hit the floor hard, air gushing from my lungs as the can skittered across the floor away from my grasp. For a moment I could do nothing but flail helplessly. Summoning my strength, I propelled myself forward on hands and knees, but the assailant grabbed me again.

  I rolled onto my back and we were suddenly face-to-face. In that terrifying moment, I could have sworn I recognized the gleam of his eyes through the ski mask. Then I lashed out with my legs, pedaling them frantically until, stunned by the blows and the ferocity of my attack, he fell back into a table. In all that time, in all that commotion, he never made a sound. Not even a grunt.

  Clamoring up the stairs to the door at the top, I pounded as hard as I could and called out to Macon. The door had been permanently bolted when the house had been converted into two apartments. He wouldn’t be able to let me in, but if he heard my screams, he’d call the police—

  Arms snared me from behind, one encircling my waist, the other clamping over my mouth.

  For what seemed an eternity, we struggled at the top of the stairs until my feet flew out from under me and I tumbled backward down the stairs. The intruder fell with me and we sprawled side by side on the foyer floor. I must have blacked out for a moment because I saw faces swimming on the inside of my eyelids. Distorted visages that I didn’t recognize but somehow knew. One of them said, “Where is it? Where is it?”

  Where is what? I wanted to ask, but the question flitted away as light began to filter through the swirling darkness and my current predicament came rushing back to me.

  I blinked several times, trying to clear my vision as I searched for a weapon—a lamp or vase, anything with which I could defend myself. I grabbed a leg from the splintered table as I crawled into a corner and propped myself up, preparing for another attack.

  It was only then that I realized I was alone. Through a haze of panic, I heard footsteps stumbling down the long hallway toward the kitchen and Macon’s voice yelling at me through the front door.

  “Amelia! Are you all right? Amelia! Can you hear me? The police are on the way.”

  Hitching myself up against the wall, I staggered across the foyer, undid the locks and threw open the front door. The last thing I remembered was Macon’s eyes going wide with shock as I pitched forward.

  Nine

  For most of my life, ghosts moved silently through my world, leaving nothing behind when they floated back through the veil but a lingering chill and a dread of twilight. However, once that forbidden door had been opened by my association with a haunted man, some of the spirits had started to communicate—a development that came with a terrifying suspicion that my gift was far darker, far more dangerous than Papa had ever let on.

  The encounters had been mostly with entities that were somehow connected to me. I told myself those bonds were the reason certain ghosts could penetrate my defenses so easily.

  But as I lay alone in a hospital emergency room cubicle, the voices inside my head were unknown to me. I had the horrifying notion that the random babble came from the morgue. Confused whispers from the newly departed mingling with the tormented moans of lost souls. The macabre cacophony rose up through the hospital floors, swelling in my brain until I pressed hands to ears to try to dull the sound.

  The young resident who had examined me earlier came through the door and flashed a sympathetic smile as he approached. “It always gets crazy during a full moon.”

  I stared at him in astonishment as I dropped my hands to the bed. “You hear them, too?” Then I realized he was referring to the rumble of human misery coming from the other cubicles. That was not the sound in my head, I was certain. “How do you stand it?”

  “You get used to it.” He pulled up a rolling stool and sat down at my bedside. “You look as if you could do with a little good news.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “We’ve got most of your test results back and everything looks normal. No broken bones or signs of internal bleeding and your vitals are all stable. For someone who took a tumble down a flight of stairs, I’d say you’re a very lucky woman.”

  “That is good news.”

  “You’ll be sore and bruised for a few days and you may experience headaches from that bump on your head. I don’t think there’s any cause for alarm, but even mild concussions are nothing to take lightly. I’d like to keep you overnight so that we can monitor your reflexes.”

  The last thing I wanted was a stay in the hospital, but I wasn’t foolish enough to second-guess a doctor. And I wondered if a concussion might be the cause of the weird disturbance in my brain. I’d never heard anything like that noise. Not even close.

  “If I do have a concussion, what can I expect in the way of symptoms?”

  “Depending on the severity, amnesia, dizziness, nausea, confusion. Maybe some sensitivity to light and sound.”

  “Sensitivity to sound?”

  “You seemed to be experiencing a bit of that when I came in just now.” He scribbled something in my file as he talked. “That’s another reason I’d like to keep you overnight. As I said, I don’t anticipate any problems, but with head injuries, symptoms don’t always show up right away. It’s best to err on the side of caution.”

  “What about noises inside my head?”

  He glanced up. “You mean like ear ringing? It’s not uncommon. Are you experiencing that right now?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What kind of noise, then?”

  I hesitated. “It’s like...babbling.”

  “As in people talking?”

  “In hushed voices. It’s probably coming from the hallway,” I said. “Maybe I am a little sensitive to sound right now.”

  He rose and rechecked my pupils with a light. “Do you have a headache?”

  “A slight one.”

  “Blurred vision?”

  “No.”

  He had me follow his finger with my eyes and then made another note or two in the file. “Any dizziness? Nausea?”

  “Not really.”

  “Can you tell me what day it is?”

  I complied. He asked and I answered several more questions until he seemed satisfied.

  “Try to relax. Someone will be in shortly to take you upstairs. It’ll be quieter up there. You should be able to rest.”

  Macon stopped by a few minutes later, his rumpled attire and days-old beard giving him the appearance of someone who had just wandered in off the street. But despite the late hour and circumstances, he seemed surprisingly chipper, even whistled an inane tune as he removed the chart from the door and skimmed the contents.

  “What’s the verdict?” I asked.

  “You look like something the cat dragged in,” he said as he returned the file to the holder. “But you’ll live.”

  “That’s a relief. What are you still doing here anyway? Don’t you have an early shift?”

  “I thought you might need a little moral support and besides, I wanted to get a look at your X-rays before I left. I don’t have to tell you how lucky you are, do I?”

  “That seems to be the general consensus,” I said with a nod. “But I’ve been informed that I have to stay the night so that my reflexes can be monitored.”

  “Normal procedure,” he assured me. Then he very casually checked the dilation of my pupils just as the doctor before him had. “Headache?”

  “A mild one.”

  “Any other discomfort?”

  “Not really. Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Wait until mor
ning,” he cautioned. “You’ll feel as if you’ve been hit by a freight train.”

  “Thanks for the warning. And by the way, may I compliment you on your bedside manner?”

  He grinned. “A piece of advice? If you’re offered something for pain, take it. Don’t try to tough it out.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” I tugged the blanket a little higher because it was chilly inside the cubicle. “Right now I’m still trying to figure out how someone broke into my house without waking me. I’m normally such a light sleeper.”

  “One of the cops told me that the back door was jimmied with a special tool. Whoever it was knew what he was doing. You probably wouldn’t have heard him even if you’d been wide-awake in the next room.”

  “So he came prepared,” I said with a shiver. “Doesn’t exactly sound like a random break-in, does it?”

  Macon shrugged. “I don’t know about that. According to the cop, even petty thieves have sophisticated equipment these days. They just order whatever they need off the internet.”

  “What else did the officer say?” I asked anxiously.

  “I only spoke with him briefly and he was pretty cagey. As far as I know, they haven’t taken anyone into custody so let’s hope they’re still out canvassing the neighborhood. Don’t worry about your place. I’ll keep an eye on things until you’re released.”

  “Thanks, Macon. For everything. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been home tonight.”

  “I’m just glad you were able to wake me. I’ve been told it’s like raising the dead. Anyway, all I did was call 911. You’re the one who fought him off.”

  I mustered a smile. “One rises to the occasion. You should go home and get some sleep before your shift. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m headed that way now. Can I get you anything before I go?”

  “No, you’ve done more than enough, thank you. And...Macon?”

  He glanced back as he started toward the door.

  “Be careful, okay? It’s possible someone could still be lurking about.” I was thinking about the cellar and all those dark recesses where someone—something—could hide, even from the police.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. Dude’s long gone by now. You just get some rest.”

  After Macon left, I lay alone for the longest time staring up at the ceiling tiles as all those strange sounds droned on in my head. When I was a child, I’d had a recurring dream about being lost in a tunnel. I could see a light at one end, but the other end was pitch-black. I’d start toward the flicker only to be drawn back by something unseen in the dark. The tug-of-war waged on and on while disembodied arms reached through the walls to clutch at me.

  I felt that same smothering claustrophobia of my dream. I couldn’t see the arms, but I had a sense that something was reaching out for me, pressing in on me. The sensation was so strong I had to sit up on the gurney to catch my breath.

  A panic attack, I told myself. Surely I was allowed a lapse after everything that had happened to me. Still, I didn’t like feeling out of control. I wanted to be home, safe and sound in my own little sanctuary, but even that peace of mind had been taken from me now.

  My head began to pound and I felt dizzy, so I lay back down and was just drifting off when I had the eerie sensation of being watched. I opened my eyes and turned my head toward the entrance, expecting to find a nurse or an orderly who would transport me upstairs. The doorway was empty, but I was certain someone had been there a moment ago.

  Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I got up and padded across the room to glance down the hallway. I found nothing unusual in the chaos of the emergency room and was about to chalk the sensation up to paranoia when a man at the end of the corridor caught my eye. He was turning a corner so I only had a glimpse of his profile, but something about his attire and the style of his hair reminded me of Owen Dowling.

  It couldn’t be him. The coincidence would be too great. Unless...his presence at the hospital wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe the stereoscope was more valuable than he’d let on.

  The business card I’d left only listed my name and phone number, but finding my address wouldn’t have been at all difficult. And there’d been that odd awareness as I stood outside the shop, a niggling premonition that my visit to Dowling Curiosities had triggered something dangerous.

  I told myself not to jump to irrational conclusions as I returned to the bed. But I lay with my eyes wide-open until someone came in to take me upstairs. The ghost voices in my head grew even louder as I was wheeled down the hallway, but once inside the elevator, they became muffled. As the car rose to the upper floors, the sound grew dimmer until a measure of calm returned to me. By the time I was rolled into the room, the sounds had vanished altogether, leaving nothing in my head but a dull throb.

  A nurse helped me settle in, and then a police detective named Prescott arrived to ask questions. I would have preferred Devlin, of course, but I hadn’t been able to reach him.

  This detective looked to be in his mid-to late forties with thinning hair and a condescending attitude that did nothing to put me at ease.

  The first thing he did was to jot down my name, address and phone number in a small notebook he pulled from his pocket. Then he took a position at the foot of my bed, where he could peer down at me. Whether he had placed himself there deliberately to intimidate me, I couldn’t say, but his impervious stare unnerved me.

  “I know you already gave a statement to the responding officer, but I’m going to need you to take me through it again,” he said.

  “Okay.” I was happy that I could think a little more clearly now that the chattering in my head had subsided. “Something roused me from sleep. I don’t know what it was because I don’t remember hearing anything. But I woke up with a feeling that something wasn’t right in the house. So I got up to investigate.”

  “You didn’t think about calling 911?”

  “No, not then. It’s an old house and there are a lot of night noises.” And at that point I hadn’t thought the intruder human.

  The door to my room opened just then and I felt a familiar tingle up my spine, a rush of hot blood through my veins that always signaled Devlin’s arrival.

  He strode in—tall, lean, purposeful—and the air seemed to crackle with electricity as he moved toward me.

  Ten

  Maybe it was my tattered nerves or the position from which I stared up at him, but Devlin looked larger than life and far more formidable than I would have imagined under the circumstances.

  In that charged air, a shiver whispered up my backbone. Even the other detective seemed to sense the shift in energy and he scowled warily as Devlin closed the distance between the door and my bed.

  He was as impeccably dressed as ever in monochromatic shades of gray and charcoal, colors that brought out the premature strands of silver at his temples. His hair was mussed, as though he’d run impatient fingers through it on the way up to my floor, and his unshaven jaw gave him a rakish air that I did not find at all unattractive.

  Because of the ghosts, I learned at an early age how to calm myself in times of great stress, but Devlin’s sudden appearance had a profound effect on me. A knot rose in my throat as our gazes locked, but I tried to shake off my emotional response to him. It was very important that he not think of me as weak or vulnerable, that he never need worry about my mental state as he undoubtedly had with Mariama.

  “Hello” was all I said.

  “Hello to you, too. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, it’s nothing serious. A few bumps and bruises.” I nodded to the man at the end of the bed. “I assume you know Detective Prescott?”

  Devlin’s gaze flicked over me and darkened before he turned to Prescott. “A word, Detective?”

  The older cop gave him an irritated scowl. “I�
��m in the middle of an interview.”

  “I’ll be brief.”

  Prescott nodded curtly and walked to the door. From past observations, I knew that Devlin commanded the respect of his peers, but the privileges and connections that came with his background also bred a certain amount of resentment.

  The two men conversed in the hallway for a few moments and then Prescott returned to the foot of my bed while Devlin took up a position at the window.

  “Did the suspect speak to you?” Prescott asked. “Did he grunt or groan during the struggle? Did you hear anything that would identify him as male?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “I blacked out for a moment. I thought I heard a voice, but it seemed dreamlike. I’m not even sure it was real.”

  “What did this voice say to you?”

  I strained to recall. “I don’t remember.”

  “Nothing at all?” he pressed.

  I shook my head.

  Prescott exchanged a look with Devlin. “You described the assailant as being a little under six feet and thin. He wore a mask over his head.”

  “Yes, like a ski mask.” I gestured vaguely toward my face. “I couldn’t see anything but his eyes.”

  “So you never got a look at him. Under the circumstances, you can’t be one hundred percent certain the suspect was male, can you?”

  “No, I suppose not. I just assumed...the way he attacked me—”

  “What about smells?” Prescott interjected. “Cologne? Perfume?”

  “I didn’t notice any.” Which was odd given my recent sensitivity to scents.

  “Rings, watches?”

  I shook my head.

  “Scars, tattoos?”

  “It all happened so fast and it was dark inside the house...” My gaze strayed back to Devlin. He stood with his back to the window, arms folded, head slightly bowed. I felt a quiver go through me at his unwavering concentration. Would I ever get used to the fierceness of that stare?

  Prescott said something to me then and I had to wrench my gaze from Devlin’s. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?”