The Shattered Seam (Seam Stalkers Book 1)

by Kathleen Groger

  “Let’s set a time to meet back here.” Daniel checked his watch. “What about one thirty?”

  After murmurs of agreement, the group spilt up. I didn’t think it was a good idea to separate, but we’d cover more ground that way. Hopefully they would find Randall sleeping in a bedroom with Chauncey curled next to him.

  Eric touched my arm, making me jump. “Ready?”

  “Okay.” What choice did I have? I sure wasn’t staying anywhere by myself, and I wanted to get outside and rid the paper people from my mind. But going outside meant seeing the lack of dead birds. They’d been there. I hadn’t imagined them too. And something hadn’t magically transformed hundreds into three.

  “Let’s start out front.” Eric walked to the large door and yanked it open.

  I went out with him onto the cobblestone circle and tried not to look at the woman in the fountain with the outstretched arms, but I couldn’t stop myself. Her stone hands dripped rain water, not blood, into the round basin at the bottom of the fountain.

  “I’m sorry, it’s still raining. I thought you might want to get out of the castle for a little bit.”

  I forced a smile at his concern. “It’s okay. It’s only drizzling.”

  “If Randall’s out here doing something stupid, I’ll kick his ass,” Eric mumbled.

  Randall wouldn’t be outside. There was no logical reason for the man to have gone outside. With every step I took, my head cleared a little.

  We searched the front grounds of the castle and found zip. That left the back. Where the birds were—weren’t—whatever. The thought of the dead ravens and the maggots wiggling from their beaks almost sent me running back inside. But inside meant the beetle bastards and the paper people.

  “He wouldn’t have gone into the maze, would he?” Eric’s question brought me back to the present problem—MIA Randall.

  I glanced at the hedges, and a feeling of being watched tickled the back of my neck. “No. Why would he do that?” Even if he had been a dumbass and gone into the maze, I wasn’t following. I spun Nana’s bracelet around my wrist.

  “Randall?” Eric yelled. “Randall, are you out here?” No response.

  Eric continued along the path that meandered along the shoreline and across the steep hill to the boathouse. I needed to think about something besides all the craziness. My thoughts shifted to Kyle. And his dark hair. And his eyes. And his—

  I stepped off the path, slipped in the wet grass, lost my balance, and crashed into Eric. He fell, landing on his hip. I banged down on my butt. The two of us slid down the hill. He rolled into the water. I flung my arm out, caught a tree root, and pulled myself back to my feet. “Jeez.”

  Eric stood in the thigh-high water and pushed dripping hair from his face.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What the—? What is that?” Eric pointed at something floating near the boathouse.

  My heart banged in my chest. I blinked. “Is it—”

  This time I prayed I was seeing a vision. That couldn’t be Randall face-down in the water, but I did see his distinct mohawk.

  Eric power-walked through the water. “No. No. No.”

  I darted down the path to the dock. “Oh, God.” I dropped to my knees.

  Eric pulled on Randall’s shirt and flipped him over. His milky white eyes didn’t blink.

  “Nooooo.”

  He was dead.

  20

  His body was bloated, and his skin stretched to the point it seemed his insides would explode. But his eyes. His eyes were white, showing no iris or pupil.

  Acid burned through my stomach. “Oh my God.”

  “I need help getting him out. Fetch the others. Hurry.”

  I scrambled to my feet. My knees buckled, and I almost fell. I covered my mouth and backed up a few steps.

  “Sam! Go.” Eric’s yelling snapped me to attention.

  I raced away from death for the second time that day, darted across the patio, and flung open the back door. “Guys? Where are you?” I screamed the words as I ran through the castle.

  Daniel and Brett pounded down the main staircase. “What’s wrong? Where’s Eric?”

  “H-He’s—” I squeaked and fought to keep from crying.

  “He’s what?”

  I swallowed the walnut-sized lump in my throat. I was on the edge of hysteria. “He’s dead.”

  “Eric’s dead? What?” Daniel’s words echoed through the three-story entry.

  “Not Eric.”

  “Then who?”

  Brett placed his hand on my shoulder. “Honey, breathe. Tell us, who’s dead?” Brett’s voice cracked. “Chauncey?”

  Marisol ran into the foyer. “What’s going on? Did you find him?” She tilted her head back and looked up.

  “Randall … we found him … he’s dead.” My words silenced the group.

  Daniel rebounded from the shock first. “Where?”

  “By the boathouse.”

  Daniel took off at a full sprint.

  Brett tightened his grip on my arm. “Come on. We need to stay together. Marisol?”

  I zombied out. It was all too much.

  When we got to the boathouse, Daniel had already waded into the water and was helping Eric move Randall onto dry land. Brett let me go and joined them. Marisol slipped her hand into my burnt one. A blast of heat radiated up through the burn, snaked through my arm, and spread across my chest. I yanked my hand away, and the heat disappeared.

  “Did you feel that?” I rubbed my palm and tried to make eye contact with Marisol, who stared at Randall’s lifeless form. “Marisol?”

  The medium cracked her neck and finger-typed the air. “He’s gone.”

  Daniel bent over, opened Randall’s mouth, breathed in, pushed on his chest. He repeated the CPR movements five times before Eric grabbed his wrist.

  “He’s gone, man.” Eric spun around, picked up a softball-sized rock, and hurled it into the water. “Shit.”

  Daniel rocked back on his heels and worked his fingers through his short hair, pulling at the roots. “Goddammit!”

  “Did he drown?” Brett spoke in a hushed tone. “Something’s wrong. His body shouldn’t be this far into decomp.”

  Daniel stood. “I don’t know. Poor bastard couldn’t swim. He was so freaked out during the boat ride over here. How did this happen?”

  No one answered.

  “We need to call the police or an ambulance or something.” Brett took his now wet phone from his pocket. “Nothing. Anyone else?”

  Everyone went through the motions of checking, but the phones were dead. Just like Randall.

  “What should we do? We can’t call Captain Frank or the police. Is there a damn rowboat or anything on this crappy-ass island?” Eric was keeping his emotions in check, but he swallowed hard and blinked back the tears in his eyes.

  “No, nothing. That was the network’s idea. They didn’t want us to get scared and leave.” Daniel pushed the button on his phone again. “Useless thing’s soaked and ruined.” He flung it on the ground, then crushed the phone under his shoe.

  I pictured Kyle’s boat, but I had no way of reaching him. I didn’t even know what island he lived on. Not that there was any island within swimming distance. Kyle. We’d been down here earlier. Randall hadn’t been here then. Did they see each other when Kyle left? Had he been the last one to see Randall alive?

  Thunder boomed, and everyone jumped. Raindrops pelted us.

  “We have to get him inside somewhere,” Brett said as the rain picked up in intensity. “We can’t leave him out in the elements.”

  The men heaved and pulled and dragged Randall’s body onto the dock. Numbness made my legs heavy, yet I got the boathouse door open for them. I yanked a folded blue plastic tarp from the shelf in front of me and hauled it to where they’d laid Randall’s bloated body. “Here.”

  Eric took it, and Daniel helped him cover Randall. “This sucks.”

  The rain slammed against the roof of the boathouse. My
heart rate jumped.

  “Is Marisol still out there?” Brett glanced at the door. “We need to stay together.”

  Eric and Daniel left. Brett hung back and cocked his head to the side. “You okay?”

  I wasn’t. I was completely, absolutely, utterly freaked out. “I want to go home.”

  “I know, kiddo. I do too.” He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “Come on.”

  We dashed across the dead bird-free grounds, but water still crept into my clothes and my boots. Marisol stood inside the castle door. Her hair stuck to her head in long spaghetti-like strings. We filed into the kitchen, where the guys leaned against the table, dripping water on the floor. The chaotic mess of dishes and food wasn’t mentioned this time. No one said anything. A heavy sense of grief choked the air from the room. I squeezed the water out of my hair and shivered.

  Brett broke the silence. “I need a drink.” He grabbed the vodka bottle from his cooler and took a long swallow.

  Eric pounded his fist on the table, and dishes fell to the floor and smashed. “I don’t get it. We all went to our rooms to sleep. Why was he outside?” He turned to me. “You didn’t see him this morning, did you?”

  I tried to talk but couldn’t get the words past the block of despair closing off my throat, so I shook my head. I would’ve noticed his body if he’d been there before. But … but, I’d been so freaked about the birds, I hadn’t been thinking or seeing clearly. Had I gone right past him? What if I could have saved him? No, he hadn’t been there. He’d come after I left. Tears I refused to release stung my eyes.

  Eric cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath. “We need a plan. Let’s get dry clothes on and then see if we can get the phones or any equipment working. Maybe one of the cameras picked him up. Stay together. No one goes anywhere on their own, understood?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “We’ll go together.” Eric’s hand shook as he held it out to me. “Meet me in the command room in ten minutes. No longer.” Eric gave the order and everyone dispersed.

  It took me less than eight minutes to dry off, change, and come back to the room. When Eric and I walked in, Marisol, Brett, and Daniel were already there. Brett carried his now quarter-empty vodka bottle.

  I slid my hand in my pocket and touched Amelia’s drawing. Even though it had gotten soaked a couple of times, the drawing was still clear and fresh.

  “The equipment … why … what if … dammit.” Daniel leaned over the table of gadgets and mumbled to himself.

  “This blows. We need to figure out how to get hold of the police.” Eric sat on the throne, then jumped up and grabbed the book from the seat. “What’s this?”

  Oh God, the death book. In all the chaos, I’d forgotten about the strange thing. “Sorry. I put it there. It’s a book Marisol found in a trunk in one of the third-floor rooms.”

  I tried to catch the medium’s eye again, but her attention was elsewhere. She stared at the ceiling, lost in some vision or whatever it was she was seeing.

  “It can wait.” Eric tossed the book on a table. Dust poofed into the air. “How’s the equipment coming along?”

  Daniel glanced up, a wild look flashing across his face. “I need electricity to tell if anything works or if it’s all fried.”

  “There has to be a generator on this island somewhere. We need to find the effing thing.” Eric balled his hands into fists and looked like he wanted to hit something.

  “The owner never mentioned one.” Daniel stopped fiddling with the equipment. “We can go look, though.”

  Eric glanced at me. “We all need to stay together. Lemme think.” He paced the room.

  Brett collapsed on the throne and took another swig from his bottle. “First my dog goes missing. Now Randall’s dead. What else can happen?”

  Heat rocketed to my chest. I’d been responsible for Chauncey and he’d disappeared. And I might have missed seeing Randall that morning.

  Brett took another drink and waved the bottle at Marisol. “Hey, can you contact Randall? Just conjure up his ass and ask him how he died?”

  Daniel stood, and Eric stopped pacing.

  She turned in almost slow motion to face Brett. “You’re drunk.”

  “Not yet, sweetheart, but I plan on getting there. So can you?”

  “Can I what?”

  Brett took another drink. “Can you talk to Randall?”

  The air in the room grew heavy and oppressive, and the temperature dropped to the point that everyone’s breath fogged. That strange feeling I’d had on the mainland returned. Tingles zipped along my nerves. Icy fingers danced along my arms.

  “Do you feel it, Sam?” She locked her green eyes on me.

  I was charged with electricity. “Feel what?”

  “The presence in the room with us.”

  21

  Presence? The crazy feeling flitting along the hairs on my arms could be a chill, not evidence of something ghostly in the room with us.

  Brett knocked back another swig of vodka. “Marisol, is the presence you’re seeing Randall?”

  Daniel sat again and looked like he had no idea what to do. Eric stood rooted to the same spot.

  I glanced around the room. “I don’t see anything.”

  Marisol’s hands refused to stay still. She flapped them, cracked them, wiped them across her face. “I think you’re lying.”

  Anger spiraled tornado-style from my stomach. “Lying? You’re calling me a liar? Do we really have time for any of this? Randall’s dead. Chauncey’s missing. The electricity’s fried.” There’d been freak wind storms, mysterious books, a woman missing part of her face, paper-looking people, dead birds, and the bugs. A buzz filled my head. Pain shot through my sinuses. “I’m not lying. I have no idea what sensing a presence feels like. Why don’t you just tell me what I’m supposed to be feeling.”

  “Yeah, Miss Speaker-to-the-Dead, what does it feel like?” Brett waved his bottle around.

  Marisol’s hands stilled. “At first, it can be a heavy feeling. A feeling that something is there.” Her voice dropped into an almost hypnotic tone. “Once I open myself, they show themselves. How the entities choose to do that varies. It depends where they are in the Seam. Some are stuck in their death state. Some appear as they were in life. Some change forms. Some are filmy and thin. Some are as solid as a living person.”

  Daniel sat straight up. “What do you mean by the seam?”

  Marisol flapped her fingers up and down. “The Seam. The line between the living and the dead.”

  “Oh, you mean like a veil between the two?” Eric twisted his pinkie ring.

  “Sort of. The Seam is a hollow. A void with many different folds. If one gets trapped inside, well, let’s say it’s most unpleasant.”

  I’d never heard this theory. “The spirits you see and talk to are stuck in this Seam?”

  “Some are. Some aren’t. Seeing inside the Seam is a rare talent most mediums don’t have. It can drive some to the edge of madness. And if a medium is pulled into the Seam, I’ve never heard of it ending well.” Her voice had gone dull and flat. She closed her eyes, tugged the chain of her necklace out of her shirt, and rubbed the stone three times.

  “Maybe Sam can’t open herself or doesn’t know how,” Eric said in a soft voice that didn’t sound like him.

  Marisol opened her eyes. “My God. That’s it. You’re blocked.”

  “Can you give her some paranormal ex-lax?” Brett snorted at his dumb joke and raised his vodka in a toast.

  “Seriously, none of this is going to bring Randall back or get the electricity on.” I wanted to shout the words, but settled for punctuating them with a slap on the arm of the chair.

  “She’s right. It don’t mean nothing. Not really. So who’s here, Marisol? Is the entity Randall?” Brett took another long swig.

  Marisol’s eyes misted, and she twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “It’s not him. I’ve been looking for him since I saw his body. He isn’t here. He must have moved o
n to his next destination.”

  “Which is where? Heaven? Hell?” Brett stood and staggered over to Marisol.

  She backed up a step and refused to meet his drunken gaze. “That depends on the person. I can’t answer that.”

  The tension between Marisol and Brett needed to be diffused before it blew up.

  Daniel seemed to have sensed it as well. He stood and wrapped his arm around Brett’s shoulders. “Hey, man. Relax. She can only do what she can do.”

  Whatever that meant, but it sank into Brett’s alcohol-laced brain.

  “Yeah. Sorry, Marisol. I just can’t believe he’s gone.” Brett slumped in the chair and cradled the bottle to his chest.

  “Death isn’t easy. For the living or for the dead. Randall’s lucky. He moved on. Not everyone does or can.” Marisol spun in a circle.

  “The presence you mentioned before? Is it still here? Can you see them?” Eric said in the gentle voice he’d used earlier.

  She stopped turning and brought her fingers together like she was tapping belly dancer finger-clappers. “It’s a dark shadow. I can’t make out any features or tell if it’s male or female. Spirits sometimes attach to objects in the form of shadows. Sometimes they manifest.”

  I stared into a corner but didn’t see any shadows.

  “What does it want?” I asked before my brain registered my mouth had moved.

  “I don’t know. It isn’t communicating with me. It’s just skulking around. Dark shadows usually represent the evil the soul holds. If the shadow is white, the soul was pure.” Marisol sighed, closed her eyes, and scrunched her face up until she resembled an old lady.

  “This one’s evil?” Eric used the soft voice again.

  Marisol bobbed her head to the left, then the right. “I think so.”

  “Well, what are we going to do, sit here and watch Marisol stare at it?” Brett waved the almost empty bottle in the direction Marisol had said the presence hovered.

  Iciness brushed my skin, and I crossed my arms. Everything had gone to hell. I’d never felt so alone in a room with four other people. If you counted the spirit Marisol claimed to see, the count was even higher.