The night at Nolan’s had been bad. Having someone break in and come face to face with him… I shivered as the hair along my back stood at attention. I hated that I was alone. Every sound sent my heart jumping in my throat. My eyes dropped, staring at the reminder left on my arm. I wasn’t myself. But somehow, I had to be okay with this. I’d fought to overcome my fears before, and I would do it again. I closed my eyes, wishing this feeling would go away.
A flash of the girl in the chair harassed my thoughts like an uninvited guest. I cried out and jerked my eyes open. Gripping the sink for support, I stared at its white porcelain finish. Medicine could do funny things to people’s minds the doctor had said. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t make me unsee the things I had seen. Or the things that I had lived in that vision. It was all too real. The emotion. The horror. The fear. That girl was me. Could something like that happen to me? Why couldn’t it? This world was full of awful things that happened every day. A chill climbed through me. I touched my skin. Skin that was warm and uncharred, unlike the girl from the vision. It brought me comfort when I thought I wouldn’t find any.
Numbly, I forced my legs to work. I moved from the bathroom to my bedroom in a daze and dropped to the bench in front of my make-up vanity. I grabbed the sleeping pills the doctor had sent home with me and popped two into my mouth. I picked up a brush and ran it through my hair. Tomorrow would be better. Work would take my mind off of everything. It had to.
“Piper…”
The brush hit the hardwood floor with a clatter! I twisted so fast I nearly toppled off the side. My eyes skirted across the room with hostility, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t know if I wanted to find someone, but at the same time, the thought of losing my mind terrified me just as much. I had heard it. Clear as day. I scrubbed a hand across my face in an aggravated assault, hoping for clarity. None came. Only more frustration.
“Piper. You’re going fucking nuts. Stop it!” I screamed at myself. I jumped up, determined to not think about anything related to what had happened to me. I tossed the damp towel to the floor and pulled out a shirt and pair of shorts from my dresser. I quickly dressed and went to the living room.
I sat on the couch. My legs curled toward my chest, and I covered them in my fuzzy blanket, an impenetrable piece of amour no man or supernatural force could pierce. A delusion, but it helped. I’d done the same thing when I was little. Woken up in the middle of the night with a fear something was under my bed or standing at the foot watching me… My answer? Eyes sealed tight and hidden under the covers. Nothing could get me that way. Now here I was, broken down to a child-like state, terrified of every sound or movement.
I bit the inside of my lip, hoping the slight discomfort would take my mind elsewhere. I grabbed the remote and flipped the television on loud enough to drown everything out. I skimmed the channels, looking for something that would calm my nerves. Screw it. Infomercial, it was. Hell, maybe they would convince me to buy one of those Bullet things.
The eruption of rings from my cell phone jarred me. I stared at it a good thirty seconds, hoping the nagging sound would stop. I was in no mood to talk to anyone. After the sixth ring, I jerked it up, nearly knocking a vase off from the corner of the coffee table.
“Hello?” My tone was clipped.
There was a lengthy pause interspersed with a cacophony of gurgles and chokes.
“Hello?” I didn’t know whether to be annoyed that I was possibly on the end of a prank or worried someone maybe hurt.
The unsettling noise stopped, leaving the other end static. Undiluted panic ripped through my body.
“Uhhhh …. uhhhhhh.” A ragged, deep voice dragged on.
Horripilation raged down both arms before infesting the rest of my skin.
“Who is this?” My quavering voice did nothing to mask the terror. Normally, I would have hung up, but this somehow felt … different. Static crackled against my ear, my breathing eating up the silence.
“Uhhhhhh…”
I ended the call and slammed the phone down on the coffee table but continued to stare at it as if it was a living being sent there to torture me. Obviously, I had seen way too many scary movies. Shit was always bad when there was weird static on the phone. I looked around expecting an axe murderer to be hacking the place up, but there was nothing. My gaze dropped back to the phone. It was probably a wrong number.
A moment later, I stood, putting distance between the phone and me. I needed to pick out my clothes for work tomorrow anyway. It was my first day back, and I was sure everyone there knew about what happened. I moved down the hallway without making a sound. The apartment was eerie, even though a cheerful woman ranted about fruits from the living room. A static hum stopped me. I glanced up to the globe hanging from the ceiling. It flickered, making a small pop. Something dark moved fast as lightning through the dimness cast by the bookshelf and across the floor in the living room. I touched the wall. I wasn’t really sure why. Support?
I closed my mouth. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. Regardless, I needed to calm down. I had freaked myself out beyond necessary. I stood motionless, waiting. Despite deep down knowing that whatever I thought I’d just seen wasn’t anything, I couldn’t seem to convince myself of that. Okay, what do I need to do? Hesitation cemented my feet to the floor. I could call out. No. That never worked in the movies. My bedroom was a few steps from me. I could bolt for there and lock myself in until morning. Before I could move, my phone erupted again. I jumped and staggered back against the wall.
I stared toward the living room, my eyes searching as I watched intently for any movement. The ringing stopped, only to start again. I balled my hands into a tight fist and huddled against the wall. I held my breath. It had to be nearly midnight. If I ignored it, the ringing would stop.
It didn’t.
Step by step, I moved toward it. At the corner, I hesitated, looking for the moving shadow. My mouth filled with the copper taste of fear as I looked down at the jingling phone. The room was bare, nothing to be afraid of. I darted over to the table and grabbed the offending object.
“Hello?” My voice shook, praying for a familiar voice to answer me.
Static popped and hummed in response.
“Who is this?” I managed to whisper.
Through the noise, I could barely make out one word.
“Piper…”
My hand tightened as I recognized the voice I thought I’d heard from earlier. There was an unsettling feeling around me, as if I wasn’t alone. The lights blinked again.
I hung up and scrolled the contacts until Nolan’s number came up. I pressed call, fully prepared to make him get out of bed and come over.
Call ended.
It never even dialed out. I pressed call again and waited.
Call ended.
Panic set in. I was all alone with no way to call anyone. I pressed call over and over only to get the same response until my phone turned off and would not reboot. I chunked it on the couch, and hugged myself. I needed to get a handle on this.
A thousand thoughts flooded my mind at once. I rocked back, becoming dizzy all of a sudden. I uttered a desperate moan as white-hot pain seemed to scorch my vision. The room swayed, becoming a blurred array of colors. Something warm ran from my nose. I reached for a tissue and dabbed it. Blackness soaked the white paper. I dropped it to the floor and reached for another and another, never seeming to stop the flood coming from my nose. It ran down the back of my throat, gagging me. I coughed, heat rising to my face. The pounding continued, assaulting my head.
“Ugh!” The sound was foreign to me. It escaped without warning from my compressed lips like a desperate plea to whatever was going on with my body. I coughed again, this time bending at the waist as my stomach churned. Blackness sprayed the coffee table, along with the fabric of the couch. I wheezed, sucking the air in through struggled gasps. My nostrils flared. Something burning invaded my nose, making my eyes water. This wasn’t just any burning
smell. No. This was distinct. I had smelled it before. Burning hair. Roasting skin. It was the smell from the medical-induced delusion of the hospital. It was her.
I jerked convulsively as my eyes widened. Hot rivulets of fear pummeled what was left of my hope. I grimaced, standing up right. The room that had been empty moments before was now occupied. The dark figure huddled into the corner, hidden from the glow of the television. It could have been anything: a shadow cast from the street outside … the glow of the moon against something. But in my heart, I knew it wasn’t either of those things. It was what I didn’t want to see. It was the version of myself. I wanted to run, but my feet wouldn’t carry me. They refused to listen to the command. Too frightened to take my eyes off the shadow, I fumbled behind me and found the armrest of the couch. It’s not what you think it is. Go over there and see for yourself. Prove it’s nothing. No matter what I told myself, my body wouldn’t cooperate. So I sat. I sat, unmoving, and stared. The figure stood as statue-like as I, seeming to glare back.
The wail of the phone startled me. I fell off the couch’s arm and hit the floor with a thud. I scrambled, clawing my way back up. It would still be there. It was just a shadow. I swallowed the taste of fear. It went down like a hard rock. Holding my breath, I turned half expecting whatever it was to be standing in front of me.
The room was empty. Air escaped my lungs as I blotted my nose again. I let go of the tissue, watching it hit the floor and trying to calm down. There was nothing here. I looked back up, my heart constricting. Her charred face was an inch from mine. Skin dropped to the ground in burnt chunks. My mouth gaped, but no sound came out. RUN! My foot caught on my coffee table, which lurched me forward. I came face to face with her as she materialized between the door and me. I blinked, swallowing hard. My mind numbed, not sure how to comprehend what I was seeing. She lashed out toward me. I twisted, losing my balance. My forehead hit the table, sending pain over me. Everything went hazy. I closed my eyes and drifted away.
The next morning, I woke to cartoons blaring on my television, dried drool on my face. I rolled over, tucking a pillow under my head, then pushed up and shifted to a seated position.
I rubbed my forehead, finding a small lump had formed there, and looked around me. I jerked back, my gaze darting over the room entirely. It seemed less scary in the morning light, but the intensity was still present. Slowly, everything came back to me. I looked down at the couch. The last thing I remembered was hitting the coffee table and landing on the floor. Not here.
I jumped up and paced. My foot kicked something across the floor. The object hit the wall then rolled back and forth before coming to a stop. A pill bottle. I bent and picked it up, frowning when I noted it was empty. It had been full when I got home from the hospital. What the hell was going on? What about the stuff coming from my nose? I had spit it out all over the couch. I turned to find a stain-free sofa behind me. I searched the apartment. Everything was in order. “No…” I stopped, staring at the corner where the shadow had been. “Maybe I took too much of my medicine and imagined it all. It seemed so … real.” I shook my head. “I need to get out of here.” Glancing at the time, I realized I was already an hour late for work.
Where was my phone? After throwing stuff around the room, I found it buried in the couch and turned off. It powered on within a minute, and I called the office. After telling them I had overslept, I quickly dressed and covered the bruise with makeup.
With my purse tucked under my arm my keys cupped in my hand, I unlocked the door. I froze for a moment before stepping foot into the hallway. I had imagined it all. That was obvious. I went out into the hall and turned to lock my door. My fingers tightened around the keys until they uncomfortably dug into my flesh.
Smears stained the white paint, and near the peephole were burned handprints.
“Where’s my story on that cop getting fired the other day?” Coleman Dirks, Editor-in-chief of the New York Sentinel, asked. His voice was harsh, reminding me of my high school principal.
Regardless, I was glad to hear it. I was happy to be back in the office and everything normal.
I downed the last bit of my caramel macchiato that was mainly watery ice by this time. “I’m finishing it now.” Muscle memory tried taking over, and my fingers pounded the keyboard faster than my mind could keep up, causing me to repeatedly make mistakes.
It didn’t help that he was leaning over my shoulder, watching each word appear on the screen. My personal space filled with the pungent smell of his breath, but his cologne was far worse.
“Sure you don’t need to go back to school and learn how to type correctly?” he said, and a few beads of his saliva landed on my cheek.
I gritted my teeth and refocused on the masterpiece across my screen. My legs bounced, vibrating the leather Herman Miller chair. My four-inch bright-red stilettos—passion red, according to the saleswoman—clicked against the cherry-oak desk I’d claimed the second I’d made senior journalist.
“No, sir. Can’t create perfection without making a few mistakes getting there.”
He pffted.
The man actually pffted at me! Anger rolled off my body. I paused, letting it escape out my fingertips before pounding the keyboard again.
“Personally, I think he deserved what he got. I hope he never gets another job in law enforcement,” Zuri Williams said, pulling Coleman’s attention away.
Having worked so closely together the past three years gave her insight into how my body language worked. She knew when I was about to lose it. For a millisecond, my eyes snapped in her direction, met her gaze, and expressed my gratitude with a curve of my lips.
“I can’t imagine what that family is going through right now.”
No one got a chance for rebuttal. I slammed my finger down on the final key, completing one of the best stories I had ever written. It was compelling, witty, and busted balls — all the key elements of a front-page article.
“Boom! Finished.” I wheeled the chair around, raising my hand as if holding an invisible mic before opening my palm to let it fall. “Already sent to ya, boss.” He hated when I called him that. Countless times, he’d harped on me to only call him by Mr. Dirks, but “boss” was the only way I could get under his skin without making it blatantly obvious. I stood, waiting on Coleman to move.
His face went straight from pink to maroon, clashing with his strawberry, greased combover. Using a finger, he adjusted the bifocals resting on his plump pig-like nose. The man reminded me of a kidnapper. The kind who drove one of those sketchy white vans and sat on the corner, staring. He shuffled to the side, sneering, before stomping back to his office and slamming the door.
“Seriously, don’t know how that man ever got his job,” Zuri said, studying his office window. She leaned against the wall of my cubicle, her lips grazing the top of her mug.
I blew hair out of my eyes, leaning to snatch my purse from the floor. “How do you think?” I asked while searching the bottomless abyss of my handbag for my lipstick.
She shrugged.
“His uncle owns the company.”
She snapped her fingers. “I knew there was a reason I hated that little douche. I mean, I’ve made a mental note of everything I can’t stand about him, but that … that might be my new number one.” The skin around her knuckles tightened as she squeezed the cup harder.
I couldn’t let Zuri get in one of her “moods” again, so I remained silent, unwilling to keep the conversation going. The last time that happened, she’d made three men cry, and one had admitted he was gay out of the sheer terror she rained down on him after she’d accused him of grazing her boob.
Zuri stood, shifting from foot to foot in silence. “So, how are you?”
I’d known it was coming from the curious stares I’d received since arriving, I was surprised it had taken this long for someone to ask about the break-in and my brief stay at the hospital. The moment the question was asked, the emotions I didn’t want to give in to made an ugly reappea
rance. The events had put me on edge. Around every corner, I anticipated his face. In every reflection, I expected to see the vision of myself from the hallucination.
Panic flooded my body, and I swallowed over what felt like a brick. I needed to put distance between myself and everyone that would show concern for my well-being. Nope. Those narcissists could keep their fake words and blow it out their asses. I had worked too hard to become water cooler talk here.
I ignored Zuri’s question. “Hey, I’m going to run to the little girls’ room and then grab a coffee from downstairs.” Feeling emotional, I was careful not to make eye contact with her. Tears always liked to embarrass me. “Do you want anything?”
“No. I’m good.”
The details weren’t something I wanted to get into. Not even with her. She didn’t push. Swinging my bag over my arm, I pushed away from my desk. I power-walked through the maze of cubicles.
Once I checked to make sure I was alone in the bathroom, I stood in front of the mirror. Carefully, I rolled up my sleeve. The bruise was still there. It seemed to be getting worse as the days went by, growing darker. It didn’t match fingers; it seemed to be round, making jagged lines around the outside. I lightly touched it. The wound felt cold, much different from the temperature of the skin around it. I dropped my hand, continuing to stare at the appalling mark. The doctor had acted so weird about it. He‘d said it would heal in a matter of time, nothing to be alarmed about. Tears burned my eyes as I continued to stare.
Chosen (The Urban Legends Series Book 1) Page 5
