Sarah

by Polen, Teri

  “Eh – who isn’t psychologically damaged in some way or other, right? I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine.”

  Chapter 28

  Finn and I waited for Sarah, even called out for her. After playing video games for two hours, eating most of two pizzas, and binge-watching four episodes of Supernatural, there was still no sign of her. No room temperature changes, attic doors opening, or otherworldly creatures stuck on my ceiling. Even Eby stayed in the room with us, but that was probably because Finn kept feeding him bites of pepperoni. Even if Sarah was here, the pepperoni might have motivated Eby to stay.

  If she’d done something to Nathan, she’d want to gloat about it and share all the gory details, maybe even bring back a trophy of some sort. Sarah didn’t kill quietly. She preferred to play with her food first, aim for shock value, and make a statement. Ironically, that’s the opposite of when she was alive, hiding in the background and avoiding drawing attention to herself.

  We finally called it a night around 2 am. Eby curled up with me on my bed and Finn settled in his usual spot on the futon. An hour later, we were awakened by a piercing screech, like fingernails clawing down a chalkboard.

  “What have you done! Why can’t I touch you!”

  Being woken by Sarah in the middle of the night was becoming routine and I immediately shot up in bed. In the dim light, I saw Finn go from prone to a crouched, defensive position in the blink of an eye. As a keeper, he’d always had quick reflexes, and his eyes darted around the room, seeking the threat. Even Eby was caught unaware and leapt at Sarah as he sprinted from the room.

  When I’d first seen Sarah, she’d been nearly opaque, but with normal human mannerisms and as long as a person was comfortable being around a ghost, she really hadn’t been that threatening. The Sarah that stood in front of me was truly macabre, her skin a sickening greenish-gray, with inky, dark shadows lining her face. Long tendrils of slimy-looking hair fell in limp strands that snaked over her shoulders.

  And her cold, cadaverous hands were again streaked with dried blood.

  The color drained from Finn’s face as he gaped at Sarah.

  She launched herself toward me, her feet hovering several inches above the floor, but came to an abrupt stop about six feet away, almost as if she’d smacked into a brick wall, and her lips drew back in a snarl.

  “What have you done?” she screeched again. “There’s something glowing around you, like a wall!”

  That didn’t stop her from trying. Sarah charged at me from every angle, but the protection amulet did what Mona had promised. Too bad the barrier wasn’t like those invisible fences for dogs, shocking Sarah every time she hit it.

  “It’s called a protection amulet, you decaying psychopath, and it’s to keep devil spawn like you away from him. Seems to be pretty effective, doesn’t it?” Finn had recovered from the shock of Sarah’s appearance, but taunting her couldn’t lead to anything good. Her head snapped in his direction, as if she’d forgotten Finn was here. In her frustration over her failed attempts to reach me, it was possible Sarah hadn’t noticed Finn.

  Her lips parted, mouth twisting into a cruel grimace, and in the dim light, it resembled an empty black void.

  “Oh, it’s you, Finn,” Sarah said in a dismissive voice.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time a woman was disappointed to see me, although you’re the first dead one who felt that way.” Finn had gotten up from his crouched position and was inching toward my desk.

  Sarah turned toward Finn, drifting in his direction. “Do you always joke when you’re nervous? Trying to hide the fact that you probably need a change of underwear right about now?”

  With Finn leaning against my desk, arms across his chest and legs crossed at the ankles, he looked entirely too casual, considering he was talking to a vengeful, murdering ghost who was probably running game plays through her mind about the different ways she’d like to kill us right now. “If the joking bothers you, I could say what I’m really thinking. Like how I’d love to send you straight to hell where you belong and how much pleasure it would give me to rid the world of you. Is that better?”

  Sarah’s face contorted into a picture of dark rage at Finn’s words. A gauzy, gray mist appeared, slowly rising around her, swirling from her feet up along her torso, as if she were gathering her energy, then she surged at Finn, arms outstretched, lank strands of hair streaming behind her. Seeing Sarah threaten Finn gave me a burst of energy that propelled me out of bed in their direction, but my help wasn’t needed. Sarah stopped cold a couple of feet from Finn, and she howled in frustration. I made a mental note to grovel at Mona’s feet in gratitude the next time we met. Assuming I ever had the opportunity.

  “I guess your afterlife sucks right about now, doesn’t it?” Finn asked. He must have nerves of steel and complete faith in the talisman, because he hadn’t even twitched when Sarah charged at him. “Now, what did you do to Nathan?”

  Sarah slithered away from Finn, back toward the attic door that opened for her as she approached. Even though she’d just suffered a humiliating defeat in her attempts to terrorize us, her expression was triumphant.

  “Nathan? What makes you think I’d know where Nathan is?” she asked. The fact that Sarah feigned innocence, and not well, made my blood boil.

  “Come on, Sarah, I saw you at the funeral today and no one has seen Nathan since school. Did you hurt him? Can we help him at all or is it too late?” The blood on her hands led me to believe it was the latter, but I didn’t want to give up hope just yet.

  “Lose the jewelry and I’ll tell you everything you need to know, Cain.”

  Almost unconsciously, my hands drifted toward the leather cord around my neck, and I glanced at Finn. He slowly shook his head. “Don’t even think about it. You know she’d kill you the second she got a chance.” He was right. Of course, he was right. What was I thinking?

  Then Sarah was gone, remnants of the swirling mist all that remained of her. The attic door slammed hard enough to crack the frame, and I heard a menacing laugh echoing in the distance.

  Finn and I stared at each other in the deafening silence of the aftermath of Hurricane Sarah. I exhaled loudly. “How did you know your talisman would work?”

  Finn was bent over, hands on his knees. “I didn’t. Yours worked and I prayed mine would too, but let’s just say there was some shrinkage in certain parts of my anatomy when she came toward me and leave it at that.”

  I nodded and fell back onto the bed. “He’s dead, you know.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure she killed him after he went through some excruciating pain, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  Finn had returned to the futon and we both lay quietly. My thoughts flitted between Nathan and his probable murder, the questionable length of my own life span, and the chances of becoming a certified exorcist online. Neither of us would be getting much rest tonight.

  “How do you do it, Cain?”

  “What?”

  “How do you stay in this room every night and sleep, knowing she’s here, maybe even invisible and at your side watching, able to massacre you at any time?”

  “She can find me wherever I am, so it doesn’t make a difference. If I stay in my room, at least I know she’ll be here, away from Mom and Maddie. Right now, this talisman is the most important thing I own and if I lost it….let’s just say parts of my anatomy would shrink or I’d lose them permanently and leave it at that.”

  “Understood.”

  . . . . .

  The next day, Nathan was all over the news. The unsolved murder of one football player and the disappearance of another in less than a week caused a frenzy of gossip among the students. Groups were clustered in hallways, classrooms, and
the cafeteria whispering, crying, speculating, accusing, and spouting ridiculous theories about what might have happened.

  One rumor had a jealousy-riddled Nathan killing Liam over a girl they were both in love with and Nathan had disappeared, taking the object of their affection with him. Except neither of them had girlfriends. Another had the two of them in love with each other, and after Liam’s death, a grief-stricken Nathan had left town, too bereft to tell anyone where he was going. Except neither of them were gay.

  I’d hoped Nathan’s disappearance would convince Jacob to take us seriously and cooperate, but he didn’t acknowledge my presence all day, ignoring my existence. If he was worried or concerned at all, he hid it well.

  Finn, Lindsey, and I planned to scour my yard and the forest behind it for Sarah’s grave after school today. Without Jacob’s help, we’d be searching for a four leaf clover on a soccer field, but what other choice did we have? She was on a rampage and once she took care of Jacob, I could be her next target.

  When Lindsey got to my house that afternoon, Eby was trotting around my legs, trying to herd me toward the pantry where his food stayed. Finn was still at practice and wouldn’t be there for at least another hour. Opening the door and seeing that dazzling smile of hers put all grisly thoughts of Sarah out of my mind for the time being.

  “Hey, you.”

  “Hey,” I said, pulling her against me and wrapping my arms around her as our lips met –something that was becoming entirely natural to me. Then Lindsey pushed against my chest.

  “Cain, what about your mom?”

  I grinned broadly. “No one’s home and Finn won’t be here for another hour, so we have the house to ourselves.”

  “And you expect me to believe this is just a happy coincidence? That you didn’t plan this?”

  “Um….yes?” She laughed as I led her over to the couch, where we spent the next hour in a tangle of arms and lips and I found out exactly how it felt to leave a trail of kisses down her neck and over the delicate silver necklace she wore, now accompanied by her protection amulet.

  “I guess it’s true what they say about a common fear drawing people closer together. Really close, I guess. Don’t let me interrupt. Should I sit down and wait for you?”

  Finn. He’d used his key and since I’d been otherwise occupied with Lindsey, I hadn’t heard him come in. We fumbled through straightening clothes and running hands through rumpled hair as we sat up, Lindsey’s face a deep shade of scarlet as she burrowed against my neck in embarrassment.

  “Have I ever told you what an ass you are, Finn?”

  “Um, that would make the count somewhere around five hundred times. For this year, anyway. So, are we going grave hunting or what?”

  Chapter 29

  The odds of Sarah being buried somewhere within my fenced-in backyard were about as likely as Finn becoming politically correct overnight. One of us would have noticed it during our many hours of mowing, pruning, and trimming and if there was a grave to be found in the yard, it would have happened months ago. We did a quick sweep anyway, just to make sure all bases were covered, but nothing looked suspicious.

  Beyond the fence, however, was an entirely different story. Several acres of wooded land and marsh separated our neighborhood from the one behind us. If you were in the market to hide a body, you could do a lot worse than this place.

  “I don’t even know where to begin. The grave could be anywhere,” Lindsey said, as the three of us stared at the large expanse of land we needed to cover.

  “I googled ‘how to find a grave’ and there really wasn’t much to help us, but one website suggested using a metal detector. If Sarah was wearing some kind of jewelry, it would be picked up by the detector and save us some time.”

  “Well, that sounds like a great idea, Finn, if we actually had a metal detector. Which we don’t,” I said, wiping sweat from my forehead.

  “Yes, we do, Cain. Guess I got so distracted by you and Lindsey making out, thinking about how I’d have to bleach my eyeballs to rid myself of that image, that I left it in the car. I borrowed our neighbor’s metal detector. You know, Mrs. Kirby next door. She’s always combing the beach with that thing thinking she’ll find some buried treasure or something. Want me to get it?”

  Over the next several hours, we swung the metal detector side to side as we trudged over a third of the land we needed to cover. Some areas we ruled out because of large rocks, root systems of massive trees, and marshy areas that would make digging or keeping a body in the ground nearly impossible. If the remains had managed to resurface, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

  By the end of the evening, we were tired, sweaty, and dirty, with only a few empty beer cans and some coins to show for our efforts. But the mosquitos had been thrilled to have us over for dinner.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” said Finn, leaving a trail of dirt when he wiped his forehead with his dirt-crusted hand. “Why don’t we kidnap Jacob and torture him for the location of the grave. It’s got to be easier than this. Who’s with me?”

  Lindsey raised her hand. Blonde strands of hair were plastered against her sweaty face and neck. After spending hours in the damp humidity, no closer to finding Sarah’s body, Finn’s suggestion was tempting. Very tempting. Especially since Nathan might still be alive if Jacob had cooperated with us.

  “Alright,” I said, leaning against the shovel. “Let’s call it a night and we’ll come up with some way to get Jacob to talk.”

  “Waterboarding? Seemed to be pretty effective when Jack Bauer from 24 used it. Just sayin’,” Finn offered.

  “At this point, I’m willing to consider anything,” I said.

  . . . . .

  After showering, I planned to relax with an hour of mind-numbing television, then bunking on the couch downstairs for some much-needed sleep. Being out in the humidity all evening and digging around in the woods had completely wiped me out and my body felt like cinderblocks were tied to it.

  I’d thought about watching TV downstairs, but with the late hour, Mom and Maddie were already asleep and I didn’t want to wake them. Finally locating the remote under the clothes on my bed, I flicked on the SyFy channel, flopped onto one of the gamer chairs, and watched a rerun of the first Sharknado movie, perfect for zoning out. Eby wandered in to see if he was missing anything exciting, pawed at the television screen for a bit, rubbed against my leg, then sauntered out. Guess my life was too boring for him at the moment.

  I’d just gotten to the part where the guy with the chainsaw gets himself swallowed by the shark, when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and assumed Eby had come back. Turning to say something to him, I saw how very wrong I was.

  Sarah was crawling out from under my bed, coming straight for me. She moved faster than any living thing I’d ever seen, but the disjointed, jerky movements of her body were completely inhuman. With the inky strands of hair trailing over her shoulders, gaunt shadows under her eyes and gray pallor of her skin, she would never be mistaken for anything living. She cocked her head sideways, a twisted smile contorting her features.

  For one brief moment, I remembered Sarah couldn’t touch me while I was wearing the protection amulet and my hand frantically groped for it, needing more than anything the feeling of comfort it provided.

  It was gone.

  With a stabbing sensation in my chest, I remembered I hadn’t noticed it while showering and realized it must have fallen off while Lindsey and I were on the couch or worse, outside somewhere when we were digging. God help me, I wasn’t safe and she was coming for me.

  Flipping out of the gamer chair, I hurled my body toward the window, although I didn’t know what I’d do when I got there, but needed to keep some distance between
us. My hands groped through the piles of trash and clothes littering my floor, seeking anything that could help me, something I could use to defend myself. I located one of my soccer shoes and threw it at her, but it might as well have been a pillow for all the good it did. With my back against the wall under the window, there was nowhere else to go.

  The last time she’d had me in this position, Sarah had been sitting on my bed, beautiful in an otherworldly way as the moonlight hovered around her. I’d been unsure of her intent, but fooled into believing she needed help. Sarah had played to my sympathies, said what I’d needed to hear, and deceived me all along while waiting for an opportunity to retaliate. Now, I was at her mercy and knew in the depths of my soul she wouldn’t show me any.

  She stopped a couple of feet in front of me and sat up, one leg splayed out in front of her, the other bent to the side and behind her at an unnatural angle, and she made a strangled sort of cackling sound that might have been a laugh.

  “What’s wrong, Cain? Paying the price now for that roll on the couch with your girlfriend? I was there watching, you know. I knew exactly when your ridiculous amulet fell down into the cushions. It’s just like a guy to forget about everything else when he’s thinking with the head that’s not on his shoulders.” Sarah’s voice had changed, now raspy and gravelly, exactly how I’d imagined something from beyond the grave would sound.

  “D-d-don’t hurt me, Sarah. I haven’t done anything to you. I was only trying to protect myself and my friends,” I begged. The sound of my heartbeat thrashed in my ears and my stomach clenched, threatening to purge its contents.

  “Hurt you?” she asked, her eyes wide, as if she were surprised at my request. “I’m not going to hurt you, Cain.” The meager twinge of relief I felt was short-lived when she added, “Yet.”

  Now I knew for certain what my future held, as far as Sarah was concerned. When she was finished with Jacob, I’d be next. Or maybe Jacob was already slaughtered at the side of the road or in his own bed in a way that involved copious amounts of blood, pain, and terror.