by Sara Clancy
Attempting to put authority into her voice she yelled, “Get out!”
The room remained silent and her skin began to burn in the scorching air. She fled into the hallway. Her knees almost buckled at the sudden burst of thin, cool air. The difference left her lightheaded and she grabbed the wall to keep upright. Sweat cooled against her flushed skin, leaving her shivering and dizzy, as the cello began to play once more. She could barely lift her feet as she stumbled down the hallway towards her cabin. There were more charms there, more barriers to keep it out.
It can’t hurt you, she told herself, but the words held little comfort. There were many ways to hurt someone without ever touching them. The humming of the lights drove into her skull as the colors shifted in front of her vision. She kept one hand on the wall and pressed the other into her temple. Every hair on her body rose at once and she snapped straight. The sensation of being watched bore into her back. She whirled around but nothing stirred in the titled shafts of colored light. Even as she stared down the hall, the sensation continued, her primal instincts still telling her that someone was behind her.
The tattered wallpaper was cold as ice as she pressed her back against it. She glanced from one end of the hall to the other. The shadows had grown into inky darkness. From somewhere unseen, she heard the slow creak of a door opening. Her heart hammered, her ears were filled with the sound of her own panted breaths. The wallpaper crackled under her fingertips as she slowly continued her way down the hall. The lights flickered, failing for moments at a time before they came back on with a sickly buzz. Darkness crept closer on both sides.
A scream ripped through the halls, the boat trembling in its wake. Marigold doubled over and clamped her hands over her ears but it didn’t diminish the cry of the Wailing Woman. The electricity surged and the light bulbs tittered on the edge of shattering. Marigold covered her head, protecting herself from the inevitable hail of shattered glass. A single fingertip traced the line of her spine, its searing flesh pressing her skin despite her layers of clothing. She flung herself from the wall and ran into the consuming shadows.
***
Louis was pulled out of the sleeping world with the vague notion that something was pulling over his skin. The gentle candlelight flickered against his closed eyelids and the room remained silent enough to hear the water lapping against the side of the boat. He shivered in the cold, only his feet spared by the blanket that was folded neatly over his feet. He idly thought about pulling it up but the allure of sleep was too strong, so he just wrapped his arms around himself and rolled onto his side.
Just as he was drifting off again, he noticed a low, scratching sound. It moved in a long glide and his mind took a moment to identify it. It was the sound of something scraping across the worn carpet of the room. Without opening his eyes, he rubbed his face, groaning when his fingers found his glasses and pushed them into his face before he could abort the movement. He pulled the glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. Then he heard the scraping rasp again. Why would Marigold choose now of all times to move furniture? he thought as he rubbed a hand over his neck. His brain cleared with a snap and he hurriedly pulled his glasses back on, blinking into the dim light.
Ice flooded his veins. Shadows shifted over a chair that now sat in the middle of the room. He recognized instantly. It was one from the table set on the back deck. The deck that was a few hallways, a staircase, and at least one closed door away. Not willing to blame every occurrence automatically on a ghost, Louis didn’t react. Without moving, he shifted his eyes to check if the door was still closed. The chair lurched the second he took his attention off of it. With a grinding scrap, it slid across the floor, charging straight at him.
Louis leapt backwards. He slammed against the wall as the chair screeched to a halt a few inches from the bed. The room quickly fell back into silence, disturbed only by his quickened breath and the crackle of the candle. He swallowed thickly and attempted to calm his heartbeat. The chair didn’t react as he reached up and readjusted his smeared glasses.
“Hello,” he kept his voice calm, his tone pleasant. In his experience, politeness went a long way to calm agitated people, dead or not. As he kept his eyes on the chair, he used his peripheral vision to check if there was anything else out of place. Other than the chair positioned for whoever sat in it to watch him sleep, everything was how it had been. “Is there anything, in particular, I can help you with?”
A shift of movement caught his attention. He watched as the mattress next to his left thigh began to bow under an unseen weight, the sheets shifting as if someone was sitting down. The hair on the back of his neck rose when he heard someone breathing close to his ear. A new yet familiar sickly feeling settled into him and he was suddenly pretty sure who his visitor was.
“I know I entered your room without an invitation, and I apologize for that. I assure you it won’t happen again,” Louis kept his voice gentle but stern. “But this behavior is not acceptable and I would like you to leave.”
His skin crawled as a hand of ice rested on his shoulder. For a moment, he was stunned into silence. Mr. Creeper was not an overly strong spirit. Normally, a polite rebuke would be enough to send such an entity like him on its way. Pins and needles rose up over his skin as the hand trailed a path from his shoulder to his wrist. He jerked his arm back and opened his mouth, ready to demand that the spirit leave. That’s when a shrill squeak derailed his thoughts.
The sound filled the room. A sharp rusted grind that captured his full attention. He followed the noise to the porthole on the other side of the room. It was set high in the wall and to appease high paying guests, the porthole was larger than on most boats. Large enough for a body to slip through. While a deep crack severed the glass in two, the thick metal frame kept the pieces together. It was kept closed by a thick screw with a flattened end. Beyond the window, the sky was completely black. The sickly feeling in the pit of his gut steadily grew as he watched the screw slowly rotated. The rusted edges shrieking in protest. Despite the ghost sitting next to him, it was the slow turn that made his heart thud.
Under his attention, the screw moved with increasing speed, spiraling out of its lock. That ghastly sound snapped across the room with every rotation. Louis’ heartbeat quickened with every screech. Unbidden memories lurked in the corners of his mind, too drenched with childhood fear for him to remember any detail. He couldn’t name it, but he knew that he had felt it a thousand times before. The screw continues to spiral until the metal shriek melded into one long scream. The screw topped from its hold. It hit the floor and he felt the impact in the pit of his stomach. The only sound in the room was the screw rolling over the thin carpet. He flinched when it clicked against one of the chair legs.
Louis’ chest heaved but he couldn’t catch his breath. He pressed himself against the wall, eyes locked on the porthole, hands clutching the bed sheets like a scared child. With a long, gasping creak, the porthole swung open an inch. Icy wind rushed inside. The candle flickered at the presence, making the shadows writhe and flail across the walls. Louis swallowed thickly, but it didn’t help to calm the hurried pace of his breathing. The cold air wrapped around each of his breaths and churned them into visible clouds before him. For a moment, the room was silent and still.
The night itself leaked through the thin gap. Fingers, as black and slick as a bugs casing, dipped silently into the room. The skin was tight enough that every bone and tendon bulged under the surface. With tips as sharp as a deer’s antlers, the knuckled fingers grew over the wall, stretching for inches until the palm emerged. Unbending, the arm continued down until the fingertips brushed against the floor. It was reaching, searching, and Louis couldn’t look away. Old fears mixed with the new and turned him to stone.
With a sharp rattle, the chair hurled towards the window. It shattered on impact. The portal snapped shut, the wood splintered and hailed down against the floor. The sudden crash knocked Louis out of his daze and warmth flooded back into his limbs. He cou
ld move again and bolted for the door.
Chapter 8
Marigold’s throat squeezed shut, making her every breath a strained wheeze as she ran down the seemingly endless hallway. The kaleidoscope of colors covered the walls, distorting distance and size. She could still feel it following her no matter how far she ran. Memories of the last time she had been trapped, all alone in the dark with this creature, filled her mind until she couldn’t think. Without a care of what was on the other side, she flung herself through the nearest door.
Her heavy breaths echoed back to her as she tried to gauge her surroundings. There were no lights on, leaving the only source of illumination as what mere beams were able to penetrate the windows. Floodlights had been strung along the sides of the boat and they gave the thick rolling mist a rusted orange hue. The mirrored wall behind a bar reflected the light, giving just enough light to make out that she was in the small cocktail lounge which was on the third floor. She didn’t remember going up a staircase. The cello had once again fallen silent as if the spirit had fled in the wake of something far worse. She missed the sound of it.
Her fingers trembled as she pressed them against her neck, searching for the thin metal chain of her rosary. She hooked her fingers around it, and pulled it out from under her sweater. She held the small metal crucifix tight enough for her palm to ache. The cool metal served as an anchor and helped to steady the rapid pounding of her heart.
A sudden crash made the room quake. The mirror wobbled, distorting her reflection as she edged deeper into the room. The next crash was hard enough that she felt the vibrations tremble through her legs. Another. And another. The tables that remained in the room rumbled with the force. She spun around, trying to determine where it was coming from. It seemed to radiate from everywhere at once. As it sounded again, she finally realized what it was. Footsteps. Something huge was heading towards her.
She squeezed the crucifix tighter as she searched in vain for another exit. All of the windows were too high for her to reach and the only door led straight back to the hallway where the footsteps were coming from. Everything within her screamed for her to find a place to hide and she couldn’t suppress the impulse for long. All of the tables were exposed and the shadows weren’t deep enough to hold her. She darted behind the bar and found a line of small cabinets nestled under them. Each booming footstep was louder than the last, drawing closer. The doors rattled and the few remaining glasses behind her clinked together.
Dropping to her knees, Marigold grabbed one of the cabinet’s sliding doors and yanked. Years of grime and dust held it in place. She tugged with both hands as the footsteps made the wood shake within her palms. Another sharp shove and the door inched to the side, just enough that she could slide herself into the darkness beyond. The waterlogged wood splintered under her touch as she squirmed deeper into the cramped space. Stale, musty air filled her lungs as she struggled to get the door closed again. The footsteps stopped in front of the cocktail room’s door. She desperately yanked on the cabinet. With a sudden lurch, it slammed shut against her fingers and she bit her lips to keep in her scream.
Huddled in the cramped space she held her breath, straining to hear anything beyond her hiding place. The door opened with a raspy groan. She pulled back, forcing herself into a tight ball, as far away from the slim gap that still remained because of her fingers. Light sliced through the space and fell like a solid bar against the back of the cabinet. The rest was left to thick shadows. She winced as the footsteps came out. With each booming thud, small particles of dust tumbled into the beam of light. She watched them drift to the floor and tried to keep silent. The walls around her shook as the footsteps neared. She clamped a hand over her mouth, unshed tears burning like fire in her eyes.
Alone in the dark, she cursed herself for coming here. She should have gone back to her room, back to Louis. He would have known what to do. The charms could have warded it off. She had given into impulse and now she was trapped in a box smaller than a coffin with the demon only feet away. It would find her. She knew it would. It would always find her.
The shaft of light stuttered as something moved to eclipse the source. Silence followed, weighing on her more than the colossal footsteps had. She could sense it out there, separated from her by only a thin layer of crumbling wood. Squeezing her eyes closed, she waited. Waited for it to find her. Waited for it to strike. Tears shook free from her eyes and she choked on her smothered sobs. Keeping her right hand tight over her mouth, she searched for her crucifix with her left. The metal tinkled softly against the floorboards, sounding as loud as hail in the stillness. She cringed but forced her eyes open. The small slither of light had been completely smothered. Everything was dark. It made her hiding space feel like a grave just waiting to be filled. She could barely breathe through her need to cry.
Water trickled against her hand and for a moment, she thought it was her own tears. But the slick sensation was curling under her, coming up from below instead of trickling down. Her whole body froze as the sensation grew. She could hear it now, water bubbling up and spilling out over the rim of the cabinet. Then the light filled the gap again and she was left staring into familiar eyes. Jasmine’s eyes.
Jasmine was crouched down an inch in front of her. The light only touched her face and left the rest shrouded in the shadows. Her skin was grey and slick, water plastered her once golden hair to her head, and eyes met her with an unblinking intensity. Water oozed from her flesh and added to the rancid pool forming underneath them. She smiled, a flash of pearly baby teeth sitting within blackened gums.
Marigold’s skin crawled as the thing before her whispered in a sick mockery of her sister’s voice, “Found you!”
A scream ripped from Marigold as the rotting creature lunged at her. The world went blank. Hands clawed at her. Her shoulder slammed against the cabinet doors and fingers twisted in her hair, yanking hard enough to tear it from the roots. She couldn’t get out. The stench of decomposing flesh churned her stomach. Her lungs burned with the force of her screams.
Panic had taken over her mind, silencing every thought, until all she could do was shriek and squirm and writhe in the pain that snapped over her nerves. Light blinded her and she squeezed her eyes tight against the onslaught. She didn’t want to see it again. Not Jasmine. Not like that. The sound of snapping wood cut through her screams. Hands grabbed her and tugged. She thrashed but couldn’t shake them off.
“Maggie,” Louis’ voice hit her ears, making her heart lurch as she fought the urge to gag. “Maggie, it’s me.”
His Southern drawl eased her need to fight, but she couldn’t risk opening her eyes. Not when it could be the demon. Not when it could make her see Louis in the state of decay.
“It’s okay, cher, I’ve got you.” He pulled her close, the solid warmth of his body leaking into her own. She clung to him, hard enough to make him gasp, but still didn’t open her eyes. “I’m right here.”
***
It had taken a while for Marigold to calm down enough to talk. After that, all she did was insist she didn’t want to be here anymore. She wanted to go back to her room. The notion sent tendrils of fear curling though Louis’ stomach, but this wasn’t the time to tell her so. She needed a safe place. And even if the security the room offered was little more than an illusion, he would let her hold onto it. At least, until morning. Everything could wait until the morning. So together they had begun their journey through the hallways, their process made with the backdrop of the cello’s song.
He tried to keep focused on Marigold’s story, but it was impossible to keep the reaching hand from his thoughts. He couldn’t understand why it had created such a degree of fear within him, why that particular fear had felt so familiar. It bothered him that he didn’t know and left fear-like bile in his throat. Pushing the thought aside, angry with his wondering mind. There were other things that needed his attention. In a bid to keep his mind focused he asked a question.
“The doll, the one on t
he counter.”
“It’s a plush toy,” Marigold corrected. “And believe me, I remember where I saw it. No need for prompting.”
“Did you touch it?”
She looked up at him as they entered the final hallway, “No. Why would I?”
“There are two ways the situation could have played out. Either it was an illusion or it had created a replica. Creating an illusion is like a parlor tick for them. Easy enough. But actually making something corporeal takes a lot of focus and a lot more energy.”
“So, it’s like a gauge of how strong it is?”
“Essentially.”
“Well, next time I’ll make sure to poke it.”
His shoulders hunched as they neared the cabin door. Not wanting Marigold to see his discomfort, he straightened his shoulders and forced his breathing to slow down. He then discovered that she was too lost in her own thoughts to pay him much attention anyway. Her arms hung limply by her sides and her feet shuffled as if all of her energy had abandoned her. Despite his reservations, he still leant forward to open the cabin door for her. He might have been scared, but he was also a gentleman.
Sparing a moment to offer him a grateful smile, Marigold took a few steps into the room. Louis followed and swiftly closed the door before he turned and saw what she was looking at. She was standing by the end of her bed, staring at the broken remains of the chair. His stomach lurched when he saw that the window was wide open. Unaware of his discomfort, Marigold knelt down to pick up the screw.
“I’m kind of cold,” she said. “Do you mind if I close the window?”
“Please,” Louis smiled.
She took a few steps towards the window and his first instinct was to grab and pull her away. Keeping his eyes on her, Louis tried to appear calm. He busied himself by smoothing down the musty bedsheet of his bunk. It took a few tries to get out the wrinkles that Mr. Creepy had made. He kept a close watch on Marigold as she closed the porthole. The world outside was no longer a bottomless black but had now taken the same off-colored light that matched what could be seen through the other windows. It loosened something within his chest when the pothole clicked back into place. But then she began to turn the screw. He flinched with every slight squeak.
