Her sharp claws and teeth dug into the man’s body again and again. Eventually, the rush from her rage ebbed and Misty felt tired…so tired. Looking around for a place to rest, her lupine eyes saw nowhere safe…except for the bed of the truck.
Misty hopped into the back of the truck and landed so hard that the vehicle started to slowly roll forward. Lifting her head to the night sky, she let out a loud howl into the cool air. Then her vision started to blur and she fell back into the bed of the truck, letting out a sound that could only be described as a burp before sleep overwhelmed her.
THE DARK, OILY spot never faded from the floorboards.
Charlotte circled the spot, her wispy white gown fluttering against the wood. Her bare feet floated just above the surface, never leaving tracks in the dust. Charlotte circled this spot as the sun rose through the frosted, cracked windows. She circled it as the inky night blotted out the room.
The Entity watched her from the far corner, where the sunlight never beamed.
Charlotte’s family had tried to scrub the spot from the floor. Slumped over in tears, they interchanged soap and water as others discussed the furniture with labels such as “antique,” “rummage sale,” and “bonfire.” The oldest antiques survived if the blood washed away. The bed, where John had been found rocking and muttering beside his murdered bride, had burned with the rug and her clothing.
Wailing with tear-free sorrow, Charlotte circled the dark spot again.
As men in powder-blue suits assessed the other rooms and spoke of real estate, the family told the story. Charlotte pressed against the invisible force that spanned the doorjamb, yearning for news of her husband. When the men entered the room, the family told of an asylum where the groom had thrashed and raved until his gory end. Stricken with grief, Charlotte wailed in agony. The blue-clad men shivered and backed away.
The thick door closed.
It opened rarely, only during the day. Men with wide ties and horn-rimmed glasses peered in, making marks on clipboards with ballpoint pens. Charlotte stood in the sunlight, but their eyes passed right over her and onto the dark spot on the floor. They wrote on their clipboards and shut the door.
At night, The Entity left its corner and roamed the room. It paced around Charlotte, corralling her over the spot where her blood had spilt. Where her innocent husband had slipped into lunacy as the inhuman Entity had shredded her apart. It kept her over the dark spot until sunrise peeked through the glass, chasing it back into its corner.
Years passed. Dust fell. Wood aged and splintered. Windows cracked and frosted over with grime.
Mice emerged during the day to explore the room and gnaw at the spot. Those mice that emerged at night gnawed at each other. Rodent bodies littered the room, torn apart and cannibalized in the darkness. Soon the mice learned to change their nocturnal habits and they roamed the rest of the house unless sunlight shone into the room.
Windows shattered and doors rattled. Children invaded the house, half-grown striplings intent on mischief. They opened the door and peered into the sunlit room, and Charlotte peered out at a house in ruin. Graffiti marked the walls outside of her room, and urine stained the corners. Autumn leaves blew across the shattered floorboards, tossed by wind howling through broken glass.
The children entered her room. Muttering in awe and giggling nervously, they speculated on the dark, oily spot. Charlotte circled them as they circled the spot. The Entity watched. Flinching, the children peered into the darkness, claiming they had seen something. When they looked directly at the corner, they saw only shadows. The children spoke of returning at night, camping out in the old haunted house. Charlotte tried to warn them, but her voice only sent shivers down their collars. The children never returned at night.
As the children escaped, they left her door open. Charlotte tried to leave, but her wispy body bounced off the unseen barrier. She pushed to no avail. The Entity emanated glee at her captive state.
Leaves blew in through her door and piled over the mangled mouse carcasses, decaying year after year.
One of the children returned, nearly a foot taller and flaunting a full beard. With his four flannel-clad friends, he carried a black camera with three long legs. The friends spread sleeping bags in the ruined, graffiti-stained living room.
Charlotte pressed against the barrier, listening to their stories of a bride and groom, a week after their honeymoon. The couple had sacrificed their elaborate getaway, had only spent a weekend at the coast, so they could buy a house. Family gave them furniture: elaborate antiques, a four-poster bed, rugs and dishes. When the couple never left the house during the day, the family assumed they dwelt in newlywed bliss. After one week, they entered to find the husband in a state of lunacy, splattered with blood and crouching over his bride’s corpse.
The sun sank behind the autumn trees, dimming the ruined house. The friends roused. The Entity crept through the shadows, backing Charlotte over her spot. The friends took up pieces of equipment on long poles.
The friends stopped in the doorway and peered into the darkness. Charlotte called out to them, to warn them away. Her windy voice wafted up through the rafters. Lifting their heads, wide-eyed as they scanned the room, the friends muttered about a presence.
She stepped toward them. The Entity snapped at her.
Calling her name, asking to speak with her, the friends entered the room. A flashlight shone over her misty gown, illuminating it as a foggy sheen, before landing on the dark spot beneath her feet.
The door slammed shut. The flashlight rolled across the floorboards.
A man shrieked, and his body fell in the path of the light. Red blood speckled the lens of the flashlight. The three-legged camera toppled over. Heavy feet thundered through the room as the friends scrambled for the entrance. Another body fell, then a third. A fourth dropped on top of the others. As The Entity thrashed and feasted, blood ebbed and rolled, then sank into the floorboards.
The sun rose, illuminating the room. Red blood congealed on the cracked and frosted window. A tiny red light blinked on the black camera as it lay on its side, pointed at the four mangled bodies heaped on the floor. Crouching in the brightest corner, the bearded man rocked back and forth, muttering in his lunacy.
I SHIVERED AS icy fingers from a sharp breeze caressed my bare arms. I should have dressed warmer, but it was too late now. I had a job to do.
Every street light on the street petered out at once. I brushed a strand of my long hair out of my face and peered through the darkness, trying to scan for anything else out of the ordinary with what little light the sliver of a moon gave me. I rested one hand on my hip; the curve of my gun belt under my hand eased my tension a little.
A slight glow began to shimmer into view to my right, just next to a large Dumpster. The glowing light began to mold itself into the shape of a woman. I knew she’d be here. I’d read about her death in yesterday’s paper. Her body had been found a little further into the alley, dumped like she was nothing more than a pile of refuse.
The ghostly woman in front of me had a greenish cast to her coloring, and she was transparent. She looked as though she was made of nothing more than light and smoke. But I could see that she had been young; the paper put her age at 22. I felt the familiar anger surfacing. Her life had ended before it had even begun. I was only a few years older than her. She was slim, like me, and I had a moment to wonder if I looked as frail to people who didn’t know me.
In death, the tears and rends to her flesh were no longer visible. Her ghostly form showed no signs of the violence that she had endured. The paper had claimed that the girl appeared to have been mauled by a pack of dogs, but I knew the claws and teeth that had ripped her body to shreds had not been those of ordinary dogs.
Despite the signs, the authorities refused to acknowledge that Paranormals existed. I knew better. I was one. Other Paranormals called me an Immune. Thanks to the genetics of my Immune father, I was immune to all paranormal viruses. I could never become a vampire,
werewolf or zombie, even if attacked by the creatures.
Thanks to the genetics I got from my mother, I could fight other Paranormals and keep them from hurting more people.
I never met my mother; she died when I was born. And no one seemed to know what kind of Paranormal she was; all I knew was her side of the genetic pool had made me unusually strong and incredibly fast. I wondered if I’d also gotten my slim build and lack of feminine curves from her too.
I looked at the ghost again. Not everyone could see ghosts—another gift I must have gotten from my mother. I couldn’t hear them though, so the ghost just hovered in the same place she had first appeared, looking forlorn. She’d been yanked from life too violently, and the only way I could help her find peace was to avenge her.
I lifted a packet of powdered false unicorn root from my pocket. Whispering a few power words over it, I sprinkled it over the ground where the woman’s body had been found. The powder sparkled like tiny particles of glitter and started moving and rearranging itself, forming a trail.
I followed the trail out of the alley. Every so often, I would come to the end of the trail of powder and have to sprinkle more to continue following it. It led me three blocks away from where I’d found the ghost. After following the trail down a side street and into a large open grassy area, surrounded by trees, I knew the beasts were close. I hadn’t expected to find a city park with so many trees surrounding it, but it was the sort of place these creatures would gravitate toward while in the city.
I pulled my gun, double checking it was loaded with silver bullets. A lot of the stuff people read about Paranormals was incorrect, but not the stuff about silver. Silver really did harm a lot of Paranormals. I had a silver dagger in a sheath strapped to my calves, in case I hadn’t brought enough bullets. Silver cuffs encircled my wrists, protecting the veins there, and a wide silver choker encircled my neck. No need to make it easy for something to rip my throat out.
The trees and brush on all sides of the park began to rustle and stir as something moved through it. I didn’t know for certain what kind of creature I would be facing, but the ground shook as it moved, and I knew it was big.
Three large Weres emerged from the surrounding vegetation. Normally, I would have already dropped to the ground and started shooting, but the fact that they were three different Weres caused me to pause for one startled moment. It was incredibly rare for different breeds of Weres to work together, and yet, in front of me stood a Weretiger, a Werewolf and a Werefox. They were in their warrior forms, half man and half beast, and I could feel the power as it rolled off them and swirled around me.
They were strong and fast, but I was ready. I started shooting as I dropped to the ground, hitting the Weretiger in the shoulder before I landed. A howl pierced the night as the Werewolf loped toward me on powerful legs. I rolled back to my feet and tried to put some distance between us, but the Werefox was circling around behind me.
The trees and brush parted again, and a man built like a Viking warrior and dressed like a lawyer, strode out into the clearing.
“Stop.” He spoke the word quietly, but all three Weres stopped their advance and walked back over to his side and waited. I raised my gun but I didn’t shoot. What was going on?
The man looked at me. “If you are here to find the ones responsible for the murder, we have already taken them into custody.” He almost growled the words at me, and I wondered what kind of Paranormal he was.
“And you are?” I asked.
“I represent the Paranormal Threat Assessment Department, or PTAD as some call us. We are in charge of keeping the existence of Paranormals a secret. These are my associates.” He indicated the three Weres with him.
I assessed him. His suit was stretched taut across a wide and muscled chest, and his blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. I could sense a lot of power coming from him, but I couldn’t identify it.
He took two steps and, with his long legs, that was all it took to bring him close enough to me to reach out and touch me if he wanted. I resisted the urge to step back. He handed me a card, with the name Bjorn Vestmeir and PTAD written on it, along with a phone number.
“We already know about you, Miss Reilly, and about your special gift of immunity. We would like to work with you in the future. Give us a call.”
At that, the four of them turned and disappeared back into the trees.
They knew about me already. What did that mean? As I walked the long journey home, I wondered if their method of justice would bring the young ghost girl the same peace as my method of justice. Maybe it would.
“OFF TO CREEP back to your cave?” Robbie asked through his werewolf mask.
Carol managed a smile and glanced around at the crowd of people leaving the movie theater. “No better night to work on my horror stories than after seeing a flick like that,” she offered.
“Well, I think it’s great that we actually know someone who writes for a living, even if I’m not a fan of the subject matter,” Lauren, a petite blonde at Robbie’s side, said with a grimace as she eyed some teenagers who ran laughing and screaming as one chased the other.
Robbie slid his arm around Lauren’s waist and squeezed her. “Oh, come on, babe. This was a classic! It was even better on the big screen now that they redid it. And look, these people love it! I told you I wasn’t the only one who’d dress up.” He nestled the furry mutton chops of his mask into the side of her neck.
Lauren shoved him away. “Loose the mask already, will you? It’s creepy!”
Carol pursed her lips to stifle a sigh. She’d had enough social graces for the night. Everyone seemed to expect her to revel at the sight of anything spooky because she was a horror author. Truth be told, it was sheer torture trying to live up to her image—and she thought being a cop had been the more difficult of her life’s professions.
“Well, I’ll see you two lovebirds later,” Carol interrupted.
Lauren forfeited the scowl on her face for a sympathetic expression as she looked at Carol. “Don’t you ever get scared living out there all by yourself?”
Carol managed a smile. “No. It’s pretty peaceful actually.”
“Come on, Lauren. That’s the perfect place for a horror writer to live—out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the woods. That’s probably where you get all your great ideas, right?”
“Yeah…I suppose.” Carol tried to sound enthusiastic.
“Well, it’d give me the heebie-jeebies,” Lauren groused. “At least you have your dog to protect you.”
“Yeah, it’d take a gladiator to get past Beau,” Robbie said, grinning.
Carol inhaled the cool night air that flooded through the window of her Jeep as she drove out of town. The crisp air felt refreshing after sitting in the stuffy theater for the past two hours. Carol didn’t like being around that many people. It always left her feeling like she needed to bathe the stale air and smells of other people from her skin. She watched as the trees on either side of the narrow road flooded past as her headlights cut through the pitch black of night. The farther she got away from society, the more at peace she felt. She thought on what Lauren had said as she continued down the empty country road. Was it really so strange that she lived out here all alone?
Seeing Lauren jump at the sight of the pepped-up movie-goers was baffling to Carol. Nothing ever startled her when she was awake. She sometimes wished something in the lucid world could scare her. It would almost be a blessing. The only thing that got a reaction from Carol was when she was asleep. Sleep. She wanted to laugh. Could you call what she did “sleep?” More like torture, she thought.
From the time she was a child, Carol had been plagued by nightmares. No one could ever truly get used to such a thing, she supposed, but she had somehow adapted. Each night, when she drifted off to sleep, she had incredibly vivid dreams so bizarre and terrifying that she would wake up drenched in a cold sweat. She dreamt about perpetrators she’d dealt with as a police officer, friends from the past
who appeared in odd roles unlike themselves in real life, or complete strangers she’d never met who simply manifested from her imagination. Each time she woke up, she couldn’t understand what the nightmares meant. She’d read every dream book on the market, but nothing made sense to her. Finally, she wrote one of her nightmares down and gave it to a friend who’d recommended she publish it. Who’d have thought her suffering would lead to a lucrative writing career?
Carol pulled into her driveway and shut off the engine. She scanned the yard and the surrounding wood line of the forest. Silence and blackness—that’s all there was. She waited, hoped for a reaction, but nothing happened. She simply couldn’t be terrified and her spirits sank knowing how that made her not normal. She walked up to her door, fidgeting with her keys, and glanced around at the darkness. Other women might worry they’d be attacked by some lurking intruder in a similar situation.
Carol knew self-defense from her ten years as a cop. If anyone ever did take the trouble to come all the way out to her house, she was sure she’d handle the situation with primal instinct. She wasn’t a careless person. She kept all her doors and windows locked and had a security system. The chances of anyone ever getting inside her house without her knowledge were slim to none. And like Robbie said, her Mastiff dog, Beau, was a pretty bewildering protector. She smiled at the thought, pushing her silly curiosities aside, and opened the door to be greeted by her protector.
“Hey there, handsome.” She smiled. “Honey! I’m hooome!” she hollered loudly and smirked to herself when, as usual, there came no reply. She’d long ago undertaken bellowing out the quirky greeting figuring it served two purposes. It was good practice to announce you were not alone, if you did in fact live alone, and it was a dark-humored jab at herself for working toward spinsterhood and not caring.
“Well, what do you think? Can we top that awful movie I just sat through?” Carol asked Beau as she walked upstairs and tugged him along as he yanked on the rope toy in her hand.
In Creeps The Night Page 14
