Forever

by Rachel Maldonado

  By then, Alex had already taken the laundry basket of books to the truck, so Meghan rushed into the bathroom alone to see what had occurred.

  “Are you okay?” asked Meghan in a panic. “What happened?”

  “I saw something in the mirror! It looked like a man. He was standing right behind me!” cried Aleghany.

  “What did he look like?” asked Meghan.

  “I don't know. He was big and scary with big teeth and dark clothes. He looked like a monster.” Aleghany wrapped her arms around Meghan for comfort. Meghan held her daughter tightly, but she, too, was trembling in fear. She figured it was either Joseph, the ghost of the man that had been shot and killed by Claudia after he'd strangled her lover Harriet, or it was something even more sinister.

  Meghan led Aleghany downstairs and out of the house. Alex and Meghan drove Aleghany back to Willie's without telling Aleghany about the rest of the details of the recent hauntings that had happened to them.

  “We'll let you know when it's okay to come back, okay?” said Alex as she pulled up to Willie's house.

  “We're going to spray the house for bugs, and we don't want you to be around the poison,” insisted Meghan as Aleghany hopped out of the truck.

  Alex walked her to Willie's door with her basket full of books, then she returned to the driver's side door and hopped in.

  Meghan waved to Willie and Aleghany as they drove off. They were standing just inside the screen door watching them drive away.

  Meghan knew that Aleghany thought that the spirit in the home was Sheryl, and that it somehow brought her comfort. She didn't want to scare her by telling her that the spirit was probably something evil or inhuman.

  Meghan thought that it was very likely that it wasn't Jo. Jo had been an alcoholic, but she had drank herself to death out of guilt. If she had guilt, she had a conscience. She felt bad for the things she had done. Meghan was convinced that whatever was trying to hurt them and frighten them wasn't Jo or Sheryl. It was something that had never lived in human form. It had to be a demon.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The following day was a Sunday. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the cool breeze was coming in from the open window. Meghan heard Alex shouting at her from downstairs.

  “Hurry up, Buttercup! Time's a-wasting! Let's go for a swim!”

  Meghan grinned. “Okay, let me change into my new swimsuit.”

  With all the bizarre occurrences that had been going on, they hadn't had a chance to have any type of normalcy. Both women were either too tired to go out on a date or too busy trying to figure out where sounds were coming from and where shadows lurking were going. Meghan hadn't felt at ease in the house at all and she wished that she could've stayed over at Willie's with Aleghany, but she knew Alex wouldn't want to leave the house alone or impose upon Willie.

  Meghan changed into her swimsuit and ran downstairs, but Alex wasn't on the porch waiting for her like she had always been in the past. Meghan looked around the front property puzzled.

  “Where the hell are you?” she called.

  She could hear Alex's voice in the distance. “Last one to the lake is a rotten egg!”

  Meghan laughed. “You're a cheater. You had a head start.”

  She darted off down the road by the bank of the lake. She could still hearing Alex calling to her and laughing. “Come and get me.”

  “Oh, I'm gonna get you alright,” laughed Meghan. She could hear splashing in the water and Alex's laughter. She figured that Alex had already entered the lake at their favorite spot.

  Meghan hurried to the water's edge and jumped in just like she used to when she was young. She swam out toward the middle of the lake where she thought she saw Alex. She heard her again say, “Come on! Come get me!”

  Meghan swam toward the sound where she thought she heard Alex, but when she got there no one was there!

  Panicked, Meghan began to scream. “Alex! Oh my God! Alex! Where are you!?” She dove into the water several times to try to find her beloved, but to no avail. She couldn't see in the murky water and she couldn't feel her anywhere nearby.

  She screamed into the sky. “No! No! Don't you take her from me! Please, God! Please don't take her from me!”

  Meghan couldn't stop sobbing. She still kept trying to dive into the water. But there was no sign of Alex.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  After several minutes passed that seemed like hours in the murky water, Meghan felt as if two hands were pushing her down into the lake. As hard as she tried to come up for air, the hands were pushing her down and holding her head under the water. She was gasping as she tried to push her head above the waterline. She tried to see who it was, but the bright sun was shining down on her. All she could see was a dark figure with two long arms holding her trying to drown her. Her arms and legs were flailing about.

  The next thing Meghan knew she was being pulled out of the water by Alex and being laid on the side of the lake in the grass.

  “Meghan! Meghan! Can you hear me!?” shouted Alex. She was pushing on her chest to try to get her to spit out some of the water she had inhaled.

  All of a sudden, Meghan's body lurched upward, and she began to cough up water and gasp for air.

  “Oh, thank God!” shouted Alex. “Are you okay? What the hell were you doing out here?”

  Meghan curled into a fetal position and lay quietly in the grass. Alex scooped her up in both arms and carried her the entire way back to the house placing her on the sofa while she ran to the bedroom to get her a warm blanket.

  Alex began to wrap the blanket around Meghan. “Why were you out there all alone, Meghan? I thought we agreed we wouldn't leave each other alone.”

  Meghan shook her head. “I wasn't alone. I followed you out there. Didn't you see me? I swam out after you.”

  “No, Meghan. We had a power outage this morning, and I was down in the cellar trying to mess with the breaker box. When I came back upstairs to get back into bed, you were gone. I figured you had gone to take a shower. I had just started to close my eyes to go back to sleep when I heard you screaming my name, so I ran down here to find that you were going under the water and drowning, so I pulled you out.”

  Meghan was still shaking her head. “No. That's not what happened. I saw you. I swear it. I heard your voice and everything.”

  Alex sat beside her on the sofa and embraced her tightly after kissing her on the forehead. “I'm sorry, baby, but that's what happened. The power went out. I noticed because the air fan and alarm clock shut off, so I went downstairs to check the breaker box. I wasn't out on the lake. I swear on my love for you.”

  Meghan didn't doubt her. She knew that Alex would never hurt her. But she knew someone or something had lured her out to the lake. It looked and sounded like Alex, but it couldn't have been. Alex would never hurt her like that, would she?

  Whatever or whoever it was, it was creating doubt in her mind about the woman she'd always loved. After that afternoon, Meghan insisted on sleeping in her bedroom alone.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  It was exactly seven days until the Monday that Ginger George might pay them a visit, it was their second week in the home and the activity hadn't slowed. Instead it had accelerated like a moving vehicle in the fast lane. More things seemed to be happening and it wasn't just at night anymore. Both Meghan and Alex were seeing and experiencing paranormal activity and hearing disembodied voices during the day.

  Often Meghan had heard Alex calling out to her from the bedroom or the bathroom when she was in the kitchen or living room. She had gone to see what Alex wanted to find that she was out in the yard or down in the basement and nowhere near where she had heard her voice. It frightened Meghan more than anything because she feared another incident like the one before where it, whatever it was, had led her out to the lake and nearly drowned her.

  Meghan didn't know how she would make it through one more week. It made her think of the classes she had tak
en for college credit and the sorority she had joined. They'd had a hell week and it was nothing more than silly pranks, drinking games, and dares. She laughed to herself as she thought that if her sorority sisters had had to survive a week in her house that they'd never have made it into the sorority. She had loved being a commuter and not living on campus, and she had loved that the newspaper where she worked had paid for some of her classes as a benefit to improve her skills. The place of employment also benefited in situations like that where they paid for employee schooling.

  “Why are you laughing?” asked Alex as she walked into the living room. She stared at Meghan suspiciously and wondered if the house's unseen residents had driven Meghan insane after only one week.

  “No reason.” Meghan was dusting some trinkets on the fireplace mantle. She paused briefly to turn to look at Alex. “What do you say we get out of here? Let's go into town for lunch.”

  Alex smirked. “I'd like that. It will be good to get out of the house for the day. Maybe we can window shop. Let me go change my shirt.”

  Alex had been sweeping out the cellar. Meghan wasn't sure what her obsession was with that cellar, but she spent much of her time down there ever since the power outage. Her T-shirt had been covered with dust and cobwebs, so she went to change into another one. Alex emerged seconds later with a maroon Washington Redskins T-shirt.

  Meghan dropped her dust rag onto the coffee table. She was glad to be getting away from the house even if it was just for a few hours.

  As they turned around and headed down the dusty farm road, Alex began to drive faster and faster.

  “Would you slow down? You're scaring me,” pleaded Meghan.

  “I'm not doing it,” said Alex.

  “Quit playing around! This isn't funny!”

  “I swear, I'm not doing it.” Alex tried to pump the brakes to find that the brake lines had been cut. The truck was increasing in speed on it's own. She had removed her foot from the accelerator and was now frantically pushing on the brake pedal with both feet, but there wasn't any brake fluid to even slow it down. The dust in the road was flying up into the air creating a huge puff of dirt and rocks all around them and the sound of the dirt and gravel below them sounded loud and harsh as if it was tearing the treads on the tires as they barreled down the open road.

  “Put your seat belt on,” suggested Alex.

  Meghan did as she was told. “What are you going to do?”

  Alex put her seat belt on. “I'm going to crash it. Hang on tight!”

  The speed had increased so much in such a short period of time that Alex knew that if they continued at that rate that they might not survive a crash if they were going in excess of one hundred miles or more. She chose to crash her beloved truck into a tree knowing it would stop it from killing them or crushing them if it were to have flipped over into a ravine.

  After seeing the speedometer go from ten, twenty, thirty, forty, then fifty miles an hour, Alex turned the wheel abruptly to the right to crash it into a nearby oak tree. Both Meghan and Alex felt the impact as the front of the truck smashed into the tree, their bodies were catapulted forward, then back again as the seat belt pushed them back into their seats. The front hood had caved in and around the tree and was smoking. Water, oil, and a mix of other fluids began leaking onto the ground, but at least they had stopped moving.

  Alex rubbed her neck from where the seat belt had torn a large cut across. She glanced over at Meghan who still had bits of glass in her hair and across her lap.

  “Meghan? Are you okay?”

  “Hmm?” she grumbled.

  Thank God she's alive, Alex thought to herself.

  “Let's get out of here. For all we know it could be leaking gasoline.” Alex opened the door and hopped out. She ran over to Meghan's door and helped her out. Together they walked home.

  Chapter Forty

  When they arrived back at the house, Meghan was in tears. They walked into the home and Meghan went straight to the couches and plopped herself down on the sofa.

  “What's wrong? Does something hurt?” asked Alex concerned. “I'll get you a cold compress for your head.” She rushed into the kitchen without waiting for a response. She came back into the living room and sat beside Meghan handing her a bag of ice.

  “I'm okay. I wasn't hurt. I do have a pounding headache, but don't think the ice will help.” She placed the bag on her head anyway.

  “Then why are you crying?” asked Alex.

  “I just don't think that whatever's here wants us to leave. It wants us here, so it can drive us crazy or turn us against each other.” Meghan began to sob. “Brake lines don't just get cut on their own. Someone or something did that to us, and Lord knows we don't have any enemies. The only person that's even around here for miles is Willie.”

  Alex nodded. “I know. And I know Willie wouldn't try to hurt us.”

  “What did you do with that board?”

  “It's in my bedroom closet. After it came back fully restored, I didn't want to take a chance on trying to destroy it or throw it away again. I figured it would only make the spirit angry. Why do you ask?”

  Meghan took a deep breath. “This morning when I came out of the shower, I saw someone.”

  “Someone like who? What are you talking about?”

  “I saw a woman walking down the hall.”

  Alex raised her eyebrows. “You mean, you saw a ghost?”

  Meghan nodded. “I wasn't all too sure that I saw her at first. I thought it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. But after everything that's been happening here and after today's crash, I'm sure that there's something here. It seems like several spirits. But the one that I saw didn't look like anyone I've ever seen. She had long, flowing hair and she came out of the bathroom only seconds after I did. She was wrapped in a bath towel. I watched as she walked down the hallway, but midway down the hall, she vanished into thin air.”

  “She didn't say or do anything to you?” inquired Alex worried.

  Meghan shook her head. “No. It was a brief few seconds. I saw her with her hair still wet, the towel wrapped around her, she took maybe three or four steps into the hallway, then it was like she hadn't been there in the first place. She was just gone.”

  “Was it Sheryl?”

  “No, I'm certain it wasn't Sheryl. But I feel she must be here because Aleghany saw her.”

  Alex pressed her lips together. “And you're sure it wasn't Jo?”

  “I'm also one-hundred percent positive that it wasn't Jo.”

  “Wait here for a sec,” said Alex. She walks toward her bedroom closet to grab her duffel bag, then returns a minute later. She sits on the sofa beside Meghan who still has a bag of melting ice to her head. “We probably shouldn't play with the board anymore, but since we already know that there are spirits here, I thought maybe we could try to speak to them and find out who they are, why they're here, and what they want from us.”

  Alex digs through the side pocket of her bag and pulls out two small digital voice recorders. “Let's have an EVP session.”

  “What's an EVP session?” asked Meghan. Other than that first time many years before that she had gone with Alex to the cemetery, she had never been on a ghost hunt.

  “It stands for electronic voice phenomena. We can speak in our regular voices and ask the spirits questions, but we can't always hear what the spirit says, if anything at all, but the voice recorder is able to pick up more sound. If the ghosts respond to our questions, we'll be able to catch what they say on these. Here, take one.” She hands a recorder to Meghan who takes it, stares at it for a moment, then sets it down on the coffee table. “I don't know that I want to do that.”

  Alex was frustrated. She asked in a huff, “Don't you want to know who it is and what they want?”

  Meghan tossed her bag of ice on the coffee table beside the recorder. “I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they want us hurt, or worse, dead.”

  “Okay, if you don't want to do it, I'll do it on my
own.”

  Meghan sat quietly. She didn't know what to say. She was at a loss for words as Alex sat with her back to the hallway. She pressed the record button on her digital recorder and asked aloud, “Is there anyone here?”

  Meghan appeared to be staring at Alex, but she wasn't. She was looking past her toward the open hallway. Walking toward her in the distance, was Sheryl.

  “Is there anyone here?” asked Alex again. “What are you doing here?”

  Meghan sat motionless as Sheryl stood behind Alex and smiled. Meghan was frozen to her seat, but after a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, she muttered, “She's behind you.”

  “What?” asked Alex. She turned around in her seat, but saw no one but an empty hallway.

  “She's standing right behind you,” whispered Meghan. Her eyes were wide open and she pointed with her pointer finger.

  “Who is, Meghan? Who!? Who do you see?” pressed Alex.

  Meghan wasn't sure what to expect. She didn't know what Sheryl might do. If she was the one causing all the chaos in the home, she might try to hurt them, and Meghan wasn't sure how fast she could get up and run. But all of a sudden, Sheryl began to speak.

  “I wanted to offer you my blessing. I spoke with Alex on the day that I crossed over into this world. I wanted you to know that it's okay, Meghan. I knew all along who you were. I knew the moment I first looked at you. I saw the beauty in the way your smile lit up the room, the way that your eyes danced around when you looked at Alex and in the same fashion, the way she looked at you. I knew in my heart who you were. But I was already in a wheel chair and told that I would never walk again. I welcomed you into the home because I thought you'd bring Alex joy and give her what I couldn't. You could be with her in body and soul the way I no longer could, but I realized so quickly just how faithful and loyal she was. I should've known from the beginning that she wouldn't cheat on me.But I waited until I knew my time was coming to tell her to move on. She needed to allow herself to finally be happy with you.”