by JL Bryan
“But since moving here,” Cherise continued, “sure, maybe I've felt overwhelmed, but I felt like I wasn't alone. Like I can feel my mother's hand on the wheel, invisible but helping me steer.”
I felt worse for her with every word she spoke, and also like we were getting mired in quicksand. I wanted to get her and Aria out of the house for the night, and Cherise had made little progress. She'd taken a suitcase out of the closet and put it on the bed, but hadn't even begun to pack it.
I chose my words carefully. You'd think a degree in psychology would have made me better with people, but its main effect was helping me question my own sanity all the time. I'd gone to Armstrong State, a local college that was itself now a ghost, its pirate flags lowered forever as it became an appendage of Georgia Southern University.
“This sounds exactly like what Dr. Marconi described in his journal,” I said, and Cherise flinched a little, likely because a phantom of the dead professor had just attacked her in bed. “He believed the aufhocker was his deceased wife. At first he was happy just to have her around again. He kept trying to take comfort from her, to connect with her, to please her and make her stronger.
“But she was tricking him. She fed on him like a parasite. Like that goblin creature riding on the traveler's back, wearing him down with every step. No matter how much he gave her, it was never enough. It was never going to be enough. Marconi was stuck inside the house with her like a fly in a pitcher plant. Until he died.”
Cherise stiffened. “Do you suppose he finally figured out the aufhocker wasn't really his dead wife, so it killed him? Pushed him to his death in the library?”
“That's possible. And it's another argument for getting you and your sister out now. Because now you know the truth. You know the aufhocker is not really your mother. You still have the chance to do what Marconi failed to do, and get free.”
“But who will take care of the library?” she asked.
“You're concerned about that?”
“Of course. The collection may be strange, but it contains a number of extremely rare and completely unique items. Some of these books are centuries old. There are pieces of parchment that could be more than a thousand years old. This collection can't just be abandoned.”
I nodded along, finding it hard to disagree. “But you can't live here anymore. And you can't be alone here anymore. You'll want to work with bright, full-spectrum lights and with sacred music in the background.”
“Like those bells?” She grimaced.
“Anything of your choice,” I replied. “It can help keep the negative spirits at bay. We can talk about all this later. Right now, we need to get your sister to a safe place. You don't want Dr. Marconi trying to claw his way inside her next.”
Cherise looked shocked, then disgusted, by what I said, but it jolted her into action and she finally started packing in earnest, flying around the room to grab her things.
“You're right,” she told me. “I know. I shouldn't get drawn in by this... this mirage. I should have told you from the beginning. I should have been honest with Aria when she told me about seeing strange things. But I'm not going to persist in error. I'm getting my sister out of here.”
Another long, strange groan sounded from the depths of the house. The shutters rattled, as if a stiff wind blasted them from outside. It didn't sound like a Ford F150 this time.
Strange rumbling echoed down the hallway.
I stepped out, and so did Stacey, and together we looked toward the end of the hall, in the direction of the sound.
The heavy double doors to the master suite creaked and pushed toward us as though someone were shoving them outward, straining against the lock. Trying to escape. Trying to reach us.
The movement stopped... then started back stronger and harder, rattling the doors in their frame, as if someone had shoved against the lock in frustration.
“What now?” Aria asked, stepping out of her room beside Stacey. Cherise emerged, too. Cherise and I were much closer to the doors.
Then the thick doors slammed and bulged as though some giant wild animal had crashed into them from behind, trying to break free, trying to get to us.
Aria screamed.
The doors still didn't open. Both knobs began rattling as if hands gripped them on the inside and shook them.
“Let's go!” I told Cherise.
Before she could even reach into the bedroom to grab her suitcase, a loud splintering crack sounded.
The doors flew open like black curtains. A howling gale of icy wind filled the hallway, blowing my hair back, biting through my clothes and deep into my bones.
We screamed.
Ahead, the darkness of the inner corridor was complete, every light extinguished. There wasn't much light from the glass balcony doors behind us, either, because the sun had set.
It was like staring into an abyss.
Rattling, clacking noises sounded within.
I pointed my flashlight into the darkness.
The pictures on the wall trembled as if an earthquake shook them, though I could feel no such vibrations. Images of Philip as a promising young professor, of Piper as a promising and even younger dancer, wobbled on the walls, shimmering as my flashlight reflected off their frames.
Then, one by one, the pictures began to fall like glass raindrops, shattering as they struck the floor on either side of the hall.
At the far end of the hall, the next pair of heavy doors blew open, revealing the library's honeycomb of walkways, ladders, and bookshelves. It felt like an invitation—into darkness, madness, and death.
“It's like the house wants us to go into the library,” Cherise whispered.
“So we're heading out the front door instead. Come on.” I started toward the stairs, as did Stacey. Aria was already ahead of us, standing on the top stair with her suitcase.
Cherise continued staring down the dark hallway, past the falling and shattering pictures into the library.
“I notice you're not moving,” I said to Cherise, stopping to look back. “Can you grab your suitcase?”
“I have to go in there,” she murmured.
I thought she meant the bedroom where her suitcase was, but no. She started toward the master suite and the library beyond.
“That's a really bad idea,” I said.
“My purse is in the library,” she said. “Car keys, credit card, everything I'd need to get out of here and head to a hotel.”
I sighed. “All right. Go head out front with Stacey and Aria. I'll grab the purse and catch up with you.”
Stacey looked torn when I told her we had to split up, but somebody had to stick with the clients and somebody had to go in and face the risk. We couldn't leave the clients alone or take them deeper into danger with us.
“Just hurry. I'll see you out there.” Stacey gave me a quick hug and headed down the front stairs with Cherise and Aria.
I grabbed my jacket, belt, and boots, then started down the hallway alone.
The atmosphere grew noticeably colder and thicker as I passed through the first set of double doors and into the master suite.
Low whispers sounded behind the suite's closed doors. Strange, high laughter pealed from behind the bathroom door where Marconi had once raised a ghastly incarnation of Piper from animal blood and guts.
I chose not to open that particular door.
Then I stepped out of the master suite and onto the intersection of narrow second-story walkways in the dark library.
Directly ahead, but a story above, was the broken railing where Marconi had died and the window where we'd spotted the apparition of Piper. Our thermal camera and microphone were still up there; we hadn't even begun to study that data.
The library was completely dark, the light switch unresponsive.
The sights my flashlight found were bizarre. It was hard to wrap my mind around what I was seeing.
Books had been arranged in strange, nearly impossible configurations. Spiral columns of old books towere
d more than two stories high, stacked carefully, their hard leather covers barely overlapping each other. These tall columns were precariously balanced on the edges and corners of tables below; some even stood on the seats of the library's chairs.
Archways of books spanned from one wall to another across the open spaces of the library's second and third levels, enormous curves like the ribs of whales or dinosaurs.
It was hard to see how it could have been accomplished; the books were crammed in cover to cover, pressed tightly together, defying gravity. Hundreds of books made up every arch.
The spirits in the house were definitely acting out, and the particular way they were expressing themselves gave me the chills. There was intelligence and focus here, in addition to the physical power to move all these objects in a short amount of time.
It had to have been arranged quickly, all at once, because the books were all holding each other up. I thought of the hundred-handed giants of Greek mythology who guarded the defeated elder gods in the underworld.
I remembered Cherise's suspicion that the aufhocker had turned against Marconi after he'd determined that it wasn't actually the ghost of his wife. Maybe the aufhocker had been listening to us and knew we'd figured things out. It didn't want to lose the people it had been preying on. With no residents in the house, it would go hungry.
Cherise's purse waited atop the table in the center of the first floor where she'd been working. The strange columns and arches of books swayed all around and above it.
I adjusted my flashlight to flood mode, but deep gloom still shrouded the immense space. Solid darkness lay beyond my small, moving oasis of light.
The nearest staircase felt more fragile and unstable than ever as I descended it. Each narrow step creaked and groaned like rotten plywood.
Clearly, one of the spirits had been quite psychokinetically busy in here. If it could stack and arrange thousands of books into these insanely elaborate and delicately balanced arches and columns, there was no telling what else it could do.
Maybe that was the purpose of this elaborate display—to show power, to instill fear. Perhaps the necromancer himself, the dead professor, was angry at us for investigating his old house and invading the forbidden area of his private rooms.
The staircase, despite its profuse creaking and groaning, did not snap beneath me. I reached the first floor and approached the center table.
I couldn't help trembling as I crossed under the arches of books. They were like enormous sprawling tentacles above.
It felt like some invisible giant had been at play here, and maybe still was, though the room was completely silent at the moment.
The cold, thick air only grew colder and thicker as I approached the table holding Cherise's purse and laptop. My nerves urged me to run, but I didn't dare. I could easily brush against a column of books and bring everything crashing down around me.
My heart thumped as I finally reached the table. Three of the weird book arches came together here, meeting atop a precarious column of books at one corner of the table. There were hundreds of books altogether, barely holding each other aloft in a complex configuration that made me think of a giant spider waiting to pounce on its prey.
I closed the laptop, slid it into its case, and slid the strap over my shoulder. Then, trembling even harder, I picked up the purse. It sat directly next to the precarious column of heavy leather books, nearly touching it.
As I lifted her purse, her car keys jangled inside.
I noticed something else on the table: the other ring of keys, the ones that came with the house. I could use those.
As I lifted the key ring from the table, a slow, leathery hiss sounded from above.
I pointed my flashlight at the arch of books above my head.
A single book was sliding loose—just one book, moving so slowly it was almost imperceptible, inching its way free.
I turned to run, but I wasn't fast enough.
That one book fell loose, dropped straight down, and landed with a hard thump on the floor beside me.
On its own, it would have been innocuous.
Under the circumstances, though, it was like the detonator on a bomb.
The archway of books seemed to exhale and ripple, every tightly pressed-together volume separating slightly from the books on either side of it.
Then all the books came crashing down. Heavy volumes struck me with bruising force again and again as I ran toward the dark doors at the front of the library.
A column of books came down and broke across my back, their spines smashing into my own. The impact knocked me over. My stomach came down on the long edge of the laptop bag, and the laptop's hard edge jabbed into my guts.
I let out a fairly audible “oof!” as I sprawled forward onto my face. Stupid laptop.
More columns of books fell, one after another, a collapsing city of paper towers. I was still under attack.
There was a heavy groan as the dark doors ahead began to move. They were closing, moved by unseen hands, with me still sprawled on the floor inside. I was going to be trapped.
I struggled to my feet as the avalanche of books came down around me. Binding shattered; loose pages and broken covers spread everywhere. I felt bad for the damage to all the old books, but couldn't help feeling a bit less so after so many of them had attacked me.
I barely made it through the library doors before they slammed together.
Ahead, the house's heavy front doors had been propped open for my benefit by Stacey and Cherise, but the doors were straining against their built-in doorstops, trying to snap shut as I ran toward them up the front hall.
They snapped loose and slammed shut just as I raced through them out to the portico.
Stacey and Cherise were standing on the gravel driveway and turned their heads at the sound of the slamming front doors. Aria sat in Cherise's car, drumming her fingers, waiting to go.
More headlights approached from the desolate road behind them as I hurried past the column Vic had smashed with his truck and down the front steps.
When I was clear of the house, I stopped to catch my breath. I was glad to be out of danger for the moment, but our work was far from over.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Everything okay?” Stacey asked, probably picking up on subtle cues, such as the panicked look on my face and the way I'd bolted out the front door like demons were on my heels.
“Definitely not,” I said, watching the approaching headlights.
A gray Hyundai pulled into the weedy drive, tires crunching on gravel, and parked alongside our old blue van.
“Jacob!” Stacey dashed over to greet him as he climbed out of the car, looking worn down from his drive, his hair mussed and his business-casual clothes rumpled. He barely had time to adjust his glasses before Stacey leaped onto him and kissed him; his energetic blonde girlfriend pouncing on him seeming to improve his mood.
I greeted him in a more reserved and professional fashion.
“Sorry I'm late,” he said. “Do you want to hear the details of this particular shipping company's tax issues, or can we stipulate that my job is boring and no one cares?”
“I'm all about some stipulation, baby,” Stacey said, clinging to him a bit longer before backing away, apparently remembering that our clients hadn't driven off yet. She downshifted to a more professional tone. “So, uh, this is the house. The subject of our investigation.”
“Really interesting,” he said, looking it over. Jacob had been given no information about the new case, so he could approach it with fresh eyes. He was an extremely reluctant medium, his powers having awoken fairly abruptly after a near death experience in an airplane crash. He was an accountant by day, and his psychic powers seemed to annoy him more than anything. “I'm already picking up a lot.”
“Maybe we shouldn't start in the main house,” I suggested, having just fled it and not eager to go right back inside to see what awaited us there. “How about we check the cemetery first?”
“Oh, yeah!” Stacey said, then covered her mouth so she didn't say anything about the voice we'd recorded there. “Good idea. Let's get that out of that way,” she added through her fingers.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked Cherise.
“Sure.” She was looking at her phone, trying to get a signal, while Aria sat in the car, still drumming her fingers and staring impatiently at her. “I'll find us a hotel. Are you sure it's safe for y'all in there?”
“We'll be fine,” I said, though I had my doubts. “You just drive safe and find somewhere pleasant to stay.”
Then we piled into the van and drove the short distance down to the cemetery road, where we again pulled in just enough to park.
“Do you want to go with flashlights or night vision goggles?” I asked Jacob.
“Better keep it simple and stick with flashlights,” he said, and Stacey passed him one.
“Keep them dim,” I said. “We don't want to run off any entities that might be around.”
We climbed out and headed up the road, stepping over fallen limbs from the low canopy above.
“The overgrown road to the backwoods graveyard, huh?” he said, looking around as we passed through the woods. “Sounds cheerful. Like a walk through Candyland.”
“We don't have to stay long,” I said. It was hard making conversation while not telling him anything about the case. I hadn't had a chance to fill Stacey in on all that had gone down inside the house, and it was hard not to talk about that, either.
We fell silent, listening to the sounds of the thick woods as we walked, the scuttling and whispering sounds of the many hidden inhabitants.
I unlocked the gate, the heavy old house keys clacking together loudly in the quiet night.
The gate creaked open, the noise sharp and piercing. It felt like it would draw unwanted attention somehow. We weren't illegally trespassing, but I couldn't say the old burial ground had a warm and welcoming feeling. I definitely felt like we were unwanted intruders.
“It must be convenient having your own cemetery right in your back yard,” Jacob said, looking among the tombstones, his eyes naturally drawn to the large monument to Philip and Piper. “It's like having the past and the future right in front of you all the time. So, there's definitely some low-level residual energy around here, too, but... uh... what?” Jacob was suddenly staring off into seemingly empty space beyond the big dark marble slab, seeing something I wasn't.
