Page 63 of The Premonition at Withers Farm

Of course, it would help if Trent tried too. Where was the impasse? That point when it was no longer her fault but his too? Or perhaps it was his fault and she needed to take less responsibility? Or maybe—maybe they’d just dealt with their grief so differently a sort of Grand Canyon had been carved between them without their fully realizing it? Regardless, Trent’s sleeping on the couch was a new one. She didn’t like it. It indicated further separation, and she’d hoped—with the gift of Myrtle the chick and the chickens, and Trent staying home that morning to make breakfast—that maybe something would change.

And now she needed toilet paper.

Why Trent had to store paper goods in the disgusting dungeon of a graveyard that was the basement, she didn’t know. Her last foray downstairs had been disastrous.

Molly mustered the gumption and hurried down the stairs. At least she wasn’t feeling woozy this time—orseeingthings. Yet. She jerked the string, and the lone light flooded the basement with its rays, which only created unearthly shadows. The fieldstone and gravestone foundation hadn’t changed. It still cried out the incomplete and erroneous names of people who had decomposed decades ago.

She hurried across the basement to the far wall, where Trent had put up some plastic shelving. Tugging at a pack of toilet paper, she dislodged it from the shelf. Thank goodness. Now all she needed to do was make it up the stairs successfully and her journey into the pit of despair would be over.

Molly adjusted the package in her arms and turned, her foot stubbing against the concrete slab that jutted a few inches above the floor level. She eyed it. Eyed its wooden pallet-style cover. The opening to a pointless crawl space. She wasn’t convinced it wasn’t the doorway demons came from.

Still, curiosity was a beast. Molly lowered the toilet paper to the floor and crouched by the cover. The concrete had to have been added in later years, long after they had put the crawl space in. Probably to stabilize it. Molly looked around and saw a screwdriver sitting on the bottom shelf. Snagging it, she jammed it between the wood cover and the concrete, lifting it an inch.

Blackness met her. She’d need a flashlight to see inside the crawl space. And why put a crawl space in a basement? No one was going to store canned goods in there. Molly glanced up, and a gravestone in the wall greeted her with its dulled, etched name.

Samuel Mes—

Gah. She needed to get out of here. The basement was an entrance, and that crawl space a crypt. Molly jerked the screwdriver back and let the lid fall back into place. Its thud was louder than it should have been. She froze.

No. The thud wasn’t the cover.

She heard it again. Above her.

Not again.

That cold sensation washed over her, prickling her skin and raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

It wasn’t footsteps she heard.

There was a random movement.

Shuffle.

Molly backed away from the crawl space, staring up between the floor joists as if she could see upstairs. She shot a panicked look at the staircase. There was no one there.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

Molly jerked her head to the side. The voice had come from the corner. No. From the crawl space? She curled into herself and scooted on her backside farther away from the crawl space opening.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

“Stop it.” She shook her head from side to side, covering her ears with her hands. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do this again. Couldn’t—

“Go away!” Her voice broke the inhuman atmosphere.

Stillness answered.

A type of silence loaded with the unheard presence of another. She could feel them. Sense them. She hated this basement. Hated this place.

Crawling across the floor, Molly managed to brace her hand against the wall, her fingers rubbing against the carved edges of a dead person’s name. She pushed against it, rising to her feet.

There was more here.

Page 63 of The Premonition at Withers Farm

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