Page 17

BAM BAM

I look over to the side where Taylor is sleeping soundlessly. How she sleeps through these noises is beyond me.

I slowly get up, taking the gun I’ve been hiding underneath my pillow—no way I’m going to let it get the jump on me—and walk to where the sounds are coming from.

It’s dark in the house, and I don’t dare put the lights on because who knows what is going on down there. Slowly, I push the living room door open, but the room seems empty so far.

TAPTAPTAP

There are footsteps behind me, making me turn around instantly,, but once I do, it’s empty here. What the hell is going on? My heart is racing and every sound I hear is making me jump out of my skin. There’s anger rising too, because what’s it playing at?

CLINK

I turn around again, holding my hand over my heart, trying to make the beating go slower, but it’s nearly impossible. I slowly walk over to the kitchen door since that’s where the latest noise came from. Taking a deep breath, I push the door open.

It’s hard to see inside, but I swear I think I just saw a shadow move behind the table below.

I click on the light button, holding the gun, expecting something to jump at me. But once it lights the room, there’s nothing there. Is it fucking with me?

I walk inside, looking around, and then some random grey cat comes jumping out from behind a closet, scaring the shit out of me. Where the hell did it even come from? I’ve never seen this cat before, and the doors and windows are locked.

“What are you doing here, buddy?”

I ask the cat, knowing damn well it can't answer me. I put my gun next to me on the floor and lean down to pick it up, but all it does is hiss at me, showing its sharp teeth, and then runs from me. I crouch on the floor, rubbing my face with my hands, and look up to see two dirty pale feet with blue veins standing there.

Gulping slowly, I move my eyes up and see Mara standing there, her skin a pale-ish blue. Her eyes are pure black, her hair is all messy and dark, and her mouth seems bigger somehow.

Frozen in fear, I stare up at it, and then it moves.

“HOLY SHIIIT!”

I grab the gun next to me and—BANG BANG—I can smell the smoke from the gun, which means that it really did go off, but I can’t fully remember doing it. What I do know now is that shooting it does not work.

It’s right there before me, face covered in pieces of raw meat and something reddish, which I guess is the juice from it, staring up at me. It looks down to where I shot it, but there’s no blood coming out.

“What the hell are you?”

I whisper to it. It looks back up to me and smiles, it actually freaking smiles up at me. Like some psychopath.

“What the hell, Ryan? What happened?”

Taylor is running down the stairs, almost losing her footing, but then picking herself back up again.

“Taylor, get back! Don’t come closer!”

I yell at her, hoping she’ll listen, but of course, she doesn’t and runs up to that thing, checking for injuries.

“Mara? Are you okay??”

I scoff at her question, making her turn back at me, her face contorted in anger.

“You could’ve killed her! What were you thinking?”

she yells. There’s a vein pumping on her forehead, making me worried it might pop open soon.

“What was I thinking? Oh yeah, I was trying not to die, Taylor! Look at it! There’s not even blood anywhere!”

“Luckily for you, there isn’t!”

she snaps back at me. What is that supposed to mean? It’s allowed to kill me, but oh no, if something happens to that demon!

“You are being ridiculous! It is clearly not your friend, Taylor. This thing, whatever it is, just took her fucking body and is lying to you!”

Hurt flashes over her beautiful face. Her pupils turn smaller, and I swear I just saw the colours in her eyes change for a second before they settled back again.

“You’re saying I’m being ridiculous, but do you hear yourself even speak?”

She crosses her arms and stares me down with a look that tells me my next words might be my last.

“Baby, what did it do to you?”

I cry out, holding her head in between my hands.

“It gave me my life back,”

she seethes, pulling back away from me. She grabs Mara by the hand and guides her upstairs, while she talks to it like nothing happened.

Am I seriously losing my wife over a walking-dead person?

I hear the door closing, and I shake my head and grab a bottle of whiskey from the drawer.

Shooting it is out of the question, since it doesn’t even bleed, so I guess stabbing it will be the same thing. What if I strangle it? But does it even breathe?

I have too many questions and absolutely zero answers. So, I do the only thing I do know how to do, and that is drink.

My body feels heavy from the lack of sleep I’ve been getting. I don’t feel safe in my own house and I constantly have to check the cameras to see if Taylor is still okay.

I tried looking at what that thing was doing in the middle of the night, but every time it came into view, there were signal problems. It's like it’s only showing me what it wants me to see.

Felix will be here soon, so I’m just really hoping we’ll find something to make all of this go away. It’s not healthy for Taylor to bond with a corpse—because let’s face it, that’s exactly what it is—but she’s too na?ve to realise that it’s not her friend. It doesn't talk, and it moves differently like it’s not fully comfortable in the body it took.

PING

I shake my head and walk over to the door.

“Do we have visitors?”

Taylor is standing over the stairs with Mara next to her.

Mara just stares at me with no emotion on her face. She shows that vile smile of hers only when Taylor isn’t looking, and it’s creeping me the hell out. But no matter what I say, she won’t listen to me. It’s so frustrating.

“Uh, yeah Felix is helping me with work,”

I quickly lie to her. When it comes to my job, all I ever do is lie anyway, so what’s one more, right?

“He’s not going to hurt Mara, is he?”

Her eyebrows shoot up and she’s fidgeting with her hands like she’s worried.

“Don’t be ridiculous, love. Besides, she started growing on me.”

The only thing growing here is my hatred and anxiety.

She smiles back at me and walks Mara back into the room, while they hold each other's hands. What are they, twelve?

I barely open the door and Felix already starts to push his way in, making me almost lose my balance.

“Dude, ever heard of patience?”

I curse at him. Felix scoffs, raising one eyebrow.

“I thought it was killing you, based on the time you took to open the door,” he jokes.

Or maybe it wasn’t a joke. Well, at least he would've come to save me if it wasn’t, I guess. I give him a grateful look.

“Don’t get sentimental on me, dude,”

he scoffs..

“Who else would keep track of Evy for me?”

He laughs while walking to the kitchen. Jerk

“So, eh, is it here?”

he asks, sitting down at the table with an apple he picked up from the fruit bowl.

“Yeah, they’re upstairs. I was thinking maybe we first go and check out that cemetery, and then see if we can find something on it. Unless you want to meet her first.”

I grab the apple back from his hand and put it down on the table.

“No thanks, dude, I’ve seen enough in the last haunted house I was in. Let’s go!”

I guess I’d be the same. I always thought demons and ghosts weren't real, but now I don’t know what to believe anymore.

I lock the doors and take the key with me so I’m sure that thing doesn’t try to kidnap Taylor, holding my phone in my hand to keep an eye on the live feed of the house. The moment there’s the slightest blur on the screen, I’m running over.

Felix walks ahead of me, and I’m kind of relieved he is here too. You can say what you want, but I don’t think anyone else would be doing this for me.

He’s a good friend, and he’s changed a lot after the haunted house incident. He became less crude, less angry.

“Did you have similar issues with your demon?”

I ask him, and he stops in his tracks and turns around. His mouth is in a tight line.

“No,”

he tells me before turning and walking again.

“Are we close by?”

His immediate change of topic makes me feel that there are things he is hiding from me, and I don’t like that. Especially not now.

“Yeah, to the right, the trees look darker there.”

Felix lets out a humourless laugh and shakes his head.

"Of course it does.”

he mumbles out.

The air is turning colder, showing us we're going the right way.

“Why don’t you talk about it?”

I didn’t realise I had asked the question until Felix stops walking again and sighs with his head down.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it because it makes me feel things I don’t want to deal with. Do you really want to know, Ry?”

He looks at me from the side, his eyes filled with untold trauma. I nod my head and answer a rasp.

“yes” to him.

“When I was a kid, I went in there once, the basement I mean. I saw some shit. I don’t know, something got attached to me, I guess. I don’t remember everything, I just—I remember a lot of anger. I remember Evy, I had this unwanted hate for her, but I don’t think it was really me who felt it, either way. She got hurt badly, and I lost my sister because it wanted our souls, and we almost let it win.”

He wipes his hand over his cheek. Is he crying? This might be the most personal talk I’ve had with him since I’ve met him, and I don’t want to ruin the moment, so I don’t push further on it.

“Doesn’t matter, it’s dead and Evy survived. The past is the past, and sometimes it’s better to keep it like that than trying to bring back the demons that used to haunt you.”

He moves further and I follow him in silence. He’s right, but it doesn’t exactly help me with my current issue.

He doesn't say anything for the rest of the trip, which bothers me more than it should. I guess I had hoped he’d open up more.

“Well, here we are,”

I announce with more doubt in my voice than I should have. Maybe coming here wasn’t the greatest idea, but I feel like I’m out of options.

I glance once again at my phone screen, seeing if Taylor is still doing well. They are just sitting on the couch watching TV. Taylor is a bit more away from her than usual. I guess that’s a good sign, maybe she’s finally getting her senses back.

“How can you live near this shit and never question if something is wrong?”

I turn my head and see Felix staring me down like I’m an idiot.

“I don’t believe in that shit, and I never had an issue before with this place.”

I shrug. I feel like such an idiot. I thought the woods were darker here because of the air or something, not because it’s possessed by demons. I mean, we don’t all always look into the radical side of things first.

“Well, here’s where I guess she buried Mara,”

Felix announces. I move away from the gravestone of a ‘Toby Higgins’. The date isn’t visible and it gives me this odd, familiar feeling I don’t like.

“How do you know?”

I ask Felix before coming to his side. The earth seems like it was ripped open from the inside out, there are worms crawling through it, but they don’t seem like normal worms, the way they move is odd and disorganised, the name is carved onto the tombstone in big letters.

“Do I still have to tell you?”

Felix raises one eyebrow at me while a coy smile plays his lips. I don’t answer him,—all I can do is just stare at it. Fear is trying to take over my mind and I think I’m shaking. I knew she did it, because well, it’s in my house and everything but actually seeing it is a whole different thing.

“Hey, Ry? You okay?”

I crouch down over the open grave with my hands in my hair. Some part of me had hoped that the body would still lie there and that it was some kind of imposter. I know it sounds dumb, but none of this makes sense, and I think I’m officially losing it now.

My body shakes harder –wait, no, someone is shaking me.

I turn my head, seeing Felix crouched down next to me.

“We’ll figure this out. Okay?”

I know he’s trying to make me feel better about all of this, and I appreciate it, but I can’t seem to see a light at the ending of this tunnel.

“Do I have a choice?”

I ask Felix instead. He shakes his head in a clear no, with his lips pulled tight. Great, this is just great.