Authors: Brandon Massey

Within the Shadows (37 page)

BOOK: Within the Shadows

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“While she was asleep,” Dad said. “I got up and explored the house. Found out very quickly that there was a lot of strange stuff going on there. I heard whispers, screams, footsteps. Saw doors that opened and closed on their own. Ghosts, man. I never believed in that shit, but I couldn’t deny what my eyes were telling me. That place was
full
of ghosts.”

A cold breeze swept through the living room; Sammy, making his presence known.

Dad had paused, his eyes spooked. Then he went on: “And I saw cats, too. Big, gray cats that would run into rooms and vanish into thin air.”

“We know all about the cats.” Carmen fingered a long scratch on her forearm.

“What’d you do?” Andrew asked.

“What do you think? Grabbed my clothes and got the hell out of there. She woke up when I was leaving. I apologized for rushing out but told her that her crib was haunted and I couldn’t take it.”

“What did she say?” Carmen asked.

“She laughed. She said that she was happy to see me go, since I wasn’t her soul mate anyway. Said she’d selected me for this close encounter, but had seen in my eyes that I wasn’t the one. For once in my life, I was glad to be rejected. I split and never went back—and tried to forget everything about that weird-assed house.”

Dad quieted. Sipped his coffee. The mug shook slightly in his hand.

Andrew finally sat down again, in front of his father.

“Guess what, Dad? She thinks I
am
the one. She’s been stalking me like you wouldn’t believe.”

“What’s been going on?” Dad asked.

He gave his father an abbreviated version of what had happened.

“I’m so sorry we didn’t discuss this sooner,” Dad said. He lowered his gaze to the floor. “Could’ve helped you out.”

“It’s not your fault,” Andrew said. “I could’ve been more open with you, too.”

An awkward silence came over them. He looked away from his dad and studied the raindrops streaming like a flood of tears down the glass patio door.

He sensed that his father wanted to say more. He wanted to say more, too, wanted to delve into an honest and profound exploration of his feelings. But his tongue felt stuck to the roof of his mouth.

The silence might have stretched on interminably if Carmen hadn’t broken in and said, “We know that Mika found out about Andrew when you guys had the accident and he went into the house to find a phone. But I’ve been dying to ask you a question, Mr. West. Why did you drive there in the first place?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you that, too,” Andrew said. “We were on the way home from Savannah, then you got off the highway and went there and wouldn’t tell me where we were going. Why?”

Dad dragged his hand down his face—a gesture familiar to Andrew. He unconsciously did the same thing when he was confused or stressed.

“I was in a trance, that’s all I can figure,” Dad said. “I don’t remember anything about it.
She
must have drawn me there, somehow, as crazy as that sounds.”

“After what I’ve seen her do, that doesn’t sound crazy at all,” Andrew said.

Thunder bellowed, shaking the house. The lights flickered, and then steadied.

Andrew glanced at the light fixture. Although Sammy had said they were safe there, he’d hate to be caught in a dark house without power.

Dad continued, “Over the years, I managed to convince myself that none of the things I thought I saw at Mourning Hill had ever really happened. Hell, I pretty much forgot about her, too. Then we had that accident. And after the accident, I started to have nightmares about that place.”

Andrew noted the shadowy rings under his father’s eyes. “You’d said something before about not being able to sleep.”

Absently, Dad touched his temple, where the bruise had faded to a faint, thumb-size imprint. “I’ll tell you about the dreams in a bit. But man, they got so bad that I realized I had to learn more about the house, see if I could figure out why I was having the dreams.” He tapped the manila folder he’d placed on top of his briefcase. “The Nightmare File here is the result of my research. Credit goes to my wife for digging up most of the info.”

“The Nightmare File?” Carmen said.

“The name fits in more ways than one,” Dad said. He opened the folder, and shuffled the papers. “Let’s start from the beginning. . . .”

Chapter 44

E
ric watched the door open on its own. Immediately, he rationalized how it had happened: the wind must’ve pushed the door. He or Pam must’ve left a window open, and air currents drifting through the house made it appear as if an invisible force had opened the door. That had to be the answer.

But cold pincers seemed to squeeze the flesh at the back of his neck.

Andrew’s stories about the psycho broad with super powers had creeped him out. He was overreacting to completely ordinary phenomena.

He stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind him. The door remained closed.

See? Just wind.

Chuckling at himself, he headed toward the kitchen. He stopped when he found someone sitting in his living room.

A young, beautiful woman reclined on the sofa, legs crossed prettily. She wore a black cat suit that hugged every curve of her shapely, taut physique. Polished black boots with silver buckles and pointy toes. Like an actress on her way to an audition for an ill-advised
Catwoman
sequel.

She had cats, too. Two large bluish-gray felines flanked her on either side; another lounged on her lap. She idly stroked the animal’s fur.

Eight intelligent eyes watched him. He went rigid.

He knew who this woman had to be, but the question burst out of him: “Who the hell are you?”

“You know who I am,” she said. “Where is Andrew?”

“I don’t know where he is. Since you burned down his damn house, guess he had to find somewhere else to live.”

She clucked her tongue. “You’re his best friend, Eric. You know full well where he’s gone. He’s outside my range. I can’t sense him.”

Can’t sense him? This woman was as weird as Andrew had said.

“That’s too bad, isn’t it?” he said. “Get out of my house.”

Mika lifted the cat off her lap and placed it on the sofa cushions. The three felines watched him, as if he were a tasty mouse.

She rose. She was not physically imposing at all. But Eric, remembering Andrew’s tales of how dangerous this woman was, steeled himself for a fight. Or to cut and run.

“Oh, Eric,” she said. “Why do you have to make this difficult for yourself? Simply tell me where my man has gone, and I’ll leave.”

“Number one: he’s not your man. Two: I don’t know where he is. Now get out.” He pointed to the door.

She began to strut across the living room. She carried herself with icy poise, as if she were running the show and he was merely a minor piece in her game plan. He swallowed. He wasn’t easily intimidated, but her self-possession was frightening.

“You’re lying to me,” she said. “I can’t tolerate liars. I’ll ask you one more time, and if you don’t answer honestly, this is going to become messy: where is Andrew?”

Energy emanated from her body. He felt it in the air, like static electricity crackling through the distance between them.

Andrew’s warnings echoed in his thoughts. Although he was much bigger than this woman, she was no ordinary person. There was no shame in fleeing to avoid disaster.

He ran to the door.

A large vase that stood on the table in the entry hall flew through the air and crashed into the side of his head, shattering into dozens of pieces.

White pain blossomed in his skull. He spilled onto the foyer’s hardwood floor.

Bitch threw a vase at me,
he thought dimly.
Without even touching it . . .
He blacked out.

Eric awoke to a nightmare.

He was in the dining room, sitting in a chair at the head of the long cherrywood table. Wrists tied behind him with what felt like an extension cord. Ankles bound to the chair legs with the same.

He had been stripped to his boxer shorts. Sweat dripped down his face in cold rivulets, spattered his lap.

His head throbbed from where the vase had struck him.

The cats sat on the table, aligned in a row like little soldiers. Crouched, they stared at him with their unnaturally aware green eyes.

A carving knife lay on the decorative runner in front of him. It was taken from his own cutlery collection. He’d used that same knife last Thanksgiving to carve the roasted Butterball turkey.

Mika was nowhere to be found.

He tried to break his bonds. But he was strapped in tight.

“Help!” he said, praying that a next-door neighbor would hear. “Someone help me!”

Music turned on, coming from the stereo system that distributed music throughout the house. It was a Public Enemy song, “Fight the Power.”

Hearing the banging music made his headache pound harder, but it answered his question, too: Mika was still around.

He shouted louder: “Help!”

The volume increased, muffling his voice to whatever helpful ears might hear it.

He closed his mouth. Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging them. He blinked to clear his vision.

Mika appeared in the doorway that led to the hall. She sauntered into the room and knelt beside him.

“I see that you’ve awakened, Eric. You were unconscious for almost ten minutes.”

“Let me go,” he said. “Please. I’ll tell you where Andrew’s staying.” He was thinking that he’d tell her, get her out of there, and then call Andrew and warn them to get out of the lake house. Anything to keep from dying. He couldn’t die. He had twin girls on the way.

She picked up the knife on the table.

He sucked in a sharp breath. Tried furiously to break free. But it was useless.

She straddled him, and sat on his lap. Her face was inches from his, her hazel eyes beautiful, but cold, calculating.

Her jasmine perfume tickled his nose. Being so close to her would’ve turned him on if he hadn’t been terrified out of his mind.

She placed the tip of the knife on his chest. Above his heart.

“I know you’ll tell me where Andrew is staying. Didn’t Andrew share with you that I always get what I want?”

Chapter 45

A
s Dad spoke, he spread documents across the table, like puzzle pieces. But a clear picture slowly began to form, and it was beyond anything Andrew had imagined.

“Mourning Hill was built in 1855,” Dad said. “It was constructed on land sacred to the Creek Indians, who used to occupy the area. The mansion actually was built on one of their old ceremonial centers, the
pascova,
where the Creeks would kindle what they called the ‘sacred fire’ at the Green Corn Festival each year. Now, I don’t know if this has anything to do with what happened later, but the sacred fire stuff sounded interesting . . . especially considering the nightmares I’ve been having. I’ll explain more about that in a bit.

“George Mourning owned the mansion, named it after himself and the hill the house stands on. He was a physician from North Carolina, and he ran his medical practice out of the estate. An unusually successful practice. He acquired a reputation for being something of a miracle worker. Folks came from all over to visit him. During the Civil War, wounded Confederate officers begged to be taken to his clinic for treatment.”

“She’d told me her dad was a doctor,” Andrew said.

Dad showed them a copy of a black-and-white photograph. It depicted a solemn, bespectacled white man with a mane of black hair. And piercing, hypnotic eyes.

“She’s definitely got his eyes,” Andrew said.

Dad continued, “As successful as Dr. Mourning was, he couldn’t cure his first wife. She had a nervous breakdown, apparently, and he committed her to an asylum. She’d never given him any children. So he took up with one of the house servants, a black woman named Etta.”

“He was one of those men, huh?” Carmen said. “Had to hook up with the sister who mopped his floors.”

“She was high yellow, too, light enough to pass for white when necessary,” Dad said. “But she bore him only one child. A daughter, named Celestina. She was born in eighteen eighty-six.”

Born in 1886? Andrew had to remind himself that they were discussing the same woman whose nubile body had pressed against his only days ago. It was unbelievable. But true.

“Yeah, you heard me right, young buck,” Dad said, aware of his thoughts. “Eighteen eighty-six. Makes her one hundred and eighteen.”

“And her real name is Celestina?” Andrew said. “I see where she got Tina from when you met her.”

BOOK: Within the Shadows

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