Bear In The Rough: Book 1: Treasure Hunt (BBW Bear Shifter Romance) (34 page)

Chapter 29

Jenny entered Matthew’s bedroom with two mugs of tea. Hers was spiked with brandy, but she had put two lumps of sugar in his. She walked towards her sleeping brother and set his tea down on the bedside table.

'Matt, here's some tea.'

Jenny waited for Matt to respond, but was greeted only with a small snore. She went into her own room for a moment and returned to her brother.

'What do you think of this? I think it's gorgeous. Thought it'd go with this room. You know, when it's painted. Picked it up at a shop on the high street.' Jenny took the perfume bottle out of her bag. The snakes on top of the bottle seemed cold to the touch. Matt still didn’t utter a word.

She asked Matthew if he was alright as she put the bottle down next to Matt's tea. She waited a few more seconds and when he didn’t respond, she hit him in the back and yanked the covers off him.

'The hell? What you do that for?'

'Wakey, wakey now! It's already gone half-eight.'

Matt put a pillow over his head.

'Come on! Time to get up! We have to paint, remember?'

'Go away!'

Jenny immediately moved to scold her brother. She held nothing back during her infamous vitriol-spitting mood swings Matt had almost gotten used to. Within a minute, she had reminded him he lived with her for free and never did any work to earn a space in her apartment. The work she needed him to do on that occasion however was to go get paints. Matt tried to play the sick card, but Jenny wasn’t having it. She confessed she had been waiting for weeks to get the paints at a discounted 30 percent off the normal price and needed Matt to go with her to the store as early as possible if they ever wanted to buy them as the queues would most definitely be huge.

'Look, I said I'm not well. Just leave me alone.' Matt snapped and pulled the duvet above his head.

'You were feeling well enough to stay out all night. When are you going to...’?

'Don't know, okay? Matt cut in. 'Sod off and shut the bloody door when you leave!'

'Sod off? Your lousy pig! Sponging off of me for months and this is the thanks I get? You better be recovered and ready when I get back or you can find yourself another relative to sponge off of!' Jenny slammed the bedroom door on her way out.

Matt jolted upright and threw a pillow to the door. Jenny simply ignored the outburst of her brother yelling through the door. She made her way to the front door before whipping her mobile out and in a few seconds, she was connected to someone on the other end of the call.

'Kate? Yeah. You were right. Useless as usual. So, you busy? I need some retail therapy! I'm buying!'

Chapter 30

The library was an older building off the center of the campus. There wasn't much point in going to most of the book stacks any more as the popular reads were always loaned out. The book budget had been cut each year since the first Kindle popped into existence. Inside the library was a large desk where three librarians sat. One of them, Ethel, claimed to have been there since the last war. She was old enough to back that claim. Mean enough too.

Henry sat at a table towards the window. It had a few books on the paranormal resting on it. One of the books outlined the mythos of night stalkers. Henry had his pencil move from mouth to hand while he took notes.

'All work and no play?' Laura said as she came up from behind Henry.

'Hey you! What are you doing here?' Henry asked while putting a note in the book.

'Me? I've got a thing for book worms. A real kink, you could say. You wouldn't happen to know any bookworms now would you?'

'I'm sure you can find a few in the here. What about that guy at the table over there?' Henry pointed at a teen. The youth was wearing his school uniform—a few sizes smaller—and pushed his glasses up on his chubby face.

'Oh my! I said book worm, not cradle snatching.'

Henry laughed. The noise attracted the stares of Ethel. She glared at Henry from over her glasses which remained magically glued to her face, despite the rims barely touching her nose. Laura quickly cautioned Henry against raising their voices as she waved to Ethel.

Ethel put her head back down towards her work. She was binding a book that had been water damaged and ripped along the spine.

'Seriously...how did you know I was here?' Henry asked.

Laura leaned close and whispered in his ear. The heat of her breath caused a visible goose-pimpling of Henry's flesh. She told him she saw his car out front and stopped in to treat him to lunch.

Henry looked down at his watch. 'My God. I didn't even realize how the time's gone. I guess I could use a bit of lunch. You said you're buying, right?'

Ethel looked over at the table Henry was at. She put her binding down and raised her finger to her lips. 'Shhhhhh...'

'Yeah, Henry. Shhhhhhh!' Laura teased. 'Come on, who would pass up a free lunch? The Night Stalkers of South Africa, eh? Interesting. Bring the book with you if you want. You know how sexy I find books...' Laura put her finger along Henry's collarbone. 'If you want lunch, you know where to find me.' She walked away slowly from the table.

Henry packed his books quickly and put them in his bag. He knocked over a pile and sent a few crashing to the floor. 'Wait up!' Henry said as he gathered his materials and chased after Laura.

Ethel focused her attention on the fleeing Henry. Her face contorted with pain and then went blank. Her skin seemed to fade into an ashy white. Her strict features transformed into a grotesque mask. Her eyes were engulfed by her pupils. She put a clawed finger up to her dry lips. 'Shhhhhh....'

Chapter 31

Things were moving inside Jenny Marshall's house. Matthew remained fast asleep as the cupboards relieved themselves of their contents. A box of cereal fell to the ground and three bowls soon followed. Before long, the rest of the inventory avalanched to the floor.

'Jenny?' Matthew called out as he turned away from his pillow. 'Jenny? You there?'

Matthew waited for an answer and then kicked the covers off when he heard further noise from downstairs. He put on his slippers and robe before leaving his bedroom. The robe was slightly stained an off white from where he had spilled bleach on it. The slippers were a gift from his ex.

As he opened his bedroom door, the sounds of children giggling filtered up the stairway. He called Jenny again, but couldn’t hear a response. Matthew made his way downstairs and walked into the kitchen. The drawers were turned upside down and the cupboards were gutted. Their contents were scattered across the tile floor.

'Jenny? This isn't funny! Whoever did this better be long gone!'

Giggles came from upstairs. They were accompanied by footsteps. Matthew walked over to the stairs. He peered up the railing and he saw his bedroom door slam shut. There was more giggling.

'Kate, if that is your bratty nieces up there, I'm going to batter their arses!' Matthew barked.

Matthew reached out to grab the handle on his bedroom door. It was ice-cold to the touch. He twisted the handle and pulled. Nothing. He turned the handle again and kept pulling the door only to have it remain firmly shut. The giggling noises increased as he tried to open his bedroom door.

'Open the bloody door!' Matthew shouted.

The door came open with enough force to knock Matthew down. Four large ghostly spiders crawled across his legs. They were opaque in color and had small hairs on their legs. Each was slightly bigger than a tennis ball and far hairier. He crawled backwards and brushed them off. One spider was too fast and made its way up towards his face. His eyes could pick out the pincer-like fangs.  The other three spiders scuttled back towards his body. He could now feel their legs on his skin as they walked up his arm. The one on his chest moved up towards his neck before beginning a crawl to his hair.

Matthew screamed.

Chapter 32

A waiter walked over to table 29. He took out his notepad and pen. 'Hullo, I'm Billy. I'll be serving you today. May I start you two out with something to drink?'

'Hi, Billy. Yes, all right. I'll take a glass of the house wine, please.' Laura said.

'And you, sir?'

'I'll have an ale.' Henry said.

'The ale for you. I hope dark is okay?' Billy asked.

'I usually go for pales, but dark will be just fine. Thank you.' Henry responded.

'Dark it is then. And, I might add, you seem a very lovely couple! If you need anything, just let me know.' Billy left the table to fill the couple's order. Henry smiled and Laura blushed.

'Did he just say we were a couple?' Laura said.

'I do believe that was the man's words. Not just a couple, mind you, rather a lovely couple at that.'

'I have to say, I couldn't agree more.'

'So, we're a couple then?'

'I meant we are lovely. The couple thing, well, we’ll have to see how that plays out. Maybe.'

'At this point, I'll take a maybe. You're definitely my type.'

'How so?' Laura asked.

'As I said. I go for pales. It looks like you haven't seen the sun in ages. I'm Irish, but you look...'

'Like a ghost? Is that what you are trying to say?'

'No. I was going to say that your skin is a perfect porcelain.'

Laura blushed again. When she looked back towards Henry, she could hear Abi's voice in her head. She turned her eyes downward towards the table. Billy came back with the drinks. He held two empty glasses in one hand and a bottle of white from California with a dark ale from the south in the other hand. He set the glasses down on the table and poured one glass of wine for Laura and a bit of the ale for Henry. He asked if they had decided on their food order yet and Henry asked him to give them a few more minutes. Billy left the table and told them to flag him down when they needed him.

As Billy left, Laura's eyes went back to Henry's face.

'Your eyes, are they green or blue?'

'Can't you tell?'

'I thought I could, but they keep changing in the light.'

'They do change a bit, I guess. Some people say green and others say blue. I think it has to do with the background or what I'm wearing. Something like that.'

'I wish mine were like that.' Laura said.

'Nonsense. Yours are just fine. They're...'

'Like two lumps of dung?'

'God no. I was going to say they're like two stars twinkling in the moonlight.'

'Isn't that a line from a song?' Laura asked.

'Is it? I don't hear much popular music. I'm a bookworm, you know.'

'Oh, my weakness! Bookworms. Right. I almost forgot I said that. So, what were you reading up on anyway?'

Henry said he was researching what some people called Night Stalkers. He had thought they were like the Night People but he wasn’t sure.

'How do you mean?' Laura asked.

'Well, Night People seem to be this evil shadow existence that can take form as projected by the subconscious.'

'You mean they are made up?'

'Not entirely, no. I mean the evil is real, but it's formless for the most part. It takes the guise of a person usually because people are what it finds itself surrounded by. It can take a deeper form of someone from a person's subconscious in order to draw the power. Establish a connection. Something like that. As I said, I'm just starting to really dig into everything.'

'And the Night Stalkers aren't that then?' asked Laura.

'No. Not exactly. Night Stalkers don't actually need a physical shape. They can feed off a person by attaching themselves to the person. They don't need a physical form. I guess the big difference is one is like the Boogey Man you see under your bed and the other is like the wind that pricks your neck hairs.'

'And both are evil?'

'Night People are. But there is a thought that Night Stalkers aren't evil, but just some sort of natural force. They would be no eviller than, let’s say, lightning. Lightning can destroy and kill, but it doesn't do so because it is evil. It does it because that is what lightning does.'

'And you think your friend saw one of those things?'

'I think she was haunted by the physical aspect of a Night Person. I don't think she meant Night Stalkers. Maybe she had both, I'm not sure.' Henry's mood changed. He became reflective as if in deep thought.

'You miss her?'

'I think about her a lot. I mean, not in that way, of course. It's just… well, I don't know. She played such a part in my life early on. Even when she had to move away, we kept in touch the best we could. That usually meant her writing me though. Not the other way around. Not out of a lack of trying, mind you. She just kept moving around though. I just wish...'

'Wish what?'

'Nothing.' Henry knew he had begun to talk about himself almost too much and didn’t want to mess up what was meant to be a nice lunch.

'Enough about me. What about you? You said you just moved here.'

'I've been here for about a month.'

'Northern girl, eh?' Henry said.

'Is my accent that obvious?'

'Not at all. I just have an ear for them. It comes from trying to hide my Irish one all of the time. So, what was Laura Davis like growing up? I bet all of the boys had crushes on you.'

'You'd bet wrong. Besides, why worry about what Laura Davis was like when she was too young to know anything. Why not just enjoy the Laura Davis sitting in front of you in the present?’ Laura teased.

'That’s an offer?' Henry asked.

Billy came by with his notepad out and asked if they had decided on what they wanted to have for lunch. Henry looked over to Laura. She nodded her head in the affirmative, ordered pasta and another glass of wine. Henry did same without the wine.

'Really though.' Henry continued as Billy walked away. 'You know about me and my tragic love of a friend who was taken away the same night. How bad can your childhood possibly be?'

'My mum was a drunk and crack-head. She overdosed. Dad died in prison after he was sent in by my Nan.' Laura was blunt.

Henry apologized for pushing her so far and begged her to talk more about her present, but Laura had already pulled it all out and wasn’t ready to put them back in that fast. She told him her mum wasn’t always around and when she managed to come home, it was as though she wasn’t there. When she touched on her dad’s abuse, she spoke with venom and stared into her wine glass. She was only nine. Laura only found protection hiding behind her Nan, who passed away a few years after her dad went to prison.

'There must have been something positive. I mean you turned out all right.' Henry said.

Laura fiddled with her napkin and told Henry about her voyage through several children homes after her Nan died. She also mentioned she had only a friend in ten years.

'Told you. Something positive. So, do you keep in touch still?'

'No, She. Laura flinched, unsure of how to answer. 'Well, she and I don't really talk anymore.' She managed to speak.

Henry went on about how he wished Laura and Abigail could have met. He thought they’d make good friends. Laura was beginning to feel uneasy and chose to focus their discussion on something else. She asked Henry to postpone the Abi talk till the next time they went out

'You mean there's a next time?' Henry asked.

'We do make a cute couple. After all, who am I to argue with a waiter as good as Billy?' Laura flashed him a smile that could melt a heart.