Sinister Entity (22 page)

“When the sheet was down around my knees, I knew I had to do something. In my mind, I thought that if I was on the bed, exposed, something bad was going to happen to me. But I was so scared, I wasn’t sure if I could even lift my head off the pillow. It was like I was paralyzed. Then, I felt the sheet slide past my ankle and I knew I had a few seconds to make a move. So, I pulled my legs up as far as I could, rolled onto my back and sat up. As soon as I did that, I saw the remainder of the sheet fly off the bed, like it had been yanked off. It landed by the door on the other side of the room. I tried to scream, but, nothing came out.”

Selena started shivering and Eddie put an arm over her shoulder.

“And then I saw it, and I did scream, and it…it…it didn’t even move!”

Chapter Thirty-One

They had to wait several minutes for Selena to calm down. Greg and Rita moved to either side of the shaking teen. Eddie was amazed by the sudden turn of events. Everyone in the Leigh family looked shattered.
 

Jessica took the time to pull her camcorder out of the case and turn it on. She had two digital cameras strapped around her left wrist and an audio recorder in her right hand.
 

Eddie still wasn’t sure what Selena had seen, so when it seemed she had settled down enough, he asked.
 

“It was that thing that looks like me. It was sitting on the chair by my desk, watching me. Even when I was shouting for my parents, it didn’t blink, didn’t flinch.”

She bolted from the couch and grabbed his arms.
 

“It’s still there.”

Eddie glanced at Jessica, saw the fervid look in her eyes. She was anxious to get to Selena’s room, but she also didn’t want to crash through the house like the other night, no matter how desperate the Leighs seemed at the moment.
 

Greg confirmed his daughter’s claim.

“Just before you got here, I went up to her room to see and it’s still sitting in the chair, looking at the bed. What is it? Why won’t it leave?”

It’s still there?
It didn’t seem possible, but here was Greg, a man who had to hold himself back from physically throwing them out a couple of nights earlier, now desperate for their help. It was as if the doppelganger was going out of its way to clear any hurdles they had to remaining at the house and doing what Jessica did best. It was discomforting, to say the least.
 

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Jessica said. “Why don’t you all go into the yard for a bit? Some distance and fresh air will do you good. Eddie and I will take it from here.”

Rita gathered her children to her side and walked into the kitchen. Greg stood, contemplating his next move. He looked like a man on the precipice of a life-defining moment. On the one hand, he must have wanted to be with his family, to give them comfort. On the other hand, he was also the man of the house and would want to be with Eddie and Jessica to confront what had invaded his home.
 

Eddie put a hand on his shoulder, said, “Your family needs you with them. You’ve seen enough for today.”

Greg’s shoulders slumped and he nodded. “I don’t care how you do it, just make it go away.”

Outside on the patio, they pulled the heavy wooden chairs close to each other and sat holding one another’s hands. It was heartbreaking to see.
 

Jessica held a digital camera out to him, refocused his attention. “Can you feel anything now? Is it still here?”

He didn’t have to probe deep to know they were not alone in the house. It was a welcome relief to finally regain his sixth sense, though it was a bit dull around the edges at the moment. The presence in the house was strong, embracing, like a golden retriever jumping at your chest, hungry for attention. “Yes, but I don’t think it will be for long. Let’s go.”

Jessica took the stairs three at a time. Eddie nearly slammed into her back when she stopped at the door to Selena’s room.
 

“Holy mother of God,” she murmured.
 

He looked over her shoulder and gasped.
 

It was Selena, or her exact duplicate, as real in appearance as the frightened girl sitting outside with her family. The sole difference was in the eyes. Its irises were twice the diameter of a normal eye and black as tar.

The doppelganger continued to stare at the empty bed, ignoring their slow entrance into the room. It was wearing a light pink sun dress and sat cross-legged, its hands resting on one thigh. Eddie noticed that it was barefoot. Its skin was a healthy pink and looked even healthier and better rested than Selena. It was as if it had drained her life force, building its own in return until it could swap places with her.

Jessica inched closer to the bed, filming the specter. She spoke to it, “Selena? Can you hear me?”

The air in the room felt heavy, dull, absorbing sound, numbing senses. The sensory deprivation worried him, made his arms break out in gooseflesh.
 

Jessica continued trying to communicate with it, taking small, steady steps.
 

“Do you think it knows it’s not Selena?” she asked him, her eyes and camera trained on the doppelganger. Then she shouted, “Hey!”
 

She startled only Eddie.
 

Eddie felt nauseous and lightheaded. It couldn’t be fear. He’d spent his life talking to the dead, living in their world as much as his own. What the hell was going on here?

He had to grip the dresser to keep upright.

When Jessica was a foot away, she stopped and took a series of pictures. The doppelganger didn’t so much as twitch a muscle. He knew he had to make himself more useful than backup cameraman, but he was beginning to worry that he was about to pass out.
 

He called out, “Jess, don’t touch it.”

She turned to look at him, and mouthed,
why not?

“Let me try to make a connection first. I don’t want you to scare it off,” he said, his breathing ragged.
 

“You have one minute.”

He put the camera on the bed, nodded, then closed his eyes, retaining the image of Selena’s double sitting vigil, eyes unblinking, chest devoid of the normal in and out motion of breathing. Reaching out to it was like swimming against the current at the lip of a tall waterfall. Subtlety wouldn’t work here. Jessica had been on the right track when she shouted. She just needed to know how to do it without actually verbalizing.
 

Eddie targeted all of his waning energy at the doppelganger and bellowed within his mind until it reached a howling pitch. His eyes snapped open when he was hit by a psychic reverberation. That did it!
 

The doppelganger jerked its head to face them, its eyes dark, fathomless, yet still very real, almost superhuman. Jessica took a tentative step back, jolted by the unexpected movement.
 

The nexus between Eddie and the doppelganger was as fine and fragile as a string of cotton candy. He opened up to it, hoping, in computer terms, to pull in an information dump so he’d have enough to sift through later, maybe find out why it was here and seeking Selena, and now them, out.
 

Jessica fired off a series of questions, pausing between each, hoping for an answer. “Can you hear me? Who are you? Can you tell us why you’re scaring Selena?
What
are you?”

A sharp pain knifed down the center of Eddie’s skull and he was sure his knees were going to give out. The pain obscured any images or feelings he might have picked up. He saw Jessica standing firm, the doppelganger staring past her, at him, curious.
 

When Jessica leaned forward and reached out, it leaped from the chair and jumped onto the bed, desperate to avoid contact, just like the night at the hotel. The chair clattered against the desk and turned over. Jessica shouted, “Wait! We won’t hurt you! We just want to know how to help you!”

The doppelganger focused on the open closet and took two steps toward it. It wanted desperately to be there. Eddie could feel its anguish, despite the blinding agony that had iced its way down his neck and into his shoulders.
 

Jessica ran around the bed in an attempt to cut it off.
 

Pushing outward, Eddie used his telekinetic ability to slam the door shut. It stopped Jessica and the doppelganger in their tracks, but only for an instant. The mimicking wraith lunged at the closed door, plunging through it as if it weren’t there, had never been solid wood. He heard Jessica let loose with a string of profanities, more in amazement and shock than anger. She dropped her camera on the bed and yanked the door open.
 

As they both suspected, it was empty.

“Can I pass out now?” Eddie groaned.
 

“What?” Jessica was in the closet tapping walls and the floor.
 

He positioned himself so he would fall face first on the bed and let the darkness overtake him.
 

Chapter Thirty-Two

When Jessica heard Eddie collapse, she forgot about finding the doppelganger and ran to him, scooping his head into her arms. Though his breathing was regular and steady, his coloring was cadaver gray.
 

“Eddie, wake up. Eddie, can you hear me?” She tapped his cheek with her fingers.
 

She’d never had someone pass out around her before and had no idea what to do. It seemed the best thing would be to try to snap him out of it, but how? Had he had a seizure? Did she have to stick something in his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue, or did that only apply as the seizure was happening?
 

“For such a smart girl, you really are a dummy,” she hissed at herself, feeling her heart gallop in her chest, all thoughts of the doppelganger forgotten.
 

Complete panic was seconds from taking over when Eddie’s eyelids fluttered, then opened wide. He looked into her worried eyes, uncomprehending, empty.
 

“It’s me, Jessica. Can you hear me?” She stroked his hair back. His neck was clammy.
 

Relief washed over her when he mumbled, “I told you I was going to hit the deck.” He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. When he attempted to sit up, she pulled him back onto her lap.
 

“Maybe you should wait a little before you move. I don’t want you fainting again.”

“Women faint. Men pass out.”

“Is this really the time to be a chauvinistic pig?”
 

This time he did smile. “I’m better now. Honest.”

He sat with his back against the bed, rubbing his temples. The glassiness in his eyes had started to fade.
 

“Does your head hurt?”

“A little.”

“You might have whacked it when you slipped off the bed and fell on the floor.”

“It was hurting before then, but much worse than now. Wow, that wasn’t fun at all. Maybe you should check the house, see if it went somewhere else. I promise I’ll stay put.”

She was reluctant to leave him, but he did have a point. She grabbed her camcorder and headed to the other rooms. “I’ll bring you back some water.”

He nodded, then shooed her out of the room.
 

The Leighs’ house wasn’t very big, so it didn’t take long to realize that Selena’s phantom double was nowhere to be seen. The family picked their heads up when they saw her go into the kitchen. She opened the sliding door and asked them if they could sit tight for a few more minutes.
 

“Did you see it?” Greg asked.
 

She had to restrain her enthusiasm. What had happened upstairs was incredible, maybe a first in the paranormal field of investigation.
 

“Yes, for a little bit. It’s gone now.”

Rita, Greg and Selena looked as if they had a hundred questions they wanted to ask, but she had to get back up to Eddie. She noticed that little Ricky was throwing a ball high in the air and catching it in the middle of the yard. She worried about how he was processing everything most of all. Jessica knew full well how something like this could affect a young child.
 

True to his word, Eddie was still sitting on the floor. He gratefully accepted the cold bottle of water.
 

“Feeling better?” she asked.
 

“Much. I guess you didn’t find it.”

She cocked her head at the dark, empty closet. “Not unless I could find the dimensional portal in there. That was frigging weird. I never saw something that looked that solid pass through a door before. You think it could be a projection coming from Selena? She
is
a teen girl. We have a tendency to tap into mental abilities at that age without knowing it.”

“Not this time. No, whatever it is, it’s definitely not originating within Selena’s mind. I managed to bond with it for a couple of seconds. It has emotions, with concern overriding everything else. I left myself open to it, and that’s when the pain in my head started and I felt all of my senses go numb. Selena’s doppelganger was as confused as I was. I think that’s what chased it off, though I suspect your attempt at touching it didn’t help.”