Came Back Haunted: An Experiment in Terror Novel #10

by Halle, Karina

  “That’s positive,” she says, smiling.

  “Yeah. I’m not complaining.” I let out a soft laugh, trying to pull my hair in front of my face so she can’t get a good look at me. “It’s just a big change.”

  “I’m assuming he’s initiating it.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “And you don’t have a problem with it?”

  “Nope.” I pause. “It’s just surprising, that’s all. The man is…I don’t even know. Insatiable, I guess. It feels like when we first got together, you know? That kind of…energy. Passion. Obsession.”

  She raises a brow. “Obsession?”

  “Maybe that’s the wrong word. Because it’s good, whatever it is. Can obsession be good?” I want to say possession but I let the word stay on my tongue. “I mean, it’s really good. I’m just getting used to it. As you know, our sex life really suffered when he was on his anti-depressants and it took a long time even after he went off them for things to go back to normal. But this…this is…”

  “Sounds pretty amazing if you ask me,” she says softly, and when I look at her, she has a twinkle in her eye. “So I have to ask. Have you told him about what you want? What we’ve talked about. That you want a child.”

  I swallow, stiffening slightly as a strange sense of shame floods through me. I shake my head. “No. Not yet.”

  “Do you think maybe he’s picking up on that?”

  “That I want a baby?”

  “Could explain the sex.”

  I frown, trying to think.

  It’s been about four months since I really felt my biological clock kick in. It was always there, but I’d done a pretty good job of ignoring it After all, I’m young. I was dealing with a new career, a marriage, the death of my mother. Oh, and there was all that don’t let Perry and Dex ever have a child because they’ll both die and the kid will become the anti-christ shit. So whenever I felt that longing, I pushed it away. There were times that Dex brought it up with me too, but I shut it down pretty fast because I didn’t want to deal with it. It scared me.

  It still scares me. The idea of becoming pregnant. Of having a baby. Of being parents. It scares me for all the normal reasons it scares anyone, and then of course all the batshit crazy reasons that are only applicable to us.

  But ever since this one sunny day in July when we were lying on the grass in Gasworks Park, watching a young family run around, I was hit with it. I’d never felt anything like it. I woke up that morning with the idea of a baby as something that might happen one day, to going to bed that night knowing it had to happen. That it’s all I ever wanted. I wanted this for us so badly, I felt like we wouldn’t ever be complete without it.

  Fucking terrifying, if you ask me.

  And so I let that want just fester away inside me, too scared to voice it to Dex. Which is ridiculous, because I know it would make him happy. It’s never been a secret how he’s felt about having kids. Yet I know the minute I tell him that I want a family, is the minute that will become a reality. And as much as I want to have his baby, want to raise our child together and be a family, I’m also scared the worst could happen.

  I’ve been through the worst before…what if it’s waiting for me again?

  “I don’t think he knows,” I say eventually.

  “But you say he can hear your thoughts sometimes,” she points out.

  “I usually block them around him, just in case.” I give her a sheepish smile. “It’s automatic, purely instinctive. It’s just easier that way. Unless I want him to hear them.”

  “But you can hear his thoughts.”

  “I try not to. He’s also gotten good at blocking me.” We’ve come to an agreement when it comes to the privacy of our minds, for both our sakes. All I know is if Dex was picking up on my I’d die for a baby thoughts, he’d let me know.

  She adjusts herself in her chair and looks over her shoulder at Porgus snoozing away in the corner, and then looks back at me. “I’m not sure if I should be telling you this, but sometimes I can hear your thoughts too.”

  I blink at her. “Are you serious?”

  She nods. “I try not to hear them, but I do. Honestly, it makes things so much easier, Perry. I wish I had this with all my patients.”

  “You hear me?”

  Her smile is quick, apologetic.

  “But that means…” I start. The only people I’ve been able to do this to are people like us. Dex, Ada, my mother…Maximus. People with abilities. If Dr. Leivo can hear me…

  I squint at her in disbelief. “You see them too. You see ghosts too.”

  Another brief smile. “We’re not here to discuss me, Perry. Just you.”

  “You can’t just drop a bomb on me like that!”

  Fucking hell. She sees ghosts too. She can hear my thoughts. No wonder she never treated me like I was crazy. It’s because she knew I was telling the truth the whole damn time.

  “Wow,” I say, sitting back. “That is just wow.”

  She smirks at me for a moment and then clears her throat, her features becoming soft and innocuous again. “Shall we continue?”

  I nod, though my brain is still tripping over that revelation.

  “Back to the baby,” she says, bringing my attention around. “You don’t think Dex is picking it up from your thoughts. But that doesn’t mean he’s not doing so subconsciously. You often talk about how linked you are. That could be a possibility.”

  “Could be,” I admit. “Maybe that’s it. But honestly, I think it’s the fucking adrenaline in his system. From dealing with the dead again. I know he’s never felt more alive. He’s told me as much.”

  She studies me for a moment and then nods. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” she says. “Eventually you will have to tell him how you feel. About what you want for the both of you.” She pauses. “And, Perry, based on what you’ve told me in the past, I know exactly why you’re holding back. The fear over those warnings. At some point you have to find out what matters more. What you want. Or what you fear.”

  Two

  November is a shitty time to be out riding your motorbike, especially in Seattle, and yet for some reason I thought the clouds would hold off today.

  I was wrong. The minute I got on Putt-Putt and pulled away from Dr. Leivo’s office in Northgate, the sky opened up and let loose a torrential downpour. Going home via the I-5 would be the fastest way, but I didn’t trust drivers in this city. You’d think they’d know how to drive in the rain considering it rains all winter long, but they don’t, and especially not when you add a little motorbike to the mix.

  So I take the long way, driving on side streets, cursing myself for not taking an Uber today while the rain sinks in through my leather jacket, my jeans soaked and cold.

  But even with the rain as a painful distraction, I keep going over what Dr. Leivo said. Not just that I need to choose between my fear and what I want, but that she can see ghosts too. I wanted to talk to her about that in detail, because it’s not every day that you come across someone just like yourself. Especially since she’s a psychologist. I can’t imagine the kind of insight she might have.

  I’m almost home, and even though the rain is still pouring and I’m completely drenched and cold, for some reason I don’t turn right onto East Denny Way toward the apartment. Instead, I continue along Bellevue Avenue until I’m in the First Hill neighborhood. My brain doesn’t even have time to catch up until I find myself coming to a stop outside the Stimson-Green mansion, AKA the haunted house.

  I swing my leg over the bike and walk a few feet, stopping just where the lawn begins. I honestly don’t even know why I’m here, it’s like I was riding in my sleep for the last few minutes.

  My phone beeps from inside my leather jacket and I know it’s Dex wondering if I’m done with my appointment yet and if he needs to pick me up in the storm, although now the rain has suddenly stopped, the grey clouds above growing lighter.

  I stare up at the house, looking at it with new eyes in the dayli
ght. It doesn’t look as scary as it did on Halloween. The paint job doesn’t look as tired and is a pale yellow instead of a decaying grey, and the dark brown trim looks well-maintained.

  The lower windows are still boarded up, but the plywood looks fresh and new.

  My eyes drift along the house, moving from the first floor to the third, searching. For what, I don’t know. There’s just some crazy energy pulling my eyes there, making me feel like someone is watching. Or something, of course. Can’t ever rule that fucking out.

  That’s when I see it.

  A figure.

  At a window on the second floor.

  A tall, familiar-looking man. A flash of red hair, large hands on the curtains, snapping them closed.

  My heart drops in my chest, free falling as I stand there in awe, staring at the window curtains.

  That couldn’t have been…

  Max.

  It looked just like him. I only saw the man for a second, and he wasn’t clear at all, but somewhere deep in my gut I know it was him.

  That he’s in that house.

  I start walking down the path, being pulled forward like a moth to a flame, not really processing what I’m doing. I just know I saw Maximus, the man who died saving my husband’s life, a man for all intents and purposes, I never expected to see again.

  I climb up the creaking front steps, heading to the door.

  I stop just before my hand grabs the handle.

  What are you doing? I ask myself, blood pounding in my ears.

  My hand starts to shake.

  Moves forward.

  Toward the handle.

  Like I’m being pulled.

  Like I’m compelled to open the door and walk inside and look for a man that I know is dead, the very man whose name I have tattooed on my ribs in memorial.

  “Can I help you?”

  I yelp, the magnetic energy between me and the house severing in two, and I spin around to see a man standing at the foot of the stairs, staring up at me.

  Atlas Poe. The owner of the house.

  He’s looking at me curiously, wavy dark brown hair blowing across his face in the cold wind, his cool eyes appraising me.

  I haven’t seen him in the daylight before, so he takes me by surprise. He looks younger than I thought he was on Halloween, in his early thirties, though he’s dressed in all black just the same.

  “I’m sorry.” I breathe out, my hand at my chest. Holy fuck, this is all sorts of awkward. I can feel my cheeks going red. “I don’t…”

  “Didn’t know what you were doing?” he asks, slowly coming up the stairs toward me. He stops at the step below, yet he’s still taller than me. The dude has height.

  I lick my lips, wondering how to explain myself. I figure the best way is always the truth. At least this guy will understand. He’s the one who gave us the tour of the place on Halloween, looking for his dead mother.

  “I thought I saw someone,” I tell him.

  He raises a brow but his expression doesn’t change. “Someone?”

  “In the house.” I feebly point upward. “On the second floor. Someone I once knew.”

  “Someone you once knew?” he repeats, more deliberately this time.

  I can’t help but narrow my eyes. “Are you going to just repeat everything I say?”

  Finally a hint of a smile. “I just caught you about to break and enter.”

  “I wasn’t going to break and enter,” I tell him.

  “So what were you doing?”

  I cross my arms, staring at him for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess I thought I could just walk in and see if I could find him.” I realize how crazy that sounds the moment it leaves my lips, even if it’s true. “I’m sorry, I’m obviously having some issues here.”

  I move past him down the steps, but he reaches out and grabs my elbow. “You don’t have to leave. I know exactly what just happened to you.”

  I eye his grip on me until he lets go, my heart hammering in my chest. Atlas, a supposed descendent of Edgar Allan Poe, doesn’t scare me per se, but there’s something about him that has all the alarm bells inside me ringing. There’s something not quite right about him.

  It takes one to know one.

  “Then what just happened to me?”

  He gestures toward the house. “Why don’t you come inside and we can talk?”

  I let out a dry laugh. “Yeah, no thank you. I saw enough the other night.”

  “Right,” he muses slowly, his ice blue eyes growing sharp for a moment. I could have sworn a second ago his pupils were so dilated that his eyes appeared black. “I trust you’re enjoying my stepfather’s money already.”

  And there it is. The guilt.

  “You know I was talking to your husband the other day,” he adds, going toward the door.

  “Dex?” I blink at him in surprise.

  “Do you have another husband I should know about?”

  “What did you guys talk about?” I hated to ask, but obviously Dex never told me anything. The last I heard is that he was going to call Harry about when we could come back and finish the job.

  “Not too much, just that on the seventeenth it’s going to be a new moon. Perfect time to do shadow work and come back and finish what you started.”

  The seventeenth? That was my birthday.

  “Really? That makes it that much more interesting,” Atlas says.

  I frown. What the fuck? “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s your birthday.”

  I freeze. Don’t tell me that for the second time today, someone else has heard my thoughts.

  Atlas gives me another smirk and then taps his finger on his temple. “Who else heard your thoughts today?”

  My heart thuds against my ribs, and I quickly shut my eyes, steeling myself, building walls around my mind. Normally I do it instinctively but apparently not today.

  “It’s okay,” he says, raising his palm. “I won’t pry. You’re just such an open book, Perry.”

  Okay, that’s another thing I don’t like about this guy. The fact that he acts like he knows me when he doesn’t know me at all.

  “Look,” he says, putting his hand on the door. “Why don’t you come inside. You say your friend is here, then maybe he is. Maybe you can speak to him.”

  I can barely swallow, my body awash with cold pin pricks as he slowly opens the front door, and I get a glimpse of the black, fathomless void beyond. The same pull I got earlier is back, tugging at me, like all my molecules are loose inside me, being vacuumed into the abyss.

  “No,” I say quickly, turning around so my back is to him and the house. My fists are balled up, nails digging into my palms, sweat mixing with my wet hair at the base of my neck. “It was just in my head. There was no one there.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I nod but I don’t turn around. I don’t dare turn around. I feel Atlas’ eyes burning into my back as I go down the steps and to the curb where Putt-Putt is resting. I grab my helmet and slip it on, just as another text from Dex beeps in my pocket. I’m mad as hell at him for talking to Atlas behind my back, but right now I just want to get home where I feel safe.

  I get on my bike and ride off down the street. It takes all my willpower not to look over my shoulder at the house. It takes a bit before I feel the darkness at my back weaken.

  It’s not far of a ride to the apartment, but even though the rain has stopped, I’m so cold I’m shaking. I park the bike in the garage underneath the building and then I’m in the elevator, trying to get my emotions under control. I take a deep breath, trying to expand my chest like my spin instructor tells me to do all the time.

  I’m almost at the door when it flings open and Dex is staring at me, wide-eyed, worried, and breathless.

  “Where the fuck have you been?!”

  I just raise my hand to shut him up and slip past him into the apartment. “I took a detour.”

  He shuts the door behind us and looks me over, shaking
his head. “Look at you. You’re soaked. Why didn’t you wait for me to pick you up? I texted you.”

  “I know,” I tell him, peeling off the leather jacket which is sticking to my gray sweater underneath. Ugh, so uncomfortable. “I didn’t get your text until I was almost home.”

  He takes the jacket from me and hangs it up, then grabs my hands, holding them as his eyes search the corners of my face. “Are you okay?” He pauses. “For a moment I thought you really did run off with her.”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. Every single time I come back from seeing Dr. Leivo, he asks if I’m about to divorce him and run off with my hot psychologist.

  It’s then that I remember I’m kind of mad at him.

  I take my hands out of his and gather my wet hair behind me, quickly putting it in a loose braid. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’ve been in contact with Atlas Poe?”

  Dex is pretty good at lying when he’s had time to prepare for it. When I first met him, I felt like I was just unearthing lie after carefully crafted lie. But when he’s caught on the spot, I can see through him pretty well.

  He stares at me, the dark brown of his irises glinting in surprise. His mouth opens for a moment before the words come out. “How did you know?”

  “I’ll tell you how I know once you tell me why you kept that from me.”

  He nods and slowly runs his hand over the thick stubble on his jaw, a beard-in-progress. “Because I didn’t have an answer for him. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  “Talk about what exactly?”

  I walk over to the couch where Fat Rabbit is having his afternoon snooze, and sit down, unlacing my combat boots. I glance up at Dex, who is still standing by the door, his brain working overtime. For fuck’s sake, if I wanted to I could try and get the answers from him. I’d just rather not.

  As if he heard me, he walks over to me and crouches down, his fingers wrapping over mine, pushing them aside. He starts to unlace my boots for me.

  “I told you I wanted us to go back, right?” he says, glancing up at me, his dark brows set low. “With the camera. You agreed to it. Said it didn’t feel right taking the money for what little we did. So obviously I got in touch with him through Harry.”