Came Back Haunted: An Experiment in Terror Novel #10

by Halle, Karina

  “What the hell were you doing? Why were you trying to go in the ocean? It’s freezing.”

  I stare down at my feet. They already look a little blue, my pajama bottoms soaked to mid-thigh. All at once the immense cold of the water and the air hits me, and my teeth start chattering. “I-I don’t know.”

  He bends down and picks up my coat, putting it around me. Then he grabs my Chucks with one hand and effortlessly picks me up, hauling me up on his back. I’m too dazed and cold to protest, letting him carry me down the beach and back to the room.

  At the last minute I look up, staring at the waves as a drizzle begins to fall.

  There’s something black and long swimming in the water.

  Just the hint of a tail rising from the waves.

  I close my eyes shut, trying to make sense of it all and failing, until we’re back in the room and Dex carries me right through the sliding door to the private patio and straight to the hot tub where he gently lowers me into it in my clothes.

  The water is breathtakingly hot and works instantly to end my chills. I sink in a little bit deeper, the water up to my chin, trying to breathe in deep.

  Dex quickly strips to his briefs and gets in the hot tub with me, crouching in the water as he faces me, hand at my neck. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I’m not sure,” I say quietly, trying to think. It’s like it all just…slipped away. “I think I saw someone out there. In the water. Maybe she needed help.”

  “You saw a woman?”

  “Yes, in the waves, I think.”

  I close my eyes and try to concentrate but it feels like just a dream. That there was no one there at all. My mind wants to put the woman I saw in the restaurant in the ocean, make me think that’s who I saw.

  But was it?

  “Maybe I was sleepwalking?” I ask him. Though I have a memory of grabbing my wallet and key card. I wanted coffee, didn’t I?

  “You’ve never done that before.” Then he hesitates, slowly adds, “At least not around me.”

  Because the truth is, I have done something like sleepwalking before. After my miscarriage, when I was possessed.

  I push both of those dark, looming threats to the back of my mind.

  “But you do look tired,” he says, gently running his fingers over my cheekbones.

  “I didn’t sleep very well.”

  “I slept like a log. I could have kept sleeping but I had a dream about you.”

  I raise my brow. Dreams are never good. “What was the dream?”

  Fear flickers in his eyes. “That you drowned,” he says after a weighty pause.

  Dread sinks into my bones. Fuck. “In the ocean?”

  He gives his head a tiny shake. “No. Maybe, I don’t know. It was so vague, just that I knew you drowned. I woke up and didn’t see you, so I panicked. Thank god I looked to the beach just in time. You were so far away. I ran like hell.”

  “I didn’t drown,” I try to say. I look away from his gaze, staring at the water, the chlorinated bubbles from the jets. “I wouldn’t have gone further…I wasn’t trying to…I’m not crazy.”

  “Hey,” he says, sharp enough that I jerk my head up, meeting his eyes. “I know you’re not crazy. Don’t even think like that. This was just…this was just probably nothing. Let’s hope it stays nothing.”

  I swallow. Oh god. I hope he doesn’t change his mind about having a baby now. This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell him about the woman. I don’t want him to think that something bad is happening or that something bad will happen. I just want things to be normal.

  He leans in and kisses me, soft and sweet. “I bet you’re just all sorts of mixed up. We had a lot of sex last night, even for us, and some of it blew my fucking brain into another dimension. And deciding to start a family isn’t nothing. It’s a big deal.”

  “You still want to?” My voice sounds so small.

  “More than anything in the world,” he says, kissing me again. “Now, when we get out of here, what do you want to do? We have a whole day. We could travel up the coast to see your uncle and the twins?”

  I shake my head. I feel like a brat not stopping by when they’re so close, but I want to keep this little bubble with just the two of us. “I’d rather not.”

  “That’s fine by me. We can just stay here at the hotel. Eat, drink, fuck…”

  I can’t help but smile, wrapping my arms around his neck. “That sounds more my tempo.”

  * * *

  The rest of the day passes at a leisurely pace. After some time in the hot tub, we slowly got ready (perhaps falling back into bed for some more baby-making practice). We started with a walk down the side streets past the shingled houses and weather-beaten vacation homes, flanked by cypress trees permanently bent from the wind. Then we had some coffee and cinnamon buns at this really cool café before we ended up at Mo’s for clam chowder. I know some people say it’s a tourist trap, but as a proud Oregonian I still think it’s the best chowder in the state. I’m not sure Dex agrees though, because he put about eight packets of oyster crackers in the bowl, followed by a dangerous amount of hot sauce.

  After that we stopped at a pub or three, walking all the way up to Ecola Creek, hand in hand, feeling tipsy. The drizzle came and went but we stayed relatively dry, going back to the cottage for another round of the hot tub and then to a Mexican restaurant for tacos and margaritas.

  It doesn’t escape me that we actively avoided the beach all day. As fun as it was to just be with Dex, without a care in the world, I kept running the morning through my head. I hated that it happened, hated that it put a damper on the day, on our trip. But try as I might, it was really hard to let it go.

  But I had to, for both our sakes. It would drive me mad otherwise.

  After dinner, we stopped by a liquor store where Dex got not only a cigar but a big bottle of Jack Daniels. I expected us to just drink it in our hotel room, maybe the hot tub, so I was surprised when he went into a tiny hardware store to purchase some kindling and a charcoal lighter.

  “What’s the point of being on a beach in Oregon if you’re not going to light a bonfire?” he tells me, sticking the cigar in his mouth and putting a lighter up to it. He doesn’t smoke a cigar very often so I can tell he’s in a celebrating mood.

  We walk down a short street to the beach. In the early darkness, a few bonfires are already lit up and down the sand.

  We don’t have far to walk before we find a couple of logs facing a burned-out pile of charred wood. I light up the area for Dex with my phone as he scrounges around nearby for some smaller pieces of driftwood.

  “Are you sure you can light a fire with that?” I ask him, nodding to the wood.

  “Driftwood is the driest wood you can find,” he says. “Also, I used to be in the Boy Scouts. I know what I’m doing.”

  I laugh. “Oh, you were not.”

  He arranges the wood, sticking the kindling in at various intervals, then squirts the charcoal lighter in the middle. The lighter engulfs the wood in an instant with a big hot whoosh.

  “Okay, you’re right, I wasn’t in the Boy Scouts,” he says. “But only because they would have never taught you how to do that.”

  He stands there and stares at the fire for a minute, and I watch him closely, loving the way he looks in the glow of the flames, his face a mixture of light and shadow. His eyes seem to sit deeper, almost black underneath his dark arched brows, the shadows under his cheekbones more pronounced, his beard looking thicker.

  I start wondering what traits of his the baby will get. No doubt they’ll have thick black hair. Will they have his olive, easily tanned skin tone? Or my pale one (the only thing I inherited from my mother)? Considering I’m short and Dex isn’t especially tall, I don’t see any basketball players in our future, but I do hope they get his athletic ability. Will their eyes be blue or brown? Will they get my small nose or Dex’s strong jaw?

  Eventually he catches my eye, the flames dancing in his, and gives me a crooked smile
as he takes a drag on the cigar, the embers at the end burning red. He sits down on the log beside me, blowing the smoke from the cigar in the other direction, and hands me the bottle of Jack Daniels.

  “Just like old times,” he says.

  “We’re really going back,” I tell him, unscrewing the cap with a satisfying snap. I raise the bottle to my lips, having the first swig. “Ahh, burns so good.”

  I hand it to him, our fingers brushing against each other, and fuck isn’t it so strange that even the slightest touch still has the power to unleash butterflies in my stomach. Though perhaps it’s all the alcohol I’ve already consumed today.

  “Speaking of going back,” he says, turning the bottle over in his hands. “Remember when we were up at Seaside, just before the haunted demon school? And we were talking about the future, and where we wanted to end up? Have you given that any more thought?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He takes a sip and hands me back the bottle. “I mean, we have the money. We’ll do what we can to honor what we promised Harry, but we have the money and we aren’t giving it back. I know we want to put the apartment up for sale, I know we want to move. But where? What do you really see for us? Where do you see us? Does any of that change if we’re going to have a family?”

  I rub my lips together, mulling it over for a moment. “It doesn’t change much for me. I like Seattle a lot. I feel a kinship with it.”

  “It’s because you’re a grunge girl at heart,” he interjects.

  “True. And a weirdo. Which is why I like Portland too, and it will always be my home, but despite what some people think, I think it’s better that I’m further away from my family. I don’t want to be too far, which is why Seattle works so well. But I don’t think I’ll have a chance to keep growing if I lived closer…though now that I say that, I get why Ada is so mad at me.”

  “She’s going through shit,” he says to me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hands laced, bumping my shoulder with his. “Just give her some space and some time to figure it out.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” I go on. “It’s nothing really to do with her. Or Dad. But I don’t think she gets that.”

  “She will. So, you want to stay in Seattle. You haven’t thought about San Francisco?”

  “I would love to live there but we can’t afford it, no matter how much money we have.”

  “This is true.” He pauses. “But dreams do come true, baby. If our documentary gets picked up by Netflix or Amazon or someone, you never know. Until then though, we stay in Seattle?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “And we try and get a house. With a yard. And adopt a little chubby gray pitbull named Fat Hippo?”

  “Absolutely. Either by the water or deep in the trees.”

  “Pretty sure we’ll only be able to afford deep in the trees. And probably far from the city.”

  Dex makes the grabby hand motion for the alcohol. I hand it to him.

  “We won’t know until we start looking,” I tell him.

  He takes a gulp of the JD and then puts it down in the sand between his boots. He reaches into the pocket of his utility jacket and pulls out his phone, quickly flipping through the apps. Then he hands it to me.

  “I’ve already been looking,” he says.

  I stare down at the Zillow page on his phone and quickly scroll through listing after listing.

  “I saved all the ones we should look at. It’s a lot, which isn’t a bad thing, and we can at least start narrowing it down.”

  The fact that he’s already been so proactive, already starting the process for us to buy a home together and start a new chapter in life, warms me more than the bourbon ever could.

  I lean in and kiss him softly on the cheek. “I love you, you know that?”

  He turns his head slightly, a soft smile curving his lips. He grabs my hand, giving it a squeeze. “I do know that. And that alone means everything.”

  He kisses me back and then hands me the bottle, getting to his feet. “Okay, I’m breaking the seal. Where does a guy take a leak around here without having someone shine a flashlight on him?”

  He takes out his phone, aiming it on the sand as he makes his way away from the fire and into the darkness. I watch as the light gets smaller and smaller, hoping he doesn’t go too far. Finally the light stops moving and I exhale.

  I turn my attention back to the flames, my mind drifting everywhere and anywhere. I don’t blame Dex for already looking at houses—I know how important it is for him to feel like we’re a real family unit, even without a baby. He’s had such a traumatic and tragic childhood, abandoned at every turn, that I know this is the kind of thing he’s always strived for. Or at least he did once he realized he was deserving of it. That was a difficult thing for him to move past, to realize he’s deserving of love and family.

  Sometimes that abandonment still comes out. He’s never been very needy, always been independent, used to looking out for himself and only himself. Selfish, but only because he had to be to survive. Even now I find myself reassuring him that he’s worthy of being loved. It’s a hard thing to overcome, and it’s not like he ever asks for the reassurance, but I always keep it in mind, especially if I act in a certain way that may put him in a bad space. And those bad spaces crop up from time to time.

  He’s had contact with his father, Curtis, over the last few years, but that hasn’t helped as much as I thought it would. He came to the wedding but that’s the last we’ve seen him. He does make the effort to call on Dex’s birthday or at Christmas, which is nice, and he and his wife Margaret send gifts and cards. But their relationship is very strained and I think Dex is still waiting, deep down, for his father to make up for running out on him, supplying him with all the love he missed out on.

  That hasn’t happened yet. I’m not sure it ever will.

  A scratching noise from behind me pulls me out of my thoughts.

  Distracted, I turn around and look over my shoulder.

  There’s nothing but darkness.

  I keep looking, training my eyes to try and see something but all I pick up is the sand closest to me, illuminated faintly by the fire. In the distance there’s darkness, then the lights of hotels and houses.

  Feeling the hair raise at the back of my neck, I turn back around and face the fire. In the distance, the light from Dex’s phone is now gone.

  What the fuck?

  “Dex?” I call out, rubbing my hands up and down my arms, feeling a deep chill come over me despite the warmth of the fire.

  I don’t hear him. I only hear the rhythmic pounding of the waves.

  And that scratching sound again, like someone has taken a stick and is drawing deep lines in packed sand.

  Shit.

  Now my body is abuzz with nerves, telling me to turn around, to look at what’s making that noise. To face the darkness, the truth.

  A puff of hot breath falls on my neck.

  I yelp, jumping to my feet, backing up until I almost fall in the fire.

  There’s nothing there at all.

  Just the log and the empty sand behind it and that infinite black.

  “Perry?”

  I whirl to the side to see Dex approaching, boots crunching in the sand.

  “Where did you go?” I ask, barely finding my voice, my pulse pounding against my throat.

  “I was right over there somewhere,” he says. “My phone died. Thankfully I had the fire to guide me back. Were you going to come look for me?”

  I nod absently and then look back at the log.

  I walk toward it, crouching down to pick up the bottle of JD. As I do so, my eyes drift over the back of the log. Long, deep indents are carved into the back of it, like a pair of claws took a swipe at the wood.

  Right where I was sitting.

  My eyes trail over to the sand behind it, where similar claw marks are visible, leading off into the darkness.

  Was that there before? I can’t even remember.
r />   “I’m getting a bit cold,” I tell him, giving him a quick smile before handing him the bottle. “Let’s have a shot and head back to the room. I think we need to abuse the hot tub.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he says. He takes a shot then gives me the bottle so I do the same. We quickly kick sand on the fire, putting it out into a puff of dark smoke.

  I make sure we walk back to the hotel by way of the side roads, taking solace in the lights and civilization.

  Eleven

  Our mini vacation did us a lot of good. Despite the couple of strange and scary things that happened, we returned home to Seattle feeling relaxed and refreshed and utterly satisfied with each other. Fat Rabbit, Rebecca, and Lucinda were there to greet us, and Rebecca gave me a birthday present (though she told me to open it later, alone).

  Since it was such a long drive from the Oregon coast, we decide to be lazy and order some Korean BBQ via UberEats. I make a pot of jasmine green tea to go with the meal (our livers need a break), prepared to have a quiet, calm night in.

  But then I can’t stop thinking about the house on Seneca Street. My mind keeps being taken back there, back to Max, to the woman in the washroom, to that terrible dark addictive energy of the place. To something like destiny.

  I’ve just finished swallowing a bite of beef bulgogi, watching David Attenborough narrate about blue whales on the TV, when I say, “I think we should go back to the house tonight.”

  Dex, sitting next to me on the couch, gives me a look of shock, rice balanced on his fork. “What?”

  “I mean, if you’re up for it.”

  He frowns. “You want to go to the house? Tonight? Why?”

  I shrug. I don’t actually know why tonight. Why it can’t wait. I guess I feel a little guilty about having this nice weekend away while Max is stuck in that house, still dead. I was all prepared to pretend that seeing him was in my head, but now that I have the confirmation from Jacob that it really is him, in his own limbo, it feels more pressing.

  Besides, I can’t keep this to myself much longer. I need Dex to see him. I just hope that can happen.