About halfway down, a rumbling noise as loud as a motorcycle echoed through the space. I shined the light up and down, but I couldn’t spot the source of the noise. My hand shook, making the beam bounce around. I quickened my pace. The noise grew louder by the second. At the bottom of the stairs, I set the candlestick down to open the door. It refused to open. I twisted, pushed, pulled, yanked. The door wouldn’t open.
“Why is it locked?”
I grabbed the candlestick and raced back to the top of the stairs. The rumbling got even louder. I tucked the weapon under my arm and tugged on the door handle. Nothing happened. Bracing my feet, I put all my weight into trying to force the door open, but it didn’t budge. I shined the light at the handle. The doors couldn’t have locked. There wasn’t even a lock. I sprinted back down to the other door and searched for a lock there. Nothing.
The rumbling hurt my eardrums.
Had both doors been barred from the outside? I was trapped inside the turret. Fear made my mouth go dry. I pounded on the door.
“Help! Someone get me out of here. Eric?” I banged until my already raw knuckles bled.
Then the noise stopped.
A heaviness filled the turret. I shined the flashlight up the steps. “Is someone there?” I tightened my grip on the candlestick. “Answer me.”
A springy metallic sound, like a Slinky toy walking down the stone stairs, jumpstarted my heart into overdrive. I debated my options. Stay put and wait for whatever was coming down the stairs, or go up and maybe surprise it. Both ideas sucked.
The noise came closer, and the heaviness grew and grew. Dizziness fogged my brain. I needed air. My eyes fluttered, but I forced them to stay open. I couldn’t pass out. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek.
A paper dropped down the stairs and landed on the floor at my feet. I shined my light at it, forcing myself not to scream. It was a photo of a girl who looked like me except for the emptiness in her eyes.
Another page wafted down. Another girl, similar but different.
They were pages from the death scrapbook.
Page after page after page rained down.
I slammed my back against the door, and still it wouldn’t open. Someone had to be dropping the photos. I shined the light up the stairs. Maybe I could blind them, then I could whack them with the candlestick.
“Hello? Who’s there? I’m armed.” I sounded a hell of a lot more self-assured than I felt. I wanted to curl up under a blanket and hide. Randall was dead, Eric had been dragged away by something invisible, and I was alone, locked inside the turret, terrified out of my mind.
Visions of the beetles scuttled into my brain. No. It was a different sound than the supposed demon bugs made. Could there be demon rats? The thought made my stomach somersault, and a shiver shot from my head to my fingertips, making the light waver.
A shadowy mist floated into the flashlight beam. The formless shadow undulated and glided over the steps. I pushed back against the door.
Screw this. I wasn’t going to be a victim. I spread my feet wider and slammed the base of the candlestick against the door. “Let me out of here. Open the damn door.”
The shadow stopped.
My breath came fast. Calm down. Breathe. Inhale, exhale.
The Slinky noise stopped, and the shadow turned red in my light. My throat closed, trapping my scream inside.
The shadow shifted and condensed into itself, the redness turning inky black. A filmy hand and arm stretched out and hovered a foot away. I swung the candlestick. It cut through the shadow arm, slicing it in two.
The shadow morphed and came back together.
Oh God. I threw the candlestick at the center of the shadow. A hole ripped through the middle, then closed together.
“You can’t hurt me. You’re nothing but mist.” The words were firm, solid, but my insides were as soft as cotton balls.
It moved closer until the shadow hand was inches from my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
I swung the flashlight. It went through the shadow like the candlestick had. The temperature in my prison plunged. My teeth chattered, and I couldn’t keep the flashlight from shaking.
Icy fingers wrapped around my neck. I dropped the flashlight and it clanged to the floor. Bursts of light exploded across the wall. I blinked. I tunnel-visioned and knew I was about to pass out.
I clawed at the hand, but there wasn’t anything there. I fought for oxygen.
The hand tightened its grip.
And squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
24
There wasn’t enough air. I was choking. I couldn’t fight something I couldn’t feel. The small space grew fuzzy, and I couldn’t make out the shadow shape. My eyelids dropped, and I didn’t have the strength to open them.
I pictured my parents. I was never going to see them again. I was never going to go on a date. I was never going to get married. Never going to have kids. I was going to die.
Tears slid down my cheeks.
“Samantha, stay strong.”
It was Nana’s voice. “I’m dying, Nana.” I forced my eyes open.
My bracelet spun and the metal darkened. A white shadow materialized between the black shadow and me.
“Not today, my sweet. Believe in yourself, in your gift. I’m so sorry I never told you. I love you, Samantha.”
Nana’s words brought more tears.
The white shadow wrapped around the black one, creating a grayish hue.
The tightness loosened from around my throat. Air rushed into my lungs.
The shadow hand released and shot back into the grayness. I sucked in gulps of oxygen and rubbed my neck.
The white shadow smothered the black.
“Now is not your time, Sam. Go with my love.” Nana’s voice faded, and the shadows disintegrated.
She’d saved me. I didn’t know how she’d done it, and I was in no shape to wonder about it then because chills swept through me, making my legs go rubbery. I reached for the bracelet Nana had given me the day she died. It was black and charred. The silver was gone; she was gone too.
A wisp of darkness swirled across the floor.
I grabbed the light, spun around, and yanked the handle. The door opened with ease, and I tumbled out into a dining room, falling on my knees, the flashlight flying from my grasp. It hurt, but I didn’t care. I was out. I was free.
Slam.
I rolled onto my butt and stared at the door. The closed door. I crab-walked backward and opened my mouth to yell for help, but only a croak came out. My throat burned. I needed water. Needed to find Eric. Snatching the flashlight, I struggled to my feet and moved as fast as my pain-filled knees allowed.
Nana had come back to help me.
Ghosts. Spirits. Entities. Something after death.
It was real. All of it.
I stumbled across the family dining room and into the kitchen. The last time I’d been here, the dishes, pots, pans, glasses, utensils, and food had all been piled on top of the counters. Now everything was on the floor in a gravity-defying pyramid of stuff. If it had been in a gallery or museum, I would have called it art, but after a shadow had almost choked me to death, it scared me shitless.
I tried to talk, cry out, scream. Nothing came out but a gurgle. I side-stepped around the square base of the pyramid and avoided a fork sticking out like a weapon. I pulled a bottle of water from Marisol’s bag and drank it down in two swallows. My throat flared with heat.
“Eric? Where are you?” I sounded like a dude, but at least I had my voice back. “Who made this?”
I circled the pyramid. The base consisted of a lot of stemmed glasses that shouldn’t have been able to hold the weight of the pots and cans of food. A dessert plate on the top whizzed away from the pile and smashed into the wall, breaking into tiny shards. Then a cereal bowl zoomed out and hit the other wall.
I willed my knees to keep me upright and ran. I wanted to keep running.
I stopped when I entered the command center.
I dropped onto the throne and hung my head in my hands. I needed a plan. I needed to fight, but no one had taught me how to fight the paranormal.
I wished Marisol was here to guide me.
Minutes ticked by. I couldn’t just stay here. I—
The front door creaked open, then banged shut. Oh, thank God. “Who’s there?” I raced into the front entrance. There wasn’t anyone there.
If someone had come in, they would have come into the command center. That meant it might not be anyone or anything I wanted to see. I had to get away.
I eased my way to the front door, trying not to make noise. When I pulled it open, it squeaked, the sound grinding through my teeth like it did when I bit down on a fork by accident. I slipped outside. Clouds covered the sky, making it gray and dark.
“Can anyone hear me?” I wanted to yell, but kept my voice almost normal.
Where had they gone? It seemed like hours since we’d separated into our two groups, but realistically it was probably much less. Daniel had said they were going to search for a generator. There wasn’t anything like that in the boathouse, so I raced through the flower garden toward the only building on this side of the island I hadn’t been to yet. Daniel had said it housed the water pump and other systems for the castle. Maybe they were there.
A lone black bird flew into the sky. I yipped and stumbled, searching the skies for more, but the air remained clear.
I still clutched the flashlight. Stupidly, I’d left the candlestick in the turret and hadn’t armed myself with a knife from the kitchen pyramid. Dumb. I was a total idiot. Alone with no weapon. Then again, I had no clue what kind of weapon would fight off a murderous ghost.
The tiny hairs on my body came to attention. Someone—or something—was watching me. I knew it, felt it, but couldn’t see it.
Wind blew through the flowers and bushes, then across my cheeks. The air was warm, gentle, and almost comforting. Nothing like the wind during the master bedroom incident. I dashed through the garden, only stopping when a branch broke to my right.
A biting chill replaced the warm wind.
I caught a flash of blue at the opening of the maze. Brett had been wearing blue. Thank God I wasn’t alone anymore.
“Brett. Wait up.” I reached the maze. For a fraction of a second, I hesitated before going in. I shook my head and darted into the hedges; I had no choice. What the hell was he doing?
The massive greenery rose to at least nine feet tall. There was no way my five-five height was going to see over the top.
“Brett! Wait for me.”
Which way had he gone? I didn’t know. If I chose the wrong path, I could end up hopelessly lost. Left or right? Stay or go?
“Brett?”
Something moved on the left, so I went that way. I jogged through the maze, my boots crunching the dry grass. When I was forced to pick another turn, I stopped again. I kept making lefts so I would remember how to get out. After six lefts, the maze opened up to a clearing. Eight white marble statues dotted the clearing every few feet, while four white stone benches rested between them. The statues were so tall, my head only came to the waist of the one next to me. I looked up at the female figure, and my heart catapulted to my toes. The statue didn’t have a face.
Well, at least not anymore. I ran from that one to the next. All the marble figures were women. All wore long robes, were identical, and had no faces.
When they had been created, the women’s heads had been whole, but now their faces looked bashed in, like whoever had done it tried to destroy their beauty. They looked like an army of blank, hollow, soulless guardians.
Novak had written he’d buried the bodies of the woman and her child in the clearing in the maze. The thought jolted my nerves and a tingling spread down my back. The pain in my chest ratcheted higher.
I had to get out of here. I yelled for Brett, but there was no answer.
I had taken six lefts in, so that meant six rights out. I went to the path, then stopped. I spun, and my confidence in my ability to get out leaked away.
There were four paths out of the clearing. I hadn’t noticed there was more than one way in and out. I walked back to the center of the circle and tried to figure out the way I’d come. There, that one. I jogged to the path’s entrance, then halted. Was it right? No. I shook my head. Focus. Think back. What had I seen when I came into the clearing? Statues, benches. But there were eight identical statues, four identical benches, and four identical-looking ways out.
I was screwed.
A lump formed in my throat and wedged itself so tight, my eyes burned. I stumbled to the closest bench, where my knees gave out. My chest clenched, and heat spiraled across the back of my neck. Pain swirled through my stomach. I was going to be sick. I bent over and dropped my head between my knees.
The cold from the stone slithered into my jeans, sending chills up my back. I stood. A warm breeze lifted my hair and wrapped around my upper body as if it were hugging me. While the sensation wasn’t threatening, it didn’t comfort me. Just like before, an arctic wind followed the warm one, chasing it away. The temperature dropped, and my breath fogged the air. The wind picked up and rattled the hedges. The icy air seemed filled with the same static charge as the command center.
“Can you answer me? Who are you?”
I wished one of the guys, or even Marisol, were here. The air got colder and colder.
“Sa.” The faint whisper echoed through the clearing.
Was a spirit trying to communicate with me? My teeth chattered, and I bounced up and down. Okay, I had to pick a direction and get out. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo.
One of the faceless statues seemed to sway in the wind. A wall of water gushed from where the face should have been.
Holy crap.
The water flowed from the empty face and splashed down the folds of the figure’s gown. I turned and screamed. The other seven statues all spewed water from where their faces weren’t.
I stumbled back and lost my footing. Sprawled on my back, I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The water on the ground raced toward me like a river. I scooted back, trying to regain my footing. I made it to my feet just as the water slid across my boots and began to crystallize.
It wasn’t cold enough for water to freeze, but my boots stuck to the grass. Each individual blade was encased in ice. A string of curses ran through my mind.
I yanked both feet free and took off running, only for them to fly out from under me. I skidded across the ice rink to the closest path. I shot a quick glance at the nearest statue and almost slipped.
The water flowing from the obliterated face was now red.
Blood red.
25
I spun and slid on my stomach, shoving my hands out to stop. I hit the edge of the clearing and rolled into the dirt path. I jumped to my feet. My hoodie and jeans and hands were covered with blood.
I rubbed my hands on my thighs. The blood wasn’t coming off. That familiar lump resurfaced in my throat.
I only had one choice—get out of the maze. I turned to the right every time I came to a fork. Six turns later, I was still in the maze. I was totally and hopelessly lost, covered in blood, and freaking out.
“Eric? Anybody?” I screamed as loud as I could.
I tried to picture the maze. I had left the bloody ice by taking six right turns. If I went back five lefts, I could try another way. I backtracked. At the last fork, where I would take a left to get back to the clearing, I went right.
The path went straight for what seemed like forever, then I reached another fork. This one offered three choices. Since going right and left had been total bombs, I went straight.
I flexed my hands. Dried blood cracked across my skin. My jeans and hoodie were crusty. I had to get out of the maze and wash away the blood. It smelled like raw meat, and I prayed it wasn’t human. I wiped my hands on my jeans, the grass, the hedge. The damn stuff wasn’t coming off. I had to get it off.
I dry-heaved, gagged, spit on the
ground.
One look at the sky told me I needed to get my butt moving. If I was still stuck in the maze when it got dark, I would freeze or worse.
Forward. Forward. Forward. Then I went right. Right again, and I found myself at a dead end. “Damn it.” I doubled back to the last turn, and this time I went left. Then left again. Another dead end. I’d gone both ways and both led nowhere.
I sized up the nine-foot hedge. It might be able to hold my weight. If I climbed up, maybe I could spot the opening.
I pushed the flashlight and phone deeper into my pockets and grabbed the hedge. It was a mass of thin vines, all gnarly and twisty and angry. The sharp edges scratched and clawed my hands. I climbed a couple feet before my boots slid against the wall of greenery. I clenched my teeth and fought the pain. Halfway up, the vines thinned, and I lost my grip and fell backward, landing hard on the ground. Climbing wasn’t going to work.
It took me eight more combinations of turns and dead ends, but this time when I turned right, I came to a clearing. A tingling sensation wormed its way down my back. This clearing didn’t have faceless statues or benches. Didn’t have a frozen lake of blood. It did have a stone building that looked like the mausoleums in New Orleans I’d seen on the special show about Hurricane Katrina, but this one was much bigger and somehow scarier.
A mausoleum in the middle of a garden maze could never be a good sign. Someone was probably buried inside. Novak? No way was I checking out that weird place. I needed to get out of here and find Eric. I prayed he wasn’t dead. I couldn’t give up hope.
I’d made it five steps when I heard footsteps behind me.
“Sam, help me.”
“Brett? Where are you?” I looked around and caught a flash of his blue shirt at the door of the mausoleum.
He disappeared inside.
“Brett?”
“Sam? Help.” His voice sounded full of pain and pleading.
I had to help him. It didn’t matter that I wanted to run away from all the weirdness, the craziness, the insanity. I wanted to go back home, where it might not be normal, but at least it was my space, my house.
The Shattered Seam (Seam Stalkers Book 1) Page 15