Weakness teemed within him while he fed their fury, their need to commit violence, fueling it with every ounce of energy that remained in him.
Thuds and crashes sounded above. Scuffling feet. More shouts.
A heavier thud sounded. Dirt shifted as a body hit the ground above him.
Two shuffling footsteps. Then a second body hit the ground.
Silence.
No voices. No emotions. No heartbeats save Stanislav’s, which slowed to one beat per minute. Then one beat every five minutes. Then less.
Yuri.
Forgive me, my brother.
His breath stopped as darkness claimed him.
Chapter One
Two years later
Susan guided the car to a halt in the driveway and shut off the engine. Leaning forward, she peered through the front windshield. “Wow. I was kind of hoping the pictures online didn’t do it justice, but it looks even worse in person.”
The beagle beside her barked his agreement, then poked his nose out the partially lowered window.
Sighing, Susan pocketed the keys and opened the driver’s door. Stepping out into the brisk fall air, she closed it behind her and walked around to open the door for her furry companion. “I don’t know, Jax.” Bending, she grabbed the end of his leash and looped it around her wrist before he could dart away. “This isn’t looking so good.”
A two-story home rose before them. Nice sized. Larger than any home she had ever lived in, that was for sure. But the canary-yellow paint was starting to peel, the front porch clearly needed a few boards replaced, and the yard…
Well, there was no yard really. Just patches of weeds here and there.
She glanced around, squinting against the bright sunlight. “I mean, I like the location.” Loved it, actually. “It’s isolated. No neighbors or any other structures for miles.” A boon. For reasons that still escaped her, Susan had been born with the ability to hear other people’s thoughts. Out here she would be able to enjoy blissful silence instead of having to constantly tune out her neighbors’ mental noise.
She returned her attention to the house. “But I really wasn’t planning on buying a fixer-upper.” She noted the crooked spindles in the porch railing. “And this place looks like it needs a lot of fixing up.”
Jax woofed and wagged his tail, unperturbed. Nose to the ground, he explored with great excitement all of the unfamiliar scents he could drink in as he tested the reach of his leash.
“You like it, huh?” Smiling, she turned in a slow circle. Forest bracketed the house on the west and east sides. A small field sprang into forest after a few yards across from it to the north.
When Jax woofed and gave the leash another tug, Susan walked him over to the trees.
Rustling sounded as some creature she couldn’t see scuttled away. Jax barked, his tail wagging at warp speed as he drew her forward into the brush.
She laughed. “Yeah, you’d love it here.” So many scents and creatures to investigate. “But I want to look around a little more before the real estate agent gets here.”
Gently urging him back, she strode up a faded brick path. Someone had made a half-assed attempt to remove some of the weeds that had grown up between the pavers, but most were already reclaiming their territory. She stopped at the foot of the steps. “Sheesh. I don’t even know if this is safe to walk on.”
Placing a foot on the lowest step, she tentatively applied her weight to it.
Hmm. It felt surprisingly sturdy. Didn’t squeak. Maybe it just needed a coat of paint.
She continued up another four steps, still taking care, and stepped onto the porch.
Creeeeeak. There it was. And nearly every other board she trod upon did the same. But like the steps, they felt strong beneath her feet. The railing and spindles that rose up from them would definitely have to be replaced though. They wobbled under the slightest pressure.
She and Jax followed the porch around the side of the house and onto a back deck. Like the porch, the boards there looked old and weathered but were firm beneath her feet.
“Maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought,” she murmured.
A closer examination of the wood siding revealed no evidence of rot or termites or foundation issues.
Hope rose.
A lovely meadow—or what could be a lovely meadow if she cleaned it up and did a little landscaping—extended a good fifty yards from the back deck. Resting her hands on the railing, which was steadier back here, she closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun.
Jax’s claws clicked against the wood as he explored the deck.
“You hear that, Jax?”
The beagle paused as though listening with her.
“Utter silence,” she breathed reverently, soaking in the peace, the wonder of not having to listen to the thoughts of all her neighbors.
A breeze lifted her auburn hair, drawing it away from her face. And as it did, the strangest feeling came over her. As if the house behind her were awakening from a long nap.
Gravel crunched as a car approached out front.
Shaking her head at herself, Susan retraced her path to the front of the house.
A plump woman with glasses and dyed blond hair that brought to mind the puffy hairstyles from the eighties stepped down from a dark gray SUV. “Hi!” she called cheerfully, slamming the door. “You must be Susan.”
Returning her smile, Susan skipped down the steps. “Hi. I got here a little early and was just looking around a bit. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Juggling her keys, the woman strode forward and offered her free hand with a smile. “I’m Rhonda.”
Susan shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“What do you think?” the woman asked, gesturing to the house. “Nice, huh?” She motioned to the field behind her. “Beautiful view. Lots of privacy. I believe peace and quiet were high on your list of priorities, weren’t they?”
Susan nodded. “Yes, they are. And the view is lovely.” She gestured to the weed patches on either side of the brick walkway. “The yard… not so much.”
The woman winced. “Yeah. The owner hasn’t done much with the place since she inherited it. I tried to tell her it would sell faster if she added a little curb appeal, but…” She shrugged.
“Is it okay if I bring Jax in with us?”
“Sure, honey. I don’t mind. I love dogs.” Leaning down, the woman patted Jax on the head. “And you’re a cutie, aren’t you?”
Jax licked her hand and wagged his tail.
Smiling, Rhonda straightened and headed for the front door. “Reminds me of the dog I had when I was a little girl, except mine was a basset hound.”
Much to Susan’s surprise, the real estate agent used an alarm trigger on her own key ring to deactivate an alarm, then used the key next to it to open the door instead of using one of those key box things the other homes she’d shown Susan had borne.
“There’s an alarm system?”
“Yes, but it’s only temporary and will be deactivated when the house sells.”
“Have there been problems?”
“Oh, you know how it is. When houses are listed online, sometimes people who want something for nothing will check them out just to see if there’s anything in them that’s worth stealing.” They did so more than once with this place, probably because it’s out in the middle of nowhere and clearly unoccupied. “And sometimes teenagers like to stir up trouble. One time, I went to show a house in Chapel Hill and the interior of the place was trashed. Teenagers had gotten the address online and decided to make it their little hangout. Left food wrappers and beer bottles all over the place. Sprayed graffiti on the walls. So the alarm is just precautionary.”
Susan had seen similar things on some of those house-flipping shows.
Rhonda swung the front door open. “Now,” she said as she entered, “it’s gonna smell a little musty in here because the house has been closed up for a while.”
Susan followed her
inside.
“Leave the door open, would you? The breeze will help air it out.”
Susan glanced up. Directly in front of her, a staircase rose to a second-floor landing. The ceiling above was two stories high. Traditional railing formed a rectangle above her, letting her see open doors to several rooms above them. Wow. This place is huge. “What did you say the square footage is?”
“Twenty-six hundred.”
Twenty-six hundred? That was twice as big as the place she was renting now.
“Stay put for a minute and let me turn on some lights.”
While Rhonda wound her way in and out of rooms, flipping switches, Susan looked around.
On her left lay a sizable living room with a ceiling that must be eleven or twelve feet high. A large fireplace with an outdated cover dominated one wall. No way would she light a fire in that thing without getting it inspected first. But once she did, it would be nice to have a cozy fire snapping and crackling and keeping her warm on chilly nights.
On her right lay what she suspected had once been a formal dining room. She stepped inside it just as Rhonda turned a light on in the room adjacent to it, revealing a kitchen.
Yep. Definitely a dining room.
“Shall I show you around?” Rhonda asked brightly. A little too brightly, perhaps. The woman seemed nervous now that they were inside. “As you can see, there are hardwood floors throughout.”
Scuffed and faded hardwood floors that needed sanding, restaining, and Susan wasn’t sure what else to restore their former glory. That would be a big expense, because she wasn’t up to performing the task herself.
“This would make a great dining room,” Rhonda gushed. “And look at this spacious kitchen!”
It was spacious. And needed serious updating. “How old is the house?”
“It was built in 1943.” Smile still in place, Rhonda knocked on a cabinet door. “They built ’em strong back then. These are solid wood cabinets. Not that plywood crap they used in my place.”
Susan laughed. Solid wood was good. But like the floors, they needed some sanding and staining or a coat of paint at the very least. New hardware, too, but that was doable on her budget. Unfortunately, the countertops were Formica. Worn and stained. Warped in one place. Ideally, she’d like to replace those with granite. With so much square footage of countertop though, that was something she’d have to put off for at least a couple of years.
“What did you say you do for a living, dear?” Rhonda asked.
“I’m a writer,” Susan commented absently. And she would have to sell a hell of a lot of books to accrue enough royalties to replace those countertops. “How long has the house been on the market?” Since kitchens and bathrooms tended to sell homes these days, she wondered if this wasn’t one of the chief reasons the place hadn’t sold.
“Two years,” Rhonda admitted reluctantly. She patted the countertop near her and wrinkled her nose. “It could use some updating, huh?”
Susan nodded, mentally calculating the cost. New sink. New fixtures. New appliances all around, because that stove would have to go.
“It has a nice breakfast nook though, don’t you think?” Rhonda said, backing around the bar and waving her arm at the connecting room.
Hell, the breakfast nook was larger than the entire kitchen in Susan’s current abode.
As she followed Rhonda through the home, that odd feeling returned. The house waking up from a nap feeling. As though it were a living, breathing entity sluggishly opening its eyes and blearily following their progress through its domain.
It wasn’t a bad feeling. Or a creepy feeling. It was kind of hard for her to pin down. But she wondered if perhaps Rhonda felt it, too, because the woman steadily picked up speed as she showed Susan a kitchen pantry the size of a walk-in closet, a half bath that needed as much updating as the kitchen, then the four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs. The expense of the multitude of things Susan would have to do to turn this into her dream home far exceeded what she could afford to spend. And it would take years.
Disappointment settled upon her shoulders.
She had so hoped this would be the one. She desperately needed the peace and quiet this place could provide. And newer homes—even those half this size—parked on this much land were nearly impossible to find and way beyond her budget.
They returned to the ground floor. As Rhonda hustled her toward the front door, Jax dug in his heels and snuffled at the base of a closed door beneath the staircase.
Susan stopped. “What’s that? A closet?”
There was no mistaking the dread that filled Rhonda’s features then, though she tried very hard to keep her smile in place. “No, that leads to the basement.”
Susan’s eyebrows flew up. “The house has a basement?”
“Yes.”
She’d always wanted a basement. “Is that included in the square footage you gave me?”
“No.”
Cool. Bonus footage.
When Rhonda made no move to show it to her, Susan asked, “May I see it?”
“Of course,” the woman replied and crossed to the door. Why’d the dog have to stop, damn it? We were almost in the clear.
Susan blinked when that thought came through. It was the first unrehearsed thought she had picked up from the real estate agent since meeting her.
“Excuse me, cutie,” Rhonda told Jax, then opened the door.
Jax lurched forward, nearly knocking the woman down and yanking the leash right out of Susan’s hand.
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” Susan apologized as Jax clattered down the stairs into the darkness.
Rhonda grabbed the doorjamb and righted herself. “No problem, honey.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, then resolutely straightened her shoulders and peered through the dim doorway. You can do this.
Susan stared at her. Perhaps the basement was small and the woman was claustrophobic.
Or maybe basements just creeped her out.
Rhonda leaned her upper body in and felt around for the light switch as if she feared something would leap out and grab her. Light flickered on, illuminating the stairs. Giving Susan another of those false smiles, Rhonda stepped inside and clomped down the steps.
Ooookay. Susan followed. Wow! The basement was almost as huge as the first floor. But… “Oh.” She didn’t even try to hide her disappointment. “It has a dirt floor?”
Jax sure didn’t mind. He was racing around, nose to the ground, his breath raising little puffs of dust.
“A lot of the older homes around here do.” Rhonda remained by the staircase, poised for flight, while Susan walked around. “My brother-in-law bought a place with a basement like this. He hired a contractor to help him pour a concrete foundation, fixed the rest up, and turned the basement into a two-bedroom apartment. Ended up renting it for more than the cost of his monthly mortgage payments.”
Susan had no interest in renting any part of her home. The whole purpose of finding a place parked on a lot of land out in the middle of nowhere was to get away from people, not invite them in. “That would be way outside my budget.”
“Well, there’s certainly no harm in leaving it like this.”
Susan grunted. “Not if you don’t mind bugs and rodents and snakes in your basement.” No doubt that was why Jax was so excited. He had definitely caught something’s scent. He kept returning again and again to a central portion of the floor.
“I’ve never run into any critters while showing the house to other interested parties,” Rhonda replied. Not the ones who made it this far.
Susan wondered what that thought signified.
“If you see any, I’m sure an exterminator could get rid of them for you. I can give you the number of a good one,” Rhonda offered.
Crossing to Jax, Susan knelt beside him.
Wagging his tail, he woofed and scratched at the dirt.
“What’d you find, boy?” As she watched him, a strange compulsion s
eized her. Reaching down, she rested a hand on the ground—fingers splayed—and closed her eyes.
Peace settled upon her. As did a wondrous warmth that seemed to settle in her chest, then flowed outward to the rest of her body. Longing followed. But longing for what?
That’s right where they found them.
Susan’s eyes flew open when she caught that thought from Rhonda. The woman was definitely creeped out. Rising, Susan faced her. “You told me the woman who wants to sell it inherited it. Did the previous owners die here?”
Rhonda’s eyebrows rose. “What? No.”
“What happened to them?”
“Him,” she said, then shook her head. “The current owner’s cousin inherited it from his parents. But he was killed shortly thereafter.”
Susan frowned. “Here?”
“No. He worked for that big mercenary outfit that was destroyed a couple of years ago and was one of the casualties. Shadow something.”
Shadow River. Susan had heard about that. Apparently some disgruntled members of a private military company had bombed the hell out of the place and shot everyone in sight. It had been the biggest mass shooting in the country’s history.
She gave Rhonda a wry smile. “For a minute there I thought maybe he’d died here.”
Rhonda laughed. “No, honey. No one died here.” Her gaze strayed to the ground Jax continued to examine. It was weird though, what the workers found down here when they came to clear out the place. Two pairs of clothing laid out like chalk outlines at a crime scene. Socks tucked into the shoes. Underwear inside the belted pants. What looked like bloodstains on the lot of it.
Susan eyed the ground beneath her feet uneasily. Really?
Her unease abruptly morphed into warmth and peace and a strong feeling of well-being, coaxing her into shrugging it off. Maybe the guy had been a budding independent filmmaker or something. Her college roommate’s boyfriend had made two short films while she’d known them, and both had involved liberal amounts of stage blood.
She followed Rhonda back upstairs and waited on the front porch while the woman turned off all the lights, then locked the front door.
Awaken the Darkness Page 3