by Jude Hardin
Gone was the voice of the little girl. The big deep evil voice was back.
“I can’t breathe,” John said. Psychedelic dots danced in front of his eyes. He was on the verge of passing out.
He staggered to the door, slung it open, filled his lungs with the sweet cool night air. When his left foot hit the stoop, the earsplitting scream of a jet turbine sounded from behind and a swirling cyclone of negative pressure sucked him backward.
Lisa Whitaker’s house inhaled John Rock like a dust particle. He landed back in the hallway on the smoldering wood floor.
John immediately felt blisters forming on his ass and the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands. The floor wasn’t on fire anymore, but it was still hot as a griddle. He rolled away from the searing heat, back toward the living room.
He stood, teetering, and felt for the pistol, which wasn’t there. He switched on the overhead light and started looking around, but he didn’t see it anywhere. A wave of dizziness washed over him and a black aperture choked his peripheral vision and he fell to the couch wheezing and coughing and reeling from vertigo. He tried to muster the strength to get back up, but could not.
“I’m here.”
John recognized the voice. It was Mildred, the benevolent spirit from the hospital.
“Where have you been?” John said. “I thought you were going to protect Jana.”
“I tried, but once Tori merged with her mother—”
“She’s a super-entity,” John said. “Right?”
“No, she’s not a super. But she latched onto Jana before I could intervene. Now that Tori’s spirit has merged with the spirit of her mother, she’s virtually unstoppable. And I’m afraid the only way to separate the two is to free both from the physical realm.”
“That’s what I thought,” John said. “Jana Lorry has to die.”
“If you can take care of that part, I can do the rest,” Mildred said.
John looked around again for the pistol. He finally spotted it, resting on the base of the floor lamp. He rolled off the sofa, crawled to the lamp, lifted the gun and picked it up.
The house was quiet now. Tori had expended a lot of energy creating the storm that had sucked John back in. She was a powerful entity but, according to Mildred, not a super-entity. She’d used a lot of power, and she needed time to recharge. That’s why nothing was happening at the moment. That was John Rock’s theory. He was banking on it.
John didn’t have the strength to stand. He grabbed the quilt from the back of the couch, used it for a buffer against the heat as he belly-crawled into the hallway and toward the bedroom. It was only a matter of time until Tori regained her full powers. Once that happened, John Rock was toast. He didn’t stand a chance against her, not even with the gun.
He inched his way forward, made it to the door, pushed on it with his free hand. The door creaked open. The lights were off, but a greenish glow illuminated the room. Like looking through night vision goggles. John saw Lisa Whitaker tied to the bed. She was breathing, but she didn’t sound good. Wheezy in, raspy out. She sounded like she was going to die soon.
John scanned the room. There were only two places Jana could be. Under the bed, or in the closet. The clearance from the floor to the bedframe was only about six inches. Under the bed would have been tight, even for little Jana. John guessed she was in the closet. He didn’t hesitate. He aimed the pistol and squeezed the trigger. It was the only way. The pistol boomed like a cannon in the small, enclosed space. He fired six times in quick succession, blew six holes in various points on the closet door. Waited. Nothing happened.
John figured the Glock held at least fifteen rounds. Still plenty of firepower left. Not that it did him any good. A few seconds after he splintered the closet door, a scorching branch of blue current arced from beneath the bed and zapped the gun out of John Rock’s hand. It skittered across the floor, out of reach.
Using the body of her mother Jana, Tori Lorry scooted from beneath the bed. She rose and stood there with her hands on her hips, looking down on John Rock.
“And so we finally meet face-to-face,” she said. “Sorry it couldn’t have been under more pleasant circumstances.”
“Don’t you think you and your sister have destroyed enough lives for one day, Tori? Mildred is here to escort you home. I want you to go with her now.”
Tori laughed. “Like that’s really going to happen. I have a few more names on my list before I even think about going anywhere. But first I need to get your pesky ass out of the way, Mr. John Rock.”
There was a mop bucket on the floor by the nightstand. Tori reached into it and pulled out a long kitchen knife. A butcher knife. Eight-inch blade.
This is it, John thought. She was going to stab him to death, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was too weak to fight, too weak to make any attempt at saving himself. Tori raised the knife over her head with both hands, and as she came down to thrust it into his back and send him to an early grave, her skull split apart with a sickening wet sound and a blob of bone and brain splattered on the wall behind the bed.
Jana Lorry’s lifeless body collapsed to the floor. Behind her, sitting upright on the bed, was Lisa Whitaker holding a baseball bat.
“Louisville Slugger,” she said. “It’s a present for my grandson.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A misty red fog hovered over the room, and a little girl voice said, “Why does everybody hate me?”
And then Tori was gone.
John felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from him. As though a tidal wave had dragged him under and had held him down, but at the last minute had delivered him safely to dry land.
“I need to go to the hospital,” Lisa said.
There was a wooden ball protruding from her left breast, the handle of an ice pick or an awl or something.
“I’ll call nine-one-one on my way out,” John said.
“You need to go too. You don’t look so hot.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Who are you, anyway?” Lisa said. “You save my life. You’re a hero.”
“And you saved mine,” John said. “So we’re even.”
He coaxed Lisa to a lying position, gave her a towel to press on the wound. On his way to the front door, he stopped at the wall phone in the kitchen and called emergency services.
He climbed into the Toyota Corolla he’d stolen at Walmart, headed for the interstate. He stopped for gas once and a cup of coffee, and in six hours he was four hundred miles away.
John doubted the police were going to be very understanding about everything that had happened. About him assaulting a cop and taking his weapon. About him abducting Officer Kelly and escaping from the jail in her police car. About him stealing a car and then showing up at another murder scene. If John had waited around at Lisa Whitaker’s house, the police would have undoubtedly arrested him. And some of the charges would have resulted in convictions.
John Rock had been in jail before. Not his cup of tea.
John hated it that Jana Lorry had to die. As far as John was concerned, she was as innocent as any of the other victims Lori and Tori had assassinated. They were all gone from this world now, but John knew that their spirits lived on. Maybe someday one of them would even come back and say hello. John hoped so. Most of his experiences with the spiritual world had been pleasant ones.
John wasn’t sure what the future held for him. He was penniless now, and he was a fugitive from the law. He didn’t even have his backpack anymore. He would be starting from scratch.
But that was OK. He was alive and free, and he knew secrets about the universe that most people couldn’t even fathom.
John Rock would find his way. He always did.
The car finally sputtered to a stop on the shoulder, and John got out and started walking.
Thanks
Thanks so much for reading!
For periodic updates and special offers, please sign up for my newsletter at http://e
epurl.com/zn1XD, or visit my website at http://judehardinbooks.com/
These stories are standalone, but I also write the Nicholas Colt thriller series, which includes seven full-length novels. In order, they are: COLT, POCKET-47, CROSSCUT, SNUFF TAG 9, KEY DEATH, BLOOD TATTOO, and SYCAMORE BLUFF.
If you enjoy lightning-paced action and adventure, please check out iSEAL, the first book in a brand new series of techno-thrillers.
All of my books are lendable, so feel free to share them with a friend at no additional cost.
All reviews are much appreciated!
3 TERRIFYING THRILLERS
Copyright © 2014 by Jude Hardin
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
RATTLED Cover Design by Melody Simmons of eBookindiecovers
BAD NURSE Cover Design by Nicole Spence at Cover Shot Creations
GHOST Cover Design by Keri Knutson at Alchemy Bookcovers and Design
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
Table of Contents
RATTLED
BAD NURSE Lisa Thursday Morning, Hallows Cove
Jason Thursday Morning, Hallows Cove
Jason Thursday Morning, St. Augustine
Danielle Thursday Morning, St. Augustine
Jason Thursday Morning, St. Augustine
Trey Saturday Night, Hallows Cove
Jason Saturday Night, Hallows Cove
Lisa Saturday Night, Hallows Cove
Mark Sunday Morning, Key West
Danielle Sunday Morning, St. Augustine
Mark Sunday Afternoon, Key West
Danielle Sunday Night, St. Augustine
Mark Sunday Night, Key West
Danielle Sunday Night, St. Augustine
Mark Sunday Night, Key West
Jason Sunday Night, St. Augustine
Mark Sunday Night, Key West
Jason Sunday Night, Hallows Cove
Mark Monday Morning, Key West
Danielle Monday Morning, St. Augustine
Lisa Monday morning, St. Augustine
Danielle Monday morning, St. Augustine
Mark Monday morning, Key West
Jason Monday morning, Hallows Cove
Danielle Monday night, Hallows Cove
Mark Monday night, Hallows Cove
Lisa
Danielle
Jason
Danielle
Lisa
Danielle
Lisa
Mark
Danielle
Jason
Danielle Six weeks later, somewhere over Arkansas
GHOST CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THANKS