by Ally Blue
A sudden sound from behind him brought Sam abruptly out of his fantasy. He leapt to his feet and whirled around, tucking his rapidly softening cock back into his jeans and zipping up as he moved. He stood with his back against the porch rail, staring through the sheer curtains into his room. The darkness inside seemed unnaturally thick. His heart thumped painfully against his ribs.
The sound didn’t come again. Several minutes passed before Sam dared to move. He edged toward the parlor door, went inside and hurried toward the stairs. He almost laughed. Hearing that horribly familiar sound might have frightened him, but at least it killed any lingering sexual thoughts. His mind was now utterly taken over by the memory of that deep, menacing voice—and he was positive that’s what it was—occurring for the second time in his room.
He tried not to notice its juxtaposition to what he’d been doing. If the things that had been happening were somehow tied to his thoughts, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Sam wandered downstairs with the vague idea of making a cup of warm milk to help him sleep. He smiled, remembering how his mother used to do that when he was a child and woke from one of his frequent nightmares.
Maybe they weren’t nightmares. Maybe the things you thought you saw were real after all.
Sam stopped in the middle of the foyer, thunderstruck by the thought. It had been decades since he’d believed in the reality of the creatures that had once haunted his nights. He’d gladly accepted his mother’s gentle insistence that they were nothing more than bad dreams. The idea that his five-year-old self may have been right was hugely unsettling.
The sounds of low voices broke into his thoughts. He frowned when he recognized Amy’s pleading tones, followed by Andre’s frustrated growl. They were clearly arguing over something. Sam reluctantly abandoned his plans and headed back to the staircase as quietly as he could.
He hadn’t gotten more than a few steps when Amy came storming through the archway that led from the foyer to the downstairs parlor. She stopped and blinked in surprise at Sam. He was startled to see that her eyes were red and swollen.
“Amy,” Sam said awkwardly. “What’s wrong?”
Her lips started to tremble. She pressed them tightly together, shook her head and ran up the stairs. Sam stared after her, uncertain whether or not he should follow and make sure she was all right.
“Sam. I thought I heard your voice.”
Sam turned. Andre stood in the archway, hands shoved into his shorts’ pockets, wide shoulders hunched. “Sorry,” Sam said. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I didn’t realize anyone was down here.”
Andre shrugged. “‘S okay. So what’re you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I thought I might make some warm milk. My mom swears by it to help you sleep,” Sam added in response to Andre’s questioning look.
Andre nodded, obviously only half-listening. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep either. Amy woke up and followed me down here.” His gaze strayed to the stairs, a worried crease between his eyes.
“What did y’all fight about?” Sam asked. “You don’t have to tell me. But you can. I won’t say anything to anyone else.”
“I had another dream, right after we went to bed tonight. Worst one yet. I dreamed we couldn’t get out, just like Cecile did, and those things killed us all.” Andre pushed at the edge of the throw rug with one bare foot. “Amy wants us to leave. She’s scared that something’s gonna happen to me.”
Sam watched Andre’s face. “Are you going to?”
“I can’t. I understand that it might be dangerous, but I can’t leave. Not now. I feel like I’m so close to understanding what it all means.” Andre raised his head and met Sam’s eyes. “I’d go if I seriously thought Amy was in danger. I just can’t see it coming to that. You know what I mean?”
“I think I do.” Sam glanced toward the stairs, then back at Andre. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.”
Andre raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? Let’s hear it.”
“We’ve got this huge library here that we haven’t even looked through.” Sam waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the library behind him. “We’re both up, and I’m thinking you don’t feel like sleeping any more than I do. What say we dig through the library and see if we can come up with anything that might help us understand what’s been happening here? Maybe some of the previous owners left some books here that would be useful.”
Andre grinned. “It’s worth a shot. Let’s do it.”
Three hours later they lay sprawled on the library floor, surrounded by books and magazines. The library turned out to contain a great many scientific volumes, as well as several issues of an early 1970s parapsychology journal called The Boundary. A quick perusal of the magazine revealed a publication so close to the lunatic fringe as to be nearly useless. Andre guessed that the magazines must have belonged to Josephine Royce, the still-missing woman who’d been the last owner to experience paranormal phenomena in Oleander House. He’d figured they could gain insight into Josephine’s mindset by skimming the magazines.
Sam’s eyelids had begun to droop when Andre suddenly sat straight up and nudged his shoulder. “Listen to this,” Andre said, his voice tight with excitement. “It says here that an unusually strong electromagnetic field can cause temporal lobe hallucinations.”
“What book is that?” Sam asked, stifling a yawn. “And what the hell are temporal lobe hallucinations?”
Andre flipped the book over and squinted at the scuffed cover. “The book’s called The Mind and the Spirit. It’s about paranormal phenomena and the role that the human mind has to play in them.” He flipped through the first couple of pages. “The author has a dual doctorate in psychology and theoretical physics. Wow.”
Sam sat up and peered over Andre’s shoulder at the daunting string of titles behind the author’s name. “Pretty impressive. How old’s this book?”
“Not very. Copyright’s 1997.” Andre frowned. “A visitor must’ve left this here. The house was open to the public when this book was published.”
Sam leaned back on his hands. “You think that might be what’s going on? Hallucinations?”
“Maybe.” Andre snapped the book shut and set it on the floor. “I gotta say, that would be a load off my mind.”
“I hear you. And it makes sense, except for one thing.” Sam picked up an issue of The Boundary and idly flipped the pages. “Hallucinations don’t show up on film.”
Andre made an impatient noise. “Maybe there’s not really anything there at all. Maybe we’re all seeing things that aren’t there. Mass hallucination is possible. It’s a documented phenomenon.”
Sam almost laughed. The half-angry, half-pleading look on Andre’s face stopped him. “Maybe,” he said softly. “I sure would like that better than it being real.” That much was true, at least. Sam heartily wished he could believe the things he’d experienced were all in his mind.
Andre stood, yawned and stretched. “Think I’m gonna go grab a couple hours sleep before I have to face Amy again.”
Sam chuckled. “I bet she’s fierce when she gets on a crusade, huh?”
“You got that right,” Andre said with feeling. “She’ll calm down after I explain what I found, though. Hallucinations can’t hurt you as long as you remember they’re not real and just ignore them.”
Sam refrained from pointing out that whatever had bitten and killed that child had certainly been no hallucination. He figured Amy would make that quite clear. “I think I’ll stay up and look through some more of these copies of The Boundary.”
“Okay. See you in a few hours, I guess.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Andre shuffled off toward the stairs. Sam settled onto the sofa to scan the collection of magazines.
It was not relaxing reading. Even though The Boundary clearly was not a respectable scientific journal, some of the things Sam found there hit uncomfortably close to home. Especially the article, complete with lurid photos, about a girl who’d allegedly been shredd
ed by an invisible attacker while having sex with her boyfriend. The boyfriend was found covered in her blood, non-verbal and almost completely unresponsive. The young man committed suicide three months later in the hospital, claiming in the note he scrawled in his own blood on the wall that what killed the girl had come through him from somewhere else.
It sounded far too much like the history of Oleander House. Sam tried not to think of its similarity to his own first paranormal experience. He dropped the magazine on the floor and picked up the next one.
A yellowed scrap of paper was wedged between the pages about halfway through. Curious, Sam pulled it out and unfolded it. His jaw dropped open when he saw the words scrawled in large, ragged letters across the torn and stained paper.
We never should have come back. Lily was so angry with me when she found out that we were going to Oleander House instead of New Orleans like I’d promised her, that I’d bribed the caretaker for the key and we were essentially breaking in. I should have known then that it was wrong. But I was drawn here, drawn like a magnet, and even now I find that I can’t leave. Or maybe I can’t leave now because Lily will never leave here again, and I brought her to this fate.
It got Lily today. Came right through and got her. My Lily, I told you to stop shouting at me, I told you the door OPENS when I’m angry, but you wouldn’t listen, you never did, and what am I to do now? They won’t believe me. They’ll lock me up like the boy in that article.
Unless they don’t find me. Unless the door swings in both directions.
If anyone finds this note, please know that I never harmed her. It was something else, and I think I’ve gone to find it.
Forgive me, Lily. Maybe I deserve to suffer for what happened to you, and maybe I will suffer. But God help me, I have to know.
Josephine
“Oh my God,” Sam whispered, staring wide-eyed at the paper in his hand. Josephine Royce’s last communication with the world.
Chapter Thirteen
Sam spent the next hour frantically leafing through the remaining issues of the journal and several books. The hope that Josephine had left further clues as to hers and Lily’s fates was a slim one, and ultimately proved fruitless. A few books and magazines had notes scrawled into the margins, but none looked like the same handwriting and Sam couldn’t make them out anyway. Finally, he plopped into the big leather chair with a sigh.
Closing his eyes, he promised himself that he’d rest for only a few minutes, then start looking again. Just a quick rest, to clear his head and soothe the dryness from his eyes…
Someone was screaming. Shrieking, actually, the sound high and wild with agony. It stirred something primitive and bloodthirsty in him. He looked down at the naked man pinned underneath him, legs over his shoulders. The man’s face was shrouded in shadow. His body thrashed and bucked with desperate strength. Sam responded by pounding into his unknown partner savagely hard.
The volume of the screams increased. He looked between their bodies. Blood flowed from his partner’s anus with every thrust of his cock. Which, he realized with a shock, was covered in short, cruelly sharp spines. He ripped free of the man’s body with a roar that he didn’t recognize as his own voice. Blood flew in a hot shower, inundating his face and chest, the sharp copper smell of it blazing through his brain. His claws dug into his doomed lover’s abdomen, the screaming peaked and went silent, and he came, his semen mingling with the blood…
Sam woke with a shout, covered in a cold sweat, his pulse throbbing in his ears. He scrambled to his feet, trying to stare into every corner at once. The library suddenly seemed cramped and full of shadows.
“Goddamn,” Sam swore, running a shaking hand over his face. He took a deep breath and let it out. Some of the horror of the dream drained away with it. “These fucking dreams,” he declared aloud, “are gonna kill me.”
At least he wasn’t hard, he realized with a profound sense of relief. The thought of being aroused by the horrific dream was beyond disturbing.
He glanced at the clock. Almost five a.m. Sam sighed. He wanted to go upstairs, crawl into bed and sleep the day away. His brain felt fuzzy and slow with exhaustion. The possibility of the dream he’d just had recurring was what drove him to haul a pile of books to the table and start reading again.
Somewhere in this vast collection of books and magazines, Sam felt sure he would find something to shed light on Josephine’s cryptic message. He yawned and rubbed his eyes as he opened a text on the nature of space-time and started skimming the pages.
A hand glided down Sam’s chest, over his belly, between his legs. He moaned and pushed his hips against the maddeningly soft touch. The fingers trailed teasingly across his inner thigh, then back up to pinch a nipple so hard he yelped. Sam opened his eyes. Bo stood over him, straddling his knees, unbound hair hanging down to curtain his face. Sam’s breath hitched. Bo bent lower, Sam rose to meet him, and their mouths fused together, hard and hot and hungry. Sam moaned over and over with the pleasure of it.
“I want you,” Bo whispered. “Please, Sam. Sam, Sam please, Sam please…”
“…wake up! Sam!”
Sam jerked awake, head snapping up from the table where he’d evidently fallen asleep again. He blinked blearily at the unexpected vision of Bo kneeling on the floor beside him, one hand on his shoulder and a mix of amusement and worry in his eyes.
“Christ, must’ve fallen asleep,” Sam mumbled. “What time’s it?”
“Almost one p.m.,” Bo answered. “I wouldn’t have woken you, but you were…well…”
Sam got the point. He’d obviously been moaning—or worse, talking—in his sleep. His face flamed with embarrassment. “Sorry. This dream was, um, different.”
“I gathered.” Bo’s gaze flicked down to Sam’s crotch and back up again. He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t have to. Sam felt his embarrassment begin to dissolve in a wash of desire.
Sam shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “Has everyone gone to Gautier yet?”
“Yeah.” Bo rose to his feet in one fluid motion. “They left at about eight. They should be back in another hour or so, actually. We thought we could do the storm cellar and the family cemetery today.”
“Sounds good.”
In the awkward quiet that followed, Sam toyed nervously with the pages of the book lying open on the table, trying not to notice that Bo’s crotch was less than a foot from his face.
Bo cleared his throat and backed up a pace. “So. You, uh, want something to eat? There’s a few waffles left over from breakfast, or there’s sliced turkey for sandwiches.”
Sam found it both irritating and exhilarating that Bo seemed so nervous to be alone in the house with him. “I’ll heat up those waffles in a little bit,” he said with a tight smile. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” Bo glanced around at the books and magazines spread out across the table. “What were you doing?”
“Reading.” Sam stood and stretched. Bo’s gaze raked down his body, making his skin tingle. “Andre was too, before he went up to bed. We figured with a collection this size, maybe there would be something that could shed some light on what’s been happening here.”
“And did you find anything?”
“Andre found a scientific text that said high electromagnetic fields can cause temporal lobe hallucinations. He thinks that might be what’s going on.”
Bo scratched absently at his chin. “Hm. It’s a documented side effect, that’s true. But I’m not inclined to think it’s the cause of the phenomena here.”
“Because of the pictures and the video.”
“Exactly. Plus hallucinations don’t usually occur with EMF readings at the levels we’ve found here. It’s only been documented at levels much higher.” Bo picked up a copy of The Boundary and started flipping the pages. “I didn’t know these were here. This thing went out of circulation in the early eighties.”
“These particular issues are from the late sixties and early seventies.” Sam grinned. “And yo
u’ll never guess what I found in one of them.”
Bo’s eyebrows went up. “Well? What is it?”
Sam retrieved the sheet of notebook paper from the book where he’d placed it carefully between the pages. He held it out to Bo. “Here. Read this.”
Their fingers brushed when Bo took the paper. Bo licked his lips, the tip of his tongue resting for a moment at the corner of his mouth, and Sam nearly groaned out loud. He wondered if Bo had any idea how sexy that looked. He pulled his hand back and tore his gaze from Bo’s mouth before his privates could get too interested.
Bo’s eyes went wide as he scanned the short note. “Where did you find this?”
“Stuck in one of those magazines.” Sam waved a hand at the pile on the table. “I looked through all of them, and a bunch of books too. If she left anything else, I didn’t find it.”
Bo glanced up at Sam. “What do you think she’s talking about when she mentions this door? I’ve never heard of anything quite like that.”
Sam remembered the skin-crawling sensation of something alien moving through him and wondered. “I’m not sure. I thought I’d do some more reading in here, maybe I can figure it out.”
“Good idea.”
Silence fell. They stood staring at each other. Bo’s eyes burned with a longing Sam could feel in his bones. Sam took a step forward, drawn by the lust and need on Bo’s face. He lifted a hand to touch Bo’s cheek. Bo made a soft, startled sound, but didn’t pull away. Sam moved closer, his heart racing. The mix of heat and vulnerability in Bo’s eyes made Sam want to hold and protect him, kiss away his fears and tell him everything would be all right.
The unfamiliar urge shocked him. He’d never felt this tender toward any of his past lovers, and he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.
Bo swallowed audibly as Sam’s fingers trailed down his throat. “Sam, please…”
Sam couldn’t tell if Bo was pleading with him to stop, or to take it further. He wondered if Bo himself knew which he was asking.
He didn’t get the chance to find out. Sam was actually leaning toward Bo, lips parted, when the front door opened. He jumped back, adrenaline coursing through him. He and Bo both turned toward the archway into the foyer.