Darkness Echoes: A Spooky YA Short Story Collection

by L. A. Starkey

  With that horrid image pervading my brain, I escape into the kitchen, mumbling excuses about making coffee or some such rubbish. Taylor follows me – apparently “to help” – and while Ben is conversing with my mother-suddenly-turned-cougar in the other room, my bff is on the warpath.

  I’ve barely stepped into the walk-in pantry to look for the coffee capsules or beans or whatever we have as I don’t drink the stuff because it tastes too bitter when, abruptly, Taylor grabs my arm and pulls me behind the doorframe.

  ‘OMG, Evee! Okay, spill!’ she hisses at me as if I’ve been hiding Ben in my remodeled-basement-Red-Room. ‘Who is he? How do you know him? What’s he like? Why were you at his place? OMG! You guys didn’t happen to … um … you know?’

  ‘No! As if!’ I exclaim hotly in answer to her last question.

  ‘My bad!’ she casually apologizes. Then, slyly looking at me, adds, ‘But I’m just saying, if you wanted to like … pop your cherry … you could do a whole lot worse!’

  My eyes widen at her crude statement. Typical Taylor. Always so blasé when it comes to sex. I wish I could be as relaxed about it.

  I don’t want to look at Ben. But I can’t help myself. I stick my head out to look at him.

  ‘Don’t look. He’ll think we’re checking him out,’ she whispers.

  Like we’re not? We’re perving on a hot guy as a potential candidate to lose my virginity to; I’d call that checking him out. I roll my eyes at her, even though she’s standing behind me and can’t see.

  ‘Just act natural,’ Taylor advises, poking her head out next to mine.

  Natural? I feel like some crazy stalker girl with nothing but sex on my brain – which is confirmed when Ben looks up and catches me peeking out at him from behind the pantry doorframe, his green eyes alight as if he knows what I’m thinking – and I flush a ferocious shade of beetroot red and quickly pull back, my heart pounding.

  Taylor, at least, has the presence of mind to pretend that she’s not checking him out but simply checking in. ‘Ah, just wondering whether you prefer decaf? Or a chai latte instead?’

  Ben’s answer is predictable. ‘Just make it black and strong. No sugar. Thanks.’

  Taylor looks back at me over her shoulder and mouths, ‘OMG! He’s got the voice of a sex god.’

  Yes, but he’s my sex god, so hands and eyes off. The thought just pops into my head. And suddenly I feel like the ground has fallen out from under me.

  I’ve fallen for him. I’ve fallen for Bentley Martin-Crane. I’ve fallen for a guy who hunts monsters.

  I’ve fallen for a guy who has barely spoken to me since our unromantic cemetery clash.

  It’s true. I really am insane.

  Chapter Eleven

  Someone is downstairs.

  I wake up to silence but my heart is frantically pounding, practically leaping out of my chest. Some sixth sense, some intuition, has kicked in and I’m bathed in sweat and fear. It’s so bad, I can feel the rawness of the night air against my skin causing goose bumps to break out as the perspiration dries.

  I hastily turn on my side and look at the clock.

  It’s just after three in the morning.

  I have a vague memory of tumbling into bed almost immediately after Ben and Taylor left my house around ten thirty last night. We never got to finish the movie but I didn’t really care by that point. I don’t think I contributed much to the conversation either since making my earth-shattering discovery about my feelings for Ben. I think my mumbled replies had my mom and Ben eyeing me in concern more than once because I was acting strange.

  Taylor, on the other hand, had been completely oblivious to the tension. She did her best to extract information from Ben about himself but without much success. He’s not the type to join hands around a campfire and openly share with strangers.

  The only thing I remember clearly is that, at one point, Ben looked at me with his clear green eyes for just a fraction of a second and in that brief flash his expression held a touch of frustration and something else, something indefinable, which made me drop my eyes in a flush of hot embarrassment.

  Later, in bed after they’d left, I listened to my playlist on iTunes and tried to sort out my feelings. Like every night this past week, I let the music put me to sleep, my body almost immediately shutting down from the stress of the day.

  But now my earlier exhaustion has worn off and I feel unnaturally alert and edgy.

  Slowly shoving aside the covers, I slip out of bed and look around for a weapon of some sort to arm myself with before going downstairs to investigate. I pad barefoot to my desk – but there are only notebooks and pens and my laptop littering its surface, and the most dangerous objects in the top drawer are a cute Hello Kitty stapler – a birthday present from a friend in fifth grade and shoved right at the back of the drawer – and a pair of scissors for scrapbooking.

  I take the scissors. It’s better than nothing.

  But then it hits me.

  I left that bloody book downstairs on the hallway table after Ben returned it last night. I curse myself a millions times over, calling myself every name on the planet, but I can’t undo my mistake. My only consolation is that if someone takes it, they won’t be able to unlock its secrets either. But I can’t even be sure of that.

  In the space of a second, I think about Ben. I wonder what he would do in my situation. Then I kick myself for being all kinds of stupid as I remember he’s a Hunter and wouldn’t even hesitate to rush into danger.

  It stiffens my resolve.

  I clutch the scissors tightly in my right hand and make my way to the top of the stairs. Mom’s bedroom door is closed and I guess she’s asleep. I hope she’s asleep.

  I decide to check.

  I push open her door. She stirs but doesn’t wake. She looks real small, huddled under the covers. Sometimes I forget how petite she is because she’s so forceful in her views, or maybe it’s because she took over being both mother and father to me when Dad disappeared, so that it was like having two parents in one small package.

  I close the door silently and continue on.

  Moonlight bathes the stairwell in waves of bluish-white; the shadows of the wooden balusters undulating across the wall like sea snakes in a strange underwater scene. I feel like a swimmer or a deep sea diver as I slowly and quietly descend the stairs which now seem completely foreign to me. It’s as if I’m descending into a different world, another realm.

  Crouching low, I pause on the last step and sweep my eyes across the entrance hall from left to right. Nothing moves. All is silent.

  The hush of the house seems a living, breathing thing. I recognize it now – it’s like the house is waiting for something or someone to return. It seems … pensive. And sad. My stomach sinks a little at the thought.

  But then I breathe a sigh of relief, the air rushing out of my lungs in one big whoosh, as I notice Ichabod’s book still lying right where Ben dumped it on the hall table.

  And yet … something isn’t quite right. In fact, it’s the opposite. Something feels really, really wrong.

  Unexpectedly, the hallway is plunged into a darkness lit only by the cold, wan, filtered light of the moon barely penetrating the opaque glass windows framing the front door. Intuition tells me that this isn’t natural.

  I give my eyes a moment to adjust to the dead night and then make my way across the hall to hastily grab Ichabod’s book, clutching it protectively to my chest whilst still brandishing the scissors. It’s heavy and cumbersome. And worse; it feels like there’s a current of pure psychic energy, a wavelength of supernatural power, shifting ominously within the coven’s relic. It stirs all my senses.

  The hair on the nape of my neck lifts in excitement and anticipation and my heart beats faster, more erratically. Surprisingly, I can feel every person who has ever touched this book. Their fingerprints have left a strange deposit – some of it is earthy and wholesome and benevolent, some of it unnatural and sickening and disturbing – as if they tried
to bend the will of the book to theirs. But, of course, that’s just crazy. It’s just a book. It doesn’t have a will of its own. Does it?

  I can’t think about this right now. I need a place to stash it while I investigate the disturbance of energy emanating from somewhere in my house.

  Thinking hard, I come to a quick solution. Where else would you stash a book but with other books? It’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack of needles. There’s a thousand books in my dad’s study, what difference is one more going to make? And who’s going to notice?

  In the shadows, I see flickering silhouettes of the outstretched tree branches creeping over the floorboards. The skin on my arms prickle in awareness as I clutch the book and the scissors tighter and know that I am being watched. For the first time, panic skitters across my senses.

  I move quickly down the corridor and round the threshold, managing to collide against the edge of my dad’s solid mahogany desk as I enter the unlit study.

  ‘Ouch! Bloody hell!’ There’s going to be a colorful bruise on my thigh in the morning.

  Not bothering to turn on the light, I roughly shove Ichabod’s treasured book in between some other leather-bound tomes of similar size and quietly back out of the room. As soon as the book has left my hand, the mystical energy abates and the strongest and oldest emotions imprinted onto the book – the rage and vengeance and heartache and despair – ease. I suddenly feel like I can breathe again.

  I rub my thigh distractedly and take a tentative step out into the corridor, scanning the darkness for movement.

  It appears empty.

  There is a stillness at the other end of the corridor, opening out to the family room and kitchen and the comfy sofa which I was hoping never to leave earlier this evening. I study the darkness carefully, searching for anything that seems off.

  I’m not normally a wary or nervous person, so the conflict I’m feeling about continuing down the corridor is unusual for me. But I know I can’t dither here forever.

  Straightening my shoulders, I brandish the scissors in front of me and move stealthily forward.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a shadow detach itself from the shadows and I give a violent start. My head snaps around. My eyes wide, mouth open on a silent scream, as it lunges for me.

  And then instinct takes over – all those lessons learnt at the gym and at cheerleading practice and during kick boxing classes – and I shoot a roundhouse kick hard at my attacker. It lands exactly where I place it – solidly in my opponent’s midriff.

  ‘Oomph.’

  He clutches his middle, hunching over slightly.

  Not stopping to think, I strike again. Keeping up the onslaught. Side kick to the thigh. Now a quick jab with my left fist and a cross with my right – but wielding the scissors.

  It never connects.

  ‘Freaking hell! Are you crazy?’ He presses me against the opposite wall, using his body to restrain me, one hand encircling my wrist as he disarms me of my weapon.

  A strange sensation twists through me. I know my assailant.

  ‘Ben?’ I whisper, bewildered.

  ‘Who else did you think it would be?’ he growls low in his throat.

  I don’t bothering answering; he should know. Instead, I say, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m your protector.’ It explains everything and nothing simultaneously.

  He still hasn’t let go of my wrist and his body is pressed up against mine. Maybe he thinks I’m going to attack him again, who knows? But I can feel every part of him. It’s like in the cemetery but, at the same time, nothing like the episode in the cemetery. Because I only have on the thin cotton nightie and a pair of boy-cut briefs which I prefer to wear to bed, meaning I’m practically naked and entirely too aware of him.

  He is drenched in shadow and the icy shade of the moon, and I can’t see his green eyes. But I can sense them on me.

  Something shifts between us. And I just want to blend into him and feel his lips on mine. He touches his forehead to mine, not pulling away. I can hardly breathe – but who needs oxygen anyway? It’s completely overrated. I’ve been waiting for this moment forever, it seems.

  ‘Evee.’

  I freeze.

  And it’s not in anticipation of Ben’s kiss. Because it wasn’t Ben who just said my name.

  Shock tightens everything inside me, as over Ben’s shoulder I see the last thing I expect to see. My dad.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ben’s reflexes are lightning fast.

  There’s a scary-looking weapon in his hand – drawn from where it was tucked into the jeans at his waist, obviously at his back as I didn’t feel any weapon pressing into me – and he whirls to face my father, ready to release it.

  It takes only a second – everything happening in a blur.

  Somehow, I am able to grab at Ben’s arm and force it down infinitesimally the moment before the blade flies from his hand. But that’s all that’s needed. Because of me, his aim is slightly off.

  The blade embeds itself into the doorframe – a few millimeters to the right and it would have stabbed my father straight through his eye socket.

  ‘Daddy!’ I exclaim and feel Ben stiffen beside me.

  As he curses, retrieving his blade from the wood where it’s now left a ghastly hole, taking a chunk of the doorframe with it that will freak my mother out if – correction: when – she sees it, I launch myself into my father’s arms.

  He gives me a quick, close hug, crushing me to him as if he never wants to let me go, and says, ‘Evee, munchkin, I only have a moment. It’s getting harder to make the crossing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, pulling back to look up at him, confusion written on my face. I notice how he’s suddenly aged; there are lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth. He looks older. Worn down.

  ‘Between the realms,’ Ben speaks up, having sheathed his blade. He seems surprisingly accepting of my dad’s unexpected appearance, but I guess that’s what it means to be a Hunter. ‘It only happens when the veil that separates our world, the world of the living, from the netherworld thins at certain times in the cycle due to cosmic phases and fluctuations. It’s what makes your father’s appearance here possible. But it’s also what allows the Hessian to come into the land of the living to steal the souls of Brom’s descendants.’

  I recall what Ben’s mother had told me about the blood moons and blue moons we’ve been experiencing this year and how some people believe these cosmic occurrences signal the Armageddon. For the first time, I realize that Dr. Martin-Crane and her coven have been easier on me than I deserve, given the urgency and dire nature of the situation.

  ‘What happens when the souls are taken?’ I ask, fearing the answer.

  ‘They are lost or trapped here forever.’ His eyes reflect the dancing flames that are part of the netherworld, but I cannot see them in this realm.

  I didn’t even know it was possible to imprison a soul beyond the realm of the living and not-quite dead. Again, a crushing sense of guilt bears down upon me. I feel myself shaking and start to silently cry. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop anything that’s happening.

  I feel lost and alone. All I want to do is survive and get my life back – just to get through another day, another week, beyond Halloween.

  But Dad is giving me instructions. ‘You must find a way to guard the souls and defeat the evil sent to steal them from the living. And if you cannot do this, for I, myself, failed in my duty, you must at least keep the evil at bay, to lock it away for another cycle or longer.’

  Beyond him, I can hear a child wailing. And then it is joined by many voices; more than just the few people I’ve been informed about who have been attacked by the headless, soul-stealing fiend. And I understand that these are Brom’s many descendants. And the weight of their souls and his own sense of failure must be unbearable upon my father.

  Abruptly, I feel a strong tug, a force that wishes to leach my spirit. I mentally struggle and
exert my will and, sluggishly, I am able to drag my senses back to the living world. A slight feeling of nausea overcomes me and I want to dry retch.

  Slowly, my father pushes me away from him and a wintry mist begins to rise from his death-chilled body, spreading outwards. Ben’s arms come up to encircle me and he pulls me farther away. The heels of his boots crackle and crunch on the frost lying upon the floorboards as he steps back, taking me with him.

  Swiping away tears from my eyes, I hesitate before I ask, ‘How am I supposed to do this? How can I save them? I’m not you. I’m not trained like you. I’m just … me.’

  I’m nothing. A nobody. An ordinary girl. Not some superhero.

  ‘You’re more than you know. You’re not asking the right questions, my child. Unlock Ichabod’s book,’ my father says.

  I hear a burst of maniacal laughter and the voices are abruptly silenced. A wall of flame roars to life beyond my father’s beseeching figure, the frost melting immediately, the pools of water sizzling into steam.

  Ben and I are back up against the opposite wall, keeping well away from the inferno.

  ‘Promise me, Evee. You will find a way. You will succeed where I have failed.’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ I start to say, but my voice cracks on the last word. He hears it, as does Ben. And I know it kills Dad a little more inside.

  I look at him helplessly and his face is filled with shame and sorrow. But he stays strong for my sake.

  ‘Think,’ commands my father. ‘Never be afraid to ask for help. None of us are alone.’

  There is another terrible eruption of jangling laughter, stronger and louder than before.

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ I agree, though I’m frightened. I’m barely holding onto my growing hysteria. ‘If I can unlock the book, will it free you? And the others?’

  The answer is slow in coming.

  ‘Yes. It will free the souls.’

  ‘And you?’ I demand.