Anna jumped, startled out of her maudlin reverie as the door to the bathroom slammed open. Mike loomed in the doorway, an angry expression twisting up his features. Anna sat up, the beginnings of a concerned frown turning down the corners of her mouth.
“What the hell is this?” Mike demanded.
He brandished her pill bottle at her. Anna tilted her head to the side, confused. It seemed fairly obvious what it was. Was he about to start forcing them down her throat again?
“My medication,” Anna replied, crossing her arms.
Mike gave her a condescending look. “Yeah? Why are they all gone?”
Anna stood up, furious. Exactly what was he accusing her of?
“I haven’t touched them!”
Not since she’d spent the night throwing up in the bathroom. Not since the night he talked her into taking too many.
“Don’t bullshit me, Anna!” Mike shouted. “You’re hooked!”
“Mike!” Anna shook her head in vehement denial. “I swear to God I haven’t taken one since I got sick.”
Which had been his fault, a nasty voice in the back of her head reminded her. How dare he come in here and accuse her of that?
“How could you do this?”
Mike threw the pill bottle at her head, forcing Anna to duck away as he advanced on her. This wasn’t like Mike. He never got angry, even when Anna found herself in situations that had her temper on a hair trigger.
“Mike, please!” She tried to reason, backing away.
“Do you want a repeat of what happened with Lex?”
“I didn’t take them!” Anna snarled.
From where she was standing, he was the one that was becoming Lex.
“You’re lying!”
Anna didn’t need to listen to this anymore. She turned and marched over to the door.
“Where are you going?” Mike demanded. “Don’t ignore me!”
Anna was going to ignore the hell out of him until he calmed down. Was he drunk? He hadn’t smelled like it, but Anna couldn’t think of another rational explanation for such out of character behavior. Where was her Mike?
She heard the rapid thump of his footsteps charging after her too late as his forearm dug hard into her throat. Anna struggled wildly in his chokehold. She drove an elbow back into his gut, hard. She felt the sharp oof of his pained exhalation against her ear as his grip loosened enough for her to wrench herself free. She sprinted away from him as fast as she could.
Mike had just attacked her. She thought of frozen yogurt dates and dress shopping. She thought of the man who tucked Claire into bed and made lopsided Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast on Saturdays. Mike. She couldn’t even begin to process that thought.
Anna nearly skidded into the kitchen. To her horror, Mike walked in from the other entryway, looking mildly confused.
“Hey, is everything okay?” He asked sweetly, as if he hadn’t just attempted to choke her moments before.
“Stay away from me!”
Anna held her hands up in front of her to ward off any unexpected lunges as she backed out of the kitchen again.
“Honey?” Mike called after her, confused and hurt.
Anna headed straight upstairs to Claire’s room. She needed to leave, now. Anna didn’t know where they would go, but she had to get Claire safely away and fast. She gently, but urgently, shook one of Claire’s shoulders. She wouldn’t ignore the warnings like she had with Lex.
“Baby, wake up.”
Claire made a sleepy noise of protest as she opened her eyes to blink confusedly at Anna. Anna pulled back the covers and urged Claire to her feet.
“Mom?”
“We have to go.”
Anna held tight to Claire’s hand and lead her out of the room. She reached the top of the stairs and looked down. Anna quickly shoved Claire behind her in a protective stance. Lex stood at the bottom of the stairs, holding a sharp, silver crucifix in his left hand.
“Get the fuck out of my house!” Anna yelled at him.
“I told you I wanted to see you,” he singsonged, taking a step up the stairs.
“Stay back!”
“I’m clean now, Anna,” Lex continued, taking another step.
Anna urged Claire more firmly behind her as she tried to carefully retreat back down the hall. She tried to block out her daughter’s frightened whimpers. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through Claire’s mind right now.
“Get out!” Anna screamed at him.
Lex advanced another few steps up the stairs. “Let me see my daughter. Just for a second.”
Anna shook her head. Lex was going to get nowhere near Claire, not while Anna still had breath in her body.
“Mommy?” Claire cried, a sound so scared and confused it broke Anna’s heart.
“Stay back,” Anna warned Lex. “I’ll kill you if I have to.”
Lex smiled and charged up the stairs at her.
Anna didn’t wait. She bolted back towards Claire’s room, her daughter’s hand still tight in her own. She flung open the door only to find herself face to face with the shadowed visage of a slowly rotting nun. A sharp crucifix lanced downward at her as Anna raised her free arm to block her face.
Anna screamed as a line of fire lashed across her arm. She didn’t pause to look down at the cut on her forearm. She backpedaled frantically and pulled Claire after her into the bathroom across the hall. She locked the door behind them, leaning on it and breathing heavily.
Anna caught sight of herself in the mirror as she sat down on the floor next to Claire. She looked too pale, as she had those first few conscious days in the hospital, and her eyes were wide in terror. Claire looked up at her with a frightened expression.
Anna brushed Claire’s bangs aside with a shaky hand.
“You okay?” she whispered.
Claire just nodded, but Anna could see the tears brimming. She tugged Claire in close and held her tightly. Poor thing didn’t understand what was going on.
Bang, bang, bang!
Anna and Claire both looked up at the pounding on the door.
“Anna! Let me in!” It was Mike.
“Go away!” Anna shouted at him through the door.
“I’m serious! Something is going on!”
He sounded worried and sincere. Anna sobbed. God, she wanted to let him in, but she just couldn’t. Not after everything that had happened.
“I can’t trust you!”
That hurt so much to admit out loud. She had once trusted Mike for everything.
“Lex is in the house with a knife!”
It twisted Anna up inside to hear the fear in his voice, but she couldn’t open the door. She had to protect Claire and she couldn’t count on Mike for that.
“Hide somewhere else,” Anna choked out.
“What’s the matter with you?” Mike demanded.
There was nothing Anna could say to that, tears coursing hot and bitter down her cheeks. She knew she was betraying him. A part of her screamed at her to open the door. This was the man that had done everything for her and Claire. All the good things she had going for her had been because of Mike and she was leaving him vulnerable to her psycho ex.
She also remembered the awful feeling of his arm around her throat, trying to cut off her air. She had to protect Claire, that was all there was to it.
The sounds of a violent struggle came through the door in muffled thuds and grunts, followed by the heavy thud of something hitting the floor. A pool of crimson oozed under the door and crept along the grout of the tile. Anna sobbed harder. Was that Mike’s blood? Anna hoped not. Oh God, had she gotten him killed? She pulled Claire up and back, not wanting to let the blood touch her.
“Daddy?” Claire whimpered brokenly.
Anna stroked her hair with a soft shushing noise.
Lex’s angry voice sounded through the door. “Don’t call him that!”
Anna climbed into the tub
with Claire, pressing her daughter’s face into her shoulder to shield her.
“Give me my daughter!” Lex said with an inhuman snarl.
“You’ll have to go through me!” Anna screamed back at him defiantly.
“Stay with me.”
Lex’s voice was distorted to the point that Anna no longer recognized it as him. No, she recognized it as someone else’s.
“Stay with me, Anna.”
Memory after horrific memory flooded Anna’s mind.
“Sister Catherine?”
“Leave this life behind.”
“What did you do to Mike?!” Anna screamed at her.
Fury and despair welled up in her. It hadn’t been Mike doing those awful things to her. It had been Catherine. Mike was dead because of her.
“Mike is gone. Next I either take you or your daughter.”
Anna shook her head and closed her eyes. “This can’t be happening.”
“You don’t want this life. This struggle. Your past will never leave you. I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve lived it, too. You don’t have to do what I did, Anna.”
Anna shook her head in negation again. She would never do what Sister Catherine had done to herself. It was unthinkable. Claire had just lost her father, maybe two if Lex really had been here. Anna never wanted leave her without a mother.
“It’s you or the girl.”
Anna watched in horror as the lock on the door clicked open from the inside.
“Take me!” Anna screamed in sudden terror.
Claire! She had to protect Claire. Her daughter deserved the chance to live.
She turned to give Claire a last, reassuring look only to see the glint of the silver crucifix as Sister Catherine drove it into her stomach. The nun’s face was rotting away. One eye was gone, the other was milked over and sightless. Her lips looked burnt in places and there were rips in her graying flesh.
Anna lurched over the side of the tub, trying to get away as her vision closed in around her.
Chapter 16:
Anna retched, blood dripping from her mouth to pool on the tile floor next to the tub. Someone was holding her hand.
“No, no, no, no, don’t die on me, Anna!” KK’s desperate voice came from somewhere close.
Anna looked up. Sure enough, there was KK, looking frantic and pale as he sat next to the tub.
“KK?” Anna whispered hoarsely.
How had he gotten here?
He gave her a tremulous smile. “Hey. There you are.”
“Where am I?”
“The bathroom,” KK replied immediately. “You got hurt in the attic.”
“I was stabbed,” Anna said slowly.
She was trying to work out the sequence of events, but everything was jarring and wrong. She was in so much pain.
KK nodded. “Yeah. What do you—”
“In the rental house.” Anna cut him off.
He blinked at her. “This is the rental house.”
“But…I was out…”
“What?”
“I was out,” Anna repeated numbly.
“I don’t understand.”
Anna slammed a fist down on the side of the tub in a burst of frustrated rage.
“I was out!” She yelled. “I was out!”
Anna broke down, sobbing into the crook of one arm as the other continued to beat futilely against the side of the tub.
This wasn’t happening. They had gotten out. Donna had come back and opened the door. She sobbed harder. It had been three months. She remembered them, all of them.
KK rubbed at her back in a soothing manner, making a distressed noise in the back of his throat.
“Anna, calm down, you’re gonna make it worse.”
Anna tried to rein in her sobs, taking in great shuddering breaths as she fought for control.
“I was out, KK,” Anna said when she was certain she could speak without screaming. “It was a vision. It had been three months. I was in the new house and I saw her. Her body was falling apart.”
KK nodded eagerly. “She’s running out of energy.”
Anna stopped and considered this. She had lived three months. It was like a light bulb clicked on in her brain, and Anna shoved away her hysteria as she tried to think the implications though. How much energy would three months of an illusion cost Catherine? She remembered that last confused moment before the found herself back with KK. Catherine had been falling apart.
She tugged KK closer so she could whisper in his ear.
“I have an idea, but I can’t say anything. She listens to us. That’s where the visions come from. Follow my lead?”
She pulled away to fix KK with a pleading look. He nodded seriously at her. He would back her play. Anna took a deep breath in before speaking in a slightly too-loud tone.
“We need to get out!”
“How?” KK asked with equally exaggerated volume. “There is no way!”
Anna looked up at the ceiling, side-eyeing it as if she expected to see Sister Catherine poke her head down through it. For a ghost, she didn’t seem to do a lot of walking through walls, however.
“The attic,” Anna continued. “We’ll go out through the roof.”
“The fan! In the attic! It’ll pop right out!”
Anna smiled as she heard KK emphasis the word attic as much as he could.
“Exactly!”
Anna held her hands up to KK, who carefully helped her into a standing position. He’d pulled out the silver crucifix and had rigged a crude pressure bandage around her torso to slow the bleeding from her wound.
“Help me get cleaned up,” Anna muttered to him.
She wanted to get the blood off her skin at the very least.
“Can you walk?”
Anna smiled grimly. “I’m gonna have to.”
They snuck quietly into the spare room. Anna pulled down the ladder with as much clatter as she could make. She gestured at KK to climb up into the attic.
KK goggled at her. “What?”
“Trust me,” Anna whispered.
“She’ll have me cornered,” KK hissed.
Anna pulled him back in close to whisper in his ear again. “Lure her upstairs and meet me in the kitchen.”
KK looked extremely unhappy. Anna made a shooing motion with her hands and gave him a pointed look. KK glowered, but began climbing up the ladder.
“I’m trusting you on this,” he muttered to himself.
Anna crept back out into the hallway. She peered both ways before easing out of the spare room. She kept her back against the wall in a defensive posture as she headed for the stairs. She wasn’t about to let something come up behind her this time. This plan had to work. She was running out of strength as fast as Sister Catherine was.
KK, meanwhile, had settled himself cross-legged in the center of the attic. He had the ouija board out in front of him, his headphones over his ears. The microphone was recording and the EMF meter next to him was displaying a steady 2mG. He wasn’t sure if this plan was going to actually work, but he wanted so badly to get Anna out safely if he could. Sister Catherine was putting her all into this and drawing on reserves that KK hadn’t realized she possessed. He didn’t honestly know how long it might take to burn her out anymore.
Please, let this plan work, he thought as he placed his hands on the planchette.
“June 17th. I am here with Anna Winter attempting to speak with Sister Catherine.”
It was a shame that if everything went wrong none of these recordings would be around for anyone to find.
Anna froze at the end of the hallway. Sister Catherine was standing at the bottom of the stairs, facing away. Guarding the front door, Anna realized. With Sister Catherine’s back to her, Anna couldn’t determine how fast she was deteriorating. With how fast her heart was racing, Anna was surprised that it hadn’t given way her hiding place already. She tried to breathe as shallowly as she could, as quietly as she c
ould, ignoring the pain in her neck and abdomen that made her want to draw in longer, more ragged breaths. Everything depended on this chance. If Sister Catherine saw her, it would be game over.
Come on, KK, she thought. Now or never.
KK bit his lip, thinking of all the ways this could go so very badly, and pulled his hands off the planchette. He sat there, trembling. This was for Anna, she deserved the chance, he reminded himself firmly. He had to give her the chance.
“Sister Catherine,” he said with more bravery than he really felt. “We surrender.”
He swallowed hard. Moment of truth. KK closed his eyes and prayed. This had to work. He was out of ideas.
Anna watched as Sister Catherine’s head snapped up to stare at the ceiling above her, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Anna shuffled back around the corner as quietly as she could manage. Sister Catherine came hurtling up the stairs, bypassing Anna’s hiding spot without a glance as she headed for the spare room.
Anna breathed out softly.
So far so good. She just hoped that KK didn’t lose his nerve. He had looked so frightened when she had explained her plan to him, but she had to trust that he was made of braver stuff than he looked. He had, after all, been the one who kept coming back to this place.
She could trust him to do his part.
Anna headed down the stairs, clutching at her stomach as every movement pulled at the barely bandaged wound. She thought of the sledge hammer still sitting in the garage. This was going to work. They were going to get out.
KK watched with trepidation as the planchette moved rapidly about the board without his touch. “STAY”, it spelled out aggressively.
“Yes, Sister, we’ll stay,” he said with a note of resignation in his voice.
He pulled off his headphones and stood up, leaving his gear where it lay. He quietly slid down the ladder and landed on the soft carpet of the spare room. He felt Catherine’s approach more than heard the accompanying footsteps. He dove behind a stack of empty moving boxes, crouching down. The door clicked open.
“Kenneth,” Sister Catherine said.
KK trembled all over, eyes wide. He bit down hard on his lips to keep back the terrified noise trying to escape. The door clicked shut behind her.
Curse of the Nun Page 10