Phantom Touch Box Set

by Mac Flynn

  "Jess, you okay?" This time I was able to recognize the voice as belonging to Brent.

  The stranger stepped back and his hands slipped off of me. I had half a mind to reach out and stop him, but the other half was stronger. Fear made it stronger, because suddenly I felt very afraid of this man who wasn't a man. I didn't know what he was but I knew I needed to get away from him, far away. He must have noticed the fear in my eyes because he shook his head.

  "Do not fear me. Never fear me," he pleaded with me. "You are mine now, and I will always be with you."

  "Jess! Come on, Jess, answer me!"

  The stranger moved around the tree from where he'd come and I didn't see him pass the crack between the mausoleum and the trunk. I heard Brent's footsteps get closer and closer, and then he was calling to me again.

  "Jess! Jesus, about time!" he yelled. He ran up behind me and looked at me standing so still with my eyes locked on the tree. I kept thinking, maybe hoping, that the guy would reappear. "What the hell are you doing just standing here? We have to get back to the car before Rob finds us." I didn't move and Brent glanced at where I was gazing. "What's wrong? You see something? Is it Rob?"

  I finally got the willpower to shake myself from my stupor. "What? Oh, no, there was-" I wasn't sure how to explain what just happened, but Brent didn't care. Instead he grabbed my arm and pulled me back in the direction of the road. "Come on. Rob dropped the car keys so we can get out of here."

  Brent yanked me toward the graveyard exit, and I was forced to turn from the tree. He dragged me through the ancient graves and clinging brush, and with each foot away from that mausoleum a sensation of fear crept over me. By the time we reached the gate Brent didn't need to drag me because I was almost outrunning him. I didn't dare look back for fear the stranger was following us through the shadows, and I was also afraid that if I even so much as glanced over my shoulder that I would be caught in his eyes. If that ever happened again I'd never be able to escape him.

  We reached the car and Brent shoved me into the passenger seat. I didn't argue, as he jammed the keys into the ignition and flipped the car around so fast I got whiplash. I pulled on my seatbelt and held onto the oh-shit handle above the door. We raced along the road with the wheels barely touching the ground. I didn't dare take a look back until we were almost back to town, and by that time the trees and farms had been replaced with suburbia.

  Nothing was back there. No dark shadow, no drunken boyfriend trying to kill me with my own knife.

  "Damn it!" I yelled.

  My words were loud enough that they startled Brent. He swerved along the road for a few yards before he slammed his foot on the brake. We lurched to a stop in the middle of the road with the car at a funny angle. Good thing it was so late that traffic was nonexistent. I clutched at my heart and Brent's head snapped in my direction. "What? What is it?" he asked me in a frantic voice.

  "Rob took my best cutting knife," I told him.

  Brent's mouth slowly dropped open and he tilted his head to one side. "Seriously? That's what you're worried about after him trying to kill you with it?"

  "Hey, a girl's got her priorities." I glanced over my shoulder at where we'd come. It was a relief to see the streetlights after the darkness and gloom of that cemetery, but I still had a chill in my bones. It was like a coldness that I just couldn't shake off, and when next I spoke my voice had dropped to a whisper. "You think he's fine in there? You know, in that cemetery?"

  He, too, looked back down the road. "As fine as any drunk is anywhere with a knife," Brent answered philosophically. It must have been my hushed voice, because he glanced over to me. "Why? You see something in there?"

  "What? Oh, well, no. At least, I don't think I did." I promptly turned around and faced the front of the car. I didn't want to talk about it. A bath and a night of sleep was what I needed, and then I'd wonder what the hell happened among those old graves. "But any way you can get me to my dorm? After that mess I really don't want to be walking alone in the dark."

  "It's not my car or yours, so I don't know about going very far with it," Brent reminded me. He turned around to face forward, and drove the car from the middle of the road toward the university campus. "We could get into a lot of trouble when Rob comes back."

  "I don't care about him anymore. After tonight nobody should give a damn about him," I countered. I swear I could still feel the blade of that knife swinging past me.

  "You going to call the police or should I?" he asked me, but I just shrugged.

  "Do what you want, but he'll probably show up tomorrow with a hangover and wanting to know where his car is." It wasn't any skin off my back whether he was a little inconvenienced by his homicidal actions. We could drive the car into the deepest part of the river, for all I cared. "I just want to get back to the dorm and get some sleep."

  "Yeah, not a bad idea," he agreed.

  We drove on in silence; I slumped down in my seat and looked up out the window. The sky was still clear above us, as clear as that guy's eyes. I shuddered and sat straight up. That wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about if I wanted to get any sleep tonight. That guy was creepy, plain and simple, and I'd have to tell Ashley that there was some fancy-dressed guy walking that scary cemetery at night. On second thought she'd probably start thinking he was that shadow guy she'd seen all those years ago. Funny, he felt real enough to me.

  I reached up and pressed my fingers against my lips. I swore I could still feel his lips pressed against my own, and a strange thrill that went through my body. That was definitely, well, interesting, but I didn't think I'd want to repeat the performance. Actually, no way in hell was I ever going to be going into that cemetery, day or night.

  We reached my dorm building a few minutes later. I lived in the middle of a small but nice public university. There were some old buildings with their columned fronts that ran along the main road, and then there were some newer, blockier places that were scattered about wherever the administration could fit them. Trees from all the previous years' classes were planted all over the campus, and there were sidewalks and student paths all over the place. It was a mosaic of orderly chaos, especially in-between classes; a perfect picture of early-twenties wildlife.

  I had a short walk from the parking lot to the entrance to my dorm, and when Brent parked he pointed the headlights at the doors. "You want me to help you inside? You're looking pretty pale," he asked me.

  I did feel pretty weak-legged, but I was a pigheaded girl when it came to a boy helping fragile, little-old-me into my own dorm. "Nah, I feel fine, just spooked from that damn cemetery." I opened the door and got out.

  Brent leaned over the divide between the front seats and smiled at me. "I'll call you tomorrow if something comes up, okay?"

  "Yeah, that'd be great." I didn't think much would come up, so it was an easy agreement to enter into. At least he wasn't asking me to sign my name in blood anywhere. "See you later."

  "Later," he called back.

  I shut the door and tried to walk normally to the entrance doors to show how unafraid I was. It didn't work, mostly because my legs moved as fast as my heart was beating. My eyes were glued onto my target like it was my only salvation. Unfortunately there was a row of bushes on both sides of the double-doors, and each of them could have held another creepy shadow guy. That made me just a teensie bit nervous. I got my dorm keys out of my pocket with my shaky hands and somehow managed to stuff the key into the lock after just ten tries.

  I opened the door and a beam of blessed artificial light flooded over me. I'd never been so happy to see those sickly florescent bulbs in all my life. I turned back to give an all-okay wave to Brent. He waved back, then backed up the car and zoomed off into the night. I jumped inside and shut the door behind me. No way was I going to wait for that creaking thing to shut on its own, not when that creepy guy might be out there in the shadows.

  I gladly turned away from the darkness to the brightly lit halls. I used to think keeping those things on was
a waste of money and electricity, but now I was glad for the university's huge power bill. With the comfort of those florescent lights overhead, I took a right and stepped up a flight of stairs to the second floor. My room was at the end of that hall, so I had only one neighbor and a busy stairwell to deal with. Both of them gave me enough noise, one with his constant stream of girlfriends coming in and out at all hours and the other with a near-constant stream of students coming in and out at all hours. Some nights I didn't get much sleep because of them, but this night I had a different reason for staying awake.

  Of course you probably already guessed it all stemmed from that meeting with the creepy guy in the graveyard. I swore I could feel him in every corner and every shadow, and I hurried up the stairs and dashed to my door. I fumbled with my keys and glanced around at the hallway; just my luck the place would be deserted, but I shouldn't have expected anything else. It was Friday night and people were still out partying. The drunks would come staggering up the stairs in a few hours.

  I finally managed to get my door open, the lights on, and the door slammed shut behind me. I leaned my back against the entrance and breathed a sigh of relief. In this small abode I felt safe. It wasn't much, just a square room with a closet to my right that stuck out into the space and a desk ahead of me. My captain's bed was on the far right wall, and completed this spartan living space. I took off my muddy and leaf-covered shoes, and shuffled my feet over to my bed. The covers looked so inviting that I collapsed headfirst into the sheets. The soft feel and sweet, familiar smell eased my aching muscles and soothed my flurried mind. It was enough for a girl to fall asleep if she'd had a long night of partying, but I'd had so much more than that.

  That incident in the graveyard was always there at the back of my mind, no matter how soothed I became through inhaling the soft smell my sheets. I raised my head and looked around my room. All of the shadows reminded me of that creepy guy. It was enough to get me to sit up and debate whether or not I could keep the light on all night or not. I decided for the safe, comforting route of using the bulb above me as a night-light.

  I got into my pajamas, which involved a long shirt and underwear, and slid beneath the sheets. There was the problem of the blinding light above me that pierced my eyelids, but I solved that by burying myself beneath the sheets. It was warm, soft, and quiet, and soon I was fast asleep. I might have slept through the whole night if it hadn't been for two things. The first was the stairwell. As I said before, whenever a party got over and my peers came back to their own rooms, they lumbered up the stairs like a pack of doped-up elephants. On second thought, elephants would have been quieter than those people. If it was one or two people sometimes I didn't wake up, but this night there was a whole herd of them. They laughed, stumbled and shouted at each other, and it was enough noise to wake the dead.

  Which brought me to my next problem. Those idiots woke me up and I cracked open my glaring eyes. That's when I realized there wasn't that familiar and comforting light shining through the covers. I pulled the sheets back and glanced up at the light bulb. Yep, definitely off. Thankfully there was some light from the window, so I flung aside my warm covers and oozed over to the light switch. I tried the switch. It was on when I first grabbed it, and turning it off and on didn't bring the light bulb back to life.

  "Just what I need, more darkness..." I mumbled.

  My plan was to slip back into bed and cuddle with the covers, but something else had other plans for me. Or should I say us?

  I stood by the doorway with my legs ready to bolt back into bed when I felt something creep up through my body. It wasn't a shiver or a shake, but a sensation of smoke swirling and rising up from my chest. I clutched my pajamas just over my heart and stumbled back into the wall. There wasn't any pain, but the surprise and fear were overwhelming. I reached back and fumbled for the door knob and found it, but at that moment that something turned my hand away. My arm dropped to my side like I'd lost the ability to move it.

  I admit I was too stunned to freak out and scream for help. Even that was swept away when the sensation inside of me heated up as though someone had stoked the fire and more smoke rose from the flames. I gasped in surprise, and from my mouth poured a dark fog. The smoke rose into the air and arched down across from me in the small entranceway. I had sensation back in my hand, but the smoke maneuvered so it was at an angle between me and the door.

  The fog swirled and focused to create a solid form, an outline. It was a very familiar outline, and I staggered away from the door in disbelief. From the fog arose two dark eyes that watched me with the intensity of a predator watching its prey. The heat inside of me, never lessened by the smoke leaving my body, flared up. I felt like my skin, my very soul, was on fire. It wasn't a painful experience, more like a sensual massage of flames that licked at my flesh. It was enough to make a girl groan if I hadn't been so scared.

  The shadow stepped forward, but now he was more man than fog. His piercing eyes gazed up and down my body, and I felt stripped naked by that stare. My throat was dry and my voice rattled, but I managed to rasp out some words. "What the hell is going on? Why are you here? What did you put in me?"

  The stranger gave me that unusual grin of his, and I backed up until the back of my thighs hit my bed. "I used you as a vessel to follow you to this strange place." He glanced around the room and gave me a reprieve from his eyes.

  I looked to the window, my last salvation. It was closed against the cold and stuck a little, but my body was pumped through with adrenaline. Right then I could have lifted a car.

  The guy spoke up, and it sounded like he deduced my escape plan. "I am afraid I cannot allow you to leave. We have matters to attend to, you and I."

  I saw this as my last chance to flee and jumped over to the window. My fingers dug beneath the window and I yanked at the frame, but it was a no-go. The damn thing was stuck, and so was I. I didn't hear him sneak up on me until his hands wrapped around me and pinned my arms to my sides. By this time I was as stiff as a board when he leaned forward and put his cheek against my own. I didn't feel any breath on my neck, but his body was deliciously warm. He was like a soft blanket wrapped against my back, and a fleeting thought to have him lay on top of me ran through my mind.

  "I have been waiting a very long time for you, Jessica." I flinched at the sound of my name across his lips. I couldn't recall ever having spoken it in the graveyard, but then again this was the guy who had emerged from my body. "No, do not do that. I mean you no harm, but only offer the sensual pleasure I am able to grant to those I take as my own."

  His words rang out like soft wind chimes on an autumn evening. "As your own?" I repeated. My voice sounded so far away, even to my own ears.

  He pulled me against his firm chest, and I felt one of his hands slide up to cup my breast. I gasped at the sudden intrusion against my body, and he chuckled in my ear. "You are a very lovely young woman, but I shall improve you. You will be perfect in everyone's eyes as you are in mine, but you will only be mine. They shall only be able to glimpse upon you, but not touch you. I shall be the only one who is so honored."

  This wasn't right, none of this was right. Here was this stranger promising me these strange things if I would only be his to take. I didn't want to be anybody's anything. "P-please let me go," I rasped out. His hand was very distracting. "I-I just want you to leave and-"

  "Shh," he whispered to me. The sound of his voice cast a dark cloud over my already muddled thoughts. My senses were also impaired and I couldn't hear or see very well, but I could feel. At that moment I was feeling every squeeze and press of his fingers on my breast. "Enjoy what I have to offer you."

  My whole body felt languid and all thoughts of fleeing fled my mind. I leaned my head back against his shoulder and my eyes were half-closed. He felt safe in sliding up his other hand to my neglected breast. That, too, was clasped in his palm and toyed with by his fingers. It was enough to drive a girl mad in any normal situation, but this was far from normal. The he
at inside me flared up at each massage by his hands. My breasts swelled and stretched the shirt to the point where my pajamas were lifted halfway up my thighs.

  His free hand slipped away from my breast and down my back. He cupped my ass and pushed me against him. I gasped when I felt his thick, stiff manhood against my lower stomach. He clenched his teeth to hide a soft groan, but he couldn't help thrusting against me a few times. I grasped his shoulders to gather more balance, but he brought his body under his control. His eyes, though, showed the fire that was inside of him that was burning and aching to get out.

  His roaming hand moved to my front and across my inner thigh. He pulled up my flimsy shirt and pressed his hand against my wet panties. My eyes widened and my entire body shuddered. I'd never gone this far with anybody before, and my instinct was to push up against his fingers. He played with me by sliding his middle fingers along the soft fabric over my clit. I leaned my head against his shoulder and stifled a moan. My hips rocked in unison with his fingers, but my legs were shaking so bad I nearly collapsed against his touches.

  My torturer paused in his teasing, and pulled his hand away. I took this opportunity to let out a long, shuddering breath, but I'd hardly drawn air before he swept me up into his arms. I clung onto his shirt and looked up into his face to meet those dark eyes with my own. My body ached and burned for his attentions, and I felt infinitely safe held in his arms. He no longer scared me, only fascinated me. This mysterious man who had such power of me was my god, at least right then, and I would have worshiped him for eternity if he would grant me his delicious touches.