Wrong Turn

by Catie Rhodes

  A shudder ripped through me. When Josie did that, it heightened the slight resemblance between her and Loretta Nell.

  She blew out a breath. "Then Alex—that was my roommate—died."

  I drew in a whoop of air. This wasn’t what I’d expected. "How?"

  "Single car accident. They couldn’t figure out what happened." Josie stared at the window behind me so intently I turned to make sure Loretta Nell wasn’t there. When I turned back to Josie, she was smiling again.

  "After Alex died, I got obsessed with what happened to the Messengers. I spent a lot of time in the library, reading news articles, poking around on the internet." She licked her lips. "Then I started using the Ouija board to talk to Loretta Nell by myself."

  I wanted to tell her to stop, to beg her not to say another word. Or to just get up and leave. But I hadn’t even asked her about the book, and it seemed Josie had been in fairly direct contact with Loretta Nell for quite some time before she ended up here.

  My voice came out cracked and trembling. "What did Loretta Nell tell you?"

  Josie shrugged. "It was just letters that didn’t make words. Then it just became places."

  "Places?" Cold sweat rolled down my body as Josie talked. The stuff matched other stories I knew about spirits gaining control of people. Was I sitting unprotected in a room with a mass murderer, even one who got duped into what she did? I inched away from Josie, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

  Josie nodded. "The library. The theater building. A few days afterward, things would happened to people there. They died." She started humming, eyes on her cards.

  "What about your family? Did Loretta Nell warn you in advance what was going to happen to them?” I tried not to hear the humming or to acknowledge that the song was a gospel standard called “Power in the Blood.”

  She raised her eyes to mine. The smile came back. "No. By that time, I was having blackouts. All I remember is Loretta Nell coming out of the walls of Poppy’s house to take her revenge."

  I stiffened. The words didn’t bug me so much. The smile did. Knowing and feral, it made my knees wobble. It was time to go, past time. But I still had questions.

  "That night, the night your family died, did you see a book? Or did Loretta Nell read to you from a book?" I watched Josie for a reaction.

  Josie shuffled the cards again, gaze fixed on the floor. "Book?"

  That didn't make sense. Mandy had said Josie begged the deputy to go back to the house for the book.

  I took the picture from my bag and held it where Josie could see it. She put down the cards and leaned forward, tilting her head to one side. Magic flashed through my black opal right about the time I noticed Josie had tilted her head too far for it to be comfortable.

  I tried to scoot away from her, but the linoleum was slick and new, and I lost my balance. Josie snatched the picture away from me and crumpled it to a ball in one hand. Her lips stretched into an ugly snarl, and she changed positions to crouch on her knees. Her face contorted, and she looked more like Loretta Nell than ever.

  "You'll never have the Serpent God," she growled. "You're unworthy. You don't even love him."

  The black opal pinged uselessly on my chest, its warning too late to do me any real good. I cowered away, trying to remember how much space was between me and the door. But I’d been too focused on my stupid phone and then Josie to notice such a small detail. I inched backward.

  Josie crawled forward, eyes shining with cunning. She leapt and pinned me to the floor, stronger than I ever could have imagined. Eyes wild and shining, she leaned over me. Something tugged at my brain. It tapped around the edges, trying to get in.

  Panic shocked me into action. I grabbed at her arms. She whipped them out of my grasp and snapped at my hand. I doubled up a fist and swung at her, but I was on my back, at the wrong angle to really hurt her. She slapped my ineffective punch away and settled her mad eyes on mine.

  The tugging came again. I gathered my energy and pushed against it. Josie’s head snapped back. She shook herself and locked eyes with me. Sour terror filled my mouth. I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. Josie wasn’t holding me down anymore. Josie had not physically changed, but Loretta Nell stared out from behind Josie’s eyes.

  The room flashes twice and is gone. I’m back in the barn at the Stephens Ranch.

  Dim light filters into the barn from a floodlight outside. The empty room I saw before is now filled with all manner of junk. The bloodstains on the walls are not as shining and fresh as when I saw them. My mind latches onto that, but before I can figure out why that’s odd, I hear the girl whimpering.

  A much younger and less weathered Josie crouches against a dark-colored farm truck, her teeth chattering. Sweat plasters her long hair to her face. In one hand, Josie girl holds a sickle. Something moves in my peripheral vision. Josie and I both gasp.

  Loretta Nell flits around the room, manifesting then disappearing again. She darts in to tap Josie’s shoulder. The poor girl screams, body jittering from fright.

  “You can’t have me, you crazy bitch.” Josie’s voice is guttural with pure animal fear.

  “You’ve been mine since the day you were born, just like all the other children of those bastards who killed me.” Loretta Nell manifests in Josie’s face.

  Josie screams again but gets control of herself and crawls to her feet.

  “No. I’m not yours.” She hefts the sickle and takes on a warrior’s stance, sides heaving with exhausted breaths.

  Loretta Nell’s spirit manifests, solid as a real person, and races toward Josie. The girl’s eyes widen. She rears back one arm and swings at Loretta Nell.

  The sickle sinks deep. Loretta Nell clutches at her chest. Phantom blood seeps from the wound. Loretta Nell staggers backward and sits down hard.

  Josie advances on Loretta Nell, eyes gleaming with mad fury.

  “You killed my family. Whether you’re a ghost or not, I’m going to kill you,” she grates in Loretta Nell’s face.

  Loretta Nell, at first glance, seems afraid. Her eyes are wide and shining. Her mouth is open in a little o. But I can see things Josie, the panicked teenager, cannot. The hand Loretta Nell is holding to her chest is not cradling a wound, it’s holding the sickle in place. And behind her wide eyes is something close to fear but not the real deal. Behind Loretta Nell’s wide eyes is greed. She needs this little scene to play out and is terrified it won’t.

  Josie grabs a hanging pulley attached to the ceiling and drags it to Loretta Nell. She ties the rope around Loretta Nell’s torso and hoists her body into the air. Loretta Nell hangs still, throwing in a reasonably convincing twitch every few seconds, hand still holding the sickle to her chest.

  I want to scream at Josie to stop, that it’s a trick. But this is a vision. I’m seeing the past, and I can’t change what’s already happened.

  Josie digs the sickle deeper into Loretta Nell’s chest and pulls it all the way down to her pubic bone. A half-transparent flow of glistening guts and blood spill from the body. Loretta Nell’s head flops to one side as though she’s dead, but her eyes stay bright and aware.

  Josie showers in the blood and entrails, rubbing them on her face, eyes shining with madness. She raises her hands to her face and licks the palms.

  Josie leaves Loretta Nell hanging, goes over to the work table, and comes back with a long knife, the kind used to skin animals. She peels off a piece of Loretta Nell’s flesh and lifts it to her mouth.

  I can’t keep quiet. “No, Josie, no. It’s what she wants you to do.”

  Not hearing me, Josie eats the piece of flesh. Loretta Nell’s still eyes come to life as she watches her victim feed on her. Josie’s face ripples, becoming Loretta Nell’s for one second.

  She lets out a wild roar and sticks her head into Loretta Nell’s open chest, burrowing. Loretta Nell’s body moves lifelessly underneath the wild attack. But her eyes. Her eyes are bright with glee.

  The vision fades, and I’m back in the mental hospital wit
h Josie leaning close enough to kiss me.

  "That book is not for you. It’s not for the last survivor. It’s for Loretta Nell and the Messengers." Josie delivered her words in a high, sweet lilting country accent.

  But they were all dead, rotting in their graves for the last forty-plus years. I dared not say that. Josie had the upper hand. She might eat me the way she had eaten Loretta Nell in my vision.

  Caw caw caw. Orev’s presence came into my mind. A tapping sound came from the window. Orev must’ve landed there and was hitting it with his beak. I didn’t dare take my gaze off Josie. She inched closer, saliva dripping from her mouth to plop onto my face and slide down my cheek.

  "J-J-Josie, if you tell me where the book is, I can get you free of Loretta Nell." My voice trembled so hard I barely recognized it. "Maybe even get you out of here."

  Josie smiled, blue eyes cold as rain in January, now all Loretta Nell. "I will rise again. And I will kill both the last survivor and you for trying to take what’s mine. And then I will cleanse the earth of the undeserving.”

  She fitted one hand over my throat and began to press down, her face straining with the effort. I coughed against the sudden loss of oxygen and punched at Josie. She didn’t move.

  “But first the last survivor.” She breathed a cloud of foul breath into my face. “The last survivor is key.”

  Even with my consciousness fading, I knew this was important. I tried to ask what she meant by key. A weak croak escaped my lips.

  Fitch the Bitch slammed into the room, walkie-talkie gripped in one hand.

  She yelled into it. "I found Stephens. We need Winston in the unfinished wing right now."

  Fitch grabbed Josie under the arms and tried to pull her off me. Josie twisted in her grasp, arms and legs flailing.

  “She’s just like the last survivor,” Josie screamed.

  Fitch’s eyes widened. The nurse’s body jerked as though she’d been goosed. It was enough for Josie to twist and sink her teeth into the nurse’s arm. Fitch yelled and let go of the wild thing. Josie got to her feet and ran out of the room, bare feet slapping the linoleum.

  Fitch pointed one finger at me. "Stay right there. You and me need to talk." Then she ran out of the room, yelling into her walkie-talkie again.

  I wasn’t staying anywhere and waiting for Fitch to tell me off. I grabbed the wadded-up picture off the floor and hightailed it out of the room.

  9

  I raced down the hallway, shoes squeaking on the shiny, new linoleum. The hallway ended at a T, and I went left, toward the parking lot and Tanner. My smoke-singed lungs screamed for oxygen, but I pushed on, picturing Tanner and the warmth of his arms. I called up the soft purr of his voice, the music of his laugh, his strong thighs, the taste of sweat on the back of his neck.

  Tanner had come to equal safety and stability. When did that happen? Maybe the long nights we’d laid together in the darkness, fingers laced together, talking.

  I ran past the row of windows, my reflection transparent. Queenie had been right. I was a ghost in my own life. I needed to put my whole self into my relationship with Tanner and quit holding back because I didn’t want my heart broken again. I needed to quit being afraid of what I was, of my power. The fear might help me avoid hurt and scary things, but it would always hold me prisoner. Just like if I had spent all my growing up years in a place like this one.

  Footsteps pounded behind me, coming nearer each second. My pace slowed as my smoke-damaged lungs failed to provide the oxygen I needed to keep running full blast. My pursuers were barely a turn behind me.

  I came to a door marked “Exit” and slammed through it. A huge man stood on the other side. The contrast of his dark skin against his white uniform almost burned my eyes. His name tag said K. Winslow.

  "There you are." K. Winslow reached for me with a hand roughly the size of my head.

  I tried to duck around him, but he caught my arm and yanked me off balance. I let out a shrill yell. K. Winslow gave me a hard shake.

  With his other hand, he pulled out a walkie-talkie and said, "Nurse Fitch? Winslow here. I got the intruder."

  Fitch’s voice came back. "Good job, Kevin. Bring her to my office."

  I doubled up a fist and swung it into Kevin Winslow’s stomach, using my whole body the way Tanner recommended. The impact rang up my arm as though I’d hit an iron wall. Winslow tightened his grip, pulled me off the floor, and dangled me in front of his face.

  "Hit me again, and I’m gonna beat the white off ’a you. Got it?" His voice, low and menacing, echoed in the stairwell.

  Fear flooded my bloodstream, pushing my heart so hard and fast my skin tingled.

  Winslow gave me a teeth-rattling shake. "Hear me, girl?"

  I nodded.

  He let go of me. I fell hard on concrete floor, most of my weight landing on one knee. Pain shot through my body. I howled. Tears spurted from my eyes, and I rolled over onto one side clutching my injury. By tonight, the knee would probably be twice its normal size and the color of an eggplant. My tormenter clicked his tongue.

  "Aw, hell. I didn’t mean to do that." He grabbed me by the same arm, which had begun to throb from how hard he’d gripped it, and hauled me to my feet. He leaned into my face. His breath smelled like corn chips and salsa. "You gotta mind me, or I’m gonna hurt you. Understand?"

  I nodded again, crying from the pain in my knee.

  He put an almost gentle hand on my shoulder. "You know my name. What’s yours?"

  "Peri Jean Mace." My voice trembled.

  "You done got yourself in deep shit, Peri Jean Mace. Josie Stephens is Nurse Fitch’s pet project. Or peeve. Hope you have a damn good reason you broke in here to see her." Kevin Winslow hauled me up the steps and stopped in front of a door like the one I’d slammed through an eternity ago. He held it open and pointed toward a closed door a few feet away with a sign that read Suzanne Fitch. I stumbled toward it. Winslow took one arm to hold me upright.

  "Peri Jean, I want you to understand something." He continued talking as he tugged me along, never looking at my face. "Suzanne Fitch is my boss, and this is a good paying job for a guy like me. You’re gonna tell her what she wants to know whether you like it or not."

  I nodded, gasping from the pain in my knee. What kind of damage had Kevin Winslow done to me? I wanted Tanner. Just the thought of him took away some of the darkness and gave me a little comfort. Kevin doubled up one roast-sized fist and knocked softly on Nurse Fitch’s office door.

  "Bring her in, Kevin," Nurse Fitch sang.

  Kevin opened the door and pushed me inside. Nurse Fitch set her pen aside. "Seat her in front of the desk, please."

  Kevin used both hands to fold me into the chair. Nurse Fitch watched the same way she might have watched someone pat a hamburger patty before throwing it on the grill.

  "How’d you get in here?" she asked.

  I shook my head and shrugged.

  Nurse Fitch glanced at Kevin and gave a slight nod. Something slammed into the back of my head hard enough to knock me forward. My forehead smacked the edge of her desk. I slid to the floor, banging my already throbbing knee on the floor. I yelped like a kicked dog.

  Kevin grabbed me under the arms and pulled me back into the chair. I couldn’t sit up straight.

  "I’ve told you not to hit them so hard," Fitch hissed at Kevin.

  "Didn’t seem hard to me." I heard the shrug in his voice.

  "He’s a big dude," I slurred, thinking about Wade Hill. "They don’t know how hard they’re hitting."

  "Uh-huh. She’s right," Kevin said from behind me, where he might have been getting ready to clobber me again.

  Fitch watched me from across the desk, gaze still clinical and cold. "Tell me how you got in here." Her eyes flicked to Kevin Winslow standing behind me.

  I couldn’t take another hit. But if I told Fitch how I got in, she might lock me up for being crazy. The scared eight-year-old who’d been sent to a mental hospital began to scream. Hysteria buzzed a
round my thoughts, a swarm of bloodsucking mosquitos, ready to help me do something crazy.

  Then I remembered who I was. Peri Jean Mace. Great-great-great granddaughter of Priscilla Herrera, a witch of considerable power. Peri Jean Mace. Raised by Leticia Gregson Mace, a fierce little woman who could have backed down the devil himself. Peri Jean Mace. A badass witch who had more power than these two clowns could imagine.

  "I’ll give you one more chance, Miss…" Fitch said in a bored voice.

  "It’s Peri Jean Mace," Kevin Winslow supplied.

  "Miss Mace then. Tell me how you got in here, or Kevin will convince you to talk." She settled her gaze on mine, probably thinking it was intimidating. For the record, it was.

  But I didn’t do humility too well.

  "I’m a witch." I watched her face go slack with shock then hard with angry disbelief. "I used a glamour spell to fool your gatekeeper downstairs." I waited for her to call me a liar. Maybe she’d even go for the gold and call me a crazy liar.

  Suzanne Fitch didn’t do either. She picked up a framed picture off her desk and stared at it with her lips pressed together.

  This was it. My opening. I drew on all the bad energy the hospital had and concentrated on the glass of that picture. A satisfying clink came from Fitch’s desk.

  She flicked her gaze to me. “Am I supposed to believe you caused that?”

  I pulled myself up and sat in my chair again. My knee screamed in protest, but I pretended not to feel it.

  “You don’t have to. I’m not finished.” I called on the element of air and got a funky, electricity charged wind blowing in the office. The mantle glowed and strained behind the scar tissue spell. It called to me, asking to be let out. I pulled at it.

  Suzanne Fitch’s office took on a hazy glow. Ghosts marched through, wearing clothes of their era, trailing cold air with their passage. All the hurt and fear people had felt in this place hung overhead like storm clouds.