The Banishing (17 page)

Yet here she lay, dead.
Answers might be buried with her
, Melissa thought, staring down at the single rose.

She reached forward and picked it up. It looked fresh, bright. Somebody had only recently placed the rose on Grace’s grave. Who? She looked again at the epitaph on the grave.
Beloved Wife.

Suddenly, the thought struck her: Was Grace’s husband
still
visiting her grave? Was he still playing the loving, devoted husband? The man who, according to Father Owen, had been abusing Grace in the most vile, evil way.
That
man was still tending to her grave?

Melissa placed the rose back onto the soil and straightened up.

She’d have talk to Richard Danvers.

Chapter Twenty

Driving back home, Melissa drove quickly, probably recklessly. She hadn’t realized she’d been out so long. It was almost noon. Mark would definitely be up by now. He might have been up for hours, and he’d want to know what she’d been up to. Where she’d been.

If he didn’t like the answers…right now, she didn’t even want to think about that.

Melissa gripped the steering wheel. She leaned forward, craning her neck, as if that would help her to reach home quicker. Her thoughts kept spiraling back to the Danvers.

How fantastic, how weird the whole thing was.

Only a few days back, Melissa had considered herself a skeptical woman. On the verge of atheism. Now, she was desperate to learn about a dead woman she never knew…blaming ghosts for her husband’s violence.

She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts and gather some clarity.

Things were what they were. As crazy as it all was, as mad as it made her feel that she was finding herself believing in it all, Melissa couldn’t let that stop her. If there was something she could do to stop the death of her marriage, then she’d do it. No matter how bad, how crazy.

She thought of Grace lying under the ground. Decomposing.
She’d died trying, too. Hadn’t she?
Melissa nudged that thought away and turned her attention to the road ahead.

The roads were clear. She’d be home within minutes.

* * * *

“Tell me this is a joke.”

Melissa knew that with every word she spoke, she was waking something inside of Mark that she didn’t want to see. She sat at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of tea. She’d offered to make Mark a drink, but he simply shook his head “no”.

As she expected, he’d demanded to know where she’d been. At first, he seemed pissed off that she had dared to sneak out of the house without telling him—like a prisoner who had broken parole—but now, he was staring at her with a look of pure disbelief. She wondered, in that moment, as he sat across the table from her, how he could do the things he’d been doing to her over the last few weeks and then act as if
she
was the crazy, unbalanced one. It inflated her at the injustice, at the way he looked down at her with disgust, but she tried to remain calm. She had to try and reach him.

The memory of the other night came to the forefront of her mind. The knife. His threats. He had done that after she tried to confront him last time. She knew what he was capable of now, and with each word, she watched the reactions on his face…searching for warning signs. She looked for when to stop, to recognize when enough was enough.

It was not that time, yet. She took a sip of her tea, trying to find the right words, the right way to approach the things she’d been thinking. “Mark, please listen. No, I am not crazy, and I’m not joking. You know me. I’m not weird. I‘m not one of those people who buy into conspiracies and—”

“—But,” Mark said with a smirk on his face, “you believe that something evil is in this house.”

Yes, and it’s getting to you.
Melissa felt sick. How could she get him to see what she knew? Or would he never be able to see while the…thing…that was in the house had some kind of hold over him? She considered that might be the case.

“Mark, please. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you
have
changed. It was gradual, little things at first, but now…well, you know. You’re hurting me. It’s not you. I don’t believe this is you. The people who lived here before us—the Danvers—they went through something similar. They were fine, happily married, but the guy—his name was Richard—started hitting his wife and…and she started to see things in the house, like I am.”

“You mean ghosts?” Mark shifted slightly on the chair, leaned forward. His face was flat, unreadable, but Melissa knew he was probably laughing at her. Watching her for entertainment purposes. Her stomach contracted, and she felt sick again, a wave of nausea she found crippling, unbearable.

“I told you I saw things. A man in the lounge. A woman in the kitchen.”

Mark sighed. “Fuck. You’re really losing it, aren’t you? My wife is a whacko.”

Melissa felt her face redden. She wanted to hit him. She’d never wanted to lash out so much in her life. “It’s either that, or it’s you, Mark. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here. That your…behavior isn’t your fault. Maybe I’m in denial.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed and darkened. “Shut up.”

Don’t push him. Get up and go. Do something else.
Warning signals flared like fire in her head, and she wondered whether to pursue the discussion with him, anymore. Maybe she’d have to do it without him.
Do what?
she thought, despairingly.

Then, the camcorder flashed into her thoughts.

Without saying anything, Melissa ran into the lounge and found where she’d left the video she’d filmed of Mark the day before.

The shadow. Mark in a trance.

She reappeared moments later and switched on the small camcorder. She could show him. He could see for himself. Wasn’t that the reason she’d wanted to film him in the first place?

Her heart flipped wildly in her chest. The footage was gone. It had been taped over. Melissa looked from the camera to Mark and then back again. “You saw this, didn’t you?” she said, feeling her mind crumble, breaking down.

“Saw what?” Mark asked, a smug smile spilling onto his face.

“That video of you and that black shadow…you saw it. You know! You must know! Tell me if you saw it…”

Something stirred in his eyes, twisting darkness behind his pupils. His face suddenly darkened, like the shadows in his soul. Mark pulled back his chair, stood up, and started to leave. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Melissa didn’t believe him.

Chapter Twenty-One

She couldn’t trust Mark. She almost laughed at the thought—hadn’t she known that all along? The video had been wiped, and he was the only one who could have done it. Whether he was being…influenced by the thing in their house or not, she could not trust him, could not gain his support, his help.

She had to face it alone. Had to do it for the both of them.

Melissa stepped into the bathtub and lowered herself into the hot, soapy water. It felt good being enveloped by the warm, comforting fluid that caressed her body as she lowered herself. She realized, as she reached for the washcloth and began absentmindedly running it across her breasts, arms, and stomach, that the whole situation was out of her control.

She hated that.

Melissa understood that the more things she saw and the more things that happened, the more powerless and frightened she felt. How could reality flip inside out like this so abruptly? What would her Mum say if she were here? Her Mum, who believed in God, in life-after-death, in spirits, and in the devil. Angels and demons. What would she have made of everything. What would she have suggested?

Turn to God, she would have said. Pray for help. Receive communion. Attend Mass. No doubt she would have said all of those things, but Melissa had the disturbing feeling that whatever was happening ran deeper than that. Besides, Father Owen was dropping by on Tuesday to bless the house. There was a chance that might help. That was what Grace Danvers had planned on doing…but she’d killed herself before the priest got the chance to try. Would that have been the miracle answer they needed, to stop whatever it was doing these things? The thing that had changed Richard Danvers and now Mark. Had it stopped there? What about whoever lived in the house before the Danvers moved in?

Melissa felt a wave of fear when she considered this nightmare could have been going on for…decades. Centuries. How old were the properties around here, anyway?

Had the previous tenants seen…those figures in the house, too? Shadows. Shadowy figures creeping in the house…watching, waiting. Talking to Richard. The way they’d spoken to Mark.

Melissa tried desperately to set aside the uncomfortable, frightening thoughts.

She suddenly had the feeling of being watched. She pulled back the shower curtain and looked about the room. Of course, it was empty; she’d locked the door when she’d first come into the bathroom.

She sat back, taking a deep breath.
Stop it. It’s just everything getting to you. Making you nervous.
She plunged beneath the water, pulling her head under the blanket of bubbles, and then rose up, taking a deep breath.

She quickly lathered some shampoo through her hair and rinsed it.

Then, she felt it, again. Like eyes watching her.

Melissa quickly stood up and grabbed the large bath towel, wrapping it around her body. She suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable, as if she was surrounded by…something or someone, but she knew the place was empty.

She thought of the shadow man she’d caught on the camcorder and shuddered. Despite the heat of the bathroom, goosebumps glistened against her wet skin. She wanted desperately to dress and get out of the bathroom.

She pulled the plug, watching as the water circled toward the hole in a miniature tornado. It gurgled noisily as it drained the soapy liquid away.

Melissa reached for the pink sweatshirt and white lounge bottoms—her favorite home wear—from the floor and quickly pulled them on, despite her skin still being damp from the bath. The urgency to get out, to get away from the invisible eyes, was incredibly claustrophobic, intense, and pressing.

Then, she froze. She heard something. A lot of noise coming from down the hall. Her bedroom?
What the hell is that?
, she thought.

Melissa instantly unlocked the door and stood out in the hallway.

“Mark?”

No reply.

“Shit.” Melissa waited there, listening. A loud, rumbling noise echoed down though the hallway. She knew then it was definitely coming from the bedroom. The noise, the sound, was unidentifiable. It could not be likened to anything she had heard before.

It sounded like an army of thumps, whacks, and draggings.

Loud. Booming.

She felt the vibrations along the floor, through the thick, white carpet, and against her bare feet.

“Shit! Mark, where are you?”

Still, no answer.

Melissa had the urge to flee. To just get out. She didn’t know what the noise was or what was creating the noise, but she knew it was bad. It could only mean something awful. More bad things.

She took three large, deep breaths in an attempt to steady her breathing, trying to slow the pounding of her heart banging incessantly against her chest.

“God help me.” Melissa said the words before she even knew she was going to say them, and they stunned her momentarily. God? Was He really involved in any of this black, merciless mess that was wrecking her life, her home? His presence felt bleakly absent. As it always had in her life.

Still, in some dark corner of her mind, in some dark recess, she searched Him out. Wanted His help.

The noise down the hall continued its ugly throng, its loud, undulating pulsation of chaos, and Melissa took a tentative step toward her bedroom.

Frightened of who—or what—she might see behind the closed door.

Thumps. Creaks. Bangs. Scratching, etching noises. They rose, barking loudly against the walls of her bedroom.

Melissa felt weak, fear clutching at her heart and mind, and she hesitated at the doorway, at the threshold of whatever lay at the other side.
God help me,
she thought again, and reached for the door.

She twisted the silver knob and flinched when she felt a burning sensation. She recoiled and looked down at her hand. The skin on her palm was red, inflamed. The handle had burned her.

“What the hell is going on?” Melissa’s mind raced, and she could find no real answer to something that should be impossible, to something illogical. She pulled the sleeve down from her pink sweatshirt, and with the material of the sleeve over her red, sore palm, she reached for the door handle again. This time, despite the heat reaching through the thin material, she twisted the knob and pushed the door open. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

The room was a horrific explosion of noise, movement, and commotion. The room was
alive
.

Melissa took a step backward, almost falling, her eyes riveted to the scene in front of her.