The Waiting (14 page)

George gathered his family by the window.

“I’m going to jump into the snow out there. Matt, I want you to go next, then Cory, then Mom. Once we’re all out, I want you to stick close and run as fast as you can. We’re going to try to make it to Glenn’s house.”

“But that’s really far and it’s so dark out,” Matt protested.
 

George hugged him and felt close to tears. “I know, little man, I know. But we have to get out of here, and Glenn’s house is the closest to us.”

“Maybe it’s gone away,” Cory said. They all looked towards the door. The entire house had been silent for almost five minutes now.
 

Sharon placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “It might not be a bad idea to wait a while and see.”

George wanted nothing more than to run like hell from his house. Freezing to death was a welcome option to the thing downstairs.
 

“I’m not sure—”

The floor exploded just five feet from where they sat as the assault recommenced, this time from below. A fist-sized hole opened up between the splintered wood. A maniacal rush of thrashing and clawing blasted from the fresh portal as the floor shook from repeated efforts to widen the gap.
 

“Everyone up!”

George threw the window up hard, shattering the glass. Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped out into the cold night. He landed in a three-foot pile of snow that cushioned his fall. His right leg throbbed a little and his lungs hurt as he sucked in his first draft of frigid air.
 

“Okay, Matt, jump!” he shouted.
 

Sharon plucked her youngest son and aimed him into his father’s waiting arms. George caught him and they both fell back into the snow. He was back on his feet by the time Cory had himself perched on the windowsill. Cory looked back at his mother, afraid to leave her alone, even if it was only for a moment.
 

“Go, Cory. I’ll be right behind you.”

The opening in the floor grew wider as more shards of wood shot out of the hole like lava from a volcano. Cory sprang into the air and almost sailed past his father. After a quick tumble in the freezing snow, George was back up and waiting for Sharon.
 

Heavy moaning filled the room. Sharon lost control of her bladder. Something was trying to find purchase on the jagged edges of the hole. Something huge, black and evil.
 

“Sharon! Come on!” George and the boys were shouting to her from the yard. Momentarily mesmerized by creeping fear, she turned back to the window and placed a foot on the sill.
 

As she prepared to jump, a trio of shadows stretched from the trees like a sentient ink spill and engulfed her family. One second they were there, calling for her to jump, and the next instant they were gone as the shadows retreated back into the forest.

“Nooooooo!”

She never noticed the presence behind her.

How can you escape the ghost of yourself?

Sinister Entity

© 2013 Hunter Shea

The Leigh family is terrified. They’ve been haunted by the ghostly image of their young daughter, Selena. But how can that be, when Selena is alive and well, and as frightened as her parents? With no where else to turn, the Leighs place their hopes in Jessica Backman, who has dedicated her life to investigating paranormal activity. Accompanied by a new partner who claims to able to speak to the dead, Jessica will soon encounter an entity that scares even her. And a terror far worse than she imagined.
 

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Sinister Entity:

This was the way it always started. Your body reacts faster than the mind can comprehend and a person with experience learns never to ignore what the hairs standing at attention on your arms are telling you. The house was quiet, had been deathly silent for the past three hours. Silent, dark and empty.
 

Jessica Backman was about to move from her position at the end of the bed and head to the hallway when she felt the first prickles of gooseflesh break out across the back of her neck, until every follicle on her scalp was tingling with anticipation. The sharp whine of a monitor went off in the living room below and stopped suddenly, as if smothered by someone or something that didn’t want its presence to be known. Jessica’s heartbeat started to race as the first jolt of adrenaline raced through her system. She had to force herself to inhale slowly from her mouth to dampen the noise of her own breathing in her head. Here, in the dark, her sense of hearing was the primary tool in her arsenal.
 

She carefully clicked her penlight on, shining it onto her notebook so she could mark the time.
 

2:36am – Living Room EMF/Trifield alarm…short burst…goosebumps…not alone

Craning her neck, she could just make out the empty driveway. Sometimes clients made surprise visits in the middle of the night, ultimately throwing a fat monkey wrench in the works. Unless they walked from Bedford to Bronxville, an almost thirty mile distance, the McCammon family was not the cause of the sudden change in the atmosphere. Jessica sat as still as a stone, waiting.
 

Pap.

Just outside the bedroom door, a slight tap, like the sound of a pebble bouncing off the carpeted hallway. The night vision camera sat on a tripod in the corner of the room, pointing at the doorway. If something had fallen onto the floor, the camera would hopefully have captured it. Jessica waited for more. She could feel the building tension now in her chest and head. It was as if the house was gathering its strength, building and building until the air was redolent with static electricity and the pressure in her ears was ready to pop.
 

The sound of scratching on the walls, like a large determined cat trapped between the rafters, wafted throughout the house. Jessica couldn’t tell where it originated from, and it stopped the moment she rose from the bed and took her first step to the door. She paused, waiting a few moments for it to resume, then continued into the hallway. Leaning forward over the steel banister, she looked down into the living room and adjoining dining room.
 

Everything was as she had left it. Earlier in the night, she had placed glow-in-the-dark masking tape around the perimeter of each piece of furniture, as well as the framed pictures on the walls. The glowing yellow squares, circles and rectangles gave the dark living room the appearance of an alien landscape found in the ocean depths, populated by sleeping, iridescent sea creatures. She had tacked down tape around all of the moveable objects so she could easily see what had shifted from its proper place during the course of the night. By virtue of being alone, she was assured that no one else could disturb the contents of the house.
 

One of the drawers in the kitchen could be heard slowly sliding open. Jessica darted down the stairs and into the kitchen, careful not to bump into anything along the way. This was her seventh night in the McCammon house and she had taken great pains to memorize every detail of the layout.
 

The middle drawer to the left of the sink, where the McCammons kept their odds and ends, was halfway open. Jessica took a picture of the open drawer with her digital camera, shielding her eyes from the flash. A quick breeze whispered past her back in the kitchen. She had closed every window and door five hours earlier, sealing them shut with special tape so any manipulations by passing air could be eliminated. She shivered, more from the tightening of the tension in her body than the temporary icy gust that crept around her.
 

She looked once again at the drawer, the exposure of its contents mocking her, daring her to find the secret hidden within the walls of the Tudor house.
 

One of her Trifield meters in the upstairs bathroom squealed for several seconds before tumbling to the floor. She heard the plastic device smack the hard, unyielding tile, bouncing twice before settling to a standstill. The Trifield meter was used to measure changes in electromagnetic, electric and radio/microwave fields. She wasn’t entirely sold on its efficacy, but it was the best of the limited lot available to paranormal research. And now she was down one.
 

“Oh, I see,” Jessica said aloud. “You want to play your games, just not with me. Can it be that you’re afraid of a nineteen-year-old girl? I’m all alone and I have all night. In fact, Kristen and Tim and the girls left the house to me all weekend, so I have nothing but time.”

Jessica’s ears popped a split second before she saw the couch in the living room move a few inches to the right. The legs of the couch scraped across the hardwood floor and the EMF meter on the table next to it wailed like a siren.
 

She decided to coax the presence in the house a little further.
 

“Moving furniture in other rooms doesn’t impress me. You did that once before and I was bored then.”

Slam!
The kitchen drawer shut itself with enough force to crack the wood face.
 

Jessica considered the intensity required to do such a thing. This was new. The EB was either getting stronger or angrier…or both. Good.
 

 
She pulled her digital recorder from the custom designed leather holster around her waist and clicked it on. Even though there were more cameras down here, one in the kitchen and two in the living room, she wanted every piece of equipment she had at the ready to record her observations. She had also placed IR lights around the room to expand the scope of her cameras. IR lights boosted the distance her cameras could record in night vision mode.
 

“Kitchen drawer just closed so hard, the wood cracked. Time is two-forty-eight a.m. I dared the EB to be more demonstrative and it’s taking up the challenge. The air smells funky, like burning wires. No signs of smoke.” She stopped. Something started tapping on the walls around her.
 

Tap-tap,
pause
, tap-tap-tap,
pause
, tap.

Jessica continued, using meditative breathing exercises to calm herself, “I hope I caught that. It’s tapping out in a sequence.”
Tap-tap
. “Two taps, followed by three, then one. I’m not sure if it’s some form of Morse code or the beat to a song or what. It just keeps tapping, and the burning smell is getting stronger,” she whispered into the audio recorder. Then, much louder, “Are you trying to tell me something? If you speak into this recorder in my hand, I may be able to hear you. What does the tapping mean? Or are you just trying to scare me?”

A heavy rumble shook the floor beneath her feet.
 

Tap-tap-tap
.

Tap.
 

Tap-tap.
 

Jessica put the recorder close to her lips. “I’m going to have to check the outlets. The burning smell is getting intense. Something ˗
whoa!”

The recorder was knocked from her hand and skidded across the linoleum floor. The hand that had been holding the recorder felt like it had been dipped in a tub of ice. She gave it a few sharp shakes to halt the pins and needles sensation that followed.
 

The house was once again silent and the darkness seemed to intensify. Even though her eyes had acclimated to the night, she was finding it harder to make out the shapes of the furniture around her. It was as if a heavy, black gauze had oozed throughout the house like an obsidian blob.
 

She took a few tentative steps towards where she assumed her digital recorder lay. The air itself was heavy and she knew she was far from alone. She fought hard to fight back the tingling dread that threatened to dance up her spine. A part of her was sure that something was very close behind her. Silently, it approached with arms wide open, edging closer with each deliberate step. If she were to turn around now, she would come face to face with all of her worst nightmares brought to life.
 

If only she dared to take one simple peek.
 

In the dark.
 

So close she could feel the ripples of its intrusive essence caressing the back of her neck.
 

Jessica stopped when she reached the threshold of the dining room and closed her eyes. She felt like a blind person in a crowded room of silent guests, no one daring to breathe lest they reveal their presence to the woman in their midst, yet eager to pounce if she gave the slightest inkling that she was aware of their proximity. Her heart skipped a beat as she breathed deep. The fight or flight instinct was battling for control. Her body was in the throes of the primal, physical ache to flee. It would be so easy to run now. The front door was only twenty feet away. Just turn a couple of locks and she could be outside.
 

The floorboards creaked behind her, a slight groan of wood protesting the weight of a single, heavy footstep.
 

Three more breaths. Her heart rate slowed to a steady rhythm.
 

Another creak, this time to her right, near the breakfront.
 

Jessica smiled and she felt the tension release its grip from her shoulders.