Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chapter 17

Grant could see that he was standing on two feet, but it didn’t feel that way. He’d had his share of I-feel-like-death hangovers in recent years, but nothing approaching this. His head felt like the Liberty Bell—deeply cracked—and a pool of something in his stomach was threatening to surface.

He stepped over his still-sleeping sister onto the frigid hardwood floor and made a mad dash to the bathroom off the kitchen.

Knees hit tile, and he just managed to throw open the toilet seat before spewing his guts into the bowl.

He flushed.

Hauled himself up.

Cranked open the faucet and rinsed his mouth and spit.

He’d had a few drinks the night before, but he didn’t deserve this.

Grant turned the water off and straightened. His back cracked. He dug the crust from the corners of his lids with a knuckle and checked his reflection in the mirror—eyes sunken and red-veined, hair like something out of an eighties music video.

He ran a hand over the scratch of fresh beard.

Something about his face seemed off. After a night of too much booze and restless sleep, he could faithfully count on swollen cheeks and puffy eyes. But this morning, nothing about him looked bloated. His face was as thin as he’d seen it in years. Verging into gaunt.

He walked through the kitchen and up the hallway into the foyer.

Unlocked the front door, stepped out onto the porch.

His ears popped from that persistent pressure gradient.

The rain had stopped and the air smelled of wet pavement. The sky hadn’t cleared, but the clouds overhead were thin enough for the incoming sunlight to burn his eyes. It was a suddenly warm Friday for December and people would be pouring out of their homes and into the green spaces with the kind of shared satisfaction that only rainy cities relish on days like this.

A woman ran by pushing a jogger-stroller.

The streets hummed with traffic.

The hedges dripped.

Wind pushed the scent of a distant coffee shop his way.

He glanced at his watch—later than he thought. They’d slept past noon.

His fingernails looked dirty, but he knew it wasn’t that.

Don’s blood.

The despair and heartache nearly brought him to his knees.

The view off the front porch was panoramic—Lake Union spread out before him, a fleet of sailboats and kayaks speckling its grey surface with color. The Cascades were still socked in. Farther up on the north bank, the hulking ruins of Gas Works Park loomed over squares of bright, rain-fresh grass like the skyline of a steampunk novel. Grant couldn’t see the people, but he imagined them on picnic blankets, children scrambling up the hill, dragging kites in the breeze behind them.

He drew in a deep breath.

Took a step down.

Then another.

As if this day was just something he could walk out into.

What had been a dull, painless throbbing behind his eyes ratcheted up a few degrees until it felt like someone was rolling his optic nerve between two meaty fingers.

He descended two more steps.

The meaty fingers became a poking needle.

His stomach contracted into a ball of molten iron, and the agony doubled him over, Grant clutching his gut as he tried to backpedal up the steps.

By the time he reached the landing, clawing desperately for the door, the pain had begun to moderate.

Grant stumbled back into the gloom of Paige’s brownstone.

His sister was sitting up on the mattress in the living room, her knees drawn into her chest.

“How far did you get?” she asked.

“Two steps from the bottom.”

Grant made his way over to the couch and collapsed onto it.

“Did you throw up yet?” she asked. “That’s how I start the morning these days.”

“First thing.”

“It’s not a hangover.”

“I know.”

“It only gets worse.”

“Is this you trying to help?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s warmer outside than it is in here,” Grant said.

“I think it’s your body temperature, not just the house. Chills?”

Grant hadn’t noticed chills specifically amid the grocery list of other symptoms, but he did feel feverish.

“Yeah. I’m gonna build a fire.”

“We’re out of firewood.”

“We aren’t out of furniture.” He sat up, wrapped the covers around his shoulders. “What’s going on in this house, Paige?”

“I don’t know.”

“No idea.”

“None.”

“Nothing weird has happened to you lately that you’re forgetting to tell me?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You haven’t desecrated any sacred Indian burial grounds lately, have you?”

“Not lately.”

“No deals with some guy in a red lounge suit holding a garden tool?”

She just smiled.

“So what then?” Grant asked.

“I don’t know. This isn’t a Halloween special.”

“You’ve been living with this thing for a month.”

“Well aware.”

“So what do you think it is?”

She shook her head.

“No matter what you say, I won’t judge you.”

“You remember going to church with Mom and Dad?”

“Barely.”

“Remember how it was only ever about Satan and demons?”

“That’s all I remember about it.”

“Me too, and it scared me atheist. When we stopped going after Mom died, I still couldn’t get that stuff out of my head.”

“I remember your nightmares.”

“Right,” Paige said. “They were horrible. I used to dream that this demon I could never see was crawling down the hall toward our bedroom. I knew it was coming, but I couldn’t move. My legs had stopped working. Its shadow—Jesus, it still creeps me out big time—would stop in the doorway behind me. I could feel it standing there, and every time I tried to sit up and turn around to see it, I’d wake up.”

“That’s pretty standard nightmare material.”

“But that’s what these last four weeks have felt like. The same kind of fear—of being alone in a house, but knowing you aren’t really alone.”

“And not being able to do anything about it, including leaving.”

“Exactly. It’s this helpless, claustrophobic feeling.”

“So you think it’s something demonic?”

“I don’t know. All I’m saying is that it feels like the kind of thing I used to be afraid of.”

“Have you called anyone?”

“Who would I call?”

“A professional.”

“You mean like an exorcist?”

“I know, I can’t believe I’m suggesting it.”

Paige cocked her head. “You think we should?”

Grant didn’t want to say it. Every ounce of training, years of collecting facts and scrutinizing them screamed that there was a corporeal explanation here that could be booked down at the station. He based his life, his choices, on empirical evidence. Aristotle and all that shit.

“It doesn’t matter whether we believe in it or not,” he said. “There’s something happening in this house and it doesn’t look like we’re equipped to deal with it. I say we bring someone in. You got a phone book?”

“In the kitchen.”

“I could use some coffee now that I mention it.”

“We still don’t have power.”

“You have a French press?”

“Nope.”

“No worries. Long as you’ve got the beans, I can save the day.”