“No. But I didn’t talk to him all that much.”
“Who might have, do you know?”
“I mean.” He shrugged. “Anyone who lived here full-time?”
“Your parents, do you think?”
“I don’t think they’re the type of people he might have confided in if he was seeing ghosts.”
“What about Pete from the other night? He seemed to think Grandpa knew something.”
Sam scoffed. “He isn’t exactly a reliable witness. Just tell me what you’re experiencing, so I can be prepared.”
“I told you. I wake up, every night, because someone says my name, and when I open my eyes, there’s a column of white light beside my air mattress.”
“And does it go away? Like after you’ve been up a minute?” He couldn’t be sure, still, that what she was experiencing wasn’t a dream.
“In the time it takes me to jump up, put on pants and grab my keys, it’s still there.”
“Does it look like anything?”
“I don’t look closely. It’s scary, Sam. I’m there alone.”
The quiet between them stretched, his pulse drumming harder than it should. Finally, he leaned in again, his voice steady. “Well. You won’t be tonight.”
Seventeen
Sam hada hard time going to sleep. For one, the sleeping bag was narrow and hot, and he was used to sprawling out in his full-sized bed in the small, air-conditioned,unhauntedcabin. And, yeah, the stories about this house made it difficult to relax, too, as well as the memories that were growing stronger the longer he stayed here. Every noise made him jolt from his occasional doze. Erielle’s footsteps. The pipes groaned as she showered, and he swore he heard her humming under the water. He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. He shouldn’t imagine her like that. Shouldn’t imagine her in the bed above him. Shouldn’t imagine how much safer she might feel if she were in his arms.
Eventually, sleep dragged him under anyway, with the image of her curled against him.
Until the scream
A horrific screeching tore through the silence, ripping him from sleep, his heart jackhammering. The sound was too sharp, too real to be a dream.
It sounded again, filling the air so he wasn’t sure where it came from, an otherworldly sound that shot terror down his spine, paralyzing him for a minute before he remembered he wasn’t alone.
“Erielle!”
He untangled himself from the sleeping bag and bounded toward the steps, barefoot. He ignored a splinter digging into the bottom of his foot as he took the stairs two at a time, thinking he’d encounter Erielle descending at any moment.
But when he reached the top of the stairs, a white figure hovered near her open door, between him and Erielle.
His body went numb. Memory slammed into him: the night he and his idiot friends had broken into this house as kids, daring each other to find the mayor’s dead wife. She’d come then, too.
And she was here now..
The translucent column made another unworldly sound. Through the veil of the figure, he saw Erielle slap her hands over her ears, double over as if in pain. He shouted and the…thing turned toward him, no longer just light. He could see a woman’s face, ravaged by grief, with rage. When she opened her mouth to make that sound again, decay and blackness obliterated her features. Despair vibrated in the air around her.
He had to get her away from Erielle. He edged down the hall, away from the staircase, hoping she would follow him and give Erielle a chance to run for the stairs, but she lingered in the doorway, trapping Erielle.
“Come on!” he shouted. “You want to scream at someone? Scream at me. You think you’re so scary.” Really, what did one say to taunt a ghost, especially when every ounce of self-preservation was telling him to bolt?
But he wouldn’t leave Erielle.
The ghost hesitated—he swore that was what it was—then floated toward him. When she was far enough away from Erielle’s door—he couldn’t see Erielle anymore, he shouted, “Run!”
Erielle dashed for the stairs. The ghost advanced, staying between him and the stairs.
