Red Heather Read online

  “Well, we haven’t spun any pottery together if that’s what you’re thinking,” I mumbled, refreshing my email.

  Estelle smirked. “You know, that was my first romance movie.”

  “Explains a lot,” I said.

  “Oh, shut it,” she said and lobbed another sticky note my way.

  I deftly avoided this one. “Mine was a musical—which doesn't explain anything.”

  “It doesn’t. You can’t sing for shit, I bet.”

  “Nope.”

  “Speaking of singing and also speaking of karaoke, which you’re going to get drunk and do with me,” Estelle segued ungracefully, “you’re still coming tomorrow night. Yes?”

  I groaned again. “Yes.”

  “Good,” she said, setting down a paper wad she’d had at the ready. "Stop looking so depressed. It’ll be fun. Have you had any fun since moving here?”

  “Not really. And I’ll stop moping when you stop trying to condition me with sticky notes,” I griped, swiping the wad and hurling it toward her—the sticky edge caught her blouse and stuck, and I snorted unattractively.

  “Nice,” she commented, peeling the note off with a regal disdain that didn't fit the situation. “I figure I’ll grab Carla and come to your place, we can get ready there, and then we can take a cab to the bar... Or wherever the hell we end up.”

  “Isn't Steven coming?”

  “No. All of a sudden, he has some school thing he needs to go to for his kids,” she said, glancing over to make sure she wasn’t talking shit just as they were coming back. “Which is valid—or would be if I believed him.”

  I smirked. “We’ll never know. But that’s fine. A girls’ night sounds nice anyway.”

  “So we can scam on guys, you mean,” Estelle laughed.

  “No, so we can sit in our collective cloud of estrogen and overall disdain of the dick-toting population.”

  “‘Dick-toting’?” she repeated, barely able to get the words out as she laughed.

  Steven and Carla chose that moment to walk back in and side-eyed us all the way to their seats. I watched them go before murmuring to Estelle, “Remind me why aren’t we just going by ourselves?”

  “Because I’m too nice.”

  I stared at her. “No, really—why?”

  “You think you’re going to get me to un-invite you, but you’re wrong. You’re just adding stops to our night,” she pointed out.

  “Again with the conditioning.”

  “I have plenty more stickies. I can revert.”

  “Save the trees, asshole,” I grumbled, going back to the work I'd been half-attending to until I'd apparently dozed off.

  “You love me.”

  I rolled my sore, fatigue-reddened eyes. “I know.”

  • • •

  I supposed that—had I found the peace of mind to sleep the previous night—I may have been awake for my full shift at work. Then I wouldn't have had an impromptu nap in the middle of the afternoon and would have finished my work in enough time that I would have been able to head home at a decent hour after my update meeting with Catherine. However, I still had work left to do and not exactly a lot of will to go back to the house. The fact that I was still distinguishing between the idea of “home” and the house I currently lived in said enough about my feelings.

  “You should get out of here,” Estelle murmured nearby.

  “I know.” My anxious mind was pushing the meaning of her words past their intended boundaries and turned a suggestion to leave the office into advice to leave Grendling. I had passed the last few hours daydreaming about calling Ol’ Simmons the Moving Man and his sketchy truck and paying him to expedite my move out of this shitshow.

  She gave me a sour look. “Then get out of here. It’s almost midnight.”

  “I will. I just need to finish a few emails,” I said. “And a content calendar.”

  “We’re the tiniest paper I’ve ever seen, why do we need a content calendar?”

  “Because we have content,” I said through a yawn. “And because Catherine told me to make one.”

  “Jesus,” she sighed. “Well... Good luck, I guess. Want to borrow my pepper spray?”

  “Do you often have trouble with lurkers in the lot?”

  She considered that. “Do raccoons count?”

  “Nah, I can take them. Have a good night,” I replied.

  “Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug, and I listened to her heels clack away from me through the hall. Half a minute later, she came back and wordlessly placed the can of mace next to my elbow and exited a second time.

  “Now you’ll get mugged,” I pointed out, watching the little can wobble on its base before steadying itself.

  “I have another one in my car. Night, Miri,” she called from the end of the hallway.

  I heard her open and shut the door and wondered if she locked it—ultimately, it didn't really matter, but it was something to keep in mind. I also hoped that the key Catherine had tossed me a week ago had been to the front door and not to something else.

  I may end up sleeping here—what do I care? I thought, staring at my computer screen bitterly. I tabbed back over to Dropbox to continue referencing what Catherine had sent me for the calendar spreadsheet, pursing my lips at the sections I’d already made and revised twice that day. For sport, I changed the headings to dark blue instead of the pinkish red Catherine had chosen in her own document.

  I glanced over the toolbar for something to add and then over the tabs until I ran out of grey and a tiny notification at the corner of the screen told me, It’s just you here now.

  Eerie—even if it just meant I was the only one editing the documents.

  I spent the next hour and a half with my brain erupting in a fit of thoughts that ranged from reassuring myself—a sign of something, I was sure—to moments where I just went blank from my increasing stress level. Somehow, amidst all that noise, I finalized a content plan I felt confident about, got the few remaining emails sent to Patch's editor, and applied to two new freelancing opportunities I hoped would come through. I closed my new laptop and packed up my bag, slinging it and my purse over my shoulder and closing Facebook on my phone before putting the device in the pocket of my jacket.

  I shut off the lights on my way through the hall, blinking pronouncedly because some part of my mind told me it’d help me wake up. Lies—all of it. After I adjusted my purse strap and pulled out my keyring, I picked the brass key out of the bunch and had just grazed the outline of the slot when I heard my phone ringing—

  —from back in the office.

  A moment passed in which I was sure I was crazy. I distinctly remembered shoving the phone in my pocket. However, now that I reached for it to reassure myself of that, it wasn’t there. I glanced down the dark hall and instinctively dug for my phone again when I wanted some light. “Idiot,” I mumbled at myself under my breath and reached for the light-switch I’d just turned off seconds ago. I flipped it and nothing happened.

  My heart sped up. I flipped another—nothing. I felt my head shake to echo my disbelief. There was no way. I had to have dropped it or it had to have fallen out of my pocket. However, I would’ve heard it clatter on the floor. Maybe it was the fact that I was tired and not paying attention.

  I looked at the door and then back at the dark hallway and felt my anxiety spike. How badly did I need my phone? Who would be calling me at nearly two in the morning anyway? Maybe it was another scammer. But what if it was an emergency call?

  My eyes fell to the door again and I tried the handle. It didn’t budge, meaning Estelle had locked it on her way out. No one could have gotten in. I stood there for a minute or two, trying to decide what my best judgment call was. Was I being paranoid?

  The ringtone died away, and silence followed for a few seconds before it began again. I tried the lights one more time before resigning myself to go back for my phone. Frankly, something as stupid as this was likely how I would die. Privilege. Still, I couldn’t help but
wonder if the call really was urgent. I couldn't bear the thought of someone trying to reach me because one of my parents, my brother, Graham, Estelle, Ed, or anyone else I cared for was hurt or in trouble, and I’d ignored the call because I was too much of a sissy to go back for my phone.

  Before I moved away from the door, I slid the key into the lock, twisted, and returned my keyring to my purse. Now at least if I had to run, I wouldn’t have to stop to unlock the door. When I paused to listen afterward, the lobby was silent at first. However, not a full minute had passed before the ringer started up again upstairs.

  As I pushed myself to walk down the hall, I felt like I was being lured. I couldn't explain why I was still walking back toward the sound of my phone or what was pressing down the totally valid state of alarm rising again and again inside my head. All I did know was that I was suddenly standing in the office doorway again and staring at my phone when I’d definitely put it in my pocket only moments before. It wasn’t even somewhere excusable—not on the floor, near the exit, or next to my chair. It was in the exact center of my desk and perfectly parallel to the edge of the painted wood.

  The screen blazed with the glow of an unknown call, which I only knew from where I stood because where there should have been a number, there was empty space.

  Why I felt safer in the hallway, I hadn't the slightest I idea. However, as soon as I made myself leave the more narrow space, I shifted my largest key between my middle and ring fingers and curled my hand into a fist, the key jutting out from my knuckles. Once my tiny makeshift weapon was comfortably in place, I moved quickly into the office. I let my panic get the best of me and made a sloppy grab for the device—my fingers closed around it, but I hit my elbow on the back of my chair and promptly dropped it to the floor.

  “Fuck,” I swore as the nerve endings in my arm reared to life and screamed. I ducked down and snatched up the phone, ended the call, and locked the screen in a matter of seconds, heaving a breath in the silence that followed.

  When the phone screen light faded, my eyes adjusted enough to spot the figure across the room. We were at eye-level and several strides apart, and it was crouched like I was. I didn’t rise and it stayed still. I may have thought it was an ill-placed shadow were it not for its lack of transparency and the spindly quality of its long, dark arms.

  All four of them.

  I stopped breathing.

  Its face was difficult to make out in the dark of the room, but its eyes didn’t reflect the pale light that came between the gap in the blinds closed to the view of the lot behind Carla's desk. That bar of light separated us—drew a line across the floor—and it meant more to me than it conceivably could have lived up to. I realized how long I’d been staring when it began to uncurl from its crouch, and I was left gripping my phone, which no longer seemed worth the effort. Namely because my gut had been right.

  No emergency. Definitely a trap.

  It lunged when I made a grab for the mace.

  My thumb slammed on the lock, and I sprayed it in the face, slipping on the floor when I pivoted toward the hall. The sound it emitted was somewhere between a bellow and a screech and only the crash of someone’s cabinet in my wake told me that I’d gained some ground. I sprinted to the door and nearly jerked my arm from its socket when I pulled—the door I’d unlocked was locked again.

  “Shit,” I breathed, desperately clawing through my purse for my keys while glancing back down the hallway. After far too long, I seized the keyring and tugged it free, shoving the key back into the lock and turning it. I only paused when I heard a shuffle close by.

  I’d already looked down the hall again before I determined the sound had come from above me. I hurled my weight against the door just as the creature dropped from the ceiling, making the floorboards tremble in my flight.

  I threw the door closed behind me and took off in a dead sprint toward my car. When I meant to unlock it, I accidentally pressed the "Panic" button and the sudden blare of noise made me shriek, which was also when I realized I was almost in tears. The healing wound on the back of my head was throbbing. I didn't feel like enough air was getting into my lungs.

  I did the only thing I could. I threw myself in and drove home.

  • • •

  The understanding that the unpredictable terrors I’d been experiencing were officially no longer limited to my house didn’t ease the dread I felt every time I pulled into the driveway, graced the porch, or tried to sleep at any hour of the day.

  I realized while I watched the coffeepot percolate at around one o’clock the next day that I was becoming nocturnal from my own nightly sleeplessness, even though I doubted that whatever was going on was limited to nighttime. After all, the stuff with Jonah and the female spirit that had tried to run me out of the house had occasionally happened during the day. Because of that, I was beginning to wonder if whatever had been in the office last night was just toying with me, preying on my rational, but quite human fear of the dark. It was possible that I was giving it too much credit, but it was difficult to convince myself of that without even knowing what it was.

  After filling a mug and easing into the now-unfamiliar silence of a house with new windows to replace the plastic wrap, I glanced over the backyard and wondered what I could do to fix all of this. My eyes were raw from my own disquiet, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through the upcoming night with Estelle and Carla—the latter of whom I’d prematurely decided would likely be a killjoy based on her recent work attitude.

  That’s not fair, I reminded myself. And hardly the thing to worry about.

  I’d begun to find myself latching onto menial tasks and what could only be described as supremely insignificant problems as a coping mechanism, which wasn’t practical or particularly healthy. I still didn’t sleep, couldn’t find the nerve to eat, and twitched at every creak in the old house, but blamed it on the state of my old mattress, the disintegration of my relationship, or—as of now—the impending discomfort of a night out in the midst of it all.

  “Typical,” I conceded, a little appalled at my own antics as I poured scalding coffee down my throat. No matter what I tried—burning my throat with coffee, for one thing—I kept flashing back to seeing that thing in Willow Press. It certainly wasn’t human, but it was too human to be animal. After I’d had time to process what I’d seen, I had considered the possibility of this thing being the same thing I’d hit with my car weeks back. They didn’t look the same, but the two weren’t dissimilar either. They were both hulking in size—the first had just looked human enough that it hadn’t struck me as “unusual” until it was nearly too late.

  Subconsciously, I ran my fingers over the back of my head. Aside from anxiety, stress, and an overall fear for my life, my stupid skull had kept me awake for hours. I was tempted to tell Rose and ask for advice, but I couldn’t afford another hospital visit, and I was pretty sure that would be her recommendation.

  A shadow that crossed the corner of my eye made me jolt, but I knew it was Jonah passing through. Whether or not that made me feel better was questionable. Was it possible that all of the apparitions I’d dealt with were Jonah? It didn’t seem likely, but it wasn’t unlikely either—especially considering his actions two days ago when he’d accused me of trying to exorcise him from the house.

  I sipped my coffee slowly, appearing calmer than I was. Was he a demon or something? Was there a property history that went deeper than what little amount Trevor had told me? Grimacing, I stepped outside and thumbed through my phone contacts with my free hand, finding Trevor’s name and initiating a call. It rang three times before he answered.

  “Hey, Miri,” he said pleasantly, “long time no talk. How are you?”

  “Not terrible, all things considered,” I said after swallowing a sip of my drink. “How have you been?”

  “Just fine—not ‘not terrible’ anyway. Are you doing okay?”

  I sighed a little through my nose, and it ghosted in the afternoon November chill. �
�Can you do me a solid and take off the realtor face for a minute? I need you to level with me on a few things.”

  He paused before asking more timidly, “What’s up?”

  His transition to a less sunny tone brought a weird sensation of relief. “Has anyone said anything about the house being…” I deliberated on the word I wanted to start with. “…haunted?”

  “Miri, you saw the article the Willow printed,” he reasoned. “Of course people have said that.”

  “Residents though?”

  Another pause. “Yeah.”

  He's being honest at least. “Okay, stay with me for a second. What about not ‘haunted,’ but something like that?”

  “How so?” he asked warily.

  I tried to find a delicate way to say what I was about to say so I didn’t send him spiraling out of this truce we’d come. I gave up on that approach when I realized there really wasn’t a way to casually phrase my next question. “Is it possible that this place is possessed?”

  The silence stretched long enough that I thought he’d hung up on me until he spoke at last. “What would make you ask that?”

  “I don’t know if you'd believe me if I told you. The place is definitely haunted, but… I saw something last night and a few weeks back that—” I was clutching my mug hard enough that my knuckles were buckling. “Please. Trevor, I’ll say it again—level with me. My intuition tells me it is, as crazy as that sounds. There’s no other explanation for some things that have been happening.”

  “A-And…,” he paused briefly to compose himself, “there’s no way this could be unfounded? You’re not having a stress reaction or anything like that? To the move or to…something else?”

  I had to remind myself before giving a knee-jerk response that I hadn’t had this conversation with him yet. I was still a little resistant. “I’m not. I’ve run through every possibility, every assumption, and the only thing left is that all of this is really happening.”

  When I heard him curse under his breath after a ten-second pause, I decided I should’ve given him more credit. “So, okay,” he began, sounding stressed but considerate. “Assuming the place is…occupied, why are you calling me? I didn’t know anything about this stuff. What do you want me to do? Shouldn’t you call a priest if that’s the case, assuming it is?”