It's been two hours. She drones on. I cannot help but listen. A lifetime of vague implications my family was cursed, confirmed by one bizarre encounter.

I cannot find the feeling of fear inside me anywhere. She drones on. I think she - it, needs someone to talk to. My bedside table holds my folder from my voluntary inpatient psychiatric visit, diagnosis of disorder in plain view. She/it drones on about it.

I am familiar with long sleep paralysis. I am unfamiliar with an episode lasting two hours with zero fear. My body is relaxed. I cannot view this as a malicious curse. There has been no movement from the foot of my bed beyond a mouth forming words. My physical safety feels real.

Two hours, it's been. I've never been in a conversation where I was not the predominant speaker. This entity presumably precedes me, that is the reason I cannot bring myself to be the dominant speaker. I was after her, I can wait my turn. I am only a concept of a person at any given moment. A feeling identified. What a concept, my silence. A concept nobody sans she and it have seen actualized.

She drones on. It needs someone to talk to. The Victorian nightgown looks akin to my Mother's infamous nightgowns and I realize it must be who she says it is. The speech is disorganized, like mine - hard to parse through, almost impossible to process in real time.

I don't think it gets it. I don't care whether it is real or not. A maternal figure, one I was never blessed with meeting, has chosen me to spew her schizophrenic thoughts on. I can feel them soaking into me, yet I can't... I can't identify what ideals or stories are currently saturating me. The bed feels wet. Two hours for one decade of progress to be scrapped, I haven't wet the bed since I was fifteen. I never even felt the release.

It drones on about it. The Victorian nightgown seems strangely fitted in a boxy, unflattering way. I did not feel my rise to level with it, yet it happened. Sitting upwards in my sister's bed, where did my sister go? I can move after hours. I could have moved the entire time. It just feels like any of my days, blurred, unimportant, and above all, wholly unbelievable.

I can see the staining on its gown. Blood, yet not alarming. I look down, and I can see the staining on my nightwear. My urinary tract track record preserved, my maternal grandmother and I's menstrual track broken. It drones on about it.

Oh. The curse. The mark of Cain. Bound by blood. We are not grandmother and granddaughter, hallucinator and hallucinatee. We are brothers, bound in blood. It drones on and completes the binding of itself to me. I did not realize what process was occurring.

The only negative feeling I harbor is a sense of confusion. Brother, mother, grandmother, sister, one should never coerce a mentally unwell individual away from therapy. It shakes me to my core; it heard my heart's value questioned.

One of my only Precious Moments with my grandmother. One piece of precious advice, from a life denied, a life scorned. My grandfather.

One hour long were his therapy sessions. His time wasn't ready to grant him existence. Neither was my mother/father's. Two hours, one each for lives not granted a true experience. They attach to me, and I feel my heart start to carry them, the muscles beating harder and bounding stronger by each beat.

"All therapy converts."

Brothers, man I am not - man I appear. Find solace in me, live through me - I'll only ever pay you in the mind you should have had to begin with.

"I would really rather if you didn't--"

The weirdo lady interrupts me and starts talking again.

I stopped paying attention to what she was saying an hour ago.

I wonder if it's my fault for being too much of a pussy to force her to leave or if she's just an unusually stubborn cosplayer.

I sit on the end of the gurney bed, it's part of my costume as a lobotomy survivor zombie type thing.

"Ma'am," I begin again, "This is a sci-fi convention. Not a medieval festival."

The woman gives me a harsh glare and continues to blither.

I desperately hope that someone will come into my room so that I can finally get rid of this creep.

It was surprising, how the old house still felt like home. As the great door was clicking shut behind her Eve set her bag down in the foyer and paused for a moment, reveling in a rush of sights and smells, giving herself over to the nostalgia of a sensory teleportation back to her youth, a teleportation so real that she actually heard her long departed father’s welcoming bellow, and watched on amazed as Happy Jack’s giant paws skidded crazily across the hardwoods in his stampede to greet her, his rush followed by the warm aromas of roast beef and cobbler which were stirred up from behind in the big dog’s wake. The hallucinations combined to conjure up a rare smile from this bitter, current-day version of Eve, as they reminded her of how pleasant true happiness can feel.

Isn’t it ironic? How it took Mother’s death to bring about some little bit of joy in her?

Evelyn Forrester goes mostly by Eve now, as she hates the antiquated sound of “Evelyn”. When she hears “Evelyn” she is reminded of the portraits in the foyer of her family home, of the many grandmothers and great-grandmothers sitting solemnly in their guilded picture frames at the sides of their equally solemn (and likely domineering) husbands, men without the good sense to feel the shame of their deeds, but who instead gaze arrogantly down from their elevated positions upon the papered and patterned walls of this house that had once been their home. Eve has just lost her mother, but you should not feel too badly for her, as the two have been long estranged. Don’t get it wrong, Eve is saddened by her mother’s passing (as she would be for anyone’s), but she is in no way left distraught by it. In fact, Eve can barely remember a time when she liked the ultra-conservative woman, much less when she felt love for her, although she actually had loved her, once upon a time.

And Mother’s feelings were painfully mutual, as she made her disappointment in Eve apparent whenever the opportunity arose, the old biddy.

With her mother’s passing Eve has unwillingly inherited the family home. Having avoided it for the past twenty years her initial plan was for a quick sale, the house being much too large for a single woman, although her mother somehow managed it in her later years, and the property includes too much acreage to economically maintain it without farming, which Eve has neither the skills nor desire to do. Besides, it is too far from her job in Savanah, although she could as easily work from home, she supposed, if it came right down to it. Only it would be lonely here, wouldn’t it? As if it wasn’t lonely in Savanah.

On the drive in it became apparent to Eve that the once secluded house now sits in a prime location. The sprawl of suburbia was slowly encroaching, nestling in around the property as one local farm after another has been parceled out to General Contractors who have happily developed them into more of those awful, modern day McMansions until the beautiful, pastoral settings of Eve’s youth have been completely swiped away, and never will be again. She is not sure how she should feel about that, as what has stolen the beauty from her childhood home has also significantly increased its monetary value.

But then Eve finds her thoughts interrupted by another bit of nostalgia… specifically the Westminster chimes of the doorbell which have begun echoing through the foyer, flashing her back to the day when she’d discovered Pooh McCann standing on the front porch with flowers in his hands, flowers he’d picked fresh, just for her. The memory of it brought another smile. Pooh! What an awful nickname for a boy, though he’d never seemed to think anything of it. And poor Pooh had carried such a crush on her back then! Eve had actually gone to the movies with him a couple of times, back in middle school. He’d been a sweet boy, if embarrassingly shorter than her. She had even let Pooh kiss her once, right out there on that very porch. Just a peck mind you, which Eve had not returned.

So it was eerily deja-vu-ish to open the door and find him standing there again, sans flowers, a bigger and better version of the same Pooh McCann, although this older (and larger) Pooh was wearing very nearly the same t-shirt and ball cap he’d worn way back when.

“Pooh?” As it always had when they were kids a snicker escaped Eve when she said his name, although there was really nothing funny about him anymore. Her Pooh was all grown up! He was easily a head taller than she was now, while time and a southern sun had removed any baby-ishness from his face. And below his now chiseled face taut muscles strained against his t-shirt and jeans. Eve’s inability to look away from him flushed her face and neck with a tell-tale signal that Pooh fortunately did not seem to notice. Good God, but her little Pooh was gorgeous!

”Hello Eve. They said you’d be coming in today, and I saw the car in the drive, so… But hey, I’m really sorry about Patricia. Really and truly I am.”

Eve was confused. Patricia? Patricia, her mother? Pooh was calling her mother Patricia? Since when? Before replying, as a woman will, Eve stalled for time by brushing the hair away from her face, giving her thoughts a chance to gather themselves. And what was he doing here now? Had he only come to offer condolences? Or was there something more to this visit?

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” He had come to her, so she would let him begin.

Sensing her puzzled curiosity, Pooh explained himself. “We’ve been planting over here since your father passed. Patricia… err, Mrs. Forrester and I, we split the profits fifty-fifty, her land-my labor. The proceeds helped her to keep the place up, and I have to admit that the extra money has helped us out as well. I have no idea what your plans are, if you even plan to keep the farm, that is. But I thought I’d come on over when I saw the car out front? I hope you don’t mind. But if you do decide to keep working it, and I hope you will decide to, we’d love to continue helping, but if so we’ll need to get started soon. It‘s already pretty late in the season, you know?”

No, Eve did not know, and she did not like not knowing. At her own job she was used to being in command of every situation. Her every intention had been to sell, up until now that is. But this might offer a chance to get closer to Pooh, to get to know him again? Who knew… she might even rekindle his old flame?

“You said ‘we’?”

With Pooh’s attractiveness still stimulating her Eve readily stepped onto the porch to see where his tanned and muscular arm was pointing. In moving closer-up beside him she was introduced to the pleasant, musty scent of red-clay soil which emanated from him, and to the the sickly sweetness of motor oil, as well as a cottony perspiration smell that worked into her like magic, reminding her of the favorite, slobber-soiled fabric “Teddy” bear of her childhood, his aromas pulling Eve in and adding to her temporarily addled brain. But as her eyes followed to where his arm pointed her mood was slammed from its clear, blue skies like a shotgunned quail back to a harsh and unforgiving earth.

For over there in the eastern pasture chugged a blue and white tractor. Perched proudly on it‘s seat was a boy of thirteen or so. Another, even younger boy rode shotgun beside that one. Worse, a woman was balancing herself on the tractor’s hitch plate while clinging to the back of the seat. The woman was somewhat pretty, even if she was dressed roughly the same as Pooh was; cute in her own boots, jeans and ball cap, the cap swishing a soft-looking, blondish pony-tail behind it. If she’d felt like being mean right then Eve might have commented that the woman was a wee bit chunky, but she did not feel like it, like being mean, that is. Well, she did feel like it, but she couldn’t, could she? Pooh McCann was not just another soulless stranger who was forced to be nice to her no matter what kind of bitch she acted like just because he was on her payroll, was he?

Shit.

”I don’t know, Pooh. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with the place yet.”

As they always will do the old, happy memories turned to shit once liquor was poured. And then came the inevitable texts from work. Could the incompetent boobs not even leave her alone to grieve (as if that was what she was doing)? But of course that was what she was doing! That was what Eve always did. And when darkness finally descended she was alone again, only now she was all alone in this gigantic house.

Shit indeed.

Eve woke with a start, her head and her bearings off kilter, to find her old bedroom awash in a glittering, silvery gleam which the midnight moonlight usually reserved for wind-stirred wheat fields, or for heavily rolling waters (although the bedroom no longer resembled her childhood one, as all of her girlish “things” had long since been packed away). Even as Eve watched them the moonlight glitters swirled together at the foot of her bed, slowly taking on the unmistakable shape of a woman, a woman whom Eve at first disdainfully assumed to be her mother, although her straining eyes could not yet make out any distinguishable features through the paleness of it’s light.

But the glitters continued their swirling’s and gatherings, and in her fascination of them Eve forgot to be afraid. It soon became apparent that the glitters floating about were not from the moonlight at all, but were of the woman… or the apparition… or the dream, whichever one “she” was. And sadly, Eve’s drunk and drowsy state refused to let her care, so she simply waited and watched. What was there to fear anyways? If it was a woman, then she would only talk, as that is what women do. And if it was an apparition, then with any luck it would take her mournful soul away... far, far away. And if it was a dream, as Eve expected it would be, then she would simply wake, wouldn’t she?

Eve hoped it was not a dream, as the first two options seemed preferable.

Settled now into their feminine form the glitterings did not diminish, but continued their subtle attack upon the darkness, their numbers brightening the room as they gathered together like wasps to a hive. Thusly illuminated Eve could see that it was not her mother’s form at all, but neither could she deny a shared resemblance with the apparition, even though the matronly ghost looked to be considerably older than Eve’s thirty-six years. Still though, their physical commonalities shone through its glittering wrinkles, as Eve and this ghost shared similarly pert noses, thinly drawn lips, and even the same intelligent brows which arched over the same expressive eyes which judged Eve back from her mirror each morning. Eve found herself vainly comforted by these feminine likenesses, that comfort making her more curious about this midnight interloper than frightened by her. “Who was she, and why had she come,” Eve wondered? She wished she’d paid better attention when Mother had explained those old photographs to her, describing the lives of their family matriarchs. Had she paid more attention then Eve might recognize who this ghostly woman was, but as it stood she had no idea. Only that it must be some figure from her family’s long history.

The minutes ticked by as ghost and mortal examined one another, each curiously fascinated by the other. When the apparition finally spoke it was with a not unexpected directness, as their sort of woman has always felt untethered from any necessity for pleasantries, irregardless of their places on any historical timeline.

“What are you doing?” The apparition’s drawl was too pleasant to be off-putting, it’s southern lilt roundly bending the words, though not enough to actually fracture them. Eve framed the idea that this ghost’s voice was the very sound pancake syrup would undoubtedly make while sliding off of hot butter, supposing it could choose its own sound to make of course; the voice being that smooth, that warm, and that delectable. It was so warm in fact that Eve unconsciously set about mimicking it, and did not do a horrible job of it either, as the ability had always laid somewhere down there in her genetics awaiting it’s moment to emerge.

But it was too vague an inquiry, Eve thought. What exactly did the ghost woman mean? Did she mean “what am I doing this very moment?” Or, ”what am I doing in this house?“ Or was it, “what am I doing with my life?“ How was Eve to know which? She did not know, so she decided to answer from a position of strength.

“I am sleeping in my own bedroom, and minding my own business. The real question is who are you, and what are you doing here?” Eve was disappointed to hear the callous brusqueness in her own voice. She had never before cared that her tone was so grating until hearing this cleaner, undeniably better one.

”Is that what you are doing? Sleeping?“ There was a calculated pause before the glowing woman continued, “And alone, I might add.” The ghost’s un-kind words did not sting nearly so much as the sarcastic smile which followed them.

Good grief! Perhaps this ghost was Eve’s mother? It certainly used the same tone that her mother used. Eve’s nostril’s distended as if she smelled something bad. ”I am fine sleeping alone (“Bitch”, she did not need to add).”

”Are you? Are you really? One thing I know, having once been one, is that no woman living on God's green earth is fine sleeping alone.”

This was a fact. Eve must be more careful. This “ghost” woman was no fool. “My mother slept here alone. Did you visit her, too?”

“Your mother was never alone here. Your mother lived surrounded by those she loved. As for who I am, and why am I here? I am here because my name is Evelyn Rouseau. My husband built this house for me. This is my house.“

”That’s where you’d be wrong.“ Eve did not like this ghost, and was feeling ornery. “It is my house now.”

”Is it? We shall see about that.”

”There is nothing to see. The house is mine, now. It is the only reason I am here.”

”You are here because I called you here, child… before it is too late.” Eve detected frost in the ghost’s tone.

Because of it Eve’s reply was equally cold and quick, perhaps a little too quick, but Eve felt like this ghost woman was getting the better of her, and she didn’t like it, though she regretted her quick words immediately. “Did your husband really build it for you? Or did his slaves build it for you, on land you stole from the Creek natives?”

Even the woman’s smile was familiar to Eve’s, breaking as icily as her own. ”Ahhh. Ashamed of us, are you? That is to be expected, I suppose.”

”You suppose?” Dammit, Eve did it again, but the non-plussed apparition quickly cut her down.

“Those things are not your concern, Missy. I have already been judged, and by better than you.”

The retort was not as vague as Eve wished it to be. She knew exactly what the woman meant by, “I have been judged.” Eve understood it so well in fact that a chill raced down her spine at the realization of it. There is a God! Or, at least something or someone to judge one’s deeds? And that this ghost was here right now, rather than being somewhere better, meant that the woman had been found lacking, did it not? Though Eve did not particularly like this ghost she found no comfort in that knowledge, as the ghost woman had undoubtedly come here for a reason, and that reason was obviously Eve. How lacking must Eve herself be that the dead found her situation dire enough to come back to warn her?

Eve was not such a bad person, was she? Yes, she was tough, but she’d had to be. Eve had worked herself up the ranks in a manly-man’s business. She was strong, and independently wealthy, but Eve could be kind when she felt like it. Her monthly donation to St. Jude’s was quite generous, though it was an admittedly small part of her overall salary, just enough really that she could tell solicitor’s that she, “gave at the office” without any accompanying guilt. Still, it was something charitable, and was more than most gave. She was a decent enough person, wasn’t she? Eve swallowed hard before asking the question that would supply her with the answer she needed, although she prepared herself to parry with an angry response if she felt that the answer given was the incorrect one. “Have you come here to tell me that I am bad?”

“No, Dear. I have not “come here” at all. I am always here. I have always been here. I have only made myself discernible to you now because we are worried about you.”

There was that word again, “we”. Eve was probably not going to like the answer to this question any more than she had when she asked it earlier in the day, but she felt that she had to ask it anyways. “We?”

”Yes... we.” The ghost was apparently not ready yet to humor her with specifics.

”Well then, if you are not here to tell me that I am bad, then what is it you are so worried about?”

”I have already told you what, if you would only listen. We are worried that you are alone.”

Eve chose to try deception. ”I am not that alone. I have friends.”

”Do you?”

So, deception wasn’t going to work. Looking up at her, Eve was relieved to find the ghost’s expression sympathetic. She could not have explained why, but feeling the need for honesty, Eve opened up right at the start with her hardest, most pitiable truth; the one truth she had considered over and over again every night for the past twenty-some years. Yet hearing it spoken out loud only highlighted the ridiculousness of her excuse. “I cannot help that people don’t like me.” Thankfully this admission, right in front of her antagonist, was not followed by the welling-up of tears.

As with any good therapist the ghost did not respond to Eve’s confession immediately, but waited quietly instead, knowing that once the spigot was opened a woman could not turn it off until her pressure was relieved. “Women don’t like that I am strong, and men are intimidated by me.”

The ghost actually chuckled at that revelation. “Are they? Really? The same men who march off to war for you… those men are intimidated by you? By thin, frail, little ’ol you? Hmmm. The same men who kill snakes for you, and spiders? The same men who protect you from bad people, who extinguish fires, and who rescue you from floods? Those same men who would willingly offer you their seats in a lifeboat are intimidated by you? A mere woman? My, you are a special one, aren’t you?”

”But they must be intimidated. I am not terribly ugly. Why else would none of them want to get to know me better?

”The better question for you to ask yourself is, why would they want to?”

”Why wouldn’t they want to? I am pretty, I am educated, I am successful… I have a lot to offer.”

”There are lots of pretty girls my dear. And any decent man already has those other things.”

Eve felt the anger boiling up inside her. “I suppose you are implying that I should cower submissively before a man, like you did when you were alive. I don’t think so, Granny. Women are beyond that now.”

”I am implying nothing of the kind. Come with me, Dear. I want to show you something.”

Eve followed the floating figure down the stairs, and into the foyer where it stopped in front of the painted portrait of a stern looking patriarchal man with an equally unsmiling woman seated at his side, a woman who did not look terribly unlike Eve herself but for the graying hair pulled back in a bun, the lack of make-up, and a very modest, high collared, skin covering dress.

”That is you in the picture, isn’t it?”

”Yes, it is.” There followed a long moment of silence as woman and ghost studied the painting.

”You were pretty.”

”Long before this was painted, maybe. But bearing children ages a woman.”

”How old were you here?”

”Thirty-five.”

Eve’s age? But she looked twice as old! “Oh my God.” Eve didn’t mean to say it out loud, but when she did so the ice she felt in her heart for the ghost melted away. What that man in the picture must have put Evelyn Rousseau through that she appeared so… so worn looking at just thirty-five years of age? “And how old was he,” Eve silently wondered.

”Forty-two, I believe.” The ghost answered without even being asked the question.

Forty-two! Eve would have guessed sixty, or even seventy! “Please don’t take this wrong, Evelyn Rousseau, but the woman in this picture doesn’t have the look of someone who should be preaching about happiness.”

”Ah, that is because you cannot see the whole picture. We were living in serious times, back then. Life was hard, but if you could see down just a little bit lower you would see that Charles’ hand is resting comfortably upon my thigh, and you’d see mine lying atop his. Our hands stayed exactly that way for the full six hours that it took Henry Allen to finish this painting. We were happy. It was a happy day which we both relished. There were not many days when we were able to spend so much time together. Charles had to work so hard! And on top of that, to answer your earlier question, he did build this house, although it was not so large then, and has been added-on to over the years. Charles built it when we were still poor. He built it with his own hands. My father tried to warn me away from Charles, telling anyone who would listen that his future son-in-law was an uneducated nincompoop, but Charles showed him! He was quite competent, Charles was. There was almost nothing he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do for us.”

”For us? Who else, besides you?”

”Why, the children, of course.” The ghostly figure slid itself over to the next set of picture frames on the wall. The men and women in the two paintings were equally as stern looking as the first, though obviously younger. “These are the two of our six who survived to adulthood. Charles Jr. had his father’s looks, but it was my side his personality took after. We were so proud when Charlie became a doctor, and a good one too, so good that he was made a surgeon during the war. Our Charlie was twenty-three when he caught dysentery and passed. Charlie tried, but he never made it back home to Abby. He passed aboard “The Memphis” right outside of Charleston Bay. His widowed-wife was seventeen, the child he never saw having recently celebrated her first birthday. Poor Abigail never recovered from the loss of him. She moved in here with us, of course. We did our best for her, but she was so distraught. The girl was suddenly husbandless with a baby to care for, and no income. There was war raging all around us at the time. New lists of the dead were arriving almost daily; her husband on one, a brother on the next list, and then another brother on another list. Here was a friend gone, and there an acquaintance. Abigail was so young and innocent, with a heart as big as any ocean. Every name she knew hit her so hard.“ Evelyn looked my way then. “How fortunate you are to have missed all of that, although I would not trade those memories of Charlie and Abby for anything, and will cling to them for all of eternity.

“But here I am,“ Evelyn followed her story sorrowfully. “Going on like an old fool when my time with you is nearly up.”

”No!“ Eve looked down at the row of as yet unexplained portraits. There were so many more pictures, so many more ancestors of whom she knew nothing. Her people. “Please don’t go, Evelyn. I need to know more.”

”It can be learned. There are records. The one thing I can tell you now is this. You are living your life in competition, as though men are your enemy. Men are not the enemy, Eve. With men comes all of this,” Evelyn gestured all around, but mostly down the long row of portraits. “From men comes companionship, love, security, family… life. Without them women are nothing, you are nothing, just as he is nothing without you, and therein lies your strength… that you are as necessary as he is. Be what you are, Dear. And allow him to be what he is. We are destined to suffer apart, but together... together man and woman are eternal.”

It was a bright Georgia sun through the window that woke Eve, that and the chugging of a distant tractor. Had she slept in? No, Eve never slept in! Curious, she donned her robe to check the noise. It was him on the tractor… Pooh! Descending the staircase toward the coffee pot she paused before the first in the long line of portraits on the wall, feeling strangely drawn to it, or rather to the man in it. There was a lot to do today, and many decisions to make. Eve wondered what the man in the portrait would do if he was her? He certainly looked competent enough to make a decision, though Eve suspected that whatever decisions he made would be with the woman sitting next to him in front of mind. In fact, on closer inspection, the man in the portrait looked somewhat like Darryl, that lead engineer at work. Darryl was competent too, he only lacked drive… or maybe it was not drive he lacked, but inspiration? In any event Darryl was undoubtedly bright. If Eve could only find a way to motivate him then the two of them might form a formidable team… possibly even a team outside of work?

Huh. That was a strange thought, when Eve had always worked best alone, but thinking on it, Darryl did have strengths in some of those areas she was trying to improve on. Perhaps they could help each other?

Pausing at the next picture, it was the woman this time that drew Eve’s attention; so young to be married, yet the artist had applied a happy sparkle to her eyes that for some reason made Eve blue. The woman, a girl really, looked too vivacious to be alone… but why would Eve even think that? The girl in the painting was not alone, was she? She had the man that she loved beside her, and a glow about her that not even the darkened oil paints could dampen, and the girl had a whole life left to live, besides. Yet this thought crept into Eve’s mind. ”Fate is fickle, is it not? Love while you are able!”

The coffee on, Eve hurried upstairs and dressed. With cups in either hand she headed out to the field.

The dying of the tractor’s chugging engine created a heavy silence which his smile thankfully broke.

“Good morning!” She held the extra cup up in invitation.

”Good morning to you!”

”I have decided to keep it! The house, that is! And I would like for you to keep working the fields, if you would? I have no idea what to do with them, or how to do it? But I can learn!”

”Of course you can. But it won’t be me working them. It’s really Charlie who worked for Patricia… err, for Mrs. Forrester.”

”Charlie?”

”Yea, my son.” Pooh’s smile was contagious.

Eve was surprised. ”The one on the tractor yesterday? But he’s so young!”

”Nah. You gotta start sometime! Charlie made nearly three thousand dollars working for Patricia just last summer. He’s working to pay his way through college someday, if that’s what he decides to do. Or for a head start on a business loan, whichever. Of course, I make him rent the tractor, and pay for the seed.” Pooh winked knowingly at her. “At least he thinks he is paying for it.”

”And that woman yesterday was your wife?”

”Bitsy?” He laughed. “Yea, she’s the best. And what a mother! Those are the luckiest kids ever!”

”Yes. Yes they are. And you are lucky, too.”

”You bet I am.”

Eve took his empty cup and turned back towards the house.

”Hey, Eve?”

She turned to face him.

”I’m glad you’re back.”

And she could tell that he was. It was such a little thing he said, to mean so much.

“Awaken, dear sir.”

Not again! I turn over in my bed, eyes still closed, and hope the disturbing voice disappears. But I know it won’t. I can’t seem to shake the strange thoughts and voices that pop into my head at 4 or 5 in the morning when I have to pee but I don’t want to get up.

“Whilst you sleep in this paltry room, my good man, ’tis…”

Oh, this one is a doozy. I got a woman with a British accent bugging me. Last night, it was a pro wrestler with a gravelly voice and an eviction notice.

I turn to the other side and my pillow falls off the bed. I reach to the floor and probe with my hand, but can’t seem to find it. Drat! I grudgingly open my eyelids. And I freeze.

A woman is standing next to my bed. She is in an elegant blue nightgown. Brownish-blonde tresses are falling over her outstretched arm, which is holding my pillow. But I won’t look at her face. I am afraid of what I will see in this nightmare.

I shut my eyes and rub my lids with my fists. When I slowly open them, the woman is still there. But the pillow is closer, inches from my face.

I summon the courage to turn my gaze upward. I see a narrow, pale-white chin. Lucious pink lips in the hint of a smile. Finally, alluring eyes with long dark lashes. She nods toward the pillow.

I know this image is not real, but I smile and move my hands toward the pillow. But she whisks it away. She leans down closer to my face.

“Tis right that I withhold your pillow, Mister Longworth, because on this morn you cannot sleep in,” the woman says in a flat, serious tone. “You must rush in to work, because at this very moment, a fly-rink colleague at Dorn Manufacturing is plotting with company Vice President Franks to terminate your employment and your division. Don’t lay there like a wooden spoon!”

I close my eyes, but I still hear her telling me to get up. “If you do not reach the president and put a stop to this codswallop, you will be condemned to this pigsty perhaps until death. Where is the fireplace in this bedroom? And your bed—is that a common wood frame? Where is the brass, good sir? You live like a Middle Age primitive, not a self-respecting Englishman in the enlightened nineteenth century.”

I try to think of other things. I try to sleep. I toss around and the sheets come loose. It seems like an hour has passed. Maybe two. She is still there and still talking.

Enough! I throw off the bedcover and sheet, bounce out of bed on the other side, and run to the bathroom. I hear her voice until I shut the door. At least I finish my business in peace. I cautiously open the door. The voice is gone—and so is she.

But the messy bed I left is now a picture of order, every cover and sheet smoothed and in place and the pillow fluffed—with two wrapped mints on the pillowcase.

I shake my head and sit on the edge of the bed. Before I know it, I am laying atop the covers. My eyes closed.

“Excuse me.”

The next thing I know those two words are tumbling from my mouth. I am standing at the foot of a grandiose brass bed in a sprawling room with a fireplace, a chandelier, ornate furniture, and flowing drapes.

Someone in the bed stirs and slowly peels back an ornate bedcover. I see the frightened but alluring eyes. Quivering pink lips. And that narrow chin. This is the same woman who visited me.

She asks, “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

I open my mouth, but only frightened silence comes out. I shut my eyes, cup my face with both hands, and shudder. I open my eyes and I am back on my own bed.

I close my eyes and open them again. I am standing next to a bed in the corner of a gymnasium.

“Ahem,” I say because I don’t know what to say.

Someone in the bed stirs and tosses aside an old green cover. It is the wrestler who tried to evict me just the other night.

“How’d you get in here?” the wrestler says in a gravelly voice. “And do you have that deed?”

Panic sets in and I close my eyes.

A phone rings.

I open my eyes and I am laying atop my own bed.

The phone rings again.

I leap out of bed, run to the phone, lift the device off the charger, activate the app, and shout, “Hello?”

“Longworth, is that you?”

“Yessir, Mr. Franks. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing. Due to downsizing, I regret to inform you that your division has been eliminated along with your job. Effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

The call ends. I shuffle back to the bedroom. I brush the mints off the pillow and lay on the bed. I wipe away a tear.

#

there is no face in the window.

asylum.

a·sy·lum

/əˈsīləm/

noun

1. the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee.

shelter or protection from danger.

2. an institution offering shelter and support to people who are mentally ill.

how confidently i announced

that ghosts were nothing more

than figments

of an imaginative (or perhaps deluded)

mind.

$2,000. help wanted.

i thought,

what the hell? why not?

the cameraman never dies.

it never crossed my mind

that the cameraman

could suffer a fate worse than death.

there is no face in the window.

they even provided me a camera;

some fancy gadget

they ordered off of amazon

that claimed to be able to record

the paranormal.

it was heavy. i figured if a ghost came at me,

i'd go down swinging 300 dollars

worth of equipment at their dead face.

we saw nothing.

honestly, as much of a skeptic as i was,

i've always hoped something

(or someone)

would prove me wrong.

as we walked through the hallways,

grainy, dim-lit footage marking our path,

i found myself hoping:

show me something, anything.

we marched along for hours,

with a kid four years younger than me

narrating the scene.

"12:34 p.m., eastern standard time...

no signs of any activity yet. my name is

kevin schumer, i'm here with my crew

and tonight we are joined by..."

he pauses.

"the cameraman," I finish,

which prompts a few uneasy giggles.

yep, that's me,

the eternal watcher.

i see and i record

for posterity.

there is no face in the window.

we were there until four a.m.

our eyelids had grown heavy.

our livestream had exactly one viewer.

perhaps that was why

i felt like i was being watched.

nothing had happened. no doors

had slammed, no windows broken.

we were alone.

yet i could not shake the feeling...

there is no face in the window.

i drove myself home.

headlights lit up the parking lot.

yellow lines. black asphalt.

then darkness again

as i made my way up

three flights of stairs

to my apartment.

my lights refused to turn on.

a power outage? or had my power

been cut?

i did not know. i was too tired to care.

tomorrow, my check would hit

my account

and then i could solve the problem

of late rent.

i laid down,

in nothing but boxer shorts,

awaiting the release of sleep,

and found that

i could not hold my eyes shut.

a feeling was sinking into my spine

like a numbing injection

and i found myself tingling with

some unseen awareness.

i was being watched.

there is no face in the window.

it has been

three weeks

since i had looked outside

that night

to reassure myself

that i was alone.

there is no face in the window.

yet the feeling did not leave.

it only grew.

more and more, i believed

i was hunted. haunted.

there is no face in the window.

each night i check the door,

the closet, the bed, the window—

wait, the window—

tonight,

(one last desperate cry,

the moment before the mind

shatters)

THERE IS NO FACE IN THE WINDOW.

it has followed me home.

now i will follow it home.

to my sanctuary.

to my asylum.

i am the face in the window.

you will feel me watching,

just as i felt it.

when you look outside tonight,

do not trust your eyes. trust

your instincts.

there is a face in the window.

I was supposed to follow one of the team members with my camera. We were exploring a haunted asylum, not that I believed that at the time. I was new and all, so I wasn't super familiar with the others. I followed the person I thought I was told to all night. We met back up at the end, and they asked where I had been all night. I was going to point out who I had been following, but they weren't there.

Confused, I told them they could check my footage, but I had been following someone. They all started chatting with excitement about what I must have captured. I was bewildered. Not knowing what had just happened, I answered their excited questions with mumbled "yeah, it was cool, I guess." and "I thought it was a person, so there was no reason to be scared." They told me to leave quickly, and make sure the footage wasn't wiped. Thereafter, we headed home.

I live(d) by myself, yet when I got to my place the door I had locked when I left was open. I searched frantically to see if there had been a burglary, but nothing was missing. It seemed there were some additional items like another toothbrush, toothpaste tube, pair of shoes, and so on. Exhausted, but not wanting to do the necessary steps to go to bed, I plopped on my couch. I eyed the kitchen, as my stomach was a bit rumbly, and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw someone in it pouring milk into a bowl of cereal, before turning around and putting the carton away.

"We didn't mean to scare you." a wispy voice exclaimed in a soft tone. Burying my face in my hands, I tried to process what I was experiencing. I looked back up to see a bowl on my island with a spoon in it. I got up to check for the mysterious person. The bowl had a single Lucky Charms balloon marshmallow in it. I don't like Lucky Charms. Weirder still, there was no milk in the fridge. Figuring I was overtired, I headed to bed.

When I woke up, I headed to the kitchen, eyes glassy. The bowl from before was still there, but it was full of balloon marshmallows. I made the coffee I had come to the kitchen for, and checked my phone while I waited. The team chat was blown up over my footage. They couldn't believe I had captured such a thing at all, let alone my first time. They also had figured out the 'person’ I had followed was a late team member, who had the same name as a current member. Those who had known him had reminisced about their favorite memories with him.

He hadn't believed in ghosts when he joined the group, he just needed money, but no one knew at the time. His first day on location he had wandered off without a camera, when they found him, his face was sunken, and he was sputtering “I believe you!” over and over again. He never told anyone what happened that day, but after that he insisted on eating a bowl of Lucky Charms before going to a haunted location.

My jaw dropped as I read the last message,

“Oh yeah, and the balloons were his favorite. They were always the last thing he ate.” The smell of my coffee brought me back to my senses.

I continue to be unsure what I believe, but I know there’s something after death. Whenever I'm uncertain his presence is more noticeable. Every now and then I hear different voices whisper

“Do you believe?”

Daisy knew that getting a job from Craigslist was a bad idea. She also knew that taking a job labeled, "Help us Prove Ghosts Exist,"was idiotic. But desperate times called for desperate measures. And Daisy, with only $10 in her checking account, was desperate. Maybe if she hadn't decided to drop out of business school to follow a dream of becoming a documentarian, things would be different. But she needed money, and applying to work as a videographer for a kooky Craigslist listing was the best she could do for now.

So she applied for the job, and got it. She found out that she would be left alone in an abandoned asylum for a night to capture video. The team member, Carl, who spoke to her in a video call, said that they wanted live footage of the hauntings. They wanted her to be there in order to make sure the footage wouldn't be tampered with by the ghosts.

Which is why she found herself alone in a pitch-black bedroom of the abandoned Anderson Asylum. Carl had told her this bedroom had the highest reading of paranormal activity. The only reading Daisy was getting was the creepy vibe of being left alone in the dark of an old building. Overall, though, this job was easy and she was going to be paid $500.

So she waited and endured three hours of nothing happening.

Then, at around 2 am, she heard a noise. It sounded like a squeak.

"Great, there are probably rats," Daisy thought to herself.

Then she heard a whine. Or maybe a sob. Nope, it had to be another squeak. Because Daisy knew no one else was here.

"Mum?"

Daisy froze. Nope, she didn't hear that. She knew she didn't.

"Mum?"

Nope, nope, nope. She had fallen asleep at this point. That was the explanation. She was not hearing a word coming out of nothing.

"Mum?"

Why did she feel a rush of cold go over her body? Because her temperature had dropped as the night went on. That's why.

"Mum?"

Daisy was not feeling something nudge her. She was asleep, and she had to wake up. She had to wake up.

"MUM!"

Daisy jumped when she heard the yell. And hit her head on the low ceiling. The resulting pain she felt was too real, and too obvious a sign, that she had never been asleep.

Daisy was done. With this weird assignment. With whatever paranoia was hitting her. It didn't matter anymore that she was desperate for money, she just wanted to get out of there. She grabbed her purse and sprinted out of the room, crashing into things as she went because she couldn't see anything. She didn't slow down until she had driven back home.

Carl didn't end up paying her the full $500. She did get $250 for still providing film footage from the night, as she had left her camera behind. She also got the camera back. And something else.

Every night, since the night at the asylum, Daisy had the same dream.

It was of a small girl, with curly blonde hair, who stared at her from two black voids where eyes should have been. She said one thing. Over and over.

"Mum?"

"How will I explain this?"

"Why must you?"

He can't argue with her logic, not really. He is his own man, owing justifications to not a single soul.

"Yeah, okay, so you have a bit of a point, but we don't live in a vacuum."

She raises an eyebrow, but he ignores it and keeps on. "I have parents who will wonder who I'm dating."

"You haven't seen your mom in three months, your step-father doesn't care, and your dad lives in Iowa."

He rolls his eyes.

"I never told you those things."

She smiles, and his heart flutters. He shivers, but his heart turns cartwheels. She has shared his living space for quite a while now, and he still hasn't gotten used to the things she simply seems to know. It's infuriating, endearing, terrifying, and arousing.

Some of the things she knows are downright biblical in their sweet sinfulness.

She floats across the hardwood of the living room and runs a finger along his jawline. She leans in and whispers, "Let me show you other things I know."

He does, and forgets all about explaining his new girlfriend to the parents.

__

They met at work. He took a gig as a videographer for one of those idiotic reality shows that air on formerly respectable cable networks. This one specialized in sending in a handful of "regular people" to reportedly haunted places, where they had to spend a full 24 hours.

The crew isn't supposed to interact with the "talent," but the lady now in his house started flirting with him around three in the morning on the job. One thing lead to another, the shoot wrapped, and here they are.

He didn't find the "haunted" asylum particularly frightening. Honestly, he thought it was boring, except for the minor dramas that unfolded between the two efinitely not actors competing for who could behave like the biggest scared toolbag. He played along when he needed to, running down hallways and giving the producers plenty of shaky-cam footage to edit and play up. Every chance he got, he put his now-girlfriend on film, since she was easy on the eyes and didn't behave like an imbecile.

__

His phone rings and it's the director from that stupid ghost show. He steps out of the bedroom so he doesn't wake her.

"Hello?"

"No, I did."

"No, I changed memory cards several times. I turned them all in."

"Uh huh."

"Nope, nope, I did, didn't you see?"

"What do you mean?"

"That's not possible."

"Gimme a break, man. I was there. It's all on tape."

"You have the tapes. Well, cards, whatever. The recordings."

"Bullshit, I shot all night."

"The girl in the blue dress, yeah, on my recordings."

"What?"

"I don't understand."

"How did you not see? We had conversations. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to talk, but what am I supposed to do when I'm asked direct questions, man? I'm not a robot, and hell, you hired her. She's hot."

"Explain that."

"Well who hired her?"

"Never mind, that doesn't matter. No, look again, I don't know what to tell you. It's all recorded, I did my job."

He turns around, and she's standing right next to him, smiling that smile that does things to him.

"Listen man, I gotta go. I'd love to work for you again, but I'm not feeling the accusations. I specifically recorded the girl in blue most of the night, and she's standing right here with me now."

He hangs up, she kisses him, and he forgets all about the director saying there was no actress in a blue dress at the asylum.

He has never heard the word succubus and he never will.

I wish I could go back. Around 9 months ago, I pulled a stunt I wish I could take back.

"keep walking" the producer following me with a boom stick said. I did with no hesitation.

For some odd reason, everything turned black for a second. I turned around in shock when I had felt the abyss. I was falling.

"Where am I?"- I look around until I scream a blood-curdling scream that made me want to die. With my ears ringing in pain, I feal pain as my skin is being pulled apart. A Lady that looked like she was molding in a trash bad for 15 years crawled out upside down at me missing a leg.

"You have 1 minute. To make a disition." Said the creature. "I was cursed as a patient to host this choice. It is not me but the game that leads to horrid things. You can die a excruciating death and be summoned to witness all the horrors of the world or, take on my form and commit all the horrors of this world."

Next thing you know, I cry every time I think about what I did to Henry as he was only a child.

One-thirty a.m. and a September heat wave, having rolled up from southern California, covered the valley under a heavy blanket of rainless clouds. The city broiled in sweltering, acrid humidity from which the night providing no relief.

Neither was there any relief outside the city where a Matte black Ford Expedition parked, all but invisible behind a sparse growth of Russian Olive trees. Occupied by Antone Smilie, Mila Lords, Erik Blackman and Peter James, it was stifling even with the windows rolled down. Body armor trapped heat as effectively as an overcoat, and any breeze that found its way into the vehicle did nothing more than stir up the heavy musk of sweat.

With her signature ponytail, Mila appeared more like a teenager than a thirty-four-year-old. Experienced beyond her years, she earned the position of team lead thanks to her high level of competency. Contributing to that competency was her fluency in four languages, including Portugese which, tonight, would likely come in handy.

Antone, a beefy man with sharp angular features, sat behind Blackman. He moved only to brush away the sweat beading on his brow, and run a hand over his militaristic, quarter-inch buzz cut. Blackman and James were smaller but deceptively strong. Sporting a mustache and short beard, Blackman was naturally bald while James’ faded, blond hair gave him the appearance of a young John Denver. However, “Peter James” and “Sweet Surrender” had never been used in the same sentence.

Still, no one complained or squirmed in discomfort although, out of boredom, James clicked his rifle’s laser off and on like an incessant blinker.

Fifteen feet away set an identical vehicle, likewise dark and silent. Occupied by J’vore Nelson, a.k.a. Mond for his verbose hatred of Mondays, and Patrick Tanz. Behind them sat two moderately large men and one tall, tough woman who played fly-half for the Salt Lake Slugs WRFC. Tactical Medic Providers, or the TMP crew, on loan from the FBI.

Silently uncomfortable, their thoughts focused on, aside from the heat, the upcoming operation innocently named Sweet Tooth. Nothing about the operation was sweet and no one looked forward to it, yet all were eager to get it over with.

But to everyone involved, just another day at the office.

Two a.m. rolled around and a pair of headlights approached along the nearby access road, several hundred feet away.

“Hang tight,” Mila whispered. Grasping the steering wheel for leverage, she twisted against her seatbelt to watch the slow moving headlights. “We’re standing down.”

No one muttered the displeasure they felt. Antone donned his night vision goggles, as did Blackman, and watched the white panel van pass by. Continuing for another hundred yards or so, it turned into the entrance of the Ojito Sugar Products facility and came to a stop. A twelve-foot chain link fence surrounded the perimeter and the gate was secured with a heavy log chain.

The team should have been in position long before now.

“Okay,” Mila whispered, not that it was necessary. “We blew our chance. When the boys downtown get their little snafu fixed, we’re going in diamond formation.”

No one voiced their thoughts aside from Blackman, who commented that he was keeping his Remington rather than swapping it for an AR-15.

The original plan had been to post Tanz and Blackman on each side of the front gate, twenty yards out, armed with 260 Remingtons. Mond and James were to be stationed twenty yards up the driveway on each side of the berm, while Mila and Antone snuggled in the spotty grass ten yards back from the gate. Geared up with body armor, body cams, and night vision, everyone was armed with knives, Glocks with four mags, AR-15s with four mags, concussion and smoke grenades, and a medic drop bag in case the TMPs ran into problems. Or the carnage was more than they could handle. The exception being Blackman who insisted on keeping his Remington, and Mila, whose weapon of choice was her Weatherby PA-549 shotgun loaded with G2 R.I.P. rounds.

Although Mila was as proficient with the Remington and AR-15 as the rest of her team, she was more comfortable packing her Weatherby in close quarters, such as tonight.

Authorizing Mila to pack her Weatherby, and a Glock 43 to fit her smaller hands, had been an eighteen month battle that Captain Marcus Tillen fought hard to win. The commitment and dedication he had for his people was reciprocated in loyalty.

When the van, which intel claimed would be transporting abducted civilians, likely including children, stopped for the gate, Mila was to announce themselves and order their adversaries to the ground. At the slightest hint of resistance, Mond and James would take out the driver and whoever was unlocking the gate. Mila and Antone would rush the van and take out the guards inside while Blackman and Tanz eliminated anyone escaping out the back.

Dangerous, absolutely. But Mila’s team had walked it down dozens of times to ensure the safety of the civilians. In addition, they had run force-on-force exercises using MILES gear. Now, they could only sit and watch the van disappear into the sugar factory.

After waiting a few additional minutes, Mila made her call.

“What’s your status?... I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?... Well, we just lost our opportunity... For me, pretty please?... Ok, call me... Fifteen minutes and we’re going in whether you’ve got it working or not... Thanks, appreciate it.”

Mila placed a second call, and a responding light appeared within the other vehicle. “The security techs promised that our mics and cameras will be up and running within fifteen minutes. We’re going in diamond formation and I’ll be on point.”

Mila gave the technicians an additional five minutes which proved to be the right call, as she was notified that everything was up and running. Giving her team a terse go-ahead, the six quietly exited the vehicles leaving the TMPs behind. After calling for an equipment check on her mic, which came through the ear pieces loud and clear, Mila called Command for a video check. Everything was in working order.

“We’re on,” she said and led the team quietly, quickly, to the main gate.

Bolt cutters were deemed too bulky for the operation, but using his flexible wire saw, Tanz had the lock cut within five minutes. Feeding the chain through the gate slowly, carefully so as to minimize the rattle, it coiled at their feet like a large, metallic snake.

Mila swung the gate open and led her men inside. Senses heightened by the unknown and the delicacy of the operation, the team proceeded cautiously, slowly, appearing as no more than black shadows on a cloudless night, should anyone be watching.

Ten months prior - late 2017 - an unassuming reporter working for a small, independent news organization broke a bombshell story that Ojito Sugar Products was, in fact, being maintained by a Brazilian cult. President and CEO of Ojito Sugar Products had long-term business dealings with the Governor, two state representatives, and a congressman in a hereditary relationship passed down through three re-elections. Ojito Sugar Products suspended operations five years ago and had since been in maintenance mode, yet continued receiving government subsidies that were justified by political word salad.

Shortly after breaking the story, the reporter disappeared along with her source evidence. A collusion of lawsuits put the news organization out of business and effectively buried the story. Fortunately, there were enough conscientious individuals who pursued the right channels that eventually resulted in tonight’s Operation Sweet Tooth. An endeavor that cost of several careers and left a trail of hard feelings.

In what was originally their operation, the FBI’s involvement was nixed and that was when the real infighting began. In the fallout, it was decided that local Special Forces - Mila’s team - would conduct the operation and the FBI would provide the TMPs. Doing so allowed the politicians and Feds to distance themselves if things went sour, yet share in the credit if the operation was successful.

Months of surveillance indicated that three to four guards armed with H&K G36s roamed the grounds. A lot of fire power just to protect a shut-down sugar factory. To complicate matters, these guards didn’t follow a set patrol, rather, they roamed the grounds at will and were often observed disappearing in a building only to appear somewhere else on the grounds. Guerrilla warfare in which Mila also exhibited competency.

Approaching the electrical shop, Mila froze, as did the entire team. Dropping to a crouch, they waited, listened. A quick gesture sent Mond around the back of the shop. Moments later came a scuff of feet on gravel and a guard stepped around the corner.

Surprised by the sudden encounter, his reaction was instantaneous.

“Polícia! Levante as mãos onde eu possa vê-las!” Mila commanded even as he swung his gun into position but never got the chance the fire. Flinching twice, he slowly folded to the ground like a deflating balloon. Mond wiped his knife on the fresh corpse before rejoining the team.

“Someone had to have heard that,” Mila whispered into her mic. “Spread out but stay in formation.”

Approaching the mechanical building on their left, Mila brought the team to a gradual halt. Listening, looking. No one moved, other than their heads, as they slowly surveyed the area through a two-tone of green and black.

No sign of anyone either visually or audibly, yet no one questioned Mila’s actions. While trivializing her instincts as “woman’s intuition”, it was an ability they highly respected. Waiting, exposed, and all the while becoming more concerned, they searched for what had brought her to a halt.

Painstakingly, as though progressing through her Tai Chi, patterns, Mila began moving once again. Whatever had stopped her hadn’t gone away.

With her Weatherby ready to fire at a moment’s notice, she crept forward making not even the slightest sound of placing her foot, her weight, on the packed gravel. No sudden movements that might draw attention.

Passing the electrical building, a sudden explosion of gunfire blew glass from the metal door’s small window. James grunted and dropped. Mila took a hit to the chest, gasping as it knocked the wind out of her. Staggering backwards, she let go with three quick blasts from her Weatherby. The recoil continued propelling her backwards as the G2 rounds blew holes through the door and everything behind it.

Hugging the ground as bullets whistled over their heads from a second guard, Blackman’s Remington exploded with a pounding concussion. The 130 grain slug, traveling at 2900 feet per second tore flesh, shattered bone, and threw the man off his feet.

“Any one hit?” Mila said, catching her breath.

“I got a through-and-through in my leg,” James said, matter-of-factly.

“Stay here to evac.”

Then, scuttling over to James, Mila found small trickles of blood leaking both the entry and exit wounds.

“Get going,” he told her. “I can wrap it.”

“Move,” Mila ordered and called in the TMPs.

Mond scurried to the door from where the first shots came and put his shoulder to it. After taking a quick look inside, turned to Mila and gave a slit-throat gesture.

Hurrying now, still highly alert, the team double-timed it to the boiler house. The main door was locked, but as with the gate, Tanz made short work of the handle. Retracting the deadbolt with his knife and carefully extracting the latch, he eased the door open.

Only upon entering did they realize that it was equipped with a contact alarm.

“Shit,” Mila grunted. “We just ran outta time.”

The warehouse-size building was maze of tanks, electrical and steam generators, and processing units. Moving grates that carried fuel to the now silent boilers, along with a network of pipes and conduit snaked overhead where flues breached the ceiling to expel gasses, steam and smoke. Cement steps lead to an upper level that was terminated by large roll-up doors. Windows that lined the upper walls were blacked out. Stairwells on each side of the area led to the basement, however the light escaping from below was not enough to interfere with the goggles.

“Everyone’s equipment still operational?” Mila whispered and received quiet affirmations.

“Tanz, Antone, take the left stairwell. Mond, the right. Blackman, you and I will recon. After that you’ll post yourself at the door and I’ll follow downstairs. Keep your head on a swivel but work quickly. We don’t know where the alarm reported to or how long until someone responds. Now move it!”

Tanz, followed by Antone wove their way through the machinery to the far stairwell. Steep and narrow, it was constructed of metal grated steps and the floor’s overhang prevented Tanz from seeing much past the foot of the stairs.

“We can’t risk going in blind,” he whispered.

“We don’t have time to recon,” Antone answered.

Voices below became loud, agitated. Orders were barked in a foreign language that only Mila would have understood. Then the lights went out, plunging the basement in darkness.

“I just killed the power, so step on it,” came Mila’s voice in their ears.

“Sounds like five, maybe six unfriendlies,” Tanz whispered. “Mond, you get that?”

“Loud and clear.”

A muffled shout from below and Mond sent two short bursts of his AR-15 into the stairwell.

“I’ll draw their fire,” Antone said and thundered down the stairs.

Reaching the bottom, he paused just long enough to spray a burst of fire across the ceiling. The muzzle flash of two weapons turned on him while a third gunman sprayed the stairwell below Mond. Even the rolling concussion of gunfire didn’t drown the screams.

Just to make sure the pitch black stayed that way, Antone popped a smoke grenade from his belt and rolled it across the room as Tanz hit the floor next to him. Hard, but with control.

Mond’s rifle continued thundering from above, it’s echoes reverberating in the small space.

The scene unfolded in the bright green of their night vision. Originally a storage room fifty feet square with cement walls, floor, and ceiling, there was a set of double doors straight ahead leading to a freight elevator, another double set on the right wall leading to the mechanical room. A hole had been carved through the wall next to Antone, large enough for a person to walk through upright.

Directly before him set a row of ten beds, and another ten on the opposite side of the room where Mond was throwing lead at two gunmen. One unfriendly attempting to escape via the freight elevator ,whirled and sent a stream of tracers across the room at head level. Antone stitched him from hip to shoulder with a burst of fire. Two hard rounds punched him in the chest with rapid succession, preventing him from firing on the two men clambering through the hole in the wall.

Mond, along with Tanz’s crossfire, quickly took out their opponents with prejudice. The ear-shattering roar of gunfire echoed to an end, but the horrific chorus of screams didn’t.

Of the ten beds lined up in front of Antone, six were occupied by victims chained to the bedframes. Five kids lay strapped in beds on the other side of the room, all screaming, convulsing, and tearing their wrists and ankles on the restraints. It impossible to tell whether any had been hit by any of the flying lead, or if they were consumed by mindless panic. A wave of empathetic nausea swept through Antone and he turned away.

Mila charged down the stairs and ordered Mond to check the freight elevator and Tanz the victims. Antone followed his orders of pursuing the escapees while Mila assigned herself the mechanical room.

The room into which Antone stepped was large and sectioned with load-bearing cement walls. Doorways had been cut through them and naked lights strung haphazardly along the ceiling, spliced into wiring that was obviously not to code. A light switch hung before him, likewise spliced into the overhead wiring.

Empty boxes and sacks lay scattered about, and adjacent to the opening through which he entered set one pallet of canned goods and another of bottled water, apparently sustenance for the captives until their appointed sacrifice.

Antone negotiated the maze of cement walls, treading quietly on the moist dirt floor as he searched not only for the escapees, but escape routes, arms cache, or, and he didn’t want to think about it - charges for blowing the building.

Working his way through the utter darkness with the aid of his night vision, alert to every sight and sound, he deftly negotiated the rubble and scraps of building supplies. The muffled bang of a slamming door reverberated from somewhere ahead.

Coming to a wooden box with a hole in the middle, he kicked it aside to find a small pit that served as a latrine. Casting a glance into the shit-hole, Antone decided that it didn’t appear to be a viable means of escape.

Continuing, he reached the exterior wall and stopped before a fire door that wasn’t on any of the blueprints or building plans. Painted around it were graffiti and drawings in blood. Old blood. Dried. Black.

After briefly considering his options, he put a long burst into the latch blowing it to pieces, then yanked the door open, acutely aware that he was taking a chance on it being rigged with explosives. Instead, he was met with a loud and painful grating of hinges.

The door opened to a small sacrificial chamber roughly fifteen feet square. Cement steps framed both sides of a stone altar rising just over eight feet high and decorated with carved symbols he didn’t recognize. A bright, naked light bulb, apparently from a different power source, hung above a stone bowl that was affixed to the center of the altar. Momentarily blinded, he sent a short burst into the light, plunging the room into darkness.

The two men he pursued, lay across each side of the altar with their wrists slit and hanging over the bowl to catch their blood. No telling how many innocent lives ended in similar fashion, but judging from the amount of blood spatter and drips, it was considerable. One of the men slowly turned his head towards Antone and stared with unseeing eyes. He was already dead but his body didn’t yet know it. Legs jerked spasmodically and he slid off the altar, crumpling down the steps.

Only then did Antone notice the woman behind the altar, late seventies although it was hard to tell considering her condition. She hadn’t been there when he opened the door, he was sure of it.

A tall, gaunt hag with long grayish hair, she held him as tightly as a WWF bear hug with her dull, glowing eyes. Antone couldn’t tell if she wore clothes or not, as her body and what appeared to be robes, transformed from one to the other separate but one and the same. Wavering as seaweed in a gentle ocean current, her movements were fluid, hypnotic. With that same fluid movement, her face darkened with disdain. Dark crusted stilettos for teeth lined her gaping maw as she sucked in air as a dragon preparing to blow fire. Then erupted with the shriek of a thousand voices.

Pressure stabbed his ears and tore his body, shredding his soul, she bound herself to him, and broke the trance in which he was so tightly held. Antone let go with a burst of fire that blew the stone bowl of blood all to hell. Bullets puckered the dead man’s body, knocking him off the altar and chipped holes in the wall and altar. Stone and cement shrapnel flew in all directions, adhering to the walls with congealing blood.

He remembered no more.

***

Outside the tall picture windows of his great room, Cottonwoods lined a narrow creek of sculpted river rocks that was, in reality, a picturesque storm drain residents fooled themselves into believing was natural. Sprinkles of green leaves that hadn’t yet turned, punctuated the bright, golden leaves of those that had, the ripest of which were picked by fall breezes and deposited on Antone’s deck and patio furniture.

The ground-level floor of his townhouse consisted of a single-car garage and his man-cave. A room partitioned in half, the first of which was a fully equipped gym complete with stereo, treadmill, universal, weights, and dumbbell sets; the other a well-stocked kitchenette, pool table, and living room furniture strategically placed in front of a big screen TV.

Antone’s main living area was on the second floor. An open concept great room, dining room and kitchen there was a utility room and large pantry just off the kitchen. Master bedroom and bath took up the back half of the floor. Third floor contained a bathroom and three small bedrooms, all of which served as various office spaces. Visitors were rare and if anyone did spend the night, it was in bed with him.

On each floor set a well-stocked gun safe and another holding his thousands of rounds of ammo. Guns was his life, his comfort, his security. Now, they beckoned him as a wine cellar or beer cave taunts an alcoholic.

Staring at the idyllic fall setting just beyond his deck without enjoying the view, Antone’s face turned dark when his security system chimed. Still in the same sweats he had been wearing for the past week, he rose slowly from the love seat and gingerly walked to the glass patio door, staggering to maintain his balance. Sliding it open, he waited until an unexplained wave of fear subsided before stepping out. Gripping the railing, he peered upon a new Orange Metallic Burst Chevy Bolt EV. He knew the car. He knew the driver. For a brief moment, he considered leaping from the deck and dragging Mila out of her eco-warrior-chariot that she was so proud of, just to see if she’d still be proud of her little pumpkin after hammering her face on it a few times. He trembled with excitement at the what it would do to that cute little face of hers.

No. The neighbors would see or hear. Wait until she comes inside before doing anything rough.

Mila stepped out of her car appeared even more adolescent in her t-shirt, slip-on shoes, and form-fitting leggings that didn’t reach her ankles. Antone and most of the other guys looked for opportunities to work out with her, as she was prone to wearing thin and tight-fitting biker shorts and sports bra. Just to tease, no doubt. Now she had come to his home for the first time in the six years he had known her, uninvited, unannounced. Tonight all that teasing would come to an end and she’d have to pay up.

“Look at her,” the voice said. “She could be a little girl.”

A shudder of revulsion, and eroticism, raced through him.

“You know what she wants. Demanding it like she demands everything else,” the voice continued. “Why else would she come here? Alone, strutting her stuff. Daring you to take her down. Take her down hard.”

Oh, I’ll take her down all right, Antone silently answered. He glanced at his clenched hands clenching the deck railing, knuckles white. One good punch would knock her out cold.

“Where’s the fun in that? Fight makes it all the more satisfying.”

She’ll scream, he answered.

“Then shoot her if you must. You have three guns with silencers and she doesn’t need to be alive for what you want to do.”

Did he have time to unlock the safe, grab a gun, pop in a loaded magazine, and get back before she got tired of waiting for him to answer the door? Where would he hide the gun until the right moment?

No, he didn’t have time for all that. Besides, a bullet was too quick and clean, and sharing his pain was the only way of relieving it.

Reaching for the doorbell, Mila stopped abruptly as he remotely unlocked the door.

“Coward!” The voice spat.

“We’re team mates, bitch!” Antone said in a low, violent voice. Team mates have each other’s back. If I shoot her, then I’d have to shoot myself and that’s what you really want, isn’t it? Self-destruction.

“You WERE team mates. Not after today. Has she ever treated you like one? NO!”

Clamping his hands over his ears, Antone still couldn’t muffle the voice pounding in his head and staggered back to the love seat as Mila called out a tentative “hello” from the stairway. Waiting for her to appear, he poured another glass of Fireball cinnamon whiskey. It took both hands to guide the glass to his mouth. Taking a long slow drink and savoring the burn, he listened to her softly mounting the stairs. Slowly. Perhaps already aware of what she was stepping into, but women were like that and Mila’s intuition now frightened him. What if she read his mind, knew what he was thinking, planning, would she willfully sacrifice herself to him? After six years, she owed it to him.

Mila stopped in surprise at the sight of him, face drawn and pale, mussed hair, eyelids sagging.

“My God, Antone!”

“Look like shit, don’t I?” He said with a sneer.

A surge of violence ripped through his body as he stared at her. It took every ounce of willpower to control himself, keep himself from charging her. After obsessing over this very moment for the past week, he couldn’t decide on how to fulfill the ultimate gratification. Every fantasy that came to mind was better than the last and they flashed through his mind like movie trailers.

“I wouldn’t say you looked like shit, but what happened to you?”

“What happened to me? You mean since Operation Sweet Tooth? Took you long enough to check on me, didn’t it?”

Another surge of anger came from nowhere and slowly faded. Slopping a few drops of whiskey from his next drink, he tried acting nonchalant. Acting. That was a good term. He was memorizing the lines and actions of a different person because he was clearly not the same person who had accompanied Mila through the sugar factory over a week ago.

“Maybe Mila won’t put up a fight,” the voice offered. “Look at her. Here, alone, dressed in clothes that can be quickly and conveniently torn away. Demanding to be dominated and subdued.”

He looked down at himself and crossed his legs.

“Antone?” Mila’s voice, not the one in his head.

“Why the hell are you here anyway!”

Flinching as if slapped, she blinked in disbelief. The urge passed, leaving him with thoughts of mere seduction as his eyes nested on her leggings, tight against he crotch.

“Sorry,” Antone said and forced himself to look away.

“Sorry hell! I’m outta here!” Mila fired back.

“No! Wait! Please.”

His thoughts were wrong and he knew it. Knew that he couldn’t get away with it. Yet the voice told him it would be worth it. Satiating that violent lust was something he’d remember for the rest of his life, it would be his and his alone to relive over and over.

Maybe pity would draw her in close enough..

Squeezing the glass of whiskey to the point that his fingers turned white, Antone carefully set it on the end table out of fear that it would shatter in his grip. He cradled his head in his hands.

“Please,” he repeated as she turned to leave. “Stay. I’ve got to tell you something.”

Mila paused before warily approaching, more confused than angry. Keeping the love seat between them, she drew a stool from the breakfast bar and strategically placed it on the far side of the love seat. Antone smirked at her caution.

“Talk to me then,” she ordered.

“Something happened at the sugar factory.”

“You’re sure as shittin’ right about that.”

“No. Something really bad. It was in the hospital with me. Followed me home. I haven’t been myself ever since.”

“They had to restrain you.”

“I know. I woke up strapped to the bed.”

Clasping his hands before him, Antone looked upon purple bruises encircling his wrists.

“They did MRIs, CAT scans, toxicology, neurological, you name it and they tested you for it. They found nothing.”

“How do you know that?”

“Figure it out. You list Captain Marcus Tillen as your emergency contact so he has access to your medical information. Me being team leader, we discussed you, and don’t give me any shit about violating HIPAA.”

He looked at her face for the first time since his outbreak. Took a swig of cinnamon whiskey that brought tears to his eyes.

“Is there anyone you can call?”

“What, you finally ask about my family life after six years? The answer is ‘no’. My commanders were emergency contacts when I was in the military. Now I list Tillen. What do you care anyway?”

“What’s wrong with you? You’ve never acted like this before.”

“So what? This is the new me.”

Fighting the urge to leave, Mila continued the conversation. “I’m sure you’ve been asked enough times already, but what’s the last you remember?”

“Two guys with their slit wrists and the old woman. She’s here now. Somewhere. Maybe not alone. I think there’s others, the voices are different, anyway.”

“There was no woman, young or old. You weren’t at the debriefing, but we reviewed the entire operation and everyone’s videos.”

“I don’t give a damn about what you reviewed.” Patting the seat next to him, he said, “here, put your sweet little ass next to me and I’ll talk.”

“I’ll stay here, thank you very much.”

He shook his head, a shiver ran through him. “Old woman in robes standing behind the altar. I opened fire on her. Blew that bowl of blood all to hell and made Swiss cheese outta the wall where she stood. Don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in the hospital.”

“What you are calling a woman is nothing more than a distortion in your video. Considering the comm and camera issues, it’s totally explainable. Besides that, Tanz and I followed as soon as we secured the other rooms. That was within seconds of when you opened fire the second time. By then, the TMPs had arrived, we had the area secured and Blackman was still posted at the door upstairs. No one, especially an old lady, could have, or did, slip past us.”

“You wouldn’t have seen her, but I saw what I saw. She was at the hospital and now she’s here. All of them. Watching me. Putting thoughts in my head.” He added, “you have no idea what she wants me to do. She opened my eyes and showed me Hell. Showed me what really I wanted. What I have to have. Mostly from you, and you wouldn’t think it was pretty.”

Mila tensed. She could outrun him to the stairs, but down the stairs and out the door?

“I know what you’re thinking and the answer’s ‘no’.” Antone continued. “I know I’m irrational. We’ve all taken aberrant behavior training. I know that and still I can’t control myself. Not when I’m awake, and not when I’m asleep.”

“What do you mean asleep?”

Antone picked up his glass, took a drink and daintily returned it to the table.

“I get these uncontrollable fits of emotion when I’m awake. I feel like one wrong step and I’ll fall over some cliff I can’t see. I’m not dizzy and don’t have vertigo, but I get that intense anxiety people with acrophobia get in a skyscraper or on the edge of the Grand Canyon. One wrong step, one nudge, will send me over the edge. They’re showing me what’s going to happen. When I do manage to go to sleep, I have nightmares I can’t remember, but I know she’s causing them. Maybe the others, too.”

Antone smiled wryly. “I’ve developed apnea and sleep paralysis on top of everything else. Maybe I’m having mini heart attacks. That’s what it feels like, anyway.”

Mila watched as Antone carefully picked up his glass, fondled it thoughtfully, then quaffed it as though it were lemonade. Something about the way he moved.

“I feel her,” he eventually said. “The old woman. She’s here. I don’t know how to make her go away.”

“Have you seen her?”

“No, but I know it’s her. The same way that you know it’s your boyfriend making a noise somewhere else in your house. Or your cat playing with a toy even when you can’t see it. Sometimes she brushes against me, just enough to remind me that she’s here. Or she’ll make a noise somewhere in the house, a natural sound but it’s unnatural. But mostly, they talk to me. Not just talk, hypnotize. Never shut up, driving me insane.”

A tickle of nervous perspiration crept down Mila’s arm. “Can I open the windows? It’s so hot in here.”

“One wrong step and I’m on you like there’s no tomorrow.” He chuckled. “No tomorrow, that’s good.”

Mila talked her way through opening the windows. The patio door, she left open. If the situation became desperate enough, she could leap from his deck.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” she said, returning to her stool. “Especially from you.”

Antone poured the last of his whiskey and washed down a hand full of pills with it.

“Who said it’s coming from me?” He said, clearing his throat. “It’s happening to me, not coming from me. I’ll never go back to work. Not after this... this little mental breakdown. Maybe that’s all it is. I simply snapped. I’ll never make it past the shrink, and I sure as hell will never pass another MMPI.”

“A nine-year-old girl died in the hospital last night.” Mila said, changing the subject. “A girl we rescued. Rumor is that she died from apnea, although the autopsy hasn’t come back yet.”

“Strange, wouldn’t you say? Has anyone else either on our team or anyone we rescued experienced any strange maladies?”

“Maladies,” Mila chuckled. “No.”

“So, what happened after I went AWOL?”

“You were totally catatonic. I took your magazine and ejected the shell in the chamber, then went back for the TMPs. You were brought up in the freight elevator with the others. Wherever the boiler room door alarmed to, a carload of reinforcements arrived and we exchanged a fire. I think our guys hit a couple of them. They didn’t expect our level of resistance.”

Antone sat for a long time looking at his bottle and wondered out loud why he didn’t just drink from it. “I’m wearing down,” he said. “Slowly losing control. I can’t trust myself around other people. I can’t trust myself around myself.”

“Do we need to remove your guns?”

“You’re real funny, aren’t you? There’s a thousand ways to kill yourself and I’ve considered every one of them. I don’t have much else to think about. Even know how to swallow my tongue if I have to.”

“Speaking as a friend, you check yourself in somewhere. Whether you come back or not, you have to get better. You know that I have to report our conversation. I can’t cover for you.”

“First off, we’re not friends and never have been!” Antone whirled to face her.

“You know what? Maybe you’re right,” Mila fired back. “I’ve called, texted, emailed a dozen times over the past week and you haven’t responded to a single one. No, we’re not friends but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for you as a person.”

“You care for me AS A PERSON! That makes me feel a helluva lot better!” Veins bulged across his temples, his thick arms rippled, knuckles turned white as he fisted his hands. Glaring, lips quivering, the moment of rage passed and he continued calmly. “Let me tell you ‘friend’, there was something down there. A hallucinogen, poison, virus, hell, maybe that cult really did have a personal relationship with demons and now they’re pissed because I shot up their altar.”

“Friends or not, I’ll check in on you first thing tomorrow morning.”

***

Mila startled at the sight of Trent standing before her. Deep in thought, she hadn’t heard him enter the room.

“You’re jumpy tonight,” he said. “The funeral got to you today.”

“Yeah. On top of that, the detective investigating Antone’s death was there. I’m unofficially a ‘person of interest’.”

“You had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t do anything to prevent it. On top of that, he’s a novice, a two-year-old detective so how good can he be?”

“You’re going to be fine. You lost one of your team members, it’s not the first time.”

“Well thank you so much for trivializing it,” Mila said, wiping her eyes to keep the tears from spilling.

Trent stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her protectively. For the two years they had been living together with marriage an on-again off-again subject. Mila now feared that it was too late, all things considered.

“Is anyone local? Maybe someone you can talk to? Figure out what’s going on?”

Mila said quietly, “just the girl who died in the hospital last week. Now I heard another kid we rescued has died, kidnapped from Mexico. Why kids? Over eight hundred thousand kids go missing in the U.S. every year. Eight million kidnapped worldwide. Why? For this kind of shit? We rescued half a dozen and now two are dead. What’s the point?”

“Go to bed. This past week has been rough, you’ll feel better tomorrow.” He said and kissed her on the forehead.

“I don’t feel like sleeping. I’m going to get a snack.”

“After all you ate today?”

“So what, you’re counting calories for me!” Mila fired back. “You know, just leave me the hell alone.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it that way.”

Trent hugged her tight, reassuringly. Mila stood without responding. Watching him crawl into bed, she went cold as his heat dissipate from her body. Sunshine, their large yellow tabby, promptly took her position between his feet. Curling in a loose ball, she stared at Mila with unblinking eyes.

Normally, Mila would have climbed into bed and read herself to sleep but tonight, hairs prickled on the nape of her neck and along her arms. Uneasy. Jumpy. Perhaps the presence Antone had spoke of had followed her home as well. Or the power of suggestion. More likely her imagination, and she was going to prove it was that and nothing more.

Quietly making her way through the small living room and wishing Sunshine would accompany her, Mila paused in the kitchen, listening, waiting, then into the dark hallway leading past the utility room where her reflection in the stacked washer and dryer windows gave her a start. Still refusing to turn on the lights just to prove her point.

The hair prickled on the back of her neck. Still, she refused to turn on the light. The day she was afraid of the dark, especially in her own house, would be the day she turned in her badge.

Mila didn’t enter the spare bedroom. Headlights of a passing car sent shadows running across the walls an ceiling, followed by a cold, musty draft. She backed away. She wasn’t about to pay credence to her fears by checking the closet and under the bed.

Mila returned to the bedroom, to the light, to Trent, and to Sunshine. If anything, she crawled into bed more troubled than before. A floor joist creaked in the spare bedroom sending a jolt through her. A window creaked with the sound of strained glass. She held her breath waiting for it to break.

Were these the normal sounds of the apartment cooling down? Or settling? Maybe from the neighbors overhead? Sounds that she had never paid attention to in the past?

Mila awoke with a start, although she didn’t think that she had been asleep. The closet door stood partially open but her attention was drawn not from within the black interior, rather, the dark corner of the room next to the door. Ambient light filtered in through the open window and the curtains waved slowly, just enough to send faint shadows moving across the wall. A bright moonbeam played across the floor thanks to a separation between the curtains.

The shadowed corner felt deep, cavernous, an opening into which she was about to fall. The moment of vertigo passed but the presence remained. Watching. Knowing Mila was now aware of it, moved so slightly that she thought it was her imagination. The power of suggestion, thank you very much, Antone.

Mila tried to turn on the light but her arms didn’t respond. Tried turning her head but was unable so much as flex a muscle.

A ripple of lighter darkness from the shadowy hole, like strands of floating cobwebs, weaving into a cohesive form. Mila’s eyes went wide although she fought to clench them shut. Shutting her eyes would shut out the entity, something so primal, as old as Creation itself. Playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse before the final kill. Heart racing, lungs paralyzed, she gasped for breath, her chest convulsing. Mila struggled to turn on the lamp, to break the spell, but could do no more than twitch.

Seventy, maybe eighty years old, long dirty silver hair that, like the robes covering her body, waved as if the air were an ocean current playing with it. Spindly arms ending in long narrow hands and thick jointed sticks fingers, pronounced ribs, skeletal neck, she moved towards the bed. An aged, grayish face that nonetheless appeared taut but certainly not youthful. Beak nose, deep set eye sockets that housed two dull glowing embers. At times she robes obscured her body and at times her nakedness revealed as they dissipated, only to reappear.

Sunshine issued a low throaty yowl and rose to her feet, back arched high, hair like a halo. Hissing violently, Sunshine leapt from the bed and darted out of the room with the crumpling noise of claws on carpet. Trent lay sound asleep.

The figure disappearing into the beam moonlight then reappearing much nearer.

Mila screamed but had no voice. Tried moving her paralyzed body. Sweat beaded on her face, collected under her arms and breasts. The thing strengthening by the moment, pulling her into the abyss of which Antone had spoken, that black opening in the corner of the room, sucking her soul from the shell of a body.

Grinning through cracked lips dripping spittle, the hag savored every painful convulsion as Mila’s body cried for breath that didn’t come. Pulling itself onto the bed, floating, yet dimpling the covers under her weight. One hand painstakingly placed. Then the opposite leg, so carefully set down. Gray wet teeth glistened around the black gape of her mouth. Now the other hand. Blankets puckered and tightened across Mila’s body and the hag savored every moment. No need to hurry, she had the entire night to enjoy Mila.

What little air remained in her lungs was forced through a clenched throat, body wracked with seizures from lack of breath, and the only sound a rattling hiss. Her screams were heard only in her mind. Kicking, thrashing, throwing her arms up for protection, and for all her effort, came to nothing more than muscle twitches.

Trent would have to feel the mattress sink under the demon’s weight. He would have to awaken!

No, she realized. They had slept together long enough not to be disturbed by a shifting of the mattress. Rolling, tossing, turning, getting out, getting in, they had learned to sleep through it all. She could die at his side and he’d never know. Suffocated, and he would be the only suspect.

Cupping Mila’s breasts with burning cold hands, forming a bone encrusted bra, the woman climbed onto her, digging her knees in Mila’s abdomen like a bull rider securing himself to his mount. Leaning forward, her long hair enveloped Mila’s face and blocked out all light and pulled Mila into her vast depths of eternity. Eyes inches away, glowing deep dull red, her mouth working as if she were mouthing words. Raunchy breath hung like a poison over Mila’s face.

Heavier and heavier the woman grew, compressing Mila’s lungs. Ears roaring from the mounting pressure, she sucked in breaths, each more shallow than the previous. Blackness filled her vision. A numbing, light-headed sensation swept through her. Chest cramping spastically.

Mila stopped breathing.