Page 193 of Love at First Fright

Then silence.

Floating down, I flickered—still weak from possessing Harrison, from the saw, from the pain that had ripped me apart. I hovered near the fuse box. Exposed wires dangled like dead vines.

One of them sparked. Fuck. Had Harrison’s saw caught a wire?

Another spark.

Just a small thing. A brief flash of light and the smell of burning insulation.

But I knew that spark.

Remembered it.

The memory pulled me under.

The kitchen. Michael’s laugh—that wonderful sound I’d spent six months coaxing out of him. Six months of patient lessons, of gentle encouragement, of watching depression’s grip slowly loosen as his fingers found the strings.

We’d been eating crisps. Talking about bands. About the future. About everything.

Then darkness. Sudden and absolute. The lights died with a soft pop.

“Shit,” I said. “Power cut?”

Michael didn’t answer.

The wrongness settled over me immediately. That crawling sensation that something had shifted, like the house itself was holding its breath.

“Stay here,” I told Michael. “I’ll check the fuse box.”

Down the basement stairs. Each step bringing that wrongness closer, pressing against my skin. The torch in my hand barely cut through the dark.

Bottom of the stairs. That tiny space. The fuse box on the wall, its glass panel intact.

Behind me—

A sound. Footsteps.

I turned.

Michael stood at the top of the stairs.

Stood.

Not sitting in his wheelchair. Not leaning on crutches. Just standing there, weight balanced on both legs like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Mike?” I pressed back against the door. “How are you—”

He walked down the stairs. Not walked. Moved. Jerky. Mechanical. Like someone operating a puppet, still learning which strings did what.

His face looked wrong. Slack. Empty. His eyes stared past me rather than at me.

“Michael, what’s—”

He reached the fuse box. His fist drove into the glass panel with impossible force. No hesitation. No pain response.

Glass shattered. Blood poured down his hand, his wrist, his forearm. Dark in the torchlight.

“Stop!” I grabbed his shoulder. “Mike, you need to—”