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A shiver wriggled its way down the back of my neck. I found I didn’t like that idea very much.
But it was silly to stay here. I needed to pack it in and go home. Whatever was going on with Father Neil, I couldn’t guess, but that didn’t mean I should keep sitting on this porch, listening to the chirping of the crickets in the yard and the faint sighing of the wind in the trees.
Then again….
Why not go inside and take a peek? If nothing else, observing the phenomena again would let me figure out if there was any kind of baseline, so to speak, or whether the demons mixed it up depending on their mood.
And yeah, I know. Dumb idea. Don’t go into the haunted house and all that. But I was getting kind of tired of being stymied at every turn.
At least I had my running shoes on.
Now resolved, I stood up and unlocked the front door, then let myself in. I’d left an accent lamp in the living room on, just so the house wouldn’t be completely dark. Its reassuring glow showed me that nothing looked out of place. To the eye, the mansion was calm.
My ears were an entirely different matter. The pounding and screeching and laughing continued, just as before. Listening to it, I found myself getting angrier and angrier. How dare they? This house wasn’t theirs — it was supposed to be a place of peace and beauty.
They needed to get out.
I stomped over to the stairs and pounded my way up to the first landing. “Shut up!” I yelled. “Stop it! Pick up your toys and go home!”
This entirely unprofessional tirade was met with about the reaction I should have expected — i.e., absolutely no change whatsoever. Gritting my teeth, I went over to the wall and thumped it with my fist.
“Stop it!”
Again, no diminishment of the noise or its intensity. I smacked the wall again, then paused.
What the heck?
Something about the wallpaper had felt strange. I paused and got out my phone, turning on the flashlight function so I could get a better look. The stairwell had its own light fixture, but I hadn’t turned it on, and I was too far away from the accent light in the living room to see much more than large shapes.
Yes, that was definitely an obvious seam in the paper, one which didn’t quite match the pattern, as if that one piece had been hung quickly and sloppily. I hadn’t noticed it before since the floral design was fairly busy, typically Victorian. And although I suppose it was possible it had always been like that, I got a hinky sensation again, as if there was something else going on here besides badly patched wallpaper. Beneath my fingertips, the paper felt cool and oddly damp. Surely wallpaper that had been up for decades shouldn’t feel like that?
My fingertips slipped under it, began to pull. Yes, it felt like the paper was starting to come up — and not in bits and pieces, like old, dry wallpaper that had been there for fifty years or more, but in one solid sheet.
What the…?
Something hard connected with my back, pushing me toward the stairs, and I stumbled and dropped my phone. I flailed as I tried to catch my balance, but it was too late. My Keds slipped on the top step, and I went down hard, rolling and rolling until I hit the bottom.
Then my body took mercy on me, and I blacked out.
14
Hazard Pay
“Selena!”
Calvin’s voice, urgent. I cracked an eyelid and winced at the light shining in my eyes. Everything hurt.
“Are you all right?”
“Define ‘all right,’” I muttered.
“Can you feel your fingers? Your toes?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
His arm slipped under me as he helped me up to a sitting position. I blinked, and realized I was at the base of the stairs, with lights blaring all around. Except for the heavy beating of my heart, the place seemed utterly quiet. The demons appeared to have checked out for the evening.
“What happened?” I asked.
