The door creaked when I pushed it inward, and I braced myself for anything. I wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted me, and went stock still when another ghostly apparition surfaced before my eyes. It was Sonja—Joseph’s familiar and family servant—dressed in a black robe of some kind. Her head was bowed and she was seated in a black circle, chanting something I couldn’t hear. She reached for a long knife placed in front of a black wicker candle, the flame glowing unnatural gray. I watched, horrified, as she brought the edge of the knife to her elbow and began cutting downward, in a way that would ensure she would bleed out before help could arrive.
Rivulets of vibrant red raced down her arm but she didn’t stop with the first, quickly moving to the second. The carpet in her room was white, a sharp contrast to the walls that were painted black. It was like watching a rose in bloom during the winter as her blood spread across the carpet, soaking into the floor around her, until she began tottering back and forth. She braced herself with a hand on the floor and brought the blade to her throat. I knew what was coming but couldn’t tear my eyes away as she sank the unforgiving length of metal into her windpipe, creating a river of crimson that streaked down the robe.
She collapsed then, directly on top of the candle. The gray flame engulfed her, but there was no fire. Instead it seemed to blanket her entirely, until she was a huddled black mass beneath a dense and unrelenting fog.
I was so immersed in the visual that I didn’t see whatever threw me with enough force to send me crashing into the far wall, through the moment imprinted in time. As soon as I hit the unforgiving surface, I reached for the gun at my back and turned to face something far more powerful than me. I’d never seen a poltergeist before, but I’d been warned by Goose that they were a grisly sight, something straight out of nightmares.
Goose hadn’t been kidding.
The thing was nothing more than rotted flesh, shredded muscle and a bald head with thatches of hair here and there. It was the hair that told me who haunted Joseph’s home. Only one person in the world was brave enough to pull off the Rainbow Brite look.
“Sonja,” I whispered.
If she heard, she didn’t give any indication. She advanced on me and I fired a round directly into her chest. In the next instant, I was thrown out of the room, into the hallway. I didn’t look to see if she was following me. I hauled ass to the stairs, ready to get her where I needed her to be. Just as I reached the top of the staircase, she grabbed my leg and sent me barreling to my stomach. The gun slipped from my hand, hit the ground, and started ricocheting off the stairs.
“Shit,” I snarled and rolled, trying to get my balance.
I supposed Sonja didn’t want me out of the room after all, since I felt her ghostly hand wrap around my ankle as she started to pull me in the direction we’d come from. The stairway vanished as I was dragged back inside. The bedroom door slammed shut, my ankle was released, and when I turned and lifted my head I came face to face with a woman I’d once known who had become something terrifying. She didn’t move from her place in front of the door, barring my exit. She studied me oddly, turning her head from side to side. Her once clear blue eyes were now entirely black, each with a discernible red pupil that started to dilate wide. She opened her mouth, and I cringed when I saw that most of her teeth were missing.
“Finally, you have returned.” Her voice wasn’t really a voice at all, more of a whisper of wind that managed to form consonants and vowels.
“What have you done, Sonja?” I didn’t bother rising to a position to defend myself. Like this, she could eat my Wheaties and then some, and I wasn’t stupid enough to provoke her.
She smiled, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. “I have finally been given my boon for an eternity in living hell—your arrival.”
“I don’t—”
“Understand?” She cackled, the sound like scattered branches flittering against a window. “Of course you don’t. I didn’t expect you would.”