Cassie squinted her eyes against the brightened room, struggling with the constricted feeling throughout her body. It felt as though the sun had come down and engulfed her. Mitch rushed over from his position in front of the sink, reaching for a holster and pistol that weren’t there. Pennington pulled his handgun and wove past Cassie. The man’s cologne overwhelmed her, bringing her the rest of the way back to reality. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him blocking her from whatever he thought might be at the other end of the hallway. His physical presence could do nothing to stop it.
“What’s wrong?” Mitch said.
“It’s okay.” She squeezed his forearm.
Mitch leaned back, his head quivering slightly as though he were trying to shake free of whatever thoughts had been there.
“It’s okay, Mitch. I just need to be alone.”
“What?” he said.
Pennington, having seen Cassie like this before, backed off and holstered his weapon. He walked to the back door. “We can go, Tanner.”
Cassie reached for Mitch’s arm again, tracing her fingers gently against his bare skin. They’d worked together several times over the years, but mostly from a distance. He’d never seen her up close when pushed this far on an investigation.
“I’ve got something here,” she said. “I need to be alone now to get the most out of it. I’ll be outside when it’s over. Okay?”
Mitch mumbled his acceptance and took a few steps back. His intense stare made her cheeks burn.
“Please,” she said. “Go, or I’ll lose it.”
Mitch turned away and walked out the kitchen door. Pennington looked back, his face tight, and nodded as he let the screen door fall shut.
The room went silent for a moment. Then the hushed tones returned. The voice wasn’t clear, but she presumed it to be singular. If there were multiple spirits, it would be difficult to understand any single one of them, but not due to lack of volume. When there were two or more, it could sound like Sunday dinner at grandma’s house, with everyone trying to yell over each other, vying for attention while they recounted their stories from the past week.
Cassie tread carefully down the hall, avoiding the crimson stains on the floor when possible. A dried river of blood streaked the wall, about waist-high. Tributaries stretched to the floor.
The voice grew louder, but no more discernible. She likened it to playing an album in reverse. A patch of light washed over the floor and faded a second later. She stopped at the first darkened doorway and peeked into the room. A burst of white light exploded from somewhere within, blinding her. Though the room was vacant, she saw the woman who had occupied it the night of the storm. Her naked body lay half on the bed. Her left fingertips grazed the floor. Her blonde hair was colored red.
“Is that you?” Cassie asked.
“NO!”
The force of the voice drove Cassie backward. Her head slammed into the door trim. She winced as pain radiated across her skull. But she didn’t scream out. Doing so might drive the spirit away.
Weaving her fingers through her hair to rub away the dull ache, Cassie staggered back through the opening and swept the room with her gaze. The unmade bed told the story of the woman’s last moments. But the vision was gone.
“Here,” the voice said.
Cassie backed out of the room and walked to the end of the narrow corridor. The light from the main room of the house barely illuminated the space where she stood, glinting off the door handles. There were three more bedrooms remaining, one to the front of her, and one on either side.
“Right,” the voice said.
Cassie reached out. The skin on her arm prickled as she wrapped her hand around the ice-cold knob.
“Open,” the voice said.
She turned the handle, taking a deep breath to steady herself for whatever sight lingered on the other side of the door. The stench hit first. It had been present throughout the house, but not as intense as the putrid smell of death in this room. As far as she could tell, the others didn’t notice it.
The woman was on the bed, holding her hands over her face. The blue of her eyes stood out from behind spread fingers. “Why did he do this to me?” Her voice was clear now, thick with a southern Georgia drawl. “Why did he try to shred me into pieces?” Blood seeped from behind the woman’s hands and ran down her arms. It dripped off and disappeared into the void.
“Who did this?” Cassie asked. “Can you show me?”
“It was so dark.” Her voice waned.
“Stay with me. Please. I need you to stay with me. Try to remember.”
“Alice,” she said. “Alice made it out alive. But only ‘cause he took her.”
“Do you know where?”
The woman reached out with her left arm, revealing a gaping hole in her face. A chunk of her cheek hung on by a thread of skin. She aimed her finger across the hall.
Cassie turned and stared at the opposite door.
“Alice,” the woman said.
Cassie spun back around, but the woman had vanished.
“Hello?” she said.
No response.
“Are you still here?”
No response.
Cassie leaned forward and placed her hand over a splotch of dried blood on the bedsheets. She heard a whisper, but nothing else. The young woman had slipped into the same void as her blood and tears.
Cassie left the room, pulling the door shut behind her. It stuck against the warped frame and then clicked closed when she pulled harder. She reached out to the right, dragging her fingertips across rough paint, then brought her hand forward and grabbed the knob to what she presumed was Alice’s room. Another flash of light overtook her vision. Soon it was replaced with the image of a man in his early twenties, dark hair and eyes, and a perpetual growth of scarce stubble on his chin and cheeks.
A whisper blew past like a soft breeze on a spring day. It sounded like it said, “Seth.”
The vision faded. The darkened door took its place. Cassie turned the handle and pushed the door open. There were clothes on the floor. A dresser overturned. The bed was stripped. The sheets were not in sight. They had been taken by forensics for further processing. Whatever had happened in the room, the investigators believed it would help identify the man that had murdered the women and taken Alice in the midst of the storm.
“Alice,” Cassie said. “If you can hear me, it means one of two things: Either you’re dead, or something in this room still holds enough energy that your spirit is attached. If the latter’s the case, and you can point me to the object, it’ll help us as we search for you. There’s a lot of us working on getting you back, girl. You’ve even got a cop from Philadelphia here to help. He’s a good one, too. So come on, show me, Alice. Show me.”
The soft rumble of a distant truck passed. The room fell silent. The entire house was like a corpse. No fan pulling in and pushing air through. No electricity to keep the pulse going.
Cassie closed her eyes, stepped forward, turned in a circle. She stood still for thirty silent seconds. She opened her eyes and scanned the room. A picture on the floor stood out to her. Cassie scooped it up and saw a photo of four women. It looked recent, but the edges had already started curling. She recognized one of the women as the spirit who had opened up to her. She was also able to spot the blonde from the other room.
And there was Alice.
“This is it,” Cassie said. “I’m taking this with me, Alice. Stay calm. Stay strong. We’ll be there soon.”