Shelby slammed on the brakes in the middle of the lane. The vehicle came to a rocking halt, and Mack swore as his seatbelt dug into his chest.
“Good lord, Shel. The next time you give me that hard of a thump to the sternum, you’d better be trying to save my life.”
Shelby didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on a Chevy Cruze parked in the lot of the Sunshine Café, which they’d just been passing.
“You know, you should be glad we weren’t being tailgated; that could’ve resulted in a nasty accident.”
“Shut up, Mack.”
“I will not! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Instead of answering, Shelby jerked the wheel, gave the vehicle some gas, and whipped into a parking space next to the Cruze.
“You hungry all of a sudden?”
Shelby shook his head. “No, I—well, actually yes, but that’s not ... I mean, that car is ...”
Understanding dawned on Mack’s face. “You think it’s Carly’s.”
“It has to be Carly’s.”
“You have her plate number memorized?”
“Nope.”
“Then how the hell would you know that’s her car?”
“Because she’s arriving today, because of the New York license plate, because that’s a rental car, and because tourists do not visit Serenity this time of year. Anyone visiting Michigan in the winter is either insane, going to Frankenmuth, or more likely both.”
“Or making a movie. How do you know it’s a rental? I don’t see a rental tag.”
Shelby smiled a little smugly. “You know what else you don’t see? Dealer markings. And that’s because rental companies don’t buy from dealers. They work directly with automakers. Besides that, there’s a barcode in the corner of the back window. Another giveaway. Also, it’s a Chevy Cruze. Over forty percent of new Cruzes are purchased by rental companies.”
Mack stared at him. “And why exactly do you know these things?”
Shelby shrugged, a look of chagrin clouding his face. “I’ve been reading a lot of magazines since Kay’s been trying to pasture me. You can learn a lot of useless information that way.”
“Speaking of Kay,” Mack said, “and I don’t say this to influence anything you may be thinking of doing, but what’s the plan?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, suppose that is Carly’s vehicle—”
“It is.”
“Okay, fine. What are you planning to do? Go inside?”
“I just said I was hungry.”
“Shelby, that’s not a good idea.”
“Don’t ‘full-name’ me, Mack.”
“Fine. Shel, that’s not a good idea.”
“It’s an excellent idea. There’s probably strew left, and Carly and I are just friends, remember?”
“Sure, old friends catching up over a bowl of stew and a cup of joe. An innocent little chat.”
“Exactly. Say, whose side are you on?”
“My own. If Kay finds out I let you fraternize with old flames, I’ll be out on my ear.”
“Oh for god’s sake. Don’t tell me she’s got you pussy whipped too.”
“Too? Ha! A confession! That counts!”
“Okay, that’s it.” Shelby threw off his seatbelt and opened the vehicle door. “You coming in?”
Mack groaned. “Under protest.”
The two men walked up to the entrance, and Shelby pulled open the door. They stepped inside and were immediately cocooned in the warm, fragrant atmosphere.
“It’s stew night,” Shelby said loudly, patting his stomach as it growled insistently. This caused Barb to laugh and wave.
“Be right over,” she called to them.
They took a corner table and waited while the waitress scurried around, filling orders. Shelby looked around the room, trying to appear casual
“I don’t see her. Maybe you were wrong, Shel,” Mack said.
“Nope. I know everyone else in here and none of them drive that car. Maybe she’s in the bathroom.”
Barb appeared at their table, in that sudden way she had, honed by years of professional waitressing. “Why, hello, you two! Here for stew night?”
“Why, yes,” Shelby said. “As long as you put the celery back in.”
Barb laughed. “Oh, did we ever.”
Shelby nodded gravely. For months, the Sunshine has employed a new cook who had some sort of zealous hatred of celery and refused to include it in any of the café recipes, including the stew. The locals had raised a stink, but the cook refused to back down, resulting in a standoff that the area media had dubbed “Celerygate.” Finally, the cook was forced out by the management, citing falling profits. The new cook was a celery fanatic and now, if anything, the recipes were a little too heavy with the fibrous stalks.
“Then bring us a couple bowls,” Shelby said. “And a couple of sodas.”
“I sure will, Shelby,” Barb said, giving him the usual flirtatious smile. She started to turn away, but then stopped and turned back. “Oh! You’ll never guess who was in here just a little while ago.”
“Let me try,” Shelby said. “Carly?”
Barb’s face fell. “Oh, you already knew. But then I guess you would, you two having been together.” Her cheeks flushed. “Speaking of which, I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“Why not?” Shelby asked.
“Oh, it’s just ... I really don’t want to say.”
“Say it,” Shelby said.
“Say it,” Mack echoed.
And suddenly the men were chanting “Say it, say it” like a couple of adolescents.
Barb’s light flush had taken over her entire face. “Okay, okay! But don’t get mad at me, because I’m just the messenger.”
Shelby grinned. “Why would I be mad at you?”
Barb grimaced. “Well ... she left here with a man.”
Unexpectedly, Shelby’s heart dropped. He wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t as if he had intended to get back with Carly. He was with Kay and felt fairly sure that he was content with the relationship. Still, the idea of Carly with another man—probably some simpering little pantywaist from the city—put his teeth on edge.
“Do you know what time they got in?”
“Got in?”
“To town.”
“Oh!” Barb shook her head. “No, she met the man here. She came in alone.”
There was a moment of awkward silence, and then finally Mack cleared his throat.
“Okay, I’ll just step in here and ask the question that Shel doesn’t have the balls to ask. Who was the guy?”
Barb let out a little giggle. “It was that handsome actor fella. You know, the one—acting in that movie they’re making about the Murder House.”
Shelby’s stomach turned to lead.
“Cancel those food orders,” he said, his voice tight and low. He stood up from the table so quickly that he nearly tipped it over, and the bolted for the door with Mack close on his heels.
He was in such a hurry to leave that he didn’t feel his phone vibrate at that moment, and thus did not see that Colton Matthews was taunting him.
Carly moaned as she once more came out of her unconscious daze. Her eyes fluttered, then opened ... and she wished she’d remained in blackout. Colton Matthews stood over her, now dressed in a period outfit, looking for all the world like the pictures she’d seen of Michael Parré. He stood to one side, arranging various horrifying, surgical instruments on a wooden stand. He was humming quietly, and an odd, maniacal smirk flitted over his face as he worked to organize what Carly could only assume were implements of torture.
Carly was not a cowardly woman. She’d been through enough while with Shelby to know the realities of the real world, and she had faced them all with her head held high and her eyes wide open. She’d always thought of herself as someone who took life’s punches and gave back as good as she got, but the current situation was something else altogether. It preyed on her at every level: the dread of physical pain, the terror of madness, and the bizarre element of the paranormal that Carly couldn’t quite wrap her head around.
The old woman.
“Mr. Matthews?” Her voice sounded rusty and weak.
There was no response from the man, so she decided to take a shot in the dark.
“Dr. Parré?”
The man stopped working and stood for a moment as if frozen. Then he slowly looked over at her, the odd smirk widening horribly.
“You know me,” he said. His own voice had changed as well, holding a tone of sophistication that it had lacked when they’d spoken at the café.
“Yes,” Carly said, her mind racing. Could she keep him talking? Perhaps even talk him into letting her loose of these bonds? If she could just regain the use of her hands, she might be able to use some of the hand-to-hand defense tactics Shelby had taught her before she left for the city. He’d been convinced she’d been assaulted by muggers on an hourly basis and had practically forced her to undergo self-defense training—which he himself had taught. It had been both informative and titillating, as he may have taken the opportunity to cop a feel or two, not that she had minded.
But although the table’s original leather straps had long ago rotted away, she was tightly bound with rough rope.
“I am flattered,” Colton—or Parré, as Carly found herself thinking of him now, following a hunch just to further invest herself in the current, crazy situation—said. “I was uncertain you would recognize me.”
“Oh, I would also recognize the most eligible bachelor in Serenity, Dr. Parré,” Carly said. The roughness of her voice now lent itself well, as she purred the line huskily.
Parré’s smile widened, and Carly had to force away a shudder. She wished she’d taken an acting class in New York City—they’d been offered to her, free of charge, from a wealthy (and married) man who’d apparently been in the market for a mistress. At the time, she’d found him disgusting and had refused in no uncertain terms, but now she had the fleeting thought that those classes might have come in handy. In fact, she probably wouldn’t be here at all, on this revolting—and very uncomfortable—wooden table, waiting to be—what? Carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey? She would be lounging around in a New York penthouse suite. Being a “kept” woman didn’t sound all that bad in retrospect, given the alternative.
“Eligible, eh?” Parré said, putting down the instrument he’d been holding—some sort of curved blade with a serrated edge—and moving closer to her.
“Oh, yes. The women are always talking about you.”
“Do tell. And what sort of things are they saying?”
Carly feigned an embarrassed giggle. “Oh, I couldn’t repeat those things in mixed company, Dr. Parré. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“But it’s just the two of us,” Parré said, his voice coaxing. He moved even closer.
Carly smiled and cast her eyes downward, as if too shy to meet his stare.
“They ... well, they talk about the things they’d like to ... do to you.”
Parré’s step faltered. “Do to me?”
“Yes.”
“What things?” He bent forward slightly, his voice holding a hint of urgency. “What things would they like to do?”
Carly almost let out a genuine laugh at his transparency. If a man behaved this desperately in today’s social scene, he’d be laughed out of the singles mixer. Did all the men back in Parré’s time have so little game?
“I have said too much,” Carly said.
“Ah, but you haven’t.” Parré was right beside her now, staring down with eyes that burned with growing lust.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think I can say it.”
Parré let out a growl.
“But,” Carly said, “I may be able to show you.”
The growl cut off abruptly. “Show me?”
“Yes ... demonstrate. But I’d be too embarrassed to actually say these things aloud. Being a lady, you know.”
“Oh, of course, yes,” Parré was nodding vehemently. “Well, I ... I suppose I could untie your, uh, hands ... if you would like to, er, demonstrate.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Carly said, her voice high and innocent. “I wouldn’t want to disrupt anything you have going on here. Of course, I don’t believe this would take very long. I believe I could, well, demonstrate very efficiently ... and satisfactorily.”
Parré swallowed hard.
He reached for the ropes at her wrists, and Carly readied herself. She knew exactly where she was going to strike him, and she was not going to hold back. The blow might actually kill the man, and that was entirely okay with her.
At that moment, Carly felt a tremble through the table, exactly the same feeling as when she’d showed some of her designs in California and experienced minor earthquake tremors. But then the trembling increased. The floor seemed to shake, and the walls vibrate. The instruments Parré had so painstakingly arranged were now clinking against one another, adding a macabre soundtrack to the worsening tremors.
And then the vision of the old woman appeared once more, her face a mask of fury and hatred. The hag looked impossibly ancient, as if her spirit had continued to age. She pointed a wizened finger at Carly.
“Temptress!” she shrieked. “Michael, do not listen to her wheedling overtures. She is only trying to trick you. She cares nothing for you or your needs or desires. Listen to me, my son—I am the only one who truly cares for you!”
The trembling in the house had increased to point where it was creating its own sound now, a low rumbling that came from every direction, assaulting Carly with percussive vibrations. Her eardrums began to scream for mercy.
“Mrs. Chance!” Parré cried out.
“Do not call me that!” the old woman screamed. “You will call me what I truly am, what I’ve always been. You. Will. Call. Me. MOTHER!”
The old woman flew across the room, her translucent feet not seeming to touch the shaking floor. She reached out and grabbed up a gleaming blade from the array of instruments, and then turned toward Carly.
“An endless parade of whores,” she hissed. “That is what I must contend with. But I will do whatever it takes to protect my son—my Michael—from being defiled by the likes of you.”
And then, in the blink of an eye, she was hovering directly above Carly, seeming as if she had appeared, rather than moved there. And while she did not actually make contact, Carly still felt a heavy, oppressive weight on her chest, as if a real live person were straddling her.
The knife she held, however, was plenty real, and it flashed as it went up. It hung in the air, catching the grimy light of the room, the rumbling and shaking providing the kind of atmosphere that Carly believed had the potential to drive someone entirely out of their mind. Quickly.
Reality, she begged herself. Hold on to reality. This is not really happening. There are no ghosts. And, if there are, they cannot kill you.
“JEZEBEL!”
The old woman’s drawn-out scream finally broke Carly’s resistance.
Oh my god—this is real. And I am about to die, killed by a fucking ghost in a goddamn Podunk town in the middle of nowhere. I want to go back to New York—this place is way too dangerous.
Shelby jammed on the accelerator and sent the Jeep hurtling up the hill toward the Murder House. He called it that because that’s exactly what it was. He knew it. He felt it. Carly was there, she was with Colton, and she was in danger.
The vehicle screeched around the curve in the road and then the gates of the house loomed ahead of them.
“Hey, Shel—you going to slow—?”
“You might want to duck,” Shelby interrupted.
Mack bent over below the top of the dash as the front of the Jeep collided with the gate. There was the screech of metal and a loud crunching as the front of the vehicle crumpled.
And then they were through, surging up the final stretch to the house.
Shelby slowed, but didn’t fully stop the Jeep—just jammed it in neutral and jumped out.
“Hey!” Mack yelled.
The now driverless Jeep rolled onto the lawn and then came to rest against a large oak tree. Mack threw off his seatbelt and practically rolled from the passenger seat. As his feet hit the ground and he glanced toward the house, he saw Shelby already running.
“Shelby!”
But his friend ignored him, never even looking back.
Shelby ran toward the house. He felt an odd sensation inside his head, almost like a cacophony of noise. Then he realized the sound was coming from ... the house itself. And as he approached, he saw that walls seemed to be moving or vibrating, swelling out and contracting in, almost like—he swore quietly—almost like it was ... breathing. And the vibrations he now felt in the ground as he walked were almost like the rhythmic rise and fall of a giant chest.
He continued to run, and he suddenly realized that he did not know where he was going. His feet seemed to lead him, as if they knew exactly where Carly was and how to get to her.
Shelby’s first thought would have been to enter through the front door or a window, but he now ran, unthinking, around to the side of the house.
Where am I going? he thought.
And then he saw a door. It was set into the side of the house, at the bottom of a set of steps. Another entrance to the basement.
How the hell did I know about this?
As he drew nearer, a horrible, potent smell hit his nose. It smelled of shit and garbage, like those animal farms he used to work in his younger days when he’d traveled the country before becoming a boxer.
Pig farms, he thought. Those were the worst. And that’s exactly what this smells like—pigs.
And then he was at the cellar door. He tried handle, but it was locked. Fortunately, the door was wooden and old, and Shelby was high on so much adrenaline that he could probably have just crashed right through and exterior wall. He back up to the top of the steps, lowered his shoulder ... and charged.
The door splintered inward with a sickening crash, and Shelby felt a sharp pain shoot from his shoulder all the way down to his wrist.
Oh, fabulous. Now I’ve hurt myself and Kay will be pissed at me.
But now was not the time to worry about domestic discord.
He reached under his jacket, into his shoulder holster, and pulled out the snub-nosed .357 revolver. He involuntarily grimaced as he held the gun. His wrist still ached, and the thought of firing off the handgun was not a pleasant one. The benefit of the small size was portability and easy concealment. The downside was that having such a large caliber in a small gun meant a pretty significant kick—less mass to absorb the recoil.
Maybe I won’t have to use it.
But Shelby never had much use for liars. Not even when he was the culprit.
He ran forward, stumbling a little over the broken remnants of the door, and entered the main part of the basement. And there he saw the room that Colton had locked himself into earlier. Now the door was standing ajar, and a light was on, dirty and dingy yellow light that spilled out onto the basement floor, mingling with the single, still-swinging bulb’s rays and somehow making the whole—darker. Shelby moved forward, this time with a bit more caution, wanting to catch whoever was in the room by surprise, if they hadn’t already heard his dramatic entrance.
But he heard voices, one of them a woman’s voice—not Carly’s. No, this one was the voice of an older woman, and she was practically screaming in fury.
Shelby reached the door and peered through opening.
And he saw three things that made his blood run cold.
First, he saw Carly. She lay, bound, on a rough wooden table, her gorgeous face deathly pale but defiant. Second, he saw the old woman who was screaming as she seemed to hover above Carly’s prone form. At least, he partially saw her. Her body shimmered slightly and, Shelby realized with a shock, he could see partially through her. And when he looked through her, he could see the third thing: Colton Matthews dressed in period costume, his face twisted with madness and evil, looking just like Dr. Michael Parré.
“JEZEBEL!” the old woman shrieked, raising a glittering knife into the air.
Shelby burst into the room, raised the revolver ... and fired at the old woman.
The bullet passed right through her and slammed into Colton Matthew’s multi-million-dollar face. The jacketed hollow-point round exploded from the back of the movie star’s head, painting the wall behind him with brain and bone matter.
The old woman, upon seeing Colton’s body slump lifelessly to the floor, emitted an ear-splitting wail of anguish, and the knife came down a few inches.
“My son!” she screamed. “My sooooooooon!”
She turned, and upon seeing Shelby, her thin lips drew back in a demonic snarl, exhibiting jagged, brown, rotting teeth.
“It’s youuuu,” she hissed. “I knew you’d be coming. I saw you. I sawwww youuuuu.”
Shelby stood there, motionless, the revolver still held out in front of him. It was pointed at the woman, but apparently powerless to stop her.
“Shelby,” Carly said. She was trying to shout, but her voice simply wouldn’t allow it.
“Carly,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, and Shelby heard the sarcasm, even through the rasp in her voice. “Just a little tied up at the moment.”
“Oh my god,” Shelby said. “I’ve missed you.”
“Normally, I’d say the same,” Carly said. “But this ain’t exactly the welcome I expected.”
“Sorry,” Shelby replied. “I had originally planned a barbershop quartet and balloons, but the ghost here was on sale.”
The old woman’s twisted expression faltered just a bit, but then returned to its wicked set. “You can make light of this all you want, but the lesson today is that you are both going to die. You’ve killed my Michael, and I will have my revenge.”
Shelby’s finger tightened on the trigger, but even as it did, he knew firing the gun would be pointless. The bullet would simply pass through the old woman again and smack into the wall, possibly ricocheting into Carly.
The knife raised again, and the old woman gripped it with both hands.
“First the whore, then you!” she screeched.
Time slowed.
Shelby looked at Carly, lying helpless on the table, and his heart clenched. Memories of their time together flooded his mind, and his own helplessness to save her sent a surge of fury through his veins.
And then, as he watched, a new form appeared, transposed over Carly’s body. It was a young woman, dressed in clothing from the same period as Colton. She sat up slowly and began to ease from the table.
It’s almost like watching Carly’s soul leave her body, Shelby thought. But that can’t be ... she’s still alive!
The old woman had seen the same thing, and her face was a mask of disbelief.
“I ... I killed you,” she said.
“You stupid old bitch,” the younger apparition said. Her voice was cracked and rusted but was somehow less horrid than the old woman’s “You’re dead too.”
“Then I suppose it’s time to make it the three of us. Just like the three girls who left Salem all those many years ago.” The knife twitched in preparation for its devastating downward blow.
As Shelby watched, the young woman walked to the far wall and then pointed directly at one of the bricks.
“Here!” she said urgently. “It is here.”
Shelby had no idea what she was talking about, or what she wanted. His mind was whirring. There was no time to ask questions or inspect the wall ... the knife was about to descend.
And so, he simply acted on instinct ... and emptied the revolver directly into that brick.
The old masonry disintegrated as the powerful rounds slammed into it, and as the brick cleared away, Shelby noticed something other than just brick and mortar falling to the floor. There were also shards of wood.
The old woman watched was what happening in abject horror.
“No! Stop that at once!”
But Shelby kept firing until the hammer clicked onto an empty chamber. And it was then he noticed that the old woman was now bent double over Carly. The hand holding the knife was limp, and the blade slowly slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.
“No ...” the old woman gasped. “It cannot be.”
And as the ghost’s final breaths wheezed from her body, Shelby felt the entire house shake, and a powerful rush of cold wind blew through the room, making his hair stand on end. A deep rattle sounded ... and Shelby had heard that sound before. It was a death rattle. A final breath.
The house was finally, literally—giving up the ghost.
And as the cold wind blew, the forms of the two ghostly women began to disappear, as if composed of only dust and being blown away piece by piece, particle by particle, until they were gone altogether.
Shelby rushed to Carly and tore off the ropes with frantic abandon. Once she was free, he picked her up in his arms.
“Hold on,” he croaked. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
He turned to go and saw Mack standing in the doorway, a look of utter bewilderment on his face.
“Nice timing,” Shelby said. “Now go get the fucking Jeep. We need to get Carly to the hospital.”