The Possession Read online

  “And also wanted Maddy’s boyfriend to hack her Insta and post it. I have no idea why.”

  “Ryder’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Really? Then maybe you should tell him that, and stop getting him to do dumb shit for you.”

  I sensed the conversation was getting away from us. “All this because Alaina threatened to tell on you? You really think your parents would have cared about that if they knew someone else’s kid was alive after all?”

  “It wasn’t only that,” Maddy said. She looked guilty but defiant. “She promised us things. Things we deserve.”

  “I don’t want those things anymore,” Nadja said.

  There was a slamming sound from out in the garden. Everybody turned to look. The gate in the back fence was now shut. “It’s just the wind,” Maddy said, quickly. She sounded like she was trying to reassure herself.

  “What kind of things?”

  But both girls stood looking nervously out at the gate, and shook their heads, and wouldn’t tell us any more.

  Nadja showed us to the door.

  “There was one other thing we didn’t tell anybody.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What was it?”

  “On the day we went to the woods, when Alaina disappeared. You asked us if we saw anybody we knew.”

  “You said you saw Val.”

  “Right. We did. But also. Maddy and I went into the store to get a juice, and while Maddy was paying I saw Alaina over by the corner. She was talking to Kurt.”

  “That bartender guy? What about?”

  “I don’t know. Obviously. But when we came out he was gone, and Alaina looked pretty down. Or pissed. Or something.”

  Ken was staring at her. “Why didn’t you tell the cops about this?”

  “I asked her about it, and she said it was nothing. And once she was back, I knew it wasn’t a thing, so.”

  “Sure,” I said. “That makes sense.”

  “You said earlier that nobody needs to know what we did,” she asked. “Is that still true?”

  “I guess,” I said. “Unless someone gives me a good reason to think otherwise.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Though really, it’d be best that way for you, too.”

  Ken raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean…don’t cross Alaina. Not the way she is now. Just don’t get into it. It will not end well.”

  “We’ve dealt with some pretty weird stuff in our time,” he said. “I’m sure we can handle one teenage girl.”

  Nadja cocked her head. “Wow. So it is true.”

  “What?”

  “All men really are too dumb to live.”

  She slammed the door.

  And locked it.

  Chapter

  41

  Kristy remained frozen while she listened to the sounds above.

  They started at the far end. And at first sounded like slow footsteps. As if someone was walking along the corridor above her head, toward the staircase in the middle of the building. Step, step, step.

  Though…having walked that corridor herself, only minutes before, she knew there could be no one up there. She also knew all the doors on this lower level were locked.

  She was going to have to go out the way she came in.

  The noises above were quieter now. Maybe she was getting spooked over nothing. Maybe it was just science. Temperature differentials. Creaking wood.

  Or an animal. A raccoon or possum that had been lurking in the attic. Would have to be a raccoon, of the two, judging by the weight of the footfalls. She’d disturbed a big momma raccoon. It’d come down from its lair to see what was going on, seeking to protect its brood.

  Though…of course it didn’t have to be an animal. It could be a person. Who’d heard her slamming open the trap door when she came in, and taken cover in the attic while she explored. And had now come back out, either not realizing the interloper was still in the building or else coming down to tell her to go the hell away.

  It could be Alaina, in fact.

  “Hello?” Kristy said, loudly. No response. She moved toward the door to the storage room and kitchen. “Look—if I’ve disturbed you, I’m sorry, okay? I’m leaving now.”

  The noise changed. Still kind of like footsteps, but with an odd rhythm. Not one-two, one-two. There was a sliding sound in it. So maybe an animal after all?

  With a tail?

  Then a loud crashing sound. Not from above—from the storage room. Kristy was in the doorway when it happened and in position to see what caused it.

  The trapdoor slamming shut.

  By itself.

  She backed away, heart thumping. Though what she’d just seen—the door flipping over, with no one to push it and no one pulling from below—wasn’t something she could understand, she knew that wasn’t important right now and she needed to focus on getting out. She flashed on the fact that there had been a small, square window on the road side of the kitchen area. She’d seen it from outside. No one in their right mind (or a non-scared mind) would try entering or leaving the building by that route. So maybe there was a chance it hadn’t been secured like the others?

  But that still meant going through the storage area.

  It would have to be a last resort: for now keep ignoring the fact that the trap door had shut apparently by itself—there was probably some rational explanation for that, too, she’d work it out in the bar later, with a fucking huge glass of wine.

  She was going to have to break a window.

  Rip off the boards, smash the glass. She’d need to be careful climbing out, but her coat was thick and would hopefully protect her.

  Suddenly she realized her leg was hot. Very hot. She shoved her hand in her pocket and pulled out her phone. It was so warm she could barely hold it. A text notification on screen from Nolan. Something about Alaina and Kurt.

  It cracked before she could read it, in front of her eyes, diagonally across the screen. Then went cloudy.

  The sound above had reached the top of the stairs now. It paused. Kristy looked up slowly. Whoever or whatever it was had to be standing directly above her head.

  Something moved behind her.

  She turned, fast. Nothing there. But she knew that something had brushed past her. Something big, too. And there was music now. It was quiet, muffled. As if someone was playing it on a small speaker on the floor above.

  Except then it didn’t sound like it was coming from there. It sounded like it was coming from the bar.

  A footstep on the stairs, at the top.

  A heavy creak.

  Kristy backed away along the corridor. As she kept backing away, still facing the staircase in order to be able to react quickly if something or someone suddenly came running down it, she glanced into the bar.

  Her eyes were still sparkling from the dust. Still, or again. Sparkling worse. But it seemed like a couple of the old, half-broken chairs in the bar weren’t empty anymore. As if figures sat in them. One very broad, the other horribly thin. They started to turn their heads toward her.

  But when she turned back to the restaurant, deciding she had to run in there instead and take her chances, she saw a hand near the bottom of the fireplace. The sparkling in her eyes was very bad, but there was definitely a hand coming out of the wall, about a foot from the ground, fingers moving slowly, as if trying to grasp something.

  Footsteps coming down the stairs now.

  Kristy’s legs felt heavy. She lurched back toward the door to the storage area, knowing it was her only chance. She was going to have to risk trying the trap door.

  But it was opening and shutting now, flapping like a butterfly’s wings, silently.

  Her legs gave out and she stumbled backward, grabbing at the wall to slow her fall. She managed to make it most of the way down under some kind of control.

  Then she was lying on her back on the ground.

  And everything changed.

  Chapter

  ​42

>   During the time we’d been in the Hardaker house the mist had thickened even further. The rain was mild but persistent. And it was cold. It was miserable.

  “Fuck me sideways,” Ken said, as we walked back toward the main street. “Well, in a development that won’t make your day, it turns out Kristy was completely right.”

  “I already conceded that when I told her about the coat thing. Thought I’d get it over with.”

  “Wise. Not exactly in the way she was expecting, though. Are you going to let her know what Nadja told us about Alaina talking to Kurt that day? Sounds like there was a bit of a crush going on there, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. I just texted Kristy. No response. I’ll tell her when we get to the Tap.”

  “That Alaina kid needs help. Maybe she had the same experience we did in the woods, but it hit her harder because she’s got a puny teenage brain. Spent three days stumbling about, off her head on natural gas or whatever, then came back and saw the twins. Either way it’s not our problem, mate. I’m sure Kristy will let people know that the kid needs an eye kept on her. We’re done here.”

  I stopped as we turned onto the main drag. We were at the top end, past the point where there were many businesses. A closed-down appliance outfit and the liquor store. Which was shut. The other buildings were old, single-story wooden houses, most of which looked like they’d been here from the town’s earliest days. No light in any windows, despite it being cold and rainy and dark.

  I walked to the nearest and dipped to look through the window and saw that actually, there was a glow inside. But way in back. Away from the street. As if whoever lived there was keeping safely away from it all.

  Ken came and looked with me. As we peered in through the window together, there was a fluttering sound.

  A flock of birds came out of the mist and arced straight past us. They flew like birds, anyway, though went so fast it was more like winged scraps of black racing past. They disappeared into the mist—leaving a fluttering sound behind. It faded slowly.

  “I’m not sure that’s real mist,” I said.

  “Not…what the fuck are you talking about, Nolan?”

  “It’s raining, Ken. When have you ever seen fog this thick when it’s raining?”

  “I haven’t. But that’s because I live in LA, where people go outside and take selfies if it drizzles. Fuck knows what the weather gets up to here.”

  “It doesn’t look right. There’s too much of it and it’s too dense and it’s here and in the forest and everywhere.”

  “Nolan—are you feeling all right?”

  “Look at it, Ken.”

  You could barely see half a block. The mist was so thick that the main drag disappeared within fifty yards, and what we could see seemed gray, desaturated.

  “When you’re tired,” I said. “Or hungover. Or in a low mood. The world looks different. Doesn’t it?”

  Ken nodded. I passed him a cigarette. “Everything feels flat,” I said. “You drop stuff. Bump into tables. Every damned thing’s a struggle. People look pissed off or mean or sad. They’re all playing bad music too loud or the silences are too long. It’s too hot or too cold or windy or just not right. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “I do.”

  “But none of that’s actually there in the world, right? It’s not happening. It’s in your head. That doesn’t stop it seeming real to the point of being real, though. It doesn’t stop it being your reality.”

  Ken walked forward, peering into the fog ahead. He turned his head slightly, side to side. “If that mist’s not real, it’s pretty fucking convincing.”

  “In the middle of the night, when all the phones went off. In the motel. And all our cell phones. At the same time. How would that work? How would someone do that? Are we sure we actually heard it?”

  “We heard something, Nolan.”

  “And something else. Since we’ve been here…how have we been? Especially the last day or so? Pierre’s gone weird and disappeared.”

  “True. And it’s not just him. Kristy’s not like she’s been when I’ve met her before. Even Moll’s been bad-tempered and strange.”

  I pointed at the house we’d peered into. “There’s people in there, but in back. Like they’re hiding.”

  “From what?”

  Just then there was a sound from down the street. A thud. Muffled, but loud. Then a harsher, crashing noise—like a trash can being hurled into a wall. Very hard.

  “Maybe…that,” I said.

  We took a few steps back.

  “What the fuck was it?” Ken said.

  We watched as a portion of the mist ahead of us seemed to detach itself. It was similar to what we’d seen in the woods earlier, but lower down, near the ground. Like something crawling, but crawling fast—something a foot or two high. As it left the mist behind it became hard to tell where it went. That didn’t make it any better at all.

  “Wind current?”

  “If you say so.”

  There was the sound of a window breaking, some distance down the street. Then silence again.

  “It’s not that windy.”

  “Ken—the Tap’s down there.”

  “I know, mate.”

  “And that’s where Molly and Kristy are.”

  “The logic of the situation is not escaping me.”

  “How are we going to do this?”

  “Head to the left. That’s the side the Tap’s on. And if we’ve got walls and storefronts on one side, we only have to worry about the other.”

  We headed quickly over to the left sidewalk, on a diagonal course. When we got there we positioned ourselves right up against the building. “How far is it?”

  “Block and a half,” I said.

  “I think we should just get on with it.”

  “Quick sounds good.”

  Ken went first, walking into the mist, staying about a foot from the wall. I followed close behind. When you walk into fog it generally retreats—or appears to, at least. The part that seemed thicker from afar becomes less so, and you turn back to look at where you’ve come from, and it seems more dense back there. You change how it seems through your position in it. This mist didn’t do that: the further we went, the thicker it seemed to get.

  “It’s cold against the skin,” Ken said. “And wet.”

  “Because that’s what we think it should feel like.”

  “Imaginary mist? Come on. Nolan, we’re knackered. Neither of us slept. It could just be real mist. With…noises in it.”

  “Shh.”

  “What?”

  “I thought I could hear footsteps.”

  “Not ours?”

  “No.” I called out, not too loud. “Hello?” My voice sounded odd, flat. There was no answer.

  We started walking again and within a couple of minutes made the end of the storefronts, near the corner. We stopped, listened. Nothing to hear. I felt tired and very wired and was beginning to feel kind of dumb. Maybe it was only mist after all—though it was now so thick that we couldn’t see the other side of the road—and the noises we’d heard would have been totally explicable if we could just see what had caused them. Somebody in a temper kicking a trash can. A garage door closing too fast.

  I believed these possibilities were almost certainly true, but even the sidewalk didn’t look right. I was pretty sure that it had been pocked, multiply patched, showing the signs of many years’ use. Now it looked smooth, like some kind of indoor walking surface.

  “We going to cross the street or what?”

  Just before we stepped out, something went past us in the mist, as if running along the street we were about to cross. It was fast and made a skittering noise—which faded as it hurtled along the street and into the distance.

  “A deer,” Ken said.

  “It sounded heavier than that.”

  “Deer are heavy, Nolan.”

  “Whatever you say, boss. But you remember when we went to Alaina’s house to see her dad? The night
she reappeared?”

  “Yeah. That was pretty similar.”

  “No mist then. And we didn’t see a deer. Or coyote. Or anything at all.”

  “Nolan…”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Well, stop saying things, and cross the street, okay? You look left, I’ll look right.”

  “If anything comes in either direction that fast…”

  “Nolan.”

  We walked, each carefully watching our own side. The mist was an impenetrable cloud now. There was some variation in density, swirls when you could see six feet, other portions where it was only half that. We both tripped on the curb on the other side of the road.

  “Nearly there. And they have beer, remember.”

  We moved back up close to the building on the left. I knew exactly where we were now—in the last several days I’d been up and down this stretch of road many times. Opposite our current position would be the little organic market. Another hundred yards down, the place where Kristy was staying, and the coffee shop we’d been in only hours before. It felt different now. It didn’t feel like any place I knew.

  “There’s that sound again.”

  He meant the footsteps. “I know.”

  We stopped. Deadened silence. We started walking again, slowly, and within moments could hear the footsteps.

  “Sure that’s not an echo? Everything sounds weird.”

  He was right—and I’d been noticing it for a while. Flat—as if we were walking in a contained space, rather than a street open to the sky—but with a hard edge, too, like tiles or something. The footsteps might have been our own, rebounding from the buildings on the other side of the street. “I dunno. Could be, I guess.”

  Except then they started up again, and both Ken and I were standing still.

  Ken and I tracked the sound. It started off on the right.

  “Pierre—is that you? Stop fucking around.”

  The footsteps stopped. For a moment, a movement in the mist revealed a patch back in the middle of the crossroads. It looked for one strange second as though there was an ornamental fountain there, slap in the middle of the intersection. I even thought I could hear falling water, though it must have just been the rain.