Jessica and Eddie parted ways with Rusty, Mitch, Daphne and the kids outside the station house. Daphne would be staying in Charleston until everything had been cleared up. She had a very good lawyer friend who promised to take care of everything.
“No one can know what really went on out there,” Jessica said. “If they find out, the place will be crawling with people. As long as the Ormsby’s are out there, no one should step foot on the island.”
Daphne said, “I promise, no one will know.”
It seemed like months, not days, since they’d last been at the hotel.
“As much as I’d like to put Charleston in the rearview mirror, I need some real sleep before I get on a plane. And some food. Wait here while I check us in,” Jessica said to Eddie.
While waiting for her room key, she watched a young mother help her toddler walk across the lobby carpet, the little girl’s hands holding steadily to her mother’s index fingers. The girl took one wobbly step after another, until mom scooped her into the air.
Jessica thanked the desk clerk and pointed at their bags. “Can you have someone bring them up, please?”
“Of course.”
She tapped Eddie with the little white card envelope. “Come on, our bags will be right behind us.”
They took the elevator in comfortable silence.
The elevator pinged and the brushed steel doors opened. She followed the wall directions down the hall to their right, searching for room 507. When she got to the door, she turned to Eddie.
“Just this once, can you please look into my head and tell me why I keep doing this?”
He smiled. “I don’t need to go that far. You do it because you’re curious. You do it because you’re brave. You do it because you care. You do it out of love, both for the memory of your father and for the people you help.”
Jessica said, “I thought we were a mess when we were together, that we made things worse. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still a mess, but a little less than when we’re apart.”
Slipping her hand around the back of his neck, she pulled his head down and kissed him. It was short, soft, with the promise of more to come.
She gasped when Eddie scooped her into his arms, nearly dropping to a knee because he was still weak as a puppy. “The bags can wait.”
She moved the Do Not Disturb sign from the inner door handle to the outer, swinging it closed.
About the Author
Hunter Shea is the author of the novels Forest of Shadows, Sinister Entity, Evil Eternal, Swamp Monster Massacre and The Waiting. His first thriller, The Montauk Monster, was named one of the best reads of the summer by Publisher’s Weekly. Hell Hole, his ode to weird west fiction, was listed as one of the most anticipated reads by The Horror Bookshelf. His obsession with all things horrific has led him to real life exploration of the supernatural, spending nights on The Queen Mary and communicating with the spirit of The White Lady at the Union Cemetery. An avid cryptid enthusiast, he’s exceedingly proud to tell everyone that his novel The Montauk Monster is on display at the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, ME.
A lifetime New Yorker, he lives with his wife and children and vindictive cat. His daughters are even starting to get into the family business, both writing and drawing and helping dole out the horror. You can follow him at www.huntershea.com for weekly posts, reviews, video podcasts and everything else under the blood moon.
Look for these titles by Hunter Shea
Now Available:
Forest of Shadows
Evil Eternal
The Graveyard Speaks
Sinister Entity
Swamp Monster Massacre
The Waiting
Hell Hole
Coming Soon:
The Dover Demon
How can you escape the ghost of yourself?
Sinister Entity
© 2013 Hunter Shea
The Leigh family is terrified. They’ve been haunted by the ghostly image of their young daughter, Selena. But how can that be, when Selena is alive and well, and as frightened as her parents? With no where else to turn, the Leighs place their hopes in Jessica Backman, who has dedicated her life to investigating paranormal activity. Accompanied by a new partner who claims to able to speak to the dead, Jessica will soon encounter an entity that scares even her. And a terror far worse than she imagined.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Sinister Entity:
This was the way it always started. Your body reacts faster than the mind can comprehend and a person with experience learns never to ignore what the hairs standing at attention on your arms are telling you. The house was quiet, had been deathly silent for the past three hours. Silent, dark and empty.
Jessica Backman was about to move from her position at the end of the bed and head to the hallway when she felt the first prickles of gooseflesh break out across the back of her neck, until every follicle on her scalp was tingling with anticipation. The sharp whine of a monitor went off in the living room below and stopped suddenly, as if smothered by someone or something that didn’t want its presence to be known. Jessica’s heartbeat started to race as the first jolt of adrenaline raced through her system. She had to force herself to inhale slowly from her mouth to dampen the noise of her own breathing in her head. Here, in the dark, her sense of hearing was the primary tool in her arsenal.
She carefully clicked her penlight on, shining it onto her notebook so she could mark the time.
2:36am – Living Room EMF/Trifield alarm…short burst…goosebumps…not alone
Craning her neck, she could just make out the empty driveway. Sometimes clients made surprise visits in the middle of the night, ultimately throwing a fat monkey wrench in the works. Unless they walked from Bedford to Bronxville, an almost thirty mile distance, the McCammon family was not the cause of the sudden change in the atmosphere. Jessica sat as still as a stone, waiting.
Pap.
Just outside the bedroom door, a slight tap, like the sound of a pebble bouncing off the carpeted hallway. The night vision camera sat on a tripod in the corner of the room, pointing at the doorway. If something had fallen onto the floor, the camera would hopefully have captured it. Jessica waited for more. She could feel the building tension now in her chest and head. It was as if the house was gathering its strength, building and building until the air was redolent with static electricity and the pressure in her ears was ready to pop.
The sound of scratching on the walls, like a large determined cat trapped between the rafters, wafted throughout the house. Jessica couldn’t tell where it originated from, and it stopped the moment she rose from the bed and took her first step to the door. She paused, waiting a few moments for it to resume, then continued into the hallway. Leaning forward over the steel banister, she looked down into the living room and adjoining dining room.
Everything was as she had left it. Earlier in the night, she had placed glow-in-the-dark masking tape around the perimeter of each piece of furniture, as well as the framed pictures on the walls. The glowing yellow squares, circles and rectangles gave the dark living room the appearance of an alien landscape found in the ocean depths, populated by sleeping, iridescent sea creatures. She had tacked down tape around all of the moveable objects so she could easily see what had shifted from its proper place during the course of the night. By virtue of being alone, she was assured that no one else could disturb the contents of the house.
One of the drawers in the kitchen could be heard slowly sliding open. Jessica darted down the stairs and into the kitchen, careful not to bump into anything along the way. This was her seventh night in the McCammon house and she had taken great pains to memorize every detail of the layout.