Chapter 51

JESSICA glimpsed something in the rearview mirror and screamed.

"What's wrong?" Jesse and Frankie asked at the same time.

She turned around and faced her cousin in the back seat. "I can see you!"

Frankie turned around and saw too.

They went through a red light and almost hit a truck. All three of them screamed.

 *** 

CHRISTINA finished up on the toilet, flushed and then washed her hands.

When she turned off the water, she heard three voices: Kayla, Albert, and Lenora. It made no sense, because only one at a time could appear on their iPad.

Unless…. Maybe one of them was on the phone?

Why was Kayla using FaceTime to talk to them anyway?

She didn’t do that unless Christina was there. Why should she? She could see and hear them without any devices.

Christina walked out of the bathroom and gasped.

Her husband was right there, racing with Lenora. Kayla cheered them on. "Go Daddy!"

"What about me?" Lenora said.

"Go Lenora," Christina whispered.

Lenora stopped "You can see me?" She didn’t sound all that amazed.

Christina nodded.

Albert stopped. "You can see us?"

Christina nodded again. Their eyes met..

"Yay!" Kayla said. "Now you're not left out anymore!"

Albert walked over to her.

She reached out to touch him. Her arms went right through him.

"You can't touch him!" Kayla laughed.

"Sorry!" Christina said. "I'm new to all of this."

"I can't believe it!" Arthur said. Then he looked at her with so much love. And it wasn’t as if this was their big reunion. That had happened months ago. They'd been together every day since then. Truth be told, she had probably spent more time with him these past few weeks than she did when he was alive. But there was something different about seeing him in front of her without the help of a video screen.

"Do you want to race with us?" Lenora asked, as if nothing here was really that big of a deal. Then she made a face of disgust.

Albert and Kayla did the same.

"Do you smell it, Mommy?" Kayla asked.

Her heart thumped against her chest. But no. She couldn’t smell it. She saw it, though. And they were right; it looked a little like Alfred E. Newman. It grinned wildly, and it floated towards them. 

Kayla screamed.

Christina reached out to her daughter and pulled her close. She tried to grab Lenora, forgetting that she couldn’t. She felt the nothingness.

Then another dark thing appears. This one didn’t look like Alfred E Newman.

Lenora and Kayla screamed as more and more of these figures appeared out of nowhere.

"Run!" Albert said.

She grabbed Kayla's hand; then shouted out to Lenora. "Come on!"

She opened the door to their house and ran outside with Kayla.  

Albert and Lenora followed.

So did the dark things. The Arcide. They surrounded Lenora, swirling round and around her.

Kayla screamed and Christina joined in.

"Help me!" Lenora said. Blood gushed out of her nose. Then she opened her mouth to scream and blood poured out. It ran down her chin. Christina tried to shield Kayla's eyes.

Then she watched helplessly as Albert ran right into the mass of darkness. He grabbed Lenora. "Come on," he shouted. "We have to go!"

Then, without a good-bye, the two of them disappeared. 

"Daddy?" Kayla whimpered.

 ***

 Eugene sat on the couch writing an article about chimpanzee intelligence.

He saw something in his peripheral vision.

He looked up and saw a monster. It was dark and ugly—a slimy smoky phantom thing.

The memory of Cornelia O'Keefe's voice echoed in his head. The Arcide.

Fucking shit.

And he had no doubts that this was what he was seeing.

It came closer and closer.

He wanted to run, but instead he sat there.

When it was right at the edge of the couch, it whispered in a language Eugene didn’t know, a language he had never heard before.  But still.  He understands what it was saying.

"Come and join us." The dark thing rose up and then dived into his abdomen.

He had this fantasy then.

Anna is in the shower. He enters without knocking, holding a knife. She smiles at him with that nasty, bitchy, fake smile, and he stabs her. She screams. He keeps stabbing. He watches her blood swish down the drain. It's all so wonderful.

Then it was not.

Eugene saw the dark thing swim out of his stomach. It swirled around; then exploded into nothingness. The room was clear.

Eugene tried to forget the stuff about the shower. That wasn't me, he told himself.

He tried to get back to writing about chimpanzees. His hands were shaking too much.

He couldn’t type.

Continue to Chapter Fifty-Two

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