The Possessed Read online

  “Do you pleasure yourself, Jocelyn?”

  “What’s going on with you? Why do you keep saying my name? It’s weird.”

  “The truth.” Noelle smiled. “That’s all. So have you? Touched yourself? Pleasured yourself? Let your juices flow? You had to have, right? It’s only natural.”

  Of course, I had, but I didn’t want to get into the particulars. It was too personal. I started for the door.

  “Oh my God, you haven’t?” She lowered her head and put a hand against her cheek. “That’s unheard of. That’s one of life’s greatest pleasures. I mean, guys? Seriously? They carry a dick and think it’s got magical properties, like they stick it in, and all of sudden, rainbows shine through the rain.” She let out a humorless chuckle. “Don’t get me started. They don’t know the first thing about pleasing a woman…until she shows them how. Just saying, something to keep in mind.”

  I stopped at the door and tilted toward Noelle. “Why are you doing this? Saying this?”

  My sister stood up and crossed the short distance between us. “I worry about you. Always working. Always studying. I was shocked to hear you had a boyfriend. And despite all that, you won’t let yourself get off.” An eyebrow quirked high into her forehead. “I bet Jake wants to get you off. I bet he thinks about it every time he’s with you…and even more often when he’s not. To touch you in your deep, dark place. Do you ever think about it? About him at home in bed by himself, touching his cock, stroking it?”

  I shook my head, saddened by everything she said because I may only see Jake again by pulling up his image in my mind. At the same time, a masochistic part of me wanted to hear more. I found it difficult to move, to get away from her.

  “Have you wondered what it’d feel like in your hand? If you only knew how it feels when a man presses it inside you oh so slowly at first, but then moving faster, harder. Once it gets to that point, he’s unable to stop himself, just lets the sensation overwhelm him, and there’s only one thing in his mind: to get off. And when he gets so stiff, the feeling is tremendous...”

  Curious by her erotic excitement, I looked into my sister’s eyes. They were so amused, so enticed by this one-way conversation. My mouth had gone dry.

  “Admit it,” she said, “deep down, you want him to take you, don’t you? You want him to go crazy on you.”

  Even if I’d tried to speak, I couldn’t have uttered one word.

  “Yeah,” Noelle said, smirking as she analyzed my eyes. “You’ve thought about it a lot, haven’t you?” She nodded and stepped back. “See, Jocelyn? You’re just like everyone else. Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t deny yourself. You’re on this planet only so long.”

  Her last remark shook me from this depraved discussion. “Why?” I asked, finding my voice as my tongue clicked against the dry bridge of my mouth.

  “Do I keep talking?” Noelle snickered. “Because you want me to. I can see it in your eyes. She released a full-throated laugh. “Good night, Jocelyn. I’m glad we had this talk. I know it’ll give you plenty to think about.”

  Since my sister had all but dismissed me, I turned around and left her room with only one thought in my mind: something had definitely influenced my sister’s behavior.

  8

  When I returned to my room, I grabbed my cell phone and searched the internet for what might happen when people used Ouija boards. Some considered the device as phony, a way to scare people into believing the supernatural existed. Others were adamant that it opened a portal for those on the other side to communicate with those in this dimension.

  Since we’d experienced paranormal episodes, I suspected our case adhered to the latter case, and the entity must have persuaded Noelle to act with even less inhibition than in the past. But how did it pound the walls? Or make the house stink? What was the common link between each of these actions?

  Plenty of websites were devoted to hauntings, and while they mentioned pounding in the walls, cold spots, and footsteps on floorboards, not one touched on odor or ghosts that could convince humans to act in unusual ways. Just as I was about to try different search terms in hopes of learning about more otherworldly beings, the screen on my cell phone went black.

  Dammit! I’d been so wrapped up in finding an explanation for all the strange incidents that I’d ignored the battery indicator at the top right of my phone. I clutched my phone with both hands, wanting to pulverize it into pieces.

  But my anger soon gave way to dread. I had no way to identify this supernatural force, which meant I didn’t know what it was capable of and what its intentions were.

  I reached over to my nightstand, pulled open a drawer, and felt around inside for my USB cord, but no matter where my fingers dabbled, they hadn’t tapped the cord. Annoyed, I sat up in bed, spun around toward the nightstand, and looked inside the drawer to find that the cord wasn’t inside.

  As a creature of habit, if I ever removed something, I returned it to that exact spot later. I didn’t like surprises and cherished certainty over uncertainty. So while I couldn’t completely disregard the possibility that I’d taken it out and hadn’t returned it, I found it more likely that either Noelle or Lilah had removed it. On second thought, there was one more possibility…Had the entity somehow encouraged me to hide it?

  You can’t truly believe you went all split personality, do you? You didn’t shave off ten pounds overnight, only to go out shopping for a hot outfit, and accuse your boyfriend of raping you.

  Earlier, I’d briefly contemplated whether this being had somehow manipulated me as well. I reviewed my actions over the past couple days, hour by hour, before reaching this very moment.

  Thankfully, until now, I couldn’t recall one instance where something seemed out of sorts, whether I’d forgotten something, or I’d lost time. I let out a heavy sigh, relieved. But that only lasted a few seconds. I still had to deal with this…presence.

  A minute later, I found my USB cord on top of my dresser. I wouldn’t have put it there unless I’d grabbed it, after which I’d set it down only to get distracted and let it slip my mind. Even then, I would have put the cable in its place. So to find it out of order unsettled me.

  I grabbed it and set up my phone to recharge. I’d been so focused on the phone and so freaked out about what had infiltrated my home that I could have just used my laptop. But it wasn’t on top of my desk.

  While I took it with me to the library and every class, whenever I was home, I never removed it from my room. I last used it two days ago and left it on my desk. So where had it gone?

  While in Noelle’s room a little earlier, I searched every portion of the room, but I didn’t spot my laptop anywhere. Either she’d hidden it, or Lilah had taken it.

  Aggravated that one of them had encroached upon my sanctuary, I got out of bed, certain that enough time had passed that my sister wouldn’t be on the lookout for me to continue her 8th-grade locker room discussion on sexuality, so I left my room to look for my laptop.

  The hallway seemed irregularly chilly.

  My thoughts veered toward John Doe’s big body and the warmth that rose from him. I stopped and spent some time trying to force fond memories of him from my mind. Even though I had teared up, I somehow managed to push aside my sadness and start down the stairs. When I reached the halfway point of our staircase, I caught sight of my bedroom door.

  It was closed.

  Only I hadn’t shut it. I looked left and right and then listened in case Noelle had been playing a trick on me. I didn’t see her anywhere. Had I shut the door without thinking? No. Impossible. I was so hyper-aware of every sound and every movement that I would have noticed it shutting.

  Then who had closed it?

  With no answer to that, I wasn’t willing to go over and open it for fear of what may lay behind the door. Eventually, I’d have to go to bed, but I’d deal with that when the time came.

  I continued down the steps, feeling the chill even more prominently now, probably because heat rose, but then again, i
t was early October, so it shouldn’t have been this cold in the house.

  When I passed Lilah on the couch without a blanket, I went over to the closet, opposite our den, and removed a Mickey Mouse bedsheet and Minnie Mouse blanket and returned to my mother in time to place both over her, while putting a pillow just beyond her head, so she could tuck it under her head when needed.

  I curled around the corner and came upon the thermometer. It was 70 degrees, and it showed that it was currently set at the same temperature. I opened the closet door that led to the heating system and once again checked the system for any issues. None seemed evident. Perhaps my body needed to adjust to the colder temperature now that winter would soon arrive. I notched the temperature a couple of degrees warmer and shut the door. The heating system kicked on.

  To my right, a dark figure moved out of the corner of my eye and disappeared.

  Startled, my heart pounded like it wanted freedom. Had I seen correctly? I turned in that direction. Hearing nothing, seeing nothing, I remained in place, waiting for some sort of commotion. It didn’t come.

  I waited another minute, but sensing that I’d probably imagined seeing the dark shape, I started down the hall and peered into the family room. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Given the strange events over the last couple of days, however, I wouldn’t doubt that a supernatural intruder hadn’t entered our home.

  Upstairs, a door slammed.

  I spun around, my pulse ratcheting up even quicker than after seeing my door closed a moment ago. I looked up the staircase and scanned the half-dark hallway, looking and listening for any indication why a door had shut with such force.

  It was silent upstairs. Except…

  On the sofa, Lilah murmured, and the leather underneath her sleeping form rumpled as she clutched the pillow I’d set out for her before she latched onto it like a life preserver, her head resting against the spot between both arms.

  Rooted to the same spot, temporarily paralyzed as my breath came quick, I continued to examine the portion of the upstairs corridor in my sightline for anything unusual. Lilah’s drunken stupor explained why she hadn’t done more than stir after the door banged shut. With the amount that she drank on any given day, only a tornado could wake her.

  Still, the sound should have awakened Noelle. Or had she slammed her own door? Then again, she wouldn’t whip her door shut with such force. Although self-absorbed, she was too considerate to do so this late at night. If she hadn’t, then the noise should have jarred her from even the deepest sleep. But I didn’t hear a sound from upstairs.

  When I’d last crossed the hall, the bathroom door had been closed. Same with my door. That left only one door: Noelle’s. It lent further credence to the notion that something persuaded my sister to act unlike herself.

  If the dark figure I thought I’d seen had indeed been downstairs before hurrying up the steps, I would have felt a gust of wind pass by me, even if it was invisible, even if it didn’t have shape. Its mass would have sent air whooshing on every side of it. That hadn’t happened.

  I wanted to believe that a burglar had unlocked our deadbolt without eliciting a sound, but the thief wouldn’t know the home’s physical layout. He might inadvertently bump into a table, trip over the rug, or knock down a lamp. Likewise, he couldn’t enter from the kitchen door because he would have had to open the garage door, and as it cranked open, it would have alerted me to his presence. And even if he’d broken a window, the sound would have been unmistakable.

  But none of that had happened. Simply put, no mortal had entered our home.

  If a person hadn’t entered the house, something else had done so, something inhuman, possibly something able to move between walls without obstruction, something that could enter this home at any time, at any place. Something…like the dark figure I’d seen.

  It was here. Somewhere. Watching me. Waiting for the right moment to attack.

  That possibility reverberated in my brain, which sent terror stretching inside me like a flower unfurling its petals, or in this case, its lacerating tentacles to curl around me and squeeze my chest, forcing oxygen out of my body.

  Wait a minute: I hadn’t closed my sister’s door. What if Noelle had opened her window to smoke some pot before bed, and a gust of wind swept through the room and whipped the door shut?

  I stood in place, considering that possibility. I smiled at how silly I’d been. I’d psyched myself out at the unexpected sound and envisioned a dark figure I could blame for the noise. What an idiot!

  Or maybe she whipped that door shut to torment you.

  And just like that, the tension in my shoulders clinched again. I surveyed the hallway upstairs and looked for a sliver of light, indicating that Noelle’s bedroom light had slipped under her door and entered the corridor. No such luck. But that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. There had to be another reason a door had slammed, a reason I didn’t want to consider.

  I needed to move, to act, to do something. After this disturbance, I couldn’t look around for my laptop as if nothing had happened. Delaying the inevitable of searching the second floor for a paranormal entity would only make things more frightening, and I’d have even more trouble making my way up there to check on it. I needed to go up there now and investigate.

  Steeling myself against my own fears, I turned around, pushed one foot forward, and then another. Soon enough, I’d made my way over to the staircase. I looked up the steps once more.

  It was silent. And empty. I grabbed the wooden banister and took my time walking up the stairs, careful to avoid every creaky portion of each step to keep from waking my mother.

  That’s not the reason, you liar. You know she won’t awaken. You’re afraid of it finding out you’re on its tail.

  I trained my eyes on the second floor and allowed my peripheral vision to monitor things on the first floor. I wanted to believe that my limited understanding of the paranormal had allowed my mind to play tricks on me and that I’d imagined seeing the dark figure. But I hadn’t imagined the door slamming. Those two correlated, especially since the figure appeared moments before the sound upstairs. But could the figure be downstairs one moment and upstairs the next?

  I’d seen the shape, but after I blinked, it had disappeared. It could have moved into Lilah’s bedroom downstairs. Likewise, I hadn’t checked the den or the bathroom down there.

  No, don’t think that way. You don’t know what it is, what it can do.

  But you know it’s not human. Stop pretending you can rationalize things. You can’t do anything about the supernatural. Entities outside of this dimension have no boundaries. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in this one!

  Oh yeah, how would you know? You’re ignorant of everything paranormal. You’d know more if you’d fully charged your phone. You might even know what you’re dealing with right now, instead of playing hypothetical games.

  I couldn’t overlook the noise upstairs any longer. I needed to investigate. I had to get answers.

  I took the first step of the staircase, and my breath came quicker, shallower. Nevertheless, I pressed on, staying alert for anything unordinary, figuring that Noelle hadn’t opened her window this late at night and guessing that this otherworldly monster had such incredible stealth that it dashed from one end of the house to another within the blink of an eye.

  Then another thought occurred to me: if something lurked upstairs, it might attack Noelle. Or push its thoughts into her mind. That notion doubled my fears, but it also brought out a fierce protective streak and impelled me up the stairs.

  When I hurtled the fourth step and still didn’t hear or see anything, I was emboldened by my bravery. I even shot a healthy dose of anger through my system, anger that something might have attacked my sister before and might have the same intentions again. When I crossed the next step even quicker than the last, I was convinced that I no longer cared how quickly the figure had moved or how imposing it looked. I wouldn’t allow it or anyone to hurt Noelle.
r />   Consumed with energy, I shot up the sixth, seventh, and eighth steps, only to feel my courage and fury quadruple. I double-stepped the next set of steps and reached the top floor in no time. Heaving for air, looking behind me, only to find my bedroom door still shut, I swung my neck to the right and found the bathroom door and my sister’s bedroom door closed.

  Noelle was asleep and alone. Completely oblivious to whatever had entered our home and slammed her door shut.

  Had it already reached her? Immobilized her? Prevented her from screaming?

  Fearing that each of those scenarios had already played out as I stood around trying to figure out what had happened made goosebumps etch my skin, I started toward my sister’s door, but hesitation made me stutter.

  No, I wouldn’t let my fright grab hold of me. Not when it came to Noelle’s safety.

  An adrenaline boost pumped through my veins, and I once again moved toward the other end of the hallway. When I passed the staircase, however, and the moonlight no longer shone through the windows downstairs and played along the steps lighting my path, I entered darkness. To keep fear at bay, I flexed my muscles, pushed my legs harder, and continued down the hall.

  Just as I reached her door, an even crisper chill than a few minutes ago had passed across my shoulders and chest, stretching down my arms and legs instantaneously. Shaken but undeterred, I grasped the doorknob, which had grown even colder than the air around me, sinking its frigidity into my palm. It startled me so much that my eyes focused not on what lay ten feet or so ahead of me, but inches from my eyes: a cloud of cold air passed across my field of vision.

  The chill produced what would ordinarily have occurred in a frigid climate. The horrendous scent that had inhabited the lower level now swirled around me as if a fan had pushed it in all directions.