The Possessed Read online

  It felt like if I’d held the knob ten more seconds, my hand would succumb to frostbite. Rather than allow that to happen, I twisted the doorknob, swung the door open, and released the knob. I swung my gaze toward Noelle’s bed.

  The dark figure, more like a thick fog now that I had more than a moment to inspect it, was mere inches from the tips of Noelle’s Hello Kitty socks that peeked out from underneath her pink comforter. It pressed closer, moving along her body, heading for her thighs.

  Then it stopped. The haze veered in my direction, vibrating with intensity, shifting as though a current of wind passed across it.

  Did it see me? Or was I imagining things?

  A second later, it darted toward me, the fog growing larger and thickening, threatening to engulf me.

  I screamed.

  9

  “Dammit, Jocelyn!”

  The lamplight flicked on, and Noelle drew herself up against the headboard, holding her night mask in her left hand. An angry scowl split her lips. “What the fuck’s your problem?”

  Shocked that the figure hadn’t bashed into me, I checked the room for its presence, unable to find it anywhere. While that eased much of my anxiety, I couldn’t overlook the fact that, if it could disappear at will, it could reappear when I least expected it.

  “Hey,” Lilah called out from downstairs with a groggy, yet irritated tone. “Shut off the TV and go to bed.”

  I ignored my oblivious mother and threw my hands out in front of me as I approached my sister’s bed. I put a finger to my lips and hoped she’d obey my command.

  Noelle shook her head. Wisps of hair sashayed in either direction. “Really?” she asked, rattling it off in spitfire fashion. “Why should I be quiet? It’s past midnight, and you’re in my room, screaming your head off.”

  I lifted my left knee onto her bed, leaned over her body, and pressed my palm over her mouth. She struggled against me, so I fastened my other hand around the back of her skull and stared into her eyes with steadfast resolve. “Shhh!” I growled more than said. I shook my hands and tightened them on her lips. “Quiet.”

  Noelle’s eyebrows notched higher on her forehead as her hot breath rushed against my hand in quick bursts. Fear flashed in her eyes.

  I checked behind the door and all four corners of the room, but the fog hadn’t lain in wait. I jumped off the bed, rushed to her closet door, and swung it open. Nothing. I dropped to all fours and looked under the bed. Nope. I didn’t even notice the noxious smell that had drifted to my nose mere seconds ago.

  “What’s wrong with you?” my sister asked, her voice nearly failing her.

  I hopped to my feet, raced over to her door, and planned to shut it, expecting to feel another blast of arctic air, but it no longer inhabited the hallway. I grabbed the doorknob to swing it shut if the presence returned, not that a door would stop it, but it made me feel safer. Even so, the knob no longer felt the least bit cold.

  Refusing to let my fear get the best of me, but uncertain what I’d do if I’d once again encountered the black monstrosity, I swept through the hall and turned on the light switch to my right, which cut through the darkness. I peered down the stairs and caught sight of Lilah’s sleeping form. I scanned the perimeter around her but didn’t see the figure anywhere, so I stayed in place, watching, waiting, listening.

  Behind me, toes tapped against the carpet, and Noelle’s pajamas rustled as she came up behind me. “Screaming and latching onto me and running around so late…are you insane?”

  “I saw something.” With no sound or movement below, I scuttled to the bathroom door, opened it, turned on the light, and looked inside. The room was empty. I shot toward my bedroom and spread the door wide, and then flipped on the light switch. Once again, nothing appeared out of order.

  When I turned around, Noelle stood right behind me, as in only a few inches away. That she’d invaded my personal space put such a scare into me that I jumped backward.

  “What does that mean? You’re freaking the shit out of me!”

  “Something inhuman.” I brushed past her, shot down the steps, and turned on a lamp atop the console table near the front door, only to scan the room. With nothing askew, with no sign of a supernatural presence, I rushed through every square inch of the lower level but again found nothing the least bit conspicuous.

  We were alone.

  My mother slept on the couch as if nothing had happened.

  Hands clutched my shoulders and spun me around. I took in a sharp gust of air, ready to shout, but once again, I came face to face with my sister.

  “What,” Noelle mouthed, her eyes as deranged as I felt, “are you doing?”

  I breathed heavily, my mouth as dry as though someone had dabbed the insides with a cotton ball. I jerked a thumb up towards her bedroom before pulling my torso out of her grasp and running up the steps, darting down the hall, and rushing into her room.

  My sister came up on my heels, shut the door, and pressed her back and arms against it to prevent me from leaving again. “What’s going on?” she asked, heaving for air. “Tell me. Now!”

  “Something visited us.”

  Noelle winced and lowered her arms but stayed in place. “Define… ‘something.’”

  “Supernatural,” I stammered as too many thoughts swirled in my mind and bumped against each other, preventing me from describing what I’d seen. I caught my breath. “It was like a large black cloud. It almost attacked you.”

  “When I was asleep?” An irritated grin appeared. “So you’re saying using the Ouija board actually worked?” She chuckled, her annoyance ratcheting up a notch. “I doubt it, sis. It would have come when we used the Ouija, not now.”

  “I’m not making this up.” When she rolled her eyes, I spent the next few minutes describing everything that happened. “Why are you looking at me like that? I’m telling the truth. You’re the one who was using the Ouija board. You’re the one who invited this…whatever it is into our home.”

  Noelle lifted a hand to keep me from accusing her again and used the other to cover her eyes. “Oh, because the picture fell? But nothing has happened since then.”

  “What about the footsteps Lilah heard? And the cold drafts?”

  “She heard footsteps, I didn’t. Plus, it hasn’t been any colder in here than normal.”

  “What about the pounding in the walls?”

  She laughed. “Are ghosts picking up hammers now and pounding nails into the walls?”

  Annoyed by her unwillingness to take me seriously, I gritted my teeth. “The disgusting scent?”

  “You’re saying spirits stink, that they have B.O.?”

  “It’s not a ghost. It was a black figure.”

  “But you said it was a black cloud.

  “First, it was a figure and then it turned into a mist.”

  “So this shapeshifting entity, sorry, this creature turned itself into a cloud? We used that Ouija board five or six times, but it was a waste. Nothing happened.”

  Anger sizzled through my pores at the insinuation that I was nuts. “Try telling that to the black cloud that nearly attacked you.”

  “I’ve never been attacked by a cloud,” she said with a genuine smile. “How does that work? Does it zoom at me and whoosh, it just passes over me? I can’t imagine that would hurt. I mean, it’s just air, so tell me again, why should I be afraid?”

  I fought back the urge to raise my voice because of the time of night. “It’s black—”

  “A storm cloud in the house? You’re not on acid, are you?”

  “I know what I saw.” I hated how Noelle always questioned me, no matter how certain I sounded, no matter how crazy I seemed. Why couldn’t she just trust me? But if she were under the influence of this entity, she’d want to doubt me, possibly even antagonize me.

  “So why didn’t it attack me?” she asked.

  “Because I stopped it.”

  “How? By glaring at it? Are you telling me, you looked at it, and then all of a sudden, t
his black cloud, in our house, decided not to attack me? Tonight,” she said, adopting a serious tone, “it’ll be cloudy with a one-hundred percent chance of crazy.”

  “I know what I saw,” I repeated, infuriated until I realized that I sounded like a prime candidate for the insane asylum. For that reason, I tried to dial down my frustration because, otherwise, my sister might not take me seriously.

  “Okay.” Noelle made her way across the floor and stopped at the foot of her bed. “It saw you, and then it turned in your direction and flew at you like Superman.” She lowered her head with her eyes raised, hoping that her questions made me see reason.

  “Yes.”

  Noelle threw both hands in the air. “I give up.” She turned and walked back to her bed.

  “Just because you haven’t seen or heard anything happen since you used the Ouija board doesn’t mean strange incidents haven’t happened since then.”

  “The purpose was to make contact. Does it make sense for Dad to appear later and say, ‘Sorry, I was hanging with the guys. It was rib night in Heaven. Did you call?’ No, Jocelyn. That’s not how it works.”

  It seemed like she’d studied up on using Ouija boards. Then again, she despised reading anything but gossip and style magazines, so maybe she’d relied on Lilah for that information.

  “Over the past couple weeks,” she continued, “whenever I had some free time, Lilah kept badgering me, so I played along to get her off my back.”

  I overlooked her annoyance because I knew it was easier to work alongside Lilah than to oppose whatever she wanted. Besides, it would tick me off if Noelle had rushed into my room and screamed, only to sweep through the house, seeking out the unexplainable.

  “Has Mom used the board without you?” I asked, suspecting she’d done just that.

  “I don’t know,” Noelle said in an exhausted tone, one that made it clear she’d given up on trying to think about it any further. “It was your imagination. That’s all. Now can we please go to bed?”

  “I told you before, and I’ll tell you again: that board doesn’t make it a game. Even if something didn’t contact both of you earlier doesn’t mean this entity hasn’t somehow communicated with Lilah.” I paused to let that statement claw itself into her psyche. “At least, give me that much.”

  Noelle flicked her wrist. “Fine. Whatever. If it’s real and you can talk with someone long gone, then okay, I’ll admit it’s possible. All right? I mean, that’s why we used it, so are we done here?”

  Based on the way my sister cringed at me, I knew she’d acknowledged my theory as possible, although unlikely because it would allow her to get back to bed. “Yeah, we’re done. But I’m sleeping in here with you tonight.” If something had influenced my sister in the past few days, the black fog may have done it, but since it left, I might not have to worry about my sister…unless it tried to attack her again.

  “Are you that afraid?” she asked. A trace of a smile hovered on her lips as she turned back to her bed.

  “I’m not doing it for me,” I admitted. “It came in here to attack you.”

  “Yeah, that’s right!” Noelle said, spinning back to me, as though catching me in a lie. Her grin grew more vibrant. “But if it flew at you, why didn’t it hit you?”

  I considered my mother’s alcohol dependency and Noelle’s recreational drug use and wondered if the entity found it easier to persuade them. In those instances, both of them were either somewhat or totally incapacitated, and therefore, unable to defend themselves.

  “See?” asked my sister. “How does that make sense? If it wanted to get me, but you distracted it, wouldn’t it try to kill you and then come after me?”

  She had a point, but I could feel that it had nefarious plans. There seemed to be an urgency, an animosity toward me once I got in its way. The way it rushed me told me as much. Then another thing occurred to me. “This was the first time I’d seen it. Maybe it doesn’t want to be seen. Maybe it wants to strike when you’re asleep, so you’ll be defenseless.”

  “Then why had it waited until now?” Noelle asked. “If Mom’s been at the Ouija board, and bad things happen while she’s done using it, why hasn’t that bad thing visited me a week ago? Or two weeks ago?”

  I didn’t have an answer for her, so I returned to my bedroom, glad not to see or hear anything unordinary, before dragging my bedsheet, blanket, and pillow into Noelle’s room. I set those items on the carpet and camped out in the corner of her room, just beyond the foot of her bed. While Noelle was untroubled by all the activity and fell asleep within minutes, I stayed up for a while, wishing J.D. was nearby to calm me down, and I stared at the door, expecting him to push it aside and magically appear. I replayed how the shape had almost thrown itself onto my sister, and when it took flight straight toward me, I tucked my sheets tightly around me.

  Then I remembered that I hadn’t reclaimed my cell phone. How idiotic! I stood up and waited for anything to disrupt the air around me. Nothing did, so I scuttled across the carpet, pulled open Noelle’s door, and looked into the corridor.

  All was silent. But that didn’t mean an otherworldly entity didn’t lurk nearby.

  I waited, looking for the black mist. When it didn’t appear, I rushed across the hallway and burst into my room. I dashed across the floor, snatched the phone from my nightstand without incident, ran out, and headed back into Noelle’s room.

  I swung the door shut and made sure it tapped against the threshold silently. Then I crept back to my blanket. Under the covers, breathing heavy, I turned on my smartphone to find it partially charged. I began searching for information about those who might appear in place of the one you hoped to contact when using a Ouija board.

  I was surprised not to find one article, editorial, blog post, or excerpt from a newspaper, magazine, or book article where a credentialed or qualified expert shared his or her knowledge or experiences. In short, I couldn’t verify any of the wild claims posted online. But based on most of the sites, those who claimed to be experts were usually charlatans. It seemed only those who worked on the fringes of society when it came to paranormal – in short, those who worked for free – had the skills and experience necessary to handle supernatural cases in a professional capacity.

  That should have given me pause, but having read so much shaky insight, ranging from ghostbusters to monster-fighters, I didn’t know what to think or believe. Over the next hour or so, I started at every sound: the tree branch outside the window that occasionally scratched the aluminum siding when it got caught in the breeze; the hum of the heating system kicking on every so often; Noelle grinding her teeth which, strangely enough, sounded like two creaky wooden boards grating against each other.

  All told, I’d become such an emotional wreck that I’d completely fried my nerves. It had a welcome side effect, however, because all of the crazy ideas I’d read about made it difficult for me to think through one idea before moving on to the next, eventually amalgamating into a gigantic mass of confusion. In all that time, nothing supernatural appeared related to what occurred in my house.

  When I finally clicked on a link about demons, however, the battery in my phone died out. Again. Of course, it did. It made me wish I’d searched for my missing laptop.

  When my eyelids faltered, I tried to keep them open, but at this point, no matter how much I wanted to remain awake, having stayed up for almost twenty hours straight had shut down productive brain activity. Between those moments where my eyelids closed and I glanced around the room for anything suspicious, nothing seemed unordinary. We were still alone.

  Sometime later, the air in the room felt heavy. I turned aside and wrapped my blanket tighter around my frame. The scent of rotten meat sifted to my nose, and my lungs needed to work harder for me to breathe. Had these sensations preceded an evil presence?

  The possibility of the dark shape returning made me crack open my eyelids. In the last instance, the scent had permeated the air when I’d seen the dark figure, which made my he
art beat faster.

  A warning signal in my mind forced my senses awake. I looked down the stretch of my body without moving my neck. This small segment of the room was completely void of activity.

  Across the room, Noelle let out a soft whimper.

  As much as I wanted to turn around and check on my sister, fright pinned me in place. I’d waited so long for the entity to make itself known that when it may have done so, I was caught off-guard and couldn’t move.

  “Mmm-hmm,” cooed Noelle. “I do want it,” she whispered. “Just not here.” A light giggle ensued. “I like public places.”

  My heart slowed. My sister, who’d quizzed me earlier about sexual experience, might be having one of her own. Less than a dozen feet away from me. In her sleep. Fearing I might laugh aloud, I plugged my mouth with a palm.

  “Ooh,” she said with a gasp. “You too?”

  Was Noelle reliving a sexting session? Perhaps a flirtatious email with a lover? Maybe she imagined a man lying beside her, or even on top of her. Regardless, I envied her fantasy life. I only dreamed about unclogging drains with black sludge mingled with human hair or crouching on a roof while chipping away at thick ice clinging to exhaust pipes and praying I didn’t fall to my death.

  When my silent laughter died down, I wondered what my sister’s face looked like during these dreams, so I tilted toward her.

  A black mist a few inches in length lingered over my sister’s head and sunk toward her face.

  Aghast, I bolted upright and sprang to my feet, but when I finally looked down at her, I found no trace of the black shape.

  Had it moved? I glanced left and right, but I didn’t see it anywhere.

  My eyes were grainy from the disruption of sleep, only to awaken without fully rubbing the grogginess from them. Sensing that my muscles would lock in place if I didn’t move, I knelt down and looked under her bed.

  Had I imagined the smog because I’d been lying in wait for it? Or better yet, had my eyes tricked me? No, I’d seen it, but I hadn’t seen it disintegrate. So where had it gone?