“What do I get?” I ask playfully, arching my body into him, and he nips my skin, eliciting a soft purr from my lips.
He gives me a dramatic pause. “Haunted fridges.”
Brad laughs like he said the greatest joke in history, and I try to laugh too. Like, I really do, and then—
Thump…
Thump…
This time the sound is louder, and it’s followed by a scraping sound. My heart jumps to my throat and my stomach turns when the sound morphs into what sounds like a door slowly creaking open.
Brad sits up, fixing his clothes as he does. “That’s not the fridge, Court.”
“No, shit.”
I swallow hard, trying to push back the bile climbing up my throat. “Maybe my dad forgot something.”
My words seem to have no meaning for Brad, because he’s alreadymoving towards the door, whispering. “I’ll go check.”
“Brad, don’t—”
But he’s gone before I can finish my sentence, his feet softly padding against the wooden floor as he walks down the hall. The house softly groans with every step and, before I know it, I’m following behind him. Blood rushes to my ears, and all I can hear is my own heartbeat in the silence of the house. It all feels too eerie… so still.
When I curve around the stairs, I stay at the top for a bit, pushing hair behind my ear, and I try to focus on the soft muttering, and that’s when I hear Brad trying to be brave, but I can’t make out what he is saying. Just as I feel a small surge of relief...
It all goes quiet.
I hold my breath as I make it down the stairs, making sure to stay in the middle where I can’t make a sound. When I make it to the bottom, everything looks the same—family portraits still in place, mom’s fancy China—everything is exactly how it should be. My pulse quickens as the air somehow grows colder, heavier even.
Slowly, I make my way towards the kitchen, when I catch a glimpse of something glinting on the floor. Brad’s phone. Cracked and buzzing faintly against the wood.
“Brad?” I call out softly, my voice trembling with fear. Wrapping my arms around me, I bend down to pick up the phone. Then, I hear breathing—more like wheezing. It’s low and wet, sort of like rattles, as if someone is trying to catch a breath through a throat full of— I clutch my mouth, the lump in my larynx growing larger bythe moment.
I look down at Brad’s phone, he also has no bars, no service, and the buzzing is just an alarm.Fuck!Turning off the alarm, my ears perk up at a new sound coming from the kitchen.
Drip!
Drip!
Drip!
Rising to my feet, I turn toward the sound. That's when I notice the dark trail that leads from the counter towards the pantry door, which is open just enough for me to notice the movement coming from inside. My stomach knots and my bowels water from the stress. Biting back my whimper, I inch forward.
“Brad?” I whisper again, but the voice that answers isn’t his.
It’s deeper and wrong. My body jumps, my nerves standing on edge. Every hair in my body rises with each careful step. “Court–ney.”
This time the pantry door creaks wider, allowing something to crawl out, and for me to scream at the top of my lungs as my eyes widen as the figure crawls out slowly and deliberately. Something long, shiny, and coated in red drags across mother’s white tiles. The smell hits me like a hammer to the face. Iron and something I can’t quite name.
I blink away the tears, and without the blur I can start to focus. That’s when my mind registers Brad. Not only him but his entrails slithering like a sick tail beneath his body. The drag against the white tile sounds wet, like a mop made of flesh. Each crawl pulls more along with it, and blood pools beneath him.
I scream, the high pitch sound piercing my ear drums. Stumbling backwards, as he inches closer, his perfect, pouty lips are now split wide. His tongue hangs down to his chin, blood mixing with his saliva as he reaches towards me. All bloody and missing fingers. I shake my head, I wasn’t too long behind him.
This couldn’t be.
“Brad, baby?” I whimper, when the lights flicker and I feel something creep up behind me, but as I turn, pain blooms on the side of my head, and my vision blurs out of focus. Something warm trickles down my forehead towards my nose. My knees wobble, as the dark figure stalks towards me. Fingers slide down my scalp, biting into the flesh as my head is pulled upwards. The blood streams into my mouth and I gag at the taste. Still, I try to focus, when warm breath fans my face. “I guess it’s just the two of us now.”
JESSICA
