“Molly what?” I repeated.
“Molly Menzel.”
She still watched me, but Molly hugged her arms. There was something here I wasn’t getting.
“Molly, who killed you? How did it happen?”
Molly opened her mouth to speak as her gaze cut to the left. A look of absolute horror filled her face. At the same time an oppressive feeling of bleakness crept into my stomach as if it were filling my soul. The smell of dog poop returned, and I started to think that maybe Alice and Ruth had actually been on to something when they had said the place smelled evil.
For now I felt evil creeping into my skin. Hopelessness invaded my every thought. It felt like a cloud of deep-seated anger was trying to wrap me up in a warm and fuzzy hug.
Little did this anger know I had no problem kicking it in the gonads.
Molly whimpered a sad, “Help me,” before vanishing into a twisting plume of smoke.
“Wait.” I reached for her, but all I grasped was air.
Now I was ticked off. Whoever this big bad was, they were seriously ruining my morning. I whirled around, ready to face whoever thought it was okay to frighten other spirits.
What met me sent a bolt of fear shooting straight into my heart.
An inky black blot plastered the wall. It looked like goo and ooze. I was pretty sure if I stuck my hand in the stuff, I would be sucked into another dimension from where there would be no return.
I tucked my fear down into a deep dark spot and steeled myself. “Who are you?”
The black goo shimmered and crept along the wall, using points of black blobby stuff like feet.
“I am your end,” the black goo said.
I frowned. “Really? Because it doesn’t look like anyone’s ending here anytime soon.” I folded my arms. “Do you know what I see? A big bully keeping spirits here because you’re afraid to be alone. I get it. Somebody bullied you when you were young. You led a life that was less than angelic—probably committed a few murders along the way. Hopefully you didn’t sell your soul to Satan, because I don’t think there’s any going back from that.”
I brushed my hands together. “So now you’re here in this house, and because you’re afraid of loneliness, you won’t let the others pass on.”
The whole time I was talking, the blobby thing moved like a huge gelatinous spider, slowly winding its way around me.
“But that’s okay. Because I’m here to help. I don’t think I can do much if, you know, the whole Satan thing, but I will help you cross over. I can show you the light. There’s still time to go and have peace. Enjoy peace.” I pushed my shoulders back. “You deserve it.”
The thing did something that sounded like a laugh. “You think I want peace? No. I want total corruption. These spirits are mine. She is mine. You cannot free her. The man is mine. And this family—they’re mine too.”
His words hit my heart like a frozen arrow. Cold pierced every cell on my skin, chilling me to the bone. That family had a little girl. A young child that I would go to hell and back to keep from this a-hole.
No, I don’t like to cuss. In case you didn’t know, I have a mason jar that’s full of change. Every time I cuss, I put money in. For the most part I make up bad words, but sorry, a-hole just has to stay a-hole.
Sometimes there isn’t a good substitution for a word you can really bite into.
“You can’t have that family,” I said. “There’s no way. First of all, you’re too chicken to even show yourself. Also, you will have that family over my dead body.” I peeled my lips into a sneer. “My. Dead. Body.”
The blob vibrated as if laughing. “Then I’ll have you instead. You’re what I want, Blissful Breneaux. The master wants you, and if the master wants you and if I can kill you, then I’ll be greatly rewarded.”
“Wait. What? What did I miss? The master? Who’s the master? Aren’t you the master? Heck, you can’t even show your real face. You make yourself look like a stupid blob of stuff from a horror movie because obviously your real face isn’t scary enough.”
“Enough!”
The walls rattled.
Kency Blount shouted my name from below.
The blob extended forward. The sound of sinews stretching to cracking filled the air.
