Fourteen Days(45)

After a while, his head was filled with only one thing: the presence that occupied his house. God, I wish I didn’t have to deal with this! Why couldn’t he have had just a normal two weeks off work, instead of feeling dread every time he set foot inside the kitchen or took a shower? Why did this have to happen? If only he could have had a little more notice before collapsing at work. At least then he and Nicky could have booked a holiday for a fortnight—someplace where it didn’t rain in the middle of spring, where drinking in the afternoon wasn’t frowned upon and dead people didn’t walk around, scaring the crap out of him. Why did it have to happen to him? Why was he so special?

As the darkness settled in, Richard braced himself for another long night of terror and loneliness.

He closed his eyes tightly and waited for the morning to come.





Chapter 11


    Day 11: Friday


Richard opened his eyes and saw that Nicky had already left for work. After lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling in a trance for several minutes, he finally got out of bed. The room, although still daunting, was nowhere near as cold and frightening as last night.

He quickly slipped on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt and left the bedroom, yawning and stretching his arms high as he walked. He was still exhausted, unsure of how much sleep he managed to get. Two, maybe three hours at best.

Entering the bathroom, he stood next to the sink and glared at his reflection in the mirror. Back to work on Tuesday, he thought. Away from this house. Away from Christina Long, or whoever that bitch is. Back to some normalcy. Had he given up on finding the truth? Was he now content with sweeping the problem under the rug? And would going back to work really end his troubles, his sleepless nights? He knew the answer was no, but he had reached the point of hopelessness, and running away from his worries sounded like an appealing option.

Brushing his teeth, he fixed his eyes on the reflection of the open door behind him. He had seen enough horror movies to know that something always appears in the mirror. But at least he would be ready for it. For her.

When he took his eyes off the mirror for a second to spit into the sink, his head jolted back up to see if the coast was still clear. It was.

Maybe she’s sleeping. Do ghosts even sleep? What the hell do they do in-between scaring the crap out of the people? And what if no one’s home to frighten? Do they get bored waiting? I bet she can’t believe her luck, having me home so much. I bet she’s thinking, “Thank f*ck for him collapsing—I was about to die of boredom.”

His thoughts trailed off as he finished up in the bathroom.

He shortly left and headed for the kitchen, where a note lay on the worktop. It read:

Morning babe. Hope you slept okay. Some extra things I need from the supermarket: table salt, eggs, salmon, baked beans, tortilla wraps, detergent (the big box), shampoo. Love you loads. Nic x.

He had completely forgotten about doing the shopping. Grabbing the note, he slipped it into his pocket and checked the fridge for anything else they needed when he pulled out the milk to make his breakfast as quickly as possible.

With his over-filled bowl of corn flakes, he made his way into the living room. He sat on the couch, turning on the TV with the remote control. As per usual there were only tacky morning makeover shows and various other shows which he found unbearable.

After watching a random, uninteresting talk show for almost half an hour, he switched off the TV, frustrated. Suddenly the room was eerily silent. He could feel dread and isolation slowly start to seep through the walls and creep toward him, surrounding him like a pack of hungry wolves. Not willing to succumb to the hold she had over him and the house, he shook the feelings off and got up. “To hell with this.”

With that, he exited the living room, grabbed his coat from the radiator by the stairs, and left the house.



Richard pulled up outside the supermarket. He felt his jean pockets for his wallet and shopping list, locked the car, and then proceeded toward the supermarket entrance.

Pushing a cart with one hand and holding the list in the other, he glided down each shopping aisle, collecting various items from the list, including several others from his memory. He almost never wrote down lists. He would always try to remember any tasks—which was what got him into his mess at work in the first place. If only he could have remembered to backup the missing files before the system crashed, and then everything would have been fine. No added stress. No time off work. And just maybe, he could have avoided dealing with a dead woman.