The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller(42)



Selena rolled her eyes.

He stepped inside, smelling the mustiness of the air, the damp scent of rotting wood and paper. Although dark, he could still make out the space they stood within. The entryway stretched toward another room, much larger than the one they stood in now. The place looked gutted. He didn’t see furniture or other adornments anywhere. Bland paint curled away from the walls in revolt, and somewhere, he heard a slow drip of water. Plaster and insect carcasses crunched beneath his shoes.

“Charming,” Selena said, behind him.

Evan soaked in the atmosphere, imagining the house as it must have looked decades ago. It would have been impressive, especially for the time it was built. They made their way into what looked to be a large dining room with high oval windows set in each wall. An animal nest of some kind lay in one corner, and the house creaked around them with a nudge of wind.

“Apparently clockmaking was a good gig back in the day,” Evan said.

What could only be a kitchen branched off to the left of the dining room, and straight ahead a stairway ran up and turned toward the second and third levels.

“If we fall through the floor in here and get trapped, no one’s going to find us, you know,” she said.

He smiled. “That reminds me of a Care Bears episode, did you ever watch them when you were a kid?”

Selena shook her head, trying to avoid crushing any more bugs beneath her shoes.

“This little girl tricks a couple of boys into coming to an abandoned house to look for treasure,” Evan said, as he put his weight on the first stair. “They fall through the stairs and end up in this little room in the basement. The girl comes to look for them after the Care Bears tell her she should, and they rescue the boys.”

“Well, if we fall through, we’ll pray for Care Bears then.”

“Shaun likes the Care Bears,” Evan said, almost to himself.

The stairs held them as they climbed to the second floor. A hallway with over a dozen rooms branching from it consumed the level, and Evan barely paused before continuing up. A rickety wooden railing leaned toward them as they neared the third floor, and he had to push it out of the way for them to pass. At the top of the stairs, a single door stood closed, with only a dark bathroom taking up the space to the right, the single leg of a claw-foot tub poking into view.

“This is their room,” Evan said. “This is where they found her.”

He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. Reaching out to the doorknob, he found that his fingers trembled when he touched the cold metal. Without waiting any longer, he turned the handle and pushed, the door swinging open with a squawk.

The room was enormous, taking up most of the third floor. Stained hardwood floors that would’ve been luxuriant ninety years ago were dark with water and time. The walls, once covered with some sort of decorative paper, lay bare, studs showing through the plaster like bones peeking from torn flesh. A ring of windows lined the far wall in the round shape of the turret, which made up that part of the room, and only one was shattered. A single painting, its image obscured by the damp conditions, hung on the left wall. Evan walked toward it, checking the floor as he did.

Selena let out a small gasp behind him. He turned, sure that one of her feet had fallen through or some type of animal startled her. Instead she faced the right wall, with one hand close to her mouth. Evan started to ask her what was wrong, but he followed her gaze and stopped dead in his tracks.

The shadow of the grandfather clock was on the wall.

Fear bred of impossibility rushed through him, starting in his chest and flowing outward like cold water running through his arteries.

“What is that?” Selena asked, her hand still close to her lips.

Evan walked forward, forcing away the shock. As he neared, he saw that the shape on the wall matched the clock’s outline perfectly. The height and width were both right. The edges of the shadow weren’t crisp lines but faded, elongated, and jagged. Reaching out, he stretched toward the dark silhouette.

“Evan, don’t,” Selena whispered.

He looked over his shoulder and saw Selena’s sculpted eyebrows bunched together. She shook her head.

“Don’t.”

“It’s okay,” he said, and placed his hand on the rough wall.

Nothing happened. He almost expected something to, but his fingers merely skimmed the dusty surface, making a rasping sound. He studied the shadow for over a minute before stepping back to take in its full form again. This was where the clock had stood years and years ago.

“It looks like it’s scorched,” he said, the resonance of his voice hollow and weak in the large room.

“Scorched? Like there was a fire?”

He frowned and leaned forward, rubbing the edge of the stain with his fingers. They came back with only dust on them.

“There’s no soot coming off it, though I don’t know if there’d be any left after ninety-some years.”

“That’s really creepy,” she said, sideling up next to him.

Her shoulder brushed his, and a tremor of heat raced down his arm. Ignoring the sensation, Evan stepped forward again and traced the outline.

“Have you ever seen pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs were dropped?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“The heat and radiation were so intense that the shadows of objects were burned into walls behind them.”

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