Alexandra Sokoloff - The Unseen

But there was a recessed alcove in the wall next to the lower landing where she could stand and be hidden from Anton’s line of sight.

Laurel stuck her head out again. Anton still hovered below. She took a breath, then moved swiftly and silently around the wall, and slipped down the remaining stairs to the lower landing.

She ducked into the shallow alcove, pressed her back into the recessed wall, felt her heart pounding through her ribs against the plaster. From her new, closer hiding place she could make out the murmur of voices from the great room. She held very still, forcing her breath to slow, straining to hear.

“I still think we should wait for Dr. MacDonald.” Tyler’s voice sounded agitated.

“She’s not coming back, Tyler,” Brendan’s voice answered patiently. “It was her choice to leave. Please don’t interrupt. Katrina?”

“We’re here. We’re waiting. Are you there?” Katrina called out, her voice clear and energized.

A RAP shook the house. Laurel felt the wall she was leaning against shake to the foundation.

There was an excited murmur of voices, words indistinguishable, then Brendan’s voice called out from the great room: “Is there an imprint in this house?”

The air was suddenly suffused with a rotten smell, the stink of goat. A sound like harsh breathing began, coming from everywhere and nowhere… in and out.

Laurel saw Anton stiffen below her, electric with excitement. He started for the archway.

Then Laurel’s eyes widened as a small dark splotch began to grow on the wall in front of her. She watched it, riveted… and it burst into flame. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. The spot burned for a moment, then flickered out, leaving an oval scorch mark on the wall.

All around her she could hear whispering—many voices, from the walls, from the ceiling… from nowhere and everywhere, whispering and mocking, with no words…

Brendan’s voice suddenly called out from the room below, “I want whatever is in this house to show itself. I want to see.”

No! Laurel thought, her pulse spiking. No!

The house began to shake. Laurel had grown up with earthquakes and the feeling was the same—like an immense, invisible animal lashing in the foundation, convulsing the entire house. Something ripped through the entire building, like a wind that was not a wind. The mirror shard fell from Laurel’s grasp as she flung out her arms and pressed her hands against the sides of the recessed space in which she stood, bracing herself against the sickening roll of the house. It was coming from the great room, the convulsion, and she heard Katrina screaming, Tyler and Brendan shrieking…

There was a great rushing roar that was like a vacuum, a thundering absence of sound, a vortex of wind that was not wind.

Laurel heard herself screaming now, screaming her voice raw—but the sound was swallowed in the vacuum.

It went on forever, a rush of nothingness. She shut her eyes against the pressure, the violation of it. She felt her breath being sucked from her, her mind sliding toward madness, her whole being screaming, screaming—the house was screaming…

And then it stopped.

Laurel gasped for breath, for consciousness.

Am I alive?

Her mouth was dry, her ears ringing, her body shaking with adrenaline….

The house was preternaturally still.

Laurel felt her arms shaking now; her hands were still braced so hard against the walls that her whole body ached. She opened her eyes… lowered her hands from the walls, and took a jerking step from her alcove.

Every framed painting on the wall in the entry was sideways or otherwise torqued. The entry hall was empty below her. There was no sound, no sound…

Fear flooded through her and she stumbled down the remaining stairs, across the entry hall to the archway of the great room.

She burst into the room and stared around her…

… at total chaos, everything overturned, paintings ripped and mangled on the walls, as if a tornado had hit. The piano was upended and mashed up against a wall, on its side. Anton was nowhere to be seen. Only the long table was still in its place, with Katrina, Brendan, and Tyler slumped in their chairs around it, all three of them slack-jawed and staring. Laurel took a staggering step, felt a chill of horror, recognizing the vacuous looks of the catatonic schizophrenic.

The room was completely silent—and live. The feeling of being watched was paralyzing.

Laurel bolted forward—and almost fell over Dr. Anton, slumped on the floor against the wall with legs sprawled out in front of him, head lolling on his neck… vacant-eyed and drooling.

She found her voice and screamed, “Brendan! Tyler! Katrina!”

The three slumped shapes at the table were still. Not a blink, not a twitch of a muscle in response. Lightning cracked in the sky outside the house, illuminating the room in blue white light. The trees lashed in a frenzy of wind.

Laurel ran to the table, leaned over, and slapped Brendan hard across the face, and then again. “Do you see me? Answer me!” she shouted. No response. She took his shoulders and shook him.

“Brendan, I need you to hear me.” He slumped to the side of the chair, his head lolling against the chair back, his eyes were all black, staring blindly at the ceiling.

Laurel turned to Katrina and shook her, shook her hard, until her teeth clacked in her head with a sickening crunch. The girl was as limp as a doll, frighteningly light.

Laurel heard a rustle of movement and froze. She turned… looked toward the side of the room. A clipboard that had fallen from the table started to tremble, then abruptly slid a few inches across the floor. Laurel started back.

All around the room objects began to shift and move around her, slightly, slyly. A pencil started to roll across the room in teasing slow motion. On the mantelpiece, a china cupid that had somehow remained intact suddenly exploded.

Laurel spun toward it… and saw that the pool of water had begun to seep from the floor again, growing. She felt an unbearable sense of something gathering.

Get out. Get out now .

She whirled back to the table and lunged across it to grab Tyler’s wrists.

His eyes rolled with a blankness that dropped her heart to her stomach.

Laurel held his wrists, digging her fingers into his flesh, and looked into those eerie eyes. “Tyler, you need to come back to me now. Can you hear me?”

The rasping voice that came back to her inside her head was nothing human. Of course I can hear you. I am in you. You belong to me .

“I’m not talking to you,” she said vehemently. Her eyes fell on the scattered Zener cards on the tabletop, and suddenly, instinctively, she switched to the inner voice she had used with the blue-eyed boy in her dream.

Tyler. I need you to hear me now. I need you to come out. Wherever you are, follow my voice .

She shut her eyes tight against the shifting movements of the room, shut her mind against the sly creeping sounds… and imagined the white room—the room they had shared during their test run. She forced herself to breathe, to let go… and saw herself in the room. When she opened her eyes, she was alone in the white room with Tyler. He sat at the table, slumped slackly in his seat. Laurel pulled out the chair in front of her and sat before him, across the table. He was still, limp, unfocused.

Tyler. I’m here. I’m here .

She stared into his eyes and saw nothing.

Tyler, listen to me. Hear me. Follow my voice. Come toward my voice. Come out .

She thought she saw something in his face, saw a flicker, or maybe it was an illusion, but she jolted with hope. She leaned toward him urgently.