Page 87 of The Spirit Key
I stood, feet planted firmly. “Tim won’t ever give up. That’s not the kind of man he is. Even angry, he’s going to fight for me.”
“Oh, I learned from our last encounter. He might prevent me from killing you, but that won’t stop me from using his body to beat you until you wish you were dead.”
You know how in books you get to the point where you suddenly yell “plot twist”? Yeah, that was this moment for me. I hadn’t counted on that at all. Here I thought I was all smart and everything, and come to find out the phrase “too stupid to live” was invented for people like me.
He lunged for me, and I barely ducked under his arm.
“Tim, you need to come back. I love you, remember that.”
“He doesn’t believe you. All those things you said? They’ve been weighing on his mind for years. But when you said there was already darkness inside of him, that shocked him, because he’d doubted in the past, but you confirmed it for him.”
He shoved the table, causing it to crash into the cabinet. No longer having something between us, I figured discretion was the better part of valor and ran like the hounds of hell were on my heels. If I was honest, I would have preferred the hounds. I rushed up the stairs and into the guests’ bathroom, slamming the door behind me. He was there, pounding on it, pushing, trying to get inside. I reached into my pocket and fumbled for my phone.
“No one is going to be able to help you, Scotty. By all means, invite them. Even if I can’t kill you, I won’t have any problem with them. Imagine what that’ll do to Tim.”
I sucked in a breath. He was right. I couldn’t involve anyone else. This was my fight. I started it, and one way or another, I’d have to finish it.
“It’s not you, Tim. It was never you. There’s darkness in all of us. When I drugged myself into a stupor? That was my darkness. Wanna know why? Because I kept thinking how easy it would be if I just took another pill or two. Slipping into death would have been a lot easier than dying at the bottom of a crappy quarry. And I knew that you’d never be able to follow me then. Want to know the real reason I left? Because you were the bright spot in my life, and I was always afraid that my darkness would snuff out your light. What Gideon is doing to you? It’s what I was terrified I’d do.”
The pounding stopped. “Scott?”
My heart hammered. “Tim? You okay?”
“Yeah. You brought me back. Let me in.”
I snorted. “I’m not the clueless coed or the big jock who’s always the first to die in the horror movies.”
He slammed the door, making the frame shake. “Let me in!”
I crossed my fingers. I didn’t have many chances left to pull out a win here. “Nah, I don’t think so. Tim couldn’t kill me. If I’m honest, I wasn’t afraid of him. It was you, Gideon. That night you grabbed my throat? Scared me shitless. I was afraid you’d kill me right then and there.”
The pressure on the door eased, but I kept pushing back, because no way would I let him catch me unaware.
“I… I touched you. Choked you. I didn’t need a body for it.”
“I never knew a ghost could touch someone like that.”
There was a thump in the hallway. “I want his body, but he won’t kill you. If I do it myself, he’ll grieve so hard, I can take over easily.”
An apparition slid through the door, and for the first time, I got a look at the real Gideon Allerton. He was an average man in every way. Completely unremarkable, with his brown hair and brown eyes. He was chunky, bespectacled, and, if I had to put a name to it, a nerd.
“Wow. I’d worked you up in my head to be this big, strong man who struck fear into the hearts of kids. It’s no wonder you had to lull them into a false sense of security, because no one would ever feel threatened by you.”
Gideon sneered. “That’s what Martha said to me too. I wasn’t enough for her. She wanted the fucking farm boy with his big muscles. He didn’t have a brain in his head, but she preferred that over me. When they married and she bore his son, I saw my chance to get even with the both of them. One night, after harvest, when I knew he’d be exhausted, I snuck into their house and slit his throat. You don’t know the thrill I got when his eyes opened and he tried to speak, but all that came out of his mouth was blood.”
I scrabbled to my feet and tried to open the door, but he was on me before I could do anything. He locked his hands around my throat and began to squeeze.
“Then I found her in the baby’s room. Her eyes went wide when she recognized me. She clutched the baby to her, but that didn’t stop me. I ripped him away and threw the squalling brat aside, then stabbed her until my knife broke. The room was drenched in her blood, but it still wasn’t enough. The baby, which should have been ours, was screaming. I stood over it, and it looked up at me with such absolute trust. I knelt down and picked him up. He smiled at me. And in that moment, I knew with crystal clarity what I had to do. I laid him down in the crib and proceeded to choke the life from him. Just like I’m going to do to you.”
“Scotty!”
There was never a sweeter sound than Tim’s voice from the other side of the door.
He started pushing, and I tried to let him in, but Gideon kept me pinned.
Gideon leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “What do you think will happen when he finds your broken body? His despair will allow me to finally get what I want. A strong body that will be capable of so many things.”
His fingers tightened even more, and spots appeared in my field of vision. He was right, and I knew it. If I died, it would crush Tim, and Gideon would have his body. Even if I died, I couldn’t let him have Tim.
