The Guest House Hauntings Boxset by Hazel Holmes (novel books to read txt) 📕

familiar the tone sounded. The mother turned back to the doctor, her daughter continuing to flail. “Isn’t there something you can give her?”

“I don’t even know what’s wrong with her.” The doctor placed the stethoscope against the girl’s chest and shook his head. “Her heart is racing. Mary, you need to calm down.”

Sarah inched toward the bed, wanting a closer look, as the doctor and the mother continued to try and calm her down, and Sarah noticed that the girl was covered from the neck down, even wearing gloves. As she stared at the girl, she finally saw the first frosted scale appear on her neck.

“Oh my god,” the mother said. She released her daughter and lunged across the bed and gripped the doctor by the throat. “Do something!”

But the doctor only shrugged, lifting his hands impotently in self-defense. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I’m sorry.”

“Mother!” the redhead shrieked, stretching out her hand, which her mother quickly took. “I can feel it! I can feel all of it!” She yanked her mother closer to her face, the pair only inches apart, the frosted blue scales crawling up the girl’s cheeks. “I’m so scared.”

The mother cupped the scales forming around her daughter’s face, her voice thick with grief. “It’s okay, baby, everything is going to be okay. I’ll bring you back, okay? I’ll find a way to bring you back!”

“Mamma?” Mary’s eyes were covered, and the scales consumed the rest of her face as she belted out another piercing scream before the ice shattered into thousands of icy shards.

The doctor retreated against the wall, his cheeks ghostly pale, and the mother had her hands pressed into the sheets on the mattress.

“Iris?” the doctor asked, his voice sheepish as he kept his distance against the wall.

And then Sarah saw it as Iris fisted a handful of the sheets and slowly turned her head toward the doctor, her cheeks glowing a bright red. It was that same expression of disdain with which Iris had greeted Sarah upon her arrival to Bell.

“Get out,” Iris answered, her voice a seething whisper.

The doctor pressed himself harder against the wall and started to shake, but he remained glued to the spot, frozen by fear and a mother’s wrath.

“GET OUT!” Iris roared the order, and the doctor snapped into action, quickly grabbing his bag. He sprinted past Sarah and then out into the living room, his footsteps disappearing down the hall.

With the doctor gone, it was just Sarah and Iris alone in the room, and Iris returned her gaze to the bed where her daughter had just been. Sarah walked around to the other side of the bed so she could get a better look at Iris’s face.

The old woman that Sarah had known had yet to arrive, but the pain and anger and bitterness were evident in her expression.

“You did this,” Iris said, again producing that seething whisper. She lifted her face toward the ceiling and then stomped around the room, shaking her fists in the air. “I don’t care how long it takes, and I don’t care what I have to do, but I will get my daughter back from you.” Her cheeks reddened, and that first shade of bitterness spread over her face. “Do you hear me?”

Iris ended the rant with a heavy stamp of her foot, and in the same motion, Sarah felt a tug at her chest that yanked her from the room and thrust her back outside as she collapsed to her hands and knees.

Sarah gasped for air, like she’d been choking. She hacked and coughed, and the pain in her head forced her to her side, but it was also accompanied by a queasiness in her stomach.

Bile crawled up her throat, and Sarah managed to turn her head just in time to vomit across the frozen ground. She heaved two more times before it stopped, and even then her stomach remained uneasy. She rolled to her back, too tired to put any distance between herself and the stench of her dissolved dinner from the day before.

“You saw me.”

Sarah spun around, finding Mary. “You’re Iris’s daughter.”

Mary scrunched her face in confusion as if Sarah had just spoken another language. “I think… I know that name.” She nodded but still looked confused. “But I can’t—” She shut her eyes hard, shaking her head, and then terror spread across her face. “I remember. The evil, consuming me.” She shivered, and the red in her hair started to fade. “It’s still calling me.” She looked at Sarah. “My mother. She can help you.”

“How?” Sarah asked.

“Tell her—GAH.” Mary winced, her body trembling. She took a few breaths and regained her composure. “Tell her that the moon still shines.” Another spat of pain crippled Mary, and in a panicked frenzy she gripped Sarah by the shoulders, her fingernails like ice picks digging into Sarah’s flesh. “Help me!”

Sarah winced. “Mary, you’re hurting me.”

But Mary didn’t let up the pressure; in fact, she pressed harder. “You have to help me!” she screamed, and Sarah shut her eyes, the noise more painful than the nails digging into her skin, and then Mary was gone.

Sarah spun around, but saw nothing but the night air, then felt a warm drizzle run from her nose. She swiped at her upper lip, and when she examined it under the moonlight, she found blood. She was rubbing it between her fingers when a flash of twirling red and blue lights through the trees caught her attention.

Sarah sprinted toward it and burst through the tree line to find the town of Bell. She spotted Dell’s cruiser as it screeched to a stop outside of Pat’s Tavern, and she smiled.

“Dell!” Sarah ran to him, waving her arms, moving her legs as fast as they would carry her, and the only sound from their greeting was the light smack of their bodies as they embraced. Sarah clung tight, holding on a bit longer than she intended, and it was Dell who had to initiate the break.