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

keeping her legs squeezed shut tight. She glanced down at the crushed paper balls, goose bumps spreading over her bare arms and legs, and she cried.

The sobs were muffled by the gag, and her falling tears reignited the residue of the pepper spray on her cheeks, but the chemical had dulled, and the reaction was only a mild burn.

She had gotten so far and survived for so long, but it all crumbled with the dull sound of paper balls spilling onto concrete. Her hope was dashed, and all that was left was to wait for the inevitable death by whatever ceremony Dennis had planned. After everything she’d done, she was still going to be killed by a man she’d angered.

With all her fight gone, Sarah sat motionless, her head hanging lazily to the side. She had stopped shivering from the cold, which meant that hypothermia was starting to set in, which explained the cloudy, foggy nature of her thoughts.

She faded in and out of consciousness, and each time she came to, it took her a minute to remember where she was. Her lips had turned a light shade of blue, and her skin had transformed from porcelain to almost translucent.

“Help us.”

The words were whispered in Sarah’s ear, and she jolted awake, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as she expected to find Dennis had returned.

But when she scanned the darkened corners of the room, she was alone. She shook her head, trying to shake off the madness that was creeping into her mind.

“Help us.”

The whisper lingered in her ear and echoed in her head. She shut her eyes, trying to force it to be quiet, but it wouldn’t obey.

“Stop it,” Sarah said, her words rolling off a numb and lazy tongue. She twitched in random spasms. “Leave me alone.”

“It will kill you.”

Sarah lifted her head, and the shivers returned as she found herself staring at a woman dressed in a maid uniform. But this time she had her hair pulled back, exposing what she’d been hiding.

The left side of the girl’s face was completely smashed, half of her skull flattened, which crammed what features remained on the left side into unproportioned clumps. Brain matter and blood dripped freely down the mangled portion of her face, and one unblinking eye stared down at Sarah.

Sarah’s lips trembled, but she forced the word out of her mouth. “Maggie.”

Maggie nodded, the woman’s one good eye staring at Sarah. And the longer they maintained eye contact, the colder Sarah became.

“You must save us,” Maggie said, her voice a crackling whisper. “He feeds on us every day.” The first signs of fear broke along Maggie’s battered face, and the one good eye produced a single tear that quickly froze to her cheek like an icicle.

“I-I can’t,” Sarah said, desperation clinging to her voice like the sweat and grime that covered her skin. But then she remembered the deputy. “The police. I told the police.” The fact that there was someone on the outside that could help fanned the flames of hope.

“The police can’t save us.” Maggie stared at Sarah then pointed at her.

Sarah’s frustration bubbled to the surface. “I told you I can’t—” And just when Sarah was about to scream more, the restraints around her wrists and ankles dropped to the floor. Her back and knees popped as she stood. She rubbed the red marks the rope had burned into her skin, frowning in disbelief. “How did you—”

Maggie was suddenly in front of her again, teleporting in the blink of an eye. Sarah turned away, unable to stomach the gore and the stench of the woman who had granted her freedom. But Maggie grabbed Sarah by the shoulders and spun her around, sending a shock like fire and ice speeding through her veins.

Maggie distorted her face with mixed expressions of fear and anger. “It’s always hungry! It always wants to eat!”

“What are you talking—”

“Find the orb! Break the curse! Set us free!”

A breeze blasted Sarah’s back, and she clamped her hands over her ears as Maggie screamed. The eardrum-shattering cry brought Sarah to her knees. She shivered on the concrete floor, and the side of her face ached, the pain transforming into a splitting headache. Just when she didn’t think she could take any more, the noise and the wind ended just as quickly as they had started.

Sarah slowly lifted her head, breathing heavily, and lowered her hands from her ears. Something warm formed on her upper lip, and she swiped at it with the back of her hand. A red blood smear appeared when she examined the liquid. She stared at it for a moment and then checked to see if her nose was still bleeding but found it had stopped.

She scanned the room, searching for Maggie, but found that she was gone.

So what had Sarah seen? A ghost? She knew she hadn’t imagined it, but if what she had seen was real, she thought she might be losing her mind.

Slowly, Sarah got her feet under her and then hobbled toward the door. The knob was as cold as ice, but she barely felt the difference since her own skin was nearly frozen over.

The door buckled as she tugged on the knob, but any attempt at turning it left or right only ended with stiff resistance. It was locked.

Sarah was one step closer to escape but somehow just as far away as she had been when she was tied to that chair. She knew she didn’t have the build to knock the door down. She’d break her arm before that happened. She turned around, pressing her back against the door, knowing it was just a matter of time before Dennis returned, making the help she had received pointless.

Tears in her eyes, Sarah lifted her head, finding the crumpled-up balls of paper that Dennis had dumped from the box. But then she looked toward the wall near the door, finding more junk in the corner.

Sarah crawled over to the piles of