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

The lonely nights in foster homes, the abuse from foster parents, the pranks from other kids, the loss, the fear, the pain, all of it assimilated into one motivating thought that was front and center in her mind, and the only way to get it out was to ram the screwdriver in and fish it out.

Sarah smiled. It would be easy. One quick thrust through the eye and it would all be over.

No more cold. No more pain. No more nightmares.

She gripped the wooden handle with both hands and positioned it over her eye, aiming it directly over all of those bad thoughts. Her smiled widened.

“Sarah, no!”

Sarah’s paralysis broke. She turned away from the screwdriver, and she saw Maggie paralyzed in the darkness, her skin slowly icing over.

“Go,” Maggie whispered. Then her voice jumped in pitchy screams, the ice continuing to crawl over her entire body. “GO!”

The shrill cry triggered Sarah into action, and she crammed the screwdriver into the hinge. Maggie’s shrieks and cries of pain grew louder, and the room shook.

She turned around and screamed as she found Maggie had turned to nothing but ice—and then her frozen figure dropped to the floor, shattering into a thousand shards that spread over the floorboards.

The door opened, but Sarah only made it one step before a hot pain struck her heel, and she turned to find the dark void wrapped around her ankle. Color drained from her porcelain skin, which then turned an icy blue.

With what remained of her strength, Sarah yanked her leg free and then scrambled on all fours until she gained enough momentum to push herself up and into a sprint.

Sarah turned around, finding that pitch black creeping toward her, turning the walls and the floor and the ceiling black, void of any light. She hurried down the stairs, the floorboards creaking and groaning with every step.

Moonlight guided her path, and while she still felt cold and sick, she didn’t stop running.

At the bottom of the staircase, Sarah shoulder-checked the door open and ran down the first-floor hallway and toward the foyer. Toward freedom.

Still gripping the screwdriver, she hobbled forward, exhaustion creeping its cold fingers around her body.

The exaltation and relief of escape was so close that Sarah started to sob. But when she turned the corner, she froze, quickly hiding the screwdriver behind her leg so Dennis couldn’t see it.

Dennis stood in front of the double doors, the features of his face darkened, though Sarah could still tell that he wasn’t smiling. “He was hungry tonight.” He stepped to the side, exposing the glass in the doors and the freedom that rested on the other side.

Sarah watched him strike a match and then light a candle on the table. The flame flickered, illuminating the grimace on his face. He turned toward her, the light shifting the shadows beneath his eyes, nose, and mouth. The fire made him look hollow, as if he was only a skull.

“You’re one of the more willful people we’ve had come through,” Dennis said, and then he smiled. “I’ve always liked a woman who made it hard.”

“People will find out what you did,” Sarah said, unable to keep her voice from trembling. “You can’t keep killing people.”

“I don’t kill people,” Dennis said, taking slow steps toward Sarah, the candle still in his hand. “Surely you saw it.”

Sarah didn’t retreat, and she readjusted her grip on the screwdriver behind her back. She shook her head. “I don’t know what the hell I saw.”

“You saw the face of a god,” Dennis said, his voice an awed whisper. “You saw an eternal being that will take human form again, and when he does, he will reshape this world in his image, and those that have been faithful to him will be rewarded.”

“Count me out,” Sarah said.

Dennis erased the amusement from his face. “I can’t let you leave.”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

Dennis stopped, only a few feet separating the two of them in the foyer. Nothing but the flickering flame moved, illuminating their stoic silence. Sarah had to be quick whenever Dennis made his move. She’d only get one shot at getting out of this alive, and she intended to do it any way she could.

Dennis finally lunged, his massive fist reaching for her throat, but Sarah darted left then launched forward herself, leading with the rusted screwdriver, and jammed it into Dennis’s arm.

“GAAH!”

The candle crashed to the floor as Dennis reached for the wound and the rusted tool standing straight up on its own. But Sarah never turned around to see what happened next.

She slammed into the double doors, finding them locked, then sprinted up the grand staircase. Dennis’s scream followed her up the stairs, but she never stopped moving her feet.

The moment she reached the second floor, she pivoted toward the closest door, which she slammed shut and jammed with a nearby chair. Dennis’s footsteps grew louder outside in the hall as Sarah scanned the room, looking for an exit and finding only windows.

Dennis pounded on the other side of the door. “Open up, Sarah!” And then there was the jangling of the keys that he always had on his person. “There isn’t anywhere for you to go.”

A second chair sat in the middle of the room, and Sarah picked it up. Once she had it in her hands, she hurried toward the window, heaving all of the weight and strength that she had left into the chair.

One of the legs cracked into the glass just as the lock on the door broke. She ripped the chair free and then heaved it again, this time shattering the window panes and sending the chair through the open window.

Sarah approached the exit, turning briefly to look behind her to find Dennis heaving his weight behind the door in his attempt to break down the barricade that Sarah had erected.

Toes sticking over the window ledge, Sarah glanced down at the concrete below. She inched toward the outer walls, looking for any