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

grips or crevices that could help guide her path down, but they were few and far between.

The door broke, and Dennis burst inside, stomping toward Sarah. She quickly lowered herself from the window, fingers hanging off the edge as she tried to lower herself to another ledge.

“NO!” Dennis appeared above, reaching down for her hand, but Sarah shimmied out of reach, the movement costing her grip as she dangled from one arm. “You don’t understand what you could become! You don’t understand what you can do!”

Sarah quickly reached for the worn head of a nearby gargoyle and carefully placed her free hand around the smooth, weathered surface.

She glanced back up to the window and found Dennis gone. Bushes lined the ground below, and knowing she was running out of time Sarah let go, dropping fast and landing hard into the shrubs.

Legs and ass aching from the fall, Sarah forced herself up and sprinted away, her heels smacking against the pavement of the walkway.

The front doors of the house groaned and opened. Dennis screamed, his voice echoing through the night air.

“You can’t leave! STOP!”

Despite her fatigue and her attire, Sarah ran straight through the middle of the street. And when she no longer heard Dennis’s voice, she finally turned around.

The mansion on the hill was still there, still looming over the town. And now Sarah could finally see it, the true essence of what that house was to the town. It was a sickness, a plague that had dried everything up, claiming the lives of anyone who stayed with a fate worse than death.

Headlights flashed ahead, accompanied by blue and red lights, and Sarah lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the brightness.

Car brakes squealed, and then a door opened. “Hey, are you all right?”

Sarah lowered her hand, her eyes slowly adjusting to the sharp contrast of light, and she saw the deputy she had spoken to earlier was reaching into the backseat and then walking toward her.

“We have to go.” Sarah met him halfway and then grabbed hold of his arms, feeling her own legs finally giving way. She half collapsed, but Dell scooped her up in his arms as if she was a child.

“Christ, you’re freezing.” Dell carried her to the back of the car and laid her down on the seat.

The warmth from the heater and the blanket Dell had draped over her helped ease the pain, but it made her sleepy, and she started to drift off as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Just hang on,” Dell said. “I’ll get you some help.”

Sarah’s eyelids fluttered, and she drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness. “They’re killing them… They’re… Killing…”

“Hey! Stay with me!”

66

The dreams came all at once, and they were vivid. Too vivid. Sarah was back in the basement, but she was only there as a bystander. She saw herself in the chair, and she saw her interaction with Dennis and Maggie.

All of the same feelings returned, the rush of adrenaline, the fear, the anger, but she was watching it all unfold from outside her body, and she stayed in the corner, unable to speak or intervene. She started to think that she wasn’t supposed to.

Suddenly, Sarah was transported to the bedroom on the fifth floor.

The cold returned, and the terror was the same, but this time, the room didn’t darken. This time, she saw a figure appear where she hadn’t seen one before. And it wasn’t the devil or some evil deity. It was a man. His hair was long, thick, and black, and his hands were pale white, almost the color of the ice she had watched Maggie transform into. He was dressed in old clothes from another era, probably more than one hundred years ago. And suddenly Sarah realized who it was. It was Allister Bell.

“You must return.” Allister spoke louder, his tone throaty and his cadence slow, almost as if it were painful to speak. “You must find the orb.”

“I don’t understand,” Sarah said.

Allister wore a sad smile. “I cannot stop what has been started, but I will send you another to help. But you must hurry, Sarah. The orb moves but is always in the same place. There isn’t much time. Hurry!”

Sarah woke, gasping for breath.

Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she glanced down at her body, finding it covered in a hospital gown. Wires and tubes ran up her arm and down her chest. The room was empty save for the beeping hospital machinery, the rhythm growing faster and faster as she hyperventilated on the bed.

The door opened, and a nurse and doctor stepped inside, both of them with their hands up in a passive stance. “Ma’am, everything is all right. You just need to lie back down—ma’am, please!”

Sarah had flung the sheets off her and ripped off the wires that connected to her chest and arm, along with the tubes sticking into her veins, causing her to bleed. “I need to get out of here.” She made it three steps before the doctor and nurse caught her and kept her still.

“We need you to stay here,” the nurse said, her large, meaty hands easily wrapping around Sarah’s thin arm. “You’re safe now.”

“Let me go!” Sarah tossed her elbows, but she found that her strength still hadn’t returned, and she was lifted back onto the bed, legs kicking in protest.

“Everything all right in here?” Dell stepped into the room, and Sarah stopped her squirming. Dell took the doctor’s place at her bedside. “Hey, there isn’t any need for that, really.”

“You said she couldn’t leave,” the nurse said.

“Why can’t I leave?” Sarah asked.

“It’s fine. Please, if I could just have a minute to talk with her alone?”

The medical team plugged Sarah’s IV back into her, and then put sensors back on her fingers before stepping out of the door.

Sarah backed up to the head of the bed, pulling her knees into her chest as she formed a small, defensive ball. “What do you want? And why can’t I leave?” The words