I woke up to laughter, confused and disoriented, my face stuck to whatever I was lying on. As I peeled my skin from the leather, the laughter turned into undecipherable whispers. Where was I?
I rolled over, looking around the room, trying to remember how I'd ended up here, and then it all came back to me. I was on Nick's couch, too scared to sleep in his room. I'd rather be confused and disoriented than remember what had happened, the clown's face in the forefront of my mind again. I quickly glanced around the room, fear trying to consume me, but I saw no clown or anything else out of the ordinary.
"I don't know," I heard Nick say from the kitchen. He said something else, but was talking so low I couldn't hear. I turned my head slightly, hoping I could hear who he was talking to.
"We may have to go back." It was Erik's voice.
"I doubt she'll go back." Nick said something else, but I didn't hear him. "She's really scared."
"We need to catch some kind of proof, though," Erik said. "I mean, how do we know...?" He lowered his voice, so I didn't hear the last part, but I could only guess what he was saying.
Not wanting to listen to them talk about me anymore, I got up and walked into the kitchen, purposely stepping heavily so they'd know I was coming. I didn't want to walk in on them mid-Amber convo and it be all awkward.
They both looked at me as I walked in. "Whoa," Nick said, making a face. "What happened to your face?"
I sat down at the table across from him, next to Erik. "What's wrong with my face?"
He laughed. "Is that a rhetorical question?"
I rolled my eyes at him, thinking back to when I peeled my cheek from his couch. "Your couch just happened to love my face and didn't want to let go." I reached up and rubbed it, feeling a crease from the stitching. "Just one more thing to add to the freak show that is my life," I added, nodding down at the sling that was still keeping my arm immobilized.
"How's your shoulder doing?" Erik asked.
"Sore. My collarbone, on the other hand, hurts like a mother."
"You're lucky that's all that happened, taking a fall like that," Erik said. I nodded, and then an awkward silence filled the kitchen.
"So, are you up for going back to bed... in my bed?" Nick asked.
"Are you serious?"
"Well, now that Erik's here, he can stay in there with you, that way if you see or hear anything, he'll be there to witness it. And make sure you don't take out any more of our cameras."
He should've just said Erik would be there to see if I was crazy or actually seeing things. "Yeah, I can do that. I just can't be in there alone." I didn't think I could be anywhere alone, at this point.
"Okay, I'll be watching from in here, too; no smoke breaks," Nick said with a wink.
"You don't need to be smoking, anyway. It's a bad habit."
"My life is one big bad habit," he retorted.
Erik pushed me out of the kitchen before I could say anything else, causing me to wince in pain. "Sorry," he said.
"It's okay. I guess tackling Nick like I did wasn't such a good thing with a broken collarbone."
"I don't know. I think it sounds pretty awesome. Too bad that wasn't caught on the DVR."
As we got to Nick's bedroom, I let Erik walk in first, making sure it was all clear before I went in. I still found myself looking toward the chair, but it was empty this time. Hopefully it'd stay that way.
I walked around Erik and laid down, not keeping my feet on the floor too long, just in case. Once I laid down, Erik did, too.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
It was too dark to see his face, but I could tell his head was turned toward me. "What? Did you expect me to stand?"
"No, I thought you'd sit in that chair."
"But that's where you saw the clown, so I thought I'd leave it open. I'm on top of the covers, so you'll be okay," he assured me.
The thought of lying in this bed with Erik, while Nick was watching us, put all sorts of bad thoughts in my mind. I was glad it was dark so he couldn't see me blushing. Thank goodness Nick hadn't set up a thermal camera.
"If you see or hear anything, just let me know. Tap me, shake me, just something subtle to get my attention."
"Subtle. Got it."
We laid there in silence for about five minutes, and I was nowhere close to falling asleep. It was only one o'clock when we'd been in the kitchen, so I knew it was going to be a long night if this continued.
"Why are you here?" I asked. As soon as I asked it, I realized it had come out wrong. "I mean, well, you know what I mean."
"Nick texted me, told me you were spending the night and--" he laughed "--told me that I should come hear you snore. Said it was the most paranormal thing he'd ever heard."
"Did he really?" I couldn't help but laugh, too.
I felt him moving, and then the light from his phone lit up the bed. Amber is here spending the night. You should hear her snore. Scariest shit ever. Most paranormal thing I've ever heard. I heard laughter coming from the kitchen.
"Nick!" I yelled. "You're not nice."
"So, you're gonna have to go to sleep so I can see this phenomenon for myself," Erik said, sounding way too sexy, especially when he had a girlfriend.
"Will Courtney be mad? You know, that you're... in a bed with me?"
"It's all in the name of science," he replied, and I could tell he was smiling.
"Well, I don't want her pissed at me."
"No, she won't care." And that's all he said.
"Well, I don't think I'd like it, if you were my boyfriend and were in the bed with someone else." He didn't say anything, which made me wish I hadn't said anything, myself. That's the thing about words, though; once they're spoken, they're out there, unable to be erased or taken back. "Anyway...." I started to roll away from him so I could try to go to sleep, but my shoulder refused, so I just laid there, instead, waiting to see what happened, if anything.
I listened to Erik breathing--in... out... in... out--which started to slowly lull me to sleep. I hated the fact that I liked his closeness, since I wasn't about to be one of those girls who went after a guy who wasn't available. In... out... in... out....
"Amber...." I thought I heard my name, but wasn't sure. "Amber," Erik whispered again.
His lips were at my ear. "Nick went out to smoke."
His breath sent a pleasant thrill down my spine. "Erik--" I was going to ask what he was doing, but he answered my unspoken question when his hand slid across my stomach and his lips gently brushed against mine.
Part of me wanted so much to stop him, remind him that he wasn't free to do this, but the other part just wanted to feel his lips against mine. I was torn between doing what was right and doing what I wanted to do, and as I often did, I chose the latter.
When his lips pressed a little harder into mine, I wasn't disappointed. It's the way I'd imagined his lips would feel as I was falling asleep. Actually, everything he did was exactly as I'd imagined it, from him whispering my name, to Nick being outside, to him kissing me. But this is real... this is real.
As his tongue teased mine, I thought about the camera, and no matter if we were alone or not, Nick would see. I don't know why that would matter, but it did, so I put my hand on Erik's chest and gently pushed him away.
"We can't do this."
"Why?" he asked.
"Well, for one, Courtney. And two, we're being recorded, remember. We can't do this," I repeated.
"You're crazy," he whispered, pressing his lips to mine again. "Crazy, crazy."
His breath had suddenly turned sour, almost causing me to gag, and when I went to turn my head, I couldn't, his hand holding my face to his. Before I could even try to get my left arm out from under him to push him away, his tongue was in my mouth.
No, not again.
What had been teasing flicks had turned into pure aggression, his tongue forced down my throat, gagging me. I couldn't even breathe.
Nick has to be coming back. Would I suffocate before he did?
A glow caused me to open my eyes, and when I did, I once again wished I hadn't. All I saw was Eleanor's face, Erik nowhere in sight.
I screamed around the tongue that was blocking my airway, grasping for anything that might help me get way from the horror that was pressed against my face, when I felt myself starting to shake. Unlike the shake of fear, this was a bit more violent.
"Amber!" Pain exploded from my stupid shoulder again. "Amber, you're okay," I heard Erik say. "I'm right here." He pulled me to him, and the welcomed protection caused me to ignore my broken collarbone. "I'm here." He held my head against his chest. "Nick, did you get anything?" he yelled.
"Not that I can tell. It just looked like she was having a bad dream, but I'll go back and check," Nick yelled back.
"Amber, what happened?" Erik asked.
"It was just a dream," I said, like I was trying to convince myself more than answering him. "Just a dream, just a dream."
"I know it was, but what was it about?"
"I'm still monitoring," Nick announced from the kitchen.
Erik's hand rand across my hair and down my back a few times, like he was petting me. It reminded me of how my mom used to comfort our Poodle when he'd have seizures. "You were fighting me. Is your shoulder and everything okay?"
I nodded against his chest. "Why do they seem so real?"
"I don't know...." He sounded like he wanted to say something else, but didn't.
At this point, I was glad, not wanting to talk about it anymore. I was hurting, tired, and mentally exhausted. I knew I couldn't take much more of this, and at some point, my mind would refuse to sleep. Maybe that would be a good thing.
He told me to lie back down, that he'd be right next to me, and as he wrapped his arms around me, I knew he meant right next to me. I was so frightened that I let him. I didn't want him to let me go, not now, not--
A noise caught my attention. It was faint, but loud enough for me to hear, coming from the closet next to the bed, on my side. I held my breath as I listened, and a few seconds later, I heard it again. It sounded like something was in there, barely moving. I glanced over and could see that it was cracked about a foot.
I slowly moved my hand enough to gently tap Erik's arm with my finger. "What is it?" he whispered, so low that it was barely audible.
I turned toward him, realizing just how close he was. "The closet." I heard another rustling sound. "There it was again."
"I didn't hear anything."
I looked back at the closet, wishing I'd shut the door before we laid down. "Go check it."
After hesitating for a few seconds, he slowly got up, turning on his flashlight. As he neared the door, I didn't want to look, but couldn't look away. He shined his light into the crack in the door before jerking it open, which made me jump. Once the door was open, all we could see was Nick's clothes.
Erik turned toward me and said, "Nothing there," as he shined his light toward the closet again.
My heart stopped. There was something there.
Eleanor.
As he lowered his light, it reflected off something, and when she slowly started to raise it, I realized what it was.
No.
As the ax reached her face, she stuck her tongue out and appeared to lick the edge of the blade, slicing a deep gash down the middle of it, before raising the ax above Erik's head. She smiled, flicking her now forked tongue at me as blood dripped off the end of it. I thought I was going to puke.
Erik shined his light right in my face, blinding me. "What's wrong? There's nothing in there." He turned around and shut the door, and as soon as he did, something hit it hard from the inside, causing me to scream, and him to jump back.
He quickly turned the bedroom light on, but even so, I was still scared to death. "What the hell was that?" he asked.
"I saw her," I told him. "Just now, in the closet. I saw her."
"But I looked and there was nothing there."
"She was there when you turned around. She had an ax. That's what hit the door. I know it is."
Nick joined us this time, unable to just monitor from the kitchen. "I heard that all the way in there," he said as he walked toward his closet.
We were all quiet as he slowly reached out to grab the handle. I started to tell him not to open it, but I wanted to see. I wanted them to see. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't. There would be a mark on the door--an ax mark. There had to be.
His hand gripped the handle, and instead of opening it normally, or slowly peeking inside, he yanked it open, causing me to scamper back across the bed.
He bent over and picked a motorcycle helmet up from the floor. "It's just my old helmet. It must've fallen from the shelf when he shut the door." He stepped into his closet and sat the helmet back onto an empty spot on the shelf above his clothes.
"But I saw her," I said, almost in whining. "She was right there and hit the door with an ax. She would've hit Erik if he hadn't moved and shut the door." But when I looked on the inside of the door, there were no marks on it. I looked over at the camera, which was facing into the room, not at the closet, so it wouldn't have picked it up. Just like before, everything happened outside of the camera's view.
"What is it, Amber?" Nick asked, watching me with a worried expression. Heck, I was worried, too.
"It's like she knows where to hide." In the dark, in the corner, on the floor, under the bed, in the closet... inside my mind. "It's like she knows."