The Crawling Darkness (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper Book 3) by JL Bryan

Author:JL Bryan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: urban fantasy, mystery, occult, paranormal, savannah, detective, ghost, haunted, ghost hunter, ghostbuster

Chapter Thirteen

Jacob stepped onto the first stair into the basement and hesitated. Stacey reached around him to flip the light switch, and the hanging fluorescents buzzed to life.

“I obviously don’t have to tell you this is the worst part of the house,” Jacob said. “You’ve got it wired up like a TV studio.”

“So much for not giving the psychic advance information,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter.” Jacob continued down the stairs, pausing on the last one. This put me in the unfortunate position of pausing a couple of steps behind him, where something could snatch my ankles through the gaps. I shined my flashlight down between the stairs while I waited, but saw nothing except rusty junk, mostly the guts of an old washing machine that looked like it had been stripped for parts.

“Okay, Jacob,” Stacey said after a while. “This is me poking you to get moving.”

“Sorry. This place is...full.” Jacob grimaced as he left the final stair for the brick floor.

“Which means?” Stacey asked.

“There’s a lot of, I don’t know, broken ghosts. Fractures, lost chunks of souls. They’re clumped together. Imagine, as you’re walking through here, that it’s flooded with dark water, like a swamp, and there are body parts floating everywhere. They’re mostly submerged. Here and there, you see them twitching, a finger curling, an eyeball in half a face turning to watch you pass. That’s what I see.”

“Gross,” Stacey said, while we followed him toward the laundry machines. “I’m going to imagine unicorns floating in cotton candy instead.”

“Dismembered unicorns,” Jacob said. “Their hoof-stumps kicking, turning the cotton candy dark with blood...”

“That’s almost worse. Why would you say that?” Stacey asked.

“Your suggestion made me see it that way for half a second,” Jacob replied.

“Oh, weird. So if I said—”

“Don’t, it’s distracting,” he told her. He turned to face the door in the rock wall, the one that led to the furnace and the well and whatever evil chthonic force dwelled below the house. I thought it was clearly the boogeyman’s lair, but something told me it might be more than that.

“Stacey.” I raised my flashlight, signaling her to raise hers. We approached the door, and I motioned for Jacob to wait while I opened it. There was a good chance something nasty and powerful lurked just on the other side, waiting to shapeshift into whatever we feared and kill us all.

So we entered cautiously.

Our ultra-bright tactical flashlights pushed back the shadows but didn’t exactly cut through them or chase them away. The small red flame glowed in the belly of the old beast of a furnace, like a single angry, badly misplaced eye.

Jacob reluctantly entered the room with us.

I heard a sound that hadn’t been there the last time, like crashing ocean waves as heard from within an underground cave, sloshing and echoing.

“I already feel sick,” Jacob said. “Like drop dead, burn my corpse so it doesn’t infect the village sick.” His skin looked like bleached chalk.

“Should we get out of here?” Stacey stood close to him, embracing him with one arm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.