Black Sun by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 61

As the day drew to a close, the house filled with the cool air of the oncoming night, waking Ryan and Abby with a mild chill. Abby was first to rise and as she wiped the sleep from her eyes she noticed a familiar shape peering in from the edge of the bedroom door. Believing that she was still wandering the dream world, she brought her hands to her eyes and, rubbing them again, brought herself into complete consciousness. Looking back at the doorway, she was frightened into a scream by the sight of an elderly woman staring back at her. She was thin, almost skeletal in build, with long white hair. Dressed in a tattered, dingy night gown, her crooked grayish-brown teeth flashed through a sudden smile. One might think that a smile might be comforting, but the ghostly image standing in the doorway left Abby nearly catatonic with fear. Startled by her scream, Ryan bolted up from a sound sleep. “What is it?” he asked.

Fear had robbed her of her voice but raising a hand, she pointed to the weazened figure now inching its way into the bedroom with a soft, taunting laugh.

“There!” she screamed. “She’s right there! Look, don’t you see her?!”

Ryan looked to the doorway and saw nothing. He wondered if Abby might be caught up in some waking nightmare, possibly brought by the chemical chaos of her pregnancy. “I don’t see anything,” he replied.

Calling to her several times, Ryan began shaking her by the shoulder. This only further agitated her already panicked state. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Ryan now realized that she was not dreaming and something serious was happening. He had heard of postpartum psychosis from a psychology class he’s taken in college. But things like that didn’t normally take place during pregnancy. He tried calming her down with a low, relaxed voice but this seemed ineffective. Maybe she was having some kind of nervous break-down. She had been under a great deal of stress—between the assault that had taken place in the bookstore and nearly being killed in the hotel. Ryan believed he understood what was happening to her, but was at a loss as to what to do about. Unless she could recover quickly, their travels would be cut short, and they would be forced to stay in the house until she was well enough to travel.

Abby continued staring at the doorway as the pale figure still stood, smiling at her, as her expression began to take on a more sinister look. The woman’s appearance was beyond elderly, making her look as though she had been lowered into a grave, remaining there for several weeks. The ghostly figure raised its hand, extending its fingers and pointed at Abby with long, dirty fingernails. Abby’s fear grew to the point of boiling over as her eyes rolled back, and her mind shut down. When she regained consciousness, she felt Ryan’s warm hand clutching hers. Sitting up, she shook off the confusion that had overwhelmed her and as she looked around the room, she wondered aloud. “Where the fuck did it go?”

Ryan was beyond concerned.

“What was it?” he asked. “What did you see?” Having felt that degree of terror, Abby was hesitant to talk about it. She even considered the idea that it may never have happened at all—a fiction of stress and a constant fear of what might be around the next corner. But Ryan was insistent and eventually convinced her to talk. He wasn’t one to subscribe to the supernatural, but what he heard seemed beyond the unbelievable and concluded that in an old Victorian house, anything was possible. And if it had an unusual history, then that might explain any apparent unearthly activity. Unfortunately, if that was the case, Abby had become an unwilling witness to it. And the last thing she needed was more stress.

Helping her out of bed, Ryan urged Abby to dress as quickly as possible. They still needed to eat, but Abby, not wanting to stay in the house for another moment, argued for their immediate departure. In a race between hunger and fear, it is generally fear that crosses the finish line first. Ryan relented to Abby’s concerns and convinced himself that they would soon be able to eat but his first concern was always Abby.

“Do you think this place is haunted?” she asked. “I mean, it seems like it might be old enough.”

He considered her question for a few moments. A ghost would be a far better explanation than a mental breakdown. “Well,” he began. “I’ve heard a lot about those kinds of things. I suppose it’s possible, but I guess I’m a bit of a skeptic. I guess I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Abby found his response only mildly comforting, and as they left the bedroom, she glanced around the hallway with suspicion. They had explored the house thoroughly and found nothing that could be thought of as threatening, and an elderly woman certainly would not be able to move quickly enough to evade a search or find a place to hide. Although she didn’t see the apparition again, Abby concluded that what she had seen was not part of a sudden onset of psychosis, but the rare appearance of something that is likely intimately connected to the house. This belief was reinforced by the fact that only she had seen it.