The Spook House (The Spook Series Book 1) (3 page)

The light couldn’t be a star. So what was it? An airplane? A satellite? Something on the moon?

I ran inside, found my digital camera, and returned to the porch. The light in the sky was still there. I thought, This must be my lucky night.

I took several pictures but you couldn’t see anything. I guess you’d need a big professional lens for that. Oh well.

I looked around. It was getting dark. Where the hell was Sampson? I called him and scanned the field for movement. I looked past it to the tree line. The woods were dark now. Nothing on the road. Damn. Where was that dog?

I went back into the house, put the camera away, and found a flashlight. It was on of those big steel jobs – you know, the type cops use an excuse to carry a metal club. Twilight was turning into real night. I went to the door and opened it.

My eyes picked up moment. In the dark field, there was an even darker shape. It rushed towards me like a torpedo. I raised my flashlight. I was momentarily relieved when I saw it was Sampson, but I immediately knew something was wrong. Sampson was normally full of energy, but it wasn’t like he was running happily in from the field. It was more like he was fleeing from it. He bolted past me and disappeared into the house.

That was weird. I wondered if he was hurt. I followed him into the house.

I turned to shut the door and shouted out in fear. There was a person standing there. My hands instinctively flew up to protect my face. I found myself holding the flashlight like a batter at home plate ready to swing.

The person was a woman.

“Sorry I startled you,” she said in a very relaxed voice. She smiled. To her credit, she didn’t even flinch when I raised the metal flashlight like a club. I lowered my guard slowly.

The first thing I noticed was that this woman was very tall and extremely beautiful. I uncurled out of my defensive pose or whatever the hell I was doing, lowered my weapon and tried to draw myself up to my full height. I was still only looking eye-level with her cleavage. Her boobs were perfect. They looked real. The woman wore a red suit. I noticed the bottom was a miniskirt that was unprofessionally high-cut. Her legs were really long.

I felt another wave of panic. Who could this be? My imagination went wild. She did have an unnatural beauty, but the prostitute theory didn’t fit. There was nothing submissive about her. She radiated a dark power.

I remember thinking, Oh shit! I’m busted. She’s a cop. She’s tall and looks in shape. But I haven’t done anything … yet. What does she want?

I looked her over, searching for a badge or bulges suggesting a hidden gun. My eyes did a quick scan, trying to resist the magnetic pull of the hot zones that drew my attention – the lips, the cleavage, the hips.

I noticed that her polished fingernails were long, and tapered to points. I had a hard time imagining her making a fist or holding a gun. Those nails didn’t seem to go with a cop. Same thing went for her shoes. They were leather high-heeled boots. They were sexy, but I couldn’t see anybody running in them.

So she’s not a cop, I thought. Then what is she?

A social worker, was the answer from my mind, She’s here to take me away to live with some ‘adult’ because I’m underage. Or she’s a lawyer.

Whatever she was, it couldn’t be good.

She had to have something to do with my dad’s case. But she didn’t look like anyone I’d seen in court. She looked like a sexy actress playing a slutty lawyer or a super-spy on TV. In other words, she didn’t look real.

I felt I had to strain my neck muscles to take my eyes off of this woman’s cleavage and lift my head to look at her face. Her face was beautiful, and so was her long red hair.

Her body was gorgeous, and her face was too. She had big lips and perfect teeth. Those lips – something inside my body ached when I looked at them.

Her nose was small and cute, but her eyes ... for some reason I avoided them.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I want to talk to you, Jacob.”

“Do I know you?”

She laughed. “Everyone knows me.”

Great. A reporter. Or a lawyer. Somebody with a big ego.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Ashira,” she said, “We need to talk. May I come in?” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes didn’t.

The woman’s eyes … There was something wrong with them. I was certain of it now. They were too big. No, that wasn’t it. It was something else. They were too dark. The pupils were too big, giving them a weird, animal look. I didn’t like how they stared at me. They seemed to go for unnaturally long time periods without blinking.

“Please,” she said. “It’s important.”

For some reason, I remembered something from a movie, or several movies. I don’t know. I don’t remember where I got it, but I do remember the line clearly: “Never invite a vampire into your house.”

There was a crucifix hanging by the front door. I reached over to get it. For a moment, I felt all stretched out and exposed. But, I had faith that I would be safe once I had it. That’s what made the cross work. That was also in the movie.

I boldly thrust the crucifix into the woman’s face. She stepped back, startled.

I thought, OH SHIT! OH FUCK! It’s real!

Then the woman laughed. “Oh, I saw that same movie! You’re supposed to say, ‘Back! Spawn of Satan!’”

Actually, she was right. That was the line.

“Can I see that? That looks like a nice one.”

The woman reached out for the crucifix. Her long fingers wrapped around it slowly. The nails looked dangerous, almost like claws. Who would have their nails done like that?

The woman lifted the crucifix out of my hand brought it close to her face, where she inspected it closely. OK, so she wasn’t a vampire. I felt a like a fool.

“You know,” she said, still looking at the crucifix, “It didn’t really look like this at all. I know. I was there.”

OK. Maybe I wasn’t so foolish. She handed it back to me.

I took the crucifix in my hand. I was gripping it so tight my knuckles were turning white. Unfortunately, I doubted it could protect me anymore.

“Are you an angel?” I managed to stammer.

She laughed. Something in her eyes softened, showing amusement, sadness, pride, or something else. In any case, it was genuine emotion.

“I am the first one,” she said.

“What do you want?” I asked again.

“To talk.”

“About what?”

“About everything that’s going on. With you. With God. You’re not being told the whole story.”

I admit it. I was intrigued.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“You’re being set up. And that,” she said, pointing at cross in my hand, “is not going to save you. I think you know that.”

I said nothing.

“There are some things that you need to know. What you do is up to you. But I know you. Let me in and we’ll talk. You want to be informed, don’t you?”

She was right. I did. I stood aside, put the cross down on a table, and let her in.

5

The woman stepped inside, and I shut the door behind her.

“Nice place,” she said. “Of course, I’ve been here before.”

“What?”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I didn’t like the sound of it.

“When?”

Ashira gave me a disdainful look you give to someone who asks a really stupid question.

Suddenly, I saw this as another good opportunity to test the “real” identity of this woman.

“OK. What’s back there?” I said, pointing down a hallway.

“Your room,” she said, and smiled.

Could have been a guess.

“What about in there?” I said.

“Oh!” She said excitedly, “That’s the closet with the guns in it!”

She listed them off. She couldn’t have been guessing. When she was done reciting the list, she was breathing deeper, as if aroused.

“You know, it’s really dark in here,” the woman said. “I like it.”

Suddenly, I didn’t. I could see her white teeth gleaming in the dim light.

“You know what we need?” the woman said. “We need something to set the mood.”

She made a motion with her hand, like somebody flicking a match. A fire burst to life in the fireplace.

“There,” she said, beaming. “That’s better.”

For some time, she just stood there, gazing into the fire. She was completely focused on it. She looked both sexually aroused and satisfied at the same time. Her red hair now looked bright orange, and shifted hues in the firelight. Even from where I was standing, I could see the fire reflected in her eyes as she stared at it. The eyes stayed open for longs periods of time without blinking. She also seemed, at times, to be standing perfectly still. It wasn’t natural. Like when I talked to God, my skepticism was slipping away. And just like that encounter with the divine, Ashira seemed to be the real deal. When she had been at the door, I had a choice. Somehow, I knew that. Now, I had the growing feeling that letting this “woman” into my house, I had made a terrible mistake.

Hoping to make this visit as brief as possible, I cleared my throat and said, “OK, um, Ashira, you said you had something important to tell me?”

She turned from the fire.

“Oh yes.”

“OK,” I said. “So you’re supposed to be the Devil?”

“Supposed to be?” Ashira said darkly.

She reached out toward the fireplace. A fireball flew out of it and into her hand. She brought it close to her face and watched it burn in her palm. There was no sign of pain in her face, only wonder. She really liked fire. There was no smell of burning flesh. Then she made a fist and snuffed it out. She held her palm up to emphasize what I already knew. There was absolutely no damage to her skin.

“OK,” I said slowly. That was a neat trick, but still don’t know if I was thoroughly convinced. Maybe I didn’t want to be. Still, this woman did have a disturbing knowledge of my guns, my house, and my current situation. I wanted to hear what she had to say. Besides, I didn’t know if it would be wise or even possible to throw her out.

I sat down on a chair, and Ashira sat down on the couch. She smoothed the fabric around her legs, and subtly adjusted her boobs as the dress shifted.

I cleared my throat and said, “Can I ask you something and you won’t get all offended?”

“Anything,” she said.

“Aren’t you supposed be, like, a guy?”

Ashira laughed.

“I can be anything I want.”

“Yeah, but you’re normally a guy, right?”

“I’m not ‘normally’ anything.”

“So this,” I gestured towards her body, “This is just an illusion you used to get me to let you in the door?”

“Oh, it’s more than that,” Ashira said. “This is a representation of what I really am.”

The suspicious look on my face must have prompted her explain.

“Like this woman you’re looking at, I have the ability to give you what you want. I can give you pleasure. You know that just by looking at me. You understand that. But it’s deeper than that. This is what I am to God.

“From time immemorial, there was only God. He was alone in the universe. It was all Him. Then he got bored, and He created me. We did everything together. It was all about me. Then He created everything else. We loved to watch life on Earth. But then when you humans came on the scene, He couldn’t stop watching. It was like having a husband who loses interest in you because he’s glued to the TV watching sports. That’s when the problems began.

“‘Let’s stop watching and go play the games,’ I said. Sometimes we did. But God wasn’t into that. He’d rather be a spectator than a player.

“‘But it’s fun!’ I said.

“‘No,’ He said. ‘Leave them alone and we’ll see what they do next.’

 “That’s when I realized that humans were His priority, not me. I was just his bitch. So I struck out on my own and did whatever I wanted to. And I still do.

“That’s the difference between God and me. God is a voyeur. He likes to watch,” Ashira said, looking at me with an excited and seductive gleam in her eye. Then her mood changed.

“But He doesn’t like to get His hands dirty,” she said with disgust.

“Oh no. ‘He beheld His creation and it was good’ and all that, but not good enough for Him to actually take part in. That’s when the problems started. I know what it’s all about, and God, despite being the creator, still doesn’t. He’s clueless. I told him that to His face.

“That’s when He got mad. He thought that we were above such things, and that we should act accordingly. He was too good to live in the material world. He said I should not degrade myself by masquerading as things of flesh and blood.

“But that’s where He and I differ again. I like the pleasure and the pain of life. I am forever. I don’t need to reproduce, but I like sex. I don’t need to eat, but I like killing and devouring things. I like stalking and pouncing on my prey, sinking in my teeth and claws, and tearing it apart. I can still taste the blood!”

Ashira inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled out of her mouth. “It was intoxicating.”

She looked at me and smiled wickedly. “You’re a hunter. You know what I’m talking about.”

I wasn’t about to admit it, but I kind of did. Not the ‘tearing apart flesh’ stuff, but maybe the ‘stalking and hunting’ part. But I couldn’t let her know that.

“I don’t take pleasure in killing,” I said quietly.

Ashira laughed so hard she was almost in tears. It made me very uncomfortable. When she collected herself, she looked at me and said, “Well of course you do!”

With a mounting sense of panic, I was starting to feel like this was an argument I couldn’t afford to lose.

“I eat everything I kill,” I said.

“Of course you do,” she said. “So do I.”

With that, she laughed again and stared at me with a weird look. Her teeth actually seemed to be getting longer.

I’m telling you, if I had had anything in me, I would have crapped my pants right then and there. As it was, I fell out of my chair and stumbled to the far wall, trying to get as far away from her as possible. What was this thing I had let into my house?

“Get out! Now!” I screamed.

“Let me think about that,” she said. “How about … No!”

“Wha-What do you want?”

Ashira laughed. “Oh relax.”