Dark Surge Read online

  Her own mother had taught her too well.

  “Women with our looks and charm shouldn’t have to work a day in our lives,” her mother was fond of saying. “Not if we play our cards right.” She’d make the same speech every time, a Virginia Slim in one hand, a glass of scotch on the rocks in the other, long, manicured nails tap tap tapping the outside of the cut crystal glass.

  But Gillian was of a different generation. She didn’t necessarily want to spend her whole life being some rich man’s trophy wife. Part of her life, certainly. But not all of it.

  So, she’d used some of her dead father’s money to attend nursing school and graduated with a degree and a fat engagement ring from a plastic surgeon. Four months later, she was married and working at a private clinic, a job that lasted almost two and a half years, until she was so sick of it she wanted to vomit. Then she quit, knowing full well that she had done her hard time, been down in the trenches with the common folk and that was about two and a half years longer than most of the other women she knew. It gave her a certain amount of bragging rights, a knowledge that the rest of her circle couldn’t claim. Almost as good as being able to say she’d pulled herself up by her bootstraps, without actually having had to do it.

  She’d taken blood pressure and temperatures, weighed patients and asked them about their medical histories and then cheerfully informed them that the doctor would be right in. Cushy work, though her mother had looked down on her the entire time she’d done it.

  Then had come retirement at the age of twenty-four and a year after that, widowhood. Poor Brian had flipped his Jaguar while taking the scenic route home one night, tooling along a woodsy stretch of road known for its sharp curves and steep embankments.

  Gillian had been devastated to the point where even the nine million inheritance—spread out through various stocks, bonds and properties—couldn’t console her.

  It had been a very dark time for her.

  But, as it is said to do, time healed her wounds and she was able to move past her misery, find new things to laugh about and be interested in. New men to be entertained by, though none had had that special something that Gillian needed to feel complete.

  Standing in the bathroom, leaning over the sink as she looked into the mirror and applied mascara, she smiled at the memory. She’d overcome so much to be the woman she was today. Such pain.

  It was all behind her. Now she had Josh, a vibrant man with nice fat wallet and a pretty face to boot. She had every intention of marrying him, and soon, whether he was aware of this or not.

  Finished with her makeup, she stepped back, gave herself a quick, admiring glance and left the bathroom, heading for the bedroom where her cell phone waited on the dresser. She lifted it, making sure she hadn’t missed Josh’s call while in the other room, but saw that it hadn’t rung at all.

  Strange. He’d said he’d call by four at the latest and here it was, 3:57.

  They had plans for an early dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant and a play in the university district. The play didn’t start till 7:00 but Gillian loathed being late for anything. Plus, they had to account for parking, whether the restaurant would be crowded, etc.

  She decided to give him a few more minutes while she dressed and if he hadn’t called by then, she’d call him, using her sweetest, most seductive voice, which would send him running and panting like the puppy he was. It always did.

  Five minutes later, she’d slipped into her slinky black dress and matching high heels, wearing not a shred of clothing beneath and eyed the clock once more.

  What the fuck was he doing? Was Tess really so helpless that she couldn’t take care of her daughter for one fucking night without Josh’s help?

  Gillian felt her mood going south in a fast hurry. To her, four o’clock at the latest meant three-thirty at the latest. The absolute latest.

  She grabbed her phone off the bed and speed-dialed Josh, listening with growing agitation when she got his voicemail. Without leaving a message, she slammed the phone shut, longing for the days when you could slam a phone down and really make a statement.

  It took her half a minute to figure out what to do next, which was to go pour herself a glass of wine. A drink would take the edge off.

  In the living room, she sat on the plush brown leather sofa with her glass of Merlot, one long leg crossed over the other, bouncing her elegant foot up and down with the lazy absentmindedness of a sleepy cat thumping its tail against a carpet.

  Green eyes narrowing, she sipped her wine and stared blindly out the window at the newborn buds blossoming on the birch trees below. Springtime was here again.

  The trance came on slowly, the way a cold medication will often leave its taker feeling almost numb and more than a little spacey, making it hard to concentrate, hard to remain in the present moment.

  Gillian sank into the sofa, slouching deep, right hand draped over the arm, her eyes half-lidded, her grip on the wine glass loosening but not enough to fall. She was dimly aware of her hands beginning to sweat, her heartbeat slowing, her muscles relaxing.

  A single fly tapped against the outside glass of the nearby window and a small sigh escaped through Gillian’s barely parted lips. The room was losing its sharp edges, filling with fog—real or imagined, she didn’t know or care.

  She only knew how relaxed she suddenly was. Thoughts of Josh and his ex-wife barely pricked the surface of her consciousness. Her eyelids slipped down, blocking out the dim light of the room while another fly tap tapped at the window.

  Two now, she knew.

  She was unconcerned, beads of sweat tickling her upper lip, her brow. She realized she was terribly thirsty but didn’t have the strength to lift the glass she still held in her right hand.

  So thirsty.

  More tapping at the window and beneath her lids, she could tell the room was darkening ever so slightly, as though the day were growing cloudy, but that couldn’t be…the day was already cloudy…already raining.

  Sweaty brows knitted together, she swallowed, her mouth more dry than she could remember it ever being before.

  Need a drink…

  Outside, a pattering sound that was more than just the rain. Inside, darker than the gray day could account for. Much too dark for daytime, too early for it to be night.

  In slow motion, the wine glass began to slide from between her sweat-slick fingers, slipping out of her grasp and crashing to the floor with the graceful tinkling of fine crystal. Her mother’s crystal…

  Gillian opened her eyes, blinking slowly. She still faced the window but now it was night out there. But, of course it wasn’t night. Wasn’t night at all.

  A wall of flies covered the outside of the window, all crawling over each other, searching for a way through the glass, blocking out the daylight, the steady thrum of their droning heard without the slightest bit of strain.

  Licking her lips, Gillian sat up straight, still feeling drugged and needing to shake the feeling, shake it fast…

  “Love is a battlefield,” she whispered, sleepy eyes on the window. She had no idea where the thought came from or why. She hadn’t liked that song when it had been popular and certainly didn’t like it now, hadn’t heard it in years, in fact. And yet, there were the words. And at such an odd time too…

  The flies continued to scuttle across the glass, moving as a single, organic unit; a huge, fluid organism of a single mind, with a single purpose.

  They wanted in.

  CHAPTER 13

  They were in an old abandoned movie theater, the huge screen torn and graffitied almost beyond recognition. Most of the seats had been hauled away long ago, but there were a few benches—more like pews actually—strewn about and Speck lay across one, her denim jacket balled beneath her head, a joint held in one hand as her glazed eyes stared warily at that screen as though it were some slain colossal beast ready to lurch back to life and cover them all.

  She didn’t know what was up with pews being in a movie theater but she was glad they
were there. She just figured she was too stoned to comprehend the situation.

  Sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the front of the pew, was Gizmo—a twenty-three year old Latino known for hitting on every female in the Litter at least once. Now it was Speck’s turn.

  She coughed, handed him the joint and said, “That's some harsh weed.”

  Gizmo laughed, a high-pitched sound much more suited to a hyena. “It’ll fuck you up.”

  Sitting in a circle on the floor nearby, was Mick, Kathy and Doc, all huddled around a Ouija board someone had found or stolen from God only knew where.

  Kathy and Doc were the “other” couple of the Litter, both about eighteen, both runaways from what Speck suspected were at least middle-class homes. Not that it mattered. Her own parents had been pretty well off too, but that didn’t stop them from being abusive assholes who’d kicked her to the fucking curb when they’d caught her messing around with another girl.

  Bygones, she thought. Fuck ‘em.

  “Tell us your name,” Mick was saying to the Ouija board.

  Speck watched them through half-lidded eyes, curious and amused. She didn’t really believe in ghosts but figured anything was possible. What she didn’t believe for sure was that one would communicate through a device normally bought in the toy department of any retailer. Nevertheless, the plastic planchette scratched across the board with deliberate slowness, lingering on letters Speck couldn’t see from her vantage point.

  “Here,” Gizmo said, waving the joint over his shoulder at her, his voice croaky from holding the smoke in his lungs while he spoke.

  She accepted the weed, inhaling deeply. She had to admit that if there were beings hanging around, trapped between this world and the next, this building would definitely be the place for them. It was creepy as all fuck and the flickering candlelight was only adding to the feeling that they were on the set of a horror movie.

  Handing the joint back to Giz, she asked him, “You ever see that movie House on Haunted Hill?”

  “Shhh!” Kathy glared at them from over her shoulder before returning her attention to the Ouija board.

  Speck and Gizmo exchanged a glance before bursting into gales of laughter, which earned them more dirty looks from the “witch” circle.

  “Her name is Elizabeth,” Mick said solemnly.

  “Ask how old she is,” Kathy said. “Ask how we can help her cross over.”

  Mick repeated the first question, followed by a respectful silence.

  “I have the munchies,” Gizmo announced loudly, barely able to hold the roach between his thumb and index finger now. He took a final haul before smashing it against the floor, extinguishing it. Speck looked down at it mournfully. “Wish I had some Twinkies or potato chips,” Gizmo chuckled.

  “Amen to that,” Speck agreed.

  “If you guys can’t shut the fuck up, maybe you should get out of here,” Kathy said.

  Her boyfriend Doc took his fingers off the planchette and stood up, stretching his back. He was a guy of very few words so everyone looked at him when he said, “I doubt Elizabeth minds if Giz has the munchies.”

  Kathy scowled, but said nothing.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Doc suggested to Gizmo. He barely glanced at Speck, which was not uncommon. She had the distinct feeling that, for whatever reason, he didn’t like her. By now the story of why her parents had thrown her out was common knowledge among the Litter and she wondered if he might be a homophobe. Not that she cared one way or another. At least not right this minute, when she was enjoying a pleasantly mellow buzz.

  Gizmo shot to his feet, his face split in a crazy grin. He held out a hand to Speck. “Let’s go, girl.”

  She didn’t move. “Go where?”

  “Get some food. I’m starving!”

  “You have money?”

  His grin grew to the point where she was sure the top of his head was about to fall off. “That’s what rolling winos is for.”

  “Speck, come talk to Elizabeth with us,” Mick said quickly.

  Speck glanced between her two friends, uncertain of what to do.

  “I thought you were hungry?” Gizmo wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

  “Bring us back some food if you get any,” Mick told him. “And tell Dobie to get his ass back here if you see him.” Dobie was out stemming near the subway entrance. He insisted the early morning crowds were more generous, usually because they were drunk and had change from the bills they’d been giving bartenders all night.

  “Last chance,” Gizmo told Speck.

  She knew Mick was trying to keep her out of trouble, that Gizmo had a tendency to get picked up by 5-0 and didn’t want Speck to get busted right alongside him. “Nah,” she told him. “I’m gonna hang out here with Elizabeth.”

  “Man, that’s cold!” Gizmo shook his head. “You’d rather be with a ghost than me?”

  Speck smiled at him. “A ghost won’t try to molest me.”

  “Cold!” Giz repeated once more before he and Doc took off for destinations unknown.

  Once they were gone, Speck made herself get up, feeling blissfully numb, and joined Mick and Kathy on the floor. “Okay, what do I do?”

  “Put your fingers here,” Mick said, tapping her own fingers against the planchette.

  “I’m sure the ghost is probably gone by now with all the commotion though,” Kathy said sourly.

  Speck did as she was told, stoned enough to not feel too silly. There was a moment of silence and then Mick whispered, “Okay, everyone concentrate and don’t take your fingers off.”

  The room, with its grafittied walls, trash strewn everywhere, the destroyed movie screen and orange candlelight, seemed to Speck like the perfect place to play ghost busters. The only place better suited, she thought, would be a creepy old cemetery under a full moon.

  “Where’s the chalice of blood?” she murmured. Kathy gave another one of her looks and Mick shushed her. “Sorry.” She looked guiltily down at the board, eyeing the sun and moon in each upper corner with suspicion.

  “Are you still here, Elizabeth?” Mick asked.

  The three girls waited for something to happen. It was so quiet Speck could hear each of them breathing, which was odd. Usually in an empty, any number of sounds could be heard, from the scurrying of rats to the traffic outside. She shifted on her buttocks but was careful not to remove her fingers from the planchette. She didn’t want to aggravate Mick any more than she already had.

  “Elizabeth,” Mick said. “We’re sorry for that interruption. Please come back and talk to us.”

  Speck wondered which of them was going to move the planchette, hoping they didn’t expect her to do it. That would take silliness to a whole new level, as far as she was concerned. She wouldn’t know what to make the damn thing say. Boo? I am the ghost of Christmas past? The call is coming from inside the house?

  Concentrating on her fingers—the dirty, chewed to the quick nails—she told herself that no matter what, she wouldn’t laugh when either Mick or Kathy began moving the piece of plastic across the board. Stoned or not. She would bite down on the inside of her cheek if she had to.

  “Please, Elizabeth,” Mick whispered. “I have so much to ask you.”

  The planchette gave a little jerk beneath their fingers, startling Speck. She looked up at the other two girls, trying to determine which one of them had done it. Neither girl seemed particularly surprised by the jerk, which made it impossible to tell which girl was guilty. They were both staring intently down, faces set in grim absorption.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Elizabeth,” Mick went on. She hesitated, then said, “The new person with us is Speck. She’s cool.” Mick raised her eyes to Speck’s with a look that pleaded with her not to prove her wrong. Speck did her best to give Mick a reassuring smile.

  Mick dropped her gaze back to the board. “How old are you, Elizabeth?”

  Speck felt the planchette twitch, but didn’t look up this time. Whichever one of the other girls
was doing it, let them have their fun. Hell, for all she knew, they were both doing it, playing a little prank on her.

  No matter. She would play along if that’s what they wanted.

  Slowly, the planchette scraped its way across the board, moving towards the bottom closest to Mick, where the numbers one thru zero were lined up like waiting soldiers. When the planchette stopped, the circle in the center of it was perfectly placed over the number three. It lingered there for about fifteen seconds before sliding over to three’s buddy, four. There it stopped and Speck had to struggle to keep from yawning. The weed was making her sleepy.

  “Thirty-four,” Kathy said in a soft voice. “That’s only a few years younger than my mom.”

  Mick ignored her and asked, “How did you die, Elizabeth?”

  The planchette shuddered as though it were something alive and afraid, causing Speck to pull her wandering mind back into the present. She didn’t know how they were making it do that, but figured they were probably pretty skilled at playing with this silly toy. Mick especially. After all, she’d told Speck that her mother had been a psychic, a reader of palms and tarot cards. Speck wouldn’t be surprised if the woman had also done a few séances in her day.

  She gasped as the planchette suddenly shot out from under her fingers, coming closer to her and settling over the B. It barely hovered there for a second before shooting right, pausing on the L, back again to the A, to the C and finally to the K.

  “Black,” Mick said. She looked at her friends with a puzzled expression, reflected candlelight glittering in her eyes, giving them a feverish tint.

  Speck leaned back, fingers no longer on the planchette. She was surprised that both Mick and Kathy had been able to continue touching the thing, the way it was scooting all over the board at the speed it was moving.

  Both girls cried out as the planchette jolted to life once again and this time they couldn’t hold it. Speck’s eyes went wide watching the piece of plastic move of its own accord, shooting over the letters in a blur of motion that would have been impossible to keep track of if the word hadn’t already been spelled out once before. B.L.A.C.K.