Anna Dressed in Blood - Kendare Blake [23]
The strange gray light. My eyes flash wide. I’m inside the house.
My brain shakes itself off like a dog ditching water and a million questions fly from its fur. How long have I been unconscious? What room am I in? How do I get out? And of course, the all important: Did those assholes leave me here?
My last question is answered quickly by Mike’s voice.
“See, I told you I didn’t kill him.” He taps his finger against the glass and I twist toward the window to stare up at his grinning idiot face. He says something stupid about how I’m a dead man and that this is what happens to guys who mess with his property. That’s when I hear Carmel shouting that she’s going to call the cops, asking in a panicked voice if I’ve at least woken up yet.
“Carmel!” I shout, struggling up onto my knee. “I’m okay.”
“Cas,” she shouts back. “These jerks— I didn’t know, I swear.”
I believe her. I rub the back of my head. My fingers come away with a little bit of blood. Actually, it’s a lot of blood, but I’m not worried, because head wounds leak like water from a faucet even when the injury is barely more than a paper cut. I put my hand back on the floor to push myself up and the blood mixes the dust into a gritty reddish paste.
It’s too soon to get up. My head is swimmy. I need to lie back down. The room is starting to move on its own.
“Jesus, look at him. He’s down again. We should probably get him out of there, man. He could have a concussion or something.”
“I hit him with a board; of course he’s got a concussion. Don’t be an idiot.”
Look who’s talking, I would like to say. All of this feels very surreal, very disconnected. It’s almost like a dream.
“Let’s just leave him. He’ll find his own way back.”
“Dude, we can’t. Look at his head; it’s bleeding all over the place.”
As Mike and Chase argue back and forth over whether to babysit me or let me die, I feel myself slipping back down into darkness. I think this might actually be it. I’ve actually been murdered by the living—pretty unthinkable.
But then I hear Chase’s voice go up about five or so octaves. “Jesus! Jesus!”
“What?” Mike shouts, his voice irritated and panicky at the same time.
“The stairs! Look at the fucking stairs!”
I force my eyes open and will my head to lift up an inch or two. At first I don’t see anything extraordinary about the stairs. They’re a bit narrow, and the banister has been broken in no less than three places. But then I look up farther.
It’s her. She’s flickering in and out like an image on a computer screen, some dark specter trying to fight her way out of the video and into reality. When her hand grips the rail she becomes corporeal, and it whines and creaks beneath the pressure.
I shake my head softly, still disoriented. I know who she is, I know her name, but I can’t think of why I’m here. It occurs to me suddenly that I’m trapped. I don’t know what to do. I can hear the repeated panicked prayers of Chase and Mike as they argue about whether or not to run or try to get me out of the house somehow.
Anna is descending upon me, coming down the stairs without taking any strides. Her feet drag horribly along like she can’t use them at all. Dark, purplish veins cut through her pale white skin. Her hair is shadow-less black, and it moves through the air as though suspended in water, snaking out behind and drifting like reeds. It’s the only thing about her that looks alive.
She doesn’t wear her death wounds like other ghosts do. They say her throat was cut, and this girl’s throat is long and white. But there is the dress. It’s wet, and red, and constantly moving. It drips onto the ground.
I don’t realize that I’ve scooted back against the wall until I feel the cold pressure against my back and shoulder. I can’t take my eyes off her eyes. They’re like oil drops. It’s impossible to tell where