Jinx: I think you're a guest, not sure, but thanks for commenting on the demon stuff. I did research for it and that's what I found. I'm vaguely interested in all things paranormal, without actively pursuing it.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, Elizabeth woke up well rested. There had been no disturbances the night before. That had to be a good sign. Plus, the thing had never presented itself during the day, so that meant she was probably going to have a good day as well.
Today was a delivery day, which meant she and Michael would have to go to the store multiple times and take people their things. Luckily, the store already had everything bagged, so all she had to do was pick the bags up and deliver everything to its rightful place. Michael didn't have to go with her – it wasn't as if it was his job – but he didn't like her being gone for very long and on days that she worked she was usually gone for about three or four hours.
Elizabeth got up, did her morning routine that ended with her being dressed for the day, and went on out to the kitchen to make breakfast. On the way, she saw Michael on the sofa, asleep, a game controller on the floor in front of him – the TV was still on, but no sound was coming from it, so she turned it off. His feet were hanging over the arm of the sofa – he was so tall he couldn't fit comfortably on the couch and she didn't understand how he could sleep that way, but there it was.
"Michael?" she called to him, but he didn't budge. She went to him to shake him awake and he grunted, but that was it. "Michael, wake up."
This time he did, and he looked around for a few seconds as if he didn't know where he was before realizing he was in the living room.
"I couldn't sleep," he said. "I played a game and must've gotten tired."
"Okay. I only woke you so I could make breakfast. Do you want anything or do you want to go back to sleep?"
Michael gave her an impish type of grin. He was learning how to be playful. "When do I not want food when you make it?"
"True." She ruffled his already sleep-rumpled hair. "Go get dressed. I work today, so . . ."
Michael got up – though not quickly – as Elizabeth went into the kitchen to start breakfast. They would be having pancakes that morning.
The mood over the breakfast table that morning was much more alive than it had been the morning before. Miss Elizabeth had not been bothered overnight and she was much more energetic and happier that morning. It was infectious. Michael found that he could smile easier because she was smiling easier.
Michael had told a little fib when Miss Elizabeth had woken him up that morning. It was true that he hadn't been able to sleep right away the night before, but it wasn't because he couldn't; it was because he hadn't wanted to. He'd waited a while before getting up and going to the living room.
He'd kept an eye on the hallway in case whatever had come into the house the night before decided to come back and go after Miss Elizabeth again. He didn't know what he would have done if it had come back, but he would've done his best not to let it get to her. She made him feel safe and happy. Michael wanted to be able to do the same for her.
"Hey, so I'm going to go for my jog," she said. "I didn't get to do it yesterday because I was so tired."
"Okay." He waited because the way she'd been speaking he could tell there was something else.
"You should go through your sports stuff and find your bat. Maybe we can swing by the batting cage on the way before I have to be at work . . ."
As usual, the idea of doing something new excited Michael and he nodded enthusiastically. He'd never been to a batting cage, but he did know what one was.
"Sound okay?" she asked.
"Sounds great. Are you sure it won't make you late?"
"We'll be fine. I'll just take a short jog this morning to make up for the time."
So while Miss Elizabeth was gone he went through the bag of his sports stuff. It wasn't hard to find. The bag was right inside his closet; he hadn't moved it since he'd put it in there. He took his bat out – a wooden one – and took it with him to wait in the living room for Miss Elizabeth to come home.
He turned the TV on and watched cartoons. He would be there for a while since she would have to shower when she got back.
They arrived at the batting cage around twelve-thirty and stayed for about an hour. They took turns using his bat and they started out with the slowest pitch level there was. Elizbeth hadn't actually swung a bat since her high school days – so she was about three years out of practice, but that was okay.
Michael seemed to know how to stand and position his arms to swing the bat correctly and he was fine with the speed – any speed, and they got up to the 60-mile-an-hour pitches. He missed very rarely.
"Michael, are you cheating?"
"No, Miss Elizabeth. I'm just that good." He shrugged. "If I was cheating, I wouldn't miss any of them."
"Hm. Okay."
"When I was . . . smaller . . . gramma would sometimes take me to the park and we would toss the ball back and forth, or she would throw it so I could hit it."
"That sounds nice," Elizabeth said, though she couldn't imagine Constance playing ball with anyone, not even a child.
"It was."
After playing for a while, Elizabeth got them each a hotdog and a small bag of chips for lunch. She had to head into work, so she ate while she drove. Michael fiddled with the radio, flipping through the stations until finding something he liked.
Michael stayed in the car when she got to work. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to ride with her while she was on the job, but what her boss didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and as long as she did her job, she knew he really wouldn't care.
She only had four deliveries to make that day, but since she was allowed to only do one delivery at a time, she had to go back and forth from the store each time. Constance was on her list – Constance liked her deliveries done every Friday – Elizabeth would just get those last, and it would allow her to pick up a few things herself.
Most of the people Elizabeth delivered to were of the elderly variety, and they were extremely generous with tips. Elizabeth thought it had less to do with the fact that she was delivering their groceries and more to do with the fact that she was nice to them and treated them like they were people.
Even though it wasn't his job, Michael did help her with delivering the bags if there were more than a few and she appreciated the help.
Once Constance's delivery was the only one left, Elizabeth was able to go into the store and grab what she needed for her own kitchen. It was mostly canned food and a few frozen things – mac and cheese, pizza, simple things to fix, stuff that Michael could fix himself if he wanted.
She'd never really asked if he knew his way around the kitchen, cooking wise, but the way he acted she was fairly certain he probably only knew how to use the microwave.
That was okay. She would teach him.
Elizabeth should've known something was wrong the minute she reached Constance's door. It was ajar. Maybe someone had closed the door without waiting for it to latch. That was possible. But Constance was not that careless.
"Ms. Langdon?"
She had the bags in her hands – there weren't that many, since she got groceries for Constance once a week – and she pushed the door fully open with her foot.
"Mallory?"
When she'd called for both of them once more and didn't get a response, unease began to fill her mind and stomach. Constance had to be home. She never missed a Friday because that was delivery day.
She stepped inside, leaving the door open behind her, and walked the small walkway that led to the living room. It took a moment to take in what she saw there because what she saw was probably the most horrific thing she'd ever seen – and she'd seen quite a bit the last few weeks.
A medium-sounding thud filled the room as the bags in her hands hit the floor when she dropped them. She felt like she couldn't move. Her body was just frozen there, eyes staring at the sight before her.
The reason nobody had answered when she'd called out was because nobody could. Both Mallory and Constance were in the living room – Constance laid out on the couch, her feet on the floor as if she'd fallen backwards, and Mallory on the floor near the kitchen entrance. Both were dead. Constance's death appeared to have been a clean one, but Mallory's had not been. There weren't blood splatters everywhere, but there was a huge puddle of blood around her body.
Both had lost all color and had a grayish-blue quality to their skin – they had obviously been dead for a while.
She should leave, she should call the cops, do something. But she didn't know what to do. Michael was in the car waiting for her to come back out. If she didn't soon, he would come in. She didn't want him seeing this, but she knew he needed to – if she told him that his grandmother was dead, he would probably want proof anyway.
But Mallory . . . she didn't want him seeing that. All that blood and – seriously, what were they going to do with her? That question was the one that filled her mind the most. She thought that maybe that was a little cold, but she'd been raised that way – to see a problem and fix it, no matter what it's making you feel.
What she felt was a kind of horror at what had obviously happened, but it wasn't like she'd known Mallory very well or even liked her that much after finding out what she'd planned to do to Michael without ever giving him a chance first.
Not for the first time, her curiosity got the better of her. She moved closer to Mallory, mostly because she wanted to see how the woman had died, where the blood was coming from, but when she reached the body, she couldn't make sense of what she was seeing.
There was a hole in the middle of her chest. It didn't compute at first, but it was as if something had been pushed through her shirt into her skin and right through. The wound was too big to have been any type of bullet Elizabeth had ever heard of.
She'd knelt beside Mallory's body, careful of the blood, and it was only now that tears threatened to fall. She didn't understand what had happened.
Michael had been out in the car for a good ten minutes, just listening to the radio and waiting for Miss Elizabeth to come back out. She'd left the door open, so he hadn't thought she would take this long and he didn't really want to go in since she'd warned him against Mallory, but he was beginning to worry. She was usually in and out within a few minutes.
He turned the car off, left the keys in the ignition, and made his way up the pavement to the porch. He couldn't hear anything coming from inside the house. The silence filled him with unease, a type of unease he had never really felt until he'd met Miss Elizabeth.
He called out to her and the sound of rushed footsteps coming towards him made him feel both better and worse. She was okay, but something else obviously wasn't. Why hadn't she just said to come on in?
"Michael," she said as she rounded the corner of the walkway that led to the living room. "I –"
She had tears rolling down her cheeks. That was the first thing Michael noticed. He'd never seen her cry before and he didn't really know what to do. She's hadn't even cried the night she'd been attacked in his room, and she'd been terrified then.
"Miss Elizabeth?"
"Michael, it's . . . something happened to your grandmother."
Michael hurried past her and to the living room. To be honest, he didn't even register Mallory's body at all at first. He just took in the groceries on the floor because he almost tripped over them, and then the body of his gramma on the couch.
He grabbed his chest as pain ripped through it. She was dead. He knew death, of course, but it had never been this close, never been someone he cared for. And he did care for her, despite what she'd done.
"Gramma?"
Michael didn't know how he got there, but he was kneeling on the floor in front of his gramma in seconds. He knew she was dead, knew he wouldn't get a response, but it didn't stop him from asking for one, for her to wake up, to please wake up!
"Michael!" Miss Elizabeth was calling to him, touching his shoulders. She was right behind him.
He moved so he could see her and ended up seated on the floor. He noticed that she still had tears falling down her face, but they weren't as bad as before.
"What happened to her?"
"I don't know, Michael. A heart attack, maybe. Someone killed Mallory, maybe Constance saw it and . . . Maybe her heart just gave out, Michael."
Gramma hadn't been killed, or there wasn't any evidence that she had been.
That was when he really took in the room, and Mallory had in fact been killed. There was blood all around her. Michael had to turn his head away. It reminded him of things Miss Elizabeth wouldn't approve of.
"What happened to her?"
"I don't that either, but there's a hole in her chest."
Michael rubbed his hands over his face and then ran his fingers through his hair, tugging more harshly than he needed to.
"What are we going to do with them?"
"We should call the cops, that's what we should do, but we can't. Mallory isn't even supposed to be here, and you've technically never been born. You weren't born in a hospital and you probably don't have a birth certificate, so no record of birth. And even if you did have one . . . you look about twelve years older than you should be. We can't bring any outsiders into this."
All of that went over Michael's head, and Miss Elizabeth seemed to be talking mostly to herself anyway, so he got up and made his way to Mallory's body. What had Miss Elizabeth meant when she'd said the girl wasn't supposed to be there? As far as he knew, Gramma had invited the girl to stay there.
He wondered if Gramma was dead now because of Mallory. Miss Elizabeth hadn't trusted her for a reason, so what if this was all the dead girl's fault? Someone had obviously wanted her dead, hence the wound in her chest, and what if that someone was still around? Were they in danger too? Was Miss Elizabeth?
What were they going to do now?
Elizabeth watched as something happened as Michael was looking at Mallory's body. At first there was anger coming from him – he was shaking with it – but then fear quickly joined it. She didn't understand either emotion he was feeling.
He'd wandered over to where Malloy lay when she'd been thinking out loud. Those problems had been in the back of her mind since she'd met Michael and had found out his backstory. Mallory was from another time period – if they called the cops, the cops would have to find out who she was and then all hell would break loose when they called her parents only to find Mallory alive and well wherever she was – and the one from this time probably didn't even know anything about what was going on.
And then there was the problem of Michael having no record of ever having been born. He would literally never be able to have a normal life because of that. He'd never be able to go to school or get a job – or nothing legal anyway. It was tragic, and none of it was his fault.
Michael's body stiffened and the atmosphere around him changed. She watched as his hands curled into fists, and then . . . flames erupted in front of him, on the floor where Mallory was. Elizabeth almost fell backwards as she took a step back and hit one of Constance's legs.
All of a sudden, she just felt like she couldn't handle anything else. So much had happened in too little time, and her usually logical and methodical brain just shut down on her. And Michael had . . . caused flames to just happen.
"Michael!" she'd meant to yell, get his attention, but her voice was barely louder than a whisper.
She really didn't know if it was okay to touch him, but she had to do something, so she made her way to him and touched his back, called his name again. She got his attention, but when he turned to her it was like he wasn't there. His eyes weren't focusing on her – they were empty of everything but sadness and rage. To be honest, it scared her – it was the first time he'd ever scared her.
"Michael, you have to stop! You don't wanna hurt me! I know you don't. But if you don't stop right now, you might."
She remembered that Michael had told her that when he did things it was like something else took over and when he came back, he would always see the damage he'd done without realizing how he'd done it.
Knowing she may have been making a serious mistake, she brought her hands to his cheeks, forcing him to focus on her.
"You come back to me, right now. Whatever's making you do this, you tell it to leave you alone! Wherever you are right now, I'm not there with you and I can't be. I'm right here, so you need to come back right now."
Michael's trembling became worse as life came back into his blue eyes. He fell to his knees, as if he'd lost all strength, which he may have if his abilities were connected to his own energy. The problem was that they were too close to the fire, because that was still going, and even though it was contained at the moment it would definitely spread.
"Miss Elizabeth?" His voice was weak and sounded frightened.
She'd gone down with him and was now bringing him closer. His head had fallen against her shoulder and she held him there for a few seconds. He was back.
"I'm right here. It's okay. I'm here."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I've never –"
"It doesn't matter right now, Michael. I was able to pull you back, and we have to get out of here. We can talk about it at home."
"The fire."
Mallory's body had turned to ash, which shouldn't have been possible with normal fire – it wouldn't have been hot enough in that short amount of time.
"We have to leave it." It just came to her – it was the solution to their problem. Mallory was already a pile of ash, so when the police came – and they would because someone would notice the fire soon – they wouldn't be able to get anything out of her, hopefully. "The house . . . it'll . . . it'll make everything simpler if we just let the fire have the house."
"Gramma . . ."
She ran her fingers through his hair a few times, trying to bring comfort in this situation where comfort seemed far out of reach. She noticed that the skin was raised a little behind his right ear, right at the hairline. It felt as if he maybe had a rash or something, but she couldn't focus on that right now. She'd deal with it later.
"I'm sorry, Michael. It would be different if she could be saved, but . . . we got here too late."
She helped him stand and led him back towards the walkway that would lead them back outside. She got the groceries back in the bags as quickly as she could. The fire wasn't spreading too fast, and they couldn't leave a trace of them having been there.
It wouldn't help anyone if the police suddenly showed up at their door.
