Spine Chilling (Vengeful Spirits Book 2)

Book summary

Davis Shetland's purchase of a rare vintage book turns into a terrifying nightmare when he wakes up covered in blood, linked to a murder he can’t remember. As chilling events unfold, Davis discovers the true, deadly power of the book he’s brought home, realizing he may be its next victim.

Excerpt from Spine Chilling (Vengeful Spirits Book 2)

Chapter One

With shaking hands, Peter McFadden used what little strength he had to clutch his vintage copy of The Turn of the Screw to his chest. He didn’t have much time left, and he prayed the incantation he’d found in an old occult tome would work. Black tendrils of death circled him the same way he’d circled his prey before his illness sidelined him.

From childhood into his teenage years, he’d fought against dark thoughts and urges to inflict harm upon others. One Friday night, after passing around a bottle of rum with his friends Jimmy and Hank in the forest behind their high school, his control had slipped. Even though he’d been tipsy, he remembered what happened as if it were yesterday and not forty years ago.

Before that night, he’d only ever snuck a sip of his father’s beer from time to time. The rum that night hit him hard. He didn’t like the swimmy sensation in his head, and he wanted it to go away. He stood. “Guys, I don’t feel good. I’m going home to bed.”

Jimmy laughed and burped at the same time. He slurred, “Look at the big baby. He wants to go home to his mommy.”

Hank tipped his head back and momentum took over. He tumbled backwards off the log he sat on and landed on his back. He joined in the laughter and clutched his stomach.

Peter clenched his fists and stomped towards the two boys who continued to laugh at his expense. Jimmy was a toxic friend. One minute he’d play nice, then the next he’d make a joke at Peter’s expense. The years of humiliation compounded into this one moment in time.

He shoved Jimmy off the log, sat on his chest, then wrapped his hands around Jimmy’s throat and squeezed.

Jimmy’s eyes widened, and he wheezed. He grabbed at Peter’s wrists, trying, but failing to pull his hands away from his throat.

A pleasant rush of adrenaline cleared some of the fuzzy sensation in Peter’s head as the life slipped out of Jimmy’s eyes. The struggle to hold onto control and suppress the darkness no longer chained Peter down. He felt free to be himself for the first time in his life.

Hank stopped laughing when he turned his head their way. “What are you doing, Pete? Stop! You’re gonna kill him!” He teetered as he got to his feet.

“Too late. He’s already dead.” Peter had researched different ways to kill, and strangulation was one of the quietest and fastest—thirty seconds until unconsciousness and five minutes until brain death.

Hank stared at Jimmy’s lifeless body and tears filled his eyes. He kneeled by Jimmy’s head and shook his shoulders. “Wake up, man.”

“He’s not sleeping. He’s dead.” Peter stood and grinned at Hank. “And you’re next.”

A stain formed on the front of Hank’s blue jeans, and he crawled backwards like a crab skittering away from a chef with a raised knife. He wouldn’t get far. Hank and Jimmy had had a lot more rum than Peter.

Peter caught up to Hank in less than a minute and sat on his chest. His maniacal laughter echoed through the forest as he squeezed the life out of Hank. He double checked both boys for a pulse, making sure they were dead before he left the forest and snuck back into his bedroom.

No one ever knew he’d been with Jimmy and Hank that night. All three of them had snuck out of their bedroom windows, and none of their parents had known where they were. The police had come to talk to him, and his parents were adamant he’d been home in bed all night.

Forty years later, he lay in bed wasting away with all his dark, but happy memories. Stomach cancer had ravaged his body to the point where he could no longer bear to eat or drink. The weight had gradually slipped away, leaving him so thin, he hated glimpsing his own skeletal reflection.

His eyes fluttered and he sensed his life slipping away. He turned his head to stare into the beady eyes of his beloved pet crow, perched in his cage in the corner. “Goodbye, Ezekiel, my faithful friend. We’ll see each other again.”

Chapter Two

Esme Engelbert glanced around her dead father’s cluttered bedroom and groaned. The looming task of emptying his entire house, combined with the grief of her loss, sucked every drop of her energy dry.

“Luce, he has so much stuff. This is going to take forever.” She opened the closet. A musty version of body odor escaped the confines of the small space, and she wrinkled her nose. “Look at all those old clothes! He has four garbage bags full in here and they stink. He never got rid of anything.”

Her sister Lucy shrugged. “Well, you could pay somebody to get rid of all Dad’s crap. I don’t think there’s enough in his savings to cover more than his cremation though.”

“Those junk removal services aren’t cheap. I don’t have the money. Do you?”

“I do. But I don’t want to spend a dime on that worthless sack. He treated us and Mom like garbage. I’ll never forget how sick Mom got during her chemo, and he wouldn’t stop his stupid camping trips to stay home and take care of us. I was never prouder of Mom than I was when she divorced his ass.”

Esme shoved down her irritation at her sister’s callous behavior. “It’s not right to speak ill of the dead. No one’s perfect. Dad tried to be nice towards the end.”

Caw!

Esme jumped and turned to face her father’s pet crow perched in the giant cage standing in the corner of the room. “Sweet Jesus, that bird scared the crap out of me.”

The crow met her gaze with his soulless, beady eyes. “Razzhole!”

Lucy narrowed her eyes at the bird. “Did he call you an asshole? I’ll make you a deal. I’ll foot the bill for the junk removal, but you have to take Ezekiel home with you.”

“Ah, about that. My building doesn’t allow pets. He’s a predator. I bet if we let him loose outside, he’ll be fine on his own. Dad used to let him loose in the woods all the time.”

“Whatever. But you let him out of the cage.”

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this. Look at those mean, beady eyes.” Esme opened the bedroom window and removed the screen. She took a shuddering breath and rested her hand on the opening of the cage. “Ezekiel, you’re free. Please don’t attack us. Just go find mice to eat or something.” Esme opened the cage, then curled into a ball on the ground with her arms covering her head.

Lucy said, “You’re such a coward, Esme. It’s just a pet bird.”

Caw!

Big wings flapped overhead. Esme wanted to know where Ezekiel was, but she also didn’t want her eyes pecked out.

“Ouch!” Lucy screamed. “You’re the asshole!”

Esme lifted her head.

A line of blood trickled from Lucy’s forehead onto her cheek. She swung a lamp at Ezekiel’s head.

The bird dodged the lamp and flew out the window.

Lucy slammed the window shut. “Some help you are. You’re such a wimp.”

Esme swallowed the response that came to mind. Or maybe I’m just smarter than you. She grabbed a shirt off a chair and ran over to her sister. “It doesn’t look bad. It’s a tiny gash. You won’t need stitches.” She pressed the fabric against the wound. The bleeding had already slowed.

Lucy held the shirt in place. “Go find me a bandage. Then we’ll see if there’s anything valuable in this heap.”

Esme rolled her eyes as she crossed the hall to the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet.

What a bitch!

Would it hurt Lucy to say please once in a while? She came across a box with a single bandage left in it. She opened it and positioned it on Lucy’s forehead. “I bet his book collection is worth something. Some of his first editions are antique.”

“Ooh, probably. And he always kept a gun under the bed. That would be worth money.” Lucy crouched on the floor and lifted the comforter.

Esme kneeled beside her sister and angled the flashlight on her phone into the dark space beneath the box spring. The beam illuminated two boxes. A black metal box and a big shoe box.

Lucy pulled the boxes out. “If he had anything valuable in this room it would be inside these.” She tugged the metal box towards her and lifted the latches. “Yep, this is his old Colt. We’ll take this with us. What’s in that one?”

With an unexplainable sense of unease lifting the hair on the back of her neck, Esme pulled the shoe box towards her and flipped it open. “This is weird.” She picked up a bundle of cards, with a woman’s driver’s license on top, held together by an elastic band. She tugged the elastic off and spread what turned out to be a bunch of driver’s licenses across the carpet. They all belonged to young women. “What the hell, Luce? Why would he have these?”

“I don’t know. I’ll google the names.” Lucy’s fingers flew across her iPhone. Her skin turned clammy, and her hands shook.

“What’s wrong, Luce?”

“Ohmigod. I’ve searched three of the names so far, and they were all murdered by the Colorado Strangler. And the police still haven’t caught him. But that still doesn’t explain why Dad has these.” Lucy picked up a small jewelry box, the only other thing left in the shoe box. “I wonder what’s in here.”

Esme’s stomach twisted into a tight knot as her brain worked through the shock of their discovery and arrived at a horrific conclusion. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”

“Why not?” Lucy opened the box, then dropped it, and covered her mouth.

The box landed on its side and a mound of gleaming white teeth spilled out all over the carpet. Almost as if their father had polished each tooth individually after…he yanked them out of someone’s mouth.

Esme backed away. “Don’t touch those, Luce.”

“I’m not planning on it. What do we do with them?”

Esme stood, took Lucy’s hand, and helped her stand on shaky legs. “We need to call the police.”

“Ohmigod! Do you think Dad…”

“Considering the Colorado Strangler got his name from strangling his victims, then removing their teeth—that would explain Dad’s collection. Wouldn’t it? Our father was a serial killer.”