The Devil Child

Chapter Nineteen

 Miles away, Tanner Higgins couldn't fall asleep. He was tossing and turning, and then he fell still, his eyes on the dark wall.

Only, it wasn't all that dark. The moonlight was reflecting on that wall, and Tanner felt his breath catch as the moonlight danced on the wall, sinister and frightening.

Tanner didn't believe in ghosts. He never had, but there was something ghostly about the shapes on his walls. The shadows.

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He told himself he was being stupid, that ghosts didn't exist and they certainly didn't exist in his bedroom. He'd lived in the same house for years now, since he'd been a child, and he had never run into ghosts before.

He opened his eyes again. The shadows continued to dance, carefree and childlike. It occurred to Tanner that perhaps this was a dream, and while that was a soothing thought, it didn't make the shadows stop. He debated pulling down the blinds on his window, but then felt the lack of moonlight would make his room all the more creepy.

Tanner couldn't sleep. He sat up in bed and crept out of his room. He lived alone, but it didn't stop him from imagining the sounds of footsteps and voices. He had a crazy imagination, one that had given him a lot of grief the past few years.

It was late, but not too late. The clock in the hallway struck nine, and the jingle sounded throughout the house, loud and obnoxious.

The clock was a gift from his parents, and one that he couldn't give away without being disrespectful, so he kept it. Obnoxious jingle and all.

He moved to the kitchen, ready to brew a pot of coffee when there was a knock at the door. For a moment, Tanner didn't move, and his heart thudded in his chest painfully.

He was painfully aware that he lived alone, and he wasn't all that dangerous unarmed. So, he grabbed a knife and moved to the front door. He cursed himself for not buying a door with a peephole, and then he yanked it open.

The knife clattered on the floor. His heart stopped.

For a moment, tears hit his eyes and his chest felt tight. He wanted to cry. And then, the anger came, fast and blinding.

"What are you doing here, Priscilla? First you killed your mother, and now you're after me, huh?"

The woman on the other side of the door took a staggering step back. "Killed your mother? Tanner, what on earth?"

Tanner felt like a small boy all over again. He felt like he was sitting at the kitchen counter while his mother cooked breakfast and Priscilla danced around in her pajamas, listening to Shania Twain.

He felt like he couldn't breathe.

"My father told me everything. You killed her. You killed my mother-"

Priscilla cut him off, gathering him into a hug. "Your father is a bastard for lying to you, Tanner. And he's a bastard for turning my little boy against me."

Tanner yanked out of her embrace. "No, don't you dare call my father that! Mother died because of you, because you turned her gay, and then she went to Hell. You're the reason my mother is rotting in Hell!"

Tanner's yells were loud enough to wake the neighbors, and his expression was terrifying enough to make most people run, but Priscilla was solid. And she wasn't going anywhere.

Instead, she reached up and grabbed Tanner's ear, like she'd done when he was younger, and she dragged him to his own kitchen. Too shocked to put up a fight, he let her push him into a chair. Then, she turned to his coffee maker.