Perception (Apparition Investigations #1)

Case #1: Villanova Apartments: Part 15

Something hit me. Hard. With enough force to send me flying backward across the room.

Noah caught me before my back slammed against the wall. We both went down, falling into a heap on the ground.

"Stella!" he shouted, trying to simultaneously get out from underneath me, help me to my feet, and move us closer to the door.

I looked down at my front, expecting bleeding cuts like what he'd shown me across the front half of my body. But there was nothing. Nothing besides the ache from the impact. It'd felt like an airbag had gone off in my face. An extremely violent, viciously malevolent airbag.

It howled again. That sound sent life back into my body and I was up and moving, pulling on the front door's handle.

But it wouldn't budge.

"It's stuck!" I shouted.

Noah grabbed at it, pulling with me. But the door wouldn't open.

"Down!" he shouted, shouldering me to the side. We fell, him on top of me, as splintering wood erupted above us.

I looked up to catch a glimpse of massive claw marks wrenched across the front door.

"Put up a ward!" I yelled. We both scrambled away from the door, into the living room.

I made to head for my bedroom but Noah's arm shot out. He grabbed my arm and yanked me back. I turned.

He focused on something, watching it as it moved about the room. Jumping from the walls, to the ceiling, to the floor. It moved fast. Like a bouncy ball.

I nearly laughed. A monster bouncy ball was about to eat us.

And I still couldn't see a damn thing.

"This is so freaking old!" I shouted just as Noah yanked me toward Bronte's room.

The door slammed shut before we could reach it.

We stopped short, Noah spinning to follow the creature's path as it continued to bounce through the living room.

I stared at Bronte's door. It swung open, then shut. Open, then shut.

Then all the doors in the apartment began doing the same thing.

All the kitchen cabinets. The drawers to the furniture. The bedroom and bathroom doors.

Open, then shut.

Banging. Knocking. All so violently the wood protested in groans.

Beyond Bronte's door, the Ouija board rose into the air. It spun like a pinwheel, spinning around and around until it was eye level with me across the door frame. Then it stopped. Hovered at eye level.

Then the planchette began to move, spelling out letters.

Three letters.

Over and over and over.

D.

I.

E.

"Put up a ward!" I shouted at Noah, spinning around toward him.

He stared into the apartment. Watching the banging doors. His mouth moving, forming unsaid words. Eyes wide. Panicked. Terrified.

"Noah Walker!" I shouted, relief flooding through me when power surged through my voice again. "Put up a ward!"

His hand slapped up over his eye.

The banging stopped.

And the following silence felt infinitely louder than the knocking.