Haunted Rayne

10 | Gravebound Secrets

ELEVEN MONTHS AGO 

Maria J. Westwood Library
Lockwood, Pennsylvania
October 28, 2017

┈┈

For nearly one year, Bianca Hawthorne had been haunted by the dead girl in the library.

It started when Bianca was a junior, not long after she began dating Maria J. Westwood's resident bad boy, Cole Bradford. The first night Bianca saw the spirit, the young couple had been making out in the eastward library hallway, tucked between two mahogany shelves. Their fingers were tangled in one another's hair—teeth nipping lips, hands exploring. Just as Cole pushed her against the bookshelf, one of the hardcover tomes fell to the ground.

The thunk against the marble tiles caused Bianca to open her eyes, just to make sure no one heard the sound. 

To her horror, a young student stood at the end of the hallway, waves of curly blonde hair veiling her face. 

"Stop," Bianca whispered to Cole. "Someone's watching."

"Let 'em watch," he said, smiling into the flesh of her neck before marking it with a kiss. His ash brown hair was longer back then, nearly brushing his ears. Cole dipped his hand into the opening of Bianca's blouse, right where the breast-buttons had just come undone.

Gently, and still wary, Bianca nudged him away; when she did, she discovered the blonde girl had disappeared. "Where'd she go?" Bianca scanned the passageway. She was still trying to figure out how the girl could have traveled so quickly, but Cole was trying to pull her into another kiss.

"Come on, I don't see anyone," he mumbled, lacing his fingers into her hair and drawing her close.

Bianca melted in his arms. What student would've had the balls to report them anyway? No one would dare cross Cole Bradford and any who did would live to regret it later; that was one of the many wicked things she loved about him.

It was thirty minutes before curfew, and technically, the library was already closed. The only light was that of the moon, slipping through barred windows and pouring over their skin. Bianca found herself lost in the spell of his lips, the eternality of his embrace. She pulled back, breathless, as she began buttoning down his white Oxford shirt.

"He's coming to get you," someone hissed.

Bianca looked up.

The blonde student was standing behind Cole now, resting her chin on his shoulder, five inches from Bianca's face. In the empty sockets where eyes should have been, there were only two black voids; blood pooled out of them, spilling down pallid gray cheeks and onto Cole's dress shirt. The eyeless girl opened her mouth, and more blood gushed over her lips as they twisted into a droll grimace; she screamed, "Run!"

Panic seized Bianca's heart. She shrieked and jumped backward, hitting the shelves and scrambling to her left.

 Cole quickly caught her forearms. "Whoa! B, what's wrong?" 

The weight of her fear pulled them both to the floor as she tried to scurry away. The eyeless girl towered over them, a bloody cross carved into the center of her torso. Tears burned Bianca's cheeks. Cole stood and extended his hand, but as Bianca kicked her feet, inching further down the hallway, her eyes were trained on the blonde specter alone.