Chapter 3 : The Man In The Chair
911 Words
Maya didn't sleep again that night.
By sunrise she had cleaned the footprints from the floor three separate times.
Each time she discovered another one.
A faint mark near the stairs.
A smear beside the sink.
A muddy print beneath the kitchen table.
The house seemed determined to remind her.
She finally gave up around seven o'clock.
The bucket remained beside the back door.
The mop leaned against the wall.
And the final footprint remained untouched near the bottom of the staircase.
A small dark stain she couldn't bring herself to erase.
Because part of her needed proof.
Proof that she wasn't imagining everything.
The police were no help.
The local officer who arrived later that morning was polite.
Professional.
Sympathetic.
He inspected the locks.
Checked the garden.
Walked the property.
Then delivered exactly the explanation Maya expected.
Sleepwalking.
Stress.
Possibly an animal entering through the door.
Nothing suggested a break-in.
Nothing suggested an intruder.
Nothing suggested anything supernatural.
By lunchtime she wished she had never called them.
The rain finally stopped during the afternoon.
Grey clouds drifted across the village.
The world looked washed clean.
Fresh.
Normal.
A word Maya had begun to hate.
Normal.
Nothing about her life felt normal anymore.
She spent most of the day working.
Environmental reports.
Survey data.
Habitat assessments.
Numbers.
Charts.
Facts.
Things that obeyed rules.
Things that made sense.
For a few hours she almost convinced herself the previous night had been nothing more than exhaustion.
Then the email arrived.
Subject: MISSING TEENAGER - PUBLIC APPEAL
The local news site had pushed it automatically.
A seventeen-year-old girl.
Missing from a motorway service station.
Last seen walking into woodland.
No witnesses.
No suspects.
No explanation.
Maya stared at the accompanying photograph.
A smiling girl with dark hair.
Young.
Ordinary.
Alive.
Or at least she had been when the picture was taken.
A strange feeling settled in Maya's stomach.
A feeling she couldn't explain.
The article contained nothing unusual.
People disappeared every day.
Tragically often.
Yet she couldn't stop staring at the photograph.
Eventually she closed the browser.
But the unease remained.
Night arrived quickly.
The cottage grew dark.
Shadows stretched across the walls.
Rain clouds swallowed the last traces of sunlight.
Maya switched on every light in the house.
Every single one.
By ten o'clock she sat alone in the living room.
Television playing quietly.
Coffee cooling in her hands.
The armchair opposite her remained empty.
The chair had always bothered her.
An old leather thing left behind by the previous tenant.
Too comfortable to throw away.
Too large for the room.
Most evenings she avoided looking at it.
Tonight she found herself staring at it repeatedly.
Empty.
Always empty.
At some point after midnight she drifted into a light sleep.
Not truly asleep.
Not truly awake.
The miserable territory between.
A sound woke her.
A voice.
"Maya."
Her eyes opened instantly.
The television had switched itself off.
The room sat in complete silence.
Only the ticking clock on the wall remained.
Maya's pulse quickened.
She knew that voice.
No.
Not knew.
Remembered.
Slowly she looked up.
Toward the armchair.
Someone was sitting there.
For a moment her brain refused to understand what she was seeing.
The figure sat motionless.
Hands resting on the armrests.
Head tilted slightly downward.
Watching her.
Moonlight filtered through the curtains.
Enough to illuminate a face.
Jace.
Maya stopped breathing.
His dark hair.
His crooked smile.
The scar above his eyebrow from a childhood bicycle accident.
Every detail was perfect.
Exactly as she remembered.
Exactly as he had looked before Blackwater.
Tears instantly filled her eyes.
"Jace?"
The word emerged as a whisper.
Fragile.
Broken.
The figure smiled sadly.
Not a monster's smile.
Not something threatening.
Just sadness.
The kind of sadness that comes from knowing something terrible.
"Maya."
Her hands trembled violently.
This wasn't possible.
Jace was dead.
She had watched him die.
Watched him sacrifice himself.
Watched the explosion consume everything.
Yet here he sat.
Calmly.
Quietly.
As though no time had passed.
A thousand thoughts collided inside her mind.
Grief.
Hope.
Fear.
Desperation.
"How?"
The figure didn't answer immediately.
Instead he looked toward the darkened window.
Toward the night beyond the glass.
Then he spoke.
Three words.
"It's spreading now."
Every light in the cottage flickered.
The room suddenly felt colder.
The air heavier.
"What is?"
Jace's expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
The sadness deepened.
"The dreams."
The clock on the wall stopped ticking.
Silence swallowed the room.
Maya suddenly noticed something.
Something she hadn't seen before.
The chair wasn't touching the floor.
It hovered.
Barely an inch above the carpet.
Cold terror flooded her body.
Because whatever sat in that chair looked exactly like Jace.
But something about it wasn't right.
Its eyes.
For the briefest moment they reflected moonlight like an animal's.
Not human.
Not natural.
The figure stood.
"Maya."
Her name sounded different now.
Multiple voices hidden beneath the familiar one.
Layers.
Echoes.
Other people speaking simultaneously.
The same voice the guardian had used.
Maya stumbled backward.
The figure took one step forward.
Then stopped.
As though fighting itself.
For a split second Jace's face twisted.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Like someone struggling to hold a door closed.
Then he shouted.
Not calmly.
Not softly.
A desperate scream.
"WAKE UP!"
The lights exploded.
Every bulb in the cottage burst simultaneously.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Maya screamed.
And somewhere beyond the shattered windows, deep within the darkness outside, dozens of voices began whispering her name.
- Writer
