The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons Read Free

pattern in the plaster inspired images of clouds in heaven, and the flickering lightbulb suggested lightning. Footsteps vibrated the floor and she dropped her gaze. Byron had returned to the bureau, his naked back to her. No tattoos there. He set the bloody knife inside his briefcase and removed something else.
    Why is he doing this?
He had seemed so kind—so safe—in the pub, and she had only wanted to get close to him for one night. Her head throbbed and she felt her life ebbing away. Her feet jerked in spasms, and she wondered if they were keeping time with the beat of the U2 song fading on the boom box.
    “Sunday, bloody Sunday …”
    Byron returned to her, his movements calm and detached.
    He leaned over and clasped what looked like an oxygen mask with a translucent vinyl bag attached to it over her mouth and nose. She felt his breath on her face and saw twin reflections of herself in his eyes. His lips moved rhythmically, forming unintelligible words.
    Chanting
—?
    She wanted to pull the mask away, but her limbs refused to obey the commands from her brain. The smell of vinyl filled her nostrils and the bag attached to the mask crinkled up as she sucked in oxygen. Then it inflated as she exhaled. She felt light-headed, and as her vision turned dark, she saw Byron—what was his last name?—staring down at her, waiting for her to die.
    She knew he would not have to wait long.

    Darkness, followed by blinding white light.
    Deprived of her senses, Shannon no longer felt the wounds in her throat. She experienced an odd sensation of ascension; it soothed her, like floating on her back in a gentle stream, naked in languid sunlight.
    Where am I?
    Perhaps she had only passed out, drunk, and the man with the knife had existed only in a nightmare. Or maybe he really had stabbed her, and she now lay in a coma, trapped inside her mind with nothing but her thoughts for company. She concentrated, willing herself to see again, and the world came into focus through the light: it was like staring through a veil of cottony gauze. A bright, golden glow filled the bedroom even though the only visible light source was the lamp on the floor. Her hearing returned, the sounds in the room amplified as they ricocheted around her; she went from sensory deprivation to sensory overload in an instant. She heard deep breathing and an excited heartbeat, neither of them her own. Two gigantic eyes stared down at her, blue and crystalline. She felt like an insect trapped in ajar before—
    God?
    No—Byron. He lifted her toward him as if she was an infant, yet she did not feel his hands on her. His lips split open like a fissure, revealing his teeth, snowcapped mountains. She tried to pull away, but her body refused to respond. Then her peripheral vision expanded, opening up as if her eyeballs had been turned inside out, and she saw around her in every direction at once.
    What’s happening to me?
    Her body lay bloody and motionless on the floor below her, an empty shell, and she stared into her own unblinking eyes. The gold crucifix between her breasts shimmered in the light, the blood around it rippling. Could all of that blood have come from her?
    Dead
. No use denying it. The bastard had murdered her! How would Meg react when she discovered her corpse? How would her parents cope with the news? She felt a gentle tide tugging at her and sensed she belonged elsewhere, that Byron’s attention was somehow keeping her from her natural destination. Again she tried to break free of his grasp, but it was like trying to awaken from a nightmare that would not release her. Her thoughts scattered like dust in a windstorm, and when they re-formed, she realized that her disembodied essence had been trapped within the vinyl bag affixed to the oxygen mask.
    Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep
…
    Byron turned toward the bureau, and Shannon saw his reflection in the blood-spattered mirror: he held the inflated oxygen bag between his