Read Online Latham's Landing by Tara Fox Hall - Free Book Online Page B

voice said near her
ear. “But I can.”
    Nikki let out a scream, scrambling away.
Beside her stood a woman dressed in a long green gown, her short
curly hair done up in jewels and bows. She was smiling, her dark
eyes lit with reddish tints that glowed in the dim room.
    “ What do you want with us?” Marie
screeched.
    “ You know,” the strange woman said,
smiling. She spread her hands, light rising from her and
illuminating the room.
    “ Leave us alone!” Nikki
screamed.
    The woman smiled, advancing, menacing
excitement infusing her dark eyes.
    Thunder rocked the room, as lightning split
the sky. The woman began to raise her hands, the odd light that was
filling her intensifying, the brightness becoming blinding.
    Gunshots rang out. The menacing woman
recoiled, then flickered, her light wavering.
    “ Run for the boat,” Daryl screamed,
firing again. “Run!”
    Nikki grabbed hold of Marie, then ran out
into the storm. Daryl fired again into the apparition, the bullets
thudding into the floorboards beneath her.
    The woman smiled, then lowered her hands.
Abruptly, she disappeared.
    Daryl ran outside. Water was rising rapidly,
spreading over the island. It had engulfed the granite landing and
the stone wall, and was now lapping at the porch steps. Amazingly,
the boat had stayed tethered, but the tie was now a few feet
underwater. Nikki was in the boat trying to start the motor, Marie
hanging onto the side trying to climb in. Large pounding waves were
hitting the boat, threatening to smash it free of its mooring. It
would be tossed like driftwood. If they capsized now in such
shallow water…
    “ Stop!” Daryl screamed futilely. “It’s
too rough! The water’s too shallow! Come back!”
    “ They’ll be back,” a comforting voice
said. “Bet your boots.”
    Daryl turned slowly. A middle-aged man stood
beside him to his left, dressed in a dirty brown workman’s
uniform.
    “ No one gets off,” the man said,
turning to Daryl with a smile. “I didn’t.” The right side of his
face was caved in, his skull smashed, brain and blood smeared and
dripping. “Stop trying—”
    Daryl brought the gun up and fired. The man
disappeared as swiftly as he’d come, the bullet thudding into the
stone, chipping it. Shaken, he whirled back to the boat.
    It was gone.
    “ Help!” a desperate voice
shouted.
    Yards out, a figure was swimming hard, the
current forcing her toward jutting rocks. Kicking powerful legs, it
made a last frantic lunge toward shore.
    Daryl dropped the gun and waded in quickly,
grabbing a reaching arm. “Marie!” He helped her up onto the
porch.
    Marie sank down, shivering. “Nikki’s dead,”
she coughed. “She’s on the rocks, I saw her hit them. I barely
escaped myself.”
    Daryl glanced back. Nikki’s body floated
nearby, her head smashed in, her limbs waving in the churning
water. “What happened?”
    “ I dove into the waves just as the boat
went over. Nikki kicked hard. She was fighting to swim against the
current. It dragged her back to the rocks.” Marie coughed. “I’d
have been killed too, if I wasn’t a professional
swimmer.”
    “ It got you more than your
scholarship,” Daryl replied. “It saved your life.”
    “ I’m not going back inside,” Marie
said, coughing again. “I’m going to swim for it, as soon as I catch
my breath.”
    “ We’ll drown in the water,” Daryl said
calmly. “We have to go back inside and wait out the storm. It can’t
rise too much higher.”
    Marie looked at him, incredulous. “How do you
know for sure?”
    “ This is a man-made lake. This house
has stood here for almost a hundred years. We’re safest indoors,
either in the house, in that Sea Room, or in that little boathouse
near the bridge.”
    Marie sank down, still coughing.
    “ Marie, we can handle one ghost,” Daryl
said, clutching her hand. “Nikki and I already blocked the doors
again, and we have enough food for another night. The storm can’t
last much longer. We’ll be