Page 166 of The Spider & the Storm

The chiming of my phone startled me. Stormy jolted, turning her head toward the center console, where it sat beside hers. A surprising name flashed across the screen, and I furrowed my brow.

“It's Max.”

I answered. “Hello?”

“Chuck, man, sorry to bother you during your time off.”

My back straightened against the car seat as my eyes met Stormy's. “It's fine. Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, everything's good. Or, you know, I think so. I don't wanna worry you or anything. But I did wanna mention that last night, while I was watching the security cameras, I thought I saw something—”

“What?” Dread rolled over my gut as every ounce of oxygen was sucked from the car.

“Well …” He laughed abruptly, a sound of hesitation and disbelief. “You know, maybe it's better that I ask you this first. Chuck … do you believe in ghosts?”

“Kinda hard to work where we work without believing in them.”

“Right. Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “So, um … I was watching the cameras, and the one facing your place flashed. Like, the screen flickered, and at first, I thought maybe it was a bug crawling over the camera lens. But this went on for a solid two, three minutes, man, so then I started wondering if the connection was bad. ‘Cause that's what it was like, like the signal was off or something, you know? And then, boom, it just stopped, like nothing had happened.”

Stormy glanced at me from across the car and mouthed,What's up?

“And all the other cameras were fine?” I asked, my mouth dry, my hands trembling.

“Totally fine, man. It was just that one.”

“Huh,” I grunted, sucking in a tremulous breath. “That's—”

“But, listen, that's not the end of it.”

I swallowed against my parched, constricted throat. “Okay.”

“I kept thinking about it for the rest of my shift. I just had this feeling about it, you know? Couldn't shake it off. So, before I went to head home, I drove down to your place to check things out.”

Oh God, my heart couldn't have pounded any harder. “And? Did you find anything?”

Max built the anticipation by feeding a few moments of silence through the line before saying, “Yeah, um … it was a letter.”

That thundering organ in my chest stopped beating altogether. “Aletter?”

“Yeah, hold on. I have it … in my …” Max grunted, and then there was the crinkling of paper. “Okay. It says,There can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother. What the hell, man, right? It was just … lying there on your doormat.”

“Poe,” I whispered, wiping my hand over my mouth.

“What?”

“It's, um … it's a quote from Edgar Allan Poe,” I said, coaxing my voice to hold steady despite the tremors coursing through my nerves. “Th-thanks, Max. I, uh … I appreciate you letting me know.”

“Yeah, no problem, Chuck. Just gave me the fucking creeps, you know? Figured you at least deserved to know what you were coming back to. Someone's out there, leaving you quotes about brothers.” He huffed another chuckle, just as humorless as before. “And whoever it is, man … they must've fuckin'reekedof cigarettes when they were alive.”

***

The dead can't hurt the living, I kept telling myself on the duration of the ride to Soldier and Ray's place. The last thing I'd wanted to do was allow my anxieties and fears to blacken the nice reprieve from real life Stormy and I had been having over the last several days. But Max's findings sat at the forefront of my mind.

What time did it happen?I wondered.Could it have been around the time I woke up from that nightmare?It was eerie, disturbing, and …

Borderline insane, I silently reprimanded, thrusting my hand through the tangled lengths of my hair.

God, it was so unfair that, just when it seemed I was gaining everything, I also seemed to be completely and utterly losing my damn mind.

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