Free The Haunting at Grays Harbor (The River Book 8) by Michael Richan Page A

told
him he grudgingly agreed with the plan.
    As they walked to the steps of the house, the lights suddenly
turned on, at full intensity. Steven raised his hand to shield his eyes, and
turned off his flashlight.
    “I guess we’re back in business,” Steven said, walking up the
steps and into the open archway. He sat the plastic bags he’d been carrying on
a small table in the entryway and began pulling out electric lanterns and
candles.
    Roy walked around him and down the hallway to the left,
returning within seconds. “Wall’s back!” he said.
    Steven left the table and followed Roy to the drawing room.
The western wall had indeed returned, looking normal. Steven pressed his hand
up against the wall, feeling the soft wallpaper against his skin. He turned to
look at Roy.
    “What?” Roy asked.
    “Any ideas why?” Steven said.
    “Nope,” Roy replied, moving to a window. “Your guess is as
good as mine. The landscaping looks fine, too. Hold on, wait a minute…” Roy was
craning his neck, trying to see an angle to the far right, but couldn’t make
things out.
    “I’m going to check outside,” Roy said, turning to leave.
Steven followed. They walked to the breezeway, out the back of the house to the
porch and down the steps into the yard. Roy turned left and walked toward the
corner of the yard that he had been trying to see from the window. After fifty
feet they came to a dirt edge. A curved line in the ground delineated their
normal, landscaped back yard from dark ground and rocks with no vegetation.
Steven followed the line and saw that it dissected a tree to his left, neatly
eliminating the right half of it. The left half continued to move slightly in
the gentle breeze that always seemed to inhabit the back yard, but whenever any
part of its branches swayed over the line on the ground, that part disappeared.
    “Fucked up worse than Hogan’s billy goat,” Roy said.
    “It’s like it moved,” Steven said. “From the side of the
house, to over here.”
    “Kinda like how that rod in Barbara’s house moved,” Roy said.
    “All of this disruption started the night Sam White used his
machines on her house,” Steven said. “Think they’re related? Is that what
caused the earthquake here?”
    “I don’t understand how,” Roy said, “They shouldn’t be
connected. Come on. Let’s try that object on the legend shelf.”
    They turned from the barren swath of yard and walked back to
the house, turning the corner to the back yard. As they walked, the overhead
lights dipped once again, leaving them in darkness.
    “Shit, didn’t bring the flashlight,” Roy said, stumbling into
Steven.
    Steven reached out to grab his father, and caught a glimpse
of light coming from the house. “Look!” he said, pointing to the structure,
where a dim, yellow flicker emanated from an upper room. They stared up at the lit
window, watching as its interior dimmed and returned as though it held a
candle. A figure passed over the window, moving slowly. Steven realized he was holding
his breath.
    “Wasn’t that the room where we found James Unser’s body?” Roy
whispered.
    “Yes,” Steven whispered back, his eyes glued to the window to
see if the figure might pass by again.
    “Look,” Roy said, grabbing Steven and pointing down. Steven
lowered his gaze to the ground at his feet and saw that the grass was gone –
they were standing in dirt.
    “It shifted again,” Roy whispered. “Now we’re inside it.”
    Steven raised his gaze back up to the window, searching for
the figure. The faint light inside the room cast just enough light into the
yard to illuminate the area in front of them. The dirt area extended ten feet toward
the house from where they stood before the landscaping resumed. He turned to
look behind him, and saw that the banyan tree was gone.
    “Come on,” he said to Roy, walking forward to the grass. The
moment his feet left the dirt and stepped onto the lawn, the overhead light
returned.
    “That’s