Okay, honestly, I didn’t intend to split this story like this. Really, I knew I was going to revisit Jade again this month, but I thought it would be later this month. I slept in a little today and when I woke I realized I have a gig today that’s going to run well past midnight and I’d miss my deadline. And now here I am and I don’t have the conclusion finished yet. So, Jade’s story has turned into a little trilogy! This is part two, and I’ll get you part three tomorrow before I head off to another gig (no rest for the wicked!). Thanks! —Jordy.

Jade woke with a start, unsure of what woke her. Listening hard in the darkness she heard it again… the creaky hinges of the door from the kitchen. “The wind,” she told herself. “Just the wind…”

She remembered the night before with Jason and his friends and she was pissed. “Will that kid ever get the hint?” she said as she bounded through the door, down the stairs, turned towards the kitchen and stopped abruptly. Blocking the doorway to the kitchen – taking up the entire doorway, really – stood an enormous hooded figure. The hood, though, didn’t appear to be any sort of actual fabric. Instead, the hood seemed to be made of darkness itself. The figure slowly raised an arm towards Jade, the darkness cloak falling back to reveal a bleached skeleton hand, one bony index finger extended towards Jane.

That’s when the howling started.

The noise began low and barely audible, but quickly rose to a deafening level. Long ago, Jade and her dad – her real dad, before he ran out on them – had spent an evening below the flight path of the Elmwood International Airport and lay on a blanket in the bed of his pickup and watched the jets take off right over their heads. The roar from the figure reminded her of those screaming jet engines – only louder.

The figure rotated its hand and curled its finger in a “come here” gesture. Hurricane-level winds whipped up behind her and nearly knocked her off her feet, pushing her towards the figure, the winds making its cloak of darkness swirl around, blotting out everything around it.

After the initial gust didn’t cause her to fall the intensity of the wind increased. She fell to one knee, her long black hair streaming in front her horizontally. Jade reached out and grabbed the banister at the foot of the stairs and held on tightly as the wind gained velocity and started to push her bodily closer to the figure.

“Oh hell no,” she said and pulled herself to the banister. The stairwell seemed to block the worst of the wind, and she managed to get to her feet and start up the stairs, the wind slackening as she climbed. At the top of the stairs she looked down. The wind had abated, but the howling continued. The figure moved slowly from the kitchen doorway to the foot of the stairs. It turned its blacked-out cowl towards her and continued to howl…. But it didn’t move up the stairs. Yet. Since Jade had died, she didn’t actually feel anything. Well, she could be startled, sure, but cold, hot, tired, hungry… nothing. She slept out of boredom. But now, with that howling, she felt pure, cold terror the likes of which brought back the final minutes of her life – seeing the gun, hearing the report, smelling the fire, feeling the heat… There was no gun, no asshole homicidal step-father… but somehow Jade was more scared than ever. She sensed she stood in real danger of losing more than her life. Her soul, she realized, was in danger. That thing couldn’t come up the stairs… but she had the impression that wasn’t a permanent impediment. As she watched, the figure floated around the base of the stairs howling.

Jade ran for her room, slammed the charred door on its single hinge. She ran to the empty window and stared out on the yard quiet in the mid-day sun, and the street beyond. The oak tree had dropped half of its leaves already. The whole scene seemed so… bucolic. Oh, except that she was dead and trapped upstairs in a half burned out house with some sort of soul-sucking demon trying to take her to oblivion. She knew she couldn’t leave – she tried once. It wasn’t pleasant. And, more importantly, it didn’t work then and wouldn’t offer her an escape now. She looked down to where Jason and his friends stood last night. That wasn’t twelve hours ago…

“Jason!” she thought hopefully. Then she realized what she had said and her face curled as if she’d bitten into a lemon. “Jason,” she said bitterly. “Shit…” Since he discovered her here a month ago while “ghost hunting,” as he called it, he’d visited like clockwork every goddamn night. Why night? She had no fucking idea. She was sure she’d asked once but didn’t pay attention to what he’d said. She rolled her eyes. The howling intensified and changed tenor downstairs. She sensed the thing making progress on how to get upstairs. She couldn’t believe it, but she thought, “Jason might be able to help…”

She hated the thought. She hated that she might be right. And she hated that she’d have to wait hours until the sun went down and he came by – if he came by. She wondered if this time he might take her rejection seriously and stay away. No, she thought, he’ll come again. That’s him. But, she thought as a new, colder chill ran through her, will it be in time…