When Ewan and his mother, Beverly, entered the house, Ewan’s father was cradling Sandra in his arms. Both were pale and looked years older than when he had last seen them less than an hour ago. Behind them, the ghost of Lita Balodis looked on in concern.
‘It was a Vadātājs,’ Lita said to Ewan. ‘I managed to subdue it.’
‘Does that mean it’s over?’ Ewan asked her. ‘Are you free from the curse?’
Her tone told him all he needed to know. ‘I had to go to their world to fight it. I beat this one. But I saw dozens more ready to take its place. I think they will come again soon, and in greater number.’
‘That can’t be good,’ Ewan said.
‘Who are you talking to, Ewan?’ Beverly asked.
‘That woman,’ Sandra said hoarsely, pointing in Lita’s direction.
Ewan stared at his sister, unable to find words to voice his shock. Her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused, but he could not tell if that was due to her alcohol intake or the ghostly assault.
Their mother was not as reticent.
‘Sandra, there is nobody there. I’m worried about you. Stan, I think we should get her to a hospital.’
Stan opened his mouth to speak but only a thin croak escaped him. His neck was red and swollen.
‘The Vadātājs tried to strangle him,’ Lita explained, and Ewan figured his father may have suffered internal damage to his throat as well.
‘What the hell happened to you two?’ Beverly asked.
Stan tried again to speak, the attempt ending in a wince of pain.
‘The house is haunted, Mum,’ Sandra said.
‘I’m not haunting you,’ Lita said in defence.
Sandra cocked her head, looking to the right of Lita. ‘I di’n mean by you,’ she slurred.
Noticing that Sandra was not looking directly at his new ghost friend, Ewan said, ‘You can’t see her, can you?’
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Beverly said. ‘If this is a joke, it’s in very-’ Her words were drowned by a sudden hissing noise which permeated the air.
Ewan's heart pounded. He saw Lita’s eyes widen in fear.
‘They’re coming’ Sandra shrieked.
‘Out,’ Stan managed to rasp. He rose, pulled Sandra to her feet and began shepherding his family to the front door.
Beverly resisted, fear and confusion etching lines in her face, so Ewan pushed her forward.
‘There’s no time, Mum,’ he blurted, but she stood her ground.
‘I am not putting up with this,’ she shouted over the increasing din. ‘Someone had better start explaining things to me. Right now.’
‘I’ll tell you everything in the car, Mum.’
He tried again to encourage his mother to move but stopped when he heard Sandra’s scream. Turning to follow her gaze, he saw a column of smoke in the corner of the room. The hazy tendrils wrapped around themselves, pulling together in a hideous mockery of a human shape.
‘We have to go,’ Lita urged.
‘Now, Mum. Now.’
Beverly faced the direction her children were looking. ‘What? There’s nothing there.’
The swirling mist compacted into a body. There were no features, no face nor clothing, just a person-sized mass of blackness. Despite this, Ewan felt hatred emanate from it.
‘Four cursed souls for Jods,’ the Vadātājs said with glee.
‘Get them out,’ Lita yelled as she marched toward the devil.
Ewan’s instinct was to jump forward and pull Lita away, but he knew he would not be able to grab her. He backed away, dragging his protesting mother with him but not taking his eyes from Lita. As she neared the thing, she vanished from sight. A moment later, the dark form wavered then rapidly dissipated into the air. Lita reappeared, looking ashen and afraid.
‘Let’s go,’ Ewan shouted, corralling his family out of the house and into his car. With his mother beside him, and Stan, Sandra and Lita in the back, Ewan shot from the drive and turned left. He had no idea where to go, he just wanted to put distance between them and the house.
‘I still don’t know what’s going on,’ Beverly said, her voice trembling.
‘Mum, it’s all to do with Billie,’ Ewan said.
At the mention of her niece’s name, Beverly bristled and turned to give Stan a withering look.
‘Tha’s not Billie’s voice,’ Sandra slurred.
In the rearview mirror, Ewan saw his dad shake his head and asked, ‘You can hear her too, Dad?’ Nod. ‘So why can’t Mum?’ Shrug.
Ewan took a corner too sharply. The rear wheels skidded momentarily but soon bit the road again and Ewan regained control.
Forcing himself to slow down, he said, ‘Earlier today I met a friend of Billie’s. The ghost of a woman called Lita Balodis.’
Stan’s eyes widened. He tried to say something but his damaged throat prevented him. Instead, he fished out his mobile phone and began furiously typing.
‘Lita told me that Billie had been murdered because she was friends with Lita,’ Ewan continued. ‘Now that I can see Lita, these demons are coming after us.’
‘Ewan, stop being ridiculous,’ Beverly snapped. ‘Billie was killed in a car accident. You know that.’
‘Somehow the demons must have caused the crash,’ Ewan said.
A groan from the back seat caught Ewan’s attention. Stan had finished typing and was holding his phone out to Sandra. His sister was struggling to focus on the words, so Lita leaned forward to read it.
‘“Balodis is…”’ she read out loud, then gasped.
‘What?’ Ewan urged.
‘“Balodis is my mother’s name.”’
‘Grandma Liddy?’
‘Lidija Balodis,’ Stan managed to croak.
‘That was my aunt’s name,’ Lita said. ‘We thought the Vadātājs had killed her and her son.’
‘But we’re Holmwoods not Balodises,’ Ewan said.
‘What are you ranting about?’ Beverly asked and Ewan realised that, as she could not hear Lita, she was only following part of the conversation. ‘Holmwood is Grandpa Frank’s name,’ Beverly said. ‘He adopted your dad when he married Grandma Liddy.’
Lita gazed at Stan. ‘Then you must be Staņislavs?’
Ewan watched his dad nod. To Lita, he said, ‘That means that you and Dad are…’ In his heightened state of excitement, he could not connect lines of the family tree. ‘That we’re related,’ he finished.
‘Which is why you can see me,’ Lita added. ‘And why the Vadātājs attacked Stan and Sandra. The three of you are cursed by the family name.’
‘But that doesn’t explain why the Vadātājs murdered Billie,’ Ewan said.
‘I told you,’ Beverly snapped, ‘Billie was not murd-’ Her voice stopped. The familiar hissing sounded in the car and Beverley slumped in the seat.
‘No, no, no,’ Ewan said, pressing his foot down on the accelerator. His head whipped left and right. ‘Where is it?’
‘There’s no smoke,’ Sandra said. ‘We’re okay.’
‘Oh no,’ Lita said.
‘What?’ Ewan cried.
‘The Vadātājs that killed my mother,’ Lita answered, and Ewan recalled the story of the Russian soldier who had shot Lita and her mother. According to Lita, before committing the murderous act his features had slackened and his eyes had glazed over. ‘It didn’t appear as a smoke-monster. It possessed a human being.’
Beverly’s body rocked violently and a deep, grating voice resonated from her.
‘For Jods.’
Without warning, she lunged at Ewan, one hand scratching at his face as the other tugged on the steering wheel. The car swerved to the left. Ewan saw them rush toward the side of a building, heard screams fill the car. In spite of his mother’s nails in his cheek and his heart pounding so hard it hurt, Ewan instinctively stomped on the brake and clutch.
The car stopped with such force that Ewan was certain they had struck the wall. His seatbelt engaged, holding him harshly and painfully in place. Seeing that the building was still several feet away, he knew that his emergency brake manoeuvre had worked.
While the rest of his passengers moaned in delayed shock, the creature which controlled his mother took no time to recover. Without a pause, she was lashing out at Ewan again, slapping and punching and scratching. He tried to grab her wrists but she was too fast and he was struggling to focus. The ringing in his ears sounded like escaping air.
When Sandra screamed, Ewan realised that his ears weren’t ringing; the sound he heard was the heralding of another Vadātājs.
To the left of the car, two columns of smoke were dancing in the night air. A third appeared to the right. Lita vanished from the back seat. One of the forming shapes collapsed in upon itself. When Lita reappeared, she was grey and could barely keep her head up.
‘There are too many,’ she panted. ‘I can’t… can’t keep it up.’
The two remaining Vadātājs took shape and stepped to the car. Beverly continued to pound at Ewan. The shadow hands of the Vadātājs passed through the car’s exterior, reaching for Sandra. Sandra screamed and tried to back away but came up against Stan who was trying to dodge the demons approaching from his side.
This is it, Ewan thought, swatting at his mother’s arms. This is how we die.
One of the Vadātājs grabbed Sandra’s shoulder sending her cries to a pitch which almost pierced Ewan’s eardrums. Stan released a guttural yell of fear and frustration.
Then the screaming stopped. Beverly flopped back into her seat. The dark forms of the Vadātājs began to waver and fade.
‘What’s happening?’ Ewan asked.
Snakes of smoke spiralled from the Vadātājs, drifting through the air and combining at the front of the car. They wrapped together, forming one giant shape.
‘Lita, are you doing this?’
Legs the size of tree trunks appeared from the maelstrom. The smoke constricted further, revealing the torso of a large man.
‘What is this?’
The last of the tendrils pulled together into a grotesque head; bulbous nose, sharpened teeth, bright eyes, horns sprouting from its crown.
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