Possess

pleaded to the more levelheaded of the six-year-olds. “Open the door.”
    The door flew open so violently that it knocked her across the hall. Her skull smacked into the wall, and as she crumpled to her knees, Bridget caught sight of the twins through the open door, huddled together on the floor in the corner of their room.
    “Guys, run!” she yelled. Too late. A cacophony of slamming doors filled the hallway, and Bridget froze in horror: Every door in the house was opening and closing by
itself.
    They needed to get the hell out of there. Like, now.
    Bridget scrambled to her feet, waited for the door to swing open, then sprinted into the twins’ bedroom. She grabbed one of the boys with each hand and hauled them up, ready to make a beeline out of the house. Whatever was in there with them wouldn’t be scared off by a babysitter wielding a poker, that was for damn sure.
    The bedroom door slammed shut before she could drag the hysterical twins out of the room. As quickly as it had started, the banging doors stopped and the house fell silent.
    Then the closet door slowly creaked open.
    Bridget turned. An imposing black mass filled the entire closet from floor to ceiling. It seemed to be made of shadows and darkness, sucking light, energy, and hope right out of the room. It seethed, growing larger and smaller as if taking deep breaths, yet it made no sound.
    Sweet cartwheeling Jesus! This couldn’t be happening. She backed up to the wall, keeping the twins behind her. She had to protect them as if they were her own brothers. As if they were Sammy.
    The mass glided forward, blocking the door, and Bridget could sense its hate. Dark, focused hatred. As it came toward her, the room began to pitch, and Bridget was swamped with an overwhelming sense of dizziness. She staggered and placed a hand on the wall to steady herself.
    That was when she heard them.
    “There’s no escape from us. No escape. We own it. We own this place. We were summoned and we won’t go back.”
    “Back?” Bridget asked without thinking.
    She felt a collective gasp, a hundred people inhaling at once.
    “She hears us.”
    “No, she doesn’t. She cannot.”
    “She does. Look at her.”
    “Impossible! The Master protects us. They cannot hear us unless we take their voice.”
    “I . . .” Holy crap, what the hell were these things? “I can hear you.”
    This time the voices in the wall shrieked like they’d just been set on fire.
    “ No, no, no, no, no, no! ” they all screamed at once. Then gibberish filled her ears as the voices broke into a language she didn’t understand. The black mass wavered.
    It had to be a hallucination. Maybe they all had food poisoning? Food poisoning from pepperoni pizza. Sure, why not? It was the only way this made sense.
    Bridget took her hand off the wall to brush a strand of hair from her face. As soon as her palm left the rough, stuccoed surface, the voices stopped. She held her hand an inch from the wall and could hear them again, muffled in the background.
    She could hear them. They could hear her. Maybe she could use that to her advantage? Bridget placed her hand flat against the wall.
    The voices were still speaking nonsense, louder now, arguing among themselves. They seemed less terrifying when she pictured them as bickering old church ladies. The thought actually made her smile and gave her the courage to speak.
    “Get out,” she said.
    “It is speaking to us? Is the traitor speaking to us?”
    “Get out of this house.” Her voice sounded strong, even if she felt like she was going to ralph her vanilla ice cream all over the rug.
    “We don’t listen to you.”
    “We don’t listen to her.”
    “We were summoned. The Master wants us here.”
    “Well, I don’t want you here.”
    “Bridge?” Danny (or was it Manny?) sniffed.
    “It’s okay, boys. It’s going to be okay.”
    “This is our home now.”
    “Don’t talk to her. The Master wouldn’t like it.”
    “I want Mommy,” the other twin said.
    Bridget inched toward the door, keeping one hand on the wall while she herded the twins with the other. “Leave us alone.”
    The black mass shrank into the closet. “We’ll never leave. Never, never, never.”
    Bridget’s hand was on the doorknob. “Let us out of this room.”
    “We won’t! We won’t! We won’t!”
    “Now!”
    With another painful shriek from the voices, the bedroom door swung open. Whoa, they did what she told them to? Amazing. Somehow, she had power over