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    Mandy
    Mandy
    Mandy
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Mandy

    By Stephanie Sparks

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Mandy Fisher is not like other girls...

    Awoken one night by a stranger at her door, Mandy reluctantly lets him in. The stranger begs for help for his friend Robbie, recently killed in a drunk driving accident. To make the pushy, distraught stranger go away, Mandy taps into her secret gift to bring Robbie ba

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStephanie Sparks
    Release dateAug 1, 2022
    ISBN9781777295653
    Mandy
    Author

    Stephanie Sparks

    Stephanie Sparks writes action-packed horror tinged with dark humour and loaded with sarcasm. She prefers cats to people and when she's not lost in a book or listening to 1980s movie soundtracks, she's daydreaming about her next novel or writing furiously.

    Read more from Stephanie Sparks

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      Book preview

      Mandy - Stephanie Sparks

      Chapter 1

      The last thing Mandy Fisher expected to hear in the dead of night was a fist banging on the door. It woke her like a thunderclap. Unexpected, jarring. She slowly sat up, holding her covers close to her chest. She listened, but couldn’t hear beyond the blood rushing to her head, outside of which there was only silence. And the knocking.

      When the frantic pounding began again, it wasn’t a dream or her imagination playing tricks. She was all alone in her father’s house on an acreage that was a two-hour hike to the nearest town. Visitors in the middle of the night were rare, even in her father’s line of work.

      She laid back down, pulling the blankets over her head. She couldn’t fall asleep, nor could she make the knocking stop. It became louder, more urgent, and then a voice cried out.

      Help us!

      Us. Meaning more than one.

      Meaning Mandy would be outnumbered.

      Go away, she whispered, breath hot under the covers.

      But they wouldn’t go away. The back porchlight was on. She had forgotten to turn it off and so it became a beacon for her midnight guests.

      The stranger called out again. I know you’re in there!

      She pushed the covers aside, easing off the bed. Her feet touched the cold, hardwood floor. The planks creaked. She bit her lip as if to quiet her movements, as if the panicked stranger down below could sense her exact location.

      He knew someone was in the house and he wasn’t going to stop banging on the door until either she answered it or he had smashed his way inside.

      Help us, please!

      Mandy grabbed her robe from the hook on the door. She wrapped it around herself, cinching the belt tight. Against her better judgment, she kept the lights off so that under the cover of darkness she could see who was at the door, get a description, and report them if necessary.

      Not that she had anything against visitors, but something about strangers in the dark turned her stomach to ice. She never cared much for the company of others — with one exception, but he was long gone.

      And he was definitely not coming back.

      She tiptoed down the stairs, keeping her back against the wall but also careful not to brush against the family photos trailing downward. Her father and mother on their wedding day in a tiny church. A family photo of the three of them, Mandy just barely able to hold her own head up on her wobbly infant neck. A photo taken before cancer claimed her mother’s life. Kindergarten, grade school, junior high pics. Braces clamped on tight and shining in one awkward school photo.

      Her graduation photo’s frame hung in the exact spot it had been placed years ago; the photo conspicuously absent. Her father hung it in earnest, but after everything that happened that spring, the last thing on his mind would have been to take the frame down.

      Mandy gripped the tie around her waist as she approached the front door. She could see through the glass arch out onto the porch, but that light was off and no one was there. She waited for a bloodied hand to slap against the window, like in the movies she was advised to avoid, lest they aggravate her condition.

      Mandy rounded the stairs. She passed by the sitting room where her father kept stacks of books and magazines. Then the formal dining room where he handled the bulk of his paperwork. Then the kitchen where he thankfully did not conduct any of his work.

      No, that had been Mandy’s mistake.

      Her crime scene.

      At the end of the hallway was a half-lite door, and just before the door, if Mandy turned left, was the entrance to her father’s business. It was where the Fisher house became the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home.

      There were no sons, however. Just Mandy and her father, and the occasional hired hand when business picked up. Her father thought the sons made the name sound homey and personal.

      While Mandy was quite satisfied with being an only child, tonight she wished she had some big, strong brothers to protect her because she could see the stranger at the backdoor. His chin dropped onto his chest as he rested his head against the glass. He was young. Maybe Mandy’s age. It was hard to tell in the dark, the porchlight casting harsh shadows across his brawny features. His hair fell in a sweaty mess across his cro magnon forehead and heavy brows. A gash above his hairline oozed blood. His nose was busted and bloody. He was a thick boy — a man built for tackling, running, crushing, destroying. If he wanted to, he could make short work of the tired door. But he didn’t. Not yet. He was at least that little bit civilized.

      All Mandy had to do was stay out of sight. Eventually he would have to go away. She was about to go back to bed. Her slight movement caught his attention. The second he glimpsed her, peeking down the hallway, his eyes widened and he started knocking all over again.

      Oh, shit, hey! You gotta help! My friend— There was an accident. I don’t know what to do.

      Mandy knew what to do.

      Don’t let them in.

      Go back to bed.

      Forget this ever happened.

      Her father’s words made her pause and reconsider. In the two years she spent in the rest home, he never once brought up the incident that put her there or forced any fatherly wisdom upon her. Not until the hot summer day he arrived to take her home. Then he let it all out.

      Make good choices, Mandy, and be kind to others, he said, wiping the perspiration off his ruddy face. As usual for a workday, he wore a full suit and tie. The heat was cruel to his jolly body, but never affected his friendly disposition. You’re an adult now, so more than ever, you’re responsible for what happens to you. It’s easy to wall yourself off from others and keep your head down, but you can still do good in this world. You just have to make the right choices.

      In the car on that long drive home, Mandy stared out the window and listened to her father’s sermon. She didn’t know if he meant what he was saying or if he was just trying to fill the silence, but his words stuck with her.

      And he was right. All she wanted to do was shut out the world and try to move on with her life. The problem was she worked for her father, and his business was a people-facing, customer service one. It would reflect terribly on the business if she ignored a stranger’s pleas for help, only for her father to come home and find him, and then do what she should have done in the first place: Help him.

      Make good choices. Be kind to others.

      She sighed, dislodging her teeth from her bottom lip. Coming out from the darkness, she went to the door.

      The stranger pawed the glass, like a sad, desperate puppy.

      Please.

      Mandy turned the lock. The brass slipped between her fingers as the stranger shoved his way in, invading her space. He reeked of blood, sweat, musky cologne, and beer. He loomed over, breathing hard.

      Just as quickly, he moved aside and pointed outside to a crumpled mess at the bottom of the steps. A young man’s unmoving body.

      You gotta do something.

      Chapter 2

      What could she do? He was dead. Mandy had worked with enough dead bodies to be certain without checking his vital signs. The stranger picked him up and carried him inside, and Mandy led him into the funeral home side of the house. They passed through the reception area like ghosts, gliding over the maroon rug and breezing past the dried flowers in ornate vases.

      Mandy turned on as few lights as possible. She didn’t want to light up the whole house and give the neighbors — even though they were acres away — something to talk about.

      Gossip — that’s what the Pomerleaus would do. The neighbors and people in town liked to talk about Mandy and the horrible thing she did. She was never going to forget and neither would they.

      What’s your name? she asked the stranger

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