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possible? She was doing really well.”
    “ Take your time, sir,” the
doctor with the Indian accent said. “When you’re ready, we’ll turn
off the machine.”
    “ Seth?” Aden looked up at
Sandy’s only real family.
    “ Oh God,” Seth’s eyes
seeped with tears. “I… I don’t know how… Oh God, Sandy.”
    “ Sandy what? What’s
happening?” Gretel asked. “What’s going on?”
    “ What’s wrong with you?”
Jeff pushed Gretel away from Aden and Seth. “Have a little
compassion!”
    “ I have compassion. What I
don’t have is any idea what’s going on,” Gretel said.
    “ Sir?” the doctor
asked.
    Aden looked at Seth. Seth nodded. Aden
nodded. The nurse began turning off the machines. The heart rate
monitor screamed. Overwhelmed with grief, Aden clutched at Sandy’s
lifeless body and wept.
    “ Aden,” Seth
said.
    Seth put his hand on Aden’s back. A nurse
came in with the still, lifeless form of Rachel Ann. Seth helped
Aden to stand.
    The nurse set his baby girl in his arms. Her
tiny face was blue from lack of oxygen. Otherwise she was perfect.
This small child, the baby he thought was a boy, was conceived by
accident on a fun trip to Mexico after a visit to an ancient
fertility shrine. She’d fought her way to be born. She’d fought her
way to survive even one day. She was gaining weight. She was
getting better.
    But it was all too much for her to endure.
Like his Sandy, his soul mate, the love of his life, she was dead.
His heart broke into a million pieces. He could hardly take a
breath. He leaned down to nuzzle Rachel’s face.
    “ This isn’t happening,”
Aden whispered. “This can’t be happening.”
    “ That’s what I’m saying,”
Gretel said.
    Aden kissed Rachel’s face. He laid her next
to his beloved Sandy’s body.
    “ Seth?” Aden asked. “How
did we get here?”
    “ Jeff’s cruiser,” Seth
said.
    “ How did we get out of the
mansion?” Aden asked. “Only Jake could get us out of there. Where’s
Jacob?”
    He bent down to kiss Sandy’s face. With his
eyes closed, he whispered, ‘I love you.’
    “ Jacob’s in the mansion,”
Seth said.
    “ What are you talking
about?” Gretel asked. “We’re still in the mansion!”
    “ We’re still in the
mansion,” Seth said.
    “ We’re in the mansion,”
Jeff said.
    Aden stroked Rachel’s cheek and kissed
Sandy’s forehead. Closing his eyes, he breathed in.
    “ I’m still in the
mansion,” Aden said.
    When he opened his eyes, he was standing in
the salt circle in the haunted mansion in Brighten.
    “ God,” Jeff whispered.
“That was so real. How did you…?”
    “ I don’t know,” Aden said.
“It was like a whisper in my brain. ‘This isn’t happening.’ That’s
what it said. ‘This isn’t happening.’ But… I could see it, smell
it, and even taste that hospital… whatever.”
    “ Horrifying,” Seth said.
“This thing is willing to take our love and pervert it. My Sandy’s
not dead?”
    “ No way to know. Our
phones are out. We won’t know until we leave here,” Aden said. “But
one thing’s for sure, I’m no psychic.”
    “ I’m no psychic,” Seth
said. “That’s for sure. Jeff?”
    “ Me neither,” Jeff
said.
    “ It can take our memory,
our thoughts, our love and make it into something horrible” Seth
said. “Quickly, before it starts again…”
    Seth held out his hands. Gretel and Aden
took his hands. Jeff completed the circle.
    “ We did this before and…”
Jeff said.
    “ If I leave here
tomorrow…” Aden began singing Leonard Skynard’s Freebird . “Sing. It helped me all
those years ago.”
    “ Will you still remember
me?” Jeff joined Aden.
    “ Music,” Seth said.
“Occupies the mind and senses. Good thinking.”
    “ For I must be traveling
on now…” Gretel, Jeff and Aden sang.
    “ But…” Seth
started.
    “ Sing!” Aden
commanded.
    “ There’s too many places
I’ve got to see…” Seth joined in.
    In the horrifying dark,
they belted out