The Christmas Bell Read online

  Nevertheless, her eyes fell on the rusted vent in the corner of the room, and, on a whim, she crossed the floor. She took a deep breath as she kneeled, knowing she was on a dangerous tightwire between sanity and insanity. The drugs they gave her probably incited hallucinations. She knew it was true. Still, she didn’t have time to waste. If there was any hope, supernatural or not, she needed to take it. Better to try and fail than to simply curl up and let him have his way with her.

  Her fingers touched the vent, feeling the rusty texture. She inhaled and popped her finger underneath the corner as she had so many times. She pulled on the vent roughly, expecting to meet the typical resistance. But to her utter shock, it popped cleanly off. She was almost too stunned to keep going, plopping back on her bottom on the cold floor.

  She set the vent to the side and leaned down, peering inside the tiny space. And she smiled for the first time in a long time as she reached in to pull out the contents, not caring who or what or how they’d arrived—but they had, just in time.

  Just in time.

  Perhaps this holiday would be special indeed, Rachel determined, hope in her heart and a fire in her fingers as she took the supplies, put the vent back, and got straight to work.

  Chapter Five

  She turned the ornament over and over in her hand, the rusty red texture feeling scratchy under her fingertips. She’d used the scissors to carve the phrase that her sister Anne would certainly understand.

  One too many.

  How many times had she sat silently as her mother spewed the word like a poisonous vine? How many times had Rachel sucked in the message, let it filter through her lungs and veins into the whole of her being? She’d believed the words because she’d had to. Her mother hadn’t wanted two babies. Rachel was the surprise. One too many. That’s what she felt when Rachel was born. That’s what she still felt.

  Turning the bell over and over in her hand, Rachel wondered where it came from. What stories did it tell? What story did the redheaded being harbor? So much pain in life. But at least Rachel didn’t feel alone anymore. There was comfort in that, even in the agony of being forgotten in the hellish halls of Redwood. She wasn’t the only one to live out the fate.

  It would be time soon. She couldn’t wait and risk the staff finding her scissors. She had to make a move. She took a breath, thinking about what she had to do. Had it really come to this?

  She shoved the feelings down, returning to the apathetic state she’d mastered through the years. No sense crying over something you couldn’t change. Best to brave up and carry through with it all. Still, as she crumpled a single piece of notebook paper around the ornament, a surge of wickedness filled her chest. Anne would be forever tied to Rachel’s memory now. The ornament would seal their connection, whether Anne liked it or not. And Rachel knew that someday, somewhere, she’d get her ultimate revenge. Anne would pay for the lies, for the betrayal that put her on this dark road of pain and torture.

  Anne would pay.

  Rachel dug the scissors into her wrist, not deep enough to mortally wound herself but deep enough to obtain some red. She smeared the blood in the familiar letters of Anne’s name on the paper that she’d found the bell wrapped in. There would be no mistake as to who the ornament was for. She’d have to hope that the night nurse would follow through and deliver the ornament to her family.

  She’d hoped the redhead would appear to offer her support and courage, but Rachel knew this was no fairy tale. Life was lonely, no matter how you looked at it. You had to find your own courage, your own way.

  She leaned back on her bed, the scissors primed and ready now. She’d placed the ornament under her covers to be found after the deed was done. Resting her head back against the cold, white wall, she closed her eyes and hummed her favorite song.

  It would not be a silent night, though, or a holy one, not for her.

  It was a night of reckoning for all the souls he’d hurt. It was a night of reckoning for her own soul. Rachel was afraid, but she was also ready. Pain was temporary, but the thirst for revenge could last forever. She hoped she could find a way to quench hers and to finally find some retribution.

  Chapter Six

  “It’s Christmas Eve, you know. Many of the other patients have visitors today, but you’ve been a naughty girl, so we can’t have any. Can we? But don’t worry, Dove, I’ll spend some time with you.” Dr. Woolstone shut the door with a clank, and Rachel tensed up. This had to work because if she failed, he would certainly carry on with the surgery. And then she would never have a choice. She’d forever be a prisoner in her own body, in this cell, in his cold, depraved hands.

  He crossed the room and stood near her, reaching down to stroke her cheek. She turned her head, as she always did. He patted her on the head.

  “It might be a nice Christmas gift, to take you down tomorrow to the surgery. Don’t you think? We’ll see, Dove. Anything to make you better. Anything at all.”

  Rachel eyed him with hazy contempt and steadfast determination. And without a second thought, she made her move.

  The war cry emitted from her lips was shrill, even to her own ears. She had the benefit of surprise, so even though Dr. Woolstone was a heavier set man, she overpowered him easily. She leaped from her bed, the scissors in her left hand. Rusty but effective, the metal stabbed into his neck, and blood spurted. He tried to grab her, and she knew she didn’t have time. All of the rage she held burst forward. She pictured her mother on that final day at home. She pictured her sister’s overly sweet smile as Rachel was taken away. She pictured all who had betrayed her.

  And she fought. She wrestled and wrangled, slicing and cutting. Cutting and dicing. He reached for his syringe in his pocket, but he was weakened now by shock and blood loss. She was hyped up on adrenaline and fear. She batted it away easily, as if it were nothing more than an annoying mosquito. She tackled him, the scissors digging their way into his flesh over and over and over again until he crumpled backward on the floor.

  When she had him down, she straddled his goliath figure, looking into his eyes as she made the final slice. The life ending cut across his neck spewed blood, and Rachel laughed and giggled wildly like a truly insane person. Maybe she was mad, she thought, as she smeared the blood on his face, on herself, giggling at the sight of the monster dead at her feet.

  She didn’t have long now. Certainly someone would be coming soon to find him. She relished in the sight of his dead body once more, wondering where his soul was at. She didn’t have time to think for too long, though. She knew there was only one way out, one way to be free.

  She held the scissors open, primed above her wrist. The rusty metal sat above her skin, ready to bite down. As she prepared for death, she glanced to the corner of the room. The redheaded figure was back. Her eyes were still gone, her face ethereal but grim.

  “It’s time,” the figure moaned. “Join us, Rachel.”

  She was mesmerized by the figure. She didn’t know what was meant or where this would lead. But Rachel knew that for once, she was wanted. And that was enough for her.

  The pain was searing, unbearable. Like nothing she’d ever felt. But as the red flowed from her wrist, Rachel flopped backward and stared at the ceiling. She waited for release from her pain, from sorrow, from the hellhole called Redwood. And after what felt like an eternity of flipping through memories and images of her past life, she stood up and claimed her new path. The redhead was waiting, and Rachel could see her more clearly now, as if a barrier had been lifted. She was still unsettling but somehow, she seemed less threatening to Rachel now.

  “Come on,” the figure said, reaching for Rachel’s hand.

  Rachel leaned down, picking up the rusty scissors. And then, she followed the figure out of Redwood, out of her painful life, out of the sadness of being alone.

  “There is work to be done,” the figure said, and Rachel nodded.

  There was work to be done indeed. There were people to pay for their sins. Dr. Woolstone was just the
beginning. The others would perhaps require more finesse, more time to be truly pleasurable. There was no hurry now, after all. Rachel had all the time in the world.

  But they didn’t. Anne didn’t. Anne’s days were numbered, and Rachel giggled at the prospect that she’d be there, right there, to watch Anne breathe her very last.

  As she left Redwood, freed from all physical restraints, she heard a soft song in the distance. Her favorite.

  It was a silent night now, a calm night. A holy night in some ways, Rachel realized, as she drifted off and away, the only sign she was ever really in the stone walls the rusty, worn bell she’d left behind.

  The rusty red Christmas bell sat in its notebook paper, waiting for its delivery, waiting to mark its recipient with the curse of Rachel’s hatred, vengeance, and pain.

  Did you love The Christmas Bell: Rachel's Story? Then you should read The Christmas Bell: A Horror Novel by L.A. Detwiler!

  From USA Today Bestseller L.A. Detwiler comes a disturbing paranormal horror novel that will bring hell to the holidays and chilling fear to the festivities.

  Some Christmas ornaments should be left in the attic.

  When Candace Mills, 26, heads home for the holidays to visit her mother and ailing grandmother, she's expecting a peaceful, dull Christmas. She has no idea, though, that a single Christmas ornament is about to send her into a whirling chasm of evil.

  It starts with the Christmas bell, scratched and worn in one of Grandma Anne's boxes in the attic. Once they put it on the tree, Grandma Anne starts to say terrifying things and act strangely. Candace and her mother assume it's her dementia talking—until they start to have dangerous encounters with a fiendish being.

  As the secrets of Anne's past involving her twin sister rise to the surface, the women face sinister horrors from a dark force looking for revenge.

  Will any of them be able to survive, or will they fall prey to the malevolent secret Grandma Anne is harboring from her past?

  Read more at L.A. Detwiler’s site.

  Also by L.A. Detwiler

  The Flayed One

  The Journal of H.D. Wards

  The Flayed One

  Standalone

  The Diary of a Serial Killer's Daughter

  A Tortured Soul

  The Christmas Bell: A Horror Novel

  The Redwood Asylum

  The Christmas Bell: Rachel's Story

  The Arsonist's Handbook

  Mr. Alexander Garrick's Traveling Circus

  The Butcher's Night

  The Witch of War Creek (Coming Soon)

  The Delivery (Coming Soon)

  Watch for more at L.A. Detwiler’s site.

  About the Author

  L.A. Detwiler is USA TODAY Bestselling author and high school English teacher. Her debut thriller, The Widow Next Door, is a USA Today and International Bestseller with HarperCollins UK/Avon Books. Her second thriller, The One Who Got Away, released in 2020 with HarperCollins UK/One More Chapter. The Diary of a Serial Killer's Daughter released in 2020.

  L.A. lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, Chad, their five cats, and their mastiff named Henry. Her writing has appeared in several women's publications and online magazines. She also writes romance under Lindsay Detwiler, including her popular Lines in the Sand Series.

  Join her Readers' Club with this link: http://eepurl.com/gkZ2Sf

  Read more at L.A. Detwiler’s site.