Chapter 5 The Dress Is Motionless

Emily did not budge in the dark motel room, breathing with small, strangled gasps.

The rocking chair swayed as though some presence had recently sat upon it. The wedding dress hung across the arm, its veil across the floor.

She did not move it, she thought.

The whispered instruction rang inside her head: Try it on.

"No," she gasped, stepping away.

The room cooled.

The lamp danced.

Emily grabbed her car keys. This is just paranoia. I'm sleep-deprived. That's all.

She snatched the dress off the chair, wincing as an unnatural chill ran up her arms. Without hesitation, she stuffed it into a trash bag and stormed out of the motel room.

Outside was quiet. The neon light of the motel sign hummed quietly in the distance. Emily made her way to the closest dumpster and emptied the bag into it.

She never touched her hands afterward. Finished.

Grasping a trembling breath, she proceeded toward her room.

She didn't glance back.

She ought to have done so.

For as she closed the door behind her, she failed to notice something-

The bag never landed at the bottom of the dumpster.

But it merely lay quietly on top of the trash, as if something inside it clung with all its might so it would not fall.

Emily slept with lights on.

Her nights were disturbed, full of visions of white lace, charred flesh, and empty whispers.

In one instant, she would have taken an oath that she heard. wedding bells.

Then-

Rustle.

Her eyes sprang open.

The chair.

She gasped, sitting bolt upright in bed.

The dress had returned.

Sitting peacefully on the chair as if it had never been away.

Her stomach fell.

She had discarded it.

A crawling, strangling fear gripped her chest.

The dress had wanted to be here.

And now... it was.