by David Clark
“Jesus,” exclaimed Todd. “Malcom on the ground now! And you get up!” The muzzle of his gun jerked up twice to add to the verbal direction. Malcom did as he was told, but Robert sat there and took another drag from his cigarette and then a drink from the shot glass he had kept in his hand, keeping it from joining the others on the floor. After his drink, he leaned his arm on the chair next to him, and seemed relaxed and casual. Like a man out enjoying a few drinks with friends in a quiet bar.
“Now Jordan, didn’t we talk about this?”, he drew on the cigarette, pulling the ember to a bright red glow.
“Jordan, do you know him?” Todd asked, gruff and confused.
“Kind of,” Jordan answered.
“Oh come on. Just kind of?”, questioned Robert. “We are pals.”
‘I don’t care who you are. Get on the ground now!”, Todd ordered.
“Get up. Get down. Can you ever make up your mind?” Robert asked, as nonchalant as two old friends having a chat, but the way he threw Todd up to the ceiling and back down to the ground with the simple flick of his wrist was not something one old friend would do to another. Todd’s body laid lifeless on the concrete floor.
“Jordan?”, Rachel started, but Jordan interrupted her and ordered, “Everyone get out! All of you.” It was obvious he didn’t need to ask twice. Everyone sprung up off the floor and ran for the door. Even the old bartender was fleet of foot as he sped out. “Let ‘em go,” he screamed back to Rachel, and then moved around the room to put himself in between Malcom and the door. “Not you.” Malcom was attempting to slink past them and out the door.
A deep chill ran down Jordan’s arm and into the hand holding the gun. It was pointed right at Malcom’s head, and he felt his finger touch the trigger. A little more pressure and it would bark. The tension increased and Jordan fought back. He wasn’t controlling his finger, or his arm for that matter. Any attempt he made to aim anywhere other than Malcom’s head was fought, sending the gun right back to its target. Every muscle in his body was frozen, hard, and tense.
Robert appeared behind Jordan and whispered into his ear, “Go on. Pull the trigger. Save everyone the trouble.” Robert’s hand was wrapped around Jordan’s squeezing the trigger ever so slightly. “Whatcha waiting on?”
“Jordan, don’t!”, Rachel shrieked from the door. “Let him go and put your hands up. Now!”
‘Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.” Each sound was harsh and grated on Jordan's stressed nerves. Fear was setting in, and the tension on his finger grew tighter. “Go on. Malcom. Get out of here.” Robert let Jordan go, and he almost collapsed after the sudden release of every muscle at the same time. His hand and gun dropped to his side as Malcom walked, not ran, for the door. “If your friend gets in the way, she will be dealt with.”
“Rachel let him go.”
“What the hell Jordan?”, she asked, stunned at the command.
“He will kill you if you do anything. Just let it go.”
“Good boy, you’re learning. Malcom and I still have unfinished business to attend to.” Robert tipped his hat and walked out closely behind Malcom, as if he were his bodyguard.
They passed Rachel who stepped inside the door and took the opportunity to check on Todd who was closest to her. From where Jordan was, he could tell he was breathing, but he was out. Neal was, too. His body moved a little with each breath. He heard Rachel make the radio call for medical assistance, “agents down,” but instead of going to further check on Neal or even Todd, Jordan walked to the door to watch Robert and Malcom leave.
There was a rumble of thunder above the building, followed by a blinding flash from the accompanying lightning. He didn’t remember seeing any clouds on the way in, but a purplish dark hue shone in through the door, and a chill rode in on an evil wind. Jordan stepped outside into hell on earth. Dark purple clouds bubbled overhead. Thunder rumbled from every direction, and bolts of lightning crisscrossed the sky in a blinding flash that converged on a single point. That point was Robert, who was frozen, suspended off the ground.
“Jordan, take Malcom,” called Megan from the center of the street outside the bar. Her hair whipped around her in the wind, and the crystal around her neck glowed with a light more brilliant than a thousand suns. The lightning and Robert were now controlled by her outstretched hands. She was reciting something that Jordan didn’t understand. It wasn’t English. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t even of this world. She stopped it again to remind Jordan, “Malcom. Get him.”
That task was easy. Malcom was on the ground, frozen by the fear of what was going on around him, and offered no resistance to Jordan as he cuffed him. As soon as the second cuff clicked close, the sky above them began to calm down and clear. The thunder disappeared and spots of sunlight appeared on the ground. Megan stood no more than ten feet from Robert. Who, for the first time appeared disheveled and confused.
“That is one for me,” Jordan said, loud and clear.
“I guess it is. Our scoreboard is tied.” Robert wasn’t looking toward Jordan when he spoke. He was looking at Megan.
The image of him faded away, exposing Rachel standing in the door behind him, befuddled. “What the fuck was that?”
35
“Are you sure this will work?”, Jordan asked. He looked around at the dense woods, never thinking he would be here again.
“Done it before. Give me some silence,” Megan said. Jordan zipped his lips shut and acted like he threw away the key, drawing a humorous smile from Megan. A murmur still existed behind them. It wasn’t the afternoon breeze blowing through the trees causing the leaves and branches to chatter. “Guys. I said I needed silence.” This time she directed her request at the army of forensic technicians and detectives behind her who were waiting on her to tell them where the others were.
Megan closed her eyes, and the silence took hold of everything. Everyone. Every tree. Every leaf. Even the wind stopped, creating an eerie dead calm. Though Jordan wasn’t sure it had anything at all to do with Megan. After what he had witnessed hours earlier, he wasn’t dismissing any possibilities though. His mind was full of questions after what he had seen, and the explanation that Megan gave didn’t answer that many of them. It really didn’t answer a one. She just said as a medium, she has the ability to hold a spirit. A way of keeping it from doing harm or interfering during a communication session. What Jordan saw was a lot more than that, and when challenged about it, Megan had no explanation. She saw nothing like what Jordan described. All she saw was Robert, and she held him to let Jordan do what was needed. Jordan wasn’t convinced he believed her.
Even now, he sensed there was something more to her. She stood there in front of him, but there was something else about her. Something otherworldly that he couldn’t explain. It wasn’t like how he felt when a spirit was around. This was different, something he had never experienced before. Every once in a while, he thought he saw her split from her physical form for a split second before snapping back. Ordinarily he would think his eyes were playing tricks on him. Stress and exhaustion and all. He had been up most of the last three days with little sleep. But times were no longer ordinary.
The feeling subsided, and then slowly a more familiar feeling crept into Jordan. The cold draft of something paranormal tickled him. It wasn’t from one direction though. It was all over, and he turned to look in the same direction Megan was facing. There slowly, one by one, nothingness turned to mist, and then it took on the shape of young girls. All in their twenties, and pretty. Like how each of them remembered themselves, not like the state of their physical vessels that would be found below them would be.
“How many did you figure there are Detective Anderson?”, Jordan called back to the group of men standing behind them. A burly man with a mess of red hair on his head and matching beard, pulled out a note pad and flipped it open. He counted to himself, but mouthed the numbers. “Five more,” he called back after completing the count.
“That matches,” Jordan said under his breath. He fe
lt a hand reach out and grab his own. “Come on. We have them all.” Jordan and Megan led the army of men through the dense underbrush to each body. Some were buried in shallow graves. The clover and ferns that covered the ground had claimed others. In less than twenty minutes, orange flags marked each and had teams of technicians working to recover them.
They stood and watched each team work. Jordan tried to get Megan to leave, but she wouldn’t. With a tear rolling down her cheek, she informed Jordan she needed to make sure they were cared for properly. He could tell this had become personal to her. He wasn’t sure if it was the connection she had developed with Sharon, Beth, and Marie, or something about the way she reached out to all of them that established an emotional connection. He just knew it was deep. It was something he felt too. There was a lump in his stomach when he thought about saying goodbye to the three girls that had helped them so much on the case. Part of it was because he thought of them as friends that he needed to say goodbye to, often having to remind himself they were ghosts. That was the other part. As much as he thought he knew about the paranormal, he didn’t really know what existence was like for those in that realm. What would the girls’ life be like now? Would they still interact like they are now, in ways that made them seem more alive to people he knew in the world of the living? Would they separate once they had completed this purpose? He didn’t have the answers. He thought of asking them, but would they even know?
The unknown was what worried him, and there was a lot of that. Not just for the girls. Things had changed between him and Megan. Not just on a personal level. There was something else there he never knew or never let himself notice before. And then there was Robert. There was no doubt he would be a permanent fixture in Jordan’s job and life. Life was more complicated now than it was three days ago, and that was both a good and bad thing.
The Adventure Continues...
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While you are waiting....
Enjoy this sample chapter from book one of the international bestselling Miller’s Crossing series, “The Ghosts of Miller’s Crossing”.
1
“This room needs some color,” Edward Meyer said. The old leak stains on the white drop ceiling and scuffs on the floor were the only signs of character. The simple plastic white chair Edward sat on resembled one you might find on an outdoor patio. This was in contrast to the stainless-steel table bolted to the floor and the large two-way mirror on the wall in front of him.
He mumbled with a chuckle, “Looks slightly institutional to me,” then remembered he needed to be careful. You never knew when someone might be watching.
Today was his eighteenth birthday and he sat alone in a green cotton shirt, drawstring pants, and slippers. This was no birthday celebration. He was there for an important discussion with his doctor. In truth, it was more of an evaluation; one he had high hopes for.
He thought about the first time he waited, alone, in this room. The table and chair were the same, but his attire and reason for being there was different. He wore jeans and an Iron Maiden t-shirt and sat there confused as to why he was there. He was only fourteen, and things had been rough with his foster parents. OK, “rough” might not be the best word. “Horrendous,” yeah, that’s the correct term. He wasn’t beaten or neglected. Food, care, clothes, etc... nothing was withheld. In fact, to those looking in from the outside, he’d had a great childhood with supportive foster parents that gave him all they could to make sure he had a wonderful loving home.
When he turned nine, they encouraged him to sign up for little league, which he jumped at. He loved baseball. They traveled around to every practice and game, ensuring he always saw two parents supporting him. The same for every school event. To some extent, he felt they were trying to overcompensate for him having lost both parents in a horrible tragedy at age seven.
The door clicked and Edward saw the tall, slender forty-something frame of Doctor Law enter. His nose buried in papers as always.
“Good morning, Edward.” Doctor Law said. His name was always the source of a few jokes among Edward and the other patients. With a name like that, he should be a lawyer. But Edward’s favorite was, he was the “Law” around this place. He liked that one, because it was true, and it was his joke.
Doctor Law pulled a chair away from the table, and then stopped with a bewildered look on his face. He frantically studied the folder in his hands. Without looking up he said, “I will be right back. I have the wrong folder.” He walked back out the door, flipping through the pages with the look of confusion growing the whole time.
Edward always wondered if these types of mistakes were legitimate or some kind of experiment, with someone observing the subject’s reactions through the two-way portal in the wall. He played it cool, sat, and waited for the doctor to return.
The two-way mirror grabbed his attention during his first visit as well. They didn’t hide what it was, just who was behind it. He remembered sitting there, focusing as hard as he could to see through it; hoping his foster parents were on the other side and would be in soon to take him home. That was not the case. Instead, only Doctor Law entered the room.
They talked for hours about many topics. He asked about his relationship with his foster mom, and then about his foster father. To both questions, Edward gave glowing answers about how close he felt to them and how great his life was going.
The conversation moved to school and friends. He wanted to know if Edward was being bullied or harassed at school. He suggested that kids sometimes single out a child who has been in a foster home or has had a traumatic past. Well, the answer to that was most definitely not. Edward had lots of friends, both in and away from school. Other than the normal ribbing you give each other during a baseball game or in the schoolyard, he remembered nothing like bullying. He couldn’t think of any time he may have bullied anyone else, either.
Doctor Law asked him if any of his friends tried to get him to take or experiment with any kind of drugs. That answer was a very loud, “Absolutely not!” His foster parents asked him about drugs once before too. They even took him to the doctor for testing. Edward tried everything he could to convince them. Two days later, the results were in, and his foster parents were apologetic. They explained they heard rumors from other parents about drug use among his friends, and wanted to be sure. Doctor Law listened to his answer while consulting a file laid out on the table before him. He didn’t challenge Edward’s answer, or ask him any more questions about it.
Next, he asked about his real parents. Edward thought for a minute about how to answer, since he was still unsure why he was there. He could have said he never thought about them or what happened to them anymore, but that would have been a lie. He thought about it daily. Sometimes hourly. He told Doctor Law how he felt, and how bad he missed them. Edward then felt the need to explain. He loved his foster parents, but he missed his real parents. Doctor Law interrupted his explanation to tell him that was normal, and they understood that. Hearing that made Edward feel less guilty, though it was not really bothering him much.
Doctor Law asked delicately about the moment he found them. Edward shifted in his seat and explained, “Something woke me up. I laid there for a few moments and heard several loud crashes coming from the kitchen. I called for my mom and she never answered. I heard another crash, and she screamed. I walked downstairs and pushed open the door. That’s when... I saw both lying on the floor.” Edward sighed heavily. “Shortly after that a police officer came in and rushed me out of the house.”
This was a memory Edward wished he could lose. For months, he woke up screaming as the image of his dead parents invaded his sleep. His foster mother would storm in and hold him for hours, trying with all her might to protect him from the memory, but nothing drove it away.
Moments after Edward walked in, Officer Tillingsly grabbed and rushed him out to his patrol car. He left him there for the longest minute or two of his life. When he returned, he took Edward to the police station. The officer was a friend of Edward’s father, and was always around. He could tell Officer Tillingsly was in as much shock as Edward. He sat Edward in the chair behind his desk and gave him a soda to drink. Sitting in a chair beside him, they talked about anything and everything, including a fishing trip he’d taken with Edward and his father over the summer.
They’d been out there for hours with no bites, if you didn’t count the bugs. Officer Tillingsly thought he had a bite on his line once. He reeled it in close to the boat, but when he looked, he leaned over the side a little too far. Flapping his arms like a back-pedaling turkey, he hung there for a few seconds until gravity won and he entered the water with a splash. Edward remember hearing his father laughing while saying, ’Well, Lewis, if we weren’t going to catch anything before, we won’t now. You scared them all off.”
When they got home, Edward’s mother asked if they caught anything. Edward told her, “We caught Officer Tillingsly.” She looked at them like they had lost their minds. All three busted out in hysterical laughter. There was no laughter between them this time. His attempt to distract Edward—both of them really—failed.
The station itself was a hive of activity. Everyone moved around from one room to another in a blur. All talking, and all giving Edward the same heartbroken look as they walked past. Some even had tears in their eyes. Everyone, and I mean everyone, knew his family in this typical small town with only one elementary, junior, and senior high school. On top of that, his father was a local legend. He was a high school All-American Quarterback. Sportswriters and scouts came from all over to meet him during his senior year. He had the pick of prime offers from the best schools, and I do mean the best schools. Alabama, Penn State, and Notre Dame were at the top of a long list. Even with all those great offers, he bypassed college to stay and work the family farm.