The Siren and the Specter

by Jonathan Janz

  “You could’ve borrowed a life jacket,” she said. “It’s a long way across the river.” She wore jean shorts and a black bikini top, a combination David found pretty damned distracting. She had her hair tied in a bun with what looked like a pair of blue darning needles that formed an X.

  Jessica must’ve noticed him looking, because she said, “They’re called Oriental hairpins.”

  “They look sharp.”

  “Should we get the life jacket?”

  “I can swim,” he said.

  “I’ve seen you swim,” she answered, rowing on the starboard side.

  “Not all of us are part dolphin.”

  The moonlight gleamed on her smiling teeth.

  They rowed for a while, the crosscurrent rendering their progress gradual. David worked up a fine layer of sweat, but Jessica continued to manipulate the oar with apparent ease. Many times he allowed the nose of his kayak to drift too far toward the broad expanse of the Rappahannock. Once he overcorrected too severely, and before he could check his progress, he was rotating counterclockwise, the kayak spun around by the flow of the river.

  To her credit, Jessica kept her wisecracks to herself. When they reached the bend, Jessica led the way, veering left, straight into the heart of the current. She’d chosen to navigate the center of the river, David knew, because the shoreline was littered with deadfalls and lurking stumps. Who knew what manner of hazards lay beneath the river’s surface? In addition to trees, rocks, and manmade objects, there could be snapping turtles, snakes, oversized catfish with gaping, misshapen mouths. David shivered.

  He realized he’d been purposely avoiding a glance at the Alexander House, but now he looked that way and noticed how the shadows encased it. It was half past midnight, he estimated.

  He expected Jessica to head toward the weathered dock, but she surprised him by bypassing the Alexander property altogether and rowing farther upstream.

  “Where are we going?” he asked in a carrying whisper.

  “Honey’s,” she said.

  He gestured toward the dock. “If we anchor here, we can—”

  “There’s someone at the Alexander House.”

  He stopped rowing, the current hauling him instantly backward. He rowed vigorously to catch up. “What are you—”

  “The forest,” she explained. “Look to the left of the lane.”

  He did and at first saw nothing. Then, leaning forward and squinting, he spotted the glint of a car roof nestled in the woods.

  “Charlie Templeton,” she explained. “Waiting for his daughter’s killer.”

  David switched his oar from starboard to port, splashing his bare chest in the process. “Poor guy.”

  Jessica’s triceps stood out momentarily as she corrected her course. “That ‘poor guy’ is gonna kill an innocent person if he’s not careful. He almost did last night.”

  They labored against the current.

  David looked at the moonlight scintillating on the water. “Won’t they see us out here? We’re not exactly camouflaged.”

  “Charlie’s watching the house, not the river.”

  David considered this quite an assumption but didn’t say so.

  “What are we expecting to see at the Shelbys’?” he asked.

  “Something depraved, I’m sure.”

  They’d reached the midway point of the Shelby house. “I can tell you what’s happening there,” David said. “Honey’s watching a porno…four guys violating a horse or something. She and her husband are shitfaced, and the kids are off on their own. Ivy’s probably asleep, and Mike Jr.’s playing some game unfit for a teenager, much less a child.”

  “Look,” she said.

  He did and was surprised to see Michael and Honey on different floors. Michael stood framed in the downstairs picture window, a drink in hand, gazing out at the water. If he hadn’t spotted them already, he would soon.

  Upstairs, Honey paced back and forth in what had to be the master suite. All the lights were on, Honey bedecked in a white negligee, her full breasts mostly unshielded by the drooping material.

  Something in the front yard drew his attention.

  “Ivy,” Jessica said.

  David noticed with misgiving that Ivy wore a formal white dress, like the flower girl in a wedding. Her hair was curled in tight ringlets, her ears and throat glimmering with earrings and a string of pearls.

  There was no sign of Mike Jr.

  “What’s she doing?” Jessica asked, though it wasn’t really a question. They could see well enough what was happening.

  Like her parents, Ivy was waiting.

  David and Jessica oared against the stream, the sweat flowing freely now. The current wasn’t brisk, but it was constant, and in order not to get swept backward, they had to toil to maintain a view of the Shelby property.

  Two minutes passed, and there was no change in the Shelbys’ behavior. Somewhere upstream, a dog began to emit a high-pitched bark. A primitive fear tickled at the nape of David’s neck. His back muscles burned from the unceasing effort. His arms had begun to go numb. Upstream, the dog yipped louder.

  “I don’t think I can keep this up,” Jessica said.

  Thank God, he thought. He detested the prospect of admitting his fatigue to Jessica, particularly after she’d made that crack about his swimming.

  Out of breath, he nodded toward the Shelby property, where the yard was swallowed up by woods. “Let’s land there.”

  A hundred feet beyond the house, Jessica veered toward the grassy shore, and David followed. While her kayak seemed to cut smoothly through the moist bank sand, David’s thunked against land and threw him forward as though he’d rear-ended someone with his car. When he joined Jessica in dragging their kayaks ashore, he noticed she was stifling a grin.

  Wordlessly, he followed her through the weedy area between the shore and the forest. She’d worn rubberized water shoes, and it occurred to him she might have done this before, used the river to spy on someone.

  What if she’d done so to him?

  David faltered, Jessica pulling away a little. A nasty thought had bloomed in his mind, and despite its outlandishness, it refused to be displaced.

  What if Jessica had been toying with him all along?

  Though she seemed not to despise him for his role in her sister’s suicide, murder, whatever it had been, what if it was all a plot to strike back at him?

  Do you realize how insane you sound?

  But it was all insane. The notion of a Native American woman haunting an island or David’s long-dead girlfriend turned floating spirit or some despicable colonist transformed into a revenant capable of lifting an old man off his hospital bed and dashing his brains out against the wall. Crazy, every last bit of it.

  So is it really so crazy to believe Jessica is playing you? After all, who painted those portraits?

  He watched her stealing through the weeds, twenty feet ahead of him now.

  You believed the Siren looked like Anna, but doesn’t Anna look like her sister?

  Yes and no, he decided. Different fathers and all that.

  But what if….

  “David,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Get moving.”

  What are you going to show me? he wondered. What new and horrible trick awaits us? Do you know what’s coming, Jessica? Are you part of all this?

  He got moving, but his feet felt leaden, his sweat a patina of chilled slime. He noted without surprise the white Escalade in the driveway. So the mayor was here too. The prospect of encountering the cretin turned David’s stomach.

  Ahead, Jessica was a subtly bobbing shape, a gleam of shoulder flesh, a hint of black bikini top.

  Could this woman really be perpetrating some kind of vengeful hoax?

  Don’t you see? a voice suddenly bellowed. Your skepticism is your curse! Even w
hen the evidence points toward the supernatural, you still cling to cynicism, and this time the results will be disastrous. At best you’re going to lose your chance with a fantastic woman. At worst….

  Jessica halted on the edge of the forest, cast a glance back at him. David hurried along, disgusted with himself but unable to fully shake the suspicion. It came down to this: you either believed in people or you didn’t.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as he drew even with her.

  He hunkered beside her, took a moment to memorize her features. From this perspective, with the moonlight resplendent on her face, he couldn’t imagine her deceiving him.

  David stared at her. Jessica stared back at him.

  He leaned toward her, tilted his head.

  “Not now,” she said, turning toward the Shelby house.

  “Ouch,” he whispered, but they were both smiling.

  David strained to see into the night. Beyond the Shelby house, just visible where the yard ended and the path to the Alexander House began, he spotted Ivy in her formal white dress. What she was doing there he had no idea, but he was certain that, were he to sneak around to the waterside of the Shelby house, he’d find Michael and Honey still engaged in their vigil. The question was, what the hell were they waiting for?

  David decided he no longer wanted to know. The temperature had dipped several degrees. A chill wind kicked up and bit at his bare torso; there were goosebumps on Jessica’s arms. Nearby, a grackle let loose with a metallic shriek and winged away into the darkness.

  “David,” she said.

  A figure was striding up the path toward Ivy. Tall, burly, appareled in the same colonial garb David had glimpsed in the hospital, the figure moved with a grace that belied its ursine frame. At some point, Jessica had taken David’s hand, and he was glad of it, for the figure kept blurring, one moment substantial, the next like a poorly developed photograph. Had Ivy not remained unchanging in the foreground, David would have chalked it up to a trick of the moonlight. But the girl, grown very still, remained constant, as did the Shelby house and the path and the forest. Only the figure wavered, clarified, as it moved inexorably closer.

  As David watched, appalled, Ivy reached up, took the figure by the hand, and led it toward her house.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “We’ve got to go in,” David said.

  He expected – maybe even hoped – for Jessica to disagree, but she only nodded. At least he wasn’t the only one terrified of what they’d just glimpsed. At least he wasn’t the only one convinced they’d just seen a ghost.

  “Mike Jr. has to be there,” she said, giving voice to one of his primary concerns. When David had last seen the boy, Mike Jr. had seemed beaten-down, his fieriness become a bewildered resignation.

  They had to get him out of the house.

  As for Ivy….

  “Maybe we should get Harkless,” Jessica said.

  “We should have,” he agreed. “But we can’t now. Whatever it is…I think it’s going to happen now.”

  He rose, a shiver coursing from his shoulders all the way to his thighs.

  Jessica joined him and twined her fingers with his. He was glad of it. Though her hand was cool to the touch, it was the bracing sensation he needed.

  They reached the front porch and found the wooden door ajar, as if in invitation. David exchanged a glance with Jessica and found himself wishing he’d kissed her.

  No matter. The moment was gone.

  He started through the door, and she put a hand on his arm, whispered, “I’ll find Mike Jr.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get Ivy.”

  “What then? Even if we get them out, where do we meet up?”

  “The kayaks,” he said. “There’s room enough for them.”

  “What if Ivy doesn’t want to go?” she asked.

  “I take her by force.”

  “That’s kidnapping.”

  “Once you get Mike Jr., don’t wait for me. Just get out of there.”

  “That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Harkless,” he said and slipped through the door.

  * * *

  He led the way up the stairs. As they ascended, two sounds masked their footfalls. One was the unmistakable clamor generated by Mike Jr.’s Xbox. Whatever game the boy was playing, it involved a great deal of shooting. The machine gun fire was punctuated only by cries of pain and frequent shouted profanities.

  The other sound chilled David’s blood.

  Moans of carnal pleasure. Echoing through the door to Honey’s room.

  He reached the landing and crept forward so Jessica could pass. She padded down the hallway toward Mike Jr.’s room. Once Jessica reached the boy, he’d either go willingly with her, or he’d sound the alarm. David’s time was short.

  He glanced behind him expecting to find Michael Shelby or the mayor at the base of the staircase, but for now the space remained empty. David stepped forward, the master suite evidently situated in the center of the home. Strange, he thought, though not as strange as the noises echoing through the door. Moaning. Grunting.

  His stomach churning, David grasped the knob, twisted it, and opened the master suite door.

  The lights had been doused, so only the ghostly moon illumined the master suite. He inched forward until he beheld the scene, Honey spread-eagled on the bed, her hands grasping the brass rails behind her, her mouth half opened in ecstasy.

  To David’s left, the mayor – for God’s sake, Honey’s father – stood naked and tan and wrinkled, masturbating furiously, eyes fixed on his daughter, who was being defiled by a giant, one whose massive frame blurred and clarified, one moment as insubstantial as smoke, the next as clearly delineated as Honey.

  “He’s here!” a reedy voice shrieked. “The intruder!”

  David spun, and with an unbelieving gasp realized it was Ivy, her accusatory stare and tiny forefinger betraying him; he raised his hands in a stupid placating gesture and saw her little face spread in a look of ancient cunning, her eyes battened onto something over his shoulder. David turned in time to see the giant shoving off the bed, away from Honey’s glistening sex. Before Judson blurred, David saw the mad gleam in his eyes, the bushy black eyebrows. The sadist’s leer.

  He retreated, but far too late. Judson’s great arms thrust out at him, and David was driven backward, his feet not touching the floor. He sprawled in the doorway and his head cracked painfully on the hardwood floor. Between him and the ghost he saw Ivy’s matching leer; the girl grinned at David with vicious glee.

  He was scrabbling onto the landing when he bumped against someone’s shins. He looked up expecting to find Jessica, but instead stared into the muzzle of a black handgun.

  “Man, this is gonna feel good,” Michael Shelby said.

  * * *

  David prepared for the impact. Shelby had trained the gun on his face, and there wasn’t the slightest hope of escaping. I don’t want to die, he thought, and even as the thought flitted through his head like the pitiful joke it was, something crashed against Shelby, throwing the man sideways. David scrambled to his feet and found Mike Jr. a few feet away, but the boy’s eyes were fixed on the struggling pair on the floor: Michael Shelby, whose gun had tumbled down the hall, and Jessica, who’d tackled Shelby and saved David’s life.

  Shelby slapped at Jessica’s face, the sound a dull crack. Jessica was shoved sideways, stunned by the blow. Shelby was pushing Jessica away, clearly intent on retrieving his gun, but then David surged forward, descended on Shelby, and hammered the man in the nose. Shelby yelped, blood splurting out of his nostrils. David raised his fist to smash Shelby again, but cool air whispered over his bare back, and he knew Judson was coming. Unthinkingly, he shoved away from Shelby, got Jessica around the waist, and staggered toward the staircase.

  “Mike Jr.
,” David snapped. “Come on!”

  But Mike Jr. only stared mutely toward the master suite, where Ivy was glowering at David with measureless loathing.

  David took a step toward the girl, but before he entered the master suite the monstrous figure blurred toward him. The great arms snatched at David, and involuntarily he jerked away.

  He turned and was heartened to note that Jessica had hefted Mike Jr. onto her shoulder and was hauling him toward the stairs. David followed, seeing from his left Michael Shelby crawling toward the gun. Jessica clattered down the steps with David on her heels. They swept across the foyer and Jessica had just burst through the door when a gunshot erupted behind them. David reached the doorway, leaped through to the accompaniment of another gunshot. He tensed for the impact but there was only the night air, the sight of Jessica carrying Mike Jr. on her shoulder and dashing toward the Alexander House. Beyond Jessica and Mike Jr. another figure was hurrying along the path toward them.

  Charlie Templeton. The man was clutching a shotgun.

  “Who the hell are— Jessica?” Templeton said.

  “Help us,” Jessica called.

  Templeton spotted David, raised the shotgun, and for a terrible moment David glimpsed the scene from Templeton’s perspective: a woman and child being pursued by a shirtless madman. Templeton would shoot him, believing he was saving Jessica and Mike Jr., but from behind them another shot sounded, and David didn’t have to look to know that Michael Shelby hadn’t given up.

  “Holy shit,” Templeton muttered. He stepped sideways, aimed his shotgun toward the Shelby house, and unleashed with both barrels.

  The noise was shocking, even out here in the open. David listened but heard no cry of pain. He wondered if Templeton had only fired to warn Shelby off the hunt. Or maybe Templeton was a poor shot.

  “Come on,” Templeton was saying to Jessica. “My car’s over here.”

  David had no idea if Shelby were still giving chase, and even if he wasn’t, there was the very real prospect of Shelby or his father-in-law heading them off at the end of the lane.

  “Give him to me,” David said when he pulled even with Jessica. She allowed David to lift Mike Jr. off her shoulder, and though she didn’t speak, her grateful look at David spoke volumes. He knew he should thank her for saving his ass, but that could come later.