Unlike the first ghost, this one noticed him. As the Jeep bore down upon her, Jack moved into the oncoming lane to avoid her, though the vehicle would have passed right through. She dropped her arms and turned to stare right at him.
As he passed, their eyes met.
She mouthed the words "Go home, Jack."
"Holy shit," he muttered under his breath, heart rate speeding up, adrenaline pumping through him. His eyes were wide and he glanced in the rearview mirror, but she was already gone.
Molly stirred but did not wake. An old seventies love song came on the radio. Soothing, yes, but his heartbeat did not slow. He blew out a few breaths, trying to tell himself it was nothing, not to be so freaked out.
The road ahead was dark and slick with rain, the sun only a glimmer between black clouds. There were no other cars on the road. Now that he had gotten off Route 89, he was alone, with only Molly's sleeping form and the spirits of the dead for company. He wanted to scream.
Jack would never get used to it. They were dead, and it always felt to him as though they wanted something from him that he could not provide.
Life.
Go home, Jack.
Though the road was slipperier than ever beneath his tires, he risked a quick glance at Molly. She was cute as hell, her lips parted just a bit, a tiny bit of drool at the edge of her mouth that he would tease her for later. He mentally willed her to wake up, but resisted the urge to reach out and shake her. After all, what would he say? She knew about the ghosts, but just as she did not like to discuss her mother, he was reluctant to talk to her about the Ghostlands, because that might lead to questions about Artie.
A few miles farther on, he rounded a corner and the road began to climb up. All around there were hills and small mountains. A green sign at the side of the road announced that Barlow was three miles away, and Buckton eight. Jack never saw a trace of Barlow, and imagined it must be off the main road.
A short time later the Jeep rolled to a stop at an intersection where more than a dozen ghosts stood along the side of the road, like spectators at a parade. As one, they turned to stare at the Jeep, and at Jack behind the wheel. With the rain sluicing through them, they then lowered their heads and would no longer meet his eyes.
He froze. The engine idled as he sat there staring at the ghosts, hoping they would look up at him. If they did, and they told him to go as the other specter had, Jack knew he would turn the Jeep around and keep driving until he saw the lights of Boston.
But they did not glance up again. Would not.
"What the hell is this?" he whispered, his voice too loud in the Jeep with Molly sleeping beside him, even though the soft music on the radio drowned out his words.
There came an answer.
"Call it the welcome wagon, bro."
With a start, Jack glanced in the rearview mirror. In the backseat, the rear of the Jeep visible through him, sat Artie Carroll. Artie was a ghost now and a part of the spirit world that Jack could never understand. But Artie was still Artie.
"What do you think of it up here, Jack?" he asked. "Weird country, I think. I mean, on the one hand you've got plenty of liberals, all that PC Ben & Jerry's stuff and the push for gay marriages. On the other hand, you've got enough hunting to make Charlton Heston wet himself. An NRA festival. Damn peculiar, wouldn'tja say?"
Jack felt a chill run through him, and he did his best not to let Artie see how it all affected him.
"Good . . . good to see you, Artie," he said, voice barely above a whisper. Molly would hear him if she woke up. If he was lucky, she'd think he was talking to himself.
"You're freaked out, Jack. Don't lie to me. I don't come around for a few weeks, maybe you stop believing I'm still here," Artie said, sadness creeping into his voice.
Jack could clearly see the upholstery through Artie's body. Every inch of him was transparent, and sometimes his legs seemed to be disappearing. He drifted more than moved.
Every inch . . . but not his eyes. Artie's eyes were black and gleaming with sparkles that might have been stars. Something swirled inside them, something solid. His eyes were not transparent, they were windows into somewhere else. Jack thought it was the Ghostlands, but if it was not, he did not want to know what else it could be.
Molly began to stir, so Jack accelerated again, even more slowly. They crossed the intersection and rolled past the ghosts, but not one of them looked up.
"What do you mean, 'welcome wagon'?" he asked quietly.
"They've heard about you. Word travels in the Ghostlands. All these folks are victims of the Prowlers. You got vengeance for me and some others in Boston.
They're hoping you'll do the same here," Artie explained.
Jack glanced quickly over his shoulder. The ghosts had moved out into the street now, standing in the rain as a few errant rays of sun broke through and speared the pavement around them. Most of them still hung their heads as though ashamed, though one or two had looked up.
"I don't get it, though," Jack whispered. "One of them tried to get me to turn around. Now this bunch won't even look at me."
Artie did not respond at first. Jack had to look in the rearview mirror to make sure he was still there. Then those black, bottomless-pit eyes met his, and he shuddered and returned his attention to the road.
"Artie?" Jack prodded.
"They're feeling a little guilty," Artie finally revealed.
Jack furrowed his brow. "Why?"
"They think you're gonna die."
CHAPTER 4
Artie.
The moment Molly awoke, the dream began to slip away. As her eyes flickered open, the only thing she could recall was that he had been there. For a moment it was as though she could still see him; the image of his sweet grin lingered. Then it was gone.
Molly frowned. It was very dark outside, but with the rain pouring down upon the windshield and drumming against the roof, she could not tell if it was truly night, or if the storm had brought evening prematurely.
The engine still idled, but the Jeep had stopped.
She moaned a little, stretched - the last thoughts of the Artie-dream skittering back into the recesses of her unconscious, like night creatures fleeing the sunrise
- and glanced over at Jack.
His hair was a mess, and his chin had a shadow he could never seem to be rid of for long. Yet, though rumpled, he looked strong and confident. It gave her hope, seeing him like that, before he had noticed she was awake. Jack had always been the one out in front, the leader, and Artie always the loyal, devil-may-care side-kick.
But Artie was dead now. And Molly doubted she would ever allow herself to be anybody's sidekick.
She stretched again, and this time Jack noticed. His eyes sparkled as he glanced at her, and a smile blossomed on his lips. Molly might have seen something in his gaze just then, when he looked at her like that, just waking up, that sent a pleasurable shiver through her. But she pushed the thought away. It was hard for her to think of Jack in that way, but even more so with the last echoes of her dream still haunting her, as though Artie hid somewhere out there in the dark, amidst the rain.
"Well, hey there, sleepyhead," Jack said in a whisper, barely audible over the radio and the rain.
"Mmm," Molly replied, stretching one final time before sitting up in her seat and glancing around. "Are we here?"
She squinted and tried to get a good look at the storefronts on the street around them.
"Well, if 'here' is Buckton, then, yeah," Jack replied. Then he shrugged. "But I've gotta tell you, there isn't much 'here' here."
"What was it you expected, Metropolis?" Molly asked. "It looks quaint."
Despite the rain she could clearly make out the glowing marquee and faÆade of an old-style movie house, the Empire Theatre. There were a few small stores, mostly dark now, and what looked like a tiny Chinese take-out restaurant, given that its name was written in both English and the spiderwebbed characters that must have been a rough translation.
"Quaint, yeah," Jack agreed, his smile fading, his voice growing far more serious. "But it doesn't seem like the kind of place a pack would go unnoticed."
A cold fist of ice formed in Molly's gut. "No. I suppose not. On the other hand, they didn't really go unnoticed in Boston, did they? Maybe this is exactly the kind of place they could blend in."
For a moment neither of them spoke.
At length Jack shifted in the driver's seat and shut off the engine, casting them into darkness and killing the radio.
"I guess we should get something to eat and see about finding a place to stay. You've gotta wonder if they even have a hotel here. It isn't like it's a hot vacation spot."
"We'll find something," she assured him.
Jack hopped out of the Jeep and ran around to the back to get an umbrella for her, then went to the door. With the doors locked, the two of them crowded under the now-inadequate shield from the rain and looked for somewhere to eat. They spotted a place called the Jukebox Restaurant.
"It looks harmless enough," Molly observed. "And it's dry in there."
"Sold," Jack replied.
Together they ran to the door and slipped inside. The Jukebox was much nicer than Molly expected. Not that it was anything special, but the tablecloths were clean and each table had a small candle on it. It was relatively crowded as well, which Molly thought boded well.
A minute or so after they had come in, a waitress walked over, wiping her hands on her apron. She smiled oddly at them, as if she thought they had inadvertently stumbled into the wrong place.
"Can I help you folks?"
"I hope so," Jack replied. "Two for dinner."
The waitress blinked. "Oh. Oh, sure. Smoking or non?"
"Non," Molly said quickly.
As the waitress grabbed a couple of menus and turned, Molly frowned. Nothing like being wanted, she thought. Maybe it was the girl's first night, or maybe it was that they just did not get too many travelers passing through, but she thought the waitress's hesitancy was extremely rude.
With a curious smile, the waitress laid the menus on a table against the back wall. As Molly sat down, she glanced around and saw that a lot of the other diners had turned to observe them. A shudder passed through her.
Enough to make a girl paranoid, she thought.
"Can I get you folks a drink while you're deciding on dinner?" the waitress asked.
Jack ordered a Coke and Molly asked for lemonade. The second the waitress was gone, Molly tried to tear her attention away from the surreptitious glances she was getting from others in the restaurant.
"Boy, I guess they really don't get a lot of tourists through here," she whispered to Jack. "I feel like I'm in a fishbowl."
"Could be they're just entranced by your ravishing beauty," he suggested.
Molly swore at him under her breath, and he laughed. A few minutes later the waitress returned with their drinks and they ordered. Jack had steak teriyaki.
Though Molly would have liked the pasta primavera, she ordered the chicken parmesan; she reasoned that was the one thing on the menu it would be really difficult to screw up.
"Okay, anything else at the moment?" the waitress asked, eyes on Jack.
"Actually," Molly put in, almost forcing the girl to turn to her, "we were hoping you might be able to tell us if there's anywhere in town for us to stay. A hotel or a bed-and-breakfast?"
"Hunh," the waitress replied, face twisted up in an expression that implied the question might be too difficult for her. She was clearly stumped. "Do you have relatives in town?"
"No," Jack said good-naturedly, "just passing through. Seeing the sights."
"Yeah," the girl replied cynically, "it's just too bad there aren't any sights to see. There isn't much to do in Buckton."
Molly and Jack just waited, watching her. After a moment the waitress shrugged.
"Well, the only place to stay in town is the Buckton Inn. It's just up the Post Road a ways, about a mile and a half on the left. You can't miss it, considering it's the only thing there," she said, her expression, like her tone, filled with disdain for her hometown.
"Thanks," Jack said.
"Not at all," the waitress replied. "Just do me a favor? If you're going anywhere that's even remotely like a city after this, give some thought to the idea of taking me with you."
Molly actually chuckled at that, feeling far less impatient with the girl than she had been. "We'll take it into consideration," she promised.
Deputy Alan Vance stood in the lobby of the Buckton Inn and tapped impatiently on the counter. The fingers of his right hand drummed out the theme from the ancient Lone Ranger television show.
Behind the counter, Tina was on the phone with Mick Bradley, who had been unwilling to come down from his third-floor room to complain about the small leak in his roof. It had been raining like hell all day long, and the old three-story inn was likely to have a leak or two in at least one of its twelve rooms. It was just a tragedy that it had to be Mick's. Like four of the other guests, he used the Inn as his primary residence. Ever since Marianne had thrown him out on his behind three years earlier, Mick had been living at the inn and making a general nuisance of himself.
Before Tina had bought the place - or, more accurately, had her father buy it for her in order to lure her back to Buckton after college - the Buckton Inn had been a moldy, run-down shambles of a place, with broken windows, stained carpets, and sagging ceilings. But the Lemoines had never been short of cash.
Tina had infused enough money into the inn to make it look wonderful. It would never be a five-star hotel, but there was a simple elegance to the decorating, plenty of brass and glass and timelessly impressive carpets, and Tina always kept fresh-cut flowers around.
During the spring and fall, when hunters and hikers would often take up the other rooms in the place, Tina offered a continental breakfast, and even had entertainment in the lobby on Friday nights. Just Joe Kenneally with his fat-bellied guitar, but Joe was a heck of a singer.
The inn was the nicest place in Buckton, even if most of the people in town had never been through the front door.
"Mick," Tina snapped into the phone. She turned to look at Alan and rolled her eyes. "No, Mick, listen! I've called over to Byron to come and repair the roof, but there's nothing he can do until it stops raining, and that's going to be tomorrow morning. Just keep dumping the bucket into the toilet . . . or out the window, if you want. It's only supposed to rain for another few hours. Then tomorrow morning, I'll take care of it."
Jaw set in a firm, angry line, Tina closed her eyes and sighed. The phone was clutched tightly in her fist.
"Then find another place to live!" she shouted into the phone before slamming it back down into its cradle.
"Wow," Alan said, unable to hide the amusement he felt. "You sound just like my mother. Is that a good idea, chasing your customers off ?"
"Where would he go?" Tina replied, shaking her head slowly.
Alan heard someone clear his throat and turned quickly to see a young couple standing in the lobby with a dripping umbrella. The guy was average height and muscular, with dark hair and intense eyes. His girlfriend, if that's what she was, had an alluring mess of rich, red hair and a way of standing - hip jutted out to one side - that told him she wasn't the type to put up with foolishness from anyone.
"Oh," Tina squeaked. "That's not exactly good public relations, is it?"
With a frown, Alan glanced at her. There was a lightness in her voice that was unusual for her. She even seemed to have flushed a bit. He understood that she was embarrassed that the guy and girl, neither of whom looked like they could possibly be over twenty - probably college kids, he reasoned - had overheard her tirade against Mick. But Alan did not think she should be concerned.
"Don't worry. Tina only snaps at the regulars. She's real nice to out-of-towners," Alan said.
"So," Tina asked, "you two want a room?"
The two young people glanced shyly and a bit awkwardly at eac
h other. Alan thought it was fairly precious. He had been to college out in the real world, but even in a little town like Buckton you didn't often find kids who were nineteen or twenty years old who still had it in them to display that sort of hesitation. They weren't that much younger than Alan himself, but he knew that most kids their age were all bluster and swagger. That was how they dealt with each other.
He liked these two.
"So you two are hikers, I take it?" Alan ventured.
The guy glanced at him, and suddenly everything changed. His eyes, so innocent a moment before, became veiled and suspicious.
"Well, amateur hikers, I guess. Just exploring New England, Officer."
"Deputy," Alan corrected. "Deputy Sheriff Alan Vance, at your service."
He held out a hand. After a slight hesitation, the kid shook. The girl did the same, and now she, too, seemed to have retreated within herself. Alan had liked them on sight, that much was true. But all of a sudden he wasn't sure if he could trust them.
"I'm Molly Hatcher," the girl said. "This is my friend, Jack Dwyer. We've heard you have some beautiful terrain. Excuse us if we seem surprised, but we're from Boston. We're not used to the police being so hospitable."
She smiled so charmingly that Alan laughed. "All right, Miss Hatcher. No pushy law enforcement around here. Just being friendly, is all."
"He does look rather imposing in the uniform, though, doesn't he?" Tina said, teasing him.
Molly and Jack smiled, and Alan shot Tina a withering glance. Though he supposed it was better for her to hassle him in front of tourists than in front of locals.
"Actually, I'm glad you're here, Deputy Vance," Jack put in casually. "I was wondering if there were any special precautions we ought to take, hiking around here?"
Alan frowned. There was something in the kid's tone again. It was weird how he kept shifting from friendly to guarded.
"You mean to avoid getting lost?" Tina asked. "Because people always find their way back to the inn. It's my animal magnetism."
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