by Vic Kerry
“We’re here because he gave it to her. You said it yourself,” Marshall protested.
“I still don’t like it. She’s gone and will be back any minute. Let’s get this done,” Sim said. “You boys first.”
Marshall slid off the car hood and walked to the door. Opening it, he held it for Johnny to enter. Sim followed, and the heavy door closed behind them. He pulled the slide back on the pistol to put a bullet in the chamber. His buddies were too dumb to have noticed that he didn’t have one in there when he threatened them.
“Step in the doors and start shooting,” Sim said.
Marshall and Johnny walked through the swinging wooden doors side by side. Both shotguns thundered out as they did. Several girls screamed, and a couple of the boys hollered out. Sim stepped in and saw Connie frozen in place. A bullet from his pistol went straight between her lying, cheating, no-good eyes and blew her slut brain out the back of her head. Brain matter splattered the wall. One of the shotgun blasts hit her gut before she fell. He whirled around and nailed Sheila Deleon in the chest. Another of his bullets lodged in Sue Browning’s knee, but Marshall had already blown off her face. Johnny’s shotgun ran out of ammo. He took his hunting knife and started cutting on Jerry Madison.
Sim turned around, looking for the brown skin among the white. Tobias wasn’t to be seen. His friends had been right. The nigger hadn’t shown up yet. Although the music from the hi-fi played loudly, the swinging doors squeaked. When he turned, he got a glimpse of Tobias slipping behind them. He gave chase, but the boy got away. Sim walked back into the gym. Johnny carved on Debbie Eva. He had always liked her sister, but never made a move.
Finally, all the high school students lay dead, bleeding everywhere. His horrible whore of a girlfriend was dead as well. He wanted to spit on her but didn’t.
“Tobias got away,” Sim said.
“What?” Marshall said. “We’re screwed.”
Sim shook his head so coolly he felt cold. “We’re in a better position than we ever were. Everything that happened, he did it.”
Johnny walked to Sim, tracking through Ben Miller’s blood. “They’ll know more than one person did this. There’s more than one kind of bullet wound.”
“You can’t run out of ammo and need to change guns?” Sim said. “Don’t worry. We’re going to make sure that the folks of this town are hot and bothered to the point that they’d blame that nigger for killing Christ himself. We need to get down to the greasy spoon.”
“Why?” Marshall asked.
“Alibi,” Sim said. “Johnny, get your gun and take off those shoes. We don’t need you tracking blood outside. Keep them with you. We’ll toss them in the river after we get seen by some folks. I’ll tell you how we’re going to handle that Tobias. He thinks I’m after him, so he’ll run scared for a little while.”
“Right over to the Harringtons,” Johnny said, taking off his shoes.
“No, he won’t go there for a while because he’ll think we’ll head there first.”
The three of them left with the Crew Cuts’ “Sh-Boom” replaying on the record player.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Josh walked up the driveway of the old gym. It was still lined with cars. More were parked on the street at the bottom of hill. No one stood outside when he got to the parking lot. A few car windows were fogged over. The bass of the music from inside thumped hard. He took a position by the doors and waited. His pockets were full of sage. He hadn’t needed it so far though. The drive over with his folks and Thomas had been uneventful.
“All right, Jessica, let’s get this over with,” he whispered into the night.
As far as anyone else was concerned, he could have yelled. The music from the dance was too loud for anyone to hear him. The people in the cars were too occupied to care. His family sitting in the car at the base of the hill offered little comfort. They were such a long way away, even if it was only a dozen yards or so. The tempo of the bass changed. A slow song played, which meant he’d be joined shortly by the smokers. He hoped that the ugly girl and pimple-faced kid didn’t come back out.
The door opened. Josh stepped to the side to let the people by. Harvey came out with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He smiled at Josh with glassy, bloodshot eyes. The smile looked higher than he was.
“Dude, you came back,” Harvey said. “Bangin’ party.”
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“Jessica?” Harvey asked.
“Maybe.”
“Dude, she’s inside.”
“Are you sure?” Josh asked.
“Of course. She did some heavy grinding up against my junk to “Pony.” I still got the boner if you want to feel it.”
“No, thanks.”
Jealousy niggled at him. Although Jessica was trying to kill him, he still didn’t like the idea of her doing that with Harvey. If she was in there, he needed to find her. The plan had been to wait outside until he could run down the hill and get her into range for his dad to take care of things. Plans had to change sometimes though.
Josh headed into the old gym. The place smelled like booze and pot. Smoke hung in the air. He wasn’t sure why people were going outside to smoke. The heat of the place hit him as he walked into the basketball court and understood. They were getting out for air. The place was stifling. A crappy song by Celine Dion played loudly. It hurt his teeth.
No sooner had he walked onto the hardwood floor than the speakers let out an ear-piercing squeal. It lasted longer than it should have. Everyone stopped dancing and covered their ears. Josh did the same, but kept scanning the dark room for Jessica by the flashing and pulsating lights from the DJ booth. As his teeth began to grind to counteract the sound, the speakers exploded. People screamed, but the noise stopped.
Next the fancy lights on the DJ booth flared brightly and exploded into a shower of sparks. The overhead lights did the same, and sparks showered down. Crepe paper hanging from the rafters caught fire. More people screamed and started to press toward the door. Josh became trapped in the tide of people pushing him back toward the door. From the front of the group, a girl screamed.
The crush of bodies changed directions. He was pushed farther into the room. The crepe paper fell from the ceiling in flaming streamers. The place was dark except for the emergency lights on the exit signs. The fire alarms hadn’t gone off. Someone would have disabled them since they planned on smoking in the place.
The crowd shifted again back toward the main exit, only to shift the other direction. It was if the crowd was a ping pong ball. He finally got a look in the direction of the main exit. The ghost of Sue Browning had hold of one of the boys. She strangled him with her ghostly hands. Josh stood on tiptoes to look the other way. Two ghosts cut through the crowd.
“Where are you, Jessica?” he yelled, straining his voice until it hurt.
“Over here.” The voice came from everywhere.
“This is between us,” he said in his regular voice, knowing she could hear it.
“No, it’s not. It’s between us and this town,” she said from above him.
Josh looked up. She stood on the rafters. Jessica clapped her hands together. Lightning ripped through the air and thunder followed. More people screamed. They all hit the floor covering their heads, except for Josh.
“Very brave!” She clapped her hands again.
The overhead lights flickered on despite being blown out. The group of students started to look around in the light. Six ghosts made their ways through the room, killing people at random. The ghost of Debbie Eva wrapped her arms around Lee Tidwell’s neck. His classmate’s face turned red, then violet. After a much shorter time than strangulation should have taken, the boy’s tongue fell out of this mouth, and the ghost moved on. A male ghost tore through the crowd. Kenietra Hewitt’s arm ripped from her body as the ghost passed. The blood spewed into the overly hot gymnasium. What the ghosts did to the drum major, Shannon Lolley, almost made Josh vomit. He couldn’t watch any more.
“Come and get me,” Josh yelled at Jessica.
He ran to the door, stepping on people as he went. This slowed him down as he approached the ghost of Sue Browning. She pirouetted on her roller skates and waited for him. A burning coal of evil burned in her eyes. His hand dove into his pocket. He scooped out some sage and tossed it at her as she passed by. The ghost disappeared.
Josh ran into the night air. He stopped once he was in the parking lot. Students screamed from inside as the ghosts continued their carnage. He looked around for Harvey, and found him slumped on the ground, his head facing away at an impossible angle. Neal Otis stood over him.
“Hello, Josh,” Otis said.
“What did you do?” Josh asked.
“What had to be done. Now I’m going to do the same to you.”
“Why?”
“Your granddaddy killed me, just like he did the others.”
“I’m not him,” Josh said.
“Don’t matter. She said all must pay.”
Otis swept toward him with speed faster than he’d used on the football field. Josh tossed a bit of sage at him. The ghost of his friend vanished in a swirl of glowing smoke. He inhaled a long breath to calm his nerves after everything he’d seen so far. Josh understood in that brief moment why Charlotte had gone crazy. No one could come out of seeing their friends slaughtered without some kind of damage.
The front doors blew open. They ripped from their hinges and hit the ground well behind Josh. Jessica walked out dragging Marcus Smithson by the hair. She laughed as she pulled him to his feet.
“Here’s the boy that roughed you up,” she said, and drew her fingernail across his throat.
Blood spewed out into the street lamp’s light. She dropped Marcus to the ground and looked at Harvey. Another wicked smile came over her face. Josh’s stomach flipped. He wanted to vomit, but he had to draw her down the hill. His dad waited with his hunting rifle. Alan could pick her off at the top of the hill. He needed her to be in the clear.
“Why?” Josh asked. “I thought you liked me.”
“I wanted you to think that. It’s all about revenge. I did the same with your grandfather forty years ago when I was Connie Dearborn, and eighty years ago when I was a mulatto preacher, toward an ancestor you didn’t know you even had. The point isn’t to kill everyone in this town. It’s to make the McAdams family suffer. What’s worse than betrayal by a lover?
“I hope you prove an easier kill than your granddaddy,” Jessica went on. “I had to wait a long time to get him back, forty years to the day.”
“I hope I’m not.” Josh ran toward the exit of the parking lot.
Before he made it very many steps, Jessica appeared in his path. She grabbed him by the shirt. The look in her eyes was the evilest thing Josh had ever seen. It was like something out of his worst nightmare.
“Oh, you are,” she said.
“Let my classmates in the gym go,” he said. “They’re innocent.”
“No one in this town is innocent. Every single person here is connected. They all had something to do with my death. This town will pay for its past with the death of its future.”
Josh tried to get free from her grip but couldn’t. There was no way his father could see them from that point. She kept talking, but he wasn’t listening. All he could do was find a way to get her to the edge of that hill. There was no other option except action. He wrapped his arms around her and pushed forward. They fell backward with him on top. Jessica began to wrestle back. Josh tried to direct their roll down toward the street. Rocks gouged and poked him in the back and knees. Jessica did the same thing to his face. A good poke at his sore eye forced him to let her go.
They stood and squared off. Josh looked behind him. They were not close enough. Apparently, the scuffle did enough of the trick for the students to get free of the gym. They stampeded into the parking lot, but stopped, staring at him and Jessica.
She looked back. “No problem. I’ll finish you off and deal with the rest of them.”
Jessica clapped her hands. The ghosts from the gym swirled out of the air like a glowing whirlwind. Another ghost formed beside her. It was of a young black man. It was Tobias Abernathy.
“Get him,” Jessica said.
Josh dug into his pockets and brought out two handfuls of the sage. As the ghosts came for him, he tossed it at them. They all disappeared, except for Tobias. Josh went into his pockets for more of the herb. They were empty.
“Finish him, Tobias,” she said.
A car horn blew from behind Josh, and headlights illuminated everything, washing out the ghost. Josh stepped aside as a blue hatchback stopped at the entrance of the parking lot. The passenger side door opened. Charlotte clambered out. She wore pajamas and had a manic look in her eyes.
“Thank you, Amanda, dear,” she said into the car and closed the door. “Such a nice girl.”
The car backed down the hill. Tobias reappeared out of the fading light, as did the other ghosts, the limited magic of the sage having worn off. Jessica stepped up toward Charlotte.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I had to stop you,” Charlotte said. “I had to stop this. I didn’t do the right thing a long time ago. I need to do it now.”
“How did you get here?” Jessica demanded. “I made sure they had you so doped up you couldn’t walk.”
Charlotte fidgeted a little. “I cheeked the meds and sneaked out during a freak hospital-wide code blue. I wonder how that happened?” She smiled at Jessica. “Lots of people will pick up an old lady in pajamas.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jessica said. “Kill them both.”
Tobias and the other ghost swooped in on Josh. He threw up his hands to fend off the ghosts. Charlotte ran through the apparitions, positioning herself in front of her nephew.
“Stop it,” she said. “Listen to me. I was your friend. My nephew isn’t the one to go after. It was my brother who killed you. The only reason he did that was because of her. She broke his heart. My brother couldn’t bear a woman having that much power over him.”
“I tried to warn you,” Tobias said. “You didn’t help me.”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “I wanted to, and it broke my heart more than it already was when I became aware of what my brother did to you. If Connie hadn’t broken up with my brother, no matter how much he hated you, he’d never have plotted to kill you all. She’s the problem. Believe me, Tobias. I never did anything to hurt you on purpose. I only tried to help. I loved you.”
Josh watched the face of the ghost change. The hard hatred aimed toward him went away. Before his eyes, all the ghosts led by Tobias turned on Jessica. She screamed curses and orders at them. Nothing helped. They grabbed her. Bits of her flesh flew through the air as they shredded her skin. Josh vomited at the sight. When they had finished, he watched the spirit of Hazel rise up from the dismembered body. The ghosts circled it and joined with it in a swirl of green light. Jessica screamed as the whirling became tighter until they all disappeared into nothing.
“Is it over?” Charlotte asked.
Wisps of white fog came up from the ground and formed the ghost of Tobias. Josh clinched his gut waiting to watch his aunt meet the same fate as Jessica.
“It’s over,” Tobias said. “I have and will always love you, Charlotte McAdams.”
Alan looked at the green water of the Gulf of Mexico as it washed onto the beach at Dauphin Island. Thomas and Alan played football on the hard-packed sand right at the edge of the water. They wore their shoes and sweaters with shorts. It was too cold to be on the beach, and they were the only ones there. Stupid things like the cold keeping you from having fun didn’t matter anymore. He hated his new job working for Alabama Power, but his family had needed to get out of Pinehurst. The boys seemed to be okay with the move. Thomas had transferred to Murphy High School. He didn’t care much for football after everything that happened. Josh had dropped out with Alan’s consent. He’d passed his GED wi
thout any trouble and was taking classes at the local community college waiting for the summer semester to start at the University of South Alabama. He planned to study psychology, to his Aunt Charlotte’s relief, not to be a shrink, but a paranormal expert.
Alan didn’t like the idea of that, but why not? Maybe he could become a real life ghostbuster now that ghosts were real and not myths.
“Come on, Dad,” Thomas yelled at him, motioning for him to join. “Josh is getting his butt whooped. He needs all the help he can get.”
Alan smiled and trotted off to play touch football with his sons. They had turned out to be okay kids, and he’d turned out to be an okay dad.