A Jeff Resnick Six Pack

by L. L. Bartlett

  “What was the most popular costume?” Richard asked.

  “Zombies, followed by ghosts, pirates, and princesses,” Maggie said. She’d pulled candy-distribution duty while Brenda saw to the baby and Richard and I had hunkered down here in the study, playing chess and making do with chips and dip until the pizza arrived.

  “Maybe next year we should throw a Halloween party,” Maggie said. “I haven’t been to a Halloween party since I was in college,” Richard said.

  “I haven’t been to one since sixth grade,” I said.

  “When I was a girl, we always bobbed for apples,” Brenda said. “It was my sister Ruthie’s favorite thing, but not mine. I didn’t like getting my face all wet.”

  “Me, either,” Maggie agreed. “Besides, I preferred candy to apples.”

  “Me, too,” Brenda said.

  “Apples should be reserved for pies,” I said, giving Maggie a hopeful look. Nobody makes a better apple pie than she does.

  She ignored the hint. “Low-key parties can be just as enjoyable as big boisterous ones. After we finish the pizza, we can play a few games.”

  “Games? You mean like charades?” I asked with dread.

  “Yeah, we could play that, too.”

  “I like charades, but I can’t imagine Jeffy would,” Brenda said, eyeing me, and grinned. “What else did you have in mind?”

  Maggie set down her pizza slice and reached for the canvas bag that was stationed by her left knee. From it, she pulled a long slender rectangular box. I had a feeling I knew what it would be even before I saw the picture on the top.

  I wasn’t wrong.

  “A Ouija board?” Brenda asked. Richard and I groaned, but Brenda seemed keen to play. “I haven’t done this since I was a kid back in Philly,” she practically squealed. “Ruthie and I weren’t allowed to mess with the occult, as my mother called it, so we had to play the game on overnights at our friend Nancy’s house. We scared each other half to death on more than one occasion.”

  “I’m with your mother,” Richard said. “Messing with the occult could be dangerous.”

  “Oh, you don’t really believe in all that, do you?” Maggie asked. “It’s only a game.”

  Richard looked over at me. “I might have agreed a few years ago, but since Jeff came back to Buffalo, I’m no longer a skeptic.”

  All three of them looked at me, and suddenly I felt like a leper. I shrugged. “There was a presence in this house when I first came back—it scared the shit out of me. I’m not sure I want to invite it back.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake—there are no such things as ghosts,” Maggie cried.

  Richard and I shared a knowing glance.

  “It’ll be fun.” Maggie said with what sounded like glee. Sometimes I wondered what such a happy soul ever saw in me.

  Fun? We had distinctly different ideas about that word. Maggie was the type who loved a roller coaster ride, enjoyed splashing around in a pool, and would love to dance until her legs fell off. Me? Not so much.

  She moved the plate full of ghost and pumpkin cutout cookies she’d made and decorated for the occasion, as well as the pizza box to one side and set up the board.

  “I’ve never played with one of these things. What do we do?” Richard asked, apparently resigned to the idea of playing the so-called game.

  Maggie set the white plastic heart-shaped pointer in the middle of the Ouija board. “We all place a finger on the planchette, then we ask the board a question. If the spirits are active, and they should be tonight of all nights, they’ll spell out an answer.”

  “How do we know if one of us cheats?” Richard asked.

  “I trust all of you with my life,” Maggie said sincerely. “I have faith you’ll all be honest in whatever game we played.”

  Ha! She’d never played Richard at one-on-one basketball.

  “I’d like to finish my pizza first,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Brenda agreed. “And I want to check on the baby.”

  Maggie picked up her slice. “Fine with me.”

  The CD player clanked as it changed disks, and one of Beethoven’s more brooding sonatas began. Richard is a classical music freak. I prefer light jazz, and Maggie listens to soft rock, while Brenda enjoys disco. When in Richard’s domain, we listened to his musical preferences.

  We each finished another slice of pizza before Brenda went upstairs to check on Princess Betsy. We heard her whisper “sweet dreams” from the baby monitor that sat on the side table next to Brenda’s end of the long leather couch. A minute later, she rejoined us.

  The ladies cleared away the pizza box, soiled plates and napkins, and then Maggie roamed around the room, lowering the lights. Finally she was ready to start the game.

  “I don’t know about this,” I said when Maggie resumed her seat beside me. “Aren’t you afraid of conjuring up an evil spirit?”

  Maggie laughed. “Don’t worry. I read somewhere that our subconscious minds are the ones that actually move the planchette.”

  “Telekinesis isn’t one of my gifts,” I said sincerely. Since I’d been bonked on the head with a baseball bat some nineteen months before during a mugging that had very nearly killed me, I’d become aware of things that others weren’t aware of. I knew things others didn’t know—saw things others couldn’t see. Some people called it a gift. Some called me psychic. I called myself damned unlucky.

  Maggie laughed again. “Oh, Jeff, don’t look so serious. It’s just a game.”

  Maybe it was to her, but I could see by Richard’s concerned expression that it was no game to him, either. And yet, neither of us made another objection.

  Stupid.

  “What are you going to ask first?” Brenda asked, her right index finger hovering over the planchette, ready to begin.

  “What else?” Maggie set her finger on the planchette and the rest of us did likewise. “Is there anybody out there?”

  The planchette immediately started to move. It scraped around the board, making lazy circles around the letters before it stopped at the first one.

  Y.

  It circled again.

  E.

  And again.

  S.

  It stopped.

  Maggie smiled, delighted. “Yes! Well, of course.”

  “Why didn’t the spirit just point the planchette to the word yes on the board?” I asked.

  “Showing off?” Richard guessed.

  Maggie gave us each a frown, then addressed the board again. “Are you friendly?”

  The pointer began to circle the board once again before it slid toward the word NO, but then it did an abrupt about face and landed on YES.

  “Whew!” Maggie said. “For a moment there, I thought we might be in trouble.”

  Richard caught my eye. He wasn’t smiling. The pizza in my stomach seemed to be trying out some salsa moves and I wished I hadn’t had that second slice.

  “I have a question,” Richard said in all seriousness.

  “Ask away,” Maggie said.

  He stared at the board intently. “Will the Bills ever win the Super Bowl?”

  “When hell freezes over,” Brenda said.

  “Not funny,” Richard deadpanned, eyeing her coldly.

  We all turned our attention back to the board when the planchette began moving around once again. For a moment, it seemed to be veering toward YES, but then suddenly slid completely off the board.

  “Well, it didn’t say no,” Maggie said. She was ever hopeful. “Any other questions?”

  I shook my head, saying nothing.

  Maggie sighed. “I guess I should have come up with a few more, but honestly, I thought you guys would be more in the spirit of things. It is, after all, Halloween.”

  “I’m game,” Richard said. He looked back down at the board. “Tell us what’s beyond this life.”

  “Do you really want to know?” Brenda asked, aghast.

  “I’m Catholic. I already know,” Richard said.

  I wasn’t
sure I wanted to know, either. I had some ideas, and I didn’t need them verified. I felt much better not knowing for sure.

  The planchette began its journey around the board once again. Maggie called out the letters as it paused. “S-T-A-R-L-I-G-H-T. Starlight? What does that mean?”

  Richard shrugged. “The heavens are full of stars.”

  “What a nice thought,” Maggie said, smiling. “Do you have another message for us?” she asked the board.

  The planchette jerked beneath our fingers and madly began to race around the board—once, twice, three times before it stopped on the letter G. Maggie began to read out the letters as it stopped and started in what seemed like a haphazard fashion.

  E-T-O-U-T-O-F-M-Y-H-O-U-S-E.

  Maggie frowned. “Get out of my house? Well, that wasn’t very nice.” She addressed the board once again. “Who?”

  The planchette stopped moving as abruptly as it had begun, then went skidding in Brenda’s direction, startling her—but then it circled round the board again before it practically flew at me.

  “Whoa! That’s some serious specter,” Maggie quipped, and picked up the indicator. She set it back on the board. “Come on, everyone; put your fingers back on it.”

  “I don’t want to play,” Richard said.

  “Don’t you want to know who the message is directed at?”

  “I have a pretty good idea already,” Brenda said, no longer enthused to play the game.

  “Come on,” Maggie encouraged.

  The three of us looked at one another, but then let Maggie bully us into participating once again.

  “Who do you want out of the house?” Maggie asked.

  The planchette moved around the board once again, landing on the letter B.

  Brenda winced.

  Next, it traveled to the letter L.

  Richard watched in horror as the next letters A-C-K.

  “Wow,” Maggie murmured, “a racist ghost.”

  I had a pretty good idea who that ghost might have been, too, and stared at the indicator as it spelled out yet another two words: A-N-D-T-R-A-S-H, then halted so that the front of the planchette pointed directly at me.

  “I think we’ve both just been insulted,” I said, but didn’t laugh.

  Brenda pulled back her hand. “I am not going to be slurred by a game.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Me, either.”

  Maggie frowned. “This has never happened when I’ve played the game before.”

  Maybe because this was no longer a game.

  Suddenly the bulb in the lamp next to me exploded in a flash of blue light, scaring the hell out of all of us. Both Maggie and Brenda let out yelps of surprise, which gave both Richard and me another start.

  “Holy crap,” I managed. “Don’t do that!”

  “Well, it scared me,” Maggie said, defending herself.

  “I’ll go get another bulb,” Richard volunteered, when the lamp on his desk suddenly blew, too. “What the hell?”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of electrical surge,” Brenda offered as an explanation.

  I turned my head in the direction of Richard’s desk, which was now shrouded in darkness. The entire room seemed to shimmer around me, and when my vision cleared, Richard, Brenda, and Maggie seemed to have gone into suspended animation—not so for the other presence that had joined us.

  #

  I recognized the old lady. How could I ever forget the woman who had driven my mother insane? Who had stolen her child. Who had made my own life hell on a daily basis for almost four years. Margery Alpert: Richard’s long-dead grandmother.

  I rose to my feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing in my house?” the apparition before me demanded in her cold voice. Cold as the grave, where she belonged.

  “I thought we got rid of you more than a year ago.”

  “I did, too, but someone called me back, and this time I don’t intend to leave, at least not as long as you’re here. And who is that?” she demanded, pointing at Brenda.

  I debated answering. The old bat had hated me. While she’d employed an elderly black man as her chauffeur for many years, I wasn’t certain she had ever liked Curtis Johnson. I had loved the old man, who’d taken me under his wing and shown me infinite kindness when no one else in that house could be bothered to do so. How would she react to find out Brenda was Richard’s wife?

  I didn’t have a chance to speak. Her gaze traveled around the room and settled on the framed picture that sat on one of the bookshelves across the way.

  The old woman’s eyes widened in disbelief and suddenly she jerked forward, her cane thumping on the parquet floor, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking as she pivoted to round the empty wing chair to her right. She stomped across the floor and stared at the photo. I could feel her anger rise to a near boil as her parchment-like skin began to redden as though sunburned.

  Brenda’s smile had been beatific on that sunny day in June the year before. Her ivory tea-length dress had been understated, yet lovely. Richard’s shiner, the remnant of an unfortunate encounter with a bigot, had begun to fade but was still evident in all their wedding photos. “Photoshop is my best friend,” Richard had assured Brenda, but she’d shaken her head, saying she’d prefer he leave them as they were so they’d have a good story to tell their children one day. So far, he hadn’t entertained baby Betsy with that bedtime tale.

  Mrs. Alpert turned to glare at her grandson. “How could he do this to me?” she accused. “How?” she demanded, loud enough to wake the dead.

  Instead, it was an infant’s cry that issued from the baby monitor on the end table. What the hell? The rest of them seemed to be frozen in a moment of time. Did that unearthly spell only apply to that room—to those people?

  “What was that?” Mrs. Alpert demanded.

  “What was what?” I answered stupidly.

  The baby cried once again. It was her fretful cry—perhaps a wet diaper. In three short weeks I could read her pretty well. Sometimes she wouldn’t sleep for her Mom and Pop. I’d see the lights on late at night when I came in from my stint behind the bar at The Whole Nine Yards and drop in, giving them a break from walking the floor. That little girl and I already had a rapport. I’d rock her in the chair beside her bassinette and she’d fall asleep in no time flat. She was my little cherry pie, and no uncle could have been more proud.

  But it wasn’t pride I felt just then. It was terror. The same terror I’d felt when I’d first returned to that house after an eighteen-year absence. I knew what the old lady was capable of. She’d killed before.

  Old lady Alpert turned on her heel, her cane thumping against the floor once again as she headed for the hall and the stairs to the second floor.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I shouted, and ran after her, but when I got to the hall, she’d vanished.

  I went after her, but it seemed like my legs were slogging through mud. By the time I made it to the foot of the stairs, I could hear clomping footsteps from up above, heading toward what used to be my bedroom—what was now the nursery.

  Panic lent me speed as I rounded the corner and raced up the stairs two at a time, but I wasn’t able to catch up with whatever was left of that hateful woman.

  The door to the baby’s room was open, but it seemed like the hall stretched a million miles ahead as I moved at an agonizingly slow pace. When I finally rounded the doorway, I found the old woman in the darkened room standing over the baby’s bassinette. Betsy was awake, watching the mobile of pastel bugs bobbing and weaving over her head.

  I flipped the switch, but it seemed an eternity until the light came on. Unfortunately, the apparition did not disappear in the stark, bright light. “Get away from her,” I said, but my voice came out a long, slow growl.

  I leapt forward, intending to knock her down, just as time seemed to resume its normal speed. But I sailed through empty air, landing painfully hard on my stomach. For a moment, I thought my pizza dinner might make
a reappearance. When I looked up again, the old woman was standing on the other side of the bassinette. “Get away from her,” I said again.

  “Is she Richard’s?” she demanded.

  “Of course she is.”

  “What’s her name?” she demanded.

  “Betsy Ruth.”

  “Betsy? Don’t you mean Elizabeth—like that whoring bitch?”

  “That’s my mother you’re referring to,” I warned. ”You didn’t think he’d name his first-born after you, did you?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Because he didn’t love you.”

  Her eyes widened, her cheeks flushing. “That’s a lie.”

  “Guess how many people were at your funeral?”

  The idea that she might actually be dead seemed to jack up her anger but she said nothing.

  “Two. A priest and Curtis Johnson. You didn’t deserve even that,” I said angrily, “not the way you treated Curtis, and not with the mortal sin that will forever blacken your soul.”

  Her glare was baleful, but she didn’t deny it.

  Betsy gurgled, kicking her feet in the air, drawing the old lady’s attention away from me. “Mulatto,” she growled.

  “That’s a vulgar term. She’s mixed race,” I corrected her through clenched teeth. If she wasn’t already dead, I would have liked to have slugged her. “Why don’t you just go to hell where you belong?”

  “This is my house.”

  “Not anymore. And there’s nothing for you here. No love, and for damn sure, no forgiveness.”

  “I don’t need your forgiveness.”

  “And you sure as hell won’t get Richard’s either. Now, why don’t you just go back to whatever purgatory you’ve been sentenced to and never bother us again?”

  “This is my house,” she repeated.

  Were we going to be stuck with this Halloween witch for the rest of our lives? There had to be a way to get rid of her once and for all, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything short of exorcism. Her malevolent spirit had been banished when I’d discovered the terrible crime she’d committed. Would reminding her of it cause her to leave once again? And what if it didn’t? Would she hang around annoying Brenda, or worse—could she hurt Betsy?