by Ron Ripley
Mitchell nodded in understanding and the two of them stood up. Brian followed his cousin out into the hall and stopped.
A teenage boy stood directly in front of the display case, so close he could have leaned into it if he had wanted to.
Before Mitchell could say anything, the boy whispered a name.
Chapter 15: The Name
Herman had woken up before his parents. He had eaten quickly, left a note on the dining table, and escaped before either of them came down for their morning coffee with Irish Cream.
Once more, he had gone to the school, getting there a little after seven and slipping into the library. He must have fallen asleep because he dreamed of Mr. Weiss again. They were in the library, in Mrs. Alcott’s office, and they had talked about the book. At the end of their conversation, Mr. Weiss had suggested Herman go to the Admin building. The display, the old man, had said, had been particularly well done.
When Herman woke up, shortly before ten in the morning, he remembered the dream, smiled, and thought, I should go see the display.
As he packed up the book, a name echoed in his thoughts. Gregory Weston.
Vaguely, Herman wondered if he had read about someone named Gregory Weston, but he couldn’t recall.
He hummed happily to himself as he left the office, and then the library. He had no fear of being seen, because he knew, somehow, that no one would. Feeling pleased with life in general, and for apparently no reason at all, Herman had walked briskly to the Admin building. The main door was unlocked, and when he went in, he saw someone had broken the display case.
All sorts of antiques and artifacts hung from wall mounts or were displayed on shelves. There was yellow caution tape set up to keep people away, but Herman ignored it.
Gregory Weston.
Yes, Herman thought, slipping under the slight barrier, Gregory Weston.
When he stood close to the case, he looked around it, saw a framed letter and leaned closer. The letter was on yellowed paper. The script, neat and precise. In the upper right-hand corner was the date,
12 April, 1918.
Herman didn’t bother to read the letter. His eyes went directly to the bottom of the page, to the signature.
Gregory Weston, written in a large, bold hand.
Herman smiled. He heard a door open, and someone said something to him, but he really didn’t know what. Or care.
Herman leaned a little closer and whispered, “Gregory Weston.”
Chapter 16: In the Admin Building
The temperature in the room plummeted as the boy spoke the name, “Gregory Weston.”
“What?” Mitchell asked, looking around, confused.
Brian couldn’t answer. He was watching the boy, and the display case. From a framed letter, a hand appeared, followed by a second. A head and then a torso. In a matter of moments, a male ghost stood in the room. Neither Mitchell nor the boy noticed, of course. But Brian did, and he couldn’t look away. The man was short and squat. His face looked like that of a professional boxer’s, his nose flattened and broken at some point. His jaw was square, his brown hair clipped short. The man’s right ear was a mass of twisted and mangled cartilage. The dark gray, pinstriped suit he wore reminded Brian of the gangster movies of the thirties and forties.
But he’s the real deal, Brian thought.
The ghost turned around, reached into the frame and when he withdrew his hand he had a gray fedora. The man, who Brian suspected was Gregory Weston, put the hat on, looked around and stuffed his hands into his suit coat pockets.
Gregory turned his attention from the boy to Mitchell, and finally to Brian. The man’s eyes fixed on him for a moment, but Brian looked through Gregory, hoping the newly arrived specter would ignore him.
Gregory did. With a shrug of his shoulders, he left the room, passing easily through a wall and vanishing from sight. The temperature in the room spiked, and the teenager blinked.
“What just happened?” Mitchell asked nervously. “Why did it get so cold?”
“A ghost,” Brian said, and he walked to the boy.
“Hey,” Brian said gently.
The teenager turned to face him with a dazed expression. After a second or two, the boy smiled and said, “Hi.”
“How are you?” Brian asked.
“Um,” he scratched his head. “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough,” Brian said, and then he introduced himself and offered his hand.
“Herman,” the boy said, shaking it. He yawned, glanced over at Mitchell and stiffened. “Mr. Roy.”
Mitchell nodded. “You’re a freshman, aren’t you, Herman?”
“Yes, sir,” Herman answered.
“Why are you here?” Mitchell asked. “There’s no school today. Don’t you know that?”
Wordlessly, the teenager nodded.
“Herman,” Brian said, “do you know what happened?”
“No,” Herman replied.
“You said something,” Brian continued. “You don’t remember?”
Herman shook his head.
Brian looked over to Mitchell, who shrugged.
“Go home, Herman,” Mitchell said finally. “You’ll receive an automated call when it’s time to return to school.”
“Yes, sir,” Herman said softly. Without another word, he hurried out of the building.
“Brian,” Mitchell said, “you saw a ghost?”
“Yeah,” Brian answered. He stepped closer to the broken display and looked at the picture frame Gregory Weston had materialized from. It contained a framed letter from World War One. Without asking, Brian took it down. “He came out of this.”
He brought it over to Mitchell and handed it to him.
Mitchell frowned. “This is from an Academy graduate who fought for the French. He volunteered. And how, on God’s green earth, Brian, could a ghost come out of a letter?”
“Too much to explain right now, Mitchell,” Brian said, looking at the wall Gregory had passed through. “What I need to do is find out more about him, and about Nathaniel Weiss.”
“Go to the Weiss Library,” Mitchell said, taking out a key ring. He sorted through them for a moment, then when he had found a particular key, he held it out to Brian. “Here.”
“Thanks,” Brian said.
“Oh,” Mitchell added quickly, “there’s also a security code to type in when you enter the building. It’s one-zero, zero-six, two-zero.”
Brian repeated the number, and Mitchell nodded.
“There’s a display of books about the Academy,” Mitchell said. “Check there.”
“I will,” Brian said. Without another word, he left for the library.
Chapter 17: In the Basement
Larry had his door locked, and he had moved his office around. He could now sit at his desk and look at whoever, or whatever entered the room.
Candy had called from Bruce’s hospital room. The younger man was okay, but he was being kept overnight for observation. And so Larry was alone in the office.
Nothing’s gone right since we found that damned picture, Larry thought morosely. He looked at his computer, considered turning it back on, and then changed his mind. He didn’t want to do anything.
Ah Christ, I have to go to the damned meeting, he realized bitterly.
He didn’t want to. There was a sense of safety and security in the basement. A feeling that nothing could happen to him in the room.
The fluorescent light over the door flickered several times and went out. As soon as it did, the next light did the same. Larry’s heart beat irregularly as bulbs continued to darken until the only one still illuminating the room was above his head.
It, too, went out. Larry’s own breathing was loud in his ears.
“Your door was locked,” a voice said from the darkness directly in front of Larry’s desk.
It was a man’s voice, hard and brutal. A harsh note of violence to it.
“I don’t like locked doors,” the man continued. “Who are you?”
“Larry, huh?” the man said. “I’m Gregory. I don’t want you here, Larry.”
Larry licked his lips before he managed to whisper, “I’ll leave.”
“Yeah,” Gregory chuckled. “You’ve got that right, brother. You will leave.”
Larry shivered as an envelope of painfully cold air wrapped around him.
“You’re damned right you’ll leave,” Gregory hissed, all levity gone from his voice. A large hand, as cold as ice, wrapped around Larry’s upper arm and squeezed.
Larry screamed. A high pitched sound that he never thought he could have uttered.
Yet, the scream became a shriek as Gregory squeezed tighter, the bone breaking in the stranger’s frozen grasp. An icy fist slammed first into Larry’s head, silencing him. More punches landed on his chest and face. Pain exploded throughout his body, and the cold, which followed, was horrific.
Vaguely, Larry felt himself slip out of his chair, but the hand holding onto him kept him from collapsing. Several more blows landed, and Larry plunged into unconsciousness. When the ability to think coherently returned to him, Larry managed to open his right eye. But the left refused to cooperate.
He found himself in the hallway, on his side and facing the closed door to his office. Larry wanted to move but found his body was an entire mass of throbbing pain. He tried to speak. His lips refused to form words, his throat too dry, and his tongue was swollen. Larry had boxed a little when he served on the USS Hornet, and he had taken his share of beatings in his life.
Nothing like this, he thought. Never one like this.
From where he lay, Larry felt a pulsating chill emanate from beneath the office door. He wanted to get away from it, but his body mutinied, refused to obey him.
Without a sound, the old man from the photograph, Nathaniel Weiss, appeared in front of the door. The man glowed like a radioactive cartoon character as he squatted down. He smiled at Larry and whispered, “Did you enjoy it as much as I did?”
With a whimper, Larry closed his eye and wished the man away.
He was unsure whether he had passed out again, but a noise caught his attention. He managed to open his eye, twist his head slightly and catch sight of the stairs leading to the main floor. A moment later, he saw Mitchell’s brown Oxfords, then the man’s khaki pants and the rest followed.
Mitchell paused when he reached the hallway, and gasped as he caught sight of Larry.
Jesus, Larry thought, how bad is it?
“Larry?” Mitchell asked, stepping closer. “Larry, can you hear me?”
Larry managed to croak out, “Yes.”
Mitchell winced at the sound as he knelt down beside him. “Who did this to you?”
Larry wanted to shake his head, shrug his shoulders, anything other than speak, but nothing worked. He couldn’t even form any words.
“Alright,” Mitchell said softly. “Don’t try to answer. I’m going to call the police.”
Behind him, the door to Larry’s office opened up an inch. Larry couldn’t see anyone, but he could feel them. A malignant presence watching. The temperature dropped slightly, then rose back up as the door was closed as gently and quietly as it had been opened.
Larry closed his eye and listened to Mitchell make the call.
Chapter 18: On the Way to the Library
Brian was halfway across the quad when his phone rang. He paused, dug it out and looked at the screen. He took a deep breath, spotted a bench beneath a tree and went and sat down as he answered it.
“Hey, babe,” he said.
“Don’t ‘babe’ me, Brian!” Jenny snapped.
He closed his eyes and braced himself for her anger.
“You went down to Connecticut,” she said. Her voice was low, deadly.
“I had to,” Brian said. “Babe, Jenny, it’s my cousin, Mitchell.”
“I don’t care, Brian,” Jenny said coldly. “What do you not understand about ‘predisposed’ and ‘cardiac arrest’?”
“Jenny,” he started. She cut him off.
“No, Brian,” she said sharply. “You’re going to listen to me. These past few months have been absolute hell. Hell! I cannot bury you, Brian Roy. I will not bury you. Why in God’s name would go down there, to a possible haunting?”
“It’s Mitchell,” Brian said softly.
“What?”
“Mitchell,” he repeated, but in a louder voice. “You know he’s like a brother to me.”
She didn’t say anything, but Brian could hear her breathing angrily. She was waiting for him to continue.
“He asked for my help,” Brian continued carefully, making sure he kept his own temper under control. He knew she was worried. Terribly and rightfully so. But it didn’t negate the fact that he had to help Mitchell. “He helped me when I went through a tough time as a kid.”
“I know, Brian,” Jenny said, her voice calmer but still filled with anger. “But I don’t want you to die.”
He couldn’t say he wouldn’t die because he might. There was always that possibility. “I don’t want to die, babe. At all. And I’m going to do the best I can to be safe. To keep myself whole and healthy for you.”
“I swear to Christ, Brian,” she finally said. “If you become paralyzed, I am leaving you. I will not watch you die by inches. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Brian said.
“I love you, and I am so angry with you right now,” she said. “You better bring yourself home just as good, if not better than when you left.”
“I will, and I love you, too,” he said.
“Good. Call me later.”
Before he could say anything else, Jenny hung up.
Brian sighed, looked at the phone, hit ‘end’ and then he put it away. He sat on the bench for a moment longer before he finally stood up. All of his old injuries hurt. The missing teeth with their phantom pains, the battering he had taken at the hands of Josephus. The violence of the Japanese soldiers. The King of Middlebury Sanitarium. Leo’s grandmother. Paul Kenyon.
Jenny’s right, of course, Brian realized. I’m risking my life doing this again.
Brian took a deep breath, let it out slowly and continued on his way to the Weiss Library. The building was as tall and ornate as he remembered. A grand old Victorian with a center tower which had once been the home of Nathaniel Weiss.
As a student at the Academy, Brian had never thought about the library one way or another. It had been a place to do the occasional school project, research, and hide in when he decided to skip a class or two. He looked at the building with fresh eyes and felt fear. The air shimmered above the four-cornered peak of the tower.
Brian paused, caught a hint of movement in an upper window, but it was nothing more than a flicker. He continued on up to the door. He pulled out the ring of keys, found the right one and let himself in. After he had closed the door, he found the security box, typed in the code and turned on the lights.
The interior of the library was different than what he remembered. Brighter, with more books. Computers instead of a card catalogs.
It’s cold, Brian thought, turning around and searching for the display of books Mitchell had mentioned. Too cold.
As he looked for the display, he looked for Gregory Weston or Nathaniel Weiss. He didn’t see them, or anyone else, and he was thankful for it. For several minutes, he searched through the main lobby, finally coming upon a bookshelf near the front desk. There were ten books on it, each one dealing with some aspect of the Academy. An older book, with a dark green cover and gold lettering above, and below the official seal of the school, caught his eye. Brian picked it up and read the title,
“Notable Persons from Northfield Academy, 1878 to 1953.”
He carried the book to an overstuffed chair, sat down and opened it. He scanned the table of contents, found a chapter on Gregory Weston, and turned to it.
“Fighting for France,” the title read. “The Story of Gregory Weston.”
Brian glanced around again to make certain he was alone, and then began to read.
Chapter 19: Alone with His Thoughts
Mitchell Roy sat in a chair in the outer office. He stared at the floor between his feet, his hands clasped together. Only ten minutes before he had answered the last question for the faculty and staff in the auditorium. He had been forced to tell them, not only of Marilyn’s suicide and the deaths of the plumbers, but of Bruce’s strange behavior, and the assault on Larry.
Mitchell had asked Keith Audley, his assistant principal, to take over. Dave Licata was lending support as well. The clock on the wall ticked away the seconds and the minutes. The hour hand made its slow, steady progress, and Mitchell tried to understand how his world could fall apart so quickly.
What’s next? the question echoed through his thoughts. Is Dave right? Is it all because of Weiss? Did Brian really see something?
Mitchell’s basic beliefs were shaken, and there was a level of danger, a threat he had never believed could ever exist. He had trained his staff about what to do in the event of a mass shooting. Had sent them to seminars on how to turn the school into an emergency collection point for a natural disaster. He had made certain there were enough supplies, in case the school ever had to serve as a shelter.
But how in God’s name do you get ready to deal with ghosts? he thought.
Mitchell still had trouble believing the school was now haunted. Part of him rebelled, violently, at the idea of Nathaniel Weiss back from the grave. It was the stuff of horror movies and cheap, pulp fiction.
And yet here I am, he thought, depression sweeping through him.
As much as he didn’t want to believe, he had to. There were too many strange occurrences. In addition to them, no poisonous or otherwise hazardous gasses could be detected on the school grounds. The fire department and the plumbers had all run tests. Each test had come back negative. Mitchell had to accept the Academy was now haunted.
He tapped his feet on the floor and wondered if Brian had found anything. If Brian would find anything. Mitchell didn’t want anything else to happen. He didn’t want to speak with the police about any other incidents. Footsteps in the hallway dragged his attention away from his depressed thoughts, and when someone knocked on the door, Mitchell looked up.