Ghost Light

by Hautala, Rick

  Then, like an avalanche of night, the darkness finally closed in and dragged her under.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Final Words

  For the first few seconds after she woke up, Cindy had no idea where she was. Through slitted eyes, she looked around but could see only that she was in a room that looked almost too clean and orderly to be real. The thought crossed her mind that she really might have died and gone to Heaven.

  She forced her eyes open wider, but the streams of hazy white light pouring in through the half-closed window blinds made them sting. Her vision doubled, and a watery film of tears made everything shatter and sparkle with spirals of vibrating light.

  No, I’m not dead, she thought, fighting hard to clear her mind, but I must be damned close to it.

  She licked her lips, feeling their rough, leathery texture. When she swallowed, her throat made a loud gulping sound and sent a burning pain down into her chest that brought tears to her eyes.

  No, I’m alive all right, she thought. I must be in the hospital or something.

  She realized that she was lying in a bed with fresh, clean sheets covered by a thin blanket. The pillow underneath her head made a wild crinkling sound whenever she shifted. When she raised her right hand to wipe the stickiness she felt around her mouth, she saw the network of plastic tubes that was taped to the back of her wrist. Glancing to the other side of the bed, she saw that her left hand was encased in a white cast that went all the way to her elbow. Feeling down her leg with her right hand, she encountered the thick padding of the bandage that was wrapped from below her knee all the way to her crotch.

  Okay, so I’m not dead, but where am I? What the hell happened? How long have I been like this?

  She closed her eyes and tried to remember everything that happened. A cold shudder filled her as images ol the events out at the camp came back to her in disjointed, scary flashes.

  Alex… and a searing pain… an arrow sticking right through her leg… and her wrist… broken… a bloated, black corpse, half-submerged in the lake… and Billy, seen hazily through the windshield of the van… yes, Alex’s van… the gagging stench of rotting meat… and the roar of the van’s engine, racing whining high… a grinning mouthful of pointed teeth… Alex’s? Or someone else’s?… the whistling hiss of an arrow, passing close to her ear… and screams and curses, echoing from the surrounding woods… strangest of all, a vision—it had to have been a vision—of a woman, just like the one Krissy had talked so much about, surrounded by a dazzling glow of soft, blue light… vaguely familiar…

  These and other images and memories twisted inside her mind like a nest of snakes, but no matter how hard she tried to sort them out and connect them into some kind of logical sequence, they would keep shifting and fluttering in her mind like a shuffling deck of playing cards.

  She lost track of the time as she lay there, trying to make sense of her fragments of memory. The harsh white light gradually shifted across the floor and rippled up the wall like the surface of the water seen from down below. Eventually, she slipped back down into the soft darkness where all confusion and fear melted like snow in a hot, March wind.

  2

  The next time she became conscious, she was immediately aware that there was someone in the room sitting in a chair next to her bed. Fighting waves of dizziness and grogginess, and coiling fear, she wedged her eyes open. She let out a strangled yelp of surprise when she saw that her visitor was a man she didn’t recognize. He was dressed in a sharp, three-piece suit, and was smiling down at her. His short-cut, dirty blond hair framed a squarish face and piercing eyes.

  “Hello,” the man said softly.

  Cindy liked the mellow tone of his voice. She forced smile and tried to say hello, but her throat felt like it was packed with sand. She looked on both sides of the bed, then indicated with a feeble wave of her right hand the glass of water she saw with a straw sticking out of it.

  “Here, let me help you,” the man said, smiling as he held the straw up to her lips.

  Cindy took a tiny sip, just enough to wet the back of her tongue. Even the slight motion of shifting up in the bed sent a spike of pain through her, and she felt completely wrung out from the effort.

  “Thanks,” she said. Her voice sounded like an old woman’s dying gasp.

  “Well, I see you’re feeling… at least a little bit anyway,” the man said. He was still smiling, but then was an officiousness about him that put her on her guard.

  If he thinks I’m doing better, then I must ’ye beer pretty bad off, Cindy thought, but the only sound she could make was a strangled whimper that sounded little bit like the word, “Yeah.”

  “Look, if you’re not feeling up to talking right now, I can come back tomorrow,” the man said. “I’ve been checking on you every day.”

  “Who—”

  That was all she could manage to say, but the man apparently understood her question. Leaning closer t the bed, he filled her field of vision with his square smiling face.

  “My name’s Greg Mitchell. I’m the police chief for the City of Portland.”

  “Uh—”

  “Look, I’ll just leave for now and let you rest. I can come back tomorrow.”

  “No,” Cindy gasped. “Tell… me—”

  Her voice cut off sharply, ending with a low gagging sound. Mitchell lifted the straw to her mouth again and she took a longer sip. This time, the water actually felt as though it made it all the way down her throat.

  “Where are… kids?” she said.

  “Oh, don’t you worry a bit about them,” Mitchel said. “We’ve temporarily placed them in a foster home They’re doing fine and just waiting for you to get out a here.”

  “Is he… dead?”

  “Who, you mean Alex?” Mitchell said.

  As soon as he said the name, a hardness came over his features that unnerved Cindy in spite of her semi-conscious state. She nodded her head, indicating she wanted him to continue. The pillow crinkled like an exploding string of firecrackers inside her ears.

  “Well, he’s in pretty rough shape,” Mitchell said, “but he’ll live… long enough to stand trial.”

  “Do you… know… who I am?” Cindy said.

  The effort of speaking and focusing her eyes on Mitchell’s face was tiring her out. Once again, a powerful wave of blackness swept around her, nibbling at the edges of her vision. Trailing white streaks of light zipped in front of her eyes, hiding the policeman’s face.

  “Well, we know pretty much everything about you, Mrs. Toland. We’ve already been in contact with the Nebraska authorities, and I’ve had a pretty interesting conversation with Bill Holder, your lawyer.”

  A tingling jolt of panic traveled the length of Cindy’s body, but she was fading too fast to react.

  Oh, God! They know I took the kids, and now they’re going to take them away from me!

  “When they brought you to the hospital three days ago—”

  “Three… days?”

  “That’s right. You’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness for three days, now. When Tom McDonald, the cop from Gray found you out there at the camp, he said you were babbling on and on about—well, a whole slew of things, but after you said something about Alice Crowther, he remembered the news report about her death a few days ago and notified me.”

  Cindy shifted in the bed as if she wanted to sit up, but Mitchell rested his hand gently on her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, now. Like I said, we’ve been in touch with your lawyer, and we’ve got a pretty good idea what happened and why you stole your nephew and niece away from their father.”

  Cindy looked at him, her vision shimmering with tears. She wanted to ask him if she would ever see Billy and Krissy again, but the burning pain welling up inside her choked off her voice.

  “Look, Mrs. Toland, what you need right now is rest. But don’t you worry about a thing. The Nebraska authorities have assured us that you will be granted legal custody of those kids. W
e’ll be keeping them in foster care only as long as we have to.”

  “And… Alex—?”

  The effort of speaking was too much. She let her head fall back against the pillow and closed her eyes. Mitchell kept speaking, but his voice sounded as though he was using a megaphone a great distance away from her.

  “We’ve already gathered some preliminary evidence, indicating that Alex was responsible for Alice Crowther’s murder. If we can get enough, we’ll try him for murder, and believe me, after what he did to you—well, if you decide to press charges for attempted murder, I’m fairly confident we’ll be able to convict him. Of course, I would like to nail him for Miss Crowther’s death, too, but that’s a bit more up in the air at this point.”

  Mitchell’s voice echoed inside Cindy’s mind like a long, rumbling roll of thunder.

  “But I suspect he’ll be hoping we do put him in jail here. If the folks in Nebraska ever convict him of what they think he might have done, he faces the death penalty out there. Hell, he’ll probably be begging us to convict him here in Maine.”

  He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice caught a little in his throat.

  “The Nebraska authorities have been checking up on several John Doe cases out your way, and—well, they have positively identified your husband as the victim in an incident in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I—I’m awfully ;sorry.”

  Cindy tried to respond. A hot flood of tears was building up inside her, but she was dropping deeper and deeper into sleep. In her mind, she kept repeating Conners’ last words, hoping that the next time she woke up she would be able to remember everything he had said, but they, like her memory of the events out at the camp, soon blurred together.

  3

  “Hey, so how you guys been doing?” Cindy said.

  Squaring her shoulders, she sat up straight in the bed and smiled as the two children were ushered into the room. The hospital attendant signaled that he’d be back in a few minutes and closed the door quietly as he left. Cindy held her breath so the tingle of pain dancing through her wouldn’t show on her face as she raised her hand and waved them over to the bed, but both of the children seemed to be holding back, shying away from her. Billy looked especially nervous as he cast a fearful glance over his shoulder at the closed door.

  “Hey, come on, you guys. I’ve missed the heck out of you! Tell me. How’ve you been getting along?” Cindy asked.

  “Pretty good, I guess” Krissy responded quickly in a high, tight voice.

  Billy said nothing; he simply nodded and looked down at the floor.

  Fighting back her tears, Cindy felt a rush of deep sadness fill her as she looked back and forth between the two kids. She wanted to leap out of her bed and hug them both so closely to her they’d almost suffocate, but he was having a difficult enough time just sitting up and looking a lot more chipper than she really felt. After a moment of awkward silence, Krissy edged up to the bedside and leaned forward to kiss Cindy lightly on the cheek. After that, she drifted over toward the window where the light coming through the slatted blinds silhouetted her body with a soft glow.

  “Well now, Mr. Mitchell told me you were staying with a family in Portland, pretty much in, the old neighborhood,” Cindy said. “So are you happy to be going to school again?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Krissy said. “Ms. Remick’s really neat!”

  Again, Billy said nothing and simply nodded his head. He was still hanging back, keeping close to the door.

  “So Billy, you must be happy to see all your old friends again, huh?” Cindy said.

  The physical and emotional strain were already beginning to wear her down, but, considering everything these kids had been through, she knew she had to hold up and be strong… at least in front of them. She stared at Billy, making intense eye contact with him. After a heartbeat or two, his lower lip began to tremble and a watery glaze filled his eyes. Cindy could almost hear his thoughts, and she wished she could say or do something that would help him—somehow—deal with what had happened… especially the guilt he must be feeling for what he had done, deliberately trying to run over his father as if he wanted to kill him. She knew it didn’t matter that he had done it to save her; he was terrified that he had done it in the first place!

  “Hey, come over here,” she said, patting the edge of the bed with her right hand.

  Billy took a single step forward, then paused and looked back as though he were still desperate to find an escape route. Repressed emotions churned inside him like a thunder storm that was threatening to break at any second.

  “Please, Billy,” Cindy said in a low, mild voice. “Come over here and sit with me. I—I know you’re confused and… and upset about everything that’s happened. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you were even little bit angry about it all, but you have to know that it’s okay to… you know, to feel whatever it is you’re feeling.”

  Her scalp tingled and her face flushed when she recalled watching Billy stand there in the camp kitchen, his expression twisting with hurt and fear as his father had shouted at him, calling him a little pansy.

  With a sudden, loud cry, Billy dashed over to the bed, leaped up onto the mattress, and wrapped both arms around Cindy as he released his emotion in a raw, barking sob. His body was shaking violently as Cindy raised her one good arm and wrapped it around his heaving shoulders, pulling him all the closer to her.

  “There, there,” she whispered softly into his ear. “It’s okay, honey. Let it out… let it all out.”

  But Billy no longer needed encouragement. His cries came in long, warbling howls that shook his body and filled the room. The position she was in was hurting her, but Cindy didn’t care a bit as she hugged Billy to her and tried to soothe away all the confusion and grief she felt was bottled up inside him. She was so concerned about comforting him, that her body stiffened, and she let out a tiny, surprised shout when she looked over and saw Krissy staring back at her. The little girl’s face was split by a wide grin that showed a row of beautiful teeth. Her blue eyes were sparkling, but not with tears. She looked for all the world like she was about to leap into the air and start squealing with joy. Confused and more than a little unnerved, Cindy beckoned to her with a wave of her hand.

  “Krissy… honey,” Cindy said, shuddering wit deep emotion. “Come here, too.”

  For a moment, Krissy eyed her with a steady gaze. Then, in a voice that sounded much more mature than her years, she shook her head and said, “Oh, Aunt Cindy. Don’t be silly. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Cindy choked back a sob and held her hand out to the little girl. Finally Krissy relented and took her hand, giving it a bracing squeeze that seemed almost to tingle with energy.

  “Seriously,” Krissy said, and her smile widened all the more, “you don’t have to worry about me. I’m doing just great, and she—”

  Krissy cut herself off sharply, and a guilty expression clouded her face for a moment.

  As Cindy stared at the little girl, her figure still backlit with the light coming in through the window, another image rose up in her mind. This was of a lady—a woman who had been standing above her, lookin down at her as she lay on the ground, trembling an weak with fear and exhaustion as she bled from the arrow wound in her leg. She remembered seeing a soft vibrant glow of blue light that surrounded the figure. Although Krissy was nothing but a little girl, Cindy thought that the light edging her silhouette now looked almost exactly the same. She inhaled deeply, held her breath for a moment, and then let it out slowly.

  “So tell me,” she said in a tremulous voice. “What about… her?”

  “Well…” Krissy said. She shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. “I saw her again.”

  She folded her hands together in front of her and twisted them together like a little kid who was nervous about revealing a long-held secret. “I saw the blue lady and for the first time she was… she was smiling.”

  “Oh, really?” Cindy said, nodding her head up and down and feeling
like a senseless puppet.

  “Yup,” Krissy said. “I really did. And she even talked me.”

  “You don’t say,” Cindy replied, fighting the impression that her voice sounded hollow and mechanical. She still found the image in her mind a bit disturbing, at she also felt a deep gush of warmth wash through r chest and stomach.

  “Uh-huh,” Krissy said, “and she told me not to worry anymore. She said we’re all safe, and that things are gonna be just fine from now on.”

  Krissy smiled and gave a cute, almost careless shrug. “You don’t say.”

  “Uh-huh. So, you see? We don’t have to worry about anything ever again. That’s what she told me.”

  Other Rick Hautala eBooks Available from Crossroad Press

  UNTCIGAHUNK: THE COMPLETE LITTLE BROTHERS

  It has been five years since Kip Howard saw his mother killed horribly by a blur of "little brown things." Five years of nightmares and a terror of dark places. Five years of struggling to overcome what must have been just his imagination…But the "untcigahunk," the Indian word for "little brothers," are no one's imagination. Hideous forest creatures who feed every five years on human flesh, the little brothers are about to emerge from underground once again. Only this time, there will be no escape for the young boy who witnessed their last feast.

  Untcigahunk —The Novel is an updated version of Rick Hautala's classic novel Little Brothers. Also included are seven short stories about the Untcigahunk:

  Little Brother

  Little Brother Speaks

  Redman

  Chrysalis

  Love on the Rocks

  Deal with the Devils

  The Birch Whistle

  Oilman

  OCCASIONAL DEMONS

  This collection, from an acclaimed Master of Dark Fiction, consists of twenty-one tales with some being straight genre entries, others psychological terror and finally a few shorts that include science fiction elements. The first eighteen are short stories written solely by Rick and the final three are collaborations with Jesse and Matti Hautala, Matthew J. Costello, and Jim Connolly.