by Ron Ripley
Brian and Jenny nodded.
Jeannette grinned as she said, “Of course. I have but one issue, dear Sylvia.”
“Oh?” Sylvia asked.
“Where is his library?”
Sylvia smiled and started to give Jeannette directions.
Chapter 33: The Past, the Present, and the Future
The house was blessedly still.
A small miracle, as far as William was concerned.
The hum of the refrigerator was the only sound when he walked in.
William closed the door behind him and put his keys and wallet down on the coffee table. He put his few groceries away before he went to the hearth. There William squatted down and carefully shoveled out the embers. Once he finished with them, he laid in wood and added newspaper for tinder. A few minutes later he had a good sized flame burning. He stood up, adjusted the flue, and went to the couch.
William settled in, crossed his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes.
He breathed deeply and sought a place in his mind free of distractions.
He pictured his Marine recruiter’s office and the desk where Staff Sergeant Obermeyer had presided. The man had been his rock when William was preparing to graduate from high school. The Iraq veteran had made sure William didn’t forget school projects or miss classes. He had helped William pass his driving test.
The man had even gone down to Parris Island to see him graduate from boot camp.
William smiled.
Yes, the Marine Sub-Station and Recruiting Office in Manchester, New Hampshire really had been a place of comfort.
William let out a pleased sigh and opened his eyes.
And the good feeling was gone.
The house was gone.
He was still in a house, but not the one he had closed his eyes in.
William found himself sitting in a rough chair and looking at a large, central fireplace. He could see through the flames to the other side of the room. The floor beneath his feet was dirt, the hearth made of huge fieldstones with rough mortar. Iron brackets kept pots over the burning logs and glowing embers.
William stood up and looked around.
The room was huge, easily three times the size of the little house.
Four narrow windows, each protected by closed interior shutters, broke the monotony of the rough-hewn logs which made up the walls. A large door stood between each pair of windows.
A narrow ladder rose up to a second floor.
And William could hear voices.
“It’s just the children playing,” a voice said from behind him.
William’s heart thundered as he turned around quickly.
Kathleen stood before him. Tall, beautiful.
She smiled kindly at him.
“How are you, William?”
He swallowed nervously. “Confused.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “A minute ago I was on the couch in the beach house. Now I’m here.”
He heard the panic in his own voice and fought to keep it under control.
“You still are in the beach house,” she answered.
“No,” William said. “This is not the house I was in.”
“But you are in the beach house, William. Can you not hear it?”
He struggled for control and forced himself to listen.
He heard the ocean.
“Ah,” Kathleen said, smiling. “Yes, it is the Atlantic.”
William nodded.
“Good. You see, you’re still in the beach house.”
“But this doesn’t look like it.”
“This is what my home looks like from my side,” Kathleen answered.
William stiffened. “Am I dead?”
“No,” Kathleen said, shaking her head.
“Then why am I here?”
“I wish it.”
He swallowed nervously. Upstairs something thumped, and the children howled with laughter.
“Well,” he said, “not to be rude, but could you do me a favor and wish me back.”
“Why?”
William blinked and then he asked, “What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Why would you want to go back to the smaller house?” she asked. “Look at what we have here. Look at the room. The others are out now, but even when they return, there is plenty of room for all of us.”
“What do you mean they’re out?” William asked.
“We should be getting someone new soon,” Kathleen said. She walked around him to the fireplace and used a wooden spoon to stir the contents of a pot. “She won’t stay long, but we must do our best to ensure her arrival.”
“Can I walk out the door and back into the small house?” William asked.
“You can walk out the door, but you will not find the small house.”
“What will I find?”
“Death,” she answered, turning around to face him. “The Abenaki are on the warpath. Here, King Philip has risen up against the Massachusetts Bay colony. The tribes allied to him raid and drive us back. Should you step out onto the beach, you will be nothing more than prey to them.”
“Great,” William muttered. He glanced at the windows and noticed, for the first time, the firing slots cut into the shutters.
He looked back to her. “Kathleen, please, please send me back.”
“I cannot. I cannot risk you not returning. And besides, William, you have nothing there,” she said. “Nothing. No one visits you. You visit no one.”
“Brian was with me,” William answered.
She waved her hand dismissively. “No one. He came at your request to see what could be done about us. Nothing can be done, William. You know this to be true.”
“Kathleen,” William said, “please. Please send me home.”
“I can’t,” Kathleen said.
“Why?”
“Because you are home.”
Chapter 34: William in the Beach House
William lost his temper.
“I’m not home! Send me back now!” he screamed.
Thunder cracked, darkness swept over him.
“Oh William,” Kathleen said.
William found himself back on the floor of the small beach house. Grains of sand stood out starkly on the dark, worn wood. The fire burned steadily in the hearth, the logs crackling.
He swallowed dryly and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He took a deep breath and got to his feet. His head swam as he made his way to a chair and sat down.
Brian, he thought.
William pulled his phone out and called the older man.
It went right to voicemail.
“Hello, you’ve reached the Leonidas Group. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message after the tone. We will get back to you within twenty-four hours. Thank you.”
A beep sounded.
“Brian, this is William. Please give me a call immediately.”
William ended the call and stood up. He grabbed his keys off of the coffee table, pocketed his wallet, and went to the front door.
The door wouldn’t budge.
He twisted it to the left and to the right, but try as he might, the door wouldn’t open.
Rage boiled within him, and he dropped his keys to seize the cold metal with both hands. He applied as much pressure as he could.
And he stumbled back. He tripped over his own feet and landed hard against the couch.
The steel doorknob was in his hands.
William looked at the windows and realized they were dark. Not from clouds or the sun having set. Something black barred any light from entering, and William from seeing out.
He had no doubt the windows wouldn’t open and that the glass would be unbreakable.
William had made it back to the beach house, but Kathleen still wasn’t letting him leave.
He dropped the doorknob to the floor, ignored the pain in his hands and hoped Brian would call him soon. At least, he still had phone reception.
<
br /> Chapter 35: Giving William a Call
Brian plugged the ghost phone into the charger before pulling away from Sylvia’s house. Jenny had already left and would meet him at home. He didn’t particularly want to drive, but he couldn’t leave the car at Sylvia’s. Another storm was rolling in, with the possibility of ten to fourteen inches of snow.
It would be better to have to dig the car out of his own driveway rather than drive all the way back to Sylvia’s to do the same.
And so I’m driving, he thought. Brian glanced nervously at the radio. The knowledge of Leo’s return made Brian hopeful about finding a way to truly stop Paul, and there was still William to think of.
Kid’s got it tough, Brian said as he maneuvered the streets back to route 101 and home.
He was about twenty minutes into the ride when the ghost phone suddenly chirped. At the next red light Brian checked his mirrors for police, and then quickly picked up the cell.
A voicemail.
Brian tapped the icon and hit speakerphone.
“Brian, this is William. Please give me a call immediately.”
Damn it.
The light turned green, and Brian tapped the steering wheel nervously. He glanced down at the phone several times before he arrived at another light. Again he scanned for law enforcement.
“Call the last caller,” Brian said, annunciating each word.
The cell started to ring.
“Brian!” William said, answering the phone.
“Yeah, kid,” Brian said. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t leave the house,” William said, his voice thick with desperation. “I tried to get out, but she won’t let me.”
“Kathleen?”
“Yeah. Hell, she even took me to another--”
William’s voice vanished.
“Leave us in peace,” Kathleen said. Her tone was low and harsh, and it raised the hackles on Brian’s neck. “You need to concern yourself with Paul Kenyon, Brian Roy, for Paul Kenyon is concerning himself with you.”
The call ended.
Brian turned right with traffic onto Route 122 and gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“No,” Brian whispered, “I’ll be concerning myself with you too, Kathleen.”
A mix of fear and anger simmered within Brian’s heart, and he no longer wanted to sleep.
He wanted to hurt the dead.
Chapter 36: In Leo’s Room
Sylvia sat in Leo’s chair.
She hadn’t done anything to the small part of the building he had lived in except to keep it clean. He had never cooked for himself, so there had been no food to throw out. No pets or plants to care for.
Just his books.
His narrow bunk was made with fresh sheets for the rare occasion where she stayed too late and was too tired to drive the short distance home. Part of her was curious as to what intimacy with Leo might have been like, but she was mature enough to understand it was merely conjecture.
It was always easier to put the dead on a pedestal, and easier to wonder about how the relationship might have worked when the person was already gone.
She looked around the room and stopped.
Leo stood in a corner and smiled at her.
His form was fuzzy around the edges, as though she was viewing him through a pane of dirty glass.
“Hello, Sylvia,” he said. His voice had a slight echo to it. “Are you well?”
Sylvia could only nod.
He frowned. “Are you sad?”
Sylvia smiled and found her voice. “Yes, Leo, I’m sad.”
“Oh,” he said. He rubbed at his jaw. “You do not have to be sad, Sylvia. Death is the end result of life.”
“I know, Leo,” she said, her smile widening. “I’m sad because I miss you.”
“Ah,” Leo smiled. “Now I understand. I miss you as well. You know, it is a very strange thing to be dead.”
“Are you still helping people?” she asked.
“Whenever I am able to,” he said. “I am returning to Edgewood Cemetery in a moment. I think it is a moment.”
“You think?”
“I cannot grasp time. Not here. There are moments when I believe I have been gone for days. Weeks even, but,” he shrugged, “I find I have been gone only a few minutes. At other times the reverse is true. I have lost days in the blink of an eye.”
“Leo,” Sylvia said gently, “why haven’t you come to see me sooner?”
“I,” he paused and looked down at his feet. “I was afraid I would frighten you, Sylvia. I do not ever wish to upset you.”
“You will only upset me if you stay away, Leo,” Sylvia said. “So please visit me often.”
Leo started to answer, but then he stopped and tilted his head to one side. He frowned.
“What is it?” Sylvia asked.
“Someone is here,” Leo said. “Someone who should not be. Stay within the room, Sylvia. You will be safe.”
And Leo vanished.
Chapter 37: Leo, August 15th, 1995
In June, Leo had graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in archival work. He even had an interview with the Hollis Library for the last week of August. The director was a cousin of his mother.
Nepotism worked well in New England.
Yet Leo was far more concerned with the house across from the Hollis High School.
In theory, the home was unoccupied and had been for some time. The red paint was faded and the wooden siding bare and gray in places. Trees grew through the collapsed roof of the garage and vines had long ago claimed a motorcycle and a canoe. The windows were caked in dirt and dust from the road, and the mailbox was askew on its post.
But the building was not empty. Not at all.
The weekend before, Leo had driven past the house and seen someone looking out of a dormer window.
Leo knew the person was dead. He hadn’t been sure whether it was the ghost of a woman or a man, or if they were young or old.
They were deceased, which was the only information he needed.
Standing on the side of the road, his car parked at the high school, Leo was waiting for the sun to finish setting.
Only a few more minutes, he told himself. With night upon the land, he would be able to enter the house. The few other individuals whom he had met and who dealt with ghosts always did so at night, but the people were afraid.
Leo couldn’t understand it.
Yes, the dead could harm, but those were rare cases. Especially when the person looking into the haunting couldn’t see the ghosts.
Leo, on the other hand, could see the deceased, and there were times when they were exceptionally displeased with him for it.
The sun disappeared, and Hollis slipped into darkness. Hardly any ambient light came from the town and only a few streetlights illuminated the stretch of road the house was on.
Leo didn’t need the light, though.
He had already memorized the location of the front door and how best to move through the overgrown grass. Leo closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He could smell corn and pumpkins, horses and goats. They were the rich smells of a rural community.
Leo opened his eyes and crossed the road.
When he reached the house, he took hold of the door latch, pressed down and found it unlocked.
The hinges let out a long, tortured cry of metal on metal as Leo pushed his way in. A wave of odors washed over him, and he paused to allow his nose to process them all.
Cat urine and mouse droppings. An ancient skunk. Bird and squirrel waste.
And rot.
Not the rot of wood or of flesh, but something fouler.
Caleb’s smell.
A shiver of fear danced along Leo’s spine as he remembered the horrific creature from his hospital room, but he shook the fear off.
I will do this, Leo told himself, and he closed the door behind him.
He was in complete darkness.
Leo sat down on the filthy floor and waited
.
Soon he heard footsteps on the second floor. They approached what he assumed were the stairs and then a moment later, they started down.
The noise stopped, and Leo could feel the ghost. It stood a few feet in front of him.
From his pocket Leo took out a small flashlight with a red lens on it. He aimed it in front of him and turned it on.
A girl looked at him.
She was young. Perhaps six or seven. Her clothes were little more than rags, her hair cut short and rough. She was exceptionally thin, and she looked at Leo with an expression of curiosity.
“Hello,” Leo said gently.
The girl took a nervous step back. She glanced over her shoulder, up the stairs.
And Leo knew she wasn’t alone in the house.
“Can you see me?” the girl asked in a whisper.
Leo nodded.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I came to see if you wanted to leave,” Leo said. He kept his own voice low.
Caleb’s smell grew stronger.
“I can’t,” the girl said sadly. “My grandmother won’t let me.”
“You do not have to listen to her anymore,” Leo said. “You can come with me if you like. I can show you how to leave.”
“I’m dead,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “So is my grandmother. I’m nice. But she isn’t.”
The floor above him creaked.
“No,” Leo said. “I do not believe she is. But you can leave. What is your name?”
“Eunice,” she answered.
“Eunice, I am Leo. Would you like to leave?”
Something heavy advanced to the stairwell, and the foul odor grew stronger.
This one is worse than Caleb, Leo realized.
“I want to,” Eunice said. “But my grandmother won’t let me.”
“Eunice!” a high, shrill voice screamed. “Where are you, girl?!”
“I’m downstairs, grandma,” Eunice called back. She looked at Leo desperately as she whispered, “You need to leave. She doesn’t like people.”
Leo stood up. He smiled at Eunice. “Do you want to leave, Eunice?”
The grandmother started down the stairs.