Ghost Town

by Jason Hawes

  As he drove, he caught a glimpse of a dark shape in his peripheral vision, almost as if someone was sitting next to him on the passenger seat. He turned to look, and for an instant, he had the impression of a woman with ivory-pale skin and long night-black hair, wearing a dress that seemed woven from the deepest of shadows. She gazed at him with unblinking ebony eyes, their surfaces as hard and shiny as polished obsidian.

  Then she was gone.

  Mitch stared at the empty space where she’d been sitting a second before. He felt an impulse to reach over and wave his hand through the air where she had been sitting, as if to make certain that she really was gone. But he resisted. He told himself that she had been a hallucination brought on by a combination of almost no sleep and being in this freaky town. That’s all. He wasn’t reluctant to touch the space where she had been because he feared he would find the air above the passenger seat colder than in the rest of the Impala, wasn’t afraid that by touching the air he would somehow be touching her. There was no her.

  He faced forward, gripped the steering wheel more tightly, and kept his gaze fixed on the road. And if he occasionally saw a dark flickering out of the corner of his eye, he ignored it.

  THREE

  “She’ll be OK,” Amber said.

  “You don’t know that,” Trevor snapped.

  But then again, he told himself, maybe she did. Of the three of them, Amber was the most psychically sensitive. Even Drew had come around to acknowledging that her dreams were often more than just dreams. But he couldn’t allow himself to clutch at straws. One of the dangers of investigating the paranormal was that if you weren’t careful, you started to believe in just about anything—especially if it gave you hope when you most needed it. You began looking for favorable signs from the spirit world, seeking insight into the future, consulting psychics, tarot readers, crystal-ball gazers . . . anything or anyone that could provide reassurance that things would be all right in the end.

  Amber reached over and gave his hand a squeeze, and Drew leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder. He was grateful for his friends’ calming presence, and he drew strength from them.

  The Eternal Rest B&B—and wasn’t that a name that suddenly no longer seemed amusing—was located in one of Exeter’s nicer residential neighborhoods. The houses there were older, dating from the first half of the twentieth century, but they had been well maintained, and many had been recently renovated. A steady influx of tourist dollars had kept the town economically healthy, even as other areas of the country had been struggling over the last few years. Trees lined the streets, their autumn leaves only just beginning to fall. They drifted down, red, orange, brown, and yellow, the colors rich and vibrant, like an oil painting brought to life. On any other morning, Trevor might have found the falling leaves beautiful, but today they only reminded him of winter’s approach. Death was still death, even when it was pretty.

  “They’re out early,” Drew said.

  At first, Trevor didn’t know what he was talking about, but then he glanced at the sidewalk and saw a quartet of people in costume heading toward the center of town. Two men, two women, barely out of their teenage years, all four garbed in black Victorian fashion—the men in suits and top hats, the women in long dresses—white makeup on their faces and black circles painted around their eyes.

  “The fun never stops during Dead Days,” Trevor said. “As the day goes by, more and more of them will hit the streets, until by tonight’s parade, the town will be so filled with people in costume that it’ll be almost impossible to get around.”

  They fell into silence then, and Trevor kept driving, resisting the urge to jam the accelerator to the floor. The last thing he needed to do was wreck his Prius.

  Exeter wasn’t large, and it took only a few minutes for them to reach downtown. He saw the police cars first, three of them, parked in front of Forgotten Lore, along with a blue-and-white paramedic van. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, some of them in costume but most dressed normally. Employees from the various businesses nearby, Trevor guessed. The onlookers stood well back from the bookstore, talking among themselves and craning their necks to get a better look at what was happening. Although Exeter didn’t have its own TV station, the Dead Days festival always drew a significant media presence, and a pair of news vans had pulled up to the curb as close to the bookstore as they could get, their reporters already outside on the sidewalk, microphones in hand, cameramen pointing video equipment at their solemn faces. One reporter was male, one female. Both were young, well groomed, and dressed professionally. Two junior reporters who had been assigned to do lifestyle segments on an eccentric town and who couldn’t believe their luck that a juicy murder story had fallen into their laps. Despite the serious expressions on their faces, Trevor could see the excitement gleaming in the reporters’ eyes as he drove past.

  He was forced to park at the end of the block, only a few spaces away from Erin Gilman’s VW. She and Carrington stood not far from the TV reporters, Erin filming the scene with a small handheld video camera, Carrington standing close by, waiting for his turn to go on camera. Trevor felt a wave of anger at them both. They were nothing but a pair of opportunistic leeches feeding off a local tragedy in order to add a tawdry touch of sensationalism to their so-called documentary.

  He turned off the engine and for a moment just sat there.

  “Trevor?” Amber said.

  He took in a deep breath and then let it out. “I’m OK. Let’s go.”

  The three of them got out of the car and began heading toward Forgotten Lore, Amber on his right, Drew on his left. He tried not to picture Jenn lying on the floor of the bookstore, her body bloodied and battered, as in Amber’s dream. As a writer, his imagination was his most-prized asset, but it could also be his greatest weakness. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t keep from imagining worst-case scenarios, and the images running through his mind right then were horrific indeed.

  As they drew near the bookstore, it became harder for him to catch his breath, and he felt a surge of panic. He was surprised by the intensity of his reaction. He didn’t want Jenn to be dead, of course, but they had broken up a while ago, and although they had remained friends, he hadn’t had much contact with her over the last couple years. An e-mail now and then, an occasional phone call to check in and catch up. But the way he felt now—nausea roiling in his stomach, heart thundering in his ears—you would have thought he was still in love with her. But the idea was ridiculous. She was over him, and he was definitely over—

  She walked out of the bookstore, accompanied by one of Exeter’s finest, a tissue clutched in her hand, eyes and nose red from crying. She stared straight ahead, her expression blank, and the officer kept one hand on her elbow, as if she needed his guidance to walk. Trevor couldn’t help feeling a wave of relief so strong that it nearly knocked him down. She was alive, and despite the obvious trauma she had suffered, she had never looked more beautiful to him.

  She was half-Korean, on her mother’s side, with long, silken black hair and creamy skin. She was taller than Trevor—almost as tall as the police officer who accompanied her—and model-thin. She wore a dark blue cardigan open over a T-shirt with an image of Toulouse-Lautrec’s Chat Noir on it, along with a black skirt, black flats, and a cloth replica of an iris blossom pinned into her hair. The shirt was classic Jenn: the black cat at once both a nod to Exeter’s spooky reputation and a stylish, playful mockery of it.

  He started walking faster when he saw her, and she turned her head in his direction, as if she sensed his presence. At first, she stared at him with dull, uncomprehending eyes, not seeming to recognize him. But then her gaze cleared, and she moved away from the police officer and ran toward him. Trevor rushed past Carrington and Erin to meet her, and she threw herself into his arms and sobbed. He held her tight, leaned his head against hers, and breathed in the familiar smell of cherry-blossom shampoo and herbal body wash. It was like coming home.

  Drew and Amber joined t
hem just as the two reporters moved in like hungry jackals starving for fresh meat, cameramen close on their heels.

  “Ms. Rinaldi, can you tell us what happened?” the male, a young African-American, asked.

  The woman reporter—an anorexic-looking blonde—shouldered her competitor aside and shoved her microphone toward Jenn. “Is it true that one of your employees was murdered last night?”

  Undeterred, the man fired off another question. “Do you feel this tragedy is connected to the Dead Days celebration?”

  The blonde raised her voice, as if by doing so, she might goad Jenn into responding. “Rumor has it your employee was killed by being bludgeoned to death with books. Is this true, and if so, how do you, as a bookseller, feel about that?”

  Trevor was appalled. He might not have been a news reporter, but he had been a journalism major in college, and he despised it when so-called professionals displayed this sort of callous disregard for someone’s feelings. But before he could say anything, Jenn lifted her head and glared at the reporters through her tears.

  “A woman died in my store last night! How the fuck do you think I feel?”

  Both reporters still possessed enough basic humanity to look chastened by Jenn’s words but only for an instant.

  “Did you actually see the body?”

  “Do the police have any leads?”

  Trevor released Jenn and stepped forward to tell the reporters what they could do with their microphones, but Amber caught hold of his arm and stopped him. Drew stepped in front of Trevor and Jenn, gave the reporters a warm smile, and held out a pair of business cards.

  “Hi! I’m Dr. Drew Pearson. I’m a psychologist, and my specialty is helping trauma victims.” He paused, still smiling, still holding out his hand.

  The reporters looked at him, looked at each other, and then—as if they had no idea what else to do—they each took one of Drew’s cards.

  “I’d be happy to provide some background information for your viewers. In fact, I recently read an article in the journal Psychological Trauma which I think might be quite illuminating in this case. It was written by Austin and Wells, who have a well-regarded joint practice in Phoenix, and the article details their work with survivors of severe automobile accidents. Now, I’ll grant you, at first, the correlation between those cases and this one isn’t immediately apparent, but if you’ll bear with me, I think you’ll come to see that—”

  The reporters—whose eyes had glazed over before Drew had gotten halfway through his spiel—mumbled thanks and turned their attention to the police officer who had escorted Jenn out of the bookstore. He was a sixtyish man with thick white hair and a bushy mustache. He was tall and beefy and had a bit of a belly. But he still looked in good shape, more like a former football player than the cliché of a doughnut-gobbling, gone-to-seed small-town cop. As the reporters and their cameramen approached him, he squared his shoulders, put on a professionally neutral expression, and prepared for their assault.

  Good, Trevor thought. Let him deal with those vultures. It was part of his job, after all.

  “A most impressive performance. If you can’t dazzle them with logic, baffle them with bullshit, eh?”

  Carrington walked up to them, smiling. Erin was right behind him, video camera down at her side. As hot as she had been to get Carrington there while the police investigation was going on, Trevor was surprised she wasn’t filming Jenn. Maybe she had more common decency than those reporters. Or maybe, since she was making a documentary, she wanted to be careful not to upset Jenn. She would need her to sign a release form in order to use any footage of her—and Jenn wouldn’t sign if Erin seemed to be trying to exploit her grief. Trevor didn’t care where Erin’s consideration originated, he was just grateful for it.

  Drew turned to Carrington. “Sometimes pedanticism is mightier than the sword.”

  Carrington smiled at Drew before stepping forward and taking Jenn’s hands in his own. A serious expression came over his face as he spoke.

  “Ms. Rinaldi, I’m so sorry to hear of your loss. Was it the young woman who worked for you? Her name escapes me at the moment . . .”

  “Tonya,” Jenn said. Her voice was rough from crying, but she managed to hold back her tears. “I live above the shop, but last night, I was helping to get the Exhibition Hall ready for Esotericon, so I took a room at the hotel. Tonya was supposed to close by herself, and I told her to call or text me before she left to let me know everything was OK. When she didn’t contact me, I figured she just forgot. She was scheduled to work again today since I’m supposed to sell books at the conference, but I came in this morning to pick up some more stock. Your books, Arthur—and yours, Trevor. But when I went inside . . .”

  She trailed off, and a lone tear trickled down her cheek.

  “I think it would be better if we continued this conversation somewhere else,” Drew said. “Have the police already questioned you?” When she nodded, he said, “Good. I’ll check and see if they need you to stay any longer.” Drew looked at Amber. Silent communication passed between then, and she nodded. She stepped close to Jenn as Drew walked over to speak to the officer. The reporters were still grilling him, but when they saw Drew coming, they wrapped up their questions and moved off. Trevor was certain they would return to interrogate the officer further once Drew left.

  Amber gave Jenn a sympathetic smile. “Hi. I’m Amber Lozier, one of Trevor’s friends.”

  Jenn brushed away the tear on her cheek and gave Amber a weak smile. “Yes. You were with him in high school when . . .” She glanced at Carrington and Erin and fell silent.

  “That’s right. Is there a place where we could go sit down and have a cup of coffee?”

  “There’s Burial Grounds. It’s just down the street.”

  Trevor wished there was a place they could go that didn’t have death as part of its theme, but in Exeter, businesses like that were hard to come by. Back when they had been dating, he had taken Jenn to Burial Grounds many times, and he hoped the coffee shop’s familiarity would help calm her.

  “Sounds good,” Amber said.

  Drew returned. “At first, the chief was a little reluctant to let you leave, but when I told him it was my professional opinion that it would be best for you to get some distance from the store, he relented. He said he’d contact you if he needs to speak with you further.”

  Jenn nodded, her gaze unfocused, and Trevor wondered if she had really heard Drew’s words.

  The four of them started walking down the street, Carrington and Erin tagging along behind. Trevor wasn’t thrilled about that—especially since he feared they were only interested in exploiting Jenn for their film—but he didn’t want to make an issue of it, given Jenn’s fragile emotional state. The less conflict right now, the better.

  As they walked, she leaned against him, and without thinking about it, he slipped an arm around her shoulder. Despite the circumstances, it felt good to be close to her again.

  Mitch wasn’t able to find a parking space near the bookstore, so he parked the next block over, got out of his Impala, and walked to the store. Once there, he joined the crowd of rubberneckers, but unlike them, he didn’t watch the reporters or try to catch a glimpse inside the building. He kept his gaze fastened on Amber. He didn’t know what had happened—only that whatever it was had been important enough to draw the cops and the media like flies to rotting garbage—and he didn’t really care. All that mattered to him was keeping Amber in sight.

  He stayed toward the back of the crowd in case she looked in his direction, but he needn’t have bothered. All of her attention was focused on the Asian bitch with the fake flower in her hair. She looked pretty damned upset, and Amber radiated concern for her, as did her precious Drew. But neither of them looked as concerned as their overweight friend, the guy who had driven them there in his candy-ass Prius. Mitch figured he had something going on with the Asian—or at least wanted to get something going. Mitch didn’t blame him. She was hot. Maybe when he was fini
shed with Amber, he might track her down, see if he couldn’t get a little of that for himself.

  After talking for a bit, the four of them were joined by the black woman and the old man who had left the bed-and-breakfast before them, and they all headed down the sidewalk—luckily, in the opposite direction from Mitch. He waited a moment to allow them to get enough of a head start before he followed. As Amber walked, she reached out to take Drew’s hand, and the sight of them acting like a couple of lovesick teenagers turned Mitch’s stomach. He was looking forward to getting her alone so he could remind her of what it was like to be touched by a real man.

  From the corner of his eye, he had the impression of a black-garbed figure walking beside him, but he didn’t turn to look. He sensed that it was the sort of thing you couldn’t see if you altered your perspective too much. Like a funhouse mirror: change where you were standing, and the image altered. Or maybe this was more like looking at an eclipse: stare at it directly, and you risked damaging your vision. He remembered the woman he had imagined sitting next to him in his car back at the B&B. He especially remembered her eyes. They had been so black . . . so cold. He continued to believe that she had been nothing but a hallucination, though. This woman—and it was a woman, he knew that—walking next to him now was probably just one of the many costumed loonies wandering around town this weekend, that’s all. But he still didn’t turn to look at her.