Ghost Town

by Jason Hawes

  As they passed the haunted house, child-size ghosts and witches came streaking through the air toward them. Drew knew they weren’t really flying, that it was all part of the Dark Lady’s illusion, just as he knew that hitting them with Amber’s equally illusory swords wouldn’t really hurt them. Still, he hesitated to swing his weapon at a witch who came flying toward him, cackling with mad glee. In reality, she was only a little girl, running toward him instead of flying, driven to attack by the mind-twisting power of the Dark Lady. She was as much a victim of the baleful spirit as the men and women she had killed, and he didn’t want to hurt her. But when she was within range, he lashed out with his blade and struck her a solid blow to the side of her neck.

  The witch screeched in pain, black blood spurted from the wound, and her spinal-column broom veered off to the left. She dipped toward the ground, smashed into the asphalt, bounced, rolled, and came to a stop, leaving a smear of black gore behind her. She lay still in a widening pool of blood.

  He stood there shaking, ribs throbbing. She’s not dead, he told himself. She only thinks she is. Once the Dark Lady released her grip on the girl’s mind, she would return to normal and be restored to full health. He hoped. He had no more time for doubts then, for a ghost came at him, moaning like a midnight winter wind.

  They hacked and slashed their way through the ghosts and witches, Drew doing his best not to think of them as boys and girls, and they were almost past the haunted house when the Witch Queen turned in their direction, let out a shriek of rage, aimed her staff, and released a blistering gout of flame.

  Amber was right in the path of the fire blast, and although Drew took a panicked step forward, he knew he couldn’t save her. As they had run and fought, space had opened up between them, and there was no way he could reach her before the flames. There wasn’t even enough time to shout and warn her.

  But Erin was standing right next to Amber, and she saw the flame blast coming. She slammed her shoulder into Amber and knocked her aside, just as the fire hit. Flames engulfed Erin, and she screamed in agony as her flesh blackened and sizzled. She dropped her sword and staggered around, still screaming, until Greg stepped forward and calmly rammed his swordpoint into her chest. She stiffened, her screaming stopped, and then she slipped off of Greg’s blade and collapsed to the ground.

  Trevor stepped toward Greg, sword raised. “You sonofabitch!” He swung, but Greg parried the blow easily.

  “Relax. She’s not dead. But she believed she was on fire, so the pain she felt was real. All I did by seeming to kill her was render her unconscious. It was a mercy.” He glanced down at her still-burning form. “Believe me, I know.”

  Greg still wore Connie’s face, but for an instant, Drew saw his actual visage, bald and burn-scarred, superimposed upon it. But the image faded, leaving him looking only like Connie again.

  “Let’s go before that bitch witch roasts the rest of us,” Greg said. Without another word, he resumed running, and the others followed.

  “Is Greg right?” Amber said to Drew as they ran. “Is Erin OK?”

  He resisted glancing back over his shoulder at Erin’s blackened, smoldering corpse. He wanted to reassure Amber, but he couldn’t find the words, so they just kept running.

  SEVENTEEN

  Amber’s right arm felt as heavy as lead, but it wasn’t as heavy as her heart. She understood that they weren’t really hurting anyone with their swords, that this was all an elaborate game of pretend, a psychological battle rather than a physical one. But it felt real. Every time her blade cut into an opponent’s flesh, she felt the jolt run up her arm, saw blood spurt from the wound, heard the cries of pain. Real or not, she knew she would have nightmares about this for years to come.

  The six of them—make that five—had reached Forgotten Lore. Everyone looked as exhausted as she felt: clothes splattered with blood, faces slick with sweat, lungs heaving, sword arms hanging limply at their sides. But the fight wasn’t over yet. The high-school band was coming toward them, moving with halting, staggering steps. The kids had become emaciated, gray-fleshed corpses, with dark pools of shadow where their eyes had been. Their instruments had been transformed, too, becoming weapons—knives, axes, and hand scythes—fashioned from whatever material their instruments had been made from. Keys, valves, slides, and mouthpieces remained, indicating the weapons’ musical origin, but rather than making the objects look ridiculous, their altered appearance rendered them sinister in the extreme.

  Amber wondered how the band members would wield their strange weapons. They weren’t really blades, after all; they only appeared that way. She assumed that the kids would use their instruments like clubs, beating their victims repeatedly until they died. It sounded like a very long and painful way to die, and she would prefer to avoid it if she could. They had their swords and could fight back, but there were too many kids, and they were too tired. Besides, their swords were illusory, but those instruments, despite their current appearance, were not. It would only be a matter of moments until they were overrun, and when they died, they would do so for real.

  The five of them stood with their backs to the storefront so they could face the oncoming corpses. Amber looked over her shoulder and peered through the display window. If the Dark Lady was inside Forgotten Lore, she couldn’t tell. The store was filled with an impenetrable darkness, the kind Amber imagined could only be found in the deepest ocean depths where no ray of light had ever touched.

  Maybe we’d be safer staying out here, she thought.

  Yellow crime-scene tape stretched across the door, and Amber wasn’t surprised when Drew tried to open it and found it locked. He stepped back and tried kicking it open, but the door was made of thick, solid wood and refused to budge.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Trevor said. He walked up to the window, told everyone to stand back, and swung his sword at the glass. Amber knew what was going to happen, but she still gritted her teeth in anticipation of hearing the sound of glass shattering. But Trevor’s blade passed through the glass without so much as leaving a scratch.

  “What part of illusion don’t you get, genius?” Greg said.

  Then, as if Greg had said that the emperor had no clothes, all of their swords dissipated like mist.

  “I’m sorry!” Amber said. “I must’ve lost my concentration.”

  Drew shook his head. “Seeing concrete evidence that the swords were illusory caused your subconscious mind to no longer believe in them. When that happened—”

  “Poof,” Greg said.

  She turned to face the horde of teenage corpses staggering toward them, less than twenty feet away now. They only had a few moments left to do something before brass and woodwinds came bashing down on their skulls. Amber looked around, desperate to find something—

  “The trashcan!” She pointed to a metal receptacle on the sidewalk nearby. It was painted white, and its domed lid had two black eyes to make it resemble a ghost. She figured the hinged flap was supposed to serve as the faux specter’s mouth.

  “That’ll work!” Trevor ran over, grabbed hold of the trashcan, lifted it, and ran at the bookstore’s window. He heaved the receptacle at the glass, and this time, it broke with an extremely satisfying shattering sound.

  “It appears that the trashcan is mightier than the sword,” Greg said.

  “Amber, Greg, both of you get inside!” Drew said. “Arthur, Trevor, and I will follow.”

  Greg looked at her. “Do women have to put up with this macho nonsense a lot?”

  She smiled. “You have no idea.”

  Amber went first, careful not to cut herself on the jagged shards that still jutted from the window frame. There had been a table display of books on the other side, but the trashcan had knocked the volumes to the floor. Enough light spilled in from outside that Amber could see that the books were Trevor’s and Carrington’s. As she set her foot on the floor, she accidentally bent back the front cover of one of Trevor’s books, and she mentally apologized. Once she was al
l the way inside, Greg followed. A moment later, Carrington came through the broken window, followed by Trevor and then Drew. When Carrington saw his books on the floor, he reflexively bent down to pick them up, but then he straightened, as if he had thought better of it.

  It was good to know that even the great Arthur Carrington could put aside his ego when there was a job to do, however hard he might have to struggle to do so.

  Amber turned to look back out the window. The Marching Band of the Living Dead was still coming, and they showed no signs of stopping. If they didn’t do something fast, the kids would soon be climbing in through the broken window. And once that happened, they would be trapped, with nowhere left to run.

  “We need to find something to barricade the window!” Drew said, looking frantically around. But the light from the street only penetrated a few feet into the store. After that, only a solid wall of black was visible, and it was impossible to tell what lay beyond it.

  “There’s no time!” Carrington said. “They’re almost here!”

  Amber found herself strangely unconcerned about the band members’ approach. Instead, she found her attention becoming even more focused on the wall of shadow. There was something compelling about it, something that seemed to be calling to her, urging her toward it.

  “She’s inside,” Amber said, and as soon as the words left her mouth, she sensed that it was true.

  “Then that’s where we have to go,” Greg said.

  “What part of trap don’t you understand?” Trevor said.

  “I understand that if we stay here, we’re dead.” And with that, Greg calmly walked forward and was swallowed by darkness.

  “It’s easy for him to take a chance like that,” Trevor grumbled. “He’s already dead.”

  “He?” Carrington said. “Dead?”

  “There’s no time to explain,” Amber said. She couldn’t help giving him a quick smile. “And you’re probably happier not knowing. Let’s go.” She took his hand, then reached out to take Drew’s. “Ready?” she asked.

  Drew smiled. “Let’s see what’s waiting for us this time.”

  Books were scattered all over the floor from when Tonya had been killed, and they had to step carefully. Amber led the two men forward, and Trevor followed close behind.

  “Whatever’s in there,” Trevor said, “I guarantee we’re not going to like it.”

  The four of them entered the blackness.

  Wind roared and swirled around her as rain slammed into her body like miniature spears of ice. She felt off balance, and her feet would have slid out from under her if she hadn’t been holding on to Drew’s and Carrington’s hands. She heard Trevor swear, and she turned to see him lean forward, arms stretched out before him, as if he was trying to maintain his balance. He was sliding slowly backward, and that’s when she realized that they were all standing on a slanted roof, rain-slick shingles beneath their feet.

  Greg stood at the apex of the roof, straddling both sides with his bare feet—he had kicked off Connie’s shoes when they had been running in the street—and he reached out to grab Trevor’s hand and steady him. At first, she feared that Trevor would yank Greg toward him, and they would both go tumbling over the edge, but Greg was stronger than he looked. Or, rather, Connie’s body was stronger than it looked, and Greg managed to maintain his position without losing hold of Trevor.

  It took some doing, but the four of them joined Greg at the very top of the roof, and there they remained, clinging to one another for support.

  Amber looked around. The rain and wind made it difficult to see, and she had to squint her eyes and shield them with a hand, but she was able to make out dozens of roofs around them, spreading outward in all directions. But roofs were all that was visible. The houses beneath them were concealed by high, fast-flowing floodwaters. She couldn’t see anyone on the other roofs, though. The five of them appeared to be alone, and there was no Dark Lady in sight.

  “Is this real?” Carrington asked. He had to almost shout to make himself heard over the wind and rain.

  “More real than the monsters out in the street,” Trevor said. “We entered the locus of the Dark Lady’s haunting. This is where she’s strongest.”

  “Remember the girl who died in the museum.” Greg said. “Her lungs were filled with river water. Even an illusion can kill, if enough power is channeled into it.”

  “So don’t go for a swim,” Trevor said.

  Drew turned his head back and forth, checking every direction. “If this truly is her locus, she should be here. So where is she?”

  “Maybe Trevor was right,” Carrington said. “Maybe this is a trap. A sort of pocket dimension where the Dark Lady has imprisoned us.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Greg said, although he sounded doubtful. “But . . .” He trailed off, his eyes widening as if he had just spotted something. “Oh, shit, that’s not good.”

  “What?” Drew asked.

  Greg pointed toward the water, and as Amber looked in that direction, she sensed a presence all around them. It was massive and angry, but most of all, it was afraid.

  She saw forms gliding through the water just below the surface, dozens, hundreds of them, each roughly the size of a person. They were everywhere, as far as the eye could see, shadowy shapes without any individual features to distinguish one from another.

  “Those are spirits of people who died in the flood,” she said. “The Dark Lady gets her power from them.”

  “I get much more than that, my dear.”

  Amber spun around to see the Dark Lady standing next to her. The dead woman grinned, although her shadow-black eyes remained cold and unfeeling as she reached out and took hold of Amber’s wrist. Her touch was so frigid it burned like fire, and Amber gasped in pain.

  “I’d love to have a girl-to-girl chat with you, but I made a promise to a friend of mine.”

  The Dark Lady yanked Amber away from the others with unearthly strength and hurled her away from the roof. Amber spun through the air, and the last thing she heard before she hit the water—and joined the multitude of dark shapes swimming beneath the surface—was Drew shouting her name.

  She woke up coughing, rolled over onto her side, and threw up a stream of river water. She was still retching when she realized that she was lying on a tiled floor in a lit room.

  “It’s about time that goddamned bitch kept her promise.”

  Mitch.

  Feeling dizzy and sick, she pushed herself onto her feet and turned to face him. She didn’t wonder how she had gotten there or even where “there” was. All that mattered was making sure he didn’t get his hands on her.

  “So that’s what got you to serve her?” she asked. “She promised you could have me when it was all over?’

  Mitch smiled. “Yep. Though truth to tell, I was beginning to wonder if she was planning on scamming me.”

  Amber’s eyes darted from side to side as she took in her surroundings. They were in a small kitchen—a woman’s, she guessed, based on the décor: butterfly and kitten magnets holding various coupons in place on the refrigerator, a calendar with nature scenes hanging on the wall, an oven mitt on the counter designed to look like the head of a cute, cartoonish cow. This had to be Jenn’s place.

  “Where is she?” she demanded.

  “Jenn? Watching all the fun happening outside. Until a bit ago, that’s what I was doing, too. That stunt with the swords was pretty impressive. I didn’t know you could do stuff like that.”

  “You never knew me, Mitch. Not really.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, considering her words. “Maybe not. But we’re going to have lots of time to get better acquainted. In all kinds of ways.” His smile widened. “Who knows? Maybe the Dark Lady will let me keep the Asian girl, too. What do you think? Some say three’s a crowd, but it’s also a number with magical significance, isn’t it? You’d know better than me. You’re into that kind of thing now.”

  She peered closely at Mitch. His eyes w
ere too wide, his smile too close to a leer, and he gave off a manic energy that he seemed to be having trouble containing.

  “What happened to you?” she asked. “The Mitch Sagers I knew might have been a controlling misogynist with anger issues, but he wasn’t a killer. For all his faults, he was a man, not a monster.”

  He frowned, and Amber saw the confusion in his eyes. She hoped that she had managed to reach him, but then his gaze cleared, and when he spoke, his voice was cold and mocking. “Maybe you never really knew me,” he said.

  He came at her then, and without thinking, she extended her hand toward him, fingers curled as if she were gripping an unseen object. One instant her hand was empty, and the next it was holding a sword.

  Mitch impaled himself on her blade, which was preternaturally sharp. His body stiffened, his face paled, and he took two more steps forward, sliding along the metal until the hilt was pressed against his chest. Blood darkened the front of his shirt, and his mouth opened and closed as if he was trying to say something, but only a whispering hiss of breath emerged. She wasn’t certain, but she thought he said, “Sorry, Daddy.”

  The sword vanished, and Mitch collapsed to the kitchen floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She looked down at his body for several moments, trying to feel something but not really surprised that she didn’t. She then went off in search of Jenn.

  “Amber!”

  Drew stepped forward as if he thought he might be able to catch hold of Amber and keep her from falling into the water. He started to slip on the rain-slick roof, but Trevor grabbed his arm to steady him. Drew watched as Amber plunged into the water and sank beneath the surface. He feared that the spirits of the flood victims would converge on her like hungry piranha attacking a hunk of raw meat, but they continued circling the rooftop. He watched for Amber to break the surface and draw in a gasping breath, but she didn’t reappear.

  Drew turned toward the Dark Lady, rage and fear roiling within him. “Bring her back! Now!”