The Siren and the Spectre

by Jonathan Janz

  “Give him to me,” David said when he pulled even with Jessica. She allowed David to lift Mike Jr. off her shoulder, and though she didn’t speak, her grateful look at David spoke volumes. He knew he should thank her for saving his ass, but that could come later.

  First, they had to get the hell off the peninsula.

  Templeton ran well for a man in his late fifties. Jessica streaked along beside him. David fell behind, but not by much. Carrying Mike Jr. was like toting a sack of mulch, the boy’s legs bouncing against David’s chest.

  Ahead, Templeton ducked into the woods, and a moment later the interior light of Templeton’s SUV lit up the trees. David followed, a stitch piercing his side, and was relieved to see Jessica tearing open the back door and awaiting David’s arrival.

  He knifed between the trees. Jessica stepped aside to let him pass, and without pause he fed Mike Jr. into the backseat of the SUV. David winced at the way Mike Jr. slouched sideways in the seat, but there was no time to diagnose the kid now.

  Jessica hurried around to the passenger’s seat. David scooted in beside Mike Jr. and yanked the door shut. “Drive.”

  Templeton reversed the Jimmy, moving too briskly given the closeness of the forest and the gravity of their plight. David cast a glance behind them, sure they’d slam into a tree. Then the SUV burst out of the forest and skidded on the lane.

  “You think you can beat the Shelbys to the main road?” Jessica asked.

  Templeton glanced at her but didn’t answer.

  “We need to get to Harkless,” David said.

  “Assuming she’s not in on it,” Templeton answered.

  David stared at Templeton in the overhead mirror, appalled.

  Jessica was watching Templeton, wide-eyed. “There’s no way Georgia’s in league with them. Why would you say such a thing?”

  Templeton regarded her dourly. “Would you have suspected Ralph Hooper?”

  Jessica seemed to deflate.

  Shit, David thought.

  They rocketed past Ralph’s, swerved onto Governor’s Road. Templeton was driving like a movie stuntman, and while David worried they’d overturn on a curve and die in a fiery crash, he said nothing, understanding as well as Templeton did that if the Shelbys headed them off, they’d be just as screwed.

  “How is he?” Jessica asked, peering over her shoulder at Mike Jr.

  David glanced at the boy’s wan face and thought, Blighted. He’s been blighted by whatever’s happening in that house, ruined by his parents and his grandpa and that fucking….

  Ghost, his mind finished.

  He couldn’t believe it. The spectre was real.

  He was thinking this when they rumbled around a bend and discovered the white Escalade parked diagonally across the road. Templeton stomped on the brakes, the Jimmy skidding sideways. Templeton fought the skid, cut the wheel, but they’d swung too far. They came to a stop facing the other direction. The car stalled, a persistent ding and a flashing yellow light announcing engine trouble. A shadow appeared from their right and they heard a loud clack against the passenger’s window.

  Michael Shelby grinned through the window at them.

  He had the gun trained on Jessica’s face.

  * * *

  “Drive,” Jessica said in a low voice.

  “You nuts?” Templeton asked. “Hell no, I’m not driving. He’ll put a hole in your head.”

  “Drive, dammit,” Jessica said. “If they catch us, we’re done anyway.”

  “Charlie’s right,” David said, taking in Shelby’s demented grin. “He’ll kill you for sure. Our only chance is to take the gun away from him.”

  “Daddy likes movies where they kill for fun,” Mike Jr. said.

  They all turned and stared at the boy.

  His expression never changed, his eyes sleepy. “I seen Daddy kill one a few months back. A man they found in Richmond, was supposed to fuck Mommy. The guy started causing trouble, givin’ Daddy shit. Daddy told him he wanted to go outside and talk things over. Shot him in the back of the head, right there on the lawn.”

  God, David thought. He remembered what Ralph had said about the Shelbys: I heard a gunshot over there a few months ago.

  Shelby tapped the muzzle against Jessica’s window, causing them all to jolt. Templeton sighed, reached for the keys, but Jessica gripped his forearm. “Drive away, Charlie. Now, while you still—”

  The passenger window imploded. Glass sprayed over Jessica, and then Shelby, having smashed the window with the butt of the gun, jammed the muzzle against Jessica’s temple. “Get out of the car,” he said, eyes aglitter. “Right fucking now.”

  This time Jessica listened. In the moment before Shelby’s gun receded from the car, David considered lunging for his wrist.

  But the risk was too great, his feelings for Jessica too strong. He realised, as Shelby seized her arm and wrenched her away from the SUV, he cared more about her than any woman since Anna. And he was about to lose her….

  David was out of the SUV and circling its back end. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  Shelby whirled, trained the gun on David’s chest. “Stay back!”

  David showed Shelby his palms. “Just let her go. This is my fault anyway.”

  Shelby, his eyes showing too much white, swung Jessica around, cinched a forearm under her chin, and ground the muzzle into her hair. “None of you are getting out. Don’t you see that?” Shelby glanced at Templeton, who was still behind the wheel of the SUV. “Get the hell out of the car!”

  David took a step toward Shelby. “Take it easy. Your son’s in the backseat.”

  “You don’t think I know that?” Shelby snapped, spittle flying from his mouth. For a hideous moment he was sure Shelby would blow Jessica’s head off. David held his breath.

  “It’s okay,” Templeton said, stepping out of the Jimmy. In the moments before he edged around the front of the SUV, David half hoped the man had brought his shotgun out with him, perhaps concealing it behind his back.

  Templeton stopped before the headlights and raised his arms.

  No gun.

  “Maybe I should do it now,” Shelby said, the demented grin widening. He nodded at Templeton. “Maybe I should do you first.”

  The barrel had begun to swivel toward Templeton when something drew everyone’s attention.

  Two cars were winding up the lane.

  Jessica’s face went slack, but Shelby merely looked interested. That seemed like a bad sign, David decided. If the newcomers were part of the Shelbys’ twisted cabal, the situation would go from terrible to hellish.

  If, on the other hand….

  The first car nosed around a curve; the sign on the door read ‘SHERIFF.’ David’s heart jackhammered.

  Thank God. Harkless.

  David frowned. The second vehicle was Chris and Katherine’s Mercedes.

  Harkless and a deputy eased to a halt several feet from the Escalade. The deputy was a broad-shouldered man about David’s height, with a bushy red mustache and thick red hair combed over like a seventies-era sports broadcaster.

  “Stand where I can see you!” Shelby yelled.

  But the deputy crowded against the forest to Shelby’s left, Harkless fanning out the opposite way on Shelby’s extreme right.

  Shelby resembled a trapped animal, his eyes darting both ways, the muzzle of the gun pressed far too forcefully against Jessica’s temple.

  Evidently Harkless saw the expression of pain on Jessica’s face. “Lighten up, Michael,” Harkless said. “We’re just going to talk.” A nod. “Isn’t that right, Deputy Vallee?”

  The red-haired deputy nodded.

  “Drop your guns!” Shelby commanded. “You know I’ll shoot her.”

  Vallee’s hand, like Harkless’s, was resting on the handle of his gun.

  “You need
to breathe, Michael,” Harkless said. “This doesn’t have to end badly.” She shot a look at the deputy. “Be careful, Andrew.”

  David’s muscles still thrummed, but the presence of Harkless and her deputy had restored his hope. He glanced at the deputy in time to see a small, sleek object poke out of the forest. The deputy’s eyes widened.

  Harkless’s eyes shifted that way. “Don’t—” she started to say and then the side of the deputy’s head exploded.

  David stared in horror as what was left of the deputy sank to its knees and pitched forward, blood gushing from the head wound. A second later, the mayor, shirtless and grinning, emerged from the dense trees and trained his handgun on Harkless.

  It wasn’t until Katherine spoke that David realised she and Chris had gotten out of their Mercedes.

  “Now that this nonsense is over,” she said, “we can go home.”

  “You mean Williamsburg?” Harkless asked in a dull voice.

  “I mean home,” Katherine said and flashed her remorseless smile. “I mean the Alexander House.”

  Chapter Forty

  Katherine drove the Mercedes with Chris holding a gun on Jessica and Mike Jr. The rest of them – David, Harkless, and Templeton – were packed into the back seat of the Escalade with the mayor at the wheel and Michael Shelby in the passenger’s seat, his gun pointed lazily at David’s midsection. Templeton said nothing on the short ride to the Alexander House. Harkless looked stunned. David couldn’t blame her. The deputy had probably been her friend as well as her colleague, and seeing him murdered like that….

  He whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Does anyone know you’re here?”

  Without looking at him, she said, “Uh-uh. Mr. Gardiner told us they wanted into the house to retrieve a couple important papers.” A hollow laugh. “I brought Andrew with me just in case anything was out of joint.”

  Poor Andrew, he thought, but the image of the deputy lying in a pool of his own blood and brains vanished swiftly.

  They were approaching the Alexander House.

  Chris and Katherine were in the lead, so it was by the Mercedes’ high beams that David first spied Honey and Ivy emerging from the river path. Honey wore her ivory negligee, Ivy clad in her formal gown. But what bothered him was the impish smile on Ivy’s face, the girl behaving as though this were all some amusing game.

  The Escalade halted beside the Mercedes, and when both vehicles’ headlights were extinguished, the only thing he could see clearly was the Alexander House, the blazing starlight lending it a spectral glow, the shadowed dormers like gaping black eye sockets.

  The mayor climbed out. Shelby never lowered his gun, so there was no question of escape. The side door opened, and the mayor said, “Get your asses out.”

  Harkless went first, and as David followed he saw the mayor had backed away, his gun at the ready. Templeton joined David and Harkless, and within seconds the whole procession, including Jessica and Mike Jr., were herded toward the front porch.

  “Where the hell you going?” the mayor snapped.

  Mike Jr. turned and stared up at his grandfather.

  “He’s ruined,” Honey said with a look of disdain. “Let him go.”

  The mayor looked at his daughter incredulously. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” He stormed over, grasped the boy by the shoulder, and yanked him away from Jessica. “He’s my grandson. He’ll come around.”

  “Don’t want any of this,” Mike Jr. muttered.

  The mayor gave him a rough shake. “You will respect your grandfather, goddammit. Now shut your mouth unless you want to end up like that deputy.”

  With a pang of disgust, David realised the boy had witnessed the deputy’s execution.

  David’s head swam as he trooped up the steps. So much bloodshed, so much depravity. What else awaited them in the Alexander House? How could the Shelby kids ever recover, provided they lived through the night?

  He’d barely registered the absence of the police tape when Honey stepped forward and opened the front door.

  “Thank you, darling,” the mayor said, grinning his saurian grin. The bastard was every crooked politician David had ever met. The sight of his hand on Mike Jr.’s shoulder made David’s stomach do a slow, sick roll.

  Shelby moved ahead, backpedalling into the house, his gun shifting from Harkless to David. The mayor kept the handgun poised on them.

  Chris watched impassively from the right side of the porch. “Go on,” he said.

  Jessica was just ahead of David in the procession. She stopped and regarded Chris silently.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said.

  Jessica didn’t look away, didn’t move. “You know something about my sister,” she said.

  “Don’t look at me,” Chris said, raising the gun.

  Something jabbed David in the side. He turned and saw the mayor glowering at him, the white teeth aglow in the moonlight. “Tell your bitch to move,” the mayor snarled.

  Jessica finally got moving. She, David, Harkless, and Templeton crowded together in the foyer.

  “Where to now?” Harkless said. David glanced at her, was heartened to note that she looked more animated now, more herself.

  “You know where,” someone said from above.

  They looked that way and saw Katherine beaming down at them.

  “Shit,” Harkless said. But she started up the stairs anyway with Templeton in tow. Jessica came next.

  David stared over his shoulder at Chris. He remembered the first time they’d met their freshman year in the dorm, David scared but not wanting to show it, Chris petrified but much worse at hiding it. The two of them thrust together because everyone else seemed to know each other. David and Chris soon realised that they both loved movies, both enjoyed the same kinds of music. Not a natural pairing, but one that deepened quickly, the two of them ordering pizza together and devouring two large pepperoni-and-sausages by themselves. Watching movies and staying up until four a.m. playing videogames. Turning twenty-one a few years later, both of them preferred bars rather than fraternity keggers. And somewhere along the line, there’d been Anna. Anna, who had first strengthened their bond and ultimately destroyed it.

  No, David, a voice reminded. You destroyed it.

  “Hey, Chris….” David began.

  “Don’t,” Chris said.

  David studied his old friend’s face for a brief time, hoping he’d find a trace of warmth. But there was none. Only a callousness so complete that no reconciliation was possible.

  David climbed the steps to the long bedroom.

  * * *

  They were herded to the landing and made to wait while the rest of the party entered the long bedroom. When David and the others were ushered in, David was chilled to discover the way the kids had been arranged.

  Ivy lay on the bed closest to the door. Mike Jr. on the one next to her. The next two beds were untenanted, but the deep impressions made from long-ago bodies remained clearly stamped on the sheets.

  Honey moved about the room lighting candles, and despite the fact that there were soon more than a dozen shimmering from the room’s various surfaces, they provided little light and even less heat, the deep chill causing David to shiver.

  “Close the door,” the mayor instructed his son-in-law.

  Shelby did as he was told, and soon the three gunmen – Shelby, Chris, and the mayor – formed a triangle around the four prisoners.

  “On the floor,” Chris said.

  Templeton was the first to comply. Jessica followed. Harkless looked like she’d swallowed a bug, but she sat down anyway. David hunkered down last.

  Honey and Katherine stood beneath the trapdoor like sisters, the former busty and half-naked, the other icily elegant.

  A silence fell.

  Harkless sat cross-legged. “I got a question,” she said.


  “No one wants to hear it,” Shelby answered.

  “How do we get started?” she said, ignoring him. “Do y’all mutter some incantations? Sacrifice a llama?” She looked from face to face, but their captors remained expressionless. “That is what we’re doing here, right? Summoning the spirits?”

  The mayor showed white teeth. “We merely need wait.”

  David studied the older man, the tanned chest tufted with white hair, the muscles not large but chiselled for a guy his age. Yet there was something indecent about the mayor’s shirtlessness; maybe, David mused, it was because of the scene in Honey’s bedroom, the sick son of a bitch pleasuring himself while his daughter was defiled by a ghost.

  By Judson.

  Whether it was real or his imagination, the thought of Judson brought with it an awareness of the room’s increasing frigidity. A terrible energy charged the air. The others felt it too, apparently, for Shelby’s expression had shifted from hostile to awestruck. To David, he looked very much like the Nazis in the climactic sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark, gape-mouthed and enchanted.

  Until the swirling spirits transformed into avenging angels and reduced them to overheated soup and exploding heads.

  “He’s coming,” Katherine whispered.

  Harkless looked around. “I don’t feel a thing.”

  But David did. His skin was tingling and his scrotum was drawing taut. He glanced at Jessica, but she showed no signs of being disturbed. Instead she stared fixedly at Chris Gardiner.

  “What?” David asked her.

  “I just realised,” she said.

  He watched her. “Jessica?”

  She said to Chris, who stood with his gun hanging at his side, “You did it.”

  Chris didn’t answer, didn’t look at her, but to David it appeared that Chris was attempting to not look at her, was studiously avoiding eye contact.

  “The most obvious suspect,” she murmured, “but I’d convinced myself it wasn’t true.”

  Katherine was frowning at her husband. “What’s she talking about?”