“And Tara Jane, there’s something else I need to tell you. There’s a reason you were starting to feel better and now you’re regressing. You see, you haven’t been eating, and—well—” Her cell phone buzzed. She slid it from her pocket, glancing at the screen.
“It’s work.” Her eyebrows knotted as she looked up at the girl. “I’m on call, but if they need me, I’ll tell them to get someone else to cover it. I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
Tara Jane stared at the window with a blank expression. She’d barely touched her water, which was forming a wet ring on the table.
“I’m going to return this call, okay? But I’ll be right back and we’ll talk. Bob will be home soon, and we’ll talk this out. Okay?” She got up and left, phone already pressed to her ear.
The stuffed bear. On the window sill, earlier, it’s white fur turned black with ashes, and it got on my finger when I touched it. She lifted that finger into the light and examined it. There was no dark ash on her skin, but there, under her fingernail was a black residue that looked like…
It’s ashes, I’m certain of it. It’s on the same finger. Just because other people can’t see the things I’m seeing doesn’t make it any less real.
Tara Jane approached the window, reluctant to open the curtains. Whether she would see a yard full of ghosts or nothing but empty, swaying grass, both outcomes caused her heart to race. She was either doomed or crazy.
What if there was something she didn’t understand? What if there was another solution? Mother had wept for Susie and Jackson, her face pressed into her hands in an otherworldly blue glow that pulsated with melancholy. From inside her ghostly haze, she had reached out, her eyes begging Tara not to join them, tears shimmering on her ethereal skin.
But what could she do? If Father came for her again, how could she refuse to join him if he threatened to harm those around her? She wished more than anything she could talk to her mother. Her real mother. No offense to Mrs.—Rita—but she’d give anything to be held in her mother’s arms just one more time.
Tara Jane pulled back the curtain, and her heart sank to see an empty patch of shade under the moonlit plum tree. She scanned the yard. There was nothing there, either, only sparse weeds and a wrapper blown in from the garbage.
But there was something… over by the bushes. A lone figure standing in the darkness where the house overlapped the moon. The figure didn’t move as she stared at it. She couldn’t make out the face, and she had no way of knowing if it saw her, too. She let the curtains drop and took a deep breath.
It wasn’t Father; that much was certain. It might be one of the others. The question was: What did they want? To harm her or help her? There was only one way to find out.
She poked her head out of the living room and heard her foster mother talking in the kitchen. She tiptoed to the door and quietly opened it, studying the figure near the bushes. His face was hidden by shadows. From his outfit, she could tell he was a member of the church. His clothes weren’t burned like the others, so it couldn’t be any of her brothers.
Yet mother had appeared to her, and she hadn’t died in the fire. Maybe this, the one-year anniversary of the fire, was the perfect night for ghosts of all kinds, and maybe this ghost could tell her what to do. Because she didn’t have a clue.
She stood with the door cracked just enough to peer out. Maybe it’s the ghost of Uncle Terry. That would be nice.
He was always my favorite Uncle because he gave the best advice. I could use some of that advice right now. I need to know how to end this. I can’t hurt my foster parents any more.
She tried to keep her hands from trembling as she stepped through the door and closed it softly behind her, shoulders rigid. She had always been terrified of ghosts. As a small child, she used to lie in her bed, repeating, They’re not real. They’re not real. They’re not real. But tonight, they were real, and her whole body protested as she willed herself forward. She was shaking and hungry and feeling weak in the knees, but this nightmare wouldn’t end until she ended it herself. And so she found the strength to cross the yard.
She approached, and he stepped closer, only a few feet of grass between them now.
“Tara Jane,” he said. “Randall Sykes.”
His face entered the moonlight, eyes glittering like obsidian gems set deep in a handsome, bronze face. She recognized him from the church community back home. A new kind of fear bubbled to the surface of her psyche. She began to walk in reverse.
“It’s okay. The prophet is not angry with you for leaving. He knows you’re not to blame. He’s offered you a place by his side.”
“No…” She turned to run, but Randall caught her by the torso and yanked her back. His hands dug into her just above the hips, jabbing her flesh painfully hard as he clamped down. He snaked an arm around her stomach and held her tightly against his chest.
He brought his lips close to her ear. “Tara Jane, it’s time to come home.”
Her body stiffened. It was partly fear, but mostly anger. Everyone kept telling her to “come home,” but why? Her home was nothing more than a hollow black husk, an ashy pile of sticks and rubble.
The smell filled her nose again—acrid, vile, burned. She looked up and saw the familiar blaze of her family, their melted eyes silently watching. Dozens of blackened arms reached for her. Father’s flames burned red-hot at their center. He leered at Randall as if he might explode and incinerate the young man to cinders.
Tara Jane squirmed as Randall tightened his grip. Father beckoned with open arms. She felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war she didn’t want to play. Death pulled from one side, the church from the other. Eternity hung in the balance. And no matter what, she wound up someplace she didn’t want to be.
Mother was under the plum tree again, crying. The wind swirled in circles, bending the grass beneath her feet and whipping the strands of her long hair until it wrapped around her midriff. She floated in the nightgown she’d been wearing when she died, weeping without making a sound. Everything glowed a dim blue in her hazy aura of sadness. It grew brighter each time she sobbed.
Mother looked at Jackson and Susie, then at Tara Jane. Tears glimmered on her face, the air around her pulsating with pain. She was a whirlwind of maternal grief, the manifestation of a broken soul who would never be complete without her children.
Randall made his way toward the street. He pulled and shoved Tara Jane along the line of shrubs that edged the McKelvey’s yard. She felt the perspiration leaking from him, heard the determination in his grunts.
He’ll ruin everything. He has no place here. This is between me and—and—
Her eyes flicked to her father, his flames rising higher than she’d ever seen them before. She could feel his smoldering heat waves even as she was being dragged away. “Wait, stop!” she said. “He’ll kill us both. Don’t you see?”
Randall stopped. He looked around but saw nothing that concerned him. He reached into his pocket, keeping a vice grip on her with his free hand. He retrieved a piece of fabric and wadded it up. Tara Jane inhaled deeply and was about to scream when he shoved the fabric into her mouth and placed his hand over her lips so she couldn’t reject it. He groaned and continued dragging her as she kicked and struggled against him.
Headlights cut into the night as a police cruiser pulled into the driveway. The lights atop the hood remained off, and there was nothing to signal the car’s arrival other than the whisper of tires on pavement. For a few seconds—which seemed much longer to Tara Jane—nothing happened; nothing at all.
The police cruiser’s spotlight flicked on. A white circle swept across the yard and illuminated the awkward duo in a wash of bright light. As Tara Jane winced from the onslaught of brightness, she heard a low growl in her ear. Randall’s taut muscles shook as his hand darted under his shirt. She heard him disengage the safety before she felt the gun against her temple.
Chapter Fifteen
Robert McKelvey didn’t know what he was going to tell his wife. He was
n’t the kind of man who spent much time sugar-coating the truth. But this—this was too fucked up. He rubbed his eyes. His inner monologue was starting to sound like a pessimistic sailor, and if he didn’t take vacation time soon, some of that colorful language was bound to find its way off the end of his tongue. He was running out of strength, running out of steam. Maybe the force was taking its toll. A long hiatus was starting to sound better every day.
I’ll settle for a good, long shower.
He stopped at a red light and rested his head against the seat.
That’s what I need—a shower and a hot meal, not Rita in tears. Not a crying wife.
Guilt consumed him the moment he thought it. His cheeks flushed even though no one could see him and only he was privy to his own thoughts. It was selfish to worry about his needs at a time like this, but he couldn’t help it. Behind every crying wife there is an equally troubled husband, or so he liked to think.
His stomach rumbled with hunger and dread. There was a certain level of finesse required in breaking bad news to Rita. The woman’s heart was on her sleeve twenty-four-seven. She had no natural defense against sorrow. It was best to ease her into the shock, a few carefully selected words serving as a safety net to catch her fallen spirit. He scratched his stubbly chin and lifted his coffee from the console. In his mind, he rehearsed what to say.
He’d never lied to his wife. Sometimes he omitted details about his work—the gruesome murders, the bloody crime scenes, the classified information he couldn’t divulge. But for the most part, he was open with Rita. She was his rock. She kept him anchored when he felt he’d come undone at the seams and float away.
He didn’t want to be the one to tell Rita about Casey Wendell’s brutal demise, but he had to do it, and it had to be soon. The news would travel fast: a local tragedy, a young woman cut down in the prime of her life. There was nothing like carnage to bring the local news teams sniffing. Everyone would know about the murder before long.
The McKelveys had only met Casey Wendell a handful of times, but already Rita was attached. That woman could form a bond with Helen Keller with both hands tied behind her back. He wasn’t sure if she would cry right away or if it would take a while to sink in, but whatever the case, Bob hoped she would keep her questions minimal. He didn’t want to think about that bloody bath tub, didn’t want to see her pallid face, her chest stained red, her neck yawning like a wet, toothless maw.
He tried to sigh, but it came out sounding more like an exasperated groan. He set his coffee down and flipped his blinker, turning onto his street. He was eager to kick off his shoes and call it a day.
Then he noticed the struggle on his lawn. He squinted into the darkness and slowed his pace. The headlights illuminated the scene.
Tara Jane looked frightened, wrapped in the arms of a man Bob McKelvey had never seen. Dressed in formal slacks and a collared shirt, the man snarled as he dragged the young girl away from the house, forcing her toward the street.
Officer McKelvey pulled into the driveway and left the engine running. He disengaged the safety on his gun. He angled his spotlight to where the intruder had stopped in his tracks, holding the frightened Tara Jane to his chest. Her dark brown hair thrashed wildly as she writhed in his arms.
The stranger held a hand over her mouth, but there was something else muffling her screams. McKelvey recognized the breathless anxiety in her face as the panic of being gagged. He’d seen it before. He ground his molars together, seething. The bastard had gagged her.
He flicked a button, and white light flooded the yard where the two young people stood fighting against each other. LED rays magnified every blade of glass, every leaf in the bushes. Officer McKelvey used the would-be kidnapper’s momentary blindness to his advantage, exiting his vehicle and reaching for his gun in one fluid motion.
As he steadied his weapon, he saw the young criminal pull something from inside his shirt and press it to the side of the girl’s face. His heart sank at the realization of an armed assailant, and he immediately worried about Rita. He flicked his eyes toward the house just in time to see her opening the front door, mouth agape, eyes wide.
He kept his pistol trained on the culprit as he contemplated his next move.
Chapter Sixteen
The barrel sent a jolt of pain through Tara Jane’s skull as Randall pushed the gun into her temple. Her legs felt weak. She let her knees buckle, and Randall was forced to carry her weight as he took four strides backward and neared the end of the shrubs, closing in on the sidewalk. He glanced up the street to where a vehicle was parked several houses down.
Tara Jane gulped, hoping they wouldn’t make it there.
“Stop right there!” warned McKelvey.
Father watched from a short distance away, and the flames grew around him, a supernatural blaze spreading faster than natural fire. Anger rolled off him in giant waves of heat, coaxing perspiration from her skin. The flames around his face formed a monstrous scowl, and he roared so loud it shook the ground.
The two men maintained their footing and continued the stand-off, each pointing a gun but unwilling to make the next move. They seemed to stare right through the morbid scene, straight into each other’s eyes.
Green grass was aflame, burning like hay around the resurrected family. It lapped at their crispy remains as if returning for a second meal. Randall didn’t pause or take notice. His sweaty hand was clamped over Tara Jane’s mouth. The smell of his salty skin mixed with the acrid stench of burned flesh. It caused her throat to cry out against the fabric, gagging, eyes filled with tears. “Don’t take another step!” she heard Mr. McKelvey holler.
“But I’m taking the girl home… where she belongs. To salvation,” said Randall. His voice shook. He didn’t say it loud enough for the other man to hear, and Tara Jane wondered who he was trying to convince—the cop, the captive, or himself.
And there it was again—all this talk about “home.” She was tired of hearing about “home.” The last time Tara Jane had felt at home was in the arms of her mother, or cuddled beside her sleeping siblings in bed.
Mother was beside herself now, floating at the edge of the yard. She threw herself against the invisible force field which separated her from her children. Tara Jane couldn’t see it, but she could feel it—an unseen rift between her pious father and her outcast mother. It was an emptiness, a mote of sorrow around the woman that imprisoned her this way, and she was powerless to do anything but weep. Weep for all eternity.
Jackson and Susie watched the fire spread as concern twisted their faces into something much sadder.
It was hard to tell with so much of their muscle tissue melted and disfigured, but they did seem concerned, their ashy eyebrows drawn together, their backs hunched and sunken eyes downcast.
Jackson grabbed Susie’s hand and scooted back, tugging her away from the flames. It was the same way he’d held her hand on long walks to the market when they were playful and healthy and alive. Susie lowered her head, staring at her feet like the shy church girl she was—or used to be. The wispy remains of a burned piggy tail fell over her eyes, ashy lips set in a frown.
A familiar feeling tugged at Tara Jane’s heart, the feeling that she would never know happiness until her brother and sister found peace. They hadn’t deserved Father’s rage, not in life and especially not in death, eternal. Held hostage by Father and trapped in his fiery unrest, they trembled, fearful to relive their agonizing last moments.
Tara Jane scowled. She wouldn’t stand by and watch Father toy with them. It was more than she could handle. Father’s smug expression came in and out of focus within the fire as if he knew how she felt, and she could swear he was smiling through that flickering orange mask, daring her to disobey him and destroy her own salvation.
She looked at her mother, then back to her siblings, and it dawned on Tara Jane in that moment: There was only one way to get home.
“Put down the gun and no one gets hurt,” Bob McKelvey yelled across the yard. �
��All three of us can walk away from this!”
Tara Jane felt Randall’s hot breath against her ear as he panted and licked his lips, perhaps considering a response. But she didn’t wait to hear it. She raised her leg and stomped down on his foot. She ground her heel into the arch of it, crushing the tiny bones. Randall cried out in pain. He loosened his grip long enough for Tara Jane to dive headlong into the grass and tumble away. She sprang to her feet and took off running as a shot rang out behind her.
She flinched. Her heart missed a beat. Her ears rang from the gun shot. She looked and saw Mr. McKelvey standing with his legs still spread, gun raised, a remorseful look on his face. He glanced at her, then turned his attention to their assailant, who lay motionless in the grass.
Tara Jane turned to face the family she’d not seen in a year. Most of them were huddled behind Father as his fire burned so hot it warped the starry night. Some of them were no longer standing, but kneeling, slumped over, hiding their faces with ragged arms as fire lapped at their bodies for a second time. They didn’t scream. They didn’t fight. They didn’t try to escape. They stayed within the crackling flames and faithfully endured it.
Tara Jane trembled as she approached.
“Good girl,” said Father, but his voice held a sinister tone which made the opposite seem true. “Come home, Tara Jane. Come home.”
She scrunched her face in irritation. She walked up to Jackson and Susie and offered them both a hand. Jackson looked at her, and Susie looked at Jackson. “Come with me,” she said, voice cracking.
“What are you doing?” Father demanded. “Kneel down and join us!”
She stared through the flames straight into his empty, black eyes. “I am going home,” she said. She grabbed their tiny hands and urged them forward. They felt heavy and sluggish despite the desperate way they clung to her, letting her lead. It was as if they were bound to Father by an intangible force, a magnetic pull that kept them glued to him for eternity.
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