Ghosts and Hauntings

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  He can see all the faces and watches their mouths moving but he can’t hear a sound. The mute button has been pressed and the slow motion facility is in play. Royce removes his hat and the action of the arm raising and the hat lifting is agonisingly laboured, the breeze ruffling the grey hair is like a corn field rippling.

  The spotlight has stayed off but the road is beginning to brighten. Like the automatic lights in the corridor of a five star hotel he stayed in once that lit up with motion, the road is becoming illuminated. He lies still and fears the terrorists will soon see him and shoot.

  Minutes seem to pass but there are no more shots. The silence has become complete. He can see quite clearly now and the police behind the shield of cars and trees and walls of buildings in the street are moving and talking and planning but it is in a quietness that he knows doesn’t exist. He knows he isn’t deaf because of anything physical that has happened to him. He knows the silence is only affecting him, no one else.

  The light around him is so bright he finds it hard to keep his eyes open. It is blinding but at the same time comforting. Pearson isn’t aware of anything at all and his body lies outside the comforting area of the light. Price feels as if he is lying on a beach in the summer sun.

  He flicks his eyes across to the house where the enemy is hiding. An ordinary house in an ordinary street. No lights on inside it, streetlights have been turned off by the council at the order of the police. Darkness. The police are using the spotlight selectively when they send it crashing against the windows of the house in an attempt at some kind of psychological game. There are no lights in the street but he is bathed in the stuff.

  When he lies on a beach he does so with his wife. Beth loves the sun and the sand and she even likes playing in the sea but not getting out of her depth, not going in beyond her waist. A fortnight in the Maldives was their last holiday together, a special treat on their tenth anniversary. It had been like another honeymoon, young and carefree again. It ironed out the issues that were developing, the creases that were disrupting the smooth flow of normal life.

  The light was getting brighter. It was white like a dozen moons. Clean and clear, as shimmering as the surface of a lake under the moons. He holds his hand out and the light seems to radiate through the skin, an X-Ray with bones and tendons and veins. Flexes the fingers, each one stretching impossibly long, the nails luminous. I can stretch out my hand and touch the house opposite. I can fold my fingers around the door handle, open it and the hostages can run out. It’s so simple.

  He remembers other sieges he’s been involved with. A single gunman, a married man with a grief against his wife or girlfriend, usually child care arrangements and access rights. Stupid men pushed to their limits, desperate enough to think holding a woman at the end of a rifle or a shotgun is going to persuade her to let you see her child more often, or ever again.

  The bank raid that went wrong when a nervous bank cashier forgot the systematic training and pressed the button at the worst possible time, pressed it too soon. Shrieks of alarm bells and flashing lights, screams and panic.

  He can’t feel his legs any more, or his arms. His head throbs though.

  His eyes seem as if they can see so much clearer now. The brilliant light is shining over the road like spilt liquid. The edges are hazy, heat mist that obscures the house a little, washes the police and the cars with a cloudy filter as if an altered photographic image.

  Pearson’s body is shrinking. The pool of blood has become so wide it stains the road. An abstract pond, deep and dark. It doesn’t reflect the light, it seems to absorb it. The blood seeps into the ground, marking a permanent reminder of what has happened.

  There is no shape to the pool of blood, it creeps further over the black surface of the road, sinking into the pores of the tarmac. Sucking the light into it, deepening and seeming to grow more solid as it spreads.

  Price shuts his eyes in respite from the cloud of light. Intense and piercing the brightness is unbearable. Behind closed lids flickering pictures are playing out a collage of memories.

  Childhood summers in buttercup and daisy meadows, family dog run over by the local builder’s van. Christmas presents and mother’s smile, grandfather’s cancer and hospital beds.

  Even through shut eyes the light penetrates. The head is throbbing so much now he can’t distinguish one pain from another. Constant raging inside his brain. The bullet must have lodged in there.

  He opens his eyes again. He sees three men running towards him, their movements slow, jerking, unnatural. He calls out to them, trying to get them to avoid stepping in the pool of blood. It will swallow them. But no sound comes out. The men are crouching low as if that will stop a bullet.

  They stop first at Pearson, checking for the pulse that has ceased a long time ago. One of them looks up and shakes his head. They turn to Price. I’m alive he wants to shout to them but the light is so strong he flinches away, words unspoken.

  Rough strong hands grab both his legs, more hands pull both arms over his head. Lifted into the air he feels light, floating, a feather on the wind. They could swing him and release him and he would fly up and into the light. Instead the third man stumbles, slips on the blood, and they all but drop him.

  A shot rings out.

  One of them stands directly into the blood and his leg melts into the road as if immersed in several feet of deep water. Unceremoniously Price is deposited back onto the road and he rolls a few inches as the blood tries to grasp him. Pearson’s blood, his blood, mingled together into a clinging, sinking morass.

  Up to his waist the man is being sucked into the blood. The other two are frantically pulling at his hands, his shoulders, but when one of them steadies himself with a palm on the road the blood claims him to his wrist and beyond. The echo of another shot reverberates silently.

  The third man stands and backs away. His feet are inches from the edge of the pool and he watches it carefully. Then he turns and runs.

  Price watches the two men sink, struggling, screaming in silent fright as they are pulled beneath the surface. When they disappear from sight the blood is darker, a rich deep colour that is unnaturally thick.

  The light is suddenly so intense it burns his eyes. His mouth is so dry his lips are forced open to suck in any air it can find. Then, like a volcanic explosion, a lightning strike, the light flashes and begins to sink into the dark pool of blood.

  Price is aware he is rising up, his legs lifting him to his feet and his feet hovering above the ground.

  The light has been swallowed by the blood and the remnants of it are floating on the surface like an after thought.

  The police spotlight is turned on to distract the people in the house but Price can’t see it. He follows the absorbed light and gradually folds into the blood as the pain in his head subsides. The sounds of the street rush into his ears, crowding his thoughts and filling his head with too much noise.

  The spotlight has irritated the gunman in the house and they fire two more shots into Price’s body.

  The blood and the last rays of the light take the hit. For Price it is already too late.

  DIFFERENT

  As the plane began its descent through the fists of solid looking white cloud I started to catch glimpses of the various sub-divisions that surrounded the city centre. They all looked weary from the summer temperature, as if they were trying to crowd into the skyscrapers and tower blocks of Downtown and Lexington, trying to find some shade from the sun. Atlanta in August is hot and humid.

  I was visiting my sister. She had lived in Covington, about an hours drive from the city centre, for four years, and I still missed her company at home in England. We were born just a year apart, and the family resemblance was unmistakable; physically at least. Amy was far bolder than I could ever be. For me it was an adventure just to travel to visit her. She had set up home and found work in a new country, where she initially knew no one, as casually as visiting the local supermarket. I could never imagine living in a di
fferent country.

  When the plane landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport there was a round of grateful applause from the mixed British and American passengers. It had been an easy, if long, flight. I’d read, slept, watched a movie, and tried to eat the in flight meals. The nine hours had passed fairly quickly.

  People jostled to get off the plane, rushed to get a good spot in the immigration queue, and then fidgeted and fussed when the process took longer than they expected. I knew it would take some time. This time around, courtesy of terror threats, they were finger printing and photographing everyone as they processed their paperwork of green visa entry cards and passports. We were all lucky we didn’t leave it a day later to fly or we’d have got caught in the chaos from the plots to blow up ten or more planes in mid air with liquid explosives that was foiled in Britain. Flights were delayed for hours that summer.

  I passed through immigration, got my suitcase from the baggage carousel, and then of course had to deposit it again in the double system Hartsfield has. The transit train took me the four stops to Arrivals and there, at last, I was able to take my suitcase off the conveyer belt, and look for Amy.

  Whenever she collected me at an airport she always joked she would be holding up one of those homemade cardboard signs pickup drivers use to collect fares. ‘I’ll have, “Sis” on it,’ she would say. She never did though, and usually we were so pleased to see one another that we didn’t give it a thought. Keeping in touch on the telephone was okay. Messenger and Web Cam were better, but still not as good as the real thing.

  My case rolled along easily on wheels and my hand luggage from the plane wasn’t heavy. I walked across to the entrance doors; there were several entrances and exits. I didn’t see her, but that wasn’t a concern, she was not organised with time. It was just as likely she had finished a night shift at work and had over slept. She worked as a nurse in two of the city hospitals.

  I had my cell phone with me, with her number programmed in. I pressed the buttons and listened to the ring tone, half an eye watching out for her, one ear listening for her cry of welcome. The phone rang about seven times before the answer message cut in. ‘Hi, Amy is busy right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you quickly unless you’ve pissed me off recently, when you can forget it.’ Typical Amy.

  I didn’t leave a message. She’d be en route, maybe even in the car park opposite Arrivals, and the distraction of answering the cell phone might be dangerous.

  A coffee at Starbucks was an option; there was one in sight of the Arrivals lobby. Or I could walk across to the car park and scout around. I decided to call her house, just in case there was a mix up and she hadn’t even left yet.

  Taking my case to a corner near the front of the airport I leaned on it while I pressed different buttons to call her house. She had lived in an apartment when she first came over, a small duplex with a cramped swimming pool shared with the other seven apartments. The house in Covington was further from work but gave her much more for her mortgage. Four bedrooms, open living areas downstairs and use of two communal pools and tennis courts.

  The phone rang twice and someone picked it up. They didn’t speak and I waited a couple of seconds before I spoke. ‘Amy?’ I could hear breathing but still no voice. ‘Amy, is that you? Are you okay?’ Then the receiver was put down, quite heavily, and the connection ended. Surely that couldn’t have been Amy? She would have said something, even if it was only ‘Shit, I should be at the airport.’

  ‘Do you need any help, ma’am?’

  I turned, the cell phone still clutched uselessly in my hand. There was a uniformed elderly man looking at me and waiting to hear my reply.

  ‘My sister was supposed to meet me here.’

  He waited for more, but when I looked helplessly at the cell phone again, he said, ‘You need a cab?’

  Next I knew he was marching my suitcase, with me trying to keep up with him, through the glass doors and was waving down a cab. I didn’t know whether to check out the car park or not, so I got the taxi driver to drive round the different levels, but I couldn’t see Amy’s blue Honda.

  I rang the house again but this time the answer phone cut in quickly, so I left a message. I did the same on her cell phone, trying not to sound worried.

  Traffic around five in the afternoon in Atlanta is heavy. I settled down on the back seat wondering where Amy was, and knowing that I was stuck in the pine scented interior of this Saturn for at least the next hour.

  We passed through the centre of the city, under bridges, through intersections. There was the Coca Cola factory on one side, the Atlanta Braves stadium on another. Buildings tall and modern, glass and concrete. A church spire, high and somehow stately in this most religious state of Georgia. The 285 became the I-75.

  The cab was one of those drivers who drive just to lane hop. It was like being on a Disney ride. Left, right, speed up, slow down. He was a dark skinned man of about forty and he offered nothing by way of conversation. The only emotion he showed was when we were forced to slow almost to a stop by the inside lane of the highway being cordoned off by police.

  As the cab neared the blue flashing lights of the stationary police car I could see through the windshield that there were at least four police vehicles and an ambulance. The lane had been taped off with crime scene tape, and three burly policemen were trying hard to move the traffic along without all the cars stopping to stare.

  It was always going to be an impossible task. Human nature dictates that we look at what scares us. A road accident might mean blood, we might see a person lying injured in the road, there might be a body at the wheel, and there might even be death.

  The cab driver began to get quite animated. The proximity to violence clearly excited him. ‘It’s not a crash.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The way they have the lane blocked off. Makes you think it’s a road accident. It’s not.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘It’s an accident, car wreck, you get the ambulance if there’s a fatality or serious injury, that’s for sure. You get the patrol car, possibly even two or three. What you don’t get is those guys.’ With that he hooked a long, thick thumb at the window to indicate two men dressed in trousers and jacket rather than police uniform. The two men were talking to a tall slim black woman.

  ‘Who are they?’ I asked, not really that interested. Amy was still uppermost in my mind.

  ‘Homicide detectives. That’s a murder scene.’

  As the cab crawled past the scene I could see clearly that it was not a crash. There was a car parked on the hard shoulder, its hazard warning lights flashing but it wasn’t damaged at all. The cab had come to a complete standstill as we drew level. I could see the two detectives listening to the woman, taking down notes as she spoke. She was visibly agitated; she kept glancing behind her, at the car.

  The trunk was open and at first I thought it was a rug, or a blanket, draped over the edge. The cab jerked forward, and the driver swore. When I looked back at the car I realised it wasn’t a rug, or a blanket. It was a woman’s dress, billowed up and covering the top half of her body.

  ‘At last,’ the driver said, as the traffic in front began to move a bit more freely.

  At that moment, perhaps her attention attracted to the cab moving forward, the woman turned and looked at me. Her dark eyes fixed on mine and an expression of recognition passed over her face. She half smiled, the other half of her face registering fear.

  She grasped the detective nearest to her on the arm, her other hand beckoning towards my cab. She began pointing at the cab, pointing at me. The cab was moving faster now, moving away.

  The black woman was pulling at the detective’s sleeve, propelling him around, trying to make him turn around and see me. I could see her mouth moving with agitation. ‘That’s her.’ She seemed to be saying. ‘That’s her.’

  The cab switched lanes as the traffic eased slightly. One of the detectives was holding the woman by
the shoulders, attempting to restrain her without actually manhandling her. She was gesticulating wildly now, waving her arms in the general direction of the cab.

  Then we were too far away from them for me to see properly.

  The I-20 was busy, trees and vines on each side of the highway lanes replaced the city buildings as we entered the counties. I tried Amy’s cell phone again, but there was no reply. Where was she?

  ‘We’re in Newton County now,’ the driver said.

  ‘It’s not far now. Covington.’ I gave him general directions to Amy’s sub-division and he grunted understanding.

  The roads became a bit more familiar as we got closer. I had visited her three or four times. The airfare was expensive and there was only so much holiday time I could take from work. It was Christmas last since I’d seen her.

  We were on the road through her shopping district now, the 278. Huge advertising boards lined the street, local malls dominated. Every shopping area had three or four places to eat; Chilli’s, Applebee’s, Waffle House, Chinese, Chick Filet, and of course McDonalds. Supermarkets were staggered along the street; Target, Wal-Mart, Eckards, Publix. And a proliferation of smaller stores, mainly nails and beauty bars, but also electrical stores, Blockbuster, bookstores. Every half mile there was a church, modern and large and catering for a diverse religious mix.

  ‘Left at the gas station,’ I told him.

  The air conditioning was drying out my eyes, as I remembered it always did. It was a necessity in the humidity and heat, but it wasn’t something I would ever get used to.

  We passed the small Christian school on the right, the huge water towers in the distance. Houses were built well back from the road, trucks parked in the shade next to them. As we neared Amy’s sub-division there was evidence that at least two more developments had been built this year. The Heights advertised ‘from the mid 400’s’ meaning the houses would sell at around $450,000. Druids Reach was from the ‘mid 300’s’. Amy’s sub-division, as we turned into its modest gates, still had houses being built on it and advertised from ‘the early 200’s’.