by H. P. Bayne
Sully returned the embrace, speaking through a smile. “Good to see you too. I missed you, man.”
Disentangling himself, Sully led Bulldog and Pax through the woods, his path leading in the direction of the place where, two years ago, the cavern in which he’d been hiding collapsed. Sully didn’t know exactly where Carter Devereaux was killed, but he remembered hearing it was in the same general area. He hoped if he kept walking, he’d eventually catch sight of the teen’s ghost, or at least get a sense of him nearby.
“Let it be known I’m doing this under protest,” Bulldog said. “I hate ghosts and I hate hiking. Only reason I’m here is for you and your brother.”
“And I appreciate it.”
“So what are we looking for exactly?”
“I’ll know when I see it.” If I see it.
“It happened around here, huh? The cave-in.”
“That’s why we’re here. I don’t know exactly where he was killed, but if we can’t find it today, I’m hoping Lachlan will come through with the police file. That should have location and photos and everything.”
“I was talking about your cave-in.”
“Oh. Yeah. It was.”
“I’m just gonna put this out there, Sully, because it needs said. I get why you did what you did. But it was still a shitty thing to do. Your bro…. You didn’t see him. You didn’t have to deal with him after. Hell, he fell apart so bad even Eva and your mom had no choice but to cut him loose. I’m the one who had to put up with him the most over the past couple years, and let me tell ya, it wasn’t easy.”
“I know, Bulldog. And I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Mystifies me how you’d figure the right thing was letting your own brother think you were dead. Everyone else—hell, even me—maybe I can see that after what you went through. But not him. He went to the wall for you, every single time. You could have trusted him.”
If it wasn’t for the obvious hurt in Bulldog’s tone, Sully would have thought Dez had put the man up to this lecture. As it stood, it was clear Bulldog had his own fish in this particular fryer.
“I did. I trust him more than anyone in the world. And I trust you, too, man. But that’s what made it bad. My life was on the line, and I couldn’t put anyone else at risk. And it wasn’t just the staff at Lockwood, all right? There was this other guy.”
“The guy in the mask. Dez told me. In between his drinking binges and all the depression crap, we did a little asking around over the past couple of years. The man you said you saw is as much a ghost as any of the ones you see on a regular basis. I mean, are you so sure he wasn’t one?”
“An actual ghost? He wasn’t. He was as solid as you or me. The second or third time they took me to the room, they gave me less of a sedative, probably so I’d come around quicker. I fought. That guy helped Gerhardt and Hackman restrain me.”
“And you don’t have any guesses who he might be?”
“Believe me, I’ve thought about it, a lot. I got nothing.”
“Maybe it’s best you don’t know.”
“If I don’t figure it out, I’m never going to be able to come out of hiding. Maybe we can gather enough evidence to put Gerhardt and Hackman away, but there are other people I need to avoid. If I don’t know who they are, I’m worried I won’t see the danger until it’s too late. I’m not scared for myself so much. But if anything happened to anyone I care about because they were trying to protect me, I don’t think I could live with it.”
“I’ll give you what help I can, but bear this in mind, kid. If anything happens to people around you because they’re trying to help you, remember you’re not forcing anyone into anything. Sometimes people need to be able to help. Dez, he’s like Action Man. He needs to be doing something or he goes batty. Believe me. He’s been doing next to nothing for two years, and he’s been battier than a superhero’s underground lair.”
A smirk accompanied the comment, and Sully allowed himself the chuckle that helped to break the serious tone of the conversation. He’d never stop feeling guilty about the past two years, and he fully expected he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to the people he cared about. But right now, he had other problems commanding his attention.
The current one was straight ahead, just visible through a scattering of pine and poplar. Given the state of the teen’s head and face, there was no way to tell what, if anything, he could actually see. But it became obvious he at least sensed someone around when the image promptly disappeared.
Sully took off running, Pax at his side, while Bulldog made a disgruntled noise and thundered along behind them.
It wasn’t much of a surprise to arrive at the spot where the ghost had just been standing to find nothing.
“Damn it.”
Bulldog got out his question between a few puffs of breath. “Damn it, what?”
“He’s gone.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“I’m getting that impression.” Sully took a shot at it, anyway, raising his voice and calling out into the surrounding woods. “Carter? I’m trying to help you. You need to let me try.”
There was no answer, just the whispering rattle of the breeze through the poplar leaves.
“Carter? Please, man. Let me help you.”
Again, there was no answer, no sign of the spirit anywhere nearby.
“Nothing, huh?” Bulldog asked.
“No.”
“What now?”
Sully gave the area one last fruitless scan. “I don’t know. Let’s just keep walking for a bit. Maybe I’ll see him again.”
“Just make sure you remember how to get back to the vehicle. I don’t want to spend the night out here with bugs and ghosts.”
“I spent a lot of time out here over the years,” Sully said. “I know it like the back of my hand.”
Bulldog had a point. The woods were spread out over a large area, and there was plenty Sully hadn’t explored. But no sense worrying him more than he already was. Anyway, Pax had an incredible homing instinct, and Sully was convinced if he couldn’t find the way back, Pax could. All he’d have to do was mention the word “dinner,” and the dog would be off like a streak of lightning.
For now, Sully was following his own instincts, which judging by the current placement of the sun, were leading him farther west. They carried on ten more minutes, until the perk of Pax’s ears provided a signal Sully had been watching for: they were closing in on someone. Whether that someone was living or dead remained to be seen; Pax responded about the same to either.
Sully wrapped fingers around the dog’s makeshift collar, a leather belt that served its purpose well enough. Letting Pax lead him, Sully kept immediately at the dog’s side until, up ahead, he spotted what Pax had already sensed: two people, standing side by side in front of a tumbled rock face.
To Sully’s trained eye, these two were most definitely of the living, breathing variety. His mind conjured up the image of Dez standing next to him, arm outstretched like a mother ensuring her kid wasn’t about to wander onto a busy city street.
Bulldog’s voice took the place of what Dez’s would have been. “You’re not actually thinking of going to talk to them, are you?”
The thought was there. The ghost certainly was. Carter appeared only for a flash, a bent figure standing next to the one who appeared from behind to be a female. Then, as if sensing Sully’s presence, he was gone.
“He knows them,” Sully said. “I think I have to talk to them.”
“Dead people can’t speak, Sully. And you, my friend, are supposed to be dead.”
“I didn’t know Carter, and I doubt I know his family and friends. They aren’t likely to go around telling people Sullivan Gray has risen from the grave.”
Bulldog held his hands up, a sign of surrender within a battle Sully hadn’t truly been fighting all that hard. In actuality, he hadn’t missed this, prying into people’s personal lives, digging into dirty secrets, be
ing hounded day and night by the restless spirits of the violently departed.
He knew he had a choice. Carter, after all, wasn’t hounding him. Most of the others had left him little option: act now or be driven mad.
Always, in these rare moments when he considered the ease with which he could just walk away, he was reminded of the words of his father Flynn Braddock.
“I wish you hadn’t been given this responsibility, son, but you’ve got it. You can choose to ignore them, but you’ve got to think about what kind of person that will make you over time. What I love the most about you is your compassion and your empathy. I hope you don’t ever make a choice to kill that part of you. You lose these people, Sully, you just might lose yourself.”
Flynn wasn’t here now, having himself joined the spirit world two years ago. Sully still saw him sometimes, but Flynn had appeared more and more rarely as his family’s shock at his sudden death had subsided. Sully suspected Flynn was with Aiden or—worst case scenario—was still searching for him. Either that, or he was looming over his brother Lowell, contemplating the best way to get back at him for killing him.
Sully could choose to ignore his foster father’s advice if he wanted to, no disappointed eyes or sad smiles to contend with.
But Flynn had made himself a part of Sully, his wisdom engrained in a way that would not be nearly as easily buried as Flynn himself. And, to Sully, that was his true gift.
Sully took a step toward the couple, was held up by Bulldog’s responding question.
“You sure about this?”
“I saw Carter for a reason. That much, I’m sure of.”
Checking his hold on Pax’s collar, Sully started toward the couple at the base of the rock wall.
5
They stood huddled together as if the warmth of the day couldn’t quite reach them.
The young woman’s head rested against the male’s shoulder, and she was kept safe there by a denim-covered arm he’d wrapped around her.
They weren’t speaking, but their body language said plenty, telling Sully he was about to cut into a very private and emotional moment.
As often happened, Pax interrupted it first. The dog uttered a short growl ending in a soft woof, as if he’d thought better of his rudeness halfway through vocalizing the sound.
The couple spun in place, eyes round and jaws dropped. The sudden movement separated the pair, and the young man sought to rectify that by grasping the woman’s hand.
Sully blamed Pax. The large, black dog had that effect on people. For Sully’s part, he had trimmed his beard this morning and had pulled his hair back into an elastic, making him look neater than the past couple of years had allowed. That, and Dez had picked up some newish clothes for him from a secondhand store, allowing him to replace the worn, oversized and grungy outfit he’d been living in.
Even if he didn’t look terrifying at the moment, his sudden presence was probably enough on its own to cause a few frayed nerves. It couldn’t have helped matters a second stranger, Bulldog, was also on his way toward them.
“Uh, hey,” Sully said. “Sorry to interrupt. We were walking through, and my dog must have smelled some other people around. He kind of takes off on me sometimes.”
Pax made a noise best described as a grumble. Sully didn’t think the dog had a broad understanding of the English language, but he sometimes wondered.
“Dogs are supposed to be on a leash,” the young man said. He had gotten over his surprise, and was moving back into his former role as protective boyfriend, edging in closer to the woman until his left shoulder concealed her right. One more step and he’d be able to put himself directly in front of her, blocking any potential danger.
He wasn’t much taller than her, and he possessed a build that wouldn’t lend itself well to standing up to a legitimate threat. But the warning was there in his expression, the look of a man who’d give whatever he had to defend what mattered to him.
What mattered in this case was a petite, pretty woman with large, dark eyes and wild brown hair who continued to show anxiety in the way the fingers of her free hand wrapped around his nearest bicep. She was about the same age as the man, not much beyond twenty, and the slight redness and sheen to her eyes suggested she’d been crying.
“I know,” Sully said in response to the man’s observation. “But he’s actually really good. He appears a little intimidating, but he doesn’t go around randomly attacking people.”
He thought through how best to build the bridge necessary for this conversation. Bulldog solved the problem for him.
“Sorry to bug you guys, but we’re kinda lost here. Our campsite’s close to that spot where a couple of the trails start. Not the main trails, but the woodsier ones. Any chance you could point us in the right direction?”
Bulldog had one of those faces you couldn’t help but pity, and he was working an expression that only improved upon what nature had already bestowed. And more or less cleaned up as he was, Sully was far from intimidating, his own frame—on the emaciated side thanks to two years of inadequate food supply—providing little to elicit concern in others.
The couple exchanged a glance, and the male spoke for them.
“We were about to leave, anyway. You can walk back with us.”
The four fell into step, Pax sticking close to Sully’s side as they left the most intimidating part of the rock face behind. Carter had disappeared again, which wasn’t surprising if experience was any teacher.
That suited Sully fine. He had his hands full trying to come up with a way to start this conversation. He’d never been much for chatting, happier to sit back and study the world. His ability had forced him out of his shell repeatedly, and frequently left him grateful for his foster mom’s chess lessons. Sully often found himself trying to think two or three steps ahead in every conversation, hoping to see well ahead of time that inevitable moment where he’d offend or terrify.
Again, he was spared the need to start something he didn’t know how to finish.
“We’ve got a solid fifteen minutes’ hike ahead of us,” the guy said. “It’s a big forest. You guys should be a little more careful before setting out.”
Sully knew exactly where they were, but no one else needed to know that. “I know. You’re right. We were idiots.”
The guy shrugged. “Pays to be careful, is all. People have gotten lost out here before.”
“You come here a lot?” Bulldog asked.
“Sometimes,” the guy said. “Not a lot. Not anymore, anyway.”
“Today’s different,” the woman said. Her voice was soft, high enough to make her sound more like a thirteen-year-old than a grown woman.
Her boyfriend wrapped an arm around her, snugged her to him.
Sully asked the obvious question. “Why is it different?”
This time, the woman shrugged.
“It’s an anniversary,” the man said. “Not a good one. A friend of ours died here four years ago today.”
“I’m sorry.” Again, Sully paused, debating how to ask. There really wasn’t any way besides the direct route. “Carter Devereaux?”
The young man shot Sully a side-eye. “How’d you know that?”
At least there was an honest answer to this one. “It was all over the news. They searched for him for days.”
“Over a week,” the man corrected, mildly.
“I’m sorry,” Sully said again. He meant the words. He knew loss, and it was an acquaintance he wished he could forego.
He guessed he’d passed the test when the response was a small, sad smile. “Thanks. He was a good guy. A great guy.”
“How’d you know him?”
“He was my best friend.” The man seemed to deem this an opportune moment for introductions. “I’m Evan Radich. This is my girlfriend, Roanna Quick.”
Bulldog extended a hand. “Good to meet you folks. I’m Billy Bird, but everyone calls me Bulldog. You can probably tell why just by looking at this mug. And this is—”
<
br /> Sully cut in quickly. “Oliver Chadwell.”
“Nice to meet you guys,” Evan said. “So just out for a walk then?”
“Seemed like a good day for one,” Bulldog said. “Scenery in the Riverview neighbourhood leaves a little something to be desired these days.”
“I bet.”
“What about you two?” Sully asked. “I mean, I take it that spot you were standing, that’s where it happened?”
“Sort of. The entrance to the cave was there. There’s nothing left anymore, no way to get to the place where Carter is. In the end, the rescue crews realized it was risking lives because the ground was too unstable, so they just had to leave him in there. They figured out pretty quick anyway it was a recovery job, not a rescue.”
“Must have been horrible to try to deal with that. And hard for his family, too, not having a body to bury.”
Bulldog subtly cleared his throat. Sully resisted the urge to smack him. Yes, he recognized the hypocrisy in his statement.
“I know,” Evan said. “They really wanted him out of there. His mom…. Man, I hated seeing her back then. I half-grew up in their house. I’ve only been back once since, and I didn’t go much past the back door. Didn’t want to see it again, you know? It would just be weird, with him not being there.” He paused and scratched at a thin layer of stubble on his jaw. “Sorry. Don’t know why I’m laying this on you.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I hope you don’t mind my asking, but do you know what happened?”
Evan shrugged, but provided an answer all the same. “Dunno exactly. I mean, he, Ro and I were in the Science Club at school and our teacher took us there from time to time to study geology. He’s a spelunker, and he was teaching us about caving. Carter took to it fast, headed there every chance he got. Usually I went with him, but not that day.
“He knew he shouldn’t have been down there by himself, but he wanted to explore this new passage we'd found. I told him to wait until someone was with him, but he could be a real stubborn jerk when he wanted to be. I don’t know exactly what happened, but some expert said on the news the flood that summer caused major shifting. People had been exploring that cave system for years, and it was considered pretty stable before that. They closed things down after the flood, though. Turned out they were right to worry.”