Scott Nicholson Library Vol 2

by Scott Nicholson

  “You like gym.”

  “I thought he was going to slice you like liver mush, Vee.”

  Vernon Ray released the tabs on the window screen and pushed it out, where Bobby caught it and set it against the trailer’s aluminum skirt. Bobby launched himself up and inside the room. Vernon Ray sat on the bed while Bobby slouched at the computer desk and stared at a chess board where Vernon Ray was in the middle of a solo game.

  “He just disappeared after you left,” Vernon Ray said. “You know how those theories of transubstantiation go. It probably took all his energy to materialize enough to scare you away.”

  “Yeah, I felt all tingly and weird, like static electricity was crackling on the tips of my hair.”

  “Drawing juice from us, like a car draining a battery.”

  “So he didn’t do anything?”

  “Nah,” Vernon Ray said, wondering if Bobby would mention their near kiss. He doubted it, since the bedroom would be about the most uncomfortable place to bring it up.

  “What are we going to do about the ghosts?”

  “Why do you think we have to do anything? They’re not good or evil, they’re just there.”

  “Except for what happened to Carter, you mean? And I got a feeling I’m on their hit list and I’m not even a Yankee.”

  “Kirk’s Raiders were rejects from both sides,” Vernon Ray said. “They were equal-opportunity haters. If you believe the history books, but I’m not so sure of the truth anymore.”

  “I don’t get it. They let you go twice now. They could have got you when we were spying on them from the Hole. Now Col. Creep has you cornered and just disappears?”

  “Maybe I was born lucky. But he let you go, too.”

  “They must want something,” Bobby said.

  “Certainly not prisoners.”

  “Maybe just casualties.” Bobby reached across the desk and moved one of the chess pieces. “Check.”

  Vernon Ray crossed the room to the chess board. “You’re making two dangerous assumptions, Bobby. You assume we can actually have an effect on the ghosts and you assume whatever we do will be in their best interests.”

  “Sure, ‘Go toward the light’ and all that crap. They probably have another level of heaven to move on to, or whatever.”

  Vernon Ray moved a knight, his favorite piece due to its deceptive nature, blocking Bobby’s threat to the king. “What if that’s the worst possible thing for them? What if you’re sending them to heaven instead of the hell where they belong?”

  Let’s not belong together. Maybe Kirk knows something we don’t.

  “That’s not the point. They don’t belong here. When it’s over, it’s over, and you just bury the past and move on.”

  “And who made Bobby Eldreth lord and master of the universe?”

  “Hey, at least I’m trying to do something.” Bobby slid a pawn forward.

  “Maybe we should just leave them alone.”

  “And hope they go away?”

  “And hope they do whatever they’re meant to do.” Vernon Ray angled his bishop forward. “Checkmate.”

  Bobby leaned over the board and flicked his king with one finger so that it fell and rolled across the board, scattering other pieces. “I’m going to the battlefield. You can sit around and wait for them to take over the town if you want.”

  “What in the world would they want with the town?”

  “That one ghost soldier, the one we saw on the railroad tracks? Earley Eggers? He’s like an outcast, a deserter or something. They were shooting at him when they killed Carter. You heard the reporter. Earley Eggers lived in Titusville, and maybe he’s bound for home and the others don’t like it.”

  “Like that guy in Cold Mountain,” Vernon Ray said. His dad not only possessed an autographed copy of the Charles Frazier novel, he’d made the family watch the Nicole Kidman movie every night during its entire two-week run at the Regal Cineplex.

  “Maybe they’re hunting him.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense, because if they can get out of the Hole, they can escape, too.”

  “Maybe Deserter Boy has found another way to transubstantiate. A portable power source. Or maybe he finally heeded the call of hearth of home.”

  “V-Ray, if we could prove all this, we’d be rich and famous, like what’s-his-name on that paranormal show.”

  “We couldn’t even snag a decent picture of a ghost. What, you expect to get one in the guest chair on ‘Oprah’?”

  “Well, let’s go check out the war. Maybe Kirk will come down to scout out the enemy. If nothing else, we’ll get to see our dads make fools of themselves.”

  “Sounds like an adventure. Beats the hell out of algebra.”

  They stood at the same time, bringing them closer together than they’d been since Bobby had climbed in the window. Vernon Ray realized they’d deliberately put distance between themselves the entire time and now they shared a collective breath.

  “Uh, about that thing in the shed,” Bobby said.

  “I told you, he disappeared right after you left.”

  “No, the other thing.”

  “Nothing happened, remember?”

  “Yeah. I just want you to know it’s okay. I mean, if I liked guys—you know, in that way . . . .”

  Vernon Ray lowered his eyes, bit his lip to rein in a pout, and nodded, willing himself not to cry. Christ, first I try to kiss him and now I’m about to open the floodgates like a goddamned little girl.

  He shifted his gaze to the bed and the kepi, whose brim was just visible at the dusty edge of darkness. He recalled the comfort and security the hat gave him, the sense of belonging, as if he’d finally discovered himself and that he was okay.

  It didn’t matter what Bobby or anyone else—any living person—thought of him, because the colonel found him worthy.

  “It was nothing,” Vernon Ray said.

  Bobby blurted his words in a rush, as if letting them linger might leave him vulnerable and exposed in the bits of silence between. “You’re my best friend and I love you like a brother, and whatever you do is fine with me, but I love Karen Greene and not guys and I don’t think you’re sick or anything—”

  “Don’t.” Vernon Ray raised his hand, gaining self-confidence through the memory of the colonel’s understanding-but-hollow gaze. “Don’t try too hard. That’s worse than not trying at all.”

  Bobby moved to the window and poised like a superhero about to fly to somebody’s rescue. “I’m cool with whatever.”

  Then Bobby was gone, slipping out with an athletic grace that caused a mild flutter in Vernon Ray’s stomach.

  The colonel’s phantom words echoed again: We don’t belong together.

  He grabbed his backpack, retrieved the kepi, brushed it over his head just long enough to savor its comfort, and then squirreled it away. Tossing the backpack over his shoulder, he followed his best friend through the window and into a world where being queer was weirder than being supernatural.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sheriff Frank Littlefield wove his cruiser between the horse trailers that were lined up along the edge of the parking lot. The Living History Society had set up a fledgling camp, and a few of the soldiers were sitting on logs and eating from tin plates. Women in bonnets and dresses bustled around tending fires and carrying water from the creek.

  A couple of kids in wool britches and loose cotton shirts were playing army, using tree branches as make-believe rifles. As the sheriff got out of the car, he heard one yell, “Bang! You’re dead.”

  The intended target, a red-headed boy whose floppy hat nearly covered his eyes, said, “Am not!”

  Which Littlefield believed could just about sum up the situation for a lot of folks in Titusville lately.

  The clouds were high and fine, promising a cool, dry October day. Mist wreathed the faces of the mountains, the vapor rising from dewy valleys to burn away under the sun. Laughter and birdsong filled Aldridge Park, and the sheriff relaxed a little.
>
  Just a normal day in the war.

  Cindy Baumhower was interviewing one of the uniformed men, camera slung over one shoulder. The incident at the bowling alley would be the headline, but a feature story on the local tourist event would get some good play to stroke the business community. Littlefield had cited Mac McAllister with discharging a firearm in a public building and disturbing the peace, but the bowling mogul had made bail before the ink had dried on the processing papers.

  If Littlefield didn’t somehow plug the Hole and find a way to exterminate this little supernatural infestation, then Pickett County might become the Disneyland of the Dead, with ghosts pouring in from every crack in the Appalachian Mountains. And that would draw national media attention, which in turn would bring investigative reporters who would want to know more about The Red Church, Littlefield’s dead chief deputy, and the whereabouts of Rev. Archer McFall.

  The past should stay in the past and the dead should stay dead, and the living deserved to rest in peace far more than did those who had gone before.

  Littlefield walked to the camp as a couple of dress-up soldiers mounted horses at the end of the field. The air was ripe with the odors of creek mud, horse manure, and wood smoke. A dozen or so locals had stopped by during their coffee breaks to get an early glimpse of the coming battle, and a handful were gathered around Cindy as if watching the media coverage of the event was more exciting than the event itself.

  A line of locust fencing marked one end of the park and a dense row of hardwoods bordered the other two sides. The shaded woods seemed a little menacing in their closeness, especially since they were part of the same living-and-breathing ecosystem that covered Mulatto Mountain.

  Christ, now you’re even giving trees the power of the paranormal. What next, Casper the Friendly Ghost in tap-dancing shoes?

  Jeff Davis was drinking coffee under a raised tent flap that was held up with skinned birch branches. A wooden table had his papers spread across it, and Littlefield assumed they contained maps and details of the re-enactment.

  As the sheriff passed through the camp, he felt a strange kinship with the uniformed men, even though he’d arrested a couple of them. Elmer, who had once gone down for a drunk and disorderly during an explosive Fourth of July, waved at him with a bandaged hand and drank from a canvas-covered canteen.

  “How’s it going, Jeff?” Littlefield said when he reached the tent.

  “It’s ‘Captain’ out here,” Jeff said. His hat was off and his dark hair was slicked back with some sort of gel.

  Or maybe possum fat, if he’s gone Southern for the duration.

  “I just dropped by to check on things,” Littlefield said, wondering whether Jeff now considered himself of higher rank than sheriff. “People are a mite antsy after the McAllister incident.”

  “Mac’s no longer in the regiment,” Jeff said.

  “No, but he was shooting at invisible people, and there’s a little too much of that going around lately. Not to mention the real people who are getting shot.”

  “War is hell,” Jeff said, his eyes cold and strange. He seemed a different man than the one who’d been sitting in Littlefield’s office the day before, somber and weighted with duty. “Whether it’s real or not.”

  “The permit allows me the right to inspect any firearms on the premises,” Littlefield said.

  Jeff smiled and fished the revolver from his holster. He set the pistol on the table as if daring the sheriff to spin it for a game of Russian roulette. “Go ahead. Colt revolver, a period piece. Only 4,000 issued.”

  Littlefield, who appreciated firearms but was no historian, picked it up and opened the chamber. He shucked out one of the bullets and looked at it. The jacket was packed with tissue paper. Blanks had been known to kill people, most notably the actor Brandon Lee, who was shot by a prop pistol on set. A permit had not done a bit of good in stopping the concussion from propelling a lodged slug into Lee’s abdomen.

  “What about your soldiers?” Littlefield asked, replacing the bullet and clicking the chamber closed.

  “They’re a little rough around the edges but we’ll be ready when Stoneman and his boys roll through,” Jeff said. “Not much on spit and polish, but plenty of grit and backbone.”

  Littlefield gave a smile, his first in days. “I meant their safety habits, not their fighting spirit.”

  Jeff’s eyes remained distant. “They know how to handle their weapons. We’ve been training all year for this battle.”

  “I’m sure the Confederacy will sleep better tonight, knowing you’re standing sentry.” Littlefield handed the revolver back to Jeff, butt first. The two mounted cavalry units thundered across the field, sod flying from the horses’ hooves.

  “It’s not just about defending the home front,” Jeff said. “It’s a matter of principle.”

  Littlefield flinched in anticipation of a lecture in which state’s rights and not slavery was to blame for the Civil War. It had been boring in the seventh grade and had not grown a bit more compelling in the years since. Instead, the erstwhile captain rolled the right tip of his moustache between his fingers and stared off toward Mulatto Mountain and slipped into a monotone, as if not aware of his words.

  “The real enemy’s waiting up there. The ones who won’t do the honorable thing and give their lives for their beliefs. No, they make a mockery of all that is noble and sacred, all that’s worth fighting for.”

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” a woman’s voice called, and Littlefield welcomed the distraction, though Cindy’s greetings were usually followed by criticism, questions, or plain old pestering.

  “Hi, Cindy, you getting some good copy?”

  “Maybe,” she said, giving her journalism-school smile. “The way trouble follows you around, I’m sure the best is yet to come.”

  “You got it backwards. Trouble doesn’t follow me, I follow it. That’s my job.”

  “I guess that explains all those ghosts rattling chains in your attic.”

  “She gets it, even if you don’t,” Jeff said.

  KER-chewwww.

  The gunshot rolled across the valley. One of the horses whinnied and reared and its rider slumped against the horse’s neck, trying to hold on.

  The sheriff glanced around, seeing if any of the soldiers were testing their weapons or holding mock drills.

  Jeff rose from his chair, slipping on his hat and giving the crown a tap to paste it against his greasy hair. He glanced at a pocket watch that hung from a silver chain and gave a little nod. “A bit early, but then, who ever expected Kirk’s Raiders to fight fair?”

  The captain tugged down his tunic and shrugged his shoulders, squaring his epaulets as his passed between Cindy and Littlefield.

  “That’s a man on a mission,” Cindy said after he was gone.

  “More like a man jerking off to his own private wet dream,” Littlefield said.

  “Is that off the record?”

  “It’s just plain off.”

  Another shot rang out with its percussive echo. Jeff Davis broke into a jog, headed for the camp and the seated men. The rider clinging to the restless horse pitched forward and fell to the ground, where he lay without moving.

  “Man, that looked like it hurt,” Cindy said. “Good acting.”

  “That’s nothing. We played dead all the time when I was a kid. Me and my brother—”

  Cindy’s eyes flicked to his face so rapidly that her penetrating gaze stopped him before regret had a chance. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Littlefield said, brushing past her. “I’m going to see if that guy’s okay.”

  The second rider was wheeling his horse around, scouting the woods beyond the creek. Jeff yelled at the men, making dramatic motions with his arms. They were gathering their weapons and adjusting their gear when another shot rang out.

  KER-cheww. ZeeeeEEEEEP.

  Littlefield heard something whistling past his head. It had accelerated
far too fast for an insect and carried a peculiar, violent quality, as if ripping the sky in half.

  The rider slapped his horse on the flank and galloped toward camp. Half a dozen horses, tethered under a tall maple, whinnied and tugged against their leather restraints. Jeff reached the tents and stirred the men, rousing them into formation.

  “He takes his make-believe seriously,” Cindy said, following Littlefield across the pasture.

  The sheriff didn’t answer. He was watching the rider who had fallen to the grass. The man lay as limp as a bag of wet cotton.

  Another shot rang out, and one of the women gave a high-pitched yelp.

  “Now he’s got everybody following the script,” Cindy said.

  A woman in a green dress and white bonnet held her arm, moaning in pain. Blood poured down to her elbow, staining the cloth.

  “Somebody’s shooting!” Littlefield shouted. “Stay low.”

  He ducked, fishing his Glock from its holster as he ran toward the prone rider. He reached the man and crouched, glancing around at the edge of the woods. Seeing no one, he checked the man’s pulse. Nothing.

  He rolled the body over. A blossom of rich blood oozed from the man’s chest, an apparent shot to the heart. There had been no wound in the back, meaning the bullet must have lodged in the flesh and was likely of a low caliber.

  Figures that this event would attract some lunatic sniper who never met a war he didn’t like, even a fake one.

  He mentally flicked through the roster of potential nutcases in the county–Weejun Li, the Korean peacenik; Laney Curtis, the income-tax protestor and resident rabid libertarian; and Sam Wakeman, the alcoholic Vietnam veteran who had suffered a breakdown in the Walmart one Christmas and slugged the hell out of Santa Claus.

  But none of them seemed to possess the type of hair trigger that would kill a man. Besides, Wakeman was in the camp, one hand tugging up his too-large trousers as he scrambled for his equipment.

  The camp was in chaos now, despite Jeff’s bellowing attempts to restore order. “In line, soldiers!” he screamed, his face as purple as a plum.

  The soldiers, some of them with their gray tunics undone or missing their hats, wrestled with their replica weapons, confused by the commotion. Elmer Eldreth had the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, peering down the barrel as if sighting an unseen enemy. Cindy, who had been startled at the sheriff’s revelation of live fire, was now in full swing, pressing the button on her digital camera as fast as the machinery could process the information.