by Ron Ripley
“Wow,” Molly said, her eyes wide, “that would be awesome. Thank you!”
Daryl blushed, nodded and said, “Anytime.”
“When should I visit?” Molly asked, lowering her voice. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
He thought about the question then said, “How about the same time as last night?”
“Cool.” Molly grinned at him. “See you then, Daryl.”
The dead girl was gone in a heartbeat, leaving Daryl to wonder if he had truly seen her.
After several long minutes, he decided he had seen her, and he got up and went to the fridge. He took a beer and hurried up to his room.
Chapter 14: In the Shadows of the Night
Stefan Korzh opened the package that had arrived at the post office for him and smiled. A new, high-end tree stand was revealed, and he let out a pleased laugh. The stand, used for hunting with a bow, was exactly what he needed. It was lightweight, easily maneuverable, and it looked to be extremely comfortable.
He brought the tree stand over to the other items he had purchased over the past week and examined them all once more.
Several coils of para-cord, a new, better pair of lowlight goggles, rations and high-energy snacks, a camel-pack, and high-impact rounds for his rifle.
While he had identified where the various cameras were, he hadn’t touched them or shut down their signals. He suspected the man who had tried to kill him would return soon, and when he did, Stefan wouldn’t lose.
Nor would the man get away.
Stefan nodded at his assembled gear, then left for the kitchen. He served himself a bowl of chili and carried it back to his room. Sitting down on his bed, he ate in silence and focused his thoughts on how best to lure the man back to the compound.
***
“This is a poor decision,” the head said.
Bontoc restrained himself, and instead of snapping at the ghost, he asked, “How?”
“He is ready for you. He will continue to be ready for you,” the head stated. “You should wait. At least a year. Perhaps longer.”
Bontoc scoffed. “I cannot. There is a timeline to this. A schedule to which I must adhere.”
“He will be waiting for you,” the head said, sighing.
“He has not even found my cameras yet,” Bontoc argued. “I would know if the feeds were disturbed in the slightest. I am ready for him. He is not ready for me. The one mistake I made before was underestimating him, and I am not doing that now. I know what to expect.”
“You’re being a fool,” the head said. “You should listen to yourself. How can you know what to expect, when you did not the first time? We have heard of how he fought. We have listened to the whispers among the free dead. He waits for you, Bontoc. In the end, it will be your head that is collected, and not his.”
Bontoc considered an act of violence against the head. Perhaps taking it down and smashing it against the floor. Setting it on fire and scattering the ashes.
It was an unreasonable reaction, but it was pleasant to think of.
“I will take his head,” Bontoc said, closing his suitcase. “And then I will be done with him.”
The head chuckled and said, “I think not, young Bontoc. Soon, you will be dead. Whether you remain to linger in this world or shall move on to the next, is a decision you must make sooner rather than later.”
Bontoc pressed his lips closed, left the room and said goodbye to his mother.
He had a man to kill.
***
“He is on the move,” a voice said softly.
Ariana rolled onto her side and cracked open an eye. She stared at the battered class ring on her nightstand. Cassius, the dead man, attached to the ring, remained hidden, although he made his presence known by the chill in the room.
“When?” Ariana asked, struggling to stay awake.
“Only a short time ago,” Cassius replied. “It seems one of the older heads was telling the hunter’s future.”
Ariana snorted. “That’s a new one.”
When Cassius didn’t respond, she asked, “Was the head serious?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Cassius asked in return. “There are those who can foretell the future when alive, so what is to stop them when they are dead?”
Ariana wanted to argue the point, but she didn’t see how she could. She was, after all, speaking with a dead man. One who had died in 1917.
She sat up and asked, “What did the head tell him?”
“That your half-brother would kill him,” Cassius stated.
The idea bothered her, and Ariana asked, “Did it say how?”
“Not that I am aware of,” Cassius said, his voice fading. “I am tired. I will let you know when I hear more.”
Ariana knew from past experience that no amount of harassment would get the dead man to return. Cassius wasn’t an especially powerful ghost, but he was attuned to the curious, ethereal world that flowed through and around her own. Somehow, the dead man was able to speak with others like himself and to learn what was going on in the physical world.
In one sense, Ariana was pleased that Bontoc was once again on the hunt.
She was concerned with the prophecy of doom for the man.
Her half-brother served as an image of dread within the recesses of her mind, and more than once she had awoken from nightmares in which she had been unable to escape from him.
She had a second, more sinister and frightening fear as well. That her father would ask her to go after Stefan Korzh again, and she wouldn’t be able to refuse him.
And Ariana knew Stefan would kill her the second time.
Of that, she had no doubt.
Chapter 15: Good Company
Tom and Iris sat at a small table outside of the Forge Café in downtown Fox Cat Hollow. The flow of traffic was mellow and relaxed for a Saturday morning, and Tom was well into his second cup of coffee.
“Tom,” Iris said.
He looked up and smiled at her. “Yeah?”
“Do you think you’ll ever let your hair grow?” she asked.
The question caught him off-guard.
Shaving his head was a daily ritual, and he rarely thought about his lack of hair.
“Um, I don’t know,” he answered after a minute. He forced a smile, cleared his throat, and added, “For some reason, my hair reminds me of my mom. She always liked it. Stupid reason to shave it, I guess, but that’s why. I think about her every time I see myself. It’s hard enough to get through the day without missing her.”
“I’m sorry,” Iris said with an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”
“It’s okay,” Tom said. He reached out and took her hand, and she squeezed it in return.
“Hey,” she said, grinning, “there’s a new antique store. Just opened up over on Farthing Street. Want to walk over and check it out?”
“Yeah,” Tom said, “sounds good to me.”
They left the café and strolled along the sidewalk, still holding hands. Iris said hello to a few people she knew, and Tom offered them polite smiles. He felt tense and tried to relax his shoulders and to focus on Iris. She helped him remain calm, to not succumb to the paranoia that everyone was out to get him. That somewhere a police officer waited to snatch him off the street and send him back to Connecticut.
Soon they turned right onto Farthing Street, and Tom saw a flag with the word ‘OPEN’ written on it, fluttering in a slight breeze. The flagpole protruded at an angle from the left of a narrow doorway, where an old brass and glass door was propped open. Strains of classical music drifted out of the shop and into the street, the bitter scent of strong coffee wafted out, and a pleasant warmth enveloped them as they entered the small store.
The walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves, in turn, were filled with a variety of items. They were divided by periods of time, with Art Deco on the far right, and the sleek, bold chrome of the forties and fifties closer to the door. Victorian and Edwardian pieces were separated, a
s were early colonial, and pieces from the Federal period. A few older people wandered around the shop, which was both long and narrow. To the right of the door was a roll-top desk, and seated at it was a middle-aged woman.
She was elegant, with perfectly coiffed silver-hair, a touch of make-up on a face that could have been either 35 or 55. Her skin tone had a soft tan to it, and her eyes were hazel, with thin lines around them. She wore a soft gray sweater and a black skirt that reached down to her ankles. A black and white cat lay on its side beneath her chair, the feline’s tail twitching, one eye open and watching Tom.
“Hello,” the woman said, her voice soft but strong, “welcome to Incidentals.”
“Hello,” Iris said, smiling. “Your shop looks beautiful.”
“Thank you, dear,” the woman said, returning the smile. “Are you and your young man searching for anything in particular?”
“I don’t know,” Iris said, glancing over at Tom and winking, “are we?”
Tom thought for a moment and then asked, “Do you have any old books?”
The woman’s smile broadened. “We do indeed, young man. At the back of the store, if you turn around to look at the door, you will find several low shelves of books. They are all older and hardbound, I am afraid.”
“They sound great, thank you,” Tom said.
“I’m going to look at the Deco stuff,” Iris said. “Do you want to look at the books?”
“Sure,” Tom answered, and he gave her a quick kiss before he let go of her hand and went to the shelves in the back. He excused himself as he passed several other shoppers, and was relieved to find he had the small book area to his own. Tom sat down on the floor and read the titles in front of him. Most of the books were in English, although there were several in German, and one in Latin. The last was a copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and he winced at the sight of it. Tom had almost purchased a copy of it instead of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, and so Aurelius’s work was a painful reminder of his parents and Stefan Korzh.
Tom fought back the urge to get up and leave the shop, to find some quiet place to be alone. Instead, he adjusted his prosthetic, and read the other titles slowly. His eyes stopped on a battered copy of A.A. Milne’s Now We are Six, and he smiled. It had been his favorite book as a little boy, and his mother had read to him from it every night for several years.
Tom reached out, pulled the book gently off the shelf, and turned it over in his hand. He started to open it, and a voice whispered, “Don’t. That’s mine.”
The small hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and goosebumps sprang up on his arms. Keeping himself as still as possible, Tom looked out of the corners of his eyes, seeking the faintest change in light. He found it near the bottom of the bookcase. What seemed to be a small foot, clad in an off-white sock, protruded from the wood.
Tom’s heartbeat increased, thumping noisily against his chest.
“Hello,” Tom whispered, fighting back the initial revulsion and hatred he felt. He forced himself to remember what he had been reading, what Shane had told him about the dead.
The foot jerked back, vanishing into the bookcase.
“You don’t have to leave,” Tom said in a low voice, trying to remain calm.
“You heard me?” the voice asked.
“I did,” Tom answered.
A small boy peeked forward from the upper row of books, his pale face appearing out of the old bindings. His hair was long and fair, reaching down to his shoulders. As the boy stepped out, Tom saw that he was dressed in an old nightshirt, the hem of which stopped just a few inches above the socks. Tom smelled a faint odor of burnt wood, and the scent brought the unpleasant taste of bile up to his throat. He swallowed it back, forced a smile on his face.
“My name’s Tom.”
“I’m Ezekiel,” the boy said. “No one ever sees me. How did you?”
“I don’t know,” Tom replied. “I can see the dead sometimes, even when they don’t want to be seen. But I’m trying to get better at it. Someone I know says it’s like flexing a muscle. You have to make it stronger.”
“Oh.” Ezekiel looked around, then back to Tom.
“Have you been here a long time?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know,” Ezekiel answered, sitting down.
Tom figured the boy was around eight or nine, and he was afraid to ask how Ezekiel had died. He also wondered if it would be impolite.
“Do you like it here?” Tom asked.
Ezekiel shrugged. “I was in an old woman’s house for a long, long time. And then she died. But she didn’t stay, she left. She didn’t even try to take me with her.”
“Did she know you were in the book?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know,” Ezekiel said, sighing. “I thought she did. She did look at my photograph several times.”
Then the little boy smiled. “But you see me. You know I’m here.”
“Your photograph?” Tom asked.
The boy nodded. “Yes. It is there, at the poem. My favorite.”
Tom opened the book, flipped through the pages and at the poem, “Cottleston Pie,” he found an old photo. It was black and white, faded and well-loved. Ezekiel looked at the camera, sitting in a tall wooden chair and holding a Boston terrier on his lap.
“I’ve been lonely here,” Ezekiel said in a soft voice. “I haven’t seen my dog since I died. I think she’s died since then too. I even named her Kanga.”
Tom smiled and found he couldn’t speak.
“Tom,” Ezekiel said shyly, “do you … do you suppose I might stay with you for a while?”
Tom grinned, laughed and said, “Yes. I think I would like that.”
Ezekiel jumped up and clapped his hands, nodding. “Yes!”
“Good,” Tom said, feeling happy. “I need you to go back into your photograph, so I can buy the book. Okay?”
Ezekiel nodded and vanished.
Tom got awkwardly to his feet, still slightly unbalanced and unused to his false arm. He took the book off the shelf, held it tightly in his hand, and went to find Iris at the Art Deco.
Chapter 16: Searching for Answers to Unasked Questions
By the time the sun had finished its ascent, Victor was dressed and out of the house, heading to the corner store for the morning paper. Tom was already awake, eating breakfast and reading a copy of Milne’s, Now We are Six when Victor had left the house.
Odd reading for a teen, Victor thought, buttoning up his jacket. Then he shrugged the thought away and focused on the task he had assigned for himself.
Trying to find where Molly and her book might be.
He knew that some ghosts had the ability to move within a mile or two of their anchor, whether it was a book, a piece of property, or some other object. Victor had spent part of the night looking at maps online, and he had sketched out a rough area where he could look. There were, unfortunately, a fair amount of homes and buildings in it.
And he had no sure way of telling where the book might be.
Hell, he thought angrily, stuffing his hands into his pockets and hurrying along the street, she might even be buried in a plain old wooden box on somebody’s property. Or stuffed in a car.
Once again, he found himself regretting his inability to pinpoint a ghost’s location. He had briefly considered asking Nicholas for assistance, but further consideration had told him that was one of his poorer ideas.
Dealings with his grandfather came with undesirable caveats.
Victor reached the corner store and went inside, waving to Samir behind the counter. The older man returned the wave with a pleasant smile and put his reading glasses on top of his head. His deeply tanned skin was lined with crow’s feet around his eyes while his forehead was furrowed. Fine white and silver hairs were sown in among the man’s thick black hair, and his face was broad and pleasant. He wore an off-white shirt, buttoned to the top at his neck, and his thick fingers made Victor suspect that the man had not always been a shopkeeper.
“How are y
ou this morning, my friend?” Samir asked. His voice had a thick accent, and Victor wasn’t certain if it was Indian or Pakistani, and as much as he wanted to ask, he also didn’t want to offend the man just to satisfy his curiosity.
“I’m well, thank you,” Victor replied. He picked up the paper and a bag of Swedish fish candy.
Samir chuckled as Victor placed the items on the counter.
“You are lucky, my friend,” Samir said, ringing up the purchase. He patted himself on his large stomach, saying, “I cannot eat such sweet candies. My wife would be displeased. Already she is refusing me some of the finer delicacies.”
“Samir,” Victor said, handing over some cash, “when do you even get to see your wife? Every time I’m in here, so are you.”
Samir snorted, shook his head and said, “She is upstairs, my friend. Soon she will be downstairs, and she will count all of the cookies by the coffee. And God help me if someone has misplaced a pack, or perhaps two. Then I will have boiled chicken for lunch. And boiled chicken for supper. And, perhaps, boiled chicken for breakfast.”
Victor sighed and said, “You’re a lucky man, Samir.”
Samir raised an eyebrow, and a small smile crept onto his face. “Perhaps I am indeed, my friend. I will see you tomorrow?"
“I hope so,” Victor said, picking up his purchase. He waved goodbye and left the store, putting the bag of candy into his back pocket and folding the paper under his arm. Quick steps carried him back to the house, and as he got into his car, he saw Tom's light was on and the kitchen was dark. The boy would be working out, Victor knew. Trying to increase the strength in what remained of his diminished arm.
Victor shook his head in admiration and started the engine. He pulled out of the driveway and headed towards West Virginia. The night before he had printed up directions to the scene of the fires, the ones Ariana had spoken to him about. He wanted to hunt down Korzh, but he knew that his own vengeance had become a secondary factor in his life.