by Ron Ripley
Frank had never forgotten what Leo had done. Thus, Leo had a nearly guaranteed ride whenever he happened to need one. Which wasn’t particularly often, but it was still nice to know it was there when he needed it.
It meant less time to worry, and more time to read and research.
The ride to Mont Vernon took nearly half an hour even with Frank’s cavalier attitude towards the rules of the road. Frank also filled Leo in on the state of his love life, the ongoing battle with his second ex-wife over their son, his first ex-wife and her alimony payments, and the need for him to move because his landlady expected regular conjugal visits if he was going to be late with the rent.
Frank had also stopped the cab once so he could get an extra-large coffee at Dunkin Donuts. Leo took medium hot black, his staple beverage outside of water.
Leo was only half way through the coffee when they turned onto Old Nashua Road and made their way to the house of Sylvia’s friends. When they reached it, Leo could see the lights on and two snow covered cars in the driveway.
The dead were everywhere.
Dozens of them. All around the house and on the house’s side of the road.
“Pull over to the right, please,” Leo said.
Frank did so without asking why.
Once the cab stopped, Leo said, “Please stay on this side of the road, Frank. Do not walk over to the house, or even park on the other side. Stay here. I will walk back out to you. I don’t want you to have anything to do with this house, okay?”
Frank’s eyes had widened slightly, but the normally talkative man merely nodded in silence.
“I’ll come out in an hour and a half to let you know what’s going on,” Leo continued. He took out his wallet and fished out a trio of twenties. “Here. This is for the ride here and the time you’ll have to wait. If I’m not out at ten o’clock, you leave. Do not come in after me.”
Frank took the money, and nodded.
Leo smiled. “I will see you soon, Frank.”
“I hope so,” Frank said quietly when Leo could no longer hear him. “I hope so.”
Leo turned his collar up against the cold, and walked across the road. The dead turned to look at him, and Leo ignored them. He didn’t want them knowing just yet that he could see them. That would come in good time, and he was certain that it would be irritating to them.
The dead liked to look, but they didn’t like to be seen.
Leo walked up the driveway, making fresh tracks in the snow as he advanced upon the house. Shapes appeared and disappeared in the corners of his eyes, and he sighed. He couldn’t even count how many were around the house, let alone how many would be in the house. He had a feeling he would find far too many for his liking.
Most of the trapping would have to be done tonight. The other ghosts would get wise and hide, but he would find them.
But how to go about trapping them all? he asked himself. There are so many.
Leo climbed the porch steps, past a rather depressed looking ghost dressed as a hunter, and rang the bell.
A moment later a man answered the door. He was probably Leo’s own age, but he looked exhausted. Careworn. As though something had gone terribly wrong.
Well, Leo thought. For most people it has.
“Hello,” Leo said, giving the man a small smile. “My name is Leo. Sylvia asked me to come.”
“Hi Leo,” the man said, extending his hand. “I’m Brian.”
Leo forced himself to quickly shake Brian’s hand. His nose wrinkled. “You’re carrying iron.”
Brian’s eyes widened in surprise as he nodded.
“Good,” Leo said. “May I come in?”
“Uh, yeah, come on in.”
Leo stepped into the house, saw a young girl at an open door, peering out at him. The holes in the door and the hammer and nails on the floor suggested that the door wouldn’t stay shut.
Leo pretended that he hadn’t seen the girl and continued to look. Down the hall, he saw an older woman standing in another doorway, and to the right, there was a line of salt across the floor.
Leo walked to that room as Brian closed and locked the door behind him.
When Leo stepped into the protected room, he saw an old man sitting on a sofa and a woman who had to be Sylvia’s friend, sitting in a chair beside the larger piece of furniture. The man, Leo saw, had a black pall around him.
The man was dying. Leo wasn’t sure if the man knew it or not.
A narrow, ladder-back chair with a rush seat stood against the wall facing the others, and Leo sat down in it. Brian took a seat, and the three people looked at Leo.
Leo gave them all his small smile.
“My name is Leo,” he said. “I have been asked by Sylvia to help you. What is it that you want?”
“We have some ghosts here,” the woman said. “We want them gone.”
“Exorcised if we can,” the old man said. “Trapped if we can’t.”
Leo nodded.
“You can do this?” Brian asked.
“Yes.”
“How much would it cost?” Brian asked.
“Sylvia asked me to do it,” Leo said. “It won’t cost anything.”
“What do you normally get?” the woman asked.
“One thousand dollars per ghost.”
“There’s more than one here,” the old man said. “And they’re none too pleasant, for the most part.”
“Much more than one,” Leo said, nodding in agreement.
“How many more?” Brian asked.
“I counted, at least, thirty-seven in the front yard,” Leo said. “One looking out from the door in the hall, another from the kitchen.”
Someone went running upstairs. The other three looked up, but Leo did not.
“I assume there are more,” Leo continued. “Is there a barn?”
“Left side of the property,” the old man said, looking back to Leo.
“There will be more there.”
“What do you think will work?” the woman asked.
“No exorcism,” Leo said promptly. “Too many. You would never get them all. Maybe, if we can trap most of them, an exorcism would work.”
“How are you going to trap them?” Brian asked. “I mean, not to sound stupid, but the only the only time that I ever saw ghosts being trapped was in Ghostbusters.”
Leo nodded. “You have to catch them. You have to bind them to an object. From there you find a medium who might be able to work with the dead. Or you bind them to something else that they won’t break free from.”
“How do you catch them?” the old man asked. “From what I’ve gathered, they only announce themselves when they feel good and ready to.”
“Yes,” Leo said, nodding. “You have to see them to catch them.”
“If there’s more than one,” the woman said, “won’t they stay hidden once they realize what it is you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Brian said, shaking his head. “How do you catch them when they don’t want to be seen?”
“That doesn’t matter to me,” Leo said.
“Why?” the old man asked.
Leo looked at him. “I see the dead whether they wish to be seen or not.”
Chapter 24: The Ghost Trapper
Brian blinked several times.
“I’m sorry,” Brian said after a moment. “Did you say that you can see them even when they don’t want to be seen?”
The curious little man named Leo nodded. The man’s pale face was narrow and he looked absurdly small in his jacket, his black pants rumpled and his brown hair cut extremely close. The man was strange, perhaps with some form of high functioning autism.
Brian almost didn’t believe the man’s assertion about seeing the dead, but then again, Brian had seen some incredibly disturbing things over the past few days.
If Leo could help, then more power to him.
“You see the dead,” Sam said softly.
Leo looked at the man as if the single nod had been
enough of a response regardless as to how many times the statement might be made.
“How long will it take?” Jenny asked, ever the pragmatist.
Leo shrugged. “It depends on a variety of factors. I must operate on the assumption that all of the ghosts will inevitably have been drawn to either this building or the barn. If there is another structure on the property, then that will have to be examined as well. Graveyards on the property too.”
“Can you start tonight?” Jenny asked.
“Yes.” Leo stood up. “I must leave here at ten. I must be back in Nashua by midnight.”
Brian stifled the urge to ask if he was going to turn back into a scullery maid, but he thought the Cinderella reference might be beyond Leo’s ability to grasp.
“You are more than welcome to attend,” Leo said, walking out of the parlor.
Brian looked to Jenny and to Sam, and both of them shrugged. Together the three of them left the parlor, stopping in the hallway as Leo squatted down in front of the partially open basement door.
For the first time, Leo gave a relaxed and genuine smile. From an inner pocket, he produced a small, red leather book the size of a matchbox.
“Hello,” Leo said softly. “What’s your name?”
There was a pause as Leo listened for a response. His smile broadened, and Leo said, “Isabella. Isabella, that’s a beautiful name. My name is Leonidas, but I would be pleased if you would call me Leo.”
“Yes,” Leo said after a moment. “I am going to ask you a question, Isabella. Do you want to leave here?”
“Very good,” Leo smiled. He opened the small book, whispered a word that Brian didn’t quite catch, and then he closed the book. A moment later he stood up, closing the door to the basement quietly. He looked at Brian and Jenny and Sam. “She said to watch out for Henry, and someone named Paul.”
“We know about Paul,” Jenny said. “But who is Henry?”
“Someone bad,” Leo said. “Someone bad.”
Great, Brian thought.
They followed him into the kitchen where Leo came to a stop in the center of the room.
“Hello,” Leo said, looking at the refrigerator. “Ah. I’m sorry. Do you understand me, though?”
Leo frowned, and then he nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
“Oh,” Leo said, glancing over to the left. “Mary. Mary, do you want to leave here?”
A glass came hurtling through the kitchen, shattering against the far cabinet.
“Shit!” Brian said, stumbling back, Jenny catching him as his heart seemed to ricochet in his chest. Sam helped her get Brian into a chair.
Leo did nothing more than look at where the glass had come from and Brian caught sight of a tight, angry smile on the small man’s face.
Chapter 25: Introducing Henry
Leo looked at the same angry man he had seen standing outside of the parlor.
“Hello Henry,” Leo said.
A look of surprise flickered over the dead man’s face.
Mary and Elizabeth slipped away to a far corner of the kitchen while Brian and the others gathered at the table.
“Yes,” Leo said, still looking at Henry. “Yes, I can see you.”
Henry said nothing as if not quite believing what Leo said.
“Come closer, Henry,” Leo said softly.
The ghost took an involuntary step forward, a look of horror on his face.
“Come now,” Leo said in the same soft voice, “closer still, Henry. Closer still.”
“No,” Henry hissed. Yet he took another step towards Leo. “How?!”
“Long hours alone with books,” Leo answered. “Long hours alone with the likes of you. Strange things will happen to a boy.”
“Leave me be,” Henry snarled.
Leo gestured with his left hand, and Henry jerked forward as though he were a fish on a line, trying to fight, pulling back.
Leo had taken far worse than someone as disagreeable as Henry, though perhaps not as evil in their intent. Leo opened up Macbeth and fear seemed to glisten in the ghost’s eyes. Leo felt a warm rush of satisfaction.
Carefully Leo reeled Henry in. As pleased as he was with himself Leo knew that the slightest sign of weakness could shatter the effort, proving it all the more difficult to bind the ghost to the book. Leo focused on Henry, pulling the ghost in, ignoring the screams, then the curses, and finally the pleas.
Leo ignored them all.
With sheer will, he forced Henry into the book and closed it.
When he turned around Leo was not surprised to see that both Elizabeth and Mary had disappeared. It would take some time to get them back and into the book.
He would have to convince them that it was okay, that the book served simply as a focal point for a door, an entry into a world which was as pleasant or as horrible as the trapped ghost made it. For each soul it was different. To Leo it mattered not.
Blinking his eyes Leo looked at Brian and Sylvia, and the walking dead man who probably still didn’t know.
“Are you well?” Leo asked Brian.
Brian nodded.
“Perhaps you should remain in the kitchen,” Leo said. “I will, with your permission, go through the house. I have forty-eight minutes until I must leave your house and return to Nashua. I believe that I will be able to induce more than a few to enter the book before I must leave.”
“Sounds good to me,” Brian said with a pained grin.
Leo nodded, turned his back on the trio in the kitchen and made his way back to the hallway. He stopped right outside the basement door and listened. Upstairs he heard footsteps, people talking. Below him came the sound of muffled voices. There would be some in the attic as well. There were always some in the attic. He disliked the cliché. Ghosts were somehow so predictable sometimes. He would have to check for servants’ stairs and servants’ quarters, closets and pantries, root cellars, and of course, the barn. Leo would have to ask if there were other structures on the property, aside from the graveyard he had already been told about under the house.
But I will begin with the attic, Leo thought. Forcing himself to focus he repeated aloud, “But I will begin with the attic.”
He started up the stairs, his book in his hand.
Yes, I will start in the attic and work my way down.
Nearing the top of the stairs he saw someone dash into a shadow just ahead of him.
I must not get carried away, he told himself. I must not forget what must not be forgotten.
I have forty-six minutes left before I must leave the house. Then I must cross the yard. And then I must cross the street, I must cross the street and get into Frank’s cab and return home.
I must not delay.
I must not delay.
Chapter 26: Frank Figueroa Makes a Mistake
At nine thirty, Frank got out of his cab, cleaned the snow off of the car and was thankful that for once his cell phone service was terrible. Neither his first ex-wife or the second had been able to get a hold of him. He hadn’t even been able to talk to his current wife, but then, by nine-thirty she was usually too drunk to be understood anyway.
Finishing up with the car Frank slapped his hands together, getting the last bit of snow off his gloves, and climbed back into the cab. He started the car up to let it run for a little while, just enough to take an edge off of the cold New Hampshire night air. He didn’t mind the cold in little doses, and he wanted to make sure that Leo would be okay. The guy was strange, but he had a good heart. Frank wanted to make sure that nothing happened to him.
Frank turned on the radio, then grunted and turned it off as the announcer said that the Celtics were down by twelve to the Knicks.
“They suck,” Frank muttered. He draped his arms over the steering wheel, then rested his head on his forearms.
He still had half an hour until the little man came out and they could head back to Nashua. But his bladder wouldn’t wait that long. He’d have to get out into the cold to relieve himself.
&nb
sp; Frank hated going to the bathroom outside. He had promised himself after his time in the army that he wouldn’t ever go to the bathroom outside again; a promise broken multiple times in the past thirty years, but it was still a promise that he hated breaking. Besides, he really didn’t enjoy exposing his privates to the New Hampshire winter.
Frank jerked his head up, looking out his door window. Something had made a sudden sharp noise. But he didn’t see anything through the windows. The snow had started clinging to the glass again.
Grumbling, Frank rolled the window down and looked out at the house.
A small shape, dashed around the front of one of the cars in the driveway and the sound of glass shattering ripped through the night’s stillness.
“What the hell?” Frank said. He put the window up and got out of the car, leaving it running with the heat blasting.
Another smashing sound exploded into the cold air and Frank crossed the road.
Frank walked with a purpose. Thirty years ago he had been a young military policeman. His body remembered everything. Within a few steps, his back had straightened, his shoulders were squared, and his stride was long and steady, his arms swinging in perfect rhythm with his walk.
Frank forgot though that he was fifty-two and had a two-pack a day habit. He also forgot that he was seventy pounds heavier than he had been when he was twenty-one.
All Frank knew was someone was breaking the windows of the cars at the house where Leo was. That someone looked like a child. First, the child shouldn’t be out so late in the snow. Second, the child sure as hell shouldn’t be breaking windows.
Ignorant of the snow landing on his face and melting against his skin, Frank reached the driveway.
A boy, maybe ten or eleven, maybe a little older, stepped out from behind one of the cars. He smiled and waved at Frank.
“Hello!” the boy said, his voice cheerful as he walked towards Frank.
“Hey,” Frank said, coming to a stop. “Are you breaking windows?”