by Ron Ripley
“And I love to throw things,” the ghost said, laughing happily.
A third object came at Sam in the darkness, and he swung the poker. The two things connected and something shattered.
The ghost spat. “Luck!”
A bowl came racing at Sam, and he struck it down. A tumbler, a shard of a plate.
Sam struck them all.
A small smile crept onto his face.
All those baseball games decades earlier as a kid, hitting a ball he could barely see, one he could hardly hear.
Sam struck down one more, but the one after struck him square in the forehead, sending him to his knees. Dropping the poker, he fell forward. He felt his sternum crack and the air rushed out of him in one long, painful gasp.
I’m going to die, Sam realized.
I’m going to die.
“Sam!” Jenny yelled, dropping a piece of wood and kneeling down beside him.
Sam couldn’t see her. Jenny’s voice grew faint.
“The pantry door,” Sam said, although he couldn’t hear himself. “Open the pantry door.”
Chapter 37: Grandmotherly Love
When Leo had first bound his grandmother to her alarm clock, he had proudly told himself that he would never run when she inevitably slipped free of her binding. He knew, of course, someday he would not make it home in time to reinforce the binding. Just as he knew carrying her, confined to the alarm clock, would be even worse.
Things get lost.
Things get stolen.
Leo’s grandmother would have wreaked havoc on whoever had possession of the clock at the time rather than focusing on Leo, which was what was necessary.
Leo knew, too, roughly how old he would be when his dear grandmother would get free. He knew he would be stronger.
Leo had forgotten, however, about fear.
He had remembered his love for his grandmother, the long nights she had sat up with him and the warmth of her embrace when she was so cold to so many others. Leo had been her first grandchild, beloved above all others.
So he had remembered his love for her and not the fear that settled in as a child when he saw the fates of those who angered her. The devastation which she had wrought even from beyond the grave.
Now, however, as she turned to face him, her cold smile spreading across her face, all of the old fears returned.
Each terrifying fear, each horrific memory.
Leo scrambled to his feet, and he ran.
He ran for the house.
In the curious light of the snow storm, he saw the dead converging on the house.
Something was going on, they all knew it.
Leo knew it too.
The dead were feeding off of the energy of his grandmother. They were growing stronger, the angers and hatreds of their lives manifesting themselves.
And the focus was on the house.
Brian and Jenny. The man Samuel.
No, there was Samuel, wandering outside of the house. The man looked confused, seeming to know he was dead but not understanding it.
I have no time, Leo thought.
Behind him, he heard the steady steps of his grandmother, the hem of her dress seeming to scrape the snow.
Impossibilities, Leo knew. Tricks.
He heard them all the same, though, and knew she was toying with him.
She will drag this out, Leo thought. She will drag it out as long as she can. Can I blame her? Twenty-five years trapped within the travel clock, the ticking of the gears to keep the mind of such a one occupied.
No. His grandmother had been too strong for death.
Leo aimed for the back of the house, the direction Sam had come from. Leo doubted that the others had become separated, and since he saw neither Brian nor Jenny he could only hope to find them there.
Leo stumbled once in the snow, caught his footing and managed to stay upright.
The back door was open.
No, Leo realized. The back door was blown in and hanging on one hinge.
He leaped up the stairs and into the kitchen to find a man standing amongst the wreckage. Jenny had her back to the ghost as she pulled desperately at the dining table which was jammed against the pantry door.
The ghost, Leo saw, was unbuckling his pants.
The depredations and vile passions of some never left, even after death.
Leo paused a moment, scooped up the iron poker, stepped over the cooling body of Samuel Hall, and lashed out at the ghost.
The iron ripped through the dead man’s face, scattering it into the night as it screamed in impotent rage.
Still holding onto the poker, Leo hurried to Jenny’s side, helped her tear the table away and push it to the floor as she opened the pantry door. A quick glance in showed Brian’s painfully white face and a small woman standing next to him.
With one swift motion, Leo pushed Jenny into the pantry, thrust the poker into the face of the woman and closed the door, plunging them all into darkness.
In the incredibly cramped confines of the pantry, Brain fell backward, and Jenny demanded, “What the hell?!”
“Quiet,” Leo said. From a pocket, he pulled out a small bag, a fine mixture of goober dust, sea salt, and iron fillings. With a surprisingly steady hand, he opened the bag and tapped out a fine line of the mix onto the pantry floor in front of the door. He wet his index finger, dipped it into the bag and then he carefully touched the doorknob and all three of the hinges.
Leo cleaned off his finger, put the bag away and set the poker down on the floor. He dug out his phone, hit the flashlight app and shined the light down. Glass and debris covered the floor, so he took off his jacket and sat down on it before turning his phone off.
“So,” Jenny said in the darkness, “can I just say again, what the hell?”
“Yes,” Leo answered.
After a minute of silence, Jenny sighed and said, “Oh Jesus, Leo. What is going on?”
“We’re hiding in the pantry,” he answered.
Brian let out a weak laugh. “Okay. Tell me, please, why are we hiding in the pantry?”
“We’re hiding from my grandmother,” Leo answered.
“Your grandmother?” Brian asked. “Why are we hiding from your grandmother?”
“Because she wants to kill all of us,” Leo replied.
Chapter 38: The History of Leo and His Grandmother
Brian leaned back against Jenny, his heart slowly approaching a semblance of normalcy. The pantry was dark, crowded, and thankfully warm with their body heat. When Jenny had first opened the pantry door a cold blast had followed her and Leo and for a brief moment Brian had caught sight of the back door hanging crazily by a single hinge.
Yet now they were locked in the pantry.
Brian liked the man, as strange as Leo was, but being near him was unsettling.
Now, especially so.
Brian cleared his throat before asking, “Why does she want to kill us, Leo?”
Leo was silent for a moment, finally answering, “She is angry with me. And, since you are here, she is angry with you by default.”
“She sounds fantastic,” Jenny said sarcastically.
“She is,” Leo said.
Jenny groaned, and Brian gave her leg a pat. “Could you tell us exactly why your grandmother wants to kill you, Leo?”
“I bound her spirit to an alarm clock.”
“Well,” Jenny said, “that would definitely piss me off.”
“Why,” Brian said with a sigh, “did you have to bind her spirit to an alarm clock?”
“She was angry at being dead,” Leo said.
“What was she doing?” Brian asked.
“Hurting people.”
“How did you know it was her?” Jenny asked.
“I was at her grave,” Leo said. “I brought her lilacs. She loves lilacs. When I was at the grave, though, I saw the mark.”
“What mark?” Brian asked.
“The mark of spite.”
Jenny groaned, and Brian smil
ed, shaking his head. “Will you tell us now what the mark of spite is?”
“Yes,” Leo said. “The mark of spite can be found upon the graves of people who are angry, spiteful, vengeful. The mark of spite is a bare patch of dirt surrounded by grass. The bare patch will be found directly above the heart of the person buried. These patches can be found in graveyards, burial grounds, cemeteries, and places where the dead are buried but unmarked. You may even find the mark of spite in crypts and mausoleums. Here you will find staining upon the stones and the metal.”
Leo sounded as though he had read from an encyclopedia or dictionary.
Maybe he did, Brian thought. Maybe he memorized it all.
“Okay,” Jenny said, “your grandmother had the mark of spite on her grave. Did you start looking for her?”
“Yes,” Leo answered.
“We can’t ask yes or no questions, Babe,” Brian said gently.
“Yeah,” Jenny said with a sigh.
“Leo,” Brian said.
“Yes?”
“Will you now please tell me how you found your grandmother?” Brian asked.
“Yes,” Leo said. He paused a moment before answer, checking his phone. “In thirty-two minutes, I must call Sylvia. If we are still alive.”
“Right,” Jenny said. “If we’re still alive.”
“Exactly,” Leo said. His phone went dark, and Leo started to speak again. “When I saw the mark of spite I realized it was my grandmother hurting people she had known. She also was hurting people who were in her old house. My grandmother does not like many people.”
“Does she like you?” Jenny asked.
“She loves me,” Leo answered. “She is only angry with me for binding her to her alarm clock.”
“How did you bind her to her alarm clock, Leo?” Brian asked, trying to keep the curious man focused.
“With a binding spell,” Leo answered.
Brian took a deep breath.
Asperger’s, Brian thought. Leo must have Asperger’s.
“Leo,” Jenny said gently, “will you now explain to us how you bound your grandmother? We don’t know what a binding spell is, or how to do it.”
“Of course not,” Leo said. “Most people do not know how to properly use a binding spell. Or any spell, really. The first thing I had to do was to find a place where my grandmother was going to be. Once I had that, I needed something to bind to my grandmother. Something that was hers and that she had used often.”
“And you picked an alarm clock?” Jenny asked.
“Yes. My mother kept everything else. I stole the alarm clock from her. My mother would only have thrown it away.”
“Can we stop her?” Brian asked.
“My mother?” Leo said.
Jenny groaned, and Brian said, “No, Leo. Your grandmother. Can we stop her?”
“No,” Leo answered. “Not without the alarm clock.”
“Is that why you’re going to call Sylvia?” Brian asked.
“Yes.”
“She’ll be able to get the alarm clock for you?” Jenny asked.
“Yes.”
“But not until after one?” Brian asked.
“Yes.”
“Why --”
Something slammed into the door, cutting her off.
Again and again, the door shook, then suddenly it stopped.
“She cannot come in,” Leo said. “The doorknob will not turn for her. The hinges will not work. She could make the wind blow, and the iron dust will keep the line rooted.”
“You’re not behaving, Leonidas,” a woman said.
Her voice was elegant and powerful. A voice full of strength, one evidently used to being obeyed.
“No,” Leo said in agreement. “I am not behaving. I thought that I would meet my death in a much braver fashion. I have discovered that I was wrong, Grandmother.”
“Do your friends know they’re going to die as well?” she asked gently.
“Yes,” Leo said. “I have told them that this is the case.”
“And they have not cast you out?”
“Not yet.”
Leo’s grandmother chuckled pleasantly. “I will wait, Leo. I will wait for all three of you. I can hear your male friend’s heart, by the way. He is only one good scare away from standing beside me.”
Jenny’s arms around Brian’s waist tightened.
“The young lady,” the grandmother continued, “will be much more difficult, I am sure. But you have purchased her death nonetheless, my grandson.”
“I know, Grandmother.”
“Well, so long as you know, Leonidas.”
Silence filled the pantry.
“Jesus…,” Jenny said softly after a minute.
“What about him?” Leo asked genuinely wanting to know.
Brian couldn’t stop himself from laughing.
Chapter 39: Sylvia Gets a Text
At exactly one o’clock in the morning, Sylvia’s phone sounded off with the Westminster Chimes.
Westminster Chimes.
Sylvia sat up.
Westminster Chimes meant the call was from Leo. Specifically, it meant the call was from Leo’s special phone. The one he brought with him to his work. Sylvia threw her blankets off and grabbed her robe up off of her chair, pulling it on as she hurried to her desk. She took her phone off of the charger and looked at it.
Please use your key. Behind Moby Dick. Bring Clock. Jenny and Brian. Look for Sam. Find the Pantry. Me. Leo.
Sylvia saw her hands shaking as she texted back, Okay.
Outside a plow rumbled by, flashing yellow lights splashing across the drawn shades.
That’s right, Sylvia thought. It’s snowing.
Dropping her cell phone into the robe’s pocket, she hurried out of the bedroom and down the hall. She forsook her usual attire and pulled on some old jeans and a sweater before tugging on a pair of battered engineer boots.
The heels of the boots echoed off of the hallway’s walls as went back to the kitchen. She got on her winter coat, hat, and began pulling on her gloves while heading to the door, scooping up the car keys as she went.
On the sidesteps, Sylvia paused long enough to lock the door before walking through the several inches of snow to her car. With her free hand, Sylvia swept the snow off of the driver’s side window, unlocked the car and got in. The heater was just beginning to warm the interior and thankfully the falling snow was light.
Slipping the key into the ignition, Sylvia lowered and raised all of the windows, ignoring the snow that fell into the car. She ran the wipers front and back several times, put the car into gear and edged out to the end of her driveway. A glance left and then right showed the road was clear, so she pulled out and made her way as quickly as she could towards Leo’s place.
Beneath the wheels of the car, rock salt popped and cracked, sand bouncing up and hitting the undercarriage. Every sound and every bump magnified.
Something was wrong.
As she came to a set of lights, the Westminster Chimes went off again.
Sylvia tore off her gloves, dug her phone out of her pants pocket and looked at the text.
Sooner, in this case, is much better than later. That is what Jenny has told me.
Sylvia didn’t wait for the light to turn green.
Chapter 40: Awaiting One's Fate
Leo put his phone down on his lap and closed his eyes.
He was tired.
This was far later than he was used to staying up.
In the darkness, Leo could hear the sound of Jenny and Brian breathing, the two of them synced up into a curious rhythm. Beyond the pantry door, however, Leo could hear things he knew would disrupt the tenuous calm of his hosts.
The dead were active.
Active and angry.
Among the various voices, Leo could hear that of his grandmother.
She was marshaling her forces, preparing to attempt to discover a way into the pantry.
And Leo knew that there must be.
&n
bsp; When Jenny had opened the pantry, there had been a female ghost with Brian. Had she come through the door? Leo didn’t remember seeing her in the kitchen. She could have slipped in just before he arrived, but that didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right at all.
“Brian,” Leo said, opening his eyes and looking into the darkness at where he knew the husband and wife to be.
“Yeah?” Brian asked tiredly.
“The ghost that was here with you, where did she come from? Did she come in through the door?”
“I don’t know,” Brian said, moving around. “How could I know?”
“Where did you first hear her?” Leo asked. He had to remind himself that Brian wasn’t stupid, the man merely didn’t know anything about ghosts.
“I first heard her behind me,” Brian answered after a minute. “From under one of the shelves.”
“Jenny?” Leo asked.
“Yes.”
“There is probably a heating grate. Could you check?”
“Dang,” Jenny said as she bumped into a shelf. “this room’s a lot smaller without a proper light.”
Leo listened as she worked her way around.
A moment later she said. “Yes, there’s an old iron grate back here.”
Leo took his pouch from his jacket’s inner pocket before reaching out and finding Brian’s leg.
“Jesus!” Brian snapped, his leg bouncing up.
“Take this,” Leo said, putting the pouch on Brian’s leg.
“Okay,” Brian said, his voice shaky. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“Hand it to Jenny.”
“I have it,” Jenny said shortly.
“Good. Open the bag, wet your right index finger, and insert it into the bag.”
“Sounds kinky,” Jenny said.
Brian laughed, but Leo only frowned.
“How can you hear a kink?” Leo asked, confused. “I designed the pouch so that the opening would not tangle.”
Jenny sighed. “Don’t worry about it, Leo. Now, what?”
“Remove your finger from the bag. There should be a significant amount of mixture on your finger. Trace the opening of the grate with your finger. Do not remove your finger from the grate until you have gone around the entire edge of the grate. As you move your finger you must whisper, Va Bare Shachiye.”