The 'Geisters

by David Nickle

  Susan bent down and rummaged under the credenza. “You want to move to red, or another Gewürzt?”

  “What goes on here?”

  “I think more Gewürzt. You like that special, don’t you?”

  “It’s nice, yes. What goes on here, Susan?”

  “For you and me,” she said, pulling a fresh bottle from the fridge, “nothing much.”

  “That’s not an answer,” said Ann. “There was a—manifestation, a poltergeist a minute ago. Was that, um . . .”

  “Little? I dunno.”

  “How can you not know?”

  Susan smiled. “One of many, dear.”

  Ann stared at Susan Rickhardt. She’d called her dear. A few minutes ago, Ann was “a little bitch,” who’d interrupted her video game. It was as though this were a different woman, now, talking sweet and pouring her drinks. That chilled Ann almost as much as the thing she’d just let slip.

  “What do you mean, many?” Ann said. “How many?”

  Susan went on. “The boys are in town,” she said, “and with them, their wives. This conference centre, it’s a little like a running party. There are, oh, a dozen couples here. The boys do their thing. And the wives . . . we wait. Keep ourselves occupied.”

  “Occupied with what?”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Rickhardt, “with whatever we like. Used to be a big World of Warcraft junkie. Skyrim’s my poison, these days.”

  “I can see.”

  “And yours—” Mrs. Rickhardt came back with the bottle, and topped up Ann’s glass. “Well.”

  Ann put her glass down. “What’s going on here?”

  “Oh,” said Susan, “the same thing that’s been going on all your life.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Susan nodded sagely, as though she were revealing a great truth.

  “You’re vanishing. Just like the rest of us did when they shrove us off. Now drink up. It’ll be better if you drink up.”

  Ann did not remember when she had her first drink. It was probably wine. It was definitely wine. But it wasn’t at home; her parents were not among those who believed that children should be weaned on wine, or that brandy was the best medicine for a sore throat.

  She didn’t remember when, either—other than it was in an innocent time. She must have been very young. She didn’t know how young, but she remembered the moment. It was like stepping into a winter wind, hard enough to steal your breath; a kiss, welcome but still a surprise. The sharp, happy flavour of a good idea. It tasted like luck.

  It still tasted like luck. It had always tasted like luck. That first sip of wine had always tasted as sweet, and as fine, as that first time.

  Ann thought: I could disappear into it.

  “I’m not disappearing,” said Ann. She stood up. “I don’t know what ‘shrove’ means. But I don’t think I’ll stay to find out. I’ll be leaving now.”

  Susan Rickhardt looked at her, and set the bottle down.

  “You might want to think about that,” she said.

  Ann shrugged. “I don’t see anyone here who can stop me.”

  Susan smiled at that and she laughed, in a way, as Ann opened the door on the empty hallway.

  “You noticed that, did you?”

  Ann turned. Mrs. Rickhardt looked back at her steadily.

  “They don’t need to stop you,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do anyway.”

  Ann shut the door on her.

  iii

  It was a conference centre.

  Ann couldn’t believe that she’d mistaken it for Rickhardt’s home. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t been here or noticed it before; it was clearly a major facility.

  The hallway should have been her first clue. It was a little wider than you’d expect in someone’s home, and there were semi-circular seats between the doors. Little brass sign-holders were beside each door, where you might put your itinerary for that particular room. The rooms had names, too—named for grapes: Merlot, and Chardonnay, and Pinot Grigio—inscribed in script over the lintels. Lighting came from silvered sconces on the wall, casting their beams to the ceiling, and to the burgundy carpets.

  Ann stood there a moment. The air here was warm, conditioned—she flexed her hands, waiting for the chill, or the flare of heat, that indicated a presence here. There were women here—possibly in each room—and they might all be like her, carrying their own Insects, and Littles and Mister Sleepys.

  Away from Susan Rickhardt, Ann allowed herself to consider the fact: for the first time since the Lake House, she truly was in a haunted house.

  A haunted conference centre, excuse me.

  Ann started forward, hands fluttering slowly at her side, feeling the warm air for the iciness of invisible spectres.

  The hallway continued a long way, turned at a stairwell, then opened up into a space not unlike the tasting room in Rickhardt’s winery.

  It was better appointed, though; something the Krenk team at Ann’s architectural firm might’ve done. For the first time in weeks, Ann found herself appraising space like an architect.

  The ceiling opened up into an arching dome, like the inside of an overturned boat. Iron-hooped chandeliers hung from crossbeams on black chains. Behind the bar, wooden wine racks sat empty. Thick oak pillars touched the beams on each side, like piers in the nave of a cathedral.

  Tall windows lined one wall—but it was still deep in the night and the only illumination came from a banker’s lamp overhanging the space on the bar where one might find a computer and till.

  In its place sat a polished brass container, with a gleaming steel lid.

  Ann’s running shoes squeaked on the wooden floor. It was the only sound in here. She approached the bar.

  “Would you like to be left alone for a moment?”

  Ann froze in the middle of the room. Ian Rickhardt stepped out from behind the tasting bar. He was wearing a white, open-necked shirt and a pair of green khakis. His feet were bare. His hair was damp, as though he’d just showered and dressed. He gestured to the light, the container.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Ann,” he said.

  Ann blinked. She pointed to the container—“Is that . . .”

  Ian nodded. “Michael’s remains.”

  Right. It was not a container. It was an urn.

  “You cremated him.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Ian. He stepped closer to Ann. “You disappeared,” he said. “In Miami. You went right off the grid. Can’t blame you, really—after that shit show that Hirsch put on for you. But you were gone, we couldn’t find you anywhere, and decisions had to be made.”

  “You found me in Mobile,” said Ann, and Ian raised an eyebrow.

  “Did we now?”

  Did Ian know? Ann kept her face impassive, but she wondered now: did Ian know that when his agent had come into the cabin in the Rosedale Arms, Ann was tucked away . . . by the Insect, who knew enough to hide, then?

  Did he not know, and did she just tell him?

  Ann cleared her throat. “How is Mr. Hirsch?”

  “Oh, you don’t know. Of course you don’t. Full recovery. Back on the squash court like nothing happened.”

  Ann looked at Rickhardt. He looked back, shook his head, pursed his lips.

  “He’s alive,” said Rickhardt. “Doesn’t have much to report. On account of, well, the stroke. But I expect inside that shell of his, he’s happy as a clam.”

  Ann stepped close to the cylinder. On one side, there was a little engraved plaque.

  MICHAEL VOORS

  1979-2013

  “I don’t think so,” said Ann, running her finger around the steel lid. “You weren’t there.”

  Rickhardt shook his head. “You don’t know Johnny like I know Johnny.”

  Ann took a breath. Once again, the reality of her situation caught up to her. Here she was, in
an empty hall with Ian Rickhardt, who’d come to Tobago to . . . what? To rape the Insect? While she was on her honeymoon, with the man who couldn’t get through one short flight before he did the same thing to it?

  Hirsch had warned her about Rickhardt . . . had promised something better, something she’d find in a spa in St. Augustine. Ann hadn’t believed him about that.

  But she did believe him about this: Ian Rickhardt was dangerous.

  He’d demonstrated this many times over. He’d sent people after her. He’d sent something else after her. He’d had those people overpower her, and take her virtual prisoner.

  “Do you want to cry?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe not cry, but have that time alone. Over Michael’s ashes. I can leave you for a moment. Given that you’re here now, I should have waited before authorizing the cremation. I’m sorry. That was bad of me.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Should I leave? Give you a moment?”

  Ann sighed, and took her hand from the urn.

  “How do I do this?” she said quietly. Ian didn’t answer, just raised his eyebrows in a question. “How does it go? Michael was a rapist. You’re a rapist. I’ve had to put up with and internalize this shit. So how do I talk about it, to you, in a reasonable and rational way?”

  “We’re rapists,” said Ian. “I see.”

  “Ian,” said Ann, “can we just drop the pretense? I saw what you did in Tobago. I saw what Michael did on the plane. And I know about you and your friends. What you do.”

  “And what is it we do?”

  “You rape poltergeists.” She said it very quickly, so that it came out as almost a single word: yourapepoltergeists.

  “No, Ann, we don’t.”

  Ann shut her eyes. She felt like she was going to vomit. She nearly did, as sour acid filled her mouth.

  She summoned the spectrum, a slow ladder to the depths. She murmured: “Red, yellow . . .”

  “Hey,” said Ian, “You’re doing Eva Fenshaw’s trick now, aren’t you? With the colours, and your little prison, aren’t you?”

  Ann opened her eyes, expecting to see Ian’s smirk—like when he showed up in Tobago with his wedding video, but really to elbow his protégé out of the way and have first-night privileges. He wasn’t smirking, though. He leaned against the bar, comfortable.

  “How do you know about that?”

  He shrugged. “Eva told me about some of the stuff she does at the wedding. She’s a great gal, but she likes to talk. We did some healing exercises together, and she told me about the prison.”

  “She just told you everything.”

  “Well, not just me. But she does like to talk. When she got sick—when that stroke hit . . . she was very talkative indeed. Told us a lot of things that we missed, after that incident with the minivan. Your parents. Philip. That girl—Laurie?

  “That girl.”

  “Eva’s like a mother to you, isn’t she?”

  “Oh, fuck you,” said Ann, and at that, Rickhardt did smirk.

  “I have to confess, Ann. I’m actually a little nervous, talking like this, upsetting you,” he said. “Do you have any idea what’s going on right now outside this place? The state of Michigan is on an orange terror alert. The Port Huron crossing’s a mess right now; the Blue Water Bridge is completely shut down. CNN’s saying there are three dead on the U.S. side. Homeland Security personnel. Doesn’t get more serious than that. The Canadian side isn’t reporting any dead. But it’s a mess too. They’re talking about cyber-terrorism, too. Given that you made it here, I’m assuming that means that somehow, you shut down and wiped all the video surveillance. Because otherwise . . . they’d have caught you on the drive here. They might’ve shot you, if they’d seen it all.” Ian shook his head. “Surely there was an easier way to get back into your country of birth. Even if you didn’t want to be detected. But oh—it gets very serious, when the Insect goes a-walking, doesn’t it?”

  “It did that to Hirsch,” said Ann, “and it can do that to you.”

  Ian nodded. “It did that to him. It also killed my dear friend Michael Voors. And your parents, didn’t it?”

  “Don’t,” said Ann. Her voice was low. She surprised herself by the fury in it.

  “So don’t you,” said Ian. “Don’t call me a rapist. Because, I’ll tell you. Coming from a woman who’s committed . . . let’s see. Patricide . . . matricide . . . and what’s the word when a young bride murders her loving husband? It’ll come to me. Point is this: you really aren’t in a position to call rape.”

  “I didn’t do any of that,” said Ann.

  “Right,” said Ian, “it was the Insect. A being that has nothing to do with you.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You just threatened me, Ann. That your Insect would also harm me, in the way that it did John Hirsch.”

  “Hirsch told me about you,” said Ann. “And the others. And the things you did.”

  Ian nodded. “And that’s why we’re having this conversation. Part of the reason. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about you. I’d just leave you with Susan. You two could catch up, play a little Skyrim, get good and toasted on the fine wines of Rickhardt Estates. But the fact is, you’re not going to do that. I figured that out for certain when you, ah, wrecked that rather nice television set in the Cab Franc room.”

  Ann looked at him. “Did Little tell you about that?”

  Ian laughed at that. “Little? Susan’s ‘Little’? No. With one or two notable exceptions, the ’geists don’t run our errands. We also have webcams. A couple of us were keeping an eye on you. We wanted to see how you’d interact . . . if you could be, uh, integrated.”

  “Integrated.”

  “Yeah. See, when Michael brought you home, that should have taken care of it. But things took a turn for the worse. . . .” He looked down, then up again. It was like he was checking notes, Ann thought. “Here’s the thing, Ann. We want you back here. And on some level, you want to be back here too.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No,” said Ian, “you do. If you didn’t—you would never have come.”

  Ann shivered. Was the room chilling? Was the Insect manifesting around her? She rather hoped that it was; she wanted it to reach through Ian’s flesh, and pinch together some blood cells into a clot, as it had with Hirsch.

  She rather hoped that it would just kill everyone right now.

  “I don’t want to be back here. I want my brother back. Where

  is he?”

  “All right,” said Ian, ignoring the question pointedly, “you don’t want to be back here. But I’ll tell you, kid—the Insect sure as shit does. That’s why it led you home.”

  “You’re playing games,” said Ann.

  “I’m not,” said Ian, “at least not with you. The reason we’re having this conversation is simple. Because the Insect, as you call it, is back exactly where it wants to be. But it’s tied to you, Ann. There are some of us who think that in fact, it is you. It can’t stay, if you don’t.”

  “Such shit,” said Ann, but Ian shook his head, and pointed at the urn.

  “Look,” he said, and Ann did.

  The urn no longer gleamed metallic in the light. It was covered in hoarfrost—as though it held liquid nitrogen, or some other frozen matter, rather than the cooling ashes of Michael Voors. It looked like nothing so much as an eggshell.

  “It’s telling you it’s okay,” said Ian. “It’s calling you to go see it.”

  The egg started to throw off tendrils of mist, and Ann opened her mouth to call bullshit once more. But she couldn’t. Not really.

  She didn’t need to see words written in the frost to understand that.

  THE TOWER OF LIGHT

  i

  “I’d apologize for not telling you about this place,” said Ian as they climbed down a sweeping set of stairs past a
long, empty registration desk and a little lobby, “but really, I don’t feel I owe you that. If your boss Krenk had won the bid to make my winery—if he’d shown the vision . . . then you probably would have had an idea all on your own what was happening here. But in the end . . . couldn’t trust him.”

  “Because it’s a secret conference centre,” said Ann.

  They moved past the registration desk and into a glassed-in corridor. Outside, Ann thought she could see the dawn coming—a hint of pink over treetops.

  “Because I couldn’t trust him,” said Ian. “When you’re involved in something like I am—we are—trust is paramount.”

  “Like a bottom trusts a top,” said Ann. “You’ve got to keep your safe words straight.”

  Ian gave her a look.

  “It’s not like that,” he said, and she said, “Of course it’s not.”

  The corridor went down a gentle slope, and turned. Double doors at the far end led to the Octagon Ballroom, according to the signage. They stopped there. Ian thrust his hands into his pockets and looked down at his bare feet, as though he were waiting, for something.

  “This would have been a good place to hold the wedding,” observed Ann, and Ian chuckled at that.

  “Who was it who a moment ago said we should drop pretense?”

  In spite of herself, Ann smiled. Ian folded his arms and leaned against the glass.

  “It’s not rape,” he said. “But I can see how you’d think it is. Because it’s certainly sexual. And consent . . . well, it’s complicated.”

  Ann leaned against the glass opposite him, folded her arms to mirror Rickhardt. “I have to hear this,” she said.

  “You ever read any of Stephen King’s stuff?”

  “I started the Dark Tower series in high school. I read the book with the story about the boys going to find a body in the woods. Otherwise, you can imagine his stuff might not be my thing.”

  “Yeah. He also wrote a non-fiction book, early on, called Danse Macabre. He came up with a hierarchy in it, of the sort of thing that a writer of horror fiction aims for. It’s a hierarchy of fear. At the bottom is the simple gross-out—torture, or maiming; up from that is horror: the face of the monster, giant fucking bugs, zombies on the march. And finally . . . there’s terror. King calls that the finest emotion of all. And in that—we are in agreement.”