“Whose is its turn?” Wendy repeated.
They all laughed.
“I insist,” Shelly shouted. “My’s is its turn!”
They all laughed even harder.
The dancer who was sidled up to Turk must have seen this as her opportunity to escape. She slipped past Zach with a mere, “Excuse me…”
Turk didn’t even seem to notice her absence. “Zach, whatcha havin’?” He put his arm over Shelly’s shoulders. “My confidant and advisor’s is its turn to buy.”
Even though their third round of laughter was little more than a chuckle, Zach knew he would scream if someone made the same joke a fourth time.
“How much have you all had?” Zach asked. When there was no response, he added, “Did any of you eat dinner?”
“I did,” Angel admitted, raising his meaty arm.
Shelly and Wendy exchanged glances that suggested they were colluding to not answer the question.
“Dinner’s fer pussies,” Turk said.
Considering Zach hadn’t eaten anything except that protein bar around 4 PM, he wasn’t one to lecture. Besides, unlike him, none of them had lost several pints of blood.
The waitress came and collected empties from the table while the group went through extensive machinations to essentially order another round of the same. Clink. Clink. Clink. She stacked shot glass upon shot glass. Mesmerized, Zach stared. She clunked the group of them into Angel’s empty pint glass. Just like John Paramour, Zach thought, collecting souls. The more the waitress stacked, the easier the group of glasses was to manage. And if she dropped them? Imagine the impact.
Zach now knew that Evelyn was a spirit. However, was she the infamous female ghost of Rosewood that scared people away? And if she was, why? Zach gazed across the club at the strippers putting on false faces to attract customers, and the answer came.
Evelyn keeps putting on false faces to repel people.
XPI had been banned from Rosewood, but this case was far from over. John Paramour needed to be stopped; otherwise he and Evelyn would continue their haunting indefinitely.
“Zach, it’s time…”
“Huh?”
“Time to order?” Wendy said.
“Oh yeah.”
“Boy oh boy,” Angel said, “if dat’s what sobriety does to ya’, git me an’udder round!”
Zach ordered his beer as the others laughed. “A bottle,” he told the waitress. “Anything domestic.”
He wasn’t even sure why he’d bothered to ask for it. He didn’t need his godfather’s voice to confirm what his intuition had already told him. Zach would never get the chance to sip from that beer.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Did who call me?” Zach shouted into the phone as he darted towards the exit. “Rebecca, calm down. Hold on a sec.”
He trotted past the girl in the ticket booth. She barely glanced up from her magazine. Zach burst through the door and outside to the cool night air and quietude.
“What’s up?” Ray asked.
Zach held up a finger and whispered, “It’s Rebecca.”
Ray’s brow furrowed. Like Zach, he knew she wouldn’t have called at this hour except in an emergency.
“Ginny.” Rebecca’s tinny voice could finally be heard. “Foster. Joey’s missing!”
“Missing? How? When?”
“She said he woke up screaming. Blabbering nonsense about his dad. And Boy.”
“What?” Zach must have shouted it louder than he’d intended. Ray peered over and mouthed the words, “What’s up?”
“Yeah, right? She said she calmed him, but he was both clammy and feverish. She went and got him a drink of water and he was gone. Like ‘poof disappeared’ gone. Ginny didn’t know we’d gotten kicked out of Rosewood. She thought we were still in the neighborhood, so she called me.” Rebecca was out of breath. “I’m getting in my car now but I’m forty-five minutes away. Can you go?”
“Rebecca, wait.”
He’s inside Rosewood.
Over the phone, Zach heard noise in the background—a car door slammed, keys jingled and dummy dings notified a driver to buckle the seatbelt.
“Wait, what?” Rebecca asked.
Zach reconsidered his instinct to try and convince her to stay home. It would be futile, wasted time. Precious wasted moments. Zach looked at his watch—11:33.
“Rebecca, call Ginny back. Tell her…tell her, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in twenty minutes and to meet me at Muses. You meet me there, too.”
“Muses? Why?”
“Rebecca, listen. They’re open for another half hour. So is GrocersMart. Maybe someone down there saw Joey.”
“Okay. Okay,” she said, sounding a bit relieved. “I’ll call her. I’ll meet you there.” She hung up.
He’s inside Rosewood.
Zach knew Joey was inside the asylum. He knew no one near Muses or GrocersMart had seen him. It was nothing more than a fool’s errand, and it wouldn’t be the last Zach would need to conceive.
He’s inside Rosewood. His godfather’s voice said again. Despite the cool autumn night, Zach was sweating. His heart rate was dropping. And of course, there was the Sailor Black thick as coastal haze at dawn. Then, Uncle Henry’s voice spoke again.
Zachary, you must go in there alone.
Ray had taken up residence within a foot of where Zach was standing. “Whatever it is, I’m going with you.”
“But work?”
“Screw work.”
“But R—”
A Ray “the Railroad” Ross hand waved in Zach’s face. It would be no use arguing. Precious wasted moments. Ray opened the door, leaned close to the ticket booth and mumbled something to the girl. All Zach heard were the first and last words. “Tell” and “emergency.”
Zach remembered the pairs of night vision goggles in the XPI truck and trotted to the parking lot to retrieve them. For a brief moment, he considered leaving Ray behind. He hadn’t told him where Matthew’s secret entrance was. By the time he’d gathered three pairs of goggles and locked the van, Ray was already there.
“C’mon, buddy. I’m driving.” Ray pointed to his truck.
You must go in there alone.
“Shit, what about the others?” Zach asked. If he could get Ray to go back inside, he could make a break for it.
“Nah, we’ll call them from the road. Time’s a wasting.”
Zach stood motionless.
Ray was already hoofing it to his pickup. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s go. We’ll make this an adventure. Find the kid and be heroes.”
Becoming a hero was the furthest thing from Zach’s mind. A gnawing fear ate away at him that not everyone that went into Rosewood would get out alive.
“Pull up there.” Zach pointed to a spot flanked by an SUV and a late model Oldsmobile. Two letters, the “s” and the “i”on the Olds had long since fallen away leaving, “Old mob le” sprawled across the trunk.
“I don’t think I can squeeze…” Ray peered across. “Ah, screw it.”
He pulled in cockeyed with the back end of his pickup hanging out into the street. “I get a ticket, buddy, you’re payin’ for it.”
“Deal,” Zach said.
They were three-fourths down Pine Avenue, a good one-hundred and fifty yards past Rosewood’s entrance. The location would give Zach the perfect opportunity to go left to the back fence and follow it to the far corner where the opening was. During the ride, he and Ray had discussed circling Rosewood separately, and then meeting up with Ginny and Rebecca in the Muses parking lot.
“So what’s the plan?” Ray asked.
“We talked about it, you go one way I’ll go the other and—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Which way should I take?”
“Oh.” Zach looked right and then left. “Uhh, you go right. Rebecca should be getting there by the time we meet.”
“Sweet,” Ray said. He looked toward the main Rosewood gate. “Although I notice you’re giving me the security guard to slip
by. Or should we let him know about Joey?”
“We’d better not. We don’t want to alert him in case we do need to go in there later.”
“So what if he asks me what I’m doing poking around?”
Zach winked and grinned. “Hey, you’re the boxer. Knock his block off if you need to.”
“Roger, Dodger,” Ray said with a smile. “So where is this secret entrance?”
“Around on Lincoln Avenue, near Ginny’s,” Zach lied. “Once we’re all together, if we haven’t found Joey, we can sneak in there and look. Although I’d have no idea how he’d have gotten in.”
“That’s true,” Ray said. “Well, let’s get cruisin’. Race you to the other side!”
They took off in separate directions. Zach’s feet still ached from earlier, but he had at least managed to slip a pair of socks on to dull the chafing. The chilly night air smelled much as it had when Zach had walked from Matthew’s fence hole to Muses. At the late hour, fewer people were keeping their hearths active, but ash from the fire at the old stable building lingered in the smoky air.
Zach passed by the administration building which was just thirty yards from the fence. No sign of Dr. Johansson; Hunter had asked him to lay low for twenty-four hours, and they were just about expired. Zach wondered how adept the ghost doctor was at tracking down missing kids.
Before turning the corner of the back fence line, Zach looked behind him; however the darkness had eclipsed Ray. The thought spooked him and he began jogging. The sooner he got inside Rosewood, the more time he’d have to locate and retrieve Joey before Ray and the others came looking for him. He had no plan of action. He hadn’t had much time to think of why Joey would be in Rosewood or what Paramour wanted from him.
He ran parallel to where, earlier that night, the fire had been. Through the trees, the remaining framework of the old stables building seemed to glare at him as he passed. It was almost as if it was warning him off, telling him he was crazy for returning. And he well might be at that. He sprinted on, increasing his speed hoping that the cool breeze blowing past him would cleanse him of all insecurities and fears. Panting, Zach stopped running thirty yards short of the corner of the fence. He didn’t stop out of fatigue. It was surprise.
Shock.
The netting constructed by Matthew to hide the opening had been pulled back. Someone else had crawled into Rosewood. There was a hole in the fence to prove it.
“Joey?” Zach called hoarsely into the night. “Joey? Are you here, Joey?”
The night vision goggles helped him navigate through the wooded vicinity beyond the fence. He figured he should swing through that area before heading up to the asylum itself. He’d also hoped to stumble upon his deserted belongings. They weren’t in the location where he’d initiated his episode.
“Joey?”
He’s inside Rosewood. Uncle Henry’s voice repeated for the umpteenth time.
There was no use wasting any more time. The voice wouldn’t lie about something like that. Combing the grounds had been a wish, a hope. A fantasy. If Joey had somehow found a way into the asylum, Zach would have to discover how, and then follow him in.
Zach trudged up toward the asylum. It appeared ever more ominous through the green hue of the night vision goggles. He tried to keep panning from side to side as he advanced towards Rosewood, but each glance toward the streetlights lining the asylum’s property, turned the green images to a white haze.
Joey was inside Rosewood, but why? To what end? To serve what means? Had Paramour disguised as “Boy” lied to him? Worse, could Paramour be attempting to lure Joey into a dangerous situation, see to his death and steal his innocent soul? Or had Paramour been patient all these years, gaining power until the right child came along to attach himself to—reincarnate himself with?
As Zach had learned, possession was an uncomfortable situation, far unlike that portrayed in the movies. Possessions by spirits were far more common than the more dramatic demon possessions that fascinated people. Ghost possession, spirit possession while not immediately harmful to one’s soul, contained many dangers. The accompanying spirit at times could be an unwelcome and insidious force. In Zach’s case, it had proven helpful if not necessary. His godfather, Uncle Henry, had loved him, still loved him. However, people’s souls changed when they die. At best, they stagnated. At worst, they decayed. Souls weren’t meant to stay in this realm. Over the years, that had become more and more clear to Zach. Another thing that was obvious—neither John Paramour, nor the thing he had become, loved or cared for Joey. The havoc Paramour would wreak on that boy’s soul would destroy it.
As Zach reached the asylum’s brick wall, the scent of Sailor Black came to him.
Watch your eyes.
His eyes? What did his Uncle Henry mean by that? Zach took off the night vision goggles. From this point, he could navigate by moonlight. No sooner had he rounded the corner of Rosewood, than a powerful light blinded him.
The intense beam remained on his face. Zach raised a hand to shield his eyes from it, and it doubled as an attempt to protect himself from whoever was blinding him. His eyes struggled to adjust, but Zach could see nothing beyond the light.
“I knew y’az would come back. Knew it!”
It was the voice of Grant Winkler.
“Listen, Mr. Winkler, I know how this looks, but you’ve got to believe me, a boy is missing and—”
“Oh no. A boy is missing. Oh boo fucking hoo. Your boys and girls can kiss the ripe part of my ass!”
“No, sir. I mean a little—”
“Oh, don’t worry. I closed and locked the door to the old visitor’s area that you clowns left open.”
He cackled at his own brilliance. He was blind stinking drunk, and with what Zach knew of Grant Winkler, that meant he’d be belligerently drunk. Who had left a door to Rosewood open? Bryce? Matthew? Had somehow Paramour’s ghost opened it? And why?
So the boy could get in.
“And what in the mother of fuck me, is this?” Winkler diverted the beam to an area on the ground. Illuminated there were Zach’s bloodstained towels, the blanket and his gym bag. “You kids kill some animals out there? Some initiation or somethin? Whad’juz go runnin’ around cutting each other up?”
Zach felt numb from his toes to his chest. “No, sir. I assure you no one and no animals were—”
“You fuckin’ kids think your shit don’t stink. Ya’ comes in here all high and mighty and think you’re gonna fuck with my property? Well fuck you. Fuck them, too. You’re goin’ to jail ya’ punk.”
Reasoning with this bastard wasn’t going to work. Zach stared directly into the flashlight’s beam, and then looked away. He peered into the dark space above the flashlight hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of the man’s figure.
A figure he could take aim at.
Zach sessions in the ring with Ray might come in handy after all. Zach was going to clock Winkler and he was going to clock him good—knock the bastard out.
One. Two. One Two. One two. Ran through his head. The first punch would hopefully stun him; the second would really do the damage. God forgive him, but this was a necessary and justified action. He crept closer.
“Please, Mr. Winkler, if you’ll just listen a second.” He inched closer still.
“Stay back ya’ shitter,” Winkler growled. “I’m callin’ the cops now!”
Beyond the flashlight’s glare, the soft emanation of light from a cell phone illuminated Winkler’s jaw line ever so faintly. But it was enough.
One. Two. One Two. One two.
Zach charged.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Winkler must have seen Zach coming because the flashlight wobbled. Its unsteady beam bounced and weaved as he tried to move away. The cell stayed lit long enough for Zach to hone in.
One. Two. One Two. One two.
“Stay back!”
Zach cocked his right, his jabbing hand.
“Stay—”
The flashlight wavered and lo
wered. Zach swung at the Winkler’s darkened face.
One. Two!
There was a beast’s growl. A thunk of body on body. Zach’s fist sailed harmlessly through the air. Connected with nothing. Winkler was down.
Whatever it was that attacked had barely grazed Zach, but already off balance from the missed punch, the contact threw him to the ground.
Hit by a beast. Winkler had been knocked over by a beast. Zach thought it might be a wild dog. Fear toyed with his mind. A bear? A werewolf?
Beside him, in the darkness, Winkler whined in vain. “Noooo!”
There was a smack of flesh on flesh.
“Ah, fuck!”
It was quiet except for heavy breathing. His own and whoever or whatever else was there. On his knees, Zach scrambled away fast as he could.
“Zach, you all right?”
“Ray? Is that you?”
His eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. The flashlight lay ten yards away pointing to a dull spot on Rosewood’s brick façade.
“Yeah.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I think I broke my hand.”
Zach crawled closer. His friend’s features appeared from the darkness. He was holding his right hand. His power punch hand. Next to him, Winkler was lying like a dead cowboy on a dusty main strip. Arms spread out. Head turned to the side. Instead of a soiled brim hat, Winkler’s White Sox cap slanted off his head.
Zach stared at his friend. “Are you okay? How’d you get in here?”
“I’ll live. It might be broken, though. Maybe just the pinky if I’m lucky. Crap.”
“What? How…”
“Buddy, you’re a great friend. You’re a helluva ghost hunter,” he said. “But you’re one of the worst liars in the world.”
It became clear. Ray’d doubled back and had been following him the whole time.
“When you turned the corner and I saw the beam, I ran around Rosewood quick as I could. Sorry it took so long.”
And he was barely panting.
“What the heck is this shit?” Ray asked peering at the bloody accoutrements near Winkler.
Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum Page 25