by Rod Redux
As he neared the wooden bridge, he called out once more, “Don’t be scared. I just want to talk to you.”
“Go away,” a tiny voice said.
Francis stepped onto the bridge after looking up and down the highway. There were no cars coming from either direction. Just empty road and miles of rugged woodland. He craned forward and peered into the watercourse.
“Let’s talk for a moment, and then I’ll go away if you still want me to,” he bargained. “I just want to know if your mommy and daddy let you play down there.”
“...”
“No,” the boy finally said.
Francis spotted the child squatting in the reeds. The tyke was dressed in tattered white boxer shorts. No shirt, no shoes. His skinny arms and legs were filthy, his face unwashed. The bright summer sun spangled the surface of the slowly drifting stream, casting shimmering reflections on the boy’s pale face and chest. He glanced up at Francis. His eyes were swollen with tears, his bottom lip turned out. Francis felt a pang in his heart at the expression of misery on the child’s face.
“Are you lost?” he asked, his heart aching in sympathy.
The boy looked down and slowly shook his head.
“Did you run away from home?”
“Go away!” the boy pleaded.
Smiling, Francis pressed him. “You did run away from home, didn’t you?” He wished he could read the boy, get some kind of grip on this strange situation, but the boy was keeping his thoughts close. Francis couldn’t hear a peep.
“No.”
“You’re not in trouble. I promise. I ran away from home once, too. I even tied a bandana to a stick, just like the old time hobos. I had cookies and a sandwich in it. I was going to strike off on my own ‘cause I didn’t want to do what my mother told me.”
The boy didn’t respond, just stared into the sluggish water.
“My name’s Francis. What’s your name?”
“I said GO AWAY!” the child shrieked. He lunged to his feet as he yelled, cocking his arm back and throwing something—a rock, a stick?—directly at Francis.
Francis tried to dodge, but he was too slow. A smooth creek rock half the size of his fist struck him in the forehead. He stumbled back, shocked and in pain, as the boy pelted through the water toward him.
“Wait!” Francis gasped. If he weren’t wearing a sock toboggan, the rock would have laid open his forehead. Regardless, he still saw a burst of stars, and he was probably going to have a hell of a goose egg.
The boy vanished under the bridge.
Clutching his forehead, Francis stumbled to the other side of the bridge. He could hear the splash-splat of the boy‘s feet sloshing through the water. He blinked tears of pain from his eyes as he waited for the child to reappear.
The sound of the boy’s footfalls died away. A moment later, the surface of the listless stream rippled faintly, but the boy did not emerge from beneath the bridge.
“Little boy?” he called.
He tried to keep his voice calm, but his heart was beating ninety to nothing. He massaged his forehead, which was still throbbing. He considered calling the police, then decided not to, and walked around to the opposite side of the bridge. Sniffing and wiping his cheeks, Francis squatted down in the weeds until he could see beneath the bridge, but there was no one under there. Just some refuse caught in the reeds. A beer can. A plastic bag. A lady’s flipflop.
The boy was nowhere to be seen.
Feeling cold and nauseated, Francis whispered, “That’s impossible!”
He stood and cast his gaze up and down the road. He scanned the encroaching wilderness, then looked again beneath the bridge.
“No way,” Francis said. “This isn’t happening.”
Those five words circled in his brain like toy boats revolving at the edge of a whirlpool. He wasn’t sure how long he squatted there, staring under the bridge. It felt like minutes, though it was probably only a second or two, then he rose and prepared to search for the boy with his second sight.
He’d seen many strange things in the ten plus years he’d worked as a professional medium. He’d seen bedsheets crumple as if some unseen figure had laid upon them. He’d seen chandeliers swing in closed up rooms, their crystal adornments tinkling. He’d seen the apparition of a man peek from a doorway in an abandoned insane asylum, looking first away, and then turning his head to fix Francis with his madman’s dreamy grin. He’d seen all these things and more, but he had never been physically harmed before (he thought, touching his brow). He’d never been fooled into thinking a spirit was a living creature. You could just tell, even when they took on full substance. Your sight might not pass through them, but your intuition did.
Ghosts were ghosts. They could not physically harm the living.
But that one just did, he thought numbly.
And he had the lump to prove it.
He calmed his thoughts and shifted almost effortlessly into a trance state. Eyelids fluttering, he let his thoughts lift up, felt himself float into the air like a helium balloon. Silent. Weightless. He drifted out to look for the boy. He could always sniff them out, the ghosts. Even when they tried to hide, he could home in on the pockets of their rarified intelligence, hear the faint whispers of their lingering thoughts. Usually their personalities had so faded they were hardly aware, the echo of an echo of a living human soul. A rare few were frighteningly cunning, able to sense him in return, even able, sometimes, to communicate.
But they could never hide from him.
As he sent his thoughts out to locate the spirit of the little boy, he felt an abrupt and terrible coldness. He sensed an absence of light, like a ravenous maw, an awesome hungry vortex that threatened to tear him away from his physical body. It was suddenly everywhere around him. It was sky. It was earth. It was air. He was blinded by it, unanchored.
A loveless and inhuman intelligence coiled in that darkness, the eye of the storm, and he realized that it saw him back, and that it meant to devour him.
Ancient. Terribly ancient and predatory, its presence was like nothing he had ever felt before.
Horrified, Francis tried to withdraw, but he could not find the tenuous thread that linked him to his physical body. Blind, insubstantial, he felt himself swept toward that hungry darkness.
Then a voice, a child’s voice, despairing: I told you to go away! Why didn’t you listen?
Desperate, he flew toward it.
Robert
1
“And what’s this little doohickey?” Robert Forester asked, turning a black metal box over in his hands. The gizmo had an on-off switch, a couple knobs and a needle-style readout, like a car speedometer.
Billy moved closer to their host, letting his shoulder brush against the other man’s arm. “What, that?” he said. “That’s an EMF scanner.”
“An EM what?” Robert asked.
The two men were standing at the rear of one of the SUVs. Allen had asked Billy to bring in the last of the handheld gear, and Robert—who was bored—had volunteered to help unpack the remainder of the crew’s equipment.
It was not quite 3:00 PM, but they were almost finished setting up the shoot. Billy, Allen and Tish had arrived shortly after noon, right on schedule, and had gotten down to business as soon as they introduced themselves and had a quick bite of lunch. The team had been prepping Forester House for the last couple hours, running cables and placing all the lights and stationary cameras. It was a lot of work, but they had it down to a science now. Most of them had been doing it for the better part of a decade.
“EMF scanner,” Billy repeated, sweating a little, and not just from the late summer heat. Forester was wearing a tight blue shirt and had a very muscular upper body.
Billy went on to explain, somewhat distractedly: “EMF stands for electromagnetic field. Most paranormal investigators believe that spiritual entities are electromagnetic in nature, or cause disturbances in the electromagnetic field. This device measures the EM field and displays the frequency here
. Usually it hovers around zero-point-eight. That’s the normal base reading just about anywhere. It also has a speaker built into it and clicks more rapidly when the strength of the field increases.”
“Interesting. I don’t watch your show very often, I’m afraid. It gives me the creeps.” Forester grinned apologetically. They held one another’s gaze just a moment too long.
Billy turned away, cheeks burning. He cleared his throat.
“No need to apologize. I don’t watch it either. Not anymore, anyway.”
After adjusting to the initial horror Forester House inspired, Billy found himself strongly attracted to their host, Robert Forester. Forester wasn’t exactly his type, but he was a handsome man—shoulder-length shaggy blond hair, full beard, lean muscular body. And if his gaydar was still working properly, Billy was pretty sure Forester was attracted to him, too. Robert didn’t act queer, but there was no mistaking the jolt of sexual energy he felt every time Forester glanced in his direction. Billy knew neither of them could act on their mutual attraction, not here, but it was a pleasant distraction from the very unpleasant miasma the house exuded from every pore.
It was also a diversion from the foul mood he was in when he arrived.
It was a three hour flight from Dunsany to Nashville, and a two-and-a-half hour drive from Nashville to Cypress, Illinois. Allen and Tish had flirted nonstop the entire trip, relegating Billy to the role of third wheel. He expected no less from Tish, who had been pushed onto the team a couple seasons ago when her predecessor, Jeannie Cartwright, a smart and sardonic researcher everyone had loved, quit due to an unexpected pregnancy. Jeannie got married during hiatus, and decided to play a much more important role—mommy-- rather than return to the series. And Billy gave her props for that. Unfortunately, her absence had left a door open for Tish, and the intern had somehow connived her way onto the show.
Tish had been rammed down their throats by one of the producers. He’d tried to justify his nepotism by saying the show needed more sex appeal. Granted, Tish was damn hot—but she was more interested in a film career than paranormal research, and her mood swung wildly from giggling and immature to flirtatious and needy, with not infrequent bouts of neurotic self-doubt and out and out bitchery. Unfortunately, their ratings had improved after she joined the cast.
Billy had no love for Tish-- the Dans called her “Hotlips Hoolihan” behind her back-- but as he watched her manipulate his longtime friend, that lack of love was developing into an outright dislike.
Billy didn’t place the blame entirely on Tish. Allen was just as guilty as she was. Billy couldn’t believe his friend had fallen for her naughty schoolgirl act, or that he was flirting with her so brazenly in front of everyone. He’d always thought Allen and Sharon’s relationship was pretty solid. Sure, he knew their marriage was a little punch drunk at the moment. Middle age was pummeling them pretty hard in the sixth round of their lives. But Billy never would have believed Allen was capable of cheating… or even entertaining the idea. Yet, Tish seemed to have no problem wrapping his friend around her little finger. Allen was acting like a hormonal seventh grader around her, and Tish was laying it on thick: always patting him on the shoulder or thigh, laughing at all his jokes, doing the pouty lips babytalk thing.
“Awwen, could you pwease open this soda pop bottle for me? I’m not stwong enough to do it myself!”
Blech! It made him sick!
Tish was just doing the only thing she knew how to do, with her limited intellect and non-existent talents-- clawing her way to the top, one cock at a time. He didn’t blame her for it. It just grossed him out to watch her do it.
The only person he did blame was Sharon, Allen’s wife. He didn’t know what had happened to the stubborn and decisive woman she’d been when he first met her, and he didn’t know why she’d suddenly just abandoned all of them the way she had, but she’d left her husband adrift and no longer seemed to care what strange shores he (and the rest of the Ghost Scouts team, who were supposedly her friends) washed up on.
Water under the bridge, he thought.
He heard the clump of the house’s front door, and Jane was walking across the veranda, headed their way. Billy moved subtly away from Forester as his gal pal approached.
“Raj wants to know what’s taking you guys so long,” she said, smiling.
“Tell beanpole to come out here and do it himself then,” Billy retorted, and Jane laughed.
She seemed to be in a better mood now. She’d been in a real snit when Billy first arrived. Little Dan had been rattling her chain since last night, when Jane put one of the SUV’s in a ditch trying to navigate the property’s treacherous driveway. Billy hadn’t gotten the whole story yet, but for some reason Little Dan kept yelling, “Tiiimmmberrrr!” when Jane passed by. She’d finally slugged him in the arm, and none too gently, and he’d stopped.
Billy turned back to the SUV and explained to her over his shoulder, “I was just showing Mr. Forester—“
“Rob,” Forester corrected.
“—Rob here, some of the equipment we use to do our investigations.”
“Oh…!” Jane said knowingly. She winked at Forester, who looked nonplussed.
Subtle, girl, Billy thought with a scowl.
“If you could hand me that,” Billy said, and Robert Forester jumped and handed Billy the EMF scanner like he’d been caught trying to steal it. Billy put it into its niche in one of the cases and closed and latched the lid. “You mind helping carry these in, Jane?” he asked, passing the gray case back to her. “If we all carry a couple, we’ll only have to make one trip.”
“Sure,” Jane replied.
Billy checked the rest of the cases and passed them out, then set his on the ground and shut the hatch door. Robert Forester had already started back to the house. Billy lifted his two cases and followed, Jane at his side.
“That reminds me, where’s our little human ghost detector?” Jane asked. “He said he’d be here any minute, but that was half an hour ago.”
“Fontaine?” Billy jerked. He’d been watching Forester’s ass as the man walked ahead of them. Billy looked over his shoulder as if he expected to see the medium trundling up the driveway—it’s magic!-- at the mere mention of his name.
“I hope he didn’t run off the road like I did last night,” Jane murmured under her breath, looking toward Billy apprehensively.
“He probably missed the turnoff like we did. I’m sure he’ll be along any second now,” Billy answered.
“I hope you’re right.”
They were climbing the steps of the veranda-– all of them reluctant to return inside the belly of the beast, and just as reluctant to admit to their reluctance—when they heard the crunch of tires on gravel, the rumble of Fontaine’s blue Bel Air.
They turned as one to greet the last member of the team to arrive, and-- also almost as one—realized that something was amiss with their psychic companero.
Francis was driving too slowly, and the car came to a full stop only after lurching forward a couple times. Behind the wheel, the diminutive medium’s head pitched forward and then rolled back on his shoulders. The top of the car was retracted and Billy could see the man’s face. Fontaine was a fair skinned man at the best of times, but as he slumped in his seat, head rolling like a flower with a broken stem, he looked positively chalky.
“Francis?” Jane gasped. She dropped her cases and ran toward the convertible, even before Billy had fully registered what he was seeing.
Billy turned to Forester. “Will you yell at the others?” he asked, and when Robert Forester nodded, Billy dropped his luggage, too, and took off at a run, right behind Jane.
He ran through the thigh-high grass, circling around to the driver’s side door of the idling Bel Air. Jane was patting the medium on the cheek and calling his name when Billy caught up.
“Francis? Come on, baby, wake up!”
Billy skidded to a stop beside her, shocked by Fontaine’s paleness. The medium was white as a pr
overbial ghost, his lips and eyelids tinged blue. He looked like he’d just wandered out of a snowstorm, but it was the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of the hottest part of the dog days of summer. The sky was cloudless, and the sun felt like hot oil on the skin, yet the medium looked like he was frozen half to death behind the steering wheel of his bright blue convertible.
Billy made sure the car was in park, then reached past Jane and turned off the engine.
“Francis? Francis, can you hear me?”
Fontaine flinched as Jane continued to pat his cheek, and Billy felt a huge surge of relief. Little dude was starting to respond!
Though he was always careful to guard his thoughts around the mind reader, he bore the little guy no ill will. Billy had never felt comfortable around the man-- not since he started to believe that Francis really could do what he claimed he could do—but he grinned when Francis reached up in annoyance to still Jane’s hand.
“’M okay…” Francis slurred. “Stop slappin’ me…”
“Francis, sweety, it’s Jane!”
“I know…”
Francis sat up abruptly, his eyes fluttering open, and he looked around without seeming to completely comprehend where he was or how he’d gotten there. He looked like a boy who’d just awakened from a particularly vivid dream.
He blinked at Jane and Billy.
“Well, hello!” Jane said.
The others were trooping out of the house now, jogging quickly toward the trio in the driveway: Allen and Tish at the head of the train, Raj and the two Dans in the middle, and Rob Forester pulling caboose. They gathered around the convertible, frowning in concern. Jane asked Francis if he could remember what had happened to him.
“Are you sick, hon? Do you need your meds? Do you want me to call Ruthie?”