The Soul Thief

by Leah Cutter

  “I understand,” Franklin said, though he’d never had that problem. His teeth were strong and he’d never had a cavity.

  “You see much traffic out here?” the sheriff asked, casually looking around.

  Franklin didn’t believe that the sheriff really did casual. He was looking for something.

  “We get some,” Franklin said, shrugging. The sheriff had come to their stand a couple times when he’d been off duty, coming with his wife, buying a basket of apples once last fall, and the first of the imported strawberries, earlier that spring.

  When the sheriff didn’t continue, Franklin asked, “Is there someone in particular you’re looking for?”

  The sheriff turned his disapproving gaze at Franklin. “No. I’m not looking for someone. I’m just wondering…”

  Franklin stood patiently while the sheriff looked off again. “We do see a lot of customers on the weekends,” Franklin finally volunteered.

  “Good.” Sheriff Thompson turned and fixed his hard stare at Franklin. “We got this charity ball coming up. I was figuring maybe we could put up some posters. Sell some tickets.”

  Though Franklin, technically, owned half of Karl’s vegetable stand—they’d formed an LLC and he had the paperwork to prove it and everything—Franklin still shook his head and scratched at the back of his neck.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d have to check with the boss.”

  “The boss, huh,” Sheriff Thompson said. “You want me to believe you just work here?”

  Franklin gave the sheriff a sheepish grin. “I do work here. Every day. Except Sundays. Got church, then.”

  The sheriff nodded. “You’ve kept your nose clean. I’ll give you that. Still don’t like what happened last year.”

  Franklin shrugged. There weren’t nothing he could do about the past.

  “Tell you what. You buy a couple of tickets and I’ll stop bugging you,” Sheriff Thompson said. “You could take that girl of yours to it. Have a real nice night out.”

  “Whatchyou say it was again?” Franklin asked.

  “Kentucky law enforcement memorial charity ball. With a silent auction.” The sheriff handed over two tickets.

  Franklin gave a low whistle. The amount per ticket was more than he made in a week.

  Of course, he had a good bit of money saved up. He tried to live cheaply, looking to buy the property next to his so he could expand his fields. Mrs. Averson still wouldn’t bring down the price, though the fields there had been standing fallow for years.

  “I’m not sure about buying any tickets,” Franklin said slowly.

  “It’s for charity,” the sheriff pointed out. “You’ll get a nice meal and wine and everything.”

  Franklin didn’t drink much, and certainly not wine.

  “When’s your girl’s birthday?” Sheriff Thompson asked.

  Franklin thought. They’d celebrated her birthday in November. He was glad he had dark skin, so the sheriff couldn’t see him blush at the memory of that night.

  Would she like going out someplace fancy like this? Probably not. She weren’t no more fancy than Franklin was.

  “I’ll ask her,” Franklin said, pushing the tickets back at the sheriff.

  Sheriff Thompson put the tickets back inside his jacket pocket. He looked up and down the stand sourly.

  Franklin braced himself.

  “You know, y’all need to be careful on the weekends when you got more customers coming and going. Could be a hazard to traffic on the highway.”

  “I’ll make sure Karl knows,” Franklin replied, keeping his tone light.

  The sheriff wouldn’t really shut them down that weekend, would he? If they didn’t agree to sell his tickets?

  Franklin wasn’t sure what he should do, but he didn’t like being bullied. “Y’all have a good day now,” he called out after the sheriff as he got in his brown Crown Vic and left.

  Maybe Karl would have an idea about what to do. Or maybe Franklin should have agreed to put up some posters. He sure didn’t want to try to keep track of some kind of charity ball tickets while he was trying to help customers as well. It’d be too easy for some of them to get lost, and he’d end up being responsible.

  And Franklin just couldn’t afford that.

  Ξ

  Franklin pedaled home late that night. Karl and Franklin had talked long after they’d closed the stand about the sheriff. They’d decided that the next time the sheriff came by, they’d offer him a table out front, so he or his deputies could sell tickets to the charity ball.

  Neither of them wanted to be responsible for selling tickets. Not that the sheriff was crooked, but he still might accuse them of not working hard enough, not selling enough tickets for him.

  As Franklin rolled his bike down his driveway, the spirit of Sweet Bess appeared. Sweet Bess had been a hog Franklin had slaughtered over a year ago. She’d been a mean critter when she’d been alive, and a killer. More than one small bird and ground squirrel had found that out.

  But it had made her meat extra sweet. Franklin still remembered the lard he’d rendered from her. He’d been careful using it, making it last as long as he could.

  What did Sweet Bess want with him now? The last time she’d appeared like this in his driveway had been to warn him of the creature lying in wait for him inside his house.

  Sweet Bess stared at Franklin from the side yard. Stared hard at him.

  Then she turned and ambled back that way.

  Did she expect him to follow her?

  Franklin set his bike in the shed and walked around the side of his house. The evening had already settled in, cool and clean. No rain still and the air felt dry. The crickets and cicadas hadn’t reached their full summer chorus strength, when they’d be deafening. No, it was still a peaceful racket, joined by the frogs in the pond that sat in the middle of Mrs. Averson’s fields, that would turn to cracked dirt when the heat of summer started cooking everything.

  A ghost sat on one of Franklin’s white metal chairs in the backyard.

  Why would Sweet Bess want Franklin to come and greet this ghost? It weren’t like there weren’t plenty of ghosts passing through all the time.

  It was a white man, who had a soft glow to him, like all ghosts did, particularly at night. He was wearing a light blue suit.

  Normally, Franklin didn’t like coming out into his backyard in the evenings. The fields seemed to give the ghosts extra power, making him uncomfortable when they pushed their intent at him.

  “Howdy,” Franklin said, greeting the ghost.

  The ghost looked at him and rose slowly from his seat.

  Franklin stopped, puzzled. That sure looked like the guy he’d helped pass that morning. In fact, as the ghost drew closer to Franklin, he was positive of it.

  “What happened?” Franklin asked. It didn’t make no sense. Once a ghost passed, they was gone. They never came back.

  The man’s eyes had changed. Instead of looking faded and a little lost, now they looked black and hollow.

  Then he opened his mouth and howled.

  The sound made Franklin shiver all the way to his core.

  How had the ghost done that? It weren’t a loud howl. It was knife-thin and eerie, floating across the open yard.

  But Franklin heard it. That scream. That awful cry of pain.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Franklin asked.

  Whatever it was, it weren’t good.

  Two

  FRANKLIN SHIVERED INSIDE his house, sitting alone at his kitchen table, listening to the ghost howling in his backyard. He’d had a light supper, burgers fried in bacon fat with thick cheese and ketchup, along with the first of the tomatoes and the last of the sweet onions. And because Julie had been bugging him about eating more vegetables, he’d also fried up some green peppers to go with them.

  He’d been barely able to eat, however, with that ghost making that racket. Now he sat drinking a beer, the house dim.

  He sure hoped Mrs. Averson next do
or couldn’t hear the ghost. It wouldn’t do to disturb his neighbors that way. Didn’t matter none that he weren’t the one making the noise.

  There was that empty field between his place and her house, but the howls the ghost made carried and cut through to the soul.

  At least the howling ghost had stayed outside. What would happen if he decided to come inside?

  Franklin didn’t know what to do. He’d done his duty. He’d helped that ghost pass.

  Had this been why the ghost hadn’t wanted to go? Had he known that he’d get…thrown back? Franklin didn’t know. But that kind of made sense.

  Except he would have thought the ghost would have been more scared the first time, if he’d known this was coming.

  And what kind of ghost made noises like that? Franklin had never met a ghost who howled like this. He’d been helping ghosts pass since he was fourteen. He’d met all kinds. Nothing like this.

  It sure looked like a ghost. Kind of felt like a ghost, though his eyes were more haunted.

  What had happened to him?

  Franklin didn’t know what to do. If his cousin Lexine hadn’t been killed by the creature the year before, he could have asked her, though she’d dealt more with spirits of animals and places, while he dealt with humans.

  Who else could he ask? Who would know?

  Franklin had never met anyone special like he was. His cousin Darryl had a different kind of special, one that involved being in the woods and hunting.

  Maybe Eddie would know—the lady who was the head of the pagan group that his girlfriend Julie belonged to. Franklin had never gone back to that group, had always made excuses every time Julie had asked. It was just too hard to see Eddie. She’d refused her gifts, wouldn’t move how the spirits wanted her to go.

  Maybe she’d know something about an out-of-place ghost, however. He’d have to talk with Julie, maybe accept her next invitation to go visit the group.

  Franklin finished his beer, then quickly drank down a second. He weren’t much of a drinker, never had been. He hoped the alcohol would help him sleep through the howling.

  Because he sure had no idea what else to do.

  Ξ

  In the morning, the ghost was still there, though he’d grown quiet. Franklin went out to sit with him after breakfast, like he had for the week before that.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Franklin asked quietly. “Why you came back?”

  The ghost stared intently out into Franklin’s field, as if he was searching for that portal out of there again.

  “I don’t know how to help you,” Franklin said.

  The ghost finally looked at Franklin and nodded.

  “What do you need?” Franklin asked. The first time he’d met this ghost, he’d never really pushed his intent toward Franklin.

  Now, the ghost’s eyes was too haunted. And lost. There wasn’t anything the ghost knew. He didn’t have something compelling to do. Or something equally compelling to keep him there.

  He was just stuck.

  “I’d help you if I could,” Franklin told the man.

  The ghost sighed, the sound carrying on the wind. He seemed more solid that morning as well, his light blue suit like a gash in the morning light instead of blending in.

  He didn’t belong there, back on earth, sitting in Franklin’s backyard. That was what kept striking Franklin. That ghost just didn’t fit.

  Franklin didn’t recall feeling that way about the other ghosts he’d helped. Dying was part of living. Sure, the ghosts needed to move on, but that, too, was part of the natural order of things.

  There weren’t nothing natural about this ghost—how he was stuck, what he needed to help him along. How lost his eyes looked.

  Though the ghost didn’t ask Franklin to stay, he sat for a while anyway, soaking in the calm morning air. Franklin didn’t want to admit that maybe he didn’t want to go to the stand, didn’t want to have to deal with Sheriff Thompson.

  He hadn’t slept well that night either, not with all the howling.

  Still, Franklin couldn’t delay for too long.

  Just like he had a duty to his ghosts, he also had a duty to Karl.

  Besides, maybe that afternoon he could try a different combination of popping corn.

  Ξ

  Franklin gave a low whistle as he rode his bike up to the fruit and vegetable stand after his afternoon break. He’d gone back to his house, hoping that maybe the ghost had passed along, but had only gotten howled at for his questions.

  Seemed as though Karl and the sheriff had come to some kind of agreement.

  Posters for the charity ball were plastered on the sides of the shed, as well as across the front, obscuring Karl’s name and the rest of the fancily painted sign. Hanging from the sign they had next to the highway was a large plaque, advertising the KYLEM Charity Auction and Ball.

  A picture of a gold shield against a bright blue background took up most of the poster, with bold black letters proclaiming the event. Under that were all the particulars.

  Franklin had to admit the posters were catchy. But did they really have to be up everywhere?

  Karl just glared at Franklin as he came up, not even bothering to say hello. So Franklin just helped the next customer, not asking his partner any questions until the rush had died down for a bit and they’d finished restocking.

  “What happened?” Franklin asked quietly.

  Karl shook his head, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a corner of the stand. “Sheriff came out. When I said we’d help, two deputies got out of his car and started putting up posters everywhere while the sheriff kept jabbering at me.”

  “It ain’t right, covering up our stand that way,” Franklin said.

  “I know that,” Karl replied, heatedly.

  “It’s our stand,” Franklin said. “We get to say how many posters are put up.”

  “You gonna take them down?” Karl asked. He seemed surprised.

  “Yup.”

  This felt too much like bullying, and Franklin flat-out refused to be bullied. Particularly by Sheriff Thompson.

  Franklin walked out from the stand and into the cool evening air. He didn’t want to take down all the posters—it was for charity, after all. But they didn’t need to be everywhere.

  He started at the side. He was tall enough to reach the ones up high, but as those didn’t cover the fruit stand sign, he left them. But he tore down a bunch more, until there was only three on that side.

  When Franklin moved out to the front of the stand, Karl joined him.

  “How about we take down the ones in the center, but leave the ones on either side?” Karl suggested.

  “That’s good. It’ll look balanced,” Franklin replied.

  Karl helped Franklin take down some of the posters from the front of the stand, as well as some of the ones on the other side.

  When Franklin stepped back, it looked like a normal fruit and vegetable stand again. Sure, some of the words painted on the stand were covered over. But enough letters was showing through that people could read the sign.

  “What do you think the sheriff will say?” Karl asked.

  “Don’t care,” Franklin said.

  “You’re a stubborn one, ain’t you?” Karl said, shaking his head and giving Franklin a sly grin.

  Franklin just shrugged. “It ain’t about being stubborn. It’s about being right.”

  And Franklin knew he was right about this. Just as he’d been right the year before, refusing to give the sheriff his fingerprints.

  Of course, the sheriff had got his way anyway. Franklin’s fingerprints were now in the system, though he’d tried so hard to stay on the right side of the law.

  Maybe the sheriff would come back and complain. Or maybe he wouldn’t notice. Franklin thought the posters looked better, now that there were fewer of them. It looked more professional, maybe.

  Whatever the sheriff thought, Franklin was sure he’d find out about it in the morning.

/>   Ξ

  Franklin didn’t sleep well that night, not with the ghost howling again. What did it want? Why was it haunting him without telling him how to help him pass?

  Was it really a ghost?

  As Franklin was checking his bike that morning, making sure that nothing had happened to it, he felt a cold wind down his back.

  That generally meant another ghost had shown up.

  Franklin sighed. It was his duty, he knew. He’d wondered if the loud, howling ghost had scared off the others. Since the previous year, he’d generally had two or three ghosts visiting at the same time. It took some effort, trying to figure out what each one wanted. But it was his duty, and Franklin was usually happy to do it.

  Franklin turned to see what new ghost had shown up. Karl would understand him being late. Again.

  But it weren’t a new ghost.

  It was the lady Franklin had helped earlier that month, the ghost in the bright red dress, who he’d taken to the graveyard to talk with her son.

  Franklin swallowed. Fear spiked through him. What was going on?

  The woman’s dark skin had grown darker, and her eyes were black holes. The red of her dress had darkened as well, looking less like happy poppies and more like blood.

  She fixed him with a piercing stare then opened her mouth.

  And howled.

  Ξ

  Franklin carefully counted out the customer’s change twice. He’d made a couple of mistakes earlier that morning. At least the folks had been honest about it, coming back and returning the extra change.

  “What’s going on with you?” Karl asked when the morning rush had cleared away. He had his usual dour expression on, though Franklin wondered if there was a hint of worry there as well.

  “Too many ghosts,” Franklin said cautiously. He weren’t about to tell Karl his real problems. Hell, he weren’t sure what his real problem was.

  Were they ghosts? They didn’t sound like ghosts. The guy in the backyard was getting more solid, too. Like he was starting to return to this world, having bounced out of the next.

  Would he get strong enough to start tearing apart Franklin’s fields?

  And why had that woman reappeared? She’d done what she’d needed to do. She’d passed. Why had she come back? And what did she want now? Besides to howl at Franklin?