“Perfect,” Jonesy breathed out in a sigh.
Jade gave him an unfriendly look, which thankfully he missed in the dimness.
We went forward again, where yawning holes like chicken pox littered the porch decking. We moved around those, as the clouds cooperated by moving aside, a patch of moonlight lit the corner of the door. It was a faded red, a large square of glass in the middle, miraculously unbroken. Tiff wrapped her hand around an oval doorknob with perimeter beading hung askew from its cradle, glowing like a dirty gold egg in the failed light.
Our eyes met. “Ya scared?” she asked, all bravado.
I nodded.
Her shoulders fell a little. “Me too,” she admitted in a whisper, “that's why we gotta.”
I agreed.
Turning the knob, the door swung open silently as if inviting our motley crew inside.
I'd forgot about Onyx who shot past us, starting his exploration.
He was doing dog reconnaissance.
I cautiously looked around taking in a super-small house, definitely not a shack.
Jonesy, John, Bry and Sophie had followed us closely and Bry said, “It's a caretaker's cottage.”
John asked Bry, “What's that?”
“Back in the day...”
“When?” Jade asked.
“You know, a hundred years ago... or more...”
“Oh.”
“They used to have these little... houses for the dudes that would take care of these cemeteries.”
“They lived here? Right here, next to all the dead bodies?” Sophie asked.
“It is a cemetery, that's where dead bodies go,” John stated.
“Quiet neighbors,” Jonesy said.
Funny.
“Okay, yuk, go on,” Tiff said.
“Anyway, they would water the flowers people left at the graves, mow the lawn with this push-mower thing, paint the fence, you know, maintenance stuff.”
“So... not a shack,” Jonesy asked.
“No, more like quarters,” John clarified.
We looked around, getting our bearings.
“Watch out, this place is a dump, there could be more holes in the floor,” I said.
“Stay in pairs or more,” Bry said.
Tiff, Jade and I took a few steps more and I turned to John. “Dude, I just can't see that great, give me the LED.”
I could vaguely hear Jonesy in the back mumbling. But, with only meager moonlight finding its way through the dirty glass of the kitchen windows, it wasn't enough.
John slapped it into my palm, pressing my thumb on the push-button switch (something that wasn't Pulse-activated!). A brilliant swath of light slashed a path, illuminating the base of a staircase. The steps were narrow and tall, like a ladder, not true stairs.
I swung the light away from the stairs at the base of our feet, the girls shoes dwarfed by our surfboards. “Stairs last, let's check out the main floor.”
Jonesy gave a lingering glance at the stairs. It was a democracy so he came along with the rest of us, but his fascination lay elsewhere.
As the reluctant leader, the call of the dead was a song in my soul, a resonating note which lingered. We explored.
We could've hear a pin drop it was so quiet.
“Ah hell, nothing's going to happen here,” Jonesy said, dejected. He grabbed the flashlight out of my hands. “Hey!” I yelled.
He planted it under his face and started making the idiot grins people do under LEDs. Funny, he looked like the ghosts we weren't seeing. It was just the thing that cracked the group up, tension escaping like steam under a door.
Without warning, while Jonesy capered about, a green luminescent shape rose up over Jonesy, hovering for an instant above his head. Swooping down, it speared through his chest, Tiff and I leaping forward, my hand reaching for the vague shape.
Jonesy shrieked like he was being stabbed, “It's cold! It's a ghostsicle! Get it out off me!”
Tiff reached it before me, and I used the hand that wasn't now latched on to Jade to grab that opaque emerald. Instantly warmth bathed wherever I touched.
Tiff's eyes widened and held my gaze. “Pull!” I shouted over the chaos. Bry tried to wrench Tiff away while John and Sophie were reaching for Jonesy. My Empath girlfriend caught between and as green as the ghost.
Tiff understood and wrenched the ghost through Jonesy's chest where just a snippet of its form was. She wrapped it in her fist, with my left hand around her balled hand, my right wrapped around Jade. And we pulled, not with our hands but with our combined power.
The ghost made a popping sound as it was extracted through Jonesy like hot taffy, who collapsed on his butt. “It's a brain freeze, but in the body!” John and Sophie crouched beside him, but I had bigger fish to fry.
The ghost hovered about us, it looked like a man. I looked down and a part of it was like a rope to where our hands still held it. Tiff looked at me and we let it go. Like taffy, that rope snapped back into the ghost's form, making a sucking noise like water down a drain.
Onyx had been barking the whole time. “Quiet boy.”
The Dog did not like this cold, dead-smelling thing. The Dog knew the Boy was dominant and he did not have to Protect, but the Dog did not like it.
Bry came up behind Tiff. “What is it?”
“A ghost, dumb-ass,” Tiff whispered.
Tiff, so delicate with her wording. Bry gave her a glare, sibling love.
Onyx growled.
“Shh... Onyx.”
The ghost seemed to know what I was, gliding forward.
My hand moved forward, looking up into the ghost's semblance of eyes and moved my hand through its form. It felt like bathwater, at once semi-solid and warm, right and good. Tiff tried, her eyes widening as she gazed up at the tall figure, its color shimmering in the ambient moonlight.
“So warm, like fur,” Tiff said.
Our eyes met. “Like bath water,” I said.
“It's the same, but different,” John said. “You're AFTD but different people, your perceptions are different.”
“That damn thing is not warm! It's cold as hell!”
“That's an oxymoron,” Sophie said smugly.
“I know what I felt!” Jonesy huffed.
“Everyone knows hell is hot, dope,” Bry said.
“Whatever! That thing is cold as hell!”
I turned back to the ghost and it swung its head toward Jonesy.
I felt its agitation.
“I don't think it likes you,” I said to Jonesy.
Jonesy backed up.
Jade leaned forward and I caught her hand. “Maybe not.”
“I can't hide behind you all the time, Caleb.”
“I don't mind.” Leaning down, I kissed the tip of her nose, which coincided with her whipping her hand out and grabbing the ghost. It let out a shriek that reverberated in the house, she took it by surprise. Tiff and I reacted to that, the ghost jettisoning off straight up through the ceiling to the second floor.
Jade snatched her hand back, cradling it against her chest. “Not smart Jade!” Tiff yelled.
“God, you could have been hurt! We don't know what we're dealing with here!” I was scared, shaking her by the shoulders, what had she been thinking?
“I was.”
“You were what?” I asked.
“It did hurt me.”
“I wanna see,” Jonesy said, rushing forward.
We all stood in a circle around Jade, she was the shortest one in the group so we all had a good view.
Slowly taking her hand away from her chest she showed us what looked like a burn, just shy of the blistering kind. It was the worst in the webbing which connects the thumb and index finger. I touched a finger lightly to the worst spot.
“Yeah, it's tender.”
“Was it hot?” Jonesy asked.
Jade shook her head.
“Cold?” John guessed.
“Yeah... like colder than anything I've ever touched.”
“Kinda like that time Carson put his wet tongue to that frozen utility pole,” Jonesy smiled, remembering.
“And you pelted him with snowballs,” John said.
“Ah-huh, that was the time,” Jonesy said in that dreamy tone.
“Okay, so we know that they're dangerous,” Bry said.
“Not to them,” John said.
Everyone looked at Tiff and I. Awkwardness.
Tiff said, “That's good, right? I mean, that's the whole reason Jonesy thought we should come, we're the...”
“Contingency plan,” I finished.
“Yeah, that,” Tiff agreed.
I bent down and kissed Jade's hand and she smiled.
“All better,” I said.
“Pretty angry looking,” Sophie said, looking closely at it.
“Yeah, it's a war wound,” Jonesy said, eyes cutting to the staircase.
“Ah-no, haven't we had enough excitement for tonight?” John asked.
“Never!” Jonesy enthused, running over to the base of the staircase, Onyx at his heels.
“Wait a sec.... where did that ghost go?” Tiff asked.
I pointed above my head and we all looked up at the ceiling.
Jade said, “I'm game but no touchy.”
I squeezed her head underneath my chin, holding her. “It doesn't seem like the ghost meant to.”
“No,” Jonesy said. “It definitely didn't want to freeze my nuts off!”
Bry and John laughed.
Thanks Jonesy, so reassuring. “What I meant was, I think Jade took it..”
“... him,” Tiff clarified.
Right, definitely male, “... him, by surprise. He gave her the ice blast because she startled him.”
“It's a guy ghost ?” Sophie asked.
“Yeah,” Tiff said.
“Wow, hate to see what he'd do to really freeze us,” Jonesy said.
“He was warm to us,” Tiff said.
John said, “It's the AFTD thing. You guys are like the same element or something.”
“It was scared when I touched it,” Jade said.
“Evil?” John asked.
“Not really but, it could be. He could be.”
“I bet they got personalities!” Jonesy chortled.
“They do,” Jade said.
He stopped laughing, John and Bry's smile slipping from their faces.
Tiff stepped forward. “They do?”
“He did,” Jade said.
Whoa. “What did he think or whatever?” I asked.
“He didn't exactly think, I just got feelings about him being disturbed and then there were some random images of his life here.”
“Wait a sec, Jade, you're not AFTD?” Tiff clarified.
“No, Empath.”
“So how does she know anything about what it, okay, sorry, he thought?”
“I was holding her when she swiped the ghost. We've noticed in the past that I can put the zombies back into the ground better if I am touching Jade,” I said.
“Back-in-box, back-in-box,” Jonesy sang.
“Jonesy, come on,” Bry said.
Bry stated his question, “His life here?”
“Yeah, he was the caretaker guy here,” Jade said.
“Okay,” I said. “Let's cruise the upstairs really fast then maybe we can rip by the hideaway after.”
“I don't know, that's way across town,” John said.
“Who doesn't have a bike?” I asked.
Jonesy raised his hand.
“Be a peg-rider, dude,” Bry said.
“For five miles?” Jonesy asked.
“Who's driving?” John asked.
Our collective attention turned to Bry. He was the smart one that brought up the peg idea.
“Oh come on! He can't last five miles on my pegs.”
“Can you?” A direct challenge from the sister.
Bry's eyes narrowed to slits. “Yeah, I can do it.”
John clapped his hand together. “Settled then!”
Jonesy air-pumped. “Let's investigate!”
“Wait!” I said, arcing the LED in the air toward Jonesy, who smoothly caught it.
He took the steep steps two at a time never slowing down, Onyx at his heels.
Bry and John racing after him, John slipped and nailed a knee on the way up. “Ouch, damn,” he said, cupping the offended joint, jumping up the rest in an ungainly frog hop.
Jade, Tiff and I climbed the steps with Sophie slightly ahead. It was dark and I held the railing in a death grip because the light was utterly non-existent here.
At the top of the staircase stood the gang, mouths agape, looking at the scene in front of them.
Wisps of luminescent figures twirled and sailed about, lighting the area with their phosphorescent glow, frantically gliding back and forth, agitated. There were “eye-windows” on either end of the eaves, caressing the floorboards, but the ceiling was really tall down the central section of the roof. We couldn't have touched it if we tried.
Jonesy looked less enthusiastic than earlier and inching closer to the staircase by the second. Our male ghost hovered in the middle, looking intimidating. But I wasn't worried, he hadn’t been hostile to Tiff and me. But he'd hurt Jade and about frozen Jonesy's jewels off, caution was good.
Tiff looked at the agitated ghosts. “They're kids.”
That made me stare. They were swirling so furiously that it was hard to tell... but, I thought she was right.
I didn't want to leave Jade. I looked at Bry, he nodded. Guy-speak, a wonderful thing.
He moved closer to Jade and I said, “Be right back.”
Tiff followed me, turning around once to look at John. “I'm shielding,” he said.
I kept approaching. The large male ghost was hovering and I was seeing more of him this time. Tiff looked at me with wide eyes, our hair starting to rise off our heads, floating with static electricity. The small ghosts hovered around us, slowing their frenetic spinning, calming. We stood in front of the one big ghost, it held out what had once been hands, and Tiff and I each took an opaque “hand.”
Images flowed into our minds; reverse history. We saw his death, in broken images, like a kaleidoscope rapidly spinning backwards, colors and shapes, jagged loneliness and care-taking, feelings of accomplishing, then... a lonely death here in this house, with no one to take care of him.
“So sad,” Tiff said through clenched teeth.
“Yes,” I agreed.
But the images weren't done. We saw the ghost's pain as children were killed and he could do nothing. He took care of their spirits, that much he could do. He was still the caretaker for the dead.
He dropped our hands and floated back.
His message was clear, we could speak for these dead children.
We could do what he could not.
“Wow,” Tiff said.
“Yeah.”
We moved back and the ghosts returned to swirling again.
The evilness of his message began to sink in. Children had been murdered here. Kids. Like us. Tiff and I looked at each other.
Jonesy said, “What's the deal?”
I said slowly, “The deal is, he is the care-taker of a bunch of dead kids.”
“Told you!” Jonesy said.
“What?” Bry asked.
“I told everyone that some boy had died here.”
“Jonesy's right, he did say that a boy died here,” John said.
Jonesy scowled at John. “And, there's a helluva lot more than just one.” He indicated the ghosts floating and diving in the background, holographic in the moonlight.
We all looked at them, Sophie said, “Why are we seeing them?”
“I got this,” Tiff said. “I did read all the stuff...”
You did? Sophie mouthed silently.
“Ah-huh, and us AFTDs,” she looked at me and I shrugged, I didn't know, “give off an aura so others can see stuff like ghosts.”
“So, if Caleb and you take off, then they disappear?”<
br />
“It sounds that way,” John said.
“Shit, that's swift,” Jonesy said, impressed.
The greater point of the murdered children was being lost to the jack-in-the-box ghosts.
Bry chuckled. “He does have a way with words.”
“Yeah,” I agreed but was thinking about all we'd seen. The horror of it felt like a splinter in my head.
“We'll have to do something about this,” Tiff said.
“I know,” I said, grabbing Jade's hand, comforted by the solidness of it after the creeping warmth of “our” ghost.
“I wanna see if they'll disappear, Caleb,” Jonesy said.
“Jonesy, give it a rest,” I said.
“Yeah, let's book. I want to check out this hideout you guys have,” Bry said, glancing again at the ghosts.
John stood, mesmerized. “Not every day you see ghosts.”
“Yeah, they're kinda pretty,” Sophie said.
Jonesy raised both eyebrows, uncomprehending.
Jade nodded in agreement with Sophie.
Our group headed down the stairs. Jade, Tiff and I lingered. A palatable weight hung over us. Breaking contact, we climbed back down the stairs.
Walking through the door we shut it softly behind us, the sadness and horror clinging like smoke to our bodies.
CHAPTER 31
Coming out into the moonlight we sucked great gulps of fresh air into our lungs, trying to expunge the cloying feeling of claustrophobia the house had given us.
“Okay, so... let's shake that off,” Jonesy said.
“Maybe you can but not me, not for awhile,” Sophie shivered.
I agreed. It'd be awhile before Tiff and I would get over that.
Jade looked around, seeing the group lounging by the gate. “Let's pulse the adults.”
Bry said, “Great idea, mom's going to have a kitten if we don't check in.”
Tiff nodded, letting her brother pulse for the pair. One by one we shoved our pulses back into their respective spots and looked around.
Jonesy got a strange light in his eyes. “What do ya think...” he began.
“No.” John said.
“Right. What he said,” Jade agreed.
Bry said, “What, Jonesy?”
Tiff waggled a finger. “You don't know Jonesy that well Bry, he gets these ideas,” she made the universal choking gesture with both hands around her throat, “that usually get us all in trouble.”
Destiny's Dark Fantasy Boxed Set (Eight Book Bundle) Page 33