by J. S. Bailey
He’d been right when he told Janet that he and God were not on speaking terms. God refused to listen. And for good reason.
Because God doesn’t care about people like you, said the Presence that was always with him, lurking on the edge of his awareness like an unwanted guest. It had been with him for years—too many years—and try as he might, he couldn’t escape from it.
Sometimes he wondered if it was meant to be with him as part of his punishment. But then again, maybe not. He just wished it would go away.
Jerry’s anger swelled at the Presence’s words. God was supposed to care. Did he care? He must have a little bit, or he wouldn’t be here.
Stop kidding yourself, Jerry.
Okay. He would. Maybe. But he had to get out of here. Somehow. He would go mad if he stayed a moment longer. Janet’s departure had been a painful reminder of his entrapment. It made leaving here all the more desirable.
Do you really think that leaving is going to help you?
It couldn’t hurt.
He tried one last time to put a word in with the Creator. God, please help…
His thoughts plowed head-on into a brick wall. Though he could not hear it, he imagined that the Presence was laughing.
Jerry just couldn’t do it. It was no use to try anymore. No use at all.
As per custom, Jessica tried to persuade Sidney to come with her when she went up to the bedroom to collect her ghost-hunting equipment.
Sidney, sitting on the bed with a textbook in her lap, only lifted her gaze and gave Jessica a piercing stare over the tops of her purple frames.
“Fine,” Jessica said, shouldering her black zippered tote bag. “Be that way.”
Sidney rolled her eyes. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Will do.”
The muscles in her legs protested as she descended the stairs. Not wanting to spend the rest of the evening in pain, she made a detour into the bathroom and swiped a bottle of Tylenol out of the medicine cabinet. She washed two of the pills down with a glass of water and put the nearly empty bottle in her purse.
In the car she switched on a local classic rock station and backed out of the driveway. Travis Suleman had gotten her hooked on oldies when she started working for him since that’s the only music he’d play at the gas station, and now she almost never listened to anything else. The song currently playing was “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas. One of her favorites.
The sun gleamed overhead, making the Ohio River sparkle like liquid diamonds off to her left. She had half a mind to pull off the road and start snapping pictures (would have made a nice page in a calendar or even a coffee table book like you’d find in the bargain section at Barnes and Noble), but she’d only be wasting time since daylight hours became so scarce this time of year.
She glanced at the directions she’d printed off the computer. The highway merged with Interstate 275 several miles up ahead. Then once she was in Kentucky she was supposed to get off the highway on the Route 9 exit and follow that until she got to Hill Road.
As the crow flies, Eleanor and Iron Springs were separated by less than a half a mile of river. It took Jessica fifty-five minutes to reach the turnoff for Hill Road, which by her estimation was about two miles northwest of the Kentucky town.
Hill Road headed due south. Like its name promised, the road—marked by a signpost that had been bent to a forty-five degree angle by some unfortunate motorist—ascended a steep incline for a quarter of a mile and then leveled out into meandering curves.
The woods grew so thick on either side of the road that Jessica had the feeling she was driving down a long tunnel. She’d spotted a single ranch-style home nestled among golden-leaved maples shortly after she made the turn, but other than that, there was no indication that anyone had set foot in this part of the tri-state before. Kentucky, the final frontier, she thought. I claim this land in the name of Roman-Dell. Too bad she didn’t have a flag.
A white sign on the right side of the road came into view after a couple of miles. She squinted. “Iron Springs United Methodist Church,” read the black script stenciled above the church service schedule. A battered mailbox emblazoned with the number 876 stood sentry by a blacktopped lane that disappeared into the woods.
She swung the car onto the lane while Queen sang “Bohemian Rhapsody”—“Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?” This had to be the most isolated church on planet earth. There wasn’t even a parsonage in sight. Al Tumler must have been a commuter.
Two-tenths of a mile later, the lane opened out into a vacant parking lot where the faded pavement was interlaced with a web of cracks, some of which had been patched up with squiggly stripes of black sealer. To the left loomed an ancient red brick church that bore a steeple and stained-glass windows (the date on the cornerstone looked like it might have said 1862), and to the right on the other side of the parking lot sat the graveyard Al Tumler had spoken of on the phone. Like Hill Road, all was encircled by a thick expanse of trees that looked as though they might have continued on forever.
She selected a parking space close to the chain-link fence marking the graveyard’s front boundary and shut off the engine. Before climbing out of the car, she took a few bites out of a granola bar she’d stowed away in her purse, staring at the headstones while she chewed. The closest ones jutted from the earth in haphazard angles like they had grown tired over time and slouched to the side to rest. Even from the short distance, she could barely read their epitaphs. She guessed the headstones were about as old as the church.
Having finished her dinner, she wadded up the granola bar wrapper, stuffed it into her jeans pocket, and crammed her purse into her equipment bag. Time to get down to business.
Unexpected stillness echoed in her ears the instant she stepped outside. At home the ambient sound of traffic on U.S. 52 could be heard rumbling by most times of the day, but here the only sounds were those of the wind and a twittering bird sitting on a branch high up in a tree. As eerie as that was, the stillness might be a blessing. She wouldn’t have to sort through a hundred unidentified noises when she played back her recordings.
But first things first. Photographs.
Leaving her bag on the hood of the car, she held up her camera and snapped a few pictures of the front and sides of the old church. Even though no spirits would likely show up in the photographs, she still planned to add the images to her scrapbook. Sidney might even think they were interesting. And if not Sidney, then Rachel. Yes, she would show them all to Rachel when she and Eric arrived on Thursday. Rachel liked to look at pictures just as much as she did.
Next she photographed the parking lot and lane from several different angles. She trudged back out to the end of the lane and took a picture of the church sign just for the heck of it. She even took a picture of a robin that had perched on a fencepost, because he was kind of cute.
Jessica returned to her car to grab her bag off the hood. Time to go check out the cemetery.
No sooner had she slung the tote over her shoulder then suddenly a wave of nausea hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. She doubled over, battling her stomach’s overwhelming urge to empty its meager contents onto the pavement. She couldn’t puke. Not here, where someone would find it later.
It took all of her strength to keep her granola bar where it belonged. Maybe this was what morning sickness felt like. Or the Ebola virus. Did people with Ebola even puke, or did they just drop dead on the spot? She’d have to look it up when she got home. If she made it home. Because if it was Ebola, she might not survive the evening.
She swallowed a mouthful of saliva. As she did, the world around her bathed itself in shades of deep red like she had suddenly put on a pair of crimson-tinted sunglasses.
It might have been the onset of a fainting spell if it weren’t for the fact that a distinct feeling of anger came out of nowhere, crashing over her like a tidal wave pummeling a shore. Her hands clenched into fists, and she could feel herself shaking. She had to kill…
The bizarre spell passed with the abruptness by which it had begun. The red aura faded away. Her stomach stopped twisting in her abdomen. She rubbed her sweating forehead. In the few years that she had been conducting formal investigations, nothing of this sort had ever happened before.
She had once read that some people believed powerful emotions could be imprinted upon a place where they had been experienced. Maybe someone had once stood in that very spot feeling angrier than they ever had before, and now, weeks or months or years later, Jessica could feel his or her emotion as if it had been her own.
That, or she had finally flipped her lid. She would still add this to her paranormal experiences journal, where she recorded the details of all her investigations regardless of whether or not anything “paranormal” had occurred.
Confident that the nausea was gone for good, she walked down the gravel path that led out among the graves, humming the first few bars of “Bohemian Rhapsody” to keep her spirits up. Her body still ached despite the Tylenol she’d downed earlier. How long was that stuff supposed to take before it started working? She didn’t want to take more pills and end up overdosing alone where no one would find her for a day or more.
She kept her eyes peeled, seeking out anything unusual. Shadow figures? Nope. Glowing orbs? Not a one. This evening was going to be a piece of cake.
Up ahead she could see a rectangular heap of dirt that had bouquets of wilting flowers stacked at one end—no doubt from the funeral that Mr. Tumler had mentioned. Uninterested, she glanced to the right.
Her heart skipped a beat or two.
She was not alone.
A solitary male dressed in shades of mourning slouched on a cement bench, seemingly unaware that he had company. He must have stayed behind after the funeral. He was probably one of the deceased’s loved ones, too stricken to go home and go on with life in his or her absence.
Jessica knew the feeling. After Marjorie Miller died, Jessica had barely crawled out of bed for a week because it hurt too much to be awake. Marjorie had been a surrogate mother to her much as she had been to Wayne, taking her and Sidney out shopping and to the movies and just doing girl stuff that Maria Roman-Dell wouldn’t have dreamed of doing. Jessica didn’t doubt that Marjorie was rejoicing in heaven, but her absence on earth left a gaping hole in her life that had not yet completely filled itself in. She could only imagine what Sidney had felt.
She shook her head. No sense in making herself depressed when she had work to do. It might be rude to investigate while the man was still here. But if he had been here long enough, he may have seen some of the shadows and orbs that Mr. Tumler had spoken of. Besides, talking to him might cheer him up. That’s the way it was after Marjorie’s death. People talked. It was better than bottling it all up and having a meltdown later on. That had happened to Sidney’s dad about a month after the funeral. Jessica had been dining with them that night, so she witnessed the whole thing, tears, anger, and all. It hadn’t been pretty.
She made her way toward the man on the bench, trying to ignore the nagging pains in her muscles.
“Excuse me!” she called out when she was about ten yards away from him.
The man gave no indication of having heard her. She couldn’t see his face, so she didn’t know if he’d fallen asleep sitting up or if he was stone deaf. But no matter. If the latter were the case, she could easily communicate with him using the pen and notepad she kept in her purse.
She continued toward him. “Hello! You on the bench!”
He still didn’t turn around. He didn’t even flinch.
Jessica’s approach brought her up to his left side, and she immediately sensed that something wasn’t quite right. The guy was so still that he might have been a statue.
“Hi,” she said, waving to get his attention. It was the only sign language she could remember. “Can you hear me?”
The man turned his head in her direction. His eyes widened.
“You were talking to me?” he asked in a soft voice.
Now that she could see his face, Jessica relaxed a little. The man couldn’t have been that old, maybe thirty-four at the most. His dark brown hair was disheveled like he’d forgotten to run a comb through it before he came to the funeral, and he wore a black button-up shirt and black slacks. Two prominent dark circles stood out beneath his eyes.
Jessica smiled, grateful that she would not have to resort to writing, because her penmanship stank, and the guy might not have been able to read it. “Yes, who else could I have meant?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced down at his hands, which lay folded in his lap. A partially healed cut sealed together with medical stitches marred the back of his left hand.
“I’m really sorry for bothering you at a time like this,” she blurted, feeling an inexplicable unease at the sight of the wound. “I can leave if you want me to.”
A faint smile lit up his face. “You can stay as long as you want. You’re not bothering me.”
Yeah, right. “Are you sure? I thought you might be visiting someone out here.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Visiting?”
“Well, paying your respects. I heard there was a funeral today.”
He nodded. “There was. Some woman named Janet. I didn’t know her.”
Then why in the world was he here? “So…do you come here often?” she asked, having taken a step in reverse without at first realizing that she’d done so.
“This is my first visit. What are you doing with that bag?”
She unconsciously slid the canvas straps up higher on her shoulder. She hoped he wouldn’t try to take it from her. “It’s got my equipment in it. I’m hunting for ghosts.”
“You mean you’re not…?” He shook his head in wonder. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Afraid not. I’ve got a thermal imaging camera, K2 meter, video cameras, voice recorders—you name it, I’ve probably got it. I’m hoping to find something spooky out here tonight.”
“Such as?”
Jessica couldn’t help but wonder if the man found her to be an annoyance. “You know, ghostly lights, shadows, apparitions, disembodied voices, that kind of thing.”
“You think those are spooky?” His eyes twinkled. “I can think of worse things.”
“Like what?”
The man smiled. “Oh, you could come across severed heads, bleeding limbs, human entrails spread across the ground for the scavengers to clean up…”
Jessica took another involuntary step back from him. “I hope to God I don’t find anything like that out here.”
“Don’t worry. Tonight you won’t.”
“Uh, that’s good, I guess.” Jessica gulped. Suddenly she felt much too cold inside her sweatshirt even though she was sweating.
“I couldn’t agree more.” His gaze lingered on her face. “What’s your name?”
Jessica briefly considered inventing an alias for the evening in case the guy was a weirdo, but she’d just forget what she told him in the next five minutes if she did. “I’m Jessica Roman-Dell,” she said. “And you are?”
“Jerry Madison.” He did not offer a handshake. “How are you going to know if you’ve found a ghost?”
“Easy. If I find a bunch of glowing orbs floating around in the air, I’ll know for sure it isn’t the birds and squirrels doing it.”
“An excellent deduction.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because a lot of people think ghost-hunting is bogus. Including most of the people I know.”
He nodded. “That’s understandable. I never used to believe in it, either. There’s heaven, there’s hell, and nothing in between but this lousy lump of rock we call home. That’s how I saw things, even though the church claimed different.” He gave a short laugh. “And earth might as well be a hell in itself.” He paused. “I don’t see why you bother looking for ghosts. God knows there’s nothing you can do for them. What did you say your
name was?”
Jessica hesitated. “I told you already.”
“I heard the Jessica part. What’s your last name?”
“It’s Roman-Dell. Don’t ask.”
“That’s not too common, is it?” he asked anyway.
“Not really. At least I don’t think so. The only Roman-Dells I know of are in my immediate family.”
“Interesting.” Jerry was silent for several moments. “Why do you look for ghosts?”
She shrugged. “It’s just one of my hobbies. I used to watch a bunch of TV shows about haunted houses and stuff. I think it’s neat that souls can linger behind on earth after death.”
A flash of hurt appeared in Jerry’s crystal-blue eyes. “You won’t think it’s neat anymore when it happens to you. You’ll pray for someone to come and shoot you to put you out of your misery. Only of course that won’t do anything since you won’t have a body to get shot.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not going to happen to me,” she said, somewhat spooked by his sudden change in demeanor. “When I die, I’m taking the first available flight to heaven. First-class, free drinks, and decent movies on those little overhead TV things.”
“You can’t be that naïve.”
Who did he think he was talking to, a kindergartener? “What am I being naïve about? I’m not a murderer or anything. My halo might be a little tarnished, but I’m a good person. Generally.”
“You’re an interesting person, that’s for sure.” Jerry crossed his arms. “Now go have fun and investigate. I’m not going to stop you.”
Well that was a relief. Quelling her nervousness when she turned her back to him, she retreated to another cement bench she spotted close to the back part of the cemetery, where gnarled pines grew just yards away from the last row of headstones.
She set her tote bag on the bench and unzipped it. She pulled her cell phone, pepper spray, and keys out of her concealed purse and stuffed them into the pocket of her sweatshirt in case she needed to make a hasty getaway. Jerry still hadn’t budged from his seat and looked as if he had no immediate plans to leave. What if he was a rapist? Other than the pepper spray (and maybe the car keys), she had no way to protect herself if he tried to make a move on her. She could kick and shout and maybe hold him off for a minute if he knocked the pepper spray out of her hand, but in the end no one would hear her screams.