by J. S. Bailey
“I said they were totally blank. Did you back them up on anything?”
“Yeah, I saved them all on my computer. Except the ones from last night, of course.”
“Well, have fun figuring out where all of your files went. I’m heading out.” She stuffed the last bit of toast into her mouth, shouldered her purse, and left without another word.
Jessica stared at the toaster. Her slices of bread had popped up a minute or so before. She put them on a plate and slathered them with margarine from the fridge. She’d have to stop at Eleanor Market later on and pick up some waffles or something. Some burritos, too. She had enough money left for a couple packages of those.
She swept the breadcrumbs off the table into her hand and brushed them into the wastebasket when she finished eating.
Now to focus on the mystery surrounding her equipment. Had Sidney really looked at all of them? Yeah, maybe the camcorder malfunctioned and wiped itself clean, but there was no reason for all of her devices to have done the same thing.
Jessica picked up the teal digital camera. She had taken so many pictures with it the night before that she’d lost count of them. They couldn’t all be gone.
She turned the camera on, and the lens zoomed out. She hit the review button.
“Oh, crap.”
The memory card was empty. The dozens of photographs she’d taken at the church were forever lost in digital oblivion.
“I told you that your gadgets disgust me.”
Jessica let out a noise that might have been “Eeep!” and dropped the camera. It hit the linoleum and made a tinkling sound like shattering glass.
Jerry Madison was standing beside the table with his arms folded over his chest. He didn’t smile. “Good morning.” He looked solid, just like he had last night.
Without thinking, Jessica backed away toward the front door. No way could this be happening. She must have left her mind somewhere between that graveyard and Eleanor, or maybe she was still asleep in bed, though she doubted it.
“I can’t look that bad,” he said. There was a hint of amusement in his eyes.
Jessica’s tongue felt like it had been tied into knots. Jerry had to have been in the car with her on the drive home. “You followed me.”
“I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“That’s an odd thing for a ghost hunter to say.”
“Is not. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” She felt behind her for the doorknob but couldn’t find it.
This time he did smile. “Running away again? Where do you plan on going?”
“Insane?” She gave up on finding the knob without turning around and clasped her hands together in front of her so they wouldn’t start shaking again.
He laughed. “You’re not insane. I’m here. For real.” He glanced around the kitchen and gave it a nod of approval. “Nice place you’ve got.”
“It’s not mine. It’s Wayne’s. I only just moved in yesterday.”
“He’s the one with the bad legs?”
So Jerry had been spying on them all morning. “Yeah. Besides, he’s the only ‘he’ who lives here.”
“What happened to him?”
It was ridiculous standing here talking to someone who might not really exist, but she couldn’t help but go on. “He’s got cerebral palsy. It’s actually a brain damage thing.”
“I know what cerebral palsy is,” he said. “I’m not from the Stone Age.”
An awkward silence arose between them.
Jessica shuffled her feet. There were things she needed to get done today, and they wouldn’t get done if Jerry planned on staying here watching her. “Are you just going to stand there all day?” she said.
“I can sit, if you’d like.”
What a comedian. “How is it that I can see you?” she asked.
“Because I want you to.”
“You didn’t even know I was there when I first saw you last night. You were facing the other way.”
“Do you want an honest answer?”
“Truth’s always better than a lie.”
He smirked. “If you insist. I don’t know why you saw me then. There are a few people who have been able to see me—very few, mind you—but I’d always assumed they had some kind of gift. Are you gifted?”
“You mean with a sixth sense?”
“Whatever you want to call it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t even believe in that kind of thing.”
“You must not believe in much.”
“I believe in lots of things,” she said, making a mental tally. “God, myself, the healing powers of Mexican food…”
“You’re forgetting something,” Jerry said.
“I don’t like stating the obvious.” She felt her cheeks flush.
God, please make him get out of here and leave me alone. Nothing good can come of him being in our house.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t want to be mean, but there’s nothing for you here.”
His face fell. “I told you, I’m lonely. Go ahead, say it. I’m a grown man and should stop sounding like a teenager who’s been dumped by his prom date. But you spend a couple of decades by yourself and tell me how you feel.”
He couldn’t really be that dense. “I don’t mean here, as in this house. I mean here, as on this planet. You’re not supposed to be here anymore. Look for the tunnel of light, or whatever you’re supposed to see when you die.”
“Some people don’t go to heaven.”
“You’re certainly not in hell, trust me. That’s at my parents’ house.”
“Then when the judgment comes, I’ll be spending eternity there with them.”
She couldn’t help but smile. Maybe his being here wouldn’t be so awful after all. “So, what did you do that was so bad? Steal a candy bar?”
He narrowed his eyes. “We don’t need to get into that.”
“It can’t be that terrible, or you’d be in hell already. Are you at least sorry for whatever it was?”
At first, he didn’t answer. His face contorted as if he were straining to think. Then his eyes took on a manic glint. “What if I’m not? What if I enjoyed doing it?”
Goosebumps stood up on her arms. “Did you?”
His expression softened. “It doesn’t matter. The deed is done, and here I am.”
“Right.” She stooped to pick her broken camera off the floor. A bunch of tiny somethings rattled around inside. She hoped that the memory card would be salvageable for future use. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of you.”
He laughed softly. “It’s entirely up to you how to feel. Yes, I could probably hurt you if I tried hard enough, but I’m not going to. I’m just a bundle of thoughts and memories without much substance, as you can tell.”
She set the camera on the counter next to the tote bag. “You managed to pack up my stuff just fine last night.”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“Why did you even bother? I thought that you didn’t like my gadgets, and since you’re the one who moved them, I’m going to assume you’re the reason they’re all blank now.”
He shrugged and glanced toward the window over the kitchen sink, where a bird had perched on the outside windowsill. “How did you sleep last night?”
“Lousy,” she said. “Now about you wiping my equipment like you own it—”
“Lousy?”
Her irritation began to grow. “Yeah. I had a hard time falling asleep, and when I did, I had weird, depressing dreams that woke me back up anyway. Why does it matter?”
He abruptly changed the subject. “Do you want to go for a walk? If you’re not too tired, that is.”
“Seriously?”
“I can tell you’re bored standing here, and it’s a nice day.”
Boredom wasn’t quite what she’d been feeling, but she didn’t correct him. “Look.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve got stuff to do. I need to go to the grocery so I don’t end
up starving to death, I should pick up more job applications since it looks like nobody is planning on hiring me in the foreseeable future, and…well, I’m sure there’s something I’m forgetting.”
“It’s still early. We could go for a walk first.”
She sighed. He wasn’t going to give up, and she couldn’t blame him. How many times had she pestered Sidney about going ghost hunting? Probably a million, and she’d still felt depressed every time Sidney declined her offers. “Would other people be able to see you?”
“Probably not. I don’t think so.”
“Then they’d think I was talking to myself.”
“We could go for a drive instead.”
With the amount of gas left in her tank after last night’s excursion, they wouldn’t be going very far at all, but he didn’t need to know that. A short drive might make him happy enough that he would decide to leave her alone once and for all. “Let me get dressed,” she said.
IN HER room, Jessica wadded up her pajamas and set them on the floor at the foot of the bed. Her jeans from last night were too filthy to wear again today. While she was out, she could buy one of those extra-concentrated jugs of laundry detergent in addition to the waffles and burritos. It could be her rent for the month. Wayne would like that.
She threw on a pair of holey blue jeans and a white t-shirt and crept back down the stairs, hoping that Jerry hadn’t secretly been watching her while she got dressed. He didn’t appear to be in the kitchen anymore. Not good. Maybe he just needed to power down for a while like a computer going into sleep mode. It had to have been a strain maintaining an apparition of himself.
She rounded the corner into the bathroom and latched the door behind her. No Jerry in here either, thank goodness.
She stared at her face in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, her dark circles as pronounced as ever. At least she didn’t need to impress anybody today. It would be better to save the makeup she had left for whenever she got a new job.
The kitchen was still vacant when she left the bathroom minutes later. “Hey,” she said. “Are you still here?”
If Jerry had replied, she could not hear it. It was unlikely that he had left.
She poked her head out into the living room. “All right, I’m heading out. Just don’t scare me when I’m driving, because I don’t want to be in an accident.” Or have one, she thought. She plucked her sweatshirt off the back of one of the kitchen chairs and slipped it on. “Last one to the car’s a rotten egg.”
Wind buffeted her as she made her way toward her Taurus.
The sun was out, and billowy clouds scudded across the sky as though they were fleeing unpleasant weather that pursued them from afar.
The fuel light came on when she started the engine. It was no wonder; the needle on the fuel gauge was grazing the top of the E. Looked like she’d have to pay Sidney a visit at work before going anywhere else.
She pulled up to her favorite island of pumps a few minutes shy of ten o’clock. Intuition told her to check her wallet before filling up. A good thing, too. All she had left was a twenty, a ten, and a handful of change. She dumped her purse out on the passenger seat. Two pennies and a nickel fell out. She checked the coin slot beneath the radio and found three more pennies and one of those gold Sacagawea dollars that nobody ever liked to use. Better than nothing.
Today gas was $2.85 a gallon. If she were going to stop at the grocery store, she couldn’t afford to fill the entire tank.
Ask your parents for money, said a little voice in her head. It won’t kill you.
She didn’t want to take her chances with that. She pumped ten bucks of gas and went inside.
“Did you miss me that badly?” Sidney asked. She already wore the glassy-eyed look of boredom.
Jessica handed over her ten-dollar bill. “I was bereft.”
“That bad, huh?”
“That, and worse.” She glanced out at the empty Taurus. “Do you see anybody in my car?”
Sidney followed her gaze. Her eyebrows knit together.
“Do you?”
“Nope.”
“Then what was the point of asking?”
“I just wanted to make sure we were both seeing the same thing.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
She shrugged. “I ache everywhere. I might go down to the park and walk for a while to stretch things out.” It wasn’t technically a lie. “And I was thinking of stopping at the store to restock my burrito supply. You need anything while I’m out?”
“That would be a negative. You’re going for a walk by yourself?”
“It can’t be any worse than doing investigations by myself.”
“Watch out for leaping dead guys.”
“Ha ha.” She moved toward the door. “I guess I’d best be on my way.”
“Have fun.”
“Yeah,” she said, thinking about how awkward it was going to be walking around with a person whom only she could see. “I’ll do that.”
Smithfield Park sat at the base of Lookout Hill on the eastern end of town, boasting about two miles of wooded trails, a fishing pond that had briefly become a part of the Ohio River during the infamous Flood of 1997, volleyball and tennis courts, a picnic pavilion, and a playground and swings for the kids. Grandma Reyes had taken Jessica and her sister there to play a few times before she died. Jessica’s memories of those days had dimmed over the years, though she did remember having fun. Perhaps Jerry would have fun, too.
Only one other vehicle occupied the lot when Jessica arrived. A man stood at the edge of the pond holding a fishing pole with its line cast far out in the water. A tackle box rested on the picnic table beside him.
“I thought we were going for a drive.” Jerry was suddenly sitting beside her, looking as glum as a kid whose birthday had just been canceled.
She pointed at the fuel gauge as she tried to still her startled pulse. “See this? I’m running on a quarter tank now, and that’s as full as it’s going to get until I can find another job. Comprende?”
“Sí. Comprendo.”
“So you speak Spanglish, too, huh?”
“I studied Spanish for three years in high school. Ancient history.”
“That’s three more years than I did. I just have the benefit of being a part-Mexican mutt.” She undid her seatbelt. “We’re in luck. The only person here looks like he’s too busy fishing to notice me talking to myself.”
She was halfway out the door when Jerry said, “Wait.”
She halted. “What?”
He gazed through the windshield at the play area, where the empty swings swayed from side to side in the wind and dead leaves accumulated at the base of a miniature rock-climbing wall. “This was a bad idea,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” She hoped her voice didn’t betray her irritation. After all, the idea had been his, and she wasn’t about to waste the trip—not with the price of gas what it was. “You told me you wanted to go for a walk. They have a nice trail here. I think you’ll like it.”
He gave her a doleful look. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“All I see is…” He shook his head.
Nothing about the scene before them struck her as deserving this response. It was a park, for crying out loud! “What?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, all I see here is a crappy playground. They’ve had this same set here since I was a kid.” She slammed the door and set off toward the trailhead on the far side of the pond. If he was going to pout, he could just stay in the car. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about being seen talking to herself if anyone else showed up.
But Jerry fell in step beside her despite his obvious reluctance. When they passed the playground, he made a point of looking the other way at the picnic pavilion, where some trash had blown out of a can and scattered across the cement slab where all the picnic tables sat. So he had a problem with playgrounds? People probably got worked up
over even stranger things. Maybe he’d gotten hurt on a playground when he was a kid and developed an aversion to them as a result of the ordeal.
“Feeling better yet?” she asked when they were out of earshot of the man with the fishing pole, not knowing what else to say. What were you supposed to talk about with someone like him, anyway? Politics? Depending on when he’d died, he might not even know who the current president was.
“No.”
“Have you even tried feeling better?”
He glared at her. “I hope you never decide to become a psychologist.”
“Sorry.”
They entered the woods. Signs describing different plants and animals living in the area had been posted along the edge of the trail every so many yards, but Jerry showed no interest in reading them.
“One of my brothers was a psychologist,” he said, gazing up at the bit of blue sky visible through the treetops. “But even he wasn’t able to do anything for me. That was after I tried to kill myself. Tried to put a bullet through my skull, but someone must have been looking out for me that day, because the gun malfunctioned, and I didn’t die after all.”
Jessica halted without thinking and stared at him. “Wait a minute. I dreamed about something like that last night. When the gun didn’t go off, I shot a hole in the floor.”
“Did you?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You had something to do with it. You were fiddling around in my head!” The very thought appalled her.
“Why would I do that?”
“Heck if I know!” She realized she was shouting, so she lowered her voice so the fisherman wouldn’t hear and come running to her aid. “That other thing must have been you, too. The jerks in the bar, I mean.” Many of the details of the dream had already grown fainter since she’d risen, but the sense of disgust that the dream had instilled in her remained. “What were you trying to prove to me?”