by J. S. Bailey
Jessica didn’t know what to think. She had no memory of this, and Rachel had never mentioned it before. “You’re kidding me.” “I’m dead serious. You scared me so badly I almost told Dad.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Rachel snorted. “There isn’t anything he could have done about it.”
“I was probably just dreaming about something I learned in Sunday school.”
“That’s the thing. Grandma Reyes had started taking me to church around that time, so I had a fairly basic understanding of Jesus and God and all that, but she thought you were too little and didn’t start taking you until you turned four. You couldn’t have heard of Jesus before that point.”
“You never talked about church stuff with me?”
“I was five years old, for crying out loud! I talked about cartoons and Barbies, not theology. What made you want to become a ghost hunter in the first place?”
“You know why. I saw some shows about it on television, and I thought it was so cool that I decided to give it a try on my own. That’s all there is to it.”
“That may be,” Rachel said, “but if you ask me, I’d say that the seed of that idea was planted years before on that night I just told you about.”
“I wouldn’t have known it was a ghost.”
“Well, maybe deep down you did.”
“I wish I could remember.”
“Me too. Then you could tell me who you were talking to.”
Jessica frowned. Not once during the years she lived with her parents had she seen or heard anything that could have been categorized as paranormal. She had even done a few practice investigations there when she bought her first voice recorder. Nothing odd ever turned up, which led her to believe that the house was about as haunted as she was dead.
Then again, Wayne’s house hadn’t been haunted either until Jerry decided to show up.
“I guess it could have been some lonely spirit passing through on the way to wherever,” she said.
“Now that’s creepy.” Rachel dabbed at her lip with a napkin.
“Though I guess that’s not as creepy as seeing a full-body apparition, right?”
“If only you knew,” Jessica said.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been inside here,” Rachel said when she and Eric joined Jessica on the porch at Wayne’s house. “Looks cute.”
“Don’t tell that to Wayne. He’d probably sucker-punch you.” Jessica pushed the door open. “Hey, Sidney, guess who’s here!”
There was no reply.
“Sidney?”
Jessica glanced out at the driveway to see if she had overlooked a missing vehicle, but Sidney’s Camry was still in its usual spot, and since her friend wasn’t the type to take solitary walks around the neighborhood, that meant she had to be somewhere in the house.
“Go ahead and sit down,” she said. “I’ll figure out where she is.”
Rachel shrugged and sank into one of the kitchen chairs. Eric clasped his hands behind his back and remained standing. “I’ve been sitting too much already today,” he explained.
Jessica went into the living room. “Where are you hiding?” A Swiffer mop lay on the carpet between the couch and coffee table.
What her friend had been using it for, she had no idea.
She went upstairs. “Sidney?”
She halted in the entrance to the bedroom and brought her hand to her mouth. Sidney lay spread-eagled on the floor. Motionless. Her glasses had been knocked askew, and a tiny bead of blood glistened on her lip.
She knelt down beside her and put two fingers on Sidney’s neck. A faint pulse throbbed in her veins, and now that her own heart had slowed to a more reasonable pace, Jessica could see that Sidney’s chest lifted and fell with nearly imperceptible breaths.
“Guys, can you come up here for a minute?” she called. Her voice cracked. “Sidney’s hurt.”
Two sets of footsteps pounded up the carpeted stairs. “What’s the—” Rachel gasped as she came through the doorway.
“What happened?” Eric bent over Sidney’s still form with concern in his eyes.
“I don’t know. It looks like she knocked herself out.”
“Well, she’s breathing. That’s always a good sign.” Eric shoved his hand behind Sidney’s head and lifted it. “Help me sit her up,” he said.
Jessica slid her hand under Sidney’s right shoulder blade, and together she and Eric got her into a sitting position.
Sidney groaned. “What’s your name?” she mumbled. “If you’re here, give me some sign…” She opened her eyes and blinked a few times. “Jessica?”
Jessica let out a pent-up sigh of relief. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. What in the world did you do to yourself?”
Sidney’s entire body began to tremble. “Oh, geez, I must have… I mean, it was standing right there.” She lifted a finger and pointed at Rachel, who frowned and stepped aside as if to make room for whatever Sidney had seen.
“What was it?” Jessica asked, fearing she knew the answer.
Her heart resumed its frantic pace.
Her friend’s eyes welled up with tears. “It was horrible! I—I turned around to walk out of here, and it was blocking the way, and—and…” She began to hyperventilate. “Geez, I feel so dizzy…”
“Talk to me, Sid. What did you see?”
“It was bleeding everywhere!” She clamped her eyes shut. “I could see stuff coming out of its stomach! I thought it was going to spill out all over the floor. And its face…there were dark splotches everywhere. Like broken blood vessels. All over its neck, too. It was wearing smiley face boxers. Nothing else.” She let out a nervous giggle; then her mood abruptly changed, and her face contorted with anger. “What kind of monster did you let in here?” she demanded.
“I didn’t—”
Sidney wasn’t finished. “Did you tell them about what you did?” She jerked her head toward Eric and Rachel. “About how you had to nose around out in that graveyard and invite that thing home with you?”
How remarkable that Sidney’s opinion of ghosts had done a complete reversal in the span of an hour. “I didn’t invite him! He came along on his own.”
Rachel and Eric stared at Jessica, uncomprehending. “Is there something we missed?” Rachel asked in a small voice.
Jessica wet her lips with her tongue. “I guess I kind of left out the bit about the full-body apparition following me back here.”
Rachel’s face turned white. “You saw something that looked like that?”
“He didn’t look that way to me,” Jessica said. “He was just an ordinary guy who wasn’t wearing smiley face boxers.”
“You mean he was naked?” A muscle twitched at the corner of her sister’s mouth.
“No! He was wearing a button-up shirt and slacks. And he wasn’t bleeding.”
“Too bad you didn’t get any pictures,” Eric said.
Sidney stood up and rubbed her lip, smearing the droplet of blood on her fingers. “Great. Now I’m bleeding. Excuse me while I wash.” She strode past them and went downstairs.
“Jessica, is this all true?” Rachel asked.
“I’d swear it on all the Bibles in the world.”
“But this is insane! Why would something like that follow you home?”
“He told me he was lonely. His name is Jerry Madison.”
“Oh, boy.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Are you sure he’s a ghost?”
Jessica scowled at her. “As opposed to a figment of my imagination?”
“No, not that. What I mean is, what if it’s a demon pretending to be a ghost? I’ve read about cases like that before. They trick you into thinking they’re harmless, but then they possess your mind when you least expect it, and the next thing you know, you’re killing people in the name of Satan.”
There wasn’t a hint of humor in Rachel’s eyes.
“I think you read too much,” Jessica said.
“I’m serious.”
&
nbsp; “It sounds like a History Channel special.”
“It’s not.”
“There aren’t any demons in this house.”
“That’s what they’d want you to think!”
Jerry suddenly appeared two feet to the left of Eric. The spirit appeared troubled. “Jessica, I—” he started to say, but silenced himself, frowning.
Rachel must have sensed a subtle shift in the atmosphere from Jerry’s arrival. “I’m going back downstairs,” she said, and left the room.
Jessica followed her and Eric back to the kitchen. Jerry was already standing by the sink, still wearing a perplexed frown. His brown hair looked messier than usual. Nobody else seemed to notice him.
“But seriously,” Rachel continued, “you really do need to start being more careful. Doesn’t it say something in the Bible about how we’re not supposed to communicate with spirits or something?”
Jessica shrugged. She had never read the entire Bible to know one way or the other. “God’s a spirit,” she said. “Right?”
“You know that’s not the kind I’m talking about.”
“What’s the big deal, anyway? You’ve never had a problem with me going on investigations before.”
“You’ve obviously never had this kind of trouble before, either.”
Sidney came out of the bathroom, sparing Jessica from having to come up with a fitting retort. “I must have bit my lip when I passed out,” she said then froze mid-step. “Uh, Jessica? Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
“Sure.”
Rachel and Eric looked at each other and shrugged. Jerry remained silent and eyed the pair with curiosity.
They went to the living room. “Is that him?” Sidney whispered. Her eyes were open so wide they practically bulged from their sockets.
“So he’s letting you see him now, too?” Maybe he felt bad for indirectly causing their argument and sought to amend things by appearing to her.
“He did while you were stuffing your face down at Tim’s Taco Barn. Remember?”
Oh. Right. “What does he look like to you now?”
Sidney glanced into the kitchen again. “The way you described. Black clothes. No gore. He just waved at me. Doesn’t look very happy, though.”
At least they were both seeing the same thing. “Now that you know I haven’t gone loca on you, can we stop arguing about ghosts?”
Sidney’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Sure, but that doesn’t mean I want him here. Make him leave.”
“I think you’ll have to take that up with him.”
“Guys?” Rachel called. “You all right?”
“We’re fine!” Jessica said. Then to Sidney she said, “Pretend he isn’t there. I don’t want to freak them out.”
Sidney gave a silent nod.
“Sorry about all of this,” she said to Rachel and Eric when they returned to the kitchen. “Things aren’t generally quite this hectic around here.”
“Hey, no problem,” Eric said. “You had a scare and passed out. I’d have done the same thing.”
Nobody said anything for several moments. Jerry leaned his nonexistent weight into the counter, studying them.
“Well,” Rachel said, reaching for her purse, “it’s been great seeing you again, Sidney, even if the circumstances have been a little…odd.”
“Same here. How long are you going to be in town?”
“Just for the weekend,” Eric said, “but if we’re able to find jobs and a house around here, you’ll be seeing us a lot more often.”
“That’s great.” Sidney forced a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Good luck.”
“Thanks. We’ll need it.” Rachel gave Jessica and Sidney each a hug. “See you Saturday, sis. And…” She closed her mouth and shook her head. “Just be careful. Okay?”
“I’ll be as careful as I always am.”
Rachel gave a short laugh. “Why don’t I find that reassuring?”
“Beats me.”
Jessica and Sidney showed them to the door. Though it would have been nice for them to hang around for a few more hours, part of her was relieved to see them go. Rachel didn’t need to start stressing out worrying about Jerry and demons and crap. Wasn’t stress supposed to be bad for pregnant women? It might hurt the baby.
They both turned to Jerry when Rachel and Eric’s rental car backed out onto the street. “Now what in the world do you think you’re—” Jessica swore. Jerry was gone as well.
WAYNE SPENT the entire morning struggling to keep his thoughts on the tasks at hand. Cindy, the firm’s secretary, asked him if he was feeling okay at least three times, and he only heard half of what was said during the staff meeting at nine thirty.
Charlie Korman rapped his fist on the doorframe of Wayne’s corner office at eleven. “Care if I come in?”
Wayne jumped and swiveled his chair around to face his boss. Today Charlie wore a black tie with a pumpkin pattern printed on it. Wayne straightened. “No, not at all. What is it?”
The older man took a few steps into the room and sat in a spare seat Wayne had pushed up against the wall. “I should be the one asking you that. What’s going on?”
Wayne tried to prevent his expression from betraying him.
“Nothing. Why?”
Charlie gave him a pitying stare. “Nothing, my foot. Something’s eating at you.”
“And if it is?”
“Then I’d like to know if there’s anything we can do to help. You’ve been sitting around in a daze all day.”
“Sorry.” Wayne smiled, hoping the look appeared authentic. “It’s just one of those days. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Are you sure that’s it?”
“I’m positive. I was there.”
They stared at each other for a few long moments. Wayne began to sweat beneath his work shirt. Finally Charlie rose. “Well, I guess I’d best get back to work. But really, Wayne. If something’s wrong, don’t hesitate to tell me about it.”
Wayne gave a solemn nod but said nothing else. Charlie disappeared through the door.
Good riddance. Charlie meant well, but Wayne was not about to go to the man with stories of restless spirits playing havoc with him in his own home.
The office emptied out around lunchtime. Instead of joining the majority of his coworkers at the café across the street, he ordered a chicken wrap to go and took it back to the office with him, claiming he needed to go over a client’s financial statements one final time.
He sank into his swivel chair with the chicken wrap in hand and gazed at the icons on the computer screen, thinking.
Fact: Jerry had attacked him, sent his emotions reeling, and stolen his ankle-foot orthotics for no apparent reason.
Conclusion: Jerry wasn’t a very nice guy.
Jessica said that the spirit was lonely. Yeah, Wayne could understand that. But why had he taken such a liking to her? The cemetery at that church had to receive lots of visitors, and Jerry had obviously not chosen to follow any of them home.
A pang of jealousy flared briefly inside of him. Don’t be stupid, he told himself. It was unlikely that Jerry would be seeking a romantic relationship with a living person since finding love would have to be the least of his worries. Then why was Jerry there? What was his motive for leaving his haunting grounds? The loneliness theory just didn’t hold up.
Taking a bite of the chicken wrap, he opened up the Internet and typed “Jerry Madison” into the search bar on Google’s home page. The search returned numerous links to social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, neither of which was likely to help him determine the identity of his house’s newest resident if he had passed away before the dawn of the twenty-first century.
He checked the profiles anyway. Most of the ones on Facebook were private, so all he could see were their default photographs, which didn’t help him much, because he didn’t know what Jerry was supposed to look like.
He redid the search, adding the word “obituary” to the en
d of the keywords. More results came up, but none of the deceased Mr. Madisons were from Kentucky or anywhere else in the tri-state.
Jessica had to have known more about the man—the spirit— than she was admitting. But if he asked her anything unflattering about him in his presence, would he be subject to another attack? That was something he preferred not to risk.
Several minutes ticked by as he finished the wrap and washed it down with a bottle of Dasani. Maybe he could talk to Father George the next time he was at the church office and ask for his opinion on the matter. He could imagine the priest’s voice: You mean you don’t know what to do? Pray for the man, Wayne! Pray for the repose of his soul!
He returned his attention to the screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. There were billions of Web pages floating around in cyberspace. At least one of them had to mention Jerry in some way or another.
A search for “Gerald Madison obituary” revealed nothing standing out in importance. He deleted “Gerald” and typed “Jeremiah” and then “Gerard.” Still nothing. He banged his hand on the desk in frustration. When had Jerry died? If he could find that out, his search would have been a hundred times easier.
He did another search for plain old “Jerry Madison.” He probably just hadn’t looked through enough pages to find the information he was looking for.
The clock read twelve fifty. Lunch hour ended at one. He would have to look quickly if he were to find anything useful before then.
Wayne clicked through page after page of results, none of which looked promising. Then at precisely twelve fifty-eight, the title of one link caught his eye. “Campbell County Missing Persons 1980-1989,” it read.
Hmm.
He clicked on it and was taken to a page listing unsolved missing persons cases from the county across the river. One caught his interest right away.