by Ron Ripley
He shook his head at the bad start and stepped onto the porch. A board sagged beneath his feet, and he hurried across the floor to the front door. The door was unlocked, and he let himself in. Moonlight filled the room, and Shane looked around.
He waited for several minutes to see if the ghost would reach out to him. When nothing occurred, he said in a low voice, "Courtney."
Courtney appeared a moment later.
“She’s upstairs,” Courtney whispered, nodding to a narrow set of stairs. “The room on the right.”
"Thanks," Shane whispered, and he took small, light steps across the floor. He listened for the telltale sound that would threaten the collapse of the subfloor, but it never came. The stairs were solid beneath his feet, and he walked along the edge of them. He avoided the center, knowing that it was the loosest part of each tread. Shane wanted to make as little noise as possible.
Shane reached the second floor and found himself in a short hallway. There was a bathroom ahead of him, a room to the left, and a second to the right. He turned towards the second and stepped through a doorway.
Like the main floor, the room in front of him was well lit by the moon. There was no furniture and what glass had been in the windows had been broken and scattered onto the worn carpet. Cracks and holes broke up the uniformity of the walls, and long strips of paint hung from the ceiling.
A faint sound reached his ear, and Shane bent his head, listening.
Footsteps.
Not from outside or downstairs, but from within the room. Someone paced from the back to the front, front to the left side, left side to the right, right side to the back. And then to the front.
An endless loop.
If the ghost wasn’t mad, she was close to it.
“Hello,” Shane said in a soft voice.
The pace of the unseen woman quickened.
“Is there anyone here?” Shane asked, raising his voice slightly.
The footsteps became louder.
“My name is Shane,” he said. “I want to talk to you about why you’re still here.”
A force slammed into him and launched him backward. His back cracked against the wall and he fell to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.
The sound of footsteps was gone.
“Who are you?” a woman hissed in his ear. “What have you done with my mother?”
Shane pushed himself up and sat with his back against the wall. His blood pounded in his ears. A bitter cold pressed against the side of his head and sharp fear settled into his gut as he remembered the terrible sensation of frostbite.
When he answered the dead woman's questions, his voice was smooth and controlled.
“I haven’t done anything with your mother, and I told you my name is Shane,” he said. “I want to find her for you. I want to find everyone.”
There was silence for a moment before she said in an angry voice, “There are others?”
“Yes,” Shane said. “Many, from what I was told. I spoke with a woman who said her son was taken by the boy in the woods.”
A high-pitched shriek caused Shane to wince and slap his hands over his ears as he clenched his eyes shut. The noise went on for several minutes, and as he prepared to get up and escape the room, the woman stopped.
“I didn’t believe her,” the woman sobbed. “I thought she was seeing things. I didn’t believe her.”
The dead woman’s lamentations filled the room and all Shane could do was sit and listen.
Chapter 55: Seeking to Establish Contact
Clair was out of the SUV, pacing up and down along the side of the vehicle.
Midnight had arrived without any sign of Shane. Her teams were dangerously close to reaching the One, which meant Shane could be near it as well if he had continued to move forward. She didn’t know if there were other places where he could have hidden himself. Clair couldn’t risk bringing anyone from Amherst into the situation. There was already a tremendous potential for exposure as it stood.
Finally, with an angry snort, she picked up her phone and sent a two-word text.
Bring her.
A short while later a car appeared, the headlights bright as it parked behind the SUV. The lights cut out and a moment later, the doors opened. Linda was escorted forward by an older man named Gordon, and the two of them stopped in front of Clair.
Clair typed a message into her phone and held it up for Linda to read.
I need you to bring a camera and microphone to the One. I have to speak with him.
Linda’s eyes widened and she shook her head.
You don’t have a choice, Clair wrote.
“Gordon,” Clair said. “You’ll be escorting her to the One.”
The man looked at her in surprise as he stuttered, “What?”
Clair took out the small .22 caliber pistol she had used to kill Gabby. "It's not a request, Gordon. Not for either of you. In your case, the decision is simple. If you bring her, I don't shoot you. If you don't, I execute you right here, and you serve as an example of what I am willing to do. If she refuses, I shoot her in the shin. Painful, but it will leave her capable of fulfilling the task I need done. Am I understood?"
Gordon nodded.
Clair turned her attention to Linda and saw that the woman had understood the essence of what had been said. The deaf woman’s face was pale and drawn in the moonlight, but she nodded her assent.
"Excellent," Clair said, without putting away the pistol. "In the back, there's a small camera and an earpiece. You'll wear the earpiece, Gordon, to act as the middle-man. As for the camera, it will broadcast a live feed. Bring it with you and start down the main path. Turn them on when you’re about to approach the One. I don’t need twenty minutes of trail time. I'll have another team meet you shortly. They'll meet up with you on the trail and then escort you to the chestnut tree. After that, Linda can go about her business."
Clair took a half step back and gestured towards the SUV with the pistol. Linda remained where she was while Gordon did as he was told, the moon shining on the top of his bald head. Clair wondered if he would survive the One, and Gordon, it seemed, was curious as well.
The older man turned around, holding the earpiece and the camera. Both shook in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was weak and tremulous.
“What if he keeps me?” Gordon asked. “I’ve heard he does that. He keeps them at his house and feeds off them.”
Clair gave him a cold look and then lied. “He only feeds off the dead. So don’t die.”
Gordon opened his mouth to speak again, and Clair pointed the pistol at his head.
She cocked the hammer back and watched with satisfaction as both Gordon and Linda stumbled towards the main path.
Once they had slipped into the darkness of the woods, she shook her head. Even if the two made it back from the One, they might need to be put down.
It made Clair hate Shane all the more. She should never have to get her hands dirty.
Ever.
Easing the hammer back into place Clair returned to her seat in the SUV and waited for Linda and Gordon to make contact.
Chapter 56: In Engberg’s House
A terrible weight of sadness settled onto Shane’s shoulders as he stepped into the house that had belonged to Jonathan Engberg.
Like the other houses on the street, it was a small, New England-style cape. And, like the others, no one had lived in it since Jonathan had passed away. The temperature was colder than the others, and Shane's breath raced out of his mouth in great plumes of white.
He had visited six houses before Jonathan’s, and he had spoken with the dead who inhabited the homes. All except for Jonathan, the one man who had tried to warn each and every person. Some he visited when he was alive. Others, those who had taken up residence after his passing, when he was dead.
All of the dead on the street had two items in common. The first was that they had ignored Jonathan’s pre and post-death warnings. The second was that they had each lost at least on
e family member to Samson.
Unlike the other homes on the street, Jonathan’s front door hadn’t been locked or difficult to open. There had been no danger. No rotten boards or holes. Nothing to trip a visitor up, or knock them down.
Shane closed the door behind him and waited.
He knew Jonathan’s house would be different.
He could feel it.
Less than a minute had passed when a male voice asked, “Who are you?”
Shane introduced himself and explained why he had come.
A creak sounded from a corner of the room as if the house remembered the way it should react to a person sitting down.
“You know of him,” Jonathan said.
“Yes,” Shane answered.
“Why?” the dead man asked.
“I’ve dealt with others similar to him,” Shane replied.
“Not as strong,” Jonathan warned.
“I hope that’s not true,” Shane stated. “But I need to end him. And I need to end those that would help him.”
“What?” Jonathan’s question was sharp and hard.
Shane kept the explanation simple and told Jonathan all that he knew about the boy, the Watchers, and what they wanted.
After a moment of silence, Jonathan stated, "You cannot handle all of them alone."
"I'm not completely alone," Shane said. "But I would like help if I could get it."
"What are you thinking of?" Jonathan asked a note of eagerness in his voice.
“Well,” Shane answered, “let me tell you.”
And he did.
Chapter 57: Finally Afraid
Up until she and Gordon had spoken with Clair, Linda hadn't been afraid. Her faith in the Watchers hadn't been shaken or even tested. Not even when she had put Shirley Coleman out of her misery.
What Clair wanted Linda to do, and the violence she had promised, had shocked Linda. To go into the presence of the One, without any reason or justification given, was too much.
But Linda knew there was nothing she could do.
She was trapped as Shirley had been trapped, and all of those who had been ensnared by the One. And it seemed as though she would soon count herself amongst them.
Gordon, who she had worked with several years earlier prior to him being relocated to a small home on a ley line in Connecticut, staggered beside her. His fear was palpable. He stank of it, and Linda wondered if he could smell hers as well.
She felt certain he could.
After crossing through the tree line, Linda began the process of counting her steps. She had reached three hundred and nineteen when Gordon tripped and fell. His fingers had been intertwined with hers, and he dragged her down.
It took them a few moments to untangle themselves and after they remained seated on the path. Gordon took his phone out, hit the flashlight app and placed it on the path. He looked at her and mouthed the question, “Are you okay?”
She gave him a thumbs up.
He graced her with a weak smile and glanced up and down the path. She could see him working the problem out, trying to find a way they could get out of going to see the One. In a moment his shoulders slumped, and she knew he had come to the same conclusion she had earlier.
There was no way out.
Not at midnight in the woods.
She and Gordon had passed through a police cordon, and he had explained to her that all of the active members of the organization were in Amherst. They were hunting for the man known as Shane, attempting to keep him from the One and the rest of the world.
Clair had told her about Shane. How he had brought down Borgin’s Keep. The loss of the Mill and smaller homes. Rumor had it that Shane had wiped out several teams single-handedly and that he was unstoppable.
Linda hadn’t believed the stories Clair had told. They had seemed to be too much for any one person to be capable of. It was physically and mentally painful to understand that there was more than a little truth to what Clair had told her.
If anything, Linda knew, the stories hadn’t done the man justice.
He was destroying an organization, and all of its work, which had lasted for over one hundred and fifty years.
Linda shivered at the thought.
Gordon reached out, touched her hand and mouthed the question, “Ready?”
She nodded.
Before he could pick up his phone, the light flickered and died, plunging them into darkness.
Cold air raced around her and Linda stiffened with fear.
Something dead was coming.
Chapter 58: In the Darkness of the Woods
Keith and Moe were a two-man team, called back by Clair to pick up the deaf girl and an old guy and escort them to see the One. Or as close to the One as they dared. Keith, like Moe, was a shooter. It was what he specialized in.
Got a nosy neighbor? Keith thought, I’ll make him disappear.
Got a mom looking into her runaway? he snickered. Oops, mom vanishes too.
But the snicker faded. Keith did his work in the cities and towns. The woods freaked him out.
"Weren't we supposed to meet up with them by now?" Moe asked. He was younger than Keith, and he talked in that pinched, nasally Boston way that drove Keith crazy.
“Sure,” Keith responded. “Who knows, maybe she’s slow as well as deaf?”
“Dummy, that ain’t got nothing to do with it,” Moe snorted.
Keith stopped himself before he punched Moe in the back of the head. If the whole situation went south on them, then he was going to shoot Moe. Just on principle if nothing more. Keith could always go out west and find a job with some gang. There was always someone who needed to be killed.
“What the hell was that?” Moe asked, coming to a short stop.
Keith bumped into him and cursed. “What the hell was what?”
“I saw something on the trail,” Moe said.
“Probably them, stupid,” Keith spat. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He pushed past Moe and went up the path. There was a pair of dark shapes sitting upright against a pair of trees.
“Hey,” Keith called out, drawing his pistol. “Hey!”
When neither shape answered, he approached to within a few steps.
In the faint amount of moonlight that filtered down through the leaf canopy overhead, Keith saw them. An older man and the deaf girl.
They were both dead.
Their eyes were too large as if pressure in their skulls had popped them part way out of their sockets. Each one's tongue protruded from between their lips. Neither had a weapon, but there was a phone on the path between them.
“What the hell?” Moe asked.
“Don’t know,” Keith said, not lowering his weapon. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he looked at the bodies.
The One hadn’t killed the two people in front of him. They would have been still alive and listless, slowly drained of their life. Keith had seen the footage and knew what to expect. Throughout his time with the Watchers, he had also seen the bodies of people murdered by ghosts, and more than a few had looked like the older man and the deaf woman.
Without much hope Keith said, “Check the phone.”
Moe, with his own pistol at the ready, eased past Keith and dropped down into a crouch to retrieve the phone.
“Dead,” Moe said after a moment. “Like the two of them.”
“Definitely not good,” Keith said. “Got your iron?”
“'Course I do,” Moe snapped.
Keith stuffed his free hand into his pants pocket, withdrew his iron ring and slipped it over a finger. The metal was warm and reassuring. He reached up and touched the earpiece and spoke into the microphone that hung by his larynx.
“Keith to base.”
“Go,” Clair said on the other end.
“We’ve got a problem,” Keith stated, and he summed up the scene on the trail.
Her silence was worse than any curses she could have spoken.
“What do you want me
to do?” Keith asked.
“Take the camera,” she ordered.
Keith shined his light on the bodies.
“There is no camera,” he replied.
She did curse then, and Keith realized he was wrong. Her silence hadn’t been worse.
"Backtrack towards me," Clair said when she had finished. "See if it was dropped before they were killed."
“Copy that,” Keith said, and he dropped his hand from the radio. “Did you hear her?”
Moe nodded. He looked up the trail and said, “This is bad.”
“Of course it is,” Keith snapped. “If it wasn’t, hell, we wouldn’t be here.”
Moe shrugged in agreement.
Keith took his flashlight out, flicked it on, and aimed it at the path ahead. He had no idea what the camera might look like, and he had no desire to waste time in an effort to find it.
When Moe turned to follow the trail back to Clair, the flashlight went out.
Neither of the men said anything.
Keith dropped the flashlight, holstered his weapon, and tried to anticipate the attack.
Whoever it was, came up through the trail and ended his anticipation.
Chapter 59: Traveling in Darkness
Shane moved along a trail through the darkness with only Courtney beside him.
The other ghosts had fanned out from their street, searching for the Watchers and anyone foolish enough to enter the woods.
Shane held his .45 and listened as he traveled.
The forest was silent.
Neither bird nor beast, as the saying went, could be heard.
And he knew why.
The animals had abandoned the forest, given it over to the dead. If Shane had his way, he would have done the same.
But there was a relative to speak to, and family relationships could be difficult affairs to handle.
He doubted there would be anything easy about Samson.
Courtney moved ahead of him on the slim game trail. She returned several minutes later, whispering, “Two women up ahead. Watchers.”