The Forgotten

by Tamara Thorne

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but there is no sign that children broke in.”

  She closed her eyes. “I heard them. They were in the yard, and then they were in here. Ask my housekeeper.”

  Jamie, the plump little housekeeper, nodded. “I heard them too, Officer.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s no one he—”

  Distant laughter echoed down a hall upstairs.

  “I told you,” intoned Hartz.

  “Stay here.”

  Eric raced up the stairs, hearing the laughter twice more, louder. He stopped at the top of the stairs. “This is the police. No one will hurt you. Come out now so that I can see you. You’re trespassing and need to leave this house.”

  Whoooosh. He felt something pass through him, something that giggled in several voices and left a slight smell of dirt and shampoo in its wake. He thought of the movie Poltergeist, where the mother feels and smells her missing daughter pass through her. It was like that, only not so nice.

  Eric, with Abby Abernathy’s ghost still fresh in his head, took no chances on the phantom children returning. He took the stairs down two at a time, slowing only when he knew he’d encounter Mia Hartz. He caught his breath.

  “Well?” demanded Mia Hunt Hartz, all imperious and foul, her voice as thin as her equine face. “Well, I told you, didn’t I?”

  “I saw nothing, Ms. Hartz,” Eric said. He didn’t know what he would have said had he liked the woman, but he couldn’t stand her, and he wasn’t lying: He saw nothing.

  “You heard something. I know you did.”

  “Something far away. There’s nothing here. I think you ought to talk to your therapist about this, Ma’am. Now, have a good day.”

  Nurse Boobies always had Saturdays off, so Kevin had gone in with Gabe, who was working a half day. Ordinarily, Gabe would have had to con him into it with sex, food, or presents, but not this time, and they both knew it.

  Now, having had lunch at the Gables Inn, they were done for the day. Arriving home, they went into their bedroom and called Maggie and Will, with no luck, then Eric and Barry. Eric was working and Barry had rented a roto-tiller and was about to tear up his garden. They declined their invitation to come over and weed.

  Now, here they were, in the bedroom again, too full to do anything but watch television. “Even my eyes are full,” Kevin said when Gabe suggested reading.

  Gabe nodded. “Maybe we ought to go for a walk or a run.

  “In a little while,” Kevin agreed. “It’s time for The Christopher Lowell Show, ” he said, turning on the tube.

  “You hate him,” Gabe said, flopping down on the bed next to Kevin.

  “I know. Let’s make fun of him.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll listen.”

  The show was half over when Kevin realized he’d been asleep. He nudged Gabe, who snored softly beside him.

  “What?”

  “Wake up.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s time for your sleeping pill.”

  Gabe groaned and tried to wrap a pillow around his head, but stopped cold. “What the hell was that?”

  “Uh, Christopher Lowell?” Kevin asked.

  Gabe muted the television. “God, I hope so.”

  Then they heard it again, just a little ways down the hall; a hair-raising cry of distress.

  “Gabe?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I sure hope that was a peacock.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because if it isn’t, we’ve got dead babies!”

  “Kev?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s go to the Crescent and take a nice long walk on the beach.”

  “We need the exercise,” Kevin agreed, up and changing into shorts and a polo shirt.

  “Turn off that damned fairy,” Gabe said, dressing as fast as he could.

  “You got it.” Kevin turned off the set then waited for Gabe. “Age before beauty.”

  Sex. Sex, sex, sex. Dick wouldn’t leave Daniel alone. After Mother was buried and Daniel had been allowed a couple hours of sleep, Dick was up and at ’em, standing tall, at attention, on red alert. And bitching. Dick didn’t care if he’d just orgasmed, he wanted another one. He didn’t care if Daniel’s hand was ready to have a stroke—not the good kind, either—he just wanted to be serviced.

  That was when the Jehovah’s Witness showed up at the door. Daniel answered it warily, and there she was, an attractive sixtyish woman extending a flyer to him. “Do you want to go to a better place?” she asked.

  Dick said yes. Daniel invited her in.

  And the old lady talked about the Rapture, but not very well, not like the Witnesses whom Mother had allowed to ramble on. This one was distracted and, sure enough, she changed subjects suddenly, asking him if he’d ever seen a ghost. She blushed and said one was visiting her at night. A gentleman caller, an old boyfriend. He was interesting, she said, very interesting, did Daniel know what she meant.

  Daniel didn’t. Dick did though. It was time to harvest the winter wheat.

  73

  “This is a beautiful place, Will,” Maggie said, looking across the acres and acres of grave markers. Michael’s stone was partially shaded by a majestic live oak and they sat at the edge, just out of the bright hot sun. “Somebody left a baseball here. It doesn’t look like it’s even been used. That’s kind of nice, don’t you think? I realize it’s a coincidence, but since Michael loved to play. . .” Her voice drifted off.

  “Peaceful,” said Will.

  “Do you still come here on his birthday?”

  “Yes. And the baseball’s no coincidence. I brought it. I do every year.”

  “That’s nice. Better than flowers.”

  “Michael’d like it better.” Will smiled, then looked at Maggie, suddenly serious. “I still have his baseball. I keep it in wrapped in tissue in the trunk of the car just in case I decide I’m ready to leave that one.”

  “Is that why you wanted to come here today?”

  “No. I came here today to tell you a story about the ball—it appeared in my bedroom the other night.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t explain it. Michael has been visiting me. He whispers to me at night. He says he wants to tell me something or sometimes that he wants to show me something. And the other night, I got up and looked under the bed—he whispers from beneath the bed—and then I stood up—and the ball was there, the one I keep in the car. It was right where I’d been sleeping.”

  “Will! Michael is haunting you?”

  “Well, in a sense. I realize that I must have been sleep-walking and brought the ball in. Either that or Pete’s gaslighting me.”

  “Wait. Don’t explain it away. What about the whisper? Do the cats hear it?”

  “That’s what scares them. Last night I slept in the office with them. First good night’s sleep all week for me.”

  “Michael is back. . .” she said, wonder in her voice.

  “Maggie, I don’t mean literally. It feels literal when it happens.” He went into a recitation of how hypnogogic states work. “So you see, it’s really me. I’m using a ghost to force myself to confront what I did that day.”

  “What you did? What do you mean?”

  “I’d forgotten this, Maggie, in self-defense. It’s horrible, horrible.” He shook his head, close to tears. “I was the one, Mags. I killed Michael.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” How can you know?”

  “You told me the night it happened. And then you forgot. It’s good that you did.”

  He nodded. “Got me through childhood, but I wish I hadn’t forgotten so well. I must’ve really been a basket case for Pete to go along with it.”

  “Will, don’t give him any credit. He doesn’t do anything for nothing. Think about it.”

  “About what?”

  “After I ran into him the other day, I thought about it. I think he hid it because it made him look good. He took care of you, he comforted everyo
ne. If you’d told your parents you shot Michael accidentally—”

  “They would’ve hated me.”

  “Will!” Maggie snapped at him, made him look at her. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Be honest. You know they wouldn’t have hated you.”

  “Pete said they would.”

  “Fuck Pete! Fuck him! You might’ve believed him when you were a kid, but you know better now. What would your parents have done?”

  Will knew, but couldn’t say. He looked at the gravestone instead.

  “They would have loved you and tried to make sure you felt no guilt.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. That’s true.”

  “Pete wouldn’t have had any attention then.”

  “Oh, please, Mags, even he’s not that shallow.”

  “Oh, please, yourself. He’s that shallow and more! You see things about people so easily, why are you so blind about him and about yourself?”

  Will shrugged. “It’s human nature, actually. Ego takes a beating about things like this and it’s hard to get through it.”

  “But you know, right?”

  “I know. I think. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that he’s that bad.”

  “Don’tworry about it for now. Tell me how Michael coming back ties in with your memory returning.”

  “Your people skills are a little raw,” Will said lightly.

  “Good thing I’m a vet. Will, this is me. Tell me.”

  “It’s pretty simple. I remembered I killed him. I need forgiveness. I keep apologizing to my made-up ghost, but it hasn’t been laid to rest yet. I have to continue to confess, to apologize, until my subconscious accepts it and the ghost is exorcised.”

  “Will?”

  “What?”

  “You said the ghost says something.”

  “Yes. I can’t understand most of it. It wants to show me something, to tell me something.”

  “And you’re not listening. You’re too busy apologizing.”

  “There’s nothing to listen to.”

  “You don’t know that. Whether it’s really Michael—don’ t make that face—or whether it’s your own subconscious, something wants to tell you something. Until you hear it, it’s not going away.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look, let’s assume it’s your subconscious, since you won’t allow it to be anything else.”

  “Maggie—”

  “Hush. Your subconscious is still holding back a detail of some sort that you need to remember. Doesn’t that make sense? Don’t you think you should relax and listen?”

  “I guess you think you’re pretty smart.”

  “You bet.”

  74

  Colonel Wallis Tilton had been doing a lot of thinking during the week. He had watched Doris get more and more irritated, had seen her mood improve whenever they were away from the house and seen her crumble into annoyance and anxiety when she was home. The more she was there, the worse it was, and vice versa.

  And he himself had felt an unease like termites slowly burrowing into the very foundation of his home, into his walls, and, damn it, into him.

  And he knew. He knew.

  Goddamned Project Tingler is active.

  Disgusted, he stood up and unhooked the cable box then started yanking cable out of his house. He should have put it together already. Pete Banning was one of the Tingler ops. His civilian status—apparent status—changed nothing.

  The Goddamned thing of it was, Tilton couldn’t do shit about it. He was lucky to be alive—the others in his camp were dead or sent far, far away. Tilton pulled half a string, got a discharge, gave it up. Looking back, the only reason he was alive now was probably because Doris was a cousin of the president.

  Outside, he removed the cable entirely from his house, following it to the back of the yard where it attached to a small phone pole. There, he cut it off as high as he could, then coiled up the cut part and put it in the back of the tool shed.

  Back inside, he took the cable box apart and swept the house for bugs. Clean.

  “Wally, what are you doing?” Doris asked, coming in from the market.

  “We just gave up cable television.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding. What about our shows?”

  “We’re getting a satellite. I’ll call in a little while.”

  Doris smiled. “Good. I never liked giving Caledonia Cable our business. That Banning character, wasn’t he a problem for you years ago in the service?”

  “He was.” He hugged his wife. Banning was still a problem, but he didn’t dare say so. All he could do was try to get rid of the new cable in town. If he was too overt, he’d be dead. Who could he talk to safely? Who would believe him?

  “What was Pete Banning’s brother’s name, Doris?”

  “Will? The psychologist? Such a nice man. Those two are like night and day.”

  75

  The Deliciously Dark Bookshop in Red Cay was a marvelous little store stuffed full of specialty books, mostly horror, fiction and otherwise. Every bit of wall space was covered with posters or with strange things ranging from body parts from movies to gargoyles for sale. There were greeting cards with Dracula on them and jewelry in the shapes of skulls and snakes and bats, and Will was extremely surprised to find that he liked the place. Despite all the strange things—and a few very unusual people, mostly kids in black clothes and goth makeup—the store had a nice feel.

  The signing was winding down when they got there, but there was still a line to see David Masters, who sat in a throne-like chair before a table in an alcove created by removing a set of bookshelves on the right hand side of the store. Will and Maggie grabbed a book and got in line. When other people came along, they let them go ahead.

  “This is strange,” Will whispered to Maggie.

  “I know. I’ve never done it before. I feel like a fan. I’m a little embarrassed.”

  “Just don’t ask him to sign your breasts, and I’m fine with it.”

  Maggie elbowed him in the ribs. “Watch it.”

  “Have you read any of his books?” he asked her.

  “A couple. He gives me nightmares. I kind of like Dean Koontz.”

  “He’s good. I’ve read a couple.”

  “I like the dogs.”

  Will raised his eyebrows.

  “You know, lots of times he writes about golden retrievers. Sometimes they’re regular dogs, sometimes they’re preternaturally smart.” She grinned. “You should take up writing thrillers, Will. You could do for ginger cats what he did for ginger dogs.”

  Will opened his mouth to reply and shut it again as he spotted Lara Sweethome enter the store. “Oh no,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Quietly. One of my patients just walked in.”

  “Dr. Banning?” Lara called. “Dr. Banning, is that you?”

  “That must be her.”

  Will nodded, then smiled and introduced Maggie. Lara started telling her all about her armless mother’s ghost.

  It went on forever.

  Finally, it was their turn. Will almost put Lara ahead of them, but considering her penchant for talking, and his lack of desire to hear the same story yet again, he held his place.

  David Masters looked up and smiled. A pleasant man—Maggie probably thought he was downright good-looking—he smiled at them then stared at the book Will held.

  “How would you like that signed?”

  “Oh, I don’t—”

  Maggie stepped on his foot and took the book. “Make it to Will and Maggie.”

  “Okay.”

  Masters began writing.

  “This is embarrassing,” Will said.

  “Oh, don’t be embarrassed, Dr. Banning,” piped up Lara. “Mr. Masters, this is Dr. Banning, he’s my psychologist, and that lady is Dr. Maewood, she was my veterinarian until my little Scottie dog passed away in 1993. Dr. Banning, are you going to ask Mr. Masters about my ghost?”

  Masters looked as confused a
s Will felt, but after a moment, everything started to gel in various minds and Will was glad of Lara’s introduction.

  “A psychologist?”

  “Yes.”

  Masters glanced at Lara, who was obviously going to stick like glue. “I’m writing a book with a psychologist protagonist, Doctor. If you’re not in a huge hurry, would you let me buy you a cup of coffee when I’m done here? If I could ask you a question or two, it would really help me. I’m in a little bit of a bind for an answer.” He took a business card from his shirt pocket, wrote on it, then put it in the book and handed it to Maggie.

  “My pleasure.” Will accepted the book from Maggie and smiled at Lara. “I’ll see you next week.”

  She started to protest, then forgot about him when Masters addressed her. Will paid for the book and they stepped outside and away from the window before checking the card.

  “Lara is a nice person, but I can’t talk to him with her breathing down my neck,” he said.

  “Of course not. So, what’s it say?”

  “Miss Scarlett in the pantry with the dagger.”

  “Wiseass.”

  “He wants to meet at the coffee shop on the pier in twenty minutes.”

  “Let’s start walking.”

  76

  The Pigskin Sports Bar’s parking lot was less than half full but it sure as hell looked inviting to Pete Banning when he pulled in for a cold one. He had worked hard and the brew would be a richly deserved reward. After fucking Heather Boyd until her eyes were ready to pop out—the girl was insatiable and had damn near worn him out—he’d made six house calls to install various bugs and cameras. It was time for a break.

  He walked into the cool, dark bar, and was instantly hit by a barrage of sports noise from the eight televisions scattered around the place, all of which had been equipped with new cables by Mickey earlier in the week. Live baseball was the big thing at the moment, Angels versus Padres, though at least one TV was running an old Super Bowl game.

  “Miller Draft,” he told the bartender, sliding onto a stool. “How’s business?”

  “Fair.” The bartender looked at him. “You’re the cable guy. Banning?”