by Ron Ripley
“She’s dead,” Gabby hissed. “Someone murdered her. I just got a call from the Nashua Police. They just fished her body out of a dumpster in the back of the high school!”
Clair was too stunned to respond.
Gabby threw herself into a chair and shuddered.
“Did they tell you anything?” Clair managed to say after a minute.
Gabby shook her head. “No. I went and identified her body. Whoever killed her knew what the hell they were doing.”
“How did she die?” Clair asked, still trying to get a grasp on the situation.
"Strangled," Gabby spat. "They tried to hide the marks, but I spotted them. This was no half-done job. No hesitation. A damned professional!”
“Could it have been the detective she was watching?” Clair asked.
Gabby shook her head. “No. No way it was her. That detective still has to use a walker to get around. Impossible for her to choke out my sister.”
“Boyfriend?” Clair asked.
“Had to have been,” Gabby said. “I went up to the apartment.”
“What?!” Clair asked. “You did what?”
Gabby pointed a thin finger at her and said, “Shut up. I don’t care if you are the boss. This was my sister. Yeah, I went up to the apartment. I knocked on the door. Nobody answered. I broke in. The detective left in a hurry. Most of her clothes and stuff are there. Looks like there was a man staying there too. Deodorant. Shaving gear. All men’s scents. They were in the spare bedroom.”
“Do you think they went to Shane’s?” Clair asked.
“Maybe,” Gabby said, nodding. “We can’t risk putting anyone else there. Not since Elliot was ventilated.”
“No,” Clair agreed. “But I don’t want them watched. I want them erased. Scrubbed from the face of the damned planet.”
Eagerness mingled with Gabby's rage-filled expression.
“How do you want to do it?” Gabby asked in a low voice. “We lost a team.”
“We do it the same way,” Clair replied. “With ghosts of our own.”
Chapter 34: A Painful Awakening
Agony launched Frank out of sleep, or unconsciousness, he wasn’t sure which.
He was no longer in whatever state he had been in, and he was miserable.
His entire body throbbed, pulsed, and screamed. Sitting up brought tears to his eyes, causing his breath to catch in his throat. Stars exploded around the edges of his vision, and he shuddered while he tried to remember what had happened.
The memories were dim.
A circular room and a mirror. Lisbeth bound within.
And breaking the glass.
Frank dropped his chin to his chest and sighed, instantly regretting it as the pain went lancing through his lungs.
Every part of him screamed to lie back down, to surrender to the pain, and pass out.
But the same drive, discipline, and determination that had helped him pass the selection course for Special Forces required him to stay upright. So he did.
Frank took deep breaths until the pain was manageable. He reached out and turned on the light. He cringed as light filled the room, a headache bursting into life.
His skin felt stretched as if someone had pinned it back. When he looked at his arms, he saw they were wrapped in bandages, his face, when he touched it, was tender and sore.
“Damn,” he muttered.
But he heard nothing.
It took him a moment to realize he hadn’t heard his own voice, and when he understood what the lack of sound meant, his heart began to race.
Frank cleared his throat and spoke again.
And again.
And once more.
Nothing.
Not a single sound.
Panic rose up, and he crushed it, without mercy.
It’s probably not permanent, he told himself. It can’t be. Look at Marie. She’s recovering. This is temporary. Nothing more and nothing less.
Carl appeared in the bedroom, startling Frank. The dead man’s mouth moved, a look of concern on his face.
Frank shook his head, pointing to an ear and saying, “I can’t hear anything.”
Carl nodded and gestured for Frank to follow him. Wincing, Frank got off the bed and limped after the ghost. They entered the hall and Carl brought him to a window that overlooked the driveway.
A yellow, DHL delivery van had pulled in and backed up to the front door. Two people, a man and a woman in company uniforms, stood by the rear doors.
Frank frowned and then stiffened.
He recognized the woman from the video David had shared with them.
She worked for the Watchers.
The Watchers, who had sent Mason’s head to them by DHL.
Frank turned away from the window and said, “Get the others together, and I need a gun. With real bullets, not salt.”
Carl nodded and headed toward the library. For a moment, the dead man hesitated outside the door, and then he shook his head and passed through it. Frank opened it and followed him.
Carl stood by a bookcase, and he pointed to a leather bound collection of Shakespeare's works.
Frank reached out, gave a gentle pull on the first volume, and found the entire set moved as a single piece. Surprised, he took the set down. He found a small, silver latch on the back of the books.
Placing the set on the desk, Frank examined the books. There was a thin line running through the center of the collection from left to right. He freed the latch and pulled up on either side. The books opened again as one, revealing a felt lined interior. Within it were two large, six shot revolvers, dark metal affairs with wooden grips. Bullets of heavy lead with bright brass casings were held in place by leather straps, same as the pistols.
The rounds were small, possibly .38s.
But they would do the job.
Frank removed the pistols, loaded each chamber, and placed extra rounds in the pockets of his pajamas. He was barefoot and bare-chested.
“Get the others now,” Frank said.
Carl gave a short bow and vanished.
Frank cocked each pistol, left the library, and headed for the stairs. For a moment, he wondered where Shane was, and then Frank saw the front door open.
Crouching down he took aim and waited for someone to enter.
Chapter 35: Cutting Down the Enemy
Gabriella ‘Gabby’ Belanger shifted between rage and numbness. While she understood that her twin was dead, and rationally accepted that fact, a dull pain still swept over her when she thought about Jenna.
It was a strange sensation, and she didn't quite comprehend it. Of all the many experiences she and her sister had enjoyed, emotions tended to be absent from that list.
She wondered if rage was an emotion, and then she didn’t.
They were there to work.
She and an agent named Aaron stood on the doorstep, wearing DHL uniforms in an effort to blend in with normal society. Of which they were not.
Nor were the others with them. They were clad as movers. Plain, dark blue coveralls that concealed weapons and more dangerous items.
Clair had pulled out all of the stops. She had called in the last of the killers. The ones who took care of some of the bigger stations along the ley lines. Five of them, whose names Gabby hadn’t bothered to get.
Like Gabby, they carried small, semi-automatic weapons with suppressors. Small caliber rounds to bring down whoever was inside, and then a few more to finish the job.
And as for the dead, Gabby had what she needed for them as well.
Each of the five who accompanied her and Aaron had an item. Some small token to which a ghost was attached.
They were to be used against the dead who lived with Shane and Frank.
Gabby only hoped that the one who had killed her sister was in the house as well.
Then her attention shifted to the door as Aaron opened it. She watched as he nudged it further into the house until a long hallway lay before them.
No one greeted
them.
The house was still and silent.
Aaron entered first, followed a moment later by two of the killers, who were then followed by a second pair. Gabby came in last with the fifth killer, a young man who looked as though he had never smiled.
The door slammed behind them, and the back of the young man's head exploded as the sound of a pistol being fired ripped through the air.
Something struck Gabby in the shoulder, spinning her around and causing her to lose balance.
“Let them out!” Aaron screamed as he scrambled past her, trying to get a door open.
Gabby twisted around, reached up and jerked open a closet door, pulling herself behind it. A wet sensation was spreading down from her shoulder, and she knew she had been shot. Pressing her hand against the wound, she risked a small glance around the door’s edge and saw the shooter.
It was Frank, and he was at the top of the stairs, half hidden behind a large, dark wooden banister. The young man and one other were dead on the floor. A third man, wounded, tried to move to the side, and Frank fired again.
The third man no longer moved. His brains were spilled onto the floor.
Of the four of them who had survived and managed to find some sort of cover, only two had bound objects with them.
Gabby watched one of them, an older woman, remove a comb from her coveralls and throw it like someone might a grenade. As the small, dark brown object left the woman's hand, a shot rang out again.
The bullet caught the woman squarely in the wrist, blood spraying out as the bullet smashed into the wall.
Aaron reached out, took hold of the woman with one hand, and tried to drag her into the safety of the doorway he had taken shelter in. With his free hand, he brought his pistol to bear, firing several times in Frank's general direction. A single shot roared from the top of the stairs, and another bullet slammed into Aaron's chest. The impact of the round knocked him backward, and his hand lost its grasp upon the woman.
Frank had the high ground, Gabby knew, but he could still be killed.
And it was time to do that.
Chapter 36: A Dark Thrill
Frank reloaded a revolver one handed while he kept an eye on the hallway.
Of the seven who had entered the house, three were dead and three were wounded. One of the wounded, a woman, had thrown a comb before he put a bullet in her wrist. A nagging feeling at the back of his head drew his eyes back to the comb. In the new silence of his world, Frank saw the fourth, uninjured man move out of a doorway on the left. A small object, the size of a wallet landed beside the comb, and then there was a pistol in the man's hand.
The weapon was a small caliber, and it was equipped with a suppressor. The pistol was steady, the man carefully drawing aim.
Blind men can’t shoot straight, Frank thought.
Frank let off two quick shots, each striking the woodwork around the doorway and sending splinters into the man’s face.
The unknown assailant retreated, his weapon unused.
Frank finished reloading the first pistol, switched it out for the other and reloaded that one. His eyes remained focused on the hallway. The woman whom he had shot in the wrist had moved into a doorway on the right, part of her boot visible.
Frank took stock of his situation.
One on the left. Two on the right. The twin, who was the fourth, was behind the open closet door. Frank had twelve rounds left. Six in each pistol. He had to assume all of them were armed, and soon they would start to work in unison.
Frank needed to get down the stairs and finish them off.
He wanted to call out to Carl and the others, find out what they were up to, but he thought better of it, and then the temperature in the hallway plummeted.
A smile spread across Frank's face, and he relaxed, and then stiffened.
On the floor beside the comb and wallet, a pair of shapes appeared. They were hazy at first, then they became more defined. Sharper.
Two dead men stood in the hall.
They wore three-piece suits and fedoras. Patent leather shoes, and cufflinks in their shirts.
Their chests were bloody messes, for the men had been gunned down.
They were killers as surely as those who had brought them into Shane’s house were.
The dead men saw him and headed for the stairs, smiles playing on their faces.
Thaddeus barreled out of a shadow, throwing himself at the man on the left. The larger ghost's lip curled in a snarl, and for a moment he and Thaddeus were engaged in a struggle. Then the other man joined in and together they threw Thaddeus back the way he had come.
Eloise appeared a moment later, a dark, gleeful look on her face as she attacked the same man Thaddeus had. Frank watched as the dead man’s eyes widened in surprise before he vanished. Before Eloise could turn her attention to the other ghostly intruder, the first returned, springing into existence beside the comb.
In a moment, Eloise was gone. The two men turned their attention to Frank and started toward him.
Frank, nodded to himself, stood up and retreated towards his bedroom.
He hoped he could get his shotgun and the salt rounds before the dead got to him.
Chapter 37: Chasing Frank Down
Gabby heard movement and risked another glance around the corner of the door. Two of the dead men made their way towards the stairs. Frank was backing away.
Aaron screamed.
It was a high, piercing sound that penetrated Gabby's head, and when she turned to glare at him, she froze.
A pair of small arms protruded from the door he was pressed against. Tiny, child-like thumbs were buried in his eyes, the fingers drumming playfully on his face.
Gabby watched as Aaron reached up with a ringed hand to strike at the ghost who attacked him, but another set of hands grabbed hold of his wrist. An adult male ghost, dressed in a black suit appeared and looked down at the injured female killer that Gabby and Aaron had brought with them.
"Und wer bist du?" the ghost asked as he knelt down on the woman's arms, pinning them down. He looked at her for a moment, then he pinched her nose, closed and covered her mouth.
Gabby dropped her hand from her injured shoulder and tried to move it.
Pain exploded, and she gasped. Panting, Gabby put her hand back up to staunch the fresh blood flow. She looked to the last killer, the one who had thrown the wallet.
She shouldn’t have.
A matronly looking ghost stood over him and through her, Gabby watched as the dead woman strangled the man.
No, Gabby thought, stunned. Garroting. She’s garroting. Just like Jenna was.
And with that, Gabby’s will broke.
She scrambled to her feet, made it to the main entrance door, and ripped it open. Bright sunlight caused her to stumble, but she didn't fall. Instead, she slammed into the rear of the van, groped her way around to the driver's door and climbed in. The keys were in the ignition, and she started the engine.
Jamming the van into drive and stomping on the gas, Gabby tore out of the driveway, narrowly missing a car that was about to turn in. A familiar man was behind the wheel. But it wasn’t Shane, and she just didn’t care.
It was only when she reached the highway and was headed towards Boston that Gabby realized where she knew the man from.
David had been behind the wheel.
David, who she and Jenna had left for dead in Borgin Keep.
Chapter 38: In His Room
Frank didn’t bother closing his bedroom door behind him.
It wouldn’t stop the two ghosts making their way towards him.
He didn’t know if the living would follow the dead up the stairs, or if Carl and the others had finally gotten involved in the fight. Neither of those were pressing enough to occupy his attention.
What Frank had to worry about was the dead.
He put both of the pistols on the bed, reached beneath the same and pulled out his gun bag. From that, he removed his shotgun, double checked to make certain the
weapon was loaded, then dragged the case of shells out. He carried both the shotgun and the extra rounds to his chair and sat down.
His adrenaline rush had begun to fade, dumping the chemical into his stomach and giving him a nauseous feeling. Frank shivered from the combination of coming down from the high of combat and being less than half dressed.
A minute passed, and the two men appeared in the doorway.
Frank fired both barrels of the shotgun, the ghosts vanishing.
He reloaded quickly and winced as his fingertips were singed. Dropping the spent shells to the floor, Frank snapped the shotgun to the floor and waited.
The ghosts rushed through the wall to the left of the door and made it three feet into the room before Frank shot them both.
He could smell his own flesh burn as he withdrew the casings and reloaded again.
Forcing his heartbeat to remain steady, and his breathing to stay calm, Frank sat patiently in his chair.
One minute passed.
Then another.
He kept his eyes on the open door and hoped they hadn’t found another way into the room.
Chapter 39: Entering the House
“You have to stay here,” David said to Marie.
She nodded. He placed her Glock in her hands.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” David said. “If you so much as think you see her you call 911, and then you shoot her if she steps out of that van."
“I can’t shoot straight anymore,” Marie said in a strained voice.
“You don’t have to,” David said. “Keep putting rounds down range and keep her guessing. The way she tore out of here says she didn’t like what happened.”
When Marie motioned for him to go, David did so.
He jogged up to the open door and hesitated in the entrance.
The scene in front of him stunned him.
There were six dead on the floor. Multiple gunshot wounds.
They weren’t the strangest part of what he saw.
That was reserved for the battle being fought between the dead in the center of the hallway. He only recognized two of them, Eloise and Carl. They were leading an attack on two ghosts in the midst of the others.