by Noel Hynd
He hadn't eaten since morning, in the hours before the discovery of Stacey Dissette's body. So he brought home a pizza from Raimondo's in Nashua. The usual selection: one of Ray's mega-cholesterol specials with extra sausage and cheese. Eight slices: six for dinner, two for breakfast the next day. The pie was cold by the time O'Hara arrived home. So was he.
He reheated the pizza, then brought it to the living room. Dr. Steinberg be damned: After the events of this day, O'Hara was going to quaff some brew with this pie.
He opened the first bottle when he put the pie in the oven. He was on his second by the time the pizza was hot again. And by half past eight, as O'Hara settled onto the sofa before the television in his living room, the beer and the pizza were in a tie: three slices, three bottles.
A fourth bottle brought a comforting glow. A fifth, as he worked clockwise around the pie, went down very easily. By quarter to ten, O'Hara was feeling better than he had all day.
A morose feeling came upon him: Poor Stacey Dissette. And for that matter, poor Abigail Negri. What a privilege it was to find one's natural death at a comfortable time and place. Not traumatized by a sadistic killer. Not crushed or incinerated in some horrible accident. Not shot down in wartime, not slowly expiring from disease or starvation.
O'Hara was drunk. And he brooded upon the great fortune of any individual who could die peacefully in his sleep.
He held that thought.
Then somewhere upstairs there was a creak. O'Hara made every effort to ignore it. But how could a man fully ignore something when he knows it's there?
Then came another creak.
“Leave me alone,” he grumbled drunkenly.
He took another swig of beer, attempted to set down the bottle and instead knocked it over. The contents-about a third of a brew-spilled. O'Hara attempted to mop it up with a handful of napkins from Raimondo's. But he never rose from where he sat.
A nice beery rumination: He wondered if there were a Good Housekeeping award for mopping up beer with pizzeria napkins.
Another creak upstairs.
“Fuck you!” O'Hara shouted to the creak. Then he laughed. Yeah! That was telling them . . . whoever they were. Don't go creaking around in my upstairs!
He laughed, pleased with himself until there was a loud, violent bang above him. Whatever had made the creaks had answered him.
His whole body went very cold with fear. Cold with impending terror. Worse, he knew he was drunk. He knew his reactions were slowed and his logic muddled.
A bang. What had banged? What could have fallen over on the floor above him? Or who was there?
Then there was another bang in a different room. It sounded like furniture moving.
He muttered angrily. He looked to his ankles, half expecting one of those red crabs to appear, booze-generated D.T.'s, a good creepy-crawly spectacular working its way up his body.
“God save me,” he muttered. He used the flat of his hand to slap his cheeks, trying to sober himself. He reached for the remote control of the television and turned off the set.
He sat very still and listened. Another soft creak.
Frank O'Hara's hand went slowly to his hip. He drew his pistol. Several seconds passed. Then there was a creak in the floorboards directly in back of him . . . as if whatever had been upstairs had glided downward through the floor to settle behind him in the center of his living room.
I'm here, Frank.
O'Hara, barely breathing: “Who's here?”
Bayou inflection: It’s me, man.
“Who's 'me'?”
A horny, urgent whisper: It’s me, man. It's Gary.
“You're dead.”
I'm here. Laughter. Gary's laughter.
O'Hara, aloud, starting to sweat: “You're dead, Gary! You're not there! Lord knows, you're not there!”
Then why are you talking to me?
Silence followed. Then near-silence. O’Hara could hear something thumping. After several seconds, he placed it: the thunder of his own heart.
O'Hara spoke again, his hand soaking wet against the service revolver in his hand.
“You're an illusion,” he intoned softly, trying to build his own confidence. “An hallucination. The product of too much beer and too much stress. A function of my imagination, the outgrowth of my own loose grip on my own sanity.”
Think so?
“I know so.”
Then why don't you turn around, Frank? Afraid to look a dead man in the eye?
O'Hara could feel the sweat all over his body. He tried to rally the courage to turn, terrified of what he would see.
Then there was another creak in the floorboards behind him, only an arm's length away. For a split second, O'Hara thought he could feel something very close by. . . .
He bolted from the sofa and pitched forward, turning as he sprung to his feet. Instinctively, as years of training kicked in, his arm extended with his weapon.
He stared, wide-eyed behind the sofa. Nothing. No one. No Gary.
No laughter. No voice from some other dimension.
Just another maddening creak somewhere beyond the living room. Another innocent old house creak from the heat? From expanding wood in the floorboards? Or an invisible footfall?
The sound only made O'Hara angrier, more drunkenly furious. He swigged on the most recent beer bottle.
“Come out here, Gary!” O'Hara demanded. “If you're here, come out! Let's see you!”
No answer. None until a floorboard creaked near the staircase. O'Hara turned and pointed his pistol.
“I'm warning you!” he yelled.
A creak near the steps. Or so he thought.
“God damn!” he yelled. Wildly, he waved the gun in the direction of the noise. Then he squeezed the trigger.
The pistol erupted with a powerful blast, followed instantly by the sound of a bullet smashing into the hard wood of his stairs.
O'Hara staggered, both from the sound of the pistol and from the alcohol.
Then the creaks led upstairs. Like a line of a man walking. Yes! It was unmistakable now! There were footsteps in his house. Intruding footsteps.
O'Hara lurched to the bottom of the stairs, saw nothing at their summit and followed. He leaned on the banister as he staggered upward, his gun hand hanging at his side. He arrived at the upper floor of his home and weaved toward his extra bedroom.
He threw on a light and stood in the doorway. A sturdy table had inexplicably turned over. It lay askew in the center of the room, as if it had been pitched there by a strong, angry man.
O'Hara's heart raced ever faster. Heart attack territory! Stroke territory! DT territory: Derangement Tonight.
Who had done this?
“Gary!” he screamed. “Come on out, Gary! I know you're here somewhere!”
No answer. But the door on the closet seemed to move just slightly. Just enough.
A breeze? A little imbalance?
A ghost?
Gary alive? Gary dead?
Who cared? O'Hara pointed his pistol at the closet door.
“I'm warning you, Gary!” he shouted. The cocksure certainty of an inebriated man. “That's enough!”
O'Hara steadied the gun. The trigger was easier to pull the second time. He blasted. A massive hole ripped into the closet door. O'Hara felt greatly satisfied until he heard the sound of steps behind him, moving toward the master bedroom.
“Screw it,” he yelled.
He turned and lurched through the dark hall. His hand found the light switch in his bedroom. His eyes froze. A chair had been turned over.
Something was there! O'Hara might have been drunk and losing his mind. But he was right! An intruder was present!
O'Hara scanned the room angrily. Under the bed?
He fired a shot into the darkness under where he slept.
In his clothes closet? O'Hara moved to it, steadied himself and aimed his gun again.
“Ledbetter!” he roared.
No answer again.
So, hell!
He fired another bullet. Another hole ripped its way into the woodwork. Shards of wood flew in all directions.
The hole left behind was gaping, as if a musketball had tumbled through.
O'Hara raised his gun and weaved forward. He knew he was disgustingly drunk. Sickeningly drunk. Better-See-Dr.-Julie-real-soon sort of drunk.
He pulled the closet door open. Darkness, coming quickly to lightness. He looked at the path of the bullet, where it had gone through some old suits.
“Oh, man, am I soused!” he heard himself say.
But no Ledbetter. And no more creaks to the floor.
He sighed. He braced himself. He leaned against the door frame, his pistol hand hanging at his side.
“Lord Almighty,” he mumbled. There he was. A crazy drunk staggering around his home firing bullets. A mentally disturbed cop. A menace to his world. Chasing his own private demon, a spirit that only he could see.
“Where in hell are you, Gary?” he asked.
“Oh, Gary's here, Frank,” came the response. “But you better be real careful!”
“What the-?” O'Hara answered.
The voice he had just heard had not been Gary's. It had a strange hollow echo. Something unworldly. But it had been a familiar voice and not an unfriendly one.
O'Hara turned, raised his head, and jumped as if hit with a thousand amps. Carl Reissman stood in the corner of the room. Smiling Carl. His partner dead for almost seven years.
“Hello, Frank,” Carl said.
“Carl . . .?” O'Hara rasped. But his jaw locked. He was unable to speak. Like a nightmare, except a man knows he is going to wake up from a nightmare. There was no way to awake from this.
Before O'Hara's eyes, smiling Carl aged ten years in two seconds. He became grim, disturbed Carl, the ace homicide dick who put a bullet through his brain in a motel room one night after one final round of fornication with his mistress, a girl who majored in both Classics and fellatio at Keene State College.
Carl answered. Nice of him, since he still bore the head wound that had gotten him buried. Part of his upper right cranium was now gone, but who cared? He was there and talking, anyway.
“Gary's here,” Carl's ghost explained. “Here to see you.”
“Why can't I see him?”
“You will. He's close by.”
“Show me. . . .”
“In time,” Carl answered.
“Now! I want him now!”
“You always were an impatient hump,” Reissman said, turning chip-on-the-shoulder belligerent and smiling like a barracuda.
“Now!” O'Hara demanded drunkenly.
“No can do right now, pal. You can't rush me, because time doesn't exist any more for me.”
O'Hara raised the hand that held the pistol.
Carl Reissman laughed. “Going to shoot your own partner? Shame, Frankie!”
“Screw yourself, Carl! “
“I'm already dead, Frankie. Don't bother.”
O'Hara pulled the trigger. Once, then twice. The pistol exploded. O'Hara thought he saw the bullets crash through Carl Reissman, then hit the wall of the bedroom. Big, nasty holes again. The ghost smiled, waved, and was gone.
O'Hara blew out a long breath. He holstered his gun. He was so drunk that he could fall down at any time.
He staggered downstairs. He paused. Now he was sure he had heard a rumble somewhere within the house.
Then he realized: The heat! He had jammed on the thermostat. No wonder there were creaks. The heat was making the wood expand.
Perfectly logical. Of course!
So much for Gary Ledbetter. And so much for the hallucination of Carl Reissman upstairs.
And what about the overturned furniture, my cop friend? an internal voice asked. Don't you understand? I did that.
“Go away, Gary,” O'Hara pleaded. His voice was reduced to something between a whisper and a croak.
O'Hara weaved back into his living room. The room was dark, and he was sure he hadn't left it that way.
O'Hara staggered into the room and reached for a lamp on a table. Then he jumped in cold, stupefying terror. What his hand landed upon wasn't the cord of the lamp, but an icy human hand . . .which arrived simultaneously under the shade of the lamp. A hand intent on keeping this room in darkness.
O'Hara bellowed in fear. He recoiled, backing into a corner. The lamp flew from the table and rolled to the wall.
Then O'Hara screamed again. In the center of the room, another human form became visible.
It was a silhouette, much like those snow ghosts that flitted silently from tree to tree in a winter storm. The figure made no noise. But O'Hara knew he saw a man.
Thin, wispy hair. Blondish. Muscular. About five feet ten. Blue eyes gleaming.
A smile took shape, much like that of the Cheshire cat, as it seemed to be fixed in the air and floated in some unnatural defiance of any law of God.
Then features came into perspective, and the figure spoke.
Hello, Frank.
O'Hara bellowed in terror again. This wasn't real! This couldn't be! Gary Ledbetter! But he was there! Either real or the man's god-awful cursed spirit.
Oh, praise God, O'Hara said to himself. Don't let this be! This cannot be reality! This cannot be happening!
O'Hara sank against the wall, cowering into a corner, his pistol in his hand again, wavering.
I'm here, Frank, the voice spoke. Now you can see me, can't you?
Gary's voice. Calm. Insinuating. Slithery. The voice of those taped interrogations that O'Hara had replayed more times than he could count. The voice of a man who had died in the electric chair.
Or should have died! The man's physical being was surely dead. But the spirit was here, confronting its one-time accuser, a few feet away from O'Hara's piano.
“No! No! No!” O'Hara said.
Don't believe in me, Frank?
“No! You're not real!”
Then why am I here, Frank? If you don't believe in me none, why are we speaking?
“We're not speaking! And you're not-! “
Not here? Oh, yes I am. Ledbetter's expression turned into one of sheer malice.
O'Hara raised his pistol. At point-blank range, he pulled the trigger twice. The sound filled the house. Gary Ledbetter stood in place. Both bullets smashed violently into the brick and plaster of O'Hara's fireplace.
O'Hara turned away. Gary misted into the gunsmoke. The gunfire resonated within O'Hara's head, joined a few seconds later by a maniacal laughter which came from Ledbetter.
O'Hara pulled the trigger a third time and felt the impotent click of an empty weapon.
A terror unlike any that had ever come before engulfed the policeman, a terror so monumental that he had to steady himself to keep from quaking against the wall.
It was a terror as great as the outdoors because it combined imminent threat with a fear of a supernatural being, an entity that was now right in front of him.
And it was coming closer all the time.
The room was cold. Yet O'Hara's whole body was rolling with sweat. And he was certain he wasn't hallucinating. Not this time.
He was next aware of another sensation. A scent. A heavy, repugnant smell. He recognized it from the previous summer when he had come downstairs in the middle of the night and had seen the rocking chair gently moving.
And then suddenly O'Hara identified the scent of burning flesh. Human flesh. The odor of mortality that follows an electrocution. And it had turned up in his home, he now realized, at the very hour that past summer that Ledbetter had been put to death.
And in that moment, O'Hara was faced with the realization: He was indeed visited by-haunted by!-a dead man. Gary glided a little closer. No sound now. No footfall.
Frank. I'm here. It's time to talk.
Gary approached. The presence had a field of its own. It was preceded by a drop in the surrounding air pressure. There was also a coldness-a winter deadliness-to its aura.
Frank? Speak to me, Frank.
>
O'Hara's heart thundered. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness. The figure was five feet away from him. Dark, hands dropped at its side. Shaggy hair. Stocky build. And the odor of burning flesh-Gary's odor-was so pungent that it seemed as if it would suffocate the detective.
“Please go away,” O'Hara breathed through his drunkenness. “By everything that is holy, please go away.”
The presence laughed. Nothing is holy. There is no God. There are only spirits. And I will not go away until there is justice.
The voice. Soft. Silky. Slithery. Unmistakable.
The figure knelt down, settling in a sitting position on the floor in front of O'Hara.
“If I turn the light on,” O'Hara tried desperately, “I will wake to find that I am only in the midst of a vivid nightmare. You will be gone, and I will be alone in this room.”
Try it.
“You will be gone.”
I'm here, man. Wishing will not get rid of me.
O'Hara sat up. The figure remained before him. O'Hara threw out an arm, fumbled with the switch on the lamp, and then found the ON button.
His hands, wet. His throat, frozen in terror. His nostrils clogged by the acrid aroma of execution. His heart, kicking as if it would explode in his chest.
He pressed the button.
The lamp came on. Light filled the room. Strange, angular light. Very bright beam. Very dark, jagged shadows.
Gary Ledbetter didn't go away.
Ledbetter-more intense and hyper-real than in actual life-remained an arm's length in front of O'Hara, grinning wickedly, blue eyes alive, burning like pilot lights as they bore into O'Hara's soul.