Pennies for the Ferryman - 01

by Jim Bernheimer

  I thought it was going to be my night to get lucky after a long, long dry spell. I’m not particularly fond of one-night-stands but my morals are rather unrefined; I don’t knowingly date married women, I won’t date two girls at the same time, and jail bait, of course, need not apply.

  We were getting quite familiar with each other when she suddenly stopped, pushed me back like I was some kind of deviant, and sprinted for my bathroom. That’s when strike two was called.

  Some greasy spoon off of I-81 served her a chicken patty sandwich that hadn’t agreed with her. There’s nothing like a bout of food poisoning to really kill the mood. Kissing her suddenly became much less enticing. Fortunately, we had a reasonably full can of air freshener in the bathroom and could continue our conversation.

  At least we could laugh about it, “You know this isn’t doing much for my ego, Candace.”

  She laughed hollowly. “Probably the first time I’m certain there won’t be any kissin’ and tellin’ come tomorrow.”

  “I gotta ask, ‘What’s so interesting about me, Candace?’ Why drive all this way for me?”

  Sitting on the floor of my bathroom, she gave me a rather candid answer. “Besides the fact ya can see ghosts? I like your sarcasm and the way you think. We clicked that day and I kept thinkin’ about ya. Couldn’t get ya outta my system. So when the crime-stopper’s reward came through, I figured it was now or never. If Jenny hadn’t sunk her claws into you, I figured that I’d take a shot.”

  I’d gone from a bloody hunk of meat in the ocean to some kind of addictive drug. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. “What makes you so certain Jenny was ever going to do anything?”

  “Women in my family can always spot a special guy. Why do you think li’l Jenny’s so upset? Back home, I could see that she was pretty ‘in’ to you and she caved into her aunt and uncle when they told her to stay away from ya.”

  I was flattered. It felt good – it was surprising how low my ego had fallen in the last six months. “Nurse Candy” was just what the doctor ordered. “So how come you don’t already have a special guy?”

  She gave a throaty reply. “Oh that’s easy. Women in my family are also first rate bitches. I’ve been told that I’m a bit on the high maintenance side. It takes a special man to attract a woman in my family. It takes a really special man to put up with one of us. Those just don’t come ‘round that often.”

  It was quite possibly the nicest thing a woman’s ever said to me before heaving her guts out - again.

  I liked Candy, but I was practical, even in light of her rather unusual method of delivering compliments. I passed her a washcloth and said, “With no traffic, we’re four hours away from each other, which really means we’re five and a half hours away. It could be another year before I get my license back. I don’t see how that’s going to help.”

  Her reply was equally as practical. She rested her head on my shoulder and sighed, “Mike, don’t think so much. I’m guessing things can only get better from here. Lordy, they can’t get much worse! Let’s just see where it goes. Do you think that I could lay down for awhile?”

  Strike three – batter out!

  Morning showed up all too soon. I ended up on the couch after all, as Candy and a waste basket occupied my bedroom. Mom was rather amused when she came out in the morning and I related the unfortunate series of events.

  I let Officer McKenna sleep in until about nine. Stepping into the room, I was glad that I was going elsewhere today; I’d need to open a window after she left.

  Mom already asked if I would be going to church this morning. I told her I was going this afternoon – which was misleading, at best. Pastor Duncan and Brother Silas were planning to take me out to a haunted house for my first “volunteer” session.

  With a sigh I nudged the woman occupying my bed. “Rise and shine sweetheart.”

  “Don’t wanna,” she answered squirming a bit before throwing the covers over her head. Obviously, she wasn’t a morning gal.

  A few protests later she finally got up. While she showered, I went out to speak with Mom. I found her staring at the letter of appreciation and the crime stopper’s reward.

  The check was something bittersweet for my hardworking mom. She was ecstatic to hear that we could fix her car and get caught up on some of the bills, but mixed on how I managed to solve a missing persons case hours away from here.

  I showered quickly. Seeing that my first time back in the “dating saddle” wasn’t all I had hoped, I salvaged a bit of my pride with the knowledge that I scored well in the “kind, gentle and understanding” categories. When I came back into my room, a pale Candy was dressed in some of my sweats, brushing her hair while using the mirror on my dresser.

  “I’m borrowing these. It’s a long trip back and these are comfortable.” She’d already told me that she had the graveyard shift coming up that night and couldn’t stay. Plus, if she left now, she’d be able to get back and sleep for awhile, before deciding whether to call in sick or not.

  I walked up behind her and slid my hands into the pockets while playfully asking, “What about your clothes?”

  “My stuff doesn’t exactly smell that good right now, Sugar. I’m gonna toss them in the trunk for the trip home. Besides, this just means I’ll haveta bring ‘em back soon and we can try this again.”

  Playfully, I replied, “Those army sweats look pretty good on you. Oh, well, I suppose I can part with them for a while.”

  Putting on some decent clothes and grabbing my ghost sword and pipe wrench just in case the house out in the boonies was haunted, I went out to rescue Candy from my mom.

  Thankfully, we had to leave before Mom could break out the baby pictures. Mom seemed to like Candy, which helped, but Mom never really gave me any crap about any previous girlfriends either, so it wasn’t a great indicator.

  Candy didn’t want any breakfast, which wasn’t all that surprising, given the state of her queasy stomach. She downed a glass of milk and some mints from her purse to freshen her breath. I’m sure I scored a few more points by kissing her, despite reservations. In addition to the big kiss at her Nissan Sentra, Candy gave me her email address and instant messenger handle, since it was much cheaper than a phone call. She explained with a grin that the numbers zero five and zero nine were for her May ninth birthday.

  “And why did you pick Fireball?”

  Her smile grew wider. “That’s easy, sugar. Fireball, well that’s just ‘Hot Candy’ isn’t it? Bye now!”

  As the housing market was squeezed ever so tighter in the sprawl around DC, many people escape towards the Hagerstown area. The sleepy little towns nestled in the hills and low mountains have seen their fair share of growth in recent years. These homes were quickly becoming as ridiculously overpriced as the ones along the I-270 corridor s for people who didn’t mind driving to look for an affordable place.

  Fairplay, Maryland was one of these small towns. It was close to, but not quite Burkittsville, so I could spare myself any “Blair Witch” jokes.

  Ben Williams Junior met us at McNamee’s Tavern. He was a software engineer for one of the beltway bandit contractors leeching their lifeblood from the federal dollar. Deciding that the rush of inner-beltway life wasn’t for him, his wife, and his son, he’d convinced his firm to let him telecommute and bought a “fixer upper” out here.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  Pastor Duncan took the lead, “Tell us a little about what’s going on. Pastor Hancock gave me some details, but I’d like to hear it in your own words.”

  “Well, I came out here initially to start on the repairs to the house, while Sarah and little Ben were packing up back in Germantown. Once the house was fit to live in, I brought them out here. Things were okay for the first few weeks.”

  “Go on.” Pastor Duncan’s sermons could put the living into a death-like sleep, but he did have a way of getting people to open up to him.

  “Ben’s night terrors came back. At first, we thought
it was just trauma from the move and we tried to help him through the process. He’s only five. He said he kept hearing monsters and we’d figured he was just hearing animal noises or something. Then he started getting red welts all over his body and screaming about the monsters. We took him to a psychologist and they couldn’t find anything. We tried testing him for allergies and checking the house, but we couldn’t find any explanation. Sara contacted Pastor Hancock and here we are. They’ve been staying at a hotel until we can sort this out and little Ben’s been fine there.”

  The man looked a wee bit skeptical. Brother Silas was introduced as someone “sensitive” to this kind of phenomenon and I was his assistant. I couldn’t blame Williams for his concern. We didn’t exactly look like the Ghostbusters, but we followed his Chevy Silverado towards the newly refurbished farmhouse, hoping that we could find what was terrifying his kid.

  The place was pretty large and as we got the nickel tour, Ben was proud of how much he got it for. His brother worked for an auction house and picked it up from a federal auction fairly cheap. Pastor Duncan asked Ben to leave and the man was a bit hesitant, but when reminded he was the one who asked for help, the home owner relented.

  Nothing seemed out of sorts initially. A few of the rooms were full of unpacked boxes. I led Silas around and we both looked for anything. Silas planned to bless the house, if nothing else to make the homeowner feel better. We were back downstairs when Pastor Duncan asked an insightful question.

  “I was wondering, why this house would end up on a federal auction? Banks are usually the first to go after someone’s home, unless they owed back taxes?”

  Silas answered, “As much trouble as the IRS has caused me over the years, I wouldn’t doubt it. Although, more and more, you see them selling criminal’s houses.”

  The Pastor began preparing for a house blessing as he continued to talk. “Food for thought my friend. In the future, we could do a bit more research on the property. What do you think, Michael?”

  “Wouldn’t hurt to do an Internet search against the address or something. Might do a bit of … oh shit!”

  “Michael what is it?”

  Ice water ran through my veins as I stared out the back window into the yard and my grip on my phantom blade tightened. Gulping, I watched the shapes moving around the backyard. There were five or six of them and one was staring back at me.

  Finding my voice as the first one started to move towards the house I said. “I think I know what was going on here.”

  “Spit it out, son.” Brother Silas ambled over to me.

  I guided his head so he could “look” out the window. He sucked in his breath.

  “Oh, looks like someone was fighting dogs out here.”

  Three of the dogs were already heading in my direction. “I need room!”

  Backing away and clutching the sword, I guessed that the ministers wouldn’t be bothered by the ghost dogs.

  I, on the other hand, was in deep dog muck. I never really liked dogs and they didn’t much like me. There was this one time Jimmy Wilkes and I messed around in a junkyard when we were eleven and that big old dog came after us. It was one of the first times I had ever been terrified. Now that I thought about it, it was probably the start of my dislike for dogs.

  The room behind me was empty, except for a few boxes. Why couldn’t I have stolen a “ghost revolver” or something like that from Colonel Vincent? Why did I have to leave my pipe wrench out in Pastor Duncan’s car?

  I thought of every stupid thing I knew about the types of dogs people used in dog fighting. They’d come straight at me. They wouldn’t use any clever tactics. At least, I could be thankful for that.

  The first one charged me was probably certain that I couldn’t hurt it. I couldn’t tell a Pitbull from a Poodle and to be honest, I didn’t care. It ignored the sword in my hand.

  Slamming into me and impaling itself on the sword, I felt the weight of the beast, the accompanying pain of touching the paranormal, and my one good ear filled with the dog’s yelps of pain. The force of the impact drove me into the ground and “bowser” snapped at my throat. I jammed my one arm up under his throat and with my right hand; I kept yanking on the sword. I managed to get some leverage with my legs and rolled it off of me.

  Seconds were all the time I had to savor this victory. I pulled the sword out of it and was about to give it a “for good measure” slash when dog number two chomped down on my leg. I screamed in pain and used my free foot to give the mutt a size nine kick to the head. It growled angrily, but didn’t let go. I gave it a second kick and then whipped the sword around, slicing it along the side.

  It let go that time! Injured, it started to back away, but another slash took out its hind legs. Dog number three prevented me from finishing that one off, biting down on my sword arm. I had to drop the sword; clumsily passing it to my left hand. All the while, it was shaking my arm like a rag doll. I fought through the pain and stabbed it through the neck. That one became nothing but dead weight on my arm, although its jaws were still clamped on to me.

  I could hear Brother Silas with Pastor Duncan joining in, making noise and trying to attract the attention of the other two dogs as I frantically pulled my aching body around and worked to free my arm from the vice-like grip. The skin wasn’t broken, but it still felt like I should be bleeding everywhere. It was some kind of “phantom” pain like I’d heard amputees talk about. Painful looking boils and angry red welts formed on my skin.

  Suddenly the crushing pain let up and the dog faded into mist. I grabbed the sword and went after the one that was using its two front legs to pull itself away in a pathetic attempt to escape. Okay, it wasn’t so pathetic given the state I was in at the moment, but I digress.

  Staggering after it, I put the damn thing out of its misery. The other two took this as their cue to bolt through the wall and out into the yard.

  Pastor Duncan, who probably had seen some strange things in his many years, looked pale as a ghost as he helped hold me up. Silas was already over at the window, looking for them.

  “They can’t seem to leave the property, Mike. There’s a third one out there, but it looks tied up with a rope or chain.”

  I was shaking, not really sure if it was shock or adrenaline and I was wondering if I might have wet myself – yeah, some hero huh? Nonetheless, I was angry enough to go stumbling out to track those two down. The one on the rope wasn’t your typical fighting dog. It looked like a small female husky that had seen better days. I left it alone. Even in my battered state, I figured out that this was just some kind of “bait” dog that was tied up and used to train the others how to kill.

  If I ever caught up to the piece of filth that owned this property before the Williams family, I swore to do some right nasty things to him.

  Silas was right; the other two couldn’t leave the yard. Too bad the “yard” was at least two acres of land. I called to my preachers and since the dogs didn’t know they couldn’t hurt them, I used Pastor Duncan, with Brother Silas calling directions out to him, to help drive the dogs to me.

  Good thing this place didn’t have neighbors near. It would have looked pretty ridiculous. Even with Reggie Duncan’s help, it took fifteen minutes for me to “get” the first one and another ten before I finished off the other one.

  Approaching the tied up husky, I looked at it, cowering. Instinctively, I held my hand out to it and it crawled forward, sort of inching, so it could sniff me. It tried to lick me, which wasn’t as painful as my normal contact with the spirits. I patted it on the head a few times and it rolled over to let me scratch its belly – well, her belly.

  “What is it Mike?” Pastor Duncan asked.

  “This one’s not a fighting dog. It was just a practice dog.”

  “Are you going to kill it?” Silas asked. It seemed like he was waiting for my answer and I could sense he was going to judge me based on what I said.

  “Don’t know. It would end the dog’s suffering, but I’m guessing the o
ther ones would terrorize it even in whatever comes after. The rope goes into the ground. Pastor Duncan, could you see if there’s a shovel on the back porch?”

  Starting to dig, I saw the husky suddenly begin cowering. I turned to see a large shape running out of the tree line. It was an angry looking man. Why did it always have to be big guys? I dropped the shovel and picked up the sword.

  I pointed the tip at the ghost and tapped into my ‘short man’s syndrome’, “I can see you and I can destroy you just like I did to your dogs. That’s right, you damn redneck – you’re this close to getting crossed over! You’ve got one chance to leave and never come back. This property isn’t yours anymore! And another thing, if I hear you’ve been harassing that little boy, or anyone else, I will hunt your ass down and take my sweet time. Do you get me?”

  The coward must have seen something he didn’t like in my face and headed for the hills. Pastor Duncan, having only heard my side of it, gave a hearty laugh. “Not exactly the normal wording we use during one of these, Michael, but it seems equally as effective.”

  Shrugging, I set the blade down and picked up the shovel. Five minutes of digging later, I found a concrete pad with a metal ring embedded in it, buried under about a foot of dirt. We used a sledge hammer to break the metal ring loose. That seemed to be the husky’s anchor.

  I handed Silas the ring and he walked with it pacing the edge of the property and blessing it. After finishing, the dog obediently followed us to the car, while I considered what I would do with a phantom husky.

  “Hi, you must be Ben.” The young boy looked up at me from his coloring book. The hotel room the Williams family was staying at looked like they had been there for a while.

  “Yes.” Was all the reply I was offered, the boy seemed very skittish.