by Wendy Laine
“Oh, I believe it was a person. In fact, I’ve found at the heart of most hauntings is a human who’s a little dead inside.”
I nodded. I might let him help, providing this wasn’t some trick and he wasn’t running his own agenda.
“That doesn’t mean they’re not doing other things to stir up folks,” Gris said.
“Like what?”
“On the nights you’ve had those nightmares about being attacked, have you found anything in your room?”
There it was again. I felt exposed at him knowing about my nightmares when I couldn’t remember sharing it. “When did I tell you about my nightmares?”
Gris’s forehead scrunched up for a second. “Right before we went out to lunch.”
I still didn’t remember that. That wasn’t like me. I didn’t “share.”
“Sometimes,” Gris added, “to spook someone and to give them nightmares, a person will place these bags in their victim’s rooms.”
“Bags?”
“Little pouches filled with ingredients that’ll give them bad dreams. Have you found anything like that when you’ve cleaned?”
“I’m not really a clean person.”
His gaze drifted to the pen. He spun it again.
I slapped my hand on it. “Stop it. Okay. I can’t think when you…” I clenched my teeth. “Look, things should be a certain way. That doesn’t make me clean, it’s sensible. So stop it. Just stop it.”
“Fine.” He held up his hands. “I’ll stop.”
I nodded. He was getting under my skin, making me itchy and uncomfortable. I needed to leave. I tapped on the notebook. “What does this say?”
“I made a note to find out more about the Beaumonts—find out what you knew about the ones still around.” He pointed at the scribbled words. “See, there’s where I mentioned you. Ask the beautiful blonde beside you what she knows.”
It was an improvement on “short blonde,” but I still wasn’t falling for it. I squinted at the notebook, willing it to make clear words. “Looks more like ‘what made fiends attack,’ but your handwriting is really poor. Poor handwriting can lead to mistakes. You should consider using a tablet. Or, I should take notes.” I picked up the notebook and flipped to a new page. Eyeing his pen, I put it back down and pulled my own from my backpack.
“You don’t like my pen?”
“Mine is blue so we can tell the difference between my notes and yours. Also, the contrast between blue ink is better on photocopies and that way you know it’s handwritten.”
“Here I thought maybe it was cooties. Let me see that.” He took the pen from my hand, managing to brush his fingers along mine as he did. It made my foolish heart flutter. It was just my fingers!
“Give me that back.” I reached for it.
Gris held it out of reach for a second—which got me in closer to his body than I was comfortable with.
Sitting back, I sent him a heavy frown.
With a grin, he handed me back my pen. “Now, it has cooties.”
I fought the urge to wipe it off. He didn’t have cooties. “I once had a pen by that brand.” I nodded at his pen. “It leaked and ruined my purse.” I wrote “Beaumonts” at the top of a clean sheet of paper and underlined it. “Okay, so there aren’t Beaumonts around anymore. Not any that I’ve met. ‘Course folks change names and marry and so on.” I slid closer to the microfilm reader and examined the newsprint. “Now, that’s interesting.” I wrote Phil Laramie on the notepad. “Silas’s body was found by their neighbor, Paul Laramie. I would bet that’s Phil‘s father, seeing as how Paul is a family name. It says they were trying to contact Silas’s relatives. They found some apparently—as somebody must’ve paid for the tombstone, right? If the estate paid, it wouldn’t be as ornate.”
“The gargoyle, you mean?”
I nodded. “It’s one of the nicer gravestones in the cemetery, even if it’s outside the regular section. There is another Beaumont in the cemetery with the same style, so I’m assuming that’s family, even if they’re not buried together. I can’t remember his name, but he died young too.”
“Another gargoyle?”
“On the tombstone? Yes.” I added “gargoyle” in the notes. “That’s strange, isn’t it? Normally I wouldn’t make much of it, but maybe someone has a fascination with things like that. Gargoyles and the occult and…”
Gris snatched the notebook out of my hand. “I’ll check into it.” He got up abruptly. “I’ll let you focus on this.” He walked off.
It was probably fair, since I’d done that to him yesterday, but I still glared at his back as he left. Fair or not, he’d left me with more questions than he’d answered again.
…
That night, I couldn’t sleep. It was nearing midnight, and I had school tomorrow. I needed to stop thinking about Gris and everything else, but I couldn’t shut off my mind.
A pouch? What had Gris meant by that? I looked around my room. My mom was always getting after me to clean up, but that was her thing. She liked things clean and in patterns. I liked patterns, but her cleanliness was sharp and unfriendly. It made the voices in my head shout louder. I tried. I swear I did, but no one could keep things that sterile. My room’s clutter was like a nest. I knew where everything was—that was enough.
I dropped down and looked under my bed. Books and dirty clothes were piled underneath. I pulled everything out and fished around until my hand touched rough burlap. No way. I straightened up and stared at the bag in my hand.
Somebody had been in my room. That was violating. And creepy. They’d put a bag in my room. Who’d do such a thing? I couldn’t decide if I was more angry or horrified. Maybe I was equal parts of both. Opening it up, I peered inside. Weird grass and a sulfury smell rose up. Gross.
I made sure nobody was around as I snuck into the hall. Then, I went into the bathroom and flushed the whole thing. There—if that thing supposedly attracted ghosts, they could haunt our septic system.
What did it mean that Gris was right, though? Was somebody trying to give me nightmares?
I climbed back into bed and tucked my flashlight under my pillow. Taking a deep breath, I turned off my bedside light.
The shadows shifted and inched closer. I closed my eyes, shutting them out, trying to turn off my thoughts. A breeze fanned my cheek, even though my window was closed. I knew it was closed. If I kept my eyes shut, I could pretend it was all in my mind. Heaven knew my mind was a scary place on its own, but I was at least used to that.
The dark thoughts crawled into my brain and made themselves a nest of other ugly wriggling thoughts—thoughts that bled and bred until my mind was full of them. So many. I’d done so many things wrong. Jester. Jester was at the top, but there were others—so many others. It’d become this chant in my head every night as I rewound and remembered all my sins and mistakes.
The silence of the night without my dog would be a permanent reminder of that mistake, but thinking about Jester made my stomach clench and tears leak out the corners of my eyes, so I tried to push it back. I hated crying.
Other dark thoughts moved in as if the gate had been opened.
What if I’d had something to do with Trina’s disappearance? She’d disappeared the night of a rainstorm. It was the night Dale had said I’d sleepwalked out to the fence for the first time. My brother had come looking for me when he’d woken up and found the front door wide open. I was soaked to the skin. Things had changed after that night. The nights had teeth.
Our town was haunted—Gris was right about that, and, maybe I was helping that along. Strange things happened around me.
Mr. Foster, the old principal, had thought I’d cheated once on a test. He’d said I’d been staring at another student’s paper, but that was just the way I concentrated on things. I’d been staring off into space. The new principal was nicer, less focused on me.
Then, there were all those thoughts—the thoughts that were evil and ugly that I had to cut out. Something ferocious and harmful l
ived inside me that was stronger than I was. I felt the roar of it at times—in my head and under my skin; it was as if my body couldn’t contain it.
Greta Mellor told me I was a wicked, wicked girl a few weeks before she’d crashed into the barbershop. She’d looked at me and said she’d seen my soul, and it was hideous. Her daughter had rushed her away, apologizing, telling me her mama wasn’t well, but I thought maybe Greta was the first person to see the real me. She saw the part of me that was diseased and rotten.
Reaching out, I fumbled for the flashlight and flicked it on, waiting for the odd hiss as the cold withdrew before I opened my eyes. I didn’t wanna know what was out there. I truly didn’t.
After I’d counted to twenty by twos in my head, I opened my eyes. I kept the straight razor in my bedside drawer hidden in a copy of Little Women. I always cut the shoulder I slept on. The pain had presence that way, and, if my parents walked in, they wouldn’t know. The cut wasn’t deep, just enough to bleed out the bad thoughts and do right by my wrongs. To pay for things like Jester and not getting up to check on him. To pay for yelling at him—since I couldn’t take that back. It was to pay for a lot of things.
I am wicked. I think of people dying. I fantasize about stupid Hank Jr. getting run over by the train that he and his friends play chicken with. I imagined something awful happening to Mr. Foster long before his stroke, and to Greta Mellor after she’d said that about me being wicked. I’d wondered what Mrs. Mellor would do if I pushed her into the street. She was standing too close to the curb, and you never knew how dark the person beside you was. It wasn’t sensible to stand that close to the curb, ever.
The blood thickened and crusted in the light of the flashlight. One cut tonight. So I could sleep. I exhaled shakily. For a moment, there was peace…and quiet. I was in control. I was here, not in the past. I was here.
The cuts were getting more frequent. Maybe I was losing my mind…maybe it was lost already.
I wiped the straight razor on the inside of my black tank top before putting it away. No more cutting this week, not until this healed. I imagined the bad thoughts seeping out of my body through the blood. It was sick and wrong. I was sick and wrong. Sometimes, I thought about quitting but it made a panic rise up in me. What would I do if I couldn’t pay? How would I cut through the crowded thoughts in my head?
Every cut reminded me I wasn’t strong enough to quit, and was a reason to cut again in the future.
I’d paid for tonight, and for Jester. I should pay and somebody else should pay, too. Maybe finding out who’d killed Jester would be part of my penance. Another swipe of a slate that hadn’t been clean for as long as I’d lived.
As I turned off the light, and I felt the monsters crawl across my body to lick my cut and tease at my blind eyes, I knew, even with them here, I was all alone. It was better for me to be alone. I couldn’t hurt anybody but myself. I had more control when I was alone. Control was all that I needed.
No more time with Gris. I could figure this out all on my own.
The rush of a fresh cut healed my soul. I’d paid.
I closed my eyes against the darkness with its shadowy monsters and their frigid, sulfurous breath. Demons. They might be demons.
One of the demons whispered in my mind that I was strong enough to kill, if that’s what I wanted. I could hide it ‘cause I was so smart. I pinched my shoulder hard where I’d cut the one inch gash. It hurt, but the pain felt right. Pain could heal. Pain could silence the demons. Both inside and outside. For tonight.
Chapter Seven
Gris
I sat on the mattress in the corner of the room and stared at my laptop screen.
Normally, I didn’t sleep at night.
Normally, I didn’t have both steroid-jacked jocks and fiends using me as a punching bag. Hidden Creek was exhausting me. I also had spent more of today than I’d planned looking for answers to what was happening in this town—and I’d spent less of it in the company of Piper than I wanted. Hell, she’d spooked me with the whole “gargoyle” talk.
Guys like me were better off steering clear of girls like Piper, who deserved a fair amount of attention and honesty. I couldn’t be honest about my birthright.
I needed to do the job and get out of here and, tonight, that meant checking out the grave.
Yawning as the drag of the day pressed on my body, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I’d wait until midnight, and then I’d go check. I’d just catch a quick nap first.
The soft click of a door shutting cut through a frequent nightmare I was nearly glad to end. What the hell? I got up quickly and moved through the house.
The sledgehammer I’d inherited from Hank was beside my bedroom door. I grabbed it as I eased the door open. If Hank and his buddies were back, I wouldn’t fake getting injured. Coming inside the house was a whole new type of trespassing.
I stood in the hall and waited, listening. My chosen bedroom was halfway down the hall in the empty house. I turned toward the back of the house and heard movement behind me. Spinning, I caught sight of a wisp of clothing as somebody crossed my front room.
A strange scent hung in the air. Sulfur. Hank had smelled more like ineffective deodorant and BO.
“Whoever is in here better clear out before I call the sheriff.” I held the sledgehammer like a bat as I edged toward the intruder. “I’m not messin’ with you!” I jumped into the room only to find my great-uncle Critch standing in front of the big picture window that overlooked the porch, the yard, and at the machine shop.
He didn’t turn to look at me, but stayed staring out.
“Sir?” I set the sledgehammer to the side. As much as we didn’t care for each other, we were family. I turned on the kitchen light. I preferred leaving things dark since I could still see well, and the lack of curtains on this place would make me feel like a free peep show otherwise. But there was something wraith-like about my uncle that begged for the lights to be on.
His breath wheezed in and out. Critch once was Danny’s height with Danny’s blond hair and fair complexion. He’d shrunk with age and now his hair was bone-white and stuck up at weird angles as if he’d licked a live wire. Despite it all, there was this stubborn lean look to his frame. It wasn’t impossible to see the Watcher in him, even if his powers had passed to me.
“Used to be, things were different,” he said finally, still staring out.
“You mean in Hidden Creek?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why are you in my house, Uncle Critch?”
He looked around, blinking. “Oh, are you staying here?”
I rolled my eyes and rubbed a hand down my face. “Cut the crap. I know you’re not as senile as you pretend.” He couldn’t be. It was a hunch, but I was sticking to it. Since I was up, I might as well have food. I’d bought a few boxes of cereal to get me through when Hidden Creek rolled up its sidewalks.
“No respect for your elders,” he said under his breath as I went to get a bowl out of my cupboard.
“No respect for those who don’t respect a locked door. You want cereal?” I held up my only other bowl.
His rheumy eyes stared at the large, orange bowl in my hand.
My aunt said she used the bowl normally to hold candy for trick-or-treaters. It had a giant skull on the side, maybe that’s what he was staring at. I held up the bowl I’d been planning on using—it was bigger, but no skull. “Or you can have this one.”
He shook his head. “Don‘t eat as much as I used to. Not since you stole my powers.”
I put the orange bowl back. “Yeah, well, I’m beginning to suspect I’ll be anxious to retire myself when the time comes.” The fiends at the mill would have killed my great-uncle. Hell, if I’d stopped on my way into town when I’d been so exhausted, they would’ve killed me.
He glanced around my living room. “You know who used to live here?”
“Uh-huh. The Trunkers.”
Letting out a frustrated hiss, he said, “Not the Trunker
s. Everybody remembers the Trunkers. They were only here a few damn years. No, the Beaumonts. The Beaumonts! Two generations of them lived in this house.”
I froze. “The Beaumonts lived here? In this house?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” His face took on a wistful expression. “Tawna Beaumont. Was she ever a looker.”
“I heard you used to live here in Hidden Creek way back when.” I poured my cereal. There was a rumor that he’d gotten a girl pregnant, too—maybe that had happened here. Weird to think I might have a relative around here if that was true. Of course, responsible guy that he was, Critch had deserted his supposed child and wandered all over for decades before coming back here to live with my aunt and uncle just recently—after all the adults had decided he’d gotten too senile to live alone.
“‘Course I did. I wanted the birthright, didn’t I? Watchers are born where Watchers die. Like I told Jess, right here. Right here is where you need to be.” He stomped a foot. “Right here.”
“Aunt Jess? You told my aunt that her kids would get the birthright if she lived here?”
“She didn’t listen, though. Left on that trip when she was about to deliver and ruined everything.”
I held up a hand. “Hold on, Critch. Are you saying you told Aunt Jess that because Danny was born in Chicago on that trip—that’s why he didn’t get the birthright?”
Critch’s eyes surveyed me before he turned back to the window. “I used to live right there.” He threw a hand in the direction of the machine shop. “They razed my old house and put up that. That!”
“You don’t like the machine shop?”
He shrugged.
“If you lived there, did you live near the Laramies?”
My uncle’s unfocused gaze sharpened and cut to me. “Why’d you bring up them?”
“Phil Laramie‘s dad was the one who discovered Silas’s body after he’d been killed by fiends.”