by J. S. Bailey
I’m a terrible stepson, he thought. While he and Charlotte weren’t related by blood, she was one of the few family members he had left. It wouldn’t hurt to call her more often, but the truth of it was that his life in Autumn Ridge often shoved all thoughts of Ohio and the people who lived there from his mind.
Out in the kitchen, Carly was asking Charlotte something about the daycare where she worked; and Jonas had slunk off into the family room to re-glue himself to whatever show he’d evidently been watching when everyone arrived.
Bobby took the opportunity to scan the picture frames perched on the fireplace mantel in the living room. Jonas posing with a football. Bobby’s senior photo. Charlotte’s elderly parents. Baby pictures of both Bobby and Jonas.
Something’s missing.
A memory from Bobby’s visit in July came back to him. On the evening of the day that Adrian Pollard was buried, Bobby had given his friends a tour of his old home. Carly had oohed and ahhed while looking at the collection of Roland Family photos, and she’d pointed out an eight-by-ten in a silver frame sitting in the center of the mantel. “So that’s your dad,” Carly had said softly. “He looks like a nice guy.”
In the present, Bobby gaped at the place where Ken and Charlotte’s wedding photo had stood for the better part of two decades. Bobby could see the picture clearly in his mind: a beaming Ken had squeezed himself into a tux for the occasion, and Charlotte had looked radiant in a long-sleeved white gown; her long, coffee-brown hair spilling down her back in waves. They held hands in front of the altar at church, and Bobby, a toddler at the time, had stood in front of them wearing a tiny tuxedo, looking clueless.
The picture was gone now. In its place sat a snapshot of Charlotte and a vaguely-familiar man with reddish hair, both of whom were sitting in a restaurant laughing as if they hadn’t a single worry.
Bobby’s pulse hammered in his ears as realization hit him. Get over it, he told himself. It was bound to happen sooner or later. As far as he knew, Charlotte had not dated anyone after his father died almost seven years before. Life had to be lonely for her. She had Jonas, of course, and Bobby (though he’d mostly been absent in the past two years), but that wouldn’t have been the same as having a companion by her side.
Charlotte came out of the kitchen, holding a steaming mug for him to take. “Bobby? Is everything okay?”
Bobby swallowed and did his best to compose himself. “What’s his name?”
Charlotte’s gaze traveled to the mantel, and understanding dawned on her face. “You mean Drew.”
“Drew.” The name felt uncomfortable in his mouth like a bad word, and he numbly took the mug from her. “Does he live around here?”
“Just a few blocks away. I know you’ve seen him before. He goes to our church.”
Bobby remained silent, waiting for her to say more.
Charlotte drew in a deep breath. “Let’s go sit down.”
The three of them took seats at the table in the kitchen. “Drew and I started seeing each other in August,” she began slowly, “though we’ve known each other much longer than that. He lost his wife to cancer about the same time that Ken died.”
Bobby nodded. “Okay.”
“We were in the same grief support group for a while back then. We hadn’t really talked since then, but this past year he started sitting near me in church. I should have known what the sly dog was up to.” Her face lit up but then morphed into sorrow. “Bobby, I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten about your father and what he meant to me. I’ll always cherish the years we had together, but it was time for me to move on.”
Bobby just nodded again. He had no argument against Charlotte dating anyone else. He doubted his father would, either.
Carly spoke up to dispel the awkward atmosphere. “So what’s Drew like?”
Charlotte pushed a strand of wavy hair behind an ear and blushed at the ceiling. “He’s such a gentleman. He bought me a bouquet of roses for our first date. He’s got three kids, but I don’t know if you’d remember them from school or not, Bobby. Sidney’s a few years older than you, and Brian and Kyle are a little younger.”
Bobby scrunched his forehead, trying to remember. Then, “Is their last name Miller?”
“You’ve got it.”
“I sort of remember some Millers.” He sort of remembered a lot of people from this town but didn’t know any of them well enough to consider them acquaintances.
“So enough about Drew,” Charlotte said. “What made you decide to visit?”
Bobby and Carly exchanged a glance. “We’re here on church business.”
Charlotte’s eyebrows rose. “What sort of church business?”
Bobby wasn’t going to lie to his stepmother, but he couldn’t really be evasive, either, or she’d keep prying. “It involves demonic activity. I know it sounds crazy.”
The color melted off of Charlotte’s face. “What kind of demonic activity?”
Bobby thought of Thane and the ability he’d been given due to demonic influence. “It’s kind of like possession.”
“Okay.” Charlotte sounded uncertain. “Why does that bring you to Eleanor?”
“I was hoping someone here might know how to help.”
“And Oregon doesn’t have anyone who can?” Charlotte looked disappointed, like she’d hoped to hear that Bobby had come home solely to see his family.
He shrugged. He could have scoured Oregon for help, but Thane might have tried to hinder him there. The fact that Thane had not chosen to manifest himself or throw a wrench into Bobby’s plans since leaving Autumn Ridge was a strong indication that he couldn’t reach them here. “You wouldn’t know anyone in that line of business, would you?” he said, only half-jokingly.
“The demon-hunting business? Only on TV.”
“What about people who have gifts? You know, like clairvoyance.”
Skepticism shone in Charlotte’s eyes, but she said, “I can’t say I do. The only people I can think of are the Thompsons.”
“The who?”
Charlotte paused to sip at her hot chocolate. “I guess you don’t remember them. They’re an odd sort of couple. Nice, though. They go poking around in haunted houses and things. As a matter of fact, the husband is related to Drew’s kids. Small town, you know.”
“The issue isn’t ghosts,” he said. “Besides, I’m not even sure if those are real.”
“It doesn’t matter to me if they are or not. I just know that people around here who claim to have had some problems ended up calling the Thompsons and had those problems taken care of. It can’t hurt giving them a call. Even if they don’t know how to help you, they might know someone else who can.”
MIA STROLLED down the sidewalk past her apartment Sunday night, inhaling the frigid air like a drug. She’d spent a considerable part of the day with Nate or Thane or whatever he wanted to be called, and while she found him more than a little fascinating, she couldn’t help but feel drained.
That was the problem with her gift. If she used it too much, it wore her down. She’d taken a short nap after returning home from the Bagdasarians’ estate (nice place, by the way), and now she felt as energized as ever despite the late hour.
She still didn’t know what to do with all the information she’d learned that day. Her mind practically brimmed with it. Maybe she could force Thane’s father to make an anonymous donation of a few hundred thousand dollars to one of her favorite charities. Thanks to Mia’s efforts, thousands of hungry people had been fed, and the naked had been clothed. How many people could lay claim to that?
Mia rounded a corner and jumped backward when she nearly collided with a man she hadn’t heard coming. A nearby streetlamp illuminated blond hair and a gray coat, but before she could properly examine his face, a hand latched hard around her wrist.
Her mind filled with the brief image of herself chained to a chair in a moldy root cellar.
“Get off of me!” she growled, more angry than frightened. With an ability like
hers, no one could ever hurt her again.
The man’s grip only tightened. “You’ve got to help me,” he rasped. “I don’t know where I am.”
Mia gritted her teeth. “You will let me go!”
He yanked her closer to him. His eyes gleamed like manic marbles as he said, “I’m dead, so you must be dead, too. So where are we? Is this hell?”
He’s deranged, Mia thought as panic started to set in. She’d never attempted to control someone with a severe mental disorder. Maybe people like that couldn’t be controlled, which meant nothing good for her in that moment.
Her mind raced to remember the self-defense moves she’d learned in a class a few years back. If he kept hold of her wrist, she could whip around so her back faced him and break his elbow over her shoulder, but she’d have to be lightning-quick.
She braced herself for attack. One, two…
The man let go of her wrist and instead grabbed her shoulders, then held his face inches from hers. His breath reeked like he hadn’t seen a toothbrush in a day or two. Mia was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “Please. You’ve got to help me,” he choked. “I don’t know what’s happening anymore. There’s something…there’s something inside my head.”
Losing her own mind to panic would not help her, so Mia dragged in a calming breath and said, “I won’t help you if you don’t let go of me.”
His grip only tightened on her shoulders—if he kept up like that, he was going to leave some mighty fine bruises. “I can’t let you go until I know where I am.”
Okay, then. “Let’s see,” she said, proud at how brave she could make herself sound during a crisis. “We’re in Autumn Ridge, Oregon on the corner of Yew and Becker, and last I checked, dead men can’t talk.”
“You’re lying!”
Before Mia could process what was happening, she found herself pressed against the brick wall of the building beside where she’d been standing…three feet off the ground. The man himself remained on the sidewalk, not even touching her. It was as if an unseen force pinned her in place.
He planted his hands on his hips and stared up at her, though due to the differences in their heights she was only about a head above him. “Stay back from that which is ours,” he snarled in a voice most unlike the one he’d used thus far. “Do that, and you’ll live.”
He strode away then, and once he was out of sight, the force let Mia go, and she collapsed to the sidewalk in a bruised heap.
BOBBY BARELY slept that night, his system having been thrown off by the changing time zones. By the time he rose from the couch at nine Eastern Time, he was exhausted, his throat felt even scratchier, and he shook so badly he could barely walk.
He stumbled into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet until he found an old-fashioned glass thermometer, then popped it into his mouth. When he removed it five minutes later and held it up to find the silver line of mercury, he discovered he was running a fever of 100.2 degrees.
Brilliant.
Carly, who’d spent the night in Charlotte’s guest room, stood in the kitchen making coffee when Bobby emerged from the bathroom. “Your mom’s at work already,” she said.
His stomach rumbled. “Did you sleep okay?”
Carly turned and gave him a brisk appraisal. “Better than you, evidently. I figured we can look up these Thompson people after breakfast.”
“I hope it’s not a dead end. I mean, ghosts? Seriously?”
Carly shrugged. “Maybe the ghosts are demons in disguise. It would be awesome if one of the Thompsons is a Servant.”
“Charlotte said they’re married.”
“Oh. Right. Well, maybe one used to be a Servant.”
“Hmm. Maybe.” But I doubt it.
The Spirit gave a flutter within him, and Bobby felt a strange reassurance. The Thompsons might not be Servants, but apparently meeting with them would be in Bobby’s best interests.
CARLY FOUND the Thompsons’ number and chatted with one of them for about fifteen minutes while Bobby sat in the front room sipping a Sprite and willing his new fever to go back down. He only caught snatches of their conversation, but by the sound of it, Carly was describing the situation back home in the vaguest terms possible.
When she ended the call, she said, “That was Jessica Thompson. She says we can come by around six-thirty this evening when her husband’s home from work.”
Bobby nodded. “Okay. So what are we going to do in the meantime?”
“Nothing. You told me Eleanor is a boring place, right?” She winked.
“I did say that all you can do is stare at Kentucky all day.”
“Then let’s go do that.”
AFTER BUNDLING up, and after Bobby downed some cold medicine he found in the first-floor bathroom, they walked down to the riverbank and sat on a cold bench to watch a barge float by. Bobby pointed at the cluster of houses on the other side of the river. “That’s Iron Springs over there.”
“Springs like streams or springs like coils of metal?”
“No idea.” Bobby sighed as the icy wind whipped through his hair, which was in need of a cut since it was starting to curl around his ears. Being idle like this made him feel restless. He needed to do something, not just sit here like an old-timer daydreaming about his life.
Patience, the Spirit murmured.
He gnashed his teeth together. Patience wouldn’t stop Thane, would it? His quadriplegia certainly hadn’t stopped him in any way. Besides, as far as Bobby could remember, Thane hadn’t received his ability until after he’d broken his neck. If anything, Thane’s injury had made him stronger.
Bobby shivered.
Somewhere in the distance, someone was banging a hammer against something, and it made a sorrowful clinking sound. The town might as well have been called Sorrow, Ohio. For as long as Bobby could remember, little good had happened here. The river would flood and destroy homes, leaving people destitute. The bottling plant had closed and cost too many people their jobs. People who tried to get ahead were often scoffed at. “You’ll never succeed,” Bobby had heard a neighbor say to her son who wished to join the NFL someday. “You’re from Eleanor.”
The town did show signs of economic recovery, but Bobby suspected that that would be fleeting. The Ohio River would overflow its banks again. A tornado might even come along and wipe Eleanor off the map, which had happened several years before to another nearby river town.
Stop thinking like that, he chided himself. His thoughts were making him depressed, and it must have been contagious since Carly was gazing across the river with tears in her eyes.
“I just can’t believe Grandpa Frank is gone,” she whispered.
Even though it made him uncomfortable, Bobby awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders. “We’re going to stop Thane no matter what it takes,” he said, willing himself to believe it. “And then he’ll never hurt anyone again.”
BOBBY SHOWERED that evening and put on clean clothes before he and Carly made the short walk to Sunset Street, where the Thompsons supposedly lived. He tried not to be nervous about their visit. He had no idea what these people would be like. People who sat in haunted houses for hours talking to the walls had to have a few loose screws rattling around in their heads.
The Thompsons lived in a plain white two-story house that had a concrete slab for a porch. A burgundy Mazda and a red pickup truck with handicapped tags occupied the driveway.
Huh. Was one of the Thompsons disabled?
Carly knocked on the door, and Bobby held his breath.
The door swung open with a squeal. A familiar bespectacled man stood on the threshold wearing a peach-colored button-down shirt and khaki slacks. He held onto the doorframe with one hand.
“I remember you!” Bobby blurted. “You gave a talk at my school a long time ago.”
“That sounds like me.” The man gave them a thin smile. “For some reason I tend to leave a distinct impression on people.” He looked to Carly. “I’m Wayne, by the way. My wife told
me about your call earlier.”
“I really hope you can help us,” Carly said, staring at their host with curiosity.
“I suppose we’ll find out. So come in! Jessica made dinner, but I can’t promise it won’t kill you.”
Wayne stepped aside to allow them to pass, his “scissors” gait evident the moment he moved. Bobby recalled from the talk at school that Wayne had been born with spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy that affected the legs.
The moment Wayne closed the door behind them, a naked two-year-old raced around the corner waving a pair of underwear in the air. A frazzled woman in her mid-twenties pursued him holding a pair of tiny blue jeans and a red sweater. “Benjamin, you get back here!” She threw an exasperated smile at Bobby, her face flushing. “Sorry!”
She grabbed hold of her son out in the living room and wrestled him into his clothes.
Wayne shook his head in mock despair. “Welcome to La Casa de Thompson. Sometimes things can be a little crazy around here. And by sometimes, I mean always.”
Bobby kept glancing around, surprised that the home looked so normal inside. He’d expected lots of black and candles and skulls and things, yet the most macabre bit of décor he could see from where he stood was a crucifix hanging over the open archway leading to the living room.
Jessica reentered the kitchen with a clothed Benjamin in tow. “I swear this kid doesn’t know how to stop,” she said, smoothing back her long, chocolate-brown hair. “He’s like the Energizer Bunny on speed.”
They all gathered at the table, where plates and silverware had already been set out.
“Carly told me you wouldn’t mind lasagna,” Jessica said to Bobby as she glided over to the counter. “And despite what Wayne says, my cooking has never killed anyone that I’m aware of, so dig in.”