Chapter Nineteen
I pulled into the short-term parking lot of the airport and let the car I had borrowed from my parents idle for a few minutes. The smell of the coffee I had taken from some pseudo-friendly high school kid behind a drive thru window permeated. A few sips and I was finished with the stuff. It was almost as bad as the waiting.
I knew Trent’s flight wouldn’t arrive for another quarter of an hour and then there would be the waiting for the plane to empty and finally the inevitable eternity spent waiting for the baggage carousel to dispense his luggage. Apart from all of that airports have never been my favorite places. There was always something off about them. Whenever I had to fly somewhere it always felt like every moment from the time I stepped through the front doors of the place to the time the plane took off from the ground was spent in a place that time had abandoned in frustration. Airports always felt hollow to me in some slippery, unexplainable way. I was in no hurry.
The radio was silent, turned off in favor of the white noise of the engine rumbling its tuneless music, the soundtrack to my meditation on Trent’s last e-mail. I wanted very much to know the content of his dream but at the same time I already had a pretty good idea of what I was going to hear from him. Burning buildings and threatening, dark figures had become a common part of my sleeping hours and I knew those things were now spilling over into the lives of people close to me. I knew it like I knew the enveloping rumble of the engine or the bitterness of cheap, stale coffee. Such things don’t care if they are acknowledged. They simply carry on moment by moment, zombie slaves dragging the present forward without knowing or caring why.
When it was finally time to go, I shut the car off and stepped out. Not long after that I found myself inside the airport and as close to the terminal as people are permitted without a boarding pass or without being wrestled to the ground by the humorless TSA officers. Despite my problems I was glad to at least not have that job. That was a stroke of mercy, I thought.
Trent was one of the first few passengers to get off. He didn’t look happy to see me, just determined and accepting. I tried my best to greet him warmly but we both knew the truth behind the formality. There was a good deal of work ahead of us, rough work.
While we were waiting for his bag to arrive at the carousel I asked, “Do you want me to take you to your hotel first?”
He didn’t look at me but looked straight ahead of us. His eyes squinted slightly as he processed through his response. Finally he said, “No. I think I’d feel safer if we went somewhere public and just sat for a while.”
“Do you want to get some coffee or something? You look like you could use something.” I thought again of the paper cup of bitter black in the car and perked up a bit at the idea of something a little more sophisticated. I saw the idea resonated with Trent, too.
“Yeah,” he slowly nodded, “that sounds fine. But I don’t want to go somewhere noisy.” Then he finally did turn his head to look at me. “I want you to hear everything I have to say as clearly as possible.” He held my gaze, waiting for an affirmation.
“Sure thing,” I said. “I know a place not too far from my apartment.
The place was one of those little ubiquitous coffee houses. It was early afternoon and there were several people lounging, working on laptops, reading books and chatting with each other, hunched over tables and leaning on elbows. It was the kind of place which lends you a paradoxical sort of privacy out in the open. The sound of the grinder punctuated this every so often making conversation difficult.
Trent sat back in his seat, making little eye contact with me. Instead he watched his fingers fiddle with the paper wrapper of the straw which came with his smoothie. I listened as he relayed the events of his dream.
“It didn’t feel like how I thought a dream would be,” he said, his brow furrowed in concentration. “But then I never remember my dreams. Everyone does it, or so the experts say, but I’ve never seen evidence of it.” He looked out the picture window and laughed shortly. “I guess that’s the remnant of my skepticism talking.”
“How did it feel?” I asked although I knew how his answer would come.
He looked at me then. He looked me in the eye. “Like this. Right here, right now. It felt real.” He looked away again. I could tell he struggled between wanting to avoid me and to confess everything. This sense came out of more than simple observation. I could feel it was true in my bones. He was afraid. I wasn’t about to tell him how real it might have been but he looked at the white bandages wrapped around my left forearm and then up to my face and I saw that he didn’t need anyone to tell him.
“What happened in the dream,” I prompted.
“I stood in a cave. I think it was a mine or something because the walls were dirt or rock and there were wooden supports every six feet or so. There were old rotted wood crates and a busted out gas lantern against one wall. It smelled musty like a moldy old basement. I heard scuffling sounds in the dark. Not rats, something big, like a person. I turned and in the dim light of the lantern in my hand I saw a black man in tattered clothes. But they weren’t modern they were very old, like ‘Civil War’ old. There was a young boy beside him, a white kid with smudges all over his face and dark clothes. They stopped and we just stared at each other for a few moments. The light in my lantern went out and flickered back on a second later and the man was gone but the boy was still there. Only he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man, forties, maybe fifties. He was lank and wore a bowler hat. And his eyes…” he paused as if to steel himself for the rest of it.
“Go on,” I encouraged as gently as I could but with a sense of urgency pushing me.
“His eyes were fire. I don’t mean he looked angry but there was actual fire where his eyes should have been. And he was smiling like a cat would smile at a wounded mouse. And he said, ‘You been meddling, Sonny.’ And he raised a finger and wagged it at me like I was a kid caught stealing candy from the store.”
Trent shivered and I felt sorry for him. I knew what it was like to come face to face with the dark man and knew with unshakeable certainty it would happen again and soon. But I also knew something about the ghostly figure Trent did not. The thing could be beaten at its own game. I had seen it happen. He wasn’t unstoppable and that led me to believe he wasn’t invincible. Much of the literature I had read suggested ghosts were restless souls and they could be put to rest. The trouble was how to go about it. Trent no doubt had been just as familiar with those ideas but they did him no good as we sat over coffee and a blended ice drink. Hot and cold sat there, just a table top apart.
“Then it became very hot,” Trent continued. “His skin began to glow orange and the wood crates just lit up with fire and I could see in the cave clearly, but I didn’t care about that. He started to move toward me and I backed away. He just kept coming and all I could do was to stay out of his reach. Eventually I backed into the cave wall. There was nowhere else to go and he got right up in my face. I could smell his breath, it was like smoke, and the heat just poured off him and all I could do was stand there against the wall and sweat.” Trent’s breathing had increased in speed and I noticed mine had matched his probably out of empathy. He paused to calm himself and catch his breath. Finally he went on.
“He didn’t touch me but he could have. Instead he said, ‘You stay out of my business Sonny boy. You stay away from your loser friend. You will forget this ever happened or you will find yourself in all kinds of hell. I will personally see to it.’ And then I was awake.” He stopped and I thought he was done.
“Yeah,” I began, “that’s pretty scary stuff. Do you think that he…” and then Trent cut me off.
“I wasn’t finished,” he said with a little more sharpness than I was used to from him, perhaps more than he meant to let loose. He noticed I was taken aback by the interruption and said, “Sorry. You didn’t deserve that. But seriously, there’s more. I woke up and, yes, I’m really sure I was awake for this next bit. I was sitting up in my bed, dr
enched in sweat and just starting to feel safe, just starting to think it was all just a dream brought on by my conversations with you. And then I heard him speak. His voice came from the closed door to my room. He said, clear as a bell, ‘Remember what I said and I might let you live.’ In the dark of my room I looked over to where I knew my door was and there I saw his face, barely lit by the orange glow of the fire in his eyes. Then he opened the door, walked out and slammed the door closed again so hard it knocked a picture off the wall next to it. This was no dream. It happened. It turned on the light and went to the door. The knob was warm to the touch and there was ash on it. Steve, what the hell have I gotten into?”
“Trouble,” I replied, “and really I’m so sorry for that. But it’s not hopeless. At least I don’t think it is.”
“I’m all ears when it comes to that. If you can tell me there’s a way out of this without being killed then I’m in. What do you have?” The note of hope in his voice was present but tiny. At least it was there. I could work with something that was already there.
I proceeded to tell Trent about the dream I had the previous night, lifting my injured left arm for evidence and effect. I resisted adding commentary on the events, wanting to see what conclusions he would come to on his own. Through the telling he sat in concentration, looking not at me but at the drink in front of him. Occasionally he would slowly swirl the straw in the thing to keep it mixed and probably to give his hands something to do while his mind processed what I told him.
When I came to the part about what the girl had done to stop the dark man from likely killing me he looked up quickly. There was a combination of surprise, triumph and maybe even a hint of dark humor. For the first time a seed of confidence took root in him.
“That is interesting,” Trent said. “This little girl, do you know who she is?”
“No,” I replied. “I wish I did. But I do get one impression from her: she’s different from the others.”
“How do you mean?”
“When I first started working at Spectra I had a run in with another ghost in the basement. It was a boy, a black kid who said he knows the girl. He indicated that there were several of them, ghosts I mean, but they hadn’t seen the girl in a while which was unusual. He told me she was the only one who could come and go as she pleased. I don’t know what that could mean but then she showed up in my dream and saved my skin from the other one. What do you think?”
“Well,” he started, “I don’t even know where to begin. There have been all kinds of speculation and research, though I use the term loosely, into the so-called supernatural realm. But until we have a way to test that world the way we can test things in ours with verifiable results, how can we even begin to know how it works?” He sat back and I knew he was uncomfortable with that answer. It didn’t sit right with me either though I couldn’t say why. Then he added, “But how can you test an intangible?”
We were stumped. It was another dead end in a long series of dead ends. If I had a hammer I would have pounded my way through it. I sat back against the seat and threw my head back in exasperation. I rubbed my eyes with my palms and looked out the big window next to us, hoping for inspiration to wander by. Oddly, it was just sitting there waiting to be seen.
My mind didn’t register it at first. It was just an empty lot with a company construction sign sitting on it. The sign must have been up for weeks by then and God knows how many times I had driven by it without giving it a first, let alone a second, thought. But there it stood in commercialized mockery of my failure to think through a simple word puzzle. The message the girl had left on my laptop that night, the strange message now came into sharp focus. The message had been a simple repetition. It just read, “pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546” over and over all over the page.
The sign across the street in the empty lot advertised a new restaurant coming to town. The sign read, “Coming Soon! Betty’s Best Burger’s.” Sure, because the world can always use another greasy burger joint, right? But the part that caught my attention wasn’t the eminent food establishment. It was the piece of technical information at the bottom right corner of the sign. It simply read, “Commercial lots 180-182.” Lots. That was it.
My false assumption about the girl’s message on the computer had been that the phrase “please help us lots” was a reflection of poor grammar. I assumed it meant “please give us a lot of help.” But it wasn’t that at all. The message was, “Please help us” and the “Lots” followed by the numbers indicated a location by revealing which city lots were in question. “Please help us.” Where? “Lots 39-46.”
“Son of a…” I said out loud.
“What? What is it?”
“I think I just figured something out.” Then I told him everything about the message the girl had left on my computer and what I thought it probably meant. He listened intently and nodded as I spoke.
“That sounds like a good lead. Do you have any idea what if anything sits on those lots?”
“No,” I said. “Sorry. But there’s got to be some kind of way for us to figure that out. A library might have those kinds of records, right?”
“Beats me,” he answered. “I’ve never done this before. But it couldn’t hurt to check there first. Should we get going?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Let’s do that.” And we were on our way. Not long after we were at the help desk at the library asking our questions. The middle aged woman behind the desk looked puzzled as she thought about it.
“Well,” she began, “we don’t have a section on local records that would have that information but I think there might be something over in our local history section. I’m not sure but there’s a very old book nobody ever looks at. I keep meaning to paw through it one of these days but…” She stopped mid sentence and looked confused.
“But ‘what’?” Trent asked when she sat silent and stared off into space a moment too long. A feeling came over me that she was going to tell us something very interesting about why she never looked at the book in question. At Trent’s question she snapped out of her haze. He and I shared questioning glances and then she continued.
“Oh, sorry about that. The book, yes. I keep meaning to look it over but every time I think of it or see it I get distracted by something else. Funny. I never thought of it much but that seems weird, doesn’t it?” It might have seemed weird if I had heard her say that a month earlier but now it was just par for the course. Something didn’t want her to look through that book. I imagined that something, or more like some one, didn’t want anyone at all to look through the book…which made me want to look thought it even more.
“Can you show us the book?” Trent asked.
“Sure,” she said. Standing up and moving from behind her desk, she walked in the direction of the history section and we followed. When we arrived she stopped in her tracks. She turned and looked at us and said, “I’m sorry, I can be so forgetful. What book were we looking for again?” Trent and I shared another glance, both of us now fully aware we were on to something important.
“It was the local history book you thought could help us answer our question about the city lots,” I said.
“Oh, yes. That’s right.” Then, as we resumed our trek to the book she turned to us and said, “You know I’ve actually been thinking about taking a good solid look at this book for a long time. Almost as long as I’ve worked here. That’s almost thirty years now. But something always seems to come up. Isn’t that weird?”
“Yeah,” Trent said. “Pretty weird.” And it got weirder by the minute.
When she finally found the book she picked it up to hand it to Trent. In mid turn she stopped, turned back and put it back on the shelf. When she looked back at us her face was ashen. She looked sick but also slightly confused.
“Excuse me, sorry I couldn’t find the book. Someone else must have picked it up. If you’ll excuse me I don’t feel well.” Then she hurried off in the direction of the ladies room.
We both
looked after her then looked at the book sitting innocently enough on the shelf.
“I don’t like this at all,” Trent said. “I don’t know if we should mess with this book.” Then I knew whatever had been at work on the librarian for almost thirty years to keep her away from this book was now at work on Trent. Instead of responding to him I moved past him and picked the book from the shelf. I waited for it to start in on me too but nothing happened. I wondered if I was immune to it, maybe because of my psychic talent, or whatever it was called.
“You okay?” He said tentatively.
“Yeah, fine.” I opened the front cover and thumbed through the front matter. “There’s no card to check it out,” I observed. I thought about that for a moment. “Maybe we should just take it?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Trent said.
“Can I help you gentlemen?”
I turned to see a man standing behind us in the aisle. He was dressed in very old looking clothes, a suit; something a gentleman might wear…if he were from the late 1800’s that is.
Trent leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Are you seeing this too?” I just nodded. The man wore a stern face as he examined us. His eyes fell on the book in my hand and he raised a questioning eyebrow. I could see this was not going to be easy. I stepped forward.
“You’re dead. You’re a ghost. We need this book and I’m not afraid of you. What ever you’ve been doing to that poor librarian for the last thirty years won’t work on me. You better get out of our way. The children need us and I won’t let you get in the way.” He stared at me for a long moment.
Finally he said, “The children? You want to help them? I wish you Godspeed in that but you must know the other one will almost certainly defeat you. But Susan may be able to help you.” Then he stepped to the side and held his arm out to allow us to pass. Trent moved past him but I stood my ground.
“Who is Susan?” The question fell to the floor and the ghost merely stood and waited for me to pass. “Fine,” I said. “We’ll do this the hard way. Nothing new there.” I walked past him and joined Trent on the way to the door. As we approached the lobby I noticed a painting on the wall. It was of the ghost we just encountered. I flagged down a library aide.
“Excuse me. Who is that?” The young man looked at the painting and then back to me.
“I think that is the founder of the library,” He said.
“Okay,” I said impatiently, “but what is his name?” I felt very strongly that I needed know.
“Stellan, I think. Yeah, that’s right. His name was Stellan Nicholas.” Had my heart stopped? I looked back in the direction from which we had just come. I thought I saw someone disappear behind a bookcase but that may have been my eyes and mind playing tricks on me. There was certainly enough of that going on already. When I finally came back to myself and had the presence of mind to speak there was only one thing to say.
“Nicholas? But…That’s my name.”
A Ghost of Fire Page 30