Psychic

by Chloe Garner

  “More than a dozen kids in town,” she said.

  “And what’s special about it?”

  “The pancakes,” she said. “I’m not letting you go. We’ve still got you on the stuff in your car.”

  “It’s dark out, now, isn’t it?” Jason asked. She glared at him.

  “There are a lot of things that like the dark. It’s why we got here before nightfall. We should be out hunting right now.”

  She sat back in her chair.

  “Start of business tomorrow, I’m sending all your stuff to the lab in Birmingham.”

  He cringed.

  “We’re the good guys, Patty.”

  “Everyone’s a good guy in their own head,” she said.

  <><><>

  The deputy zipped back up and sat down in his chair again. Sam looked at the pipe under the sink, counting threads. From the water stains on it, it wasn’t terribly tight. He could probably use the cuffs to get the angle he needed on it…

  He closed his eyes.

  <><><>

  “Patty says y’all were in Carolina two days ago,” the police chief said.

  “Wilmington.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “Heard about the two boys. Wanted to stop the next one. I’m sorry if we were too late,” she said.

  “How would you stop it?”

  “Find it. Kill it. Harder than it sounds, but not that complicated.”

  “Kill what?”

  She sighed.

  “The ghost.”

  “Ghosts are dead.”

  “Ghosts are resisting being dead,” she said.

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me the truth.”

  “That is the truth.”

  “You think I’m dumb?”

  “No. I think there’s a lot you don’t know. I wish you didn’t need to know. Knowing sucks.”

  Someone opened the door behind Samantha.

  “They found her.”

  <><><>

  Sam looked up as Samantha walked into the bathroom. He had just finished unscrewing the pipe and slid the handcuffs off of it. He would need to find something to pick them, but this was enough for now.

  “Where’s Jason?” he asked.

  “Interrogation,” she said. “Down the hall.”

  He stood and she reached out toward his handcuffs. He held his arms out and she closed her hand over the locking portion of both of them. The jointed half of each slid open.

  “Don’t tell Jason,” she said, tossing the handcuffs into the sink. He nodded.

  He glanced out in the hallway and nodded at her. She walked out of the bathroom like it was any other place, opening the door to the interrogation room. She looked over her shoulder at Sam.

  “Grab that chair,” she said. He went back to the bathroom and carried the deputy’s chair down the hallway. She held the door open for him. He turned the corner to see Jason rubbing his wrists. He put the chair down, and Samantha took the interrogator’s seat. Jason sat back down.

  “What have you got?” he asked.

  “I’ve got silent-but-deadly watching me in the bathroom,” Sam said. Jason snorted.

  “They found the girl,” Samantha said.

  “She’s dead,” Jason said. “No chance they found her alive.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “But what’s taking them?”

  “Best guess,” Jason said, “it has something to do with the place where they worked. All three of them worked there.”

  “Do we leave?” Samantha asked. Jason shook his head.

  “They’ve got all our stuff. We leave now, we’ve got warrants… everywhere. We can’t stay to fix this. Get in touch with Simon, get someone else down here… no, more people die. We stay until it’s done.”

  Samantha nodded.

  “So, the bodies are gone. What’s our next play?”

  “There’s a new body,” Sam said.

  “New body, and a site. We need to go to this place where they worked.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Lock ourselves back up?” he asked. Jason shook his head.

  “I kind of like them finding us here.”

  “Me, too,” Sam said. The door opened, and the three of them looked over. The mayor walked into the room, leaving the door open behind her.

  “Patty, this is my brother Sam and our friend Sam. Guys, this is Patty.”

  “You’re still here,” she said.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Samantha asked. Patty pressed her lips together. She looked at Jason.

  “I called around all of the teenagers working at Jenny’s. Eric’s missing. He was in his room an hour ago, and now he’s gone.”

  Jason stood, and Patty took a step back. Jason held up a hand.

  “Patty, did you find Debra’s body?”

  She looked at the door behind her, then back at Jason. Sam found he wasn’t breathing.

  “Yes.”

  “We really need to see it,” Sam said. The mayor’s eyes rested on him for a full minute, then she licked her lips.

  “The coroner is coming down from Birmingham. You’ve got maybe ten minutes.”

  Sam stood at the same time that Samantha did.

  “If you want to put us back in handcuffs, you can,” Jason said. “It’s kind of pointless, but you can.”

  Patty pulled her mouth to one side.

  “My brother is going to kill me.”

  <><><>

  They unloaded from her car in the deep darkness of rural night, walking down the road behind Patty, unable to see so much as their feet. Patty carried a small flashlight, but all it did was tell them they were still on a road. Sam was listening to the quiet focus in Samantha’s head out of a sense of sensory deprivation. Somewhere behind him were Jason’s footsteps.

  “Billy,” Patty called. Someone standing below road level turned and spotlighted them.

  “What are you doing?” the police chief asked. “Why did you let them out?”

  “Eric Larson’s missing. They didn’t do this. And they got loose on their own, anyway. Let them see Debra.”

  Billy scrambled up the drop, his flashlight briefly illuminating a wet green slope, then he pointed the beam directly at Jason.

  “Why?”

  “Maybe they aren’t lying,” Debra said.

  “I lie all the time,” Jason said. “Sam here doesn’t. Ever.” The light switched to Samantha. She winced. “Anything she said is true.”

  “They’re playing you, Patty,” he said.

  “You got any other explanations?” Patty asked. “I want to find Eric.”

  Billy grunted and turned, sliding back down the slope. Sam followed with Samantha and Jason behind him. He reached for the flashlight.

  “May I?” he asked. Billy pointed the light at him for a moment, then grunted again and handed it to him. Sam knelt next to Samantha, lighting the long cuts across the girl’s torso. Jason flipped her arms, revealing deep, straight gashes across the fronts and backs of both arms. Her skin was pale to literally white, and veins showed through on her temples.

  “Bled out,” Sam said. There were a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the drainage ditch - it had rained while they were in the police station - and most of the blood was gone. Samantha used a strip of the girl’s shirt to push the flesh apart on one of the gashes on her chest.

  “The bone’s cut,” Samantha said. Sam looked at Jason, his brother’s face dimly lit in the reflected light off the girl’s body.

  “It’s a reaper,” he said.

  “Don’t be dumb,” Jason said, standing.

  “What’s a reaper?” Patty asked from the road. Sam hadn’t intended to be loud enough for her to hear, but there weren’t many sounds competing for audibility just now. Jason stood.

  “She was killed with a long, extremely sharp blade. He kept slashing her long after she was dead. He’s angry. Were the boys like this, too?”

  “More chewed u
p,” Billy said.

  “But…?” Jason said.

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “Roadside ditch,” Jason said. “Why here?”

  “Where did they find her horse?” Samantha asked.

  “About two miles east,” Patty said.

  “That’s where she would have been riding?” Samantha asked.

  “That’s where her family’s farm is. She wouldn’t have gone too far from there,” Patty said.

  “That’s enough,” Billy said. “You’ve played your game. I’m taking you back to the station.”

  “The other kid is dead,” Jason said. Sam wished he didn’t play so rough. These were the town’s kids. It would be all too easy for Jason’s tough stance to backfire.

  “We don’t know that,” Billy said.

  “If it is an Ankou, and it probably is, he’s just killing anyone who he thinks is putting his graveyard in danger. We need to stop him tonight.”

  “A what?” Billy asked.

  “It’s the kind of ghost that started the myth of the grim reaper. The blade marks are consistent.”

  Sam stood and pointed the flashlight up the embankment at Patty’s shoulder.

  “What do these kids have in common?”

  “They work at the same restaurant,” Patty said softly.

  “We need to see it,” Jason said.

  “You need to be tied to a chair,” Billy said. “Better this time.”

  “Jimmy works at Jenny’s,” Patty said.

  “You’re buying this crap?” Billy asked.

  “What if they’re right?” Patty asked. “They haven’t run yet. You stay here and wait for the coroner. I’m going to take them to Jenny’s.”

  “Who is Jimmy?” Samantha asked.

  “My son,” Patty said.

  “It would really help if we could talk to him,” Sam said.

  “There’s a football game tonight. They’ll be there,” Patty said.

  “Call him. Have him meet us there,” Jason said.

  “Patty,” Billy warned.

  “I’m doing it, Billy. Shut up.”

  Sam handed the flashlight back to the policeman, scrambling up the bank and back onto the road. Patty was already on her phone. Samantha walked next to Sam.

  “What do you do with him?” she asked.

  “Ideal case, you dig him up and move him. Breaks his bond to the cemetery. They consider themselves to be guardians.”

  “And how is this not ideal?” Samantha asked.

  “He’s out,” Sam said. “Digging up his grave is about the worst thing you can do, for being respectful of it.”

  “So? What instead?”

  “Wish we had our stuff,” Jason said. “And that we didn’t have company to worry about.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Sam said.

  Sam and Samantha got back into the back seat of Patty’s car and she drove for less than ten minutes to a diner in the middle of a forest clearing.

  “How long has this place been here?” Jason asked.

  “Sixty-odd years, give or take,” Patty said. “Under one name or another.”

  A Jeep parked next to them in the parking lot and a tall, heavy-set boy got out.

  “What is it, Ma?”

  “You have your keys?” Patty asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “We need you to let us in,” Patty said.

  “Why didn’t you call Jenny?” Jimmy asked, crossing the parking lot.

  “We need to know what’s been going on here,” Jason said. A pair of lights lit the parking lot, and Jimmy shrugged in the orange light.

  “Nothing,” he said. He opened the door and stood back. Sam and Jason went in first, finding a light switch and illuminating the restaurant.

  “We call it a settlement diner,” Patty said, entering behind them. “The kids wear costumes. The food is authentic southern.”

  The walls were covered with rustic art and animal skulls.

  “Charming,” Jason said. Sam jerked his head at the kitchen and Jason nodded. He pushed through the swinging door and searched the wall for a switch. Jason pushed aside a set of accordion windows between the kitchen and the main room, and in the light from that, Sam found the light switch and flipped it.

  “Look, it’s a kitchen,” Jason said.

  “What’s this about, Ma?” Jimmy asked.

  “Debra went missing tonight,” Patty said.

  “Yeah, she wasn’t at the game.”

  “Eric did, too.”

  “Yeah. I guess I didn’t see him, either.”

  “Was anyone else missing?” Jason asked. Jimmy scratched the back of his head.

  “I don’t know. Not everyone comes to games.”

  “You all worked here,” Jason said. Jimmy shrugged.

  “We all work here,” he answered. Sam frowned.

  “How many of you are there?” Sam asked.

  “Of who?” Jimmy asked.

  “Let’s start with high schoolers here in town,” Jason said.

  “The high school has 85 students,” Patty said. Jimmy shook his head.

  “Chris dropped out.”

  “Eighty-four,” Patty corrected.

  “And how many of them worked here?” Jason asked.

  “Thirty? Forty?” Jimmy said.

  “Jenny hires anyone who wants to work a few hours here or there. It’s not easy getting enough people working.”

  “This is the place to work,” Jimmy said. “Good tips.”

  “People drive all the way from Birmingham to eat here,” Patty said. Sam sighed.

  “So where else do you hang out?” Sam asked.

  “Around,” Jimmy said. Jason grunted.

  “We’re looking for someone who screwed around with a grave,” Jason said. “Drove into a cemetery by accident… had sex in one… Maybe started carving on gravestones…?”

  “Our kids would never do that,” Patty said. Jimmy looked uncomfortable. “Would they?” she asked menacingly.

  “Well…”

  “Spill it, son,” Patty said.

  “We were playing touch football over at the Miller’s farm…”

  “They have a protected graveyard at the corner of the property. They keep trying to have it moved,” Patty said.

  “That’ll wake up an Ankou,” Jason said. “Anyone start digging?”

  “No,” Patty said. “It’s civil-war era. Millie would never let them move it. She’s our historian, and if she says it stays, the council says it stays.”

  “Soldiers buried there?” Jason asked.

  “The whole family was in the war,” Patty said. She made a face. “The girls were killed by Union troops when they swept through this area. Bad deaths.”

  Jimmy said something dark about Yankees, and Patty frowned at him.

  “You watch your mouth.”

  He shrugged.

  “Sorry, Ma.”

  “So we’ve got a riled military family with bad blood to begin with,” Jason said. Sam crossed his arms on the pass-through counter and rested his chin on them. “Then what happened?”

  “Danny had to take a piss,” Jimmy said. “Bo told him to go up to the house, or at least out in the woods, but…”

  “Your friends,” Patty said. “I don’t know why I tolerate them.”

  “He took a leak on one of the gravestones,” Jason said. Jimmy nodded. Sam stood and flipped the lights off in the kitchen. “Well, that’s where we need to go next.”

  “What about Debra?” Sam asked.

  “Some of the girls were there watching. Debra’s seeing Bo,” Jimmy said.

  “Classy,” Jason said. “In front of a bunch of girls, no less.”

  “You should go home,” Samantha said. “Give us directions and we’ll take care of it.”

  “Get home,” Patty said. “You’re grounded for the weekend.”

  “Ma.”

  “Go.”

  “You, too, ma’am,” Sam said. “You shouldn’t be around when we do this.”

/>   “I’m not letting you go that easy. You’ve told me a good story, and heaven knows there are ghosts in these parts, but I’m not letting you waltz off on me like a dumb hick. I went to school in Knoxville. I know the world isn’t as simple as we keep it here.”

  Jason sighed.

  “We need our stuff back, too,” he said.

  “No way.”

  “Hard to kill a ghost without the right tools,” Jason said.

  “My understanding was it’s impossible to kill one, anyway.”

  “You’d be wrong, there. We need to be able to defend ourselves, and we need to be able to break his connection to the cemetery. Your son isn’t safe until we do.”

  Patty swallowed.

  “No.”

  Sam looked around the room.

  “Jason.”

  “Patty, we’ve worked with you in good faith so far. We can’t do this bare-handed.”

  “Jason.”

  “No,” she said again, crossing her arms.

  “Listen to your brother,” Samantha said. Jason looked at him.

  “What?”

  “Those are split nails,” Sam said. “They only make them as historical replicas, now, but… they ought to be iron.”

  Jason looked at the hung art work and nodded.

  “That’s just plaster, isn’t it?”

  “Bet we can find a dozen of them that’ll pull,” Sam said.

  “Is twelve enough?” Samantha asked.

  “More is better,” Sam said, pulling a twig wreath off the wall and tugging at the huge, square nail it hung from. It popped out of the plaster with a slick sucking noise. He tapped it on a table, then tossed it to Jason.

  “Looks like iron to me,” Sam said.

  “Better hope you’re right,” Jason said, throwing it back and tossing a framed cross-stitch onto a table.

  <><><>

  The clouds were passing and a full moon began to show through strong enough that they could see their way across the open fields of the Miller farm without absolutely needing flashlights. Sam kept tripping on the fresh furrows, and Jason went to his knees once, but they made it okay. Patty carried the flashlight, up ahead, and Samantha did her best to not stare at it. She valued her night vision too much.

  “This is it, here,” Patty said, pointing. The moon illuminated a ramshackle group of stones, not in straight rows to begin with, but now at odd angles to the ground due to the uneven settling of the earth over many years. Jason put his hand on Patty’s shoulder, reaching for the flashlight.