The Siren and the Specter

by Jonathan Janz

  Of course, Ralph had no children, and it was this thought that brought on tears. They caught David off guard. He’d liked Ralph, yet he hadn’t realized until now just how much. Despite Ralph’s terrible revelation – he made me promise to send him people every now and then – and David’s anger at him, a part of David couldn’t help feeling sorry for the old man. Ralph was utterly alone in the world, his only possessions a house, a beat-up truck, and a few fishing poles. Oh, and a radio for Red Sox games.

  The thought filled David with a horrible desolation.

  Was this, he wondered, where he was heading? He had friends, sure, but they were his age or older, which meant they’d either die off before him or be in the same physical state when he got old. He had no kids, and as an only child, there were no nieces or nephews.

  He was completely alone.

  It was a grim thought.

  The nurse informed David his time was up. He took a seat in the waiting room, glanced about furtively, and when he was satisfied no one was watching, withdrew John Weir’s diary from the pocket of his cargo shorts.

  He drew in a deep breath, riffled through the diary, and selected a passage twenty pages from the end:

  Tonight I took a walk through Lancaster’s business district, and as I strode down those cobbled streets, I fancied I heard Judson Alexander’s laughter drifting out of a local pub. Although I didn’t peek inside, I felt Judson’s presence, despite his death many years ago.

  And in the cool October breeze, I began to contemplate my own beliefs. Before the dire events of the past month, I believed spirits and demons were matters of jest and inimical to science. Yet how could a man who has witnessed what I have witnessed doubt that the Alexander House is plagued by something unnatural?

  The lights overhead gave a brief flicker. A nurse down the hallway muttered something, but David couldn’t make out what. He continued reading.

  Nevertheless, I now believe that Judson Alexander’s reach is not bound by the house in which he wrought such hellish deeds, nor even to the peninsula, which served as his chief hunting grounds for so many years.

  From one of the intensive care rooms, a monitor began to beep. The lights flickered again, and David looked around uneasily. Dangerous thing, a power outage in a hospital. His thoughts went briefly to Ralph, wired as he was to all those machines. He hoped the interruption in electricity wouldn’t affect his convalescence.

  He returned to the passage.

  Lancaster bears the taint of Judson Alexander. Not just the man himself, a powerful enough force, but the stain of complicity perpetrated by the area’s populace.

  Evil can only triumph when good people allow it to.

  The wickedness began when Judson was enabled by his father, but it was nurtured by people like Jennings and Jennings’s son, who made concubines of their female family members.

  As I sit here in dread of another night in the Alexander House – a dwelling I am increasingly certain does play host to Judson’s spirit – my thoughts continually drift toward those poor young women, the Jennings girls, who during their exploitation ranged from thirty years all the way down to ten. Judson did not discriminate on the basis of age, nor did he scruple to maltreat his concubines in the meanest possible ways.

  And after all that mistreatment, after living lives of fear and torment, the Jennings women were dealt the final insult, suffering a fate so savage and unfeeling at the hands of the villagers who journeyed to the peninsula, that I question who was the real villain, or whether there was any goodness at all in Lancaster back then.

  “Did you go in there?” a voice snapped.

  David stared dumbly up at a guy in green scrubs, an orderly perhaps, with a shaggy mane of black hair and a sallow, unshaven face.

  The orderly bustled by, pointed at Ralph’s door. “The guy in 209? You went in there, right? His monitors are off line.”

  David shook his head as he got shakily to his feet. He started after the orderly, almost forgot Weir’s diary on the padded bench, went back for it and crammed it into his pocket. By the time he reached Ralph’s room, the orderly was opening the door.

  The lights went out.

  The door half-open, the orderly glanced up at the lights. “What the hell? The generator’s supposed to kick on automatically.” He bounced on his heels. “Come on, come on….”

  But David barely heard. His attention had been transfixed by what he glimpsed within the half-open door. Though it was dark, there was enough moonlight spilling through the window to cast Ralph’s room into greater relief than the hallway in which David and the orderly stood. And within Ralph’s room David beheld something so stunning he lost the ability to speak.

  A gigantic figure in a white shirt and dark breeches stood between Ralph’s bed and the window. Ralph’s feet were dangling high above the floor, the figure clutching him by the throat. David saw with a pang of helplessness that Ralph’s eyes were open. Without thinking, David pushed forward, knocked the orderly out of the way.

  “Hey, what the hell—” the orderly began, but then he saw what was happening by the hospital bed and whispered, “Holy God.”

  The shadowy figure shot David a look. For a moment, the figure’s eyes seemed to bore into David. Then the giant turned, smashed Ralph into the wall, the older man’s head punching through the sheetrock. David moved on nerveless legs toward Ralph, whom he was sure was dead of a shattered skull. Then the giant pivoted and heaved Ralph’s boneless body toward the wall opposite. Aghast, David watched the body crash against it, and in the next moment, the giant stalked toward David. Behind him the orderly was squealing, but David scarcely heard. The smell of the giant flooded his nostrils, the odor of an untended dog kennel, rank with violence and watery spoor.

  The lights flickered on and off, and David glimpsed the man – it could only be Judson Alexander – in clarion detail: boulder-like head perched atop broad, muscular shoulders; thick black eyebrows arched in sadistic glee; balding pate rimmed by greasy black hair that hung in lank strings down his bull neck; a simple white shirt discolored with crimson stains; legs that stretched the dark breeches to bursting.

  Judson reached for him.

  Breath clotted in his throat, David raised an arm to ward him off. The lights overhead strobed, and he felt the brush of Judson’s fingertips on his cheek.

  The lights clicked on, and David was staring into empty space.

  The orderly’s voice was hushed. “Is he gone?”

  David, still frozen in that warding-off stance, swiveled his head toward the orderly, who’d taken refuge behind a chair.

  “You saw him?” David asked.

  “You nuts? Of course I saw him. He killed that old man.”

  Trembling, David crossed to where the old man’s body lay spread-eagled on the floor.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  At least, David thought, as he followed Jessica back to her house around midnight, there’d been a witness. In movies and novels beyond counting, the hero would be charged with a crime he didn’t commit.

  The orderly saved him.

  Harkless, thank goodness, arrived at the Lancaster hospital before Detective Baldwin did. In a vacant custodian’s closet a few doors from Ralph’s room, the two of them stood nose-to-nose in the tight space, the aromas of cleaning products nearly overpowering:

  Harkless: You realize how goddamned crazy that sounds?

  David: Don’t you think I know that?

  Harkless: A week ago the biggest problem I had was speeders on Highway 21. And Honey Shelby.

  David: You hear from her? Or the mayor?

  Harkless: Who the hell are you to ask that? That’s police business.

  David: There’s something else.

  Harkless: I don’t wanna hear it.

  David: It’s Ralph. Something he said in the Alexander House.

  Harkless: Is th
is about the floating harpy?

  David: He said he encouraged Alicia to come.

  (A pause.)

  Harkless: What?

  David: He told me he made a bargain with…it had to be Judson.

  Harkless: Dammit, David….

  David: Said he agreed to lead people to the Alexander House now and then. Almost like…like an offering.

  Harkless: That doesn’t help a damn bit.

  David: That’s all he told me.

  Harkless: What I need is something without rattling chains and psychotic Puritans.

  David: Remember when you made fun of me for being a non-believer?

  Harkless: I didn’t mean for you to swing so far the other way. Next thing you know, you’ll be reading palms and conducting séances.

  David (frowning): I do have one more thing.

  Harkless: Don’t tell me it’s another body.

  David (pulls out Weir’s diary): Jessica let me borrow this.

  Harkless (eyeing the little green book): I already have a Bible.

  David: It’s Weir’s. There’s so much in here about Judson—

  Harkless: Would you come off that? Hell, I don’t know why I’m standing here in a closet. That Baldwin is probably out there right now making everything worse.

  David: I better get going.

  Harkless: Oh yeah? Who you gonna get killed now?

  David: Hey—

  Harkless: I’m serious. Alicia gets butchered going to see you, Ralph gets his head smashed in—

  David: I had nothing to do with those!

  Harkless: —and now you’re gonna go to Jessica’s and put her in harm’s way.

  David: That’s not fair.

  Harkless: Fair? Tell that to Charlie Templeton. Tell that to his daughter.

  Soon after, Jessica arrived and saved him from Harkless.

  Now, as he followed Jessica’s car toward Old Bay Road, he thought of what Ralph had said. David hadn’t realized it at the time, but looking back, it couldn’t have been plainer: Ralph was racked with guilt. He’d sent Alicia to the Alexander House knowing something insidious might be awaiting her there.

  Ralph had sent her to her death.

  When they reached Jessica’s drive, she parked in the garage, waved him into the empty garage stall, and pushed the clicker to lower the garage door. He noticed several signs on the wall: ‘QUIDDITCH PLAYER PARKING ONLY: VIOLATORS WILL BE CURSED’; movie posters for Jaws and Star Wars on wooden placards; a Poe quote in white cursive script on a rectangle of bronze: ‘All that we see is but a dream within a dream.’

  “You okay?” Jessica asked as he neared.

  “No,” he answered. She led him to the living room. Sebastian went straight for Jessica; she picked him up and let him lick her cheek. Something about the way she stood there in the center of the room made David pause. Something familiar….

  She noticed his scrutiny. “What is it?”

  He blinked, the moment passing. “Just a bad night, is all.”

  “You want something to drink?”

  “Water,” he said. “I can get it.”

  They went to the kitchen, where she retrieved a pair of glasses. She filled them from the filtered refrigerator spout and handed him his glass. “I’m sorry about Ralph.”

  He sipped his water. “Me too.”

  “Do they know who…?”

  He shook his head. “Harkless asked me who else I was going to get killed.”

  “She’s in a bad mood.”

  “I don’t blame her. Since I’ve come, there’ve been two deaths, an abduction.”

  “Ivy was just hiding.”

  “She’s changed,” he said. “I could tell, just looking at her. I feel responsible.”

  “Did you kidnap her?”

  He made a face. “Come on.”

  “Did you kill Ralph? Or Alicia for that matter?”

  “You know I didn’t.”

  She placed her glass on the counter. “Could it be you’ve got an overly guilty conscience over what happened with my sister?”

  His mouth went dry. “Do you think I should?”

  “It’s not for me to say.”

  “Can’t you just tell me how you feel?”

  She watched him for a long time. She took a long draw of air and let it out. “I hated you. Anna was everything to me. No mother around, Dad with health problems, Anna was the one who did the heavy lifting. Not just the flashy stuff, the showing up for softball games and helping me get ready for a dance, but the subtler things, the things no one notices until there’s no one there to do them. She cooked for us most of the time. She cleaned, did our laundry. Or she demanded that we do it. But she taught us how.” Jessica smeared away a tear. “She taught me everything. Except how to cope with losing her.”

  Sebastian was rubbing himself against David’s calves, but David scarcely noticed. It was just Jessica’s voice and the indelible images of Anna. Of Anna making dinner for her siblings. Of her reprimanding them for not putting their dirty clothes in the hamper.

  “One time when I was eleven,” Jessica went on, “I hit a home run in softball.” She grinned crookedly. “My only home run. It was early in the game, but I hit it out, actually hit it over the fence. I was so surprised, I must’ve forgotten to touch home plate. The other coach, some twat who was probably a frustrated ex-athlete, he appealed the play, and I get called out. I was crushed. What should have been my happiest moment as a player turned into my worst moment. My friends were all there, what family I had…it was humiliating. Like I was too dumb to step on home plate.”

  She smiled and the tears leaked out of her eyes. “Anna had just gotten her license, and she had plans with her friends. But instead of going with them, she drove me around for what must have been an hour while I cried and screamed and cussed out the coach and the umpire.”

  David smiled, picturing it.

  “She got me fast food and drove toward home, but I knew my brother and my dad would want to talk about the game. I told her to drop me off and let me walk so I wouldn’t have to face them. She told me not to be stupid, but instead of taking me home, she drove to a country road, pulled over, and listened to me. I was mad about what had happened, but I was aware enough to know Anna was putting off going out with her friends. So I kept talking. Pretty soon we were both talking. At one point her friends called, and Anna said she couldn’t go with them. We ended up going home and watching a movie together in the basement. Say Anything with John Cusack.”

  “Great film.”

  “You see?” she said. “That was Anna. She was willing to do the unglamorous stuff. I think that’s real love. Real love isn’t just playing the part when others are around. Real love is doing the stuff that never gets noticed, the stuff that’s purely for the other person. True love is willing to do what’s tedious when the other person needs it.”

  And ten feet away from Jessica with the overhead fluorescents accentuating her perfect cheekbones and the exotic contour of her nose, David found himself wanting to go to her. But he couldn’t. He could only watch the tears crawl slowly down her cheeks.

  She wiped her eyes. “I hated you. When I found out how you’d treated my big sister, I wanted to find you and claw your eyes out.”

  David said nothing, merely took it. God knew he deserved it.

  “Then I got depressed. I was down for a long time. I was a sophomore in high school when Anna….” She reached out, ripped a sheet of paper towel off the roll, dabbed her face with it. “I got into drugs. Nothing heavy, but that was out of character for me. I wasn’t an angel, but I wasn’t some huge partier, so for me it was pretty brazen behavior. College was a good distraction. I missed Anna, but my classes and my friends helped me climb out of the hole I was in. Since then…there’s been a void. It’s like this empty, aching place that nothing can fill.”


  He swallowed. “I won’t tell you what you already know, that I was an idiot and a selfish son of a bitch. I guess I still am.”

  Jessica lowered her eyes. “If I thought that, you wouldn’t be standing in my kitchen.”

  “I’m sorry, Jessica. I know that’s not enough. It will never be enough. But I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back.”

  “You’re right. You can’t. The only thing we can do for my sister is figure out who killed her.”

  He hesitated. “Why are you so sure she was murdered?”

  “If you were going to commit suicide, would you do it in a haunted house?”

  He frowned.

  She nodded. “You’ve been to a ton of supposedly haunted places, David. I bet you’ve experienced all sorts of emotions. But at any time, did you feel suicidal?”

  “I never went through what Anna did.”

  “You’re right,” she said and flashed a bitter smile. “You didn’t. But I don’t believe Anna would have killed herself at the Alexander House. She went there searching for something. In that final month, she’d become obsessed with the legend. I think she got too close to the answer, and someone killed her because of it.”

  An image of Ralph Hooper dangling two feet off the ground raced through his mind’s eye. The gigantic figure smashing Ralph’s head into the wall.

  He said, “You think it was Judson?”

  She shook her head. “I believe it was Honey’s dad. I think the Mayor of Lancaster murdered my sister.”

  * * *

  The moon was preternaturally bright. Jessica stored her kayaks in a shed near the shoreline, and when she and David nudged them into the water, their yellow hard-plastic shells shone like polished silver. He held her kayak steady as she climbed inside. Then he did his best to step into his and scull it away from the dock. He managed to avoid tipping, and soon they were skimming through the sable water of the bay.