Ghost Heart

by John Palisano

  “Crazy fans?” she said. “I need a refill.”

  “In a sec,” I said. “No, really. I do think there is something to all of this. Something beyond. I’m not sure what they’re up to, exactly, but it’s no good. They killed my best friend in front of me. My uncle is gone, drained of blood now, too. They’re targeting me.”

  “Why you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Are you scared?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

  I got up and made my way to the kitchen. Anna followed. “I could stay with you,” she said from behind me while we walked. “Until this passes. Until they’re caught. If that would make you feel better.”

  When I went to turn in the kitchen, Anna was right there in my face. In a flash, she was on me. Her lips met mine, and she wrapped her arms around me. She pulled me close.

  I didn’t want to kiss her, but I did. What else could I do? She shocked me. I was vulnerable, and she’d taken advantage of the moment.

  I kissed her back the best I could, the whole time wondering how I was going to extricate myself from her. What was I going to do now? I’d wanted a friend, not a lover. Of course, I wouldn’t have minded a little distraction, but I knew it came with a bigger price. She’d been harboring feelings for me for a long time—now I had proof. She’d taken my breaking up with Vanessa as her chance. And hell, what about Lucy? I was making a real big mess.

  Now what was I going to do? I had to escape. I had to run away from the situation. I didn’t want a girlfriend in Anna. As we kissed, I didn’t really feel anything. Nothing against her. She had soft, warm lips. Her body felt good. She was very feminine. I just didn’t have feelings for her in that way. I was a guy, which meant I was supposed to just get turned on very easily, but I wasn’t feeling it. Not really. I kept it up but took a breath. “Hey?” I said. “Let’s get that drink?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.” I could tell by the way she spoke that she was way into what had just happened. I wasn’t. I turned my back to her and made the drinks. When I twisted back, I did my best to keep our drinks at chest level, and far enough away from me to keep her away.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go sit down.”

  She looked a little hurt and confused. “Okay,” she said.

  I hurried past her. I knew sending her the wrong signals would be very bad for me, and for our friendship. I had to talk to her sooner than later, and defuse things right away.

  When we go to the couch, we each took sips. As soon as mine was done, and while she was still having hers, I said, “Hey? Look, I just don’t think I can jump into anything tonight. Don’t be mad. I really, really, really need a friend, though.”

  She almost choked on her last sip. “Okay, okay,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I just…I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “No biggie,” I said. “Let’s just chill a bit, okay?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Okay.” Anna took another big sip and sat back into my couch. I knew I’d hurt her, but a little hurt was better than a lot.

  “Where do we go from here?” I took a sip from my drink. “With all of this stuff happening. This Damian guy and his crew.”

  “Do you think the cops can do anything?”

  “Maybe. So far they haven’t done much. Maybe it’s just that we’re just a small town here.”

  “I doubt big-town cops would be any different. I mean, what are they supposed to do, anyway? Stand watch?”

  “Right,” I said. “Maybe that’s my job. Maybe I should get a gun. Or a Taser.”

  “What if they take it from you? That’s just asking for it.”

  “I just wish they’d find out who it is and lock them up safe.”

  She sat up again, leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “Are you okay with all of this? I mean, deep down? It doesn’t seem like you’re really dealing with any of this. You lost three people. Three big people in your life. You just seem to be going on like nothing’s happened.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “Or how I’m supposed to act or feel right now. Nothing has sunk in yet. It still feels like Mikey or Uncle Dave or Jimmy are still around. Maybe when time goes by, it’ll hit me. I don’t know. I feel numb. It’s weird.”

  “You’re not devastated?”

  “Of course I am. Maybe this is just survival mode for me. Could this be a way my brain’s coping with it?”

  “Denial is definitely one of the big early stages of grief,” she said.

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Man, do I hate—”

  The living room window exploded.

  Glass shattered in every direction. We covered ourselves. There was screaming outside—not from people scared, but from people making a racket. Loud music. Car horns.

  I heard my name. I got up. Anna stayed on the couch, her head in her hands.

  Behind my second couch, I spotted the thing that’d shattered my window. A dark, soda-bottle-sized mound. I went to it, stared at it. Wondered if it was a bomb, or something else.

  My name again, loud, deep, nearly unhuman sounding, like a black bear bellowing.

  The air smelled of rot, like old, spoiled meat. It came from the bundle.

  From where I stood, I saw them. Damian. His crew. They’d come for me. He stood on the sidewalk as his Jeep idled behind him—he stared at me. Pointed. “You’re next,” he said. “And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Nothing.” Of course, he smiled while delivering his threat.

  I wished I had a gun. I would have shot him without hesitation.

  His eyes, though? They caught the light and reflected it just like a dog’s or cat’s—the glimmer of gold and then, as he moved a bit, blue. Reminded me of the holographs they used to use for special editions of magazines.

  My blood went cold and my throat went dry. My head seemed filled with cotton, my thoughts stuck inside tar. Fight or flight. Fight, damn it. Don’t run away, I thought. Come on.

  There were others in the car, waiting and watching.

  “I can already taste you,” he said, and his tongue slithered out from his mouth, the tip pointed, sharp and covered in drool. He licked his top lip before pulling his tongue back inside his mouth. “You’ll taste better than your friends and your uncle. All that fear and anger building up,” he said. “Makes for sweet eating.”

  “Get out of here!” I yelled as loud as I could. “You don’t scare me.”

  He laughed, his entire body shaking with him. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “Not for a second.”

  In the car, I recognized a girl with dishwater-blonde hair: Vanessa. She was wearing sunglasses.

  Damian caught my glance—knew I’d seen her. “Your trash is my treasure,” he said.

  This was the guy she went to? She always was into arrogant loudmouths like him, after all. She liked bad guys.

  “You’re going to have to pay for that window,” I said.

  He laughed again.

  “That’s all you can say?” He shook his head. “‘Pay for my window’?” Damian made for the Jeep. “The least you could do was give a little fight. Show a little fire. I ate your friends and uncle, for Christ’s sake.”

  How come I hadn’t thought to record him? It would’ve been easy. He’d just confessed. That’d be incriminating evidence. I thought all that as I watched the Jeep’s taillights disappear down the road. What the hell was wrong with me?

  When I turned around, Anna had taken her hands off her head. She had her phone on her lap.

  “I got all that,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Video.”

  “Whoa.”

  “And the cops are on the way,” she said. “So don’t touch anything.”

  “Got it.”

  I sat down next
to her, and she immediately threw her arms around me and nuzzled her head onto my shoulder. “What the hell is happening, Rick? Jesus.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Very much so.”

  We held each other like that, silently, for a few moments.

  The unmistakable sounds of police sirens. They arrived. We got up. Saw them get out of their patrol cars cautiously. They saw the window.

  A young officer looked at me. “You the owner of this property?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Is this the lady who called?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “There’s something inside the house…the thing that broke the window.”

  There were other police who approached the front porch. I wondered what they were thinking, with my front window smashed and me just standing there.

  “Don’t touch it,” the first officer said. “It’ll be considered evidence.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Haven’t touched it. Not at all.”

  We went inside the house. They asked if anyone was there other than us. There wasn’t.

  A small team gathered around the window.

  “Any idea of who did this?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I know. His name’s Damian. He’s been after me,” I said. “He was the one who killed my friend.”

  “You ready to make a statement?” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “Know your rights?”

  “Fully,” I said. “I deal with procedure all the time at the auto body shop. Do a lot of reports.”

  “Okay,” he said. “You have anywhere else to stay tonight? Somewhere safe?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

  “We can have a patrol car here for a few hours, but after that? I don’t know.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  Anna said, “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “In what regard?” said the officer.

  “Living our lives. These people are terrorizing us.”

  “People?”

  “Yeah. He’s got friends with him all the time.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “No,” she said. “Not really. I mean, they all hang out down at the club. The Universe.” She held up her phone. “I videotaped him threatening us just before. Want to see?”

  He looked at another officer. They exchanged nods. “Okay.”

  Anna made to play it for them.

  The video looked distorted. Jumbled. The sound was unlistenable.

  “Come on,” she said. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She closed the window, tried reopening it, but only go the same results.

  “Not sure we can help with that,” the officer said. “But we still have your statement and positive identification.”

  Two officers knelt near the small bundle on the floor—the one that’d been used to break my window.

  “Rob?” one of them said. “Look at this.”

  The officer I’d been speaking to looked over, as did I. They’d used a pencil and had a large plastic bag near it. As they’d moved it, we could all see three grayish, rotten fingers poking out. One of the nails had a large bruise on it. Had to be Uncle Dave’s hand. I just knew it. He always had bruised fingers from working on the cars, and I remembered him showing me his latest one of the last days I’d seen him alive.

  I looked away and turned Anna away, too. “Come on. Don’t look,” I said.

  “Already saw it,” she said. “Is that real?”

  Behind us, I heard them slip it into the plastic bag.

  * * * * *

  “These guys are monsters,” Anna said.

  “No doubt,” I said. The cops had gone. A single patrol car was parked outside. I’d had some plastic sheeting, luckily, left in my hurricane supplies, and used it to cover the broken window from the inside. I used blue painter’s tape to affix it. Definitely not a permanent solution, but it’d do. The living room, though, was cold. I took a few logs from the side of the fireplace and started a small fire. “That’ll be cheaper than turning the heat on all night.”

  “It’ll just go out the window anyway,” Anna said. “You’re right.”

  “I’ll get the glass folks to come by in the morning,” I said. “Hopefully they can replace it with a plastic one in case the creeps come back.” My attempt at humor was ignored. Once I sat down, back on the couch, back where we had been earlier, I shook my head. “This doesn’t make any sense. I feel like I need a bodyguard. Something.”

  “Right?” she said.

  “We’ve got a few pieces at the shop,” I said. “I think I’m going to get them.”

  “After what we said? If they get them from you…”

  “There’s every chance they won’t,” I said. “And if they threaten me again, well, it’s on record.” I’d given the officer a statement of events and a description of Damian and the Jeep. They were going to keep an eye on him. The hand would be looked at to see if it was real, and whose it was. “I’d feel a lot better with something to protect myself.”

  “There’s a cop outside,” she said.

  “They won’t be here forever,” I said. “I just don’t know what else to do to protect myself until they’re all gone.”

  “I don’t feel safe, either,” she said. “I don’t want to go home.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

  That was the last thing Minarette said on her voice message. My heart melted for the hundredth time since I met her. I listened back for a second time. “Hey, Rick. Just wanted to thank you again for coming out with me the other night and being my special boyfriend with a birthday. I’d love to see you again real soon. Funny thing? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

  Even though I was at the shop, with the phones ringing, I ignored them and called her right away. Holy cow. Did she really like me? How was I so lucky? What business did I have even thinking about a girl during all the horrible things going on around me? I didn’t know, but I just followed my heart and called her.

  “Hey,” she said. “How’re you holding up?”

  “Fine,” I said. “You?”

  “Great. Just great.”

  “I got your message, and I can’t stop thin—”

  “Right. So can we hang out tonight?” she said. “I know you’re at work, and I wish we could now. But I can be patient. Just not that patient.”

  Even when she was being bossy, she still sounded so pretty.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll wrap it up here as soon as I’m able.”

  “Wonderful,” she said, and then added a drawn-out “bye” before hanging up.

  The next call I took was from a client. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to take on any new jobs. There were a lot of things I needed to figure out. The first one was to the family lawyer, to see if my uncle had a will and any instructions on what to do with the business. I told the fellow on the phone I’d have to call him back, and that we were slammed. He wasn’t happy, threatened to take his business elsewhere, and I told him I understood if he needed to do so, and hung up. I still had the Dodge Charger to deal with, but I thought figuring out the future first would be wise.

  After being put on hold for several minutes, I heard, “This is Lew Taylor.”

  “Hi, Lew,” I said. “It’s Rick Rossmore. I think you and I definitely need to talk.”

  “Sure,” he said. “That’s what the monthly retainer is for. I bet this is about Dave.”

  “Yeah. Just wondering if he had a will, or left instructions.”

  “He did, actually,” Lew said. “They’re a little old, but applicable.”

  “Okay.”

  “At th
is point in time, the ball’s in your court, as far as the business is concerned.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s left it to you.”

  “Holy—”

  “Right. But there are a few caveats.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “He didn’t want you to sell it or give it to his ex-wife or any of his other family members, if that makes sense.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Makes perfect sense to me.” I thought for a second. “Was there anything else he mentioned?”

  “One other thing,” he said. “It was about your parents.”

  My throat closed up. I needed to sit down. My hands shook.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “He had something from them he wanted you to have when he passed,” Lew said. “But for that, I’d really like you to come in.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not a jokester,” he said. “So, yes, really. Come in.”

  “When?”

  “Whenever you’d like.”

  * * * * *

  Lew’s office smelled like paneling and old plastic, just like it had ever since I was a kid. That being said, it was a childhood memory I wasn’t fond of revisiting. In fact, every time I went to Lew’s, something bad had happened. It was no different that day, either.

  My parents died, and I still thought it was my fault all these years later. Of course, so many of the details are blurry, but I’ve held on to them, thinking about them over and over and over again, in hopes that they would be permanently in my memory. I remember that I wasn’t feeling very well—I might have had the flu or a cold—and my parents decided we would go out to the grocery store. They asked me what would make me feel better, and I told them that I’d love to get some Yoo-hoo. It was a winter morning, cold, and I remember small patches of ice and snow on the sides of the road. The streets were pretty clear, though.

  We were waiting at a red light, waiting to turn in to the grocery store, when a white car slammed into us. I’d been sitting between my parents, hanging from the backseat in the front, with my arms on both their headrests, when it happened.