The Loveliest Dead

by Ray Garton

  Jenna had said, “Then we’ll stick together.”

  Smiling, Mavis had said, “Once they get here, our students will move throughout the house with cameras and microphones. Your son will probably enjoy it— most children do. It’s an exciting adventure to them.”

  Jenna had found Mavis Bingham very calming and reassuring, something she needed. She had been preoccupied all day with the phone call she’d received that morning from Lily Rourke.

  Your son is in danger, Lily had said. Dwayne Shattuck had said the same thing. Jenna looked over at Miles, asleep on the floor in front of the television. She realized neither of the Binghams had singled out Miles.

  Jenna had said, “Mrs. Bingham—”

  “Please call me Mavis.”

  “Okay, Mavis. So far, two people have told me—” She’d glanced at Miles again to make sure he was still asleep, then lowered her voice. “—that Miles is in danger as long as he’s in this house. I was wondering if I should get him out of here. I have a friend who might be willing to take him for a while if—”

  “Who told you that, dear?” Mavis had said.

  “Dwayne Shattuck, the medium who got beaten up here the other day, and a woman who’s been calling. She dropped by once. Her name is Lily Rourke. She’s a psychic.”

  “Well, I haven’t heard of either of them, and Arty and I are very connected to the paranormal world. The story about your medium appeared in newspapers across the country, and I’m surprised you haven’t heard from a lot more of them. You need to understand that there are a lot of opportunistic charlatans in this business, dear. If you have demonic forces in this house”— she’d averted her eyes a moment, sniffed, cleared her throat—”and I think you do, then all of you are in danger, not just your son. Don’t worry, dear, we’re going to do everything we can.”

  “Father Malcolm has done this sort of thing before?”

  “Many times. If necessary, he’ll perform an exorcism.”

  Jenna had looked at Miles again, sleeping on the floor. As reassuring as she was, Mavis had not made Jenna feel any better.

  Something already disturbed it, Dwayne Shattuck had said. It’s... I don’t know, it’s like it’s got somethin’ on its mind.

  “Well, whatever Father Malcolm does,” Jenna had said, “I wish he’d get here and do it soon.”

  When Arty had returned carrying a cardboard box of religious icons in his arms, he’d brought with him Shannon and Willy, each of whom had a satchel with a shoulder strap. According to Mavis, they regularly attended the Binghams’s lectures at the Phoenix Society of Paranormal Research and had accompanied them on a few of the society’s field trips to haunted locations. Both were in their early twenties, Shannon a slightly frumpy young woman of medium height with long straight brown hair, Willy a tall, skinny guy with small round eyeglasses, a dark buzz-cut, and a goatee. They put their bags down in the living room, stood close together, and sometimes held hands briefly, stiff and nervous. This was the first time they had assisted in one of the Binghams’s investigations, Mavis said, and they appeared nervous. They wore jeans and T-shirts—Willy wore a blue T-shirt that bore the logo for The X-Files, Shannon a black one that read My childhood was supposed to end when?—and had shed their coats in the entryway. Shannon’s eyes had darted all around her as she stood beside Willy, who had eagerly chewed his lower lip. Arty had given them their assignments—first, to move the coffee table out of the way to make more room, and second, to put a religious icon in each room of the house. Jenna had them put the table back in the dining room against the north wall.

  Jenna had asked to do the master bedroom because David was resting there and she did not want to disturb him. She’d carried a plastic Virgin Mary upstairs to the bedroom, where she found David sound asleep. She’d put the plastic figure on her vanity and pulled the door closed as she left the room. Then she’d gone back downstairs and into the kitchen to join Martha in the breakfast nook.

  Jenna was jarred from her thoughts when Martha said, “Are they going to be sleeping here?”

  “I’m not sure. They have hotel rooms. You’ve read their books, I haven’t. Do they usually stay in the houses they work on?”

  Martha thought about that a moment, sipped her coffee. “You know, as a matter of fact, I think they do.”

  “In that case, you and I should go to the store and put a few things in the fridge, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I suppose if they’re going to do this for nothing, we should at least feed them,” Martha said.

  Arty and Mavis came into the kitchen hesitantly. “Are we interrupting?” Mavis said.

  Jenna stood and said, “No, not at all.”

  Mavis put a small figure of Jesus on the counter. Arty held a crucifix.

  “You said you have a basement,” Arty said.

  “Yes, it’s right over here,” Jenna said as she led them to the laundry room. She opened the basement door. “You aren’t planning to go down there, are you?”

  “If there was activity in the basement, we need to place an icon down there,” Arty said. “It’ll only take me a second.”

  “There’s no light down there,” Jenna said. “You’ll need the—” She turned around to find Martha standing behind her with the heavy Mag-Lite held in both hands.

  Jenna handed it to Arty, who flicked it on. As he stepped through the basement doorway, Mavis moved toward him in a sudden rush, reached out, and clutched his shoulder for a moment.

  “Are you sure you want to go down there, Arty?” Mavis said with a slight quaver in her voice.

  “Don’t worry, Momma, I’ll be fine,” he said. He smiled at Mavis over his shoulder, then followed the flashlight’s beam down the stairs a careful step at a time.

  Jenna and Mavis stood at the doorway, peered down the stairs, and watched him. Jenna glanced at Mavis and was surprised by the tension, and even fear, on her face, in her eyes.

  After a few seconds, the glow of the flashlight down in the basement went out. Someone said something in a gravelly voice, but the words were muffled. Arty released a throaty, trembling “Oh!”

  Mavis’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped and stepped forward. “Arty, are you all right?” she called in a broken voice.

  Thunking footsteps hurried up the stairs and Arty emerged from the darkness, mouth open as if he were desperate for air, one hand on the rail, the other clutching his chest, eyes wide. For that moment, Jenna thought Arty Bingham looked like a frightened boy.

  Mavis pushed Jenna aside, opened her arms to her ascending husband. “Be careful, Arty, for God’s sake, be careful!” She stepped aside and clutched Arty’s elbow as he nearly fell through the doorway.

  Arty nudged Jenna aside and slammed the basement door closed, then turned around and leaned, his back against it. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he continued to clutch it with one hand. His face had paled.

  “Do you need your pills?” Mavis said.

  He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a small tin. He removed a tiny white pill from it and dropped it under his tongue, then closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing as he returned the tin to his pocket.

  Mavis said, “Arty has a slight heart condition. The pills keep it under control.”

  Finally, Arty said, “There was someone down there.”

  Jenna nodded. “The fat man. Was he wearing a cowboy hat?”

  “I... I only got a glimpse of a figure as it came around me from behind. He spoke, but I didn’t understand him. Then the light went out and I dropped it. And the crucifix.”

  “Why don’t you come out in the living room and sit down,” Jenna said.

  “If I try to walk, I’m going to fall,” Arty said. “My legs are shaking.”

  Jenna frowned. Arty Bingham was not behaving the way she expected a professional paranormal investigator to behave. He looked pale and his eyes were still wide with fright. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost— which Jenna had assumed he and Mavis would be accustomed to by now.


  Jenna caught a brief but significant look as it passed between Arty and Mavis, and Mavis said to him quietly, “I told you.”

  “I left the flashlight down there,” he said. “Sorry about that, but I don’t think I’ll go down for it right now, if you don’t mind.” A nervous laugh escaped him. He turned to Mavis. “We should get Shannon and Willy down there with cameras.”

  Mavis put an arm around him and said, “Let’s get you calmed down first.”

  During all the commotion, Jenna failed to hear the doorbell ring.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Saturday, 5:34 P.M.

  The second step up on the front porch was the closest Lily had gotten to the Kellars’s home. Walking up the path, she’d felt a constriction in her chest that only grew worse the closer she got to the house, as if a giant rubber band were wrapped tightly around her chest and back and getting tighter.

  The moment the boy opened the front door, Lily recognized him as Miles Kellar, and she wanted more than anything to sweep him up in her arms and carry him away from that house. He squinted up at them with sleepy eyes, looking like he’d just woke up. Lily and Claudia stood behind Kimberly Gimble.

  “Hi, Miles,” Kimberly said.

  “Hi. Mom’s in the kitchen, I think.”

  “Could you get her for me?”

  “You don’t want to come in?”

  “Um, not yet. Just tell her I’m here.”

  “Okay.” Miles closed the door.

  “Remember,” Lily said quietly, “get her to step outside. If I can get her to listen to me for a couple minutes—”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Kimberly said. “But if this causes trouble, I’m not going to push it, okay? I mean, I haven’t known her long, but she’s’ my friend, and I don’t want to stir up any problems between her and her hus—”

  The door opened again and Jenna smiled wearily at Kimberly, but her smile faltered when she saw Lily and Claudia. Jenna quickly glanced over her shoulder, then stepped outside and gently closed the door behind her.

  “I don’t want to make trouble, Jenna,” Kimberly said, “but she’s been very anxious to talk with you.”

  “A few minutes, that’s all I ask, Mrs. Kellar,” Lily said. “I don’t want your money, I don’t want anything from you. I just want to help you and your little boy, your family.”

  “This is a bad time,” Jenna said. “I have a lot of people here, and I—”

  “The Binghams,” Lily said. “Mrs. Kellar, the Binghams will not be able to help you, trust me. They’re not prepared to deal with your problem.”

  “Oh?” Jenna said. “What’s my problem?”

  “Terrible things have happened in your house, Mrs. Kellar,” Lily said. “They’ve left behind a malignant energy—call it a place memory, a ghost, a disembodied personality, whatever—and that energy is lashing out at your family. Particularly your son. It wants Mi—”

  The door opened, and Lily stopped speaking when she saw Arthur and Mavis Bingham in the doorway. She recognized them immediately from the pictures she’d seen, but they had aged, and Arthur looked rather pale, perhaps even unwell.

  “Who have we here?” Mavis said with a big smile. A speck of red lipstick clung to a front tooth.

  Jenna said, “Mavis, this is the woman I told you about.”

  “The psychic?” Mavis said.

  “Psychic?” Arthur said with a note of alarm. “Who’s a psychic?”

  Lily forced herself to smile back at Mavis. “If you don’t mind, I was having a word with Mrs. Kellar.”

  “You’re the psychic?” Arthur asked.

  Lily tipped her head back and looked down her nose at the little man. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  Arthur said, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?”

  Lily flinched and a single, sharp laugh burst out of her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, have you accepted—”

  “I heard you. ‘I beg your pardon’ was an expression of my utter disbelief.”

  ‘‘Believe it, sister,” Arthur said as he stepped out onto the porch. “If you’re a psychic who doesn’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God or credit the Holy Sprit for your gift, then you are Satanic.”

  Lily tipped her head back again, cocked it to one side. “Sounds to me like you’re not taking your medication, Arthur.”

  Mavis’s mouth dropped open and she gasped, and Arthur made an outraged “Bwah!” sound.

  “Who are you?” Arthur said as he pointed a stiff finger at her and took another step forward. “Who do you work for? Who hired you to harass us? You’re no psychic, you’re a couple of those damned Pagans, aren’t you? Lesbian witches!”

  Mavis put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Be careful, Arty—calm down, please. I don’t want you to get sick.”

  Arty stepped back but looked like a fully flexed muscle. His fists opened and closed at his sides and he moved his feet constantly, looking almost as if he were trying to dance a softshoe on the concrete porch.

  Lily spoke firmly when she said, “I am here to see Mrs. Kellar, and that’s all.”

  Mavis said, “First, I’d like to speak with you, if you don’t mind, dear.” She clutched Lily’s upper arm and turned her around. They walked together down the steps and onto the concrete path away from the porch. Mavis spoke quietly, privately. “My husband and I are professional paranormal investigators. The Kellars asked us to deal with their problem, which we are doing.”

  Lily felt a tingly sensation on her upper arm, just beneath Mavis’s hand, as if someone had poured cold, bubbly champagne on her bare skin. Lily stopped walking suddenly as a flood of information gushed and splashed into her mind and vivid images exploded behind her eyes. She blinked hard—once, twice, two more times—against the rapid-fire images and the swirl of emotions as they rushed together in her mind. Jerking her arm from Mavis’s hold, Lily turned to face her and saw a look of confusion and suspicion on her heavily made-up face.

  “You’ve been doing this only to play along with your husband,” Lily whispered. She frowned, tilted her head slightly. “You’ve been doing it... to keep him sane. To keep him out of an institution. All these years. All those people you’ve ... what? Duped? Used?” Lily’s words began to come faster. “You knew those families had serious problems you couldn’t help them with— alcoholism, drug addiction, abuse. You could see those things—probably more clearly than you’ve ever seen a ghost or a demon. But you went along with Arty’s obsession until it actually started to bring you some money and fame.”

  Mavis backed away from her and stood on the grass. She looked as if Lily had just slapped her.

  “You saw something in the house,” Lily whispered, jerking her head once toward the Kellars’s house. “You know you can’t deal with it, and you tried to tell him that, but... but you’re doing it anyway, just to play along with Arthur, to keep him happy, because ... he really believes you can deal with it.”

  Mavis spoke in a trembling, throaty whisper. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t even think about them, do you?” Lily said, still whispering, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “The people you prey on—people who need real help— you never wonder if your little dog-and-pony show messed them up even more, you don’t even—” Lily made a small breathy sound of frustration and threw up her hands. “For crying out loud, why am I wasting my time with you?” She turned and went back to Jenna, leaving Mavis standing slack-jawed on the grass. Standing at the bottom of the porch steps, she said, “I’m going to finish what I have to say to Mrs. Kellar, and we’ll let her decide what she’s going to do.”

  Jenna said, “Look, I’m sorry, but... well, I’ve never heard of you, I know absolutely nothing about you. The Binghams at least have a reputation. I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t see why I—”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to her, Jenna dear,” Mavis said as she came back up the walk. Sh
e went up on the porch and stood beside her husband. “We have work to do. It will be dark soon.”

  “Mrs. Kellar,” Lily said, “your problem is a real one. These people are not accustomed to dealing with this sort of thing, they’re not prepared for it. Something bad will happen. My God, I can feel it here, standing outside your door—this house is a psychic boil. You need to—”

  “What do you know about what we’re used to dealing with?” Arthur said.

  “I know plenty about you, Mr. Bingham. Even more now that I’ve had a chance to chat with your wife. You’re frauds.”

  “Bwah!” Arthur said.

  “If I don’t seem credible enough to you, Mrs. Kellar,” Lily said, doing her best to sound as pleasant as possible, “I can fix that, but it’ll take a little time. I’ll be back later with someone important who can vouch for me.” She turned and headed for the gate. “Come on, Claudia,” she said, but Claudia was already following along.

  In the Beetle, Claudia started the engine. “Where to?” she asked.

  Lily took a deep breath. “I’m so angry right now, I could chew nails and shit battleships. Those people.” She grunted, an angry sound, then said, “Just get us out of here for now. Maybe if the chief of police tells Mrs. Kellar I know what I’m talking about, she’ll listen.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do if you actually get in the house?”

  Lily sighed. “None. I won’t know till I get in there.”

  A light sprinkle of rain started to fall as Claudia drove away from the house.

  Jenna was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed. But she was pressed on by her desire to get all this over with as soon as possible. As tired as she was, she doubted she’d be able to sleep anyway. If she didn’t keep busy and stopped to think much, her mind reeled. Only a week ago, she’d been going about her life as if nothing could ever go wrong. Now it seemed hard to believe they’d ever had a safe or normal moment in the house.

  Kimberly had come inside after the psychic and her friend had left. They’d walked through the living room, where the Binghams and their young assistants checked their cameras and tape recorders while Miles watched in fascination and Martha chatted with them. In the kitchen, Jenna paced while Kimberly talked.