Ghosts and Other Lovers

by Lisa Tuttle

  He gave me a squeeze and looked at Hutch. “Is it just this creepy feeling, or is anything else supposed to happen?”

  “It might,” said Hutch. “Visual disturbances. Tell us if you see anything weird, huh?”

  Luke nodded. We all waited in silence for a bit. I looked at the door, because that was where I’d been looking when I’d first seen something, but Hutch and Greg were both staring at the wall where the figure had disappeared. I could feel Luke’s tension in his arm around me, and he kept jerking his head around.

  “See anything?” Hutch asked him after the third sudden movement.

  “No — yes — maybe, I don’t know. Just out of the corner of my eye, a sort of gray shape, blurred, like something moving. But when I turn my head, it’s gone.”

  “Something or someone?”

  Luke shrugged. “No idea. Just a blurry, moving shape. Could’ve been an animal, I guess.”

  For some reason his comment really spooked me — I think it was the image it conjured of the gray woman metamorphosing into a beast. She had seemed to me frightened, not frightening, but the idea of a shape-shifting monster was terrifying.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Fine with me,” said Luke, walking me toward the door.

  “I’m going to stick around for a while longer,” said Hutch. “Just to see what happens. How about it, Greg?”

  I expected Greg to agree; I’d thought the haunted west wing was going to be his new toy. But he was looking oddly pale. He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, man. I’ve got kind of a headache… . I got to get out of here for a while. And I really don’t think you should stay too long.”

  Hutch shrugged. “I just want to check something out. I’ll meet y’all out front in about fifteen minutes.”

  What a relief it was to leave that empty room. I began to feel better immediately.

  “My headache’s gone already,” said Greg, sounding surprised, as we stepped outside the front door. He sighed happily, inhaling the scent of sunbaked earth and cedar. “Whew, I feel like I just came back from some dungeon in the middle ages!” Then he looked at me. “You don’t think Hutch will do himself any harm?”

  “There are health implications,” I said cautiously. Since Hutch wouldn’t tell me, I’d looked into the literature about infrasound research myself. “But no, I really don’t. And I’m sure it’ll be safe enough for your party guests. Nobody’s going to be in there for more than a few minutes at a time.”

  “Only Hutch. And don’t forget, this isn’t his first time.”

  I nodded. “But it’s not likely to do him any lasting harm. I’m sure there are factory floors which are worse.”

  Greg took us on a tour of his property. We even went down the rough hillside path — “there’ll be steps the next time you come” — to the lake and a wooden dock. We were away for more than twenty minutes, but when we returned to the house there was still no sign of Hutch.

  “I guess I’d better go get him,” said Greg.

  My heart gave a flutter. “Let’s all go.”

  He gave me a look, then dead-panned, “Of course. What was I thinking? In the movies, they always get into trouble when they split up. Oh, my God, we should never have left him alone … “

  “Don’t look be-hiiiiind you.” It was Hutch, of course, grinning sardonically. “Some friends I’ve got — leaving poor little me all alone in the infamous haunted west wing.”

  “Since you’re the one who haunted it—”

  “Oh, great, so now I discover my so-called friends think I’m a ghost?” His hand shot out and gripped my arm. I think the movement was meant as a punch line, but as his fingers, icy cold against my sun-warmed flesh, dug into me, I lost it, and screamed.

  The men — even Luke — looked at me as if I was insane.

  Hutch yanked his hand away as if I’d burned him.

  “Sweetie, Sweetie, it’s OK,” said Luke — a little belatedly, I thought, but better late than never.

  I hugged Luke to hide my blushes. I felt like a complete idiot. I began to babble. “Sorry — sorry — I just — I don’t know, Hutch, you startled me! Aftershock, I guess. I mean, even knowing what it was, the whole thing was just so creepy! Really got my adrenaline going. Sorry, Hutch.”

  “That’s OK. You were supposed to be scared. It’s good — means I succeeded.” Hutch twitched his shoulders. “I won’t say I was scared myself, because I wasn’t, but my body sure thought I ought to be. It wanted me out of there! If I wasn’t shivering, I was sweating like a pig. Thank the lord I’ve still got a clean shirt in my case in the car!”

  “So, did the ghost come back after we’d left?” Greg wanted to know. “Did he have anything to say for himself?”

  “He?”

  “The ghost,” Greg explained.

  I looked at him in surprise.

  “What did you see?” Hutch was frowning.

  Greg shrugged. “A gray figure … in a long cloak, with a hood, so I couldn’t see his face. I thought he was like a monk.”

  “I saw a woman,” I said.

  “So did I,” said Hutch. There was something in the way he said it, looking at me, that made me tingle.

  I shrugged irritably. “But it’s not like there was anything there to see — there’s not a ghost. We didn’t see anything, really — it’s about perception, not vision. Our eyeballs vibrated, and our brains were just trying to make some kind of shape out of that blurriness.”

  Hutch shook his head slowly. “It has to be more complicated than that. In so-called haunted houses people see the same ghosts again and again.”

  “Because of tradition,” Greg put in. “People see what they expect to see.”

  “And you expected to see a monk?” Hutch said skeptically. “Doubtless one of the world-famous Lake Travis brotherhood.”

  “Sure, the Indians wiped them out, burned the monastery to the ground, in ought eight,” Greg said. “I always build my houses on sites of historical and religious significance, didn’t you know that?”

  “There isn’t any tradition here, yet,” I pointed out. “We didn’t know what to expect. So our minds were free to make their own connections. For Greg, obviously, gray ghosts have got to be monks… .”

  “Whereas for you and Hutch, it’s the sexier option of a dead woman,” Luke said.

  I made a disgusted face at him. “Dead women are sexy?”

  “Hey, not to me. But according to Edgar Allan Poe and everybody else who follows that route …”

  “I don’t think somebody who saw an animal ghost should talk about sexy.”

  Hutch ignored us. “I’d like to interview more people about their experience in the west wing,” he told Greg. “See if some kind of consensus starts to emerge. Maybe at the party.”

  “Yeah, OK,” said Greg. “But try not to get too heavy. Remember, they’re my guests, not your experimental subjects.”

  “Well, hey. I wouldn’t have to bother anybody at the party if I could run an experiment beforehand. If I could bring some people out here, you know, and then ask them to describe their experience … “

  “Mi casa es su casa,” Greg agreed. “I’ll get another set of keys cut for you. There’ll be decorators and such-like coming and going for the next few weeks — that won’t bother you? Good.”

  “You don’t mind if I camp out here for a night or two? I’d really like to find out what happens on repeat visits; you know, does the whole thing cycle through again? Do you get habituated to it, more or less sensitive? All sorts of questions.”

  Greg nodded, looking admiring, looking, maybe, a bit envious. “I might join you,” he said. It was as if he’d forgotten this was his house — his ghost. But this was how it had been in high school, when Hutch always had the best ideas — or, at least, the ability to convince us they were his.

  Later, at the airport, Hutch asked me if I could sketch a portrait of the ghostly woman I’d thought I’d seen.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Hutch — it
was only a glimpse — I’m really not sure. Maybe, if I see her again—”

  “We don’t know that you’ll see the same apparition twice. I need some hard evidence. God knows, most people are completely incapable of describing what they’ve seen in any kind of detail … I don’t want to rely on what people think they remember. You have a talent, Beck. You can draw. Your portraits are really good.” He turned to Luke. “My mom framed the portrait Becky did of me in high school. She’s still got it on the living room wall, says it’s more like me than any photograph!”

  I felt myself blushing, both pleased and embarrassed. I’d given up any serious attempts at drawing while in college. The art teachers there did not admire my work. It lacked flair and individuality. I could copy — but computers could do that sort of thing so much better.

  I bought pencils and a pad of paper in the airport shop, and while Hutch, Greg, and Luke drank coffee at the next table, I struggled to produce an image of the woman I’d imagined I’d seen. Her figure — coat open over a loose dress — and posture, cowering fearfully against the wall, were what I remembered best about her, and were the easiest to capture. It was her face that was difficult. I did the best I could to sketch the features I thought I remembered while not making them too individual. Generic pretty young woman backed up against the wall by (unseen) threat… .

  Hutch grinned broadly. “That’s her! That’s what I saw!”

  “You know, I think I saw her too,” Luke drawled. “On the cover of a book in the newsstand over there where Becky bought her paper.”

  Luke’s sarcasm didn’t register on Hutch. “May I keep it?” he asked.

  I nodded. Of course, what else, I had drawn it for him … but I suddenly wished I hadn’t.

  The Halloween party was supposed to be the main event, but for me it turned into something less than a sideshow.

  Things hadn’t been going well between me and Luke, and for some stupid reason we ended up sniping at each other nearly the whole of the drive from Galveston to Austin. At the party I spent about ten minutes talking to John Wayne, who was in a snit because Hutch didn’t appreciate what he’d done to the west wing — he just flat didn’t like it, if you please, because it distracted the visitors from what John Wayne called “Hutch’s special effects.”

  I went down to the west wing to see for myself, but there was such a long line of people waiting to get in that I gave up. I meant to go back later, but that never happened. I never even saw Hutch that night. Instead, I found Luke, and the tension which had been building between us suddenly exploded. We left the party to have our fight in private, and we thoroughly demolished the relationship. By the time Halloween had given way to All Saint’s Day, our engagement was off, and we never wanted to see each other again. I made him drop me off at the bus station because I couldn’t bear another four hours of his company on the drive home.

  *

  I e-mailed Greg and Linda to apologize for walking out on their party and to explain about the break-up. I sent a similar note, only more groveling, to Hutch. Knowing how proud and possessive he was of “his” haunting, I figured he’d be furious that I’d disappeared.

  Greg’s reply was practically instantaneous, concerned about my emotional state, offering me the lake house as a retreat if I wanted to get away from Galveston for a while. From Hutch, nothing. After a week, I e-mailed him again, this time quizzing him about the results of his “experiment.”

  I’d chosen the right topic. He couldn’t resist a reply.

  I’m going to write it all up and submit it as an article somewhere. Till I manage that, here’s a quick breakdown of my findings: roughly 60 percent thought they saw some sort of human figure; another 10 percent saw “something moving” which they thought might have been an animal or a person; 5 percent thought they just glimpsed something but couldn’t say anything positive about it at all, another 5 percent “heard” or “sensed” something they couldn’t see; and 20 percent experienced no ghostly or inexplicable manifestations at all.

  Of the (most interesting) 60 percent, slightly more than half described the figure as female, usually as wearing a “long gown,” but otherwise their descriptions varied widely. Of those who saw a male figure, nearly half described the figure as a monk or a priest! (The long gown again?)

  Guess I’ll have to try to make sense of the data, draw some kind of conclusion. Might be good to have your input on that; how would you feel about collaborating?

  Nobody else saw our woman.

  *

  Our woman. The phrase sent a thrill through me. I was warmed by it, and felt closer to Hutch than I had in years. And he wanted to collaborate! I replied right away, letting him know I was eager and willing to help.

  But I didn’t hear from him again for a couple of weeks. It was early December when he phoned and asked if I could come and meet him in Houston.

  He didn’t sound like himself. There was something in his voice I’d never heard before. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve found our ghost,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come and see for yourself.”

  I met him in Houston, the next day. It was the middle of the week and should have been a working day for both of us, but there we were, playing truant. He’d given me explicit directions for how to find a restaurant called The Black-Eyed Pea, where he would be waiting for me.

  I couldn’t figure it out. The scenario I imagined centered around old newspaper clippings, maybe the story of a murder in Travis County, maybe the discovery of a young woman’s body in the lake. I surely wasn’t expecting Hutch to greet me, when I joined him in his booth beside a window, by pointing out at a high-rise bank building across the street and saying, “She works there. She’ll be coming out of the building for her lunch break in about …” — he checked his watch — “thirty-five minutes. You should get a good view of her then.”

  I looked at him. He didn’t look well. I could tell he wasn’t sleeping, or eating right, and he was drinking too much coffee. “Who are you talking about?” I asked, although I already knew.

  He waited for the waitress to take my order, and then he told me. “Her name is Melanie Caron. She’s twenty-six, single, works for First City National over there and lives by herself in a townhouse in a little subdivision off the Gulf Freeway. Not a rental; I think her parents bought it for her — there’s money in the background, I think.” He paused, seeming to lose track of what he was saying, and ran a hand over his face.

  “But why?”

  “Oh, the car she drives, the townhouse—”

  “No, I don’t mean the money! I mean, why her, why are you so … interested?”

  “Wait’ll you see her.”

  “No. I don’t remember what I saw. Not well enough to be sure.”

  He slammed his hand down on the table, making the silverware judder. “Don’t say that! You drew her picture!”

  “It’s a drawing. I’m not a camera.”

  “I know it’s her,” he said quietly. “The second I saw her — sitting at a table just over there,” he canted his head. “As soon as I set eyes on her it was like little things just crawling all over me … the creepiest sensation. I knew it was her.” He raised his haunted eyes to mine. “I don’t know why. I don’t know what it means. But I saw her ghost. It has to mean something.”

  “Why? Why does it have to mean anything?” This was his line when I’d tried, in my clumsy way, to argue for the existence of God, an afterlife, or even the significance of coincidence.

  “Don’t be an asshole, Becky,” he said irritably.

  “Don’t you. You want to know what it means? OK, I’ll tell you: you don’t want to know. It’s a warning.”

  He became more alert. “You really think so? I need to tell her?”

  “No. You need to keep the hell away from her.” The way he looked when I said that told me everything. My heart sank. “You’ve told her?”

  “Not about the ghost, no, not about seeing her �
�� but you could. Maybe she’d believe you.”

  “And she wouldn’t believe you, because why?” He didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. “Because you came on to her, and she didn’t want to know. And instead of letting it drop, you’ve been following her around, spying on her… .” I turned to gaze out the window at the bank where this unknown woman worked. I felt a horrible, cold dread filling me up from my feet to my head. “Oh, lordy. You’re stalking her.”

  “Becky, come on!” He gazed at me, anguished. “I thought you’d understand! It’s not like that. If you’d help me …”

  I prayed that I could.

  “Look, Hutch,” I said gently. “Think about the ghost. Think about how she looked. I don’t just mean her face, I mean her, whaddayacallit — her affect.”

  He frowned at me. I spelled it out. “She was terrified. Somebody was after her. Maybe you?”

  “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “So how’s she supposed to know that? Telepathy?”

  Just then the waitress arrived with the food I no longer wanted to eat.

  “Would you like to order now, sir?” she asked him, but Hutch shook his head. “Just some more coffee, please.”

  He turned his attention back to me as soon as the waitress had gone. “You could tell her the truth. You could just recognize her and go up to her, tell her about the ghost. I bet she’d believe you. Why shouldn’t she? And I bet she’s heard of Greg. If he invites her to a party she’d probably be thrilled.”

  “What if she’s not? What if she doesn’t believe me? What if—”

  He held up his hand to stop me. “Quit borrowing trouble. We can deal with any problems when—”

  “No.”

  He blinked at me in disbelief. “You won’t help me?”

  I was trembling, but determined. “I’m trying to, believe me. This is insane, Hutch. Look at what you’re doing — try to look at it from her point of view—”

  “But she doesn’t know about the ghost!”

  “What difference does that make?”