Her eyes struggled to see the form of the person or presence near her, but all she could see was a patch of mist, through which the afternoon sun shone. “Let go of me,” she spat the words between gritted teeth.
That low laughed echoed through the room, but the grip remained strong. I don’t know why you’re fighting me, Laura. It’s not as if your life is worth saving.
As if to punctuate her words, the ghost drew forth some of the most depressing images from Laura’s past; they played out in front of her like ghostly images filmed with a bad camera. Her mother’s death and funeral, all tears and the sickly smell of the baskets of dying flowers. The ugly suspicion that her father had caused the accident and Laura’s steadfast denial of that situation, leading almost immediately to her drug and alcohol abuse. The lost nights and days, the waking up in unknown places, drenched in her own sweat and vomit. The number of times she’d tried to stop, followed by failure after failure, leading to despair and disillusionment. Fast forwarding through the good years, the ghost chose only to show the bad. Small things loomed large and assumed an almost cosmic importance – the arguments with Tony, disagreements with the girls, feelings of complete inadequacy, utter guilt – all adding to Laura’s general despair. Then the visions focused on the death of Matthew. The pictures slowed then, and Laura felt as if she saw it all a frame at a time, a succession of portraits of his death. That sweet little body, her sweet little boy, so little, so defenseless, so cold and lifeless. She saw her frenzied attempts to force air back into his silent lungs, breathe, dammit, breathe! She felt the events tearing at her stomach and her heart, the anger, the grief, the seemingly endless stream of burning tears and the dry, sandy ache of eyes that could cry no longer.
And with each vision, Laura felt herself grow colder, weaker, as if the visions were draining off her life’s blood. She gasped for air.
The spirit delved deeper into Laura’s soul, pulling up fears she never knew existed. She saw herself, here in the basement, the door to the root cellar no longer sealed. The picture that had been burned into her memory seemed different now. This time there were only two little cots, two little china cups with red rose buds and a toxic black stain on the bottom. She saw herself go over to the small, still forms on the cots and tenderly pull up the blankets, kissing each cold cheek. As she kissed them, she named them. Amanda. Lizzy. And on the floor, bleeding out his life from his shattered skull, Mike.
“No.” Laura cried out, gripping her hands together, feeling her nails dig into the flesh of her palms. “This is what you did. I didn’t. This is not real.”
As real as anything. I pulled it all out of you – this is what life really is. So you see, you really would be better off dead.
Far off in the distance, Laura heard a phone ring, heard her message on the machine. “Mom? Happy Thanksgiving! We’re snowed in. We can’t even open the front door!” Lizzy’s excited voice filtered down to her; suddenly the tightness in her chest eased and she could breathe again. “Mom? Are you there?”
“I’m here, baby.” Laura felt some of her strength return.
“Okay, I guess you’re not home. Call me back. I love you, Mommy.”
Laura smiled. “That’s what life is, Dolores.” She took another few deep and calming breaths in and out. Then she reached her hands out and envisioned touching the ghost, cradling Dolly’s face as the ghost had Laura’s, but with a different intent. If the spirit really did feed off of hatred and despair and sadness, Laura thought she might just turn the tables.
She cleared her mind, trying to wash away the previous images of death. At first it was difficult to concentrate and project her thoughts – recent events kept interfering. The desire to curl up into a fetal position right there on the floor almost overpowered her. But Laura knew if she did that, she wouldn’t survive.
Better off dead. But the potency of the ghost’s thoughts seemed dimmer now.
“No,” Laura said, finding small moments in her life, little bits of good to balance out the bad.
The births of her children, every one of them different, but every one of them a joy, the pain forgotten, their tiny bodies curled up against her chest and the happy tears.
But eventually they die, came the protest.
“Everything dies eventually. What’s important is that they lived.” Laura smiled, pulling up the warmth the memories held, envisioning it flowing into the hands cradled around coldness and death. “They lived.”
She pulled up more, the contented sound of her babies nursing, their sweet scent after a bath, their first laugh, their first step. Little things, trivial things that had gone unnoticed the first time around, still held close in memories and brought out into the light. A first kiss, the touch of a kitten’s fur, a patch of sunlight shining in the window on a winter’s day. Laura thought of rehab and the strength she found there – in herself and in others. And although she might have wished she never went down that particular path, she had no regrets. Good did come out of it. She thought of Mike, of his kindness, of the way the sound of his voice never failed to make her smile. She remembered his love, his acceptance of her, his patience.
The spirit seemed to waver under her fingers and she dropped her guard and lost her grip for a second. Even given such a small window of escape, the ghost took advantage of Laura’s loss of focus to revive some of its former strength. It swelled and raged, flooding Laura with its memories, showing her visions of the dead children. Scenes of Dolly, sweet little old Aunt Dolly, luring the children to her house on one pretext or another. Laura felt with a shock the spirit’s total confidence in its own virtue. Dolly truly believed she was doing good work. She knew deep down that this was her purpose in life – to help these children get past the horrors of their daily life, to lead them to the comfort and peace of death. She thought she did them a kindness and that her actions provided the mercy the world could not. Better off dead.
How do I fight such convictions? Laura wondered, a spark of panic entering her thoughts. Dolly was oblivious to the truth, caught up in her own righteous justifications. Laura had to tear away at the substance of the ghost’s self-delusions.
I have to show her the truth of her actions, Laura thought. I’ve had a lot of practice with self-delusional thoughts. I certainly should know how to break through them. Laura took a deep breath, taking time to feel the air enter her lungs, then exhaled slowly and repeated the action several times until her mind felt clear and fresh.
Reaching out to grasp the spirit again, Laura washed her mind of fear, but held onto the sorrow. Not her sorrow this time, but that of the parents of the dead children.
“Sorrow isn’t necessarily bad,” she said, pleased to hear that her voice sounded firm and strong. “Those children were loved, they were missed. Not one parent, not one person would have wished they had never been born.” She pulled scenes from her mind, the parents on television, talking of their children when they were found. Then she drew on her imagination and pictured those same children, not dead, but alive and thriving. She focused on images of those children growing, learning, maturing, leading useful lives. Leading lives of love and purpose, not always perfect lives, but full and proper.
Laura felt a faltering in the spirit. They were better off dead.
“And was Bert better off dead? What was wrong with him that he should die and you should live?”
Bert? He’s not dead. He left me. Dolly’s voice wavered, trying to maintain the delusions on which she built her life, trying to hold onto the madness that caused her to murder so many.
“He didn’t leave you. You killed him. They found his body in the root cellar with the others. You need to remember this, Dolly.”
The room filled with huge wave of dismay and confusion. Then the haze of Dolly’s thoughts seemed to clear. Laura saw Bert Wellman, alive and well, staring in horror at what his wife had been hiding in the cellar. She saw him confront Dolly and watched her deny his accusations, first in confusion and then in defiance. “You’re
not well, sweetheart,” Laura heard him saying. “I should have seen this. But we can get you help. And we can get these children,” his voice broke, “these poor children back to their families where they belong.” He turned and stared at his wife. Laura could see the tears in his eyes, could see the odd mixture of love, pity and disgust with which he looked at Dolly.
Dolly saw it too, but the emotions didn’t touch her. Instead, she raised her hand and struck him. “What do you know? I did this because these children were better off here than where they were.”
“Oh, Dolly. You don’t believe that. You couldn’t. What’s happened to you?”
Laura felt tears run down her face as she watched Dolores Wellman pick up the shovel leaning against the wall and smash him on the head. He crumpled under the blow, but Dolly kept hitting him, over and over, until his face disappeared, leaving behind only a bloody pulpy mass. She dropped the shovel and stared down at the dead body of her husband. Without any shred of remorse showing on her face, she tugged at his pants leg and rolled him into the root cellar. Then she shut the door and dusted off her hands, nodding in satisfaction as if she’d just done a good deed.
“But you killed him, Dolly.”
I didn’t. He left me. Still, the spirit attempted to hold onto the madness she’d known during life.
“No, Dolly. You killed him. Smashed his head in with a shovel. Then closed him in the root cellar and left him.
Oh, God. The words were a wail of grief and a cry of understanding. I killed him. I killed them all. There was a long pause, during which Laura felt like all of the air was being sucked out of the cellar. Oh, God, Dolores raged, I killed them. Even Burt. I killed them all. What have I done?
Whatever form Laura had held between her hands, seemed then to drop away. She heard another cry of dismay and then a soft weeping. Taking in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and said a silent prayer, a prayer for the living and the dead. “God grant us the serenity…”
When the prayer had finished, the cold of the cellar seemed to ease. From beneath her still-closed eyes, Laura saw a brief light, like a flash from a camera or a bolt of lightning. The weeping, which had grown softer and softer during the prayer, stopped abruptly and the surrounding air that had been cramped and restrictive, eased. She opened her eyes and looked around her. The cellar felt like a new space, clean and fresh.
Laura felt completely alone, but also completely at ease. Her leg hurt like hell; she was cold, bruised and as exhausted as if she’d run ten miles or more. Laura laughed. “And starving,” she said as she dragged herself over to the wall and pulled herself up from the floor. She limped over to the stairs, taking each one slowly, counting them as she did, leaving the darkness behind.
Epilogue
Laura pulled into the driveway of her house. Getting out of the car, she looked around the neighborhood. One year ago to the day, they had been in the middle of the worst winter storm in decades. Now, although the skies were grey and the trees were bare, the temperature was still mild and everything just felt better. In spite of this day’s events, she stepped lightly she put her key into the front lock, opening the door without feeling the overwhelming oppression that used to be there. Inside the house felt warm and welcoming.
“Mike?” She set her bag down on the entry table and shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it on a hook by the door.
“In the kitchen.”
Laura inhaled. “Wow that smells amazing!” She walked into the hallway and leaned up against what used to be the cellar door, now sealed up and covered over with drywall and plaster. She watched Mike, dressed in jeans, tee shirt, and apron, take the massive turkey out of the oven. “And looks tremendous.”
He stood back for a second and assessed the bird. “Needs a little more time, I think.” He placed some foil over the top and put it back into the oven. “Tony called. They’re going to be late.”
“So what else is new? How’d your day go? It feels calm.”
Mike shrugged. “Everything’s pretty quiet, actually. A bit of rattling, but nothing else. To be honest, I sort of expected a little more activity, considering the day. But, I’m not complaining. How are you doing?”
Laura sighed and Mike walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her closely. “Rough one today?” He whispered the question into Laura’s hair, knowing the answer from the tenseness of her shoulders. He gave a small laugh. “At least you weren’t stuck selling turkeys this year.”
“True. Even ghost hunting is better than retail.” Laura laughed herself, before sobering up again thinking back on her day. “But this one is going to be a rough case.”
“Aren’t they all? You could just go back to real estate full time, you know.”
Laura nodded. “I know, but if I can help, I have to do it.”
Mike smiled, kissed her on the forehead, and went back into the kitchen. He stirred one of the pots on the stove and checked under the lid of another. “So what’s going on?”
“Just a single entity this time. But it’s a little girl, apparently. Dennis is excited. He thinks we might have caught her on film. But, oh, Mike, she’s so lost and alone. And so very angry. She doesn’t seem to know what happened to her and I’m not sure if I can help her. I’m not sure if she’ll ever be able to go home.”
“You can’t help them all, Laura. We both know after last year that some of them just don’t want to leave.”
As if to punctuate his words, the wall Laura leaned against rattled and banged, and the kitchen grew colder, so much colder that her breath became visible.
Ignoring the cold, Laura cocked her head to one side, concentrating, and heard the whispering start. The voices were softer these days, and less persistent, more like a sigh than a scream. But they never went completely away. She held them off, the best she could. She took a deep breath and let it out, turning to face the wall. She ran her fingers gently over the pictures hanging there: six small frames holding school photos of children and a larger one of Bert and Dolores Wellman, in better times, standing hand in hand on the front porch of the house.
“Hush,” she said quietly, holding her hand against the door for a minute or two until the rattling subsided and the whispers dropped to the faintest of sounds. “Be calm, Dolores, everything is all right.” Laura struck a match and lit a votive candle on the small shelf below the pictures. “Shhhh,” she said. “You’re okay. Everything is okay. I know you’re here. And I’ll never forget.”
The End
Other Books by Karen E. Taylor
THE VAMPIRE LEGACY SERIES:
Blood Red Dawn
Thirst
Crave
Hunger
COLLECTION:
Fangs and Angel Wings
HARD DAY’S KNIGHT
Black Knight Chronicles, Vol. 1
John G. Hartness
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by John Hartness
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to some of the fantastic teachers I’ve had in my life. Thanks for the helping hand and the kick in the butt.
Thanks to:
Marc Powers
Anne Fletcher
Blair Beasley
Ed Haynes
Deborah Hobbs
Kay McSpadden
William Good
Jan West
Durham Smith
Linwood Littlejohn
Billie Hicklin
Betty Dickson
Chapter One
I hate waking up in an
unfamiliar place. I’ve slept in pretty much the same bed for the past fifteen years, so when I wake up someplace new, it really throws me off. When I wake up tied to a metal folding chair in the center of an abandoned warehouse that reeks of stale cigarette smoke, diesel fuel and axle grease—well, that really starts my night on a sparkling note.
My mood deteriorated further when I heard a voice behind me say, “It’s about time you woke up, bloodsucker.”
Why do people have to be rude? It’s a condition, like freckles. I’m a vampire. Deal with it. We can do without the slurs, thank you very much.
“Go easy on the bloodsucker, pal. I haven’t had breakfast,” was what I tried to say, but since my mouth was duct-taped shut, I sounded more like a retarded Muppet than a fearsome creature of the night.
My repartee needed work if I hoped to talk my way out of this. Of course, if my mysterious captor had wanted me dead, he’d had all day to make that happen. Instead, I woke up tied to a standard metal folding chair, the kind that gets sacrificed in countless professional wrestling matches. I tested my bonds. I was tied tight, and whatever he had bound me with burned—making him devout and the binding blessed, or the bonds were silver. My money was on silver. The true believers are more the stake-them-in-the-coffins types than the kidnap-them-and-tie-them-to-chairs types.
“Shut up, bloodsucker. You, as the one tied to the chair with silver chains, get to sit there and do whatever I say.” My captor moved around in front where I could get a good look at him. I knew him, of course. It’s never the new guy in town who ties you to a chair. It’s always that creepy guy who you’ve seen lurking around the cemetery for a couple weeks in mid-October, the one that you can’t decide if he’s there to mourn or for some other reason. And, of course, it’s always some other reason.
Modern Magic Page 21
