Walk the Sky

by Swartwood, Robert

  A few years later, I was in Las Vegas for a wedding. Dave happened to live in Vegas. I took a chance and emailed saying if he had time, it would be cool to get together. Dave was normally pretty shy; he almost never went to conventions or conferences, and I’m sure meeting up with a young writer who he’d never officially met wasn’t his first choice on how to spend the day. But for some reason he agreed. We had breakfast at Kahunaville, one of the restaurants at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino, and we talked about writing and books and just the usual stuff writers talk about when they get together. It was a great time.

  We stayed in better contact after that. Sometimes we spoke on the phone. Oftentimes we communicated via Gmail chat. He had started releasing his stuff on Kindle and encouraged me to do the same. We bounced different marketing ideas off each other. At some point, I had the crazy idea to collaborate on a project. I figured it would be a novella and that we could do a blog-to-blog serialization, where one week I would post a chapter, then next week he would post a chapter, and so on. I said I thought it would be fun. He said he thought so too. And so we started working on what would eventually become a weird western short novel called Walk the Sky. We also collaborated on a ghost story — “At the Meade Bed & Breakfast” — which was basically just Dave taking an old story of mine and rewriting it and then me taking that rewrite and polishing it a bit.

  Walk the Sky was just released by Thunderstorm Books as a limited edition hardcover a few weeks ago. Dave and I were gearing up to release the paperback and ebook late next month. Like all writers, we were nervous but looking forward to the release, hoping readers would dig it.

  Like many writers, Dave’s financial situation wasn’t the greatest, and his health had been declining. There was a time a few months ago when he wasn’t online, and when I tried calling there had been no answer. It turned out he had been in the hospital for nearly a week.

  A few weeks ago his website had gone down. I called to see if he was okay and he mentioned how funds were pretty tight. So this past week or two when I hadn’t seen him online I thought maybe it had to do with his financial situation. I tried calling him yesterday but there was no answer. This morning I woke up and had one of those bad feelings you sometimes get, and I wondered if something did happen to Dave, how would I find out? The pessimistic in me immediately thought the worst, and I tried not thinking about it for most of the day until I finally had a chance to call Dave again. This time someone did answer. It wasn’t Dave, but a female voice (his sister), and immediately I knew either one of two things had happened: Dave had died or he was in the hospital.

  I had my fingers crossed that it was the latter.

  As it turned out, it was the former.

  David B. Silva was a veteran and legend of the horror field. He was an amazing writer. Most importantly, he was a great friend.

  You will be missed, Dave.

  Continue reading for an excerpt from At the Meade Bed & Breakfast, a ghost story by Robert Swartwood and David B. Silva

  We all have our ghosts.

  My grandmother told me that when I was thirteen. She wasn’t talking about real ghosts, of course, but about those events in our lives that haunt us. The mistakes we make. The things we say that we wish we could take back. The times we were vindictive and hurt someone close to us because we felt hurt.

  But I was thirteen and I took her literally.

  We all have our ghosts.

  • • •

  Kyle parked along the street, and we both sat in the car, staring up at the house. According to the sign outside, the Meade Bed & Breakfast had been established in 1967, but the house itself was much older. Complete stone walls, window shutters painted blue, the wood sign outside announcing its vacancy. It all appeared much too pleasant for a house set on the same piece of property where a great tragedy had occurred one night nearly one hundred and fifty years ago.

  “Pretty freaky,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “It looks just like the picture.”

  This wasn’t completely true. The shrubs and the swing and the candles placed along the porch railing were new, but the house itself with its two stories and squat porch roof looked almost identical to the one in the picture.

  Kyle reached in the backseat and rummaged through his backpack until he found the copy of the black and white photo Dr. Gardner had given him. He held the picture up, his gaze shifting between it and the house.

  “Yep,” he said. “Pretty freaky.”

  He handed me the picture and I placed it against my window, angled so I could see both it and the house side-by-side.

  The picture was from 1942 and showed a small boy sitting on the end of the porch looking solemnly at the camera. Maybe the shot was supposed to capture the pain of the era, or maybe it had been a special day—his birthday, perhaps—and his family wanted to remember him this way for years to come. Whatever the reason, the boy stared at the camera with his hands in his lap, completely oblivious to the world around him.

  Especially to the faint, almost shadowy image of a man dressed in uniform standing behind him.

  Face grim and eyes dark, the soldier seemed to glare down at the boy as if he were the only thing standing between him and Heaven.

  • • •

  The foyer just inside the door was empty until an elderly gentleman dressed in dark slacks and suspenders emerged from the hallway and walked behind the small counter. He introduced himself as Fred Meade, smiling first at Kyle, but when he looked at me the smile faltered for a moment before he forced it back on.

  “If you’re looking for a room,” he said quickly, “I’m afraid we’re currently booked up for the week.”

  “We know,” Kyle said. “We have a reservation. Several, in fact.”

  Fred Meade frowned. “I’m sorry?”

  “The reservations you have for the next three days? They were made by me and my girlfriend.”

  The frown didn’t go away. “I don’t think I’m following.”

  A woman, looking only a few years younger than Fred Meade, appeared from down the same hallway. She had an oval face, brown eyes and a warm smile.

  “Is everything all right, dear?” she asked.

  “I’m not quite sure,” Fred Meade said.

  Kyle slipped his American Express from his pocket. “You can charge us for all four rooms for the next three days right now if you’d like.”

  The old woman—Mrs. Meade, presumably—came to stand beside her husband behind the counter. “What’s this, now?”

  “These two claim to have booked all our rooms for the next three days,” Fred Meade said.

  Kyle kept his credit card extended toward the couple. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, no problem. Where is the rest of your group?”

  “There is no one else. Just me and my girlfriend.”

  “Then why book all of our rooms?”

  Kyle placed his AmEx on the counter, reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out the black and white picture, and held it up for the old couple to see.

  “We’re looking for him.”

  I watched the couple’s expressions when they looked at the picture. I’d become good at reading people’s expressions over the past few years. As a photography major, it was required. I don’t know why, but I was expecting a different kind of reaction than the one the old couple gave. They stared at the picture for a second, and then smiled and shook their heads.

  “What’s so funny?” Kyle asked.

  “You’re ghost hunters, is that it?” Fred Meade said. “Come to find what you can on Charles Buford that hasn’t already been found?”

  “You don’t sound surprised.”

  “Why should I? This is Gettysburg. Thousands of men lost their lives here. And you, young man, aren’t the first ghost hunters to make a visit.”

  “Then you won’t mind us staying here for the next three days.”

  “Young man, you can stay here for the next month if you’d like
. It’s December, after all. The off season. Come Christmas, we might get a few bookings, but until then it’s rather dead here.” He smiled. “Pardon the pun.”

  Fred Meade placed a finger on the AmEx. “You sure you want me to charge you all three nights now?”

  Kyle nodded. “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Dunno. Figure after a day you’ll realize you’re just wasting your time.”

  Kyle told him to go ahead and swipe the card. It was pricey, yes, but Kyle could afford it. He was a trust fund kid, and spending money was his favorite pastime.

  As Fred Meade ran the card, I asked, “How long have you and your wife lived here?”

  “Years. Decades. Centuries.” Fred Meade smiled at his wife. “Sometimes we lose track of time.”

  “And you’ve never once noticed anything ... strange?”

  “Besides youngsters like you stopping by to try to see a ghost, can’t say we have. Dear?”

  The woman smiled and shook her head.

  “Even in the barn?” Kyle asked.

  Both of their smiles faded.

  “That’s where the murders occurred, right? Where Charles Buford used his hatchet to kill all those men.” Kyle forced his own smile. “We’ve done our research.”

  Fred Meade swiped the credit card. “What is it you’re looking for, anyway?”

  “Anything we can.”

  “So the reason you booked all our rooms?”

  “Ashley here is a photography major at Drexel University. She’s going to set up cameras in the rooms, as well as the barn if that’s okay with you.”

  “Ah.” Fred Meade smiled at his wife. “Spirit photography, then. Young lady, do you plan on using a digital camera?”

  “Nope. Good old fashion film. Less chance for a file to become corrupted or for anyone to accuse us of Photoshopping.”

  “You do realize there is no such thing, don’t you?”

  Kyle still held the black and white picture. He raised it again and asked, “Then what do you call this?”

  “A fake.” Fred Meade said to me, “Surely you know what double exposure is.”

  “Yeah,” Kyle said. “She knows what double exposure is. She also knows what it’s like to work in a bed and breakfast. Don’t you, Ashley?”

  I nodded. “Worked at one my senior year of high school.”

  “So she knows just what little business a place like this does during the winter, as you mentioned. She also knows, just like I know, that your website hasn’t been updated in, what, five years?”

  The light had gone out of Fred Meade’s eyes. He glowered back at Kyle and asked, “Your point, young man?”

  “My point is this place doesn’t get much business. My girlfriend and I are offering you our business. If I were you, I’d take it, no matter how much time you think we’re wasting.”

  The credit card machine had printed out a receipt. Fred Meade tore it off and placed it down in front of Kyle.

  “Sign at the bottom, please.”

  Kyle slipped the photograph back into the inside pocket of his jacket, grabbed one of the cheap pens sticking out of a glass cup.

  Fred Meade glanced at his wife, then turned to the board with the keys hanging on it. “I’m assuming you need all the keys?”

  Kyle signed his name, replaced the pen. “Yes.”

  “Do you know which room you’ll be staying in?”

  “I guess that depends,” Kyle said, winking at me. “Which one is your nicest?”

  ALSO BY DAVID B. SILVA

  NOVELS

  All The Lonely People

  Chase Hanford owns and runs The Last Stop, a little bar with sawdust on the floor and pine paneling on the walls. It, like the jukebox next to the front door, didn’t get much play, but it had its regulars. Until one night, when a stranger appears with a peculiar rosewood box. A box that possesses a strange symbol: a circle within a circle inside a crescent. The stranger calls it a spirit box. Something Native Americans once used to trap the souls of their enemies within. As the bar regulars become curious, the stranger opens the box. And unleashes a hell like no other. Chase Hanford awakes from the aftermath, soon realizing bits and pieces of his life are being taken away. Fallen to mental lapses and witnessing strange occurrences, he fights to save his life, his soul and his sanity ...

  The Many

  Kiel Reed is beginning to suspect there’s something wrong with his eleven-year-old brother, Justin.

  After the death of their parents, the two boys have gone to stay with their aunt and uncle. It should be a time of healing, but nothing is as it seems and the scars of their father’s torment run deep, especially in Justin.

  Deeply haunted by his past, Justin turns to The Many for help.

  It’s a deadly relationship.

  The Presence

  Allie Turner’s husband Max has been missing from home for nearly nine months now, and Allie is desperately struggling to hold her family—and herself—together. But things begin to fall apart when her twelve-year-old son Sean is badly burned in a fire at the abandoned lumber mill.

  At the hospital, as Allie and her old son Darrell keep watch over Sean, things become increasingly difficult to handle. For Sean confides to Darrell that he encountered their father at the mill just before the fire broke out. Worse still, there as something terribly wrong with the man's face, as if part of it had melted away.

  Darrell has already had a hard time dealing with his father’s absence, and isn't sure if he can believe Sean. But he promises to search for Max anyway.

  His quest leads him to Old Miner’s Creek, where he uncovers something unbelievably terrifying. There’s a scattering of dead animals ... all with the same facial disfigurement his younger brother previously described.

  Yes, something strange and otherworldly has come to Kingston Mills.

  Something dramatically affecting all living creatures which cross its path.

  A curious, unstoppable presence of evil ...

  The Disappeared

  When Teri Knight answers a knock at the front door, she discovers her son Gabriel standing in the doorway. Only it can’t be her son. Gabe took a bike ride to the park ten years ago, at age 11, and became one of the disappeared. He would be 21 now and this boy ... this boy is the same age as Gabe was when he went missing. Except for the color of his eyes, he looks exactly like her son. He's wearing the same clothes her son wore the day he disappeared. He even refers to her as Mom.

  If he is Gabe, how is that possible? Why hasn't he aged? Where has he been for ten years? And why is he so weak and in apparent ill health?

  Teri is struggling with each of these questions and barely getting to know this boy who has arrived so unexpectedly, miraculously at her door, when a team of armed men arrive at the house in search of the boy.

  For Gabe and Teri the clock is now ticking—and time is running out.

  Who are these men? What do they want? Is this boy really Teri’s lost son, Gabe?

  A dark thriller with a highly unusual and inventive twist.

  COLLECTIONS

  Through Shattered Glass

  It’s the only window in the room and it’s scarred with spider-webbed cracks. Sometimes on warm summer afternoons, he sits alone here, staring out at the world through the shattered glass. What he sees doesn’t always look right, but then there are strange things in the world. Through Shattered Glass, David B. Silva’s first short story collection, takes readers on an imaginative journey through the lives of seventeen ordinary people struggling with extraordinary events in their lives. Includes an introduction by Dean Koontz and the Bram Stoker Award winning short story, “The Calling.”

  Losing Touch

  Seven short stories, totaling 155 pages from Bram Stoker Award winning author, David B. Silva. A tasty little morsel of horror and terror. Includes: “And He Who Mourns,” “New To The Neighborhood,” “Never Far From Mind,” “Fade In/Fade Out,” “Through Desmond’s Eyes,” “Trouble Follows,” and “Where The Past Lay Buried.”