by Noel Hynd
He hated to go. Something about leaving her bothered him.
Something that made him apprehensive.
“If it were up to me, fine. Come on along,” he said. “But it just wouldn’t look right if you turned up with me. Know what I mean?”
She nodded.
He went to her a second time and kissed her again, harder and more passionately than before. “If I’m late,” he said, “just go to sleep. I’ll slide in next to you when I get back.”
“Okay,” she said.
He went to his Jeep and turned the ignition. The engine leaped to life. His car lights went on and sent a long beam across his lawn. He backed out of the driveway and onto the main road. In the corner of his eye, he saw her silhouette at the window, pulling closed the shade of the living room.
The airport was no more than three miles away, but Brooks drove quickly.
His car hugged the road. There was virtually no traffic. He had an image of himself, as he shifted gears and as the car moved through the smooth darkness, as an undergraduate oarsman sculling on a river.
He took the curves of the road with authority, tapping the brake when he needed to, holding his foot steady on the accelerator at the same time, daring not to take a second longer in transit than was necessary. As he drove, he thought of Annette, left behind and alone, and he thought of how he felt about her.
He thought, as his Jeep cut through the night, how long it had been since he had fallen really, truly, madly in love with someone. And then a bittersweet feeling took over him as something that he perceived as reality set in and told him that he was being a fool of the highest order. How could he ever think that this relationship could lead to anything except disappointment?
He was a town cop on the way to a nighttime emergency. Nothing more. Nothing less.
A cat—or something—darted across the road. Brooks hit his brake and swerved slightly. Whatever it had been, there was no sickening crunch under the tires. He had missed it.
He exhaled, calmed himself; and cut his speed.
Then the road ahead was brighter and, not that he didn’t know the route, the signs indicated the turns to the airport. He made the final turn into the parking lot and less than a minute later pulled up beside a pair of fire engines, their sirens off but red beacon lights flashing on each.
The crew of one engine was already assembling itself to leave. The other crew lagged behind. Whatever crisis had befallen, it was almost over and appeared under control. All except the aftermath.
Brooks parked his Jeep and locked it. He passed a pair of firefighters. Brooks knew them both.
“You guys have some action?” he asked.
“Had to hose a runway,” one answered. “No big deal.”
“A jet from New York overshot and spun,” the second man said. “It’s still out there if you want a look.”
The detective didn’t ask for a further elaboration. He knew one would come soon enough from another source.
There was a uniformed policewoman in the lobby of the airport’s main terminal. As soon as Brooks entered the waiting room the policewoman saw him and, with a nod of her head, indicated that Lieutenant Agannis was in a private room in the adjacent administrative building.
Brooks stepped outside. He gazed at the tarmac. The jet from New York, a DC-9, and one of the stars of a small local fleet, was sitting with its nose thirty feet from the walls of the terminal. It had skidded badly and had nearly crashed into the terminal.
Brooks cringed. The yellow wing lights on the jet still flashed and a team of firemen from Engine Two were making sure any fuel spill had been sanded or washed before the big bird could back up.
Brooks went to the administrative building next door.
Lieutenant Agannis, his expression grave, turned and looked at Brooks as the latter entered an airlines office. There was a man sitting on a chair, greatly shaken, his face white. He was balding and about forty and wore the uniform of the local airline. A name plate proclaimed him as Capt. Alan Jensen.
Brooks surmised quickly that it was his jet that was still on the runway. A moment later, Brooks realized that there was a second uniformed person standing to one side. Martin Hendricks, lean, angular and twenty-five years old. Brooks knew Hendricks but not Jensen.
Pilot and copilot.
Hendricks gave Brooks a curt nod of recognition. He didn’t say anything. He, too, looked shaken.
Brooks looked at the situation and couldn’t completely read it, aside from the fact that there had obviously been trouble with—or aboard—an aircraft.
Bill Agannis skipped any formal greeting. “How many unsolved deaths do we have on this island right now, Timmy?” the lieutenant quietly asked, looking Brooks in the eye.
“In my opinion? Three,” Brooks answered.
“We nearly had fifty-one. Sit down and listen to this.”
Brooks chose to stand.
Jensen turned toward the detective and spoke.
“All of a sudden there was something on the runway when we were completing our landing pattern,” Captain Jensen said. “I saw it. Marty saw it. There was something there. We didn’t imagine it.”
Martin Hendricks nodded to confirm.
“‘Something’?” Brooks asked, already with an inkling. Jensen picked up the narrative. The pilot and copilot had had a routine evening flight from New York, leaving La Guardia at 8:40. At takeoff, the night had been clear with a high cloud ceiling. Perfect summer flying weather. No incident. No problem. They had forty-seven passengers on board, plus two flight attendants to pass out the soft drinks and pretzels.
“We were coming into Nantucket eight minutes ahead of our SAT,” Captain Jensen said. “That’s Scheduled Arrival Time. The flight was a cream puff all the way. We took a routine approach and had head winds of less than five knots. Came in from the southwest, figured we’d be on the blocks smooth as silk.” He paused. “That’s when we saw him,” Jensen said.
“Saw who?”
Brooks searched both Jensen and Hendricks. Lieutenant Agannis looked like he was cast in granite.
“We saw what looked like a figure of a man standing in our path,” Martin Hendricks said. “I know this sounds nuts. But both Al and I saw the same thing.”
“Real tall,” said Captain Jensen. “Maybe six feet ten. Maybe seven feet.”
“See the thing is, though,” Hendricks said as Brooks’ eyes darted back and forth between them, “he didn’t really have any features. It was as if he were just this giant upright shadow. See what I’m saying? And he was pitch black.”
Brooks felt those sensations again at the back of his neck. The icy hands. The tingle. The surge of cold fear. It coupled with the fearful sensation in his gut.
“A human figure without a head,” said the pilot.
A frightful silence held the room. Jensen’s gaze grabbed Brooks’ and arrested it.
“Go ahead. Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me I hallucinated,” Jensen said, anger rising to his defense. “And I’ll tell you you’re crazy and that I know what I saw.”
“We both saw it,” Hendricks repeated. “The figure of a man about seven feet tall. Black like a shadow. Standing right in our path as we brought our equipment down. And no head.”
Agannis pondered and looked befuddled. A frown lingered.
Brooks felt a horrible extra thump in his heart.
“I’m not here to tell you that you’re crazy or not crazy,” Brooks said. “What happened next?”
Jensen chewed on his lower lip for a second. “Well, I don’t think we had much reaction time. Maybe a second and a half. Two seconds maximum, between the time we saw the figure and the time we would intersect at his location.”
“We airborne,” Hendricks added helpfully. “Eighty feet and descending.
I put the aircraft into an evasive maneuver,” the pilot said. “Turned the throttle back, pulled the rudder starboard, lifted the wing flaps. Standard procedure for evasion if there’s an obstacle on the runway.”
“And?” Brooks asked. He gave each a sidelong glance.
“The aircraft didn’t react fast enough. I say we hit him. Or went right through him,” Captain Jensen said. “The figure, the shadow, whatever was there, never moved. It held its position. Almost daring us.”
“I saw it clear as day as we hit him,” Copilot Hendricks affirmed softly. “Went right through him. Could not possibly have missed him.”
“And your plane skidded?”
“After,” Hendricks said. “After the impact. Or the nonimpact. We skidded westward across the tarmac. Reaction to the starboard thrust with the rudder. We took about an eighty degree spinout, traveled two hundred meters toward the arrival terminal. I was scared we’d tip a wing and tumble, in which case we would have bought the farm, baby.” He shook his head adamantly.
“The runway was slick from humidity,” Hendricks added. “Almost always is on evenings in August. Felt like we were on a long patch of ice.” He paused. “But, of course, we weren’t.”
“Managed to pull it up and straighten out the nose,” Jensen said. “But you can see where we ended up,” he concluded, alluding not so subtly to the aircraft’s position near the south wall of the terminal.
“Let’s just say the passengers didn’t have far to walk to the baggage claim area,” said Hendricks.
Jensen blew out a breath.
“First thing we did was look back to that spot on the runway,” said Jensen. “Well, I knew exactly where it was. No one there when we looked. No impact. No sign of anything.”
“Control tower was watching the whole thing,” Hendricks said. “They never saw anything out there. Radar didn’t give us an inkling, either.”
“They think we’re crazy,” Hendricks said. “Control tower thinks we misread our approach vector and now we’re spinning fairy tales to cover our butts.”
“So we got a spinout and an ‘Incident Report’ to write up,” said Jensen. “We know what we saw, the tower says we’re nuts and there’s no corroboration on the tarmac. See our problem?”
Brooks nodded.
Hendricks looked to Jensen. “Tell him about the flash,” he reminded the pilot.
“Oh, yeah,” Alan Jensen said. “That wasn’t even the least of it.”
“A flash?” Brooks asked.
“It happened right at the moment when I think our plane passed through”—he searched for an appropriate term—“whatever was out there. We both experienced a flash of brightness. Real fast. Tenth of a second. Maybe faster.”
“Woods, trees and ocean,” Hendricks said softly.
Brooks looked back and forth. Agannis, who had obviously heard this already, looked sourly downward. “Come again?” Brooks asked.
“Woods, trees and ocean,” Jensen said. “We were talking about it afterward, wondering what the flash had been. We both had a split-second image of woods, trees and ocean. Very bright. Like some location on the shore of this island on an intensely clear summer day.”
“And that’s what you saw, too?” Brooks asked Hendricks. The copilot nodded. There was silence all around until Captain Jensen broke it.
“Anyway, Bill Agannis here said to call you,” Jensen said. “Said you might be able to help. Or lend some insight. Or that what we saw might help you.”
Brooks thought about it.
“When you write the report,” Brooks said, “tell what you saw. You’re not the first on the island. What more can you do other than relate it as it happened?”
Brooks looked at his commander. He was finished.
“That’s it, boys,” Agannis said to the two flyers. “I wanted Detective Brooks to hear this. You can get on with whatever you have to do next.”
The pilot and copilot thanked Agannis. Brooks thanked them for recounting their story.
Agannis walked Brooks into the lobby of the administrative building. The lieutenant’s mood built as he walked.
“All right, Brooks,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know what’s happening on this island, so I don’t know what to do about it. I only know we nearly had a catastrophe out there thanks to something that sane, reasonable people claim doesn’t exist.” He stopped. “You’re telling me there’s a ghost on this island right? Some crazy homicidal spook that gets off on killing people?” The lieutenant held his detective in his gaze. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you believe this is genuine.”
Brooks looked him in the eye. “I’m convinced this is genuine,” he answered softly. “More convinced than ever.”
Agannis shook his head slowly. “Judas Priest,” he muttered. He looked back up to Brooks. “All right. Tell me what you’re doing now, will ya? About this ghost of yours?”
“I’ve organized a series of séances,” Brooks answered.
“Séances?” the lieutenant snapped. “Oh. Great!”
“We’re attempting to contact whatever spirit is involved and resolve its problem. If we’re lucky, that should resolve the haunting on the island.”
“What if we’re not lucky?”
Brooks didn’t answer.
Agannis gave it a long, hard and thoughtful consideration. ‘Judas Priest,” he muttered again. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. “
“Believe it,” Brooks said.
“Well, a solution can’t come too soon,” Lieutenant Agannis answered. “Good luck with it. Someone’s got to do something. A little more bad luck and we would have had a few dozen people dead out here. Know what I mean? Last thing we need is a few dozen more ghosts.”
“Ever heard of anyone on the island named Henry Flaherty?” Brooks asked.
Agannis looked very thoughtful for a moment. He lit a cigarette and shook his head. “No. Who is he?”
“I think he’s our malevolent spirit,” Brooks said. “That’s who we’re trying to rouse.”
Brooks left Lieutenant Agannis in the administrative building and walked to his Jeep. One of the fire engines was gone from the parking lot. The other was boarding its crew. It pulled out of the lot and several of the firefighters waved to Brooks as they passed, just as the detective was unlocking his Jeep.
Brooks was alone in the parking lot. Almost.
The funny thing about Henry Flaherty was that he liked to drift past at the least expected moments, not when summoned up from the earth.
Brooks could feel it coming. A sudden intense weight in the night air. Then something coiled and thickening. Surrounding him. Preparing to crush him if it wanted to.
Powerful. But growing stronger…
Brooks pulled the key out and opened the Jeep door. Then he held perfectly still.
His eyes were cast downward. His heart skipped when he caught sight of something—a shadow? an image?—in the reflection of the car’s side mirror. It was dark and not far to the side of him.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Brooks said.
“I’m her…”
“What do you want?”
“The woman you love,” the spirit said. “So beautiful. I shall take her for mine in all eternity.”
Brooks’ anger began to build past his fear.
He held the car door at an angle and saw part of the shadow, part of the darkness—part of the ghost!—again in the mirror. He made a decision. He would turn slowly toward his enemy and look squarely at it. And no matter what he saw, he wouldn’t finch. He wouldn’t collapse in horror.
He wouldn’t run.
The moment was at hand. Brooks turned and slowly raised his eyes unto the terror that beset him. There was nothing there. Thinking he had miscalculated the angle of the reflection, feeling his heart thunder, he jerked his head sharply in the opposite direction.
Nothing there, either.
“You look for me in all the wrong places, Timothy,” the spirit said.
The voice was mocking. Deprecating.
“I asked you what you wanted,” Tim said.
“And I told you,” Henry said. Then the laughter followed. “Cowardly scum,” the ghost continued. “Not
there to protect her late this evening when I called again!”
The sprit laughed. The most horrible possibility of all was upon Brooks: Mary Beth DiMarco… Bruce Markley… Emmet Hughes… And Annette Carlson…!
“I killed her while you were wasting time at the airport, dear Mr. Brooks. Violated her body, then killed her! Do handle the funeral arrangements with great good taste!”
The voice exploded into a wall of shrill laughter.
A fearful, sickening sensation possessed Brooks. He threw himself into the Jeep and shoved the key into the ignition. The car sprung to life and Brooks threw the auto into gear so fast that he ground them.
The tires erupted from the asphalt with a screeching sound.
“Drive safe, you ineffectual failure!” Henry taunted.
Brooks drove at a mad speed down the road that led from the airport. He slid through the first stop sign and floored the accelerator, moving down the road that ran back toward town. He took the proper turn that led him out toward the center of the island, and passing on a double line, roared past another auto at a speed in excess of sixty.
The other driver blasted an indignant horn at him.
He waited for someone else from his own police department to flag him for speeding. He hit a straightaway on the Milestone Road that led to the center of the island. His headlights cut into a cottony mist that lay across the highway.
He pressed the accelerator harder. The Jeep hugged the road and cut through the night. It didn’t miss a bump.
The thought raged within him: Maybe he would not be too late. Maybe the spirit would have been unsuccessful. Maybe he would arrive in time to prevent Annette’s murder.
Ahead, in the cones of lights that his car threw into the darkness, something caught his attention. In the middle of the highway there stood a human figure.
Brooks slammed his brake. At first the vision came to him as a teenage boy in a sweatshirt, shorts and carrying a basketball, a hallucinatory image of himself.
Then his tires squealed and in a time frame of milliseconds he realized that to avoid the boy he would have to turn the wheel and skid off the road and into the trees.
But his mind was ahead of his physical reactions.
