by Noel Hynd
He stared down the image and recognized the hallucination as what it was. It dissembled before his eyes and took another more evil shape, a shape that was meant to be his last image before a crash.
A tall, black, human form. Arms extended like a beckoning death. No head.
The ghost again. Henry Flaherty. A masterful deathly game of enticement and illusion, life and mortality.
Brooks turned the wheel back into the road and released the brake.
The car tore toward the spot where the ghost stood on the highway. The blackness of the specter was as big as night itself. Brooks heard an involuntary scream in his own throat.
The ghost yielded no ground and Brooks’ Jeep hurtled directly through it. Then Brooks, too, experienced the flash that the pilots had spoken of. It happened in a time frame almost too small to measure.
Intense brightness. The same woods, trees and ocean; all forming a brilliantly clear picture in his mind. Then the brightness was gone and the car, like an aircraft cutting through a cloud, broke free from the other side of the black image.
Brooks’ heart pounded as if it would fail. His hands were wet on the steering wheel. But all he could think of again was Annette and how the malevolent spirit would have surely by now taken her life and mutilated her body.
And why? Brooks wanted to know. Why Annette? Why someone he had so recently come to love?
Brooks took a final turn off the Milestone Road, continued another six hundred yards and saw his house at the end of the driveway. He turned into it. The lights were the way he had left them.
He cut his ignition and leaped from his Jeep. He ran to the front door. It was locked. He fumbled with the keys and finally pushed the right one in the slot.
“You’re too late, Timothy!” the ghost taunted. “Too late, too late, too late!”
The door opened. He burst in.
“Annette? Annie?” he yelled. “Annie!”
No answer. He turned toward the bedroom and ran.
He arrived at the bedroom door and stopped short when he saw her lying there.
She was on the bed, semi-clad, much in the way he had left her. But she was in a three-quarters sitting-up position, a pillow behind her, a magazine open and discarded to one side. Her body was slumped to the right, her head at an odd angle facing away from him, looking for all the world like she had been strangled on that very spot.
“Annie!” he yelled a final time, his voice breaking. He raced into the room and to the bed, terror and rage in his heart unlike any he had ever known.
“Oh, God…! Oh, God…!” he begged. “Please, no!
He rushed to her side and put his hands on her. One hand went to a shoulder and propped up her head. Another hand went to her wrist. He shook her.
Her body was warm.
“Annie…! Come on…!” He almost cried.
His hand on her wrist found a pulse beat. A strong one. Her eyes flickered.
Then her eyes came open.
“Oh, thank God…” he said, almost incredulous. “Thank you, dear God!”
“Tim?” She blinked slowly awake. “Oh, Tim. You’re back. What time is it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He held her and hugged her. “It doesn’t matter what time it is.”
She pulled from him slightly. “Hey? What’s all this affection?” she asked. “Not that I mind.”
“I was afraid…” He caught himself. “I don’t know. I felt bad that I’d left you alone,” he lied. “I thought you might be in danger.”
She laughed. He released her.
“I tried to wait up for you,” Annette said. “I was reading and fell asleep. What’s the matter? Don’t you think I’m safe here?”
“I don’t know whether there’s any safe place on the island,” he said. “Not while Henry’s loose.”
A strange look crossed her face. “Oh,” she said. “Henry! Something strange did happen,” she said.
“What?”
A few minutes after Tim had left, she said, she had been overcome with fatigue. So she’d climbed into bed, intent on waiting for him to return. For a while she had read a magazine, but found herself nodding off. Thereupon, Annette said, obviously a dream took hold of her. A frightening one at the end of which Tim careened off the road in his car and crashed into a row of trees.
“I dreamed you were dead,” she said. “I dreamed that you and I were separated by death. Yours. I tell you, Timmy. This stuff is getting to me.”
She paused. She thought of her mother’s death following her winning of the Academy Award. She thought of David McIntyre dying in an airplane crash in Santa Barbara just when she had started to put her life together. She thought of all this and did not wish to go through it again.
“Maybe you and I should just get out of here,” Annette said. “Come back to California with me. Travel to Europe with me. Why not? Leave here until it’s safe to come back.”
But he was already shaking his head, reminding her that he lived there, held a job on the island and had responsibilities there.
Running away from them wasn’t going to solve anything, he suggested. Deep down, she knew it, too.
“Henry would only follow us,” he said. “We have to deal with him here. Put an end to him here.”
Brooks looked around the room, in case Henry was present to hear. He didn’t sense him.
After several minutes, Tim undressed and crawled into bed with Annette. She moved close to him and when they slept, they slept in each other’s arms.
They left the light on. There were no visitors that night, and no more bad dreams. The next morning was overcast and rainy, but both Annette and Timothy were grateful when it dawned.
Chapter Fifty-seven
On Saturday afternoon in the church office, Reverend Osaro put a few of the previous evening’s events in perspective. “Henry is playing psychological games with you, Tim,” Osaro said. “When a spirit communicates, it will weave lies within a larger fabric of truth. The good spirits do this as well as the evil ones.”
“But why?” Brooks asked. He sat across the desk from the pastor, same as he had on other earlier occasions.
“Malevolent spirits do this to weaken your will. And they do it because it’s your will and your faith they’re fighting,” Osaro said. “If they leave you in a weakened position, they’re that much more at an advantage.”
Brooks was still on edge from the previous night. It seemed to him that the tension within him was mounting, as well as the stakes. An airplane had nearly skidded into the town terminal. And he had been foolish enough to leave Annette alone and vulnerable.
The ghost could have done anything it had wanted at that time. In the back of his mind, Brooks wondered if it was the ghost’s ambition to eventually carry out its threat. Only he wanted to do it later than sooner. Was toying with the enemy part of the game? Did time mean nothing, or perhaps not exist, to a soul who have gone to the grave and beyond?
Osaro expanded. “The spirit knew he hadn’t killed Annette and he knew he wasn’t going to. Not just then,” the pastor said. “But he wanted to terrify you. He wanted to have you experience the terror of losing someone you loved and blaming yourself for it having happened.”
Brooks thought back to other occasions and another apparent lie. Osaro is a dead man.
“He used to tell me that you were dead, too,” Brooks said. “During those days you disappeared from the island.” Osaro raised his eyebrows.
“Did he, now?” The minister slowly managed a laugh.
Brooks nodded.
“Amusing! ‘Dead’ as in ‘already dead’?” the minister asked wryly, “or ‘dead’ as in ‘soon to be deceased’? There’s a difference, you know.”
“He really didn’t elaborate.”
Osaro pinched himself to indicate that he was solid. Flesh and blood solid. “Well, I suppose that supports my above theory,” he said. “A clever mingling of fact with fantasy. And maybe some wishful thinking, too. I’m sure I�
�m complicating matters immeasurably for Henry here, just as I’ve complicated them for Bishop Halfbright in Boston. No big deal.”
Brooks remained agonized.
“But I still don’t get it,” Brooks said again. Outside, the morning cloudiness had given way to a day of rain. “I mean, what does the spirit want?” Brooks demanded again. “Why does Henry bedevil me? And why is it walking our earth, anyway?”
“What Henry wants, Timmy?” Osaro asked with a shake of the head. “I still don’t know that. What most spirits want is to pass comfortably into the next world, with all business finished on this plane.” He shrugged. “But something is preventing it from doing that. Something unfinished. Plus we must acknowledge that Henry had an evil soul to start with. I try to see the good in everyone, in everybody, but sometimes, well, let’s just be realistic. Was there some good in Hitler? Stalin? Charles Manson. If you can see it, bless you as a devout Christian, because I never could.”
As was usually the case when Osaro went on his philosophical ramblings, Brooks remained quiet.
“And as to why Henry’s bothering you in particular, Timmy…” The minister let go with a deep sigh. A troubled look crossed his face.
“Yeah? What?” Brooks asked.
“Well, I think I may have come up with an answer on that,” he said. He waited.
“Well? Let’s hear it.” Brooks said.
“I used to think that Seventeen Cort Street was the focus of this haunting. And it may have been at the beginning. But if it was at the beginning, I don’t think it is any longer.”
“Then what is?”
“It’s you. You’re the focus now.”
“Me! Why me?”
“Something you’ve done. Or something you’re doing. Or some place that you are. Some action or actions of yours have intersected with the spirit’s reason to be back here. And on top of that, Henry senses that your willpower and your faith are weak.”
Brooks turned the analysis over and took it under advisement. “Is that right?” He pondered for another moment.
Osaro shrugged. “It’s only my theory,” he said. “Or, I should say, another part of my larger theory.”
“I have a few theories, too,” Brooks announced casually. “Want to hear?”
“Sure.” Osaro leaned back. His pipe, untouched for days, lay in the ashtray on his desk. He fingered the lip of it, down near the teeth marks.
“I think Henry tried to kill me last night,” Brooks said. “And I suspect he’ll try again if I give him the chance.”
“Tell me about last night first,” Osaro said, obviously concerned. He rubbed his tired eyes with his hands. “What happened?”
“When I was speeding home from the airport,” Brooks said. “Henry put illusions in the road. Two of them. The first was an image of myself. My first instinct was to swerve. Would have taken me straight into the trees.”
“Uh huh.”
“That was followed by the ghost itself,” Brooks said. “Appeared at half a second’s notice. I held the road again and drove right through it.”
“Be careful next time,” Osaro said. “The next individual Henry might place in the road may well be real. Real, as in, this world real. Know what I mean?”
“I know.”
“Why do you think he’ll do something again?” Osaro asked.
“I think that’s part of his plan. Kill me or kill Annette. I think one of us is next.”
“Again, why?”
“He’s focused on us, isn’t he?” Brooks asked. “You just said that, yourself.”
Osaro allowed the point.
“But that’s not what I wanted to ask you,” Brooks said. “There’s something else.”
Osaro waited.
“When I drove through the ghost I felt something very bright,” Brooks said. “Like a flash. For maybe a tenth of a second it was as if I’d intersected with some feeling or some emotion that I’d never known before.” Brooks paused. “The airline pilot and the copilot had the same sensation when their aircraft cut through Henry’s ghost, also.”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, what’s that all about?” Brooks asked.
“What are you asking me for?” Osaro’s tone was subdued.
“You’re the expert, George. You seem to be tuned into things that most people don’t even know exist. And I want to know everything I can about whatever it is I’m fighting.”
The minister looked at his friend and nodded silently. “Do you remember from one of our previous talks, we discussed different planes of reality? I asked you how many there might be. And I said that we had no way of knowing how many there were, but that occasionally we catch a glimpse of one.”
“Yes.”
“Most people aren’t astute enough to recognize it, Tim. But you may have.”
Brooks thought about it as Osaro held him in view.
“What about entering it?” Brooks asked.
“Tim…!”
“I asked you a question.”
“And you’re pushing this awfully far for someone who didn’t even believe a few weeks ago.” The minister pulled back. “Trying to enter it is probably not a very good idea. How do you know you’ll ever get out?”
“Would the plane be mental or physical?”
“My guess is it would be mostly mental. Or spiritual, actually. I could ask you where God’s kingdom is and neither you nor I could put it on a map. Yet those of us of faith, such as myself, know it exists somewhere. Then again, perhaps this other plane is physical in a way that is unlike what we accept as physical. Am I talking around in circles?”
“Somewhat.” But Brooks thought about it for several seconds. The minister’s gaze was upon him the entire time. “It seems to me that the flash point came right when my body intersected with the spirit’s presence,” Brooks said. “But I was moving very fast at the time. So were the pilots. Suppose I’d remained stationary?” he asked. “Would I have entered Henry’s plane?”
“Tim,” Osaro said in an anxious tone. “Don’t get ideas. Did you hear what I just asked? If you get into that plane, and I’m not saying you could, how do you know you’ll ever get out?”
“I don’t know that I would,” Brooks said.
“Well, then…? Behave with some common sense. Would you take a vacation to Somalia if you weren’t sure you could return? I may be a man of faith but I enjoy a dose of logic here and there.”
“See the thing is, George,” Brooks said slowly, “I’ve learned an awful lot about this in the last few weeks. From Henry. And from listening to and watching you.”
Taking it as a compliment, the minister tried to dismiss it with a wave of the hand.
Brooks continued. “If Henry’s going to try to take one of us, Annette or me, I’d prefer he try to take me. That’s my thinking. See, I think I might be able to beat him.”
Osaro leaned forward. “And know what I think, copper?” he said in his friendliest voice. “I think you’ve finally lost your marbles. You’re really talking nutty now. Another few weeks of this and you can apply for Mrs. Ritter’s old cell at Mid Island Convalescent.”
Brooks stood.
“Thanks, George,” Brooks said. ‘You’ve answered all my questions. When’s the next séance?”
“Tomorrow. Sunday night. I want to do it on the Sabbath. That’s if you can stay out of trouble between now and then.”
“Perfect. I’ll be ready.”
The detective turned and went toward the door.
“Oh, Timmy?’ Osaro called after him.
Brooks turned.
“I’m your friend, right?”
“Right.”
“Then listen to me. Don’t do anything crazy. Really. All right? Don’t mess around with weird stuff you don’t know about. Okay?”
Brooks smiled. “George, this whole thing is crazy. How could I do anything that doesn’t fit in with what’s already happened?”
“I don’t know,” Osaro warned. “But I’m reading your mind and
I don’t like what I see in the most recent few paragraphs. So just don’t. Okay?”
Brooks smiled, offered no promises and departed.
Chapter Fifty-eight
That night, Brooks stayed up late. He waited until Annette had settled in to bed and drifted off to sleep. He watched television. Then he read a book until midnight had passed and one A.M. had arrived.
At that late hour, when his house was very still, he opened the front door and stepped out into the night. He was already quite tired, but carried a bottle of beer in his hand. Moral support. Fear made him thirsty, so why not a Heineken to address this weakness of will?
He sat down on the front-door step. He looked up at the stars. It was a brilliant night. The more he stared at the sky, the more stars faded into his view.
Millions of them. Then millions more gradually coming into focus. He thought back to when he was a child and his parents told him that certain stars represented “heavenly bodies.”
That train of thought brought him to concepts of Heaven, obsolete and otherwise.
Which brought him again to notions of the afterlife. And Henry Flaherty. Evil Henry Flaherty.
Brooks lowered his gaze. He waited. He sipped from the bottle of beer.
“I’m ready for you, Henry,” Brooks finally said aloud. “I’m waiting for you if you have the nerve.”
There was virtual silence all around him. A cricket chirped somewhere, then stopped. Many seconds later, Brooks heard the sound of a car shifting gears on a distant road.
He waited some more.
Still nothing.
Henry liked to play games, Brooks knew. Typical ghost games. Or poltergeist games: Now I’m here, now I’m not. I’ll materialize when I want, not when you want. My rules not yours.
“Lose your nerve, Henry?” Brooks asked. “Not interested in us anymore?”
Brooks leaned back against the door to his home. He took another swig of beer.
“Come on, you filthy murderous old spirit,” he said, almost taunting. “You know you’re no match for me. Show yourself.”
But nothing immediately happened.
Brooks fixed his resolve. He was ready to dedicate some time on this evening to confronting the pernicious spirit of Henry Flaherty. Brooks knew what he wanted to do. Where he wanted to go.
