by Noel Hynd
He leaned back against the door and settled himself. Beneath the stars, he closed his eyes. He would will Henry’s spirit forward, that’s what he would do. He would draw him forth.
Many more minutes passed. His eyelids grew heavy. The moon had passed above the branches on the horizon and was now above the trees. Brooks closed his eyes again.
He did not know how many minutes had passed when he became aware of Henry’s presence. He knew only that the feeling was upon him. A gradual tension building in the air around him. An unnatural stillness. Then a very low subliminal pulsing.
“I’m here, Timothy.”
Brooks leaned forward and opened his eyes, first a crack, then completely. He scanned. Then he realized that, yes, he was looking right at it. Henry was in Front of him. Tall and black, obscured as ever in the shadows of night, never affording him a good look.
“Not till I’m ready to take someone under the earth,” the presence communicated.
“What?” Brooks asked.
“You don’t get a good look at me until I’m ready to take you under the earth,” Henry repeated.
“So you can read my thoughts?” Brooks asked.
“Your thoughts are obvious.”
“Then here’s one you should already know. You will never take me,” Brooks said.
“I take whomever I wish.”
“You can’t even touch me,” Brooks said.
“Why are you daring me?”
“If you know everything,” Brooks taunted, “you shouldn’t have to ask.”
There was silence. The spirit moved closer, almost cautiously. It obviously sensed a change in Brooks’ attitude. More faith maybe. A more durable soul. Heavier willpower.
Yet Brooks felt his heart race even faster. He kept his eyes downcast. He was afraid that if he raised them and looked directly at this thing, terror would grip him and his courage would fail. Obviously, the spirit sensed a tremor of fear, for it moved ever closer. Brooks was aware of the thickening of the pressure around him. It was as if he had been enclosed in a bag. The presence was stuffy. Oppressive.
The detective kept his eyes lowered. He was aware that the ghost was directly before him now, just before the front step of the house. Maybe a yard away. Then closer. It was like a solid black shadow, erect and standing before him. It must have been, Brooks thought to himself, at this close distance that Henry killed…
Yes, indeed,” Henry communicated. “It was from this distance. All three of them.”
“Well, those are the only three souls you’re going to get,” Brooks whisper. “And even those may soon be liberated.”
Henry laughed at him.
“I’m ready,” Brooks said to rally himself.
“Ready? Wonderful! But for what, dear piglet?”
Brooks sprang forward and hurtled his body into the dark specter. He felt the bright flash that Captain Jensen and Copilot Hendricks had described. It was the same flash that Brooks had felt on the Milestone Road the last time they intersected.
Brooks endured an overbearing weight, as if a giant hand was around his ribs, forcing the air out of him. He struggled to remain standing. He fought to stay upright. The illumination from the flash remained with him and then the pressure around him eased.
He wondered if he was dying. He recalled the brightness experienced by people who had described near-death experiences. But then he felt something else, a sense of release, and a sense of arrival somewhere, as clear as stepping off a boat onto solid ground.
And the brightness around him began to come into focus. He had a sense of ease and liberation. He felt himself set down in pleasant familiar surroundings.
Woods, trees and ocean. He was there! Or at least he thought he was! With relief, he knew he had passed into Henry’s plane.
“What are you doing here?” Henry asked.
There was a human standing near him. Not a black shadowy specter, but a human figure. Brooks took this to be Henry. It communicated like Henry. But even though Brooks stared directly at it, he could never have later described it. There was something vague about it, something ephemeral, some incomprehensible quality that prevented Brooks from focusing too carefully upon it.
“I’ve come to confront you,” Brooks said.
“Over what?”
“Why are you still walking the earth?”
“It is my choice to do so.”
“You have no right to take lives.”
“I will do what I want. I took lives when I was on the earth. I’ve taken them after I left. I will take yours, too.”
“You want no eternal peace? You don’t wish your spirit to pass completely on to the next plane?”
Henry didn’t answer.
As the landscape came sharply into focus, Brooks was aware of where he was. He was in the open field near the old Quaker cemetery on Nantucket, the field a few hundred yards from Annette’s house. Henry stood on the spot where Mary Beth DiMarco’s body had been found.
“Why are we here?” Brooks asked.
Henry laughed. Still, Brooks had the sense of trying to see Henry’s human features. But he remained unable to see anything.
“You don’t like it here?” Henry asked.
“It’s a place of extreme unhappiness.”
“That’s true. But all the world is.”
Brooks looked again and Mary Beth’s tormented body was before him, face twisted in its death agony.
“Not for me,” Brooks said, lifting his eyes. This agitated the spirit.
“Would you prefer to be somewhere else?” Henry asked.
They were instantly transported into darkness, as if on cue. They were out of the sunlight and into a dank place. Brooks recognized it. He was in the cellar beneath 17 Cort Street. “Another place of misery,” said Henry.
Emmet Hughes’ battered body appeared. Neck broken. Ice pick in the front of the brain. The body still moving in its death agony. Brooks suppressed a cringe.
“Your beautiful world,” said the spirit.
“And Surfside?” Brooks asked.
“Ah! The Canadian boy.”
“And many years earlier, your wife,” Brooks said. “Mabel Mack. You drove her to her death.”
“Liar! She took her own life!”
“You caused her such pain that she killed herself. What about your one-time partner? Edward Kearns? Murdered him, I suppose.”
Again, Henry was angry. “You want death? I’ll show you death!”
They were transported again, this time to a hilly cemetery that Brooks recognized as being in the center of Nantucket Island. It was a breezy peaceful place, overlooking the town and the ocean, not far from the old windmill.
The day was sunny, but Brooks had a sense of standing alone at a funeral. The spirit waved its arm and Brooks saw a coffin. The coffin was open. Annette lay in it. Very still. Very beautiful.
Quite dead.
Brooks shuddered.
“As you prefer,” Henry promised. “Today’s love, tomorrow’s misery.”
Then the coffin was gone and the ghost showed Brooks a new image, one of Brooks himself, kneeling at Annette’s tombstone. In prayer. In tears.
“I don’t believe you,” Brooks said.
“You will soon. I’ve shown you the future.”
“You’ve lied before,” Brooks said. “So I assume you are lying now.”
“No,” Henry said. “This is your tomorrow.”
“I understand you now,” Brooks answered. “In life you were a bitter, homicidal man. You caused death and misery. Returning to our plane after your death, you do the same.”
Henry listened.
“Your pretense is that the agony of your death unsettled your spirit. You walk our earth to redress your execution.” Brooks paused. “Your decapitation,” Brooks said. “The torment your body addresses is the torment of your spirit. But what shines through is the meanness of your own soul, just as it was when you lived. Your fate was horrendous. But you brought it upon yourself.”
For the first time, the ghost turned its head toward Brooks. There were no features on Henry’s face. Just plain flesh. Brooks drew a breath and held steady before this horror.
“And this fate of yours,” Henry communicated, turning away again. “It is inescapable. Your lover will perish, same as the others.”
Somehow by “the others,” Brooks knew who he meant.
Mary Beth DiMarco. Bruce Markley. Emmet Hughes. “The others believed you could kill them,” Brooks said. “I’m not so sure. If I don’t allow you, I don’t think you can.”
“Wrong!” Henry Flaherty ranted, growing angrier. “Wrong! Wrong! So wrong!”
“I’m planning to live a long happy life with the woman I love,” Brooks said.
Henry screamed profanely. “I didn’t! So you won’t!” he roared. “You will do as I dictate.”
“No,” Brooks said.
“She believes I can take her,” Henry howled. “So I can! And I will!”
“I’m leaving,” Brooks answered.
“You won’t!” Henry swore. “You lie to me! You have no faith, no will!”
“My faith may be new, but my will now strong,” Brooks said. “I am stronger than you.”
“This is what your will and faith are worth. Combined!”
The ghost reached to the dirt and picked up an old Lincoln penny. He shoved it into Brooks’ palm. Brooks closed his fist on the coin and spat contemptuously at Henry.
The world started to spin.
Brooks had the sense of Henry’s spirit howling with rage. But he had the further sensation of the entire vision brightening until he could no longer see it. Then it began fading.
More spinning. The sensation was dizzying. Brooks knew he was on a trip and hoped it was back to his own world. He hoped he was still alive and not a spirit, himself. But he was hurtling somewhere and couldn’t be sure.
Back to life?
Onward to death?
To Hell? To Heaven?”
Tim felt something on his arm and took it to be the grip of the ghost. Psychological as well as tactile. A heavy pull. A sharp tug. He fought with it, yanking his elbow away from whatever was touching him.
Then he saw the grave—Annette’s grave—growing larger before him. And beneath the new tombstone, the ground opened before his eyes, earth spreading itself to the side by its own accord.
The grave beckoned. It welcomed him. It almost rose to meet him.
“I’m leaving,” Brooks said steady.
“You’re staying. You can decompose in the rosewood box with the woman. Your flesh rotting with hers for eternity. We’ll nail the lid on nice and tight.”
“But you can never have our souls,” Tim muttered.
“Your souls will burn as mine does,” Henry roared.
In blackness, Brooks thought again, “I’m leaving. I don’t want this. I’m leaving.”
Brooks pulled mightily. He turned his eyes from Henry’s spirit. He had the sense of spinning, then falling, then flying. He was nowhere, sailing and tumbling through more blackness.
The sinking sensation was upon him again, and then there was another vision.
Annette.
Alive and terrified! In the hands of Henry. The killer’s spirit was dragging her down into the earth. Into a cold, lonely death.
“Tim!” she cried out. “Tim! Tim! Tim!”
But he was motionless as he watched this. He tried to move his body but was rooted to his position.
“Tim!” she said again. “Come on, Tim! Wake up! Move! Move!” A force shook him. A hand. An arm. This time, warm, loving.
He tried mightily and shook himself. Then there was another flash as he left the ghost’s plane.
His body pitched forward and came awake. His eyes opened but he was in darkness. He was on the front step of his house again.
His heart pounded. Sweat poured off him. Then his heart jumped again at the figure next to him.
“Tim!”
A woman’s voice. Annette. Shaking him. Waking him.
“What on earth are you doing out here?” she said. “I thought the people in Hollyweird were strange. But you take the cake sometimes!”
He realized where he was, where Henry had returned him.
Or had he never left?
“Oh. You scared me. I couldn’t sleep,” he explained. His heart still raced.
“Fine place to go sleep if you can’t sleep,” she said. “The back steps, huh?”
Blearily, he asked, “What time is it?”
“Past three,” she said. Annette sat down next to him, pulling her nightgown close to her. He looked at her. Even when tired and sleepy, at the darkest watches of night, or of life, she was naturally beautiful.
He put an arm around her. He lightly kissed the side of her face, a kiss as delicate as a fine lace, a face that should have been in a portrait by Vermeer.
“What are you really doing out here?” she asked. “Looking for Henry? The ghost?”
He nodded.
“See him?”
A long pause, then, “Maybe,” he said.
“How would you know?”
He thought about it. “I think I just invaded Henry’s air space,” Brooks joked.
“Find out anything?”
“He’s not as tough as we think.”
“Ha! I wish I could believe that.”
“We’re still together aren’t we? He hasn’t been able to touch us, has he?”
“Tim, he’s taken over my house and we live in terror. He’s winning! “
“He’s about to lose,” he said. “He will lose.”
She sighed. “You’re so confident. I wish I could believe you.”
“Believe me,” he said. He was aware that his left hand remained in a fist.
He opened it and there was a coin in his palm. A warm penny caked with bits of dirt. From his pocket? From the earth outside his home? Or from the old cemetery? The date on the coin was 1943.
Annette peered out into the darkness of the night. “Sometimes I feel myself slipping,” she said. “Back into the mental traps that I was stuck in a few years ago. You know. Depressed. Unable to cope with anything. What is all this except an assault on our sanity?” She paused. “If this keeps up I’ll be back in the loony bin before you know it. That, or worse.”
“It’s not going to happen, Annie,” he said. “Henry can be reduced to something small and mean. He’s vulnerable.”
“Tim, he’s killed three… “
“That was before we understood him. He’s like any other evil minded man, any other murder suspect. Small and mean. And vulnerable,” he repeated. “I know how to attack him.”
She sighed. “I hope you’re right,” she said.
“Come on,” he said, raising her up with him as he stood.
“Back to bed. Tonight we sleep.”
He allowed her to walk inside first. For a moment, Brooks stood on his front step and scanned the darkness around his house. He felt something low and brooding nearby and thought he saw a shadow move within a larger shadow.
He glared at it defiantly. Then he turned his back on it, went inside and locked the door.
Chapter Fifty-nine
On Sunday evening at 17 Cort Street, Annette pushed the furniture out of the way and Osaro set the checkerboard table in the center of the living room. Tim Brooks arranged three chairs around the table and waited for the other two principals to be ready.
Annette drew the shades and covered them again with heavy blankets. Osaro lit the candle in the pewter candlestick and set it on a side table. All other lights were extinguished. Then they sat down, the three of them, joined hands on the edge of the table and hoped.
It was past ten P.M. The night began slowly.
Reverend Osaro said a prayer at the beginning. Their six hands remained in position on the edge of the table. Many minutes passed. Annette kept her eyes closed. Osaro tried to move himself into the near trance that had succeeded the first night. Brooks remained aler
t, his eyes open much of the time, waiting, watching the flickering of the candle cast strange images upon the living-room wall.
There was a creak to the floor in the kitchen. But nothing more. An hour passed.
The door to the room never opened. The room and the night were silent as a granite vault beneath the surface of the earth. Then the table gave a very slight tremble.
George Osaro spoke for the first time in an hour. “Something’s happening,” he whispered.
Brooks was staring directly at it. Annette opened her eyes and saw it, too. Helen Ritter, or at least a shimmering white image of her, stood in the corner of her living room.
“Hello, Helen,” Brooks said.
The ghost of the woman didn’t say anything. But it became more visible. It conveyed the feeling that she accepted their welcome.
Brooks felt his hands sweat involuntarily. Annette felt her pulse quicken. Her hand reassured itself next to Timothy’s. “We’re very sorry about Mabel,” Brooks said. “All those years ago.” He paused. “We never knew.”
“A beautiful young thing,” she said. “My dear sister. It was she who first came to warn you, Miss Annette.”
“Are you reunited now?” Brooks asked.
“I’ve seen her,” Mrs. Ritter said. “Her soul is content.”
“But yours is not,” Brooks guessed.
There was no response. Brooks took it to be an affirmation. “They did something terrible to him, didn’t they, Helen?” he asked.
The specter faded slightly.
“What does he want, Helen?” Brooks asked.
The specter shook her head, as if she didn’t know. Or couldn’t say.
“No, you must tell us,” Brooks said. “We must know for peace in this world.”
“I cannot tell,” she said.
“Then why do you still wander this world?” George Osaro asked. “You know yourself that something is unsettled. Something terrible.”
“Many terrible things.”
“Then you must trust us,” Osaro said. “As you trusted us before death, you must trust us after death.”
Before their eyes, before they could beg her not to, the woman’s spirit faded from view. They were greatly relieved seconds later when she reappeared on the opposite side of the room.
