Slater Mill

by Ron Ripley

  He reached in, turned the light on, and came to a sharp stop.

  Detective Lisbeth Walker was without a doubt dead.

  She lay in the far end of the tub, pressed against the back corner. Her head was tilted back and her mouth and eyes open. The glassy orbs stared at the ceiling while black marks, which looked like handprints, wrapped around her throat.

  From where Frank stood, he recognized the marks. The curious frostbite so many ghosts left on their victims.

  And the prints left on Lisbeth’s throat were huge.

  He had seen dead hands like those once.

  “Jack Whyte,” Frank murmured.

  “Who is that?” Eloise asked.

  “The Englishman,” Frank answered.

  “Why would he kill her?” Eloise asked, looking up at him.

  “He likes to kill,” Frank replied. “And it seems like he’s getting warmed up.”

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “We tell Shane,” Frank said, turning off the light and leaving the room. “And then we figure out what to do with her body.”

  “Oh,” Eloise said. Then she smiled, clapped her hands and declared, “That’s easy!”

  Frank was taken aback, and before he could ask her what she meant, she offered up the information.

  “There are so many places to hide her here,” Eloise said, skipping around him in the hallway. “In the walls, and the secret rooms. Down in the pantry. Oh, yes! The root cellar! She’ll keep for a good, long time there.”

  Frank shuddered at the idea of the detective’s body hidden in the house, but he kept his revulsion to himself as he made his way to the library. The dead girl skipped beside him, humming a happy tune.

  Chapter 48: In the Library Again

  Shane heard some sort of commotion beyond the locked door of the library, but he ignored it. Instead, he concentrated on Courtney. He had darkened the room and taken his seat behind the desk. The air had chilled, and goosebumps settled onto his flesh.

  "Why are you here?" Courtney demanded. Her voice came from behind him, and he kept himself seated, his hands gripping the arms of the chair.

  “I need your help,” he stated.

  She waited a moment before asking, “Why?”

  “Because you are the best choice,” he lied.

  The anger in her voice lessened.

  “And,” he continued, “I would feel safer with you beside me in this job.”

  “What is it?” she asked, her voice closer.

  He shuddered, remembering when she had been alive. When they had been together. His throat tightened, and he blinked back tears.

  "There is a ghost," Shane managed to say. "He is a murderer and was one, long before he was dead. His bones are nearby, and I have to salt and burn them."

  “I can’t do either one of those,” Courtney said. “How do I help you?”

  “By keeping him away from us,” Shane said.

  “Who is ‘us’?” she asked, suspicion in her voice.

  “Frank,” Shane answered, wincing.

  “Frank,” she murmured. “I remember Frank. I did something to him, didn’t I?”

  Shane hesitated before he answered. “Yes. You tried to hurt him.”

  “Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Should I have?”

  “No,” Shane answered. “But you weren’t well.”

  “I’m still not well,” Courtney replied, anger creeping into her words. “I am still sick.”

  “Courtney,” Shane started, but Courtney cut him off with a snarl.

  “I am sick!” she spat. “How can I be healed? What will make me better?!”

  “I don’t know,” Shane confessed. “But I’m trying to find out.”

  Silence filled the room, and Shane waited for her to respond. When she didn't, he put his hands on the desk and pushed himself away from it.

  “How?” she whispered.

  “The internet,” Shane answered. “Books. Brian and Jenny. Anyone and everyone.”

  “Why?” her voice was difficult to hear.

  “Because,” he said, choking on the word. “I love you.”

  She answered a moment later, her voice stronger and saner than he had heard in a long time.

  “I will.”

  A loud, hard knock rang out on the door, the sound followed by Frank.

  “Shane,” Frank called out, “we’ve got a problem.”

  "Hold on," Shane said. The room's temperature increased, and Shane realized Courtney had left.

  He turned on the desk lamp, blinked at the light and got up, hurrying to the door. Shane unlocked it and pulled the door open. Frank stood in the hall with a harried expression, Eloise beside him.

  “What is it?” Shane asked.

  “Lisbeth’s dead,” Frank answered.

  Shane frowned. “Damn. How? Was it you, Eloise?”

  “No!” she said, tilting her head up and folding her arms over her chest. “Why do you think I would?”

  “Nevermind,” Shane replied. “What happened?”

  Frank told him about the marks on the detective’s neck, and his suspicion as to who the culprit was.

  “You’re probably right,” Shane said after a moment. “We need to take care of Jack sooner than later.”

  “And the body?” Frank asked.

  “Eloise,” Shane said, turning to the girl. “I’m sorry I thought it was you.”

  “That’s alright,” the dead girl answered. “I did want to kill her.”

  Shane smiled. “Of course you did. Will you tell Carl that I need him to hide the body?”

  “What about her car?” Frank asked. “We can’t just make a detective and her car disappear.”

  “No,” Shane agreed. “We can’t. But I doubt that her car is anywhere nearby. She knew people watched everything in this neighborhood. I wouldn’t be surprised if she used a rental and parked it a street or two away. We’ll worry about it later. Right now we need to focus on Jack.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said, casting a sidelong glance at the open bathroom door. “I particularly dislike the idea that he was here and we didn’t know.”

  “Right there with you,” Shane said.

  “Where are you going?” Frank asked when Shane walked away towards his bedroom.

  “I need to get the dog tags,” Shane answered.

  “Wait. Why?” Frank questioned. He looked from the library’s closed door and then back to Shane. “Why in the hell are you getting your tags?”

  "She's coming with us, Frank," Shane said, and he continued to his bedroom, ignoring the other man's disgruntled mutters.

  Chapter 49: The Fruits of Their Labor

  Marian half sprawled on the couch, the bass reverberating through the apartment. Ruby was making out with Antoine in the bedroom, and Marian was higher than she had been in a long time. She grinned, took a hit off the bong, and held the smoke in for a long, delicious moment.

  When Marian exhaled, she coughed and her eyes watered.

  “You good?” Xavier asked, coming from the kitchen with a bottle of Crown Royal.

  “Hell yeah, I’m good,” Marian said, grinning. Xavier looked good, strong and proud. He was working his way through classes at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, some engineering program. He talked about it, but Marian never listened. She liked to look at Xavier, and that was about the extent of it.

  She passed the bong to him, and he gave her the bottle. Marian had herself a long drink, watching as Xavier took a small hit.

  “You need a little more,” she said.

  He snorted, smoke coming out of his nose as he laughed.

  "Nah," he said. "I'm good. I take a big hit, and I'll be asleep before the new Walking Dead episode comes on."

  “Don’t want you asleep at all,” Marian said, blowing him a kiss.

  Xavier chuckled and held out his hand. She passed him the bottle, and he took a drink. Cradling the container in a large hand, he settled back into his chair. In the city, the clock on the old chu
rch struck nine.

  A glass broke in the kitchen and Marian looked lazily towards the room.

  “You leave something on the counter for the cat to break?” she asked, glancing at Xavier.

  “No,” he answered. “I threw the cat out. I’m allergic to the damned things.”

  Before Marian could sit up, a figure appeared in the doorway. The person was small, dressed in jeans and sneakers and a dark blue hoodie. A black bandana was secured around the lower half of the person's face, and the hood was pulled up. All Marian could see was the stranger's pale skin and bright brown eyes.

  Then she saw the weapon.

  It was a semi-automatic pistol, equipped with a suppressor.

  Xavier stood up, and the weapon moved a fraction of an inch and the person fired. It sounded as though someone coughed and two shell casings spiraled through the air. When they struck the worn carpet, Xavier fell back into the chair, two dark, wet spots blossoming on his chest.

  The stranger pointed the pistol at Marian, and it coughed again. Something hard and unforgiving struck her in the left breast. She found she couldn't breathe, her eyes, working on their own, as she watched the person pass by her. Quick steps brought the stranger to Ruby's bedroom and through the open doorway. Through a haze of pain, Marian watched the shooter fire again, then step further into the room and out of her view.

  Marian struggled to sit up, managed to roll on her side and felt blood pump out of the wound and onto the couch.

  A moment later, the stranger came out of Ruby's bedroom. The shooter paused beside Marian, bending over to pick up a shell casing. For the first time, Marian saw the stranger was wearing black gloves. All of the shooter's clothes were generic. No name brands. Not even on the sneakers.

  A pro, she thought, and she understood. They had been played, she and Ruby. When the police came, they'd find the guns from the shooting. No one would investigate the murder of a couple of cop killers.

  No one would care.

  The stranger took a step forward, picked up the last two rounds, and pocketed them. Then the shooter turned around and squatted beside Marian. The brown eyes looked at her, full of curiosity.

  As Marian felt herself dying, she understood it was what the shooter wanted.

  Marian wanted to disappoint the killer, she wanted to fight and live, force the shooter to waste another round.

  But Marian couldn’t.

  All she found herself capable of, was exactly what the shooter wanted.

  Chapter 50: Looking for Jack

  Shane wore the dog tags on the outside of his sweatshirt. The metal was painfully cold against his bare flesh, and he suspected that prolonged contact would cause permanent damage.

  He and Frank moved through the woods, a few feet between them. Each of them carried a shotgun in a duffel bag, as well as salt, lighter fluid, and matches. On their fingers, they wore iron rings, and each carried a shovel. Somewhere nearby, Eloise moved among the trees, and Courtney too was near. All of the land, from the house down to the river, had once belonged to the house. The dead were bound only by those barriers that had existed when they were alive. As a child, that idea had worried Shane, but in the hunt for Jack, it added a layer of security.

  Shane looked around for Courtney, trying to see her.

  And part of him feared Jack sought them out.

  All they would have to defend themselves with would be the rings, with only their shotguns as weapons of last resort. The police would frown upon the discharge of a firearm within city limits. And explaining to any responding officers that the rounds were only rock salt and that he and Frank were fighting a ghost, would land them both in a mandatory psychiatric evaluation.

  Eloise appeared in front of them, and Shane grumbled a curse under his breath, his heartbeat spiking.

  “I’ve found the tree,” the dead girl said. She was disturbingly translucent in the woods, her voice almost tin-like. Her face was a mask of worry, and Shane felt uncomfortable.

  He glanced about the woods, fighting the urge to open the duffel bag and remove his shotgun. A look at Frank showed that he too seemed to wrestle with a similar desire.

  Shane wanted to ask if Eloise was sure, but her worry answered the unasked question.

  “Lead the way,” Shane said, “and take it slow. We’re not as fast as you.”

  Eloise nodded and led them deeper into the woods. While she passed through bushes and trees alike, Shane and Frank had to step around them. They drifted apart, then back together, and soon they found themselves in a wide clearing.

  Shane didn’t know if the tree was an oak or an elm or a chestnut. He only knew that it was big. Bigger than any tree in New England had the right to be.

  “Oh no,” Frank said in a hushed voice.

  “What?” Shane asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “The tree,” Frank answered.

  “Yeah?” Shane said. “What about it?”

  “Look how big it is.”

  “So what?” Shane asked.

  “Think about it, Shane,” Frank said, looking at him, the muscles in his jaw twitching. “Trees grow.”

  “So?”

  “When did Jack die?” Frank asked.

  Then it dawned on Shane.

  If Jack had died two hundred years earlier, and his bones had fallen at the base of the tree, then they couldn’t dig.

  They couldn’t dig at all.

  How tall had the tree grown? How wide over two centuries? The bones would have been encompassed by the roots. Absorbed into the tree itself.

  “We have to uproot it,” Shane whispered.

  “And burn the roots, too,” Frank said, “if we’re going to get every last bit of bone that might still be around.”

  Eloise looked at them both and offered up a suggestion.

  “I can look,” she said.

  “How?” Shane asked in surprise.

  “I’ll go down a bit,” Eloise said. “I’ll be able to see them. And feel them.”

  “What if he sees you?” Frank asked.

  “I’ll be okay,” she said, although Shane heard a hint of doubt in her voice. “I’ll be quiet. And I’ll be quick.”

  As much as he hated to, Shane nodded his assent.

  The dead girl sank into the earth without a sound.

  Frank put his bag on the ground and Shane did the same. The shovels were laid alongside them, and then the men removed their shotguns from the duffel bags. Safeties were clicked off, and they stood once more. Minutes passed by, and while Shane knew it was only a short time, it felt much longer.

  Around them, the forest was silent. There was no hint of birdsong or the clambering of squirrels.

  The creatures had long abandoned the tree and Jack’s bones.

  Shane wondered how the animals had reacted when they found the ghost among them. Did they scatter immediately, or did it take time for them to flee their nests and their dens?

  Eloise rose up from the ground, a look of concern on her face.

  “What is it?” Frank asked.

  “Most of the bones are here,” she said, gesturing towards a spot on the earth to her right.

  “Most of them?” Shane asked. “Where are the others, under the tree?”

  She shook her head. “The tree grew away from them. Its roots avoided Jack’s bones. Animals must not have. There are small bits of him all over this place. I counted twenty-seven of them scattered.”

  "The lion's share are right here, though?" Frank asked, gesturing towards the spot on the ground with his shotgun.

  “Yes,” Eloise said.

  Frank exchanged his shotgun for a shovel. “Alright. I guess we start digging here.”

  Shane nodded his agreement, set his weapon down and picked up his shovel. To Eloise, he said, "Keep an eye out for old Jack, alright?"

  “Yes, Shane,” she whispered.

  Within moments, the shovels thudded into the earth, and the stillness of the woods was shattered.

  Chapter 51: Unasked for Interruptio
ns

  The Watcher network spread far and wide through New England. There was a small town on the coast of Maine, near the Canadian border, that had a single spirit within an old woodshed. Yet that malevolent being was responsible for fourteen confirmed deaths in the past twenty-nine years.

  On an island in the Pachaug River, which ran through the state forest of the same name, there was the ghost of a madman. The things he had done when alive had chilled Abigail's cold blood when she had learned of them.

  And there were dozens more throughout the six New England states. The Watchers knew where they all were, and were slowly building the spiritual connections between them. It had taken fifty-six years to connect all of the powerful, supernatural places in New Hampshire together. That energy, a subtle, electrifying force, was to be channeled through the last link in the chain and into Maine.

  With the power of New Hampshire’s unquiet dead funneled into Maine, it would have taken half of the time to harness Maine’s spiritual energy.

  Instead, Shane Ryan had destroyed that plan. Not once, but twice. The work of decades had been undone in days.

  Abigail had managed to maintain her position at the helm of the Watchers through sheer force of will, and threats of violence.

  The loss of Slater Mill would have been unacceptable, and she would have had to flee Massachusetts if she wanted to live. As it was, she had been forced to expend a large amount of capital, execute a foolish member of the organization, and bring an asset into play.

  All of which would have to be justified at the next meeting of the board. It was that petty, bureaucratic dilemma that occupied her attention as she sat at her desk.

  Abigail stared at the spreadsheet on her monitor, tapping her fingers on the desk and wondering where she could move funds from without attracting too much attention.

  Her cell phone rang, causing her to raise an eyebrow in surprise. With a deft movement of her hand, she scooped it up and answered it.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello,” a female caller said. “The shooters have been taken care of.”