by Ron Ripley
“What type of iron?” Brian asked, straightening up.
“Bars,” Jenny answered. “Rods. Anything long you can swing. But it has to be iron. It can’t be steel. Just iron.”
“Why iron?” Brian asked.
“I can’t explain right now,” Sylvia said, “There’s too much. But you have to get those things, do you understand me? You have to.”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “Yes, Sylvia, we’ll get those things. But I thought ghosts can’t hurt people?”
Sylvia looked at Jenny hard, and for the first time Brian, even through his slight haze of whiskey, realized there was some substance and backbone to Sylvia.
“Ghosts can kill people, Jennifer,” Sylvia said softly but firmly. “They can literally scare you to death. They can cause things to happen. There are a great many deaths attributed to natural causes and to household accidents that are, quite simply, murders. Committed by the dead, but murders nonetheless. If you’re going to stay here, you need to be prepared to defend yourselves and to find a way to get rid of the one who is binding the others here.”
“What about an exorcism?” Brian asked.
Sylvia shook her head. “You don’t have a demon here, Brian. You have a malicious, murderous ghost. You can destroy it. You can chase it away yourself, but an exorcism, regardless of the faith of the exorcist, will not work. This is not a matter of faith, not religious good versus religious evil. This is your straight up run-of-the-mill evil, the neighbor next door who decides killing is the most fun he’s ever had.”
“Great,” Brian sighed. Taking a deep breath, with his hand shaking ever so slightly, Brian finished the last of his whiskey and whispered, “That’s just great.”
Chapter 10: Samuel Hall Goes for a Walk
Samuel Hall had turned eighty in August, and all of those eighty years, save for a couple when he patrolled the DMZ in Korea, he had lived in Mont Vernon. Specifically, he had lived at 99 Old Nashua Road, and once he had turned sixty-eight and retired from the State’s Department of Highway Maintenance, Samuel had started walking.
He walked every day.
At six o’clock in the morning, he stepped outside of the large farmhouse his great-grandfather had built, lit his first pipe of the day, and walked to the end of the driveway. From there Samuel turned left, walking the full two miles down to where Old Nashua Road intersected Route Thirteen. Once at Thirteen, Samuel turned around and walked back up Old Nashua Road, past his own home half a mile up to the turnaround, past the Kenyon House, and home again.
Samuel walked this route twice a day, at six o’clock in the morning and six o’clock in the evening. Florence, before she had passed away, had walked with him, and he often thought about his wife as he walked.
Yet when Samuel passed by the Kenyon house, he thought of Paul Kenyon, his best friend who had passed away when they were kids in 1945. Paul had been trying to climb the roof of the house again and had fallen, his grandfather finding the boy’s body.
Now, after a five-day stay in the VA hospital in Manchester, Samuel was walking once again. His knees were feeling better after the cortisone injections the doctors had finally settled on. Samuel drew on his pipe, letting a long stream of smoke out into the night sky, and shook his head at the minor ordeal the hospital visit had been.
Yet as he neared the Kenyon house on the darkened road, he saw a pair of cars in the driveway and lights on in the house.
Samuel slowed down, looking as he went. No one had lived long in the house since seventy-five, when Mr. Kenyon, Paul’s grandfather, had passed away. A few people had rented the home from a Kenyon cousin who lived down in Boston, but they never stayed. Then, after nine eleven, the word passed through town that the cousin had been on one of the planes that hit the towers. Since then, the cousin’s estate had been trying to sell the house.
Looks like they finally did, Samuel thought. He turned his attention back to his walk, the flashlight he held in his gloved right hand lazily splashing light across the road and the trees. Hunting season made Samuel especially wary, and he hoped—although not with much confidence—that hunters from Nashua or Manchester understood that deer didn’t move around with flashlights.
Nearing the turnaround, the flashlight flickered like a candle guttering out, and by the time Samuel reached the turnaround, the flashlight was dead. Samuel came to a stop, turned the flashlight on and off several times, and frowned. He had just put new batteries in the damned thing.
“You’re old,” a soft voice said. Laughter followed the statement.
Samuel looked up sharply, clenching the pipe’s stem between his teeth. He searched for the source of the voice and saw a small shape near the woods on his left. The moon was only half-full, yet it cast enough light onto the road for Samuel to realize it was a child who stood perhaps twenty yards away.
“I am indeed old,” Samuel said around the pipe. “And without a flashlight that works.”
“You can’t get home without a flashlight?” the child asked in a mocking tone.
Samuel realized the child was a boy and said, “No, young sir, I’m sure I can get home without a flashlight. I’m merely concerned about hunters. You should be too, out in the dark during hunting season.”
“There aren’t any hunters here,” the boy replied. His voice was full of confidence. “I scared them all away, Sammy.”
Samuel stiffened slightly.
No one had called him Sammy for decades, and the voice, Samuel realized with growing horror, was that of Paul Kenyon.
The pipe nearly fell from Samuel’s mouth as he asked, “Paul?”
The child moved closer, and Samuel saw it was Paul. The boy wore his favorite sweater and had his hat on in its usual rakish back-tilt.
Yet Paul was dead. Samuel knew he was dead.
“Am I dying?” Samuel asked, looking at his childhood friend. “Have you come for me?”
Paul looked surprised, and then he grinned. “No, Sammy. I wanted to say hello. I’ve seen you walking many nights, but I was lonely tonight, and I wanted to say hello. You’re not going to die. Well, at least not tonight.”
Samuel shook his head, laughing. It was Paul. Then his thoughts sobered, and Samuel asked, “Are you stuck here? Can’t you leave?”
The grin dropped from Paul’s face. “No. I cannot leave.”
“Why?” Samuel asked.
Paul shook his head, and then he smiled. “It’s good to see you, Sammy. But you sure are old.”
“I’m eighty now, Paul,” Samuel said, smiling sadly. “I have children of my own. Grandchildren too. I did not like growing up without you.”
“I will see you again, Sammy,” Paul said.
Samuel watched as Paul started to fade, and then suddenly vanished altogether.
For a long, long time, Samuel stood at the turnaround. By the time he started back towards home, his pipe had gone out, and the cold air bit sharply as tears dried upon his cheeks.
Chapter 11: Brian in the Parlor
The mantle clock struck twelve. Midnight. The witching hour.
Brian sat alone in the parlor, his Kindle on his lap as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He was tired, but he needed to know what the hell was going on. He needed to know why Sylvia had told them to get in salt and iron.
When Jenny had gone to bed at eleven, Brian had started his research, hunting for information on the internet. Every somewhat decent website had directed him towards one book about ghosts, written by a James Patrick Moran in 1972.
Brian had found a Kindle version and downloaded it, and for the past forty minutes, he had been reading steadily. Neither salt nor iron could kill a ghost if kill was even the right word. Salt, however, especially sea salt that had been blessed by a Catholic or Orthodox Priest or an Orthodox Rabbi, could stop a ghost from entering a domicile. The way to do that was to place a continuous line across every door or window threshold. The lines had to be continuous, though. That was the key. Any sort of break, and the ghost could slip through.
> The book didn’t explain the mechanics of it, and Brian didn’t want to try. He was still having a difficult enough time grasping that he had his own little cemetery.
Brian had looked up the purpose of iron, too.
Iron, for some reason, broke the ghost up, scattering its parts everywhere and forcing the ghost to focus on rebuilding itself. Any type of iron would do. The author of the book had written that the trench raiders of the First World War carried cudgels with iron-spiked heads not only to brain their opponents, but also to deal with the thousands of ghosts that wandered No Man’s Land. The author suggested that anyone wishing to arm themselves against ghosts could follow the lead of the soldiers, or they could, go to scrap yards to search for something more suitable for their own size and ability. Finally, the book advocated carrying brass knuckles made of iron rather than brass as a weapon of last resort.
Brian wasn’t exactly thrilled with any of it, and he was seriously wondering if it was necessary, or if Sylvia was jerking them around, when something flickered by the doorway into the hall.
Looking over, Brian didn’t see anything, but he heard a click, and light spilled into the hall from the direction of the kitchen.
Brian’s heart pounded fiercely, threatening him with another trip to the ER.
Taking deep breaths to slow down his mutinous heart, Brian put his Kindle on the couch and stood up. Walking carefully, he made his way to the kitchen, where he stopped abruptly in the doorway.
In front of him was the faint image of a small woman dressed in clothes that were probably in style during the Civil War. She had her back to him, and she was doing something at the counter near the sink. Brian could hear her humming softly to herself.
She turned around, capping a bottle of liquor, and smiling cheerfully at him. She was in her late forties, perhaps early fifties.
Brian watched her walk to the liquor cabinet and put the bottle away. Then she turned back to face him. She gestured towards the sink.
A tumbler half filled with liquor stood there.
Clearing his throat, Brian asked softly, “That’s for me?”
She nodded.
“Thank you,” Brian managed. He walked cautiously to the sink, picked up the tumbler, and took a small drink. He smiled and said, “My name’s Brian.”
“Mary,” the woman said softly, and she vanished.
Brian tightened his grip on the tumbler to make sure he didn’t drop it. Swallowing nervously, he took a long, long drink.
Mary, Brian thought. Mary.
That had been the name on the first headstone in the basement.
Mary.
Chapter 12: The Barn
“What’s the plan for today?” Jenny asked. She stood at the front door, getting her shoes on and glancing over at him.
“The plan is to avoid all supernatural contact,” Brian said. He was tired and upset, and a little disgruntled. Jenny didn’t seem half as bothered as he was about the ghost situation.
“Nothing else?” she asked with a smile.
Brian shook his head. “I got the rest of the office set up yesterday, so I’m going to enjoy this last day off before jumping back into work. I’m thinking about taking a walk around the property, maybe look at the barn.”
“Be careful in the barn,” Jenny said, straightening up. “The thing looks like it’ll fall down any time now.”
“I’ll be careful.”
She walked over to him and gave him a kiss. “Don’t worry about the ghosts, Babe. I’m sure Sylvia was blowing stuff out of proportion again. Love that girl, but she needs to tone it down sometimes.”
Brian nodded. For a moment, he thought of telling her about Mary, but he decided against it. Jenny didn’t need the distraction at work.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Brian said. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“The cold air will wake you up,” she said, smiling. “Have a good day. I love you.”
“Love you too, Babe,” Brian said. He held the door for her as she left, waving to her once she got into her car. He closed the door as she backed out of the driveway.
After putting on his coat, hat, and gloves, Brian walked onto the porch. Frost shone in the early morning sun, slowly melting, steam rising up from individual blades of grass. He looked around, deciding on whether to walk the property first or to take a look inside the barn.
The barn, a faded red and leaning slightly to the right, held far more interest to him than a mere walk.
On the way, the grass crunched loudly beneath his feet. The partially opened barn doors loomed larger as he approached.
Soon Brian came to a stop before the doors and peered inside. The sun streamed in through holes in the roof and gaps in the wooden siding. He could see stalls for horses and cattle, and in the cold air, he could smell, ever so faintly, old hay.
Smiling, Brian stepped into the barn, casting a wary eye up at the beams. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to die from falling debris, he made his way deeper into the barn. Here and there, cracked and battered leather tackle hung on nails driven into the beams. At the far end of the barn stood a second set of doors, these were also slightly open. Yet the small door on the far left was closed.
Brian walked to the door and saw there was a set of ‘L’ brackets on the door frame. Beside the door was a long, thick wooden beam.
Something had been locked in the room.
A simple wooden handle was attached to the door’s exterior, and Brian took hold of it and pulled.
The door opened easily, revealing a room lit by a window high above the ground. The room was small and had a bunk across the far wall. Beneath the bunk were old toys—cars and trucks made of wood, metal soldiers Brian was sure were made of lead. The walls were covered with drawings of horses. On the bunk itself was a length of old, heavy chain, each end equipped with a manacle. An iron ring was sunk into one of the beams near the bunk, and Brian realized, with a sickening turn of his stomach, that a child was kept in the room.
Chained to the wall.
Brian stepped further into the room and picked up the chain.
It was heavy.
No child would have been able to move far around the room in the chains, even if the child wasn’t shackled to the wall.
Something struck the side of the barn.
It sounded like a rock.
Brian frowned, listening.
A moment later the sound came again, a little louder.
What the hell? Brian thought.
Still holding the chain, he walked out of the small room and into the main part of the barn again. He listened.
Nearly a minute had passed before the sound occurred once more.
Something had struck the barn on the left side, near the front doors.
Brian gripped the chain tightly. He was going to have to let people know he owned the house now, and they needed to stop screwing around on his property. It was bad enough the hunter had died. He didn’t need anything else to happen.
Walking towards the front of the barn, Brian heard a sound behind him, and he stopped.
Someone had coughed.
Brian turned around, lifting the chain up, and stopped.
An old man stood in front of him.
An old dead man, since Brian could see the back set of doors through him.
“Go back to the house,” the old man said, his voice faint. “Go back to the house.”
“Why?” Brian asked, lowering the chain.
“You’ve got the iron,” the old man said. “Go get the salt.”
Brian looked at the chain and realized the old man was right. The chain was iron. To the old man, Brian said, “I don’t have any salt yet.”
“You need to go get it,” the man said. “You need to get it now.”
“Okay,” Brian said, not feeling good about the urgency in the man’s voice. “Okay. I’ll get it now.”
There was the sound of another rock against the side of the barn followed by the sound
of the barn doors sliding open completely, the old wheels screaming in their tracks.
“Too late,” the old man said sadly.
Brian turned around quickly and saw a shape in the open area.
“Good morning, Grandfather,” the shape said, stepping forward, revealing itself to be a little boy. The child smiled cheerfully at Brian and the old man behind him.
“Were you trying to save someone else, Grandfather?”
The ghost behind Brian didn’t answer, and Brian didn’t risk a look back. Tightening his grip on the chain, his hands sweating in his gloves, Brian looked at the boy.
“How very noble of you, Grandfather,” the boy said, grinning at Brian and taking a small step forward. “How very, very noble of you.”
Chapter 13: Getting out of the Barn
The boy grinned, and Brian was sure that the grin did not translate into anything pleasant for him.
There was something wrong with the boy, above and beyond the fact that he was obviously dead.
“You’re the new man living in the house,” the boy said, looking at Brian. “Do you like the house?”
“Yes,” Brian said, carefully.
“So do I,” the boy said, cheerfully.
Brian watched him take a few steps closer.
“I like the house so very much. Do you know I died right outside the house?” the boy asked.
Brian shook his head.
“It’s true,” the boy said with feigned solemnity. “Right out there on the back lawn. I fell from the roof. Do you know why I fell?”
“No,” Brian said.
“Good, because it’s a secret; my secret,” the boy snickered. “Maybe I’ll tell you soon. Maybe I’ll even show you.”
From behind him, Brian heard the old man say, “Get to the house.”
Instead, Brian took a deep breath and stepped toward the boy.
The boy’s grin widened, his form taking on more definition. “Yes. Come closer.”
Brian took another step forward, and the boy, still grinning, reached out for him.
