“Sarah? Sarah, can you hear me?”
Sarah picked her head up and stared at Jake. Her expression was blank, like she was high.
“Sarah, can you open your door?”
She didn’t respond.
He gripped the handle of the front driver’s seat door. It wouldn’t budge. Jake brushed his shoulder against the door and he pushed with all his might. It wouldn’t give. He began to kick at the window, which finally smashed open, allowing water to force in the broken shards of glass.
Jake reached across and grabbed a hold of Sarah. Using all of his strength, he pulled her up. Then he backed both of them out of the car and into the dark, cold water.
He was blinded by the darkness as he climbed toward the surface. His arm throbbed in pain. What didn’t help matters was Sarah, clinging to him for dear life, her dead weight on his arm just added to the pain.
Jake toughed it out as best he could, but he grew tired, and his injured arm didn’t help matters. He realized that he had ceased swimming and floated in the water. Soon, both he and Sarah were sinking.
Jake stared at Sarah, who stared right back at him. It was difficult to see her expression clearly, but he thought he saw hope in her eyes, now that she had been freed from the car. But Jake’s arm was giving out and in a final move he released his grip on her. Sarah’s eyes opened wide in shock and horror as she sunk back down into the ocean, injuries rendering her unable to swim for the surface. Bubbles floated out of her mouth as she attempted to speak under water. Jake could only think of one thing she could have said. His name: “Jake!” It was her last plea for him to save her.
Jake did no such thing. He swam upward. When he breached the surface he coughed out water.
People started gathering above on the bridge. Many were in costume, but some were in plainclothes and jackets. Jake heard someone yell, “We’ve called an ambulance!”
This did not relieve Jake in the slightest. Part of him wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that Sarah was still in the ocean and that she needed help. Jake said nothing, as he fought hypothermia while trying to keep his head above the surface. He floated in the cold water, shivering, until paramedics came and hauled him out.
Divers eventually found Sarah’s body. They dragged her up and all Jake could remember hearing was that she drowned with a face full of anguish.
* * *
Sarah released her grip on Jake and he was roused from the memory. He pulled his arm away immediately, as if her ghostly hand was scalding hot.
She stared at him, her dead eyes locked on his.
“You let me die, Jake!”
“I didn’t mean to, Sarah,” he responded, tears streaming down his face. “I was hurt…I…couldn’t pull you up with me—”
“Liar!” Sarah’s voice was so strong and piercing, Jake thought it was powerful enough to shatter windows in the house. “You wanted to be rid of me. You saw an opportunity and you took it.”
“No, that’s not true.”
Evil took over Sarah’s expression. She smiled mischievously at him. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Jake. I will never leave you!”
“No! Go away! You’re not real!” Jake covered his ears with his hands to drown out Sarah’s voice. It did him no good for he heard her sweet and macabre voice in his head.
“Even in death I will never leave you!”
Jake screamed maniacally. He couldn’t take it anymore. “Leave me the hell alone!”
He dashed across the room toward the wooden table that housed the demonic book. He picked up the accursed book and advanced toward the ghost of his dead girlfriend. Raising the book over his head, Jake screamed, “You’re not real, Sarah! You’re dead!”
Bash!
Bash!
Jake thrust the book down at Sarah. She fell to the floor. She tried covering her face with her hands to ward off Jake’s attack, but her tactic failed.
He continued raising the book high above his head and smashing it down on her forehead. He thought it odd that, as a ghost, she shouldn’t be bleeding. But she was—blood oozed out of her forehead and onto the wooden floor. Jake didn’t care. He just wanted his dead girlfriend to disappear.
“Just! Leave! Me! Alone!”
Jake continued caving Sarah’s head in with the book until he felt a whack against the back of his head, and then his lights went out.
* * *
“Mr. Collins? Mr. Collins, can you hear me?” The voice was not someone he recognized. Jake wearily opened his eyes, needing a moment to take in his surroundings. He was on the floor of the house, and staring up at several people in the room. They towered over him. Two of them were Mike and Billy. The others were a police officer and a paramedic.
“What happened?”
“Mr. Collins, can you stand?” the paramedic asked.
Jake nodded and the police officer and paramedic assisted him in standing. When he did, he looked to his two best friends. Mike and Billy only stared away, in sadness.
Jake also stared at the floor. There was a sheet covering something—or someone—on the hard wood. The top of the sheet was stained with red.
“Is that…blood?” Jake asked.
“Christ, Jake!” Mike exclaimed. The way he said it, Mike practically sounded like he was going to puke in disgust. “Why the hell did you do it?”
“Do what?” Jake asked.
“You killed the tour guide, man!” Billy replied.
“No, I didn’t. I admit, I attacked Sarah, but—”
“Dude, what are you talking about?” Mike interjected. “We were all having a great time. The ghostly lady led us into the house and then you started talking to yourself. We were really worried about you, so Billy went to get help. Pretty soon you went bat-shit crazy. You picked up the prop book on the table and attacked the tour guide. You kept calling her Sarah. I tried to stop you, but you knocked me out. When I came to, you were bashing the poor girl’s head in with the book. Jake, she practically has no face left!”
“I didn’t kill the tour guide,” Jake insisted. “It was Sarah! Even in death, she won’t leave me alone!”
“Jesus Christ, Jake, will you stop it?” Billy shouted. “Sarah is dead! She’s been dead for a year! Her ghost wasn’t here—it was just you losing your mind!”
“It was Sarah!” Jake screamed.
“No it wasn’t, Jake,” the police officer said.
He walked over to the body lying on the floor and removed the white sheet. Jake glanced down and saw the mutilated face of the tour guide. She was nearly unrecognizable. Her nose had been bashed in and a hole was visible in the middle of her forehead where the corner of the book had made contact.
Jake shook his head in confusion.
“But it was…Sarah.”
The police officer walked over to Jake. “Let’s go, son.”
The police cruiser drove past the long line of visitors who were waiting to enter The Haunted Village. They stared at Jake as he was led out of the grounds and onto the streets of Salem.
As the cruiser made its way through the busy streets that Halloween night, Jake looked out the side window. Children dressed in costume continued to prowl along the sidewalks with their parents in tow. Young adults, many dressed in their Goth and slasher film icon costumes, raised hell of their own as they enjoyed the evening’s festivities that would continue until the early hours of the morning.
Jake looked away from the window and when he did, he felt a cold presence in the back of the cruiser. He turned around and stared at Sarah.
“I’ll never leave you, Jake!” Sarah said, her dead eyes fixated on him.
“Never!”
1812
A Woman of substance
Nancy Brewka-Clark
“Hold on, Doc. Let me see if I’ve heard you right.” Cyrus Ranker hunched closer to the cloaked figure sitting across from him in the deep shadows of the Redwing Inn. “You want me to dig up a female corpse and bring her to you by Saturday at midnight.”
/> Dr. Alistair Inch nodded. “Correct. She must be between the age of fifteen and fifty. You must exhume her immediately after burial. I need her flesh to be as near to an incorruptible state as possible, without the ravages of smallpox or any other contagion. And, most important of all, she must not have been a patient of mine. There must be no connection.”
“Sounds devilish tricky to me, Doc. That’s less than a week.” Ranker spun his empty glass on the tavern table. “How am I supposed to know who’s departing this vale of tears if you don’t tip me off?”
“Women die in childbirth every day, Mr. Ranker,” Inch snapped. “Their dresses catch fire if they’re careless in their cooking. They fall from horses, fruit trees, and ladders, and down staircases. They consume bad shellfish. Just keep your ear to the ground.”
Ranker grinned. “Think she’ll be a-calling out to me from six feet under?”
“Lower your voice,” Inch hissed. “If the sheriff gets wind of this—”
Ranker interrupted with a laugh. “I know, I know, we’ll hang.”
“Hardly.” The physician eyed him coldly. “He’ll want a cut.”
“Seems to me, between the two of you, you’d have your fill of corpses.” Ranker rubbed his stubbled jaw. “Sheriff’s not above snuffing out a life, here and there, in that fancy new jail of his, ‘specially if it’s just some Limey seaman or a poxy trollop from the docks. And as for you, Dr. Inch, you put more folks six feet under than you cure, ain’t that right?”
“Be careful how you taunt me, Mr. Ranker.” Inch rubbed his pale hands together. “Someday you may need me to pluck another bullet from that scrawny body of yours.”
“Next time I’d take my chances with the hag who peddles her herbs at Saturday market.” Seeing the flash in Inch’s eyes, Ranker cajoled, “Ah, come on, doc, knock the chip off your shoulder and have another round on me.”
Inch hesitated before giving him a nod. “If you insist.”
Fingering his last silver half dollar, Ranker shoved his way through the raucous crowd gathered at the bar. From smugglers to privateers, it seemed all of Salem had decided that tonight was the night to gather at the inn and complain about the wretched state of affairs. Second War of Independence, they were calling it down in Washington to drum up a fighting spirit, but the town had had its fill of embargos, blockades and bombardments. If it went on much longer they’d all starve.
“Here you go, Doc.” Ranker plunked the full glass down, his own already half gone. “Going to blow hard tonight. Cold enough for sleet, they’re saying.”
“The foul weather will pass for a while, yet.” Inch took a small sip of rum. “But the more foul the weather, the less demanding your work.”
Sensing an attempt to reduce his pay, Ranker frowned. “How so?”
Inch permitted himself a twitch of the lips that might have passed as a smile. “Superstitious fools avoid being anywhere near a graveyard on All Hallows’ Eve no matter the weather. Add icy fog and a moaning wind, and you have the perfect environment for performing a quick resurrection, Mr. Ranker. On the 31st the entire town will be cowering beneath the covers, allowing their imaginations to run roughshod over rational thought.”
“Me, I’m not imagining a thing.” Ranker drained his glass. “My mind don’t work that way, doc.” He rubbed forefinger and thumb together in the universal sign for money. “I only see what’s before me.”
Inch shoved his glass away. “Two Spanish doubloons, payable on completion of the task.”
Ranker let out a low whistle. “And here I thought you were going to offer me Boston bank notes.”
“Foreign currency is best when one’s country is at war.” Inch placed his palms on the table. “I assume we have an agreement. Delivery guaranteed before midnight on Saturday, October the 31st. Then, and only then, will I make payment.”
“Hang on. What if nobody croaks?” Ranker drew back. “I ain’t snuffing nobody, not even for solid gold.”
“You know my needs. How you satisfy them is not my concern.” Inch shrugged. “October 31st. Yes or no?”
“What’s the hurry?” Ranker gave him a sly grin. “Sounds like you’ve got a mighty peculiar itch that needs scratching.”
Seeing Ranker’s eyebrows rise, Inch flushed. “I can assure you,” he said coldly, “that my colleagues and I have no salacious intent toward the cadaver. On Sunday evening I will be conveying it to Cambridge. On Monday morning an advanced class in gynecological physiology begins. Our interest is strictly impersonal and scientific.”
“If you say so, doc.”
“Indeed I do. That is why there are medical schools, Mr. Ranker.” Inch stood. “Otherwise, you might as well take your ills and ailments to the local butcher.” As the two men shook hands, he added softly, but with venom, “Or that hag with her herbs.”
* * *
Ranker tossed down the Salem Gazette. “Weaker sex, pah.” Whatever else Dr. Inch knew about the human body, he was wrong about the ease with which the ordinary female parted this life. None of the death notices described the sort of corpse he required. It was already Saturday afternoon, only hours to go before he forfeited more money than he’d seen since his bank-robbing days.
Drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, Ranker considered his options.
There was no question of just ducking out of the deal. A few years back Ranker had been shot in the shin robbing the Boston to Portsmouth stagecoach. After hiding in Lynn Woods for a few tortuous days, he hauled himself, by the light of the moon, back to his room in a Summer Street boarding house. Deciding he’d simply kill the doctor after being treated—both crimes were punishable by death, but he could only hang once—he went to Inch, who fixed him up without asking a single question.
After that, he’d done odd jobs for the physician, such as disposing of an amputated arm, leg, or other body part. And, yes, he’d done a few exhumations, but none so specific. Sometimes he helped Inch cook up batches of opiates, which he sold at exorbitant prices to those who’d become addicted while in Inch’s care. But nothing had ever paid like this.
There was only one thing to do.
Ranker clapped on his black hat and clomped down four flights of stairs. Pulling open the front door, he sucked in his breath at the blast of chill wind laced with stinging droplets of rain. The sky glowed dully, like a pewter bowl had been clamped over the town. If the cobblestones iced over, perhaps there’d be a fatal carriage accident.
Cheered by the thought, he hastened his way to the one place where he’d be free from worry while he cooked up an excuse that Dr. Inch would buy.
* * *
“Poor, poor lady.” Emma Whiting, proprietress of the Redwing Inn, dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “All alone in a strange town, and to have this happen. Oh, it’s dreadful.”
Removing his hat, Ranker joined the handful of early evening drinkers clustered about her. Most of them were elderly widowers who had no one to scold them about wasting money in these parlous times. “What happened?”
One old duffer by the name of Hank Goff turned to Ranker. “A foreign lady’s gone and snuffed it upstairs, there.”
Hardly able to believe his good fortune, Ranker exclaimed, “No!”
“Oh, yes,” Goff said sincerely. “She arrived last evening. Blew in on that cold wind like a ghost. Wrapped in a black cloak with a deep hood like the Grim Reaper. Didn’t speak a word.”
When the geezer paused for breath, Ranker asked, “How old is she?”
“What difference does it make? Dead’s dead.” He cracked a toothless grin. “Unless you’re the type likes ‘em stiff.” He cocked his head with a roguish wink. “Or, after the rigor passes, limp as a strip of raw beef.”
“I was just hoping she’d passed away in an easy, natural death, freeing her from the burdens of old age,” Ranker said piously.
Mrs. Whiting said with a little catch in her throat, “I got the impression she was quite young.”
“Oh, my.” Ranker’s heart leapt w
ith fresh hope. “What a tragedy. And alone, you say?”
“When I checked her pocketbook, I found nothing to identify her, just a handful of copper coins,” Mrs. Whiting said. “It came as quite a shock, because she seemed like a young lady of substance. Mind you, appearances can be deceiving. That’s why my poor, late husband taught me to demand payment up front.”
“Her husband’s got to be about somewhere. Ain’t natural for a member of the gentler sex to be out in the world on her own,” another geezer by the name of Peter Lowry said. “Something’s fishy there, you mark my words.”
“She’ll turn fishy soon enough,” Goff chimed in. “You can’t have her stinking up the place, Mrs. Whiting.” He sucked on his pipe. “Bad for business.”
Mrs. Whiting bit her lip. “She declined to have a fire. Only a penny for a good armload of oak, but no, she wasn’t having any of it.”
“Think she froze to death?” Goff asked.
“Certainly not,” Mrs. Whiting replied indignantly. “She piled all the bedding on top of her, even the mattress. Only the tip of her nose was poking out when I found her.”
“Then how do you know she’s dead?” Goff asked. “Just because she buried herself in the bedclothes and slept like she was dead to the world don’t mean she’s passed on.”
“She could have suffered an attack of brain fever that knocked her out,” Lowry offered. “I have a nephew who throws fits. Why, you’d think he was deader than a doornail. Falls down anywhere, anytime. Then he stands up, brushes himself off and goes about his business.”
Ranker, who could barely restrain himself from throttling the old gossips, exclaimed, “If this should be the case, Mrs. Whiting, we might yet save her life.” He clapped his hat back on his head. “I’d best fetch Dr. Inch.”
Mrs. Whiting shuddered. “I fetched a hand mirror and held it up to her nose but there was no mist on the glass. Oh, yes, she’s dead, poor girl.”
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