by Catie Rhodes
Forever Road
A Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thriller
Catie Rhodes
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1
An inhuman shriek sliced through the pre-dawn darkness, stabbing at the haze of sleep coating my brain. My keys slipped from my fingers and clattered to the porch’s wooden floor. Cursing, I bent to retrieve them and dropped my backpack in the process. I shook my head, willing myself to wake up.
Another furious wail echoed over the pasture behind Memaw’s house. Anger shooed away the last of my early morning fog. I glared at the lights blazing from the sixteen-foot travel trailer at the back of the pasture. A crash shook the trailer, and a male voice cried out in protest. A few coyotes in the pine forest howled at the disturbance. They had the right idea.
“You can’t tell me what to do, you…you wall-eyed baboon.” She was so loud Rae could have been standing right next to me. Damn, that girl has a big mouth. And a nasty talent for insults.
The muscles between my shoulder blades rolled into hard knots. My cousin was a pimple on the ass of my existence. If she kept it up, she’d wake Memaw, our paternal grandmother. If I went out there to tell her to shut up, she’d want to fight. Both options sounded almost as fun as running from an angry alligator. Almost.
On cue, Rae let out another furious howl followed by a string of curse words.
I left my stuff on the porch, vaulted the broken chain-link fence, and jogged across the pasture. My steel-toed work boots squelched and slapped on the mud, splashing my clean blue jeans. Of all the crappy ways to start a day. Rae couldn’t have driven me crazier if she brainstormed ways to do it.
Halfway to the trailer, a light began to glow in the pine forest behind it. It stopped me in my tracks, but only for a moment. Rae picked that moment to escalate things.
The trailer’s door slammed open and banged against the aluminum siding. Chase Fischer, sans pants, stumbled out. His naked ass glowed in the waning moonlight. I groaned. This can’t end well.
I ran the last few yards to the travel trailer, doing my best to ignore the sounds and sights coming from the woods behind it. The odor of sweat and alcohol surrounded Chase, my earliest childhood and lifelong friend. It hurt to see him associating with my trashy cousin; I couldn’t even lie to myself about that.
Rae charged from the trailer, her platinum hair a wild halo backlit by the trailer’s interior lights. Chase and I both took a step away from her.
“Just go.” Her sandpaper smoker’s voice echoed against the pines. “You’re a clown and a monkey’s ass.”
“Come on, sugar,” Chase slurred. “This dew’s cold on my bare feet. You don’t want me here, just let me have my pants.”
He wasn’t the only one uncomfortable. There was no way to un-see this crazy scene. I redirected my gaze to the tree line, hoping to lessen the shock of it. Wrong choice. The air rippled with a cacophony of whispers as ghosts of the Palmore family clamored for attention. The lights in the woods glowed brighter, and a silhouette stepped to the edge of the forest, watching us. Fear crawled up my back and sat on my shoulders, so heavy it crushed the breath out of me. Coming so close to this part of the property was a serious error in judgment, Peri Jean. I usually avoided the place where the Palmore family perished over a century ago.
I dragged my attention from the woods and stepped into the light spilling from the trailer’s open door. Knowing Rae would attack at the first show of weakness, I shoved my trembling hands into my pockets. How she felt okay acting this way mystified me. I was no prize, but I didn’t have drunken screaming matches in my grandmother’s backyard at the ass-crack of dawn. It all boiled down to respect. Rae possessed none. Not for herself or anybody else.
“Your grandmother is still asleep, Raelene Georgia Mace.” I stated the obvious, but I knew no other way to convince her to stop yelling. “It’s not even dawn, yet.”
Rae ignored me and ducked back inside the trailer. She returned holding Chase’s jeans and slung them at him with a grunt. The jeans crumpled at my feet. Stinging embarrassment prickled the back of my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut and wished myself out of the situation. When I opened my eyes, nothing had changed. I picked the jeans up and tossed them to Chase. He mumbled thanks, but I couldn’t even look at him. Why, you dumbass? Why?
The air around the trailer cooled. That could only mean one thing. The ghosts responsible for the light show in the woods had found me. Fear stirred the coffee bubbling in my gut. I groaned at the tiny strip of pink and orange lighting the horizon’s edge. Full dawn, the only thing capable of chasing these nasties away, couldn’t come fast enough.
Rae stomped to the edge of the wooden deck pushed against the travel trailer, every step screeching as the metal and wood rubbed together. Her loosely belted robe hung open, displaying her enviable, though fake, breasts. She twisted her mouth into a feral snarl and said, “What you want, Looney Tunes?”
“I want you to hold it down.” That only covered half of it. I wanted to run back home with my tail between my legs. With the ghosts here, I cursed myself for deciding to confront Rae.
Rae looked down her nose at me and thrust out her jaw. I halfheartedly returned her glare, too distracted by the spirits swirling around me to put my heart into it. Ghosts gravitated to me like bugs to a bug light. Too bad I couldn’t zap them and make them go away. Instead, I lived a freakish horror show of feeling dead people’s emotions and seeing their grisly spirits.
Rae and I squared off, each trying to intimidate the other into backing down. Chase took a few steps away from us and shimmied into his dew-wet jeans. He patted the pockets, evidently searching for his keys and cursed when he realized they weren’t there.
“You know this stuff upsets Memaw.” Breaking the silence first lost me a little ground, but I needed to speed things up. A ghost from the long ago fire stood not six feet from me. His tattered clothes fluttered and flapped in the early morning breeze. I smelled the reek of charbroiled flesh so acrid I bit back a gag. Every muscle in my body knotted with tension. I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. A scream built in my chest, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it back much longer.
“You’re not the boss of me, Peri Jean Mace.” Rae propped her hands on her hips.
A million replies, all smart-assed, came to mind. I swallowed them for the sake of brevity.
“That’s true.” I let Rae win a small victory just so I could get away from the woods and the ghosts sooner. “Just do this for me, all right? I’ll owe you one.”
“You mean a favor?” Rae slouched in her robe and looked exactly like what she was—an ex-con pushing thirty and living on her grandmother’s grace. Not that I’m any younger. Or that much more successful. Maybe I didn’t have much room to judge Rae. What I said next reflected my weakening resolve.
“I’ll do you a favor if you’ll keep it down.” Oh, I know I’m going to regret this. How much remains to be seen. “Starting now.”
Rae pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered them to me. My nicotine demon, which I’d been starving for the past two weeks, begged and pleaded. I shook my head anyway.
“That’s right, you quit. I gotta quit now, too.” She lit her cigarette. The dim flame from her disposable lighter revealed bruises on her cheeks and underneath her eyes. I gasped, skin tightening, as I imagined how much a beating like that would hurt.
“I told her to call the cops.” Chase kept a safe distance from us.
“And I said I’d take care of it...boy toy.” Rae’s tone brooked no argument. Chase developed a sudden interest in staring at his bare feet. I averted my eyes, too. His love life had nothing to do with me and hadn’t for some time. It didn’t make minding my own bus
iness any easier. My heart ached for him and the stupid choices he made.
The sun, at last, peeked over the horizon. The burned ghost man faded away with a scream in my head, although the stench of fire and roasted human flesh lingered in the air. Relief loosened my tight muscles and left me feeling giddy. If only all ghosts faded away at daybreak.
The growing daylight illuminated more damage on Rae’s face and my throat constricted. A raised patch with a crisscross pattern decorated one cheek. Both eyes were black and puffy. Handprint bruises laced her neck, and her nose looked broken. Rae watched me look her over.
“Who did that to you?” Despite my current irritation at Rae, fury filled me at the idea of someone beating her so cruelly. I wonder what she did to deserve it. Oh, Peri Jean, how shitty to even think that way.
“Go inside and fix me some orange juice.” Rae jerked her head at the trailer. “I need to talk to Peri Jean.”
Chase hung his head and slouched into the trailer to do his mistress’s bidding. It caught my attention Rae hadn’t asked for gin or vodka in her orange juice. No telling what’s going on. I bet my pinky toe I’ll be in the middle of it soon enough. I glared at her after Chase shut the door.
“What?” She smirked, and that pissed me off.
“Don’t talk to him that way.” Even as I spoke, the logical part of my brain pleaded with me to shut up. Let Rae and Chase do whatever they want back here. Not my business.
“You don’t own him just because y’all are best friends.” She put “best friends” in air quotes. “I bet you’re all bent out of shape because you’re jealous. That’s right, ain’t it?” Her grin reminded me of a shit-eating possum.
“When did you get like this? You were a kind person once upon a time.” Rae opened her mouth to speak, but I talked over her. “He’s someone’s son. He has people who love him. How would you like it if people treated someone you love like shit? Wouldn’t it hurt you?”
I braced myself for her fury. Instead, she shifted foot to foot, dropping those hard eyes to look at her polished toenails.
“Life ain’t no cakewalk. You don’t let everybody know you’re the boss, they’ll try to run over you.” She said all this without taking her eyes off her toenails. I’d embarrassed her, and it stung me. I had no business looking down my nose at anybody, not even Rae.
“I need that favor yesterday, cousin.” Rae took a hard pull on her cigarette. She squinted at me through the cloud of smoke. Calling me cousin meant she wanted something big.
“All right.” A promise was a promise, and I’d keep my word. But I never doubted I’d regret this favor. Had I known how much, I’d have run right then and there. “I can’t this morning. I have to clean Mrs. Rudie’s house in town. Jolene wants it over and done with.”
Rae muttered some words under her breath. They sounded an awful lot like, “Stingy old bitch.”
I didn’t ask. None of Chase’s family was thrilled about his fascination with Rae. His late grandmother, Mrs. Rudie Rushing, had never minced words. No telling what kind of exchanges she and Rae had.
“So you’ll keep it down if I do you this favor?” The terms had to be clear; otherwise Rae would twist things around to suit herself.
“All right.” Rae tossed her cigarette butt at the deck’s edge. I told myself she didn’t almost hit me on purpose. “Before you go, tell me what you know about the Mace Treasure.”
The change in subject caught me by surprise, although the thought of Rae digging around for a non-existent treasure didn’t. “It’s a load of bullshit the Chamber of Commerce uses to drum up tourist dollars.”
“Awww, come on.” Rae arranged her mouth into a pout. “That money’s got to be somewhere. Our great-great…” she counted on her fingers, “…hell, I don’t know how many greats…grandfather couldn’t have just lost it.”
“You sound like that stupid documentary those Hollywood people came here to make.” I swept my arms wide and put on a big, phony smile. “In today’s money, the Mace Treasure would have been worth at least one hundred million dollars.” I dropped my arms and my smile. “But they were full of shit. And so are you if you believe in that mess.”
Rae flipped me the one-fingered salute. I rolled my eyes. The formalities complete, she went inside the trailer and slammed the door behind her. The sound of her yammering at Chase shook the thin walls.
I hustled back to the house and retrieved my backpack from where I’d dropped it on the porch. A tension headache sang harmony with my worries over what I’d gotten myself into with Rae. At least Memaw’s bedroom light is still off. If this little episode didn’t wake her, it’s worth it.
Now off to help Jolene clean out old Mrs. Rudie’s house. A sourpuss in life, I had no reason to expect Chase’s grandmother to be any different in death. The upcoming task held less appeal than taking a trip to Disneyland with my ex-husband.
2
The speedometer hovered at eighty miles per hour as I drove the short distance to Gaslight City. I thought of nothing but the scene at the trailer. Rae acted like a braying jackass, and I promised her a favor. She had me whipped. Memaw, too. I couldn’t suggest we ask her to move elsewhere. The property belonged to Memaw, not me. Something had to change, but I didn’t know what.
To add to the fun, now I was obligated to deliver a favor of Rae’s choice. I imagined myself doing her laundry, cleaning that pigsty of a trailer, or loaning her money she’d never repay. She didn’t dare ask me to hunt that stupid treasure with her. No way. I’d eat dog food first. The canned kind.
“Fifteen minutes late because of my idiot cousin,” I mumbled as I eased into Mrs. Rudie’s driveway. Jolene wouldn’t care. Though I never let Chase con me into marrying him, his mother treated me like family, patronizing my odd-jobs business every chance she got.
As I climbed out of my car, a shadow moved in an upstairs window. Not every person comes back as a ghost, but it looked like Mrs. Rudie did. That mean old cuss just won’t die. I’m in for a long day. I steeled myself for the morning’s second close encounter with the spirit realm. Pretending not to see a parade of dead folks was hard work. But I knew the consequences if I didn’t.
Dying had not improved Mrs. Rudie’s disposition. Hell’s fury had nothing on Mrs. Rudie’s as Jolene and I cleaned out her house. The ghost pinched me—often—to express her displeasure. An hour after I started work, welts rose on my arms and back from her abuse. She pulled my short pixie-cut hair until it stood in tousled spikes. Jolene, the poor dear, thought the welts were caused by allergies and offered me an antihistamine.
“I apologize again for being late.” I sprinkled some packing peanuts into the bottom of a box and gently set a stack of ornamental plates wrapped in newspaper on top of it. “Rae is running us ragged. Last week, during her Sunday barbecue, she started a fire back there. I managed to put it out before we had to call the VFD, but I was worried.”
“Child, if you apologize to me one more time, I’ll…” Jolene paused while she tried to think of an appropriate punishment and shook her head. “I don’t know what I’ll do. You were almost my daughter-in-law. I love you like family. You say she and Chase were outside hollering at one another? Before dawn?”
“Naw. They were inside the trailer, but I could hear them up at the house.” I taped the box closed, wrote the contents in black marker, and set it aside. “And it wasn’t even Chase. He never said much.”
Every once in a while, I saw a flash of the specter in my peripheral vision. Mrs. Rudie’s rage burrowed into my emotions, using my energy to continue her antics. The conversation with Jolene helped me pretend I saw and felt nothing. For that, I was grateful. Jolene and I never discussed my loathsome supernatural talent. Just like everybody else in town, she knew. The details of my craziness were etched permanently in the annals of Gaslight City lore. But, like most folks, Jolene’s politeness quelled her curiosity about my weirdness.
“Next time my son is in the middle of some drama over there, you send his butt home.�
� Jolene shook her head as she handed me an ornate wooden box. “Drunk or not.”
“I can’t make Chase do anything. If I could, things would have been different.” I traced the raised carvings on the box. My mind flitted through the highlights of my long relationship with her errant son.
“It would have been yours if you had married Chase. Mama loved you.” Jolene reached across me and opened the box. The recently polished silver gleamed.
“Mrs. Rudie most certainly did not love me. She tolerated me.”
“Well, honey, that’s all Mama really did with everyone.” Jolene threw her head back and laughed, even though her eyes brimmed with tears. “Mama was one of a kind.”
Whatever tolerance Mrs. Rudie had for me died with her body. Her ghost gave me another sharp pinch, this time in the sensitive area near my neck. I bit back my gasp and forced myself to admire the old bat’s silver with her sweet-natured daughter.
“It’s not too late.” Jolene’s brown eyes found mine and held them. “Chase talks about you all the time. He’s hardly mentioned Rae even though he’s dated her all summer. If you want to call it dating.”
“I didn’t end things.” I packed the silver in a cardboard box labeled “dining room” in Jolene’s careful schoolteacher’s handwriting.
“I know that. I just wish…” Jolene broke off and shrugged. “You always want the best for your kids. You’ll see.”
Pushing thirty and still unwilling to be a single mother, I wasn’t so sure. After growing up with neither parent on hand, I wanted to give my child the benefit of two parents who loved each other. Maybe I want too much. White picket fences only exist in movies and children’s books. Even so, I couldn’t give up hope one would show up in my life.
“Mama’s china needs to go, too.” Jolene opened the china cabinet and grabbed a teacup. She wrapped it in a sheet of newspaper and placed it in an empty box. Mrs. Rudie hovered around us, cooling the room better than air conditioning.
