by E. C. Bell
I heard someone stumbling up the stairs at the back of the house, sniveling and crying softly. Well, I didn’t really hear him stumbling up the stairs, but I did hear the sniveling and crying. I glanced around me and no one else was reacting to the noise. No one but Eddie.
“He’s baack!” he singsonged. “I can see his light from here.”
And then I could too. It was Crank’s spirit, looking very much the worse for wear.
“What the hell?” he muttered as he floundered into the entryway. “What the—” Then he stopped and stared at Eddie. If I could have worked up the courage, I would have laughed. He looked so scared. Like he was seeing a ghost. Which, of course, he was.
“Eddie?” he whispered. “What are you doing here? I thought—”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “I’m dead.”
Crank stumbled back a step, looking even more distraught, if that was possible. Eddie followed him.
“And so are you,” he hissed.
“But— No—” Crank said. He stumbled back to the wall and fell through it with a small, wild yip. As he disappeared from view, Eddie laughed.
“Serves you right, you son of a bitch,” he said. And then he made a move as though he was going to follow him.
He had to stop. No matter what Crank had done to him in his former life, Eddie had to stop what he was doing. Now.
“Don’t!” I cried. “Don’t do that!”
Both Eddie and Ambrose turned to me, and when the big gun swung in my direction, my mouth went dust dry.
“What, do all of you have a death wish?” Ambrose said. “I said shut the hell up.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Eddie said at the same time. “You know what he did to me. You know!”
“I know,” I whispered. “Just don’t.”
“Holy shit, girl, I’ve had it with you,” Ambrose’s voice suddenly hit the stratosphere, and I wished I had the courage to put my hands over my ears. “R! Get up here now!”
“Be quiet, Marie.” James’s voice sounded urgent, and I knew he was right. But I had to make certain that Eddie understood. He had to stay away from Crank’s spirit. Better if he could forgive him, but I couldn’t see that happening in a matter of moments. And I was pretty sure that was all the time I had to convince him. No matter what Ambrose Welch did to me.
If Eddie confronted Crank’s spirit and Crank decided that he needed to go to hell for what he’d done—he could pull Eddie down with him. The two spirits could become entangled, if Eddie wanted badly enough to make Crank pay for what he did. Then Eddie would pay, too.
“Stay away from him,” I said, looking past Ambrose to Eddie. “You have to. Or you’ll go to hell.”
I didn’t even see the barrel of the gun swing in my direction, but I did see stars when he hit me with it. And, as I blacked out, I heard James cry, “No!”
That was all I heard. The horror and rage in James’s voice as I slithered down a cold dark hallway to absolute black.
Eddie:
Not Going to Hell. Not Me. Not Today
AS I WATCHED Ambrose Welch smash Marie in the face, knocking her to the floor, I thought about everything that had brought me to this point in time. A teeny bit of that “seeing your life flash in front of your eyes thing,” I suppose. Mom. Dad. Luke. Luke’s frightening father. Even Noreen had led me right to this moment in time. But none of them were to blame. I’d done all this myself. Every decision, ultimately, had been mine. But Crank? That was a different kettle of fish. My life had ended because Crank had decided he wanted to get ahead in Ambrose Welch’s organization. And Crank needed to pay.
All I’d been trying to do was carve out a little piece of the Canadian Dream for myself in that churchyard, and he’d killed me. Not just killed me, but hung me up like a grotesque scarecrow as a warning to all the other wannabe businessmen.
I always thought he was a friend of mine. I stared at the spot on the wall where his spirit had fallen through for a long time, wondering how I could have been so unbelievably wrong about him. Sure, I was a frigging addict and didn’t have the best instincts, but still. You’d think I would have been able to see that someone who I thought was an honest-to-God friend would have the capacity to kill me.
James said something, and when I looked back, I saw he had Marie’s unconscious body in his arms, and he looked like he wanted to kill someone. Specifically, Ambrose Welch. Marie moaned, and I should have gone over to make sure she was all right, but then I heard Crank crying and wailing somewhere down in the basement. And I had to look him in the eye, no matter that Marie had told me to stay away from him.
I walked down the steps one at a time and enjoyed the hell out of listening to Crank gasp and gibber and cry out when he saw me.
“Yep,” I whispered. “Vengeful spirit here. Hope you like the idea of hell, my friend. Because that’s exactly where you’re going. And I’m going to put you there.”
Marie:
I Wish I’d Stayed Knocked Out, to Be Honest
THE BLACK WENT grey and then white. That scared me for a second, I have to tell you, but my face hurt so much, I was pretty sure I wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyhow.
My vision cleared enough to see that James had me in his arms. He was glaring at Ambrose Welch like he wanted to kill him or something. And Ambrose looked back at him, looking just as angry.
“Let me go,” I said. My words sounded garbled, like my mouth was full of marbles. James glanced down at me and then back up at Welch. “I have to find him,” I said, and struggled to sit up, wishing I didn’t feel so weak and wishing that James didn’t look like he was absolutely capable of murder.
Finally, he looked back to me, but his eyes were still ice. He set me on the filthy floor, carefully. “You can’t go anywhere,” he said to me. “Not yet.”
Then he turned to Welch. “What happens now?”
Welch didn’t answer him. Just called out to R again, and finally I heard him bumbling up the stairs, talking to himself distractedly.
I looked around. No Eddie, which frightened me. Where was he? The women were quiet, for the most part, though a couple of them were crying softly. Bea looked like a battered queen, a trickle of blood running down her cheek where Welch had smacked her. She reached over and patted my hand, absently, as if to say “everything will be fine.”
Not so much, Bea.
I turned my head back so I could see Welch. “What are you going to do to us?” I asked.
Welch ignored me, which was probably for the best, because when I tried to sit up, my head swam, and the world briefly turned grey again.
When my head cleared, R was standing beside Welch. How long had I been out?
“Only for a second,” James said.
I blinked at him, wondering if he could read my mind. He shook his head, and said, “Don’t talk anymore.”
Oh. My internal voice had gone external. Not good. I clamped my lips shut and tried to figure out what the heck was going on.
“All of them?” R said.
“All of them.” Welch’s face was stone, and I clutched for James’s hand.
“But—”
“They walked into my house, R. My house. I don’t care who they are, they are going to be put down. Got me?”
“Yeah,” R whispered. “I understand.”
James squeezed my fingers once, reassuringly, but when I glanced at him, he still looked like he could easily kill someone.
“Take them to the basement,” Welch said. “We’ll deal with the bodies later.”
The word “bodies” threw the book club into a frenzy, and for a horrible moment, I was afraid Welch was going to shoot us all right there, just to shut them up. But James came to the rescue.
“Please, ladies,” he said. “Be quiet. Everything will be just fine. I promise.”
One by one, the women quieted.
“Get them up,” Welch said. R waved his gun in our direction, and the women stood. I clutched at James’s arm, pulling his head close to mine. I couldn’t move
yet, because I was certain when I tried, I’d black out again.
“What are we going to do?” I mouthed, and was shocked when he smiled. It was an easy, sunny smile. Like we were out for a Sunday stroll or something.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re going to be fine.”
Oh my God, he had a plan. He actually had a plan! Relief ran through me like cool spring water, and I would have cried if I’d had the time.
I didn’t though, because R was waving his gun at us. “It’s time,” he said. “Move.”
Eddie:
Watching Crank Go Poof
CRANK HAD TAKEN a bullet to the brain pan, and the bits of skull and brain were scattered all over the floor and far wall of the basement. Kinda made me feel sick, seeing it. But Crank acted like it wasn’t even there.
“You gotta help me,” he said. It was the third time he’d said it, and I was getting tired of hearing his voice.
“Go to hell,” I said and then laughed at my pathetic excuse for a joke. A black light bee popped out of Crank’s skin, right next to the bullet hole, and he flinched as it bit.
“What’s going on?” he said, touching his fingers to his face. “Why does it hurt?”
“Because you got shot,” I said. “Maybe?”
“No. It’s like a hornet or a wasp,” he said. Then he stopped and stared. “R shot me.” A tear seeped from his last good eye and hung, glowing, on his lower lashes. That bullet had done a crapload of damage. “He shot me.”
“Yeah.” Suddenly, I didn’t feel so vengeful anymore. Crank looked so scared. So hurt.
He sniffled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish things had turned out different. You know?”
Another black wasp of light popped through his skin. He flinched and then watched it bumble around him, as though it was looking for a place to light.
“I hate wasps,” he said. “I’m allergic. You know?”
I distantly heard yelling coming from upstairs, and then the crying and wailing of women. My mom was up there somewhere, and I knew I should be more worried about her, but I wasn’t.
A third wasp light bled through his skin. Also black.
“You can decide, you know,” I said. “Where you go.”
“How do you know that?” Crank watched a fourth and then a fifth black light pop out of his skin, barely flinching this time.
“Noreen told me,” I said. “And Marie.”
He snorted tired laughter. “You shouldn’t listen to a couple of skanks,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
The black lights were popping out of him in multitudes now. I could barely see his form in the blizzard, and I took a step back.
“I think they do,” I said. “Just choose something else. Anything else.”
“And what?” he asked. “Clean slate?”
“I guess.”
“No,” he said, and one more tear, this one blood red, slipped down his ruined face. “I’ll go with my boys. I’d rather be in hell with them than anywhere with you. You were always just a tourist, you know? Just a junkie tourist. You didn’t commit to the life. Not like me. I’ll pick my boys every time.”
The black blizzard took him, and I only felt a tiny pull. Like feeling a tornado from a mile away.
I wasn’t going with him. I was going somewhere else. And Marie was going to help me get there.
If she got out of here alive.
Marie:
Face to Face With Evil,
and He’s as Confused as Me
“MOVE.” R’S VOICE crashed over us like frozen river gravel. One of the women cried out, a long, low wail that didn’t stop. I wondered, distantly, how she could keep it up so long without breathing.
“Shut up,” R said, and the noise stopped as though the woman had lost her vocal cords. I watched Bea reach a hand to the woman, patting her shoulder.
“Come on, dear,” she said. “We mustn’t do anything to antagonize him further.”
The woman, her hand still pressed to her mouth to stop her wail, clutched Bea’s hand as though it were a life preserver. Then she looked at me. They all looked at me. I was the only one still sitting on the floor.
“All right.” I sighed. “I’ll get up.”
Easier said than done, I must say. It took James and Bea both to pull me upright. My head hurt, and I could still see flashes of light at the corners of my eyes. A concussion, I bet. How the heck had James recovered so quickly?
I glanced at him, but he still had that sunny, happy-go-lucky smile on his face. “Can you walk?” he asked.
I nodded, hoping I wasn’t lying to him.
“On your own?”
I nodded again, then stopped when I felt my brain sloshing. “I think so,” I said.
“Good.”
He stepped away from me and walked among the women, whispering words of encouragement. I noticed that R wasn’t telling him to shut up or anything. Was probably glad of the help, because Ambrose Welch had disappeared down the short hallway and through a door.
“I can’t see this,” he said. “Plausible deniability and all that.”
“I understand.” R pointed at the other doorway. The one we were to walk through. “Go,” he said. “Now.”
I tried taking a step, stumbled sideways, and ran into one of the women. Naomi, Eddie’s mom.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and straightened.
“I guess I should have left this to the police,” Naomi replied. Her lips were white, and she kept licking them as though it would help somehow.
“I guess we all should have,” I said. I clutched the sleeve of her coat, and we stumbled together through the doorway into a small, filthy, old-fashioned kitchen. In the far wall was another doorway, leading down, presumably, to the basement.
James was at the front of the line of women, urging them forward and asking them to keep calm, please keep calm. He sounded like a flight attendant trying to get hysterical passengers off a burning plane, but his calm voice was working. The women were filing down the stairs, quietly and one at a time.
James looked past us to R, who was bringing up the rear. Then he turned and pushed his way through the line of women and down the stairs and out of sight.
R pushed at Naomi and me, and I could feel the cold steel of the gun barrel in my back.
“Please,” I said. “Not so fast. I feel sick.”
“I don’t care,” he replied.
“I’ll help her,” Naomi said. “I will.”
R didn’t answer. But he kept the gun in my back as we stumbled down the stairs and into the basement proper.
The women milled about near the stairs. One—the one who had been wailing earlier—was staring at the far wall and sobbing uncontrollably. I glanced and saw gore splashed liberally all over the far wall.
It looked fresh. It was probably Crank’s. Then I frowned. Even though R had obviously hidden the body somewhere, I should have been able to see his spirit. Where was he? And Eddie? Why couldn’t I see Eddie?
“Oh my God,” I gasped and picked up my pace. My head was spinning so terribly, I was certain I was going to fall, was going to black out, but I had to find Eddie. I had to save him. “Where is he?”
“He’s dead!” the wailing woman screamed.
“He’s dead,” R said in his ice-cold, gravelly voice.
“Of course he’s dead,” I muttered. Then I realized he was probably talking about Crank.
“And he’s gone.” Eddie’s voice wafted in from somewhere, more in my head than in the room, and I looked around frantically.
I could have cried in relief when I saw him swirl through a small door at the far end of the room. He was clear and looked oddly calm, as though nothing that was happening on this plane of existence was having any effect on him at all any longer.
I shambled two more steps toward him, and I felt the cold ring that was the barrel of the gun pressing into my back disappear. R had stopped walking forward. I was free.
“Sh
e’s there,” Eddie said, pointing at the door. “Honoria. She’s in there.”
I didn’t know why R had stopped. To assess the situation, to check that he had enough bullets to kill us all. I didn’t know why he stopped, but he had.
“Duck,” Eddie said.
So I did, and a bullet slapped into the cement wall just above me. Behind me, I heard a fleshy clap and a grunt, and the women started to scream.
James and R were on the floor, fighting for the gun. R was huge and looked like he was built entirely of rock-hard muscle, which should have given him an advantage, but it wasn’t working out that way. James had caught him off-guard and had him pinned to the ground as he grappled for the hand that still held the gun.
R’s finger on the trigger. I could see it and tried to yell, “Down!” even as R fired the gun into the cement wall by the stairs, spewing concrete chunks everywhere and causing the women to scream at an even higher register.
James grabbed and pulled the gun down, toward them both, and I was so afraid he’d be killed I almost threw myself on top of them, but someone grabbed me from behind and held me.
“He’ll win,” Bea grunted into my ear as she worked at holding my arms. “Don’t need you to get hurt, too.”
Another shot, this time into the ceiling by the stairs, and James said something—something I couldn’t make out—and then suddenly he had the gun. He slapped R with it twice. And then, when stupid R still insisted on grabbing at the gun, once more.
I’d never seen a pistol whipping before and truth be told, I don’t want to see it happen again. When James was through with R, his head was bleeding profusely and his eyes were rolling in his head as though he was on the verge of blacking out.
“Stay down,” James said, and stood.
At that moment, the door through which Eddie had materialized opened and a man walked through it, into the main room.
