Ghost Trackers

by Grant Wilson Jason Hawes

  A memory, then . . . a flashback. Though one nightmarishly distorted. In real life, no one could have continued moving and speaking with the kind of burns Greg had sustained. There’d been a fire at the Lowry House the night they’d worked up the nerve to investigate it, that much they knew. Although she had no clear memory of being inside the house when the fire broke out, it’s possible that she’d been there. That part could have been a memory. But Greg standing there, covered in flames, laughing, reaching for her with burned and blackened hands . . . no way had that ever happened. Besides, it hadn’t been the teenage Greg she’d seen but, rather, an adult version of him.

  So, what she’d experienced could have been part memory, part . . . what? Waking dream? Psychotic delusion? She was used to seeing disturbing things in her nightmares, but until this point, such horrifying images had confined themselves to her sleep. They’d never spilled over into her conscious experience before. Call it what it is, she decided. A hallucination.

  “You’re losing it, kiddo,” she whispered to herself. “Big time.”

  She’d been afraid that coming here was a mistake, and now she had proof. At first, she’d feared that seeing Drew and Trevor again would dredge up emotions and memories that would be too much for her to handle. But after they’d been talking for a while and everything had been OK—no bad feelings, no bad memories—she’d begun to think that maybe it was a good thing that she’d allowed Greg to talk her into coming to the reunion. That maybe this weekend could be a step forward for her, for all three of them, just as Drew had said it could be. For the first time in a long time, she’d allowed herself to feel hope. Hope that she might be able to begin dealing with the trauma of what happened at the Lowry House and get on with her life.

  But the vision-hallucination-whatever-the-hell-it-was of Greg proved that she’d been a fool to allow herself to hope. She was messed up, far beyond the ability of a simple reunion with her two closest friends from high school to fix.

  It had been strange seeing Drew and Trevor again. Strange but good. She’d talked to both of them a few times over the years, especially Trevor, who periodically called to nag her to help him write about that night in the Lowry House, and he had visited her once a couple of years back. But this was the first time she’d been in Drew’s presence since high school.

  They’d never dated; despite the gaps in her memory, she was sure of that. But there had always been an attraction between them, even if they’d never gotten around to acknowledging it. She thought they might have gotten together eventually if that night at the Lowry House hadn’t happened. Being around Drew tonight, she’d felt that attraction again, a tightness in her chest, a thrilling fluttery feeling in her stomach, the sensations at once both familiar and brand-new. She wondered if he had experienced similar feelings from being around her, but she dismissed the thought.

  Drew was an accomplished professional, and while he claimed also to suffer from the trauma of that night in the Lowry House, he’d handled it a hell of a lot better than she had. There was no way a basket case like her could appeal to a man like him. Still, she thought that maybe she’d sensed something in the way he looked at her, the way he smiled . . .

  “Idiot,” she muttered. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing slowly, as one of the many therapists she’d seen over the years had taught her. She doubted that the technique would relax her enough to help her get to sleep, but she’d be happy if it took the edge off her stress, if only a little. Breathe in . . . hold . . . breathe out. Breathe in . . .

  Little Eyes woke to darkness and the pressure of a hand clamped over her mouth. She panicked and began to thrash beneath the fur blanket until she heard her father’s voice whisper in her ear.

  “Be still, my daughter. Visitors have come. White men.” He paused. “Not French.”

  Four Winds was a man of few words, but she could tell from the tone of his voice that he was worried.

  Not French? French traders were the only white men her people had ever dealt with. Who were these newcomers, and why would they come in the middle of the night?

  “The other men and I will go out to speak to them and see what they want,” Four Winds went on. “I want you to stay in here and be quiet. Do not peek outside, no matter how curious you are. I do not wish them to know you are here. Do you understand me?”

  She didn’t, but she nodded anyway. Besides being her father, Four Winds was leader of their village, and it was her duty to obey.

  She heard the smile in his voice as he said, “Good. I shall return soon.” He removed his hand from her mouth and kissed her forehead before departing their domed bark house. When he was gone, Little Eyes sat up, wrapped the fur blanket around her buckskin-clad body for additional warmth, and scooted closer to the door. Her father had told her not to peek outside, but he’d said nothing about listening to what was happening.

  Four Winds was a good father but overprotective. Little Eyes’ mother had died of the wasting sickness two summers ago, and her older sister had married and gone away to live with her husband in his village the summer after that. She and her father were alone now, and despite the fact that she was sixteen, he treated her as if she were much younger. But she was a woman, old enough to be married herself, although she had yet to catch a man’s eye. Their village was small, only a dozen families all told, and right now there weren’t any eligible unattached men of age around. She thought she might well end up following in her sister’s tracks and marrying someone from another village. But until that day arrived, she feared that her father would view her as a little girl, regardless of her age.

  A flap of deer hide hung down over the house’s entrance, and the soft yellow glow of lantern light was visible through the thin spaces on either side of it. She knew the lanterns belonged to the visitors, for her people did not use such devices. She imagined women and children in the other houses, huddled in fur blankets to ward off the chill of the autumn night, sitting and listening like her, eager to know what was happening, hoping everything would be all right.

  She heard her father’s voice then. He spoke French, and while she knew only a few words in the language, she did not need to be fluent to guess what he was saying: Why have you come here, and why so late?

  A white man answered in a language she had never heard before, but for some strange reason, she understood his words. More, the voice seemed familiar to her, although she was certain that she had never heard the man speak.

  “Any of you lot know the King’s English?” The man waited. “No?” A sigh. “I suppose bloody French will have to do, then.” He switched over to halting broken French, and as before, Little Eyes understood what he was saying. It was as if some sort of wondrous magic had befallen her, but she had no time to marvel at it. She was too busy listening.

  “Your village trades with the French,” the white man said. “That time is done. Now you will trade with us. With the British.”

  “We know the French, and we trust them,” Four Winds said. “They are our friends. We do not know you and have no reason to trust you—and coming to our village in the middle of the night like this, weapons in hand, is not the best way to introduce yourselves.”

  Weapons! Little Eyes thought with alarm. That the white men carried guns was no surprise—they needed them for hunting and for protection, of course—but that they should approach the village with their guns out and ready to fire, as Four Winds’ words implied, was most disturbing. She wondered how many white men there were, but although she was tempted to push aside the deerhide flap just enough so she could glimpse outside and see for herself, she did not. She had promised her father that she would not peek, and she was beginning to understand the reason for his caution.

  The white man laughed. “Well spoken!” he said in that other language. English, Little Eyes thought, but she did not know how she knew this. “Maybe you lot aren’t quite as savage as you’re made out to be, eh?” He switched back to French. “Things are changing. My people are g
oing to drive the French from this land. Our king commands it. He is a mighty monarch, and his army is vast.”

  At this, a cheer went up from the white man’s companions, and while she couldn’t judge their numbers from the sound, she knew there were more than a few of them.

  The man with the familiar voice continued. “From this day forward, you will trade with us, or you will trade with no one.”

  “And if we will not?” Four Winds asked.

  The white man paused a moment before answering, and when he spoke, she could hear the sly smile in his voice. “Then your memory will be a warning to others not to defy us.”

  Little Eyes heard a scuffling sound then, as of someone’s feet moving across the ground, followed by a muffled grunting noise, as if someone was struggling. Fear gripped her heart, and she could no longer keep her promise to her father. She scooted the rest of the way to the door flap, pushed it aside, and saw two groups of men facing each other in the midst of her people’s bark houses. The men from her village stood before a group of white men bearing lanterns and flintlock rifles. Four Winds stood toe-to-toe with one of the white men—the one who had been speaking for the others, she somehow knew. Her father had stepped forward and grabbed hold of the man’s rifle and was attempting to wrest it from his grip. Their features were twisted into masks of anger, and the lantern light painted them with an unearthly glow, making the two men seem like a pair of evil spirits battling in the night.

  Why weren’t any of the other men from her village helping her father? They stood there, watching and doing nothing! But when she looked again at the white men, she understood. While the men of her village outnumbered them, they’d placed their lanterns on the ground near their feet, flintlocks held at the ready. If any of the men from her village made a move, the white men would fire their weapons.

  Her father was a tall man, strong and brave, but the white man—while shorter of stature and leaner of limb—was younger, and after several moments of struggling, he broke Four Winds’ grip on his rifle, swung the weapon’s butt upward in a vicious arc, and struck her father a solid blow on

  the chin. Four Winds staggered backward, but he did not fall. He remained on his feet and glared at the white man, who grinned, leveled his rifle, aimed, and fired. There was a bright flash accompanied by a crack of thunder, and Four Winds cried out in pain as the gun’s round struck him in the chest. The impact spun him around, and Little Eyes saw the agony on her father’s face along with the blood spreading on his buckskin shirt as he fell to the ground.

  She wailed in anguish, but her voice was drowned out by the crack of gunfire as the rest of the white men began firing. She wanted nothing more than to run outside and go to her father, but instinct prompted her to crawl to the other end of the house and hide beneath the blanket, like a small frightened animal seeking shelter in its burrow. She clapped her hands over her ears, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried not to see her father’s face as he fell, tried not to hear once again the sound he made when the rifle ball pierced his flesh.

  The first round of gunfire ended, and she wondered how many of the village men survived. Would the survivors, if any, attack the white men now with drawn knives or bare hands, or would they instead take advantage of the time it took the white men to reload their flintlocks to get their wives and children and flee into the woods?

  Running. That was a good idea. She should do that. Now, while she still had the chance. But she was too frightened and in too much shock from witnessing her father’s murder to move, and so she remained where she was, hiding beneath the blanket, hands over her ears. It didn’t take the white men as long to reload as she thought, and a second round of thunder passed through the village. When it ended, the white men cheered, and she knew that the men of her village had fallen.

  The screams of women and children came next, and she knew there would be no more gunfire—not for a while, anyway. The white men had conquered her village and would now take their pleasure, and there would be no more killing until they were finished.

  Little Eyes heard the soft rustle of the deer-hide flap being pushed aside as someone entered her home. And it was hers now, hers alone, for her father was dead, just like her mother. She knew what the man, or men, had come for, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop them.

  “It’s OK, Amber. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  It was the man who’d killed her father, but he sounded different now. His accent had changed. He no longer sounded British, he sounded . . . something else. And that name he’d called her. Amber. A strange name, but familiar somehow, too. There was kindness in his voice, and despite everything that had happened, she found it reassuring, and it prompted her to take her hands from her ears and draw back the blanket so she could look at him.

  The man carried a lantern, and its glow filled the bark house. He was dressed in a well-worn wool coat, breeches, and scuffed boots, and he held a flintlock rifle—the weapon that had killed her father—in his other hand. She could smell the harsh tang of burned gunpowder, and she thought that must be what death smelled like. Now that the man was up close, she could make out his features. His black hair was overlong, tangled, and sweat-matted, and his beard was bushy and in need of trimming. But there was something familiar about his ice-blue eyes, and a name whispered through her mind: Greg.

  He smiled as he crouched down and placed both the lantern and the flintlock on the ground. He remained in that position, keeping still as if he were a hunter and she were an animal he didn’t wish to startle with any sudden movements. He spoke then, taking care to keep his voice gentle, but any reassurance his tone might have given her was spoiled by the cries of fear and sorrow coming from the women in the houses around them.

  “This is a dream, Amber. Don’t get me wrong. It did happen, back during the French and Indian War in the 1700s. The massacre took place on the site where the Lowry House would one day be built, as a matter of fact. But what you’re experiencing now is nothing more than a . . . well, a dramatic re-creation, as they say on reality TV. A band of British traders and hunters took it into their heads to attack Native American villages in the Ohio Valley. They figured the fewer Indians there were to fight alongside the French, the better. This is pretty much the way it happened, though your mind reshaped some of the details.” His smile widened. “Just like Hollywood, you couldn’t resist making a good story even better. The attack originally took place before dawn, and there was no confrontation between the chief and the leader of the British raiders. The British snuck into the village while everyone was sleeping and started killing. Once the men were dealt with, they did take their time with the women, though.” His smile took on a darker edge. “And some of the children. You got that part right.”

  Little Eyes’ mind was reeling. On the one hand, this white man—this killer—was speaking nonsense. But part of her, a part that thought of itself as Amber and not Little Eyes, seemed to understand his words.

  “This place may be a dream memory, but you’re real. I’m real.” The man—Greg—scooted closer to her. He continued to smile, but a hungry look came into his eyes. That look made her want to flee, but she couldn’t move. His gaze fixed her in place, as if he were an approaching predator and she were the prey too terrified to do anything but remain frozen and wait for death.

  “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again, Amber. To be close to you. To . . . touch you.”

  He reached out with his right hand and brushed his fingers along her cheek. His flesh was ice-cold, and his touch burned. She gasped in pain and surprise, and without thinking, she lashed out with her hand and raked her fingernails across his own cheek, tearing bloody furrows in his skin.

  If the wound hurt, Greg gave no sign of it. Instead, he laughed as a black tarry substance began to ooze forth from the scratches she’d made. It wasn’t blood, it was darkness, and as it trickled forth, it formed a mass of tiny tendrils that writhed in the air as if alive. They grew
longer and thicker and stretched toward her. She tried to draw back, but the tendrils were fast, and they wrapped around the back of her head and held her fast.

  Greg continued to smile, but now his eyes had been replaced by orbs of pure black.

  “How about a kiss?” he said.

  She felt herself pulled forward as Greg opened his mouth. A mass of ebon tendrils slid over his teeth and between his lips, thicker than the ones protruding from his facial wound, darker, too, and coated with a sheen of viscous slime. The tendrils plunged into her mouth and forced their way down her throat, choking off her screams. She thrashed and struggled as Greg’s darkness poured into her, and in her mind, she heard the sound of his laughter.

  Amber woke gasping for breath. She threw back the covers, jumped out of bed, and ran to the bathroom. She made it to the toilet just in time, and she spent the next several minutes throwing up. When she finished, she flushed, made her way to the sink, and held on to the counter with a death grip to steady herself. The reflection that looked back at her from the mirror was less than attractive. She was pale and shaking, and her hair was so drenched with sweat it looked as if she’d dunked her head under the shower. And if for a second she thought she saw the face of a young Native American girl looking back at her, she told herself that it was an echo of her nightmare and nothing more.

  She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and used a copious amount of mouthwash afterward. She dried her hair with a towel, then brushed it so it didn’t look too hideous, and then she left the bathroom. Her clothes were damp with sweat, so she peeled them off and donned a fresh set: jeans and a purple T-shirt with an image of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter on it. By the time she’d finished, she wasn’t shaking anymore, and she looked at the row of prescription bottles waiting for her on the nightstand. She was used to having bad dreams, but that had been a nasty one, even by her standards. If there was ever a time she could use the aid of pharmaceutical science to get her through the rest of the night, it was now.