Ghost Trackers

by Grant Wilson Jason Hawes

  Stockslager’s fat earthworm lips formed a small smile. “You’re stronger than I thought you’d be. Good for you.”

  Trevor’s initial excitement upon finding himself experiencing what seemed to be an honest-to-God psychic event was waning fast. Whatever sort of apparition Stockslager was, he felt real, and more, he felt strong. Malevolent power rolled off the man in waves, and it seemed to be increasing in strength with every passing second. As a kid, Trevor had ridden his bike past a power substation out in the country, and he’d sensed as much as heard the thrum of electricity surging through the machines, felt the air itself vibrate, making his skin tingle and itch. Being in the barn with Stockslager was like that, only much worse.

  “I, uh, I think I’d like this to be over now,” he said.

  Stockslager chuckled with that smooth, deep voice of his. “You think this is like a dream, where you can will yourself to wake up when things get too scary for you? It doesn’t work like that, Trevor. Not even close.”

  Fire whooshed to life beneath the still, startling him. The flames rose high and hot, curling up the sides of the metal canister, which began to ping and rattle as its contents came to a rapid boil. The interior of the barn, so frigid a second ago, became hot, and he felt beads of sweat begin to form on his skin.

  “Alcohol’s good for a lot of things,” Stockslager said, still sitting, still holding his shotgun butt-first against the ground. “It helps loosen people’s tongues. Helps lower their inhibitions so they can find the courage to do things they might not otherwise do. Helps them laugh and cry, helps them relax . . .” His lips stretched into a grin. “Helps them get laid. But you know what the best thing about alcohol is, Trevor?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on the Historical Society’s reference room, its sights and smells. He thought about Amber sitting across the table from him. Presumably, his body was still there, still seated, his face still pointed at an old yellowed newspaper article detailing Stockslager’s death at the hands of the police. Whatever was happening here—wherever here was—it wasn’t real. At least, not as real as the reference room. If he could concentrate hard enough, shut out what was happening here, maybe he could reconnect to his body and shift his consciousness back to where it belonged.

  Stockslager went on. “The best thing about alcohol is that it can be used as a preservative.”

  He heard a new sound over the crackling of flames, the metallic pinging of the still, and the hiss of escaping steam. A soft rustling, followed by a scratching. Despite his attempt to shut them out, the sounds conjured images in his mind: earth being pushed aside, fingernails clawing on the ground . . . He didn’t want to open his eyes, was too afraid to look, but that wasn’t the only emotion he felt. He was also curious, and in the end, his curiosity won out. He opened his eyes, but he already knew what sight would greet him when he did.

  Seven pairs of women’s hands had thrust their way upward from their owners’ graves and were scrabbling at the ground, as if trying to find enough purchase to pull the rest of their bodies free of the earth’s embrace. Their flesh was a mottled bluish white, and they reeked of the moonshine that Stockslager had used to preserve them.

  He was grinning, appropriately enough, like a madman, and he now rose to his feet with a silent grace that Trevor found incongruous for a man of his size. He shouldered his shotgun and aimed the muzzle at Trevor’s head. The fat man closed his left eye as he sighted with his right.

  “See you later, Trevor.”

  There was a flash like lightning, a crash like thunder, and darkness rushed in to claim Trevor before he could scream.

  “Trevor? Trevor? Are you all right?”

  He looked at the pretty woman’s face for several seconds without realizing what he was seeing. She was just a shape at first, color and form without any meaning. But as the seconds passed, he began to understand that he was looking at a woman, a woman named Amber, and then, just like that, everything came rushing back to him, and he drew in a gasping breath of air.

  She looked worried, and Trevor wondered how long he’d been sitting there, zoned out, while she tried to rouse him. For her sake, he hoped it hadn’t been too long.

  He forced a smile. “I’m all right.” His voice sounded shaky, and the words came out a bit funny, as if his mouth was having trouble remembering how to shape them. “Guess I got a little too caught up in my research.”

  He closed the book in front of him too forcefully, and the cover thumped shut with a sound that reminded him too much of a shotgun blast.

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Bullshit,” she said. “Something’s wrong, and you’re going to tell me what. Or else.”

  His smile was a little less forced this time. “Or what?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’ll think of something.”

  He sighed. “All right. But let’s talk somewhere else, OK? I’ve had enough of this place for one day.”

  They found the old woman in charge of the reference materials, told her they were finished, and thanked her for her help. As they left, Trevor thought about the last thing Stockslager had said to him.

  See you later.

  Although the air was cool when they stepped out of the building, he felt hot, as if he stood too close to a blazing fire, and the sharp tang of alcohol clung to the inside of his nose.

  ELEVEN

  Drew entered the hotel lobby feeling like an idiot, mostly because that was how the doctor at the urgent care had treated him. Then again, he supposed he couldn’t blame the woman. After all, how often did she have a patient walk in on a Saturday claiming he might have been exposed to some kind of poison even though he wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms? Still, she’d given him a thorough examination, including blood work, but it would be a while before the results came back. As best as she could determine, he was in excellent health, and there appeared to be no signs of poisoning. She told him to call if he began displaying any symptoms and then sent him on his way, but not before asking if he’d ever had any therapy.

  Drew had been half amused, half irritated by the doctor’s implication that he was experiencing paranoid delusions. He’d been tempted to tell her that he was a psychologist himself and would know if he was suffering from mental illness, but he’d kept his mouth shut. He’d been vague when the doctor asked when and how he thought he’d been exposed to poison, if only because he hadn’t wanted to complicate the situation further by telling her that he’d discovered two dead bodies in the last twenty-four hours. He’d feared that would make him seem even crazier to her. And the truth was, he could sympathize with the doctor. If a patient came to him with a similar story, he’d be more than a little skeptical himself.

  The hotel had been around as long as Drew could remember, but the lobby was newly refurbished, all chrome and glass and reflective surfaces, with strategically placed green plants hanging from the ceiling, sitting on counters, or standing in large pots in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to soften the cold metallic feeling of the décor. Leather chairs and couches were arranged in the center of the lobby so that guests could socialize, but none was tempted to at the moment—which was fine with him, since he didn’t feel like talking with anyone right then. He selected a chair, headed to it, sat down, leaned back, and closed his eyes so he could think.

  Part of what made the doctor’s reaction to him sting so much was that it brought out something he had been feeling but hadn’t wanted to face. Returning to Ash Creek, reuniting with Trevor and Amber, visiting the site of the Lowry House again for the first time in fifteen years, not to mention discovering those two men dead and being questioned by the police, all contributed to a weekend that, to put it mildly, wasn’t normal. It was hard to maintain a rational perspective in such circumstances.

  He’d started falling for Amber again like a lovesick teenager, and he’d become willing to entertain the possibility of a paranormal explanation for the events that had occurred since they’d returned to town. Even when he
’d been a teenager and investigated reports of paranormal activity in Ash Creek, he’d managed to maintain a healthy, clear-eyed skepticism. He’d been intrigued by the possibility that there was more to existence than science could explain, but he’d never allowed that to color how he viewed the evidence they collected. And what evidence did they have now? None, really. Amber had experienced a strange dream, the three of them had shared a hallucination of Greg on fire, and they’d discovered the bodies of two men who’d died in strange circumstances. That was it. Everything else was half-recalled memories and suppositions. Nothing more. It was all weird, no doubt about it, but it didn’t constitute actual proof.

  It was bad enough that he, a trained psychologist, had gotten swept up, but he feared that he was enabling Trevor and especially Amber, helping them to indulge their fantasies and, worse, legitimizing those fantasies by giving them his professional sanction. After all, he was a skeptical psychologist, and if he believed something paranormal was going on, then there had to be, right?

  Maybe he’d made a mistake by letting Trevor talk him into coming here this weekend. Maybe it would be better if he left now before things went any further. Trevor and Amber would be upset with him, but he could attempt to explain his reasons for leaving later. And although he knew it wasn’t rational, part of him thought that if Amber was right and the three of them reuniting had somehow awakened some kind of strange force that existed in Ash Creek, perhaps if they were no longer together, the whatever-it-was would become quiet again. If that was true, then by leaving, he might actually save lives.

  But what if it didn’t go back to sleep? How could he leave his friends to face the force alone?

  Listen to yourself, he thought. You have no evidence that there’s some sort of bogeyman running around Ash Creek. Keep up this sort of thinking, and when you get back to Chicago, you’ll end up as a patient in your own hospital.

  “What’s wrong, buddy? You party a little too much last night?”

  Drew opened his eyes to see Greg Daniels standing before him, smiling. He wore a navy-blue mock turtleneck, jeans, and running shoes. Fit and handsome, he looked as if he’d stepped out of a clothing catalogue, the image at odds with the Greg whom Drew remembered from high school.

  Drew smiled. “Guess I’m not as young as I used to be. How about you? You seem lively enough, considering that you’re helping the alumni committee this weekend. I’d think they’d be running you ragged.”

  “They are, but you know how it is. Sheer adrenaline keeps me going. Well, that and liberal quantities of extra-strong coffee.” He grinned. “Still, I could use a breather, and I think the committee can make do without me, for a couple minutes, at least.” He slid into the chair next to Drew.

  He had planned to track down Greg once he returned to the hotel and ask him what he remembered about that night in the Lowry House. But now that he was considering leaving, there didn’t seem to be any point in questioning him. Still, Greg was there, and despite everything, he couldn’t help being curious about what the man did and didn’t remember about that night. Besides, asking questions was what he did, right? But before he could start, Greg began talking.

  “It must be strange for you . . . being together with Trevor and Amber again, I mean.”

  Drew tried not to sound too much like a psychologist as he asked, “What makes you say that?”

  “The three of you were inside the Lowry House when it burned down. And from what I gathered when I spoke to Amber on the phone a while back, you haven’t seen one another since. And the three of you don’t remember what happened. At least, that’s the story that went around town afterward. Is it true? You really don’t remember anything that took place inside the house?”

  “It’s true,” Drew said. “We recall scattered fragments, but they don’t make much sense. So . . . you weren’t with us that night?”

  “No. You guys ditched me.” He smiled. “I guess you don’t remember that part, either. I was pretty mad at the time, but considering what happened, I’m glad you left me out. Otherwise, I might’ve ended up traumatized, too. Or worse.” Something cold and hard came into his gaze then, but it vanished so quickly Drew wasn’t certain he’d seen it.

  “Did any of us talk to you about it afterward? Did we tell you anything that we might have since forgotten?”

  Greg shook his head. “I didn’t come visit any of you in the hospital, and I avoided talking to you at school after you were released. Like I said, I was pretty angry.”

  Drew kept his expression neutral, but a thought occurred to him then. Had Greg been angry enough at them for ditching him that he’d not only followed them to the Lowry House that night but also set the fire that had burned the house down? Maybe he hadn’t intended to hurt them, only scare them, but the fire had gotten out of hand and spread, nearly killing them. He supposed it was possible, and it could explain the hallucination the three of them had experienced of Greg wreathed in flame. It might have been not a literal memory but rather a symbolic image of him being associated with the fire that destroyed the Lowry House.

  Except that Drew had a strong feeling that Greg had been present in the Lowry House that night. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost see him there, hear his voice . . . but the memories were slippery, shadowy things at best, and despite Drew’s efforts, they refused to be dragged into the light. Frustrated, he decided to change the subject.

  “So, what’s your story? What happened to you after that night?”

  Greg chuckled. “You really don’t remember, do you? Once you, Amber, and Trevor got out of the hospital, you stopped hanging around together. It wasn’t as if you acted like the others didn’t exist. You’d talk, but you weren’t best buddies anymore. I got over being angry with the three of you, but by that time, you’d pretty much gone your separate ways, and even though I tried to reconnect with you guys, things weren’t the same. And then, when my parents died, I went to go live with my aunt in Rhode Island, and I lost touch with everyone in Ohio. I graduated from high school in Rhode Island, so I guess I shouldn’t be here for Ash Creek’s reunion, but I’ve always felt more of a connection to the old hometown. So, this year, I decided to attend. I’m glad I did. It’s been great getting to see old friends and catch up with them.”

  There was something in Greg’s tone as he said these last words—a hint of amused playfulness along the lines of a double entendre, with a glint in his eye and a slight upturn of his mouth—that disturbed Drew, but he wasn’t sure why.

  “I don’t remember your parents dying,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Car accident,” Greg said, his tone casual, as if he were discussing the time or the weather. “And speaking of accidents, what do you think about Sean Houser and Jerry Cottrill both dropping dead like that? Weird, huh? And you finding both of them . . . what are the odds?”

  There it was again, that undercurrent of amusement, as if he was enjoying a private joke of some sort.

  “It was disturbing, to put it mildly, but you don’t seem too upset about their deaths.”

  Greg shrugged. “It’s not as if I was close to either of them. Besides, as disturbing as finding them might have been for you, I don’t see you crying about it. But then, I suppose they trained you to keep a tight rein on your emotions in psychology school. The whole detached, clinical distance thing, right?”

  Greg’s words verged on the combative, though his tone remained casual enough. But there was an old cliché that said that the eyes were the windows to the soul, and while the concept might be phrased poetically, in Drew’s experience, it held a great deal of truth. You could tell a lot about some-one’s emotional state by his gaze, and right now, Greg’s was hard and flat. Drew had seen similar looks before in the eyes of sociopaths. Cold, calculating, devoid of both empathy and sympathy. They might appear charming enough on the surface, but that was just a tool they used to manipulate the people around them, protective coloration they employed to keep others from recognizing who and what
they really were. In truth, they cared about one thing and one thing only: satisfying their desires, regardless of the cost to others.

  The Greg Daniels he remembered from high school might have been annoying and socially maladjusted, but he hadn’t been a sociopath. Then again, Drew had been a kid himself at the time, his training in psychology still years ahead of him, and it wasn’t as if he’d had any experience in spotting a sociopath back then. But on the other hand, he’d always had good people instincts, which was one of the reasons he’d chosen psychology as a career. He liked to think that if Greg had demonstrated signs of being a sociopath back in high school, he’d have noticed, even if he wouldn’t have understood what those signs meant. Maybe Greg had been skilled at hiding his true nature; sociopaths learned to blend in with everyone else from a very young age. Or, he thought, maybe somewhere along the line, something had happened to Greg to change him.

  He decided to keep the conversation going and see where else it might lead. “Has there been any talk about canceling the reunion? I’d think two deaths would put a damper on the festivities.”

  “The alumni committee considered it,” Greg admitted. “You might expect something like this to happen if we were old farts attending our sixtieth reunion or something, but our fifteenth? It’s shocking for one death to occur, let alone two. But the committee decided to go on. They’ll devote some time at the banquet tonight to honor Sean and Jerry, have some people get up and speak, share remembrances, that sort of thing. And they’ll dedicate the dance afterward to their memory. I suppose it’ll put a damper on the party atmosphere, and some folks will skip the dance and head back to their rooms, but as for the others . . .” Another shrug. “Life goes on, you know?”

  Greg sounded sympathetic, but the lifeless look in his eyes didn’t change. They reminded Drew of shark’s eyes: cold, dark, and, above all, hungry.

  “So, where are Trevor and Amber?” Greg asked. “The three of you looked pretty cozy in the bar last night. I figured you’d be inseparable this weekend.”