“At least this time, the EMTs won’t find any dead bodies waiting for them,” Drew said.
“I’m just glad we got out of there before the cops showed up,” Trevor said. “They’d want to question us for sure, and who knows how long it would be before they released us? The sooner we get to Amber, the better.” He turned the heater on full blast.
“Head for the Lowry House,” Drew said. “That’s where Greg will take her.”
Trevor stepped on the gas, and they zoomed down the suburban streets at highway speeds.
“You do remember the house burned down a decade and a half ago, right?”
“The physical building doesn’t matter so much as the symbolism of it,” Drew insisted. “Greg fed us hallucinations of the Lowry House—or at least its location—at different times in its history. For whatever reason, that place is important to him, and that’s where he wants us to go.”
Ash Creek wasn’t all that large, but the rec center was on the other side of town from the hotel, and even as fast as Trevor was driving, Drew knew it would take several minutes for them to get there. He knew that Amber would have no way of knowing it, but he mentally urged her to hang on, they were coming as fast as they could.
“Are you sure that’s where he’ll take her?” Trevor asked. Despite his words, he turned left on the next street and started heading in the direction of the rec center. “And even if that is where he’s gone, if he has the ability to manipulate people’s minds, he could make it so that we couldn’t see him even if we were looking straight at him. Hell, he could be sitting with Amber in the backseat, and we might never know it.”
“I thought of that,” Drew said, resisting the urge to turn around and check the back. “But if Greg wanted to hide from us, why would he have manipulated her into convincing us to come to the reunion in the first place, and why would he toy with us the way he has? Sending hallucinations, killing two men in front of us, attempting to kill an entire roomful of people and challenging us to save them. He chose to reveal himself to us and let us see the kind of power he wields. It’s all part of an elaborate game he’s playing. It’s why he took Amber. Well, one of the reasons,” he amended. “He wants us to chase him, as if he’s a child playing a game of keep-away.”
“But why?” Trevor asked. “What could he want with us?”
He shrugged. “Payback, maybe. We may have let him hang out with us in high school, but we never accepted him as a friend, at least not a close one.”
“And he had a thing for Amber,” Trevor added, “which means he’s jealous of the two of you.”
“There is no two of us,” Drew said. “We’re just . . .” He trailed off when Trevor gave him a look. “All right. Maybe he is jealous. But the most important reason is likely something we don’t remember. He was with us that night in the Lowry House, and something happened to him, something that he blames us for.” He turned to look at Trevor. “The paranormal is your realm of expertise. Where do you think he got his powers from?”
Trevor thought for a moment before answering. “I suppose it’s possible that he’s been possessed.”
“You mean by a demon?” He couldn’t believe he was suggesting such a thing, but then, before this weekend, he hadn’t believed in psychic abilities, either, and he’d come to accept that Greg had them. He wondered how many more impossible things he’d come to believe before the night was over.
Assuming he lived that long.
“Maybe not by a demon per se,” Trevor said. “If a place can become a repository of negative psychic energy, why not a person?”
“You think Greg was . . . what? Infected by the evil of the Lowry House?”
“Something like that. But the amount of power he wields, I’ve never heard of anything like it. I’ve interviewed people who claimed they could read people’s minds or move small objects telekinetically, though most of them were never able to do so in my presence, and those who could, well, I was never able to prove beyond a doubt that they were the real deal. But what Greg can do is light-years beyond anything I’ve ever read about, let alone seen.”
They fell into silence for a time after that, and Drew gazed out the window as they drove. It was full night now, and although streetlights were illuminated and porch lights glowed, they did little to dispel the surrounding darkness. He found himself thinking that in a sense, humanity hadn’t come all that far since its primitive beginnings, when people huddled close together in their shelters, fires burning to ward off the dangers lurking somewhere in the shadows. Before tonight, he would have said that those lights, while practical safety precautions, served primarily as psychological comforts. But he had a different perspective now, for he had a better idea of what truly dwelled in the darkness, and he knew that whatever else happened this night, he would never again look at the world in the same way.
He was pulled out of his thoughts as Trevor turned another corner. He recognized the neighborhood and knew it would be only a few more minutes until they reached the rec center.
Evidently, Trevor was thinking along the same lines. “At first, I was all for rushing off like the cavalry to save Amber—and don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to turn back—but now that I’ve had time to think, I’m wondering if we’re ready to face Greg on our own. I mean, neither of us is an action hero. We don’t have guns, and we’re hardly masters of hand-to-hand combat. Maybe we should call the police and tell them Greg kidnapped Amber. I mean, we have to do everything we can to help her, right? What if the two of us aren’t enough to get the job done?”
Trevor sounded scared, and Drew didn’t blame him. He was scared, too.
“Greg wants us to come to him, so he’s not going to kill us—at least, not until he’s gotten whatever it is he wants from us. But if anyone else shows up, there’s a good chance he’ll kill them on the spot. So even if we could convince the police that he’s kidnapped Amber and taken her to the rec center, they wouldn’t be able to deal with him, guns or no guns. All we’d be doing is sending them to their deaths. And we can’t do that.”
Trevor sighed. “No, I suppose we can’t. Too bad. I’d feel a whole lot better about this if we had a SWAT team or a squad of Navy SEALs accompanying us.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Drew couldn’t help smiling. “I guess the two of us will have to do, you armed with your knowledge of the paranormal and your rapier wit, me with my psychological training and penetrating insight.”
Trevor moaned. “Oh, man, we are screwed!” The car’s interior had gotten quite warm while they drove, but the heat hadn’t done much to dry their clothes. Instead, Drew felt wet and hot, and the sensation was far from comfortable. He reached out and turned down the heat. Trevor glanced at him but didn’t say anything.
Trevor continued driving in silence after that, and Drew mentally reviewed what they’d learned earlier about cleansing rituals. That knowledge might be the only real weapon they had to use against Greg, assuming that it still applied.
The rituals they’d read about on various paranormal-centered Web sites or from e-mail queries and live chat sessions with Trevor’s somewhat dubious contacts had only addressed cleansing “Bad Places.” They’d said nothing about cleansing bad people. Still, it was all that they had, and maybe the knowledge could be adapted to their situation. The rituals, while having some features in common, could be divided into three basic types: magical, religious, and what Drew thought of as psychic-spiritual. Magical cleansings depended on arcane rituals and evocations of ancient spiritual entities. Certain physical items were required, too, such as chalk for drawing mystical symbols, candles and incense, musical instruments such as bells, and the like. Religious cleansings were also very ritualized, but they relied on spoken prayers addressed to a specific deity. Psychic-spiritual cleansings were less structured and depended more on countering a negative spiritual force with positive psychic energy in order to nullify it or at the very least drive it away from the location it had attached itself to. Meditation a
nd visualization played primary roles in this type of cleansing.
Before the banquet, the three of them had debated the merits and drawbacks of each approach. They’d decided against the magical approach because there were too many rituals to choose from, and all required materials they couldn’t easily get their hands on. They’d decided against a religious approach for similar reasons. While they all had their own spiritual beliefs, none of them was a strong adherent to a particular religious tradition, so which ritual would they choose? And without deep, sincere faith backing it up, how would a religious ritual stand any chance of success? In the end, they’d decided to go with the psychic-spiritual approach for practical reasons. While the rituals were less tied to magical or godlike forces, at its core, the basic approach was the same as the magical or religious variety: marshaling positive psychic-spiritual energy to counter negative energy and nullify it or at least drive it out of a location. The plan was for the three of them to return to the location of the Lowry House, find a way into the rec center, confront whatever force inhabited it, set their combined will against it, and, if possible, cast it out.
At least, that had been the plan, until Greg had stepped in and abducted Amber.
Then again, Drew thought, this development could work in their favor. It seemed clear that Greg was somehow linked to the negative energy that infested the Lowry property. Greg was a person. He could be talked to, reasoned with . . . True, he’d struck Drew as a sociopath, and his actions up to this point didn’t belie that impression, but what if he had been acting under the influence of the darkness that had taken up residence inside him? If they could reach the person hidden beneath that darkness, maybe he could help them counter the negative energy that had soaked into the Lowry property over the long years like toxic spiritual radiation.
A lot of ifs there, Drew thought. Still, they had no choice but to play the hand they were dealt and hope for the best.
Trevor had been silent for the last few moments, but then he said, “This would be easier if we had our memories back. That way, we might have a better idea of what we’re going to be up against.”
“I don’t know,” Drew said. “Maybe it’s better we don’t remember. If we did, maybe we’d be too damned scared to go inside.”
“That’s a cheery thought,” Trevor muttered. “Do me a favor: don’t ever try to get a job writing greeting cards.”
He was about to reply when they turned onto the street where the rec center was located. A Lexus was parked on the street in front of the center, and Trevor pulled up behind it.
“That must be Greg’s car,” Drew said.
“Of course it is. The villain always has a sweet ride, doesn’t he?” Trevor put his Prius in park, turned off the engine, and removed the keys from the ignition. “There’s a flashlight in the glovebox.”
He got it and opened the passenger-side door. Before he climbed out, Trevor said, “Don’t close it all the way. We want to make as little noise as possible.”
Once outside, Drew stood and looked at the rec center, but there was nothing much to see, just a dark shape sitting on the spot where the Lowry House had once stood. If Greg and Amber were inside, there was no sign. No lights burning in any of the windows, and no neon sign over the entrance proclaiming “Heroes Enter Here.”
Trevor headed toward the rear of the car, and he followed. He didn’t turn on the flashlight yet, but he figured that was likely an unnecessary precaution. As powerful as Greg was, he had probably already sensed their arrival. Still, no point in making things any easier for him, was there?
Trevor thumbed a button on the car remote, and the trunk popped open. He reached inside and pulled out a tire iron.
“What’s that for?” Drew asked. He spoke in a near whisper, and Trevor answered him the same way.
“Whatever else he’s become, Greg’s still a man, isn’t he? That means he’s got a skull to bash in, and since I don’t have any automatic weapons stashed in the trunk, this is better than going in unarmed.”
Trevor didn’t close the trunk, not wanting to make any noise, and he pocketed his keys without thumbing the remote to lock the car, presumably for the same reason.
“Ready?” Trevor said.
Drew nodded, and the two of them started across the lawn toward the rec center. As they approached the quiet, dark building, he couldn’t help thinking of the old poem that started with the line “‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly.”
He hoped things would turn out differently for them from how they had for the fly. But as they drew near the rec center’s entrance and saw that the front doors were open wide, as if the building had been waiting for them, he felt his hope fade.
Beyond the open doorway was a solid wall of darkness, and there was no way to see what might be lying in wait for them there. Despite his earlier reluctance to turn on the flashlight, Drew saw no help for it now. He flicked the switch, and a feeble beam of light emerged that did little to push back the shadows within the building. In some ways, the ineffectiveness of the light made the darkness that remained seem all the thicker and more impenetrable.
Drew and Trevor exchanged a last look, and then together they entered the building.
SIXTEEN
Since the rec center wasn’t open to the public yet, Trevor expected the interior to be unfurnished. Floor tiles not in place, electrical wires exposed, plaster walls unpainted . . . But as Drew played the flashlight’s meager beam back and forth, they saw that everything was finished, floor, wall, ceiling all complete, surfaces painted, tiles in place. And the air, while a bit stuffy, held the smells of new construction: freshly cut wood, untarnished metal, and the chemical tang of recently applied paint. They stood in the reception area, a counter to their left, men’s and women’s restrooms to the right. The space behind the counter was empty, though. No desks or chairs, no computers or office equipment of any kind. From the state of the reception area, Trevor assumed that the rest of the building—gym, track, exercise rooms—would be completed last, as they would only be needed when the place was open and ready for business. After that, all that would be necessary was for the office equipment to be delivered and set up, and the good people of Ash Creek would be able to enjoy the newest indoor playground their town had to offer.
Assuming, of course, that what the two of them were looking at was real. Greg had already demonstrated the ability to enter their minds and make them experience realistic hallucinations. What if he was doing so now? Maybe the two of them weren’t really here at all but rather back at the hotel, only believing they’d left and driven to the rec center. For that matter, maybe they hadn’t come to the reunion in the first place. Maybe the three of them were still at home, lying unconscious in their beds and only dreaming they’d returned to Ash Creek. And who said that Drew and Amber were really here at all? Maybe Greg had made Trevor only think they were, when in truth, he was the only one caught in Greg’s psychic trap, and Greg was using the illusion of his two friends to torment him further.
Trevor felt panic beginning to well up inside him. If he was alone, what could he do against a being with Greg’s power? Without his friends—without Drew’s intelligence and Amber’s heart—he wouldn’t stand a chance against Greg. He was just a man with strong curiosity about the paranormal, and the last time he’d checked, that didn’t count as a superpower. What could he do? Pester Greg with questions and annoy him to death?
Stop it! he told himself. Indulging in an existential crisis right now wasn’t going to help anyone. Yes, Greg could use his abilities to make them believe whatever he wanted, and that meant they couldn’t trust their eyes and ears, at least not completely. But they had work to do, and instead of standing around wondering what was real and what wasn’t, they should get down to it. Besides, he had his tire iron, right? He gripped the makeshift weapon tighter, and while he knew that it probably wouldn’t do any good against Greg, the solid feel of metal in his hand was reassuring nevertheless.
&n
bsp; He looked at Drew, who nodded, and they started walking forward, moving past the reception counter and into the center’s main hallway. They did their best to walk quietly, but their footfalls echoed in the still, stale air, sounding as loud as gunshots to his ears. There was no way Greg didn’t know they were coming, but what else could they do? Run down the hallway as fast as they could, shouting at the top of their lungs for Greg to come out and face them?
He leaned closer to Drew and whispered, “Here we are, back inside the Lowry House after fifteen years, on our way to confront an evil force, and I still don’t remember anything more about that night than I did before we entered. Too bad. If we did, maybe we’d gain some insight into how to deal with Greg.”
They came to a place where the hallway branched off to either side and stopped. Before they could discuss which way to go, a figure emerged from the shadows on their left and stepped toward them. Trevor raised his tire iron and started to swing it at the figure, but Drew reached out and caught him by the wrist before he could strike a blow. Drew then shone the flashlight onto the figure’s face, and he was horrified to see that he’d almost smashed his tire iron into the side of Amber’s head.
Her expression was blank, her eyes as empty as a doll’s. But then she blinked several times, her eyes focused on them, and she frowned.
“Trevor? Drew?” she said. Her tone was soft, her words slurred, as if she’d just woken from sleep. “What are you doing here?”
“Coming to your rescue,” Drew said. “At least, that’s what we thought.”
“A couple of knights in tarnished armor,” Trevor added. “That’s us.”
“Are you all right?” Drew asked. He moved the flashlight beam up and down Amber’s body, checking her for injuries, but there was none—at least, none obvious to the naked eye. He touched a pair of fingers to the side of her neck to check her pulse.
Ghost Trackers Page 20
