Ghost Trackers

by Grant Wilson Jason Hawes

  Amber gripped his arm tightly. “It’s your turn,” she said. “Trevor and I handled the other scenarios, so this one has to be yours.”

  He saw a certain twisted logic to what she suggested. It fit with the way Greg had been playing this game so far.

  He knew they had mere moments until Lowry reached then, and either he’d impale them on his body or force them into the blade barrier on the stairs. Either way, they’d be just as dead. Time to think fast.

  Both Amber and Trevor had beaten the last two scenarios because they’d understood something profound about the scenarios themselves, and they’d used that knowledge as a weapon. But he was a healer. He’d dedicated his life to understanding people, to empathizing with their pain so he could discover how best to help them. He wasn’t a fighter. No, he realized. He was a fighter, a warrior, but one of the mind instead of the body. And considering that this scenario was a psychic landscape with no physical reality, that meant that he was standing on his preferred battlefield.

  “They forgave you, you know,” he said. “Your family, I mean.”

  Lowry stopped and stared at him. The grin fell away from his face, but he said nothing.

  Drew didn’t know if Lowry was really there or if he was talking to Greg in disguise. But the last two scenarios had appeared to have at least some independent reality of their own, so he decided to proceed as if things were as they seemed. If there was even a sliver of Lowry’s spirit present, he’d do his best to attempt to reach it.

  “They knew you loved them,” he said. “And they must’ve heard the voices, too. At the very least, they’d have sensed the darkness in the house. Yes, they were terrified when you attacked them, and they died in horrible pain. But once that pain ended and they were freed from their mortal flesh, I’m sure they could see what had been done to you, how, despite your best efforts, you’d become corrupted by the evil that infested your home. Once they understood that, they knew that what you’d done wasn’t your fault, and they forgave you.”

  Lowry continued looking at him, and while it was difficult to read the man’s expression, given the fact that his face was covered with protruding knife blades, he seemed to be experiencing an internal struggle. Drew didn’t know if he’d managed to reach Lowry, but the man wasn’t rushing forward to impale them, and he decided to take that as a good sign.

  But then Lowry’s expression hardened, and although it now seemed more than a bit redundant, he raised the knife he held and started toward them again.

  For a terrible instant, Drew feared that he’d failed, and while the prospect of his own death was bad enough, the thought that he’d doomed Trevor and Amber—especially Amber—filled him with sorrow.

  But then rustling sounds came from the children’s bedroom, causing Lowry to halt once more. He lowered his blade and turned back to face the open doorway, curiosity mingled with more than a little fear in his gaze.

  They came lurching out into the hallway, mother and children, drenched with blood and moving with awkward, spastic motions, as if they were having trouble getting their dead bodies to function.

  The mother—Helen, Lowry had called her—opened her mouth and spoke a single word in a thick, liquid voice. “Forgive . . .”

  The children echoed her, speaking in the same wet tones. “Forgive . . . Forgive . . .”

  They reached out for Lowry as they came, and he raised his knife. For a second, Drew thought he might attack his family and attempt to finish the job he’d started, but then he lowered his hand and let the knife slip from his fingers. It fell to the floor with a solid thump, and as it did, the blades protruding from his body retracted, until they were gone.

  A strangled sob escaped his lips then. “I’m sorry,” he said. “So very sorry.”

  He walked forward to embrace his family, and with fresh tears pouring down his face, he stepped into their arms and hugged them back as fiercely as they hugged him.

  And then Lowry screamed as his wife and children began tearing away chunks of his flesh with their hands and teeth. He collapsed to the floor, still screaming, and his family fell on him with savage enthusiasm.

  He didn’t scream much longer after that.

  When Lowry was silent, his wife looked up at Drew, Amber, and Trevor, her husband’s blood dribbling down her chin.

  “Forgive,” she said. “Not forget.”

  Then she rejoined her children in their feast, and an instant later, their forms, Lowry’s included, became insubstantial and drifted away like so much mist. The blood they’d spilled vanished with them, and when Drew turned to examine the stairs, he found the blade barrier gone, too.

  Feeling more than a bit queasy, he turned to his friends and managed a feeble smile. “Three down,” he said. “What now?”

  “The basement,” Trevor said, looking more than a little green around the gills himself. “Where else?” He let out a weary sigh. “I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’ve had enough paranormal experiences tonight to last me the rest of my life. How about we head back to the hotel, get a good night’s rest, and come back and confront Greg tomorrow after a nice breakfast?” He raised his voice, and his tone took on a hysterical edge. “How’s that sound to you, Greg? You have to be bushed yourself, what with creating all these scenarios for us.”

  At first, nothing happened. Then Greg’s voice echoed around them. He sounded amused. Thanks for your concern, Trevor, old buddy, but I’m still holding up fine. But I suppose there’s no reason to put this off any longer.

  The hallway began to become indistinct and hazy, as if losing its grip on reality, or vice versa. Everything around them became dark then, and although Drew’s flashlight continued to shine and illuminated the immediate area, they could see nothing.

  No need to rely on your flashlight alone, Greg said. Not when I brought my own light.

  A soft glow came into existence about ten feet from where they stood, and Drew realized that he was looking at a kerosene lantern, the kind people used when camping. It rested on a concrete floor, and sitting cross-legged next to it was an overweight teenage boy with acne-dotted skin and oily hair, wearing an old Army jacket, jeans, and running shoes. He was grinning, but his gaze held no mirth.

  “It’s Greg,” Amber said. “The way he used to be.”

  And then, in a sudden rush, the last pieces of Drew’s missing memories returned, and he knew everything.

  NINETEEN

  “Aren’t you going to thank me?” Greg asked. Although he resembled a teenage boy, the mocking tone in his voice and the matching smile were those of an adult.

  “Thank you?” Trevor stepped forward, hands balled into fists as if he wanted to hit him. “You just had us fight our way through your version of a low-rent carnival spookhouse, and you expect us to thank you?”

  Amber wondered if Trevor still held the tire iron in one of his hands. Just because she couldn’t see it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He had used it to bash a hole in the side of Stockslager’s barn, and the tire iron hadn’t been visible then. She wondered if he even remembered the tire iron by this point, and if so, if he was tempted to use it on Greg. She wondered if she wanted him to. Before tonight, she couldn’t have imagined wishing harm on another person. Not seriously, anyway. But after everything Greg had put them through, not to mention the two people he’d killed and the dozens more he’d tried to kill, if she’d had a tire iron, she’d have smashed his head in right then without a moment’s hesitation.

  Greg focused his gaze on her, and his smile softened. “No, you wouldn’t. At your core, you’re too gentle a soul. It’s one of the qualities I admire most in you.”

  Drew and Trevor looked at her.

  “He’s reading my thoughts.” She was surprised to hear how calm she sounded. Here they were, confronting a man who possessed the power to kill with his mind, and she was acting as if it was no big deal. Maybe she was numb from everything they’d gone through to get to this point.

  Greg rose to his feet, but he made
no move toward them. “Or maybe you realize that I mean none of you any harm.”

  Drew’s brow knitted in a skeptical frown. “Are you saying that despite the way it seemed, none of us was in any danger as we made our way through the scenarios you created?”

  “Well . . . maybe I should say that I hoped no harm would come to any of you. Believe it or not, I was rooting for you the whole way. The challenges—and the dangers they presented—were very real. In a metaphysical sense, at least. They were re-creations of what you experienced when you came here as teenagers. And the three of you performed magnificently! You didn’t shrink before any of the obstacles I set before you, and you found a way to counter each one. And now, like all triumphant heroes, you get to receive your just reward.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Trevor demanded.

  “Our memories,” Drew said. “They’ve been restored. That’s what he was referring to when he suggested we should thank him.” He turned to Greg. “Isn’t that right?”

  He nodded. “That’s what this whole weekend was about, after all. Well, a big part of it, anyway.”

  Amber couldn’t believe what she’d heard, but when she thought back to the night when they’d first explored the Lowry House, she found no blank spaces in her memory. It was all there, every moment, every thought, every emotion she’d experienced back then. The sheer amount of information that inundated her was so overwhelming that she thought she might become lost in all of it, but then it began to settle, like the silt at the bottom of a stream after someone has tossed in a very large rock.

  “It’s true,” Trevor said, his voice filled with awe and excitement. “I remember that after we saw Lowry, we came down to the basement.” He glanced around. “It looked just like this. Empty like the rest of the house.” He turned back to Greg. “Empty except for you, that is.”

  “You were sitting cross-legged on the floor,” Drew said, “just as you were a moment ago. And the lantern was sitting on the floor next to you.”

  “We tried to talk to you, find out what you were doing here, but you didn’t respond,” Amber said. “You sat and stared straight ahead. We tried to shake you to rouse you, and when that didn’t work, we shook you harder.”

  “And when that didn’t work, I smacked you across the face,” Trevor said. “Like they do in the movies. I have to admit I enjoyed that, but it didn’t work, either.”

  “We discussed what to do,” Drew said. “None of us had cell phones back then, or we’d have called nine-one-one, despite not wanting to get in trouble with our parents for sneaking into the Lowry House.”

  “We thought about one of us running home to get our parents while the others stayed with you,” Trevor said. “But I convinced Drew and Amber that we needed to get you out of the house. After everything we’d experienced, I was sure that the spiritual forces in the house had affected you somehow, maybe even taken you over. I hoped you might return to normal if we could put some physical distance between you and the house.”

  “Drew and Trevor each took one of your arms and tried to haul you to your feet,” Amber said. “But the moment they touched you, you began to laugh.”

  “It was one of those creepy this-guy-has-lost-his-mind laughs,” Trevor said. “The sort of thing I imagine Drew hears a lot in his practice.”

  “Bad as it was, the laugh was far from the worst part,” Drew said. “The flame in your lantern began to burn more intensely, becoming so bright that we couldn’t look at it. Trevor and I let go of you so we could shield our eyes, and we backed away because the heat became so intense.”

  “They were on one side of you, and I was on the other,” Amber said. “I was covering my eyes, too, so I didn’t see it, but I heard the lantern shatter. I peeked through my fingers and saw flames begin to spread outward from the lantern, moving almost as if they were alive. I was cut off from Drew and Trevor, and I shouted Drew’s name.”

  “The flames rose higher, forming a barrier between us,” Drew said. “I didn’t hesitate. I pulled off my backpack and dropped it to the ground. Then I put up my arms in front of my face to protect my eyes, squeezed them shut, and leaped through the flames. I found Amber, took off my jacket, put it over her head to protect her, and together we jumped through the flames.”

  “I tried to reach you, Greg,” Trevor said, “but the flames blazed higher and brighter, and you just kept on laughing.”

  “There wasn’t anything in the basement for the flames to consume,” Drew said, “but they started producing smoke anyway. We started coughing, and since we were unable to get to you, we started for the stairs. I forgot all about my backpack and left it behind, which is why we lost the equipment we’d brought.”

  “The flames followed as we ran, as if they were chasing us,” Amber said, “and the stairs caught fire even as we reached them. The flames continued after us as we ran through the house and out the front door. When we got outside, our clothes were on fire in several places, so we threw ourselves to the grass and rolled back and forth to extinguish them.”

  “We were coughing and shivering in the night air,” Trevor said. “We knelt on the grass, huddled together, and watched the flames rise into the night sky as the Lowry House burned. We heard your laughter above the roar of the fire for a time, but then it faded away, and when it was gone . . .”

  “So were our memories,” Drew said. “We became catatonic and didn’t return to conscious awareness until the next day in the hospital.”

  Greg smiled. “Bravo.” His form blurred and grew thinner, and when he came into focus again, he was his adult self once more, although Amber noted that the kerosene lantern continued to glow on the floor next to his feet. She looked down at her hands and saw that they’d again become the hands of a woman in her thirties. She looked at Drew and Trevor, and they, too, had returned to their true selves. Drew held a different flashlight from before, and Trevor’s tire iron was now visible in his hand. They still appeared to be standing in the basement of the Lowry House, though. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t over yet.

  “I’m glad it worked,” Greg said. “To be honest, I wasn’t certain you’d get all of your memories back or, if you did, that the process wouldn’t end up traumatizing you even further.” He smiled. “Hell, for all I knew, you might’ve ended up with large sections of your brains burned out. But it looks like everything turned out fine.”

  Drew scowled. “What are you implying? That your illusions were some kind of therapy to help restore our memories?”

  “Essentially,” Greg said. “If you toss some psychic surgery into the mix.” The three friends looked at him, and he laughed. “Surprised, aren’t you? You thought I was out for revenge against the three kids who’d wronged me back in high school.”

  “Uh, well . . . yeah,” Trevor admitted.

  “Maybe it’ll all make more sense if I tell you my side of the story,” Greg said. “In the weeks before you decided to investigate the Lowry House, I’d become aware that you tried to ditch me whenever you went on an investigation. I pretended that I didn’t have a clue, but in truth, I became angry and resentful, and I decided to get back at the three of you. So, when I realized you were planning on coming here, I sneaked in earlier and waited for you. My plan was to hide in the attic and walk around, make some noise, and get you all excited, thinking that you’d encountered solid evidence of a haunting. And then, when you came up into the attic, I’d jump out yelling and scare the hell out of you. But not long after I entered the house, I found myself drawn to the basement. It was almost as if a voice was calling me, a voice that I couldn’t quite hear but which I could feel.

  “So I came down here.” He gestured at their virtual surroundings. “It looked like this. Just an empty basement. No furniture, no boxes of forgotten junk. Just some dust and cobwebs.” He smiled. “Kind of a disappointment, really. I mean, you’d expect a haunted house to have a basement with some atmosphere. This was where Stockslager killed his victims, after all. He buried them in the
barn afterward. But what the basement lacked in appearance I found it made up for in power, for as I sat on the floor, I sensed that this was the center of the Lowry House—its dark heart—and once I settled in, it began talking to me in earnest. And it told me many strange and wondrous things . . .”

  He trailed off, his gaze becoming distant and unfocused as his mind drifted back to that time. Amber wondered if he heard the Lowry House speaking to him now across the decade and a half since it had been destroyed. If so, she wondered what it was saying to him.

  Finally, Greg’s eyes came back into focus, and he looked at each of them in turn, as if he’d forgotten all about them and was surprised to see them standing there. But he picked up his story, as if he hadn’t lost a beat.

  “I learned a lot that night. I learned that places like this begin as natural phenomena that serve as focal points for negative energy. They draw it from the surrounding area, gather and concentrate it. And once they get strong enough, bad things begin to happen there. Plants grow stunted and twisted, and animals too dumb not to stay away find themselves becoming aggressive, if they didn’t weaken and die. It’s worse if people come into one of these Bad Places. We already carry so much darkness inside us—fears, jealousies, hurts, and hatreds . . . It’s all fertile ground for a Bad Place, allowing it to manipulate a person’s mind and spirit, bringing their darkness to the forefront, making them do things they’d never consider doing otherwise. Terrible, awful things. Things that cause pain and suffering, which in turn feeds a Bad Place even further, helps it grow even stronger.

  “That’s what happened here. Over the centuries, this land, which was originally a focal point for negative energy, grew so strong that it achieved a sort of sentience. It became self-aware, intelligent. Not like us, though. Different. And it was tired of being bound to a single location. It wanted to be free, wanted to roam the world. But to do that, it needed a body.” Greg smiled. “It needed me. But why settle for one body when it could have four?”