"You were reading my mind,” Tabitha said. “Plus, let’s not forget that the future senator's family also had influence in the town and could probably make things disappear."
"I am not liking how dense this whole thing is becoming," Jimmy muttered.
"Welcome to Knorr, Jimmy," Tabitha said. "Few small towns have as many secrets as this one. And yes, we are treading some very strange and dangerous ground here. Let's not forget that we have a budding romance between a handsome young man and a ghost."
Jimmy felt his face flush and get hot. He hoped that Tabitha didn’t notice.
"What are you cooking?" Jimmy said. "It smells fantastic."
"That would be chili," Tabitha replied. "It will be cooking for a while yet. Hungry?"
Jimmy nodded.
A moment later he was munching on a sandwich, and the two of them kept talking about Sapphire and the town of Knorr. Tabitha went into greater detail about the Boogeyman case that she and Warren had investigated. She told him about the phone in the cabin where Warren was staying that had been disconnected from anything, and yet rang in the middle of the night and was hot to the touch. She told him about the voices of the dead girls that Warren had heard on the other end. Jimmy was fascinated. It gave him a better idea of what Knorr was about.
"What is it with this place?" Jimmy asked. "Is the land just bad or something? Was it cursed?"
Tabitha shrugged. "I’ve gone back as far as I can using the archives at the newspaper, but I never found any stories of Native American curses or anything. There have been plenty of haunted house and ghost stories, but nothing that’s really out of the ordinary."
"I've heard lots of stories about that house on Route 338," Jimmy said. "That big one that always looks like it's run down no matter who lives there and how much paint they put on the place."
Tabitha smiled. "Yes, but just about any large, old house has a haunted story or two attached to it. That house has been owned by a lot of people over the years and some odd things have happened, but nothing that would amaze anyone. Well, at least not that I can see."
Tabitha bit her lower lip for a moment.
"Honestly, the Boogeyman case and the story of the girl in the blue dress beside the road are the most famous stories to come out of this area," Tabitha said. "And now I’ve been involved in both of those. I think I need to retire from the world of the supernatural after this one."
Jimmy said, "I think I might, as well, but I also wonder if maybe this connection between myself and Sapphire has awakened something inside of me."
Tabitha frowned. "Like seeing dead people?"
"Among other things."
Tabitha raised her eyebrows. "Care to elaborate?"
Jimmy sighed. He thought hard, and the buzzing started in his head. He reached out his hand, pointing his fingers at Tabitha's laptop. After what seemed like an eternity, the laptop moved. At first it was slow, and then it got a bit faster, and then it slid across the table until it touched Jimmy's hand.
Tabitha's mouth hung open.
"It only works when I’m in contact with Sapphire," Jimmy said. "But I have this weird feeling that if I were to keep trying things, I would be able to alter reality around me. So the next time Devlin Little comes knocking, I think I'll have a surprise for him."
Tabitha was about to say something, but the front door opened and Warren and Jimmy's mother walked in. She immediately put a thousand-watt smile on her face.
Once she entered, all talk about supernatural things ended. It was time to fill Warren and his mother in on the discussions with Mrs. Walters and Jesse, and then there was more preparation for George's visit. Before long, Jimmy was setting the places at the table and chatting with his mother. Needless to say, he did not discuss his visit with Sapphire. The memory of her scent and the feel of her skin against his ran through his mind. He was having a hard time concentrating, and wondered if grown-ups always thought about sex, like he apparently did.
The sun began its descent. As it did, the buzzing in Jimmy's head got louder. Sapphire was listening in. When he had a moment to himself, he wandered off into a bathroom. He found that by thinking about it, he could move and transform the soap in the dish on the sink. Doing so, however, also left him feeling very tired and drained.
Can you feel me? he asked Sapphire.
Yes, she replied. I can feel the power between us. It's amazing.
George will be here soon, Jimmy said. We'll be having dinner and talking about anything he's discovered. So listen in—maybe some memories will be triggered.
Sapphire acknowledged that she would. Jimmy thought about asking more questions about where she was and what it looked like. But he had tried that before, and, for some reason, Sapphire had been unable to describe where she was. Jimmy guessed that, in truth, she was probably random energy that retained the memory of Sapphire. And, as such, she was part of the overall energy that infiltrated everything and everyone. It was a bit too deep for Jimmy right now. He was hungry, and the smell of chili was in his nose.
George finally arrived and Jimmy stepped out of the bathroom. He took the books and homework assignments from George and gave him a hug. George seemed surprised, but he returned the hug.
"It smells great in here," he said. "This guy hasn't been giving you too much trouble, has he?"
"Well, maybe a little," Warren said.
"None," Tabitha replied, and then gave Warren a look.
That was about as much small talk as they were able to get into. Soon after, they were sitting down at the table and Tabitha was serving the chili. Once that was done, they all began eating. Everything else went away from their thoughts and just the delicious chili occupied their minds.
Once the meal had been consumed and Warren went off to the kitchen to serve up some dessert, suddenly Tabitha got very serious.
"OK, George," she said, crossing her arms and leaning on the table. "What have you learned?"
George sputtered a bit on the water he had been drinking. "Are you asking what I learned in school today, or are you talking about something else?"
"Come on, George," Jimmy said. "Don't be difficult. You know what we mean."
George took another drink and then shrugged. "I haven't talked to anyone but students. I found a few who insist that they've seen Sapphire before. That includes the sociology teacher, Mr. Wiedman."
"Really?" Tabitha asked.
George nodded enthusiastically. "Back when he was a high school senior. He says that he and his friends were headed to the homecoming dance when they saw a girl in a blue dress beside the road. This tale differs from the one you and I have, Jimmy, in that Sapphire got into the car, said she needed to get to the school for a dance, but then vanished after the car had only travelled a few blocks. Mr. Wiedman says she looked odd, lost, and confused, and the others in the car said the air inside got very cold when she got in."
Jimmy admitted to himself that this made sense to him now that he and Sapphire had come to realize that it was their connection that made her as real as she was when she appeared to him. He remembered how cold she had felt when they first met.
"Another student, a senior, said that he saw her about two years ago," George said. "This was around prom, I guess. He was driving over to his girlfriend's house when he saw a dark-haired girl in a blue dress in that same spot. By the time he stopped the car and pulled over, she was gone without a trace. He said he could smell perfume in the air, though, right where she had been standing.
"I did talk to a kid who says that his grandmother once told him the story of a young girl who had left a dance and was then raped and murdered at that spot on the road. But there was no evidence. There were no newspaper clippings or anything."
"Any word on the football team or Devlin Little?" Tabitha asked.
George shook his head. "Not really. Other than the fact that he and his son are pretty much universally hated by anyone not on the football team. However, everyone is afraid of him. They all owe him money or he owns
property that they live or work on. He must own a huge swath of land in this area."
Tabitha confirmed that this was true. Just then, Warren arrived with dishes of chocolate ice cream. All of them accepted greedily and then ate quietly.
"So," Warren asked, "what are you thinking, wife of mine?"
Tabitha twirled her spoon around in the melting ice cream and shrugged. "Just wondering where we go from here, and when Devlin Little is going to make his next move."
It was then that all of the proximity lights burst on around the house, turning the outside into daylight, and sending beams as bright as the sun in through the windows. An alarm sounded. Seconds later, the living room window exploded and the sound of gunshots filled the air.
At first Jimmy froze, having no idea what had just happened. The lights pierced his eyes and an alarm over by the front door began blaring. Seconds later, the living room window exploded inward. Then there came the sound of booming shotguns, followed by the sharp, stinging reports from a smaller caliber gun.
Jimmy's mother screamed and dove for cover. Tabitha screamed. Warren ducked under the table. George immediately hit the floor, sending his chair skittering across the hardwood floor behind him. After a moment, Tabitha flung herself to the floor. Only Jimmy remained at the table, looking around at the bits of glass, hearing the sound of bullets hitting the walls and whining off of the house, in a kind of stupor. The buzzing in his head reached a deafening pitch.
Get down, Jimmy! Sapphire screamed into his brain.
That broke his paralysis, and Jimmy finally hit the ground. More bullets hit the walls. Something in the kitchen exploded into fragments. Something hit the tabletop above him and the entire piece of furniture moved, splinters raining down on all of them.
Warren got to his feet and ran for the den. As he did, a trail of bullets stitched the walls of the house. Another window shattered. There was an explosion of a shotgun from behind the house. Through the shattered windows, they could hear people shouting. It sounded like there were people all around the house.
Warren reached the den and vanished from sight. From inside the den came the sound of a drawer opening and closing. More shots rang out and something in the den shattered. Tabitha screamed Warren's name. The writer emerged carrying two pistols.
He ran to the broken back window, aimed both pistols, and fired. Someone outside screamed, and then there was more shouting. Warren ran back into the dining room and dove behind the sofa as more gunshots erupted from outside.
Jimmy squatted beneath the table and put his hands over his head. He looked at his mother, and there was a look of sheer terror on her face. George was lying flat on the floor beside the table, not moving. Jimmy couldn’t tell if he had been hit. He saw no blood, but he was too far away to tell. Beside Jimmy, Tabitha had her head down and was screaming into the floor.
We can stop this, Sapphire said into Jimmy's brain.
Just like that, it was as if a switch had been thrown in Jimmy's head. He nodded. The air suddenly crackled with electricity, just like it had upstairs earlier. The room became suddenly brighter at the same time the lights outside dimmed. The hair on Jimmy's neck and arms stood straight up. He felt power ripple through him. It was similar to when he had fought Stan the other day, as if his body were suddenly two people, two minds, working together.
Jimmy stood up.
"Jimmy!" Tabitha screamed. "Get down!"
"Jimmy!" came the scream from his mother.
Jimmy looked first at Tabitha, a smile of serenity crossing his face. Tabitha's eyes went wide at the sight of it. Then Jimmy turned and faced his mother.
"Don't worry," Jimmy said, but his voice was now a mixture of his and Sapphire's. "It will be OK."
More gunfire erupted from outside and more windows shattered. Jimmy extended his hand and the bullets and glass suddenly froze in mid-air. Jimmy's eyes blazed white; electricity danced across his eyes and from his eye sockets. The entire world suddenly looked like a mass of strings, strings of energy that tied everything and everyone together. It was just a matter of tugging on the right string.
Jimmy began to float. His feet were, at first, a few inches off the ground, and then he was higher than the back of the sofa. He began to move towards the back of the house, his shoes barely clearing the back of the sofa. Beneath him, Warren looked up with his mouth agape.
Outside, Jimmy could hear more screaming. Someone was in pain. Someone else was barking harsh orders at a volume that made it impossible for Jimmy to hear what was being said.
"He's coming out!"
"Jesus!" said another voice. "Is he floating?"
Jimmy moved slowly toward the doors that led out onto the back deck. The glass in the doors had been shattered and there was nothing but empty air where the glass had been before. As he moved through, he waved his hand, and behind him the glass rose into the air like a film rewinding, and re-formed in the window frames. Jimmy turned his blazing eyes to the men standing in the back yard.
Jimmy saw that the man screaming on the ground was Stan Little. Behind him was a much larger and older man that Jimmy did not recognize, but he figured that he was someone affiliated with Devlin Little. Beside him was another man with a brown beard and dressed in hunter's camouflage. Stan had a handgun near his hand, but he was clutching at his ankle, blood pouring from between his fingers. The other two men held pump shotguns.
"Jesus Christ," said the man standing behind Stan. "This ain't happening. This cannot be happening."
"Just shoot him!" said the other, and then he raised his rifle.
Jimmy extended his hand, and the gun suddenly turned into snowflakes. The man stood there in a shooting stance, his hands and arms suddenly covered in snow. Jimmy extended his hand again and the man flew through the air, screaming as he went, until he collided hard with a tree. Jimmy wiggled his fingers, and the branches of the tree wrapped around the man, pinning him to the trunk.
Jimmy turned to face the other man with a shotgun. He bore a look of absolute terror on his face. Jimmy was amused to see that the man had wet himself.
"Jesus," the man said. "Oh, Lord Jesus, save me."
Jimmy shook his head. "No."
He extended his hand and the ground suddenly opened up beneath the man. He fell, screaming, and then the hole closed around him, burying him up to the neck in the ground. Jimmy waved his hand again and the man's mouth snapped shut. As his eyes widened, he soon realized he could not open his mouth again.
"Stay away from me!" Stan screamed, tears pouring from his eyes. "Stay away from me, you freak!"
Jimmy descended slowly. Stan looked so pathetic there. Snot ran from the football star's nose. His ankle looked shattered.
Jimmy extended his hand again. Energy crackled from his fingertips and white light surrounded the young man's ankle. The bullet rose from the wound, deformed and smashed from colliding with the bone, and then the hole closed, the bone re-set. Stan's eyes were wide. He was beginning to talk gibberish, drool now descending from his mouth. When the light faded, Stan got to his feet. As soon as he was on his feet, he set off running. Jimmy watched him go and looked up into the dark sky.
Then, his eyes still glowing, Jimmy rose into the air over the roof of the house. Once he reached the top of the roof, he looked down and saw Stan running in a blind, shrieking panic past three men standing on the front lawn and in the driveway. From the air, Jimmy could tell that one of the men standing there was Devlin Little.
"What?" Devlin screamed at Stan. "What's happening?"
Stan ran right past, his feet digging into the grass and the gravel on the driveway. He was just screaming, letting out a steady noise that rose and fell as he pumped his legs. Devlin turned to watch him run, his head cocked at a comical angle. It wasn't until one of the other cronies he had brought with him let out a yell that he turned around and looked up.
"What the hell?" he said.
Jimmy floated down from the roof. He extended his hand again and energy like lightning
shot from his fingertips. The bright blue beams struck each of the men in the chest, flinging them across the front lawn and pinning each of them against a tree.
Jimmy landed on the lawn and the energy grew brighter. The light grew into the intensity of the sun, and all three men let out a scream of pure terror. As they watched, Jimmy suddenly split in two and Sapphire emerged from within him, becoming solid, and then standing there beside Jimmy. She had her arms extended, as well, energy holding all of the men against the tree trunks.
"Leave," both Jimmy and Sapphire said at the same time. "If you return, you will not leave alive."
"And to demonstrate," Sapphire said, extending her right hand.
Beneath one of the squirming men, the air itself seemed to open up. It was as if the air had grown a mouth. The man's eyes looked as if they were about to burst out of his skull, and his voice cracked from the strain of screaming so loud. Then, suddenly, the beam of energy that held the man up vanished and he fell, dropping through the portal that hovered in mid-air. As his scream faded, the mouth beneath him closed.
Jimmy lowered his arm, and Devlin Little and his final companion fell hard against the grass. Both men were making noises that indicated that their very sanity was on the verge of breaking. They got to their feet and ran, forgetting the shotguns that lay at their feet. They soon joined Stan in what appeared to be a blind panic that would take them back to the Little house.
Jimmy and Sapphire watched them go, the energy around them making their hair stand on end and lighting the night like a thunderstorm. When the men rounded the corner, the energy went off like a light. Jimmy turned to look at Sapphire. She turned and faced him. They touched hands.
The two of them turned and walked up the front porch steps. Jimmy extended his hand and the door opened on its own. He hoped that he would see Warren, Tabitha, and George standing in the doorway in bewilderment. Instead, when he entered the living room he found his mother crying and Tabitha yelling into a telephone. Warren stood at the back window with his pistols in his hands, his head down. It took Jimmy a few minutes to realize that his mother was holding George in her arms.
Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance Page 23
