by Ron Ripley
People were talking to him, trying to calm him down. He screamed profanities and jerked around, so much that it took several men to hold him down.
A few moments later, something stabbed him in the arm, and within a few heartbeats, he went limp. What they injected him with, Tom didn’t know.
He was happy though.
The questioning had stopped.
He had no strength to struggle as they half-carried, half-dragged him back to his room. They laid him on his bed, debated strapping him in, and then they were overruled by Dale. Her voice was sweet and soothing as she knelt down beside the bed.
“You need to behave better,” she said, smiling at him. “If you don’t, they’re going to sedate you all the time, and that really won’t be for the best, Tom.”
He didn’t have the strength or desire to argue with her.
“Anyway,” she said, “someone dropped this off for you. I’ll put it on the bedside table for you to look at later on, once the sedative wears off.”
Dale stood up, smiled at him and left the room.
The door clicked and locked shut, and Tom sighed.
He lay for several minutes on his back, staring up at the white and black ceiling tiles. Finally, Tom turned his head and looked at the bedside table.
When he saw what had been left for him, he let out a long scream, one that didn’t stop even when Dale came rushing back in.
He was still screaming when they gave him another sedative, and his eyes never left the item on the table.
Tom couldn’t.
The old, Latin edition of Caesar’s Gallic Wars commanded all of his attention.
Chapter 27: Unnecessary Risk
“How are you feeling?” Jeremy asked, handing Victor a cup of tea.
“I’m in pain,” Victor confessed. “I feel like I have a hangover.”
“When did it start?” Jeremy inquired as he sat down across form him.
Frowning, Victor replied, “The day I let Nicholas run my body for a while.”
Jeremy shook his head and an uncomfortable silence settled over them. The older man finally broke it, stating, “This is only going to get worse.”
“What?” Victor asked, sipping his tea. “The situation in its entirety, or my headache?”
“I know the latter certainly will,” Jeremy stated, “and I am hopeful the former shall not.”
Victor replied with a noncommittal grunt and waited to see what else the older man had to say.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“I told you,” Jeremy said, putting his own tea cup down, “that when you allowed him to take control of you after Rolf’s destruction, even for a short time, it was less than ideal.”
Victor shrugged. “I thought it was necessary at the time.”
“Necessary,” Jeremy scoffed. “All you did was open yourself up to danger, Victor. And for nothing. We received almost nothing of any value. There was not the slightest bit of actionable information that we received from him, and you have paved the way for him to seize control of you again.”
“He didn’t seize control of me,” Victor argued. “I gave him control.”
Jeremy’s face darkened briefly with anger. But as quickly as it had come, it vanished.
“Victor,” Jeremy said in a placating tone, “I am concerned for your well-being. If I wasn’t, I never would have accepted your request for help, nor would I ask you to accompany me.”
“I know,” Victor said, looking down into his teacup and swirling the dregs around the bottom of the porcelain. “And thank you.”
“You are quite welcome,” Jeremy said, settling back into his chair. “Now, let us try and rest, shall we? I have a feeling that our life is not going to be this quiet for much longer.”
Victor agreed and closed his eyes, trying not to remember the disturbing sensation of someone else controlling his body.
Chapter 28: A Phone Call in Boston
Jeremy’s cellphone rang and jarred Victor out of a light doze. He picked up the magazine he had dropped on his lap and looked across the room at the older man.
“Yes,” Jeremy said, answering the phone. “Yes, it is. How can I help you?”
Victor straightened up as Jeremy’s face fell, a look of horror and sadness sweeping over the normally placid features.
“I understand. Of course. I will be there as soon as possible. Thank you,” Jeremy said, “thank you for calling me.”
Victor watched as Jeremy ended the call, returned the phone to the table and managed to regain his composure.
“What’s going on?” Victor asked after several moments of silence.
“That was a young woman from the Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans,” Jeremy explained, his voice tight. “Miss Leanne Le Monde is in the hospital, in the intensive care unit.”
“Oh my God,” Victor said. “Is she alright? Did she fall down or something?”
“Fall down?” Jeremy repeated. “No, not at all. Someone tried to kill her.”
“What?” Victor asked, stunned.
Jeremy nodded. “Yes. Evidently, someone cut her throat and left her to die. A neighbor saw someone run from the house and went in and found her there. It is a miracle that she is even alive.”
“I don’t know,” Victor replied. “What now?”
“Now?” Jeremy asked. “Now I return to New Orleans.”
“What about finding where the seller is?” Victor asked.
Jeremy shook his head. “It will have to wait. At least a short time, Victor. I need to go to her.”
A sharp memory stung Victor, and he asked, “What about the prophecy? The one about you dying in New Orleans?”
Jeremy offered him a small, sad smile.
“That is a chance I must take,” Jeremy said, getting to his feet. “She is far more important than I am.”
Victor watched as Jeremy left the room, then he stood, walked to the bureau and began to pack.
Jeremy wouldn’t be going to New Orleans alone.
Chapter 29: Alone with a Good Book
“Wake up.”
Those two words ripped Tom out of a deep, drug-induced sleep. His eyes snapped open, and his heart ramped up its pace. In the darkness of the hospital room, Tom knew he wasn’t alone. Not only from the words that had been spoken, but from the deep chill in the room.
Fear and anger waged war for control of his body, and for what seemed like hours they battled until rage won out.
Tom sat upright and demanded, “What?!”
Dillon chuckled in the darkness. “Oh, you’re a sweet one. I’ll give you that. I’m impressed, boy. I’ve done less in front of older men, and it’s broken them. You went away for a bit, true, but you’ve bounced back and better than before. I like you. I do.”
“I hate you,” Tom hissed.
“Good, good,” Dillon laughed. The bed creaked, and Tom knew the ghost had settled down on the end of it.
“What do you want?” Tom whispered.
“An excellent question,” the dead man replied. “Alas, I have no excellent answer. No answer at all, to be quite honest. I was bidden to bide my time, but, as you saw, I did not.”
Beneath his fury, Tom felt a question rise up. “Who told you to?”
“Ah,” Dillon said appreciatively, “this is why I like you. Would you strike a deal with the devil, young Tom?”
“It depends,” Tom answered.
“Upon what, may I ask?” the ghost inquired.
“As to whether or not I can kill whoever told you to bide your time,” Tom snapped.
“That is precisely what I would prefer you do,” Dillon said in a low, conspiratorial tone. “I was far from a good man in my life, Tom, and I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy the misery I created. But I was my own man. Death trapped me in my favorite book, and I was used as a tool by the last owner. It was he who sent me to you, telling me to kill whoever I wished, so long as I waited.”
“You killed my parents,” Tom hissed, his body shaking. “
I watched you torture my father.”
“True, true,” Dillon sighed. “I did get carried away with your father. But not with your mother. She died rather quickly.”
Tom’s head hurt with the anger pulsating through him.
“Now,” Dillon said, “I can help you get to the man who sent me here to kill you and your family. I only need to know if you’re willing to do the hard work, because killing’s a chore, Tom, and chores are never fun.”
Tom ground his teeth as he considered what the dead man said, his thoughts racing. Images of his parents tore through him and his heart raced. A small, insidious idea made itself known.
What if I do what he says? Tom thought desperately. Can I get to the man who did this? Can I get Dillon too?
“What do you say, Tommy?” Dillon asked, snickering. “Want to wash some of your dear old dad’s blood off my hands and drown someone in it instead?”
A part of Tom snapped and he let out a scream, scrambling forward on the bed and trying to grab hold of the dead man. Dillon’s laugh rang out from across the room, and Tom fell out of the bed, landing hard on the tiled floor. He shrieked with rage and tried to get to his feet, slipping once and slamming his knee down hard enough to cause stars to burst in front of his eyes.
“I’ll take that as a maybe,” Dillon said, laughing. “Perhaps even a soft yes.”
Tom’s wordless howl of rage brought another burst of laughter from Dillon, and the sound of the lock at his door.
When it swung open, the light forced Tom to close his eyes as he sped forward, slamming into someone. He heard a curse and a heavy hand smashed down on his back, but it was a sideways blow. Tom twisted out of the way of the strike’s full force and managed to get beyond the door. Arms tried to wrap around him from behind, and Tom’s vision returned. He looked down, saw a sneaker-clad foot between his own, and he stomped down hard on it.
The orderly holding him let out a shout of mingled surprise and pain, one that was cut short when Tom slammed his head backward. He felt something sharp pierce his scalp even as the orderly let go of him. A quick look to the left showed another orderly running towards him.
Beyond the new man was an exit sign.
With his heart racing, Tom sprinted towards the orderly. The man was large and broad and had a decidedly unpleasant expression on his hard face. As Tom neared him, the man threw his arms wide, eyes locked onto Tom.
At the last moment, Tom dropped down low and drove his fist violently into the man’s groin. The orderly collapsed over Tom, hot vomit splashing down over his back. Shoving the man off him, he sprinted for the exit. Excitement built within him as he reached the door and slammed into it at full speed.
And he bounced off it, his shoulder and chest throbbing with sudden pain. Screaming with rage, Tom pounded on the door, punching it with both hands. He felt one of his bones break, and then he was grabbed from behind.
Tom fought and howled, throwing punches and kicks that did no noticeable damage.
A needle slipped into his arm, and a moment later, Tom sagged into someone’s arms. He struggled against the narcotic as it raced through his bloodstream. His eyes closed and he could no longer move. Tom heard someone speaking, and for a brief moment, he thought it was his mother.
It was Dale, soothing him as his mother once had.
But his mother was dead, and Tom remembered, as drugged darkness washed over him, he could have some sort of revenge.
He only had to make a deal with his mother’s killer.
And Tom would do it.
Chapter 30: Jeremy Rhinehart in the Waiting Room
Both Jeremy and Victor sat in the waiting room outside of the ICU ward of the hospital. They had each made their way through several cups of tea and eaten a fair amount of pastries. Victor was concerned for Leanne, but not nearly as much as Jeremy was.
Jeremy had gone into the room and seen her, returning a short time later looking much paler and decidedly worse for wear.
Victor didn’t ask how Leanne was. The old woman’s status was scrawled across Jeremy’s pained expression.
“Jeremy,” Victor began hesitantly, “I have a question for you.”
“Hm?” the older man asked.
“Why do you do this?” Victor said.
“Do what?” Jeremy asked, frowning.
“You said you have a house in Connecticut, one that’s filled with possessed items that you keep locked up,” Victor continued. “Other people collect them, and you do too, but not for the same reason. You’re more like, well, like a warden.”
A small smile flickered across Jeremy’s face. “Yes, I’ve been referred to as such. And more often by the dead than by the collectors. But you’re right, I am a warden. A jailer of sorts. I don’t run a museum of haunted items, as some do. I keep a prison. You want the reason why, though.”
Jeremy sighed, rubbed at his chin and said in a soft voice, “Alright then, Victor, I will tell you why I do what I do.”
***
The idea of letting his hair grow long was not a pleasant one.
Jeremy had served in the United States Army for five years, and he had enjoyed the discipline and strict attention to uniformity. The wounds he suffered in Vietnam had ended his hopes of a career in the military. How he had received those wounds had impacted him as well.
Jeremy had spent months in rehabilitation, learning how to walk and live again with a severely damaged limb. In time, he would overcome the injury – of that he had no doubt. Those months of painful healing had allowed him a significant amount of time for reflection. Late nights kept awake with the dull pain of the wound as he struggled with his unhealthy reliance on morphine.
The nightmares he had were unlike what some of the other patients spoke of. He wasn’t afraid of the Viet Cong overrunning his position and having to flee into the horrors of the jungle.
His fears were of the dead; memories of ghosts taking possession of corpses and rising up against them.
Jeremy shuddered at the recollection of the battle he was wounded in, and he limped out of the building to go sit in the sun. He leaned back in the wicker lawn chair, closed his eyes and tried to think of anything other than reanimated corpses.
A shadow fell across his face, and Jeremy opened his eyes.
Before him stood a middle-aged man. He was a rather ordinary, non-descript gentleman who smiled congenially at Jeremy.
“Would you be Sergeant Rhinehart?” the man asked.
“I would,” Jeremy smiled, offering the man his hand.
The stranger shook it, saying, “My name is Sherman. I was told that you have in your possession an item that I would very much like to acquire.”
Jeremy looked at him, confused. “I’m sorry, Sherman, but I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about.”
“Ah, yes, Demetri Le Monde told me that might be the case,” Sherman apologized.
At the mention of Demetri, Jeremy straightened in his chair. They had been roommates in the hospital, both wounded around the same time in different parts of Vietnam. Each had suffered injuries to their legs, and therefore being assigned as roommates.
Demetri had been able to overcome his wounds faster than Jeremy, thus leaving before him. The man had also left a small, lead box in Jeremy’s possession, asking him to keep it safe until necessary. Jeremy had agreed, secured it in his wall-locker, and then promptly forgot about it. He and Demetri exchanged letters and the occasional phone call, yet the subject of the item left behind never came up again.
“I see you remember him,” Sherman said, smiling.
“Of course I do,” Jeremy said, smiling in return. “There was only one item he left here. A small lead box.”
Sherman’s eyes brightened, and he nodded with pleasure. “Yes, that would be it exactly. You still have it?”
“Up in my room,” Jeremy replied. “We can go now if you don’t mind keeping pace with a cripple.”
“From what I can see, young man,” Sherman said in a serious tone, “y
ou are most certainly not a cripple. Injured, yes. Damaged, without a doubt. You are not, in any sense of the word, a cripple. Now, lead on, and I shall follow.”
Jeremy chuckled and did exactly that, the curious Sherman a half step behind him.
“How do you know Demetri?” Jeremy asked as they entered the building.
“I have known him since he was a small child,” Sherman answered. “It is his mother whom I know better. We were in a similar line of work, you might say.”
“Might or should?” Jeremy asked, as they came to a stop and waited for an elevator that would take him to his floor.
Sherman chuckled. “Should. Demetri said you are a bright one, and I can see why. Yes, should indeed. Perhaps I’ll tell you a bit more in your room if you are so inclined to listen.”
“I’d be happy to listen,” Jeremy stated, excitement creeping into his voice. “To be perfectly honest with you, Sherman, I haven’t had any visitors. I get letters and phone calls from some of the men I served with, but other than that I’ve no family of which to speak.”
“Unfortunate,” Sherman said, consolation and a hint of some other emotion in his voice. “It was fortuitous that you and Demetri shared a room, or else I would not have met you, and poor Demetri would have been forced to return home with his burden.”
“What?” Jeremy asked, caught off guard as they exited the elevator and walked to his room.
“Do you mind if I close the door?” Sherman asked.
Jeremy shook his head, went to his wall locker and retrieved the box. The metal was cold and uncomfortable to handle. He always felt dirty when he touched it.
He watched as Sherman first slipped on a pair of white cotton gloves before he took the item from him.
“May I sit down?” Sherman asked.
Jeremy nodded as he sank down onto his bed, wincing at the sharp pain that bit into his hip.
“Now,” Sherman said, holding the box up, “what do you think this might be?”
Jeremy had wondered that many times, but he had never opened it. Demetri had made him promise not to, and Jeremy had honored that promise.
