by JL Bryan
“Tell her what?” I asked.
“That you can't get rid of the ghosts. That we have to move out of here and never come back. Can't you just tell her that?” Corrine asked.
“If it's true, then that's what I'll tell her,” I said. “But if we can clear out the problem, we'll do it.”
“Sure. 'Clear out the problem.' You people don't have any idea what you're dealing with out there.” Corrine turned her horse and trotted away.
Stacey and I stayed quiet until she was gone.
“I think that girl's losing her mind,” Stacey finally whispered.
“You might have a point,” I said. “The ghost is having a psychological effect on her. Maybe deliberately. She's the only one in the family who's seen the horseman so far.”
“So you think the horseman's stalking her?”
“Could be. Maybe she reminds him of the girl he killed.”
“And that's the bloody girl who's crawling up into the house at night?” Stacey asked.
“She might be,” I said. “Let's finish up this gear and go wait for Jacob. Maybe he can tell us if we're on the right track.”
Chapter Eleven
We stood outside the little shop near the front of the farm, amid the burning jack o' lanterns and paper witches, since it would be the first building Jacob would see as he drove up the curving dirt road. With no street lights, or even actual pavement, the farm was difficult to navigate at night.
He finally arrived, his gray Hyundai looking out of place way out here in the country amid corn and scarecrows, as if some suburban soccer mom had taken a wrong turn and ended up on Death Murder Farm. Not that our old blue cargo van fit in much better.
If we'd been in a joking mood, we might have grabbed a couple of the Halloween masks on sale inside the shop, maybe tried to scare him or at least startle him as he drove in. We were still not very amused at how Corrine had done that to us, though. Plus, there was a risk of Jacob swerving into a ditch and bending an axle on his car, which he probably wouldn't have appreciated, especially since he does his psychic readings for free. They're part of his therapy for adjusting to his fairly new and completely unwanted ability to speak with the dead.
We waved him down from the brightly lit front porch. He turned into the gravel parking lot next to the store and gave the place a look-around as he climbed out. Stacey hopped down the steps and greeted him with a kiss.
“So we're looking for He Who Walks Behind the Rows, huh?” Jacob asked, squinting through his glasses at the high corn maze.
“Or maybe She Who Walks Behind the Rows,” Stacey said. “You never know.”
“We should keep an open mind where gender roles and agricultural demons are concerned,” Jacob said, nodding. “So are we searching a particular area here? Or should I just wander?”
“We'll start with the house,” I said. “The family's gone for the evening...well, most of them are gone.” Jeremy and Amber had arranged for their son to spend the night away at a friend's house, and they had taken little Maya to the nearest movie theater, which was half an hour away. Corrine had refused to go with them, or to go anywhere else, and instead locked herself in her room. “Once we're done with the house, then we can wander outside all we want.”
Jacob looked down the dirt road toward the woods, and he shivered. “We'll be going that way eventually, won't we? I can't say I'm looking forward to meeting whatever's lurking in those woods.”
Stacey nodded, glancing at me. Jacob, as usual for him or any other psychic consultant, had no advance knowledge of the case before visiting the property. He'd immediately detected the source of the problem, or at least the site with the heaviest ghost activity.
Stacey and I shouldered our backpacks, heavy with gear in case we needed it.
“Nice Halloween decorations,” Jacob commented as we walked to the house. He pointed to a cluster of four miniature scarecrows in the pumpkin patch, dressed in black wigs and dark sunglasses like the Ramones, giving a concert with their gourd and corn-cob instruments. “So we're talking about a low-end tourist trap here, perfect for passing a boring fall day. Just an hour from two major cities.”
“You weren't supposed to research,” Stacey said.
“I didn't. It's...pretty obvious.” Jacob pointed to a wooden booth, currently shuttered, with a brightly painted sign reading FIRE THE AMAZING PUMPKIN CANNON! $3 per pumpkin. “Plus, all the roadside signs leading up to the place. I'm guessing those woods turned out to be more haunted than they realized.” His smile faltered as he again glanced into the darkness ahead.
Jacob stopped as we reached the house's driveway, standing in the middle of the dirt road, and he laid one hand across Stacey to block her from taking another step. He stared at a seemingly empty patch of dirt. She raised an eyebrow, looking somewhere between amused and confused.
“Is it just me,” he finally said, “Or is there a trail of blood spots starting right here, in the middle of the road, and leading...” He turned his head and pointed. “...across the lawn...to the front door?”
“It's just you, buddy,” Stacey said. Jacob was indicating the path by which Bloody Betty—or possibly Bloody Mildred, if Virgil's story was accurate—made her nightly trips into the house.
“This is a well-worn path,” Jacob said. “Right through here, a groove worn by years and years of repetition.” He crossed the lawn slowly, holding out both hands palm down, as though warming them by a fire that kept crawling away from him. “She's not here now, but there are traces all over...”
Jacob tucked his glasses into his shirt pocket and proceeded with his eyes closed. He didn't trip as he ascended the wooden steps to the porch, hands out in front of him. Then he knelt near the front door and ran his fingers over the porch floorboards. He didn't quite touch them; it was more like he was checking a stove burner to see whether it was hot.
“She crawls across here, bloody, pale, in pain...everything in her lower body is just pain. Crawling is like dragging her legs over piles of knives.” Jacob winced.
“What does she want?” I asked.
“Sanctuary,” he said. “Safety. She wants to go home.”
“Did she live in this house?”
“She wants to retreat here, but she can't quite do it, or can't quite find peace...” He shook his head. “Let's go inside.”
We passed through the front door into the dim house, lit by moonlight from the windows and a small lamp over in the reading room off the foyer. Jacob didn't turn them on or state any particular desire for more light.
Stacey and I followed a few paces behind him as he moved slowly, slowly over the floorboards. He moved toward the stairs, his fingers gradually reaching over the lip of the first stair in a way that reminded me of the tendrils of fog.
“Her trail is stronger as you go,” Jacob said. “Her desire is to return here and find safety, but safety is never found.” He crawled up the stairs on his hands and knees, eyes closed. I could imagine the ghost climbing the same way, just as Maya had described her.
“Can you tell us what happened to her?” I asked. “Why is she covered in blood?” That seemed like a useful thing to know.
“She died in pain.” Jacob moved a little faster now, thankfully, like he'd finally fixed on a scent and was ready to follow it to its conclusion. He stood and jogged up the stairs.
I wasn't shocked when he led us directly to Maya's room. He opened the door and surveyed the room, dimly illuminated by a nightlight shaped like a wacky snowman.
Jacob stopped just inside the door.
“This is it,” he said.
“What is what?” Stacey asked.
“That's the end of the trail. She reaches the room, crawls through the door...maybe she crawls to the bed occasionally, looks at whoever's sleeping there...I'm guessing by the size of that pink panda-bear chair in the corner, we're talking about a small girl.”
“What does she want from the girl?” I asked.
“I'm not sure what she wants,” Jacob said.
“I just know she ends up disappointed. And angry.”
“That's how she ended her life?” I asked. “Feeling disappointed and angry? Or is that how she feels now that she's haunting the house?”
“It's usually the same thing, isn't it?” Jacob walked into the middle of the room, avoiding the pink plastic clutter all over the floor. “I think the house is too different now, and of course the people are different, they aren't the people she knew in life. Maybe this isn't even the same house. Was there another one that used to stand here?”
“There was,” I said.
“She's not finding what she's looking for,” Jacob said. “She's caught in a loop, night after night. If we stick around and wait, I might be able to communicate with her.”
“We can catch her outside, if she comes,” I said. It was possible that closing cemetery gate had sealed her inside the cemetery walls, but time would tell. “I'm trying to steer her away from the family. Clients kind of like it when I can stop the ghosts from terrorizing their children in their sleep.”
“I see how that might be a priority.” Jacob clapped his hands, as if to say he was done with the room. “That takes care of her for now. Let's see what else this house has to say...”
Stacey and I followed him through the rest of the rooms. We avoided the locked door to Corrine's room. I could hear voices in there, probably a movie.
“The house is full of residuals,” Jacob said as we reached the back stairs. “A lot of generations have lived here, most of them related to each other. It's like a close-knit family. Like a pack of wolves.”
“You said wolves?” I asked.
“Yeah. There's violence in their past. But the ghosts aren't really here, are they? They come and go here, but they're much stronger out there.” Jacob stopped at the bottom of the back stairs, which had landed us in the family's living room, and pointed through a small window toward the woods. “That's where they really are.”
“Do you think she's out there, too?” I asked. “The girl who crawls into the house at night?”
“It's worth checking.” Jacob shook his head. “I wouldn't want to live here. The spirits of the dead are very present. They come out to patrol the house and land. And they look at the living at night. I can see them looking in through windows while the living sleep. Sometimes they slip into the house and just stand over the living, watching. For hours. I suppose they don't have much else to do.”
“Are any of them here now?”
Jacob shook his head. “Maybe later.”
“Can you get any names?” I asked. “Specific identities?”
“Names, no. The ghosts I'm talking about, the ones who come out to kind of patrol the property, they're mostly male, and they're definitely family. They're led by the oldest male among them, a really strong personality. He must be a couple of centuries old. Maybe he was the first one to haunt the property, but he's assembled a number of his heirs and descendants around him over the years. Great-Grandpa Ghost. He's definitely the one in charge.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
Jacob shook his head. “If they were here, I could tell you more. What I'm getting is like traces of gray, little glimpses.”
“I think you'll get plenty more than that when we go outside.” I checked the time. “We should go. I want to be out of the way before the clients get home.”
We did a quick walk-through downstairs, but Jacob didn't have anything new to add, so we finally stepped outside.
We toured the farm on foot, exploring the gardens more closely, then heading for the stables where the horses were dozing. Jacob stopped to look over each one of the scarecrows that Amber and her family had made to decorate the farm. I had a feeling he was trying to put off going into the woods as long as possible.
“Ellie, what's your costume for the Halloween ball at the hotel tomorrow night?” Jacob asked as we approached the stables, following the sandy red-dirt road past another scarecrow, three of us walking abreast, the whole situation momentarily resembling a low-rent Wizard of Oz. I wasn't sure which one of us was Dorothy, but I would say Stacey, because I'd rather be the Tin Man, wielding an ax and shielded by metal armor. Stacey seemed a little more prone to skipping and singing. We hadn't brought a dog, but there wasn't much need for Calvin's ghost-sniffing bloodhound Hunter. The ghosts on this farm were quite active and strong, not hard to sniff out at all.
“I haven't decided on a costume,” I said. I grasped desperately for inspiration. “Um, maybe something from Wizard of Oz?”
“Stacey and I were going as C3P0 and R2D2 until she rejected the idea,” Jacob said.
“Yeah, I'm not crouching inside a rolling trash can all night,” Stacey said.
“I told you, I developed a workaround—” Jacob began.
“Don't care.”
“You could also go as Chewbacca—”
“Now you're just getting weird,” Stacey told him. “I agreed to Supergirl. I already have the costume. You can be Superman. Perfect couple's costumes.”
“Superman and Supergirl are cousins, so I have to disagree. I'd rather be...Blue...Beetle...” Jacob seemed to lose focus at the entrance to the stable. He swung open the wooden gate and stepped inside.
We followed him. The stable was dark, naturally, and smelled of hay and manure. I noticed Corrine had returned her horse to its stall. Most of the other stalls were empty.
“Who is Blue Beetle?” Stacey whispered to me.
I shrugged. No idea.
“He's usually paired with Booster Gold,” Jacob whispered from a few feet ahead.
Stacey and I looked at each other, and this time we both shrugged. This was no time for nerd trivia, anyway. It looked like Jacob was picking up on something. He approached the stall holding the smallest horse, the golden one named Pixie. She trembled, but took a small step toward him.
“These horses are nervous, don't you think?” Jacob looked at Stacey. “Not just normal horse-nervous, either. I feel like they spend a lot of time getting spooked.”
“By what?” I asked.
Jacob looked along the dirt floor as if studying the layers of overlapping hoof prints there. “Something restless passes through here at times. Something fast.”
“Like...I don't know...a horse?” Stacey asked.
“Seems plausible,” Jacob said. “A horse ghost. Or a ghost that presents itself as horse-mounted. It comes from the road, maybe the woods.” Jacob fell silent, looking at the wall of the stable closest to the woods.
“Why can't you just be Batman or something?” Stacey asked after the silence grew long enough to be uncomfortable. “Why do you have to get all obscure?”
“Lots of people go as Batman,” Jacob said. “I'll be the only Blue Beetle in the room.”
“Yeah, for good reasons,” she said. “Like how nobody will have any idea what your costume is. How about the Flash?”
“You want me to wear a skintight red suit? In public?”
“Um...Spider-Man?”
“Not if you're Supergirl. You can't randomly mix Marvel and DC universes like that. It'll be anarchy.” Jacob led the way out through the opposite side of the stable. The three sleepy horses looked happy to see us leave.
Our next stop was the corn maze. We lingered at the entrance for a moment, looking at the archway that curved overhead, made of old shovels, pitchforks, and other tools twisted together with the help of Amber's blowtorch.
“Are y'all sure you know the way through here?” Jacob asked, waving his own flashlight along the first path.
“It's pretty complicated. We should go around instead of through,” I said.
We eventually reached the opposite side of the maze and walked into the narrow pass between the last row of corn and the woods beyond. Jacob stood and looked at the broken area with the hoofprints for a minute.
“Same feeling here as in the stable,” Jacob said. “Something came through here, maybe more than once. Still, it's vague to me. The presence isn't as strong as the fam
ily of dead guys that haunt the farm. It's not part of that group, either, but definitely has a separate identity. I do see somebody on horseback, somebody old. Maybe centuries old, like the old-man ghost who rules that other group. But this one is definitely independent, maybe antagonistic to the other ghosts.”
“Can you tell us anything else about the one on horseback?” I asked.
“It's hard to scrounge up details,” he said. “It's like the ghost wants to keep itself hidden. The other ones, they aren't so secretive—this is their place, they belong here, they don't really care for the living. The horse one could well be wearing a mask or an invisibility cloak for all the information I'm picking up about him. I guess we need to head for the woods. Maybe my Spidey senses will find more there.”
“See? You should be Spider-Man. It's perfect,” Stacey said.
“Different universes!” Jacob countered. “You're playing with fire, Stacey.”
“Says the guy who's leading us into the haunted woods late at night,” she replied. As we followed the road into the dark cover of the trees, approaching the cemetery, she started to reach for his hand. Then she stopped herself and dropped back to walk beside me, staying out of Jacob's way while he poked and prodded the woods with his mind.
As before, the air became noticeably colder the moment we entered the woods, even though it had been nighttime for a few hours and the shade of the trees shouldn't have been a factor anymore. Our flashlights showed us the same dirt road, overgrown on either side, that we'd seen by day, but the feeling of apprehension was much deeper now, as midnight approached. The temperature dropped even more at the cemetery. A low bank of fog obscured the ground, reaching up from the swampy little creeks that divided the woods into muddy islands.
Jacob looked back over his shoulder at us. His face had lost any hint of humor. He seemed very uncomfortable on that nearly-forgotten old road with the canopy above us blocking the starlight and moonlight, with our three flashlights barely scratching the darkness. Our footsteps were the only sound, as if the crickets and owls were holding their breath, waiting for something.
