by Jacquie Gee
“So, are you coming with, or what?” Anna asks.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“So, you are afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m just not crazy.” I slurp my coffee.
Silence dances between us.
“You’re right.” Anna narrows her gaze. “I think he’s up to something.”
“Or maybe the man just wants to have a dinner party.”
“Yeah, for sure. Just like Jeffery Dahmer did.”
“Jeffery Dahmer?” I look at her. “You know Jeffery Dahmer’s dead, right?”
“You know there’s a ghost in that house.”
“Oh, so now it’s the ghost of Jeffery Dahmer?”
“We don’t know for sure who he is!” Anna throws up her arms.
“Oh for goodness sake.”
“What? It could happen. Things like that happen.”
“Oh, yeah. Every day!”
“Think about it. What better place to commit murder than in a house with a built-in ghost to blame it on?”
“You’ve been watching far too much CSI.”
“Bones, actually.” Anna narrows her suspicious gaze. “You have to admit, it would make sense why he insisted on buying that house.”
“In a ridiculous sort of way.”
“He is awfully good looking.”
“So what?”
Anna taps her chin. “So was Jeffery Dahmer.”
“Oh, stop—”
“He was charming, too.”
“And blond, don’t forget.”
“I know, right?” Anna swings around.
“Are you hearing yourself?” I glower at her.
"I can see the headlines now!" Anna draws dramatic hands in front of me. "Gorgeous drifter comes to town. Propositions two young girls. Invites them to dinner." She drops her voice. "And they're never seen, again."
“You’ve lost your mind, you know that, right?”
“I’m just sayin’. It’s totally possible in this whacked-out world we live in.” She drains her coffee.
“He was charming, I’ll give you that.” I chew a nail.
“And he does have great hair,” Anna adds.
“Oh, now look what you got me thinking.” I cuff her across the arm.
“Well, a girl’s gotta consider all the options.” She pours herself a second cup.
* * *
That night I can’t get Mr. Beardie Beard out of my head. Jayden Sievert, I should say. Sievert. That’s an interesting name. I wonder what origin it is?
I don’t know why the name rings with me. I’m sure I’ve never heard of it before. And yet, there’s just something it… about him… I can’t shake off.
Good gumbo, Jules, you’ve got it bad.
I toss over in bed.
He was adamant that I invite you. He reminded me three times about asking you. Anna’s words play over and over in my head.
Why? I wonder. Why me?
Clearly, we didn't part on good terms.
Maybe that's it. Maybe he feels he needs to make amends. Repent for all his sins, that kind of thing. Maybe he's in some sort of twelve-step program and needs to earn a badge. Let's all join hands now and sing Kumbaya. That sort of thing.
I punch my pillow and roll again.
Or, maybe, he’s just a really nice guy who wants to see me again, despite the fact I treated him like crap.
Maybe he just wants to see me, as much as I’m finding myself wanting to see him.
Or maybe he is Jeffery Dahmer reincarnated.
I scrunch the pillow up under my head.
There is no future in a life with a ghostbuster wannabe, I tell myself. I refuse to allow you to fall in love with him.
I mean how weird would it be, living with a man who chases ghosts?
Wait a minute, love? Who said anything about love?
Oh, Jules, this is bad.
I flip over on my side.
I wonder what he'll serve?
I mean… if I go to dinner. Not that I’m going. But if I did. What does a ghostbuster wannabe eat?
Okay, enough of this.
I flop on my side and clasp the pillow tight to my head. No more going on about Jayden Sievert. Mr. Gorgeous Beardie Beard.
The man is officially erased from your memory, do you understand? I pull up the covers.
Until at least tomorrow morning.
Chapter 14
Jayden
“Okay, big guy. Time to tell me your secrets.” I look to the ceiling as I recalibrate my equipment. “What is it that you want from me? Why am I here?” I place one of two EMF ghost-tracking sound meters in the kitchen and a third in the living room next to the stairs, where Anna and I experienced our earlier encounter, then hook up my 360 Ghost Cam in a spot in the corner, where Jules and I felt all the pressure.
I place the wide-angle IR light above the main entrance door and activate the four-camera wireless, so it shoots up from the floor. Then switch on my EVP recorder, with live listening, and take my FLIR Thermal Cam TG165 in hand. “All right, I’m ready now,” I shout at the ceiling, “Come on, reveal yourself!”
I take a seat on the stairs and wait for things to happen, staring upward, and talking to myself, like some kind of lunatic.
“Come on you, bastard. I’ve bought the house. I’ve met the girl. Even brought her here, just like you wanted. Now, tell me something I want to know? Who are you? And what does it matter to me?”
The room grows inordinately cold, and not long after the green entity appears, swirling above my head, on the stairs, just as it did before. The air in the room grows steadily colder. So cold, it gyrates in my bones. I blow into my hands. “Okay, so you’re here. How do we do this?” I request into the air.
The wind picks up, blowing back my hair from in back, and I twist around to find nothing. The Thermal Cam in my hand goes wild; readings rock, the face of it aglow. The needles on the other instruments in the room tweak, while monitors squelch.
“Come on, you! Communicate with me. I’ve waited long enough.”
The entity moves from the stairs to the kitchen and back, then hovers over me, a little too close for my comfort. Its electromagnetism jolts my heart and causes my pressure to soar. I swallow hard, feeling a rush come over me. I've read about this, it's perfectly normal, but my Gawd it's alarming. My machinery can't sustain this for very long.
“Talk to me!” I shout up at the air. “Why have you dragged me here? What do you want with me?”
"Bring her to me." A raspy, solemn voice rattle crackles over one of the machines and through my bones, rocking off the sidewalls of the house. I glance around, looking for a human—a being, a likeness of any kind—but there isn’t one. “Come, on. Come, on.”
One of the machines begins to squeak and rattle. The needle on the front of it bounces wildly. A low moan ricocheted through the house. “What is it? What are you trying to say? I can’t hear you! You have to speak louder!”
The wind picks up, my hair flailing about my face. I clutch the stair rail, afraid of falling. “That’s it!” I shout. “That’s it, talk to me!” A low, rattling wail howls through the room, exploding the meter on one of the machines. My eyes fall to it, smoke filling the room. The squelching and screaming of the static is too much.
I press my hands to my ears, and the entity wails again, its voice rolling like thunder through my chest. "Release me!" is all it says.
Chapter 15
Jules
“So, I need you to come to dinner,” Jayden says, flying through the door of Bates’ Baits the next morning. Appropriately, he looks like he’s seen a ghost.
"I heard," I say. "Are you settled, already?”
“No. I mean, yes.” He blinks. “I mean, good enough.” He rakes a hand through his hair.
“Are you sure? It’s only been two days.” I open a new box of lures and continue stocking the shelves. “Where’ve you been anyway? Anna and I were beginning to think you'd become ghost breackie."
“Funny. Pretty close,” he adds.
“What?”
“Nothing. Will you come, or not?”
“Boy, that’s an enticing invitation.” I pick up the box and walk away.
"Okay, let me try again." He chases after me. We've had a new shipment of decoys, so I'm rearranging things and making him work to gain my attention a little. Truth be known, I'm glad to see him. I was getting worried we might not meet again. Two whole days without seeing his face almost killed me. In a weird, totally-unlike-me way.
“I need you to come to my house for dinner.” He steps between me and the shelf.
“You need, or you want?” I glance at him over my back, pushing him out of the way. “Those are two very different things, you know?”
“All right, fine, I want you for dinner.”
“You what?” I swing around. He staggers to a stop, nearly charging into my back. “I said, I want. Why?”
My eyelashes flutter.
The word want comes out apprehensively like he's trying to hide something.
“No. You said more than that. Tell me the rest.” I cross my arms and scowl at him hard.
“Heh!” His voice shoots up, girly-like.
“You said, I want—” I roll my hands, coaxing him to finish.
“You for dinner.”
I’m struck by a shudder. “Why me?” I swallow. “Why not someone else?”
“You have no idea,” he mumbles.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Again, why me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Who else do I know?” There’s an impatient tone to his voice.
I double back on my heels. This is not the guy who walked through the doors at Bates' Baits just a couple of days back, all shiny and new and full of himself. The guy with the creamy accent who swept me off my feet. No, this guy is too persistent.
Everything about his approach right now feels pushy and cheap. Almost desperate.
“Look.” He throws his hands in the air. His palms are rough and callused. They were smooth before. It's like he's been building something, or destroying something. Or making a noose from boat rope.
I gulp.
Perhaps he’s been building a couple of coffins to toss Anna and me in after we finish dinner. After he murders us.
What am I doing? What am I thinking? Anna’s got me all worked up.
Or maybe Anna’s right. Maybe he is a lunatic.
You know what they say about the sociopath charm.
I gulp down the thought and push away, carrying my box to the other side of the room.
To think I may have let a potential killer hold me in his arms.
“Look,” he says again, following me. “All I want is to do is have you for dinner!”
I drop the box, shaking. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said, I want to have you for dinner.”
You want to have me for dinner! A sinister scene of Jeffery Dahmer sitting at a table devouring someone’s leg jags like lightning through my mind. I clutch my chest and stagger back from him.
“Jules? What is it? What’s the matter?” Jayden closes in on me across the floor.
“Did you just says, you wanted to have me for dinner."
“Uh-huh. That’s right.”
Oh, gobsmack. My mind absorbs this in slow motion. Sweat bursts out on my brow. And to think I dreamt of having sex with this man.
“Is there something wrong?” Jayden squints at me.
A small startled sound escapes my lips as I scuttle away from him, slipping in behind the cash register, putting distance, and a layer of Formica, between us.
"What's going on with you?” Jayden pursues me, stopping on the opposite side of the countertop and stares across.
"Why is it so important for me to come to your haunted house? Hmmm?" I jerk my head to one side.
“I beg your pardon?” He scowls.
“Why is it so important for you to get me up there?”
“That, I can’t tell you until you come.”
“Aa-hah!” I point. “So, you admit there’s something going on!”
“What? No! I just want to have you to eat.”
“Uuuh!” I gasp and scuttle backward. There it is again. "Get away from me—"
“What?”
“You heard me, I said, get away!”
“But Jules—”
He launches toward me and I reach under the counter and pull out a fish knife. “I said, back off, crazy!”
“Okay, now, wait a minute.” He raises both hands in a stopping motion, as I jab the air around him with the knife. “You and all your talk about my mother’s book,” I hiss at him, my mind spiraling out of control. “You and your wanting to read it so badly. What is your real M.O.?”
“Huh? What?”
I narrow my gaze. “And here I was thinking we had something.”
“We do. I mean, we might.” He ducks.
“You snake, claiming it was your mother’s favorite—”
“I—It was. So I’ve been told—”
“Oh, really?” I incline my head. “Because according to your Facebook page you’re supposed to be an orphan!”
"I am. I mean, I was…I can explain." The pupils in his eyes flash.
“Which is it, Jayden? Do you have a mother, or not?” I wield the knife awfully close to his neck.
He gasps, and in one quick, agile move, I'm on him, every ounce of Dad's defense training surging through my veins. I have him back into the counter, the blade at his throat, applying pressure.
I don’t even know who I am at this moment.
“What the—” Jayden’s eyes bug, he heaves for breath, but doesn’t move a muscle. “Can we talk?”
“About what? My mother’s book. The one you never read.” I lean my elbow to his trachea. “If you had, you’d know that in it, the spider slashes the butterfly’s throat to keep her from escaping his lair.”
He yelps.
“Is that what you have planned for us? Huh? Huh?”
“Wait? What?” His eyes grow wide. “Have you gone mad?”
“What’s the real reason you came here to Heartland Cove?”
His heels climb the showcase behind him.
“Jules?” Dad’s voice interrupts.
I turn to look, accidentally jerking my arm and nicking Jayden in the neck. "Oh, my gosh." I clap my mouth. "I'm so sorry!"
“What’s going on here?” Dad’s voice booms. He drops the tools he’s carrying. Hammer, saw, nails hit the floor.
“Your guess is as good as mine, sir,” Jayden swallows, spurting blood from his neck.
“Oh, my gosh.” My hands fly to it. Blood trickles through my fingers.
“Who is this? What is he doing here?” Dad’s eyes flicker from me to Jayden and back.
“He, uh…”
“Just dropped by to—”
“Shut up! I’m talking to her.”
“Right, sir.”
“This is Jayden.” I lower my blade, keeping my hand to his neck. “He’s the new guy in town I was telling you about.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.” Jayden offers a hand.
“The idiot who bought the Caldwell mansion?”
“That’s the one.” I nod.
“The one you—”
“That’s right!” I interject, not wanting Dad to finish his thought. In a weak moment, last night, after the game and too much wine, I may or may not have told him how I actually feel.
“So, why have you got him pinned up against the counter?” Dad raises a brow.
Jaden, teeters foot to foot, nervously.
“Oh, that,” I say.
“Has been a very big misunderstanding,” Jayden finishes for me.
I shoot him a look, and he glances back, his eyes flaring as if to say just go along with this please, I’ll explain later.
My glaze registers on the nick on his neck still bleeding through my fingers, the collar of his shirt turning red.
; “You see, I came in here to invite your daughter to dinner,” Jayden rasps. “And I thought it would be funny to sneak up behind her.”
“Ah, now I’m getting the picture.” Dad folds his arms.
“Right. Unfortunately, I must have startled her, and, well… here I am…”
“Nuff said.” Dad chuckles. “Being who she is, she defended herself. Isn’t that right, Jules?” He turns his eyes on me.
“A-a-absolutely right, Dad.”
“Atta girl.” Dad winks. “Taught you well, haven’t I?” He puffs up his chest and picks up his tools. "He doesn't look at all like a sociopath," Dad mutters, walking past.
No. He’s just a sweet hipster guy with a well-trimmed beard, and now a small gash on his neck. Poor guy. I feel sick about the whole thing.
“Here, let me get you a Band-Aid," I say after Dad has cleared the room.
One thing's for sure. He's not a killer. If he were, he would have overthrown me with the knife. But instead, he just stood there and let me cut his throat.
Anna’s been completely wrong about this guy.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I say racing back with the first aid kit, popping it open and pressing gauze to his neck.
“Sorry enough to have dinner with me?” Jaden’s chest heaves, as he draws in a deep breath.
“Dinner with you?”
“Yeah. What did you think I said?”
“You know,” I dab up his blood. “If you had just asked me that in the first place, none of this would’ve happened.”
“What?”
I fall back on my heels. “You said, ‘I want to have you for dinner— ’”
“Ah, yeah?”
“So, there's a big difference between that, and I'd like to have dinner with you?” I emphasize. “That doesn’t sound half as serial killer-ish.”
"I'll have to remember that," Jayden chuckles, which only makes his neck bleed worse.
“Did you really think I was a serial killer?” His eyes look mournful.
“Only for a moment.”
He winces.
