by Chloe Garner
In all, it was a great week. They were sitting around the table on the last morning, discussing where to go next - New York? Key West? Tijuana? - when Sam looked up from the laptop.
“We’ve got a job,” he said.
“Where?” Jason asked.
“Birmingham,” Sam said. Deep south meant ten-to-one it was a ghost. Jason nodded.
“Good timing,” Alexander said.
“I guess,” Sam said. “We should probably go ahead and pack. We’ll want to be set up for tonight.”
“No lunch here?” Alexander asked. Sam shook his head.
“Nope. We’ve got work to do.” He looked at Jason. “Simon wants to talk to you.”
Samantha stood up and started cleaning, and Alexander joined her. Sam handed Jason the laptop, and he took it into the living room.
What’s up? he asked.
Squeaky clean Simon answered.
Really?
Story checks out all the way around. Graduated with honors. Several job offers. Started wandering the country. I’ve got his credit statements. Bars. Hotels. Pulled his cell phone. Calls his mom once a week.
Nothing weird at all? Jason asked.
Nothing he hasn’t already told you Simon answered. Should I say sorry? You sound like you wanted to catch him at something.
Jason considered. He had. Was this about Sam-the-girl? Was it about Sam? Or was this just native mistrust of strangers?
I don’t trust strangers he said.
Good policy. Let me know if you find anything else you want me to check on.
Thanks.
He closed the window so Sam couldn’t read it, then gave him the computer back.
“You shut it down,” Sam complained.
“Sorry,” Jason said.
“I still need to get the details.”
“Sorry,” Jason said again, going upstairs to pack. On to Birmingham.
<><><>
Alexander had a stop to make on the way to Birmingham, and Samantha had told him she wouldn’t be able to go out until the job was done, anyway, so she ended up in the back seat of the Cruiser, staring up at the ceiling as she drifted off to sleep. She was under-slept by at least a dozen hours, and it was as good a time as any to turn nocturnal again.
“I think he’s gay,” Jason said. She jerked awake and rubbed her eyes.
“What?”
“You two spend all night every night together for a week, and he never makes the first move to try to sleep with you,” Jason said. “I think he’s gay and just likes to dance.”
“Not everyone spends their entire life thinking about sex,” Samantha said. “And he kisses me like he isn’t gay.”
“You ever kiss a gay guy?” Jason asked.
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
“I’m just saying. We take a week off, I get laid, Sam gets laid, you have every opportunity, and… And nothing.”
Samantha yawned and rolled to face the back of the seat.
“Sam didn’t get laid, either,” she said. “I’d’ve known.”
She took a deep breath, letting it whistle through the back of her nose as she sighed it out, falling asleep with a smile.
<><><>
Jason looked over his shoulder.
“She really did just fall asleep, didn’t she?”
“She hasn’t gotten much sleep this week,” Sam said. He looked back at her. “She needs it.”
“She was kidding, right?” Jason asked.
“She was distracting you. See?” Sam said. “It worked.”
“Dude,” Jason said.
“I’m not talking to you about this.”
“Dude.”
“I’m serious.”
“What do you do all night with a hot woman in your bed if it isn’t screwing like monkeys?”
Sam glanced back at Samantha.
“Talk. Lay. Cuddle.”
“Dude. Did you just say cuddle?”
“I said I’m not talking about this.”
“You said cuddle. Clearly you’re talking about it.”
“No. I’m not,” Sam said, laughing.
“She’s rubbing off on you,” Jason said.
“No. Not everyone has sex on the first date like you do.”
Jason widened his eyes.
“Sam. She slept with you. Twice. What do you think she was expecting would happen?”
“Leave it alone,” Sam said.
“Is that what she said?” Jason said. “And you thought she meant it?”
“Wow. I am not talking to you about this.”
“Do you not want to?” Jason asked.
“Of course I do.”
“So…”
“Jason, I’m happy. Don’t screw with it, okay?”
“All right. Let’s go kill something then, huh?”
“Let’s go kill something.”
<><><>
Birmingham, as it were, was a bit of an estimate for where they actually ended up. They parked next to a pair of roadside crosses in a tiny town about an hour south.
A car had gone off the road a few days before, hitting a tree. When the police got there - the town was small enough that Jason had guessed they might share police with the county, but they did have their own police force - they found the car empty. There wasn’t any sign of the occupants of the car, a pair of teenage boys, or any sign of them being injured in the accident, but they didn’t turn up, either. Then, the day before, a couple out on a walk had found the boys.
They were shredded.
The photos Simon had pulled off an internet-connected computer at the police office seemed to indicate they had bled out where the bodies were found, but the police report said that they had been injured in the car wreck and stumbled away, expiring where the bodies had been found, but in the time between their deaths and their discovery, wild animals had obliterated the original injuries they had incurred in the wreck.
“They have real predators around here that would eat a body?” Jason asked.
“Internet says coyotes and wolves,” Sam answered, glancing up from his phone.
“Huh.”
“That doesn’t change anything, does it?” Samantha asked.
“No. Just checking whether they came up with at least a plausible lie,” Jason said. “Wanna go see where they actually died?”
“Yup,” Sam said.
Jason pulled back onto the road and Sam gave him directions to the location in the police report. It was several hundred yards off the nearest road, so they locked up and started across a forested stretch.
There was a small clearing, and Samantha knelt next to the flattened grass where the first body had been.
“Definitely animals,” she said. “But little ones.”
“What do you see?” Jason asked.
“Scat,” Samantha said, pointing. He nodded.
“Not that it changes anything,” Sam said.
“Nope.”
“Why here?” Jason asked. Sam looked around. The sun barely hit the ground with enough force to support the grass; in some places, rock showed through the thin soil.
“Old ceremonial spot?” Sam asked. Jason scuffed his foot at the rock.
“Could be.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” a woman’s voice asked. All three of them turned to see a woman in solid hiking pants and a plaid shirt weaving into sight through the trees.
“Who are you?” Jason countered.
“I’m the mayor here,” the woman said, putting her hands on her hips. “Answer me.”
Jason indicated the ground.
“They died here.”
“Police chief says no way,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“No tape,” Jason said, spinning his finger in the air to indicate the surrounding woods. She glowered.
“We figured people would be civil enough to stay away,” she said. “You reporters?”
“No, just trying to figure out what happened,” Sam said. She took each of th
em in, individually, narrowing her eyes at Jason.
“You have badges?”
“Nope,” Jason said. She nodded.
“You’re trespassing,” the woman said. Jason nodded.
“You’ve gotta ask yourself. Something snatches a couple of strapping Alabama boys, lays ‘em open here, what, less than a quarter mile from the nearest house? Leaves them for dead. Doesn’t move the bodies, doesn’t try to hide them. What’s stopping it from doing the same thing again?”
“I want you out of here,” she said. He glanced at Sam, then looked around the space again, slowly. How much more was there to see here?
“Okay.”
She nodded.
“We see you again, you’ll be arrested for trespassing,” she said.
“What if we aren’t trespassing?” Jason asked. Sam coughed.
“My brother is the police chief,” she said. “I tell him I saw you trespassing, he’ll arrest you for it.” She jerked her head toward the road. “Get gone.”
Jason took one last sweep of the space, then started back toward the Cruiser. Sam and Samantha followed. Part way back, he turned to look back at the mayor, finding her squatted very near where Samantha had stopped, staring at the ground with her head between her hands.
“This is a small town,” Sam said.
“Everyone would have known each other,” Samantha said.
“Not really what I meant,” Sam said. “We just showed up as strangers to a small town in the deep South. And Jason just put murder in her head. We’re easy suspects.”
“We can prove we were in North Carolina this morning if we need to,” Jason said.
“I don’t like laying a trail like that,” Sam said. “You just told her it’s going to happen again.”
“It is,” Jason said, turning back toward the car.
“Yeah, but you sound like a serial killer.”
“It’s a small town,” Jason said. “They don’t think about serial killers here.”
“It’s Alabama. They shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Fair enough. What do you want to do next?”
“Simon couldn’t get us in to see the bodies. They’re in Birmingham, due to be released to the families tonight.”
“Need to see the bodies,” Jason said.
“What’s on the list?” Samantha asked.
“Of things that steal people and kill them?” Jason asked. “Shorter list is what isn’t.”
“No major water around,” Sam said.
“Okay, there’s that.”
“And there were two of them,” Sam said. “Most ghosts only snag one at a time.”
“Age matter?” Samantha asked.
“Seventeen,” Jason said. “Too old to be innocents.”
They reached the road and Jason unlocked the Cruiser. A car came screeching up to them and a man in a police uniform jumped out, pointing his gun at them.
“Don’t move,” he yelled. The mayor came running out of the forest behind them.
“Where is she?” she screamed. “What did you do with her?”
Jason looked over at Samantha and Sam, weaving his fingers behind his head. He breathed out through pursed lips. He hated when Sam was right this quickly.
<><><>
Samantha looked around the office. They had taken Sam’s and Jason’s guns, but hadn’t noticed Lahn. She had wrestled with whether she wanted to point her out to the officer who had searched her, but decided against it. There was every chance they would lose her, and it wasn’t worth the risk.
They only had one interrogation room, so they had handcuffed her to a wooden chair in the single office. She understood Sam was in the bathroom. It wasn’t a terrible office. It had a nice window, and the desk was of good construction. Someone could live a good life with this as where they spent their hours. The police chief - a bit strong, given he was one of only two officers - came and sat down at the desk, watching her. She watched him back.
“Would you be willing to tell me what’s going on?” she finally asked.
“We’re holding you until one of you tells us where Debra is.”
“I didn’t mean about us. Will you tell me what’s going on out there?”
“We’re gonna find her,” the man said. “And if she’s not okay, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“Please tell me what happened,” Samantha said. He clenched his jaw.
“They found her horse.”
<><><>
“What did you do with her?” the mayor screamed. Her brother had called her Patty.
“Never saw her,” Jason said. “You were the first person in town we saw. Don’t care who it is. Didn’t see her.”
“You were where they found the boys. You tell me where she is.”
“We got the spot out of your police report,” Jason said. “And I’m very sorry, but she’s probably already dead. You need to let us go so that we can track down whatever did this and stop it.”
“Whatever did this?” she spat. “You’re an animal. There are a hundred men in this town that would gladly put a hole in you if they thought it would find her. You don’t tell me where she is, I swear I will leave you in this room alone with one of them.”
Jason shook his head.
“You can’t fight this. You need our help. We need to see the boys’ bodies.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sicko.”
She slammed the door on her way out and Jason sighed. That probably could have gone a lot better.
<><><>
Sam sat on the floor in the bathroom, handcuffed to the pipe under the sink. It would be a cinch to disassemble the sink to get free, but he guessed that wouldn’t help anything. He leaned his head against the sink. The sheriff’s deputy sat in a chair watching him.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the man said. “I can wait all day.”
Sam blinked at him, then tipped his head back against the wall.
<><><>
“What are you here for?” the police chief asked.
“Trying to catch the thing that killed those boys,” Samantha said.
“And what’s that?” he asked.
“We figure a ghost,” Samantha said.
“A ghost.”
She shrugged.
“I don’t expect you to believe me, but… yeah.”
“How do ya figure?”
She looked at the books on the bookcase.
“Ghosts do things that most other stuff can’t do. Disappearing people out of a car doesn’t seem to be out of their range. Most other things would only have been able to snatch them after the accident. You would have found some evidence they were there. It was a bad wreck, right? Should have found blood. Then there’s that they were cut up, but nothing was taken.”
“Taken?”
“Blood, skin, organs.” She looked up at the trim along the ceiling. “There are some sadists out there, sure. It’s possible it was a demon, but… We figure a ghost.”
She looked back at him.
“If you’re looking for insanity, we don’t play games like that around here.”
<><><>
“We brought your car in,” Patty said. Jason grimaced.
“You aren’t going to like what you find in there.”
“Oh, no, I like it fine. You’re demon-worshiping serial killers. I found all your tools.”
“Debra have anything in common with the two boys?” Jason asked.
“They both lived here,” Patty snarled. Jason sighed.
“Anything else?”
She frowned and sat.
“They all three worked at Jenny’s place,” she said. “Is that how you picked them?”
“Just looking for the thing that did,” Jason said. “That’s what we do. We hunt bad things. You found all of the tools for that. Anything strange about Jenny’s place?”
“We’re cataloging everything as we speak,” Patty said. “You’re going to jail for a long time. Tell me where Debra is, and maybe my brot
her can lose a few things.”
“If I could, I would. The same thing took her that took those boys, and it isn’t going to stop. Who else works at Jenny’s?”
<><><>
“All day,” the deputy said. “I can wait all day.”
Sam sighed, dropping his bent knee and crossing his ankles.
<><><>
“So, let’s go with your theory. A ghost did it. Why would a ghost take a teenage girl? Where would it put her?”
“You’d have to ask Sam and Jason. I’m the demon expert. But the answer is probably ‘because he was angry’ and ‘wherever he felt like it’. Same as demons, actually.”
“So… Sam. And Jason. Are the ones who know why… the ghost… took the girl?”
“It isn’t code,” Samantha said. “They won’t know, but they’ll be able to figure it out.”
<><><>
Patty sat down across from Jason again, holding a slip of paper. She set it down, pulling out a cell phone and dialing.
“Hello. Who is this?”
She waited. Jason shifted.
“Hi, Karen. Did you give your phone number to a… grungy man in his late twenties?”
Jason flashed her a smile.
“No, I’m not his girlfriend.”
She listened for a minute.
“No, Karen. I’m not his wife. I just…”
She listened again.
“Karen. Do you work at a bar?”
Long, long pause.
“I…”
Pause.
“No, I…”
Longer pause. Jason smiled again. Karen had been chatty.
“Karen, please tell me the name of the bar where you work.”
There was a short answer to that.
“And how many people did you give your number to in the last… three nights?”
There was a long pause.
“No. I…”
Pause. Jason struggled not to snicker.
“Karen. I don’t need to know any of this. Please describe him to me.”
There was a long silence while Patty listened. Jason put his chin on his crossed arms on the table. She hung up.
“Can I go stop this thing, now?”
“You were in North Carolina two nights ago,” Patty said. He nodded, his chin popping back and forth over the bone in his arm. “Why didn’t you mention that before?”
“Forgot.”
“You’re just a freak who likes to watch,” she said. “Sick.”
“I stop them,” Jason said. “Who else works at Patty’s?”
