Chapter 13

Kelly wasn’t surprised that as soon as the first six weeks of school had passed, both of her daughters came down with the flu. She had insisted Jayce stay with his father in hopes it wouldn’t be passed on to the little boy, and then tended her children during their infirmity. It was the third night of coughing and aching joints and chills when an early fall thunderstorm rolled through the valley. Jade ignored it as she fell into a fevered doze on her bed, surrounded by her tissues, hot water bottle and books. Jenn, miserable in her own existence, clutched the edges of her blanket, trembling beneath it as she watched her window in fear. Her window faced east, right where the storm was coming from.

At first, the lightning had been intermittent, with the occasional flash far away causing fear and dread to rise up in her heart like putrid dough. Then came the grumble of thunder, tiny with the distance. She hoped she’d be asleep before the storm got there. She was terrified of them and nothing her parents could say or do would sooth her. She couldn’t decide if it was the sudden flash of lightning, which she never knew was coming, or the thunder, which was even harder to predict. Jenn cringed when a particular flash of lightning lit up her entire room, sending every object within it into a 3-D negative image to remain in the dark long after it was gone.

“You cheated!” she hissed towards her window. “You’re not supposed to be this close!” She was answered by a sudden clap overhead that caused her to let out a surprised shriek. Shifting on the bed, Jenn pulled her pillow further down so she could burrow into it. Moments later, her door slowly creaked open. “Mom?”

“No.”

“Billy?”

“Go to bed little mouse, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Jenn was too afraid to counter as a gust of wind kicked up, causing the trees near the house to rustle and sway. She coughed for a moment, and then reached for a tissue to wipe her nose. Billy let himself into her room, moving to the window to gaze out. The lightning flashed again and she could see the residue of his silhouette, not as thick as the objects, still standing before the window. The AC kicked on, causing her sheer curtains to rustle gently around him. It would have been an awesome image if she weren’t too sick to appreciate it.

“Man, I love storms,” he said. “When I was your age, I used to stand right here at this very window and watch them come in.” He turned his head over his shoulder to look at her. “Let me guess, you’re scared of them, aren’t you?”

A quick nod of her head was his answer.

Billy shrugged and turned back to the storm. “I need to get Gregg. I never let him stay home on nights like this, one of these days, that old shack of his is going to fall right on his head.”

“Can… can you come back soon?”

“Sure,” Billy said as he passed slowly through the window and transformed into a silvery ball of light.

*****

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Gregg said as he met Billy at the road. “I think we need to find some tin or something. That wind that just kicked up had some old shingles flapping on my roof.”

“I’ll see if Nix can’t help us dig something up. Maybe from the shop. His boss got him hired on with the contractor who’s repairing it. There might be some scrap we can use.”

“That’s great news and that sounds like a good plan.” Gregg had to speak a little louder as another gust of wind kicked up. “How are the kids feeling? I brought some tea that should help ease some of their pains. Mom sent it on the train.”

It wasn’t the fastest delivery, but it was the nostalgia of the age that suited them well. Gregg’s parents had died ten months apart in their old age and had gone to Hawaii after his mother passed. They had begged Gregg to come, but he couldn’t leave Billy behind. He couldn’t stomach his friend being lonely, and Billy refused to leave his home.

“Good,” Billy grunted as they passed through his barrier. A long finger of lightning traced the sky above their heads, followed by a particularly nasty crack of thunder. “Oh yeah, the mouse is afraid of storms.”

Gregg’s brow furrowed at the thought. “I remember how terrified of them I used to be at her age,” he said as they walked along the driveway. The old oaks seemed to sigh as the wind stretched their branches and leaves dashed to the ground like bullets. “How many sleepless nights I spent hiding between my parents in bed.”

“No wonder you were an only child.” Billy smirked, and then continued. “Well, she’s sick, her mother is sick, Jade is sick, I think the only people doing well are Nix and Jayce.”

“Good, I wouldn’t want that little one to come down with anything.”

“Me, either. There is nothing more gross on God’s green earth than a toddler with ropes of snot trailing out of his nose.”

When they reached the house, Gregg made his way to the kitchen. With Kelly down, he knew he had the freedom to fix their tea with the knowledge that if he needed an alibi, he knew Nix would own up to making it for them, just to keep the suspicions at bay. A little over a week ago, Kelly had accidently spotted Gregg on the back porch and it had given her a terrible fright, especially after the temper tantrums Billy had thrown. He didn’t like the thought that she perhaps would find him the perpetrator of all the unease the tall blond had caused. Gregg was friend, not foe.

Billy walked up the stairs, letting Jenn hear his footsteps over the grumble of thunder that seemed to wrap itself around the house. The eaves groaned, as they had for many years, causing her to let out a soft whimper as he drew near. When he lifted his hand, the door silently swung open and he poked his head in. “I’m back, but I need to make a few rounds.”

Jenn nodded her head rapidly.

“Just rounds of the house, nothing outside.”

“Then you’ll come back?” she asked. The panic in her voice pulled at his heart. Here this child was, burrowed in her bed with aches and chills, seeking comfort from a ghost to protect her from the storm. For the first time in a long time, he felt real, felt there and the emotion it caused almost felt like pain to his heart. For a brief, fleeting moment, he thought to himself that if he had a child, a daughter perhaps, that she could be like Jenn. Strong on the outside, but vulnerable on the inside. Just like him.

“I’ll be back, little mouse,” Billy said gently and pulled away, letting the door snap harder than he intended to. “Damn emotions,” he grumbled as he slipped back down the staircase. He tented his fingers against his chest, over his heart, and slowly rubbed them in a circle, as if to soothe the emotions away. The old grandfather clock that had remained with the house over the years (Billy would never let it be sold or carted away, so he pulled it into his side with each sell of the house) announced eleven bells as Gregg waited for the water to boil in the kitchen.

*****

“So… how’d you die, man?” Sabaste was leaning against one of the bridges pylons rooted into the earth. “I told you how I did, but you just said your death was Billy’s fault.”

“Oh, it was,” Lance muttered as he squatted over a meager fire. He didn’t like to think of his death, but instead, was content to focus upon the revenge of it. While he was alive, he never really gave death much thought, or what lie beyond. To him, he assumed once your life was choked or stabbed or shot out of your body that was it, you simply failed to exist any longer. When his mortal body exploded into a fine mist around his spirit, to him, it felt like a fingernail being slowly torn from the bed. His very life energy had been wounded by the bastard who had come to the aid of his last victim. “Do you hear them?”

“Hear what, man?”

“The whispers.”

“You mean you can hear those too? I thought I was going crazy!” Sabaste leaned forward and canted his head to the side. “What are they? I only hear them when I’m around you.”

“They are the people I enjoyed while I still had a body to enjoy,” Lance spat as he curled his upper lip in disgust. “Until he came and ruined everything.”

“I didn’t know ghosts could actually kill people, I thought that was something only in movies. Did he impale you or throw you off the roof?”

“No, he didn’t. It wasn’t anything like I’ve ever experienced or seen in life,” Lance said, and then finally sat down from his hunched squat. He stretched his legs out. “The best way to describe it was he… he… unwound me from the inside out.”

“Unwound you? Like thread?”

Lance nodded his head. “Like thread from a sweater. The pain was extraordinary,” he turned his head and gave Sabaste a smile that chilled the young spirit to the core. “I hope I made my victims feel like that. That’s something that makes me very happy.”

“How many victims do you have?” Sabaste could only manage a hoarse whisper. For a moment, he wanted to run, but common reasoning told him that they were on the same playing field. Whatever Lance could do to him, he could do to Lance and on this side; at least the creepy ghost couldn’t kill him.

“Oh, I’d say about… thirty or so are hanging around out there. They’re still cowards. Cowards when I killed them and cowards now because they won’t come near and face me. That gives me the upper hand, you know. I’m still stronger than they are and if they try anything, I’ll just hurt them again.”

“What if they can’t be hurt?” Sabaste asked.

Lance grew angry. “What do you mean what if they can’t be hurt? Where were you when that tall blond was beating you into so much warm snot, huh? That hurt, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it hurt like hell, but after a day or two resting, I was pretty much back to normal.”

“Well, think of it this way, I’m in heaven. If those little cowards want to come and try anything with me, I’ll just beat them into a pulp. They can keep coming and coming and coming and I can keep beating and beating and beating. They can heal and it starts back up. I love this afterlife thing!” he cried out enthusiastically. A sharp crack of thunder drowned out the rest of his narcissistic cheer.

Sabaste could only sit and shake his head. He hated Nix, but he didn’t want to spend his eternity beating the man to a pulp just so he could keep doing it again. There was a limit to revenge and anger, at some point, even he, a streetwise, smart mouthed thug, knew the point of forgiveness. Lance? Well, Sabaste began to come to the conclusion that Lance just had no soul.

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Lance asked.

“No, come close a few times, but I never did,” Sabaste said.

“Too bad. It’s… amazing. All that power over the person, all that control, it’s better than any drug you’ve taken, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, is it?” Sabaste felt a little sick to his stomach, but he plastered on a neutral expression as he listened to the madman ramble. Thunder grumbled again, closer.

“You are their everything in those last moments, or hours, hell, I’ve kept victims alive for days sometimes. You just got to know what buttons to push to keep them your victims. I had one escape. That was back when I was in college. The smart thing I did was to keep her blindfolded so she never knew what I looked like.”

“Yeah, but did she recognize you digs, man?”

“Nah, I had an old abandoned big rig trailer that I used to do most of my tortures in. It was located in a scrapyard, but one night, when I brought a victim to it, I had discovered they had hauled it away to cut it up. That made me sick. I was so mad at losing my special fortress that I tired the girl to a tree and skinned her alive until she died of blood loss and shock.”

Sabaste felt his ethereal stomach turn and he cut his gaze away from the fire.

“It’s okay, not everyone can stomach my hobby.”

“Hobby?”

“Yeah, just a little something fun to do to blow off some steam. Everyone needs them. What’d you do for a hobby?”

“Me and Nix used to hang out.”

‘That’s not a hobby.”

“Well, we’d work on bikes, get them restored and then sell them. That was a good hobby,” Sabaste said quietly.

“Oh, well, there you go. And it made you good money. I got good money, too. I would take their jewelry and melt it down when I had enough and sell the gold bars. That way, nothing could be traced. It’s stupid to keep mementos, that’s how people get tagged.” Lance tapped his temple wisely. “This is where you keep your trophies; this is where people can’t get in.”

“You’re twisted, you know that?” Sabaste asked slowly. “And what are they whispering about?” Now that Lance had brought it to the surface, it was hard to ignore the steady humming buzz of voices. They reminded Sabaste of a fluorescent light; you didn’t really hear the annoying hum until it was about to drive you crazy. He fervently hoped there was an switch to those voices that he could flip to the off position, just so he could have some relief.

“Who knows, who cares what they have to say,” Lance said.

*****

Billy had been asleep for almost four hours when Jayce discovered that someone had left the attic door ajar. It was long enough for the ghost to be in deep enough sleep that he didn’t hear the familiar creak. Jayce was quiet as he slowly ascended the walled in stairway, only pausing in his journey once to stop and play with a little cricket he spied hopping along the baseboard of one of the steps.

When he reached the large barren room, Jayce shoved his messy bangs from his eyes, and then moved towards the middle of the room. There, beneath the large, round window, was a twin bed, and curled into his blankets, his friend. Long pale hair pooled out from the covers and onto the floor, so the little boy sat down and lifted up a handful while he looked over towards the far wall. Gregg’s bed was beneath another window, both spirits bathed in the warm sunlight. Unlike Billy, Gregg was sprawled out on his back with his sleeping face turned towards the room. Between the confines of his blankets, was a large hard-backed book he had borrowed from Jade.

Jayce put a finger in his mouth as he gave the hair in his remaining hand a good tug.

Billy grunted in his mass of blankets. “Knock it off,” he murmured thickly and then tugged them closer to his body. Jayce, happy to have his friends attention, gave the hair another tug. Billy grunted again, but remained speechless.

“Hi, Biddy,” Jayce said softly. He used the long hair to pull himself up onto the bed. Billy muttered again, one eye opening to a slit when he felt the narrow mattress dip down.

“Gregg? Is that you twatting around?” he asked thickly. Gregg, hearing his name, stirred once.

“I can’t do it right now,” he muttered with a sigh and then shifted to his side. The book fell to the floor with a heavy thump.

“Well, and then, do it tomorrow,” Billy snapped. Jayce grinned as he climbed over Billy’s hip, and then perched upon it like a cat.

“Hi, Biddy.”

“No.”

“Hi, where you at?” Jayce asked as he leaned closer to Billy’s face. “You hidin’?”

Realization began to dawn and Billy slowly opened his eyes and turned his head towards the source of mischief. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said slowly. “Jayce?”

“Yuh.”

“How’d you get in here?”

“Climbed.”

“You got up here by yourself?” Billy lifted his head and looked about the room. He was honestly surprised the child had gotten into the attic by himself. “Where’s your dad?”

Jayce shrugged one thin shoulder and then reached out to gently pat Billy’s surprised face. “Jay hidin’,” The little boy grinned. “Kay?”

Billy rubbed his face with both hands, and then leaned back into his pillows. “Why don’t you go play with Gregg instead and let Billy sleep, okay?”

Jayce’s grin grew larger. “Kay, Biddy,” he said.

“And try to make it a quiet game, okay? No yelling or screaming or throwing things,” Billy said as he lifted the boy up and then set him firmly on the ground. When Jayce got up and toddled his way towards Gregg’s bed, Billy threw himself back into his own covers and fought to get back to sleep.

It was a tickling sensation that pulled Gregg from his own sweet dreams. At first, it was just he and Jade, and they were working on putting together a large telescope so they could watch movies at a drive-in two counties over. Then, during the dream, randomly, and for no reason at all, Jade would reach over, her face still set in concentration with the task at hand, and would tweak Gregg’s nose. Every time he would ask her why she was doing that, she would only say, “Kay.”.

Little hands exploring his face finally pulled him slowly awake, and he realized he was answering a question dream Jade had just asked. “We can get sound if you plug your earphones into it,” he said thickly.

“Kay,” Jayce answered.

Carefully, Gregg rolled over onto his back and the little boy finally had room to nestle into the crook of his arm. “Hey, little guy,” he said. “What are you doing up here?”

“Climbed.”

“Someone left my door open,” Billy said with a sour tone.

“It must have been Kelly,” Gregg yawned. “She came up here right after we went to bed.”

“Rude,” Billy snorted. “I think I’d like to superglue her earrings to the mirror.”

“Don’t do that,” Gregg chided softly. “You need to learn how to have a more gentle approach with her. She’s a woman, after all…”

“Well, you know how women are,” Billy said. “Hard-headed and opinionated.”

Gregg smirked. “You must get called ma’am a lot.”

“Don’t make me come over there,” Billy warned. “And go and take that baby back downstairs. We need to get some sleep,” he said as Gregg rose from the bed with Jayce in his arms.

Gregg gazed down at the little boy, and then chuckled softly. “Yes, ma’am.”

When Billy sat up sharply, Gregg let out a playful scream, and holding Jayce tightly, quickly ran down the stairs as their laughter bounced along the walls.

*****

It was too hot in her room, her bones ached, her muscles groaned and Jade was pretty sure that even her hair was sore. She lay on her side in bed, curled up around a box of tissues. Her hot water bottle was on the floor where she had pushed it off the side of the bed after it had gone cold. It just wasn’t cutting it and her lower back was humming. She was just thinking that if only she could sweat, and then maybe the fever could break when she felt a cool hand on her forehead. Believing it to be Kelly coming in to check on her, she opened her eyes, only to gaze at the handsome face of a stranger.

“Hello,” she said hoarsely. Gregg knew she wasn’t fully awake, but hearing her address him had put him in stunned silence for a moment. He realized that she was in that sweet in between place, the gloaming of sleep and wakefulness. The best time for souls to meet.

“Hello,” he answered back. His voice was a gentle tenor, strong and smooth.

“Who’re you?”

“A friend,” he said softly. He watched as Jade stretched in place, and then settle back into her bed.

“Okay,” she sighed. She had accepted he was there on principals that perhaps she was dreaming. It didn’t matter to Gregg, she had seen him, had truly seen him. He reached out and gently pushed her hair aside.

“Would you like some hot tea?” he whispered softly. He had eased himself down upon the bed, careful not to bounce the mattress and cause her more discomfort. “It’s an old herbal blend that will help you feel better.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jade sighed. Her eyes were closed and a light crease furrowed her brow, indicating her aches and pains.

“I’ll be back soon,” Gregg promised as he moved his hand away from her face. To his surprise, Jade reached out and took it, and then guided it back to her forehead before sighing in relief. Gregg gazed at her with open awe, and then pressed his hand more firmly against her fevered flesh.

“Water’s boiling,” Billy said as he floated by the door on his way to peek in on Kelly. Gregg lifted his head, hard-pressed to leave at the moment.

“Do you know how to fix it?”

“Do I look like a woman to you?” Billy snapped. Gregg’s mouth pulled down into a frown, but before he could answer, Billy did it for him. “Shut up!”

“Be quiet, Jade can hear us now,” Gregg spoke softly. The joy he felt over this revelation wasn’t lost to Billy.

“Fine, fine, but hurry up and get that pot off the stove before you burn my house down. Can’t sleep, kids busting into my room, using my hair as a rope, keeping me up, get the Boogieman to come eat a few!”

“Shut up, Billy!” Jenn cried out from her own sick bed.

*****

Being closer to the house than he had gotten in the past, Sabaste could feel the life energy inside; from the living suffering from the flu, to the apparitions within. It was a small opening, but when he felt that momentary lapse in defense, that one moment when Billy’s heart was full of compassion for Jenn, Sabaste had slipped into the house. Every horror movie he had ever seen had something to do with creepy things living in the basement, so that was where he went, sinking through the floor with a panicked expression on his face as he moved through a solid object on purpose for the first time. It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant sensation, and he found that by closing his eyes, it helped the process become a little more bearable. When he reached the old stone floor of the basement, he was surprised to see that there was absolutely nothing in there; no furnace, no junk, not even a cobweb.

“Well, how do you like this?” Sabaste muttered as he walked the barren floor. What bothered him was the fact there was nowhere to hide except beneath the staircase. He may have been dead, but the familiar dread of things that lurked in the dark hadn’t left when he was murdered. He studied the small space, his head tilted to the side in thought, and then he shrugged. Surely if the basement was this tidy, and then perhaps his hidey-hole would be, too. He wasn’t disappointed, and he admitted to himself that this beat being outside during a thunderstorm.

*****

“Would you like some hot tea, Jendra?” It was Gregg’s gentle voice that pulled Jenn’s terrified gaze from the window. She hadn’t even heard the door creak open. She figured that it had probably happened during that long bit of thunder that rolled over them like a bowling ball.

“I don’t like hot tea,” she whispered softly. Gregg eased into the room and walked to the bed, gesturing for permission to sit. When she nodded, he sat beside her and put his hand on her face. “I can put ice in it for you,” he said as he checked her temperature. “Your mom is burning up, too. She’s going to need her rest, so we’ll be here for you tonight. You may have to drag yourself up tomorrow, though. Good thing it’s Monday night, so you didn’t miss much school so far while being sick.”

“Meh,” Jenn whispered. As far as she was concerned, she would be happy to miss all she could get away with.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s the ghost of a janitor there,” she said as she leaned into his cool hands and closed her eyes. “And he’s bossy.”

“Oh is he?” Gregg smiled. “What does he do?”

“Yells at us if we drop paper on the floor or track in mud and leaves.”

“I see,” Gregg said as he pushed her bangs from her face. “You’ve still got a fever, too. I’d wager close to 101 or so. Your cheeks are flushed, but this tea will help it to break. My mother used to make it for me when I got sick.”

“How did you die?” The question was blunt, but her voice was gentle and curious.

“I died due to complications of a fever,” Gregg said after a long pause. “Back in my day, the doctors didn’t know a whole lot about them. Back then, they would bleed you if you had a fever, thinking you either had too much blood, or too much of your blood was bad. They would sit with a patient until it broke, and then go home and go to the next one. He bled me to death.”

Jenn pulled in a breath as she gazed at him in fear.

“It’s okay,” Gregg whispered, touching her forehead tenderly. “That won’t happen to you. You’ve had aspirin and you’ll be all right.”

“Why didn’t your Momma’s tea work that time?”

“We were out,” he said. “Let me get you some, and I want you to drink it all and get some sleep. You need to get well so you can go back to school.”

“Is Billy coming back?”

“He is.” Gregg rose from the bed and walked to the door. “He’s just checking the house.” A frown crossed his face. “Something… hasn’t been right for a while. Since Nix’s friend showed up. We aren’t sure, but we think that they may be trying to get in, if they haven’t already. He told me about you seeing that strange man at the road. You listen to Billy and if you see that man again, do not acknowledge him, okay?”

“Okay,” Jenn promised. “I’ll try my best.”

Gregg nodded. “Good. I’m going to take care of Jade and Billy will be in here with you and we’ll take turns with your mother.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

Gregg smiled. “You’re welcome a bunch.”