Chapter 7

The old grandfather clock chimed the hour twice in its haunting voice, and then fell still. When the residual tones finally died down in the quiet house, Billy slowly materialized before the large picture window. Upstairs, the family slept, minus one. He had spent the better part of his night marking his ethereal territory, but when he returned, he immediately knew that someone was still awake. His dark eyes swept the large expanse of the lawn before he let out a soft grunt of surprise at the faint sound behind him. Turning slowly, he pinned his hard gaze on the old lounger.

Ade’s recliner was built sometime during the mid-70s, back in the heyday of earth brown, harvest gold, sunset orange and avocado green. Over the years, instead of replacing the horrible thing, he had just repaired it in his own way. A broken leg? No problem, he’d just find a piece of lumber that he would roughly hew into the approximate size and shape and he would be set once again. When the fabric over the arms wore out, he simply applied a layer of duct tape over the holes to keep the stuffing from coming out, much to the cries of dismay from his wife, and daughters.

Billy hated the thing at first sight. It sat in the living room like a bulky squatter who had no intention of leaving. He stood with his back to the picture window, squaring off with the monstrosity with silent contempt. “I hate you,” he growled quietly.

“What did I ever do to you?” Jenn’s voice answered back. She was snuggled down into it, wrapped in her blanket. Ade had left two nights ago to go back to the rig and the girls were missing him fiercely. Unable to sleep, the little girl went down to her father’s chair; it was the only way she knew how to be close to him.

“What are you doing up?”

“I miss my Daddy…”

Billy didn’t want to feel the compassion that flooded his heart, so he snapped down on the pesky emotions as he floated towards her. “Well, this is my time to be up, so you go back to bed. Stop hogging my quiet time.”

“I can’t go to sleep…”

“Why not? It’s easy. You lay down, close your eyes and your brain does the rest.” Billy reached down and plucked at the blanket. “Up. Now. Go. It’s Billy time, not brat time.”

“I thought Billy time was brat time,” Jenn frowned heavily at him as she clung tightly to her blanket. He never really paid the family much direct attention, but since this was their first real conversation, Jenn made the wise decision not to let the spirit push her around. After all, she got enough of that from Jade.

“Look, I’ll make this simple,” Billy said in a reasonable tone as he leaned down, his hands gripping the arms of the chair as he put his face close to Jenn’s. “You go upstairs, go to bed and let me have some peace, and I won’t tell the boogie man you’re here.”

Jenn’s eyes widened in shock, and then narrowed. “Daddy said there’s no such thing, you can’t trick me.”

“Oh, but look who you’re talking to,” Billy pointed out. “I’ve been dead two hundred years; I’ve seen a lot of things…”

“I can’t sleep…” Jenn countered again softly, and this time, there was real fear in her voice. “Daddy’s not home to run the bad things away.”

“Well, he couldn’t run me off,” Billy said, neglecting to point out that Ade hadn’t tried. “So what makes you think he could run off a boogie man?”

“Because… because he’s Daddy,” Jenn whispered as tears formed. Ade was her best friend; he never picked on her, never made her feel like she was insignificant, never made her feel last in line for anything life had to offer. He loved her and always made her feel like there was nothing in the world she couldn’t handle as long as her Daddy had her back. Her mother and Jade were there for her too and Jade wasn’t always the tyrant of a big sister, but Jenn was small for her age and sometimes kids liked to pick on the weakest member of the pack. As long as she could remember, it had always been like that with her. Her daddy, who was even taller than this ghost, always made her feel ten feet tall.

“If you cry,” Billy said softly, “I will eat you.” His own soul was stirring with the mourning the child felt, and he hated that. He had shut his heart off years ago and had no intentions of feeling it again.

Jenn lowered her head, but the tears spilled silently down her cheeks anyway. “I just want to sit in Daddy’s chair tonight; I won’t bother you…”

“You can’t sleep in a chair, a chair is not a bed and besides, this thing’s so ugly, if you put it on railroad tracks, the train would take a dirt road to keep from hitting it.” He had a momentary instant of panic when Jenn’s shoulders began to shake slightly, but relief washed over him when she lifted her face with a smile. A soft giggle ebbed the flow of her tears and Billy nodded his head wisely. “Upstairs. I’ll bring you a juice box. I’ll put plenty of sleeping pills in it so you won’t wake up until next week.”

“I stashed some apple in the very back,” Jenn said as she climbed up on her knees in the chair before gathering her blanket up. “Jade only drinks them because she knows they’re my favorite.”

Billy rose and gave her room to get out of the hideous thing. “All right, head on up, don’t make me have to call you-know-who.”

“He’s got a phone?” The little girl asked in shock as she set her feet on the floor.

“Oh yeah, I got him on speed-dial.”

*****

“If I catch you in that chair again, I’m going to make you play in traffic,” Billy said as he came into the room, holding the juice box in his hand. “I can’t get the straw in, I think I bent the pointy thing at the bottom.”

Jenn sat up and took it from him, and with practiced ease, popped the straw into the side of the box. “You were trying to make it go into the wrong side.”

“Sue me, I’m dead,” Billy said. “Drink that and go to sleep.”

“Could you turn my closet light on?”

“You couldn’t have done that before I got up here?”

“It was dark!”

“It was dark when you went back to bed!”

“This is a different kind of dark! Things hide in that dark!”

With a grunt of frustration, Billy turned his head to the closet door and it swung open. The light snapped on and flooded the room. “There we go.”

“Could you close the door so a little bit of light comes in?” Jenn asked. “Please?”

Billy’s grunt was louder this time as the door eased close until it was almost shut to. A tiny sliver of light pierced the dark room. “There.”

“Could you open it just a little more?”

The door began to open slowly.

“A little more… a little more… too much!” She said, and then burst into soft laughter when Billy put his hand over her face and pushed her to the bed. He realized that this was the same game she played with her own father every night.

“Do you want me to check under the bed? Would that make the queen happy? Oh queen of the buttheads, how may this lowly servant serve you?” Billy asked as he gave her a low, sweeping bow. Anything to make the tears go away. People who were sensitive to spirits never seemed to realize that some spirits could be just as sensitive as they were, if they let their guards down. When they were around the living who were happy, they felt it tenfold, but when they encountered the living who were sad, or afraid, it agitated the ghosts or caused them great suffering. Billy had learned a long time ago to build walls around his heart, and as time went by, the brick and mortar surrounding it grew stronger and thicker.

“It’s good,” Jenn promised, “but yeah, you can check under my bed if you want to.”

“Trust me, there’s nothing under your bed, little Mouse,” Billy said. “Go to sleep.”

“Thank you,” Jenn said softly as she tossed the empty box into the trashcan by her bed. “You’re a good babysitter.”

*****

He didn’t know how long he had been walking; everything seemed to consist of one long, rambling nightmare that seemed to take forever to get to the scary part. All Sabaste knew was that somehow he was traveling in the right direction. He had to find Nix. He didn’t know why, but there seemed to be some sort of ghostly GPS that was helping to drive him in his search for Nix. He couldn’t see him, but he could feel him. His old friends’ energy seemed to be calling to him like an idiot siren on a dry beach.

There was a moment when he realized that he had been beyond enraged at Nix and had even threatened his life, but at the moment in his weakened state, he couldn’t recall what Nix could have done to make Sabaste so angry at his closest friend. He was able to think back to the first moment after his murder when he realized that something wasn’t right. He had found himself at Nix’s place early that Saturday morning, wondering why they hadn’t gone out the night before like they had planned. When he got to the townhome, he was shocked to discover a for sale sign in front of Nix’s place. He wasn’t sure exactly how he ended up on the familiar stoop; things felt a blur, like a large chunk of time had been taken from him from point A to point B.

Unsure as to why Nix would have stood him up on their movie plans, he pulled an old business card out of his jacket pocket and scribbled the number on the sign along the back and then headed down the street. When he got to a payphone, Sabaste slipped inside, put in some change and dialed the number, finding it strange when nobody picked up after the sixth ring. He took his change out of the coin slot, and dialed again and again, no one answered. After another try, Sabaste let out a frustrated breath and exited the phone booth. He walked down the street, and then paused. The first person he called out to walked past him, so did the second. He began to grow angry and shouted at a man who was walking arm and arm with his girlfriend. Sabaste realized they were holding an umbrella and he looked up to a dark sky. It was raining, he discovered that he could now see the rain, but it wasn’t falling on him.

Now, he was exhausted. Unaware of the new rules, Sabaste had depleted his energy until he could barely put one foot in front of the other. During the day, he seemed to find a bit of perk, but it was pure determination and the need for revenge that kept him from stopping to rest.

“You look like you’ve come a long way, stranger.”

Sabaste paused, and then swayed as he turned his head towards the voice. “Who’re you?” he rasped out hoarsely.

“My name’s Lance. How long you been dead?”

“We’re all dead,” Sabaste said as he lifted his hand to rub his face. It was funny how his face felt beneath his palm, the same contours, the same stubble on his chin, the same, like it did in life.

“Pretty deep, but I mean that in the literal sense.”

“I don’t know, man… I don’t know.” Sabaste answered as his palm gently pressed against the back of his head. “It happened so fast, one moment I was there, and then…”

“Then you were gone. Come sit under the bridge with me, brother, tell me your story. I want to hear it.” Lance’s voice was kind as he spoke to the weary spirit. It was the same urging tone he used to lure his victims into the trap while he was alive. “You really need to learn how the rules work on this side, you can’t just go on and on like that rabbit in the commercial, it just doesn’t work that way my friend.”

“I don’t know how anything works anymore… not anymore…” the image of Nix’s face came floating to the front of his mind. Nix. His best friend, his brother. “My best friend Nix killed me,” he said as he walked towards Lance. “Shot me in the face. Point blank. With a shotgun. He’s here, he’s close, I can feel him, I can almost smell him.”

“Wow… that’s really rough,” Lance said. His face may have been etched with compassion, but inside, he was grinning like a wolf at the kill. He knew that name, it was the name of one of the people living on the land of the ghost that had killed him. Lance wasn’t brave enough to venture back onto that property, but here fate had settled a perfect patsy to go into his place. And as weak as this young man was, why, the powerful spirit probably wouldn’t even notice if he came onto the property. Sabaste’s energy signature was no stronger than that of a small animal. “You know, I know that name. In fact, there’s a family just down the road with a man that goes by that name,” Lance said.

Sabaste grew hopeful that his journey was finally over. He felt like he had been traveling for years. “Yeah? You think it might be the same guy? He’s not really tall, maybe my height, mohawk, tattoos, earrings?”

Lance chuckled. “You found your man; he’s just up that way.” He stepped out and pointed to the right. “Top of the hill, it’s an old house sitting way off the road, you can’t miss it. I heard he’s staying in the servant’s quarters, it’s a stone house just off the big one.”

Sabaste smiled. It was a cold smile Nix had only seen on a few occasions. Once, it preluded a three-month stint in jail. He wouldn’t have liked the idea that his best friend was smiling that smile on his account.

*****

It had been a long couple of weeks. First the incident with Jade and her little ‘friend’ the night of the family meeting, the hard task of seeing Ade off for another couple of months, and then finally finishing the hard work that got the little stone house suitable to live in. Jade and Jenn had decided it was time for a grudge match, and he had to break up two fights in one day between the girls. How Jenn, as tiny as she was, had managed to put Jade into a headlock and keep her there, he didn’t know, he was just thankful he wasn’t bitten the second time. Add into the mix that Jayce was being extra clingy and demanding more of his attention; it had worn him to the bone. At least the resident spirits had decided to remain scarce during this time and he was grateful they knew how to mind their own business. Nix was now lying on his back in bed, feeling the old, dull ache of his former addiction as it tried to sink his claws into him.

“Oh man… a hit sure would take the edge off right now,” he murmured to the room. The only answer he got back was the steady hum of the AC window unit he had installed the night he moved in so he wouldn’t swelter to death in the little stone oven. “No. Nope. Not going to do it. I made a promise to Ade and the family. Can’t do it.” He shivered at the mental image of that boar bristle brush and for a moment, he had the ghostly sensation of those stiff bristles as they were grinded against the bottom of his left foot. Billy seemed to be able to pull that thing out of thin air and wave it at him at the oddest moments. He had nearly driven his van into a ditch when the darn thing suddenly manifested on his dashboard one night. With a grunt, Nix rolled over onto his side, clutching the spare pillow to his stomach as he closed his eyes and tried to force sleep to come. It was just his luck that sleep never came when demanded. Instead, he let his mind drift.

Jade. What was he going to do to keep her safe? She was a good girl, she really was, but she was just confused about life and what she wanted from it. That was okay, though, as long as he was around, he’d make sure that he’d keep her out of trouble. Jenn was easier, just give her some doll furniture for her dollhouse and she could spend hours in front of it, lost in her imagination as she played by herself. Jayce, well, Jayce was doing just fine. He was adjusting well to his new surroundings and he seemed happier than Nix had remembered seeing him for a long time. As he began to drift into sleep, he told himself that he’d have to tell Sabaste how happy their boy was when the mournful feeling struck his heart. No, he couldn’t share this with his friend. His friend was gone.

He thought he was dreaming when he heard the sound of the pebble as it tapped faintly against his window. Nix’s brows furrowed as his face etched with sorrow. He sat up suddenly as the familiar sound came again, a little louder this time. Cautiously, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed after pushing his covers aside. He tilted his head, straining to listen. Surely it was just the AC unit ticking. Just as he was about to give up, the sound of a pebble striking his window again caused him to start. He rose quickly and walked to the window, peering out into the night, but nothing was there. He walked to the door, unlatched it and pulled it open. The hot summer air greeted him and sweat immediately stood out on his skin.

“Hello?” he called into the darkness. Silence was his answer. “Anyone there? Billy, is that you twatting around out there?” Nix felt more than a little foolish standing alone in the doorway naked and talking to nothing, so he shook his head and closed his door.

In the shadows thrown by the big house, Sabaste put his back against one of the large oak trees that stood between it and Nix’s new home. He closed his eyes as feelings of grief and betrayal flooded his heart.

“Brother…” he sighed after the door shut and the lock was thrown. “I loved you, man… and you had better believe I’m going to make you suffer. I’m going to make you wish suffering was all you were going to do because my revenge is going to be hell on you.”