Demons Are a Ghoul's Best Friend

  I opened my eyes and saw that Gilley was holding up a comb and some hair spray. “Girlfriend, you look a mess!” he said, and came at me with the comb.

  It was my turn to swat his hand away. “You mean to tell me you have a comb and hair spray but no pain medication?!”

  Gilley looked pained. “There wasn’t room in the kit,” he explained. “Something had to go.”

  I let out a long, heavy sigh and waited a moment to speak. “Okay, Gil,” I finally said. “But I think I’ll sport the bad-hair day in lieu of getting some aspirin.”

  “Sorry, M.J.,” Gilley said, slipping the comb and spray back into the kit.

  I softened a bit. Reaching out to squeeze his hand I said, “Thank you, Gilley. I appreciate your trying to take care of me.” Gil smiled brightly and leaned in again to mop at my head wound. “It’s fine,” I said, pulling back.

  “It is not,” he said. “I think you need stitches, but if I know you as well as I think I do, you will flatly refuse to get them.”

  “Can’t you just put a Band-Aid on it and call it even?”

  Gilley sighed dramatically. “I can try,” he said, digging around in the first-aid kit again.

  While Gilley worked to patch me up I made small talk with Nicholas, pointing out several things in his room and asking him to tell me about them. We started with the model airplanes and moved on to the comic-book posters. Finally, just as Gilley had placed the last bandage on my forehead, I pointed to Nicholas’s PlayStation and said, “That is so cool, Nicholas! I bet you love playing that.”

  Nicholas gave me a vigorous nod again and shuffled over to his PlayStation to hold it up proudly. “I’ve been all the way to level four!”

  Gilley whistled. “That’s amazing!” he said. “You must be really good.”

  Nicholas pumped his head up and down. “I am! I am really, really, really, really, really good!”

  I smiled. His enthusiasm was infectious. “I bet you like to play with your friends,” I said easily.

  “Some friends,” he said, and pointed to a wall where there was a bulletin board filled with pictures of students hugging Nicholas. “The kids that go here during the school year like to play with me.”

  “I’ll bet. And in the summer you have Eric to play with.”

  Nicholas pumped his head, then seemed to catch himself.

  “How do you know about Eric?” he asked, but his tone was curious, not accusatory.

  “I met Eric at the school the first night we were here,” I said. “But I’ve forgotten his last name; what was it again?” I said, and turned to Gilley as if he might have the answer.

  “Foster!” Nicholas said. “His name is Eric Foster!”

  “Yes, yes,” I said, snapping my fingers. “I remember. Eric Foster. He’s such a nice young man.”

  “He used to help Hernando,” he said. “But Hernando always ran into Jack. Eric tried and tried to get him to come here, where it’s safe, but Hernando always got scared.”

  “And there’s another little boy, right?”

  “Mark,” Nicholas said, but he pulled his face down in a frown. “He won’t talk to me. Eric says he’s a chicken.”

  “Yes, Mark!” I said brightly. “I thought I knew his last name too, but I’ve forgotten it….”

  “Foster!” Nicholas said brightly. “Mark Foster!”

  Gilley’s eyes slid sideways to lock with mine. Uh-oh, they seemed to say. “Eric and Mark are brothers, then?” I asked.

  Nicholas laughed like I’d said something really funny. “Naaaaaah!” he said. “They’re not brothers! Me and Owen are brothers!”

  “Yes, you are,” I said, making sure I smiled brightly at him. “Listen, Nicholas, do you know where Jack lives?”

  “Why you want to know that?” Nicholas said, and for the first time since we’d been chatting his mood became pensive.

  “Because I want to try to stop Jack,” I said. “He’s hurt me and Eric and Mark and Hernando. I want to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else ever again.”

  “Jack is a baaaaad man!” Nicholas said. “He hurts lots of people.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “And he frightens many more. I want to make sure that Jack doesn’t do that anymore.”

  “I don’t know where he lives,” he said, and his face looked crestfallen. “Owen said that I need to stay in this room because Jack won’t come here, and he’s right. Jack doesn’t come here. I only came out tonight ’cause Eric said you needed help.”

  I cocked my head curiously at Nicholas. “Owen knows about Jack?”

  Another vigorous head pumping from Nicholas ensued. “Yessiree!” he said. “He knows Jack’s a baaaaaaaad man.”

  “That’s great, Nicholas. You have been such a terrific help to us tonight. And I thank you for rescuing me. It was very brave of you to go into that classroom when you knew Jack was there.”

  “He usually leaves me alone now that I’m big,” said Nicholas. “Eric says since I got so tall Jack doesn’t want to chase me anymore. Eric also says not to be afraid, ’cause Jack can see if you’re scared, so whenever I go outside after dark I try not to be afraid.”

  A chill ran up my spine. Apparently Jack was interested in venting his craziness only on people smaller and weaker than him. “Listen, would it be okay if I came back here sometime and spoke to your friend Eric? I want to try to help him like I helped Hernando.”

  Nicholas’s face fell into a pout. “You want him to go home, don’t you?”

  “I do,” I said honestly. “I think it’s time, don’t you?”

  Nicholas sighed and kicked at the floor with his foot. “I suppose,” he said. “But I will miss him when he goes.”

  “He won’t go far, my friend. And I’m sure that when he does, if you listen really hard, you’ll be able to hear him.”

  “Yeah?” he asked me, and his face seemed to brighten.

  “Yeah,” I said, holding up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  Nicholas laughed and held up two fingers too. “Scout’s honor,” he repeated.

  I got up stiffly from the couch with Gil’s help. “Thanks again, Nicholas, but I think I should go home and let you get your sleep, okay?”

  “Okay. It’s safe now anyhow. Jack is gone away again.”

  “I wished I’d known when he was going to show up,” I said. “Maybe I could have been prepared.”

  “Jack comes around on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays,” he said. “Never on Tuesdays or Thursdays. And never on Sundays.”

  “Why never on those days?” I asked.

  Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for the info, Nicholas. Is it all right if we come back and talk with you again?”

  Nicholas gave another shrug. “I guess,” he said.

  “Let’s get you home,” said Gilley, and I could tell by the intense look he was giving me that I looked pretty bad.

  Nicholas escorted us to the van, and we waved at him as we left. “He’s such a sweetheart,” I said as I watched him in the side-view mirror.

  “You’re just lucky he got to you in time,” said Gilley.

  “What the hell happened in there, M.J.? I’ve never seen a ghost attack like that before.”

  I moved my hand up to my forehead, feeling along the bandaged cut. “That guy is one powerful piece of poltergiest, Gil. Those kids have no business being housed anywhere near that energy. I could see him seriously hurting someone.”

  “He’s already seriously injured someone,” Gil said, swiveling a look at me.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m tough; I can take it.”

  “Don’t you think this case might be a little too much for us?” Gilley asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, M.J., that if Hatchet Jack can knock you on your keister once and put a gash like that in your head, there’s no telling what else he’s capable of.”

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. My head hu
rt like nobody’s business, and I really wished I had an aspirin handy. “Believe it or not I think that’s the worst that Jack can possibly throw at me.”

  “Yippee,” Gil said woodenly.

  “I’m serious,” I insisted. “He was really pissed off that I took Hernando away from him. All that rage came flying out, and this was the most he could do.”

  “I’m not seeing the bright side of this,” said Gil.

  “Other than a pretty good scratch and a bump on the head, I’m fine. That means that as long as I take a few precautions, we should still be able to tackle him.”

  “You have something in mind, do you?”

  “I do,” I said. “I just need to find out where his portal is and lock him down. In the meantime we’ll continue looking into who he was and who these kids are.”

  “At least we have a last name for Eric,” Gil said.

  I gave him a sardonic smile. “Eric Foster. Mark Foster. But the two weren’t brothers. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “They could have been cousins,” Gil said reasonably.

  He had me there. “I’ll turn it over to Muckleroy,” I said, closing my eyes again.

  “How’s your head feel?”

  “Fabulous!”

  “Sorry about the aspirin bottle, M.J.,” Gil said guiltily.

  I sighed. “Don’t worry about it, Gil. We’re almost home, right?”

  I felt the van make a left turn and come to a stop. “Better,” Gilley said. “We’re already here.”

  Gilley helped me inside, then went straight to the medicine cabinet, where he found a lovely giant bottle of ibuprofen. I sucked down four of those suckers and shuffled my way to bed, where I waited for the pain relief to take effect and drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  The ibuprofen had worn off by morning, which was what finally motivated me to get out of bed. Gilley met me in the kitchen again and was quick to pull out a chair for me and bring me coffee. “Need ibuprofen,” I mumbled in pain, holding my head in my hands.

  “You need to put something in your stomach first,” Gilley said. “Here,” he offered as he set down a bowl and a box of cereal in front of me.

  “Not hungry,” I muttered irritably. “Need painkiller!”

  Gilley gave me a look that said he wasn’t having any of it. “Eat first,” he insisted. “Ibuprofen should never be taken on an empty stomach. And you haven’t eaten anything since last night.”

  I gave a terrific sigh as I opened the cereal box. Then, with a dramatic hand motion, I lifted the box and poured some cereal into my mouth, then began crunching loudly. That was the wrong thing to do, because it just made my head ache more. “Owwwwww,” I moaned.

  “That’ll teach you,” Gil said. Taking the box out of my hand he poured a small helping of cereal into the bowl and layered that in milk. “Let it soak for a minute and it won’t be so crunchy.”

  I glared hard at him. “Seriously,” I said with ice in my voice. “Give. Me. The. Pills.”

  Gilley tapped his foot, holding on to the bottle and not giving it up. “You will feel better if you do it my way, M.J.”

  My mother died when I was twelve, and she’d been very ill for the three years before her death, so I’d learned early on to take care of myself. That was why, once I became an adult, Gilley’s attempts to mother me often went…well…unappreciated, to say the least. “Gilley, I swear to God if you don’t give me those damn pills I’m gonna—”

  “What?” Gil snapped. “Jump up and chase me around the table? You can barely hold your head up, much less take me on.” Just then there was a knock on the front door, and Gil pointed to my cereal bowl. “You eat while I go see who’s at the door.”

  I really hoped he’d set the bottle of ibuprofen down, but he took it with him, and with a, “Humph!” I pulled the stupid cereal bowl toward me, stabbing angrily at the kernels of wheat or corn or whole grain in the bowl.

  I heard Gilley open the door and a man’s voice echoed into the hall. It sounded familiar, but my head hurt so much that my thinking cap wasn’t on straight. A moment later I didn’t have to try to place the mysterious voice, because Gilley came into the kitchen leading Detective Muckleroy.

  The moment the detective saw me he sucked in a breath and said, “Jesus, what happened to you?”

  “She had a little run-in with Hatchet Jack,” Gilley answered for me.

  “A ghost did that?” Muckleroy’s voice was loud, and I winced as the pain throbbing in my head intensified.

  Gilley seemed to take pity on me, because he quickly opened up the ibuprofen he’d been holding hostage and doled out two tablets to me.

  “Four,” I said. “Give me four.”

  Gilley gave a pointed look at my cereal bowl. He knew damned well I hadn’t taken a single bite, but he didn’t argue in front of the detective, and he pumped out only one more tablet, setting it on the table next to my coffee.

  I wolfed down the tablets, chasing them with a big swig of coffee. While I was popping the pills Gilley explained, “We went to the school last night to try to lure Jack out into the open. If M.J. can find out where he comes from, she’ll be able to lock him up tight. While she was waiting for him that little boy Hernando appeared. M.J. was able to send him over to the other side just as Jack showed up. He was not at all pleased that M.J. had helped Hernando, and he attacked her.”

  “With what?” Muckleroy asked, still looking at me in a state of complete shock.

  “His hatchet,” I said simply.

  Muckleroy blinked, standing there stupefied. Meanwhile, Gilley—being the ever vigilant host—had poured him a cup of coffee and was pointing to a chair at the table. Muckleroy sat down heavily and took a sip of the brew. “You mean this ghost carries a real hatchet?” he said after he’d found his voice again.

  “No,” I said, thinking about how to explain it to him.

  “Ghosts don’t usually carry real objects. But they can manifest the energy of something so intensely that it can feel real to a live person.”

  “Huh?” Muckleroy said.

  I rubbed my temples, starting to feel the tiniest bit of relief from either the coffee or the ibuprofen. “Jack believes so intensely that he is still alive, and still swinging his hatchet, that when he really puts his mind to it he can physically harm someone as if he’s cut them with it.”

  Muckleroy looked dumbfounded. “So he cut you with his mind?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Jesus,” Muckleroy repeated. “This is bad!”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “I personally have never encountered such a dangerous energy as this Hatchet Jack. It’s imperative that we not leave him to prey upon Northelm’s students when the elementary wing gets turned into a dorm.”

  Muckleroy’s face was now a mixture of fear and worry. “What do we do?”

  “Well,” I said, gathering my thoughts, “there are a few things we can do. So far I only know where Jack comes to; I don’t know where he goes. What I forgot was that, statistically speaking, most nasty energies like Jack will create their portal at or very near the site where they died. I’ve felt out the elementary wing of the school. His portal isn’t there, so I know he didn’t die there. I’ve also felt out that tree on the other side of Hole Pond, and the portal isn’t there either.

  “Something is telling me that Jack died violently. It could have been a car crash or a fall or something, but I also think he died near the school. His presence there is just too intense for it to be otherwise. Therefore, what you can do, Detective, is to work hard to identify this guy. He lived nearby—I just know it—and if I can find out where, then I might be able to track down where he died, and then I’ve got him.”

  “I was going to look through those old death-certificate records for you,” Muckleroy said. “I’ll do that today.”

  “Also, we might want to put up pictures of Jack and see if anyone can recognize him. Did you get the sketch from Amelia?”

  Muckleroy nodded, but his face looked
grim. “I don’t think we’ll want to put this up around town,” he said, reaching into a large leather briefcase and pulling out a sketch. The drawing was terrifying. It showed a man with wild eyes and an evil look on his face, holding a hatchet up over his head. “If I put this up, I’ll either be the laughingstock of town or people will get completely creeped out.”

  “You’re right,” I said, pushing the sketch away. “Do me a favor, Detective—”

  “Bob,” he reminded me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “See if you can’t get Amelia to rework this sketch. Maybe there’s a way to retain Jack’s overall facial structure and tone it down a bit. Just make it look like it’s your everyday mug shot.”

  “Good idea,” he said, tucking the sketch away. “I’ll have her get right on it. Anything else?”

  “Remember the Fosters?” Gilley reminded me.

  I smiled warmly at my partner, which was a whole lot easier to do now that my headache was subsiding. “Yep, thanks, Gil. Bob, we learned last night that Eric’s last name might be Foster. The other little boy’s name is Mark, and his name also might be Foster.”

  “Brothers?” Muckleroy said, making the same assumption I had.

  I shook my head. “We don’t think so. They might be cousins, or it could just be a huge coincidence. See if you can get any hits on them.”

  “Will do,” he said, finishing off his coffee. “What are you two going to do?”

  “We’re going to work a few other angles,” I said. “Gil’s been able to track down one of the teachers who’s been at Northelm since the seventies.”

  “Who?”

  “William Skolaris,” said Gilley.

  Muckleroy made a dismissive sound. “That ol’ geezer’s not going to give you much,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “He’s kind of a crank,” Muckleroy said. “Has a reputation for being one difficult bastard. Most folks don’t know why Habbernathy’s kept him on all these years, but Skolaris and Habbernathy’s dad go way back. He’s even living in the old Habbernathy home.”

  “What old home?” I asked.

  Muckleroy explained, “Back in the day the Habbernathys were some of the landed gentry around here. That is, until Winston fell into debt and the school almost went under. He was forced to sell his family home just to keep the school going, and it was Skolaris who put up the cash for it.”