Demons Are a Ghoul's Best Friend

  “Cool,” I said, and moved down the hallway. When I got to the classroom where we’d first encountered the boys I heard a scraping sound. Hurrying to the room I opened the door and peered inside, my heart racing a little in my chest.

  “Whoa,” Gilley said into my ear. “Looks like Jack’s been working his interior design skills again.”

  The desks in the classroom had all been stacked into a pyramid, except for one lone desk at the back of the classroom. My senses told me there was an energy around it, so very slowly and carefully I set down my duffel, putting the camera on the teacher’s desk at the front of the room so that it pointed at the student desk in the back, and pulled out my electrostatic meter.

  “You’ve got activity?” Gilley asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “In the back of the room.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Not sure yet,” I said, watching my gauge, which was bouncing around.

  “Try the thermal imager,” Gil suggested. I reached back into my duffel and pulled out the gadget, but before I could turn it on I heard another scraping sound. “The chair!” Gilley hissed in my ear. “It just scooted back from the desk!”

  I froze and looked at the desk in the back, waiting for something else to move. When nothing did I said calmly, “Hello, there.” I could feel a slight tremor in the ether; the energy at the back of the room felt small and afraid. I knew it was one of the boys. “Eric?” I asked. “That you?”

  No, I felt in my head. Mark.

  I relaxed a little. “Hi, Mark!” I said brightly. “I am so glad you’re here!”

  The response I got back was mistrusting. It felt like Mark didn’t believe me, something like Yeah, right.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “I really wanted to talk with you. See, we’ve been to your foster home and we’ve seen where you were living.”

  Hate her!

  That caught me a bit by surprise. I wondered who “her” was. “You hated Maude?” I asked.

  I felt something like a nod in my head and the repeated phrase, Hate her!

  “Well, I totally don’t blame you,” I said easily, turning the thermal imager on and placing it next to the camera. “And that’s why I’m so glad I found you. I really wanted to let you know that you never have to go back there.”

  Again I felt a sort of distrust echo across the ether into my mind. “I’m not joshing you, Mark. Maude’s been taken away by the police, and all the foster kids get to go to really good new homes now.”

  Mark waffled. I’m scared, I felt come at me from across the room.

  “Yeah, I know, guy. I’d be scared if I were you too. You go from that awful foster home to this place, and you’ve got Jack chasing you all over the grounds.”

  He hurt me! Mark said, and the energy of fear hit me like a kick in the gut.

  “I know he did, sweetie. But we’re going to arrest Jack now and send him to jail. And that’s why I wanted to talk to you. If you can tell me where Jack goes, then I can send the police after him and make sure he gets what’s coming to him.”

  Jack goes across the water, Mark said. He goes to his house there.

  I felt the urge to look out the window and glance across the lawn. I could just make out the area where Hole Pond was, and I knew that was where Mark was indicating. “That’s awesome, Mark!” I said, even though his information wasn’t especially clear. “I will call the police and send them to Jack’s house. They’ll arrest him and he’ll never hurt another little boy again.”

  What about me? Mark said.

  The plea was so clear and so needy that I felt my eyes well up. I swallowed and worked hard to pull it together. “You, my friend, get to go home now!”

  Can’t, said Mark. I have no home.

  Ah, now I knew why he hadn’t crossed over on his own. For someone who didn’t believe he had a home to go to, the promise of it could be something like a cruel joke. “But that is the great news!” I said. “We’ve found you a wonderful family, Mark. They have heard all about you, and they want to adopt you and give you a home to come to.”

  Mark’s energy hesitated. He didn’t believe me. Finally he asked, Who are they?

  I smiled. “They’re the Angels, Mark. They have this really fantastic house, and it’s warm all year round there. They have tons of toys, and there are other kids to play with. They’re inviting you to dinner, and if you like it, you can stay.” I was totally making this up, but I had to convince Mark to take the first step toward the light that wanted to carry him to a place where I knew he could be loved and nurtured like all souls should be. I waited with held breath for Mark to say something.

  Okay, he said after a bit. Will you take me there?

  I breathed a sigh of relief and sent a sort of mental hug to his energy. “You are so great!” I said to him. “Now, I won’t be going with you, but I’ve ordered a special elevator that will take you there without stopping.”

  Where is it?

  “If you look up, Mark, you’ll see this big ball of light over your head near the ceiling. That’s the special elevator.”

  I felt a sense of surprise at that. I’ve seen that before, he seemed to say. But I didn’t want to go into it.

  “Well, it is never too late, my friend,” I encouraged. “And I know the Angels will be so happy to see you. What you’ll need to do to lower the elevator is just to think about that light coming down from the ceiling. Can you do that?”

  In my head I saw the light I was talking about lowering itself, and the room began to literally crackle with energy and static electricity. “That’s it, Mark!” I said. “You’re so doing it!”

  The ball of light got lower and lower, and I knew it was expanding to encompass Mark. For a split second it hesitated, and I felt, It’s so pretty! pop into my head. “Going up!” I said, and a nanosecond later there was a blue flash in the corner of the room near the desk and Mark’s energy was swept away.

  “Whoa!” Gilley said into my ear. “That was so cool!”

  “You saw that?” I asked.

  “I saw it on the thermal imager,” Gil said. “This yellow ball of energy came down from the ceiling and it expanded to, like, half the room; then it just disappeared!”

  “That little guy was so cute,” I said, noticing that my back and brow were slick with sweat. I’d wanted to cross him over so badly, and I was really relieved that he’d gone.

  “Good job, M.J.,” Gil said. “Good guys fifty-six, bad guys nil.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, sweetheart, but we…” At that moment my voice faded because outside the window I clearly saw Eric standing there. Reaching back, I grabbed the night-vision camera and pointed it at him.

  “Eeeek!” Gilley squealed when he saw what the camera was recording.

  I winced. “That’s my ear,” I hissed.

  “Sorry!” Gil said. “But you gotta give me some warning!”

  “You see him?” I asked of the statue-still figure in the window.

  “I do,” Gil said breathlessly. “Thank God I’ve got the monitor on record!”

  For a moment no one spoke and no one moved. I looked at Eric, he looked at me, and Gilley breathed heavily in my ear. Suddenly Eric’s placid face broke into a smile and he pointed across the room where Mark had been. Gilley gasped. “He saw you cross Mark over!” he whispered.

  I nodded to Eric encouragingly. “Mark has gone to a really lovely home, Eric. There’s room for one more, if you’d like to go too.”

  Eric looked back to me, his face unreadable. Then he motioned with his finger and I felt him say in my head, Follow me.

  “He wants you to follow him,” Gilley said.

  “Gee, what gave it away?” I said sarcastically as Eric turned and began to walk away from the window.

  “Go, M.J.!” Gilley ordered.

  “I’m going!” I said, and grabbed the camera before bolting out of the classroom. Running as fast as I could I raced out the back door and looked frantically around. I didn’t know how long Eric could sust
ain his visual form, and I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. Across the lawn I saw him trotting toward the main building. “I’ve got a visual on him!” I said, and took off after him.

  Eric stopped at the door of the building and looked back at me. He seemed to be waiting. I kicked it up a notch and put on the speed. I knew we had limited time, and there seemed to be something important Eric wanted to show me. “He’s at the door of the main building!” I said. “I think he wants me to follow him inside!”

  “What are you going to do?” Gilley asked. “You don’t have a key to anything but the elementary wing.”

  The answer came when I reached the steps to the building and watched Eric reach out and touch the door handle. The door gave a click and then it swung slightly ajar. Eric looked back at me, gave me a smile, and vanished through the door to the interior. I raced up the steps to the door and said, “Thanks for opening that, buddy.”

  “Wouldn’t it be great if you had him around every time you got locked out of your condo?” Gilley said into my ear.

  I ignored him because at the moment I was trying to locate my little ghost. I scanned the hallway in front of me and didn’t see anyone. “Damn,” I swore.

  “What?” Gilley asked.

  “I’ve lost him,” I growled, turning this way and that.

  “He’s on the stairs!” Gil said. “And stop swinging the camera around; I’m getting motion sickness.”

  I pivoted toward the stairs at the end of the hallway and noticed a pair of jeans and sneakers trotting up the steps. “Good catch,” I said as I hurried down the hall toward him.

  Eric had completely disappeared by the time I reached them, but I trotted up anyway, hoping he’d give me a hint as to what direction he wanted me to go when I got close to him again. I reached the second-story landing and had the feeling I needed to keep going. I did and hurried up to the third story. At the top of that landing I distinctly heard footsteps walking down the wood floors, which creaked under the weight of an unseen force. “Right behind you,” I said, breathing hard from the run across the lawn and now up the steps.

  “He moves fast,” Gilley commented.

  I kept following the sound of footsteps until they stopped about three yards in front of me. There was no indication which way to go for a moment, and I bit my lip in anticipation. “Where’d he go?” Gilley asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I really wish he’d give me a clue about where to go next.” As if in answer our agreeable little ghost clicked the lock on the door just to my left. It creaked open slowly and I said, “Thataboy.”

  “He sure is a helpful ghostie,” Gilley said. “Not at all like the typical nasties we usually deal with.”

  I moved forward into the room Eric had indicated and scanned the interior with the camera held up, pointing it around the room so that Gilley could see too. “It looks like the teachers’ lounge,” I said, seeing the comfortable couches, chairs, and tables. “What the heck are we doing in here?”

  There was no reply from Eric, and I scanned the room searching out his energy.

  “What do you make of it, M.J.?”

  “Hell if I know,” I said, and swiveled in a 360-degree turn around the room. “Damn it!”

  “What?” Gilley said.

  “He’s gone,” I said, scratching my head.

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

  I stomped my foot in frustration. The room was empty of spiritual energy. Eric had absolutely vanished the moment he’d unlocked the door to the lounge. “I mean he’s not here,” I said. “He’s disappeared into the ether.”

  “Why?” Gilley said. “I mean, why would he go and leave you hanging about what to look for in this room?”

  I sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Gil,” I said, scanning for anything that seemed out of place. “There isn’t anything odd in here that catches my eye.”

  “Do a slow panorama with the camera, M.J.,” Gil said.

  “Maybe we’re not seeing what we’re supposed to see right now. We can record what’s in there and analyze it later.”

  I stepped to the middle of the room and began to record it through the lens of the camera. There wasn’t much that was special about it, just some rather worn-looking furnishings and historical pictures of the school on the wall. I moved in for a close-up of the photos, thinking maybe some of the people in them were important.

  There was a wall that held all of the graduating classes of Northelm since its opening over a hundred years earlier. These were all encased in frames with little brass nameplates indicating the year. I looked at the pictures with the kids lined up in different sections of the school grounds. A few were taken on the lawn, others by Hole Pond, and still others on the steps of the school.

  I moved row by row, pausing slightly at each photo until I’d nearly reached the end of the line. That was when Gilley seemed to take an interest in what I was doing, and he asked, “Um, M.J.?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why exactly are you recording these?”

  “No idea,” I said honestly, swinging the camera away from the wall after recording the last photograph. “It’s just that there’s really nothing in this room that’s giving us a hint about what Eric might want us to notice.”

  “As long as you’re recording pictures, how about that long one over on the other side of the room?” Gil said in my ear.

  I noticed a photo of the school taken with a wide-angle camera lens. I moved closer to get a better look, and through the camera’s monitor I could see it clearly. It looked like it was taken on the same dock I’d seen in some of the other graduating-class photos, as the wooden planks were in the foreground. The photo was lovely, really. It captured the essence of the character of the school, sitting stately on the green grass with the Adirondacks in the background looking so pristine and inviting.

  There were no people in the photo, just a panoramic view of the school and the surrounding countryside. “Nothing suspicious about that,” said Gilley, seeing the photo too.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said, circling around to give the room one last long look and see if anything caught my eye or called out to me as something of interest. “There’s nothing here,” I said, trying to keep the defeated tone out of my voice.

  “Time to call it a night, sweetheart,” Gilley said, and I could hear him yawn.

  “Okay,” I said, moving toward the door. That was when we both heard a scream from across the lawn that sounded so awful I nearly dropped the camera.

  “What the…?!” Gilley yelled in my ear.

  I didn’t reply. Instead I tore out of the room and dashed to the stairs. From out on the lawn we heard it again, another horrible, bloodcurdling scream that sent a shiver down my spine. “Jesus!” I said as my feet flew down the stairs. “It sounds like someone’s being murdered out there!”

  “I’m calling the police!” Gilley said.

  I reached the second-floor landing. “Wait!” I shouted, willing my feet to move faster. “What if it’s Jack?”

  A third scream echoed across the lawn, this one just as terrified but stifled somehow—as if the scream had been cut off in the middle. “M.J.!” Gilley wailed. “That’s a real person!”

  “I’m on it!” I yelled back, dashing to the door and bursting outside.

  “Stop!” Gil commanded. “You can’t go out there! It could be dangerous!”

  “Call nine-one-one!” I shouted, ignoring his command to stop, and running as fast as I could across the lawn. Ahead I saw a figure looming large in the darkness. As I got closer I noticed the figure was standing over a crumpled form on the ground. My intuition told me there was no ghost on the lawn—that was a real somebody standing there.

  “Hey!” I yelled as I drew close. “What are you doing?!”

  “I’ve got the police on the line!” Gilley shouted into my ear. “M.J.! Back off! Don’t go there!”

  The figure turned as I yelled, but it was too dark to see his face with an
y distinction. I could only tell that he was tall and broad shouldered and that there was something in his hand. I squinted at the thing he was holding, and at that moment it suddenly occurred to me what it was, and it sent ice through my veins. I pulled up short, slamming on my running brakes so hard that I felt my shins rattle. In the man’s hands was a hatchet, the end of which was black and dripping in the dim light. “Ohmigod!” I yelped as I spun around and began running as fast as I could away from the scene. “Gilley!” I screamed. “Gilley!”

  Behind me I could hear fast footsteps coming after me. For the second time that night I dug deep and turned up the speed, willing my legs to move faster and faster. Still the thundering noise behind me was keeping pace with me, and I was now so terrified that I was nearly blind with fear.

  Ahead of me two bright lights flashed on, and the roar of an engine grew nearer and nearer. “Help me! Gilley, he’s after me!”

  “Hang on!” Gil shouted, and the two lights became brighter and brighter as they bounced across the lawn, heading directly for me.

  The pounding of feet behind me seemed to falter as the lights became so bright I had to hold my arm up to shade my eyes. “I’m going to stop the van right next to you!” Gil said. “Jump in when I hit the brakes!”

  Two more seconds passed, and the van pulled neatly along my right side as the sound of ripping sod as Gilley applied the brakes. I was panting hard as I slammed against the side of the van and yanked open the door. I lunged for the opening, throwing the camera I still held up onto the seat, and screamed, “Go!”

  Gilley punched the accelerator, and the van’s back wheels spun dirt while it fishtailed in a circle and moved away from the figure chasing me. My legs were hanging out of the van door, and I had to hold tightly to the base of the seat so that I wasn’t whipped back out from the force of our turn.

  “Are you in?!” Gilley yelled as he glanced at me over his shoulder.

  “Yes!” I shouted back. “Just drive!”