Ghost Summer, Stories

  Until the scream.

  The scream sounded like it was from right across the room, as close as the living room window. So loud that the windowpane cracked. All of them jumped and gasped. Neema wrapped her arms around her father’s neck.

  Grandpa’s flashlight switched on. He bobbed the light near the window. The curtain was open, revealing veins of broken glass. “What the . . . Who broke that?”

  “No light,” Davie whispered. “Shut it off, Grandpa. Ghosts like the dark.”

  Muttering and cursing to himself, Grandpa turned off his flashlight. When he did, the brightness in Davie’s night vision dimmed enough for him to gaze through the lens without squinting. This time, he didn’t see any shadowy figure framed against the light from the window. Whoever had screamed was gone.

  But the water was back, creeping higher while he hadn’t been paying attention. This time, he saw currents swirling in the water, tiny rapids. Cold water crept into his boots, numbing his toes. Davie switched on the tape recorder around his neck. Back-up evidence.

  “Water!” Neema said.

  “I know. Watch out—it’s getting higher.”

  “I can’t believe that damn window broke,” Grandpa said. “That thing cost . . . ”

  “Shhhhh.” This time, it was Davie’s father. “Don’t break the spell, Dad.”

  Sixty seconds passed. The scream sounded again, as if it were a movie that had been on Pause. Sounds crashed into the room: Splashing. Yelling. Barking and growling. Chaos.

  “Git ’im off! Git ’im off!” a child’s voice screamed.

  Davie’s mouth dropped open. His hands were unsteady, but he trained the camera back toward the window, toward the noise. This time, he saw several shadowy figures against the moonlight, arms flailing in a struggle. The tallest shadow—the oldest boy, Davie figured—was holding what looked like a giant stick. He raised it high and stabbed it like King Arthur’s sword.

  This time, the scream wasn’t human. It was a dog’s.

  Another window cracked. Glass tinkled to the floor.

  Grandpa Walt came to his feet. “Goddamn it,” he said, sounding almost as scared as he was mad. He spoke to the darkness. “You stop breaking those windows!”

  “The noise is doing it, Grandpa,” Neema said. “Can’t you hear it?”

  Maybe Grandpa Walter was lucky he couldn’t hear it. One, two, three, boys were sobbing. One was outright wailing, as if he was in the worst pain of his life.

  “Is he dead?” one of the boys said.

  “Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts . . . ”

  “Hurry up and help me grab ’im. Let’s go!”

  In Davie’s viewfinder, the shadowy figures were gone. But he heard the splashing of several sets of footsteps running toward the kitchen again. Where the water would be deeper.

  “They’re moving,” Davie said.

  “The kitchen,” Neema said, on Davie’s heels.

  While the rest of them scrambled to grab their supplies and follow, Grandpa only shook his head. “I’m not chasing nobody nowhere,” Grandpa said.

  “You sure, Dad?” Davie’s father said. “It may turn out to be something.”

  Davie barely heard them over the sloshing of water as he ran to the kitchen doorway; he ignored the terrible feeling of cold water rising as high as his thighs. The back door was wide open again, just like he’d known it would be. When Davie looked through the viewfinder, he saw the taller boy beckoning in the doorframe.

  Beckoning to them? To his brothers? Davie didn’t know.

  “We have to hurry!” Davie said, forgetting not to shout. “Before they’re gone!”

  The recliner hissed when Grandpa plopped himself down to sit. “My chasing days are over. But I’ma sit right here, and nobody better break no more of my damn windows.”

  Grandpa was talking to the ghosts.

  “The water’s too deep for me!” Neema said at Davie’s side. “Over my waist!”

  “Here, Pumpkin,” Dad said, and hoisted her to his shoulders.

  All three of them were breathing fast.

  This was as far as Davie had ever followed the three boys. He didn’t know what would come next. The dark kitchen suddenly looked strange and forbidding, full of shadowy hazard.

  Still, Davie waded into deeper water, one step on the linoleum at a time.

  Summer 1909

  It was an hour before dawn, and Isaac Timmons was supposed to be resting. That was what his mama had told him to do. She’d made all three of them curl up on the living room rug under the oak tree, where the grass was soft. Mama had moved her favorite rug out of the house to keep it from getting muddy tracks, and she was planning to roll it up to pack last. She said they’d worked hard all night, so they deserved some sleep. “There’s a long journey ahead,” she’d said. Then she’d given them each a kiss and said, “And then we’ll be away from Gracetown forever!” As if she’d come up with the plan to leave all on her own, and it had nothing to do with the barn. Mama had always considered Gracetown cursed, especially for Negroes.

  His brothers were asleep, but Isaac Timmons wasn’t. He was thinking about his best gal, Livvy, and how sad it was he would never see her again. Livvy’s mom had just given him the honey he’d taken home to his brothers, which started the whole business with the barn, but Isaac couldn’t blame Livvy for that. Hadn’t Livvy only said last Sunday that she was his gal? And what kind of man would abandon his gal without so much as a goodbye?

  No kind of man, Isaac thought. That’s what Papa would say.

  He would slip away and come right back. He’d be gone a half-hour at the most, if he ran. He couldn’t ask Mama and Papa, because he knew what they would say. Livvy lived out McCormack’s way, and he should never go that way. Not ever.

  But Livvy was his gal. Once, she’d held his hand. Papa said he could expect to get married in three or four years, and Isaac decided he would come back for Livvy when he could. But for now, he had to tell his gal goodbye. Had to.

  Isaac wasn’t planning to wake his brothers, but each one nudged the next when he rolled off the rug. Even Little Eddie woke right up with bright eyes, ready to play.

  “Where you goin’?” Scott said.

  “Nowhere. Just stay here. I’ll be back.”

  “No, Isaac,” Scott said, sitting straight up. “He’ll blame me.”

  “Pretend you’re sleeping. Use your head.” Papa used that phrase a lot.

  “You goin’ to Livvy’s?” Scott said. “I wanna go too.”

  So all three of them snuck away from the rug, through the pines in back, beyond the creek and over to the McCormack side of the road, which had a fence. The long fence stretched as far as they could see. It was still half-dark, so it was quiet and still. Isaac took a long look at Gracetown as he walked—the long grass, cotton patches and pine trees—and wondered what New York would look like. He had never even seen a picture in a book.

  All of the lights were still off in the McCormack house, which stood on the hill. That house looked like a castle, which he had seen in a book. He wondered if the McCormacks would ever find out his father thought he’d burned down the barn. Maybe they would never even know. Isaac hoped not. He didn’t want to give Mr. McCormack the satisfaction.

  “We gotta go faster,” Isaac said. “Or they’ll see we’re gone for sure.”

  “You think Livvy’s mama’s gonna give us more honey?” Little Eddie said.

  “You think Livvy’ll give you a big sloppy kiss?” Scott teased.

  Instead of getting mad, Isaac enjoyed the quiet around him. McCormack’s land was on one side of the red clay and gravel road, swampy land on other. Walking with his brothers on the empty road toward Livvy’s, it was hard to believe Mama and Papa were packing up everything they owned in a wagon to drive farther than Isaac’s mind could imagine. Two days’ journey was a long way away. If you married someone two days away, your parents might not see you for years. Papa had said New York was weeks away, by wagon. Papa didn’t even think the wa
gon could make the trip.

  A dead pine had toppled over and knocked out the logs to the McCormack fence. Most of the fence was intact, but one entire section had been crushed, and the fence was gaping open.

  That was why he’d felt so peaceful, Isaac realized. Quiet. He should have known.

  Isaac tugged on Little Eddie’s shirt to keep him from walking ahead. He held up his hand to hush his brothers’ tittering. The dawn was as silent as a tomb.

  “Where’s the dog?” Isaac whispered.

  The boys looked up and down the road, dreading the sight of the dog sprinting toward them, freed from its prison. In their imaginations, the dog was three times its normal size, a monstrous beast. A Negro man in town missing three of his fingers told stories about McCormack’s dog. McCormack trained his dog to bite niggers, the man said.

  No dog was in sight. On McCormack’s land, only a few chickens stirred. On the swamp side, there was no sound except from insects and reptiles; the swamp’s constantly trilling song.

  “We gotta go back,” Isaac said. He held tight to Little Eddie’s hand.

  “What about the honey?” Little Eddie said.

  “Mama say they treat that dog like family,” Scott said. “Maybe it sleeps in the house.”

  It was a tempting thought, for a moment. Surely the dog was somewhere close to the house. The dog wouldn’t be roaming on the road or the swamp, would it? Issac hated to lose his honor by leaving Livvy without a word of explanation. What would she think of him?

  “Yeah . . . maybe,” Isaac said. “Maybe.”

  Then they heard the barking.

  “You hear that? Run!” the shadowy figured in the kitchen doorway said. He waved furiously, as if their lives depended on it.

  “He’s telling us follow him,” Neema said from her perch on her father’s shoulders.

  “Then . . . let’s follow,” Dad said.

  Davie waded farther into the kitchen, until he felt the water at his mid-chest. The sensation of fighting against the water to walk made it feel like he couldn’t breathe. He was shaking all over. But the door was so close! The shadow was almost within his reach.

  Water converged around the base of Davie’s throat, a collar of ice. But the cold liquid didn’t feel like clean water: it was heavier, more viscous, a slime of sweet-sour dead marine life and vegetation. The smell of the old, dead swamp made Davie want to vomit.

  “I can’t go anymore,” Davie gasped. “The water’s too high.”

  “Just to the door, Davie,” Dad said. “If you can’t after that, you can’t.”

  “You can do it, Davie!” Neema said. Easy for her to say, Davie thought.

  Davie gulped at the air. He didn’t want to know what the water tasted like, but he wasn’t going to turn back. With his next step, he held his breath in case he wouldn’t touch bottom.

  But he did.

  The next thing Davie knew, he was standing outside on the back porch. Dad was one step below him, still carrying Neema. Staring toward the woods. The water had receded dramatically, only as high as Davie’s ankles. Davie gasped two or three times at the clean air, remembering the awfulness of the water he’d waded through. He reeked of it.

  “What now?” Dad said.

  Neema pointed. “That way. I hear splashing.”

  His bearings returned, Davie raised the camera, using night vision to follow her finger. Whether she knew it or not, Neema was pointing straight toward the broken fence. With every step, Davie better heard the urgent whisper ahead in the darkness.

  “We’ll lose ’im in the water! Run!”

  More splashing. Sets of feet in a hurry.

  “Yeah, this way,” Davie said.

  They trotted off together, following Neema’s finger and the splashing. They didn’t run in a straight line, but they eventually ended up at the broken fence. Even with night vision, the woods were nearly pitch through the viewfinder. His only clear view was of the broken fence post, a jagged log toppled down.

  The sight of the broken fence in the frame scared Davie. Once they left the backyard, all of the light would be behind them. “Official ghost-hunting audio journal,” Davie said in a shaky voice to his tape recorder, remembering his protocols. “We’ve reached the broken fence. We still hear the splashing on the other side.”

  “Hurry, Davie!” Neema said. “They’re going too far.”

  “Hold on,” Dad said. “I can’t carry Neema on my back in the woods.”

  Thank goodness. Dad was predictable, and suddenly Davie was glad.

  “How’s the water?” Dad asked me.

  The water was like cold claws grasping his ankles, even with oversized boots on.

  “Fine,” Davie said. “It’s lower now.”

  Dad grunted, lowering Neema to the ground. Then, Dad bent over to be closer to her eye-level. Neema giggled and danced when her feet touched the water.

  “All right, listen, you two,” Dad said. “We’ll go to the woods. I’ll allow this. But we’ll have rules, and I’m only gonna say them once.”

  “Daddy, just say them fast,” Neema said. The broken fence didn’t scare her at all. She sounded like she was ready to wet herself from excitement.

  “Stay close. Come when I call. Watch where you’re walking,” Dad said. “Davie?”

  “Yessir.” The splashing had veered right, up ahead. “The splashing is softer and softer,” he said, speaking his audio journal. “But I still hear it.”

  Neema pointed again. “That way!” she said.

  “Let’s do it,” Dad said, raising his shovel high.

  As he stepped over the fallen log, Davie’s heart pounded so hard that the blood rushing his ears drowned out the splashing. He couldn’t believe Dad was letting them do this! There were snakes in the woods. There were coyotes and bears too, not just deer, and there were ghosts for an absolute fact. And Neema was with them, the one he babied to death over nothing!

  Something was different about Dad. Something had changed, and Davie didn’t know if the change was good or bad. Davie wondered if he should be the reasonable one tonight, just in case Dad had forgotten how. Maybe Dad had snuck more than one beer after dinner.

  Dad flicked on the hurricane flashlight, and a precious circle of the woods before them turned as bright as midday. Every twig, leaf and stump threw a shadow.

  Behind them, in the dark, came the sound of barking. The dog’s splashing was directed, more disciplined. Like a guided missile.

  “The dog!” Davie said.

  “Run!” the boy up ahead yelled.

  They ran awkwardly, more like jogging, careful with their speed to avoid tripping. Up ahead, the splashing sounded more and more frantic. The younger boys were crying, or maybe all of them were. Their cries filled the woods.

  “Faster,” Davie huffed.

  “No,” Dad said. “Too dangerous.”

  “No, Dad, it’s too dangerous not to.” Davie ran ahead, just to set a good example.

  “Get out your doggie biscuits,” Dad sad.

  “That won’t work!”

  “How do you know?”

  The dog was very large, and its bark sounded slobbery. Hungry.

  “Because I can hear him! That. Won’t. Work.”

  Neema wasn’t saying anything by then. Neema could hear the dog’s hunger too. She was proud she had made it past the first shrieks this time, but Neema was good and ready to go home. Lesson learned. She wasn’t old enough to be a ghost-hunter. Like with Grandpa, the idea had lost all of its attraction.

  Davie’s father, who couldn’t hear the barking, tugged on Davie’s raincoat to slow him down. “Keep this up, Davie, and we’ll go home.”

  “Yeah, Dad, we should go home, but now I don’t know if we can.” Maybe Dad would have understood if he’d waded through that muck. They had crossed to another side. It might not be easy to cross back. “Let’s just go faster.”

  “Kofi David Stephens . . . Slow down. Someone could break a leg out here.”

  The barking and
splashing behind them grew impossibly loud just before it fell silent. Davie held his breath.

  Neema screamed.

  For a blink, Davie’s brain shut down: His baby sister was screaming?

  Water thrashed as Neema writhed beside their father, still screaming. “Something bit me!” Neema cried, all childhood stripped out of her voice. “It bit me, Daddy! My leg!” And she screamed again, her horror renewed at the retelling.

  There was more splashing when Dad bent over to pick her up. Vaguely, Davie wondered when their feet had started making the water splash, too. If the splashing water was real now, was the dog real now too? In his flashlight beam, Davie saw something wet glisten on Neema’s leg. The dark wetness startled him so much that his hand shook, nearly dropping the flashlight, and the terrible image went away. Not water. Blood.

  “Oh, babydoll, you’re okay. Shhhh. You’re okay.” Even while Dad comforted Neema, he sounded petrified. Davie didn’t have to wonder if he had imagined the blood. He knew the blood was there from the tremor in his father’s voice. Davie hadn’t seen the blood long, but he knew it was more than a little. Davie felt steaming water in his pants as he pissed on himself.

  “Davie,” Daddy said, in a soldier’s voice Davie hadn’t heard before. The tremor was gone, as if it hadn’t been there at all. “Grab Neema.”

  Davie couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t move, at first.

  “Davie, grab her. Something bit her, it’s big, and it’s still out here.”

  Davie grabbed Neema’s hand, and Neema sobbed because she didn’t want to be away from her father. Dad was the solver of all of Neema’s problems, and now he had pushed her aside. Davie had to physically restrain her to keep her from clinging to their father. Using his muscles helped Davie shut off the panic ruling his mind.

  Dad grabbed his shovel and picked it up, testing its weight in its hand.

  Splashing came from behind them.

  Davie grasped, diving away from the splashing, yanking Neema with him. Neema screamed, clinging to him with so much strength that Davie nearly staggered to his knees.

  Dad whirled, his eyes following his flashlight beam. Nothing visible but brush. Davie tried to help with his own flashlight, but his beam kept zigging into the treetops because he couldn’t hold his hand steady, especially with Neema pulling on him so hard.