He’d never been any further than the living room in Miss Peeple’s house. Walking down the hallway nearly seemed like a crime by itself. He peeked into the bathroom, but the sight of a pair of stockings hanging from the tub was all he needed to quickly shut the door again.
Then he decided to venture into the bedroom. The thought caused him a seismic tremble from head to toe. But it was the only room he hadn’t been in. And he had two minutes left.
The door was halfway closed. With a single finger, he pushed it open, and it creaked to a standstill a few inches from the wall. He could see a vanity table, a dresser, and a small window from where he stood, plus the end of the bed, where a quilt was neatly folded.
“What am I doing, what am I doing?” He pushed the palm of his hand into his forehead, as if this might shift his brain enough to make him think clearly. What kind of person breaks into people’s homes? Of course, what kind of person sends eerie, anonymous messages? Miss Peeple knew something, and he was determined to find it out.
He stepped into the room and looked around. Taking one more step in, he decided he would look in the—
“Ahh!” He stumbled backward, knocking himself into the vanity. “Ahhh! Ahhh!” His high-pitched squeal scared him as much as the sight before him. But when he finally got ahold of himself, he realized something even more horrifying.
Before him, tucked quietly into her bed, was Missy Peeple. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving. Like a hungry seagull, his mind dove into dark waters, fishing for reason. Was she dead? And he had broken into her house … This wasn’t going to look good! His fingerprints were everywhere! He gasped for air. He was going to be a murder suspect! Maybe he should just sneak out of the house. But … but he didn’t murder her. And if someone saw him sneaking out of her house, then he’d look even more guilty.
“Oh dear, oh dear.” His fingers came to life and crawled up his chest and over his chin to his mouth, where he nibbled at a fingernail that had already been tattered earlier when he received the note.
Then. A moan. He resisted the urge to squeal again. She was alive! Alive! Alive? Now what? Obviously something was wrong. Miss Peeple was always quite ashen, but her skin tone was completely devoid of color. She moaned again, as if in pain.
His hand clapped over his mouth to keep the shriek down in his throat. He ran out of the room and back to the living room, panting in fear. He couldn’t just leave her here, could he? He must call for help.
He walked over to the phone and closed his eyes. This was why he never did anything wrong in high school. He knew he’d get caught.
He dialed the police.
Oliver ran out of the shed as fast as he could, slamming the door and fumbling with the lock until it closed. He stood in his backyard, wondering what he should do, so frightened he thought his knees might collapse. He backed up until his hands found the brick of his home, keeping an eye on the shed.
What should he do? He’d caught one, but now what?
He ran into his house, locking the back door. He didn’t know why. He’d tied it up with rope and gagged its mouth.
He leaned on the kitchen table, trying to catch his breath. He could feel his heart straining under the intense adrenaline that pumped it. Blowing like a woman in labor, he managed to at least stop shaking and sweating.
“Oliver?”
With a yelp he turned around, his face contorted in a paralyzed expression of fright. Luckily he didn’t scream, “Don’t kill me!” because it was only Melb.
“Melb,” he breathed.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Are you feeling all right?”
He nodded, managing a weak smile. “W-when did you get here?”
“Just a few minutes ago. Went to the bathroom. I saw your car was here, so I figured you were out puttering around in the shed.”
He nodded and gulped. “Yes. Just, you know, messing around.”
“Why are you breathing so hard?”
“Went for a jog.”
“In the shed?”
“No. No.” He tried to laugh, but his lungs didn’t hold enough air yet, so it sounded more like a wheeze. “Just, you know, back and forth in the yard.”
“Why are you jogging?” Her hands were now on her hips, and he knew that was the last place you wanted any woman’s hands.
“Um … you know … to get in shape. For the … for the … wedding!”
Melb’s expression turned furious. He was shocked. Did she know about the thing in the shed?
“Are you saying I’m fat?”
His jaw fell. He shook his head. Had he just said that? Wait a minute. Didn’t he just say he was fat? He looked at her. “I was doing the jogging.”
“I know!” she said, startling him with her sharp tone. “But are you trying to insinuate that I should be out jogging?!”
“No, no, Melb, please. Why are you getting so upset?”
Her hands dropped off her hips, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to accuse you.”
Though Oliver was trembling from head to toe with stress, he managed to walk over to Melb and take her cheeks into his hands. “Sweetheart, I love everything about you. Why would you say something like that?” He sort of impressed himself with how caring he could be while knowing he’d locked a monster in the shed.
She wiped away a tear. “It’s not you. I guess I’m just feeling a little stressed.” But she grinned at him. “No concern, though, okay? It’s not prewedding jitters or anything like that.”
He stroked her curly hair. “I know planning a wedding is stressful.”
“It’s going to be beautiful,” she said, her eyes dreamy with thought. “There’ll be a few surprises.”
“I like surprises. Sometimes. Just don’t surprise me by not showing up,” he chuckled. Speaking of surprises, he couldn’t help but glance out the back window to make sure the shed was still shut.
“So what are you doing home so early?”
“Oh, slow day. Plus I had some honeymoon things to take care of.” He said all this while praying God would forgive him for lying.
She grinned. “Well, don’t let me keep you.”
“Are you, um, going somewhere?”
“I’m going to go owling. I’ve been having some luck at dusk.”
He stretched his lips into a fanciful grin. “Well, don’t be too long.”
“Okay,” she laughed.
“Exactly how long will you be?”
She pinched his cheek. “Listen to you, all worried about me.”
He shrugged. “So, um, how long?”
“Oh, I’d say about an hour. I’ll be home in plenty of time to cook dinner. We’ll have it here tonight, right?”
She pecked him on the cheek and grabbed her purse, then walked out the door. As soon as he heard her car pull out of the driveway, he nearly collapsed. “An hour. An hour. Okay, what do I do?”
He paced the length of the living room, and then came up with an idea. He’d call Martin. Martin always did have a good, solid head on his shoulders.
From the time he’d called the police until the time he’d watched Missy Peeple rolled away on a stretcher with an oxygen mask nearly covering her whole face, Martin had envisioned himself in jail, in the electric chair, and in hell. He was sure he had the face of a criminal, the way the deputies kept looking at him on their way in and out. And Sheriff Parker stopped once and observed him from across the room.
But to his surprise, nobody asked him what he was doing there. Sheriff Parker asked if he was feeling okay. Martin could only nod. He was afraid if he opened his mouth, a confession might drop out.
So there he was, twenty minutes after he’d made the phone call, standing alone in Missy Peeple’s home. Nobody asked what he was doing there. And nobody asked when he was leaving. They’d simply asked about Miss Peeple and her condition, to which he could only answer with shrugs and nods.
The house creaked
with the wind outside, and he felt so jumpy he decided to leave the house and go back to work. Missy Peeple might not be there, but even without her presence, the house still seemed cold.
At his office, he dropped his coat into his chair and tried to calm himself down with an extra large cup of coffee. His hands were shaking so much, though, that he spilled some of it down the front of his shirt.
A curse word jumped to the tip of his tongue, wanting to be released. But instead, he held his tongue, bit his lip, and flared his nostrils to try to hold in his frustration. A curse word was not going to help the moment settle.
He collapsed into his chair, wishing his mind would stop revisiting various scenarios of what would happen to him if he were accused of murder. He tried to think rationally. One, Missy Peeple wasn’t dead. She just looked that way. Two, nobody seemed at all concerned that he was there. In fact, one deputy shook his hand and thanked him for finding her! So what in the world was he worried about? His conscience. He’d always had that dratted conscience.
The phone rang at his desk. He smiled. Thankfully, something else to put his mind to.
“Martin Blarty.”
“Martin! Thank heavens!”
“Oliver? Are you okay?”
“Martin, get over to my house. Now! Hurry! Hurry!”
And the phone went dead.
Martin’s ears were burning like he’d lit them on fire, so he knew his blood pressure had spiked to levels he hadn’t seen since he thought he’d witnessed a cat raised from the dead.
Oliver’s eyes were bulging out of their sockets, slicing back and forth between Martin and the shed, where supposedly he’d tied up a “ghosty-thing.”
“What’d he look like?” Martin asked.
“Well, I don’t know, average build. Real creepy looking.”
“Creepy how?”
“Pale. And shaking like he was possessed.”
“Really?”
“And wearing a coat.”
“A coat? Ghosts don’t need coats, do they?”
Oliver shrugged. “I guess it depends on how long they’ve been dead.”
Martin folded his arms in front of his chest. “Why would that matter?”
“Maybe you get cold right after you’re dead because you’re used to your blood keeping you warm.”
“Oliver, I’m afraid I don’t completely agree with your theory. Ghosts are invisible, apparitions, phantomlike.”
“Well, how do you know? Have you ever seen one?”
Martin shook his head. “But sometimes things happen to people that we don’t understand. Maybe it is dead. Or maybe it’s … possessed.”
They stared at the shed, then Martin whispered. “Unlock it.”
Oliver’s hands were shaking so badly it took him over a minute to finally get the key in the hole. A click indicated the lock was undone.
“You’re sure he’s securely tied up?” Martin asked.
“I’m sure.”
They took simultaneous deep breaths, and then Oliver opened the shed door.
At first, in the darkness, Martin could only see two knees and the front legs of a chair. But as his eyes adjusted, there it was, sitting, tied up and gagged, its eyes wide with … with … fear, was it? It looked the same as when he’d seen the others in the forest. Wide eyes. Pale skin. And that strange facial expression.
It appeared to be male.
As Martin approached, the creature started whimpering, shaking his head at some horrible thought of what he might do to him. He glanced at Oliver, who stood a few feet behind him.
“You’re sure it’s one of them?” he asked.
“Positive. Just like the others, he was sneaking through the forest, then screaming bloody murder.”
The man tried to wriggle loose, but to no avail. His wide eyes stared at Martin, who suddenly felt a surge of confidence and approached him.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing in this town, but I can tell you, we won’t die without a fight.”
The wriggling stopped, and the man’s eyes went wide with bewilderment. Martin felt a sense of superiority.
“You heard me right. Now I don’t know what you think you’re doing in this town. Probably trying to bring some kind of crazy curse. Is that what you’re trying to do? Curse this town?”
The ghost shook his head vigorously.
“We’ve heard your screaming. We’ve seen you sneaking around here at all hours of the day and night. But let me tell you something. This town does not welcome ghouls, goblins, witches, ghosts, mummies, vampires, or anything else that requires a stake or garlic.”
Oliver leaned over and whispered, “Martin, ghosts don’t eat steaks because they don’t have digestive tracts.”
Now the It simply stared at Martin. Maybe this thing was getting the point.
“Oliver, what do you think we should do to it?”
“We can’t kill it. It’s already dead.”
Color drained from the ghosts already pale face. His eyes darted back and forth between Oliver and Martin. And then it suddenly panicked, thrashing about, trying to kick its legs. Its head whipped back and forth so ferociously that the chair fell over, and to their horror, the rope Oliver had used to bind his hands to the chair came loose. The ghost stood up, screaming as he ungagged himself.
Oliver screamed. Martin opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“You’re crazy!” the It screamed. “I’m from Kentucky! You all are a bunch of loons around here, I tell you!”
And then it fled, knocking Martin to the ground. Oliver stepped aside as it raced past them and started to hop over the fence. They watched as a cat jumped up on top of the fence. The It knocked it off without hesitation, leapt over the fence, and was gone.
Martin and Oliver tried to catch their breath for a few moments. Oliver dabbed his forehead with a hanky. Martin could only lean against the shed and repeatedly touch his body to make sure he hadn’t been killed. Finally Oliver said, “We’re a bunch of loons? That guy’s dead and he thinks he’s from Kentucky! In Indiana, everybody that’s dead knows it!”
Martin closed his eyes. His body slumped in fatigue. Something crazy was happening to this town, something out of a horror novel. Who would believe such craziness? He glanced at Oliver. And how could Martin explain his suspicions that Melb had succumbed to the same fate?
His ears were hot again.
CHAPTER 26
ON MAIN STREET at dusk in Skary, Indiana, there was the most marvelous view. If you stood right in the middle of the street, usually the last two weeks of January, it looked as though the road continued right into the setting sun. Even on a cold day, the sun’s rays warmed the street, sending an amber, hazy glow along the pavement.
There wasn’t much traffic in Skary, so Wolfe was able to stand there, observing the splendor of the sunset. While he’d always had a remarkable view from his home, he’d discovered this particular view by accident a few years ago when he’d decided to take a walk to battle writer’s block. He’d stood there for forty minutes, taking in every little detail until the sun finally buried itself on the other side of the earth.
Today it wasn’t writer’s block that had caused him to walk. It was Ainsley. They had planned to meet after Wolfe got off work, to discuss some wedding plans, in particular the groom’s cake. But she’d called right before he left, explaining she was supposed to meet the two New York City chefs, who were flying in on a different schedule than originally planned. Alfred was whisking her off to meet at a restaurant near the Indianapolis airport, and she had an hour to come up with at least some sort of menu for Melb’s reception, and on and on. He had tuned her out, his thoughts clouded by envy, anger, and disappointment.
He felt as if he was losing her, and as rationally as he tried to think about it, the fear still stood firm in his mind. And in a moment of honesty, he wasn’t sure he was marrying the girl he thought he was. To him, Ainsley had always been a picture of stability, of simplicity and purity and family. Now
she was off chasing dreams of stardom. Though he thought her shorter haircut was fine, it was the principle of why she’d cut it that disturbed him. It was like she was trying to become somebody new, but it was the person all those years before that he’d fallen in love with.
Of course, these days he seemed to be a shadow of who he used to be. At the point he’d decided that his life had become completely empty, he’d found hope. He’d found purpose. But he couldn’t dismiss how odd it was to find purpose for your life while losing the very purpose you thought you were born for. Never in his life had he doubted he was supposed to be a writer. Now, there was a strange fulfillment in his life, coupled by a rare feeling of dismay. How could he feel purposeful and lost all at the same time?
He’d wanted to visit with the reverend about this, but these days, the reverend seemed as lost as anyone. But Wolfe knew from experience what a quiet moment of meditation could do for one’s soul. And there was nothing like staring into the fiery blaze of the earth’s light to scorch away misguided fears.
Ainsley had reassured him that she could do both: plan their wedding while following Alfred’s twelve steps to becoming Martha Stewart. But Wolfe could see the stress in her eyes, the way she strained to hold that charming smile he so loved to see.
He stepped out of the street and onto the sidewalk as a slow-moving car passed by. The sun wasn’t quite tucked into bed, but its warmth had left and the chill of the streets had returned. He turned and walked back toward his house.
And he found himself praying.
He found it remarkable how prayer worked. Before, he’d thought it included a heavy amount of time on the knees, bowing and mumbling words one imagined the Lord wanted to hear. But he understood it now to be more conversational, not in an irreverent way, but in a comfortable way. He found it easy to praise, sometimes harder to ask for help.
Now, though, his life’s wishes seemed to be falling apart. His wedding day was looking shaky. And indeed, the woman of his dreams seemed to have other dreams she wanted to pursue. Not to mention that his own passion for writing had not diminished, although he now had no idea what to write. He’d also discovered, sadly, that he really didn’t have any other talents that would be useful in the work environment. He knew for sure he was not cut out to sell cars, and he was beginning to suspect after his third romance novel that he was also not going to enjoy reading that genre for any reason.