No Ghouls Allowed (18 page)

He nodded, his lips pressed together in a firm line. “Can’t let you two go in there
without some backup,” he said, patting the top of his firearm. Then he turned to Wells.
“You coming?”

Wells paled and looked toward the building. Several of the patients still inside were
screaming in the most horrific fashion. It was as if they were being tortured but
also as if they were enjoying the terrible pain. I shuddered and I wasn’t the only
one who did, right before Wells reluctantly agreed and we headed off toward the chaos.

Moving at a cautious trot, the four of us made our way to the front door, which, thank
God, was a sliding door and not a swinging door. It opened automatically for us, and
the second we crossed the threshold amidst all the screams and slamming, the terrible
racket abruptly stopped.

It was as if a switch had suddenly been thrown and the two deputies and Heath and
I were now standing in a deserted building. Nothing moved. No one spoke. Not a door
slammed. And no one screamed.

We came to a dead stop, and I barely allowed myself to breathe while we all listened
for any hint of movement or trouble.

But the only sound that came to me was from Wells, who had stuck close to me on the
left side. He was breathing and sweating so hard that I was afraid he was having a
panic attack. “Hey!” I whispered, and he turned big wide eyes on me. “You okay?”

“Why did it suddenly go quiet?” he whispered back. “Like, how did that even
happen
?”

I knew what he meant. The screams from the patients had been coming from all over
the building; it would’ve been virtually impossible for them to coordinate their abrupt
silence at the moment we entered the building. Not to mention the equally abrupt end
to all those slamming doors. It just didn’t seem possible without something supernatural
at play.

“Listen to me,” I said, grabbing his arm and moving close to hiss in his ear, because
there was no way I was going to let him lose his shit in here when the situation was
so dangerous. “You need to hold it together, Matt. Do you hear me?”

He nodded absently, but his wide eyes were roving all over the lobby area like he
expected the boogeyman to jump out at him at any moment. “What if that thing tries
to get into my head?” he said in a shaky whisper. “I mean, it got into Levi’s head.
What if it comes after me?”

I clenched my jaw and dug into my pockets. Pulling out several magnets, I began to
stuff them into the top of his Kevlar vest. “These are magnets. No spook can get into
your head when you wear them. They’ll keep you safe from being overtaken, okay?”

For whatever reason, Wells seemed to relax a fraction. “They will?”

I held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“You guys ready?” Heath asked us over his shoulder. He didn’t seem impatient, just
focused on moving us forward when Matt had collected himself.

I cocked my head at the deputy. “We’re good,” he told Heath, as he adjusted his grip
on his pistol.

Heath nodded at me, then squared his shoulders and moved forward slowly and cautiously.
Breslow followed him, I followed Breslow, and Wells followed me as we made our way
through the lobby to the main corridor and began to head down it. Along the way we
heard the faint sounds of sobbing, and I squinted at what appeared to be a gurney
with a sheet tossed over it.

I pointed to the floor under the gurney, where I could just see a set of tennis shoes
poking out from under the sheet, and we moved over to it. Stepping forward, Heath
and I squatted down and I carefully pulled up the sheet. A woman in a set of flowered
scrubs jumped slightly when I pulled aside the sheet. She was sobbing and biting her
fist to try to keep the noise down. “Hey, there,” I said softly, reaching a hand out
to her, but she jumped again, so I pulled it back. “I’m M.J.”

She was trembling so violently, I wondered if she was able to take in anything I said.

“I know you’re scared,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “But we’re here to
help. If you take my hand, we’ll walk you right out of here.” Again I reached my hand
out to her, but she merely looked at it without taking it.

“What’s your name, honey?” Heath tried.

She wouldn’t answer him.

“I’m Heath,” he said. “I promise you that we can keep you safe. If you want to come
out from under there, we’ll get you out of this building in no time.”

The woman made a whimpering sound, then sniffled, and then, like magic, she seemed
to pull it together. The violent trembling stopped, no more tears leaked out of her
eyes, and instead she took a deep, calming breath. I smiled at her. “That a girl,”
I said. “See? You can do it. Now come on, honey. Come with us and we’ll get you to
safety.”

She eyed me for a long moment, and then the corners of her mouth quirked and just
like that, something shifted inside her eyes. I felt the warning a microsecond before
she leaped at me.

Scrambling backward, I tried to dodge her outstretched hands, but she got my vest
and began pounding away at me. She was strong as hell too. I put my arms up to block
her blows, and Heath was doing his best to grab her and pull her off me, but then
she started kicking too and she caught me right in the chest.

I went flying backward and for several seconds I struggled to take a full breath,
but I also heard the sound of crackling electricity right before a loud thud shook
the ground. A moment later Heath was at my side. “Em?
Em?
”

I held up my hand. I just needed a second so that I could get my diaphragm to cooperate.
Closing my eyes, I forced myself to think calm thoughts—no easy task when you’re in
a haunted crazy ward, and at last I was able to suck in some air. “I’m fine,” I said
weakly as Heath and Breslow helped me sit up.

“What the hell was
that
?” Wells barked. I looked over at him and saw that he was standing over the woman,
who was out like a light.

“Cuff her,” Breslow ordered.

“But she’s one of the employees!” he said, as if he couldn’t believe what’d just happened.

“Do it, Matt,” Beau told him, and his tone brooked no further argument.

Wells cuffed the nurse to a safety railing along the side of the corridor and we set
off again, but this time I was right behind Heath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to me over his shoulder.

“For what?”

“I should’ve blocked her.”

I put a hand on his back. “It wasn’t your fault, babe.”

Heath turned his head as if he was about to say something but was immediately silenced
by the sound of laughter filling the corridor. It wasn’t nice laughter either.

The four of us froze, staring straight ahead, ready to run, fight, or stand our ground.
From out of one of the rooms stepped a tall, skinny man in his mid – to late forties,
or thereabouts. His features were long and gaunt, and his eyes were too big and buggy
for his face. He was dressed in a loose sweater and baggy pants and his feet were
bare.

After stepping into the middle of the corridor, he eyed each of us in turn with a
sort of cunning look—as if he had the measure of us immediately. “Little DeeDee has
come back to play?” he said, his voice so filled with evil that it made my blood run
cold.

“Put your hands above your head!” Breslow shouted, pointing his weapon right at the
man.

“The Sandman has missed his DeeDee,” he said, completely ignoring Breslow. “She’s
gone on, hasn’t she?” he taunted. I tried not to appear rattled, but it was very,
very hard. “DeeDee played a trick on the Sandman,” he continued. “She should have
known that wasn’t smart. Now I’ll have to play a trick on DeeDee’s little DeeDee.
Even the score. Won’t that make DeeDee learn her lesson?” he said, cackling with delight.

“I said, put your hands above your head!”
Breslow roared. He moved a few steps closer to the man and Heath moved with him,
the stun gun and a spike clutched in his hands.

The possessed man at last seemed to focus on the advancing threat coming toward him.
He eyed them warily at first, and then he simply grinned, held up his fingers, and
gave a loud
SNAP
.

In the next instant every single door in the hospital began to open and slam, open
and slam. The noise had been loud when we were outside. It was downright deafening
inside.

Breslow and Heath flinched at the sudden eruption of sound, but they also kept advancing.

Wells, who’d been next to me the whole time, put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Stay
put!” Then he moved forward too, trotting down the hall to catch up to Heath and Breslow.

The guy currently possessed by the Sandman shifted his gaze back to me, and we locked
eyes. I started to shiver, and I didn’t think I could stop. The Sandman knew my mother.
And he knew I was her daughter. And by the speech he’d just given, I knew that she’d
gotten the best of him at some point in her past, but how and in what context I couldn’t
be sure.

What was certain was that if I didn’t figure out how to send that son of a bitch spook
back to hell, he’d take me with him. There was murder in the eyes of that mental patient,
and I knew it was murder inspired by the Sandman.

“Screw you,” I mouthed at him, hoping he could read my lips. He smiled wickedly. He’d
read them perfectly. I gripped my spikes and began walking toward him. There was no
way I was going down without a fight.

His smile got even more sinister and he held up both hands, preparing to snap his
fingers again, but then he held them in the air as if he wanted to draw the moment
out.

Heath picked up his pace, and then so did Breslow and Wells. They were closing the
gap as if they sensed that with the snap of those fingers, something even more terrible
would happen.

I picked up my pace too. The air was filled with tension and malice. Heath and Breslow
were side by side, closing the gap, rushing a little bit faster with each step, but
I knew . . . I
knew
they wouldn’t tackle him in time.

Ten feet from them, the mental patient snapped his fingers and seemingly from every
doorway emerged a wildly crazy person. Screams and howls filled the hallway, and I
realized too late that I was too far away from my three companions for my own good.

Two men came out from opposite sides of the hallway and lunged at me. I shrieked and
raised my spikes, turning them in my hands to use the flat top side to pummel one
in the shoulder, and the other in the ribs. Both of them backed off immediately, but
then they seemed to recover and they came at me again.

Somehow I stayed clear and spun around just out of their reach. I thought to run out
of the building, but I took only two steps before more doors opened and several more
howling mental patients came rushing at me. I spun yet again, weaving and dodging
and hitting at anything that got too close.

There was such chaos in the corridor that it was impossible to see Heath, Breslow,
and Wells. I was lost in a sea of snarling faces, foaming mouths, wild eyes, and clawing
hands. I felt like I was in a zombie horror movie, especially when my face was scratched
by sharp nails, and my ankle nearly kicked out from under me.

I reeled, and twisted, and spun and darted, trying in vain to dodge all the hands
trying to grab me.
“Heath!”
I screamed.
“HEATH!”

And suddenly the hands stopped grabbing for me, and the blows subsided, and in an
instant my path seemed to clear. I looked up expecting to see the love of my life
there to rescue me, but instead I found myself in front of the possessed patient.
My mind reeled. How had he gotten around Heath, Breslow, and Wells?

His appearance threw me and the shock of it caused me to pause.

In that split second, he smiled so evilly that I felt my blood run cold. And then
he grabbed me by the sides of the head with both hands, cocked his own head slightly
before opening his jaws wide to reveal unnaturally sharp teeth, and in an instant
I knew he was going to bite my face off.

I closed my eyes reflexively and tried to pull away, but he was far too strong. I
screamed and then something hit me in the shoulder hard enough to send me flying backward
for the second time that day. There was the sharp sound of an electrical current,
a bloodcurdling scream, and then the whole place went absolutely silent again.

I rolled around on the floor for a few seconds, trying to get my bearings, when I
felt a hand on my arm. I shrieked and struck at it, but then I heard Heath say, “Em!
Em, it’s me!”

I blinked and looked up at him, forcing myself to focus on his beautiful face. This
time I reached for his hand and let him pull me to my feet, then threw my arms around
his neck and let out a pathetic sob.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Babe, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

I realized this was so
not
the time to lose it, and swallowed hard several times before backing away from him
and looking around, ready to battle anything that moved.

But all around us were the prone bodies of fallen mental patients. “Are they dead?”
I gasped. I hadn’t registered any shots being fired, but I’d been a little preoccupied
with trying not to have my face bitten off.

Heath held up his stun gun and gave the trigger a good push. It zapped with energy.
“Remind me to get one of these,” he said.

“You did all this?”

“He had help,” Breslow said from down the hallway. I realized then that he was holding
a baton and Wells had his own stun gun in hand.

I turned back to Heath, pointed to his Taser, and said, “We’re
both
getting one of those.”

•   •   •

A bit later we had twelve patients plus the nurse in handcuffs and zip ties, and we’d
cleared the building. All of the people who’d been possessed were then taken to the
hospital for evaluation, because none of them had come to. The paramedics who tended
to them at the scene kept commenting that they couldn’t understand how a couple of
stun guns had put thirteen people into a perpetual state of unconsciousness, but then,
they’d had no experience with the Sandman.

It was such a frightening thing to consider that one evil spirit could possess the
wills of so many people all at once. I mean, I’d heard of a couple of cases where
up to three people had been possessed by the same spook before—but never more than
that. This spook had taken over the minds of thirteen people.
Thirteen.
It made me tremble to think of the power that would take.

I was told by one of the nurses that several of the patients who’d attacked us in
force were some of the most docile patients in the hospital. “It just doesn’t make
sense!” she’d said. “Why would they all turn on us so suddenly like that?”

I had the answer, but I didn’t have the energy to tell her specifically what’d happened.
Instead, Heath had taken one long look at me, marched over to Breslow, and told him
he was taking me home for the day.

“You’re leaving us?” the deputy said nervously as Heath led me over to a bench.

“Yep. I’ve already called for a ride so you don’t have to worry about getting us home.”

I leaned back on the bench and winced. It felt like I was bruised all over.

“But what if that thing comes back?” Beau asked.

Heath hefted the duffel bag he’d pulled out of the back of Beau’s squad car and handed
over several spikes and magnets. “Have your other deputies wear these flat magnets
under their Kevlar and carry the spikes in their belts,” he instructed. “I doubt that
spook will be back today, but just in case, you should be safe enough with those on
you and your team while you work the scene.”

“Uh, okay,” Breslow said, taking the bag and looking none too enthused about Heath’s
instructions. “Will you two be back tomorrow?”

Heath looked at me to see what I thought. I nodded dully. “We’ll pick it up in the
morning, Deputy,” I said.

That seemed to set him a little more at ease. “Great. Thanks, Mary Jane. Heath, take
care of her and I’ll pick you up tomorrow around nine a.m.”

“We’ll be ready,” he promised.

Gilley arrived a short time later and he took one look at me and said, “What the hell
happened to you?”

“The paparazzi heard I was in town and they mobbed me for a picture.”

Gil graced me with his most well-aren’t-you-funny expression. “There are days, M.J.,
when you are just
so
much fun.”

“It’s a gift,” I said, limping my way to the car and getting in.

“Heath?” Gil said when my sweetheart got into the backseat.

“She got roughed up,” Heath said.

Gilley reached over and touched the side of my cheek. I winced because it felt raw
and sore. “What roughed her up? A mountain lion?”

“Polar bear,” I said, and felt a small smile at the edge of my lips. It actually felt
good to joke about it.

“Come on, tell me!” Gil said impatiently. “Who or what roughed you up?”

“A bunch of possessed mental patients,” Heath told him.

Gil glared hard at Heath in the rearview mirror. “Fine! Don’t tell me! God, you two
are impossible—you know that?”

I glanced over my shoulder and winked at Heath, who reached out and put a reassuring
hand on my shoulder.

We drove in silence for a long while and I thought that I couldn’t wait to get home
and have a good hot soak in the tub, but then Gilley took a familiar shortcut down
a residential street and I suddenly called out, “Hey, would you pull over next to
that house on the right, Gil?”

“Mrs. Chadwick’s?” he asked.

I should’ve figured he’d remember. “Yeah,” I said, pulling down the visor to take
a look at myself. I looked frightful. “Can I borrow this?” I asked Gil, pointing to
his water bottle in the cup holder.

“Have at it,” he said.

I dabbed the end of my shirt in the water and patted away some of the blood on my
face, then smoothed out my hair. “Where are we?” Heath asked.

Gilley answered for me. “We’re at Linda Chadwick’s house. She was M.J.’s mom’s best
friend, and she’s like an aunt to M.J.”

I felt Heath study me, but I didn’t want to waste time filling him in on what I was
about to do. Instead, once Gil pulled over, I got out of the car, poked my head through
the window, and said, “Would you mind if I did this alone?”

“Sure,” they both said, even though I knew they didn’t have a clue what I was up to.

“Thanks. I’ll try to make it quick,” I promised.

“We’ll be right here,” Heath vowed.

“Or at the ice-cream parlor,” Gil said with a bounce to his eyebrows.

I rolled my eyes and hurried off to see if Linda was home. I walked nervously up the
drive, and shook my hands to steady my nerves. I hadn’t seen Linda in almost five
years, although we did keep in touch through e-mail and a phone call every few months.

Linda had been one of the angels in my life who’d helped me during that awful time
right after Mama died. She used to come pick me up almost every Saturday to go to
the movies. I didn’t speak for a long time after Mama’s funeral . . . like, not even
a word. The heartbreak I felt had pushed me into muteness and I spent about a year
as silent as a mouse.

Linda had also been grieving terribly at the time. She and Mama had been best friends
since grade school, and they’d been the maid or matron of honor at each other’s wedding.
I never got the sense that Linda cared for Daddy much, but she made a special effort
to be kind to him in the months following Mama’s passing. I think she did that solely
for me, because she knew that if she argued with him, he’d never let her take me out
on those precious Saturdays.

And we always went to the movies, never to a place where I’d feel pressured to talk.
We used to see two or even three shows in a row, and it was the most wonderfully comforting
thing anyone could have done for me.

It still choked me up to consider that kindness, that Linda could have cared so much
about me, as to put aside her own grief and give me what I needed with such a selfless
act. One that truly humbled me.

I got to her back door and hesitated, running a hand through my hair one last time
and hoping I didn’t look too scary, and then I rang the doorbell. “Just a minute!”
I heard from inside, and I closed my eyes to keep them from misting up. I realized
suddenly that I’d missed Linda far more than I’d first thought.

A moment later the door was flung open and there she stood, my mama’s best friend
in the world and my honorary aunt. She was a beautiful woman—always had been, with
perfectly coiffed blond hair, sparkling green eyes, and a smile as big as Georgia.
“Why, land sakes!” she cried, opening her arms wide and throwing them around me. “Mary
Jane! Oh, my baby girl! Is this really you?!”

I laughed and squeezed back, and those damn tears flooded my eyes again. “Hi, Linda,”
I said, my voice cracking. “I’ve missed you.”

“Oh!” she said, squeezing even tighter. “You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you,
my darling girl! Now let me step back and take a look at you!”

Before I could warn her, she’d let go of me enough to look at my face and I saw her
whole expression change. Cupping the side of my cheek where I’d been scratched, she
said, “My God! Mary Jane! Who did this to you?!”

“Linda, I promise, it’s nothing,” I tried, but she was looking at me so tenderly,
and with such concern, and in that moment I just missed her so much that I found myself
crying big, wet, sloppy tears.

“Oh, honey!” she said, pulling me inside and shutting the door with her foot. “Now
don’t you worry! We’re gonna take care of you—just let me get the phone and call the
sheriff! Do you need to go to the hospital? Oh my God, were you . . . were you . . . ?”

I shook my head and pulled on her arm. Wiping my cheeks, I said, “Linda, I promise
you, I’m okay. And the sheriff already knows. I was helping with an investigation
and things got a little rough.”

Linda stood there blinking for a long minute. “You were helping who with what and
it what?”

I smiled at her. She’d just mimicked Gil from the day before. Then I took a deep breath
and gave her the shortest version I could of the afternoon’s events. By the end of
it we were sitting in her cozy living room and she was practically forcing me to drink
the water with cucumber slices she’d had chilling in her fridge. “Does your daddy
know you’re doing all this work for the sheriff’s department?”

I shook my head. “No, and don’t you tell him, neither.”

She leveled a look at me. “And if he finds out I knew and didn’t tell him, what do
you think he’ll say?”

“I expect he’ll say a great deal, Linda, which is why we won’t tell him that either.”

She threw her head back and let go her rich, throaty laugh. No one laughed like Linda.
It was such a beautiful sound. It made me really homesick all of a sudden. Then I
remembered what I came here for. “Listen,” I began, “there’s something I need to ask
you.”

She cocked her head like a curious puppy. “What’s that, baby?”

“It’s about Mama.”

“Okay,” she said, sitting forward and lacing her hands together. “Shoot.”

“Mama used to have a small porcelain cup on her vanity. It held all of our ponytail
holders. Do you remember it?”

Linda looked at me like I’d asked the oddest question she’d ever heard. Still, she
must have guessed by my earnestness that I wasn’t joking around. “I don’t believe
I remember it, Mary Jane. I’m so sorry. Did your daddy lose it or something? I know
he had some of your mama’s things moved to storage when he took up with that Mrs.
Bigelow.”

“No,” I said. “No, it’s nothing like that. I just . . . I just needed to know where
it came from.”

“Did she not tell you?”

“No.”

“Why is it important?”

“I think it’s connected to a tea set that was owned by someone else.”

“Who?”

“Sarah Porter.”

Linda’s brow shot up. “Oh, well, that’s quite possible. DeeDee and Sarah used to be
best friends before DeeDee and I became best friends.”

My back went rigid. “They were?”

“Oh yeah. See, your grandmama was a bit of a social climber, and I don’t usually speak
ill of the dead, but you knew your grandmama, always puttin’ on airs when she had
no cause for it.

“Anyway, when she found out that your mama and Sarah Porter were in the same kindergarten
class together, well, she practically forced them into a friendship. She was always
encouraging your mama to go over to Sarah’s house. You know I suspect that your grandmama
thought that eventually she’d get invited to one of those fabulous parties Regina
Porter was always throwing.

“But the joke ended up being on her, because Regina only had the patience and liking
for your mama. But then, DeeDee was so beautiful—even as a child she was the spitting
image of Elizabeth Taylor—and Regina loved beautiful people, as she considered herself
to be a great Southern beauty—even though she was the only one who was willing to
consider that.”

Linda made her brows dance and she shimmied her shoulders a little to indicate she
was making fun of Regina Porter, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “So, at what point
did you and Mama become best friends?”

Linda pressed her lips together and squinted, her gaze far away. “Well, now, I suspect
it was right at the beginning of third grade. DeeDee came into the first day of class,
sat down next to me, and said, ‘Listen here, Linda S. Walters. You and I are gonna
be best friends. Forever. And by the way, your grampy says hello, and to stop hiding
under your bed.’”

She then threw her head back and laughed uproariously and I felt my heart swell with
longing to have been there on that day with the two of them in that moment.

“Now, what I should also say about that day, Mary Jane, is that not two weeks earlier,
my grandpappy had in fact died, and he was my favorite person in the whole wide world,
and I’d spent the next two weeks before school started hiding under my bed, crying
my little heart out! That’s how I knew that when your mama told me that you were starting
to talk to people who’d died, she’d passed on her talents to you.”

It took me a few seconds to be able to talk after that. I was always so moved by stories
of my mother. Still, I was after information and I tried to focus back on that. “So,
you guys became friends in third grade—how old were you?”