The 'Geisters (16 page)

As she lingered in a filling station restroom, Ann thought she might feel the presence of Eva, even though the darkness at that moment was absolute.

Who knew if any of it was real? Eva claimed clairvoyance for herself, but never presumed that was what she was teaching Ann.

When she’d agreed to help Ann through the loss of her parents—when Ann had confided in her, about the Insect—Eva had made
it plain.

You’re letting this thing rule you, that’s the problem. It thinks it runs things. For a while, the exercises you learned from those other people did the trick. Now, it’s found a way around them. So. We’ve got to find a way to tell it to be quiet, and keep it quiet when you’re not talking to it. So let’s play a game
, she said.

And that’s what the game was—another exercise for gaining control. Ann thought these manifestations were nothing but a signal that she’d lost control; pieces of her unconscious, coming up to talk to her like waking dreams.

She had to get past that. She called out into the dark again: “I’m right here. Talk to me, please.”

There was a rustling, a squeaking of wheels—the sound of a sheet being drawn.

“Hey, sis.”

Ann didn’t answer immediately. Once again, the Insect would not speak with her, and her unconscious mind supplied her with a different companion.

This time was the cruelest yet.

“Philip,” she said.

“Don’t sound so excited to see me.”

“I can’t see you.”

“No? I can see you fine. Must be a trick of the light.”

“Or you’re a ghost.”

“Can’t be a ghost. I’m alive and well. Ghosts are the dead.”

“Or the Insect.”

“Or the Insect, that’s true. You think I’m the Insect? Because I can see how you might. Fucker’s done everything else to you. To me. Why not fake my voice here in your head?”

“Except the fact that you’re saying this, now disproves the assertion.”

“Because the Insect would never think of
that
.”

“Do you want me to just open my eyes and stop talking to you?”

“It, um, would be the sane thing to do, sis.”

Ann found herself smirking.

“All right,” he said. “Crazy as she ever was.”

Philip’s voice was the voice he had at seventeen, at Christmas, as he helped Ann make up names for imaginary cities and speculated about his romantic fortunes and occasionally stuck up for Ann at the dinner table. When his spine was whole and he didn’t
need help.

When she could rely on him.

“Michael’s dead,” she said.

“No way.”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Folks don’t tell me much,” said Philip. “I think I must make them uncomfortable.”

“Well yeah. He’s dead. Pft. No more. Gone—”

“I get it. I’m sorry, sis. I don’t know what to say. I remember when Laurie died . . . you remember her, right?”

“Couldn’t forget her.”

“Well I couldn’t talk about it, but it tore me to shreds. I really loved her.”

“You were only together for a few months.”

“Same as you and Michael. Long enough to know.”

Ann considered that. “Not really,” she said.

“Wait a second—are you telling me you might not have truly loved Michael Voors?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I married him, right?”

“I was there.”

“We were good together, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“But you know—he betrayed me.”

“Did he now?” Philip asked.

“So I don’t—”

“What?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

A knowing chuckle drifted out of the darkness. “You’re kind of full of shit sometimes, you know that?”

“Oh am I?”

“Oh yes. You are. Look. Michael Voors was a really stand-up guy. I remember when you brought him by the first time. You introduced me, and being who I was—I was just lying there. And Michael leaned over, not too close, and looked me in the eye, and introduced himself again, and not batting a fuckin’ eyelid, told me how happy he was to meet me. Those things are always weird—I’d stand, you know, if I could.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. Now stop interrupting. Michael kept his cool around me, and I admired that. Really polite.”

“Just what a girl looks for in a man,” said Ann.

“If you say so. I mean, you picked him, right?”

“I’m not so sure that I did, actually.”

“Oh really?”

“Really. I think that I didn’t have too much say in whether or not I’d marry Michael. I think I was manipulated into it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. After Michael died—well
when
Michael died. I caught him . . .”

“Caught him what?”

Ann struggled. “Doing it.”

“Doing it. With who?”

“The Insect.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. Whoa.”

“Okay,” said Philip. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, I been watching CNN, and I know all about what’s been going on in Florida.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s say that I know about this ‘mile high’ club thing, but was being too polite to bring it up with you.”

“Sounds plausible.”

“So let me ask you this. Was Michael ‘doing it’ with your poltergeist during the flight?”

“Yes.”

“And was all of that turbulence that nearly brought your plane down—was that all caused when things got . . . how shall we say . . .
out of hand?”

“It was.”

“Okay. Now are you sure—”

“I don’t think it was the first time. And I don’t think just him. I think Ian Rickhardt—”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah. I think he did it with the polter—the Insect too, in Tobago. I saw it. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. . . .” Ann recalled Rickhardt again, turning in the air outside their villa as the world combusted. “But I think he was. . . having sex with it. And I think the Insect . . . it doesn’t like it.”

“Hmm. Man fucks ghost. I guess if you can describe it, there’s someone who’s into it.”

“More than one.”

“Well there’s the late Michael Voors. And Ian Rickhardt. So that’s two of them, I guess.”

“There’s more,” said Ann. She told him about Hirsch, and his display in the hospital room.

“Shit.”

“He’s not dead, but he can’t move. He’s like—”

“Like me. Yeah. And Auntie Eva—she’s had a stroke too. That’s interesting, don’t you think?”

“You don’t think—”

“Well Eva, bless her, had it coming. She was eating poutine before your wedding, as I recall her saying.”

Ann bridled. “And Philip—you are okay, aren’t you?”

“Right as rain.”

“But I mean, you can tell me that. I got Jeanie to talk to Lesley, to check up on you.”

“I’m just fine.”

“I mean, I’m not just talking to myself, and—”

“Hey, hush. You want this conversation to continue, don’t go too far down that road.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re into some important shit, here, little sister. You want to keep your eye on the prize.”

Ann peered into the darkness. She thought she could discern shapes there—not of Philip, but of some kind of architecture. Were there stairs? A faint shape of a window, covered or dark, by the first landing?

“It’s interesting,” said Philip. “Hey, remember the innkeepah?”

“Penny?” Ann squinted into the dark; it really was taking some form. “Oh. You mean—”

“Yeah. The camp.”

“I do remember the innkeepah. That was Dr. Sunderland, right?”

“He was a creepy old bastard.”

“He really helped us, though.”

“Yeah. Did you ever let him touch you?”

“Ew. No.”

Philip was quiet for a moment, and Ann thought she heard a click—and far off, down a long hallway, a light came on.

“Well, that’s good. He touched me.”

“What?”

“Not like that. But I remember a needle.”

“Philip! What?”

“You were there. We were in the music room—remember?”

“Not too well.”

“Mom and dad were sleeping. He had us in there listening to some kind of boring music. Pan pipe or something.”

A kind of music started to echo down the hallway. Ann could see that it was lined with doors—but not doors such as she might have found in the Insect’s world. It had more of an institutional feel; there were little windows in them, and light filtered dully through them. Maybe they were classrooms. The music came from one of these; it was slow and almost atonal. Ann recalled listening to it as she sat on a beanbag chair in a brighter room, blinds drawn against the snowy winter. Dr. Sunderland sat there cross-legged in a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt, on his own beanbag. Ann was watching, as he fiddled with a wooden box, as Philip sat there beside him, knees up, hands leaning back like he was getting ready to crab-walk.

Dr. Sunderland nodded to Philip, and whispered, “Hold still,”
as he opened the box and removed a syringe, and when Philip pulled away, he slowly, firmly, took hold of Philip’s arm and inserted the needle.

“Yeah,” said Ann, “I remember.”

“And I was out cold,” said Philip. “And it was just you and Dr. Sunderland. And what did he say, Ann?”

“‘Now, you’re isolated,’ I think.”

“And then?”

Ann swallowed. “‘It’s just the three of us.’”

And Sunderland had reached into the box, and pulled out a scalpel, which gleamed in the light. And he let it go, and watched as it floated there in front of him. Philip lay still, but he was still aware—still awake. Dr. Sunderland climbed to his knees, and backed away, and watched as the tiny blade moved through the air, slowly, towards Philip’s face.

“It’s just the three of us,” he said to Ann again. “And Philip.”

Ann remembered that much.

“Did he . . . let it cut you?”

“I didn’t get cut,” said Philip. “I remember that. But the knife came really close to my face. I was terrified. Scared shitless. So were you. I remember you sitting up and yelling for it to stop, and yelling at Dr. Sunderland to make it stop. And you yelled at it. And you yelled at me. And do you remember how Sunderland’s face got?”

Ann thought about that. He was biting his lower lip, his shoulders were really stiff, as he watched the knife hover there, closer and closer until the blade caressed Philip’s jawline.

“And then he . . . it was like he barked,” said Ann. “I remember that. It was like a dog.” She frowned. “And you didn’t get cut. It was like he called it off. With a bark. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

Philip chuckled. “Yeah—you were pretty young. So was I. And maybe he did call it off. But you know something? That’s what it sounds like. Sometimes. A shout. A bark. It can sound that way . . . when a guy comes.”

Ann found herself walking down the corridor now, past that flight of stairs leading up. At the far end, something was heading toward her.

“Ann,” said Philip. “Is that you?”

“Coming,” said Ann. “He was one of them too. Hirsch said there were a lot of them watching me. And he was the first of them.”

“Ann,” said Philip. “Ann—I think I’m in trouble.” The figure drew closer. It moved very quickly for coming along such a long hallway.

“I need you.”

It wasn’t Philip, Ann realized.

Any more than the disembodied voice who’d been speaking with her was, telling her things that really—she already knew.

Philip was back in Canada, living by the good grace of the trust fund their parents had left him. He might even be safe there.

And the figure that emerged from the corridor . . .

That was someone else.

The doors flung open. Light streamed in.

The figure stuttered through the shafts of that light, one after another, transforming each time. A little girl—the one Ann had seen outside? No. An old man—perhaps the one who’d helped her from the ditch, and showed her the way to the wreck of the family’s minivan? No. A policeman? A scientist?

Ian Rickhardt?

By the time it stood face to face with her, it was none of those. It was the Insect. Finally, it had granted her an audience.

When it spoke, its voice was the sound of splintering wood.

The door hung open. A man wearing a pale blue windbreaker, the top of his head covered in close-cropped hair, stepped inside with measured haste. He was sweating, and tense—but he didn’t seem especially afraid.

He had something in his hand. A gun? No. Not a cell phone either. There were prongs coming off it at one end. It was a Taser.

He kept his back to the wall as he examined the bed, the luggage that sat unpacked at the foot of it, peered into the washroom. He looked under the bed too.

The bathroom door was closed. He approached it warily, almost diffidently—who knew what might be waiting inside? It could just be the occupant, having a quiet pee. It could maybe be something else.

With his free hand, he turned the doorknob and opened the door. The bathroom was dark. Inside was a toilet and a short bathtub, a shower. The light over the sink and mirror was the only light in the room. He flicked it on. There was a jangling sound as he moved the shower curtain from one side to the other.

At length, he re-emerged from the room. The two prongs at the end of the Taser flashed nervous blue as he idly flicked the switch.

He went to the bed, lifted a pillow to his face . . . sniffed it. He set it back down. There was a small window looking out the back of the cabin, into the woods. He checked it. Latched shut. He knelt down, peered under the bed.

As he was doing so, the barrel of a shotgun entered the cabin—preceding Penny, who held it at the ready. The man was preoccupied; he didn’t notice anything until he heard the pump chambering a shell.

“This is not rock salt, sir,” said Penny. “I aim to shoot you dead.”

She was wearing a deep blue housecoat. Her hair was uncombed, and stuck out from her left ear. The man looked up and began to rise.

“Raise your hands,” she said. “I will shoot you dead.”

“I heard you, ma’am.” The man’s voice was high for one so big. He had an accent that was hard to place. Not quite the same as Penny’s, but close. He stood the rest of the way, and raised both hands. The Taser went into his coat pocket, smoothly. “I’m here with my wife. Just checking in later.”

“Oh are you?” Penny didn’t move. “Well she ain’t here now. She’s gone.”

“I can see that,” said the man. “Please put the gun away, ma’am. She’s gone, but she left her car and all her things behind. Do you know where she might’ve gone?”