The 'Geisters (17 page)

“You got no business here,” said Penny. “She wants to talk to you, she’ll call.”

“It’s really best that I find her.”

“Uh huh. She a danger to herself and others, by any chance?”

“You—you have no idea.” It was hard to say, but he might have been trying a smile.

It was the wrong approach. The shotgun wavered.

“I can shoot you right here,” said Penny. “You’re in my place—broke in. Looks like you got a joy buzzer there, counts as a weapon.” The barrel of the shotgun wavered only slightly as she braced it. “I’m within my rights. And it’d solve a lot of problems if I did that. Get you what’s comin’ to you.”

“Now ma’am—” the man’s voice got a little higher “—there’s no need . . .”

“I think there is,” she said.

And the shotgun flew from her hand.

Penny screamed, as it tumbled in the air for an instant—pointed at her—and the man barked, “No!” and moved fast.

He pulled the Taser from his pocket, and ran fast around the foot of the bed. Penny was frozen, staring at the shotgun, suspended in the air—twirling slow like a baton—so it was easy for him. He jammed the Taser into Penny’s side, and she spasmed and fell to the floor, her housecoat obscenely askew. The man stood over her for a second, but looked out the door, and held his hand up in a calm-down gesture.

“Thank your friend for me, honey,” he said. “That’s enough.”

“Okay,” said a voice—a little girl’s voice. “But let’s go from here. Mister Sleepy says it’s scary. He needs a cuddle.”

“He’s not the only one,” said the man, and glanced down at Penny. “Crazy fuckin’ bitch.”

And with that, he flicked off the light, shut the door, and was gone.

The shotgun landed on the bed.

A moment later, Ann settled down beside it, as the Insect lowered her gently from the rafters, where it had safely hidden her from the moment the bad man with the poltergeist came to call.

There was a lot of beer in the fridge at the Rosedale Arms’ back office. And it was a good thing, Ann thought; there was a lot to process, for everyone involved.

The office was actually a screened-in porch, with a cone-covered lamp dangling from a chain and wire in the middle of the ceiling. It offered a view of the cabins. Penny and Roy sat with frosty cans of Budweiser in front of them; Ann picked a Corona, downed it quickly, then took another.

“First things first—that wasn’t your husband, was it?”

“No,” said Ann. “My husband’s dead.”

“By your hand?” asked Penny. When Ann didn’t answer right away, she nodded.

“I feel comfortable askin’ about that, because you saw me nearly shoot that fella dead on your account. So I’m guessin’ you didn’t kill him exactly, but it’s not that simple.”

“My husband wouldn’t have died,” said Ann, “if it wasn’t for me. But it was his own fault.”

Roy didn’t say anything, but he gave Ann an appraising look as he took a noisy sip from his Bud.

“Fair enough,” said Penny. “Any idea who it was that I almost murdered?”

“I don’t know,” said Ann. “Not exactly. I think he might be one of my late husband’s . . .”

“Kin?” prompted Roy.

“Associates,” said Ann.

“He hooked up in the mob?” asked Roy. “Jesus, tell us we ain’t in the middle of some mob fight. We gotta call the cops.”

“I don’t think it’s the mob,” said Penny. “And we ain’t callin’ the police.”

“Why don’t you want to—”

“Hush. You know why, Ann. You saw what happened. Can’t tell the police anything about that business without either seemin’ crazy or lyin’ about it. And cops don’t like neither of those things.”

Ann finished her beer, and reached for another, but Penny stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Slow up,” she said. “You’re gonna be drivin’ in a few hours. Don’t want to be tipsy behind the wheel.”

“We should call the cops,” said Roy again.

“Shut up, Roy,” said Penny. “No cops. But.” She frowned, as though doing arithmetic on the fly. “Here’s who you are gonna call. Pete Wilshire. You’re still tight with him, right? Well good. Miz
‘
Brunt
’ here—” her own beer sloshed at the bottom of the bottle as she made air quotes “—is gonna need a car that’s not so easy to trace as a rental with Florida plates. I know Pete can fix her up with somethin’ driveable, for just a small bit of that roll of bills she’s got in her handbag. After seein’ what went on in that room, I can see why she won’t take a bus or a train, or God forbid, an airplane. So you think you can do that?”

“Not right now,” he said, “but in morning, sure. He won’t be able to do it right straightaway, though.”

“That’s fine,” said Penny. “Because once you call him, you’re goin’ to follow Miz Brunt into Mobile, where we’ll find a place to return that rental car of hers. She can settle up there, and for good measure maybe go into a bus station and buy a ticket somewhere. Then you can pick her up, bring her over to Pete’s lot, and see her off in her new car.” Penny turned to Ann. “That sound good to you?”

“Sure,” said Ann, and Penny said, “You’re welcome.”

“I’m sorry. Thank you. You don’t have to do any of this.”

“Well, here’s how you can really say thank you,” said Penny. “First off. Keep your cell phone turned off. And don’t go sending revealing messages on chat programs in fancy business centres. Might be all right to buy one of those disposable cell phones, for emergencies. But I’d even keep the battery out of that, most of the time. If you can get any more cash on that credit card you lost, get it—then cut the thing up for real. Don’t use it anywhere. Drive the speed limit, and stay off freeways. Though it may be tempting, don’t buy yourself a gun. It’s easier to get one here than pretty much anywhere else, true enough, but you still gotta show I.D. and register it. And unless you got the will to use it on a fella, it can be turned against you. Like you saw just now.

“That joy buzzer your dead husband’s ‘associate’ has is a better deal all the way around. Easy to buy and use, and less costly. In fact, you might want to take the money you save on that and buy yourself a wig. If you’re goin’ somewhere after this—don’t take the direct route. Zigzag a bit. Throws ’em off the scent, if they’re on it. Now let me see. Is there anythin’ else I can think of?”

As she thought, Roy got another couple of Budweisers out of the fridge, popped them both and handed one to Penny.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Get yourself an exorcist. But not the kind uses snakes and potions. Those ones are liars.”

Ann checked her Gmail at a public library in Atlanta. She didn’t sign in to chat. There was an email from Jeanie, though.

Hey Ann

Call me, would you? Everyone’s really worried about you.

Lesley checked and your bro’s fine. He’s checked out of the Hollingsworth place. He apparently consented. Michael’s friend Ian is taking him back to his place where the wedding was. He stayed there before, so it should be okay. I remember they had a room for him and everything.

They finished arrangements for getting Michael’s remains back. There’s going to be a memorial, but they want you to be there. You should be there. Lesley got in touch with Ian and he said to tell you to please come home. Or at least answer your cell phone. He said to say you aren’t in any trouble. He’s sorted everything out with the airline.

I know it can be really hard, and I know what you told me about Michael. I can’t imagine what you must be going through. But you have to know people love you and want to help you.

Love

Jeanie

Ann pressed the “reply” button, and thought about what to write. She finally typed:

Hi Jeanie,

Tell Lesley to get Philip out of there! These guys are sick! They’re going to hurt him. I can’t call you, because they might hurt you too. In fact—you should get away from your place for a while and don’t tell anyone where you are.

There’s a man with short hair and a blue jacket and a little girl whose friend Mister Sleepy is just as bad as the Insect. He might show up at your door. He might not tell her to stop.

Run!

She didn’t send it.

Jeanie didn’t know about the Insect. She didn’t know about Mister Sleepy. How would that email read to her? Ann didn’t want to seem crazy; didn’t want to set off any alarm bells that weren’t already ringing. What the hell had she been thinking?

She had been following Penny’s advice along the road. Roy’s friend Pete ran a used-car lot out of an old filling station up the highway, and he had a surprisingly extensive stock of vehicles. After some hemming and hawing, she settled on an old Chevrolet campervan. Roy agreed, it would be easier to find camp grounds that took cash than it would motels. He and Pete had a quiet word out of earshot of Ann, and they figured $2,000 would be a fair price, given the vehicle’s age and the smell in the upholstery and level of rust and so forth. Ann thought it was a steal, but kept her mouth shut on the matter.

Ann hadn’t bought a gun, and she hadn’t bought a Taser either. She did manage to find a wig shop in Mobile, and got a red wig and a pair of big disguisey sunglasses too, and in the outlet store up the road, a pale blue jean jacket that was unlike anything else she owned. She did buy a mobile phone with a disposable number on it, and did max out her card on a cash advance—another $5,500 was what she could arrange. She bought a bus ticket to New Orleans and put it in the pocket of that jean jacket. Then she headed northeast in her fancy new van, her credit card broken in two at the bottom of her purse.

Was all that enough? If she’d done all this straight out of Miami, would Mister Sleepy and his master have been able to find her in the Rosedale Arms? Had they really tracked her by the license plate of her rented Toyota and a Gchat in the business centre? Or had they used something else?

Were they still on her trail even now?

Ann closed the email without sending it, then changed her password—something that she should have done a long time ago. She logged back in, just to make sure when she noticed the sender of a new message in her inbox.

mailto:[email protected]

She didn’t have much time left, and it was a long note. So she opened the email, and despite the risk, summoned a library page to find out how to use the printer in this town. When it was finished, she deleted the email, signed out, and cleared the cache—just like Penny’d shown her.

She hurried back to her van with the printout, to read it through. Because that was the one piece of advice from Penny she hadn’t yet been able to follow.

She had not yet sought out an exorcist.

Blessings, Ann

Oh I don’t know where to start. I love love love love you. I hope after everything that has happened you are okay. I know you know that I was sick for a while. I had a bit of a stroke. I don’t want to bore you with details, but it was very hard for me to move or to talk for a little while. I’m better now but not all better. I can go on the computer and I can do my stuff. I had some very good helpers to keep me going. There’s an in-home care division from the Hollingsworth Centre and they really helped a lot.

That’s me. Now you. First I am so sorry. I heard about the accident in the airplane on the news. I am sorry. Michael was a good man. I could feel it when I checked him, my way. He really loved you and I know you loved him too. I am praying for you.

I know from reading your emails you sent me from Tobago, that you were having a hard time with the Insect. I wish I could have helped you. But they didn’t tell me about all the calls and messages that came in when I was sick until later.

I still have a hard time moving. But I can type, and I can pray. If you call me, I might be a bit hard to understand. But in the meantime, I can remind you of what we learned.

Remember when we first met? It was in the hospital—after another crash. I remember you there, so small, in that playroom. It was Christmas, and my nephew had told me I had to go, and of course I did.

I had a rest just now. This is a lot of typing.

You were so frightened there. They didn’t know what to do with you. You wouldn’t go away with your Nan—you wouldn’t even go back to your room. You were afraid that things would start to happen. That you wouldn’t be able to control it. That the Insect would come out and tear the hospital to pieces. Do some harm.

You told me everything. You were such a brave girl. And you told me, “Get rid of this thing. Make it go away. Ryan says you can. So do it please.”

I told you of course I would. I would spend all the time with you I needed to make sure the thing inside you went away.

I think now you understand that I couldn’t really do that. That was a white lie I told you, because I couldn’t tell you then what we later learned: that you can’t make something go away that’s part of you. You can control it. You can make it behave. You just have to learn how to talk to it.

Eventually we used your Dungeons & Dragons game.

But that day we did a simpler thing. We just did a little chant: “Shut up. I know you’re there. But shut up right now.”

You said it again and again, first with me, and then on your own. I left you for a little while alone in the room, chanting this over and over.

I spoke with your Nan after that alone. She was very skeptical about my methods. A lot of people are. Particularly people who believe in the traditional religions. But I explained to her about the importance of this, and the counsellors at the hospital agreed, and so you were able to go home. Your old home first, then, after a while, over to Barrie to live with your Nan.

She was a dear. I hope you remember her that way, still. You only had a few years with her before she passed on. But she loved you and Philip dearly. We became good friends. I like to think we still talk.

So here is what I want you to do. Every time you see the Insect start to assert itself, I want you to say, “Shut up! I know you are there!” And I want you to think of your Nan. Nothing happened when you were with her. The Insect kept its peace. Nothing happened for many years after you lived with her. When you moved in with me for those years, we kept it under control. But it all started with this:

Shut up.

I know you’re there.

But shut up for now.

My dear Ann, I hope that helps you for now. But should you want more help, please call me. I promise, this time I’ll answer myself.

Love love love

Eva

Ann folded the sheets and slid them into the glove box of the van. It was late in the afternoon outside the library in the parking lot. Minivans and SUVs were pulled up by the sidewalk, letting kids off. On the steps outside, an elderly man with a ponytail and a thick beard sat on a bench, thumbing through a thick volume. Ann pulled the disposable cell phone from her handbag. It was an old-style flip phone.

She opened it, and from memory, dialled Eva’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hello Eva. Don’t say my name if there’s someone else in the room right now.”

“Mm. All . . . all right.”

“So there is.” Ann sighed. “All right. Eva, I got your email. I’ve made a copy and printed it. You do the same when we’re done.”

A pause. “Yes.”

“Good. Now. There are some things we need to talk about very quickly. I need you to listen to me.”

“Yes.”

“First. Ian Rickhardt is not to be trusted. He is a—”she wanted to say prick, but knew better than to use that kind of language with Eva “—a wicked man. So was . . . so was Michael. They—” Ann paused. She tried to form the words to describe what had happened, exactly, in a way that Eva could understand.

“They’re perverts,” she said finally. “They both knew full well about the Insect. They . . . they exploited it sexually. Does that make sense?”

There was a silence on the other line.

“Ian has taken Philip. They’ve taken him from his home care. Apparently he consented to it. But I’m worried he doesn’t understand. I think he’s in trouble.”

“All right.” She sounded less certain. But then she added, “Just a moment.”

The phone muffled—a longish silence as these things went—and she was back.

“All right. I’ve sent David away. He was here just now, helping clean up. I’ve asked him if he could take out the garbage, and he hopped to it.”

“Who is David?”

“He’s with the home,” said Eva. She was still speaking slowly, hesitantly, stumbling a bit over consonants. “He’s been helping me ou’. Out.”

“Okay.” Ann thought about that. Hadn’t a David told her he was Eva’s nephew? She wasn’t sure, and didn’t want to get into it with Eva now. “Well. Don’t talk to him about any of this.”

“Of course not. Now tell me, Ann. Did the Insect cause that plane crash?”

“It didn’t quite crash. But Michael caused it. He raped the Insect, Eva. Ian did too.”

“Goodness,” said Eva. “Goodness.”

“He wasn’t a good man. Neither of them were.”

“Ann,” said Eva, somewhat more deliberately, “how precisely did he rape it?”

Ann felt her throat rise. Outside, a woman crossing the parking lot glanced at her, and looked away quickly. Ann might’ve done that herself, seeing a woman like Ann in the cab of a burned-out campervan, crying. “I—I don’t know, precisely. But it told me. It told me it was happening.”

“How did it tell you?”

Ann drew a breath. She swallowed, and steadied herself.

“I can’t stay on this phone very long,” she said. “You’ve got to trust me. There are a group of men, who do this to the Insect. To poltergeists. I’ve met them. They have some sick relationship with them. They . . . they call people like me a ‘vessel’ for their . . . for their real brides. Michael was one of them. And Ian Rickhardt’s one of them. And I think he’s kidnapped Philip.”

“Do you want to call the police?”

Ann wiped her eyes. The tears were gone as fast as they’d come. Something else came up in its place. A hard certainty. Eva wasn’t alone in the room, wherever she was. This wasn’t her; there was more than a stroke at work here.

“Eva,” she said, “you’re not really alone, are you?”

“I’m alone,” said Eva. “But I’m also listening to you. And this . . .
this doesn’t make sense. You’ve had an accident in Tobago, and another one on the airplane back. With tragic consequences. But it’s only that you’ve slipped—you’ve let go. So what you need to do, is get it back under control. And you’re on the phone right now, and I think we might just be able to do that.”

“All right,” said Ann.

“Good. Now, Ann, I want you to visualize the safe place.”

Ann shut her eyes. There was nothing but darkness.

“Do you have it there?”

“Yes,” said Ann. “I’m in the tower, and there’s sunlight streaming in the windows, and there are unicorns dancing outside.”

“Unicorns?”

Ann opened her eyes. The sun had gone behind a cloud, and the wind was whipping up.

“I’m sorry, Eva. I can’t.”

“You don’t want to, you mean.”

There is no can’t, only won’t
, thought Ann crazily.

“It’s past that,” said Ann. “The Insect has escaped. I tried to get it back in. And I couldn’t.”

“Ann,” said Eva sharply, “the Insect hasn’t done anything. It can’t escape, if you don’t let it. Now let’s take a breath—fill ourselves up with energy. Breathe deep—”

“It’s
killed
, Eva. The Insect has
killed
.”

On the bench by the library, the man shut his book, and peered up at the sky. The quality of light was changing; Ann could feel a prickling on her arms.

“Ann, you need to take control of this thing. You need to put it down.”

The Insect had killed. That was true; it had killed Michael, while he tried to rape it. It had taken Hirsch, the lawyer, to the very edge of death and held him there.

And when Ann was facing a kidnapper all her own, it had lifted her high in the air, free from harm—and it had saved her.

It would take more than a placebo to keep the Insect anywhere it didn’t want to be. More to the point, it would take more than that to keep it anywhere Ann didn’t want it to be.

Outside the car, a woman with a stroller shouted to her husband, and pointed to the west. Thick drops of rain splattered on the car windshield.

“Eva,” said Ann, “I want you to be careful. Don’t trust David. Don’t trust Ian. If you can, call up your nephew Ryan and get him to take you away from home.”

“Ann?”

Ann swallowed, and smiled as the western clouds fattened into deep, greenish-black things.

“Just go,” she said. “Go stay with Ryan.”

Ann clicked the phone off, and cracked its back and pulled its battery out. She dropped the battery out the window, turned the ignition, and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the long and twisted road ahead of her.