The Ghost in Love (13 page)

“Is it like you remember? Is any of it familiar?” she asked.

“Most of it, yes. But some things are different, for sure. The smell is different. I remember there being a completely different smell in here.”

“Or maybe it's the same smell but
you've
changed. Now you perceive it differently.”

“True. That's possible. It was a long time ago.” Carrying that thought with him, he continued to move around the room looking, touching, and remembering. As if he were visiting one of the many rooms of the Museum of Me.

Because he was so absorbed, Ben did not see the jolt of fear on Ling's face when she first heard footsteps on the stairs coming down to the basement. Her face relaxed when she heard the Kytes speak. When Ben heard their voices, he quickly pointed to the closet off to one side of the playroom. They hurried to hide in there before the couple arrived in their bathrobes and high spirits.

As children, Gina and Ben had played in that closet a hundred times. They hid treasures there. They hid themselves from the outside world. Secrets were revealed in the tiny room that otherwise might never have been spoken in the light of day. Calmed by the still, stale air and murk, Gina stopped being bossy and aggressive. It was another world in the closet for them, a stop-time zone where nothing happened unless they imagined it. The perfect place for hiding, dreaming, and pretending. When they were inside that closet, lions and dragons roared just outside the door, or bad guys searched for them everywhere but always to no avail. In there they were safe from everything.

Far off in the distance a doorbell rang again. It sounded much louder this time because the music was gone. Out in the playroom the Kytes looked at each other. Who came to the door at this time?

“Were you expecting someone?”

“At ten o'clock at night? No! Were you?”

Worried that the bell would ring again and wake the children, Mrs. Kyte hurried out of the room and up the stairs. Mr. Kyte took a fat carrot stick off the platter, dunked it deep in the crab dip, and followed his wife.

Back at the keyhole, Ben saw Mr. Kyte leave and heard him climbing the stairs. When certain the couple was gone, Ben opened the door. The playroom was empty and reeked of marijuana. They walked out of the closet and left the basement via an adjacent door that opened onto the backyard.

Once outside, Ling put a hand on Ben's elbow and held him. “I think something's wrong here. We'd better wait and see what happens to them.”

“Do you think the person at the door is that bum?”

“I don't know, but it could be. Let's go around to the front and try to see.”

Mrs. Kyte had answered the door but now was standing behind her husband while he spoke to Stewart Parrish.

“I knew it! I knew it'd be him. But how did he find you so fast?”

“Shh! I can't hear what they're saying.”

Unfortunately for them, the others were too far away to hear their conversation clearly. They had to rely instead on watching the two men's body language toward each other and the faint smattering of words that drifted over to them across the evening quiet.

Stewart Parrish looked the same as he had earlier in the park: suit, orange shirt, work boots. Both hands rested in his trouser pockets. He appeared relaxed as he spoke to Gina's father.

“What if he stabs Mr. Kyte?”

“He won't. He can't mess around with your past or the people in it. He can only watch, like we're doing.”

Ben wasn't convinced. “Are you sure, Ling? You didn't expect him to stab your partner that night, but he did.”

The ghost frowned, because Ben was right. Even her boss had been surprised that it happened.

“Maybe
you
follow the rules, but obviously he doesn't.”

“All right, Ben, I get your point. Let me think about this.”

But she had no time to think because Parrish suddenly tried to shove his way into the Kyte house.

“He can't do that. He can't interfere with your past! He's coming for you in the past. He can't do that!”

“Looks like that's exactly what he's doing, Ling.”

Mr. Kyte hit Parrish on the side of the head with what looked like a fast karate chop. The bum stumbled backward onto the front lawn, lost his balance, and fell down hard.

Delighted, Ling couldn't stop blurting a triumphant “Hah!” that was drowned out by Mrs. Kyte's loud wail to her husband to come back into the house and call the police.

The scene at the door froze. Kyte kept his arm raised while glaring at the stranger, ready to hit him again if he tried coming into the house. Mrs. Kyte cowered behind her husband. She wanted to run back inside to call the police but was petrified that if she didn't stay here, something worse might happen to her man. Parrish remained sitting on the ground, arms stretched out behind him to prop himself up. He grinned but his eyes were unclear, as if still gaga from the punch in the head.

Kyte pointed at him. “Stay away from my house. Get outta here right now.”

Ben leaned over to Ling and said in a low voice, “Kyte knows karate. That guy better do what he says.”

Ling snorted. “That
guy
is not afraid of karate, believe me. If he wanted to, he could turn Mr. Kyte into a chicken. Or an omelet.”

“Can't you stop him?”

Ling shook her head. “I don't know.”

Slowly rising to his feet, Parrish brushed off his hands on his jacket. Kyte and his wife tensed. Neither had ever dealt with a madman before.

Billie, the family's hyperactive cocker spaniel, came racing out of the house and onto the front step, delighted by all the people out there. He looked eagerly back and forth between his owners, hoping for a little love. When they ignored him, the young dog stepped down onto the lawn and wiggled over to Parrish. Mrs. Kyte started to say something but resisted.

The bum looked glad for the diversion. Bending down, he rubbed the caramel-colored animal with two hands all over its body. Billie loved that and wriggled like a hula dancer, licking the man's hands whenever they were within range. Parrish kept petting the dog and didn't look up.

“Hey, mister, did you hear me? Take off
now
, before I call the cops.”

Parrish was rubbing Billie's back fast and hard, up and down with both hands. Suddenly he grabbed the fur on either side of the dog's neck and yanked it up into the air until it was as high as his head. Billie squealed and twisted, terrified that its world had gone from ecstasy to agony in seconds.

Parrish looked at the couple and then at their screeching dog. Amused, he watched the cocker spaniel writhe in the air in front of its owners. A small sign of what he could do, of what he just might do to these people at any second.

But then Parrish saw something and froze. His smile vanished. It was something on the dog. He saw a few inches of something on its body that instantly made him drop Billie and, to everyone's astonishment,
run away as fast as he could. The dog ran back into the house.

Ling and Ben were as mystified as the others. All four of them stared in disbelief as the sinister Parrish sprinted out of the yard and tore off down the street. What they couldn't see and would have deepened the mystery even more was the look of fright on his face.

A minute or two passed. The Kytes gradually moved again. The man turned to his wife and asked, “What was
that
all about?” She began pulling on his sleeve to come back into the house. She was afraid the bum would return and the madness would start all over again.

But her stubborn husband wasn't ready to go inside yet. What the heck was going on? he wanted to know. One minute that lowlife was trying to push his way into their house, then he tortured the dog, and then just as suddenly he ran away.

“Please, Ron, please. For me, just come inside.”

“But who was that? I want to know who the hell that was!”

Mrs. Kyte began to cry. She had reached her limit. She only wanted it to be half an hour ago again: the mood, the playroom, the music, them alone and safe and sexy. She wanted to be inside their house with the door closed, her family secure from scary out-of-control things like this.

Adding to the surrealism of the moment, a car drifted slowly by out on the street, its radio booming Gene Pitney singing “It Hurts to Be in Love.”

“
Please
, Ron.”

“All right, okay.” His eyes swept the perimeter one last time, making sure no other threat was near before he went in. Ling and Ben crouched down so he didn't see them.

Trying to lure her man inside faster, Mrs. Kyte said, “I'll go downstairs and get the food. We can eat it in the living room.”

“I'm not hungry anymore” was the last thing Ron Kyte said before the front door closed. Ling and Ben could hear the sound of locks being swiftly turned.

“All right, please explain that.”

“I can't, Ben. I have no idea what just happened.”

“Is he gone? Do we have to worry about him coming back?”

Ling shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was rattled. “I don't know. He was coming to get you but something really scared him away.”

“It definitely had something to do with their dog. He saw something on the dog and that was it.
Voom
—he was outta here.”

“Was it in the park? Was that dog with Mrs. Kyte when we were watching the kids?”

“Yes. It was sitting on the ground beside her. Mrs. Kyte loved Billie. She took him everywhere. I remember him always sitting on the backseat of their car yipping.”

After making sure no one was around, they walked out of the backyard. The neighborhood was empty and silent. It was a Tuesday night in the middle of Benjamin Gould's childhood. The street was instantly recognizable to him despite decades having passed. He kept seeing things—unimportant details like a certain purple mailbox or model of car parked in a driveway—that made it even more real and familiar.

“Do you mind if we walk around here for a few minutes? I want to look at things, see what I can remember.”

“Sure. Take as long as you need.” Ling had barely finished saying this when the first one raced past very near to them on the sidewalk. Its incredible speed was what first grabbed their attention. Whatever
it was was there and gone and then disappearing over the horizon all within seconds.

“What was
that
?”

“I don't know, but did you see how fast it moved?”

Another sped by in the same direction as the first, only this one ran out in the middle of the street. What they saw was white, stocky, and low to the ground, and appeared to be running on four legs. An animal? Was it possible any animal could move so fast?

Two more whizzed past and then two more. All were going in the same direction, all traveling at blur speed. Ben and Ling were better able to see this bunch, though, because they were watching the street now.

“They're dogs.”

“No way, Ling. No dog can run that fast.”

“They're dogs,” she said with certainty.

Three more came next, moving side by side, rushing, flying by.

Before either Ben or Ling could say anything, yet another appeared. But this one stopped two feet away from them.

It was even whiter than they had thought. It was luminous, like the part of a white candle closest to the lit flame. It sniffed them the way any curious dog would. Sniffing their feet, it wagged its long, thin tail.

Their first impression was that it
was
a dog, but on closer inspection they saw they were wrong. The thick, muscular body probably weighed forty pounds. Its small head was square and formidable-looking, like a bulldog's, except there were no ears. None at all, not even holes. The eyes were set high and far apart on either side of the head, and they were too large for a dog. They looked like the eyes of a much bigger animal. The nose was flat and sand brown. Soundlessly it sniffed both of them for ten seconds straight.

The ghost and the man were spellbound. They stared in wonder at its body as it busily smelled them. From head to tail the creature's white skin was festooned with thin purple veins. Ben longed to reach down and touch the skin, which was both so brilliantly white and scored everywhere with purple lines. Did that vivid violet rise above the skin or live flat beneath it? Although tempted, he didn't try to touch it because he was afraid doing that might scare the creature away.

His next thought was that its white skin was so thin and hairless, so translucent, that perhaps all of those purple veins were . . . but no: looking more closely now, Ben realized they were not veins at all.

It was writing—writing and what must have been hundreds of tiny, intricately detailed images. The white body was covered with what looked like
doodles
. The kind of mindless doodles one draws on a piece of paper while talking on the telephone. There were single words, all of them in English, numbers and individual letters, objects and faces. He recognized a lawn mower, a clock, a pineapple, and a sneaker. He knew this whatever-it-was animal would run off at any moment, so Ben tried to remember as many images as possible that were on the skin so that he could review them later. But that was difficult to do because the body was adorned with so many different things.

In the distance came a short keening sound that meant nothing to either person. But it did to the creature because it sped off as soon as it heard.

To Ben's surprise, Ling started moving too.

“Where are you going?”

She pointed forward. “That's where Parrish ran when he got scared, and now that's where they went too. Coincidence? I don't think so.”

Ben joined her and they jogged along side by side in silence. He didn't want to go, but he didn't want to stay there alone, either, and take the chance of seeing the bum when he was alone. Choosing the lesser of two evils, he went with the ghost.

Several times along the way he wanted to stop and look longer at what they were passing. He remembered this street so well. Personal landmarks and places on it were old acquaintances or the X-marks-the-spots of childhood adventures he hadn't thought about in decades: the big white painted rock next to Olga Baran's driveway that had doubled as home plate whenever they played Wiffle ball. The house of horrible Mr. Shimkus. The small swimming pool in the Kellens' backyard that he glimpsed as they ran past it. Caroline Kellen's parents let the neighborhood kids use their pool in the summer so long as there was an adult in attendance to act as lifeguard. Somehow they always managed to find one.