 
A Ghost of Fire

A " **Ghostly Elements** " Novel

Book 1

Sam Whittaker

Smashwords Edition

A Ghost of Fire

Published by Sam Whittaker

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Sam Whittaker

Discover other titles by Sam Whittaker at Smashwords.com:

The New Book of Acts - <http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/72648>

The Exiles Next Door - <http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/72633>

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### For...

This is for all those people who gave me encouragement about this book, especially those on Facebook.

It meant a lot.

And special thanks are in order for Sarah Belle, Casey Bringham, Debbie Christensen, Andy Martin, Leslie Schnorenberg, Dave Teachout, and Rachel Whittaker who slogged through the first drafts of this book and made very helpful corrections and suggestions.

### Part I

Of Jobs and Ash and Ghosts

### Chapter One

I sat alone in a small, sparsely furnished foyer, nervously drumming my self-manicured fingernails on the manila folder with fraying edges full of résumés. I had taken to carrying it with me at all times. The anxiety I learned during my job hunt suggested it was better to take precautions, like always having a résumé handy on the off chance someone mentioned they were hiring. A long shot, I know, but this was my fifth month without a job and only the third interview I'd been able to score. The other two had been early on, both seemed like sure things. Both fell through.

In the deserted room I felt like I was attending a funeral for a person no one cared about. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to remember the short but pointless life of Steven Nicholas' career aspirations. May they rest in peace.

"I need this job," I announced to no one.

I was wearing my last suit. I had sold my other two a week ago to some college kid I met at a job fair. The one I wore was three years old and slightly worn. I had trimmed a few stray threads that morning before I left for the interview. I had chosen to keep this particular suit over the other two because it was the one I had worn the last time I'd been interviewed and hired. I'm not a superstitious person by any stretch of the imagination but desperation has a way of making believers of us all. One thing was certain: No one would be able to say I was unprepared.

Waiting wasn't the worst part. It was the enormous sense of failure that ate away at my confidence. Dad kept telling me, "Just because the economy is rough doesn't mean you can't do anything about it. Don't just try to ride it out. Make something better of yourself!" Which was easy to say if you were the self made CEO of your own company like he was.

I'd done all the right things, hadn't I? I had saved six months of living expenses in case of emergency. I had cut back on all the luxuries, though I hadn't been able to pay for many of them to begin with and so had few luxuries to cut back on. I'd made a résumé and had taken it to a professional, making all the changes she suggested. I'd e-mailed and walked that thing out to exhaustion, beating the proverbial dead horse. Job hunting had become my fulltime job. And now my six month reserve was looking pretty anemic.

Hundreds of applications and résumés later I was starting to lose hope, starting to panic about whether I would lose my apartment or have to ask for a loan from one of my "more successful" brothers or worse, my concerned parents. There's nothing to make a thirty year old man feel like a loser than to have to crawl back to mom and dad asking for that kind of help. I frequently told myself I'd rather live in a cardboard box.

The lights dimmed briefly above me and a faint smell of ash drifted past. I glanced around the waiting area for any signs of what had caused the smell. It was an empty room with a few white plastic chairs. The walls were mostly bare. The carpet was a blend of dark colors and was that tight industrial kind that was so hard it almost might as well not be carpet. One of those cheesy motivational posters with what was supposed to be an inspiring photograph was framed on one wall.

There was no fire alarm blaring, no smoke hanging on the ceiling and nothing else to suggest something burning. I wondered if maybe I had imagined it. It was almost imperceptible anyway. It was more like the memory of a smell than an actual one. I went back to waiting.

Finally a woman appeared in the entrance to a hallway. I stood and extended a hand and she shook it only once but firmly. She was tall, slender and darkly complexioned. She wore a fashionable business suit and did so with feminine authority, a contrast to my old worn one. Dignified gray was just beginning to streak her pitch black hair. There was a photo ID badge clipped to the lapel of her suit. This was the type of woman who commanded the attention of whatever room in which she found herself. My first thought was that somewhere an African country was missing its queen. She displayed a practiced, polite smile.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Nicholas. I'm Jan Fenstra. We talked earlier on the phone. Follow me to my office, please." She turned and headed through the door-less opening. I hesitated a moment and followed, almost dropping my file folder full of paperclips and resumes. She navigated down a short hallway into a room filled with cubicles. Only half of them contained people working at computers. It was a Saturday, after all. A few of them turned heads to see who was following the boss. It gave me a short lived sense of purpose and importance. The sense quickly faded when the workers turned away, realizing it wasn't someone important after all. Just another grunt...another potential grunt.

We came to the end of the room and hit a hard right. Halfway down, Jan pulled open a door along the wall which bore the legend, "Jan Fenstra, Director." She waited, holding the door for me. I felt like a kid who had been sent to the principal's office but didn't know why. I went in and she followed, closing the door behind us. She took her seat behind her neatly organized desk. She looked at me expectantly and then looked at the chair behind me.

Sit, idiot, I thought and forced myself to take the seat. She smiled to herself, no doubt recognizing her usual effect on those beneath her position. She opened a drawer and pulled out a clean manila colored file. I lowered my beat up file out of sight covering it with my arms. She flipped through the papers in it until she came to the one she wanted and let the file lay open on her desk.

"You are applying for the custodial position, Mr. Nicholas. I see from your application you have a Master's degree in English literature. These two things seem incongruent with one another. Is there something I should know?" Well there it was. Straight for the jugular without warning. Did she know? And if she didn't, would it be wise to try to keep it from her? Of course it wouldn't. This was a woman who had no trouble at all smelling lies and evasions. It would be stupid to sabotage my only shot at a job in months. Rip it off quickly like a band aid and it should hurt less. 'Less' being the operative word of that phrase.

"I don't know if you should know, but I'll tell you anyway. I was terminated from my previous position, five months ago. I was working as a High School teacher when a group of students accused me of inappropriate conduct. An investigation was conducted, nothing substantial was found, but a group of angry parents, a few of them on the school board, hold more power than things like evidence." Anger burned in me, just beneath the surface. I tried to stay calm, but was sick of defending myself to people who not only did not know me but also did not know what happened and made their judgments regardless. I could feel the flush of red appear on my face.

The African Queen across the American desk leaned back in her chair and narrowed her eyes to slits as if focusing some second sight into my soul. She tilted her head to one side.

"Did you?" she asked.

"Did I what?"

"Did you act inappropriately?"

I quickly concluded she was not playing with me as some on the school board had. Nor was she looking for a reason to despise me as one of the other potential employers who'd interviewed me. She was investigating something. She was a dime store novel detective in a business woman's power suit.

"No," I said, mild irritation escaping with the word. I had developed a defensive posture over the months since my dismissal but was tired of bringing it to bear. It never helped anyway. In my experience, people formed their opinions of me within moments of hearing I was fired for inappropriate conduct as High School faculty. Her verdict was handed down quickly, too, but not in the direction I expected.

"I believe you. Thank you for being honest with me. That helps with my decision." She leaned forward again and inspected my application from the file in front of her.

"Sorry, did you say you believe me?" That was foreign to me. Most everyone else, even one of my own brothers, opted not to trust me as quickly as this woman chose to believe my version of the story.

"Yes," she said not looking up from the application.

"Why? Not that I'm offended or anything, but no one else seems to."

She looked up into my eyes and held my gaze a moment. She seemed to weigh something on invisible scales before she spoke again. "I can just tell when people are lying to me. That's good for you. It's very important to me that I hire someone I believe I can trust."

I sat back in the chair feeling strangely relieved somehow and noticed my anger had greatly subsided. She had disarmed me. I couldn't say exactly how.

"How did you...." I stopped and decided to star over. "Why is it...?" Again, I didn't seem to know where I was trying to go. One more try.

"Okay, I get the whole, 'It's important to have honest employees who won't steal company pens' thing, but I'm just asking to sweep and mop your floors a few times a day and empty your trash cans at night."

She looked at me without speaking. I think she was waiting for me to continue but I'm not even sure of that now. I didn't know if I could or even if I should try.

I began to think I had made a poor move opening my mouth. I thought I should have waited for her to ask a question about my work experience or if maybe I knew which end of the broom to hold as I swept shredded paper bits from her floor when she wasn't there at night.

Just then I turned my head slightly toward the closed door distracted by something. Again I thought I smelled ash smoldering away. It stayed longer this time, and I believed I definitely smelled it this time. I looked back at Jan and understood she hadn't noticed it. I couldn't stand it any longer.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but is something burning?"

She looked confused briefly as if she thought the English major was trying on a metaphor and then realized I meant it.

"No, I don't believe so."

"Do you smoke? Cigarettes, I mean."

"No, I do not." She wasn't the least bit put off by the personal question. The interview had waved goodbye to personal formality before we walked into her office. Why bother with it now?, I thought

"It's just that that's the second time I thought I smelled smoke since I got here. The first time was in the lobby..." But then it was gone again.

"Rest assured, Mr. Nicholas, we have a state of the art fire alarm system here. It will detect fire before anyone else does. Now, how about we get back to the interview? I see you have had some janitorial experience in college."

I remained distracted for another second or two. I had gotten a bad vibe from that smell. I turned my face back to the waiting executive. She raised her eyebrows in questioning anticipation. I stumbled back into the conversation.

"Yes, it was part time. I worked for the maintenance and housekeeping department of the university I attended. It helped pay the bills, basically. It wasn't anything really professional. Sweeping, mopping, dusting, windows, and I ran one of those big floor waxing machines between semesters." The rest of the interview ran like this. It lasted about ten more minutes and felt much the same the rest of them had. It also concluded the same way the others had. But in another way, an intangible way, it was also very different.

Jan stood up and extended her hand. I got up from the chair and took the hand with a sense of doom knowing what was coming next.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Nicholas, I'll be in touch with you sometime this week." There it was. I'd heard that one before. It was the interviewer's way of saying, Good luck buddy. I hope you find a job elsewhere. In my experience they never contacted you later that week. It was a polite way to brush you off.

"Thanks." I turned to leave.

"I mean it," Jan added.

"Mean what?" I turned back to look her in the eye.

"I mean it when I say I'll contact you later this week. You were thinking I was going to blow you off. I'd hire someone else over you and not bother calling you. That's no doubt happened to you before. But that's not the way I do things. When I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it."

How did she know that was what I was thinking? I mean, it was almost verbatim the same words as had gone through my head.

I could see she was serious. She not only dressed business, she meant business. And that was what mattered. I somehow knew that everyone in cubicle world on the other side of the door behind me was terrified of this woman. They didn't know what to do in the face of such naked authority. I also knew they shouldn't be afraid. If anything she could be their strongest advocate if they were on the same side.

In that moment I liked Jan Fenstra very much. I had no problem with authority and no burning rebellious nature a younger man might possess. I was no mindless robot or no spineless yes-man. I was just looking for my place. I saw in this woman a person with the power to help me restore my dignity.

"Thanks for your honesty too. I'll look forward to your call." And I did. This was beginning to feel like a real opportunity. Without another word between us I turned to the door again, opened it and went through.

* * *

I sat in my car, keys dangling in the ignition. The rusted 1991 Honda Civic was a cocoon and inside I was forming into ... something. Not quite sure what I felt I was becoming, I looked down the street ahead of me. From where I sat I saw the building. It housed Spectra Data Processing, the company I'd just interviewed with.

There was nothing flashy about the building. It was maybe twenty years old and had been home to other businesses before Spectra came along. There were four levels above ground and a basement. It stretched to the sides for several lots, about five house widths. I checked their website the day before. I had gotten the call that I landed the interview and discovered the company was fairly new, only five years old. But it was also doing exceptionally well. I promised myself that I would have to remember to look a bit more into the company if I got a call later that week telling me I had the job.

I knew I would get it. I knew it almost as a certainty. It was a feeling, a pretty strong one and it came over me as my eyes traced the company logo on the side of the building. It was one of those feelings I got from time to time that almost always paid off in the end. I'd had them before but mostly on mundane little things.

There were times when I would be driving somewhere with the radio on and just knew what the next song was going to be on the radio without the jockeys announcing it. Sometimes this happened three or four songs in a row.

For a while I had not thought of it as anything unusual. As far as predictions go it was not the kind of thing which was particularly impressive. It finally occurred to me one day that nobody else was really doing it. But then I merely passed it off as a bit of odd but ultimately useless luck. It wasn't something I could make happen, it just happened out of the blue. I was no superhero who predicted catastrophes, saving lives, nor was I a psychic hotline guru who could tell you someone tall, dark and handsome would walk into your life soon. I was just Steve, the unemployed master of nothing special.

Later I thought of it more as a personality quirk. Something strange about myself I didn't share with other people. Many of my former associates already thought I was scum. If I had replied, "Oh yeah, well at least I can predict the next song on the radio," it would only add to the creepy factor people saw when they looked at me. I didn't talk about it with anyone because it wasn't useful. It was of no practical benefit to me and I could not foresee it becoming so. I ignored it when it happened.

I turned the key in the ignition, starting up the car. I was about to put it into drive when something caught my attention up ahead.

"Oh, you can't be serious," I said to whatever God might be listening. There was a small child in a white dress smudged with black streaks gliding slowly across the street. A little farther down the street a black sports car sped in the child's direction. It made no indication of slowing, but the child was too far away for me to reach in time to do anything. I got out and started to run anyway, yelling and waving my arms.

The car reached the child and narrowly missed as the kid walked just out of its path. As if in slow motion I saw the draft from the speeding car lift the edge of her dress. She didn't even notice. The car kept coming.

The driver hadn't even seen her. But he saw me and slammed the brakes. The expected screech rang loudly in my ears. I took a few steps back so my legs wouldn't be crushed by the howling thing bearing down on me. I leaned forward and planted my palms on the spotless black hood as it finally stopped. Then I raised my hands slightly and in an expression of frustration brought them back down as fists. The hood gave slightly where my fists landed but quickly reverted back to its original shape. Inside the driver laid down heavily on the horn for about five seconds.

The driver's door shot open and a well-dressed guy in his late twenties materialized, red faced. I could see where this was going before it started, not needing any psychic intuition or extra sensory perception to tell me about it. If I didn't get control fast there was likely to be a fight right here in front of my potential future place of employment. I fought back the urge to scream at the guy, to rip him up one side and down the other. I fought the urge to rearrange his face for him. I also fought to regain calm control of myself. I was to speak and what came out was not a tirade, but a controlled explanation.

"Man, listen, you almost hit a little kid."

The driver looked about to explode for a moment, then it sunk in. His faced drained of all its redness and became white as a sheet. He spun around searching behind him, maybe afraid I was partly wrong and he had hit a kid after all. We both peered to the street behind the car also but saw only an empty road. We both looked at each other for a moment and trotted back a few yards. There was a line of cars parked along the side of the street and the girl might have easily disappeared between any of them.

There was a line of homes on one side of the street standing in opposition to the businesses and industrial parks on the other side. The kid could have belonged to any one of them or none of them. In a residential vs. industrial area like this there was no telling where she had come from or where she went if she had kept going. But she had seemed so small and slow on unsure footing. Could she have gotten very far? I didn't think so.

We searched and called out in the immediate area but got no response.

"Man, I didn't see any little kid. What if I hit her and didn't know it. She could have been knocked all the way to..."

"Trust me," I interrupted, "If you'd hit her you'd know. I hit a woodchuck once and I'll never forget it." I got down with my chest on the ground and looked under the cars to see if she was hiding beneath any of them. It was all wheels, undercarriage, street and space.

"Are you sure you saw a kid, man? I mean, are you really sure? I didn't see anyone, just you man." He had gone from explosively angry to worried in under five seconds. Let's see your fancy car make that kind of record, I thought.

"Yeah, I'm positive. It was a little girl in a dirty white dress. She started over there where that data processing building is and walked over to about here." I finished searching under the cars and stood up to face the driver. "How fast were you going, anyway? The speed on this street is thirty-five. You must have been going at least fifty." I could see the fight coming back in the other guy. I'd pushed him, and rightly so, but a push was a push nonetheless and guys like self-entitled drivers of black sports cars always rose to a challenge.

"Hey, I...What are you, a traffic cop?"

"No, but I know how to read two black numbers on a white sign. You should try it some time." I was starting to lose my own cool again, starting to feel my blood boil. Part of me wanted the other guy to get angry enough to make a move so I could lay him flat. In most guys there dwells a sense of right which, when violated, itches to throw a punch in the direction of the perceived wrong. At that moment mine screamed at me to give in whether the guy made a move or not. I stood still and contained instead.

"Hey, pal, you better watch it." Now the driver was really pissed off. I could tell the guy was used to people treating him politely. I also didn't care. I rolled my eyes, turned my back on him and walked back to my idling Honda. The driver stood stunned for a moment and then elected to continue his complaint.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!"

"Yeah, well, I'm done talking to you," I replied and kept walking.

About three seconds later I heard the door of the other car slam behind me. The engine revved loudly and tires began to squeal on pavement as the car lurched forward. The horn was soon added, lending further dissonance to the annoying symphony. I kept walking forward without stepping to the side.

I turned my head slightly to my right to see the black blur of a mustang pass me with the window rolled down. I could barely make out the scowling face of the driver and an arm extended out the window straight up terminating in a single finger extended from a tightly closed fist above the roof of the car, the one gun salute.

"Yeah, give my best to your husband," I remarked to the retreating tail lights. I stopped abruptly and turned to look back at the street, not believing we hadn't found the girl. Just then I thought for a brief moment I might have seen the edge of a smudged white dress disappear behind the far corner of the Spectra building. I rubbed my eyes, not sure whether I should trust them or not. Then I saw something else.

On the closest end of the building, a few windows down, I saw the tall dark feminine figure of Jan Fenstra watching me. I was startled and almost took an involuntary step backwards, then struggled against the urge to run. She just watched me. Then she gave me a small nod. Before I could return it she was gone, the window shade sliding down.

How much of the exchange had she seen? How much could she have seen? She probably had not seen the part where I'd almost been run over and certainly not the part where I'd had the terse verbal exchange with Mustang Man. But she could easily have seen the part at the end where the car had sped past me honking and saluting. At least I hadn't chased after the car in a futile attempt to catch up with it.

Yes, I decided, Ms. Jan Fenstra, Director, had probably seen this much of it. But what of it? What did it matter? I did not think it would bear on my getting a job with Spectra as one of its broom and mop guys. I'd already had that sureness, that certain feeling which never seemed to lie.

I made it back to my car. I closed the door and heard the Rolling Stones finishing their last few lines of "I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)."

"U2," I said abruptly. "'Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.' That's what's coming on next, I think. No, I'm sure of it."

The Stones finished not getting any satisfaction and the DJ came on saying, "That's the Rolling Stones. Coming up next we've got some of your favorite Irish rock stars, U2, for you with 'Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.'"

"No sir," I said to myself, "Sometimes you just can't."

### Chapter Two

When I walked into my studio apartment an hour later, the message light on the answering machine was blinking. I dropped my keys next to it on the counter and walked away without pushing the playback button. I was afraid it was my mother inviting me over for the weekend again. I couldn't stand the endless sympathy diners with the obligatory lectures on how I really should have found something to do by now.

"I can't deal with another weekend of that, not right now." Not when I'd had a possible victory that day. I wanted to wait for confirmation that I had in fact gotten the job first. Then I could face the parents again. Then I could do it gladly.

I also set down the plastic bag of Chinese take-out and the rented DVDs on the small coffee table between the futon and the modest sized TV. The TV had been manufactured in the early 90's when they still weighed at least thirty pounds and were awkward to handle because of their boxy shape. Garage sales and thrift stores were a bachelor's best friend when there was a need for furnishing and short funds. The food and the movies were a little celebration treat for the interview and presumed win against unemployment.

There was a little kitchenette just inside the door. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out the half consumed two-liter bottle of generic brand root beer. I then retrieved one of the six non-matching glasses from the cupboard and poured myself a cup. I got a fork for the fried rice and sweet and sour pork and headed into the living area trying to balance it all long enough to set it all down on the coffee table without spilling or dropping anything.

I put one of the DVDs into the player, turned on the TV and sat down. My thoughts kept turning back to the interview and the near accident I'd witnessed. Between bouts of these stray memories I only caught glimpses of Bruce Willis blowing stuff up and narrowly escaping death. The movie just couldn't hold my attention for more than five minutes at a run. The food, barely touched, was getting cold. An hour into the movie I finally turned it off and left it unfinished. I was too restless to sit and vegetate in front of the TV tonight.

"I'll try again tomorrow," I promised myself.

I sat back on the futon in the silence of the apartment, not knowing what to do next. It wasn't that I was bored. I was distracted and until something could catch and hold my attention I knew I could be that way all night, maybe not even able to get to sleep until four or five in the morning. I hate nights like that, when the brain refuses to shut down because I can't clear it of all the loose thoughts rolling around in my head like marbles on a shifting floor.

I decided to get up and pace around the apartment until something was able to draw my attention long enough to kick start clarity for me again. I started out by pacing to a window and looking out into the darkening day. It had been lightly raining for a while and I hadn't noticed. The wet pavement reflected the street lamps now blinking to life along the road. Tiny droplets of water condensed on the cars lined outside on the street, became thousands of miniature rivers coursing their terminating paths for a short while and finally were absorbed into the damp ground below.

My mind was drawn away from this to a memory of a smell of ash. I wondered at this, trying to connect it with something. I puzzled at why I would think of the smell of something burning. I couldn't remember where I had smelled it. I knew it was recent but I couldn't connect it with anything else. I even pinpointed it as being that day, but I couldn't seem to fix it into place. It was like something was blocking the view of my memory. And just like that it was gone again. It was shattered by another distraction. The phone rang, startling me out of my pursuit of a memory.

I stared at it for a moment and held a microscopic internal debate about whether I should answer it or not. I didn't want to talk to anyone then. But I also knew the longer I waited the more there would be to talk about later. Plus I would have to conjure an explanation as to why I hadn't been answering the phone and I didn't like lying, not even about something that menial. I was going to have to talk to people sometime later if not then. I lifted the phone from its cradle and greeted the person on the other end of the line.

"Hello, Stevie!" It was my mother. I rolled my eyes. Let the guilt parade begin.

"Hey mom, how are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine Stevie. I was just calling to check up on you, to see how your job search is going. Is there anything new?" As always there was a subtext. This was one of my mother's favorites. It went something like, "A thirty year two old man like you should really have a more stable life. Why when your father was your age he..." and on and on it went.

"Well mom, I actually had a job interview today. I think I have a pretty good shot at getting this one, too." I knew what was coming next and braced myself. The inevitable suspicious question would rise from deep within her mind, float to her lips, travel fifty miles of telephone line and hit me right between the eyes like a bullet.

"Oh, that's so nice," She said, then added, "What kind of job is it?" I hesitated, which was always a mistake. Mothers can smell fear like a canine unit at an airport can find drugs. I tried to be nonchalant, downplaying my own excitement at having any kind of lead on work.

"Nothing much, just some janitorial work for a data processing company." There was a pause and I could see, actually see, my mother roll her eyes on the other end of the line.

"Oh, that's nice," She said not meaning a bit of it. "Well, it may be okay for now," she added cautiously, "but it's not really something you want to try to live on for long. Even if you do get it you should probably keep looking for something better." I closed my eyes and rubbed them with the thumb and index finger of my free hand. I found that there were just some people in this world who refused to be pleased with any kind of progress. I believe all such people go to my mother for advice on how best to do it.

"Yes, I know mom. Thank you. Look I don't mean to cut this short, but I'm kind of in the middle of something here." I looked at the blank TV and cold Chinese food. Yes, that's right mom, I'm having a lovely party for one, I thought to myself. I hope you don't mind but I'm in the middle of a stimulating conversation about climate change brought on by all the explosions Bruce Willis causes in all his movies. Watching paint dry would have been a more attractive option than continuing the present conversation.

"That's fine, Stevie, I just wanted to invite you to come home for the weekend." Home. I was already home. My old bedroom where I'd discovered the music I loved and the brave new worlds created by Tolkien, Bradbury, Hugo and others was no longer home. It hadn't been for years. I mostly enjoyed my early weekend retreats back there, but recently they had become more difficult. There was no outright hostility when I went back, but there was still something not quite right.

Part of it was that I didn't fit the successful mold created by everyone else in the family. The rest of them were CEOs, wealthy entrepreneurs and trophy wives. I had no intentions of aspiring to any of those paths, especially the trophy wife thing. I had neither the brainlessness nor the equipment. And as desperate as my situation was I didn't have money for that kind of surgery. Plus, I think I'd make kind of an ugly woman. Regardless, I was the black sheep of the family. I was the failed project.

"You know, thanks for the offer, mom, but I can't this weekend. I'm doing something with some friends." This was a pure lie. There was nothing planned for the weekend. I didn't even have any real friends in the city. I'd tried to develop some four months before after having moved there, but people seemed to get very busy when they found out how I lost my last job. The same problem applied to meeting girls.

It was hard enough to answer the "What do you do" question with "unemployment." Try to explain the reason you're unemployed is due to an accusation of sexually inappropriate behavior toward minors, and for some reason you will find that the average single woman on a barstool isn't interested in having you meet her parents or pick out curtains together.

"Oh, that's alright sweetie. I understand. I hope you have a good time with your friends. Tell me if you meet somebody fun, won't you?" Ah, yes, "Somebody fun." That was of course mom-code for "Somebody who can provide me with grandbabies one day, you uterus-less wretch."

"Yes, of course I will Mom." Then, as an after thought, in order to appease guilt gods I added, "Oh and I see my message light is blinking. You must have tried to reach me earlier when I wasn't here. Sorry if I missed you."

"I didn't call you earlier honey. I was busy all day. Some of us work for a living you know." There's nothing like a closing jab to keep family relations civil. Yes, of course, I thought but did not say. Sorry mom. How could I forget? Maybe unemployment is starting to make me stupid as well as useless. A thousand apologies.

"Oh, sorry. Okay well I'll talk to you later. Got to go." As I pressed the off button I could hear my mother try to get in one last comment. I smiled and placed the phone back into its cradle. Then I looked at it for a moment. The red message light blinked slowly, advertising its single unheard message. If it wasn't my mother, who was it? I pushed the button. The voice which issued from the grainy speakers was unmistakable, crisp and authoritative.

"Mr. Nicholas, this is Jan Fenstra at Spectra Data Processing. I was calling about two items." I was surprised to hear back so quickly. I figured she must have called shortly after I'd left. I scrambled to find paper and a pen in case I needed to write anything important. The recording continued.

"The first is to notify you that we are accepting you for the custodial position. I'd like to arrange to meet with you on Wednesday at one o'clock so we may go over your pay rate and a few other procedural matters. We'll be taking your photograph for an ID. This will allow you into certain areas of the building, notably the custodial closets which are otherwise locked electronically. Also if you want to use the elevator you will need the badge." There was a momentary pause and a click. It sounded maybe like she had set something down on her desk on the other end of the line.

"The second item is to see if everything is alright. I heard the tires of that car screech earlier and then someone in the cubicle area shouted something about a fight outside. I looked out my window to see what was going on, knowing you had just left. I couldn't see anything for a few minutes then I saw you walking toward your car. I also saw the other car, the black one speed by you honking and...gesturing." She paused for a heartbeat then added, "I do hope everything is alright.

"If you have any questions or conflicts on Wednesday feel free to call me Monday and we'll work it out. Otherwise I look forward to meeting you in the middle of the week. Have a good evening, Mr. Nicholas." The recording concluded with the customary beep. I finished scrawling my notes and put the pen down.

I felt the call was more about checking up on me than it was about relaying the information about getting the job. I remembered thinking that if anyone was on this woman's team they could trust she would go to bat for them without fail. It was an odd feeling, and a wonderfully strange contrast to my mother's call.

I realized at that moment I'd found the clarifying anchor I needed earlier. I no longer felt the distracted and disconnected sense which threatened to unravel the day, dragging it down into uncertainty in the night. I was refreshed and ready to relax. I went back into the living space of the small apartment, got the cold food and took it back to the kitchenette to microwave it. I brought it back to the futon and was about to switch the movie back on and start over when I heard it for the first time.

The giggle of a small child came from somewhere in the apartment. I looked over and noticed the bathroom door was closed but a yellow bar of light streamed out from beneath it. The light was on in there and I knew that I had not turned it on. It had been off when I had gotten home and I hadn't gone in there. The small, girlish laughter drifted out again and the light in the bathroom turned off.

I rocketed up from my seat spilling freshly heated rice and my glass of flat root beer onto the floor. I was frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Part of me screamed to run for my life and never come back. Another part of me, a smaller part, wanted me to pretend it hadn't happened and that I was only imagining things and that nothing had really happened. A third faction within my mind, the one which ultimately won out, decided the best option was to stay and figure it out.

"Hello?" I called and heard the shaking in my own voice. There was no response. I forced myself to tear my feet away from the places where they had glued themselves and move toward the bathroom door. It was only about a yard and a half away but each step felt unstable as if the floor would give way beneath me and I might fall forever.

I reached my hand out and wrapped it around the door knob. My heart beat well beyond the normal rate and threatened to explode out of my chest. As I was about to turn the knob and burst into the small bathroom I was stopped by the tiniest whiff of something which did not belong. The smell of smoke and ash filled my nose and then was gone again just as quick.

The memory of the interview, of twice smelling something burning in a short span of time, cascaded back upon me. It was what I couldn't recall just minutes before. Any further thinking along that line came to an abrupt halt as the urge to act grew too strong to contain any longer.

As fast as I could I turned the knob, pushed on the door and rushed into the bathroom, not that there was much space to rush into. There was enough space for the toilet, the shower and one human being. I was the only one in there. The shower curtain was open and the stall was empty.

The hair on the back of my neck was raised and yet it seemed unusually warm in the small room, almost as if the shower had been going at full heat for a few minutes, but there was no steam on the mirror and I certainly would have heard it. My eyes scanned around, darting back and forth but there wasn't much to see. I even checked between the back of the door and the wall. Nothing.

I spun around and looked back into the main area of the apartment in case I might catch a glimpse of something which did not belong, but it was also deserted. Nothing was out of place and no one was there. I felt this as much as saw it. I expected to have the sense that someone was watching me, that feeling you get in old libraries where the eyes of long dead benefactors followed you from their paintings on the wall. But that sense was not there.

I moved cautiously back into the main area, anticipating someone or something jumping out at me for some unutterable purpose. Nothing did. The apartment was empty and completely silent except for me and the sound of my rapid breathing. Then a sensation came over me, completely unexpected and illogical. I felt completely safe and at ease. I knew I should not have but I could not reconcile what my mind told me and what my heart seemed to know. I also began to feel very tired.

I cleaned up the spill I had made and put the rest of the food away in the refrigerator. The great pressure and fear of only five minutes earlier now felt like a distant memory. I transformed the futon into my bed and lay down. Pulling the blankets over myself, I quickly fell into a deep sleep untroubled by dreams of smells and laughter.

### Chapter Three

The haze of sleep parted slowly and I began to gather memories of the night before like pieces of a puzzle. When the picture was put together enough for me to recollect the almost tangible sense of dread I had standing before the bathroom door my self-awareness snapped me upward. Memories of laughter and light from beneath the bathroom door swirled about me increasing my level of concern. What had been in the apartment with me? Had I imagined it?

"No," I decided. "That was definitely real." As ludicrous as it would sound if I tried to explain to someone else about it I knew that it had really happened. Something had visited me in my living room last night. For what purpose I could not say. Nor could I say I cared to repeat the experience.

I swung my legs out of bed and looked at them and then put my hands on my stomach and chest. I was in sweat pants and a white undershirt. I couldn't recall putting these things on but I did remember getting into bed. Then again I couldn't remember not putting them on. After the bathroom everything seemed to blur together and turn fuzzy as if I'd been semi-conscious. For the last ten minutes or so of the night my brain appeared to be a collection of still images more than moving ones, like an old photo album full of dusty and age-corroded pictures.

I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom intending to take a shower and then stopped. Unsure of what might be hidden in there I chose to stay out, at least for the moment. I could go the day without showering or brushing my teeth. It was Sunday and I had nowhere pressing I needed to be that morning.

I went over to the kitchenette to think. It was separated from the rest of the apartment by a wall on one side and a half wall with a counter on top upon which my phone rested. I went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of orange juice and walked back to the counter. I sat on one of the two barstools I kept there and began weighing my options.

The thought of going to a hotel for a few days and returning to see if things cooled down occurred to me. I hoped the whole thing would blow over if I wasn't there. Maybe it was just a one time thing and I wouldn't have to worry about it again. Doubt shrouded this idea. I thought it had to have happened for a reason and was sure the reason had not simply passed away in the night like a puff of smoke, a ghost of a dead fire carried away in the wind. Reason suggested that whatever caused the event may have possessed enduring intentions.

And what was I in the face of those intentions, whatever they might be? Was the visitation attracted to me or to this place? I had lived in the apartment for a few months now and nothing like it had happened before. Then again, I'd lived my life for thirty years and nothing like that had happened to me anywhere else. Or had it? Something elusive slithered out of my mind's grasp just then. It was like the words of a song you knew well but couldn't quite remember or arrange in the right order.

Another possibility occurred to me. It might have been a confluence of both presence and geography. The right person at the right place. I imagined the wrong key sliding in the right lock or vice versa. It resulted in the door remaining locked. But when the right key went into the right lock and you heard the satisfying click, the door could open and you could go into the adjoining room. Or anything in the locked room could come out.

"Yes," I told myself, "it could be just like that."

I felt suddenly uncomfortable staying in the apartment, even in the daylight. Standing up from my stool, I went back over to the futon and began to gather my clothes from the previous day and put them on in a hurry. I snatched my wallet and watch off a nightstand made of upside down milk crates I kept close to the futon. I trotted toward the door and reached for the keys I had left on the counter the night before and accidentally knocked the phone out of its cradle. It tumbled to the kitchenette floor in a clatter I hoped didn't waken whatever else might be in the apartment.

Instinctively I reached down to the floor to pick it up. As I replaced it I saw the message light flashing. The little red eye winked as if it knew something I didn't.

If the phone had rung in the night or the early morning I was almost certain it would have awoken me. And I knew I had listened to the only message that had been on the machine last night. I hesitated for a moment, afraid of what might be on it. I reached forward and then pulled my hand back.

"It's just an old message, you chicken. Listen to it and get out of here."

I reached forward and pushed the button, bracing myself.

The message began low and filled with static. Then the familiar childish laughter from the night before, this time distorted by the machine's grainy white noise leapt up from the speaker and stopped my heart. But nothing could have prepared me for when the child spoke.

"Hey mister?" I almost fell backward but caught myself. "Hey mister, can you help me? He's coming again. Can you help me?" More static issued from the machine obscuring something the child was saying. An interminably long silence followed, punctuated only by the sound of the little girl breathing as if she was waiting for a response. But the sound of her breathing wasn't regular. It sounded labored. She coughed a few times.

Then another voice joined. This one was older and slightly deeper. It might have been a boy and it sounded like he was standing farther back into whatever room the little girl stood with the phone. He urged and pleaded with the girl, but I couldn't discern what he was saying to her. I leaned closer to the machine, trying to make it out but it wouldn't come. The message ended with a click. I wished then that my phone was one of the kinds which announced what time calls had come in.

I had completely forgotten my urgent flight from the apartment by this point and pushed the button to play the message again. I sat myself down onto the stool as I listened to message again. When it finished I was sure the other voice was, in fact, a slightly older boy. When it ended I pushed the button again and listened, trying to decipher what the boy was trying to say to the girl. This time, however, halfway into the message the voice of the girl was interrupted by a third voice. This one was menacing and loud and it consisted of only two words.

"STAY AWAY!"

The voice of the girl shrieked at the interruption.

It sounded almost more like a growl than human words. This time I really did fall over backwards as I tripped over my own feet when I walked backwards too fast. When I got up I heard the message click finished. I thought I should have been able to hear more of it than that, but it ended sooner than the other times. Frozen for a time I stared at the machine and the machine back at me. I dared to try one more time. I pushed the button.

"No messages," announced the robotic female voice.

I almost tried again and then decided against it. I knew hoping for a different result by doing the same action was foolish. The message had somehow been erased and I didn't want to figure out how. Instead I nabbed my keys, opened the door leading out of the apartment and bolted for my car.

* * *

It wasn't until later that I realized I'd forgotten my laptop. I would need it if I wanted to contact Jan Fenstra or anybody else. I could afford no cell phone and so kept all my contacts' information stored on the computer. I debated with myself about whether I wanted to chance a return to the apartment or not.

I had parked the car in a lot at an industrial park a few miles from the apartment building. It wasn't a business day so all the lots of the various businesses were completely empty. I now sat behind the wheel with the engine turned off and considered my choices. I eventually decided I should go back, but maybe the next day. It was Sunday and Jan wouldn't be in her office to receive any calls I might make. The best I could do at that point was to leave a message in her voice mail. It would be better to talk to her in person.

"And what am I going to tell her," I wondered out loud. "Sorry, don't call my apartment. It's haunted and I try not to spend too much time there." I didn't think that would be a good idea. I decided that I'd rather not lose my new job before I actually was able to work a few hours and draw a paycheck. It doesn't look good on a resume, it's even harder to get a decent reference and there would be no living with my mother after that. And I knew living with my parents would become a very real possibility if I couldn't keep this job. I mentally shuddered at the thought.

That reminded me that my mother had invited me to stay with them for the weekend. I thought I might be able to take them up on the offer to get away for a few days if for nothing else than to give myself some space and time between the apartment and what had happened there.

"No, I can't go back to mom and dad," I said quickly rejecting the idea. I thought I should stay as close to my new employment as possible. If something came up and they wanted me to show up sooner I would have no way of knowing. I had to stay at least a little close to my apartment.

With no real friends in the area a hotel was the best option and I knew it. I decided that I wanted one a little bit more into the city and so I'd have to drive around a while until I found one that wasn't too expensive but also that wasn't a rat hole.

"It would be just my luck," I told myself sarcastically, "that I'd find a cheap hotel and it would turn out to be haunted too."

I turned the key in the ignition and put the shifter into drive. I pulled out of the lot and began driving toward the heart of the city. As the car maneuvered down various streets my mind maneuvered other paths, secret paths. Some other part of me had taken over the driving of the car while I didn't really pay attention to where I went. Gradually the realization crept upon me that my surroundings were familiar. When I paid closer attention to where I was I saw that the nearest building to my right was the Spectra Data Processing building. I jammed down the brakes.

Something dawned within me. Being back here awakened a connection I hadn't been able to make before. I'd almost witnessed a terrible accident on this street, almost this very spot. Or had I? The little girl I had seen crossing the road, the girl in the smudged white dress...had she really been there? Yes, she had really been present on the street, but perhaps not in the same way that I and the driver of the black sports car had been there.

The driver claimed he hadn't seen her. I had merely assumed he wasn't paying attention, that maybe he had been distracted by talking on a cell phone or something stupid like that. But what if he really hadn't seen her because he couldn't see her? What if I had seen her because I was the only one who could see her?

In my heart I knew now that the girl I had seen crossing the street the day before was the same girl I had heard laughing in my apartment bathroom. It was the same girl who had left the disturbing message on the answering machine while I slept. She was there, but in a different way. She was a ghost.

"But if the little kid is a ghost, then the boy I heard talking to her...he must be one too." I thought about this as I looked at the houses and buildings along the street. My skin began to crawl as I remembered that other voice I heard the last time I'd tried to listen to the message, the voice that warned me to stay away.

There was a long story behind all of this, there had to be. The problem I struggled with was whether I wanted to uncover it or not. I wondered what would happen if I ignored it. Would it all go away? I also wondered about what might happen to me if I began to dig. Would I find something that should not be uncovered and awoken, something that was meant to stay buried? I thought about the last voice on the recording again. It had growled at me. It was angry at the thought of me. A very large part of me wanted to do just what the voice had commanded. The problem was that a smaller, braver part of me wanted to stand and fight.

"This, you realize," I said to myself, "is how people get themselves into serious trouble."

* * *

The first thing I did upon entering the hotel room was to turn the TV on. If I allowed silence to reign there was no telling what tricks my mind was liable to play on me. I also guessed there was some part of me that did not want to hear if some unearthly noise presented itself.

I soon found myself perched on the end of the bed half-watching a game show and also trying to figure out my next move. One difficulty I foresaw I was going to have to overcome was how to make it all the way through this mess without coming out the other side looking completely insane. There were certain people who would simply have to never hear a word about it. But was there anybody who I could talk to? I didn't think there was. I was going to have to find somebody who was ready to believe me without knowing me.

I thought anybody like that was likely as crazy in reality as people would think I was if I told them what was happening to me. But then again maybe not. The more I thought about it the more I realized my assumptions about people who believed in ghosts or aliens or Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster or anything else like that were colored by my own stance of disbelief. But now what had happened to me? My own solid, rational, disbelieving footing had taken an ugly thrashing in the last twenty-four hours.

It had been easy for me to stand at a distance and scoff at people who claimed experiences with the unknown or unexplainable. Now I was coming to see my neat and easy to explain world was bursting at the seams with complexity and my threads of simple ignorance could not hold it together for very long.

I decided to leave open the option of researching ghost experts of some kind, but only as a last resort. I wasn't entirely sure that was a world I wanted to step into. I needed my laptop from the apartment for that anyway and I wasn't ready to think about what was required for that task yet. That was for the next day and so the next day could worry about it. There was still plenty of the present day to deal with.

I looked at all the things I had spread out on the bed beside me. There wasn't much. My keys, wallet, a handful of change from my pocket and a paperback book I kept in the car at all times in case I got stuck in traffic or a waiting room. I didn't feel much like reading but the book sparked an idea. I didn't need my laptop to do all the research I wanted. A former English teacher should have thought of it sooner.

The library would be closed because it was Sunday but the larger chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble would be open for part of the day. I had spent a lot of time in bookstores when I wasn't searching for a job. I didn't buy much anymore but I did use the stores as my off-hours library. They were about to become my new research centers.

"That's where I'm going next," I said. But I didn't want to leave the hotel just yet. I needed a little down time where I wasn't thinking about things that went bump in the night.

I began to flip through the channels. A sitcom here, an infomercial there. Most of it was useless drivel. I couldn't imagine who would finance half the things which showed up on the screen.

As I passed through channel after channel I noticed something that made me backtrack. It was a movie and the scene showed a building on fire. A firefighter was trapped inside while his friends worked feverishly outside to rescue him. I watched transfixed for a few minutes and discovered a rising sense of panic. It got so bad I had to turn the TV off.

"Get a hold of yourself, Steve." I wondered at nerves that were so bad that I couldn't handle watching a tense clip from a movie without freaking out. I realized my nerves were probably on edge but didn't think that was all there was to it. I had felt compelled to go back to the channel after passing it. I also did not believe my sense of panic was brought on solely by being caught up in the movie.

It had washed upon me like a wave of murky intuition, like I could hear someone standing and shouting from a beach but couldn't discern the exact words because I was being pulled under. I should somehow just know why I needed to go back and watch the scene from the movie but it completely escaped me. That had happened to me a lot since the previous day. I wondered if maybe I was losing my mind.

I imagined life inside a small padded room with a constant belief that I was being persecuted by invisible spirits. I visualized what it would be like trying to explain my fears to psychiatrists and orderlies only to be locked up and never taken seriously again. I couldn't face being labeled 'nuts' and shut out from the rest of the world. I had already lost so much. I couldn't lose my freedom too. I resolved to take my steps very carefully from here on out.

The bed groaned as I stood up and gathered the few things from the bed next to where I'd sat, but I left the paperback book. I never knew why I chose to leave it behind. It just didn't occur to me that I'd want it with me.

I looked at the TV again and then walked to the door and opened it. Stepping out into the clear early afternoon I took a deep breath. There were a few other cars parked in the hotel's lot but not many. I surveyed the area close by, gathering my bearings.

The hotel was located on a main street near a lot of restaurants and stores. I had chosen it because I wanted to be close to a lot of people and activity. I also knew there was a big bookstore about ten miles down the road, and that's where I decided to go next.

"Please let me find something helpful," I prayed. My mind was just beginning to open up to the possibility of things I never would have considered before. I also, however, knew the world was full of conmen who would take advantage of people every opportunity they could. And I knew many of them could write books.

I trotted over to the car and checked to make sure there was nobody waiting in the back seat before I got in. Sliding into the low riding Honda I thought about how paranoid I was becoming. But I also felt it was understandable and believed no one else in my position would hold that against me.

It wasn't long until I'd found my way to the familiar bookstore and ended up standing at the information desk. I waited until a sales associate appeared out of an aisle of bargain priced books. She was short and slender with shoulder length red hair. A pair of black horn rimmed glasses adorned her face and simple pearl earrings sparkled from beneath her hair. I didn't recognize her, which meant she was new. A metallic, rectangular name tag displayed the name Katie.

"Hi, can I help you with something," she asked in a soft voice.

"Yeah," I replied, trying to sound casual. "I'm looking for something about ghosts. Where would I find that?"

"Fiction or non-fiction," Katie asked.

"Non."

"Right this way," she said without a hint of judgment on her face.

I followed her and we passed shelves marked New Age, Astrology and UFOs to a section labeled Supernatural on a board above the shelves. I briefly glanced over all the strange volumes, overwhelmed by the chore in front of me.

"Are you looking for anything specific?" She smiled her retail smile at me.

"Well, I don't really know. I'm really just kind of browsing right now," I said, not looking at her because I was already absorbed by the titles on the shelves. I sighed. This was going to be a lot of work.

"Okay, well if you need any help just come back to the info desk and I'll see what I can do for you."

"Okay, thanks."

She turned and walked back the way we'd come. I watched her go and found myself checking her out. As she turned a corner she looked back and saw me watching her. Embarrassed, I quickly looked away, but thought I saw her smiling as she disappeared behind the row of shelves.

"Not now," I told myself. "You've got more important things to do."

### Chapter Four

Most of the day was spent at the bookstore reading and taking notes on some stationary I'd acquired from Katie, helpful sales associate extraordinaire. After a few hours I found a few books I felt were somewhat helpful and a lot which weren't. There was apparently a large market for people to pour out all kinds of strange experiences onto paper. Many of the accounts I had read that afternoon could easily be explained by reasons other than ghosts. Several had talked about feelings and senses, which I could identify with but these reports had referenced these things as their only evidence for their experiences.

Other people had reported how they had always believed in ghostly encounters before they had ever experienced anything. I knew what this was about. It was about people who desperately wanted to believe in something and manufactured their own evidence or twisted the way things were in order to fit their assumptions. One story involved a woman whose husband died of a heart attack and how she believed he was still with her, watching over her. She provided no reason other than she "wanted to believe."

The book went on to praise the woman for her bravery in believing what others did not. It had talked about how her children had distanced themselves from her because they chose not to believe and how they were misguided because they were not open to the possibility of their father living on in a different way.

I didn't think she was brave, nor her children misguided. She was irresponsible and had alienated her children because she couldn't let go of the man she loved and who had loved her in life. It was sad how her children had felt strongly enough about how deep their mother was into something akin to depression or denial to stay away from her. But I also was familiar with the distance which could grow between members of a family when wills clashed.

What was even more sad was that I'd read lots of similar stories to that one in the hours I spent pouring over the books. But not all of the volumes I discovered were that way. Three of them were very interesting.

The first was a book titled Ghosts Are Here by a man named Parker Levenson who claimed to have once lived in a house haunted by a soldier who died in the Revolutionary War somewhere in Virginia. While the book contained a few personal accounts and eye-witness testimonies its particular bent was more concerned with how ghosts and the subject of the supernatural worked in practical terms. It made some key suggestions about why ghosts might appear and how supernatural activity is sometimes sensed within the natural world.

Some of the stuff within the book I found difficult to decipher and perhaps just as kooky as some of the things I'd read in the other kinds of strange stories, but there was also a fair amount of what seemed like logical reasoning and scientific data and observations about the workings of energy.

The book was also helpful in that it introduced me to some different ideas and clarified some terms. Some of the concepts I was already familiar with were things like the "unfinished business" theory which suggests the reason some spirits or souls of the dead hang around is due to a task left unaccomplished in life. This idea was made popular, for example, by movies like The Sixth Sense and What Lies Beneath. But I didn't know what kind of unfinished business the ghost of a dead little girl might have had. Still, it was an idea I wasn't ready to dismiss just yet.

Another interesting book was Our Haunted Hearts. This one, like some of the less helpful ones, was composed mostly of accounts of personal encounters with apparitions and haunting. This one, however, appeared much more selective in the stories which found their way into its pages. Somehow the accounts had more of a ring of truth about them. While I was sure the people who had given the testimonials in the other books believed on some level they had experienced something outside of the natural order of things, I had a hard time believing they actually had. The evidence was thin and the claims of some of the people were simply outlandish and self contradictory at points.

In the Hearts book, however, the people seemed more educated and less likely to simply believe in something because of an odd experience here or there. In the few chapters I'd been able to read I was astounded to find one person who claimed to still be uncertain whether what he had reported was truly an experience of a visitation. This made me respect the man for not jumping to conclusions. There had been no apparition in the story or strange disembodied voices. But a number of unexplained phenomena had made the man wonder.

The third and most intriguing book I found was called Ridding Ourselves of the Ghost Myth. The instant I saw the spine and title on the shelf I snatched it up. It was by a former skeptic named Trent Blacker, a philosophy professor in a Midwestern University.

In the introduction the author was very clear that it wasn't that he didn't believe in ghosts or haunted houses. He claimed to be very open to the possibility from a scientific standpoint. He was adamant, however, that most of the reported experiences of those things were either self-fulfilling desires, things people wanted to believe and so manufactured reasons to make themselves believe, or flat out lies from people who just wanted attention.

The stated purpose of the book was to introduce a foundation to intelligently approach claims of encounters with, visitations of and witnesses to ghosts. He claimed the greatest problem in the field of studying these phenomena was that it was dominated by cape wearing birthday party magicians and people who knew absolutely jack squat about energy, physics or psychology. There was nothing wrong with a lay interest in the subject, Blacker claimed, but when an adult who never made it past the sixth grade was touted as an "expert ghost hunter" and was able to dupe thousands into attending expositions, séances and purchasing countless books a reality check needed to happen. There was a footnote attached to this statement and I followed it to the reference.

Blacker apparently referred to a specific person who had made a popular splash around the turn of the century. The man, an imposing figure named Jonas Pine, was apparently discovered to be a fraud by a close member of his followers and subsequently disappeared into obscurity. In the footnote Blacker listed a few names and events in more recent history which were of a similar flavor.

Blacker also made the curious suggestion that the traditional way of separating the categories of 'Natural' and 'Supernatural' was unhelpful. There followed a brief but complex argument which explained how recurring patterns in what could be considered real accounts of haunting and ghostly experiences indicated that, if there really was an unseen realm very close to the world observed on a daily basis by everyone, it would probably be a huge mistake to assume that it was not just another part or dimension of the world the average living person participated in everyday. If that was the case then, Blacker argued, what has regularly been called 'supernatural' is in reality simply a further extension of one larger holistic reality, thus making it not 'supernatural' but part of the 'natural' world.

I checked the copyright page and saw the book had been published only the previous year. I made a note to see if Blacker had a current website. Then I scribbled a similar note about the other books and authors. As interesting as they seemed, I thought I might be able to skip reading an entire book or two for now if I could glean enough helpful information from online articles and blog posts by the authors. It wasn't something I normally would have chosen to do, electing not to read a book over using smaller digital publications like blogs, but the circumstance also wasn't one I would have chosen for myself. I knew, however, in all likelihood I would be revisiting the Blacker book in more detail later.

I sat in the café area of the bookstore with six books stacked off to one side on the table and one open in front of me. I quickly decided about half of them were useless and moved them to the bottom of the pile. The others I gave a closer inspection and found them to be more useful. The chair squeaked a bit as I leaned back and stretched, arching my back and spreading my arms up and out. A yawn escaped before I could lock it down. At the last moment I remembered to cover my mouth for politeness as I'd been taught as a young child. I rubbed my eyes and looked around.

Two other patrons sat at different tables in the café, absorbed in their own reading. A few other people milled about, disappearing and reappearing among the vast and beautiful country of aisles. A forest of books grew out of this landscape and invited people of all ages to enter and become blissfully lost in the foliage and growth of narrative and poetry, fact and fiction. On days like this I wanted nothing more to become so lost.

A small bitter laugh came out at the thought. I reminded myself that I'd never actually had a day like this.

My eyes had drifted to the information booth at the center of the store. It was vacant and my thoughts turned to Katie, the girl who'd helped me find the section I was looking for earlier. I turned over the few mental images I had of her. I thought of the way her clothes formed to the petite shape of her, the dimples I noticed at the corners of her smile, the cascade of her wavy red hair. I also remembered checking her out as she walked away and how she'd seen me.

"Hey, mind if I sit," came the soft question from behind me.

I half turned in the chair to find Katie standing with a steaming paper cup. My heart skipped a beat the way I imagined a person's often did when startled out of deep concentration. Then I felt I understood how someone who was caught passing notes in class, too late to hide them, felt. I wanted to cover the stack of books with my hand, but remembered she was the one who had shown me to the section where I'd found them.

"Yeah," I said uncertainly. "Sure."

"I've got a half hour break, but I didn't feel like spending it in the room in the back." She pulled the other chair out a little and folded gently down into it. "Too lonely," she explained. She smiled at me again, but I thought this one was different from the ones she'd given before when helping me. This one was more genuine, warm.

"Oh," I replied, not having any clue about what to say. "Okay," I added uselessly.

An awkward silence settled between us and I searched for something I could use to break it without scattering further shards of discomfort around. We looked at each other for a few seconds, nothing passing between us. I resolved to get it over with, but to try to do so lightly. I chuckled a little.

"This isn't going very well is it" I asked.

"No," she agreed, smiling again. "It isn't."

"Then let's try again." I extended my hand across the table. "Hi, I'm Steve."

"Katie," she said taking my offered hand and shaking it gingerly only once. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise." There was another brief pause where neither of us knew what to say next and so we both ended it with light, embarrassed laughter.

"I really don't know what I'm supposed to do next," She confessed.

"That's alright," I said. "I'm not really sure I do, either. But I think it might have something to do with me saying something neutral like, 'Thanks for helping me find that section of books earlier,' and you'd reply with the equally neutral, 'Oh it was nothing, I do it all the time.'

"Then you'd ask me what I do and I'd tell you, 'Well, funny you should ask, because I just got a new job as a night janitor, but for my day job I'm a secret government agent who specializes in anti-terrorism.' Then you'd say, 'Wow that sounds really sexy and dangerous,' and I'd say, 'Why yes it is, thanks for noticing.' Then we'd just carry on from there talking about little things like globalization and the consequences of Superstring Theory for potential future interstellar travel."

"Oh, is that right?" She was laughing but not too much for it to be fake, I noticed.

"Yes, that's it exactly. And it's all true, too. Well, except for the whole anti-terrorism thing. But I find it's a good opener and so I decided to keep it." I was starting to feel comfortable in my own skin again which is something I didn't think I was going to accomplish for a long, long time if ever.

"Good thing too, or else I wouldn't be interested at all. I think that secret government anti-terrorism agents are highly overrated. They seem cool at first, but they're really all just a bundle of insecurities."

"Really," I said, beginning to enjoy the playful banter. "I wasn't aware of that. I don't have much experience with them."

"I dated one in High School," she said in mock sadness. "They're all hands and no heart when it comes to love."

"That's too bad," I interjected. I suddenly became aware that this was the part of the conversation in which either I or she would have to redirect away from the silly to the more serious if it was going to become anything meaningful. Having momentarily forgotten about ghosts, answering machines and even about myself a little bit I took my chance.

"So Katie, do you often talk with customers like this or am I just lucky?" I smiled, which was something I hadn't genuinely done much of in the last half year. It felt good, really good, to be able to interact like this. I found her very attractive. Truth be told, I had since I first met her hours before. But I did more so now that I was able volley a conversation back and forth with her. I discovered she was not only physically attractive but she was smart, too, and that was almost too good to be true.

"Oh, you're definitely lucky!" She laughed at her own joke. "But seriously, no I don't talk to any other customers like this. In fact, I don't how I got up the courage to come over here in the first place. I would never do anything like this. It's kind of different for me. I just..." She looked off to one side and narrowed her eyes, concentrating on putting it together in just the right way. "I just sort of felt drawn to come." She looked back into my eyes and added, "Do you know what I mean?"

"I think I do. It's like there are just some things you have to do and you know that if you don't you'll never be able to forgive yourself. You'll always wonder." It felt almost arrogant to say that. But I did know what she meant. I knew it almost as if I had pulled it right out of her very thoughts and then had given them back to her.

"Yeah," she replied with wonder, finding pure agreement in what I had said. "It's just like that." She came back to herself then and sheepishly retreated out of her wandering thoughts, looking away from my eyes.

"Hey, look," I said, trying not to allow her to rethink coming over to talk with me, "I do. I mean, I do know what you mean. Don't feel weird about it or anything."

"I don't. I mean I don't think I do. I'm just not the kind of person who talks to strange men. I mean, I don't mean strange like weird/strange, but like, new." She paused and then shook her head trying to straighten out to herself what she was trying to say as much as trying to clear it up for me. I could tell she was beginning to feel awkward. I knew I was going to have to help put her at ease if she was going to stay.

"No, I understand," I interjected gently, "Believe me, I don't think I'd be brave enough to do what you're doing right now. And I think you're doing fine. I think you're doing better at it than I could, even if I did feel drawn to talk to a complete stranger."

"Really?" She asked hopefully.

"Absolutely." This calmed her a great deal I noticed. Her embarrassed alarm faded and she gained back some of her attractive confidence that first caught my attention. A new dynamic was born between us at that moment, an established yet infant mutual attraction. It was like the first dawn of an enlightened awakening. Both of us could see something new and beautiful emerge between us even if we could not give name to it yet.

"So," She broke the silence before it could develop uncomfortably between us, "Did you find anything useful?" This was not a dismissal of everything that had come before. It was her way of acknowledging it all and moving forward.

"Yeah, I found some stuff," I said. I grew afraid that I was going to betray myself and end this before it had a chance to become anything. I resolved that I was just going to have to try to stay casual and non-committal about what I was up to. It was the only thing I could do.

"What were you looking for?"

"Well," I began hesitantly, "Just trying to get a handle on ghosts."

"Ghosts?" she asked in a tone which suggested she wanted to know if she heard me correctly.

"Yep, you know, just ghosts. As in, 'the spirits of dead people come back to haunt the living.' Just ghosts." I felt I had done a decent enough job of keeping it downplayed because I thought I knew it wasn't something people talked about in polite company. I hoped she wouldn't want to delve too deep into why I was researching the subject. But I was sure she would seek entrance into at least one further level of my interest. Sure enough she did.

"So, why do you want to know about ghosts?"

"It's just an interesting idea, I guess. Everybody has their way of dealing with life and death. I just figure this is one of them. Have you ever had a piece of food stuck in your teeth and you can't get it out unless you really dig? Well, I suppose it's kind of like that. I just got to thinking about ghosts for some reason the other day and I wanted to satisfy a bit of curiosity."

This appeared to satisfy her own curiosity for the time being and she shrugged it off. I took the opportunity to divert the conversation in a different direction and asked her what she was reading. She talked about a few different books, some of them were new releases in fiction and some were pieces of classic literature I knew well, one I had even taught back in my teaching days, but I didn't allow that part of my past to come out.

We talked for a little while after this on the virtues of the printed page and some different thoughts on the advent of eBooks and the small but growing army of new digital reading devices. Looking back on the conversation later, I reflected upon how I was living in a changing world in more ways than one.

"Well, my break's about over, so I better get back to work," Katie said and stood up with her now empty paper coffee cup. "This was fun. Short, but fun. I'd like to talk more some time."

"Me too. I'd like that a lot." My heart beat faster and faster, hoping the next few moments would develop into that all-important exercise of trust which takes place between interested parties of the opposite sex. I was not disappointed.

"Do you have a small piece of paper?" Katie pulled a pen out of her shirt pocket. I handed her one of the blank pieces of store stationary she'd given me earlier so I could take notes. She scrawled something on it and handed it back to me.

"What is it," I asked, although I knew very well what it was. I knew it and I rejoiced.

"It's my phone number. Give me a call some time and we can get together."

"Great," I said, beaming, but holding back a flood of joy. "I'll call you Thursday when I have my schedule a bit more figured out. Does that sound okay?"

"That would be awesome," She said.

I thought it would too. But for me 'awesome' was putting it lightly.

### Chapter Five

After I left the bookstore the harsh reality of what it might look like to have to balance a new job, a potential new girlfriend and a recurring experience of some restless spirits of the dead began to sink in.

"At least it can't get any worse," I comforted myself against the dark thoughts. Later I would change my tune.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped and treated myself to a fast food dinner, something I hadn't done in a long time. Now that I had a job I wouldn't have to subsist on meals which, about sixty percent of the time, were made of those prepackaged dried noodles to which you add boiling water and a tiny dry seasoning pack to create a weak soup. On special nights I boiled the noodles, drained them and added a can of chili. It wasn't gourmet but it was better than living on crackers.

Night had fallen and I sat on the hood of my car in the restaurant parking lot eating my burger and fries puzzling out ways I could keep the respective different worlds of my life from mingling together. I knew if such a convergence took place on even a small scale it would create disastrous results. There would be no recovering from that.

"How long can this last? How long can I last?" I was answered indifferently by a gentle breeze.

Cars passed in the darkness bearing away their passengers with lesser problems. Jealousy stabbed at me then. What were the travelers on this road facing in their lives? Could they even begin to compare to what I was going through? I didn't think so, not by a long shot. I thought I would gladly pick a car at random and swap troubles with the driver if I could.

A competing thought arose within me then, a contention demanding I quit whining about how bad I had it. I had recently hit a run of small but important wins. At least that was something, wasn't it? What did I have to cry about? It was a life and while I may not have chosen it I could certainly choose what I would make of it. Not all difficult paths end in disaster and neither would mine.

My gut level response was that I wanted to argue with this voice but knew it was the voice of reason which struggled to bring some order to the chaos. I had allowed fear to take root and grow to such proportions that it had started to strangle my ability to think rationally. If I ignored or pushed the calm voice away it would be a grave mistake, one I thought I might live to regret.

I continued to watch cars make their ways to homes and hideaways. They were away to countless points unknown. I thought about this, too, turning it over in my mind like a gem catching multiple facets of light. These people, they were leaving something behind every time they went somewhere else.

"Could I do the same," I wondered.

"What if I moved out of my apartment?" Would a geographical change instigate a situational change? I thought people must have done this kind of thing for ages. They moved away from home to start a new life. They moved out of town, state and country to find different jobs. They moved to escape abusive spouses. Could people move to escape abusive spirits? I thought it was entirely possible. I even imagined people had done that very thing.

In fact, I knew for sure they had. I'd read a few such accounts just a few hours before in the bookstore. One family moved out of their house where their young son was allegedly terrorized every night. A Pop singer checked into a Bed & Breakfast one afternoon only to check out late that night, citing a presence watching her, touching her and even appearing to her. A few others like these paraded through my memory. I began to feel an excitement, thinking I might have latched onto a real possibility.

A different voice spoke up within me fielding a different and contrary thought, one I was not sure I wanted to hear. This voice told me while others may have done this, I couldn't escape so easily. I had seen the girl in the dirty dress outside my new place of employment first. And yet later that day I had heard her in my bathroom. And she had turned the lights on and off in there. The next morning her voice had appeared on my answering machine.

If I tried to move to a different apartment I thought the ghosts might just as easily follow me there. I began to wonder if that had already happened.

I'd gone to a hotel to get away from the apartment for at least a night. Had it worked? A memory of myself being emotionally struck by watching a scene from a movie in the hotel room told me that I had not escaped. Whatever had attached itself to me may not have fully caught up with me at the hotel yet, but I thought it soon would. It made me wonder what I would find when I went back to the hotel.

Something told me that this was the same voice which informed me of the next songs to come on the radio station before they aired. It was the voice which told me with unshakeable certainty I would be getting the job. I knew better than to argue with this voice. This voice was not that of reason but of psychic intuition.

Yet, I didn't think of myself as a psychic. That was for scam artists who operate telephone hotlines and waved hands over crystal balls or consulted a deck of cards with strange pictures on them. As far as I was concerned all of that was a show, smoke and mirrors and misdirection and it was strictly for suckers.

I was no carnival booth fortune teller nor could I become one if I wanted to. I didn't think it worked that way. It came in flashes uninvited by my intent. I couldn't see them coming and couldn't stop them once they were there. Nor did I believe I could prevent them from retreating though I had never tried.

"Maybe that's an experiment for another day," I absentmindedly noted to no one.

For now I would have to orchestrate a way of operating a semi-normal life amidst the dark mists of a haunted one. One of things I'd read suggested that some people who believed they lived in haunted locales just continued to go about their lives, navigating around the occasional spiritual outburst. It was an interesting thought but probably, I realized, not one for me to consider.

"Help us, mister," I recalled the girl saying on the message recording. She wanted something from me and I feared she wouldn't quit hounding me until she got it. And she would follow me everywhere, even to the ends of the world, until I helped her.

I finished up the last of the greasy food, walked the garbage over to a nearby trashcan and returned to the car. After I started it up again I hesitated before putting it in gear. Did I really want to go back to the hotel room? I'd have to go back to check out for sure, but did I have to go back to the room?

"If I don't go back to the room all I'll lose is the cost of the room and a paperback book."

Practical arguments won out this time. I'd already paid for the room so I might as well use it. I thought I could use it as neutral ground to regroup my thoughts and plan a bit of personal strategy. And besides, the book I'd left behind was a favorite of mine which had gotten me through a few sleepless nights in the past. It might be able to cover my back a few more nights.

The car exited the parking lot and began to cruise back to the hotel. My right arm stretched forward and ended with my hand on the steering wheel. My left arm lazed out the rolled down window of the driver side door. On the drive back to the hotel my mind wandered back to ways I might be able to bring a little balance to my strange new life. I noticed the potential surrounding Katie was quickly taking precedence for me.

I'd had a few girlfriends in my time. None of them had been really serious though. Before the incident at the school from which I'd moved on I had been flirting with another teacher from the staff. When the accusation came out it became harder and harder to reach her outside of work. Finally she had stopped returning my calls or even making eye contact with me at work. I could have pursued it. I could have defended myself to her but I knew it would have only made it worse for the both of us in the end.

After I'd cleared out my desk and had been instructed never to return to campus again, I reflected upon how I had no one close to me to support me through it all. Sure, I had friends like everyone else did. Some of them had even stood up for me publicly. Some had written angry letters to the board. One had punched out a parent of one of the accusing students during a meeting.

The man stood ranting on about allegations and demands of immediate termination, even arrest. He refused to give up the podium under protest of several people from the audience and two from the school board. After a few minutes my very good friend, Kent, who'd accompanied me to the meeting stood up from his folding chair, walked up behind the raving lunatic and gently tapped him on the shoulder.

We all watched it coming, some of us enjoying it more than others. When the parent whirled on him and snarled something about not being finished Kent drew back his fist and let it fly, cracking the guy across the bridge of his nose with merciless force. The man crumpled to the floor. Kent simply turned around and calmly walked back to his seat to thunderous applause from half the audience and shocked disbelieving silence from the other half.

I have to confess that's one of my favorite memories from those days and it makes me smile whenever I think of it. It made me smile as I thought of it in the car on the way back to the hotel. But the smile was soon gone when I remembered the long sleepless nights afterward. I may have had friends willing to crack a few skulls on my behalf but I'd had no one who could comfort me in my most intimate moments of despair. In that way I was always alone.

And then there was Katie. An unexpected breath of fresh air in a choking chamber filled with the poison gas of depression and self loathing. How could a woman I knew for so little time come to mean so much to me? Perhaps it happened in the same way a few drops of water quickly came to mean life to a person who has been dehydrated for days. When you have gone without something for so long it becomes easy to appreciate it when it shows up.

Katie would mean more to me than just someone to hold at night, someone with whom I could be physically drawn together. While I was just as aware of my newly awakened physical desires as any guy would be at the chance of new love, my instincts and intuition mused about something deeper and far more meaningful than an embrace of flesh.

She could be someone to face the ghosts with.

Alarms began to go off in my heart. Face the ghosts? Where had that come from? It didn't feel like a thought which belonged to me. It felt as if it had come from outside of me like a fish entering a new ocean from an old familiar river. It was a sketched line which seemed to fit all the others within me but originated from an entirely different design. It was a concept which had been placed in my head from elsewhere.

With that realization I became more and more aware of the danger inherent in the currents swirling about me. Could I invite someone like Katie to step into those same waters? Irreparable harm might come out of it. If something bad happened to her I didn't think I'd ever be able to forgive myself. But the thought of walking through it without her seemed somehow incorrect. Was she meant to play some part in it too? And if I took steps to prevent her from doing so would I end up causing even more damage?

There were so many questions to which I couldn't find answers. And as I struggled with the question set before me more of them seem to proliferate.

"Where is this all headed?" I wondered in the darkness of the car speeding along.

I entered the parking lot of the hotel and found the same space close to my room I'd parked in earlier that day. The lot seemed just as empty as it had when I left, a testament to the loneliness of the life I had been living. I took a deep breath before I exited the car and headed toward the room. An empty room and a lonely paperback copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 awaited me.

As I slid the electronic key card through the lock a famous line from the book I left on the bed jumped into my mind.

"It was a pleasure to burn." My voice sounded hollow as I spoke into the night. I thought it should have reverberated off the door in front of me more than it did yet it seemed absorbed by the dark, unable to play out its full meaning. But far more disturbing was the line from the book itself. It had come from out of nowhere.

That gave me pause. I wondered why I should have thought of that line at that moment.

I looked down at the door handle with my hand around it. After I had slid the keycard through the electronic reader I had pushed the door slightly ajar without even thinking about it. I finished the job and pushed it the rest of the way open. I hesitated a moment, feeling something was waiting for me on the other side. I thought about how I had wondered earlier if I had escaped the presence which followed me.

I flipped on the light switch and my question was answered immediately. When I had left the room it was as spotlessly clean as I had found it. Now it was a complete mess. The covers were thrown off the bed, the chair was tipped over, a lamp lay in the middle of the floor and there were tiny bits of shredded paper everywhere.

I realized at once that the pieces of paper were the remains of my once favored book. The spine and cover were empty and torn husks on the floor. I stooped down and picked up one of the pieces of the front cover and examined it. As I looked closely I noticed the smallest parts of the very edges were blackened as if burned. The piece was also warmer to the touch that it probably should have been. I let it drop to the floor.

I walked a little farther into the room to see if there was anything significant about the disaster of a hotel room or if it was simply just a mess. Whoever—or whatever, I reminded myself—was responsible had done a thorough job. I didn't think it was the little girl who had done this, though. She had tried soliciting my help. This was an expression of unrestrained intimidation.

This was the work of the owner of the third voice I'd heard on the answering machine. On the recording it had given me a warning. Now it had followed up with a demonstration. As far as I was concerned it was a very effective demonstration. My stomach felt like it had moved six inches north of its original address.

The voice of reason returned to snap me out of my frozen state. It told me I had to take a step back from myself and think about what I was seeing. I could miss something important if I wasn't careful. I took a deep cleansing breath, closed my eyes and exhaled. I needed to slow my heart down otherwise I would become a wreck and descend into emotional uselessness.

"Get control of it, Steve." I opened my eyes again. Surveying the damage I was able to gather two insights from the scene before me. Both served to set my nerves on edge.

The first thing was that the spirit of the little girl wasn't the only one that could follow me around at will. Anywhere I went the owner of the third voice could follow also. It wanted me to know this, I'm sure of it. The ransacked room in front of me was the thing's way of saying it was watching me.

The second insight I gained was that these things could manipulate objects. Like everyone else I'd heard stories or seen movies where ghosts would throw objects around a room, upend furniture and generally alter or manipulate a physical environment. But until you see the evidence of that kind of activity with your own two eyes you don't know how it will affect you. That opened up a new world of possibilities. But one possibility made its way to the top of the pile and shouted for attention.

"If they can rip apart a book, what can they do to me?" There was something else hanging onto this realization. I began to pace, reaching out to touch parts of the wall, fallen lamps, scraps of paper. The feel of these things against my skin sent shivers of fear through me. But balancing out the fear was another emotion. I felt encouraged.

That was when it occurred to me. I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Why would it want to give a warning? Well, there're only two reasons you give a warning." I was onto something now, I could sense it. The heart of the matter was opening up and I could see into it.

"The first," I said, lecturing to the ruined room and anything else that might be listening, "is that you're afraid for someone. You don't want them to get hurt, so you warn them. But that's not you, is it?" No, it wasn't. The tone on the recording made that abundantly clear. It growled like a corned animal. It hated me.

"You don't care one lick about me, do you? The little girl might, but you? Not a chance." I went back to pacing because when my legs moved so did my brain. It was a habit my former students found amusing and a little distracting at times. But it worked just fine for me, thank you very much.

"Whatever did this is afraid," I announced to the overturned chairs. I turned around and addressed the empty space of the room. "You're afraid of me, aren't you?" There was no answer. I had expected none. I continued my lecture, teaching the emptiness and exploring more of the motivations of ghosts.

"You see, the second reason you issue a warning is because of self preservation, because you're afraid for yourself." I thought just about everyone is afraid of ghosts but then I began to wonder how often we might think of this subtle possibility: could ghosts be afraid of us? If they could affect us and our environment in some way then there was at least the possibility of the reverse being true.

"If it can rip apart a book, what can it do to me," I had asked only a few minutes earlier. But that question didn't allow for the fullness of the circumstance.

"The right question is; if it can rip apart a book then what can I do to it?"

I thought that even if I couldn't hurt it I could at the very least stop it from doing something bad it wanted to do.

My pacing stopped again. I had assumed all of the scattered bits of paper were randomly and angrily thrown about. Most of them were. The ones that had just caught my attention, however, were most definitely not. Some of them were arranged neatly, using letters and words from the torn pages to spell a message. It made me think of an old-school ransom note from movies where kidnappers used newspaper and magazine clippings to deliver their messages.

"I have burned before," I began to read the first line out loud. "I will burn again. Stay away or I will burn you." The bottom line of the message was an entire sentence from one of the book's pages and it was a phrase I was intimately familiar with.

"It was a pleasure to burn."

It was a reminder that even though the ghost might be capable of feeling afraid it wasn't powerless. Far from it. The gravity of my position was bearing down at full strength on my shoulders. Looking around the room I saw that the thing could do serious damage if it wanted to and I was in its path.

"So much for 'it can't get any worse,'" I said, mocking my earlier optimism. "Damn it."

### Chapter Six

The hotel no longer felt like neutral ground so I did enough cleaning to get the deposit back and checked out. The thought had occurred to me that I could complain to the front desk that the room had been broken into and vandalized and that I wanted to be compensated but two things prevented me from doing this.

First, although it was technically true in a sense, the thing that had done the vandalism to the room was my responsibility. I'm honest enough to recognize it wasn't the hotel's fault that something following me had done the damage. And nothing was really broken in the room to require being paid for except my book. I could always get another of those later.

Second, some hotels have security cameras which keep watch over their parking lots and the rooms facing them, as mine was. If a recording were reviewed and no one was seen entering after I left for my adventure at the bookstore I would look like someone trying to con the hotel out of some money. I was sure if that happened the police would become involved and that was attention I did not want to deal with.

The problem was now I was back to square one. I had nowhere to go but the apartment and no desire to go there. I thought about trying another hotel but quickly dismissed the idea. The same problem was going to be around wherever I went. Plus, I didn't really have the money to be throwing at hotel rooms.

The only other option I could think of was finding a quiet parking lot somewhere and sleeping in my car. That, of course, presented its own dangers, ghosts or no ghosts.

"Maybe," I reasoned, "If I just drive a round a while something will come to me. Yeah, that's all I need, just a bit of inspiration." That was the hope anyway. Soon after checking out of the hotel I was rolling down the road. I passed so many places and people that they all began to blur together and nothing would come. Inspiration was in short supply for me that night. What I got instead was another piece of the puzzle, a chain of connections scattered over the past two days.

One in the endless procession of buildings I passed was a fire station. That made me think of the shredded remains of the book I'd thrown away, the classic science fiction piece by Bradbury. It was about firemen of the future whose occupation was not to put out fires, but to start them. They hunted down collections of books because they were too dangerous and set them ablaze.

"It was a pleasure to burn," I repeated absently. This sparked another connection.

Before I had left the hotel room to go to the bookstore I sat on the edge of the bed and flipped through TV channels. That's when I had been compelled to go back to the movie with the fireman trapped inside the burning building. That's when I had the panic attack I couldn't explain.

"It's not always a pleasure to burn, is it," I said thinking about the fireman trapped, asphyxiating in the smoke and ash...smoke...ash. Smoke and Ash. There was another connection.

As I had waited for the interview—and even during the interview—I thought I had smelled something burning, thought I'd smelled smoke and ash. Like with the little girl who wasn't really there and yet somehow was, I was the only one who had been able to detect the smell. I tried to alert Jan to it during the interview but she had denied smelling anything. Then there was the little girl herself.

When I had first seen her she was crossing the road by herself and she was wearing a little white dress that was smudged with something black. I had thought it was dirty probably from playing outside at first. But what if it was dirty from great streaks of ash instead? And when I had heard her giggling in my bathroom later that night and had burst in I recalled thinking it was unusually warm in there.

All of these things were like a spider web whose connective tissue was fire. As I began placing these separate parts together I began to hear something, a nagging sound demanding attention.

A horn was blaring and I could not imagine any reason why it would. Couldn't these people allow me to drive and think in peace? I saw headlights rapidly drawing near. I snapped awake instantly. I thought then that I had become so lost in what I was doing that I had stopped channeling my will into driving the car. It occurred to me that maybe my leg had remained steadily operating the gas but my arms had failed to keep up with the curve of the road. I would learn later this was wrong, that what followed was in no way my fault, but it would have been little consolation to know the truth of it at that moment. What came next happened so fast I couldn't put it together in anything resembling a correct order if I wanted to. We have witnesses to thank for that.

Instinctively I jerked the wheel in the direction of what I thought must have been my lane. That would have been too convenient, though, wouldn't it? Occupying that space was another car traveling alongside of mine. The sound of metal colliding with and scraping on more metal filled the car. The passenger window showered glass everywhere. An instant later the corner of the front end of the car coming in my direction collided with the front corner of my car.

The oncoming vehicle rocketed up in the air turning forty-five degrees sideways beginning a fast, single midair flip journey. I was thrown against the steering wheel, my life saved by the seatbelt. Glass exploded everywhere and my eyes reflexively shut against the barrage while the rest of my senses went haywire. The car travelling next to mine was pushed off the road.

At that point the car which had once been oncoming was behind me landing and rolling sending sparks in every conceivable direction. In my car I had lost all sense of control and had begun to swerve. I crashed into the back of an SUV which was slowing down to accommodate the traffic ahead of itself. Cars were swerving and breaking to avoid becoming part of the show.

It was at that point that my mind went dark, shutting off and leaving the aftermath for the emergency people to deal with. I have isolated fragments of memory of awakening briefly in my car, hearing the sound of metal twisting, though knowing the vehicle was no longer moving. I couldn't turn my head, only my eyes.

Out of the corner of my eyes I witnessed a firefighter operating the Jaws of Life, ripping away the roof of my car. A firefighter.

"Was it a pleasure to burn?" I heard myself croaking the question.

"We'll have you out of there in minute sir. Please don't move." Blackness.

The next thing I recall is laying down on a gurney and staring into the night sky. A flashlight shone into one of my eyes and then the other as a paramedic checked my pupils.

"You still with us buddy?" one of the paramedics asked.

"I better be. I just got a new job and I just met a hot girl who gave me her phone number," I responded, hoping to use the humor as a shield to block some of the pain I was feeling. It didn't work very well. The muscles in my left leg felt as if they were on fire.

"I'll make sure I try extra hard to keep you alive then," he said as he and another paramedic lifted the gurney into the back of an ambulance.

"You better," I said. "If I die before I get a first date I'm going to be super pissed. I may come back to haunt you." Whatever response the paramedic might have given was lost as the blackness overtook me again.

The last thing I recall before waking up more lucidly in a hospital bed Monday morning is waking up in the speeding ambulance.

"Hey," someone said, "He's back again."

"What the hell?" came the response, "That's the third time he's woken up. Are you sure you gave him enough to keep him out?"

"Yeah, man. After he woke up the second time I gave him another half dose."

"Should I leave you two alone," I asked groggily. I wasn't able to raise my head to see what was going on. I could only turn my eyes Two guys in paramedic's outfits were reading monitors and looking at me. I was a puzzle to them, one they couldn't figure out.

My eyes drifted to the back of the ambulance where I saw something which had no business being there. Standing against the closed doors with her hands clasped and big eyes watching me carefully was a little girl with long curly brown hair in a white dress. The dress was smudged black as was her face. Her face was also scarred by some kind of burn, I thought. She lifted one hand, extended her index finger and pressed it against her lips.

"Shush," she said in the voice I remembered from the answering machine. "You're safe for now. You can't be touched where you're going. But you can't remember either. When you come out again..." She paused, clearly not wanting to finish what she was about to say. Then she picked up again, not where she left off but for her last words of comfort to me that night. "The doctors will make your ouches feel better. Go back to sleep." My head dropped back to the gurney.

"Well," I said to myself, "at least this takes care of finding a place to stay tonight." I drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The next coherent thing I recall is waking up in the hospital bed feeling fine except for the whiplash, the tiny multiple glass cuts on my arms, the bruised forehead and chest, the aching muscles and the sprained left ankle. Other than that I was all hunky-dory as my mom used to say when my brothers and I were little.

I did a quick self check and found there were no IV lines, feeding tubes, neck braces or casts to protect broken bones. Just me and my friend, the bed. It took me a few minutes to remember why I was there in the first place. Finally it came to me. I remembered the car wreck or bits of it anyway. At that point I still thought that maybe I was the cause of it and began to worry about the other people involved.

It was completely silent in the room and fairly dark although the sun tried to beat its way through the window curtains on my left. On my right there was a floor-to-ceiling length curtain pulled closed covering what I assumed was another half of the room, probably with a person lying in another hospital bed. I heard the occasional beep of monitoring equipment from behind it. Mounted on the wall was a TV which silently displayed a national news program. The walls were painted that greenish hospital color.

"Yep," I said conclusively, "I must have died and gone to Hell." I hated hospitals.

I heard the door open on the other side of the curtain and someone shuffled in. A bit of light spilled in from the hall and I could see a shadow moving on the dividing curtain. The visitor stopped at the bed on the other side and I heard the scratching of pen on paper. A few moments passed and a tall male nurse appeared in my side of the room.

"Oh good, you're awake. How are you feeling today Mr. Nicholas," he inquired. He had a clipboard and pen and was making marks.

"I feel like part of a car accident. How about you...," I spied his name on a dry erase board mounted on the wall behind him, "...Eddie is it?" He frowned a moment, trying to figure out how I knew his name, turned his head and saw his name on the board, turned back and smiled a little bit.

"I'm doing swell, thanks for asking. I thought you were a psychic or something for a second there," he joked. My train of thought stopped and I looked at him. He was paying attention to his clipboard. The statement disturbed me. I couldn't for the life of me remember why it should but it did. I had a flashback of sitting in the car right before the accident. Something had happened to me in the car. I remember it had been like a door opening for me. But I could not grasp what it was if I needed to in order to save my life. The nurse continued.

"Good to see you're not too traumatized from your little adventure last night.

"Yeah," I said, "about that. Do you know what happened anyway? I mean, besides the fact that my car got into an argument with another car and lost."

"Just sec," He said and scribbled a few more notes before answering. "Well, the short version is you were hit by a drunk driver. You were driving along, probably minding your own business and some other guy decides with impaired judgment that he wants you to share your side of the road with him. I don't know too much more than that."

"A drunk driver," I asked uncertainly. I thought I might have been daydreaming and that I had caused the wreck. Something told me I was caught up in something like that right before the accident happened. This was a tremendous relief. But other questions nagged to be answered.

"That's right. Blood alcohol level of .2, if memory serves," Eddie said, confirming the truth of it. "I personally call that a DD. If you could look it up the Eddie Thomas Dictionary of Internal Slang you'd see that DD means 'Drunk enough to be Dangerous.'"

"Was anyone else hurt," I asked ignoring the triteness of his tone.

"Well, quite a few people were hurt, some of them pretty badly. Let's see," he tucked his clipboard under his arm and began counting on his fingers. "There's obviously you, so that's one. There were the people in the SUV you ran into, a man and a woman. The man has three fractured ribs because the idiot wasn't wearing his seatbelt and the woman has some minor cuts and bruises. That makes three. There was the car you apparently ran off the road trying to avoid the head-on collision. The woman driving that car ran into a really big rock and went through the windshield. She's still in ICU. We don't know if she's going to make it yet, but the docs are hopeful. That makes four. Let's see, who else?" He looked away to his left and searched his memory.

"There was another car behind you that was hit—well hit isn't the right word for it, is it?—that was partially crushed when the drunk driver's car flipped onto it after it hit you. I heard the Cops say he was airborne for a few seconds, came down and rolled onto this other car. That one was carrying a man and his nephew coming back from a basketball game or something. The nephew is in ICU and the uncle is dead." He was somber for a moment and then carried on. "That's five and six." I thought I was going to be sick. Even though I was not responsible for causing the accident, to know I was part of it and that someone had died was almost too much.

"Are you going to be okay, man? Do I need to get you something to spit in?" Spit. There's a euphemism I hadn't heard since I was four. Why not just come out and say it? Are you going to puke? Is that so hard? I didn't know why I was so annoyed with the nurse. He was just telling me what I'd asked him to. He could have been a bit more sensitive about it, sure, but when a person sees the things a nurse does on a daily basis they deserve a little slack in the sensitivity department. My stomach settled after a few seconds of steadying breaths.

"No, I'm good," I said at last. "Is that all of them?"

"Oh, heavens no!" He said jovially. "You can't forget the star of the show." He took the curtain in one hand and walked it back to wall so I could see into the whole room. He stood blocking my view of the man's face. "This," Eddie continued, "is James Price, Jimmy to his friends, and he's fresh from the ICU this morning. He won't be waking up for little while, but he'll pull through. They always do, don't they?" He walked back to where he was standing, though I wished he hadn't.

As I turned my head I was slammed into a wall of foggy recognition. Without thinking about what I was doing I raised myself up onto my side to get a clearer look and my body screamed at me stop. The cuts and bruises on his face were new, there was no expensive clothing, but the face was all I needed to see. It was the guy who'd almost run me over in front of Spectra Data Processing. He'd been in a car that had flipped into the air, rolled onto another car, killing a man and severely injuring a boy...and he looked like he'd only come out of a fight with a biker he'd offended.

There was something else significant about him too, but I couldn't remember it. It had to do with the fact that he'd almost run me over in his shiny black car. There was a spot missing from my memory. I wondered why I was standing in the middle of the street, inviting that kind of disaster upon myself. I couldn't recall with any precision what on earth could have drawn me out to the middle of the road. But I did have an eerie feeling about it.

"You okay, man? You look like a possum just walked over your grave." I looked away from the unconscious man and at the nurse in shock. At first I thought I had to be dreaming the whole thing, perhaps my subconscious mind was processing and putting together fragments of my memories from the last few days to create something to occupy my mind while I slept. But the aches and pains I felt dismissed that idea.

"No," I groaned, dropping back onto the bed. "I don't know if I am okay. I think I know that guy."

"You're kidding me," said the nurse, all amusement gone from his voice.

"I wish I were," I replied. "Am I okay to get up?"

"I don't think so," he said. He looked a little wary at the idea of me getting up. Maybe he was afraid I was going to try to do something to the guy in the other bed. He didn't have to worry about that but there was no way I could effectively communicate that to the nurse. "You better take it easy. Nothing's broken but your muscles are probably really sore and they won't like the pressure. Plus your ankle is sprained. My guess is they'll release you today but you didn't hear that from me. The doc has to sign off on you first. Where do you think you're going in such a hurry, anyway?"

"I've got to make some phone calls. Where are the things I came in with? I think I had a piece of paper with a phone number on it. I also want a phone and a phonebook."

"There's a phone right behind you on the nightstand. Also if you pull out the drawers your clothes and things should be folded in there. The top drawer should have a phonebook. Look, I got to go. I have to finish my rounds. Don't tell anyone I told you who the guy next to you is. I don't know why I did and I probably shouldn't have." I waved him off. He made one last mark on the clipboard and left.

I looked over at the sleeping man in the other bed. I was filled with a mixture of rage, disgust and pity for the man. Then I turned my attention to getting my things out of the drawers of the stand next to me. I riffled through my pockets until I found my wallet. Inside was the folded piece of paper with Katie's name and number written in neat, feminine handwriting. I would call her, but not first.

The first call I placed was to my parents. After the initial shock of the news and the expected barrage of questions I was able to calm them down. They told me they were coming down as soon as they got off the phone. They promised they were driving separately so they could leave one of their cars for me to use. I told them I was fine with that as long as it wasn't the Cadillac. I felt like a fraud driving that thing.

The next call was to Jan Fenstra at Spectra Data Processing. I opened the phone book, looked up the number and was shortly connected with her. I had explained to her basically what had happened, leaving out the part about the drunk driver being the same guy that had almost put tire tracks on me in front of her building the other day. She was very understanding and informed me that we could delay my first day if I wanted.

I told her that would probably be a good idea, but that I didn't want to push it back more than a week. I wasn't seriously injured but I was pretty shaken by the whole thing. She told me she understood and that she would schedule me to come in the following week on Wednesday. I told her that would be just fine with me.

My last call was meant for Katie. I hadn't known her for long and didn't want her to think I was a stalker but neither did I want her to think I was going to blow her off. She at least deserved a courtesy call. I looked at the paper she had written her name and number on. We had been in the bookstore, sitting in the café. I remembered that much. I remembered every detail of her. But I didn't remember what I was doing in the store. I figured I probably wasn't shopping. I couldn't afford new books. But I didn't think it mattered, either. All that mattered was I had met her and we connected. I took a deep breath and dialed. The phone rang about five or six times I guess and then her voice mail picked up the call.

"Hi, this is Katie. Sorry I'm not answering the phone now. It probably means you're not important." There was a pause followed by cheerful laughter. "Just kidding," she continued. "Go ahead and leave all the usual stuff at the beep." The infamous beep did indeed follow and I did indeed leave all the usual stuff.

"Hey Katie, this is Steve, the guy you talked to at the bookstore. Just wanted to let you know I got into a bit of a car accident last night and I'm in the hospital so if I don't get back to you for a few days I'm not ignoring you. Nothing serious for me, but a few other people got messed up. Okay, so, well I guess I'll talk to you later. Bye." I hung up the phone.

Now it was a waiting game. Mom and Dad were on their way with a car so I could get around. And some of the worst news I'd ever heard was also on its way so I could be brought to my knees.

### Chapter Seven

The curtain had been closed at my request because I didn't want to look at the man who had caused so much irreparable harm. It didn't help much because I still knew he was there and I kept thinking about him, about the first time I'd run into him or rather the first time he'd almost run into me. Part of me hoped he'd never come out of his little nap and that he'd quietly slip away in the night when nobody was looking and that this world would be quits with him.

It was a startling thought. I'd never really wished somebody would die, never felt that kind of hatred toward another human being. But it was definitely there for this guy. I tried diverting my thoughts to other things. Katie was the distraction of choice but even she couldn't fully tear my attention away from the present reality a few feet away. It was the doctor that saved me from my smoldering thoughts.

He came into the room shortly after Eddie left but waited enough time for me to stew in dangerous thoughts about my roommate. I heard the door open and close followed by the sound of him setting something down on the other side of the room. He appeared from behind the curtain like a late night talk show host, all smiles. He was short, trim and balding but cheerful.

"Hello Mr. Nicholas. I'm Dr. Williams. Eddie tells me you're feeling well and asking about walking."

"Yeah," I replied. "I was just wondering how long it was going to be before I could get around. Just got a new job and I need to be able to stand and walk for it." This was true, but not all of the truth. I had other things I wanted to do and getting around without trouble played a key role. Plus some instinctual part of me wanted to be able to run at a moments' notice.

"Glad to hear you're motivated. That's going to help you a lot. A lot of patients are fearful of taking steps after something like what happened to you. It's the pain they're afraid of. Natural, of course, but it also slows people down unnecessarily. Your ankle is sprained, not broken, and I don't think it's very badly sprained at that. You're really lucky, Mr. Nicholas." He sounded genuinely impressed at this last part.

"It's Steve, please. My dad is Mr. Nicholas. What do you mean 'really lucky'?"

"Well, you were basically at the center of a high speed car accident. Most people don't walk away from that kind of thing very easily. But you will, today, I think, with some minor assistance." He held up a finger, forestalling any further inquiry for the moment and disappeared behind the curtain again. He reappeared quickly with a set of crutches and said, "ta-da!"

"Crutches," I said uncertainly. "How long will I have to use them?"

"Oh, not long. I'd say at least the better part of this week. Just be careful with it and it shouldn't bother you too much. You're also going to be really sore all over for a while. Expect it to feel worse tomorrow, but then to get better as the week goes by. I can write a note for your work explaining all of this if you'd like."

"No thanks," I said. "I've already called them and we've worked out what we need to. My first day is going to be the middle of next week."

"Perfect," he said nodding his head. "That should be absolutely perfect." Before I knew it I was becoming upbeat. I knew it was his cheerfulness. It was somehow contagious. As I reflected upon this later I saw how it had made me forget about the drunk driver, the accident and even Katie for a short while. It was like my little psychic transceiver was picking up his signals and running them over and over again in my head until that's all there was.

"Is there anything else I need to know about my ankle?"

"Not really. But I would like to do an examination if you don't mind."

I gave him permission and he sat down on a stool at the foot of the bed, gently taking my left ankle in his hands and applying minor pressure a few times. I winced in pain when he did and he apologized absentmindedly, completely absorbed in his work. He turned it gingerly to the left and the right. Finally he set it back down on the bed.

"Alright, Steve, here's the plan. I'm going to wrap your ankle in tape for the swelling and inflammation but no more than that. I was going to get you an air cast but it's honestly not that bad. You'll use the crutches for about a week, like I said before, and you should be ready to do your normal routine again and your new job as long as you don't put any serious strain on it. Also try to keep it elevated when you go to bed. Just put a few pillows under it.

"I'll send Eddie in to wrap it up for you. Oh! But before I do that there's a police officer out in the hall waiting to talk to you about the accident. After that you'll get wrapped up and you'll be good to go." He stood to leave and then sat back down remembering one more thing he wanted to talk about.

"I almost forgot," he said with concern, "you're car was totaled. Do you have another way of getting home? Can we call you a cab or something?"

"No," I responded, "My parents are going to be here in a few minutes and they're lending me a car for a while until I can get another." Then another question came to mind. "My old car was an automatic, but I think the one they're dropping off is a stick. Will I be able to drive with a sprained ankle?" He seemed to ponder this a moment.

"Do you think you could operate the clutch with your right foot?"

"No," I said after thinking for a second, "I think that would be too much for me."

Then he asked, "There isn't someone who could do your driving for you for the next week, is there?"

I thought about that for a second. I thought about Katie and then quickly dismissed the thought. We hardly knew each other and I couldn't ask someone like that to be my chauffer. If we'd known each other a lot longer, maybe, but we didn't. I realized the only reason I'd thought of her in the first place was that I wanted to be closer to her. That was for another time and another purpose. And there was no one else.

"No," I said at last.

"Okay, just be careful then. I wouldn't sweat it if I were you. You should be able to operate the clutch if you don't try to move your ankle too much. Use the ball of your foot as much as possible and push with your leg, don't pivot your ankle. It'll be good exercise. You might want to find an empty parking lot somewhere to practice, but by the time you get that figured out you'll probably be ready to go back to the old way again. I'll go tell the police officer he can come in. When I come back a little later I'll teach you a few exercises you're going to want to do on a daily basis to help strengthen the ankle and prevent any future sprains. Sound good?"

"Sounds fine. I'll do what I need to."

The doctor went out of the room. I heard him say a few things to someone outside. Although I couldn't discern exactly what it was he said I knew basically what it was he said and to whom he was speaking. Shortly after that a big cop walked in. He was at least six feet, seven inches tall which would have been intimidating enough without the uniform and the gun strapped to his right hip. He sat on the stool the doctor had used only minutes before and made it look like it belonged to child's play equipment.

An awkward shape bulged from beneath his uniform shirt, making him look thicker than he probably was. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a bullet proof vest. I supposed such things came as a standard part of the uniform these days. Underneath one arm was a file folder. He pulled this out and opened it. He then pulled a pen out of a pocket on the front of his shirt and began to write on the papers inside the folder.

"Steve, I'm Officer Erickson. I need to ask you a few questions about the accident. Can you do that for me?" In contrast to Dr. Williams, the officer before me was devoid of all humor, tragically born without a funny bone I thought. He looked like he hadn't smiled in roughly a decade and his eyes told me a story that was all business and no pleasure. I wondered if he was the kind of person who took his job a little too seriously. Then, looking again at the vest beneath his uniform shirt, I wondered if any cop could ever take his job too seriously. The sense of ease I'd had with the doctor was gone without a trace.

"Yes, I should be able to do that. Go ahead."

"Alright. The first thing I need you to do is to tell me what you remember about the accident, starting with what you recall about anything right before it happened."

I took a deep breath and recounted everything I could remember in the closest thing resembling a chronological order as I could. I had to backtrack a few times and insert something I'd forgotten and I avoided embroidering the story with some of the details I'd learned from Eddie the nurse, knowing the narrative he'd woven for me would have itself been something like Frankenstein's monster: It would have had been put together piecemeal from bits he'd unearthed from police, doctors and a few of the other nurses gossiping closely together at a desk down the hall from my room. I knew it would be best to keep my story clear of other people's details.

All the while Erickson sat silent, listening to my tale and taking notes. He never once interrupted me and asked me to wait while his note taking could catch up to something I'd said or asked me to repeat anything. When I'd finished he started asking his questions.

"Do you know how fast you were going when the accident occurred?" I could read nothing behind his stoic mask. I could not tell if the question was routine or if there was something behind it, angling for an answer to a question the police had not been able to answer. But there was no use second guessing the man. He was doing his job and I was relieved by that somehow rather than intimidated.

"I don't really know. I usually try to hover right around the speed limit, maybe doing five over. I don't even know if I knew then what speed I was doing. I'm a little hazy." That was as forthcoming as I could be. I had black spots in my head where there should have been memories, as if sections of a movie's film negative had been burned through with a lighter. Try as I might to see into those parts it was like they simply weren't there. There was something from right before the accident that seemed really important, not about the accident itself, but about something else, something hot that I was having problems remembering. It wasn't until my trial walk, when I saw the thing that I remembered and all my problems came crashing down around me, again that I recalled it.

"That's fine," the officer was saying. The interview went on like this for another fifteen minutes or so. Mostly routine sounding questions followed by mostly routine sounding answers. We avoided the subject of drunk driving altogether as well as mustang driving maniacs I just happened to run into a few days before the accident. Right about the time we were finishing up, Erickson asked a very simple question. It shouldn't have disturbed me but it did.

"Anything else you're just burning to tell me?" As a student of the English language I have a tendency to notice how people use it and misuse it, including myself. The man had used no similes or metaphors during the whole conversation. Now at the end this one sprang out of nowhere like a viper.

"Burning?" The word panicked me. Then, without knowing why I said under my breath, "It was a pleasure to burn."

"What was that?" The officer looked at me like an impressionist painting he didn't understand. I couldn't blame him. I didn't understand it or why I had said it myself.

"Sorry, it's nothing. It's just a line from an old book, a favorite of mine. Uh, no there's nothing else I can think of. Sorry."

He looked a little skeptical, then stood up and said, "If you remember anything else give us a call." He pulled a business card out of the same pocket he'd retrieved the pen from earlier and put it on the nightstand next to the bed.

"Sure thing," I responded.

He exited the room. Not long after that Dr. Williams came back into the room smiling and with a roll of medical tape held in his hand.

"Eddie's busy so I thought I'd just do this part myself. After this I'd like you to take a bit of a walk and just see how you do." He slowly began to wrap the ankle and stopped at a few points to explain what he was doing and how to do it in case I needed to repeat it by myself later on. When he finished he placed his hands on his knees and said, "Okay, I think that should about do it. Feel up to a walk?"

"I think so," I said. I wasn't at all sure that I was ready. I wanted to get up and move and I wanted to get out of the room and away from the comatose James Price as soon as possible. But I wanted to ask Dr. Williams something first, something that had troubled me since I woke up in the hospital.

"I want to ask you something first. I'm having trouble remembering a few things about the accident. But it's not just the accident. There's something else and I feel like it is really important, but I can't make it come to me. Something happened to me a few days ago, I just know it but when I try to recall it, it's like there's a big black spot, almost like it's been burned out of my head. Is that...," I hesitated, fearing the answer. But I had committed myself and had to carry out the rest of the question.

"Is that normal," I finished.

"Sure. Lots of accident victims repress memories associated with the stress of it. It's sort of like a defense mechanism of your mind."

That part of the answer was a relief. The next part of the question was what had me worried. But I had to finish it.

"Will I remember? Will it come back to me?"

This time the doctor took a long time to answer me, no doubt weighing what to tell me and how. The upbeat doctor who had put my mind at ease was now replaced by a man who looked like he'd gone through a war and came out the other side a very different man.

"I don't know," he answered solemnly. "Some people do get back what they lost and some don't. My father was in a pretty bad wreck about twenty years ago. He was in really good shape before the accident and his body healed quickly afterward. But his mind..." He stopped. I could tell he didn't want to go on with the story. There were deep wounds in this doctor. It made me think of Thornton Wilder's physician in his one-act play The Angel That Troubled the Waters.

In the play a doctor comes to a pool for a supernatural healing, but the Angel who stirs the waters of the pool which allow the first person in to be healed bars his way. When the doctor demands to know why he isn't allowed to be healed the Angel explains that the physician's ability to heal is derived from his own wounds. "In love's service only the wounded soldiers can serve" is the line that stood out to me as I listened while Dr. Williams narrated his difficult story so that I might be helped. He continued.

"He was confused because he was missing great sections of his life. He knew he had a mother, he remembered her face and her name, but not who she was nor what she was like and how she cared for him and loved him when he was little and gravely ill. But he remembered his abusive father. He remembered in pristine detail the things that man put him through, like when my father was twelve and my grandfather put him through a second story window.

"He remembered an old High School sweetheart like it was yesterday. But he didn't remember my mother whom he'd been married to for twenty years. I don't think I need to tell you how much strain that caused my family." A tear rolled down the doctor's cheek. He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking through me, like I wasn't there. It was as if behind me there was a movie screen upon which was shown a silent film of his life and he was compelled to recite the details of what played out there.

I found myself helpless under the power of the story. It was no longer just about whether I would get back missing bits of my memory. It was about the tremendous fragility of humanity and the great price we sometimes pay for those connected to us. By the end of the conversation I would come to know this fundamental and bedrock truth of the human experience: We are never ever truly alone. All the choices we make branch out to touch the people around us. The reality of that lesson came home to me with the next thing Williams told me.

"We tried to make it work. But it became too much; too much for us, too much for him. He may have lost pieces of what made him the man he used to be but he knew things were terribly wrong and he was somehow at the center of it. I knew he thought about leaving. He even talked with me about it once, but he came to the conclusion that it would leave too much unresolved if he did. He chose a more final solution." The silence that followed this last statement was nearly too much to bear. I thought I knew what was coming, and in a sense I did, but I could not foresee the full horror of it.

"It was a warm summer day, too nice a day to spend inside, my mother said. We were going to the beach and my mother asked my father if he wanted to come. They had grown steadily apart for a year and he had learned to find excuses to avoid us. We heard one that day and thought nothing of it. We went to the beach, we swam and soaked ourselves in the Sun. it seemed like one of the best days of my life, like a foretaste of freedom. I was seventeen and looking forward to my last year of High School.

"My mother found the note when we came home a few hours later. I was the one who found him. He had gone out to our fire pit in the backyard. I found him sprawled out on a pyre he'd built for himself. He must have doused himself in gasoline, lit the fire and shot himself in the head. The fire was mostly out when I'd found him and he was blackened and hardly there. But it was him." The doctor took a deep, slow and cleansing breath. He shuddered when he exhaled it. Then he saw me again, noticed I was there. I could see the present flood back in on him.

"Why did I tell you all that," he asked genuinely surprised at himself.

"I don't know." It was all I could muster to say.

"I don't think I meant to. I haven't told many people that story, not even some of my closest friends. But I don't even know you. Why would I do that?"

"Well, I don't know why you did but I thank you." In love's service only the wounded soldiers can serve, I thought again. This was followed by that other line. It was a pleasure to burn. My mind's eye saw the doctor's father marching to a shed filled with wood, grim intent on his face. I saw him build the pyre and follow through with his unspeakable act. I saw this in great detail, too much perhaps. I could see the man resembling the son before me but a bit thicker with muscle. I willed the images away. But the idea of the fire stayed with me, looking for a place to camp in my soul. I would know it again. My bones whispered this secret to me.

Dr. Williams wiped tears away from his face and composed himself. The happy façade I'd met before was back and I believed I understood a little bit more why he was this way. It was medicine against the madness.

"Alright," he said trying to move us back to something like a regular doctor-patient relationship. "What do you say we try to get you up to take a walk?"

"Yeah," I said, "Let's do that."

### Chapter Eight

The first steps were the hardest as they always seem to be. But the balancing act with the crutches quickly became easy and a point of personal pride. The worst part was my muscles which groaned as they slid back and forth under my skin. They complained more than a thirteen year old girl who isn't allowed to stay out late with friends.

The Physical Therapist was in step with me the whole way making helpful suggestions about every little detail which I hadn't yet considered. We'd made it all the way to one end of the hallway together and stopped for a short break, which I didn't feel was at all necessary.

"Okay," he was saying, "now we'll try it a little quicker..." But he was interrupted when his pager rudely beeped. "Looks like I've got some kind of emergency." He looked at me, "Sorry, I have to go. You should head back to your room. I'll let the nurses' station know I had to jet early and they may be able to get someone else to help you this afternoon." Without another word he was gone, which I thought was odd.

I looked in the direction of the loop we had just completed and saw only empty hallway. Early retirement to the hospital room did not appeal to me. I can do this myself, I reasoned. The sooner I can show these guys what I can do the sooner I can get out of here.

"On your mark, get set, go," I said to the walls and empty space. I began the slow aching hobble around the hallway circuit. I fought the urge to go as fast as I could, knowing I'd probably end up overdoing it and falling flat on my face. I wasn't trying to impress anyone yet but I also wasn't trying to make myself look like a complete moron, either.

It took me a few minutes but I was able to make it all the way around to my room again. Most of my time was spent concentrating on my balance and trying to ignore the pain in my arms, back and legs. That was probably why I hadn't seen it the first time I went around the loop and even the second time.

By the time I had made it around the second time I was beginning to feel pretty proud of my little accomplishment.

"Well, that's probably good enough for right now," I said to myself. "Should I back to my room and lay down?"

I thought about that briefly. It would ease back some of the aches I was feeling everywhere, which was something I could certainly go for. But in the end I decided one more trip around was what I really wanted. I was just getting the hang of moving and didn't want to drop it. Progress has always been my drug of choice.

"Nah," I responded to my own inquiry slightly winded, "I want to do it one more time. I'm just starting to get a feel for these babies." I looked resolutely the direction of the Hospital Grand Prix circuit. "This thing's not going to walk itself," I said at last and started to move.

When I came to the end of the first stretch of hallway I paused to catch my breath. While I waited for my wind to return to me I surveyed the environment. The walls kept paintings of soft pastures and sailboats on calm seas. Very calming. But interrupting this landscape was something that hadn't registered in my mind as I'd made the other two trips.

Red metal strips outlined the glass case embedded into wall. Inside was the fire extinguisher. It hypnotized me nearly the moment it caught my eye. I'd seen thousands of them before, the inconspicuous tenants of restaurants, schools and countless other public buildings. This one, however, held me, drew me in to it. As I stared at it the lights in the hall flickered.

This broke the spell of the thing for which I should "break glass in case of emergency." I looked up and saw the hallway. The lights flickered again. And I saw one of the paintings, change; I swear it changed between flickers.

One moment it was a pure landscape, a golden field of wheat waving in the wind. Then, when the light blinked out and back for a second I promise that I saw a man standing in the field. Though he was only there for the briefest of moments I could see clearly that he was dressed in a dirty white shirt with a black vest over it. He also had on black pants which disappeared into the wheat. On his head sat a black bowler hat. His right arm rested against his side. At the end of his fully extended left arm rested a blazing torch.

Though the man stood far back in the painting I saw his face wearing a defiant sneer. He was looking at me, watching me watching him. The lights flickered again. When the darkness was dispelled this time the whole field was on fire. I could almost hear the crackle of it and feel the heat coming off the painting in waves.

Again, the lights went out, this time for two or three eternal seconds and when they came back on the painting was back to normal. I heard a sound up ahead of me and turned my head quickly. I thought I saw the leg of someone in dark pants and shoes disappear around the corner. Someone had been standing there watching me and stepped away just as I'd looked.

"Hello?" I waited but there was no response. I tried again. "Eddie, is that you?" Again there was nothing. I moved toward the place where whoever it was had been but this time I abandoned all care and moved as fast as I could. The hallway behind me and ahead darkened completely. I almost crashed into the wall were it not for the light spilling down from the end of the hall where the nurses' station waited. No one was waiting in the hall and no one was at the station. I was completely alone.

The lights came back to life. I waited there in the middle of the hall for something to happen, so when nothing did I glanced around behind me to make sure no one was back there. I then began my slow and extra careful trek back to the starting point of the walk. As I moved I thought about the painting and the lights and wondered if it was some kind of stress-induced hallucination. Something told me it was not and yet it also told me that something about the hospital itself was preventing me from remembering and that was somehow a good thing, a safe thing.

* * *

I'd made it back to the room and slid back into bed. I was shaken by what had happened in the corridors of the hospital and tried to work out what was going on. Nothing came of course because nothing could, at least not while I was there. But I didn't know that and I don't know if it would have made it any easier for me if I did. Instead I shrugged it all off, lying to myself that it was nothing, only imagination and stress and painkillers working together in fun new ways.

Less than five minutes later my parents came through the door. I tried my hardest to suppress the fear I experienced, not wanting them to ask questions about what was bothering me, I would have had no answers to give anyway. I looked over to the door. The curtain was pulled away again and Price continued his slumber. As much as I was disgusted with the man in the other bed I was also slightly envious of him at that moment because at least he could sleep through the visit of my parents. I would have to be awake for every last second of it.

When mom saw me she shuffled toward me with her arms out before her, her palms upturned and an expression of pity on her face: a supplicant in the ancient rites of motherhood. Behind her my father stood in the doorway all business and leaning against the frame. His face housed a controlled and unreadable expression which suggested he was somehow impervious and detached from the things happening around him. The two couldn't have been more different from each other.

"Oh my poor little boy," Mom exclaimed. She reached my bed and leaned down engulfing me in her arms. "I'll never let you go again." I knew better than to protest this action. It came as I knew it would and I was wise to let it come and pass on its own.

"Mille," Dad said in a way which said he was exhausted of his wife's overreactions. "The boy's fine. Leave him alone, you'll just embarrass him." For once I was thankful for my father's advice. His criticism was usually directed at his sons and had a way of making us squirm. I imagined his use of this skill in board rooms was what helped him move forward in life so quickly. An unfortunate side effect was that he transferred this strategy to his family, treating us like employees, too.

When she finished her smothering, my mom stood and turned to my father. "Oh, Charles," she chided, "I'm his mother. It's my right to embarrass my boy every once in a while. And I don't get to see him now, so I'm overdue." I would have found this little exchange comical except for the fact that I knew from personal experience that my mom was only half-kidding and my dad wasn't kidding at all.

"Guys," I said throwing my head back on my pillow already exasperated with them. It hadn't taken long but I wasn't surprised by this. "Could we not do this here? I've had enough wrecks for one week, thanks, and I'd just like to get out of here as soon as I can."

"Sorry, Stevie. You know we don't mean it," my mom said. My dad just rolled his eyes. Whether or not my mom meant it I couldn't say for certain but I was pretty sure dad did.

Dad ignored mom and went straight to business demanding a report. "How's the leg? How long until you're up and around and back to normal?" That was the one thing I did really appreciate about my father. You always knew where you stood with him because he was very direct and told you exactly what was on his mind. However, on the flip side I sometimes got the feeling that when he was looking at me he didn't see a son but instead a spread sheet to be analyzed and corrected where necessary.

"Leg's fine," I said, "it's the ankle that's the problem. But it's just sprained. The doc said I'd be back to normal in a little over a week. I've got crutches so I can get around for now, I should be fine." I knew this would please my father, just like I knew that if I'd said I would be bedridden for a week that he would be disappointed. I wouldn't be able to pound the pavement looking for jobs or, heaven forbid, be able to work if I got one. Anything that halted production was suspect to my dad.

"That's good. Wouldn't want you to be lying around and not get anything useful done." His comments weren't surprising but still I was a little hurt. That's right, dad, never mind the fact that one of your sons was involved in a deadly car accident, perhaps traumatized by the event. But as long as he's able to do something useful it must be all good. Thanks dad, that's a real boost for my confidence. I thought all these things but would never say them to him. I thought if I did say them it would only make things worse.

"Actually I've already been up and practicing on the crutches. I made a few loops around the halls here just before you guys showed up." I tried to sound nonchalant about it all, though inside I was pretty geeked about the whole thing. Some of it was the knowledge that I had come through a severe wreck basically whole and intact. More of it was the sense of accomplishment at being able to walk after said accident.

"And we're so proud of you, too, aren't we Charles?" Mom beamed, dad remained in the doorway, indifferent.

"Sure," he said. He may have even meant it but the man might as well have been a book written in Chinese: I'm sure I could figure him out if I applied enough time and effort, but for all intents and purposes I just wasn't going to be able to read him. Then as an after thought he asked, "How long will you have to be here?"

"Oh I'll be out of here today. You guys did bring one of the spare cars, didn't you?"

"Of course we did," dad said sounding a little offended as if I'd implied they would have forgotten. "But we expect you to get it back to us as soon as you can. Your mother mentioned something to me about you maybe getting a job?" I could see a glimmer of something in his eyes. I didn't know if it was pride that I was finally working again or relief that his son wasn't a total loser. I latched onto this and began to feed it, hoping for something resembling genuine emotion for me from my dad.

"Yeah, I just got a job at a data processing building. It's a good company. I was supposed to start Wednesday but I called my boss and she said I could start a week later."

"That's generous," my father remarked. "They can't fault you for something unforeseen like this but they didn't have to keep you. You be sure to thank your boss for the extension. What kind of work will you be doing?" I could tell he was much more interested in the conversation now that it had turned to work.

"I'll be doing custodial stuff for them."

"That's good for now. It won't support you forever but there's nothing wrong with getting your hands dirty," he said. A smile touched the corners of his mouth when he said this, I was sure of it. It lifted my spirits. A smile from my father was like sightings of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster; reports of them were rare and couldn't always be believed and when they did show up the pictures of such events were curiously all blurry. But this one was for real and it was for me.

After this we sat around and talked for about an hour. We mostly discussed inconsequential things and some of the things my brothers were up to. Mom asked if I was seeing anybody and I told her I wasn't which was technically true from a certain angle. Katie and I had not yet been out together on a date and I didn't know if it would go anywhere. I wanted to avoid the topic anyway for the time.

What I really wanted was to save it for another time not only because there was little development in that department but because I wanted to spread out my personal "achievements." With my parents you had to introduce these things slowly and periodically so as to draw out maximum satisfaction. This may not make sense to most people but in the world I come from it's as logical as presents at Christmas.

Near the end of the visit Eddie came back in and showed me a few of the exercises that I needed to do every day. Mom and dad watched silently during this part, not liking to talk about family matters when strangers are around. We have always been a very private family. When he had finished he made sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed. I said I could use some water and he left to get it. After Eddie was gone my folks opened up again to say their goodbyes.

"We're going to get going, son," dad stated. "I had to miss an important meeting to be here today." Every meeting was an important meeting to my dad and he didn't miss them for nothing. Without coming right out and saying it I knew what the text beneath the text was really trying to communicate: I love you. He knew no other way to say it and I was fine with that. I'd take whatever I could get.

Then he reached into his pocket and fished for something. He pulled out a set of car keys and tossed them to me. They sailed through the air and I caught them. "Go get them champ," he said. Then he added, "Make sure to take it easy on the leather. I just had it reupholstered."

"We'll call you later this week to see how you're doing," mom added and then they were gone.

* * *

After mom and dad left I pulled my clothes back out of the drawer and set them on top of the nightstand next to the bed. I knew I was going to be leaving soon and wanted to pass the time somehow. Making sure all of my things were out and ready to go was the only thing I could think of besides watching TV or going for another walk. I didn't feel like watching anything and after my encounter on the previous walk I was stone set against another unless someone was with me and even then the idea wasn't especially tempting.

I began to look around the room as if some activity would jump out and entertain me but nothing did. I was beginning to consider the option of a nap when something in the room made a noise. Paranoia from what happened in the hall raised my internal alarm system. My head jerked in the direction of the sound. My apprehension was quickly replaced with annoyance, however, when I discovered the source.

James Price stirred in the hospital bed next to mine. His eyes fluttered open and he inhaled sharply when he realized his surroundings were unfamiliar. He began to cough and brought one hand up to cover his eyes as the hangover began its slow torturous work. He turned over on his side closest to me with his eyes tightly closed. Then he wrapped his right arm around his abdomen and began to cough more violently.

I flinched at the prospect of witnessing the man vomit. He carried on like this for about ten seconds then he dropped onto his back again and moaned. Thankfully nothing came up.

"Good morning, sunshine," I said acidly. Some piece of me, a larger one than I would like to admit, took pleasure in his pain. He didn't deserve to be alive, not even alive enough to grudgingly wake up and feel a combination of hangover and aftermath of the disaster of a car wreck which sent his once pristine mustang flipping through the air like an Olympic ice skating champion. The least he could do was wallow in it a good long while.

Price coughed a little more and opened his eyes to slits to look at me, only for as long as he could stand it I presume. He didn't recognize me, not at first. The pounding in his head would make sure of that as would the fuzzy senselessness that no doubt swirled his head around like a wooden spoon stirring a fresh pitcher of Kool-Aid. He emitted a noise which sounded like it was half guttural grunt and half donkey whine. That was his first attempt to communicate and the second was only a little better.

"Where am I?" This came out barely above a grainy whisper.

"You're in a hospital. Lucky you're not in complete traction or better, a morgue, after the stunt you pulled." I didn't tell him I thought he should be in the last one, in fact that I might be glad to help him find his way there. It would have done no good to say so. He was too out of it to let it fully sink in.

"How..." another coughing fit took him out of the conversation. "How did I get here?" I was under no illusions that much of James Price's adventures with Jim Beam of the forgone night took place while already heavily under the influence and therefore would remain a question mark to him for a long time if not the rest of his miserable life.

"Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? I can tell you the part I remember. That would be the part where you were smashed out of your mind driving around and caused a major car accident by colliding almost head to head with my sad old Honda. A few others joined us and we all ended up here." I was barely able to stop myself from adding, those of us that lived, anyway. I would allow someone else the privilege of dropping that particular bomb on Jimmy.

He let out a pathetic sigh and said a few things to himself I wouldn't repeat to a roomful of sailors. The hell of it was that not one ounce of remorse was in his voice. He sounded angry, which in turn made me angry. Yes sir this James Price was one class act. I promised myself I was going to get out of that hospital as fast as I possibly could if for no other reason that to get away from that dirt clod.

"Believe it, Captain Morgan," I interjected. "I think you better get used to rooms less comfortable than this one and roommates a little more likely to ask you to dance with them than I am. Say hello to Bubba for me." That caught his attention.

He opened one eye and peered at me questioningly. "What are you talking about?"

"You caused a multi car accident while drunk driving and hurt a lot of people. Do the math." I was becoming less and less in the mood to endure the man. If he said it wasn't his fault I don't think I would been able to prevent myself from beating him back into unconsciousness with one of my crutches. I didn't think he could have said anything worse. As it turns out I was incorrect in that assumption.

"We'll see about that. I can probably afford a better lawyer than all of you put together." I couldn't believe the nerve, the sheer gall that this man spilled from his lips.

I thought about my parents then and a smile lit up my face. My father was a self-made millionaire and my mother was the heiress of another. Any move this jackass could make I knew that I was related to people who would radiantly match it and take it a step further. Just because I didn't normally avail myself of my family's wealth didn't mean I was totally opposed to it. Then I said cheerfully, "Oh I wouldn't count on that, chum. Besides, I know some things you don't know."

He looked at me again, this time with an appraising eye. He dismissed me by shaking his head. He didn't believe me and that was perfectly acceptable by me. Nobody could say I didn't warn him. Then he did a double take. He finally knew that he recognized me. But I could also tell he couldn't exactly place my face or how he knew who I was.

"Yeah," I said, "We've met before."

"How do I know you," he asked suspiciously.

"You almost ran me over in the street the other day right after you..." I couldn't finish the sentence. I couldn't remember the other thing he'd almost done. It was another one of those blank spots I had experienced that day. But it didn't matter. I saw it all come rushing back to him and the fear that it sparked deep inside him. That was more than enough to make my day.

"That's right," I said, turning my head away and looking out the window. "You can start sweating now." From that point on he clammed up and I was thankful. I was able to lay back and enjoy the silent victory.

### Chapter Nine

The crutches under my arms propped me up in the lobby of the hospital. While they caused some minor irritation it felt good to at least be back in my own clothes. The soreness and aches were still a very present reality but I also felt ready to get going, wanting to put some distance between me and James Price, king of the arrogant schmucks.

The keys to the borrowed car jingled in my hand as I held them up to have a look. This set belonged to a Nissan, just two years old and thankfully not the manual transmission I had feared it might be. I turned to the person at the front desk and signed the last piece of paper I needed in order to check out. Upon finishing this task I turned my head back to look through the lobby doors. Outside the world waited with all its potential for light and dark.

I wasn't sure why but hands of reluctance rested on my shoulders trying to convince me I didn't want to go out, didn't want to go back to my apartment. The feeling seemed to seep from those blank spots in my mind. I remembered the painting I'd seen in the hallway of the hospital and how the painting had changed. A man with a torch and a field on fire appeared for seconds and were gone. Now you see them now you don't.

As I tried to look inward, tried to examine those missing sections of memory that's how I felt. It was like I had seen something and then it was taken away from me. It was like an illusionist who showed you a bird in a cage, covered the cage with his cape and when he removed the cape the bird was gone. The only thing was you couldn't remember what kind of bird it was, or even if there was really a bird to begin with.

I hobbled forward, swinging ahead when the crutches tilted behind, and reached the door. It was one of those automatic kind that make you feel like a Jedi Master and it slid open when you came within its sensor. I stopped, looking into the greatness of the parking lot. It was filled with cars, trucks, motorcycles. Light glinted off a sea of windshields into my eyes.

"Lots of sick people around these parts," I commented to the early afternoon. A warm breeze came in reply, lazily agreeing with me. As I stared out into the parking lot I had realized my parents never told me where they had parked the Nissan. "Looks like I'm about to get a little more practice walking," I said. Somewhere in the distance a car horn registered a complaint, seeming to say I didn't have it so bad. While standing on my good foot I swung the crutches forward and began my slow lumbering adventure outward.

I made my way to the middle of a row of cars and raised the key fob up in the air. I pressed the unlock button and listened. When I heard nothing I brought the fob down and hit it against the palm of my other hand. I lifted it up and tried again. Still nothing. I figured I was too far away. I moved to the end of the row, across an empty traffic lane and into the middle of another row of cars but to no avail.

I repeated this strategy for the better part of ten minutes until I heard the chirp of the unlocking vehicle. I moved toward the sound and soon found the car waiting for me. I opened the door, slid into it and wrestled my crutches into the foot well of the front passenger seat. Soon the car was going and I was on my way to finding home again.

I hadn't been to the hospital before and so it took me a little while to figure out how to get home. The advantage was that I had time to think. I left the radio off and allowed the silence to be my anchoring force. I quickly noticed I felt a little clearer headed the farther away I got from the hospital. None of the blank spots were filling in but I believed now they could if given the proper jump start.

The sounds of the engine, the air conditioner and the pavement passing beneath the wheels blended together into an intoxicating cocktail sometimes known to put infants and tired travelers to sleep. The white noise soothed and at the same time focused me. Everything outside the car was becoming a single thing except for one detail. One landmark always stood out and briefly drew my attention as I passed one. I hadn't been one to notice fire hydrants before but now they seemed like they were everywhere.

I wondered why something so seemingly mundane would cry out to be noticed now. No answer came. I thought once again of the painting in the hospital hall. I recalled how before it happened my attention had been caught by something else. Break Glass In Case Of Emergency. The fire extinguisher, red and shiny inside its glass house, waited to be used perhaps on the chance that some patient smuggled in a pack of cigarettes and was careless with them.

I hadn't shared the encounter with any of the hospital staff. It was strictly a self-preservation move and from any perspective other than my own I guess it would be considered a little irresponsible. I didn't want a psychiatric evaluation telling me I wasn't fit to rejoin regular society. So I kept it to myself.

I was completely unable to procure any answers on the drive home. When I finally reached the apartment I was just ready to be back in my own space again. Even the car I drove which belonged to my parents held too much that was unfamiliar for me. I needed a shower in my own place and a fresh change of clothes and then I could begin to feel normal again.

I parked the car in my space and got out, setting the crutches down on the ground first and my good foot second. Aching muscles strained as I pushed myself up. I shut the car door behind me and moved forward. Grateful that my apartment was on the first floor I slid my key into the door. I was in the hall and moving to the first door. I had arrived. I was home.

The key went in, the door unlocked.

It was all as I remembered it. The kitchenette right inside the door and the counter with the phone and answering machine were as they always had been. The message light was dark. No calls came while I was gone. I felt disappointed by this at first, thinking Katie might have called and asked about me. Then I remembered she had given me her number. I hadn't given her mine. I swore to rectify that if I was able to get a hold of her and make a date.

I looked about the place and everything seemed to be as I'd left it. I moved into the living room and sat on the futon which was folded into a couch at the moment. I tried to relax but my heart skipped a beat when I looked at the bathroom door. My mind flashed back to me standing in front of it, fearful of something inside. I could not remember what had been in there that had caused such terror in me.

"I'm beginning to get tired of this," I accused the room but it stood mute and without defense. The bathroom door was closed against my inquiry and the windows looked out, out and away from me to the street, avoiding me with their gaze. The walls likewise had nothing to say for themselves. I looked at all these things, each in its own turn, not expecting anything from them and not getting anything from them.

The comfort and freedom I had expected from being away from the hospital and back in my own place was illusory, a mirage of wavy water in baking desert heat. The more I strove toward it the more it fled. I stood up using one of the crutches to hoist myself to my one usable foot. Whatever part of my father had been instilled in me from my youth rose to the surface then and I grew angry at my inefficient left ankle. I looked inward again to the parts of my mind which should have been there but were not and scoffed, perhaps trying to shame them into being again.

All things remained silent. The anger that burned inside was so great that I wanted to throw my crutches down onto the floor, stand on both feet and scream. It would not be the kind of scream enacted by terrified children or grieving mothers. It would not be the howl of drunken men who were angered by a family who couldn't understand them and give them what they selfishly wanted. It couldn't be the counterfeit shriek of the rock star mimicking pathetic rage to keep the fans happy and keep their coveted place on the charts. If it was going to come it would arise from some deep guttural, primal and hidden place carried by us all but only tapped into when we are truly desperate and ready to rip apart the very fabric of reality with our teeth.

I never did, though. I was involuntarily stopped when my gaze alighted on the cracked open bathroom door, the one that had been completely shut only moments before, and what was hiding behind it. Before the door slammed shut again I saw a sliver of a pale child's face, a girl, the single eye I could see through the small opening of the door was wide and mostly black. There was no iris, only what looked like a giant pupil. It was dark in the bathroom and what I was able to see was minimal and shrouded in shadow but I was able to spy a tiny strip of dirty white, the dress she was wearing.

The door closed so fast I hardly saw it move, like it was open one moment and closed the next. Before, I had wanted to scream. Now, I couldn't. All that came out was a gurgling croak, a side effect of the terror. I crumpled back onto the futon unable to hold myself up any longer.

I had fought so furiously to regain those missing pieces of myself. Now the great gaping spaces of my minded were filled like potholes in the road were filled with the waters of a flash flood. What I had desperately wanted all day, had begged for was now crushing me under its tremendous weight, and I didn't want it anymore. Forgive me God, but it was too much to bear. The memories...I couldn't stop them, God help me, but I couldn't stop them from coming. All the feelings of desertion, all the angst, all the choking, cloying, clawing fear I've ever felt threatened to rip me to shreds from the inside out.

I remembered it all. I remembered the things of the past few days I'd forgotten in the hospital which gave meaning and weight to the rest of the things I remembered. I remembered the smells at the job interview, James Price driving toward the specter of the girl and almost over me. I remembered the answering machine, the bookstore research, Katie, the torn book and the message in the hotel room, the accident...the little girl in the back of the ambulance telling me, actually telling me I would forget for a while, I remembered all that and more. I remembered everything.

Now she was there again. She was in my bathroom as she had once before and she'd been watching me. How long had she been watching and what could she know? I was too scared to care.

"Mister," sounded the tiny feminine voice. "Mister, will you help us?"

I was paralyzed. Even if I hadn't been I couldn't have ran if I wanted to, not with my ankle the way it was. The only things I could do were sit and wait.

"Go away!" I heard this shouted into the room and was startled until I realized a split second after I heard it that it had come from me. "Please, just go away."

"Please mister," She begged. "Please, we need your help."

"I don't want to help you," I said. "I don't think I can help you. Just get out of here. Just go away and leave me alone. Please just go away." I was tipping into panic, repeating myself in a fresh incantation for warding away unwanted visitors.

"Please, mister. He'll keep hurting us..." it was too much. All my defenses gave way and the flood of everything that I was burst through the dams of all the socially acceptable constructs I'd built and raised in my thirty years. My eyes squeezed shut. My hands covered my ears. My mouth opened. What came out can barely be described as human. It was minimally encased in the word we call 'no,' but it was so much more than this.

My bones rocked and my every organ vibrated within me. When I finished I was trembling and breathing rapidly. I opened my eyes and uncovered my ears, waiting for her to speak again. She didn't and the silence was killing me. Nothing was going to happen next unless I made it happen. But I didn't want to do a thing. The only thing I wanted was to wake up and find that it was all just a terrible dream.

I must have sat cradling myself on that futon for half an hour before I brought myself to get up. When I finally did I looked to the bathroom door afraid it might spring open if I got too close and—and what? I didn't know. I think hardly anyone who experiences that kind of fear has any clear expectation of what might come next. If we did we might be able to fight it. But we can't. It's simply enough to say something indefinable is there and it cannot be predicted, boxed in, cornered, domesticated or bargained with. It just is what it is and wants what it wants.

I moved over to the bathroom. My hand struck out fast, twisting the knob and simultaneously pushing the door open. There was nothing and no one there. Déjà vu. It was a moment relived – I was even wearing the same clothes. The only thing different this time was the crutches.

Following the pattern of the last time I had gone through this I swiveled around to look into the rest of the apartment. This time it was unmercifully different.

The little girl was back but this time I saw her in her fullness. Dark hair cascaded onto her shoulders. Coal black eyes peered at me and into me. Her dirty dress was heavily streaked black with ash and soot. It was then that I realized her hair was not black, or at least had not been so originally. It had been brown but now it was covered in the same stuff that was on her dress. Her face was burned on the left side on her temple, cheek and jaw line, red and raw. Her exposed left arm showed the same signs. She looked not more than four or five years old.

Her arms clutched something of mine to her chest. I recognized it instantly. It was my laptop case. I kept it under the futon so it would be close by when I was sitting or lying down. She had been behind me, very close behind me. It would have sent chills up my spine if it weren't so hot in the apartment just then.

She looked at me wide eyed like children do around strangers who they're not sure about. I looked back at her doubtless with much the same expression. She took a tentative step forward. I backed away. She came forward again, this time two steps. It was fast and strange, like watching a piece of cinematic film where a few of the frames are missing. Soon she was right in front of me and my calves were pressed against the coffee table.

Looking up at me urgently with those dead eyes she held up my laptop. She wanted me to take it. I remembered sitting in the hotel room the day before wishing I'd had it with me, cursing myself for not remembering to bring it with me. Right then I wanted nothing to do with it. She continued to hold it out and I'm certain the room grew hotter.

I came to the conclusion that there was no telling what she would do if I didn't comply. I finally reached down slowly and took the thing from her. At one point my skin should have touched hers but instead my finger passed right through her hand and it felt hot...very hot. It wasn't enough to burn but it was more than enough to notice the difference between it and the rest of the room.

After I had the laptop case the girl slowly backed away from me. She kept her black eyes trained on me the whole time. When she reached the end of the counter she stopped.

"Please," she said. "Please mister, you got to help us."

"Why," I asked. "Why me?"

She shook her head. I understood. She didn't have the faintest idea why me. She just knew. Then she turned and bolted toward the wall. She disappeared through it. I waited to see if she, or anything else for that matter, would show up again. Nothing did.

I looked at the laptop case in my arms then back at the wall where the little girl had disappeared. Like it or not I was invested in it, whatever 'it' was.

* * *

I sat on one of the barstools by the counter, plugged the laptop into the wall and fired her up. All the usual startup stuff played out across the screen. While it did I thought of the near absurdity of the ghost of a little girl holding the case out to me. She had wanted me to get it and went to great lengths to make sure I was on the task of using it. I wondered what ghosts knew about laptop computers, specifically mine.

"But why? How is my laptop going to help her?" No, not _her_ , I corrected myself: _them_. "She kept saying 'us.' Please help _us_." Who was 'us'? And how was my laptop supposed to help them? I wondered at it. I turned it over in my mind. It was all so strange and unreachable.

The computer finally hummed to life, ready for its master's touch. Before I could do anything a word processing file came up. The white electronic page was completely filled with a repeating series of letters and numbers. It read,

pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546pleasehelpudlots3940414243444546

At first I thought it was just an accidental thing, a glitch in the system. I moved the cursor to shut the program off and laid plans to delete the file but the letters were what stopped me. It was easy for me to notice the pattern repeating there and soon I was picking out words. Shortly after that I noticed all the numbers were the same also. I stared at the screen and attempted to discern some kind of meaning.

I pulled out a piece of scratch paper and a pen and began working it all out.

The words in the puzzle themselves were child's play. But then it was a child who put them there, wasn't it? The words of the message were, "Please help us lots." That was easy, I thought, and it was something I basically knew already. The little girl and whoever or whatever else she represented wanted help. Apparently they wanted lots of help. It struck me as a curious way to put it but then I reminded myself that it was written by a child. The real problem was the series of numbers. 3940414243444546. I counted them out individually. It was a number with sixteen digits. Or was it?

If the words, though distinct, were all crammed together then maybe the numbers were put together in the same way and were also meant to be broken up into separate numbers. But how? With words it was easy because the letters only went together in certain combinations. With numbers it was different. They could go together into any combination and have as little or as many digits as possible. With a string of sixteen the possibilities weren't exactly infinite but there were still lots of them.

I've always been prejudiced against numbers. I'm sure to a mathematician they were as beautiful as language was to me. I'm sure a mathematician could make the numbers sing. I, however, could not. To me they were cold and lifeless. They were pure logic, all head and no heart. But I soon noticed one of them stood out above the others. The number four showed up eight times in the sequence. Exactly half of them were fours.

I wrote out the entire strand and underlined each one of the fours. The first one showed up third in the sequence and the first four of them were spaced evenly, every other number. I thought perhaps the fours served as the boundary markers. I quickly discover I was right. What was once the sequence, 3940414243444546, quickly broke down into 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 46. Once I realized that, I couldn't see it any other way.

But now I was left with a new problem. I had the words and I had the separate numbers. What I didn't have was a reason these two sets belonged to each other. Something was missing. I needed some kind of interpretive key to understand the mystery. I didn't know it was staring me right in the face and I didn't have the presence of mind to figure it out at that time.

What I wanted then was connection with another person, someone to help ground me, even if I couldn't tell them what was going on. I just needed to have some human contact that wasn't a doctor, a self-important drunk driver or my parents. And I needed someone who wasn't dead. Katie was the most apparent choice.

I picked the phone up off the counter and dug the paper with her number out of my pocket. I dialed the number and waited. I got the voicemail message I had gotten when I tried calling before from the hospital. I didn't leave a message this time, not wanting to appear desperate. It was enough that my number would show up twice on her missed call list.

I put the phone back down. Light streamed into the apartment through the windows but it was turning orange. Afternoon would give way to evening not many hours hence. My apartment would be the scene for no more apparitions or visitations for that day and for a few days after. That suited me just fine. Little did I know it was the calm before the encroaching storm.

### Chapter Ten

The next day I went to the library after lazing around in my apartment until four in the afternoon. I don't regularly have days like that but I couldn't seem to get up the gumption to get the day started. At first I wrote it off as subconsciously wanting some recovery time. But as the day progressed and I found myself thinking more and more about getting out it felt as if invisible ropes were holding me back. Once I concentrated my will enough I was able to cut through and get on the move.

The sky clouded over and the threat of rain was carried on the wind with that scent which is well known to those of us living in the flatter regions of the world. On days like that you could swear that you actually tasted the ozone. I wouldn't have notice this much, except for the times when I was moving casually on the crutches toward the library and later when I did the same going into the bookstore and later yet when I left the bookstore moving as fast as the steel things would allow me.

I had a list of all the books I had found on my last trip to the bookstore before the accident and I intended to acquire as many of these as I could for research. If any of them proved to be exceptionally useful they might make it onto a list of books to purchase once I was able to draw a paycheck again. But that would have to wait for me to start work again which was a little less than a week and a half away. In the meantime I would throw myself into the investigation of just what was going on around me with as much free use of the resources as I could manage.

The first thing I did was to locate the section in which the books I was looking for might be found. But before proceeding there I got onto the library's digital catalogue and looked up the specific volumes in question. This library only had two of the volumes I'd looked at in the bookstore. One of them I had marked as being of fair interest. It was the book Ghosts Are Here by Parker Levenson. The other was not really one I wanted but it might be able to provide something useful. The one I really wanted, the one by the skeptic, Trent Blacker, was available from another branch but there was a long list of holds for that one. I wouldn't be able to get at it for months.

I saw on the paper that I had made a note about checking his website. I made a mental note reinforcing the written one and planned to take a closer look at what he had to say. I put a star next to the title on the paper so I would remember to take another look at it in case I was able to make it to the bookstore later that day, which I would.

After writing down a few other titles I got up and headed toward the section I needed. It was a much larger section than the one at the bookstore which I was glad to see. It also had a few more reputable books than the bookstore, featuring less stuff that was self-published or published by small publishing houses. And there was some older stuff too which is the kind of thing I really dig.

One ancient leather bound volume entitled, A Treasury of True Ghosts, caught my attention and I pulled it down from the shelf. I also located the one by Levenson I had thought was of some value from my research time in the bookstore and four others that appeared somewhat interesting. My small stack was beginning to get unwieldy and I needed to get them over to a table without spilling them so I stopped adding news ones and took what I had. The crutches made this especially difficult. I had to make a few trips.

There were several empty tables available so I took one that afforded some privacy. I set the books down and laid the crutches leaning against the side of the table and took my seat. The first book I opened was the old leather one. Remarkably I discovered that it was published within the city I called home.

"You're a beautiful one, aren't you," I said as I handled it, inspecting its binding and overall quality. It was published in nineteen forty-nine and had that great old book smell. The pages were yellowed with age and I could see the places where fingers had gripped its pages, leaving behind their skin's oils. It was a work of printed art.

It contained several accounts of people encountering the deceased spirits of soldiers who died in World War II or who had died in farming accidents or of mysterious causes. After my personal experience with the little girl in my apartment the night before, I found myself believing a lot more of the narratives I was reading.

There were even a few grainy photographs reproduced in the book. Two of them were a side by side comparison. The first showed a picture of a soldier standing stock still and all serious for the photographer. The second one was a photograph of a farmyard in the early morning. In the background was a barn with one of its doors open and standing recessed in the doorway was what appeared to be a soldier looking outside which, though taken from farther away and a little less clear, bore a striking resemblance to the other photograph. The caption under the two pictures gave the soldier's name and the fact that the second picture was taken five days after the soldier's body was delivered home for burial.

I believed it, I realized, without any difficulty or doubt. There was no question in my mind about a hoax or anything like that. I knew it was real. The old photos were enough. What's more there were several other stories like that one in the book. There were stories about hotels and houses and battlefields. These tales sat fitting snug upon my sense of truth like a comfortable glove. This caused me to write down some of the information on the book so I could refer to it later.

I had determined to forego taking any of the books home in case anything like what happened in the hotel with my copy of the Bradbury book happened again. I didn't want to have to present a lame version of the good old "the dog ate my homework" story to the library staff and end up having to pay for something I was trying to use for free. I made myself positive that whatever stood dead set against me was not going to win. I had to force myself to close the copy of Treasury and move on to some of the other ones I'd taken from the shelves.

I spent about another hour absorbed in the books and taking more notes. Finally I stretched and yawned popping my back. I closed the last book and jotted some final notes. I picked the crutches off from the side of the table and lifted myself up. I left the books on the table to be re-shelved by the helpful library staff. I had bigger fish to fry.

I had chosen to go back to the bookstore, but not for books. Twice now I'd tried to reach Katie. I knew she hadn't been avoiding me. She'd been the one to initiate the conversation. She'd been the one to write down her phone number for me. She was clearly interested and I wasn't about to discourage her. But I was disturbed at the fact that I'd missed her twice in the same day; I knew it was entirely possible, but I didn't like it.

* * *

When I pulled into the parking lot of the bookstore around half past five I had a hard time finding a space. I drove around three times before I spotted a car pulling out of one. It was toward the back of the lot and my frustration brimmed at the distance I would have to go coupled with the injury which slowed me and made journeys slightly more difficult. But then I shook off all the despair boiling in me. I imagined myself an old man telling the story to a circle of a younger generation of whiny Nicholas children. "Why, once I had to walk an entire bookstore parking lot both ways on foot!" No one would be impressed. I got out and crept my way to the store on my new steel legs, passing rows of cars and trucks and minivans.

Immediately thunder clapped its titan sound overhead and moments later droplets dashed themselves against my face and shoulders. I was able to endure about thirty seconds of it and then I reached the great awning of the establishment in question. Sheltered from the rain I stopped in front of the doors and heard the downpour fully begin its task of soaking everything in sight. I turned and saw the wall of rain. When I turned back I was reaching for the door when I was confronted with a professionally printed flyer.

The store was hosting an author that evening for a short talk and a book signing, which explained the full parking lot. To my surprise it was a name I recognized and not some local menace who thought that just because he could string a few sentences together it qualified him to be a ground breaking superstar. To my absolute delight it was the author of a book I was trying to secure for my little problem. The smiling picture of Trent Blacker invited me in for an unexpected but very welcome surprise.

I walked into the building and was greeted by the low hum of conversation taking place throughout the store. On the raised platform of the café in the back of the place a single six foot long table draped with a floor-length white tablecloth supported a microphone on a short stand and a stack of books. Blacker was nowhere to be seen. Presumably he either hadn't arrived yet or they were keeping him sequestered away in a staff only area.

A tall and lanky man in a neat polo shirt and dark slacks approached me. I recognized him from the multiple occasions I visited the store and knew he would be familiar with me also. His name, Roger, was stitched onto the left breast of the shirt. It was followed by the word, "Manager." He smiled as he drew nearer.

"Good evening," he said. "Are you here for the author event?"

"I am now," I said cheerfully. "If I knew he was coming I would have made it here earlier to get a better spot." Roger nodded. I saw his eyes dart to the crutches under my arms and could tell an idea was forming in his head.

"Well, let me see what I can do about that. The seats are first come, first served but I'll see if I can hold a place for you up front. Last I looked only a few people have put jackets and stuff down to save spots. You can go ahead and look around and I'll see what I can do." He moved off in the direction of numerous folding chairs set up facing the café area. The sympathy felt nice and I began to wonder if I might be able to use the crutches to milk a bit more of it elsewhere.

Nearby was a display stand supporting multiple copies of three books by Blacker. The one I had looked at when I was there last was apparently his newest release. The other two looked interesting but weren't what I was looking for. Each of them had a discount sticker advertising thirty-five percent off. I hadn't planned on buying anything that night but the temptation was too great. I reached out my hand and plucked the forbidden fruit from the tree.

I went and paid for the book at the counter, getting a bag and a receipt for it.

But like the fruit it was all too good to be true, looking good but having a bitter center. I was so consumed with my good fortune that I'd completely forgotten the reason I came to the bookstore in the first place. It wouldn't be until later that I remembered to ask if Katie was around. When I at last remembered and asked after her I would almost wish I hadn't.

I milled about the store spending time in the Classic Literature section for a while. I thumbed through an unabridged volume of Hugo's Lés Miserables. It was another favorite of mine with grand themes and rich characters. I put it back on the shelf, thinking about the conflict between the Convict and the Inspector. I identified with the accused man just trying to make life work while relentlessly pursued by someone that wanted to put a stop to it all.

Soon I found myself in the General Fiction section. There was much to appreciate here, too, I believed. Sure, there were the usual hacks and half-talents, but unlike many others from the profession of my previous life I didn't believe all the true masters of the written word were confined to some golden age long past.

Roger found me and let me know The Author had arrived and that the event would begin soon. Clearly very pleased with himself he also informed me that I had a seat reserved in the front row. I thanked him and set myself in that direction.

When I found the front row of seats it was immediately apparent that Roger didn't know my name and that he had a slightly twisted sense of humor. There was a handwritten notice with the words "Crutch Boy" printed on them. I shook my head and chuckled. I would have to kid him about it later.

People were beginning to take seats behind and beside me. Every seat was taken in short order and several people were standing. The crowd was diverse ranging from the very old and distinguished looking types to the young hipster who looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. I hadn't heard of the man until a few days earlier and yet he had drawn a better than fair crowd. My expectations were rising with each passing moment.

Roger took the stage and I saw Blacker standing off to the side with his arms folded looking on interestedly. The store manager took the microphone from the short stand on the table and tapped it a few times. Nothing happened and he looked to the other side of the stage where one of the employees looked at a small PA system with a frazzled expression. A few moments passed while the kid at the PA switched around a few chords. He looked up at Roger and nodded.

"Thank you for coming tonight everyone. It is our pleasure to welcome a distinguished guest, a recognized author and a snappy dresser." This drew a polite chuckle from the crowd and confirmed to me who wrote the note reserving the chair in which I sat. The crowd's response only served to encourage him. I saw him smile, self-satisfied, and he continued.

"He is the author of three books. His latest, Ridding Ourselves of the Ghost Myth, has made it to the top ten of the New York Times Bestseller's List. Would you please welcome with me Dr. Trent Blacker?" The audience began to clap politely. Roger replaced the microphone on the stand and joined the crowd's applause.

Blacker stepped casually onto the stage and sauntered over to the table where he took a seat behind the microphone. He made a few humble gestures of thanks and waited for the applause to die down before he spoke. He didn't strike me as the prestigious college professor type. He was only a few years older than I was, he appeared very warm and wore no tweed jacket with elbow patches. I liked the man immediately.

"Well, thank you, thank you very much. I'm very glad to be here. And I'm glad you're all here too. Not because I want you to get anything out of it." He paused and we all waited with bated breath to hear him clarify why he'd said such a thing. He grinned as if he knew something we didn't. "It just makes me feel like a rock star or something." We broke out with polite but genuine laughter. If nothing else the man knew how to work a crowd.

"So, I guess I'm here because you want to hear me talk about why I wrote a book about ghosts. Fair enough. Martin Luther, the renowned sixteenth century Reformer of the Church, said something to the effect that the default mode of people is religion. I would say it's more like belief in something other than themselves, organized or not. Now coming from a skeptic you might find that strange. But I don't think skepticism in its purest form must equate something akin to atheism, which is the lack of belief. I agree with Shakespeare's Hamlet that there probably are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.

"But," he held up a finger, "when it comes to things like ghosts, vampires or werewolves I find myself asking the question, 'Why'?" He let all this sink in by giving us a few moments. He looked around and met eyes with a few people in the audience, including myself.

"First," he continued, "why do we feel compelled to believe in things like that?" The tone of that last word said everything. It wasn't accusatory or derogatory but was laced with curiosity. It was a genuine quest into a subject many found questionable. "What is the psychological motivation behind it? Or is the motivation not merely intellectual furniture but is it perhaps also born out of experience?" I knew what the answer was for me, anyways. I wondered, then, what he would say if I told him at least part of my own story or if I should just keep my mouth shut and ask him to sign the book. This was an internal debate I held which went on all through Blacker's talk.

"Second, why do some people seem prone to have these experiences, sometimes frequently and in different locations while others, like me and a majority of the rest of us, do not? Is it because they have some sort of psychic talent I don't? Or is it because they're uneducated?" This drew a guarded laugh from a portion of the crowd. I waited to see if he meant it as an insult to the uneducated or if there was something else he was getting at. I got my answer.

"No, seriously," he quickly interjected, "I don't say that to demean people of less education. I know of people, studied people, who are now considering the possibility that education, specifically a western style education, while enhancing our ability to think in some areas actually hinders or retards some kind of intuitive process in us. I mean, have you ever heard of someone or met someone who was too smart for their own good? You know the kind of person I'm talking about. I mean the person who's really super smart in a few areas but is completely inept when it comes to the social ins and outs of life that we all take for granted. Have we been educated beyond belief? And if so, what are the implications of that for our ability to connect with the so-called supernatural realm of things?"

I was completely awestruck with that idea. I'd never thought of such a thing before. I had chosen the field of education because I had assumed to be educated was always preferable to being uneducated. But what if I had been wrong?

Blacker continued with his talk and we all sat rapt and listened to his every word. When he finished with his prepared speech he opened up a time of question and answer. I only partially paid attention to this. Most of the time I wrestled with what he had said. I didn't feel it had much bearing on my situation but I knew it was a completely different angle from which I might look at everything I considered important in my life up to that point.

When Blacker finished up the Q & A Roger stepped back up to the stage and began to form the line for the signing. I intentionally stayed seated, allowing other people to go ahead of me. Roger noticed this and came over and asked if I wanted to jump ahead in line. He said he didn't think people would mind because of the crutches.

"Thanks but no thanks," I told him. I used the excuse that I wanted to give my ankle some more time to rest and that I would jump to the back of the line when there were only a few people left. In reality I wanted to be able to tell him a little bit about what was going on without a ton of people waiting in line behind me getting impatient. Crutches or no crutches, people had places to go.

A solid hour passed until there were only a few people left. I finally got up and moved to the end of the line. There was a good fifteen minutes from that point until I got up to him. I handed him the copy of the book and he took it, asking who it was for. I told him my name and he scrawled a brief two-line message he must have written hundreds of time and signed the thing. My heart pulsed rapidly and I blurted it out.

"So I think I've got a couple of ghosts in my apartment."

"What like pets?" He thought I was joking.

"Not exactly," I said hesitantly. He looked up from the book, recognizing from my voice that I was serious. He looked into my eyes, maybe for confirmation, maybe to see if I looked crazy and to decide if he should be worried. He blinked a few times and then spoke.

"So, tell me about these ghosts. Have you seen them?" He was fishing, that much I could say for sure. But I couldn't tell exactly what he was after.

"There's a little girl," I started. "I've seen her in a few places now. I've also heard her laughing in my bathroom and she's left a message for me on my answering machine. After that I saw her standing in the back of the ambulance that took me to the hospital after pretty bad car accident that only gave me a sprained ankle. Most recently, she handed me my laptop computer in my apartment last night which had a strange kind of puzzle of words and numbers. She looks very young, maybe four or five years old. She's got burn marks on the side of her face and wears a little white dress with dark streaks of what I think is ash. And out of the two I've seen, she's the pleasant one."

Blacker stared at me speechless. He looked around to see if anyone else was around and listening. Then he leaned forward and said in a lower voice, "That's really detailed, Steve, and more than a little creepy. I'd love to know more. Tell me about the other one."

"Him. He's not so pleasant." I told him the story about the answering machine message and how after I'd listened a few times to what the little girl had said on the recording it was interrupted by the angry, almost beastly voice. I also told him about my minor journey through the hospital halls which turned briefly into a minor journey through Hell. He looked a little drained of color when I finished and I thought the man before me wasn't really a skeptic at all but someone who deeply wanted to believe yet was, in truth, simply afraid to for whatever reason.

"How long has this been happening?"

"My sense of time's a little fuzzy after the accident," I said, "but it's been going on for about three days or so. Four at the most."

Blacker looked at his watch then stood and fished a small tin out of one of his pockets. He opened it up and withdrew a business card from the thing. He wrote an e-mail address on the back and handed it to me.

"On the back is my personal e-mail address. I don't give that out to just anybody so don't make me regret giving it to you. I have to get going so I can't stay and talk but e-mail me tonight with the times over the next few days we can get together and talk over coffee. I'm staying with friends in town for the next two days. We'll see if we can work something out." He stopped and looked me directly in the face. "I don't know why, but I need to talk with you about this. I'm not one to rely on hunches or feelings but this..." He trailed off, perhaps not sure how to finish what he'd started. He gave it a shot anyway. "...but there's something about what you said and the way you said it. I simply can't let this pass. Unfortunately," he concluded, "I have to go."

"Okay," I said, a little surprised to have gotten such an open response from the man.

"I really am sorry to cut this short," he apologized, "but there are a few things I really have to do tonight."

"No, that's fine. Thank you for your time, Mr. Blacker. Thank you very much."

"Steve, was it?" He looked at me and I nodded. "Call me Trent." He extended his hand and I took it. With that he was on his way out the store. I watched him retreat and wondered exactly what had just happened. Roger met him halfway to the door. They spoke briefly, shook hands and then he was gone. Roger turned and saw me standing in the converted café and walked over.

"Interesting guy, isn't he?"

"Yeah," I replied. "You can say that again." Suddenly I remembered why I had come to the bookstore in the first place. I turned to Roger and said, "Hey, there's a new girl that works here I talked to the other day. I was hoping to see her here: her name's Katie."

At the mention of her name Roger's face turned sad and he looked down.

"Sorry," he said. "She was in a terrible car accident. She's in a coma in the hospital right now. They're..." he trailed off. "They're not sure she'll make it."

I was stunned. With that instant knowledge that came to me sometimes I knew she had been in the car next to mine when Price drifted drunkenly into my lane. I ran her off the road where she crashed into something, sending her flying through the windshield. The girl I'd just met, the girl who I'd just started to be intrigued by was now hanging by a thread to life. And it was all because of some drunk rich schmuck who probably wouldn't care one way or the other about her. Yes, it was because of him...and because of me.

I rocketed out of there without another word to Roger. I sped through the parking lot back to my car, this time oblivious to the distance and the pouring rain. Lighting flashed overhead in a brilliant show and it was shortly followed by thunderous applause. I was oblivious to it all. I was on a mission.

* * *

Soon after all that I stood before a bed in the same hospital I was only too eager to leave not long before. I watched as a battered and bruised bookstore employee I had come to think of very fondly in a very short amount of time lay motionless—lifeless—fighting for life. The only sound was the steady beeping of monitors and the shaky breathing of a messed up former schoolteacher who was learning to pray.

### Part II

### Buried Things

### Chapter Eleven

Day one on the new job came faster than I liked, even with the week's delay. I had been unilaterally distracted by the unforeseen turn of events with Katie. I made it over to the hospital to see her every other day, really just to watch her body try to recover without her mind aware of it, but I thought about her every day. The visits were silent and awkward. I tried everything I could to keep things from being that way. I even brought her flowers once and a "get well soon" card knowing she wouldn't be able to read it, not for a while at least.

Looking back I suppose I hoped I would be able to help her heal somehow just by being with her. I believe some desperate instinct within us wants us to be able to do that. We want to somehow lend some of the life and strength we have in us and channel it into the people we care about, sustaining them through what appears a hopeless trial. I also thought about those other things I could do on odd occasions, those psychic things. That could give me an edge I reasoned. At least that was the lie I told myself.

It was a hard thing to do, going to see her. I barely knew her and almost felt like a stalker showing up to only look at her and not having her know I was there. Our connection had been brief but strong enough to mean something to me. I wondered if it had meant something to her too, but now I feared I'd never find out. Whenever I asked the nurses or doctors about her they just shrugged their shoulders. Additionally, I was discouraged by the fact that I was the only person who visited her.

I noticed there were no other cards, no other flowers and none of the little stuffed animals I always expect to see adorning hospital rooms. On my second trip to visit I asked the hospital staff if anyone else had come by. They replied with sterility that there was no one besides me and then continued scurrying about their endless tasks of charting and changing IV bags. Katie was alone. I became concerned that maybe her parents, relatives or friends worried about her somewhere far away, not knowing what had happened. However, if such people did exist my hands were tied against helping them until Katie woke up.

My meeting with Trent Blacker had also been called off but not because of me. When I called him to set up a coffee appointment he very apologetically had to decline.

"I'm really sorry about this, Steve. There's some sort of emergency departmental meeting at the school tonight and I need to be there for it. I might not make it as it is." Though I was very disappointed we wouldn't be able to meet and pick each other's brains over what was happening, I completely understood and let him know. He was very gracious and offered to spend some time on the phone with me over the next few weeks. He even threw out the idea of coming back out this way during Spring Break.

"That's an intriguing idea," I lied, not wanting him to know I felt let down. "We'll have to trade e-mails about it," came my reply. "How far away is it?" I heard him shuffle through his planner on the other end.

"It starts two weeks from Friday. That'll be a shorter day anyway and I bet I could get my assistant professor to cover it for me without too much arm twisting." From his tone of voice I got the impression that it wouldn't be hard at all. I imagined an overeager nerdy type with a pocket protector practically jumping up and down with excitement. "I could be there that Thursday night if we wanted to get started in earnest."

"Yeah," I said. "That could be good. At least we'll be able to talk over the phone and I can let you know what's been going on here on my end." We fiddled with a few other ideas about instruments he might be able to get access to through some friends of his, things I imagined probably fit right into the movies. He reassured me that the devices under discussion were considered by many in the scientific community as legit.

We finished our conversation and said our farewells. I hung up the phone and inspected every nook and cranny as would become my regular routine every time I walked into the place. The space was empty and there were no spirits of little girls or angry men in dark clothes holding torches. This would also become a theme for me over the week while I was visiting Katie in the hospital and hardly noticed the steadily approaching time my employment would begin.

There were no visitations and no apparitions of any kind over that week. As much as I was happy to have a reprieve from all of that it also frustrated and worried me. I had come to accept the fact that I was going to have to help the little girl, whatever that meant. But how could I help if she wasn't going to show up let alone tell me anything I needed to know? Strange as it may sound I wondered if something bad had happened to her. I didn't know if bad things could happen to ghosts, but I supposed anything was possible. Then I remembered that when I had heard the little girl's voice on the answering machine she was troubled that someone was coming. It was the man in the painting. That was enough to convince me.

But what was I going to be able to do about it? I wouldn't be able to do anything until I figured out what she had been trying to tell me in that odd message I found on my laptop after she handed it to me that night. I knew she wanted help. That much was clear. But what was the deal with that string of numbers? That one was going to have to wait for some kind of mental breakthrough.

I parked across the street from Spectra Data Processing shortly before the time I was appointed to begin. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and had a staring contest with the building. It felt strange going back to work after such a tremendously long time off. It had been five months of no work. While I had spent a great deal of time looking for work, enough that it felt like it was full time work itself, I walked around with a feeling like I was playing hooky from school. But now that was all coming to an end.

I pulled in a deep breath, quickly blew it out and then opened the door. With my left foot planted on the pavement I pushed upward and stood. I felt slight pain from this but that was all. I was now happily sans crutches and not about to let anything like a tiny spark of discomfort prevent me from getting on with what I had come to do. At my checkup a day earlier Dr. Williams said I was good to go if I felt ready. I had come to work and that's what I was going to do.

The streetscape played out before me like a slow panning shot in a movie. Everything was as I recalled. I watched closely to see, almost trying to see, a little girl in a white dress. There wasn't one. Everything was still and silent like a painting. There didn't even seem to be any noise.

"Quiet as a tomb," I said. I paused as if this would summon what I expected. "Oh, knock it off," I told myself. She wasn't going to show up and I knew it. I couldn't make her come any more than I could make the sky green and the tree leaves blue. I shook off my self-inflicted anticipation and got down to business. I crossed the street, mindful of speeding black mustangs and megalomaniac drivers, and pushed through the lobby doors.

I headed for Jan Fenstra's office. We had talked on the phone after my check up the day before so I could confirm that the doctor had cleared me for work. She had also instructed me on what I needed to do when I arrived for work on my first day. I passed the cubicles I had seen a week and a half before but this time they were all full of people and teeming with a dull roar of activity. The hive was at full strength and buzzing for business.

I came to Fenstra's door and knocked twice. From inside she told me to enter. I opened the door and my eyes fell onto her majesty, seated on her throne. I instantly remembered why I had been so impressed with her the first time I met her. She leaned back in her chair, though not casually but instead the way a monarch might as she inspected a petitioning subject. The suit she wore was perfectly cut, probably custom tailored for her and there was neither an excess nor a deficiency of makeup on her face.

She looked up and smiled cordially then beckoned me to enter. I walked in and almost shut the door but felt I shouldn't. I also didn't sit this time. We weren't going to be in the office long. We would be in there for maybe three or four minutes at the most and then we would be on the move, off to more important matters.

"Mr. Nicholas," she said with crisp authority, "I'm glad to see you're doing well. How's the ankle?" Her gaze pierced me through and through. It was uncomfortable at first but when I realized there was no ill intent behind it, only her unyielding spirit, I felt at home.

"Ankle's fine. I get a bit of pain every once in a while but not enough to keep me from doing what I need to do. I'm here and I'm ready and that's enough for me." I projected as much confidence as I was able to muster. I felt somewhat bolstered in her presence, somehow more eager to get to work than I had felt before. I wrote this off as the effect of her natural leadership. I was aware that some people could gather troops and build morale with hardly more than a few words. It was just something about them, some kind of natural charisma that made people want to be on their side. I wanted to be on Jan Fenstra's side, no questions asked.

"That's good. We have things to do." She stood to her full towering height and moved from behind her desk. The woman glided to me with the easy grace of a Russian ballet dancer. I moved out of her way and she slid past me into cubicle world. I followed her out and we began our meandering path to a place which, by the end of my whole long ordeal, would become for me something I could never have imagined if I had wanted. As we walked she filled in a few details about where we were headed and what we would be doing.

"We have one basement level to the building and that's where we're headed now. It's where our custodial department is centered. There we'll get your picture taken for your photo ID. When we have it ready for you after tomorrow you'll wear it at all times when you are working here but until it's ready we'll give you a temporary one." She walked briskly and talked even faster. I had a difficult time keeping up with what she was saying and also with her physical pace. Not wanting to appear incapable I made the effort. The pain center in my brain alerted my body only once that my ankle noticed an increased level of activity. I ignored it to the best of my ability.

"In Custodial Services I'll introduce you to Derek Marshall. He's been with us for two years as the head of C.S. He's very capable and knowledgeable but he's also a bit..." She trailed off, searching for the right word. "He's rough," she decided at last. "But don't think that means he's simple of mind or unfair in any way. He's anything but. He'll be showing you the ropes and he'll be the one in charge of you."

"So why didn't he interview me?"

Jan looked at me and smiled broadly. "Because he doesn't like to do that kind of work and he trusts me with it. He would say it's the wrong kind of mess for him to clean up. Besides, I don't mind. It's the kind of thing I'm good at." I couldn't imagine the kind of thing she wouldn't be good at if she put her mind to it.

She led us through the way I had come, back into the lobby and through an opposite hallway. It stretched as far as the wide open cubicle area had and longer but it was an enclosed corridor all the way with other tributary halls periodically branching away. We followed the third one of these until we reached an open area. To the left and the right stairs ascended and descended to other levels. Straight ahead was a wall with an elevator door. Jan took off her ID badge and slid it across a scanning surface then pressed the downward arrow and its darkened form lit up green. She replaced the badge on her lapel.

The door slid aside immediately and we entered. When the doors closed behind us I watched as Jan pressed the button for the level below us. Beneath it was another button, this one different from the others and what looked like a slot for a key of some kind next to it. I began speaking without realizing what was coming out of my mouth.

"I thought you said there was only one basement level to the building. What does that button do?"

When my eyes came up from the elevator buttons they were met by Jan's steady and serious gaze. The smile which had previously adorned her face was all but a memory and now there was only stone and ice. I wondered if I had said something offensive or had stepped into territory which was normally understood by all to be off limits. I was taken aback at first because she was silent briefly and just looked at me and, yes, perhaps into me as well. She was working out her answer in that dead silence.

"It's not a proper level," she finally explained. "It leads to a small room that has something to do with our heating system, I think. It's nothing you'll need to worry about." That was meant to be the end of that discussion, I was certain. This, of course, only made me more curious about what was going on with the basement's basement. But I wouldn't press her about it, thinking it could be a disastrous mistake. It was my first day on the job and there was no need to put it into jeopardy so soon. I filed the information away for later use.

The elevator door slid open again and we stepped out into the subterranean gloom of the basement. It was much like anyone would expect, really. It felt more closed in than it really was. This effect was created by the fact that there were no windows which allowed views of the outside. If there had been windows the scenery outside would only have been dirt, a casket's eye view of things.

The light source was a series of fluorescent lighting fixtures with their long glowing glass tubes arrayed two by two, side by side trapped behind wire covers like cellmates in some prison for delinquent members of the light bulb community. One of the fixtures blinked on and off intermittently. It reminded me of so many scenes I'd watched in movies. Our hero travels dark corridors stalking and being stalked by some terrifying predator.

We came to a steel door with a large glass section in the upper part. On the glass, stenciled in black, were the words, "Derek Marshall, Custodial Services." Through the glass I saw a series of three rooms in a row connected by door sized openings. Jan opened the door without knocking and waltzed in like she owned the place.

The first room was a typical break room. There was a round table which looked like it could seat maybe six people. There were a series of cabinets above and below with an open area in between and a countertop. In one part of the counter was a sink with a liquid soap dispenser next to it. A coffeemaker with stale brew sat on another part of the counter.

I looked around some more and noticed the walls were an off-white ceramic tile from floor to the height of my elbows. From there up the wall was made of cinderblocks painted with a glossy light green. I was reminded of the hospital room I'd stayed in only it was grimier. It struck me how the places occupied by those who were responsible for cleaning the rest of whatever facility was in question were always the dirtiest places imaginable.

I peeked into the other two adjoining rooms and saw they were similarly designed except that the last room had no cabinets. It appeared to be the storage room for the larger equipment like floor buffers. It also contained a rolling bin lined with a large black empty garbage bag. Brooms and mops were clipped to the wall and a few other shelves held various supplies I would become familiar with.

"Derek," Jan called out. "Are you in here?" There was no answer and Jan looked back at me. "Don't worry. He'll probably be right back. He's just out in one of the other sections of the basement. I have a lot of things I need to do back in my office. Are you alright to be left here by yourself?"

I really wasn't alright with it but I couldn't tell her that, now could I? Instead I told her I was fine with it and took a seat next to the table. She exited the room and presumably returned to her throne in the above ground world of data processing. The cold walls were of little comfort waiting for Derek to show up.

I'd been extra jumpy since my experiences with restless spirits had started and so my heart seemed to double pace at every little sound. But the creaks and groans of the place wasn't the most unsettling aspect of it. The silence between noises was worse because it held all the potential in the world to be filled with things you don't want to hear after realizing you're being haunted. Sitting in a creepy basement didn't help much, either.

After about five minutes Derek came in but it felt at least twice that long. He was older than I was, maybe in his early fifties. His hair was graying at the temples but it was all there. He wasn't hunched over but stood straight and proud. His pants and shirt were the same color of dark green and he had a name tag sewn onto the front pocket of his shirt. Looking at him I decided he wasn't what I expected to see for someone with the name Derek. I anticipated someone younger, I suppose.

When he entered the room I thought he didn't notice me sitting there. He went into the next room without even glancing in my direction. I heard him fiddling around with something in there and thought about clearing my throat or saying something introductory but I decided I didn't want to startle the man. Anyway, before I had the chance to say anything he spoke.

"Yes, I know you're there. I'll be right there." There was a bit more in the way of clanking and rustling sounds and then it stopped and Derek stepped out a heartbeat later. He looked at me sitting at his little table and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. I stood up and as I did he looked me up and down then said, "You Steven Nicholas?"

"Just Steve, please," I heard myself responding.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "You'll do." I wasn't offended but I wasn't exactly honored, either. I didn't like to be thought of as 'the guy who we might as well work with.' It felt a bit like a consolation. Had there been someone else he'd wanted for the position that didn't work out? Then I remembered to check my attitude. I had a job and that's what counted. I could beat myself up about such things all day but it wouldn't do me or anyone else any good. Speculation is better left to psychologists, sociologists and historians. All I had to worry about was dirt relocation.

"Ms. Fenstra said something about getting my picture taken for an ID?" I wanted to move on, get on with what we were supposed to be doing.

"Sure," he said. "You bet." He disappeared back into the other room and reappeared a few seconds later with a small digital camera. "Alright, stand up against that wall over there," he said pointing. I did as instructed and he moved around until he snapped the picture. "I'll send this upstairs to Jan in a little bit after we've gone over a few things." He paused and seemed to think about what came next.

"Right," he continued, "first things first. Let's get you a time card so you can punch in." Derek went back into the other room but this time I followed. "This cabinet here," he said pointing to the first upper cabinet in the room "has all the extra time cards." He opened the thing and pulled one from a stack on the bottom shelf. However, it was the top shelf which caught my attention.

At first my eyes followed the man's movements to the lower shelf, but the sight of blackened bones piled on the shelf above couldn't but draw my attention. Derek's movements had been so casual and quick that I barely saw them before he shut the door. He turned to me holding the card up and was about to say something when he must have noticed the shocked expression on my face and the fact that I wasn't looking at him but at the space on the cabinet door behind which was the upper shelf.

"Something wrong, Steve?"

I looked him in the eye. He had no earthly idea what had caught me off guard, but my mind simply didn't want to comprehend that. I looked back at the cabinet and then back at him. I had to see it again. "Can you open that again," I asked. "I thought I saw a rat. I, uh, kind of have a slight fear of them." I had just lied to my supervisor who I hadn't known more than five minutes. That didn't sit well with part of me, but the other part of me didn't care one way or the other. But how could I say what I really thought I saw without sounding nuts?

Derek turned confidently and opened the cabinet and looked at the upper shelf. It was now completely empty. He took a little flashlight off his belt and shined it up there revealing every little detail. He closed the door, replaced the flashlight and turned back to me.

"No rats, nothing to be afraid of." He crossed his arms and looked at me skeptically. Had he known I lied to him? I didn't think so, but then I didn't know the man. "We won't have rat problems here," he continued. "We've got good traps and other things like that set up but honestly, we don't even need those."

"Why not," I asked, my interest truly aroused at the man's unshakeable certainty.

"I've been here for two years. I have never seen a rat or any sign of rats here. I've never even found one killed by a trap. Tell you the truth," I thought he emphasized that last word a little more than necessary, "I don't think there ever will be rats here, I don't think they like it down here."

"What do you mean?" My curiosity was now in full swing.

"I don't know," He concluded. "They just don't like it here. Something about the place just makes it an unfriendly environment for them, I guess. But I couldn't tell you what it is."

Our minds think in images, not in words. When he said that, the image which came immediately to my mind was that of an old wooden barge in the middle of the ocean on fire, sinking and lines of swimming rats extending out from it. Then I thought I might know exactly why the rats and probably lots of other vermin were not to be found on the premises. Something scared them away.

The time clock was in the first room, hidden in one of the cabinets. I flinched when he reached to open it but he didn't notice because his back was turned to me. I filled out the appropriate portions at the top of the card and slide it into the machine. There was a satisfying thud within and I pulled it out. I saw the time stamped in dark blue ink. I showed it to Derek and said, "Looks like I'm official."

The next hour was spent in discussion about the kinds of things I'd be doing and the schedule in place for them to be done. It was all very simple and consisted of lots of things I had done before and only a few things which I hadn't. I asked a few questions just to keep things moving. Derek had a tendency to tell stories rather than explain objectives. This was fine by me since I believe people are primarily geared to learn through stories and not lists of things which might or might not be true. One story Derek told gained my attention particularly well.

I asked, "Are we the only ones who do the custodial work or are there other people who come in different shifts? It seems like an awfully big building for just the two of us to clean."

"No, there're two other guys who do this stuff too, but you probably won't meet them, except maybe in passing on occasion." By this time we were touring the series of corridors under the first floor of Spectra. My sense of discomfort in the basement wasn't eased much by Derek's presence, not after what I saw in the timecard room. Derek continued his rambling explanation. "They have a different shift than you and spend most of their working time on the top two floors. You'll be mostly in the basement and the first floor after hours." I was not thrilled with the idea of spending lots of time in the tunnels but the paycheck kept my mouth shut on the matter as did the continuing drama of needing to find out how to help the ghost of the little girl.

"You might run into Rico or Bill punching their time cards, but only if you're a half hour early. Don't do that, by the way, unless I tell you to. We don't need to be spending any extra money on overtime." We rounded a corner and Derek continued walking and talking. I lost a step when I thought I smelled smoke. I knew it was another sign, like the blackened piled of remains I had witnessed briefly in the timecard room. The spirits were becoming active again. They had seemed to lay dormant for a few days but I knew I had not seen the last of them and that I probably wouldn't stop running into those experiences until the mystery could be broken through and solved.

I sincerely hoped I wouldn't see the girl or the man there, especially not while Derek, Jan or anybody else was with me. It was hard enough dealing with them when I was alone and wouldn't appear crazy interacting with them. But, as my episode with the bones earlier indicated, nobody besides me could see them. That seemed a high probability too, anyway, but I didn't want to chance it. There were a lot more answers I needed before I shared with anyone else beside Trent Blacker.

The rest of our time that day was uneventful. I kept a watchful eye for things that seemed out of place or otherwise dead. There wasn't anything. Derek walked through the cleaning routine with me verbally and then later we performed it together. He informed me that by the end of the week I would be doing most of it by myself.

"That's good. I can do that," I said, my confidence now returning. We returned to the basement and he led us to an office. Inside were a small desk and a computer. He took the memory stick from the digital camera he had used earlier and transferred my picture to the computer. After a few minutes of playing with some programs he seemed to know pretty well he created a temporary ID badge, printed it and handed it to me. I folded it twice and stuffed it into my shirt pocket.

"Give me your clothes sizes and I'll get you a pair of green grubbies like mine probably by tomorrow or the next day. They're not pretty but they're your uniform," Derek informed me. "If I can't get them to you by then just make sure you wear something clean, but also that you don't mind getting a little dirty by the end of the day." I told him I could do that without a problem.

Then we went back to the room where we met and I punched out. The little blue numbers showed I'd only been at work for five hours. I chose not to be disappointed by the little amount of time. First weeks always seem that way. You learn a few things, unlearn a few others and it seems like it's all over before it gets started. There would be plenty of work for me in the days ahead. More than I would know what to do with.

I walked out of the rooms and down the hall until I came to the elevator. I pulled the folded paper from my pocket, scanned my temporary ID and pushed the upward button. The large steel box shuddered down from one of the above levels. It opened up its emptiness and swallowed me whole. There were no more strange and unwelcome images or visions and I didn't see either of the two people from the other side of death with whom I was familiar. Thank God for small favors...and large ones, too.

### Chapter Twelve

When I came back to the apartment it was late. I had bummed around town for a while then found a park and took a walk around a narrow blacktop path to clear my head. Also, I felt trepidation at the prospect of returning home after having the brief paranormal encounter in the basement of Spectra. After it had gotten too dark for me to remain confident of my safety in the park I found a few other things to occupy my time in town.

I stopped and grabbed a bite to eat at a sit down place with decent Chinese food. As I silently devoured fried rice and sweet and sour pork, my eyes kept returning to a mural of a dragon astride the Great Wall. Smoke poured from its nostrils and flames licked out of the beast's long toothy maw. And in one corner of the mural was a lone figure, masked and armored in ancient Asian style and brandishing a slender, curved sword. I thought of all the myths where the fire-breathing beasts thundered and destroyed until slain by some brave soul. I wondered at the place such stories occupied in the human psyche. What great tasks and dangers did they stand in for? What fires burned within us and terrified us so that we needed to mask them with the giant serpentine façades? I concluded there were probably different answers to those questions for many people. I certainly had my own dragon to slay.

I looked around the restaurant and saw couples and families seated at booths and tables. I noticed I was the only loner. I finished, paid my bill and left, headed nowhere in particular. I was on the road maybe fifteen minutes before I passed one of those megaplex movie theaters with twenty or so screens. I went around the block and pulled into the parking lot on a whim.

It wasn't a weekend, so finding a spot closer than a million miles from the place wasn't too much of a chore. I got out, locked the car and strode across the lot. As I maneuvered between the other cars I heard the sound of childish laughter from behind me. I spun around expecting to see the girl in the white dress. What I saw instead was a family of four, a father, mother, a little boy and a young girl walking through the parking lot together. The father was carrying the girl and tickling her sides. The girl, blond haired and no more than four years old, arched her back and erupted in gales of joyous laughter. The mother carried a boy of two or three years who rested contentedly against her shoulders. She also looked to be about halfway through a pregnancy.

My mind raced back to Katie, unconscious and recovering in a hospital bed. At the time I didn't know what association the synapses in my brain made between the two. Later I would suspect it had something to do with an impulse I had to not be alone, which was the same impulse that had earlier driven me to go to a restaurant where I could sit in close proximity to other people. It was also the same impulse I had followed which had led me to the movie theater, where strangers sat together in the dark. I now believe it is this togetherness we crave. It serves as a hedge against the dark for which we volunteer and sometimes which elects us.

Inside the theater I stood in a large, open lobby and directly In front of me was a row of screens listing which films were playing at what times. I noticed a listing for a children's movie, the latest sequel where toys came to life when their human owners weren't around and solved some crisis. I'd seen both the previous installments in the series with my nephew. They had enough grownup humor in them to not make me want to get up and find something else to do every five minutes, so I chose that one. I wasn't looking for drama or, God forbid, horror. I had enough of both in my life and just wanted something to balance them out a bit.

An hour and a half came and went and I was remarkably distracted from my problems enough to barely notice the passage of time. It was now full dark outside as I stepped out of Hollywood's dreams, pleasanter dreams than the ones I would have that night, and back into the real world. I found my way back to my car and headed home.

All of these activities were performed not simply for themselves but for a unified purpose. They were my personal defenses, designs and plans to keep me from returning to the apartment. But they couldn't last forever. I always returned.

Not long after that the door swung in on my apartment as I pressed the fingertips of my left hand against it, my freshly used key dangled from my right hand, and I peered into the room where I had left the light on. Nothing waited for me but the things I had placed there. Still the silence unnerved me. I waited a few heartbeats and entered.

I went through my routine of checking corners and items to see if they had been disturbed. It annoyed me that I had been drawn into minor obsessive compulsive behavior by the things that had happened but I did my best to shrug off the disappointment I felt in myself. I went into the kitchen for a snack, some comfort food for an impossibly uncomfortable life.

I reached for the cabinets and stopped. The image of the cabinets and the charred bones in the basement of Spectra averted my appetite. I reached for the refrigerator instead and pulled out a can of pop. I opened the thing and downed it all right there, a sign that I wasn't drinking it because I was thirsty but because I was trying to use it as medicine for my soul. It didn't work, of course.

I crushed the can in my right hand and threw it in the sink. I walked into the main living area unsatisfied and plopped onto the futon. I waited for something to happen. Nothing did. No little girls. No darkly dressed torch wielding men. No smell of smoke. No phone calls from beyond the grave. Some might have considered that a small victory. I did not.

You see, I was terrified of facing any one of those things. Terrified and yet compelled to want it. I can't explain it but God help me I wanted it.

I milled aimlessly around the apartment for another half hour or so and finally crawled onto the futon and pulled the covers over me. I don't know how much time passed before sleep overtook me but I don't imagine it was long. When it did come it brought with it the encounter I earlier expected and loathed and longed for.

The first thing I remember from my dream is the night. The sky was black but there were no stars for something was obscuring them, something moving. I couldn't tell immediately what it was. The air felt cool against my skin. In what way anyone can be said to experience such a thing in sleep is beyond me but I did feel it. Or at least I thought I felt it. I looked down at myself and saw a white cotton t-shirt, faded blue jeans and bare feet. It was what I'd been wearing when I went to bed. The grass poked up between my toes, cold against the soles of my feet. But all the feelings I experienced were not complete. They were in some way muted. Despite the coolness there was a magnificent blaze before me.

I stood on the shaggy lawn of an oversized house. It peaked at three stories high. The top level was really cooking. Through the windows on the second level I noticed the faint beginnings of an orange glow. All the windows were caged by black wrought-iron bars. Smoke pumped madly into the sky. That was what obscured the stars, I saw. Bits of ash and glowing embers floated past me, some landing in my hair and on my shoulders. The smell of the burn filled my nose and I began to cough.

My attention came down when the sound of screams entered. They came in not suddenly but soft at first then growing in volume, as if some movie sound effects artist added them from a mixing board by gradually increasing the sound level. That's what the whole thing was like for me; like watching a movie. But I was also in it, feeling it. The cries disturbed me, cutting deep into a secret place in my heart. I began to feel sick and wanted to drop to my knees and wretch.

My movie camera eyes tracked to a painted wooden sign which was difficult to read in the dark, but not impossibly so. My heart pounded faster as I read it, making the connection as to why the screams gripped and appalled me the way they did. The sign read: The St. Francis Orphanage. The screams were those of children. That was all I needed to motivate my dream-self to action.

I tried to sprint forward but my body didn't move as fast as my mind. The curse of dream slowness in the middle of a crisis only added to my sense of urgency. I fought against it but could not win. The muddled slowness of it all cast an angry red feeling into me which made me fight all the more to speed up. It made no difference, or so little difference that it did not matter.

Soon I was being passed on the left by someone else who, while still in that same slow motion trap, had better command of his legs. The uniform and the hat sparked recognition in me. It was a police officer. But there was something off about him. My senses refused to reveal to me what it was although I knew it should have been obvious. Two more of them passed beside me, this time on the right. Then one more passed right through me. I staggered a bit at this and a clear message formed in me.

I was a guest in this dream...my dream. I had been invited to watch, not to participate. If my heart had been a cauldron it would have boiled with rage at this. I wanted to be in control so bad, to be able to direct the course of the things playing out. But it was not meant to be. I realized then that I was seeing things which had already happened. They could not be altered, only viewed.

The cops reached the door of the house but couldn't open it. The first one pushed with his shoulder while trying to turn a knob which would not rotate. Locked. Another one of them shoved the first one out of the way. He kicked against the door three times. When it still wouldn't open he screamed something at it, something I couldn't understand. Then he unsnapped his holster and drew his gun. He fired a few rounds into the door near the handle, splintering the wood.

I was closer to the house now and could see the chipped white paint on the door. Again, the second cop kicked at it. The door moved inward a few inches but it didn't fly open like I expected it would have. More kicks rained down, this time some of them came from a third cop as well as the second. Finally the door opened fully into the house. I saw tables and chairs had been piled behind the door. Someone had not wanted help to break through. The fire had been set deliberately.

The cops scrambled over the pile of furniture clearing an escape path and poured into the house. I followed behind them and began to take in the interior of the place. Directly ahead there was a staircase leading up to the next level. There was a door at the top of the stairs located on a landing. A wooden chair had been wedged under the handle to prevent it from opening out onto the landing from the other side. Next to where it terminated I could see the beginning of another set going up which slanted back again toward the front of the house.

On the floor level the foyer opened to the left and right into large rooms. There was also a narrow hall going back which ended in a closed door. It felt very strange, like some things were missing. Before I was able to begin working out what the absent things might have been my eyes fell upon the woman on the floor of the retreating hallway.

She was probably in her fifties and wore a long dress, maybe it was black or dark blue but I couldn't tell in the poor light. A lacey collar encircled her throat. The thought crossed my mind that this was a proper woman. All the good it's done for her, I thought. It was like looking at a historical photograph, only live. Live in the loosest possible sense of the word anyway. She was dressed for the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth. That was when it occurred to me what was missing from the house. There were no electrical outlets or light switches. All of the light was provided either by the fire above or by oil lamps placed here and there.

She lay there as if she had decided to take a little nap in the foyer. She was not sprawled but completely straight, arms resting at her sides. Her head was turned to her left and her eyes were open and staring at nothing. A pool of blood created a dark halo on the rug around her head. One of the cops knelt to check on her, looked up at the others who had stopped and shook his head. Dead.

Screams floated down from the upper levels. The cops jerked their heads up toward the sound. I looked up too and noticed the door at the top of the staircase tremble against the chair wedged beneath the door handle. The officers sprang into action and bolted up the stairs. I began to move in that direction too when I heard some indefinable sound beneath me. I stopped and looked at the floor as if it would all be made obvious through the rug. It wasn't. When I looked back up to the landing of the second story I witnessed one of the cops rip the chair away from the door and attempt to open it but the door wouldn't give. He picked up the chair he'd just discarded and began smashing it against the handle. The others disappeared in hallways to the left and right.

I sprinted in slow motion up the stairs wanting to help, but knowing I could do nothing. Since I was there to observe I decided that I might as well do just that. But I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for and it made me wonder if I was supposed to know it when I saw it.

I observed the cop smash the handle off the door, reach inside the hole it had occupied moments before and pull the door outward. There was only blackness at first. Then four children shuffled out. There were two little girls who looked like they were maybe six or seven years old in white night clothes. An older girl, of maybe fifteen years held the fourth girl who was no more than three. They all looked terrified and had tear-streaked faces.

The cop pointed down the stairs and said something to them. They promptly ran down the steps and out the door. They ran through me, not even glancing up at me like I wasn't even there. Which I suppose when it had all happened I hadn't been there. I watched them retreat out the door and into the smoky night then turned my attention back to the cop who sprinted up the next staircase to the third floor. I glanced down the hallways to the left and right and saw the other cops removing more chairs which had been jammed against other doors. But my instinct told me to follow the cop going up into the fire and smoke of the top floor.

As my legs pumped up the steps I trailed after the officer who soon disappeared around the corner at the top. I became aware of the heat as the feel of it grew more powerful against my skin. It wasn't as hot as it should have been but I definitely felt it. I reached the top.

Thick black smoke choked the hall making it feel smaller than it should have. I peered right and saw the cop, hunched over covering his mouth and coughing violently. He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and tied it around his head, covering his face. It made him look like a hybrid cop/robber. Then another image replaced that one. In my waking hours I had visited the Chinese restaurant which had the mural of the dragon with a burning mouth on the Great Wall. In the corner of it there stood a lone, masked warrior with sword at the ready. The cop with the rag over his face recalled the image to me. The cloth wouldn't provide much filtration, I thought, but it was better than nothing. He straightened up a bit and continued coughing as he moved down the hall.

Flames licked the walls and smoke poured out from beneath some of the doors. The cop kicked away the familiar chair locking system. He moved to open one of the doors but he jerked his hand away from the knob. It was hot. He resorted to the old familiar kicking technique. A few kicks and the handle fell away. When I saw him move to open the door there was a tingling sensation at the back of my neck. I stretched out my arm and tried to shout at him to stop. He hesitated. Had he heard me? He drew the door open quickly staying behind it, using it as a shield. It was a good thing he had too, I saw, because if he hadn't he would have greeted a furnace blast of scorching air and flame. The fool was lucky he didn't meet the back draft full on. As it was, flame belched into the hall, roasting the wall opposite the door. Some of it curled around the door and singed the sleeve of his uniform.

He pushed the door away from him and rapidly patted his sleeve to make sure none of the fire would continue to live there. He then looked in my direction and squinted, as if looking for something. Then he turned his head the other direction and looked that way. He looked back my way again. His head tilted slightly to one side. He then shook his head dismissively and bolted into the room he'd just opened.

I stood motionless for a moment. It grew clear to me in that moment. The cop had heard me after all it seemed, maybe had even seen me just then. What had I done, I worried? I reasoned I was in some kind of window peeking into the past and therefore didn't think I should be able to interfere in anyway, only observe. But I was also in a dream and knew that some people claimed the ability to direct the course of their dreams. Had two worlds brushed against each other in my dream, an old one and the present one? And if so, had I reached across the gulf and touched the old one, changing it somehow?

All the science fiction novels I'd ever read and all the movies I'd ever seen where the smallest change made in the past resulted in catastrophic alterations in what should have been the present came flooding back to me. Think, McFly, think! But then I thought maybe it was all just a dream. No reality, no consequences. But I didn't believe that for more than a moment. Something very real had happened and I'd acted as architect to it.

I rushed forward to the room the cop had just entered. Three small forms lay burning on the floor and one was on a bed. It was too late for the children in that room. The cop screamed something unintelligible to the deadness and darted back out the room, right through me. I followed him and listened again to the screams. They were all coming from the floor below. This didn't stop the cop from going to the next door on the top floor.

"What are you doing," I demanded to know. "Anyone up here is gone, man! Get out of here!"

If he heard me that time he made no show of it. He just kept to his futile task. There was more fire in the hall now. Chunks of wall paper flaked off the walls and floated around, burned up in the air or landed on the floor and danced themselves to cinders. I knew the heat would soon become too much for the cop to handle and he would be pushed back to the stairs and have to go back down or he would die with the rest of the third floor inhabitants.

He came to another chair blocking another door. It was partially engulfed in flame as was the door it held closed. He kicked it away with everything he had. The punt was so hard the chair spun away and when it impacted the opposite wall of the hallway one of its burning legs shattered off sending splinters and ash out in all directions. He wasted no time with the door. He pulled out his gun and fired a single shot at the fire weakened door. The knob exploded off in a shower of sparks and black smoke immediately poured through the hole.

Now aware of the back draft problem he opened the door with the same technique as before, standing behind it and shielding himself with it, but this time he opened the door slowly so as not to create a vacuum in the hall which would pull the dragon's breath out and onto himself. When the cop was sure there would be no burst of killing flame he rounded the door and entered the room. I followed again expecting a scene like the other room. What I saw instead was a burst of simple human brilliance.

Huddled in the center of the room was a blanket over a large trembling lump. One of the edges of the blanket lifted to reveal childish faces of three boys. The kids had apparently stayed close to the floor and covered themselves with the blanket to keep from inhaling the smoke, which I knew was the thing which killed most people in a house fire. The boys sprang up and moved toward the door. The cop stepped out of the way and shepherded them out the door and toward the stairs. When the last one was out he followed. I brought up the rear.

The cop shouted for them to stay low as we all moved down the hall. A loud clap of sound reverberated through the house behind us. I turned to see a large section of the roof as it finished its collapse. Burning beams of wood slid over each other and a wave of smoke washed over everyone in the hall sending up a chorus of coughs. The rest of the hall was completely barred from the cop or anyone else. If anyone was still alive over there they were on their own. The officer must have realized this too because he stared in the direction of the wreckage a moment and then followed the boys down the stairs.

With nothing more to observe on the top floor, I fled to the second level. I came to the landing in time to see the boys who had been liberated from the third floor join another small group of girls from the second floor who exited the house through the path of piled furniture in the foyer and out the open front door. Down one end of the hall on the second floor I saw two of the other cops finish clearing out rooms and a few girls running at me, or rather running for the stairs next to me. They dodged and weaved around chairs scattered on the floor. When I looked the other direction I saw much the same theme.

Instead of staying on the second floor and observing I chose to move back to the ground floor and see if anything important had developed there. When I got there everything was much as it was when I had come in. The major difference now was that the dead woman was covered in a blanket. From below me arose the sound of something as it crashed and shattered. This sound was followed by the revelation that there was a basement and something important was in process down there. Beyond the dead woman was the short hall which terminated at a door. I jumped over the body and dashed to the door knowing it had to be my path to get into the basement.

When I reached the door and wrapped my hand around the knob I felt eyes on me. It was a strangely familiar feel... intimately familiar, I want to say. But the sense was not threatening to me in any way. When I turned to see who was watching everything went white.

The next thing I knew I was sitting up on my futon in my apartment. I was breathing heavily and I could smell smoke and ash. The smell hung around for a few more moments and then it was gone. I sat still waiting to see if anything else was going to happen. Perhaps the girl would arrive again and explain everything I had just seen in the dream. And maybe she would have something to say about what I had done there too. But she did not show up. There was only silence.

Light streamed in through the windows. It was mid morning already. The day had begun without me. I didn't have to work until the evening but I couldn't get my mind to slow down.

After waiting for something to happen and having received no result I jumped out of bed and desperately hunted for paper and a pen. I found some in my computer case and took it to the counter. I sat on one of the bar stools and began to write furiously, recounting every detail I could remember from the dream. I did not want to lose any of it to time and faded memory, although that would prove to be a non-issue later. Later I would not be able to shake a single detail of it from my head even if I wanted to.

When I finished hand writing the account I turned on the computer and began to type it out so I could have a copy stored electronically and so I could easily go back and make revisions and corrections if I needed to. This consumed my time all the way to lunch but I hardly noticed. I was too consumed to think about time or even food. When I finished the last draft I saved the document onto the hard drive and onto a memory stick.

I composed a quick e-mail for Trent telling him that I had another experience, this time in a dream, but I decided to withhold the content of it from him for the time being. I wanted to tell him that part in person so I could see his reaction. If he wanted he could have a copy of the document for review later. For now I was going to keep that to myself. I sent the e-mail and closed down the laptop.

As I stood from the barstool my back cracked and popped. I stretched and yawned away the hours of being hunched over typing out of my system. I looked over at the open bathroom and into the empty shower. It was time for me to catch up with the rest of the day.

### Chapter Thirteen

The stars had not yet begun to poke through the dying veil of sky just before I walked into the Spectra building for work later that night but the Sun had all but bid its final farewell of the day. I stopped in the middle of the street and looked toward the darkening dome above. The West was aflame but I knew it would not be so for long. The next quarter hour would quench the fire there and evening would roll out its dim blanket for the city to go to sleep. A shiver ran down my spine as I allowed the cosmic poetry of the encroaching night to take on all of its symbolic strength and push down on my soul.

My attention returned to the building ahead and I started for the main entrance. Once inside I made my way by memory to the elevator which would take me down to the belly of the place and where I would begin my second day of work. I rifled through my shirt pocket and produced the folded piece of paper my supervisor had printed out for me on my first day.

The temporary ID badge Derek had produced started to bend at the corners and the creases of the folds were already getting flimsy. The elevator to the basement of Spectra didn't respond with the first swipe. I made a second pass with the paper, pushed the button again and was about to try for a third time when the doors grudgingly slid apart for me as if the machine resented my presence but obeyed in deference to a higher authority. If so the feeling of dislike was mutual. I hadn't given elevators a negative thought since I was a small child when the doors of a department store elevator filled with tall strangers closed unannounced by invisible hands and the sudden jerky movement had rattled my toddler psyche into panic. A similar sense of unknown dread assailed my adult subconscious mind, awakening that primal fight or flight instinct. I pressed the button for the basement and the doors of the steel tomb closed. "Fight" it would be.

The elevator seemed to hesitate. It jerked upward for a brief moment, stopped, hesitated again and finally began its descent. My arms instinctively rose to waste-level to keep my balance. I backed up until I was pressed against the wall. A feeling in the pit of my stomach and one in an indefinable somewhere in my mind protested. The elevator didn't notice or care and just kept on its slow, dumb drop.

The doors slid away when the thing reached the basement flooding my heart with relief. I scurried out of the box into the empty corridor and turned back not sure what I was expecting to see. If elevators could look smug I'm sure this one would have. Instead the doors closed and I heard it return to the world above, perhaps beckoned by some other brave or foolish soul or just a routine program. After a moment of self-indulged paranoia I set off to find Derek.

He was in the office fiddling with some hand-sized piece of technology. It wasn't touching his skin directly but he held it in a greasy rag. He employed a multi-tool in the manner I imagined a skilled artist employed brushes and oil paints to call forth mesmerizing images. He grunted acknowledgement of my presence and kept to his task. There was only silence between us which was certainly awkward for me but which I'm sure he hardly noticed.

"Something's wrong with the elevator, I think," I said sheepishly.

"Oh yeah?" Nothing but disinterest from the man.

"Yeah," I replied. I told him what happened. His silence continued beyond my story and I wondered if he heard me or, if like the elevator, I was going to need to make another swipe. But he had heard. Finally he gave up on the thing in his hand and unceremoniously discarded it onto the counter next to him. When he looked at me at last I got the impression he was annoyed with me. He held my gaze for a time and I resolved not to back down but laced my return gaze with as much respect as I could muster. When he looked away I kept my eyes on him, not sure if I had just won a staring contest or lost an immaturity contest.

Derek went over to what was clearly an old and large metal tool box. He lifted it off the counter and held it out to me. I took it from him and almost dropped the damn thing on my feet. I fumbled the weight of the tool box and only was able to manage holding it by bending slightly at the knees and curling the box to my chest. When I looked back to Derek's face he wore a self-satisfied smile.

"Come on. Let's see if we can find out what you did to the elevator." Then he was out the door. I hesitated, caught off guard by the verbal jab. I wasn't sure if he was serious or if it was just good-natured ribbing. I would learn it was impossible to tell with the man. Then I jolted into action after him fumbling with the heavy toolbox.

I saw him disappear around a corner and so I increased my pace in an attempt to catch up with him. When I rounded the corner he wasn't there waiting for me. Instead I was greeted by an intersection of hallways. I approached the place where the ways converged hoping to hear footfalls in one of the directions. It was no use. What little sound there was seemed to come from every direction.

I imagined the older man standing at the destination annoyed. I knew I could either guess which route he'd taken or call for him in the hope that he'd answer. I stood for a moment and weighed a third option. I'd come to the conclusion that I contained some kind of psychic spark. I wondered if I could find my way without knowing my way. I looked to the right, then the left, then straight ahead. I didn't get any impression that one way was more right than the others. The conclusion I reached was that if I continued to stand there it would be a waste of time.

"Derek," I called out, "Which way do I go?"

"Take a right at the first intersection then a left at the second and then just keep coming," came his reply. I followed his directions and shortly came upon the man standing in front of what appeared to be a large breaker box. The metal door was open and Derek stared into the complex mass of wires and switches. There were a few small digital displays and some internal lights which added a bit of extra illumination to the dim hall.

"Do you really understand what you're looking at?" I enquired.

"Nope," he said without a hint of humor or agitation. "I just like to pretend I'm really smart. Set that thing down and open it for me, will you?"

I bent at my knees not wanting to strain my back. The box was so heavy and my palms were so sweaty that the box slipped out of my hands and fell the last two inches or so to the ground with an enormous clattering sound which shook my nerves. I looked up at Derek but he just kept looking into the open box on the wall. I returned my attention to the toolbox resting on the ground between my bent knees. I searched the outside for the way to open it and found the clasps which held the lid onto the body. I opened the box and pulled out several trays of tools.

The next several minutes were spent with Derek asking me for some tool or other and I searched the trays from the box and handed them to him. From where I crouched it didn't look like Derek did much inside the box on the wall. I wanted to ask what he was doing but I also knew that I probably wouldn't understand whatever explanation he could offer so I kept my mouth shut and just watched and handed him something whenever he asked for it.

Finally he closed the door of the wall box and looked down at me. I took this as a signal to put all the tools back into the trays and the trays into the toolbox.

"So," I said casually as I gathered things up, "were you able to figure out what was wrong with it?"

"Yes, I was." He began dry washing his hands on a rag he pulled from a back pocket. I waited but no further explanation came.

"Well," I baited him, "what was wrong?"

"Nothing was wrong. Everything looks fine."

"It wasn't fine when I came down here," I said, perhaps a little too indignantly.

"That was probably just a hiccup in the system. These things just happen from time to time." He started back the way we had come. I clasped the top back on the toolbox and moved to follow him but almost fell back a bit when I tried to pick up the toolbox. I could have sworn the thing was heavier than before. It was like an anchor. I tried again and this time it came up just fine. I held it to my chest with both hands and followed Derek.

"It didn't feel like just a hiccup," I said when I caught up to him.

"What did it feel like?" he asked with the first trace of amusement I'd seen on the man.

"I don't know," I fumbled for the right idea and the words to match. They didn't come. "It just didn't work right. It felt," I hesitated, but didn't know how else to put it. "It just felt annoyed." I knew it was a mistake the instant it escaped my mouth but there was nothing I could do about it. Derek was quiet for a brief moment as we walked. Then he looked over at me like he suspected I was trying to play some kind of trick on him. He seemed to finally decide I wasn't joking.

"It's an elevator, son, not a person. It's just steel, cable and lights. You do know that, right?"

"Yeah," I said groping about for some way to backpedal. "I'm just trying to tell you the impression I had. I'm not saying it was actually annoyed," I lied. "It just didn't do what it was supposed to do." I hoped that would be enough and sidetrack any further discussion on the topic which it did.

When we made it back to the office Derek went to one of the adjoining rooms and reappeared a few moments later with a large yellow plastic shopping bag. He extended the bag to me and said, "These are for you."

I took the bag from his hand and opened the top so I could peer inside. It contained a clean pair of dark green clothes. I could see an embroidered name tag over the left front pocket of the folded shirt. It was, of course, my name on the shirt. I reached into the bag and pulled the shirt and pants out and let them fall out of their folded state.

As I looked at the shirt I felt a sense of pride and belonging. It had been a long time since I'd felt either of those feelings and I wondered if they might have as many creases as the freshly pressed set of clothes I held in my hands.

"Go in the next room and put them on. We can't have you working out of uniform. Oh, and I almost forgot." He went over by the computer and picked up a small manila envelope. He handed that to me too. I opened it and pulled out the permanent ID badge.

"Hey, I'm official now," I said with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. But it didn't matter. I'd been waiting for my life to start taking some positive turns and these new things were evidence that the ball was now rolling in that direction.

I went into the next room and slid out of my clothes and into the uniform with the embroidered name tag. I clipped the ID badge onto my right front pocket and adjusted it a few times. Feeling complete I stepped back out of the room to present myself for approval but Derek was gone. I stepped out of the room, into the hall and looked both directions but the hall was empty too.

"Derek?" I waited for a response but none came. I tried again, louder this time but still waited in vain for the man to reply. I returned to the first room and looked around for some clue as to his disappearance. I discovered a handwritten note on one of the countertops. It was addressed to me.

It read, "Gone to the top floor to fix a problem. Go to the supply room in the back, get the garbage cart and cleaning supplies together. Take the elevator to the first floor and start collecting garbage. I'll catch up."

The thought of stepping back into the elevator raised a minor alarm in my mind but I knew I would have to go that way to get out at the end of my shift. It struck me at that moment how odd it was that there were no stairs leading to or from the basement. I was sure it had to be a violation of some safety standard somewhere. I made a mental note to ask Derek about it later and then moved on to get the garbage cart ready.

Assembling all the things I needed was simple and brought back a few memories of my college days and the late nights of cleaning I'd done back then. I found myself whistling while I pushed the cart out into the hall and angled it toward the direction of the elevator. My whistling stopped as I came to the steel doors and reached forward to push the upward button. Dimly reflected in the unpolished steel of the elevator doors were the dark shape of the cart I pushed and a taller shape which was clearly my own reflection. I reached forward but just before my fingertip touched the green arrow I heard the whisper of a voice behind me.

Startled, I whirled around to locate the source of the sound. The hall was dim but completely void behind me. It was a voice; I knew it was without a doubt. But beyond that I discerned nothing. I could not tell if it was young or old, male or female. It was simply a voice. I waited for something further but there was nothing. I turned back to the elevator. As I reached forward again my eyes returned to the barely reflective elevator doors. This time my mind registered three dim shapes instead of two. There was the short reflection of the cart, the taller blur which belonged to me and just beside mine was a slightly shorter and darker reflection. My hand froze half an inch away from the button. I became keenly aware of the stark silence pierced only by the sound of my breathing which was steadily growing more rapid.

I tried not to move my body to indicate that I might be aware that I knew I was no longer alone. I couldn't help darting my eyes in the direction of what must have caused the reflection. My eyes still detected nothing in that space, but that other sense of mine insisted something was there. And whatever was next to me, wherever it was next to me, had just tried to tell me something. I reasoned that if it wanted to talk that talking back might be the best option I had available.

"Hello," I tentatively spoke into the false emptiness. "I know you're there and I think you just tried to tell me something, but I couldn't hear you." I hesitated, not really sure if I wanted my next request to be granted. But I swam in the deep waters now and fear of getting wet was irrelevant. "Could you please try again?"

The silence which followed was difficult and I believed I sensed some reluctance on the part of the other. I waited attempting to balance my trepidation with patience. Beads of sweat appeared on my brow and my breaths came and went shallow and fast. When I next heard the whisper it was only barely more audible than before, but this time I could discern the content of what was said.

"Don't go in the box. Please, mister, don't go in the box." I now thought it was the voice of a child. It was not the girl from my apartment but it was certainly also not the dark menacing figure I'd seen in the painting during my walk through the hospital after the accident. I thought it was a boy, maybe a pre-adolescent boy. I thought back to the answering machine message from my apartment and how there seemed to be a second, pleading voice before it was interrupted by the third, threatening one. I knew the voice beside me belonged to the same person as the second voice on the answering machine.

The doors of the elevator opened and the hairs on the back of my neck shot straight up. I hadn't yet pushed the button to call the elevator and yet here it was: The box with a mind of its own.

"Please mister, please," the young voice repeated. I wanted nothing more than to obey, but for two things. The first was that I was expected to go upstairs and get to work. The call of duty and paycheck were strong. The second was a strange hypnotic pull which urged me forward. My right leg lifted and stepped forward. This action was not completely apart from my intellectual consent, but nor was it totally with it. With the first step taken it was easier to take the send and third and the final. I dragged the garbage cart into the elevator with me. I felt my eyes go wide when I saw the doors slide closed.

I saw the light behind the destination floor come alive, but it was not for the first floor or the others above it. It was the light for the subbasement. The elevator gave a great groan, a sound which seemed to fight against itself. Then the box shuddered and began to descend. Fear lit every nerve in my body and my instinct to run from danger kicked into high gear. But in a larger than average steel coffin there is nowhere to run.

The elevator came to its abrupt stop and then nothing more happened. I expected the doors to slide apart and my final fate to be revealed but there was only silence. I cannot tell how much time passed while I waited for something to happen. Perhaps it was one minute, perhaps it was ten, I simply don't know.

"Sure," I heard myself complain. "There's nothing wrong with the elevator. It's just a hiccup. These things happen from time to time. Maybe in your little world, Derek but not mine." Having moved past that bit of non-constructive criticism I decided I had to try something.

I concluded that if something were going to happen I might as well be the one to instigate it. I leaned forward and cautiously, slowly pressed the button for the first floor. There was a moment of silence followed by another metallic groan and then nothing. The elevator wanted to obey its intended function and ascend but something had subverted the command. I sat on the floor and gently banged the back of my head against the elevator's back wall three times in frustration. As I cycled through as many outcomes to the mess I found myself in I began to wonder if instead of some dramatic and terrifying end I was meant by whatever had led me there to instead perish slowly through starvation and dehydration. It would not be a heroic end by any stretch of the imagination.

In the long silence my mind constructed all kinds of horrible things, things I don't care to relive even now that I'm past it all. It was an interminably long time down there. After a while I drifted off to sleep. None of the dreams I might have had stayed with me, only a waking sense of dread and something ephemeral, yet potent, drawn near.

I heard it before I awoke, I think. The boy who had tried to warn me off from entering the elevator was whispering to me again. The urgency I heard earlier from the answering machine and also the proper basement level however long ago that episode had been was still in that voice.

"Wake up, wake up," he urged. "You got to get out of there. Mister, wake up before he comes back!" My eyes opened with all the speed and grace of a cinderblock being pulled across a cement driveway by a tortoise. I knew the boy must have meant the dark ghost who seemed to stalk me whenever I meddled in things he wanted me to stay away from. Groggy, I stood up, sliding my back against the back wall for support and using my hands spread out to my sides for balance.

"How am I supposed to do that? This thing won't budge." I pressed the button to go to the first floor several times in rapid succession to demonstrate my point. "See?" Of course I didn't know if the boy could see what I was doing or not. I looked up at the ceiling like a supplicant waiting for a decree from on high. None came. I continued to stare at the ceiling in hopes of a response when my eyes began to track the pattern of the metal plates which gave the ceiling its substance. One in particular caught my attention.

One of them was an access panel, a door through which I could make it to the roof of the elevator. The next hurdle to overcome was how I would be able to get up to it. There was at least a foot, maybe a foot and half from the ceiling to the tips of my fingers when I stretched my arms to their fullest and stood on the balls of my feet. I assessed all of the cleaning tools I brought with me.

"I could use the handle of the dust mop to push the panel open," I said to myself. "But I can't stand of the garbage cart because it probably won't hold my weight and the wheels make it too unsteady." I thought about how I was going to climb up when I noticed the white plastic five gallon bucket hanging from a hook on the other side of the garbage cart. I snatched it off, turned it upside down and set it on its mouth, positioning it under the access hatch. I then grabbed the dust mop and disconnected the mop head by unscrewing it.

I placed my right foot on top of the bucket, planted the end of the dust mop handle on the floor and used it to balance and push myself up. Now with both feet on the upturned bucket I took the long handle in both hands and pushed against the hatch above. It refused to move.

"Come on, open," I pleaded. I pushed harder the second time but to no avail. It was locked from the outside. The intent of the design must have come with the understanding that any rescue would come from outside the box, not inside. I closed my eyes half in despair, half in concentration of my will. "Just open!"

I heard a sound above me, an unlocking sound. I wasted no time and pushed against the hatch with all my strength. This time it swung open and I stared straight up into near total darkness. Only a hint of red emergency lights lit the shaft above. I tossed the stick up through the opening and heard it clatter on the roof of the elevator. Then I jumped and caught the edge of the opening and pulled myself up. Since action movie acrobatics aren't part of my regular exercise routine I struggled considerably getting through the hatch.

When I finally made it through I had to let my eyes adjust to the dark. All the while I was listening for whispers or angry groans. To my relief I appeared to be alone.

When I could finally see well enough in the reddish light of the shaft I took stock of my surroundings. I discovered a ladder built into the side of a recessed section of the wall which looked to go all the way up to the top. I hurried over and, balancing the headless dust mop handle in one hand I journeyed up the rungs. I went past the doors to the basement level and continued to the first floor.

I looked down, which was truly the mistake everyone says it is. I became momentarily dizzy by the net-less distance beneath me. I regained my balance before I turned my attention to the closed doors which were the only thing which stood between me and the first floor. Without the mistake of looking down a second time I held onto the ladder with one hand while I reached over to the door with the other. I quickly had to pull back because I almost lost my balance.

I reassessed the situation and noted there was a ledge which extended out from the door but it was only about four inches wide. I would not be confident enough to stand on it while attempting to slide the heavy steel door open manually. I decided to look around for some other solution.

I found one in the form of a small panel of buttons I unintentionally covered with my belly while I made my first attempt to open the door. One of the buttons was labeled, "Open." That was good enough for me. I pushed it and sure enough the door slid open. I carefully eased my way over and was able to get both feet to the ledge. I immediately sprang forward and landed sprawled face down on the first floor of Spectra.

I heard someone clear his throat beside and above me. I swiveled my head and saw Derek standing next to the open elevator shaft with a perplexed look on his face.

"What the hell happened to you?" He asked.

"I wish to register a complaint," I said. "I promise you the elevator is not okay."

"What about you," he asked. "Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?"

"I've been better. But I'm not hurt." I kept the side of my face on the floor for most of the conversation.

"Good," he said. "I don't want to have to pay workman's comp."

I raised my head and looked up at the man who was smiling at me. I dropped my face back to the floor. "I think I want to go home now. Note the time and I'll write it on my time card."

"Yeah, that's fine go ahead," Derek said without much reluctance. "You're sure you're okay?" At least he is a genuine human being some of the time, I thought.

"Yeah, I'm good." I got up slowly and walked out of the building. It was still very dark outside. I learned later that I had only been asleep in the elevator for two hours and spent half an hour getting out of the shaft itself. The night air was cool against my sweating face. I reached my car and tugged on the handle, which was locked. I fished in my pocket for my keys. The pocket was empty. I searched the other one which was equally devoid of keys. I looked inside the car and they were not, thankfully, dangling from the ignition. That left only one option. I had taken off my normal clothes to get into my new uniform. My other clothes I had left in the basement. My keys were still in the pocket of those pants.

I turned around and looked across the street at the Spectra building. The edifice stood in mocking defiance of me. I remembered thinking earlier that if an elevator could have looked smug than that one would have. I then transferred that concept to the whole building. But instead of smugness it was now a full blown taunt.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said. As usual there was no one to hear my complaint. Even if there were there was nothing anyone could have done about it. I began my slow return to the building and hoped for some miracle solution to the elevator from hell.

### Chapter Fourteen

"I thought you were going home?" Derek had his back to me. He stood by the elevator where I'd left him not five minutes earlier. His fists were planted on his hips as he looked into the open shaft ahead.

"I thought so too," I replied, "but my keys are in the basement. Do you think you'll be able to get that thing working?"

He turned at the waist to look at me and raised one eyebrow as if to say, "What kind of miracle worker do you take me for?" Without a word he turned back and assessed the situation. His first possible solution was the simplest. He removed the ID badge from his front pocket, reached forward, swiped the badge across the scanner and pushed the call button for the elevator. The door ahead of him slid closed and the hum of machinery emanated from behind it. It was working.

Not half a minute later the door slid open again and revealed the interior of the elevator I had abandoned at the bottom of the shaft. The garbage cart, dust mop head and upturned five-gallon bucket were all present and accounted for. The old man looked back at me but all I could do was shrug my shoulders and look dumbfounded into the elevator. I felt like someone was toying with me.

"That doesn't mean everything's back to normal," Derek cautioned. "The fact that it worked could be a fluke." He moved forward and was about to step into the elevator when I dashed forward and caught him by the sleeve.

"What do you think you're doing?" I asked with complete disbelief.

He replied, "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going in." He pulled his shirt free of my grasp and continued on into the elevator. He turned when fully inside and said, "Better wait up here incase it gets stuck again."

"You don't have to tell me twice," I replied, still uneasy about him riding it. He pressed one of the buttons and the door slid closed. I heard the machinery inside hum to life as it began to move. The next ten minutes were characterized by every imaginable kind of silence. There were no physical noises discernable to my ears and there was psychic silence also. There were no whispers, no smell of smoke and no laughter from little girls. The problem is that it is when these complete silences are present that nightmares are born in the imaginations of people bearing the weight of many sources of stress.

"What's taking him so long?" I wondered impatiently. If he was just testing the elevator the prolonged absence might mean he had gotten stuck. But how would I know? I wondered if I should expect him to come climbing through the elevator shaft like I had or if I should listen for him pounding a message in Morse code.

Then I imagined the specter of the dark man springing from the shadows and sending Derek to the floor with a heart attack. I didn't know if that could happen but my ignorance on the subject was little comfort. The wait had become too much for me. I reached my hand forward to press the call button. My finger never made it to its destination.

All of my senses were on high alert and so when the mechanism of the elevator hummed to life again I almost jumped out of my skin. My hand recoiled from the button as if from a poisonous snake. Soon the doors opened and Derek stepped out. He had the yellow plastic shopping bag which had once held my uniform but which now carried my regular clothes. He handed the bag to me and I received it with enthusiasm.

"Thanks," I said. I let the bag fall open and I fished inside and into the pockets of my folded pants and found my keys. I held them up and inspected them as if they were some precious artifact. After I felt reassured by their presence I placed them in the pocket of the uniform pants I wore so I would be sure not to lose them again anytime soon. Derek cleared his throat and I returned my attention to him.

"If you're not quite so shaken up anymore I could use your help figuring out the elevator." He stood there with his arms crossed waiting for my reply. Behind him the doors of the elevator closed again. My mind raced the options to see which one would win. It was a close match.

"Okay," I finally said. "I think I can stay. I'd just prefer not to have to be in the elevator by myself if I don't have to." He seemed to weigh this and then nodded.

"Fair enough, but I can't make any promises. I may need you to step in alone at some point because I may be tangled in the control panel and need to see what happens there when the elevator is operating. You'll have to be inside it if you're going to operate it from all the floors." He seemed to consider something else then added, "I have a set of walkie-talkies we can use to keep in touch." That bit of news gave me a little extra comfort.

At least if I was attacked by restless spirits someone could hear my screams even though they couldn't get to me. I then thought that maybe the presence of the ability to communicate with another person might be enough to hold at bay whatever had trapped me in the elevator. The dark man seemed to want less attention, not more. But then I thought that if he could stop an elevator from working he could probably do the same thing with a walkie-talkie.

"Yeah, okay," I said not wanting my fear to show through. The last thing I needed was my new supervisor to think I was some kind of sissy. He waved his ID badge in front of the sensor and pushed the button on the wall again and the elevator opened. We both stepped inside. I pushed the garbage cart to one side and Derek pushed the button for the main basement. The doors closed and we were on our way.

I inhaled and exhaled deeply, steeling myself against the prospect of traveling alone in that thing. Derek looked at me skeptically.

"Are you sure you're okay?" The concern in his voice was noticeable beyond the obvious nature of the question.

"Yeah," I replied as casually as I could manage. "Why do you ask?"

"You just seem nervous, that's all." He was right of course. I was nervous and I did a terrible job at covering it up. I decided to come clean partially but without revealing the extremity of what had been happening to me.

"Sorry," I said. "It's just that when I was stuck down there I think my mind started to play tricks on me. You know, every little noise turns into something big and ominous." I hoped the explanation would serve to answer his concerns. It wasn't the full story, but if I let him in on that I suspected he would think I was a nutcase.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened into the basement. We stepped out and headed for the office.

"Sure," he said to my relief. "Sometimes it takes a while to get used to working down here. And anyone who gets trapped in an elevator alone is going to get a little stir crazy. I just wanted to make sure you're going to be fine. I don't need you freaking out on me when I'm trying to keep this place in one piece."

"Don't worry," I replied. "I'm cool." Cool in the loosest possible sense of the word, anyway. Over the last two weeks I'd had enough strange experiences to last most people a lifetime or more. I also was in possession of the knowledge that there were more of those experiences to come and that they would likely only grow in intensity. Something big was coming and I could only guess what it all would look like when the day was done. I would discover nobody really knows what kind of person they are until all Hell breaks loose and they are left to stand before its onslaught.

We retrieved the large metal toolbox from earlier and the walkie-talkies then left the office again to return to the same place where we had tried to figure out the elevator issue. Our footfalls echoed as we marched down the hall, the eerie space amplified the sound of the two of us to make it sound as though we were many. Derek was right, it was hard to get used to working in that kind of place, especially at that time of night. Yet even more so when you know intimately not all of the strange things you might see out of the corner of your eye or hear echoing in the distance are tricks your mind plays on itself.

We arrived at the box on the wall again and Derek opened it while I set the heavy toolbox on the floor, this time careful not to drop it. He worked silently in the wall box without asking for anything from the toolbox. My thoughts began to drift away from the basement to a hospital bed and the unconscious form of Katie recovering, trying to wake up.

I discovered she provided my mind a safe place to go. I could take myself out of the gloom and shadows of the basement and fly on morning's wings and land by her side. I could send my thoughts her way and turn my back on the dark at least for a little while. It was a sort of rescue, maybe for us both. We didn't have to be alone. I resolved that I would go and be by her side again when the next set of visiting hours came around.

Derek cleared his throat. I came out of the dense but wonderful fog of my daydream to find him looking at me and realized I'd been off somewhere else and had stopped paying attention to what was happening around me. I had missed something, I knew.

"You awake chief?"

"Sorry?" I asked, buying time to cover up my embarrassment.

"I asked you for something from the toolbox. Can you get it for me?"

"Yes," I said trying to refocus. "Sorry about that. What was it you asked for again?" I stooped and opened the toolbox and removed the trays.

"Hand me the multi-meter," he said casually. I began pawing through the trays before I realized I didn't know what he was talking about.

"I don't know what that is," I confessed.

He walked over and pulled a small electronic tool out of one of the trays and returned to the wall box. Holding the thing up he said, "This is a multi-meter. It's like a circuit tester..." He broke off and considered something. "You know what a circuit tester is?" I did.

"Yeah, basically," I nodded. "It's a gadget which measures electrical current through the wire of another electronic device, right?"

"More or less," he said. "A multi-meter is like that only it does a few more things, too. It can detect other stuff like voltage and amps in a way that a simple circuit tester can't." He turned back to the wall box and began testing the rainbow of wires inside. I almost wrote off the impromptu equipment lesson as secondary trivia until an interesting parallel occurred to me.

In explaining the difference between circuit testers and multi-meters Derek had unwittingly given me a useful analogy to help me understand why I had experienced some of the recent phenomena of the last few weeks and why many other people generally do not. Perhaps, I reasoned, I—like the multi-meter—came equipped with some tools which allowed me to detect the presence of things which are always present but for which most other people simply have no apparatus to enhance their perception. But then I wondered why, if I possessed such a tool, had I only recently begun detecting the other energies? Not only that, but why also had my newly discovered ability of detection, or whatever you want to call it, been so locally centralized? The ghosts I'd encountered all had one shared story, or so it seemed to me. It was in the storm center of those questions that I came to an uncomfortable realization.

There was not simply a central story which all of the spectral visions shared but there was also a central location. The first place I had any of the experiences was in the lobby and shortly after in Jan Fenstra's office one floor above my head. After that I had seen the little girl crossing the street just outside. I had seen the blackened bones in a cupboard in the basement and heard the whispers and seen the reflection of a boy outside the elevator. And of course there was the unfortunate incident inside the elevator just hours earlier.

I had experiences in other locations too; my apartment, the hotel room and the hospital stood out vividly in my mind but there was something about those encounters which were in some fundamental way different than the ones I'd had in the Spectra building. The difference was like standing in an art gallery and becoming enrapt in a vibrant painting of a beach sunset compared to actually standing barefoot on the beach, feeling the warm sand between your toes and a gentle cool breeze ripple through your shirt as your eyes drank in the living colors of sky as the flaming Sun sank beneath the horizon.

The Spectra building was somehow the lynchpin holding all of the disparate threads of everything together. And I had been drawn to it, hadn't I? I knew that I had.

I had combed newspaper and internet want ads searching for the perfect job and then for an acceptable job and then for any job at all that would take me. After months of silence and rejection I had stumbled across the posting for Spectra on a job hunting website. It had almost jumped out at me. Then I saw it again, this time in the newspaper want ads and had the same sort of feeling. At the time I had chalked it all up to nerves or desperation. Thinking about circuit testers and multi-meters began to change my perspective on that. Maybe, I thought, it's not so much that I had wanted the job as much as the job had wanted me and searched for me. On one level the thought was preposterous but on another it struck such a deep chord within me that I knew I would be a fool to turn my back on the idea.

Derek turned to me and handed the multi-meter to me. "Here, put this away," he grunted. But I could only stand there and stare at the little device. Holding the thing and staring at it was like looking into a mirror of sorts. Another layer to the mystery had been peeled back. I came back to myself and followed the man's instruction.

"Okay," he said, "let's try a little experiment. You go to the elevator..." He must have seen the worried expression I had tried in vain to keep off my face because he hastily added, "and send it upstairs to the first floor. You don't have to get inside it. In fact, I don't want you to incase it gets stuck again."

"Alright," I agreed without allowing the reluctance to seep through in my voice. I started to walk in that direction but stopped when I heard Derek whistle to gain my attention.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" He held one of the walkie-talkies gingerly between two fingers of an upraised hand. Cursing myself silently I trotted back and retrieved it from him and then resumed my journey back to the elevator. As I drew closer to it my nerves grew weaker. I hadn't even arrived in sight of it yet and the hairs on the back of my neck began to react to the memory of the prior episode. I made a conscious effort to calm my nerves and to breathe slowly. These efforts worked with at least marginal success until I rounded the final corner and then all thought of my given task vanished from my agenda. I saw the figure standing in front of the elevator doors and my heart jumped onto a maniac freight train.

His back was to me and I noted that he was short in stature. I slowed my pace and tried to make my approach quieter. I didn't want to startle him. I didn't know if such a thing could even happen but I didn't want to risk it.

The closer I came to the figure the more detail I was able to discern. His shortness was due to his apparent age. He was a boy of no more than twelve. He wore a tan cotton shirt with a light brown plaid pattern. Blue jean overalls went all the way down to just below his calf muscles but terminated there in ragged tears. In fact all of his clothes had a second hand feel to them. His feet were bare. His skin was dark, clearly African in descent. His hair short, cut close to his scalp.

He looked as if he were waiting for the elevator to come, like it was something he did every day. Maybe it was, I thought. I approached until there was only about three yards between us and then I stopped. Something in my bones told me I should speak, that he was waiting for me to speak.

"Hello," I said feebly. "I'm Steve."

"Good evening sir," he replied respectfully, but there was something else in his voice too. Was it resignation? He said nothing else and did not turn to look at me.

"Why don't you turn around and we can talk?" The boy hesitated and seemed like he was going to turn around at first, but then must have decided against it.

"Please, no sir. I don't want to." I weighed the desire to urge him to turn around again versus letting it be. I decided not to press the issue and followed another and more indirect route.

"What's your name," I heard myself ask the boy as from a distance, as if I were a mere bystander to the event. I chose the question because I felt it was casual, non-threatening. I did not expect the response I received. The boy's head dropped in shame and he began to weep, his shoulders shook visibly.

"I...I can't say, sir. It's not allowed." He wanted to tell me, I could sense it. I believed he feared some consequence from beyond himself. It was probably the dark man, I concluded.

I fought the instinct to rush forward and put an arm around the boy in effort to comfort him. I didn't know how he would react to such a gesture or if I even could touch him. I remembered the little girl had picked up my laptop in the apartment and handed it to me, so I knew they had the ability to interact with and manipulate objects but that did not answer the question of whether or not a physical person could willfully make similar kinds of contact with them. Instead I stayed where I was and kept my efforts at consolation verbal.

"Hey, it's okay," I said softly. "Forget about it. I just thought you wanted to talk with somebody. Or do you come here every night?" The boy steadied himself a bit and wiped the left side of his face.

"No," he said gravely. "We're not supposed to get out but I knew you were coming back this way and I had to get to you before he comes back." The boy's fear was a palpable fog which left a coppery taste in my mouth, almost the taste of blood. My own level of concern raised a notch. This all but confirmed my suspicion about the dark man as the source of the boy's dread.

"Who," I pressed. "You had to get to me before who comes back?" I was desperate for more information about what was happening to me. I saw the truth then that just because I came equipped with a few extra tools that it didn't mean I was better than people without those tools. I could be just as lost as anybody else when it came to matters of life beyond death. Just like there were aspects and properties to the physical world beyond my grasp there were likely to be facets of this other dimension of reality as complex, difficult and outside the reach of my understanding. But because I recognized my possession of those other tools I also saw that I could move forward. I could in some way move from ignorance to understanding.

"I can't tell you," the boy said, this time with real frustration in his voice. I had almost crossed a line. The boy had come to tell me something and I had fumbled about with trivialities. I might as well have commented on the weather.

"Okay," I conceded. "What can you tell me? What is it you want to say?" I waited for the boy to respond but there was only silence. I sensed he didn't want to say what he had come to say. I could also feel that he was reconsidering the whole thing and thinking about running back to wherever he had come from. If I was going to make it anywhere I was going to have to do something fast. Finally I stepped forward. My hand raised and reached forward. I hesitated for only a moment but knew I had to follow through. My hand gently came down and rested on the boy's shoulder. He was there and not there at the same moment and there was something else too. Beneath my hand there was a swirling sensation of ice and fire. I almost ripped my hand away from the paradox but forced myself to keep it there. "It's okay," I said. "You can tell me."

He relented. "If you can help us mister, you better do it quick."

Unsure if I really wanted to know the answer to my next question I held back for a moment. But I was already beyond the point of commitment. Denying myself information at that point would only be a disservice to everyone involved. So I asked, "Why does it have to be quick?"

Again there was a pause from the boy as he steeled himself for what he had to say. "You have to act soon because he's getting stronger now. It's not like he was before; not when he was alive or after he died. He was a very bad man in life and has been a terror to us in death. But he's been different lately, more terrible and stronger. He's been doing things he couldn't before."

"What has he done," I heard myself ask in hushed fear.

"What he did to your book in the hotel room, how he tore it all apart. He couldn't do that before. He brought some of us with him and made us watch so we'd know he was getting stronger. Some of us are scared and want you to go away because they think you started it. None of this started happening until you showed up. Some of us think if you go away he might go back to how he was before." The tremor in his voice told me that he might be one of those who thought that way. Yet here he was, telling me what he didn't want to tell me. Something had convinced him it was important to try, to work against the dark man. I knew exactly what it was that had persuaded them on their present course. It was the little girl. She was an important key to solving the mystery. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"And how he was before," I interjected gently, "that's how you want it to be again? It sounded bad before. Do you really want it to be that way again?"

"It was better than it is now. At least we'll have that much." The cold reality of a person who has given up and accepted a subpar way of life floated on his words. I'd heard it a hundred times from students who weren't making the grade and could see no hope. I didn't accept it from them and I wouldn't accept it from him. A fire awoke in my gut, anger at the acceptance of defeat.

"Listen," I said with some stone in my voice, "that is unacceptable. I am not just going to run away from this guy and neither are you." I felt his tremble become still under my hand. He hadn't expected that.

"Aren't you scared of him, mister?"

"Hell yes I'm scared of him! But that doesn't mean we just let him do whatever he wants to us, now does it?" By his reaction I could tell the thought had never occurred to him. He and the others, however many of them there were, had been oppressed and oppression is designed to throw a wet blanket over the fire of imagination. But oppression also eventually breeds revolution because starving imagination comes to life quickly when fed.

"But he's stronger than we are, isn't he?"

"Is he? I don't know. He's obviously made you think so and he may even believe so himself. But let me ask you this: how many of him is there?"

Confused by the question he slowly replied, "Just one, sir?"

"Yeah, that's right, there's just one. And how many of you are there?" Even standing behind him I watched him wrestle with the question...and gain the upper hand.

"There's more of us, aren't there, sir?" There was now a shard of confidence detectable in him. He began to see the hope of success and to latch onto it.

"There are at least three of us," I replied. "There are you, me and the girl. But I'm willing to bet there're a few more of you by the way you've been talking. But look, it's not enough to be more than him in numbers; we've got to be smarter than him too."

"Okay, sir. Can we do that? Can we be smarter than him?"

"Don't doubt it for a second. His power over you is to make you doubt. If you trust that he can be beat then at least you have a chance." My own confidence was building as I reassured the boy. It was truth I had needed to hear to propel me forward and now it did just that.

"But, sir..." He hesitated, still wrestling with doubt. He finally turned around so I could look at his face. His childish face was marred by terrible trauma. His right eye was gone. It looked like it had been taken out of his head by some careless surgery. The area around the eye was scarred with burned tissue. "You have to know what you're up against. He hurts people. He's good at it and likes to do it. He will try to hurt you."

I confidently returned his stare and tried not to show repulsion at the sight of his damaged face. I stepped forward and held his gaze. "I know. That's why we have to stop him if we can."

The boy looked up as if he heard something. Then he looked back at me with a worried expression on his face. "He's coming! I have to go." I nodded my understanding.

"Get going. And tell the little girl I want to talk to her if she can." This stopped the boy in his tracks as he started to turn away. "What is it?"

"We haven't seen her or heard from her in days. She's the only one who comes and goes as she pleases. The dark man can't stop her...at least he couldn't before. But she's been gone for longer than she's ever been. If you see her tell her we're waiting for her." Then he turned and ran through the closed elevator doors. This was an unwelcome development and I had no idea what to do with it. Then my walkie-talkie crackled to life.

"Are you asleep over there, newbie?" Derek's voice held no irritation but I thought he might be getting impatient. Still stunned by the news of the missing ghost of the little girl it took me a moment to be able to respond. For all the confidence I had been gaining in the discovery of my new psychic tools I found myself completely at a loss to understand what should come next. At last I raised the device to my lips and pressed the call button.

"No, sorry. I, uh, just got a little turned around getting back here." On such short notice I was unable to concoct a better excuse. It was plausible enough, however, and so it would have to do.

"Fine, just push the button when you get there."

I reached forward and pressed the call button for the elevator. The machine's hum filled the corridor and the memory of being trapped returned to me. I shook the memory away and concentrated on the task before me. Even without any more encounters with the restless souls of children it was going to be a long night. "Okay," I reported, "just did it."

"Alright," Derek replied. "Wait for it to come to you and then send it up to the top floor. But remember, don't ride it. Just push the button and then get back out. I don't want to have to rescue you." Again, I was unable to tell if there was joking laced in what the man said or if it was pure deadpan seriousness. In the end it didn't make any difference to me. I had bigger fish to fry.

I waited the short time for it to come down to me. When it finally did the doors opened and I bent in to press the button to send the thing all the way to the top floor. Before I touched the button for the top floor I paused. Inside the box I smelled smoke. I also thought I heard the whisper of sinister laughter. A shiver ran down my spine. I pushed the button and jumped back out of the box. The doors of the elevator closed and it began its ascent back up to worlds unknown.

### Chapter Fifteen

The rest of the night passed without further incident. I even made a few trips in the elevator alone, all of them without getting trapped. Derek finally gave up on finding a problem with the system and declared the best we could do was to keep an eye on it and work on any more problems as they came along. I agreed and we returned to the regular tasks we would have done if we had not been distracted for a few hours.

I was able to empty trash and dust the office furniture with some efficiency while I also devoted a good amount of time giving consideration to the missing spirit of the little girl. Unfortunately I was unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions. The only information I had to go on was a few passing comments from the ghost of the boy in the basement. When I added to that the fact that the subject matter of ghosts was a slippery one at best, I was eventually forced to set the line of thought aside in favor of something more tangible.

My mind wandered until it returned to a subject that had become a more pleasant one for me recently: Katie, the girl from the bookstore. I had promised myself earlier that night that I would go and visit her in the hospital when work was finished and when visiting hours resumed. It was this thought which made the rest of my hours at work pass in a more positive light than the one in which the night began.

At the end of my shift I punched out, passed a few comments back and forth with Derek about the elevator, how I would see him the next night and then I was on my way. The morning Sun was just beginning to wake up in the East and the stars were on their way to bed. I was out of the building, in my car and on my way home before I knew it.

The next few hours were uneventful. I arrived at my apartment then made sure the blinds on my windows were as closed as I could get them and went to bed when most people were just getting up for breakfast. I thought I would have a harder time getting to bed at such an early hour but I was tired enough from the night's events that this was not really a problem. No strange dreams assailed my sleep that morning, or at least none that I would recall. Nor did I wake up to find any uninvited guests from beyond the grave visiting me. Always a plus.

It was early afternoon when I rolled out of bed. Sunlight streamed between the blinds. I put a pot of coffee on and stumbled around for a bit and decided to keep the blinds closed for a while longer. I figured it was better to acclimate to that much light a little bit at a time. It wouldn't be until after I got out of the shower that I noticed the message light on the answering machine blinking.

I rubbed the towel on my hair as I walked to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. I stopped dead in my tracks, however, when I saw the little red light as it flashed on and off. My previous experience with the answering machine gave me pause. Did I really want to push the button? What kind of message waited for me? I dropped the towel onto one of the barstools at the counter and threw caution to the wind. I pushed the little button, cognizant of all the trouble buttons had brought into my life in recent history.

At first there was only a mild static. Then there was the sound of childish, feminine breathing. Then there was the little voice I had heard before. "Steve." I was shocked to hear my name where before there was only the generic, "mister." I leaned closer to the machine to make sure I caught every word.

"Please help, Steve. You need to get to the hospital. I think the bad man knows about the sleeping girl there. Please help, Steve. Come fast. Come fast." The message continued with the sound of the little girl breathing for a handful of seconds more then it ended. I found myself completely unable to move let alone to process what I had just heard. I was paralyzed by fear for Katie. I was not ready to stand up to the dark man, was I? I didn't think so.

When I at last was able to snap out of my paralysis I became a tornado of activity. I threw on clothes as fast as humanly possible, grabbed my keys and ran, ran, ran to the car. My world was a tunnel where anything which was not part of my journey to the hospital simply did not exist. There was only the Nissan I had borrowed from my parents, myself and the road.

Clouds had started to move in, gray and pregnant with the promise of rain. The wind also began to pick up. None of this registered with me except on the most superficial and factual level. I did not perceive at all how the darkness of the afternoon precisely matched my mood as I deftly made my way to my goal, oblivious of speed limits and a stop sign or two.

I pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and exited the vehicle in record speed. As soon as my foot touched pavement fat drops of rain began to fall from the sky as if called down by my entrance into the atmosphere. I was pelted by drop after drop, though I suspect I missed a few that normally would have hit me but for my race.

The hospital doors loomed ahead of me and soon I was upon them. I skidded to a halt before them and reached for the door handle. Before my hand touched the metal I stopped. I was unsure of what was waiting for me inside and needed to catch my breath. But soon I grasped the door handle and pulled it open. I walked inside and passed the reception kiosk to a set of elevators.

I went to the second floor where several coma patients were clustered in one wing devoted to the care for such people. The words of the little girl on the answering machine echoed in the halls of my memory. "The bad man knows about the sleeping girl there." As I passed the various rooms I saw a few women here and there and realized the dark man might have a difficult time finding the right sleeping girl.

I lost a step as I passed one of the rooms, but I couldn't say exactly why. In the room lay a frail old woman, her head tilted to one side on her pillow. There was nothing remarkable that I could decipher about her. So why I had I felt compelled to stop and look into the room? The moment had passed as had the pull I felt. I kept going until I arrived at Katie's room.

My eyes took in the scene: the flowers I had brought remained on the bedside table as had the card. But my heart sank as I looked at the hospital bed which was in disarray...and empty. Had something happened to her? Had he gotten to her after all? I dashed out of the room and ran to the nurse's station.

"Where's Katie," I demanded. The surprised nurse behind the desk just looked at me for a moment, confused. She knew who I was, that I had been a tenant of the hospital myself in the not too distant past and that I had become a regular visitor of Katie. Her look of confusion told me everything I needed to know and fear. Katie hadn't been moved to another area of the hospital for tests or treatment as I had hoped. She was supposed to be safe in her bed at that time.

"You've got a patient missing. You better get people to start looking for her," I said. She still couldn't grasp what I was going on and on about. In emergency moments people don't need detailed instruction they only require the proper motivation to get moving. A good shout will usually do the trick. Impatient, I yelled, "Now!" The nurse finally grasped enough about the situation to jump into action. She picked up the phone and asked for security. I didn't wait around to become part of someone else's solution. I sprinted back in the direction of Katie's room hoping the inspiration would come for what to do next.

I stuck my head in again to make sure there was no corner of the room I had missed the first time. Finding none I exited the room and began running down the hall where I quickly arrived at an intersection. There were three ways I could take; straight ahead, left or right. It was obvious which way was the correct one. I would go to the left because all of the lights were out in that direction. "Dark men prefer to work in the dark," I growled under my breath. Then I bolted in that direction.

The light from behind spilled into the inky blackness ahead of me but soon was diminished with unnatural speed. It should have penetrated farther than it did, had even looked like it went farther from the intersection but once I was in the corridor the dark enveloped me rapidly. It was as if it had been waiting for me. I had a small LED flashlight on my keychain which I employed as soon as the encroaching darkness began to affect my vision. The light blazed to life at once, dimmed momentarily like it was about to give up and then grew brighter again. I had the distinct feeling that the darkness tried to consume it but that the light was aided somehow by another force. I couldn't guess what it was but speculation could wait. Katie needed me immediately.

I shone the light into the first door I came to and found nothing of interest inside the room. I ducked back out and moved to the opposite side of the hall to the next room. It was likewise irrelevant as were the rest of the rooms in the hall. When I came to the end I found myself at another intersection and followed the darkness, this time to the right.

This time the first room I came to was empty, or at least so I thought on first glance. As I pulled away from the room to continue down the hall I had a sense that I should stay and look further. Behind me I heard the sound of the security guards arrive at the nurse's station as it echoed toward me. I didn't have time to go back and lead them to the room. I stepped into the silence of the vacant room and closed the door behind me. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough by then and were aided by the flashlight so I could see enough detail of the room to move with confidence in it. But then my ears began to adjust to the silence enough to know that the room was not entirely without sound.

The hushed noise of ragged breaths reached my ears. I thought at first it came from a closet to my right, but then I noticed the door beyond it leading into a bathroom. Slowly I crept forward; inch by inch I made my way to the door fearful of what I might find on the other side but not in possession of enough cowardice to leave Katie alone with the dark man. When I reached the door my right hand pushed against it with a little pressure. The door was not latched all the way and swung inward making only a minimum of sound on its hinges.

I reached around the corner with my other hand after I transferred the flashlight to my shirt pocket. I found the light switch and flicked it to the on position then I sprang into the room. The overhead light in the bathroom did the same strange flickering thing that my flashlight had done and then it too blazed to full life.

The first thing my eyes comprehended was the dark shape of a man. Though the room was completely lit he looked as if he still stood in near total darkness. I could make out a few bare features of his form. But I did not need to catch the detail of him to know who he was. He turned to me as I rushed in and his eyes became two bright orange flames. He opened his mouth and hissed, smoke spilled out. He ran backward with his burning eyes trained on me all the while and then disappeared through a wall.

I watched the wall where he had vanished for a few seconds longer and then looked into the shower. Huddled against one end was the trembling and hyperventilating form of Katie. The bruises and cuts on her head and arms had started to heal and the natural beauty which had drawn me to her was still as active as it had been on the first day I'd met her. She was undiminished by the fear on display in her wide eyes.

I knelt down by the shower and held my hand out to her. "Shush, it's okay. He's gone now." It occurred to me then that she might not have been able to see the apparition, only know that something was after her. She might have stumbled along blindly in the dark aware only that some unknown assailant pursued her through the dark.

At first she only stared through me, oblivious to my presence. When I could tell she finally registered that I was indeed there I said, "You're safe now. It's going to be okay." Her eyes searched my face and struggled to determine if she recognized me. After a time her lip quivered and tears spilled out of her eyes as she started to cry. She leapt forward and threw her arms around my neck and sobbed. I comforted her as best I could, but felt somewhat inadequate for the task.

When she had calmed down we came apart enough for us to see each other. The silence was not as awkward as I would have expected it to be but the urge to pull her to me and kiss her was strong. I resisted the desire and instead asked her, "Are you going to be okay?"

Her breathing was still somewhat shaky but she managed to nod in response to the question. From her expression I could see that there was a torrent of questions rampaging inside of her but they would have to wait. My priority was to get her back to her room so the doctors could take a look at her. I had a number of questions of my own, like, how had she been awakened from her coma in the first place?

"Can you stand? We've got to get you back to your room." She nodded again. I started to stand and allowed her to use me to steady herself on her feet. She stepped out of the shower and I helped her hobble out of the bathroom, out of the vacant hospital room and back into the hallway which was now lit up again. The darkness had fled with the dark man.

We had to stop twice for Katie to catch her breath and to shake off dizzy spells. We met up with a security guard and the nurse from the nurse's station at the first intersection I had come to when I had gone searching for Katie. They had gone right where I had turned left and were just coming back from that trip. The nurse jogged up to us with an expression of relief on her face.

"You found her. What happened?" The nurse did a cursory examination of Katie and looked back to me for some kind of answer.

"I don't know," I replied easily. I wondered if I had become a little too comfortable making up convenient stories to cover impossible to explain events. "She must have woken up and wandered off. I think she's still a little disoriented." It was a plausible enough story and the nurse and security guard accepted it without further question. The four of us arrived back at Katie's room and I helped her into the bed.

The nurse imposed herself between us and began examining her more thoroughly than she had in the hall. She looked over to the security guard and said, "Go find Doctor Chadwick. Tell him what happened and that we need him here immediately." The guard nodded and left the room.

The nurse continued her examination, asking Katie questions about how she felt, did she want anything and a battery of other such generic questions. The doctor came into the room about five minutes later and picked up where the nurse left off, marking a clipboard as he went. I stood back and tried to remain as invisible as possible. Every once in a while Katie looked over at me for reassurance and I smiled back at her whenever she did. But I could tell she was impatient to talk to me and she wanted us to be alone when she did so.

The doctor changed from asking questions to explaining to her how she had come to be in the hospital in the first place and some of the things she should expect in the coming days. She would have to hang around in the hospital for at least another five days, he said for tests, treatments and good old fashioned precaution. She understood and thanked him, then asked if she could have some time alone with her friend. The doctor looked over at me like he just now noticed I was in the room.

"Sure," he said. "That's fine, but only a few minutes. You need to stay put for a while and rest. The nurse will keep an eye on you and I'll be back in an hour and start the first round of tests. Don't worry, it's relatively easy stuff. We did all the blood work we needed while you were in the coma." She agreed and the doctor left the room followed by the nurse.

When the door closed behind them she looked at me and there was silence. I knew I was going to have to explain what was going on and that might mean I could lose any chance I had with this girl. We were beyond the point of no return which made me nervous but I understood we would have had to come to it at some time.

"The little girl told me you were coming," she said and for a moment I thought I must have heard her incorrectly. On the one hand I simply could not believe it. I was so used to being alone in relation to my secret life of the last few weeks that my mind refused to comprehend the involvement of anyone else. On the other hand I was so desperate for someone else to be able to step into all of it that my heart fought to take hold of what Katie had said and to not let go.

"What did you say?" I had the sensation of weightlessness, that I was completely unanchored to reality. For the first time in a long time there was someone to whom I could actually relate. There was someone who shared my knowledge of things beyond the regular and daily plane of existence.

"You know the little girl, don't you Steve? It was the little girl in the white dress. She told me to tell you that." I looked at her completely dumbfounded. Then she said, "When I was still asleep she came to me. I was scared of her at first. I could tell there was something wrong about her, something dead about her and that burn on her face...," she paused and closed her eyes against the terror she must have felt. Then she continued, "But then she started talking about you. What's going on, Steve? What have I fallen into?"

I felt completely vulnerable, helpless before the question. "I'm so sorry," I said after a long uncomfortable pause. "I wish I could tell you more, but I really don't know much." There was another silence and I ached for her to say something, to say anything at all. But she just looked at me with a mixture of fascination and fear. She was trying to work out in her mind what to make of me.

"It all started happening just before I met you at the bookstore." Then I told her almost everything. I told her about the interview, the apartment, the hotel, the accident, the hospital, the little girl, the boy and the dark man. She just sat and listened. Three times she asked me to go back and flesh the story out a bit more and I did the best I could. She never looked horrified or passed judgment on me through the whole story.

"That thing that chased me, that was your dark man?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm pretty sure that was him. Could you...could you see him?"

She fell silent for a moment and stared into space with narrow, contemplative eyes. Without looking at me she said, "I don't know for sure. I woke up and the room was dark. I thought maybe I saw something move, but I don't feel like I can say for sure. I mostly felt him rather than saw him, I think." Then she looked up at me with a serious gaze. "But I'm pretty sure I heard him."

My blood froze. "You heard him? What did he say?"

"I'm pretty sure he didn't say anything. It was just the sound of breathing but there was something else too. I could smell smoke and it felt very hot." We let that hang between us and looked into each other. I became startled when I felt her reading me like a book and realized I was not alone in the realm of extrasensory experience. I began to read her and thought I could sense that she was different than me in many ways but I could tell that she was as inexperienced as I was with her extra set of mental tools. She broke the silence at last.

"You're in real trouble, aren't you?" I nodded. "That means I'm in trouble too, right?" Again, I nodded.

"Again, I'm sorry for getting you into this," I said pathetically.

She exhaled forcefully but held my gaze. There was another long and uncomfortably silent moment in which I could see her thinking something through. At last she said, "Well, I guess it's better to have someone else when the trouble comes around, isn't it?" The decision had been made, for better or worse. She had decided to throw in her lot with mine. I couldn't have been more relieved and excited. I was also fearful for her safety. But I managed to keep my expression composed and confident.

"Yes," I said. "And I'm glad to finally have someone else who knows about this besides me." I had forgotten to tell her about Trent Blacker and would have to interject him into an explanation of the story later. She smiled at me weakly and leaned back against her pillow. We made a bit of small talk for a while and then I left her to get some rest. She was worried at the prospect of being left alone at first but I convinced her she would be safe for a while and I would make regular visits every day for the rest of her stay in the hospital.

* * *

I made my way out of the hospital where the rain had stopped and the clouds had begun to lighten and disperse. I trotted through the parking lot in a slight daze ruminating on what Katie had shared with me and then entered the car while I absently dug the keys out of my pocket. My hand was halfway to the ignition with the jingling keys and small flashlight when I noticed the message burned onto the steering wheel in small letters. It was a phrase with which I was well acquainted and in this case it also served as a reminder and a warning: "It was a pleasure to burn."

Instead of causing fear, which is what I supposed it was intended to do, it made me angry. I resolved even further in that moment not to be intimidated by the torch-bearing dark man I had seen in the hospital painting. But the event also helped me realize something important. It told me I was going to need some kind of plan in the very near future and I was going to have to discover some way to fight back. "If it was a pleasure to burn," I repeated to the message on the steering wheel, "then I'll just have to see to it that you burn in Hell."

### Chapter Sixteen

The drive back to my apartment was consumed with a flurry of thoughts and memories none of which would hold still long enough for me to concentrate on any of them. The revelation from my visit with Katie in the hospital mixed with my anger from the warning left scorched into the steering wheel now gripped in my white-knuckled hands became a volatile mixture of fragmentary and shoddy thinking. Some balance was brought to this roiling mental mess by the recurrence of my thoughts returning again and again to Katie, now awake. Not only was she awake but she also ushered fresh possibilities into my dead end scene.

It wasn't the kind of relationship I hoped for, not yet at least. However, something strong was cemented between us that had not been there before. She had understood me in a way no one else would be able to, not even the open minded Trent Blacker. I made a mental note to send him an e-mail to give an update on some of the recent events. I decided to leave out the bit about chasing down Katie and the dark man in the hospital. I wanted to tell him that in person if I could. Something in me wanted him to be able to look me in the eye when I told him that story. He would have enough to chew on when I told him about my adventures in the basement and the elevator of Spectra.

When I walked into my apartment the answering machine light blinked, indicating another message. My heart had fallen into the practice of skipping a beat when I saw that. Disregarding inhibition I pressed the button and for once I was greeted with a completely normal message from a fully living human being.

"Hello, Mr. Nicholas," began the officious voice, "my name is Stuart Vox, and I'm one of the lawyers your father retains. I'd like to talk with you about your recent vehicular accident and taking legal action against James Price." I grabbed a piece of scratch paper as he rattled off a few other personal details and bits of bravado. He left his phone number and a good time to contact him. I wrote down the pertinent information and erased the message.

Though the accident itself was never far from my mind on account of Katie and the occasional ache in my left ankle I had almost completely put James Price out of my mind. With the fresh reminder I began to think on the man more and more. It struck me then as it must have before on some level as an awfully large coincidence that my life had almost been snuffed out twice on account of his driving habits. In fact the more I thought on it, the less it felt like a coincidence and the more it felt like a plan, though not of Price's making.

"What further role do you have to play in this, Jimbo?" Little did I know the answer to that question would soon present itself. I looked out the window of my apartment onto the parking lot. Finding no inspiration there I moved into the living room, grabbed my laptop case on the way and landed on the futon.

Having powered up the computer and opened up the e-mail I browsed the inbox and was delighted to find a new e-mail from Trent. The subject line simply read, "Visit." I quickly opened it and read,

Steve,

I've got some time coming up and I'd like to come visit you and talk with you some more about your experiences. Anything new happen since we last communicated? I can't imagine things have been all silent, not the way you've described what has happened to you so far.

Also, with your permission I'd like to include select portions of your case in the curriculum for one of the classes I teach at the school. Give it some thought and get back to me. We can talk about it when we get together.

Trent.

"Good," I said, "I was hoping for a chance to talk with you face to face anyway." I hit the reply button and a fresh e-mail appeared. Into the blank space I typed,

Trent,

It would be great if you came! The sooner the better, in fact. I've got several things I'd like to talk about and, yes, a lot of new things have happened since we last talked. Many of the new things have happened to me at my new job which, you may remember, is where I first saw the little girl. But this time there was an African-American boy (pre-adolescent, I think) and a few scary moments in an elevator. I haven't seen the girl for a while, which worries me but there's a lot more than that, too.

I'd like to wait and tell you most of this when you can be here. I'll think about my case being used in your class and we can talk about what that will look like whenever it is you come. When can you be here? I'd offer for you to stay in my apartment but it's really small and occasionally haunted. Some people find those things a turn-off.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Steve.

I sent the e-mail and began surfing the internet, keeping it fairly random. Mostly I was just trying to kill time. I had no solid plans for the day other than getting some sleep later and returning to work for another shift. But that was hours away. Noon had almost crept upon me but I didn't feel the desire to eat anything just yet. My schedule was giving me some difficulty in adjusting to it.

I began to search historical sites, particularly ones which focused on the city around me. I thought about the dream I had and the burning orphanage. I searched my memory of the dream but I found that I could not recall the name of the orphanage. I knew I had seen the sign, but when I tried the recall the image from the dream the name on the sign was blurred. I tried even harder to remember but it seemed the harder I tried the more the answer eluded me.

I remembered then that I had handwritten an account of the dream and then typed it up for later reference if needed. I went into the documents on the computer and found the file. I opened it and began searching through the lines of text, sure that the name of the orphanage would be there. I skimmed the entire thing and was unable to find it. I went back to the beginning and began to read more slowly, thoroughly. I came to the end of the document empty handed.

I then searched the rest of the apartment and found the handwritten version, but there was not much different and it certainly didn't contain the name of the orphanage. I threw the handwritten papers into the air and stalked back over to where I'd left the computer. I dropped back into the seat and pulled the computer toward me. I did a search on orphanage fires and came up with way too many hits and not enough patience to wade through them all. I refined the search by adding the name of my State.

There were less results but I didn't feel drawn to any of them. I randomly clicked through a few of them but came up with nothing. As far as I gathered there had been ten orphanage fires in the State. That struck me as an inordinately large number, but other than that none of the names of the orphanages resonated within my memory of the dream.

I gave up on that puzzle and closed the computer down. I stood up and looked for something else to distract me. I didn't feel like reading, which usually would have been my drug of choice in a moment like that one. Instead I chose to medicate my afflicted soul with some TV. I turned it on and was treated to an annoying commercial for breakfast cereal. I groaned but didn't feel like fighting my tolerance for such things and dropped onto the futon.

After another few commercials, thankfully not as inane as the first one, I was greeted with an unprecedented surprise. The local news broke into regular programming. This is what snapped my attention to focus.

The female anchor, somber faced, peered out of my television with those eyes that tell you bad news is about to be delivered...but she could contain her excitement because her job required it. She said, matter-of-factly, "Stunning news this afternoon, as James Price the CEO of Right Price Investments has gone missing." A picture of Price appeared in the upper right corner of the screen. It was a head shot, studio quality but it only began to capture the man in all his sleaze.

The anchor continued, "There is some speculation that Price's disappearance may be related to some undisclosed legal issues." I barked a short laugh.

"Legal issues. That's one way to put it." I had half a mind to find the number for the news station, call them and tell them exactly what had happened. Giving it a second thought, however, I decided it would be better to hold off until I could talk to my lawyer. It gave me pause when I realized I had already begun to think of Vox as 'my lawyer' when I hadn't even met him yet. I knew my father had to employ such people from time to time in his business but I never thought I would have to use one myself. I promised myself I would call Vox after the news story concluded. I sighed in frustration. It felt like everything solid in my life was changing.

After a few more pointless details the anchor concluded her story. "A spokesman for Price was tightlipped when contacted and questioned earlier. We'll have more with this story as it develops." The station returned to another set of commercials but I had no patience for them, so I switched the set off. Pondering the ramifications of this new development I felt drawn toward the phone. I needed to call the lawyer and see what was up. As I reached for the receiver it began to ring. I didn't skip a beat this time and snatched it up.

"This is Steve," I said calmly and waited in expectation for the unquiet whispers of the dead in reply. Instead a decidedly alive voice returned through the earpiece.

"Steve, this is Stuart Vox. So, there's been an interesting development in your case." There was a distinct self-satisfaction in his voice. It was a world different from the flat and monotone message he'd left on the machine. I regarded the comment and undergirding sentiment with an odd mixture of engaged repulsion and detached curiosity. Whether it was a psychic impression or not, I can't say, but I also saw in my mind's eye an image of the lawyer, dressed as a Sheriff in the old west sitting atop a horse with a rifle trained on a retreating outlaw. The fleeing figure was certainly Price and if the image had a title it would have been, "I've got you on the run, partner." I smiled a little at the mental picture. I didn't occur to me later that while I had not yet met the man I had already formed a mental picture of his every facial feature. It was a mental picture which would prove accurate down to the minutest detail.

"Let me guess," I started, "Price has disappeared. Presumably he has fled to avoid the impending legal action which was about to seriously cramp his style." There was a heartbeat or two of silence from the other end of the line and I could almost see the man's brow furrow as he sat forward in his expensive chair. This time the satisfaction was mine.

Vox laughed when he realized I must have seen the news story. "Hey, you're pretty good," he kidded. "Do you do carnivals and parties too, oh great all-seeing one?" It was my turn to pause. The man couldn't have known how deep the comment cut near to the bone but that wouldn't stop the bleeding. I noted how sensitive I had become to innocent allusions to extra sensory abilities and promptly stuffed the observation back into its box to be reviewed at a more appropriate time. "I take it they've already run the story on the news? I thought they were supposed to wait until the evening edition. Oh well, I guess self-control isn't exactly in their bag of tricks, is it?" I regained myself enough to respond.

"Yeah, they even broke into regular programming a minute ago. I knew the guy was rich or something but I had no idea he was such a big deal. After the story ended I thought about calling the station and filling them in on the rest of the story just to spite Price but then I figured I'd better wait until I got a chance to talk to you about it." I heard the noise of Vox pondering the idea on the other end of the line as if it hadn't already occurred to him. I couldn't imagine that to be the case. My father would never have retained a shark unimaginative enough to see at least thirty different ways to rip a legal opponent to shreds in a stunningly short amount of time.

"I like the way you think, Steve. But you're probably right to hold off for now. Let me worry about that. If Price shows his stupid face any time soon I'll find a way to have the rumor mill turning so fast it will make him cry like a teenage girl at a Jonas Brothers concert." I found the analogy a curious but appropriate one. I discovered the corner of my lip had even turned up in a smirk ever so slightly at the thought.

"So," I changed the subject, "is this just a courtesy call or is there something else I can do for you, Mr. Vox?" I figured he would want to talk all about the accident and a course of action. While I wasn't hot on the idea of dwelling on the subject at that time due to other obvious concerns I also was aware I would have to tangle with it at some point. Vox surprised me, however, by deflecting us down a different path.

"Well, Steve, I don't like to do my business over the phone. I'd much rather we met face to face. Let's schedule a time when I can come and spend a few hours interviewing you." It seemed more and more people wanted to meet face to face with me recently. I was perfectly fine with that. It was how I preferred things. Digital media and social networks had killed off too much of the art of human interaction as it was. I felt it best to preserve the craft wherever possible.

I reviewed my work schedule for him and we hammered out a solid quarter of a day later in the week to put our heads together. There were a few more exchanged thoughts and I believed the conversation was about to end when Vox became serious and issued the warning he himself would later come to regret when he didn't heed it.

"Steve, before I go I have to tell you something important in advance." He waited until he was sure I was listening.

"Go ahead," I said uncertainly. Something told me I wasn't going to be thrilled with what Vox was about to say. But that same something told me that it was vital that I hear the man out.

"Don't turn your back on this guy," he continued. "I mean that." The flat and business tone from his answering machine message was back. It was a further signal to me that I had better not dismiss what he was about to tell me.

A chill ran down my spine. Some foreboding sense jumped onto my back and refused to be dislodged like an angry monkey looking for a banana it was convinced I had hidden on my person. "How do you mean, Mr. Vox?"

"I mean it in every way imaginable, Steve, and with ever fiber of my being. Men like James Price don't really run away because they're afraid they'll get what's coming to them. They run because they see a tactical advantage in it. Wherever James Price is he isn't hiding. He's scheming and when he shows up again it will be because he believes his scheme is strong enough to make it through and out the other side of whatever we might construct against him. And don't expect him to play nice and fair when he does come out to play and trust me, he will come out to play probably sooner rather than later. He and whoever he assembles for his team will make up the most outrageous and baseless bald-faced lies simply to make you look bad and throw attention off him. And, forgive me for bringing this up, Steve, but that doesn't even include the obvious angle of the manner in which you left your previous career. This is going to get very ugly for you very fast."

"That's an interesting pep talk, Mr. Vox, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. How am I supposed to fight that kind of war?" With a picture like that painted for me I wasn't any longer sure my future was as bright as I had been imagining it to be. It began to feel like much of the ground I had gained was under threat from multiple fronts, none of which I understood particularly well.

"That's the good news, Steve," and thankfully I heard the mirth creep back into his voice because if it hadn't what he said next would have made me very uneasy. It was disturbing enough to hear it in a pleasant tone of voice. I can't imagine hearing it in that cold, heartless one. "You don't have to fight that kind of war. That's where I come in. Price may be a wily little rodent but I'm a world class exterminator. I rub shoulders with people like him and worse every day and they don't scare me one bit. It is my job to root out every last sleazy detail of the lives of men and women like Price and use those things to put my boot on their necks. I am well educated, well experienced and well paid and that makes me dangerous. Do you know why your father likes to keep me around?"

I was thrown off by the question. His speech had me hooked and now with a simple turn he had me feeling like I was put on the witness stand naked and without any answers. He was flexing the muscles of his courtroom prowess for me, but only ever so slightly so I would just begin to understand what he intended to do with Price and anyone else who tried to put me in the hurt locker.

I stammered, "Uh...no, why?"

He paused and I heard the man smile, I swear I actually heard it over the line. "He keeps me around because I have a habit of making people cry when I examine them on the stand. I don't care who it is. It has been powerful CEOs and poor little old ladies. I make a game out of it. For a while I even told some of my clients that if I did not make at least one of the opposition's witnesses cry then I would knock off ten percent of my fees. And do you know what? I have never had to give anyone that discount."

I was thunderstruck. All I could think to ask was, "Are you serious?"

"I am as serious as cancer when it comes to this business, Steve. And here's the thing; I'm not asking you to like me. In fact, I doubt you will. All I'm asking is that you allow me to do what I do best: I want to set James Price up in front of a judge and jury and knock him down so hard he won't want to get back up again. When I'm through with him he'll wish he'd been flipping burgers somewhere for the last ten years instead of trading shares and crashing high end cars. When I'm through with him not only will he wish he never survived the accident but he'll wish he'd never been born."

He chose every word with deadly precision but more importantly he meant them. I saw then that my earlier impression of Vox as being like a vicious shark was likely a fair characterization. But that led me down an entirely unexpected line of thought.

My picture of what my father did with his business had been somewhat two-dimensional up until my phone conversation with Stuart Vox. I always thought of my dad sitting behind his desk, making phone calls, writing e-mails, attending boring meetings and doing a thousand other things which held no significance or interest for me. But then, after seeing the type of person my father employed and held close at hand my view changed dramatically. What kinds of things had he been involved in which had led him to hire the services of the likes of Vox? And if there was one like Vox there were likely to be more. Did I really want to know who my father was behind the closed doors of industry? At that moment I didn't. That was one more thing for which I didn't have the energy. Welcoming Vox into my foreseeable future was going to make life difficult enough. Welcoming my domineering father into my current situation was out of the question.

"Alright, Mr. Vox, I think I see your point. I'll do whatever I can to help you and then I'll try to stay out of your way." I hoped that would be enough to satisfy the lawyer and get him off my phone quickly.

"That sounds like a plan, Steve." The cheerfulness was now fully restored to his voice like he had never said anything which could be construed as a personal threat to anyone. "I'll see you in a few days and we can start figuring out the best way to skin this rat."

We wrapped it all up and shortly after that he was off the phone. But somehow he was still there. As I pondered over the conversation I felt two images surrounding the man competing for supremacy. One image was of vivid colors, almost like living fireworks painted on canvas. It felt like victory. But the other image was dim and gray. It was almost like a hastily sketched impression of a funeral parlor at night with the lights turned off. Both felt simultaneously true and false. It was yet another puzzle which would have to wait.

### Chapter Seventeen

By the following week I felt perfectly at home in the dark green work clothes. The long sleeves were pushed up to my elbows signaling my readiness for whatever the basement next held for me. My ID badge dangled lazily against the breast pocket of the shirt as I passed through the lobby doors. As I turned to the right around the corner to the hall which would take me to the dreaded elevator I nearly skidded in my tracks.

Jan Fenstra stood in my path as if she had been waiting for me. I wanted to dismiss the idea as silly but couldn't. She obviously had not been occupied with anything because her hands were empty and her arms were folded across her chest, businesslike. Neither had she been walking when I almost stumbled into her. She simply stood there stoically like a guardian prepared to bar the path to all passers by in some ancient myth.

"Mr. Nicholas, how are you today?" The triviality of the question was such a contrast to her posture that I was uncertain if I detected some diversion or even a threat buried within it. The work clothes which felt like home a moment before now had a discernable crawly quality. When I first met the woman I had felt like I'd been called into the principal's office. That feeling returned at that moment. I reckoned that I was still affected by my earlier disturbing conversation with my lawyer that I merely transferred part of my discomfort to the next human interaction in which I took part.

"I'm fine, thanks. Is there, uh..." and I stumbled, looking for the next right thing to say. "Is there something I can do for you?" I hoped there wasn't. While I was grateful for the job she had given me I also wanted to keep my head down and be noticed as little as possible. As far as work was concerned I just wanted to keep my head buried in the ground like an ostrich and hope nobody would take notice, dig deeper and decide I was some kind of liability. If Fenstra rethought her decision to hire the ex-school teacher who had been let go from his previous career under shady circumstances I would have to start over again. And that was something I could not stomach. I needed the stability I had in the job.

"No, I just wanted to see how you were getting along in your new job. I haven't had much of a chance to talk with you since your first day. I hope you feel like you're finding your place here with us." My fears had been unfounded and I felt like an idiot. She was just trying to be polite. Once again I was jumping at shadows. I wondered then if I was ever going to be able to relax again after it all blew over. 'If' it ever blows over, not 'when,' I corrected myself.

"I'm doing great," I replied. "It's good work for me. Not too hard, not too easy." I didn't want to talk about it, not because it was uncomfortable but because I'd rather just get to work so I could direct my mind away from some of my other complications.

"But not 'just right,' though, is it?" That one came out of left field and I didn't have the first clue how to catch it. I didn't want to agree and offend her about the job but I also didn't want to disagree with her because she would know I was lying. Instead I tried a risky move. I tried to go around the question with another question.

"Well, how many people think their job is just right for them, even if it really is? It's not what I went to school for, not my chosen career path. But why waste energy on what isn't reality? I prefer to work with what is." When I finished my spiel I saw her smile and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my scheme hadn't gotten past her radar without being noticed. But would she call me on it or would she be generous and let it slide?

"How very psychological of you, Mr. Nicholas. I thought you were an English major?" I waited for her to continue, to string me out a little bit maybe but she didn't. Fenstra apparently wasn't interested in the little power games I had known some of my previous employers to thrive upon. The more I came to know my place of work and the people in it the more I became in a sense enchanted with it. Sure, I could have taken the path of least resistance, thinking of it as 'just my job' clocking in and out and giving it no further thought. But I felt that somehow would have been a grave disservice to the organization and to Fenstra.

"Thanks, I guess. Well, if there's nothing else I can do for you I should probably get downstairs and see what Derek has for me tonight." I started to move away when she held up her hand in a slight but clear gesture for me to stop.

"Hold on a moment, Mr. Nicholas. There is one other thing I wanted to talk with you about." She saw me look in the direction of the elevator and said, "Don't worry about Derek. I told him that I was going to detain you for a moment." There was a pause in her part of our dialogue, but it was barely perceptible. "I wanted to talk with you about the incident in the elevator briefly." Inwardly I groaned but I must have managed to keep the discomfort off my face, or so I believed, because she made no reaction.

"Yeah," I said as if it were a topic of great interest to me. "That was one weird night, let me tell you that. I hope I never have to do that again."

"Yes," She agreed. "A lesser person might have gone home and decided that was enough and gone looking for something else to do. But let me address something you just said. You said it was a 'weird' night. Other than getting trapped in the elevator and climbing up through the shaft—which I don't recommend you repeat if you find yourself in the same position again, it could be something of a liability—was there...anything else which you found to be out of the ordinary?" Her eyes narrowed slightly as she said this last line. She suspected something.

Every internal alarm I had began to blare simultaneously. Why should she ask that question and in that particular manner? For the first time in recent memory it felt like someone besides me was tipping their hand. Yet she still tried to conceal herself and her intent. I grew suspicious of Fenstra and a curious thought formed in my head followed by a second. She's in on it somehow, and then: She's in on what? The mysteries were starting to pile up and I feared I was going to have trouble keeping them separate and straight. At the same time I knew I had to be careful. The more mysteries I collected the more secrets I would have to keep from other people. That was not something I enjoyed. In fact I despised the necessity of it. The best strategy was to go on the offense, stop answering questions and start asking them. It was my turn to put someone else on the spot.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're asking, Ms. Fenstra. Should there have been something else out of the ordinary? Are you looking for something?" Her confidence wavered and there was no hiding it. She had never expected me to ask a question like that. She was clearly not used to subordinates calling her out on her agenda, however subtly.

"Oh, I don't think so," she said dismissively. "It's just that sometimes we've heard reports from some of our custodial crew of hearing things in the building, particularly the elevator and the basement."

"What kind of things?"

"Sounds that seem out of place. For example, one of our former employees claimed to have heard indiscernible voices in the elevator. Another reported hearing the faintest hint of laughter in the basement but could not identify the source." She said all of this nonchalantly as if she dismissed the idea as of no consequence.

"So why exactly are you telling me all this? You're not trying spook the new guy, are you?" I still hoped to avoid the question of whether I had noticed anything strange and the only way I could think to do that was to keep asking my own and hope she would forget hers.

"Steve," she began and I found it odd that she called me by my first name, "sometimes this old place just creaks and it makes new people feel uncomfortable. I try to keep everyone as relaxed as I can. It makes the work go smoother." I could have easily bought the explanation and I would have to make her think I did. In fact, I would have preferred to accept it at face value. It made perfect sense really but something about it did not fully ring true.

"Sure," I said. "But don't worry about me. It will take a little more than few creaks and groans to send me running. Thanks for the pep talk and everything, but I probably should get going. I'm sure I'll see you around."

"Alright Steve, have a good night." Then she left, disappearing around the corner. I waited until I was sure she had exited the building and resumed my journey to the elevator. Once there I entered and began my descent down what I came to think of as the throat of the building.

While in the guts of the machine I tried to think on other things. My mind turned to Katie as I noticed it increasingly tended to do. She had left the hospital and had even been able to return to work at the bookstore which made me glad. She had recovered remarkably since she had awakened from her coma and that gave great encouragement to me. Though I hadn't been able to see her more than once since the incident in the hospital, the time had been more than worth it. As I reflected on this I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth.

My reverie was interrupted by the electronic chime of the elevator announcing my arrival at the basement level and I secreted away the joy I'd felt for a later time. There would be plenty of time for all of that later. I knew. For now there was work to do.

* * *

"Jan didn't scare you out of this place yet, I see." The ever cheerful Derek sat at one of the counters in his subterranean office and used a tiny screwdriver to tinker with a set of glasses. He stopped and slid the glasses onto the bridge of his nose. They were those dark and thick-rimmed Buddy Holly style frames. The other times I had seen the man he had been without glasses and so I assumed he regularly wore contacts. He looked at me with an expression that said, Well what do you think?

"You look pretty hip there pal." He waved a hand to brush off the comment, stood and walked into the time clock room. That reminded me that I still needed to punch in and I followed him. As we walked I tried to steer the conversation away from what Jan had brought up.

"So," I redirected, "what have we got going on tonight, just the usual cleaning and garbage removal?" He disappeared into the third room without answering. I punched in and waited. He returned a few moments later with a pair of shovels.

"Not exactly," he said, handing me one of the shovels. "We'll get to all the usual stuff later, but for right now we've got more important things to do."

"I take it this means we're going outside?" Hope began to grow. I wouldn't mind getting out of the basement and the building. At the very least I figured it could cut down on my chances for unwanted encounters with the restless dead.

"Nope," he said, bursting my bubble, "we're actually staying down here. Follow me." And then we were off tracing yet another path through the seemingly endless corridors. We walked in silence, shovels in hand, two grave diggers in underground catacombs. I thought about asking Derek to draw me a map of the basement sometime but the thought vanished when we rounded the final corner.

We reached a dead end. Where the floor should have been was a concrete shaft which opened onto what appeared to be another level below us. The square hole in the floor was not as wide as the hall itself. There was a ledge all around it about a foot wide. As we neared the opening I could see a ladder attached to the wall leading down. I peered over the edge. It was a good ten feet to the next floor.

"How many floors are there to this place," I asked incredulous. "Jan told me there was only one basement level. Oh, wait is this where the elevator will go if you press the last button?" I recalled Jan saying something about another level that wasn't really another level having to do with the heating system.

"No, that's different and has nothing to do with you. Don't worry, this isn't an entire floor either. There isn't too much beside what you already see. Here, hold onto my shovel while I go down there." He handed me the shovel and I received it from him never taking my eyes off the hole. A sense of urgency gripped me, a sense that there was something down there waiting for me. Did I even want to find out what it was? It didn't matter. There was work to do.

When Derek made it to the bottom I lay down on my stomach and handed the two shovels through the opening to him. I got back up and moved to the ladder. I put my foot down a few spaces and placed it on one of the rungs. I moved my arm out and when my hand grasped the top of the ladder I thought I heard something, the faint sound of childish whispers drift up from the floor below. I paused and Derek must have noticed.

"You alright up there? I know you're not afraid of heights, Tarzan, not after what you pulled the other night." I looked over my shoulder into his expectant face. There was no malice there, only a hint of impatience. I returned my attention to the ladder and began my descent inching farther and farther away from the open freedom of the outside. A few moments later I was down and Derek handed me one of the shovels. Without another word he was off again and I followed.

We weren't on the move for very long, however. We turned two corners and stopped again. This time the concrete floor in front of us did not open into another shaft. Instead the floor before of us was broken up exposing earth beneath. As soon as my eyes fell on the spot I heard the sound of whispers again. My head jerked to the corridor behind us which was of course completely empty. I began to look around for signs of what had made the noise.

There was nothing other than what anyone should have expected to see at the scene. Pieces of the broken floor lay piled off to one side, a few bags of cement mix were stacked against the opposite wall waiting for the digging work to be finished, an old man and a young man stood ready to do the work. That was it. Show's over, nothing to see here folks.

Then the sound of three successive beeps issued from Derek's hip.

"Oh, for crying out loud, what is it now?" He reached into his pocket and lulled out a pager. He looked at the screen and sighed then he looked up at me. "Alright, I'll be back a few minutes. I have to go upstairs and see what Jan wants. You okay down here by yourself for a while?" There was no way I was going to be okay by myself down there. But the feeling that there was something down there for me, something that wanted to be found won out against my mounting fear.

"Are there any elevators down here," I inquired.

"No," he answered cautiously.

"Then yes, I'll be fine." Derek chuckled a little and laid his shovel against the wall. He moved past me and started to go around the corner then stopped.

"Okay, here's what I want you to do. Take your shovel and start digging. We're looking for buried treasure. There's supposed to be a buried electrical conduit down there somewhere. It's our job to dig it up. Don't worry about hitting it with your shovel. The power that would be running through it has been shut off. Just start digging. Can you do that for me, Steve?"

"Sure, no problem," I said and then threw a glance back at the broken earth. When I looked back Derek was gone but I heard his footsteps retreating away as he returned to the ladder. I shrugged this off and walked over to the patch of broken ground. It was only an expanse of dirt with flecks of broken concrete here and there but it held an allure for me, a draw I could not explain.

I put the tip of my shovel in the center of the dirt and placed my foot on the head of the shovel and leaned my weight on it. As it sank into the dirt something happened to me. It was disorienting and at first I was unable to tell what was happening but soon I saw I was moving in near total dark but my legs were not moving. It felt like I was watching a movie that used that hand-held camera technique, only my eyes were the camera. I felt the decisions form for the movements I performed but also understood that it was not really I who made the decisions. They belonged to someone else.

I was in a tunnel and I think I was crawling as fast as I could. I could hear someone or something bigger than I was crawling behind me. It grunted in anger as the distance between us grew longer. That only motivated me to crawl faster.

The tunnel around me was dirt. It looked like it was hand dug. There were no supports to keep the tunnel from collapsing on itself. Small streamers of dirt fell around me, some getting in my face and making it hard for me to see. I do not know how long I had been crawling but it felt like a very long time and I grew very tired. I almost stopped for a rest when behind me the thing that followed me yelled. There were words but I couldn't make them out. I did, however, recognize the voice. The thing chasing after in the tunnel behind me was the dark man. That was enough to convince me not to stop. With renewed vigor I pressed forward.

Soon I came to an opening and sprang through it. There was a small room through the opening of the dirt tunnel though calling it a room is probably a little generous. The floor space was probably no more that sixty-five square feet and the ceiling of the room was probably only six feet above the ground. In the room there was a small mattress on the floor and an oil lantern giving its weak glow of light to the area. There was also an old beat-up steamer trunk against one wall. My heart jumped into my throat when I realized I was not alone in the room.

He was difficult to see at first because of the darkness in which he easily hid. I might not have noticed him at first were it not for the lightly colored baseball bat in his hands. The young black boy I had seen the other night by the elevator stepped into the dim light with the baseball bat raised in front of him. His face was whole. He removed one hand from the handle of the bat and pressed a single finger against his lip and then jerked his thumb in the direction of the entrance to the tunnel. Then he lifted the bat above his head and moved next to the hole and waited. When the dark man stuck his head out of the hole the boy planned to clobber him. I had to give him points for effort if not for creativity.

The boy pointed to the wall behind me. I looked and saw another tunnel was carved there. I looked back at the boy and he motioned for me to get going. I did.

This tunnel was about the size of the other one, maybe a little larger. The man chasing me would be able to move a bit quicker through this tunnel if he made it past the boy with the bat. When he made it past the boy, my mind corrected itself. I knew it as a certainty.

What I witnessed was a replay of the past. I came to realize it was not me who was chased. It was not me who crawled through the tunnels. I watched through the eyes of someone from a long time before.

I was into the tunnel on my hands and knees. I pushed and pressed and made my way into yet another small room. This one was more of a proper room but more like a root cellar in an old house. I moved out of the tunnel too quickly. As my eager feet propelled me forward one caught on something near the mouth of the tunnel and down I went. Something that had been closed in my hand slipped away and fell to the floor alongside of me. I lay on the floor for only a moment and rapidly recovered myself. The floor was dirt and there was a ladder leading up. I got on my hands and knees and began to dig in the ground with one hand. My other hand closed around the something I had dropped, something small and wrapped in dirty cloth.

When the hole was judged deep enough I thrust my hand and its contents into it. Inside the hole there was a small wooden box waiting. This hole had been made before. One hand thrust into the hole and opened the lid of the box. When whatever had been clasped in my hand was deposited in the box in the hole I closed the lid again and then both of my little feminine hands worked to cover it up. I was seeing through the eyes of the little girl.

Through the tunnel I heard the noise of the man yell in pain and anger. Then I heard the boy scream. My eyes fell on the hole in the wall and I waited.

Then I was back, standing on the head of the shovel in the basement of Spectra. I hadn't moved and I couldn't tell how much time had passed. I thought it might have been mere seconds and it might have been hours. After I thought about it for a little bit I ruled out the possibility of the incident lasting hours. Surely Derek would have returned to find me standing motionless above my work and tried to snap me out of it and failing that would have gotten help. It must have only been a few minutes which meant I should carry on with my work and start digging.

I lifted a shovel full of dirt out of the ground and laid it aside. As I began to repeat this process my mind returned to the vision and I started to examine it from as many angles as I could conceive of. In every case my thoughts strayed away from the chase through the tunnels, the boy with the bat and the details of the room. I kept finding myself wondering what it was the girl had closed in her fist that she had buried in the ground.

All the while the hole in front of me grew deeper. I had anticipated hitting the conduit only a few inches below the surface but when my attention had fully returned to the physical work of digging I discovered a gap in the earth about four feet in diameter and two and a half feet down at its deepest point. I pondered this and how some mysteries also seemed to grow in the search. I stood then contemplating whether I should continue digging or if I should stop and wait for Derek to return. Eventually I decided adding at least two more feet to the depth of the project were in order before coming to a halt.

I jumped into the hole and plunged the tip into the dirt again. After only a few more shovels full of dirt I hit something solid. I began to poke around the object searching out the limits of its dimensions. I soon discovered it was not a tube or wire as I had expected. It was not the conduit. It was a smallish object and as I dug past one side of it to get underneath it so I could pull it out easier I hit something else solid. This, I discovered after a few more minutes of working, was the conduit. But what was the other thing?

I knew it could only have been what had drawn me to stay in the lowest level of Spectra by myself. It had been what pulled me there. Forgetting about mining the conduit I worked to free the small object from its earthen prison.

Finally I pulled it out and set it on the edge of the hole which was now about three feet deep. It was a small wooden box. It was the same box from the vision. My heart started to beat faster as my hands reached for the lid of the box. I slowly tipped the top open and looked inside. Resting on the bottom was something only a few inches long and wrapped in a dirty piece of a rag. I pulled it out and unfolded the rag letting the object rest in my left hand.

In the center of my palm rested a tarnished gray piece of metal: it was a skeleton key. My eyes traced its every detail. It was a very plain but old looking thing and I wondered what it might open. I sat entirely transfixed by the little thing. Then I heard footsteps approaching. I began to panic. Derek would turn the corner any second and find me with the key. I knew with a stark certainty I could not let the key fall out of my possession so I thrust it into one of my pockets. I picked up the box and closed the lid but before I could even consider hiding it Derek appeared in the hallway.

"What do you have there?" I looked up at him and knew the cleverest story I could manufacture would be worthless. It would be easier for me if I could put him on the defensive.

"Buried treasure, I guess. It's just an empty box. I found it while I was digging. Do you have any idea what it was doing down there?"

"No," he said seeming not to care. "Did you find the conduit?" A wave of relief washed over me as he showed no interest in what I had found. His line of interest gave me an excuse to set the box aside and move the attention elsewhere. We moved back to dealing with the conduit which consumed another two hours. Then we were ready to return back to the regular basement level to start our routine of cleaning and emptying garbage in the offices.

"Hey Derek, I was wondering if it would be okay if I kept the box?" I didn't know if the box was important but I thought I should probably try to keep it just in case it was.

"What," he asked, confused. Then I hefted the box and he seemed to recall it finally. That was good for me, I thought. If he placed little enough value on it to forget about it then I would more likely end up taking the thing home. "What do you want with that old thing?"

"I just like old stuff like this," I said. He seemed to think about it. He looked at the box and then skeptically at me.

"Sure," he said at last. "Just an old wood box, I guess. Go ahead."

I tucked the box under my arm as we grabbed our shovels and then we began our trek back to the rest of the night's work. But my mind turned again and again to the key hidden in my pocket. I wondered what secrets it would unlock. But most of all I wondered if they would be secrets I wanted to uncover in the first place.

### Chapter Eighteen

Having arrived back at my apartment in the middle of the night after experiencing another energy draining night of work I was more than ready for bed. The small wooden box was deposited on the kitchen counter without a second thought. My work shirt peeled off and dropped onto the floor without any desire to find the dirty laundry basket. I left my undershirt on wanting to stave off the slight cool of the apartment. I didn't even bother to turn the light on. I chose instead to stumble my way across the floor to my futon where I crashed on top of the covers. I laid on my front for a short time, thinking about moving under the blankets but not possessing the will to do so. Then I remembered the treasure in my pocket.

Flipping over onto my back my hand went blindly exploring in my pocket until it reached the key. I pulled it out and held it up in the dark. The moonlight streaming in through the window glinted dully off the old metal. I turned it this way and that hoping for some flash of intuition or inspiration but neither came. It rested mute in my fingers and I wished for a miracle cure so the thing would speak and tell me its story. The longer I waited the heavier my eyes felt. Finally I laid it to rest on the small table beside the bed.

Soon the weight of my eyelids was too much too bear and I felt my body begin to drift weightlessly. As the conscious mind closed for business, the unconscious mind flung wide its doors and lit up strange lights, orange and yellow ones that flickered and danced hectic reels against inky skies. In my dream I woke to Hell set loose on earth.

I stood in the yard of a large burning building. Ash and glowing embers drifted past my face but once again in that slower than reality fashion of dreams and movies. The heat was oppressive, much more so than the last time I had the dream. Then I saw the wooden sign which read, "St. Francis Orphanage," and that idiot feeling you get when you see something you know you should remember without assistance but you just can't slammed into me. I stared at the sign, vowed to recall the name of the place and then to research it when I awoke. Then I turned back to the building and saw the police officers run past me in the dream slowness.

I hesitated in following them in this time. I had done that before and had seen what I needed to see. Why was I having the same dream again unless I was meant to see something different? I decided that meant I should probably find another way to insert myself into the flow of events.

I moved toward the building but this time instead of heading for the front door I veered to the right. The mud of dream slowness pulled at the muscles of my legs and the interminable visual lag which often accompanies it taunted my heart. Frustration welled up in me and I asserted my will against the slog. A scream of effort started in the pit of my being and rose slowly until it escaped my lips as the phrase, "Let me go." Suddenly something must have snapped because my body pitched forward at a rate which felt very normal. I moved in a real-time pace.

I almost stumbled and fell but caught myself and steadied my legs. I looked around as if the cause of the change of pace may have been close at hand, like a man behind a curtain pulling levers and pushing buttons. There was no one but the cops rushing into the building. I took my cue from their sense of urgency and I continued on my path.

As I made my way toward the side of the orphanage I passed a tree and skidded to a halt after I ran passed it. My back was to it for a moment. Then I half turned at the waist to look at it. Had I seen the thing before? I was almost sure I had. But the tree had looked different wherever I had seen it before. I paced over to it and placed my hand on its bark and ran my hand down it. I knew it for sure. But as the waking world and the dreaming world are often incompatible in the area of memory I couldn't fathom why it had produced such a powerful sense of déjà vu. But it certainly had. I swore to myself if I could retain the detail upon waking I would look into it along with the orphanage.

I pushed aside all of that and resumed the journey. Knee-high grass whipped at my legs as I moved toward the back of the building. I could hear the screams of children drifting down from the upper floors. I remembered that soon there would be a police officer who would catch a glimpse of me up there. Could I really be in both places at once? Why not, I thought. I'm asleep in my bed but I'm also here now.

Eventually I happened upon the thing I hoped I would find. The dark shapes of wooden root-cellar doors lay before me in the flickering fire light. There was no lock on the doors, just a simple but sturdy stick wedged under the dual handles. I looked at it and knew someone had improvised the lock to make sure at least that way out would be barred. I bent forward and yanked the stick away and flung it into the inky dark behind me. Then I yanked both doors open into the night. The blackness of the opening in front of me stood in contrast to the windows above which leaked smoke and orange-yellow light. I took a few quick breaths and plunged forward allowing my feet to know where the steps lay, though I had never been down them before.

Immediately I was greeted by an almost eerily silent root cellar. I looked back up the stairs I had just descended and then back to the room ahead of me. I judged the floor of the room to be about thirteen feet or so under ground. It was not a proper basement by any stretch of the imagination. An oil lantern sat on a rough table to my right, its meek light pleading against the hostile darkness of the cellar. Just ahead on the far wall was a ladder leading up to the ground floor level of the house. I had been there before; or rather I had seen the same room through the eyes of someone else, someone who was shorter. It was drafty and cool, an impossible rebellion against the conflagration above.

I wondered momentarily at the draft as it seemed to come from within the room and not from behind me as I would have expected. My survey of the room revealed the source: in the dim light I saw a curtain closed over an area of the wall a little taller and wider than a man. The curtain moved gently forward, away from the wall. Before I moved toward it I knew what I would ultimately find beyond it. I stepped over to the curtain. It was dirty, stained, worn, and threadbare in parts. It was probably an old bed sheet, recycled and reassigned to this duty where no one would have to see it.

When I reached it I drew it aside. Behind the worn cloth were three shelves with potatoes of various sizes. Behind the shelves was a shabbily nailed together false back comprised of unfinished wood planks. I reached out and, taking the unit in both hands, heaved the whole thing aside, not caring that I spilled the contents of the shelves everywhere. There before me was a hand-carved tunnel like I had seen in my earlier waking dream in the basement of Spectra.

Sound drifted out, indiscernible yet unmistakably human in origin. I waited to find if my hearing would adjust and begin to pick out words. Bare moments passed before the faint sound of a yelp of pain drifted out followed by a much louder scream.

My heart leapt into my throat. I knew this. I had seen all of it only hours before. It was the exact same moment in time I had already experienced. The only difference this time was that I came to it from a slightly different piece of geography. I took a few steps back, expecting to see myself tumble out of the tunnel in front of me. But then I recalled how in the former vision I had seen all of it played out for me like a movie as I watched through someone else's eyes. I also remembered how I could not be readily detected in this world of dream-remembrance unless I strongly asserted myself.

Regardless, I thought it would be best if I stayed back from the main action. I moved back until I could feel the press of the wall and then I merely waited for what would come next.

It wasn't long until the little girl I had first seen in the street outside of Spectra sprang from the hole, spilling herself onto the floor and dropping the object she had carried with her on her journey through the tunnels under the house. As I watched I remembered what came next. The little girl recovered herself, began to dig with one hand and retrieved the cloth-wrapped key with the other. Soon she reached the depth of the wooden box buried there and thrust the key and cloth inside and just as quickly started the process of covering it all back up again.

When the girl stood from her task another scream issued from the tunnel. This was a scream of rage rather than pain. The girl jerked her head around toward the sound and then made a run for the ladder which led up to the ground floor. She was about a quarter of the way up when a draft moved through the cellar, blowing out the fire of the lantern. Still, a shaft of pale orange fell through the opening to the floor above, just barely enough to distinguish basic features of things in the cellar. In the next instant a dark shape burst out of the tunnel and planted itself fiercely in the center of the cellar. I knew him, even in the near total darkness of the cellar I knew him. It was the dark man as he was in life.

He saw the girl on the ladder and wasted no time. He lunged forward and every instinct I possessed cried out at me to tackle the man, to stop him before he could reach her. Instead I remained frozen in place, helpless to watch the events of the past unfold before me in living color.

She was about three quarters of the way up the ladder when his hands wrapped around the sides of the thing. He heaved the ladder aside with all his strength and fury and the girl and it careered away from the opening to relative safety and toward the cellar floor. When they landed the ladder clattered against the hard dirt floor and the girl bounced once and rolled to one side. The dark man was instantly on top of her seizing her wrists in his rough hands and shaking her. That was all I could take.

"Hey, tough guy," I shouted at the shadowed shape of his back. "Over here." He stopped his struggle with the girl and whipped his head around to see me. When his eyes settled on me standing against the wall a brief moment of confusion danced across his dimmed features. When comprehension took hold of him his eyes became two fiery lanterns in the darkness of the cellar. Suddenly I could see everything more clearly.

The dark man stood up from his crouch and turned fully toward me. Smoke trickled out and upward from his nostrils and one corner of his sneering mouth. Behind him I saw the girl rise up to her feet. Alarm covered her face like a funeral shroud. Without turning the dark man stiffly back handed the girl and she fell back against the opposite wall with a whimper and then she was silent.

"I thought I told you to stay away," the man growled. "This ain't your world, sonny. It's mine. And here I reign." He lifted his arms straight out from his sides, palms upward like a magician. I watched in shock as every wooden object in the cellar instantly caught fire. He casually walked over to a flaming table and up-ended it. Then planting his foot in the middle of the upside down table top he grasped one of its burning leg and snapped it off. Hefting it like a club and examining its bright blaze he smiled and I noticed he was not singed by the fire. Then he looked back to me and the smile was gone. He was moving, his fiery club raised and drawn back.

When he reached me the club was descending but I still had enough of my wits about me to be out of the way when the table leg completed the deadly distance from the beginning of its arc to the place where my head had been. Dream or no dream there was murder in his eyes. That was enough for me. I danced away to the side on my heels to avoid the blow and then toward the center of the room when the dark man continued his pursuit, swinging the bludgeon with berserk ferocity as he came.

I stopped in the center of the room and waited for him. I am not a fighter. I never have been. My arena has always been in the pages of a book or in front of a classroom. That being said, there is just so much any man can take and just so far he can be pushed without being pushed within himself to give at least a little back. As I stood in the center of that ethereal root cellar of generations past I stood as a man just over that line. Enough was enough.

He charged with both arms fully extended out, one ending in the hand clasping the burning table leg. I calculated as best I could. As the club started to swing inward I sprang forward on one leg to about the middle of his reach. My other leg was cocked back and sprang forward. As the bottom of my foot connected with his stomach I prayed it would have some kind of effect in that strange dreamlike place. My prayer was answered.

He fell backward and the table leg clattered to the floor, no longer on fire. In fact, though it barely registered in my mind at the time, everything in the cellar which had spontaneously combusted a few moments before were now returned to coldness. The dark man was doubled over in pain and a groan escaped his throat.

He looked up. He had not expected that. Obviously. But something told me he had not even imagined it as a possibility. If I were to be completely honest I would have to confess much the same. The move had been one of desperation rather than cool meditation and planning. He stood to his full height and cradled his middle with his left hand. As we looked at each other in that moment I could tell that we both came to roughly the same conclusion. The game had changed somehow and neither of us knew the rules.

"That wasn't part of the script," he croaked as he regarded me warily. Without knowing why I took a brief but threatening step forward. He reciprocated by taking an involuntary and worried step back. We stood silently in the semi-darkness for a moment when a crashing sound above drew our attention. The house was beginning to collapse as its integrity was eaten by the fire.

I looked back at the dark man. He was smiling again. He knew what was coming and I didn't like that one bit.

"Burn with me, sonny." He scooped up the table leg and it was again covered with dancing orange flame. With lightning speed he darted forward and swung it. I barely saw it coming. I feebly raised my left arm to block it. The table leg connected with my forearm and pain screamed through my nerves and exited my mouth.

I staggered away from the danger as best I could but he chased me. As I scrambled backward I tripped over the fallen ladder and began to fall. Before I could complete my descent, however, he reached forward and seized the collar of my under shirt, yanking me up until my face was a bare inch from his.

"I told you. This is my world, sonny. Mine. If you don't like the way I run my house you should have stayed home." Then he began to laugh as he raised the burning club. It started to race toward my skull and I closed my eyes against the certain killing stroke. I heard a thud but felt no crash. I opened one eye to see the surprised expression on his face and the impossible hand of a child which had caught the table leg before it reached its final destination.

I looked behind me and saw the girl standing defiant and determined with her arm outstretched above my head holding the business end of the club. She had caught and stopped its descent.

"It's my world too," she said. The girl ripped the club out of his hand. He dropped me and stepped back three paces shaking his head in fear and disbelief. The girl reeled back and threw the table leg at him. It landed square in the center of his chest and exploded there into a thousand burning splinters. He staggered backward on his heels and finally he fell against the opposite wall and slid down.

I looked up at the girl and she looked down at me. "Quickly," she said as she reached down and placed a hand on my left shoulder, "wake up."

I did.

I was back in my apartment, laid out on the futon. I was covered in sweat and my left arm throbbed. When I looked at it I saw a red mark with a few blisters, almost like severe sunburn which was also encircled by bruised skin. It took my mind a few moments to piece together the whole picture but when it finally did my blood ran cold. What happened to me in the vision affected me even in the physical confines of the here and now.

"Well, what do you know," I heard myself say. "Dreams really do come true."

I got up from the futon and crossed to the bathroom, cradling the arm. I turned the cold water faucet and held the wounded forearm under the stream. When the cold water contacted the affected area I involuntarily sucked air through clenched teeth. It hurt like a beast.

After a minute of this, or probably less because I couldn't endure the pain, I turned the faucet off and wrapped my forearm gingerly in a hand towel. I pulled at the corner of the mirror above the sink and opened the medicine cabinet. My eyes searched for the bottle of painkillers I knew I kept there. Finding the generic bottle I quickly opened it, popped three of the things and swallowed without the benefit of water. I closed the cabinet again and stared at my reflection. My face was ashen.

"Get a hold of yourself, Steve." I lowered myself onto the closed toilet lid and shut my eyes. I'm not sure how much time passed but it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes. Sleep had almost come to me sitting there but no more dreams or living visions.

When I came back to myself I regarded the small room as if it were a foreign land. Nothing could feel as home to me. I was un-tethered to the world. I flexed the muscles in my hurt arm a few times by making a fist and releasing it a few times. Satisfied that I could keep the pain to a minimum I went back out to the main area of my little apartment and picked up my laptop.

Trent had sent a reply to my last e-mail. I don't know what I expected to see when I opened it but I definitely did not expect to find what I did. It simply read, "I'm on my way. Need to talk. Had a bad dream. More when I see you." The only other bit of information was his cell phone number, which I still had from the last time he gave it to me, and his flight and hotel information. He wanted me to pick him up from the airport the next day.

"Uh oh," I said to the emptiness, "I don't like the sound of that." I shot off two obligatory but short lines in response and logged off of my e-mail account. I sat a moment and debated what I should do next. Finally I decided I was finished with the internet. I closed down the computer but with misgivings. I felt like there was something else I was supposed to do, like there was something I needed to run a search for but it refused to come.

I laid back down in the dark and waited. After a long time I was at last able to drift back to sleep. I prayed no more dreams would come and thankfully none did. Just before unconsciousness took me, however, I thought I smelled the faint odor of smoke.

### Chapter Nineteen

I pulled into the short-term parking lot of the airport and let the car I had borrowed from my parents idle for a few minutes. The smell of the coffee I had taken from some pseudo-friendly high school kid behind a drive thru window permeated. A few sips and I was finished with the stuff. It was almost as bad as the waiting.

I knew Trent's flight wouldn't arrive for another quarter of an hour and then there would be the waiting for the plane to empty and finally the inevitable eternity spent waiting for the baggage carousel to dispense his luggage. Apart from all of that airports have never been my favorite places. There was always something off about them. Whenever I had to fly somewhere it always felt like every moment from the time I stepped through the front doors of the place to the time the plane took off from the ground was spent in a place that time had abandoned in frustration. Airports always felt hollow to me in some slippery, unexplainable way. I was in no hurry.

The radio was silent, turned off in favor of the white noise of the engine rumbling its tuneless music, the soundtrack to my meditation on Trent's last e-mail. I wanted very much to know the content of his dream but at the same time I already had a pretty good idea of what I was going to hear from him. Burning buildings and threatening, dark figures had become a common part of my sleeping hours and I knew those things were now spilling over into the lives of people close to me. I knew it like I knew the enveloping rumble of the engine or the bitterness of cheap, stale coffee. Such things don't care if they are acknowledged. They simply carry on moment by moment, zombie slaves dragging the present forward without knowing or caring why.

When it was finally time to go, I shut the car off and stepped out. Not long after that I found myself inside the airport and as close to the terminal as people are permitted without a boarding pass or without being wrestled to the ground by the humorless TSA officers. Despite my problems I was glad to at least not have that job. That was a stroke of mercy, I thought.

Trent was one of the first few passengers to get off. He didn't look happy to see me, just determined and accepting. I tried my best to greet him warmly but we both knew the truth behind the formality. There was a good deal of work ahead of us, rough work.

While we were waiting for his bag to arrive at the carousel I asked, "Do you want me to take you to your hotel first?"

He didn't look at me but looked straight ahead of us. His eyes squinted slightly as he processed through his response. Finally he said, "No. I think I'd feel safer if we went somewhere public and just sat for a while."

"Do you want to get some coffee or something? You look like you could use something." I thought again of the paper cup of bitter black in the car and perked up a bit at the idea of something a little more sophisticated. I saw the idea resonated with Trent, too.

"Yeah," he slowly nodded, "that sounds fine. But I don't want to go somewhere noisy." Then he finally did turn his head to look at me. "I want you to hear everything I have to say as clearly as possible." He held my gaze, waiting for an affirmation.

"Sure thing," I said. "I know a place not too far from my apartment.

The place was one of those little ubiquitous coffee houses. It was early afternoon and there were several people lounging, working on laptops, reading books and chatting with each other, hunched over tables and leaning on elbows. It was the kind of place which lends you a paradoxical sort of privacy out in the open. The sound of the grinder punctuated this every so often making conversation difficult.

Trent sat back in his seat, making little eye contact with me. Instead he watched his fingers fiddle with the paper wrapper of the straw which came with his smoothie. I listened as he relayed the events of his dream.

"It didn't feel like how I thought a dream would be," he said, his brow furrowed in concentration. "But then I never remember my dreams. Everyone does it, or so the experts say, but I've never seen evidence of it." He looked out the picture window and laughed shortly. "I guess that's the remnant of my skepticism talking."

"How did it feel?" I asked although I knew how his answer would come.

He looked at me then. He looked me in the eye. "Like this. Right here, right now. It felt real." He looked away again. I could tell he struggled between wanting to avoid me and to confess everything. This sense came out of more than simple observation. I could feel it was true in my bones. He was afraid. I wasn't about to tell him how real it might have been but he looked at the white bandages wrapped around my left forearm and then up to my face and I saw that he didn't need anyone to tell him.

"What happened in the dream," I prompted.

"I stood in a cave. I think it was a mine or something because the walls were dirt or rock and there were wooden supports every six feet or so. There were old rotted wood crates and a busted out gas lantern against one wall. It smelled musty like a moldy old basement. I heard scuffling sounds in the dark. Not rats, something big, like a person. I turned and in the dim light of the lantern in my hand I saw a black man in tattered clothes. But they weren't modern they were very old, like 'Civil War' old. There was a young boy beside him, a white kid with smudges all over his face and dark clothes. They stopped and we just stared at each other for a few moments. The light in my lantern went out and flickered back on a second later and the man was gone but the boy was still there. Only he wasn't a boy anymore. He was a man, forties, maybe fifties. He was lank and wore a bowler hat. And his eyes..." he paused as if to steel himself for the rest of it.

"Go on," I encouraged as gently as I could but with a sense of urgency pushing me.

"His eyes were fire. I don't mean he looked angry but there was actual fire where his eyes should have been. And he was smiling like a cat would smile at a wounded mouse. And he said, 'You been meddling, Sonny.' And he raised a finger and wagged it at me like I was a kid caught stealing candy from the store."

Trent shivered and I felt sorry for him. I knew what it was like to come face to face with the dark man and knew with unshakeable certainty it would happen again and soon. But I also knew something about the ghostly figure Trent did not. The thing could be beaten at its own game. I had seen it happen. He wasn't unstoppable and that led me to believe he wasn't invincible. Much of the literature I had read suggested ghosts were restless souls and they could be put to rest. The trouble was how to go about it. Trent no doubt had been just as familiar with those ideas but they did him no good as we sat over coffee and a blended ice drink. Hot and cold sat there, just a table top apart.

"Then it became very hot," Trent continued. "His skin began to glow orange and the wood crates just lit up with fire and I could see in the cave clearly, but I didn't care about that. He started to move toward me and I backed away. He just kept coming and all I could do was to stay out of his reach. Eventually I backed into the cave wall. There was nowhere else to go and he got right up in my face. I could smell his breath, it was like smoke, and the heat just poured off him and all I could do was stand there against the wall and sweat." Trent's breathing had increased in speed and I noticed mine had matched his probably out of empathy. He paused to calm himself and catch his breath. Finally he went on.

"He didn't touch me but he could have. Instead he said, 'You stay out of my business Sonny boy. You stay away from your loser friend. You will forget this ever happened or you will find yourself in all kinds of hell. I will personally see to it.' And then I was awake." He stopped and I thought he was done.

"Yeah," I began, "that's pretty scary stuff. Do you think that he..." and then Trent cut me off.

"I wasn't finished," he said with a little more sharpness than I was used to from him, perhaps more than he meant to let loose. He noticed I was taken aback by the interruption and said, "Sorry. You didn't deserve that. But seriously, there's more. I woke up and, yes, I'm really sure I was awake for this next bit. I was sitting up in my bed, drenched in sweat and just starting to feel safe, just starting to think it was all just a dream brought on by my conversations with you. And then I heard him speak. His voice came from the closed door to my room. He said, clear as a bell, 'Remember what I said and I might let you live.' In the dark of my room I looked over to where I knew my door was and there I saw his face, barely lit by the orange glow of the fire in his eyes. Then he opened the door, walked out and slammed the door closed again so hard it knocked a picture off the wall next to it. This was no dream. It happened. It turned on the light and went to the door. The knob was warm to the touch and there was ash on it. Steve, what the hell have I gotten into?"

"Trouble," I replied, "and really I'm so sorry for that. But it's not hopeless. At least I don't think it is."

"I'm all ears when it comes to that. If you can tell me there's a way out of this without being killed then I'm in. What do you have?" The note of hope in his voice was present but tiny. At least it was there. I could work with something that was already there.

I proceeded to tell Trent about the dream I had the previous night, lifting my injured left arm for evidence and effect. I resisted adding commentary on the events, wanting to see what conclusions he would come to on his own. Through the telling he sat in concentration, looking not at me but at the drink in front of him. Occasionally he would slowly swirl the straw in the thing to keep it mixed and probably to give his hands something to do while his mind processed what I told him.

When I came to the part about what the girl had done to stop the dark man from likely killing me he looked up quickly. There was a combination of surprise, triumph and maybe even a hint of dark humor. For the first time a seed of confidence took root in him.

"That is interesting," Trent said. "This little girl, do you know who she is?"

"No," I replied. "I wish I did. But I do get one impression from her: she's different from the others."

"How do you mean?"

"When I first started working at Spectra I had a run in with another ghost in the basement. It was a boy, a black kid who said he knows the girl. He indicated that there were several of them, ghosts I mean, but they hadn't seen the girl in a while which was unusual. He told me she was the only one who could come and go as she pleased. I don't know what that could mean but then she showed up in my dream and saved my skin from the other one. What do you think?"

"Well," he started, "I don't even know where to begin. There have been all kinds of speculation and research, though I use the term loosely, into the so-called supernatural realm. But until we have a way to test that world the way we can test things in ours with verifiable results, how can we even begin to know how it works?" He sat back and I knew he was uncomfortable with that answer. It didn't sit right with me either though I couldn't say why. Then he added, "But how can you test an intangible?"

We were stumped. It was another dead end in a long series of dead ends. If I had a hammer I would have pounded my way through it. I sat back against the seat and threw my head back in exasperation. I rubbed my eyes with my palms and looked out the big window next to us, hoping for inspiration to wander by. Oddly, it was just sitting there waiting to be seen.

My mind didn't register it at first. It was just an empty lot with a company construction sign sitting on it. The sign must have been up for weeks by then and God knows how many times I had driven by it without giving it a first, let alone a second, thought. But there it stood in commercialized mockery of my failure to think through a simple word puzzle. The message the girl had left on my laptop that night, the strange message now came into sharp focus. The message had been a simple repetition. It just read, "pleasehelpuslots3940414243444546" over and over all over the page.

The sign across the street in the empty lot advertised a new restaurant coming to town. The sign read, "Coming Soon! Betty's Best Burger's." Sure, because the world can always use another greasy burger joint, right? But the part that caught my attention wasn't the eminent food establishment. It was the piece of technical information at the bottom right corner of the sign. It simply read, "Commercial lots 180-182." Lots. That was it.

My false assumption about the girl's message on the computer had been that the phrase "please help us lots" was a reflection of poor grammar. I assumed it meant "please give us a lot of help." But it wasn't that at all. The message was, "Please help us" and the "Lots" followed by the numbers indicated a location by revealing which city lots were in question. "Please help us." Where? "Lots 39-46."

"Son of a..." I said out loud.

"What? What is it?"

"I think I just figured something out." Then I told him everything about the message the girl had left on my computer and what I thought it probably meant. He listened intently and nodded as I spoke.

"That sounds like a good lead. Do you have any idea what if anything sits on those lots?"

"No," I said. "Sorry. But there's got to be some kind of way for us to figure that out. A library might have those kinds of records, right?"

"Beats me," he answered. "I've never done this before. But it couldn't hurt to check there first. Should we get going?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Let's do that." And we were on our way. Not long after we were at the help desk at the library asking our questions. The middle aged woman behind the desk looked puzzled as she thought about it.

"Well," she began, "we don't have a section on local records that would have that information but I think there might be something over in our local history section. I'm not sure but there's a very old book nobody ever looks at. I keep meaning to paw through it one of these days but..." She stopped mid sentence and looked confused.

"But 'what'?" Trent asked when she sat silent and stared off into space a moment too long. A feeling came over me that she was going to tell us something very interesting about why she never looked at the book in question. At Trent's question she snapped out of her haze. He and I shared questioning glances and then she continued.

"Oh, sorry about that. The book, yes. I keep meaning to look it over but every time I think of it or see it I get distracted by something else. Funny. I never thought of it much but that seems weird, doesn't it?" It might have seemed weird if I had heard her say that a month earlier but now it was just par for the course. Something didn't want her to look through that book. I imagined that something, or more like some one, didn't want anyone at all to look through the book...which made me want to look thought it even more.

"Can you show us the book?" Trent asked.

"Sure," she said. Standing up and moving from behind her desk, she walked in the direction of the history section and we followed. When we arrived she stopped in her tracks. She turned and looked at us and said, "I'm sorry, I can be so forgetful. What book were we looking for again?" Trent and I shared another glance, both of us now fully aware we were on to something important.

"It was the local history book you thought could help us answer our question about the city lots," I said.

"Oh, yes. That's right." Then, as we resumed our trek to the book she turned to us and said, "You know I've actually been thinking about taking a good solid look at this book for a long time. Almost as long as I've worked here. That's almost thirty years now. But something always seems to come up. Isn't that weird?"

"Yeah," Trent said. "Pretty weird." And it got weirder by the minute.

When she finally found the book she picked it up to hand it to Trent. In mid turn she stopped, turned back and put it back on the shelf. When she looked back at us her face was ashen. She looked sick but also slightly confused.

"Excuse me, sorry I couldn't find the book. Someone else must have picked it up. If you'll excuse me I don't feel well." Then she hurried off in the direction of the ladies room.

We both looked after her then looked at the book sitting innocently enough on the shelf.

"I don't like this at all," Trent said. "I don't know if we should mess with this book." Then I knew whatever had been at work on the librarian for almost thirty years to keep her away from this book was now at work on Trent. Instead of responding to him I moved past him and picked the book from the shelf. I waited for it to start in on me too but nothing happened. I wondered if I was immune to it, maybe because of my psychic talent, or whatever it was called.

"You okay?" He said tentatively.

"Yeah, fine." I opened the front cover and thumbed through the front matter. "There's no card to check it out," I observed. I thought about that for a moment. "Maybe we should just take it?"

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Trent said.

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

I turned to see a man standing behind us in the aisle. He was dressed in very old looking clothes, a suit; something a gentleman might wear...if he were from the late 1800's that is.

Trent leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Are you seeing this too?" I just nodded. The man wore a stern face as he examined us. His eyes fell on the book in my hand and he raised a questioning eyebrow. I could see this was not going to be easy. I stepped forward.

"You're dead. You're a ghost. We need this book and I'm not afraid of you. What ever you've been doing to that poor librarian for the last thirty years won't work on me. You better get out of our way. The children need us and I won't let you get in the way." He stared at me for a long moment.

Finally he said, "The children? You want to help them? I wish you Godspeed in that but you must know the other one will almost certainly defeat you. But Susan may be able to help you." Then he stepped to the side and held his arm out to allow us to pass. Trent moved past him but I stood my ground.

"Who is Susan?" The question fell to the floor and the ghost merely stood and waited for me to pass. "Fine," I said. "We'll do this the hard way. Nothing new there." I walked past him and joined Trent on the way to the door. As we approached the lobby I noticed a painting on the wall. It was of the ghost we just encountered. I flagged down a library aide.

"Excuse me. Who is that?" The young man looked at the painting and then back to me.

"I think that is the founder of the library," He said.

"Okay," I said impatiently, "but what is his name?" I felt very strongly that I needed know.

"Stellan, I think. Yeah, that's right. His name was Stellan Nicholas." Had my heart stopped? I looked back in the direction from which we had just come. I thought I saw someone disappear behind a bookcase but that may have been my eyes and mind playing tricks on me. There was certainly enough of that going on already. When I finally came back to myself and had the presence of mind to speak there was only one thing to say.

"Nicholas? But...That's my name."

### Chapter Twenty

"The otherworldly population of this town is really starting to unnerve me," Trent said sardonically as we sat down in my apartment. We had left the library and headed back to my place. On the way back we had a brief discussion of theories of how the supernatural realm might work. Trent did most of the talking since he had done most of the research. We came to no conclusions. Then, on topic, he added, "How do we know what we're looking for in this thing?"

There was no time to ponder the ramifications of the library Ghost's name. We both knew important keys to solving the larger mystery waited in the pages of the book. I cracked the tome open and laid it on the kitchen counter next to the phone.

"I think I may have to feel this out," I said feeling hokey as the words tumbled from between my teeth. Without waiting for a reply from Trent I flipped through a few of the pages to see if anything jumped out at me. Nothing came. I tried again, this time picking the book up as I slowly allowed the pages to fall one after another. I tried to will something to become clear but it was like fishing in the dark with an invisible net. When you don't know what you're looking for it can be pretty hard to find.

"You getting anything?" There was no hint of frustration in Trent's question, only honest curiosity.

"No," I said, "but it's not like a switch you turn off and on." I flipped pages as I talked. "It really seems to come whenever it..." I didn't have a chance to finish because one page refused to turn. In fact, it stood straight up in the air. I first noticed when I tried to push it down on the opposite side. It might as well have been a brick wall. "I can't turn this page," I said incredulously. Trent reached forward and tested it, finding no different result.

The page fell back into place by itself only after we stopped trying, though the corner curved upward at first as if held by invisible fingers. Before I could read what had been written I saw the picture which dominated the top half of the page. It was of an old building I recognized instantly from the dreams. The caption under the image read, "St. Francis Orphanage." Beneath that a bold headline reported, "Fiery Tragedy in 1911."

"I know that building. It's the one from my dreams. I watched it burn. I was in it as it burned in the first dream. In the second one I was in the root cellar. He was there too, and the little girl." The full details of the dreams flooded back, things I couldn't recall before. I remembered promising myself to run an internet search on the orphanage when I awoke but then somehow I'd forgotten. That no longer mattered. That barrier had now been broken though.

"What does the article say about it?" Trent urged.

"Give me a second," I said. My eyes devoured the words; reading, comprehending, interpreting. When I finished I started over from the beginning but went more slowly this time to make sure there was nothing I missed.

"Okay," I started. "It was an orphanage until 1911 when it burned down. But before that it was a mansion owned by a wealthy businessman. Around the Civil War it was allegedly part of the Underground Railroad and used to smuggle escaped slaves." I remembered something from the dream. "Tunnels!"

Trent threw a puzzled expression. "What?"

"There was a series of crude tunnels underneath the house," I clarified.

"Underground Railroad," Trent confirmed. "Those were probably the same caves from my dream."

"He chased me through them," I said getting more excited over the realization. "Except it wasn't me he chased. I mean, I watched the whole thing like a movie but it was from her point of view. It was a bit of the past, like a rerun on TV."

"What do you think he did down there?" Trent pondered out loud. We both fell silent at this; unsure we wanted to even speculate what that kind of man would scheme and execute in the dark. I thought back over the dream and the chase through the tunnels. There were things I'd seen down there. I couldn't recall them at first.

Then another piece of the puzzle fell into place. I had seen a makeshift bed down there. "I think he lived down there in those tunnels. That was his home, his little base of operations. What kind of a guy lives in a cave under an orphanage and then burns it down?"

"I don't know," Trent retorted, "What kind of guy keeps on going after he dies and terrorizes janitors and college professors while they sleep?"

"Good point," was all I could say to that. I returned my attention to the book. "It says here that arson was the suspected cause of the fire, no surprise there, but there were no witness to how it started. It says that suspicious things had been happening in the neighborhood; break-ins, dead pets, missing valuables, small fires here and there. The police thought they had tracked the culprit to the orphanage and theorized it might have been a miscreant older boy living there. Before they could look into it the place burned down and the problems stopped."

"Okay," Trent said, "so what?"

"I...I have no idea." I looked at the picture of the building again. Something about it bugged me. I remembered the same sensation from the dream. "I know this place. I swear I've been there before...Oh my God." Like a ton of bricks.

"What is it?"

"I have been there," I said with uncanny realization and a flash of intuition. "I've been going there for weeks. That's where the Spectra building is now. I freakin' work there!" There was no persuading me otherwise. It felt more certain to me than the ground beneath my shoes. Before we could explore the ramifications of this new development the phone began to ring. The noise of it startled us both.

I picked it up and the display showed the name and number of the bookstore where Katie worked. As I pulled it to my ear I had the feeling I wasn't going to like what I was about to hear.

"Steve?' She said before I even had a chance to say anything. She was worried, that much I could tell.

"Yeah, Katie, I'm here. Are you okay?"

"No," she responded. "I'm not. There's a man here in the store. I think he wants to hurt me." My blood ran cold and scenarios started to run through my mind. Was it the dark figure from my dreams? I dismissed that idea almost immediately. It didn't feel right. I did, however, feel the presence of danger.

"Okay, I'll be right there. Just hang tight and stay near other people." I closed the book with my free hand and started for the door. Trent needed no explanation and followed.

"Trent, do you have your cell phone with you?" In answer he produced it from his pocket. "What's the number?" He rattled off the number and I gave it to Katie. I hung up the apartment phone and a few moments later Trent's cell rang. He handed it to me and I answered it. "Okay," I said I'm here."

I put the phone on speaker and handed it back to Trent. "I'm here in the apartment with Trent Blacker but we're on our way to you. He knows everything too. I've got you on speaker so we can both hear you. We're leaving the apartment right now." Shortly after that we were in the car and with lightning speed I worked through the process of getting it started, in gear and moving. We jetted back out of the parking space and almost hit another car in the opposite side of the aisle as it was getting ready to back out also. I didn't stop to apologize or even acknowledge my fault. My only concern was how well I was going to be able to break the speed limit.

We rocketed forward down the aisle and took the corner hard making movie sound effect screeching noises with the tires. We were going fast but my heart even more so. I wasn't about to let something happen to the new woman in my life, ghost or no ghost. But something told me this wasn't an incident unrelated to everything else going on.

From the passenger seat Trent tried to counsel Katie into calmness and thankfully it helped a little. We could hear her breathing had slowed and some of the panic had gone out of her voice. But she was still scared and I thought she might have some right to be. Something was going to be waiting for us at the book store and I wondered if perhaps we should be at least a little scared of it too.

"Katie," Trent said, "can you describe him to us so we know what to look for when we get there?"

"He looks a little wild. His hair isn't combed and he has a few days worth of stubble on his face." She paused, probably to take another look at the guy. "He's wearing some pretty nice clothes but they don't look clean. They're all wrinkled. What is this guy's problem?" Some of the panic was back, eating away at her hard won calm.

"Okay," Trent interjected, "why do you think he wants to hurt you?"

"He asked for me."

"What?" I couldn't help the volume of the exclamation. It didn't do anything to help Katie's nerves. I knew I was going to have to apologize later if things settled down.

"I don't know," she came back more worried. "I don't recognize the guy. Roger came to tell me someone was looking for me. I thought it was you and so I came. We both saw each other at the same time. When he spotted me he got this real angry look and started walking fast to me. Something just told me to run so I did. Hurry, I'm hiding in the aisles but I can't keep this up all day."

Then through the phone we heard the angry voice of a man exclaim, "Gotcha!" Katie screamed and must have dropped her phone. We couldn't tell what happened next but we heard the fast footsteps of someone as they ran past the downed phone. Then there was nothing.

I tried to stay calm and told myself that she was in a public enough place and that surely someone would see something bad was going on and try to step in and help. Every time a reassuring thought like this floated to the surface of my mind a thousand questions seemed to arise to discredit it. Would someone who tried to help be in time? Could they be enough?

I pushed down the gas pedal just a bit more. Within five minutes we were screeching into the bookstore parking lot. I ripped the keys out of the ignition and flung the door open. Soon the distance between the entrance and me was closing rapidly. I hadn't bothered to keep track of Trent but knew he wouldn't be far behind. We burst through the door and were greeted by the sight of Roger the store manager squaring off against the man who had been stalking Katie through the aisles. A small band of onlookers had formed and created a half-circle around and through the aisles where the confrontation was taking place. It wasn't long before I recognized the man, disheveled though he was. He was James Price.

"Look," Roger said with a fair amount of authority and steadiness, "we're not interested in trouble. I'm going to have to ask you to leave..." The sentence was interrupted when Price sprang forward and landed a stiff kick in Roger's gut. Once again action triumphed over words. I may have heard something inside the man snap and then he pitched backward to land hard on the floor near my feet. Price began to turn away doubtless to resume his hunt for Katie when suddenly he halted in mid-turn. His body whipped back around and his gaze landed on me. There was a brief moment of puzzlement in his eyes. It was soon replaced by hate.

"Oh, Hell," escaped my lips.

He began to hiss like a snake. This was not the same James Price who confidently sat in a hospital bed near me not long before. He was wild and powerful. This had the fingerprints of the dark man all over it. But that wouldn't matter if Price got his hands around my throat like I feared he wanted to.

Trent stepped in front of me and handed the phone to me.

"I've already dialed 9-1-1. Just tell them what's going on. I'll handle this guy." He said all of this as if it were no big deal. I heard the voice of the dispatcher on the other end of the line and I started rambling through the situation as best I could all the while I kept my eyes on Trent and Price. And all the while Price kept his eyes on me, unconcerned with this new threat walking his direction.

I saw Price step forward and thrust a fist at Trent. To my surprise the college professor easily blocked the punch and swiftly placed one of his own squarely on the left side of Price's jaw. Astonishment took the man and he took a step back. Trent pressed his advantage and threw a left hook catching Price on the opposite side of his jaw. Instead of falling one more step backward Price planted himself, crouched and then sprang forward in an attempt to tackle the other man.

The other man, however, was too quick for this move. He merely stepped out of the way as Price raced past him. Trent seized the back of his collar and yanked backward. A choked sound escaped Price as he came backward and landed in a pile at Trent's feet. He lay motionless for a moment and then scrambled after Trent's feet. Trent danced out of the way and then landed a kick in Price's ribs.

"Give up," Trent ordered. The man looked up at him and grinned as blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. "Don't even think about," Trent advised in a clear warning.

Price didn't give up but neither did he press the attack. Instead he vaulted himself over the bookshelf to his left which barred his path to the entrance. Then he ran like a man possessed, which he probably was, and disappeared through the door. Trent started to follow him but then stopped as he saw Roger laying motionless and groaning on the floor. He knelt beside him and started talking to him gently.

"Holy crap," I said. "Where did that come from?"

Trent looked up at me and then quickly returned his attention to Roger as he groaned again. "I teach a self-defense class on the weekends. I have a little Karate and it does just fine. Did you finish with 9-1-1?" I told him I did and that the police were on their way and paramedics too. I marveled at him as he crouched next to the injured man. I remembered how earlier that day he had been terrified and probably close to returning home and forgetting he had ever seen me. And now there was this completely different representation of the same man. I shook it off and then remembered why we had come to the bookstore in the first place.

"Katie!" I yelled. "Are you okay? He's gone." There was no response. I yelled her name again but still there was nothing. I began to sprint up and down the aisles looking for her but she was nowhere to be found. Worry began to sink its roots in me as I quickly moved up and down the rows upon rows of books. When my heart was about to explode I heard her voice, faint and whispered, but present.

She stepped out from behind a recessed part of the wall where the bathrooms were located. She held a fire extinguisher in here hands and her eyes scanned the room to make sure the menace was gone. She wasn't tearful or terrified but more aware to her environment. The little red canister in her hands was clearly going to be used as a makeshift weapon if necessary. Her knuckles were white around the thing.

"It's all good. He's gone," I said. "Trent ran him off and I don't think he'll be back for more any time soon."

She dropped the fire extinguisher and heaved a sigh of relief. She asked, "Is everyone okay?"

"No," I said, "he attacked Roger." Her face fell when I delivered the news. "He kicked him pretty hard," I continued, "may even have broken one of his ribs. Ambulance is on the way so don't worry about that." She nodded her head and then looked me in the eyes. I walked to her and embraced her in my arms. She hugged me fiercely in return.

"Are you going to be okay?" I said when we parted.

"Yeah, I think so. I'm just going to need a few minutes to calm myself down." She leaned against the wall and looked at me. A shadow of a smile touched her lips. "Thanks for getting here so fast. I'm really glad to see you."

Adopting a joking macho tone I said, "Well you're just lucky I was around. No telling what could have happened."

She smiled, shook her head and said, "I've just been through a tragedy. I don't know if I can take you sense of humor too." We both laughed a little and just like that we were at ease again. "Well," she said, "that was really strange. I still don't have any idea who that guy was." I cleared my throat a little and looked down. "What?" she said. "Do you know him?"

"That was James Price," I said. "That was the guy who ran us both off the road and almost killed us. I don't think that was a coincidence. I also don't think he's doing this by himself." I braced myself for the inevitable question.

"What do you mean?"

"The thing that chased you in the hospital, the ghost, I think he's behind today's festivities. He was trying to get you to get at me." She examined me and seemed to decide I was right.

"Okay, let's say you're right. What are we doing about this thing?"

"We've actually got something new," I said. "Trent and I found something at the library you should take a look at. There's another weird story behind that too, but that will have to wait." She nodded and we headed back to where Trent was tending to Roger. Katie sighed when she saw him. He looked better. He didn't sit up because it hurt too much but he lay on his back on the floor and coughed a few times, each one bringing pain.

While we waited for the ambulance I borrowed Trent's phone and made a call to Stuart Vox and told him about Price. There were a lot of interested and animated questions from the lawyer but I couldn't answer most of them. He didn't seem to care. He was just glad to have a lead...and more importantly something new with which to nail Price to the wall. We exchanged a few more words and the call ended.

Flashing lights now splashed against the glass of the entrance doors and sirens pierced the air. The police and the ambulance had arrived and they would bring questions with them. Smirking, I thought there were already more than enough of those to go around.

### Part III

### All Hell

### Chapter Twenty One

Trent rented a room at a hotel. He said he needed the space and quiet to do some thinking and I was perfectly fine with that. I wanted some time to myself as well so I went back to my apartment after I dropped Trent off and saw Katie back to her place.

We stood outside the door of her apartment and I asked if she wanted me to stay for a while and she smiled. She stepped up close to me, put her hand over my heart and kissed me on the cheek very close to my lips. I wanted to turn my head slightly and kiss her back but I didn't think she wanted that, not yet anyway. "Soon," she said.

"Call me if you need anything," I said.

"I will." She smiled again, winked at me and turned to enter her apartment. When the door closed behind her I lingered a few seconds. In part I guess I was afraid for her. The thought occurred to me that if James Price could find her at her place of work he might be able to find her home. But she made her choice to stay home alone and I couldn't hang out in the car in her driveway all day and night waiting for something bad that might not happen.

So I left.

As I drove home my mind returned to the key I had found in the basement of Spectra. It was yet another cog in the machine that was the mystery of my life at the moment. I knew it was a very important element which would help us solve the mystery, yet what was it for and where? The Spectra building was the clear candidate for the location. It was the place the trouble started and it was likely the place where it would all end. I just hoped my friends and I wouldn't end with it.

No clear answer as to how the key could be used at Spectra presented itself. My thoughts refused to steer away from the key, however, and kept turning its image over and over in my mind. I tried to replace the topic by concentrating on things I drove past. On one street corner there stood a group of people waiting for the crosswalk to change so they could move to the other side and be on their merry way. As I moved beyond them my attention turned to them instinctively and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

Time seemed to slow as my eye was drawn to the group. The whole collection of people stood facing the adjacent street corner, save one. The dark bowler hat gave him away and soon I noticed the glowing orange eyes. As I reflected on this brief encounter later it seemed to me that everything about the manifestation of this spirit was a contrast to the people who stood unaware of him. It was almost like seeing a picture in vibrant living color with a single, central element which had faded.

He watched me the whole way past and sneered, revealing blackened teeth. I noticed a trickle of smoke rise from the corner of his mouth. He wanted to remind me he was always near. As if I could ever forget such a thing.

When my attention returned back to the road ahead of me and time resumed its regular quality I found myself approaching a red light and a busy intersection. I jammed my foot down on the brakes and the car screeched to halt just over the stop line. Horns blared from a few of the vehicles passing in front of me. Had I been two seconds later I would have t-boned a pickup truck. When my heart vacated my throat and returned to my chest I whipped my head around to look at the group now crossing the intersection a ways behind me. There was no visible trace of the malevolent spirit.

"You've got to be smarter than him," I chided myself. I sat back and exhaled a long breath. Sweat had appeared on my brow and my pulse struggled to drop to a normal rate. I wiped the sweat away and tried to lower my pulse by forcing my breathing to a steady, calming rate. It helped a little but now I would wonder if the thing would be waiting around every corner or if he was always present just a step behind, breathing fire down my neck.

By the time I came back to my place I was only moderately on edge. I tossed the keys on the counter right inside the door and they slid a little. The message light on the machine blinked a single time. Another calming breath came in and left and I pressed the button. I was rewarded with the cocky voice of my lawyer.

Stuart said something about an organized manhunt for Price and a mounting pile of evidence against him. All of this was iterated with the glee of a kid on his way to Disneyland for the first time. It was a little unnerving to be in cooperation with someone who was so cheerful about publicly dismantling people, whether said people were irresponsibly self-destructive or not.

He made a few other comments, including a slightly irritated one about me not owning a cell phone, and then rattled off contact information which I didn't need. I would return the call soon but not quite yet. There was something else in the place which demanded my attention. I moved into the apartment and found the old key I had liberated from the basement at work. The artifact was a dull bronze color, tarnished with age and disuse. I hefted the little thing in my hand and then slipped it onto the kitchen counter next to my other set of keys.

I stared at the innocuous little thing pondering about the part it would soon play in the grander scheme of everything else which had come to dominate my existence. I couldn't resist picking it back up for further examination. It was almost as if the thing wanted me to notice something very specific about it. So I picked it up and held it between my thumb and forefinger.

"What is it?" I asked no one. "What do you want me to see here?" It was very plain and un-magical feeling. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it and no visions came to me this time as I held it. There was just...nothing.

That's when it occurred to me that it was precisely this quality, the lack of unique value, which I was supposed to notice. But it wasn't quite that, even. It wasn't that the key was like every other key in that it was only a piece of material, but that it innately lacked something. The key was empty somehow. It needed something else to be complete, to be useful. Which was all well and good of course but I had no clue as to how to change that. All I knew was that I was going to need help.

When I felt I wasn't going to get anything more out of the key I picked up my phone and dialed Vox's number. The administrative assistant who answered connected me to him and soon his voice came over the line. "Mr. Nicholas, good to hear from you," he said with a hint of mischief.

"Yeah," I replied ignoring his tone, "I'm just returning your call."

"And I'm ever-so-glad you did. You and I need to get together and talk about what we're going to do to Mr. Price. I have a few ideas I'd like to run by you. Are you available for dinner tomorrow?"

I told him I could meet for lunch because I had to be to work by six and asked when and where he'd like to meet. He told me he'd take care of the details and get back to me.

"Hey," I said, "I need to talk to you a bit about what happened at the bookstore with Price."

"Can it wait until tomorrow?"

"No," I said, though noncommittally, "I don't think so."

"Okay," he said with some seriousness finally, "go ahead. What's so important?"

"The reason we were at the bookstore was..."

"Who's 'we' exactly?" he cut me off. I could hear him scribbling notes on the other end.

"Myself and a friend, Trent."

"Okay," he paused as he wrote. "'Trent.' Got it. Now, why were you there?" Now he was all business and I got the impression the cocky persona was a façade, a mask he wore firstly to intimidate others and secondly to protect himself. I thought: What complex little things we are sometimes.

I told him about the call we had gotten from Katie. When he asked me who Katie was I took the easy route and just said she was my girlfriend even though I wasn't fully sure of the reality of that. Hopeful but not sure. There was a completely different mystery, one I would probably never solve: Women.

"She said there was someone at the store and she thought he might try to hurt her," I added.

"I'm guessing that 'someone' was one James Price?" When I affirmed his suspicion he said, "This guy just keeps digging himself a deeper hole. I'm not going to have any trouble squeezing tears out of him on the stand." I cleared my throat at this and then felt more than heard the note-taking on the other end of the line cease. In an irritated tone poorly masked with playfulness Vox asked, "You think otherwise, Mr. Nicholas?"

I silently cursed myself for painting myself into a corner like that and with a lawyer, no less. Now I was going to have to find my way out and I didn't think playing the "I'm being tormented by ghosts" card would help me with Vox's kind of personality. But I soon found what felt like a legitimate reason.

"I don't think he's sane."

There was a pause and then, "Okay. How do you mean?"

"I mean I think the guy's crazy. He attacked people in public and by the time we got there the dude was growling and hissing like an animal." Vox contemplated this for a moment before responding. This was clearly a new development for him and one he hadn't even considered.

Finally he said, "That's an interesting piece of information. Do you think it was real or was he faking it?"

The possibility that it was all an act hadn't occurred to me but I dismissed the idea quickly. "No," I said, "I think it was real. I mean the whole display had the ring of truth to it. Price doesn't seem like the creative type if you know what I mean."

Vox laughed. "That's the spirit, Steve. Call'em as you see'em! When they catch this little punk we're gonna put'em on his knees even if it means I personally have to wrap a shock collar around his idiot neck."

"Whatever," I said trying to steer us back on track. Over the rest of the conversation I relayed the remainder of the story checking myself every step of the way to make sure I didn't drop in anything which didn't need to be said to this guy. He stopped me at a few points so he could keep up with his notes and so I could expand on a few details. We wrapped the call in less than twenty minutes and Vox closed by saying he'd call and leave a message about where he wanted to meet me for lunch the next day.

"That's cool. I'll see you tomorrow." I ended the call and looked around the apartment. This was a habit from which I expected I would never recover. Nobody was there besides me but my mind was no more at ease because of this.

I made my way over to the futon and dropped onto it. I had converted it to its couch position and so I sat. I leaned my head back as far as it could go and closed my eyes. I thought about the Spectra building to which I would return in a few hours for my next shift. Now that I knew it sat on the same space that the old St. Francis Orphanage had burned to the ground nearly a century earlier I grew more uncomfortable going back.

I must have worked through a hundred scenarios and excuses I might use to get out of ever going back to work there. None were viable, of course. I was certain I would need to get back in there to bring an end to the madness I had gotten myself into when I interviewed for my job there not long before. Aside from that I really needed the job to keep my head above water.

I opened my eyes and stood at the same time intending to head into the kitchen for something to drink but found I was no longer in my apartment. Instead I stood in a dimly lit hallway. When it registered that I wasn't at home I quickly looked about to get my bearings. The place was familiar and sterile. I was back in the hospital. I looked behind me and saw myself sitting on my futon conveniently relocated to a friendly neighborhood hospital. Then it clicked. I realized I wasn't really in the hospital but neither did I imagine it. I knew I had not fallen asleep in the short amount of time between when I sat down and stood back up. Instead my fully awake mind had been carried there because I was meant to see something.

The hall was deserted and the dim fluorescent lights above flickered in and out of life. Hospital smell filled my nose and the dull colors of the paint assaulted the ramparts of creativity in my mind. Hospitals were second only to airports in the places I avoided whenever I possibly could because they were, in a great twist of irony, places devoid of life.

A wave of recognition washed over me as I came to see where precisely I was in the hospital; I was on the same floor where Katie had rested in a coma for all that time. I thought I had, as in my other dreams, been brought back to another time, this one more recent than the others. Perhaps, I wondered, I had missed something those other times I had come to visit Katie and now I was meant to finally see it.

With my bearings in order I began to move through the corridors in dream slowness in the direction of Katie's room. Moving past the nurse's station I kept my eyes forward, not noticing who was on duty, nor caring to know. It would only register later that the station had been empty as I walked past it.

A movement up ahead caught my attention and then was gone. I quickened my pace to catch up to it, cursing the slow-motion dream effect for hindering my progress. I reached the corner and turned to follow the moving thing or person ahead of me. I was able to catch a better glimpse this time before it disappeared around the next corner...before she disappeared around it. It was the spirit of the little girl. She had stood looking in my direction before she ran off again. She wanted me to see her. She wanted me to follow her.

The lights above dimmed again but this time they went all the way out and I stood in complete darkness for a short moment. I skidded to a halt out of instinct, not wanting to crash blindly into anything. When the lights came back on I saw a shadowy thing pass down the hall ahead of me and felt fear rise up strangely in me. It manifested itself first in my face where heaviness took root. My breath quickened and then a sort of emotion climbed its way from deep in my gut, up my throat to the place behind my eyes and tried to force out tears but I would not let them come.

I started moving again but quickened my pace further, sprinting after the girl expecting to see her standing and waiting around the next corner by Katie's room. As I rounded that corner I saw her farther down the hall than expected. I stopped by Katie's room and looked in the open door. Someone else lay there. I didn't recognize him at all. I looked back to the girl waiting for me to follow. A question began to form on my lips but she beat me to the punch.

"Come see," she said. Her voice was half echo and distortion and it came to me as if from across a great distance. I looked back at the unfamiliar form in the bed and then followed after the girl. From behind I heard a low growl and stopped again and turned. The hall behind me was completely dark. A face briefly appeared in the shadows and was gone again. I thought at first it was the dark ghost who had been stalking me but knew almost instantly that was wrong. I knew the face but my awake-yet-dreaming mind refused to place it correctly. I took a step away from the shadow and the shadow advanced about the same distance. I took a few more steps and the shadow came a few more. I turned to find the little girl. She was gone again and I began to run, to follow after her, turning yet another corner.

This time she stood very close to me, so much so that I was startled by her appearance. Her little frame held ground with confidence and gave no indication of moving away. Her eyes were deep set in dark circles in her fire-scarred face. She looked more exhausted than I had ever seen her before.

I turned to look behind me again and the shadow still came. It tried to advance after me but I noted it receded a bit. When it did so I saw a bit more clearly the person concealed within. He threw his arm around his face and stepped back into the darkness. But in that short amount of time I saw and apprehended knowledge of the man I knew. James Price vanished into the black.

"He serves the bad one now," I heard the little girl say. I turned to look at her. She was resolute. "He can't follow us anymore right now. I stopped him." I turned back to see the blackness move a few feet back into the hall, but then stop. A few growls and angry moans escaped the dark and then settled down. I turned back to the young girl.

"What am I doing here? What do you want me to see?"

She held my gaze for a brief instant and then at last she stepped away from me and turned away and walked down the hall. She stopped next to a door and looked inside then back at me. "Come see. Come."

A flash of psychic understanding came upon me. I was not moving within a time already gone by at the hospital but in a time soon to come. I was looking at the future...a possible future anyway. I knew a number of things might happen en route to cancel it out if I were not careful. I moved forward in this vision to the door and the small girl.

Before I had the chance to reach the door, however, something farther down the hall caught my attention. Three figures stood where they had not been the moment before. Trent, Katie and a man I did not recognize, but whom I knew to be Stuart Vox, stood down the corridor with faces filled with fear. I advanced past the door and the girl and gave no notice to who lay in the room I was meant to see.

While I was still a few yards away from the group a fourth figure stepped into view from between Katie and Trent. It was the dark man in his dirty white shirt, a black vest and his old bowler hat. He locked gazes with me and all the hatred in the world seemed to well up inside me and direct itself down the hall at the evil thing. It must have hit him in some way because he took a step back.

The brief surprise that had been on his face was soon replaced by humor. He began to laugh, soft at first and then it bloomed into a full belly laugh. "You got to watch that temper, sonny," he said and his voice seemed to come at me from all directions. "That anger can burn. We know all about burning." The he craned his neck and addressed the girl behind me. "Don't we darlin'? We know very well how to burn." He raised his hands and the three people behind him spontaneously erupted into bright flames and piercing screams.

I reached out and screamed for them at the top of my lungs and discovered I was back in my apartment, standing in front of my futon with my arm stretched out in front of me and a loud noise issuing out of my mouth. I stopped screaming when I realized I was back. I noticed my legs ached and then saw the time. Hours had passed while I stood in my apartment dreaming and awake and discovering and failing to see. I would have just enough time to get dressed for work and grab something quick to eat from a fast food joint.

I did not want to go back there because I knew what used to stand in its place and the things which once happened there. I also knew I had no choice and that many people, alive and dead, depended on me to get through this. I was committed to my course, like it or not. I got dressed and made sure I had everything I needed for work.

As I walked out the door and headed to the car I got the sense that I had just begun the home stretch but the path ahead was fiery and dangerous. "No time for casting about," I said to myself. "Now it's personal. Now there will be hell to pay."

### Chapter Twenty Two

I returned home from work in the morning and threw my keys across the room where they smacked against the wall and dropped between the wall and the futon. I slammed the door behind me and stalked into the kitchen. The refrigerator door jerked open in my hand and I searched to find something to help me cool off. There was nothing I wanted in there so I slammed the fridge door closed and went into the living room.

I had been fully prepared and, in retrospect I believe, eager in some ways to come face to face with the dead who still haunted the place. Now that I knew the connection between the dreams I'd been having and the spirits I'd encountered I felt I had been let into a great secret and that I had an edge, an advantage. Despite all this nothing happened. It was a completely uneventful shift. No ghosts, no visions, no strange sounds or the smell of smoke.

The irony of this is that I would have given anything just a few weeks earlier to have a guarantee of such an uneventful time at work. Now I was practically bouncing on my feet waiting for something, anything at all to happen and nothing did. Ah, I thought, the times...they are a-changin'.

As often happens with childish outbursts we sooner or later figure out what idiots we are being and settle down to think things through rationally. I found my futon and planted myself there. I closed my eyes and drew in and expelled a few long, cleansing breaths.

"Okay," I announced to the empty apartment, "it's time to be a grownup. What do I do next?" The phone rang startling me out of my newly acquired concentration. "Looks like I answer the phone next."

I went over to the thing and picked it up. "Hello?"

"Steve, this is Trent," the professor's excited voice came over the line. "How are you? Did you make it through work okay?" Trent knew I had to go back and waited for a report. After we had made the discovery about the history of the site upon which the Spectra building sat we speculated about what else might happen there. After all, I had certainly been through enough there to anticipate some kind of activity this late in the game.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Absolutely nothing happened."

"Wait a minute. Nothing?" He sounded almost as disappointed as I was.

"Trust me; nobody's more surprised than me. But listen to this: before I left the apartment I had another dream but this time I was awake when it happened."

I heard him suck in some air. "Really? Tell me about it."

I ran down the whole story relaying every detail I could recall up until the end. I didn't want to tell him the part about himself, Katie and the man I suspected to be Stuart Vox being burned up by the dark man. I also told him how I had seen the ghost standing in a crowd on a street corner as I drove home after I dropped Katie off.

"Whoa," he said after I finished, "that's big. You know it's sort of funny, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well," he continued, "most reports you hear about paranormal activity are centralized around a single location. I mean, you do have some of that here but this guy also seems to get around quite a bit." Then he added, "As does the little girl you talk about, too, right?"

"That's true," I said ponderously, "So what? Is that important do you think?"

"I don't know," Trent said. "It could be. I know this is going to sound weird but maybe we're not dealing with a normal kind of paranormal. Do you know what I mean?"

"If the last month or so of my life is any indication I don't think 'normal' is a category I'm ever going to deal with again. But maybe you're on to something." I thought about the night of work I had and the vision just before it. I wondered then what would happen if these things went unchecked. How far out would they go? How much damage could they do?

"Hey," Trent interrupted my train of thought, "there's something else. I really want to get together with you this afternoon. Are you free for lunch?"

"Sorry," I replied. "I've got a meeting with my dad's lawyer. Long story, don't ask. Anyway I really need to keep the appointment but I'm more than happy to get together with you afterward. Is there anything about it you can tell me now?"

"Well," I heard the hesitation in his voice, "I really want to share it in person and after what you told me about the early incident with your answering machine I'd rather not say anything over the phone. It sounds paranoid, I know, but we don't know who might be listening." I understood his concern and shared it. There were thousands of questions left unanswered and no one to fill us in on them.

"I hear you," I said. "I'll give you a call after I get done with the lawyer." As an after thought I added, "I better give Katie a call too. She needs to be in on this." Trent affirmed the idea, we finished the conversation and said goodbye. I called Katie and left a message for her in which I explained briefly what had happened between the time I dropped her off the day before and the conversation I'd just finished with Trent.

I looked down and noticed there was a message waiting for me on the machine. When I pushed the button the voice of Stuart Vox came out and rattled off the time and place for our meeting. I grabbed paper, pencil and replayed the message so I could be sure to get everything down. When I finished I erased the message.

With that out of the way I took a shower, got dressed and went about the apartment tidying up a bit so it wouldn't look like a total bachelor pad when Trent and Katie came over later. I kept an eye on the clock to make sure I wouldn't work my way through my meeting time with Vox. When the cleaning reached my level of satisfaction I headed for the door. I stopped with my hand on the knob and looked back into the apartment. It felt like something important was missing or out of place.

I checked my pockets and felt for all the essentials: wallet – check. Keys – check. I felt something tell me I wasn't all good in the 'key' department. I pulled out the key chain and saw everything seemingly in place as it always was. Then I remembered the one key I kept separate, the one I unearthed at work. At that moment it seemed very important that I should have that key with me. Beyond that there was no ready explanation. I decided to obey the instinct, retrieved the key and put it on the key chain with the rest of them. It looked quite out of place.

I dropped the mess of metal in my pocket and walked out the door feeling a sense of preparedness. My thoughts turned to the lunch meeting ahead and how I would navigate the difficult waters of talking with the lawyer without letting him in on the big secret. The plan of avoidance didn't sit right with me, however, and I remembered the last vision I had.

In the dim halls of the hospital the dark spirit held three people captive and the more I thought about it the more I became convinced the third was indeed Stuart Vox. I knew once I walked into the restaurant the man I would meet would be the one I had already seen in advance during the vision.

Not too much later across town I pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant I'd never dream of going to on my paycheck. I might have gone with the valet parking but I didn't want to let the keys out of my sight. "It won't kill you to walk the extra thirty feet or so," I said. "And even if it did," I said with plenty of sarcasm, "at least you know you'll have lots of company." I got out of the car and looked at the landscaping and then the shining exterior of the mirrored windows. The stone work was beautiful and a man in uniform stood outside, his only job to open the door. It was an impressive piece of architecture. "Well," I said to myself, "at least he's smart enough to charge my dad well."

Inside was even more stunning. Off to one corner a man played live music on a grand piano and the wait staff wore black and white. They darted about like worker bees, all purpose with no personality. I told myself I could never be comfortable in such a place. I definitely wasn't comfortable in that moment.

A sharp looking woman in deep red stood behind a reservation station appraising me. I wore the same suit I had worn to my job interview at Spectra which I knew was fairly cheap by the standards of such a dining establishment. I moseyed on over to her and told her whom I was to meet for lunch. She consulted her registration book and found Vox's name. She then led me to an empty table which was fine because I was yet a few minutes early. I took my seat and a menu.

When I looked inside the menu I nearly lost my sanity. There were things in there I would never eat for prices I would never pay. There were also several things I wouldn't have eaten even if I were paid to. I knew the lawyer would probably spring for lunch which really meant my dad would get stuck with the bill and so I didn't let the inflated prices bother me too much. My primary concern was to find something palatable meaning something that I wouldn't have eaten on a dare years before when I was still living in a college dorm.

"Classy joint like this at least ought to have a decent prime rib, am I right?" came the voice I only knew from over the phone. I turned in the seat and saw Stuart Vox in all his self-confident glory standing behind me watching me not enjoy the menu. He appeared precisely as he did in the vision I'd had the night before. Here was a man of reason, or so he projected.

"No offense," I said jovially, "and you may not understand this but I ate at this barbeque place in Rochester once and everything else seems to have left me cold after that. But what are you going to do?" By the momentary surprise which registered on his face I guessed not many people gave a come back to his quips. After a nearly imperceptible pause he laughed loudly and shook his head.

"I think I'm going to like working with you, Steve. Stuart Vox," he said in introduction, extending his hand. "Pleased to meet you at last." I stood and accepted his hand, shook it once and sat back down.

"Have a seat, Mr. Vox." He walked to the other side of the small table and sat. He picked up the menu and flipped through it, hardly stopping to read any of the words and unceremoniously tossed the thing onto the table. I raised an eyebrow. "Already know what you're having?"

"Yeah," he said sounding bored, "something red with most of the blood still in it. But what I really want," he said changing the subject, "is to get to the heart of James Price and rip it out with my bare hands. To do all that, Steve, I need you. I need everything you know about the guy. I need everything from the first time you bumped into the guy to the last. But first," he paused and pulled a file out of his black leather bag, "I need you to fill out some boring paperwork." He dropped the folder in front of me and opened it to the first of several pages.

I leafed through the packet of papers overwhelmed. "This is crazy," I said.

"It's a crazy world," Vox said. "Paperwork is the least of it. Bombs going off in libraries is a few clicks above that." I looked up at him from the papers in puzzlement at this. He read the confused expression and said, "You haven't heard?"

"I guess I haven't. What now?" I asked suspiciously. I didn't like where this was going.

"Yeah, some nutcase set off a bomb in one of the libraries across town. Killed someone, one of the librarians I think." I connected the dots instantly. It was the librarian who helped us find the book who was killed. I just knew it. But I didn't want to dwell on that topic now so I allowed the conversation to move on.

"There are some seriously twisted people out there," I said. When I asked him about the packet he went into lawyer mode and explained each page as we went through it. I signed on lines and asked questions. It went on this way for a good long while. During the process we ordered our food, received it and began to eat. He had to explain a couple of things a few different ways before I understood, or at least got the gist of what they were about.

When the paper work was complete we both relaxed a bit.

"So, Steve," Stuart said nonchalantly, "why don't you tell me a bit about yourself? What's new besides the stuff you need me for?" He was looking down at his steak making a valiant effort to cut the thing as he asked this. He was trying to feel me out for something. I wondered if maybe he did this with all of his clients. But maybe he doesn't, I thought. I tried my best to conceal the surge of anxiety which rose up in me. The last thing I needed in my life was one more person to get in on the fun.

"Not much at all. Other than being attacked by wild stock brokers and miraculously surviving car accidents I lead a pretty boring life. I work the late shift as a janitor for a data processing company, I love to read books, I indulge in fast food a bit more often than I probably should and I live in a studio apartment I scrape by to afford. That pretty much sums me up."

Vox listened intently as I talked only looking up occasionally from his steak. He put a bite in his mouth and began to chew. As he did so he looked up, but not directly at me. His eyes squinted a bit and strayed off to the right not seeming to lock on anything specific. He nodded his head as he chewed as if processing and agreeing with what he heard. Finally as he swallowed he looked right in my eyes. The look on his face unsettled me. It must have been the way large predators look at small furry woodland creatures just before they pounce. This was the look he must have leveled at so many people on the stand as he brought down the hammer. This was why my father employed him. In that moment I felt the tiniest amount of sympathy for James Price when he would have to face this man in court. It would not be pretty.

He began, "Those are all very lovely and neatly packaged little deflections. They tell me a lot of boring facts but they tell me very little about you. Don't be offended, Mr. Nicholas..."

"My father is Mr. Nicholas," I interrupted, "you can call me Steve if it's not too much trouble."

He smiled, "Yeah, see, there it is. There you are. We all really come out with just a little help from provocation, don't we? But as I was saying, don't be offended. This is what I do and how I work. All those things you said aren't who you are Steve. Those are all the bars in the cage that's holding you back. I can tell you're hiding something from me, Steve. That's my calling. I read people like you read books. And those aren't what I'm reading from you right now. There's something else going on that's bothering you. And it's not this court case. Whenever you talk about the case you seem fine. But when I ask about how things are in general with your life you get all edgy. Now out with it."

There was clearly no point in pretending like I didn't know what the lawyer was talking about. He was too clever for me to pull the wool over his eyes at this point in the game. I knew that I needed a different strategy.

"Well you're right, Mr. Vox..."

"Mr. Vox is my father. Call me Stuart if you can manage it." He smiled at his counter move.

"Touché," I said. "You're right, Stuart, I am hiding something but it's not something I'm willing to talk about. I'm not under oath and it's not really something that has any bearing on this case of yours."

"Ours. You mean, 'this case of ours'," he corrected me.

"Right. 'Ours.' But no matter how you slice it it's irrelevant to the case." Of course the truth had a very direct bearing on the case but there were all kinds of implications I wasn't ready to start sifting through regarding that.

"One thing you'll learn about me," Vox responded, "is that I'm one very persistent bastard. You can either tell me now or watch me find out somehow. I can't tell you how it will happen. I just seem to have a knack for finding things out. It's your choice." He sat back in his seat and appraised me as a king would appraise a rival army from atop a fortified parapet.

I thought about it. What do I really have to lose by spilling the bare minimum? I wondered.

"To hell with it," I said. "Do you believe in ghosts?" This time Vox was the one who was unprepared.

"Do I what? Is that some kind of metaphor or something?"

"No. It's a clear question. Do you believe in ghosts?" This time I sat and watched him mentally retreat a bit from the conversation probably so he could regroup his thoughts. He sensed some kind of verbal trap though there wasn't one there.

"No, I can't say I do, Steve. Why do you ask?"

"I ask because I'm being haunted by ghosts. Are you happy now?"

"I still don't get it. I can see you're telling me the thing you've been trying to hide but I don't understand what you mean." He was stumped for once. I wondered how many of his fellow lawyers could say they held the distinction of having stumped their colleague in such a fashion any time recently.

"I don't mean anything other than what I'm saying. There are real ghosts and they are really haunting me. It's really messing up my life at the moment, I might add."

"Huh," he said. "There it is." Then he added, "No, I guess I don't believe in ghosts."

"That's fine," I said. "I don't need you to." Then there came an awkward silence. Finally I said, "Do you still want to represent me?'

"Yeah," he said without hesitation. "Why not? I don't have to look behind myself to check for spooks, do I?"

"No," I replied.

"Then we're good. Just don't bring that up in court or we could have some serious problems. Price won't be the only one to look crazy."

"I understand," I said.

"Good." He stood up and grabbed the check. "Look Steve, I don't believe there's a boogie man hiding in anyone's closet. Not unless you count me, of course. By the time this is over Price will wish he were haunted only by ghosts. I'll stay in contact." We exchanged a little more polite conversation and then were both on our way.

* * *

At first the drive home went by smoothly. I hardly took note of anything around me and drove mostly on autopilot as I sometimes do when I'm trying to think through something difficult. At the forefront of my mind was whether or not Stuart was going to drop the ghost issue or not. I figured it would probably come up again. After all, hadn't he appeared in the vision I'd had? I guessed he had some further part to play in the rapidly unfolding drama. Nevertheless it didn't sit right with me that he had become a part of the events.

Every time another person came into my path it was like a weight was added to my shoulders. I felt guilty because I thought it was my problem and I should be the one to deal with it. At the same time there was no way that I could handle the problem on my own and I became more and more grateful for people like Trent and Katie who threw their lots in with mine. This only increased the feeling of guilt. I had to put that cycle out of my mind or I would overwhelm myself with frustration.

I had to get out of the car, to walk out my aggravation. But it was more than that. For some reason I could not identify I felt compelled to stop. I found a coffee shop and pulled in. There was a patio and window people could walk up to and place an order or someone could walk into the place, order and sit down. I decided to use the outside window rather than contain myself inside. Getting boxed in somewhere was the last thing I wanted to do.

About five minutes later I sat alone outside and listened to the traffic whiz by while I sipped steaming mocha. The longer I sat and cleared my mind the better I felt. But the comfort felt more about the time spent in stillness than about ceasing to worry.

I finished the drink after about ten minutes but really just felt compelled to stay a while longer. I let myself relax until I felt it was okay for me to be back on the road and headed home. In all likelihood the strong feeling to wait a while is what saved my life.

I was probably at that coffee shop for solid three-quarters of an hour if not a little more. Finally I stood, disposed of the cup, got back in the car and continued my homeward journey. As soon as I pulled out of the coffee shop parking lot my mind returned to my many concerns.

There were so many things to ponder that I didn't notice the pillar of smoke rising in the air ahead of me as I drew nearer and nearer to home. When I finally did notice my brow drew down at first. "What's up with that?" I wondered out loud. Then there was a great sinking feeling in my gut.

"Uh oh," I said. "That can't be good."

### Chapter Twenty Three

The cloudless blue afternoon sky was marred by the black and gray pillar of smoke as I drove toward home. I wove in and out of the normally paced traffic pushing the car and bending it to my equally driven will. I got a few honks of protest from other drivers but paid them no attention.

I barely made it through a traffic light turning from yellow to red but was rewarded with no satisfaction over the achievement. As I whipped through the intersection time seemed to slow briefly as it always did in my dreams and I thought I heard the faint echo of a man laughing and then I smelled smoke. In the time slowness, everything around me was clear and discernable. I saw faces of other drivers watching me with looks of puzzlement, a car put on its breaks as it just started to move into the same intersection and then I saw him.

He seemed to be sitting and smiling in every car I looked into. The dark man sat and laughed at me knowing what I would find when I returned home.

When I was out of the intersection time snapped back to its regular quality and the sound of honking horns faded and died behind me. Another six blocks down and I would reach the parking lot of my apartment complex. It might as well have been a world away. Impatience ate away at my confidence with every inch.

The police and firemen had the entrance to the parking lot blocked off so I pulled the car up over the curb and onto the empty sidewalk then I got out. There was a crowd made up of residents and other onlookers held at bay by a few police officers. There were police cars and fire engines and all manner of other emergency vehicle littered through the parking lot, all with lights flashing. I ran up to the crowd and could see the building which was burning: mine. From the pattern of the damage I could also tell the fire had specifically started from within my apartment. I recalled seeing the ghost of the dark man sitting in cars I passed on my way there and began to wonder just how far his power could reach. Could he have done this by himself? I thought he might have been able to but I didn't think that he did in this case. I was pretty sure he had help. I knew that probably meant James Price had been there not too long ago.

The fire fighters had the blaze under control but not quite out yet. My mind was numb to rational thought and I was reduced to examining water spray through the air and land hissing in the fire. Fire and smoke and steam mingled together in a twisted tango of heat. My home and possessions were eaten by that heat. All hell had broken loose and grabbed hold of my life. It had sunk its teeth deep into my soul and now my heart screamed in anguish. My mouth kept its silence as I watched, watched, watched.

Time passed, I'm not sure how much. The fire was finally out and only smoke and the burned out husk of an apartment remained to tell the tale. I noticed a hand fall gently on my shoulder and I heard someone speaking to me but all that felt like it was happening somewhere else. The voice continued but I couldn't hear it. Then the hand shook me a little and my lucid mind returned from the foggy place it had been hiding for almost an hour.

"What? Sorry, what did you say?" I said, mumbling at first. It was like waking up from a surreal dream where you weren't sure which part of what you were experiencing was real and what was a fabrication of your sleeping brain.

"I said, 'Are you going to be okay.' Are you hurt?" It was a fire fighter. His face was smudged and sweat dripped from the tip of his nose. His helmet was firmly fixed on his head. His eyes were inquisitive and genuinely compassionate. It took a moment to process the question and then to generate an appropriate answer.

"No, I'm not hurt. But I don't think I'm okay."

"Alright. I understand." I wondered if he really did or not. Then I realized I didn't care even if he did. My apartment and a good portion of the life I had constructed for myself out of the mess of what had happened to me while I was still a teacher was now gone. An important lesson I should have learned by then solidified in my conscience: What I can build someone else can burn. Then the reverse of that thought darkly began to take shape. I shook off that line of thought and focused on the man in front of me.

"Is there something you need from me?"

"Yes," he said, "a few of your neighbors pointed you out to us. We understand you live in that one over there." He pointed to the obvious origin point of the blaze. I looked over at it. It was the blackest, most damaged spot on the building. The whole outer wall was gone and I could see into what had once been my home. I saw there was also significant destruction to the apartment one floor above mine.

"Yeah. That's home, sweet home. Was anybody hurt?"

"Yes," he looked grave, "someone was hurt." Then he said no more about it. "Where were you today, Mr....?" He turned while he was talking and motioned for someone to join us. A police officer trotted over to us.

"Nicholas. Steven Nicholas," I answered his hanging question. "I was at lunch with my lawyer. He can confirm that. Do you want his contact information?"

"Yes, we'll need that," the cop said. "Mr. Nicholas, we need a few moments of your time."

"You got it. What's up?" I was emotionally spent and any concern about everything else that was going on fell limp to the ground.

"Well," he began and exchanged glances with the fire fighter, "it only took us about three seconds to determine the fire was not accidental after we got up close to the scene."

"Okay," I said after the cop didn't continue. "What does that mean?"

"It means this was arson," the fireman interjected. "But there's...there's more you need to know." He stopped too and looked over at the cop. I looked between the two of them and waited for an explanation.

When one didn't come I said, "I'm all ears guys. What have you got?"

The cop took that question. "The door into the building was broken into and not elegantly. But the point of interest is your door. There is a layer of cinderblocks covering it. Then there was a large sheet of plywood covering the cinderblocks. Then there was a series of two-by-fours propping the whole thing against the opposite wall. It seems like someone thought you were in there and they didn't want you to get out." As rational and believable an explanation as it was it didn't ring true.

Price might have been crazy but the description of the rudimentary construction suggested he wasn't entirely wild. I thought it more likely that Price didn't want anyone to get into the apartment to put the fire out. My guess was that upon investigation they were going to find the door leading into my place had also been broken into and that the fire had been started within.

I closed my eyes to think and then I connected the dots further. Vox had told me at lunch about the bomb that had gone off at the library which at the time I had thought was merely about retribution against the librarian who had helped me. I realized the bomb was about more than revenge when I remembered Vox said something about police and firemen. The library was meant to be a diversion. It mobilized the police and the fire fighters in a completely different direction.

"Steve," the cop said, "do you know anyone who might want to do harm to you?"

"Yeah, that's an easy one. And I'm almost positive you will find him behind this," I said pointing to the apartment building. "His name is James Price and you guys are already looking for him," I said to the police officer. Clearly the officer was not prepared to receive such a clear and decisive answer. He squinted his eyes and he moved his head forward a bit as people do when they think they've misheard something.

"Price," he said incredulous. "You mean the missing investments guy? Why would he have it in for you?"

"Why would he go missing when he's about to be investigated," I returned. "You do know what he's under investigation for, don't you officer?"

A little defensively he said, "He was part of a car pile up where someone died."

"No," I corrected a bit more angrily than I normally would have, "he was drunk and caused the accident where someone died. I also happened to be a part of the accident and luckily walked away from it with not more than a sprained ankle. Maybe he has it in for me because I'm a witness." The last part was a bit of clever and convenient imaginative construction, admittedly, but it was also plausible.

Then, still on the creative plausibility angle I added, "He also showed up at my girlfriend's place of work yesterday and tried to do her harm. Look it up. I'm sure there's a police report. It was at the big book store a few miles from here and Price hurt someone else there. I saw the whole thing. Oh, and by the way my girlfriend was in the car wreck, too, although she was not as lucky as I was. She was in a coma for weeks. Maybe he thought she was a witness and went there to shut her up." My voice had steadily risen along with my anger throughout this diatribe until at last I punctuated the last three words by poking my finger in the chest of the officer. I said nothing further about it. I had given them enough to think about.

I turned away from both men at that point and looked at the small crowd which still hung around, most of which were residents, some of whom were being checked out by EMTs. Some of the people noticed the little exchange between me and the police officer and the fireman. When they saw me looking they turned away and pretended not to have heard. All of them, except, for one. At the back of the small crowd a figure lurked and tried to stay hidden. At first I thought it was just another onlooker, a closet-fan of destruction, the kind of person who slows way down when passing a horrific car accident hoping to catch a glimpse of something truly terrible. But the quick glimpse of his face I caught allowed me just enough material for recognition.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," I said in unbelief. "He's right there!" I turned my head to shout at the cop and the fireman and point at the figure. "James Price is right there!"

There was an endless instant where I thought nothing was going to happen at all and time would simply unravel and come to a final and useless conclusion. The moment passed when the figure broke away from the group and ran. Just before he ran he stepped away from the group and I clearly saw Price's face. There was no question whatsoever. It was him. He wanted me to see him. I looked back at the officer and the fireman who looked too stunned by the turn of events to believe it. I grunted in exasperation, turned and ran after the man myself. Soon, however, I heard the rapid footsteps of the other two men running behind me as they joined the chase.

Up ahead with a sizeable head start Price cut across a lawn and turned a corner. With the power of all my anger and all my resolve I pushed myself and ran faster than I'd ever tried before. I may not have won the Gold or Silver but Bronze was definitely a possibility.

As we closed in on the spot where Price had disappeared around the corner I heard the officer shouting into his radio as he ran, "All units in the vicinity of that apartment fire: We have a suspect on eleventh, heading south on foot..." and he described Price as best he could from the short and distant glimpses he'd had. Considering the brevity of his witness I thought he had done reasonably well with the description.

The men who started behind me were now even with me and gaining ground. When we reached the spot where Price had turned the corner the cop was a solid meter ahead of me and the fireman was close behind him. The burn in my lungs began small but in short order blossomed into a fire of its own. As the pain intensified I thought: This is why I'm supposed to be teaching literature and not doing track and field.

When I rounded the corner I saw Price in the distance...far in the distance. While the pursuit started with roughly the space of a block between us he was now more than three blocks ahead. As I watched he seemed to get smaller and smaller. I knew there was no hope at all of the other two men catching up to him before he was gone for good, or at least gone until the next time. I didn't know how the man could be that far ahead but I guessed it was through no natural talent of his own. Something supernatural drove him.

He rounded another corner ahead and soon after that a car blazed wildly the other direction, tires screeching something fierce. It was too far for me to see anything about the vehicle other than its general size and color. But the police officer was quick and apparently sharp-eyed. He gave a short description of the vehicle over the radio after he skidded to a halt. The fireman stopped too and I soon joined them.

"You sure that was Price," the officer asked.

Out of breath I waited a few moments to answer. "Yeah," I gasped heavily, "that was...him...for sure."

The other two men who were not as out of breath as I was but who were still visibly winded looked at each other and shook their heads. The fireman asked, "That guy is a stock broker?"

I just nodded my head, still trying to settle my breathing.

"He's pretty fast for a desk jockey," he said. The three of us chuckled a bit over that one. I turned when I heard more footsteps run up behind us. At the corner, about a block or more behind us a few good Samaritans had joined the chase but were evidently more out of shape than I. The policeman huddled the three of us together and we talked about heading back to the apartment. We all agreed and headed that way through the small group which had followed us.

When we got back to the scene of the crime the two men sat with me in the back of an unused EMT vehicle for lack of private meeting space. I sat on a stretcher and they stood leaning against the wall of the big truck. They both asked me a series of questions regarding the apartment and James Price, thankfully none of which were sensitive to the other situation. By the time we wrapped up that discussion there was another police officer waiting to talk with the one I was with.

"Hey Bill, we got a car parked over on the sidewalk here and we can't find the owner. You want me to have it towed?"

"Sorry, that's me," I said apologetically. "I didn't have anywhere to park it and I was in a hurry to find out what happened. I'll move it here in a minute."

"Just leave it alone Mark," the officer said authoritatively. "He's just lost an apartment and doesn't need an impounded car to put the cherry on top of his day."

"You got it," the other man said and walked away.

"Do you have family here? Or do you have anyone you can stay with for a while," the fireman asked.

"No," I said, "I don't." I hadn't even thought of that yet. Where was I going to stay? I couldn't stay with Trent and it would be too awkward to stay with Katie. I couldn't stand the idea of leaving town to go bunk with my parents. There was too much to do in the city and we had made so much progress uncovering the mystery surrounding everything that had been going on. No, I had to stay in the city. There was no question about it. The only question was where I would sleep.

"Okay. Dale's hanging around here somewhere. He might be able to hook you up," the fireman said.

"Who's Dale?" I asked.

"Dale's a good friend who works for the American Red Cross. He sets displaced people up with hotel rooms for a few days after something like this. I'll go find him." Then the fireman left to go locate his friend. I stood up and arched my back slightly and spread out my arms allowing the muscles to stretch.

"Alright," I said. "I better go see if I can find this Dale, too." I started to exit the truck when the cop put his hand firmly on my arm to stop me.

"Just wait a second," he said. "I want to say something."

I was going to make some excuse and dismiss myself from any further pep talks but when I looked back at him and he was all business. I thought I had better listen to him. "Okay, go ahead."

"You're not alone Steve." Then he didn't say anything else.

"Okay," I said feeling supremely un-helped. "Thanks. Have a good day." I turned again to leave and he spoke again, this time in a tone of voice people use when they're sharing an important confidence.

"No," he said, "I mean you're not alone." I turned and looked at his face which bore an expression which meant to say, 'do you get it?' I nodded to him unsure if he was talking about what I was afraid he might be talking about. What he said next confirmed it all. "Get the key to Susan." This time I was shocked and nearly speechless.

"What did you just say to me?" Instead of answering my question the officer walked past me slowly, keeping his eyes locked on mine the whole time. "Wait," I said. "Who's Susan?" He hopped down out of the EMT truck and looked back up at me. He raised two fingers to his brow in a salute and then walked away. "Who is Susan?" I shouted once after him but he pretended not to hear and kept walking until he was out of sight.

I stood in the back of the truck for a while trying to puzzle together what the officer might have meant. Nothing came of course and shortly thereafter the fireman returned with Dale. Dale and I chatted for a while and we worked out where I would be staying. I named the hotel Trent was staying at, hopeful that I might be able stay in close proximity to him, but Dale said that hotel was a little pricey and they didn't like to donate space to the Red Cross. The hotel the Red Cross was using for this situation was not at all far from Trent's and I was completely fine with that.

When all that was squared away I got into my father's car which I'd parked on the sidewalk and started driving. I wasn't headed for the hotel, however. There were more important things to do. There was someone I needed to see.

### Chapter Twenty Four

I arrived at Katie's place shortly after I left the remains of mine. I sat in the parked car for a few minutes thinking about what I was going to say about everything else that had happened and wondering how she was going to take it. In the end I decided I shouldn't over-think it and that I should just go and talk with her. I got out and headed for the door.

She opened it and at first there was happiness on her face. Encouragement swelled up in my heart that she was glad to see me. Her gladness was quickly replaced with concern. She can already read me, I thought. I don't suppose I was a hard read at that point, however. That day had been long and more trying than any day thus far for months. Some of that was bound to show up on my face.

"Hey," she said, "what's going on Steve? You look like hell."

"I should," I replied. "My apartment burned down today."

She looked perplexed. I could see she didn't know if I was trying to make some awkward joke-gone-wrong or if I was serious. Another moment's examination of me confirmed the latter. "Oh, God, are you hurt?"

"Well..." I began but could say no more because this is where a flood of emotion I didn't know was coming showed up. Tears formed at the bottom of my eyes and she wasted no time coming to me. She wrapped one arm behind me and pulled my head down to her shoulder. As so often is the case, comfort paradoxically invited the pain to come out of hiding. The pain which had been at flood stage for so long and kept at bay by great stone walls of resolve rampaged loose and free. It wanted out and there was no stopping it now.

We stood there for God knows how long, the torn and the mender meeting at last. She comforted and affirmed and was ultimately there. There was no mystery as to whether I was for once at the right place at the right time. Despite the hell and the sheer weight of the emotional assault I found healing in those arms. When she pulled back from the embrace a little she looked into my eyes and smiled. Then she said, "You going to make it for a while?"

I managed a weak smile in return. "Yeah," I said, "I'll live...ish." She smiled again at this and put a hand on my cheek and rubbed away a tear with her thumb. The hand slipped down and grabbed my hand and then she led me inside. The door closed and I walked into a modest apartment decorated in a not overly feminine fashion. As is often the case, my eye was drawn to the book case to discern the kind of reader I had on my hands. But on this occasion I decided to leave that analysis for later.

Katie released my hand and headed into the kitchen. "Make yourself comfortable. I'm just going to make some coffee for us. Do you want some?"

"Yeah, that would be great. Can I use your phone? I really need to make some calls to let my family know what happened and that I'm okay." She leaned around the corner so I could see her. She was putting her hair up behind her head and smiled again for me.

"Sure. You bet. Phone's in here." Then she disappeared back into the kitchen. I gladly followed her lead.

I found her cell phone sitting on the counter and picked it up. "This one?" I asked holding it up.

"The one and only," she replied.

I walked back into the living space and dialed the phone on the way. My first call was to my parents who understandably flipped when I told them. I spent thirty minutes or so assuring them I was fine and that I didn't need to come over and stay with them. I omitted the part about James Price being the one to start the fire until I could talk to my father only. Toward the end of the call I had dad take the phone off speaker on his end so I could talk to him about telling Stuart Vox the rest of the story. I knew I could count on him not to divulge the information to my mother who would have gone completely off the deep end had she known.

I finished the call and Katie came out of the kitchen where she couldn't have helped but to overhear the conversation and said, "So the coffee's ready. I don't know how you take it but I have creamer and stuff if you want all set out near the pot."

"Sounds great," I said and headed for the kitchen. She put a hand on my upper arm to stop me.

"Just a sec," she said. "James Price. I heard you mention his name to your dad on the phone. He's the man who came after me in the bookstore yesterday."

"He's also the man who put you in a coma. He caused the accident," I added.

"Right, I knew that," she nodded. "What I don't understand is why he set your place on fire. Also, are you sure it was him?"

"Oh, I'm sure he did it. I saw him there after the fire was put out. A cop, a fireman and I tried to chase him down but he got away. Look, he's not just some kook who's out to get us. He's connected to this ghost thing. I'm positive about this. That thing that chased you through the hospital is using him, twisting him somehow. I saw him after the accident, even talked to the scumbag for a few minutes. He was totally different than when he showed up at the bookstore or at my place. He wasn't wild or crazed or any of that. He was lucid. A complete jerk, yes, but clear headed and conversational too."

Katie shivered as she listened. "I don't like where this thing is headed Steve. I'm worried."

"I hear you," I said quietly. Then I added, "Let's get ourselves some coffee. I still need to call Trent."

As we walked into the kitchen and prepared our mugs Katie said, "So tell me about Trent. What's the deal with this guy?"

I gave her a summation of the story starting from when I read part of one of his books, to meeting him in the bookstore the day I found out she had been in the accident with me, and the most recent developments. I did my best to leave nothing out. She nodded her head as she listened.

"Well," she began after hearing the tale, "when you call him to tell him about the fire you should probably invite him over here so we can all talk together, don't you think?" The thought had crossed my mind but I was grateful to hear it from Katie's mouth before I gave it voice myself. "It's just that things seem to be gaining speed and if we're all in this together it's probably best we're all on the same page."

I couldn't help but smile. "I couldn't agree more," I said and took a sip of coffee. Before I went ahead to make the call to Trent we stood for a while longer in the kitchen in silence, just drinking the coffee and relaxing as best we could. Once during the interlude we locked eyes with each other and promptly found something else to look at. There was definitely something there which passed unacknowledged between us.

To ease the awkward moment I took the phone and dialed Trent's number. I relayed the story I knew I was going to have to tell, retell and edit for people for a while to come. He listened attentively and asked a few clarifying questions along the way. After a few minutes I said, "It would be easier if we could just meet. I'm over at Katie's right now and she asked me to invite you to come this way too. That way we'll all be on the same page." He said he had acquired a rental car since last I saw him and so he could make it over without needing a lift. I gave him the directions and we both hung up.

"He's on his way. He should be here in about ten minutes."

"Great," Katie said. There was another awkward pause and we just stood there looking at each other. She broke the silence and asked, "What are you thinking about?" Of course it had to be the question every guy dreads.

"I'm just thinking about today. It really does feel like things are speeding up, don't they?" She stepped up close to me and I looked down into her eyes. I saw again that there was something there. This time I saw it clearly for what it was. It was an invitation. Things were speeding up and my heart raced with them.

I rested my right hand on the side of her face and slowly brushed her cheek with my thumb. Her lips moved apart a fraction of an inch as if she began to say something but stopped. I touched my forehead to hers and when she closed her eyes I closed the distance between our lips. My face flushed with the excitement of the long desired connection. We moved our mouths against each other and what began as tender graduated to passionate.

I wanted time to slow for me again as it did in my dreams. I ached for the moments to linger and prolong the feeling I had waited for since I saw Katie in the bookstore all those weeks before. But time has a habit of obeying its own rules instead of ours and the kiss drew to its end. As our lips parted I watched her eyes flutter open and look up at me. I saw she wanted more of the time also. We both knew the end of the kiss was the beginning of something greater. I looked forward to exploring all the dimensions of what was to come for us.

"That was what I needed," I said. "Thank you."

"Any time," she replied.

We were still together and I didn't want to let go. The feel of her warmth and small frame against me was so good. She made no effort to move away so we just held each other for a while. She rested her head on my shoulder and I buried my face where her shoulder met her neck. The smell of her perfume filled my nose. I was so used to the odor of smoke spontaneously appearing that her feminine quality was a most welcome replacement. I inhaled deep and slow. I promised my lips I would linger on that spot later when there was more time.

As if sensing my thoughts she pulled away a little, winked at me and said, "We'll continue this another time, Steve. We have company coming." She smiled playfully and turned to head toward the kitchen.

"I hope it's not too long," I said. "I liked where that was going." I heard her begin to rifle through her cupboards then I asked, "Do you need any help in there?"

She stuck her head out of the kitchen and said, "No, you should just relax. Go sit down for a while." She was right. Mental and physical fatigue was starting to set in and the smartest thing I could do at that point would be to take it a little easy. I found the couch and lowered myself onto it, joints creaking and muscles objecting all the way down.

When the knock came at the door a few minutes later Katie said, "Don't worry about it Steve, I'll get it." She darted out of the kitchen to the door without giving me a chance to even think about getting up. When I heard the door swing open I had a flash of paranoia. What if it isn't Trent? I asked myself. Indeed, I wondered if it could have been Price again this time come back to finish the job. But I was relieved to see it was Trent. Katie greeted Trent at the door and welcomed him in. I also stood up and crossed over to him.

After Katie directed us back to the living room she entered the kitchen again and reappeared moments later with two trays. One had sliced cheese and summer sausage; the other had an assortment of crackers. I sat on the couch and Trent took a chair. Katie set the trays down on a coffee table in front of us and then sat next to me. She leaned into my side where I welcomed her with an arm around her shoulder. We both gave our full attention to Trent.

"Alright," he exhaled, "I think I know the identity of the ghost causing all the trouble." Katie and I both sat forward at the same time. "His name was Jonas Pine."

"Wait," I said. "I know that name from somewhere. How do I know that name?"

"You read the introduction to my book, Ridding ourselves of the Ghost Myth, didn't you? I talked about him in there in a footnote."

"Yeah, that sounds familiar." The more I thought about it the less I seemed to be able to recall. It was a lot like the trouble I had recalling the contents of some of my earlier dreams. All I could remember was the bookstore where Katie worked and where Trent made a celebrity appearance and holding Trent's book in my hand. The pages were a blur in my memory. But something else about the situation sat funny with me too yet I could not pin it down.

"What do you know about him?" Katie inquired.

"I know most of what history has recorded of him: not much. But I'll tell you what there is." He took a deep breath to prepare himself for the telling. Then he began.

"First, he was an orphan but he probably didn't grow up in an orphanage at least not for very long. As far as I can tell he was born during the civil war and both parents were killed around the year eighteen sixty-four or so. The next part is mostly speculation. As a young boy he was known to travel with a man, an escaped slave actually. So, some people think the slave found him as a toddler after the boy's parents were killed and took him up as he traveled north to find freedom. Although he wasn't a slave anymore the man couldn't find honest work so they both turned to thievery and confidence games.

"During this time the boy gained an appreciation for magic and illusion. He took a particular interest in pyrotechnics. They would travel from town to town and choose the most visible street corner and the boy would just start doing magic tricks there and gather a crowd under the pretense of looking for pity money. While the boy put on the distraction the man would weave through the crowd and pickpocket the wealthy."

"That's a pretty gutsy thing for a former slave to do," I said. "North or south, non-white criminals were not treated well."

"Don't get ahead of me," Trent said. "You're about to find out how bad an idea it was."

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" Katie asked cringing. We could both guess what was coming but that didn't make it any easier.

"So," Trent continued, "for some reason, we don't know why, the man took them south again. The war had been over for a few years so maybe he wanted to see if anything had changed. Maybe he had grown tired of crime in the north and needed a change of scene. Who knows, but for some reason they traveled south. It went okay at first. They ran the same racket in every town: do a magic show as a diversion then pickpocket. They had done it for a few years in the north so why wouldn't they expect it to be the same in the south? That turned out to be a miscalculation because pre-civil war racial discrimination had a very long memory.

They arrived in a sizeable city near Savannah and set up their usual gig. The boy used cards, a cape, flash paper, you name it. He wowed the people and the man went to work...only this time he was caught. There was no trial; the man was lynched almost immediately. He was dragged out of town and hanged in the nearest tree. Pine saw the whole thing. Of course nobody suspected the poor innocent white kid had anything to do with the thieving former slave so when the hanging was over the crowd encouraged the boy to finish the show...and he did. Pine stayed in town for a few more days, doing his show on different street corners in different parts of town.

"Even at a very young age Pine had a hot temper and was vengeful. Later that week four houses burned down on the same night...in different parts of town." Trent paused to let the fact sink in. "They belonged to the sheriff, the mayor, a wealthy business man and a steelworker. All of the men had been involved in the hanging. Only the mayor lived through it but he was terribly scarred with burns. After that the boy was never seen again. He just disappeared into the night. He did come back many years later as an adult, however, but we'll get to that in a minute.

"He was probably somewhere between eight and eleven years old when that happened. We loose track of him for about twenty years or so and when we meet him again he's still doing magic tricks and illusions but he refined himself tremendously. He has a whole traveling magic act, he's hosting séances, claiming to deliver messages for the dead, selling potions, the whole nine yards. And he's even created a following for himself with a stage name and everything."

"What did he call himself?" I wanted to know.

"The Amazing Blazing Pine," Trent said with some theatrical flare. "He traveled everywhere and had people eating out of the palm of his hand. He even had a small devoted crew who traveled with him. They waited on his every word and deed. Wherever he went he had people convinced he was the genuine article. And they paid. They paid for potions, shows and private audiences with him and all kinds of things I'm not even going to speculate about. And he was a womanizer. The ladies fell one after another for him. Lot's of broken hearts in his wake."

"Sounds like a real class-act," Katie said with some venom. I felt her tense beside me as she listened to the description, especially that last part. As if she needed anything else to want to see the spirit put to rest.

"At some point one of his crew must have discovered the fraud for what it was and blew the whistle on him. The problem was that the curtain had been raised on the truth at the height of one of Pine's performances when the crowd was firmly his. They didn't take being duped very well and so they ran him out of town. That was the same town where the escaped slave was lynched when Pine was just a young boy. When he tried to go to a new place he discovered his reputation had preceded him and he was not welcome. The Amazing Blazing Pine was no more than a smoking stump. The act was finished. He tried to reinvent the whole act a few times but it never worked. The crew disbanded and he was left alone again. Here's where things get a little fuzzy again.

"He appears to have assumed a different name and moved here where he started over completely with the same act he had with the former slave who took him in, only this time he seems to have picked up an orphan of his own along the way, maybe the son of some other escaped or freed slave." It was the boy I had seen standing next to the elevator in the basement of Spectra and also in the dream where the little girl had been chased through the tunnels beneath the orphanage. It had to be the same one.

Trent continued, "He did the show and the boy did the pick pocketing. I'm guessing it was during this time he discovered the series of tunnel beneath the orphanage and set up shop and then he just disappeared. Nobody seems to have seen him after that. And that was around the same time the orphanage burned down and we know he was there. That's the story of Jonas Pine."

"I suppose he was known to travel with a large steamer trunk wherever he went?" Trent nodded. "Do we know what he kept in it?"

"Equipment for his shows, I guess. Does it matter?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "I just know I saw it in one of my dreams and it seems to have stuck in my memory. Never mind. What does matter is we at least have some idea of what we're up against." I wasn't sure how the news was going to help us but it seemed good to know.

The knock at the door startled us all. Katie had a clock on the wall which told me it was ten thirty. I looked at Katie and said, "Please tell me you're expecting someone." She huddled closer to me.

"No, I'm not." I felt her tremble against me.

I stood and walked over to the door. I looked out the peep hole and no one was there. I turned and shrugged to Katie and Trent. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the knock came again, louder this time.

I called out, "Hello? Who's there?" There was only silence in answer. I tried again, "Hello?"

"Hello, mister?" the little girl's voice came through the door and sent ice coursing through my veins. "Mister, come see. Come." I looked at Trent and Katie again and their eyes were wide with terror.

"It's okay," I said to reassure them. "This is the good one."

"Are you sure about that," Trent asked.

"Well, if it's not what am I going to be able to do about it?" Then I returned my attention to the door and called out, "Come see what? What do you want me to see?"

"Come see. Come," she repeated. "Please, before it's too late."

I reached my hand out slowly to the door knob and then suddenly I jerked the door open. I was greeted by the sight of the walk leading up to Katie's place and nothing else. "She's not there, guys. She's gone."

"Where did she go," Katie wanted to know.

"She went the same place we're going right now. Get your stuff together everybody. I get the feeling it's almost game time."

"Where are we going," asked Trent.

"We're going to the hospital."

"Why," he asked.

"Come see. Come." I shrugged my shoulders and began to walk to the car.

### Chapter Twenty Five

It was eleven p.m. when we arrived at the hospital. We sat in the dark of the car and said nothing at first, not sure how to proceed. Trent was in the back seat and Katie had the shotgun seat. It was Trent who eventually broke the silence. "Do we have a plan for how to get in? These aren't exactly visiting hours." He had a point but I had no plan. I had rushed out the door with my two friends in tow without thinking about that part. The spirit of the little girl had said it was important to come to the hospital quick so that's what I was committed to do.

"Well...that's a really good point and I hadn't thought about that," I confessed. "Anyone else got any ideas?" I asked hopefully.

When neither Trent nor me said anything Katie said, "Let's just walk in there. We'll figure it out as we go."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Trent said looking up at the hospital through the windshield. "Security at a place like this doesn't kid around with uninvited visitors. If we try that we're likely to be tossed out in short order. That could make it harder to get in during regular visiting hours."

"Do you have any better ideas?" Katie asked.

"Well, no not really," Trent said.

Katie opened her door, stepped out and leaned back down to speak to us. "Then unless you want to break your leg or fake an illness it looks like we're left with my way." Trent looked at me and all I could do was shrug. I opened my door and exited the vehicle. Trent did likewise and we all started walking to the main entrance.

Once we were inside we headed to the reception desk which was empty. We stopped there and waited for someone to come.

Trent asked, "Do you know where we're headed?"

"Yes," I responded. I turned to Katie and said, "It's the same floor you were on when you were here."

"Great," she said, "I was hoping for a stroll down memory lane."

"So where's the person who's supposed to man this battle station?" I asked. We looked around and there was no one in the foyer. When no one came after a few minutes Katie stepped behind the desk and started toying with the computer.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" asked Trent.

"It looks like we have to let ourselves in. I'm just moving things along. We don't have all night," Katie replied. After a few minutes she said, "There, that ought to do it. Let's go." She started walking and we followed.

"What did you just do?" I asked.

"I unlocked the door to the patient areas. We have about ten seconds before it relocks itself from this side. Let's move it." We pushed through the door and made for the elevator. When we got there I hit the button on the wall and we waited for the doors to open. My anxiety rose slightly when we stepped inside the box and the doors closed.

"Are you okay? You're breathing kind of fast," Katie said.

"I'll be okay," I reassured her. "I just haven't had the greatest luck with elevators in recent memory." The doors slid open on our destination and it was eerily silent. We stepped cautiously into the hall seeing what there was to see. There wasn't much. The place was deserted.

"Hey, take a look at the nurse's station," I said. It too was empty.

"I don't like this at all," Trent said. "Let's go find this room of yours so we can do whatever it is we need to do and get out of here." He looked around nervously. He had handled James Price easily enough in the bookstore but this was a completely different ball game for him. I couldn't blame him for being nervous; it was a different game for all of us. But I was drawn to the nurse's station. I couldn't go forward without checking it out first.

"Hold on a second, I need to see something," I said then I began to slowly walk toward the empty station. When I reached it I stopped and looked around to be sure I wasn't being watched. It felt like I was but there was no one in sight. I started to make my way to the other side and froze in my tracks when I was most of the way around. There was a nurse lying face up on the floor, her eyes open and glazed and unmoving. A small pool of blood had formed under her head: Dead. She reminded me of the woman I had seen lying dead on the ground floor of the orphanage in one of my earlier dreams.

I looked up to Trent and Katie and they must have seen the alarm on my face because they came running. Trent cursed and Katie covered her mouth with both hands when they saw the dead nurse. I ran past them in the direction of the room I was meant to enter and they soon followed. When we turned the corner James Price was standing in the hallway in front of the door, staring angrily into the room. He had a kitchen knife clutched in his hand and there was a syringe protruding from his shoulder.

He tensed his body and it looked like he was about lunge into the room so I yelled, "Hey!"

In retrospect I don't know if it was the best idea in the world but it is what I was left with in the moment. Price's head whipped around in our direction and I heard Katie groan behind me. His eyes glowed orange, his skin was bright red as if he'd been badly sunburned and I could smell smoke. At first he just stared at us. He raised the knife and slowly, fluidly slashed through the air in front of him. Finally he opened his mouth and issued a primal scream. Then he ran the other direction.

We ran to the door and looked into the room. There was a doctor standing protectively over the room's patient. He held a metal I.V. stand as a defensive weapon. There was a slash mark on the left arm of his lab coat. The cut was rimmed in crimson. When he saw us he continued to hold up the long metal stand.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded.

"We're friends," I said as calmly as I could.

"Oh yeah? But whose friends are you? Mine or that other guy's?"

"Yours," I reassured him, "definitely not his. We came here to meet the person who resides in this room."

"How do you know Susan," the doctor asked a little less suspicious. He seemed to be buying our innocence. He lowered the I.V. stand and let the end rest on the ground which was a good sign. And now we knew the patient was a 'her.' We still wouldn't have been able to tell because he continued to stand in front of her.

"We don't exactly know her. We just know we're supposed to find her and meet her." The doctor looked confused.

"Meet her? How are you supposed to meet her? She's been in a coma for a very long time. I don't think she's waking up any time soon." He stepped aside to reveal the form of an old woman. When I say old, I don't mean she looked like she was in her late sixties or early seventies. The frail and withered thing in the bed was at least past her mid-eighties if not older. But her advanced age was actually the second thing I noticed about her. The first thing I noticed was her face. More specifically, I noticed what was wrong with her face. I couldn't believe my eyes.

"My God, it's her," I heard myself say.

"It's who?" asked Trent. "Do you know who this woman is?"

"I do, but not like this," I said trying to sort through the confusion and facts before me. On one side of the woman's face was a burn scar I had seen on several occasions. The only problem was that when I saw the scar before it was on a much younger face. "Come and see. Come," I quoted.

"What did you say?" asked Trent, thoroughly confused.

"That's what she said. She wanted me to come and see her, not someone else. This is the little girl who's been haunting me. She's alive."

"What are you people talking about?" the doctor almost yelled.

"Just wait," Katie said to him. "I think something big is about to happen."

Just then I felt warmth begin to grow in my right pocket. I had almost forgotten that I had brought it with me. I reached into the pocket and pulled out the key I had found in the box at Spectra. It glowed in my hand the closer it got to the woman...the closer it got to Susan. The officer at my old apartment had instructed me to get the key to Susan.

Her eyes fluttered open and she began to search the room. Soon she found me and the key I held in my hand. She smiled very weakly. I could see it was her more clearly now that she was awake. The life in her eyes was not that of an old, dying woman but that of a curious child. She looked back at me in complete recognition.

"Susan, can you hear me? It's Steve," I said. She just smiled back.

"She won't be able to talk," the doc interjected. "She's about ninety-five years old and ninety of that has been spent in a coma give or take. Her vocal chords have been unused for that long and will be no good. Quite frankly there's no way she should even be alive. It's a medical miracle she's lasted this long. We've just been feeding her intravenously and having someone from physical therapy come down and exercise some of her muscles for her. Other than that she's just been laying here in the hospital sleeping the decades away."

"Steve," called the little girl's voice, "Steve help us."

I stared at her in shock and then looked at everyone else. "Did you guys just hear her talk?" Everyone looked at me with questions in their eyes. "I guess not." I wondered briefly if I had imagined it.

"Steve, they can't hear me." This time I was looking right at her. Her lips didn't move but the words were definitely there.

"How are you doing this?" I asked her.

"What is he doing?" the doctor asked.

"They're talking, be quiet," Katie answered.

"I'm not doing it, Steve. We both are. We're talking inside our heads. No one else can hear what I'm saying. They only hear what you say." The childlike voice moved through my mind though it sounded as if it were spoken aloud to the room. I thought the rate at which my view of the world changed at such a rapid pace I was going to have to stop keeping track of it at some point and just learn to go with it.

"Okay, I get that. What do you want?" The others watched me and concentrated on what I said. I imagine it was like listening to only half a phone conversation. You wouldn't get everything but you could at least get the general feel for what the conversation was about.

"I want to stop him. But I can't stop him. I've only held him back all these years. But when you came along the power in you gave him strength and he got loose." She looked sad. She knew telling me this would be a difficult thing for me.

"Are you saying it's my fault he's doing this?" Everyone looked surprised at this but Katie especially was alarmed. But she wasn't as alarmed as I was. Among many things one of the implications of this was that the harm which had come to her was somehow directly related to me. That didn't sit comfortably with me at all.

"Yes and no. Yes, he has been set loose because of the thing inside you. Without it he would still be trapped. No, he's doing what he has always done. You have nothing to do with that. And no, my time is closing and he would be free once that happened anyway." One thing I already noticed about our conversation was that it was changing. When we started she spoke in very childlike ways. As the talk progressed her words and thoughts became more grown up, though the sound of her voice in my head remained that of a child. I knew then that I didn't have much time. She was growing up slipping away all at the same time. I knew it would be best to cut to the chase.

"Alright Susan, I know there's little time. What about this?" I held up the key for her to see.

"Please give it to me, Steve." She stretched out an ancient, spindly arm and the palm of her hand was upturned.

"Why?" I had to know.

"Because if you don't you can't stop him either. You need me to fix the key so you can get in."

"Get in where," I asked.

"You already know where. Give it to me." I didn't think I knew what she was talking about but I thought I might be able to tease it out if I gave it enough time. She continued to hold out her hand. I relented and placed the key in her palm. She wrapped her fingers around it and closed her eyes.

"What's she doing," Trent asked in a whisper.

"I really don't know," I said.

Susan said, "I'm endowing the key with myself, the ability of my mind. When I'm finished with this I will be finished."

"What do you mean, 'finished'?" But she gave no reply. Instead the room grew somewhat dark and I felt a sorrow swell up in my heart. From everyone else's faces I saw they felt the same thing. Suddenly the room snapped back to its normal hospital bright.

Susan exhaled a fast breath and her arm dropped to the bed. Her hand unfolded, releasing the key from her grip. It dropped to the floor, clattered briefly and then lay silent. Susan too lay silent on her hospital bed.

"Susan," I said her name and concern laced the word. "Susan, can you hear me?" The machine monitoring her emitted a loud steady noise. We all stood in shock at what had just happened, none of us possessing the proper categories to process such an event. The machines continued their noise until the doctor reached over and shut them off. He looked at me and I knew he would do nothing to revive her. He knew it would be a pointless effort. I also read from his face he believed she had gone on quite long enough and I would not argue with the man.

I stooped down to pick up the key. When I straightened I held the little thing between my thumb and index finger. It wasn't just any key, it was a psychic key. This will get you through the door, I thought. But that thought almost had a young, feminine quality of voice to it. I still did not know which door it was supposed to open although I had a feeling that answer would come very soon.

"What do we do now?" asked Trent.

I replied, "That's a really great question. I have no idea." I looked to Katie but she only shrugged her shoulders. The doctor just looked away. He wanted nothing to do with whatever crazy thing was going on in his hospital. I looked at him and said, "Hey, we need to get out of here and you are going to need to call the police. The crazy guy who was here killed at least one person, a nurse. He may have gotten others before he came after you and Susan. I need you to do something for me: destroy the security tapes and blame it on the crazy guy. We were never here. You chased the crazy guy off by yourself. Got it?"

He hemmed and hawed at first but I got him to reluctantly agree. He got to work right away. He dialed the security desk and there was no answer. It turned out the guards were beaten unconscious and left for dead. The doc had them taken to the E.R. While that was all being taken care of he found where the security footage was recorded and erased it. We had waited in the reception area until we heard from him. When he gave us the all clear we left.

As we walked back to the car a flash of inspiration came to me. I stopped and pulled the key out to examine it. Sure enough my suspicion was confirmed. I issued a short victory laugh.

"What is it now?" Katie asked.

"I know where the door is," I said. "How could I have missed it?"

"Where is it?" Trent inquired.

I said, "It all comes full circle, doesn't it? It's on city lots 36-49. It's at Spectra where this whole thing started. On my first day of work when I got into the elevator I saw there was an extra basement level listed. Next to the button for that level was a hole for some kind of key. I thought that was a little weird at the time but..." I trailed off in thought.

Trent took up the line and said, "Spectra knows about this don't they? I mean, why else would they have their elevator set up like that." I guessed it was possible. The officer who chased Price with me seemed to know about the key and about Susan. Why not others?

"This web just keeps getting more tangled the more you learn," said Katie. I looked over at her and thought about how she kept showing herself more and more resolute and capable. Then I looked over to Trent and was glad for the rational cool he lent to our little group. It felt like destiny.

"You're telling me," I said.

"So what do we do next," asked Trent. He opened the right rear passenger door but waited to get in until he heard what I had to say.

"We prepare for battle," I said.

"How do we prepare for something like this?" he asked.

I replied, "I wish to God I knew."

### Chapter Twenty Six

By the time we left the hospital I knew it was going to end that night. Now that I was aware we had to return to Spectra and now that I was in possession of the psychic key I believed the only thing left to do was to get on with it. A few obstacles would need to be overcome before we got to that point, however. First, we had to gather our wits about us. This would not be like walking into the hospital like we had earlier with no plan.

Second, there was something else nagging for my attention. Just before I left the scene of the apartment fire I had traded information with Dale who worked for the Red Cross. He set me up with a hotel room for a few days. I had put that information on a shelf in the back of my mind for later use and now for some reason it wanted my consideration. The trouble was I could not see why it would be so important. There were more important places to go. Yet the more I pushed the thought away the more it screamed for attention.

"We're going to stop at the hotel I'll be staying at for the next few days," I announced. The expected silence at such a declaration followed. "I can't tell you guys why because I don't know. My intuition has been acting overtime recently and I think we better listen to it this time."

"Okay, whatever you say." Trent's voice betrayed no lack of faith. "I'm following your lead on this thing."

"Me too," Katie added.

I soon located the hotel and parked the car by the main office. We all got out but Trent and Katie decided to stay with the car. When I asked why, Trent said, "I just don't like the idea of being trapped in a confined space."

"I hear you," I said sympathetically in response. "I'll be back in a few minutes." I entered the office where a sleepy looking twenty-something man sat with an arm propped on the desk and his head rested in his hand. His eyes were closed. I cleared my throat but he didn't stir. A bell sat on the desk next to guy.

I couldn't help myself, I just couldn't. I walked over to the desk and let my hand drop quickly on the bell which consequently issued a loud ring. The poor kid behind the desk nearly fell off his chair. I suppressed a smile but just barely.

"Dude," he said groggily, "what did you do that for?"

"I did that," I said, "because I need to get into the room set aside for me. I'm from the apartment fire. The Red Cross set me up with a room here and I'd like to get into it." The man rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and then blinked a few times. He looked up at me. The minor note of frustration originally in his voice was gone.

"Yeah," he said, "sure thing man. Sorry. Just let me have your name." I gave him my name and he looked up the reservation in his computer. He yawned loudly as he typed. Finally he stopped and gazed intently at the screen. "Okay, here we go. You're in room two-twenty-five. That's on the upper level about halfway down." He opened a drawer in the desk and produced a code key. I took it from him and turned to go.

"Wait a second," he called after me. I turned around to see what the guy wanted. He was pointing at the screen of his computer monitor. "It says here you got a message." He opened another drawer and pulled out a simple white envelope. He handed it to me. My name and a time were written on it.

"What's the time stamp for," I asked.

"That's the time we received the message," he said and closed his eyes and propped his head on his hand again.

The message had come at six. That was over five hours earlier. I broke the envelope open with the side of my finger and let the contents slide out. It was piece of office paper with the words, "Call me when you get this. I don't care what time it is. Seriously. –Stuart Vox." I wondered if perhaps this was why I had been drawn to come to the hotel. It was the only available explanation so I accepted it.

When I looked back at the man at the desk he was sleeping again. I exited the office and motioned for Katie and Trent to follow me. We found the stairs to the second level and ascended them. We stopped when we reached the top of the stairs. Standing outside one of the rooms about halfway down was a figure cloaked by the darkness. His head turned toward us and he began to move at a quick pace.

We all froze in our tracks. Having just come from a confrontation at the hospital with James Price and facing untold possibilities at Spectra there was no telling what we might be up against in between. Then the figure called out my name. I relaxed a bit because I knew the voice. It was Stuart Vox.

I recalled the vision I'd had just prior to work the day before. Trent, Katie and Stuart were all present. They were also all captive to the dark man, Jonas Pine. Now at last I was with all three of them and we were getting closer and closer to it.

"Hey," he said, "did you get my message? What took you so long? I'm coming apart at the seams here." When he appeared in the dim light of the barely adequate overhead sodium arcs I saw he was not the same over confident man I had lunch with earlier that day. His eyes were fearful and occasionally darted this way and that as if he expected someone to jump out from anywhere.

"Stuart, are you alright? What's going on?" When he looked at me it was like he wasn't sure if he should be happy to see me, scared of me or just plain angry. There was a lot of boiling emotion swirling around inside the man. Something had happened in the intervening hours between lunch and our meeting at the hotel.

"No, Steve," he said with some acid in his voice, "I'm not alright. I'm far from alright. What the hell have you dragged me into?"

"Whoa, slow down Stuart. Take it easy. What happened to you?" I could have guessed but I had a need to hear it from him almost as much as he needed to tell it to me. I noticed he was breathing rapidly. He said nothing at first as he organized his thoughts. The only sound was the unnerving quick in-and-out of his breath. Finally as he became ready to speak everything in him slowed down.

"Okay," Vox said, "here's the chain of events. After lunch with you I got in my car to head back to the office. I was about to start the car when I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. I looked around but I couldn't see anyone so I shrugged it off. Then when I looked into the rearview mirror to back out of my parking space I swear for only—what, like three seconds?—someone was sitting in my backseat. I think he smiled at me and then he was just gone. The strange thing was I couldn't see the guy's face. It was like he was solid but in complete shadow even though it was broad daylight. The only reason I think he smiled was that I saw teeth.

"Then I remembered you said something about ghosts and I convinced myself it was just my imagination. So I went back to the office. When I was about to open the door to my personal office it flew open on its own and my secretary came running out screaming. I called after her but she never stopped. I ran into my office to see what had made her do that. The first thing I saw was the mess. Papers were thrown everywhere and some of them were on fire. There was a pile of papers and files on top of my desk and the whole thing was on fire. The top of the room was filled with smoke and I wondered why the fire alarm hadn't gone off. I was about to run and find a manual alarm but that's when the door slammed behind me.

"That's when the noise started. It sounded like an animal growling but then it tuned into a coughing sort of laughter. I looked up and the smoke had formed into a face. It covered most of the ceiling and it was looking at me and I felt like it was looking into me. Then it talked to me. Do you have any idea what it said to me?"

None of us replied to the question but I could have easily ventured a guess at that point.

"It said," Stuart continued, "'Stay away from Steve Nicholas, sonny. He ain't going to bring you nothing but trouble. If you stick by him I'll send my dog after you.' So now I'm going to ask you again, Steve, what the hell have you dragged me into? And also tell me if you can what is this thing?"

"His name is Jonas Pine," I began the explanation. He listened to me as I told him what we knew and about James Price's role in all of it. When I talked about Price he really perked up with interest. The whole telling took about fifteen minutes. Part way through it we moved into the hotel room to keep anyone else from hearing the strange tale but also to get out of the chilly night air. Vox didn't stop me once or ask me to back up and explain anything. He just took it all in. When I finished he asked if that was all of it. I told him it was and he pressed me again on it. He said I couldn't hold anything back from him this time and if I did I would be held responsible for the consequences. I assured him I had fully disclosed what I knew. He accepted it this time and nodded.

He said, "You know this story is nuts. Don't all of you know that? I mean we're talking truly certifiable."

Trent, who sat on an easy chair across from Vox, said, "And giant talking faces made of smoke in your office isn't?" Vox just looked at Trent not knowing what to say. "Look," he went on, "it's pretty clear you're in this thing with us. We're on our way right now to finish it. I don't think you have much choice. You're meant to come with us."

"There's always a choice, professor," Vox responded. "I don't have to do what I don't want to. Not even if I'm 'meant to' as you say."

"That's true," Trent said, "but maybe as a lawyer you can tell us what happens to people who don't do what they should do. Can't they be held liable? Isn't it their responsibility to do what can be done?" Trent had Vox painted into a corner and the lawyer knew it.

"You guys are on your way to this Spectra place right now?" Vox looked expectantly at me. I affirmed it. "And you say it ends tonight? I don't have to wake up tomorrow and worry about little visits from ghosts and ghouls and God knows what else?"

"That's the plan," I said. "But there's no guarantee we'll all come out of this thing okay. I don't know what we're going to find down there but if what we've all experienced so far is any indication Pine isn't going to give up without a fight."

Vox nodded at this then said, "I still don't know if I believe you about all this," he said.

Katie interjected, "Then you should at least believe what you do know. That should carry you far enough for tonight."

Vox narrowed his eyes at Katie, opened his mouth to say something then apparently thought better of it and stopped. Instead he looked to me.

"So, are you going to come with us or not," I asked him.

He sighed then said, "Looks like it." He stood up and walked to the door. I nodded to the others and we all made for the door.

* * *

The road hummed a monotonous dirge under the tires of the car as we journeyed the final leg of the trip. The melancholy music of the pavement was the undesired perfect soundtrack of the moment. All the weight of what might or might not be coming down the pipe threatened to crush the hearts and spirits of everyone in the car. No one said anything.

It was past midnight and the streets were sparsely populated save for the few late shifters and night owls prowling the dark to score the hit of whatever addictions drove their insomnia—everything from cheap tacos to drugs. All these were the petty backdrop of the stage we had stepped onto. The actors were about to take their places, the curtains would withdraw and the lights would shine. What would be seen, I wondered?

Identical street lamps whizzed by, the silent giant guardians overlooking their paved world. Ahead and to the right lights caught my attention and I decided on one final detour. It would be short, minutes only but it would support our preparation for the encroaching encounter at Spectra. I pulled the car next to the gas station fuel pumps and killed the engine.

Katie who sat in the front passenger seat leaned over and checked the fuel gauge. "What are we doing here? You've got three quarters of a tank and we've got other things to do."

"I'll just be a second," I answered as I undid the seatbelt. "I've got to run in and get a few things." I stepped out and trotted into the attached twenty-four hour convenience store. The bright lights assaulted my eyes and the mixed smells of gasoline from outside and bored sweaty employees inside gathered into that strange perfume which accompanied late night road trips all over the continental U.S.

I began my shopping spree and in short order gathered all the things I needed, among which was a gas can, matches, a handful of Snicker's bars and four bottles of Pepsi. I deposited the items on the counter and waited for the short woman who guarded the cigarettes to ring up the order. I paid, took my things and exited.

I walked back to the car unlocked and opened the trunk. I dropped the box of matches in my pocket as I turned to the gas pump. I paid for gas and pumped it into the gas container which I then placed into the open trunk when the cap was secure and then closed the trunk. I carried the Pepsi and Snicker's with me and got back into the car. I handed them out in turn to each of my passengers.

"What's this for," asked Trent. I started the car up and tore open the candy bar wrapper and took a bite. Then I twisted the cap off the bottle and took a swig of the sweet bubbly liquid.

"It's no use fighting evil on an empty stomach," I replied. Katie looked at the food, looked back at the other passengers, shrugged and began to open her candy wrapper. The others followed without further question. It became a sort of funny communion, a revised last supper. We all hoped it wouldn't be too final.

When we had sat in the idling car long enough for me to finish the candy bar I put the vehicle into drive and we resumed our approach. We continued to move forward in silence, the only sounds were the music of the road and the occasional noise of someone chewing or sipping or crinkling a wrapper.

It was not a great distance from the hotel to the gas station to Spectra but dread and anticipation can lend eternal qualities to such temporal experiences. Finally it was Vox who broke the silence.

"How did I ever let you people talk me into this? Is this really what I'm doing tonight?" No one answered his complaint. No one had to. We had all come this far of our free will. No one held a gun to anyone's head. In fact it struck me how several of us had been given opportunity to walk away at points previous, including Vox, and still we had come together and to the same path. I knew that his protest was really the last vestige of his dying doubt. Now belief stood alive and well in our midst.

* * *

I parked the car in the same place I had on the day I interviewed for the job at Spectra and had gotten it. It was where I had seen the girl and first encountered James Price on the street. It had all seemed like a series of chance meetings at the time but as I reflected on all of it sitting there with my little posse I had serious doubts as to the coinciding nature of those meetings.

I turned around to address everyone. "Here's the plan. We're all going into the lobby but you three are going to wait there for a few minutes while I check to see if the coast is clear. I'll come and get you when I feel like we're good to go."

"Wait a second," Trent interrupted. "Haven't we decided that the people at Spectra know about this, maybe even orchestrated some of it? Why are trying to dodge them?" He had a good point but I felt I had a better one.

"Oh, I totally think they're in on the whole thing. That doesn't mean I trust them, though: far from it. If we can avoid them and get in and do this then by all means that's what I want to do. Is everybody okay with that?" They all gave affirmative answers.

We got out of the car and I led the way to the main entrance. I handed the gas can to Vox because I didn't want to have to explain it to Derek if I ran into him while I scouted the path. I unlocked the front door and we entered. The foyer was completely unlit which was odd, even in off-hours. I started to move forward to find a light switch when a flash light pierced the dark and landed right in my eyes. Then a male voice said, "Steven Nicholas, hold it right there. That will be far enough for right now. We knew you'd be coming."

The lights came on and I closed my eyes to the sudden flood of radiance. When my eyes adjusted to the new brightness of the environment I noticed a number of things. The chief thing which grabbed my attention was the man who had spoken to me. Actually it wasn't the man himself as much as the police uniform he wore.

Vox leaned forward and said, "So much for your grand plan. I think I'll wait in the car."

### Chapter Twenty Seven

The police officer stepped closer and then I recognized him. He had been at the apartment fire earlier and had been the one to instruct me to get the key to Susan. I also noticed he wasn't alone; there were two other figures with him. Jan and Derek flanked the officer and moved with him as he approached.

Jan stepped ahead of the whole group, indicating who was in charge. "Good evening Mr. Nicholas," she said. "We've been waiting for you."

"I can see that," I said. We stood at stalemate, each waiting for the other to make the next move. Jan stood with her arms crossed. We had no time for power games so finally I asked, "Would you care to tell me what's been happening to me and what has been your part in it?"

She assessed me a moment. Then she flicked her eyes between each of the people with me before she returned her analytical gaze in my direction. "No doubt you've discovered to some degree that data processing is a front for our actual purpose," she began. "In brief Spectra's purpose has been to wait for you. And here you are."

"Fascinating," I said sarcastically, "but you're going to have to do better than that. Start by rewinding the story a bit. You can skip all of the history with Jonas Pine and the St. Francis Orphanage. We've got all that. Tell us where Spectra comes in."

"With all due respect," Jan said, "I doubt you have the entire story. Perhaps if you make it beyond tonight I can fill you in on the pieces you are missing. As for your question about Spectra I will tell you what we know. Some of our back story is lost with the people who began our organization decades ago. Not all of them met with pleasant ends. But that is another story.

"Spectra began with a group of people who simply wanted to uncover the whole story surrounding the nineteen-eleven fire which consumed the orphanage and several of the orphans with it. It started with one man, the doctor who watched over little Susan as she lay comatose in the hospital. Day after day as he watched for signs of either improvement or decline he began to love that little girl and eventually he adopted her. Though he doubted she would ever wake up he thought she should have a father who could watch over her and care for her. He had her moved to his personal residence so he could keep a closer watch on her.

"The doctor kept journals. At first they were simply a record of Susan's vitals and progress. Over time they took on a more personal tone and eventually he began to record the strange dreams he had about the orphanage and the fire and Susan. Some of them featured an angry man he'd never seen in his life. The dreams disturbed the doctor greatly and he started to obsess about them and the fire. He had other dreams as well unconnected to the fire. Susan, however, still featured greatly in them. In most of the dreams she would talk with him and urge him to search for the truth and find someone to help her and the others.

"For months he regarded the dreams as nothing but his sleeping mind's creative means of sorting through his relationship with his ever-sleeping adopted daughter. Then one day she appeared to him while he was awake in his study. At first he thought she had awoken from the coma and wandered around the house until she found him. Her apparition beckoned him to follow her as she ran back to her room. There he found her lying as always in her bed and at the same time standing next to the bed. Poor boy almost had a heart attack right then and there.

"After time he gathered clues as to the various events which led up to the fire. He discerned the identity of Jonas Pine and soon thereafter learned from the disembodied spirit of Susan that Pine's ghost was still around and she was doing her best to hold him at bay. It then became his mission to find a way to stop Pine from getting loose.

"He created Spectra, an organization which would hide in plain sight as a private broker of information and investigations but actually serve the function of finding the right person to bring resolution to the story. He left the medical profession and recruited all kinds of people who showed interest in his work. Information was gathered from all over the world, collected, categorized and catalogued. Despite what certain previous Presidential hopefuls have claimed we invented the internet."

"Okay," I said after she finished her interesting little story, "where do I come into the picture?"

She responded, "We've been watching you for some time, Mr. Nicholas. Actually we've been keeping tabs on your whole family for decades to see if something would crop up. It only made sense. Besides, it was stipulated in the doctor's last will and testament that the Nicholas family should remain under consideration as a potential source for the one we needed for the job."

"Whoa, wait a second there," I said. I felt like there was something important Jan had left unsaid and I needed it clarified. "Why did it 'make sense' and why would the doctor put that in his will?"

Jan looked at me and the smallest twitch of a smile appeared on her lips. Then she said, "The doctor's name was Stellan Nicholas." More pieces fell into place.

"Yeah," I said. "I've met him. He started a Library around here, didn't he? He likes to hang out in the archives and scare Librarians away from specific books. That sound like him?"

Jan looked at Derek who shrugged indifference. "That sounds like him. He started the library in nineteen twenty-five with a grant from the Carnegie foundation. It also was part of the Spectra project. He needed a place to store his personal archives. Unfortunately much of his personal materials were destroyed in a library fire in nineteen seventy-nine and we were left with only a few shreds of evidence to follow. I'll leave it to your imagination as to how the fire started." It was somewhere around this point that I began to feel a little light headed. I felt no concern about the feeling and concentrated on listening.

"Seventy-nine was the year I was born," I said.

"We know," Jan replied. "We've found important events are often marked with fire when it comes to Pine's activities. Sometimes in the past he has wriggled free enough to wreak havoc."

"Hold on, there's another thing," I interrupted her. "When this thing started happening to me I got the impression that Pine was one who held captive Susan and the ghosts of the other kids who died in the fire. There was a boy I saw by the elevator in the basement here. He seemed to think Pine was in charge."

"Yes and no," Jan said. "Pine was certainly powerful and apparently he's been growing considerably stronger of late but it was always something of a tug of war between the two, neither winning nor losing." She paused to collect herself for what she was to say next. "Without Susan there to restrain him we have no idea what Pine is capable of doing. But we do know it will be bad. Since his death we've linked several small fires throughout the city to hi."

"How," I wanted to know as I was sure did the rest of our group.

Jan tilted her head as she considered how to answer. Finally she said, "It's complicated. Sorry, there isn't time to divulge all of our practices and methods. Just know this: If Pine has his way there will be a firestorm of destruction which will rain down on this city, and if we're lucky it will only be on this city. In all likelihood he won't be satisfied to stop here. The world will be his tinderbox. That's where you come into picture, Mr. Nicholas."

Another wave of light headedness came over me, much stronger this time. I felt I needed to sit. The next thing I knew I was on my back in the foyer and everyone had gathered around. Jan and Katie called my name but the sound came as from a distance. Trent had two fingers pressed to the side of my neck presumably to check for my pulse. The rest stood and watched. I started to seize, my body convulsing and arching. The sounds of the people around me yelling faded and my vision went black.

* * *

My eyes opened in the semi darkness of an underground tunnel. I sat up and confirmed what my mind struggled to tell me: it was another vision. My friends were gathered around my body in the foyer of Spectra while some deeply buried part of me had traveled across almost a century past and was deposited once again in the tunnels beneath a burning orphanage. I gained the best bearings I could gather in the dark of the tunnel and headed in a direction which felt like the right way to go.

I soon emerged from behind the shabby shelf system which covered the entrance to the tunnels. I heard the commotion of the fire and people making attempts to escape it. Soon Susan's little form rushed into the room and began the scene I had watched and interrupted once before. She unearthed the small wooden box and placed the key in it and reburied all of it. I watched as she tried to climb the ladder to escape. I watched as Pine entered the room and threw the ladder and the girl on it aside to keep her from getting away. That was the point at which I had stepped in before. This time I was bound and determined that I would not interfere. Instead I would observe and see the rest of what I needed to know.

Pine was instantly on top of her. She scratched and slapped as hard and fast as she could but he was too powerful to be fended off by her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her into the air above and in front of him.

"Where is it," he growled the question. "Where is my key?"

"I don't have it," she said crying. "It's gone, I don't have it."

"Don't play games with me, darlin'. I play rough." He dropped her and she landed in a heap on the floor. She cried even harder and everything in me wanted to rip him apart with my bare hands. But this was the past. I needed to see what came next, horrible though it would be.

She started to stand and he smacked her hard across her young face. She fell to the ground again and screamed in pain. The report of his hand as it connected to her face was startling. He leaned over and grabbed her by the front of her little white dress and began to drag her away back down the tunnel. She struggled against his grip but he took no notice. He just continued on. When they passed directly through me Susan's whimper stopped for the briefest of moments. I turned and followed them.

After a short time we came to Pine's chamber where there was a makeshift bed and a steamer trunk. He threw Susan at the trunk. She landed on her knees in front of it then looked back at Pine, fear aglow in her eyes. He stared back at her like a predator contemplating the angle of attack.

The boy with the ruined face I had met at the elevator lay facedown on the dirt floor of the chamber. A pool of blood had gathered beneath his head and started to soak into the dirt. I remembered seeing an earlier part of this chain of events from Susan's perspective. The boy had stayed behind in this room and planned to delay Pine as she had tried to escape. The boy had shrieked and then was silenced. Now I saw why. Pine had killed him.

Susan screamed when she saw his body lying there. Pine ignored her lament.

"Open it," he said.

"I told you I don't have the key," her voice trembled.

"Then open it the other way," he said with slow deliberateness.

She kept her gaze on the man then shook her head.

"I ain't going to ask you again, darlin', open the damn trunk or I'll make you sorry." I could tell he meant every word and I believe Susan understood this also. Nevertheless she shook her head again.

He took three slow strides to close the distance between the two of them and towered over the girl. Then the assault came. A swift slap found its mark across the right side of her face. It was soon followed by a backhand slap to the other side. She lay facedown on the floor cradling her face in her hands and weeping. He stood above her like a stone colossus not caring one ounce about her pain.

"Are you ready to cooperate with me now? If not there's plenty more where that came from." He was an immovable object. She weighed the truth of his words and elected to believe them. She turned to the trunk and placed a hand over the lock and closed her eyes. Her face was a maze of concentration and terror as she worked. There was a click beneath her unmoving hand. She had picked the lock with her mind.

Then Pine was behind tossing her aside. He threw open the trunk. At first there was greed all over his face. Then there was puzzlement. Then anger. He slowly turned his head. I followed his gaze and saw Susan backing away from him inch by inch.

He stood from his crouch and became the image of pure rage. "Where are my things," he demanded in a low voice.

"They're all gone," Susan said with defiance. "We gave them back."

"You're going to pay," he said as he stalked toward her. "You're going to— argh..." and then he was cut off. Susan had planted her feet and raised her arms out in front of her, fingers splayed out. Pine flew backward with great force and smacked against the open lid of the steamer trunk. He slid down into the trunk his legs and an arm dangling over the edge. He was dazed from the impact and Susan ran forward and placed his legs and arm inside the trunk and slammed the lid down on top. Then she placed her hand over the lock as she had before and locked him in.

The girl backed away from the trunk. That's when the pounding and the river of obscenities started from inside the trunk. Pine issued every dark oath he could imagine. I looked from the trunk to young Susan. She stared at the trunk indifferently. Then she turned and walked back the way she had been dragged.

I followed her and the sounds of Pine faded behind us. The last coherent thing I heard him say was, "If I die in this thing I swear I'm coming back for you. I swear it!" A chill ran down my spine at the prophecy. Soon I was out of earshot and grateful. I thought as I walked behind the girl about how Pine must have died cramped in that Steamer trunk maybe through dehydration or perhaps smoke inhalation if enough smoke from the fire above found its way down the tunnels. What was interesting to me was that he had not died in fire.

I had somehow assumed the blaze was the cause of his death because his ghost seemed to thrive on it so much. Fire preoccupied me as we walked back to the cellar.

Susan finally made it back to the cellar and stood in the center of the room by the ladder. She looked at the downed ladder and then up at the opening on the floor above where it should have rested. The opening was wreathed in fire. Just then the floor above creaked, groaned and gave way. Blazing wood tumbled down and landed on the girl. A burning piece rested on the side of her face, giving her the familiar burn scar I recognized.

The cellar door to the outside flew open. A police officer descended the stair and saw Susan. He immediately began shoving wooden beams aside and was rewarded with several burns of his own. He finally cleared enough of the wood away to free Susan. He plucked her unconscious form out of the wreckage and ran outside. More of the floor above collapsed and it was over.

* * *

I awoke on the floor of Spectra's foyer gasping and coughing. I was surrounded by everyone again. I tried to get up but several people all at once insisted I lay on the floor a few more minutes. I didn't have the strength to protest so I merely obeyed.

They let me lay in relative silence for a short time while I regained my strength. Then the questions came. I gave a brief account of what I had seen. They listened intently like a good class should and I felt like a teacher again.

Vox said, "This is really getting to be too much for me."

"Stuart," I said.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

A pause, then he said, "Whatever."

### Chapter Twenty Eight

After five minutes I sat up and insisted I was fine. Trent relented from his examination and helped me to my feet. Jan did not look convinced but I didn't care what she thought. Everyone was looking at me waiting to see what would happen. I wasn't about to fall over and have another vision, I was sure of that.

"Are we waiting for something?" I asked. "Let's get this show on the road." I started to move forward but Derek put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. "Oh, what is it now?" I asked.

"Not so fast there kid," he said. He looked our little group over. "Just as I thought; you're not ready yet."

I sighed. "This isn't going to take long, is it? I mean we've got a bad guy to stop."

"Easy, kid. I just have a few things to give you. It won't take long. It's even on the way." He beckoned for us to follow him and then he walked around the corner towards the elevator. The rest of us were mobilized to trail the old man a few seconds later. When we got to the elevator I saw four shovels leaned against the opposite wall and four flashlights sat on the floor.

A quick burst of math confirmed a suspicion which had grown in me since we walked into the building and were confronted by Jan, Derek and the officer. I said, "I take it this means you guys are not coming with us." A few pregnant heartbeats followed the question.

"No," Jan finally said. "We cannot come. I'm sorry and I'm torn because part of me wants to be down there with you. I know how important this is and what is at stake. The world cannot take Jonas Pine back from the dead especially with power he is gaining." She meant every word of it. That did little to curb the irritation I felt, however. Why would more people to help be a bad thing, I wondered?

"Why can't you come," I pressed.

"Because it's not our job, son, it's yours," Derek answered for her.

"I won't buy that without a good explanation," Vox said. He had regained his normal cocky attitude, I noticed. The lawyer had approached the bench and would not relent until he was satisfied his argument was accepted. I believed he could go toe-to-toe with Jan any day which was a substantial achievement considering the confidence and authority she projected. Vox, however, ate confidence and authority for breakfast.

"My job," Jan said without the slightest hint of intimidation, "was to find and select Mr. Nicholas for this job."

"Mine was to test Steve to make sure he was the right choice and to get the key into Steve's hands," Derek added.

"And I'm the one who told Steve to get the key to Susan." The officer said.

"We have all done our jobs and now it is your turn to do yours," Jan said in summation. I saw the point now and nodded my head in understanding, though I didn't like it. "But don't worry, Steve, you are not on your own. You have these others you have drawn to yourself. This is more than when you first came to Spectra, isn't it? When you first came to us you were alone and so unsure of yourself. Look how far you've come in such a short time."

I looked at the others I had brought with me. She was right, I had come a long way and each of them had too. I was heartened to see the resolve on each of their faces. My heart turned anxious, however, when I realized how far we had yet to go in an even shorter amount of time and considered what the ultimate cost could be.

"Let's get on with it, then," I said. I stepped forward and Derek handed me a shovel and a flashlight. Each of the others in turn did the same. With the supplies I had bought from the gas station, the things Derek had given to us and the resolve in our spirits we were ready to descend into hell.

I removed the key from my pocket and all eyes were drawn to it. It was so ordinary. It was the sort of thing you'd find tucked away in a corner of some consignment shop gathering dust on a shelf. For all intents and purposes it should have been no more than that. Yet it had been endowed with greater purpose. I thought then that the key and I shared something in common. I remembered something I had been told and had believed long ago. The most ordinary things and people are the raw materials for extraordinary ones.

I nodded to Vox and he pressed the button to call the elevator. The doors slid apart. I stepped in first and the rest filed in slowly. As the other three stood in the hall we watched as the doors slid closed concealing us from safety.

I located the control panel and the special place for the key. I inserted it but did not turn it. I looked at everyone and said, "Are we ready?" They all nodded. I turned the key and pushed the button by the slot. The elevator began to descend. The display above the panel of buttons which indicated the floor one could reasonably expect to walk out onto if the doors were open went blank when we moved passed the basement. There was a loud clunk sound of metal meeting metal and the elevator box shook briefly as we came to a stop.

The doors slid open again to reveal an old earthen tunnel with ancient wooden supports. It appeared as though sometime within the most recent decades, however, someone had been down there to reinforce the walls of the tunnel even further with more modern methods.

"Welcome to the sub-basement level," Vox said. "Women's apparel, perfume and tortured demonic ghosts for your convenience."

"Knock it off," I said. "This is no time to be snarky."

"Snarky is how I deal with stress, thank you very much." I let it go because I didn't want to start a petty bickering match when such a distraction might end up costing someone his or her life.

Instead of responding I removed the key, placed it in my pocket again, and stepped into the dark of the tunnel. There was no source of light save for those in the elevator leaving a wall of black not far into the tunnel. I flicked my flash light on and shone the light into the dark. The darkness was so great it easily consumed the single beam of light. I moved it slowly from left to right. Dust motes floated in and out of the beam and strands of cobwebs which swayed lazily reflected the light.

My flashlight was soon joined by the others' lights as they walked out of the elevator. I ventured forward a few tentative steps. I listened intently for any clue that someone else might be down there with us. The only noise was the sound of the dirt shifting under my shoes. I looked back at the expectant group and motioned with my head in the direction of the deep interior of the tunnel. They slowly started to take their first steps into the hole.

The progress came at a snail's pace as none of us was prepared to charge in. We were only a few meters in when the doors of the elevator slid closed and I heard the box begin to ascend again. With the doors closed the light diminished more than any of us expected. The dark crept uncomfortably close, threatening to overtake all the hope and bravery we had stored up for that hour.

Suddenly a man's low laughter issued from somewhere farther down the tunnel. Vox could take it no longer.

In a panicked voice he said, "I've got to get out of here." I heard his fast retreat to the elevator and turned pointing my flashlight in the direction of the sound. I saw Vox's back retreat in the minimal light. He reached the elevator, hit the button to go back up and pounded on the doors demanding for them to open. Trent ran after him.

"Stop, stop it," Trent called. When he reached the panicked lawyer Vox shoved him away and continued his one-sided shouting match with the metal doors. Katie and I went back to try to calm him down and like Trent received shoves for our trouble. I decided something a bit more drastic was called for.

I grabbed the man by the shoulders and threw him against an adjoining wall. I slapped him across the face to maintain the shock of the moment. Then I put my hands on his shoulders and pinned him against the wall. When I was sure I had his full attention I said as calmly as possible, "Stop, you're not helping. Just settle down."

"You can't make me stay," he retorted.

Before I replied I took a few breaths. "No," I said, "I can't. You've got to decide yourself what you're going to do. But if you don't stay then whatever it is you're supposed to do with us down here won't happen and that could be very, very bad. You can run from this now, Stuart, but you can't run forever. There's no telling how far this thing will chase you or any one of us." I looked at him in the near total dark and a terrible sense of foreboding came over me. He only stared back at me at first. Then he raised his forearms between mine and pushed them outward to get my hands off his shoulders. Without saying anything he walked over to the elevator and pressed the button again.

My shoulders slumped in defeat. I had hoped I could persuade him to stay but the fear in him clearly asserted more power over him than I thought it could. The rest of us just watched the back of him as he waited for the doors to open. He would not turn to look at any of us. He pushed the button again in frustration.

"Come on," Vox urged. Nothing happened. The expected sound of the elevator mechanics made no appearance. Vox pushed the button about six times in quick succession. Still, there was no activity to encourage him. He screamed at the contraption then kicked the doors which made a metallic reverberating noise echo through the tunnel. "Come on, where are you?"

The short laugh from down the way came again. Vox whirled around and shouted, "Shut up! Just shut up! Leave me alone!" There was no response and no more laughter. The only answer the lawyer received was dead silence.

Katie walked up to the elevator door and Vox moved aside. She pushed the button and waited but again nothing happened. She turned around to address the group. "It looks like we're stuck down here for now," She said to all of us. Then she looked directly at Vox and said, "Come on, let's get going. We're safer if we stay together."

"Are you sure about that," he asked. "How do you know?"

She did not answer him, perhaps because she had no answer or perhaps because she didn't know if she believed it herself. She walked into the gaping throat of the dark with a shovel in one hand and her flashlight in the other. Trent and I followed suit. Vox swore under his breath and joined us.

"Glad you decided to join us," Trent said to him genuinely.

"And let you guys leave me by myself in the dark," He asked. "Haven't you guys ever seen a horror movie? That's a disaster waiting to happen." I would like to believe he chose to come because he knew it was the right thing to do. All rationalizations aside I can't say I would have argued the point differently.

From that point on no one talked until we reached the next obstacle. It was hard to tell how much time had gone by. The passage of time felt strange down there, sort of displaced like in one of my dreams except the typical slowness I felt in those experiences was absent. It was like we walked in a different age. As we hiked we passed side tunnels leading off in different routes.

"Why don't we take any of these different paths," Trent asked.

"Because they're the wrong ones," I said. Before anyone had a chance to ask I added, "I was down here a few times in my dream experiences. We probably could make it where we're going via one of these other ways but I don't know that for sure and it would take us longer. It's a straight shot this way."

"Where are we going?" Katie asked.

I hesitated before I said, "His room. We're going to the little chamber Pine kept as head quarters for whatever dirty little operation he was running in the town."

However long it took us we came to a dead end. But it was not that the people responsible for making the tunnel had stopped. It was a cave-in. Though settled for some time the dirt in front of us was looser than the stuff which formed the walls and it slanted into the tunnel.

I didn't give a chance for anyone to complain about the blockage in our way. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. Two of us will dig for some time while the other two hold flashlights for the diggers. When the diggers start to get tired we'll rotate. Sound fair?" I started shoveling the stuff off to the side and soon Trent was doing the same while Katie and Vox held the lights for us.

There were two rotations before anyone broke through to the other side. When Trent's shovel first pierced the other side there was a renewed sense of confidence among us. Even Vox perked up. On the final digging rotation there was enough of a path through the dirt for one person to walk through. Trent asked if it would be wiser to make the opening wider in case we needed to runback.

I thought about it but then said, "No, besides if we have to run where would we run to, a dead end? I don't think there's going to be any running. We're in it now. There's no going back." Trent accepted the answer while Vox cleared the last bit of earth away. I volunteered to go through the opening first and received no objections. I stopped in the middle of the new opening.

"What is it?" Vox asked. "Do you see something?"

"No," I said. "I feel something." I passed through to other side and stood against the wall. "Whoever's next just stand in the doorway for a second and tell me if you feel anything."

Katie moved forward and paused there. "Yes," she said surprised. "I feel a draft."

"A what?" Vox asked hopefully.

"A draft," she repeated. "I feel the air moving a little."

I said, "Good I'm not the only one. If there's a draft then the air has to be coming from somewhere outside, which means there's some other way out."

Trent said, "I wonder where it's coming from?"

"We'll have to figure that out later," Katie said. She moved through the opening and then Trent came and finally Vox passed through it. We made sure we had all of our gear with us and then continued down the way.

It wasn't long before we came to a wider area, a chamber. Flashlights scanned in all directions. In the little light we saw a rickety old table missing one of its legs. An old lantern perched atop its rough hewn surface. The item in the room which drew my attention was the steamer trunk.

"This is it," I said. "This is his old spot."

There were a few heartbeats of silence and then Vox said, "Great. So, what do we do now? Hold hands and sing happy songs?"

"No," I said keeping the irritation out of my voice. "Now we see what's inside." I was certain I knew exactly what was inside. I had seen the vision of Susan where she blasted Pine into the thing and closed the lid on him. I knew when I opened the thing I would see his dusty remains. I pulled the key out of my pocket again and said, "Someone put your light on the lock."

Trent angled his flashlight so the beam hit the key hole. I put the key in and turned it. At first it would not turn. I didn't want to give too much force and break the key off in the lock so I eased the application of strength gently onto it. There was a satisfying click at last.

"Alright," I said to no one in particular. "Here we go." I placed the heels of my palms on the lid of the big trunk and pushed up. The rusty hinges made an awful protest but obeyed the command of force. I aimed my flashlight inside the trunk. "Uh oh," I said.

"What did you just say?" demanded Vox. "Did you just say 'uh oh'?"

"Yes, I did," I said. An overwhelming sinking feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

They all looked inside.

"It's empty," I replied as he and the others looked. The only things we could see about the trunk were the scratches made from human finger nails on the inside and the fact that the back had been broken open. "He's not in there. He's supposed to be in there!"

"If he's not in there, then where is he?" Vox demanded, his voice becoming angrier and more panicked.

"Looking for something, sonny?" We all froze in terror. At some point we had all heard that voice. It was Pine's. It was accompanied by the laugh we heard in the tunnel.

We looked in the direction of the noise, shining our flashlights. The beams of light revealed a fully upright skeleton wearing decaying clothes. Around the skeleton was the apparition of Jonas Pine. The visible skull behind Pine's transparent face accentuated the demonic grin he wore. The form began to walk toward us.

The flashlights soon became secondary light as a growing orange glow emanated from the thing coming toward us. In the new light we could see smoke rising from the form. Heat radiated from it also. He held the broken off leg of the table in the room and hefted it like a club. The end of the table leg burst into flames and he swung it back and forth.

"Alright," he said, "who wants it first?" He pointed the fiery club at each of us in turn. The move was meant to intimidate us. It made me angry.

"Hey Stuart," I said over my shoulder to the lawyer, "take the cap off the gas can, if you would be so kind." I heard the sound of the cap unscrewing as Vox feverishly worked at the task. For once there was no smart remark or complaint. The skeletal form cocked its head to the side as it considered this new development. He opened his mouth and hissed a threat. Smoke trickled out of the side of his mouth.

"If you want a fight," I said to the thing, "you've got one on your hands. There are four of us and only one of you. We're more than happy to oblige."

He laughed again then said, "Oh he's a smart one isn't it? Thinks he's better than me, does he?" The laugh disappeared completely and the ghostly visage of his face became rage. "Come to me, sonny. I'll knock your teeth out and you can count 'em for me. I'll educate you, boy. I'll teach you some respect for the dead."

### Chapter Twenty Nine

"You want to teach me something?" I asked Pine. "Okay, tell me how you managed to get out of the trunk. I know you died in it and I know you should still be in there, rotting away for all of time. Come on, magician. Come on if you truly are the Amazing Blazing Pine. Share your secrets with us lowly folk." I wanted to throw him off his determination to cave in our skulls just long enough to distract him. I figured the best way to do was to reveal details I knew about him of which I should not have been in possession. It worked at least a little.

His advance toward us hesitated. He said, "How did you know that I..." He trailed off. "How do you know any of that, sonny?"

"I know a lot of things about you, Jonas Pine," I practically spit the name out. "But what do you care? What I want to know is your magical escape secret. How long have you been out?"

"What do you care?" He sneered in return.

"Call it morbid curiosity. I'm fascinated by escapes, especially ones that take almost a hundred years. I mean, you're not bad but let's face it, you're no Houdini. Come on, what's your secret?" I saw he was trying to see through my ruse but he was so stuck on himself he could not see past the moment, or so I thought. Little did I know he was biding time to spring his own nasty little surprise.

He pointed the burning end of the club at the empty steamer trunk. "Note the damage to the box," he said as if he were back on stage preparing to perform an act. "One hundred years of age and rot made it weak. Also I had a powerful need to get out if you take my meaning. Some little upstart band of self-appointed busybodies was on their way and I wanted to get out and meet the folk face to face."

"Well, I'm impressed," I said and clapped my hands in mock applause. The next part of my strategy was to make him too angry to think clearly. I knew sometimes the best way to accomplish that is by way of the good old fashion insult. "I'm impressed that after ninety years in rot you didn't run away and hide after you broke out. I mean, you'd been on the run for so many years in life, why change strategy now? Why screw with a winning formula, you little coward? Couldn't you find your mommy's skirts to hide your face in? Couldn't you run and cry to daddy?

"Oh, that's right," I said, "You don't have a mommy and daddy, do you? You probably didn't deserve them in the first place, you useless retch. It's a good thing, too. They would be so disappointed if they could see you now." I shook my head in dismay. Pine seethed. The orange supernatural glow of the room increased the angrier he became and it also became much warmer. Fire danced in his eyes and the skeleton beneath the ghostly apparition trembled with wrath.

"Sonny, I was going to save you for last so you could watch your friends die one at a time. Now I changed my mind. You burn for that." He stepped past the others and started to raise the blazing bludgeon. I had casually put my hand in my pocket. There I felt the match box. I opened it with my fingers and withdrew a solitary match which I held between my forefinger and middle finger. The other fingers held the match box to the palm of my hand. I had to pull it all out and strike the match fast. It was now or never.

"Stuart, splash him now," I yelled. I heard the liquid in the container swish as Vox pulled it back in preparation for his coming act. The hand in my pocket rocketed out holding the things I needed. A few more seconds and we would be on our way to putting out the fire of Jonas Pine by burning his remains to nothing. They were seconds we would not get.

I was so caught up with my frail momentary plan to attack a distracted monster that I had not realized the draft we noticed earlier indicated not only a way out but also a way in. Another detail which did not click in my mind until it was too late was the way in which the steamer trunk had been broken. The broken planks were pushed inward, not out. Pine did not let himself out of the box, someone let him out.

I heard the scream and at first I thought it belonged to Pine as it dawned on him what our plan was. The scream came from behind me and in the direction of my friends, however, and it was very short lived. It morphed into a brief gurgle before it stopped completely. The sight which greeted me as I whipped my head around was almost too much to process.

Vox held the gas container aloft and gasoline sprayed and poured in many directions. Much but not all of it landed on Vox himself. The smell of the stuff became heavy in the air. Trent and Katie stepped away from the writhing man who now crumbled to his knees. I could not at first see the cause for the horror on the other's faces until Vox dropped the container and his arms spread out like the wings of some poor butterfly as he tried in vain to grapple with something behind him.

The disturbing detail of the scene was the jet of blood which sprayed from Vox's neck. His throat had been sliced open and his head was being pulled backward to allow the wound full access to the environment. A sick breathing noise issued from Vox as he was pushed forward to land twitching on the ground trying to close the wound with his hands. His eyes looked up at me and pleaded for something I could not give. I was helpless to do anything but stand by. He kicked and coughed in the last throes of his life. The light went out in his eyes and Stuart Vox was gone.

I looked up at the monster that was Jonas Pine. He stood proud over the event. He no longer held the burning table leg as a club but had planted it on the ground and used it as a cane to lean upon. A smirk adorned the corners of his mouth. "There's a good little dog," he said to someone in the shadows.

I looked back to where Vox had been standing. Positioned directly behind the spot was the slumped and wild looking James Price, madman extraordinaire. His eyes were wild, not human at all. He clutched a bloody kitchen knife in a quivering hand. The hand slashed forward a few times in answer to his master's praise, like a dog wagging his tail. He must have come in through whatever other exit there was to the place and snuck through the tunnels until he emerged behind us as we journeyed to Pine's chamber. All he had to do after that was to follow us and spring forward at the right time.

All of the hope in me seemed to dissipate with the loss. All of the times Vox protested and tried to turn back flashed through my mind. These instances were followed by all of the times we eased him and told him he needed to come with us. I wanted to vomit. I felt guilty and responsible. I briefly contemplated lying down and allowing Pine to finish me off quickly. Yet the one thing which could bring me out of such an insane stupor happened. Katie put her hand on my arm and spoke to me.

"You didn't do that," she soothed. "It's not your fault. It's theirs. They did this. You snap out of this right now Steve so we can finish this job and go home." Her words were a blazing sun to cut through the dense fog which clouded everything reasonable in me. She was right. There was blame to place but it did not belong to me. Vox made his own choices and played his own role to the best of his abilities. Pine and Price were the ones who cut into the man, not me.

I looked at Pine, the satisfied bastard, standing there laughing at our loss, the loss he had initiated. He laughed again, hard this time, and I heard its intent. It was there to mock, to tear down, to demolish whatever was good and worthy of caring about.

"One down," Pine said gloating, "Three to go. Who wants it next?"

I looked between Pine, Vox's body and Price. I noticed something, a smell. There was the smell of smoke with which I had become well acquainted but there was also another smell. When Vox had been interrupted by the knife in Price's hand gasoline had gone everywhere. I noticed that Price's clothes had gotten soaked with the fuel. I also remembered the box of matches in my hand.

"Hey Price," I called to get his attention. Something in the wild depraved mind of the man still recognized his own name because his head turned and his eyes tracked for the source of the call. I struck the match against the rough red strip on the side of the box and the little torch blazed to life. "Catch, doggy." I tossed the burning stick at him. It seemed to float through the air forever, a shooting star on an eternal path to a different universe. When it contacted his shirt the gas fumes coming off him combusted and the man was on fire.

Whatever common sense had been a part of the life of James Price before Pine corrupted him had packed its bags and vacated the premises of his mind. He could have used the old stop, drop and roll technique to get most of the fire out quickly. Instead the man shrieked at the sensation of his skin being eaten alive by the fire. He thrashed about and finally ran. He staggered around behind us and then vanished down the tunnel entrance we had come through. At the end he would find an elevator that was not interested in opening for him. He was finished.

I looked over to Pine who quickly hid an expression of shock. The self-satisfaction was gone at any rate. It quickly was replaced with contempt and murderous desire.

I said to him, "One down, one to go. You're next Smokey." The cavities of his skull where his eyes rested in life became flooded with bright fire. The skull around the area blackened a little and I saw Pine wince in pain. I saw in that pain the validity of my plan. The only problem now was implementing the plan.

The next move came from neither of us and surprised both of us. The shovel whistled through the air as it made its way along an arc toward the ghostly figure. The head of the shovel was aimed at the head of the reanimated human remains. If allowed to make contact it would powder some of the old, dry bone for sure.

Before the weapon could reach its mark it was met by the club in Pine's hand. I heard the bones in that arm crack a little with the force of the impact but that did not stop Pine from regaining his advantage in very short order. Though Trent pressed the fight we all soon discovered Pine was faster and stronger in this form than we might have expected.

Every time Trent swung the shovel Pine easily met it with a parry from his club or he simply avoided the attack altogether. At first it seemed the fight would go on this way forever. All the while Pine never made an attack of his own, he only defended.

Trent gave another swing of the shovel. Instead of blocking the blow or dodging it this time Pine caught the shaft of the shovel in his free hand. Skeleton fingers wrapped around the wood in a vice-like grip. With a great yank the ghostly remains tore the tool out of Trent's grasp. Trent was thrown off balance because of the unexpected move. As a counter move Pine brought the shovel back around smacking Trent across the face with the head of it. Blood spat out of the corner of his mouth as he was spun around.

The professor recovered from the assault with miraculous speed and launched his own counter attack. He leapt forward and thrust his leg out in a kick.

Pine let the shovel fall and seized Trent's leg. Then he dropped the burning table leg he'd been using as a club and slashed with his free hand, raking his bony fingers across Trent's cheek. The bone fingers cut deep on his face and Trent shrieked in pain. Pine let the man's leg go and planted his own kick in Trent's gut sending him breathless to the dirt floor. He lay there injured and incapacitated, curled into the fetal position on his elbows and knees. He could only moan in pain for the time being which left only Katie and me to deal with our problem. I didn't like the way the odds were now trending against us. I began to wonder if the journey beneath Spectra had been such a good idea after all.

Pine stepped forward and placed a foot on the downed man and kicked him over onto his back. "I warned you, didn't I? See what you get?"

Katie seized the moment of Pine's gloat over Trent and launched her shovel at him in an overhand throw. The shovel wheeled through the air and Pine looked just in time to see it reach him. The weighted end of the metal crashed through several of his ribs breaking them off and they spun off to clatter on the ground behind him. Bone powder and fragments flew backward from the staggering figure.

Pine shrieked a combination of pain, surprise and anger. He looked down at his broken rib cage in disbelief. He began to cough and gouts of smoke issued from the skeleton's mouth. The figure doubled over with the coughing fit. The ghostly form of Pine faded away briefly and returned. When the coughing stopped he stood tall again and leveled a hateful gaze at Katie who now stood with no weapon to defend herself. I had to do something to distract Pine so Katie at least had the chance to find another shovel to use in defense.

"Hey Skeletor," I yelled, "I'm not finished with you yet." I held my shovel like a baseball bat and jumped at him swinging it. Pine leaned far back and avoided the blow. The shovel whistled harmlessly through the air and Pine snapped fully upright. Before I had a chance to bring the weapon back around he threw a left hook and connected his knuckles with the back of my head. Stars danced in my field of vision and I lost my balance. I toppled over to the floor losing my shovel along the way.

I crashed to the ground where the wind was knocked out of me. With my head dizzy and my lungs screaming for breath the attempt I made to prop myself up was ill fated. I tried again but was discouraged by pointed bone toes which were swiftly planted into my side. The little air I had managed to draw into my lungs was now evicted by the kick. I lay on my back and coughed and gasped.

Pine towered over me, fire glowing behind his eyes. I expected him to finish me off but apparently he was done playing with me. He looked behind him then disappeared from my sight.

I propped myself up successfully enough to see him acquire his next target: Katie. She was on the floor scrambling toward the shovel she had thrown at Pine earlier. Pine jogged over to her. As she laid a hand on the handle and began to pick it up Pine reached the tool also. His left foot came down on the shaft, pinning it to the ground.

Katie looked up at the grimacing Pine from her place on the ground then scrambled away and managed to get herself up on her feet. I watched as she backed away slowly from him. He matched her pace following her then he stopped. This caused her to stop too. She eyed him suspiciously trying to anticipate what he was going to do.

I coughed violently and a little blood came up and out from the kick I had received. I spat it on the ground. Pine turned a little at the waist to make sure I paid attention to his activity. A wicked grin formed on the transparent features of his face. He turned back to face Katie who stood frozen in place with terror.

Pine spread his arms out wide. Smoke began to rise from them. Suddenly they burst into flames. His face grimaced in pain again when the fire touched the old skeleton. He said, "Let's not fight like this. How about a hug, darlin'?" Then the burning skeletal form launched itself at Katie. He tackled her to the ground floor and she began to scream.

### Chapter Thirty

Breath or no breath, strength or no strength I would not allow Pine to continue his assault on Katie. With everything I had I pushed myself up on my hands and knees, ignoring the needles of pain in my side from where he had kicked me. The sound of Katie's screams of pain propelled me to my feet. I picked up the shovel I had dropped after Pine had punched me in the back of my head.

I staggered my way over to where Pine lay on top of Katie, pinning her to the ground. I took a few steadying breaths. If I was to be any good my muscles would need the oxygen to do their work. Meanwhile Pine continued his attack. His flaming arms slapped and scratched at Katie who covered her head and face with her arms as she tried to wriggle away from the menace.

As I regained my balance and strength I saw the deep scratches and burns form on Katie's arms. The sight surged adrenaline through out my body and my arms itched to swing the shovel and knock his diseased head off. An uncanny calm took center stage in my mind and the only things in the world were me, the shovel and the busy skeletal beast with its back foolishly turned to me.

Pine drew back an arm for a hard slash at the girl. I whistled loud and he paused. I didn't give him enough time to turn to see what I was up to, I just let it fly. The course took the shovel to dead center of Pine's form. He was thrown to the side but not completely off Katie. More ribs shattered off from his chest and a good chunk was pulverized from three of his vertebrae.

I reached down and tried to pull Katie away from him but she was still struggling against his attack. Pine went into another bad coughing fit. Smoke plumed out of his nasal cavity, mouth and eyes. When she realized she was not as pinned as she had been Katie moved an arm partially away from one of her eyes to survey the chain of events.

I continued to pull at her and she began to work with me. Pine continued to hack and spew smoke. He made a few vain attempts to grab her from me but the spasms which racked him were too much for him to accomplish anything productive. As before the ghostly layer of Pine's apparition over the skeleton disappeared, longer this time and two more of his ribs fell off by themselves.

Trent appeared beside me and took one of Katie's arms. At last she broke free and awkwardly got to her feet. Her injuries were not life threatening but neither were they minor. I maneuvered her behind me. I didn't want Pine getting to her and I didn't want her in the way incase an opportunity to get at Pine presented itself.

Pine's coughing trouble settled a bit and he looked up at the three of us. He locked gazes with me and all semblance of order in his attack vanished. With shocking speed he jumped at me arms outstretched, fingers clawing. I sensed when he reached me he would go for my eyes. I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

The anticipation of Pine's collision tensed every muscle in my body. There was no time to move out of the way. I could only brace for the impact. I waited for the hit but it never came. I opened an eye and peeked in the direction the attack was supposed to have come from. When I saw what had happened I couldn't help but stare fully at the scene.

The ghostly, skeletal form writhed and struggled suspended in mid air a few feet away from me. He swiped at me with his hands but I was out of his reach. I looked around but by the expressions on the faces of Katie and Trent they were just as confounded about what had happened as I was. I looked back over at Pine.

"Let me go, sonny, or I'll tear your friends apart and feed them to you piece by piece until you explode," Pine cried. I was too astonished by the implication of the threat to care about its pledge. He thought I had been responsible for holding him. The more surprising thing was when I realized he was right. There was no one in the room apart from me who demonstrated any kind of psychic phenomena.

As Pine persisted in his attempt to break free I closed my eyes, found the calm center of myself and explored the possibility of what I might do next. I opened my eyes and stared at him. He stopped the struggle and looked back. The wrath in his face changed into fearful comprehension at what would come next. I sent a wave of thought at him and he flew backward. He slammed into the far wall and I heard the bones begin to crack. I made sure to suspend him there a few feet above the floor in case I wanted to drop him. A furious groan escaped him and his eyes stabbed pure murder in my direction. The trouble was I couldn't hold him for long. My mental capacity began to fatigue.

He broke free of the mental bonds and slid down the wall to land on his feet. He swayed there until he regained his balance. I had to hunch over and rest my hands on my knees. I was out of breath and now vulnerable to whatever he might devise.

Trent picked up a shovel and began to move between us. Pine flicked his eyes at Trent and the wooden shaft in Trent's hand caught fire and he had to drop it.

"Stay out of this," I cautioned Trent. "It's between him and me now," I said. He shifted his attention between Pine and me a few times. He weighed his options and reluctantly stepped back.

Pine took a few steps toward me but faltered. He tried again to move the leg that failed him but it still would not come. He looked down to see what the problem was and got quite a surprise.

I also looked to see what had happened and discovered a set of hands which grasped at Pine's ankle. They were the hands of a young boy with dark skin. They extended from the wall. The boy pulled himself fully onto Pine's leg, hugging it to his chest. It was the boy with the ruined face Pine had killed as he hounded Susan through those same tunnels one hundred years previous. I then remembered the boy had been killed in that very chamber. Now he helped to return the favor.

Pine furiously tried to shake the boy off but he would not be moved from his purpose.

"Rueben, you'll get punishment for this. It will be easier for you later if you let me go now," Pine warned.

"There ain't going to be no 'later,' Jonas. You're all finished up tonight," the boy said defiantly. Then the boy turned his attention to me and said, "Now mister, separate him. Finish him off. I can't hold him like this forever."

"I don't know what you mean," I pleaded. "What am I supposed to do?"

Pine began to smack at the boy who cried out in pain.

"Separate him," he cried. "Pull the two halves apart and destroy him. Do it now!" He continued to hold Pine under the barrage of the beating.

I studied the monstrous being that was Jonas Pine and then I understood. There were two parts: the material and the immaterial. I focused my thought on the physical part, the bone structure beneath the terrible ghostly visage which was held by the boy. Pine began to break free of the boy's grip, to shake him off. The boy, Rueben, screamed and then more hands appeared from the wall and grasped part of Pine, pulling him back against the wall.

They were mostly sets of children's hands but there was also an adult pair which grabbed Pine by the neck and pulled him back. Faces and bodies appeared from the wall. They belonged to the other children who had died in the orphanage fire. The adult was the woman I had seen dead on the floor of the foyer of the orphanage in one of my earliest visions.

Pine railed against their grip but it was no use. Smoke poured out of his mouth and eyes and nose as he screamed and raged. He tried to move away from the wall but was quickly slammed back. There were too many of them and they were determined to stop him.

I concentrated on the bones in one of his hands and mentally tried to pull. Nothing seemed to happen so I increased my focus. Nothing.

"It's not working," I called to the boy. "What am I doing wrong?"

"You need to be calm," he said. "You're trying too hard."

Pine had pulled one of his arms free and slapped at the hands holding him to the wall. He was beginning to have some success in getting away which made my heart begin to race. Yet I had to be calm to do this right. I closed my eyes and took a few slow breaths.

When I opened my eyes again I focused on Pine's free hand. I used my mind to pull again and this time all of the finger bones flew out of his hand and clattered to the dirt floor. He stopped his struggle to look at his hand. Then he looked at me incredulous. I pulled again and all the bones in his hand and forearm likewise came out and joined their brothers on the floor.

"No!" he yelled. "You can't." Oh but I could. I did. His protests were nothing. There would be no mercy for one so merciless in life and after.

He pulled against his captors and freed his other arm. He leaned forward and reached toward me pulling away from the wall as hard as he could. It was becoming too much for the little hands. I saw tired fingers begin to slip from him. I reached out with my mental strength and focused on his newly freed arm.

All of the bones broke free from the arm and tumbled out onto the pile forming a few feet in front of him. They were soon followed by the last bone in his other arm.

"Start picking up the bones," I said to Katie and Trent. "Put them back in the trunk." They followed the order and ran to the bone pile and began collecting the dusty old things.

"Stop!" Pine screamed, "stay away from those. STOP!" They ignored him and carried about the task, hurriedly picking up the bones, included the fragments which had been broken off earlier in the confrontation.

I continued to pull bones out of him. After his arms were empty I started in on his legs. The more I did it the easier it became. Pine was exerting so much energy to break free from the other ghosts he lost his hold on his own bones. The legs were empty in short order so I moved north. Next came his pelvic bone. It clattered heavily on top of the few other bones left on the floor. Katie grabbed it and threw it into the trunk.

The broken ribcage, spinal column and shoulder blades were next. The last was the skull. A little more effort was required. Pine apparently had exerted a fair amount of energy to keep his hold on it but it was not enough. The jawbone came away and was quickly followed by the rest of the head. I ran forward and grabbed the skull and tossed it into the trunk then helped with the rest.

I located the gasoline canister Stuart Vox had dropped after Price had murdered him, grabbed it and ran over to the steamer trunk. There was thankfully about a quarter of the contents left. I emptied the gasoline all over the bones inside the trunk. I scanned the room to be sure there were no more bone fragments lying about. When my search was satisfied I found the box of matches I had dropped somewhere in the course of the confrontation.

"Do you know how they say you should fight fire, Pine?" I asked the struggling ghost. Just then he broke free from the grasp of the children behind him. He lunged forward as I struck two matches at once against the side of the box. I dropped them into the steamer trunk where they ignited the gasoline fumes and everything in the trunk. "You do it with fire," I completed the old proverb.

Pine stopped dead in his tracks. He was completely motionless at first. I thought for a split second I had made a terrible mistake. Then the apparition started to tremble. He also convulsed uncontrollably and screamed. But it was not a normal scream. It was the most terrible noise I had ever heard in my entire life and it seemed to come from everywhere. He arched his back and bright orange light shot out of his mouth. Lines of light seemed to split him at every joint, every place where a bone ended and a new one began.

The same light shot up and out of the trunk where his remains were blazing and the box itself was consumed by the fire.

The light coming from the multiple points on Pine's form soon consumed his entire figure. We could see only a black silhouette inside the light which rapidly shrunk. All hell had broken loose inside of him and now it consumed him.

He let out one last scream of agony and then the light dissipated into a small pinpoint and was gone. A puff of smoke appeared and arose from that point and it was soon gone, a mere ghost of fire here one moment and then gone the next. As it should be, I thought.

The orange supernatural light faded away slowly and then was gone. It was back to the pitch black of an underground tunnel.

I shone my flashlight around the room. It was then I noticed we were completely alone.

"They're gone," I observed.

"What? Who's gone?" Trent asked.

"The other ghosts," I said, "the ones who helped me with Pine."

Trent and Katie, who had their flashlights back in their possession, exchanged questioning glances then looked back at me.

"What other ghosts?" Katie asked. "We only saw Pine."

"There were little kids," I urged, "probably ones lost in the orphanage fire. You really didn't see them? They're the ones who pinned him to the wall in the end while I pulled him apart."

Trent said, "I didn't see anyone else. I thought that was all you." He seemed to consider it a moment then said, "But I did wonder who you were talking to at the end when you were having trouble getting the bones to come apart."

"You didn't see them either?" I asked Katie. She shook her head. I wondered what perplexing law of the universe could possibly be at work in all this then dismissed the whole phenomena.

The fire in the trunk continued to burn. I walked up to it and peered inside. The bones were blackened and shriveled. Cinders peeled off of them from time to time and floated up past my face to burn orange and go out leaving only the dead black ash to float away. Trent and Katie came and stood on either side of me. We watched the flame lick the wood of the trunk. It was no moment to talk, only to see. Katie leaned against my shoulder and I put my arm around her. Then I discovered there was one appropriate thing to say, something which needed to be said.

"It's over."

* * *

A short while later the trunk fire had burned low. It was mostly coals, ash and the occasional scorched piece of wood or bone sticking out. I kicked my foot through the mess and found the key which had opened the trunk. I plucked it out of the ash and tossed it aside as it was still too hot to hold for very long. After it cooled I picked it up and put it back in my pocket.

"Do you think you're going to need that again?" Katie asked.

"I hope not,' I replied.

"Then why take it?" She pressed.

"Souvenir," was all I said in return.

We all got shovels and dug a hole about three feet deep, by three long and two across in front of the charred remains. We knocked them over into the hole and covered them over with dirt.

"Are we sure the bones are burned enough?" Trent inquired.

"Oh, yeah, he's gone," I said. "We won't be seeing Jonas Pine again."

"Good," Katie said.

"How are we doing?" I asked. We took turns examining each other's wounds to make sure there wasn't anything which needed immediate attention. Trent seemed to have it the worst with the deep cuts on his face he'd received from Pine. He was going to need stitches before the Sun came up. All of us had bruising and burns and scrapes but we were all going to make it. My eyes fell to the body of Stuart Vox and I was taken by a great regret.

I walked over to the body and knelt beside it...beside him. "Stuart, I'm so sorry." I turned to the others, stood and said, "I wish I'd known him better. We really only had a few hours. This isn't right." Trent nodded in agreement. Katie walked over and hugged me.

"You've got me," she said. She looked up and planted a kiss on my lips.

"You've got me too," Trent said. Then he added, "Just don't expect me to kiss you."

"You've got yourself a deal," I replied. I laughed, which I didn't think I would be able to do for a long time. But it felt good. It felt alive. As I looked back down at Katie in my arms I looked forward to exploring what else could help make me feel alive and well.

Through the fires of Hell I had somehow stumbled across love. That love had also been tested and tried in the fire and had come out the other side whole. But it was still small and new. It had a lot of ways to grow and change and become more.

I had new love and new friendship. It was all so much more than I ever could have planned or hoped for. That was fine by me. Sometimes, I thought, the surprise routes are the best and most fulfilling ones.

* * *

Trent and I carried Vox's body back to the elevator. Katie carried the other equipment and showed the way with her flashlight. When we arrived there we found the scorched body of James Price prostrate in front of the elevator doors. There were long marks on the stainless steel doors where he had clawed at them and left black streaks of himself.

"What do we do about him," Trent asked. "I'm not a fan of riding in elevators with one corpse, let alone two."

I crept forward to the body and knelt beside it. I gently placed my finger to the side of his neck and checked for a pulse. I couldn't feel anything so I pressed a bit more firmly. I was finally satisfied that he, too, was dead. I stood and stared down at the husk of the former man.

"All the same," I said, "I think we better take him back up with us. We'll let the fine folks at Spectra deal with him. He's their mess to clean up now." I walked over to the elevator call button and pressed it in hope. The machinery inside began without any problem.

"That's funny," Trent said. "It wouldn't come before when Stuart wanted to leave. I wonder why?"

I speculated out loud, "I think it wouldn't come precisely because Stuart wanted to leave. That's the best I've got at this point."

"That works for me," Trent said.

The elevator doors opened and we carried Vox's body in first, then Price's. We laid them on the floor on one side of the box while we occupied the other. I stepped forward and pressed the button to return to the first floor. Before the doors closed I looked back into the corridor and saw the faint glow of white light and the adult form of Susan standing in it. My heart leapt to my throat at the unexpected visitation. She nodded to me and faded away just as the doors closed.

"Did you guys see that?" I asked.

Trent said, "See what?"

I started to tell them who I had just seen but I stopped. They hadn't been looking out of the elevator and something told me that even if they had they still would not have seen her. It was only for me and so I would keep it.

"Nothing," I said. "It was nothing. It was just my eyes adjusting to the elevator light. Never mind."

Trent looked at Katie and shrugged. She shrugged back.

The elevator ascended away from the underworld and back to the land of the living.

### Epilogue

The lights from the ambulances flashed and filled the foyer of Spectra with alternating bursts of red, amber and white. Trent was in one of them and Katie in another. I had already been attended to. Jan insisted that I go first. I didn't bother to argue with her. So I waited with my boss for the medics to finish with my friends. They said they could stitch Trent up right there which surprised me. Jan explained they were not regular EMTs.

"What makes them so special?" I asked.

Jan looked at me as if the answer were obvious and said, "They work for us."

My brow furrowed as I thought about that. "That shouldn't surprise me but I think it does anyway."

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Jan said. "You've had a busy day."

I snorted a laugh. "That's putting it mildly, don't you think?"

She tilted her head at me. "How would you put it, Mr. Nicholas? How would you express all that has happened today?"

I laughed and looked out the glass doors. "I wouldn't. There's no way in hell I'm going to breathe a word of this to anybody who wasn't involved." I returned my gaze to her. "I think I'll keep today to myself, thanks."

She was silent for a time. When I was about to ask her if she understood my answer she spoke. "That's probably wise."

We were silent again for a while when I finally voiced the new concern which occurred to me as we brought the bodies of Price and Vox out of the elevator and I saw Jan and Derek. Derek had since disappeared but I got the sense that Jan wanted to keep an eye on me.

"So," I started, "I guess since Spectra was a front company to bring closure to this whole thing I'm unemployed again."

"I'm afraid so. Sorry we could only be a temp job for you but I think you'll be pleased with the severance package." She pulled a small manila envelope out of her inside suit jacket pocket and handed it to me. I accepted it and began to open it.

"Severance? What are you talking about now?" I pulled out the contents of the envelope. It was a check for three hundred thousand dollars. I fired a surprised glance at Jan who just smiled. "What's this about," I asked.

"Spectra will be closed tomorrow for good," she began, "and we won't need this part of the operating budget anymore. It should be enough to get you started. The rest of the employees will receive their final paychecks of course but we'll cover that. They were all merely temps anyway."

When she saw the shock and concern on my face she added, "Don't worry we're completely squared away with the IRS. As far as they're concerned we've merely closed shop and liquidated all our assets." As if that were at the top of my list of concerns.

"Whatever," I shook my head dismissing the whole bizarre situation.

She asked, "What will you do now?"

I looked out toward the ambulance where the burns and lacerations on Katie's arms were being treated. "I've got other things to focus on."

Jan followed my gaze and nodded when she discerned what I was looking at.

"What about you, Jan?" I asked. "What's next for you?"

"It may come to surprise you Steve but the Spectra group is not the only organization of its kind in the world. There are many others." She paused and narrowed her eyes in an uncharacteristic display of playfulness then said, "I'll find another fight. You should consider the same."

I laughed loudly this time. "Thanks but no thanks. I've had enough of the fire. I think I'll find someplace with lots and lots of water instead. Keep the fire to a minimum."

Jan was silent at this answer. She seemed to consider an argument but only said, "Suit yourself." There was another uncomfortable pause in the conversation. She filled it with more discomfort when she said, "But you may not have much choice."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"Nothing much," she said noncommittally. "It's just some food for thought."

"I'm not going to think about it," I said with more stone in my voice than I had ever used with any other boss I'd ever had. But then she was no longer a boss of mine, was she? "The answer is no. If you find yourself in some comfortable chair trying to figure out how to put some other restless spirits to rest and you think of me, you should stop and think of something else. I'm not interested."

She looked down at her feet. "I understand, Steve. What you've been through..." But I interrupted her. I wouldn't let her or anyone else go there.

"No," I said. "Nobody gets to use what happened down there as an excuse for anything. Not even me and certainly not someone who wouldn't stomach the trip in the first place. People died tonight. I'm not okay with being a part of that. You shouldn't be either."

Jan continued to look down at her shoes. She merely nodded and wisely chose to say nothing.

After a few minutes Katie came into the building and sat next to me. She leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder. I welcomed the contact and the feeling it produced in me. Almost fifteen minutes later Trent swaggered in. His face was cleaned and bandaged. Nevertheless he looked not too much the worse for wear. He chose a seat on the opposite side of the room next to Jan.

"Well boys and girls," he said cheerfully, "it's been a long grueling day and I think I'm ready for some sleep. Would anybody care to give me a lift to my hotel?" He was a transformed man from the one I had picked up from the airport. I was glad for him.

"Sure I'll get you there," I said. "But just give me a second would you?" I turned to Jan and said "I've got to know one thing because it's really been bugging me."

She looked up at me and there was no trace of shame on her face. "If it's anything I know I will answer it for you."

"Why Susan? Why did Pine seem so hell-bent on that little girl?"

Jan smiled, again the one in control of the situation and all the pertinent information. "The answer is in her name: Susan Elizabeth Pine."

Three jaws dropped at the same instant.

"You have got to be kidding me," I said.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Nicholas. Jonas had married some woman in a town not far from this one. We don't know who she was because there are no longer any records. What we do know is that Jonas fathered a child with his wife but it appears he left her before either of them knew it. We think she tried to find him and tell him but she could not travel far from home. She gave birth and died not long after that. The woman had no relatives in the area so Susan went to the orphanage and lived there for five years before Jonas came to town and discovered the story of what had happened.

"He came to the orphanage under the pretense of wanting to perform a magic show for the children and invited Susan onto the stage to help with part of the act. It was then that Jonas discovered her psychic talent. She nearly ruined one of his illusions. But now he believed he had something truly magical on his hands and he planned to use that to his advantage.

"He discovered the tunnels beneath the orphanage and set up shop down there. He used Susan's talent to help his criminal activity in the town. We believe he planned to claim her and take her with him to continue this new plan in many places. We also think Susan wanted nothing to do with it and this generated the conflict which sparked the fire that later burned the orphanage."

It was the last piece of the puzzle and a fairly sizeable one at that. We knew the rest of the story and this part fit perfectly with it.

Jan stood up and walked toward the exit. She turned and nodded before she exited the door and disappeared into the night. Then it was just the three of us.

"Unbelievable," Trent said.

"Believe it anyway," Katie said. "Stranger things have happened."

"I'll second that," I added.

I sat in the small, sparsely furnished foyer. I was no longer alone and no longer anxious about the future.

You've read A Ghost of Fire...

Now turn the page for a preview of Sam Whittaker's next novel in the "Ghostly Elements" series,

### A Ghost of Water

### In the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Caribbean Sea, there are waters of legend. Three points serve as the boundaries of these waters—the southern tip of Florida, the island of Puerto Rico and the mid Atlantic island of Bermuda. This is the Bermuda Triangle.

### Throughout history many ships and planes have mysteriously gone missing in these cursed tides. What dark thing resides there?

### Available 2012

### Chapter One

It was supposed to be the beginning of the happiest time of our lives. That's what people kept telling us, anyway, and that is what we expected, regardless. It was our honeymoon, after all. Who doesn't expect their honeymoon to be a whirlwind adventure of love and fun? It didn't exactly work out that way.

We hadn't even been married for more than twenty-four hours when it all started up again, though at the time neither of us knew that what had happened at the dock was the reopening of that door to another world. We had both believed, perhaps naively, the door was permanently shut because it had been so long since anything had happened. We didn't even talk about it any more by that point. We just sort of settled into a life of regular expectation where the biggest concerns were paychecks and bills and the odd argument about which movie we were going to watch or what we were going to have for dinner.

It had been a little over one year since we had walked away from the final confrontation with the evil spirit of Jonas Pine in the basement of the now defunct Spectra Data Processing. We had come away with our lives, but just barely. We had also come away with loads of emotional healing to get through, perhaps untold years' worth. When one of us came to the edge of ourselves, the other was always there to keep the first from falling.

Yet after time even the most dramatic facets of life have a way of settling down and the past becomes little more than old pictures in an album we seldom revisit to reassure ourselves better days are ahead, if they not already present.

Eight months earlier I had started my own editing and proofreading business which was still very small and serviced only a few people. At our parting of the ways Spectra had provided a good nest egg for myself, most of which I invested responsibly in things like a down payment on a reasonable home, starting up the business, and eliminating other debts.

Yet it wasn't just the Steve and Katie show: there were three of us that had survived that night, after all.

Our friend, Trent Blacker, had also made the underground journey with me and Katie and came out the other side with the scars to prove it. The three of us formed a bond we could share with no one else so we did the natural thing: we kept in touch.

Trent had carried on as a college professor and called for my "expert" – and anonymous at my insistence – help with a few related projects for some of his courses. He also worked sporadically on another book project which I contributed to in a few ways. Aside from supplying content and providing the major case study underlying the book I also served as Trent's editor.

Additionally Trent was the Best Man at our wedding and served as our chauffer to get us to the boat the day after the ceremony. I reflected later on his friendship and wished at so many points he could have been along for the tumultuous cruise. I couldn't say whether this would have changed anything in the end but the solidarity at least would have been good.

There were others who had been involved in the whole Spectra episode that had lived, partly because they hadn't gone into the dark belly of the building and been part of the confrontation. After that night they had disappeared entirely and we hadn't heard from them since, which suited me just fine. I had no desire to reconnect with any of them, in partial measure because I had lost respect for them due to their refusal to accompany us on the final and most dangerous leg of our little adventure in Hell. I could admit there was also a fear that if I had stayed in contact with any of them some other similarly unwanted escapade might crop up. Not much was clearer to me as my desire to avoid such an eventuality. But life has an odd way of spoiling some of our greatest ambitions, sometimes with ferocity.

Jan Fenstra's words after the conflict often came back to haunt me – "But you may not have a choice." I did not care to ponder what she might have meant by that but I couldn't always stop myself. It was Katie who saved me from those moments of unsolvable anxiety. She was my beautiful constant when everything else wanted to shift.

Trent slowed his car as we approached the curb and there was a brief shriek of protest from the vehicle's brakes before it came to a complete stop. He put it in park but left it running. He turned in his seat and said, "Okay, this looks like the place to me." We all looked as one out the car windows at our destination and were all silent at first, awed by the size of it. Finally Trent whistled and said, "That is one big boat."

We all exited the idling car to get a clearer look at the hulk. It's one thing to see small pictures of something like that when you booked passage online; it was another thing entirely to see it up close and personal. I thought that to say it was a "big boat" was to put it mildly. It was gargantuan, a floating four star hotel and then some. We had caught glimpses of it from our approach but nothing like the sight which greeted us when we stood at the curb.

I looked over to Katie to share the moment with her but I was greeted by a skeptical look. She continued to gaze at the cruise ship but her brow was furrowed in an expression of uncertainty. When I asked if she was okay she looked at me, looked back at the ship and finally returned her attention to me.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said.

"Are you sure? You looked concerned there for a second," I pressed.

"Sure," Katie said and shrugged as if it was nothing, then broke the moment by walking to the back of the car. Trent saw this and reached in past the door to pull the trunk release. The compartment released and then came open with a little help from my wife. Our bags were lifted out, placed on the curb in short order, and the trunk was closed again.

"Okay," Trent said, "you kids behave yourselves. I've got to get back to the real world and do something productive."

"Try not to get into too much trouble without us," Katie replied.

There were hugs all around and Trent headed back to the driver's side door.

"I've got those new chapters on my laptop," I called after him.

"If you get any reading done over the next eight days," Trent warned as he shook his finger at me, "I'll be very disappointed in you, young man."

Katie slipped an arm around one of mine and said, "You won't be the only one." She gave my arm an affectionate squeeze and I returned it. She rested her head against my shoulder as we watched Trent get back into the car and pull away. When I looked down at her she was already looking up at me. I leaned into her and kissed her warm lips. I was above everything in that moment, untouchable by anything that wasn't the short, slender red haired lover attached to my soul even more than she was attached to my lips.

When we parted from the kiss I asked, "Are you sure you were okay a minute ago?" I saw the briefest flicker of hesitation in her eyes but it was gone before it could be catalogued as anything significant.

"Yeah, I'm great," she said smiling. She diverted her attention back to the colossal boat before us. "It's just that I've never seen one of these up close and I have a hard time believing anything that big can actually move anywhere." I looked back at the ship and couldn't say I disagreed with her.

"It does stretch the mind a little, doesn't it?" We looked back at each other for a long moment and then turned our attention to the luggage. The trip was a little over a week and we had two bags each in addition to a few other personal items. Katie's bags were suspiciously larger and heavier than mine, supporting the age old belief that women apparently prepared in case Armageddon, or if some other major emergency broke out. I discovered and then snagged a nearby luggage cart and loaded all the bags on it.

I pushed the cart toward a glass-fronted building which stood between us and the ship, but which certainly could not block it. The cart provided a fair amount of resistance at first and air involuntarily huffed out of my lungs and exited my mouth. I said, "You didn't bring all of the lead bricks, did you?"

"Just the small ones, stud," she volleyed the sarcasm back in my court. That was one of the many things about Katie I liked: She gave as well as she took. Yet there were moments along the way when I wondered if we had moved too quickly in our relationship. Our earliest days had been a tempest of emotional and stressful times, even after the Spectra episode. I knew the relationship could withstand great external pressure, but the nagging question in the back of my mind was, could it continue in the face of daily routine existence? Whenever I surprised myself with one of these thoughts I pushed it back down, painting it as ridiculous compared to what we had already been through. If the demonic fires of Jonas Pine couldn't break our relationship, I reasoned, what could?

When we got inside the glass building we found the appropriate line and placed ourselves in it. The whole thing felt suspiciously like an airport to me but the anticipation of the coming week overcame any complaints I might have had about waiting in a long line to get on board. My brain switched to "waiting mindlessly" mode and I began to pass the time by playing pointless mental games with myself.

This entertained me well enough for the first few minutes and served as a shield against the palpable monotony of the wait. The scene before me blurred into a tapestry of sameness: all I could see was the backs of heads and shoulders. The haze broke momentarily when I noticed the face of a teenage boy staring directly at me. I could see nothing of him but his face because he peered from between the shoulders of two men facing the other direction in another line not far from ours. He startled me with the intensity of his gaze. I expected him to shift his attention away from me once he realized I saw him but he did not. I looked behind me to see if there was something else he might be looking at. There was nothing I saw which merited such scrutiny so I returned my attention to the boy.

His head cocked slightly but his eyes remained fixed on me as if some new thought had come to him. His face was dirty, pale, and there were dark circles around his eyes. A barely perceptible smile touched one corner of his lips and I grew uncomfortable. Katie must have noticed because she said, "What are you staring at?"

I looked to her face and saw mild concern painted there. "There's some kid over there who..." I pointed in the direction of the teen while I spoke but when I looked back in his direction I could not locate him. "He's gone," I said to her, perplexity obvious in my voice.

Katie searched where I pointed but likewise saw nothing. "A kid? What was he doing?"

"He was just staring at me. He looked like he was maybe fifteen. It was kind of creepy."

She eyed me suspiciously. I think she had expected something a little more significant than a staring contest with some random passenger's weird kid. Regardless, I was unnerved by it.

I scanned the area again hoping to catch a glimpse of the boy but was disappointed. I looked back at Katie who just shrugged her shoulders. I nodded in concession. No big deal, I guessed. Get enough people together and you're bound to run into a few nuts here and there. Back to waiting.

Finally the line progressed to the point where we had passed through all the security checkpoints and we were ready to board the ship. We emerged into the sunlight through the back of the building where there was a long covered walkway extending from the building to the ship. It was open on the sides giving us a view of the water and the magnificent boat. Several other individuals and families filed down the walkway at various paces, dragging luggage behind them. It was halfway down the walkway where I was struck with a strange experience.

It started small and I dismissed it at first, however, it rapidly blossomed into an incapacitating pressure. At first it was a minor wheeze in my breathing and I thought I merely needed to clear my throat. When I attempted this it became slightly more difficult to breathe, so naturally I tried a little harder. Then it graduated to moderate shortness of breath. By this point I had slowed my pace and Katie had taken notice of the mounting situation. She began to slow down with me, putting her arm behind me and her hand on my back.

"Steve, are you alright?" The edge of concern to her question sparked further anxiety in me which in turn fed the growing worry about the experience. Other people were beginning to either notice and slow down to watch or skirt around us and continue along the walkway to their destinations. I cared about neither of these because the experience was intensifying by the moment. Within very short order I was on my knees and barely able to breathe. It felt very much like someone was trying to smother me with a thick, wet towel.

I was only peripherally aware that Katie alternated between yelling for help and shaking my shoulder while yelling my name. Mostly I was consumed with the newly born terror that my respiration might fully cease at any moment and be followed by the inevitable problems oxygen deprivation could cause.

The episode probably lasted less than a minute but it felt much longer. I ended up on my back with Katie and a few strangers kneeling over me. I clawed at my chest and neck desperate to get the air moving through them again, yet unable to do anything about it. I felt my face heating up as it must have turned red.

One of the strangers who had joined Katie by my side pointed outside of my field of vision and shouted things I did not have the power of attention to comprehend. I barely noticed anything about the person other than he was a man. I felt him place one hand on the top of my head and his other hand on my chin as he tilted my head back, trying to create an airway. Some of the struggle to breathe was eased by this, but not much. I felt consciousness start to slip away and darkness took over the edges of my sight. Without warning cool air which carried the scent of the ocean surged into my lungs and I coughed and gasped deeply.

I rolled over onto my side away from Katie and the Good Samaritan partly out of embarrassment, and I continued my coughing fit. When my respiration took on the beginning semblance of a regular pace I made my way up to my knees again but stopped when I saw the small crowd that had gathered.

"Take it easy, buddy. Just rest a second." This came from the man who had come to my aide. He was a fit forty-something wearing a green Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and sandals. Sunglasses prevented me from seeing his eyes but not the look of relief on his face. I nodded affirmatively in response to his suggestion.

Katie watched me with fear etched on her face. I wanted to assure her I was doing much better but I was not yet convinced of that myself. Instead I took one of her hands in one of mine and stroked it reassuringly with my thumb. Her mouth managed a smile at this, but her eyes were still quite cautious.

I turned my consideration to the man. "Thanks," I said still trying to regulate my breathing.

He gave a small nod in response. "How are you doing?" he asked.

"Better," I said, "Much better, in fact. I think I can stand up now." I saw the flash of a difference of opinion on his face. He looked like he wanted to argue the point at first but decided to help stand me up instead.

"Let's make sure you can keep your legs under you for a minute before you try to walk off into the sunset, cowboy," he cautioned. I agreed and leaned against the rail of the walkway. An ocean breeze drifted through the open side of the walkway and caressed the heated skin of my face and I could hear the call of seagulls not far away.

I extended a hand to the man and he shook it. "I'm Steve, by the way," I said. "This is Katie, my wife."

"Aiden," he responded. A woman stepped out of the crowd to stand close to him. "This is my wife, Bridget." Bridget and Katie exchanged nods of acknowledgement.

A few official looking people pushed their way through the throng and came to my side. There was a brief conversation that included a suggestion that I see the ship's doctor, which I declined. I was beginning to feel like myself again and since nothing like that had happened to me before I didn't believe I needed much further attention. Out of all of the strange experiences I could say I had, a sudden and unexplainable breathing problem was not among them. Though disconcerted by the ordeal I figured it to be a fluke and not likely to happen again.

When I had finally assured the cruise line representatives I was going to be just fine they scurried away, no doubt to other pressing duties, and we were able to resume our journey to the ship. Most of the crowd had shuffled along by that point and so the flow of foot traffic had returned to normal. Aiden and Bridget had wished us good luck and likewise moved on in search of their cabin.

I had expected a string of questions from Katie but she remained silent until we boarded the ship. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that but I knew she was thinking about what had happened and that now what should have been the exciting initiation of our life together was tinged with a sour start. I didn't know if I should say something or let her process her thoughts on her own. I never got the chance to decide because we came upon the ship's entrance and all thought of the preceding incident was overtaken by the view of the ship's luxurious interior.

We were greeted by rich, dark wood paneled walls trimmed with stainless steel and fine art prints of ocean scenes. It was obvious that everything from the light fixtures on the upper walls and the hardware on the doors to the carpet beneath our feet were meticulously chosen to give the impression that opulence was a primary concern aboard our ship, The Valiant Prince.

Katie and I looked at each other and then back into the hallway before us.

"If this is just the entrance, what is the rest of the ship like?" I heard Katie ask.

The only thing I could think to say was, "Let's go find out." We both picked up our jaws from the floor and headed off to find our cabin.

To read more from Sam Whittaker...

_Sam's Author Webpage_ –

<http://samwhittaker.webstarts.com/index.html>

_Sam's Smashwords ebooks_ –

<http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/samwhittaker>

_Sam's Blog_ –

<http://sam-whittaker.blogspot.com/>

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 http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/A-Ghost-of-Fire/113144592112247

