Colm & the Ghost's Revenge (2 page)

F
intan Wickerly was a deeply unpleasant man who had grown increasingly mean with every passing day. He had been a postman for twenty-seven years and he'd hated every single second of it. So had the people who'd been unfortunate enough to have their letters and packages delivered by him. And the neighbourhood pets weren't exactly fond of him either. Especially the dogs. In an unusual turn of events, the dogs on Fintan's route were afraid of the postman. There was something about the man that transformed them from happy-go-lucky cat botherers into twitching, nervous wrecks. It wasn't just the angry set of his jaw, his booming voice or his general rudeness. It was more than that. They seemed to sense that he was someone you should keep away from. Not a single dog had ever bared its teeth or dared to bark at Fintan. It was unheard of for one of them to growl when he was within a fifty metre radius. As for nipping at his ankles, well, only a pooch with a serious death wish would consider that.

Every morning, when they heard the squeak of his bicycle wheel or the hacking sound as he cleared his throat and spat on the ground, most of them would run around the back of their owner's house and cower there until he'd left. Others would hide under cars, duck beneath a hedge, or, in the case of Nigel, an elderly springer spaniel, stand completely still and hope the postman would mistake him for an extremely lifelike statue.

Of course, it wasn't just animals that had a problem with Fintan Wickerly. His fellow postmen weren't happy at having to spend time with him either. They said that to know him was to hate him, and it was true. Everyone hated him, even his own mother, and let's be honest, you have to be a spectacularly horrible person to be despised by your own mammy. Fintan had often been surprised to discover Mother Wickerly wasn't at home when he called to borrow some money and drop off his dirty washing. Especially since she was eighty-three-and-a-half years old, particularly feeble and very, very rarely left the house. He didn't realise that every time he banged his fist on the red front door and shouted her name she actually
was
at home. Just like the dogs, she hid too. She'd throw herself from her wheelchair onto the carpet, then crawl on her wrinkled, blue-veined hands and arthritic knees until finally she was behind the couch and out of sight. She'd rather risk months in hospital with two broken hips than spend a single second of the remaining years of her life in the company of her boorish son.

Luckily for his mother, Fintan Wickerly wasn't anywhere near her home on the day his rental car rattled twice, belched an enormous plume of black smoke and spluttered to a stop.

He was deep in the heart of America.

More specifically, he was on a little dirt road that wound its way through a forest which sat in the shadow of the magnificent Blue Ridge Mountains – a little dirt road that earlier in the journey he'd hoped would take him to Lynchburg, but which now appeared to lead to the middle of nowhere. He popped the bonnet with a sigh, got out of the car and stared at the engine. When that didn't fix things, he gave up. He felt like kicking something, preferably something small and furry, but there was nothing fitting that description within reach of his foot so he kicked the wheel instead. That was a mistake. Pain shot through his big toe (which had been home to a particularly nasty bunion since the morning of his forty-sixth birthday) and he hopped around for a while swearing inventively until the agony faded into mild discomfort.

It was turning into a really rotten holiday.

All he'd wanted to do was to drive a car around America for a month. A road trip like he'd seen in the movies. He'd planned to eat in diners. Wear a cowboy hat. Watch baseball. Stay in motels. Cut across the country and see Hollywood. But things hadn't gone according to plan. His airline had accidentally sent his luggage to Azerbaijan. The Ford Mustang convertible he'd booked hadn't been available and he'd been given a little yellow hatchback as a replacement. He'd lost his mobile phone after a fight in a biker bar. And now this. Why did his car have to break down? And if it had to do so, why did it have to be here, just as it was beginning to get dark? The dark in America wasn't like the dark in Ireland. There were dangerous things out there.

‘Why do bad things always happen to good people like me?' he shouted in frustration as the rain which had been threatening all afternoon began to fall. Fat drops rolled down his neck and under the collar of his Munster rugby shirt. He got back into the driver's seat and waited there, listening to the radio, hoping that someone would eventually see him and stop to help fix his car.

Waiting and listening.

As the rain pounded on the car.

And no truck or car passed by.

Waiting and listening.

As darkness fell.

And the night took hold.

And still no vehicle passed by.

Until finally, the car's battery died.

And Fintan Wickerly began to worry.

It was time to make a decision. He was either going to spend the night freezing in the car with no blankets or food – and his stomach had already begun to rumble – or else he was going to have to get out and seek some other form of shelter. He couldn't remember passing a house in the last few kilometres of his journey, but there had to be one somewhere up ahead, hadn't there? They don't just build roads to nowhere, he told himself, as he climbed out of the car for the second and last time.

Fintan had been striding down the middle of the road, as purposefully as his bunion would allow, for what felt like hours and he still hadn't come across any sign of civilisation. Without a torch or the moon to guide him, he'd occasionally wandered off the track, but then his eyes had adjusted to the night and he'd become more confident. For a while. The purposeful striding was downgraded to a hearty walk and then a sullen trudge as tiredness began to take hold. The rain eased off, not that he cared very much. He was already soaked through. He knew he needed to find shelter quickly. He was wondering how long it would take to die of hypothermia when he heard a howl coming from the woods.

‘Probably longer than it would take to be eaten by a wild animal,' he muttered.

He wasn't sure what sort of creature could produce such a howl. A coyote? A cougar? A bear? Did bears even howl? It hardly mattered. What was important was whether or not he could outrun any of them if they caught his scent. He was a forty-seven-year-old burger-loving postman and whatever lurked in the night was a wild animal that survived because of its speed, strength and stealth. The odds weren't exactly stacked in his favour.

Then he saw a light up ahead. A tiny pinprick in the distance, but a light all the same. He felt adrenaline surge through his body. His legs and arms might not be ripped off after all. He might live. He picked up the pace. Another hundred metres farther on and he could see a blurry, dark shape beneath the light. A contrast to the trees. Was it a house? He was almost sprinting now, his bunion pain a distant memory. No sign of any creature from the woods either. Half a kilometre later and Fintan Wickerly smiled for the first time in six months. It was a house. Of sorts. More like a cabin.

Sweet relief.

Surely whoever was in there couldn't refuse him shelter. Even if they did, Fintan decided that it wouldn't stop him. He was going in there no matter what they said. They could give him a meal. And a bed for the night. A hot shower would be nice too. Yes, he'd be their guest. They'd have to treat him right. He left the road, cut through the trees and up a slight incline until he reached the log cabin. It was pretty basic and probably charming in some sort of rustic way, but he didn't care. All he wanted was some place safe. A refuge from nature. He pounded on the door with his fists.

No answer.

The rain started up again, splattering onto the dirt path that had been made by successive footprints. He tried the handle. To his surprise the thumb latch clicked. He pushed the door open.

‘Hello,' he called out.

There was no reply. The cabin was small and not very well decorated, but all he focused on were the orange flames flickering in the stone fireplace, bathing the room in a warm, welcoming glow.

‘Hello,' he shouted again. ‘My car broke down and I need to use your phone. I'm coming in.'

Still no reply. He stepped inside. Ah, he thought, the heat's the job. He crossed the room, rubbed his hands together and warmed them by the fire before easing himself into the armchair with a satisfied grunt. He slipped out of his shoes, peeled off his stinking socks and laid them on the hearth to dry.

He took another look around the room. Now that he noticed it, there weren't any homely touches: no flowers or plants, no paintings or photos, nothing to indicate the owner had any family or friends. Just like me, Wickerly thought. He didn't have friends because he thought most people were boring eejits and why would you want to waste your life hanging out with boring eejits?

As for his family, well, most of them hadn't spoken to him since he'd tripped over a poorly positioned nephew in his sister's house and broken his leg. They'd got annoyed with him just because he'd sued them. Why shouldn't I have sued them, he thought. Stupid child lying in the middle of the floor drooling like a puppy. He'd won the case and the compensation money they'd been forced to give him had paid for his holiday to America. Of course, it also meant his sister and her husband had to sell their house to pay the legal bills, and now there were seven of them living in a rented two-bedroom flat, but that'd teach them to control their children rather than let them run wild around the place like a congress of baboons.

When his feet were toasty and the rest of him had dried out, he decided it was time to locate a telephone and a directory. He had to find a mechanic if he was going to get his car sorted and get back to his holiday. There was another reason too. Even though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, and didn't want to admit it to himself, there was a gnawing feeling of doubt at the back of his mind. The bravado he'd felt when he first arrived was fading. Maybe being here wasn't the greatest idea he'd ever had. The owner would be back soon if that fire was anything to go by, and even though any reasonable person wouldn't mind someone in trouble warming themselves by the fire, perhaps the owner wasn't a reasonable person. And this was America, not Ireland. They had guns here. Guns were scary. Especially in the hands of an unreasonable person. Yes, better hurry and find that phone.

He began to search the small cabin. Nothing in the kitchen. No phone in the bedroom. Or the bathroom, which was a good thing. It'd be terribly unhygienic. He turned the place upside down, but he still failed to unearth a phone. And the gnawing feeling grew stronger.

Think, Fintan, he told himself. There might not be a phone, but there had to be a computer. Everyone has a computer these days. He could get in touch with someone on the Internet and they could help him. The only thing was that there was no sign of a computer either. Aha, Fintan thought, clearly on a roll, if the man has a laptop he may have hidden it to prevent it from being stolen. Now where would you hide a laptop?

After a further ten minutes of searching, he thought he'd found it at the back of the kitchen dresser, hidden behind the cereal boxes. But he was wrong. It wasn't a laptop. It was a long, thin wooden box with gold trim on the edges. It was held closed by a small brass clasp. No padlock though. Wickerly unhooked the clasp with his thumbnail and opened the box. His mouth dropped open when he saw what it contained. I've got to get out of here now, his mind screamed, as his legs buckled under him. He grabbed the dresser and steadied himself. This was bad. This was really bad. He was in so much trouble his mind was unable to take it all in.

‘I see Goldilocks hasn't aged well.'

Fintan's eyes widened in surprise when he heard the velvet voice of the man who was standing behind him. If he hadn't opened them to their maximum potential at that particular moment, he'd have opened them even wider when he turned and saw the two dogs flanking the man. Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Like every good postman, Fintan Wickerly knew his dogs. This breed was big and strong, with a distinctive stripe on its back. Ridgebacks had often been used in South Africa to hunt lions. Fintan Wickerly may have been many things, but a lion wasn't one of them. And he knew just by looking at them that, unlike the dogs back home, these two weren't afraid of him.

He gulped. ‘I … I …'

The dogs bared their teeth and growled. Low and menacing. Fintan's shoulders tightened and he felt knots of tension popping up at the base of his skull. He dearly wished he'd stayed in the car.

‘Easy, Keyser. Stand down, Moriarty,' the man whispered.

The dogs stopped growling immediately and sat back on their haunches. Wickerly said a silent prayer of thanks.

The man standing before him was tall and pale, his smooth skin almost white enough to be transparent. He was also good-looking, but in that too perfect way that gives you the creeps rather than drawing looks of admiration. There was something too symmetrical about his face. No flaw to draw the eye and make him seem human.