Ghost Program (10 page)

   Mr. Breame.  Suddenly I loathed him, I feared him.  What kind of man was he?  What secrets did he have to hide?  I jumped in my little car and peeled out of the shopping mall parking lot, heading for the athletic club.  I kept a locker there with a towel, swimsuit, and some workout clothes so I wouldn’t have to stop by the house.  I needed to go somewhere I could relax and forget about Casper software and English term papers for awhile.  Besides, they had warm showers.

   I reached the club fifteen minutes later and maneuvered the Toyota into a parking space, patting the pocket of my sweatpants to make sure my thumb drive was still in there.  I entered the athletic club doorway, found the front desk, smiled at the clerk and showed her my card, and made my way towards the locker rooms, whistling a tune until I found the locker that belonged to me.  I pulled my swimsuit out of the small space and dressed into it, placing my outside clothes in the locker after I folded them carefully, then setting my Nikes on the upper shelf.  After a quick shower, I pulled on my swim cap and made my way to the swimming pool.  The pool room was warm and inviting with creme painted walls and a palm tree in every corner.

   I entered a pool lane and began to swim laps, pacing myself so I wouldn’t become tired, the chlorinated water massaging my tense muscles and easing my tensions and fears.  I’d always believed swimming to be therapy for the body and the soul, and the way I felt now in the warm water proved my theory right.

   After swimming for twenty minutes, I pulled my dripping body out of the pool and headed for the jacuzzi, sticking my legs and then my hips into the stiflingly hot water.  I’d always heard people did sex stuff in jacuzzis, but I’d never met anyone who had done those things in real life.  In truth, it was a little too hot in the club jacuzzi to get those kinds of feelings, but the water did relax me, and it got rid of all the little niggling pains in my body.  I stayed in the hot tub for a good half an hour then decided to make my way back to the locker room. 

   After drying myself off with my towel, I glanced towards the entrance to the women’s locker room and saw a woman cleaning the tile floor with a mop.  Sighing, I realized that I would have to go around the long way back to the locker room, back the way I’d come in from outside.  I grabbed my towel and left the pool room for the carpeted hallway. 

   As I walked the narrow passage, a tall man carrying a tennis racket smiled at me as he sauntered in my direction.  He looked around thirty, had short, curly hair, and as I stepped close to him, he blocked my path instead of moving out of my way.

   “Excuse me,” I said while trying to move around him. 

   He took a step sideways and blocked my path again.  “Miss, I just needed to have a word with you,” he said.

   I was suddenly conscious of the fact that I wore a skimpy swimsuit and nothing else and that the stranger’s eyes gazed lower than my face.

   “I was wondering, you know, if you wanted to go up to the restaurant, let me buy you a burger.  Maybe a martini.”

   “I’m not old enough to drink,” I said.

   “Well, a Pepsi.”

   “I’m sorry, but....I’m taken.”

   “I don’t see a ring.”

   “Well, I’m not married.”

   “Then what’s the problem?”

   “Please, nice to have met you, but I’m not interested.  Let me by.” I said.

   He smiled, but the smile looked angry, and he grabbed my wrist.  “No reason why you have to be such a bitch.  I asked you nicely, didn’t I ask you nicely?  Sure I did.  But you brush me off?”

   A whimpering noise came out of the back of my throat as he squeezed my wrist with a painfully intense amount of pressure.

   “Please let me by,” I repeated.

   “I think someone should teach you to be nice,” he said, not releasing me.

   Panicked, I looked up and down the hallway. 
Someone will come by and see this
, I thought.

Sure enough, a mother with two kids came ambling our way.  The man let go of my wrist, and I ran past him to the locker room, my eyes beginning to fill with tears. 
What is wrong with the people in this town?  Suddenly, everyone is insane.
I found my locker, then sat down on the bench next to it wiping saltwater from my cheeks and feeling hopelessly lonesome. 
Things are going to change
. 
As soon as I get out of this two horse town.  And no way am I coming back.

❃
CHAPTER 9 ❃

  
M
y bright mood swiftly assassinated, I no longer had much desire to do anything but drive home, a move which left me without the prospect of facing anymore hostile mortals.  The highway had few cars on it that afternoon, save for a few semi-trailers rumbling on their way to the mountain pass. 

   I drove cautiously down the debris-strewn road, my hands tightly gripping the wheel, eyes fixed in front of me, traveling that rural route unaffected by the chronic congestion of I-5 while trying my best to get rid of the knotted feeling in my stomach and the anxiety I felt in my head, casting paranoid glances towards the road shoulders and my rearview mirror, a mirror that now displayed the reflection of a speeding black SUV quickly gaining on me as it moved into the passing lane to overtake my car, and I grew worried when it didn’t overtake me at all, but pulled up alongside me to block my escape.

  
No!  Fuck! 

  
I straightened the steering wheel to keep from plowing through the guardrail when I felt a jolt as the black truck’s panel smacked the side of my much smaller car.  Flooring the accelerator, my car lurched ahead of the preying SUV, and I felt my pounding heart slam into my mouth as it again caught up alongside me and nudged me off the road, an invisible driver mocking my weak attempts at self-preservation behind the truck’s forbidding, black-tinted windows.  I heard someone cry in anguish and realized a moment later that it was me; I wept for I knew today I would die.

   The monstrous truck rammed the driver’s side door of my Toyota, and my car veered out of control as it spun sideways, thick, black smoke radiating from skid marks burned into gray pavement.  At that instant, my windshield crumpled; I felt the rough, raw touch of pine branches and broken glass on my face and arms, and my world went dark.

*****

  
Sometime later I opened my eyes and felt a trickle of warm blood running down my cheek, saw the black leather cover of a van seat and a large, leering man with a grin like a Cheshire cat who was obviously somehow intimately connected to my unfortunate and violent encounter on the highway.  Too weak to move, I let out a low moan.

   “Sleeping Beauty wakes up,” he said.

   “No, no,” said another male voice.  “Not yet.”

   My beaten head lay still and helpless on the rumbling seat cushion, and I resigned myself to whatever nightmare the Fates had in store for me as I felt a needling pinprick on my arm which sent me into a world of visions and fantasies, deep into that unconscious realm of involuntary delusion.  I slept for a long time.
  Strange dreams jarred my sanity, pale-faced ghouls chased me down dark, winding staircases, cold hands groped my shoulders, breasts, and hips, unknown villains laughed as I cried, and a chorus of jeering, hysterical utterances promised me no escape.

*****

  
I didn’t know what it meant to hurt until the day they took me.  Confusedly, anxiously, I opened my eyes, causing bright light to flood my sensitive pupils and set off small explosions of misery in my face and jaw.  I struggled to keep from vomiting.  It wasn’t easy, the surface I lay on swayed back and forth as if alive, the odd sideways movements and sudden dips striking me in the pit of my stomach.  I carefully breathed in shallow, even pants, trying not move my throbbing frame, wishing my searing headache away, and holding my eyes tightly shut to block out the searing daylight.  Dying would have been an easier trial than the wretched purgatory I suffered.

   A fog horn blared from some unseen location, and I thought I heard the cry of a hungry seagull.  I tried to comfort myself by wrapping my arms around my cold middle and found that I couldn’t; something restrained their movement, holding them above my head.  My right ankle throbbed, and I was certain that if I somehow was able to stand, it couldn’t support my weight.

   I knew that I was near water; I could hear the lap-lap-lap of waves, smell the salty, rotten stink of the sea.  Maybe my captors had left me on an abandoned ship, figuring that eventually I’d float to China where strange-speaking foreigners would discover my well-traveled corpse.  Struggling to control my pain and rising nervousness, I continued to focus all my efforts on inhaling and exhaling the moist, cool air of my surroundings, hoping that sleep would reclaim me.  For the next few hours, I bobbed in and out of consciousness, my periods of rest punctuated by long stretches of restlessness and fear.  I didn’t waken fully until nightfall, when the soft moonlight failed to produce the severe pain and nausea that sunlight had, and I was finally free to discover my bleak, dim surroundings.

   My bed was a thin, rubber mattress set on a smooth, grey carpet, and above me a porthole window let in pungent, cool sea air.  Every so often a bright light would pass through the tiny window; I knew it was a lighthouse beacon, and relief flooded through me for I knew I wouldn’t have seen that if I was halfway to China.

   Although I couldn’t hear the purr of its motor, I guessed that I was on a small yacht or fishing vessel, maybe a sleek, new model like the boats I’d see at the marina by my college.  What anyone could want from me that they had to turn my cherished little car into tinfoil, I didn’t know.  My family possessed no wealth, and I had no known enemies save for creepy guy, and I was sure
He
didn’t own a yacht.  I thought of the crazy Mr. Breame I had imagined in my sleep, but community college instructors didn’t make the kind of dough this boat would have cost. 

   Anyway, I was pretty sure I still had my clothes on.  That ruled out being taken by a pervert.  Didn’t it?  I thought so.  The only part of my outfit missing was my shoes.

   I twisted a little sideways so I could judge my predicament, the pale, feminine moonlight aiding my discovery while my body shook from the cold.  My wrists appeared to be tied together over my head with a bit of tightly wound twine and hooked to the handle of a locked cabinet which had been built into the wall.  Lifejackets hung on pegs, and I made a sound like a dry laugh.  It stuck a little in my throat.  Would my captor have the courtesy to provide me with a life jacket if the boat should sink?  No, I guessed not.  Probably wasn’t one of their privileged guests. 

   Maybe I’ve gotten mixed up in something exciting, like an international, maritime drug smuggling ring.
 

   I quickly dismissed the notion.  This boat wasn’t going far; the owner had run it out a quarter mile from shore and dropped anchor.  That confused me more.

   All it would take was one police boat or coast guard patrol to find me.  Maybe they’d come on board and look around. 

   But the thought was absurd.  Nobody knew I was here.  At best, my new enemy, that well-built man with the cruel smile, would be harassed by an overzealous game warden, but even that was unlikely unless he had put out fishing lines. 

   I struggled to control the panic that threatened to strangle me, throwing me into a fit of unmanageable terror, but eventually I gave in to my hysteria and began to scream, desperate to convey my distress to anyone within a mile or so who would listen.  I probably carried on like that for a good five minutes before the door to my cabin opened and a soft, florescent ceiling light clicked on with a zap.  Soft, quick footfalls sounded on pristine, grey carpet as I sniveled in selfish terror.

   “That’s enough,” said a voice.

  It can’t be.  It just can’t.  I must still be dreaming, and dreams don’t come real.  Not in real life, not in the world of order and reason and predictability.

❃
CHAPTER 10
❃

  
S
lowly, I turned my eyes towards the deep voice, gazing in surprise at the thick-rimmed glasses behind which dark eyes glittered, finally finding my own expression.

   “What?” I squeaked out.

   Mr. Breame knelt down next to where I lay, a smug smile decorating his otherwise sullen countenance.  “If there’s anything I hate, it’s an interfering bitch,” he said.

   “What have you done?” I whimpered.  “What have
I
done to deserve this?”

   “What do you think?” he continued.  “Think I’m just some harmless fink?  Oh, that’s just Mr. Breame, that poor nerdy loser with his beat-up Nissan and cockroach-infested apartment.  He probably just lets everyone walk all over him.  I saw what you did.  I saw you snoop around inside my car.  I took my thumb drive back, I’ll have you know.  A jeans pocket is a bad hiding spot.”

   “But Casper was mine.  I created it.  And you’re a college instructor; students
trust
you. 
Everyone
in town trusts you.”

   “This isn’t just any ol’ town here, Samantha.  It’s Seaside, and if bad things happen anywhere, they happen here.  Been that way for a hundred and fifty odd years.  Seaside’s upper middle class community works hard to maintain the public’s trust, our schools are the best, everyone wants to buy their first home here, raise their kids here.  Why wouldn’t they?  The lawns are neat; the cars all bear a fresh coat of wax.  They bring their money, and they bring their talent while unknowingly providing the town with more victims.  And while Seaside projects its wholesome, hard-working image to the world around it, most of the locals could tell you stories that would raise the hair on your back.”

   “So keep my silly program.  There’s no reason to keep me.”

   “I was getting to that, and if you must know, you’re here because greatness demands a sacrifice.  We’ve offered up at least a couple dozen young girls.  But he never shows, never takes them.  So then we’ve no choice but to make ‘em disappear, to keep ‘em quiet.”

   “My God. 
You’re
the Seaside Strangler mom keeps reading about in the paper.”

   “Yes, we do strangle them,” said Breame.  “That we do.”

   The small door opened, and a large man with an expensive suit entered the cabin.

   “What’s all the noise?” he asked, his large hands brushing wrinkles out of his jacket.

   “She woke up,” said Mr. Breame.

   “Well, keep her calm.  Don’t want such a racket on my boat.  Ah, the girl doesn’t look so good.  Couldn’t we clean her up a little?  Blood all over her face.  Go ahead ’n bring her in the kitchen.  About time we called on him, anyway.”

   “Come on, doll,” said Mr. Breame, standing up.  “Let’s get you off that cupboard, there.”  He worked at the twine on my wrists until it was unwrapped from the cabinet handle, then yanked the string upwards, and I was forced to stand, crying as my weight fell on my hurt ankle while I frantically struggled to keep my balance.  Mr. Breame wrapped an arm around my waist as I lifted my foot to keep the weight off my ankle, falling helplessly into his tight grasp and wheezing as I tried my best to stay off the floor.  I cried.  Mr. Breame’s pupils widened into large, black spheres.

   “You’re going to drop me,” I said.

   “Stand up then.”

   “I can’t.  I think my ankle’s broken.”  I sniffled as clear snot ran down my upper lip.

   “Give her to me; I’ll take her,” said the large man. 

   I felt my weight shift as the bigger guy lifted me into his arms and carried me down a very narrow passageway and into a small, but pleasant boat kitchen where he set me down on a soft plastic lounge chair next to a Formica table.  Mr. Breame followed behind him, stopping to flip the kitchen lights on while casting dark, angry glances at me as I crumpled onto the seat.

   “Untie her, professor Whittington,” said Breame.  “If she gets any ideas, shoot her straight through the heart.  The girl deserves at least some dignity before her death.  If I wasn’t saving her for him, I would have enjoyed her so.  Have you ever seen a girl that lovely?”

   “Well, she doesn’t look so good covered in blood and snot,” said Whittington, running a white kitchen towel under a stream of hot water in the sink.

   He stepped towards where I lay and pulled me to a sitting position, then wiped my nose and all the rest of my face until he was satisfied by my appearance.  Then he patiently worked the knots around my wrist loose.  Before Whittington was finished, Mr. Breame had a small pistol trained on me casually as if it were nothing more harmful than a flashlight.

   “I suppose I give her some cocoa; she still looks half dead,” said Whittington.

   I unhappily rubbed the pink marks on my wrists, indents left over from the twine. 

   “Sit still, and we’ll explain just what we’re all about, Samantha,” said Breame.  I cringed as he spoke my full name.  “I’d like to fill you in on a little history about our fair town.”  He sighed and sat himself down on the plastic countertop, tossing his gun a little from side to side while I watched him with dull interest.  “It isn’t fair she doesn’t know what she’s in for so I suppose one of us will tell her.”

   “Every small community has its local legends and myths,” began professor Whittington.  “As I have a doctorate in cultural anthropology, I’ve done research in the most remote and superstitious regions of the world.  Once I spent a week in a rural village in Argentina where the peasants worshipped a long dead gangster named Gil.  If you ask them about Gil, they will tell you that he is real, and there are shrines everywhere in devotion to him.  Our local legend is that of the Dark Lord of Seaside.  Of course his real name is not Dark Lord; over the years the name was changed to sensationalize his story.  But that doesn’t make his history any less real.”

   “Here in town, there’s a old house on a small, sandy hill overlooking the sea.  Maybe you’ve seen it.  You probably have.  This house is surrounded by a high iron fence with gilt spears and behind that fence are rows of planted fruit trees as well as a succession of terraces filled with strawberries and a variety of roses.  A winding driveway leads to a porte-cochère, and beside that are a set of heavy French doors.  Behind the residence, beyond the iron enclosure, is a meandering, wooden staircase that leads to the grassy dunes of a remote beach.  This  pleasant, brick mansion is where Lymon O’Toole once lived with his cherished wife.”  Whittington smiled politely and took a breath.

   “Lymon helped to make Seaside what it is today, the owner of both a large lumber mill as well as a now defunct but once profitable copper smelter.  He built the manor home in 1882 for his wife, Claire.  They lived there peacefully for eight years until tragedy struck.  Behind those French doors there is a staircase with a wrought iron railing and in a nearby room rests a large fireplace with carved marble mantel.  Late one night while Lymon as well as all the servants slept, Claire’s throat was slit and her naked body discarded on the floor by that large fireplace.  An investigation was conducted to find the murderer but in spite of the rather large sum that was spent on the case, he was never found.”

   “Lymon, distraught over his wife’s death and unable to bring the guilty party to justice, committed suicide with a revolver in his den.  And that’s where the story becomes interesting because after his death, he was seen around Seaside by more than a few troubled gals.  Legend has it that if an attractive woman calls on and offers herself to Lymon, she will be guaranteed a handsome reward as Lymon in death is as powerful as he was in life.  He comes to these women, perhaps believing that he has found his lost wife and that she is unharmed.  I haven’t seen him yet but I know that he is real; I’ve seen evidence of his generosity and godlike qualities firsthand.”

   “As a young boy, I learned from my mother that Mrs. St. Croix from across the street had lost her husband in a car accident.  Her life was in ruins; they’d carried no life insurance, and she herself had never worked.  My mother often walked to her house to console her when all she could do was cry.  And one day, she cried no more.  Instead, she showed up at our house sporting a new Buick and wearing a dress and jewelry that must have cost more than most people here earn in a week.  Her house was taken out of foreclosure, and she never seemed to want for anything; for a spell no one but her knew why.”

   “My mother found out her secret during a lunch date at Mrs. St. Croix’s house.  In her living room stood a shrine in devotion to Lymon O’Toole, and she admitted to my mother that she had called on him and that he had provided her with large amounts of money as well as jewels.  But she was worried; she told my mother that Lymon meant to take her away.  It was only a matter of time before she vanished forever just as she herself had predicted.  Yes, the Dark Lord had spirited her away to his refuge.  As years flew by, the legend of the Dark Lord was told and re-told, and many more caught glimpses of him...Mrs. Anderssen had seen him one once as well as Mrs. Florian, and Mrs. Lee said that she had once followed him to a remote mountain cave where he had placed a treasure there for her benefit alone.  And there were disappearances as well: when several high school girls went missing one Halloween night, people gossiped that the Dark Lord had taken the unfortunate young ladies.”

   “Many people speak of blessings and gifts from God, but how many of them have seen Him in the flesh?”  Whittington sighed and gazed at me thoughtfully, rubbing his large palm on his knee.  “The Dark Lord legend developed into a cult following which continues to this day.  I intend to call on him and you, dear, are the offering.  Andrew showed me the software you designed for his class, and I must admit that it is genius.  We’ve never before had an effective means of communication with those who have passed on, and your discovery is monumental.  It’ll play a pivotal role in my study and inquiry into the world of the dead as well as allow us to harness the powers of the Dark Lord for our own benefit.”

   I heard raindrops begin to patter against the windows of the kitchen, and the boat tipped a little.  Mr. Breame stared at me with angry, dark eyes, his gun still glinting dangerously in his grasp.  Whittington hummed a merry tune as he took three coffee cups out of a high cabinet.  He pulled a box of Lipton tea down onto the countertop as well as a packet of cocoa and placed a tea kettle on the gas stove.  I looked pathetically first at Breame and then at Whittington, then put my head down on the table, my face mashed into my folded arms.  What could I do?

   “We do plan on letting the Dark Lord take you, but if we made you suffer, it wasn’t intentional,” said Whittington.  “You’ll feel better after you drink something.  A little late for afternoon tea, but better late than never I say.”  He gave a little laugh.

   I lifted my head sadly and studied the enormous man.  “How many girls have you killed?” I asked.  “Didn’t you think they had families and friends before you so cruelly took their lives?”

   “Like I said, any cruelty we’ve inflicted was purely for our own benefit.  Andrew derived no pleasure from it, I assure you.”

   I wasn’t so certain of that.  I remembered the gleeful look Mr. Breame had on his face in my dream and wondered if he killed me now would he look so happy. I heard the tea kettle whistle, and Whittington poured hot water in the three cups, placing tea bags in two of them and cocoa in one.  The cocoa he placed in front of me, and I sipped at it with shaky hands.  I’d felt close to death five minutes ago, but now I regained a small amount of strength.  I wondered if I shouldn’t try to make some kind of escape.  Breame turned a hateful glance on me as I stared at the closed door.  I looked away for a moment and finished my cocoa, draining the last measure of liquid out of the cup.