Ghost Program (6 page)

   “Oh, yeah.”  Brent seemed as if he didn’t know what to say.  What can you say when a quaintly dressed ghost shows up in your friend’s bedroom?  “I guess I was a little weirded out, kind of the reason I asked if we could get out of there.  I’m sorry if I come across as too forward, but I’ve decided that I like you.  Have you thought about staying with me in Seattle with me in a couple weeks?  At least until you find a way to shake off creepy guy?  How
are
you going to deal with that?  Do you really believe you were attacked by an undead sociopath?”

   “I believe it, yes.  And I think I will take you up on that offer.  Maybe I’ll even enjoy it.  I’m not sure what I’ll say to mom, though.  It might upset her, me living with a male roommate.  She’ll be upset, anyway.  She’s having liposuction in two weeks and will probably be grouchy from her pain medicine.”

   “She’s having liposuction, why?”  He sounded dismayed.  “She has a lovely ass.”

   “Not there.  On her thighs.  You know, they get jiggly.”

   “Had you ever seen creepy guy before?  Or just in the bathroom shower?  Any idea why
He
’s hung up on you?  And what’s up with Gregg reading his thoughts?  Didn’t that seem a little odd?”

   As if Brent’s words had summoned an angry spirit, a gust of wind slammed against the car, made a whistling sound, and the window next to me rattled.  Clouds of fog rolled across dreary farmland.

   “I saw
Him
before, yes. 
He
came to me in computer programming class,” I said.

   “What?  You hadn’t mentioned that to me before.” 

   A semi-trailer passed by us in the opposite lane causing the car to rattle.

   “I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. 
He
did a striptease in my class, all the way down to his black speedo.  No one could see
Him
but me.  That’s why I knew
He
wasn’t human. 
He
stood right there in front of the instructor and all those students and took
His
coat off, and there was just panties underneath.  But I was the only one who saw.  Then I followed him outside, and
He
walked through the door of a house without opening it.  That’s why I didn’t want you to call the police.  I couldn’t have told them that.  What would that help me?  They would have laughed.”

   “Why would
He
do a striptease for you?”

   “I don’t know, really.  I think
He
wanted to intimidate me.  Or it was just a way of being noticed.  Maybe
He
thought I’d enjoy it.”  Part of me wondered if I’d just imagined the whole thing, but I didn’t want to tell Brent that.

   “And did you?”  A sudden downpour of rain fell on the windshield, and Brent flicked on the wipers and headlamps.  The tires hissed on the wet pavement.

   I screamed.

   With lightning flashing around us, the boom of its thunder filling the valley with harsh vibration, and as wind wailed through the dense pine forest while furry, green branches lifted and shook as if alive,  an ancient evergreen collapsed across the road with a resounding crash, the huge trunk blocking the highway in both directions, a not-so-subtle warning to those who dared to build a road through this once-forgotten backcountry.

   “
Shit!
” Brent muttered as he slammed on his brakes and spun the steering wheel, sending the small car into a pinwheel skid that jerked us around in a complete circle.

   I bent over my seat and covered my face with my hands, certain I was about to be chucked into the windshield, my stomach revolting as it slammed against my safety belt, the smell of burnt rubber blowing through the heating vent.

   The car stopped.  I pulled my face out of my hands and looked around.  We were only inches from the giant tree.  A whimpering noise escaped my throat, and the windshield wipers continued to squeak back and forth as the engine idled.  Gasping, his eyes wild, Brent seemed frozen in his seat as if he wasn’t certain what his next course of action would be.  Lightning cracked against the cloud-covered sky, and as  I opened my door with shaking hands, the car began to make a dinging sound.  I got out and saw black skid marks across the road but as I walked around the car, I could see no damage.  All four tires were still intact; Brent’s car looked to still be in good shape.  Giant lumps of fog rolled across the country road, and I struggled to see in front of me.

   “Get in!” yelled Brent.  He was spooked.

   I jumped in the passenger door and slammed it shut.  As his car pulled away, I looked through the rearview mirror and saw a man standing by the side of the road in the fog, wearing a black trench coat and boots.

   “We’re going to back to the house,” Brent said.  “Forget going anywhere tonight.  It’s going to get us killed.”

   I squeezed my eyes shut as we sped towards my house.  When I opened them again, I looked towards the spot where I’d seen the spook, but he was gone.  I thought I heard the faint sound of a car crash a ways down that road, but I couldn’t be sure.

   “Guess there’s no pizza,” I said.

   “No way of getting out of here.  Not with the tree in the road.  Can’t get back to Seattle, either.”

   “It doesn’t matter,” I said.  “There’s probably a frozen pizza or some TV dinners in the freezer.  We didn’t have to go out, anyway.”  I tried to control the wavering in my voice.

   “It’s not like we
could
anymore if we wanted to,” he pointed out.

   “That’s strange,” I said as we pulled into the driveway of my house.  Dad’s car wasn’t there.  Instead, there sat in the driveway a large sedan, a kind that hadn’t been made since the 1940s.

   “Whose car is that?” asked Brent.

   “I don’t know.  I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

   “Let’s get out and go see.  Looks like you may have a visitor.”

   We stepped out of Brent’s car, pulling on our jacket hoods and bowing our heads to avoid getting our faces wet in the downpour.  As we neared the front steps, I could hear music.  Loud music.  As if there was a jazz band right inside our house.  I opened the door and saw them in the living room, mom dancing around in circles, her arms around a strange man’s shoulders.  I stood there, gawping at them.  The man was tall, fairly young, and handsome, wearing an extravagant, tailored grey suit with a grey felt hat and rubbing his hands all over mom’s fat butt. In his breast pocket was a handkerchief with three stiff points.  I didn’t know anyone who dressed that fancy anymore.   Brent looked worried, and his grey eyes kept darting back and forth between mom and myself.

   “What the hell?” he said.

   “Mom?”

   She looked positively gleeful as she pranced with him around the living room.  On the coffee table were two empty bottles of wine, two half-filled wine glasses, and an open briefcase full of glossy brochures.  Angry, I marched into the living room and shut the music off.

   “Are you going to introduce me?” I asked accusingly.

   “This is Dwight,” she said gently, pulling out of his embrace.  “He’s a vacuum cleaner salesman.”

   “Oh,” I replied.  “And are you buying a vacuum?”

   “At first I thought that 1,200 dollars was too much, but now I see what a ridiculously small price it is to pay for a spotless carpet.  Isn’t that right, Dwight?”

   Dwight turned to look at me, and his eyes were baby blue and so innocent.  No human had a look so pathetically naïve as Dwight’s.  He reached out to shake my hand. 

   “I should have introduced myself right away,” he said with a grin.  “My name is Dwight.  I’ll sell you a top of the line import vacuum cleaner.  If you buy one today, I’ll even knock 20% off the price.  Have you ever thought about how clean your carpets are?”

   I took the salesman’s large hand in mine; it was so cold it almost hurt.  “I thought you just sold one to my mom.”

   His blue eyes went from carefree to worried, and the smile fell off his face.  “This is your mother?”

   “Oh, yes,” I said.  “I have a father, too.  He should be home any minute.”

   His eyes became radiant again, and his smile returned.  “We should dance.”

   Brent pulled me roughly by my upper arm into a corner of the room, causing me to stumble as I yelped in surprise.

   “You’re hurting me,” I whispered to him.

   “I need to
talk
to you.  That man.  He...he...while he was talking... his eyes...They changed.”

   “What?”

   “For a minute when you spoke to him, he had no eyeballs, just dark, empty sockets.”

   Brent determinedly pulled me up the stairs, never releasing the absurd hold he had on my arm as he nearly detached it from my shoulder.

   “We can’t stay downstairs,” he urged.  “Not until whoever that is leaves.”  He pulled me into my bedroom and shut the door while his shaking hands flipped on a light switch.  “That vacuum salesman was not human.” 

   I almost felt sorry for Brent, his expression was so frightened.  I heard the music start up again behind the door.

   “Human or not, I sure didn’t like him,” I replied.

   “What is happening to your house?” he asked.  “It is all of a sudden a homing beacon for weirdos.”

   “Maybe you were right about the software.  Maybe it broke through some barrier between life and death, but please let go of my arm.”  Tetanus shots didn’t hurt this much.

   “Sorry.”  He let go.

   “It’s okay.”  I rubbed it irritably.

   “So we’re stuck here.”

   “Yes.”

   “It’s fine, you know.”  Brent sounded like he was trying to sound calm for my benefit.  “Maybe the guy with no eyeballs can’t really hurt anyone.”

   “I don’t think he meant any harm.”

   “Sure, he just wanted to sell vacuum cleaners.”  He gave a dry laugh.

   “Of course he does.”

   “We’ll just hang out here for awhile,” said Brent.

   “Can we get to your folks’ house?”

   “We need the highway to get there.  Besides, they’d never let me have a girl over.”

   “Even me?”

   “They’re suspicious.  Sure, you could visit.  But spend the night?  No.”

   “Did you tell them you were driving down from Seattle?”

   “I only called you.”

   “So they don’t know you’re here.”

   “Nope.”

   “Don’t tell ‘em.”

   “I’m not too happy about being stranded....here.”

   “We’ll be all right.  We’ll be safe.”

   “I know,” he said.  “I just feel creeped out.  People are going to die out there in that storm.”

❃
CHAPTER 6
❃

  
B
rent looked down at me strangely, and I looked away briefly, finding it hard to meet his gaze.

   “I should call dad,” I said quietly.  “You know, tell him that the road is blocked.”

   Brent nodded and pulled away from me slightly and shivered.

   I dialed the number on my cell phone.  It rang twice, and dad picked up.

   “Samantha?”  No one called me that but him, in spite of my insistence that my name was Sam.

   “The road is closed heading to the house.  We saw a tree fall on it.”

   “I know.  There’s a huge pile up wreck on the highway.  There’s a state patrol blocking that route.  I’m staying the night at Best Western, I already called your mom.  Everything’s fine.”

   “Okay.”

   “What
happened
?” dad asked.  Why did he sound so accusing?

   “The storm?”

   “Samantha, what happened at the house?  What aren’t you telling me?  Did someone break in?”

   “It’s nothing....”

   “If the cops were involved, I doubt it’s nothing.”

   “Someone got into the house.  I must have scared him...he...he jumped out the window when I opened the bathroom door.”

   “Well, what was he doing, taking a bath?”

   “Probably just a two-bit hustle is all, thought there was something to take.”

   “We should get a security system.”

   “Sure.  Mom’s been saying that for years.”

   “I promise I’ll get it done.  Christ, you two could have been murdered.  Anyway, it’s a good thing they closed the road.  Apparently, there’s been a few drivers killed tonight; the windstorm is that dangerous,” he said.

   “What else did mom say to you?” I asked him.

   “What do you mean?”

   “Did she mention she was buying a vacuum?”

   The line went static, and I couldn’t hear him anymore so I hung up.  He didn’t call back.

   I glanced towards my own rattling window.  The glass pane shook so hard the frame could barely contain it, then I heard a loud snapping noise, and the power shut off.  Ice cold arms wrapped themselves around my waist, and I stiffened.

   “I guess we really are stuck here, Brent,” I said.  I looked at him and realized that he’d stepped away from me.  Who was holding my waist if not Brent?

   “I’m so glad to hear that.  It cheers me!”  said Gregg as he gripped me tighter.

   I wriggled out of his grasp, gazing up at his agreeable face.  Gregg was still handsome in spite of being dead.

   “I hope you two don’t mind,” added Gregg.  “I brought some food up for you from downstairs.  I thought you could use an evening refreshment.”  He touched three candles on the table, and they sparked to life, letting off a handsome glow.

   “Where did that table come from?” asked Brent, walking around it suspiciously.

   “I’ve never seen it before in my life,” I said.  The large wooden table with three chairs sat smack in the center of my bedroom covered by an elegant white tablecloth.  How had we not seen it a second ago?

   “There’s cheddar cheese, some crackers, some slices of ham, some grapes.  I tried to grab as much as I could for you out of the icebox.”  Gregg look at my slyly.  “I brought a bottle of wine.  You seem to like it so.”  There was no way he could have dragged a table up those stairs.  They were far too narrow and steep.

   “Sit,” Gregg said again.

   Brent took a chair and played nervously with the silverware set in front of him, lifting a gleaming fork and examining it.  The candles danced and flickered, casting shadows against the darkening corners of the room.

   “Very nice,” Brent whispered. 

   I sat down, bewildered, next to Brent.  Gregg took the third seat, self-consciously straightening his blazer while taking a puff on his pipe.

   “My goodness, what an awful lot of trouble you went to,” I said. 

   Gregg beamed.

   I looked through the open window beyond the billowing lace.  Outside, in the darkening gloom, I saw a woman in a long, white gown and flower-embellished hat push a baby buggy through the yard.  The buggy disappeared into the trunk of a tree, and the baby floated upwards towards my bedroom window.  I saw its chubby body fly through the yard, its tiny linen nightgown fluttering in the breeze.  It grinned at me, its cherub-like cheeks rosy, its tiny fists balled up, and its blue eyes sparkling.  Finally, it smacked against the window face first, its nose mashing against the glass, and I screamed bloody murder, crumpling and hiding under the table, terrified.

   Brent quickly stood and yanked the curtain shut, then spent the next minute or so adjusting the seam so that we couldn’t be seen from outside.  Or maybe so we wouldn’t have to look out.

   Gregg just sat there smoking and looking at me.  “You want to eat?” he asked.  “Sit back in your chair.

   I nodded, climbing out from under the tablecloth.  Once in my chair, I grabbed a few crackers, slices of cheese and grapes from the center of the table.  They were still cold from the refrigerator and completely appetizing.  Gregg opened the wine bottle with a corkscrew and poured wine in the glass by my plate.  I took a couple of swallows and found it removed the harsh ache that had been pounding through my head and actually allowed me to organize my scattered, sinister thoughts.

   “Please, Brent, have some wine,” said Gregg.  “I hope you’re pleased.  Don’t be uncomfortable with me, I’d like to be friends.”

   “I think I will,” he said, then sat down complacently back in his seat.  Gregg handed him a glass, and he drank the wine in one swallow, then looked at me.  “How’s your head, Sam?”

   “Strangely better since I’ve had this wine.  I feel almost completely better.”

   “Do you have classes in the morning?” Brent asked.

   I nodded.  “Do you?”

   “Yeah.”

   “I hope the roads clear by morning.”

   “We’ll find out soon enough.”

   “I’ve got a horse,” said Gregg.  “I can’t find it.”

   “What time is your first class?” I asked.

   “8:30.”

   “Shit,” I said.

   “I
know
,” said Brent.

   “You’ll still make it.  You just have to leave by six tomorrow morning.”

   “If the storm blows over, it should be no problem,” said Brent.

   “And if not?”

   “It will.”

   “What if it doesn’t?” I said.

   “Then they’re not going to have classes anyway.  Now with everyone’s power out.”

   “True.”  I nibbled at the food on my plate.

   “How did you get this table in here, Gregg?” asked Brent.

   “I took it out of the other room.”

   “What other room?” I asked.

   “John’s room.  This is his table,” replied Gregg.

   “Who is John?”  I just couldn’t figure any of it.

   “The servant.  You should have some more wine.”

    I almost refused, but Gregg filled my glass before I had a chance to answer him.  I took a swallow of the rich liquid, then finished off the glass.  I looked at Gregg.  I could see his brown eyes so clearly, even the lashes that blinked cheerfully in rhythm with his speech.  But how could I see someone that shouldn’t exist at all?

   He poured more wine for Brent and urged him to eat.  Brent looked uncomfortable but helped himself to slices of ham.

   “You should eat more,” said Gregg, looking at Brent amiably.  “If you don’t, you’ll waste away till there’s nothing left.  You don’t want that, do you?”

   Brent didn’t reply.

   “Of course you don’t,” Gregg continued.  “Where would you be then?”

   Brent finished his plate, looking lost in the moment.

   “You won’t be able to leave tonight, Brent,” said Gregg.  “Not with the storm.  Don’t worry.  You and Sam take the bed.  I’ll sleep elsewhere.”  He didn’t say where
elsewhere
was, and we didn’t ask.  “I made the bed up.”

   I looked at my bed.  The blanket and sheets had been pulled flat and tucked in.  The blood-stained pillow had been replaced with a fresh one.  I wondered if my blood was still smeared all over the bathroom wall.

   Rain whipped against the window with violent smacks.  Gregg began to clear the table of plates, stacking them on his arm, then he disappeared through the door.

   “That explains everything,” I said.

   “I’m not sure what you mean.”

   “I always thought that I wasn’t alone in here, like someone was watching me, but no one would believe it when I told them.  I used to ask all the time
‘Is anyone here?’
  There was never any response.  That’s what gave me the idea for the Casper software.  If anyone was in my room, I was finally going to find out.  And if I found out I’d been wrong all these years, then fine, you know?  But at least I would’ve tried to make contact.  Except....except it would have
killed
me if I hadn’t.  I would’ve been devastated.  Haven’t you ever felt that way?  Like you just had to do something?”

   “I wanted to ask you out six months ago, but I thought you’d be angry.”

   “Angry?”  Why would I be angry?

   “I mean, you’d hired me to teach you math, not
seduce
you.”  I wasn’t sure in the dusky room, but I thought his cheeks were red.

   “I would’ve been
surprised
.  I thought you looked down on me, being two years older and all.  Don’t you have cooler people to hang out with?”

   “Not really, none of them are girls.  I sure couldn’t spoon with any of them.”

   “That’s true.”  I snickered.  “Unless you were into that sort of thing.”

   “So many girls in college are attractive bitches, so
into
themselves that I’d never....feel anything for them.”

   “But I was different.”

   “I hope so.”

   “You hope so?”

   He laughed.  “I know so.”

   “That’s what I thought.”  I touched his arm, and he wrapped his fingers around mine, then pulled away a minute later.  “But why me?”

   “I remember watching you,” he said.  “Your forehead scrunched up from reading a math equation.  You looked...so innocent.  Like a girl who never thought bad about anybody, who never thought she was better than anybody, who could never be anything but kind.” 

   “I got to get dressed,” I said.  “My clothes are soaked from my brief foray outside.  I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you to borrow.  Unless you’d like a lacy nightgown, I think I’ve got an extra.”

   “Oh,” he said.

   “A joke at your expense.”  I grinned.

   “I know.”

   I stood up and walked to my closet.  The room had darkened significantly in the last thirty minutes, and it was hard to find where I’d folded and put away my nightclothes, but I finally felt the familiar short sleeves of my purple nightgown and felt the plastic
Girl Power
logo printed upon it.  I held it in one hand and pulled my jacket and sweater off with the other.  I unsnapped my bra and dropped it to the floor as well, then pulled my purple nightie over the my head.  Brent watched me undress in the candlelight curiously, and I couldn’t tell if he smiled as strips of shadow covered his face, writhing, colorless serpents that contorted and changed position as the candle flames jumped around.  I kicked off my jeans and pushed them with my foot into the corner.

   “Do you like it?” I asked, spinning around in my dim sanctuary to show him my night clothes.

   “Very nice,” he said.

   “Do you need me to set the alarm?”

   “I’ve got one set on my phone.”

   “Geez, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep with the window rattling like that.”

   “It should calm down soon.”

   I pulled back the bed cover and climbed inside the sheets, then motioned for Brent to follow.  He removed his shoes and placed them beside the bed.  The house was silent except for the wind and rain beating against the window and roof.

   “I’ll blow the candles out,” said Brent.

   “Leave one on,” I said.

   “If you insist, but we’ll have to remember to blow it out before we fall asleep.”  He bent over the table and blew out two candles, then lay down on the bed with his outdoor clothes still on.

   I pulled the blanket over us.

   “It’s really too bad I couldn’t find you something of mine to wear,” I said.