Ghoul Interrupted (16 page)

“We’re coming,” I told him, knowing full well that it wasn’t Mrs. Lujan who was hungry—it was Gil.

Heath, however, turned irritated. “Did you say my cousin’s gone?”

Gilley’s eyes darted to me. “Uh . . . yeah.”

Heath swore under his breath and removed his cell from his back pocket. Tapping at the screen before putting the phone to his ear, he waited a beat, then tore into his cousin. “What the hell, Ray?” he snapped. “My back’s turned for ten seconds and you bounce?”

Gilley’s eyes got large and he mouthed, “Yikes!” to me.

I waved him out of the room. Heath turned in a circle and faced the wall. “Ray,” he said sternly. “You promised me you were gonna work on this
today
! I’ve given you a lot of cash to get this place cleaned up and if I have to bring in your dad or Uncle Vernon, I will, bro.”

Heath’s shoulders were raised and tense. I hoped for Ray’s sake he didn’t try and shirk out of work again. “Okay,” Heath said after a minute. “Fine, drop your dad off at his house, then get back here and get to work, okay? I’m gonna check on you later, bro. Don’t let me down.” With that, Heath clicked off and stuffed his phone hard into his back pocket.

“He’s coming back?” I asked.

Heath whirled. “Sorry,” he said when he saw me still standing there. “I had to get tough with him.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. It sounds like he’s been taking advantage of you.”

Heath shrugged. “Ray’s a good guy—he’s just easily distracted. He likes to start projects, but he doesn’t always like to finish them. I’ll come back here after dinner to make sure he’s here and working.”

With that, we left the house and headed to town to find some grub.

Heath took us to a lovely restaurant called Cafe Pasqual’s, where Gilley ordered his way through the menu. I looked pointedly at his midsection while the waiter hurried to scribble his way through Gil’s order. Gil must have taken the hint, because he canceled the appetizer.

Heath’s phone rang as we were finishing up our meals and he fished it out of his back pocket again. His mother gave him a stern look. “Don’t you dare answer that at the table, young man,” she said.

Heath looked properly chagrined. “Okay, Mom,” he said, clicking the button to ignore the call.

He’d only just managed to put it back into his pocket when Mrs. Lujan’s phone went off. No one said as much, but I could see everyone at the table wondered if it was the same caller. Mrs. Lujan steadfastly ignored her ringing telephone and after four rings it stopped.

I cut into my food again when Heath’s phone went off a second time. “Oh!” said his mother when he pulled it out to look at the display. “Go ahead, Heath, but keep it short, all right?”

Heath got up and turned away from the table to take the call. I followed him with my eyes. Something felt off.

“Wait, Ray, what? Dude, calm down! I can’t . . .” Heath’s voice trailed off, but I could hear the alarm in his voice.
“WHAT?”
he shouted after a lengthy pause, and the entire restaurant fell silent as all the patrons looked round at Heath.

Mrs. Lujan got up and went to her son. “What’s happened?”

“We’re coming!” Heath said, clicking off the line and turning around to face us. Gone was his relaxed and easy smile, replaced by a look of shock and disbelief. I stood and our waiter came hurrying toward us.

“Is everything all right?” he asked me.

“The check,” I said, barely looking at him. “
Now
, please,” I urged when he just stood there and stared at me. I didn’t know what’d happened, but I knew we were about to go running out of the restaurant.

“Heath!” said his mother, taking him by the arms. “Tell me! Tell me what’s happened!”

He turned his wide eyes to her. “The house,” he said haltingly. “Ma, it’s on fire!”

We got no farther than the bottom of the hill below Heath’s driveway. Fire trucks and equipment blocked the road along with several firemen who were standing guard making sure no pedestrians got too close.

Heath didn’t consider himself a pedestrian. “That’s my house!” he shouted when he tried to push past the group and run up the hill. It took three of them to hold him back. “You need to stand over there!” one of the firemen shouted. “Sir, you can’t go up there! It’s too hot!”

I ran to Heath’s side and took him firmly by the arm. “Come with me!” I commanded, and I think it was because he knew me that he complied. I walked him down away from the firemen to give them breathing room, but one look up the hill at the orange glow told me it was bad. Really bad.

I turned Heath to face me, away from the scene, and hugged him tightly. I knew how much it’d meant to him to buy his first house, and I couldn’t imagine losing it before even having the chance to move in.

He hugged me back fiercely and I could feel him shaking with rage and emotion.

“Heath!” I heard someone shout. I picked my head up from his chest and turned around. Ray was a bit farther down the street, sitting in the open back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. I let go of Heath and we both ran to him.

He was barely recognizable from the youthful bouncy young man I’d met just two hours before. His face was covered in soot and he was cut and bleeding in several places along his arms and side. “What happened?” I gasped when I saw him.

But Ray directed all his comments to Heath. “It wasn’t me, bro!” he said. “I swear! It wasn’t me!”

Heath’s lips compressed to form a very thin line and he turned to the paramedic trying to patch poor Ray up. “Is he okay?”

The paramedic shook her head. “I keep telling him he needs to let us take him to the hospital, but he wanted to wait for you guys. So now you’re here, tell him to let us take him in, okay? He needs stitches for at least three of those cuts on his arms, and his lungs may have some smoke damage.”

Mrs. Lujan appeared at my side. “Raymond?” she asked, her expression astonished. “My God, son, what happened to you?”

To my surprise the tough-guy persona Ray wore completely disappeared and his eyes welled with tears. “It wasn’t me, Aunt Serena! You gotta believe me! I didn’t do this!”

Heath’s mother turned to look over her shoulder and I followed her gaze. Huge arcs of water were making their way onto the heart of the fire, but already most of the house was disintegrating into a smoky wreck.

“So what happened?” Heath said again, his tone level and barely controlled.

Ray pulled the oxygen mask off his face. “I don’t know, man!” he said again. “I was inside and something freaky started happening!”

“How freaky?” I asked, my senses alert.

Ray shook his head, like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d been through. “There was, like, this growl or something while I was upstairs working on your drywall, bro. I didn’t know what it was. It sounded like a tiger or something!”

Mrs. Lujan’s hand flew to her mouth and behind me I heard a squeak. Without looking, I knew Gilley was with us too.

“Then what?” Heath asked, and this time his voice was more patient.

Ray took a shuddering breath and coughed wetly. The paramedic shoved the mask back over his mouth and nose and told him to leave it there. It was a minute before Ray had the wind to continue. “Something hit the side of the house! Something big! With claws! It happened near the kitchen, I think, and I got, like, freaked-out, so I stayed upstairs and just waited to see if it would go away, but then something
really
freaky happened!”

“What?” we all said when Ray didn’t continue, but just focused on taking big gulps of air.

His eyes were staring at the pavement as if he were seeing it all unfold again in front of him. “I heard this sound downstairs, like it had come
inside
, you know? So I panicked and hit the button on the alarm for the fire trucks—”

“Was the house already on fire?” I interrupted, thinking I’d missed something.

Ray shook his head. “No, man, but whatever was downstairs was so freaky that I didn’t want just two police guys to show up, you know? It’s like that saying, you come home after a robbery, call the police, but if you’re home
during
a robbery, call the fire department. They’ll come with lots of trucks and noise and guys and shit.”

“Language, Raymond,” Mrs. Lujan said, then put a hand to her mouth. “Sorry,” she said to him. “It’s habit with you.”

Ray nodded like he totally understood.

“So how did the fire start?” I asked.

“Well, the ALERT button for fire went off on the control panel, and it said that the fire department was on its way, and
then
all of a sudden there was this sound like a bunch of volts or something, and I heard the fuse box blow and all the electrical outlets just started crackling and burning, and then the whole house started to smoke up, you know? It was like, whatever was downstairs
was playing with me
,
yo
! Like it was saying, ‘Oh, yeah? You wanna call the fire department? Well then, I’ll give you a stinking fire!’ Before I know it, I’m trapped on the second floor and the whole downstairs is burning up! I just stood there! I was afraid to move!”

Ray coughed and the paramedic gave us all another stern look.

Once Ray had stopped coughing, he said, “I knew I should’ve gotten out of there the minute I smelled smoke, but I was still afraid of the thing downstairs. I mean, what if it was still there? But the smoke got so bad and I couldn’t open the window, so I had to, like, dive through it onto the roof, you know? I barely made it out
alive
, bro!”

Ray was shaking now from head to toe, and his coughing fit resumed. I put a hand on Heath’s arm and he got the hint. Turning to his cousin, he said, “Ray, it’s cool, really. This paramedic is going to give you a ride to the hospital, okay?”

“My . . . dad!” Ray sputtered in between coughs.

“I’ll call him,” Mrs. Lujan promised. “You go to the hospital, Raymond. We’ll be there in a little bit.”

“Would you like to ride along?” the kindly paramedic asked her.

Mrs. Lujan brightened. “I would. Thank you,” she said, but then seemed to think better of it. She turned to Heath, who leaned in, gave her a hug, and said, “Go, Ma. Be with Ray. We’ll head over soon.”

Mrs. Lujan squeezed her son tightly, then let him go and got up into the ambulance next to Ray, who’d finally stopped fighting and was lying back on the gurney, sucking in the oxygen. I felt terrible for him, and I was very glad he was alive. Once the ambulance had driven off, Heath moved back to stand near the fire trucks and watch them battle the blaze.

Gilley and I joined Heath, and I again reached for his hand. On the other side of him, so did Gilley, and I nearly smiled when I realized Heath was allowing Gilley to hold his hand too. “You were right, M. J.,” Heath said to me.

I blinked. “Right about what?”

“Sparks and water,” he reminded me. “Remember you said I’d have an electrical and plumbing issue?”

“Whoa,” I said, realizing that sparks had caused the blaze and now hundreds of thousands of gallons of water were being poured into Heath’s ruined home. “I wish I’d been wrong.”

He swallowed hard, and I could see him struggle to hold back his emotions. I felt terrible for him.

“Do you have insurance?” Gil asked.

“Not now, Gil,” I said tersely.

“What? If he has insurance, it’ll cover the house and he’ll get to build from the slab up!”

“Yes,” Heath told him, sliding his hand out of Gil’s to rest an elbow on Gilley’s shoulder in a more manly pose of affection. “I’ve got insurance. But it’s still tough to watch, you know?”

“Thank God Ray’s not seriously hurt,” I said.

But Heath didn’t seem to be listening. His focus was on the fire, which was finally showing signs of burning out. Still the flames outlined Heath’s face and I could see his pain etched there. It broke my heart. He looked weary and sad, but there was also an undercurrent of anger, which I fully understood.

Finally, the fire captain motioned for Heath to come to him, and he left Gil and me at a safe distance while he talked to the firefighter. I saw the captain show Heath a small section of wood that didn’t appear to have been touched by the fire except for perhaps some light scorching on one side. The captain then called over one of the cops standing nearby and the three men regarded the wood panel, talking about it while turning it over and over. The officer scratched his head as he looked at the section; then he appeared to ask the captain something, but the fireman could only shrug as if he didn’t know. Heath’s posture was downright rigid, and he didn’t seem to contribute much to the conversation.

“I wonder what that’s about,” said Gil.

“Nothing good,” I replied.

Sure enough, Heath came back to us with a very troubled look on his face. “We can go,” he said, and began walking toward his SUV.

Gil looked at me as if to say, “Uh-oh . . .”

We got into the Durango without a word and Heath backed up carefully to avoid the hoses and other emergency vehicles. Once he’d gotten turned around, we headed over to the hospital.

Heath parked and we went into the ER. The lobby was filled with Heath’s relatives, practically everyone I’d seen at Ari’s house. Ari came right over to Heath and gave him a big hug. “Oh, cuz,” she said. “I’m so sorry!”

“Thanks,” he said stiffly. Ari backed away and eyed him quizzically. I was sure she detected the simmering anger just under the surface, but what that was about I still had no clue. I suspected that the piece of his wall was somehow involved, but I couldn’t figure out what had caused the current of anger in him.

We heard that Ari’s husband, Brody, was with Ray, who was getting a CT scan to check for signs of a concussion and any other internal injuries, and then he’d need to get stitched up, so it might be a little while. I was willing to wait, but Heath seemed unusually anxious to be off, and I saw him go over to his mom and whisper something in her ear that caused her to gasp and look at him with large frightened eyes.