Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala (13 page)

“Yeah … yeah. We all know the story, Glennie,” Plug said before raising his beer and taking a few noisy swallows. “But you said you wanted us to go with you in the mornin’. You mean to say you left that fella out there?”

Again, Glenn shifted uncomfortably on the barstool. His throat felt suddenly dry again in spite of the beer.

“I didn’t exactly
leave
him. He just sorta never showed up.”

“Amounts to pretty much the same thing, don’tcha’ think?” Butter said as he crushed his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray at his elbow. Glenn’s cigarette was smoldering away, unnoticed, between his fore- and middle fingers.

“He asked if I wanted to walk over to the lighthouse with ‘im,” Glenn went on, “but I figured it was better to stay put with the boat. The ocean’s still pretty heavy since that storm the other day, ‘n I didn’t wanna get stranded there myself.”

“Be kinda embarrassing,” Butter said.

“But you didn’t mind leavin’ him behind, now, did’cha?” Plug said.

“I told you, I didn’t
leave
him. He never showed up.” Glenn finally noticed that his cigarette had burned out, so he dropped it into the ashtray and continued. “I waited there at the boat plenty long, ‘n then I went lookin’ for ‘im, but I couldn’t find ‘im. I sure as hell wasn’t ‘bout to stick around all night. I figure either he ain’t ever comin’ off that island ... alive, anyway, or else he’s sacked out some place, just waiting for dawn.”

“He have a cell phone with ‘im?” Butter asked, looking proud that he’d thought of this angle. “I mean, these days, you gotta put some effort into it if you wanna be left alone.”

In response, Glenn slung the carrying case off his shoulder and placed it carefully onto the bar. A few of the regulars edged closer, no longer trying to mask their interest as Glenn unzipped the black leather case.

“It’s in here, ‘long with his camcorder, a tape recorder, ‘n a couple of notebooks. I found all this stuff scattered around outside the lighthouse when I went lookin’ for ‘im. Looked kinda like he dropped it in a hurry.”

“You really
did
go lookin’ for him?” Plug said with a sniffing laugh. “You ain’t just sayin’ that?”

He was scowling as he picked up the small tape recorder and inspected it for a moment or two. The side of the black casing was scuffed gray, and the small speaker hole in the front was clotted with dirt and turf. He sniffed softly as he placed it down on the bar and then threw back the rest of his beer before sliding the empty glass over to Shantelle, who was standing close by, also listening to Glenn’s story.

“’Course I did,” Glenn said. “After I told ‘im I wasn’t interested in checking out any of the buildings, I told ‘im to make sure he was back by nine o’clock. That’s when the tide was up. The dock that used to be there must’a got washed away last winter, so I had to run my boat up onto the shingle. I was only gonna wait for the tide, ‘cause if I missed it at nine o’clock, I wasn’t gonna get off there ‘til morning. No way I was gonna freeze my ass off out there all night. Not even for an extra fifty bucks.”

“I hear say you’ve done worse for less,” Plug said, but Glenn was not amused.

“Neither time nor tide,” Butter said nodding sagely and smiling to expose his big, yellow tooth.

“So you’re saying he never showed?” Shantelle asked, her dark eyes narrowing with concern. She, too, knew all of the stories about
Nephews Island.

“I hollered and hollered for ‘im, but he never answered. It was dark by then, so I got a flashlight from my boat and looked around some, but I never seen hide nor hair.”

“You think the ghosts got him? ‘S that it?” Plug asked.

Glenn couldn’t see it, but he was fairly sure Plug was smirking at him behind his tobacco-stained beard.

“I don’t know what happened. He might’ve fallen off one of the ledges, for all I know. The door to the lighthouse was open, so he might’ve gone up to the top where the light used to be, but I didn’t see any evidence of ‘im being up there. Didn’t see his flashlight or anything.”

“Shouldn’t you call the Coast Guard?” Shantelle asked. She had taken Plug’s empty glass and returned with a full one without asking. Glenn and Butter were still working on theirs.

“If we don’t find ‘im tomorrow, I guess we’d better,” Glenn said. “But the Coast Guard ain’t too keen about anyone bein’ on that island, so I ain’t about to admit I been ferryin’ Christless
writers
out there.”

“Good point,” Butter said, nodding again, and he was echoed by Plug, who nodded and said, “
Damned
good point!”

While he was talking, Glenn was absentmindedly handling the contents of the writer’s carrying case. As he looked down at the micro-recorder, he noticed that the tape inside had run about halfway through. He suddenly sat up straight and snapped his fingers.

“Wait a second. He was askin’ me all sorts of questions about the island. Tapein’ ‘em. This is probably the tape.” He inspected the recorder until he found the controls, a small series of indented buttons on the side. After a little experimentation, he found the
rewind
button and pressed it. The tape made a faint hissing sound as it rewound a short way. Then Glenn pressed
play
.

“... saying you don’t believe in ghosts, or that you just don’t believe the stories about this particular lighthouse and island.”

“That’s him. That’s the writer,” Glenn said, addressing no one in particular as the small machine in his hand played back the recorded voice. The barroom had suddenly gone cemetery quiet as everyone moved closer and listened.

“I’m not sayin’ anything either way,” Glen’s recorded voice said. “It’s just that—when you live ‘round here and you make your livin’ on the ocean, you hear all sorts of tales, and you take ‘em for what they are, just tales—unless you experience somethin’ yourself that you don’t understand.”

“Are you saying flat out that there are no ghosts in the lighthouse or the lightkeeper’s house on Nephews Island?”

“I ain’t sayin’ there is, and I ain’t sayin’ there ain’t,” Glenn’s recorded voice said.

“Christ! You sound like friggin’ Einstein,” Plug muttered before quaffing some of his beer. Shantelle and Glenn both glowered at him to keep him silent as the recorded voices continued.

“So tell me,” the recorded voice of the writer said, “have you ever personally had any strange or what you might call
supernatural
experiences?”

There was a lengthy pause on the tape, and once it was clear that Glenn wasn’t going to answer, the writer continued,

“There have been numerous reports from fisherman and sailors passing by Nephews Island, especially late at night, who say they’ve heard strains of piano music coming from the lighthouse. Some people have even said that it was a particular song they heard: ‘Listen to the Mockingbird.’ Have you ever been out here at night and heard anything like that?”

“I don’t usually come out this way,” Glenn’s recorded voice said. It sounded fainter, now, like he had turned his head away from the microphone. “Most of my traps are set south of the harbor.”

Butter jumped on his stool and turned to Glenn. “That ain’t true,” he said. “You have thirty or forty pots out near the Nephews.”

Glenn snapped the recorder off and glared at his friend.

“I wasn’t gonna tell ‘im that,” he said, fighting back the sudden rush of anger he felt at Butter. “Listen to ‘im. He’s grindin’ on me like I’m some kind of authority or something. I wasn’t about to tell ‘im a goddamned thing.”

“But you’ve heard it,” Butter said, pressing. “You know damned right well you have. You ‘n me was out that way one night a couple of summers ago. ‘Member? ‘N we both heard—”

“We heard nothin’! ‘Least ways nothin’ that fella needed to know about,” Glenn was struggling to control his temper.

Was it anger?
Glenn wondered.
Or fear?
Years ago, he and Butter had been out by The Nephews one night, and they had heard and seen … something. The memory of it still sent an icy wave rippling up his back between his shoulder blades.

But he didn’t want to talk about it now, and he sure as shit didn’t want Butter talking about it, so he clicked the recorder on again and pressed the
fast forward
button. For a second or two, there was a high-pitched squealing that sounded like a chipmunk on helium. Then Glenn pressed
play
again, and everyone in the bar leaned in close as they listened to the recorded sound of the visiting writer’s voice.

“... not even sure of their names or the names of the lighthouse keeper and his wife—if, in fact, she even lived out here on this lonely rock. There are numerous gaps in the historical records from the late eighteen- and early nineteen-hundreds. Of course, it’s possible that—” The writer’s voice was suddenly cut off by a loud bang. Most everyone in the bar couldn’t help but jump.

“What was that?” Butter asked.

“Must’ve be him openin’ or shuttin’ a door,” Plug said in a whisper. “Where d’you think he is—the lighthouse or the keeper’s house?”

“Probably the front door of the lighthouse,” Glenn said, impatiently waving him quiet with one hand while leaning forward. “’Least that’s where I found his stuff. Shush.”

The tape played back the heavy clump of footsteps on either the front steps or a wooden floor of the lighthouse. They were halting, as though the person was hesitant, unsure if he should proceed. Then, with a low, fear-tinged voice, the writer’s recorded voice said, “What the
hell
is
that?
”

There was another loud banging sound, and then several seconds of hissing silence on the tape. Everyone in the bar seemed to be holding their breath as they listened. Glenn was so focused on the tape, waiting to hear the writer’s voice again, that he realized he’d been hearing something else for several seconds before it finally registered.

“Hold on a second,” he said.

His hands were tingling as he stopped the tape, pressed
rewind
for a few seconds and then started the tape again.

“Listen,” he said. His voice was a raw whisper as he leaned forward with both elbows on the bar. He raised the small tape recorder and held it close to his ear.

The sound was so faint it was all but nonexistent, but it was there. Glenn recognized the echoing, tinkling sounds of an out-of-tune piano. It took him a heartbeat or two to acknowledge that the sound was actually on the tape, not coming from the next room or outside. He turned the
volume
up as high as it would go, but the faint, teasing sound faded away, lost in the static hiss of the otherwise blank tape.

“You hear that?” Glenn’s eyes leaped back and forth from Plug to Butter to Shantelle and back to Plug.

“I didn’t hear a goddamned thing,” Butter said. His forehead was furrowed with confusion, and he cocked his head to one side, looking like a dog that was listening to a high frequency whistle that humans can’t hear.

“No, no. Listen again,” Glenn said.

He rewound the tape and played it again, making sure the volume was turned all the way up. Once again, he heard the writer say, “What the hell was that?” followed by the loud bang and then utter silence until, through the tape hiss, there came the unmistakable sounds of a piano playing “Listen to the Mockingbird.”

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” Butter said, gasping as he sat back and let his shoulders slump. His mouth hung open, exposing his single yellow tooth. His eyes were wide and held a wild, confused gleam.

Glenn quickly rewound the tape, and they all listened one more time. This time, everyone in the bar confirmed that they heard the faint strains of the distinctive tune.

“You ain’t fucking with us, are you Glennie?” Shantelle asked. Her eyes were wide, dark pools in the dim barroom light.

Glenn couldn’t speak. He could barely shake his head,
no
. His fingers were tingling so badly he’d all but lost his sense of touch. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold onto the tape recorder. A numb, hollow feeling slid open inside his chest, and the cold sensation between his shoulder blades spread like invisible fingers up the back of his neck.

Glenn clicked the tape off and looked around at his friends. They had all heard it, and they were all staring at him as though they expected him to say something profound. But it was Plug who finally spoke up.

“Wanna know what I think?” he said gruffly. Before anyone could draw a breath to speak, he continued, “I think, if you ain’t fuckin’ with us, if this is for real, there’s only one thing you
can
do.”

“’N what’s that?” Glenn looked at him, his eyebrows raised in desperate query.

“I think you oughta take that damned tape recorder, zip it back into that carrying case with all that other shit, put a heavy stone in ‘n drop it overboard when you go out lobsterin’ tomorrow mornin’.”

Plug raised his hand and pointed a gnarled forefinger at Glenn, shaking it like a schoolteacher who was scolding a child.

“’Cause if that tape’s for real,” he said, “there ain’t no one ever gonna see that writer fella alive again. Not on The Nephews ‘n not anywhere else.”