Haunted Tales (18 page)

 
Mary opened a
mini-box of chocolate-covered caramels and popped one into her mouth as she
entered her office.

“Are you really sure you should be eating those?”

Mary froze and turned to find Kristen sitting at her desk
and Andrew standing behind her.

“What?” Mary asked. “What are you doing here?”

“See, that’s the problem,” Kristen said. “We don’t know, and
we figured you were supposed to know. But if you don’t know, we’re all
screwed.”

Shaking her head, Mary closed the blinds at the front of her
office and walked over to her chair. “Sorry, but if I’m going to figure this
out, I’m going to have to sit down,” she said.

“Fine,” Kristen said, getting out of the chair.

Andrew glided over next to Mary and leaned down near her.
“Um, Mary,” Andrew stuttered, “Mary, I can see Miss Banks now, and she doesn’t
look all that great.”

“I can hear you,” Kristen said, turning to Andrew with her
hands on her hips. “And quite frankly, you don’t look too hot yourself.”

“You two can see each other?” Mary asked, looking from one
ghost to the other.

“Duh,” Kristen said. “We’ve got this whole weird, dead
alumni thing going on.”

“But Mitch confessed,” Mary said. “You both should be ready
to move on.”

Kristen glided next to Andrew and shook her head.
 
“Mitch did it?” Kristen asked. “It really
doesn’t seem like something Mitch would do.”

Mary shrugged. “Well, he confessed, and he was pretty
aggressive when Bradley and I were going back into the school to find Andrew.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have?” Kristen asked, her
eyebrows
raised
in surprise.

“Well, you know, once someone confesses, you kind of stop
looking for more clues,” Mary replied, feeling a little defensive.

“Well, something’s going on,” Kristen said. “Because I think
if this is resolved, I shouldn’t be here anymore.”

“Maybe it’s something between the two of you,” Mary
suggested. “Maybe Andrew needed to say goodbye to you or thank you for being
the motivation in his life.”

Andrew shrugged. “Or the reason I got murdered,” he said,
folding his arms over his chest and turning away from Kristen.

“Hey, listen, I didn’t ask you to investigate my death,” she
replied, poking him in his shoulder.

He spun around and faced her. “But you said you believed in
me,” he argued. “How could I not try to find out the truth? It was like a
message from the grave.”

She sighed. “Well, when I was writing it, I didn’t mean it
to be life-changing,” she said. “I just wanted you to apply yourself to your
spelling words. That’s all.
 
I didn’t
know I was going to die.”

The anger left his face, and he nodded. “It was
life-changing,” Andrew admitted. “So, thank you for that. I accomplished a lot
of things I never would have without that note. It meant a lot.”

Kristen smiled at him. “You’re welcome,” she said. “You were
my favorite in that class.”

“Really?” he asked with a wide smile.

“Yeah, really,” she said, pausing for a moment and then
turning to Mary. “Okay, we’ve done the
nicey
,
nicey
. Can we move on now?”

Mary looked around and waited for a few moments. “No, it
doesn’t look like it’s happening,” she said. “There has to be something else.”

Mary picked up the file that held all of the information
about the case.
 
She put the journal to
the side and started sorting through the letters. “So, you got letters from
Danny and Mitch,” Mary said.

“And Vic,” Kristen said. “Let’s not forget Vic.”

“Yeah,” Mary said, picking up the report Bradley brought
about Mitch’s service. “But Vic died in Vietnam.”

“What? Vic didn’t die,” Kristen said.

“Yes, he did,” Mary said, picking up the report. “He died
saving Mitch’s life.”

“But, that’s impossible. I got a letter from Vic the same
day I got my last letter from Danny,” she said.

Mary shook her head. “Well, it must have been delayed,” Mary
said, “because the report said that Mitch was at the hospital in Germany for
six weeks before he was transferred home two weeks before you died.
 
So, Vic had been dead for almost two months
when you got that letter.”

“Find the letter,” Kristen said.

Mary sorted quickly and then found the one from Vic. She
opened it and gasped softly. “It’s dated on the inside,” Mary said, “only two
weeks earlier than the postmark date.”

“So, is Vic still alive?” Kristen asked. “Has he been alive
all this time?”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Mary said, sorting through
the letters for more correspondence from Vic.

Finding a dozen more letters, Mary laid them out on the
table next to each other and compared them. “The handwriting is very similar in
all of them,” she said, slowly shaking her head.
 
She looked up at Kristen and Andrew. “I’m not
sure where all of this is going to lead, but it looks like there’s a good
reason for both of you to still be here.”

She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to call
Bradley and let him know what I’ve found.”

The sound effect machine was turned up to full volume as
Bradley, Stanley, Timothy and Clifford worked on the Halloween display on the
front porch.
 
The life-sized coffin was
on one side of the porch with its animatronics plugged into an extension cord
that ran under the porch and into the basement. The speaker system was
currently being attached to the rafters of the porch.

“Okay, try it again,” Bradley called down from the top of
the ladder.

Timothy walked past the coffin and tripped the sensor.
Suddenly, the coffin lid started to lift, and a skeletal hand began to slip out
of the darkness toward the unsuspecting trick-or-treater. “Good evening,” the
voice from inside the coffin called out.

“I think you need a little more bass on the voice,” Clifford
called, adjusting the sound through his tablet. “Yeah, this is going to be
great.”

Bradley’s cell phone was in the pocket of his jacket that
was currently hanging over a witch’s brewing pot on the other side of the
porch. It rang and rang, the tone drowned out by the sound effects all around
them.

“This is awesome,” Bradley called. “Just a couple more
tries, and then we can hang up the screaming banshee.”

“I almost got the lights working,” Stanley called from the
yard in front of the porch. He plugged a thick cord into a power strip that
also held the sound and the animatronics. Suddenly, there was a loud pop, and
everything went dark and quiet.

“
Dagnabbit
,” Stanley cursed.
“That’s what you get
fer
buying cheap power strips.”

“Or that’s what you get for overloading a circuit,” Bradley
said. “Stanley, unplug the lights, and I’ll go down to the basement and flip
the fuse back on. And, I’ll bring you your very own extension cord.”

He closed the door just as his cell starting ringing again.

“Hey, Timothy,” Clifford yelled. “Do you want to grab
Bradley’s cell phone?”

Timothy started across the porch but halted when the phone
stopped ringing. “Oh well, if it was important, they’ll call back,” he said.

Mary hung up the phone and exhaled loudly. “He’s not
answering, and I already left him a message,” she said to Kristen and Andrew.
“So, the next best thing is to go home and talk to him in person.”

“Shouldn’t you call the police?” Andrew asked. “Let them
know?”

“I don’t know what I’d tell them,” she said. “All I have is
a forty-year-old letter that really could have been sent by another soldier who
found it in Vic’s belongings and decided to forward it on.” She sighed in
frustration. “We know that things aren’t as wrapped up as the police believe,
because the two of you haven’t crossed over yet.
 
But, they tend not to believe in paranormal
evidence.”

Kristen glided to the front of the office and stared at the
window.
 
Then she turned around and
looked at Mary.
 
“You need to be careful,
Mary,” she said. “You need to worry about you and your baby before you concern
yourself with Andrew and me.”

Andrew nodded. “Yeah, we don’t want you to get hurt.”

Kristen looked over at Andrew. “Hurt?
 
This guy plays for keeps. Mary, we don’t want
you to be killed.”

“I don’t plan on getting myself killed,” Mary said. “But I’d
appreciate it if you two stayed close tonight so all of us can keep an eye on
things.”

“No problem,” Andrew said.

“Yeah, we know how well that worked the last time there was
danger,” Kristen said to him. “You ran away.”

“Actually, Kristen, I asked him to leave,” Mary said.
“Andrew didn’t know he was dead yet. So without a body holding him back, once
he thought about leaving, he just went to the place he was thinking about.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have deserted Mary. I promise,” Andrew
said. “I just was gone.”

“Well, don’t just
go
this time,” Kristen said. “We need to all work together to keep Mary safe and
to find out who killed us.”

Mary packed up the journal, letters and everything else from
the case and put them in her briefcase.
 
She slipped her phone back in her pocket and then went to the door.
 
The sun had gone down, and the street lights
were glowing down over the scarecrows.
 
Her car was only a few yards away, but suddenly her heart seemed to
catch in her throat.

“Wait!” Kristen called out before Mary could open the door.
“Let me check and make sure it’s clear.”

Kristen slipped through the wall, and then both Mary and
Andrew heard her gasp in shock.

“What?” Mary asked as Kristen slipped back inside. “What’s
out there?”

“It’s disgusting.
 
Some of the things women were wearing,” Kristen said
,
her face screwed up in disgust. “Don’t people have mirrors? Don’t they look in
them before they leave their homes?”

Mary sighed. “
Kristen,
was there
anything threatening outside?” she asked.

“Only if you count the threat to good taste,” Kristen
sniffed.

“Okay, then,” Mary said. “I’m going out to my car. I’ll meet
both of you back at my house.”

“Mary just pulled up,” Rosie called from the front room back
into the kitchen.

“What? She wasn’t supposed to be here for another hour,”
Bradley exclaimed. “Okay everyone, back here behind the curtains.”

Suddenly, they heard a pop, and all of the lights on the
ground floor shut off. “
Dagnabbit
,” Stanley said back
behind the curtain. “How’s a man to know that outlets in the kitchen and the
porch are connected?”

Bradley sighed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of
it.”

“But what are we going to do?” Timothy asked. “With no
lights on, how are we going to surprise her?”

Bradley looked around the room frantically until he spied
the bags of candy for the trick-or-treaters. “Margaret, Mary expects you and
Timothy to be here, so would you ask her to fill up all the candy bowls?
 
By that time, I’ll be back upstairs, and the
lights will be on.”

Margaret laughed. “I’ll be happy to get rid of my daughter,”
she teased. “Now hurry and get the lights back on.”

Bradley had barely dived beyond the curtains when Mary
entered the front door. With just the light from the stairs on, she saw Clarissa
and her parents in the room. “Hi,” she said. “Where’s Bradley?”

“Oh, he had to run downstairs to flip the breaker,” her
mother explained. “He’ll be back in a moment.”

“Well, I really need to speak with him,” she said, walking
towards the kitchen.

“No,” Timothy said, taking his daughter’s arm. “That’s his
surprise. You don’t want to ruin it, do you?”

“Well, this is pretty important,” she said.

“But, it can wait for just a few minutes, can’t it?” her
mother asked. “Besides, Bradley wanted you to fill the candy dishes out on the
porch when you came home.”

“What?” Mary asked.

Clarissa came over with four large bags of candy and handed
them to her mother. “Daddy said it was really important that you do it right
away,” she insisted.

Mary shook her head. “But, I really do need to speak with
Bradley.”

“Darling,” her father said, “
fill
the candy dishes, and we’ll send Bradley out there in a trice. You don’t want
angry trick-or-treaters now, do you?”

“But…” she tried to argue.

“Go, darling,” her father insisted, guiding her to the door.
“There’s nothing that important that it can’t wait a moment.”

Shaking her head, Mary closed the door behind her and walked
down the steps to the sidewalk where a large bowl of candy sat on a chair.
 
Since there was no light from the front
porch, the bowl was in complete darkness.
 
She could make out the shadow but had to feel around to be sure. “This
is ridiculous,” she muttered.

She began to open the first bag when she felt a pinprick in
her side. She started to turn towards the pain when a strong hand reached out
and grabbed her arm. “If you don’t want your baby to die,” the low voice
threatened, “you’ll do exactly what I say.”

Mary gasped softly when she saw the glimmer of a knife up
against the side of her stomach. She dropped the candy on the ground and
nodded. “I’ll do whatever you want,” she said. “Just don’t hurt my baby.”

“Walk with me,” the low voice said, “and don’t make any
stupid moves.”

She was pushed forward onto the sidewalk and then guided
down the block.
 
She looked around at all
of her neighbors and their children, dressed in costume and running from house
to house.
 
She knew any word from her
would risk their safety. Then she glanced at the person next to her, and her
heart stopped.
 
A soldier dressed in
camouflage with black face paint smeared over his face was her abductor.

“Where are you taking me?” she whispered.

The knife pressed a little tighter against her, and she felt
it scratch her skin.
 
She was suddenly
shoved off the sidewalk and stumbled against the side of a dark SUV.
 
The soldier reached out, opened the back door
and pushed Mary into the back seat. “Turn with your hands behind your back.”

Mary slid sideways on the seat and did as she was
asked.
 
She felt the coarse rope tighten
against her wrist, and then she was forcefully shoved back against the
seat.
 
The solider reached over to grab
the seatbelt just as another car turned the corner and light flooded into the
back seat.
 
With a jolt, Mary recognized
her captor.
 
She took a deep breath and
waited until the soldier had climbed into the front seat and turned on the
ignition.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked again.

“Someplace we can have some privacy,” Viv replied.
“Someplace in the jungle.”