The Ghoul Next Door (9 page)

I focused on him and saw that the dark circles under his eyes were a little more pronounced tonight. I’d told him that if he could stay awake today, it might be better. We needed him tired enough to fall asleep quickly so we could see what happened. Judging by his slumped shoulders and exhausted expression, he’d followed instructions. “That’s exactly what we’d like you to do. Go home, make yourself comfortable, and try to sleep. We’ll be watching you the whole time, Luke, and we’re just a few blocks away. If things start to get weird, we can be at your house in a flash with one of these.” I pointed to the stack of magnetic spikes I’d put on the table, which was totally for Luke and Courtney’s benefit. I wanted to show them that we meant business, and that they could take us seriously.

Luke picked up one of the spikes. “It’s heavy.”

I lifted my spoon and held it close to the spike in his hand. It flew out of my fingers and attached itself to the spike. “It’s magnetized.”

Luke took the spoon away from the spike before letting them clink together again. “So, what? If this thing shows up, you’re going to come stab it?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Heath said. “But it’ll probably get the hell out of there when it sees us coming with one of these. Spooks can’t stand to be around magnets. It causes them major discomfort and most can’t tolerate them. If this spook runs, though, we’ll give chase.”

“You’ll give chase?” Courtney asked.

Heath nodded. “We need to know where this thing comes from. If it’s sinister, then it’ll have a link to the lower realms, and to float between this plane and that one, it’ll need a portal.”

Courtney blinked. Then she blinked a second time. “Come again?”

I smiled. To Courtney’s ears, Heath probably sounded like he was speaking in code. I decided to step in and explain. “On the spirit plane there are essentially three realms. There’s our realm, where our souls are carried around inside our bodies and we can interact easily with each other. Then there’s the higher realm, or what most people think of as heaven or the other side, and then there’s the lower realm, which is where lots of negative energy lurks. Grounded spirits—like the one we think is currently haunting your brother—for a variety of reasons can become trapped here in our realm. Some become trapped because they don’t realize they’re dead, and they keep trying to interact with us as if they still had a body. The way they see this realm can remain fixed, and they aren’t aware of time. These are your more traditional ghosts, and, usually, they’re harmless.

“Other grounded spirits, however, can become trapped because they don’t want to cross over into heaven out of fear of what kind of judgment might await them on the other side. They literally carry the fear of God within them, and if they were bad people here, they might feel that God will be harsh on them when they cross. They’re here because they’re stalling, so to speak. They think God will come down hard on them.”

“If they were bad people, wouldn’t He?” Courtney asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. From my experience as a medium I can tell you that most of the souls I’ve connected with all suggest that the only judgment we face when we cross over is one of our own creation. We judge ourselves and we aren’t able to take with us the veil of denial, so we see ourselves as we truly are, warts and all. It can be quite painful for a soul who led a corrupt or selfish life to be stripped bare and really take a good hard look at themselves.”

“So is that what this spook is?” Luke asked. “That kind?”

I sighed. “I don’t think so, Luke,” I whispered.

His brow furrowed. “Then what kind is he?”

“I don’t know, but I suspect he may be a third kind of spook. The kind that wouldn’t be allowed to cross over even if he were willing.”

Luke’s mouth fell open. “You mean, the kind that would be sent to hell?”

I nodded again. “And may already have been. That’s the lower realm I’m talking about. Some spooks like to float back and forth between the two realms. They create a portal where they can easily come and go.”

“Why wouldn’t they just stay down there?” Courtney asked me.

“Because it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun,” Heath said, without a hint of mirth. “Spooks like that want access to the lower realm to learn how to manipulate things in our plane.”

“What do you mean, ‘manipulate things’?” she pressed.

“Well, they learn how to gain and utilize energy. If they can invoke fear in you, they can raise the electromagnetic current you produce. Your own electromagnetic energy gets a boost, the same way your heart beats faster when you exercise. These spooks can hitch a ride off that energy and use it to their advantage by moving or throwing things like rocks and small stones, by manipulating electrical currents to start fires, or by taking over a person.”

Courtney gave in to her shudder this time and Steven wrapped an arm around her and began rubbing her back. “This is so scary,” she whispered.

“I know,” I told her. “But Heath, Gilley, and I are very good at this type of thing. Hopefully we’ll know what we’re dealing with after tonight and we’ll be able to put a plan into action.”

Steven pushed his chair back and held his hand out for his fiancée. “She’s right,” he told her. “If anybody can help Luke, M.J. and Gilley can.”

Next to me I felt Heath bristle.

Steven eyed him sideways, a slight smirk on his face. “I’m sure you’re good too, Whitefeather.”

I gave Steven a withering look, but he hardly looked contrite. After Courtney gave her brother one final hug, she and Steven were off to his place. I walked Luke to the door. “Think you’ll be able to fall asleep?” I asked him as he zipped up his jacket. It’d turned cool that evening.

“Falling asleep is never the problem. It’s staying asleep that’s hard.”

I gave him a light pat on the shoulder and told him we’d keep a watchful eye on him, then went back to the table to hunker down for the long night ahead.

Around two a.m. my eyelids began to droop and my head started to loll forward. “Take a nap,” Heath suggested.

I blinked blearily at him. He looked just as tired. I inhaled deeply and dipped my coffee cup toward me to take a peek at the contents. It was nearly empty, which was a good thing because I’d had so much coffee that my stomach was a little upset. “I’m okay,” I said, leaning back to stretch and rub my eyes. Then I got up and tried to shake off the fatigue. We’d been watching the monitors diligently for the past three hours without a hint of trouble. I figured if we got past four a.m., we’d be in the clear, but the question of why this spook hadn’t shown up yet was a troubling one. I thought again about my suspicion that Luke might be making some of this up, but for the life of me I couldn’t imagine what he had to gain. And then there was what Courtney had said—she’d seen a shadow at Luke’s old house. I believed her even if I didn’t quite believe him.

“Man, this is dull,” Gil said into my ear.

I hadn’t heard a peep from him in over an hour. “Where you been?”

“I took a nap.”

“Of course you did,” I said flatly.

“It’s not like I missed anything,” Gil replied, without a hint of apology in his voice.

I opened my mouth to say something smart when Heath suddenly put a hand on my arm. “I think we’ve got something.”

Gilley gasped and I sat down quick, my eyes searching the monitor, but at first I didn’t see anything. Heath pointed to the lower left-hand side of the screen, which showed the front hallway. It took me a minute, but I finally realized there was a shadow against the far wall. It blended into the background so well at first I didn’t see it until it sort of oozed out of the wall and hovered at the base of the stairs.

“Whoa!” Gil said.

The shadow was about six feet tall, maybe a little shorter but not by much. It had the rough shape of a person but wasn’t especially defined and it continued to stand there at the base of the stairs for several tense moments as if assessing the situation before deciding what to do next.

“What’s it waiting for?” Heath whispered.

And as if on cue, the shadow seemed to turn sideways and what looked like a head tilted up toward the camera. My breath caught and next to me I felt Heath stiffen. In my ear I heard Gilley make a frightened squeaking noise. There was no doubt from any of us that the shadow was aware of not only the camera but the fact that we were watching it.

Several tense seconds went by, none of us daring to breathe, and then the shadow finally turned back toward the stairs and began to ascend them. “Should we head over there?” I whispered.

Heath shook his head. “Let’s wait and see what it does. We need to know the full extent of this spook’s powers and how it interacts with Luke before we go over there with guns blazing.”

I knew he was right, but it was a tough thing to sit by and watch that creepy shadow make its way slowly up those stairs to where Luke was sound asleep and defenseless.

The spook went out of view of the camera about three-quarters of the way up the stairs and we picked it up on the view from the camera located on Courtney’s bedroom wall—which faced out toward the hallway. The spook’s movement was smooth like liquid, which lent it an eerie inky quality. I’d never seen a ghost move quite like it. In my gut I had the feeling that it could move a whole lot faster, and that it was purposely drawing out the time to both freak us out and assess what we’d do. And I had no doubt that the spook was fully aware of us, because at the top of the stairs it paused again and focused all of its attention on the camera in Courtney’s room.

“It keeps staring right into the camera,” Gil whispered, and I could tell he was totally creeped out.

We’d had another spook who’d done something similar on a shoot several months before and that’d scared us all witless, but somehow the shadowman in Courtney’s house was taking this particular trick up a notch. I shuddered involuntarily and waited for the spook to continue on.

At last it turned toward the hallway and moved with oozy precision toward Luke’s room. It entered and we had to switch our attention to the camera over Luke’s closet. The spook headed straight to the bed and stood next to it, hovering there for a long time. “What’s it doing?” Gil asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, squinting at the monitor. Luke appeared to be fast asleep, and then I saw his right leg jerk. I jumped at the movement and bit my lip. The urge to run right over to Courtney’s with all our magnetic spikes and the racket was strong. But I knew Heath was right; we had to wait and see how this spook would interact with its target first.

Luke jerked again and his arm flew out as if he was trying to fend off an attack. My own hand reached out and curled around a magnetic stake and my body tensed, ready to fly out of the café and head to Courtney’s. Heath reached out and held on to my elbow, not to stop me but ready to go with me the second things went bad.

All the while Luke continued to jerk and thrash, as if he was having the most violent nightmare. His arm thrashed out again and again, but then I noticed that it seemed to change direction and his clenched fist swung down in an arc over and over, as if he were stabbing at something.

And then, in an instant, the shadowman next to Luke vanished at the same moment Luke’s eyes flew open and he sat bolt upright. His hair was damp and he appeared covered in sweat. His T-shirt clung to him and he was breathing heavily, as if he’d just run a sprint.

“Where’d it go?” Gilley asked.

“Don’t know,” I said, my eyes darting around the monitor to the other camera views. “Do you see it anywhere, Heath?”

“No,” he said. “Gil, click the camera in the kitchen.”

We had views of four of the cameras, and the fifth was being monitored by Gilley separately because it wouldn’t fit onto our laptop’s screen. A second later our monitor was filled with a view of the front hallway, and Heath and I both leaned in, searching for any sign of the spook, but we couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. “Try Courtney’s room,” I said.

The monitor switched to the master bedroom and Heath and I searched again. “Where the hell did you go?” I wondered aloud.

“Guys?” Gilley said suddenly. “Luke’s getting up.”

I reached for my cell and dialed his number. Gil switched the monitor back to the camera in Luke’s room, and through the computer I could hear Luke’s phone ringing. It lit up his nightstand, but Luke, who was now standing, didn’t even glance at it. Instead he moved away from his bed, put his feet into his shoes, and walked out of the room.

“Where’s he going?” I said as Luke’s phone switched over to voice mail.

“Probably to get a glass of water or something,” Heath said. Looking at me, he said, “Try him again.”

I redialed Luke’s phone and it rang but Luke didn’t come back into the room to answer it. “Gil,” I said while the phone was still ringing, “put up all the other monitors.”

He did and we saw immediately that Luke was in the hallway headed for the stairs. “Come on, dude,” I whispered. “Answer my call.”

Luke paused at the top of the stairs and I thought for sure he was going to do just that, but then he turned and stared right at the camera in Courtney’s room in a way that made all of us catch our breath. He looked straight into the lens, his gaze intense and unflinching, and at the corners of his mouth was the most sinister smirk. I felt my blood run cold, and as his phone once again clicked over to voice mail, I didn’t hang up—I just sat there frozen staring at Luke as he gazed at us as if he could actually see us looking back at him. His eyes taunted us and his stance was menacing. I don’t know how else to describe it, other than the guy I’d first met at the hospital and who had sat with us just a few hours earlier was gone, and in his place was Mr. Hyde.

With what looked like a snicker Luke was in motion again; moving steadily down the stairs, he walked straight to the front door, opened it, and was gone before any of us could react.

Heath slid out of the booth first, grabbing a handful of spikes and the Spooker Smasher before he took off out of the diner. I grabbed the remaining spikes and dashed out the door after him. We’d warned the waitress that we might need to run out of the place quickly, and we’d already paid our tab and left her a sizable tip to watch our stuff, should the need arise for us to bolt. I hoped she’d look after our laptop and personal items, but I couldn’t worry about that now.

I ran as fast as I could after Heath, but he had a good lead on me and he was crazy fast in his own right. I lost ground to him quickly, but that didn’t stop me from putting my all into the effort. I managed to catch up with him at the foot of the steps leading to Courtney’s brownstone. He was looking up and down the street, trying to spot Luke. “There’s no sign of which direction he went,” Heath said, his breath coming hard.

“Did you check inside?” I asked, hoping Luke had turned back around and gone back inside his sister’s place.

Gilley answered me. “He’s not there, M.J. I’m watching the monitors and no one’s come back inside.”

“Any sign of the spook?” I asked Gil, trying to catch my breath.

“Nope.”

I looked at Heath. “Now what?”

“Let’s run around the block,” he suggested, pointing up the street. “You go east. I’ll go west.”

I nodded and took off again. This time, I ran at a more manageable pace, twisting my head back and forth trying to spot any sign of Luke. But he seemed to have vanished.

I wondered if he’d gotten in his car and driven somewhere, but then I also wondered if he even had a car. I met Heath around the other side of the block. “Any sign of him?” I called when he came into view.

He shook his head. “Where the hell did he go?”

I shrugged. I had no idea. “Should we call Steven and Courtney?”

Heath pressed his lips together. I could see he was beating himself up for not going to Luke’s rescue sooner, around the time I’d suggested we should. “No,” he said. “Let’s give it a little time.” Then he pressed his finger against his Bluetooth and said, “Gil? You still with us?”

“I am.”

“Anything on the monitors?”

“Nope.”

Heath sighed heavily. “Okay. Keep watching for us. M.J. and I are going to go back to the diner and get our stuff and the van. If Luke comes back into the house, let us know right away.”

“Roger that,” Gil said.

Heath and I trotted back around the block and took one more look up the street before turning away and jogging back to the diner. We found our stuff just as we left it, and our waitress nodded to us as we collected it. “I kept my eye on it,” she said.

“Thanks,” I told her, and Heath and I left the diner for good. We got in the van then and started to drive around the neighborhood, pausing at every alleyway and side street to peer into the darkness and hopefully spy Luke. But he was nowhere. It was as if he’d vanished into thin air just like the spook.

By three o’clock we had combed the whole neighborhood, so we headed back to Courtney’s and parked the van in a spot across the street. We went inside and Gilley said, “Welcome back, kiddies.”

“No sign of him?” I asked a bit desperately.

“Nada.”

Heath leaned against the door. He looked frustrated and defeated. “We should probably call Courtney.”

“She’s gonna freak,” I said, hauling out my cell to make the call.

Heath stepped forward and put his hand over the cell. “Let me do it, babe. It’s my fault he’s missing.”

I cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him. He wasn’t to blame. “How do you figure?”

“I should’ve listened to you when the spook first showed up down here. We should’ve been here to protect Luke.”

I leaned in and hugged him. “Honey, we had no idea what the spook was going to do. You were right to say that we should hang back and wait.”

Heath squeezed me tight and rested his chin on the top of my head. “We knew the spook might try possessing Luke, Em. We should’ve thought about the consequences of being so far away when that happened.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “It’s not your fault, Heath. And for all we know, Luke could be sleepwalking. I mean, we don’t
actually
know he’s been taken over by the spook. Maybe the spook’s disappearance has nothing to do with Luke getting out of bed and leaving here.”

Heath made a derisive sound. “You really believe that?”

I sighed again. “No. But the point is that we don’t yet know for certain what’s happened. Luke might be fine. And either way, come daylight he’s bound to turn up.”

Heath kissed the top of my head and continued to hug me tight. “Let’s hope so.”

Somewhere in the distance the sound of sirens cut into the quiet of the night. “Eesh,” I said. “Sirens after midnight. Never a good sign.”

And then Heath and I both stiffened, as if we both suddenly knew that the sirens might have something to do with Luke.

“What’s happening?” Gilley asked. I didn’t think he’d picked up the sound of the sirens just yet.

I didn’t answer him. Instead I lifted my phone and searched my contacts list for Courtney’s name. Heath’s hand covered the screen again and he took it from me. “Let me,” he said gently. “And, Gilley, do your hacking thing and see if you can find out why there’re sirens in this neighborhood at three a.m., would you?”

“Sirens? You guys hear sirens?”

“Yes,” Heath and I said together.

“That’s never a good sign,” Gil muttered.

I watched Heath nervously as the screen on my phone lit up his worried face and all the while the sirens closed in. At last he put the phone to his ear and I waited anxiously for him to talk to Courtney. Just as Heath opened his mouth to speak, however, the front door burst open and Luke appeared, looking terrified. Heath was so startled that he dropped my phone and we both grabbed on to each other as we stared wide-eyed at Luke, who slammed the door behind him, threw the dead bolt, then sank weakly to the floor.

As I was trying to process his sudden appearance, a scent wafted to my nose that made my stomach muscles clench. The heavy scent of rust filled the hallway and in the dim light I saw that Luke’s shirt and hands were covered in something dark and wet. Heath was in motion first. He went to the side table and switched on the light, and as I blinked in the bright light of the room, I realized that Luke was covered in blood. It soaked the front of his T-shirt, and was smeared all over his arms and neck. There was even a long smudge of it along his forehead.