Ghoul Friend Page 13

  Everything happened at once. The front door rattled in its frame as the bathroom door swung open with a loud bang against the wall. I turned in time to see a tall woman with a long, ash blonde braid slipping out the front door. A strong, unpleasant odor wafted towards me—unwashed body, old dirt, blood, and what had to be bodily effluvia. The door hung open in her wake and I was on my feet, chasing after her as she walked at a slow but steady pace towards the pasture behind the house. The cattle that had been there the night before had moved farther afield, dark smudges some distance away, leaving a wide-open space on the other side of the fence with nowhere for her to hide. “Hey!” I shouted. “Hey! Ma’am? Hello!”

  She didn’t slow down.

  “What the hell is it with these people and walking away from shit?” I muttered, jogging a bit faster and regretting my choice in footwear. Leather, slip-on loafers are meant for comfort, not speed. The woman was approaching the split-rail fence and showed no signs of stopping. “Oh my God, don’t make me climb in these things,” I groaned.

  She did.

  Well, she didn’t make me so much as I felt compelled to follow her, even in the damn loafers. She scrambled over the fence with an uncoordinated flail of limbs, falling over the other side only to lurch back to her feet like she wasn’t quite sure how to make her limbs work together. She started walking again, heading for that same dark scar Enoch and the others had been aiming for earlier. My own maneuvering was less graceful even than hers, ducking between the rails instead of trying to go over and still managing to fall on my face. The strong smell that had followed her in the bunkhouse grew worse as we moved across the field. Had she gotten into something and was just looking to shower? Was she ill and needing help and I’d scared her off? The way she was moving was definitely not typical—her steps loose and floppy, like her feet and ankles hadn’t quite sorted out what to do, and her arms hanging limp by her sides. Her head rolled slightly, reminding me of Oscar when he tried to sleep in the car and would jerk awake now and then. A slow tilt to one side then a sudden righting of the posture so her head was up and forward.

  She slipped in something I hoped was mud and let out a sharp, rattling cry as she hit the ground. I put on a burst of speed and ended up slipping and sliding myself as I got closer. She struggled to her feet and, as close as I was, it was clear her shirt wasn’t the pale yellow I thought but had once been white and was discolored with God only knew what. Her jeans had that waxy look filthy denim and overpriced trendy jeans tend to have, and her feet were bare and caked with what I hoped was just mud but judging by the field around us likely was worse. Please let it be some ridiculous trend, I thought wildly. Organic mud baths for sexy summer toes or something asinine from one of those fashion sites CeCe loves. Her hair in its long braid was limp, her scalp visible where the unwashed strands had started to clump together on her head. “Ma’am,” I said loudly. She hesitated this time, stopping mid-step. I slowed, nearly choking on the smell as I stopped just a few feet behind her. “Ma’am, are you alright? I don’t mean to sound rude, but you look like you could use some help…”

  She shifted from side to side, slowly turning towards me like her body didn’t know how to move right. It reminded me of those little game pieces shaped like gingerbread people and stuck on a plastic base, turning by shuffling side to side with a stiff-legged gait. Finally, she faced me, and I nearly screamed. She looked entirely, impossibly, dead. Skin sallow, deep and bloodless wounds open on her cheeks, lips cracked and bloodless, she stared at me with eyes that were stained yellow with healing burst vessels. The smell grew nearly suffocating when she exhaled and took a shaking step towards me. “You,” she said in a thick, rough voice. “You…”

  “Ma’am.” My voice shook. I wanted to look back at the house, see if anyone had come back. I wanted to run for it, but I had a horrible flash of the zombie movies I’d watched with Ezra over the summer and thought I’d for sure be the asshole who slips and falls when he tries to run away, the revenant suddenly able to move quickly and grab the poor bastard.

  Me, in this case.

  “You know me?” she finally rasped, her fingers flexing and squeezing at her sides. “No. No, no, no. Nobody…” she hissed and rattled a cough, something wet and dark flying from her mouth and hitting the ground between us. I realized, with horror, it had been a tooth, or what was left of one.

  Christ.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to use my phone and call 911, okay? Just… just stay here.” I took a step back, and she moved with me, her arms coming up exactly like a horror movie ghoul. “Ma’am!”

  “No,” she groaned. “Can’t. Can’t!” With that horror movie burst of speed I’d feared, she grabbed at me, her jagged nails—what had once been a set of acrylics but were now sharp and broken and disgusting—raked across the back of my hand and caught the side of my face, knocking my phone to the ground. She howled and lurched at me, catching me full in the chest and taking us both to the ground. “No, no, no!” Her grip was weak, but she managed to press her thumbs against my throat, just enough for me to choke on my own breath. “Can’t! Can’t, can’t, can’t!”

  I shoved at her, sending her sprawling to one side and scrambling back before she could come at me again. The rustle of the dry, tall grass beyond us underscored her rattling breaths as she crawl-surged towards me. I put my hand down in something wet and soft that I told myself firmly was not cow shit but was just a mud bath for sexy summer fingers and tried to get my feet under me without turning my back on her.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  She growled and flung herself forward, grabbing hold of my ankles and pulling towards her, her mouth gaping open on a wordless, horrific cry. I shouted again, praying someone in the house might hear me, or Enoch or Hell, even Gerald was close enough to at least know something was wrong and call for help themselves. I twisted, trying to buck free of her grasp, only to feel a sharp, deep pain shoot up my leg.

  She’d fucking bitten me!

  I screamed again, managing to get one leg free and shove hard against her chest with my foot. She cried out and fell back, blood staining her mouth. A wheezing sound rumbled in her chest and I realized she was laughing. Arms flopped wide on the ground, her emaciated body twisted in a strange way, she was laughing. Or was she sobbing?

  “Fuck this,” I muttered, the pain in my leg settling into a hot, shrieking throb. I didn’t want to think of the bacteria flying through my bloodstream. I focused on getting to my feet and backing away, keeping her in my sights until I was far enough away that she disappeared into the grass. Then, I finally turned and started my lurching run towards the house only to be met with the tall, stark figure of Enoch Carstairs, staring at me from a few yards away. He looked horrified and I held out one hand towards him. “It’s… It’ll be okay,” I lied, my body wanting to just fold over and cry at the pain in my leg, at the fear in my breast. “We need to get to the house, Enoch. I dropped my phone, but we need to call for help, okay? No one will be mad at you. They’ve been looking for you, Enoch.”

  He nodded faintly. “I know,” he murmured, a far-off look in his eyes before he focused on me again. “I know they have. But I can’t let them find her.”

  “What?” Everything that had been beating and throbbing, telling me to run like hell, went cold. “What was that, Enoch?”

  He sighed. “They can’t find her, Doctor Weems. I promised.”

  “Enoch…”

  “I’m sorry.” He lurched towards me, one hand coming up with a heavy-looking club of wood clutched in it. He sobbed as he hit me, first on my arm as I threw it up to block the blow, then against the side of my head. I went down fast, everything black and hurting.

  “Seriously,” Enoch was whispering. “Come on, answer me! I know you’re there!”

  I tried to roll onto my back, but found I was stretched against something wood, something rough. My eyes didn’t want to focus for a good few moments, but finally my vision cleared enough to see I was on rough, wooden
floor. It was filthy, and there were mouse droppings far too close to my face for my liking. A soft, shuffling sound came from somewhere nearby, then Enoch’s voice again.

  “No, no, no,” he muttered. “I said no!” The last was a shout, making me jerk then moan as my body protested the sudden movement. The shuffling nearby stilled, then became a frantic sort of sound before stopping again.

  “It’s okay,” Enoch soothed, coming into view. He stepped over me and knelt near my head, facing whatever had been making that sound. “It’s okay. I’m not leaving, alright? He’s… I couldn’t leave him out there. He was gonna call the cops or something and that wouldn’t be good. They’d take you away from me.”

  “Enoch,” I tried, keeping my voice quiet. My head felt like it was going to explode, and my leg was burning, pain spreading up to my thigh. Nausea threatened as I finally pushed away from whatever I’d been laid against and made in onto my left side. Enoch was kneeling by the woman who’d attacked me. She was curled on a disgusting looking sleeping bag, staring at me with her bloodshot-hollowed eyes. If I hadn’t seen her move, I’d have assumed she was dead. But her fingers uncurled and stretched towards Enoch as they both stared at me. “Enoch, let me help you,” I tried. “I don’t know why you hurt me, but I promise I won’t press charges if you just let me get some help. And get this lady some help.”

  “They won’t help her,” he snarled. “They’ll take her! They don’t believe me or her. When she—” he closed his eyes, his own fingers curling around hers now. “I’ve been trying, okay? Trying to keep her safe. But he’s strong. And I don’t work like that. I hoped… Fuck!”

  The woman made a soft, protesting noise.

  “Sorry, Mom.”

  “Mom?” I pushed myself up and almost regretted it, bile surging up my throat and the small, dirty room spinning even after I closed my eyes. “Mom?”

  “She’s not dead,” he said, sounding like he had a smile in his voice. “I’ve been telling folks, but no one believes me. Just like no one believed her about how we can talk. I tried, Mom. I tried to explain…”

  She groaned and the shuffling sound came again. I slowly opened my eyes to see she was trying to scoot closer to him but couldn’t get her limbs to move the right way. He sobbed jaggedly before carefully stretching out beside her and brushing her lank, dirty hair back from her eyes. I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say but it sounded like she was soothing him.

  “Enoch, listen to me—”

  “No,” he said, sitting up and scooting closer to me. “No, you need to listen, okay? I was hoping Mr. Fellowes could help, okay? He’s the best medium in the world, isn’t he? I was hoping he could get rid of Mason Albright or maybe, I don’t know, break this hold he has on her. On all of them.” He shook his head bitterly and bit his lip. “But I can barely get him to talk to me. It’s like he’s ignoring me, and I’m so fucking pissed!”

  Shit. “Okay, look, I know Oscar pretty well, okay? And he wouldn’t be ignoring you if he could help it. He wants to help people,” I said, and I knew how true that was even as the words tumbled out. I’d known it after seeing him at work for the first time in New York. Hell, I think I’d even realized it when I saw one of his videos before meeting in person. He wasn’t trying to be famous on purpose, but he was riding the wave, so to speak. He was using his popularity to help others, in his way. Whether he was really talking to ghosts, he was giving some peace of mind and comfort to the grieving and, hell, at worst he was being entertaining when he talked about haunted historical sites. He never demanded payment; he didn’t put on a flashy show about it. He just listened. When he had a séance, he just… listened. He let people have their grief and supported it, let them talk about their dead loved one, and just… listened. A tiny bit of my heart chipped away at that thought, leaving a raw nerve exposed. “He’ll listen to you if he can hear you, okay? So why don’t we head back to the house, and he’ll listen to you.”

  Enoch snorted wetly. “I’ve been trying. It’s like he’s at the bottom of a well or something.” He smacked his hands against his temples, grimacing. “This doesn’t work right since she got hurt!”

  “What doesn’t work right, Enoch?”

  The woman moaned, reaching for him, trying to pull him back, but Enoch shook her off gently. “Mom and me, we had the Gift.” I could hear the capital. “She said it skipped sometimes and that’s why Pops and MeMaw don’t have it. They couldn’t carry it cuz they weren’t strong enough.” He laughed, manic and high. “She showed me, you know? Tried to show Yancy but he doesn’t have it either. But you know who else did? Fucking Mason Albright. Folks like us, we glom up together. That’s what she told me. We find one another. And Mason, he had it. And he still does. That’s why he can… he can…” He paused, his eyes going wide as he seemed to finally see me again. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I haven’t been paying attention.” He lurched to his feet and thundered past us, into what looked to be an old kitchen with the appliances yanked out. Gas jets dangled limply from the walls and the floor bore deep scratches where heavy things had been dragged. I managed to lean forward far enough to see Enoch had plastered himself to a grimy window, kneeling on an old worktop beside a deep farmhouse sink. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered. “He’s back. Okay, that’s… that’s kind of good, right? That means he ain’t taken anyone else.”

  “Enoch, what are you talking about?”

  He didn’t reply, just stayed staring out the window.

  After a long while, my eyes drifted shut to the steady thrum of pain in my body and I couldn’t open them up for a long while.

  It was evening when I woke again. Or I thought it was. It could’ve been dawn, I realized, as I didn’t know how long I’d been there. I was thirsty and had to pee, and my stomach was roiling with nausea. My leg was definitely well on its way to being infected, and the concussion I’d sustained was humming along merrily, making my brain feel like oatmeal. I thought of trying to call Oscar, call 911, call fucking anyone then I remembered my phone was out in the field, where the woman had attacked me.

  The woman who was still curled onto her side a foot or two away, looking and smelling like death warmed over. She had her eyes closed and except for a faint rustle of breath now and then, she was still.

  Enoch wasn’t at the window anymore but instead sitting in the doorway of what I realized was the pantry where he’d stashed us, blocking our exit. “When I was five,” he said quietly, “I had a dream that I saw Yancy fall into the pool at the community center. He was walking on the edge and slipped, fell straight down into the deep end by the diving board. No one saw him but me. But I wasn’t there, I was dreaming it, right? But I screamed for Mom and told her Yancy was dying, told her he bopped his head on the side of the pool at the rec center and no one was helpin’ him. Pops told me it was a nightmare but Mom, she went all white-faced and I thought she was gonna die, she was shaking so hard. She called 911 and said there’d been an accident at the town pool, and they sent an ambulance. By the time they got there, someone finally saw Yancy on the bottom and dragged him out.” He shifted his gaze to me. “That was the first time I didn’t stay in my body. At least the first time I remember. When Yancy got home from the hospital and everything was okay again, Mom told me she could do it, too, and it scared people to find that out. And she promised me she’d teach me how to do it. But,” he sniffed, shrugging, “she didn’t know a lot about it. So, we’d look up stuff online sometimes. We found some people like us, but most people who said they could walk out of their heads were full of it, or meant something else like imagining real hard or they had something wrong up here,” he tapped his head. “There’s a few of us though, who can do it. One of the guys Mom talked to online called it Ghosting because really strong ones of us, we can be like ghosts. Make people hear our voices and shit, but they don’t see us.”

  I nodded carefully, regretting it even as I did it. “And is that… is that how you’ve been communicating with Oscar?”

&nbs
p; He looked away, the picture of teenage awkwardness. “Tryin’ to. Mom, she could do it better. And when she helped me, I was good at it. But it got real hard after she died. I tried talkin’ to some of the folks online, but they were all like ‘oh sorry about your mom,’ and some of ‘em suggested talking to a medium like Oscar. He’s got a big fanbase, you know?”

  “I’m starting to think it’s bigger than CeCe realized,” I muttered.

  “Huh? CeCe?”

  “My sister. She’s producing the show we’re making.” Why lie, I thought. Chances were getting better every minute this was going to end badly, so why go out dishonest?

  Enoch grunted. “Right. Well. He’s pretty well known by, like, real psychics and mediums. Hey, you should tell your sister that they need to make sure not to call him a psychic on the ads and stuff, you know? Psychics are totally different.”

  “Is that what you think you and your mom are?” I asked, trying my best not to sound like I wanted to die, like I was sure I was going to die.

  He stared at me, his lips crimping into a deep frown. “We’re not psychics. Psychics can, you know, read minds and shit. We can just…” He waved one hand. “They call it astral projecting but that makes it sound all spacey and woo woo, you know?”

  I made a thoughtful noise, biting down on my first inclination to explain how astral projecting couldn’t be real because, you know, science. Instead, I asked, “So you and your mom can do this projecting thing and you think maybe Mason Albright could, too?”

  “No, I know he could. But he’s, like, super good at it, you know?” He sounded almost admiring. “He’s figured out how to bring people back with him, or use their space, you know?” He tapped his head again. “Mom figured it out after…” he trailed off. “After stuff happened.” He glanced up and frowned. “Albright stays away from here if I’m here. Or he used to. He’s been trying harder now.”