No Ghouls Allowed (12 page)

I ducked my chin again as I pulled away from Daddy, and wiped at my cheeks with the
backs of my hands. “I’m sorry,” I managed to say, but it was a little choked.

“Oh, child!” Christine said when I lifted my chin, and once again I was pulled into
comforting arms and held tightly. “Honey love, tell me what’s wrong!”

It was my undoing. Christine was not my mother, but she was so warm, and sweet, and
lovely in her own right, and in that moment she reminded me so much of Mama that I
felt myself tremble a little, then begin to sob all over again. And to my absolute
horror, I was crying even harder and louder this time. Try as I might, I couldn’t
seem to hold it inside anymore.

It was as if all the years that I’d missed and longed for Mama were being compacted
into one moment of anguish; and not just over her death, but for her entire absence
from my life. The black hole created by her premature passing had sucked out so much
joy, and love, and comfort, and stability, until her loss was the sum of all the things
that she and I should’ve gotten to share with each other. As the years had passed,
that loss hadn’t gotten smaller; it’d gotten exponentially bigger until it was a giant
gaping maw of sorrow and devastating sadness swirling in the center of my chest like
a light-eating, life-diminishing, universe-destroying black hole. A hole that was
now being filled with terrible, tearstained, gut-wrenching grief, and I couldn’t seem
to stop.

And all the while that Christine rocked me in her arms—all that time—I wished with
everything I had that it could’ve been Mama who was there to comfort me instead. If
only she’d lived. If only she’d stayed with us. If only she’d kept her sun shining
and our world bright and that black hole at bay. What could I have been with Mama
in my life? What struggles would I have avoided? What triumphs would I have achieved?
What would I have become other than something more whole, more courageous, more accomplished,
and far more secure than the shell of a person left behind by her passing? What me
could I have been with Mama that I could never, ever be without her?

So I let Christine rock me while Daddy hovered close by, and I cried tears of sadness,
and bitterness, and anger, and loneliness, but mostly . . . mostly I cried tears of
regret. For all of us. Because even Christine would’ve loved Mama.

Everyone did.

•   •   •

Later, I sat in Mama’s old parlor on the new brown leather sofas with a bright tangerine
angora throw tucked around my legs, and a warm cup of tea, which was doing its best
to warm up my insides. Daddy was in his chair, pretending to read the paper, while
Christine was sitting close to me, her arm curled through mine. She hadn’t said a
word to me since I’d stopped crying other than to ask if I’d like some tea. Since
bringing me the cup, she’d been comforting me by sitting close and occasionally rubbing
my arm, or tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

Finally I felt like I’d be able to talk without losing it, so I said, “Sorry I was
such a mess before.”

I heard Daddy’s paper rustle, but I didn’t look at him. I focused on the bottom of
my cup and keeping my fragile emotions in check.

“Want to tell us what happened?” Christine asked.

I nodded, but took my time replying. I needed to choose my words carefully. “Christine,
even aside from the murder that took place today, Porter Manor isn’t the genteel old
mansion that you thought it was.”

“Oh?”

“No. It’s got secrets. Bad, ugly, old secrets.”

“What secrets?” Daddy said.

I looked up from my teacup. “You remember a story about a young boy from around these
parts who went missing about fifty years ago, Daddy?”

My father’s considerable brow furrowed. “You talking about that Sellers boy?”

I nodded.

Daddy scratched his head. “I recall that,” he said. “That boy was a few years younger
than me. Only met him twice. He was a cousin of the Porters or some such. Went missing
back in nineteen seventy-one from what I recall. Search parties looked for him for
weeks—hell, I was even part of one search in the first days after he disappeared.
We looked for him everywhere, but he was never found.”

“Actually, he’s recently been located.”

Daddy’s brow shot up and Christine said, “He has? Where?”

I turned to her now. “Inside your house.”

She gasped. “Inside . . . you mean . . .
in
Porter Manor?”

“Yes. I believe we discovered his remains shortly after Daddy left to check on you.”

Daddy sat forward and laid his paper aside. Christine blinked furiously, as if she
couldn’t believe it. “But where inside, Mary Jane? I’ve been all through that house
with my real estate agent, an inspector, an architect, and construction workers. . . .
Why, I’ve even personally opened every closet, pantry, and cabinet door myself!”

“There’s a hidden room off the last door down the corridor to the right of the staircase,”
I said, and Christine pursed her lips, as if trying to locate the room in her memory.

“Oh, yes, I know which room you mean. The one with the large magnolia tree outside
the window.”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“But what hidden room is there inside that one? I never saw any sign of another room,
Mary Jane, and I must’ve been in there at least a dozen times.”

“The door leading to it had been Sheetrocked over. Someone went to great lengths to
cover it up.”

“Was it a closet or something?” Daddy asked.

“No,” I said. “From what we could tell, it was a playroom. It looked like a time capsule,
actually, with dolls, and stuffed animals, and a tea set. . . .” My voice drifted
off as I recalled the scene.

“And you say this young boy’s remains were found
in
that room?” Daddy pressed.

“Yes. All that’s left of him are his clothes and his skeleton, but he was lying pretty
much as he must’ve lain when he was killed. He was next to the table with the tea
set, lying on his side.”

Christine’s hand went to a small gold cross hung around her neck. She fiddled with
it and said, “Oh, that poor boy!”

Meanwhile Daddy was glaring at the floor. “Now, why didn’t Rusty call me and tell
me about this?” he snapped.

I knew he was referring to Rusty Kogan, the sheriff, and that led me to tell him all
about what’d happened to his old friend right after Daddy had left the premises.

“My God in heaven,” Daddy said. He seemed truly stunned. “Has the whole world gone
mad?”

“Not the whole world,” I said. “Just the parts of it that come into contact with Porter
Manor.”

Christine eyed me with concern. “Mary Jane, tell me what is truly happening in that
house, won’t you? Is there an evil spirit at work?”

I took a deep breath and told Christine and Daddy most of what’d happened since Gilley,
Heath, and I had first driven to Porter Manor. I filtered out the parts about my out-of-body
experience where I’d met little DeeDee, because I knew that was way too weird for
Daddy or even Christine to understand, so I kept mostly to the events that’d taken
place that day, knowing that if either Daddy or Christine didn’t believe me, I’d have
some backup from the sheriff’s department, and not even Daddy could doubt the word
of our trusted sheriff and his deputy.

When I was at last finished, there was a protracted silence that filled the room.
Christine had gone quite pale, but she’d held herself together throughout my story,
so I figured she just needed time to take it all in.

It was Daddy who broke the silence when he reached for the telephone and made a call.
“Olivia? Montgomery Holliday. I just heard the news and I’m calling about Rusty. How’s
our boy?” Christine and I waited while Daddy listened. “I see,” he said. Then another
long pause. “So he’s out of surgery and stable?” he said. “Oh, that’s very good to
hear, dear. Is there anything you need?” Another pause, then, “Well, you keep me posted,
and if there’s anything I can do for you, you just holler, you hear?”

Daddy then hung up the phone and looked at Christine. “It’s all true,” he said to
her, his face registering the shock of it. “Rusty was attacked by Levi Cook.”

“Levi Cook?!” Christine said. “That nice young man who let me out of a speeding ticket
not a week ago?”

Daddy nodded. “Rusty’s known Levi since he was sixteen and was heading down the wrong
path. I had to represent Levi in juvenile court once, and it was Rusty who pulled
him aside and set him straight. He mentored that boy through high school, encouraged
him to enlist, and recruited him for the sheriff’s department when he came home from
Afghanistan. What could’ve happened to that boy to make him snap like that?”

I knew, of course, but I didn’t think Daddy wanted to hear it.

Christine turned to me, however, and said, “Mary Jane, you suggested that there was
something evil in my house. Something that got into the minds of these men and made
them do those things?”

“Yes,” I said bluntly. “I can’t explain what it is, but something was lying dormant
in your house, waiting for the right moment, and the right minds to take over. I’ve
seen possession firsthand,” I added, pausing to suppress a shudder, “and it’s nothing
to be messed with. You can’t go back there, and you can’t send any more construction
crews there either.”

Her fingers trembled a little as they found their way to the cross at her neck again.
“So what do we do?” she asked.

“Sell that damn house, Christine,” Daddy said.

“Oh, Monty,” Christine replied, but before she could continue, I interrupted.

“Daddy, there’s no way you can sell that house to another unsuspecting buyer. What’s
loose in Porter Manor is dangerous. Deadly even.” Turning to Christine again, I added,
“I’m so sorry, but you’re going to have to abandon the house altogether. Put a high
fence around the whole property and don’t let anyone near it ever again.”

The color in Christine’s face drained again and the trembling in her fingers spread
to her limbs. “Oh, my,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, Mary Jane, I don’t know if I can
do that! I paid an enormous amount for that home and the surrounding land, several
million dollars in fact. My former husband developed golf courses, and taught me a
great deal about the business, and I paid all of that money because the manor sits
on thirty beautiful acres that I had planned to build a golf course on to help recoup
some of the costs for the renovation. The manor sits mostly in the middle of the land
at the very top of the highest hill, so there’s no way to hide it from the golf course.
Even if I break it up into smaller lots, no one is going to want to have a view of
a crumbling mansion in their backyard.”

I didn’t say anything, because what could I? Whatever was in that house was too powerful,
too deadly, and honestly scared me too much for me to offer my services beyond what
I’d already done. I wanted Christine to do what I’d said, but I couldn’t imagine personally
accepting the loss of several million dollars. I was asking her to simply walk away,
and that had to be a terrible choice for her indeed.

And then Daddy said something that sort of stunned me. “Mary Jane,” he said, “you
work with all these people who deal with these things. Don’t you know somebody, an
exorcist or someone, who might be willing to come out here and sort this mess out?”

I wanted to laugh. My father understood so little of what I did for a living that
it was shockingly funny. But then I wondered if I’d ever really tried to explain it
to him, or if I’d simply walked away because it was easier. “I do happen to know some
people in the business for something like this,” I said, and both he and Christine
looked encouraged. “In fact, I know a few of the very best ghostbusters in the world.”

“Well, come on now,” Daddy said, reaching for a pen and pad of paper. “Tell me who
they are and we’ll call them right up and see about retaining them.”

I reached down for my purse and extracted a card, which I handed over to Daddy. He
took it and studied it with interest before his brow furrowed again. “This is your
card,” he said.

“Yes.”

And then it seemed to dawn on him. “
This
is what you’ve been dealing with over there in Europe?”

“Yes,” I repeated. “And a few other places. And trust me when I tell you that we have
dealt with some incredibly dangerous and scary things, but, Daddy, this one is particularly
tricky. This one, more than all the others, scares me the most.”

Daddy stared at me for a long moment before he asked, “Why?”

I took a deep breath and said, “Because this particularly dangerous spook knew Mama.”

“Mary Jane, you’ve got to stop talking in riddles here,” Daddy said after my second
attempt to explain it to him. “You’re telling me you had some sort of dream about
Madelyn as a young child, and she told you that she was haunted by some sort of ghost,
and that same ghost was playing a board game with you today over at the Porter house?”

“Not a board game, Monty. A Ouija board,” Christine corrected. She seemed to be taking
this much better than Daddy was. “And it wasn’t a dream—it was an out-of-body experience.
I’ve had one of those. Scared me near to death!”

Daddy stared first at me, then at his fiancée, and then he sat back in his chair and
simply shook his head. “I must be getting old. I don’t understand any of this.”

“You don’t have to understand it, Daddy,” I said. “You just need to see how dangerous
this is. This spook came after Mama when she was a little girl, and it seemed to know
me personally.”

“Could it come after you?” Christine asked, her fingers back to fiddling with the
cross around her neck.

I sighed. “No. I think it’s tied to the house, but where it came from I don’t have
a clue. The Porters have lived in that manor for nearly a hundred years, and they
never seemed to be bothered by whatever was haunting their home.”

Daddy grunted. “If they had been, we’d never have heard about it. That family is particularly
tight-lipped—as the remains of that missing boy can attest to.”

But I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. If anything as powerful and, frankly,
as violent as that spook had been loose in that house, no way could they have continued
to live there.”

“So where did it come from?” Christine asked. “I mean, why did it suddenly show up
in the house if it hadn’t haunted the Porters before now?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, there has to be a way to get rid of it,” Daddy insisted. “What if we hired
a priest to sprinkle some holy water over there? Maybe if he walked through the place
and blessed it, that’d do the trick—don’t you think, Mary Jane?”

And then I realized that Daddy and Christine were never going to go for my idea to
construct a fence and put it around the perimeter of the property. If I refused to
take on this spook, then they’d look for someone who would be willing, and the two
of them knew so little as to be completely trusting of some idiot who claimed to be
an expert at ridding houses of ghosts and then we’d probably have another murder on
our hands.

“No, Daddy, that wouldn’t do the trick. And under no circumstances should you attempt
to hire or enlist anybody to investigate or bless that house.”

“Then what should we do?” Daddy asked. “Christine can’t just walk away from all that
prime real estate, Mary Jane. She’s got most of her money tied up in it.”

I eyed the clock on the wall. It was getting late, and I’d long ago missed supper
with Mrs. G., Gilley, and Heath. Daddy always ate a late supper, and I suspected he
and Christine would ask me to share a meal with them in a few more minutes, but I
didn’t have the energy to sit with them any longer. I needed to go and be alone with
my thoughts for a bit. I wanted the night to think about what to do.

Standing up, I said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I’ve had a long day, and all I
want to do is head back to Mrs. Gillespie’s and take a good soak in the tub.”

“You won’t stay for supper?” Daddy asked, standing as well, and I heard a small note
of surprise in his voice. I eyed him curiously and wondered if there was perhaps the
smallest trace of hurt there too.

“No, thank you, Daddy. I’m really not hungry, and I’d just like to go home.”

Daddy pressed his lips together and I realized what I’d just said to him. Mrs. Gillespie’s
house had been more home to me than this house for a long time now, but I’d never,
ever dared to say it out loud, especially not to Daddy. “I mean—”

“I know what you meant,” Daddy said gruffly. “All right, Mary Jane, all right. You
get on back to Minerva’s and you tell her how much I appreciate her extensive hospitality
to my little girl.”

The words were right, but the sentiment was wrong, and before we fell into another
familiar argument, I thought it best to leave.

I said my good-byes, but Christine wouldn’t let me get away without another hug. She
kissed my cheek and held me at arm’s length for a moment, studying me. “Your mama
would be so proud of you, Mary Jane,” she said. “And I’m sure she’s looking down from
heaven right now, and beaming at you and the beautiful woman you’ve become.”

Tears again welled in my eyes and I turned away before they leaked down my cheeks.
That was my Achilles’ heel. All you had to do was mention how Mama felt about me for
me to dissolve into a puddle.

I wondered if the Sandman knew how strong our spiritual connection to each other was,
and then I was racked by a violent shudder, because I felt quite firmly that he did
know.

Driving the rental back toward Mrs. G.’s, I could almost feel the presence of an evil
force at the very edge of my energy. I reached over and flipped on the heat. I couldn’t
get warm enough.

By now it was dark and I was feeling more and more anxious. Mrs. G. lived only ten
minutes from Daddy, and yet the drive felt interminable. To make matters worse, I
was having trouble concentrating. My thoughts were fuzzy and my lids were heavy. It
was as if a sudden wave of exhaustion had snuck up on me and taken over.

I shook my head to clear it, and turned on the radio, hoping for a distraction. The
station was playing an upbeat dance tune and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was just
the kind of song to push the fogginess away.

Except that abruptly the song cut out and loud static filled the interior of the car.
I reached for the knob and as I touched it, I got a tremendous burst of static electricity
that had me pulling my hand back to shake it. “Ow!”

And then that same shiver traveled up my spine, because I realized that underneath
that layer of static from the radio, someone was speaking.

My breath caught when I heard someone say, “Hello, little DeeDee. The Sandman wants
to play.”

Using the cuff of my sweater, I covered my hand and smacked the knob to turn off the
radio, but my aim was off and instead of turning it off, I only managed to turn the
volume up. “Little DeeDee,” the Sandman taunted from the speakers. “Why don’t we play
a game of tag?”

I was about to punch the radio again when something huge came dashing out from the
side of the road.

It all happened so fast that it felt like a blur. From the corner of my eye I saw
a whisper of movement dart out from the bushes. My head snapped up and in the headlights
I saw . . . a monster. There’s really no other way to describe it. It was enormous,
at least eight to ten feet tall, smoky gray, with long limbs and a ferociously hideous
face. The eyes were red, the teeth sharp and bared, and the hands seemed to end in
claws.

I let out a cry and stomped as hard as I could on the brakes while swerving to avoid
the creature. There was a terrible THUD against the right quarter panel, and then
the car was sent fishtailing into a full 180-degree spin. I lost sight of the road,
felt the centrifugal force of the spinning car, which made it nearly impossible to
hold on to the wheel and steer, and then there was a terrific jolt as the car dipped
sideways down off the shoulder onto the embankment, where it finally . . . finally
came to a stop.

For several moments all I could do was press my back firmly against the seat while
my chest heaved and copious amounts of adrenaline coursed through my veins. My hands
had a death grip on the steering wheel and my knee was locked under the dash as I
continued to stomp down hard on the brakes. Dust swirled around the outside of the
car, while inside, the radio had returned to that snappy dance number, but it sounded
far away from me, and it barely registered that the static had ended and, with it,
that horrible creepy voice.

At some point I came more fully to my senses and my gaze darted all around while I
took in my surroundings. “Okay, M.J.,” I whispered. “Get a grip here.” Slowly I raised
one finger at a time off the steering wheel just to loosen the tight squeeze I was
giving it, and I took note of the fact that I’d ended up in a small ditch at the side
of the road. There was only the fading glow of another car far down the road but no
other cars in sight. The engine in my car was still running, which I took as a good
sign, and I looked down at the dash to see if there were any warning lights there.

Nothing seemed to be going haywire, so very carefully I eased my foot off the brake
and over to the gas pedal. The car, still in drive, moved just a few feet of its own
accord, and I didn’t hear any rattling or bumping, so I pressed down on the gas just
a bit and made my way over to the edge of the ditch. The slope back up to the road
wasn’t all that steep, so I pushed a little harder on the gas and the car lurched
up and back onto the road. I sighed with relief and took a few extra deep breaths
for good measure.

And then I remembered the monster.

My eyes darted to the rearview mirror, then to the two side mirrors, but there was
nothing out of the ordinary to be seen behind me. I turned next to look toward the
right side of the road, and then the left. Nothing unusual was hiding in the bushes,
and I wiped my brow and took a few more deep breaths.

But then I saw something that nearly made me slam on the brakes again. Far off to
the right and reflected in the moonlight was the faint outline of Porter Manor.

I blinked when I saw it, then blinked again. “How in the hell . . . ?” I muttered,
looking around again to try to figure out where the heck I was. There was no way I
should’ve been near that old mansion, as I’d specifically set off from Daddy’s in
a direction that would’ve taken me away from the Porter house on my way to Mrs. G.’s.
I should’ve been at least three miles from it actually, so I couldn’t figure out how
I’d come to this side of town.

And then I remembered that fuzzy-headed feeling I’d had not ten minutes before. I
glanced at the digital clock on the dash, and sure enough, the time was fifteen extra
minutes ahead of where it should have been if I’d taken the direct way back to Mrs.
G.’s.

Down the road I saw a gas station that was brightly lit, and I decided to head over
to take a minute to get a grip and figure out what’d happened to me. I actually had
half a mind to call Heath and ask him to borrow Mrs. G.’s car to come pick me up.
I was shaking terribly with fright and rattled nerves.

I also knew I needed to inspect that right front quarter panel. Whatever had hit the
rental car was sure to have left a dent.

Pulling up into the station, I was about to cut the engine when the radio suddenly
cut out again and went to static. I tensed and debated quickly punching the knob or
waiting to see if I’d get another warning before being struck by the monster again.
“Tag, little DeeDee,” the static-filled voice taunted. “You’re it.”

•   •   •

I never got out of the car at the gas station. Instead, I punched that knob hard enough
to hurt my hand and peeled out back onto the road. Hovering over the steering wheel,
I focused only on getting back to Mrs. G.’s, and without any further incident, I made
it.

When I walked in the door, Heath took one look at me from the living room couch and
sprang to my side. “What happened?”

“Remember how we were hoping the Sandman was confined to the manor?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, he’s not.”

Heath put his hands on my shoulders and looked me all over. “Are you hurt?”

“No, just shaken.”

“Tell me,” he said, leading me toward the kitchen.

We sat at the table and I said, “Where’s Gil and Mrs. G.?”

“They went shopping,” Heath said. “Gil wanted a new fishing vest since you gave his
away, and I gave him a hundred bucks to bring back two for us that aren’t as . . .
bright.”

I smirked. “That plaid is a little loud, huh?”

“It screams,” Heath agreed. “Did you eat yet?”

I realized that the kitchen was still filled with the most delicious smells. “Nah.
Daddy invited me to stay for supper, but I wanted to get back here and be with you.”

Heath put a hand on my shoulder. “Sit,” he said. “I’ll get you a plate.”

While Heath warmed up the leftovers, I told him about my conversation with Daddy and
Christine.

“So you think that if we don’t help them, they’ll just find someone on their own to
try to get rid of that spook?” he asked.

“I do. Christine has invested so much money in Porter Manor and the land around it
that there’s no way she’ll just walk away from it. I don’t think she’s willing to
give up on the idea of letting her dream go just yet.”

“That’s an attitude that could get somebody killed,” Heath said, setting down a plate
of steaming eggplant parm in front of me.

I took a huge whiff. God, it smelled good. “It’s a point of view Daddy also shares,”
I told him.

“Which means, if we butt out, somebody else is gonna get hurt.”

“Yep. Or worse than just hurt.”

“Maybe we could try talking to them again. There’s gotta be a way to convince them.”

“Maybe there is,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s a choice we have anymore.”

“You don’t want to try talking to them again?”

“No, I don’t think we have the luxury of any other solution other than shutting down
the Sandman, Heath. It came after me tonight.”

“Tell me,” he said.

Over dinner I told him everything that’d happened and his expression went from concern
to outright fury. “If that car had hit a tree, you could’ve been killed,” he said.

I nodded, because that was absolutely true.

Then he pushed back his chair, got up, and headed to the door. “Where’re you going?”
I called after him.

“To check something out. Stay put. I’ll be back in a sec.”