No Ghouls Allowed (25 page)

It made me remember something else. Something a bit out of context that now made total
sense to me. Not long into Mama’s illness I’d overheard Daddy yelling at her. He almost
never raised his voice to her, so it was particularly startling to me. He’d yelled,
“Goddammit, Madelyn! Why don’t you fight? You’re just giving up, and I can’t lose
you! I can’t!
So fight
!”

He’d yelled that last part so loud at her, his anger fueled by his desperation to
keep her with us. But even from the early days of her diagnosis, she’d seemed resigned
to the fact that she was dying. That there was little hope. I’d never acknowledged
that because it was too painful to consider, but now I knew that it was true.

My mother had died of cancer, but it was the guilt that’d killed her. Guilt over an
act of self-defense that she could never forgive herself for.

For a moment I ignored Heath and Breslow, who were busy examining the drops of blood
littering the trail, and instead I poked my head into the hollow and saw something
catch a small ray of sunlight that was peeking in behind me. Reaching down, I lifted
out several pieces of the smashed crystal and the wooden cigar box my mother had kept
the planchette in. Inside the box were a dozen small refrigerator magnets in the shape
of fruit. A pineapple, a banana, an apple. I remembered what I’d told little DeeDee
about getting some magnets, and I wondered if in some strange and almost magical way
our two worlds really had met between two planes of existence where the laws of time
and space didn’t apply, but words spoken between two souls would have weight and measure
and meaning when we went back to our separate realities.

Had DeeDee taken my advice and covered the broken planchette with them, ensuring that
the Sandman would remain locked down? There was a part of me that truly hoped it’d
gone that way.

I set the cigar box with the magnets back inside the hollow. Then I examined the pieces
of the smashed crystal, which were beautiful, and it was hard to imagine something
once so perfect had been part of such a terrible instrument.

“Look at this,” Heath said, pointing to a large stick with blood on it.

“Linda was attacked here,” Breslow said.

“You think Glenn Porter could’ve done it?” Heath suggested, not noticing that I was
shaking my head.

Breslow too shook his head. “No, couldn’t have been him, Heath. We were in his office
at the time she was attacked.”

“Well, then who?”

I cleared my throat and Heath looked up at me.

“Whoa,” he said, seeing the fragmented gem in my hand. “What’cha got there, babe?”

“The original crystal from the planchette. Mama hid it here and told only one person
in the whole world what it was and where it was hidden.”

“Who?”

I jumped down from the boulder and said, “I’ll tell you, but first we need to head
over to Glenn Porter’s office before it’s too late.”

Breslow insisted that he call in the scene of Linda’s crime to one of his other deputies
before we ran back to the car. I knew he didn’t like to leave all that evidence out
in the open, but I felt a sense of urgency that made me push him to heed me.

He drove quite fast through the streets, which I was grateful for, and still it took
us a bit to reach Porter’s office, which further cemented my theory that Breslow was
right and Glenn couldn’t have been the one to attack Linda. She was attacked probably
right before or even during the time we were interviewing him, and Wells was alerted
to the scene while we were on our way to Sarah’s house. Porter couldn’t have attacked
Linda and gotten back to his office in time for us to interview him, and he certainly
couldn’t have left his office and attacked her before we reached Sarah’s house. When
we were nearly to Porter’s office, Gilley called. “I hacked into Scoffland’s bank
records. There’s a deposit to his account for ten thousand dollars the day before
he was murdered. I don’t have the corresponding invoice yet, but I’m working on it.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I told him. “I already know who paid him.”

“Are you going to fill me in?” he asked.

“Yes. Tonight, when I bring you that ice-cream cone.”

“Don’t forget the sprinkles!”

“Okay, Gil, gotta go.” I hung up as we had just arrived at Porter’s office, and no
sooner were we out of the car and dashing up the first set of stairs than the police
radio in Beau’s car crackled with noise. He hurried back to the car and listened through
the open window, then took the mic, yelled into it before throwing it down, and took
off running up the steps at a much more urgent speed. He passed Heath and me without
even pausing and we chased after him, hampered slightly by the rush to put on our
vests. “What’s going on?” I yelled at the deputy’s back.

“Dispatch just got a nine-one-one call from inside this building!” he yelled back.

I stopped in my tracks. I had an inkling what was going on inside and realized how
unprepared we were. “Breslow,
stop
!” I shouted.

Heath eyed me over his shoulder, saw the look of panic on my face, and moved faster
up the stairs to grab the deputy by the shoulder. “Let go!” Breslow yelled.

Heath tightened his grip and said, “Wait!” Then he turned to me expectantly.

“We need spikes!” I called, turning back toward the car. “Heath, don’t let him go
in there without me!”

While Heath held tight to Beau, I raced to the car and grabbed the duffel from the
backseat. It was insanely heavy, but I had no time to open it and grab as many stakes
as we might need, so I just threw it over my shoulder, dug deep, and began to power
my way back up the many stairs. As I was about midway to Heath and Breslow, who was
still trying to tug out of Heath’s grasp, there was a terrified scream from inside.

Breslow shoved Heath aside and dashed up the remaining steps, pausing only a moment
to kick the door in and dart inside.

Heath came down the stairs to me, grabbed the duffel, and pulled me along up the remaining
steps.

Just as we crested the last stair before the ones leading to the front porch, something
came whizzing out of the house straight at us. We ducked in the nick of time, but
Heath didn’t dive quite fast enough. A planchette struck him just above his right
eye and he lost his balance and fell to the side, landing hard on the stakes. There
was a sickening crunch and he cried out in pain.

Unfortunately, he was still gripping my hand and effectively pulled me with him, and
I landed on him. I scrambled to my feet and put my hands on his side because he was
moaning and curling his knees up in pain. “Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Heath! Heath!”

His eyes were squeezed shut and he was hissing through his teeth, but he managed to
roll off the duffel, shove it weakly toward me, and gasp, “Help . . . Breslow. . . .”

I shook my head; how could I leave him? But then the front door to the office slammed
shut before it opened and slammed, then opened and slammed, and soon it was joined
by a dozen other doors.

The Sandman had come for another visit.

“Go!” Heath said, his shaking hands trying to pull on the zipper to the duffel.

I slid mine under his and unzipped the bag. Grabbing four or five spikes with each
hand, I said, “I’ll be right back.”

Heath wheezed and tried to get to his feet, and I realized he hadn’t meant to send
me alone inside; he was going to try to come with me, even though he’d clearly broken
a few ribs and was having a hard time breathing. “Stay here!” I yelled at him, giving
him the fiercest look I could muster.

Still, he shook his head but I simply got up and ran to the remaining stairs. I crouched
low near the door, watching it open and slam, open and slam, and counted the beats,
trying to time my decision to rush it.

It opened and I was just about to duck through when another planchette came whizzing
out with all the force of a ninja star. I pulled my head back just in time, and then
clenched my jaw, determined to get my ass inside.

I counted four more beats, then made my move. Launching myself through the door, I
ducked and rolled to the side, nearly crashing right into Breslow’s unconscious body.

Over my head planchettes were whizzing past us and striking the walls. Under the desk
I saw Chloe, her eyes wide as saucers as she trembled and hugged her knees. She looked
at me with such fear, and I motioned to her to stay put.

Turning away from her, I reached for the leg of a chair and pulled it down on the
ground. I then pulled it in front of Breslow to give him a shield against the onslaught
of planchettes, and then I turned my focus to the office near the end of the hall.
There seemed to be a great deal of shouting going on in there and I knew that things
were about to reach a point of no return.

Gripping the stakes, I pulled myself on my elbows down the hallway. Planchettes were
zipping out of the room, and periodically there was the sound of one making a striking
sound and a loud cry right after, along with the thundering noise of the slamming
doors and objects striking the walls.

Inside there were horrific screams, some high-pitched, others a little lower, but
all of them terrible. I paused midway down the hallway and pulled a metal planchette
from the wall where it’d struck. It had an empty loop that was just big enough for
the largest piece of the broken amethyst I’d pulled out of the hollow. With trembling
fingers, I set down my spikes before taking out the broken-off piece of crystal and
placed the piece in the middle of the planchette. Next, I held it there with my fingers
and extended my arms fully away from my body so that the planchette wouldn’t be hovering
over the magnets. After taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and allowed all the
fear, anger, and anguish I’d had to deal with over the past few days course through
my energy until I practically pulsed with emotion. I then gathered all that emotion
and channeled it straight down through my arms all the way to my fingertips and into
the planchette. My fingers and the improvised planchette vibrated with energy, while
I simply waited for the Sandman to notice.

Abruptly the slamming doors and whizzing planchettes halted.

And then something stepped into the hallway and I trembled anew. A huge shadow appeared
from the doorway, and within its darkness I saw two red glowing eyes.

“Miss me?” I asked, fear now overriding all other emotions because I had no idea if
my improvised plan would work.

The most horrible laughter filled the hallway and I found myself close to abandoning
my plan and making a run for it. But I’d come this far, and if Mama could face down
this demon as an eight-year-old, then, dammit, I could, too.

The Sandman considered me for a long moment, his beady eyes greedy with a deadly kind
of lust. “What’s the matter?” I asked to taunt him, while holding the amplified energy
of the planchette out toward him and willing all that anger and fear and anguish to
ratchet it up a notch. I knew the old crystal and all my emotion were too much temptation
for him to resist. “Are ya chicken?”

There was a roar and the shadow moved so fast, I was barely able to register anything
more than a blur of darkness as he dived straight at me. In the second before he hit
me, I clenched my jaw, closed my eyes, slammed the planchette against my chest, and
in my mind’s eye called up the image of my mother cradling me in her lap, filling
me with all of her love and protection. In the next instant, I felt the full force
of the Sandman hit me dead center in the chest, exactly where I was holding the planchette.

The weight of the demon was beyond description. It felt as if my very soul were being
crushed. I knew I was protected by a layer of magnets and the energy of my mother’s
love, but his power was immense and I could feel myself fading under the pressure.

Gritting my teeth, I called out to her in my mind’s eye.
Mama!
I cried. In an instant I felt her. Like a beacon in the darkness, she was there,
her energy joining with mine as we fought the Sandman together.

Still, the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life was to reach down with one
hand and grab hold of the spikes I’d set next to me, then lift them and lay them flat
against the planchette on my chest. Immediately the pressure lessened and I was able
to weakly come fully to my senses and take a deep breath. I’d trapped the Sandman
between layers of magnets, and as long as I could hold him this way, he couldn’t get
out. But there was another force here in the house, one that I’d have to deal with
as well, and I hadn’t yet figured out how to do that.

I lay there for a bit, panting, and then I managed to call out to the person responsible
for bringing the Sandman back. “Sarah,” I gasped. “You’re in there, right?”

“So you’ve figured it all out, have you?” she asked, her voice so sad.

I was still so weak from the blow of the Sandman’s full force that I felt I needed
a minute to collect myself. At the edge of my energy, Mama hovered protectively, but
I could tell that her energy was dissipating too. It’d cost her to come from the other
side and help me against the Sandman, and I didn’t know how long she could keep herself
near me. Weakly I got to my knees, still holding the planchette at my chest, and shuffled
down the hallway to the open door of Glenn Porter’s office. Thinking I could get a
breather by having Sarah tell me her side, I said, “I haven’t figured out all of it
yet. Why don’t you tell me and then we can see what to do about Everett?”

“He’s dead,” she said, and I wondered whether she meant Everett or Glenn.

“I see,” I said. “So, tell me what happened.”

“How did you trap the Sandman?” she asked me, avoiding the question.

“I’ve got him stuck between layers of magnets, but I’m not sure if I can hold him
for long.”

“You’ll need to destroy the crystal,” she said, and I knew she meant the one she’d
fashioned to fit into the planchette she’d discovered in the tree and was holding
in her hands right that very moment.

“Yep,” I told her. “Tell me about what happened to make you go looking for it, Sarah.”

I heard her sigh, but then she said, “You have to understand, Mary Jane, growing up
in that house, it was the worst kind of existence. My father was impossibly cruel,
my mother was distant and cold, my older brother was a drug addict who died recklessly,
and my sister was a self-absorbed narcissist. And my brother Glenn, well, he was in
a class by himself.

“He was as cruel as Everett ever was, but far more cunning. Whatever Glenn wanted,
Glenn got. The only thing standing in his way was me, and the only weapon I had to
use against him was that I knew what’d happened to Everett, and I’d told my mother
that Glenn had killed him.

“Glenn was locked away for several years because Mother believed him a wicked boy
who’d nearly brought the worst kind of scandal to our door. I learned that he had
no idea Everett was even sealed up in our house. How could he with his room so far
from mine? Still, I managed to let him know that if he ever touched me again, I would
lead the sheriff right to Everett’s body, and I would point the finger at him as the
killer. I asked him whom the sheriff would believe, Glenn or me, and he seemed to
understand that I was not someone to be trifled with.

“Still, a few years after Everett died, the doors in our house began to slam shut
on their own. It happened a few times a week, but it got more intense over the years,
and our family grew very afraid. The door to my room slammed most often, and I begged
my mother to let me move down the hall. She allowed it, but then that door began to
slam too. I think Mother and I both knew it was Everett, and eventually Glenn figured
it out too.

“Not long after that, I discovered Glenn in the woods behind our house playing with
a Ouija board, and after spying on him I realized he was actually communicating with
Everett. It wasn’t long before our house became a constant source of violent spectral
activity.

“Glenn used the planchette to control Everett, who’d become something so monstrous
and powerful that for a long time I wondered if it weren’t the Sandman come back.
I considered going to the police, but Glenn always threatened me by saying that if
I ever went to the sheriff and told them that Glenn had killed Everett, he’d really
let Everett loose.

“What Glenn did to us on a daily basis with Everett, however, was enough to keep all
of us in check, even Mother. If Glenn were punished for something, my mother’s favorite
china would smash to the floor. The day Molly was given a new car, she was tripped
by an unseen force on her way out the door and broke her ankle. And me, well, Glenn
and Everett tortured me most of all.

“My toys were routinely broken, my doors slammed incessantly, and my things went missing.
One night my father actually attempted to intervene on my behalf—the only act of kindness
he’d ever shown me—and he told Glenn that he knew he was controlling the ghost in
our house and that if he didn’t stop it, he’d throw Glenn out. We found our father
at the base of the stairs the next morning, the back of his skull smashed in and his
neck broken.

“Glenn never said as much, but I know he had Everett kill our father.

“Then, after Mother died, Glenn moved out to start up his own company. Which failed
miserably of course. And when he was nearly out of money, he came to me, but after
all those years of torture, I wouldn’t lend him a dime. I’d been very careful with
my share of our inheritance, and I still held a fifty percent stake in the family
home. All of the taxes were paid out of my share, but I levied liens against the property
for his share just to make sure he didn’t get off scot-free.

“Glenn, however, found a way to get to me despite my best efforts to keep him at bay.
I’ve always had a bit of difficulty knowing what’s real and what’s not. Glenn used
that against me and ratcheted up Everett’s activity. Everett became very violent,
his power increasing as my brother funneled his hatred of me into the spirit. At last
I moved out of the house, hoping that would give me some peace, but Everett simply
followed me to my new home, and one morning I snapped. Glenn had me committed and
while I was in the mental clinic he won a judgment for power of attorney over my affairs.
He then put our family estate up for sale, something I never wanted to have happen,
knowing what evil and what skeletons lay within those walls, but I was powerless to
stop it.

“And, perhaps it was out of desperation that I eventually concluded that I had to
fight fire with fire. If my brother could use Everett against me, perhaps I could
use something even more powerful against him. That’s when I got the idea to call upon
the Sandman. That very day I happened to bump into Linda Chadwick at the grocery store,
and I formed a little plan.

“DeeDee and Linda had been so close, I wondered if Dee had told Linda where she’d
hidden Everett’s planchette. I knew she’d destroyed the crystal, but I wondered if
I could repair the planchette. If only I could find it, perhaps I could use it to
control the Sandman against my brother so that he never, ever thought of using Everett
to harm me again.

“I took Linda out for lunch the next day. She was having a rough time of it with that
divorce going on, and I slipped a little pill into her drink. By that time I was well
familiar with pills. She told me everything, how DeeDee had confessed to her that
she was terrified your daddy would know she wasn’t a virgin, and the ordeal we’d been
put through at the hands of my wicked family. She’d told Linda where she’d hidden
the planchette, and that she’d made sure it could never harm anyone again.”

I squeezed the planchette at my chest a little tighter. I’d remembered the e-mail
from Linda saying she’d had lunch with a friend named Sarah, but that she’d had too
much to drink and she’d had the most terrible hangover the next day. She’d specifically
said she barely remembered the lunch at all, and she’d hoped she hadn’t embarrassed
herself.

“I found the planchette rather easily, hidden in that tree, and because the old crystal
had been broken by DeeDee, I began to experiment with new crystals I had made especially
to fit the hole. It took a little while, but finally, I had the perfect flawless gem.”

I thought it ironic that Sarah didn’t realize the largest piece of the old crystal
probably would have worked if she’d tried it. The chunk of crystal was broken, for
sure, but it still held no inclusions within its depths, and hadn’t it just worked
perfectly well for me a few moments earlier? Still, I didn’t want to comment and throw
Sarah off track with her confession, so I kept quiet and let her continue.

“By this time of course my brother was well into his next scheme,” she said. “I discovered
he was angling to buy back our family home at a significant discount from Christine
Bigelow. He thought that by setting Everett loose upon the construction workers, Christine
would be unable to renovate it, and Glenn could then buy it back for less than he’d
sold it for, make a tidy profit, then parcel off all the land without having to include
me in the deal.