Authors: F. Paul Wilson

The Haunted Air (33 page)

BOOK: The Haunted Air

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Charlie closed his Bible. Tried to read âbout the tau cross in Ezechiel 9:4 but it wasn't happening. The words broke up into jumbles soon as they hit his brain.

Maybe it was the music. The jiggly beat of Point of Grace's “Begin With Me” was pumping through his headphones. Righteous lyrics, but the high-gloss arrangement and funky vocals were distracting tonight. He popped them out of his portable CD player and slipped in “Spirit Of The Century” by the Blind Boys Of Alabama. As their traditional harmonies soothed his head, he lay back on his bed, closed his eyes, and prayed for peace.

But no peace tonight. He kept on seeing his brother splashing like a drowning cat in that pool of blood, kept hearing Jack's voice telling 'bout the Otherness â¦

Where was Jesus in all this? Why this happening?

Charlie figured it for a test. But of what?

My faith?

He knew his faith was strong. Powerful. So powerful he wondered how he'd got through his pre-conversion years without it. It was like oxygen now. If someone stole it from him, he knew sure he'd die in minutes.

But what says I'm the target of this test? Maybe it Lyle â¦ a test of his faith in nothing.

For as surely as Charlie believed in the healing love of Jesus, so Lyle believed in nothing beyond his five senses. Maybe God was offering Lyle a chance to see how there was more to life than his senses, that life extended beyond the body, that each human body was home to an eternal soul that was gonna be judged when its life on earth was
done. Maybe this gonna be Lyle's chance to change, to accept Jesus as his personal savior and see his name written in the Book of Life.

But â¦ if this was the work of God, why was He hiding His hand?

Because that the way He wishes it.

Don't go second guessin' the Lord, Charlie reminded himself.

But where did Jack and Gia fit in? Pretty plain that neither of them were saved. Gia had faith in Jack, but in what else?

And Jack? He a mystery. What he'd said the other night about value for value still hung with Charlie. True that. The way things should be, but weren't â¦ especially not in how he and Lyle had been earning their daily bread.

Jack's outlook didn't seem to be as earthbound as Lyle's, but his talk of the Otherness and the Ally power, of two cosmic forces in eternal conflict â¦ that had Charlie a little shook. Where was God in all that? It didn't even give the God of the Holy Bible the props of being denied. Instead He got bypassed, left and forgotten like an old store by a freeway with no ramp.

And when Charlie had tried to point out that this “Otherness” was just another disguise for Satan, Jack had flipped it 'round, hinting that maybe the idea of Satan had come from awareness of the Otherness.

Charlie rubbed his eyes. He still hadn't answered his question: Who was being tested?

He reopened his Bible. All the answers were here. Have faith and Jesus would guide him to them.

But as for leaving Lyle and breaking up the team, that'd have to wait. Yeah, he promised Reverend Sparks, but if God was gonna go testin' Charlie's faith, he couldn't very well turn his back and geese outta here. And if God testing Lyle, then Charlie wanted to take his brother's back, help him to salvation any way he could. That what brothers was for.

Lyle stuck his head into Charlie's room and found him in his usual position, lying on the bed, reading the Bible with gospel playing through his headphones. He waved to catch his attention.

“I'm heading for bed,” he said when Charlie took off the headphones.

“Kinda early, yo?”

“Yeah, but there's nothing but that old stuff on the tube. Can't bring myself to watch any more of that.”

Charlie held up his Bible. “Gotta extra one if you interested. Great comfort to me, and bro, you look like a dawg who could use some comfort.”

Lyle waved him offânot ungently. “Thanks, but I think I'll pass.”

“Okay, but you gotta standing offer.” Charlie sat up on the edge of his bed. “Strange 'bout the TV. If we think this girl die in the sixties, why's it stuck in the eighties?”

Lyle had been pondering that one too.

“I don't know,” he said. “And at the moment I'm too tired to care.” He yawned. “You'll be ready to go back to work tomorrow?”

Charlie stared at him. “You gonna be ready to give value for value?”

“What's this? You've switched from quoting scripture to quoting Jack?”

As Lyle started to turn away, Charlie gripped his arm and looked up at him, his eyes searching his face.

“Has what gone down the past few days made you change your mind 'bout a power greater than you?”

Lyle glanced away. An old argument, this one, but now the parameters had changed.

“I'll admit I've encountered a number of phenomena for which I have no rational explanation.” He saw Charlie's eyes light and so he hurried on before he could speak. “But that doesn't mean that no rational explanation exists. It simply means that I haven't the information to explain them.”

Charlie's face fell. “Ain't you ever givin' in?”

“Surrender to irrationality? Never.” He smiled, hoping to soften the impact of his words. “But it has made me afraid of the dark. So I hope you don't mind if I leave a bunch of lights on.”

“Go ahead,” Charlie said, readjusting his headphones. He held up his Bible. “But this is the only light I need.”

Lyle waved and turned away thinking how comforting it must be to believe that the answers to all questions could be found in a single book.

Envying the peace that must bring, he waded down the hall through a sea of turmoil. He'd hidden the uneasiness gnawing at the base of his throat. His home had turned unpredictable, a minefield of dread possibilities. The events of the day had left him jumpy and unsettled, but exhausted as well. Yet the idea of lying down and closing his eyes bordered on the unthinkable.

At least in this house. One night in a motel would do itâallow him a solid eight hours of sleep so he could return in the morning refreshed and ready for anything.

But he was
not
leaving his home.

Lyle glanced at his alarm clock as he entered his bedroom. It read 3:22. Still running backward. The real time was somewhere around 10:30. Lyle realized he was more than exhausted. He didn't feel well. He hoped the blood in that pool hadn't been contaminated â¦ blood carried all sorts of diseases these days. But then, it hadn't been real blood, had it. Some sort of psychic or ectoplasmic blood â¦

Listen to me, Lyle thought. I sound like I've been listening to my own jive-ass line so long I'm starting to believe it.

But there'd been nothing jive ass about what happened this afternoon. That had been the furilla, as Charlie liked to say.

He rubbed his skin. He'd taken another shower when they'd got home after dinner, and still didn't feel as if he'd washed off the taint of his blood bath. It seemed as if it had seeped into his skinâno,
through
his skin and into his bloodstream. He felt changed somehow.

The past few days had changed his perspective. Any brightness only served to make the shadows look deeper. So you stepped around them. Trouble was, there seemed to be lots more shadows, so you did a lot more stepping around. Let that get out of hand and pretty soon you spent your whole day stepping around shadows.

Being in a spot where you feared you had only a couple of minutes to live had to change you some. Lyle had been sure he was going to drown in that blood this afternoon. But he hadn't, and he'd emerged from that crimson baptism with a new appreciation for his life, and a determination to make the most of everything he had.

And what he had at the moment was a ghost.

Pretty ironic when he thought about it: A devout skeptic who earns his daily bread by faking the existence of ghosts winds up owning a haunted house. The stuff movies of the week were made of.

But the fact was he'd chosen this house
because
of its morbid history, so if any place had a better-than-average chance of being haunted, it was Menelaus Manor.

So â¦ how do we make the most of the situation? If this ghost is a lemon, how do we, as the clichÃ© goes, make lemonade?

The obvious answer had struck Lyle in the restaurant. If these manifestations were truly the doings of the ghost of a child who had been murdered and buried in the house, and if she was trying to tell them something that would bring her killer to justice, or wanted to show them her burial place so forensic science could track down her killer, then she had a willingâno, an
enthusiastic
ally in Lyle Kenton.

Not merely because satisfying her needs offered a good chance that she'd go back to wherever she came from and leave the house in peace â¦

â¦ but think of the publicity!

If he could find the body â¦ and if the body led the police to her killer â¦

Psychic Ifasen Contacted by Spirit of Dead Child to Bring her Killer to Justice!

Not a news show or talk show in the world that wouldn't be begging him for an appearance. Hell, even Oprah would want him. But he'd be picky, accepting only the most prestigious venues with the largest viewership. He'd get a book deal, detailing his exploits among the spirits.

And his clientele! Everybody who was anybody would want to see him. He and Charlie would be set for life. They'd charge tenâno, twenty-five K for a private sitting, and have those sitters' limos lined up around the block and backed up all the way across the Triboro Bridge.

It would be like winning a fifty-million-dollar lottery.

With that wonderful fantasy dancing in his head, he stood in the middle of his bedroom and softly called out, “Hello? Anybody there?”

Not that he was expecting a reply, but he had to try to break through this knot of tension winding about him.

A chill rippled over his skin. Was it his imagination or did the temperature just drop? He sensed that he was no longer alone in the room. The degrees continued to fall. He might have welcomed it had he known his air conditioner was behind it. But the unit was off. And this was a different kind of cool â¦ clammy, seeping to the bone.

Something was responding to his questions. He spread his arms in a gesture of openness.

“If you've got something to say, I'm lisâ”

A drawer in his dresser slammed closed.

Lyle jumped and backed away. As he watched, another drawer slid open, then slammed closed. Then another, and
another, faster and faster, harder and harder until Lyle feared they'd splinter and shatter.

Lyle caught movement to his left as Charlie, wide-eyed with his Bible clutched in both hands, edged into the room; he saw his lips move but couldn't hear him over the cacophony.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

“What was that all about?” Charlie whispered into the echoing silence.

Lyle rubbed his bare arms against the pervading chill. “I haven'tâ”

He stopped as he saw a dark line appear in the dust on the dresser top. They could well afford a cleaning service, but didn't like strangers in the house who might see something they shouldn't. So they did the work themselves, but not nearly so often as needed.

Maybe that was going to turn out to be a good thing.

Lyle stepped closer and motioned Charlie to follow him. He pointed to the letters forming slowly in the down of dust.

Where

“Look,” he whispered. “Just like on the mirror Sunday night.”

Charlie pointed to the growing string of letters. “She can sing a song, why don't she talk?”

the

Good question, Lyle thought. He shook his head. He had no answer.

“Look like the spirit writing we fake,” Charlie said, “only a thousand times better.”

nice

“Because this isn't fake.”

Spirit writing â¦ all it took was a fake thumb tip equipped with pencil lead, but now he was witnessing the real thing.

The sentence ended with a question mark.

Where is the nice lady?

Lyle heard Charlie breathe, “Gia. You was right. They connected.”

“She went home,” Lyle said in a voice that was perhaps too loud.

Why?

“She doesn't live here.”

Will she be back?

“I don't know. Do you want her to come back? I'm sure she'll come if we ask her.”

She is nice

“Yeah, we like her too.” He glanced at Charlie. “Who are you?”

Tara

Lyle let out a breath. She had a first name. That was a start, but he needed more.

“âTara' what? Do you have a last name?”

Portman

Tara Portman.. Lyle closed his eyes and balled his fists. Yes!

“Why are you here, Tara? What do you want?”

Mother

“You want your mother?”

Lyle waited but no answer appeared. He felt the chill drain from the air, the tension uncoil from the room.

“Tara?” he called. Then again, louder. “Tara!”

“She gone,” Charlie said. “Don't you feel it?”

Lyle nodded. He did. “Well, at least we know who she is. Or was, rather.”

Lyle closed his eyes and realized he wasn't as tense as he'd been a few moments ago. He was no longer dealing with a nameless, violent entity. Knowing the name of the being that had invaded their house made her less threatening. She'd been someone, and something of that someone remained. He could deal with what remained.

He could help her. And she could help him.

“Right,” Charlie said. “We got her name. Now what we do with it?”

“First thing we do is get hold of Gia and see if the name Tara Portman means anything to her.”

BOOK: The Haunted Air

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