F. Paul Wilson - Haunted Air

"What just happened in there, Lyle?" Charlie said, kneeling beside him and laying an arm across his shaking shoulders. "What this all about?"

Lyle gathered himself, swallowed the bile at the back of his throat, and straightened his spine.

"You know what you said about this house being haunted? I'm beginning to think you're right." He looked up at the clock radio, which now read 1:11. Who knew how long it had been running backwards. It could be three in the morning for all he knew. "Fuckit, I know you're right."

"What we do about it, man?"

Something strange and angry had invaded their house. Was that anger directed at him? At Charlie? He hoped not, because he sensed it ran wide and frighteningly deep. Charlie wanted to know what they were going to do. How could he answer that without even knowing what they were facing?

He grabbed Charlie's arm and got to his feet.

"I don't know, Charlie. But I know one thing we're not doing, and that's leaving. This is our place now and nobody, living or dead, is chasing us out."

MONDAY

1

Gia was staring at the clock when the phone rang.

She sat at the kitchen table, a mug of green tea cooling next to her elbow. An hour, almost to the minute, since she'd called Dr. Eagleton's office about her pregnancy test. The receptionist had said her results weren't in yet, but she'd call the Beth Israel lab and have them fax it over.

Jack was gone. After making a few cryptic calls earlier this morning, he'd gone out to run a few errands, and since then Gia had barely moved.

But she moved now, rising, stepping to the phone, checking the caller ID, seeing the name A. Eagleton MD on the display. Her breath caught a moment, she hesitated, then snatched up the receiver.

"Yes?"

"Ms. DiLauro?" A girl's voice. She sounded like a teenager.

"Speaking." Her hand felt slick on the plastic.

"This is Dr. Eagleton's office returning your call. Doctor says to tell you that your pregnancy test is positive."

Gia felt her body go rigid. She brought up her second hand to help grip the receiver, to keep it from falling.

"You're... you're sure?"

"Positive." She giggled. "I mean, yes. Doctor wants you to arrange an appointment for some routine preliminary blood work. When do you think you can-?"

Gia hung up on her and sat down.

I'm pregnant. With Jack's baby... Jack's and mine.

She should be bursting with joy, she knew, but she wasn't. Instead she felt uncertain, and maybe a little afraid.

Gia closed her eyes. I'm not ready for this... the timing's all wrong.

She picked up the mug of tea, looking to warm her chilled hands, but the cup was nearly room temperature. She took a sip of the pale yellow liquid but it tasted sour on her tongue.

Of course this wasn't just about her. There was Jack. Telling him wasn't a matter of if-because he had every right to know-but a matter of when. It was so very early in the pregnancy, a time when too many things could go wrong and end in miscarriage. She'd had two of those before Vicky was born.

Then the question of how he'd react. She knew Jack, probably better than anyone else in the world. Even better than Abe. But she still wasn't sure how he'd deal with it in the long run.

She knew his first reaction would be joy. He'd be happy for her, for himself. A baby. She wanted to see him grin, see his eyes glow. And she knew it might be enough to drag him out of his funk over losing Kate. One life ends, then a new one begins.

But telling this early carried risks. What if, say, next week, she miscarried?

Jack, you're a father-to-be! You're first child is on the way!

No, wait. Never mind. Your child is gone. Sorry.

Considering how down he'd been, was it right to risk putting him on that sort of emotional roller coaster? Wouldn't it be better, kinder after what he'd just gone through to wait until she was sure her pregnancy was firmly established?

Or was she just buying herself more time before she had to face up to the task of telling him?

So those were the short-term issues. But what about long term? When it sank into Jack what raising a child, what true fatherhood would mean to his independence, his treasured autonomy... what then? Would he think the cost too high?

2

The yellow plastic sandwich board sign stood in the middle of the sidewalk, its red letters reflecting the morning sun.

ERNIE'S PHOTO I-D

ALL KINDS

PASSPORT

DRIVERS LICENSE

TAXI

Jack cut around it and stepped through the open doorway into a tiny store packed to the ceiling with miniature Statues of Liberty, New York City postcards, customizable T-shirts, sports caps, and anything else Ernie could cram into a rack or onto a shelf. Ernie's shop made Abe's seem like the wide open range.

"Hey, Ern."

The skinny, droopy-faced man behind the counter wore an ugly orange Hawaiian shirt and had a Pall Mall dangling from the corner of his mouth, J-P Belmondo style. He looked up and winked.

"Witcha in a minute, sir," he said and went right back into his spiel to an old Korean tourist about a pair of Ray Ban Predators.

"We're talkin' big savings here. Real money." He pronounced it monnay-like "Monday" without the d. "I'm tellin' you, these list for ninety bucks. I can let you have 'em for fifty."

"No-no," the old man said. "I see down street for ten. Ten dollah."

"But they're knock-offs. They ain't the real thing. You buy 'em today and tomorrow morning the lenses'll fall out and the temples'll break off. But these, my friend, these are the real deal."

Jack turned away and pretended to browse through a rack of bootleg videos. Nothing Ernie sold was the real deal.

His mind wandered back to Gia. He'd slept over again last night. Nice. He loved waking up next to her. But she'd seemed so jumpy this morning. She'd looked impatient when he'd been making calls, and he'd gotten the impression she'd been waiting for him to leave. He didn't consider himself the easiest person to live with, but was he getting on her nerves already?

The old guy had haggled Ernie down to thirty-five and left wearing his cool shades.

"Hey, Jack," Ernie said, folding the money into his pocket. Too many years of unfiltered cigarettes had given him a frog's vocal cords. "How y'doin'. How y'doin'." He shook his head. "Tough t'make a buck these days, y'know? Real tough."

"Yeah," Jack said, easing up to Ernie's combination display case and counter. Half a dozen faux Rolexes glittered through the crisscrossed scratches in the glass. "Things are tight all around."

"These street guys are killin' me. I mean, what overhead they got? They roll out a blanket or set up a cardboard box and they're in business. They're sellin' the same stuff as me for a fin over cost. Me, you wouldn't believe the rent I gotta pay for this here closet."

"Sorry to hear that." Ernie had been crying poverty since a number of his fake ID sources dried up after the World Trade Center catastrophe. He'd been Jack's main source of driver's licenses and photo IDs for many years. "You get the queer we talked about?"

"Sure did." He pointed to the door. "Make us look closed, will ya?"

Jack locked the door and flipped the open sign to closed. When he returned to the counter, Ernie had a stack of currency on the glass.

"Here she be. Five K of it."

Jack picked up one of the hundred-dollar bills. He snapped it, held it up to the light. Not too crisp, not too limp. "Looks pretty good to me."

"Yeah, it's good work but they're cold as bin Laden's ass. Every clerk from Bloomie's to the lowliest bodega's got that serial number tacked up next to the cash register."

"Perfect," Jack said. Just what he wanted. "What do I owe you?"

"Gimme twenty and we'll call it even." He grinned as he started stuffing the bills into a brown paper bag. "I'll knock the price down to fifteen if you take more off my hands."