F. Paul Wilson: Haunted Air

"There!" Junie cried, leaning forward and pointing through the windshield at a produce shop with a yellow awning inscribed with English and what looked like Sanskrit. "I recognize that place! Make a right at the corner here."

Jack complied and turned into a quiet residential neighborhood. This street was lined with duplexes, a relief from the row houses. A train rumbled along a trestle looming above them.

"He's number 735," Junie said. "You can't miss it. It's the only detached single-family home on the block."

"Might be the only one in Astoria," Jack said.

"Should be on the right somewhere along-" Her arm lanced ahead again. "Here! Here it is! Awriiight!" Jack heard the slap of a high five somewhere behind him. "Told you I'd get us here!"

Jack found an empty spot and pulled into the curb.

Junie was out the door before he'd put the car in park. "Come on, guys! Let's go talk to dead folks!"

Karyn and Claude piled out, but Jack stayed put. "I think we'll pass."

"Aw, no," Junie said, leaning toward the passenger window. "Gia, you've got to come meet him. You've got to see what he can do!"

Gia looked at him. "What do you say?"

Jack lowered his voice. "I know this game. It's not-"

"You were a psychic?"

"No. I just helped one once."

"Great! Then you can explain it all afterwards." She smiled and tugged on his arm. "Come on. This could be fun."

"Fun like that party?" Gia gave him a look so Jack shrugged his acquiescence. "All right. Let's see if this guy lives up to Junie's press release."

Junie cheered and led Karyn and Claude toward the house while Jack closed up the car. He joined Gia at the curb. He started toward the house but stopped when he saw it.

"What's wrong?" Gia said.

He stared at the house. "Look at this place."

Jack couldn't say why, but he immediately disliked the house. It was colonial in shape, with an attached garage, but made of some sort of dark brown stone. It probably looked better during the day. Jack could make out a well-trimmed lawn and impatiens and marigolds in bloom among the foundation plantings along the front porch. But here in the dark it seemed to squat on its double-size lot like some huge, glowering toad edging hungrily toward the sidewalk. He could imagine a snakelike tongue uncoiling through the front door and snagging some unwary passerby.

"Definitely creepy looking," Gia said. "Probably by design."

"Don't go in there," said an accented voice from his left.

Jack turned and saw a slim, dark Indian woman in a royal blue sari, strolling her way along the sidewalk, being led by a big German shepherd on a leash.

"Excuse me?" Jack said.

"Very bad place," the woman said, closer now. Her dark hair was knitted into a long thick braid that trailed over her right shoulder; a fine golden ring pierced her right nostril. "Bad past. Worse future. Stay away." She didn't slow her pace as she came abreast of them. Her black eyes flashed at Jack-"Stay away"-then at Gia-"especially you."

Then she walked on. The dog looked back over his shoulder, but the woman did not.

"Now that's creepy," Gia said as an uncertain smile wavered across her lips.

Jack had always believed that in confronting a fear and facing it down, you weakened it. Recent events had given him second thoughts about the wisdom of that belief. And with Gia along...

"Maybe we should listen to her."

Gia laughed. "Oh, come on! She probably works for this guy; he sends her out to get us in the mood. Or maybe she's just a local wacko. You're not taking her seriously, are you?"

Jack looked after the retreating saried figure, now barely visible in the shadows. After what he'd been through lately, he was taking a lot more things seriously, things he'd laughed at before.

"I don't know."

"Oh, let's go," she said, tugging him up the front walk. "Junie's been seeing him for a couple of months and nothing bad's happened to her."

Jack put an arm around Gia's back and together they approached the house. They joined the others on the front porch where Junie had been jabbing at the bell button with no results.

She jabbed it again. "Where is he?"

"Maybe he's not home," Jack said.

"He's got to be! I can't-"

Just then the front door eased open a crack. Jack saw an eye and a sliver of dark cheek.

"Ifasen! It's me! Junie! Thank God you're here!"

The door opened wider, revealing a tall, lean black man, maybe thirty. He wore a white T-shirt and gray slacks; his hair was woven into neat, tight dreads that brushed his wide shoulders. Ifasen reminded Jack of Lenny Kravitz in his dreadlock days.

"Ms. Moon," he said with an unplaceable accent. "It's late."

Jack hid a smile at the obvious statement. This guy was experienced. The normal response would be, What are you doing here at this hour? But if you're supposed to be someone who knows all-or maybe not all, but a helluva lot more than ordinary people-you don't ask questions. You make statements.

But he wondered at the man's expression when he'd opened the door. He'd looked... relieved. Who had he been expecting?

"I know. And I know my appointment's tomorrow, but I had to come."

"You couldn't wait," he said, his tone calm, exuding confidence and assurance.

"Yes! Right! I need your help! I lost my good luck bracelet! You've got to find it for me!"

As he considered her plea, his gaze roamed among Jack and Gia and the others on the porch.

"I see you've brought company."

"I told them all about you and they're dying to meet you. Can we come in? Please?"

"Very well," Ifasen said. He stepped back and opened the door the rest of the way. "But only for a few minutes. I have to be rested for my early clients tomorrow."

That's right, Jack remembered. Weekends are busy times for psychics.

Junie led the way, followed by Karyn and Claude. Jack and Gia were just stepping over the threshold when a deep rumble filled the air, vibrating through their bones and shaking the house.

"Bomb!" Ifasen yelled. "Out! Everybody out!"

Then another sound, a deafening, high-pitched, echoing scream-whether of pain, fear, or joy, Jack couldn't say-filled the air.

Didn't sound like a bomb to Jack but he wasn't taking any chances. He grabbed Gia and hauled her back across the porch and onto the lawn. Junie, Claude, and a shrieking Karyn scurried behind them.

Ifasen was still at the front door, calling for someone named Charlie.

Jack kept moving, pushing Gia ahead of him up the walk toward the car. Then he noticed something.

He stopped. "Wait. Feel that?"

Gia looked into his eyes, and then at her feet. "The ground..."

"Right. It's shaking."

"Oh, my God!" Junie cried. "It's an earthquake!"

Just as suddenly as the tremors had started, they stopped.

Jack looked around. Across the street, up and down the block, lights were on and people were spilling out into their yards, standing around in all states of dress and undress, some crying, some looking simply bewildered.

Gia was staring at him. "Jack. An earthquake? In New York?"

"Don't you remember that one on the Upper East Side back in '01?"

"I read about it, but I never felt it. I felt this. And I didn't like it!"

Neither had Jack. Maybe people in places like LA got used to something like this, but feeling the solid granite bedrock of good old New York City rolling and trembling under his feet... pretty damn unsettling.

"What about that other sound? Like a scream? Did you hear that?"

Gia nodded as she moved closer and clutched his arm. "Like a damned soul."

"Probably just some old nails tearing free in the quake."

"If you say so. Sure sounded like a voice though."

Sure did, Jack thought. But he didn't want to add to her unease.