F. Paul Wilson - Haunted Air

Spooked... yeah, you got that right. House spooked. Charlie was spooked too.

He'd tried to pry Lyle about what was going down but Lyle clammed, lips tight, eyes somewhere else. No talking to him. Not mad. Scared. Lyle never got scared. Seeing big bro like that had shook Charlie, right down to his toenails.

He'd tried reading scriptures but that hadn't cut it. He needed to talk. So he come to the rev.

"Is it about your brother?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what?"

"I ain't 'xactly sure how to put it..."

The rev let out a sigh. Charlie sensed his impatience.

"A'ight," he said. "It's like this. We allowed to believe in ghosts?"

"Allowed?"

"I mean, are there any teachings 'bout them?"

The rev leaned back and stared at him through his thick rimless glasses. "Why do you ask?"

"Here come the hard part." Charlie took a breath. "Our house is haunted."

The rev continued his stare. "What makes you think that?"

Charlie gave him a quick walkthrough of the spookfest going down at the place.

"So what I'm axing," he said as he tied it up, "is what I do about it?"

"You leave," the rev said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the desk. "Immediately. Your brother was reason enough to leave before, now you must flee. Do not walk, run from that house."

Charlie didn't feature no cut-and-run action, but he was glad the rev wasn't looking at him like he was off the hinges.

"So... you believe me."

"Of course I believe you. And after what you've told me about your brother, it's obviously his fault. He has called up this demon."

"Not a demon, Rev. A ghost. She say her name Tara Portman and..."

The rev was slowly shaking his massive head. "There are no such things as ghosts, Charles. Only demons pretending to be ghosts."

"But-"

"The dead do not come back to visit the living. Think about it: The faithful are with Jesus and when you are in the presence of the Lord you want for nothing. You do not miss the living you left behind, no matter how much you loved them in life, because you are basking in the love of God, you are in the blinding Holy Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember Corinthians: 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' To abandon that Presence would be... why, it would be completely unthinkable."

Charlie nodded. He could get down with that. "A'ight, then. What about someone who ain't among the faithful?"

"They burn in hellfire, Charles. Oh, the damned would dearly love to return, every single one of them. They'd give anything to come back, even for a second, a fraction of a second, but no matter how much they want to, they cannot. They aren't allowed. They're in hell for all eternity, and they must spend every second of forever in torment. 'The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night.'"

"Then what-?"

"A demon, Charles." The rev nodded gravely. "You see the simple logic of it, don't you. An angel wouldn't bear false witness to the living by pretending to be a dead person who's returned. Only a demon would engage in such a fiendish endeavor."

"But why?"

"To seduce the faithful away from the Lord and lead them onto the path toward eternal damnation. Your brother attracted the demon, but it is you it is after, Charles." He stabbed his finger across the table. "You! It lusts after your fragile soul so that it can serve it to its evil master on a silver platter!"

The target of supernatural evil... not me, Charlie thought, terror rising like a flood tide. Please, Lord, not me.

Charlie jumped as the rev slammed his palm onto his desktop. "Now will you leave your evil brother?"

"He's-" Charlie cut himself off.

The rev's eyes narrowed. "He's what? Are you going to tell me again he's not evil-after he's called up a demon?"

He'd been about to say just that. And Lyle didn't call up no demon. Least not on purpose. He wasn't evil, just off track. He hadn't seen the light yet. But Charlie knew the rev wouldn't accept that.

"He's in danger too, Rev. His soul, I mean. Shouldn't we try to save his soul too?"

"From what you've told me I fear you brother's soul is lost forever."

"I thought you always said no soul was lost forever long he still had a chance of accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior."

The rev's gaze flickered. "Well, that's true, but do you really believe your brother will do that? Ever?"

Lyle? Not very likely, but...

"Miracles happen, Rev."

He nodded. "Yes, they do. But miracles are the Lord's province. Leave the miracle of your brother's salvation to Him and see to your own by leaving that house."

"Yes, Rev."

"Today. Do I have your word on that?"

"Yes, Rev."

But not without Lyle. Charlie wasn't going to leave his brother in the clutches of no krunk demon.

The rev hoisted himself out of his chair. "Then you better get to it."

Charlie rose too. "I will." He hesitated. "Um, is Sharleen round about?"

The rev fixed him with a stern gaze. "I've seen the way you've been looking at my daughter. And I've seen the way she's been looking back at you. But I want you to steer clear of her until you've removed yourself from this evil. Right now you're at a dangerous crossroads. I want to see which path you choose before you involve yourself with Sharleen. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes." Stung, Charlie backed away. "Very."

Reverend Sparks thought he was a danger to his daughter. He'd have to prove himself worthy. Okay. He'd do that. Today.

8

"I still don't believe you did it," Jack said.

Gia sipped her green tea and tried to read his expression: Shock? Dismay? Anger? Fear? Maybe a mixture of all.

"I'm fine, Jack. Besides, it wasn't as if I had much choice."

"Of course you had a choice." He'd settled down from his original outburst and now wandered her kitchen, circling the breakfast table with his hands jammed into his jeans pockets. A barely touched beer sat on the table, condensation pooling around its base. "You could have said to yourself, 'Going alone to visit the possibly psycho father of a murdered girl and not telling anyone where I'll be is a dumb idea. Maybe I'll just skip it.'"

"I had to know, Jack. It was going to drive me crazy if I didn't find out about her."

"You could have told me what you were doing."

"You would have thrown a hissy fit, just like you're doing now."

"I don't throw hissy fits. I would have tried to talk you out of it, and if you still insisted I could have gone along as backup."

"Who are you kidding? You've become so superprotective since I told you I was pregnant, you'd have probably locked me in a closet and gone yourself."

"Maybe I'm suddenly superprotective because you're suddenly Repairwoman Jane."

This was getting nowhere. Another sip of her tea-too sweet. She'd overdone the honey.

"Do you want to know what I found out?" she said.

"Yes, I do." He grabbed his beer and quaffed a few inches. "I just wish you hadn't found out the way you did." He sat on the end of the table. "Tell me. Please."

Gia told him about Joe Portman, about Tara's mother and brother and what had befallen them since her abduction. She told him about the day of her disappearance, how she'd been wearing the exact same clothes, how she'd left the stable area to go down the block for a pretzel and was never seen again.

"She did that every Thursday?" Jack said.

Gia nodded. "Why? Is that important?"

"Could be. Means she had an established pattern of behavior. That says to me there's a good chance it wasn't a random snatch. Somebody had been watching her. She'd been marked."

Gia felt a chill. An innocent child, walking the same route every Thursday afternoon, just going for a snack, never realizing she was being stalked. How many pretzel runs had her abductor watched before deciding to pounce?