F. Paul Wilson - Haunted Air

"Started without me, I see," Jack said.

Lyle jumped and turned, raising his pry bar. He huffed out a breath and lowered it when he recognized Jack.

"Don't do that!" he said. "Not in this house."

"Yo, Jack," Charlie said, waving. "S'up?"

"Lots. Gia paid a visit to Tara Portman's father."

"By herself?" Lyle asked.

"Without telling me."

"That girl got game," Charlie said. "She learn anything?"

Jack gave them a brief rundown of what Joe Portman had told Gia.

"So," Lyle said slowly, "the riding clothes she was wearing when Gia saw her match the clothes she was wearing when she was snatched."

"Don't be fooled," Charlie said. "It's not Tara Portman."

Lyle rolled his eyes. "Not this again."

"You won't listen, maybe Jack will. You had your doubts too, right, Jack?"

"Yeah, but..." What was he stepping into here?

"I spoke to my minister and he says there are no ghosts, only demons pretending to be ghosts to lure the faithful away from God."

"No worry in my case," Lyle said. "I'm not among the faithful."

"That's because you don't believe in anything," Charlie said with some heat. "Only thing you believe in is your disbelief. Disbelief is your religion."

"Maybe it is. I can't help it. I was born with a skeptical mind." He turned to his brother. "Now I ask you, is that fair? If God gives me a skeptical nature and you an accepting one, then you're going to be a believer and I'm not. If belief is a ticket to eternal happiness, I'm definitely handicapped. God gives me a mind capable of asking questions and what?-I'm damned if I use it?"

Charlie's dark eyes were sad. "You just gotta give your heart to Jesus, bro. 'Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.'"

"But I can't. That's my point. I'm the type who needs to know. I didn't ask to be this way, but that's how it is. I am simply not capable of adjusting my whole existence to accommodate something that must be accepted on faith, on the word of people I've never met, people who've been dead for thousands of years. I can't live like that. It's not me." He shrugged. "Hell, I'm still not sure I believe in this ghost."

"Wait a sec," Jack said. "What's this about not believing in your ghost? Why are you doing this demolition work then?"

He shrugged. "I'm caught between. Certain aspects of this situation don't jibe."

"Like what?"

"Well, like that song, for instance. I heard what sounded like a little girl singing. But how can a ghost sing? Or talk, for that matter?"

"If it can smash mirrors and write in dust, why shouldn't it be able to sing and talk?"

"It's got no vocal cords, and no lungs to push air past them if it did. So how does it make noise?"

Jack thought he knew the answer. "Last I heard, noise is nothing more than vibrating air. If this thing can smash a mirror, I'd think it should be able to vibrate air."

Lyle nodded, grinning. He turned to Charlie. "See? That's what I need. An explanation I can sink my teeth into. Not simply saying 'It's God's will.' That won't cut it."

"It will, bro," Charlie said. "When that final trumpet blows, it will."

"So you believe."

"I know, Lyle."

"That's just it: You don't know. And neither do I. Neither of us will ever know until we die."

This was getting a little heavy. Jack walked over to the exposed granite blocks and ran a hand over the stone. Cold. And clammy. He pulled his hand away. For a moment there it felt as if the surface had shifted under his touch. He looked at his hand, then at the stone. Nothing had changed. He tried it again and felt that same strange, squirming sensation.

"Looking for something?" Lyle asked.

"Just checking out these blocks."

As he moved to another stone, he glanced back and noticed Lyle staring at him. More than staring-squinting at him, as if trying to bring him into focus.

"Something wrong?"

Lyle blinked. "No. Nothing."

Jack turned back to the stones. He found one with a cross-shaped pocket and noticed scratch marks in the granite around the depression.

"Didn't the Greek say some of the stones had inlaid crosses?"

"Right," Lyle said, moving closer. "Brass and nickel."

Jack ran a finger over the gouges. "Looks like Dmitri was none too gentle in digging them out."

"Yeah, I noticed those before. I wonder what he did with them?"

"Maybe he used them as grave markers."

"Maybe he wanted to make the place more hospitable to demons," Charlie said. "They can't bear the presence of a cross."

In an effort to head off another argument that wasn't going to settle anything, Jack grabbed a pry bar and held it up.

"What say we take down the rest of the paneling?"

"Why bother?" Charlie said. "Probably just more of the same."

Jack jabbed the straight end of the bar through a section of paneling and felt the tip strike the stone beyond. He reversed the bar, shoved the curved end into the opening, and ripped away a chunk of the laminated wood. Despite the nagging tug of discomfort in his flank, it felt good. Sometimes he liked to break things. Liked it a lot.

"Maybe not. We look hard enough, we might find that some of these blocks aren't mortared like the others. That they slide out and there's some sort of hidey hole behind them. Who knows what we'll find there? Maybe what's left of Tara Portman."

Charlie said, "It's not Tara Portman, I tell you, it's a-"

"Wait." Lyle held up a hand. "Something's happening."

Jack looked around. He hadn't heard anything.

"What?"

"Don't you feel it?"

Jack glanced at Charlie who looked just as confused.

"Feel what?"

Lyle turned in a slow circle. "Something's coming."

Then Jack felt it too. A chill, a sense of gathering, as if all the warmth in the room were being sucked into its center to drain away through an invisible black hole there, leaving a steadily growing knot of cold in its place.

Cold stabbed Jack high on his right thigh, so cold it burned. He clutched at the spot and felt a frozen lump in the pocket. The key ring! He clenched his teeth as he dropped to his knees-God, it hurt-and clawed at the pocket, reaching in, trying to grab the key ring but the skin of his fingers stuck to it like a wet tongue to a frozen wrought iron fence. He peeled his fingers away, losing some skin, and yanked at the fabric, pulling it out, inverting the pocket. Finally the Roger Rabbit figure appeared and tumbled toward the floor.

But it never landed. Instead it dipped and then rose and darted toward the center of the cellar. There it hovered in the air. Jack saw a rime of frost form along the figure's limbs, then the head, finally engulfing the trunk.

A high keening wail began to echo the air, growing in pitch and volume as Jack pushed himself back up to his feet. The frost thickened on the Roger Rabbit figure, and Jack thought he heard the plastic creak and crinkle as it became brittle from the intense cold.

Suddenly the wail became a screech of rage as Roger's head snapped off and hurtled across the cellar. It struck one of the granite blocks and shattered into powder that scattered and swirled like drifting snow. Then an arm snapped off and flashed in the opposite direction, just missing Charlie's head. Jack ducked as an arm narrowly missed him.

More pieces flew as the frenzied screech rose in pitch and volume. And then there were no more pieces and yet still the enraged howl rose until Jack had to cover his ears. The sound became a physical thing, battering him until...

It stopped.

As suddenly as the sound had begun, silence returned. The sense of presence dissipated as well until Jack felt that the cellar was again occupied by just the three of them.

He shook his head to relieve the ringing in his ears. It didn't work.

Lyle and Charlie looked shaken, but Jack felt oddly calm. Deadly calm.