Ghost Trackers (10 page)

Sean’s initial reaction was that this was some kind of joke. Yeah, that was it. Had to be. The reunion organizers were pranking attendees by recreating settings from their high-school years. It was a wild idea, genius, really, and Sean admired the hell out of whoever had come up with it. How could the reunion committee afford to build something so elaborate? How did they get hold of that kind of money?

But even as he thought these things, part of
him knew they were desperate attempts at rationalization. There was no way this was some sort of prank. It was impossible to re-create the bio lab in such detail, and in a hotel hallway yet. The damn thing couldn’t even
fit
in the hall. And there were those windows and the sunlit world that lay beyond them . . .

He wanted to believe it was a joke, but he knew it wasn’t, and that knowledge chilled him to the core of his being. Because if it wasn’t a joke, then either this was real or he’d gone crazy. Neither prospect held much appeal.

No
, he thought.
You’re asleep. You conked out watching TV, and you only dreamed you got off the bed and left the room. You were thinking about Greg Daniels and the prank in the bio lab right before you drifted off, and that’s why you’re dreaming about them now
.

The thought was a reassuring one, until he realized that he’d never in his life been aware that he was dreaming while in the middle of a dream. He supposed there was a first time for everything, but somehow, despite his hope that this was all a dream, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was really happening.

He heard the soft sound of chalk moving across the chalkboard, and he turned to see letters appearing on the board as if by magic. There was no chalk visible and no hand to wield it. The letters appeared one by one of their own accord:

“This isn’t a dream, Sean. This is karmic retribution. More simply, paybacks are a bitch. Love and kisses, Greg.”

Sean stared at the message for several seconds and finally decided that, dream or not, he’d had enough of this shit. He turned back to the door, gripped the knob, turned it, pushed . . . and found the door locked. He shoved harder, even rammed his shoulder against the door, resulting in a very realistic burst of pain, but it refused to budge. He gave the knob one last shake before giving up and turning away from the door. He looked at the windows on the other side of the room. They’d probably be locked as well. Wasn’t that the way it always was in dreams? If one exit was blocked to you, all the others were, too. But the glass could be broken, and then he could crawl through and get outside. Outside to a world of sunlight that shone when it should be dark.

That way of escape might have been open to him, but at that moment, it didn’t exactly appeal.

The lab’s back wall was lined with a row of metal storage cabinets, and the doors began rattling, as if something inside was trying to get out. Sean heard a soft whimpering sound and wondered where it came from. It wasn’t until he heard it a second time that he realized it was coming from his own throat.

The cabinet doors flew open, and misshapen
creatures stepped out, thick-bodied and squat, not quite as tall as an adult man. Their naked bodies were covered with mottled green and white rubbery flesh, and their bulging eyes fixed Sean with cold, inhuman appraisal. The frogs, a half-dozen in all, came toward him, walking with an awkward lopsided gait. They were, after all, not creatures designed to stand upright on two legs. Their skin was coated with a liquid sheen, and the smell of formaldehyde in the air grew stronger, making Sean’s stomach turn. He covered his nose and mouth with a hand in an attempt to blunt the awful stench, but the stink was too thick for the gesture to do any good.

The frogs made soft little thrumming sounds in their throats as they approached, and Sean found the noise oddly soothing. In their right hands—if
hands
was the correct word—they held gleaming metal scalpels. In their left hands, they carried paper masks with loops of string attached. The frogs now donned their masks, slipping them over their bulging eyes and protruding mouths as best they could, and Sean saw that the image printed on the paper was the face of Mr. Bryant, the biology teacher. But unlike the picture Sean had photocopied from the yearbook so long ago, the expression on Bryant’s face was one of contorted hatred: eyes wild, mouth open, teeth bared.

The frogs continued toward Sean, their tiny
feet making wet slapping sounds on the tile as they came. Sean noticed that the pale flesh of each of their abdomens was bisected with a single vertical line, like old scars that hadn’t quite healed all the way. The frogs’ pudgy little bellies jiggled with each awkward step they took, and seams opened in their abdominal scars. Grayish-green organs peeked through, just a hint at first, but the seams widened, split open all the way, and frog guts splayed forth to dangle in front of the creatures and be dragged across the floor as they continued toward Sean.

The thrumming sounds they made began to resemble human speech, the words deep and liquidy, spoken in a lilting ribbit-ribbit cadence.

“YOUR-turn, YOUR-turn, YOUR-turn . . .”

Sean backed away, hands raised in a gesture that was half defensive, half pleading. He shook his head no, the frogs nodded yes, and when Sean’s back came up against the chalkboard and he had nowhere else to go, they rushed the last few feet to him, raising their scalpels . . . and ready to work.

Drew Sat at
the desk in his hotel room, laptop open in front of him, looking at a photo displayed on the screen. The picture had been taken with a cheap one-use camera, so the quality of the image wasn’t very good, although he’d tried to sharpen the detail and brighten the colors when he’d scanned
the photo and converted it to a digital file several years ago.

The picture showed teenage versions of Drew, Trevor, and Amber dressed in jeans and light jackets and standing before an old oak tree. Behind them, off to the left, sat the Lowry House. He thought it remarkable how different those three kids were from the adults they would become. It wasn’t that the physical changes were all that pronounced. After all, only a decade and a half had passed since the photo was taken—although when it had been taken and who’d been holding the camera, he couldn’t remember. The main difference lay in the attitudes of their teenage selves. All three of them were smiling, their eyes clear and bright. Amber stood in the middle, and they had their arms around one another. They’d been so full of energy and potential back then, untroubled by care or worry. Young in the truest, most wonderful sense of the word.

Looking at the photo caused a great sadness to well up in him, and he grieved for those three children who, in a very real sense, had been lost the night the Lowry House burned down.

Had the picture been taken that very day? It was possible, he decided. The Lowry House had burned down in April, and they were dressed for cool weather. They’d likely been documenting the events of that night. They’d always tried to approach their investigations as scientifically
as possible, so they documented everything, taking photos, writing notes, making video and audio recordings. He wondered if they’d recorded any information that night, and if so, what had happened to it. Presumably, it had been left in the house and destroyed in the fire. He didn’t remember for certain. All he knew was that he had no information other than the single photo he’d found several years ago when cleaning out an old drawer full of junk.

He leaned forward and examined the photo more closely, paying special attention to Amber. She was as lovely today as she’d been then. As he looked at her face, a whisper of memory returned to him: Amber’s voice, sounding scared.

I had a dream last night, Drew. A real bad one. About the Lowry House. I think maybe we shouldn’t go there tonight
.

He tried to hold on to the memory, tried to drag more of it out of the depths of his subconscious, but the harder he fought to recall it, the faster it slipped away from him. And then the memory was gone.

Drew was a rationalist, and even as a teenager, he hadn’t believed that Amber’s dreams were anything more than dreams. Amber, however, believed they were prophetic, and Trevor had a tendency to agree with her. Drew believed that so-called precognitive dreams were nothing more than the subconscious mind trying to send a message to the
conscious mind, a way for two distinct aspects of the brain to communicate with each other. Nothing psychic about it at all. But now, looking at her smiling teenage face and thinking of how scared she’d sounded in the fragment of memory he recalled, he wondered if, in that instance at least, her dream had been something more than a little nighttime self-therapy.

There was a knock on his door then. Three knocks, to be precise, so soft he wasn’t sure he heard them. He rose from the desk and walked over to the door on bare feet; he’d removed his shoes and socks when he’d first gotten back to his room but was otherwise still dressed. He opened the door, half expecting to find no one standing there at all, but he was surprised, and more than a little pleased, to see Amber.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. She opened her mouth again, as if she intended to provide further explanation for her visit, but instead of speaking, she smiled and shrugged.

He wasn’t fooled by her smile. He saw the haunted look in her eyes and had a pretty good idea of why she’d been unable to sleep.

He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and gestured for her to enter. She did so, and he closed the door behind her, unable to keep from thinking that this scenario, two friends of the opposite gender seeing each other in a hotel room after fifteen years apart, was the stuff that sexual
fantasies were made of. He knew it was important to make sure he didn’t give her the wrong impression. He didn’t have such a high opinion of himself as to assume that she might be attracted to him, but they
were
old friends, and she was likely feeling vulnerable right now. The three of them being together again had been stressful, rousing long-dormant memories and the difficult emotions that came with them. In a situation like this, it would only be natural for one person to reach out to another in search of comfort and reassurance. He’d have to watch for any overtures on Amber’s part and make sure he didn’t do anything to encourage them.

And he’d have to watch himself as well. After all, he was only human and prone to the same emotional stresses—and needs—as anyone else.

His room had only a single king-size bed, and Amber stopped at the foot of it, as if trying to decide whether or not to sit down. In the end, she chose to sit in the reading chair tucked into the corner. She passed the desk on the way there, saw his open laptop and the picture displayed on the screen, and paused to look at it.

“I don’t remember that being taken,” she said. “It’s a good picture. We look happy.” She leaned forward to examine it. “I wonder who took it. Greg, maybe?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even remember how I came by that photo. I just found it one day.”

She nodded her understanding and closed the laptop, as if she didn’t want the image of their teenage selves to intrude on their conversation.

Those are the real ghosts
, he thought.
Specters of What Was and Can Never Be Again
. As frightening as anything that might lurk within the shadowed corridors of a haunted house and in many ways more so.

Amber sat in the reading chair, so he sat on the edge of the bed facing her.

“Bad dreams?” he asked.

She looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said once her laughter subsided. “It’s just that this situation—both of us sitting down, you asking if I’ve been having bad dreams, the attitude of caring attentiveness you’re projecting—it all seems like a therapy session. I ought to know; I’ve been through enough of them.” Her merriment died away, and she became serious. “I didn’t come here in search of free therapy, Drew. I imagine that happens to psychologists a lot—friends and acquaintances coming to you with their problems, hoping to get some expert advice.”

“It
is
an occupational hazard,” he admitted.

“Like I said, that’s not why I’m here. I just . . . need someone to talk to, you know? Someone who understands.”

“I get it. You want me to call Trevor and ask him to join us? He’s probably feeling the same way right now.”

“No. I mean, Trevor’s a good guy, but he’s pushy, you know? At least when it comes to the subject of the Lowry House. He’s determined to make money off that damned place, and he won’t rest until we help him do it.”

Drew shook his head. “That’s Trevor’s way of coping. By treating the Lowry House like just another story, he can keep it at a distance, get a measure of control over it, and make it manageable. In the end, he wants the same thing we do: to learn what happened to him, to the three of us, that night.”

“Speak for yourself,” she said. “I don’t care what really happened. I just want to be free, you know? Free of the fragmented memories and the panic that comes along with them. Free of the crippling depression that keeps me from having a normal life.

“But above all, I want to be free of the nightmares. Most people fantasize about winning the lottery or becoming famous. You know what I fantasize about? Dreamless sleep.”

They were both silent for a time after that. Finally, he said, “At the risk of sounding like a psychologist instead of a friend, do you want to tell me about it? The dream, I mean. I assume that’s why you had trouble sleeping tonight.”

“Yeah, it is. This one was weird, even for me. I suppose it was prompted by this bizarre . . . I don’t know what to call it. It wasn’t a memory, exactly.

More like a hallucination, I guess, though it didn’t last very long. It happened earlier, when we were talking with Greg in the bar.”

A chill rippled down the length of Drew’s spine. Once more, he saw Greg wreathed in flame, smelled the stench of burning wood and flesh, heard his accusing voice.

You did this to me. The three of you. It’s your fault. All your fault
. . .