Ghost Trackers (24 page)

“Look at that.”

Trevor inclined his head, and when Sherri turned to glance in the direction he indicated, she saw Drew Pearson and Amber Lozier dancing together. When she turned back to Trevor and gave
him a questioning look, he said, “Those two have been in love forever. They’ve just been too dumb to realize it.”

“Good for them,” she said. She took a sip of her Kahlúa and cream. She and Trevor stood near the bar, watching people filter back onto the dance floor. Her feet were still killing her, but she hadn’t kicked off her high heels yet. So far, no one had asked her to dance, but the night was still young, and the DJ hadn’t been playing the most danceable of tunes. One of the paradoxes of being a beautiful woman was that while some guys hit on her because she was so attractive, a lot of guys—maybe more—were intimidated by her looks, figured she was out of their league, and never approached her. It wasn’t uncommon for her to end up alone for long stretches of time at a party or a bar, especially if she was by herself. If she had a girlfriend with her, for some reason, guys seemed to feel more comfortable coming up to talk to her, maybe because they figured that if she shot them down, they could always play it off as if they’d come over because they were more interested in her friend. And tonight she had another factor working against her: as the Eternal Cheerleader, she was viewed as out of reach by her former classmates, especially those guys who’d gained a few pounds and lost some hair since high school.

So, she was glad when Trevor Ward had come over to chat with her, and she’d been a little surprised.
He’d never shown interest in her during high school—at least, no more interest than any of the other boys had, which meant that he’d probably lusted after her from afar—and he definitely fell into the “more weight, less hair” category. But while some people’s glory years ended when they graduated from high school, other people blossomed later, and it seemed he fell into the latter camp. Despite her physical appearance and near-mystical status as Eternal Cheerleader, he didn’t seem intimidated by her. He came off as calm and confident, and best of all, he talked to her as if she was a person instead of a pair of big boobs that happened to be attached to a woman. So what if he’d been a bit of a geek in high school, running around with his two friends investigating ghost stories as if they were Scooby-Doo and the gang? All she cared about was who he was right now: a nice guy who had the balls to talk to her and the intelligence to see beyond her beauty, which put him way ahead of most guys she met.

She was glad that he hadn’t asked her to dance right away. A lot of guys would have used slow dancing as an excuse to touch her before getting a chance to know her. But he seemed content to talk, which was fine by her.

“What do you do these days, Trevor?”

He’d already asked her what sort of work she did, and he hadn’t batted an eye when she’d told him she was a vet. Most people, women included,
acted amazed and more than a little surprised when they learned about her profession, as if it were some sort of miracle that a beautiful woman could also have a brain.

“I’m a writer,” he said. “I do nonfiction books and articles dealing with paranormal events and places associated with supernatural activity.”

That
caught her off guard, but she recovered. “So, you still deal with ghost stories, only now you tell them instead of investigate them.”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

He didn’t seem at all self-conscious about his work, even though he had to know that a lot of people would have cut the conversation short as soon as he said
paranormal
and
supernatural
. Another point in his favor. She found confidence—true confidence, not arrogance or bravado masquerading as confidence—attractive.

She had no special interest in the paranormal or, for that matter, in anything related to spirituality. Her family hadn’t been religious, although her mother read the Bible from time to time, and while some people turned to religion after experiencing a tragedy like the early loss of a spouse, or in some cases turned away from religion, she had done neither. After Brad’s death, she’d gone on with her life the best she could. If anything, she found the idea of an unseen world of ghosts and psychic phenomena to be morbid and a bit creepy. Not to mention a little too close to her zombie dreams for comfort.
Still, she wanted to be polite, and if she wasn’t interested in Trevor’s work itself, she
was
interested in getting to know him better, so she said, “What’s the scariest thing you ever experienced?”

He kept smiling, but not quite as widely as he had a moment ago. “You don’t want to know.” He said it as if it was a joke, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness in his voice, and she feared she’d raised a sore subject without meaning to. She decided to change the topic, but before she could do so, she heard a voice whisper close by.

I know what the scariest thing you’ve ever experienced is, Sherri. And you keep on experiencing it. That’s why you hate closing your eyes and drifting off to sleep each night, isn’t it? Because you never know which night will be one of
those
nights
.

She recognized the voice as Greg’s, but when she turned to look, he wasn’t anywhere nearby. He was standing over by the DJ, talking to some other people. And even if he had been standing right next to her, how could she have heard him whisper, as loud as the music was? But then, the whisper hadn’t been something she’d heard, exactly, not with her ears, anyway. Greg’s words had sounded within her mind, as if they were her own thoughts but “spoken” in his voice. Weird.

She glanced in his direction once more, and this time, he was looking at her and grinning. He seemed amused, as if he was enjoying a private joke. And his eyes . . .

She frowned. His eyes were gone, or rather concealed, covered by dark shadowlike smudges. She told herself it was a trick of the light. It had to be! She continued staring at his shadow eyes, felt them pulling at her. She was aware of Trevor calling her name as a wave of dizziness gripped her. She swayed and feared she might fall, but he grabbed hold of her arm and steadied her. The dizziness passed, and she turned to face him.

“Sorry about that. I think the bartender made my drink stronger than I’m used to. I . . .” She trailed off. Trevor had changed. His skin had become a grayish-green color, and his eyes had sunken into the sockets, the irises and pupils clouded over as if by thick cataracts. His mouth hung open, desiccated lips as dry as two strips of leather, his tongue black and swollen. His hair was shaggy, matted, as coarse as straw, and his suit was ripped in numerous places, the fabric dirty and stained with dark patches that looked like dried blood.

Her voice caught in her throat, and she wanted to scream, but no sound came forth. Her almost empty drink slipped from her fingers, and the glass hit the carpet with a solid thump. She backed away from Trevor, shaking her head, as if trying to deny his existence. But he didn’t vanish, didn’t reassume his normal appearance. Instead, he raised his hands—fingers twisted claws with prominent joints, nails overlong and jagged—let out a gurgling moan, and slid one shuffling foot forward, then the other.

“Fade into You” ended, and the next song began without any patter from the DJ: 10,000 Maniacs’ “These Are Days.” Trevor moaned louder, the sound a grotesque accompaniment to Natalie Merchant’s strong, smooth voice.

He took another step toward her, his leathery lips moving as if he was trying to talk to her, but no recognizable words came out of his mouth, only that sickening, wet moaning, as if he was choking on his own blood.

Sherri couldn’t tear her gaze away from his hideous face, and despite the terror that enclosed her heart in a grip of ice, she couldn’t flee. All she could do was continue taking tiny steps backward, barely managing to keep out of his reach.

She told herself that this couldn’t be happening, that it had to be some kind of delusion, a waking version of her hated zombie dreams. The stress of helping to organize the reunion must have gotten to her, she reasoned. And coupled with the trauma of Sean’s and Jerry’s deaths, it had dredged up a lot of negative emotions that she’d been suppressing. Trevor wasn’t some undead monster coming to kill her. He just seemed that way to her misfiring brain. If she could manage to focus past her fear and concentrate, she should be able to will the delusion away. Trevor would appear normal again, and she could excuse herself and call a cab to take her to the nearest emergency room. But no matter how hard she concentrated, he remained a walking
corpse, moaning and reaching for her, staring ahead with milky-white eyes.

“Are you OK, Sherri?”

She felt a hand come down on her shoulder from behind, and she jumped and let out a piercing shriek. She felt stupid, for she recognized the voice as belonging to Julie Weidner, one of her friends who’d been on the cheerleading squad with her back in high school. That feeling was washed away by relief that someone had come to help her, and she turned to face Julie—

—only to find herself looking into a face even more horrifying than Trevor’s. Not only because the severity of Julie’s condition was worse than his but also because Julie had been a close friend to her once, and seeing her appearance so distorted came as a true shock. Her skin possessed the same grayish-green hue as Trevor’s, and her blue dress was in as bad a condition as his clothing. But while his body was intact, hers had numerous injuries. Her flesh was scored with scratches and bite marks, and in some places, large chunks of meat had been torn or bitten away. Worst of all was her face. The skin beneath her milky left eye and down across her upper lip to beneath her chin had been ripped away, revealing muscle that was as dry as old rawhide. Both her upper and lower teeth were exposed on the left side, giving her a grisly, permanent half-grin.

Her hand still lay on Sherri’s bare shoulder, the
skin as cold and dry as a lizard’s. As Sherri looked into her friend’s dead white eyes, Julie tightened her grip, and Sherri felt cracked and broken fingernails dig into her skin.

She found her full voice then and screamed for all she was worth.

As if the scream broke a dam inside her, she was able to move again, and she tore away from Julie and ducked Trevor’s grasping hands as he reached for her. She started to run toward the door but stopped short when she saw the faces of the crowd turned toward her, and while Natalie Merchant sang about days of laughter and shafts of light, she saw that everyone in the room was staring at her with eyes of clouded ivory.

And then they all began shuffling toward her, moaning in hunger, hands raised, eager to get a piece of the Eternal Cheerleader.

Amber felt a
bit flushed from the wine she’d had, but that was nothing compared with what she felt being in Drew’s arms. She knew she shouldn’t make more of it than it was—just two old friends sharing a slow dance—but she’d fantasized about being close to him like this since she’d been a girl, and for it to finally happen, well, it was nice to know that dreams did come true sometimes. She told herself not to ruin the moment with expectations about what might happen afterward but just to enjoy it for what it was.

The dance floor had been filled, but when “Fade into You” ended and “These Are Days” started, couples began drifting back to their tables. She expected Drew to release her, but he didn’t, and since she didn’t want to let go of him, either, the two of them continued swaying, out of time with the music but in sync with each other.

That’s when the screaming started.

Amber and Drew stopped dancing, but they didn’t separate yet, and both turned to look in the direction of the sound. Sherri Wackler was standing between Trevor and a woman Amber recognized but whose name she couldn’t recall, and Sherri looked terrified out of her mind. She kept whipping her head around as she screamed, wild-eyed and frantic, as if she was searching for a way to escape but couldn’t find it. Everyone was looking at her, concerned and confused, and the DJ cut the music and asked if there was a doctor present.

“I think that’s your cue,” Amber said.

She and Drew stepped away from each other and ran over to Sherri.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Trevor said when they got there. “We were talking, and suddenly, well, this happened.”

Before the three of them could do anything, the other woman—her name was Julie, Amber now remembered—stepped forward and took hold of Sherri’s hands. “It’s OK, honey. Everything’s all right, you’re going to be fine. We’re going to help—”

Sherri shrieked and hit Julie with a solid right cross to the jaw. She staggered back and might have fallen if Drew hadn’t stepped forward to catch her.

Sherri stopped screaming when Drew caught Julie, and her brow furrowed as if she was confused by what he’d done. Trevor took advantage of her distraction to move forward and grab her from behind. He managed to pin her arms to her sides, and while she thrashed back and forth like a wild woman, she wasn’t able to break his grip. She tried slamming the back of her head into Trevor’s face, but he was ready for that, and he leaned to one side or the other to avoid her blows. She then stomped down on his foot with one of her high heels. He let out an exclamation of pain, but he didn’t release her.

Amber hurried over to Drew and took over steadying Julie so he could deal with Sherri. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked.

“I think the same thing that happened to Sean and Jerry is also happening to her. She appears to be experiencing some kind of hallucination, one far worse than anything we saw, and if it keeps up, I’m afraid her heart will give out, just as Sean’s and Jerry’s did.”

The sound of slow clapping came from behind them, and Amber turned to see Greg approaching. Sherri still thrashed in Trevor’s arms, but everyone else in the room stood and watched as Greg came over to join them.

“You always were so smart, Drew,” he said. “But if you were
really
smart, you’d know how to snap Sherri out of her little trance. But that’s not the sort of thing they cover in graduate school, is it?”