Predator and Prey Prowlers 3 (16 page)

It meant the monster had a plan.

Careful not to make too much noise, Jack took a shower and tried to figure out how to deal with both things at once. Given that he wasn’t sure where to start in either situation, all he got for his efforts was a lot of frustration. Things were lurking in the shadows in the fleshworld and in the afterlife, waiting to hurt Jack and the people he loved. The Ravenous had his scent. This other guy, the flesh-and-blood monster, it knew where he lived. And on top of all that, though he had taken her to the hospital the night before, Molly was still obviously pissed at him.

Artie,
he thought as he dried off after the shower.
Where’d you go, buddy?

Back in his room he ran a brush through his hair and then put on shorts and a worn Harvard University T-shirt, the kind they sold at every tourist spot in town. Warm as it was, he saw no point in dressing for work until it was actually time to go downstairs.

Jack’s mind went back to the conversation he had had with Father Mike the day before. It astonished him to think of all that had taken place in less than twenty-four hours earlier. Going to the priest with questions about the Ravenous and the afterlife and ghosts in general had seemed like an obvious choice, but the visit had proven fruitless.

“
The church hasn’t a formal position on the matter, and frankly, neither do I.”

The priest’s words reverberated in Jack’s mind now. Ghosts existed. Jack saw them, spoke to them, but this man of God wasn’t quite sure they were real. It did not undermine his faith in any way—after all, who knew better than he did that there was an afterlife? But it had been a huge disappointment. Now he had no idea where to start.

“All right, Artie,” Jack said to the empty room, his voice low so as not to wake the others. “After last night I know you haven’t gone far. If you’re still around, we need to talk, don’t you think?”

“
Hey.”

Without any surprise at all, Jack turned to see the ghost coalescing on the other side of the room. The sunshine was so bright in the windows that the spectral form was barely visible. Sheer and nearly colorless, Artie did not obscure the walls and windows and bookshelf behind him. It was almost as though he were made of cool, clear water that somehow pooled in the middle of the air.

He seems farther away,
Jack thought. It was an odd idea to have spring into his mind, and he had no idea where it came from. Now was hardly the time to examine it, however.

“Hey,” Jack replied.

“
Is she all right?”
Artie asked.

They didn’t have to discuss who
she
was.

“Didn’t you look in on her?”

Artie’s form shimmered. “
After last night, I thought I should give her some space.”

A silence fell between them. Jack kept turning both of his present dilemmas over in his head. Artie drifted a bit closer, taking on a bit more color as he moved away from the windows.

“
So what now?”
the ghost asked.

Another minute ticked by until Jack sighed and met Artie’s black gaze.

“This corpse in Bill’s trunk last night? He died ugly. His spirit’s gotta be wandering around somewhere. I need you to find him, track him down. That’s the only way we’re going to get a lead on who’s trying to kill us before he tries again. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking into the Ravenous, try to find someone who has a clue what I’m talking about who isn’t already dead.” Artie had his hands shoved into the pockets of his torn sweatshirt, and he nodded as Jack spoke.

Suddenly the ghost’s eyes widened, and then Artie glanced guiltily at the ground, a stricken expression on his face.

Without turning, Jack knew Molly had entered the room.

“Good morning boys,” she said, her voice a sleepy rasp. “Don’t you think it’s time we all had a talk?”

Molly felt as though something had given way inside her, like she had been suffocating and now she could finally breathe again. The emotions that had twisted up inside her, all that grief and anger, began to melt away like snow on the first warm spring day. She had no explanation for this sudden purge, but it seemed to her that her ability to reason had been drowned in emotion, and the events of the night before had given her a fresh perspective.

On her way to the shower, clad only in the things she had slept in and a blue cotton robe Artie had bought her the previous Christmas, Molly heard Jack talking quietly in his room. There had been no doubt in her mind with whom he was speaking with.

Now she stood in the open doorway and Jack stared at her awkwardly. Molly glanced about the room and a tenderness blossomed in her heart. She had always believed that one could tell a great deal about a person simply by visiting the place where they spent most of their private time. Her own mother’s bedroom, for instance, was a domestic crime scene scattered with unwashed clothes, too much makeup, the detritus of bad relationships, and a line of bottles on one windowsill she insisted on referring to as “the liquor cabinet.” Molly had not so much escaped her mother’s self-destruction as she had survived it.

Jack’s surroundings spoke well of him. The sunlight that washed through the windows gleamed off the hardwood floor. The room was almost too neat, a place for everything and everything in its place, as though it were a hotel room and the maid had just been through. Yet the bookshelf laden with biographies and paperback westerns, the neatly stacked twin towers of CDs against the wall, and the framed photograph of his late mother on the bureau were in stark contrast to that impression.

“So you’ve got nothing to say?” she asked.

“Molly, I . . .” Jack ran a hand through his short, spiky hair and his eyes darted toward the opposite corner of the room near the windows. When he looked at her again, he raised both eyebrows and shrugged, a penitent expression on his face. “I guess I just don’t know what I can say that isn’t going to piss you off.” For a moment Molly made no response. Her attention was focused on that corner of the room. She tried to imagine she could see Artie there and for a moment it was as though he stood with them, fidgeting, shaking back his shaggy blond hair, just as awkward as Jack was.

The ghost was there, she was certain of that.

But Molly could not see him.

“You’re probably right,” she confessed, her gaze drifting back to Jack and then focusing on him fully. “You’ve apologized enough. That doesn’t make it okay, and it doesn’t take any of the hurt and the weirdness away.” Jack started to speak but Molly held up a hand to hush him.

“You’ve explained it enough, Jack. I get it. Artie’s . . . not coming back,” she said, her eyes darting toward that sunlit corner again. “He didn’t want to keep me from moving on. And you promised you wouldn’t say anything. We’ll get back to that part. First I have a couple of confessions to make. Sit down.” Arms still wrapped around herself, Molly walked toward the spot in the corner where Jack had looked. She stepped into the pooling sunlight and felt its heat, felt it begin to warm her instantly. Her back to Jack, she closed her eyes, relished the sun on her face, and imagined Artie was there with her, his arms slipping around her from behind as he kissed the back of her head. But this silent moment of intimacy between them would never have lasted more than a few seconds while he was alive. His mind was so full of thoughts and curiosities and his heart so full of passion and doubt that in life he had been unable to be still for very long.

When Molly faced Jack again, he was seated on the edge of the bed.

“You were right. I knew. And when you lied to me, I knew it was a lie, but I convinced myself it was true because that’s what I needed to believe. For the same reasons Artie gave you. So some of this is my fault.”

Jack nodded slightly. “Well—”

“Don’t even start. I said some, not all. No fooling around, Jack, I don’t have a handle yet on how to sift through the blame on this, but I know I’m still angry at you. At
both
of you.”

And there it was again.
Both of them.
In the moments of awkwardness since she had entered the room Molly had been painfully aware of the ghost’s presence but had mainly addressed her comments to Jack. But now . . .

“Where is he?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Jack hesitated only a moment before pointing to a place between where she stood in the warmth of the sun-splashed floor and the bed where he sat. Molly realized she must have walked right past him, even through him, and she felt an electric tingle of fear run through her. It was irrational, she knew. Artie would never hurt her. In the past few months there had been several times when she had been with Jack and
known
there were ghosts there, the lingering spirits of the dead. So why this trepidation now?

Then she knew. It was not Artie she feared, it was his death. Her own death. Having his ghost there, so close, was an intimate whisper in her ear reminding her that one day she would also pass into whatever limbo he now wandered.

Stop it!
Molly told herself.
It’s Artie.

“Artie,” she said aloud, addressing him for the first time. Her eyes searched for some point in the room to focus on as a substitute for him, but found nothing and so she turned again to Jack. “Can he hear me?”

“Yeah. He’s sorry too, Mol. He—”

Jack stopped midsentence and stared at the spot in the middle of the room where he had pointed a moment before. Molly swallowed, her throat suddenly too dry. The way Jack gazed into nothingness, she knew he was listening to Artie, hearing the voice of the dead.

Then he looked at her. “If you want to talk to him, I can tell you what he says. Like a translator or—”

“A medium,” Molly finished for him.

Jack nodded, but Molly wasn’t looking at him anymore. Barely aware of her own movements, she sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at that spot just a few feet away. In her mind she tried to summon an image of Artie again, the way she had when she first walked in, but it wouldn’t come.

When she spoke again, it was to Artie.

“Hi,” Molly began.

From across the room, Jack responded. “Hola, chica.”

A smile rippled across her face and Molly laughed softly. It was surreal, certainly, and more than a little unnerving. But it was real.
Hola, chica.
That was Artie, all right, just one among a thousand little expressions that were all him, like the way he often called Jack “bro.”

“I . . . I miss you.”

“Don’t get me started,” Jack replied.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear Artie’s voice. Her chest tightened as joy and grief warred within her.

“I know you’ve been watching me, you little perv,” she teased.

“Only in the shower. And getting ready for bed. Good thing I was watching you last night.”

Molly glanced away, looked out the window. “I guess.”

There was a long pause before Jack spoke again, giving her Artie’s words, his sorrow.

“I know it can’t be like this. When this thing with the Ravenous is over, and after I’ve done what I can to help get rid of the Prowler from last night . . .”

The words trailed off and Molly glanced around to see Jack staring at the center of the room. Once again, in that moment, she thought she might have been able to see a silhouette there of her laughing boy, her crazy love.

“What is it, Jack?” Molly asked. “What’s he saying?”

An expression that was almost one of anger swept over Jack’s features, and then he turned to Molly. “He’s going to go on. When all this is done, he won’t be around anymore. He says to tell you it’s best for all of us. You and me and him. That his business is done.” Tears threatened at the corners of Molly’s eyes, but at the same time, she was nodding. “Maybe so. But will you . . . will you be able to come back?”

“He doesn’t know. ‘I’ll try, if you need me, or if I learn more about the Prowlers. But it isn’t right, you having to feel this.’ ”

Molly dropped her gaze. “You know, after all this, I guess I don’t mind so much. I told Jack before that I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. It turns out last night proved me wrong. God knows with the family I’ve got, I’ve never been very good at that kind of thing. Maybe I do need someone, but no more than Jack does.”

“Everyone needs someone to watch over them. To watch their back.”

After a long moment, her throat still dry, Molly turned to address Jack. “So what now? I heard you talking to Artie before. He’s going to look for the ghost of the dead man in Bill’s trunk. But what about the Ravenous? You have no idea how to find more information on it?” Jack offered a small shrug. “The priest I talked to was no help. I thought I’d look into some other religions. We talked about mediums, but they all seem like such bullshit artists.”

“You’re a medium,” she said sharply.

“I guess. But I don’t know a damn thing. It’s the ones who claim to know everything that probably aren’t worth asking.”

Molly turned that one over in her mind. “My mother went to one up in Newburyport a couple of years ago. She might not be for real, but Mom sure thought so.”

Obviously skeptical, and understandably so given that her mother was the source, Jack gazed at her for a long moment before nodding in agreement. “I guess it’s worth a shot.”

It was only silence in the room then, the two of them—probably the three of them—shifting uncomfortably, knowing that they had reached the end of things. A true end, now, or at least its preamble.

I love you,
she wanted to say. But what she said instead was more true. “I loved you. I don’t think I can say goodbye.”

Jack said nothing, only stared at the ground.

“What?” Molly urged. “What did he say?”

He raised his eyes and she wondered in that moment if looking from the right angle she might not have seen Artie reflected there.

“Good-bye was a long time ago. I just didn’t hear it then.”

Molly’s right hand came up to cover her mouth as though she might scream. But it was not a scream she was trying to hold in, it was a plea to this ghost not to go, not to leave her. She knew those words would not be fair to either of them, for he was already gone.