The Ghost Runner (9 page)

W
hen I arrive at Lithia Runners for my shift before school, I enter through the back, as I usually do. Out on the floor, David is nowhere to be found, but I see a woman in running gear who's looking over the women's shoe selection.

I go up to her. “Can I help you?”

She turns around. “With what?”

Then I notice that she's wearing a Lithia Runners shirt. That it reads
Staff
, just like mine.

“Who're you?” I ask.

“I'm Kendra,” she says, giving me a puzzled look. Then a sort of recognition crosses her face, and she says, “You must be Kat. David told me you'd be coming in today.”

“Of course,” I say. “I come in at this time almost every day.”

“Well, you don't have to anymore.” Kendra smiles. “David told me you've been busy. He brought me in so I can give you guys a break.”

So he actually did it. He hired someone else. “I don't need a break. I already told him that.”

“Well, you don't have to leave right now or anything,” Kendra says. “But David said you're in a play at the college, and—”

“I don't care what he said,” I tell her. She simply stares at me, with a strange sort of calm. She's older than I am, closer to David's age, and has the same trim, athletic look that Stacey did. Another runner, probably—after all, who else would want to work in a running store? But as I'd told David, I'm not about to be replaced.

“I plan to keep all my regular hours here,” I continue, “so whatever David told you—”

Then I feel firm hands on my shoulders, and I turn around. David.

“I told Kendra she could take two shifts a week off your hands,” he says, “and that is what she will do. I need some time away from the store myself. This will be good for us.”

I drag David to the back. “David, I can't give up these shifts. I need the money.”

“If you need extra money, I'll help you out,” he says. “But I'd like for you to take some time to focus on school and the play. And maybe have a little fun?”

“How could you go hire her without even telling me?”

“Look, Kat, I know you don't want to be replaced, and you never will be,” he says. “But this is not only about you. Kendra just got her graduate degree in sports psychology, but she had to move back here from Colorado to take care of her mother, who is very sick, and she needs the extra money even more than you do. She's only here part-time, and it's going to be a big help for me—for both of us.”

“But, David—”

“The decision's been made, Kat. Look, if you don't like your new schedule after a couple of weeks, you can go back to your regular one. How's that?”

I feel relieved—also a little selfish and petty, but mostly relieved. “I guess with Alex and me not together anymore I'm at loose ends. I'm just not sure what to do with myself without work.”

He puts an arm around me. “All the more reason to get more involved with school.”

“I guess.”

“Why don't you start now?” he suggests. “Take the day off. Rehearse, study, go for a run. Or just relax.”

“All right.”

I don't tell David that the last thing I want is to be on my own until class. To think about everything. To wonder if Tyler will ever return my phone call. To wish I'd never left him a message in the first place.

Then I realize that I have an opportunity: Since I didn't do my usual run last night, I'll go now. And maybe I'll have another chance to see the ghost.

One thing Alex said about ghosts has always stuck with me: If you see ghosts, it's because they
want
you to see them; it's because they have something to tell you.

I feel exactly this way about the ghost that has shown herself to me. The only problem is, she hasn't given me her message yet.

But what can a ghost tell me that a vampire cannot? Alex had gone mute when I pressed him for answers. Maybe he didn't know. But maybe if I can find that ghost again, she'll give me an answer.

Back in my cottage, I lace up my shoes and head for the trail. Before I get to the trail entrance, I pass the Highland Hills development. I rarely run here during the day, so I haven't yet witnessed the beeping trucks and the yellow construction machines clawing at mountains of dirt and the men clinging to the wooden frames of houses. I look for my dad but don't see him. Maybe he's on a break or working somewhere I can't see. Or maybe he quit.

Again I hear Alex's voice in my head, talking about how Ed Jacobs is destroying the hills. Alex is right. What used to be a forest is now just mounds of dirt awaiting some machines to sculpt it flat enough to hold a driveway, or a foundation, or a swimming pool.
They could have worked around the older-growth trees and let them live,
Alex said,
but that would have been too expensive, would have slowed them down. It was easier to just tear them all out and plant a few seedlings after. People in construction have no patience for nature's pace. Nature moves too slowly for them.

As much as I hate to admit it, after only two days, I miss Alex. Or maybe I miss the
idea
of him, knowing he's nearby or that we'll read together over coffee some evening or go for a trail run. I miss our rituals. Anger isn't the only emotion I feel toward Alex; I wonder sometimes whether I was too hard on him. Then again, maybe I wasn't hard enough. Like Roman, he never saw his victims as human beings; they were just food—the way people don't see cows and chickens and pigs as living, breathing creatures but only as food. But each life means something to someone else—each life is important. Alex knows that now, even if he didn't know it back then.

Maybe I should have been more understanding. I do miss how he runs his hands through my hair when we're sitting together. His arm around my back, his hand squeezing my shoulder. The way he whispers silly jokes into my ear.

But I'm not ready to let him off the hook. Not yet. He took my mother from me. And he hasn't been very friendly to my father either. I used to think of David and Alex as my new family, but now Alex is gone and David is replacing me with some sports psychologist—so I guess I'll have to redefine the word all over again.

As I enter the safety of trees I stop to wipe my face. I look into the trees, searching for movement, a sign of the ghost. I see and hear nothing but the swaying of the tree branches in the wind.

“Kat, you're losing your mind,” I say aloud. “You're up here looking for a ghost. And not just any ghost but an old friend. Not only that, you're now talking to yourself.”

Still nothing. No one out there to hear me.

“Stacey?” I figure as long as I'm talking to myself, I might as well try to talk to her, too. “Stacey, it's me, Kat. Where are you?”

I hear movement in the trees behind me and spin around. But I see only a deer, her eyes wide, staring at me. I watch her tiptoe away from me, munching on leaves, her ears swiveling around to listen, to keep track of where I am. Then she disappears into brush.

When I turn back to the trail, I feel the air in my lungs freeze.

The ghost is right in front of me. About ten yards away, standing on the trail, watching me. A pale white form, barely visible, thin in both stature and substance. I can see straight though her, as if she is nothing more than a wispy cloud.

She is waiting, sizing me up, I think—but for what? My stomach is tense, and I ready myself for another blistering run down the trail to the safety of civilization.

But first—I want to reach out. The ghost is only standing there, watching me; I don't think I'm in any immediate danger. “Stacey,” I say. “Is that you?”

The figure doesn't move. I don't even know whether she heard me or not, but I keep talking. “I'm so sorry for what happened here. I hope you can forgive me.”

Then she comes forward, and the way she moves is like a human walking, only smoother, as if she is half-gliding. I resist the urge to back away.
It's only an apparition
, I tell myself.
It's only air. She won't hurt you
.

She comes closer—and the thing about her being a ghost, just a fog of a thing, is that I can't see a face, an expression. I can't know what her intentions are—if she's angry, for example, and wants to hurt me. I raise my arms, in case I need to protect myself, but the next thing I know, she has passed right through my arms, then through the rest of me, and I feel a chill, as if I'm standing in front of an open fridge. I spin around to see branches rustling behind me. She is gone.

I'm still cold, standing here in the forest in the middle of summer. The temperature must be in the nineties by now, but I still feel the chill of the ghost's body passing through mine. I want to believe it was Stacey, that this was some sort of ghostly hug, her way of forgiving me.

It's a comforting story—that this is not some creepy ghost out to scare me but an old friend here to forgive me. But somehow it doesn't feel right.

Was she here to warn me instead?

If you see ghosts, it's because they
want
you to see them. It's because they have something to tell you
.

I shiver and then turn around, slowly. There she is.

And then the branches part again, and she begins to fade. Without thinking I leap over a bush, off the trail, to follow her.

Into the woods.

She is right in front of me, and I get the feeling that she wants me to follow her, and so I keep running, nearly tripping myself as I try to mimic her movements over the bushes, between the branches. She isn't easy to chase—I glimpse only white flashes, like gusts of smoke whisking around the trees. She apparently can glide right over the fallen branches and thorny bushes, while I'm clumsily barreling through, accumulating scratches on my legs and prickly burrs on my socks.

And then I lose sight of her. She darts between a thick cluster of trees, and I wait to see on which side of the trees she'll emerge. Only she doesn't.

So I round the trees, and then I come face-to-face with that same white mist—only this time, it's another ghost. A different ghost.

This one's the figure of a man—a huge, ghostly man carrying a pickax—and then I see with horror that he is raising it up toward me.

I fall backward onto the dirt, and I want to close my eyes, but instead I look up to see the pickax above me, poised to strike.

This is a ghost, I remind myself—nothing more than air. He can't actually harm me. Or can he?

I pull myself back to a crouch and spring away. I've gotten all turned around and don't even know which way I'm heading, but I can't stop now—a quick glance back is all it takes to see that he is coming after me, and fast.

What happened to Stacey? Or did she change shape and become this—this scary new entity? All I know is that he is gaining on me and that I'm so winded I'm not sure how much farther I can go.

And then I'm falling.

And falling.

Until everything goes black.

W
hen I open my eyes, all I see is dirt. A dirt wall in front of me. Dirt below me. I turn my head, and the dull throbbing in my forehead reminds me that I've fallen. I follow the dim tunnel of light and see the hole I've fallen through, not much bigger than a manhole cover, about six feet above. As I turn my head back and forth, I see that I'm in what appears to be a small cave, a chilly igloo of dirt and rocks and pine needles.

I look back up at the entrance, expecting to see the ghost looking down at me. I'm half-expecting the ghost to cover up the hole, using his pickax to bury me alive. But all I see is the bright glow of daylight, which, against the darkness of this cave, makes my eyes blur and intensifies my headache. I look away and try to catch my breath, examining, by touch in the dark, my aching arms and legs, checking for blood. Making sure everything still works as it should. Though nearly every joint, bone, and muscle hurts right now, and though I've added to my growing cut and scratch collection, I'm basically okay.

I sit cross-legged and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once they do, I look around, seeing nothing but dirt. Then a glint catches my eye, and I reach toward it. It's a dull, copper-colored nugget, no bigger than a nickel but heavy for its size. Like lead. As I wipe it clean on my T-shirt, the lighter color this reveals is enough to take my mind off the ghost and the pain.

Could this be gold?

A memory flashes through my mind, so old and faded I thought it was gone forever. I was about six years old, and it was summer. My mom took me and my dad on a long hike to a secret swimming hole she knew about. We reached a clearing in the woods, with a clear, spring-fed pool at the base of a waterfall. I swam in the icy water while Mom watched over me and Dad napped. The water was too cold for them, but not for me. The sun shone on us through the trees like a spotlight.

My mother warned me to stay close to shore. She didn't want me getting near the waterfall and getting sucked underwater. But I was a stubborn child—a trait I've yet to grow out of—and I wanted to go under that cascade of water. I was an excellent swimmer and fearless underwater. I swam right into the wall of falling water and let it push me under, tossing me around and around. Then I'd resurface and do it all over again.

It didn't take long for Mom to realize what I was doing and call me back, and I reluctantly obeyed. So instead of toying with the waterfall, I took to testing my lungs. I used to enjoy diving deep into swimming pools and lakes, hovering just above the bottom, seeing how long I could go before my lungs compelled me to rise to the surface.

Thanks to the spring, this little pond appeared bottomless, and it was as clear as a swimming pool. As I descended, I could feel the push of the spring water, freezing cold, coming at me from below. I swam straight into it. I enjoyed the resistance, as well as the fact that I was basically playing the same waterfall game but without my mom knowing about it.

Up and down I went. Going up for air, relaxing my lungs to take in as much oxygen as possible, then diving back down again.

Gradually, my eyes acclimated to the underwater dimness, and I noticed a sparkle of something. I swam closer and saw that it was a piece of gold the size of a misshapen marble. My lungs were empty and burning, but I pushed down a bit farther and grabbed it, then spun around and raced back to the light above.

When I resurfaced I could hear screaming. It was my mom, standing along the shore, face red and frightened. Then I felt a sharp pull on my arm—my dad, in the water, grabbing me, dragging me to shore.

My mom was hysterical, my dad more scared than angry, and still somewhat sleepy. My mom hugged me—she thought I had drowned, and she'd panicked and woken up Dad. I was about to tell them about my great discovery but realized that in all the confusion I had dropped the rock. I looked around for it, but it had disappeared back underwater, and my parents were already whisking me away from the pool.

I'm not sure whether what I'd found was gold—but later that summer, there were rumors about gold on the Rogue River, and Dad sank the last of our savings into mining equipment and a thin parcel of land. He was lost up there for months, finding nothing but fool's gold—such an appropriate term—and discovering in the end that everything he'd bought was worthless. He sold it all at a loss and came home just before Mom died. I never did tell him about that little nugget I'd found. I figured by then it was just more fool's gold.

Now, I turn the piece of rock I've just found over in my hand and wonder if it might be real. Could those rumors have been true after all?

I look up toward the cave entrance and see that the light has shifted—I've been down here for too long. I scramble along the cave's walls, pulling myself up by rocks and tree roots, until I emerge from the hole. I hold the rock tightly in my hand as I hurry back down the trail toward town.