The Soul Thief (4 page)

“I’ve got my eye on you,” the sheriff said, then he turned and walked back to his Crown Vic.

Franklin couldn’t help himself. “Y’all have a nice day!” he called out.

He couldn’t hear the sheriff muttering to himself in response, but he did imagine the sheriff had a few choice words for him in reply.

After Sheriff Thompson had driven off, Franklin slumped against a wall of the stand.

What was he going to do? How was he going to hush those howling ghosts?

Ξ

Franklin leaned into the next kiss, his arms wrapped tightly around Julie. He wanted her in a way that he’d never wanted a woman before. She smelled wonderful, like freshly mowed grass and the lavender in her shampoo and her own, warm, womanly scent. He just wanted to hold her close and breathe in her smell along her neck, have it set his world on fire.

They’d had a nice night. He’d grilled steaks out in the backyard, and even eaten the green lettuce salad with the raspberry dressing she’d made without too many complaints. The howling ghosts had been quiet all evening. He hoped they wouldn’t start up again until much, much later, like after midnight.

Franklin sat with Julie on the couch in the living room, and he was getting really comfy. And really uncomfortable too, at the same time, in his jeans.

He was glad he’d put on fresh sheets that morning.

They’d sat watching TV for a while, holding hands, until Julie had sighed and just snuggled up against him. She wore a white T-shirt with pretty lace around the scoop neck, tight enough to show the sliders on her bra straps and all her curves. Instead of her usual jeans, she’d worn a pair of light blue pants that Franklin had teased her about, reminding him of the scrubs she wore for work. Her soft brown hair had felt softer than ever in his hands, and her big hazel eyes sparkled in the dimly lit living room.

Franklin had enfolded her in his arms, started kissing her, and she’d started kissing back.

There weren’t nothing better than this. Well, maybe a couple things.

Still, Franklin was in heaven, with Julie in his arms, fresh kisses between them, and the promise of a warm night ahead.

Franklin didn’t notice anything was wrong until Julie pulled away. She shivered in his arms.

When Franklin tried to pull her closer again, Julie put a hand up in the center of his chest.

That made Franklin pay attention.

Damn it.

The ghosts had started howling again.

“What’s that?” Julie asked, looking around the room.

“What’s what?” Franklin asked. He leaned forward and snuck a kiss on Julie’s neck, taking a quick breath of her scent and holding it.

“That. That sound,” Julie said, shivering again.

Franklin sighed and sat back, giving up. For the moment. “I’ve got some strange ghosts visiting,” he admitted.

“What do you mean?” Julie asked. She looked scared. “Has that creature from last year come back?”

“No, no, nothing like that thing.” Franklin took hold of both of Julie’s hands and brought them to his mouth, to kiss the back of each. He sighed.

“Out with it,” Julie told him. “I had the feeling that something was wrong.”

Franklin nodded. He hadn’t wanted to burden Julie his troubles.

“Two-three days before, I helped a man pass. He walked away from the backyard, out into the cornfield. I
know
he passed on. To whatever is next.” Franklin paused. “Then he came back.”

“How is that possible?” Julie asked.

The howling increased. The second ghost had joined in.

Franklin pulled Julie to his chest, settling her in there, his arms wrapped tightly around her. But he didn’t try to kiss her again.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure what’s going on.”

“That’s why you was yawning all through dinner, isn’t it?” Julie asked. “’Cause even you’re having troubles sleeping through this racket.”

Franklin nodded. “Yeah.”

“So if they just came back, what will make them move on again?” Julie asked.

“I wish I knew,” Franklin said. “A second one showed up this morning.”

Julie nodded, her soft hair sliding across his chest. She shivered again as the ghosts howled louder. “You can tell me these sorts of things, you know,” she said softly.

Franklin kissed her temple. “I know. It’s just hard. I’m not used to telling anyone about the ghosts.” Except Mama, but she didn’t really count.

“I get it,” Julie said. She pushed herself up, off Franklin’s chest, then up off the couch, standing. She held her hand out to Franklin, helping him stand as well.

He knew better than to hope that she was gonna be leading him to the bedroom. Still his heart beat harder when she took his hand.

But she led him through the dining room, back out to the kitchen.

“I’d love to stay, but I just can’t. Not with that kind of noise,” Julie told him. She wrapped her arms around him, then stood on her tippy toes to kiss him lightly. “I’m sorry.”

“I understand,” Franklin said. They couldn’t go to her place for the night—she had roommates. And he weren’t about to suggest something as sordid as a hotel room. His mama raised him better than that.

Franklin walked Julie out to her car—a beat-up old Ford Focus with a specially tuned engine that could outrun most of the other cars on the highway.

He kissed her again, then opened the car door for her get in. The ghosts was out back, but he didn’t want them getting any ideas or following her.

Julie started the engine then rolled down the window. “I know you said that using that knife from Eddie was cheatin’. But maybe you should think about it again.”

Then she peeled up out of his driveway, spinning gravel before she hit the lane, driving away fast, as always.

Franklin thought for a moment. He’d forgotten about Eddie’s blade. He’d given it to his cousin Darryl, for holding.

The blade was triangular, with three raised sides, made from a cold metal. Franklin wasn’t sure what it was about that knife, but it weren’t good.

Franklin wasn’t quite sure what exactly that knife could do. He figured that it was a way to send a ghost to the beyond.

Mama had called it cheating. Instead of doing his duty and helping the ghost, it would have forced them away.

Would it kill a ghost? Or just…disperse it?

Franklin didn’t want to have to use it on the ghosts who’d come back to haunt him.

They might not leave him a choice.

Ξ

Franklin groggily slapped at his alarm the next morning. The ghosts had kept him up most of the night.

When he checked outside, he swore.

Not only had they made so much racket they’d driven Julie away, they’d also started tearing up his corn. They hadn’t destroyed the entire field, just flattened half a dozen stalks on the end.

How long before they destroyed everything growing in his yard?

Franklin shook his head. Damn it. Those ghosts weren’t leaving him much choice.

He was going to have to go get that blade from his cousin Darryl.

Then maybe use it on his unwelcome guests.

Three

FRANKLIN DRAGGED HIS ass to the fruit and vegetable stand Saturday morning, dreading the day ahead. He was so tired he could barely see straight. The ghosts had really set up a racket all night right outside his bedroom window after Julie had left.

He was kind of glad she’d gone and hadn’t had to listen to it.

Karl took one look at Franklin and gave a low whistle. “I don’t want to hear about the good time you had with your girl last night. But man, you look like you was rode hard and put away wet.”

Franklin nodded sheepishly. At least Karl had just given him a good excuse for being tired that day.

Not that he’d ever tell Karl the truth about the strange ghosts. It all felt like too much of a failure, somehow. He’d done his duty. What more was he supposed to do?

“You stay in the back of the stand as much as you can today,” Karl instructed. “Just restock. Don’t be trying to count change. Okay?”

“Thanks,” Franklin said.

“And here,” Karl added, thrusting a bottle of soda at Franklin.

Franklin grimaced at the taste. Too sweet, with a chemical burn in the aftertaste. But he’d forgotten to bring any of his own sweet tea.

And he did need the pick-me-up.

The teenage girls helping at the stand that day—Laticia and Samantha—didn’t make any smart remarks. But he caught them looking his way and giggling a couple of times.

Franklin was too tired to decide if it was better to be laughed at or called weird.

At the end of the day, Karl told him to skedaddle early. Franklin pedaled his bike into town instead of going straight home.

He was tempted to go to his old grocery store, but the store manager, Charlene, had never forgiven him, either for getting in trouble with the law or for Julie. So Franklin went to the fancy new pharmacy store up the hill from Main Street,.

He was going to sleep that night, ghosts be damned.

The store was only a couple months old. It had those annoying fluorescent lights that Franklin hated. The floor was wide open, just a big boxy space with row after row of low shelves.

At least the air conditioning was nice. For a while. Franklin suspected he’d freeze if he had to stay here for any length of time.

Franklin went straight to the section marked, “Sleep Aids.” He found himself some orange, squishy earplugs, like the kind that Darryl had made him wear the one time they’d gone to the gun range. And he found three different types of sleep medicine. He was too tired to figure out which would work best for him, so he just bought all of them.

One of them was bound to do the job.

He paid cash for his goods, helping the girl behind the stand count out his change when the register didn’t show it right.

It weren’t that Franklin thought that the sheriff might be tracking him. But Franklin had seen too many TV shows where paying for something on credit was what brought the police to the criminal.

Though he wasn’t a criminal. And it weren’t really his fault. He’d done his duty, though part of him was starting to feel like he’d failed. Was there something more he was supposed to do?

Stupid ghosts.

Franklin tiredly pedaled back home. He merely glanced at his field, doing a quick count. After the first dozen stalks or so, the ghosts had stopped ravaging his field.

He hoped they wouldn’t pick up where they’d left off. He still really wanted that blue ribbon prize for the best popping corn awarded by the Kentucky State Fair every year.

But he couldn’t fight the ghosts. Not tonight.

Instead, Franklin picked at a bit of leftovers from the night before, even eating a bit more of the green lettuce salad that Julie had left for him.

As the sun went down and the ghosts picked up their howling, he found that the earplugs didn’t really work. The sound pierced through them, straight to his soul, raising goose bumps all along his arms and across his back.

If he couldn’t get them to shut up, at some point, he might have to try a pair of those fancy noise cancellation headphones that he’d seen on the TV.

Though that was just more money flying out the door.

Franklin tried to read the ingredients on the sleeping medicine, finally picking the one that was just pills, not the liquid that smelled too much like cough medicine.

Franklin didn’t like how woozy the medicine made him feel. The room was spinning, like when he’d gone into shock after the creature had attacked him.

He weren’t sure that taking the medicine were any better than listening to the ghosts howl.

In the morning, he didn’t feel a whole lot better. Sure, he’d slept some. But it were, to use the phrase, the sleep of the dead, and he didn’t feel rested.

More stalks of his corn had been trampled that night. What, had the ghosts been having a dance? They lay swirled on the ground.

Franklin shivered. The creature who’d attacked him the year before had looked like a whirlwind, with black whip-like arms made of thorns.

The creature hadn’t come back. But there had been a wind out there, blowing last night, that Franklin had slept through.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, Franklin was gonna fetch that knife from Darryl. Just the prospect exhausted him. But he had to do something.

He weren’t about to go a second year not competing with Karl for who grew the best popping corn. That just weren’t right.

Ξ

While Franklin was dressing for church that morning, putting on his good gray Sunday suit with the green shirt that both Julie and his cousin May liked, he thought seriously about calling May and asking for a ride.

Though she’d be happy to come and pick him up, or send her husband Henry after him if she was too tied up with the kids, she’d also insist on knowing all the particulars of why he wasn’t feeling up to riding on his bicycle. It weren’t too hot a day, and it weren’t raining, either.

Franklin couldn’t lie to May any more than he’d been able to lie to Mama. Maybe it was a woman thing. But he couldn’t just tell her it was cause he felt like a ride that day.

Besides, he had to go talk with Darryl after church, and probably follow him home after dinner at Aunt Jasmine’s. Best he have his own transportation and not be relying on others.

Franklin took his time pedaling to church. He always liked Sundays, riding along the quiet streets of Katherinesville, waving at folks just getting up themselves, at the kids playing in their yards. He took the pretty route, along the streets with the old oak trees growing and the colonial houses, made out of brick and solid.

If he’d had time, he might have driven by the Sorrel’s place. But Franklin didn’t like going by there as often anymore. After Adrianna died—killed by the creature—her husband Ray had seemed to have the wind knocked out of him. He’d always had white hair, but he’d been a hearty soul. Now, he seemed old.

Franklin still made a point of inviting Ray to dinner at least once a month. He was going to have to do that again in the next week or so.

That was, if he could quiet the ghosts at his place. Adrianna had been special, able to see lines of power in the very earth itself. Ray didn’t need any reminders of that, of ghosts or special abilities.