Author's Note: You guys are awesome, your feedback means so much! This chapter is a beast, sorry.
Playlist for the chapter: Rainbow in the Dark – Dio, Lunatic Fringe – Red Rider, Magic Carpet Ride – Steppenwolf
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Lisa Stops Running, Fights a Ghost, and Makes a Friend
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Several days later Lisa ended up in a small scenic town near Buffalo, Wyoming.
She had taken the bike and headed west, escaping as far and as fast as she could go. Once the fear had died away, an aching despair had replaced it. When it got too much for her she found herself staring at her haggard reflection in the broken bathroom mirror of a small roadside gas station diner. Frightened dark eyes looked back at her from the dirty mirror. Yellowed bruises dotted her cheek, neck, and jaw, leftovers from her run in with the monster that had taken Ben. Her hair was a bedraggled mess. Lisa tugged off the red scarf she'd been keeping over her clumpy hair. The monster had given her no small number of uneven spots on the back of her head when it threw her, ripping some of her hair out in the process.
On the whole, she looked like an abuse victim. No wonder people gave her sideways looks.
She splashed her face with water and shoved her straggly, dirty hair back up underneath its scarf. Being stuffed under a motorcycle helmet for eight hours a day, on top of being ravaged by a psychotic monster was doing her hair no favors. Oh well, it wasn't like she was winning any points with her appearance when she was a mom in Battle Creek. There'd been no one around to see it at its best then, wither. Lisa left the bathroom; hands shoved deep into the pockets of her leather jacket, and made her way to the front counter to pay for the coffee she'd had earlier.
The waitress waiting behind the cash register waved her away when Lisa pulled out her wallet to pay.
"Don't worry about it honey," she said, eyeing the bruises and the scarf, "It's on the house."
Lisa was too numb or else she would have blushed with embarrassment. She wasn't used to peoples' pity. Instead she murmured a quick "Thanks" and headed for the door. She needed to get back on the road. Lisa didn't know where exactly she was going, just that she couldn't stop. If she stopped, the nightmares and the memories of her dead friends and neighbors dogging her heels might catch up with her.
"Hey, Lady-" the waitress reached out and caught Lisa's elbow with a pudgy hand.
Lisa turned and found a sympathetic look on the woman's round face.
"I have a number, if you need help. There's a women's shelter just down the street-"
"I'm fine," Lisa said firmly, and offered the waitress a grateful smile. "I appreciate the concern, but I'm okay."
The woman still looked uncertain, but her hand dropped from Lisa's arm. Lisa felt like she should say something further to reassure her, but a trio of college students coming through the door of the diner stopped her. Maybe it was the cheery chime, or their frantically whispering voices carrying in the quiet diner, maybe it was her frazzled nerves paying extra attention. Maybe it was even fate. Whatever it was, a thread of their conversation drifted over and caught in her brain like a fly trapped on the wrong side of a window.
"Did you see her eyes?" a short girl with a round, heart shaped face hissed.
The lone boy in the group squeezed the girl's shoulder. "It's over, it's done. We swore we wouldn't talk about it anymore, Kaylee."
The other girl, tall and willowy, put her hands on her hips. "Meredith is DEAD, Jake. We can't just ignore that."
"We can," he said firmly. "She wouldn't have wanted-"
"We don't know what she would have wanted, since that black eyed bitch broke her freaking neck," Kaylee snapped quietly.
They may have said more, but Lisa didn't hear it. There was a roaring in her ears. Black eyes. The thing that had possessed her neighbor had had black eyes. The smoke that had taken Ben was black. Had it followed her? Or was it merely coincidence that it was here in this town? Lisa found her feet heading in a straight line to the terrified kids, leaving the startled waitress behind. She had to get them to talk to her, though she didn't quite know how to do it. Ben was counting on her to save him. If this was the same thing that had taken her son, she had to find out how to kill it or die trying.
The lies poured from her mouth before she could stop them. "I'm a therapist for Battle Creek General. You sound like you're in trouble, is there anything I can do to help?" She winced inwardly. Her lie was really, really stupid. Like being a physical therapist allowed her any sort of leeway into asking strangers questions.
"No, we don't any help. Piss off lady," the boy snarled, red darkening his cheeks, but his anger stemmed from fear rather than annoyance.
Lisa could see the naked terror in his eyes. He was deathly afraid of something, they all were. The girls crowded around behind the boy like he would protect them. From what, Lisa wasn't sure. She hoped it was the thing that took her son. Bad for them, good for her. The group of kids were certainly riding the knife edge between panic and terror, something that didn't stem from a normal problem.
"I only want to help," Lisa murmured, making her voice low and comforting. It was the tone she used for the kids who needed to learn to use their limbs again. Frightened children who had to get past their fear in order to tackle learning to walk again.
"It's okay, you can talk to me. It will be completely confidential," she continued softly, speaking more to Kaylee than to any of the rest. The girl seemed like she was wavering between staying silent and spilling the beans.
Lisa knew she'd picked the right target when two fat tears leaked down Kaylee's round red cheeks. Lisa felt guilty for manipulating her, but justified it with the knowledge that she really did want to help them. What took Ben from her and killed June could not be allowed to continue to hurt anyone else.
"Shut up Kaylee," Jake hissed, sensing his friend's weakness. "We can handle it."
"No," Kaylee snarled, turning on him, "No we can't handle it. Meredith is dead, and that thing that killed her is still out there."
Lisa put an arm around Kaylee's heaving shoulders. "Here, come sit down and tell me what's wrong. I'll buy you all a cup of coffee."
The offer of free coffee got Jake and the other girl. They trailed after Lisa and Kaylee toward a secluded booth at the back of the diner. Lisa flagged down the waitress, who'd been lurking nearby with a concerned look on her face, and ordered coffee for everyone. While the waitress disappeared into the kitchen for a fresh pot of coffee, Lisa studied pale frightened faces looking back at her. They were so young, just kids really.
It was remarkably easy how she fell back into the role of concerned mom, and patient doctor. "Tell me what's wrong, what happened. You're not in trouble, I just want to do what I can to help you," Lisa said. She looked them all in the eye and kept her mom face on: equal parts gentleness and caring with a little bit of omniscient sternness.
"My name is Jill," the tall previously nameless girl said quietly, "and thank you for listening to us. Not many adults would, they'd call us crazy."
The coffee arrived and Lisa filled their cups. They all sat there a moment, hands cupped around battered white ceramic, staring into the varying shades of coffee.
Kaylee finally took a deep shuddering breath and began to speak. Lisa didn't dare break the spell by interrupting her.
"There's the old McDonnell Lodge, up in the mountains. It's run as a bed and breakfast now, but its super old. It used to be a civil war era hunting resort for one of the town founders," Kaylee said and took a shuddering sip of her coffee. "He was kind of a hunting nut- lions and tigers and all that. Real Ernest Hemingway type. It's a local legend around here that he loved hunting so much that when his wife tried to divorce him, he turned her out onto the property and hunted her. No one could prove it, or ever found her body. He said she ran off with another guy. There's this rumor that on nights of the new moon you can still find her haunting the place."
"Let me guess," Lisa said, "It's custom for kids to sneak in and spend the night during the new moon."
Jake glared at her. "How'd you know?"
Lisa shrugged. "I had my rebellious streak too." Lisa didn't add that her rebellious streak had occurred when she was an adult, and had landed her the honor of being a single mom.
"We snuck in," Jill said. "The four of us. The owners were asleep! A group of classmates had done it last week and we wanted to fit in."
"The clock hit midnight," Kaylee whispered, "And then she appeared, out of thin air! Meredith tried to hit her when she came at us, but her fist went straight through her. The ghost just broke Meredith's neck like it was nothing. We-we ran away."
Lisa's heart sank. It didn't sound at all like the thing that had taken Ben. What had taken Ben didn't appear and disappear, and it wasn't on a time schedule. She knew instinctively that her son wasn't here. She was no closer to him then when she had started. For some reason she wanted to take the coffee up in her hand and throw it, just to see the ceramic shatter and the hot coffee hiss against the faded black and white tile. The despair hit her like a sucker punch.
"That's it," Jake said. "That's the story. You happy now, lady? Gonna call us crazy?"
"No," Lisa said simply. "I believe you." And in that moment she realized that not only did she believe them, but that even though Ben wasn't here she was going to do her best to try to help them.
"What are you going to do?" Jill asked. "What can you do? That thing is already dead, you can't kill it! You can't kill something that's already dead!"
"I can try," Lisa muttered. She rose and tossed a few bills onto the table that would cover the coffee and the poor waitress's tip.
The kids were still looking up at her uncertainly. Lisa was reminded that they were just scared children and she was just one person. The reality of what she was about to do weighed on her. What could she do, really? To save any of them? To save Ben? She didn't have her parents, she couldn't drag her sister into whatever this was, and June was dead. Lisa had no one she could go running to. No one but herself.
"Could one of you give me directions to this McDonnell place, please?"
With directions hastily jotted down onto a crumpled paper napkin stuck in the back pocket of her jeans, Lisa left the diner. The bell jangled behind her as the door slammed shut. It no longer sounded cheery, more like a siren heralding some coming storm.
The reality of what she was going to do finally hit her. Lisa Braeden was going to go try to kill a freaking ghost. Who'd have thought?
Her breath puffed out in white clouds in front of her face as Lisa pulled on her motorcycle gloves. She inhaled deep. The chilly air smelled crisp, with the barest promise of snow. It was autumn in Wyoming. The birch trees' leaves were a bright yellow green, the wind rattling through them like a fortune teller rattling the bones. The afternoon sun shone through the leaves to hit the blacktop in front of her. The road wound up through the little picturesque town and up into the mountains. Lisa jammed her helmet on her head and then threw a leg over the bike. June's Harley coughed once and then started with a soft purr. A quick check of the fuel gauge told her she would be good for another fifty miles. She backed the bike out, feeling the familiar weight of the motorcycle press against her thighs. Since Ben had been taken, and June killed, she felt like the motorcycle was her only grounding to reality. It was the only thing linking her to what she had been, a mother and a friend, to what she was now: some wraith that couldn't stop running and hiding.
Winter was just around the corner, and soon Lisa was going to have to think about heading south. She couldn't ride the bike in the winter, it would be suicide. It was already getting harder to start the bike in the morning, usually she ended up having to choke it. It was getting so cold riding during the day, and the wind was brutal. Lisa had stopped at a sporting goods store in Illinois and bought some long johns to wear under her clothes, which helped some. When she pulled over at night, her hands were numb and her teeth rattled. It was a miracle she hadn't had a wreck.
Lisa was also going to have to figure out what to do about money. She had withdrawn every penny out of her savings and her checking before she skipped out of Battle Creek, but it wouldn't last forever. Sleeping in pull offs and avoiding hotels had helped considerably, but Lisa was going to have to find more cash. Her card wouldn't do. She couldn't take the chance that she would leave a trail, because it was only a matter of time before someone came looking for her- there were too many bodies behind her. She couldn't afford to be held up; Ben was counting on her to save him.
Despite being bogged down in thought, Lisa actually enjoyed the drive.
The road to the lodge was a long winding mountainous one: overlooking gorges and lined with craggy rocks and jutting trees sporting their fall colors that burned with red and orange and yellow under the cool sun. The only sign of life was a stupid looking deer that jumped across the road when Lisa rounded a corner.
Despite its beauty, the terrain seemed very unforgiving. The McDonnell House reinforced that ominous feeling when it loomed up out of the road ahead of her. It sat perched in the middle of a small valley between two mountain peaks, and was surrounded by copses of tall dark spruce trees. The Victorian-esque estate was constructed of weathered grey stone and dark wood. The sloping shingled roof was crowned two craggy towers on either side of the building. Long tapered windows lined the walls, dark shadows lurked behind the murky glass.
The building gave Lisa the willies.
An ambulance and several crown vic cop cars sat in the circular drive in front of the house. Their sirens were off but they were running their lights. A small crowd of people huddled in a group nearby, guests at the lodge judging from their disheveled state of dress.
Lisa parked the motorcycle a short distance away and cut the engine. The police were making the rounds of the guests, their voices a low murmur as they asked questions. She pulled her helmet off and her scarf and inspected her choppy hair in one of the bike's mirrors. Her appearance didn't look any better than it had that afternoon. For the first time she actually lamented the fact that she looked like hammered shit, but there was nothing to be done about it. The only thing she could do was put her game face on and make the most of things.
Lisa combed her hair with her fingers, braided it into a short knot, and then retied her scarf. Then she moseyed over to the nervous group of guests and tried to make herself part of the group so she could figure out what was going on.
She picked a girl with wavy black hair pulled into two pigtails, wearing nice jeans and a cream colored peacoat, as her target. The lady looked friendly enough that she might be willing to talk, but not too refined that Lisa, in her Hobo Sons of Anarchy couture, would creep her out.
The double doors to the mansion creaked open and two paramedics came out with a black body bag on a stretcher. They loaded it into the ambulance with quick, sobering efficiency.
"What happened?" Lisa asked finally.
"They found her this morning," the girl answered, eyeing the body bag with pity. "The cops say she was strangled to the point of a broken neck. They say intruder, but the locals are saying a ghost did it."
"A ghost, huh?" Lisa muttered.
That wasn't what she expected. Was it possibly a ghost that had taken Ben? As soon as the thought entered her head, she knew that wasn't it. Whatever had kidnapped her son felt far more sinister than a mere ghost. Lisa had no idea how to kill a ghost, if that was even what she was really dealing with here. She hoped salt hurt ghosts as much as it hurt black smoke monsters.
"So what kind of ghost? What's the story?" Lisa asked, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. The more information she could find out, the better chance she had of actually killing whatever it was. God, it still weirded her out that hippy-yoga-instructor-Lisa turned soccer-mom-Lisa was actually considering killing something. She'd cried when she hit the neighbor's obese cat last month, for heaven's sake.
The girl finally turned to look at her and stared, taking in Lisa's biker leather and bedraggled grungy appearance. "Wow, most people would say that's crazy. They wouldn't ask about the ghost."
Lisa shrugged. "I'm not most people."
The girl stared hard at her, and then she grinned as though she'd just figured something out. "You're a Hunter, aren't you? My name is Sarah." Sarah stuck out her hand.
Lisa had no clue what a 'Hunter' was, though the term felt oddly familiar. Somehow she instinctively knew it didn't have anything to do with Bambi's forest friends. She shook Sarah's hand. "I'm Lisa."
"Wow," Sarah said in relief, "I was really hoping one of you guys would show up. I did not want to do this on my own."
Lisa still had no idea what was talking about. She didn't know if she should agree with her, or act oblivious. She decided she had to ask. "What's a Hunter?"
Sarah's face froze, and she looked stricken. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I thought- I mean, you looked- "
Lisa had no idea what she was talking about, but she was smart enough to connect the dots. "I don't know what a 'Hunter' is, exactly, but if that's the term for killing weird stuff that goes bump in the night? Then yes, I am," Lisa said. "Or at least trying, anyway."
"You've never done this before, have you?" Sarah said, and then her shoulders slumped. "Bummer."
"But you have," Lisa guessed.
Sarah hesitated, twirling one of her pigtails nervously. "Kinda. A long time ago. I helped some guys I met kill an evil little ghost girl haunting a painting. Do you want to go get something to eat, and talk? I'm starving. And I don't want anyone overhearing us."
Lisa couldn't believe she was even having this conversation, but she wanted to continue it. She was suddenly ravenous, aware that she'd been eating only Cliff bars and the MREs that had been in June's saddlebags for the past four days in order to make her money last longer.
"That sounds great. I passed through a 24 hour joint in the town a ways back," Lisa said
"Lucy's Grill?"
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"It has a massive balloon cow wearing a pink apron floating over the roof. It's kind of hard to miss," Sarah grinned.
Lisa grinned back and the action felt weird on her face. It had been a long time since she'd smiled. She hardly knew this Sarah chick, but Lisa could tell she was good people. Lisa followed her back to the little parking lot. Sarah got into a nondescript red dodge pickup. It was fairly old, but there was so much rust on the body that Lisa couldn't really place the year. Ben would have known. She swallowed a sudden urge to cry. She missed her son.
Lisa didn't cry though. She pulled her helmet onto her head and straddled the bike. The Harley purred to life and she stomped it from neutral into first. Lisa couldn't deny that she felt a bit of peace at opening the throttle back and sending the bike roaring out of the parking lot. The motorcycle was insanely loud, all 1500 CC's of it making enough noise to wake the dead. If she'd cared to look back she would have seen a lot of startled faces.
They regrouped back at the diner Lisa had left that morning. The frightened kids were gone, but the same waitress was still there. She offered an unsure smile when Lisa tromped back through the door with Sarah. Lisa returned the smile, feeling better than she had that morning. Something was beginning. She felt like a dog finally sighting a pheasant. Now that she had a direction to go in, she felt better than she had in days. They got seated in a booth in the back, and this time Lisa ordered actual food.
"Wow," Sarah said, staring incredulously at the pile of eggs, bacon, and pancakes on Lisa's plate, "You weren't kidding when you said you were hungry."
Lisa squirted ketchup all over her eggs and dumped a lake of syrup over her pancakes. "I'm starving."
Sarah poked at her bowl of oatmeal and laughed. "Well, next to your food, I feel inadequate."
"Nah. I'm the one that should feel guilty. You know, I used to be a yoga instructor and a physical therapist. We're not supposed to eat this stuff anyway," Lisa said, cutting up her pancakes. "It was all hummus, meat substitutes, and organic stuff, but now I don't care anymore. I need the sugar."
"Here's to firsts," Sarah said, raising her orange juice in a mock toast. "I guess if we're gonna do this we should share what we know. I originally thought it was a cursed object when I read the paper about the deaths, but according to the local tales it's a ghost."
Lisa chewed thoughtfully. Cursed object? Things could be cursed? That sucked. She swallowed a bite of pancake. "That's what I have, pretty much. A woman is hunted by her freak husband about two hundred years ago, turns into a ghost somehow, and kills people on the new moon. Why did you think it was a cursed object?"
Sarah hesitated, playing with her oatmeal. "I deal in antiques. That's how I got introduced into this ghost stuff in the first place. Years ago I sold a painting that was haunted and a bunch of people died. I sold a Kurdish sword to the lodge a few months ago. It was a weird looking sword, it gave me the willies. Had a bone handle and a bunch of creepy symbols on the blade. It never rusted or anything. I watched it for months to see if it would do anything. Nothing happened though so I figured it was okay, and I sold it. Then this all happened. I thought it was my sword doing it, and so I came down to try to right it."
"That was decent of you," Lisa said, smiling slightly. "That must have taken guts. Not many people would do that. As for me, I'm just passing though. I was after something else. I have to warn you now that I have no idea what I'm doing."
Sarah looked down at her food. "Here's what I know about ghosts, what I can remember from the guys I mentioned. Iron makes them disperse for a bit. They pull themselves back together after a while, so it's a temporary fix. Salt does the same thing. Makes them disappear. The guys I knew put salt into shotgun shells. To get rid of them completely you have to salt and burn every part of the ghost's body."
"Well I can help you with the shotgun part," Lisa said. "I have enough ammo to start a ghost buster war."
"You'll have to show me how to do that," Sarah replied, spooning brown sugar on to her oatmeal. "I don't know anything about guns."
"I'm still learning myself," Lisa told her, and then she sighed, resting her elbows on the table. "If you asked me a week ago whether I would be considering digging up a dead lady and setting her on fire, I would have called you a crazy person."
Sarah cocked her head. "Why are you here, if you don't mind my asking?"
Ben's name caught in Lisa's throat, and her eyes burned. Her baby was out there at the mercy of some monster, and she couldn't admit out loud just yet that it was her weakness that had got him there. Fortunately Sarah saw her conflict.
"It's okay," Sarah said quickly, "Forget I asked. I didn't mean to pry."
Lisa smiled weakly at her and went back to her eggs and pancakes.
"So," Sarah pushed back her empty oatmeal bowl. "We need to find the library. We need to know as much as possible before we tackle this thing tonight."
"I've only been in town a few hours." Lisa scraped up the last of her eggs and shoveled it into her mouth. "I'll follow you, since I have no idea where it might be."
"It's a hole in the wall off main street," Sarah said. "Super tiny, but also super old. There's a good chance it will have something we can use."
"Perfect."
They paid for their food and left. The mood in the small town seemed to have gone glacial. Lisa guessed it was because news of Meredith's death had already spread. The thought of another parent going through what had happened to her made her ill. No one deserved that. The feeling only served to cement her desire to get Ben back, and at the same time make sure no one went through what she did.
The library was exactly what Sarah had described it as: a nondescript hole in the wall sandwiched between a shoe boutique and a home appliance center. It was a squat crumbling brick building with thin alleyways on either side. They parked on the street, as Sarah's truck wouldn't fit in the alley. Lisa locked the bike for the first time and then ransacked her pockets for quarters. She had no idea how long they were going to be there, might as well be prepared.
"Here we go," Sarah said, pulling open one of the metal doors.
"Let's hope they value their history," Lisa said.
Sarah grinned. "Thank god most small towns do."
The inside of the library didn't reflect the rundown exterior. It had been remodeled sometime probably in the past few years. Lisa probably figured the librarians took one of their grants and raided an IKEA. The interior was warm and welcoming: local artists had painted murals of famous paintings on the walls. Unfortunately Lisa's knowledge of Art History was weak at best. She only recognized the Mona Lisa smirking by the door, and Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' exploding across the ceiling. The librarian on duty behind the help desk was a twenty something with wiry orange hair and purple glasses. She waved energetically as they walked by.
"Please, please let your newspapers be digitized," Lisa said under her breath.
Unfortunately all the library had in lieu of newspaper records was microfiche. They ended up having to get the librarian to help them, since neither Lisa or Sarah knew how to use it. The librarian cheerfully set them up with the lone microfiche reader, and Lisa was grateful that she didn't ask any questions. The two women huddled close to the crotchety old machine, Sarah working the microfiche reader and Lisa taking notes next to her.
It was two hours before they struck gold. "Here," Sarah said, "I missed this when I first arrived."
"What is it?" Lisa asked, "It looks like blue prints for a house."
"They are blueprints. Blueprints for the McDonnell House when it went up in 1867. Some of the rooms on these prints aren't in the house. I know because I snooped the first night I was there." Sarah grinned.
"Secret rooms?" Lisa murmured. "You'd think the old coot wouldn't have been dumb enough to publish his secret rooms in a paper."
Sarah shrugged. "He hunted his wife. I think it's safe to assume that not all his brain cells were firing correctly."
Lisa copied down the locations of the rooms into her notebook, and then she circled one of them. "This looks like Jonah McDonnall's study. And it's one of the rooms that are not on your list."
Sarah peered over her shoulder. "Then that's where we will start. Hopefully he has something there that will tell us where he buried his wife."
Lisa grinned. "I feel like the Nancy Drew obsession of my childhood is finally coming to fruition."
"What does that make me, George or Betsy?" Sarah asked, grinning back.
"Wow, we are such nerds," Lisa laughed. It felt nice to have a partner in crime.
They stopped at a Costco for lighter fluid, more salt, matches, and a large cast iron frying pan. It was the only iron they could find. At least the handle was fairly long.
"I can't believe we're going to kill a ghost with a freaking frying pan," Sarah muttered, pushing the cart back to the truck.
"I can't believe we're going to kill a ghost at all," Lisa replied.
"Still, one would think we could manage a little more finesse than a frying pan."
Lisa took one of the jugs of lighter fluid and a canister of salt and put them into the Harley's saddlebags, but the rest they loaded into the back of Sarah's truck in large duffle bags. They made the long trek back to the McDonnell house as the sun was setting, sending golden threads across the sky as it sank behind the mountains. When they reached the haunted lodge, Lisa found that it looked even more foreboding in the dark than it did in the daytime. The house was one giant mass of skittering shadows.
Lisa parked the motorcycle next to Sarah's truck. She locked the bike and grabbed one of the duffle bags, and her saddle bags with the guns. She didn't plan on using them, but she wasn't going to leave them outside either. Someone might steal them or the ghost might wreck them.
Sarah pulled out a key and unlocked the front door to McDonnell Lodge. At Lisa's raised eyebrow, she explained, "I got a room, that way we have an explanation if we're caught wandering around."
Lisa checked her watch. "It's almost nine. We have roughly three hours before midnight, when Mae McDonnell supposedly shows up."
"Then we'd better get started."
They crept like ninjas through the silent house.
The inside of the McDonnell house was like a museum. Every now and then they stopped to stare open mouthed at some weird knickknack. The house was huge. It almost seemed bigger inside than outside. The hallways rambled this way and that. Exotic animal heads lined the walls, along with paintings and statues arranged artfully in the hallway. Lisa stopped by a table and froze.
"Is this the sword you sold?" she asked in a harsh whisper.
Sarah turned and followed her gaze. "Yeah, it is. Why?"
"I-I think I've seen it before." Lisa's voice quavered and her head was throbbing as she struggled to remember just where she'd seen the sword.
The sword in the case was about three feet long with a slight 's' curve. The edge was slightly serrated towards the hilt of the sword. A knobby bone that was browned with age and looked like the horn of some animal served as a handle; strange symbols in some dead language ran down the blade itself. Lisa's temples were screaming in pain now as she tried to force her brain to remember. She knew she'd seen the sword before somewhere, only it had been a LOT smaller- more like a knife.
"Your nose is bleeding. Like, really bleeding." Sarah sounded horrified, and her face was pale as she stared transfixed at Lisa's face.
Lisa touched her nose and mouth, and her fingers came away stained with blood that looked black in the dark. "Ugh, gross." She wiped her nose with her sleeve.
Sarah opened the case and lifted out the sword. "Even if it isn't behind the deaths, I can't leave it here. Do you think it made your nose bleed?"
"Nah," Lisa said, and then she sighed. "I had a car accident a while ago. I get headaches and nosebleeds whenever I try to remember stuff that happened before it, so don't worry about it."
"All the same," Sarah said firmly, "The sword is coming with me. I should never have sold it."
"May I?" Lisa held out her hand. Sarah hesitated, but handed over the sword, hilt first.
Lisa took it and for some reason it immediately felt right in her hand. A sudden image of the mysterious dude from her dreams flashed in her head. He was standing in her garage, bent over a mammoth of a car, cleaning a knife that looked almost exactly like the sword in her hand. His broad shoulders were tense, and his face looked drawn and sad. Her heart gave a twinge. For some reason that she couldn't explain, he meant a lot to her. His sadness was breaking her heart. She was standing right next to him, a passenger in her own body. She couldn't touch him, couldn't ask him who he was. He said, "Sorry Leese." Then he kissed her. A second later, the image was gone and Lisa could no longer remember exactly what he or his car looked like or why she felt the way she did. She gritted her teeth. Her lack of memory was seriously starting to piss her off.
"Can I hold onto this?" Lisa asked. She couldn't explain it, but she wanted to keep the sword. It felt like the only solid link she had to the missing gaps in her memory.
Sarah chewed her lip and looked uncertain. Somewhere off in the distance, a loud antique clock chimed ten.
"It's okay," Lisa assured her. Lisa didn't know how she knew it, but the sword in her hand wasn't evil. Far from it. She actually associated the image of the blade with safety and home for some reason, though in her head the blade was held by a man's large calloused and scarred hand instead of her own.
"Alright," Sarah said finally. "But if the sword does anything weird we're digging a hole and burying it."
"Deal."
They closed the case and walked quickly back to Sarah's room- they'd spent too much time talking already. They didn't have long to search before the ghost was supposed to show up. Lisa hoped they could manage to kill the ghost before it started trying to kill them.
Sarah's room was a tiny corner suite in the north end of the manor. The room was wallpapered in dark green with glaring white trim running along the floor. It was sparsely furnished. Besides an end table and a dresser, and a fully supplied fireplace, the only other bit of furniture in the room was a massive four poster bed that had been pulled out a few inches from the wall. Lisa immediately saw why. Sarah had moved the bed so that she could fit a salt line around it.
Sarah saw Lisa looking at the bed and grinned. "That thing almost gave me an apoplexy trying to move it, but as you can see, I triumphed over the absurdly sized furniture."
Lisa wandered over to the trim lining the floor. It was weird that McDonnell had lined the floor and windows but not the ceiling. He'd laid trim across the doorway, but not around it. It was an odd interior design choice for a wealthy person hell bent on propriety. She bent for a closer look, and then pulled off one of her motorcycle gloves to she could tap a fingernail against it. A light 'clink' sounded audibly in the silent room when she did.
"Holy shit," Lisa said. "This is glass."
Sarah came and squatted next to her and tapped the trim herself. "Did he line his rooms with glass salt trenches?"
"Looks like it," Lisa replied. "Did Jonah McDonnell actually know he'd turned his wife into a ghost?"
"I think someone figured it out, at least," Sarah murmured, running a hand along the trim, not white at all, but a continuous tiny glass case filled with salt. "This is actually a really good idea."
"It also explains why more people haven't died on nights of the new moon," Lisa said, standing and shrugging out of her motorcycle gear. "I'm willing to bet that all the rooms in the house are salted."
Sarah grinned and snapped her fingers. "So we just make a run for Jonah's study, and if creepy ol' Mae shows up we hop in a spare room and shout SAFE?"
"Something like that, only we'll be more sneaky about it."
Sarah chuckled. "This is turning out to not be as sucky and as terrifying as I thought it would be."
Lisa smiled slightly and began to root through the duffle she'd brought in. "Yeah. We'd better get started, we don't have long until Mae shows up." She withdrew a backpack, lighter fluid, matches, salt, and the Costco frying pan. She looked up at Sarah. "Do you want the frying pan? I noticed you have a fire poker in your room, and those are traditionally iron."
Sarah, who'd been stocking her own backpack, frowned. "What about your shotgun? We're not taking it?"
"We'll leave the shotgun," Lisa said. She'd been thinking about it for a while, and had decided that the risks were too great. She would be no use to Ben if she got herself killed prematurely.
"Why?"
"Because I haven't had time to practice making bullets," Lisa answered shortly. "I used up the ones I was given with target practice a couple of days ago. All I have are the ones I made and I don't trust those. I don't want something to go wrong when we can't afford it to. Until I know what I'm doing, the gun stays behind."
"Good point," Sarah sighed. "Damn. It would have made me feel safer than a freaking frying pan."
Lisa snorted. "You can have the poker; I'll take the frying pan of plus five smiting."
Sarah stared at her, and then smothered a giggle. "Wow you are a nerd."
Lisa looked down at her backpack. Her heart gave a little twinge and she felt sick. "I had- have a teenage son. He games a lot. It was one of the things we did together."
"Is he why you're doing this?" Sarah asked softly, sensing a touchy subject.
Lisa couldn't trust herself to speak about Ben, so she merely nodded. "C'mon," she said, swinging her pack onto her shoulder. We should get going."
Sarah looked like she would like to pry further, but thankfully she didn't. She shrugged out of her peacoat, revealing an eggshell blue silk blouse that in another time and place Lisa would have liked to steal. Sarah pulled on a dark hoodie and grabbed her backpack. "Alright, let's do this."
They both picked up flashlights and left the room as quietly as they'd come, Lisa leading the way with the directions to Jonah McDonnell's secret study. They had almost the entire mansion to cross, having to make their way to the center of the house and up three flights of stairs, all in the dark. Lisa had stuck the sword through her belt, for some reason unwilling to part with it. The sword was a comfortable weight against her thigh.
It seemed like they were going to make it. They were only a floor away from the secret room when clocks all throughout the house tolled midnight.
"Oh shit," Lisa said, not bothering to whisper. "Here we go."
Sarah nodded, face pale and lips a thin bloodless line on her face. Lisa wondered what her own expression was. They kept moving, eyes peeled for Mae McDonnell. They didn't have to wait long. At the end of a long dark hallway, just fifty feet away from the supposed secret room, the ghost appeared.
It wasn't what Lisa had expected.
The only ghost movies Lisa had ever seen was Ghost Busters and the Ghost movie with Demi Moore. Neither of which were anything like what Lisa was currently looking at.
Mae McDonnell floated on her tip toes, feet barely touching the floor. Her face was distorted in a silent scream. Her eyes were bruised black and what looked like ragged bloodless dog bites littered her neck and arms and shoulders. Thick stringy black hair fell to her waist; ruffled by a strange breeze neither Lisa or Sarah could feel. The ghost raised dirty clawed hands and dug her nails into her neck and began to scream. Lisa felt cold sweat break out on her scalp at the chilling sound and her spine tingled. She took a firm grim on the frying pan.
Then the ghost flew at them. It was freaking fast. On minute it was hovering at the end of the hallway, the next minute Lisa blinked and found Mae McDonnell right in her face. Lisa jerked back, just barely avoiding those dirty fingernails, and swung the frying pan. The ghost exploded in a puff of grey fog.
"Run!" Sarah yelled.
Both women sprinted for the end of the hallway, hearts hammering in their chests like birds trapped behind glass.
"Here," Sarah said breathlessly, skidding to a halt. "Behind this wall."
Lisa opened her mouth to ask how to find a way in, but something cold and wet curled around her ankle. She was yanked off of her feet, crashing hard to the wood floor and almost biting off her tongue in the process. The vice-like grip on her ankle was starting to burn. She barely registered Sarah's gasp of horror and looked down. The ghost was crawling towards her, one pale spidery hand wrapped around her ankle. Suddenly, Lisa wasn't afraid. She was angry. She swung the frying pan but Mae's head was just out of reach.
"Get the door open," Lisa shouted. "If she's busy with me you'll have time to work."
She didn't risk a glance back to see if Sarah was following her order. The ghost was starting to drag her down the hallway to some probably terrifying doom. A door at the other end of the hallway swung open, revealing a yawning blackness. Lisa had absolutely no desire to get dragged into whatever lay in wait there, so she took another swing at the ghost.
"Not today, bitch."
This time the frying pan connected. The ghost flew apart in flurry of grey. Lisa scrambled to her feet and sprinted back down the hallway. Sarah had scraped the wallpaper off of the wall with the poker, revealing a door that had been boarded up. Sarah had pulled the nails out and the boards littered the hallway like a tetanus surprise. She stood in the open doorway, frantically motioning Lisa on.
Just behind Lisa the ghost screeched and Lisa put on a last ditch burst of speed. Sarah stepped out of the way at the last minute and Lisa threw herself across the threshold. Mae McDonnell halted just outside the doorway and shrieked angrily.
"Thank god Jonah secured his study," Sarah breathed, keeping a white knuckled grip on the poker, her eyes never leaving the ghost.
Lisa got to her feet and slammed the door to the study shut, effectively cutting the ghosts' unintelligible tirade off. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief and dropped the poker.
"Let's get this done before the noisy Wicked Witch wakes people up," Lisa said, dusting herself off. "If anyone leaves their room tonight, they're dead."
"Hopefully no one has to pee."
"Ooo, dying on a toilet?" Lisa winced. "That would suck so bad."
"We'd better hurry then." Sarah raked a hand through her hair, making her pigtails lopsided, and considered the room.
Lisa slowly pivoted where she stood, gaping. The room was on the larger side and stuffed with antique garbage. It looked like Jonah McDonnell was a hoarder on top of being a psychopath. He kept trophies of every hunt he ever undertook, as well as keepsakes from business ventures and random knickknacks. The stuffed heads of every vicious animal imaginable were mounted on his wall: from tigers to bull elephants to some sort of large fish with teeth the size of Lisa's fingers. Book shelves ran around the room, stuffed with thick tomes with crackling bindings.
"I suppose it would be too much to hope for something labeled Dear Diary," Sarah whispered conspiratorially.
"Here," Lisa said, striding forward and pulling a sheaf of paperwork off of a shelf. "The handwriting is almost illegible, but I can make out his wife's name."
"Let me see," Sarah said, holding out her hand, "I'm better at reading ridiculously spidery antique handwriting."
Lisa handed her the paperwork and Sarah leafed through it, nose almost pressed to the yellowing pages in an effort to see better. Lisa came and stood next to her and shined the flashlight over her shoulder.
"It's a receipt of sorts," Sarah said, squinting at it. "The gist is a service done, um, oh no. The service was a payment for the disposal of Mae McDonnell's body. They burned her body after Jonah hunted her down and set the dogs on her."
"Then why is she still around?" Lisa asked. "Isn't burning what you're supposed to do with a ghost?"
"Not if a bit of her is still here," Sarah said thoughtfully.
"What like a trophy?" Lisa asked incredulously.
"If a bit of the ghost's mortal body is still around the ghost can still haunt stuff," Sarah explained. "The guys I worked with killed the creepy ghost girl by burning her doll, since her body was already cremated. Her doll had her real hair woven into it. Creepy antique practice, but they burned the doll and the ghost went up in sparks."
"So we just have to look for hair or something?"
Sarah eyed the dusty office dubiously. "Or something."
Lisa wandered over to the massive desk in the corner while Sarah began to inspect the mummified remains in specimen jars along the wall. Jonah McDonnell had not been a tidy man, nor had he been organized. He'd literally been unable to throw anything away, just left things in piles around the room.
"Wow," Sarah called. "I found a journal. I can't believe it, I actually found his journal. Are we lucky or what?"
Lisa began to poke through the stuff on the desk; every time she touched a sheaf of paper a little cloud of dust was released.
"What does it say?" Lisa called, fiddling with an antique Morse code device. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. She wished it was Ben sending it to her, instead of the other way around.
"Let's see. Well, Mae really did intend on leaving him. He was a sadist on top of the extreme hunting. The night before she was supposed to leave he turned her out onto the property, told her to run and hide if she could. Then he set the dogs after her. Mae was set loose at midnight and eluded the dogs for about five hours. They caught her just before dawn. Jonah let the dogs savage her and then he had her dumped in a pit and burned." Sarah sounded a little sick.
"Well that explains the bite marks on the ghost," Lisa murmured, looking through the desk drawers.
"It also explains the weird time schedule. The ghost appears at midnight on the new moon for five hours because that's how long it took her to die. This is really horrible. Jonah wrote about the ghost too. Mae started appearing as a ghost about a year after she died. Jonah writes about how a ghost is the greatest hunt a man can achieve. How weird is that?"
"Pretty weird," Lisa laughed, moving around behind the desk to inspect the shelves nearby. "Since it's exactly what we're doing."
"True enough."
"Oh god, gross," Lisa said, stopping short.
"What?" Sarah's voice was muffled behind a stack of books.
"…I know what he did with his wife."
Sarah emerged from around a precarious pile of books and came up to stand beside Lisa. "What? Why, what'd he do to her?"
Lisa pointed.
Sarah's eyes followed Lisa's finger. "EW! That is so, so gross!"
On a table behind Jonah McDonnell's desk was Mae McDonnell's mummified head in a glass case. He'd had her head preserved like he had everything else he'd hunted.
Sarah looked back at a glowering painting of Jonah hanging on the wall and shook her fist at him. "You sir, are a creep of the first order."
"Hopefully his hell is being stuck in a Predator movie without Arnold Schwarzenegger or Danny Glover," Lisa said, also staring at the painting.
"In his underwear in the middle of summer with nothing but a plastic spoon to defend himself with," Sarah added with relish. "And mosquitoes the size of humming birds. Mummified head, who does that? I almost feel sorry for his poor wife."
"I would, if the bitch hadn't tried to gouge my eyes out with her dirty ghost finger nails," Lisa replied, rolling up her sleeves.
Lisa lifted the head out of its case with the poker and set it in a metal shield. Sarah covered the head in lighter fluid and salted it and Lisa dropped a lit match. The whole thing went up in flames with a satisfying woosh. It didn't burn as well as they'd hoped, despite how old it was. They had to keep dumping lighter fluid on it to keep the fire going, and it stank to high heaven. The scent of charred flesh clogged both their nostrils. Soon, Lisa and Sarah were both gagging, trying not to throw up all over priceless antique furniture. Finally there was a shower of sparks an otherworldly scream. The head collapsed into a pile of ash and silence fell over the study.
"Is that it?" Lisa asked.
"I think so," Sarah said cautiously, still staring at the remains of the head like she expected it to come back to life at any second.
"Then we need to get out of here." Lisa shoved the lighter fluid and salt back into her bag. "We made a lot of noise. I can't afford to get arrested."
"I packed light," Sarah said, snagging her own backpack, "All we have to do is grab the duffle bags and your motorcycle stuff."
They hoofed it back to Sarah's room. There was no sign of Mae McDonnell's vengeful spirit, though Lisa didn't stop looking over her shoulder for her. Back in Sarah's room they threw their backpacks and weapons into the duffle bags, and Lisa hurriedly shrugged on her motorcycle gear. Grabbing her helmet and gloves, and one of the duffle bags she turned and held out her hand to Sarah.
"It was nice working with you," Lisa told her.
Sarah shook her head. "The fat lady hasn't sung yet. We still need to make it out of here without getting arrested."
Both women raced out to their respective wheels. Lisa lamented for once just how loud the motorcycle was. It would be sure to wake people up. She pulled her motorcycle helmet on and tugged on her gloves. Sarah threw the duffle bags into the back of her truck and turned to face Lisa.
"How bout we regroup at the diner parking lot? It's not like they have traffic cameras to track us anyway. We can decide where to go from here," Sarah suggested.
Lisa, who'd been thinking that they would immediately go their separate ways, was startled but pleased. She nodded her assent and shut the face shield. If she could gain an ally or learn more about things that went bump in the night it would go a lot farther to helping Ben.
They regrouped back at the diner just as dawn was breaking. Sunlight streaked over the horizon, warm and golden. Birds were chirping in the fields of coarse prairie grass. Lisa left the bike idling, pulled off her helmet, and leaned against Sarah's hood. Sarah rested her elbow on her window and held out her other hand.
"I'm glad I met you," Sarah said.
Lisa shook her hand. "Likewise. I wasn't sure what I was doing. You probably saved my life."
Sarah cocked her head. "You're going to keep doing this, aren't you?"
Lisa nodded. "I have to. Until I find the person I'm looking for, that is. I can't stop."
"Well," Sarah hesitated, chewing her lip, "Could I come with you?"
Lisa stared at her, surprised. "What, why?"
Sarah took a deep breath. "The guys that saved me, the ones that I learned it all from, they were Hunters. After they did the job they left. Years went by. Sometimes a supernatural problem would crop up and I'd wait for someone to come deal with it. Sometimes a Hunter showed up, but more often than not people died and that was that. I always felt horrible for knowing what it was but not doing anything. Last year my father died, and I inherited his business. I have nothing left tying me to where I live in New York. I always felt like I should have done something but it wasn't my business. I wasn't a Hunter. Coming with you is my chance to make things right. Not everyone knows what we know about what goes on in the night, but the people who do know should do something about it. People died when I could've done something and I need to make it right. So can I? Come with you?"
"Yes." The words were out of her mouth before Lisa could stop them.
A smile brightened Sarah's face. "Great."
Lisa smiled back. It was nice to have a companion, for however long their paths ran side by side. Now that she had someone with her, the prospect of the dark road ahead of her didn't seem so bleak and hopeless after all. She pulled off her scarf, refolded it, and then tied it around her head. It had been bunching under her helmet.
"Why do you wear that scarf all the time?" Sarah asked curiously.
Lisa pulled it off, and showed her the choppy hair at the back of her head where her possessed neighbor had literally ripped the hair out of her skull.
"Ouch," Sarah said sympathetically. "Listen," she continued. "I know it is absolutely none of my business, and I don't know what happened to you, but I think you should get rid of the scarf. You won't be able to do much looking like a gypsy biker. You're gonna have to schmooze with people eventually instead of hiding like a hermit. Let's get you a haircut."
Lisa ran a hand over the back of her head. "I don't think there's much they can do. But you're probably right." Lisa didn't mention that if she were wanted for June's death, and the probable death of her neighbors, it would be best if she didn't look like Lisa Braeden anymore.
They decided it was probably best if they got the hell out of Dodge before they did anything else. Now that it was daylight people would be up and about, and would find the carnage that went on in the gassed up their vehicles and left the small town behind them.
They found a hair salon in a town a few hours away that looked trendy enough and clean enough that Lisa probably wouldn't come out looking like a freak, but cheap enough that she wouldn't be hobo poor afterwards either.
Sarah pushed Lisa into a chair and then looked at the tattooed hairstylist with blue and black hair who was pulling on her apron.
"Do stuff to her," Sarah said.
The stylist grinned at the double entendre and Lisa rolled her eyes. "Whatever you can. I had an accident a while back," she said by way of explanation.
"I can see that." The hairstylist touched the back of Lisa's head sympathetically. "Poor thing. Trust me, it will look fine."
An hour later, and thirty dollars poorer, Lisa left the hair salon with a wavy a-line bob. She couldn't stop running her hands over it. Her hair was naturally slightly curly and for much of Lisa's teen years she'd hated it. On the road she wouldn't have time for her straightener, and it was a relief to have something that would be very little maintenance.
"You look good," Sarah said as they headed back to their rides. "Like Alice from Resident Evil, or something. Very kick ass."
Lisa snorted. "What a joke. I used to be suburbia mom and now I look like the girl I used to be in college. Strung out, desperate, angry-"
"No," Sarah said firmly. "Far from it. I don't know what happened to you, but you're on a mission. You don't look like someone would give up. You beat a ghost up with a frying pan, for chrissakes."
"Speaking of which I've got to write all this stuff down," Lisa said, fiddling with her keys. "I'll never remember it all otherwise."
They stopped at a Barnes and Nobles before they left town. Lisa found the sturdiest journal she could locate: a thick red leather book with hefty cream colored pages. There was a lot of space, which was good because she figured she had a lot to learn. Something told her that ghosts were only the tip of the iceberg of weird shit that went bump in the night. On the first page she wrote 'GHOSTS' and then listed out what they did and ways to kill them. She devoted pages at the back for the thing that took Ben, detailing what it looked like and what it had done. At this point any detail at all was important.
After some deliberation the two women decided to work their way back East so Sarah could liquidate all of her assets. Then they would decide what to do from there.
On a lonely stretch of highway with no one in sight for miles they pulled over for lunch and some target practice. Lisa knew how to shoot, though she wasn't very good at it, and she taught Sarah the bit of gun safety she knew while they ate the Subway sandwiches from Sarah's cooler.
"Here's the safety," Lisa said, pointing at the one on the glock. "I always keep them unloaded and apart when I'm traveling. Mostly because they won't fit in my saddlebags if they're together. Always check to make sure they're unloaded even if you know they're unloaded. Check when someone hands it to you. Check when you pick it up. Make sure you know where you're shooting, and what's behind your target. Always know what direction the muzzle is pointed. Always. If it jams, then be careful when you eject the dud. When you hand the gun to someone, make sure they have a good grip on it before you let go. If it drops and the gun goes off…"
"Got it," Sarah said. She looked a little green and handled the gun like it might grow teeth and bite her.
They set up a cardboard box about thirty feet away, weighed it down with rocks and spray painted a bullseye on it. Then they set up the guns on a towel on the trailer bed. Lisa pointed out each one's specs, reciting from memory what June's manuals said. It took Sarah a few hours to become comfortable with them, their weight and their kick. Lisa only hit the box a few times, but after a while Sarah was hitting dead center with each weapon.
"Wow," Lisa whistled when they went to go retrieve their target and saw Sarah's progress up close, "I'm jealous. How'd you pick that up so fast?"
Sarah shrugged. "I have no idea. It may have something to do with the fact that the cardboard box kindly held still for me."
They drove for eight hours that, ending up somewhere in Nebraska when the sun began to sink.
Later that night they'd found a pull off. Lisa built a fire and Sarah was poking at two cans of Chef Boyardee that were heating in the coals with a spoon. It was quiet save for the the crackling of the fire and the cacophony of crickets. The occasional night bird called, a body-less cry in the dark. If she and Sarah were going to become partners, then Lisa owed it to her to come clean. Sarah had to know what she was getting into.
"Something took my son." Lisa's voice was rough and scratchy when she got the courage to speak, but it felt good to finally tell somebody.
Sarah looked up at her but didn't say anything. She merely handed her a hot can of ravioli and a spoon. Lisa took the can. It was hot, almost blistering her fingers so she wrapped it in a towel. She took a deep breath. It was hard to talk about Ben, but it needed to be said. Sarah needed to know everything if they were going to do this.
"Ben was fifteen, just a kid. We were living in Battle Creek Michigan. It was not ideal but we made the most of it. Then Ben started having nightmares. I thought it was something he would grow out of, but- black smoke possessed him and took him from me because I was too weak to protect him," Lisa said brokenly.
Sarah kept silent but her expression was sympathetic.
Lisa looked at her finally. "I don't know what took my kid but I'm going to find it and I'm going to kill it."
Sarah set aside her can of ravioli and rested her hands on her knees. She met Lisa's gaze evenly. "And I will have your back. I know you hardly know me, and we just met, but you can believe that. Because it's the right thing to do. I should have been helping people years ago and I didn't. So I'm with you, whatever happens."
"Thanks," Lisa whispered.
They finished their food in silence. Hours later, when Sarah retreated to the cab and Lisa bedded down in the bed of the truck, Lisa found herself staring up at the stars. There were so many. She wondered if Ben was looking up at those same starts.
"Goodnight," she whispered.
.x.
To be continued...
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