Chapter Eight
Albert Drexler can honestly say he had died a happy man. He'd had a successful career as the manager of a restaurant supplies company. Owned and lived in the house of his dreams. A wonderful community of good friends. And most of all, a wife and son he adored and who loved him unconditionally in return. So yes, even though he had been taken from them so cruelly and far too soon, he had no regrets. He'd led a good life.
Who knew the afterlife could be such a bitch?
The day Albert died had been a pretty good one. A few small crises to work through in shipping, an employee dispute – just business as usual. The good news was he wasn't going to have to work as late as he had been the past few nights since he was almost finished with the fourth quarter billing cycle. He looked forward to getting home to finally enjoy supper with his family.
Closing up the office, he went out, got into his car and started the 25-minute drive home. Too bad it was going to take him at least three hours via the parkway since, according to the radio, there had been a bad collision a few miles ahead, shutting down all lanes and brining traffic to a standstill. But fate was smiling on Albert because he was able to make the next exit without getting trapped in the gridlock and he knew the alternate road, having taken it before. It would be slightly out of his way but would get him home a lot faster.
He put his favorite tape in (Tommy had told him he desperately needed to upgrade to a CD player, but what would he do with his favorite tapes?) and rewound it to the beginning, Mick Jagger screaming out "Satisfaction." The road was lit well enough for a back country road and there weren't many other cars around so he pressed the accelerator down a little more than usual. He figured Hattie would hold dinner since he'd called telling her he'd be home, but didn't want her to worry.
What happened next was too damn fast to register. He came around a bend. Two headlights were heading right toward him on his side of the road, blinding him. He tried to swerve out of the way. Thought he had, too, despite feeling an incredibly powerful jolt. Then there was nothing for a little while, just whiteness.
When he came back to his senses, he was home, standing in his back yard. How did I get here? He looked down and found himself in the same clothes, nothing torn or damaged. Weird. He stretched and moved his limbs. Nothing hurt. Okay then. He made his way toward the back door that led into the kitchen. There were voices coming from inside. He looked in the door and saw a bunch of his friends bustling about with all sorts of platters of food. Huh, maybe Hattie…he suddenly smiled. That wonderful…She must have arranged a surprise party for him. True it wasn't his birthday. It wasn't any kind of special day. But that was his Hattie. Always doing crazy little things like throwing totally random, no-special-occasion parties.
Not wanting to ruin her efforts, Albert wandered around to the front of the house. As he came around the corner, he saw a police car in the driveway among the other cars. Huh, must be Harry (a local policeman) coming straight from work. Okay then. Albert walked up the front steps and reached for the door.
Suddenly he was in the foyer. He didn't remember opening the door or walking inside, he was just there. The he heard it. Wailing. Utter, despair-filled weeping. He walked toward the living room and saw Paula Cox, Melinda Carson, Alice Tilberman and a few other ladies all clinging around Hattie, who was…
Time seemed to stop at that very moment and everything came flashing back. The blinding headlights. Swerving the car. The bone-crunching jolt. Pain, then numbness. Sirens. Voices. Then silence.
The other car had hit him head on. He hadn't walked away from the collision. He was standing here, in his home, amongst his friends, watching them try and comfort his beloved wife in her devastating grief and inconsolable mourning.
Mourning for her dead husband, who apparently had decided to pull a Patrick Swayze.
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The weeks following had been miserable, downright torturous for Albert. He wasn't sure if he was staying around by his choice or some higher power's. All he knew was that while he could move from room to room with a mere blink, he could touch nothing. The room he had loved most (besides the bedroom, his and Hattie's little playground), the living room – a room filled with everything he and Hattie had collected over the years on their many outings antiquing all over New England – now felt like a prison. But not just for him.
Hattie had never recovered from that fateful night. For days and days she had wept, physically unable to stop. She could barely leave their bed. She wouldn't eat, would hardly speak. Tommy had tried to comfort her but her abject despair frightened him. Their friends had come by almost on a set rotation to help take care of Tommy, to help him deal with his own grief, while trying also to get through to Hattie.
Albert had tried everything to reach out to her. He tried talking to her, touching her, even thinking to her, but he could not make a connection. He was losing her and in turn was losing their boy. He had to do something.
One morning, after failing again to connect with her while lying next to her in their bed, he went down to find Tommy making his lunch. He had been going to school, going through the motions, but it was as if he'd shut down inside. His actions were automatic, no thought or feeling behind them. The light that had shown in him since the day he was born and had been slowly dimming since his father's death was almost extinguished. That's it, Albert thought. He blinked back to the bedroom and stood next to the bed where Hattie lay awake but still.
Albert looked to the picture of Him and Tommy on his nightstand. Okay, how hard can it be? Hattie made me watch Ghost a hundred times. It has to work. He clenched his fists and tried to muster up all his emotions – good and bad – and focus them into his hands. When he felt like he would burst, he swept his hand out at the frame and was agog to see it fly off the stand and onto the floor.
Hattie shot up in the bed and gasped, staying deathly still. She looked at the frame on the floor, then around the room. Tentatively, she spoke.
"Albert?"
Albert smiled and said "Yes! Hattie, it's me!"
"Albert, are you here?"
"Yes, my love, I'm right here. I'm always right here."
Hattie smiled, tears falling down her cheeks. Albert wasn't sure if she'd heard him, but she definitely knew he was there.
"I knew you were. Everyone told me I was just missing you and that you were here in spirit, in my heart. But I knew you'd never leave me."
Sadly, that seemed to be exactly the case. "No, darling. I'll never leave you. But you have to do something for me, right now."
He again mustered up his emotions and managed to nudge the frame with his foot, moving it a few inches along the floor. Nothing to it, he thought proudly.
Hattie watched the frame, took a deep breath and got out of bed.
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Tommy was just finishing making his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich (which they had, along with a full stock of groceries courtesy of the neighbors) when he heard the door swing open behind him. There stood his mother. Dressed. Hair combed. Shoes on. And…smiling.
"Is it alright if I take my son to school today?" she asked, her voice shaking ever so slightly.
Tommy, bearing the smile to end all smiles, ran to his mother and embraced her, crying into her shoulder as she hugged him back. Then they walked out the front door, greeting Alice and the day.
Albert watched from the porch. That's my girl.
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Why was life so goddamned cruel?, Albert thought, watching nearly the exact same scene he'd had to bear over a year ago all over again. Friends bustling with food in the kitchen. Other friends grouped together in the living room, surrounding his grieving wife.
But there was a distinct difference. Hattie wasn't weeping. Wasn't shedding a single tear. Hattie was gone. The woman sitting on the couch, pale, silent, was devoid of all emotion. She was a mere shell, her grief beyond all possible expression. Her family was dead. Her dear sweet husband, now her beloved baby boy. It was too much to bear, and Hattie was lost.
Even Albert could do nothing to alleviate her pain this time. Over the past year he'd become an expert in the art of being corporeal. He'd played hide-and-seek with Hattie's hairbrush, tugged on her sleeve while she was making dinner, stroked her hair as she fell asleep. And he'd seen her as happy as she could be with him not physically being there. He'd even begun to reach out to Tommy, though Hattie never completely revealed Albert's presence to him. She just assured Tommy that his father would always be with them.
Albert had even mastered leaving the house, choosing often to follow his son out into the world, watching him grow and laugh and play. He was proud of his son's accomplishments and looked forward to watching him become the fine young man he was turning into.
That day by the lake Albert had had a bad feeling. He knew Tommy was impatient to start skating but didn't feel the water was frozen enough. He tried to reach out to Tommy but found that when his emotions got away from him, so did the ability to make physical contact. All he could do was go out on the ice with Tommy and pray nothing would happen.
When Tommy fell through and became trapped under the ice, Albert joined him there, touching his son's shoulder. As he felt Tommy fade away, Albert was sure he'd heard him say "Sorry Mom." It's okay, son, I'm here, Albert though to Tommy. Everything's going to be okay.
A week later Hattie died. In her bed, alone. Not from suicide. No external instrument caused it. She just couldn't live another day. So she didn't.
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Albert never intended to hurt anyone. That was never his intention. He just wanted to end his wife's suffering.
The Drexler family had the ghost act down pat. Hattie's spirit lingered in the house after her death, but Albert soon realized she didn't know she had died. He believed she was aware that Tommy was gone and had resolved to "live" out the rest of her days locked up inside the house. She sealed all the windows, locked all the doors and never acknowledged it when someone came to the door. Albert watched as people stopped by, first to try and reach her, then to find out if something had happened to her. He watched as they tried to break the doors down, smash the windows, but could not enter. He finally got tired of everyone trying. He decided that if he was going to reach Hattie, he needed them to be left alone. So he willed the house to stay locked up. He even went so far as to will the inside to look empty and deserted (creating illusions was another neat little trick he'd learned while teasing Hattie last Halloween). He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he knew no one was getting in their home without his consent.
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Why did he die? I barely touched him, Albert thought, saddened at the loss of Peter Klopfenstein, the first boy he'd tried to bring home to Hattie.
After so many fruitless attempts to make contact with his late wife, Albert decided what she needed most, more than even him, was Tommy back. So he went out and found Peter walking home from school. Peter had been a bit of a loner in town. Not a trouble-maker but not an angel, either. Albert knew that if Peter went missing, people would figure he just ran away, that it had been coming for a while. And it helped that Peter looked somewhat like Tommy.
Albert believed that if he could blink in and out of the house, being in contact with someone while he did it would carry them along with him. He couldn't have been more wrong. The moment he'd touched Peter, the boy had gone stiff as a board and fallen over, dead. It was as if a higher power knew what Albert's intentions were and in having Albert be the instrument of Peter's death would scare him into never trying it again.
That was not to be. It only made Albert more determined.
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Three more dead boys later, Albert tried a new tactic. Luring the boys to the house and brining them inside on their own. That almost worked once with Jeremy Ackman. Jeremy had been walking home, kicking a tin can with his feet. He was stunned to find after one particular kick, the can started moving along on its own. Mesmerized, he followed the can all the way up to the front of the Drexler home. Albert opened the front door, but when Jeremy suddenly realized how incredibly freaky the exercise had been, he tore off for home. Albert headed him off, though, and Jeremy become his next victim.
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In the beginning Albert had brought the bodies and laid them beside the lake, sorry for taking them from their families as the icy water had taken his own son from him. Now he was just frustrated, angry and simply didn't care. He had to get a boy into their house, to Hattie.
When he followed Phillip Beeker home, his anger got the better of him and he shouted at the boy to come with him. The next thing he knew, both were in the Drexler living room. Albert was stunned but thrilled. Phillip was terrified to the bone. He'd run screaming through the house, pushing at every door and window begging to be let out. Hattie had come in at the sound of the shouting and stopped, looking at the boy in her home. "Tommy?" she had asked, not really thinking it was him but too confused to think clearly and logically. Her reaction gave Albert hope. But there had been no calming the boy down, and when Hattie gave up and went upstairs, clearly upset, Albert killed the boy, if nothing more than to shut him up.
He had the answer now, though. Anger could bring them here. And Hattie could accept them if they were enough like her boy. So he set out to find the ideal replacement.
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Boy after boy, test after test, getting closer all the time but never close enough.
One evening, Hattie, lying in bed, spoke to Albert for the first time.
"I know what you're trying to do, Albert."
Albert, shocked at her finally addressing him, hung onto every word.
"I appreciate it. I know Tommy is out there. You came back to me. I know he will too. And I know you'll be the one to bring him to me. Promise me you'll keep searching? Never stop trying?"
Albert's eyes filled with tears. "I promise." He reached out and for the first time since she'd dies, he was able to stroke her hair. She smiled and drifted off to sleep.
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Michael Hoff was nearly the one. He'd stayed relatively calm upon waking in the strange house. He'd kept a stiff upper lip when he'd encountered Hattie. Albert was aware of the legend of Drexler House that had now become an infamous little ghost story and he could tell Michael was aware of it and was trying to play along until he could escape. Hattie had taken to him quickly – he did look a good deal like Tommy – and the charade lasted a good five days. Till the boy had tried to attack Hattie after he'd had enough, had failed to find a way out or to contact help. Albert had killed him instantly, right in front of Hattie, who just looked up, saddened but quiet.
"He was almost him," she said.
"I'll keep trying, honey, I promise. I'll find him."
Hattie only turned and went back to the kitchen while Albert took Michael to the lake.
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Hattie was making a good effort with David Saboti, acting as if everything was as it should be, accepting the gift she knew her beloved husband was desperately trying to bestow upon her.
But Albert was ecstatic. He couldn't believe it when he'd heard the town buzzing about the new boy who'd come to town. The new boy who they would swear was little Tommy Drexler reincarnated. Wasting no time, Albert sought out this miracle child.
My God.
Tommy.
There he was. Mop-haired. Hazel-eyed. Dimpled smile. Light radiating from within (though a bit skittish…the townspeople weren't exactly being subtle in their reactions to him).
Sam Winchester had been delivered to him. And apparently, would be delivered to him again thanks to Hugh Mitchell. As Albert had been working on the best time to capture Sam (after dealing with David, of course), he'd overheard Hugh hatching his plan to snatch the boy himself and bring him to the Drexler home in the hopes of finally ending the reign of terror that had befallen his town.
Albert silently assured Hugh that if he made good on that intention, no other boys would be lost ever again. Hell, he'd even consider giving David back alive.
So when Hugh arrived at his front porch, an unconscious Sam in his arms, Albert did something he hadn't done in six years.
He opened the door.