Blood Ghost (The Hunting Tree Book 2) Read online

  “Yeah, for now,” Don said. “I’m home from school.”

  “Your dad said. You want to grab lunch sometime?”

  “I have to go home at lunch and take the dog out,” Don said.

  “Oh you have a dog?”

  “Yeah,” Don said.

  “Why don’t you bring him in? Franco in the art department brings his dog in every day. They say you have to get approval, but how hard could that be with your dad as the boss?”

  “Barney’s not really an office dog,” Don said. “He’s a German Shepherd. A lot of people are afraid of him.”

  “Aww, he sounds sweet,” Brenda said.

  Based on what? Don wondered.

  Kyle used to have a joke he loved to play on people who walked up to Barney. Kyle would be walking down the street with a great big intimidating German Shepherd on a leash and they’d reach out as they asked something stupid like, “Does he bite?”

  Kyle would shake his head and smile and say, “Of course!”

  The person would often jerk their hand back as Barney looked at them quizzically.

  Other people would reach forward and ask, “Is he nice?”

  Kyle would nod and smile and say, “Not today.”

  Of course Barney was always a sweetheart. He wouldn’t dream of biting anyone. He put on a good show for the delivery guy or the guy who read the power meter, but he was all bark.

  “Pardon?” Don asked. He realized he’d missed Brenda’s last question.

  “Any big plans for this weekend?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Don said. He picked up his earbuds and arranged them in his fingers. Maybe that would give her the message.

  “Well if you’re looking for someone to show you the fun spots in town, let me know. I go out with my friends almost every Friday. We have a great time. There’s bar trivia over at the Hollow, and I suppose you already know about Fluke?”

  “I’ve been there. I mean, I used to go there sometimes,” Don said.

  “Maybe you should go back. There are a lot of fun people. It might help you, you know, take your mind off things,” she said.

  So she knew about Kyle. It was a pretty small town—he shouldn’t have been surprised that she, and probably everyone else in the office, knew about his best friend. Don thought she was just flirting.

  “Thanks,” he said. He put in his earbuds and nodded. He turned his attention to the computer and saved his file. He made the connection to the file server and put his work in the appropriate folder. On the other side of the desk, Brenda, clutched her papers to her chest and walked away.

  Don didn’t start up his music. He just sat in the muffled silence that his earbuds provided and hummed a tiny tune to himself. It was a really familiar tune, but he couldn’t quite place it. He kept humming, hoping to remember lyrics he could look up or some way to find out what song it was. The clock on his computer said he only had another twenty minutes before he should leave for home.

  Barney was his dog now. He couldn’t even imagine giving the Shepherd back to the Umbers. They’d relinquished ownership. Maybe, he thought, he should put in one of those electronic fences—the kind that kept a dog from leaving the yard. Barney wasn’t inclined to wander, but he wouldn’t want Barney to find his way into the woods at night and get attacked.

  He hummed the tune and felt he was pretty close to placing it. The thought drifted away.

  Maybe the idea of nighttime shower wasn’t working out after all. He’d needed to re-wash his feet this morning before coming to work. He could have sworn that he’d taken the shower immediately before going to bed, but somehow his feet were dirty when he got up, and he’d found a dried leaf in his sheets. Don shook his head and returned his fingers to their work.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  David

  “ONE PACK FOR THE first call,” Shane said. “Two for the second or any calls after that. Or you can give me twenty bucks and make as many calls as you want.” Shane was a year older than David. He was notorious for his phone concession. Several kids had cellphones, but only Shane guaranteed complete confidentiality. His parents never looked at the bill and never questioned who he called. David didn’t care about the cost, he just wanted to make sure his mom never found out about his call to the New Hampshire number.

  He handed Shane a pack of gum and Shane handed over the phone.

  “Not more than one,” Shane said. “And don’t kill my battery.”

  “Okay,” David said. He walked a few paces away from Shane and tossed his baseball mitt on the ground next to the brick wall. From his back pocket he pulled Mr. Morris’s card. He wasn’t sure how, but the man had slipped it into David’s pocket that night in Roland’s trailer.

  He waited while the phone rang.

  “Morris,” a low voice said. It was followed by a quick cough.

  “Hi, Mr. Morris?”

  “David?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you got my card. I hoped you would,” Morris said. “You have a dream?”

  “Yes. Last night. I was wrong about the witch. She had a boyfriend, but I think she killed him and now she has a different boyfriend. He’s related to the other guy, or connected in some way. That’s why I wasn’t sure it was the same guy.”

  “That’s bad news,” Morris said. “We were almost hoping it was over. We know who was killed. Merritt found out that one of the neighbors died a several weeks ago. Heart failure or some such.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Twenty-one I think. Yeah, twenty-one,” Morris said. David heard rustling papers over the phone.

  “Oh,” David said.

  “Hey kid, I’m sorry. Look, there was nothing you could have done to help him.”

  “I could have been faster,” David said. “I’ve had these dreams.”

  “So what else do you know? Anything we can work with?” Morris asked.

  “I don’t know. She sings to him and that calls him from the house. She comes in the middle of the night. She doesn’t like coming out in the open, so she walks along the edge of the yard and sings until he comes to her. If she’s afraid she takes off her skin so she can move faster. But then if she can, she comes back for the skin. She’s afraid of people getting her skin.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t think she’s alone,” David said, lowering his voice.

  “Come again?”

  “It’s not the Devil, but she does give blood to someone. I can’t see who it is. That’s all I know.”

  “Okay, kid. You think of anything else, you call me, okay?”

  “I’ll try,” David said.

  David took the phone back to Shane. Another kid was waiting to rent it and Shane was negotiating a steeper fee from this one. David ran back to get his mitt. Paul caught up with him at the wall.

  “Where did you go?” Paul asked.

  “I had to make a call,” David said.

  “On Shane’s phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dave,” Paul said, pushing David’s shoulder, “don’t go doing creepy shit again. You’re going to get in trouble. First you get in trouble and then my mom finds out and I get in trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “That’s what you always say. Why can’t you just pretend to to be normal for awhile? God, Davey, I hate you sometimes.”

  “Come on,” David said. “It’s snack time.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Wes

  WES NOTICED CHANGES IN his son and decided they were perfectly normal. What kid wouldn’t become pale, sullen, and depressed after his best friend mysteriously died? The boys were in their prime—the height of their physical prowess and completely unable to appreciate it. It should be appalling whenever such a young, healthy man simply dropped dead with no warning.

  Wes adjusted the governor on his tractor’s engine. He tightened the big brass nut carefully, knowing that too much torque would split the nut from the shaft. He set down his wrench. His thu
mb rested on the lever that translated throttle position to the carburetor.

  One month and, what, three days? Kyle had died one month ago. When was it okay to smile again? When was it okay to enjoy a joyful moment without feeling guilty that your neighbor’s son was dead and your own son was still alive? When was it okay to show that secret smile that he harbored deep within his chest?

  Wes reached for the air filter housing and the screws that would hold it in place.

  The door from the house opened and Don stepped into the garage. Barney was at his heels. The dog seemed rejuvenated. Perhaps the change of scenery—moving from the Umber’s to here—had done him a real service. Still though, the dog’s eyes darted to every corner when he entered a room and his nose sniffed constantly, as if he was still looking for Kyle.

  “Hey,” Wes said.

  Don may have grunted a response, but if he did it was too quiet for Wes to hear. His son collected the garbage into one can and then started to drag it down the driveway. Yes, he was pale, sullen, and depressed, but was he also thinner? And were his eyes even more sunken than before?

  Wes reassembled the air intake and began to put the covers back on the tractor. He’d been nursing the old tractor along for longer than his kids had been alive.

  Don returned from taking the trash can out to the road.

  “Hey, Donny, are you sleeping okay?” Wes asked.

  “Yeah, Dad, of course.”

  “You just don’t look very rested.”

  Don shrugged. He let Barney inside and then followed him through the door.

  Wes had checked with the different departments and Don was doing fine at work. People could be cagey about the boss’s son—unwilling to say anything negative—but Wes checked with outspoken types. He asked the people who would often say something negative just to be negative. Even they didn’t have much bad to say. Don appeared to be fulfilling his requirements without complaint. That’s what really bothered Wes, when he stopped to think about it. Don had never been an easy worker. He always fought against repetitive, routine tasks, and tried to either optimize them or simply get out of doing them. It wasn’t normal for Don to simply fulfill his requirements. Don usually exceeded all expectations or failed miserably.

  Wes put his wrench back in its plastic holder and wiped grease from his hands onto a rag.

  He thought about firing Don. Perhaps that would shake his son out of his funk. Gwen would know what to do, but Wes couldn’t bother her with this problem. She had too much to worry about already. Her job—always absurdly stressful—had become a nightmare now that she battled migraines every day.

  # # # #

  “Don!” Wes yelled. He slapped a mosquito from his bare leg. It was crazy to be out here in the middle of the night. He was being eaten alive by the little flying bloodsuckers. He slapped his arm and then his neck. He could already feel his leg starting to itch.

  “Don!” he yelled again. He’d seen him just a second ago. To confirm the sighting, here was Barney, sitting next to the swing set, growling towards the woods.

  Wes slapped his chest. He didn’t know why he’d woken up—some kind of intuition or maybe just the quiet. Tonight was the first cool night in weeks and Gwen had begged to shut off the air conditioner. The room seemed unnaturally quiet with the windows open and only the sounds of the forest instead of the rush of the AC’s white noise.

  Wes looked back at the house. Should he go back for clothes or chase his son into the woods?

  “Goddamnit Donny, what the hell are you doing?” Wes asked.

  A few minutes before, Wes had risen from bed and walked over to one of the windows. It looked out to the side yard, but when he pressed his face to the screen, he could see the back. Movement drew his eyes back there, but it was just clouds passing over the moon, making the shadows appear and then disappear. He was about to go back to bed when he saw Barney. The dog was standing near the old swing and he wagged his tail as Wes watched from two stories above. Following the direction of the dog’s pointed nose, Wes saw something chilling. His son, white in the moonlight, was walking slowly towards the woods. That’s when Wes had run for the door, flown down two flights of stairs, and found himself slapping bugs in the back yard.

  “Come on, Barney, let’s get a flashlight,” Wes said.

  The dog glanced up at him but didn’t move.

  Wes retreated to the house.

  # # # #

  When Wes returned to the swings, now wearing a windbreaker, boots, and holding a flashlight, Barney was still sitting in the yard, holding vigil.

  “Come on, boy,” Wes said. The dog didn’t move. “Fine.”

  The light barely illuminated the edge of the trees. Wes slapped a mosquito on the back of his thigh and walked towards the woods. He only had to take two steps before he saw Don. Glassy-eyed, Don stepped through a bush and walked right towards Wes without acknowledgement.

  “Don?” Wes asked.

  His son kept walking. Goosebumps jumped out on Wes’s arms and he felt the hair on his arms prickling against the windbreaker.

  “Don?” he asked again. He got no response. Wes held the flashlight on his son. The boy’s eyes reflected back bluish-green, like a dog’s eyes might. He wore only pajama bottoms. The front of the pajamas pushed out absurdly and Wes wondered for a second if his son might have a girl out there in the woods, but then why would he be returning home with an erection?

  “Don,” Wes yelled as his son approached. He reached out and grabbed Don’s shoulder.

  Don turned to his father, acknowledging him for the first time with a slow blink. Barney barked once.

  “Hey Dad, what’s up?” Don asked. His voice was slow and thick. “Can I have some water?”

  The question caught Wes off guard. Suddenly, Don sounded five years old.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Out where?” Don asked.

  “Out here! In the yard, in the middle of the night. What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Don said.

  Wes slapped at a mosquito on the back of his knee—that one would itch like crazy tomorrow—and he noticed that his son’s bare chest looked completely mosquito-free. They were buzzing in a cloud around Wes, but seemed to leave Don unmolested.

  “Can we go inside?” Don asked.

  “Of course. Come on.”

  In the basement, Wes kicked off his boots but kept the windbreaker on. It seemed chilly inside. Don sat down on the wooden chair near the door to the furnace room.

  “Were you sleepwalking? What the hell was going on?”

  “What do you mean?” Don asked.

  “Just now. What were you doing just now?”

  “I was asleep, I think. I just remember you waking me up.” Don tilted his head back and opened his mouth for a huge yawn. No wonder he wanted water, Wes thought. Even in the dim light from the stairwell, Don’s mouth looked dry as a bone.

  “You were outside in the woods for a long time. You must have been sleepwalking or something. You don’t remember any of it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at your feet. They’re filthy,” Wes said.

  “So are yours,” Don said, pointing. “I was just taking Barney out. He has to go out sometimes in the middle of the night. He’s old, Dad.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s old, but you weren’t even there. You were out in the woods.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh my god, this is impossible. Go to bed and I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  “Okay, Dad. Goodnight.”

  “Drink some water,” Wes called as his son disappeared into the dark down the hall. He heard the dog follow Don into his room.

  Wes locked the sliding door and then hunted in the shop for a piece of wood to brace it. Years before, when they first put in the door, they’d kept a brace, but it had been lost. There just weren’t any real threats out here in the woods. At least it didn’t seem that way until tonight.

  Wes found
his way back to bed and settled in next to Gwen. She was medicated tonight and didn’t stir. He looked at the ceiling for almost an hour before he drifted off.

  By morning, when Don looked normal—better, at least—the conversation seemed less important. Wes didn’t bring it up when Don smiled and said, “Good morning.”

  At work, Wes reconsidered firing his son. He would come out of his funk eventually, when the shock of his best friend’s death was a little more distant. Who was Wes to judge his son’s grief? Wes didn’t know what it was like to lose someone so close, so young. Gwen would know. She’d talked to the families of countless patients. Her job ended up being at least sixty-percent counseling—she said that all the time.

  Wes reminded himself to ask Gwen about Don the next time she looked like she could handle the question. Hopefully that would be soon, but it was hard to tell with Gwen. Her bad spells came more often and lasted longer these days. Wes hated to load her down with one more thing to worry about.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Chelsea

  “COME ON, CHEL, YOU can have one,” Alexa said. “One won’t even show up on a breathalyzer.”

  “No, Lex, I can’t and it would. Don’t let me catch you drinking when it’s your turn to drive,” Chelsea said. She wondered why drunk people always wanted everyone to be drunk. Why wasn’t their own inebriation enough for them? She settled back into her seat and put the window halfway up. The way Alexa was sloshing around her drink, it would only be a matter of time before she spilled some of it through the window and onto the interior of the SUV.

  Actually, the more she thought about it, one drink probably wouldn’t make things worse. She didn’t even have her real driver’s license yet, so if she got pulled over she would already be in a world of hurt. Thoughts of drinking flew from her mind as she saw Jayden running across the dark road in a low crouch. He had a red plastic cup in each hand. Chelsea straightened in her seat and pushed her hair behind her ears. She reached for the handle of the driver’s door, intending to get out, and then changed her mind. She put her hands in her lap and then settled them back on the wheel.