Following Christopher Creed (6 page)

"Why?" I asked.
Did he carry a ghost buster shield and a silver stake?

"They say it's just ... eerie. When he's back there, talking about how wonderful the place is, people can actually get to feeling that way. When he's not around, people say, it just feels like a vortex. You can't have any fun for being creeped out. The only one I know who enjoys it out here without Justin is Kobe Lydee. He's in our grade. He thinks he's a ghost chaser and he'll make a gazillion dollars off getting Chris Creed's ghost on tape."

I found the moon and paused for a moment, making sure I appreciated what people were saying about Justin Creed. Apparently the kid wielded a lot of influence, and his self-assurance—which may just be a synonym for my word,
energy
—must have been off the charts. Somehow, I didn't feel it was his corpse we just saw, and it was something beyond the female undergarments. Gut instincts, I guess.

W
OULD YOU PREFER NOT TO GO?
" RayAnn asked Katy and Chan as I got out with Lanz. "Because Mike and I can—"

"We'll go," Katy said, giggling nervously. "I just can't promise we'll go with you all the way into the Lightning Field, or how long we'll stay."

The trail was marked with bright splashes of glow-in-the-dark white paint on the trunk of one tree after another. It would be hard to get lost even if RayAnn's flashlight were to give out. We walked along in silence, and I tried to see something beyond the splashes of neon in RayAnn's flash
light beam. I relied more on Lanz than I ever had before. But he kept going slower than I wanted him to, and after ten minutes, I felt like I was half carrying him by the harness. My arm hurt, and he was whining.

I finally stopped, rubbing my tricep. "What's up, buddy?"

He stood rooted, his legs slightly trembling, so that I could feel the vibes against my thigh. They had said at Seeing Eye that a dog can sense your mood and become nervous simply because you are. But I didn't feel nervous. I felt a little tired, as jet lag was starting to set in, and a little annoyed that RayAnn's friend who'd "rented" us her car hadn't owned a Jeep so RayAnn could blaze this trail. My legs were tired, but my brain was curious. I wanted to get a feel for this place that Justin Creed called holy and everyone else called hellish.

Lanz let out some short whines.

"Can't pets, like, feel everything?" Katy whispered. "He senses something ... dark. Let's go back."

"He'll follow me." I ignored her premonitions, dropping the harness handle and stumbling ahead. My tunnel vision could get worse in the dark, but I could make out a break in the trees coming up by standing still and moving my head slowly, allowing my brain to process the scene in frames. The large moon now painted a jagged glow, separating the dark sky and the ultra-black treetops. Moonlight struck the wet and shining ground at the edge of the forest, revealing an open space as big as a football field. Sure enough, Lanz came after me, whining and panting, and the girls followed to get closer to him.

We came into the clearing, and I stood there, taking it in frame by frame, not knowing what to make of this place.

"It's ... full of tree trunks," RayAnn reported to me in a whisper. "There are a dozen or so ... scorched, pointy, hollowed-out tree trunks."

"They're black?" I asked, and felt her staring at me as I whipped off my glasses, blinking away a dozen twinkles.

"They're kind of, like, petrified, the trunks," Chan whispered. "They turned a grayish white over the summers instead of staying black."

White
burned tree trunks? Lanz whined and nudged my hand for comfort, so I dangled my fingers and stroked the top of his head, taking in frame after frame. He wasn't buying into the idea we were safe, probably because we were in a petrified forest.
Will somebody explain that, please?

"How do burnt tree trunks turn white?" I asked.

"The only thing known to do that is lightning—if they were struck by lightning before they burned," Katy said. "Somebody brought up the question in science class, and that was the only answer Mr. Kingsley had."

I took in the six or seven tall, shimmering trunks point
ing jagged fingers up to the sky like skeleton ghosts. "Must have been a hell of a lightning storm."

Lanz did his best to guide me around larger rocks, stumps, and budding baby trees, but his mind was elsewhere. I finally let go of his harness again and stumbled close to one tall, shining trunk. I put my hand out and touched it. It felt like crystal or like wood depending on where my fingers were.

The girls were breathing quietly behind me. "Why did you want to come out here, anyway?" Katy asked. "Can we go soon?"

There was no wind, no movement, no sounds out here except our breathing. I didn't want to leave—not yet.

I could feel an energy here that I couldn't exactly verbalize. I was good at pegging the energy of one
person
at a time, but this was something more intense. Maybe it was nature's energy, or fried nature's energy ... I could only compare it to what the energy of a thousand souls, with moods and unsung statements all diving through each other, might feel like. I could see how Justin could believe in quantum thought just from spending time out here. I had trained myself to think positively, to have a mental advantage on whatever trials and tribulations I met up with throughout the day. It was pure psychology. From what I read of quantum thought, the authors felt that thought energy could reach out into the universe and actually alter the course of your 64 life in huge ways. I was no quantum physicist and had never given any ideas to my energy reaching out any higher than the ceiling of my dorm room. But out here, it was as if a roof had been lifted off of what I decided was believable and what I thought wasn't.

I lay my hand on the trunk and breathed deeply three times, trying to conjure Justin Creed's presence to this place via blasts of confidence. According to quantum thought, I could bring Justin here if my belief was powerful enough ... or I could at least get him to think of the place, wherever he was. As I was a skeptic, I decided with a smirk that any quantum energy I possessed would probably bring him here two months from now, and then we could all say it was a coincidence.

I did this deep breathing/conjuring without saying anything. It's fine to be insane as long as you keep it to yourself.

"My mother will kill me for being out here," Katy tried again.

"Tell her you went with a couple professionals," I said with as much calm as I could muster, despite Lanz's sticking his nose in my hand and whining.

"Do you feel anything ... weird out here?" I asked the girls.

"Definitely ... yes ... definitely," Katy said, and Chan whispered in an equally breathy whisper, "It's bad ... it's dark. Something evil."

"What's your vote, RayAnn?"

She came silently close to me. I could smell her shampoo. "Would I sound really squeamish if I said ... I feel that we are not alone?"

I dropped my hand and turned, and then I felt it, too. Someone was watching us. As my heart sped up, Lanz growled, and I couldn't decide if he was sensing my fear or hearing something.

My hearing has improved almost daily since I lost my vision. Now I heard breathing ... far off to my left. I pointed without opening my eyes. Trying to look at things could be a distraction to me. "There's somebody over there."

None of them moved. I suddenly wondered at the enormity of my stupidity, bringing three girls out here. I had seen a corpse earlier tonight, and the concept behind our coming to Steepleton was that the corpse had been there for years. It didn't occur to me otherwise until I saw an undergarment pulled up intact. It could be a recent murder, and if so, no one knew where that murderer was, or what the motive was. I had never won a fight in my life, and I had no clue how I would win one now, but I made a mental note to sign up for Tai Kwon Do when I got back to school.

I reached for Lanz's harness handle and he moved forward with me, growling louder and louder.

"Who's there?" I called.

I
HEARD MORE WHISPERING.
A lunatic talking to the moon?
Then there were two sets of whispers.

Suddenly, peals of laughter broke out at the place where I'd pointed. Not nice laughter. I thought of my high school cafeteria and tuna hoagies. A form jumped up, then another. The sound of the voices put them about ten feet away.

"Oh my God, it's a dog!" one girl said, startled.

"It's
five
dogs," another said, laughing. "Wait ... it's that guy from where the cops were. Is that a Seeing Eye dog? I thought you said you weren't blind!"

"I kind of lied," I said, taking two steps toward them and stopping, thinking the better of it.

A form bobbed up close, waving a hand up and down in front of my eyes as Lanz whined over and over. He'd been trained not to bite. If he ever bit, I had to give him back. But I didn't know what he'd do in a situation like this.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" A shot of wild, laughing eyes flashed, a set of teeth. I felt my neck snap and I stumbled backwards dizzily to the tune of "Have a nice trip."

Lanz barked and lunged, not helping my dizzy routine, but I held on to his harness. The girl I spoke most to at the crime scene had been Taylor, and this one was—

"Mary Ellen, is Justin with you?" I asked, trying to pretend that this whole thing wasn't happening. My Ghost of School Days Past told me any threats I made would egg them on.

"I told you, he's gone!" Mary Ellen said, but I could hardly hear it because Chan and Katy were screaming. "Who the hell is with you?"

I sensed there were two people with Mary Ellen, and suddenly RayAnn was beside me, saying, "Get back from us. Do you
like
getting bitten by dogs with teeth six inches long?"

I liked the authority-sarcasm combo. I hadn't known she had it in her.

"Who are you?" Mary Ellen repeated.

"I'm with Mike. We asked these two to bring us out here."

"And who are they?"

"What, do you pay the taxes around here?" RayAnn snapped. "Last I heard, if you own the land, you can ask the questions."

Three voices laughed at her, but nobody came forward again. A male voice cut in. "It's just that we like to know who's coming out here. Ya know ... cops and all."

Ah, a level-voiced male. I sensed the females evening out, but with disappointment. They could have sucked energy off Katy and Chan's fear and eaten us alive.

"We're the bouncers, me and Helene," Mary Ellen said. "If we don't want somebody at the party, they get bounced."

"Oh, get a job," RayAnn shot back, but I could feel her hands shaking as they clung to my arm. "Can't you flip burgers somewhere? Do something constructive with yourself?"

"Whoa!" I mumbled to her. I wanted our heads to remain on our necks. Frankly, I wanted an interview, too.

"Look, everybody, calm down," I jumped in again. "Nobody is going to touch anybody. We're here looking for Justin. If he's not here, we'd like to ask some questions. If you don't want to answer, that's fine. We'll just leave."

"What kind of questions?" Mary Ellen asked. "Justin left town. I told you before."

"Just about Steepleton, about Chris Creed, that's all. Our interest is Chris, not Justin, except what Justin might have to say as a brother."

They agreed to talk, but it was a jig getting comfortable. Katy and Chan insisted on going back to the car, but we didn't want to give them the flashlight, so I told RayAnn to take them. She refused, probably defensive about leaving me with volatile people. Mary Ellen's Igor, Helene, said she would lead them back in the dark, that she knew the way. She recognized Katy and Chan, called them by name, and I detected a note of embarrassment in her voice, maybe over Mary Ellen's attack on me. They left with her, which put me and RayAnn with Mary Ellen and the guy. He introduced himself as Kobe, and I assumed he was the infamous Kobe Lydee referenced by Katy and Chan. He was a ghost chaser, they had said, whatever that means.

All four of us ended up lying on this tarp, the three of them staring at the stars as I pretended to. I could enjoy the full moon if I kept my vision turned just the right way.

"What happened to Taylor?" I asked Mary Ellen.

"Grounded. She sneaked out to the crime scene but only stayed half an hour or so. Her dad's off tonight. He's a troll."

"Mind if I tape us?" I asked, pulling my recorder from my pocket and flipping it on.

"Can you write?" she asked curiously. She'd been lying to my left, and I sensed her roll over so that she was looking at me.

"Sure."

"How?"

"Neatly. I can see some things. Taping is easier."

"Were you born that way? Why'd you lie earlier?"

"I had a head injury three years ago, and it damaged my optic nerve center," I answered. "I should have been straight with you. Sorry, I'm learning. Journalists need to be the invisible people who don't get thrust into the middle of the story, if that makes sense. If I said I was blind, I would have had a lot of heads turning to look at me, and it would have invaded the mood."

"A head injury? What happened?" She kept it up.

"I got hit in the head with a baseball my first week at college."

"Yeah? On purpose?" The girl had a way of homing in on your weaknesses, and I wondered if it was habit or unintentional.

"It happened. There's no undoing it, and I'm here on business. Cool?"

She flopped back down again. Lanz was sitting at my feet, but he refused to lie down.

"What are we doing here?" I started. "Why were you back here, lying on a tarp and staring at the moon?"

"We're hoping to get a look at Chris Creed," Kobe said. "
The ghost of
...in other words. There have been a lot of sightings lately. Now we have this corpse."

"You're thinking it's him?" I asked, no longer sure about the body being female, having heard theories from Katy and Chan.

"It's not him. I think, maybe, he did it."

Okay
...My eyes rolled, with a smile that made me thankful for darkness. I'm a polite guy. "He won't show up in a T-shirt that said
I DID IT
by any chance?"