Ghost Town (27 page)

This isn't right,
he thought.
When I turned around to look, nothing was there. After that, we spent an hour or so walking up and down the riverbank, but we never saw or heard anything.

They certainly hadn't seen the Gork. But here it was, as big as life and terrifying as all hell—and it shouldn't be.

He frowned and willed his lungs to relax. He took a breath—a shallow one, but it would do—and said, “Something weird is going on here.”

The others, perhaps alerted by the same atavistic instinct as Trevor, had turned around and were staring at the Gork.

“That may be the greatest understatement in the history of the human race,” Greg said.

He sounded just as frightened as Trevor. But while it was true that part of him was more scared than he had ever been in his life, another part of him was confused by what was happening. The whole thing didn't make any sense, he was sure of it, but he didn't know why.

“This isn't real,” Amber said.

And there it was, three simple words that encapsulated what Trevor was feeling.

The Gork growled, the sound loud even over the rushing river, and it took a second for Trevor to realize that the creature had spoken a word.

“Stop.”

As if the word was a trigger, a series of images flashed through his mind. It began with adult versions of Amber, Drew, and him having breakfast around a dining-room table, and it ended with the three of them, accompanied by a gorgeous blond woman, passing through the entrance to an amateur spook-house maze.

He remembered, and as soon as he did, the four of them were no longer teenagers but returned to their adult selves, although they remained standing on the bank of the Clearwater.

“This is a hallucination,” Trevor said. “An illusory scenario cooked up by the Dark Lady.” He raised his voice to make sure the Gork could hear him. “Nice try, but the next time you decide to shanghai people's minds, do it to someone who hasn't experienced it before. We've been there, done that, and, in my case, wrote the book on it.”

Connie stepped closer and leaned over so her lips were near his ear. As she spoke, she kept her gaze fixed on the Gork.

“While I admire your bravado, I'd advise you not to piss her off.
She may be a spirit, and this may not be technically real, but that doesn't mean she can't harm us. Remember how that bookstore clerk was killed.”

Trevor was about to reply when a thought struck him. “Hey, what happened to Greg? He was here a second ago.”

“Just part of the illusion,” Connie said. “I was here with you the whole time.”

There was something in her tone, a teasing, mocking quality that was so familiar . . . Trevor pushed the thought aside and filed it away for later. Right then, they had bigger simians to fry.

Drew and Amber joined them.

“Connie's right,” Drew said. “And here on the psychic plane, she can attack our minds directly.”

“I can feel her reaching out to us,” Amber said. “Probing our minds, checking our defenses, looking for weak spots.”

“Can you block her?” Drew asked.

“I've . . . never done anything like that before. But I'll try.” She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow. She grimaced as her concentration deepened, and her body began to shake.

Drew reached out to steady her, or perhaps just lend her strength, but Trevor stopped him.

“Don't. Physical contact could distract her.”

Drew looked unhappy about it, but he did as Trevor suggested.

Trevor didn't know whether the Gork was the Dark Lady in disguise or just a puppet she had created to act as her avatar, but either way, it seemed clear that it was the focal point of her power in this mental landscape. At first, the creature didn't react to Amber's attempt to block the Dark Lady's psychic probes. But soon its breathing became more rapid and labored, as if it was exerting itself, although all it was doing was standing there. Then it took a single lumbering step forward, the movement clearly an effort, as if the Gork were pushing against an unseen force.

Amber gasped and took a step backward, as if she had been shoved. Her eyes sprang open in surprise, but she closed them again, stepped back to where she had been standing, and resumed concentrating.

The Gork growled, the sound rumbling forth from deep in its massive chest. It stirred a primitive fear in Trevor, rousing an ancestral memory of what it felt like to be the prey of something much larger, faster, and deadlier than a human could ever be. Trevor felt small and weak, and he was torn between two equally strong but opposing desires: to flee the scene or to stand frozen and hope the Gork would pass him by.

The creature raised its massive hands, thick fingers ending in unapelike talons. It took another step forward, moving more easily this time. Amber sucked in a hissing breath of air, as if she had just taken a punch to the stomach, but she held her ground. Standing this close to Amber, Trevor could make out her features well enough, and he saw a dark line roll down from one nostril and slide over her lips. She was bleeding.

“It's not working,” Drew said. “She's slowing it down, but she can't stop it. Not by herself.”

“Maybe we can pool our psychic resources, like we did in the Lowry House,” Trevor said.

The Gork growled again, louder this time, and took another step forward. Amber let out a soft cry of pain and doubled over. Drew couldn't hold back any longer. He put his arm around Amber's shoulders and helped her to stand upright again.

The Gork was so large that in three steps, it had crossed two-thirds of the distance between them. Another step, and they would be within reach of those wicked-looking claws. Now that the creature was closer, Trevor should have been able to make out more details, get a better sense of what its facial features and body structure were like. But it still appeared to be a shape carved from shadow, a thing of darkness that only resembled a living creature
in the crudest way. A silhouette brought to life and made three-dimensional.

The Dark Lady created this scenario from our memories of the night we searched for the Gork,
Trevor thought. She had gotten the physical details of the setting—river, bank, trees, sky—correct, but since none of them had ever seen the Gork, all she'd had to work with was whatever vague images of the creature existed in their imaginations. And really, what was a monster to a kid but a big scary thing that came at you from out of the darkness? In that sense, the Dark Lady's version of the Gork was the perfect monster, just detailed enough to be terrifying but not so detailed that it became too real. Something that was real could be understood, could be fought. But how could you fight a shadow?

“We need to do something fast,” Connie said. “Otherwise, we're going to end up Gork chow.”

Blood was streaming from both of Amber's nostrils now, and she was trembling so hard it looked as if she were having a seizure. If it wasn't for Drew propping her up, Trevor thought she might have collapsed to the ground.

“I'm open to suggestions,” he said.

“Don't look at me. You're the expert on the paranormal.” Connie paused. “Although I will point out that it was awfully careless of the Dark Lady to create a scenario with a river on the verge of flooding, considering how she likely died.”

At first, he didn't know what Connie was getting at, but then it came to him. Ghosts were often bound to the physical plane of existence by the circumstances of their deaths, a specific location or method of demise. It was part of what gave them their power, but it could be used against them, too.

He turned to Drew. “I've got a riddle for you. What's the best way to traumatize a drowning victim?”

Drew thought for a moment and then grinned. “Drown them again.”

“The Gork is definitely a double-wide,” Connie said. “At least. It's going to take all four of us to do this—and it's not going to be fun.”

“Can you help us?” Drew asked Amber.

Eyes squeezed shut, jaw clamped tight, body shaking, she nevertheless managed a nod. “Just . . . say . . . when.”

“When!” Trevor shouted.

Amber opened her eyes, and the four of them rushed toward the Gork. Now that she was no longer trying to hold the creature back, it stumbled forward, off balance, which gave them the edge they needed. They hit the Gork as a group, coming in from the creature's left and shoving it toward the water. Trevor expected it to be like hitting a brick wall covered with foul-smelling fur, but the Gork's body was as cold as ice, and it gave a little with the impact, almost as if it were made of rubber.

The creature let out an ear-splitting howl, the sound both angry and afraid. It tipped over the edge of the riverbank and hung there, fighting to regain its balance. For a moment, Trevor feared the creature wasn't going to go in, but then Amber stabbed her hand toward it, palm up and fingers splayed as if she were pushing air. The Gork flew backward several feet, and then, still howling, it plunged into the water with a tremendous splash. A small wave rushed toward them, and Trevor steeled himself for the sensation of being hit by cold river water. But the sensation never came.

Instead, his vision blurred, and he felt a few seconds of dizziness. When his vision cleared and his vertigo faded, he saw that the four of them were standing in an aisle between two bookshelves. Fake white webbing and black plastic spiders had been hung from the books, and life-size plastic skulls had been placed at intervals on the shelves. Spooky sound effects echoed around them, and light pulsed from strobes mounted on top of the shelves.

“We did it,” Trevor said, grinning.

“We couldn't have defeated her that easily,” Drew said. “Could we?”

Connie shook her head. “Not a chance. At best, we irritated her, like a bee stinging a lion. She'll try to get us again.”

Trevor turned to Connie. “All right, whatever's going on with you, spill it. How did you gain your sudden insight into the supernatural?”

Before Connie could respond, Drew said, “I should think it's obvious. Her knowledge of the paranormal, her altered speech patterns, her smartass attitude . . . none of them fits the Connie Flaxman I know. That's because she's not Connie.”

Trevor and Amber looked at Drew and then at Connie, comprehension dawning on their faces.

“Miss me?” Greg said.

“Can you loosen
the ropes? They're cutting off my circulation.”

Jenn sat tied to a wooden chair at her breakfast nook. Mitch was sitting on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, watching a movie on her DVR player.
When Harry Met Sally.
She thought it a strange choice for a creep like him, but although he kept muttering, “Man, that's so fucking stupid!” he seemed to be enjoying the film well enough. Who would have thought a kidnapping skuzzball like him would be into romantic comedies? From the looks of him, she would have guessed he was more into torture porn, films like
Hostel, Saw,
and
Turistas
. Considering her profession, she supposed she should have known better than to judge a book by its cover.

She strained at the ropes binding her. Then again, she doubted that his choice of entertainment meant that there was a kind heart concealed beneath his crazy-bastard exterior.

“Please?” she added. Mitch had turned the chair around to face the couch before tying her up. At first, she had thought it was because he wanted to keep an eye on her, but he hadn't paid any attention to her since the movie started.

He didn't take his gaze from the screen as he answered. “Shut up. I'm trying to watch this.”

“I'm not trying to get you to loosen the ropes so I can attempt to escape. My hands and feet are going numb.”

It was true. While she would have loved to get the hell away from him, this wasn't a movie and she wasn't a kickass heroine.
Even if she got free from her bonds, what could she do? She didn't know martial arts, although given her Asian heritage, many people assumed she had at least a passing acquaintance with them. And while Mitch wasn't a bodybuilder or anything, she was certain he was stronger than she was. But all that aside, she wouldn't try to escape for the simple reason that she didn't have it in her to do violence. Right now, she wished to God she did, though. There was nothing she'd like better than to beat the crap out of the sonofabitch who was holding her captive in her own home. But thinking about it and doing it were two very different things.

He sprang off the couch so fast that he was standing in front of her before she realized it. He gripped her wrists and leaned forward, pressing his weight down on them. Pain shot up her forearms, and she felt the bones in her wrist grind together. He leaned in further, until his face was only inches from hers. She imagined lunging forward, fastening her teeth on his nose, and biting down as hard as she could. But she didn't. Instead, she wrinkled her own nose at the stink of his foul breath, and she turned her head to the side, as if in a futile attempt to hide from him. As if there was anywhere she could go.

“Let's get something clear between us.” His voice was low and dangerous. “You think I want to sit on your couch and watch one of your stupid movies? There are more fun things I can think of to do with a good-looking woman like you. A lot more.”

He leaned even closer and took a deep breath, inhaling her scent. He moistened his lips with his tongue, and for a moment, she feared he was going to try to kiss her or lick her skin. She couldn't decide which would be worse. But then he pulled back, although he didn't release her wrists.

“So keep your mouth shut and count yourself lucky.”

“Why?” The question was out of her mouth before she realized it.

He frowned. “Because I said so, that's why!”

“No, I mean why are you leaving me alone? It sounds like you don't really want to. So why are you?”