Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories (4 page)

“Dave thought he saw ghosts,” Amy said. She
gave him her whittled stick and a hot dog to roast. “Always with
the ghosts.”

He looked again at the house, excited about
this new turn of events. The once prominent house had been built
ninety years ago by a once-famous Broadway playwright named
Benjamin Myers who became even more popular writing blockbuster
screenplays for Hollywood before he and his wife mysteriously
disappeared.

“You saw Myers and his wife’s ghosts?” he
asked.

“Apparitions of some dogs,” Dave said; “three
of them as plain as day. They vanished right before you came.”

“You saw his dogs? The hunting dogs that
froze to death?” Lenny almost dropped his hotdog while he fumbled
to pierce it with the stick.

“How did they freeze?” Vree asked. She, who
had moved last year to Ridgewood, inched closer to Lenny. He began
to tell her when Amy interrupted.

“It’s a dumb story that says the county
sheriff found Benjamin Myers and his nine hunting dogs frozen
inside the house on a hot summer day.”

“It isn’t dumb,” Dave said.

“Yes, it is. I checked the town’s newspaper
archives that time I did an English paper about Cathleen and
Benjamin Myers. There was no mention of anyone or anything frozen
inside the house the day they disappeared.”

“So, how did they disappear?” Vree pressed
closer to Lenny when she said this.

“No one knows,” he said as he relished the
feel of her body against his; “but it started a half-century of
ghost stories.”

“The police concluded that Mr. and Mrs. Myers
died in a plane crash during a trip to the Caribbean,” Amy
said.

“Which isn’t official,” Dave added. “Myers
and his wife always flew using pseudonyms, and no bodies or
substantial wreckage were ever found, which means there’s no
confirmation that they died at sea.”

Amy sounded irritated when she groaned. “It
makes more sense than believing that he and his dogs froze to
death, or that Cathleen jumped to her death at the bottom of
Widow’s Ravine.”

Lenny glanced at where a trickling stream
separated the two properties. A half-mile away to his left, the
stream fell into a steep-sided gorge called Widow’s Ravine, a place
that the rest of the legend claims Cathleen Myers jumped to her
death after she found her husband and his dogs frozen. He told Vree
about the legend and added, “Her screams can be heard whenever her
ghost relives the suicide and plunges into the ravine.”

“For the record, none of us have ever heard
anyone screaming from Widow’s Ravine,” Amy said. “And I’ve never
seen any ghosts.”

“Well, I have,” Dave said.

“Whatever.” Amy popped a peppermint Life
Saver candy into her mouth and offered Vree and Lenny some.

“And I’m not the only one,” Dave said before
swallowing the last of his hotdog. “Our cousin Ricky says Alan
Baker was driving up here one night after the fire when he saw a
pack of wild-looking dogs on the Myers property. When he aimed a
flashlight at them, they vanished. Then, as he was driving away, he
felt the weight of invisible animals jumping on the hood of his
truck. He hurried home and discovered that something had scratched
the truck’s paint and dented the hood.”

Amy shook her head and said, “I wouldn’t
believe anything Alan Baker says.”

“I’m just saying what Ricky told me, is
all.”

“Whatever.”

They quieted and Lenny cooked his hotdog and
ate it without a bun or any dressing, just the way he liked them,
and snuck glances at quiet Vree cloud gazing. He looked up once or
twice and wondered what she saw there.

A stick snapped behind Amy’s tent and caused
him turn partway to the left. The dark shape of a human figure
stepped around the tent and into their midst.

“Who are you?” Dave said, almost shouting,
which drew Vree’s and Amy’s attention. “This is private land.”

Fiery hues of the campfire revealed a
stunning woman. Flame glinted from her long black hair, her bronze
face, and her long, sweeping black dress tied off at the waist. A
white lace collar hung around her neck, and pearl buttons sparkled
in a row between her ample breasts. Tall and curvy, she looked at
the four teenagers with mesmerizing and penetrating eyes—blacker
than either her hair or dress, or the rubies set in the gold rings
that she wore on eight fingers and two thumbs.

“This parcel of land is owned by Margaret
Evans,” she replied as she strolled to stand next to the fire
between Dave and the rest of them.

“She’s our grandmother,” Dave said. “Our dad
lives here now.”

“Yes, I know of your family, David,” she said
to him. “And Amy.” She smiled and looked kindly at Amy, beaming
those mysterious charcoal eyes. Then she looked at Lenny and
lingered with a puzzled, yet bewitching gaze.

He held her gaze until Dave asked, “How can
we help you?”

She looked away and said, “I must rest a
moment. The journey here has tired me.”

She sat with a grace that made her seem to
glide to the grass. There, she tucked her legs delicately beside
herself and covered her bare feet beneath her dress. Her gaze
shifted back to Lenny, then to Vree, and then to him again.

“I don’t know you two,” she said.

“I’m Lenny Stevens,” Lenny said. “This is
Vree.”

“My full name is Verawenda Erickson,” Vree
said. “Well, actually, Verawenda Renee Erickson. My friends started
calling me Vree because of my initials.”

“I am Ademia Consuela Ramona Cathleen
Savakis,” the woman said to her. “I have been called all of these
names and more. But you can call me Ademia.” Her eyes narrowed and
the corners of her mouth lifted for a moment as she smiled at Vree.
Then she asked, “Do you and your family live on the ridge,
too?”

“Yes. My parents and I moved just down the
road almost sixteen months ago … from Pittsburgh.”

“My parents and I live in town,” Lenny said.
“My dad—”

Ademia’s stern gaze caused him to close his
mouth with a clack of teeth striking together. He saw a flicker of
sadness cross her face before she turned and looked at Dave. “And
why do you mistake me for—” she leaned closer “—a gypsy … no … a
witch?”

Dave stiffened and said, “I don’t.”

“I suppose I do look like a gypsy. My mother
was Brazilian, my father Greek. But I’m neither gypsy nor witch,
although—”

She paused and looked thoughtful. Then she
glanced in the direction of the burnt remains of the old mansion
and said rather sadly, “I must go now.”

She stood as easily and gracefully as she had
sat.

“Good night,” she said before turning and
heading toward the Myers property.

The four watched her until the night made her
invisible. Then Amy said, “Did you guys notice that she had no
shoes on her feet?”

“And on a cold night like tonight,” Vree
said. She shivered and tightened the blanket around her. “It feels
like it might snow.”

Dave stood and said, “Lenny, throw some more
wood on the fire. I have to see a man about a horse.”

“Cute,” Amy said. “Water some weeds for me
while you’re at it.”

Lenny sighed that the woodpile was at the far
side of the barn and that he had to leave Vree’s side. Icy air
latched onto him and left him shivering when he stepped from
beneath the blanket and away from the fire.

He had taken eight steps toward the barn when
Dave came quickly to him and pointed down at the Myers
property.

“Look,” he said with a voice that was barely
audible. Then it rose as he said, “Don’t you see it? It’s Ben
Myers’s ghost!”

Lenny turned in time to see the glowing
apparition of a man in a white shirt and dark pants walk through
the Myers house’s burnt remains. Then the ghostly image wavered and
disappeared.

“Tell me you saw that,” Dave said.

“Saw what?” Amy asked as she and Vree huddled
beneath the blanket and peered out at them.

“Ben Myers’s ghost,” Dave said. “It was just
there. Just like the dogs I saw earlier.”

As if cued by Dave’s words, Lenny heard dogs
bark from the ruined house. He said, “When Myers’s dogs died, their
spirits came back as hellhounds to guard the house from
trespassers.”

“Another dumb tall tale,” Amy said to
Vree.

“Dumb or not,” Lenny said, “I hear them
barking.”

“I do, too,” Dave said.

“You do?” It was Vree who spoke. She flung
away her end of the blanket, stood, and peered down the hillside.
“Where are they? I want to see.”

A pack of nine dogs charged from the ruins
and lined at the bottom of the hill, all of them glowing an aura of
green light. Lenny went to Vree and stood at her side as the dogs
looked up at them, snarling and baring teeth.

“I don’t see anything,” Vree said to
Lenny.

“Because nothing’s there,” Amy said. She had
stood and now peered down the hill, too.

But Lenny saw the dogs as clear as though
they stood beneath a noon sun. There were white hounds with black
and brown patches, some rough-coated terriers, and a brown
Rottweiler that stood in the middle and slobbered white foam from
its mouth.

“I see them,” Dave said as he joined his
friends. “And they don’t look happy to see us.”

The Rottweiler growled low and guttural. And
the red ember of fire in its eyes caused Dave to step backward.

“Let’s go inside the house,” he said. Then he
said it again, louder, as the other dogs joined in. As the growls
rose in both pitch and volume, Lenny agreed with Dave’s suggestion.
He tugged at one of Vree’s arms and told her and Amy to follow Dave
who had turned and now hurried past the barn, toward the house.

“But I don’t see or hear anything,” Vree
said.

“Because there’s nothing’s down there.” Amy
wrapped her blanket around Vree’s shoulders and said to Lenny,
“We’re staying here and camping out tonight, even if it snows.”

The growls stopped.

Lenny looked down the hill and saw that three
of the seven dogs had vanished, which included the Rottweiler.

“It isn’t snow I’d worry about,” he said,
seconds before vicious barking came from the driveway.

“They’re after me,” Dave yelled as he ran
from around the side of the barn and headed toward them. “Get in
the tents. Hurry.”

In a puff of red smoke, the Rottweiler
appeared in front of Dave, blocking the way.

Dave skidded to a stop and stared wildly at
the dog. Then he bolted to his right and vanished into the field
and darkness there.

Two hounds glowing green raced into view from
around the side of the barn and charged after him.

The Rottweiler followed, almost flying across
the ground as it too vanished in the dark.

“They’re heading toward Widow’s Ravine,”
Lenny said. “We have to help—”

Just then, horrible howls from below the hill
filled the air. Amy and Vree screamed as they stared down the
hillside. The remaining dogs charged the hill.

“They’re real,” Amy said before she tore past
Lenny, the blanket dropping to the ground. Vree followed, close at
her heels.

Lenny looked once more at the hellish ghost
dogs coming at him before he raced after the girls heading to Mr.
Evans’s house, which was lit up inside and looked so safe and
inviting.

“But what about Dave?” he called out.

The girls kept running, but he stopped. His
best friend was being chased to a dangerous place with sinkholes
and cliffs. He turned and hurried after Dave as the remaining
hellhounds crested the hill and raced after him.

He plowed blindly into brambles and thorny
weeds that slapped and poked and grabbed him, scratched his face
and hands, and scarred his clothes and shoes.

The hellhounds closed their distance quickly.
His drumming heart climbed into his throat when he realized he
couldn’t outrun them. Still, he shielded his face with his arms as
he pushed on.

The dangerous terrain looked foreign in the
low-lit night, yet he followed the sound of the hellhounds ahead of
him and thought only of Dave’s safety.

His inhales and exhales sounded like whimpers
and moans when moonlight broke through the clouds and he burst
through the confining brambles at a clearing atop a steep cliff of
Myers Ridge.

Dave was there, at the edge but safe for the
moment, doubled over and breathing hard. The hellhounds that had
followed him had their heads lowered and their rear ends in the air
like wolves that had just pinned their prey.

Lenny hurried and kicked at the Rottweiler’s
backside, hoping to punt it over the cliff. Instead, his foot went
through the apparition and he landed on his backside.

Quick to get up, he hurried to Dave’s side as
the rest of the pack caught up and formed a line, boxing him and
Dave at the edge of the cliff. The hellhounds glared with red eyes
and growled with slobbering mouths. One of the hellhounds howled
and Lenny lashed out at it, this time with words.

“Leave us alone.”

The Rottweiler growled and leaped at him. Its
forepaws struck his chest and sent him stumbling backwards, his
arms flailing. For a moment, it seemed that he had stabled his
balance. Then the evil apparition barked sharply at him from where
it had landed. Lenny flinched, lost his footing, and stumbled over
the precipice of Widows Ravine.

He plummeted on his back one hundred feet
through icy air to the icier waters of Myers Creek. When he entered
the T of the tributary and creek, his aching throat released a yelp
of surprise as the water enveloped him like a brutal winter
blast.

He remembered then that he did not know how
to swim.

He sank quickly into darkness until his
backside struck the rocky creek bottom. He rested there a moment,
dazed. Then he pushed off and struggled toward a sliver of
moonlight barely rippling on the water’s surface far above him. His
arms and legs felt encumbered by his heavy clothes. Worse, his
lungs ached to release the little breath he held. He fought an
intense, overwhelming urge to breathe deeply; he was only halfway
to the surface when he knew that he could hold his breath no
longer. He was going to drown.