The Haunting of James Hastings (43 page)

Read The Haunting of James Hastings Online

Authors: Christopher Ransom

Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Suspense

BOOK: The Haunting of James Hastings
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I bent over, panting. I stood upright again, looking at the safe.
 
‘Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me.’
 
I was standing in front of the third safe, the one on the right.
 
I shuffled to the left.
Take your time and do it right the first time.
 
Right, left, right, left. I stood, grasped two of the four prongs on the dial, and pulled. The door did not open - but something clunked inside.
 
Put some manhood into it.
 
I yanked harder, harder, until my molars ached. The hinges squeaked in protest, and the iron door clanked open. There were three thick shelves up high and a vacant space beneath those, large enough to hold a grown man folded over himself.
 
The safe was empty.
 
I sank to the floor and rubbed my eyes. Rising, my eyes caught on something dark, thick, all the way at the back of the lowest shelf. I reached in.
 
A gun. Not Aaron’s .45. A revolver, heavy as a barbell, the cylinder fat with shells.
 
‘Oh, Aaron, good boy.’
 
Time to rock and roll, Ghost.
 
Wait. The safe was still not empty. A little second layer of something had been hidden behind the gun, light and filament-soft, tightly bundled. I set the gun down. I swiped my hand over it and it fluttered in the air and settled into my palm.
 
A thin purple band squeezing a lock of her blonde hair. They took Stacey’s hair.
 
My heart breaks. My mind races with the responsibility of it all.
 
Stacey is dead. James is dead. I have taken James’s place.
 
I taught him how to be me. I put him to work. I sent him on the road. The road is a lonely place. I took care of his wife while he was away. She was lonely too, so sad. I gave her pills. Picked her up. Had a little pill party. Too much wine. A shoulder to cry on. Boo hoo, James is never home. How ironic. He’s in Atlanta working for me; I’m in LA undercover, thought I’d stop by to say hello. I don’t even know where he is any more. Haven’t spoken to him in a year.
 
His wife is beautiful, pure. Poor Stacey. All she has is this dog, Henry. Let me rub your shoulders, girl. There is no James here tonight. But I can be James. He can be me. We can walk a thousand miles in each other’s shoes.
 
Where did Ghost disappear to - the world wants to know. The media speculated I had retired, gone back into rehab, absconded to Bulgaria. No one really knew. My people don’t even know. I didn’t know. Now I know the truth.
 
James Hastings died so that I could live.
 
I am Nathaniel Eric Riverton, the artist formerly known as Ghost.
 
I am the pale demon. I took his wife. I got his wife killed. I got him killed. Snuffed on film. That poor bastard.
 
But no one knows what it’s like to be me. If I hadn’t dropped off the face of the earth, I would have killed myself. Burned out on the tour, the drugs that fuel the fire on stage every night. The fame, the public, the guilt. All those motherfuckers gunning for me. Five years is a career in hip-hop. I am done. I found my way out.
 
It’s nicer this way. That’s what my girl said.
 
Weeks went by, months. And can you believe my luck? No one knows what really happened. I was free. Shit, this was better than Tupac. I am a legend. My music will live on the mystery. I don’t have to die to become immortal. I am already dead.
 
I escaped my own fate. I let my hair grow out, stopped coloring it. I threw away the clothes and bought new boring clothes, so I look like every other nobody on the street. I got me a pair of glasses. Laser tattoo removal - that shit hurts. I lived in his house. He died, and I awoke. But that house was fucked up. Once they were gone, there was no one there but me. And Henry. What was I supposed to do with a dog? Shit, I gave that puppy away. I learned to live it. Kicked it low. Stopped answering the phone. Ignored his family. Avoided their friends. Packed up her shit and just chilled. He was supposed to be in mourning.
 
It was perfect.
 
Except - why did I hear all those things at night? Why was that place always making noises? What was that sound in the ballroom? My shit always out of place. I could never find my car keys, my underwear. The maid gets spooked, like she knows, but she can’t say nothing. Olivia looking at me like I am an alien, a body snatcher, and maybe I am.
 
Shit, I used to haunt him. Now he is haunting me.
 
Have another beer. Wait it out. The kid had enough of my money in the bank, wasn’t goin’ nowhere. I could do this.
 
I looked different and then, damn, I felt different. This act was working, working a little too well. It’s like I am him. I felt him there. I felt her there. She won’t let go. He won’t let go. I started seeing things. Those rabbits, man.
 
I never meant for so many people to get hurt. Some people can’t handle the music. All those teenagers who hurt themselves and each other. Their fucking parents should have paid more attention. I don’t deserve this. I am an artist. I don’t use guns. I use words. It’s The Show, people. But that don’t mean it don’t hurt me. Of course it hurts. I got feelings, too.
 
I let Annette into my world. I knew she was crazy. But maybe I needed to be punished for my sins. And now I’ve served my time. James paroled me.
 
Except. Cover blown. The brother caught me, cut me up. They might be back soon to kill me for real. This shit cannot go on. Living in this prison homo’s basement. Why the fuck didn’t he fight back? What’s a matter with you, James? Nut up.
 
Too late. He’s dead.
 
I am Ghost, and I am so much stronger now. I wish I had known this a long time ago. I wouldn’t have taken any shit from anybody. Rick? Rick Butterfield? You gotta be kiddin’ me. I will eat that boy’s heart from his chest.
 
Check it: all this time we was sitting in the basement, waiting for the motherfucker to come back with another tray of egg rolls to feed my sorry ass, the basement door wasn’t even locked.
 
Fuck these bandages and fuck these back problems. They can have my blood. I will always make more. I am the Emperor and I feel no pain.
 
I grabbed that gun and I hit them stairs and, kid, I
flew
.
 
SHE WHO WILL
 
 
 
 
 
 
Stacey was seventeen, the skin of her arms and legs deep brown from the summer, the cut-off jeans she had taken from him loose around her hips, her thin rubber sandals dirty from Gerald’s farm. She was cradling a white rabbit with a black saddle, holding it in the cozy nook of her right arm and she scratched the top of its head with her left hand. The rabbit’s ears were flat, its eyes closed, its whiskers twitching in almost murmuring pleasure against the safety of her warm body.
 
‘I want to take him home,’ she said, looking up at James as if asking his permission, and he was struck by the little girl that still existed inside of her, despite all they had done that summer. They had lied to their parents countless times, shoplifted, smoked weed and had sex a dozen times. Now she wanted a pet bunny.
 
‘How would you take him back?’ James was her age, and yet somehow older, the older James spectral, dying or dead, watching her through the eyes of memory. ‘Carry him in your lap the whole way? Your mom’s not going to let you take that thing home, Stace. You’re moving out next year. You don’t want a rabbit.’
 
She knew he was right. ‘But he’s so cute. I don’t think I can put him back.’
 
She had bonded with him in the few minutes since Gerald, the farmer who owned the farm beyond the lake house, had taken him out for her. James was anxious. It was time to leave. They weren’t supposed to stay so late. James looked at the sky. The sunny day was gray going to black.
 
‘We have to go,’ he said.
 
‘You can’t let her,’ Stacey said, looking up at him with a sudden ferocity. ‘You can’t let her change the rabbit, James. Promise me you won’t let her in.’
 
He didn’t know what this meant, but he was chilled to the core by the growing sense that something had gone wrong, that this memory was wrong. Something in him was changing their last afternoon of that free month together, spoiling it.
 
‘I love him,’ Stacey said. She was crying now. ‘I love the rabbits, James. Don’t you remember how much I loved the rabbits?’
 
‘Come on,’ he said, hefting the bag of corn. ‘We have to get back for dinner. They’re waiting for the Silver Queen.’
 
Stacey put the rabbit back into his hutch, and she was sad, but not irrevocably so.
It’s okay
, he thought.
It is the emotion of everything. The end of summer. Tonight is our last night at the lake.
They would be driving back to Tulsa tomorrow, in separate cars with their parents, and he knew she was crying because her childhood had ended.
 
They thanked Gerald for showing them the rabbits and walked away holding hands, James swinging the bag with two dozen ears of Silver Queen in his left hand. And briefly, so briefly, he had time to wonder how.
How can I have the Silver Queen? Gerald said he’d closed the corn stand. This never happened.
 
But he knew it had happened. Maybe it was happening again, in a different way, and maybe his memory was her soul.
 
Back at the van, James hugged her and kissed her neck and whispered in her ear.
 
‘I love you, too,’ Stacey said.
 
They drove onto the county road in a sort of daze, not speaking for half a mile, rolling, coasting, the air thick with humidity and the sky gray with a looming thunderstorm. He sensed her feeling a little better, until he saw the dark lump up ahead on the side of the road. A road kill. He braced himself, hoping she wouldn’t see it, even as she leaned forward in her seat and set her hands on the dash.
She sees it too
, he thought,
and it’s only going to make her worse.
He drifted into the other lane, giving the road kill a wide berth, and Stacey whimpered, turning her head as they passed.
 
‘Oh, God,’ she moaned, ‘it’s the rabbit, James. He got out!’ She started crying again. ‘Stop the car! Stop!’
 
‘Stacey, no,’ he said. ‘It’s too late. He’s gone. It was just a jackrabbit. It’s not him, it’s not the same one. We put him away. He’s safe.’
 
‘He could be alive! He needs our help!’
 
He was torn. If the rabbit was alive, he should stop, put it out of its misery. If it was dead, stopping and letting her out to go see it would only make her miserable. He watched her pressing her face against the side window, turning as they passed, and he knew there was nothing he could do to help her. He had to do what she said, and she would grieve and there was nothing he could do to make it better.
 
The van floated . . . and he watched her, watched his girl.
 
A horrible whistle filled the air, a screeching tea kettle sound that jumped up from nowhere and then roared at them. He looked up to discover they had drifted all the way into the wrong lane, the oncoming lane. A semi-tractor trailer, a monster of a truck with a tall black flat face and teeth of chrome, was bearing down on them.
 
James yanked the wheel hard right and the van tires howled as they began to slide. Stacey screamed and he fought the wheel, overcorrecting now, back onto the road but swerving wildly, and he mashed the brakes, locking up as the truck passed, blaring its barge horn in his ear. They slewed sideways onto the soft shoulder and the van rocked to a halt and a cloud of dust rolled over them.
 
Safe. They were safe. James was trembling, clenching the wheel and trying to get his bearing when he looked over to find her seat empty. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw her running down the side of the road a hundred feet back.
 
He checked the driver’s side mirror. The lane was clear. He got out and ran, chasing her down the road. When he caught up to her she was standing over the rabbit. He was small, black and white, but not saddled. One of Gerald’s had escaped, but not hers. Only his tail and face were white. The rest was black . . . and red, all red. He was covered in his own blood and there was no question he had been killed instantly. She was sobbing.

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