The shambling figure moved slowly toward the living room.
Claire squinted into the gloom, but his features grew no clearer to her. It was as though she needed glasses, and while he continued to come nearer, his face never emerged fully enough from the shadows for him to become recognizable. His clothes were sharply defined, however, and she thought there was something familiar about them, although she could not immediately say what.
Gasps greeted his appearance as the man shuffled into the living room.
Now he could be seen. People were moving away, backing up. It was a face that should have remained in darkness. Dark, sunken eyes revealed no whites. A flattened nose seemed lost amid the swollen folds of mottled flesh that made up the forehead, cheeks and chin. The mouth, too large, was grinning, teeth inappropriately bright. Behind her, the front door opened, then closed as someone left.
Escaped.
The man stopped. She recognized him now. She still had no idea where she had seen those clothes before, but that grinning mouth was unmistakable. This was the man from her nightmare, the man from the basement.
Someone else left the house.
Claire stared in horror. That grinning mouth was opening impossibly wide, wider than the muscles of his face should have been able to stretch. From it issued that horrifying roar, only, this close, the volume was practically unbearable.
The lights went out, and the house was thrown into darkness. Someone screamed. Seconds later, the lights came on again and the figure was gone. Everyone was looking around frantically, afraid he might suddenly pop up right behind them, but there was no sign of the man.
Cole was the first one to speak. He was close by, and he turned to Julian. “That’s the man who died in your house.”
Claire had no idea what he was referring to, but she knew he was saying that the man was a ghost, and she looked at Julian. “See?” she said. “What did I tell you?” She was breathing heavily, as though she’d just run up several flights of stairs. She could hear the amplified sound of her crazy-pumping heart in her ears.
The party was breaking up. People were leaving without saying good-bye, and the few who did stop to speak with them made no mention of what had happened, simply offered perfunctory congratulations before they quickly departed, like guests ashamed of a drunken host’s behavior. In moments, the house was all but empty.
Rick, surprisingly, was the only one with an honest reaction. He was the last to leave, and he shook his head as he looked back toward the hall. “What the hell was that?” he said.
Claire and Julian shrugged helplessly.
“That was a fuckin’ ghost, man. We all saw it.”
It felt good to hear the word spoken, even if it was by Rick.
“Shit! Did anyone get a picture? I didn’t even think about it. I shoulda whipped out my phone. Did anybody else take one?”
“I don’t know,” Julian admitted.
“People always wonder why those UFO photos are always grainy and shit, why no one ever gets a good picture of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster or whatever. It’s because when it’s happening, when it’s going down, you don’t think of stuff like that. You’re too scared to even move.”
“You’re right,” Claire told him.
“But we were here,” Rick said. “We saw it. All of us. So don’t go second-guessing yourself tomorrow, telling yourself you imagined it or it didn’t really happen. It happened. I’m a witness. That was no figment of your imagination. That was a ghost. And there were a good dozen or so people who stood here and watched the whole thing.”
“He’s right.”
Surprised, Rick turned to see who had spoken. Cole Hubbard was standing on the stoop behind him, and Claire wondered whether he had gone and come back or had been there the entire time. She could not recall seeing him leave.
“That was a ghost,” Cole said. “And we all saw it.” He looked from Julian to Claire. “I can’t say I’m all that surprised, and probably most of the other neighbors aren’t, either. In fact, that might even be the reason some of them came.” He motioned toward the two houses on either side of theirs. “Or didn’t come.”
“What are you talking about?” Rick said.
“A lot of old neighborhoods have a ‘haunted’ house. Well, this is ours.”
“I told you.” Claire faced Julian. “I told you.”
“You want my advice?” Cole said. “Sell the house. Sell it now before the word spreads. Get out while you can.”
Sixteen
They weren’t saying anything to Megan or James. Julian was adamant about that. They didn’t know what was really going on here, he argued, and he didn’t want to frighten the kids needlessly.
Though initially reluctant, Claire finally agreed. “But we do know what’s going on here,” she told him pointedly. “Our house is haunted. We saw a ghost. We all saw a ghost.”
“Not necessarily,” he argued. “There were a lot of people, some of them who weren’t invited. You caught that man in James’s room. This guy might’ve been a party crasher, too. Everyone had had a little too much to drink; those lights were flickering. We might not’ve seen what we thought we saw. And when the lights went out, he might’ve just gone out the back door.”
“Come on! This wasn’t some teenage keg party. Guys from other neighborhoods weren’t sneaking into our house to meet chicks and score free booze. This was a housewarming party with a countable number of people attending. And just because I didn’t recognize that man in James’s room doesn’t mean you didn’t invite him. I’m pretty sure he’s a neighbor. But that ghost …” She glared at him. “Cole said it was a man who died in our house. You didn’t even tell me about that.”
“I didn’t know,” he lied.
“Right.”
“I didn’t.”
“I don’t care right now. But I do think Cole’s right. I think we should sell the house.”
Julian sighed. “We just bought it. We can’t—”
“We can’t what? Sell it? Of course we can. We’ll find another house.”
“We can’t afford it.”
“Our house is haunted! What part of that don’t you understand?”
“Even if it is haunted,” he told her, “and I’m not saying it is, a ghost can’t hurt anyone. They might frighten people, but they can’t physically harm a person.”
“Fear can cause heart attacks. And ghosts can make people trip and fall if they startle them. If they can also play records and move laundry baskets …” She exhaled heavily, disgusted. “I’m not going to argue with you about the physical properties of ghosts. What I’m saying is, I’m not going to live in a haunted house.”
“You’re going to have to. Look, I don’t have any jobs lined up after this one. And the town of Jardine is not exactly a hotbed of legal activity, so your phone’s not ringing off the hook, either. We have to be realistic. If we were in California, we might both have enough business that we could afford a do-over. But right now, that’s not an option. We have enough money coming in, and in the bank, to make our house payments and pay our monthly bills, with a little bit left over. But that’s it. The down payment for this place pretty much cleaned us out. We can’t afford to do it again. Or pay all those points and fees. Even if we did qualify for another loan. So we can’t just pull up stakes and move. It’s financially impossible.”