Jesse Turner (uptheanti) wrote in spn_nextgen, @ 2011-03-21 23:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | 1x02 - sweet child o' mine |
Episode 1x02: Sweet Child O' Mine, Part 1
The sparks looked like stars, zooming up and melding into the night sky. Jesse hadn’t thought of that one himself. A girlfriend - or at least as close as he ever got to a girlfriend - had said it on a night that was pretty similar to this one. Only that night was several years and tens of thousands of miles ago. Then he’d been lying on a towel on the sand with a pretty girl, listening to the waves. Now he was lying on a blanket in the middle of the woods, listening to three guys giggle over their mull. Aside from no possibility of sex, they were pretty equal nights.
“Look,” he said, pointing up. “The fire’s like stars, except falling up instead of down. Stars are made of fires sparks.”
There was silence a moment, then giggles.
“You ain’t far enough along if you’re talking Lion King shit,” said Luke, passing the joint.
Jesse took a deep pull before passing it on, watching the smoke rise above him as he let it out. “And now I’ve made clouds,” he said, snorting a laugh.
“Dude, where’s the fritos? Did we finish ‘em already?” Bryan asked, looking around their junkfood pile.
“Fuck if I know.” Stu shoveled the last handful of Funyuns in his mouth and tossed the wrapper in the fire. He was so captivated by the way it shriveled, he almost missed the blunt being handed his way.
“Fuck fritos, I want chips,” Jesse said, rolling on his stomach and propping himself up. “No, wait! Fried pizza! Shit, you ever have fried pizza?”
Bryan snorted derisively at Jesse. “Fritos are chips, fag.”
Stu choked a little, spurting smoke from the corners of his mouth. Laughing and breathing at the same time were a little too complicated at the moment. “Fried pizza Fritos, man...”
“This blunt shit is too slow,” Bryan said solemnly. “I think it’s time to bring out Fat Sally.”
“You been hidin’ a girl here this whole time and didn’t tell me?” Jesse said, tilting his head with a smile.
Luke roared. “Ain’t a girl, but you can try’n fuck her later if you want. Go and get her, Stu.”
“Dude--” Stu’s glassy grey eyes were open as much as possible--which wasn’t that much--trained on the new recruit of their group. “Don’chu put your dick anywhere near my bong.” His brows arched and he pointed, because pointing was important, then got up and headed to the truck.
Bryan snickered, grabbing up a stick that was on the ground within arm’s reach before chucking it at Stu’s retreating backside. He screeched in the distance. “Lord knows, you fuck that bong enough, Stewie.”
“Yer mom complains too much, Asshole!” Stu barked back. His footsteps crunched on dead leaves and grit now that the fire and the others’ voices faded with distance. Fuck it was dark out here. Funny how Chicago was only an hour drive away, and here he needed the help of a mini Maglite just to see the lock on the tailgate.
Fuckers better not smoke everything I got, a mildly disgruntled thought ran through his mind as he dropped the gate and pushed up the old mismatched topper, and climbed in with the rest of their gear.
Digging through chaotically thrown-together camping supplies in the pitch black with a Maglite rolling awkwardly between his shoulder and cheek was a lot more difficult than it sounded. Stu could barely hold onto the light, braced with bony knees digging into the raw metal truck bed and moving duffels and sleeping bags aside to find the blanket-wrapped gravity bong hiding somewhere in the back.
“FUCK--” He’d shifted weight to accidentally lean all of it on a tent-spike that got left behind, lurched forward, and dropped the flashlight from his neck. It clanged harshly, then went out.
“...mutherfucker.” Stu grimaced and grabbed for the light and pressed in the rubber switch. Nothing happened. It clicked again and again with the same result; even shaking the damned thing didn’t work. A slew of muttered curses echoed in the back of the truck, keeping Stu distracted from the fact that the tailgate, and the topper door, were slowly closing by themselves.
As he finally came up with the bong, there was a loud and distinct click. He spun around, finding himself closed in. “Hey!” he snapped, grabbing at the window latch. It wouldn’t budge. “You fuckers lock me in here, you ain’t getting the bong!”
There was no response. Not a word, not even a laugh. Stu frowned. Maybe it had fallen closed. The only other way out was the cab window. He turned back around. The night had been relatively warm, but suddenly he felt like he’d was out in the dead of winter. His breath came out in a hot white cloud, which easily dissipated in the air. Suddenly he was flipped onto his back, and above him a furious, pale woman glared down at him with a blood-tainted knife. He screamed in pants-wetting terror before the knife came down into him, cutting him off.
Jesse’s head jerked around to the cut-off scream, and he wasn’t the only one.
“Fuck, he having a freak-out or something?” he said, eying the others. Luke’s eyes were glued to the darkness, cut by a little glare from the fire off the truck bumper in the distance. He forced a half-chewed load of Doritos down his throat, then cleared it.
“‘Ey Stu! The fuck’s wrong with you, man?”
“Probably saw a spider or something, the pussy,” Bryan said, snickering like he’d told the best joke in the world.
With still no response, Jesse fiddled with his hands before getting up. “Prob’ly fell in a ditch or something. I’m gonna check.”
He headed towards the truck on unsteady feet, calling Stu’s name every once in a while. But no one answered or even seemed to be around. The truck was still all closed up. Thinking that he really should have brought a flashlight, Jesse figured he could grab the bong while he was here and then they’d look for Stu. Maybe he’d gone to take a piss and fallen over.
Opening the tailgate, he reached in and started feeling around.
“Aw shit.” Someone must have spilled a drink. From a thermos, probably, because it was still warm. Looked like it had spilled on a blanket covering something harder. He felt along it, coming to a warm, hard jut of something and then what felt like...lips. Eyes going wide, he grabbed what had to be a sweater and pulled the body into the light. Stu’d wide eyes stared back at him, his mouth as gaping as the wounds in his chest.
Jesse froze for one long moment. Then he let go, stumbled a few steps back, and leaned over to vomit, hard and burning. Without even thinking it, his feet went towards the campfire. Oh God. OhGodOhGodOhGod.
Luke’s brows pushed down over his nose as he peered into the dark, and caught the hard thump thump thump of Jesse’s panicked stride--then shot up when he saw the new dude’s face. “Shit, man...” Guy looked like he saw a ghost. He was about to say such when his thought was cut off, and his blood suddenly chilled with the shrill, piercing, haunting sound of a woman’s anguished scream.
“...tell me you heard that,” he shot a look at Bryan, then back to Jesse.
“Holy shit, what the fuck was that?” Bryan bleated, his eyes wide and his skin going as pale as a sheet. “What the fuck was that?!”
Jesse’s head snapped around, his stomach lurching. On instinct, he grabbed Luke’s arm. “It-It-- Stu’s dead. Someone killed Stu. He’s bleeding and not breathing.”
“What?!” Luke tensed as soon as Jesse grabbed him, but what the other man said fought back his original urge to just rip away. “Th’fuck you mean, de--”
He was cut off again, this time by the echoing bellow of a man, somewhere in the dark nearby. Rageful and crazed, and so close to the oily halo of light cast by the fire. The oddly warm early spring air suddenly dropped, like the breeze and the subtle sounds of a forest at night. After that scream, everything went silent, except for the increasingly frantic breaths of those huddled together.
“Fuck, dude...” Luke’s eyes had locked on something just over Jesse’s shoulder. They were wide and glassy with shock, and he grappled at the other man’s arm to turn him around. There, melting from the shadows themselves, was a tall, pale man. His expression was complete hatred and malice; his clothing, besides the monotone black and grays, streaked by deep red and deep, yawning gashes. At his side, he held an ax.
“We gotta get back to the car, man,” Bryan said in a shrill voice. “Where are the keys? Did Stu take the keys with him? Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have let that fucker have the keys.” He started shoveling everything within reach into the bags that they’d brought out with them.
“Forget the shit and move!” Jesse yelled, shoving Luke towards the trunk before grabbing Bryan’s arm and yanking him along. Dead body in a trunk was better than man with an ax.
Out of the complete blackness in their line of escape, the shape of a woman materialized in the blink of an eye; she raised the dripping blade in her fist, and her cracked mouth gaped like the wounds all over her body, in order to let loose another fearsome scream. But it was cut short by a piece of quite real, dark metal slicing through the middle of the apparition’s waist. The spectre yelled into nothingness as it dissolved out of sight--behind her was Claire, wielding an iron fireplace poker like a Louisville Slugger.
“Get back to the fire!” she barked at the three men, already cutting around them on a slightly limping stride, her weapon raised and threatening toward the other ghost--who leered at her before disappearing on his own.
Bryan certainly wasn’t going to argue, and immediately turned around and started bolting in the other direction until Jesse’s grip on his arm forced him to trip and fall, very nearly dragged the other man down in the process. Luke stumbled back, still gaping and seemingly unable to speak.
“What’s going on? What was that? What the hell was in that pot?!” Jesse said, his head snapping around, trying to find the man and woman. Instead he saw Claire, and finally got a good look at her. “Fuck me dead. You’re that cop from the concert.”
Claire had just buried the end of the poker in the moist ground in order to snag the box of salt from the bag around her shoulder when she realized one of them was talking directly to her--which wasn’t surprising in principle. Not in the circumstances. But the context... That was new.
She looked over her shoulder at the one who’d called her a cop. His face was familiar; she’d definitely seen him before. Obviously he’d seen her. “Sure,” she cut it short and quick, opting for sharing time once the circle was complete. “Cop from the concert--that’s me.” In the meantime, she stooped low and circled the fire slow, Morton Salt box in hand, and tipped. “Stay behind this line, and don’t mess</i> with it.”
Bryan looked at the salt incredulously, then back at the blonde. “So what, whatever it is has hypertension or somethin’? The hell is salt gonna do?”
“Shut up and just do it,” Jesse hissed, though his eyes stayed on Claire, sizing her up. He sure knew what salt was for, and he had to hold back the urge to run. It was entirely possible she was trying to trap him, that she’d somehow followed him here from the concert, but it didn’t all add up. Why kill Stu? And what were those-- “Jesus Christ, those were ghosts. They were ghosts, weren’t they?”
She’d just finished closing the circle when he came to the correct, and rather quick conclusion. Claire stood up straight, long, escaped strands of her hair unloosed from her pony tail caught the gold of the fire. She stared at the tallest of the three--the one who’d done most of the coherent talking. Her breaths were still a bit sharp from the hard (and painful) run from where she’d come from, but the burn in her lungs wasn’t comparing to the one in her leg. His reminding her of that night didn’t help the distraction either.
In the end, opting for the quick explanation was best--for now. Claire closed her lips and nodded, and limped lightly toward the three. “Nasty ones. Hold out your hands.” She had the salt ready--just an extra handful for each, just in case. Of course, she didn’t exactly expect full, quiet cooperation.
“No, this is crazy!” Bryan cried out. “There’s no such things as ghosts! We’re just trippin’ our balls off! There’s no way this is real!”
“Sit down, shut up, and take your salt!” Jesse snapped at him. It wasn’t just the crazy-ass situation getting to him. All his life he’d tried to avoid the creepy stuff out there, and the people who followed it. Being caught in the middle of it had him on edge.
Both Bryan and Luke did what they were told almost instantly, though Luke immediately started shaking where he sat. He looked like he’d either piss himself in fear or cry, or possibly both. Bryan just stared wild-eyed in the direction of the woods that they had came from. Somewhere off in the distance, another male voice shouted out, though it didn’t sound like the howl of the first one. Claire instantly stiffened, her eyes snapped in the direction of the distant shout.
“Dammit,” she yanked the poker from the grass and put the salt back in her bag, then shot a look back to the obvious leader of the stoner-parade. The familiar one who was a lot more accepting of this scenario than should’ve been. “You all stay... don’t cross the line, you’ll be fine.” And with that, she turned for the dark with an answering shout.
“Wait...” The words died half out of Jesse’s throat. He swallowed. Being penned in was bad enough without being left alone. From what he’d read, ghosts didn’t cross salt lines, but damned if he didn’t want to find out the truth tonight.
Claire’s crisp, if slightly off-kilter stride immediately slowed, even if every bit of her wanted very much to keep going. The inexplicable need to find out what she was waiting for overrode all of it, and she stopped, half turned in his direction. “What?”
What a loaded question. “You-you’ll be back, right?” he said, eyes glued to hers, trying to read the truth there. She nodded curtly--genuinely--though a spark of impatience and a healthy dose of anxiety sharpened her blue gaze. It was made bronze by the fire light.
“If I don’t get chopped to kindling, yes.” Her feet started to move again, and Claire headed off, the poker poised out from her hip. Bryan whimpered where he sat on the ground, but didn’t say anything.
***
“You’re not stopping me that easily, you bitch!” Ben shouted into the darkness. He’d circled the grave he was digging with salt, but the ghost was apparently much more clever than the last one he’d ever torched. She was throwing shit at him. The tree branch that had knocked him over the salt line had been just enough for her to grab him and drag him out a few feet before throwing him bodily against the nearest tree, but he still had the iron chain wrapped around his forearm. A single whip through her and she was gone again, but he knew it wouldn’t be for long.
“I didn’t kill your daughter!” he shouted again. “I’m trying to help you! All of you! You’re dead and you don’t even realize it!” Out of the darkness came another vengeful shriek, echoing against the trees somewhere between words and mindless screaming. Claire grunted as she stomped over a fallen log, having followed the haunting sounds and Ben’s familiar cursing. The flashlight she brought was barely a match for the moonless night; she was glad for the glow of Ben’s lantern when she came to it, despite the scene it revealed. Namely the gray mist rapidly forming the shape of a man directly behind him.
“Six o’clock!” she barked, knowing she wasn’t fast enough to get there in time. Ben dropped the shovel instantly, grabbed his shotgun, turned, and shot the male ghost in its newly-materialized face. It faded instantly.
“What took you so long!?” he shouted, an unintentional edge in his voice. He’d tried her phone, but reception out in the woods was spotty at best. He deeply regretted not having bought the walkie-talkies he’d seen in the store they’d trailed through before stopping for the night.
“Ran into the Scrappy Doo Gang right before they got skewered,” Claire panted and leaned heavily on her good foot--her bag dropped to the ground for the teabags of salt she used as ghost-grenades. She was on her way down to grab a handful when a thick branch swung out from nowhere and caught her in the gut--all the air left her lungs in a sick noise, and the ground outside the circle broke her fall.
Ben cursed, once again reaching for his gun. Panic stopped him dead in his tracks; he wouldn’t dare pick up the shovel and go back to it until she was all right.
“Are you all right!?”
“OW!” was her answer, with no small amount of disdain in her voice for the dead woman who appeared standing over her, brandishing the bloody knife. Claire whipped her poker at the thing’s legs, and she evaporated. “Fine! Keep digging!” She’d only gotten one foot flat on the ground when the male twisted a grip in her hair and yanked hard. Her shriek scraped in the back of her throat--she banished the ghost with a backhanded swing.
***
Jesse’s head jerked around toward the scream, his wide eyes searching the darkness.
“You hear that?” Luke said, his voice breaking in panic. “Was that the-the ghost?”
“No. It was the girl,” Jesse said, pacing the edges of the circle. The girl who had already come and saved their asses. He wasn’t used to being the one saved, the one protected. He didn’t like it. And if things were going bad for her...
He looked at the wide line of salt at his feet. When he’d first read that salt kept demons at bay, he’d grabbed a canister from his cupboard and poured out a line to walk across. It made him feel like crap, but it wasn’t impossible.
“Stay here,” he said, without looking back at the guys. Then he took a step forward.
The whole world seemed to shift on its axis and he nearly fell over before catching his balance. His stomach heaved with nausea and he held still, closing his eyes. That’s when he heard the crying. It was quiet but insistent, like someone in more pain than they could imagine. The girl. Who else could it be? Not yet recovered, he stumbled off in the direction of the crying.
***
“The hell were you talkin’ about, ‘Scrappy Doo Gang’?” Ben asked insistently between breaths, not even bothering to correct her reference. Later, maybe, but not now. He’d managed to get her back into the circle easily enough, and was back to rapidly digging through the grave he’d started. His next dig finally hit something solid and he gave a little noise of triumph, then took the blade of the shovel and slammed it down as hard as he could muster.
“Bunch’a stoners camping in the clearing,” she replied while keeping watch on the edge of the grave, poker in one hand, salt in the other. The contrast between the lantern and the dark beyond made it hard to see beyond the circle, but by God if Claire wasn’t watching a lot closer for flying tree limbs. She could see the two of them--the dead husband and wife--on the edge of the trees, looming closer in choppy, unnatural movements. Claire shouted at them. “We. Are here. To help you!” Course, the enthusiasm in those words leaked after the third or fourth branch to the body.
Ben kept breaking apart the grave, which didn’t take long given how old the wood had become, though his face twisted in a scowl. “There’s always a bunch of stoners camping in the damn woods. Christ on a cracker... Pass me the salt, wouldja?” Claire obliged, but not before lightly swatting him on the back of the head with it. He winced and scowled further, swiping it out of her hand unnecessarily hard.
“Language.”
“Yes, mom.”
As he started shaking salt out onto the first set of bones, the two ghosts turned their heads as one into the woods and vanished. Ben looked in the direction with a hint of puzzlement.
“Guess they’re goin’ to say goodbye while they still have a chance,” he muttered. Claire looked unconvinced, but more so, worried. She turned her eyes down into the grave, counted one half-skinned, long haired skull, and that was it.
“I doubt th--” she was cut off by the shrill wail of a child on the wind. The sound turned Claire’s blood cold.
Ben groaned. “Fantastic. Here, my arms are sore; just tell me which way they are.” Claire took the shovel and salt, then gave him a hand out of the dirt hole.
“Less than a hundred yards south west--just look for the fire.” She caught his eyes just before letting go. “One of’em looks familiar. Be careful.”
He flashed her a small smile. “I’m always careful,” he reassured her, grabbing his shotgun before taking off at a sprint.
***
Jesse swore he couldn’t have gone too far, but his limbs felt heavy and he was breathing hard. The world didn’t feel like it was quite in clear focus, not helped by the fact that his flashlight seemed to hardly reach three feet in front of him. But the crying was clear. That he could focus on.
“Where are you?” he called. “Are you alright?”
She never answered, the crying just continuing to get louder and louder. The ground began to slope up but he hardly noticed. Then his feet hit rock, giant boulders jutting out of the hill. The crying came from them. Crawling up on them, he found a crevice, dark and narrow and echoing with sobs. He slithered onto his belly, peering into it with his light. It hit on a crying girl, alright, but not the one he’d been looking for.
“You alright? Here, I’ll get you out,” he said, reaching down for her.
He hadn’t scooched three inches on his belly before a cold, hard force seized his ankle and yanked backward. Another unnaturally strong five fingered grip twisted in his shirt between the shoulder blades and whipped him through the air.
Jesse’s scream cut off as he hit the ground hard, the air knocked out of him. He struggled to move and push himself up, his eyes falling on the ghosts. Shit, shit, shit. He should just blink out of there, but there were two girls now. He couldn’t leave them alone.
Now if he could only think how you were supposed to fight ghosts.
The female launched herself forward, her bloodied weapon arched over her head like a scorpion’s stinger, but suddenly disappeared in a burst of bright, heatless flames, wailing into blackness.
Jesse gave a shout, stumbling to his feet, and looking down at himself. Had he done that? He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and ducked, an ax swinging right where his neck had been. He broke into a run.
The last spirit bellowed hollow and frigid, he and the sound dissolved into the darkness, only to reappear directly in front of the man who dared reach for his offspring. Hatred and soulless rage burned in his eyes as the ax swung down from over his head.
But before the ax connected, there was the sound of the air being sliced through, and the spirit vanished yet again. Ben appeared once the spirit vapors dispersed, his chest heaving with every breath.
“You were s’posed t’stay in the circle,” he growled out between breaths before recognition set in. “Oh, Hell.”
“You’re telling me,” Jesse said, breathing hard but trying to smile. “Why you two always gotta show up and ruin things when I’m tryin’ to have fun?”
“Why you gotta be a magnet for trouble?” Ben shot back, then tossed him the shotgun. He wasn’t even completely sure why he did it, but it felt right. “C’mon, we gotta get back to your friends before Daddy Dearest gets any ideas.”
Jesse caught the gun, although he didn’t know how to use it beyond pulling the trigger. “No, there’s this girl, she’s stuck,” he said, turning back to the rocks and heading towards the crevice. “Gotta get her safe first.”
“Trust me, she’s taken care of,” Ben said, catching the other man by the arm to keep him from going back. “Your friends are in a lot worse danger if they go steppin’ out of the circle and the longer we sit here, the more likely the ghost is gonna come lookin’ for them.”
“They aren’t dill, they’ll stay put,” Jesse said, though he had his doubts even as the word came out. “Whaddya mean she’s taken care of, she’s right there and there’s a ghost with an ax here.”
“She’s a ghost too, man, now come on!” Ben said insistently, all but yanking on his arm. “The longer we stand around, the more likely Dad’ll--”
As if summoned by the thought, the male ghost reappeared a few feet in front of them, looking just as murderous as previously. Jesse jerked Ben back, still on automatic “run away” mode. When Jesse didn’t shoot him, Ben grabbed the shotgun out of his limp grasp again, aimed and fired. The ghost exploded into vapors yet again.
“Move it!” Ben barked, long past asking politely.
Jesse didn’t hesitate now, running back towards where he thought the campfire was. His heart was going a mile a minute, but his legs seemed to move in slow motion, his arms like slabs of stone attached to his side. And he was going to have to pass the salt line again. The idea made him feel ill.
Ben’s whole body ached, from the tips of his fingers all the way down to the soles of his feet and everything in between, but he knew there was no way he could stop. They needed to get back to that damn camp, or something would happen to these poor, stupid stoners. He scowled at Jesse’s back, pushing as hard as he could.
When they finally got to the fire, though, the circle was broken and empty. Ben skidded to a stop, looking around wildly.
“Shit.”
His heart dropping to his feet, Jesse fell hard to his knees, too exhausted to stay up. “Maybe-- Maybe they drove off,” he said through heaving breaths.
Doubt it, Ben thought bitterly, though he didn’t dare say it aloud. He didn’t know how long the other man knew his friends, and he didn’t want to take away his hope. The woods were silent except for the mournful sobs of the little girl that whispered through the leaves.
“Where’d you park?”
“‘Bout twenty feet that way,” he said, pointing but staying put. He’d left them. He’d left those two fuckwits alone to chase after a little girl ghost and now they’d gotten themselves killed. He got them killed.
Ben paused in a moment of indecision. He didn’t want to leave the other man alone, but he looked thoroughly shaken up. He’d be a liability. It would be much safer to shove him back into a ring of salt and come back for him. Ben ran a hand backwards up through his hair. Maybe he’ll be better with the chain than the gun, he thought, unwinding the chain from around his arm.
“C’mon, let’s go.” We gotta keep moving,” Ben told him. Claire, please be safe.
Though it took all his strength, Jesse pushed to his feet, following close behind. “Where’s the other hunter?” he said. “I heard her scream.”
“She’s--” Ben started, then stopped dead in his tracks, turning sharply to look at him. “You know what hunters are?”
Jesse froze. Definitely the wrong word to use, but not like he could take it back now. “Yeah, met a couple before. Otherwise I’d’ve been pissing my trousers with the other blokes.”
Ben looked at the other man critically. This was all just a little too coincidental for his taste. He had half a mind to pull out his silver knife and test the guy to see if he was some sort of... relative of the shifters they’d just killed. He’d been there for that, after all. It made him nervous.
“She’s fine,” he said, the words clipped. Me, I’m not so sure. “She can take care of herself. Keep walkin’.”
Jesse looked at him with a slight frown but didn’t hesitate to follow. He felt a twist in his stomach, though, when they saw the truck. The shadow of Stu’s body was just visible from where they stood.
A scream ripped through the air before cutting short. With a surge of adrenaline, Jesse ran towards it as hard as he could.
“Wait--!” Ben shouted, but Jesse was showing no signs of stopping. Ben groaned out in frustration and sprinted after him, each breath burning in his lungs. He was heading back in the direction of the crevice where the little girl ghost had been sobbing.
“Dammit!”
As he burst into the clearing around the hill, Jesse recognized the place. Of course, before, Luke’s dead body hadn’t been lying there nearly sliced in half. Bryan lay blubbering about fifteen feet from him, the male ghost above him, swinging up his ax. Without thinking, Jesse raced forward, grabbed the handle, and yanked it. He was shocked when it came loose but he only had a moment of surprise before the ghost roared and spun around, backhanding him to the ground.
Rolling over with a groan, Jesse didn’t even have time to blink before the ghost was on top of him, fingers digging into his throat. The shotgun blasted out again, but this time the ghost had been expecting it and merely blinked out of existence, appearing just behind Ben. The younger man turned sharply, knowing his gun would simply go through the ghost with little consequence but unable to stop the instinct to swing anyway. The ghost grinned ferally at him, bringing up an arm to hit him as well before fire engulfed him and he howled in rage, promptly disappearing in a flash of black smoke.
Ben stared at the empty space, his pulse roaring in his ears before he turned back to the other two men. Aside from the sobbing one and the nosy one staring up at him in bewilderment, they both seemed to be breathing. Ben forced himself to take a slow, deep breath, then let it out again. The little girl appeared a few feet away from her hiding place, her form flashing jerky for a moment.
“Where’s mommy and daddy?” she asked, her voice touched with an upper New England accent. Ben took a few steps toward her, his expression sympathetic.
“They’re gone, Elizabeth,” Ben told her gently. “They’ve gone to Heaven. But the bad guys are gone, too. You don’t have to be scared anymore.”
Jesse watched blearily from where he lay, his heart giving a twist at how lost the little girl sounded.
“But...why are they in Heaven? I want them with me,” Elizabeth said, her face screwing up with tears. Ben settled in a crouch in front of her, his hands coming up to rest on her little forearms.
“They’re waiting for you, sweetheart,” he replied in the same kind voice. “They’ve been waiting for you for so long, but you got left behind. All you have to do is go to them.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “But I don’t know how to go there.”
Something inside Ben ached. She’d been in the ravine, scared and alone for over two hundred years. He couldn’t imagine how tormenting that must have been on such a young soul.
“Do you believe in God, Elizabeth?” he asked her. Ben himself didn’t really have faith anymore, but there was no denying that He existed. Maybe if he worded it right he wouldn’t have to be so terribly blunt about her death.
“Yes. God is our Heavenly Father,” she said quietly.
“If you pray real hard to see your mommy and daddy, He’ll hear you and He’ll show you the way. I know He will. You just gotta believe it with your whole heart, and it’ll happen. Can you do that, Elizabeth?”
Claire limped into the clearing, shovel and iron poker braced across the back of her shoulders with one hand, where she stopped three steps out of the trees. Her breath still hadn’t returned to normal, and despite the spring chill, she was hot with the perspiration from digging up a grave at full fricken speed, but all thoughts of the painful exertion evaporated with what she saw.
Elizabeth nodded, clasping her hands in front of her and bowing her head. Her lips moved silently, he eyes crunched up tight. And then, slowly at first, so that it seemed almost like an illusion, she started to glow. Ben stood up and stepped back, watching as the light enveloped her. She looked up at him just before she faded entirely, a smile pulling at her little mouth and her green eyes bright. Then she was gone, and darkness once again claimed the woods around them.
A bittersweet relief washed over Claire, but in the wake of the adrenalin and two grisly deaths, she couldn’t help but feel tired under the weight of her heart. She stabbed the ground with the spade and poker and crossed the clearing to the young man’s remains. There, she stooped and using a fold of her jacket to keep from leaving her prints, silently closed his eyes with her thumb.
Jesse breathed out a sigh, tears in his eyes. Through the terror and pain and nausea that had been the night, that one little spark stood out pure and bright and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen.
“Think I like her best,” he slurred with a weak smile. Then his eyes closed and he slumped into exhaustion.
To Be Continued...