Ghost Writer (Raven Maxim Book 1) (11 page)

Regardless, right then, right there, things were fine; matter of fact, they were better than fine. She had two bottles of wine she’d never tried before, an assortment of fresh vegetables dying to be marinated and sprinkled with garlic pepper, juicy strawberries, and another bag of sea-salted chips for lunch the following day. Her afternoon would be a busy one filled with patient duties, such as dental cleaning, calming down the crying adults who hadn’t been to a dentist in years, or those begging for their lives while she’d rattle off a distracting joke or two during a wisdom tooth removal.

But the patients weren’t the only ones experiencing discomfort; her issue with men was
quite
prickly as of late. Dating was no longer fun for her, and this was simply a fact that she faced and accepted head on. The process of greeting, meeting, then eating or whatever the order of the day was no longer panned out as planned. It often turned out to be messy and awkward, like a botched hairstyle steeped with far too much gel. Her latest ventures into the online thing had also proved a bust as well. Slipping into the driver’s seat, she took off.

It’s nice to meet a guy face to face…

She couldn’t help but grin nice and wide as she made her way home, driving in the darkness with the moon riding shotgun along the northern sky. Tonight, she was going to sleep on a fantasy, one filled with velvety rich wine, old black and white movies, and hopefully, the beginning of a real nice friendship. Perhaps even a bit more…

It’s Time To Face the Music

W
alter Murphy’s, ‘A
Fifth of Beethoven’ curled dusty musical notes amongst the flying debris. Sloan had found the classic disco and funk station locally broadcasted in Maxim to be bar none. He’d always had a thing for old, interesting items, and radios drew his attention in a special sort of way. Perhaps this was due to his mother, who would always lounge on her favorite chair in their small living room, listening to the tunes with a smile on her face. One of his cherished memories of when he was a young boy. Radios had thus become a slight obsession for him; he’d even collected a few that caught his eye at The Demolition Depot, a place full of assorted, unique relics back in East Harlem. As he bobbed his head to the music and rolled back a wayward sleeve on his white button-down shirt, he couldn’t help but side eye a strange crack in the wall.

He’d been working for three days in Peter Jones’ old office, the room he’d avoided for quite some time, but that crack was grating on his nerves. It twisted and winded upward to the ceiling and sprawled outward like skinny, dark fingers. He jammed his hands back inside a bucket of soapy water. Toiling about on his knees, he gave the floors a deep clean, his muscles straining as he gave it all that he had. It wasn’t long, though, before he was jolted and pulled right back into another bout of disquiet.

It was always uncomfortably cold in that part of the house, despite repeated calls to the three heating and cooling companies that would surely be more than happy to take his money, but they claimed everything was in good order. Maybe the damn windows were causing the draft. He’d had those checked, too, but another inspection might be warranted. One window in particular made him pause. Its large frame cattycorner to the massive fireplace, it was covered in decades of soot. One had to look through tiny scratches of clear glass pane to see outside of it, but he always experienced a sense of uneasiness when he’d try to peer out, see what lay ahead.

My son got his ridiculous thoughts jammed in my head. All that boogeyman bullshit…

He shoved the sponge back into the water, wrung it out real hard then proceeded to rub it in a circular motion into a rather stubborn patch of dirt, harsh stroke by harsh stroke. But then he noticed something rather peculiar with the floorboards. One was slightly lifted, as if someone had attempted to pry the thing off, then gave up mid-way into succeeding. Getting on his haunches, he sniffed to stop a runny nose from all of the dust and odors of various cleaning agents, then ran his forearm against his cheek to cure an itch.

All the while, he stared at that floorboard so long and so hard, he suddenly realized the entire extended version of ‘Love to Love You Baby’ by Donna Summer had started and ended. Tossing the damn soiled, soppy rag down, he used both hands to pry the damn thing back the rest of the way. He grunted with the exertion, yet was so driven, so compelled to do this that even if he wanted to stop, he couldn’t. Several minutes later, his hard work paid off and beneath the floorboard, he found a book. Noting the blank, rich walnut cover with no printing on it, he carefully picked it up and opened it. Despite the stained and tatty pages, the typewritten words were still legible. He leaned against the wall beneath the window he abhorred and flipped through the thing. Didn’t take him long to realize it was a copy of one of Peter Jones’ most famous works, “The Water Fountain”, a spooky story about a water fountain on an enormous, stunning estate owned by a wealthy businessman. Each time a murder was committed—someone the man knew—and the water fountain would flow with blood, unleashing clues as to who would perish next. One day, the wealthy businessman collapsed, having become a hollow dried shell of his former self, right before the thing. So much blood gushed forth from the fountain then that it covered the entire property, saturating the grounds. That blood had belonged to the wealthy owner; his misdeeds had finally caught up with him, once and for all.

I wonder if this is the original version?

Sloan turned the book in his palms, studying it, flipping from front to back. He gave it a hesitant sniff, as if the odor emitting from the moth bitten pages would somehow tell him the age of the thing. Smiling sheepishly, he turned back to his last page read, and before he took note of how much time had passed, he’d read half the thing. He got to his feet, packed up, and exited the office, closing and locking the door behind him. As he stood in the large, dim foyer area, he realized the night was already encroaching, swinging her dark shawl in ombre colors of cream, gray, and navy blue.

Tucking the book under his arm, he hastened to his bedroom and sat on the new bed that had arrived a few days prior to continue the good read. He hadn’t been this hooked on a book in quite some time, and his first go round with the novel had left him wanting more. In a way, he felt as if he were reading it again for the first time, and what joy it gave him. Jones had an addictive way of writing, and Sloan had forgotten about that until that moment. The man was a horror genius, and though horror wasn’t Sloan’s chosen genre, he appreciated the craft all the same.

He kept reading until he couldn’t any more…

Later, his eyes fluttered open as he awakened to the oddest noise…

No, that’s not noise. That’s music…

Relaxing, he leaned forward, releasing a stiff yawn. He set the book down on the nightstand and made his way out of his bedroom, down the lengthy stairwell. He slid open the heavy double doors of the office, bellowing yet another loud yawn, and stomped towards the radio to turn the thing off, only to discover that it wasn’t on at all. His chest tightened as he glared down at the thing. Yet, he could distinctly hear the music—it was definitely coming from that room. His arm muscles suddenly jerked when an icy chill came and sucked the warmth from his flesh.

“What the hell is going on here?” He looked about, trying to concentrate as hard as he could to find the source. At that moment the name of the song that played registered in his mind: ‘Mack the Knife’ by Louis Armstrong. His father had enjoyed that song back in his day, so much so, he could almost envision the whopping, tall man placing the old LP with his big hands onto the player and bouncing about in his giant oaf of a way. The man didn’t smile during his seldom seen jigs; that must have been a way for the guy to blow off some steam after working late hours at the small crackers and cookies factory he oversaw and managed before he’d became a firefighter.

Shaking the memories out of his mind, Sloan dashed out of the room and headed straight into the kitchen. Perhaps the music was truly coming from there, and his ears were playing tricks on him. His search proved futile, so he checked the living room, the newly renovated bathroom on the first floor, and back to the office, the place that refused to grow warm and make any damn lick of sense. The music continued to play on low volume, and a surge of anger rushed through him.

“Stop it!” he yelled out in a fit of rage. His deep, booming voice echoed, and then, just like that, the music came to a screeching halt. His temples pulsated and, after taking several deep breaths, he convinced himself there had to be some reasonable explanation. He opened and closed his palms, digging the short nails into the flesh as his anxiety began to climb once again. Emotions of all sorts, ones that felt foreign, not his own, took over his being. He suddenly felt deeply disheartened, living a type of misery, a level of sadness he’d never experienced in his entire life.

Oceans of sentiment drowned him in a vat of insanity, yet, he couldn’t move a muscle to escape the prison of his thoughts. He just stood there barefoot in the dark and cold, facing the black window that let in no light, the fireplace that refused to be lit to his left, the burnt out chandelier that swayed even with no breeze above his head. He simply stood, feeling pressure, strain, heartbreak, absurdity and pain.

Just walk out… you’re exhausted… just leave.

He turned his back to that scene, mustering the resolve, and headed out of the office, once again locking and closing the door behind him.

As he climbed the steps, he dismissed a crawling wave of distress that began in the center of his twisting gut and radiated out. The sadness stayed, too, and didn’t let up for several hours; yet, he managed to stay up the rest of the evening, reading that book, page by page, until he reached ‘The End.’ He sat quietly for some time after that, his mouth desert dry and his thoughts clogged with self-reflection.

For the first time, he saw himself in that book, ‘The Water Fountain.’ In many ways, it seemed to display the last few years of his life. Death of love, death of hope, death of dreams; and all the while, his popularity and wealth rose. It was almost as if he’d made a deal with the Devil, but had been slipped a roofie when it all went down so he could not recall a damn thing. The water did run with blood, a sacrifice of sorts. Sloan stayed in the bed for several hours—quiet, still. He ignored his phone, didn’t open his laptop, and had no appetite or even a desire to get up and take on the day.

Had he drowned in the realization of the words he’d read? He’d fallen headfirst inside the water fountain, realizing it wasn’t merely a book, but a prediction of the future that symbolically took root in his past. A mirror was placed up to his face, the reflection comprised merely of words…

“But we went
to church…” Joel sat across from him, taking him through another agonizing Saturday afternoon of crap. The young man was relentless.

“And?” Sloan poured himself another cup of coffee and made his way back to the kitchen table, his bones and eyes tired from an all-nighter.

“When Michelle and I were growing up, you and Mom took us to church practically every Sunday. You sang hymns; you read the scriptures even. I don’t understand this.” The boy, now a man, shook his head incredulously. “How can you believe in God but then say you don’t believe nothin’ happens after we die? That’s been really bothering me, Dad.”

“So you’ve been thinking about that this entire time? Look, Joel, why is it so unconscionable for you to consider that we could be created by a higher source, but then, that’s it?” He tossed up his hands before resting them on his thighs.

“Because I think there’s more to it than that.”

“What proof do you have? Why does there have to be this elaborate celestial plan? Just like that damn juice you threw in the wastebasket last weekend, telling me it was sour.” He pointed towards the trashcan. “Why can’t you believe we all have an expiration date, and then, that’s it!” He smacked his hands together as if ridding his palms of philosophical crumbs.