The Loveliest Dead (22 page)

“How are you feeling, Lily?” Claudia whispered.

“I’ve got an awful headache, and I feel sick. Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Bring me some saltine crackers from the cupboard over the toaster in the kitchen.” The salty crackers sometimes settled Lily’s stomach when it was upset.
 

Claudia returned seconds later with an open package of crackers and handed it to her. Lily nibbled on one of the saltines.

“I, um, I explained to them that you weren’t feeling well,” Claudia said.

“To who? Out front, you mean? Why do they have to be so nosy?”

“They weren’t being nosy, Lily, they were being concerned.”

“I don’t like people ...
talking
about me. They do anyway, of course, there’s nothing I can do about it, they always have, because I’m just not... I don’t... fit in well with others. But if they’re going to talk, they’ll have to make
up
things to talk about, because they’re not getting anything from
me
. We’ve never discussed it, Claudia, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m a very private person.”
 

“But does that mean you have to be rude?”

Lily closed her eyes, rested her forearm across them. “Was I rude?”

“Well... yeah.”

“But... I thought
they
were being rude.”
 

“No, they weren’t. They were concerned, that’s all. You passed out on the sidewalk in front of your store— they had reason to be concerned.”
 

“And I was rude?”

“Yes, you were. The only reason I’m pointing this out to you is that you told me to. You remember that, don’t you?”

Lily smiled. “Yes, I remember. I’ve never been good at... people stuff.”

Claudia said, “I’m going back to the register. You rest for a while.”

“Thank you, Claudia.”

Lily had been living alone for so long, and went out so little, she sometimes lost track of her own behavior when she was around people. She had asked Claudia to point it out to her when she was rude or inappropriate. She would remember to do something nice for Evelyn Walsh and Mr. Fitzgerald and Minnie from the Hallmark store and apologize for her unpleasantness.
 

But for now, she wanted only to sleep until the headache and nausea went away.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Wednesday, 11:39 A.M.

Dwayne Shattuck was a tall, lanky man in his late forties with short black hair shot with gray, and a handlebar mustache. He wore a long-sleeve brown-and-yellow plaid shirt under a tan quilted down jacket, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. He had an easy smile and spoke in a slow, quiet way that reminded Jenna of jazz DJs on late-night radio.
 

She picked him up at Hansen’s Truck Stop in Fortuna and asked him if Subway sandwiches were all right for lunch. When he said the Subway club sandwich was his favorite, she stopped and bought one for him. On the way to the house, she told him everything that had happened lately, right up to Ada’s sitting the day before.
 

“Well, poltergeists are my specialty,” Dwayne said. “Ada says you can’t get rid of them, they go when they want to go. But I’ve gotten rid of quite a few.”
 

“How do you do it?”

“I can’t really say.”

“It’s a secret?”

“No, I mean I’m not sure
how
I do it. They seem to listen to me and go away when I tell ‘em, is all.”
 

“Ada said you’d retired, but you seem pretty young for that.”

“It don’t take long to get burnt out on poltergeists. Driving a truck’s a hell of a lot more relaxing than dealin’ with them buggers, I’ll tell ya. So I gave it up. But every once in a while, I’ll give somebody a hand. I know how tough it can be tryin’ to live with one of them things in the house. But it’s real strange that you don’t have an adolescent—ten years old is a little young for your son to be drawin’ poltergeist action.”
 

Before leaving the house, Jenna had managed to talk Martha into taking a nap. Jenna was relieved to find she was still sleeping when they got to the house. She put the sandwich in the refrigerator for later and took Dwayne to the living room. They stood in the spot where Ada’s Ouija board had been set up.
 

“This is where we had the sitting,” Jenna said.

“Okay. I’ll need you to be quiet. This may take a little while. If you want, you can go do something else.”

Jenna decided to stay.

Dwayne spit on his right palm, then vigorously rubbed his hands together. He raised his arms high, palms out, and closed his eyes. He tilted his head back slightly and said in a clear but quiet voice, “I’m here to communicate with the spirit that has been causing trouble in this house. Do you hear me? Give me some sign that you hear me. I’m here to communicate with you and to tell you it’s time to leave this house. Do you hear me? I am telling you it’s time to leave this house.”
 

As he spoke, Dwayne slowly rotated in place, like a satellite dish, arms up, palms out, eyes closed. He turned left, then stopped and moved back to the right again, and continued talking, repeating the same thing a few more times.
 

Jenna was struck once again by the oddness of her situation. A truck-driving medium standing with his hands in the air in her living room—a month ago, she would have found the whole thing absurdly hilarious. But now she saw no humor in it at all.
 

“Do you hear me?” Dwayne said. “I’ve come to tell you it’s time to leave this house. Give me some sign that you—”

He stopped speaking and fell still when the room suddenly became cold. Dwayne’s eyes opened wide as he quickly looked around. It had taken only a few minutes, and he seemed surprised.
 

“I sense your presence,” he said. “I know you’re here, I know you can hear me.”

Dwayne’s words became a mere hum in the background the moment Jenna saw the toddler in the blue hooded jacket standing in the entryway. His hood was up and his head was bowed. Her right hand flew up to cover her mouth.
 

Blinking back tears, Jenna slowly turned away from Dwayne and took a cautious step toward the entryway. Then another, and another. “Josh?” she whispered into her palm. “Josh, honey? Look at Mommy. Take off your hood.”
 

As the toddler slowly raised his head, he reached up with pudgy hands and pulled the hood back.

Jenna’s hand dropped limply to her side and she took in a sharp breath. The boy standing before her had a freckled face and thick red hair and pale blue eyes. He was not Josh. She had never seen him before in her life.
 

“Now,” Dwayne was saying, “I am telling you once and for all.” He shouted in a clear, booming voice, “
It’s time to have this house
!”
 

Jenna’s attention was still focused on the boy, so she only vaguely noticed the same darkening of the air that had occurred the day before. The room exploded with the sound of shattering glass. Jenna tore her eyes away from the child and spun around in time to see her grandmother’s collection of handblown glass animals on the fireplace mantel fall together and shatter into pieces. She turned around again, and when her eyes found the boy, she screamed.
 

“Stop that!” Dwayne shouted into the air. “Stop that right now! You are to leave this house immed—”

Dwayne doubled over, then fell to the floor on the other side of the recliner.

The boy still stood in the entryway, staring at her, but his clothes were now old and filthy and decayed, and so was he. His nose was gone, his eye sockets empty, and much of his face had rotted away to reveal tiny teeth and jawbone.
 

The little boy was gone for a few seconds before Jenna realized he had disappeared. Her hand slapped over her mouth again, and she stopped screaming as she spun around to see what had happened to Dwayne. His legs were sticking out from behind the recliner, kicking as he rolled back and forth on the floor.
 

Then everything was normal again, and the telephone was chirping.

Dwayne lay still behind the recliner. Jenna hurried to his side and gasped when she saw his face. His nose was swollen and crooked, his face bloody, his left eye nearly swollen shut, lower lip open in a fresh cut.
 

“Oh, my God, Mr. Shattuck. Dwayne, can you hear me?”

The phone continued to chirp.

“Are you okay?” There was a great deal of blood on his face and neck, and Jenna found herself feeling a bit faint. She took a couple deep breaths.
 

“I’ll live,” Dwayne said in a strained voice pinched by his broken nose.

“My God, what did it
do
to you? And
how?
”
 

“It happens.” His voice trembled. “Sometimes poltergeists get pretty worked up. ‘Cept that was no poltergeist.”

Martha came into the living room in a housedress and slippers and looked around. “What the hell is going on in here?” she said. She gasped when she saw Dwayne on the floor. “Who’s he? What
happened
?”
 

“Mom, could you get the phone?”

Martha turned and left the living room.

“That was no poltergeist.” Dwayne said again. “You gotta get your family outta this house, Mrs. Kellar. You got somethin’ bad in here. Somethin’ that’s been here awhile, it’s settled in.”
 

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Jenna said. “Don’t move, stay right there.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. He slowly got to his feet and leaned on the back of the recliner for a moment. “It knocked me around, but I’m not crippled.”
 

“Your nose is broken.”

“It’s been broken before.”

“Jenna,” Martha said as she hurried into the living room. She handed Jenna the cordless phone.

Something about the look on Martha’s face worried Jenna. She put the phone to her ear and said, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Kellar? Keith Hollander. I run the garage where your husband works.”

Jenna put a hand to her chest and closed it into a fist, as if to hold her heart together. “What’s wrong?”

“David had an accident a little while ago, and he hurt his hand. The ambulance just left with him—they’re taking him to St. Joseph.”
 

Jenna’s voice was thin as she said, “An ambulance? How bad was he hurt?”

“Well, he lost a lot of blood.”

“I’ll get down there right away. Thank you for calling.” Before she could punch the Off button, the phone slipped from Jenna’s trembling hand. She picked it up and handed it to Martha. She heard herself speaking, but her throat felt numb. “David’s been hurt. An ambulance has taken him to the hospital.” She turned to Dwayne. “I’ll take you with me and you can go to the emergency room.”
 

“Would you like me to go with you?” Martha said.

“Somebody has to be here when Miles comes home, Mom.”

“Are you sure you should drive? You look pale. Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine.” But Jenna was not convinced. She got her purse, and her hands trembled so much, she dropped her keys twice. She stopped a moment in the entryway to take a couple deep breaths. All that was important now was David.
 

Well, he lost a lot of blood.

Memories of Josh’s funeral flashed in Jenna’s mind, but with David in the casket instead of their son. She tried to clear her mind and focus on getting to the hospital. She turned to Dwayne as he limped to the front door and took his jacket from the hook on the wall. “Are you going to make it out to the car?” she said.
 

“I’ll be fine. It’s you folks I’m worried about. You’ve gotta leave this house.”

Jenna faced him. “Mr. Shattuck, we have no money to go anywhere else. This house is all we have.”

“But you’ve got somethin’ bad in this house, Mrs. Kellar, somethin’... sick. And it don’t like bein’ disturbed.”

“Then we won’t disturb it. That’s the best I can do.” She spun around and put on her coat. “Now, I’m really sorry you’ve been hurt, Mr. Shattuck, and I sure hope you don’t plan on charging us for your hospital bills, because there’s no way we could possibly pay them. I’m sorry you got dragged into this, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss it anymore.” Jenna went out the front door jangling her keys.
 

They said nothing on the drive to the hospital.

David was in surgery for almost four hours, and Jenna knew nothing until his doctor came out afterward and explained the situation to her. David’s left hand had gotten caught on a fan belt. It had been cut between the two middle fingers and down into the palm, almost to the wrist, slicing through several bones and ligaments. The doctor said it was difficult to tell how extensive the damage would be, but he expected David to regain, at the very least, most of the use of his hand. He said David would stay in the hospital overnight, then go home the next day.