Chapter 14. Reed
Reed
“Come on.” Tessa nods her head for me to follow. We edge along the back aisle of cubicles toward the second-floor windows with their sweeping view of the street below. Whatever we do next, we need to see what we’re up against.
“I don’t think they can see the mist.” I wave my hand at the police.
The world is covered in a twilight glow, with the fog so thick it’s blotting out the sun.
There’s a lot of commotion out on the street.
While we were inside there was an accident; a minivan hit a cyclist. The driver is sobbing to several police officers who’ve run out of the precinct, while the bike, a bent cage, is still buckled under the front wheel.
The injured cyclist, strapped to a long board with their neck in a brace, is being transferred onto a gurney by two EMTs.
A small crowd of shocked onlookers has gathered on the corner.
But I’m not watching them, not really. Scenting death on the wind, the smoke people have come.
My mouth drops open, knuckles white from grabbing the ledge in front of me.
This sounded so theoretical before. It’s another thing entirely to witness bodies, legs, clawed hands forming out of the ether.
There must be at least thirty of them coalescing from the fog, moving toward the ambulance as the gurney is loaded inside.
They whisper a lament, a keening, haunting sound as they glide toward the cyclist. Yearning. Rasping. Begging. It’s a cacophony of longing. Like nails on a chalkboard, it makes the hair rise on the back of my arms.
They didn’t come for us after all.
Just in case, I don’t dare make a sudden movement. No need to alert them we’re here. “That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Tessa’s shiver runs from her shoulders to her toes. “Now you get it.”
While an EMT initiates chest compressions, the smoke people rush the ambulance.
They pour in through the still-open back door, arms outstretched, breath rattling, pressing against one another in a desperate attempt to force their way inside.
An army of grasping hands reach for the dying cyclist in a panic, as if they want nothing more than to pull him under with them.
“Why would they charge him like that?” I feel lightheaded, like I’m going to be sick. I still haven’t fully recovered from walking through that cop.
“I remember how it felt before when that creature grabbed me, like it was draining me of something essential, of whatever life still clung to me here, to make itself strong.” Even with the color drained from her face, Tessa’s hands are fisted at her side, determined.
“We have to do something.” She turns to bolt down the stairs, so focused on trying to help that she doesn’t notice the sun slowly reemerging from behind the clouds.
“Wait.” I grab her hand, nodding at the brightening sky. The smoke people pause what they’re doing, whipping their heads behind them. “I guess they don’t like sunlight?”
She punches my arm. “Reed, look!”
“Ow.” I wince, shooting her an annoyed glance. “I know. They’re stopping.”
“No.” Tessa takes my chin in her hand and tilts my face toward the other end of the street. “There.”
Standing on the corner is an old man. His eyes are trained on the ambulance as he mumbles something under his breath, a brown bowler hat clutched in his hands.
“It’s him. The man who helped me at the back gate. He’s in the same tweed suit as before.”
Finishing his commands, the man watches intently as the smoke people begin to vanish one by one into vapor.
I point to the street below. “Whatever he’s saying is making them leave and the fog disappear.” With the blue skies returning, it’s almost as if they were never here.
Satisfied, the old man turns to leave as the ambulance pulls away.
“Hey!” Tessa jumps and waves her arms. “Wait!”
I stiffen beside her. It still might not be safe to call attention to ourselves.
But her movement catches the old man’s eye. When he spots us at the window, he smiles and tips his hat.
In that moment I realize we’re not alone. He’s dead, too. And Tessa’s right to make a connection. We’re probably far safer knowing him than not.
“Hold on.” Tessa gestures for him to pause, and he nods, understanding. She tugs on my hand, dragging me back downstairs, dodging cops along the way, until we can dissolve through the front entrance and make our way to the street corner.
A strange trilling hope rockets through me for the first time in days.
Maybe we can finally get some answers.
Crowds are still gathered in tight groups on the street as we skid to a stop in front of the old man.
Though his shoulders are curved by the toll of time, he still carries himself with a kind of gravitas.
Deep wrinkles thread the planes of his face, carving out a series of tributaries—a map of his life—each victory or defeat etched in place.
White tufts of hair swoop behind his ears, while a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles rest on the end of his nose, now checkered with brown age spots.
His eyes, however, are full of youth and crinkle warmly when we arrive.
For the first time, it occurs to me that I’ll never grow old. I’ll never have gray hair or a face that proudly shows I have lived a hard-won life. Tessa and I were robbed of that. It makes my blood boil thinking of the murderer who stole our futures from us.
“So, you kids are holing up in the old van der Born place. You know, I went to a party there years ago, in that grand ballroom,” he says wistfully.
“This was before the house got turned over to the historical society. Spectacular mansion back in the day. Shame they haven’t done more to fix the old place up again. ”
“You don’t seem that surprised to see us, which makes me think we aren’t the only ghosts around.” Could that mean my dad is still here?
“I run into a few of us ghosts from time to time. And then of course there’s … them.” He nods toward the ambulance, where the smoke people hovered moments before.
“What are they? What did they want with that cyclist?” Tessa asks.
With a small thrill I realize her fingers are still laced with mine.
Maybe she’s too distracted to notice. I, on the other hand, feel the entirety of my consciousness now drawn to that singular connection between us, her cool skin against mine.
It takes everything I have to drag my mind back to the present moment.
“How do you send them away?” I continue peppering him with questions, afraid he’ll vanish again, like at the mansion gate, and we’ll never get our answers.
“Oh, that’s easy. You say something to remind them they’re dead. That’ll send ’em scurrying. Happy to share all I know. In fact, my place is around the corner. Why don’t you come back for a chat? I already feel myself hollowing out from being gone too long.”
I’m not entirely sure what that means. Tessa and I exchange glances.
“Lead the way,” she says.
The old man takes off down the sidewalk in the direction of the town center, cruising past the police precinct and toward a block of stately homes lining the historic district.
“Name’s Hal, by the way,” he calls back to us as we round the corner onto a quiet block with fresh-cut lawns, white picket fences, and bushes overflowing with pale blue hydrangeas.
“I’m Tessa, and this is Reed.” She races to keep up; he’s far spryer than his age suggests.
I’m about to ask more when Hal points to a beautiful two-story home up ahead. Like many of the buildings on this block it’s constructed from bricks, complete with white trim, black shutters, and an imposing red door adorned with a golden knocker.
Before we enter, Hal turns to us. “My wife, Bessie, and I moved in with our daughter and grandkids a few years ago. The kids live here still, but I believe they’re out at the park, so we should be able to make it upstairs without trouble.”
Hal steps through the door and we follow, three flights up a narrow wooden stairway, to a small attic bedroom.
The walls are covered in family portraits, some black and white with stoic relatives from long ago, others with Hal and his wife, in faded color, dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus, surrounded by wiggling grandkids beside a Christmas tree.
Hal plops down on the quilted bed and motions for us to make ourselves comfortable.
“Is Bessie still here?” I hope that’s not too personal a question. I lean against the wall by the dresser while Tessa takes a seat on a large wooden chest across the room.
“I went first.” Hal sighs, removing his hat and setting it down on the bed beside him.
“It’s hard being the first to go. You see your partner in pain and feel so helpless.
I waited for Bessie, sure she’d join me.
I watched as her health deteriorated rapidly from the heartbreak.
She ended up passing a couple months later, just as she arrived at the hospital.
When the time finally came, she went quick, before I realized what was happening or could be by her side.
” He breaks down at the thought, burying his face in his hands.
“It seems she moved on without me. Or, that is, I think she did.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tessa whispers.
“Yeah, that’s awful.” I eye Tessa warily over the top of Hal’s head.
Laughter and squeals sound up from the street below, breaking us out of the sad moment. The front door opens and little feet patter inside, dashing through the halls. “So not everyone … stays, then?” Maybe my dad isn’t here after all.
“No. Most don’t stay.” Hal recovers, wiping his fresh tears aside and smoothing out his jacket. “As far as I can tell, people remain because they can’t quite tear themselves away from this plane yet. In my case, I couldn’t leave without her. In yours …”
“We were murdered,” Tessa says. It feels strange to hear it out loud, but there’s no point in keeping quiet about it.