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“Guess so,” he replied in a far-off tone. We turned and slowed slightly. The overgrown dirt road was thick with brambles, but we could see the path the inspectors had made. Tall grass and rose bushes were pushed flat to the dirt in two distinct tire tracks. “Ever wonder why we never get jobs in bright sunny places with coconut drinks?”
That made me snicker. “Yeah, I kind of do wonder about that. Maybe our next livestream can be from Cape Cod. The ghost of a pirate that walks along Mayflower Beach or a disenchanted spirit who drowned and now haunts Crane Beach, or a—look out!”
Something ran in front of the truck. Phil jerked the wheel hard to the left to avoid hitting the creature that ran on long front arms and shorter back legs. Hairless, flesh-looking slick in the high beams. It moved like a hyena but with the speed of a whitetail. The sloping gait quicker than it should have been, the thing threw a fast glance at us with blood-red eyes before darting into the thick woodlands. The front bumper of the truck thudded into a meaty white pine, the shoulder straps of our seat belts jerking us tightly back at the impact, then we skidded past the tree and up over a huge rock with a sickening crunching and snapping sound.
“Shit, you okay?” Phil panted, releasing the wheel to pat me down as I sat there stunned. Not only from the truck kissing a tree but from the beastly visage that had just crossed our path. Give me a black cat any day over that horrible thing.
“Yeah, just…yeah, I’m okay. You?” I looked over at him. He nodded, his hands resting on my chest.
“Fine, good, well, bad because of the truck, but okay. What the fuck was that?!”
“It sure as hell wasn’t a bear.”
We sat staring, winded, more than a little jittery, for several minutes. Phil stopped checking me for injuries. Both of us now gave the woods our full attention. The woods that we could see in the beams of the headlights.
“I have to check the damage.” Phil tore his gaze from the dark, dark forest to look at me. “Can you watch my back so that ugly ass bear-man thing doesn’t get me?”
“Of course.” I grabbed a bottle of baijiu then slid from the truck to the dewy fronds and damp soil. The air was moist with a creeping fog that seemed to be spreading out like grasping fingers from ahead. Probably from a lake. Stupid lakes. I swallowed my fear down. Moving around the front of the truck, I came up to stand beside Phil frowning over the damage to his front left fender. “That’s ugly.”
A bug whizzed by my ear. I slapped it away. The headlights were already attracting tiny insects as well as a few moths.
“Matches the rest of her, I guess. It can be hammered out.” He dropped to one knee to look at the tire while I held the bottle of sorghum to my chest, ready to uncork and douse if need be. He sighed so heavily it was a wonder he didn’t pass out. “This looks a lot worse.” He patted the tire, which was sitting at an odd angle. With a grunt, he lowered to his side to shimmy under the truck, long, strong legs and hips the only thing visible. A long stream of profanity rode out from beneath the truck on the fingerlings of fog slinking through the woods.
“Something wrong under there?” I chanced to ask amid the dirty language. He wiggled out like a sexy worm then let his head fall back to rest on a clump of plowed-up dirt.
“Tie rod is broken.”
I nodded. “And that’s bad?”
“Yeah, real bad. The tie rod is part of the steering system. There’s no safe way to steer it. The rock we ran over must have broken it. Arch, this sucks. Like, this sucks so bad I can’t think of anything that could possibly happen that would make this night any worse.”
“You probably shouldn’t say that because…”
A cold chill made my skin prickle. Sensing something otherworldly nearby—praying it wasn’t the thing that had caused this wreck—I looked over my shoulder to see a hulk of a man in torn flannel, dirty homespun pants, and a filthy beard staring at me. In his left hand, he held an ax. He had grievous wounds on his chest. He stared at me wide-eyed. I raised a hand in greeting.
“Hello, Sir Lumberjack,” I whispered. His sallow eyes flared, then he raced at me, letting loose a scream that would have scared even the monster in the woods if he could have heard it. Lucky me, I was the only one who could hear the blood-curdling wail as the specter dove into me full force. I fell back into the fender with a gasp and a thud as Phil yelled something that was lost in the overtaking of my body. Things went fuzzy. Could have been my glasses had been knocked from my face, or it could be the spirit who now resided in me had really bad vision. Or, it could have been me blacking out from the spirit possession.
Sometimes being a medium sucked.
***
Hoop and stick, a dog, a little boy with red hair, a cozy cabin, a tiny baby in a cradle, a smiling woman with ginger curls, a stern man, a little girl with pink ribbons in her hair, fishing with children, leaving the family with sadness, trees, other men, laughter, hard work, long days, terror, pain, pain, pain, pain…
“Arch!” Phil bellowed, lifting me from the forest floor, shattering the overwhelming rush of this young man’s childhood memories. My eyes flew open. The pain in my head made me retch and gag. Phil moved aside to let me flop onto my hands and knees to throw up the stromboli and soda. Nothing burned worse than soda when it came back up. Phil was talking, I was sure of that, as he rubbed my back with a gentle motion. “Baby, shit, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“Ghost…possession,” I croaked, tumbling to my ass with a low moan, the pain in my skull like a shiv. A trickle of something ran from my nose and down over my upper lip into my mouth. Blood. Damn it. “Shit, okay…I need something…to drink. Wash my mouth…”
“Sure, yeah, okay. Wait.” He paused as he stared at me openly, my glasses dangling from his fingers. “You have a ghost in you?”
“Yeah, logger…big guy…ax.” I gagged and swallowed bile and spit. “Don’t know his name…”
“Henry,” the baritone voice inside my head announced. A white flash of psychic pain made me moan softly. “Henry Clarke. You saw me. No one has ever seen me. Send me over.”
Oh, sweet gods. This man thought I could do him a service I was not capable of doing without great preparation, which we’d not done. A few tears of pain leaked out of my eyes, which must have been such an attractive look. Snot, tears, blood. At least the damn camera wasn’t on me like last time a specter had taken me over. I’d volunteered for that one, though.
“He wants me to guide him over,” I said, voice hoarse from being sick. “Can you…need a drink?”
“Shit, sure, sorry. Here.” He handed me my glasses. Sliding them on, I saw they were smudged to hell, but at least I could see properly. Mostly. “Just sit there with the ghost. Okay? You sure you’re okay?”
