Dark Night Part 4

I would love to say this kind of thing was just a casual headache, a minor nuisance in my paranormal adventures, but no this was pretty scary. Every fiber of my being told me get the hell out of there. This is why Scott didn’t want to come in the house, this ghost right here. I noticed the ring of light from my flashlight subtly vibrating, and soon realized it was because I was trembling. “Hi.” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. “Ahem…hi.” I finally managed. “You…you must be Beverly.”

“Yes,” she said in a whisper.

“So…what can I do for you? I mean you said in your letter that disaster was imminent. So what are we talking here? Is there a rift in between the worlds about to tear open? A zombie apocalypse immenent? Maybe a…”

I literally blinked and she was right in my face, maybe an inch from my nose, her eyes flashing red “Stop talking,” she growled.

“Yes… stopping the talking.”

She backed up and poised like a lady again. “A man is about to be elected mayor. This cannot be allowed to happen.”

What? I’ve been called here for politics? That’s not even my forte as a writer. “You do realize I write about ghosts, right?” I was flabbergasted. “Exactly what do you think I can do?”

“This cannot be allowed to happen!” The ghost took on a larger, more terrifying form. Back were the flashing red eyes, her hair billowed up and I could see frost forming on my shirt and jacket. I dropped to my knees as the wind picked up and starting a high pitched whistling through the basement.

In an instant, it dropped off into silence and I was left stunned.

“Disaster is imminent,” her disembodied voice whispered. Suddenly the entire basement started to tremble, sending funnels of dust from the ceiling down. I ran for the stairs and made it up to the kitchen, jumping through the door.

The house looked it had been hit by a minor earthquake. “Do you believe us now?” Judith asked, setting chairs back up at the table.

“I never ‘didn’t’ believe you,” I replied helping her. “Honestly I always believe. But…” I looked at the door to the basement.

“What did you see?” George asked. I thought about telling them. I finally decided they had a right to know. “I saw Beverly. Question…who is running for mayor?”

“Um…” George thought about it for a minute.

“Morgan Lighthouse,” Judith answered. “He’s a new comer. He’s running against Walter Sherman, the incumbent.”

“Does Lighthouse have a history with Lakehaven?”

Both Judith and George shrugged. Of course, they were new to the area, why would they know. Stacey came in from outside “You see her?” she asked. I nodded. Stacey nodded too, her eyes on the door to the basement. “Do you know something about Morgan Lighthouse?” Her eyes jumped to me. “She…she talked to you.”

“Yes. She spoke to me. So she’s told you about Morgan Lighthouse?”

“Only that she does not want him to be the next mayor.”

I returned to my hotel room and to Scott, giving him some treats and petting him to let him know I was sorry I was out. I opened up my computer and pulled up the photographs I’d taken on my phone. I started scrolling through them when Scott got up and started barking at the door. The next thing I knew the door flew open and two men in black with masks and gloves came in. Scott was up in the air, jaws clenched around the first man’s forearm. He reeled back from the sudden weight of the door, and I had time to get up and planted a fist right between the eyes of the second man. I could feel the very top of the bridge of his nose collapse. His head rocked back and he grabbed his face.

The other man punched Scott a few times before throwing him to the floor. He pulled out a gun and aimed it at my dog. I responded by smashing a chair over his torso. He fired a round, reflexively and I took one of the pieces of the broken chair and clubbed him in the face with it. The man I punched pulled a gun as well and put two rounds into my lap top. He aimed at Scott and I busted him in the face again. He let out a loud curse word and turned the gun on me when another shot rang out.

The man Scott had chewed on went down to the floor, like his leg had been cut out from under him. The second man, the one I had been punched returned fire out the door. Both men fled out the door. I ran to Scott to check on him. Suddenly Frederick Kerse was standing in my doorway, pistol drawn, aiming down the walk way.

“They’re gone…” a woman said from outside the door. I could hear sirens blaring, but no way to tell if they were coming here or going somewhere else.

Kerse looked in my room. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

I cradled Scott in my arms, tears stinging my eyes. It wasn’t my blood.

The passage of time seemed fuzzy to me. Lakehaven, turns out, has a pet hospital for emergencies. Kerse waited with me in the room when Scott went in for surgery. Moments later the doctor came back and told me he was going to be fine, but he would need to be in their care for a few days for recovery. Only one bullet actually pierced his skin, and didn’t hit anything vital. The worst of it had been the blood loss.

Kerse offered to drive me anywhere. I told him I just needed rest, literally the last thing I remember from that night.

There was the sound of banging in the middle of the night, like a body being smashed against a heavy metal door. Boots echoed as they ran. There was a man screaming, red light flooding through a small window, and a woman with bloody wrists standing over me. I nearly fell off the cot onto the floor when I woke up in a cold sweat. It was a dream, and not the first one I’d had. It was a recurring nightmare, something from an event that I thought I’d buried long ago. I hadn’t had the nightmare in almost a year. I reached out, but my hand didn’t find the familiar patch of fur that normally lay at the side of my bed. Scott was still at the pet hospital. I got up and found myself in an office with a coffee maker already peculating. Kerse sat behind his desk, my ruined computer hooked up to another device. My clothes had been laid out, freshly washed and pressed, and my suit case stood in a corner. “I don’t have much space at my place,” Kerse explained as I fumbled out of the cot. “But the manager at the hotel didn’t want you there anymore. I managed to talk him out of trying to sue you.”

“You’re a life saver,” I commented, trying not to sound too ironic. “You do laundry too?”

“Cassandra, my assistant, under much protest.”

“Well, I appreciate it.” I pulled on a shirt to match my sleep shorts. “There’s a shower in the back.”

I nodded and got up. “Hey, out of curiosity…if Cassandra is so great, why are you getting rid of her?”

Kerse looked up from his work. “What are you talking about?”

“Google your name,” I said. He pulled up the internet on his computer. “I…didn’t put that ad there.”

I went to the computer and pulled up one of my electronic publications. “Someone screwed with my online fingerprint too.” I said. There was a moment. Kerse sniffed. “Go take a shower.”

I nodded “Probably best. Disaster may be imminent but I can at least face it clean.”

He looked up at me as I walked back. “What did you say? About disaster imminent?”

I looked back and clearly something was clicking in his head. “Something a dead woman told me.”