Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) (7 page)

The video started, and it looked like nothing more than static on a TV screen. I was getting ready to shut it off because I really did need to get to Memaw’s and get fixed up for the barbecue. Then movement in the static caught my eye, and I held the phone’s small screen close to my face, trying to figure out what I was seeing.

The shadow moved toward me fast, its face coming into view and then too close for me to really see.

“What the?” I yelled and flinched back from the phone, tossing it into the passenger seat.

A wisp of shadow came from the phone, gaining in substance as it grew in length. The top of a head covered in some sort of shroud became visible.

“No, no, no, no.” My voice sounded like a sick car alarm, blaring the same stupid sound over and over. I stopped shouting and got hold of myself. I had to get out of this car and away from this thing at once.

I reached for my door handle, pulling hard on it several times. The door handle moved, but the door didn’t open. I whined like a little animal about to get gobbled up by a bigger, meaner animal, yanking the door handle as hard as I could. The door stayed closed. My bladder turned into a heavy, hot rock, and I just knew I was going to wet my pants.

A scratching, crawly sound came from behind me. Gasping, unable to get enough oxygen to breathe, I twisted in my seat. The vapor birthing itself from my phone had expanded to nearly touch me. I went still.
If I stay here much longer, it’ll be able to touch me. What then?

I turned to the door and reared back my fist to hit the window. Then I looked at the little silver knob that locked the door. It was pushed all the way down, flush with the door. The relief felt as sweet as sunshine on a cold day. I used my thumb and forefinger to pull on the old-fashioned lock, almost giddy. It wouldn’t move.

A light breeze caressed the back of my neck. My stomach clenched into a tight, hard ball. It was too late. I’d failed. I twisted in my seat, muscles nearly slack, thinking I didn’t have any fear left in me to invest in this horror. I stared at what shared the car with me and opened my mouth to scream. A little hiss was all that came out. The mist formed into a cracked and scarred forehead, and black soulless eyes appeared below it.

The black opal came to life on my chest, heating to a burning temperature in seconds, and searing the skin underneath. I writhed in my seat and made animal sounds. The door lock popped up on its own. Moaning, I grabbed the handle and pushed open the door, letting myself slide out head first and cracking my forehead on the pavement. I glanced back into the car. The thing’s misty, wavering face showed a hole where the nose should have been and a gaping mouth full of matchstick teeth.

“Help me,” My plea echoed in the darkness, and I knew deep down nobody was there to hear me. I got my hands underneath me, preparing to scoot backward.

The thing whipped out a hand wrapped in dirty cloth and grabbed my ankle, clamping down. I heard and felt something inside me snap. A bolt of pain shot up my leg. I screamed like a prissy little girl and moaned, “Please, don’t,” through my sobs. Blood from my ruined ankle pattered onto the pavement and ran up my leg.

I looked around at the empty night. I was going to die out here alone, and nobody would ever really understand what happened to me.

The thing yanked on my leg. Pain flared through my body, and I screamed again, reflexively grabbing the black opal in hopes it would come back to life. The gemstone had gone cold on my chest. Exhausted? I cursed myself for not knowing but kept trying to crawl, not really sure how I’d go anywhere with some monstrosity hanging on to my leg. Nothing mattered except getting away from whatever it was trying to hurt me.

“Peri Jean Mace.” The thing’s voice sounded brittle and dry, so quiet it was hard to hear. “Look at me, Peri Jean Mace.”

I flopped over on my back and stared at the awful thing. It had grown shoulders and a torso, the lower half of its body still fading into the mist coming from my phone.

“If you fail in your duty, I will be the last thing you and your loved ones see.” Its hand clamped down on my leg again.

I clawed at the pavement, kicking my legs, a terrified groan coming from my mouth. The thing’s black eyes locked on mine. The sound of a thousand voices screamed inside my head. I grayed out.

The roar of a motorcycle snapped me out of my fear fit. It bore down on me in seconds, its lone headlight blinding me. I put my arms over my head and waited for impact. It never came.

“Peri Jean?” Huge hands spread out on my back, hands I knew. Wade Hill. I leaned into him, scooting as far as possible away from my car and pulling my injured leg to me. He stroked my hair. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Unable to do more than gibber, I raised one arm and pointed at my leg. Wade leaned over and looked at the wound and hissed through his teeth.

“What did this to you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Never mind. I’ll fix it.” He shrugged off his leather jacket and set it aside. I watched, expecting him to take off his t-shirt and rip it into a bandage. Instead he got so close to me I thought he was going to kiss me or something. He took my hand, using his fingers to push open my closed fist, and twined his fingers in mine like a lover. The warmth radiating off his body and the smells of gasoline and open road, scents I’d forever associate with Wade, enveloped me in a comforting cocoon.

Wade closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his lips moving. At first I thought he was doing a spell, but then I heard the words “Heavenly Father” and realized he was saying a prayer. Then he began to speak aloud. I didn’t recognize the words, but I knew the cadence, knew where they must have come from.

The first electric pinpricks of magic passed from Wade’s hand and into mine, radiating through my body and settling in both the wound on my head and the one on my leg. The feeling intensified, and my body jerked with each prickle. The magic found the black opal, and my skin went numb, singing with power. I felt whatever bone the horror in my car had broken slide back together and fuse.

Next to me, Wade stiffened, his head thrown back and cords standing out on his neck. The heat radiating from him grew uncomfortable, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead and ran into his hair, slimy dampness growing between our joined hands. I heard my own breathing coming in pants, Wade’s words punctuating them. It took me to a place, an old place, somewhere in my mind where my subconscious and body knew what to do even if the conscious part of my mind didn’t.

The world clouded, my heart thundering in my chest. The pain from the wounds ebbed away into an awful itch. The black opal heated to an unbearable level, and a hum filled my ears as even the itch went away. Wade let go of me and sagged forward, putting his hands down on the pavement. We sat panting in silence until I heard a car coming and struggled to my feet, forgetting the injury until I put weight on my bad leg. It held without a twitch or a tingle. Wade hurried to his feet and got his motorcycle out of the road before the car reached us. Both of us waved as it passed. I turned to Wade, seeing not the jokester thug I’d grown to love as a friend over the months but, instead, someone whose weirdness surpassed even mine.

“What did you do?” Speaking hurt my throat.
Had I screamed that much?

“Healed you.” Even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I heard the uncertainty in his voice. He knew I didn’t like seeing ghosts and wished I could be normal.

“How though?”

“By the power of the divine.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been working with your memaw and Esther Bruce, too. Your memaw was the one who figured out what I am, though.”

“What are you?”

He turned his face away from me and then spoke. “The seventh son of a seventh son. There’s a lot of folklore, but the only parts true for me are the ones about being a healer and always getting in a bunch of trouble.”

“Thank you.” I gripped his arm, barely able to get my hand around it. “Thank you so much. I think my foot was broken.”

“Broken?” He snorted. “Looked like someone took a pair of pincers and nearly sheared it off. What the hell got after you?”

“It came out of my phone. It’s still in my car, I guess.” But I wondered why the sharp-toothed monster hadn’t come after both of us. Had it considered its message delivered and gone on its way?

Wade let go of me and marched over to the vehicle, bending double to lean in. He came back almost immediately, shaking his head.

“I don’t understand. What happened?”

“A, uh, monster came out of my phone.” I described the thing to Wade as best as I could, but ended up talking more about its hands and teeth than anything.

Wade retrieved my phone from the car, his brow knitted. “It’s dead. Got a charger?”

I didn’t want to get back into the car, so Wade found my charger and hooked it up to a rig he had in his saddlebag. I tried to calm myself, but the thing I’d seen had been real. It hurt me badly, and I might have died out here had Wade not come along. A few minutes later, the cellphone powered up.

“It’s in the messages. Look for some from unknown.” I didn’t want to go near the thing, even though I knew I needed it for work and life. I told Wade my passcode and he tapped the phone’s screen to access the messages. He stared at the phone for a long time, his face expressionless. Finally, he turned it where I could see it.

The screen was filled with the picture of Priscilla Herrera.

“Tell me everything again. Slow this time.”

I explained what happened again, going as slowly as I could. My voice sped up at parts, and Wade simply shook his head at me, motioned for me to calm down. I conveniently left out the part about the curse, needing to think it over by myself before I let others know what I’d seen. Other than that, I didn’t leave out one scream. He listened stoically.

“My great-aunt, the one who taught me to use my gift, would’a said somebody sent a booger after you.” He glanced at the blood still pooled on the road. “Like to’ve got you from what I can tell.”

My cellphone dinged with a message. Wade held out my phone to me, but I shook my head. He read the message.

“It’s Hannah Kessler. She says to get your ass to the barbecue now. You’re late.”

“No. I can’t.”

“What are you going to tell them happened? Think Mr. Dean Do-Right’ll like it?”

I went to my car and held out my hand for the cellphone.

“You want me to follow, I can.”

I rubbed my arms against the chills ripping through my body, despite the pent-up feel of the day’s heat still hanging in the night air.

“I can give you a ride.”

His words hit me like a blast from a sink sprayer. Dean would have a fit if Wade came roaring up at the barbecue and dropped me off.

“Will you follow me to town?” I took one more look at my clothes but knew it was too late to do anything about them.

“Flash your signals left and right like you’re crazy if you run into trouble.”

I nodded and held my hand out for my phone again, flinching when it touched my skin. This whole thing was no joke. I could have gotten run over cowering in the highway like a teenager at a horror movie. Either Priscilla Herrera’s order to the dark guardians was no joke or she was a great bluffer. Didn’t matter which. She had my attention. I wished with all my heart she’d picked somebody else to save Gaslight City. I didn’t even like most of the people here.

* * *

T
he tremors rocking
my body ceased after the first mile, and I put one of my father’s ZZ Top cassettes in the ancient player set into the dashboard and turned it up loud to drown out any thoughts of what I just experienced. It was too much for my brain to comprehend. All I knew to do was move forward, keep surviving. The hum of Wade’s motorcycle blatting behind me made the task seem possible. What if he hadn’t happened along to save me?

Dean’s campaign had rented an establishment named the Hoedown Party Barn for the barbecue. The ten-year-old corrugated metal building, new by Gaslight City standards, squatted a quarter mile from downtown on Textile Road. It occupied the site of the old Fountain Textile Mill, where both my uncle and father worked before tragedy took away their lives. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I got close enough to see the parking lot.

Cars and trucks jammed the prairie of asphalt, spilling over into an overgrown grassy area next door. I parked on the edge of the herd of vehicles and shut off my Chevy Nova. Wade pulled in behind me and cut his engine. I met him at my bumper.

“You want to come in for a plate of barbecue? It’s free.”

“Nah. You were right earlier. Little man might split the seams of his boy’s extra medium dress shirt.”

I didn’t bother defending Dean to Wade. Their different paths in life ensured they’d never be friends. “Thanks for following me.”

“Never any need to thank me. Just doing what I need to do.” He started his motorcycle before I could offer him supper again and did a U-turn on the narrow road, raising his hand to wave goodbye. I watched him until the noise of his ride faded into the night.

“Where the hell have you been?” Hannah stormed across the parking lot, Rainey Bruce right behind her. Both their arms pumped like people I’d seen walking in a mall. I realized I didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with them about the time they reached me.