Strange Ghosts Read online

  They could either keep clinging to the past, or finally get on with their lives. Wait any longer, they realized, and there would be no lives left.

  So the vote was taken, the ayes had it, and I was there when the vision was turned into a smoky ruin. When I told them who I was, the truth this time, they said it was fate that had guided my hand on the atlas. They said I was there to share this truth with other people, so they could see there was no good in wanting the memory of someone you love to come to life. Because all that you regretted before, you would still regret when that person went back to being a memory again.

  I insisted I was no longer a reporter. I told them it wasn't something I wanted to do. And they said if that was true, then why did you follow us?

  So here I am, back to journalism. I may never win a Pulitzer, but I'll also never ignore that itch again, the one I feel when I'm onto a story. One last thing: If you take the time to open an atlas, you may have trouble finding Stone Creek, Oregon. Although I said I'd write about what happened, I also promised I wouldn't reveal the real location or their real names. I did visit a real town in a real state, and it may have been Oregon, but it also may have been Washington or California or Idaho. Hell, it may have been on the East Coast. I'm not saying. But I got the story. I got it for me. Dad may not have liked the way I told it, but it was the truth the way I saw it, and I'm finally okay with that being enough.

  About the Author

  SCOTT WILLIAM CARTER's first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a "touching and impressive debut" and won the prestigious Oregon Book Award for Young Adult Literature. His short stories have appeared in dozens of popular magazines and anthologies, including Analog, Ellery Queen, Realms of Fantasy, and Weird Tales. His fantasy novel, Wooden Bones, about the untold story of Pinocchio, is due out from Simon and Schuster in summer 2012. He lives in Oregon with his wife, two children, and thousands of imaginary friends. Visit him online at http://www.scottwilliamcarter.com.

  If you enjoyed this collection, you may also enjoy:

  A Web of Black Widows

  In these six provocative tales, Scott William Carter takes the reader on a journey to places where love and loss intersect: a grieving tattoo artist makes a cross-country trip with a pregnant woman on the run from her disturbed husband . . . a mysterious artist finds a woman washed up on the beach and feels compelled to paint her . . . a young man who made a disastrous choice in wife is forced to crash weddings with his ghostly bride so she can remain on Earth . . . Available as an ebook from all major online retailers.

  ~ | ~

  || Please read further for

  a sneak preview of

  Drawing a Dark Way,

  a fantasy adventure

  by Scott William Carter

  published by

  Flying Raven Press. ||

  ~ | ~

  Jason Rosewood would rather draw than do anything else. But when his sister is kidnapped by three black demon creatures with glowing white eyes and huge wings, Jason must pursue her into the dangerous world of Rymadoon to save her. It isn't long before he discovers that in Rymadoon he’s not just great at drawing . . . He has the power to bring his drawings to life.

  Drawing a Dark Way

  Chapter 1

  Birthdays were the worst.

  In fact, the only thing worse than a birthday, as far as Jason was concerned, was a birthday party. And the only thing worse than a birthday party was a birthday party you couldn't avoid. All that bad singing and clapping of hands and loud ripping of paper—it was enough to drive anyone crazy.

  "Bir-day! Bir-day! Bir-day!"

  Buried under his cotton sheets, Jason heard Lenore flutter into his room, squawking the horrible word. He cupped his hands over his ears. Now most birds (or cats or dogs or any other living creature) might get the hint and leave him alone, but not Lenore. She went right on squawking. That was one problem with having an inventor for a dad: He could invent things like robotic talking ravens who, if they were sent to get you, would not stop until they actually got you.

  Lenore landed on his back, talons digging through his bedspread into his skin.

  "Ow!" Jason cried. He shook his back, but Lenore didn't budge. It was stuffy under the covers, but Jason wasn't coming out—not until he thought of a rare disease that could get him out of the party. African Pygmy Flu? Demented Buffalo Disease?

  "Bir-day! Bir-day! Bir-day!"

  Even with his hands over his ears, her voice still grated. The only voice that grated on him more was Emily's. If it was your own birthday, you could usually get your way not having a party, but would his annoying little sister ever do such a thing? Oh, no, she loved birthdays. What a nightmare.

  "Up!" Lenore cried. "Up, up!"

  "Leave me alone," Jason muttered.

  "Bir-day!"

  Jason groaned.

  "Bir-day! Bir-day!"

  "All right, already!"

  Jason tossed off his covers and Lenore bounded away, landing on his far right bedpost. The bright morning light slanting through the blinds made Jason squint. Actually, it would be a stretch to call it morning, since the digital clock on his bookshelf currently read 11:58 AM.

  "Up!" Lenore squawked. "Up, up!"

  Jason rubbed his eyes. He noticed that the top of her head was missing again, exposing a green circuit board and red wires. Everything else about Lenore was beautiful—she was sleek and black, with pristine feathers and eyes like black marbles—but with her circuit board exposed, she looked stupid. He wished Dad would fix her once and for all.

  "Up!" Lenore repeated.

  "Yeah, I know," Jason said. "I'm up, okay? You satisfied? Go tell Dad and Emily I'm coming."

  Lenore squawked and took to the air, bumping hard against the door frame, then against the wall, before swooping out of sight. She may have been beautiful, but she wasn't exactly graceful.

  Jason scooted out of bed, his bare feet touching the cool hardwood floor. He moseyed in his pajamas past his black metal bookshelves and his black drawing easel until he reached his black dresser. At one time the walls had been painted to resemble outer space, something his Mom had done when he was seven, complete with stars, ringed planets, and cute little Martians, but he had painted over all of it with black, making the room as dark as a cave. Outside his window, he heard clanging metal and the shouts of men, but he resisted the urge to look. It was just Dad doing something crazy for Emily's birthday.

  He took his time slipping into his black jeans, black t-shirt, and black tennis shoes, and gazed at his drawings pinned to the corkboard above his easel. There were hundreds of pictures, two or three deep in some places, a few done in acrylics or chalk, but most with a regular drawing pencil.

  Drawing was one of the few things in life he enjoyed. It sure took his mind off the jerks who picked on him at school. He'd been drawing practically forever, and most people—the ones who didn't mind that his drawings were a little, well, dark—said he was pretty good. When he was little, he drew stuff like sailboats and cute and cuddly teddy bears, but by the time he was ten he moved on to skeletons, trolls, and dragons with blood dripping from their lips. If it wasn't for the occasional assignment in art class, that'd be all he drew.

  This was what he was thinking when he noticed a drawing on the corkboard he had never seen before.

  His first reaction, before he really saw what it was, was that Emily was pulling a lame practical joke. But when he leaned closer, he felt his body go cold. Three demon-like creatures, black as charcoal except for their white-glowing eyes, flew over a tree-lined horizon. Their bodies were cloudy, as if they carried a dark fog along with them, and their outstretched wings had all the substance of smoke.

  What scared him weren't the creatures. He drew stuff like that all the time. What scared him wasn't even what the creature in the middle held in its three-fingered claws: a blond girl, dressed in overalls and white tennis shoes, who was the spitting image of Emily.

&
nbsp; What scared him was the signature.

  J. Rosewood.

  It was exactly how he signed all of his paintings, in exactly the same way.

  Could it have been faked? Maybe, but what about the style of the drawing? It had been done the way he would have drawn it: with great flair and power, quickly, but always in control. That's when it occurred to him that maybe he did draw it. People sometimes sleepwalked. Had anybody ever sleepdrawn?

  He ripped the drawing off the wall. This was stupid. Emily had to be behind it. Or maybe Dad. He wadded it up and tossed it under his bed, grabbed a drawing pad and a pencil, and left the room. Out in the hall, a hall with plush green carpet, he glanced at the white door at the far end. Mom's room. Technically it was his parents' room, but Dad didn't sleep there anymore. He slept on a cot in his basement workshop. He never told them this, of course, but both Jason and Emily knew the truth.

  His mom's door swung open and Har-V, the mechanical nurse Dad had designed, rolled into the hall. The robot looked like a cross between a mannequin and a tank, with a human-like torso above and rubber treads below. Beneath its white nurse uniform, the robot's skin was a metallic gray. After Har-V shut the door, his top half swiveled to face Jason. The robot held a silver serving tray in one of its clamps; by the looks of the omelet on the plate, not a bite had been eaten.

  Har-V rolled up to Jason, internal motors humming. "Hello Master Jason," the robot said, the voice deep and flat. The eyes never blinked, which creeped Jason out if he looked at them too long.

  "She any better today?" Jason asked.

  "I'm afraid her condition has not improved, Master Jason. However, I'm sure she would appreciate a visit."

  Jason thought about it. He'd been seeing Mom less and less, and he felt guilty, but he just couldn't take it anymore. Every day was the same: She wasted away in bed, not talking, hardly moving, staring blankly at the ceiling. She only drank or ate when somebody put things to her lips, and sometimes not even then. Dad had hired all the best doctors in the world, but nobody knew why she was sick. A year and a half she had been this way.

  "Not right now," he said.

  "Are you sure, Master Jason? Because I am certain—"

  "I said no!"

  Har-V was silent. When the robot spoke again, his courteous tone hadn't changed. "Yes, of course, Master Jason. Do you require breakfast?"

  Sometimes Jason hated the robot's unemotional behavior. It was easier to stay mad when somebody was getting mad back at you. "I guess I could eat that."

  "Of course, Master Jason. I can always make another if she desires to eat later."

  Jason took the tray and followed the robot down the staircase to the first floor. Har-V's treads gripped firmly to the carpeted stairs. Above the staircase, an open, pentagonal tower filled the room with warm daylight. A crystal chandelier hung suspended. The staircase dropped into a spacious living room with a white tile floor, where a robot similar to Har-V (except that it wore a black tuxedo) played a lively ragtime tune on the grand piano. Pictures of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and the Wright brothers lined the hall. As Jason approached the front door, it opened automatically.

  "Bon voyage," the door intoned.

  "Whatever," Jason said.

  Standing on the concrete stoop, huge white pillars on both sides, he squinted into the daylight. The spectacle awaiting him was both more amazing and more horrifying than he had imagined. There was activity everywhere: men in blue uniforms scurried around a massive Ferris wheel; ponies walked in a circle within a gated area; two clowns with white faces and red noses helped another clown onto stilts; two robot jugglers tossed bowling pins between them.

  A snow cone machine, an inflatable castle, bumper cars . . . Their front yard, nearly as large as a football field, had been turned into a carnival. The cool spring breeze carried the scent of popcorn. He wondered how Dad had gotten it all there in so little time. Although nobody could tell from where Jason stood, since a dense green wall of pine trees surrounded them, they lived on a ten acre island in the middle of Edson Lake.

  Even Dad's helicopter, parked on the concrete pad near the trees, probably couldn't have moved the Ferris wheel. He must have had help, and that meant he must have been planning this for a long time. Meaning Dad must have been expecting a lot of people.

  What a nightmare.

  He heard Dad's laugh, a hearty roar with a bunch of Santa-like ho-ho's at the end. The sound shocked Jason. These days, he never heard Dad laugh. He glanced in the direction of the sound and saw him talking with the uniformed men by the Ferris wheel. Lanky and tall, Dad towered over the other men, and his cowboy hat made him seem even taller. With his rumpled blue jeans and plaid button up shirt, what he wore pretty much every day, he looked like a cowboy.

  "Jason!" Emily cried.

  He cringed. He turned and saw her skipping his way. Like their Mom, she was small, blond, and dainty (people always thought she was younger than she was), but she dressed like their Dad, right down to the blue overalls and the straw hat. Her pony tail, tied with a rubber band, fell against her pink and gray plaid shirt. Approaching, she tossed a white handkerchief into the air and caught it. Her blue eyes glinted in the sunlight.

  "Isn't this great?" she said.

  He sighed. "That's not the word I'd use to describe it."

  "Dad's invited like all our friends and everything!"

  Jason honestly couldn't think of anyone he'd call a friend. There was a guy in art class he talked to sometimes. "How did he come up with a list?"

  She adjusted her hat. "I think he just called everybody in the phone book."

  "Great."

  "Oh, don't be a poop," Emily chided. "It's going to be fun. Dad said he wanted to make my tenth birthday special and he did!"

  "If you say so," Jason said. He started into his omelet. The eggs were a bit cold, and not nearly as good as Mom used to make them. After swallowing, he added, "You know why he's really doing this, don't you?"

  "No."

  He made her wait while he had a few more bites. "Know who Sigmund Freud is?"

  "I'm not stupid."

  "Look, I'm just asking."

  "He's that psychiatrist," Emily said. "The one who has people sit on a couch and stuff."

  Jason nodded. "Yeah, well, he'd say Dad is just trying to be nice and throw you a big party because he feels guilty for never being around."

  She looked exasperated with him, which was something else that reminded Jason of Mom. She had that same way of squinching up her face and her eyes. "That's not true," she said.

  "Sure it is. Haven't you noticed since Mom got sick, he's gone all the time? He's always flying to one appointment or another in his helicopter."

  "He's busy."

  "Yeah, that's what he says."

  She bit down on her bottom lip. He knew she was angry—her cheeks turned pink, like they always did when she was mad—but he didn't care. He went on eating his omelet.

  "I don't know why you have to say stuff like that," she said finally. "You just don't want me to be happy."

  "I just don't want you to live in a fantasy, that's all."

  She looked about to cry now; her eyes got glassy, and the skin under her eyes twitched. "Well, what's wrong with a fantasy?"

  He laughed. It came out sounding harsher than he wanted. She glared at him, then stalked away. She had only gone a few steps when Lenore swooped down and landed with a noisy flutter. The stupid bird was still missing the top of her head.

  "Oh!" Emily said. "Lenore, you can't go around like that!"

  Lenore chirped her agreement.

  "Here," Emily said, bending down to her with her handkerchief, "I'll cover your head with this."

  "Oh, don't do that," Jason said, "you'll just make her look stupid."

  Emily ignored him. She smiled in a motherly way, tying the handkerchief around Lenore's head. "There now," she said more softly. "We don't want your brain to get cold."

  "Cold!" Lenore cried. "Cold! Cold!"


  "She doesn't have a brain," Jason said.

  "Don't say that! She can hear you."

  "She probably doesn't feel cold at all. She's just a robot."

  "I'm not listening to you."

  "Whatever."

  "Lenore likes me. That's why Dad gave me the whistle for my birthday."

  Jason frowned. "What are you blabbing about now?"

  Lenore squawked appreciatively, then took to the air with the loose ends of the scarf fluttering behind her. She flew toward the door, which opened, and disappeared inside.

  Wearing a smug expression, Emily pulled out a tiny bamboo flute hung around her neck by a silver chain. The flute was as small as a thimble. "Dad told me if I blow this Lenore will come," she said. "She has really good ears and she can even hear it far away. He said he wants me to watch out for her."

  Jason shrugged. "Well, whoop-dee-do."

  "You're just jealous because Dad trusts me and not you!"

  "Okay, yeah. That's it. Because, you know, I really want to have a stupid whistle so I can call a lame-brain bird who will never leave me alone. Sure. You've figured it out, Em. You're such a genius."

  Emily sniffed haughtily and marched away. But when she'd gone about a dozen paces, she looked back. The irritation on her face was gone. Instead there was something else, something that looked a lot like fear. When she spoke, her voice was too soft to hear above the clanking of the Ferris wheel, which had just started.

  He sighed. "You'll have to speak louder."

  "I said, did you have any, um, weird dreams?"

  He almost made a joke, but seeing how serious she looked, he just shook his head. "No. Why?"

  "I . . . I had a strange dream."

  On any other day, Jason would have just tossed it off as more of Emily's nonsense, but because of the disturbing drawing in his room he took it more seriously. "What kind of dream?" he asked.

  She hesitated.