The Frighteners Read online

  “Shut up,” he said.

  He gave Stuart an angry shove. The emanation wobbled on his feet, losing his tenuous center of gravity. Emanations are made up of loosely compacted particles that can be distorted, scattered, stretched, or squeezed—but always return to their original shape. Stuart wobbled backward off the driveway, tripped over a pile of bricks, and fell into the bushes that Bannister let grow wild on all sides of the house.

  “You clowns left me high and dry tonight,” Bannister said angrily. “I arrive at the house and there’s nothing happening. You guys are just sitting around watching. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “We actually strained our backs lifting the bed, Frank,” Stuart complained.

  “All I get is complaints,” Bannister replied.

  “And if you think that was rough, you should try to create the magic-carpet effect yourself,” Cyrus said. “It’s hard enough lifting a bed. But it’s a bitch and a half making the damn blankets go like Aladdin was cruising the Persian Gulf on top of them.”

  “You could have swung some more cupboards open,” Bannister sad. “You could have flashed a few lights. It looks like Martha Stewart’s kitchen in there, for Chrissake. Dancing knives and forks—gimme a break.”

  “Our backs were hurting by then,” Stuart protested, rubbing his own for effect.

  “I’ve gotta have something I can work with if I hope to get money out of these people,” Bannister said.

  He fished his keys out of his pocket and walked up to the front door. Bannister unlocked it and flung it open, even as Stuart was struggling back to his feet. Cyrus jived in the door behind Bannister.

  “Frank!” Stuart yelled. “I didn’t go to college to spend the rest of my life haunting people.”

  He picked himself up from the bushes, nervously brushing imaginary leaves from himself. He said, “Frank . . . you gotta check me for tick bites. I think I got Lyme in there.”

  Stuart ran toward the door, which Bannister slammed in his face. At first, the emanation was flattened against the door, as flat as a pancake, then he passed straight through the wood and began chasing Bannister down a hallway filled with antiques and memorabilia collected from what might have been a thousand haunted houses.

  “I’m pretty sure a tick bit me on the leg,” Stuart continued, hiking up a pants leg and hopping down the hall after his boss and friend.

  Frank turned and faced him, saying, “You’re dead, you hypochondriacal nut. If a tick could bite you, it would choke on the ectoplasm.”

  “Humor me. I don’t feel as dead as I look.”

  Sighing, Frank bent over and inspected the emanation’s ankle. Stuart’s leg got thinner as the man looked at it until at last Bannister was able to make out the umbrella stand he had picked up at that ranch-style house in Portland.

  “You’ll live, so to speak,” Bannister said.

  “Thank God.” Stuart shook his leg to get the pants to fall back into place, but in so doing banged his foot on the umbrella stand. “Jesus, this place has too many knick-knacks.”

  “The man likes to collect junk,” Cyrus chimed in.

  “Sometimes people pay me in furniture,” Bannister said. “The problem with convincing them that a ghost is making their umbrella stand do triple axles in the hall is that a lot of the time they don’t want it around anymore. So they give it to me in lieu of money. Did you know that umbrella stand once sat by the front door of a Newport mansion?”

  “I don’t care, Frank,” Stuart said. “I can’t go on like this. We haunt a house. You chase us out of the house. You collect. And nobody gets any respect.”

  “We ain’t gettin’ any younger,” Cyrus added.

  Bannister said, “Listen, guys. I got a lot of creditors knocking on my door. If I go under, you go under—six feet under, back in the cemetery.”

  Stuart looked horrified. “You wouldn’t send us back!”

  “Don’t say that, even kiddin’ around,” Cyrus said. “I mean, I been there and done that, y’dig?”

  “No,” Bannister said. “The gravedigger dug. I dug you up and have been supporting you ever since. And all I ask is a little help.”

  “You can’t send us back to the cemetery, man. It’s a jungle down there.”

  “I’ve been telling people that, but nobody listens to me,” Bannister said. “Business is hard to get. People nearly faint when I give them my card. We’re only just scratching out a living here, and you guys better start pulling your weight.”

  Bannister walked into the kitchen and slammed the door.

  Momentarily alone in the dark hall, Stuart and Cyrus exchanged worried glances.

  “He’s not serious about the cemetery, is he?” Stuart said.

  “Man, I hope not. He put a serious chill on the proceedings just talkin’ about it.”

  “The man doesn’t know what it’s like in the cemetery.”

  “Oh, he knows, all right, and not just because he can see it when other living folks can’t. My man Frank just got a natural affinity for the deep and dead. I’m sure he’ll enjoy it to death when he gets there himself.”

  “What a bummer,” Stuart said.

  “I got to cool out,” Cyrus said. “I’m gonna play me some music.”

  Stuart was horrified. “Oh, God! Not Isaac Hayes,” he pleaded. “Anything but Isaac Hayes.”

  Snapping his fingers, Cyrus disappeared through the wall in the direction of the living room. Within seconds, the theme from Shaft was booming out over the early-morning darkness of Fairwater.

  Five

  Morning brought a day in which the newly risen sun sent long shafts of brilliant light through the unfinished timbers of Bannister’s hilltop home. In the town below, life went on, blissfully unaware of the vibrant doings on the hill. The sound of 1970s disco had long since faded, but in its place was the sound of gunshots. One after another, spaced as they would be by someone taking slow and deliberate aim. The roar of each report, which echoed down the hillside but faded before reaching any neighboring ears, was too loud and too deep to come from any contemporary firearm. The weapon in question had to be old and big.

  But not old and big enough to disturb Frank Bannister as he indulged in one of the few pleasures he allowed himself in his close-to-the-edge life. He was taking a shower, humming to himself as he let the water cascade over his head and shoulders.

  All of a sudden the water pressure died. Bannister frowned and adjusted the hot and cold faucets. When that didn’t do anything, he twisted the nozzle. Then the pipe bulged, the metal screamed, and Cyrus ballooned out of the shower head, his head and shoulders terribly distorted as the rest of his body slimmed back down into the slender pipe.

  “Whaddaya want?” Bannister grumbled, his voice showing irritation but in no way indicating that this occurrence was unusual.

  “It’s the Judge, Frank. The cat’s real upset. He’s got his six-shooters out.”

  With the water no longer running, Bannister could hear the gunshots. Two especially close ones rattled the glass in the medicine cabinet.

  “What’s he upset about?” Bannister asked.

  “Beats me. I’m just layin’ low till this blows over.”

  With that, Cyrus sucked back into the pipe. Before he could react, Bannister got a faceful of scalding water. “Aargh,” he moaned, grabbing frantically for the faucets.

  After finally getting the water shut off, he stepped from the shower stall and hurriedly toweled himself off. The shots were still coming—one every few seconds, as he found his old terrycloth robe and pulled it on, belting it tightly. He stormed into the kitchen.

  There, Bannister was confronted by a tall and elderly emanation called the Judge, a lawman from the last days of the Old West. Somewhere back in the closing moments of the nineteenth century, he had died and been embalmed. But the embalming job was a cheap one and hadn’t stood the test of time. His dry, mummified body was in an advanced state of decay. How it all held together—especially in its already fragile ectoplasmic st
ate—was anybody’s guess.

  The Judge wore a black frock coat and a white shirt with a high starched collar. A black string tie was decorated with a longhorn steer ornament. The Judge’s face looked as scrawny and funereal as the steer’s skull—especially since he was missing his jawbone.

  He was swiveling around, blazing away wildly with two rusty, ghost Colts. Bannister flinched as ghost bullets passed through his body and the wall behind him without leaving a trace. For their parts, Cyrus and Stuart peeked warily out of framed paintings.

  “Damn Rustler took me jawbone,” the Judge gurgled.

  “What?” Bannister asked in astonishment, though nothing much really surprised him anymore.

  “The dog stole his jaw, Frank,” Stuart yelled.

  “He’s all worked up about it,” Cyrus added. Their voices, coming across the room, could hardly be heard over the echoes of the shots, the gurgling of the jawless Judge, and the running and panting of the dog.

  Rustler was a mangy, transparent ghost mutt that in life had been red and about the size of a Labrador retriever. The dog raced tight circles around the Judge, the jawbone in question clenched firmly between his teeth. Frank dropped to his knees, trying to catch the dog.

  “Get me my damn jaw back,” the Judge yelled, firing a shot that almost nicked the dog’s tail.

  “You better do it, Frank,” Stuart yelled.

  Bannister grabbed at the flying dog. “Rustler,” he called. “Here, boy.”

  The dog ignored Frank and kept racing around the room. The Colts roared as the Judge kept taking potshots at his old dog. One of the ghostly shots ricocheted past Stuart’s ear, taking a nick out of it. The stunned emanation reached up and grabbed the side of his head as ectoplasm dribbled between his fingers.

  “I’m hit! I’m hit!” he yelled.

  Cyrus leaned out of his picture frame, the better to survey the damage. “It’s just a flesh wound, m’man,” he said.

  “For God’s sake, Frank,” Stuart yelled, “I could have been killed.”

  Bannister took a flying leap at the dog, bringing him down with a tackle. It was a move he clearly had made before. Rolling around on the floor with the animal, Frank tugged the ghostly jawbone out of his mouth.

  “Put your six-shooters away, Judge,” Bannister said, sitting up and letting the dog go.

  The Judge stepped over, snatched the bone from Frank’s hand, and rammed it back into his face. The aging ectoplasm flowed back over it, and soon the old emanation’s countenance was slightly less hideous than before.

  “Sneaky little sidewinder,” Judge said, flexing his jaw, his words not much easier to understand. “I’ll have the varmint stuffed.”

  Unafraid, Rustler licked the Judge’s hand, happily flicking a wet, rotten tongue.

  “I’m going to get a Band-Aid,” Stuart said, slipping out of the picture frame and back into the wall. Cyrus soon followed.

  Shaking his head, Frank went to the counter and made himself a cup of coffee. Soon he was sitting in the living room, smelling the coffee and staring at the shambles of his life. For the inside of his house was as unfinished as the outside. Paneling was missing in half the living room. Inside the smooth walls bare frames were surrounded by silver-foil-covered insulation. On the one finished wall, an antique oil painting shared the space with old photographs and a grungy lamp picked out of someone’s garbage. A stack of newspapers held up another lamp; a thirteen-inch black-and-white television sat atop an orange crate.

  Followed by Rustler, the Judge ambled into the room and sank into a large, old armchair—the twin of the one in which Bannister was trying to hide. It was dark in the room, which faced west, away from the morning sun. The Judge’s body glowed slightly in the soft folds of the ancient chair.

  “Frank, when a man’s jaw drops off, it’s time to reassess the situation,” he said after a long silence.

  Bannister looked at the Judge with concern in his eyes. “What are you talking about? You’re in great shape.”

  The emanation shook his head. “I’m falling apart,” he said. “My joints are getting powdery. Frightening is a young man’s game. Those young whippersnappers you let live here are much better at it than me.”

  “Nobody’s better than you, Judge.”

  “ ’Tain’t true. My time has come and gone.”

  “Stuart and Cyrus are good friends, but they’re just kids, and modern kids to boot. They don’t know how to throw a real scare into someone. Sure, they can rattle doorknobs when the mood strikes them,” Frank added ruefully, “but the mood seems to be striking them less and less often these days.”

  “You’re trying to be kind to an old man,” Judge said. “But the truth is I ain’t got no more hauntings in me. Hell, I can hardly rustle up a scare.”

  He lowered his voice, adding, “Frank, don’t go saying nothin’ to the boys, but my ectoplasm’s all dried up.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Judge,” Bannister said.

  The Judge shook his head sadly. “I’ve got meself a nice little grave up there at the cemetery. It could soon be time to lay my bones down.”

  “But, Judge,” Frank protested, “who’s gonna help me finish this house?”

  “You ain’t touched this place in ten years, Frank,” Judge said. “If I wait around for you, I’ll never get to rest in peace.”

  “All I need is a little cash,” Bannister insisted. “I thought I was getting something yesterday from that idiot Ray Lynskey, but I wound up having to settle for calling it even after I wrecked his lawn.”

  “You’re gettin’ to be a pretty darn good frightener yourself.”

  “Except I can’t disappear into the wall when the job is done,” Bannister said, picking up the newspaper and opening it.

  “What are you lookin’ to find in that rag?” Judge asked, glaring across the room at the copy of the Fairwater Gazette.

  “My advertisement,” Bannister said angrily. “It’s not here.” He got up and, tucking the newspaper under his arm, stalked out of the living room.

  An hour and another harrowing ride down the hill later, Bannister drove down Main Street, heading for the newspaper office. His old Ford moved quickly in the light morning traffic, giving him time to ponder a colorful banner that stretched across the road in front of the Fairwater Museum. The banner read EVIDENCE EMBALMED—THE SECRETS OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

  Frank pulled into a parking spot across the street from the Gazette. He fed a dime into the meter, tucked the paper back under his arm, and strode across Main Street toward the office. Inside, he brushed past a receptionist who was polishing her nails over a copy of People magazine and walked through the city room. Steve Bayliss was hunched over his computer, a phone glued to one ear, typing frantically, every inch the gung-ho newspaperman. As Bannister slid by the young man he said, “The next time I see Ben Hecht and Charlie MacArthur I’ll tell them how proud I am of you.”

  Bayliss looked up, confused and uncomprehending for an instant. Then he said, “They’re my idols—but they’ve been dead forty or fifty years.”

  “Don’t get thrown by details, kid,” Bannister said, and continued on into Magda Ravanski’s office. The managing editor was sitting with her legs crossed, a long-stretch of thigh showing beneath her stretched-out copy of The Wall Street Journal.

  Bannister stood in front of her desk and cleared his throat.

  “Yes?” she said, putting down her paper. She seemed irritated at the interruption. As a way of showing it, she brushed her hair away from her eyes and glared at the intruder.

  “You left my ad out of today’s paper,” Bannister said.

  “I know.”

  “But this is a big mistake.”

  “It was no mistake. I did it on purpose.”

  “Why, for God’s sake? I need that ad to make a living.”

  Magda pushed her hair away from her eyes again. It was a habit she fell into when she was bored or annoyed.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bannister,” she said. “But
we are no longer running your advertisement. I’ve had a stream of complaints about your . . . business practices. Preying on the bereaved is about as low as you can go. This paper no longer intends to associate itself with these dubious activities.”

  “Oh, does that mean you’re canceling the astrology column, too?” he asked.

  “Certainly not. People are interested in it.”

  “And they’re not interested in the afterlife?”

  “Mr. Bannister . . .”

  “What do you mean, ‘preying on the bereaved’?” he continued. “I help people deal with their grief. If you could talk with a deceased loved one and find he’s peacefully at rest, wouldn’t you do it?”

  “I don’t believe you can communicate with the dead,” she snarled.

  “But it makes perfect sense that you can determine what kind of day you’re going to have by reading up on what Jupiter is doing?” Bannister said.

  “Mr. Bannister”—Magda had heard all she intended to hear—“I am not going to sit here and debate the relative merits of astrology and psychic intervention.”

  “I have a right to advertise my services to the public.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, we are in the middle of a major health crisis. There is a string of unexplained deaths in our community. The last thing people need is a two-bit charlatan offering to pass on bogus messages from the other side.” She brushed her hair off her face for a third time, then said, “Now, if you will excuse me.”

  She picked up The Wall Street Journal again and used it to block the sight of him.

  “You’ll be hearing from my attorney,” Bannister told her.

  “If this is a living person, I will be delighted to talk to him.” Magda snapped the paper to add emphasis to the argument.

  “How am I going to earn a living?” he asked, pleading.

  “ ‘Living.’ ” She sneered. “That’s not a word you’d know a lot about, is it, Mr. Bannister?”

  Realizing he was getting nowhere, Bannister turned and stormed out of the office. He rushed through the city room and out the front door, then stalked angrily across the street without looking to see if any cars were coming. There was a screeching of tires as a hearse driver slammed on his brakes to avoid mowing Bannister down.