“He’s right,” Benny agreed. “The real trouble comes from other mortal, human idiots.”
Jamie bobbed his head and sucked the end of his coat hanger, then dabbed at his lips with a striped paper napkin. “Weekend Satanists.”
“Half a dozen ley lines cross these fields. Paranormal enthusiasts come out here from all over the country and—” Benny was interrupted by a smash and a hiss, and a hearty cheer from whoever had thrown the beer bottle into the fire. “And other morons get drunk and come out here too.”
I’d heard of ley lines before, and I knew they had something to do with energy currents; but I didn’t want an in-depth education on the subject, so I didn’t ask for clarification. “This is crazy,” I said. “The park is closed because people are too scared to go anywhere near it lately, and you’re worried that we’re going to run into supernatural sightseers?”
“In abundance,” he assured me. “Especially now, with all the publicity it’s been getting. We won’t be able to swing a stick without hitting someone with an infrared camera and a Time Life book on the Civil War.”
“Such an optimist you are,” I muttered, shouldering my bag with one arm and using the other to gather up our paraphernalia. “You guys do what you like, but I’m not setting foot on that battlefield with any object that could possibly be misconstrued as a weapon, a metal detector, or a shovel. Got it? Now are you in, or are you out?”
“I’m in,” Jamie said right away. “It’ll be an adventure, and I’m not the sort of paranoid nutter with the need to wear blades everywhere anyway. My wit is sharp enough to…Ooh, you’ve got mace! Do I get to carry mace too?”
“It’s pepper spray. And this is the only one I have, so the answer is no. Benny? You still game?”
He sighed heavily, and mostly for show. “Fine. But if we end up disemboweled by drunken rednecks, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Let’s go drop this junk off in your car, if that’s the way you want it.”
“Since I don’t want that bulky, sinister Brian fellow throwing any of my personal property into the blaze, then yes, that’s the way I want it.”
“Can I keep my trusty flask, since you won’t let me have the mace?”
“It isn’t mace. And you’re allowed to bring the flask if I’m allowed to have a swig.”
He offered the pretty stainless-steel container without hesitation. I took a deep swallow, then wished I’d sniffed it first. “Thanks, but that’s disgusting. What is it?”
“Fine Irish whiskey.”
“Ew.”
He shrugged and threw back another gulp. “More for me. This way, gang. To the railroad tracks or bust.”
We swung by the car on the way, locking our extras inside. I brought a small but mighty flashlight to use as backup in case we ran into trouble, but other than that we took only the army light, the pepper spray, and the handheld digital recorder.
We made our exit quietly, lest we acquire a larger party than we wanted. By the time we reached the end of the street, the glow of Ted’s shindig seemed very far away.
We walked in a row, with Benny in the middle. He aimed the red beam at the ground, and we followed it as quietly as we could, stepping with care and keeping our mouths closed. We were all listening—for other people, for other things. We didn’t know what we expected to find, but we sure as hell weren’t going to let it sneak up on us, whatever it turned out to be.
Jamie reached out for Benny’s flashlight-holding hand and guided it off to the right, where a graveled area sloped upward off the road. “The tracks,” he whispered.
Once he’d pointed them out, they were hard to miss. A pair of big, reflective railroad signs glinted in the red light and warned of potential trains. And behind the signs something else loomed black and huge against the sky.
The Tower.
The Wilder Tower, it was properly called, but like the Pickle Barrel and Moccasin Bend, people tended to drop the descriptor. The monument had become an archetype unto itself, and it would not be mistaken for any other.
Our footsteps ground over the gravel and skipped past the tracks into the parking lot at the tower’s base. An expository plaque discussed some of the monument’s finer historical points. Over to our left I could just barely make out the shadows of oversized statues. If I squinted hard enough, one of them looked like a horse.
Benny, Jamie, and I stood still in a small, close triangle. Benny turned off the flashlight.
As our eyes adjusted to the night, we could see one another fairly well; but beyond a few yards we were all but blind.
Jamie leaned his head until his mouth was an inch from my ear. “There’s a field that way,” he breathed, pointing past the tower. “And a road.”
Benny crowded closer to us and brought his voice down low. “What should we do now? Do y’all see anything?”
“No,” Jamie and I answered together, but both of the guys looked at me.
“You don’t see anything we don’t?” Jamie asked, and I shook my head.
“Not a thing.”
I might have been leading the charge, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I gestured for the light. Benny gave it to me and I turned it on, casting its limited beam in a circle around us.
Over in the tower’s shadow there were large stone blocks that served as benches. I cocked my head towards them and nudged Benny’s arm. “Let’s sit down over there. We can break out the recorder and see if we get any response. Maybe we’ll invite somebody out that way.”
Together we shuffled up the asphalt and onto the grass, settling on a chilly bench. We turned off the light, and Benny pressed a button.
“How does this work?” I asked. “I’ve never done this before.”
“What is this?” Jamie wanted to know. “What’s that for?”
“EVP,” Benny replied. “Electronic Voice Phenomenon. We’re trying to get ghosts to come talk to us.”
“Does that actually work?”
“Sometimes.”
I couldn’t vouch for it one way or another. If I understood correctly, investigators usually used EVP to record ghost voices because they couldn’t hear them otherwise. Only upon playing back the tapes did the words become clear. As you might imagine, I’ve never had much use for that method of inquiry.
“What do we do?”
In the dim glow of the incomplete moon, I watched Benny’s face harden. He might not have been positive how this should happen, but he wasn’t about to let us know that.
“We invite them—anyone who wants to speak.”
“How?” Jamie asked, saving me the trouble of doing so.
“We just, well…Eden, keep your eyes open. Speak up if you see anything. You’ll probably know first if we’re making any headway.”
He brought his voice up from a hoarse whisper then, with barely enough volume and clarity to lift itself into the realm of a normal speaking voice. Although I knew he was still being carefully quiet, there on the stone-silent battlefield he might as well have been shouting. “Residents of this place, hear us and know that we listen.”
“You made that up just now,” Jamie murmured, but I hit his arm and he shut up. I didn’t care if Benny made it up on the spot or if he read it off the back of a cereal box, so long as it worked.
“We invite you to join us,” he continued, his eyes swooping back and forth between the field beyond the tower and the bulky, shadowy monuments in the clearing up the hill. “We know that you wish to communicate with the living, and we offer you our audience. Eden, do you see anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay.” He brought the recorder up with one hand, holding it loosely between his fingers, thumb ready to press the record button at a moment’s notice. “If anyone out there has a message he’d like to give, we invite you to come forward. We invite you to speak. Is there anyone present who will offer us counsel?”
Off to the left, by the monuments up the hill, I thought I saw something move. It was hard to say; the black almost-shapes appeared to wiggle and shift if you stared at them too long. But I wrote it off to a trick of the eyes and brain until a more deliberate motion assured me that I was seeing no illusion.
From a few feet off the ground, something swept itself up in an arc and dropped down, landing firm on the grass.
“Benny?” I whispered, pressing my shoulder against his. “What are those statues over there, the ones that go up the hill? I can see them, barely, but I can’t tell what they are.”
“I don’t remember.”
Jamie joined the huddle. “They’re statues of people, I think. And a big one of a horse.”
The horse.
By sheer optical stubbornness I discerned a prancing equine shape, and beside it the figure who had moved—the figure who had dismounted a moment before.
“Keep talking, Benny.”
“Is it working?”
“Maybe. Just keep talking.”
“Come and sit with us. Come and speak with us. Tell us what you want. Maybe we can help you.” He slid his thumb against the record button and it snapped into place.
The figure by the horse had begun walking towards us, and as it moved our way another dash of motion suggested we might have more company coming. In the field beyond the tower the grass rustled and parted, but I could not see what disturbed it. I returned my attention to the first faint, chalky-pale figure and saw that he’d come much closer, much faster than I expected.
“A man,” I gasped.
Benny nearly dropped the recorder. “What?”
“A man,” I said again, though when he drew nearer I thought I must be wrong. He couldn’t have been any older than fourteen when he’d died, if his present form was any indication. Around his cheeks there was a softness, and his skin showed no signs of shaving.
“He’s in a uniform.”