THE LAST ANDY

                                                                     

THE LAST ANDY
A Novella

BY

W.G. BUREK

PROLOGUE:
Poland, 1408: The Tatar Warrior at the Forge

         The kowal thrust his tongs into the incandescent white coals and pulled out a flattened wedge of metal. He studied its color carefully and then laid the wedge on his anvil and rapped it with his heavy peen hammer. Soon the wedge would be a fine blade for a two-edged battle-axe.
         On the other side of the dark room, the Tatar warrior Ogodei, his face glowing red, watched intently as the blade maker pumped his wheezing bellows, turning the charcoal from a fiery red into a blinding yellow. Two guards, armed with long-handled pikes, stood stiffly on either side of the warrior. Sweat streamed from underneath their helmets, snug-fitting bowls that came to just above their ears, fitted with cheek plates that attached by hinges to the side of the bowls. Occasionally, their black almond shaped eyes flicked sidewise from the kowal to a young man who lay naked, bound and strapped to a thick wooden table.
         The blade maker, a giant of a man nearly twice as tall as the Tatars, continued working at the forge. With accustomed skill, he patiently hammered the steel, then heated and quenched. Hammered. Heated and quenched. Then hammered again, forming and shaping an axe blade that would hold two edges of extraordinary sharpness. Finally, he pulled a turned length of ash from a tub of water, fitted it into the center of the blade, fastened it with four hot lugs from the forge and dropped the whole assembly into the tub. After a moment he retrieved the axe, with the still-hot blade steaming and colored a malevolent purple. He held the blade close to his face, checking for cracks or fractures and found none. Turning, he walked over to the Tatar who still stood between the two guards and handed him the weapon.
         The Tatar grabbed at the axe with two hands, bowed to the Polish blacksmith and mouthed a rotting-toothed smile from beneath his drooping black mustache. He walked to the forge and passed the blade through the smoldering fire.
         The bound Prince has been watching the scene with increasing terror. He shook his head at the hot, gleaming blade as the Tatar walked toward him, axe in hand.
         “Please, no!” screamed the captive. “In the name of your God and mine, stop! Please! No!”
         The blade maker turned his face away from the wooden slab as the Tatar shaved the smoking edge of the axe blade across the youth’s bare back. The Prince’s scream rose in a wave of incoherent words aimed at Ogodei; a wisp of smoke and the acrid stink of burning flesh rose into the face of the torturer. 
         Ogodei smiled again, raised the axe above his head and with one swift chop drove the blade through the taut, young neck. The Prince’s head tumbled to the floor, rolled across it, and stopped at the feet of the blacksmith. The blacksmith looked for just a moment at the head--its eyes still open in terror, its once golden hair matted in brownish red blood--then turned quickly away and vomited.
         Outside, the townspeople were gathered in a semi-circle and standing watch at the entrance to the forge. The leading citizens stood at the front of the arc: the baker Anton and his wife, Janusz the butcher and his old-maid daughter Stella, and Lukasz, the town’s other blacksmith (or kowal, as he was called in Polish).  The cutler, the fletcher and the leather tanner were not present. The three had been executed the day before, beheaded on a wooden block in the public square -- by the same executioner who would now have the head of the beloved Prince Casimir.
         A man-at-arms, dressed in a coarse wool wrap and the traditional Tatar cone-shaped hat stood guard in front of the door. He held a pike in his right hand and a curved sword in his left, crude warning to the crowd that anyone causing trouble would surely be run through with one of the weapons, if not both. 
         Wlad the woodcutter and his son, Andrzej, 17 years old and also a woodcutter, were the last to arrive. They stood at the far right end of the group, their view of the forge obstructed by Ogodei’s horse. It was huge, a war-horse, as high at the withers as the top of the Tatar guard’s hat and nearly three times as broad as the man. Andrzej edged slowly around the rear of the giant beast, so as not to draw the attention of the guard. A shudder passed through the crowd as the Prince’s cry for mercy pierced the wall of his execution chamber, “God! No! No!”
         The citizens, who had been nervously milling about, let out a collective gasp and froze themselves in place. They stared at the forge. Faces became petrified in anguish. Silence suffocated the air above them. An eternal moment later, almost as one, they cringed at the sickening sound of the axe slicing into the wooden slab. There was a dreadful pause, and then, the sound of men and women sobbing. Andrzej spat out a single word as if it were venom, “Kat!”
         As the Tatar executioner walked proudly out of the forge, there was a scream, and everyone, including Ogodei and his men, turned to look at the butcher’s daughter. She sunk to her knees and was clawing at the ground in front of her. Her screams became smothered in the dust.
         Ogodei stepped toward the young woman, axe at the ready. Andrzej stepped in front of the horse, attracting the Tatar’s attention. His arm moved under his cloak. He must have some kind of weapon, Ogodei thought. He was also only a boy, thin as a reed, and certainly not capable of putting up a fight to save this woman. He turned back to the butcher’s daughter, poised to strike a blow with his axe.
         Ogodei heard the sound -- a soft, airy whistle –– too late. As he turned in its direction, Andrzej’s woodcutting axe met the Tatar’s forehead, lodging in it deeply, directly above the nose. For just a moment, his eyes met those of Andrzej, who was now atop the warhorse. He gasped out a curse at the young woodcutter, grabbed at the axe protruding from his head and fell face down into the pool of his own blood.
         The Tatar guards, who had been literally caught with their guard down, shook off their surprise and moved in Andrzej’s direction. Too late again. The warhorse was not only very big, it was also very fast.














ONE: Kill Devil Hills

Those who knew him long ago called him the Kat. But he would not admit to that now, for fear that someone who studies history would find him out.
         He arrived in Kill Devil Hills on December 31st, under the cover of night. He carried a decrepit sheepskin bag on his back. It held a few meager items of food, and an ancient book, bound in decaying leather and encased for safekeeping in an ornate silver box.
         He dragged behind him a large burlap sack that reeked of rotting meat. In his right hand, he carried a weapon, the one which had been at his side for countless years.
         He dared not be seen on the road, so he traveled along the edge of the dunes, moving stealthily past the houses sleeping in darkness and shuttered against the whining winter wind.                                                                                                                        When he came near the house that had been chosen for him, he trudged up the windswept side of the dune which rose in front of it. Elmo Fearing’s house lay against the midnight sky like a tombstone. It’s aging, arthritic boards creaked painfully as the unrelenting stiff wind moved them against their will.
         He tramped to the top of the dune, turned and looked back down the sloping wall of sand. There was no sign that he had walked there, no tracks marking his steps.
         He sat on the soft floor of the dune and removed his boots. He tied them together and carefully placed them in the leather bag. The eastern wind sprayed grains of sand on his face and neck, and coated his lips with salt.
         He stood. A half-circle of moon rose between clouds over the sea, casting a haunting yellow light over the churning water. He hefted the heavy burlap sack and swung it easily to the ground in front of him. He opened the sack and breathed its hideous odor. He felt the force rising in him. Complete. Exhilarating. Immense.
         He stooped and pulled death from the sack. The stench of carrion rose on the wind and engulfed the sleeping innocence of the town behind him. He lifted the sheep’s carcass above his head as if in offering to a strange and secret god. When he spoke, he spoke softly at first. Then came the bellowing: Hate. And rage. Depravity. In a tongue never before heard on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Had any sane person been able to understand his words, they would have recoiled in horror, for his message was an abominable curse that called upon the fiend, the evil one. Satan.
         After a while, his vile voice died away under the rumble of the surf. And his dark figure faced the sea for a long time, listening to the wind for a sign.
         Suddenly, the wind died. He turned and made his way into the house where he lit a lantern and set about preparing his weapon. After five centuries, his final task had begun.






































TWO: Andy


When the new year was two hours old, Andy Drewalski had already been asleep for one of them. He had fallen into bed, exhausted, bare-chested, wearing Manteo Redskins sweatpants. He nodded off quickly under a light wool blanket and crisp white sheet. He slept peacefully because he hadn’t the slightest inkling that when he next opened his eyes, his life would change forever.                                                                                                                                   The sound woke him. It was a single sound, vaguely familiar. Something sweeping through the air and landing sharply: Thaack!  He lay in his bed listening, trying to hear over the crashing surf outside his window. Thaack! Without thinking, his hands, like two claws, grabbed the sheet on both sides of his thighs. What was he hearing? A two by four? A baseball bat? A golf club? Thaack! Closer! Definitely in his room.                                                                      He felt himself swallowed by a wave of black fear. His heart pounded so hard against his chest he thought his ribs were going to explode. His ears throbbed as he listened in the dark, waiting to hear if the noise that had awakened him again would come again.                                        He blinked. Once, twice, trying to adjust his eyes to the blackness of the room. A thin stripe of moonlight forced through a crack between the window shutters and traced its way across the ceiling. He remembered closing the shutters before he had fallen asleep. The wind had changed then, blowing in from the east off the Atlantic, raw and damp.                                        Once more, the horrible Thaack! echoed off the black walls of his room, slowly dying in his ears. He could see nothing, but he could feel a presence. Something dangerous. Something evil. Was death near? Would the end come with a two by four shattering his skull, flooding his pillow with blood and brains? His blood. His brains.  Fear grabbed at his stomach like a giant vise. A rush of damp heat started at his feet and surged through his body until his ears were on fire. His skin was coated with clammy sweat. And his panic now spoke to him in a deafening voice. Someone, something has come here to kill me! Death was near! He fought the urge to scream.          The wind rose, whining against the shutters and pushing the familiar scent of the sea through the crevices around the window. And then, briefly, came the stink of rotting fish and seaweed.                                                                                                                        He lay still, fighting a powerful urge to hide like a little kid under the bed. He clamped his eyes shut, looking for control, hoping to force clear thinking back into his head. “Crap!” he said to himself, “start thinking like a seventeen year old.” Or, maybe the best thing would be to not think of it at all. He had learned that when he was just a kid. Don’t think of the monster with his green, pimpled face and long, rotting teeth, and it will fade away without a trace. So forget you heard it...it never happened...and you will wake, with your head nuzzled comfortably in your pillow. The clean, white pillow. Not a speck of blood to be seen anywhere.                    Thaack!                                                                                                              Damn! I’ve got to make this end, he thought. “Help me, Jesus,” he whispered aloud. Maybe too LOUD!                                                                                                                        He held his breath and listened. Nothing. He tried to picture his Louisville Slugger in the blackness. He remembered. Propped against the side of his desk. Which side? Right or left? Go for the right, he told himself. He shouted, “Let’s do it!” And in one quick move, he dropped from his bed, rolled across the floor to his desk, and came to his feet, bat in hands, ready to swing. At someone or something he could not see.                                                                                          Thaack! Not in his room. In the hall, for cripe’s sake!                                                             He groped in the darkness across his desk, found the lamp and switched it on. His legs felt shaky, weak. The bat in his hands felt as if it weighed fifty pounds. He fell on his knees and crawled to the door. “Who’s there?” he shouted. He expected no answer and got none.                    He listened. Nothing but quiet. He backed into a corner and knelt there, his breath coming in gasps now. A memory from his past flashed in front of him. Little baby Andy, three years old, huddled in the dark corner, hiding his face behind a pillow. His whimpering turning into sobs, believing the wind in the attic was a Halloween monster come to get him. Seventeen-year-old Andy stood up and spoke loudly to the door. “If you’re still out there in thirty seconds, I’m going to beat the crap out of you with this baseball bat!”                                                  Thaack! Behind him now. He sprang to his feet and wheeled around into a perfect “at bat” position.                                                                                                                        He yanked open the closet door. Clothes on the hangers. Fishing gear, a hockey stick in the corner. Running shoes and fishing boots on the floor. Assorted junk on the shelf.          Thaack! Outside the window.                                                                                He ran to the window, threw open the shutters and moved quickly to one side so he wouldn’t be in full view. He peered nervously around the damp wood of the jamb. He could see nothing. He stepped backward to his desk, his eyes never leaving the window, and switched off the lamp. Crouching, he moved back to the window and looked out over the sill. White foam rolled up to touch the edge of the dunes. High tide. The wind had shifted from east to northwest and slowed. The sea oats waved in the light breeze. The moon slid out from behind a bank of clouds and cast a bright, eerie light. Then, from over a distant dune, he heard it again. Faint, but unmistakable. The same sound he had heard in his room. He looked out in that direction for at least a minute more, and saw nothing but a dim light in a window of the old Fearing cottage. Strange, he thought, everybody knew that no living soul had set foot in that cottage since old man Fearing died ten years ago. Very strange.                                                                      Overhead, Sirius was twinkling brightly, standing out sharply against the cold, black velvet of the January sky. Dawn was still four, maybe five hours away, he figured.
         Abruptly he became aware of the cold. An enormous blast of icy air shot through the window and filled the air around him. A bone-chilling wall of ice pressed down on him, squeezing the breath out of him. He gasped for air and threw himself back from the window. A single thought entered his mind: “Is this what death feels like?” He dropped to his knees and leaned heavily against the wall beneath the widow. Suddenly, all around him was warmth, blessed warmth. He took in great gulps of the comforting air.
         He crawled to the bed, climbed onto the mattress, wrapped the blanket around himself and lay listening for a long time, listening for the deadly Thaack!  He heard nothing but his heartbeat. Like the sound of footfalls on the wet sand. Sprinting then running then slowing to a walk. “What is it?” he said aloud, staring into the black. “What is happening here? Whatever it is, God…Please! Make it go AWAY!”
         Andy didn’t know, that at that moment, God was occupied with other matters.





































THREE: The Stranger

The rat saw him coming, but fear froze the foul rodent in place. The hand shot down like a lightning bolt, grasping it by the neck. Long, bony fingers applying pressure, cutting off its breath, making its eyeballs bulge from their sockets. Finally, a thin cracking sound rose from the rat’s neck, mercifully signaling death.
         He held the lifeless beast up in front of his misshapen face, looking at it with eyes colored in jaundice’s yellow bile. His pale, crusted lips parted slightly somewhere between a smile and a sneer. He flung the vermin through an open window.
         The dark, hulking figure moved to the wood burning stove and placed a piece of driftwood in it. He reached in and arranged the blistering hot coals with his bare hand. He did not recoil from the heat. He felt nothing. The nerve endings and other biological constructions required to register pain had died long ago.
         He lifted a rusty saucepan from the stove and poured hot, thick, oily Turkish coffee that had been laced with herbs into a glass jar. While it cooled, he ate cold rice from a wooden bowl.
         He unlocked the latch on an ornate metal box and took out a worn leather-bound volume. He opened it to a particular page, read from it and threw it back into the box in disgust. Here was the great Ogodei, once feared by soldiers and kings, forced to plot his one final act of vengeance in the midst of this squalor. But in the end, he would have his revenge, and because of this it would be sweeter still.
         Now, he was tired. He drank the last of the coffee, pulled back the blanket where the rat had lain and fell backwards on to a canvas cot. A harsh gust wind rattled a pile of crab traps on the front porch of the cottage and died away. Ogodei rested in silence, watching the pink light of dawn creep into the decrepit room, listening to the soothing rush of the surf. He pulled a second, filthy army blanket up beneath his scarred chin and let sleep creep over him and claim him. Soon, he would dream again of a time long ago...
#
         The young warrior mounts a massive black stallion, twelve hands high. The long blade of his scimitar hangs on his right side, the short-handled broad axe rests on the saddle’s horn. He sits impatiently, holding his restless animal in rein. Without turning his head, his eyes move to the left, looking for the great general to exit his magnificent gold-domed tent.
         To his right, a group of young women speak quietly among themselves. He knows they are talking about him. They whisper their fear of him, their hate for him. He has lain with many of them; it is his right. Because he is the fiercest, most feared warrior in the great Golden Horde of  Batu Khan. Even though he has not yet reached his 18th year, he is the strongest among the strong, renown throughout the land for once having killed an enemy with an arrow shot of more than 240 yards. His victories are many. And with victory comes many rewards.
         Now he is riding side by side with the great Batu himself, galloping at the lead of a thousand horsemen. They are approaching a tiny village in the forest just outside the city of Krakow. There they will find and capture the defiant prince and make an example of him to his people.
         “Death to them all!” Batu bellows. “Men, women, children. Leave only the prince standing. He will be my executioner’s reward!”
         Thick, black smoke rises above the forest. The air is filled with the smell of burning flesh. Everywhere there are dead horses, overturned carts and corpses, many of them separated from their heads.
         “There!” the general shouts to the young warrior, “The Prince! At the mouth of the cave! Ogodei, bring him to me!”
         The warrior whips his horse and rushes at the side of the mountain. And then the boy appears. As young as himself.  He stands defiantly at the opening in the mountain and holds an object above his head -- a common woodcutter’s axe.
         Ogodei raises his battle-axe and charges the youth. The boy prepares to swing his axe, but falls. He hurtles his body out of the way of the giant horse.  In one swift move, Ogodei the Warrior seizes the Prince and hoists him atop the horse.
         Afterward he sees himself in a village, in front of an iron maker’s forge. He is speaking to the citizens who have gathered there. He has just beheaded their Prince. “I am the great, victorious Ogodei!” he shouts to the people. “Ten kat!” he tells them in their native tongue...”the executioner!” Oh, the great joy he remembers feeling at that moment. Then, he remembers how quickly the moment was taken from him. First, the sound. And the flash. Now, the pain. The unbearable pain. The young woodcutter’s axe has split his skull in two and he lays dying.  As he speaks his last, he  curses the wood cutter. And swears revenge from beyond the grave. The glory that was once Ogodei’s has been drowned in his own blood. Thus, the handsome young warrior will grow old and grotesque.
          As a dead man.

































FOUR: Kelsey

         The cat stepped lightly along the shelf and onto the side windowsill. He sat absorbing the warmth of the late morning sun, gazing through half-closed eyes at a clutch of sandpipers, pitter-pattering along the foamy line that marked the end of the surf. 
          Kelsey McGuire sat with her white MacBook in her lap, watching the gray cat as she waited for the machine to finish booting up. The cat mewed at the unreachable birds and began to clean his face. Lick once. Wipe once. Lick twice. Wipe once.
          Kelsey had adopted “Smokey” a few months before. Actually, “expropriated” might be a better word than “adopted.” She had physically seized the kitten on the causeway bridge to Manteo.  She had been on one of her early morning photography expeditions, when she came across a heavy-set kid (whom she has since referred to as “the ass-clown”) on the verge of throwing a sealed cardboard box into Roanoke Sound. “Watcha got there?” she quietly asked the thug, knowing full well the box’s contents by its frightened mewing. 
          
         “None o’ your business, bitch.” 
          
         The smarmy comeback fully underestimated how angry—and overpowering—Kelsey’s reaction would be.  Of course, it was easy to underestimate Kelsey power because she was so petite—5 foot 2, one hundred and two—not physically imposing, and certainly not intimidating. In fact, her countenance was rather angelic.
         Her hair was a fiery red that, even in bright sunshine, recalled a spectacular sunset. That radiant hair, soft green eyes, delicate facial features and milky complexion, svelte shoulders, dainty wrists and slim waist — all contributed to a misleading impression of fragility. In this case, misleading indeed. 
          
         When “the ass-clown” took a threatening step forward, Kelsey grabbed the fingers of his right hand, bending them back to the point of breaking while she jammed the heel of her boot into his instep. When he crumbled to the concrete, Kelsey casually opened the box, lifted out the kitten and walked away, no further threats afoot.
#
At this moment, she was trying to clear her head of the “to-do” she had had with her mother at breakfast. It was one of those things where the unspoken conversation that hung in the air between them had been more heated than any of the words they said. Her mother had started with: “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Andy, haven’t you? What she was probably thinking was: “I hope you’re not having sex with that boy!” 
          Kelsey said, “Well, the family tree project we’re working on needs a lot of time, Mom.”  “You don’t trust me, do  you?”
          
“I hate to see you cooped up in your room so much. You’d have more space to spread out if you worked down here on the kitchen table.”  “I hate to think what goes on between the two of you in that room.”
          
“But, we’d waste so much time moving all the paper files and charts and books every time!” “Why don’t you just admit it, you really don’t trust me.” 
          
“I don’t see why that’s such a problem, Kelsey. Honestly!” “I just may have to talk to your father about this, little Miss Know-it-all.”
          
“Mom, please?” “Why do you always have to be so hopeless, Mother?”
#
She heard Andy’s voice downstairs and two seconds later he appeared in her doorway. “Your mom said I should come up, you were waiting for me.”
          Mother, she thought, you really are something!  She leaned forward in her chair and looked directly at the red mark above his right eye. What’s up with your head, guy?”
          He pulled off his hooded parka and leaned into the doorjamb. “Too silly to even talk about, believe me.”
          
“Well, pull up a chair and let’s get started.”
          
“Kelse, listen...I know I said we’d get back on this family tree thing this morning, but I really have to take care of something else right now. Sorry.”                              
          She turned to look at her computer screen. “It’s okay with me, Andy. It’s your family tree we’re talking about here.”
          
“I promise we’ll get back to the digging as soon as I get back.”

She looked up at him over the top of red-framed eyeglasses and gave him the small grin he always told her was so cute. “I doubt your family history is going to change before tomorrow. Unless there’s something you haven’t let me in on.”
          
“What?”
          
“Maybe you got some little damsel with child while I wasn’t paying attention?” She pulled one long, red ringlet of her perm across her lips.
          
“Funny. Real funny, Kelse. That’s just plain so dumb.”
          
She looked into his eyes. Like most girls of seventeen, she knew about boys. How they think. What they do. She knew more than boys of her age knew about girls. Or about themselves. “Is something wrong?” she asked him.
          
“What do you mean?”

                   “I mean, is something wrong?
          
“No. Really.”
          He looked at her, frowning.
She frowned back. “C’mon Andy. I know you well enough to know when something’s not right.”
          
“Really, it’s nothing. I just think I had a bad dream last night.”
          
“What do you mean you think you had a bad dream?”
          
Andy moved into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He sighed. “I wouldn’t tell this to anyone but you, Kelsey.”                    
          
“So, tell me.”
          
“There was someone in my room last night. It sounded like someone was swinging something…I dunno…a board, a  golf club, an axe… and smacking a slab of wood with it. It really creeped me out.”
          
Kelsey looked at Andy with raised brows. “An axe! In the middle of the night? In your room?”
          
“Yeah.”
          
She folded her arms across her chest. “Tell me you’re not jerking me around now.”
          “I tried to swing back at whatever...whoever...was making the sound with a baseball bat. That’s how I got this lump on my head. Hit the dresser when I rolled across the room to get the bat.”
          
“Sheez, Andy.”
          
“The sound kept moving so I couldn’t get a good swing in. And then it was outside. And when I looked out the window there was nothing.”
          
“Nothing?”
          
“Nada. Zero,“ he lied. “But I couldn’t calm down. Truth is, I’m still feeling shaky. I’ve never been so scared. I was sure someone was there to kill me, Kelse.”

“What?” She got up from her chair and sat down next to him on the bed. “What are you saying?”
          
“I’m saying someone was there to kill me! I’ve never felt so close to being dead.
          Neither of them said anything for a moment, both thinking their own thoughts. 
          ”Have you had any headaches lately?” Kelsey asked.
          
“No. Why?”
          
”Maybe you dropped some LSD by accident. It could happen, you know.”
          “What are you, nuts?”
          
“I’m just saying, Andy, aspirin and LSD are very close in chemical composition. It’s just that one gets rid of your headache…and the other one fills your head with wacko stuff.”
          
“Trust me on this one, Kelse...I didn’t drop acid because I mistook it for aspirin. I mean, how would I even get my hands on stuff like that. Why would I?”
          
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to get tetchy. You’re right Andy, it probably was just a bad dream. A nightmare. A real dilly of a nightmare, dude”
          
“I don’t know. I was asleep. But that sound woke me. My eyes were wide open, probably as big as saucers. And I didn’t dream that sound.”

         “Maybe you should...”
          
“Listen, I got to go. I’ll talk at you later. Keep this to yourself...please.”
          She watched him leave the room and called after him. “Why would anyone want to kill you, Andy?” She finished with a loud “For cripes sake, dude!”
          
Behind her, the cat raised up, arched its back and hissed at an old herring gull that had landed outside the window. The dirty, gray bird turned its head to gaze in at the cat. The cat mewed and scraped his claws down the windowpane in vain.




















FIVE: The Fearing House


Andy left Kelsey’s house and headed his Jeep back to Kill Devil Hills. He drove down Colington Road, crossed the Croatan Highway and turned south on the beach road.
Sarah McLachlan sang on the radio. “...you’re working, building a mystery and choosing so carefully...you woke up screaming aloud a prayer from your secret god...you feed off our fears and hold back your tears...”
         He half-listened to the somber resonance of the lyrics as he ran through a list of “maybes” in his head. Maybe Kelse was right; it was all a bad dream. Maybe all the stress he’d been going through, midterms and all, had led to the nightmare. Or maybe it was all mental and he should see a shrink. Or maybe he did hear the noise in his sleep and instead of waking him it just caused him to dream badly. And maybe the noise did come from the Fearing house, because, maybe somebody, legally or not, had moved into the place. Or maybe...maybe all of the above was a crock, and somebody really was in his room last night. He felt the goose bumps rise on his arms.
         The conversation in his head continued as he worked at convincing himself it wouldn’t do any harm to check out the Fearing house. After all, if he could see that someone was really there last night, it would go a long way toward explaining things. And put his mind at ease. Maybe.
         The driveway to the house was blocked with a heavy chain slung between two large diving bells, so he wheeled into the parking area in front of The Trader’s Galley on the opposite side of the road.
         He stood in the driveway for a moment, looking out at the landscape. In front of him lay a low, gently sloping dune. Atop it, a small stand of sea oats undulated in the soft sigh of a breeze flowing in from above a nearly placid sea. Peaceful. He could not believe that it had been so different last night, and something unseen-so threatening, so deadly-had been crouching out here last night.
         The house, one of the first structures to be raised on the beach in Kill Devil Hills, had been built at the end of World War II by Elmo Fearing’s father, Admiral Jacob Ulysses Fearing. It had been built well. Over the years, hundreds of nor’easters and dozen of hurricanes had failed to render any real damage to it. But, soon, Andy would wish that the Fearing house would have been blown down in a hurricane and washed into the sea. That would have been better.
         Now, he made his way across the sand, taking care to avoid stepping on any “prickers,” the small prickly pear cactuses that were everywhere and would attach themselves to your ankles faster than a magnet on a refrigerator. Directly in front of the house, a large orange sign hung on a thick post that had been dug into the sand. Thick black letters warned:
DANGER!
THIS PROPERTY CONDEMNED
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
By Order of Dare County Sheriff’s Dept.
Another sign, tacked onto the front wall of the house, caught his attention.
LIVE BAIT
Bloodworms
Squid, Mullet, Shrimp
As he read the faded letters, he remembered the first time he had been here. It was ten years ago and he had just turned seven. When he had entered the front room that served as a bait shop, an old man with a shaggy gray beard and dilapidated “Outer Banks Pier” ball cap walked right up to him and shook his hand. “The name’s Elmo Fearing. And don’t you be laughing at my name, youngster. Elmo is the patron saint of sailors and I’m proud to carry the moniker. Now what can I do for such a good-looking feller such as yerself?”
         When Andy went to pay for the squid he had picked out, Elmo had told him, “There’s no charge for first-time customers such as yerself, lad. It’s my way of saying I hope you’ll come back and do business with me often.”
         Andy never got to do business with the man a second time. The day after their first meeting, Elmo Fearing’s small fishing boat was found floating empty on the outgoing tide, just south of Oregon Inlet. His body was never found and the mystery never solved. A week or so after the disappearance, the sheriff locked the place tight and no one from the town has been in the house since.
         A sharp pain in his right ankle brought Andy back to the present. A clump of prickly pear had attached itself to his sock just above the edge of his sneaker. He carefully nudged at the cactus with the toe of his other foot until he had dislodged it, then continued around to the north side of the house.
                   All the windows, including the one where the light had been last night, were shuttered, and the shutters were boarded over with heavy plywood. When he got to the porch facing the ocean, he saw immediately that, unlike the door on the road side of the house, there was no bar and padlock on this one. The porch was littered with old chicken-wire crab traps that had pretty much rusted away. He moved a couple of them out of his path and stepped up onto the porch, taking care to look for any boards that might be rotted through.
         He put his hand on the doorknob, green and crusted over with ten years’ worth of salt, and turned it. To his surprise, the door swung open freely. And, without thinking, he stepped inside.
         It smelled. The horrible stench of dead sea-things, mixed with the wet odor of rotting wood. And the odor of living things -- stray cats and rats and birds, or whatever else had been hiding in the corners or nesting in the walls. A foul, dirty smell.
         He blinked a couple of times, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness of the room. From what he could make out, the room didn’t look nearly as bad as it smelled. Actually, it had a neat, swept look about it. There was a stack of yellowing newspapers and magazines on the floor near where he stood by the door, a pile of dirty, but neatly folded blankets in one corner and a small table and chairs in another. Toward the back of the room was the low counter Elmo has used to transact his bait business, and next to it, the old red Coca-Cola cold water cooler that he had kept the live bait in. If no one had emptied it after Elmo disappeared, that might explain the awful stink.
         A board up in the loft creaked. He dismissed it as the natural creaking that goes on in every old house. But there was another creak, and this time it was followed by a bump. There was someone in the loft.
         He walked softly toward the stairs. Nervous tension wormed its way through his body and he could feel his muscles tightening. As he stepped onto the first riser, he felt his right foot giving way. He tried to pull up. Too late. His leg plunged through the soft, rotten wood, halfway to his knee. He yanked the leg out of the hole and looked down to see that his sneaker was swarming with tiny white ants. Termites! Hundreds of them. He stomped his foot violently, lurched backwards and hit hard into the edge of the table, sending a metal box crashing to the floor. He grabbed for a blanket in the pile and rubbed off the rest of the insects as he backed his way toward the open door.
         If there was someone in the loft, he wouldn’t be finding out who it was today, thank you. As he turned to exit into fresh air and sunlight, he noticed the metal box he had knocked to the floor. It looked very old. And, even though it was badly tarnished, he could make out a pattern of stars and crescents that had been engraved on it. He was about to pick it up when something scuttled from under the table and into a far corner. He jumped and caught his breath. A creepy feeling washed over him and he quickly decided that he had been here long enough on this trip. He’d come back and check things out further another time. He backed his way through the door onto the porch and pulled the door closed.
         The voice came from behind him, and for the second time in less than a minute, he jumped and caught his breath.
         “Hey! Andy! What the hell are you doing?” It was Tom Miller, one of the younger local cops. “You should know better, kid. This place is condemned for a reason. You could end up getting hurt, even killed, and then what?”
         “The lock on the door was broken. I just thought I’d go in and have a real quick look around, is all,” Andy said as he shrugged his shoulders.
         “Yeah, right. I think you better look around toward the road and head on out of here before I write you up. Or worse, I’ll tell your Dad.”
         Andy murmured a “Sorry, Tom” and started the trudge back across the sand.
         The cop watched to see that Andy got back into the black Jeep before he stepped onto the porch, turned the doorknob, rattled it, and pushed with the full weight of his body against the door. “Locked tight as a drum,” he said aloud to himself while he hitched up his gun belt.
         When he got back to the road, he turned and looked back at the house. He made a mental note to tell the chief to have all the watches keep an eye on the place. The last thing the town could afford is to have some teenager killed in the Fearing house.
         As Corporal Tom Miller of the Kill Devil Hills Police pulled away his patrol car, the walls of the Fearing house let out a horrible sound that rolled across the dunes and echoed off the sea. Thaack!

















SIX: Granna

         Andy tramped up the three outside flights of stairs to his grandmother’s condo. He had barely reached the landing when Barbara Drewalski, “Granna” to the family, threw open the door. “Dear, sweet Andy! Come in. Come in. That wind out there is bitter.”
          He closed the door behind him and patted Panda the cocker spaniel on the head.
 Andy slouched into the sofa and sniffed at the wonderful perfume of something fresh-baked from the oven. He watched as Granna choked off  Whoopie Goldberg with the remote and headed toward the kitchen. “How about some hot chocolate, she asked, or is coffee more your style these days?”
          
         ”Coffee with plenty of milk and sugar would be great, Granna.”
          
         She smiled knowingly and said, “They were talking about snow by the end of the week on TV this morning.” She counted out scoops of fresh ground beans into the coffeemaker. “Maybe even a heavy accumulation.”
          
                   Andy shook his head. “I doubt it. Those weather guys get it wrong half the time.”          Heavy snow was rare on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But winter could be miserable all the same. Frigid winds would sometimes blow in out of the Northeast for days at a time, bringing with them nasty spells of sleet and freezing rain.
          
         Granna handed him the coffee in a heavy brown mug and sat down across from him. Panda plopped down across her feet. “So, grandson, how is life treating you today?”                    
         The question formed a knot in Andy’s stomach. You mean, how is death treating me, don’t you? he thought almost out loud.
          
         Andy was a frequent visitor at his grandmother’s condo; each time he tried to glean a little more information about the family’s background from her. Andy, with a lot of help from Kelsey, was tracing the family’s genealogy with the idea of surprising Granna with the complete family tree on her eightieth birthday in March. They had built much of the tree by researching it on the Web. Granna helped by translating the Polish into English and providing a few tidbits from her memories of people and places long ago. Both Andy and Kelsey continued to feel confident that, in spite of the many questions during so many visits, that Granna still didn’t suspect what they were up to. Andy’s visit today, however, was for a totally different reason.          
          “Actually Granna, I’ve got a lot on my mind today.”
          
         She touched her lips with her fingertips. “No dark thoughts, I hope.”
          
         “Granna, do you believe in ghosts?”
          
         Her eyes searched Andy’s face. “Are you joking? Or is this a serious question?”
          “Serious.”
          
         She looked toward the window and thought for moment. When she turned back to him she said, “Andy, one of the things that seventy nine-almost eighty-years on this planet has taught me is to keep an open mind. Nobody can say what can or can’t be. And nobody can say what does or doesn’t exist.”
           Her hands moved to her lap and she rubbed the soft white knuckles of her left hand. “Truth is, even though I’m not a native, when you’ve lived as long as I have on the Outer Banks, you almost have to believe in ghosts, or spirits -- especially with all the tragic shipwrecks this coast has seen over the years.”
          
         Andy looked at her with widened eyes. He hadn’t quite expected this. He watched her as she rose and walked to the window.          
         “The natives here, Andy, have hundreds of stories they tell. It’s easy for outsiders to scoff at them, I suppose. But we live in a strange world that we know so little about. And it makes us comfortable to scoff at the things we don’t understand.”
                                                                      Andy couldn’t think of a thing to say. He had hoped for a different answer-something like, “Don’t be silly, there are no such thing as ghosts.” Instead, he had heard a reasoned treatise on their likely existence and he was feeling very uncomfortable.                                                                      Granna sat down across from him again. “You’re awfully pale, Andy. Are you feeling okay?”
                                                                                                                                                      Andy paused. He thought for a second about telling her about the whole incident in his room last night, be he found himself blurting out, “The light! I saw a light in the old Fearing place last night!”
                                                                                                                                                      “Oh, the lights at the Fearing cottage. I saw them, too.” Abruptly, she snatched up the plate of oatmeal raising cookies from the coffee table. “You haven’t touched the cookies. I’ll wrap them up so you can take them with you. They’ll be stale long before I get around to eating them.”
                                                                                                                                            “Granna! The lights?”  
                                                                                                                        Her condominium sat on the edge of Nags Head Woods. The apartment faced the ocean and gave her an unobstructed view across the Route 158 Bypass and the beach road to the water. The Fearing place sat on the beach in an almost direct line from her front window. 
                              “Yes, I’ve seen lights moving from room to room. Not electric lights, though. They’re more yellow and they flicker, like from a kerosene lantern. To tell the truth, I stayed up half the night with my binoculars. Like an old busybody. It’s really dangerous, you know. The property, I mean…it was condemned years ago. It should be torn down. Anyway, I think someone else saw the lights and called the police. But no more than a minute before they arrived, the lights went out. I watched them search the place, looking for drug addicts, I think. But it isn’t drug addicts with those lights.”
                                                                                                                                            “Oh.” Andy leaned forward. “Who is it?”
                                                                                          “I’m not sure.”
                                                                                                                                            “Oh.”
          
         “The lights appear. They disappear. The police search. They don’t find anyone. They leave.”
 Granna finished her coffee. “God rest his soul, maybe the dear, departed Elmo Fearing has come back. He really loved that house.” She turned to the window again. “Or maybe…it’s something more ominous.”
                                                                                                                        Andy tried to smile at her and failed.

















SEVEN: Panda

         Andy descended the stairs of the condominium building and headed across the parking lot, cocker spaniel, Panda, in tow. Most weekend and school off-day afternoons, Andy walked Granna’s dog for an hour on the beach. He genuinely liked walking with the gentle black and white dog and, besides, it gave him an excuse to stop by and grill Granna for family tree info without her suspecting the real reason. 
The weather had changed dramatically from earlier in the day. Freezing air from the Northeast sailed in with crystals of snow that stung his face, making his eyes water. Panda looked up as if concerned about the malignant swirls of dark clouds that the wind was pushing in. He sniffed at the air suspiciously and lifted his drooping ears at the wind-stirred hissing of the pines trees. Like most animals, Panda sensed that a storm was on the way.
Andy flipped his parka hood over his ball cap, put his head down and pushed his way toward his Jeep for the short drive to the beach. Abruptly, in the middle of the parking lot, he stopped. The winter wind swirled circles of sand and pine needles and granules of snow around his ankles. With Granna’s talk of ghosts still ringing in his ears, he stared out in the direction of the beach. He had the strange sensation that he was being watched. He got into the Jeep and sat watching the snow blow and swirl. The icy crystals tapped on the windshield and Panda cocked his head quizzically at the sound.
Less than five minutes later, Andy pulled into the Beach Access lot and boy and dog on foot crossed the dunes and headed north. No more than fifty yards along, Panda lifted his right leg to perform Part 1 of his afternoon’s business. As he waited for the pooch to finish watering the sand, a sudden chill shot up his spine. Yes, the wind was cold but that wasn’t the cause of this feeling. And as the icy spasm reached the back of his neck, he was overcome by a sense of looming danger. He whirled around expecting to see someone or some object hurtling toward him with lethal purpose. Instead, the only moving things were small clouds of sea foam and dried strands of seaweed carried on the wind. Suddenly feeling foolish (scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, ha-ha-ha), Andy let out the breath he’d been holding with a whistle. This is ridiculous, he thought. He’s just still spooked from last night’s “dream” or “nightmare”…or whatever it was.             
His gaze dropped down to Panda and the uneasiness returned and swelled into alarm. The dog’s head bowed forward and he struggled to back away from some unseen threat. Just as his canine instinct had felt the storm approaching, Panda now sensed another danger. Something far more treacherous. He turned on his hind legs, pulling powerfully on the leash, in the direction of the parking lot. He began wailing like a hurt puppy. This dog wanted no part of this invisible terror. And neither did Andy. Now boy and dog turned on a run and headed back to the Jeep. 
Andy sat with his head on the steering wheel, drawing in deep breaths, waiting for his heart to stop pounding like a fist inside his chest. Gradually, he felt the weight of panic shrinking. But still, he knew now that there was no doubt. Someone had come to kill him last night. And whoever it was had returned.












































EIGHT: Nags Head Woods


Andy woke at five on Monday morning, feeling out of sorts. His door and windows had been locked tight and he had kept the light on his desk on all night. Still, he hadn’t slept well, waking through the night to listen for sounds. And he vaguely remembered dreaming about a man’s face, saying something over and over again, that Andy couldn’t understand. He remembered struggling in his sleep to decode what was being said, hoping to hear a message that would help him understand what had happened to him during the last two nights. It was information that was obviously being held hostage in his subconscious, unable to get free in his conscious mind.                 
He stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, doused his hair and brushed it back from his forehead. He scrubbed his teeth and splashed his face once more before grabbing for a towel. He dried his face while he looked into the mirror and thought, for what had to be the thousandth time, how much he hated his hair. He wondered where it came from. No one else in the family had hair remotely like his: light brown with wiry waves that resisted any style at all. He awoke every morning with a nasty case of “bed-head.” And when he removed one of the caps he wore practically 24/7, he was crowned with ugly “hat-head.” Once, hoping to solve the dilemma with a close-cropped “K-Fed” cut, he only created another “situation”—his already imposing nose and ears now appeared, at least in his view, enormous and “clown-like.” This, in rather short order, led to a quick fix that Andy has employed ever since: wearing a hat at almost all times.   
Back in his room, he first pulled on a black knit cap, then gray sweats, a yellow nylon jacket with silver reflective stripes across the back and chest, and blue and white Nikes. At precisely 5:15, he left his house for a five-mile run. One mile south on the beach road, three miles through the winding trails of Nags Head Woods, one more return mile on the beach road, and back home by 5:55.
The wind had died down since midnight but the pre-dawn darkness still had an ice blue chill to it. As he headed south, the only lights he could see were in the Shop ‘n’ Gas and in the office of the Comfort Inn, where the red neon VACANCY sign flashed on and off. There were no cars on the road and not another person was in sight. It was January and the tourists and fishermen, with their early morning ways, wouldn’t be around again for months.
He liked running before school in the winter. The quiet loneliness of the dark made the exercise seem more invigorating. He fell into a comfortable pace, aided by the sound of the rhythmic slap-slap, slap-slap of his running shoes on the pavement. He rolled by Millionaire’s Row, the Seven C’s Condominium and a long stretch of rental cottages, their shutters peering out suspiciously at all passersby. Far off to his right, the tall monolith celebrating the Wright Brothers’ first flight loomed darkly on the highest of the Kill Devil Hills. He ran past the site where  the Catholic church had burned to the ground a few years ago (many believed the blaze big had been set by an arsonist from a Satanic cult) and when he reached The Pancake Shack (where black letters on the roadside sign proclaimed: CLOSED FO THE EASON), he sprinted across Route 158 and headed for Old Nags Head Road.
There was just enough light from the half moon for him to see where he was going. Some mornings, thick fog or heavy clouds made running this early next to impossible. But now he ran easily on the firm, damp sand of the trails where a faint glow of silver-yellow moonlight fell on tops of the towering beeches, and made them glow with a ghostly white phosphorescence as they surged out of the dark earth. It reminded him of those famous pictures he had seen of Mad Ludwig’s castle in Germany.
Suddenly, as he passed the large sand dune known as Run Hill, he sensed that he was not alone. He couldn’t see another soul moving anywhere, and he was unaware of any sounds other than the soft shivering of the dead Joe-Pye weed on either side of the trail and his feet padding on the damp sand.
At first, he thought it might be another runner coming up behind him, so he picked up his pace hoping to put more distance between himself and that possibility.
But when he glanced back over his shoulder at the way he had just come, he saw nothing but a deserted trail. Must have been my imagination, he said to himself.
Turning his attention back to where he was going, he slowed to a jog. The expanse in front of him was darker now; a band of thin, high-altitude clouds had slid in front of the moon, blocking the intensity of its light.
He covered another fifty yards and that’s when he saw it: something moving from the corner of his eye, off the to the left, a dark silhouette lurking between two dunes. And then it darted out of sight.
Andy slowed his pace even further and tried to concentrate on the dunes to his left. What he had seen looked too big to be a dog. Could be a horse, he thought. But its upright stature said human being. He felt uneasy but told himself he wasn’t afraid. However, the memory of what he had experienced in his room two nights ago was nagging at him now, and even though he was sweating, he began to feel a chill.
And then, out of nowhere, it was there. A short, stocky figure little more than five feet tall, stood directly in front of him. Less than three or four yards away. Andy couldn’t see the face, it was featureless in the dark -- except for the eyes. The eyes stared directly at Andy -- luminous, almond shaped jewels, radiant yellow-amber, glowing like the eyes of a cat caught in the headlights of a car.
Now Andy was afraid. He wanted to run, but he was transfixed by the stranger’s gaze. He was breathing in short, whistling gasps now. Having trouble catching his breath. It felt like he was drowning, not in the sea, but in the hideous glow of the amber eyes. He was frozen in place; his feet felt like they were rooted in cement. He could only clench his fists. Sweat poured down his forehead and drained into his eyes. He tried to yell for help, but no sound would come. He felt the urine flooding his sweatpants.
The stranger stepped toward him. But abruptly, he snapped his head to the left and peered out in the direction of the sea. Andy shifted his eyes in the same direction. Was someone coming across the dune to rescue him? Please! Somebody!
But there was nobody. Nothing. Except for a thin lavender line of light, the early announcement of the rising sun.
Suddenly, Andy felt the paralysis leave him. He turned in his tracks and began to run back from where he had come. His legs, which moments before had felt as if they weighed a ton, now felt like rubber bands, unable to support his weight. He stumbled and fell and rolled onto his back. Still powered by the terror that had paralyzed him, he struggled to his feet, intent on escaping to the road.  His heart, already beating fast, began to pound frantically. The breath that had been trapped in his lungs escaped from this throat in a sound that was half gasp, half cry.
Everything along the road was a blur. The blinking traffic lights, a rumbling trash truck, the awakening traffic. Everything around him faded away as he plunged forward in pursuit of his safety, legs pumping, shoes slapping the pavement. Running. Running like crazy. Blind and deaf to everything around him, struck dumb by fear, aware of only one thing. The need to ESCAPE. Even though he couldn’t identify the danger he was running from.
Minutes later, Andy found himself in the driveway of his own house. He leaned against a  wood rail of the fence at the entrance. He was sweating profusely and gasping for air. His chest ached, his throat burned, his mouth was dry and tasted sour. He blinked his eyes and glanced warily down the road where he had been. His felt his heartbeat slowing; his blurred vision began to clear. But not his mind. He tried to recall what he had been running from. Something in the woods had frightened him. For the life of him, he could not remember what it was.


















NINE: The Presence


She tucked herself into stiff new jeans, slipped on a black bra and pulled a black turtleneck over her head. Andy would be there to pick her up for school in a few minutes. She sat down at her window to wait and look out at Roanoke Sound. The water was as blue as the sky and the wind kicked up small, rolling waves that went dark blue, then green, then creamy white. Birds flew across her view, close to the water, shining like white as stars in the light of the morning sun. Kelsey reached for her digital camera on the shelf next to the window and caught a glimpse of her bedside clock–-ten after seven! We’re going to be totally late! 
She decided not to take the shot through the window and turned her thoughts to Andy. They met two years ago, and oddly enough, it was not in the same sophomore class they shared, but on the beach. When she had been pointed out to him by one of her girlfriends, he walked right up to her and said, ”Hello, Kelsey. You don’t know me, but I love you Kelsey.”
In spite of his brashness, she had liked him immediately. She was not a believer in love at first sight, but she did believe that instant infatuation could happen very easily.
He was cute with a capital Q. Lifeguard good-looking. Tanned. Muscular. And an awesome smile. All this topped with a great head of wavy brown hair, highlighted by the sun in just the right places.
She learned later that he was smart, too. A whiz at math and science. And although his introduction to her that day had been almost too assertive, she knew now that Andy was, at heart, a quiet and reserved person. A picture of cool self-control. A man whose words and eyes rarely gave away anything that was on his mind.
That’s why she was so surprised, to say the least, when Andy had told her about the sound in his room. For the first time since she had met him, he had become an open book, with the pages spilling out in emotion. She heard the fear in his voice. She saw the terror in his eyes. Yet, she couldn’t believe that Andy could be afraid of anything. He was built squarely and solidly, like he’d been chiseled out of granite. And he was known as the hardest hitting linebacker to ever play for Manteo High.
Suddenly, she felt something that disturbed her. A distant feeling, not quite tangible, that someone was in her room. An unseen force. Watching her. And waiting. It sent a mild shock to her skin, a tingling that crept across her flesh until it turned into a shiver. Her hands started to tremble and she almost dropped the camera. She put it back on the shelf and moved quickly to her door. The lock in the handle was in place. She leaned with her back against the door. There is nothing here. No one. Nobody but Smokey and me. It has to be my imagination, she told herself. What else could it be, for Pete’s sake?
As suddenly as the feeling had arrived, it left. Calm was back and all around her. She looked at her watch and sighed. Andy was late. Unusual for him. A thought flashed into her mind: Oh, my God! What if someone was trying to kill Andy? What if the Someone totally did? She pulled her cell phone from out of her backpack and hit the speed dial button for Andy-–but hung up. Patience. Or was it fear? Fear that if Andy didn’t pick up, it was a sign that something had happened to him. Oh, God! Murder?
The next thought hit her like a six-foot wave: The presence. The feeling that someone had been in the room with her. Andy! Dead! His spirit was trying to reach her. She grabbed her cell again and dialed Andy’s number.          
“Hello?”































TEN: “Not Even”


The two of them sat silently, rigidly, looking straight ahead. Andy had arrived fifteen minutes late and now they were speeding up the Route 158 Bypass. The speed limit was forty-five, but he was doing close to sixty.
Finally, she turned to him and said, “Andy, you’re pale as a ghost. Are you feeling ill?” He answered without speaking, shaking his head “no.” Kelsey let out a long, loud sigh and turned her attention back to the road.
Another long, icy minute passed before she spoke again. “Hey, Andy! Hello! It’s Kelsey. And I’m not an expert at relationships, but I’m pretty sure that when two people are in one, they’re supposed to talk to each other?” She turned up the last four words and made them a question.
Up ahead, a State Police cruiser pulled out of Cuppa Joe’s Diner. Andy moved into the right lane and eased up on the gas. And then, the dark cloud over his head broke open and it all poured out. “I’m sick, alright! A real head case! I’m all jangled and jumbled up inside. I think maybe I’m having a nervous breakdown.”
“Is this still about your bad dream?” She had to work to keep her voice calm.
“That’s only the half of it, Kelse.” His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Ever since that night, I’ve had this feeling that I’m being followed everywhere I go. And watched. No matter where I am. And to top it all off, I think my grandmother has me believing in ghosts now!
“Not even!” she said to her side window.
“Would you believe I slept with the lights on in my bedroom all weekend?” His cheeks turned red, half with embarrassment, half in anger. “Hell, I haven’t done something that freaking stupid since I was a little kid!”
They came to a stop behind a school bus and watched a pack of rowdy middle school kids scramble on. “And then this morning” --he stopped and swallowed hard-- “on the beach...”
She was looking at him intently now. The trembling in his voice frightened her a little.
“...this thing! I don’t know what it was. A ghost. Or maybe something alive. Ugly. Really freaking ugly! Like... a monster, maybe. Whatever it was. It just stood there. In my face. Staring at me. And I was paralyzed!” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her he had wet his pants.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured.
He made an awkward attempt at snapping his fingers while he held onto the steering wheel. “And then it was gone! Just like that!”
“Do you really think it was a ghost? Or a...a monster?” She asked the question with difficulty, as if she would have rather closed the subject entirely.
“I don’t know, Kelse. I was thinking that the good news is I’ve been so spooked lately, that it was just a hallucination.”
“Some hallucination, kiddo!“
He blew air out through closed lips, making a whew sound. “ Yeah...but the bad news is that if I’m hallucinating, I need to be talking to a shrink.”
After a long pause, she said, “Is that so terrible? I mean, it could help.”
They pulled into the high school parking lot and he slipped the Jeep into its assigned slot. “What worries me is that if the word gets out, it could mess up my scholarship at Duke. Can’t you just hear it? ‘Yes, a brilliant boy, but unstable, thinks a monster is out to kill him’. And, of course, we won’t even mention the ridicule I’d get around this place. He thought about the whispers behind cupped hands, the quiet joking past open locker doors. ‘Hear about Drewalski? He’s some kind of paranoid. Says someone’s trying to murder him in his sleep.” His shoulders sagged under the weight of all he had just said.
She slid closer to him on the seat and wrapped her arm around his. “Andy, I want to help you work this out. I will help you.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”
“Okay,” he said quietly.













ELEVEN: Asia
Asia Tibbets was sitting alone at a table at the far end of the cafeteria. You couldn’t miss her. She was dressed all in black. Her hair was very short, very black, and very gelled. And for his tastes, she wore too much makeup, way too many rings, and the giant silver hoop earrings were over the top. She was pretending to read from a spiral notebook when the two of them approached her.
“Asia, this is Andy. Andy, say hello to Asia.”
“Hello to Asia.” He said it with a touch of wry in his voice. (Call me a taxi. Okay, you’re a taxi, bounced around humorously in his head.) Their eyes met and Andy could see a coldness in hers, and after a couple of seconds he had the distinct feeling that she was looking beyond his eyes, and through him.
Kelsey sat down next to Asia and Andy pulled up a chair across from the two. He still had no idea why Kelsey insisted that he meet this girl. He didn’t know too much about her--except the two things everybody else in the school knew. One, she was without a doubt, the richest kid around. Her father owned the Drive-Thru Beer Emporium, two restaurants and an art gallery in Nags Head. And number two, she was seen--one night last fall--leaving a Stumpy Point motel with Mr. Howard, the wrestling coach.
“Asia’s a witch, Kelsey said abruptly. Waiting a second for that to sink in, she finished with, “A white witch, of course. And a clairvoyant.”
Now there’s something I’ll bet everybody doesn’t know about her, he thought. Maybe she can even bend a spoon just by looking at it. And then, a flashbulb went off in his head--so bright it was blinding.  He knew instantly what this meeting was about. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He couldn’t believe that Kelsey had actually told Asia about the sounds. And the freaking ghost, for crying out loud. Well, it’s time to end this little session right now.  All this streamed through his head in a matter of three seconds.
“I understand the spirit world has been active in your life lately,” Asia said in a voice that was deeper and older than he expected.
He felt a mixed tide of anger and embarrassment rising up in him. He scuffed his chair back from the table, getting ready to leave. His cheeks were burning. He looked at Kelsey with a sarcastic smile. “Thanks a lot, Kelse.”
“There’s no reason to start foaming at the mouth,” Asia said.
I’m not mad,“ he lied. “Actually, I’m a little red in the face because I made the whole thing up to get a rise out of Kelsey. Your basic practical joke. I never thought it would make her consult with witches, gypsies, crystal balls and such.”
“Don’t make fun of what you don’t understand. And Kelsey has told me very little. She didn’t have to. I have a gift. I can sense your anxiety. It tells me you’re being vexed by something strongly supernatural. Deeply troubling. And very grave. It needs your attention, and the way to begin is with a séance.”
Andy rolled his eyes. “Asia, there’s nothing going on,” he lied again. ”And, no offense, but I just don’t believe in all the stuff you’re into. I believe in science. And things I can see and touch. Reality is where I’m at. So I don’t believe in fortunetellers or horoscopes or Ouija boards or reading cards, tea leaves and chicken guts!  And even if I did believe in any of that junk, I don’t need help. There’s nothing going on. There are no spirits. And I’m not afraid of anything. End of story.” He finished by slicing the air with his hand.
“There’s nothing magical or evil about what I do, Andy. Actually, it’s a perfectly normal talent. It’s a real possibility that everyone has some sort of psychic ability. The difference is that I’ve learned how to use mine. She fingered the amber teardrop that hung on a gold chain around her neck. For a second, it reminded him of the horrible glowing eyes he had seen in the woods. “Have you ever investigated the spirit world, Andy?”
His voice rose a little. “There’s not one shred of scientific data that such a thing as the “spirit world” even exists. It’s all a bunch of crap.”
“I’m not so sure that the data doesn’t exist,” Asia said. “In fact, I’ve collected some of it myself.”
Andy frowned at her. “Give me a break. You mean, you’re telling us you’ve contacted…”  He drew quotation marks in the air,  “… the spirit world?”
“Well, Andy, um, yes I have.”  A touch of anger made her voice quiver. “In fact, many times, friend.”
“I’m not your friend...and c’mon, that is such a crock,” he said. “I mean, if you want my opinion…”
“If you want my opinion, friend...Andy...you’re being way too skeptical for your own good. Believe me, you’re mixed up in a serious supernatural mystery, and reaching out in a séance could be very helpful for you.”
“Not in this lifetime! No freaking way! Did you hear that, Kelse? No freaking way!” His chair made a loud scraping sound on the floor as he pushed away from the table. “I’m outta here.” He put his hands on the back of the chair and leaned his head toward Kelsey. “And by the way, I am mad. I am pissed! Really pissed!
He walked away across the long cafeteria floor with his head down and his hands jammed deep into his pockets. On his way through the exit doors, he said it so they could all hear. “Wacko!”










TWELVE: The Dream
He didn’t pick her up for school the next day, or on the two after that. And he kept his distance at school, avoiding any possibility that he would have to speak to her.
So on Thursday after school she called him to apologize. She told him in what seemed like a single breath she was just trying to help because he’s important to her, and she wanted to be in his life, and she was sorry she messed up by telling Asia, (her real name is Emilie, by the way) of course you have every right to be angry, but don’t worry because Asia takes this kind of thing seriously, and besides, she won’t tell anybody else because she doesn’t really hang out with anybody at school.          
Andy listened as she continued her apology, but, even before she called, he had made up his mind that he overreacted to the whole affair. The embarrassment of the meeting with Asia...or Emilie or whatever her name was, the witch and everything that had led up to it seemed so far away and dim. Probably because things had calmed considerably since Monday. 
         He had slept well the last three nights, albeit with the lights on. And he had seen no more mysterious strangers, although he had kept his pre-dawn runs on the road and out of the woods.
         She was saying, “I really need you to forgive me…” when he interrupted. He had been creating a snapshot of her in his mind. Her silky red curls. Her sweet, freckled face. And the beautiful green eyes with the cute smile that always flashed in them.          
         “Kelsey...Kelse, listen. It’s all forgotten. I overreacted. Chalk it up to stress over mid-terms or whatever. I don’t blame you. I’m the one who should apologize for not speaking to you. It was all very grammar school of me.”
         They agreed to a mutual “forgive and forget.” And, yes, he would pick her up for school in the morning. And then he said, “But, please, don’t make me talk to that wacky witch again.”
         She laughed, blew him a kiss over the phone, said “Sleep tight,” and hung up.
         Andy was glad he had made her laugh. He loved her little laugh. It was soft and musical. Like tinkling notes on a piano. And it always made him feel good inside.
He snapped his phone closed and slid it onto his dresser--next to his rubber Monster of Frankenstein mask. The sad freak stared at him with vacant eyes, waiting to be brought to life again. He thought about how the silliness of it all had been so cool last Halloween. He laid back on his bed and smiled to himself. “Bogeyman kid stuff,” he said to the monster. “Wind in the attic. Shadows on the ceiling. Blankets in the corner. Nothing. Nada. Freaking nothing.”
#
         Andy woke up in the early hours of the next morning from a dream that saw him lying at the bottom of an open grave. The stranger with the glowing eyes was standing over him, chanting words he had heard before. But he couldn’t remember what they meant. Even though they were repeated, over and over again. And then the witch appeared. An ugly crone, carrying a boiling cauldron and marching in time to that horrible sound. Thaack!, two-three-four. Thaack!, two-three-four. Thaack!, two-three-four. When she reached the grave, her face became a shapeless black blob with glowing yellow eyes. Those eyes. She...it... moaned as if in ecstasy and began pouring out the steaming liquid onto his body. Blood! Boiling! Scalding his body! He jolted upright in the bed, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat. He screamed at the top of his lungs.






















THIRTEEN: Another Stranger

         Andy’s Jeep didn’t pull up in front of Kelsey’s house at the appointed time. He called and spoke to her mother. Told her he wasn’t feeling well...“staying home”…“probably the flu.”
         His scream during the night had scared his parents out of their wits. They each popped their heads into his room again before they left for work. His mother said, “It was more than a bad dream, I think. You’re feverish. That worries me.”
His father said, “It’d probably be a good idea for you stop by the Med Center and get checked.” He handed Andy the family ID card for their HMO. Andy pulled his blanket up closer to his chin. His mother said she would call later to check on him. He lay in bed for another hour, shivering.
It was about nine when he turned back his blanket and went to sit at his desk and look out the window. The sky was clear, the water rolled in softly from the south. Overhead, a small wave of laughing gulls cried and circled restlessly. He stared out at the sea and considered his death. Where? In his bed? On the beach? How? A dagger to his heart? A two-by- four to the back of his skull? When? Tomorrow? In the Spring? Would he be alive to graduate in May? How many kids from the Senior Class would come to his funeral?
         “It’s not fair, you know.” He said it to the sky. Was he complaining to God, he wondered. After all, maybe he had reason to. He was still only a kid. Seventeen! What about all his plans? Med school? Working at a big research lab? His dreams about coming up with the great medical breakthrough that would save millions of lives? Why him? Why not somebody without his talents? His brains. His ambition. All the potential. But it could all be ended before it even started. No, it wasn’t fair. He had plans. And they didn’t include dying young.
         He watched idly as an elderly man walked by on the beach, followed by an ugly yellow dog. He thought about the Mark Twain quip he had just read the other day: “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” There you go, he said to himself, I’m just exaggerating this whole somebody-is-going-to-kill-me thing. It’s all in my head. Isn’t it? Isn’t it? He didn’t know. He couldn’t answer his own question. He stood at the window frowning. And then he picked up the phone and called Granna. She always had an answer for everything. If anybody could help him figure out this absurd situation, it was Granna.
         Twenty minutes later, he was still frowning. But now, he was sitting on his grandmother’s sofa again. He nibbled at a piece of toast she had made for him, sipped at a glass of milk.  He was feeling a little calmer now. He thought how amazing what a glass of milk could do for you
         “So Andy, she said, “don’t you think you better tell me what this is all about? It must be serious if you missed school today.”
         He sighed heavily, then spent the next five minutes telling her everything that happened to him in the last week. And when the recounting of the week was done, he felt as if he just used up ten years of his life. He searched his grandmother’s face for sympathy. “I know I must sound like a frightened little kid, a real scaredy-cat, but I don’t know what to do, Granna. I was hoping maybe you could tell me.”
         She looked at him with a small smile. “Don’t be afraid to be afraid, Andy. It has nothing to do with being childish. And it’s not always a bad thing. Actually, I think fear is a form of intelligence that often keeps us from doing foolish things. She leaned forward in her chair and spoke more quietly. “ And you know, Andy, without fear there would be no courage.”
         He gave her a hopeful nod and said, “But…” It was a question.
         “I guess where I’m headed with this, Andy, is to say to you that the only sensible thing to do about fear is face up to it. Prove it or disprove it. And then move on.”
         He nodded at her again. “I’ve been trying to do something like that all morning, I think.”
“Good’” she said. “Now let me help you along. I’m pretty sure I know what’s been going through your mind. First, I know enough from all my years as a nurse to say with some certainty that you don’t have a brain tumor. I can look back at maybe three or  four generations of  Drewalskis…your mother’s family too. Some died in accidents,  two died at childbirth, and before we had all the wonder drugs, a few died from infections and fevers. But most of  the family died from  your ordinary,  run-of-the-mill old age. Nobody died from a brain tumor. Or any other kind of tumor, for that matter. “
         A brain tumor was something he hadn’t thought about, but he was glad she had and had dismissed it so quickly.
         “And I know you well enough,” she said, “to tell you that you’re not going insane. There’s never been a nut in either of our family trees…pardon the bad joke.  But you don’t have to take my word for it. You could have a talk with Henry Roman. Nothing formal, of course.”
         “Professor Roman?”
         “Doctor Romanowski, actually. He’s a trained psychologist, you know.”
         “I didn’t know,” he said. “I thought he was a professor at Eastern Carolina before he retired.”
         “He was. He taught psychology. And he’s got over forty years’ experience in the field.
         Andy agreed that it might be a good idea to talk to Doctor Roman, as long as a big deal wasn’t made of it. And, of course, as long as nobody else would have to know about it. He wondered if psychologists had a word for “fear of monsters.”
         “There’s one more thing I was hoping you could talk about, Granna …” The phone rang.
         “Andy, that’s Henry now. I’ve got to get ready to meet him for lunch. I’m sorry, I hate to chase you. We can talk more later. Oh, and I’ll mention this conversation when I see him, okay?”
#
         He left, feeling unsettled. And, as he walked across the parking lot, he took it out on Granna. “Oh, I don’t have time to talk about all your problems now, kid. I can’t be late for lunch, you see.” He scolded himself for his sarcasm. You dork! At least she’s trying to help, he thought.
         He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice that someone was leaning on the driver’s side door of his Jeep. When he finally saw the figure, his mind was too stunned for his body to react. “What––?” was all Andy had time to get out.
         The form moved at him--torn red ski jacket, dirty yellow knit cap--and plunged in. Swinging something black. Metal. Cold.
         And while Andy was still trying to get his body to react, he heard the cracking sound and felt the excruciating thunderbolt in his shoulder, the electric charge shooting down his arm. Another swing! A hammer of pain thundered across the back of his head. And then the hurting faded, ever so slowly, as the daylight withered into darkness.


























FOURTEEN: Revenge is Mine

On Friday, night fell on the Outer Banks as it always did in the winter. The shadows lengthened out, covering the crisp blues, yellows and reds of daytime in thin, gloomy clouds of gray. These clouds drifted out of the East, growing darker by the minute, traveling like great, slow rafts propelled across the sea by cold and biting winds until they finally tumbled onto the shore.
         On this particular winter night, at six o’clock, a dark figure sat at the top of a dune, mumbling aloud. Anger and hate rolled off his tongue as he rebuked himself for his three failed attempts to fulfill his mission. He vowed in evil prayer that he would wreak death and destruction before the moon turned full in three days. And vengeance would be his.
         He turned to see the thing approaching from the north. It bumped unsteadily on the undulating surface of the beach, its lights shuddering like giant blinking eyes.
         He recognized it immediately. It was the machine the boy rode in. This was, indeed, a stroke of good fortune. It came closer. He gripped his weapon and watched anxiously for several more minutes as the black machine lurched its way down the beach. Closer. The bile of revenge rose up in his throat, making a coppery taste in his mouth. He spat into the wind. And moved forward to meet the machine.




























FIFTEEN: Uneasy Lies the Head
When he woke up in his bed at the Medical Center, it was near midnight. His body felt sore all over, his head ached and he couldn’t raise his left arm. He saw that it was in a sling. His mother and father stood on one side of the bed, Kelsey on the other. “What time is it?” he asked.
         His mother bent down, kissed him on the forehead and said, “Late.” His father buzzed for a doctor.
         Thirty seconds later, a doctor in blue scrubs and an ugly orange turtleneck was waving his finger in front of Andy’s nose. “Follow the finger with your eyes, don’t move your head,” he said.
The finger disappeared and he said, “Good. What’s your dad’s first name?”
“John.”
“Mother’s?”
“Rose.”
“Feeling any dizziness, sickness in your stomach?”
“No.”
“Everything seems to be satisfactory,” the doctor said in the direction of John and Rose Drewalski while he reached around and felt the back of Andy’s head. It caused a sharp spasm of pain that traveled around both his eyes and made him wince. “Hell of a lump,” the doctor said. “But I think you’ll live.” He turned again to Andy’s parents and said, “We’re going to keep him overnight, just to be on the safe side.”
Kelsey pulled a blue plastic chair up close to the bed, sat down and put her hand on Andy’s. She was about to speak when a policeman burst through the doorway. It was Tom Miller.
“Hey, kid. Glad to see you’ve come to. We just found your vehicle and the guy who...” He broke off, seeing the puzzled expression on Andy’s face. “You still don’t know what happened, do you?”
“No,” Andy said. His voice was weak.
“You were car-jacked. Or, I guess in your case it’s Jeep-jacked.” He smiled at his attempt at humor. “We’re thinking the actor was pretty high on coke or something at the time, and decided your vehicle was prime for a joyride. So he waited for you to show up, bonked you on the head, took your keys and off he went. Allegedly, of course” 
Andy looked at his father who was standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, shaking his head with a ‘What is this world coming too’ attitude.
“He’s been identified as a hand off of one the trawlers out of Wanchese. We found him laying on the beach next to your Jeep, which was buried in sand up to its tires, right in front of the Fearing place. Stone cold dead,” the cop said.
Andy’s mother gasped. “Dead? How?”
“Yes ma’am, dead as they come. From the look on his face, I’d say he was frightened to death. More than likely, though, he OD’d on some controlled substance.”
The doctor in the ugly orange turtleneck sweater showed his head in the doorway. “Okay, folks. Party’s over. My patient here needs some rest.”
They said their good-byes, punctuated with kisses on his forehead from Kelsey and his mom. When they had gone, he lay in the bed re-creating his horrible encounter that morning. He thought about how lucky he was. Because, even though the attack has lasted no more than three or four seconds, that man could’ve killed him. Who was that man in the dirty yellow cap? Really?
A nurse appeared at his bedside, handing him two tiny paper cups. One had a couple of red and white capsules in it, the other a single yellow pill. “Tylenol’s for the headache. And the yellow one will help you sleep,” she said. “Take them all now, please.”
         He did as he was told, and a few minutes later he felt the dusty cobwebs of sleep tightening and pulling his eyes closed. He slept comfortably at first, but later in the night his rest would be disturbed by the awful sound. Thaack! It beat on his eardrums. Thaack! Again and again. Thaack! But he didn’t wake. The little yellow pill was working. And it kept him imprisoned in uneasy, frightful slumber.















SIXTEEN: The Andy Before Him
         The windshield wipers skimmed back and forth, right to left, left to right, sluicing away a driving rain.  Doctor Henry Roman looked into the rearview mirror at Andy, who was stretched out on the back seat. He had offered to drive Andy home from the Medical Center that morning. His parents had already left for a long-planned weekend with friends in Virginia Beach. “So… Andy? What have you been up to these days?”
         “Kelsey and I have been working on a secret project.” Even before the words had finished leaving his mouth, he thought how stupid that sounded.
         “Secret, huh? It sounds ominous.”
         “Well, surprise is probably a better word than secret,” Andy said, hoping to redeem himself of the previous statement.
         “It is better. I was starting to picture the two of you as teen-age CIA agents. Dangerous stuff,” Henry said laughing.
           “It’s a whole lot tamer than that, believe me Doctor.”
         They rode in silence for a minute or two, until the Doctor looked back at Andy in the mirror again. “So, are you going to let me in on the surprise?”
          
“Uh…probably not a good idea?” Andy tried to soften the dismissal by making it a question.
         “Okay,” was all the Doctor returned.
         They rode without speaking for another mile. Andy finally broke the silence with “You know, Henry…I mean, Doctor…on second thought, it would be positively great to let you in on our little secret…surprise. I think you could really help us finish it off. At least, I hope you can.”
         “Tell me more,” Doctor Roman said to the windshield. The rain was falling in a torrent now and he was finding it difficult to see the road ahead. He slowed the car to a crawl.
         “Well, between you and me…” Andy started and then rambled on for the next five minutes with details about the family tree and his grandmother’s eightieth birthday. He finished as they pulled in to the Drewalski driveway.
         Doctor Roman turned to face Andy, “First of all, let me say your grandmother is going to love it. Absolutely love it!  How you were able to keep it a secret from her all these months is what surprises me.  Now…how can I be of service to you two youngsters?”
         “Uh, well, I was thinking, you know, with your background in history and all, you could seriously help us fill in some holes we’ve run into. For instance, there are some people of ours who lived in the early eighteenth century who have just gone missing. And believe it or not, we’ve come up dry trying to find a bunch of records from the 1930s and 40s”
         “It doesn’t surprise me, you know,” Henry said. “In fact, it’s a wonder that anything much of historical value, let alone old family records, still exists among the Polish people.”
         Andy shifted uncomfortably on the seat. The pain pills were wearing off and he could feel a dull throb starting up in his shoulder. “Why is that?” he asked.
         “Well, you know ever since the thirteenth century, the history of Poland has been one long succession of invasions and wars. First, there were the Tatars. Followed by the Germans, the Swedes, and the Turks. Then there was Hitler and the Nazis. And, of course, the Soviets.”
         “You seem to know a lot about it,” Andy said.
         “Oh, I’ve always been a student of Polish history. I was born in Poland, you know. My parents brought me to America when I was five years old.” He chuckled. “But I still speak the language better than your grandmother does…but don’t tell her I said that,” he offered as an aside.
         “Yeah, well,” Andy said, “I’m think I know what it feels like to do one of those demonstration commercials on TV. You know, the ones that always end with a line that says: ‘Performed by trained professionals. Do not attempt at home.’”
         Henry laughed. It was one of the things Andy thought was so neat about Henry. He had a huge, happy laugh that came straight from the belly. He pulled into the Drewalski driveway. “Don’t give up so easily, lad. I think I can be of some help. And a good friend of mine at the University is head of the European and Asian Studies, and quite the genealogist, as well. In fact, I’m driving down to Greensboro on Monday. I’ll talk to him then.”
         “Boy, that’d be seriously great!” Andy said. He slid across the back seat and maneuvered the door open, getting ready to make his way up up the driveway. The rain had become a downpour.
         #
         As soon as he walked into his house, he felt the creepiness. Dark. Cold. Empty. And a little voice said to him. “You’re all alone here. On your own. No one to help.” And then the voice added sarcastically, “Big boy.”
         He walked quickly through the rooms, turning on lights, the TV, and when he got to his room, he turned up the stereo full, making the walls vibrate with heavy bass.
         He decided to busy himself and put his mind on more positive things. He pulled out all his family tree charts and spread them out on the bed and the floor. His eyes traced over the vast array of lives that had preceded his own on this earth. He wondered about so many of them. How they had lived. What it would have been like to have known them. And, as had has so many times before, he finally came to rest on the little box that had always puzzled him. It was the one with his grandfather’s name in it.

ANDREW “ANDY” DREWALSKI
November 19, 1925-
m., Helen

















SEVENTEEN: The Wedding Ring
         Granna put the ring in his palm and squeezed his hand into a fist. “It’s his,” she said, still holding his hand. “Your grandfather’s wedding band. Except for a few photographs, it’s all the family has left of him. I want you to have it.”
         Andy held the ring up to the light and studied the inscription inside: Love - Andrew + Helen - 9.18.46
         “Why doesn’t anybody in the family talk about him, Granna?”
         “I guess it’s because no one who is alive knew him. Except me, of course.”
         The three of them were sitting at the table by the window, drinking after-dinner tea. Granna sipped at hers and said, “It was a long time ago. More than sixty years. He apparently died when your father was just a year old. We had been married only two.”
         “You said apparently died?” Kelsey asked.
         “Yes. His body was never found. And no one ever found out exactly when he died. Or how. He became a mystery man who dropped off the face of the earth.”
         “Do you know where he died?” Andy asked.
         “Yes. It was in Poland.”
         “Poland?”
         Yes, it was shortly after World War II ended. The Drewalskis here in America still had relatives in Poland. Uncles, aunts and your grandfather’s younger sister. All whose homes had been destroyed by the Nazis. They were called DPs then...Displaced Persons. Your grandfather volunteered to go over and find them, and bring them here to start new lives.”
         “What happened?”
         “That’s the mystery. A week after he registered in a hotel in Krakow, they found his wedding ring--the same one you’re holding--miles away in a country village. It was buried among the ruins of a house that belonged to the Drewalski family. They also found bloodstained necktie near the ring. It also turned out to be Andrew’s. I knew because I bought it for him as birthday gift the year before”
         Andy looked over at Kelsey. He could see the goose bumps that had risen on her arms.
         “Our State Department back then thought that he had been suspected as a spy, captured and executed on the spot. Although they were never able to prove it.”
         “Captured by the Nazis?” Andy asked.
         “Oh, no...the Nazis were long gone by then. In 1947, the Stalinists--Communists--were the new evil ones who were running things in Poland.”
         Granna looked out the window and pursed her lips in thought. “In all the times we’ve talked since then, he’s never yet told me what really happened.”          
         Andy’s eyes opened wide. “Excuse me?”
         “He comes to me, you know...your grandfather. At night. In my sleep. And we talk. Mostly about the things we would have done in all the years that were taken away from us.”
         “His ghost?” Andy shouted the question.
         Granna touched the heart-shaped locket she always wore around her neck. “Oh, I don’t know about a ghost. Maybe it’s more like memories, and wishes about what could have been. You know, ‘the power of the human mind’ that people always talk about.”
         She looked at Andy with bright eyes, made brighter by the tears that had gathered there. “I don’t remember if I ever told you this. We were sweethearts in high school. Like you and Kelsey.”
         Andy and Kelsey looked at each other’s blushing face and smiled.          
         “But, children! Enough of this old woman’s rambling. And it’s getting late.”
         Andy and Kelsey helped Granna clear the dishes, and the three of them spoke hardly at all. It seemed as if there was nothing left to say that evening.
         When they were ready to leave, Andy kissed Granna on the cheek and said, “I love you Granna. And I wish I had known my grandfather.”
         She studied his face, then kissed his cheek and hugged him, but said nothing. He put his good arm around her and said in her ear, “Pleasant dreams, Granna.”
         On the walk to Kelsey’s car, the thought struck him. In the hundreds of years they had searched to build the family tree, there had been only three Andrews recorded. His grandfather and himself were two of them. He didn’t know it then, but that was the dangerous thing.










EIGHTEEN: Grandfather
         The rain blew out to sea, and left behind a howling wind that swept across North Carolina with the coldest temperatures in years.
         Andy reached down for the extra blanket he had thrown on the foot of his bed and pulled it up to his chin. He lay there listening to the wind rattling the windows. He closed his eyes and somewhere between sleep and consciousness, he found himself on a muddy road at the edge of a dark forest. And next to him stood another person. He wore a rumpled brown suit, a sweat-stained white shirt, a  red and brown necktie. This faded into the muddled idea that even though the person resembled him a little, it was not him. Rather, he realized through the haze that he was the same young man who stood next to Granna in the picture on her bedroom wall… his grandfather, Andrew.
         He sat up in bed. The image was as real, as convincing, as the wind that was screaming outside his window.
         He walked to the window and looked out. The wind had shifted more out of the North and was blowing the sand in drifts down the beach.
         He returned to bed and lay down. He was awake, yet he was on the muddy road again. A full, brilliant-silver moon sat high in the sky, revealing that the trees flanking the roadway were broken and burned. Odd, ugly shapes that pointed to the sky in horror.
         He watched as the other Andrew, the one he now knew was his grandfather, took a small notepad from his coat pocket and spoke as he wrote:  “April 11, 1947.”  As he put the pad back into the pocket, he looked into Andy’s eyes and spoke a single word, “Today.”  Then he turned and began to walk away down the road. Andy followed him. Cautiously. He saw one of his feet step down into the mud. Then the other. Foot after foot, he moved forward on the road, deeper into this strange shadow land. And soon he was almost abreast of his grandfather.
         He awoke a half hour later. Wide-eyed. Alert. He got up and looked out the window again. The sand was still drifting down the deserted beach. The wind was stronger now, rolling directly out of the North.
         He turned on his desk lamp, picked up a book, and thought about reading himself back to sleep. A minute later, he decided against it and returned to his bed without the book.
         The road appeared again. He and his grandfather were together again. The two of them stood looking at a burned-out military tank, directly in front of them, blocking the road. His grandfather studied the tank a moment longer, then stepped deeper into the charred woods to make his way around the rusting hulk of gray metal. Andy followed.
          He awoke. He got out of bed and walked to the window again. The wind had weakened and the front had passed through, taking with all the clouds. Stars glittered everywhere in the black velvet sky.
Andy was exhausted. He looked at the clock radio. It was nearly four A.M. He felt a dull heaviness in his arms and legs. Sleep. He needed to sleep. Unbroken sleep.
He sat down in a chair and put his head down on his desk, pressing his face into the crook of his arm.
He saw the two of them walking, side by side. They had made good progress, he and his grandfather. And now they were at the end of the road.
They stood looking at what had once been a village. They saw the charred spots where the cottages had stood, and the pile of stone where the church had been, the jagged stump of its steeple gaping at the sky. And when his grandfather looked at the gallows that still stood at the edge of the village square, he began to weep and his shoulders shook with his sobs.
After a while his shaking ceased and he held up a hand to Andy, signaling him not to follow. Then he walked across the square and into the ruins of one of the cottages.
The dark figure of a man stood in the middle of the rubble. Andy moved quickly across the square and stood at the edge of the destroyed building. He saw the man clearly. He was a short man. He stood, head canted back, arms hanging in front of him, holding a two-edged axe. He stared at Andy’s grandfather. His face was a dark shadow.
         Who was this man? This stranger? And then Andy saw the eyes. He knew the eyes. He had seen them before. Where? He couldn’t remember.
         The main raised the menacing axe above his head. Run, Grandfather, run!
         Andy looked on helplessly as his grandfather turned to run, but stumbled and fell.
And then he watched the axe move at a nearly blinding speed in a descending arc, a ripple of flashing metal, a black and white rainbow from over the stranger’s shoulder into his grandfather’s body. Thaack! The sound penetrated Andy’s sleep like an axe slicing through a thick slab of oak. Thaack! The man dealt another blow to his grandfather and raised the axe above his head in triumph.
“Your wife has never stopped loving you, Grandfather,” Andy cried.
There was no answer. His grandfather lay dead on the burnt ground.
#
         In the morning, Andy did not wake in bed. He was on the beach. Lying with his knees curled up to his chest, his hands clenched into fists. 
As he regained consciousness, he heard himself gasping, straining to catch his breath. All his joints ached and his muscles were cramped and sore. And he was cold. So very cold, that his teeth chattered. His sleep receded even more and he squinted to adjust his eyes to the sunlit glare reflected off the sea. Dreaming. No. Another nightmare. 
He remembered walking with his grandfather. And in his nightmare,, he must have run to hide from the monster who had murdered Grandfather. Yes. That was how he ended up on the beach. In his unconsciousness, fear had caused him to walk in his sleep. It was something he did fairly regularly when he was a kid, but he had grown out of it. Or so he thought. Still, he breathed a little easier. Sleepwalking. Of course. No biggie. Except for one thing: When he opened the fist of his right hand, a crumpled slip of paper fell to the sand. He heard a whimpering sound as he stared at what was written…April 11, 1947.  And knew instantly that the pitiful sound had come from his own throat. From deep inside. Where there were no words, only unspeakable horror. 
He realized that he had not been sleep-walking, he had walked with the dead.











NINETEEN: The Next Thing
Andy sat at his desk, his body wrapped in a blanket against the chill. He stared out the window at the reflection of the rising sun on the water, thinking about the night that had just passed, trying to connect the dots. All along he had been professing his unbelief in the sprit world. But the apparition of his grandfather had been so convincing--as undeniable as the existence of the Atlantic Ocean outside his window--that there wasn’t a question in his mind he had spent the night with him. The question was why? Why had his grandfather come to him to reveal his horrible death? Why now?
         And that sound. Was it the same sound he had first heard that night two weeks ago? He dared to create it again in his mind: Thaack! That terrible, spine-chilling sound! Was it a warning? Did the monster that killed his grandfather mean to kill him, too?  With an axe? Thaack! Was that someone the stranger he had encountered in the woods? The same stranger who had murdered his grandfather over sixty years ago?
         The noise resounded in his brain. Thaack! He felt his head starting to ache. What does it all mean? he asked himself. He leaned back in his chair and pressed his hands to his eyes. As much as he hated to admit it, there might be only one way to find out.






















TWENTY: Zamek

         Doctor Roman polished his spectacles with care and fitted them on the bridge of his nose. “I’m delighted that you asked me to climb around in your family tree,” he said to Andy.  “For me, it’s as stimulating as reading a good mystery novel. Confidentially, if I were starting a career all over again, I’d forget about psychology and specialize in historical research and genealogy. In fact, it’s what my old friend in Poland has done most of his adult life. And we have him to thank for the info in this folder. Unfortunately, there's not a whole helluva lot here. I’ll explain why in just a minute.”
         The doctor had asked Andy to join him for lunch and they were sitting across from each other at table in the Rusty Dawg. He opened the folder and asked, “Does the name ‘Zamek’ ring a bell?”
         Andy shook his head, “Uh-uh.”
         “Well, it looks like it’s the village in Poland where the Drewalski family began. Except...the name didn’t start out as Drewalski.”
         “What was it? Andy asked.
         “Ah...curious, isn’t it? I’m going to tell you. First of all, you need to know that back in those days--and this true of all Europe--most people didn’t have a surname...family name. Everybody had a Christian name, of course-- a biblical or saint’s name. But there was so few people in the villages and towns, even the cities, that there was no need for anything so specific. However, most men were identified, when necessary, by their trade or occupation, or the town or village they lived in. For instance, a man named John who was a blacksmith would be simply referred to John the smith.  It was only much later in history, when populations grew and more people learned to read and write, that surnames came into use. In Poland, that was in the 15th century, when the nobility began the practice. The 15th century is also when your family began. That’s when John the blacksmith became John Smith. And Edward who lived the village of Krol became Edward of Krol.  In your family’s case, it looks as though the man who started it all was a woodcutter. In Polish, drval...d-r-w-a-l.  So, it is believed that your first ancestor was Wladyslawiu the Woodcutter or Walter Drwal.
         Andy, looking puzzled, broke in, “So how did we get to Drewalski?”
         “Excellent question, lad. Thought you’d never ask. The ‘ski’ at the end your name--and so many other Polish names--denotes ‘nobility.’ So, somewhere along the line, someone in the family became a significant landowner.”
         “Must have made a lot of money selling firewood,” Andy joked.
         “Maybe. More likely, one of the Drwal family in Zamek did something that pleased the King or a duke or a prince and was given land as a reward. The family then became known as Drwalski. Simple as that. By the way, the ‘e’ probably found its way into the name when the first Drwalski immigrated to this country. It was common practice to ‘Americanize’ names, especially the ones that were hard to pronounce.”
         “Why...how..did the family get all the land?”          
         “Hard to say,” the doctor answered. “If I had to guess, I would say it was for some daring feat in a battle. Poland was always being invaded by some country or another, you know.”
         Andy said, “That’s pretty cool. I mean the daring feat, not all the invasions.”
         “I’m glad of your sense of humor, lad, because I’ve got some bad news, too. A lot of folks in your family were killed in those invasions...and the records with them. It goes back as far as the Teutons, the Tatars, and other marauders...but most of the damage was done by the Bolsheviks in 1919, when they literally demolished the village. The citizens were able to salvage some records, but when the Nazis rumbled through Zamek in 1939, they destroyed what remained. They killed many of the villagers, too--including most of the remaining Drewalskis.”
         “That’s so wrong,” Andy said. “And sad...really sad.”
         “So, it’s all up to you now, Andy.” Doctor Roman closed the folder.
         "What is?”
         “Someday, you’ll have to marry and hope your wife will give birth to a son to carry on the name. Because, right now you’re the last of the Zamek Drewalskis.”




















TWENTY-ONE: The Plan


The last of the breakfast crowd at Cuppa Joe’s Diner had left almost an hour before. The waitress everyone called “Mom” sat at the counter, drinking coffee and coughing between long drags on her cigarette.
         Andy and Kelsey sat in a window booth. She held a mug of hot chocolate in both hands, drawing in the heat. Looking over the rim of the mug, she took long, slow sips of the steaming liquid. He sat across from her, staring at the genealogy charts they had cobbled together with Doctor Roman’s information.
         “I bumped into Asia Tibbets over the weekend,” Kelsey said.
         “Color me excited.”
         Kelsey watched him for a moment, then stretched her hand across the table and drew an imaginary circle on the paper in front of Andy. “She asked me to ask you to reconsider a séance.
She’d like to hold it at the Fearing house.”
         Andy raised his head. “Oh sure. Spend some time with a witch in an old cottage that smells like fish, playing ghost games. It’s just what I need, Kelse.”
         “I think so,” she said.
         “Well, I don’t think so, said Andy, sitting up straighter. “I don’t want to sit with Asia Tibbets at one of her séance parties. File that under ‘never,’ Kelse. Okay?”
         “Andy, please! Listen to me for just two minutes. Emilie…Asia…explained to me how there totally is some science behind what you’ve been going through.”
         “For instance?”
         “Scientists…actually sociologists…not witches…sociologists call what you’ve been experiencing apparitional events. That means the monster or whatever it was and the ghost of your grandfather aren’t really what you saw.”
         “So, what did I see?
         “Asia…and she’s quoting the sociologists…says they’re memories.”
         “Whose memories? Mine? Or the monster’s?” His grandmother’s description of her “visits” with her dead husband as “memories” flashed through his mind.
         “Asia thinks it might be the memory of the Fearing house.”
         Andy looked into the bottom of his cup. “You’re telling me houses can remember stuff?”
         Kelsey smiled faintly. “ Yes. The deal is that a house…actually any object…can have a memory. Science says that life has energy, Andy. Life is energy. Our thoughts, our feelings are made up of energy. Electrical impulses generated in the brain.”
         “I already knew that. So what?”
         “So energy can be absorbed and retained by things. Or places. A house on the beach, a tree in Nags Head Woods, the antique bed you sleep on.          I don’t know how it happens; I not sure anybody does, but some things, some places remember feelings, or time or people…and their energy stays locked up, unseen and unheard, sometimes for hundreds of years, until someone with a special sensitivity…or as Asia calls it—a gift…is able to tap into it.
         “You means somebody like Asia?”
         “And you too, Andy!”
         “No! Forget it!”
         “Andy, didn’t you just tell me on the way over here that you think the Fearing house, that sound you keep hearing, the stranger in the woods, your grandfather’s death ... are all connected in some way?”
         “I don’t know that for sure.”
         “I don’t, either. But this could be the way to find out.”
         Actually, Kelse, I was thinking about getting some professional help. Not witchcraft. I thought I’d ask Doctor Roman for his take on this whole thing.”
         “Andy, listen. All I’m asking you to do is try this. If we sit in a séance with Asia, one of two things can happen: nothing or something. If nothing happens, you won’t be hurt and you can still ask the Doctor for help. On the other hand, if something does happen, it could really help you --maybe even solve this whole big problem. Asia is sure she can be helpful. But you’ll never know unless you go and see for yourself. What do have to lose, Andy?”
         Andy slumped back in his seat and circled a spoon inside his cup. “Kelse, I know you really want to help. And I love you for how much you care about me.” He looked down at his charts and started to arrange them in a neat stack. “So...” He hesitated and took a deep breath, “...So, if I agree to this, that’s the only reason. But I have to tell you--with everything I’ve been going through these last couple of weeks--if you get me into the Fearing house and something does happen, you may have to carry me out of there in a cage.”
         “Now, you’re just being goofy,” she said.
         “Andy started stuffing his charts into a large brown envelope. “By the way, just a couple of small questions. How do you propose we get into the place? It’s boarded up tight. Probably tighter, since Tom Miller caught me there. And I hope you realize that if we get caught this time, we could be arrested for trespassing.”
         Kelsey slid out of the booth and stood up. “Asia told me it won’t be a problem. She says she knows a way in. And we’ll just have to be careful.” She started toward the door. Andy followed.
         Kelsey grabbed Andy’s arm with both hands and squeezed tight. “I’m going to set it up with her right away. We’ll meet you there tonight, right after dark. Like five-thirty, say? And we’ll go in from the beach side. There’s less chance of being seen that way.”
         Andy held the heavy glass door open for her and a cold draft swept in over their heads. He watched her long wool scarf flapping in the sharp breeze as she ran across the parking lot to her car. A moment later, the door behind him slammed.
         He stood there for a few minutes more, looking in the direction of the Fearing house, watching the building die in the fading winter sunlight.












TWENTY-TWO: The Séance

         Their feet crunched on the gravel beach as they walked under a full moon interrupted by fast traveling clouds. Andy carried a kerosene camp lantern, unlit. Asia carried a heavy, long-handled cutter that looked tough enough to chop through an inch-thick iron bar. How she came into possession of such a formidable tool, Andy couldn’t imagine. And he wasn’t going to ask.
         They crossed the wide expanse of beach leading up to the house in moonlight at a quick pace set by Asia. Andy looked over at her face and realized she was excited.
         When they reached the porch at the front of the house, all three looked back warily, checking to see if anyone else was close enough to spy on them. Not very likely, Andy thought. Who would be dumb enough to hanging out on the beach in this weather?
         Asia tip-toed across the porch, cutter at the ready, but found the huge padlock open and gently nudged the door. The cold wind—biting at their ankles and wrists, burning their faces and torturing their earlobes since the start of their walk—suddenly blew in a gust that flung the door wide open and slammed it noisily against the inside wall. Asia stepped into the doorway,  cautiously peered inside and turned back to Andy and Kelsey with an apprehensive look. And responded with raised eyebrows and an open-palmed hand that silently asked, “So what are you waiting for?”
         Asia stepped into the darkness, followed by Andy, who immediately knelt to light the  lantern. A moment later light from a match illuminated his hand as he reached the flame to the mantles. He adjusted the flow of the kerosene and a harsh light rose up to encircle the three of them. He stood up and lifted the lamp by its wire bail and set it on the large table near the door. The same table he had knocked the silver box from in his fearful exit from this place three days ago.  A wave of uneasiness rose in his stomach when he noticed that the box had been had been reset in its former place on the table.
         Asia  slid in a rusting, straight-backed metal chair to the center of the illuminated circle and sat down with her back to the staircase. She watched as Andy dragged the scarred wooden table out of the corner and brought it to a stop in front of her.  Kelsey sat in a rickety lawn chair she found in another corner. Andy pulled up a wooden footlocker that made him sit lower than others at the table.          
         Andy stared at the small silver box in the center of the table.  He contemplated who had been here after him to return the box to the table. Had it been someone that Tom Miller had come upon and run off the property, the way he had chased Andy? Or had it been the hideous stranger he ran into on the beach? Or maybe the truth was that it had been a horrible unseen force. Like the hiding energy-slash-memory we’re supposed to tap into tonight. Like the one that had visited his bedroom. Try running that off the property, Officer Miller.
         Asia turned to Andy and said, “You are emitting a strong psychic disturbance. I can feel your skepticism and scorn. Hostility. And unless you stop it…right now…this sitting is never going to work.” Andy did a shoulder shrug that said he was embarrassed and closed his eyes. He wondered if she really felt all that or if it was just a lucky guess.
         Asia reached over to extinguish the flame in the lamp and as she cut its supply of fuel, it emitted a sigh as it fell into darkness. She lit a candle in a red vigil cup and set it on top of the silver box. Andy wondered for a moment if she had stolen the candle from a church. Isn’t that the kind of thing a witch would do? He knew it was a silly thought and tried to put it out of his mind by considering what might be inside the silver box. Would he dare breaking the lock to find out?
         Asia put both hands on the table. She extended her left hand to Andy and, after a kick under the table from Kelsey he took it in his. Asia offered her right hand to Kelsey. She quickly grasped it and reached over to hold Andy’s left hand. All hands were now clasped and resting on the table. The moon disappeared behind a cloud and no longer offered any light for the room. They would be in total darkness save for the vigil candle in the center of the table. And it produced only a dim red light that cast an eerie glow on the three faces.          
         Kelsey’s eyes were tightly shut. He could tell she was concentrating intently. Her hand was cold to the touch. It gripped Andy’s hand almost too firmly. He felt her arm shaking from her shivers. The room was freezing. A constant, chilling draft swept around the room and fluttered the candle flame.           
         Asia Tibbets hands were small like a child’s -- but her fingernails, painted dark blue, were long and sharp. And when she gripped Andy’s hand, he felt the nails digging lightly into his palm. Her face, which had been much overdone in makeup color the last time he had seen her, was now white and faint. Her lips were firmly shut and wore no lipstick.
         He felt her fingernails gently scratching his palm. It was almost a tickling sensation. “Good,” she said.  “This is very good.” Her voice sounded frail and small. Her eyes were shut, softly as though she were sleeping.
Andy realized that he felt sorry for her. How could she believe she has some kind of *gift*? How could she be so naïve as to believe any of this crap?
         He looked from her face to Kelsey’s. Nothing was happening. What did anyone in this room think was going to happen? He closed his eyes and waited. A long minute passed. Still nothing. Why had he agreed to this? He felt stupid. He was restless. Enough, he thought. He opened his mouth to speak.
         Asia’s hand stopped him. It closed tight around his first two fingers. Tighter. More. He was astonished by the powerful strength. Her fingernails dug deep into his palm. An electric shock shot up to his wrist.  He shifted his hand, trying to loosen her hold.
         Andy looked at Asia. She was slumped in the cold metal chair, her head turned downward and leaning toward her right shoulder. Her forehead was creased in a deep, furious frown.
         Andy looked at Kelsey. Both of her eyes were open and staring at him. “Shush!” she said  and closed her eyes again.
         Andy shut his eyes and sighed. He waited. Nothing. “Imagine my surprise,” he said to himself. “Only kidding,”  he said out loud to Asia. (In case she really could read his mind.) He sighed a second time.
         Asia’s hand moved again. Her grip on Andy’s hand tightened. He began to pull his hand away. His fingers had gone numb.  A wheel of needles traveled back and forth between the knuckles. She turned her head upward. Her mouth turned downward in a pronounced scowl. She grunted a deep grunt. It sounded like an old man. “Ohhh,” she moaned. “Zagrozenie, zagrozenie!” Andy realized that she was speaking in Polish.          
He watched her sagging face with fascination. She was slowly turning her head as if in pain. Andy flicked a glance at Kelsey. Her face was pale. Her eyes were wide open and she was biting down hard on her lower lip. He looked back at Asia. She lifted Andy’s hand and brought it down on the table, once, twice, three times. Each time, his knuckles rapped painfully on the rough wood surface. She spoke again in the low guttural voice and dragged out the sounds of her words. “On-jay! On-jay! Moderca!” Her head shook violently from side to side. “Kat”, she said. “Moderca! Kat!” 
It was astonishing. Andy realized that he not only knew the words Asia was uttering were in Polish, but he also knew what they meant. “Zagroznie” meant “danger.” “Moderca” was “murder.” “Kat” was “executioner.” And of course, he knew what “On-jay” meant. It was “Andrzej,” his name.  Andy wondered how he had acquired such a knowledge of the three words beside Andrzej. His grandmother, maybe? But he couldn’t remember her ever using such violent words. So where had he heard them before? He couldn’t remember. It was bewildering.
Asia raised Andy’s hand above her head and brought it down on the table angrily. He cried out in pain. Her grip relaxed. A moment later, Asia opened her eyes--and collapsed into a heap on the floor.     
         Moving as one, Andy and Kelsey dropped to their knees to help raise Asia to her feet. Still in a state of semi-consciousness, her knees kept giving way and she was unable to stand. Andy stood behind her with his hands in her armpits to prop her up. “What just happened here, Asia?” he asked.
         The answer came—not from Asia—but, instead, from the top of the stairs: Thaack! Andy and Kelsey gave each other a quick look that said: “Panic! Run for our lives! “ Andy swept Asia through the doorway, her heels dragging, across the porch and into the sand beyond.  Kelsey ran at lull speed across the dunes to the water’s edge.
         The door of the Fearing house slammed shut. “Totally crazy,” Andy said involuntarily.




























TWENTY-THREE: The Warning

The three of them sat in Andy’s Jeep waiting for the engine to warm up enough to get the heater working. Asia sat in the jump seat in the rear, arms wrapped tightly across her chest, staring blankly ahead. Kelsey sat next to Andy. The silver box sat in her lap.
Andy looked down at the box, “I cannot believe you made off with that.”
Kelsey sat looking at the box and said nothing, In the back seat, Asia shuddered violently from the cold. And said nothing.
“It’s stealing, you know,” Andy said.
“From whom?” Kelsey snapped back. “If you can answer me that, then you’ve just solved this whole stinking mystery.”
“Chill, Kelse. I’m just saying…the ‘whom’ is the same somebody who put it back on the table after I knocked it on the floor. I guess I could have stuck around to find out who that somebody is. I also could have stuck around and got myself killed.”
“Well, if that somebody is ‘habitating those premises,’ they’re breaking the law.
“You know what my father would say about that?“
“What”
“One bad act doesn’t justify another bad act.”
Whatever.”
Andy watched the temperature gauge rise toward the “H.” He decided there was no sense in continuing this particular conversation any further. He was tired. Spent. Cold. Emotionally drained. He could only imagine how Asia felt. Kelsey, too. When she got this feisty it meant she was either tired or upset about something or other. It was probably a little of both, in this case.
He pulled out onto the road, aimed the Jeep north and was caught by a red light at Ocean Boulevard. No one spoke. They concentrated on the freezing cold. It was intimidating them. Menacing them with a howling wind that blew so violently it shook the Jeep.
Andy clicked the fan dial to “3”, and at last, a flood of hot air rushed into the vehicle. He and Kelsey immediately put their hands in front of the vents and washed in the jets of warmth.
The light changed and Andy turned left, crossed Rt. 158 and headed down Colington Road.
“Crap!” he mumbled under his breath. Kelsey shot a quick glance his way. “I forgot the lantern,” he said. “Left it on the table. We were in such a hurry to get out of there.
Kelsey, still feeling feisty, gave him a long, drawn-out “Duh.”
Ignoring the slight, Andy said, “I’ll drop the two of you off, and head back down there. My Dad will kill me if I don’t return his precious lantern.”
For the first time since she had collapsed the Fearing house, Asia spoke: “Warning.”
Andy and Kelsey snapped their head around to face her. “What?” They asked in unison.
“Warning,” she repeated, staring blankly at Andy.
“You mean the storm warning?” he asked. There were reports earlier in the day that a massive Arctic front was heading towards the Outer Banks, bringing with it plenty of snow, ice and bone-chilling temperatures.
“Not that!” she said, raising her voice. “Danger!” “Kat!”  She stuttered as she tried to pronounce the next word, “Mo…mo…MODERCA!”
“I don’t have a clue of what she’s talking about.” Andy said.
“There’s only one way to find out what she’s trying say.” Kelsey looked at Andy and waited.
“Well. you better tell me because I don’t have a clue about that either. What way?”
“Another séance.”
Andy slapped his hands on the steering wheel and turned to face Kelsey. “You have got to be kidding me! Do I look like an idiot, or what? There’s no freaking way I’m going to another séance. As far as I’m concerned...especially after tonight’s little episode...it’s all a bunch of crap.”
Kelsey folded her arms across her chest. “Okay, smart guy...then explain how I heard it, too?”
“Heard what?”
“That sound.”

































TWENTY-FOUR: The Storm

Andy drove down the Beach Road in a wind that was lashing at near-hurricane force across Kill Devil Hills and the rest of the Outer Banks. The Arctic front had arrived earlier than predicted, bringing with it the coldest temperatures in 40 years. And it was already wreaking havoc up and down the beach. Roofs had blown off at least two cottages. The large lighted sign at the ECON gas station had been knocked over. Power lines were down in several places. And icy salt water was filling low spots along the highways. By morning, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head would be one big skating rink 
In spite of the cold, Andy was sweating. He was almost back at the Fearing house. And he would have to go back in…for his father’s stupid lantern. Andy knew that his dad wouldn’t be so upset about his leaving the lamp. But he would go absolutely ballistic when he found out where it was left. He could hear him now:  “A condemned building that could fall in on itself at any time. And on top of that, it’s against the law to enter that place. What were you thinking, Mister? Hand over the keys to your Jeep. I’m sorry to have to do this, Son…but not nearly as sorry as your mother and I would be if you were killed in that building.”
Andy knew darn well that he had better get that lantern back tonight. But the thought of going back in there, alone, in darkness, less than a hour after he had heard that deadly sound again, was filling him with panic. 
He pulled into the Fearing house’s driveway. He hands were shaking, but he managed to drop into four-wheel drive. He drove through the sand to the other side of the building so the Jeep wouldn’t be visible from the road.
He stumbled against the freezing gale onto the porch and saved himself from a fall by grabbing the door knob. He turned the knob. Locked. Maybe when the door had slammed shut at their last exit, it had locked itself. On the other hand…well, there’s no time to think about that kind of stuff, he told himself. I’ve just got to get in and out of here. And quick.
  He remembered that the only window that wasn’t boarded up was on the south side of the house. He walked around to the window, dodging pieces of debris that mixed in with the driving sleet. He watched the sign that marked “2nd Street” bounce past him on the vicious northeast wind. As he came to the window, his nerves wound tighter and tighter until he thought he would start running away from this place and be unable to stop. Looking for calm, he started talking to himself, out loud. “ Got to do it, not another chance like this, have to do it now, before it’s too late, now, do it now.” Blinking furiously as he spoke these words over and over again, he discovered that he had picked up a piece of driftwood and knocked out a pane of the window. He did not remember doing it.
He stared mindlessly at the wood in his hand. He became aware of a dreaminess that had come over him. Aware of it, but unable to control it.
Without knowing why he was doing it, and unable to stop himself, he lifted himself up on the ledge of the window, thrust his arm through the broken pane and unlocked the latch. Balancing on the ledge on one arm, he pulled down the upper part of the window. He pushed up and snaked his body through the opening. And fell to the floor with a crash.
The pain jolted him out of his trance and he remembered where he was, and why he had come. But he could see nothing. He faced a black wall of coal. Floating in a heavy sea of black ink. He was in total, claustrophobic darkness.
Suddenly, an alarm deep inside him sounded and the hair rose on the back of his neck. His windpipe tightened. There was a fluttering in his stomach.  He was not alone.
He felt someone…something…near him. Very near. So near, he was certain that if he extended his arms, he would touch it. There was no need. From out of the blackness, a pair of hands reached for him. In the suddenness of a movie flash-cut, they squeezed around his neck and pulled him to his feet. Gray, skeleton hands. Cold. Clammy. Strong. Alive.
A scream swelled in him, but he could make no sound. The blood vessels in his neck and temples throbbed with the effort, but the pressure on his throat was too powerful. He felt almost as if he were underwater in a deep, dark sea. He couldn’t draw breath. His lungs were on fire. He sensed he was dying.
From deep inside himself, he mustered the last of his withering strength and struck out blindly. He thrashed, kicked, flailed his arms, desperately trying to strike his assailant, but could only hit air.
Abruptly, the grip on his neck loosened for a split second and Andy broke free. He dropped to the floor and scrambled away, deeper into the darkness. He crawled on his hands and knees across the room until he collided with something solid. It was the table.
Using the thick wooden table leg he had just crashed into, he swung himself under the table, and scooted on his seat until his back was against the wall and he faced out into the lightless room. Now, at least temporarily, he could stay out of the grasp of the “clammy thing.”
The storm had grown more violent and the walls of the house were reverberating with thunderous booms. Andy could hear shingles being torn loose from the roof.  And the rattle of the upstairs windows. Rattle. Rattle. Until they could stand up to the powerful wind no longer.  Exploding into thousands of crystals with a shrill, ringing crash.
He whispered a quick prayer and forced himself to think. Now what? How am I going to get out of here? It took a few more seconds for the brainstorm to hit. The lantern—the reason he was in the middle this deadly adventure in the first place—should still be on the table. If my prayer worked, it is. And it’ll give me something to swing to keep the creature at bay while I back out of here. He thought for a few seconds more, then took hold of the two table legs against the wall. Slowly, quietly, he began to edge the table away from the wall. One inch. Another inch. One more. If he could move the table out far enough to be able to stand between it and the wall—without being noticed by IT—he would grab the lantern and head for the window he had come in by.
The storm grew louder and the house added to the din with an unnerving chorus of its own: a loud scrunch followed by a crash, followed by the clatter of falling wood. The floor shook and Andy braced himself against a leg of the table. The house was filled with a huge boom that shook the walls, then the sound of timbers crunching as the roof collapsed into the upstairs rooms. 
Andy rolled out from under the table and started for his escape window just as the next noise hit. It was a deafening roar that made Andy cover his ears. The wall across from exploded into the room, throwing a shower of wood, glass and plaster everywhere and kicking up a cloud of dirty, choking dust.
The force of the blast threw him back under the table into the wall behind him. He was dazed for a few seconds, then managed to right himself onto his knees. He was coated with gray dust that smelled like dead fish. A trickle of blood that ran down his cheek and as he blotted it with his coat sleeve he noticed a long gash in his right hand. He knelt there, transfixed for a few moments, looking out at what was once the Fearing house.
It looked as if a fully loaded eighteen-wheeler had slammed through the wall and then drove away. The jagged edges of bare boards and plaster lath showed where the wind, or something propelled by the wind, had hurtled through the wall. The electrical wiring hung loose and swung back and forth, throwing off a shower of sparks that melted in the wave of sleet that was storming into the house’s remains. The windows were gone, except for the last vestige of one of the frames.  A torn, green blind still hung on it and danced wildly in the air.
He was brought back to the moment by a large timber that slammed through the ceiling and landed not more than a foot away from him. The earsplitting crash that came with it was finished by an eerie, hardly human voice that shrieked, “on-jay!”
Andy knew that the voice was calling him…Andrzej. He scrambled to his feet and headed for the opening that was once a wall, hurdling over piles of rubble. Run! Run like crazy! He told himself. Run or die!



















TWENTY-FIVE: The Box
         It was well past nine when Andy pounded on the McGuire’s front door. His hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked gym towel.
Kelsey came to the door holding a flashlight. The storm had knocked out the power all over the island.  “My God, Andy! You’re hurt. What happened to you?”
He stepped past her into the foyer, his eyes searching the candlelit living room on his left. “Where’s the box?”
“Andy...please. I should get you to the hospital.”
“Kelsey, the box,” he demanded. “The silver box. I need to have it. Now!”
“All right! I’ll get the box.” She turned from him curtly and headed up the stairs, stamping a foot on each step. “Tetchy, aren’t we?” she said to the stairs, but loud enough for Andy to hear.
She returned with the box and handed it to him, peering into his eyes to question him silently this time. He refused to aid her probe, staring past her instead. “Thanks,” he said and was out the door, even more abruptly than his entrance. An avalanche of freezing air rushed past him and filled the space around Kelsey. She wrapped her arms across her chest for warmth and watched Andy drive back onto the beach road. She was crying.
#
The storm had ended. The wind slackened, rolling in directly out of the Northwest. The front had passed through, blown the clouds out to sea and dropped the temperature thirty degrees. Weather Radio reported the wind chill at minus five.
Andy drove northward toward Currituck on the mainland. The road leading to the Wright Memorial Bridge was littered with debris from demolished beachfront cottages. He was forced to drive slowly, dodging around whole sections of roofs, lumber from decks, trash cans by the dozen, somebody’s front door. In Kitty Hawk, the beach had washed up and, with the aid of wind, had turned the highway into an extension of the beach. A large tarpaulin, probably a pool cover, had blown off and attached itself by one end to a utility pole. It flapped about crazily in the wind, a huge black flag.
He was exhausted. Tormented. His arms and legs felt like they were filled with lead. His head ached. The cut on his hand burned. He wanted to sleep. But he had decided that the only way he would be able to sleep without fear was to get to the bottom of this monster business. Real soon.
He crossed the bridge, left the highway and followed the narrow Southern Shores road towards Duck. Salt had reduced the snow and sleet on the road to sandy puddles. His tires churned up a mist of dirty brown water and he drove with his windshield wipers going.
After several miles, he slowed the Jeep to search for a numbers on the roadside mailboxes. When he found the one he was looking for he swung into the driveway, mumbling sarcastically to himself. “Perfect, just perfect.” The number was 666.
Andy got out of his Jeep to the sound of metal pulleys clank-clank-clanking on a flagpole standing tall near the driveway. He tucked the silver box under his good arm and walked to the front door. To the left of the door, a large pine was covered in icy crystals. Puffs of wind blew them from the branches and spun them across the walk.  Through a small-paned window at the other side of the door, Andy saw a man sitting by a fireplace with a book in his lap. Andy rang the bell and when the man opened the door, he still held the book in his hand, using a forefinger for a bookmark.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said to Andy. “Please, come in.”















TWENTY-SIX: Doctor Roman

Andy stepped over the threshold onto a thick Oriental rug. Doctor Roman shut the door and caught a look at Andy’s face now that he was in the light. “Good God! What in heaven’s name happened to you, lad?”
“That’s why I’m here, Doctor. To tell you my whole miserable tale…and to get some advice from you.” The house air felt hot on his cheeks and beads of perspiration formed at his hairline. A small wave of nausea rose from his stomach into his throat. He realized that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.
“All right. But, first things first. Let’s take care of that hand, and I see there’s a cut on your forehead, too. This way.”
Andy followed him into the room. Another Oriental rug, an ornately carved wooden desk and a large fireplace. It was the room where he had seen the Doctor reading. “Have a seat by the desk, lad. I’ll be right back with some things for those lacerations of yours.”
Andy’s eyes wandered over the heavy molding that framed the ceiling, the collection of watercolors (most of them duck hunting scenes) and the fierce-looking eagle above the fireplace. For the first time in hours, he felt the torment easing in him.
As Doctor Roman cleaned and bandaged Andy’s hand, he spoke to him calmly, quietly. “You remember, Andy when you came to the door this evening, I said ‘I’ve been expecting you?’
“What was that all about?”
“I spoke with your grandmother yesterday. She called me. Told me she had talked with your dead grandfather the night before, and he told her that he met you.”
Andy gaped, open-mouthed at the Doctor. He seemed speechless. Finally, he could only say, ”I don’t believe it!”
“Don’t believe what, lad?”
“That you don’t have problem with her visiting a dead person…and talking to him. You mean to tell me you really believe in that kind of stuff? Don’t you think it just a little out of the ordinary”
“To answer your questions, in reverse order:  Yes, it is a bit out the ordinary…I would call it extra-ordinary; yes, I believe her and “that kind of stuff;” and no, I don’t a have a problem with it. And you and I both know Andy, that you yourself have visited with your dead grandfather. Just two nights ago, in fact.”
“I thought it was just a dream.”
“Perhaps. But the dead often use our dreams when they have something to communicate with us. In your case, your grandfather missed telling you something very important and he wanted your grandmother to pass it on to you.
“So, why isn’t my grandmother telling me about this.”
“She was afraid to…and I can see why…she said you wouldn’t believe her. She’s probably been trying to call you to call me (but I guess the storm has put a damper on that). She was sure I could convince you. In fact, when you first came to the door, I thought that’s why you were here.”
“Okay, what’s so important that he had to tell me?”
Doctor Roman went to the cabinet behind his desk and poured himself two fingers of brandy. He poured half that amount in another glass and handed it to Andy. “No thanks, I don’t drink.”
“This is medicinal, lad. It’ll calm your nerves…not to mention help with the pain you have to be feeling in that hand right about now.”
He took a sip of the brandy and felt it fill him with long fingers of warmth. He was so tired. He would have gladly lain down right there next to Doctor Roman’s desk and slept.
“Andy, your grandfather wants you to know…that you are in grave danger.”
Andy lowered his arms to his knees and laid his head on them. He said nothing.
“And one more thing, lad. I have no idea what it means…but…he said...‘Tell him, the one in the village.’”
Andy lifted his head. He knew what it meant. He sat upright, feeling his heart throbbing rapidly again, feeling the cold spot of fear that had lain in his gut for the last three days. He looked up at the ceiling and murmured, “God, here we go again.”
















TWENTY-SEVEN: The Box II


You’ll stay here tonight, of course.”
“I can’t. I haven’t been in touch with my parents since before the storm and they’re probably worried sick. Or, on the other hand, they’re spitting bullets because I haven’t called to let them know I’m okay. In either event, I better get home.”
Doctor Roman put his hand on Andy’s shoulder. “You’re in no condition to drive, young man. And I’m not up to it either. My eyesight’s not what it used to be, so I don’t like to drive at night. I’ll call your parents and take some of the heat for you. I want to talk to them anyway.”  He picked up the phone on his desk.
Andy thought, Well, the Doc is at least partially right. I am in no condition…to face my mother and father tonight. He slouched in the chair and let his chin drop to his chest. A second later, he was asleep.
#
The doctor shook him gently, “Andy, wake up, lad. We need to talk just a little while longer.”
Andy’s head and shoulders jerked upward and he opened his eyes. “I am really tired,” he said.
“I know, but I need just a few more minutes of your time…then I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow and you can sleep as long as you need to. Deal?”
“Deal,” Andy said back. He stood up and stretched, looked at the pendulum clock on Doctor Roman’s wall, then walked over to sit next to him on the sofa.
“By the way, it’s all good with your parents. I think ‘all good’ is what you kids are using these days.”
Andy gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”
“Okay. Now…I know you didn’t come here to talk about your genealogy project... and if it’s not about your grandfather, why did you come here tonight?”
Andy folded his arms across his chest and said, “Actually, in a way…at least partially…it is about him. But there’s a lot more. The thing with my grandfather is just the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ as they say.
“Okay, give me the whole iceberg.”
Andy brought his palms up to his eyes and slid them down so the fingertips rested on his eyelids. “It all started, a couple of hour’s after New Year’s, with the sound.”
“Sound?”
Andy described the sound that woke him that night and launched into a long, methodical recounting of the menacing events that had occurred in his life recently. He spoke almost in a monotone because he was too tired to speak with any emotion. But the psychic phenomena (or was it horrifying reality?) that he had experienced was etched indelibly in his mind. So he recited events almost as if he was reading from the script of a dull horror movie. When he finished he said, “The odd thing is that that when I woke from every nightmare, I felt as if I had forgotten something.”
“About the nightmare?”
“I don’t know. I just had the funny feeling that there was something I should remember. But I couldn’t.”  He nodded at the silver box on Doctor Roman’s desk. “And that  brings us to the box. Which, I hope, holds the answer.”
“The answer to…?”
“Why!” Andy said loudly. “Why someone would want to kill me. I have nothing worth stealing. I have no enemies. I don’t belong to a gang. I’m not in line for some big inheritance. I don’t do drugs, so I don’t owe a chunk of cash to a dealer. So I keep asking myself  the same question over and over. Why? Why? Why?  Maybe that was what I was trying to remember. And, God if it is, I hope the answer is in the box. It has to be!”
The two of them sat without speaking and looked at the box. Doctor Roman broke the silence. “Well, I suppose we should open the box. Shouldn’t we?”






TWENTY-EIGHT: the Box III

Doctor Roman sat down at his desk. Andy stood across from him. The doctor opened a desk drawer, withdrew a heavy brass letter opener, and handed it to Andy.
Andy slid the blade under the hasp and pried it against the front of the box. The hasp fell open with a “pop.” He lifted the ornate silver cover. Green felt filled the inside.
He pulled it back.
It was a small book, bound in leather. In the center of the cover, was an embossed ram, rubbed over with gold. Next to the book was small silver cup that looked as if it could hold no more than a tablespoon of liquid.
Andy lifted the book out of the box and opened it. The parchment pages were filled with hand-written characters that he did not recognize. He held the open pages up to Doctor Roman. “Cyrillic,” the doctor said. “Ancient Cyrillic.”
Andy picked up the tiny cup. It held a wadded piece of parchment. He removed it, opened it and read a word written in faded ink. It was not in Cyrillic. It was Polish.
“Andrzej.”


























TWENTY-NINE: The Meaning

It was 1:15 AM. The two of them stood looking at the contents of the box. Andy placed both hands on top of his head and asked Doctor Roman, “What does it mean?”
“I can’t say,” Doctor Roman answered, “but I know someone who can.”
“At the University?”
“Yes, but not mine. In Poland. The Jagellian University in Krakow. An old friend of mine is head of the European Antiquities department. If he can’t help us get to the bottom of his, I don’t know who can. Let’s see, it’s a little after 8 AM there…tell you what, lad…why don’t you curl up on the couch and get some sleep and I’ll get to work on this. Go on, now. Sleep. God’s best medicine.”
Andy didn’t object. His eyes were getting heavier by the minute and he was having a hard time keeping them open. He lay back on the couch, pulled the blanket over him and pressed his face into the crook of his arm. He wondered what was happening to him. What would Doctor Roman find? He told himself it would be better in the morning. Just sleep now. No mysterious sounds. No monsters. No nightmares.  He lay under the blanket, listening to the ticking of the wall clock. So tired.
























THIRTY: The Axe

He rose to a sitting position on the couch, a ghost rising in an open coffin. Darkness everywhere. The wall clock ticking. Andy lit his father’s camp lantern. He passed from the doctor’s study into the hallway. He walked slowly down its length until he came to the door. He stopped and looked at the door. Studied it.  "Don’t go into that room,” he told himself aloud.
Slowly, Andy raised the lantern until it was even with his face. He turned the knob and the door swung inward. Still holding the lantern high, he stepped through the doorway and entered the room.
The floor was a sea of mud. He sank in it almost to his ankles. He had to lift his feet laboriously to walk.
He faced the wall at the rear of the room. There were shapes. Too dark to see. He raised the lantern higher.  People? Trees? Was that a horse?
He moved closer, lifting his legs high to release his feet from the mire. The wall was teeming with half-size human figures. Writhing, distorted bodies. Panic-stricken faces. Some without arms and legs. Some without heads. Those without limbs slithering on top of each other, struggling upward. The headless stood on severed heads reaching their arms in chaotic ascent. All of them were seeking to escape. All of them stared with eyes and mouths open in silent terror at the wall to Andy’s left.
He turned to look. What they sought to escape was another figure—short, lumpish, dark. A man? He moved closer until he could see a face. Its eyes were the color of rotting lemons. Its cheeks sunken under high cheekbones. Gray, pursed lips. A long, thin mustache that fell below a scarred chin. On his forehead, the blade of an axe was embedded from the hairline to the bridge of his nose. A swarm of hideous, yellow demons poured out of the incision on a river of blood and grey matter. Above them rode a headless man on a large white horse. He held an axe with a flame in place of its blade.
The ugly little man carried a large sack in one hand. In the other, he held a long-handled axe. A battle-axe with a double blade.
Andy sensed that he once knew what was in the sack. But now he couldn’t remember. He began to groan and shuffle backwards. He must leave this place. He was surrounded by death. He was in danger.
As he moved backward, the lantern lit the area at the feet of the hideous man. Another human head. He stared at its portrait. Blue-green eyes gazed back at him, ambiguously, mysteriously. A young man. Brown hair, brown eyebrows. Strong nose. A thin-lipped, determined mouth. Andy moved the lantern closer. It was a face he’d seen before, a face he could never mistake. The face broke the dark silence. It screamed a high piercing scream at him.
Andy screamed back. It was his face.
#
He found himself standing in the middle of the study. Naked. He was swinging his right arm from above his head to below his waist. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. At the bottom of each swing, there was a familiar sound:  Thaack! Thaack! Thaack!
He swung until he was trembling with fatigue. He sank slowly to the floor and curled into the fetal position. A new sound began ringing in his ears. Clank! Clank! Clank!
He covered both ears with his hands and, from the back of his throat he gave out a deep, mournful groan.   
Enough. Enough. He could stand this no longer.  No more sounds. No more killing. No more.
#
When Doctor Roman went to wake Andy, he found him curled up on the rug, naked and covered with perspiration. Dripping wet. And he was groaning, emitting a terrible, guttural sound.
“Andy. Lad. Wake up. You’re okay. You’re safe here. Perfectly safe. Trust me, no harm will come to you while you are here. Come on, now. Get dressed. I had my housekeeper, Abby launder all your clothes. They were covered in mud. Don’t be long, I’ve got breakfast for us. And I’ve got some serious information for you.








THIRTY-ONE: The Garage
         
         In the ramshackle garage—its space taken up mostly by an abandoned 1954 Ford pickup truck—he found everything he needed: A partially full oxygen tank, a welder’s torch, a small anvil and a handful of assorted tools.
The night before, sparks from sliced electrical wires ignited a timber in the fallen Fearing house and, nourished by the wind, created an inferno that totally destroyed the piles of rubble— and anything that was left standing of the structure— in less than half an hour. By morning, the wind had blown most of the ashes out to sea, leaving only a few small chunks of charred timber. And what was left of Ogodei’s battle-axe. The wooden handle was burned to a cinder in an instant. The blade had survived, but the heat of the flames had destroyed its tempering, causing the metal to soften and lose its shape.
Now he was at work re-making the precious blade.
He turned the valve handle on the bottle of oxygen and directed the blue-white flame onto the deformed blade. He watched as the metal turned a deep red, then changed to orange, from orange to yellow, to a glaring white-yellow. He lifted the blade with pair of long-handled pliers and looked at it. It glowed almost translucently. He plunged it into a bucket of wet sand.
He picked up the new wooden handle he had fashioned from a piece of oak he found in the bed of the pickup. Running his fingers along its length, he checked for rough spots and splinters that could affect his grip. Satisfied, he leaned it against the door of the Ford.
His makeshift forge, this windowless garage, was filled with soft shadows cast by a large white plumber’s candle that stood near the anvil on an old work bench. On the sand and gravel floor lay his sheepskin bag and an empty burlap sack.
He struck a flint to relight the torch, withdrew the blade from the sand bucket and laid it on the anvil. He put the flame to it again, being careful not to overheat it. He struck a few blows on the shank. Clank! Clank! Clank!  Sparks flew in all directions. He struck a lighter blow near the blade’s edge—Clink!—then held the blade close to his face, checking for cracks or fractures and found none. He smiled at the blade and spoke to it. “Soon.”















THIRTY-TWO: The Photograph


The beach road was closed. From Kitty Hawk to South Nags Head, an army of front-loaders and trucks was clearing it of the debris, ice and hundreds of tons of sand left by the storm. So Kelsey took the 158 Bypass to Ocean Boulevard. She planned to park her Honda there and walk over to the Fearing place, whatever was left of it.
News about the burning had spread almost as quickly as the fire itself. Some of the locals bemoaned the destruction, saying it was a landmark with quite a bit of history. Most, however, were happy to bid it good riddance. To them, it was more of an eyesore than a landmark. Kelsey saw it as a real photo-op—she was certain she would get a few shots published in the Outer Banks Times Courier. She knew that Eddy Clemens, the staff photographer for the paper, was such a “wuss” that he wouldn’t venture out in this weather and she’d be guaranteed an exclusive. And get a nice little check for it, too.
The traffic was light on the Bypass. She guessed most people thought it insane to be out in a freeze like this. This morning, the lady on the Weather Channel said the wind chill factor was going to be at least fifteen below most of the day.
She started her turn onto Ocean Boulevard but stopped short. The road was covered with hillocks of sand.  She made a quick right turn into the cleared parking area in front of the Rusty Dog restaurant. It meant she would have to walk farther than planned, but she couldn’t chance having her Civic stuck in a couple of feet of sand.
She hung her camera around her neck and tucked it between her parka and her body to keep the batteries warm. She was heavily dressed in a white fur-lined parka, fleece ski gloves and a large woolen scarf. She drew a flap from the hood and snapped it in place. Only her eyes showed.
She made her away across the sand-filled road doing a crab-like jog, moving sideways to avoid facing into the wind.
When she got to the place where Elmo Fearing’s place should be, she shook her head in disbelief. If it weren’t for the few charred chunks of timber marking the spot, the house might never have existed. So that her trip wouldn’t be a total loss, she decided to spend just a few minutes wandering around the site snapping whatever caught her fancy. Besides, the light was incredible this morning. The storm had left behind billions of ice crystals in the atmosphere producing strands of cirrus clouds that stretched across the early sun, creating bright white patches of light looking much like the sun or a comet. Local boatmen called this phenomenon a “sundog.”
She was bent over looking through her camera’s rangefinder at an oddly shaped piece of melted plastic, when the sound caught her attention. Clank! Clank! Clank! from the garage a little further up the property. It had withstood the storm but was leaning precariously downwind. It looked as if, with one strong push, she could topple the thing all by herself…not that she was about to try it. Still, the sound had made her curious and she walked to the double doors at the front. Unlike the rest of the building, the doors stood upright. This created a gap between the door on the right and its frame. Perfect for sneaking a look inside.
Kelsey knelt and put her face to the chalky white doorframe. There was just enough of an opening for her left eye to peer inside. What she saw definitely came as a surprise.
“What the hell…” she muttered to herself. An odd, shapeless form stood just a couple of feet in front of her. It moved. Bent forward, then straightened. There was a head. It was alive. She gasped and turned away from the opening. “What the hell is that?” Kelsey wondered aloud.
She moved her eye back to the gap and watched as the shape lifted an object that burned with a bright orange light. Hammered on it. Clank! Clank! Clank! Turned and raised it to inspect it in the candlelight.
In the circle of dim light she could see a face, a mean and lumpish face so contorted by pain and anger that it did not seem human. It was not human. She felt a tingling sensation crawling up and down her spine. It was a goblin face. A monster. And it spoke in a shrill, monster voice. “Soon,” it said.
Suddenly, Kelsey realized what she was looking at. It was the monster! The one that Andy said he saw. The one that’s been stalking him. No, it was not a nightmare. It was not the insane imaginings of a 17-year-old. It is real. My God, Andy, it is real.
She had to get away and let Andy know. Abruptly, she turned and started back to her car. Then stopped. “Wait!” she said to herself. “Pictures. I need pictures. Otherwise, nobody will believe me. Like I didn’t believe poor Andy. Yes, pictures.”
She unzipped her parka and edged the camera out. She decided that she would have time to risk only one shot. With so little light, it would need a long exposure. Two seconds, maybe three. She turned on “Menu” in the LCD monitor, made the necessary adjustments, and inserted the lens into the opening between door and frame. She muffled the body of the camera in the end of her scarf, hoping to mute the click of the shutter enough that it wouldn’t alert the Thing. She held her breath and gently pressed the shutter button. One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand—CLICK.  “Got it, and now I’m out of here,” she whispered to no one.
He caught her unawares. With surprising speed, he grabbed her hood with one hand and pulled her backward. With the other hand, he grabbed her hair and pulled. She screamed. There were no other people. No cars, the road was still closed. No help in sight.
Ogodei pulled her by the hair to the back of the garage and shoved her against a large propane tank. Pain shot through her shoulder and knee and she cried out again. He let go of her hair, seized her arm and twisted it behind her back. She protested breathlessly in small mewls, tears burst from her eyes, she felt the need to vomit.  He forced her to her knees and thrust her head into the corroding steel of the propane tank. Shadows from all sides embraced her and she slumped to the sand. Quiet. Still.
         The Tatar lifted her and flung her over his shoulder like a rag doll. He carried her into the garage and dropped her limp body onto the rusty bed of the truck.














THIRTY-THREE: Thaack!


He looked down and considered Kelsey as she lay there. Quiet. Peaceful. So beautiful. For a moment, a picture of Kelsey lying together with him passed through Ogodei’s mind, but he dismissed it quickly. He spoke to himself in his native language. “This is no time for pleasure with a woman. The time is for the pleasure that is written in blood.”
The blade was ready. The Tatar expertly fitted it on the handle that he had soaked in salt water.  He raised the axe above his head as if making a ceremonial offering and mouthed a rotten-toothed smile from beneath his drooping black mustache. He pressed the weapon to his chest, raised it once again above his head and with one swift chop drove the blade through the entire length of a leg of the workbench. Thaack!
Bearing the battle-axe before him in both hands, he passed through the back wall of the garage and walked in a slow parade across the dunes to the water’s edge. He paused and secreted the axe beneath his cloak. The great Ogodei turned and began what he believed was his final journey. He walked northward, leaving no tracks in the wet sand. The death march had begun.








THIRTY-FOUR: The Yorool and the Chagu

         Abby took away his empty plate and pored more hot chocolate into his cup. Andy had polished off four eggs, a least a half-pound of bacon, and four of Abby’s home-baked biscuits.
         She eyed him with a worried expression. “Poor child. You look so tired. Circles under your eyes, pale as a ghost. If you had any wrinkles, I’d say you look a hundred years old instead of seventeen.
         Before Andy could respond, Doctor Roman broke in. “He didn’t sleep well. I could ear him from my room. Another nasty nightmare, I presume?”
         Andy answered weakly. “Yes.”
         “I want to hear all about it, lad. I must hear about it if I am to help you,” Doctor Roman said. “But, if you don’t mind, I want to get this box business out of the way first.”
         “Mind?” said Andy. “Are you kidding?” He didn’t realize that the next words he spoke described the contents of the box as ominously as Doctor Roman was about to. “I’m dying to know what’s with the cup and the book.”
         The doctor looked away quickly at Andy’s last sentence, then returned his eyes to the open box, with book and cup nestled inside. With his head down, he began speaking.
         “Before I went to bed, I called my professor-friend at the university in Warsaw. (They’re seven hours ahead of us, so it was 8 AM in Warsaw when I called.) I described the box’s contents to him and then faxed him a few of the pages that I thought looked most important. The man is remarkable. By the time I was out of bed this morning, he had identified everything and translated a good deal of the book’s text.”
         Andy fidgeted in his chair, anxious to hear what came next.
         Doctor Roman continued. “As we suspected, the box and its contents are very old. Ancient. They are, in fact, from sometime in the 15th century.”
         “Amazing,” Andy said quietly.
         “Just from my description in our phone conversation, the good professor was able to identify what we have here. The book is a Yorool, a sort of ancient 'prayerbook’ of Tatar tribal rituals. This one, however, has been ’edited’...some passages scratched out and written over, probably in the original owner’s hand. The cup...is called a Chagu. It holds a small amount of wine and was used in ritual ceremonies.”
         Doctor Roman lifted the book from the box and opened it carefully. “As to the contents of this...book...it is the Yorool of The Great Batu Khan, the leader of a massive army that invaded much of Eastern Europe in the 1400s. The text describes rituals performed by that army...tribe...usually before battle. The handwritten additions, it seems, were made by a Tatar warrior in the Batu Khan’s army. He calls himself The Great Ogodei. According to the professor's translation, this Ogodei has changed the ritual to one that lays on a curse. First, on Andrzej Drwal, a woodcutter who lived in the early 15th century--death by beheading. And then...to all in the Drwal--or Drewalski--family who will be named after him. That means...”
         Andy knew what it meant. He wanted to cry. He squeezed back the tears, bit his tongue, cleared his throat, and said, “It means me. I’m the one.” His voice was shaking. He felt like a lost child. The tears fell into his throat, making it difficult to speak. “I’m the one,” he repeated. “The next one, the last one...the last one in the family named Andrew. And I’m going to be killed. I’m going to be beheaded! Just to play out a rotten, freaking curse. He’ll cut off my head and the curse will end. Because I’m the last Andy Drewalski.”
         He broke into sobs. And suddenly, his helplessness turned to anger. Rage. Over his sobbing, he screamed at Doctor Roman, making him fall back in his chair. “There must be another way to end this! Help me to stop it! For cripes sake, help me!”


















THIRTY-FIVE: The Day Before Tomorrow

         Long columns of morning sunlight slanted through the east-facing windows. They were in the doctor’s study again, both sitting on the couch.
         “Enacting a curse from beyond the grave? It’s so bizarre, one would think only an insane person could believe it,” the doctor said to Andy. But it’s sitting there on my desk, in black and white. We both saw it. And neither one of us is insane. So we have to take it seriously...and make every attempt to end the damned thing.”
         The doctor had given Andy a tranquilizer minutes before and he was already feeling its calming influence. “Do you think there’s a possibility that all these crazy things I’ve been experiencing are just wild psychic happenings, brought on by my finding the box. And maybe the box and the book are just some crazy hoax.”
         “I’d like to believe that, Andy...but every one of those items are as authentic as they come. Having said that, the psychic events you’ve been experiencing could, indeed, have been brought on by your having found the box. You’re one of those people who evidently are highly susceptible to such psychic phenomena. In your case, that’s very fortunate--because each event was a warning of sorts.”
         “So without them, I would have had my head chopped off and never had seen it coming,” Andy said with amazing calm.
         “Let’s not think about that, anymore. Instead, let us think about how we can save your life...on the chance that this entire set of circumstances is absolutely real. I have an idea.”
         “I’m all-ears, Doctor Roman.”
         “When you told me about your encounters with the ‘creature’ and your nightmares, you ended by saying that in each incident you were left trying to remember something. Some vital fact or situation, perhaps. You were always on the verge of remembering it, but it never came to you.”
         “True. Like amnesia. But only about that one thing.”
         “If you could remember that one thing, I feel certain that whatever it is, it may very well hold the answer to how you can stop the curse.”
         Andy rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of both hands. “But, I can’t remember it.”
         “I know of a way you can.”
         Andy dropped his hands and shook his head ‘no’. “Cripes, not you, too.”
         Doctor Roman looked over the top of his glasses. “Excuse me?”
         “You’re talking about a séance, right?”
         “Absolutely, not. Something far more practical...and proven.”
         “ What, then?”
         “Hypnosis.”
         “Oh, wow. I don’t know...I mean...man...that’s awful scary.”
         “There’s nothing to be afraid of, lad. It’s perfectly safe. And I’ve done it many times. When I was a practicing psychologist, I used it very effectively with a number of my patients.”
         “But, I’m not crazy.”
         “Neither were my patients. Trust me on this, Andy. No harm will come to you. I can hypnotize you in less than a minute. In five minutes, I can ask the questions that will help you recall that “thing” you’ve been unable to remember. And ten minutes from now, we can be sitting here discussing plans to save your life with the new information we’ve uncovered. Whaddya say, lad?”
         “Ten minutes, right?  No more.”
         “Ten minutes. And ‘no more’ is right. No more nightmares. No more monster. No more frightening sounds. Ten minutes and we’ll know how to end the curse.”
         Out of the corner of one eye, Andy watched a shadowy figure pass by a window on his right. When he turned his head, it was gone. A spasm of fear throbbed at his temples.
         “Andy?” The voice sounded as if it came from a distance, at the end of long tunnel.
         “Okay, let’s get it over with.”
















THIRTY-SIX: It’s Over

         “Take three deep breaths. It will relax you,” Doctor Roman said.
         Andy lay on the couch with his hands behind his head. He breathed deeply.
         The doctor took a digital recorder from a drawer in his desk. “ This is a sound-activated recorder. It will turn on or off,  based on whether or not one of us is speaking. When the session is over, you’ll be able to listen back to every word that was said in our ten minutes.”
         “Okay, let’s go.”
         “Relax,” said the doctor. “Now...I want you to watch my eyeglasses as I swinging from this black string. Don’t take our eyes off them. That’s right. Your whole body is relaxing. You’re feeling sleepy. Very heavy. You need to sleep. You want to sleep. When I count to three you’ll in a sleep. When I count to four, you’ll open your eyes and feel wonderful. You’ll feel very rested. Just keep your eyes on the glasses. Watching them swinging back and forth, to and fro, back and forth. I’m going to count now. I’ll count to three, and on three you’ll fall into a deep sleep. Watch the string. Back and forth. One...you’re very relaxed...two...you’re eyelids feel heavy...three. Shut your eyes.” Doctor Roman watched Andy close his eyes. He pulled a chair up close to the couch, sat down and waited a few seconds.”
         “Four, he said, almost in a whisper.
         Andy opened his eyes and bolted upright.
         “Lay back on the couch, Andy. You’re very relaxed. That’s it. Lie there and be comfortable. Now, I want you look at the ceiling and rest your eyes there. There is something you’ve forgotten. Something important you want to remember. I’m going to ask you some questions. You must answer them. You cannot refuse. And when you answer them all you will remember. First, what is your name?”
         Andy stared at the ceiling between rapid blinks. He didn’t look as relaxed as the doctor said he was. He squinted, trying to remember. He said his name.
         “Andy what?”
         “Andy Drewalski.”
         “That’s good. Now tell me: Is there anything going on in your life that is troubling you?”
         “Yes. I have nightmares.”
         “What kind of nightmares?”
         “I see terrible things.”
         “What things?”
         “An ugly man who pursues me. Dead people, all around me. People without heads. My head, without my body.”
         “What else?”
         “I hear a sound. It frightens me.”
         “Why does it frighten you?”
         “Because I can’t identify it. I was able to at one time, but now I don’t remember.”
         “Is there anything else you can tell me about the sound?”
         “It has something to do with death. Something from my past.”
         “How far in your past?          
         “ Very far. Many years have passed.”
         “How old are you, Andy?”
         “I was born seventeen years ago.”
          Doctor Roman sat quietly, considering the last few answers. His mouth turned down at the corners. A small worm of fear slithered around in his stomach. He thought about waking Andy, then decided against it. The wall clock showed that only three minutes of the session had elapsed. “More than enough time,” the doctor said to himself.
         “Andy, I want you to go back in time. I’m giving you the power to turn back the clock and the calendar. Go back now, Andy--go as far back as you must to find out what makes the sound that frightens you. Go back. Keep going back.” Doctor Roman counted off four seconds in his head. “Tell me how far back you’ve gone.”
         Andy said nothing.
         “What is your name?”
         The voice that answered was different. Huskier. With a thick accent. “Andrzej.”
         “What is your family name?”
         Andy tucked his chin toward his neck and closed his eyes half way. He spoke in broken English. “Family name? I don’t know of such thing.”
         “Where are you, Andrzej?”
         “Zamek.”
         “Zamek? What is Zamek?”
         “It is my village. Destroyed now. Many are dead. I will be with them soon.”
         The doctor frowned, weighing what he had just heard and pondering the face of the boy. “Was the sound that frightens you made in Zamek?”
         “Of course.”
         “What is it?”
         “The sound of death.”
         “How do you know this?”
         “Because it is made by the man who pursues me.”
         “Who is this man?”
         “He is Ogodei. In Zamek, he is known as Kat...the executioner. He has vowed to behead me to revenge his death by my hand. My axe. For that he has cursed me and sworn to pursue me and to behead me through many lives.”
         “How does Ogodei know where to find you?”
         “I am always born into the same family. The family that began with Wlad the woodcutter. I am his son, Andrzej.”
         “What happens when he finds you, son of Wlad?”
         Andy’s face twisted in fear. He answered in a voice so haunting it sent a violent shiver through the doctor’s body. “Then he beheads me, and the sound of death is heard again.”
         “What is the sound?”
         “It is the sound of his axe, swinging through the air, slicing through the flesh, and hitting the executioner’s block.”


























THIRTY-SEVEN: Dead

         “Come forward in time now, Andy. There are no more questions. Come back to the present. Can you hear me, Andy? Andy?”
         There was no answer.
         Doctor Roman put down the recorder and leaned over Andy to study his face. “We’re done, lad.  I want you to wake now. He snapped his fingers less than an inch from Andy’s face. Wake up, Andy. I command you to wake. I am in control of you and I demand it. You are awake, NOW.”
         Andy shook his head from side to side. He uttered a single word, “Dead.”  He closed his eyes. The voice was so cold and haunting, it sent a shiver throughout the doctor’s body.
         “Dead? You’re not dead. You’ve only been sleeping. And now I want you to wake up. I’m going to count to three. When you hear ‘three,’ you will wake up and get up from the couch. One...two...THREE.
         Andy remained silent and still.
         The doctor dropped to his knees and took Andy’s left hand and pressed two fingers to his wrist, feeling for a pulse. Slow. Too slow.
         Frantic, he put his fingertips on the boy’s throat and found a heartbeat. Weak. Very weak. He took Andy’s face in hands and shook it. “Hey,” he shouted. He fell back on his heels and an his fingers through his hair. Dear God, help me. I can’t wake him.”
         The light on the recorder lit dimly and began to blink rapidly--red, red, red. Footsteps were heard in the hallway. And then a single sound echoed through the house.
         Thaack!

THE END