Page 61 of After Life
“Hey,” I said, voice reedy with nerves. “Um, so if any of y’all know where Oscar went, I’m listening.”
Only the sound of the wind met my ears.
The sound of the wind and a tiny little plink of sound nearly lost under the roar of blood in my ears.
A seashell lay in the middle of the foyer, rocking gently on the ridged curve of its back, the shiny pink inside glinting in the glare of my flashlight.
There was no surface nearby with shells. And yes, I checked.
“Okay so this isn’t going to be the most scientific response to things but I’m desperate,” I muttered. “The beach?”
No response that I could hear.
“I do know someone who can kick you out of here,” I muttered. “Just saying, if this is a cruel joke or something...”
Quiet. I sighed and nodded to myself. “Okay then. Okay. Beach it is.”
THE STORM WAS STILL turning over us, but we were between bands, so I didn’t have a lot of time to play with. The house had been grimly quiet when I left, slipping through the kitchen door and going around the side where Sandra had parked the minivan. The keys on the kitchen rack had worked and it started in one try. My leg hated the driver’s seat, but it was better and faster than walking.
Bouncing down the long drive, I aimed the van in the direction of the small downtown area and the head of the beach trail. The storm had flattened several palms and ripples of sand and dirt covered the road in parts. The road was built high enough that it didn’t have standing water yet, but as I reached the main part of town, I could see some of the yards and lower spots were flooded. Shingles, bits of siding, lawn furniture and other things that hadn’t been secured were tossed around like a giant had a hissy fit and threw their toys to the ground. It took just a few minutes to get there, the storm still whipping and blowing but not as bad as the night before. I didn’t bother locking it or taking the keys, scrambling from the van with my cane and going as quickly as I safely could to the path, flipping my phone on as I walked.
Before I even reached the beach, I smelled fire fueled by kerosene. The sharp tang of the fuel burned my nose and throat—God, how much did they use? Underneath the petroleum fug, the sweet smell of woodsmoke was starting to grow, cutting into the nauseating edge of the fuel. I pushed myself to go faster, the screaming pain in my hip and leg numbed only by the sight before me. Oscar—or Jeremiah—was on his back between the three bonfires again, this time spread out like he was welcoming the tide, arms flung wide and eyes open to the sky. Ray-Don scraped something into the sand at his feet. Reviving the sigil, I realized. Digging in deep to make it last. Sandra was already dragging stones to fill in the trenches they’d made, keeping the sand from spilling back into the ruts.
Ray-Don stopped mid-action and pulled his clunky phone from his jacket pocket. Shouting at whoever was on the other end, he walked down the beach a ways, leaving Oscar’s form prone and vulnerable.
I moved faster, slipping the last few feet but managing to stay upright. “Oscar,” I panted. “Oscar, listen to me. Oscar, it’s me. I know you’re here. Help me, okay? Push him out. Or whatever it is you need to do. Do you hear me?”
Oscar’s body bowed and he screamed, eyes rolling up in his head as he clawed at his chest, his throat. “No,” he rasped. “Stop! No!”
“Oscar!” I was almost at his side when he went limp, eyes closing, and limbs flopped to his sides.
“Don’t!”
I whipped my head up to see Sandra stumbling down the beach toward me. In her haste to get to the beach, she was clad only in a bathrobe, a threadbare nightshirt, and oversized sneakers that belonged to someone much larger than her. She tripped on the sand, her breath heaving as she staggered closer. “Stop,” she shouted. “You’re going to ruin everything!”
“I know!” I snarled. “Get back!” Grabbing one of the still-burning pieces of wood, I brandished it at her. She drew up short and stared first at my makeshift weapon, then at me.
“Seriously?” she demanded. “Seriously?”
“Stay away from him,” I ordered. “You’re killing him! Who else have you done this to?”
“No one who hasn’t agreed to it,” she shouted over the wind. “My students, they volunteered,” she added on a wild laugh. “They wanted to know, too. They said it was good, that what I was doing...” She shook her head. “They were weak. They got scared. They ruined everything!” The hurricane was past us but the weather was still dangerous, high wind trailing after the storm and the tide higher and rougher than normal. There’s no way I’d be able to get Oscar off the island any time soon, but I wasn’t going to just let them use his body, force him out and kill him.
“Oscar never agreed!”
“He drank the tea,” she said, moving closer. “He chose to do it. I picked him, knew he’d be perfect. He was already so close to the other side it was easy. He didn’t even fight.”
I shoved the torch at her, and she stopped, hands spread. “This is murder.”
“No.” She smiled. “There’s not a single jury in the land that would convict me on that charge. Not over this. Not when Oscar appears before a judge and says he has no idea what you’re talking about, that he’s fine. You’re a scorned ex who can’t handle the fact he’s breaking things off with you to live with me now.”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “Before I met you,” I said to Oscar’s prone form at my feet, “my life was 98 percent less dramatic.”
Sandra’s nose wrinkled and she shook her head. “He’s not here,” she said. “He’s gone. That’s what the Wreckers do, Doctor Weems. They open the veil for the spirit to pass. When the colonists did it, they attributed the veil opening to genius loci or even some mythical sea spirits. It was ghosts, Doctor Weems. Ghosts. Those sea spirits, those Wreckers they were just shipwreck victims, gone before they expected. Jeremiah told me,” she added fiercely. “He found out. He learned, after his own death. The Wreckers don’t cross, but the veil waits for them. It’s always thin here, waiting for them. And it doesn’t discriminate. A spirit is a spirit, whether the body is alive or dead. And Oscar’s been gone since yesterday, since you found him on the beach. If fucking Ray-Don had done his job and stopped babying his incompetent friend, you never would’ve found Oscar.”
“Okay, Scooby villain, now tell me the rest of your evil plan.”
That was possibly the wrong thing to say. She howled in rage, leaping at me and knocking me back before I could sidestep her. I went down hard on my ass, pain shooting through my hip as I landed. She clawed at my face, missing by mere centimeters as I managed to shove her off me, my torch sputtering in the sand just out of reach. “I love him,” she snarled. “You won’t take him from me!”
