Amazon.com
Category:
Horror
Type: Fiction
When I left McKarey's Bluff ten years ago, I never planned to return. Ariel Morgan had refused to marry me and there was nothing left to stay for. Now Ariel is dead, supposedly by her own hand, and her younger sister, Rachel, is spiraling toward that same fate. Rachel used to be in love with me, maybe even more than Ariel. But she was a kid then. Now I'm returning to save a woman. And McKarey's Bluff is a small town haunted by more than Ariel's death. Years ago fifteen prostitutes disappeared. Sometimes the ghosts come back, not that I believe in them. But something isn't right here, and I'm seeing things I can't explain. I came to save Rachel, but I'm not even sure I can save myself anymore.
Excerpt
Chapter One
When people ask, “Do you believe in ghosts?” I want to tell them it doesn’t matter. It’s the dead who have the power. Nothing happens unless the dead believe in the living. Right now there’s a whole lot of believing going on as I stand on the banks of McKarey’s Bluff, a strong hot breeze buffeting Blackjack and mesquite leaves against each other while forcing the clusters of Queen Anne’s Lace to dance.
Beyond the flowers and trees, I watch a lone figure standing at the cliff’s edge, her bare feet pale against the dark stones and earth. The wind whips her long curly hair. Her shoulders seem so pale as though sunlight has forsaken her skin, and the light brown of her dress only accents the difference. Staring at her, I recognize that instead of a ghost haunting a landscape, it haunts her.
“Rachel,” I call, aware that she has inched forward. Her body is now parallel to the cliff wall.
No answer.
I sense the coming fall. I rush toward her, my arms outstretched, reaching. Her body begins tilting. My arms encircle her and drag her from the edge. “Rachel!” I demand of her closed eyes and pale face.
No answer.
I lift her limp body into my arms, aware that the frail flesh and bone is all that tethers her to this world. Holding her tells me just how little is left beneath that cotton shift and how much has fallen to the cliff below already--pieces of her I could not save.
It has been a month since Ariel’s death, her body broken upon the rocks below, and Rachel is mute in grief for her sister. Still, she cannot resist the daily pilgrimage to this stretch of wildflowers and danger. The walks along the steep edge have lengthened until she spends hours, scouring the earth for something Ariel left behind. It is the image of Rachel at the cliff which brought me home when Ariel’s funeral could not. Sheriff Silas Owens called me, said he knew I’d always had a soft spot for the Morgan girls.
Maybe he couldn’t change Ariel’s death but he’d be damned if he’d watch the younger sister also break her body against the foot of McKarey’s Bluff.
So that’s what returned me to a backwards Texas town not even a dot on most respectable maps. That’s what made me hold Rachel in my arms, her body weighted with the past I thought I’d shed when I left McKarey’s Bluff in the rear-view mirror ten years ago, still reeling from Ariel’s rejection at a ring that cost four months of a hell on a construction site. And when I got word of her death, an apparent suicide, I thought back to that ring I’d thrown into McKarey’s Bend and wondered what had happened.
A safe distance from the cliff, I set Rachel amid the wildflowers and grass. She stirs slightly and I stare at her profile, aware her oval face and slender nose resemble Ariel’s like my left hand matches my right. Rachel was the younger sister I never had, but God help me, all I can see is Ariel at this moment. That’s all I want to see. The same blue-black curls and full lips. I lean closer, intoxicated. Then her eyes flutter open.
Ariel is gone.
“Matt?” she whispers, blinking three times. “What happened?”
I sit back, trying to ignore the hammer of my heart. “You fainted. I carried you from the edge.”
“Thank you.” She slowly sits up and touches her temple, her mouth twisting into a painful grimace. “I want…to go…home.” The sun streams through her hair.
Nodding, I stand, wondering if she is strong enough to walk. “Can you manage?” I offer a hand to help her rise. She nods and takes it.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just haven’t eaten much today.”
I shake my head. “And that’s different from every other day how?”
She crosses her arms over her abdomen, a futile attempt to hide the thinness. “I just don’t have much of an appetite these days.”
One last look at the cliff, and without pause, I am drawn back in time as the lore about McKarey’s Bluff rises in my thoughts. An old building used to stand about twenty feet from the parked car we head toward, and you can still find the outline of the concrete foundation and cornerstone, but that’s it. The rest is buried in a watery grave off the cliff.
I raise my hand to shield my eyes so I can look toward the sun, envisioning the two-story structure once there, a whore house. In 1890, fifteen young prostitutes and their madam vanished without a trace. Years since, many people thought they’d seen ghosts out here. We’ve even had some Hollywood ghost hunters out from time to time, but if there’s a camera involved, those specters become awfully shy so there’s no proof of anything.
“Matt?” Rachel says, staring at me, waiting as I open the passenger door for her.
“Yeah?” I touch her shoulder, gently nudging her to the seat.
“Do you see them, too?”
Alarmed that I might have missed something, I scan the landscape. The wind barely blows and stillness sits like birds on the tree branches. Save the two of us in my Cherokee, the land appears undisturbed. “See who?”
“The woman by the cliff.”
I frown, squinting even harder but I see no one. “There’s no one there, Rachel.”
Confused, she looks back at the cliff. “Oh, I guess you’re right.” Pale, she leans against the seat and closes her eyes. Her long hair spills down the front of her shift in loose corkscrew curls. As if she wants to speak, her full lips part but silence and breath are all that come out.
Frowning in concern, I try to reconcile the woman I left behind with the one sitting in my seat. Before her sister’s death, the sun colored her skin a vibrant tan, and the warmth of her laughter diffused a red glow in her cheeks. But this Rachel is pale and weak. So weak.
I start the car and begin backing away. “Why did you leave McKarey’s Bluff in the first place?” she asks, her eyes still closed.
Gritting my teeth, I grab the visor to block the vicious sunlight. “You know why, Rachel.”
“Because of Ariel.” She turns toward the windshield. “Not like you have anything to worry about anymore.”
My body stiffens and I struggle to breathe beneath the weight of her accusation. “I loved her, Rachel. You know that.”
She nods like she’s agreeing but I don’t think that is what is going on.
“You loved her so much you didn’t even come back for her funeral?”
As if my foot is responding, I punch the gas pedal, throwing both our heads against the seat. Then I let off, trying to figure out why every little thing she says is aimed at me like a bullet. Her sister is dead and you don’t seem to give a shit, a little voice in my head replies.
“It’s been ten years since I left, Rachel. Ariel and I weren’t even close anymore, and I knew I couldn’t handle seeing her body like a sculpture lying in that casket.” I swallowed hard, feeling the edge of a dagger I hadn’t meant to unsheathe.
“You never said goodbye.” Her whispered voice breaks with pain. She toys with an object in her hand, and I wait until her palm opens enough so I can get a better glimpse at what she holds. A golden ring with a round solitaire diamond. Ariel’s ring. I slam on the brakes. A truck honks from behind and then speeds around my vehicle. “Where did you get that?”
Her fingers clamp around it and she jerks it out of my reach. “Ariel gave it to me.”
“She couldn’t have,” I argue. “Where did you get it?” Another car honks and whizzes around us.
Leaning her head back against the seat, she closes her eyes. “Ariel gave it to me. I don’t care if you don’t believe me.”
For a moment I want to shake her and force the truth, but then I realize it doesn’t matter how the ring ended up in her hand. It was meaningless in mine once Ariel turned me down. Besides, I can tell that Rachel is too tired to continue Twenty Questions today. Okay, maybe I did just get into town last night, and this is the first I’ve really seen of Rachel. I know dead tired when it looks back with glazed eyes and speaks in a voice deepened with pain. My guess is that she’s not doing much eating or sleeping.
I push the gas pedal and start driving again, unsure what to say. I could tell her where the ring ended up the last time I saw it, but chances are, she’s freaked out enough without me adding to that fact. So instead of silence, I say, “Let’s hit the Taco Tico on the way to your place.”
“I’m not really hungry,” she says in a faraway voice dusted with fatigue.
“Tough. You passed out earlier, probably from not enough food. Now you have to suffer from taco indigestion.”
I half expect her to continue arguing. The old Rachel would have. Instead she remains as still as a stone and just as quiet the whole drive back into town.
Even when I coast to the drive-thru window, she doesn’t shift in the seat.
As I order, I glance at her chest, and judging by the steady rise and fall, she’s bye-bye this world and on to the one where whatever dreams she still has live.
I pay the money and grab the bag before pulling out of the parking lot. As I drive down main street, the only road fronted by buildings sans crosses and bell towers, I notice how worn the buildings have become. Even with new paint slathered on the structures, you can’t hide old lumber that’s stood upright too many years. I can’t help but think of porcelain dental veneers. It’s the same old eyesores just disguised to be more politically correct. Buried under the paint is still the same small town settled by my great grandfather. It seems quaint enough at first. Passersby first notice the children riding bikes up and down the streets and playing hide and seek. They assume it’s just like every other town. But if you look hard enough, you’ll realize a subtle discrimination of white picket fences, white children, white houses, and white letters on signs. You can paint things however you want. The sun will still age it. The rain will wear at it. The wind will peel it until the underbelly shows, and eventually white isn’t as pretty as it once was.
I drive to Rachel’s, a two-story wood frame house with lots of interesting alcoves and nooks. Ariel had actually picked it out, and the two girls lived together. Just like there had only been one Ariel, this grey house stands unique in its mouldering neo-gothic shell with its alcove windows and wooden shingles.
The place gives me the willies.
“Rach, we’re here.” I slip the keys into my pocket and nudge her. She slowly sits up, her eyes glassy with fatigue. “Why don’t we eat inside?”
“Okay.” She pulls the house key from her purse and stumbles from the Cherokee toward the house. As she opens the screen door, she slips the keys into the lock. She fights with it for a moment before the knob turns, allowing us entry.
“Did you have a nice nap?”
She shrugs. “I seem to fall asleep at the drop of a hat these days.”
I follow her into the foyer and close the door behind me before carrying the food into the kitchen where Rachel is already pulling out plates and glasses. Setting the bag on the counter, I tug open the fridge, looking for juice or soda. Although I know she hadn’t been eating much, I didn’t expect to find an almost completely empty stack of white shelves staring back at me. Except for a jar of pickles and another of mayonnaise, there is nothing edible —the rotting tomatoes don’t count as they are well past ripe and onto liquefaction.
“I can see why you haven’t been eating these days. You have so many choices.”
Rachel grins sheepishly and sets the plates on the table.
"Yeah, I know. I’ve been meaning to do something about it, but I never get around to it.”
“And now I guess we will. Right after dinner I’ll take you to the grocery store.” I grab the glasses and fill them with water.” I can’t believe I drove all the way back from Virginia just to make sure you are eating right.”
“That’s not why you drove back here, Matt,” she counters, grabbing the bag of tacos.
“Part of it was.” I set the glasses on the table and then slide into the chair across from her.
“And the other part?” She put two tacos on my plate.
Frowning, I don’t really want to tell her that Sheriff Owens is afraid she’ll leap off of McKarey’s Bluff just like Ariel did. So I don’t. “Just stuff.”
She unwraps a taco and shakes her head. “Bull. I’ve seen the way everybody looks at me like I’m gonna break in half or something. Somebody tracked you down and told you I was going around the bend.”
I, too, unwrap a taco. “You’re not going around the bend.” I manage, pretending a greater interest in the taco than what I really have.
“Damned straight I’m not,” she snaps indignantly. “It’s not my fault I see the ghosts at the Bluff.”
No, I think, it probably isn’t. Grief does a lot of strange things to people, and considering how close Rachel and
Ariel had been, it wouldn’t surprise me that she believed she saw ghosts. I take a bite, unsure how to respond even as she openly stares at me, her slender fingers trembling as she eats.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” she demands.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, Rach,” I finally respond, my voice gravelly from all the things I don’t say, like the fact that I do believe in ghosts that haunt the human heart but that’s about it.
Rachel gazes down at her plate. “I knew you’d say that.” Her mouth is set in a tight frown, the kind of line that doesn’t bend for laughter.
“How’d you know that?” I ask between bites.
“It’s the same thing everyone else says, Matt. So that only leaves the crazy option.”
I finish one taco and wad the thin outer wrap into a ball. “You’ve been through hell. Are you expecting that there won’t be moments when your life is nuts and feels like the walls are closing in around you? Especially after having lost your sister? You’re under an incredible amount of stress.”
I unwrap the second taco, carefully avoiding the heavy spots of grease dotting the paper.
“You’re acting like it’s completely normal to see ghosts.” She shakes her head in disbelief.
“You wouldn’t be the first person to see the ghost of a recently deceased relative.” I reach for my glass and take a sip. “History is full of accounts like yours.”
“It’s not just Ariel’s ghost. It’s also the ghosts of the women who died in the brothel.” She licks her lips nervously and takes a tentative bite. The color has faded from her cheeks and she appears tired.
“It doesn’t matter, Rach.” These words are empty, I know. But what else can I say? She’s broken inside and healing takes time and distance. “I think that given enough time, whatever you are seeing will go away.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand, Matt. These ghosts don’t really want me. They know you. They ask for you.”
Frowning, I mentally sort through possibilities to explain Rachel’s ‘ghosts,’ the most likely theory being exhaustion and dreams. Besides, I still sense Rachel’s longing for me. Time and despair might’ve tempered it, but nothing has erased it. “You’ve not been sleeping at night. It wouldn’t surprise me if you started seeing the Stay Puff Marshmallow man either.”
Leaning back in the chair, Rachel glares at me, her bottom lip quivering slightly. “You think this is funny?”
Not really wanting to meet her gaze, I instead peer at her plate, aware that she’s only taken a few bites.
“Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have made a joke, but when you tell me that a ghost is asking for me by name, what else can I do?”
“Take me seriously.” She rises from the table. “You can show yourself out.”
Unsure of what just happened, I stare at her retreating back. “Hey, I’m sorry I made you mad.”
She keeps walking until vanishing around the corner, and that’s when I realize how big of a mistake I must have made. This familiar scene pretty much sums up why I’m professing a bachelor status until I die. After all, I hadn’t known how to respond to Ariel’s rejection of my proposal and just left to avoid awkward silences between us. Now I’ve offended Rachel. I’m no good at the finer conversational points when it matters. I mean, I want to call Rachel back to dinner because she needs to eat but I haven’t a clue how to handle her ghosts. Or my own. I could tell her that sometimes it’s just too hard to believe people die and we invent ghosts so that maybe they never really leave us but I think Rachel would just tell me I’m full of crap and to keep it to myself.
Speaking of leaving, I finish my last taco in two bites and then clean up the dinner table before I lock the front door and get into the Cherokee.
I start for the motel, but then I find myself driving back to McKarey’s Bluff. Maybe it’s foolishness, perhaps just dumb curiosity, one thing’s for certain: it’s not about the ghosts. I don’t believe in them.
I step away from the vehicle. Even the wind isn’t breathing. Although lots of trees stand nearby, no birds nestle in the branches, giving new meaning to the word stillness. Surveying the landscape, I walk to the edge of the cliff and peer at the rocky shore below, trying not to imagine Ariel’s body below. Too late. It is bent by the jagged rocks. Her long dark hair flows around her head, still bobbing in the water. Although one leg is twisted unnaturally, there is no blood. For all intents, she appears sleeping. Yet this is in my head. I must imagine the scene without blood or pain because only then can I breathe without the catch in my throat. Only then can I believe I can help Rachel without drowning in my own grief.
I blink and Ariel’s body is gone. The water laps at the rocks lazily but it is a silent motion as though God muted this landscape. Sweat beads on my forehead, and my mind goes back to the last time I’d been to the Bluff before today. Ten years previous, Ariel and I had driven out here to share a picnic lunch. We’d brought a camera and had snapped some shots over by the old foundation blocks before putting a blanket on the ground and spreading the contents of the basket out—a feast of ham sandwiches, potato salad, and Jell-O.
It was a summer day—August fifteenth to be exact, and although we hadn’t had much rain, the grass still seemed green and soft. Then again, maybe that was just the effect that Ariel had on me. I could find blue skies and sunshine in the worst thunderstorm so long as I knew I’d see Ariel soon. Between the two of us, we didn’t have a lot of money, especially with me saving up for her wedding ring and paying it off.
That’s where a bit of romance and picnic lunches came in.
“It looks great, Ariel,” I said, kneeling beside her. “I can’t wait to eat!”
She laughed, her dark curls framing her face wildly. “Yeah, it’s a real gourmet meal. At least the Bluff is pretty this time of year.”
“Not as pretty as you are.” I caught her hand. “Look, Ariel, there’s something I wanted to talk with you about. It’s kind of important.” With my free hand, I grabbed the ring box and slid it into her hand.
“What’s this?” she asked, opening her palm, each finger drawing back like separate flower petals. At the center she discovered the navy ring box, and her gaze lifted from the box to my face and then headed back to the box. With trembling hands, she flipped open the lid, and once she caught sight of it, one hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Matt. You shouldn’t have.”
I squeezed her hand. “I love you, Ariel. I always have. I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy.” I watched her face, expecting joy but her expression remained unchanged, and she refused to meet my gaze. I tried to meet her halfway, leaning over her, but I couldn’t swim in the ocean of her eyes. “Well, is that a yes?”
“I love you, too, Matt.”
I stiffened immediately, sensing all my dreams falling at the wayside. “But?”
“I can’t marry you.” She slowly closed the box and set it in my open palm. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Why? At least tell me that?” My voice took on an edge that I couldn’t soften as I clenched the box and shoved it into my jeans pocket. “You’ve admitted that you love me. So why won’t you say yes?”
“I do love you,” she replied, brushing an errant curl from her face. “But there are others to think about, not just us.”
Furious, I stood. “Ariel, this is the rest of our lives I’m talking about. So what if our decision to get married affects others? Why do we need their permission?”
“It’s not about permission,” she managed weakly.
“That’s not what you just said.”
Ariel rose and slid her arms around me while resting her face against my back. “I love you, Matt. I always have.”
“Just not enough to marry me,” I finished for her, so damned confused by the way her body holding me seemed to shout love but her words rejected me at each turn.
“That’s not it,” she insisted, tightening her embrace, as if that could convince me of her honest intentions. “It’s Rachel.”
Clenching my teeth, I loosened her hands and escaped her embrace altogether. “What does your sister have to do with this?” I stared at the cliff, hedging closer to it just to put some distance between me and Ariel, aware of the stillness around me, broken only by her following my steps.
“Rachel has been crazy about you since the two of you met. She first mentioned you as the guy she planned to marry. We met a few days later.” Despite my close proximity to the jagged ground just before the Bluff, Ariel stepped in front of me, her fingers once again clasping mine.
“It was a crush, Ariel. That’s it. She’s a good kid, but a kid just the same. She’ll eventually understand.”
Arching an eyebrow, Ariel stared at me expectantly. “Oh, you think so? Just like she got over the wreck that killed Mom and Dad?” She nervously chewed her bottom lip. “She needs to feel like her world is stable. That’s why I can’t marry you.” She slid one hand beneath my chin and tried to get me to look at her but I refused.
“What about what we need, Ariel? Doesn’t that matter?” I caught her hand and squeezed tightly. “I want to grow old with you and wake up every day beside you.” Although I felt the tremors of anger running through me, I didn’t realize I was pressing against Ariel until she started to lose her balance toward the Bluff. My fingers cinched around hers and I snapped her body toward mine so I could wrap my arms around her.
“Careful,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said in a breathy voice. Lifting a hand, she touched my face. “I know this isn’t what you want, Matt. But right now I’m all that Rachel has, and I’m afraid that if we get married, she won’t even feel like she has that.”
Realizing she’d made up her mind, I stepped back and caught her hand. “So that’s it?” I kept backing up, wondering how in the hell four years of our lives and ended up like we’d thrown them over the side of the Bluff. “Damn you, Ariel. And damn Rachel, too.”
A small voice inside of me kept telling me to wait, to listen, but I didn’t. I wanted a life with Ariel more than I ever wanted anything but I didn’t see that as a possibility anymore. So I left her there along with her engagement ring that I threw into the water. A few ripples cast out from its landing before the water stilled again, swallowing the last symbol of love for a woman who understood loyalty better than I ever would.
I look at the rear-view mirror and see not just the changing landscape but also my blue eyes and sandy hair. I keep waiting for time to catch me, but I guess I’m like Rachel and Ariel in that time doesn’t seem to alter my appearance, only the landscape of my heart.
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