A Ghost of Fire Read online

  ***

  The first thing I did upon entering the hotel room was to turn the TV on. If I allowed silence to reign there was no telling what tricks my mind was liable to play on me. I also guessed there was some part of me that did not want to hear if some unearthly noise presented itself.

  I soon found myself perched on the end of the bed half-watching a game show and also trying to figure out my next move. One difficulty I foresaw I was going to have to overcome was how to make it all the way through this mess without coming out the other side looking completely insane. There were certain people who would simply have to never hear a word about it. But was there anybody who I could talk to? I didn’t think there was. I was going to have to find somebody who was ready to believe me without knowing me.

  I thought anybody like that was likely as crazy in reality as people would think I was if I told them what was happening to me. But then again maybe not. The more I thought about it the more I realized my assumptions about people who believed in ghosts or aliens or Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster or anything else like that were colored by my own stance of disbelief. But now what had happened to me? My own solid, rational, disbelieving footing had taken an ugly thrashing in the last twenty-four hours.

  It had been easy for me to stand at a distance and scoff at people who claimed experiences with the unknown or unexplainable. Now I was coming to see my neat and easy to explain world was bursting at the seams with complexity and my threads of simple ignorance could not hold it together for very long.

  I decided to leave open the option of researching ghost experts of some kind, but only as a last resort. I wasn’t entirely sure that was a world I wanted to step into. I needed my laptop from the apartment for that anyway and I wasn’t ready to think about what was required for that task yet. That was for the next day and so the next day could worry about it. There was still plenty of the present day to deal with.

  I looked at all the things I had spread out on the bed beside me. There wasn’t much. My keys, wallet, a handful of change from my pocket and a paperback book I kept in the car at all times in case I got stuck in traffic or a waiting room. I didn’t feel much like reading but the book sparked an idea. I didn’t need my laptop to do all the research I wanted. A former English teacher should have thought of it sooner.

  The library would be closed because it was Sunday but the larger chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble would be open for part of the day. I had spent a lot of time in bookstores when I wasn’t searching for a job. I didn’t buy much anymore but I did use the stores as my off-hours library. They were about to become my new research centers.

  “That’s where I’m going next,” I said. But I didn’t want to leave the hotel just yet. I needed a little down time where I wasn’t thinking about things that went bump in the night.

  I began to flip through the channels. A sitcom here, an infomercial there. Most of it was useless drivel. I couldn’t imagine who would finance half the things which showed up on the screen.

  As I passed through channel after channel I noticed something that made me backtrack. It was a movie and the scene showed a building on fire. A firefighter was trapped inside while his friends worked feverishly outside to rescue him. I watched transfixed for a few minutes and discovered a rising sense of panic. It got so bad I had to turn the TV off.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Steve.” I wondered at nerves that were so bad that I couldn’t handle watching a tense clip from a movie without freaking out. I realized my nerves were probably on edge but didn’t think that was all there was to it. I had felt compelled to go back to the channel after passing it. I also did not believe my sense of panic was brought on solely by being caught up in the movie.

  It had washed upon me like a wave of murky intuition, like I could hear someone standing and shouting from a beach but couldn’t discern the exact words because I was being pulled under. I should somehow just know why I needed to go back and watch the scene from the movie but it completely escaped me. That had happened to me a lot since the previous day. I wondered if maybe I was losing my mind.

  I imagined life inside a small padded room with a constant belief that I was being persecuted by invisible spirits. I visualized what it would be like trying to explain my fears to psychiatrists and orderlies only to be locked up and never taken seriously again. I couldn’t face being labeled ‘nuts’ and shut out from the rest of the world. I had already lost so much. I couldn’t lose my freedom too. I resolved to take my steps very carefully from here on out.

  The bed groaned as I stood up and gathered the few things from the bed next to where I’d sat, but I left the paperback book. I never knew why I chose to leave it behind. It just didn’t occur to me that I’d want it with me.

  I looked at the TV again and then walked to the door and opened it. Stepping out into the clear early afternoon I took a deep breath. There were a few other cars parked in the hotel’s lot but not many. I surveyed the area close by, gathering my bearings.

  The hotel was located on a main street near a lot of restaurants and stores. I had chosen it because I wanted to be close to a lot of people and activity. I also knew there was a big bookstore about ten miles down the road, and that’s where I decided to go next.

  “Please let me find something helpful,” I prayed. My mind was just beginning to open up to the possibility of things I never would have considered before. I also, however, knew the world was full of conmen who would take advantage of people every opportunity they could. And I knew many of them could write books.

  I trotted over to the car and checked to make sure there was nobody waiting in the back seat before I got in. Sliding into the low riding Honda I thought about how paranoid I was becoming. But I also felt it was understandable and believed no one else in my position would hold that against me.

  It wasn’t long until I’d found my way to the familiar bookstore and ended up standing at the information desk. I waited until a sales associate appeared out of an aisle of bargain priced books. She was short and slender with shoulder length red hair. A pair of black horn rimmed glasses adorned her face and simple pearl earrings sparkled from beneath her hair. I didn’t recognize her, which meant she was new. A metallic, rectangular name tag displayed the name Katie.

  “Hi, can I help you with something,” she asked in a soft voice.

  “Yeah,” I replied, trying to sound casual. “I’m looking for something about ghosts. Where would I find that?”

  “Fiction or non-fiction,” Katie asked.

  “Non.”

  “Right this way,” she said without a hint of judgment on her face.

  I followed her and we passed shelves marked New Age, Astrology and UFOs to a section labeled Supernatural on a board above the shelves. I briefly glanced over all the strange volumes, overwhelmed by the chore in front of me.

  “Are you looking for anything specific?” She smiled her retail smile at me.

  “Well, I don’t really know. I’m really just kind of browsing right now,” I said, not looking at her because I was already absorbed by the titles on the shelves. I sighed. This was going to be a lot of work.

  “Okay, well if you need any help just come back to the info desk and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  She turned and walked back the way we’d come. I watched her go and found myself checking her out. As she turned a corner she looked back and saw me watching her. Embarrassed, I quickly looked away, but thought I saw her smiling as she disappeared behind the row of shelves.

  “Not now,” I told myself. “You’ve got more important things to do.”