Slave: The Ghost of Cambria - Book Two

Chapter Eighteen

Tony arrived at half-past seven to ensure he was present when Kristen's cleaning crew showed up. Penny ran to Tony the moment he opened the front door and rose on her hind legs to deliver a volley of kisses to his cheek.

"She missed you last night," said Kristen, who surprised Tony by being both up and dressed for the day.

"How's that?" he asked, more to the husky than her owner.

"I woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, and she was growling at the walls," said Kristen. "She scared the shit out of me. She was so intense about it, I would've sworn we were in danger."

Tony adopted a defeated expression and gave the dog's mane one last scratch before gently pushing her paws off his chest and back to the ground.

"Well, once upon a time, you would've been," he remarked. "The Black Plague was attributed, in part, to rodents helping to spread the virus, and I'll guess Penny's ancestors still speak to her through her DNA."

Kristen paused her response as if she were unprepared for Tony's statement.

"Did you hear back from the exterminator?" Kristen finally asked.

"I did, and they're going to be here today sometime between noon and six," Tony answered. "But that's only to inspect and determine something it seems we're already certain of. I couldn't guess when the company will be available to do the work the actual work needed to get rid of the problem, or what it's all going to cost."

"Their window of arrival is six hours long?" she squinted with disgust.

"It's a pretty decent job," he answered. "Like water and power, they haven't any need to be accountable for great customer service. There will always be pests in need of disposal."

"I guess," she shook her head.

"Is the cleanup crew still coming at eight this morning?" Tony asked softly.

"Allegedly," answered Kristen.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her, lowering his voice to an intimate register.

Kristen exhaled slowly and offered no other answer for some time. Even then, her voice was filled with so much pain that Tony regretted asking his question. Not because he didn't care to know the answer, but because he did.

"I'm not doing well," she finally said with defeat. "I'm at a crossroads, and I feel myself moving towards the path I know is a mistake."

"Why go that way then?" Tony asked gently.

Kristen shook her head, seeming to be at a loss. "It's something so compelling that I can't help myself. I have to know for sure it's a mistake."

Tony smiled slowly, not knowing how to respond to such a simple answer from this woman who he estimated to be miles smarter than himself.

"What would seal the deal?" he countered. "What would have to happen for you to know a mistake is a mistake?"

Kristen looked at Tony with terrified eyes.

"I've learned something about this place that's changed everything for me," she said in time. "I've had experiences I can't explain or discredit. No, that's not true - I can explain them. But I don't believe in my explanations anymore. These aren't delusions I'm experiencing. This isn't schizophrenia. Schizophrenics don't share delusions this precisely with strangers."

It was Tony's turn to stare at Kristen with grave concern. He didn't know much about schizophrenia, short of TV shows or jokes made about people who had it. Tony understood it was something crazy people had when they saw things or heard voices that weren't there. The homeless woman who walked past him having elaborate conversations with someone who wasn't there - she was schizophrenic. To see a beautiful woman like Kristen, a doctor of all things, say the word and arrive at such a conclusion was inexplicable. Of course, she wasn't schizophrenic. The idea was absurd.

When Tony had finished his line of reasoning, his eyes returned to his boss to find that she was still watching him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know I'm not making any sense to you."

"Then explain it to me," Tony responded, willing himself to keep from disregarding her, to not allow Kristen to recede from speaking honestly.

"After my father passed away," Kristen began slowly, "I started having dreams that I attributed to the shock of losing him. They were intense dreams where I kept seeing this man I'd never met before. And at the end of the dreams, I would wake up and find he was still with me. I saw him with my eyes just as clearly as I see you now."

Tony's eyebrows furrowed sharply at her words, and he had to force himself to relax at her words.

"In the dreams," Kristen continued, "I didn't just see this man, but I began to see the experiences of other people he'd come in contact with. The most startling was of a woman named Pamela Hill. She lived here once - the woman who sold my parents this house years ago. I never met her, I only learned her name a couple weeks ago when I saw it on paperwork that listed her as a previous owner.

"I tracked Ms. Hill down at her retirement home, and she confided in me she's had the same dreams with this stranger. More to the point, he's the ghost of a man who died in this house."

Tony was incensed by Kristen's words. His eyes could see plainly they were perfectly honest, though they rang as a joke, a stupid prank that his brothers would never attempt to sell. He shook his head, holding her gaze.

"I know what you're thinking," she answered his unspoken response. "That I'm having you on."

"Aren't you?" Tony responded, allowing the smile he'd restrained to break on his face.

"Look at my eyes," she told him, "do you see a lie in them?"

Indeed, Tony didn't see anything in Kristen's eyes that gave her away, desperate as he was to find something that would betray the woman's story.

"I don't believe in ghosts," he said, exhaling at a loss to say anything less uncomfortable.

"You don't? Tony, I'm a doctor of psychology. You're speaking to someone who works in a scientific field established specifically to disprove the existence of ghosts and spirits and demons and gods. I don't even believe we have souls - that's all a bunch of fucking nonsense in my view. And yet here I am, talking to someone I hardly know, admitting to something I would sooner shoot myself to avoid telling one of my friends or colleagues back home."

Tony felt the sting of her statement but didn't let his eyes leave her.

"If all that's true, then why are you allowing yourself to believe all that shit?" he asked bluntly. "Why are ghosts the answer to your experience, when you already know they aren't even real enough to land a position on the list of things that might explain it? I'm not saying I can explain why some lady is having the same dreams as you. But why does not knowing the right answer open the door to the wrong one?"

Tony saw her eye twitch in response to his question, and she brought her hands up to cover her face

"Exactly," she said.

The front doorbell rang, inciting an immediate bark from Penelope that broke Tony's focus on Kristen, startling the young man. On the porch were three men, who had quietly come from a large, faceless white van parked on the driveway.

Kristen pulled Penelope back by her collar and walked her back to her bedroom to let Tony open the door and greet their visitors in peace.

"Good morning," one of the men responded to Tony's greeting. "We're here are here for Kristen Cole to perform a biohazard removal."

Tony extended his hand to each of them and welcomed the men inside, along with the large black cases of equipment they carried. As he led the men upstairs and into the master bedroom, all Tony could think of was what Kristen had said to him. He wasn't prepared to call the woman crazy, but it was clear she wasn't well.