Six

“YOU KNOW WHAT you get when you cross a spider with a snake and a bat?” Beulah asked.

Franklin shook his head. It sounded like the start of a joke that he didn’t know, the kind Darryl would tell.

Franklin and Julie sat out in the backyard of Beulah’s shack, perched on the remains of stumps carefully placed around a great bonfire pit. The sun peeked over the surrounding trees. Birds sang wildly just beyond the edge of the trees, while the cicadas cycled up and down. The woods smelled of mulch and green things, freshly growing.

Next to the house was a well-kept coop for the chickens, with a pen for the birds to scratch in. They’d gone back to quietly clucking to themselves once they’d realized no feed was coming.

It reminded Franklin of Lexine’s cabin, though she had more garden in her backyard. She also took care of her place more. However, this was Beulah’s…focus spot, for want of a better term. Franklin would bet that she spent a lot of time with the bonfire going, feeding the flames and reading the smoke.

“That blade weren’t merely forged. It were conjured, constructed to take lives—souls—and suck them free of a body,” Beulah said. She paced in front of Franklin and Julie, from one side of the bonfire pit to the other.

Franklin shivered in the bright daylight. “So the knife’s evil,” he said.

“No, it ain’t,” Beulah said. “Weren’t no demons or otherworldly creatures involved. All natural.”

“But you said it takes souls,” Franklin protested.

“Taking a soul don’t make it evil,” Beulah interrupted. “Y’all have raised chickens, right?”

Franklin nodded. He hadn’t, actually, raised chickens. Though he liked eggs well enough, it was just him, and the stupid birds weren’t worth the bother.

But he had slaughtered Sweet Bess, the hog he’d raised. She’d been much more like a dog than a pig. A big, nasty, mean dog, but still. So he understood what Beulah was getting at.

“It’s what you do with the soul afterward that makes it good or bad,” Beulah explained. “It were originally created for sacrifices. A way of honoring their gods.”

“Their gods?” Franklin asked. It didn’t surprise him too much that it was a foreign knife.

“There’s more out there than just your white-bearded old man,” Beulah warned.

Julie squeezed Franklin’s hand in warning when he would have spoken up.

Instead, he nodded, keeping his words to himself. “So it weren’t created to do evil,” he clarified. “But it weren’t created to do good, either.”

Beulah shrugged. “It could do good,” she said. “In the right hand.”

Franklin pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything, though he didn’t see how taking souls could ever be a good thing.

“The blade’s history is cloudy after its maker was slaughtered,” Beulah said. “It wasn’t being used much, and when it was used, it wasn’t being used right. It wasn’t doing what it was created to do.”

She paused, then fixed Franklin with a hard stare. “It woke up when it was in your hand,” she told Franklin. “Wanting to take the souls of those ghosts of yours.”

Franklin gulped. He remembered sitting at the kitchen table, holding the blade, threatening the ghosts of Mama and Gloria. It weren’t his proudest moment.

“So what would it do with those souls?” Franklin asked after a moment.

“What would you want for it to do with them?” Beulah countered.

“Send them Beyond,” Franklin said. “Help them pass through.” When Beulah looked at him, puzzled, Franklin added, “Ghosts get stuck sometimes.”

Beulah smiled like a cat who’d just gotten into the cream. “Ghosts, eh?” she asked.

Franklin felt his back stiffen. “Yes, ma’am.” He weren’t about to deny it.

“Would what you be doing with the knife be evil?” Beulah asked.

“No, ma’am,” Franklin said firmly. “But it would be cheatin’. To just send ’em on. Not let ’em work out what they needed to do before they left.”

Beulah gave Julie a huge grin at that. “He’s a keeper,” she commented casually.

“Yes, ma’am, he is,” Julie said, squeezing his hand.

Even though the women couldn’t see him blush, Franklin suspected that neither woman needed to see his skin turn red to know what it was he was feeling.

“So the blade was meant to take souls,” Franklin said, trying to get the conversation back on track. “What is the doctor gonna do with it?”

“Doctor?” Beulah asked.

“The man who stabbed me with the knife. He was wearing doctor clothes,” Franklin explained. “Scrubs.”

“Doctors generally heal people,” Beulah said.

“They can also kill,” Julie added quietly. “Like the ones who decide that someone has suffered enough. Help them on.”

“Angel of mercy,” Beulah said. “Could see that.”

“Is that really evil?” Franklin asked. He wouldn’t have wanted Mama to suffer after her heart attack, if it hadn’t killed her outright.

Beulah cocked her head to one side. “What you do with your ghosts isn’t evil. But using the knife, you said it would be cheating. That doctor of yours, he’s looking for a cheat. A shortcut. To something.”

“To what?”

“Power.”

Ξ

Franklin walked out the front door of Beulah’s shack with Julie in front of him. As she walked to the car, Beulah wrapped one of her meaty hands around Franklin’s arm, stopping him.

“You know, that blade liked you,” she said.

Up close, Beulah smelled of dirt and not enough baths, her breath foul with rot.

But he didn’t try to get away, despite how uncomfortable he was with anyone touching him. Instead, he shrugged.

He didn’t feel the same way about the blade.

“It’s still connected to you,” Beulah added.

“What do you mean?” Franklin asked, alarmed.

Beulah paused. “Don’t know rightly how to explain it. But it left a part of itself—a ghost, maybe—inside you. When you was stabbed.”

Franklin shivered. He didn’t like the sound of that at all. Though that was exactly how it felt.

Julie was at the side of the car door and had turned back, realizing that Franklin wasn’t behind her. He raised his hand, reassuring her that he was okay, that she should stay there.

“It was why I was able to give you so many details about its history,” Beulah said. “Normally, I gots to touch something to know so much about it. But it’s in your blood.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Franklin said when Beulah didn’t have anything more to add. He tugged his arm gently free.

“I ever have any ghost problems, I’m sending them to you,” Beulah added as Franklin crossed back to the car.

Franklin nodded. That was only fair. Though he’d also given Beulah most of the money in his wallet for the reading.

As they backed out of the clearing, Julie asked, “You okay?”

Franklin sighed, but decided he needed to keep telling Julie the truth. “That knife wound? It’s never felt right.” He didn’t tell her it still felt as though the blade was in his side—that Beulah had just told him it might be.

Julie nodded, reaching over and squeezing his knee. “Let me know how I can help.”

Franklin didn’t have a clue. Maybe he could go visit Preacher Sinclair. Have him pray the ghost of the blade out of his side.

Though, somehow, he doubted that would be enough.

Ξ

Franklin puzzled and puzzled all through dinner about what the doctor (since that seemed to be what they was now calling the man who’d stabbed him) wanted to do with that blade, that soul stealer.

They’d stopped at a roadside diner, one that promised authentic home cooking and heavenly pies. It fit with Franklin’s idea of a diner, with red vinyl booth seats, a cracked linoleum floor, and pictures of the local baseball team—going back decades—pasted all around the cash register.

The waitress who’d served them was probably barely out of high school and pregnant. At least she looked happy about it, snapping her gum as she took their order, coming back often to see how they was doing.

The chicken-fried steak wasn’t as good as Mama’s—nothing would ever top that. But it was a close second, and the mashed potatoes was perfect, with just the right amount of whip and butter in them to make them fluffy.

Still, Franklin couldn’t pay as much attention to the food as it deserved, his mind too preoccupied.

Finally, after the dinner plates had been removed and they was waiting on pie, he asked Julie, “Have you figured out what the doctor wanted with that blade?”

Julie shook her head. “You said it took a lot of energy to conjure your mama up.”

“It did,” Franklin said. “It must have taken a lot from him to bring back those other two ghosts too. But why did he do it?”

“Well, by bringing them back, he was able to make you go and get that blade,” Julie pointed out.

Franklin gave a low whistle. “He’s smart. Came up with the only thing that would make me dig it up.”

“Why do you think he didn’t try to dig it up himself?” Julie asked.

Franklin snorted. “That thorn bush weren’t tame. It took a lot to defeat it. Plus, Darryl would have shot anyone he thought was trespassing in his backyard. No, he had to wait until I got it.”

“You could ask Georgia if he came snooping around the house any,” Julie pointed out.

“Not sure what good that would do,” Franklin said. “He already has the blade. The question is what’s he gonna do with it?”

“If he raises more of the dead, brings back ghosts, could he take their souls?” Julie asked.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Franklin said. He smiled at Julie.

Normally, Franklin didn’t believe in touching in public. Particularly not a nice white woman like Julie, particularly not a new place he’d never been at before. In a town like this.

But he really wanted to take her hand across the table. He tried, instead, to show her how he felt about her with his eyes, how much he admired how smart she was. “So he raises ghosts back up, brings them out of their well-earned rest—or rips them out of Heaven—and then…does what with them?”

“I don’t know,” Julie said. “With the blade, he could then take their souls and use them, somehow.”

“Got to be something big, though,” Franklin said. “If it takes so much out of him to raise them in the first place. It’s gotta be something big. Some kind of big magic or spell.”

Franklin felt distinctly uncomfortable with those words coming out of his mouth. He didn’t cast spells or dabble in magic. He just did his duty, helping ghosts along.

This doctor, though, he did something more like what a witch would do.

“If he is a doctor, or was, then he might be trying to heal someone,” Julie said.

“Or something,” Franklin pointed out. “Like a wound in the earth.” Just healing a single person wouldn’t take that much effort. Not if the doctor could raise the dead.

Just then, their pies arrived. Franklin’s still steamed from being fried on the grill, the vanilla ice cream melting perfectly beside it.

It sure looked heavenly.

And so did Julie, sitting across from him. Even if he couldn’t take her hand. It was as close to perfect as he was likely to get in this world.

Something even that blade couldn’t cut through.

Ξ

Full and satisfied, Franklin let out a small belch as they was driving home.

“Sorry. Excuse me,” he said, apologizing to Julie, not feeling sorry, not one bit. He was too damned content to feel bad.

Julie just grinned at him. “That was mighty good.”

“It sure was,” Franklin said. While Franklin loved cooking with Julie on their nights in, he also enjoyed going out with her.

Feeling daring, he reached across the divide between them and lightly touched her thigh.

Julie dropped one hand down from the steering wheel and wrapped it around his.

Though Franklin was still injured, and Julie was a nurse and a stickler for taking it easy, maybe they could still spend some time making out on the sofa that night.

Suddenly, the pain in Franklin’s right side spiked hard, where the knife had been plunged into him. He couldn’t help but twitch, abruptly squeezing Julie’s thigh hard.

“Sorry,” he said, removing his hand. Then he gasped as the next wave of pain hit.

“Franklin?” Julie asked, worried. “What’s goin’ on?”

“The knife,” Franklin gasped. The pain intensified, a single steel point of lava burning in his side.

As quickly as it had come, the pain left, leaving Franklin panting.

Julie had already pulled over to the shoulder of the highway. She had one hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up,” she murmured. “Infection?”

“No,” Franklin said, grabbing onto her wrist when she would have pulled away. “At least, that’s not what I think it is.” He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to sort out what was going on.

The knife—no, the blade—was in pain.

“The doctor’s doing something to the blade,” Franklin finally got out. “It has three prongs on it, right?”

“Yes,” Julie said, still worried.

“The doctor…oh, jeez…the doctor is shaving away one of them,” Franklin ground out.

“How do you know?” Julie asked, worried.

“The blade’s calling out to me,” Franklin told her. “It’s still connected to me. Like it left something inside me. When the doctor stabbed me with it.”

Julie frowned at him. “Have you been feeling that since the start?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Franklin said. “I didn’t want to tell you, though. I didn’t want to worry you.”

Even in the dim light, Julie’s glare was strong enough to make Franklin wince again, and not from the pain in his side.

“You need to tell me that kind of thing,” Julie said. “You got to share. Or we’re never gonna make it. Not long term.”

Franklin blinked. He knew that he wanted for them to make it, for them to keep being a couple. For them to maybe, someday, live together out at his farm.

Maybe even get married.

He’d never assumed that Julie might want the same things, though.

“Really?” he asked, his voice soft with wonder. “You want to make it long term? With me?”

Julie rolled her eyes at him. “Of course I do. Idiot.”

Franklin wondered about telling your partner things that were important, like being with them long term, but he didn’t say nothing.

Then the pain washed over him again, stealing his breath away and making the world dim.

“Franklin? Honey?” Julie’s voice sounded very far away.

From behind Franklin’s shut eyes he could see a gray line, leading across the fields, leading straight to where the blade was suffering.

“That way,” he rasped, pointing a finger. “We got to go that way.”

He felt Julie’s lips brush against his forehead. “You just keep telling me the direction. I ain’t gonna cross country in my car unless I have to. I have to keep taking roads.”

Franklin nodded, then said, “Okay.”

The call of the blade was strong.

But so was Julie’s hand, resting on his thigh, keeping him present.

Between them, it was gonna be okay.

Ξ

They kept driving mostly north and then east, in turns. The night sky was clear, the stars distant points of light that Franklin could barely see, the sky washed out by the highway lights. Only a few other cars traveled with them along the road, mainly semis and other professional drivers.

When Franklin saw an exit for Perrysville, he felt a stronger twinge. “There,” he said, pointing it out to Julie.

The pain had gotten worse. Franklin wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand once they got to where ever it was they was going. But he’d do whatever it was that needed doing.

In a way, this was like his duty, too. Stopping this doctor from hurting other ghosts, disrupting the natural flow of things.

He really didn’t like dragging Julie into the middle of this, though. He’d never forgive himself if she got hurt.

Then again, he weren’t sure he could stop her, not at this point.

And there was a very small voice inside of him that didn’t want to, that was glad she’d come along for the ride.

Perryville was a typical tourist town, with a couple of large hotels on the outskirts of town and lots of historic buildings inside the city limits, with plenty of plaques for people to read all about the events that had happened there.

But the blade weren’t in the town, not in any of the buildings. Instead, Franklin directed them through the town, past the old Civil War museum, then out again.

On the road to the Perryville Battlefield.

Big signs on either side of the entrance to the State Park declared the park closed.

If the doctor was ignoring those, so could they.

Julie slowed down some, creeping up the lane toward the Civil War memorial.

They approached a big sign giving information about the battle at Perryville. “Stop here, please,” Franklin said.

Julie obliged.

Franklin rolled down his window and stuck his head out, reading the sign. Then he sat back, worried. “Says over seven thousand soldiers died during the battle of Perryville.”

“Seven thousand?” Julie asked. “That’s a lot of souls.”

Franklin nodded. Were all those soldiers buried here? Would it matter to the ghosts? Could they be raised where they died? Mama had had her heart attack in the kitchen. Was that why the doctor could raise her there?

Franklin had never dealt with old souls before. All the ghosts he saw were modern-day people, who’d died recently and couldn’t pass on.

What would an old ghost be like? Raised from over a century ago? Would it be stronger? More angry?

And what was the doctor going to do with all those souls?

“You don’t have to go with me,” Franklin told Julie as they parked in the lot behind the museum.

“Now you see? That’s where you’re wrong,” Julie told Franklin firmly as she got out of the car.

Franklin followed suit, though he just stood on his side, struggling to breathe through the pain.

Julie hurried over to where he was standing, looking at him critically. “You’re bleeding,” she said flatly.

Franklin looked down. It weren’t much blood, just a bit through the bandage on his side. “I been resting it,” he complained.

“Not sure that matters,” Julie said, obviously worried. “Now, come on. We got an insane doctor to stop.”

Franklin took her hand and paused, just for a moment, wanting to kiss her.

He knew he shouldn’t. But there weren’t no one there to see. And he didn’t know when the next time would be that it would be safe to kiss her.

So he leaned down and kissed her lightly anyway. “Thank you,” he whispered against her lips.

“For what?” Julie asked.

“For everything,” Franklin said.

“You’re welcome. Now let’s go stop a madman.”

Franklin nodded and fell into step beside her.

While he wanted to stop the doctor, and he knew that it was important, he was also aware that protecting his love had a much higher priority than ever before.

Ξ

They walked along the walkway through the open field, passing by signs of interest, explaining the battle and the farm it had been fought on. It was a bit chilly, so Franklin gave his jacket to Julie, over her protests that he’d been wounded and needed it instead.

Franklin wished they was taking this walk for some other reason, that they weren’t so desperate and scared. At least the pain in his side had diminished.

Whatever the doctor had done to the blade, however much he’d shaved off of it, he was finished.

For now.

Franklin still felt the blade calling to him. As they reached a grassy hill he turned, abruptly, tugging at Julie’s hand. “This way,” he said.

The hill gently sloped down to a narrow valley, then up again. Mist gathered in long lines across the bottom of the hill. An old cannon on a cement block pointed toward the sky. There weren’t any cover on the slope, no trees to hide behind, no rocks either. Franklin felt exposed standing there, as if that old cannon could suddenly turn and fire on them.

But the blade was calling to him, just up the next hill.

The cicada chorus suddenly dimmed and the night grew still, as if it were holding its breath.

More mist rose out of the grassy slope. Could they hide in that if it grew thick enough? Franklin started leading Julie that way, straight down the hill, then stopped abruptly when the mist split itself, dividing into separate pieces.

Separate bodies.

Ghosts.

Franklin had never seen so many ghosts all in one place before. He’d only ever dealt with one or two at a time.

The cold they gave off spiked through his bones, making him shiver.

These weren’t regular ghosts, either. They was the raised ones, with holes for eyes and a despair blacker than the night. No intent, nothing they needed doing, just rage.

Old, old rage boiled out of them, anger about the war and dying too young and now being ripped out of what little peace they’d found.

Some of them wore uniforms that Franklin recognized from watching documentaries on TV.

“Can you see those?” Franklin whispered to Julie, pulling up short.

“See what?” Julie asked, also whispering.

“Nothing,” Franklin said, relieved.

“Nope. I don’t see nothing. Except the armies of ghosts in front of us,” Julie added. She thwapped him on his shoulder, expertly missing all his existing injuries. “What did I say about sharing these things with me?”

“Sorry,” Franklin said. And he was. He vowed to do better. “These aren’t regular ghosts, you know,” he whispered. “These are the raised ones.”

Julie nodded. “They aren’t really there, are they? They keep shifting, fading out.”

Franklin nodded. He would bet that the only reason Julie was seeing anything was because he was still holding her hand. If it got too bad, he could always let go, though she’d probably yell at him for that.

But he also understood what she meant. The doctor was raising lines of ghosts, one at a time, in a wave. A line of ghosts would rise up, then the next, then the next, and the first line would start to fade.

“Why is he raising all these ghosts? How is he doing it?” Julie asked.

“The blade,” Franklin said, suddenly understanding. “He was shaving off part of the blade before. He’s using its power to raise these souls, draw them to him.” Cheating, again.

But why?

The doctor had to be at the top of the hill in front of them. They was gonna have to skirt around the valley, see if they could get closer without being seen.

A single crop of trees stood on the south slope of the hill, close to the top. It would hide them from view if they climbed from that side, maybe until they could rush out and surprise the doctor.

“This way,” Franklin told Julie, tugging on her hand.

“Why don’t we just go across the valley and up the hill?” Julie asked, not moving. “I don’t think he’s gonna hurt us none. And we could ruin his—”

The first of the ghosts stated howling.

The sound turned Franklin’s insides to jelly. Now, Franklin had never thought of himself as a brave man. Sure, he’d faced a lot of ghosts, but that was just doing his duty.

This howling came straight from Hell. It made him shiver all the way to his bones. It was the most awful sound he’d ever heard. Angry and terrifying, like demons was chasing the ghosts, on their tail and they couldn’t escape, there weren’t any way out.

If they’d been in Heaven before, now they was in Hell. And they didn’t like it, not one bit. Like God himself had turned his back on them.

Julie’s eyes grew big. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. “Around. We go around.” She looked at the ghosts gathered below them and shivered.

Franklin nodded. But before he started walking again, he held up their linked hands. “If I let go, you might not hear that noise as much,” he told her, offering her the choice instead of just letting go. “Might not see as much either.”

He figured she’d prefer the choice, rather than him just letting go, trying to protect her.

Julie thought for a moment, then squeezed his hand tighter. “Don’t even think about it,” she whispered fiercely. “We’re in this together.”

Franklin couldn’t tell Julie that he loved her. It weren’t the right time, on a battlefield with an army of ghosts from Hell howling below them. She might not think it was real.

But Franklin knew, suddenly, that this was it. What he was feeling was real.

They just had to survive the rest of the night so he could tell her proper.