Ezra’s narration of something to do with the grass and how he’d once heard grasshoppers spit tobacco juice—thanks to his childhood fascination with Little House on the Prairie—had become a sort of soft drone in the background. The heat of the late afternoon slipped into the heat of early evening, the only difference a slight hint of moisture in the air. I knew I was being foolish to hope for rain, or at least a nice cool-down, but a boy can dream. The soporific nature of the moment had let my mind wander in a thick, hazy way towards My Problem (capitals inherent). I’d told a bit of a fib to Ezra and an outright whopper to Julian. It wasn’t just a “bit difficult” communicating with spirits since Bettina.
It was getting to be impossible.
It’d begun with connectivity issues—yes, just like with Wi-Fi. For ages—pretty much my entire life I’d been able to just talk to the spirits, or at least recognize their presence, with barely any effort. Sure, sometimes I had to coax them a bit, or they threw up their own roadblocks to keep me out of their business, but it wasn’t like My Problem. At first, it had been just a bit of a hassle. Stress, I’d told myself. Maybe, too much sex—something I wasn’t sure whether to be upset about, really. But as the weeks went on, My Problem got worse.
I was worried that, soon, I’d be unable to communicate with even the most attention-seeking shade.
I’d be not-me.
“I feel like I’m always having to apologize to you, and that makes me think maybe the problem isn’t an us thing, it’s a me thing.”
It wasn’t often I was startled but Julian managed to get me, his approach so quiet on the battered road that I didn’t hear his steps.
Perhaps, it was less his stealth and more my absorption in my lack of seeing anything that made me so easily spooked.
Ha. Spooked.
Julian’s sudden (to me anyway) return from his Quest for Signal startled me out of the throes of self-pity. It took my brain a moment to catch up with what he said, and I’d apparently just been staring at him with my mouth open like an absolute twat because he was starting to scowl, that awkward expression he got sometimes where it was obvious he was about to bluster and grump his way through a bit of embarrassment. His words sank in fast, though, as soon as I shook the cobwebs from my brain. “I think maybe you’re being too hard on yourself,” I said carefully, sliding from where I’d sat on the boot and dusting my backside off ineffectually—whatever made up the dust on the car apparently had similarities to super glue because it just seemed to smear rather than brush away. “Besides, it’s not like this is your fault. Cars break down. It sucks but it’s a thing.” The fog in my thoughts was harder to shake than I thought—it was like trying to run in a dream as I struggled to bring everything back online, so to speak, and face Julian. He was frowning, more at himself than at me, and fiddling with his phone. “If you want to blame someone, I suggest CeCe,” I said, only half-kidding. “If she’d let us just fly there, we’d already be in our hotel room and Ezra would be in his…” I trailed off, managing a suggestive (I hoped) brow wiggle.
Julian sighed, shook his head. “I don’t mean the car,” he said. “I mean the other shit I keep apologizing for. The us things.”
Ah.
He took a half-step closer to me but didn’t reach out to touch me, despite the fact we were so close now. the last hint of his spicy-citrus aftershave under the heat-drenched tang of his sweat teased my nose, and the faintest brush of his breath tickled my skin as he watched me for some response. My throat was suddenly dry and tight. I swallowed several times before I was able to talk. “Julian,” I finally managed. “You’re not always apologizing. I don’t feel like you’re… you’re…” I shook my head, unable to find what I wanted to say. “I don’t feel like you’re hurting me,” was what finally came out. “We’re finding our footing with one another and, to be absolutely fair, we both came off one of the more fucked up experiences of our lives. It’s natural for both of us to be a little flaily.”
His lips quirked just a tiny bit. “Flaily?”
“It’s a word.” I sniffed. “Britishism.”
“Mmmm.” Julian smirked openly at that. “Sure, must be why I’ve never heard it.”
“Wait. What do you mean an us thing? I didn’t… You were thinking we had problems? Hold up, scratch that. That sounded wrong,” I said as his brow crimped and lips practically disappeared in a deep frown, an expression I hated to see on his nearly dear face. “I’m not saying it’s a one or another thing but just… It sounds like you were thinking we,” I gestured between us, “maybe had a problem. Like a problem.”
Julian worried his lower lip for a moment, then sighed a gusty and deep breath of frustration. “I think,” he said slowly, “I’m picking the worst times on the planet to apologize.”
“Hey—”
“No, I’m not mad,” he promised, finally closing that distance and pressing a quick kiss to my forehead, sweet and somehow dismissive at the same time. “I’m going to try to get this stupid thing started. CeCe nearly had an aneurysm about the fact we’ve broken down here. She Googled. Unlucky for us, Budding is Home of the Wandering Ghoul,” he said in a cheesy telly announcer voice as he walked backwards towards the bonnet, arms waving to mimic… a ghost, I suppose. Or a chicken having some sort of a fit.
I leaned on the side of the car to watch Julian mutter and fiddle with things, offering helpful suggestions such as, “You should wiggle the doohickey there. Maybe try reversing the polarity on the flux capacitor.”
Julian didn’t reply but his raised eyebrow spoke volumes. After several minutes of what-the-fucking, he sat back and sighed. “I think I’ve done all the damage I can do here.”
Ezra came trotting back towards us, camera tucked away in the pocket of his shorts. His shirt was already sticking to his chest and back, same as me. Julian looked mildly mussed but not as if he’d been ridden hard and put away wet. Ezra flashed me a bright, happy smile and said, “Just as an FYI, I’m not walking back to town in the dark, so let’s either get this shit going or commit to camping in the car tonight and draw straws over who gets to be the Final Girl.”
“Final Girl?” I made a face. “What kind of nonsense is that?”
“You know,” Ezra said. “In horror movies, it’s almost always a girl who survives at the end. She’s bested the crazed killer and has either killed them herself or made it out of the situation while all the others have been slaughtered.” He made a shrill, high pitched repetitive sound and stabbing motions.
“Are you alright?”
He elbowed me gently. “Don’t be a twat. You’ve watched the entire Halloween and Friday the 13th series with me.”
“Is Alien a horror movie? Would Ripley be a Final Girl?” I asked. “I quite liked her.”
“Her and Jonesy,” Ezra confirmed with a nod. “She’s the ultimate Final Girl, with the Final Cat.”
“Final Cat isn’t a thing,” I muttered, getting into the car. Julian climbed in beside me and closed his eyes, lips moving in what I assumed was a silent prayer to whomever he believed in (that was another thing—I had no idea if he was religious or spiritual or… ugh. More things to dwell on.)
“It’d be me,” Julian said with confidence. “I’m the prettiest.” He winked at me, the first non-scowl I’d seen on his face since Beaumont.
“Hey!”
Julian turned the key, and after a rattling shudder and a rather asthmatic wheeze, the car rumbled to life. It didn’t sound quite right, but it was running.
Kind of.
“He’d be the Final Girl,” Ezra confirmed. “The Final Girl is always able to get the car started to escape the monster.”
Julian winked at me. “And, keeping with that spirit—no pun intended, gentlemen—let’s get the Hell out of Dodge.” He eased the car onto the blacktop road. We were all holding our breath, even Ezra. I could tell because he was uncharacteristically silent, though I did notice he was holding his camera up again, aimed forward to get the view through the windshield. We’d gone about half a mile, the car making a threatening rattling sound the entire way, when Julian sat up straight, his eyes narrowing. “Ah,” he breathed. “A Hail Mary.”
On the right side of the optimistically termed highway, a wide dirt track opened. It took me a second glance to realize it wasn’t a road but a long drive, leading towards a well-lit, sprawling home. A white-painted fence framed the drive, and a gate stood open, a massive metal farm gate wrapped with colorful bunting, hung with a sign proclaiming Carstairs—1897. Gingerly, Julian swung the car onto the pebbly dirt road. It gave a mighty shudder and groan, the rattling sound now positively offensive. Julian gritted his teeth and forced the car a bit farther, just past the open gates, and finally pulled off onto the grass and shut off the engine. “Not to be stereotypical, but I’m hoping,” he said into the tense, burning-oil tinged quiet, “Texas hospitality is still a thing out here and they’ll let us wait here for a tow.”
“Texas hospitality, huh?” I teased. “That’s why you invited me to stay at your flat for ‘as long as I needed’?”
Julian’s lips twitched but he didn’t reply. Well, unless you counted that look he gave me as a reply. The one that made certain body parts heat up uncomfortably in the late afternoon humidity.
Texas might be beautiful, but it was not conducive to feeling at all sexual without air conditioning on full blast.
Ezra climbed out of the car, his camera in hand. “This is wild,” he muttered, though whether it was to us, to himself, or the future viewers, I had no idea. “Oz, got any reception on your phone? Mine’s got zero bars.”
I checked, as did Julian with his own. “Weak signal, but yeah,” I called back. Julian nodded. “Julian too.”
“Draw straws to decide who calls CeCe and who looks for a tow truck?” Julian asked, already opening up the browser on his phone.
“Not so fast, Professor,” I scolded. “She’s your sister. You call her. I’ll google a tow service.”
“She likes you best,” he muttered, but had already opened up the keypad to dial CeCe’s number.
The ranch was a riot of color and sound, tucked behind a thick grove of what Julian assured us were pecan trees on a gentle, downward slope. The winding gravel drive looked well-tended, more gravel than dirt and no potholes or ruts, like the people who lived here were houseproud. Our phone signals were still dodgy. but Ezra pointed out the devices weren’t totally useless—we could still use our recording apps, and they’d also do for EVP recording, in a pinch. Julian had left CeCe a message and sent a text to Harrison. “It’s past six, so CeCe’s either at some cocktail event or she’s locked herself in her bedroom with a face mask and a murder podcast,” Julian sighed. “What the Hell is going on here?”
“Looks like someone’s birthday,” I said, staring up the drive at the lights and tent and massive barbecue thing that looked like half a barrel turned onto its side. “I really hope this isn’t a cattle ranch and they’re cooking the slow learners.”
Julian inhaled deeply. “Might be beef, might be pork, but this isn’t a cattle ranch.” He gestured at the open pastures visible past the house. “That grass is way too high for a working cattle ranch.”
Ezra shifted closer to me. “So, who’s going up to ask if it’s okay if we use their driveway?”
“Hey, y’all! You from the church or the Rotary club?” A man in a grease and soot-stained apron, face red and sweaty, was lumbering towards us at high speed from the white pop-up pavilion stationed on the front lawn. Even in the late evening, Texas summers were hot, apparently, and standing over the barrel-o-fire hadn’t done this fellow any favors. “We weren’t expecting the first load of folks for another hour, not till the to-do at the church was done and—” he stopped several feet away. “Oh, my Lord! You’re Oscar Fellowes, aren’t you?” His face, ruddy and damp and oddly babyish despite his thick neck and buzz-cut hair, split with a wide, white grin. “I’m Yancy. Yancy Carstairs,” he said, reaching out and grabbing a hand I hadn’t thought to proffer yet. “I’ll be jiggered.”
It didn’t happen often, even when the web series was at its peak, but when I did get recognized, it was a heady mixture of pride, ego, and awkwardness that always led me to say something ridiculous. “Yes, I suppose so!”
Julian slowly turned his head to look at me. “You suppose you’re Oscar Fellowes, or suppose he’ll be jiggered?”
“Er… both?”
Ezra snorted. “Hello, we hate to impose but we’re having car trouble and had to pull off the road onto your drive. Is it alright if we wait on your property for AAA to send a tow truck? They said it’d be a few hours—”
“Nope.” The man shook his head, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Nope, that ain’t gonna happen.”
“Oh. Well…” Ezra turned a helpless look on me and then to Julian. “I guess we’ll push it back onto the road?”
“Oh, no! I didn’t mean that! I meant it’s not gonna be a few hours. You’ll be lucky if they show up before tomorrow. The only tow driver in the county’s currently on my back porch, three sheets to the wind, and they’re not gonna get one of the fellas from next town over out here, not this time of night.” He made a dismissive gesture at the protest Julian had started to voice and shooed us towards the tent like we were lost baby ducks. “We’re having a bit of a get-together to celebrate MeMaw’s birthday—it ain’t till Sunday but there’s church for most folks, and besides, we can’t have any beer or liquor out here on a Sunday, so we figured we’d have a to-do tonight after the Summer Fest was wrapped up in town.”
I found myself inexorably chivied towards the pop-up pavilion with its small swarm of red-faced, sweaty people setting up what looked to be a truly excessive amount of food and drinks. “Is there a hotel in town, then?” Julian asked, slipping to stand next to me as our apparent host stopped just inside the pavilion. “We really don’t want to impose,” he added, plastering on a smile I knew very well to be false. It not only didn’t reach his eyes, it barely reached his lips and the bit it did touch didn’t so much curve upwards as grimace and bear teeth.
Our host blinked, drawing back just a little. “The only hotel in town is the old Budding Motor Court but it closed in 1984 after the killin’. Next town over has a chain motel and a bed-and-breakfast but good luck getting a room tonight—it’s the Klobasnek and Kolache Fest weekend and that place is wall to wall tourists.” He scratched at the back of his neck, looking a little shy when he added, “We got plenty of room here, fellas. Not just in the house but the whole bunkhouse out back. We keep it ready for guests ever since MeMaw’s sister Jackie got widowed and drops in unannounced.” He shrugged again. “Besides, even if AAA got one of the guys from next town over out here, you still need a place to stay.”
I groaned softly. “He’s right,” I murmured to Julian. “We really do. Even if CeCe got your message and is already on her way, she’s not getting here for hours and that’d still leave us with nowhere to sleep for the night.”
Julian nodded, jaw tight. Turning to our host, he straightened his spin and said, “We don’t want to impose on your family gathering, but we’d be very grateful for a place to stay for the night. If you could just point us towards this bunkhouse, we’ll stay out of your way and be on our way once we have a ride in the morning.”
The man laughed. “Hell, you won’t be in the way. We’re about to have most of Budding over here. Besides, all three of y’all look hungry. C’mon and grab yourselves a plate before the vultures descend. And you,” he jabbed a finger in my direction, “you give the old man a wide berth, okay? And maybe Enoch—he’s the scrawny one, you’ll know him when you see him—too.”
“Any particular reason?” I asked. Yancy’s scowl lingered a few seconds longer before he sank into a sigh and another tight-lipped expression. He glanced past us towards the hustle and bustle inside the pavilion and sad, his voice much lower than before, “Both of them are very… keen… about ghosts. Enoch, he’s my brother and only sixteen so, you know how kids can be.” He made a see-saw motion with one hand. “Sometimes he’s playing it cool, being a little adult, the next he’s going gaga over his celebrity crush. Er, that would be you,” he added in a loud whisper. “He’s really into your show and the whole… thing you’ve got going on.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Kids, right?”
Julian’s brows were arching upwards, and Ezra had one of his shit-eating grins plastered firmly on his face. “I have an idea, yes,” I ground out, my face heating.
“But Pops… he’s… well. He’s not your target demographic,” he chuckled. “But he’d talk your ear off all night and once he gets going…” he trailed off. “Well. Let’s get y’all something to eat and find a nice place to hunker down a bit while the crowds get here.”
Like his words were some sort of summoning charm, a van rumbled up the drive and stopped just past the pavilion. A lithe blonde popped out of the passenger seat and shouted, “Hey, Yancy! You know y’all have some broken-down car just inside the gate? You need to call Sheriff Patrick and get that thing towed. Drug dealers—”
“It’s fine,” Yancy called back, his smile in place but words a bit strained. “Let me help you with that, Myrna.” He turned back to us one more time. “Grab whatever you’d like. Beers are in the cooler, sodas in the one next to that, the big carafes are sweet tea and, for the heathens, unsweetened. Make yourselves comfortable—I can show y’all back to the bunkhouse once we get everything underway, alright?” He didn’t wait for an answer, jogging over to help the blonde—Myrna, apparently—wrestle a small flock of children in some sort of scout uniforms from the van while she balanced a large, disposable cake pan in her arms and shouted at someone named TJ to, ‘Put that back, oh my Lord, you don’t know where that’s been!’
Ezra had his camera out again and was panning around the tent. “Don’t worry, I’ll blur out faces,” he assured us. “Oooooh, are those ribs? Yes!” He was off like a shot, narrating as he headed for the platters of barbecue.
“Is this Texas hospitality, or is this cannibal farmers?” I whispered as Julian and I followed Ezra at a more sedate pace, well aware of the looks we were attracting. While Ezra blended in in his t-shirt and jeans, I had gone for a pair of cigarette trousers and a ruffled lawn shirt, both in black, and a black waistcoat embroidered with roses and hummingbirds.
Yes, it was a bit warm for the evening but, in all fairness, I’d fully expected to be spending the night in a nice, mid-range hotel in the Austin suburbs. Somewhere with air conditioning and take away pizza.
Not standing in line behind Ezra with Julian beside me, both of us flexing fingers and making aborted moves to hold hands while we queued for plates of barbecue and some sort of starchy looking cubes covered in what seemed to be mayonnaise. “What is that?” I muttered, nodding at the starchy stuff. “Potatoes and…”
“Potato salad. I know for a fact you have that in England so don’t try to play the stranger in a strange land thing with me, Fellowes,” he murmured back, a tiny smile relaxing the corners of his mouth finally.
“Yes, we have potato salad. I’ve had it when Ezra and I go ‘round the pub near his parents’ place. But that,” I pointed subtly at the bowl, “is white and gluey-looking and has… oh my God, are those raisins?”
Julian wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know whether to hope it’s raisins or bugs, to be honest. Potato salad should never have mustard or raisins involved.”
I clicked my tongue, taking a step forward as Ezra scooted down the line of serving trays, talking to the camera held in one hand as he scooped food onto his paper plate with the other. “This relationship is over before we ever get it off the ground. Mayonnaise in potato salad…” I shook my head. “You pervert.” A soft, feminine laugh brushed past my ears and I paused.
“Mustard in potato salad is the perversion,” Julian pontificated. “Especially yellow mustard. That shade of yellow is not found in nature and the entire thing tastes like vinegar and bad decisions.” He reached past me to pick up half a deviled egg, gave it a sniff, and put it back on the tray. “This is hardly the best temperature for easily spoiled foods. I wonder if I can get them to bring out a tray and some ice…”
The soft laugh came again, and I knew we weren’t alone. Sometimes, it was difficult to pick up on subtle spirits, especially if there were a lot of living bodies around. Especially lately. This one, whomever she was, was not a strong presence but almost a wisp of memory. Enough substance left to react, but not quite enough to have a decent conversation with. At least that was the impression I was getting. She brushed against me then, a purposeful contact, and a wave of prickly awareness shivered through me and settled in my belly. It filled me with a buzzing sort of excitement, and I tried to reach out, to snag that connection and open to it, but she remained ephemeral, a bare wisp of smoke in the air. I must have made some sound or something because Julian paused mid-word and fixed me with an oddly stuffed expression. “Are you, ah, having a moment?”
I made a face. “You make it sound like this is a hygiene commercial, Julian. If you’re asking am I communicating, not really. There’s someone here but they’re not reaching out and I don’t feel they need me to. They’re just… amused.” I hesitated, then added in a lower voice, “And I can’t make it work, not like usual. It’s like my signal’s jammed.” Julian didn’t say anything else, just looked at me for a long, quiet moment before nodding and returning his attention to the buffet line. A knot in my belly I thought I’d gotten rid of tightened and grew cold. The food on my plate, not exactly appetizing to me in the first place, suddenly looked nauseating. I shuffled behind Julian and Ezra as they made their way down the line, people starting to fall into queue behind us as more and more guests arrived. Ezra spotted a relatively empty corner with some hay bales arranged as a sort of seating area, so we made our way over, gingerly settling on the prickly bales with our plates and drinks as the noise levels around us ratcheted upwards. Julian offered me a tight, small smile, but sat next to me so our legs touched knee to hip. Ezra gave me a look, the one that said alright? I nodded before turning my attention onto my food.
Yancy found us after another hour or so, the pavilion now packed to the gills and people spilling out across the lawn. The sun had finally set fully and strings of colorful plastic lanterns in shapes ranging from something barrel-like to teddy bears and stars and even a few repurposed winter holiday lights—snowflakes and elves—were strung between the pavilion and the house, some between tree branches. Someone had turned on some music, a mix of country and classic rock, and a few people had made a dance floor out of the space between the serving table and the drinks table. Most of the food had been demolished already, but more was apparently on the way. An older man, one of those people with a face that could be anywhere between forty and seventy, held court at the far end of the pavilion, down near the cooker. We’d finished our plates and had sat in awkward silence while the party grew around us. “Y’all get enough to eat?” Yancy boomed as he drew closer. Ezra nodded, tucking that damn camera away again, and Julian offered a polite smile.
“It was delicious, Mr. Carstairs. Thank you so much for your hospitality. I hate to impose further but—”
“Bunkhouse,” Yancy chuckled. “I got ya. Y’all got any luggage?”
“In the car,” I said. “Ezra and I can go back and grab our overnight bags,” I began, but Julian shook his head.
“I’ve got the keys. Let me head down. I’ll be just a few minutes.”
Yancy murmured assent. “I’ll keep you fellas entertained till he gets back then?” he offered as Julian gave my arm a squeeze and ducked out of the pavilion.
“Oh, you don’t need to bother with keeping us entertained,” I protested. “We don’t want to keep you from your actual guests.”
“You’re not—you’re guests too now,” he reminded us. A frisson of awareness trickled down the back of my neck—someone was watching. Someone dead, rather. It wasn’t a feeling I got often, the intense awareness that someone on the Other Side was observing me.
Watching. Waiting. Not just a curious shade or someone who had a request or message. It felt… intelligent, for lack of a better word. Calculating.
Predatory.
I glanced at Ezra who had, while not the same measure of ability as I had, some touch of it. He was empathic when it came to spirits and would often pick up on the stronger traces of emotions that came with certain ghosts. He was staring at me with a furrowed brow and parted lips, as if he’d been caught out mid-thought and everything had gone offline for a moment. “Do you,” he began. I nodded once, sharply.
I grabbed at it with both hands, trying to seize the sensation again, but like before, it was too thin, too much smoke to hold on to. The muffled feeling slid back into place and that knot in my gut tightened.
Yancy looked between the two of us, his jovial politeness fading fast. In hushed, apprehensive tones, he asked, “Are you, um. Are you doing your thing right now?” He leaned in closer. “Is he talking to you? I was wonderin’ if he’d show up tonight, on account of the party and all…”
“Who?” I asked, pitching my voice low and quiet. “Who might show up?”
“Mason Albright,” another voice chimed in. The older man—the one who had been holding court, and I assumed was the one Yancy referred to as Pops—was making his way across the uneven ground towards us, the click-clomp of his walker with each step suddenly loud in the inexplicably quiet pavilion. “He’s talking about Mason Albright. The man’s been dead damn near a hundred years, but he does love a good party.” His smile was slow and wide, damn near malicious though. “Especially one of ours. He’s always lookin’ to crash ‘em. Can’t get over the fact this place used to be his before my great-granddady.” He sucked on his teeth, then added in a low, gravelly tone, “Story was, my great-granddad killed Albright in some sort of an argument over the cows.”
Yancy’s face was a concerning shade of red. “Pops, that was just a rumor.” He turned a pleading, apologetic gaze to us. “People like drama, you know? Nobody got murdered. They inherited it fair and square.”
Mr. Carstairs chuckled softly. “I think you boys should stick around. I have some questions for y’all.”