A Special Case - Chapter Two

Detective Mark Holliday scrubbed a hand over his disheveled face as he waited for his Mr. Coffee to finish rumbling. He wanted nothing more than to go back to bed and get the sleep his body desperately needed, but he couldn't. Despite the prescribed sleeping pills his doctor had given him, sleep was not so easy for him to get these days.

The memory of his dead wife kept haunting him and would not let up. And it didn't matter if he was home or at a checked room. It didn't even matter if he tried filling up the space beside him with another warm body. The sex was just as empty as the sleep he'd been getting after his wife passed.

So when he arrived home, with help from a tiny sleeping pill, he had finally drifted off into a blissful deep sleep. Until the storm struck. He instantly awakened from a blast of thunder so loud, he at first thought he was under fire. Panic had seized in his heart and he reached for his standard police issue he kept under his pillow at nights. After a few breaths, he relaxed. His chances of going back to sleep were slim to none, however. Adrenaline shooting through his blood stream made sure of it.

With grumbling frustration, he jerked on a pair of jeans and pad footed over to his kitchen where he now sat with a fresh cup of Joe; black of course. By this time, it was too early to report to work, but too late to try to go back sleep. At least, he had the weekend to look to. One more day, and he could rest, if not sleep. Unless, of course, a disaster hit that required to pull extended hours. God willing, he could catch up on his sleep instead.

He sat there, idling at his kitchen table afraid that his brain would travel back down the well-worn beaten path towards thoughts of his dead wife. So certain of this, he was already filled with dread over the coming debilitating guilt and loneliness that always greeted him.

So it was with great surprise that his mind actually traveled down a different, more recent memory. To the phone call he had made last night. It was such a ridiculous impulse that he had felt childish. Calling into a radio station to request a song, when his sole purpose was to actually speak to the woman on the other end. In fact, he had no song in his mind whatsoever. That breezy voice of hers was like that of a siren's; calling a sea-fairing man home to port.

Not only did his conversation with her fill him with renewed hope, but the song she had ended up playing gave him the briefest smile. With a quick glance at the clock, he rushed to turn on the radio. Amy's shift wasn't quite over yet; there still may be time.

He kept a black radio with a digital clock near the stove. Not that he cooked much. Lately these days, especially with Marissa gone, his diet consisted of take-out or order-in. But old habits died hard. The radio was already tuned into Amy's program, so all he had to do was flip the switch. Nothing but static.

Mark's brow creased in confusion. He turned the dial experimentally and noise met his ears as other stations' songs or commercial breaks intruded on the silence. He repositioned the dial back to Amy's station. Nothing. Confusion was quickly replaced by worry. He looked outside to find the storm had quieted down to a steady rainfall.

Without a second's thought or hesitation, he picked up his phone and dialed the station number. He idly wondered how it came to be that he actually had it memorized. Dashing the thought to be pondered over another time, he waited impatiently, counting each ring to occupy his mind. Why wasn't she picking up? How bad had the storm hit her building?

Then another memory, an old ghost that he was all too familiar with came to haunt him. Guilt and anguish washed over him before he slammed the door shut from the past. But it was too late. Already his mind had made the connection of Marissa's fate due to his negligence and worry cut at him over Amy's.

He knew it was crazy, but his reasoning did nothing to keep him rooted to his chair and out of other people's business. This woman he could help. Even if she was fine, he could at least check on her to make sure that was the case. This he could control and his mind welcomed it.

He had pulled on a shirt and a pair of sneakers and was out the door before he could let his mind talk him out of it.

* * *

What finally roused Amy was the silence that blanketed the studio like a fog. She had been working as a radio deejay long enough to know there was always something broadcasting on the speakers. She scrambled up, dreading what she would find as her eyes tracked to the green-lighted sign that told her she was ‘on air.’ She quickly hit the play button on the track nearest her not caring whether it was a repeated song or not. Anything was better than dead air.

With the immediate situation taken care of, Amy glanced at her watch wondering how long she had been out. She cursed at herself for allowing herself to fall asleep on the job, ignoring the betraying memory of her fainting. She ignored the shiver of goose bumps at the memory of the ghost and sternly told herself that silliness with the ghost was only a nightmare. Despite her effort to write off the experience, she kept glancing about to make sure she was indeed the only person - living or dead - in the small studio.

She settled back into her chair a little bit more jumpy and nervous than she would have liked. Looking out of the nearest window she saw that the worst of the storm had passed. A gentle rumbling of thunder every now and then sounded like a great beast sated and snoozing after a large dinner.

The sound of the handle on the door into her studio - the one that separated her from the main office of the station - had been jiggled and unlocked. Amy couldn’t help the frightened squeak that escaped her lips. Fear turned into tired relief as she saw it was Sam Williams of the weekend morning shift come to relieve her. She saw his concerned face through the glass of the door as he swung it open he could poke his head in. Her heart dropped knowing he must have heard the dead air broadcasting earlier.

“Amy, is everything okay?” Sam was an older man in his mid-to-late forties. He had a thick mass of silver hair and a huge belly which he covered with large Hawaiian shirts. She genuinely liked Sam. He didn’t seem to adopt the roaming eyes and innuendo-filled comments of her ‘peers’ in this male-dominated environment. She got her fill over the request lines each night. “I noticed the dead air, so I came in a little early to check in on you.”

“Oh god, you noticed that?” She could feel the backs of her ears flame over. “Yeah, the uh storm…” Whatever she was about to say next stopped dead on her lips as the ghost of the little girl appeared right behind Sam just outside the studio. Seeing the look on her face, Sam turned around, spotting nothing, and returned to face her.

“What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sam really did have a way with words. She would’ve laughed if she wasn’t so scared.

“He can’t see me…” The small voice of the girl traveled to Amy’s consciousness. “But you can.” She could feel her heart skipping an irregular beat of alarm at the ghost who was scrutinizing her with an inquiring expression. All she wanted to do was get the hell out of there and put as much distance between her and that talking nightmare.

“Earth to Amy!” Sam’s loud voice and his little arm wave snapped her attention back to the big man. He sounded both alarmed and annoyed. “What’s going on with you?”

“Hey Sam, I hate to do this, but I need to run home and check on Grandma. I’m worried is all. The storm hit pretty close there.” She worked furiously to straighten the console and grab her things. Before she knew it, she was standing waiting for Sam to unblock her exit. As soon as he side-stepped, she was brought face to face with the girl apparition and her heart dropped to her feet like a cold stone. Despite her efforts against it, she couldn’t stop her eyes from meeting the ghost’s.

“You can’t ignore me.” The girl stared up at Amy in defiance with her chin jutted out and arms crossed. “I know you can see and hear me. Tell me why you can and he can’t.”

She didn’t know what she did or how she did it. Amy’s distress at the ghost and her need to escape to her car was so great, that she could almost feel her will commanding the ghost to let her pass as if it was a tangible thing.

Without giving it a second’s thought, Amy ran outside to her car. She fumbled in the rain for her keys and finally managed enough to unlock and start her car with numb fingers.

* * *

As much as Amy tried to focus solely on the task of driving through the near-impenetrable sheets of rain, her mind kept going back to the one branding thought: it wasn't a dream. Like a moth to a flame, her mind's eye traveled back to the memory of the ghost-girl. "He can't see or hear me. But you can."

Amy had prepared an instant excuse that she had dreamt the whole ghost encounter during the storm. But the ghost had returned, and this time with Sam there, Amy was forced to believe the truth. And the ghost made sure of that fact, too, making the observation that Amy was desperately trying to ignore.

Her thoughts were brought back with an abrupt jerking of her car. With her thoughts distracted, she hadn't seen the large puddle and her car careened over it and hydroplaned for a split second before she managed to gain back control. The action snapped her back into the present.

A bone deep weariness was beginning to settle in. Her arms were tiring from the strain of gripping the wheel with such force, it left her knuckles white. Aside from her hands and arms, she felt numb. She risked a quick peek at her reflection from her review mirror and immediately wished she hadn't. The taut skin around her face and lips were a pale white, making her pale eyes seem an icier blue than normal.

A gust of wind sidelined her car and she fought with the wheel to keep it steady. Maybe it was a bad mistake to drive in this weather after all that's happened to her. When the ghost came back, her instincts told her to flee right then and there; there was no thought involved.

Ghosts! Could she really see ghosts? What did it all mean that only she could see the girl when Sam couldn't? Did that make Sam the strange one and not her? Maybe she was the normal one between the two. This thought made her feel much better, even though she hated herself for it. Sam was a great guy. Always nice and easy-going. Never a harsh word was ever said to her, and accepting of who she was. But she couldn't help the feeling of insecurity lifting from her the moment she thought it was Sam that was the one with the irregularity.

“I think I’ve finally gone insane.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up to the surface as she guided her car down the two-lane road. "I'm saying that as if I wasn't already in the first place!"

Something caught the corner of her vision, and Amy instantly reacted. A woman was trying to cross the road. A road in the middle of nowhere. And didn't acknowledge Amy's speeding car.

Amy braced herself for the impact she could not control, her mind reeling in terror at hitting and killing an innocent with her metal beast. The combination of the car's brakes being slammed with the condition of the road, the wheels lost traction and entered into a spinning hydroplane.

Amy's eyes were shut tight and her body was ramrod stiff as she held on to the wheel in dear life. A scream escaped her lips. She felt like a marble spinning on a roulette table.