Ghost Light Read online

  GHOST LIGHT

  By Rick Hautala

  A Macabre Ink Production

  Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright 2013 by The Estate of Rick Hautala

  Copy Edited by: Kurt M. Criscione

  Cover design by: David Dodd

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Under his own name, Rick Hautala wrote close to thirty novels, including the million-copy best seller Night Stone, as well as Winter Wake, The Mountain King, and Little Brothers. He published three short story collections: Bedbugs, Occasional Demons, and Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala. He had over sixty short stories published in a variety of national and international anthologies and magazines.

  Writing as A. J. Matthews, his novels include the bestsellers The White Room, Looking Glass, Follow, and Unbroken.

  His recent and forthcoming books include Indian Summer, a new “Little Brothers” novella, as well as two novels, Chills and Waiting. He recently sold The Star Road, a science fiction novel co-written with Matthew Costello, to Brendan Deneen at Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s.

  With Mark Steensland, he wrote several short films, including the multiple award-winning Peekers, based on the short story by Kealan Patrick Burke; The Ugly File, based on the short story by Ed Gorman; and Lovecraft’s Pillow, inspired by a suggestion from Stephen King.

  Born and raised in Rockport, Massachusetts, Rick was a graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Arts in English Literature. He lived in southern Maine and is survived by his wife, author Holly Newstein.

  In 2012, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association.

  For more information, check out his website www.rickhautala.com.

  Book List

  Novels

  Beyond the Shroud

  Cold Whisper

  Dark Silence

  Dead Voices

  Follow

  Four Octobers

  Ghost Light

  Impulse

  Little Brothers

  Looking Glass

  Moon Death

  Moonbog

  Moonwalker

  Night Stone

  Shades of Night

  The Mountain King

  The White Room

  The Wildman

  Twilight Time

  Unbroken

  Winter Wake

  The Body of Evidence Series (co-written with Christopher Golden)

  Brain Trust

  Burning Bones

  Last Breath

  Skin Deep

  Throat Culture

  Novellas

  Cold River

  Indian Summer

  Reunion

  Story Collections

  Bedbugs

  Occasional Demons

  Untcigahunk: The Complete Little Brothers

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

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  CONTENTS

  GHOST LIGHT

  Other Rick Hautala eBooks Available from Crossroad Press

  GHOST LIGHT

  Introduction

  I have no idea how to start this… I’ve changed it a score of times. If you’re reading this then you obviously have good taste in books and you are probably already well versed in Rick’s works… or perhaps this is the first Hautala book you’ve ever picked up…? I have no way of knowing.

  So I guess the best I can do is tell you my Rick story. It means a lot to me and I’m still choked up that I was asked to write this intro in the first place.

  A little over 20 years ago, around 1991, I was going through an interesting stretch in my life. Bad things had been happening and my favorite escape was to go outside with a good book and read. At this time I was given a box full of horror titles. I was in my early teens, and while I had started out reading Tolkien and other fantasy stuff, horror called to me.

  There were several good books in that box, but the only one that mattered was a perfect first printing of the Little Brothers paperback. That was my first Rick Hautala book. I was totally hooked. It had everything I have come to love in horror (especially coming from a fantasy reading background): It had monsters (and cool original ones at that), it had a teenage protagonist avenging the loss of his mother (hey I was 13 and only had my mother at the time), it had role-playing (my other escape), it had a harrowing battle in the woods and underground (I love hiking and caving). It had everything I love.

  The rest of my ‘90s was spent reading King and Koontz, and then a return to reading fantasy. Those dark times got worse and my mother and I found ourselves living out of car for a while and in worse places. Moving constantly and losing parts of my life all over the state. It culminated in finally having to leave home, my family, and even my dreams behind.

  Ok… Bear with me – this really is about Rick Hautala, and we’re getting back to the better parts. In 2008 I was in a better place and I wanted to read horror again. I also had my dreams back… I wanted to be a writer. I started hanging out in online creative forums and getting to know new writers and the small press. One day, I found Rick Hautala on one of those websites, and my memories of Little Brothers flooded back in. Through all my moving around, being homeless for a time, and everything else… I still had my first printing of that novel. It was one of only a handful of books that had managed to stay with me through it all. I started hunting more of Rick’s books and in my search I discovered this small Convention in Rhode Island. NECON.

  My first NECON was in 2010. I arrive, nervous. I know some of these people only from the Internet, and there were going to be a bunch of real writers there. I unpacked and sat in my room for a few minutes. During the trip from my car to the building I had run into a few people I knew on sight but didn’t actually know. I gathered my courage and boldly stepped out into the “quad.” While I fought to regain control of my nerves, I ran into one person I had met before. He was kind enough to offer to take me around. He pointed out Jack Ketchum going into a room and then turned and said, “There’s Rick Hautala.” I was so excited! Not more than 15 feet away from where I stood, Rick was signing into the register and collecting his room key.

  My guide, sensing my excitement then said, “Want to go meet him?”

  To which I replied, “What!? I couldn’t, I mean he hasn’t even gotten to his room yet. That would be annoying for me to just bother him and all.”

  “What? Writers are all an extroverted and easy going lot, no worries. Hey Rick! I got one of your biggest fans here!” he yelled, despite only a short distance separating us. I took the extrovert comment to be a joke on the fact that I was rather introverted and shy.

  “Bah. I don’t have fans.” Rick said. I didn’t know he was called the ‘Eeyore of Horror’, yet.

  Just like that I was walked over and introduced to Rick, and just like that I loved him. He was great. Someone took a picture of us, and every time I look at it I feel happy (and sad) all over again. I told him the story of my teens and how I still had that first copy of Little Brothers and
how much I loved it. After that he would refer to me as the Little Brothers guy (usually when he forgot my name… hey we just met so I forgive that). The rest of that weekend was great: I got that book signed, Rick tried to give me a free book (I already had an ARC and a HC of it), during one night while I wandered alone he called me over to the gazebo and we talked about books and music and life and I got introduced to dozens of other people who have all since become my friends.

  Every NECON has been magic and that particular NECON was my time with Rick. It wasn’t enough time, sadly, but I treasure each of those conversations. I wish I had called him more and I wish my job had allowed me to go to other cons and spend more time with him.

  Now back to this novel. When we (Crossroad Press) got the first books from Rick to convert into eBooks, there literally was a fight between myself and David Dodd over which titles we would get to edit. For a very long time I thought Rick wrote awesome monster stories, it wasn’t until 2008 that I realized that he was a master of the psychological ghost story. Ghost Light is a prime example of that genre. It is everything Rick talked about when he talked about what a Ghost story was to him. I don’t want to go too far into the details, into his definition, because I think that would give away too much of the story. Since some of you might be first-time readers, it would be unfair of me to ruin it for you.

  Hopefully I have not digressed too long, and have not bored you with my story. I just wanted to share some of what Rick Hautala meant to me. I miss him terribly and I’m thankful for every minute I got to spend with him.

  Kurt M. Criscione

  November 5, 2013

  Prologue: August

  Leaving Omaha

  For the last three hours, Cindy Toland had maintained such a tight grip on the steering wheel that prickly waves of cold spread like dry ice up her wrists and elbows. The chilly numbness went deep, like a painful sickness, into her joints and bones. She alternately shook one hand, then the other. Leaning forward, she stared through the windshield at the rain-slick, black stretch of Interstate 80 as it unspooled in front of her. The wipers slapped back and forth with a steady, sloshy beat. The beams from her car’s headlights shot ahead of her, impotent translucent rays that did little to beat back the hot, pressing August night. Only the broken white lines of the passing lanes were in sharp focus, strobing like the steady flashes of runway landing lights.

  Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m doing this… She sawed her teeth back and forth over her lower lip. A hot stinging filled her eyes and a sour taste flooded the back of her throat. She wanted to cry—had to cry, but she couldn’t let herself do it. Not now. Not yet. Maybe once she was safe…

  A slipstream of cool air whistled in through the narrow opening of the driver’s window. Through it, Cindy heard her car’s tires on the wet pavement. It sounded like the long, slow tearing of cloth. She was tired, and the unvarying noise made her feel even more tired, but she shook her head and forced her eyes to stay wide open.

  She tensed at the lights of cars coming toward her or from behind. Her foot would snap up off the accelerator, and she would check the speedometer, making sure it wasn’t reading even one mile over the speed limit. She was convinced that every car on the Interstate tonight was an Iowa State Police cruiser. Any minute now, she was sure she’d see the sudden flicker of blue lights start up on the roof of a distant vehicle.

  Cindy couldn’t stop wondering if she was going to have to face the rest of her life like this, living with a cold, hard knot in her stomach, always looking over her shoulder and up ahead. Would she ever feel normal again? Whatever the hell normal was!

  A cold sheen of beaded moisture stood out on her face. Her throat was parched, but she had finished the last of the Citrus Cooler she’d bought at the rest stop outside of Des Moines more than an hour ago. Now her bladder was full, swelling with dull pressure in her abdomen. She didn’t dare take an exit to find a roadside rest area. Not yet. Not until she had at least another hour between her and Omaha. And even then, it might not be safe. In fact, she knew it might never be safe again…

  Every now and then, her gaze would shift from the road ahead to the rearview mirror. Her pursed lips, cheekbones, and eyebrows were underlit by the eerie green of the dashboard lights. The dim reflection of her fear-rounded eyes stared back at her, unsettling her even more.

  Those are the eves of a crazy woman. A tiny whimper escaped from her—the sound of a small animal in pain.

  She chanced looking longer into the rearview mirror, where she could barely discern other faces, small and round and ghastly white, floating in the darkness behind her back. They looked like sad, wrinkled balloons. A wave of chills rippled up her spine, and the flesh at the base of her neck turned slimy. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but the words—whatever they might have been—died in her throat, bottled up like a poison she dared not release.

  The road continued to unroll in front of her, an eternal, straight black ribbon as shiny as black enamel in the glow of her headlights. At times, Cindy had the disorienting sensation that she wasn’t moving at all, that she was sitting perfectly still as the night washed over her like a cold, black river, and the darkness closed in behind her.

  “I want to go home.”

  The voice was faint, an almost inaudible gasp above the ripping sound of the tires. Cindy gripped the steering wheel even tighter, if that was possible, and her teeth sawed across her lower lip faster, almost drawing blood. She cleared her throat, about to say something, but couldn’t sort out the right words from the cascade of thoughts that filled her mind. She knew she should act with confidence, show no weakness, but the strain was finally getting to her. Now that she had really done it, she wasn’t at all sure she had the strength. She stared at the faces reflected in the rearview mirror, disoriented by the impression that they weren’t really there.

  “Aunt Cindy… I want to go home.”

  The voice almost light and airy, a little girl’s voice, but there was a terrified twist to it that cut Cindy to the quick.

  “Yes, honey,” Cindy said, her own voice croaking like a frog.

  “I—I want to go home now… Can we go home?”

  Clenching her jaw, Cindy glanced into the rearview and shook her head. For a moment, the two faces hovering in the darkness behind her blurred as tears filled her eyes. She saw two pairs of eyes—scared and lonely, with tears glistening like the rain-slick road—staring back at her.

  “No, honey,” Cindy said in a tight whisper. “I—I can’t take you back home. I—I’m sorry, but…”

  “I’m hungry and I’m cold and I have to go pee,” said another voice.

  Cindy’s gaze shifted back to the road for a second, then connected with the dim reflection of a boy’s face.

  “Billy… honey, look, I just want to… to drive a little while longer, okay? I just want to make sure we… that we’re not being followed.”

  “But why can’t we go back home with our father?”

  The boy was obviously struggling to sound tough, and even through her panic and pain, Cindy had to admire him. “We just can’t, all right? We’re going someplace else.” She was struggling to control her voice. “We’re going someplace where we’ll all be safe and happy.”

  “But I just wanna go home!” the boy said in a voice that perfectly mixed demand with frightened pleading.

  “I’m sorry, but we just can’t,” Cindy said, but even before she had finished her statement, the sound of a heart-wrenching cry filled the car. The little girl’s frail voice fought through the hitching sobs that wracked her.

  “I—I want to—want to see my mo-o-o-m-m-m-my!”

  The last word rose and rose until it became a coyote-like howl that pierced like a cold, steel drill to the center of Cindy’s soul.

  “Honey—” Cindy said. A hot, choking sensation filled her mouth. “Your mommy’s de—” Her voice suddenly cut off. Panicking, she stared at the road and corrected her steering. She blinked her eyes rapidly and wiped
them with the back of her wrist so she could see what she was doing.

  “You have to trust me—both of you,” she said. At least to her own ears, her voice sounded oddly like someone else’s. “I’m taking you to where we’ll all be happy… I mean really happy from now on.”

  “But—but how … how can we be?” the little girl said between wrenching gasps. “How can we be… when even the… even she’s so sad?”

  Cindy shifted her gaze to the rearview mirror again and let out a gasp. For a flickering instant, she thought she saw a third face, pale and translucent, floating above the children in the darkness behind her. But when she blinked her eyes, she realized that she was looking at her own reflection.

  “Who’s sad?” Cindy asked even as a heavy pounding sound filled her ears.

  “The blue lady,” said the little girl. “The blue lady’s sad. She’s crying all the time… all the time…”

  PART ONE

  ONE MONTH BEFORE

  Chapter One

  The Final Argument

  Debbie Harris cringed when she heard the garage door roll down and then slam shut. It sounded like a mass of boulders, thundering down a hillside, stopping with a final rumbling shudder. She could tell, just by the way it sounded, that Alex was drunk on his ass; and now that he was home, she knew that it would all start up again, the same way it always started up.

  Thank God, she thought, at least the kids are upstairs, asleep.

  Just like nearly every other night of the week, Alex had gone out drinking with his buddies straight from work. Three or more nights out of five, he never even came home for supper. For better than a year, now, Debbie hadn’t even bothered to set a place for him at the dining room table. Why go through the agony? Why deal with the heart-breaking, unspoken questions on both Billy’s and Krissy’s faces?