Perfect Circle: Chapter 2

I never walked down a ghost road myself. There are some places we just aren't meant to go. Our second excerpt from cult novelist Sean Stewart's unearthly thriller.

By Sean Stewart

Jul 9, 2004 |

"It started with the crying," Hanlon said. "A couple of weeks ago I came in dead beat, must have been past midnight. It was raining. Anyway, I was in bed, just falling asleep. All of a sudden I find myself real scared, and I'm listening for this girl crying, so quiet I would have thought I imagined it, only my body knows I didn't. She's crying out there in my garage. I'm all tensed up and my skin is crawling. The next night it's the same. I tried getting drunk before I went to bed, but that made it worse. Now, I hear her all the time. She knows I can hear her."

"You ever see her?"

"No."

Oh, great. When it's all sounds and voices, nine times out of ten you're talking schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is every bit as real and scary as ghosts, in its own way, but nothing I can do jack shit about. "You know who she is?"

"No clue."

"Do you hear her more often some times than others?" I asked. "Only at night, for instance?"

"M-maybe a little more often when it rains. DK? Do you have any ideas?"

"Call me Will. Nobody calls me DK anymore."

"She's driving me crazy, DK. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I'm missing appointments, I'm blowing sales. I truly need your help. I'm good for the money. If you can think of anything I can do to make her go away, I'll write you a check tomorrow."

Shit. "I just don't think--"

"Jesus, Will. This is family. Family and a thousand dollars."

I looked out my living room window, wishing I didn't need his money. My reflection looked back at me, tired and pale. "What the hell. Pick me up tomorrow and I'll take a look."

Silence. "Pick you up? Can't you just...?"

"Write you a prescription? If you're paying me to check it out, I'm going to check it out." Long silence from Hanlon. "Hey, Tom, piss or get off the pot. Your choice, man."

"The thing is, I'm really busy right now," Hanlon stammered. "I don't have...I don't think I can work that in."

"Then buenos fucking noches." I slammed the phone down on my thousand dollars. If there's anything worse than being a whore, it's being a rejected whore. "God damn."

Probably it was for the best. Probably cousin Tom was beginning the long awful slide into schizophrenia, and nothing short of heavy duty medication would get rid of his ghost. In the long run, we would both be better off this way. Except...a thousand dollars! "Fuck!" I shouted, and I kicked my wall hard enough to leave a bootprint on it.

Then I stomped over to my stereo and played "Wild Child" thirty-eight times in a row.

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