Farewell Summer (Green Town 3)

‘Doug!’ cried Lisabell. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because …’ said Doug.

And then it happened.

There was a rush of feet, a torrent of whispers, and a swirling mob of white shapes burst out of the house and down the stairs and along the path and away into the ravine.

‘Doug,’ said Lisabell. ‘Why’d you do that?’

‘Because,’ said Doug, ‘I couldn’t stand it anymore. Someone had to scare them out. Someone had to act like they knew what they were doing. I bet they won’t come back.’

‘That’s terrible,’ said Lisabell. ‘Why would you want ghosts not to be here?’

‘Why would you think,’ said Doug, ‘that they had a right to be here? We don’t even know who they were.’

‘Well,’ said Lisabell, angrily. ‘Just for that I’m going to teach you a lesson.’

‘What?’ said Douglas.

And Lisabell stepped up to him, grabbed him by the ears, and planted an immense kiss on Douglas’s mouth. It lasted only an instant, but it was a blow like a bolt of lightning that had come out of the air and struck his face and anguished his body.

He shook from head to toe, his fingers extended, and somehow he imagined sparks firing out of his fingertips. His eyelids jittered and a fantastic flow of sweat broke out on his brow. He gasped and could not breathe.

Lisabell stood back, surveying her creation: Douglas Spaulding, hit by lightning.

Douglas fell back, afraid that she might touch him again. She laughed, her face merry.

‘So there!’ she cried. ‘That’ll fix you.’

She turned and ran away and left him in the invisible rain, a terrible storm, shaken, his whole body now

hot, now cold, his jaw dropped, his lips trembling.

The explosion of the lightning bolt hit him again in memory, even stronger than when it had first struck.

Slowly, Doug felt himself sink to his knees, his head shaking, his mind wondering at what had happened and where Lisabell had gone.

He looked up at the now truly empty house. He wondered if he should go up the stairs and find out if maybe he hadn’t just come out of the house himself.

‘Tom,’ he whispered. ‘Take me home.’ And then he remembered: Tom wasn’t there.

He turned, stumbled, almost fell down into the ravine, and tried to find his way home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Quartermain woke laughing.

He lay wondering what in god–awful hell had made him happy. What was the dream, gone now, but so wondrous that it cracked his face and uncorked something resembling a chuckle beneath his ribs!? Holy Jesus. What?

In the dark he dialed Bleak.

‘Do you know what time it is?’ Bleak cried. ‘There’s only one thing you ever wait half the night to churn my guts with – your stupid war. I thought you said the damned thing was over!’

‘It is, it is.’

‘It is what?’ shouted Bleak.

‘Over,’ said Quartermain. ‘There are just a few more things I want to make sure of. It’s what you would call the joyful aftermath. Bleak, remember the collection of oddities and medical freaks we put together one summer for a town fair, all those years ago? Do you think we could find those jars? Are they up in an attic or down in a basement somewhere?’