Free Peaceable Kingdom (mobi) by Jack Ketchum

she thought maybe Sam had gotten into the rafters above her, into the lighting.

    Sam, of course, was on his perch where he always was. He never flew around. Sam was lazy as hell. I told her that.

    “Well, then you’re damn well haunted, Stu,” she said. “And I’d like to know exactly what you’re going to do about it.”

    I asked her what it was she’d heard.

    “The guy was giving me compliments.”

    “Compliments?”

    “Yeah. Likes my breasts. Likes my thighs. He particularly likes my ‘
derriere
’.”

    “He called it that? Your derriere?”

    “Yes.”

    “Jesus.”

    “What I want to know is what you intend to do about it.”

    I thought about it for a while. Hell, there was only one thing I could
think
of doing. “Hold a seance, I guess.”

    It seemed logical, really. Find out what the guy was up to, what he wanted. See if I could get him to disappear—over to the Seahorse a few blocks away would be nice. No trouble finding a medium. Lauderdale was crawling with them. In every tourist town you get your share of psychics, faith-healers, mediums, whatever. I just needed somebody who knew the appropriate words.

    As it turned out Mary knew the words.

    “Sure, Stu,” she said. “I used to listen to my Aunt Lilian back in Indiana. She was forever trying to summon her brother, Uncle Joe, ‘who died of drink’ as they say back there. And she’d summon him all right, but I guess he wasstill boozing on the other side because everything he said came out garbled. But I remember the whole routine.”

    “Want to try?”

    “Sure. Why not? Sooner the better. He talks to her, he watches me. Let’s get the bastard. Tomorrow night, after closing.”

    She scribbled out a shopping list for me. In the morning I went out and purchased everything, white tablecloth, white candles, ceramic candleholders, and a Ouija board. At dinnertime the chef told me that somebody had stuffed one of his chickens with mocha ice cream and wild rice. It wasn’t an easy thing, getting him to relax.

    That night unseen fingers plucked ever-so-lightly at Paula’s pasties.

    Things were getting out of hand.

    By three o’clock our last customer was gone and we assembled on the stage. I’d set up a table and four chairs, covered the table with the white tablecloth, put the candles in their holders and opened up the Ouija board. Mary and Paula changed into street clothes and then the three of us waited for Bernie to finish cashing out the register. Then we all sat down and I turned off the lights and lit the candles. We closed our eyes and held hands.

    I don’t remember all of what Mary said that night but it was something about how here we were, four friends, ready to invoke whatever spirit lingered here, how we came in peace and friendship and hoped he’d communicate with us either directly or through the board. She was very polite.

    I remember her hand in mine was warm and soft while Bernie’s was cooler, rougher, yet somehow far more comforting. I remember smelling
Possession
again, a heady incense. For a while there was just dark and silence. We waited.

    “Open your eyes,” she said. “We’ll try the board. Place your fingertips on the planchette very lightly.”

    If you’ve never used a board a planchette is a clear plastic triangular kind of affair with a pin set into it and it’s supposedto move around to the letters on the board, the pin spelling out the message. Bernie, Paula and I did as she said and the planchette was a dead slab of nothing. Then Mary put her fingers to it. And the damn thing went careening around the board so fast we could barely keep up with the spelling.

    “You’re pushing it!” Paula said but I could tell she wasn’t. All of us could. There was a sudden sensation in the room that was electric and practically exausting. Mary didn’t even bother to deny it. She was too busy watching the swooping, whirling plastic.

    About five minutes later we had our message. Bernie wrote it