Free Soul Seekers by Dean Crawford Page B

‘What did he say?’
    ‘What did he do to you?’ Emily asked him in horror. ‘You passed out.’
    Cas felt as though he had awoken on a different planet. He knew that he had passed out in shock but at the same time, just before he had fallen, he had seen Crazy Jo’s face up close and he had realised that the old ghost was not enraged.
    He had seen an incredible look of relief and joy on the ghost’s face.
    ‘He tried to hold me,’ Cas replied.
    Jude raised an eyebrow. ‘Like a choke-hold? I didn’t know Crazy Jo was a wrestler.’
    Cas shook his head.
    ‘His name’s not Jo,’ he replied. ‘It’s Joshua. The ghost was my father.’
    * * *

18
    Hascomb Air Force Base
    The gates of the base flashed in the headlights from Karen Ryan’s car as she drove up to them, the engine wailing and then the tyres screeching as she braked to an abrupt halt. Cas watched as armed soldiers strode out from the guardhouse, eyeing the car suspiciously.
    In the back seat sat Jude, Siren and Emily.
    ‘You sure this is the right thing to do?’ Jude asked him.
    Before he could answer, Cas’s mother got out of the car and stormed across to the nearest soldier. Cas could not hear what she was saying, but the towering soldier she confronted gradually began to back away, raising his hands in compliance and ordering his men into the guardhouse.
    ‘She’d never have believed me on my own,’ Cas said, and tucked the diary under his jacket. ‘That’s why we needed this, and why you all needed to be with me at the shack.’
    Cas had led his friends home as soon as he’d been able to, carrying his father’s ancient diary with him. He had knocked on his own front door and quietly accepted the blast of outrage from his mother for having snuck out without telling her. He had also quietly accepted his being grounded for a month just so long, he’d told her, as she would listen to the important things they had to tell her.
    Lost for words, his mother had let them all in and in the living room in front of the fire Cas had told her everything. When she had inevitably stood up and accused them all of living in a fantasy land, Cas had handed her Joshua’s diary.
    Two minutes later, having recognised the handwriting of her own husband on the pages of a diary far older than she was, they were being bundled into the family car. As she had driven them toward the base at breakneck speed, his mother had used the car phone to call Jude and Emily’s parents.
    Now, as he watched the soldiers trying to control his enraged mother, two more cars pulled up and more irate parents stormed toward the guard house.
    ‘Sometimes,’ Cas said, ‘parents can actually be useful.’
    Jude and Emily grinned in the darkness, but Siren did not react.
    Two minutes after his mother had launcher her tirade against the guards, they were escorted inside and driven toward the same huge hanger where everything had started.
    *
    ‘Mrs Ryan, I must apologise for everything that has happened.’
    Doctor Harrison stood before Cas’s mother with his hands raised palm-out before him.
    ‘
Apologise
?’ Karen snapped. ‘I think we’re due a bit more than that, don’t you?!’
    Cas had not realised it before, but although his mom was very beautiful she also looked very dangerous now that she was truly angry. Both Jude and Emily’s parents were happy to let Karen do the talking.
    ‘Yes, I do,’ Doctor Harrison agreed. ‘But there’s not much that I can do. The military contingent own and run this part of the airbase and I…’
    ‘Will be leading us inside,’ Karen interrupted him. ‘Because if you don’t I’m going to go public with what you’ve done to our husbands and our children!’
    Doctor Harrison looked worried.
    ‘But how could you do that?’ he asked. ‘Nobody would believe you.’
    ‘They’d believe a two hundred year old diary written by my husband!’ Karen almost shouted. ‘Are your bosses so incompetent that they’ve been outsmarted and exposed