The Sighting - Part Five

By Cayce B. Shelton

"How long is your old man gonna be locked up anyhow?" Bob asked Dan. The boys were in their favorite position, flat on their backs, in the creek clearing.

"Oh, I don't know," said Dan. "I hope the bastard stays there."

"Did you ever find out what he done?" Joe asked, throwing a hand full of leaves at Bob.

"Nah, I asked Mom but she just ignored me. Sometimes I wish she would get arrested, too," Dan said angrily.

"Well, have you seen our girl friends since we found out their names?" Joe's question was not directed at either of his friends.

Bob answered immediately. "I ain't seen them, no way. I really hoped since we found out their names, they would just go away. They scared the hell out of me last time," Bob finished as he rolled to his side and pushed himself upright.

"No, I ain't seen them," Dan said, getting up. "Maybe 'cause I ain't been back down here since then. I want to help them some way, though." Dan looked around the clearing as if looking for the golden clouds.

Bob struggled to his feet and asked, "What the shit could we do to help them anyhow?"

"I think I know," said Joe. The other boys looked at him without emotion.

Bob spoke before Joe had a chance to continue, "Well, you gonna tell us or you gonna stand there all day?"

Joe kicked a bunch of leaves at Bob and replied, "Well, fat-ass, if you would give a guy time to think, maybe you would learn something."

"It'll be a cold day in Georgia when I find out you know something I don't," Bob retorted.

Dan broke into the word fight. "All right, you two, let up. If he's got something to say, at least let him say it. You may know more than him, but I doubt if I do," Dan finished with a chop of his arm.

Bob grinned at Joe.

Joe began talking toward Dan, "Well, I was talking to Dad the other day and I brought up the subject of ghosts. I asked him why ghosts appear and he told me that when he was a little boy, his Grandmother told a lot of ghost stories. Some of them were pretty scary, but he said he learned that some ghosts appear in the place they were killed if they were never found."

As Joe finished four golden globes of light appeared about a foot off the ground on the opposite side of the creek. While the boys stared, the sound of bells filled their senses. When the sound became a deafening roar the four balls of light suddenly changed into the four young females the boys recognized as their ghost friends. The boys stood like statues as the sound of bells receded and the four females moved to within two feet of the boys.

"Hey, there," Dan said. "You kinda scared me, didn't you?" He grinned at the girl ghost named Cathy Boyd, but the ghost did not reply, of course.

Dan broached the subject about the appearance of ghosts. "We think that you girls are trying to get us to help find the bodies you came from." When Dan said the last word, there was a blast of sound.

Joe and Dan jumped and the four girls vanished.

Bob blurted, "I don't know what in hell is going on around here. First I see one of them spooks standing over me and then, poof, she's gone. Can either of you guppies tell me what's happening?"

"Dan talked to them and, boom, and they were gone." Joe stated.

"Well, skinny, what in hell did you say that scared them off?" Bob asked looking angrily at Dan.

Dan lifted his hands, palm up and shrugged his shoulders. "I just told them we thought they were trying to get us to find their bodies." Dan let his arms drop to his sides as he turned around. A large beetle crawled across the leaves in front of him and disappeared into a hole in the creek bank. Dan spun around, grinning.

"I know what we can do," Dan cried, moving to the nearest tree. The other two boys watched him break off a small limb. No one spoke as Dan struggled to push the limber stick into the dirt at his feet.

Bob asked, "What are you doing, now?"

"I'm trying to put this thing in the ground to mark where one of them is buried," Dan gasped, still struggling with the stick.

"You probably need a stiffer stick to do that," Joe said as he broke a dead limb. Dan and Bob watched as Joe tried to shove the dead stick into the ground. The stick broke and Joe fell forward with a grunt. As he got to his feet he saw Bob heading for the tunnel. He called after him, "Where you going, man?"

Bob replied without looking back, "You guys stay here, I'll be right back."

Dan and Joe watched Bob disappear into the brush. Without words, they dropped to sit Indian fashion on the carpet of leaves. Neither made a sound as the forms of the four girls reappeared, each seeming to sit like the boys. The sounds of flies buzzing and frogs croaking were not covered by the tinkle of little bells.

When Bob returned with a handful of wooden stakes, Dan and Joe were grinning and making motions with their arms and hands, which all four girls were imitating.

"I see you guys have been enjoying yourselves while I been out working," said Bob without malice.

Dan and Joe laughed out loud and threw leaves at their friend. Bob ignored the shower of leaves as he dropped to the ground and laid the stack of stakes aside.

"What're those for?" Joe asked, pointing to the stakes.

"You'll see," said Bob. Bob motioned toward the girl named Rebecca Kane and spoke. "I want you to go to the place where we should go."

The ghost stopped smiling and rose quickly to a standing position. Bob got to his feet and stopped her.

When the ghost stopped, the golden mist surrounding her became a large cloud that hid her. Bob steeled himself to stand still as the large cloud became smaller. Finally just a speck of gold lay on the bed of leaves. Bob put the end of a stake on the gold spot and pushed downward. "I need something to drive it in," cried Bob, still holding the stake.

Without speaking, Dan and Joe grabbed pieces of tree limb from the ground and jumped to Bob's side. There was a shower of broken wood as Joe's limb shattered. Immediately, Dan swung his limb and drove the stake into the ground.

Joe and then Dan followed Bob as he rose and turned toward the remaining ghosts. He pointed at one of the three remaining girls and the cloud surrounding that ghost enveloped the figure. Like a thrown ball the cloud sped around the clearing, growing smaller. The boys watched the cloud fly through the air to land in the brush near the exit tunnel. Bob reached the spot. Dan hit the stake Bob was holding on the golden spot. Two blows and the boys sped back to the last two ghosts.

When Bob pointed to the ghost named Cathy, a mournful moan filled the clearing. Immediately her and the other ghosts vanished into their individual clouds, moved around the clearing. One cloud quickly receded to a spot near the water's edge. The other cloud sailed back and forth in the clearing and finally flew through the brush hiding the view of the nearby road.

Bob and Joe ran to the gold spot near the water as Dan broke for the exit tunnel.

"She's headed for the culvert," screamed Dan as he ran through the field. Then, a moment later, "She went into the culvert. I'm going in."

Bob and Joe broke into the field in time to see Dan jump into the creek, pass the fence wire, and head into the cavernous culvert. They could see the golden cloud illuminating the inside. Dan was kneeling at the center of the culvert when Bob and Joe stumbled to a stop. Dan was holding his hand over a small golden glow resting on the sand in the bottom of the culvert.

"She can't be here, this thing is metal."

The fearful sound in Dan's voice made Joe grunt. He turned and moved quickly to leave the tunnel. Bob watched him until he saw Joe in the sunlight, looking back into the culvert.

"Maybe she's been here a long time, Dan," Bob said, his hand on Dan's back.

Wiping his face with one hand and holding his other over the golden spot, Dan turned his face from Bob to the dim golden glow and back to Bob. "You mean she's under the culvert?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Bob. "She probably got it a very long time ago."

"I didn't think she had been here longer than the others," Dan stated softly.

"If you are going by their dresses, the other three could have been down many years before Cathy," Bob said, turning to walk away.

As Dan stood up, the golden glow at his feet winked out. He slowly walked out of the culvert.

Dan, Bob and Joe stood together at the entrance to the culvert. By the motion of their heads, one turning to look toward their homes, another turning to face away from the houses while the other boy stared into the sky, one would think the boys were lost. In a way they were lost. Joe voiced the question on their minds.

"Well, what do you know? Here we find out the names of four girls and the place where each one is probably buried and we stand here like dummies. What are we gonna do now, pray tell." Joe finished with a nod of his head and a sweep of his arm.

Bob and Dan did not reply to the question.

After a few minutes, the boys turned toward their homes as if called by an unseen voice. No one spoke as they walked along the road and finally separated.

Joe told me that the guys were pretty much down at the mouth, knowing they had probably found where each of the girls was buried, but didn't know what to do next. They talked about the problem for days, but never reached any solution. Finally, the problem was taken out of their hands accidentally. Well, it wasn't no accident when Dan slipped away from his mother in town. They had went to visit his dad in jail and Dan simply wandered around and found a room marked "Detectives."

"Sir," Dan asked the first police officer he encountered in the hall, "Sir, can you tell me who would know about missing people?"

The officer looked down at the boy and asked, "Son, what do you know of missing people?"

Dan hesitated. "Sir, I don't know anything about missing people. I just want to talk to someone who does," Dan said, his eyes fixed on the officer's eyes.

"Go to the second door on the right and ask for Detective Bennett," said the officer, pointing down the hall. Dan walked off without thanking the man.

"Is there a Detective Bennett in here?" asked Dan, one hand on the doorsill and the other in his pocket. He was set to run if Bennett was not there; he did not want to talk to anyone else. Dan relaxed as a white-headed old man walked towards him. No one in the room had answered his question.

"I'm Bennett," said the old man, looking down at Dan.

"Sir, do you know something about missing people?" asked Dan, looking into the old man's eyes. The detective did not reply to the question immediately.

After looking around the room, the old detective looked down at Dan and spoke, "Boy, what do you know of missing people? Who is missing?"

When Dan spoke the names of the four girls in the creek he almost stammered the last name as he saw the expression on the old man's face change. Bennett's voice was slow and hard as he asked, "Where did you get those names, boy? Jim, get me a juvenile officer," Detective Bennett called over the nearby counter. Pushing Dan before him, the boy's shoes skidding on the floor, the elderly officer moved through the desks and officers. As soon as the adult hand left his arm Dan broke and ran.

"Catch that boy," cried the detective. Several officers responded by diving after Dan as he ran through the office. Just as he got through the office door Dan ran into an officer. As he struggled to get to his feet in the hall, several adult hands helped him. Still struggling to get free, the boy was carried back to the office where Detective Bennett was standing.

"All right, kid, let's have it. Where did you get them names?" the detective asked roughly.

Dan turned his head as a female officer entered the room. When she looked at Dan, the boy replied to the old man's question, "The girls told me."

"The girls told you their names?" the old man asked, his eyebrows lifting.

The old man's shoulders shook in a silent laugh as he heard Dan's reply, "Yes sir."

Detective Bennett turned to push a chair close to Dan. Everybody watched as the old man sat down and smiled at the boy. Leaning back in the chair, the detective asked, "And just when did these girls speak to you, son?"

"Oh, they didn't speak, sir," said Dan. Looking directly into the old man's eyes, Dan continued, "They don't talk. They're ghosts now. We see them when we go down to Frog Creek."

The different sounds that came from the officers made Dan look around the room. He knew no one believed him.

"Ghosts, you said. How do you know they were ghosts, boy?" The detective was grinning broadly. And then, suddenly, he was serious. "You might have seen some ghosts, boy, but I know you didn't get those names from no ghost."

When Dan leaped from the chair the detective grabbed him. He struggled to get free as he screamed at the elderly man, "Let me go. I ain't done nothing. Let me go, mister." And then, louder, "Help. Somebody help me. I ain't done nothing. Let me go."

Suddenly Dan was in the arms of the female police officer. When he saw Detective Bennett sit back in his chair, Dan relaxed against the woman.

"OK, kid, let's start over. Who told you the names of those girls?" the detective asked, sighing heavily.

"I told you already," said Dan angrily.

"Yeah, you said some ghost told you, and I don't believe you," replied Bennett waving his hand in the air.

"Maybe you don't care about them girls, mister. I care 'cause they are trapped and want out." Dan threw the words in the man's face and then broke free of the woman's light hold on his arms. He stood defiantly between the two officers.

"What do you mean, 'trapped', boy? Where are they trapped?" The detective leaned forward as he spoke.

Dan stood his ground. The boy looked into the old man's eyes and slowly said, "Mister, there are four girl ghosts down on Frog Creek near where I live. Joe, Bob and I learned their names and the places we think they're buried."

When the boy said that last word, the elderly detective rose to his feet, knocking over the chair, and grabbed his chest. Several officers started screaming for medical help as the elderly man collapsed, forcing Dan and the female officer to move out of his way.

Dan ran from the room as the people in the room tried to help the old man.