EVERYBODY KNEW PETE

By Marian Mathews Hersrud

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Marian Mathews Hersrud
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-1497-1

Chapter One

The scream that erupted from Jenny McKnight's throat was high-pitched, gut-wrenching. She sat up in bed and turned on the light. 4:00 a.m. She shivered as she recalled her recurring nightmare. A man came toward her from the shadows of a tree-lined street and stopped under a bright streetlight. He advanced slowly. She couldn't see his face. Each time she experienced the nightmare, she awoke screaming before she could recognize the man.

Her roommate, Kate, called from the other bedroom. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Sorry to wake you." Jenny got up, grabbed a robe, and went to the kitchen. Maybe a cup of tea would put her back to sleep. Kate came in and slipped into the other chair. Jenny filled two mugs with water and put them in the microwave.

"What are you going to do about those nightmares?" Kate asked.

"I don't know," Jenny said. "Teaching's done for the summer. Maybe I'll drive up to Sowatna and visit my family. Maybe a change of scene will end the problem." She smoothed back her auburn hair and rubbed her eyebrows.

"I'm curious," Kate said. "Something must trigger them. Do you suppose it's something that happened in the past?" She made tea and gave Jenny a mug.

Jenny sipped her tea and stared out the window over the sink. "I don't know." She watched as dark clouds hid a half-moon, breaking and reforming. Drops of rain began to pelt the window. "The only thing I remember is a crazy night when I was a high school senior ten years ago. My friend, Erin, and I sneaked out and smoked pot upstairs in the Presbyterian Church." Jenny laughed. "You can't believe how cool we thought we were."

Kate laughed. "Who didn't smoke? My boyfriend and I tried pot on the fifty yard line at the high school stadium."

Jenny nodded. "I've never told anyone this before. She paused. "It's difficult to talk about, but something weird happened that night."

Kate leaned forward. "Really? What?"

"I remember it, every detail. The wind, the cold rain. It was late October. Erin and I brought our marijuana stuff and climbed up the stairs to the steeple. At the top was a small room. Just enough space for us and a huge bell. Erin did most of the smoking and went to sleep on the floor. I took just one drag, put it out and went over to the window. The mist had turned to rain." Jenny shivered. "I looked out and saw ..." She stopped and stared at Kate, her eyes wide, not seeing her.

Jenny's mind had left the kitchen and was at the window of Sowatna's Presbyterian Church in October, 1998. "There's a streetlight on the corner, and I see a man bent over, carrying the body of someone on his back, the feet drag along on the sidewalk. The man moves slowly, but I can't see his face. He walks past, dragging his burden down the street toward the pier. Now he's beyond the streetlight. I can't see him any more, but I hear a car door slam, and the sound of a motor starting up."

"Did your friend see the guy?"

Jenny blinked, and memory faded back into the past. "No, Erin was asleep. I had to shake her to get her down the stairs and point her toward her house."

"Have you ever talked to her about that night?"

"No. After graduation, we lost track of each other. She works here in Portland, but we haven't seen each other. I've called and left messages, but she hasn't returned them. Now I'd like to see her again. Play catch-up." She finished the tea. "Maybe what I saw that night is related to my nightmare." Jenny stood. "Thanks for listening, Kate. I sometimes wish that I didn't have these psychic moments. Last Christmas, I went skiing. I stopped at the side of a run and watched a guy whiz past me, totally out of control. As he went by, his body looked to be all dark, almost black. When I reached the bottom of the run and saw the ski patrol and the stretcher, I knew that he was dead. They told me that he had run into a tree and was killed instantly. That's not fun, Kate."

"Do you have brighter happenings?"

"Oh, yes. I've seen my mother late at night just before I go to sleep. Mom died when I was eight. I remember the perfume she always wore, Patchouli. Sometimes my bedroom is filled with that scent, and I can see a faint shadow in the corner of the room, a shadow with a beautiful white aura around her. I know she's with me, Kate, and that's pure joy."

That night, she tried to erase ten years of nightmares from her mind and hoped that talking about it with Kate had erased her fears, but sleep was a faint hope as she turned over, punched her pillow, and turned again. After thirty minutes of turning and punching, she picked up the phone.

* * *

"Louise, he's back." Her niece's voice on the bedside phone was a quivering whisper. Now fully awake, Louise switched on the light and checked the clock.

"Jenny?" she asked, already knowing the answer. No one but Jenny would call at this hour.

"I hated to wake you, but I'm scared."

"When was the last time you had that vision?"

"Tonight. I want to come home."

"Of course. You can stay with me."

Jenny's sigh of relief was clearly audible. "Thanks. Yesterday was our last class. My third graders have all gone home, and I can drive up this morning."

"Good. Come in time for lunch." Louise replaced the phone and lay back in bed.

Sleep would return slowly as she thought about Jenny lying awake and afraid in Portland. Her niece loved to teach, but her visions had marred the experience. When she had returned to Sowatna during Christmas vacation, she'd told her aunt about the man who appeared mysteriously at any hour. "He's big, heavy set. I can't see his face. He walks toward me, then disappears."

Jenny's visions were not unusual. Psychics often had presentments that baffled and plagued their lives. Louise had great respect for friends and family members who experienced strange visions. Maybe it was their Scottish ancestry. She'd experienced strange disappearances and reappearances, a new black dress gone from its box in her closet and her sorority pin, no longer in its cushion, both of them mysteriously reappearing months later in their original places, and the chilling premonition of her sister, Betsy's sudden death. Louise's experiences were minor compared to Jenny's.

"I usually know who's calling before I answer the phone," Jenny had confided one afternoon as they shared a Coke at Louise's craft shop. "It's a creepy feeling."

Louise laughed. "But just think, Jenny, you don't have to pay for Caller I.D."

Louise recalled other, less pleasing incidents in Jenny's life and hoped that peace of some sort might be possible for her niece. At last she rolled over and fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning, Louise dressed, ate a hurried breakfast, and walked downtown to her craft shop on Sowatna's Front Street. She liked the morning's walk. Five blocks down to the pier where waves of the Atlantic Ocean lapped against tall-masted sailboats, yachts, fishing schooners, and a wharf that stretched out into the sea. Her walk took her past the Presbyterian Church whose steeple reached up into the sky, past homes of her neighbors where friends nodded and waved. Sowatna, Maine's six thousand inhabitants got up early, went to bed early, and knew almost everyone in town.

"We're just a small fishing village," Louise explained to friends in faraway places. "Lobster mostly."

She stopped in front of the craft shop, picked...