But they did not glance up again. Would not.
"What the hell is this?" he whispered, his voice too loud in the Jeep with Molly sleeping beside him, even though the soft music on the radio drowned out his words.
There came an answer.
"Call it the welcome wagon, bro."
With a start, Jack glanced in the rearview mirror. In the backseat, the rear of the Jeep visible through him, sat Artie Carroll. Artie was a ghost now and a part of the spirit world that Jack could never understand. But Artie was still Artie.
"What do you think of it up here, Jack?" he asked. "Weird country, I think. I mean, on the one hand you've got plenty of liberals, all that PC Ben & Jerry's stuff and the push for gay marriages. On the other hand, you've got enough hunting to make Charlton Heston wet himself. An NRA festival. Damn peculiar, wouldn'tja say?"
Jack felt a chill run through him, and he did his best not to let Artie see how it all affected him.
"Good . . . good to see you, Artie," he said, voice barely above a whisper. Molly would hear him if she woke up. If he was lucky, she'd think he was talking to himself.
"You're freaked out, Jack. Don't lie to me. I don't come around for a few weeks, maybe you stop believing I'm still here," Artie said, sadness creeping into his voice.
Jack could clearly see the upholstery through Artie's body. Every inch of him was transparent, and sometimes his legs seemed to be disappearing. He drifted more than moved.
Every inch . . . but not his eyes. Artie's eyes were black and gleaming with sparkles that might have been stars. Something swirled inside them, something solid. His eyes were not transparent, they were windows into somewhere else. Jack thought it was the Ghostlands, but if it was not, he did not want to know what else it could be.
Molly began to stir, so Jack accelerated again, even more slowly. They crossed the intersection and rolled past the ghosts, but not one of them looked up.
"What do you mean, 'welcome wagon'?" he asked quietly.
"They've heard about you. Word travels in the Ghostlands. All these folks are victims of the Prowlers. You got vengeance for me and some others in Boston.
They're hoping you'll do the same here," Artie explained.
Jack glanced quickly over his shoulder. The ghosts had moved out into the street now, standing in the rain as a few errant rays of sun broke through and speared the pavement around them. Most of them still hung their heads as though ashamed, though one or two had looked up.
"I don't get it, though," Jack whispered. "One of them tried to get me to turn around. Now this bunch won't even look at me."
Artie did not respond at first. Jack had to look in the rearview mirror to make sure he was still there. Then those black, bottomless-pit eyes met his, and he shuddered and returned his attention to the road.
"Artie?" Jack prodded.
"They're feeling a little guilty," Artie finally revealed.
Jack furrowed his brow. "Why?"
"They think you're gonna die."
CHAPTER 4
Artie.
The moment Molly awoke, the dream began to slip away. As her eyes flickered open, the only thing she could recall was that he had been there. For a moment it was as though she could still see him; the image of his sweet grin lingered. Then it was gone.
Molly frowned. It was very dark outside, but with the rain pouring down upon the windshield and drumming against the roof, she could not tell if it was truly night, or if the storm had brought evening prematurely.
The engine still idled, but the Jeep had stopped.
She moaned a little, stretched - the last thoughts of the Artie-dream skittering back into the recesses of her unconscious, like night creatures fleeing the sunrise
- and glanced over at Jack.
His hair was a mess, and his chin had a shadow he could never seem to be rid of for long. Yet, though rumpled, he looked strong and confident. It gave her hope, seeing him like that, before he had noticed she was awake. Jack had always been the one out in front, the leader, and Artie always the loyal, devil-may-care side-kick.
But Artie was dead now. And Molly doubted she would ever allow herself to be anybody's sidekick.
She stretched again, and this time Jack noticed. His eyes sparkled as he glanced at her, and a smile blossomed on his lips. Molly might have seen something in his gaze just then, when he looked at her like that, just waking up, that sent a pleasurable shiver through her. But she pushed the thought away. It was hard for her to think of Jack in that way, but even more so with the last echoes of her dream still haunting her, as though Artie hid somewhere out there in the dark, amidst the rain.
"Well, hey there, sleepyhead," Jack said in a whisper, barely audible over the radio and the rain.
"Mmm," Molly replied, stretching one final time before sitting up in her seat and glancing around. "Are we here?"
She squinted and tried to get a good look at the storefronts on the street around them.
"Well, if 'here' is Buckton, then, yeah," Jack replied. Then he shrugged. "But I've gotta tell you, there isn't much 'here' here."
"What was it you expected, Metropolis?" Molly asked. "It looks quaint."
Despite the rain she could clearly make out the glowing marquee and faÆade of an old-style movie house, the Empire Theatre. There were a few small stores, mostly dark now, and what looked like a tiny Chinese take-out restaurant, given that its name was written in both English and the spiderwebbed characters that must have been a rough translation.
"Quaint, yeah," Jack agreed, his smile fading, his voice growing far more serious. "But it doesn't seem like the kind of place a pack
