Chapter Seven
“Are you sure about this?” Star asked her brother as they walked down the rickety pier. The moon shone above them making the ripples of water in Silver Lake appear to flow like liquid mercury: hence the name.
“There’s no resolving this one sis.” Sam replied distractedly, “Ryan isn’t going to stop until his killers are six feet under.”
Star looked at the lake then at her brother, worry creasing her brow. “Yes but…this is insane. That’s his domain down there, you’ll be at his mercy…”
“Star,” her brother had the same grim expression as she did, but he forced it from his face. “Ryan’s bones are down there, if we can get them and give them a proper burial in the cemetery…”
“You got the idea from a TV show Sam!” She yelled at him with exasperation. Normally the only way to lay a ghost to rest was to confront and solve what kept it here, but Sam was right, what Gareth and his friends did to this poor boy wasn’t going to be resolved so easily.
Star remembered seeing Ryan Small at the playground, there was a bad vibe that radiated off him like warmth from a radiator. He was here for revenge plain and simple. She shrugged off her coat with a sigh.
“Star we’ve been through this…” Her brother sighed while slipping off his boots.
“We’ve got more of a chance finding him if we both go, it’s a big lake…”
“You can’t bloody swim!”
Star tossed her coat down angrily. “I can a little!” She shouted. Sam’s face softened and he picked up her coat.
“It’s going to take a lot more than a ghost of a fifteen year old teenager to kill me.” He mused putting the coat around her shoulders. “You worry too much, I’ll be fine, but Gareth and the rest need you Star. Ryan could strike again at any time, I need you to keep them safe, I’ll call when it’s done.”
“What if you never call?” She whined in a high pitched voice.
“You know I will, I always do.”
***
Star paced the Lock’ living floor, keeping a constant watch of the clock above the mantle. It had been half an hour since Sam had gone into the lake. Gareth had called his cohorts and now they were all assembled in the kitchen, huddled around the dining table with hot mugs of coffee, desperately trying to come to terms with fact that ghosts were real.
“Come on Sam, ring damn it!” Star whispered trying to control her nerves. She cursed herself for not being a better swimmer, if she had she could have helped instead of standing around waiting for…
“Sam!” The cell in her hand rang and she said his name into the microphone, with a sigh of relief, but it was a cold angry voice that greeted her.
“If you want to see him again, bring them to me. Silver Lake ten minutes, don’t keep me waiting…”
The line went dead.