Talking To Luke

By Diane Ryan

Paranormal researcher Tania Mosley has a gift. When the dead will speak to no one else, they speak to her.

After she captures the Holy Grail of electronic voice phenomena—a ghost willing and able to have a two way conversation—lines between the living and the dead start to blur. Luke Porter seems inexorably connected to her. A real boy-next-door. He feels like her friend. Acts like her confidante. Knows the names of all her friends. Plays with her cat. Never mind the fact that he’s been buried in a shallow grave for 150 years.

But what keeps a man anchored to a world that has moved on without him? How much emotion—how much anger—would it take to hold him here? Tania is afraid to ask. Afraid to know. Because sometimes the dead won’t stay buried, and the secrets they tell can rip the living apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diane Ryan
• Release date: Aug 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370615759

Diane Ryan

Diane Ryan is Southern born and raised. Over the years, she has rescued and rehabilitated horses, dogs, and cats. She's an active blogger, cryptocurrency fancier, and author of two novels, Talking to Luke and Wingspan. These days, she lives on a mountain in Central Appalachia with a houseful of animals and enjoys the wildlife that regularly comes to visit.

Book preview

To

Luke

A novel by

Diane Ryan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2016 Diane Ryan

All rights reserved.

Table Of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Information

Prologue

PART ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

PART TWO

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

PART THREE

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Afterthoughts

Acknowledgments

Meet Kobi

About The Author

Connect With The Author On Facebook

Learn More About Applachian Animal Rescue On Facebook

________1865

I stand in the kitchen of the house I grew up in, watching my mother’s back as she tends a pot on the stove. It’s an old wood-burner, a fat, black cast iron thing that has boiled water for the birth of four children and provided fire for more meals than I can remember. It sits on a slab of kiln-dried brick, with a crooked stovepipe that juts through a hole in the roof. Rainwater leaks in around it from time to time, and judging by the rust forming on its sides, I figure I have my work cut out for me as soon as the weather breaks.

I know this house as thoroughly as I know my own mind. Every chink in the walls, every dip in the floorboards. I know my initials are carved into one of its oak ceiling beams—Mama is blissfully unaware of this, because even though I was only twelve when I put them there, she’d skin me today if she knew how I got up there to do such a thing.

Mama, I say, my gaze pinned to a strand of her dark hair that has strayed from its clip. I have something to tell you. Lee surrendered—I’m coming home.

She does not react to this, just keeps stirring the pot. The scent of garlic and onion teases my stomach, which hasn’t seen a decent meal in months. I inhale deeply, guessing that the stew she’s prepared is nearly done. I wonder where she got the meat. Like me, Papa was quite a marksman, and could drop a hare from a hundred yards. But we lost him to a Yankee cannon two years ago, and I know full well Mama wouldn’t know which end of a gun to aim.

I glance at the muzzleloader propped in the corner and rethink my position on that.

Did you hear me? I ask, taking a step closer. It’s over. The war’s not going to take anything else from us, Mama.

She gives no indication that I have spoken. I feel my brow crease in puzzlement. Mama wouldn’t ignore me. Something else is going on, something I haven’t figured out yet.

I look at my two younger sisters as they play beside the hearth. They are fairer than me with fawn-colored hair and russet eyes. Sara will turn eight next month and Emma is ten. There is another sister who has married and lives in Vicksburg—she’s seventeen, and I wonder if perhaps it would have been wise for her to age a bit more before she took on so much responsibility.

Then again—am I really one to pass such a judgment on another?

Mama, I say with more emphasis. Look at me.

But she does not. Coldness grips my heart. I have known fear—I am a blooded soldier. But this is deeper. More sinister. The chill reaches my bones.

I try a different tack, turning to the girls by the hearth. Sara, I’ll be home in time for your birthday. Good news, right?

Sara doesn’t respond. She continues marching her doll of husks across the brick, absorbed in a world that is void of mortar and shell.

Dread seizes me. I’m dry-mouthed and find it difficult to breathe. There’s pressure in my chest, almost painful, and my heart begins to pound.

Mama! I shout, balling my hands into fists. I watch as she swipes a forearm across her cheek. It’s wet when she lowers it. Sweat—or tears? I notice her shoulders have rounded and her spine has lost its straightness to time. This war has been hard on all of us, and in no one is it more evident than her.

I sway a bit—my legs have become unsteady. Emma! Sara! This is not a fun game. Don’t pretend you can’t hear me.

Even as I speak, I understand they are not pretending. There truly is a dimension between my presence and their five senses. I am merely a spectator of this scene, a voyeur—a traveler out of synch with the cogs of time.

I panic.

Look at me! I roar, bounding toward the stove where Mama still stands. I make a grab for her arm, but my fingers don’t take hold. She moves away before I can try again. Look at me!

I’m standing on the floor, but I discover I can’t touch the walls. I put my hand through the top of the stove and I am not burned.

No! I insist, shaking my head. This can’t be!

This cannot be happening—cannot be real. I am a witness to life, but cannot interact with it. Yet I have no memory of death. I am me, the same as I’ve always been. I reach for a ladder-backed chair that is pushed neatly underneath the table, and I miss.

Not sure if I am more terrified or enraged, I try again. I bump it this time, and it rocks. This is all the motivation I need. With a growl so vicious it hurts my throat, I lunge at the chair and manage to snag it with one hand.

I toss it backward, hard as I can. I am gratified when I see it tip over. It lands with a crash that rings in my ears, one rung broken from impact. I am so pleased with this proof of my existence that for a moment I fail to monitor the reaction of my family.

Then I look at them, and instantly I’m sorry for what I’ve done. Mama is shielding the girls behind her body, her arms spread, staring at the broken chair as all color drains from her face. My sisters peep around the folds of her skirt with round eyes. None of them are looking at me, and Sara begins to cry.

***

I sit straight up in bed, chest heaving and skin slick with sweat. Blinking in the darkness, I gasp for air and struggle with the knowledge that it was only a dream. I am, in fact, still in Georgia—hundreds of miles from my family. I don’t recall ever having such a vivid dream, and I fervently hope I never have another one.

A kerosene lamp burns on the other side of a canvas partition. It provides enough light through the cloth for me to locate my threadbare shirt and slip it over my head. I am otherwise dressed—a good soldier learns to sleep with his boots on. My belly is tight and bladder is aching. As scared as I was in that dream, it’s a wonder I didn’t piss right there in the bed.

I creep out of the building into the night. The cold is bracing, and for a moment it steals my breath. It’s April—yesterday was Easter—and while the daytime temperature has been climbing steadily for a couple weeks, it still gets nippy after sunset. I shiver, and make my way to a stand of trees about fifty paces from the ordnance bunkers.

My legs are shaking. Knees weak, and pulse elevated. I can feel it thrumming in my neck. As unlikely as it seems, my ears are still ringing from the sound of Mama’s chair hitting the floor.

As I relieve my bladder, I stare across the river at several torchlights that bob along the shore. A week ago, this would have been cause for alarm. But what I said in my dream is true—Lee has surrendered. The war is over, and those of us still standing will go home. My fate has been fortuitous—I survived this mockery of war, this blight on a nation where I saw the ground saturated with Rebel blood. Unlike my father, I am one of the lucky ones who shed little.

I rub my jaw. Though I shaved before sundown, I feel stubble underneath my fingertips. For months my beard had grown, long and unkempt. It itched badly and collected lice. Shearing it was an act of great pleasure for me, a celebration of survival. I only hope I can find myself under the tragedy of the last four years as easily as I found my face under all that hair.

The sound that nearly deafens me is familiar, yet so unexpected that at first I can’t identify it. An explosion echoes off the hillsides and thunders across the valley, followed by another that shakes the ground. After that comes a whistling noise, like steam being released from a kettle. Behind it is a heartbeat of silence, then the abatis falls, collapsing with a crash of timber and stone.

I am running now, yelling, fumbling with the clasp of my britches as I tear across the yard. It is a futile warning that I cry—pointless because by now there isn’t a soul on post who doesn’t realize we are being shelled. I make it as far as the corner of the building. A cannonball sails past my head and punches a hole in the wall, landing in the approximate location of my bed. I freeze in my tracks, watching in horror as flames fueled by kerosene make short work of the place where, only minutes before, I had been sleeping.

I hear them scream from where I stand. My comrades, my friends. Men I’ve fought beside, whose jokes made me laugh and whose courage has awed me. Men who offered themselves as sacrifices for a cause so few of us believed in. One by one they stagger out of the doorways and tumble from the windows, walking flames that have taken a human shape.

I am baffled. Numb. My mind can’t comprehend what my eyes see. I don’t want to comprehend it. I don’t want to know how these men die. This is not the memory of them I wish to carry home with me.

Suddenly there is a blade at my throat, jagged and relentless as its wielder attempts to saw the jugular from my neck. But he has underestimated me, or perhaps he is disadvantaged by the smoke and falling ash. I grab his hair with both hands and duck forward, tossing him over my shoulders to the ground. My triceps ache and I have pulled a muscle in my side, yet I am otherwise unscathed. I bury a knee in his gut and pry the Bowie knife from his fingers. He looks up at me with eyes the color of new growth in the pines—I can see them clearly in the light of the fire. He is my age, if that. The only difference between this boy and me is that he wears blue, and I gray.

There is no choice to make, only a fate to deal. I sink the boy’s own weapon into the soft tissue beneath his jaw and jerk upward with both hands. There is a tearing sound and the giving of flesh, and I twist the blade. His green eyes roll back in his head and he convulses. Blood sprays me from the wound in his neck. I straddle his body until it quiets, heaving against the sickness that roils in my stomach.

I try to walk away, but I am reeling. The Yankee’s blood has covered my face and my clothing, and I attempt to mop it from my eyes. All I manage to do is smear it and stain my vision with red.

In the corral, the horses are terrified. They rear and squeal, surrounded on all sides by flames that are reflected in their eyes. Their tails are singed, and the smell of burning hair gives way to that of burning flesh. The gate is a slide pole, a single pine log. I pause to lower it, wondering what kind of man I am. I’ll slice a human throat without hesitation, yet risk a bullet to save a horse. This logic leaves my thoughts scrambled and my conscience torn. I collapse against a Napoleon’s carriage and slide downward to the ground. It’s been said that a true warrior can kill with one hand and love with the other. I study my hands and see no difference between them.

I glance at the buildings looming beside me in the darkness. Ordnance is not in short supply. These attackers are rabid but not witless—they have avoided hitting the bunkers, which are stocked with black powder. Shell and canister, with all their fuses and shrapnel. Yet heavy artillery is useless in a single pair of hands. I wager my life on the rack of guns I know is waiting for me at the back of the nearest bunker. Mostly Enfields and a few breech loading rifles with an action I know well.

Gunfire rips the night. Lead shot sings through the air and clatters off the Napoleon’s iron barrel. Smoke blankets the outpost. Ashes fall like snow. How many of them are wood—and how many are human? I catch one on my palm and stare at it. Though they are forever silenced, I can still hear the animal sounds of my friends screaming.

I shake off the horror and scramble on all fours until I gain my balance. My dash through a hail of canister fire is the longest few seconds of my life, and the doorway never seems to get any closer.

A mule-kick to the stomach and the ground rushes upward. I roll to a stop against the foundation of the bunker—there is a roar in my ears that drowns out an ensuing volley of rifle reports. I lie there, breath hissing in my throat, blinded by pain that seems to sever my body in half.

My fingers seek the wound and become instantly saturated with blood. I find the hole just above my right hipbone, trajectory from back to front, with an exit wound the size of my fist. I am shaking now—no, jerking—it is uncontrollable. I recognize this phenomenon from the battlefield. It manifests in the casualties.

I find enough strength to drag myself through the bunker door and into the darkness. Wedging myself into the corner behind a limber chest, I prop my torso against the wall and try to assess my condition. Death stalks me but does not seem imminent. Cold seeps from the ground into my skin, and the jerking of my limbs intensifies. I cannot straighten my fingers. They are curled like claws, the muscles in my hands contracted and tight. My body is dying, one inch at a time.

By degrees, the gunfire ceases. Cries of the wounded fade. A cursory sweep of the bunker does not betray this hiding place. Hours pass. Rats scuttle through the shadows, drawing nearer each time they approach. The sun rises and light slants through a smoke-stained window. It reveals ordnance stacked to the ceiling. A dirt floor pocked by the weight of it. I look at my hands. My fingers are gray, and nails are blue—the irony of these colors is not lost on me.

The ground beneath me is muddy, soaked with my blood. I am cold, and I can no longer feel anything from the waist down. I don’t remember when the pain stopped. I only know that the absence of it does not bode well for me.

Eventually the shivering stops as well. The cold, however, does not go away. I burrow beneath a pile of horse blankets and a tear slides across my face. God be thanked that no mothers will know how their sons died tonight. There is some consolation to be found in that.

The shudder of failing lungs comes as a shock. It’s too soon. I’m not ready for this. I gasp, prolonging the inevitable. Where is God? He is not here. I am alone in this bunker with a corpse—and it is my own.

There is a tug at one finger as the boldest of the rats makes its move. Its teeth do not cause pain for me or provoke concern for the outcome. Yet there is no acceptance to be found in my heart. This death is unfair. Ignoble, and not justifiable by any measure of rationale. No battle is worth this. No ideals, no political cause, and no bounty. Being here is a mistake. Dying is a mistake. Twenty-two years has not been enough. How ludicrous that God should deem it so.

I need more time.

I need more time.

***

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Winter

"Spider webs."

Pressing the headset tighter against her ear, Tania Mosley scrolled backward on the timeline and listened again. Same result—barely audible words, a voice covered in dust.

Spider webs? She echoed what she’d heard on the recording. Geoff, I just got EVP.

Hunched over the viewfinder of an infrared camera, Geoff swung the lens in her direction. Cool.

Tania frowned. Voices from the grave no longer astounded her. The messages conveyed by them often did. Why would a dead woman care about spider webs?

Without moving his eye from the viewfinder, Geoff pointed to the vaulted ceiling above their heads. Look around.

Tania glanced up. Fine silvery filament clung to the mausoleum walls, hung like Bedouin drapery in every corner. Some so intricately spun it looked like the work of a garden writing spider, some so tangled from the frenzied efforts of long-dead insects it seemed more like matted corn silk than the remnants of a web.

Think it was a complaint about the housekeeping? Tania asked, switching the machine back to its record mode.

Geoff shrugged. Or an apology for it.

Tania listened again, ears straining into the headset for electronic voice phenomena that never manifested. The device’s real-time design allowed her to record EVP and listen to it almost simultaneously, giving her research a more interactive feel. It was the newest gadget tested by Atlanta’s Ghost and Paranormal Investigators. They’d also experimented with infrared technology like the camera Geoff was using, EMF meters, and laser thermometers, but this was an instrument created especially for their group by an enterprising group of students from the electrical and computer engineering school at Georgia Tech.

Talk to her, Geoff suggested, panning the room with the infrared lens. Ask her what she meant.

Probing the shadows, Tania held the external microphone into the air. Ma’am, we know you’re here. Please talk to us. She waited, hopeful for a response. I heard you say ‘spider webs’. Will you tell us more?

Nothing in her headset but the sound of her own voice. Tania sighed. As much as she enjoyed this kind of fieldwork, it could certainly be tedious.

The needle on this thing went crazy, he said, pointing to the compass on his watch. Right about the time you got EVP. He spoke in a hushed manner, his tone low and even.

Tania squinted to read the names etched on a wall of marble drawers beside her: James Prescott. Newton Harris. William Sprayberry. Arthur and Charlotte Thompson. Nora Winkles. She traced a finger across the names of the women. Who was the fastidious one? Perhaps the voice she’d heard belonged to neither. Maybe it was just a curious observer, attracted to the atmosphere. Or, more likely, to the human activity.

Geoff glanced at his watch, his movements as methodical and low-key as his way of talking. Whatever it was is gone now.

Turning up the volume of her headset, Tania listened intently. Watched the dark corners of the room. Saw a spider as it scuttled through a crack in the wall. Tracked the dust motes that swirled around a light bulb in the ceiling.

Studied Geoff’s hands as they operated the camera. Pale enough to appear ghostly in the dim light, they seemed fitting to the task.

Tania knew from observing them in the daytime that Geoff’s hands were covered in freckles, and dead still. Amazing, how he produced the steadiest video of anyone in the group. She’d never known a man who radiated so much internal calm. Yet what an enigma he could be. So reluctant to talk about himself she wished she could turn him upside down like a six-foot saltshaker and dump out the details of his life.

Forcing herself to refocus, Tania read the names on the mausoleum drawers one more time.

Mrs. Thompson? she called, softly, yet with a confidence she hoped would inspire the woman’s trust. Miss Winkles? Nora?

Geoff lowered the camera and turned it off. A shadow of his spiky red hair wavered on the wall behind him. That EVP was probably all we’re going to get.

Disappointed but not really surprised, Tania followed Geoff out of the mausoleum and into a moonless night. She kept the recorder switched on just in case, but all she heard through the headset was an electronic version of their footsteps crunching on fallen leaves.

They caught up with the third member of their GPI team, Evelyn Schaeffer, as she loaded a gym bag full of equipment into the rear seat of her Subaru Forester. She turned to look at them as they approached, her gray ponytail snagging on the hood of her parka.

Ready to go? She tugged her ponytail free and, in the same smooth motion, reached for the infrared camera.

Geoff ducked Evelyn’s grab and capped the lens. Tania got EVP.

For a split second Evelyn froze. Really? Then she sighed and forcibly took the camera from him. Well, damn.

Tania understood exactly what she meant. Evelyn had camped out in the mausoleum all afternoon, sensing an unseen presence, dogged in her determination to find and study physical evidence of it. Five minutes after she switched off the recorder she’d been using, something—or someone—spoke to a junior member of the GPI in a perfectly intelligible electromagnetic voice. No wonder Evelyn was frustrated.

Untangling the headset from her blond pigtail braids, Tania passed the recorder to Evelyn. Run it back to one-sixteen, she said, referring to the timeline.

Evelyn did, and listened closely. After a moment, she smiled.

Spider webs. A faint British accent colored her words. Is that what you heard?

Tania grinned. Maybe she was asking us to clean the place up while we’re here.

Do you blame her? Evelyn lifted an eyebrow. It’s a bloody mess in there.

Tania followed Evelyn around the Forester, watching as she rearranged the bags of equipment to make them more stable on the seat.

I did everything I could think of to make her talk to me. Even tried some of the names on the gravestones. Tania held the door so it wouldn’t slam on Evelyn’s backside. But she wouldn’t say anything else.

Evelyn finished what she was doing and turned around, propping her knuckles on her hips. She hesitated before she spoke, and the crow’s feet around her eyes deepened. It wasn’t strong EVP, Tania. Not like some. I think there are times when they definitely mean to get our attention, and other times when we’re just eavesdropping. Picking up bits of their private conversations, things they never intend for us to hear. She shrugged, small shoulders lost inside her oversized parka. It’s possible she might have gotten spooked.

The irony of that was not lost on Tania. A disembodied spirit—frightened by flesh and blood? Yet Tania could see how it might have happened. Tonight must have been quite a shock for the woman, having her presence acknowledged after decades of believing she’d be separated from humanity forever.

Tania made a face. Maybe.

Evelyn leaned against the side of the Forester and folded her arms. It’s always best to address them directly, just the way you did tonight. And once in a blue moon you might get a contemporary response. But don’t expect more than a few words, maybe a sentence. Communicating with us is hard for them—it must sap an awful lot of their energy.

Geoff materialized from the darkness and hitched a thumb toward his aging pickup. I’m gone. See you girls tomorrow.

Sleep tight, Evelyn said with a wink. And don’t let the bed bugs bite.

With a good-natured scowl, Geoff headed for his truck. Tania watched him go, as stymied as ever by the jet wash of mystery that swirled behind him.

***

Tania followed Evelyn’s Forester south, through Spaghetti Junction and well inside the Perimeter. Eventually, the lights of Atlanta’s skyline came into view. In the distance, a jet banked for its final descent into Hartsfield. It soon got lost behind radio antennae and other twinkling lights that competed with the stars above Midtown.

At her exit, Evelyn stuck a hand out the window and offered a fluttering wave before she left the freeway. Tania stayed on 85, her ten-year-old Honda aimed for the distinctive silhouette of Peachtree Tower like it was a homing beacon.

On the passenger seat beside her lay a flash drive with the EVP she’d taken at the mausoleum. Driving with one hand, she dug her iPad out of the glove compartment and fumbled with both devices until she could Bluetooth the voice through her car speakers.

"Spider webs."

Two simple words, an unmistakable complaint from the grave.

Past the Varsity, in the shadow of a concrete retaining wall high enough to block out the streetlights, Tania zipped down a heavily banked off ramp and decelerated into the quiet bustle of her off-campus neighborhood. At the next stoplight, she scrubbed her finger along the touch screen and listened to it again.

"Spider webs."

Her sophomore year at Georgia Tech, Tania chose as an elective a study of the human death experience. One course requirement was a term paper on the afterlife. A Yahoo search on that word turned up a hit for the GPI. To Tania’s surprise, the physical address for the group was local.

She contacted Evelyn Schaeffer by email, asking for more information she could include in her term paper. They struck up a conversation, and within six months Tania sent her more than a dozen digital recordings of electronic voice phenomena, recorded with her iPad and a cheap external mic. It got the group’s attention, and the previous spring Evelyn invited her to join the GPI on a real investigation.

Tania leaned back against the headrest and sighed. She wasn’t there, stuck at a red light listening to the voice of a dead woman, by accident. It was clearly a work of fate, a calling, if one believed in such things.

Tania definitely believed. Understanding was the part that gave her trouble.

***

CHAPTER TWO

So what’s this place we’re going to? Geoff asked, leaning sideways to pull his leather coat from beneath him. His tall frame filled the back seat of Evelyn’s Forester, knees hitched up halfway to his chin.

Tania turned around and choked down a giggle. He looked like a giant in a dwarf house, surrounded by duffel bags. Sure you don’t want to sit up here?

Nah.