Headlights(113)

“So I started following the murders, and I started a chat room because I’ve found the internet to be a very fruitful place for research, and for finding those who seek to follow. This culture of checking in with the masses to know if an opinion or point of view is okay. Heading to the comments section first thing. It’s ideal, really, for cultivating a congregation. I started learning everything I could, about the case, about all of you. I came to Denver, and…”

He stands, and I try again to fight against the ghost holding me. Hannah’s eyes are squeezed tight on the ground. She’s not doing well. I have to do something.

“Hey,” Wharton says. “This is where it gets emotional, for me. Pay attention, or I’ll have to hurt her.”

Hannah breathes, tries to keep herself calm. But I feel her screaming on the other side, the panic at being trapped. I try and calm her there, send a feeling that I’ll figure this out, that it will be okay.

“So here’s the big part,” Wharton says, standing in front of the bed, Murphy behind him. “The big reveal of my life. Can you imagine what it felt like to realize? To do a little digging into your past, the lead detective on this case, to find simultaneously that the very same night the light appeared to me as a child, a murder took place here at this very motel? So I looked into adoption records and one thing led to another.”

He waves the knife around, more blood spattering his turtleneck. “But this is the part you have to understand,” he says. “That night changed everything about me, made me who I am, determined every day since. And when I put it all together, when I came here and saw you, how bright you shine. When I truly realized what had happened … the light I saw, what I felt that night as a kid, the single most formative moment of my life—spiritually, in every way—what I thought was God come to earth, and maybe God calling to me …

“It was you. It was just another person. A child, a couple years younger than me. Who just shined brighter. And pain does shine bright, but this … It was you. That feeling of a God entering this world … that was the Witchwalker coming to you.” He laughs, a little. “Me? Well, it turns out I was just … inconsequential. I was nothing.”

“What do you want from me?” I ask, trying to make sense of anything he’s said.

“I told you, I’ll get to that.” The ghosts dig into us harder. Hannah’s breaths come faster.

John Denver sings, and Jack Murphy is slumped on the bed, and Father Sky watches us. He says, “But I will admit to having tampered with just a bit of the case because I just … well, I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to be a part of it all. Any guesses?”

A memory comes in, from Hannah. A realization. Understanding.

Father Sky in a backpacker’s outfit, passing by the cabin while Hannah was sketching something outside. He waved to her, and she waved back.

“There she is!” he says. “You can let her up.” The ghost backs off her. She sucks in a breath and pushes up to sit. The ghost hovers nearby, no longer touching her. Father Sky walks over in his moccasins, bends down in front of her on the floor, reaches out, and tucks her hair behind her ear. She flinches back, and he smiles, drops his eyes to her lips, runs his hand down her neck.

“You,” he says to her, softly. “You are … exquisite. Should you ever want it, there’s a place beside me at the church for you. You deserve to be worshipped.”

“What evidence did you tamper with?” I ask through my teeth.

“I broke in and took her camera and photographed the person I knew would be the next victim,” he says. He sits back on his heels on the floor, looking back and forth between us. The light of the bathroom glowing behind him.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “How did you know who the next victim was going to be?”

“I told you, you are so unbelievably daft. I truly cannot fathom how you didn’t feel it.”

“Feel it?”

“The Witchwalker. It put a … vibration on the two that were going to be next, the next victim and the next Drifter. It did it every time.”

“Why? What do you mean a vibration?”

“Not a why, more of a because. And maybe vibration isn’t the word. Maybe a light. It put a light on them. I don’t know how to explain, I just … feel it. Know it. You have it, the two of you. You vibrate differently, shine so bright. Since it’s attached itself to you both.”

“What—”

“Danny, with the way you shine, it would be child’s play to know. Just by lookin’ at them. For the life of me, I have wondered this the entire time, and I can’t figure it out. How do you not know?”

I don’t have an answer for that. But if he’s right, if any of this isn’t an attention-seeking lunatic’s fantasies, maybe … maybe it’s because I’ve pretended for so many years that none of this was real. Closed myself off from it. And if that’s the case … if I could have solved all of this so much sooner by just …

“Why would you take a photo on my camera?” Hannah asks. “Why would you steal it and put it back?”

Father Sky sets the tip of the knife to the carpet, spins it. He looks up at her with another smile and says, “Because I could, darling.”

He tosses his hair back again, turns his eyes on me. “To learn that what I thought was a special calling from Beyond was just … some other kid?” He laughs, bitter, angry. “The light that shined that night was from you. You screamed, and it was so loud, your grief, your pain, that it shined a light everywhere. And if you scream loud enough, shine bright enough, you’re bound to wake something up.”