Forest Ghost by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

right, although his face was so puffed up that Jack doubted if even his mother could have recognized him. His arms flopped apart and out of his grasp floated the woman’s head, as puffed-up as he was, with milky, wide-open eyes. It bobbed to the surface and floated there, staring at Jack as if she were angry with him for having found her far too late.
    Jack pushed his way back out of the hollow. The sky was dark now, and it was beginning to rain, heavy spots that pattered into the undergrowth. Deputy Ridout was standing there with Barrett, looking pale and drawn. A few seconds later Deputy Jeppersen came out, too.
    ‘I got through to Undersheriff Porter,’ he said. ‘They’re sending a forensic team out here right now.’
    Lightning cracked, over by Blue Lake. Then it began to rain in earnest, so that after a few minutes the three of them were drenched, and Barrett had to keep shaking himself. None of them wanted to go back into the hollow, however, and seek shelter under the trees. They just stood there with the rain trickling down their faces and soaking their clothes as if they felt that they needed to be cleansed.

Ghost Story
    B y the time Jack had trudged back to the main reservation buildings, the rain was hammering down so hard that the gutters over the verandah could no longer cope, and water was cascading down the outside walls. Rainwater was dripping from his nose and every few seconds he was deafened by a multiple barrage of thunder, as if there was a war going on nearby.
    He climbed the steps back up to the verandah and went inside. The relatives of the dead scouts and scout leaders were milling around in the hallway, uncertain what to do. They must have been told that another incident had occurred, but not what it was.
    He found Sparky and Corinne sitting on chairs in a recess on the left-hand side, underneath a noticeboard of all of Owasippe’s summer activities. Corinne was holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee, but he could see by the skin floating on its surface that she had allowed it to grow cold.
    ‘What’s happening, Jack?’ she asked him. ‘The cops have been running around like headless chickens. I saw some TV people, too, and they were all going crazy.’
    ‘You found some more dead people, didn’t you?’ said Sparky, in a high-pitched monotone.
    Jack hadn’t wanted to tell Sparky straight out, but there was no point in trying to prevaricate if he had guessed already.
    He nodded. ‘Yes, we did, Sparks. A man and a woman. We found them in a pool of water. The cops don’t know what happened to them yet.’
    ‘Oh, God,’ said Corinne. ‘Are you OK?’
    ‘Little bit shaky, to tell you the truth. It wasn’t very pretty.’
    ‘A man and a woman? Had they committed suicide, too?’
    ‘The woman certainly hadn’t. But, like I say, the cops don’t know what happened to them yet, and I’m not too sure I want to talk about it just yet.’
    ‘You’re
soaking
,’ she told him. ‘You need to get out of those wet clothes before you catch pneumonia or something.’
    Jack looked around for any members of the scouting staff. Sparky tugged at his sleeve and said, ‘We
did
see something, didn’t we, Dad? We weren’t just making it up?’
    ‘No, Sparks, we weren’t just making it up. But we still don’t know what it was, and we don’t know for sure that it had anything to do with what happened here.’
    ‘Did she have a head injury? The woman?’
    ‘You could say that.’
    ‘I thought so. That’s Castor again. Castor is the evil star.’
    An office door opened on the opposite side of the hallway and a khaki-uniformed scout leader came out, with a sheaf of papers under his arm. Jack manoeuvered his way through the crowd of relatives toward him and called out to him, ‘pardon me!’ as the scout leader started to walk away.
    ‘Talking to
me,
sir?’ blinked the scout leader. ‘Something I can help you with?’
    ‘I sure hope so. I was wondering if there were any dry clothes anywhere