“REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST”
by Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
(Copyright 2011 Kevin Paul Shaw Broden)
Chapter 8 - “Birth of a Ghost”
There was only one chair in the dark underground lair of the vigilante known as The Masked Ghost. So Donald leaned against the table as his wife Margaret sat and read from the journal.
“This is Adrian’s handwriting,” Margaret said, “It looks like these pages were ripped out of his personal diary. Some of them have been cut apart and pasted together to keep the subject consistent.”
- - -
While interviewing James Bruster and his wife this evening I was introduced to their lovely daughter Sheila.
I hope to meet here again.
- - -
It took some convincing but Sheila Bruster finally said she would go out with me.
- - -
I think she had a good time tonight. Was surprised that Sheila seemed to know so many people at the restaurant. Sheila does a lot of work for her father, and introduced me to several of his work associates. They’d all make interesting magazine articles.
Had a wonderful evening with Sheila. She’s the most fascinating and yet mysterious woman I’ve ever met.
- - -
This train ride home is taking too long. Got my interviews with the movie studio producers and have already written the first draft of the story, but all I can think about is getting back to Sheila.
Am really thinking of asking Sheila to marry me.
- - -
Going to have to write and sell two new books to pay for it, but I just bought the perfect ring for Sheila. Now praying she likes it.
- - -
She said YES! Oh, God, she said yes. Sheila wants to marry me.
- - -
Sheila seems nervous, but that’s understandable. We’re going over to her parent’s house to work on the wedding plans tonight.
- - -
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! She’s dead. Sheila’s dead.
- - -
Margaret paused in her reading and looked up at her husband.
“I remember him calling us. He was such a mess after the accident.”
“You were at his hospital bedside for days,” Donald replied with an understanding and caring heart.
“He was pretty banged up, but I think his heart was wounded the worst. Adrian kept saying he wished he had died instead of Sheila,” Margaret said remembering those nights she sat up with her brother.
“I can understand that,” Donald said, “My life wouldn’t be worth living if anything ever happened to you.”
She knew her husband meant it, and saw him holding back the tears that such a thought brought to him.
After a moment Margaret turned the page and started reading again.
- - -
The police say it was an accident, or that Sheila and I weren’t paying attention. They’re blaming us for it. They’re blaming me for her death. They refuse to listen to me when I tell them about the truck that ran us off the road into the ditch and killed Sheila.
- - -
The police are no longer taking my phone calls. Sheila’s parents won’t talk with me either. They were polite at the funeral but it was clear they didn’t like having me there. They blame me for their daughter’s death.
- - -
My editor tried to get me to focus on my magazine assignments, but I just can’t concentrate. All I can think about is that terrible night, and that truck chased us down the road and caused Sheila’s death.
- - -
I have to do something, or I am going to go mad.
- - -
Have walked the entire distance of road. From the turn off towards the Bruster’s home to where I first spotted the truck, to where our car was forced off the road, and then on to the bridge over the river. There’s a side street there that loops back on to the main road. There aren’t many other intersections and connecting roads. There is a series of warehouses and a storage yard…
- - -
The yard and the warehouses belong to The Spade Import and Export Company. I told the yard boss that I wanted to do an expose on small local companies but he wouldn’t hear it. Apparently someone doesn’t like a magazine writer snooping around the property. I politely thanked them for their time, but was still forcibly escorted to the road by ‘security guards’ who weren’t afraid to wave their guns in my direction. I don’t know what’s going on there, but there is one thing that I do know: THE TRUCK was on the grounds of the storage yard.
They can now identify me, so am going to have to pursue a different line of investigation.
- - -
The police still are not interested in hearing what I have to say. Even when I told them I had found the truck. The lead detective, Sergeant William Dodd, took me aside and told me to drop it. DROP IT!
- - -
I took a walk around the block and came back home having made a decision.
- - -
Adrian Brown will drop it! He will get on with his life and work. He will let it go so that another can pick up the investigation and go where he cannot go. It must be someone who can move unseen and unnoticed, who will go places that Brown cannot. Someone who will go where the police cannot, or will not go.
This is something that can only be done by a GHOST.
- - -
“The diary entries end there,” Margaret said to her husband, “there are small little notes with numbers and letters next to different parts of it. I don’t know what they mean. The rest of the journal is typed and doesn’t read at all like Adrian. It’s more like a clinical examination of the events.”
Donald contemplated that and the codes he had seen on other pages, photographs, and maps, and had a pretty good idea of what it meant. He looked at his watch.
“It’s getting pretty late. We better get on home so no one can tie us to discovering Adrian upstairs.”
Margaret closed the journal and stood from her chair and looked across the room, “what are we going to do now?”
“I’m not certain,” he turned and saw her looking toward the rack of clothing the Masked Ghost wore, “but I have a few ideas.”
To be continued…
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