Ghost Story

Milburn moves toward Christmas as the snow continues to blanket the town. The picturesque sledding, sleigh bells, cookies, and parties fails to occur. The high school’s heater fails, conversation is clipped, and the sleigh never graces the streets of Milburn; “This December Milburn looks less like a village on a Christmas card than a village under siege” (491). The theater shows horror movies on loop as tensions run high leading to violence and hallucinations. Food shortages lead women to fight. Ten Milburn residents die. As the morgue truck cannot make the drive into town, the bodies stay in the tiny jail. The snow rarely ceases as “for the first time in most of their lives, Milburn people saw the weather as malevolent, a hostile force that would kill them if they let it” (494). The town closes in and shuts down, leaving the four men to face the Manitou.

Sears, Ricky, and Don prepare to enter Anna Mostyn’s house using the window Jim broke. They wade through knee high snow. Ricky has brought a kitchen knife, but the other two men came unarmed. As they enter the house, they decide to split up. Ricky realizes this is the house from his nightmares. He sees the blood stain from where Gregory killed Jim. Don enters Eva/Anna’s bedroom. The door crashes shut once he enters.

Don sees Robert Mobley standing before him. The room appears as a stage with 50-60 people milling about in the audience. He sees Lewis and John. Robert tells Don he cannot leave. Men take a hold of Don and force him to watch a production that turns out to be Sears and Ricky walking through the house. Don is forced to watch as the camera follows Ricky, springs a trap, and strangles him. Don wonders if this is real.

Ricky enters a bedroom to find it empty except for a mirror on the wall. As Ricky looks into the mirror, he sees the sheep farmer, Elmer Scales, walking toward his house with a shotgun. Elmer shoots Lewis in the back as Lewis gazed at the naked form of his dead wife. Then Ricky sees the wolf man eating Peter Barnes.

Seats looks through the front rooms then climbs down the stairs into the cellar. John Jaffrey appears before him. He tells Sears he went over, smiling all the while. Sears makes his way around the water heater and finds the body of Christina Barnes. He calls out for Ricky and Don.

The three men call Sheriff Hardesty out to the house. He is suspicious of the men, who tell him it is his job to find out what happened to Mrs. Barnes. Sears tries to tell him that it is the fault of Anna Mostyn and her two accomplices, but he remains skeptical.

Ricky and Stella discuss their fear at home after Ricky’s return from Anna/Eva’s house. Stella promises to be a better wife.

The next days are motionless due to the weather. The day before Christmas, Elmer Scales stares out the window with his shotgun on his lap. He begins to hear his father’s voice. Then a glowing golden man appears in the snow. Elmer stops feeling the cold and the men tells him what to do with his family.

The narrative then switches to the sheriff sucking whiskey off his cowboy hat. He hears one of the bodies move inside the tiny jail cell. He realizes he is scared. He then hears laughter from a room he knows is empty.

Don and Peter sit in his car outside of his uncle’s house waiting for Sears and Ricky to arrive. They appear and the four enter the house to listen to Edward’s interview tapes with Ann-Veronica Moore. Don found a tape in which Ann-Veronica slips into Eva Galli’s voice asking if her old friends are listening. The tapes demonstrate her power, but also her weakness. She speaks to Lewis and John, so she does not know what will happen, only her own actions, not others.

Then Alma Mobley’s voice comes on and Don stops the tape. Peter tells the group that defeating these monsters is the most important thing they will ever do. They have no choice but to do it. Ricky, Sears, and Don agree that they must save Milburn.

After the others have left, Don listens to the interview tape with Alma. She tells Don that he was so much fun ever de Peyser shows interest in the game with him. A voice in Don’s head tells him he is dead already. He fights it.

Ricky awakes to a sense of panic and dread for what he must do. He sees again the vision of Elmer Scales in the snow. Stella fusses over him, but he shakes her off to go downstairs and call the farmer. When he comes down, he finds Sears, who has been staying with them, fully dressed and ready to head out to Scales’s farm. Ricky suggests they call. There is no answer and Sears says he is going to drive over alone. Ricky and Stella try to stop him, but he says he must go.

His car lock is frozen shut, and the car takes forever to start. He heads out, thinking of the small footprints he saw in the snow. He knows the roads will be deserted, so he cautiously drives on, concentrating on driving. He thinks briefly of heading back to Ricky’s but keeps going. He pauses at the top of a hill to see the snow is much worse there. He hears Elmer in his head telling him he must hurry. He sees a plow at the bottom of the hill. The plow driver tells him he must turn back because the road is blocked. He hears Elmer calling for him. He presses the accelerator all the way to the floor, careening down the hill, seeing Lewis, then hearing Fenny in the back seat as he smashes into the plow. Sears turns as Fenny’s hand brushes his check. He sees Fenny and Gregory in the back seat and decks the older boy. Gregory snarls and attacks him.

Ricky answers the phone to hear Sheriff Hardesty, drunk, on the other end. Hardesty tells Ricky that the Scales are all dead, Sears as well. Hardesty tells Ricky he is going to stay drunk and barricaded in the jail.

Don comes to stay with the Hawthornes and, that night, they hear jazz music play through the town. The town turns more insular and paranoid, neighbors refusing to even acknowledge each other. Peter hears the music too, sees a car stop outside his house, and he looks out the window to see all the dead staring up at him. He goes back to bed, crying, as the music starts, and the car drives away.

Shortly after New Year’s, the town plow begins to run again, finding Sheriff Hardesty dead in the snow. The bar owner prepares for customers to return. The new Chowder Society, Ricky, Don, and Peter, plan a return trip to Anna Mostyn’s house. Don tells them about the imagination speech Alma made on the tape. This time, Don takes an axe and Peter takes a large bowie knife. Ricky keeps his kitchen knife.

The men use the back door again to enter the house and Peter reminds himself of the proper way to strike with a knife as the group go down to the cellar. They find nothing there, so they make their way up to the top floor. The reach the room where Peter might have died. The men enter cautiously and find it empty. They stand, relaxing. Then Peter looks into the mirror, only vaguely hearing Ricky’s shouted warning. He sees the beautiful woman calling to him, reminding him that he could live forever with her. That he could be with his mother again. The woman encourages him to turn his knife on the men behind him. The mirror falls, and the spell is broken. He picks up a piece of the broken mirror and sees a smile glimmering in it.

The men leave the house, trying to figure out their next move. Peter feels guilty and weak, but Don and Ricky tell him that they are all susceptible to her manipulations. Peter realizes that the place of dreams is the theater, which is currently running Night of the Living Dead.

Don finds the theater proprietor’s body and turns to Peter to tell the boy he is right. They make their way through the theater, checking the aisles as they walk, the movie running in the background. The empty theater makes them more wary as they discuss where to look next. They hear a door slam and hear bare feet running down the exit corridor. A child appears, followed by Gregory Bate, chiding them for their silly weapons. Don sees Peter and Ricky fall.

Gregory bears down on Don as Alma’s voice echoes in his head. Gregory tells Don about how much fun he has been, much more fun than his brother. Peter stabs Fenny, and Gregory turns and launches himself at the boy. Gregory throws Peter into the movie screen. Ricky grabs Gregory and stabs him in the back. Don hacks Gregory to bits, and as he tires, Peter takes over. They exit the theater to find the worst blizzard of the season. Don and Peter carry Ricky home through the storm. Peter calls his dad to tell him that he is going to stay at the Hawthorne’s for the duration of the storm. The men eat and regain their strength as they plot their next steps.

Ricky thinks Anna must be hiding out in the Hollow regaining her strength. He believes she has gone back to Edward’s old apartment where the death of Eva Galli occurred. The men plan their attack. They bundle themselves in all the warm clothing they can find and prepare to walk to the Hollow. Don imagines them looking like polar explorers. He is sure the temperature is well below zero. They keep moving on. The snow and wind become stronger and heavier. The three men finally make it to the apartment and as they break the door open, a different voice echoes in each of their heads, and each voice says hello.

Don finds himself in 1950s New York eating lunch at an outdoor café with his brother, David. He tells Don that he has been in an institution for the last year after he finished his novel. He also says that no monster would bother to chase them because humans are so insignificant.

Ricky sees Sears welcoming him into his library. He finds himself at a meeting of the Chowder Society. John and Lewis are also there. They are debating sending Don a letter about Edward. Ricky says they must tell him about Eva. Ricky tells Sears that he is freezing. Sears tells Ricky that everything is okay, that Edward died of natural causes. Sears puts his hands around Ricky’s throat. Ricky sneezes, breaking the hallucination for Don and Peter.

Peter, who has been hallucinating the theater and his mother, hears the sneeze and attacks, stabbing his illusion in the stomach. He watches his mother disintegrate. Anna Mostyn then lies before the three men as they realize what is happening. She bleeds as her eyes drift out of focus. The dead woman curls up like a bug. A green light flashes and they turn to see a sparrow on the windowsill that flies away. Peter asks if it is over. Don and Ricky look meaningfully at each other, then tell Peter it is all over.

Ricky convalesces in the Binghamton hospital, recovering from pneumonia. He tasks Don with tracking down the monster and killing it. The town begins to return to normal. Peter goes off to Cornell and Don stays in Milburn, watching for strangers. He sits in the square for hours daily, and convinces himself that Anna will reincarnate as a child.

He sees her one day on the playground and begins to watch her. The child begins to appear in his dreams. Don falls into drinking again and keeps the bowie knife taped to his side. He approaches the girl and asks her name. The next day, he takes her. 

Don is back in the outdoor café in New York. David sits across from him in decaying clothing. His steak is moldy. David morphs into Dr. Rabbitfoot, chastising him, then turns into Alma, then turns back into David, this time with his face smashed. Don finds himself back in the motor lodge, Dr. Rabbitfoot with him. Don runs to the car and gets in, only to find Dr. Rabbitfoot in the road before him. Rain begins to pour and Don flips on the wipers. Without thinking about it, he slams his foot down on the accelerator. Alma Mobley stands before the car, her arms held out, but Don slams into her. Alma becomes Dr. Rabbitfoot, who begins to curl up in the way Anna Mostyn did.

Water begins to pour into the car. Don looks frantically for the animal Anna must have become. He finds a wasp, grasping it firmly in his hand, and it stings him, but he holds up. He makes his way to the shore, hearing a voice rage for release in his head. Don takes the knife and slices the wasp to bits. Don rubs the remaining pieces into the sand. Don experiences a wave of elation as he thinks of Sears, Lewis, David, John, Peter, Stella, and Ricky.