The blue entity stopped on the other side and stood. Vivien waited, watching intently. The image took on more of a shape. An arm lifted as if beckoning her to follow.
She again glanced to where the spirit stood, not seeing it without the aid of the camera phone. “Sam? Is that you?”
She wanted it to be true. She needed it to be him.
Vivien glanced toward the house, wondering if she should tell someone she was going down to the beach. But what if the entity went away when she ran inside? Besides, Lorna was recovering, and Heather was sleeping. If they needed her all they had to do was call her phone.
Vivien took small, hesitant steps as she followed the being. She unlatched the gate with one hand and pushed it open. The entity moved farther away along the path that led toward the beach and then stopped as if waiting.
Residual hauntings weren’t aware of their surroundings. This ghost wanted her to follow it. That meant it had to be intelligent. It was communicating with her.
Him, not it. This had to be Sam. They’d summoned his spirit just hours before, and the odds of someone else coming to visit her were unlikely.
Or so she wanted to tell herself.
She refused to think about the demon that had come when they called Glenn. This wasn’t the same thing. The demon had been raw hate and had attacked Lorna. This spirit wasn’t threatening or attacking.
Vivien left the yard and moved down the familiar path toward the beach. She passed between a couple of her neighbors’ houses, using the phone to track the spirit. If this was Sam, she had no reason to be frightened.
A few trees had been planted for privacy, but they soon gave way to tall grass and then a sandy incline. The view opened up. A weathered picket fence had been beaten by the sun and buried by sand. It now poked out of the ground at an odd angle. She knew there were wooden planks on the ground that someone had tried to make a walkway with, but without constant sweeping they had been submerged. A wooden walkover would have been more prudent, but the neighbors couldn’t get on the same page as to who would pay for the upgrade.
“What are you trying to show me?” she asked, not receiving an answer. Now that she was in the open, the breeze from the water caused her to shiver, and she grabbed the long sweater with one hand to hold it closed. “The ocean?”
They had spent a lot of time on the beach together. Was he trying to remind her of that?
The figure turned and motioned that she was to continue with him. Vivien’s heart pounded, and she knew she should stop and think about what she was doing, but she wasn’t scared. She was excited. Sam would never hurt her. This is what she wanted—to be with him at all costs, to see him.
The sand became deeper, and the undulating water louder. The beach curved, and she knew during the day she’d see across to the distant shore, but at night it blended with the water.
Her open-toe sandals allowed sand to work its way beneath her feet, and the gritty texture made it uncomfortable to walk. She didn’t care as she lifted and shook her foot a little with each step. Her toe bumped into a hard object, and she stumbled. Typically, she’d stop and pick up the empty bottles people had left behind, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off the phone screen.
The light glided instead of walked, leaving no impression in the sand. The occasional lift of an arm and the blurry impression of a head was the only indication the spirit was human—or had once been human. It did not deviate from its path toward the water.
As dry sand turned to wet, the ground became firm and more comfortable to walk on. The spirit continued toward the water. Vivien stopped.
“I’m not going in there,” she said. “It’s too cold to go swimming.”
She glanced both along the beach to a distant gathering. A bonfire had been lit below the high tide line but far enough away from the vegetation to be legal. She detected tiny figures running around just as she and Sam used to do. That is where he should be trying to lead her if he wanted her to remember their past, not into the ocean.
When she turned back to her phone, she saw that the figure was standing in the water. She crept closer. Cold lapped against her feet.
“I don’t understand,” Vivien called out to the ghost, dropping her phone hand slightly so she could talk toward the empty water. “I can’t go in there with you.”
When she lifted her phone hand, the figure had moved. It now stood close to the screen. She gasped and stumbled back. The image of a face tried to make itself known, the blue light shadowing in what could have been eye sockets and a nose before blurring once more.
“Sam?” Vivien asked, her body shaking from the freezing water. “Is that you? Can you please give me a sign if—”
Before she could finish the question, the spirit reached for her. She felt her shoulder tingle as if it made contact. The sensation took her by surprise, traveling down her arm so that the phone slipped from her fingers. She heard it thud but couldn’t move to pick it up.
The tingling worked its way down to her left foot. She took a step forward, the movement stilted. It wasn’t that she tried to walk, but more like her nerves jerked, and she was compelled to move. The tingling spread to her right foot. She took another stiff step forward. The sensation overtook her body. Her left leg stumbled toward the water, her toes dragging as her sandal caught on the ground, and then the right foot did the same. Waves lapped up against her ankles.
“Sam?” Vivien whispered, wanting to hear his voice. Her lids became heavy as a haze overtook her thoughts. She was compelled to take another step, not caring that it was too cold.
“Vivien?” The sound of her name was distant, faint, and she couldn’t make out who said it through the fog in her brain.
“Sam?” she mumbled. “Is that you? I hear you. Talk to me.”
She took a fumbling step, then another. The tingling numbed her to the cold, and it no longer stung. Low strains of music whispered their way into her thoughts. The guitar, just like Sam used to play for her on nights just like this. Her vision blurred.
“Save your heart for me. It’s mine.”
Sam.
She was with Sam.
She took another step. The water became almost warm now as she adjusted to the temperature. It came to her knees and then her thighs. It wet her long sweater jacket and weighed the ends down. The surface of the water kissed her hands, and she swung her arms to help leverage her movements. Water engulfed her hips and made it hard to step forward as the current lifted her from the ground. Her sandals slipped from her feet.
“Vivien!”
The sound was still distant, but she knew it was a man’s voice. Was Sam calling her to him? Heather said spirits could be difficult to hear, often sounding like they were underwater or far away.
Without the phone, she couldn’t see him, but she felt like he held her arm and led her forward. The current again lifted her from the ocean floor, moving her in little hops wherever it wanted. She went deeper.
The water hit her face and shoulders, and she coughed in surprise.
Suddenly, something substantial gripped her arm to replace the tingling of Sam’s touch. She was kept from going under, pulled away from the warmth into cold hard reality.
“I got you. Don’t worry, Vivien. I got you,” a man said.
Why did the voice sound like she was in trouble? She was fine.
Vivien didn’t have the energy to fight as her legs dangled before her. She was towed through the water. When her feet finally touched the ground, she stumbled on the uneven terrain. Soon she was falling. Her back hit the firm, wet sand. Freezing waves lapped her legs.