Forest Ghost by Graham Masterton

soda now. A Diet Coke would be great.’
    Jack went to the fridge and took out a cold bottle of Coke. ‘Any more news on the scouts?’ he asked her.
    ‘That’s the other reason I’m here. Corinne Cusack called me this morning. She received a letter in the mail from Malcolm.’
    ‘Oh, Jesus. That must have upset her.’
    ‘Well, it came as quite a shock, I can tell you. I took it straight to forensics but not before I’d taken a picture of it.’ She rummaged in her purse and produced her iPad. She flicked through it and then she passed it over to Jack so that he could read it.
    Malcolm had written his letter on lined paper, roughly torn out of a notebook. His handwriting, however, was very small and neat and round, in blue ballpen.
    Dear Mom,
    We went into the forest today to do tracking. At first it was good but then we got frightend even the leaders were frightend. We didn’t know why but it was the forest. We are supposd to go tomorrow to do wilderness survival but I don’t want to go it is so frightning. But they say we have to go for our merit badge.
    Love Malcolm
.
    Jack handed Sally’s iPad back. ‘Poor little guy. Do you know if any of the other parents had letters like that?’
    ‘We’re checking, but so far Malcolm is the only one. The trouble is, he doesn’t say what they’re all so scared of.’
    ‘Maybe it was the Forest Ghost.’
    ‘The Forest Ghost? What’s that?’
    Jack said, ‘I don’t know … probably this has no connection with those boy scouts at all.’
    He told Sally all about his visit to Maria, and what Maria’s great-uncle Andrzej had written in his diary.
    ‘Sounds similar, doesn’t it?’ said Jack. ‘I mean, I don’t know how it could be, but it does. A white thing, like an animal. Me and Sparky, we saw it for ourselves. And Sparky’s absolutely convinced that there’s a connection.’
    Sally grimaced and massaged the back of her neck. ‘This isn’t really something I can tell my captain, Jack. He’ll either laugh in my face or he’ll send me off for psych evaluation. Besides, this isn’t really my case. I’m just giving the Muskegon Sheriff’s Department some friendly back-up.’
    ‘I don’t know what more we can do,’ said Jack. ‘There’s something scary in the forest at Owasippe, just like there was something scary in the Kampinos Forest in Poland, but whether it’s the same kind of scary something, I don’t see how we can ever find out. Not unless the sheriff’s deputies in Muskegon actually
catch
it.’
    Sally finished her bottle of Diet Coke and stood up. ‘How is young Sparky?’ she asked.
    ‘Not too bad, considering. But you know what he’s like. I always feel he’s got something on his mind that he’s not telling me.’
    ‘How about you? How are you feeling?’
    ‘Fine. The restaurant’s doing fantastic. I hardly have a moment to myself.’
    Sally laid a hand on his arm. ‘What I meant was, how are you feeling about Aggie? It’s two years ago next week, isn’t it?’
    Jack suddenly found that it was difficult to speak. ‘There’s nothing I
can
do, is there? My brain still won’t accept that I’m never going to see her again.’
    Sally kissed his cheek. ‘Just remember, you’ll always have a friend in me. Any time you feel low, you just call me.’
    Jack nodded. ‘OK, Sal. You’re an angel.’

Message from Beyond
    T hat Saturday, Jack took Sparky up to see his mother in Highland Park, thirty minutes due north of Edgewater. She lived in a secluded loop, in a detached stone-fronted house with a view through the trees of Lake Michigan. It was gusty that morning, and the clouds were tumbling helter-skelter over the lake as if they were being chased by something that was threatening to tear them apart.
    Nina Wallace was waiting for them in the porch when they came up the front steps. She was short, plump and round-faced, with ruddy cheeks and a curly perm which was suspiciously dark brown for a woman of sixty-one. She was wearing