The Ghosts of Fort Ord

By Karen Truesdell Riehl

After she becomes pregnant with twins, Olivia Bauer is haunted by ghostly dreams of dead soldiers. Her husband Michael passes them off as nothing more than the result of indigestion. He doesn't believe in ghosts.

When Olivia holds Griffin, her newborn baby boy, a strange feeling of dread comes over her. When she holds Teddy, his fraternal twin, she feels nothing but joy.

As the boys grow, their dissimilarity in looks and behavior becomes increasingly apparent. Griffin keeps to himself, playing alone with Mr. Budge, the ventriloquist dummy his grandmother gave him for Christmas. He grows fat and jealous of his brother, who's athletic and popular with schoolmates.

After Teddy dies from a mysterious fall while hiking with Griffin, Olivia and Michael move to an area next to an abandoned military base. Griffin has left home to live with a relative.

As Olivia explores the ruins of old Fort Ord, her recurring nightmare is about to become a reality.

Karen Truesdell Riehl's published works include a memoir of her secret life with the actor George C.Scott, Love and Madness, and two novels, Saturday Night Dance Club and 666 Coven Road.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Truesdell Riehl
• Release date: May 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301024216

Karen Truesdell Riehl

Karen Truesdell Riehl's writing achievements are remarkable, given the award-winning author's lifelong battle with dyslexia. She was unable to read until the age of ten. Her published works now include a 2015 San Diego Book Awards winner, Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany. Her other books include a memoir, Love and Madness: My Private Years with George C. Scott, telling of her 30-year hidden liaison with the international film star, six novels, eight plays and a radio comedy series, The Quibbles, available from ArtAge Publications at http://www.seniortheatre.com/product/the-quibbles-radio-shows/. Her children's play, Alice in Cyberland, was an award winner in the National Southwest Writers Contest. Helga was an elementary school librarian, a 1948 German immigrant, when the author met her in 1977. Asked about her experience during the war, Helga quietly revealed she had been a "Jugend," a member of Hitler's child army.Ten-year-old Helga was forced to join the Hitler Youth weekly meetings. Lies and treats were used to build her allegiance to the Fuhrer. As the war drew nearer to her home in Berlin, Helga was sent away to a Youth Training Camp. Her slow disillusionment and harrowing escape home, is a coming-of-age story of a young girl's survival of Nazi mind control. Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany was a 2015 San Diego Book Awards winner. In the romance novel, Hello Again, a finalist in the 2015 San Diego Book Awards, Shannon Taggert falls in love with Nate, a graduate student teaching assistant. But there's another woman in Nate's life, Tally, the daughter of Walter, his mentor and benefactor. Before meeting Shannon, as Walter lay dying, Nate promised to marry his daughter. The Ghosts of Fort Ord was inspired by the author's month-long stay near the remains of the abandoned military base. After having lived for several years in Terre Haute, Indiana, the author was inspired to write a story about scandals in a fictional small town, Freedom's Sins. Saturday Night Dance Club, was inspired by a true story of four couples, from the 1900's to 1930's, touched by the Great War, organized crime, the Depression and the threat of another war, finding sanctuary in their weekly dance club. Drawing from her personal experience, Karen wrote Bad Girl: A Play. The Safe Haven Home for Unwed Mothers provides shelter from a judgmental society, but reveals its hypocrisy as well. The young women from all l...

Book preview

The Ghosts of Fort Ord

Karen Truesdell Riehl

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2013 Karen Truesdell Riehl

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're re-reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Cover design by Ronnell D. Porter

****

DEDICATED TO ALL GHOSTS I'VE KNOWN AND LOVED

****

BOOKS BY KAREN TRUESDELL RIEHL

Love and Madness: My Private Years with George C. Scott

The Ghosts of Fort Ord

Saturday Night Dance Club

Freedom's Sins

Hello Again

Bad Girl: A Play

Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany

Fort Ord is located on Highway 1, nine miles north of Monterey, California, 115 miles south of San Francisco. Founded as a cavalry post in 1917, it was known as Camp Gigling, named after a German family who originally held title to the land. In 1933 the name was changed to Fort Ord. It became a major training post during World War II. Fort Ord served as a basic training center from 1947 until 1975, when it became home to the 7th Infantry Division. The fort was inactivated in 1993.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

About the Author

PROLOGUE

When I was six years old I dreaded the first two weeks in July. I spent that time each year with my mother, my father, and my older brother (by 15 years and a bully by anybody’s standards), and with my grandmother on the Washington coast.

I hated going to Grandma’s house. Her motto was Children are to be seen and not heard. She practiced what she preached and expected my parents to do the same.

Most days were spent sitting in Grandma’s parlor with the door closed against any fresh air. We sat sweltering on Grandma’s leather couch for hours, not saying a word. The only sound was her grandfather's clock ticking, which seemed to get louder as the hours passed. We cousins were dressed in our shorts, our bare skin glued to the hot leather cushions. When we got up we squeaked, which caused lots of giggling and pointing from the cousins and disapproving stares from the adults.

If we were lucky, in mid afternoon we'd move to the south porch and sit. Quietly.

I usually missed the thrill of the south porch. For me it was nap time. It took place in Grandma’s bedroom, in the center of her giant four poster bed. Grandma’s sheets and blankets smelled of old people and sweet violet cologne. The sickening fragrance made me gag.

None of this would be that bad if it weren’t for the huge portraits of our ancestors on all four walls. The frames were hung so the dead were peering down at me. They looked mean. I was sure that any minute the dear deceased would swoop down and gobble me up. I closed my eyes as tight as I could. I hugged my quivering little body, held my breath, and hid my head between the sheets. My brother found me in that position a few times and took the opportunity to call me a scaredy cat.

I was a brave seven year old when I finally gave up and decided to stare those people down. They were really nothing but smelly old ghosts. Ghosts were not real. I believed that until I met Michael twenty-three years later.

ONE

I was standing in line at the outdoor bar during a friend’s wedding reception, ordering a coke when I heard a voice behind me.

This lady doesn’t want a soft drink. She should be drinking a fine wine.

I turned and saw a very cute guy with red curly hair and an impish grin. He held out a glass of champagne and said, Care to join me and get away from the madding crowd?

I barely had time to respond with ...oh...okay... before he placed his hand in the small of my back and guided me through the crowd. We walked over the wide expanse of manicured lawn to a wooden bench set on a cliff high above the sandy beach.

So... Miss ...?

Olivia Drake. But how do you know I’m not with someone...or married?

I saw you walk into the church...you’re not...are you?

No.

Good. Neither am I.

He smiled. Crinkly lines appeared around his light blue eyes. Shall we sit?

Well...okay.

I’m Michael Bauer. The groom is my cousin. Like the view?

Very much.

We both sat down, leaving about two feet of space between us.

I thought you might have an Irish name, I said. You look so much like a tall version of...

James Cagney? That’s what I’ve been told.

But your name, that’s not Irish

My father is German. I’m Irish on my mother’s side. Me dear grandfather was Jack O'Shaughnessy. He immigrated in the 1920’s, tap-dancing his way into me darlin’ grandmother’s heart.

Was your grandfather a professional dancer?

No. Just a natural clown who fell in love with my grandmother the first minute he saw her. Olivia's a lovely name. Where did it come from?

My grandmother.

Was she beautiful, too?

I was lost for a response. I never thought my grandmother very attractive. And at five-feet nine with dishwater brown hair, I'd never been called beautiful.

If you’ll wait for me, I’ll refresh our drinks and be right back. He headed to the bar, and I realized for the first time in years I felt shy and at a loss for words. Then I saw him walking toward me, carrying two glasses of champagne and a plate of sandwiches. I took a deep breath and vowed to be more interesting. He sat down and put the plate on the bench between us.

Okay, Olivia Drake, tell me about you.

For the next hour we exchanged life stories. I told him I was a California girl. Born in Sacramento and moved to Carlsbad with my family, when I was fourteen.

His eyes twinkled. We’re practically neighbors. I’ve lived in Oceanside all my life. Go on.

I have one brother, fifteen years older. I left out the part about Parker being a schizophrenic. And a great set of parents.

That’s nice to hear.

Hear what?

That you brag about your parents. Do you live with them?

No, they live in Escondido. I’ve got a condo in Encinitas. It’s just me and Roger...my cat.

Cat huh? Guess I’d better not bring my pet python over to your house.

My God! You have a python?

Just kidding. What do you do to earn your keep?

He seemed truly interested in what I had to say. I began to relax. I’m a part time, wannabe successful and wealthy novelist and a part time free lance editor. What about you?

I work at the university. And, from that applause, the bride and groom must be about to cut the cake. I’d better go see if there is anything I can do to help. Will you stay nearby so I can find you when things quiet down?

I’ll be here.

He returned forty minutes later. We talked movies, politics, and books until after the sun went down and the caterers were cleaning up. As we stood to leave, I saw again he was a full three inches taller than I and envisioned my head cradled on his shoulder.

We walked to my car without speaking for several blocks through a charming neighborhood filled with small, well-kept beach homes. The evening was perfect. There was even a slight breeze that moved the leaves just enough to remind me of a romantic movie.

I felt certain he was about to kiss me when we stopped at my car and he said, Hand me your keys and I’ll open the door. Which he did, and added, Good night, Olivia. It was fun talking to you. Give my regards to your cat.

Feeling empty and angry with myself, I watched him walk away. Olivia, you fool, you blew it. But at that moment he stopped, turned back towards me and yelled, Is your telephone number in the book?

Yes, I yelled back.

"Good!"

My dreams that night were filled with Michael and great sex. In the morning I lay in bed thinking about great sex and Michael.

Saturday morning breakfast on the deck of my apartment has always been one of my favorite hours of the week. But that morning it seemed lonely and dull.

I showered, dressed and was tying up my shoes for a beach jog when the phone rang. I tripped over my shoe laces diving for the phone.

Olivia, hi. This is Michael Bauer.

A breathless, Hi, was all I could manage.

It looks like a great day up here in Oceanside. How is it in Encinitas?

It’s warm and sunny. No May gray at all. I just had breakfast on my deck.

Would you care for a beach walk this morning?

...Yes, I’d love it.

Great. How about 10 o’clock?

That would be perfect.

The morning newspaper was in my hands, and I was pretending to read it, when Michael drove up and parked in front of my condo. I watched as he got out of his car as my insides filled with a thousand butterflies. He smiled, waved and galloped up the twenty wooden stairs. We stood a foot apart, grinning at each other until he stepped so close to me I was sure he could hear my heart beating.

Hi, he said as he cradled my face