Ghost Program (19 page)

   “He must have had a good life, then, a loving family.”

   “That is very likely.  I hope that I have done at least something to assuage your fear.  Try not to worry.  Remember that the more evil the demon, the less potent is his power.  It is only the good that you should truly fear.  Does this help you?”

   “Yeah.”  For some reason, I didn’t tell her about the glowing cave in my yard.  I felt strangely protective of this information, that it should remain a secret that only Brent and I were privy to.  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Karen, but I didn’t want her to know every detail of my life either.  “Thanks, Karen.  I’m trying to get my classes wrapped up so I can leave for Seattle.”

   “Seattle?”

   “I’m transferring to UW.”

   “Oh, that’s right.  You’re a student.”

   “Nothing’s going to follow me up there, right?”

   “Goodness, I hope not.  I wouldn’t guess so.  It’s more likely that your demon is tied somehow to Seaside, especially if he lived here when he was alive.”

   “Wait.  That thing was once a person?”

   “Sure.  Not a good person, but he was somebody human once.  Most spirits begin that way, anyhow.”

   “Oh wow.”  It was hard to imagine creepy guy waiting tables or teaching algebra or whatever he had done in real life.

   “You’re welcome to come visit anytime you’d like.  I’d serve you tea or fruit salad --I’m a vegetarian, you know.  Whatever you think you’d like, I could cook for you, though.  But I figure you’re needing your rest.”

   “I’ll probably feel better next week,” I said.  “Maybe I’ll stop by.”

   “Okay.  I’ve got a client just walked in the door, so we’ll have to chat later.”

   “Bye,” I said and clicked the phone off.

   I looked at Brent.  “It was Karen.”

   “Oh.  Karen.  I’d sort of thought as much, but I didn’t know.  So what’d she say?”

   “She doesn’t think that the Dark Lord intends to kidnap me and take me to his realm.”  I retold Brent the story that Whittington had told to me, of Mrs. St. Croix and of her summoning the Dark Lord, only to vanish later.  “So they found her.  Inside a psychiatric facility.  The summoning had made her mad, but she hadn’t disappeared after all.”

   Brent looked a little worried.  “You’re not going to go crazy, are you?”

   “I’m not sure.  If I do, you’ll have to straighten me out.”

   “And how will I do that?”  His eyes looked over my face, then my damaged body, and he sighed.

   “In movies, they slap the woman and somehow that snaps her out of it.”

   “You want me to slap you?” 

   “Not really.  I got enough of that from Mr. Breame.”

   “I know we grew up here and all, but Sam, in all truth, this town gives me the creeps.  There’s always something weird happening.  Haven’t you noticed that?  Remember when our eighth grade algebra teacher started screaming one day during class, then threw herself out the window?”

   “Yes, but that wasn’t my teacher; you were two years ahead of me in school.  I was in sixth grade that year.  I remember they had to scrape her off the sidewalk; the fall left her lookin’ like a bloody pancake.  That was the year Wang pulled his pants off and ran through the school with the principal chasing right behind him.  Took forever to catch him, too.”

   “The same year some guy set fire to the JC-Penney’s because his favorite shorts weren’t on sale.”

   “My god, you’re right.  This whole town is crazy.”

   “Remember when the cheerleaders showed up to our football game with no panties on and drunk?”

   “Yeah.  Maybe
that’s
why our team never lost.”

   “It’s never going to change, is it?”

   “I don’t think so.  It’s always been that way.”

   “Wow.  Just think.  Everyone moves here to get out of the big, bad city.”

   “Out of the fire and into the frying pan.”

   “I remember home ec; that crazy bitch teacher told us that fingernail clippers weren’t for clipping fingernails.  She said they were for cutting skin.”

   “That makes no sense.”

   “She was crazy, after all.”

   “I know.  That was Mrs. Schuber.  She was my teacher, too.  I got detention from her for failing to loop my cursive g’s and y’s.  Like it matters whether they’re looped or not.”

   “Like I said, crazy bitch.”

   “There was something else that happened to me when I was a kid.  Here in Seaside, living with my folks.  I didn’t tell you because, well it was so long ago, and I’d almost forgot myself.  In fact, now it seems like a distant dream.  I never told you; I never told anyone really.  Because they wouldn’t have believed me.  At the far edge of our property where my parents live, there is a little sauna, not attached to the house, just sitting far at the end of the yard, pretty much where the grass ends and the trees begin.  My parents never used it, and there it sat unused, empty.  My friends always asked if we could use it as you know, a hangout, a playhouse, but I’d never let ‘em.  And there was a reason for that.  When my parents, when they first bought the house, I was curious about that little shack.  So I wandered over to it and opened the door, and there was a woman in it.  Young, beautiful, naked...I guess she was using the sauna.  And she grinned at me, beckoning me to come in.  I almost did, but something stopped me.  I knew she didn’t belong there, that she wasn’t real, wasn’t alive.  You’re gonna ask how I knew that, how I knew she wasn’t alive, and I can’t tell you.  It was just a real strong feeling I had, that something wasn’t right, wasn’t natural.  Several times I went back to that sauna, and I looked inside, and there she was, just like always, naked and sweating, motioning for me to come in.  Five times I looked in that place, and she was there every time, like she never left the sauna, never went anywhere.  And I knew that she was something I wasn’t supposed to see, and I never went back in there again.  Hell, I probably haven’t visited the place in ten years.  As I got older, I rationalized what I’d seen when I was younger.  Thought that maybe I’d just imagined it, or something like that.  But the reason I never opened that door again... I was afraid.  There was someone living in that sauna, and she wasn’t human.”

   “Oh, Brent.  How did your parents never find out about her?”

   “I can’t answer that just like I can’t answer a lot of things.  I just don’t know.”

   “Did you ever see the ships?” I asked.

   “What ships?”

   “I used to walk down to the marina early in the mornings as a student in high school, after I had gotten my license.  I was given a camera for Christmas, and I used to take pictures of the sun rising over the water.  But I always saw those ships.  They’d be there just before dawn and disappear shortly afterward.  They weren’t like the metal cargo ships you see now... and they weren’t the tiny sailboats or yachts that all the yuppies spend their time on, no.  They were the old kind, the boats with the tall, wooden masts and billowing white sails.  No one sails ships like that anymore.  But there they’d be, rolling through the waves and fog.  And in the blink of an eye, they’d be gone.  It happened every time I came to the waterfront, and I believe that if I were to go down to the beach tomorrow morning before the sun rose, I’d see them again.”

   “This whole town is crazy,” he muttered.

   We were silent for a couple minutes.  I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I stared at Brent’s gray eyes.  I think at that moment we understood each other more than we ever had.

   “I should finish my computer lab,” I said.  “I won’t be able to go anywhere tomorrow if I don’t get it turned in.”

   “Should study for that math test, too.”

   “I know.  If I don’t get a passing grade, it could really mess things up for me.  Can you pass me my laptop and my lab manual?”

   “Sure thing, girl.”  Brent grabbed my computer and my lab book and placed it on my lap.

   He watched me as I typed in the monotonous commands into DOS.  Then Brent began to sing softly in Italian. 

   “Are you singing in Italian?” I asked, suddenly feeling awkward.

   “Is it bothering you?  I can stop.  I used to be an opera singer in high school.  It’s just something I do when it gets too quiet.”

   “I’m just surprised is all.  Do it if you want.  Sorry it got too quiet for you.”

   He continued to sing.

 
Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!

Tu pure, o, Principessa,

nella tua fredda stanza,

guardi le stelle...

   A mere thirty minutes later, my lab was finished, and I e-mailed it to my instructor.  I opened my math book and heard clomping on the stairs.

   “Someone’s coming,” I said nervously.

   “Don’t be worried.  If it’s something bad, I’ll break a lamp over its head.”

   The door slowly pushed open.  And revealed Gregg and Tony.

   “The maid’s here,” said Gregg.

   “Where is she?” I asked.  Great.  Just what I needed.  Another spook in the house.  “We saw her on the back porch earlier.”

   “Wandering around the kitchen,” said Gregg.  “She put all the dishes away.”

   “If mom sees her, she’s gonna flip,” I said.

   “Pull up a chair,” said Brent to Tony and Gregg.  “Sorry there’s only one.”  He motioned to Tony to sit in it, which he did.

   “We’re short a chair,” said Gregg.  “I ought to get another.”

   Gregg left the room for a minute and returned holding a somewhat older, wooden chair.

   “How have you been faring, Sam?” Gregg asked, smiling at me.

   “I’m all right.”

   “I haven’t seen your demon,” said Tony.  “And boy, I sure looked.  Don’t worry.  If he sets foot on this property, I’m gonna rip his head off.”

   “You’re gonna rip his head off?” asked Brent in a strange mimicry of Tony’s speech.

   “Gonna rip him a new asshole.  Like I said, don’t worry about him.  I’m very good at dealing with confrontation.  And thanks for letting me see Mary.  She was surprised to see me at first, but it turns out that she missed me about as much as I missed her.” 

   I’d forgotten just how big Tony was; his hulking frame nearly filled the room.
 
The fact that a dead man still pined for the intimacy of his girlfriend bothered me somewhat.  Tony had had no closure on his life.  After death, he should have moved on to bigger and better things, but here he was, his wheels spinning in the mud, attempting to continue a relationship that could no longer be, thrilled that he had picked up some security work when he no longer had a need for money, and finding himself no closer to answering any deep theological questions than before he died.  I really hoped that it wasn’t that way for everybody, that Tony and Gregg were just innocent victims of a cosmic fluke.  Hadn’t Karen said something about those who cherished their mortal life being unwilling to let go of it?  But when they finally let go, what happened to them then?

   “Are you going to see her again?”  My voice sounded distant, unemotional.

   “That’s really up to Karen...or you, for that matter.  She has trouble seeing me on her own; I need an intermediary.”

   “But you were...” My face was turning red, and I knew it.  “You were able to touch her, be intimate with her...”

   “Well let me tell you something about that,” said Tony.  “It’s not as good as it was before I died.  And that’s also a shame; Before the accident, I really loved to... touch Mary.  She was special, not just like other girls.  She wasn’t just special; she was mine.”

   “And you Gregg,” I said.  “Do
you
like girls?”

   “I’ve got mother, I suppose.  And now I’ve got you.  If you’re asking if I’ve ever married, then the answer is
I haven’t
.  But I seem to enjoy the company of female companionship.”

   “Cute,” I said.  Gregg seemed to have missed some of the point of my question.  “I like having you here, Gregg.”

   “Sam, you’re kind to say as much,” said Gregg.

   “I know.  But I’m going to leave, Gregg.  I have to go to Seattle.”

   “I wish you wouldn’t,” he replied.  “I’ll miss you, but I also think that it’s for the best.  You’re not safe here.  Something is hunting you.”  He frowned and ran his palm over his thigh nervously.

   “Come with us,” said Brent with a smirk as I looked at him in surprise.

   “I have to stay with mother.  I have to take care of her.  I told you about my business ideas; I came up with those to provide for her, and that is what I aim to do.”

   “That’s high-minded of you, Gregg,” said Brent.  “I wish I felt the same about my mother, but really she is just annoying.”

   Gregg laughed and took out his pipe.  Rich pipe smoke filled the room as Gregg stretched his legs and relaxed.  “You shouldn’t say that,” he said.  “Not about the woman who nursed you.  It’s not right.”

   “I hope to rip that demon right up before he ever makes it in the house.  Tear him a new asshole,” said Tony.