Ghost Story

by J G Jerome

  She pulls on the shorts and then the t-shirt. I show her how to tighten the drawstring and tie a knot in the hem of the t-shirt.

  She asks, “Will, may I wear the flannel shirt over this? I feel like I’m going out in public naked.”

  I give her a puzzled look for a moment before I realize that proper ladies probably did not show any leg in public when she was first alive. I smile as I nod imagining the scandal that short-shorts would create in 1891. “Sure, Baby. In fact, I have a cotton belt that you can use to cinch it closed. It will be shorter than dresses you’re used to, but it will still look a bit like a dress.”

  She pulls on my shirt and buttons most of the buttons. I wrap the belt around her, and she takes over to cinch it comfortably in place. Then I fold over the extra cloth on the back into pleats. I don’t think that it’s common fashion, but she looks cute as can be.

  I give her flip-flops and have her walk around the apartment getting used to them. They’re way too big for her, and she has never worn them. I pull my holster from the night-table, clear it, function check it, load it, and clip it onto my belt under my untucked shirt.

  Grabbing my keys, I head for the door. “Ready, Baby?”

  She’s right next to me. “Yes, Master.” She grins up at me.

  I resist the desire to roll my eyes and open the door. I check both directions before guiding Rebecca out the door. I pull the door closed and lock it. Then I offer Rebecca my arm. She’s not paying attention as she takes in the differences in Prescott from her last glimpses of it. I gently caress her back as she takes it all in. Eventually she turns to me. “Will, it is so different from what I remember. It doesn’t smell like smoke, outhouses, and livestock. It is warmer than I remember. And what are those?” She points to the cars on the curb.

  “Those are automobiles. Cars, trucks, SUVs are the different types. Rather than horse-drawn carriages, this is how we get around.” I unlock my SUV as I walk to it and open the door. “Your chariot awaits, my lady.”

  She smiles. I coach her on how to best get in. Once she is seated, I introduce her to safety belts. Then I kiss her grinning face, close the door, and mount up myself. I turn off the radio and start the vehicle. I put it into gear, back out, and head south on Cortez. I point out my house before I turn right on Aubry. I turn right on Montezuma again to take us north. She says, “That was Mrs. Leuvenfeld’s house.”

  I give Rebecca my 30-cent tour of downtown. “There was a fire in 1901 that basically destroyed downtown Prescott. A miner in one of the hotels left a candle burning after he went to a bar to drink. That somehow caught the hotel on fire. The fire basically took everything on Whiskey Row. The patrons of the Palace bar rescued the actual bar and hauled it across the street to the courthouse yard. They kept serving as they watched Whiskey Row burn down. They eventually rebuilt the Palace. I think it was 1916 when they tore down the old wooden courthouse and replaced it with this one. I understand the bandstand and paths are all original...at least their locations.”

  I continue north until I take a right on Sheldon. “The old train station is now an office building.” I turn left on Marina into the parking lot.

  Rebecca says, “I remember arriving on the train in that station when I was six years old. My family and the family of Papa’s business partner. It was a long trip from Chicago.”

  I pass the Sprouts grocery store and park in front of Walgreens. I get out and help Rebecca unfasten her safety belt and get out of the car. I close the door, offer her my left arm, and I lead her into Walgreens. I grab a shopping cart and lead her past the cosmetics counter to the clothing area. We start with a pair of canvas sneakers. They don’t have a large variety, but I find a pair of white canvas lace-ups that I think will work despite being about a half-size too big at size eight. We find a pair of 7½ flip-flops, too.

  Then we pick up some socks and cotton panties - we grab a package of small and another of extra-small because we weren’t sure about which based on the measurements. I suspect she’ll start with the tiny ones and work her way up to mediums over the next year. Her skeletal structure is wide enough that I’m confident she will eventually be a medium by the time we get her healthy. We find a couple of t-shirts in her size, a jersey-style t-shirt, a light sweatshirt and matching sweatpants.

  We start walking over to the hair care aisle to get her a brush and accessories when a guy steps in the center of the aisle in a wide stance like he’s trying to block the path. It’s the same guy that followed me from the market a few days ago. He’s not moving, but he’s looking at me like I shot his dog and fucked his mama.

  Rebecca grabs my arm. She murmurs into my ear. “Look at him with your craft.” I look at her and let my focus change. I see her aura shine, then I look at this guy. He has none. He does have the blue and black eddies but no corona of a soul. He has less black than Rebecca, but there is no halo around him. It’s almost like he has a black outline around him like an actor standing in front of a green screen.

  I decide to try polite first. “Apparently you want my attention. You have it. How may I help you?”

  He pulls a knife. “You can die,” he says and carefully shuffles toward me. He looks like he knows what he’s doing.

  I pull Rebecca behind me and start shuffling backward. He’s really too close to pull the gun. I hear a scream from the aisle next to him, which distracts him enough that I decide to nab one of the pool noodles out of the display on the end-cap.

  He turns back at my motion and charges me. I poke him in the face with the pool noodle, shuffling forward with the thrust. Despite being a terrible weapon, the strike from the pool noodle causes him to raise his hands to ward it away. At that point he’s standing straight up and I’m close enough to kick him in the solar plexus. So I do - a perfectly executed front snap kick to the nerve center below the sternum.

  The force of the kick moves him back a couple feet, but it also folds him in half. As a result, he falls back on his ass while gasping for air. I hear the scream moving away from us.

  Rebecca whispers to me. “I don’t see an aura, Will. Take his energy. Can you see it?” I nod. “Pull the life right out of him.”

  The man looks up at her with a horrified expression as he gasps for air. He tries to get up as I reach for him with my will. I’m having difficulty - I don’t know if this will work or not. He regains his feet.

  I tell her, “Go back to the front of the store. Keep a counter between you and him if he gets past me.”

  Then he lunges at me. I try to execute a Red Zone knife defense. He is definitely a trained knife fighter, but I do manage to get the weapon arm under control. I give him a sharp knee to his inner thigh, then move my hands to control his wrist. Then I knee him again in the bladder and drive the knife hand to the ground.

  I think, ‘Something is wrong. He’s not hitting me with the other hand.’ I now have his hand on the ground, and my shins across his upper and lower arms. Before I can maneuver to mount on top of him, he raises a revolver in his left hand. He’s got a bad angle, so it’s pretty easy to deflect it with my right hand as I drop my weight. I grasp the short, two-inch muzzle of the gun between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand and then whip the heel of my right hand to the inside of his wrist. That leaves me with the pistol in my left hand. It has a hammer that is not cocked, so I judge it to be relatively safe to use as a bludgeon.

  I smash the pistol into the base of his skull. Then I slide it on the ground to the next end cap down the aisle before securing his knife wrist with both hands. Then I maneuver to pivot my body to face towards his head. I get my right shin on his tricep tendon. The immediate effect is that he releases the knife. I bat the knife back towards the gun as I maneuver to mount his back. I smack an open hand wedge strike into the base of his skull on each side. After that I place my hands on his head.

  Now that I have control of him, I try to pull his energy out of him again. It works! Apparently, physical contact makes it easier. In a short time, I feel saturated - t
hat same tightness in my head, neck, chest, and balls as before. This guy still has a lot of life energy. I keep pulling, but I’m starting to feel like I’m going to explode. I think, ‘Jeez! I can’t hold it all. I need to send some to Rebecca.’ Unfortunately, I can’t see her, so I keep pulling.

  Suddenly, I feel this weird sensation in my stomach. It’s like someone just gave me an additional stomach with the capacity of ten Thanksgiving feasts. The pressure is gone as I feel all of the zombie’s life energy spool into this new reservoir. Then I just suck the rest out of him. It takes an instant, and all his life energy is in my new reservoir.

  I figure I better take the death energy, too. I don’t know a damned thing about zombies, but I don’t want to create one inadvertently that is powered exclusively by death energy. So I focus on sucking all that from him, too. There isn’t as much of it, but without the life energy, death is the result. Soon there is no energy in him at all. I feel the life and death energies swirling around in the reservoir like they are playing tag with each other. I look with my new sight at the corpse below me and there are no eddies of energy left. There is something that looks like an extremely tiny acorn or chestnut in his head, just above the limbic system. I don’t touch it. I do check for a pulse. There is none.

  Slowly I get to my feet and release my second sight. There are two teenage girls pointing their phones at me from the makeup aisle. I look back to ensure the two weapons are where I expect them, only to see a middle-aged Hispanic woman with a baby in one arm and the cell phone pointed to me with the other. I launch to her, and nab her phone. I point the phone at the weapons on the floor as I ask, “Did you bother to call the police, lady?”

  She sputters back at me. “Why would I do that? Gimme my phone.”

  I tell her, “You can have it back when the police give it to you. Right now it’s evidence.” I look up at the two teenagers. “Hand them over ladies.”

  The young black girl walks over to me and hands it to me. I tell her “Thank you, miss” as the blond dashes down the aisle toward the front of the store. I activate my second sight, and give her soul a gentle push. She falls to the ground with a gasp.

  I hurry down the aisle and pick up her phone, which slid about ten feet from her hand. I pick it up and let the recording continue. I go back to the girl and help her up. “Are you okay, miss? That looked like a terrible fall. Are you alright?”

  She looks at me strangely. “Ye-eah. I’m okay.” I offer her a hand.

  I ask her and her friend. “Did either of you call the police?” They shake their heads.

  I walk to the front of the store to see Rebecca scanning the aisles. She sees me and releases a big sigh. “Thank God,” she murmurs. She rushes into my arms.

  “He died,” I tell her. I look to the lady behind the counter. “I need a sealable plastic bag about nine-to-twelve inches on a side to hold his knife and pistol. I’ll be back where he attacked me guarding the weapons.”

  She answers, “The police will have evidence bags out the wazoo. Just make sure the weapons don’t disappear.”

  I walk back to the scene of the crime with Rebecca tucked under my arm. We step around the corpse to find the two teenagers reaching for the weapons. “Get away from them,” I bark. They jump back.

  I tell them, “Just go sit on the floor by the pharmacy, please. The police will come, take statements from you, give you back your phones, and send you on your way. I recommend you to sit apart from each other and don’t compare notes of what you saw. I would hate for you to confuse each other’s stories. The police might decide to take you in for questioning if that happens.”

  The black girl grins when I say that, but the blond is obviously scared. She marches to the pharmacy ‘post-haste.’ I wink at the black girl, and she giggles as she follows her friend. I tell the Hispanic woman, “Find a place to sit. The police should be here before too long.” She marches back towards the pharmacy. I pull all of the phones out. I set them on a shelf above the weapons. Then I think to turn off recording of the blond girl’s phone, so I do that and ensure the other two are also not recording. I hear sirens approaching.

  I whisper to Rebecca. “The police will ask you questions. Use your own name. I found you wandering around my apartment last Friday. You don’t remember anything before then. You don’t know what happened to your ID - your identification documents. Tell them you’re nineteen. You’re staying with me because you feel safe. Deny any sexual contact - just hugging. This is the first time you left the house since I found you. Don’t mention any craft. Clear?”

  She nods, “I know my name. You found me last Friday. I don’t remember anything before that. I don’t know what happened to my ID. I do remember that I’m nineteen. Hugs and cuddles only with you. Today is the first time I’ve left your apartment.”

  I nod and caress her arm. “Don’t volunteer anything. Answer their questions. Be as truthful as you feel you can. If you deviate from the truth, ensure I can corroborate it beforehand and use the same lie every time - but change the words a little. Clear?”

  “Got it, Will.” She cuddles into me, wrapping her arms around me,

  I tell her, “Let’s sit down.”

  The sirens sound like they are just outside. It sounds like there are multiple cars outside. The sirens stop. I hear the door open, and the cashier calls out to the police.

  “In here,” she calls. In a moment she continues in a quieter voice. “The attacker is dead. The victim is near the body ensuring no one takes his weapons. From what I heard him say, he secured cellphones from three witnesses who were recording the attack. He directed them to sit apart from each other in the pharmacy area.”

  I hear a male voice ask, “Where is the victim?”

  The cashier says, “Move past the photo counter along the dairy case until you get to the aisle that cuts across the store at the mid-point. I haven’t seen it, so that’s the best I can tell you.”

  I call out in my command voice. “I am sitting on the floor comforting Rebecca. I’m sitting on the ground comforting my friend.” I see a female officer holding her pistol in a two hand grip, pointed at the ground.

  The officer calls out, “I’ve got them, Sarge. It looks like there is no danger.”

  I perceive a male officer in my peripheral vision coming around the other end of the aisle. I turn to see him holster his weapon.

  I tell Rebecca, “Get up slowly and walk to the female officer over there.”

  “Okay.” She slowly releases me and puts her hands on the ground, getting her feet under her. Then she slowly stands and walks to the female officer.

  I look at the other officer and slowly raise my hands. “His knife and pistol are right there.” I point to them with my chin. “I also have a legal concealed carry on my right hip.”

  He nods, “Get up slowly.” He keeps a hand on his weapon as he walks around the corpse on the floor.

  I slowly place my palms on the floor and press down as I pike at my waist. I raise my knees until I get my heels on the floor before pushing off with my arms to squat on my heels. Then I slowly stand with my hands out to my sides. I slowly reach down to lift my shirt tails to reveal the holster on my right hip.

  The officer reaches out his left hand. “May I have that please?” I reach down and slowly pull the pistol from the holster with my thumb and forefinger on the butt of the grip.

  I announce, “Unloading the weapon.” Then I release the magazine and catch it in my left hand. Then I jack the slide and the chambered round drops toward the ground. The round lands on the toe of my boot as I kick up the toe. I grasp the barrel of the pistol in my left hand with the magazine as I step forward slightly. The bullet flies up high enough that I can catch it in my right hand with only a slight flex of my knees. I put the ejected round in the magazine before pulling the holster off my waist. I release the slide and decock the weapon. Then I holster it.

  I hold it out to the officer. “I would like a receipt please, Officer...” I read his name t
ag “...Johnson.”

  He smirks. “Sure thing. If we keep it. I’m going to put it in a bag and hold onto it until we finish talking to you. Clip knife too, please.” He points at my right pocket.

  It’s my turn to smirk and hand over my blade. The officer steps back and pulls a large evidence bag. He puts my holstered weapon and knife in the bag before he pinches the seal closed. He directs me to step up the aisle towards the cashier.

  Then he checks for a pulse. “Damn! He’s already getting cold!” He looks at me, then he looks down at the revolver and hunting knife I took off the zombie.

  “I need to secure those, too.” He maneuvers next to the weapons so he can keep an eye on me. He dons rubber gloves and pulls out two more evidence bags, puts each weapon in its own bag, and adds a tag into each bag before closing it. I pull out my concealed carry card. It’s not required in Arizona, but I find that most police officers like to see it.

  Leaving the three bags on the ground at his feet, Officer Johnson pulls out a notebook and a pen. “Okay, tell me your full name and address.” I do. Then he says, “Tell me what happened.”

  I walk him through meeting the zombie, his desire for me to die, his subsequent attack, and my actions up to the point I struck him on the base of his skull. I didn’t discuss sucking the life out of him. I said, “I struck him on each side of the base of his skull and then sat there to see if he would continue to fight. He didn’t. He didn’t move. I checked for a pulse, and found none.”

  After that I describe securing the phones from the three witnesses, and I point them out on the shelf. He stops me and bags each of the phones. Once those are secure, he bids me continue. I have little to add after that. I tell him I brought Rebecca back with me to comfort her.