The Down Days

by Ilze Hugo

  Or ghosts . . .

  She was reaching out her hand to him, her ghost, her everything, when she heard a crash and a scuffle behind her. Shouts, too. And swearing.

  Self-preservation told her to turn around, but her body couldn’t obey. It was locked in on her son’s face. His beautiful perfect face.

  More shouting. It was scaring him away. His face, which was also her face, and the others, the other orb faces, they all disappeared.

  And reality came gushing in.

  Faith stared. Blinked. Closed her eyes and opened them again. The hall was just a hall. No blobs of light and color. No dancing fireflies. She could hear noise, but it wasn’t the same noise. It sounded more like a scuffle. She turned around. Shit!

  The caretaker with the lazy eye was in a pink dressing gown holding a baseball bat. He had the sin-eater pinned to the floor.

  “Stop,” Faith tried saying, but no sound came out. “Stop, please,” she tried again. “We’re not here to fight! We just want the hair. Call the cops on us if you have to, but just drop the bat. Please.”

  The caretaker lifted up the bat, pulling away from Fred. He was panting hard. “You. The skirt from the gate. Not just a detective but a thief, too, I see.”

  Faith saw his body relax and his shoulders slump. “I’m not going to call the cops. Open up that can of worms—are you crazy? Besides, what are the chances they’ll come? No. It’s better if you guys just get out. Let’s pretend none of this happened and move on. Okay?”

  “Works for me,” said the sin-eater, his face a lobster, his back against the floor.

  * * *

  Faith had watched a documentary once called The World’s Most Dangerous Volcanoes, and one of the volcanoes was Mount Vesuvius. One hell of a lethal lump of rock, best known for its AD 79 eruption that buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii twenty-five meters deep in ash while emitting a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

  They were walking back to the van, their feet stomping an out-of-sync rhythm onto the tar. Her cheeks were red as lava, hotter than hell.

  “You okay there?” said Fred. “You haven’t said a thing since we—”

  Vesuvius. She was Mount Vesuvius. Last major eruption, 1944. Next expected eruption, right about now.

  A grumbling, a rumbling, a curse, a cuss. A furious bang. “You didn’t see a bloody thing, did you?” The words spewing out.

  The street was empty except for a couple of teenagers making out through their masks in front of the gate of an ugly face-brick apartment block. They stopped kissing to stare. Faith glared at them.

  “See what exactly, now?” said the sin-eater.

  “Those glowing orbs. The faces. The ghosts.”

  “No, well . . . not really.”

  “Not really? What does not really mean? You’re supposed to be a spirit medium, the best in the business, and you didn’t see a thing? I’d call that more than a little suspect.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I’m implying exactly what I’m saying.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That the way things look now it sounds to me like you’re a complete bloody fake.”

  “Now, before you start bashing away at my professional credibility, have you stopped for a second to consider the very real possibility that the problem isn’t with me?”

  Faith glared at him. She could feel the lava building behind her eyeballs. “Come again?”

  “You know as well as I do what they’re saying about the postbox meds. Maybe you were hallucinating the whole business? I mean, it would make sense.”

  “Bullshit. That back there was the realest thing I’ve seen in years. It was no hallucination, that’s for sure. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” Okay, that wasn’t quite true. Faith had her doubts. But she was on a roll and picking up speed and finding it difficult to slam on the brakes. “The truth is, you’re a big bloody charlatan. The sin-eating, the spirit channeling . . . It’s all just one hell of an act, isn’t it? Making money off the desperate and all that. Ghostbuster, my ass. I can’t believe I trusted you.”

  “Sho. That’s a bit harsh now, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” She stopped walking, folded her arms, and gave him her death stare.

  Fred’s head did one of its little wobbles. A hand came up and tugged at the moustache end sticking out of the mask. He sighed a long, drawn-out sigh. “I, well, see, the truth is—”

  “The truth is what?”

  “Please just hear me out, darling. I can explain.”

  “Firstly, I’m nobody’s darling, darling. Secondly, the writing is on the wall. I really don’t see how you can dig yourself out of this one, you charlatan cocksucker.”

  “Allow me to try. Please.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Shoot.”

  “Truth is I really do have a connection to the other side. Well, I did. Or at least I thought I did, as I suppose one can never be sure, hey. But then I went out and got these pills, see. To tune the voices out.”

  “Why the hell would you go and do that?”

  “Well, thing is, before the Down Days I worked for the South African Police Force for a few years. Occult Crimes Unit. Do you know about them?”

  The Occult Crimes Unit was a favorite topic of Lawyer’s, but Faith was feeling contrary. “Doesn’t ring a bell,” she said.

  “Well, they were kind of like Mulder and Scully for the rainbow nation—investigating all sorts of weird supernatural and unexplainable phenomena. Witchcraft, zombies, muthi murders—that kind of stuff. Anyway. I was headhunted by them, ’cause of my special skill set. The unit was struggling to close cases and I suppose the guys upstairs thought it takes a thief to catch a thief, if you get my drift. So, long story short, the stuff I saw while on that beat would make your skull explode, darling.”

  “Here we go again. I’m not your damn darling. Let’s get that for damn straight, right?”

  “Yes. Sorry. Old habits and all that. Anyway, moving on. I saw some seriously messed-up stuff. Kind of made me doubt my ancestral trade. I was going off the rails a bit, drinking too much, that kind of thing, so they said I had to go see a psychiatrist, who said I was suffering from PTSD-induced psychosis. Prescribed these little pills. So I took them—I mean, why not, thought it could be nice to quiet down the cacophony of voices always clamoring for attention in my head for a change. And as the little pills started working their magic, for the first time in my life I felt great. Nice and boring and normal. And I liked it.”

  “Let me guess.” Faith rolled her eyes. “You continued making a living in the spirit trade?”

  “Ja, well, that was afterwards. When the city turned all topsy-turvy and the whole bleddie system went kaput. I was working as a plumber. No one was wanting their pipes fixed anymore. Money was getting tight. And I thought to myself, You know what? An oke’s got to eat.”

  “Fine. Whatever. So nice for you that you’re feeling so sane these days. But it also means you’re totally useless to me. So what the hell do I do now? Spy that in your fake crystal ball somewhere, do you?”

  “Well, I do know someone. Whose connection to her ancestors is the real deal, class-A stuff.”

  “Just like you were supposed to be, huh?”

  “What can I say, except,” the sin-eater shrugged, “trust me?”

  - 64 - FRED

  If he had to give himself a label, it would be Fred Mostert—Hopesmith. There were a lot of fancy words on his business card and he knew he might have exaggerated his skills in his ads, but if you cut right down to it, he was a hawker of hope. That was the family trade.

  His dad called it a calling. A gift. The doctors, on the other hand—in Valkenberg and Lentegeur and the slew of other madhouses he had been committed to (involuntarily) throughout his life, with their cold floors and quaint phrases like “We comfort, we care, we heal” adorning the walls of the visitors’ rooms—called it something else. Schizophrenia. Ne
ver mind the Laughter, Fred’s entire family was a laugh. His dad, his grandfather, his uncle, the lot. His cousin Mickey was so far into the family way that he’d run away from the real world. Because what kind of nutter took himself off to live in a shack in an old tunnel under a castle and made like it was a business decision? On days when it rained, the moron had to pack up all his worldly possessions into plastic buckets and tie them to the ceiling. What a chump.

  All things considered, though, Fred was good at what he did. On any given day he had customers lining up around the block. You didn’t have to believe in something in order to be an expert in it. Didn’t even have to be particularly talented. What was that thing they said about ten thousand hours? He’d heard it on a chat show on TV once, some guy saying it took roughly ten thousand hours to achieve mastery in any field. Fred had put in that many and then some. He’d been accompanying his dad on callouts since he was a laaitie. Seen a lot of crazy shit. Heard the voices, too, sure, but he was on medication for that now, and Dr. Botha had explained a lot of things to him. Said there were no such things as ghosts. That it was all in his head. An imbalance in the complex interrelated chemical reactions of his brain. Of course Fred wanted to believe him. He didn’t want to end up like his dad. Maller as ’n haas, was his oubaas. Crazier than a cat in a crack house. Drove his mom to the bottom of the bottle and back again.

  So, the little blue-and-yellow capsules Dr. Botha kept prescribing were the first things he took every day with his morning coffee and they did the trick. They kept the voices at bay. He’d made the mistake of reading the folded pamphlet inside the pack and it made his head spin. Paragraph after paragraph of risks: “Irreversible tardive dyskinesia, potentially fatal neuroleptic malignant syndrome, leukopenia, neutropenia, and agranulocytosis. Extrapyramidal symptoms, such as pseudoparkinsonism, akathisia, and dystonia. Persistent tardive dyskinesia, tachycardia, hypotension, light-headedness, and syncope . . .” He hadn’t understood half of it, except for the words fatal and irreversible. But what wasn’t fatal and irreversible in this city? So he’d stopped reading and threw the pamphlet in the bin. He was a hopesmith, after all, and so was Dr. Botha.

  And if there was one thing he had found in his line of business, it was that hope wasn’t free. It always came at a cost.

  When his dad passed away and Fred took over the family business, the first couple of years were rough. It was the lying that got to him. He knew the script. His dad had been grooming him since before he could talk. He just had trouble with saying it all with a straight face. Didn’t believe in what he was selling.

  Then a friend gave him tickets to a play. Some kind of Shakespeare thing. Midsummer Night’s whatever. As he watched the actors prance across the stage in their silly tights and frilly tops spouting all that old-fashioned gibberish, and all the while looking like the cat that got the cream or however that saying went, he figured it out. It’s a role. The whole thing was a role. He’d already learnt his lines. Now he just had to learn how to act out the script. So he watched a few more plays and a whole bunch of old movies, and started channeling his favorite stars: Robert De Niro, “You talkin’ to me?”; Sean Connery, “Shaken not stirred”; and, more appropriately, Bill Murray in Ghostbusters: “This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions . . . Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together . . . mass hysteria!” It took the edge off that way. And the job got easier. He didn’t feel like such a skollie anymore. Nope. He was one of the good guys. Hope. Fred Mostert gave people hope.

  That’s what Faith needed right now, and he was going to give it to her; come hell or high water, he wasn’t going to give up. Fred might not have been in top supernatural form lately thanks to Dr. Botha and those little blue-and-yellow pills, but he knew someone who was. Someone who was the real deal—a young gun supernatural maverick with balls to match, who was right at the very top of the city’s spiritual pops. If she couldn’t figure out this whole damn drama-rama, no one could.

  SATURDAY

  - 65 - THE DAILY TRUTH

  POSSESSED POPOS ON THE LOOSE IN SICK CITY?

  By Lawyer Tshabalala

  Possession is nine-tenths of the law. For real now, writes Lawyer Tshabalala

  So you guys remember how I wrote about amakhosi possession a few weeks ago? Missed it? Let’s do a quick recap, then. But, Lawyer, you say, these amakhosi whatsamathingies, what are they again? Seriously, I can’t take you guys anywhere. This amakhosi thing has been around forever and a day. Have you guys been living under a rock? Let me spell it out for you again: schoolkids are mixing brandy, milk stout, and muthi to channel the spirits of older, stronger ancestors. The possessed teens then go around in gangs getting up to all sorts of mischief. Starting fights, robbing little old ladies, stealing stuff, or just climbing walls, standing up to bullies, running around like vigilante superheroes, and winning soccer games.

  Last time I wrote to you, my dear readers, I was telling you about this crazy Cuban doctor who is claiming he might have a cure for the Laughter by way of using amakhosi muthi. By substituting young spirits for ancient ones. Sounds kind of Stikland, but wouldn’t that be a kwaai experiment if it works, hey?

  The latest news from behind the hyena curtain is that our dear Mr. President is in on the amakhosi action again. Some of you will know, he’s been shipping gangs of amakhosi kids out to war zones across the world for years—as rent-a-soldiers in exchange for fat wads of cash. But amidst the recent increase in border breaches, he is apparently planning to beef up security by enlisting some of these returned ex-mercenaries into the Veeps. Now, isn’t that a bunch of nightmare fuel for thought? That’s all we need, folks, a bunch of possessed kids with PTSD running our police force. Happy days.

  - 66 - SANS

  The bird looked down onto the quilted square shouldered by noirish Batman high-rises. It was an ordinary bird. Just your average, run-of-the-mill domestic pigeon. Nothing special about it. And like most pigeons, it didn’t give a flying coo about Art Deco architecture or comic strips. (Although it was quite partial to a good Gothic gargoyle. As partial as the next bird, it supposed.) So it wasn’t the noirish architecture that piqued its interest down below in the square today. Nor was it the patchwork of colorful interconnected stalls.

  It was a cap. A bright red, peaked cap. Its wearer standing motionless. Talking. Waiting. Just for him. Next to that pointy, sticky-out sky perch. Next to that white vrooming box thing.

  The bird loved red. It was its favorite color. Birds can see colors; they aren’t dogs, thank you very much.

  The bird stretched its wings and aimed. Ah. Presto. Better. Much better, it thought to itself before flapping off in search of a perch.

  “Shit,” said Sans. “Shit, shit!”

  “It’s good luck,” said the dead collector, one hand stuck in the pocket of her coat. Her voice sounded dull and numb, like she was talking through a cardboard tube.

  “Luck,” snorted Sans, flicking the bird shit off with his fingers. “There you go again with your mystical hippie hoo-ha. There’s no such thing as luck. Or fate. Or choosing your own reality in seven different colors and sizes with free shipping via Amazon or whatever. But hey. I guess you just can’t help yourself, can you?”

  “That’s what I’ve been told,” said the dead collector in a weird high-pitched half whisper that gave him the heebie-jeebies. No jibes. No quick comebacks. Her eyes blank, defeated. Like he’d gone and broken her high score or something.

  Shit. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass again, aren’t I?” What? What was he saying? This wasn’t like him. “You look like you’re having a rough week. Can I buy you a coffee?” Argh. Why did he just do that? He didn’t want to go for a coffee with this chick! He had way more important things to do today. Like finding a way to translate that damn book. Shut up, Sans. Get ahold of yourself. Shut up!

  She was going to say no. He could see it on her face. What a relief.

  But somehow, some-why, he couldn’t help himself. It was like someone el
se was talking through him. As if he was possessed or something. “No strings,” he said, his mouth going AWOL again. “Just caffeine. It’s a sin to say no to a free cup of coffee—didn’t your mother ever tell you that? Gift horse in the mouth and all that.” What was wrong with him? Was this some kind of John Malkovich thing?

  Her mouth was closed but she moved her jaw. She was thinking about it.

  “If you want, I can lace it with something,” Sans continued. “You look like you might need some extra kick. Spirits for the spirit, as my uncle used to say.”

  “Fine,” said the dead collector, not looking too happy about it. “Fine.”

  “Fine,” said Sans.

  Fine.

  * * *

  They were sitting in that sad army face place. The one with the photo of Anna on the wall. The waiter brought the coffee and walked away, leaving a great big southern right whale of a silence behind that was threatening to swallow Sans whole if he didn’t fill it with something. Anything. “So,” he said, “what do you do for fun?” What do you do for fun! Seriously, he had to get ahold of himself. He was sounding like a cheese ad.

  The dead collector glared at him, like he’d just asked for her bra size or something. Then her face thawed.

  “Puzzles. I like solving puzzles.”

  “What kind of puzzles?”

  “Any kind, really. The more difficult, the better.”

  “Hey. That’s a weird coincidence. A stroke of luck, even, if you want to call it that. Turns out I have a puzzle of my own to solve right now. Maybe you can help?”

  “The puzzle of how not to be such a huge asshat all the time? Sorry, guy, you’re on your own on that one. I don’t think that one’s solvable. Some weeds can’t be pruned, my gran used to say. Their roots run too deep.”