by Nina Post
A second driver growled. Eric presumed that was He Who Digs In.
“Yeah,” a third driver said.
“And you are?” Eric asked.
“He Who Reclines. These truckers get to go all over the place. They’re always on the move. The only thing I get to do is go to group.”
One of the drivers made a whistling sound.
“He Who Cleans?” Eric said.
“I’m here,” one of the five truckers said with a resigned tone.
“You’re the group facilitator.” Eric stretched out a hand. “Anything you want to say?”
The sprite-as-three-hundred-pound-trucker sighed and hitched up his pants. “I do so much for the Dixons. I have stopped three home invasions. I have foiled at least a dozen Halloween-related attacks, some involving eggs. My household protection and management skills would hold up against an English butler’s in a pre-WWI country estate.”
Eric considered this. “Can’t you be a household sprite in some other household, for some other family? Maybe the Dixons are just ungrateful jerks.”
The sprite-as-trucker blinked baggy, heavy-lidded eyes. “Well. Perhaps they are.”
“Let the truckers go.” Eric crossed his arms. “You all gave me your word.”
The spirits pouted, but phased slowly out of the truck drivers. With the spirits gone, the drivers all looked a little sheepish, as though coming to from a blackout period was not that unusual. The drivers wandered over to a picnic table where Eric had conveniently left a twelve-pack of beer, and drank in silence.
Eric held a finger up to the spirits indicating that he’d be back, but they followed him into the truck stop. He Who Eats Grapes, He Who Dances for Ladies, and even She Who Floats, the floating jellyfish head, joined the others in the group and trailed behind.
“What are we doing – is it a surprise party?” He Who Dances for Ladies asked.
Eric returned to his laptop. “Okay, my process neutralized those spirits in the spores,” Taffy told Eric on video chat. “I can repeat the process for the yogurts in the truck.”
“What about the yogurts we can’t get to?” Eric said.
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Rex said.
“Taffy, just to let you know, we have some company.” Eric gave her a look which basically said, ‘I know that sounds crazy but since you’re neutralizing spirits in spores anyway, maybe you’ll go with it.’
She shrugged and raised her eyebrows, which said, ‘Yeah, so?’
“There’s a spirit here,” Eric clarified. “A ghost. An insubstantial entity.”
“Oh, I’m insubstantial?” Rex said, then narrowed his eyes and leaned toward Eric. “Who was watching Camel Toe Intervention on TV the other day? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t me.”
Eric gave Rex a withering look. “Can you work with her to figure out a way to get the spirits out of people or not?”
“Well, she could be my daughter, so, yes,” Rex said.
“She is not your daughter,” Eric said.
“WHAT?” Taffy said.
“Nothing, honey.” Eric squeezed her shoulder.
Eric noticed something peculiar on the TV at the corner of the room. He found a remote and raised the volume.
“This is Larson Hark reporting from Jamesville Regional Airport.”
A blur of people passed around Hark, who wore a blue raincoat with a hood, like a weatherman reporting from a beach during a hurricane. Even though he was buffeted and elbowed and occasionally punched, not to mention barfed on, he resolutely held his ground in the very middle of the airport terminal.
“Wow, he’s an idiot,” Taffy said.
Hark raised his voice over the din. “All of the airport’s concession stands have closed, and hordes of weary travelers are exhibiting –” A man took Hark’s raincoat in his fists and tore the sleeve off, causing Hark to drop his microphone, fall to the ground, then scramble to stand back up with his mic and a semblance of dignity, “– extreme behavior.”
“Yes, but he could be a useful idiot,” Eric went back to the video chat. “Taffy, when you and Rex find a way to get the commerce spirits out of the people who are infected with them, I’ll give Hark a call. The stadium was a decoy, but –”
“The airports weren’t,” Nathan said, his mouth set in a firm line.
“You knew?” Taffy said to Nathan. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
Nathan sighed. “I’ll give myself enough of a hard time about it, I promise you.”
Eric took his laptop to a corner of the truck stop’s lounge area and set it down on a tiny desk. He checked the time then invited Willa to a video chat, thinking – hoping – that she was doing office hours. She wasn’t available. He thumbed through a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera that was left behind on the wide arm of a chair for five minutes. He tried again and she responded.
“Are you familiar with the HVAC system at the Jamesville Regional Airport?” Eric said.
“Hello to you, too,” Willa said, in a dry tone.
“Hi.”
There was a small pause.
“Where’s Taffy?”
“At school,” Eric said.
“Is there a problem?”
“Just a bug that’s been going around. So, how familiar are you with that system?”
“I’m familiar,” she said.
Eric knew that probably meant she was the lead engineer on the project. “Can you disperse an agent through the vents so it reaches everyone inside the airport?”
She laced her fingers on the video chat and he knew she was going to lay into him for something.
“I know that you’ve had a rough time of it lately,” she said, with measured diction. “You’ve had to live in the Princess –”
“It’s not the Princess anymore.”
She lowered her eyes and rubbed her forehead, then looked back up. “I hear you lost a job. And I know that Mark stepping in to help us has –”
“Hold on.” Eric grabbed the laptop and brought it in closer. “Mark didn’t step in to help you. He stepped in to move in on you. And what help did you need that I couldn’t give you? You make enough on your own to support Taffy –”
She laughed. “Just barely.”
“Taffy is probably making more than both of us. I saw her money clip.”
“Her money clip?” Willa’s eyes narrowed.
“She’s been selling her own candy in school.”
Willa smiled, then refocused, and spoke in a measured tone. “Look, we can discuss this later. Right now I’d like to talk about your … plan. Remember, you have a daughter who looks up to you. And we may be having some problems, but taking it out on innocent people in an airport is not –”
“Wait, taking it out on – what are you talking about?” Eric said.
“What are you talking about?” Willa said.
“Uh, stopping someone else’s plan and helping the people in the airport.”
“Is that what you think it is? Helping people? Oh, Loris.” She had used her pet name for him.
“Hang on,” Eric said. “Are you thinking that I’m going to –”
“Unleash some kind of bioattack in the local airport?” Willa said. “Kinda looks that way.”
Eric laughed, then wondered how the hell he was going to actually explain enough to get her to do it. He should have written a proposal first.
“You think it’s funny?”
“Have we met?” he said, rhetorically. “Because you seem to think I’m a totally different person.”
“What am I supposed to think?”
Eric glanced back to where Nathan and the others were sitting around a table.
“I don’t know, that I’m the same person?” Then he thought about it. Was he the same person? “Never mind,” he said. “I’m not doing anything like that. If you turn on KWTA, you’ll see Larson Hark –”
“The same guy who wrote those articles about you?” Willa asked.
“Yes. You’
ll see him reporting live from the regional airport, which is basically in lockdown because everyone there is acting crazy. I know exactly why they’re acting crazy, and we can fix it.”
“We?”
“Taffy and I. And, I hope, you. That’s why I asked you about the HVAC in the airport.”
Eric switched over to Taffy when the chat beeped, then set up 3-way communication.
“Dad, we did it. Hi Mom. Are you going to help us distribute this through the air conditioning system?” Taffy asked, and Eric knew they had Willa on their side.
After a moment of hesitation, Willa nodded. “I have no idea what either of you are talking about, but yes.”
Taffy pumped her fist then ran out of the frame, popping back in to say, “We’ll have it ready in a few minutes.”
“Can you meet us in front of the airport?” Eric asked Willa.
“Sure.”
At the Jamesville Regional Airport, Eric, Willa, and Taffy watched Larson Hark struggle to avoid getting trampled as he narrated what was happening around him.
“What’s Mr. Chicken doing?” Willa said.
“Mr. Chicken?” Eric had an unwanted flashback to the law firm partner.
“You know, Don Knotts in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken?” Willa made a karate chop move with both arms then looked at him expectantly.
He shook his head, having no idea what she was doing.
“I don’t do it justice.” She waved it off. “I know it’s from a thousand years ago, but he’s hilarious.”
“We should watch it,” Eric said, almost afraid to suggest it.
Taffy handed Willa the box. “It’s dry, like dust.”
“Can you do it?” Eric said.
Willa took the box. “I can probably access the mechanical room. We worked on a series-counterflow arrangement for them just a few days ago.”
Eric and Taffy cocked their heads and squinted.
“To minimize energy use?” Willa said.
Eric and Taffy feigned understanding of Willa’s ‘clarification’ through mostly unintelligible murmurs.
“Let’s sync our watches,” Eric said.
Taffy rolled her eyes.
“Do it, Taffy!” Eric said.
They checked their respective watches. Willa left for the mechanical room. Rex phased inside the airport and opened a side stairwell door for Eric and Taffy.
“Where’s Nathan?” Eric said.
“He stayed at the school,” Rex said. “They started a group therapy session for him.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
All of the concessions and stores had lowered their metal security doors, most of which were severely dented from the infected people pounding or jumping into them in their attempt to get back in. Those who weren’t slamming against the metal security doors were mobbing the ticket desks or fighting over scraps of the snack boxes like crows. The halls and gates were strewn with abandoned bags, luggage, and strollers. The infected looked feral, pale. They sweated to the point where the fronts of their shirts were wet. The whites of their eyes were red with burst capillaries. They were either standing still, mouths open in a long, drawn-out, and low-pitched howl, or bursting into disconcertingly fast sprints.
Eric had tied Josh to a bar behind a reservation desk, but Josh seemed to react to the yogurt by sleeping, so Eric doubted if he even noticed. Josh looked terrible: his skin was clammy, his breathing hoarse and labored, and when Eric opened one of Josh’s eyelids, his pupils were dilated, like the eye doctor had given him drops for an exam.
Larson Hark was curled up into a fetal position in front of Jamesville News & Books. His camera operator was nowhere to be seen. Taffy headed toward a small alcove that used to house the pay phones, crouched on top of a work desk, and watched. Eric ran to Hark, tossed him over his back, and ran him back to the wall where Taffy was. Hark lashed out in a series of ineffectual punches until Eric pinned his arms back and Taffy slapped him.
“Listen, Hark!” She sighed at what she just said, then almost reluctantly added, “We have information for you.”
This calmed him somewhat, but he still flailed. “Who are you!” he said in a voice that suggested he was minutes from a nervous breakdown. Taffy slapped him again.
“That’s enough, Taffy,” Eric said, holding up a hand to her. He looked at Hark. “We have information for you to give your viewers.”
Hark breathed in short, hitching breaths.
“My … viewers?” Eric thought that if Larson Hark was reduced to a primordial ooze, he would still react to the word ‘viewers.’
“That’s right,” Eric said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Your viewers. They’re watching you, just like they’ll be reading you tomorrow. And you have to tell them that there was an outbreak of a food-borne pathogen –” Eric glanced at Taffy, who nodded, “– but that it’s under control.”
Hark gazed with horror at a woman hopping great distances down the hall.
Eric shook Hark’s shoulders. “Never mind them! We’re going to fix this.”
“Tell them –” Hark started, looking back to Eric.
“Good. Tell your viewers that they should not, under any circumstances, eat Quantal Organic Yogurt, in single containers or in Quantal snack boxes. Now, what are you going to tell your viewers?”
Hark shuddered. “That, um … there was an outbreak?”
“Of a food-borne pathogen,” Taffy spurred him.
“Of a food-borne pathogen,” Hark watched Taffy like he was a student. “But it’s under control. And … and …”
Eric shook him again.
“Oh!” Hark started. “And that people should not eat Quantal Organic Yogurt, whether in a single container or in a Quantal-branded snack box.”
“Perfect,” Eric said.
“Hey, you’re Eric Snackerge,” Hark said, becoming a little more lucid.
“Yeah.”
“I – did my article – did that – I’m sorry if it caused you any trouble. I was just –”
“It turned out to be helpful,” Eric said, being nice, even though Hark’s articles were full of misinformation.
Larson Hark straightened his tie, smoothed his hair, and pinched his cheeks. He stood and tucked in his shirttail, smoothed out the front of his pants and shirt, and did a vocal warm-up.
“I’m ready.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t stand in the middle of the hall this time,” Taffy suggested.
Hark looked side to side and in the distance as though he had lost something. “Where’s Vanessa?”
‘Who’s Vanessa?” Eric thought it was Hark’s dog so he looked low to the floor.
“My camera operator!” Hark’s face turned red.
Taffy hopped down. “I’ll do it.”
“Taffy –”
“We’ll record over there.” She pointed to an empty corner in a nearby gate. “I don’t want him to stroke out or anything.”
After Hark finished his “special urgent message to the loyal and good-looking KWTA viewers of Jamesville,” Eric called Willa.
“Now,” he said.
The air started to blow through the vents. Eric could barely make out the particle dust, but he could see it from a different angle with the light behind it. After a few minutes, the infected crowd began to slow down.
Some of the people sat on the floor with a thud, and every one of them was soon surrounded with a corona of white particle dust that rose to the ceiling then filled the airport as far as Eric could see. The particles vibrated with a crackling sound, expanded to white orbs the size of softballs, then exploded in a shower of spores, coating everyone and everything with a material similar to dandelion pollen or vacuum cleaner dust, only white.
“Eric Snackerge,” the intercom said, in a calm and accentless female voice. “Eric Snackerge, please report to a nearby courtesy phone. Eric Snackerge.”
Eric searched for Taffy and found her just behind the door to the electrical room. She was the only one not coated in spores, thanks to
her prescient decision to hide there. She brushed lint off her shoulder.
“Show off,” Eric said, wiping the spores from his eyelashes and off his face.
“Dad, pick up the courtesy phone already.”
He picked up the phone on the wall.
“What are you wearing?” Willa said.
“Commerce spirit,” Eric said. “You?”
A few minutes later, Willa exited an unmarked door and waded through a foot of spores on the floor. Eric marveled how his wife and daughter were totally untouched, so he took Willa by the waist and wrestled her to the floor until her hair was covered in it. He pinned her wrists.
“Why are you going to Indonesia?”
She furrowed her brow. “How do you know that?”
He didn’t say anything. He was enjoying being on top of her and wished they were alone.
“You went through my desk!”
“I was looking for something about the sale of the house,” Eric said. After a moment, he asked, “Who was the buyer, by the way?”
She sighed. “Uh … Anemochore? An LLC.”
Eric placed it in his memory. “Ah.”
“You know what that is?”
“The promotional company that started this mess, they’re a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anemochore, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nidus Monolothics.”
At her expression, which didn’t show recognition, Eric clarified: “The douchenozzle who sent us the mailers?”
She nodded, her jaw firmly set. Eric knew that she would rip DZ apart with her bare hands if the opportunity came up.
“His father runs Nidus, so DZ exploits their resources to do stuff like, for example, attempt to infect everyone in the world with a commerce spirit to get back at family for putting him in anti-diarrhea pudding commercials.” Yep, that pretty much summed it up, Eric thought.
“Seriously?” Willa looked disgusted and struggled to sit up.
“Yeah. He wants to have more money than his father. I think.” Eric sat on his heels. He shook his head. “Whatever. I don’t understand rich people.” Eric wanted to get back to the subject. If Willa was hoping he had forgotten about it, she was mistaken.
