by Gareth Otton
One thing was for sure, he’d be a changed man when he did leave and might even have a few superpowers as souvenirs.
24
Wednesday, 30th November 2016
07:00
The living room door opened, but Tad was in too much pain to turn toward it. Every part of him was in agony thanks to the psychopathic, SAS trained Rodney who put him through an hour of torture at 6 o’clock in the morning. All Tad could do was groan and roll his eyes toward the door, much to the delight of the ghost who entered.
“You look like shit,” Tony said, not even trying to hide how funny he found this.
“This is all your fault. I was happy how I was and you had to interfere.”
Tony held up his hands in surrender.
“Don’t blame me. Training with Rodney was your idea. I just wanted you to spend more time with other ghosts.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you left to see your parents and Amber.”
Tony fell onto a sofa and scratched his head before answering.
“Yeah… Well, I was on my way there and started thinking about the last year… You know what I mean... Charles… Miriam. It just got me thinking about the old days, and… Well, I just thought I’d hang out with you for the day.”
“Don’t tell me you’re having an emotional moment. That’s terrifying,” Tad said with an evil grin.
Tony was about to reply when the door opened again and Rodney walked in, preceded by Growler. The dog was licking his chops and looked pleased with himself as he lept onto an empty sofa and lay down. Tad glared at his dog suspiciously before turning towards the athletic ghost, or more specifically, the concoction he was holding.
“Why do I get the impression that whatever you fed him looked a lot better than this?” Tad asked, accepting the offered drink and looking at it like it was poison. Tad didn’t think any drink should be that shade of green, nor so thick, nor smell so much like grass. In fact, he was struggling to find anything good to say about it.
“It’s got everything you need to help you recover after a workout like that,” Rodney said.
“So this is what you’d have drunk when you were in the army.”
“Hell no,” Rodney answered. “We ate real food. But you said you needed something quick, so here you go.”
Tony was laughing again, his frustration of a moment earlier forgotten as he watched Tad sample the drink. When Tad nearly choked, Tony howled with glee.
“That alone was worth coming back today,” he said when he wasn’t struggling to breathe.
Tad scowled at him, and this time it was Tony’s turn to be saved by the living room door opening. Another ghost stepped in, this one dressed in a suit and ready for a day of work. Thomas stopped when he was only three steps into the living room and scowled.
“What is this?” he asked. “You were supposed to be ready ten minutes ago.”
Tad groaned and looked away, more interested in the thick green sludge than dealing with Thomas’ complaints.
“Blame him,” he said, throwing Rodney under the bus. “He pushed me too hard.”
“Come on, Tad. Today is important,” Thomas pushed, stepping around the sofas and forcing Tad to look at him. “You promised I’d have your full attention and you’d be ready for this. I didn’t expect to have to chase you and—”
“Alright,” Tad said, cutting the ghost off. “I promised and I’ll stick to that. Let me finish this… potion, and I’ll go get ready.”
Thomas huffed and sat down next to Growler, glaring at Tad.
“Here goes nothing,” Tad said, taking a few deep breaths and building his will. Then, when he thought he was ready, he was about to down his drink in one when he was saved by the bell. Not a literal bell maybe, but his phone started buzzing and he jumped on the excuse.
“What are you doing now?” Thomas asked in frustration, not happy at Tad’s distraction. “Just drink the thing and… Urgh, get off me!”
The last words were aimed at Growler, who decided that if they were going to share a seat, then he might as well introduce himself to the ghost. To Growler’s mind, the best way to do that was to lick the ghost’s face.
Tad grinned as the politician got distracted, but his smile faded as soon as he saw the name on the screen of his phone.
“What is it?” Tony asked, reading Tad’s expression.
“It’s a text from Jacob. He’s apologising for the other day and wants to make up for it. He wants to meet face to face and wants to know if I have time right now.”
“You don’t,” Thomas said as he pushed Growler away. “You have a jam-packed schedule and you don’t have time for this conversation, let alone side trips.”
Tad was about to agree when the phone buzzed again with another message.
I know you’re busy, brother. But I could do with your advice. It will only be quick, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.
Tad frowned at the text, his fingers hovering over the keypad as he debated his answer. Thomas was right, he didn’t have time for anything today. He promised the Prime Minister he would take a big part in the planned activities and would be available all day. However, at the same time he couldn’t ignore that text. Jacob wasn’t the kind of man to make mountains out of molehills, and if he wanted to speak then it must be important.
He typed back a quick response and spoke to Thomas at the same time.
“I’ll get changed before we go and bring you all with me. That way we’ll be ready to go as soon as I hear what he has to say.”
“You promised,” Thomas complained, but Tad had already pressed send on the message and before he could think better of it, he downed the nasty drink in his hand. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back and just concentrated on not being sick as the thick sludge slipped down his throat. When he was done, he opened his eyes in surprise and looked at the glass, then at Rodney who was standing by the TV with a knowing grin.
“It’s not that bad,” he said, to which Rodney just shrugged as if to say I told you so.
“Tad, don’t ignore me. You promised that—”
“I know what I promised,” Tad said. “And I’m sticking to that, we’re just making a pit stop before we get there. Keep it together, Thomas.” Tad stood, or more accurately tried to stand, but his muscles didn’t want to respond right now and he fell back into the chair. Turning to Tony, he asked, “A little help?”
Tony rolled his eyes.
“That’s not what I was talking about when I said we should hang out today.”
“Just for a little while,” Tad requested. “I just need a bit of a pick me up until I’ve got over the torture he put me through this morning.”
Again Rodney didn’t respond verbally, he just looked smug.
“Fine. But only for an hour or two. Believe it or not, I’ve got better things to do with my day than spend all my time in that thick head of yours,” Tony said.
“Thanks, Tony.”
Tony just huffed like it was the greatest imposition in the world, then Tad felt that touch against his senses that told him that there was a ghost that wanted his attention. Tad let down his barriers, and Tony dissolved into a ball of mist that rushed across the room for Tad to breathe in.
At once the aching pain in his muscles vanished, he sat up straighter, and he felt filled with energy.
“That’s better,” he said, jumping up from the sofa and earning a shocked reaction from Rodney.
“How long have you been able to do that?” he asked.
“What? Use Tony to help recover from pain? Pretty much forever. While he’s in me I get a boost of energy and he fixes whatever damage I’ve done to myself.”
“Then why the hell haven’t you been using him before? We could work out twice as much if you can recover that fast.”
Tad laughed. “I’m taking a hard pass on that.” Seeing that Thomas was about to lose his mind waiting for Tad, he added, “Don’t worry. I’m going to get changed now. I’ll be five minutes, to
ps.”
He was about to leave the room when he had an epiphany that was part his and part Tony’s. It had been a year since Tad had lost his ghosts, and in that year he never thought he’d ever want to take another ghost again. Truth be told, he still wasn’t sure. However, as he checked his mood, he had to admit that he was enjoying himself. It wasn’t the same as with Charles and Miriam, and of course he wanted Jen back, but the easy banter between the ghosts and even the politician’s frustrations were welcome. It was a touch of family life in a home that had been lacking that for too long.
Acting on that impulse, he turned to Rodney and asked, “You up to much today?”
“Not really, just the same old. Why?”
“I can’t promise it’ll be a lot of fun, but you can stick around with us today for the Merging day activities if you want. There’s a lot happening and I think Norman wants to turn it into a bit of a celebration more than a memorial, so it could be interesting.”
“Uh… Yeah. I can do that. Sure.”
Tad smiled and nodded. Then, when seeing that his politician friend was about to explode, he winked at him and left to go get changed, suddenly feeling quite hopeful about this day.
◆◆◆
Tad looked at the picture on his phone, not recognising the empty land that was part of Brad’s ranch.
“Why don’t they meet you at the house?” Rodney asked, looking at the picture over Tad’s shoulder. “You said you’d been there before, right?”
“I have,” Tad agreed. “But they want to meet here for some reason.”
Rodney’s expression twisted into a frown and he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself at the last moment. Tad was bout to ask what he wanted to say, but caught the impatience on Thomas’ face and decided he was better off getting on with this. He put his phone in his pocket and looked up. “I have it now, let’s go.”
Before either ghost could say anything, Tad gripped their shoulders and changed the channel.
As always when travelling somewhere with a different climate, Tad felt the change in the temperature first. Despite being half-past one in the morning in Texas and dreamwalking from a home with central heating, Tad still recognised the unseasonable warmth as something different. There was a heat radiating from the ground that only land bathed in the sun for the majority of the day adopted, and Tad knew he was far from home.
The darkness was a shock to the system. Stepping from the electric lights of his living room to the pitch darkness of the open air left him blinking. The ghosts had no such restrictions.
“Tad run,” Rodney shouted, but his words were drowned out by the clang of metal on metal that echoed through Tad’s mind thanks to more than just the sound. There was a mental click in his head as something changed, but it wasn’t until his eyes adjusted to the darkness that he realised what that was.
The movement of a shape amongst the shadows drew his attention to where a young man was standing up, a cruel smile on his face that Tad had seen before. Simon was a dreamwalker who used to come to the meetings but never said much. On the few occasions Tad met him outside the meetings, he found him abrasive and never liked his smile.
What he liked less was a grim-faced Jacob standing to his left, and the shame-faced Brad standing to his right. Brad looked anywhere but at Tad, uncomfortable with what was happening. Jacob, while wearing a pained expression, was resolute.
Tad looked from face to face in confusion before he looked down at the metal that made the clanging noise. The sound had been Simon slamming closed a small strip that was attached via a hinge to a larger design. Tad had never seen one on this scale or from the inside, so it took him a second to make sense of the swirling lines that spiraled out from the central circle in which he stood, but eventually he cottoned on.
He and his ghosts were standing in the centre of a giant dreamcatcher, and Simon had just closed the last piece of the puzzle.
Even though he already knew what would happen, Tad couldn’t help reaching for Dream, but he might as well have been trying to reach through a closed window. He could see the door in his mind, but there was a barrier he couldn’t pass no matter how hard he tried.
As he reached for it, light flared to life, the enormous dreamcatcher in the centre of a giant field on Brad’s property lighting up the night and illuminating more than just Jacob, Brad and Simon. A whole host of dreamwalkers who wore various expressions encircled him. Recognising he was doing nothing but wearing himself out, Tad ceased his efforts and the light faded, the dreamwalkers returning to the shadows.
“What the hell is this?” Tad shouted into the darkness, directing his words at Jacob, who he knew was the mastermind here. Even as he asked the question he was running through old conversations and putting together clues. His argument with Jacob beside the pyramids had been a long time building, and as Tad looked back he realised the signs were there of tension building to something big.
But how could he have expected his?
At the edge of the circle, Jacob stepped forward, separating himself from Brad and Simon and keeping his gaze fixed on Tad.
“You had every chance, brother,” he said, his radio-voice as confident as ever. “I tried to get you to see reason, but you wouldn’t listen. I know you mean well and you’re always trying to find the best in every situation, but we’re dying out here. Literally in some cases.”
“Who’s dying?” Tad demanded, glancing around to see if he could make out the other faces in the darkness.
“Rajesh. Walter. Nina. Carmen. Alehandro. Matilda.”
Every name Jacob spoke conjured an image in Tad’s mind, faces he would never forget. Jacob was listing the victims of Mitena and Kuruk.
“We ended that threat,” Tad interrupted. “I’m as saddened by the loss of those people as any of you, but that’s behind us. There’s no need for this.”
“Is it over?” Jacob asked, a touch of anger slipping into his voice. “Where is Kuruk Campbell?”
Tad struggled to find an answer that wouldn’t make the situation worse, but Jacob never gave him the chance.
“That’s right, you don’t know where he is. A man who killed so many dreamwalkers just vanishes and you sweep it aside like its nothing.”
“We’re still looking into that,” Tad tried, but again Jacob interrupted.
“Are you? Last I checked, your Dream Team is looking more and more like Kuruk Campbell every day. It’s less like they’re looking for him and more like they’re becoming him. But that doesn’t matter. Haven’t you realised yet? Even if you found him tomorrow and locked him away, we still wouldn’t be safe because he’s not our biggest threat.”
He paused dramatically before saying, “Normal humans are. Politicians, business owners, billionaires, anyone with power who fears what we will become. Do you think Kuruk could have done what he did for so long without the support of the US government? Do you think he could have disappeared unless—”
“Listen to yourself. You sound crazy,” Tad interrupted. “What evidence do you have?”
“Your country has a bill that is being voted on tomorrow,” Jacob said, as though that was the smoking gun. “Anyone who has read that bill knows what it means. They’re coming for us, and it is long past time you saw that.”
“A select few politicians created that bill. It doesn’t represent the majority,” Thomas shouted, his voice wobbling enough to make Tad glance at the ghost. His eyes had adjusted so he could see the ghost was scared, looking around with wide eyes and a pale face. Tad couldn’t blame him. This many dreamwalkers in one place, none of them looking friendly, there was no wonder a ghost might be nervous.
Tad glanced at Rodney, but he looked angry, glaring at the shadows as if daring them to pick a fight.
“Here we go again,” Jacob called, turning his attention from Tad and looking around the circle of shadowy dreamwalkers. “Listen to the politician start the spin machine, trying to make it seem like something it’s not.”
“He’s no
t lying. We’re fighting this thing,” Tad argued.
“No, Tad!” Jacob screamed so loud that spittle flew from his mouth. He spun back to face Tad, and for a second it looked like he was losing control. “You still don’t get it. They’re playing you. That’s what they do. This arsehole, the politicians on that stupid council, your Prime Minister… They only care about themselves and they’ve been playing you for months.”
“I don’t think—”
“Enough,” Jacob interrupted, raising his hand for silence. “We’re not getting anywhere, just as we haven’t every other time we spoke about this. We’ve tried it your way for months and now it’s time to try our way. While you don’t see the threat in front of us, we have been getting ready for it. While you’ve been trying to show the world that we’re meek, we’ve been preparing to show our strength and secure our future. I hoped you would come to your senses, but that’s not the case. That’s why we had to do this.”
He stepped back and motioned to the enormous dreamcatcher. It must have been at least sixty-foot in diameter and Tad could tell just by looking that it was too well constructed for him to even dream of overheating it. Like the dreamcatchers that were keeping important buildings around the world safe from intrusion, no single dreamwalker could ever call enough Dream overload steel that thick.
“We respect everything you’ve done for us, brother, and we know you mean well. That’s why we’re just locking you up for a little while. You’ll be safe while we do what we must. Hopefully, when this is over, you’ll see the truth.”
“Do what?” Tad asked, terrified at whatever plan Jacob had cooked up where doing this to him was the reasonable option.
Jacob didn’t answer, and the silence following Tad’s question was only broken by the rushing sound of air filling a void as a dreamwalker vanished. Tad spun to see who had gone, but then there was another rushing sound, followed by another, and another. One by one the dreamwalkers disappeared and though he felt like a dog chasing his own tail, Tad couldn’t help but spin tosee who was leaving each time.
