Soul Search: A Zackie Story

by Reyna Favis

  My fantasy was interrupted by the thought of him falling asleep behind the wheel. If he slept at all last night, it was sitting up in a chair or curled in an uncomfortable contortion around Hannah and her IVs on the small bed. “Just don’t force yourself beyond your limits, okay? Hannah has been pretty stable and you’ve got to get some real, quality sleep at some point.”

  “Yes, mom. I’ll sleep soon. I promise.”

  “Yeah, yeah… the checks in the mail.” I crumbled some cheese on to the mostly cooked egg, folded it and then went back to fretting about him. “Lucas, how about if I drive us down? You can sleep in the passenger seat.” Kill me now. I could think of nothing more uncomfortable than being trapped for many hours alone in a car with Lucas. The only thing that could possibly be more excruciating was explaining the need to carpool to Hannah. Still, it would be worth it if I could lay my worries for him to rest. “I could pick you up at the hospital and Hannah could have some Zackie time before we leave.”

  “That is an awesome idea.” Lucas sounded genuinely relieved that he would not have to suck it up and find some untapped source of stamina to deal with this trip. “Can we meet here in about an hour? I need to shower and pack and organize the crew.”

  “Me too, except for organizing the crew. Zackie is pretty organized and requires very little in the way of management.” I was starting to babble, so I told him I’d see him in an hour and ended the call.

  In the grand tradition of SAR, I ended up taking nothing out of the trunk and only adding to the contents. In went the dog food and my small suitcase. With a little creative organizing, I fashioned sufficient space for whatever Lucas needed to bring. If he was planning on a day trip, it wouldn’t be much. I was at the hospital in a little under an hour and rather than linger in the parking lot, I decided to get the conversation with Hannah over with.

  Hannah pinned me to the wall with her eyes when I walked into the room. “So, you’re going on a trip with my husband?”

  “Yes. I’m driving him down because you know and I know that he’s exhausted. I don’t want him behind the wheel on a long drive.”

  Zackie crawled into the bed and Hannah automatically wrapped her arms around the dog. Zackie access did nothing to sweeten her mood, but the pain-induced tautness in her body let go and her muscles relaxed. “Well played. I really want to argue with you. More than anything right now, I want to have a knock-down, drag-out fight where I scratch your eyes out and accuse you of manipulating the situation. But the truth is, he needs a break.” Her eyes slanted sideways and her lips compressed. “But you are manipulating the situation.”

  Sighing deeply, I collapsed into a chair next to the bed. “You might be right, but I’m not doing it intentionally. Besides, I told you before – I will not make a move on him.”

  “While Hannah is alive.” Hannah’s eyes were downcast and she whispered this mostly to herself. Looking back at me, in a stronger voice, she said, “Not intentionally.” She mimicked my words and narrowed her eyes at me. “You might not be able to help yourself. You’re a mess when you’re around him, you know.”

  “Who’s a mess?” Lucas walked into the room and I blushed furiously. How much had he heard? Activate diversion sequence, I thought desperately.

  “Zackie’s a mess. At least, she was a mess after training in the woods. She’s all cleaned up now, so don’t worry about Hannah getting exposed to anything.” Zackie picked her head up at the mention of her name and stared at me. The communication was obvious: Do not involve me in your fiasco.

  Lucas glanced at the dog squished tightly to Hannah’s side. “She looks all right. Are we taking her with us?” Claiming his position on Hannah’s other side, he sat down gently on the bed.

  “Yes. We’re going to need her for whatever they have planned down there.” Thinking quickly for a way to extricate myself from being in the middle of a Hannah and Lucas conversation, I hit on the need for food. “I’m going to the gift store and grab some food for the trip. I’ll be right back.” I sidled out the door and made for the elevators.

  I figured I could burn ten or fifteen minutes doing this and maybe he’d be ready to go by the time I returned. As it turned out, the gift store was devoid of unhealthy road trip snacks, so I made a quick trip to the grocery store across the street from the hospital. Just as well. Things were more expensive in the gift store and this would not be a good use of my dwindling funds. I was mostly pinning my hopes on some Southern hospitality for the trip. If I could rely on our hosts for food and shelter, this would go a long way towards preserving my savings. I would happily clean out barn stalls or whatever in exchange for these necessities.

  Returning to Hannah’s room after depositing the salty, crunchy spoils in the car, I stared hopefully at Lucas and Zackie. “Ready to go?” They both looked content to stay where they were, but dutifully roused themselves at my urging.

  Lucas stretched and the joints popped as he groaned himself back into action. “Call me or have the nurse call me if you need anything at all. Call me if you just get bored and want to talk.” He kissed her pale lips and he held her face cupped in his hands a moment longer. The strain of the impending separation showed as he surveyed her for any hidden signs of weakening. Satisfied by something he saw, he straightened and caressed her cheek, prolonging their contact. The dark smudges under his eyes stood out starkly and his face was drawn with fatigue as he finally turned from the bed. With a quick nod to me, Lucas walked out the door.

  I also gave Hannah a final once over. Honestly, she looked like she was going to die. I just hoped she could hold out until we got back. Her eyes were too large and too dark in her emaciated face and her skin was practically translucent. Veins that were blue-black from her treatment traced the patterns of her circulation and were the only reminder that she still lived. “We’ll get back as soon as we can, okay?” She nodded and then rolled away from me to sleep away some of the lonely hours.

  # # #

  By the time we reached I-81, Lucas was deeply asleep. Zackie had made herself comfortable in the back seat and she too was gently snoring. The snacks I bought were temporarily safe from her inquisitive nose while she slumbered. Lucas had hung on as long as he could, making polite conversation to keep me company while I drove, but eventually it was impossible to fight off the sleep he desperately needed. I could hear his regular breathing and smell the coconut shampoo he used. As I watched him sleep, the sun streamed in from the window and lighted on his hair. I almost reached out to smooth a stray lock from his brow. For both our sakes, I hoped he would sleep for many, many hours.

  I hated long distance driving. There was nothing more boring. My brain bounced from topic to topic, I listened to some history podcasts and I shifted positions every so often to keep my ribs happy. Glancing at my hands on the steering wheel, the makeup was still looking good and there was no need for a touch up, so no excuse to pull over yet. Finally, after about three hours of monotony, I took an exit to get some gas and take a badly needed bio-break. Both Zackie and Lucas showed no interest in rousing, so I let them sleep while I took care of the necessities and stretched my legs. Getting back into the car, I sighed and broke open a bag of chips to make myself feel better. Somewhere around the six hour mark, Lucas was showing signs of life.

  Lucas rubbed his face and then stretched as best he could in his seat. “Where are we?”

  “I’m seeing signs for Roanoke. We’re in Virginia.”

  Checking his watch, he yelped. “We’re only in Roanoke? It’s been at least six hours! We should be much closer by now.” He dug out his phone and started poking at the screen. “What the hell? It’s a nine and half hour drive to Asheville. Why did you tell me it was six or seven?” His wan complexion was replaced by a fiery red. He was pissed.

  I kept my voice level. “I didn’t tell you it was six or seven hours. You told me that and I just agreed with you. To be honest, I didn’t map out the trip. I’m just going by Cam’s directions.”

  Lucas rubbed
his face roughly and muttered some expletives into his hands and then looked up at me abruptly. “How am I supposed to get back to Hannah tonight?” His voice was really loud in the confines of the car and Zackie sat up to see what was going on.

  For a split second, I considered winding this up into a cursing, screaming argument. It would be easier on me if I were angry with him. Anger and fighting were in my comfort zone, but ultimately, it wouldn’t be good for Lucas. He had enough stress on him as a caretaker. For me to add the stress of useless conflict was beyond what my conscience could tolerate. In the end, I decided on a limited apology, even though I knew this was not my fault. “I’m really sorry, Lucas. I didn’t know, okay?”

  He was fiddling with his phone and wasn’t really listening to me, so I could have saved my breath. “Crap! She called and I missed it.” He immediately hit speed dial, pounding his fist on his thigh in frustration. “Honey? Hi… I’m sorry I missed your call. I was asleep… Yeah, I do feel more rested now. Are you okay? Do you need anything?” I zoned out as the conversation continued. It was entirely possible that even though I wanted to avoid conflict for his sake, Lucas might still be royally pissed at me. But maybe this was still good for him. He needed to be pissed at something, after all. His wife was dying and he couldn’t be mad at her, since it wasn’t like she was dying on purpose. Being angry at the universe did little good. If I’ve learned nothing else, the universe was indifferent to human suffering. He had no real outlet for his anger, so if he wanted to be mad at me for a while, I guess I could tolerate it. It kept us at a distance and I didn’t really have to participate, so my conscience would be clear.

  Eventually, he told her that he loved her and then ended the call. “How is she?”

  “The same. I guess that’s good.” Lucas exhaled slowly and then turned towards me in his seat. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He looked at me for some sign of being forgiven and reached a hand out to brush my cheek. “You have some chips…” My cheek burned where he touched me. So much for getting some distance from him through anger…

  I rubbed my cheek and stuttered a response. “That’s all right. Not a problem.” Thinking carefully, I struggled to put together a sentence that kept my promise to Hannah and did not imply that she was dying, but still acknowledged that their time together was precious. “I understand how badly you want to spend time with Hannah.” It sounded gimpy, even to my ears, but it was the best I could do. We sat in silence for a few minutes. It was not a comfortable silence, so I opted for a quick change in topic before I found myself smelling his hair again.

  “So, what did you make of the flying objects in the Changewater house?” This was the first thing that came to mind, but clearly, my subconscious was deliberately choosing contentious topics. We might just yet get to that argument, but I had to admit that I was curious to hear what he thought about the incident. He was a self-declared, diehard skeptic, yet here he was, confronted with something that was not easy to explain.

  Lucas blinked at the sudden change in topic, but then I guess he decided to just go with it and his expression turned thoughtful. “I don’t know what caused it. I know you would like to attribute the phenomenon to ghosts, but I don’t live in that world. My mind doesn’t work that way.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I have an observation of inanimate objects flying through the air. I am willing to concede that these objects moved with force and they did not simply fall. How do I construct a testable hypothesis out of this observation?”

  I smiled to myself. He’s turning on the scientist. “For the sake of argument, let’s say one hypothesis is that a ghost is responsible for launching those objects.”

  “All right…. if we must. The next step for me is stating a formalized hypothesis. We’d want the statement to contain both ‘if’ and ‘then’ pieces. The ‘if’ piece contains the testable, proposed relationship and the ‘then’ portion makes a prediction of expected results from an experiment.”

  “Okay. ‘If a ghost is responsible for throwing objects, then returning to the scene will cause more objects to be thrown.’ How’s that?”

  “That’s kind of a suckie hypothesis. A better hypothesis would give us something to measure, but let’s just go ahead with it.” Lucas grabbed the open bag of chips and ate a handful before continuing. “Has that been your experience? Absolute repeatability of action with the identical set up?”

  I thought back to the weeping bride. She was not just a constantly replaying movie of a woman on her wedding day. To relive the moment, she would show up when she wanted to and, based on what happened when I called to her, maybe sometimes upon invitation. I could go to the church again and call to her, but it was completely up to her if she wanted to make an appearance. “No. They have free will. They do what they want.”

  Lucas quirked an eyebrow and seemed a little surprised at my answer. “Okay, so what I think your answer is telling me is that you think that if we just return to the Changewater house and do everything in the same way, the identical thing will not happen?”

  I kept my eyes on the road and tried not to imagine the possibilities of what could happen during a return visit. “Truthfully? I think something worse will happen.” I shrugged a shoulder and pursed my lips. “Okay, so that was a suckie hypothesis. It turns out, I didn’t even believe it. How would you phrase the formalized hypothesis for a ghost-driven movement of objects?”

  “I can’t. That’s kind of my point.” He waved a handful of chips in my direction as he finally started making his point. “Repeatability is only one element that is necessary if you want to use the scientific method to study something. For something to be repeatable, it really helps if its properties are constrained by the physical laws of the universe.” Lucas took a moment to munch some chips and then continued. “Assuming they exist, ghosts may or may not be part of the natural world. If they have no basis in the physical universe, then they are not subject to the laws of that universe. If I can’t make predictions based on known physical laws, laws that govern the actions of everything else, I can’t study their existence or lack of existence with the tools of science.”

  “So, the bottom line is if ghosts are not part of the natural world, you cannot construct a testable hypothesis.”

  “Correct.”

  I chewed on my lip as I thought about this. I had no idea if ghosts were made up of atoms and molecules. All I knew was that something could become solid enough to exert a force on a stationary object to make it move, but maybe I didn’t even know that. Maybe I was thinking about this all wrong. Magnets could be used to propel other magnets if you aligned the poles with the same charge and they did this without creating a solid contact. So, maybe solid had nothing to do with it. Also, something danced up and down my nervous system to animate the hand on those occasions it moved of its own volition. I furrowed my brow to try to figure this out, but I had even less of an idea of how to conceptualize a mechanism for that. Eventually, I just shook my head to clear it. If ghosts were not part of the physical universe, then all this brain strain wasn’t getting at the heart of the matter because it all invoked the natural laws of physics. If they were part of the physical universe, then this was still well beyond the understanding of a humble history major.

  “What if you worked under the assumption that ghosts were subject to natural law and you used your scientific training to try to study them?” I was more than willing to pass the buck to Lucas. I was curious and I wanted to understand, but I lacked the tools.

  “Well, remember I’m a molecular pharmacologist. I am qualified to talk about the scientific method and how to ask questions that can be tested, but I don’t really have the scientific background to properly design experiments to study this particular phenomenon. You’d probably need a physicist or a materials scientist to do this right.”

  “And they’re kind of busy answering questions about the universe and solving problems for the living, right?” I slanted my eyes towards him.

  “Yes. That and th
ey don’t want to ruin their careers.” Lucas gave a half smile and lifted a shoulder. “I made a fool of myself to get Hannah treatment and I’d do it again.” There was probably no way back to the hallowed halls of science after the ghost hunting show. What he did for Hannah was heroic and my heart squeezed hard when I looked at him. The tragedy was that he had sacrificed himself and it would not save her, proving once again that the universe was indifferent to human suffering.

  I forced my eyes back to the road and tried to make my expression neutral. “Let’s take the next exit and get some real food.”

  CHAPTER 15

  By the time we reached the tiny town of Sylva, North Carolina, it was full dark and the last part of the journey was the most hazardous. The crew vehicles had been instructed to set up camp in Sylva, but none had yet arrived. Carefully negotiating the rutted dirt roads to make our way up the mountain to find Lummie’s tribe, we eventually arrived at an ancient log cabin that had been enlarged by the addition of a more modern-looking add-on. A steady light shone through the windows and I crossed my fingers that there would also be running water. Lucas said goodnight to Hannah just as I killed the engine and then pocketed the phone in his jacket. It was a wonder that he still had bars in this remote location, let alone power after all the calls during the drive.

  Emerging stiffly from the vehicle, I opened the rear door for Zackie, who jumped out, stretched out her hind legs and hips like a yogi and then shook vigorously. We were all that happy to be free of the confines of the car and were unknotting muscles and stretching out the kinks when Cam appeared at the cabin door. His eyes darted to the exposed hand, so I deliberately raised it and waved at him. He cocked his head slightly in response, acknowledging that the makeup job was good enough for a first pass inspection. Lucas certainly paid it no attention during the entire drive, so I felt confident that I could get away without gloves in polite company, provided I did a makeup check and touch up every so often during the day.