by Ellen Datlow
I have only the blurriest memories of eating some bland meal and then fading into a deep sleep. But I have a very clear recollection of waking in the dead of night, staring up at the ceiling dimly lit by streetlamps from floors below, and becoming more and more aware that something in the environment about me was sending out urgent danger signals.
Through the years I’ve learned the best reaction to such signals is to carefully try and track them down sense by sense, so I started by lying still and listening. From outside, there came only the harmless murmur of distant traffic and from inside, muted monitors gently beeping and the soft rustling of nurses—just those comforting sounds that let you know you’re being cared for and looked after.
But then I switched to the tactile and immediately figured out what was raising the little hairs on the back of my neck. Ever so subtly, but very surely, the bed felt different from the way it had the last time I’d been aware of it. A moment of continued reflection and I realized that the mattress was now tilting a tiny more deeply to my right than it had before.
I turned my head very carefully and saw what appeared to be the corpse of a very large and decidedly overweight middle-aged man. The body was in an advanced state of rigor mortis and lay stiff and straight as a log, its bulging eyes staring upward, with the back of its thick neck propped on the headboard, and the heels of its large, rather froglike feet dug into the mattress.
It was naked but its flesh was pierced and adorned with the quaint little decorations hospitals like to affix to their more serious patients. Here and there were stuck the needles and torn-off ends of plastic IV tubes; scattered over the chest were the white suction cups with their trails of thin, broken wiring that once led to various monitoring devices, and taped to the back of one hand was the standard plastic tap conveniently connected to the venous system. As a final touch, there was a curving, neatly stitched little slash running across the thing’s paunch to indicate the general location of the operation, which had apparently failed.
The most bothersome thing about this corpse, however, was that it wasn’t made up of opaque flesh, but of translucent and glistening stuff you could see through, bones and all, like a jellyfish. It looked to be not a corpse, but the ghost of a corpse.
In spite of its semitransparency, it was not ephemeral or misty; by no means was it the sort of ghost that floats in the air and wavers when breezed upon. I knew this because I’d noted, when it first drew my attention, that it was, after all, heavy enough to tilt a mattress.
This line of speculative meditation was disrupted very effectively when something in the arrangement of the grisly thing slipped and the spectral cadaver suddenly lost its purchase on the headboard, spun round to face me, then flopped heavily on its side with a great thump, close enough to me so that I would have felt its breath had it breathed. As it was, I had the full advantage of a great puff of corpse stink that blew up from it when it struck the mattress.
I watched it carefully as it settled into its new position and for the first time, I began to speculate seriously on the possibility that this thing beside me might be just a bit more sentient than the usual corpse. If it was indeed a ghost, I reasoned, then the usual rules might not apply.
As the sinister implications of this possibility sank in I regretted even more than before the freshly broken bones, newly torn tendons, divers wounds, and highly encumbering space-age wrappings that prevented me from quietly quitting the bed, and perhaps even the room, as I ordinarily would have certainly done.
I looked around for the dangly emergency button that I dimly recalled the nurse had pointed out just before leaving, and I confess I let a deep sigh escape me when I located the thing at last and saw, through the transparent flesh of my repellent phantom companion, that it hung from the headboard on the far side of the ghost.
Gingerly, with the greatest possible care, I attempted to reach over the great mountain of spectral flesh beside me to grasp the device but found that my near arm—fortunately, the lesser injured of the two—far too short for the job.
I pursed my lips thoughtfully, then reached out to prod the bluely gleaming chest of the thing with, I suppose, some notion of rolling it off the bed, but my eyes widened when I realized that plan would not work for the simple reason that my fingers had not pushed against the horror’s loathsome flesh, but sunk into it.
I took several deep and—I confess it—shaky breaths, clenched my teeth, and continued to press my fingers into the rotund front of the translucent apparition, pausing occasionally to wiggle the tips of my fingers in order to estimate the solidity of the phantom’s corporeality. I learned that my theory was correct: the thing did indeed have a kind of gelatinous solidity.
I kept up the pressure and admit I shuddered when my living flesh penetrated the creature’s ghostly fat and entered its oddly stringy muscles. A bit further along, I encountered the being’s ectoplasmic bones and observed that though they offered more resistance, they were still penetrable, if gritty.
By now it had begun to truly dawn on me that by far the worst was still to come, for now I was faced with the job of plunging not merely my fingers and my hand, but my whole, entire arm through the guts of this truly detestable apparition if I was to get to its other side and grasp the signal button.
I am afraid there is absolutely no way at all to adequately convey in words the sensations produced by pushing one’s arm through the entrails of a phantom cadaver. Though each eerie bit of it was vastly less solid than any equivalent part of our anatomy, still, every organ of the enormous specter lying so grotesquely by my side did its ghostly best to resist my determined penetrations.
Each vein and artery, large or small, made determined efforts to resist my probings with its protective membranes; the tiny walled caves in each organ encountered tried to block the appalled groping of my fingers as well as they could—I recall the heart with particular clarity—but I persisted, and though my hand grew terrifyingly dimmer as it worked its way through the specter’s monstrous entrails, it crept ever closer to the thing’s other side and finally, with a popping burst that I can hear to this day, it broke through and I felt my fingers clutch the buzzer and depress its blessed button!
Almost immediately I heard the soft padding of the nurse’s shoes quickly nearing; then the door opened and there she was, staring first at me and then at the thing next to me.
Calmly she leaned over my side of the bed to take the pulse in my neck and study my face intently. She asked me if I was all right and when I managed an affirmative croak, she spoke one of those unintelligible hospital acronyms the medical profession is so fond of into the receiver pinned to the shoulder of her uniform, and in no time at all, I heard the swift approach of soft, rolling wheels as two attendants navigated a strange-looking gurney into the room.
It differed from any gurney I’d previously seen in that save for its shiny metal parts, it was painted a deep, funereal black, and instead of being a relatively simple cot, its framework supported a kind of casket bearing an ominous collection of efficient-looking locks and straps.
Without a word, the attendants pulled on heavy black gloves and smoothly hoisted the ghost corpse into the casket, which they then speedily locked and strapped shut with practiced motions. They then double-checked their work, gave both the nurse and myself a brief nod, and were gone.
The next day, I was approached by agents of the hospital bearing papers, and after a brief discussion with my lawyers, an extremely generous remuneration was arranged to prevent my pressing any charges.
Two final points: the efficiency of the hospital’s legal follow-up very strongly suggests that my little adventure was not at all that unusual, and far more personally disturbing, as the ghost corpse was being loaded into the gurney’s casket, its head turned—note it did not flop—and its bulging eyes glared down at me with very conscious malice. I suddenly realized it was my great good fortune that only then had the abominable thing managed to stir itself into full awakening.
> And that’s my ghost story.
AFTERWORD
Asked for a favorite ghost story, he says, “Obviously an impossible choice, and if you asked me yesterday or tomorrow, it might have been another one, but for today it’s Oliver Onion’s ‘The Beckoning Fair One,’ since it has (very appropriately) haunted me ever since I first read it. With no mercy whatsoever, the story shows how overwhelming and profoundly disruptive a genuine ghostly intrusion would be. I have never been able to shake off the impact of the story’s climax, with its victim helplessly blinking in the sunlight, and I suppose I probably never will.”
JACK CADY has been a truck driver, high-tree climber, teacher, and philosopher, as well as the author of eleven novels, five story collections, and the history The American Writer. He is emeritus writer in residence from Pacific Lutheran University. His novella, The Night We Buried Road Dog, won the Nebula Award and the Bram Stoker Award. His collection, The Sons of Noah, won the World Fantasy Award, and his novel, Inagehi, won the Philip K. Dick Award. He also received a Distinguished Teaching Award from his university. His most recent collection, Ghosts of Yesterday, was published in 2002, and 2003 should see the publication of a novel, The Rules of ’48. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington, which is situated on that little lump of land where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Puget Sound.
SEVEN SISTERS
JACK CADY
I
IN THIS WORN town on the Washington coast, rain seeps through darkness and turns silver on fir needles when dawn rises gray as tired spirits. Rain washes thick clumps of black moss from decaying cedar roofs. On the edge of town stand the Seven Sisters, mansions once gay with lights and finery, now silent and nigh lightless except when sounds of rain are overcome by sounds of weeping.
To understand Seven Sisters, one need know somewhat of the town. In the long ago, back in the 1890s, buildings along our main street rose as elegant as Victorian architects could contrive. Turrets soared, ornamented. Lamplight gleamed through stained-glass windows. Our wharves bustled with offloading of goods from the Far East, including bond slaves and opium. Money flowed with the abundance of rain.
Harlotry, shanghai, and murder were common. Yet, though many people died, at the time no specters were reported. It has taken a bit over a century for haunted figures to congregate in group portraits of anguish.
Some of us see these creatures during gray dawns, and in gray sunsets when black clouds cover the sky but leave a streak of blue along the horizon. As the sun sinks and blue sky turns orange, long shadows cross our streets. Faces appear through mist; whorish faces, bookish faces, and a few young girls. Some of the faces seem fragmented, as if these spirits have pieces ripped away. Others hover and seem to be howling, their fear beyond our imagining, their gathering power a dread force.
And to further understand the town, one need know something of Gentleman Julian (“King Julie”) Babcock, who was a renegade religionist, a renegade showman, a business mogul, and a scamp. During the meetings of this town’s Historical Society—there are three of us: I, Peter Green, once haberdasher to gentlemen, and costumer; the Barrister Jabez Johnson, who once sat on the bench; and our female member, Catherine “Cat” Peterson, actress, who in her age has become less scandalous—we find ourselves still musing over Gentleman Julie.
“A finer tomkitty never yowled from the top of a fence. A more randy houndpup never bayed at the moon.” This from Cat, who, though old, cannot help being beautiful, if bawdy. It is true she will not capture the eye of youth, but experienced men find themselves reassured. She proves to them that they could still make fools of themselves over a woman. Her silver hair gleams more brightly than our silver mist. Her face is creased rather than wrinkled, and her gray eyes are alight with potent life. She dresses in ornamental silks, long skirts sweeping to occasionally display a well-turned ankle. She remembers King Julie well, as do I and the Barrister.
“A silver tongue had Julie. He was a charmer. A spellbinder.” The Barrister, like Julie, also strode the speaker’s platform in his day. He was once a powerful orator. “We can thank every star in the firmament that Julie never went into politics.” The Barrister’s voice seems bigger than his body. Age has shrunk him to a mite of a man, although he remains formal in dress. In the days when he was on the bench, he was strict. He was known for his standard statement to the guilty: “For you, sir, a spot of jail will be instructional.” In fairness, it can be said that if he was firm with miscreants, he has always been equally firm with himself. People joke that he wears suit and tie when he sleeps.
“We can also thank every star in the firmament,” Cat adds, “that our Julie was sterile. Otherwise, we’d be up to our eyelids in third-generation Julies. And,” she shudders, “Tomkitty.”
“He made my fortune,” I am forced to admit. “He dressed like a star of moving pictures, and the demand for costumes was endless.”
“Costumes that still hang in place, and in darkness,” the Barrister mutters. “One is loath to think of it.”
He refers to closets and dressing rooms in Number Five of the Seven Sisters, known as Thespia. Julie, who built Seven Sisters, had a fondness for highflown names.
When Julie came to our town, the town was surprised into shaking off its infancy. The story of the town is not unlike the story of King Julie, who entered the frontier just as the Klondike gold rush opened in the 1880s. He did not own one plugged nickel. Equally, at the time, this town was a dismal settlement, wet and gray.
Julie began his career in Seattle, which was then a small town clinging to the shores of Puget Sound. Seattle rapidly turned into a frontier city where money flowed like wind in the sails of clipper ships. Seattle supplied adventurers who headed for the gold fields of Alaska.
Julie started building his fortune with cats and chickens. No vessel left for Alaska without a shipment of felines, because the gold camps were alive with rats. No vessel left for Alaska without cages of chickens, because on the Klondike a single egg sold for as high as five dollars.
Julie quickly widened his vision. During weekday evenings, Julie offered lectures on Phrenology, Women of the Bible, Modern Prophecy, and The Secrets of Egyptian Immortality. On Saturdays, outside of taverns, he sold snake oil (Dr. Julian’s Elixir and Miracle Tonic).
On Sundays, he preached.
“A wonder he wasn’t hanged,” the Barrister murmurs. “And buried under the jail.”
“It was frontier,” I suggest. “The frontier allows wide margins.”
“No it doesn’t.” Cat always smiles when she offers a flat contradiction … part of her charm. “The frontier is only liberal about murder and whoring.”
Julie preached an early form of sexual permissiveness and community. He spoke with passion of a new Zion where each belonged to all, and all to each. His message was not completely new, because communes were then a feature of the Northwest Territory.
What made Julie’s message different was its emphasis on immortality achieved through communion of bodies. Although young at the time, he seemed particularly tied to notions of immortality. Strangely (or perhaps not), most of Julie’s congregation were women.
“Can you imagine,” Cat muses, “being Julie, and alive, for all eternity having to feed his awful hungers and that godawful ego? Gives a girl a bellyache just thinking of it.”
I understand Cat. I would not even wish to be me for all eternity, because I think I can do better. But, bellyache or not, there is no denying that Julie was obsessed with not dying. The obsession would become nigh maniacal as he aged.
“He sold stock in a railroad that was never built.” The Barrister tends to lay one finger alongside his nose, and sniff in the face of rascality. The Barrister cares naught for life-everlasting.
“And then he started a bank.” I pause, thinking of my own rise in fortune because of Julie.
“He had the gift of business,” the Barrister mutters. “Dirty business. He was not political, but he bought politicians.”
“And then
,” Cat murmurs, “he discovered Romance, big ‘R.’ And then he discovered Art, big ‘A.’” She sounds uncertain, ready to sigh, or giggle. “Bloody fool,” she says. “I’d be the last to keep a man from chasing a skirt, but there are limits.”
Art. Big A. In ten years, Julie became scandalously rich. He entered this town while freely spreading money, and when it came to sex, he was as wanton as a mink.
And, like a mink, he was small and slim. I remember his body well, having tailored to it for years. He had a large head, a high rump, and thin legs. His shoulders were narrow, but his arms heavy. His Scots-blue eyes could cut like razors, and his thin lips curled with power. And yet, Julie was not first-of-all mean, only, perhaps, desperate. He dressed as meticulously as Beau Brummel, but had not the suaveness of that English gent.
II
THE TERRORS IN our streets ebb and flow from Seven Sisters. Spirits manifest when mist embraces mansions and hovels, or when shadows from the setting sun darken the land. In darkness some spirits weep, but others howl. We cannot hear the howling, but we see faces as they drift toward Seven Sisters. Along our streets pass more than sorrow, because while some weep, others seem intent on violence. Vengeance is as vital here, and as real, as rain.
When he arrived in our town, Julie was thirty-two, rich as Croesus, and enamored of a modern dancer named Gabrielle. She brought her dance company with her, a company described by the famous dancer Isadora Duncan as “crazed but beautiful ladies.” Gabrielle, more practical than kiln-dried boards, gave her all to Julie. Nor did she mind when Julie bedded her entire troupe. It is not known if Gabrielle adhered to Julie’s religion, but it is known that Gabrielle knew how to play her fish once he was hooked. Gabrielle had tested the frontier’s crude halls, found them wanting, and wished for a permanent stage where audiences would come to her, and not she to them. Seven Sisters began as Julie built a mansion to house his harem; a mansion named Forte.
