by Weston Ochse
Matt shrugged his shoulders and looked away.
Jacket grabbed Matt and shook him gently. “You need to trust me for a little while, kiddo. I remember the mission. I remember how all the times I tried to talk you out of this you pressed on. You never wanted to give up until the Witch got a hold of you. Let’s not give up now.”
Matt struggled in Jacket’s grasp, but the man was just too strong. Having Jacket touch him like this was completely different than when his Guardian had been merely a spirit. Now, Jacket was muscle and bone and could force Matt to do what he felt was right.
There was a dangerous fire in Jacket’s eyes, one that fed Matt’s fear. “You’ve got to trust me, Matt,” Jacket said. He was gritting his teeth and spittle flecked his lip.
“Let go,” Matt gasped. “You’re hurting me!”
“I thought you were wrong to do this when we started, but now that we’re almost done, you can’t give up.”
“Jacket!”
Instead of loosening, Jacket’s grip only got tighter. “You were right about your parents. They were going to divorce, but because of what you’ve done, they just might stay together. You can’t give up now.”
“Please stop!” Fear choked Matt’s voice, turning it into a half whine, half wail.
“Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you—“ Suddenly Jacket let go of Matt’s shoulders. His eyes widened as he registered the tears and terror that had crept into Matt’s childish features. He reached for him, but Matt stumbled backward and tripped, falling hard on his butt.
His eyes glistened with tears. “No,” he repeated. “I don’t want this anymore!”
“Matt—“
“Leave me alone!” Matt lurched to his feet and fled up the road, the handcuffs rattling as he ran. He tried to hold back his sobs, but they came in small explosive barks. He stumbled twice, catching himself, but the third time, he felt his ankle twist and give way. He landed sharply on his knees and felt a stinging in the right one, then wetness as blood spilled from the wound. Roadside gravel bit deeply into his palm. He brushed his hands against his pants, feeling a hundred painful depressions.
Matt tried to stand, but his ankle turned traitor and collapsed beneath him. Rather than try again, he rolled onto his side, then to a sitting position. His sore hands fell to his lap and his legs were twisted beneath him.
Then the tears came. He cried for everything that had happened—Reggie and her desperation, his mother and how she must have felt when she’d found his note. He cried for the fear he’d felt when he’d seen the Bull Man, Bovine Mack, almost attack his dog with the baseball bat. He cried for Kubla, his best friend. He cried for the blowflies and the vampire kitties of the Christmas Witch and how even the thought of them sent shivers of nastiness dancing along his skin. He cried for the ghost of Wild Bill and the women the old gunman had pinched. He even cried for Police Officer Evans, who would most certainly lose his job because Matt had managed to escape. And most of all he cried for Jacket and how their relationship would never be the same again. A trust had been lost.
Something more, something special had dissolved.
Sitting on the grass at the side of the road, Matt cried until his throat felt raw and his shirt was drenched with his tears. His chest heaved with his sadness and he found himself gasping for air and on the verge of hyperventilation.
It was the roar of approaching motorcycles that made him peer back down the road. Matt could just make out Jacket leaning against his motorcycle, head in hands, then the beams of several lights captured him. Slowly Jacket looked up. When the four other motorcycles pulled into the turn-off, he pushed to a fully standing position.
Matt recognized them immediately: Bovine Mack and his gang. He was too far away to make out the words, but he understood the tone. Any kid older than two knew the sound of a bully. Matt watched as three of them dismounted, with Bovine Mack in the middle and speaking with his finger by jabbing it into the center of Jacket’s chest.
The smaller one, still on the bike, shouted something. Bovine Mack whirled and shouted back. The smaller one scowled in response and restarted his motorcycle, backed it up and roared away. Matt remembered the man had been called Alvin. We’re insurance salesmen from Racine, for God’s sake! was what he’d said back at the Buffalo Chip Campground.
Matt stood with dread as the scene unfolded before him. Even though he had an idea of what was coming next, when it really happened, Matt was shocked by the swiftness and the violence.
The man on the left swung first, his fist catching Jacket on the side of the head. The one-time spirit staggered, then was righted by a blow to the other side of his head. Then Bovine Mack threw a wicked haymaker that took Jacket right off his feet. Jacket went partway down with a huffing sound.
But Bovine Mack wasn’t finished. He’d been embarrassed far too many times and his bruised ego needed placating. Jacket was on one knee and trying to stand when the man with the horned helmet kicked him in the stomach. Even from a distance, Matt heard the woof of breath as it rocketed out of Jacket’s chest. Matt matched it with an involuntary sound of his own.
The other two eagerly joined in as Bovine Mack gleefully pummeled the human form of Matt’s Guardian Spirit. Laughter and the hideous thudding of boots against flesh were the only sounds in the night.
Cowering in the shadows off the road, Matt couldn’t take it any longer. He forced himself to turn away, but instead of darkness, he found himself staring into the pained eyes of the hitchhiker ghost they’d seen earlier. The ghost was watching the beating with him, but seemed unwilling or unable to do anything about it. He turned and stared at Matt for a moment, then slowly shook his head as if to demonstrate the sadness of the moment. After another moment, the ghost returned to its vigil.
Matt glared at the thing, disgust crawling upward from his stomach. The ghost had once been a teenage boy, and from the looks of him, he’d died in a horrible accident. His shirt was torn and Matt could see lengths of what he at first thought was rope. But he’d cleaned fish—these were pieces of stomach. The ghost’s right arm was bent at an odd angle, clearly broken. His left was held out, thumb cocked in the universal sign for hitchhikers. The boy’s lower jaw was gone entirely, making him seem like some sick parody of a Disney cartoon character. His eyes were milky, dreadful to look at even for a ghost.
In the background Matt heard Jacket scream. Suddenly, he was enraged. “Come on,” he hissed. “You’ve got to help him! He was one of you once.”
The ghost turned his head and regarded him with those milky eyes. It spoke … or at least tried to, but the sound coming from where his mouth should have been sounded like nothing more than the random static of an out-of-range radio station.
Matt pushed to his feet and stood, shaky on his bad ankle but with his bravest face showing. “You should help him. It’s not fair he should be there by himself.”
The ghost stared at Matt one last time, then returned its gaze to where Jacket was being beaten, thumb still out to hail a ride that would never come. He was so involved in its own life after death that it was incapable of helping anyone, so caught up in the violence of the moment when his spark of life had been snuffed out that he didn’t recognize the passage of time. Matt realized all this and more when he followed the ghost’s gaze not to where Jacket lay, but to where he stared expectantly at the bend in the road down below, as if a car was just about to come. He had no idea what was occurring, so bound was he was in his own tragic past. It was the sadness of a life not lived and expectations that would forever remain unresolved.
Matt whirled as the motorcycles restarted and roared away. Jacket was splayed on the ground and Matt limped toward him as quickly as he could. Jacket’s motorcycle was gone. Instead, sitting foreign and small, more like an oversized toy than a real bike, was the Ninja that had belonged to Bovine Mack.
At least he left us something to ride, Matt thought, but of course something to ride would do little good if there was no one to drive it. Jacke
t hadn’t moved at all and suddenly Matt was afraid he was dead. The thought sent spikes along Matt’s spine, shredding hope with every lurching step.
When he reached Jacket’s sprawled body, he fell to his knees and reached for his friend. Jacket’s chest was moving, but his face was a mass of blood. Matt prodded him once, then twice. Jacket rolled a little to the side, but finally settled back where he’d started. There was nothing else—not the bat of an eye or a sound.
Matt grasped his Guardian Spirit’s head and maneuvered himself so that he could rest it on his leg. With trembling fingers, he tried to wipe some of the blood from Jacket’s swollen face. He sat there for a long, long time, tears rolling down his cheeks as he tried to will his oldest friend to wakefulness. When the exhaustion hit, his chin tilted down and rested on his chest, and sleep finally captured him.
XVI
VAMPIRE KITTY DREAMS
Vampire kittens chased Matt through an apocalyptic landscape. The tops of broken buildings and shattered telephone poles scraped the low purple clouds. Bricks and boards and kiddie toys littered the ground. Pools of blood were here and there and herds of the kittens lapped at them, eyeing him speculatively as he raced past. His only weapons were the Popsicle sticks Matt wielded with expert vampire slayer precision, as one after the other he managed to halt their scampering attacks. Behind him was trail of the dead, skewered and sizzling; they’d hurt no one again.
The face of Buddha appeared like a great moon in the sky, speaking to him with words of thunder. The Buddha moon smiled and winked and as it winked, so did Matt.
His father danced to the sounds of old music playing from the living room. He flickered the lights of Matt’s room singing Lights out. Uh huh. Dance! Dance! Dance!
Then Matt sidestepped into Rushmore Mall, kingdom of the zombies. Popsicle sticks would do him no good here. The sound of blowflies zinged across his single line soundtrack. Like the flies in the witch’s kitchen, these seemed to be right on the edge of the world, just waiting for something to consume.
A zombie, face gray and sagging from too much dead time, lurched into view. A female twin, eyeballs missing, joined it. Suddenly they were everywhere—dozens, then hundreds of them, way too many to escape. A little blonde girl dressed in white stepped into their midst. They ignored her, but like Matt, were riveted on the triple-scoop vanilla ice-cream cone in her hand.
“Hello,” she whispered. Her voice was that of an old woman days past death. “Wanna lick?”
Matt tried to step away, but dream rules wouldn’t let him move. He watched as the little girl with the dead voice slowly tipped the ice cream cone over. It took forever for the three scoops to fall.
“No—don’t spill it!” Matt dream-screamed. “No no no! They’ll come if you spill any. Please!”
Each white scoop hit the ground and exploded into an undulating mass of maggot larvae. The blowflies buzz instantly crescendoed like dive bombers on an attack run.
“No!” Matt screamed again.
The force of his own voice released him from the paralytic clutches of the dream. Matt’s eyes flew open and he found himself riding along a dark road on a huge tricycle. Buddha, Granny Annie’s husband, filled up the long bench seat beside him. Jacket slumped next to him, held in place by bungee cords and a seatbelt across his waist. The Guardian Spirit was still unconscious.
“Little fella awake?” Buddha’s voice was thunder.
Matt turned to look at Buddha. Sitting on the other side of Matt was the ghost hitchhiker, who leaned out, glanced toward Matt and grinned. Matt’s mouth stretched in return and he briefly wondered how a ghost could grin with only an upper jaw. Then Buddha’s thunderous voice raked his ears again.
“Little fella needs some more rest,” he said, drowning out the sounds of the blowflies still in Matt’s head. “Little fella, you close your eyes.”
Matt heeded the command and closed his eyes. His father sang the words. Lights out. Uh-huh. Dance! Dance! Dance!
Then Matt was back to the vampire kitties chasing him through an apocalyptic landscape.
PHANTOM INTERLUDE
Another was near. He felt a creature of need, another vengeance-formed thing needing to be fed. Although he understood, he was afraid. He did not want to get too close. It was said that revenge was best served cold and this other was ice. Black Jack did not know whether it had the strength to survive such need. It didn’t want to find out.
Instead, it crept in the other direction, toward the creature of light standing along the side of the parking lot. Unnoticed, it moved herky-jerky, elbows and knees pivoting formless and strange.
The creature of light turned just in time to see the face of its murderer.
As it screamed, the terror was harrowing even in the realm of the dead.
XVII
GIGGLEMESH AND MESOPETUNIA
Sunlight bristled Matt’s face, the warmth cleansing the night shivers from his small frame. Wind, perfumed by the surrounding pines, teased gently at his hair. A fire crackled several feet away. With his eyes closed, he turned his face toward it, gratefully soaking in the warmth.
Finally, with a great jaw-stretching yawn, Matt opened his eyes and saw that he’d spent the night atop a sleeping bag cushioning him from the ground and keeping at bay the coldness of the mountain. His clothes were still on, but someone had removed his shoes and placed them neatly next to the bag.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” said a familiar voice from behind him. He couldn’t help but smile as he sat up. “Granny Annie!”
She stood near the back of an immense three-wheeled motorcycle, holding a spatula in one hand and a frying pan in the other. On the folded back gate of the three-wheeler rested a two-burner gas stove. She was dressed the same as he’d seen her before, all denim and rhinestones. The wind shifted and the aroma of bacon slid up Matt’s nose.
“The one and only,” she said.
“Where’s Buddha?” Matt squinted around their campsite.
“That lay-about? He’s probably cavorting with the butterflies.” Matt spied the great man squatting in the center of the small meadow. A swarm of fluttering butterflies surrounded him like a whirlwind of multicolored confetti. The huge troll giggled and held out a finger; one butterfly obliged by perching on its tip and fluttering its delicate wings. Seeing Buddha reminded Matt of his dreams. He remembered the vampire kitties and the Buddha Moon that had spoken to him. The tricycle he’d ridden on was the three-wheeler, which meant that—
Jacket!
Where was his Guardian Spirit? The last time he’d seen him was after the savage beating he’d received from Bovine Mack. Matt stood too quickly, his legs twisting within the nylon length of the sleeping bag. His ankle immediately throbbed, but he was able to take the pain. Untangling himself, he took a hesitant step toward the three-wheeler, his eyes wide as he scanned from left to right.
Three quick steps and he reached the side of the three-wheeler. There was a step up, but he didn’t need to mount the running board or the bench to see the figure lying prone on the seat. Jacket lay with his own sleeping bag covering him. Matt stared for a moment and was gratified to see the rise and fall of Jacket’s chest. His breath eased out of his lungs—he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.
“He was pretty bad off,” said Granny, coming up behind Matt and placing a hand on his shoulder. “But Granny took care of him. I know some secrets, you know.”
“So he’s gonna be—“
“Sure. He’ll be a little worse for wear, but he’ll live. At least until the spell wears off and he dies again.”
Matt spun. “How did you know about the—“
Granny Annie let the words gather in the air before she answered. Her frown was softened by a wink. “I wouldn’t be very good at what I do if I couldn’t even recognize a spell as powerful as this one. I’m not one of those psychic pretenders, you know?”
“How did you know we were—“
“In trouble?” She placed her hands on her hips an
d sighed. “What kind of fortune teller would I be if I couldn’t tell the future? Now come on and have some breakfast. I need to clean that up anyway.”
Chagrined, Matt followed her gaze to the crusted wound on his knee. Now that she’d reminded him of it, the pain returned. He followed Granny Annie to the rear of the three-wheeler. Several immense rocks had been pulled together, three that could be used as chairs and one gargantuan slab of granite that would make a perfect table.
Matt hadn’t realized how hungry he was until this very moment. Bacon and pancakes were this morning’s fare, the smells mingling with the pot of syrup that Granny set on the slab before him. For just a second, it almost seemed as if he were home. Granny puttered around like his mother, moving back and forth and doing mystical cooking things that only mothers and Grannies seemed to know.
Matt ate with gusto. Four pancakes and a dozen slices of bacon later, he felt almost totally rejuvenated. While he’d eaten, however, his knee had continued to ache. He’d also remembered last night—he had things to apologize for and he desperately needed to talk to Jacket. Plus, he was becoming increasingly worried that his friend had yet to wake up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Granny Annie stepped around the back of the three-wheeler as he pushed away from his empty plate. Granny Annie had always looked a little different, what with her short, spiked white hair, her bandanas and tattoos. Now an old-fashioned wooden clothespin pinched her nostrils shut.
Matt started to laugh, then he saw the bucket she was carrying and the flies hovering around it. Then came the stench—indescribable except for the distinct aroma of urine. Matt sat back down, then quickly stood up again as he realized she was headed straight for him.
He tried to edge backward. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
“Come on, Bucko. Granny’s gonna fix you up a little.”
“With that?”
“It’s the best thing for you. This recipe was developed during the Mesopotamian Wars. In fact,” she said with a broad grin, “Gilgamesh himself used it.” She set the bucket down and pushed Matt back onto his rock.
