“Thank you. For helping,” I said, because other words failed me and it was easiest to fall back on polite formula. It was time for a total subject change. “You still have a passion for writing then? You didn’t think to take up another career?”
He thought about this as he finished off the last biscuits, leaning over the basket so that he didn’t scatter crumbs. “I move through time like any man, but am not so much a part of it any more. World War II was my last active participation in national events. Near immortality can sap your ambition. Boredom is a constant danger. And there is also the need to escape the accumulating emotional losses which occur even you limit your friends and lovers. So I chose to live as a normal, purposeful person—and have done so several times in different places with different careers.” He smiled a little. “But writing has been the one constant. And, yes, I suppose that I do still have a passion for it. It allows me to have company without actually being near people. Sadly, it is safest to keep to a solitary existence.”
“Are you— ” I meant, am I, “immortal?”
“No. True immortality implies that one can’t die. We can. Just not easily.”
These words were not as reassuring as I would have liked. Especially if he believed we were now damned and awaiting hellfire.
“I’m going to call Ernie Campion about the window,” I said, reaching for the phone. “If you really have an in with a weather god, hold off on the storm until he’s been and gone.”
“Very well.” He smiled like I had made a joke, but it was one I failed to understand.
Chapter 6
“The supposition that the book of the author is a thing apart from the author’s Self is, I think, ill-founded.”
—Edgar Allen Poe
For Love of Money
By Emerson James
It happened that in the year of 1906 that I was in San Francisco. I had come to stay with a friend over my birthday which is in the spring. My age and disposition I shall not mention save to say that I was no longer in the first flush of youth and quite depressingly sober as befitted a man of mature years.
I am a gambler by profession, a creature of the night, preferring to sleep in the day while honest men toil. The desire for sleep comes only after sunrise and so I was out walking just before dawn, allowing my friend to sleep away the night as was now his custom. The weather was cold and foggy and I was out adding to the gloom by blowing a cloud. The smoking of gaspers, as we then called them, was a disgusting habit I had acquired while sojourning in Chicago. I had vowed time and again to rid myself of this vice but had so far been unable to rid myself of it.
There was much to think about that morning. Though outwardly welcoming, I felt that I was incommoding my friend. Time had not dealt kindly with John Henry. The unkindness of death had taken his wife and newborn son and again a bachelor, he had become deeply attached to his wealth and possessions and seemed to value them over everything and everyone else. Once keenly alive to the needs of others and notable for his tenderness of heart, he was now obsessed with the accumulation of wealth and the peculiar fear that thieves or swindlers would somehow take it from him.
As I walked, staring at the vacant eyes of the dark windows looking out on the street, a terrible shaking seized the earth and through me roughly to the ground. For several moments I believed that it was the end of the world.
Eventually the tremors ceased. I got to my feet and surveyed the damage inflicted on this city by the bay. I began walking through the rubble, returning to the home of my friend to see if he needed aid. Around me, fires began to burn and soon the sky was alight with fire and it was easy to believe that I had fallen into Hell.
I do not solicit belief for what I tell you now, but I swear that it is true.
Eventually I arrived at my friend’s street and I was overjoyed to see him crawling in the garden outside his home and not inside the flaming building where he had been sleeping. His appearance was unmistakable even at a distance. He was an oily man, corpulent and broad of face and he went about habitually dressed in black, even his sleeping attire. With a terrible sickening of the heart, I intuited what my friend intended. I cried out in my loudest voice, but to no avail. Into the burning building he ran, intent on saving the content of his safe.
Though exhausted I also ran. The front of the house was completely afire. Knowing my friend’s goal, I circled the house, being carefully of the falling cinders that rained steadily upon the garden.
Owing to the combustibility of the old wood, the entire house was soon ablaze. I saw my friend at his safe. His fingers were charred as he attempted to open the safe, but he would not desist until his clothes caught fire. He spun away then, but it was too late. The protuberant stomach, swathed in a dressing gown was the first thing to burn.
Help arrived then, and I was pulled from the window sill I had attempted to climb. Though I should have been burned, the rescuers were amazed to find no marks upon me. Dazed by the horror of what I had witnessed, I stumbled away. That night I slept in a tent city. A battle was fought for the city, knowing that the entire town would burn if drastic action was not taken, the houses along Van Ness Avenue were blown up, creating a dead zone where there was nothing for the fire to eat. My friend’s house, what was left of it, was among those that were destroyed.
Days later, somewhat recovered but unable to believe my memories, I returned to the place where my friends home had stood. There were many other people there too, all gray with ash and fatigue as they searched the ruins, silent in the face of such a solemn occasion. The terrain was altered, but I knew that I was finally in the correct location because when I arrived at the remains of the wrought iron fence I could see my friend in the rubble, still working feverishly to open his safe. He burned, afire as he had been when last I saw him. Horrified, I swooned.
My mother had always told me that I am descended from the line of one Colin Mortlock, a Scotsman who served as a spy for Henry VIII. It was from his mother that he received the gift of Second Sight which allowed him to see and converse with the dead. I had never believed that this curse was mine—or anyone else’s. But I tell you now that it is true.
The city had become a ghost town, a place haunted by the victims of that deadly tremor. I saw them everywhere, the bewildered damned. Leaving behind what few possessions I had accumulated, I left that day and have never returned. There are no cemeteries in San Francisco now. All the bodies were removed when real estate became too valuable to waste on those not living.
But that doesn’t mean the dead are gone.
“I love this,” I said as I hit the save button. “But I am surprised that there is still a market for this kind of story. Most horror these days is pretty straight-forward and gory.”
“I too am amazed. The critics hate my historical shorts, but my readers adore them. Of course, I do some splatter punk as well. One must.”
“Critics.” I grimaced. They generally don’t like poetry either and they were often brutal with Golden Words contributors. I never passed on these letters to the authors.
“It is karmic payback, I think, for my time as a book reviewer. I was once accused of writing with prussic acid instead of ink. The question was perhaps justified. I believe that I am a better writer than critic.” He chuckled. “Though Aldous Huxley once said my style was too poetical—the equivalent of wearing a diamond ring on every finger. He would loath this latest effort.”
“With all due respect to Aldous Huxley, his stories aren’t mandatory reading in junior high school. And when people do read his work, they don’t enjoy it nearly as much as they do yours. I mean, Poe’s.”
“I am humbled by this honor.”
“That is true immortality,” I agreed. “I remember that you always had an interest in cryptography as well,” I said, unable to resist probing at least a little since he seemed willing to talk.
“Yes, I was ever one for figuring signs and ciphers. It has proven a useful tool, especially during World War Two. If one can fi
nd the pattern, one can not only comprehend but also predict behavior.”
“You were in the war?”
“Oh yes. The first one as well. I think many of the Dark Man’s Creations were there—even his wretched son. Saint Germain was there for unholy reasons, of course. The rest of us felt we needed to volunteer since we were so much better able to withstand injury and disease. I even did a stint as a nurse in a field hospital during the pandemic of ’18. I have never, before or since, seen so many dead.” Voice and eyes were somber. Being with Emerson made the past very personal. There was nothing dry or distant about it.
“These short stories you write, they’re true, aren’t they? This really happened.”
“Yes. My life is far stranger than any fiction I might imagine, and it pleases me to leave some record of my former life behind.”
“So you see ghosts?”
“I can. Time has taught me how to control this though. The most important thing is not letting the ghosts know that you see them. If they are anything more than emotional perseverations they will try and engage you, and once conversation has begun it is difficult to be rid of them.”
“Are there any ghosts here? In the house?” I asked half-hoping the answer would be yes.
“No, anyone who resided here lived a blameless life and then moved on to their spiritual reward.”
“That’s good. I guess. I always kind of thought Harrison’s family was a bit… stuffy and boring.” It was, in part, why I had married him. After my parents’ spectacular and pointless deaths I was looking for someone who didn’t take a lot of physical or emotional risks.
Not that this had saved Harrison from random death. To mangle John Donne— Bad luck can come equally to us all and make us all equal when it comes.
“There are families like that, stuffed with morals and blessedly free of character flaws,” he agreed. “I had once thought that I should like to be a member of one.”
“I understand. That wouldn’t be my family though. At least, I wouldn’t say we were flawed, just blessed with lots and lots of character.”
Emerson chuckled. I was coming to like this sound.
“I think this will stand you in good stead.”
“Emerson, does anything frighten you anymore?”
“Yes. Madness,” he said matter-of-factly. Emerson consulted a band on his wrist and then began to wind his watch. Noticing my surprise, he said: “I must wear an old-fashioned watch for I drain the batteries of the newer ones almost instantly.”
“Oh. So who do we mail this story to?” I asked, getting back to business since the subject of madness was obviously closed and the watch reminded me of things I didn’t want to consider. “Unless you want to do revisions first?”
“No. Given my trouble with technology I have learned to organize my thoughts before dictation so that I needn’t repeat the process.” Emerson recited the email address and I typed it carefully then attached the file.
When I was done Emerson asked if I had any leftover paint for the wall. Rolling up his sleeves he proceeded to paint the wounded door frame in the kitchen. The dark demigod and literary genius was also good with a paintbrush. For some reason, this made me want to giggle. He was supposed to have a flair for the dramatic, not the practical.
Emerson told me a little bit more about his life in California as he worked. He had actually come west because of ending an affair with a woman. I waggled my brush back and forth ineffectually, my mouth gaping as I listened. Of course Emersion had had affairs. I shouldn’t have been that stunned or nosy about them.
“My last lady friend was a nightingale.”
“And where did she gale?” I asked though I wanted to know more if she was pretty and whether blonde or brunette. And why he had ended their affair.
“New Orleans—in The House That Blues Built. Her name was Velvet.”
“That’s a great stage name,” I muttered, thinking Anna was about as un-exotic as a name could be. This bit of information about Velvet the nightingale went into the mental vault to be Googled later. I would love to see a picture.
I was not entirely surprised when Tyler Murphy stopped by. Our sheriff is a nice guy and has become something of an institution in the county. He tends to look out especially for widows and latch-key kids and anyone on their own. Normally I like this, but at that moment he was about as wanted as a case of necrotic fasciitis.
“Good morning, Miz Anna. Had some excitement last night?”
“Good morning, Tyler. Coffee?” I asked, knowing he would refuse. His wife had taken him off the caffeine because of slightly elevated blood pressure.
“No thanks. Just stopped by to see that you were okay.” He studied the disturbed snow and broken window. I had picked up the glass before the Campion’s arrived so no one could see that it had broken inward instead of out.
“Oh yes. That raccoon won’t be if I catch him though,” I added. Tyler wasn’t stupid. I hoped he would buy the raccoon story. The beasts could be incredible destructive, but the disturbed snow looked more like something caused by an epileptic bear.
“Need some help with cleaning up?”
It would be polite and usual for me to invite him in, but the living room still looked like it had been trashed by soccer hooligans and even though painted, there were still the dents from the shotgun blast marring my kitchen wall.
“No thanks. I’ve got it covered. I’ve pressed Harrison’s cousin into service. What else is family for?”
“Well, I will be on my way then,” he said after a moment. He was suspicious and it went against the grain to leave it at that since he was used to being the law and in possession of all facts, but Tyler would just have to grit his institutional teeth and take it this time. I was not getting anyone else involved in this deadly mess.
“Come back any time,” I said. “You know my door is always open to men with badges.” This was an old joke between us, but I wasn’t letting Tyler or anyone else in without a search warrant until the damage was completely concealed. I didn’t know what forensics might pick up if they really looked and didn’t want to try explaining anything that had happened.
Chapter 7
‘Oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips!
The reeling ranks of ruin swept along!
The limb that trailed, the hand that failed, the bloody finger tips!’
—Robert Service from The March of the Dead
“I hate to ask this,” I said as we sat down to a dinner of enchilada casserole and slightly sorry salad made mostly of wilted lettuce. Grocery shopping was becoming a priority since I had also just opened my last bottle of wine. “But, what are we doing? I mean, are we waiting to see if that ape thing was a fluke?”
“Yes. I hope with all my heart that you killed the only tracker and that I have swept the old trail clean.” Emerson unfolded his napkin. Something about his antique manners had made me fetch out the linen napkins instead of paper towels.
“But deep down you don’t think I’m safe. That’s why you’re staying here.” I began dishing up dinner. Emerson had looked dubious when I assembled the casserole but the aroma had slowly won him over. It was touchingly old-fashioned that he expected me to serve him. With Harrison it had pretty much been a fair division of labor in the kitchen, condiments in bottles, paper towels and every man for himself once the food hit the table.
“Let us say that I am unwilling to take any chances with your well-being. You are too new to be left on your own. I would not want you to experience the things I did when I was first made as I am.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that you’re here. It’s just…. I still don’t understand why you are. Here. I’m only a stranger. You must have more important things to do than come out here in person.” I cringed at the subtext—I’m not worthy of your attention and time. But it was true. This was Emerson James. This was Edgar Allen Poe!
“I spent my early life feeling longing and my adult life feeling remorse. When I was
reborn to this life, I decided that I would prefer to feel neither. I don’t like grief or regret, and so I have structured my life such that I don’t have them. Or at least not as often. But I always do what I think is right, regardless of cost. Being here is what I need to do— also regardless of inclination or convenience.”
I stared and then nodded. He didn’t seem to mind silence as I thought my answers through. In this way he was also old-fashioned. Most people are very hurried and prone to speaking without reflecting because they fear a conversational pause. I blame it on television.
He didn’t like grief and longing. Who did? But I understood better than most what he was saying and heeded the message beneath his words. For a time after Harrison’s death, depression had moved into my brain and treated it like a flop house, abusing body and spirit alike as I wallowed in grief. I was all but crippled by hopelessness and sorrow. Evicting the squatter had taken some time and effort— and chemicals—and I had no intention of letting it tenant me again. I’ve seen that the damage inflicted can be lasting and some people never get out of their emotional wheelchairs; so I too had structured my life so I wouldn’t have time for it. That meant a steady diet of friends, family and above all work. There was no dating though. No looking for a new love. Fate seemed ready to kill anyone I cared for so I just wasn’t giving her anymore targets than she already had. Why would Emerson feel any differently?
But if I was reading Emerson correctly, he had taken an opposite view about friends and family. Of course, his family was dead, but it went beyond that if the tabloids were even semi-truthful. This man was the quintessential loner, shunning not only the limelight but everyone, including his agent. I told myself that this was okay. There is no preshrunk, off-the-shelf, stain-resistant life for someone who has had a major loss and doesn’t want to risk another. People who have never faced this kind of devastation often have a time-table and depth-gage for grief, but that is just statistics. We all face things differently. He apparently didn’t like people and their impedimenta of expectation. He also understood their vulnerability and chose to remain distant.
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