A GHOST OF A CHANCE
“What do you mean, you’ve been here all along?”
“Exactly what I said,” Tom’s specter replied. “After we blew up that orange jizz pool, I was all like high five to Sheila, but she left me hanging. Then you guys came over and started crying and shit. At first I thought you were all fucking with me, but then I realized you weren’t. Talk about messed up.”
“That’s unreal,” Ed muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Tom continued. “I couldn’t even go all invisible man and have some fun with this shit. Turns out I can’t get more than twenty or thirty feet away from that thing.” He pointed toward the glass curio containing Max Adventure. “Let me just say, though, I am super glad you guys didn’t toss it in the trash. Can’t say I wouldn’t have. Stupid thing isn’t worth shit.”
“It’s worth everything to me,” Christy said in a small voice.
Tom shrugged. “Yeah, I guess there’s sentimental value and all that crap. And hey, maybe I should be happy it’s not worth anything. Imagine how that would have sucked if you’d pawned it and the new owner had turned out to be a chronic masturbator.”
Goddamn, this was hard to swallow. A part of me felt this had to be someone trying to trick us. It’s not like mimicry was unknown among mages or supernatural monsters. But he was so ... Tom.
He turned and gestured at me, seemingly oblivious to the internal struggle we were all waging. “Oh, and by the way, dumbass, I was rooting for you and Sheila. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to watch you guys bone or anything, but I was really hoping you’d go the distance. Of course, then you had to fuck it up.”
“I didn’t fuck anything...”
“And now I finally realize why. This was your plan from the start – trying to seduce the fine piece by my side. Not that I can blame you. She’s...”
“Sitting right here,” Christy stated. “That’s a discussion for another time.”
He opened his mouth to say something.
“I mean it.” She glowed red again and Tom quickly held up his hands in supplication. “Good. Because I can’t hold this spell forever.” She took a deep breath. When she spoke next, I could see she was losing out to her emotions again. “I just want to know ... how?”
“Not following.”
“You say you’ve been here all this time. Five years of not being at peace, of not being able to talk to or touch anyone else? How ... how are you...”
“I think what Christy is trying to say, man,” Ed offered, “is how on Earth are you still sane? Assuming it is you.”
Tom flipped him a ghostly finger. “Fair question, dude, with a very simple answer. I watched a lot of TV.” He saw my questioning look and said, “Yeah, that was me changing the channels. Took forever to figure that shit out. I swear, fuck that stupid Ghost movie for making it look simple.”
Christy shook her head. “But with no human contact...”
“Oh, that was no big deal,” Tom replied, turning to me again. “Sixth grade.”
“What about it?”
“You and Johnny Collins?”
I shrugged, having no idea what he was talking about.
“Jesus Christ, am I the only one here not going senile? Remember that time you guys decided to fuck with me by pretending I was invisible, acting like I wasn’t there?”
It took me a second to dig up the memory. “Oh yeah. We did, didn’t we?”
“Well, I just kept telling myself that’s what you were all doing.”
I stood up. “We played that prank for maybe two days before we got bored with it. We’re talking five fucking years here.”
“I know,” he replied. “I just figured you guys were being assholes about it.”
It was unbelievable, almost inconceivable. At the same time, it was an answer that sounded exactly like something Tom would say. “So how is it that Cat can see you?”
“Her name is Cheetara, dude.”
“Her middle name is Cheetara and I’m not calling her that in public.”
“Why not?” he asked. “What happened to you, man? You used to be cool. What? Lack of pussy turned you into a hipster douche or something?”
I stepped up and pointed a finger at his wispy chest. “I am not suffering from a lack of...”
Christy threw me a glare and I immediately clammed up. Ed might be a vampire again, but she still had my vote for the biggest badass in the room, one who I really didn’t want to tick off.
Ed stepped between us like a referee. “Based on the fact that Tina can perform magic when she’s not supposed to, maybe it’s her. Maybe she can see you because she’s special.” He then grinned at our former roommate. “And I mean special as in good, not like you.”
“Suck it, old man,” Tom said with a laugh.
“Old man? I’m only...”
“Fucking thirty. You’re like my grandpa, for Christ’s sake. Whereas I, being dead and all, haven’t aged a day.”
He did have a point, albeit it was kind of a poor one to use to win this argument.
“Need I remind you,” Christy said, likewise rising. “I’m that old, too.”
Tom immediately backpedaled. “Yeah, babe, but you’re like a fine wine ... whereas these two cock-suckers are more like moldy cheese with limp dicks.”
Goddamn. Despite his insults, this felt right, like the conversations we used to have before he died. There was still a chance this was some kind of deception, but if so, it was a damned convincing one.
Christy stepped past us, headed toward the curio. “I’m willing to accept that our daughter can do things that are beyond her age. What she went through while I was pregnant could have affected her. Much as I’ve tried not to think about it, you don’t absorb that kind of power and remain unchanged.” Though her tone remained strong, I could tell this was a truth she didn’t want to admit. “The thing that confuses me more is how you’re...” Her voice broke for a second, but then she took a deep breath and continued. “Still here. I sensed the others leaving this world. I think we all did.”
I nodded. When Dr. Death – the murderous spirit inhabiting my body, and the very thing that made me a vampire – was finally dragged back to wherever he’d come from, I’d definitely felt it. It had been like someone tearing my soul in two and then hoovering half of it up. I’d heard the screams of the others in my head, spirits from another plane of existence, all being dragged out of their host bodies as they were sucked back to wherever they belonged.
“And it wasn’t just vampires,” she continued. “It was everything. All of it. Every soul, spirit, or extra planar being that didn’t belong here. Even the Jahabich, the spirits trapped inside their bodies anyway, were able to move on.
“But not Tom,” Ed surmised.
Tom, for his part, shrugged. “I like living in New York. All my shit’s here.”
“It shouldn’t have mattered,” Christy said. “Unless...” She pulled out a key and unlocked the cabinet. Once it was opened, she reached in toward the still glowing action figure but then hesitated. Rather than grab it, she closed her eyes and a soft yellowish glow suffused her.
A moment later, Max Adventure floated out of the case and hovered in front of her.
“You could have just worn gloves, babe,” Tom said. “There’s a pair in...”
“Hush,” she commanded. “If what I suspect is true, then it could be unwise to touch this right now.”
She made a gesture and the figure began to slowly rotate in the air in front of her. I glanced over at Tom to see if he did the same, like some freaky voodoo doll, but he stood there looking as confused as the rest of us.
“How do you not drop through the floor?” I asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence as Christy examined the doll.
“Beats the fuck out of me, man.”
Christy studied the action figure for several minutes, all while Ed and I continued to grill Tom on the weirdness of his ghostly state.
He was explaining to us how nice it was to not
have to get up in the middle of a movie to take a piss, being that he had no bladder, when Christy finally glanced back at us.
Sweat stood out on her forehead, strain plainly visible on her face. Hell, she looked to be on the verge of passing out. Past her, I noticed that Tina had taken maybe another step or two toward her bedroom in all this time. It kind of gave me the shivers. Imagine being trapped in sped-up time, like in that old Star Trek episode. Pity I couldn’t remember how they eventually resolved it.
Christy made another gesture and the action figure floated back into the display case, which she proceeded to lock.
With that done, she took a step toward the couch before stopping again. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I have.”
As abruptly as she said it, the weird shimmering around us disappeared. Just like that, Tina resumed marching into her room at normal pace.
Christy staggered and both Tom and I stepped forward to catch her. However, only one of us was solid enough to do anything about it, and it wasn’t him. Petty of me, perhaps, but he’d been giving me shit ever since reappearing.
Too bad that weariness hit me again like a baseball bat to the nuts. It was all I could do to not drop her and send both of us crashing to the floor. If this lasted much longer...
Before our eyes, Tom winked out of existence with nothing more than a quick, “Oh shit.”
In that same instant, my body pepped up again, saving me from looking like a total wuss..
The fuck? I understood what was happening to Christy and even Ed, to a degree anyway. When the power came back on, so, too, did theirs, even if his shouldn’t have. But me ... why the fuck did I feel like death warmed over whenever those pulses hit? It didn’t make sense.
Mind you, none of this really did.
For now, though, I helped Christy to the couch before she fell over.
After a few more minutes, she waved me off. “I’m okay, thanks.”
“Just making sure.”
“Well, maybe not that okay.”
“I really don’t think any of us are,” Ed replied. “Not after that. And, just between us, I’m getting seriously tired of that on/off bullshit. It’s like one minute I feel fine, then the next I want to sink my teeth into someone.”
“I appreciate your restraint,” I said, “but how are you even sporting fangs again? You should be just as normal as me. Not that you ever were, but you know what I mean. Any ideas, Christy?” I was tempted to call her babe, just to be a dick, knowing Tom could likely see us, but that seemed a bit over-the-top douchey.
For now anyway.
The color had returned to her cheeks, which was good, and she looked almost back to normal. Pretty amazing, considering she was telling the laws of nature to take a flying fuck just minutes earlier. “I have no idea what’s going on there. But I think I know why Tom is still with us.”
“He wasn’t ready to move on?” Ed offered.
Christy shook her head. “Nothing so banal. I think it’s the doll.”
“Action figure,” I corrected. Then, a moment later, I said to the thin air, “You’re welcome.”
“It’s not the action figure itself that matters. It’s what it’s holding.”
Christy got up and approached the display case again. Inside, the cracked visage of Max Adventure had stopped glowing. Once again, it looked like nothing more than a broken toy.
“It’s the Apollo’s Prism,” she said at last. “Not only did it survive, but it somehow fused with him.”
SHOWTIME AT THE APOLLO
Five years ago, when the world had been busy trying not to end, the city’s electrical grid had become a bit unreliable.
In response, Christy’s coven had worked their voodoo and created a ball of energy in our basement that covered our power needs, while the rest of the neighborhood was plunged into the proverbial Stone Age. It was awesome.
Less awesome was learning later that this wasn’t simply some magical Duracell. No, we’re talking some serious shit. Our resident witches had essentially created a self-sustaining tear in reality through which endless power flowed. That was terrifying enough by itself, but then a little birdie by the name of Gan had casually mentioned that this thingamabob – called an Apollo’s Prism – was ever so slightly volatile, to the tune of leveling an entire neighborhood if it exploded.
So, of course, rather than run for the fucking hills, Christy repurposed it after Tom’s soul got stuck in Max Adventure, to power a sort of solid glamour that temporarily restored his body.
All was well and good ... right up to the point when Sheila blew him up to shut down all magic in our world.
Ah yes, the rabbit hole for that little adventure ran deep indeed.
“The explosion,” Christy explained, “I thought it destroyed the prism along with The Source, but I was wrong. I think it only rendered it inert.”
She was trying to keep her tone businesslike, but I could tell it was an effort. I knew her too well to be fooled. Not that I could blame her. Her dead fiancé, the father of her child, had suddenly returned in Casper form. Oh, and go figure, just a few months after she’d started a relationship with his best friend.
I swear, what a tangled web of fuckery the universe sometimes wove.
“Why didn’t I see it back then?”
“Because you were knocked out at the time,” I offered, drawing a glare from her.
“That was a rhetorical question.”
I glanced at Ed and he shook his head to let me know I was on my own. Ah, where would I be without his moral support?
“The Source,” Christy continued, apparently undeterred by my dumbass comment. “They were standing in it at the time.”
“I know. We were there.”
I got the impression, however, she was less explaining it to us so much as talking to herself, trying to figure this out. Ed and I were merely the peanut gallery. “The Source wasn’t just a portal, though. It was a physical catalyst, one that could fuse the spirits of the dead to a corporeal source.”
She was talking about the Jahabich, the army of rock monsters Calibra had created via infusing trapped souls into the very earth of the underground cavern where The Source had resided. Tom had, coincidentally, been drenched in Jahabich blood when he’d died.
“His spirit,” she continued, following that same train of thought. “It became attached to this doll in the same manner, by their blood. But, what if the combination of the prism, the doll, and The Source affected him again ... right as the portal was collapsing?”
“You mean, it kinda glued them all together?”
Ed laughed. “I bet your parents are so glad you went to college.”
I threw him a dirty look before focusing on Christy again.
“In a sense,” she replied. “But that would explain why he couldn’t move on. His attachment to the doll would have been weak. It was just a flimsy physical construct. But if his spirit became fused to the prism, too, then its power might have been strong enough to hold onto him while everything else was sucked away. Then, when it went inert due to The Source’s destruction, he lacked the raw energy to manifest.”
“Maybe.” Ed’s tone said he didn’t entirely buy it. “But that glamour spell looked and felt solid. Now he’s just a...”
“A ghost?” she finished for him. “No. I don’t think he actually is. What we usually think of as ghosts are mostly psychic imprints, an echo left behind. True intelligent hauntings are rare and usually indicative of non-human entities trying to break through to our world.”
Okay, I suppose that made sense. Can’t say I’d watched too many reruns of Ghost Adventures since saving the world.
“If I’m right,” Christy continued, “his soul is still intact. It’s the prism itself that isn’t. It wasn’t destroyed in the explosion, like we all thought, but it’s weak, damaged.” She smiled sheepishly. “Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. It’s still dangerous. I didn’t have enough time to properly examine it just now, but I have little doubt i
t could kill everyone in this building were it to become unstable.”
Ed stepped up and looked at the doll in the case. “A word of advice, if I may. That might be something you don’t want to share with your landlord.”
“No shit,” I replied. “So what do we do? I mean, we can’t leave him like that ... stuck in limbo.”
“Except he’s not stuck in limbo.” Ed stepped back and turned on the TV.
“So your way of dealing with this crisis is to see if Doctor Who’s on?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You do realize you’re an idiot, right?” Before I could say anything to that, he continued. “Hey, Tom, if you can hear me, change the channel.”
For several long seconds nothing happened, but then the channel changed. Holy crap. Tom hadn’t been shitting us.
“Like I said,” Ed explained. “Not in limbo. He’s here. He can see us, we just can’t see him. But now that we know he’s around, maybe we can communicate.”
“Via the TV?”
“Ed’s right,” Christy said, perking up a bit. “We can set up a system. One channel for yes, change two for no. Something like that, at least until I can figure out a way to free his spirit.”
I started to nod, but it quickly turned into a head shake. “Wait. You mean find a way to bring him back, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“That was the plan back then ... to bring him back. Well, not the entire plan. I mean, we still wanted to fuck over the bad guys, but we were going to try to restore him, too.”
Ed smiled. “He’s right. This could be a second chance to fix that.”
I wasn’t sure what that would do to my and Christy’s burgeoning relationship, but I wasn’t such a selfish ass that I couldn’t look past the end of my own dick when it came to my best friend. I’d sooner have him back and be shunted off to Dumpsville – population me – than know we’d passed up a chance to save him.
Strange Days (Bill of the Dead Book 1) Page 7
