Ghosts

by David A. Robertson

  GHOSTS

  Mysterious murders, shadowy figures, and high school. Life can be hard; death can be harder.

  COLE HARPER is dead. Reynold McCabe is alive and free. Mihko Laboratories has reopened the research facility and is working to manufacture and weaponize the illness that previously plagued Wounded Sky. People are missing. The community has been quarantined. What deal did Eva strike with Choch? Who will defeat Reynold and Mihko? Time is running out.

  Ghosts is the final novel in The Reckoner trilogy.

  GHOSTS

  ALSO BY DAVID A. ROBERTSON

  THE RECKONER TRILOGY

  Strangers

  Monsters

  Ghosts

  GRAPHIC NOVELS

  Will I See?

  Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story

  7 Generations: A Plains Cree Saga

  Tales from Big Spirit series

  Sugar Falls

  FOR CHILDREN

  When We Were Alone

  NOVELS

  The Evolution of Alice

  © 2019 David A. Robertson

  Excerpts from this publication may be reproduced under licence from Access Copyright, or with the express written permission of HighWater Press, or as permitted by law.

  All rights are otherwise reserved, and no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise—except as specifically authorized.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

  Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

  HighWater Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Province of Manitoba through the Department of Sport, Culture and Heritage and the Manitoba Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF), for our publishing activities.

  HighWater Press is an imprint of Portage & Main Press.

  Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens

  Design by Relish New Brand Experience

  Cover Art by Peter Diamond

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Robertson, David, 1977-, author

  Ghosts / David A. Robertson.

  (The reckoner)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55379-762-3 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-55379-763-0 (EPUB).--ISBN 978-1-55379-808-8 (MOBI).--ISBN 978-1-55379-764-7 (PDF)

  I. Title.

  PS8585.O32115G56 2019jC813’.6C2018-906644-X

  C2018-906643-1

  2221201912345

  www.highwaterpress.com

  Winnipeg, Manitoba

  Treaty 1 Territory and homeland of the Métis Nation

  FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS TO SEE THEMSELVES IN A BOOK,

  AND ANYONE WHO NEEDS TO SEE SOMEBODY ELSE.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Invocation

  2. Live with This

  3. Walker

  4. Far Enough Away

  5. Every Yesterday

  6. Everything

  7. The Reckoner

  8. Man with a Plan

  9. To the Batcave!

  10. The Bloodhound Gang

  11. Recon

  12. Visitations

  13. Us

  14. Unsaid

  15. Who Made Who

  16. Lsd

  17. Miracle

  18. Ashes

  19. Exodus

  20. Escape Plan

  21. Walk it Back

  22. By the Fire

  23. Spoiler Alert

  24. How it’s Going to Be

  25. Fight or Flight

  26. Ambush

  27. Three Little Pigs

  28. Wounded Sky

  29. Beginning

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE

  “LUCY!”

  Reynold fumbled with the door. His hand was so weak and slippery from blood that he couldn’t grip the handle, and he ended up having to use both hands to turn it. The latch bolt released, the door swung open, and he stumbled inside, bracing himself against the wall to stay upright. He inched forward, sliding his feet against the floor, sliding his hand against the wall, pressing his other hand against his chest to stem the flow of blood from the bullet wound.

  “Lucy!”

  Reynold made it to the living room, but then fell forward onto the couch. Footsteps scrambled above, on the second floor. They rushed down the stairs, as Reynold began to see black spots through already blurred vision. His chest was on fire, and each breath was shorter than the last, like his lungs were too full of blood to take in any air.

  “What the hell happened to the walls?” Lucy ran into the living room just as he felt consciousness slip away. “Dad!”

  “Unnnh.”

  Reynold tried to sit up, but there was too much pain, and his head collapsed onto the couch’s armrest. His eyes blinked open to find Lucy perched on the edge of the coffee table, as far away from him as possible. She watched him with grave concern, and something else. Fear. He patted around at his chest and felt it bandaged.

  “Thanks, my girl.”

  She didn’t respond. She had her arms crossed and was furiously chewing at a fingernail.

  “Cole Harper shot me in the chest, Lucy. If you’re wondering—”

  “No.” Lucy shook her head vigorously. “No, that’s not it. Your goddamn blood is blue!”

  “My…” Reynold looked at the bandages, and saw splotches of blue seeping through them. “…blood?”

  Lucy covered her face with both hands, and her body shook. Reynold watched her, unsure what to say to his daughter. What could he say? How would she ever understand what he’d become? The hunger. The rage. He said nothing. When she calmed down, she lowered her hands. “And it’s cold. Your blood, it’s…it’s like ice.” She stood up and backed away, until her calves hit a dining room chair, and sat down. “Why is it like that? Are you cold? You feel cold to me. You feel cold like your blood. I—”

  “Lucy…”

  “Are you sick?” she asked. “Tell me!”

  Reynold did sit up now, back against the arm of the couch. Blue, ice-cold blood, she’d said. But there was something else.

  “I’m not sick,” he said calmly.

  “Then what? If I were Cole, I would’ve shot you, too!”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “You’re—” Lucy looked ready to vomit, her face drained of colour. Someone knocked on the front door. She jumped at the sound, almost fell off the chair. She looked at her dad for direction.

  You’re still my girl, he thought. Even now.

  The knock came again.

  “Answer it,” Reynold said.

  “But…” she started to say.

  “Do it.”

  She left the room, almost in a trance. Reynold listened. Lucy opened the front door. There was a moment, a split second, of silence. Then Lucy screamed. She ran back into the living room.

  “What…the…fu—” Lucy stumbled back against a bookshelf.

  A person in a hazmat suit walked into the living room.

  “—what is happening! Who the hell are you?!”

  Reynold was unfazed. The man walked around the couch, then dropped a gun onto the coffee table.

  “Lucy,” Reynold said, “would you excuse us, please?”

  Lucy didn’t say a word. She walked away, keeping her eyes on the suited figure. Reynold listened for her footsteps up the stairs, down the second-floor hallway, and into her bedroom. A door slammed.

  Alone now, Reynold’s gaze fell to the gun on the coffee table. He picked it up and rested it on his chest.

  A thick silence fell over them as they stare
d at each other.

  “Is it done?” Reynold asked.

  “Yeah. It’s done.”

  1

  INVOCATION

  FIVE EMPTY TIN CANS WERE LINED UP BIGGEST to smallest, easiest to hardest, across two large rocks. Just the way Eva liked them—when she was a kid and now. She pictured Cole standing in front of the rocks, looking at her, making sure that he’d lined them up perfectly. She pictured Cole looking at her the way that he used to look at her, no matter what emotion was running through his body, no matter how panicked he was, no matter how tired, no matter how lost. It made her feel, then and now, that she was the one place of calm for him. Standing twenty feet away from the cans, rolling the sweetgrass ring he had made for her between her fingertips, she could picture him just the way he was the last time she had seen him alive.

  “Are you paying attention?” Eva asked.

  Cole was standing beside her, watching intently. “Yeah.”

  “This is called the Fighting Stance.” She aimed her dad’s gun at the first, largest tin can, and positioned her body just like her dad had taught her.

  “That’s exactly how I was aiming,” Cole said.

  “No,” she laughed, “it’s not.”

  She took aim. Squeezed her index finger against the trigger. Pop. The can flipped into the air, end over end like a punted football, and landed on the ground.

  “Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how I was aiming,” Cole said.

  “Not exactly.” Eva aimed at the second can. Breathed out slowly. Squeezed her index finger against the trigger.

  “Eva!” Cole shouted from a distance.

  Too far away. He was running towards her from the gravel road, from the cemetery. The gate to the cemetery was open. He was running so fast that his body blurred.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “I’m standing here, you don’t have to run!”

  “Shoot!”

  She saw it. The monster chasing him. Towering over him. Emaciated, but powerful. Faster. Its red eyes burning into hers. It gained on Cole with each step.

  Eva turned her body and aimed at the monster. She got into the Fighting Stance and squeezed the trigger, but her hands were shaking. The bullet missed. Missed such a big target. Right there in front of her. Right behind Cole. The monster reached out, grabbed Cole, and picked him up.

  She took another shot, but only grazed its shoulder.

  Cole screamed. “Eva!”

  He screamed again, in pain, while the monster tore him apart.

  “No!” A coffee mug—half empty, ice cold—plummeted from the nightstand onto the cold floor, erupting into shards of ceramic and black liquid. Eva almost fell off the bed too, but ended up half on and half off, staring at the mess.

  “Shit.”

  The same dream. The same nightmare. And still, she wasn’t used to it. Would she ever get used to it? No. She shook her head. She hadn’t stopped missing Cole when he moved to Winnipeg. Now, he was gone. Not like in the dream, but no less horrific. Trapped in a fire he set at the X. That’s what Mihko had said anyway. That’s what Wounded Sky First Nation believed, too, except for a handful of people who knew Cole wasn’t the monster Mihko made him out to be, as though the real monster wasn’t quite as bad as a seventeen-year-old kid. Of course, nobody had seen the real monster since Cole had died. Nobody knew that the monster was gone—that Reynold was gone—because of Cole. And Cole had to have been right about Reynold being the monster; they didn’t both go missing at the same time coincidentally. Eva might’ve needed tutoring in math, but that was a simple equation.

  “Chief Reynold McCabe.” Eva looked away from the broken mug and spilled coffee, and stared at the ceiling. The same people who believed Cole was an arsonist, that he’d died, ironically, in a fire he started? They believed Reynold was still alive and running Wounded Sky from the reserve’s own Fort Knox: the McCabe residence. It was all actual fake news.

  Eva rolled the sweetgrass ring between her fingertips, dizzy with memories. She took a deep breath and got out of bed. She wiped up the coffee and picked every last piece of broken ceramic off the floor. She found herself taking her time with this last task. It reminded her of the night she and Cole had almost kissed. She had picked shards of glass off the floor that night, too. She could easily picture Cole standing in the kitchen while she dumped the broken glass into the garbage, both of them still flustered. She’d told him the kiss would have been a mistake, but now she wished they had made that mistake. Ignored the rock crashing into her living room. She would have placed her hands firmly against his cheeks, and pressed her lips against his. If she had known then what she knew now.

  That he’d be dead, and she’d be left waiting for a miracle.

  Eva finished picking up the broken pieces of ceramic, tossed them into the garbage. She made herself a fresh cup of strong, black coffee. She sipped at it furiously while trying, over and over, to text Brady, like each time she tried, the text might go through. But she knew it wouldn’t. Mihko and the absent Chief McCabe had cut off Wounded Sky’s cell service two weeks ago.

  She had no idea what was going on with Brady, if he was still okay. And the outside world had no idea what was going on in Wounded Sky First Nation. Cole had told her that according to his friend Joe, the murder spree and the flu epidemic had never made the news, and certainly the monster and the string of fires hadn’t either. Not to mention the full-on quarantine. Eva wanted to check on Brady, to make the trek to Elder Mariah’s cabin deep in Blackwood Forest, but she couldn’t. Mihko’s hired security force, which included some of Reynold’s people, had a perimeter around the community, stationed at strategic points within the forest to keep people from coming into Wounded Sky and, more importantly, to keep anyone from leaving. It made the curfew irrelevant.

  Where would anybody go?

  Eva finished her coffee and left the house. She wanted to try to see her father at the clinic again. Lately, her days had become as familiar to her as the nightmare. She would wake up alone, eat alone, try to visit her father at the clinic and get turned away, check on Cole’s grandmother and auntie, and then, when the day was almost over, visit Cole. Visit Cole, and hope that there was nobody there to visit at all. But he was always there, his headstone always defaced, and she was always left with a sunken feeling in her chest. More than once over the last month, she’d reminded herself of what it was to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. But still, she was unwavering. And why? Because a little talking coyote had promised her that he’d help her out.

  Since then, he’d gone AWOL.

  She kept replaying that moment, almost a month ago now, to see if she’d missed something.

  “Please come back. I need you back,” she said, standing in front of Cole’s headstone.

  “You know.” A coyote appeared out of nowhere by her side. “I can help you with that.”

  “Did you just—”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” He sounded exasperated, but also amused. “I just talked, so can we please skip over all the stunned disbelief nonsense? After all, you’ll come to the same conclusion: you are not dreaming, I am really here, and, come on, is this the strangest thing that’s happened in Wounded Sky over the last few weeks?”

  “It’s up there.” Eva reached forward to poke the coyote.

  “If you’re going to touch me to see if I’m a figment of your imagination,” the coyote said, “could you at least scratch behind my ear? That’s my most favourite spot. My leg starts to kick involuntarily from the sensation. It’s just so fun. And pleasurable.”

  “Never mind.” She withdrew her hand.

  “Soooooooo…”

  Eva stared at the headstone. “Can you really bring him back…?”

  “Oh, I can, dear one,” the coyote said quickly. “Absotively. Positutely. Hmmm…I’m trying to combine absolutely and positively, but it’s not quite working. Also, it’s probably redundant.”

  “The novelty of a talking coyote is quickly wearing
off.”

  “It’s just, if you want something from me, well, tit for tat, you know? I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Quid pro quo. A favour for a—”

  “Okay! Yes. Just tell me what I have to do.” She glanced at Cole’s name chiselled into stone, and tried not to read all the vitriol community members had written about him. “Please. I want him back.”

  “Sigh…puppy love. I’ve always loved you two. You’re so very Jack and Kate. (You watch Lost right?) People are just dying to see you together, you know?”

  “People are what?”

  “Never mind,” the coyote said. “But, as for the whole reciprocity talk, let’s just say you owe me one. TBD. To Be Determined. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Deal. The word echoed in Eva’s mind as she walked through the brisk chill of Wounded Sky’s autumn morning, the frosted grass crunching underfoot. As the weeks passed, she’d started to believe that even though the coyote had said she wasn’t dreaming, she actually had been. So desperately sad about losing Cole, she’d imagined a way that he might come back, just to make her feel better for a little while. The anxiety Cole had told her about, how it ravaged his body with horrible sensations, made her realize just how powerful the mind could be. Why couldn’t she have concocted a talking coyote, a trickster spirit? Maybe not the one she’d been taught about in her community, but a trickster spirit nonetheless.

  Each night, when she went to the cemetery to visit Cole’s grave, she recited the same invocation, hoping to bring the coyote back, so she could be sure that she hadn’t been imagining it, so she could believe Cole would return from the dead, that he wasn’t gone, that he could finish the job he’d always talked about having here.

  Because Creator knew just how bad things had gotten.

  “Please be real,” she whispered, staring at the headstone, glancing to her side every few moments to see if the spirit being had returned. “Please bring him home, make him live. Please. I’ll do anything.”

  But, tonight, just like every other night, there was no response.