Ghosts

by David A. Robertson

  “Oh, right,” Brady said, “and he re-animates stuffed animals and is able to command them.”

  “See, speaking of superheroes—”

  “Or villains.”

  “—right. Let’s make sure that I don’t, well—ignoring the argument about me actually being a superhero—let’s make sure I don’t, you know, start throwing dream catcher ninja stars…”

  “Or use your talking stick to get people to tell the truth.”

  “Or summon Thunderbird with my medicine pouch.” Cole tossed the comic book onto the coffee table. “Collector’s item, though.”

  “A real relic from the past, right?”

  “I do need one thing. I mean, as a non-stereotypical Indigenous superhero…”

  “Not named Black Bison or Chief Running Cloud or Shaman or…”

  “Right.”

  “And that would be?” Brady put down the comic he’d been looking through, Elf Quest, on top of The Fury of Firestorm. He gave Cole his full attention.

  “It’s time to put a team together.”

  10

  THE BLOODHOUND GANG

  “OKAY, WHO IS GOING TO BE ON THIS TEAM?” BRADY ASKED.

  The team needed to be small, but effective. Everybody needed a purpose and needed to be trustworthy. It was going to be a short list, Cole admitted to himself. How many people in the community were actually on his side? He probably could count them on one hand. Still, he thought it would help if he wrote down names. Ashley’s school supplies were on his desk, untouched since his death. A cup full of pencils and pens, a binder, a couple of textbooks.

  “Is it okay if I borrow some paper and something to write with?” Cole wasn’t willing to just start using Ashley’s things without asking, especially after losing his hockey equipment at the facility the night he, Cole, had been killed.

  “Yeah,” Brady said, “of course. Thanks for asking.”

  “Sure.”

  Cole got a pencil from the cup and a clean sheet of paper from Ashley’s binder, then rejoined Brady on the futon. He spread the paper out on the coffee table and wrote TEAM at the top. He drew a line under the word, made a column on the left side, and wrote the number ‘1’. He wrote Eva beside that number.

  “Obviously,” Cole said.

  “We could just stop at her,” Brady said. “We’ve come this far together.”

  “We have,” Cole said, “but for what we have to do, we’re going to need allies.”

  “Like?”

  Cole thought for a second, and then wrote: 2. Dr. Captain. “People are still at the clinic, and we’re going to break them out. She’ll need to be out there to help your kókom.”

  “Especially if some of those missing people are actually there, too.”

  “Right.” Cole breathed. In for five. Out for seven. “What would they be doing with them there, though? What’s Mr. Kirkness still doing there? Why can’t anybody go in? Come out?”

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” Brady said. “I just picture my kókom the way she was…”

  “I know.” Cole gave Brady a pat on the knee. “But she got better, right? And we’ll need to get the others better, too.”

  “Right. Who’s next?”

  Cole wrote Lauren next, beside number 3. As soon as he did, as soon as he’d finished writing the letter n, Jayne appeared and started to jump all around the place, burning hot. Excited. She chanted, “Lauren’s on the teeee-eem, Lauren’s on the teeee-eem!” over and over.

  Brady went to the window and opened it. On the way back to the futon, he remarked, “It’s so hot all of a sudden. Do you feel hot all of a sudden? I think I’m having hot flashes.”

  Cole stifled a laugh.

  “You’re too young, and possibly the wrong gender, to have those.” Cole shot Jayne a look to calm down, so she wouldn’t burn so hot. “I’m feeling hot, too. So don’t worry.”

  “Phew.”

  “Aren’t I the one who worries about things?”

  “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.” Brady winked at Cole. “So why Lauren?”

  “That’s my sister! Yay!”

  “Because she likes me.” Cole was trying his best to ignore Jayne. “And she’s one of the only people who doesn’t think I murdered people, burned buildings down, all of that. And she’s a cop.”

  “Alright, fair enough. Lauren it is.” Brady checked over the names.

  “She’s on the team?” Jayne looked at Cole hopefully.

  Cole nodded, and Jayne burst into flames again.

  “This is getting to be a pretty big team, my friend.” Brady pulled his shirt away from his sweaty body. “I thought you wanted to keep the fact that you’re not dead a secret and everything.”

  Cole wiped sweat away from his brow. It was dripping into his eyes, and they stung. “It is hot in here.”

  Brady had taken a comic book and was fanning himself. When he wasn’t looking, Cole made a shooing motion to Jayne. Jayne stomped her foot and crossed her arms.

  “I’m just happy, you know that?”

  Cole mouthed please to Jayne, and showed her the sweat on his forearms.

  “Sorry!” Jayne’s fire doused within seconds and returned to a low burn.

  “Okay, now it’s cool. Are you sure I’m not—”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Cole looked at Jayne and sternly jerked his head at the door and repeated this twice before she shouted, “Fine!” and disappeared into a cloud of black smoke.

  Cole wiped at his face again. “Who else…”

  Brady took the pencil from Cole, wrote the number 4, and another name: Tristan.

  “Are you kidding me?” Cole took the pencil from Brady.

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “Actually yes, you kind of do.”

  “Okay maybe I was at first, but come on, you can see the benefits, right?”

  “The team is supposed to save the community, not beat the shit out of me.”

  “He only wanted to do that because he thought you killed Maggie,” Brady said.

  “And what do people think about me at this very moment?” Cole asked.

  “Point taken, but he’s actually kind of reasonable.”

  “Actually, kind of…” Cole pulled up his hood and aggressively wiped the sweat away from his face.

  “If we need muscle, he’s pretty darn strong.”

  “I’m the muscle, Brady! Hello?”

  “Can you ever have too much muscle?” Brady got up and opened the front door and the window all the way. The room became cold fast, but neither of them complained.

  “No, okay? No.” Cole erased Tristan’s name so hard that it ripped the paper. Under the ripped area of paper, he wrote Pam. “Now, if you think that Tristan would be a better teammate than Pam, I’m all ears.”

  “Oh.” Brady took the pencil from Cole’s hand, gently this time, and placed it on the table. “She can’t…”

  “You actually don’t think he’d be a better teammate than Pam?”

  Brady fidgeted, like he was sitting on something sharp. “It’s not that.”

  “What’s up with you?” Cole asked, but thought he knew. He’d lamented the problem of liking two girls the night he went for dinner with Pam, ignoring the fact that Brady lost his boyfriend. Cole had acted selfish, and Brady rightfully called him on it. To make matters worse, he’d not told Eva about the dinner with Pam. Brady clearly didn’t want that drama around.

  “Look,” Cole said, “I know Eva’s with Michael, and I’m not going to make it a thing, okay?”

  “Eva’s not with Michael.”

  “What really?” Cole sounded too excited. Cleared his throat. “Really?” More calm. Better. Also too late.

  “Really. So over.”

  “Okay, well,” Cole tried to gather himself, “Pam and I aren’t a thing. We’re just friends. And she’s just really good with computers, and there’s this, like, keypad in the basement of the facility that I think she’d be good for. Plus, if we have to, you know, ha
ck our way into places, and—”

  “She’s missing, Cole.”

  “She’s what?”

  “She’s one of the people who’s gone missing.”

  “And you didn’t think to…” Cole got up to pace back and forth, from one end of Ashley’s trailer to the other. He stopped in the middle of the trailer, and squatted, facing Brady. His face was pleading. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know how,” Brady said. “Sorry, I know I tell you to be honest. I’m a hypocrite.”

  “Okay.” Cole stood up and started pacing again, thinking about something else now, another piece of the puzzle: how to find her. “Okay, okay…she’s got to be at the clinic, right?”

  “Where else would they go? I mean, it’s a wild guess, but really, where?”

  “The RCMP detachment?” Cole took a shot in the dark. A hopeful shot. At least there, Pam would be safe. “Got caught after curfew, locked up for it…”

  “No, too many people have gone missing,” Brady said, “and there’s like, one cell there. Plus Lauren wouldn’t go for that. Ever.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Cole agreed. “Alright, how many people have gone missing?”

  “Eva thought, like, around eight or something?”

  “Eight?”

  “I think there’s thirteen people at the clinic still.”

  “They have to be there, then. There or the facility. That’s the only places they could be. Eight people? The community hall?”

  “No, you can’t go in there, but you can see in there.”

  “If she’s at the clinic, I can do something about it,” Cole said. “We already broke in, right? I’ll just have to do it again. We broke into the clinic. I broke into the facility.”

  Cole went for the door.

  “I thought we were putting this team together to break people out of there.”

  “We are,” Cole said. “I just…I have to know if that’s where Pam is too. If she’s not, we’ll have two places we need to go.”

  “I’ll come with.” Brady got up, went to the door.

  Cole shook his head.

  “Are you serious? Cole, I literally told you that we have to do this stuff together.”

  “Just wait for me, alright? We don’t know what security’s going to be like, and I can get in on my own way easier.”

  “So I’ll just slow you down.”

  “If I go first like this, alone, the team will know how to get in when we all go. Together. Please, Brady.”

  11

  RECON

  THE EARLY EVENING WAS DARK enough to hide him, so Cole took the most direct route to the clinic. His neck warmer was pulled over his mouth and his hood was up. Even concerned for Pam, Cole allowed himself to appreciate being here, especially now, when the night gave the impression that the community wasn’t in chaos. Whether most of Wounded Sky still hated him or not, he did not hate them.

  “Are you sure you just aren’t glad to be alive?” Choch asked, now walking beside Cole.

  “Maybe,” Cole said. “But, you know, it’s still home here, whatever’s happened.”

  “It has rather grown on me, too,” said Choch. “I’ll give it that. I suppose you don’t really appreciate the charm of Wounded Sky, unless you live in Wounded Sky.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “And I will say,” Choch said, “you just never know what people think of you, either. It’s been a month, CB.”

  “Brady says there’s always a bunch of graffiti on my headstone.”

  “That Eva has cleaned off…” Choch cleared his throat. “Repeatedly.”

  “It doesn’t matter. When I’m done, people will know the truth. I just have to stay focused.”

  Choch slapped him on the back. “I’ve missed our walks, you know? I mean, they’re not entirely the same, but I’ve missed them still.”

  “Whatever did you do with yourself while I was gone, and you had nobody to annoy?”

  “Oh, I kept busy. Old projects, new projects.” Choch removed his hand from Cole’s back. “There’s only one CB, however. I’ll tell you that.”

  “What other projects do you have? Are you just out annoying people while getting them to save the world?”

  “Hey, Charlie!” A couple walking opposite them, back towards the centre of the community, stopped and waved at Choch.

  Choch peered out into the dark, then snapped his fingers. “That you, Bill?”

  “Darn straight that’s me!”

  “Bill Robinson, whaddya know!” Choch dragged Cole over to the couple. Cole followed reluctantly, but kept his head down. Choch shook hands with Bill, and tipped his fedora at the woman Bill was with. “Franny.”

  “What brings you out this late? You’re going to hit the curfew, aren’t you?” Bill asked.

  Choch gave Cole a playful squeeze on the arm. “I’m just showing my nephew here the community.”

  “How’d he get here?” Bill asked.

  “Oh, that’s right. Silly me.” Choch waved his hand in front of Franny and Bill’s faces while saying, “Justin’s always lived here. He’s just ugly and likes to cover his face.”

  “Hey,” Cole said. “Is that necessary?”

  “Well you were ugly, so…”

  “What brings you and Justin out this late? You’re going to hit the curfew, aren’t you?” Bill asked, having been reset a few seconds by Choch.

  “Oh, Justin only likes to come out at night because…” Choch nodded at Cole with a twisted face, indicating his pretend ugliness, Cole supposed. “You know.”

  Franny touched him on the arm. “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re a fine-looking young man.”

  “That’s because she’s married to me, right Charlie?” Bill guffawed.

  Choch joined in. “Hey-oooooo!” Choch said through the laughter. “You are one ugly sunnuvabitch, Bill Robinson!”

  “Lucky Franny don’t see good, eh?” Bill said.

  “Now, Bill, it’s the inside that counts.” Choch’s laughter died down and he wiped tears from his eyes. “But all the same, maybe Justin can let you know where he got that neck warmer! Pro tip!”

  “Can we…” Cole motioned to the clinic.

  “Settle down, Justin, settle down.” Choch collected himself. “Well, we best be off, curfew and all.” He shook Bill’s hand again, and this time, kissed Franny’s hand. “You’re a saint, dear.”

  “We’ll be by the mall tomorrow to pick up some things. See you there, Charlie?” Bill asked.

  “Don’t you come around causing trouble now, Bill.” Choch pointed a finger gun at Bill.

  Bill mockingly grabbed his heart, as though he’d been shot.

  Choch and Cole, Franny and Bill, went their separate ways. Choch shook his head with a smile. “That Bill…”

  “Charlie,” Cole stated. “Charlie Chochinov.”

  “Charlie Chochinov,” Choch repeated proudly, straightening his fedora. The fedora didn’t match the rest of the spirit being’s outfit: jeans, an orange windbreaker, bright white sneakers.

  “Charlie Chochinov dresses like a middle-aged guy whose best years were in college,” Cole said.

  “Well, Justin Johnson’s ugly.” Choch pointed duck lips to the air.

  “JJ’s a cool name, C-H C-H is not.”

  “JJ is a cool name,” Choch lamented.

  “So, what do you do? Bag groceries? Work at the post office?” Cole wondered.

  “Mall cop.” Choch’s eyes brightened.

  “That’s actually…” Cole glanced at Choch. “I should’ve guessed that.”

  “Since the dawn of time,” Choch said. “I mean, you clearly aren’t going back to school, and there’s no Fish to work at, so I had to work somewhere.”

  “Yes, because you need the income.”

  “Ear to the ground, CB. Ear to the ground.”

  “You wear aviator sunglasses don’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably,” Cole conceded.

&
nbsp; “They’d be a great finishing touch for the little costume you’ve pulled together, wouldn’t they? Neck warmers with skeleton faces on them, all that jazz.”

  “I have to cover up the ugly, don’t I?”

  The clinic loomed in the distance. Cole could already see a guard at the front door, just as there was before, and one at the side of the building. He hoped that, just like the last time he’d been there, a guard would not be inside. He thought of ways he could get in without being seen, still wanting the element of surprise.

  “You know, I usually don’t do this, but I could give you a better costume, if you wanted.” Choch pulled at the sleeve of Cole’s hoodie. “I mean, Spider-Man, Superman, Firestorm, they all have those amazing little costumes. Bright, you know? They scream: superhero.”

  “No thanks,” Cole said. “I’m not going to announce my presence by wearing bright tights.”

  “Alright, suit yourself,” Choch said with a smirk, delighted with himself. Cole ignored the pun. The spirit being continued. “I guess this does help you get around in the dark, but what about a name like Sneaky Man?”

  “Oh, God…”

  “Or Dark Man!” Choch snapped fingers. “Yeah! The Reckoner is…such a mouthful.”

  “Dark Man was an awesome movie by Sam Raimi.”

  “Oh, right. Copyright infringement and whatnot.”

  “I’m good, Choch. Really. Costume, name.”

  They only made it another three steps before Choch asked, “So aren’t you gonna ask me why I’m here? Get mad at me? Tell me to GTFO, as you once put it?”

  “Nope,” Cole said. “I figure you’re keeping tabs. ‘Ear to the ground,’ right?”

  “You know what, CB? I didn’t miss you at all!” Choch then disappeared.

  “God, if I only knew how to deal with you earlier,” Cole said to the absent spirit being.

  Cole crouched where he, Eva, and Brady had hid the night they broke into the clinic to save Elder Mariah. That night, they’d tried to reason with Mark to let them in. Cole had ended up summoning Jayne to start a fire, which distracted Mark long enough for them to sneak past him. That strategy wasn’t in the playbook tonight. A guard was still stationed at the front door—maybe Mark, Cole wasn’t sure—but the garbage can hadn’t been replaced. Nothing to set on fire. And if it was Mark, he’d know the gig anyway. He could walk up to Mark and knock him out—just as he’d done upon leaving the clinic with Elder Mariah. Cole would get in, and Mark, or whoever was at the door, wouldn’t know it was Cole. His identity would be protected, but Mihko would know somebody had broken in.