Ghosts

by David A. Robertson

  There was crunching behind him. He gathered himself, turned away from Lucy, to Upayokwitigo. He who lives alone. Alone. Without its daughter. Lucy.

  “What did you do!?” Cole cried out to it in anger.

  It turned its red eyes away from Cole, to the ground, to Lucy. For the first time, Cole saw something human in the thing. Human for the briefest moment. Then the monster reared its ugly head at Cole with all of its terrible hatred and hunger.

  “You! You took her from me!” It screamed so loud that Cole had to cover his ears.

  It tore the wall apart and burst into the room. Cole backed away, stepping over Lucy’s body. Putting her between them. When it saw her again, it picked Lucy up and roared. The entire house shook.

  Cole shouldered his way through the door and ran down the hallway to the first floor. He heard thunder behind him. Closing in on him. He didn’t bother opening the door, instead running right through it. Behind him, the monster roared down the stairs. By the time Cole had sprinted past the guards, he could hear it at his heels. He could feel the vibrations of its heavy, awful steps. He wouldn’t get to Ashley’s trailer. It was too fast. As fast as him. And he was getting weaker, more faint, by the second. He looked ahead anyway, as though he could see the trailer now, but instead, he saw Choch, standing firmly on the pathway. He looked like Cole had never really seen him before: intense, powerful.

  “Get into the woods. I got this!” Choch lowered his aviator sunglasses.

  Cole did as he was instructed, veered to the right, and beelined into Blackwood. He dove into the forest and, behind the cover of a tree, turned to look at the monster. He turned in time to see Choch flex his entire body and transform into a half-man, half-coyote beast.

  Choch roared as Upayokwitigo charged him. They collided.

  Choch threw the monster over his shoulder like it was a paper airplane, and it tumbled across the ground. It rolled, braced its feet against the ground, and came right back at Choch. They collided again, and this time, Choch bit into the monster’s shoulder, and it let out a scream. The monster staggered backwards, holding its shoulder. Choch spat out a piece of its flesh.

  Cole backed away from the tree, deeper into the forest, never taking his eyes off the battle.

  The monster readied itself to charge at the spirit being again, and it did. Everything happened in slow motion.

  Choch didn’t brace himself for the impact. Rather, he turned to Cole, now safely in the forest. When Choch and Cole met eyes, Choch softened his stance. Relaxed. The monster thrust its hand into the spirit being’s chest and pulled out Choch’s heart. Orange and dripping blood.

  “NO!” Cole screamed.

  Choch looked down at his chest and fell straight backwards.

  The monster dropped Choch’s heart on the ground and turned to the woods. Peered through the trees. Snarling.

  Cole took one last look at Choch’s body and sprinted away, deeper and deeper into Blackwood.

  Cole only stopped when he was sure that he was far enough, sure that the monster hadn’t followed him. He was in a misty clearing near Silk River. A large rock sat on the riverbank, a chair for resting and taking in the beauty. Cole might’ve appreciated his surroundings if he wasn’t so overwhelmed. He stumbled forward to sit on the rock. Tried to catch his breath. Tried to calm his pulse. Tried to stay on the rock and not let himself pass out. Five seconds in, seven seconds out. Breathe. But it wasn’t just the anxiety, not this time.

  He was still bleeding. His shirt, hoodie, pants were soaked with blood.

  Snap.

  Something was approaching. Cole stood up and managed to stay on his feet.

  Snap.

  Another twig broke underfoot. Somebody, not something.

  “Who’s there?”

  Cole could see a figure in the mist, coming towards him. He readied himself for another fight. Clenched his shaking fists. One hard breath out. Blood rushing through his body, blood rushing out of his body.

  Choch emerged from the mist, clutching his chest. His hand fell away to reveal a large hole where his heart should have been.

  “Holy shit,” Cole said. “There’s a fucking hole in your chest!”

  “Why does this always happen to me?” Choch fell forward. Cole caught him, and they both ended up on the ground, the spirit being lying in Cole’s arms.

  “Hold me,” Choch whispered. “It’s getting cold.”

  “I’m right here.” Cole clutched Choch’s hand.

  “You’re not mad at me, right?”

  “No, I’m not mad at you anymore.”

  “But you were?”

  “Don’t talk, alright? Don’t you talk.” Cole tried to cover the hole in Choch’s chest with what remained of his mall cop uniform.

  “Wa…watch…” Choch’s lips were shaking. His hand felt ice cold.

  “Watch what? What are you trying to say?” Cole put his hand on Choch’s forehead.

  “Watch this,” Choch rasped, “and…tell me…where…it’s from…”

  The spirit being’s eyes rolled back and his head fell to one side, lifeless.

  “Where what’s from, Choch?” Cole asked, a tear leaving his eye despite all the frustration the spirit being had given him over the last decade. Where would Cole be now, if Choch hadn’t intervened? Where would Wounded Sky be if Cole hadn’t been tricked into coming home?

  Cole felt Choch’s hand evaporate, and the rest of his body faded into nothing, leaving behind the spirit being’s tattered clothes.

  “Oh,” Cole whispered, “of course.”

  A Jedi death.

  17

  MIRACLE

  EVERYWHERE COLE LOOKED, IT WAS BLACK. The stars, moon, and northern lights were obscured by Blackwood’s thick trees. When Cole stumbled out of the forest it was black there, too. He had one hand pressed against the bullet wound on his shoulder and the other on his thigh. He’d lost a lot of blood, and was bleeding faster than he could heal. He was losing consciousness. Being out in the open, being out where the sky was bright and wide, made that impossible to ignore. He had one focus as he staggered through a ditch and climbed to the path: get to Ashley’s trailer.

  Cole pushed himself as hard as he could to just make it to the steps of the trailer. He moved slower with every step. His toes dragged against the gravel path. He lost his footing every other step, fell repeatedly. Each time he fell, he was sure that it would be the last time, that he wouldn’t be able to get back up. He was sure, even as he got to his feet and willed his body to keep going. He was sure that soon, he’d be back up in the northern lights, back dancing with all the people who’d died, all the people he’d let down. This time, he wouldn’t come back. And as the spots in his vision began to converge, he started to picture, against the forming canvas of black, all the faces that would soon join him in that dance because he’d come here to do a job, deal or not, and hadn’t finished it.

  “Hey!”

  Cole took his hand away from the wound on his shoulder just long enough to pull the neck warmer over his face. Funny, he thought, that he did that, because when he died on the path, his face would be seen anyway. When Cole heard the voice, approaching slowly from somewhere behind, he didn’t stop.

  The singular focus of getting to Ashley’s trailer remained.

  “Hey, are you deaf or something?”

  The footsteps, as cautious as they were, closed the gap, and Cole knew that somebody was walking beside him. But he didn’t look. Couldn’t look. His hand was on his shoulder, stemming the flow of blood, as though one drip of it kept inside his body would give him enough strength to get him where he needed to be.

  “You’re the thing I saw, aren’t you? Except you’re not a thing, you’re just some weird bastard. You scared the shit out of me, you know that?”

  Cole’s foot hit the back of his heel, and he toppled forward onto the ground. He lay there, listening to the footsteps stop beside him, and tried, once more, to get to his feet. He got halfway there, but started to pass
out and fall again. This time, however, whoever was there, caught him. They put their hands under his armpits and pulled Cole to his feet. Cole stood there, unable to take another step, unable to slide one foot forward across the gravel. He stood there and gently swayed back and forth, like a blade of grass in the breeze.

  “What the hell are you on?”

  Face to face now, Cole saw that it was Tristan. Tristan, however, didn’t know that it was Cole. He reached forward, cautiously, and pulled the neck warmer down to expose Cole’s face.

  “Harper?” Tristan sounded breathless. “You’re dead.”

  “Have…have to…get…to…Ashley’s…”

  Cole felt a cold cloth against his forehead. Then, an acute soreness in his shoulder and his thigh. He was lying down. There was a pillow underneath his head. He could see a faint red through his eyelids. A light was on, wherever he was. Somebody was sitting with him. He could feel the weight at his side, on the soft surface he was lying on. The cold cloth was lifted off his forehead and replaced.

  “Cole?”

  Eva. Cole’s eyes blinked open, and he saw her. She wasn’t alone. They were in Ashley’s trailer. Dr. Captain was sitting on the coffee table, and the files that Cole had had in his hoodie were with her. Tristan was sitting on the floor, across the room, stewing. He looked like he wanted to hurt somebody. His arms were crossed, fists white-knuckled. Lauren was standing by the door, leaning against the wall, in full uniform. Brady was sitting at the foot of the futon, looking at Cole with concern and relief. And Michael was standing behind Brady, at the corner of the trailer. There were bags under his eyes. His hair was unkempt, and he looked pale. Hands thrust into his pockets. Cole knew how it looked when somebody’s nerves were fried. Michael’s nerves were fried.

  “You’re back,” Eva said.

  “Yeah.” Cole strained to sit up, but ended up only going halfway, propping himself up on his elbows. The cold cloth rolled off his face and flopped against his chest. Eva took it, folded it up, and placed it on the coffee table beside the files.

  “Cole, lie down,” Eva said. “Come on.”

  “I’m okay,” Cole said. “Thanks.” And then he looked at Tristan. “Thank you.”

  Tristan nodded. “They better be right about you.”

  Cole had to assume that Tristan was filled in on what had happened and what needed to happen now. He scanned the room, every face. “We need to get those people out of the clinic, and then I’ll have to deal with Reynold, too.”

  “How’d that go for you just now?” Brady asked.

  Cole ignored the comment because there was nothing he could say in response. On the one hand, Brady was right, it had not gone well. But he’d got the files, and now Dr. Captain had them. Mission accomplished. All it cost was Lucy and Choch, and Cole did his best not to think about them. The spirit being’s death hurt more than he ever thought possible, but there was no time to dwell on it. “What time is it? How long have I been…?” Cole started to panic. Was it too late? Was Pam already transferred? Was Wayne dead?

  “Just an hour or so,” Eva said. “It’s not too late.”

  “Just an hour or so…” Dr. Captain leaned forward, pulled the shirt away from the wound on his shoulder. Cole noticed then, that he’d been taken out of his bloody clothing and had new clothes on his body. Brady’s, of course. The ones that he’d packed. Cole looked at the wound. It wasn’t a wound anymore. It was closed up. Fast, even for him. Discoloured, blistered. Not a scar. Not natural. Dr. Captain continued, as she felt around the wound “…this has been cauterized. I don’t understand. I saw the wounds when you came in.” She shook her head, and then said under her breath, “I saw them.”

  “Jayney.” Cole hadn’t meant to say her name out loud. It just came out. He knew it had been her. There was no other way for that to have happened to his injuries. The same thing must’ve happened to his leg. Jayne. Jayne happened.

  “What did you say?” Lauren pushed herself off the wall.

  Cole didn’t answer. He was too busy swearing at himself in his mind, for being so stupid. Still out of it, from the bullets, from the blood loss. That’s what he had to boil it down to.

  “You said my sister’s name.” Lauren was right beside him now. “Why?”

  “I…” Cole considered pretending to faint. It’d be believable. He’d been shot four times. And, while his eyes were closed, he’d figure out how to answer. But then he’d leave Lauren waiting for an answer about her sister, and Jayne would know what he’d done. He thought fast. “I was just having a dream about her. It seemed so real.” Cole rubbed his face as though he needed to wake up. A bit of acting that Eva might’ve caught, but not Lauren. “I’m sorry, Lauren. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Lauren might’ve caught it, too. Not just the face rubbing, but the whole thing. She looked at him sideways, her eyes narrowed. But she moved on, and Cole didn’t know what to make of that. “Jerry radioed in earlier. Said something bad went down at the McCabe residence.” She looked at his bullet wounds deliberately, so he could see that she was. “I’m guessing, according to what Brady said just now, you had something to do with that?”

  “I needed to get the files,” Cole said. There was no getting around it. “I didn’t want anybody to get hurt. They shot first. They would’ve killed me.”

  “Obviously,” Tristan said. “You looked like a slice of Swiss cheese.”

  Cole’s heart felt like it jumped into his throat. “Do people know I’m back?”

  Lauren shrugged. “They wouldn’t let Jerry close to the house. He just saw a bunch of bodies in the front yard. Mihko told Jerry they’d handle it, and Jerry’s a lazy ass and agreed.”

  “Or he’s doing what Reynold told him to do,” Cole said.

  “He could be,” Lauren said. “Either way, nobody knows what went down over there. Mihko’s keeping it close to the chest, as usual.”

  “I was just defending myself,” Cole said. He would’ve found another way, he would’ve tried to.

  “Bodies,” Tristan said. “You took out armed guards? Just you? Even if they shot you, Harper, that’s…” Tristan shook his head. “…I knew something was different about you, that night I saw you at the Fish.”

  “You tried to hit me,” Cole reasoned. “It was a reflex.”

  “That was one hell of a reflex.”

  “Yeah, well, those reflexes weren’t that great tonight.”

  “How did you…” Michael walked from the corner of the room, to the middle of it, behind his mother. Standing, Cole noticed, almost exactly where Ashley had been standing. But he didn’t finish his sentence, just kept looking at Cole. He’d been looking at Cole, since he woke up.

  “Michael?” Eva said.

  “When Tristan carried you inside, you looked close to death,” Michael said. “Now, you’re not.”

  “That’s what I was getting at before,” Dr. Captain said. “This isn’t medically possible.”

  “How did you survive?” Michael asked.

  Cole looked at Eva, then Brady, for some help. But they looked just as confused as he was. There was no good answer. There was no good lie.

  Because ‘I can’t tell you’ had been all used up, and wouldn’t fly, Cole chose to act amazed himself. “I don’t know. Last thing I remember was Tristan, and then I passed out. I thought I was dying.”

  “You don’t just come back like that,” Michael said. “You can’t.”

  “But he did,” Brady said defensively. “He’s right here, Mike. Maybe it was a miracle.”

  “I don’t believe in miracles,” Dr. Captain said, “but I also saw Cole an hour ago, and now, and I don’t think we’re going to get a better explanation.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound like I wanted to argue or something,” Michael said to Brady. “I just…” he looked at Cole again. “…I’m glad you’re back, Cole. If it was a miracle or not. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe it was.”

  “You survived that.” Dr. Captain reached for the files and sca
nned through them. Something, Cole figured, she must’ve already done when he was unconscious. “And you survived this.” Cole saw that she stopped at his file. She read it over and then looked up at him. “Your dad gave you some kind of regimen. I mean, all the kids got something. I don’t even know what some of these doses they gave any of you are. But Cole, you got both.”

  “What does that mean?” Cole asked. “Tell me it was worth it, getting those files.” He pictured Lucy. Was it worth her life? She’d be alive, if he hadn’t gone there tonight. Another thing he’d have to live with. “Please.”

  “It was,” Dr. Captain assured him. “It looks to me like they were developing a biological weapon. A super flu. And if it got into the wrong hands, whoever wanted to use it, they wanted to make sure they had a cure.”

  Cole felt a chill through his body. The cure was rushing through his veins. “My dad wouldn’t be a part of something like that. He wouldn’t use me like that.” His dad cheated on his mom, yes. But the love his dad had had for him, that wasn’t fake. Cole continued out loud. “He was doing those tests on me because he was trying to find a cure on his own. Maybe he knew what they were doing, maybe he’d found out, and was like, I don’t know, getting the cure before they did?”

  “And then he died,” Lauren said.

  “Right,” Cole said. “Right. He died.”

  Had he died because of Vikki? Or if Reynold was behind everything, he and Mihko, couldn’t he have killed Cole’s dad because he was secretly trying to find a cure? And it just so happened that he was able to get rid of the man who was going to run away with his girlfriend? Cole went over all of this like he’d do when prompted by Choch, but then it felt like it all fell apart. As the spirit being would’ve said: a plot hole. “But why destroy all their work like that, by killing my dad in the facility and shutting it down? It doesn’t make sense.” Maybe it really was jealousy that had led Reynold to kill his dad and nothing more.