by Peter Clines
OKAY, SAID ZZZAP, I think I’ve got it this time.
Another burst of static roared from the stereo speakers. St. George and Danielle sighed. Stealth didn’t move a muscle, but impatience radiated off her like heat.
“Barry, come on,” said St. George. “I think this has gone on long enough.”
Hang on, he said. If this was easy everybody’d be doing it. He focused on the stereo again.
The speakers popped and said, “Work this time?”
Got it, said Zzzap.
“Oh my God,” said the stereo. “I was starting to think I’d never hear my own voice again.” There were a few quick snaps and a squelch of static. “Can you all hear me okay? You can understand me?”
St. George looked at Zzzap. “Is this it?”
The brilliant figure nodded.
“So, we’re hearing a ghost on your sound system?”
“Actually, you’re talking to a ghost on his sound system,” said the speakers. “I can hear you, too.”
“If this is intended as a joke,” said Stealth, “I do not find it amusing.”
“Ask me anything,” the stereo said. “I’ll prove it’s me.”
“You being Cairax,” said St. George. He glanced at Zzzap.
“Well, me being Max Hale, but that’s probably how you think of me, yeah.” The speakers popped twice. “George, you and I met down in Venice Beach right around Christmas. There were some rich kids beating up a homeless guy for kicks. I made two of them wet their pants. You were down there doing a random patrol and you thought I was attacking the kids.”
“I’ve told you this story,” St. George said to the glowing figure. “It doesn’t prove anything when you say it’s a ghost telling it.”
I’m just translating, said Zzzap. He’s doing all the talking.
“Sure he is,” said Danielle. She glanced at Stealth. “Y’know, the armor’s way behind in maintenance, and I don’t like trusting it to Cesar and Gibbs. I should probably go.”
“Barry,” began St. George.
“Cerberus, you and I never met,” interrupted the stereo, “but you ended up replacing me on one of the task forces in the fall of 2009. You’d been in L.A. for about a month and—”
“After three years,” Stealth told Zzzap, “there are very few stories regarding the past you can tell which we do not all know. If you wish to convince us you are speaking for a ghost, you will need to tell us something you could not know.”
I’m not talking. I’m just translating what he’s saying into radio waves so you can all hear—WHAT?!? Zzzap looked at St. George, then Stealth, and then over at the corner of the room.
“What’s wrong?” asked St. George.
The wraith looked at his friend again, then his gaze settled on Stealth. You’re Karen, he said. You’re the woman from dinner.
Danielle sighed again and Stealth crossed her arms. “This is nothing you could not have deduced on your own,” said the cloaked woman. Her head shifted to St. George for a moment before she took a few steps toward the rings of the electric chair. “It might be best if you returned to human form for the time being,” she said. “We should discuss certain matters which are better resolved before you resume—”
Max says you were on top last night.
Stealth froze. So did St. George. Danielle’s eyes went wide, and her expression went back and forth from amusement to horror.
Sorry.
Stealth’s pose shifted. Her arms hung straight at her sides. “That statement refers to which of us?”
The speakers popped again. “To you, Stealth,” said the stereo. “I was wandering around, thought I’d check in on you two, and caught you guys … in the middle of things. At St. George’s place. I can give more details if you like.”
“That will not be necessary,” said the cloaked woman. St. George saw her face shift beneath her mask. If it was anyone else he’d guess she was confused. The closest Stealth got to confusion was sudden reassessment.
A few moments of silence passed.
“Wait a minute,” said Danielle. “This is real? Holy shit, Max, this is really you?”
“In the flesh. Just, y’know, without any actual flesh.”
Stealth crossed her arms. “For the moment I am willing to accept the premise you are a separate being from Zzzap. I do not yet believe you are a supernatural entity.”
“How’d you survive?” asked St. George. “I mean, I crushed your skull. Or your zombie’s skull.”
“I didn’t survive.”
“So you jumped bodies like Legion does?”
“No, George, I didn’t survive. I died. That’s where the whole ‘being a ghost’ thing comes into it.”
Stealth crossed her arms. “So you claim you have been a disembodied spirit here at the Mount since your death?”
“Well, not exactly,” said the stereo. “That’s where it gets a little tricky.”
“Go on.”
The speakers crackled for a moment. “You all know I had my Sativus medallion that let me transform into Cairax. He’s a demon from the Abyss and I was hijacking his body every time I put the medallion on. This is the kind of thing that can get you into trouble in the long run, so I had some backups installed.”
“Installed where?” asked Danielle.
“On me. That’s what a lot of my tattoos were. They were wards and guards to make sure Cairax couldn’t get me after I died. Being dead was my safe house, if you like.” The speakers crackled like a potato chip bag. “Demons can’t affect the dead unless said dead person falls into their sphere of influence—if they’re going to hell. Otherwise, they can’t touch you.”
“So your plan was going to heaven?”
“No, that’s way too big a gamble for someone like me who’s done a lot of magic,” the stereo explained. “I was just aiming to make sure my spirit got bound to Earth so I’d have time to work through a few things and rack up a few more karma points.
“What I didn’t count on was the ex-virus. The idea that my body could die and still be walking around on its own. All my preparations sort of jammed up and I got trapped in there for a year or so until George destroyed my physical body.”
“Sorry about that,” said St. George.
“Don’t be. That’s what let everything start working again.”
“I hate to agree with Stealth,” said Danielle, “but I’m still not sure I buy this whole ‘magic’ thing.”
The stereo chuckled. “You realize you’re saying that to a ghost, right?”
“A ghost according to you. I never did buy all your magic talk.”
“Okay,” said the stereo, “let’s look at it this way. If you hold out your hand, turn your wrist, and stomp your foot down, does it transport you across the country?”
Only if you’re wearing ruby slippers, said Zzzap.
“Don’t interrupt,” said the stereo. “It’s important they all believe this.”
“No, of course not,” said Danielle.
“But if you’re sitting in a car it works, right?”
“Well … yeah. But that’s different.”
“Not at all. It’s the same thing. We’re agreeing that if you make the right gestures in the right place it’s possible to get a result you can’t get by doing the same thing in other places or under different conditions. And once you’ve got the car moving you can change the location those gestures work at so you can do it again.”
“And you claim this is how magic works.” It wasn’t so much a question from Stealth as a challenge.
“In a really simple way, yeah,” said the stereo. “I mean, there’s a lot more to why a car works than just pushing down on the gas. There’s more to magic, too, but it comes down to knowing the right gestures and places and conditions.”
“So what happens now?” asked St. George. “Do we need to do some ritual or exorcism or something to let you move on?”
“Not exactly,” said the stereo. “I’ve been looking for a new body. I can move into one
that’s more or less whole and take control of it, that’s not a problem. After a few hours my own animus gets absorbed into the cells and I’d be alive again. The catch has been where I do it.”
“Explain,” said Stealth.
“Well, it wouldn’t do me much good to resurrect outside, would it? The minute the body came back to life I’d get attacked by a dozen or so exes.”
“And there aren’t any bodies inside the Mount because we blow their brains out the minute they die,” said St. George with a nod.
“Right,” said the stereo. “I tried it outside a couple times anyway. I figured I’d signal whoever was at the gate to let me in, but all the bodies outside are pretty far gone. They’re stiff and most of their vocal cords are raw and useless. Every time I got up to the gates I’d get shot or piked before I could do anything. I even tried jumping into a dead actor once, a guy I found wandering around out by Raleigh. The one from that space worm-zombie movie, irony of ironies. I figured celebrity status might buy me a few more minutes. Plus it was when the Krypton guys were first showing up, so I was hoping people might be hesitant to start firing guns. We all know how that turned out.”
St. George nodded. He glanced at Zzzap.
“This is why you wish us to let Hiram Jarvis reanimate if he dies,” said Stealth. “You wish to use his body and resurrect yourself.”
The speakers were quiet for a moment. “Yeah, that’s basically it,” said the stereo.
“I think maybe we should get Father Andy in on this,” said St. George. “This whole discussion is getting into a weird area.”
“Feel free,” said the speakers. “Nothing against Barry, but I’m feeling very talkative.”
“And then?” Stealth asked.
“Then what?”
“Why return yourself to life only to be mortal and face death again? What do you gain from it?”
“Well, I’m not dead, for starters.”
“Not yet. All of us will face an end, though. Will you then attempt to cheat death again?”
“Believe me, Stealth,” the stereo said, “in the end all of us try to cheat death. I was just better prepared to do it than most folks.”
SINCE THEY’D MOVED all the Mount’s medical facilities to Hollywood Community, there was plenty of room for Dr. Connolly to have an actual office. There still wasn’t enough of a medical staff for her to be far away from the patients, though, even with Eddie Franklin and some of the others. And being by herself in the mostly empty hospital gave her the creeps at night. Instead, she set up camp at the nurse’s station of whatever floor had the most patients. It was where St. George found her.
“Morning, doctor.”
“Good morning,” she said. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“I’m visiting some of your patients.”
She nodded. “Eddie’s finishing up some tests with the girl, Madelyn. I should have complete results for you soon.”
“What do you think so far?”
“About her?” Connolly shook her head and swept back a lock of crimson hair threaded with silver. “I can tell you I might have been wrong earlier. I don’t think she’s an ex.”
“What?”
“I don’t think she’s an ex. She’s just … dead.”
“But she has to be,” said St. George. “She’s walking around and she—”
The doctor shook her head. “I’ve run her blood work twice. I can’t find the ex-virus in her. Not a trace of it anywhere. Not a trace of anything, in fact. No secondary infections, no old scars, nothing. My first impression is she’s in incredible health.”
“Aside from being dead.”
“Aside from that, yes. She just seems like a normal seventeen-year-old girl in so many ways. Did you know she sleeps?”
“What?”
The doctor nodded. “Twice now. She got tired and fell asleep the night you brought her in. When she woke up later I had to explain where she was and who I was. Last night she stretched out on the bed, wrapped her arms around her pillow to cry for a few minutes, and she was out cold. No pun intended. And when she woke up a few hours ago she didn’t know who I was again. Or where she was.” Connolly paused. “Or that her parents were dead.”
St. George sighed. “Yeah, she said she had some memory problems.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” said the doctor. “Captain Freedom sat with her and went over the whole thing again. I think it might’ve been harder on him than her, watching her go through it all again.”
“Crap.”
“It’s not too surprising, to be honest.” Connolly gestured at a chart on the counter. “I hooked her up to an EEG the first night before she fell asleep. Even exes give off basic readings. There’s still electrical activity in their brains, it’s just very, very low. Below comatose levels.”
“And Madelyn?”
“Her readings aren’t that different from your standard ex-human. I’m sure a specialist could spot some little nuances, but nothing stood out for me. Stealth might want to take a look.”
“Okay.”
The doctor held up a finger. “Then she fell asleep. Her EEG went to a complete flatline.”
“Flatline meaning …?”
“Meaning corpse. I got nothing from her. Absolutely nothing. A potato would give me more responses. It was more like she died—really died—than fell asleep.”
“Is that what messes up her memories?”
“Maybe.” Another shrug. “I don’t know how she even has thoughts, let alone memories. Her brain completely shuts off when she sleeps. Her blood isn’t circulating. Preliminary results from her tissue samples indicate her muscles aren’t manufacturing lactic acid. Every test I know how to do says she’s just … dead. I have no idea how she’s thinking or talking or moving around.” She shrugged. “Then again, I have no idea how you can fly. I’ve gotten used to things I can’t explain.”
“Great.”
“One more thing,” said Connolly. “She’s been in a mild degree of pain because of lividity. Most of her blood’s all pooled up in her feet and legs. I’d like to sever the arteries in her ankles and drain it off. It should take care of her pain issues and give me more material for further tests.”
St. George’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to drain off her blood?”
“It’s the easiest solution I can think of.”
“Won’t that …” He stopped himself.
Connolly smirked. “She’s already dead. It shouldn’t have any effect at all.”
He frowned. “What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s dead, George. They did cover it in medical school.”
He drummed his fingers on the counter. “How’s Jarvis?”
The shift threw her for a moment, and then her face dropped. “Not good,” she said. “He’s on antibiotics right now, but there’s at least three symptoms they’re not affecting at all. I’m still waiting on blood work to figure out how many infections he’s got so I can start targeting them better.”
“How long will that take?”
She sighed. “Longer than he’s got.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You know how this works. There’s just nothing else I can do.”
“How long’s he got?”
“A day at the most. I’m amazed he lasted this long.” She looked at her watch. “It’s been almost forty-two hours since he was bitten. That’s practically a record.”
“Is he awake?”
Connolly nodded.
Jarvis looked dead. A web of wires and tubes ran like mechanical ivy from his chest and arms to the machines around him. His face was dry and pale enough that in places it blurred with the white and silver speckled in his beard and scalp. It made his hair look thin. Where he wasn’t pale his neck and arms had patches of dark pink rash spotted with red. Something yellow clotted in the corners of his eyes. St. George could see it on the older man’s mouth, too, even through the oxygen mask. The inside of the mask was flecked with blood.
St. Geo
rge took in a breath. “How you doing, Jarvis?”
His eyes fluttered open and he lifted his thumb. “Peachy-keen, boss,” he coughed. It was a wet sound that rattled in his chest and throat. “Thought the end of the world couldn’t get any better. Then y’all went and got me this comfy bed. And a cute nurse.”
“Is there anything I can get for you? Something from your place?”
His head shifted side to side on the pillow.
St. George looked down at the man in the bed. “I’m sorry.”
“Weren’t your fault, boss. Don’t worry about it.”
“I should’ve been there.”
“You were there,” he wheezed. “Just too much going on. It happens.” He reached out and grabbed the hero’s hand.
“It shouldn’t.”
“It does,” said the older man. “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”
The hero took in another breath. “Look,” he said, “Dr. Connolly … she’s done all she can.”
Jarvis closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. He let out a long, rasping cough that left more spots on the inside of his oxygen mask. “I figured as much. Seen too many bites to think mine’d be special. How long I got?”
St. George gave the man’s hand a gentle squeeze. He stuck his free hand in his pocket. A streamer of smoke curled up out of his nose.
Jarvis let out a tired sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured.”
A moment passed. The machines linked to Jarvis beeped and blinked in a way St. George thought was too cheerful.
“I’ve got something to ask you,” he said. “A favor.”
Jarvis smiled and coughed again. “Not much I can do right now, boss.”
“I know. It’s what you can do after.”
The salt-and-pepper man’s face lost its smile. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
St. George drummed his fingers against his thigh. “We need a body,” he said. “A fresh one.”
Jarvis waved his hand at his leg. “This one’s not too fresh,” he said. “And it’s going to be walking around soon.”
“I know. That’s part of what we need.”
Jarvis coughed and his eyes lost focus for a moment above the oxygen mask. “We said no one comes back,” he wheezed.
