“Ping told the Proctors about Buddy, didn’t he?” Mara turned to look at them.
“Yes, Ping told us your friend was suffering from this shedding sickness. Yes,” Denton said.
“Where is Buddy?” Diana asked.
“He’s up in my bed.”
“How did you . . . No, don’t tell me.” She turned and left the room, stomping up the stairs without another word.
Mara turned to the Proctors. “I’m sorry for involving you in this little family thing. You guys got here much sooner than I anticipated, and I didn’t have an opportunity to break the news to my mother.”
“We understand,” Melanie said with a smile. “We have mothers too.”
She caught Denton’s eye. “I know you usually touch people when you heal them. Does that make you susceptible to whatever ailment they have if it is infectious?”
“Not under normal circumstances, but this black mist that they are talking about on television, it’s unlike any transmission mechanism where I come from. I have no way of knowing if my natural defenses are up to staving it off, but I’m willing to give it a try.”
Diana walked back down the stairs and into the living room, her face pale and drawn. “Oh, my goodness, that poor boy. This thing looks ten times worse in person.”
“I can’t ask you to take that kind of risk, even for Buddy,” Mara said.
“I take a risk whenever I do this. Even in my own world, there were risks. It’s a part of who we are,” Denton said.
“This ability you pass on to people, you said you don’t normally tell people about it, right?”
“That’s correct. I don’t want to burden them with some sense of obligation at a time when they are at their weakest.”
“It’s important to me that we not tell Buddy. I don’t think he could handle it, and I’m afraid a lot of people might abuse him if it got out.”
“I think we can all agree to keep it to ourselves.”
“There are no other side effects to this?”
“None whatsoever. If it works, he’ll feel healthy again, happy to be a contributing member of the community again.”
“Okay. Do you want to take a look at him?” Mara pointed the way to the staircase.
Melanie and Denton followed Mara up the staircase.
Diana tapped Sam’s shoulder as he moved to follow them. “I think it might be a good idea if we waited down here.”
Locking eyes with his mother, he said, “Mara might need us. We should be there.”
“Only if we stay in the hall. I don’t want to crowd Denton and Buddy.”
Sam nodded.
Upstairs, Mara entered her room and walked to the end of the queen-size poster bed. Melanie followed and stood beside her while Denton approached from the left side, now facing the door to the room. He sat on the edge of the mattress and stared down into Buddy’s gray marbled face. Tiny fissures spidered across his cheeks, glistening black and wet in the muted light of the room.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Mara asked. Melanie patted her arm.
Sam and Diana approached, stood in the doorway but did not enter.
Denton nodded and leaned over, placing his palms on Buddy’s shoulders and closed his eyes.
In the doorway, Sam lifted his arm and pointed the back of his smartphone toward the bed. Diana tried to pull down his arm, but Sam stepped sideways out of her reach. She glared at him, but he was looking too intently at the tiny screen to acknowledge her ire. Not wanting to make a scene, Diana relented and turned her attention back to the bed.
Denton’s head hung loosely over Buddy’s torso, suspended by the two arms pressing down on his shoulders. Nothing appeared to be happening, but Sam gasped. Melanie turned to lift a finger to her lips.
On the tiny screen, Sam could see wisps of black mist streaming out of every opening in Buddy’s head: his mouth, his nose and his ears. The vapor coiled in midair between Buddy’s and Denton’s faces for a moment and darted toward the healer. Sam’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to voice a warning, but the streaming blackness appeared to hit an unseen barrier inches from Denton’s cheek, breaking up into billowing clouds that roiled back in the direction from which it had come.
To confirm what he was seeing, Sam’s eyes flitted up, looking directly at the bed, but he could see no mist, no billowing fog rolling against the invisible barrier around Denton’s head. Glancing back at the screen, Sam confirmed that the blinking Record icon still flashed.
Then a hand swept across the screen, a transparent hand extending into the frame from the direction where Mara stood.
Sam pivoted, pointing the lens in the back of the device toward his sister. Standing next to her was Buddy, a ghostly transparent Buddy with tears running down his cheeks, clearly in a panic, pleading and waving his arms, trying to get Mara’s attention. Again Sam gasped, and his mother grabbed his shoulder. He wiggled away from her grasp, kept the camera on his sister and the apparition that continued to beg silently next to her. Mara turned around, pressed her lips into a thin line and widened her eyes at him in warning.
On the bed, the grayness of Buddy’s skin faded into a more natural white pallor and the blackened cracks in this skin narrowed and closed up somewhat. Denton clenched his jaws and pressed his eyes closed as beads of sweat erupted on his forehead. One droplet slid down his cheek. His entire frame trembled.
Melanie looked concerned, headed toward her husband at the far side of the bed and stopped midstep as Buddy’s eyes snapped open, revealing orbs of solid black onyx, the whites, pupils and irises consumed by inky, lipid night. Tears the color of blood brimmed above the lower lids. His cracked lips trembled, then drily turned up at the corners. The head tilted slightly as if looking askance at Mara, and the baritone voice lisped almost imperceptibly, “I survive.”
“Buddy?” Mara asked, her voice trembling.
He slowly swayed his head against the pillow.
“I am many now. I am everyone, everywhere.” His blackened eyes shone brightly, and he sighed, seemingly gratified.
“Who are you?”
“Soon I will be you. I will be all of you.” His voice trailed off, and Buddy’s eyelids closed.
Melanie reached for her husband and tried to pull him away, but he would not budge as if his hands were fused to Buddy’s shoulders. She reached down to pry his hands open, grazing Buddy’s chest with her fingers. She fell back with a jolt, staggering away from the bed and striking the bedroom wall. Mara ran to her as she was about to slide to the floor, propping her up by the elbow until she could get her balance.
“What happened?” Mara asked.
Melanie looked across the room blankly at her husband and Buddy. “Emptiness. That poor boy is gone. There is no soul there, only corruption and decay.”
“What are you saying? He’s sick, but clearly he’s not dead.”
“I’m telling you, the essence of who that boy was is gone. Call it a soul or call it a spirit or whatever you want. It is not there,” she said. She pulled away from Mara and returned to her husband’s side. “Denton, I want you to stop.” She was about to once again intervene physically when her husband lifted his hands. He slumped over with his head resting on his knees as he sat on the side of the bed.
Mara stepped closer. “Mr. Proctor? Are you okay?”
He looked up and nodded. “I’m okay, but I think your friend is in trouble. It appears I’ve bought him a little time, but I get the sense that, while he is in the grip of this thing, he will continue to deteriorate.”
Melanie helped her husband stand and guided him to the doorway. “His body cannot sustain itself without a soul.”
“What are you talking about?” Mara asked. “How can he not have a soul if he is still alive? That makes no sense at all. Where did Buddy’s soul go?”
Sam lowered his cell phone to let the Proctors exit the room and said, “He’s standing right next to you, sis.”
Mara looked out of the corner of her eye to the spa
ce next to her. “What?”
“Buddy. He’s standing right there,” Sam said.
CHAPTER 38
When Mara and Sam entered the living room, Melanie and Denton Proctor were pulling on their coats, clearly intent on leaving immediately. As Diana turned to open the front door, someone on the other side knocked on it. She opened the door to see Ping standing on the front porch and said, “Mr. Ping, what a surprise that my daughter failed to mention that you would be stopping by.”
“I apologize if this is a bad time. Perhaps I should have called first,” Ping said sheepishly.
“Don’t be silly. You’re always welcome. The Proctors were just leaving,” she said, conducting a little traffic management by waving the couple out, stepping onto the porch with them and holding the door for Ping to go inside. He nodded to the departing guests and entered the house.
“Are the two of you okay to drive? I wish you would take a few minutes to catch your breath before taking off,” Diana said.
“We’ll be fine. I want to get Denton home so he can rest. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, to check in on you, the kids and Buddy.”
“I appreciate the risk the two of you took for him. It was incredibly brave and risky.”
They nodded and walked into the night toward their car.
Inside the house, Sam was showing Ping the recording he made of the events in the bedroom, pointing and narrating enthusiastically as it played. Mara sat slumped in an armchair, her eyes scanning the room as if she were trying to find something elusive.
Diana walked up to stand behind Sam and looked over his shoulder.
“And you couldn’t see any of this in the room?” Ping said.
Diana shook her head. “None of it was visible to the naked eye. The only indication anything was going on at all is Buddy’s condition and that awful voice coming out of him.”
“Was it a deep voice with a lisp?” Ping asked.
“Yes. How did you know?” Diana asked.
“We heard it come from one of the patients at the hospital today, didn’t we, Mara?”
Diana tensed up and glared at Mara.
“Way to rat me out to my mom, Ping,” Mara said. She held her hand up to her mother. “Yes, I went to the hospital with Ping and Bohannon, the detective guy from the plane crash. He wanted us to take a look at the patient they think was the first exposed to this shedding thing.”
“I do not understand why you insist on exposing yourself to these situations, and I certainly don’t understand why you persist in lying to me about it.”
“I haven’t actually lied per se. I’ve just not had time to bring you up to speed. Anyway you two adult-types keep telling me that I have to embrace my metaphysical destiny. Well, it looks like that happens to include vaporous diseases from other dimensions. What would you have me do? Abandon my friend? Not help the authorities figure out what is going on? What? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
“Look, here’s the part with Buddy’s ghost,” Sam said, pushing the phone in front of Mara.
“That is not his ghost. He’s not dead.” Mara said, pushing away the phone.
Diana pushed her hair over her ear and appeared to ratchet down her anger a bit. “I don’t know what to tell you. I think you could do a better job keeping me in the loop, especially when you are about to risk your life or your brother’s.”
“Okay, I promise. Whenever I risk our lives, I’ll give you a heads-up.”
“I would prefer you not do it at all.”
“Believe me, I would prefer it as well.”
“I would prefer her to not risk my life at all,” Sam said.
Diana pointed to the couch. “Ping, have a seat. I’ll go throw together some soup and sandwiches.” She went to the kitchen.
Mara looked across the room tiredly and asked, “What do you think is going on, Ping?”
“I rewatched the bank video, and I talked to Bohannon after you left. That voice you heard come out of the security guard at the hospital, deep and lispy? It’s Juaquin Prado’s voice. He has a mild speech impediment and that distinctive baritone that seems so incongruous with it. Bohannon played that recording of the little girl at the hospital for some of Prado’s coworkers, and each of them swore it was him.”
“The disease is talking to us with this dermatologist’s voice?”
“I don’t think so. I think it may be Prado himself.”
“We watched him get shot and turn to ashes on that video. How could it be Prado?”
“I’m not sure. I think he may be able to transport himself into the bodies of other people through that black mist somehow.”
“But that mist is infecting dozens if not hundreds of people. Is he jumping from person to person?”
“It doesn’t appear so. When we heard the security guard speak in the hospital, when he said ‘I am Legion,’ those words came out of every single person afflicted with the shedding at the exact same moment. That scream we heard from the lady in the hospital was the mother of the little girl we saw on the phone video. Prado’s voice coming from her daughter’s decomposing body caused her to have a breakdown. She heard the ‘I am Legion’ line come from her daughter at the exact same time we heard it from the guard.”
“What are you saying? What does that mean?”
“I think somehow Prado’s essence, his spirit if you will, has gone viral. It is spreading from person to person. He is not jumping from person to person. He is possessing all of them simultaneously.”
“That’s insane. Even if that were possible, what would be the point in that?”
“I don’t know. It’s only a theory, but, if I’m right, those words that Buddy said a few minutes ago . . .” Ping pointed to Sam’s phone. “ . . . would have come out of every person who has been exposed to Prado’s mist, to this shedding disease.”
“If that’s true, it should not be too hard to find out. Sam, turn on the television,” Mara said.
He put down his phone, picked up the remote and pointed it at the screen nestled in the bureau. The screen ignited midreport, with a video centered on an old woman’s haggard gray face marked not just by wrinkles but by black crags that ran the length of her skull. At the bottom of the screen, scrolling text read: Doctors cannot explain strange voice coming from victims suffering from the condition known as The Shedding.
The old lady’s eyelids slid open, exposing oily black eyes, and she said in the recognizable baritone, “Soon I will be you. I will be all of you.”
The screen switched to a little boy clearly suffering from the shedding, and, after exposing his blackened eyes, he too said, “I am many now. I am everyone, everywhere.”
“Cut it off, please,” Mara said.
Sam complied and turned to Ping. “How is he forcing their ghosts out of their bodies?”
“They are not ghosts. These people are still alive. Isn’t that true, Ping?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure what kind of dynamics are at play here. It could be possible that these transparent images are the consciousness of the people Prado has possessed. Does that mean they are alive or dead? I cannot answer that.”
Sam picked up his phone and scanned the room with its camera lens. He stopped when it pointed at Mara. “Buddy’s still here. He’s lying on the floor at your feet, curled up in a fetal position. It looks like he is crying.”
“Put that thing down. You’re making this harder,” Mara said. She glanced down at the floor and pulled her feet closer to her chair.
“Maybe we should try to communicate with him,” Sam said. “If nothing else, you could make him feel better and let him know we are trying to help.”
“That is ridiculous,” Mara said, about to expand her thought, but stopped when Ping raised a hand.
“Maybe he’s right. If we could talk to Buddy, maybe he could give us some insight into what happened to him. Any information we could glean from him might help.”
“How are we supposed to talk to somebody’s consciousness outside of their
body? We can’t see or hear him. It appears we can pick them up on video, but there doesn’t seem to be any audio.”
“You’re the one who does stuff with pixels. Put some pixels on him and make him visible,” Sam said.
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” Mara said, shaking her head.
“Hold on, the boy might be onto something. It’s not unthinkable that you could add some substance to the spirit, as it were. It’s another take on your abilities to alter reality. If you can make a radio send and receive a cell phone call, you should be able to attach a few pixels to an ephemeral being.”
“You are both nuts.”
“Try to open your mind to the possibilities, Mara. Sam comes from a place where using metaphysics to alter reality is not unheard of. His imagination isn’t limited to this world of perception the way yours has been all your life. You should give him more credence in matters like this. That’s where he comes up with this stuff.”
“Yeah, give me some credence, sis. Let’s put some pixels on Buddy and chat him up. It’ll be like having a metaphysical séance.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to begin something like that,” she said.
Diana walked in with a plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of tea. “Begin what?”
Sam grinned. “We’re going to have a séance, Mom.”
CHAPTER 39
Ping and Sam lifted the ends of the couch and moved it back a couple feet, fully exposing the ornate circular rug that lay on the worn wood floor in front of the stone hearth. Having cleared the dishes after the quick meal they’d just finished, Diana returned from the kitchen, meeting Mara at the foot of the stairs. She had gone upstairs to check on Buddy, who appeared slightly healthier after the session with Denton Proctor and seemed to be sleeping soundly. Mara stopped at the large entryway to the living room and leaned against its frame, staring across the room at the night through the large window. She wondered what she was getting herself into.
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