I try to spin around to hold onto anything I can find. I try to twist my body, but it's useless. I'm moving way too fast to even attempt it again. The only thing I am able to do is spin my head around to see Gasp flying right behind me. Sure, he's not sliding helplessly like me, but at least he's along for the ride.
"I told you to be careful," he says as he lets out the biggest laugh I've heard from him yet.
"What the hell, Gasp?!"
"Oh," he says as we continue to slide through the tube, "don't worry. We're almost there."
"Almost where?"
"To Room 7, Jimmy."
"And is this how we get to every room in Ghost Town, Gasp?"
"No," he says and laughs again. "Just this one."
When we finally stop sliding and I land flat on my butt in front of yet another red slab of a door with the number 7 in brass across it, I'm not only confused, but I'm also a little bit pissed off that we just went for that entire ride and I'm still not seeing David and Trex yet!
"Is this some kind of sick joke?"
"Just open the door, Jimmy." Gasp smiled and waved his hand toward the door again, motioning for me to turn the knob and push it open. "No need to be as careful this time." Then the bastard has the gall to throw a wink at me, as if the last stunt was some hilarious joke the Gods of Ghost Town had paid me.
"If you say so," I tell Gasp and reach for the shiny knob, grab it tightly, and twist until Room 7 pops open and I'm staring into a nearly empty room. The only thing keeping it from being completely empty is the sight of David and Trex in the corner.
"Jimmy!" David yells as he jumps up and looks towards the door. Trex barks loudly and bolts toward me. His snout nose-dives into the side of my leg as he begs me for a petting. "I wasn't sure we'd ever see you again!"
The fact that David is so excited to see me, and the fact that he's actually emoting is pretty rare. In fact, it's something I've seen very little of since I've known David. He's also been the quiet and contemplative one, sitting in the corner and waiting for his turn to strike. But, this time, he's absolutely thrilled to see me and he's not afraid to show it. It's pretty nice.
"You're telling me," I say and stop petting Trex just long enough to grab David by the shoulders and pull him in for a hug. The embrace nearly shocks the pants off my friend and it's clear to me that he hasn't been hugged in a long time. That's ok - neither have I.
When David is done hugging me back he starts to pull away and it's at that very moment that he jerks fast and hard away from me, grabbing Trex's leash and pulling my buddy along with him back into the corner of Room 7.
"What's going on?" I ask and follow David into the corner, turning back toward the door of the room. "What is it?"
"Th...Th...That!" David says and points toward the door.
Floating, directly in front of the open red door to Room 7, is my new buddy Gasp. He's obviously floating too. It's not like he's even trying to hide it, or make himself appear more "normal" to ease David into this. He's just floating there like it's an everyday thing that people should automatically be accustomed to.
"Oh," I say to David and move slowly toward Gasp. "That."
I pull up next to Gasp and put my arm around him, though it's tough to say exactly where "around him" really is, as my arm slides right in and through his see-through body at this point.
"This is Gasp. He's a ghost and he's nothing to be afraid of."
Gasp shakes his head in agreement with everything I've said so far and tosses David a sheepish little wave and smile. It's actually kind of charming the way he does it.
"He's nothing to be afraid of?!"
"Yeah," I tell David. "I mean, I know why you are. I was at first too, but now it's cool. He's a good guy. He's our guide."
"Our guide to what?" David asks, skeptical as ever of this place he knows nothing about.
"Ghost Town," I say. "We're in a place called Ghost Town."
"Ghost Town?"
"Ghost Town," I tell him again and make my way across the empty room toward David and Trex. I sit down on the cold, concrete floor next to Trex and start to scratch behind his ears. Trex loves this and his little hind legs start pumping a mile a minute until you can actually hear his paws on the cement. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick tick.
"Do you remember the tree we found, David?" I look up toward him and motion with my eyes for him to think back to the clearing in the woods. "The one with the GT carved into it?"
"Yeah..."
"That's how we got here. Don't ask me how we got here other than that. I have no idea. Apparently, Gasp here has some real answers, but he's yet to clue me in on many of them."
"What's he waiting for?"
"Good question," I say and we both slowly turn our heads toward Gasp who is trying to disappear into the walls of Room 7. "Maybe we should ask him."
"Who?" asks Gasp, as if he doesn't already know. "Me?"
"Yeah," we both say loudly and simultaneously. "You."
"Right," says Gasp and floats toward us, pulling up to a spot right in front of the three of us and settling in for what we think will be some long explanation of why we're here, what we're doing, and where we're going.
I've been hoping, all along, that Gasp is our Wizard behind the curtain - our man behind the scenes that has all the answers. I'm still hoping for that.
"Jimmy, here, is right. You're in Ghost Town. My name is Gasp. And, you're meant to be here."
"Meant to?" David asks quickly. "What do you mean, meant to?"
"I mean, David, that you're here for a reason. You're here with a purpose. And you're here because we want you here."
"But why?" we both ask at the very same time, our tones getting just slightly higher-pitched the more anxious (and closer) we are to finding out just what the hell is going on. "What reason could you possibly have for wanting us here in Ghost Town?"
"Well," says Gasp as he looks down at the floor. "It's like this, you see..."
This is the first time I've seen Gasp appear to be searching for something. Up until this point he's had all the answers and seemed to know everything before it happened. He even seemed to know everything I was thinking before I even thought it. But now, it really looked to me like Gasp was struggling with whatever it was he trying to say.
"We..."
"You what?"
"We..."
"Gasp!" I shouted, fed up with all the beating around the bush and wondering and confusion and just about everything else going on in Ghost Town right now. "You told me that you're our guide. That means you're supposed to guide us. Not the other way around. You're supposed to tell us what to do!"
I'm not sure where all this came from, but I feel like I've got this whole new assertiveness ever since I arrived in Ghost Town. It's like part of me was missing before we got here and now I've got it all back. I can channel it and pull it right out. It's great, actually.
"We need your help," Gasp finally said. "We've needed it for weeks now and when you finally came crashing into my room through the portal you opened with that tree, it was like all our prayers had been answered."
Whoa, I thought. They needed MY help? All this time I thought I was here by some weird coincidence and it turns out Gasp and his people need ME?!
"You," I said, "need me?"
"That's right," said Gasp as he shook his head and looked down at me, David, and Trex. "We need you."
"And if we help you with whatever it is you need our help with," I say as I continue to scratch Trex behind his big floppy dog ears, "you'll show us how to get home?"
"Of course," Gasp said. "That's been the plan all along."
"There's been a plan?" I asked, confused again.
"Jimmy," said Gasp as he turned his back to us and floated back toward the door to Room 7. He stopped in front of the door and waved his arm in front until it slammed closed, the big red slab like a huge monolith in front of us. "There's always been a plan."
Gasp spun around and faced us again. He started to mater
ialize and become more solid right in front of our eyes and, in a matter of seconds, he was standing in front of us just as if he were another boy from school.
David, Trex, and I all looked at each other as if we'd just seen a ghost. A ghost that turned into a human. And, surprisingly, that's exactly what we saw. Or at least that's certainly what it looked like.
"Now," he said glaring right across the room at us and breaking just the slightest smile. "Do you want to know why, exactly, we need your help?"
Chapter Twenty
"Ghost Town," Gasp began, "used to be a pretty quiet place. It was all ghosts milling around, minding their own business, and never really bothering anyone. We all kept to ourselves and did our own thing."
"Sounds just like Boredsylvania," I say and elbow David in the ribs to indicate that he's supposed to get my joke about our boring little town. He chuckles, but barely.
"Nevermind," I say and shut up so Gasp can continue on with his story. "Inside joke."
"Well, Jimmy, as I was saying. Ghost Town used to be a little happy-go-lucky place for ghosts to wander around and live their afterlives. And it really was, sir. It was a great place to hang out for a while after you passed on from your world."
"That is," Gasp said, "until the last few weeks."
"What--"
"I'll tell you, Jimmy, if you promise to stop interrupting." Gasp winked at us and we made the motion of zipping our lips, locking them up, and throwing away the key.
"So, the past few weeks... Well, let me back up for a moment."
Gasp took a deep breath and seemed to gather himself. It was almost as if he was pulling all the strings to the story together inside of his head, like you might tighten a pair of shoes when you pull hard on the laces.
"Here in the center of Ghost Town, we have a building that houses all the Matters of Ghost Town. The Consulate. The Elders. The Government. Everything you might need to run a successful town goes through this central building. I believe, in your world, you might call it a Municipal Building. Here we just call it Centralia."
"So, in Centralia, there's a central mailbox. All the mail that should go to the Town Elders goes directly into this mailbox so we can all see it. If one Elder gets the mail first, we all agree to put it back until all the other Elders have had a chance to read it. In certain situations, we even have to call Meetings of Central Importance to discuss things of, well, great importance. Like, things we really need to address now."
Sheesh.
"Gasp," I said before he could continue with his lengthy tale, "I hate to break it to you, but this is starting to become the longest story in the history of stories. You're starting to put me to sleep, buddy."
"Yeah," said David, who'd been quiet and just petting Trex the entire time Gasp had been talking. "Get on with it!"
To be honest, I was pretty shocked to hear David say anything that might require an exclamation point at the end of his sentence.
"Oh," said Gasp, "I'm so very sorry, Gentlemen. I didn't mean to bore you two. I mean, with so many things you guys need to get done here in Ghost Town. Right? Oh, no. That's right. You have no idea what you're supposed to be doing here in Ghost Town yet. That's completely right. I totally forgot. I'm your guide."
David and I look at each other, nod, and decide that Gasp is right. We know we should probably keep our mouths shut and let him tell us his story, long and boring or not.
"Go ahead, Gasp."
"Well, thank you so much, Jimmy!"
I know he's being sarcastic, but I shake my head anyway to let him know that I understand I was being an idiot.
"Let me try to get to make this story a little shorter by getting straight to the point." Gasp hunched down a little and stared straight into my eyes. David peered on and Trex even perked up his ears a bit, almost as if he understood what Gasp was saying.
"Over the past seven weeks, Jimmy, we've had seven Meetings of Central Importance."
"Wow," I say. "Really? Is that not normal?"
"Let's put it this way," Gasp says. "In the previous two years before the past seven weeks, we had a total of one Meeting of Central Importance."
David and I look at each other and Gasp takes a deep breath before reiterating his point.
"One."
"I can see how crazy that must be for you guys here in Ghost Town. That's a lot of meetings and whatever has been happening must be really important, but I have to wonder just what this all has to do with me?"
"I'm getting there, Jimmy. I promise you. You're here to help us, and you will soon understand just how it is that we need your assistance."
I can only imagine what Gasp might be talking about. It's pretty obvious to me, David, and probably even Trex at this point, that something funky is going on in Ghost Town, but none of us have any clue what this has to do with us.
Does Gasp want us to attend one of their Meetings of Central Importance? Are they making us Town Elders? Are we going to have to preside over one of their votes? Fight a war? Fly a plane? Bust some ghosts? Who knows.
"For the past seven weeks, Jimmy, we've received one letter per week - the exact same letter each time, in fact - and every single time we've gotten this letter, we've had to gather all the Town Elders for a Meeting of Central Importance."
Gasp shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest. He was clearly anxious about the entire situation, and this was the first time it's shown since we've been in Ghost Town.
"This is very serious business," Gasp said. "We've lived a very happy life here in Ghost Town and we don't intend for that to change. But these letters hold within them a threat like we've never had here before. I mean, we've had very few threats as it is, but it took us seven weeks to even understand how we could combat the threats in these letters."
"Why did it take you so long if you've had meetings after each and every one?" I asked.
"It took us so long, Jimmy, because we didn't understand the letters. We didn't have any idea what to do when the first one arrived and, when they started to arrive every single week, we really had no idea what to do."
"But I still don't understand," I said quickly and looked around to Gasp, David, and Trex. "If you and the rest of the Elders all sat down to discuss these letters, how could no one figure out what was going on in them?"
"We didn't understand because we didn't know who to turn to."
"What do you mean? There's no one here in Ghost Town who could come to your rescue?"
"There is now," Gasp said. "There has been since you and your friends arrived."
Now I was confused. Why me? Why David and Trex? And how the hell were we going to help a bunch of ghosts?
"But why us?" I asked. "Why do you need me?"
Gasp stared me straight in the eye and bent down to get even closer to my face, just to make sure I understood what he was about to tell me.
"Every single letter," Gasp said, "was addressed to Jimmy Stone."
My mouth fell open and, if I had been standing at the time, I'm sure I would have fallen to my knees.
"Now, Jimmy, do you understand why it's your help we need?"
Chapter Twenty One
Responsibility is never something I ever needed to handle. At least not until we found out that my almost-sister wouldn't be living with us, and then my mother left. When those two things happened, everything changed. Everything.
Not only did I end up getting Trex, and then having to take care of basically everything that Trex needed, but I also started to get a lot more responsibility at home.
Dad wasn't dad anymore after Mom left and everything kind of went to shit. Yeah, I said shit. Deal with it.
Before everything happened, Mom used to make my lunch for school. Every single night, she'd come into my room and ask what I wanted to eat for lunch the next day.
"How about a bologna sandwich tomorrow, Jimmy?" she'd say and smile at me. "I was thinking you haven't had bologna in a few weeks so you might be in the mood for some."
"Sounds g
reat, Mom! Thanks!"
"You got it, Jimmy. Bologna on white bread with just a little bit of mayo."
"That's how I like it!"
"I know it is, Jimmy." Then she'd cross the room and kiss me on the forehead before leaving. I remember thinking that I was getting a little too old for those kisses right before everything happened with Charlotte. I was thinking about maybe talking to her about not kissing me anymore. It was just starting to feel a little weird and I didn't think any of the other boys in school had their mom kissing them on the foreheads so much.
"You know your mom always knows how you like your sandwiches." She'd smile again and ask me if I wanted the door closed.
"Just leave it a little cracked," I'd always say. I liked to hear the sounds of the house. I liked to hear her and Dad chatting in the kitchen while she made my lunch.
What I wouldn't give now for another one of those forehead kisses. What I wouldn't give for a bologna sandwich made by my mother. And what I wouldn't give to hear the sounds of my mom and dad chatting in the kitchen.
Every once in a while I'd open up my brown paper bag, filled with the lunch my mom had prepared the night before, and inside would be a little piece of paper. Yes, my mom would leave me notes in my lunches. Not everyday, but every few weeks or so, I'd open that bag and try to hide the little piece of paper while I unfolded it in my lap.
"I love you, Jimmy," it would say. "I hope you enjoy your lunch. It was made with lots o' love!"
At the time, I thought it was so corny. I thought I might be getting too old for that too. I always prayed that none of the other guys (just imagine if I'd known those damn Coogan Boys back then and they'd found it) would see my note. If they did, I'd probably never hear the end of it. I mean, corny or not, I definitely still liked getting them.
But now - today with her gone - I wish I could get another one of those notes. Every single time I open my own little brown bag, holding the lunch that I had to prepare the night before while Dad laid on the couch sucking down green bottles and watching infomercials, I secretly hope there will be a tiny piece of paper inside with a note from my mom. Just one more time.
Jimmy Stone's Ghost Town Page 7
