Jimmy Stone's Ghost Town

by Scott Neumyer

  "A letter, every week for seven weeks," he continued without even really acknowledging my questions, "was one thing, Jimmy. But an actual visit from an actual Oracle - that's something completely different. For the Oracle Essex to actually come here and deliver that message to us means that she - they - mean business."

  I looked over at David and Trex whose faces held the same confused and frustrated looks as I'm sure I had on mine. At this point, we really just wanted to be home. I didn't care if I had to clean up Dad's empty green bottles for another fifty years. I just wanted to be home. I wanted to be out of Ghost Town.

  "This is gravely serious," said Gasp. "And I think we absolutely must heed her message."

  "But how?" I asked. "It was so vague. We don't even have any idea what these seven things are or how to find them." I ran my hand through my hair and left it right on top of my head, holding the bridge of my nose and squeezing until I thought it might pop right off like a big fat zit. I needed to feel a little of that pain to know I was still there. To know that this wasn't all some big, bad dream that I could wake myself up from.

  "And what does she mean Ghost Town be the first?"

  "Actually," said Gasp, "I think I can explain that one."

  "Please," I said completely exasperated. "I'll take anything you can tell me at this point. We just need information."

  "Ok, well. You see, Jimmy. This may come as a shock to you, but Ghost Town is not the only world outside of yours."

  He was right. That did come as a shock to me. I think I'm still a little shocked as he continues his story.

  "We actually call them Realms and there are seven, of which Ghost Town is just one."

  "Seven?" I asked. "What is with everyone and sevens around here?!"

  "Seven," Gasp said, "is a very important number. Seven days of the week and all that. I don't think it's worth wasting your time telling you all about the importance of the number seven right now, Jimmy."

  "No," I said. "You're right. Seven Realms. That's all I need to know. Keep going."

  "So, yes, there are Seven Realms outside of your world. Do you happen to remember the tree that got you here?"

  "Do you mean the big round glowing one? The one I traced the letters GT on and all of a sudden I'm waking up in a creepy room seeing you float in front of an open window? Yeah," I said sarcastically. "I think I remember that one."

  "Well, that tree is the key to moving between realms. The one you found in your world just happened to bring you to Ghost Town because that's where you were needed. Once we started getting the letters addressed to you, we knew we had to get you here to help us. So we placed the Transport Tree in your world and hoped that you'd find it and do exactly what you ended up doing."

  "Once you're done with the work needed in each realm, you shouldn't have any trouble finding the Transport Tree to get where you need to be next."

  "Wait a minute," I said as soon as those last words escaped Gasp's lips. "If there's a Transport Tree here in Ghost Town, why can't we just pack ourselves up, find the tree and transport ourselves back home? I think I've had enough of Ghost Town for a long time."

  "Unfortunately, Jimmy, it doesn't work that way. You see, the Transport Tree can be sent into your world by the Elders, in order to get you here to Ghost Town (or any of the other realms), but it can't be used to get back to your world. Getting home is a lot more complicated and something that not even I know how to do yet."

  "You've got to be kidding me," I said. "You mean, you have no idea how we're going to get home?"

  "Not yet," Gasp said. "But I promise you this, Jimmy Stone. If you help us, I will do everything in my power to get you home."

  "This is a bunch of bullshit."

  I didn't want to curse. I mean, sure I'm in fifth grade and I've heard the word plenty of times before, but I don't like to use it. This, however, I think was one of those times when it was necessary. Plus, it just kind of came out. I couldn't really stop it.

  "I know this isn't something you asked for," Gasp said, "but it's clearly something that you're meant to do. You're supposed to be here, Jimmy. You're supposed to help us."

  "Of course you're going to say that, Gasp. You're the one who brought me here!"

  "This is true, Jimmy, but I still believe in my heart that you are meat to be here and help us."

  "Sure you do," I said and shook my head. "Sure you do."

  I was still in shock from everything that had just happened. The appearance of the Oracle Essex. The letter she read us. Gasp's stories. Everything was spinning through my head. I had so many questions.

  "So, you can just move yourself between Realms?" I asked.

  "Well," Gasp said, "it's complicated. Guides, like myself, can move between Realms in the same way as you - by using the Transport Tree. But we need to fit in. Our names change. Our identities change. The only way you'll recognize us is if you really know us. Right now I'm in the form of a Ghost. My name is Gasp. All this makes it very easy for me to fit in here in Ghost Town, which I've made my home for many years. Should I have to travel to one of the other Realms, I'll need to take on a new persona."

  "But you'll do that, right? I mean, you'll be there to help us. To guide us through whatever we need to do to find these seven things. We can't do this alone, Gasp. We don't even know what we're looking for!"

  "Neither do I, Jimmy, but I promise to you that I will be there to help. I'll be there every step of the way no matter what Realm you find yourself in, you'll be able to find me as well. It may not be immediately apparent to you, but I will be there."

  "There are really seven other Realms outside my world?" I asked, still surprised by how much existed outside of my little Boredsylvania.

  "Yes," Gasp answered. "Seven very different Realms."

  "But you're not going to explain what they all are, are you?"

  "I don't think it's necessary for me to bore you with stories of each and every Realm just yet, sir." Gasp looked not just at me now, but at all three of us in the room. "What's most important is that we're here in Ghost Town now and we've been given our mission. We'll talk about the other Realms when the time comes, but right now I think it's best if we figure out exactly what we need to do here in Ghost Town."

  "Ok," I said. "I'm fine with that. We're obviously not going to be able to get home anytime soon anyway, and definitely not without figuring out the Oracle's little puzzle, so we better get down to business."

  "I am in complete agreement, sir. That is the best thing we can do right now. Get this puzzle solved, find your first object, and get out of Ghost Town."

  And it was in that moment that we all agreed - David, Trex, Gasp, and I - that we would heed the message that the Oracle Essex had delivered. We would take it as gospel, decode the cipher, and find that first object.

  The question of how in the hell we were going to do that, however, was something that none of us was prepared to answer just yet.

  David pushed himself up off the floor and grabbed Trex's leash to get him to follow toward the center of the room. The four of us huddled up in a circle as Gasp framed his hands and easily displayed the letter this time. I guess the Oracle Essex had made her point by coming down to deliver the message last time. Now we could read the letter again ourselves.

  "What do you think?" I asked the group more as a general question rather than anything specific about the letter. They all looked up and we glanced at each other while trying to figure out just how to answer that question. None of us could. "What should we do?"

  "What we should do, Jimmy," Gasp said, "is get to work. Let's figure this thing out and find your first object. And let's do it fast!"

  Chapter Twenty Five

  "For a long time," Gasp said as we remained huddled in the middle of the room, Trex beneath all of us, right in the middle of our little circle, "we here in the Seven Realms have lived pretty comfortable lives. We didn't have many worries, and we didn't have many troubles."

  David and I looked around the room and f
inally back at each other as we both thought of our own lives, back home in Boredsylvania. We lived fairly happy, comfortable lives too. We both had roofs over our heads and food to eat. We both went to school and didn't have to worry about war or anything serious like that. I mean, the occasional run from the Coogan Boys was probably the biggest of our worries. And while that was surely a concern, it was nothing compared to what some people were facing.

  "I know what you're thinking," said Gasp as he prepared to continue his little speech. "You're thinking that you've not seen many troubles in your own lives. This is true as well. We've all been very lucky, indeed. Granted, we might all be ghosts here in Ghost Town, but that's hardly troublesome."

  "And now, for some reason, we've brought this down upon you all?"

  "Well, Jimmy, you didn't necessarily bring this down upon us. If you recall, the letters were addressed to you before we even knew who you were or where you were. You certainly had no idea this was going to happen, and you certainly had no idea that Ghost Town even existed before you landed in that room."

  "The fact of the matter, however," Gasp continued, "is that you're here now. This problem is upon us, and we need to find the solution as soon as we possibly can."

  "What did she mean 'Or else you all will pay?'"

  "I assume she means all Seven Realms. Or she could mean everyone in the Seven Realms. Or, she could even mean just the four of us. Either way," Gasp said, "do you really want to find out what she means?"

  I shook my head quickly before Gasp had even finished the sentence. "No freakin' way!"

  "Good, Jimmy. Neither do I." Gasp was dead serious. It was clear to us that this was something he (nor anyone in Ghost Town for that matter) had ever imagined would happen to them. "And neither do any of the other Elders."

  "We've spoken to the Elders of each realm," he said. "They all agree that the Oracle Essex's message is not to be taken lightly. We are to find these seven items. You, David, Trex, and I together must complete this mission, save our worlds, and get you home."

  Suddenly David's EARS tactics flashed through my head and I almost wished I was home, in a bathroom stall at lunch, hiding from the Coogan Boys. David had taught me so much, and my confidence had grown immensely since I started practicing EARS, but none of us were ready for this. None of us had prepared to have the weight of the world (much less seven worlds) resting on our shoulders.

  That said, we had no other choice.

  "Well," I said, almost joking for the first time since we'd seen the Oracle Essex appear, "what else do we have to do?"

  David laughed. I mean, he actually laughed. A genuine laugh that all of us could hear, and the sound made Trex bark. Which, in turn, made Gasp laugh. And now I was laughing while David continued. Trex kept barking and we all just kept going like that for what felt like minutes. Sure, it may have been nervous laughter. It might have been the last chance we thought we had for some fun before everything changed for us. Or it could have just been genuinely funny, and we were four new friends just having a laugh together.

  Either way, it didn't matter. It was something we needed desperately, and it was something that gave us the strength to actually tackle what lay before us.

  "That's the spirit, Jimmy," Gasp said as he continued to laugh out loud. "That's the spirit!"

  Chapter Twenty Six

  "How the hell are we going to find this first item?" I asked, already getting a bit nervous about the task we've been handed by the Oracle Essex. "We have no idea where to even start looking!"

  "Don't get yourself too worked up, Jimmy," said Gasp, trying to keep a positive face on. He obviously wanted to keep us as calm as possible.

  David looked on without saying a word, but just watching him you could tell that he was studying everything. His mind was focused squarely on the message we'd been delivered, and he was listening intently to every single word that came out of Gasp's ghostly mouth.

  "The Oracle Essex," continued Gasp, "would not have delivered her message without a clue. The Oracles just don't work that way. They want to at least give you a fighting chance." He paused briefly to think. "Or at least that's what I've heard in the stories."

  "So where?" I asked. "Where do you see a clue in that letter, Gasp? Where's our fighting chance?"

  Trex barked and David pulled tight on his leash to keep him from barking again. The tension in the room was getting thicker by the minute and it was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic.

  "It's obviously somewhere in Ghost Town," David suddenly spoke up. "It says right there in the letter, 'Ghost Town be the first, but not nearly the worst.'"

  "Right!" I said and patted David on the back quickly before turning my face down and pouting a bit. "Not the worst? How much worse can it get?"

  "A lot," said Gasp, almost cutting me off before the end of my sentence. "It can get a lot worse. There are places among the Seven Realms, Jimmy, that you don't want to go. You don't even want to be near them. If the Oracles have something big in store for us in those other realms, this is going to be a very long adventure."

  I sighed audibly, but I could see the rest of our group sigh without even having to hear it. You could just see it on their faces. Even Trex looked a bit dismayed.

  "So we know it's somewhere in Ghost Town," I said. That doesn't do a whole lot to help us. Sure, it narrows down the search, but we still have no idea what we're looking for or where in Ghost Town we're looking for it!"

  I was beginning to get loud again as my anxiety worsened. This couldn't be all, I thought. This couldn't be the way it ends for me. Here, in Ghost Town, trying to complete some crazy mission that I didn't even ask to be a part of?! While Dad's home sipping out of his green bottles and snoring in front of the TV?! This can't be it.

  "There's got to be something else, Gasp. There has to be."

  "There is, sir," he said. "Look!"

  Gasp moved one of his arms, breaking the frame they'd been creating in which the letter floated. When he moved his arm, the letter stayed put and he was able to point out a certain line.

  "Look here," he said and pointed. "It says 'A nose leads the way.'"

  "We all have them, Gasp. How does that even help us?"

  "Well, Jimmy. Think about it. Let's not look at it on the surface. Let's think about it a little bit. If they're mentioning it, there must be something special about the nose. It can't just be one of ours."

  "I know nothing about your Ghost Town," I said. "What could the Oracles possibly mean by that?"

  "Since the Oracle Essex said the line, I've been thinking about it," Gasp said and moved his arms back to their original position, creating the frame in which the letter floated. "Take a look."

  Gasp clapped his hands quickly, like he had earlier just before the Oracle Essex appeared before us, and moved them back into the frame shape.

  The letter floated smoothly into the top left corner of the frame and in the bottom right corner of the frame appeared a crude map. It looked almost like a treasure map with a big X-marks-the-spot mark on it, only without the actual X mark.

  "This is a map of Ghost Town," said Gasp. "Once I take you out of this room, we'll make our way through the Master Hallway, and head out into town."

  "Great," I said, "you're an awesome guide. You can make maps appear out of nowhere, but you can't even tell us how to get home."

  Gasp just looked at me. I knew that look well. Dad gave it to me all the time. It meant it was time for me to shut my mouth and listen. So I did.

  "Look here," he said and pointed to a spot on the map. It looked like a drawing of a little person in the middle of a large clearing, right along the middle of town. "This is the only prominent and meaningful nose I can think of in Ghost Town."

  "What do you mean, prominent and meaningful? A nose is a nose, right?"

  "Well," said Gasp, "just trust me on this one. When you see it, you'll understand."

  I nodded for Gasp to continue while David and Trex looked on.

  "This is a
statue of Samuel Blairsden," he said while still pointing to the little man on the map. "It's the only statue we have in all of Ghost Town. He was one of the very first Town Elders and is revered by everyone. Even people in the other realms know of Blairsden and speak highly of him."

  "And you think his honker is the key to our clue?" I asked skeptically. "You think he's got the nose that's going to lead the way?"

  "Like I said, Jimmy. You'll understand when you see it, but yes, he's the key I think."

  Gasp paused to take a breath and closed his hands before placing them back on his hips. The letter and map disappeared into thin air and Gasp looked over at us before he decided to tell us how he really felt.

  "At least, it's the only thing I can even think of that might fit," he finally admitted.

  David and I glanced at each other before I shrugged my shoulders and looked down at Trex. I patted him on his head and pushed back his ears, stroking the top of his head. Trex had always been there for me when I had to make tough decisions in the past and I thought giving him some attention might come in handy right now.

  "Listen," Gasp said. "I know about as much as you guys do, and my guess about Blairsden might not be great but it's the only idea we've got, and right now we need to move on something. I think this is probably our best shot."

  I stroked Trex's head a few more times before I knelt down next to him and lifted his snout up to my face. I looked my dog right in his big brown eyes.

  "What do you think, Trex? You think this Blairsden is the key?"

  Trex stayed silent for a moment and just enjoyed the fact that I was nose to nose with him. And then he let out a huge bark, almost as if to say we should get a move on.

  "Okay," I said as I pushed myself off the floor and back into a standing position. "Blairsden it is. Let's go see what this guy has to tell us."

  And with that, David, Trex, Gasp, and I gathered ourselves and pushed our way out of Room 7 into what Gasp had called the Master Hallway. It looked just the same to me as it had before we'd entered the room, and that was fine. I needed some sense of stability right now with everything else in our lives seeming so absolutely out of control. I needed to see that same hallway again, even if only for a few moments before we headed into the heart of Ghost Town. Just to get my bearings back. Just to remember what it's like to see some place you've seen before.