The Ghost, the Girl, and the Gold

by Scott William Carter

  "None of them are hooked up to machines," I said. "You know, intravenous tubes for hydration, that sort of thing."

  "No," Nurse Bello said, "the strange thing is that all of them will eat or drink if we actually hold it to their lips. But it's purely mechanical, a response to stimulus."

  "And the doctors have no idea why they are like this?"

  "None. Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I noticed that the bedding here doesn't appear very fresh. I need to speak with my unit assistant, but I'll be right back. I—I'd like to talk to … talk to him again. If possible."

  I nodded and smiled. When she was gone, Alesha gazed at me in wonder across Mia's bed.

  "That was … amazing," she said.

  "The thing with her brother?"

  "Yes. What you do—it's got quite an upside, doesn't it?"

  "I guess."

  "Myron, did you see the look on her face? Did you see how you changed her, just by doing that? She'll never be the same again. Just knowing Iggy is here, it helps her. Maybe you shouldn't be so determined to get rid of this ability of yours. I know it's hard to live this way, but, well, nobody else can do this."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I just nodded. I was conscious of Felicity's glasses in my inside jacket pocket, the presence of them. If I had the option to put them on whenever the ghost world became too much for me, maybe my curse wouldn't be such a curse after all. There were still the headaches, of course, but maybe the glasses would help with them, too. Except for the mild pressure at the front of my skull, a persistent if barely noticeable sensation, I hadn't had a really bad headache in days.

  I looked at little Mia, and my thoughts returned to Olivia. This wasn't about me, at least not right now.

  "We've now seen all three coma patients," I said. "I haven't seen any obvious connection. How about you?"

  Alesha sighed. "Wish I did."

  "They certainly seem like Gath's handiwork."

  "But who's behind it? An employee, another patient—it could be anyone. It could have been a visitor. Maybe not someone visiting them, but someone visiting another patient. And if that's the case, where do we even begin?"

  I stared at Mia, mulling it over. Her birdlike arms lay on top of the tan bedspread, and for the first time I saw the scars, a patchwork of red marks up and down the underside of her arms. A cutter? Nurse Bello had said she was highly suicidal. How sad. I felt suddenly claustrophobic, conscious of the maze of tiny rooms outside, the thousands of patients, both alive and dead, crowded into an institution that had been the subject of so much controversy and strife. How many people had been beaten, tortured, and neglected in this place over the years? How many lobotomies had been performed? How much electroshock therapy?

  I heard the squeak of heavy brakes from the street outside, and the hum and whir of big motors, like from a garbage truck, and the sound was like a siren call of the normal world. More normal, anyway. I had this feeling of being submerged, like in a submarine far below the surface of the ocean, and the tiny barred window to my right called to me like an escape hatch. I drifted over to it, hungry for a breath of fresh air.

  The window itself was closed, so there was no breath of fresh air to be had. There didn't even appear to be any hinges or latches. I could, however, see the outside world—a glimpse, at least.

  Beyond a barbed wire fence, a field covered in snow some places, muddy grass exposed in others, and a full parking lot, I saw a long stretch of Center Street, a fitting name for a road that cut right through most of Salem. Directly across the road was the Department of Corrections, a big tan building, but the north side of the road was a motley collection of homes and offices. Bungalows and tiny ranches, some nicely tended, with fresh pant and kept yards, others barely standing behind chain link fences, were mixed right in with one- and two-story office buildings, some of them converted and remodeled from the homes they once were, others build from scratch. I saw an attorney's office, a counseling center, and a daycare with brightly colored play structures dusted with snow in the fenced in front yard.

  "The ghost, the girl, and the gold," I said to the window.

  "Not that again," Alesha said.

  "I feel like the answer is right there. The ghost is the dream who owns the night. The girl is the dreamer who fears the fight. Who's the ghost? Who's the girl? If Gath isn't the ghost, then who is? Someone else here?"

  "Could be."

  "And maybe I'm wrong about Olivia being the girl. Maybe it's not her at all."

  "Sure," Alesha said, "maybe it's this girl right here."

  I peered over my shoulder at Alesha to see if she was serious, which she was, then at Mia. She was as still as a corpse. "One of Gath's victims?"

  "I'm just tossing it out there. Maybe you're supposed to take that word dreamer literally. If so, she's probably spending a lot of her time dreaming."

  "And the ghost?"

  Alesha shrugged.

  "Yeah," I said, "I don't know either.

  "The ghost is the dream who owns the night," I repeated, really emphasizing each word. "It really does sound like Gath."

  "But why is she the dream?"

  Considering the question, I turned back to the window. I looked outside at the street again, my eyes mostly out of focus as I tried to figure out some new angle I might have missed. Alesha stepped around the bed until she stood beside me.

  "If she's some kind of astral projection," I said, "then it's kind of like she is a dream, right? She's a ghost that someone is dreaming."

  "Huh," Alesha said, not to my comment but to something outside.

  "What's that?"

  "Down the road a ways. That old yellow house on our side of the street, across the parking lot."

  I saw it. Two stories, high-pitched roof, one of those small, turn-of-the century homes with lots of tiny rooms and low ceilings. The big lot around it, most of which must have been grass but was now covered in snow, made the house seem lonely and forlorn, a bit out of place in such a congested area of town. I wondered if it was the original farmhouse that belonged to the person who had owned all of the land in the area.

  "What about it?" I asked.

  "The oak tree right in front," she said. "The one without any leaves."

  "Yes."

  "Look at what's in the branches."

  I saw them even before she'd finished the sentence. Crows. Seven or eight of them, perched on the ice-laden branches outside the top window.

  A couple things came together for me in that moment, a lighting flash of insight that turned out to be not quite fast enough. I had every reason to believe that house—and perhaps that upstairs room—was exactly where Olivia was being held prisoner. I also realized something about the poem. If the ghost was the astral projection someone was dreaming, then the dreamer was the same person as the one doing the projection. The poem was about one person, not two. It was so obvious I should have seen it sooner.

  I also realized, a fraction of a second too late, who that person was.

  It was the crows. If Gath's hideout was within sight of the hospital, that meant the real Gath was definitely inside. And if it was within sight, that meant it was quite likely that the real Gath would have an office, a room, or at least easy access to a window where she could keep her hideout in view. It wouldn't have been necessary, really, but it fit human nature. When we owned something, we wanted to be able to see it. It made us feel better.

  Mia Irving's room had that view.

  "Alesh—" I began.

  But I didn't even manage to get out her full name—turning toward her, trying to move her out of harm's way—before she cried out in surprise. She had the look of someone who'd been stabbed in the back, and that wasn't far from the truth. I saw Gath's pale fingers emerge from Alesha's forehead, coming straight through from the other side, and then I saw Gath herself, her grinning, skull-like face rising over Alesha's shoulder.

  "I warned you!" she cried.

  Alesha's eyes rolled backward, showing nothin
g but white. I lunged for her, trying to get to Gath, but then she vanished and Alesha slumped forward into my arms, no life in her at all. In my sudden movement, I was off balance, not ready for her weight, and both of us staggered backward against the window. It took all of my effort just to keep her from crashing to the floor.

  As I fell, I was afforded a view over Alesha's leather jacket of Mia's bed—but Mia wasn't in it. She was already out of the bed, this tiny girl in white and pink cotton pajamas, running toward the door in bare feet, her back to me. For someone so small and spindly, she ran like the wind. She glanced over her shoulder at me, just before passing out of my sight, and she grinned with the same malevolent grin I'd seen on Gath's face just seconds earlier. The faces may be different, remarkably so, but the similarity in the expressions left no doubt that they were one and the same person.

  It had been the perfect disguise: just make herself out to be one of her own victims, and what better place to stay safe than a prison that appeared to keep her inside but really kept the world safely at bay? Yet this time she had a body, a real body, and that meant Mia Irving was vulnerable in ways that Victoria Gath wasn't.

  If she'd been afraid of me before, she was even more so now.

  "Stop her!" I shouted. "She's escaping!"

  With Alesha in my arms, I couldn't go after her, not yet. I heard Mia's bare feet padding against the tiles. I heard a door, heavy boots, a struggle, a masculine guffaw. I carried Alesha to the bed. She'd always seemed so solid and strong that I was surprised to find her quite light in my arms. I heard the jingle of keys, a beep of a card lock, and a door swivel and slam.

  Mia was getting away.

  Escaping.

  Heading toward Olivia, most likely.

  What could I do? I couldn't leave my partner, could I? Alesha finally blinked a few times, her pupils dilated, her gaze unfocused. I said her name, but she didn't answer. She looked at me but didn't seem to see me. I grabbed her wrist and felt for a pulse. Her arm felt as limp as ribbon, but her pulse was strong. She was breathing. She was alive. More than that, I wouldn't know until later. If Gath—if Mia—had hurt her more deeply, hurt her as she'd hurt Felicity, time would tell. The thought was so terrifying that I had to push it completely from my mind.

  "I'll be back," I said.

  I fled the room, calling out for a nurse, found one already running toward me. Beyond, I saw two other nurses bent over the unit clerk on the floor, the young man who'd been behind the window when we'd entered and who must have tried to stop Mia. I told the nurse my partner had fainted and needed help, but I needed to pursue the prisoner who'd escaped. Without a word, she ducked past me into the room.

  An alarm sounded, a high-pitched wail. Maybe twenty seconds had passed since Mia escaped the room. Twenty seconds may not seem like much, but a decent runner, especially one motivated by fear, could easily run a hundred yards in twenty seconds. A football field. That might as well be a full continent between us. If she'd been in middle of downtown Portland, she could have been anywhere.

  But she wasn't in Portland. She was imprisoned in a state hospital. Security checks. Guards. Limited access points. She may have a unique weapon that would allow her to slip past just about all of her human obstacles, but it would take time. It seemed like she needed to project as Victoria Gath to use her power, even if only briefly, and that would slow her down, too. If she was Gath, then her body, as Mia, couldn't do anything. That meant she wouldn't dare leave her body behind, not when she knew I could get to it. If she was heading for Olivia, she was going to have it do it as Mia.

  The door to the Intensive Care Ward was still open, so that was no problem. The siren wailed on and on, a migraine-inducing event all by itself. I passed through the doorway into the open hall …

  … and walked into a living nightmare.

  Chapter 22

  I'd seen a fair number of ghosts on my way inside, far more than usual, but it was nothing like the hordes that filled the hall now. The commotion and the sirens must have brought them out of wherever they'd been hiding. It was a sea of bodies filling every square inch of space, men and women, children and the elderly, most in some version of the patient outfit for their time, but many more dressed however they wanted to be dressed. I saw men in bowler hats and men in army uniforms. I saw women in corsets and women in bikinis. I saw a newborn infant swaddled in a blanket, left abandoned in the corner. I saw a naked old woman with flesh so saggy it reminded me of wax dripping from a candle.

  They moaned and they writhed their arms, continuing to pour into the hall, two or three deep, then more still, bodies everywhere, a wall of bodies that would have been impossible to pass through had they been solid. They weren't solid, I kept telling myself, and I could push through them just as easily as air. I just had to do it. I'd done it plenty of times before.

  But never so many.

  There would be electric shocks, too, one after another, a never-ending series of shocks that would rival the electroshock therapy so many of them had received in their time. Could I withstand it all without going mad? I didn't know, and it gave me pause, and the pause made me panic. She was getting away. The more I hesitated, the less chance I had of catching her before she got to Olivia.

  Then I remembered the glasses.

  Of course, the glasses. I didn't have to deal with the ghosts at all. I took them out of my inside pocket and slipped them on. Instantly, everyone in the hall but one vanished, a silver-haired doctor emerging from one of the rooms, dressed in a white jacket, a stethoscope around his neck, his hands cupped over his ears. He gaped at me, a questioning look on his face, but I had no time to give him answers.

  I sprinted to the stairwell, then down, back to Nurse Bello's desk. I felt no electric buzz, nothing at all, and I tried not to think about all the ghosts that I passed through on my way. Nurse Bello was slumped on the floor outside her window, arms outstretched as if she'd been reaching for someone.

  I helped her back through the window, where she slumped into her chair. Fortunately, she stared up at me with recognition.

  "Tried to stop her," she said. "When I saw her run past us up there, I followed—I followed her back here—"

  "It's all right," I said.

  "Another woman—another woman came out of her. Just for a second. Put her hand on my face."

  "I know. I'll get her. Just see to Alesha."

  That was all I could say. There was no time for more. I was just glad she had her memory. It told me that Mia needed time to project. She couldn't do it very well if someone surprised her.

  I barreled down the next stairwell, back to the entrance, finding a trail of guards and nurses on the floor along the way. No ghosts, though. The glasses were doing the trick. I did hear screaming and moaning over the wail of the siren, but these sounds were from the living, I had no doubt. I borrowed a security card from one of the fallen guards to pass through the first door, back through the security area with the guards and the metal detector. Bodies on the ground. I got there just in time to see the door on the far end closing—and maybe, just a flash of pink cotton pajamas.

  I thought of taking off the glasses momentarily, just long enough to talk to my new friend Willy about what he'd seen, but I didn't know what he could add. So I left them on and sprinted through the door to the outside world.

  A blast of frosty air hit me full in the face. The sun, glaring on the snow, blinded me for a precious few seconds, long enough that I staggered around with my hands raised in a defensive posture, fearing Mia might be standing outside ready to sucker-punch me. I heard her bare feet slipping against the asphalt before my eyes adjusted, far enough away that I knew she was still running.

  I ran, even as the world came into focus, her silhouette, the cars, the swept blacktop with an icy coating.

  No ghosts still. Just me and her. The pursuer and pursued.

  She had maybe fifty yards on me, almost to the sidewalk on Center Street, but her bare feet and the slick surface were slowing her. It ga
ve me hope. I ran hard, leaving the siren behind, and started to close the gap. She turned right, toward the house, and for a moment I saw a peculiar thing, a second head emerge from her back: Gath's birdlike head with its piercing eyes, staring at me. I saw the way Mia slowed just for a second, a stutter step in her gait while Gath projected out of her body, and it confirmed what I suspected. She couldn't really be in both places at the same time.

  I had to get to her. Put the glasses on her. She'd fight like hell, or Gath would, but it was my best chance. Once the glasses were on her, then I would … what?

  Kill a little girl?

  Was that really the only way to stop her permanently?

  It didn't matter. I just had to stop her from getting to Olivia. The rest I'd figure out later. If she couldn't project, I could turn her over to the Department. Maybe they'd know what to do.

  Fifty yards become forty. Forty became twenty. I passed out of the parking lot and rounded the corner, legs burning as I raced over the sidewalk. She was nearly to the house, but I was going to catch her; I was going to get to her with at least ten yards to spare. It would all be over soon enough.

  A shot rang out.

  A bullet pinged off the metal fence to my right, showering sparks on my head. I was close enough to Mia that I might have been able, with a lunge, to grab her, or at least the fringes of her black hair flapping in the breeze behind her, but the gunshot changed everything. I instinctively dropped to a crouch, trying to make myself as small as possible, hands raised over my face. Squawking, the crows in the oak tree took flight. I peered through my fingers and saw him, the remaining Guatemalan twin, standing on the porch of the house and aiming his Ruger at me.

  Cackling like a witch, Mia didn't even break stride. The twin fired another shot and this one bounced off the sidewalk, kicking rock and dirt in my face. I was completely exposed, the fence the only thing providing any protection. The only way to go was across the street or back the way I'd come, and both seemed a million miles away. The other option, to rush him, was even worse. There was nothing to hide behind but the trunk of the oak, but it was on the other side of the fence.