by Nancy Holder
Clackaclackaclacka.
The ground underfoot began to shake.
“That’s express!” Patty yelled. “It’s not stopping.”
We are all gonna die, Erin thought as she looked into the blazing headlights. She couldn’t drop the wand without releasing the specter. And if she didn’t drop the wand, the box was an anchor tied around their ankles. There was nothing she could do, nothing to save herself or the others. The ghost seemed to recognize the oncoming danger, too. His face grew monstrous. Then a hard wind slammed into them. The pressure wave pushed ahead of the train in the tight space sandblasted Erin with grit and stink. She sensed the end of the tunnel behind her, but it was too late …
Her stomach lurched as she went airborne in reverse. Heaving in unison, Patty, Holtzmann, and Abby yanked her up onto the platform beside them. But the proton box was still on the tracks just inside the tunnel, she was still connected to the box by a stout cable to the collar around her neck, and the train was almost upon them.
She felt Holtzmann’s fingers frantically fumbling at the back of her neck.
Train, box, train, box, trainboxtrainbox—
Eyes darting back and forth, Erin could see what was going to happen: train hits box at fifty miles an hour, drags box down track, cable jerks taut, and she is either beheaded or pulled under the screeching wheels.
At the last possible instant, Holtzmann freed her and threw the collar and cable down onto the tracks.
As the train sped into the station it smashed the proton box against the third rail. The incredible surge of electricity shot through the wand Erin still clutched and the resulting beam hit the ghost, dead center. A massive proton discharge enveloped the specter, and for a split second immobilized him. A split second was all it took. When the express train plowed into him, globs of slime exploded in all directions—ectoplasm rained down on the platform, covering Erin from quivering head to curling toes.
The train’s impact splattered the ghost against the back wall of the subway—smashed, leaking goo, but being already dead, apparently unharmed. Metal cap still sparking, the bewildered spirit sped back to the safety of the tunnel.
“Guess he’s going to Queens,” Patty deadpanned.
I want to throw up, Erin thought as the coating of slime oozed under her clothing and into alarming new territory.
“Did you see that? That surge of power really got ahold of it,” Abby said. “What a field test! Data-tastic.”
The trickle of ectoplasm slowly creeping down Erin’s bare back reached the base of her spine and there was nothing she could do to stop it from sliding down further. Not without taking off all her clothes. The very act of breathing sped up what seemed inevitable. If I wasn’t afraid of getting some of this yuck in my mouth, I would so throw up right now.
“Yep,” said an equally jubilant Holtzmann. “We’re going to need a lot more juice. We need to be more mobile, too. I know what to do.”
Throw up? Erin filled in, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her fists as the slime that had gotten under the back of her collar oozed down the inside of her legs. In a faint, flat voice, she said, “We almost got killed.”
“Yeah, I know,” Holtzmann said. “So awesome. No one looked into that flash, right?”
“I looked directly into it,” Erin said.
“Oh, that’s fine,” Holtzmann said, waving off any reason for her to be concerned, then throwing a look to Abby that clearly said, “Yikes!”
12
The moment they got back to headquarters from the station, Abby had posted her three-minute subway video online. There was shaky camera work like in those “found-footage” horror movies, but many of the images of the ghost were crystal clear. There was no denying the stripes on his prison uniform, his floating above the ground, or his face distorted in demonic fury. It had been hours since the video went up, but they had only thirty views, and the comments so far were all mean:
“So fake.”
“My dog liked it.”
“You people are crazy.”
All indications led to it not going viral.
Erin was stumped. How could a video of them jumping up and down like sugar-overdosed Girl Scouts have gotten so much attention that Dean Filmore felt compelled to fire her, while this truly groundbreaking piece of footage rated nothing more than a handful of mehs?
She heaved a sigh as Abby walked up. “Man. What do people want?” Abby shrugged, and Erin went on. “We really need to get a ghost back to the lab and document it properly. This stuff’s all real and we can’t prove it to anybody.”
“We will,” Abby assured her. “You can’t read that stuff. You just gotta ignore these people.” She scanned the comments. Her face changed to an expression of pure outrage. “‘Bullshit equipment’?”
Abby grabbed the keyboard and started to pound out an angry response. Erin ripped the keyboard away from her before she could finish and held it out of reach.
“Okay, okay.” Abby took a deep breath. “Just ignore them.”
Erin watched Abby’s shoulders slowly descend from a high point up around her ears. Her face looked more relaxed, but as Kevin walked up to her with a mug in his hand she shot the comment-filled screen a nasty side-glance.
“Here’s your coffee,” he said.
“Did you remember the sugar?”
Kevin frowned for a moment, clearly struggling with an answer. Then a big smile lit up his face. He took the cup back and sipped from it noisily.
“Yeah,” he said, handing it back to Abby. He looked quite pleased with himself as he walked away.
Abby stared down at her cup in dismay, and when she finally looked up, Erin gave her a “what do you expect” shrug.
“Well, at least he remembered,” Abby said defensively.
Erin couldn’t decide if Abby was loyal to a fault or just stubborn. She had championed Kevin and she was still his champion. Except that Erin was paying his salary from her savings. Not a productive line of thought. She decided to change the subject.
“What do you make of the tech from the subway?”
They moved to a table where the fragments of the device had been spread out. They hadn’t made an attempt to organize them yet. It looked like a jigsaw puzzle, without the picture on the front of the box and most of the parts barbecued.
“I’ve only got bits and pieces here,” Abby said. “None of which have any business in a subway tunnel. But look at this.” She held up a piece for Erin’s inspection.
The part looked like it could be a magnet yoke, only reduced to the size of a Frito. If it was a magnet yoke, then the matching piece she could see on the table was likely a pole shoe, one of two. Erin was impressed, despite herself. Until now, the subcomponent she believed they came from was only theoretically possible. “Was that a miniature cyclotron?”
“Yup. Everything I’m looking at here, it’s all things we’ve associated with attracting ghost particles.”
Abby was right, of course; the minicyclotron was an integral part of the speculation they had put forth in their book.
“I’m wondering if someone built some kind of device to bring in an apparition, which is very impressive. And I’ll say it … a little sexy.” She grinned and waggled her brows provocatively.
Erin could see a big downside to what she was suggesting, and it wasn’t the least bit sexy: the barrier between the living and the dead was there for a reason. But there was no arguing her conclusion—the device they were visualizing could only have one purpose. “What was that weird thing that guy mentioned to her?”
Looking on from her seat at a computer, Patty said, “The Fourth Cataclysm. Sounded like some spooky ancient shit, but I can’t find anything about it online.” She indicated her computer monitor with a shake of her head. “Fourth Cataclysm. Do I also need to worry about the first through third cataclysms? Who’s got that kind of time?” I think it’s cataclysma, Erin thought as she and Abby traded pained looks.
“Ma’am, why are you sti
ll here?” Abby asked Patty politely.
“Oh, I’m joining your club.” She spoke as if they had no choice and it was a fait accompli.
Abby’s response was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Kevin, who’d been sitting at a small desk by the door with a vacant look on his face, looked a little mystified. He said, “What is this place called again?”
“Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination,” Erin shouted out.
Kevin picked up the phone and said, “Conductors of … meta something or other.” Then apparently without waiting for a reply, he hung up.
Erin rolled her eyes at Abby.
Abby’s expression conceded the point. She cleared her throat before she said, “Hey, Kevin? I’m going to need you to try a little harder. Okay, buddy?”
Kevin was agreeable. “Okay, if they call back, I will.”
“There you go,” Abby said with forced jovially.
He slid back from his desk. “I’ve gotta take off, though. I’ve got a hide-and-seek tournament. We’re in the semis.”
“Yup,” Abby said.
She did not look at Erin. But his comment gave Erin a smidgeon of hope that perhaps he was attending a college part time, or knew someone in college, or knew where a college was. Because a “hide-and-seek tournament” sounded a lot like a game of Assassin to her, which was something that undergrads played at Columbia. They hid from each other and there was running to home base and all kinds of things that she had never squandered precious time doing in college.
She didn’t ask him, because she didn’t want to be more disappointed in case her hypothesis proved incorrect. Instead, she turned to their new odd duck.
“Patty, right?” she said. “This isn’t really a club. We’re a research group. Do you have any lab experience?”
Abby and Holtzmann both stopped what they were doing and watched.
“No,” Patty said flatly. “And I kinda feel like I was set up to fail with that question. No, I am not a scientist. I understand that. I didn’t go to some fancy school like the rest of you. I didn’t go to Harvard or Rutgers—”
Rutgers? Erin swapped incredulous looks with Holtzmann and Abby. Had she really said Rutgers? She might as well have said Higgins.
“But I read a lot of nonfiction,” Patty continued. “You know, you can be smart about science but straight-up dummy about everything else.” She caught herself and winced. “I guess I didn’t need to insult you. I apologize for that.”
They all nodded to say, “It’s cool.” But it kind of wasn’t.
“Look, I spend most of my time sitting alone in an MTA booth. Thought it’d be nice to pick up an activity that involves other people.”
A near-death experience involving the spirit of a murdering psychopath is an “activity”? Erin was flabbergasted. She felt it was her duty to immediately set the woman straight. If they were correct in thinking that someone was deliberately bringing angry ghosts across the barrier into the world of the living, the “activity” was going to get a lot less “nice” in a hurry.
“Also, I can borrow a car from my uncle so you don’t have to keep lugging all that heavy equipment around,” Patty said.
“Great. Welcome to the team, Patty,” Abby said, essentially ending the discussion.
And Erin’s chance at setting the newbie straight. What was up with Abby? This was the second time she’d brought someone in without checking with her. She corrected herself. This is the third time she’s welcomed someone new; I was the first. Who am I kidding? This is Abby’s team, not mine, even though I’m the one paying for it.
Anyway, Patty was in, and obviously happy about it, too. Maybe she was good with all of it, the danger and the freaky scariness? She hadn’t been with them a full day yet and she had already led them to their second ghost encounter, and without flinching had risked her own life to protect everyone else.
Erin heaved a sigh of resignation. If Patty didn’t have a clue what she was doing, that made five of them—unless Kevin counted double.
13
It was the dawn of a new day in New York City. And like most new days, this one was greeted by the loud honking of a car horn. Erin ignored it and continued recalibrating the PKE meter she was working on. Some jerks fighting over a parking spot most likely. It has to end soon, she thought, giving the adjustment screw a quarter turn, then checking the result against a performance graph.
When the horn continued honking and honking, she kept losing her focus. She looked up from the booth’s table in irritation. Abby, who was almost finished sorting the mysterious device fragments, frowned at her from the opposite side; she couldn’t concentrate, either. They got up from their seats and went over to Holtzmann, who was over by the window welding something while practicing her dance moves. When they nudged her she tipped up her welding mask and pulled a headset earphone away from her ear. The string of short honks had become an unbroken sustained blast. Holtzmann made a sour face and hooked a thumb toward the door. The car sounded like it was right out front. Without a word, they raced for the stairs to find out what was going on.
A long hearse was parked in the loading zone in front of the Chinese take-out place and Patty was in the driver’s seat merrily pounding on the horn. She stopped honking as soon as she saw them. As she climbed out, Holtzmann cried, “Oh sweet!”
Abby clearly did not share Holtzmann’s delight. She crossed the sidewalk and said in an uptight voice, “You did not disclose this automobile was a hearse.”
Patty took Abby’s disapproval in stride. “My uncle owns a funeral home! Would you rather take the subway? What’s the difference? We work with the dead anyway.”
And it’s not like it’s the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, Erin thought, recalling Kevin’s bizarre floating hot dog logo. It’s way more normal than that.
A couple walked by arm in arm. When they saw the hearse they did a double take, then paused to gawk.
“Can I help you?” Patty said. Her tone of voice made “help” sound damn painful.
They scooted away as fast as they could.
Erin watched the pair speed walk into traffic against a red light. Well, maybe not all that normal.
* * *
Rowan was making his rounds at the Mercado. A door opened at the end of the hall. Oh, glory be, he thought. It was Mrs. Potter, in her bathrobe as usual. He’d peeked in her closet once—she had about fifty of them.
“Excuse me,” she called. “Maintenance man!”
“Mrs. Potter,” he said, acknowledging her with an unctuous grin. “Thank you for using my preferred title. How may I help you?”
His faux officiousness was completely lost on her. She actually thought he was serious. Was convinced that humiliating him was her due. He couldn’t wait for the scales to drop from her rheumy eyes, to watch her grovel at his feet … and plead for mercy … of which there would be none forthcoming.
“Well, for starters,” she said a bit crossly, “you could tell me what in god’s name this is.”
She pointed at something on her apartment door—a shiny, green, gelatinous substance. He could have named it for her, but chose not to, as that would have spoiled the looming surprise. The ectoplasm had materialized out of nothing and traveled along the doorframe. Excellent. The eternal barrier was failing just as he predicted, and as a consequence, fundamental elements of the strange new world on the other side were seeping through.
What the stumbling masses thought was forever lost would soon be in their laps, clawing and scratching, and eating off their faces.
“Isn’t that something,” he said as he leaned down and took a closer look. Mrs. Potter hadn’t appeared to notice—perhaps because the rhinestone trifocals she wore on a lanyard were not hanging from her scrawny neck—that the substance was moving of its own accord. “Must be some leakage from the air-conditioning. I’ll take care of it immediately.” All he had to do was adjust a few dials, and there would be much, much more of it.
“I think it must have touched my sk
in,” Mrs. Potter complained. “It’s given me a rash.”
She turned her back on him, loosened the sash, and then without another word lowered the neck of her robe. He found her boldness shocking at first, but then it hit him—he mattered so little that it was like exposing herself to her dog or parakeet.
“Does this look red to you?” she asked, glancing at him over her withered shoulder.
With difficulty he hid his overflowing delight. It looked more than red. It looked like one of his recently freed subjects had invaded and taken possession of Mrs. Potter. The full outline of the small ghostly creature was visible just beneath her skin. It was an imp, gnashing its fangs and trying to claw its way out through her back. He could see its features as it stretched the skin like plastic wrap. It was so hideous—and he never used that term lightly—that even he was taken slightly aback. But that was only because, like every other creature on the planet, he had yet to fully explore the wonders of the world that lay beyond.
The place that he liked to call hell.
He pretended to scrutinize her back as she stood patiently awaiting the verdict.
“Well. Uh-huh. I was gonna say no,” he began. Then he leaned closer to her, squinting. “But you know what? Yep. It is a little red.” He took the liberty of tracing a section with his fingertip. Mrs. Potter didn’t object to the physical contact, but the little monster’s teeth clacked as if trying to bite him. He was sure he could hear it growling. “Right in this area here. Does it look bad? No, no, not at all. But just in case, I’ll send up some cream.”