by Val Crowe
I couldn’t put my finger on what made it so repulsive to me now, but it was partly because of its decay and partly because of its life. Things were growing all over it, alive, taking it back, and those growing things, those pervasive plants and bacterias and fungi, they were awful.
Maybe I wouldn’t stay.
Nothing was keeping me here. I had come to see my mother, but she either didn’t know anything or wouldn’t talk, and that meant that I could leave and be no worse off than I had been. I didn’t know where I would go if I left. I had been considering taking the Airstream out west. Maybe driving Route 66 or something. It was kind of a shlocky, touristy thing to do, but I never got to do stuff like that.
Of course, I’d been considering doing that before I’d found out about Negus.
Back then, I’d done the best that I could to ignore the ghosts. Now, I was driven to understand it all more. And not only that, I was in danger. Negus was out there. He still wanted me. Furthermore, the other ghosts seemed to want me too.
It seemed patently stupid to ignore it all now. It was amazing I’d made it as long as I had without anything happening to me.
No, I needed answers.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
I settled into my chair and nursed my beer.
Lily pulled up a chair next to me. “So, if you’re not a Trekkie, what are you into?”
“Me?” I touched my chest, laughing a little. “You mean, do I have an obsession with some form of entertainment? Movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, or video games?”
She nodded, raising her eyebrows.
“When I was a kid, I was into superheroes a little, but… uh, I don’t know. I go see the movies in the theater now, I guess. I wouldn’t call myself obsessed, though.”
“You have to have a hobby,” she said.
“Well, I guess the Airstream is kind of a hobby.” I gestured to my camper trailer. “Thing’s old as dirt, right? It’s always in need of tinkering.”
She looked at the camper appraisingly. “Wow. You work on it yourself?”
“When I found it, it had been sitting out in the woods for probably thirty years, maybe more,” I said. “It had all the original interior, but most of it was beyond repair. I ripped out almost everything and put in new stuff. The bathtub stayed. It was in good condition. Needed a good bleach, but that was all.”
“Those things have tubs?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s standard in the Ambassador,” I said. “It’s not huge. You can’t stretch out in it or anything. I mean, someone like me, it’s no good as a tub, but it’s nice to have a place to wash things out if you need it. You’ll have to come in and see.”
“Okay.” She smiled at me.
I smiled back. I liked Lily. It was too bad my mother was scamming her.
Speaking of the devil, my mother raised her voice. “Come and get it,” she bellowed. She had dished all the food onto platters on the table, and we all came to sit down.
For several minutes, the only talk revolved around getting the food. We dipped sausages onto buns and spooned grilled peppers over them, smothering them in mayonnaise out of one of those squeeze bottles that my mom had insisted we pick that up at the store that morning. We all dug into the potatoes, which my mother had cooked in a grill basket with olive oil and rosemary. They were delicious.
Everything was delicious. It was all perfect, a better meal than I’d had in a long time.
When had my mother become such a good cook? I never remembered her cooking much of anything. When I was a kid, she mostly threw things in the microwave or made stuff that came from a box, like Hamburger Helper.
“Well, I gotta say, this is about damned near perfect,” Patrick said. “Cora, you’ve outdone yourself.”
My mother laughed. “You’ll be billed for groceries.”
Everyone laughed.
“I didn’t know I was getting a gourmet cook when I hired you,” said Patrick, shoveling potatoes into his mouth.
“Oh, I’m no gourmet.” My mother waved that away.
“You are quite talented,” said Oscar, meeting her gaze.
My mother looked deep into his eyes.
And for a moment, even that didn’t bother me. What was the big deal, after all? Everyone was happy. It was good to be happy.
It was comfortable here, in the shadow of the amusement park, in our little encampment, where there was good food and strong drink and light and laughter. Had I really considered leaving?
“I didn’t think I would cook,” my mother was saying. “The idea came to me after we’d parked here and I looked in on the park. I thought to myself that we’d need good food to fortify us. And please, anyone who wants to try one of the gluten free buns, please do.”
I had to admit, the gluten free buns looked tempting. They weren’t store bought, but made by my mother out of flax meal and rice flour or something, she’d said. I wasn’t the kind of person to eat that kind of stuff, but I was considering trying one.
“You have definitely fortified us,” said Lily, raising her glass of white wine, which was in a clear plastic cup. “To Cora.”
Laughing, we all clinked our drinks together, echoing Lily’s sentiment, only I said, “To Mom.”
“To Point Oakes Park,” said my mother, raising her glass of gin and tonic high above her head. Liquid sloshed over the rim, down onto her fingers. She licked it off, laughing.
“To Point Oakes Park,” we all chorused.
The night air wrapped around us, blanketing us, cocooning us.
* * *
“Deacon, you bastard, I thought… going to… with the ignoring me.” The voice was right behind my head, and it was going in and out, like a bad connection on a cell phone.
I whirled. I was in my Airstream, puttering around as I was getting ready for bed. It was late. We’d sat up drinking and talking and eating for hours. Everyone had been in great spirits. The buoyancy of that still boosted my mood now. The Airstream had never seemed so cozy, and I was pleased to be settled here for the night.
Mads was standing behind me. But she was flickering—one second there, the next not.
I furrowed my brow. “Mads?”
“Finally,” she said. “What’s your deal? You know ignoring me doesn’t do anything.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” I said.
She moved forward and dissipated like smoke. Then reformed again. “—yelling at you over and over and you don’t answer.”
“I must not be hearing you,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Right now, you’re not coming in very well. It’s like there’s a bad connection or something.”
“It’s this place.” She gestured behind her at the amusement park. “It’s awful here.”
Suddenly, it itched under my collar. I scratched at my neck absently. “It is awful,” I muttered. “But it’s also… not.”
“If I can’t get through to you then I can’t help you,” she said. “I think you should leave.”
“Look, all I want to do is find out about Negus. I think the spirits here know something. Maybe you could go and communicate with them, find out what they know. Then I could go.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going into that place. No way.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, then I guess we’ll just have to wait until I can find something out.”
Mads turned to look behind her. “What is that?” She sounded annoyed. Then her mouth opened and she reached out for me. “Deacon!”
“Mads?”
But she was sucked backwards, as if the wind had caught her by the ankles and whisked her away. I couldn’t see her anymore.
“Mads!”
I walked in the direction that she’d been pulled, not that it made any sense to do that. She was on a completely different plane than me, the spiritual realm. I wasn’t going to find her just because I tried to follow her.
“Mads!” I yelled again.
There was a rapping on the
door of the Airstream.
Was it Mads? Had she been unable to communicate any other way and resorted to rapping on the door?
I hurried over and threw open the door.
It was Lily. “Hey,” she said. “Who’s Mads?”
“Uh…” I took a deep breath. “Don’t worry about that. You okay? There something I can help you with?”
“I was coming by to see your bathtub,” she said. “Or is it a bad time? I guess it’s getting late. Sorry. I’m such a night owl. I forget that other people go to sleep at normal times.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” I said. “You can come in. I’ll give you the grand tour.”
She grinned. “Excellent.” She climbed up inside, and then looked left and right. “Wow.”
“There you go,” I said. “That’s the tour.”
She laughed.
I laughed too. “Um, so that’s the table over there.” I gestured. The table was at one end of the Airstream, with a built-in bench that wrapped around it. “This here is storage.” I pulled aside a shower curtain from the wall directly facing the door. I had a bunch of stuff on shelves back there. Extra fuel, batteries, water jugs.
“Nice use of space,” she said.
“Yeah, you really gotta cram it in here,” I said. “This is my primary residence, so everything has to fit.”
“You live in this? Year round?”
“Yup,” I said. I pointed to the sink. “This is the kitchen.” There was a stove beside it. Underneath was the refrigerator and some more storage for kitchen gadgets and pantry stuff. I pivoted. “This is the bed. Or couch, if I’m not sleeping on it.” The bed was across from the kitchen. I bent down and lifted up the bed. “More storage under here.” I had built the bed so that it would lift up on hinges and I could put things under there.
“That’s pretty creative,” she said.
“And this is the bathroom,” I said. The bathroom was at the opposite side of the camper as the table. “With the famous bathtub.” I opened up the door to show her.
“Oh, that’s so cool.” She peered inside. “It’s all retro.”
“It’s from the 1960s,” I said. “So, yeah. Retro.”
“I love this thing.” She stepped out of the bathroom and looked around again, grinning. “And it’s so awesome you live in it. That must be incredibly freeing, just going wherever the wind takes you.”
“Definitely is.” I jammed my hands into my pockets.
“So, is this what you do? Go around from place to place looking for ghosts?”
“Uh… no, I don’t look for ghosts,” I said.
“Your mother said you were sensitive.”
“Well…” I studied my shoes. “Ghosts find me, I guess, is the more accurate way to put it.”
“And has Molly found you?”
I raised my gaze. “Your sister, right?”
She nodded.
“No, I haven’t seen any spirits since we came into this place.”
“No? But it’s definitely haunted,” she said. “Even I can feel it. There’s something here. It’s…” She hugged herself and her voice dropped. “I can understand why Molly stayed. I want to stay too. I think about leaving, and I can hardly imagine it.”
I tried to think about leaving, about packing up the Airstream and hooking my truck up and getting back on the road. It sounded exhausting.
Lily’s voice wavered a little. “We will leave, though, won’t we?”
“Of course,” I said. “Let’s go walk up to the gate right now. Nothing’s stopping us.”
She laughed. “Oh, that’s silly. You don’t have to do that on account of me.”
“Not silly at all,” I said, crossing the Airstream to the door. The truth was, I wanted to make sure that I could do it. If I let her talk me out of going up to that gate, then I was going to be freaked out. I threw open the door and forced my way down the stairs and onto the cracked asphalt beneath. “You coming?” I called.
Moments later, she appeared next to me.
I shut the Airstream door.
She took a deep breath.
We both looked at the gate, which seemed an interminable distance away, all the way across the parking lot. Maybe she was right. Maybe walking all the way over there was stupid. After all, it was late. We needed to get some sleep.
But no, nothing was stopping me from going to that gate, damn it. I squared my shoulders and started walking. I half expected to feel some kind of resistance in the air, that it would be like walking through dark water. But it felt normal. And now that I was going, it was just as easy to keep going as it was to stop.
Not that I wanted to stop.
“Deacon?” said Lily.
I did stop. I looked back at her.
She hesitated and then hurried to catch up with me. She took my hand. “Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s go to the gate.”
Another long moment, neither of us moving.
And then I started to walk. I dragged her along with me, and we didn’t speak. We just walked. Walked and walked until we had arrived at the gate and we were both faintly winded from walking so quickly.
We let go of each other’s hands, and I brought my hand up to wrap it around the chain link. I peered out into the darkness. I could see the twisty country road that passed by this place. It had once been better traveled, but had now fallen into disrepair. But it would take us away from here. All we’d have to do was drive.
“See?” I whispered. “No big deal. We can walk up and open the gate any time we want.”
“Right,” she said, and she was whispering too. “No big deal.”
I turned back and there was Point Oakes, the dark tangle of empty rides and overgrowth, towering over our little encampment. The lights were still on in the Airstream, and they looked so cheery and welcoming.
“Let’s get back,” said Lily, who was already starting back over the parking lot.
I followed her right away.
* * *
When I got back to the Airstream, I said goodnight to Lily, who was already yawning. I felt incredibly tired too. I climbed inside, turned out the lights, and got into bed. My memory foam mattress that I’d installed myself had never seemed more comfortable. I sank into it, swathed in blankets, and fell instantly to sleep.
At first, my sleep was like falling into a warm, dark well. It was nothingness, pleasant nothingness. And then, after some time, in the wee hours of the morning, I began to dream.
I knew I was dreaming, which was interesting, because I was never one who could manage lucid dreaming. Wade watched some movie that got him into it when we were teenagers. He was able to figure out how to do it really quickly, and he would tell me about how he had lucid dreams all the time, and that he had progressed from the level of being aware that he was dreaming to the level of being able to control things. He would tell me all about how he did things like fly around or turn scary stuff that was chasing him into fluffy bunnies.
It sounded awesome. I wanted to be able to control my dreams too.
But whenever I got the least bit close to realizing that I was having a dream, I tended to wake up. If I didn’t wake up, it was only because I convinced myself that it wasn’t actually a dream after all. It was maddening.
Anyway, in this dream, I was immediately aware that I was dreaming.
In the dream, I was standing outside of the Airstream, and I was looking at the amusement park. The place still looked overgrown and decrepit, but it was all lit up, and the rides were moving inside, like dancing skeletons.
I decided to ignore the stupid park and focus on it being a lucid dream. I wanted to fly like Wade did.
I tried to kick off the ground and get airborne, but that didn’t work. I tried flapping my arms as though they were wings. Doing the breast stroke through the air.
Nothing.
The park was buzzing. It was warm and inviting, and it wanted to me come inside.
I wanted to fly.
That was when I realized that I was
actually weightless. The only thing keeping me on the ground was the fact that I thought I belonged there. But the truth was, I belonged in the sky. So, I simply allowed myself to float, and I did, raising up off the ground by about three feet.
Very cool!
I continued to rise, going far into the sky, all the way up so that I could see the encampment and the whole park spread out below me.
I didn’t want to fly over the park, though. I didn’t like that place. There was something wrong with it. No, I was going to fly all the way to see Wade in Thornford. I would watch him sleeping through his window. Then, from there, maybe I’d go fly over the ocean or join a group of geese and be part of their flying V.
I turned my back on the park.
And I did exactly what I wanted to do.
I flew for a long, long time. I found a flock of birds, and I flew with them. I soared down over a lake and skimmed my fingers over the water. It splashed up, reflecting the light of the moon, and it was beautiful. Eventually, I found myself outside Wade’s window. I looked in on him, and he was asleep and drooling a little bit. Laughing, I left him, and I flew to the coast. I watched the waves crash against the beach in the darkness.
It felt as though I flew for hours and days, but it never seemed to grow any later. It was always night, the sky peppered with bright stars.
Eventually, I got bored. I thought that I would like to wake up, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to do that. Nothing worked. I even pinched myself really hard, and it didn’t even hurt, for one thing—which was weird—but it also didn’t wake me up.
So, I decided I’d just have to fly back to the Airstream.
I did.
I landed on the ground and opened the door. I walked in and went to my bed. There I was, asleep. I climbed back into my body, and I tried to wake up.
Not happening.
Man, maybe this lucid dreaming was not as cool as I had thought it was. Or maybe this wasn’t like Wade’s lucid dream. Maybe this was something else, something supernatural. I began to worry a bit. What if there was a reason that I couldn’t wake up?
I didn’t like this much at all.
In my dream, I got up and left the Airstream. I considered flying again, but decided I was done with that.