by Alexie Aaron
“No. Maybe you left it at school?”
Mia pulled the scrunchie out of her hair and handed to Ted. He reached out from under the bed, aimed, and shot it across the hall. The scrunchie landed a foot away from the back of Candy’s foot.
“What’s that at your feet?” Cid asked.
“Damn, there it is.”
“You’re not supposed to swear,” Cid needled.
“Don’t be such a piss pants,” Candy said and slammed the door.
“I want to kill her,” Mia whispered.
“I know. But she’s his family.”
“He’s so kind, smart, handsome, and good,” Mia listed.
“That doesn’t matter to his sister,” Ted replied. “Wait… he’s not handsome.”
“Yes, he is. I love his brown eyes. I fall into them when he looks at me.”
Ted turned her face to his and kissed her.
“Um, gross,” Mia said, playing the twelve-year-old.
Cid, who was standing in the hall, had heard everything. He smiled.
His sister opened the door and pushed past him. “I overheard Mom and Dad. They’re sending you to fat camp this summer. I suggested it. We’re going to Disney World, and you’re going to fat camp.”
Mia was out from under the bed. Ted caught her before she could make it through the door. He pinned her to the wall with his body. His hand was on her mouth and his lips at her ear. “There is too much at stake. Settle down,” he hissed.
Mia did so. Ted held her against the wall until Cid walked in the room and said, “Coast is clear. What the hell were you two doing in here?”
“Mia was determined to punch your sister out,” Ted said. “I had to restrain her.”
Cid blushed. “I’ve seen you fight. Candy would be down in one bitch slap.”
“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” Mia said.
“I’ve never had anyone stand up for me before,” Cid said, amused.
Mia turned and hit Ted on the shoulder.
“Except Ted, did I forget to say Ted?” Cid said impishly.
Ted rubbed his shoulder. “Yes.”
“Sorry, Ted,” Mia said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“For the record, whose wife are you twenty years from now?”
“Yours,” Mia said.
“Well, act like it,” Ted said and stormed off.
Mia just whistled and walked into Candy’s room. “Which is her favorite outfit?” Mia asked Cid.
“Why?”
She picked up a pair of scissors off the teen’s desk.
“And how am I going to explain that? ‘It wasn’t me, Candy. It was Ted’s future wife who shredded your clothes?’”
“Damn, you make good sense. Sorry, I’m acting like a…”
“Kid,” Cid finished. “I think the longer you’re here in this timeline, the more immature you get.”
“Nope,” Murphy said from behind them. “She’s always like this.”
“He’s right. This is why Ted and I are so good together,” she said.
“They can be embarrassing,” Murphy warned. “Time we hit the road.”
~
Burt eased his bad hip by piling up some of the pads he had ripped off the wall. He was cold on the tile floor. The pads were helping, but they smelled bad. He suspected that prior inmates had urinated on them. He did his best not to think about the smell. Burt had satisfied his hunger with the last of the soup from the first thermos, and he needed to keep it down. He decided to play a game with himself to test his memory and to keep him from going nuts. He put in a tape in the recorder and pressed record.
“Top ten haunts,” he announced and thought a minute. “Ten: The Gruber Mansion. Tons of ghosts. I can still see Mia sitting in that chair, with her feet up against the barred door, blasting the ghost in the cellar with her rock-salt shotgun each time the ghost manifested. And I’ll never forget Audrey screaming when she thought the marionette was attacking her. It wasn’t. She just got tangled in the strings and, well, attacked herself.
“Nine: Clinton Middle School. Matching wits with the ghost. Ted’s big brain saved the day. Little did we know that the entity was auditioning us to be its host.
“Eight: Lucky’s bar on Route 66. That’s when we found out that we really knew nothing about dealing with ghosts en masse. Biker ghosts. Being rescued by the nuns was an interesting chapter in my life.
“Seven: The Rosemont Hotel. Mike was adamant that the place was a hoax. Turns out the ghosts were making it look like the haunts were being faked. Mia had to rescue the manager from an old escape slide installed by bootleggers.
“Six: The Jewel Theater. The renovation of the burlesque theater brought out a very dangerous ghost. But it was good to see Amber again.
“Five: Dew Drop Inn. This B&B that I investigated alone should have kept me from doing this exact thing. I had to be rescued, but the inn was so real. It enchanted me. I didn’t know I was freezing and starving. I would have died if Mia and Murphy hadn’t caught up with the inn.
“Four: Glenda Dupree’s family’s house in Lund. Actually, the whole town of Lund was haunted. But the disturbances centered around two very different twins who lived in the house. We almost lost Mia there. I think this is when I noticed that Beth was unraveling.”
Burt stopped the tape because he started to feel melancholy. Could they have prevented Beth’s path? He wondered if he should have used this second chance of his to look up the former investigator, maybe plant the idea of finishing her studies instead of becoming a paranormal investigator. She became fixated with a false sense of persecution. She was convinced that Mia was trying to take Ted away from her. All Mia did was fall in love with the object of Beth Bouvier’s obsession. It wasn’t deliberate.
“How did Mia and Ted end up together? I think if Ted hadn’t pushed the issue, Mia may not have even noticed that Ted was alive. After all, she was dating Whitney, her schoolgirl crush. Turns out that after Mia and my breakup, Whitney was her rebound man… They broke up. Hmmmm, that’s my fault. How much of this is my fault?” he asked himself. “Come on, this isn’t productive,” he scolded himself and pressed record.
“Three: Roustan Rose. The mansion with the pocket dimension inside. It was controlled by an evil little girl who pulled us into her sick little game.
“Two: The Hofmann house. It had so many ghostly attachments that it took us awhile to figure out what exactly was going on. It was the first real challenge after the hollow.
“One: Cold Creek Hollow. The haunting of what we now call the Murphy farmhouse was just the tip of the iceberg. This is where Mia Cooper - now Mia Martin - first became associated with PEEPs. What a complex haunt. It not only spread out to four other residences of the hollow but never really went away. We had to return years later to rest the other spirits who had been dormant until the arrival of a skin-walker. We had the help of a pair of bounty hunters sent by the Council of Women, Tonia Toh and Lorna Granger. Lorna Granger was possessed by a Native American demon called the deer-woman. This deer-woman was a very effective assassin when she fully transformed into a stag. I know it’s odd to use a male term such as stag to describe the female demon, but she had a full eight-point antler rack one normally associates with a male deer. The deer-woman could kill humans, demons, and ghosts. It was a fight that we lost a good friend of PEEPs to, but he has since been returned to us. Let’s see, the hollow has been destroyed, but I’ll always remember it as the place where if not for Mike and Ted, I would have perished.”
Burt was satisfied and stopped the recording. He labeled it and dropped it into his bag with the other tapes he had made. He listened to the squeaky wheels of the gurney moving above him. As a precaution, he had relocated his safe zone to abut the window he was working on. His thoughts were, if the ghosts sent a gurney down into the room, it would not batter him in his sleep.
He felt tired. He knew he shouldn’t sleep the day away as it made the night last longer. The only thing he could do
at night was sit in the dark, watching and waiting.
~
Mia sat in the back seat. She trusted the boys to get her to the Smoky Hill River area in one piece. Ted had found a geographical map of Kansas. It was ten years old, but they would manage. Mia studied the map of where she remembered the facility to be. She tapped the map with her finger.
Murphy manifested and said, “If we could come in and hug the river and come up under here, we may be able to enter the building without going through the front door.”
“I agree. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”
Cid turned around and said, “I think we may have to draw the king out of his castle. This way, he won’t be aware of you trying to come in the back way.”
“I don’t know?” Mia said honestly. “I think, when he thought the cavalry was coming, that’s when he decided to execute his prisoner. Until that moment, Burt had kept himself safe with the salt.”
“That very same salt that keeps Murphy from rescuing him,” Ted said.
“What if Ted and I just walk in,” Cid said. “Play the mischief-maker card. You know, juvenile delinquents looking for a place to set some fireworks off.”
“Um, where did the fireworks come from?” Mia worried.
“I had some left over from New Year’s Eve,” Ted said.
Mia looked at Murphy and back down at the map but didn’t say anything.
“We’re worried you’re going to blow yourself up again,” Murphy told Ted.
Ted gave them a lopsided grin. “I appreciate that, but I assure you these aren’t homemade bombs, and there aren’t any M80s in the group I brought. No vibrations to fool Burt into thinking that’s what opened the door. Just some pretty roman candles to draw the ghosts out and get them focused on what Cid and I are going to do next.”
“We’ve tried to put ourselves in Burt’s mindset,” Cid said. “He’s a guy who’s used to making decisions. He’s kicking himself for making the wrong one and ending up in that cell. He’s going to react when that door pops open. Mia, you need to get to him before that happens.”
“That’s my intention,” Mia said.
“Do you want to stop for supper before we get there?” Ted asked.
“Just someplace to pee,” Mia said. “I don’t want to waste any more daylight. I’m worried about how dark it gets in those woods after the sun goes down.”
Ted pulled into the diner that they had stopped in before. He had no idea he’d been there the first time. In order not to draw the attention of the diners and staff to the three youngsters riding in an expensive convertible, he parked at the back of the building. “I’ll order some soft drinks and food to go,” he said.
Mia handed him some money before leaving for the bathroom. She scanned the diners in the booths as she passed. She had an advantage knowing what Others looked like. There wasn’t anyone in the restaurant who looked familiar, apart from the waitress who served them.
Cid walked out and waited for their order so Ted could use the facilities.
The cashier brought the bags over and smiled at the young teen. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Cid pushed his glasses up on his nose. “No, I’m from Wichita. Our father is driving us up to see my grandmother in Omaha.”
“Tell him that there’s a lot of construction between Lincoln and Omaha on 8o. He may want to try a different route or plan for the slow down.”
“I will.”
Mia, who had heard the exchange, walked up and asked Cid, “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s smoking.”
“Mom’s going to be upset.”
The cashier handed the kids the food. “Don’t be hard on him. Cigarettes are hard to quit.”
Ted joined them and paid the check.
The three left the diner, trying not to rush and attract unwanted attention.
Murphy manifested and opened the door. He had a twinkle in his eye. He nodded to the back door of the diner. It opened and out walked the cashier. She lit up a cigarette and nodded to the family.
Mia got in. “Thanks, Dad.”
Ted sat in the front passenger seat until the cashier finished smoking and walked back into the building. Once he felt the coast was clear, he slid over and started the car.
“That was a close one,” Mia said. “You’re getting to be a good liar, Cid. Should I be worried about my influence on you?”
“I do have grandparents in Omaha. And I’m sure my dad is smoking secretly somewhere.”
Ted, who was alone in the front, called back, “Tell me where to pull over.”
Mia crawled into the front and watched the road. “Just the other side of the bridge,” she instructed. She pulled a sheet of paper out of the back of Ted’s notebook and penned in her best handwriting: Car trouble. Walking to Summerville for help.
“What are you doing?” Ted asked.
“Making a sign to put in the window so the cops don’t tow the car away on us.”
“But we’re going to succeed this time,” Ted said confidently.
“Just in case,” Mia said. “I don’t relish walking in the dark.”
Ted pulled over, and the four of them divided up the gear. Before they left, Mia said, “Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure and an honor to work with you.”
“Thanks for the adventure, Mia.”
Ted walked over and stared down at her. “See you in the future, Mighty Mouse.”
Mia’s eyes opened wide. “I’m counting on it.”
The four traveled together until the grade changed. Mia and Murphy headed for the river, and the boys headed for the road.
Cid heard movement in the forest. He looked back and spotted antlers above the brush alongside the river. He wondered if Mia and Murphy knew that a deer was following them. He tripped and decided he should pay more attention to where he was walking. The antlers were soon forgotten.
Chapter Twenty-two
Mia did her best to navigate the rough terrain. She worried that she was getting behind the timetable Cid had set up. He and Ted would arrive soon at the place Cid thought would be a good spot to start their diversion. It was just the other side of the hospital wall.
“Murph, can you…” she stopped talking as she saw something she hadn’t seen since they lost Father Santos in the hollow. “Murph, look,” she said with an outstretched hand.
A Native American woman with antlers growing out of her head stood there.
“Lorna?” Mia asked.
“No, my name is Sage Fire. Mia Cooper, you have been judged by the Council of Women as a danger to world of women.”
“How could I have been judged without a trial?” Mia said. “Even Romeo and Juliet had a trial,” Mia lied in order to summon her knives.
Murphy moved around quickly, making sure there wasn’t another assassin at their backs.
“You need not be there to be judged. I’m to kill you and send you into the Dark World where you will walk alone for an eternity. You and your ghost lover.”
“He is not my lover. I’m twelve years old,” Mia pointed out.
The deer woman angled her head. Her human eyes looked for the truth in her words.
“Leave me now, and you may return to your council to ask, why does Fredericka want her granddaughter dead?”
The moment of clarity had passed. The human eyes were gone. They were replaced by the demon eyes. “Prepare yourself,” the deer-woman said and bared her teeth.
Mia turned to Murphy and reminded him, “Beware, she travels with reapers. They can’t be killed. She, however, is vulnerable.” Mia didn’t wait for the entity to turn into the mighty stag whom she knew she couldn’t defeat without her adult powers. She took aim and tossed her knives.
The deer-woman looked surprised as the knives penetrated her flesh. She would not die, but she did need to recharge. She pulled the joined knives out of her body and ran into the forest to find a power source.
Mia retrieved her knives and ran towards the hospital, knowing sh
e had only wounded the entity.
Ted and Cid had reached the overgrown road. Cid’s legs hurt from the exertion of keeping up with Ted. However, he didn’t ask Ted to slow down.
Ted sensed his friend’s distress and stopped. “Tell me more about Mia and me in the future.”
“She said you met when you were a tech for the Paranormal Entity Exposure Partners, PEEPs. I work there too. This guy we’re rescuing is our boss.”
“So, we work together in the future.”
“Not only that. I’m going to live with you guys.”
“That’s nice to know,” Ted said as he resumed walking. “Cid, you’re my best friend.”
“You’re mine,” Cid said. “Now, I want you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“Promise me when I get as handsome as Superman that you’re not going to be jealous.”
Ted smiled. “I’m not sure I can do that because Superman is awesome.”
“But you get the girl,” Cid said. “You get Mia, and you have three kids.”
“I guess that’s some compensation for having to live a life with this noble nose,” Ted said. “I do like her.”
“I can see that,” Cid said.
They approached the wall. Ted lowered his pack as he surveyed the area. He looked at the small bridge with the deep ditch on either side. “First thing we need to do is make a few circles of salt so we can protect ourselves if the ghosts come out,” Ted instructed. “Also, we need cover if those Others show up,” he said, walking over and looking in the ditch.
“They won’t get here until Saturday,” Cid said.
“But they may already have spies here. We must plan for all contingencies.”
“You’re right again,” Cid said.
Murphy picked up Mia and flew her upwards to the small opening in the bricked-up window. He couldn’t stay there long with the salt seal so near.
Mia reached an arm in and broke the salt line with her hand. She pulled her arm out.