by Chris Cannon
Wait a minute. “What does that mean?”
“He’s evil. He takes advantage of grief. When my father lay on his death bed, Bane offered me a deal. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, he was there. Seconds after I found your mother, before I could even dial 911, he was there.”
“That’s terrible.” Bane was evil.
“Every year on the anniversary of your mother’s overdose he comes and offers me a deal.” He took a shuddering breath. “He claims that he can make it so she wouldn’t remember trying to take her life. He’d erase it from everyone else’s memories, too. He’d even cure her bipolar disorder so she could live a normal happy life.” He blinked and looked away.
I blinked quickly, trying not to cry. What Bane did…it was beyond cruel. Putting that weight on my dad’s shoulders. No one should have to deal with that. Still, I had to ask. “Did you ever consider taking the deal?”
“Of course I did,” he practically yelled. Then he cleared his throat and played with the spaghetti on his plate, moving it around but not eating any of it. “I think about it a lot. I think about it every night.”
“And that’s why you drink.”
“Bingo.” He gave a half-hearted laugh. “Sometimes I think once you’re grown and settled in your life I’ll take Bane up on his offer. That way your mom and I could at least have ten good years.”
“You shouldn’t have to—” I couldn’t get the words out over the lump in my throat.
My dad put his hand on my arm. “If I do, it will be my choice, but honestly, I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go through with it.”
“Just living your life every day is brave.” I quoted the therapist who’d come to talk to me and my sisters after my mom’s suicide attempt. “I never understood that until now.”
My dad sighed. “I was so lost after your mom abandoned us. I didn’t know how to talk to you girls. I hoped the counselor would help.”
I shoved my spaghetti away. “This is not a spaghetti kind of conversation. This conversation calls for ice cream.” I went to the deep freeze in the laundry room and grabbed two pints of Neapolitan. My dad had two spoons out by the time I sat back down at the table. I pulled the lid off my container and started with the strawberry.
After a few bites, I confessed, “I researched bipolar disorders. Partly out of morbid curiosity and partly out of fear. According to Google, half of all cases start after twenty-five.”
“It hit your mom not long after you were born. I thought it was postpartum depression. So did her doctors. It took a while for us to realize there was more to it than that.”
Well shit. “Did I cause it?”
“What? No. Absolutely not.”
Thank God. I moved on to the chocolate ice cream. Next problem. “There’s a chance I’ll end up like her.”
He didn’t deny it like I’d hoped he would.
“Hello.” I waved at him. “It’s your turn to comment.”
“Well…of course there’s a chance you could get bipolar disorder, but there’s also a chance you could get run over by a bus. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”
I set my spoon down. “Wow. That’s comforting.”
“Sorry. I thought we were going for honest.”
“How about honest and comforting.” I shoved a spoonful of vanilla in my mouth.
“Fine. You could end up with bipolar. Not all cases are as debilitating as your mom’s. There are a lot of people who make it work. Hers was…it was extreme. Since you’re aware of it, if it happens, you’ll take your medicine. Just not all at the same time.”
I laughed. “Nice. We’ve moved onto gallows humor.”
“Speaking of things that aren’t funny, what are you doing for Bane?”
“I’m sort of a delivery girl and a collection agent.”
“You didn’t sign a deal with Bane. Only with Carol, right?”
I nodded. “I’m maintaining my sanity by remembering it’s just a summer job. The suckiest summer job ever, but it will end.”
“There has to be some way out of it.”
“Jake and I are working on that.”
“Jake?”
I launched into my story of meeting Jake and the strange way we spent the day.
“So you’re dating a guy you just met?” my dad asked.
“Maybe.” I wasn’t sure.
“He didn’t run when things went sideways,” my dad said. “So he might be a decent guy.”
I stirred all three flavors together. “I think he is,” I said before taking a giant bite.
“Remember our family motto,” my dad said. “With ice cream, everything is possible.”
…
Jake
I tried not to think about Bane and ghosts and all the other unreal things that were part of my life now as I carried cardboard boxes full of donated clothes out to my aunt’s Oldsmobile.
It was ten o’clock and you could see heat shimmering off the sidewalk. “How can it be this hot already?”
Aunt Zelda laughed. “Wait until August. It’s worse.”
“So I’ve been told.” Hopefully, I’d be out of here by August and living somewhere cooler. An image of Meena wearing that red tank top flashed in my mind… Maybe staying here wouldn’t be so bad.
“Jake, I’m going to the grocery store after I drop this off. If you go anywhere text me so I know you’re safe.”
Yesterday I’d have thought she was being ridiculous. Today, I understood. “I’ll try not to make friends with any ghosts while you’re gone.”
After she left, I went back inside to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of lemonade, and then went into the room where my aunt kept her books on all things supernatural. Meena and I had read through less than half of them. I was hoping to find something to use against Bane.
I sat on the couch and cracked open a book that was three inches thick. You’d think books on demons couldn’t be boring.
You’d be wrong.
I reached for my lemonade. Cold air wrapped around my shoulders and slid down my arm. Even without a window open or a fan going I knew this wasn’t a normal breeze. It felt too calculated. The hair on my arms prickled up.
“Nice trick.” I didn’t want the thing to know it was creeping me out. “What’s the point?”
“We’re bored,” the woman’s voice from yesterday said. “We want to play.”
That wasn’t creepy at all. “Who’s we?”
“We are the ones who were stuck.” Smoke coalesced in front of me. “But now we are free.”
“Try smothering me again and I’ll kick your ass.”
There was the sound of someone giggling. “We’re sorry. We haven’t been around humans for a long time.”
More weirdness. “You’re not human?”
“No.” The smoke took on the form of a woman.
“Keep talking,” I said.
“We don’t like to talk.” The woman reached out and ran her fingertips down my arm.
It felt like a feather brushing against my skin. “How are you still here?” Aunt Zelda had burned the white sage. “Are you a ghost?”
“No. We are something else.”
“That doesn’t tell me much.”
“We will tell you everything,” the voice said. “If you let us in.”
“Let you in where?”
“Inside of you.” Smoke flowed up my arm and wrapped around my neck like a scarf.
“Get off.” I jumped up and tried to brush the thing off. Before I could say anything else, smoke filled my mouth and nose, choking me. I leaned forward, coughing and gagging and unable to catch my breath.
“We won’t hurt you.” Her voice came from inside my head.
What the hell? It felt like I’d inhaled chlorinated pool water. My throat and nose burned. No matter how
much I coughed the smoke didn’t come back out. “What did you do?”
“We need you. We want to touch and taste and travel…”
“I’m not your freaking Uber.” I grabbed a Kleenex and blew my nose. Nothing. The smoke was inside my head. Why is this happening?
“What’s an Uber?” the voice asked.
“Your ride. I’m not a cab or a taxi or whatever.”
“You could be,” the voice said. “We could pay you in memories.”
“What?”
“Memories of your father. We can access them.”
“So can I.” How stupid was this creature? “They’re my memories.”
A movie played in my head. My father, much younger than I remembered, looked at me and smiled.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Your first day of life,” said the voice in my head.
I dropped back down to the couch and watched as a tear ran down my dad’s face. “He’s perfect.”
Then my mom’s face came into view. She looked exhausted but happy. I hadn’t seen her that happy in years. “Let’s call him Jake, after my grandfather.”
The images disappeared. I closed my eyes tight, trying to bring them back. “More. Show me more.”
“Feed us,” the voice said.
I could do that. “What do you want?”
“Blood.”
“Yeah…I was thinking pizza or a burger.”
“We need what we need.”
“Then you need to get the hell out of my body.” I wasn’t playing vampire for anyone.
“It’s not like we’re asking you to suck blood from Meena’s neck,” the voice snapped.
Just when I thought this couldn’t get any creepier. “Can you hear my thoughts?”
“She’s the girl you kissed on the couch, so we know you like her.”
And that wasn’t an answer to my question. Guess I shouldn’t expect disembodied hitchhiking spirits to be honest.
“I’m not feeding you blood.”
“Your aunt has blood in her spell components. We can smell it. Check in the strongbox behind the bar.”
Not going to happen. If I wanted to fight this I needed to understand who’d taken up residence in my skull. “What are you?”
“If we tell you will you feed us?”
“Depends.”
“We were fairies.”
“I thought all fairies were good.”
The voice laughed. “Are all people good?”
“No.” A disturbing thought occurred to me. “Are you evil?”
“No. We were dark. We had our place. We lured men with bad intentions to their death.”
Great. “So you’re the ghost of evil-siren Tinker Bells?”
She snorted. “When we die, demons don’t eat our souls. We drift around in purgatory and eventually disappear. My sisters and I weren’t ready to let go. We held on and remained viable but we were stuck. When your aunt opened the door to the spirit world, we escaped but we are weak and we need to feed.”
Part of me almost felt sorry for them. “Get out of my body and I’ll feed you.”
“We don’t take up much space,” the voice argued.
“You didn’t ask my permission, either.”
“We can help you and we only need a little bit of blood.”
I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. “If we’re going to be on friendly terms I need to call you something.”
The voice was silent for a moment. “Call us Vi.” She said it like it rhymed with pie.
“Vi for viable?” I could work with that. “Why do you need blood?”
“It sustains us.”
Not buying it. “Is that a nice way of saying you ate people?”
“We were carnivores.”
“Answer the question.”
“We prefer human flesh and blood but any animal will do. There is a family of rats in the cellar.”
“I’m not eating a freaking rat.” And I wouldn’t be going into the cellar anytime soon. “I only eat food that comes from restaurants or grocery stores.”
“Your aunt already has the blood here. You don’t have to harm anyone.”
I couldn’t evict Vi on my own. And damn it, I wanted to see more memories. I could make Vi think I was going along with this while I figured out a solution. I walked over to the bar and found the metal box. A quick check through its contents revealed vials of powdered bones, dried herbs, and what appeared to be blood.
“Get out of me and you can have this,” I said.
“Drink it,” the voice shot back.
“I’m pretty sure that would make me puke.”
“Put it in your lemonade.”
“No.” I set the glass vial full of crimson liquid on the bar. “You want it. Come and get it.”
Something clawed at my insides like tiny fingers digging between my ribs, trying to pull them apart.
I gasped and doubled over, clutching my gut. “What are you doing?”
“We don’t want to hurt you, Jake, but we will.”
“Go to hell,” I ground out between clenched teeth.
The tiny fingers turned into knives, ripping at my stomach and intestines. I dropped to the floor, sweating and fighting for oxygen. It felt like I was sucking air through a straw. I couldn’t get a good breath. This was insane. My vision blurred and I caved. “Stop. I’ll do it.”
“We’re waiting,” the voice said.
“Screw you. I’m trying to breathe.” I took a few deep breaths before pushing to my feet. The vial of blood sat on the bar. Could I starve Vi out? Maybe, but not before she killed me.
I removed the black rubber stopper, put the vial to my lips, and tipped it up. The disgusting coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. I fought the urge to spit it out. I walked back to the coffee table where I’d left the lemonade and chugged the glass.
“Thank you, Jake.”
A flood of images played in my head: My dad squeezing a rubber ducky at me while my mom gave me a bath in the kitchen sink. My first birthday party where I planted my face in the cake while my parents took pictures and laughed. So happy. They were so happy. When the images stopped, I finally understood. Maybe ten years of happiness was worth a person’s soul.
…
Meena
I sat on Carol’s couch, scratching Goblin’s ears and waiting for Jake to pick up his cell. He’d said he’d go with me to run Bane’s errands, and I hoped he meant it because I didn’t want to drive to the warehouses by myself. During the day they might be less creepy, but I doubt they’d be pleasant.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Meena.” Why did I say that? He’d have seen my name on the screen. “Do you want to run some demon errands with me today?”
He paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Oh…okay.” I waited for him to say something more, to explain. Maybe he was helping his aunt. Maybe he was researching demons. Maybe he’d figured out that there were a lot of single girls in this town who’d want to take a run at the new guy. “Anything else you’d like to say?” Apparently I was a glutton for punishment.
“Things are kind of complicated,” Jake said.
“What’s going on?” The seconds ticked by. Nada. Zero. Zip. “If you find some words, call me back.” I hung up and stared at my phone, willing it to light up with Jake’s name. As the seconds passed, my belief that Jake had actually liked me disintegrated. The warm feeling I’d been carrying around inside of me disappeared and turned into something hollow.
I realized Goblin was staring at me. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought Jake was a nice guy.”
“Me, too.” I scratched his ears and did my best to ignore how much Jake’s d
efection bothered me.
“He could be busy,” Goblin said. “Maybe he’s working on something for Zelda and he doesn’t want to take a break.”
Yeah, right. “That would be the best-case scenario.” More than likely he’d realized there were a lot of other girls out there who were interested in him. “I better go.”
I grabbed the handy dandy leather backpack which held several blue envelopes. Each one had someone’s name typed on it and featured a bar code underneath like you’d scan at the grocery store. Bane’s level of organization was deeply disturbing. The backpack had special padded sections for storing vials of people’s souls. Talk about creepy. I wondered if they sold it on Amazon or if Bane had to special order it.
I knew about the casinos downtown in the old warehouses, but I’d never had any reason to check them out. And I’d thought they were only open at night. Apparently, there were day gamblers…which was kind of sad. Then again, sad seemed to be the theme of my day so far. No. I am not wasting time being sad about a guy I just met. Sure, I’d been happy he’d picked me…that he thought I was worth staying in this crazy town for…maybe that was it. Maybe he’d reached his quota for peculiar and decided to bail. That also seemed to be a theme in my life.
Stop it. Focus on the task at hand.
“I’m off,” I hollered to Carol and scratched Goblin’s ears one more time. Once I was in my Volkswagen Bug, I gave myself the pep talk I’d imagine my mom would’ve given me. I’d been too young to date when she’d been up and moving. Not that I was dating much now. I imagined her saying, “No use being upset over a guy you just met. When you go away to college, things will be better. Being smart won’t be a handicap anymore. It will be an asset.”
I headed over toward Main Street and drove further into town. The view out the window went from classic, struggling downtown to abandoned warehouses and boarded-up storefronts. A block later weed-covered lots featured broken bottles and empty beer cans. One right turn later and I came up to Ace’s High Storage.
Its parking lot was clear of weeds and trash and the building wasn’t leaning like most of the others. The front still had loading docks for trucks, but they’d been boarded up. Someone had put stairs leading to the remaining docking bay. The metal door had been painted to look like a deck of cards.