3 Ghosts of Our Fathers

by Michael Richan

  Help me, Daniel thought. Steven didn’t know what to do to help.

  Just hold onto it, Steven thought. Don’t pull so hard you break it.

  It’s boring into me, Daniel thought. It’s got its head in already. I’m not pulling it, I’m just trying to hold it in place. It’s going to break itself off. Do something! Hurry!

  What do we do? Steven thought. The idea of using a flame to get a tick head to release from the skin came to mind, but would that work on these creatures?

  It didn’t matter. Steven saw the body of the insect snap, leaving an inch of the body in Daniel’s fingers. Before Daniel could drop the broken half and reach for what was left of the bug, it slithered under his skin. Daniel looked up at Steven, panicked.

  Maybe we can cut it out, Steven thought.

  Vertical bars began to appear in Daniel, and he started to fade.

  Daniel! Steven thought. Wait!

  In another moment, Daniel was gone. All of the white centipedes on the floor were now still, turning translucent. Steven exited the flow.

  Daniel’s body was slumped on the floor.

  “Shit!” Steven said, kneeling next to Daniel and searching for a pulse. It was there, he was still breathing.

  Roy returned from the River, holding his neck, barely able to speak. “What happened to him?” he asked.

  “One of them got into him,” Steven said. “He didn’t drop the box fast enough. Hundreds of those bugs came out, there were too many of them.”

  “Some landed on Frank?” Roy asked, kneeling next to Daniel’s body.

  “Yes, that part worked, I think,” Steven said. “What do we do?”

  “Help me get him up onto the couch,” Roy said. They lifted Daniel carefully and laid him down. He seemed to be sleeping.

  “Well, this is fucked up worse than Hogan’s billy goat,” Roy said.

  “Do we take him to the hospital?” Steven said. “We know what’s happened to him, but we certainly can’t tell the doctors and nurses that.”

  “We gotta get this figured out,” Roy said, “or he’ll stay like that forever. And if he’s in a hospital, it’ll make it damn hard to do anything with him when we have a solution.”

  “I’ll call Eliza,” Steven said. “Maybe she’ll know what to do.”

  “Yes, call her,” Roy said.

  Steven took out his cell phone and called her.

  “Steven?” Eliza answered.

  “Eliza? We’ve got a big problem.”

  -

  Steven saw Eliza waving her arm at the arrivals pick up. She was hard to miss. She was a tall and imposing woman, but not overweight. Her hair was wild, swirling around her head chaotically. She moved gracefully and deliberately. She had a large suitcase with her. Steven parked the car at the curb and popped the trunk, then stepped out to give her a big hug and help get the suitcase into the back of the car. They both hopped back into the front seats and Steven drove out of the airport. It was around 10 a.m. Eliza had taken the first flight out of Sacramento.

  “It was bad timing,” Steven said. “Had he entered the flow just a second or two earlier he would have seen how quickly the insects were moving and how many there were.”

  “I found this medical supply store on the internet,” Eliza said, referring to an address she had on a scrap of paper. “It’s between the airport and your home. I need to stop there and pick up some things on the way to your place if that’s all right.”

  “I’m sorry, Eliza,” Steven said. “This was certainly not how I wanted your first visit here to go. And I’m sorry I got Daniel wrapped up in this.”

  “Daniel’s a big boy, he makes his own decisions,” she said.

  “But Troy…” Steven said and then paused, unsure if he should have brought it up.

  “Ah, he told you,” Eliza said. “Well, that does complicate things. But I’d be helping him no matter what, he’s a good friend.”

  “You found Troy a babysitter?”

  “He’s staying with Joe. Having Tommy to play with, he’ll think he’s in heaven. So he’s fine. And Joe will keep an eye on the barrier.”

  “Any ideas how to proceed?” Steven said. “Roy felt we shouldn’t take him to a hospital.”

  “God no,” Eliza said. “They’d just poke at him and it’d make it hard for us to do what we need to do. No, his body is going to need some routine care but we can do that. We’ll get an IV going to keep him hydrated, and we may need to place a tube in him to feed him. I’ll catheter him and we’ll get a bedpan. We’ll keep him clean and comfortable, make sure he doesn’t get bedsores or his muscles atrophy. It’s a short term solution but we can keep his body going for a while. Unfortunately, just as we need a time expert, we’ve lost access to the best one I know.”

  Steven reached over and grabbed Eliza’s hand. “I know we’ll figure this out,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand and looked back at him. “I’m not so sure.”

  -

  When they arrived at Steven’s house, Roy was there. He and Eliza greeted each other warmly and they took Eliza to Daniel. He’d been moved into the guest bedroom next to Steven’s room. Steven half expected Eliza to react when she saw Daniel lying on the bed like a corpse, but she when straight to work without a moment’s hesitation. She checked all of his vital signs, then began arranging things, asking Steven for help as she went. After an hour she had Daniel’s room the way she wanted, and she joined Steven and Roy in the living room. Roy had his book in his hands, reading through it. Steven was sipping coffee.

  “Would you like some?” he offered to Eliza.

  “I would love some,” she said. Steven went to the kitchen and poured her a mug. I think she takes it black, Steven thought.

  “Correct,” she said from the other room. Steven smiled and brought the mug to her.

  “Well, he’s about as comfortable as I can make him,” she said, sipping at the hot coffee and settling into a stuffed chair. “I can guarantee you this was the right thing to do. The hospital wouldn’t have known what to do with him, and they’d just be sending him through endless tests trying to figure it out. Daniel doesn’t have that kind of money. As long as we keep an eye on his fluids, he should be fine for a while.”

  “Any progress with the book, Dad?” Steven asked Roy.

  “Some,” he said, “some. Turns out Charles knew a bit about parasites. He didn’t call them that, but that’s essentially what they are.”

  “What does he say?” Eliza asked.

  “Well,” Roy said, “he had a drawing here that looks an awful lot like the buggers Daniel used.” Roy twisted the book around and showed the picture to Eliza and Steven. It did indeed look like the white centipedes that had emerged from the box. It was difficult to tell scale from the drawing.

  “He lists a lot of different parasites and what they do. He’s noted that this one is rare, so there’s not much about it, but there’s several pages about other ones. Some of them are quite nasty.”

  Steven shivered, thinking of one of the insects burrowing under his skin. It was the stuff of nightmares.

  “The good news is that there is a common method to remove these parasites that seems to work on all – or most – of them.”

  “What is it?” Steven asked.

  “It’s a salve that you rub on the body. The recipe for it is here. Once the salve is applied, the afflicted party drinks a special type of protection. That recipe is here, too. According to this, once they drink the protection with the salve applied, the insects leave the body.”

  “Well, that might work to get the bugs out,” Eliza said, “but it won’t solve the problem. In fact it might make it worse.”

  “How so?” Steven asked.

  “Well,” she said, “these parasites open up all moments in time, and then confuse him as to which one is our present moment, right?”

  “That’s what Daniel said they would do,” Steven answered.

  “Then Daniel is off in one of a billion different moments. When you
remove the parasites, he’ll lose his ability to move to different moments. He’ll be stuck in whatever moment he’s in when you remove them.”

  Roy and Steven looked at each other. It seemed plausible.

  “We’ve got to bring him back to our present moment,” Eliza said, “then remove the parasites. Any other way and you’ve just trapped him in oblivion for the rest of his life.”

  “And another problem,” Roy said, “is that he’s comatose. He can’t drink anything.”

  “I can inject it down his feeding tube,” Eliza said. “Once it hits his stomach, it’ll be as though he drank it.”

  “OK,” Steven said, “let’s suppose we have him all salved up and we’re ready to go with the protection. All we need to do is find a way to bring him into the present, and once he’s here, Eliza shoots the protection down his gullet. The insects emerge and he recovers. The only thing we need is a way to bring him to the present.”

  “What would pull him back from wherever he is?” Eliza asked. “There must be a way.”

  “Let me keep scouring the book,” Roy said. “I’ll start looking for something time-related, things about other dimensions, the present tense, that kind of thing. See if something turns up.”

  “Can either of you think of anyone who might have ideas about this?” Steven asked. “Someone else with some expertise that we might be able to bring in to help? What about the directory, Roy?”

  “I’ll check it,” Roy said. Roy flipped to the section of his book that listed out the various people he and his progenitors had come across over the years.

  “Unfortunately, Daniel was the best time man I know,” Eliza said.

  “What about Dixon?” he asked Roy.

  “Dixon’s specialty is patterns, not time,” Roy said.

  “Albert?” Steven asked.

  “I don’t mind trying Albert if we can’t find something on our own,” Roy said. “He’ll charge to hook us up.”

  “Isn’t it worth paying?” Steven said. “Daniel’s life is on the line here.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind paying,” Roy said. “It’s not that. I don’t know how much Eliza might have in savings, but I guarantee you Albert would cost us more than you and I have combined, son.”

  “Why don’t we go about getting the materials we’ll need for the salve and the protection,” Eliza said, “and think more on this. Let Roy have some time with the book. Something might emerge.”

  “All right,” Steven said, not entirely sure he was willing to drop the possibility of using Albert.

  “Roy, will you transcribe out those two recipes?” Eliza asked. “We can get started on them.”

  Roy turned back to the pages on parasites and asked Steven for a pen and pad of paper. When he was done he looked over the list.

  “The protection recipe is simple enough,” he said. “Ingredients are all common. In fact I think my own protection would probably work, but let’s make this up as directed in order to be sure.” He handed the list to Eliza, who looked it over approvingly.

  “This recipe for the salve, though, will be a little more challenging,” he said. “All the ingredients are easy enough, except one: ghost matter. I don’t have any, never have. Do you Eliza?”

  “No,” she said. “Never cared to have it around. Too volatile.”

  “Jurgen dealt in ghost matter,” Steven said. “Maybe…”

  “No way,” Roy said. “I’ll go collect it from a ghost myself before I deal with that ratfuck again.”

  “Well,” Eliza said, “that might be what we’ll have to do. Go collect it. Anyone know a place where we can get ghost matter?”

  Steven, Eliza and Roy all smiled at each other. It was a light moment in an otherwise rough day.

  “I’ll go,” Steven said. “Eliza, you’re the only one who knows how to keep Daniel going, will you stay here with him?”

  Eliza nodded. “I’ll call Claire and ask her to meet you at Mason Manor. If you want her along, that is.”

  “I would love to have her help,” Steven said. “Dad, will you stay and keep working on the present moment problem? Even if I bring back some ghost matter, it won’t do us any good if we can’t figure out how to pull Daniel back to us.”

  “I’m on it,” Roy said.

  “By the way,” Steven asked them, “do either of you know how to collect ghost matter?”

  Chapter Ten

  Steven was an hour outside of Salem when he got the call from Roy.

  “It’s good news,” Roy said. “I think we have a method to bring him back to the present.”

  “That’s great!” Steven said. “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s rather extreme. And it’ll change things for Daniel, permanently. But it might save him.”

  “Tell me what it is, Dad.”

  Roy sighed. “The book calls it a fusing. It’s like a possession. I ran across it entirely by accident, since being in the present is just a side effect of it. If we fuse another soul to Daniel’s, his soul will be returned to the present for the process. We’ll be able to drive the parasites out while that’s happening.”

  “Fuse a soul?” Steven asked. “What’s the impact to Daniel of that?”

  “He’ll be possessed, so to speak. His body will host two souls, his own, and the fused one.”

  “Any way to un-fuse it once it’s done?” Steven asked.

  “Not that I’ve found,” Roy said. “I think it’s a one-way ticket.”

  Steven thought about this. Daniel was unable to voice his opinion in the matter. Perhaps it was something Daniel could live with, even find valuable to his studies. Then again it might make him miserable for the rest of his life.

  “What does Eliza think?” Steven asked.

  “She’s for it,” Roy said. “Anything is better than the state he’s in now.”

  “I can think of some states that might be worse,” Steven said. “We’d better fuse the right soul; he’s going to be stuck with them for a long time. How do you even find a soul for this?”

  “Ghosts are candidates,” Roy said. “They’re usually sticking around for a reason. I thought I’d try Sam, see if he’d agree to it. They seemed to have a rapport and have common interests. I’m going up there today and talk to him, present the idea to him.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Steven said. “How does it work once we’ve got a candidate?”

  “Too long to explain over the phone. This is long distance. I’ll tell you when you’re back. Good luck down there.”

  Steven didn’t want to get into an argument with his father over flat rate mobile phone calls. Roy had grown up in an era when every minute on a phone was expensive, and old habits die hard. He let it drop.

  “I’ll let you know how it goes,” Steven said, and hung up.

  -

  The stretch south of Portland seemed endless to Steven. When he finally pulled up to Mason Manor, it was close to 10 p.m. He recognized Claire’s Volkswagen in the parking lot. Claire was a friend of Eliza’s who lived nearby. She had helped Pete and Sarah deal with the ghosts in the manor before.

  The rest of the parking lot was full; the place must be packed. He smiled as he walked to the entryway.

  Pete and Sarah met him at the door. Pete took Steven’s bag from his shoulder and placed it on his own. Steven and Roy had helped Pete and Sarah rid their establishment of an invader that was killing their guests, and in the process had come to discover that the manor was thoroughly haunted. The ghosts became a tourist attraction, and Pete and Sarah’s business had been saved from bankruptcy. When Steven called, asking if he and Claire might get rooms for the night and do a little exploring in the manor’s basement, Pete and Sarah immediately agreed.

  “Steven, come in,” said Sarah. “We were just visiting with Claire in the sitting room.”

  They walked into a beautifully furnished room adjacent to the entryway. Claire rose from a loveseat and walked over to Steven, shaking his hand.

  “It was good of you to come,” Stev
en said.

  “You don’t have to twist my arm to get me to visit this place,” Claire said, her curls bouncing around her head as she talked. “I love it here.”

  “The parking lot looks full,” Steven said to Pete and Sarah.

  “We’ve been running ninety percent,” said Pete, smiling. “Ever since you and Roy solved our little problem.”

  “I hope Claire and I aren’t kicking someone out of their rooms,” Steven said.

  “No,” Sarah said, “we had two left, so it worked out perfectly.”

  They all sat down in the furniture. “I’ll take this along to your room when you’re ready to go up to it,” Pete told Steven, setting his bag down by the chair he sat in.

  “I’m worried,” Claire said to Steven. “Eliza didn’t sound good on the phone. She said this was quite urgent.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Steven said. He relayed Daniel’s condition to the group, and then backtracked and gave them the whole story. Pete watched him intently as he told the story, looking as though he was witnessing the most riveting movie he had ever experienced.

  “I normally wouldn’t have anything to do with collecting ghost matter,” said Claire, “since I think it’s a disgusting practice and very disrespectful to the ghosts. But for Daniel I’m willing to try.”

  “Is this dangerous?” Pete asked, his voice rising. “It sounds like it might be dangerous.”

  “I’m hoping we can find a willing ghost,” Steven said. “I’ve never done it before, but I’ve had the process explained to me. The ghosts here had been harvested before, and they weren’t happy about it. I’m hoping we can find one who’ll be sympathetic to our cause.”

  “How do you intend to do it?” Sarah asked.

  “The basement,” said Steven. “They’re plentiful down there. Claire and I will go down, one of us will enter a trance and see if we can communicate with one of them. If we find a willing donor we’ll collect the material and I’ll be on the road back to Seattle first thing tomorrow morning.”