The Grey Ghost

by Nicholas Cara

  “I… never… want to hear a stupid word about my driving again!” Patsy barked to the Grey Ghost, still trying to keep down the breakfast he now wished he had never touched that morning.

  “We made it here didn’t we?” The Grey Ghost responded, still never taking his gaze from the road ahead, the sight of the bridge just coming into his view.

  “Yeah buddy, I guess in one piece but man my head is really messed up,” Patsy said rubbing his eyes. “Everything in front of me is real wavy.”

  Looking ahead of them, Kate noticed what Patsy was referring to and gasped in shock at the sight approaching them as they closed in on the bridge.

  “Patsy, that’s not you,” Kate called out pointing from the back seat.

  As the black speeder slowed reaching the entrance to the Trumbull Memorial Bridge, the three heroic travelers sat mouths agape at the now twisting bridge. The once immovable span across the Scar was now bending side-to-side in a horrific rolling pattern. Steel girders and cables long ago rested into their position now loudly strained against the bridge’s concrete supports as the bridge swayed back and forth like being turned by some invisible giant.

  Lightning flashed past the windshield, blinding everyone’s view momentarily as the storm drew ever closer to the bridge. Exiting the car, the Grey Ghost could see ahead of him multiple people sprinting from the crossing. Screams of panic reached his ears from the runners who had apparently abandoned their cars near the middle of the traverse. As their screams for help were suddenly swallowed by a crash of thunder now announcing the approaching storm, the Grey Ghost thought to himself:

  “Sometimes, I hate being right…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Turning to his companions, the Grey Ghost’s confidence in their ability to stop the carnage before them was not bolstered by the looks Patsy and Kate returned his way. Pushing his own fears aside as best he could, the grey guardian, knowing that innocent lives were hanging in the balance of their next move, forced himself into action. Walking over to Kate, the Grey Ghost laid a supporting hand on her shoulder trying to bring his girl back to into the game as the horrific sight unfolded before them.

  “Kate, I am out of my league here, I need you,” the Grey Ghost said softly over the increasing sound of the wind. “What can we do to stop this?”

  Looking back at the hero, Kate found herself speechless. The otherworldly motion of the once rock solid structure in front of her was baffling to the engineer. Somehow, Rosán had harnessed a force only nature itself had ever produced and bent it to his will. How on Earth could they ever expect to stop something like that? Looking back and forth from the Grey Ghost to the bridge, Kate felt nothing more than emptying numbness of failure. The sheer magnitude of what was transpiring was too much for her, she just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. The physics involved with such an act were…

  “Wait, that’s it, the physics… this is all still physics… work the physics…” Kate’s mind started reasoning, trying fervently to kick herself out of her stupor.

  Turning away from the Grey Ghost, Kate reached back into the car for her bag. Returning a few seconds later, the brunette spread out multiple pieces of paper on the hood of the car and started laying out a rough drawing of the bridge. A fury of letters and numbers started appearing on the pages as equations and notes were hastily scribbled down, their pace only intensifying as the engineer quickly fell into the work. Both the Grey Ghost and Patsy stood behind her impressed and slightly worried at the almost insane pace of Kate’s work. Neither said a word until she signaled she was done by underlining a set of numbers so hard she literally cut through the sheet marking the car.

  “I think I’ve got it,” Kate said showing the papers to the two. “If we follow this we might have a chance.”

  Looking at the pages in front of him, the Grey Ghost was not sure what he was reading as he scanned the scribbled equations and crisscrossing sketches.

  “Kate, how about you dumb this down a little for the peanut gallery.”

  Taking back the pages Kate gave the two a quick look as if to say, “I did” before she started to explain her work.

  “Rosán is somehow…and I don’t have clue yet how he is, literally recreating the event of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse right here at the Trumbull. Joe, you were completely right on that,” Kate commended before continuing. “The amazing part is he’s actually succeeding. I mean honestly I still can’t believe he’s pulling it off. The disaster in Washington was part human error when they designed the bridge incorrectly and part extreme natural forces combining to cause something…well…something that might happen only once in a lifetime. What that snake is doing here is replicating the event by tuning the bridge to the winds in the Scar. Somewhere, probably near the center of the bridge since it’s the most logical place, Rosán is tuning the bridge so that the winds hitting it are exciting its fundamental frequencies, which are causing all of the twisting and waving motions. If he gets the bridge to hit and sustain itself at its resonance, it could build and build uncontrollably without any new input, resulting in the same thing that happened on the Tacoma Narrows.”

  “Katie, for the love of Pete… in English, PLEASE!” Patsy pleaded completely lost with the engineer’s explanation.

  Taking a long breath, Kate exhaled simply saying, “He’s using the wind to twist the bridge until it falls down and goes boom.”

  “Why couldn’t she just say that…?” Patsy asked out loud.

  Ignoring his partner the Grey Ghost added to Kate’s explanation, “Right on top of the Ole Barnes Mill, this Boy-Scout project, and… Dad”

  “The only way to stop this is shut off whatever Rosán is doing to the structure of the bridge. But first we have to slow the bridge’s excitations down before it starts to tune itself into its own excitations. If that happens it won’t need any input from Rosán and we won’t be able to stop it at all,” Kate continued explaining.

  “So how do we slow down the bridge?” the Grey Ghost asked, starting to come on board with her explanation.

  “I think that’s going to be up to you big guy,” Kate replied. “Is it possible for you to focus your power and what do you call it ‘ghost’ the bridge, like you just did to the car? Now I don’t mean the whole bridge, but a decent section of it near the center. Without the wind hitting a good portion of the bridge causing the excitation, it will be like a giant hand clamping down on the center of it trying to hold it still.”

  “How much of the bridge will I need to affect?” the Grey Ghost replied, uncertain of the extent of his new abilities to pull off what she was asking.

  “As large a section as you can,” Kate replied with a worried look. “The larger the section the larger the hand clamping down.”

  “OK, grab hold of an entire bridge to stop the crazy bad guy …no problem,” the Grey Ghost replied theatrically pulling on the lapels of his coat.

  “While you are busy with that, Patsy and I are going to shutdown whatever Rosán is doing to the bridge,” Kate added. “If we don’t then this will just start up again once you let go of the structure.”

  “Whoa, whoa, there lady,” Patsy cut in. “No one ever said anything about you going out there on that nightmare of a carnival ride.”

  “Not going to happen Kate,” the Grey Ghost sternly added.

  “Listen you two, I appreciate the gesture, but you both can zip it!” Kate shot back cutting off the two officers. “Joe, you need to get to the center of the bridge quickly. Driving on the top will be the fastest way but Rosán isn’t stupid. He’s not going to set up whatever he has twisting this bridge on street level, so it’s probably in one of the service tunnels like that one.”

  Kate pointed a few yards in front of them at the inlet of the bridge where next to the road a red light illuminated a service tunnel entrance to the understructure of the bridge before continuing:

  “He’s down there Patsy with whatever contraption he is using to do all this. If it is as complicated a
s I think you might not know how to shut it down correctly.”

  “Well how about I hit him with it a few times and see what that does?” Patsy said shrugging his shoulders.

  “How about we keep that in our back pocket as plan B,” Kate replied smiling as she patted the cop on the shoulder. “You two need me there to help shut whatever it is off, so let’s stop wasting time.”

  As much as he wanted to continue to argue with Kate about her involvement, the Grey Ghost understood there would not be any changing her mind and they were now quickly running out of time. Sighing out loud the hero slowly reached out, lightly squeezed her hand, and whispered:

  “Just be careful…”

  The instant after Kate replied she would, the Grey Ghost strode swiftly back to the driver’s side of the car and hopped behind the wheel. Giving a quick nod to Patsy, the ghostly avenger said to his two friends:

  “Alright, let’s go save the day.”

  Then with a loud roar of the engine and crank of the gearshift, the car shot forward heading toward the bridge. Veering sharply onto the straightaway of the now twisting passageway, the Grey Ghost started to pour on the speed traversing the Trumbull Memorial Bridge as fast as the waving road around him would allow.

  As he sped off, Kate trailed next to Patsy, running straight toward the service tunnel’s entrance. Both were briefly illuminated by the red lamp outside the door before disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel.

  Cutting the wheel hard to the left to follow the new sharp bend in the pavement, the Grey Ghost was reminded of a family trip to the ocean years ago. The hero had noticed back then a few teenagers attempting to navigate the water's crashing waves on surf boards. At the time, he recalled thinking "That doesn't look that hard..."

  Rolling the cruiser along the banking waves of the twisting bridge, the brave man now regretted those thoughts. The closer to the center of the bridge he traveled, the more unstable the motion of the road had become almost leaving no discernible pattern that the racing cruiser could follow.

  "I'm not going to be able to ride this out all the way to the center especially with all of these cars crashing back and forth,” the Grey Ghost thought to himself gauging his chances. “But if I wait for those two to separate and gun it through there....whoa!"

  The impact against the side of the cruiser came out of nowhere spinning the car uncontrollably toward the bridge wall. Bracing hard against the steering wheel, the Grey Ghost fought vigilantly to maintain control of the cruiser from the unexpected broadside of an abandoned car rolling along the crazed flow of the street. Try as he might, the front bumper of the automobile still succumbed to the law of physics as it crashed into the retaining wall. A large spray of steam started to billow from the now crumpled front end covering the cracked windshield in front of the jarred hero.

  "Great, that's just swell," the Grey Ghost huffed to himself smacking the steering wheel in disgust.

  Kicking the driver’s side door open, the scene before him presented itself as if drawn up from the nightmares of a twisted mind. All about were cars abandoned by their owners, rolling back and forth across the expanse of the four-lane road. The crashed ones had caught fire adding to the chaos. This scene combined to create an almost impenetrable wall of destruction blocking the Grey Ghost’s path from proceeding.

  "OK, forget this...." the grey guardian thought to himself as he started stalking straight toward the area of rolling death. As he did, the ghosted disguise of the black cruiser vanished revealing the remains of the now damaged police patrol car.

  The approaching scene, which would have sent a lesser man running in fear, barely caused a moment of hesitation to the hero as he started to increase the speed of his walk. Faster the hero went, now running straight toward the center of the four-lane road in direct line with an overturned automobile that had been set ablaze. The gallant man disappeared momentarily into the flames of the car only to re-emerge on the other side unscathed. Never slowing, the Grey Ghost continued his journey running through any obstacle in his path. The speed and size of the cruiser had not allowed the hero to ghost the car when he first entered the bridge for fear of driving right off one of the twisting edges. But now free of that burden, the hero made his own way as only he could toward the center of the bridge.

  "Kate was right with that whole straight line idea…no surprise there," the sprinting ghost thought to himself as he passed through a blue Buick rowing perpendicular to his path as if it wasn't even there.

  Minutes later, as he finally reached the center of the now uncontrollably twisting bridge, the Grey Ghost steadied his balance on a street light pole he now gripped for dear life. It was near impossible to even stand on the road as ripples of motion bent the solid foundation of the paved lanes in ways he would have never before believed possible.

  Deciding this was as good a place as any to attempt the impossible, the Grey Ghost reached out and gripped the sidewall of the roadway abandoning his death grip on the light post. Behind his mask, the grey guardian closed his eyes and tried as best he could to slow his racing breathing. Finding a place of inner calmness, he started to extend his will over the mysterious power of the Spartan Cloak to the bridge railing. Slowly he felt his fingers become numb just as they were earlier around the steering wheel when he was ghosting the cruiser. As the stiffness, traveled the length of his arms to his chest, the hero readied himself to push out the magical force to the structure when suddenly his concentration was broken by a loud:

  "BARK!"

  Caught off guard by the unexpected noise, even over the wailing winds, the Grey Ghost snapped his eyes open and spun around searching for the origin of the surprising sound.

  "BARK! BARK!"

  Tracking the direction of the noise, the grey guardian was surprised to suddenly see a gray sedan rolling directly toward him! Quickly ghosting through the front of the car to avoid the impact, he traveled through the car and noticed the source of the initial distracting noise. Grabbing ahold of the noisemaker, both the hero and his savior passed unharmed through the automobile as it crashed through the retaining wall and plunged over the side of the bridge.

  Looking back at the large hole in the sidewall, the Grey Ghost looked down at his surprise savior he had just rescued before it would have taken the same deathly plunge as the gray sedan had. In his arms, looking back at him lay a light brown dog. Small in stature, yet covered with a large tuff of fur, the dog whimpered in fear at the Spartan mask looking down on her.

  "Take it easy girl, easy now..." the Grey Ghost calmly told the animal rubbing it behind the ears. As he did, the dog stopped whimpering and actually licked the hero across the marked portion of his helmet.

  "Well girl, I owe you one, thanks," the hero said putting the dog down on the road and patting it on the behind, sending it on its way. “OK, off you go girl. This is not the place you want to be… Go on and get out of here.”

  The animal, even with its four legs, did not fare any better than the Grey Ghost had as it tried to traverse the twisting road this close to the center of the bridge. Finally deciding to stop, the dog simply turned around, sat down, and starred back at the hero panting.

  Trying to ignore the pet for the time being, the Grey Ghost slowly made his way to another section of the bridge sidewall to once again attempt to complete his mission. As he made it to the side, he started to feel small drops of rain pelt the brim of his hat. Knowing he was quickly running out of time with the storm nearly on top of him, the hero grabbed the side wall and calming himself again extended his power to the bridge. This time he felt it travel from him through the contact point and then over a large section of the structure. Elated, the Grey Ghost immediately felt the twisting in the road and swaying of the bridge slow as Kate had predicted.

  As the bridge's motion slowed, the Grey Ghost could actually feel the force of the high speed winds of the storm pass straight through him and his now intangible surroundings. Blocking out all of these distractions, the Grey Ghost focu
sed his full concentration on the bridge knowing that until Kate and Patsy succeeded in their part of the plan, his constant control over the ghosting of the structure was the only thing keeping it from starting to twist itself apart again.

  His attention was so lost in his task that he never heard the loud creaking of the manhole cover sliding away from its perch on the street behind him or the loud barking from the dog growling at the darkened pit. Consequently, he never saw the attack coming. Without warning the very ground the Grey Ghost had been so focused on suddenly disappeared from beneath him as he was swiftly lifted into the air. Caught off guard by the surprisingly powerful grip now around the back of his neck, the hero was unable to stop himself from being roughly launched backward into one of the many rolling abandoned cars on the other side of the street. Bracing himself against the automobile he had just landed on, the Grey Ghost tried to shake off the effects of the savage impact. Standing as best he could, the Grey Ghost looked back to see the hulking form of Vega slowly stalking toward him.

  The alarm wailing in the cavernous mill floor was barely audible over the roaring blast furnace as it unheedingly smelted its collection of iron ore and limestone into pig iron. Taking a few seconds to register the klaxon, Stanley Bevine removed his soot-covered goggles and noticed the flashing orange emergency lightings spinning near the multiple exits of the large room.

  "Is that a fire alarm?" the mill foreman thought to himself looking around the room.

  It was then he noticed the other teams dropping their equipment on the spot to run from the furnace room.

  "Hey Gary, tell Dan and Ernie we've got to hit the exits, something's up," Stanley yelled to his crew on the other side of their rig.

  "Got it!" Gary called back running over to inform the rest of their team.