Kelly put the palm of her hand up, facing me like a school crossing guard ordering a car to halt. “Okay. Stop right there, Leigh. You know I would do just about anything for you, but if you’re thinking about changing us all into ghosts so we can go looking for Hunter’s ghost, the answer is no. Absolutely no fucking way am I going to become a ghost willingly.”
“Ghost-napped? Really? What the hell! Can that really happen? And why would a ghost take another ghost?”
“I have no idea, and we are not going to become ghosts. We are going to become ghost hunters.” I picked up the decanter that Marie had given me. “When we find him, we’ll put him in here and bring him back so Marie can make him whole again. Then he will wake up.”
“And then he is going to dump you.” Lindsey said flatly. “I’m just being honest, Leigh. Putting a guy in a coma by breaking his skull with a glass vase is one thing, but turning him into a ghost is going to cause a serious issue for your relationship. The resentment will pile higher than Mount Everest, but I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Kelly shook her head. “Wow. Well, don’t ever judge me for treating men like sexual playthings. I’m always careful to have safe words in place so shit like this doesn’t happen.” She pointed to Hunter’s comatose body and his bruised forehead. “Anyway, count me in. What do we do now?”
“Marie said we’ll need a medium and a Ouija board.” I answered.
“Oh, sure, how silly of me.” Kelly quipped. “Wait a sec. You’re such a vocal Ouija board skeptic, Milton Bradley nearly slapped a cease and desist order on you.”
“To be fair, I never said they didn’t really work. I’m just bewildered by them, that’s all. Seriously, if there really is some magical device that allows you to communicate with the dead, I would expect it to be super rare. I’m talking having to climb a mountain, crawl in a cave, and defeat a dragon in order to get it kind of rare. You wouldn’t figure you’d be able to just pick up such a magical device at any toy store. And you wouldn’t expect them to be made by the truckload by some factory.”
Kelly took a cautious tone. “Hopefully your lack of faith won’t be a barrier to the ghosts, or that it doesn’t piss them off.”
“Can I help find a medium? I hope we can find a cute, tiny lady with a squeaky voice and quirky personality like the one on Poltergeist.” Lindsey added, only she was being serious.
I was getting a headache. “There is only one medium that I know of. And God, how I dread having to make that call.”
Lindsey was both curious and excited to find out who the medium was. “Really! You know a medium? Who?”
“Hunter’s mom.”
Kelly came over and gave me a hug. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Leigh. You’ve been my best friend for a long time. My condolences to your family because when Hunter’s mom sees what you did to her son...she is going to murder you and tap dance on your corpse.”
“Whatever happens, happens. I have to save Hunter and then I’ll take whatever punishment is coming my way. I’d rather have Hunter and his parents hate me than to know he is a lost soul wandering all alone…out there.”
“Meow.” Luna agreed.
Chapter Ten
“Cult”-ure Club
Until this point, I never had to call a boyfriend’s parents. I was dealing with a paranormal emergency unlike anything I could have written myself and it occurred to me that Hunter’s parents might understand. After all, they were into the new age mysticism as well as the old school psychedelic mind bending stuff. Now if they were anything like my parents, I might as well start getting fitted for a straitjacket. They wouldn’t believe a word of it.
I felt bad that I had to look up their number. Hunter said they refused to use cell phones and the only way to reach them was at their store, Head, Bath and The Beyond. I found the number online and gave it a call.
It was the recorded voice of Hunter’s dad, Max. “This is Head, Bath and The Beyond.” He said “The Beyond” in a very melodramatic way. “We are not here, baby. That’s because we are wherever we are supposed to be. Right now we are celebrating the Lunar Eclipse of Looove at the Temple of the Moon in Teotihuacan! We’ll be back…in the future!”
“Damn! Now what?” I drummed my fingers on my desk and wished Kelly and Lindsey could have stuck around a little longer, but they needed to be on their way with it being a school night. At least I had Luna to talk to. I suppose you could say that Hunter was also being a pretty good listener in his unconscious state. “The Temple of the Moon. But what was the name of the place?” I called and listened to the recording one more time. “Teotihuacan.” I jotted it down and searched the internet. There it was, The Temple of the Moon. An archaeological treasure left by the shadowy first pyramid builders of Mexico.
Next, I looked up when the lunar eclipse would occur. The good news was that it would be early in the morning. “What do you think, Luna? Should we use my broom and fly down there?” Luna sprinted away and quickly returned with my broom. “You really think we should?”
“Meow.”
“I don’t even know where we would find them. It’s almost an hour past midnight already. They might be asleep. How about we wait until the eclipse occurs? Then we’ll know they will be on that old pyramid for sure.”
“Meow.”
“Then it’s settled. We’ll leave at six in the morning.”
I set the alarm clock and we both crawled in bed to cuddle up against Hunter. I worried about him. How long can he stay like this? It’s not like he can eat or drink. I hope I can fix this. I drifted off to sleep for only an hour. When I woke up, I hoped that it had all been a bad dream, which none of this had actually happened, but it did happen. I couldn’t wait for some damn eclipse. It was time to go and find the Kovacs. I got myself ready, grabbed Luna, and double checked the pronunciation of the place in Mexico. I repeated the words that Gertie had taught me. Everything turned pink and I knew it worked.
The smoke cleared and I found myself standing near the top of the Pyramid Temple of the Moon. It seemed as if there were hundreds of people gathered at the base of the pyramid. They weren’t your typical tourists, these were the people that even the hardcore dyed-in-the-wool, hallucinogenic ingesting hippies would consider to be on the fringe. The crowd seemed to be more like a cult than anything. Some people were playing flutes, some tambourines, and others shook, banged, and rattled various noisy things. Above all, they loved cowbells. They must have bought out the global cowbell supply chain. It sounded like hundreds of first graders had raided the music room and then went running through the playground. By the looks of things, Hunter’s parents were certainly among friends in the eccentric group.
A chorus of cheers rose above the din of the ad hoc orchestra when I appeared in front of them. I held Luna close and nervously scanned the crowd for any sign of the Kovacs. I really wasn’t too worried about the crowd itself. My fear was that I’d never find the Kovacs with only the moonlight to illuminate the faces of the spaced out eclipse worshippers.
“Excuse me. Excuse me, I hate to interrupt your…” What was this anyway? A worship service? A cult ritual? I decided on the word festival as it seemed appropriate. “I hate to interrupt your moon festival, but I’m looking for the Kovacs. Has anyone seen the Kovacs? If you see the Kovacs, please send them up here to me.”
The noise immediately changed tone. The racket from the instruments suddenly became feverish and excited. The crowd began to howl out some weird bacchanalian cry that I didn’t understand. What the hell did I do? My thoughts wondered. Did my sudden appearance to the crowd—which had likely just participated in some weird communal peyote ritual—frighten them? I hated to think that I transformed the peace loving partiers into a demonic mob.
Beyond the crowd, there was a cluster of tents. A large, very sweaty middle aged man climbed on top of a heavy wooden table. He wore a silky green robe patterned with Mayan influenced images and he had an absurdly large headdress festooned with wildly dyed feathers.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that same costume on pictures of Rio’s Carnival dancers. Only, I seriously doubt those dancers would have their robe open to display what he had to show off—a huge, sagging, globular, furry belly. Despite his flabby physique, his impressive outfit and commanding presence made it obvious that he was the Grand Poobah of these Moose Lodge washouts.
The crowd had noticed that Grand Poobah had taken to his stage. They murmured and turned towards him. He had a large staff, like a shepherds crook. I instantly recognized it as the same kind used by the guys that dress as Saint Patrick for the big parades in Chicago. He slammed the base of it down in an attention grabbing move and it made a loud thud. The crowd went completely silent as he instantaneously threw his hands out and screamed out a weird phrase. “Aye aye oh oh aye ya.” He commenced to hop around on the table like a giant green chicken trying to hop on one leg. His cape flew about and his feathers bounced around like they themselves were enjoying their own bizarre dance.
A scantily clad woman in a gold toga stood next to his stage. She threw her hands up in an obvious display of confusion at the Grand Poobah’s order, and I could see her mouth moving as she uttered a word. “What?”
He fiercely shouted, “Mutha! Fucka!”
The crowd repeated his singular words of prayer in unison, “Mutha! Fucka!”
“No, fuckheads! My fucking foot! I just ripped off my goddamned fucking toenail you idiots! Look at it! Jesus Christ! God! With this piece of shit staff your brother gave me!” He lifted up the staff and showed the bloodied shaft to the gold toga clad woman. It was obvious he had slammed the pointy wooden end right through the bed of his toenail. He must have ripped that little sucker right out of the meat of his toe when he pulled the staff back up. The Grand Poobah was overwhelmed by the excruciating pain of having just performed a crude self-administered toenailectomy—with a splintery wooden pole no less. He doubled over until he dropped to his knees. “Oh! Aye oh um fuck, fuck.”
The crowd genuflected en masse as they copied their leader’s movement. Grand Poobah heard the shuffling sound of the crowd and he lifted his head up. Through eyes squinting from pain, he could see the flock kneeling just like him. “Fucking idiots!” He shouted at them.
Toga woman ran to a tent and returned with a first aid kit. In short order, she dressed his wound. Grand Poobah returned to his position of authority and pointed his staff toward me. “The Moon Goddess has sent her daughter! Daughter of the Blood Moon, what is your name? What do you seek from us?”
“Hello...your honor.” I didn’t know how the hell I should address this guy. “My name is Leigh and this is Luna. We are here for the Kovacs. They need to come with me.”
Grand Poobah shouted, “Bring me the Kovacs! Leigh, Daughter of Moon Goddess wishes for us to perform the Blood Moon Ritual!” The crowd cheered wildly. Grand Poobah leaned down and spoke to toga woman again.
Soon the teeming crowd began to congregate around one point. From my elevated vantage point, they looked a lot like Koi fish in a pond, gathering around a slice of bread. It became clear to me they had found the Kovacs. Before long, several people led Max and Millie towards Grand Poobah’s makeshift pulpit.
“Give them each two more hits of the Serpent God’s nectar. That should do it.” Toga woman produced a large wooden mixing bowl full of liquid. Max and Millie each took two drinks from the bowl that toga woman had lifted to their lips. Grand Poobah also took a huge gulp or two. I had seen this sort of thing before in a documentary about native shamans of the Amazon. That was exactly how they drank their strange psychedelic brew.
“Woo! Wamma a lamma ding dong! That’s some good shit!” Shouted Grand Poobah.
People in the crowd each drank from their personal stash of the potion they had among them. Once everyone had a dose, the spaced out crowd chanted their leader’s words together in a prayer like tone. “Woo! Wamma a lamma ding dong! That’s some good shit!”
“Whatever.” Mumbled Grand Poobah. He commanded the crowd to lead the Kovacs up the pyramid steps. “Take the Kovacs away up the steps to the Daughter of Moon Goddess.” He nodded to toga woman and whispered something. She followed right behind Millie and Max as they ascended the ancient stone steps. When they were just ten feet away, I spotted something that frightened me. Toga woman had turned to look down below at Grand Poobah. She had been hiding a large sword behind her back.
“Leigh? What are you doing here? Where’s Hunter? Is he with you? And why do you have butterflies for ears?” Millie asked.
Max looked at me with huge glassy eyes. “Well, they go well with the koalas she has for breasts.” He started laughing at something only he could see. “Wow! They can talk! Or is this all just from the drugs?”
“Listen, Max and Millie, there’s no time to waste! I think they mean to make human sacrifices of you…sacrifices to me!” I took out my broom and handed Luna to Millie. I put an arm around Max and lifted his other arm around Millie. We now formed a small circle.
“Yeah! Just like the good ole days! Right, Millie?” Max said exuberantly as he squeezed Millie and me close to him. Luna was somewhere in the middle.
Poof! We left the crazy cult of the Blood Moon behind and appeared in my apartment. One thing was for sure, from that point on I would never poke fun at my dad for joining The Optimists. I’m pretty sure his fraternal order wasn’t going to get talked into partaking in human sacrifice in the fog of a drug induced psychedelic haze.
Chapter Eleven
Medium Rare
We stood in my kitchen, and I wasn’t even sure where to start. The first order of business was to get Max and Millie’s heads straightened out. I had no idea what sort of chemicals were in the bowl they drank from, but I knew it wasn’t punch. I also had to make sure they weren’t in complete shock over the interspatial trip we just took.
It turns out that the Kovacs were already firm believers in such matters. Their altered states of perception made everything that I told them about the accident and the fate of Hunter’s ghost seem normal. They accepted everything as fact based on face value alone. I may as well have said, “The sky is blue, the sun rises in the east.” The fact that I was dealing with believers was kind of nice for a change.
It was heartbreaking to watch Millie and Max as they watched over their son. It made me feel lower than a snake’s ass. As a matter of fact, I probably could have slithered right out of my bedroom. My stomach wrenched like I had scarfed down a sack of hamburger gut bombs. I wish it was just a case of lousy food. At least that could be remedied with a fit of vomiting. I don’t know of any quick fixes for sheer guilt.
Millie could sense how I felt and instead of skinning me alive, she pulled me close to her and Max. “We are going to get Hunter’s spirit. Have no doubt about that.”
“Have you done anything like this before?” I asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t say anything exactly like this. I’ve been a medium for a long time, and I’ve come across some very strange things. With ghosts, you just never know what you’ll get.”
“What do they look like? Are they just invisible?”
“Oh, no, they can be seen. Personally, I’ve never actually seen a ghost, but at a séance one night in 1982 I felt a sudden chill. So I know I can sense them. One thing about ghosts, they are very subtle.”
“You can communicate with them, though. Right?” I prayed she would say it was the most common thing a medium could do. I really needed her to throw some true ghost stories out there. I was already having some doubts about her skills.
“Based on my experience, ghosts don’t actually speak to you. You sort of get these thoughts and ideas about what they have to say. Then the ideas grow until you get the big picture.” Millie explained.
Millie’s psychic résumé was starting to look pretty shoddy. How can you be a medium and not have one credible ghost story? The answer is that you can’t. Poor Millie had been fooling herself for years and probably quite a few good paying clients as well. That didn’t mea
n she couldn’t be of help. I knew I would have to take the lead on this and gently prod her along—more or less. In any case, everything would need to wait a little longer. The sun wasn’t even up and I was dead tired. Max had settled in an old chair I had in the bedroom and I could see his head bobbing up and down as he fought to stay awake.
“Why don’t we try to get a little rest?” I suggested. “This could be a long day and a longer night ahead.” Max replied by snoring. Millie lay next to Hunter and her eyes fell shut. I was on the other side of him and did the same thing.
I woke up to the morning sun coming through the window. I saw that Max and Mille were already awake. I remembered I needed to ask my newfound medium something. “Millie, Marie Laveau said we will need a Ouija board. Do you have one?”
Max’s ears perked up. “Ouija board? Any specific style? Back at the store we have the best selection of Ouija boards in the greater Chicagoland area. At least that’s what our radio ad says. Every color of the rainbow and made from almost any material you can imagine. We have them in forty two different languages. I even have one in Klingon for the Star Trek nuts. Can you believe those guys?” Max huffed through his beard and shook his head. His beads clinked together and bounced off his tie-dyed shirt.
Max didn’t really have too much wiggle room when it came to calling someone else a nut. “Marie didn’t specify a model. Isn’t there just a plain base model Ouija board? Can we try that first? If the ghosts speak another language, we can work our way through them.”
“Sure. We’ve got the regular Ouija boards. Can you zap us over there? We’ll pick one out.”
“I’ll stay here with Hunter.” Millie gently swept a hair aside on Hunter’s battered forehead. Tears were finally winning the battle, and her eyes were ready to gush at any second. I sat with her and gave her a hug. It was more than a hug. It was like I was holding on to her for both of our sakes. I tried to think of some reassuring words, but everything that came to mind seemed more like something off of one of those theoretical motivational posters.
Haunting Leigh: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Literal Leigh Romance Diaries Book 4) Page 6