The living.
* * *
“You know we’re not supposed to be in this part of the city, right?” asked a girl with bright pink hair. Each word sounded lyrical, as if at any moment she may burst into song. Tabitha ignored the volume, instead focusing on the faces of the girls. The duo almost looked awkward without glowing blue skin.
“Rena,” said the red headed girl with a backpack slung over her shoulder, “it’ll be fine, guards are busy patrolling the north side of the city.”
The nervous one hung her head, making the sign of the cross on her chest. “Those poor passengers. Do you think the bullet train will run again?”
“Forget that, what about the food? People are going to starve if we can’t get supplies from Chicago.”
Tabitha noted that Rena’s eyes were sunken, her face almost skeletal. The other girl was similar, each of them appearing underfed. The witch leaned forward, captivated by the green of the redhead’s eyes. Despite the emaciation, the girl still had an alluring quality about her.
The redhead stood apart from her friend, the alpha of this friendship. The pink-haired girl – Rena – wore loose fitting t-shirts and ripped jeans. She appeared even thinner in the billowing shirt. The redhead however, wearing black gloves, a spiked collar and decorated with a lip, nose and eyebrow ring seemed like she belonged here.
Rena twisted a metal tube in her hand. Light spilled into the lobby, flickering several times. The room returned to its near pitch-black state.
“Ugh, Abigail, it did it again.” said Rena, “This is a you thing.”
The world never grew perfectly dark for Tabitha. Even in the bowels of the hospital, she found herself able to detect her surroundings. She never questioned if it was a trait of the afterlife or of being a witch. For a moment, the room rippled like a pebble dropped in a pond. It had been forever since she experienced a person manipulating the tiny threads that made up reality.
“Fiat lux,” breathed Abigail as she held her palm upright in the air.
Due to the perpetual blue monotone of the afterlife, Tabitha basked in the warmth of the lines wrapping around the young girl’s arm. Pushing up through her skin, the light ran down her limb like veins until it collected in her hand. The yellow grew brighter until the shadows found themselves outmatched.
A fledgling witch.
Blowing calmly into her hand, the brilliant orb rose into the air, hovering a foot above her head. Tabitha waited for the friend to gasp, or even shriek at the magic, but she barely paid attention to Abigail, instead inspecting the broken surroundings of the hospital. Tabitha recalled in her youth hiding these gifts. Later in life they placed her on the fringes of the lower class. The new world, consumed with famine, plague, even demons, needed magic, but magic never bought her acceptance or respect.
“You sure you want to do this?” Rena’s voice held an edge of worry, not entirely sold on being in an abandoned hospital on the bad side of town at night. Tabitha wondered what could have brought them here? What could possibly be so dire these two would journey through this purgatory?
“You don’t have to do this.” Rena offered a way out if needed. “Seriously, couldn’t we do this in your bedroom? Why the hell--”
“Tonight ends the waxing moon. My magic is stronger. Besides, this is where everybody used to go when they were sick. There must be thousands of ghosts roaming these halls, one of them must know her.”
By the way Rena slumped her shoulders, it was obvious she didn’t like the answer. Abigail continued through double doors and into the hallway leading to the meat of the building. The other followed close behind while the small glowing orb hovered just out of arm’s reach above them.
Ghosts wandered the halls. The people froze as the two girls passed. None of the dead took notice of the duo, instead turning their gaze upward, captivated by the shimmering light. Tabitha realized that while the girls were invisible to the ghosts of mundanes, whatever magic Abigail conjured existed in both worlds. With no voice to ask, the elder witch was left with more questions than answers.
“This place is amazing,” Abigail said.
“Of course you’d find it amazing,” Rena remarked.
“You don’t? I mean, before the war, it must have been filled with people. What do you think happened?”
“They died,” Rena chimed in.
“But what about the nurses and doctors?”
“Them too,” Rena added. “The plague didn’t care if they were patients or doctors. It consumed them all.”
Tabitha remembered the war as she touched the scar stretching bicep to forearm that once held her bioware. Magic, real magic had started to flow again. Mankind expected it to be a time of wonderment but it came with an infection. Demons. Creatures emerged from the bowels of the biggest cities, devouring, infecting, turning. Tabitha thanked the deities she made it to the afterlife never seeing one of those dog-faced soul suckers.
Abigail pushed at the swinging door to the auditorium. The door creaked open, freezing in place, unwilling to swing shut again. Rena paused, hesitant to enter the space. While she eyed the path, a dozen ghosts closed in, crowding her in the doorway. The teenager didn’t react to the dead passing by, brushing against her skin. The girl started in a light trot to catch up to her friend, appearing as if she was swept away by the growing number of ghosts.
Inside the auditorium the two took in the massive room. With furniture hurled against walls and windows with rock sized holes, the space felt abused and depressing. With all paths leading back to this central part of the hospital, it housed the majority of the dead. Where doctors and nurses once met to learn life saving techniques, their failed patients now collected, waiting for whatever came next.
Abigail moved near the center of the room, the orb casting a warm glow in an attempt to push away persistent shadows. The young witch rummaged through her backpack, handing Rena a small rectangular box.
“You have neural gel pads?” asked Rena.
“My foster dad works for the defense station.”
“Are you allowed to have these? Are we going to get in trouble?”
Abigail gave Rena a sideways glance. “We’re fine.”
Tabitha moved closer to the orb. Ghosts backed away from her, ensuring she didn’t touch them. A tall man reached up, trying to grasp the spot of brightness, curious about the spectacle. A small circle of ghosts hovered about the pair, a woman leaning over Rena, their bodies almost melded together. Concerned, Tabitha stepped near the girls, causing ghosts to withdraw.
Rena opened the box and freed a silver object. Rena stuck it to her temple without hesitating. When Abigail sat on the floor crossing her legs, the other followed suit.
Tabitha couldn’t figure out how the sticky metal pads played into the unfolding scene. Abigail powered up her laptop and pulled a cord from the side while exposing the underside of her forearm. Housed in her arm, three inches above her wrist was a small ethernet port. As Abigail pressed the end of the cord into her forearm, Tabitha listened for the familiar click.
“Valerie, open neural network.” Tabitha’s own computer had been named Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Every hacker had a story behind the name of their machine, she wondered what significance it held for the fledgling.
The screen on the laptop flashed to life. “The neural safety features are enabled. I can’t hear your thoughts. We’re not doing a simulation construct, so imagine you’re playing a game at home.”
“Sure, just like a game.” Rena rolled her eyes. “Remind me why I’m here again.”
“Cause you’re the best girlfriend ever.”
“I’m starting to reconsider.”
Abigail folded the screen backward on the laptop until it was a flat pad and slid the device in between the two of them. Tabitha couldn’t figure out how the laptop played into this ritual. In cyberspace, hackers utilized their gifts to parse code at an alarming rate. When a witch reached maturity, magic became nothing more than complex code to hack. How
ever, it was rare for the two worlds to interact like this.
“Valerie, execute Ouija script.” Rena gasped as the screen flared bright white.
“Your sight will take a second to sync with the program.” Abigail reassured Rena.
Abigail reached behind her ear. Tapping her skin three times, her eyes grew distant, as if she were caught in a memory. Tabitha touched the spot behind her ear, painfully aware of her missing microprocessor.
“Whoa, look at that.”
Rena leaned in, focusing on the projection from the pad. Tabitha forced her way past a gentleman crowding the device, sending him to the ground. A rectangle hung in the air, but unlike the Ouija board she played with as a kid, this one remained blank. Tabitha realized the script running on the computer wasn’t a clever naming convention, but an actual Ouija board. Like the orb, the ghosts in the room noticed the board as well. Staring at the ghost killer, they hovered, fearful to approach.
“I don’t know what to do,” Rena said.
“The computer is reading your thoughts so you can manipulate the projection.”
“Why don’t you need the neural gel?”
“I have a hard line,” Abigail said pointing to the cord. “Neural gel doesn’t transfer data fast enough for it to reach into the afterlife.”
Tabitha couldn’t tell if Rena’s worried expression was from the technology being explained to her, or because they were trying to talk to ghosts. In all her years of practicing magic, she had never used a Ouija board, an item banned by her coven’s high priestess. Seeing ghosts in the middle of the night had been terrifying enough, talking to them would have been worse. Tabitha wondered if Abigail would be able to see the dead once the spell begun.
A woman with scorched patches of skin running along her arm, reached around Rena, grasping at the board. Another ghost snatched the woman, trying to get his hand to the board first. Ghosts grew agitated, emboldened as they pushed past Tabitha, stretching and pushing, to get at the projection. If the girls could see the mass of ghosts writhing as they attempted to best their neighbor, they’d be terrified of the hoard.
A white triangle blinked into existence, resting in the center of the board. Tabitha tried to keep the young witch in her line of sight, but as ghosts surged forward their fear of the ghost killer was replaced with need. They crawled over one another, desperate to reach the middle. Bodies twisted and contorted, falling around the teenagers like they were nothing more than discarded pieces of furniture.
“Ready?” asked Abigail as a child with a mangled face tried hopping over her.
“I am,” Rena replied.
“Sub specie aeternitatis.”
Words of power, Latin phrases used by witches to focus their abilities. Unlike the dozen languages she mastered as a programmer, this one carried with it an air of prestige. It took the elder witch a moment to translate.
Under the sight of eternity.
The young witch yelped. Standing and backing away until the cord pulled at her forearm, she frantically looked about the ground. Tabitha recognized the expression on Abigail’s face, a mixture of horror and intrigue. The girl saw the ghosts clawing at one another to maintain their place next to the board.
“Are you okay?” asked Rena.
“Yeah, I’m fine, the spell worked.”
“How do you know?”
“I see them, all of them.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Magic,” Abigail replied as if that answered everything.
“Your mom?”
“Spirits we welcome you,” Abigail said in a squeaky whisper. “Can you hear us?”
“What are they saying?” asked Rena.
“Nothing, I mean, they’re too busy trying to get to the board.”
“Maybe they need it to speak with us?”
The undead attempting to claim the board reached nearly four dozen, each more frantic than the last. Both girls extended their hands as if they were resting their finger tips on the pointer. As her fingers touched the digital pointer, Rena’s eyes widened, a scream escaping her lips.
Abigail’s girlfriend found herself trapped on all sides by the ghosts. Rena steadied herself, eyeing the silent carnage being wreaked by the dead. She locked eyes with Tabitha, focusing on the single ghost not attempting to reach the board.
“They’re everywhere.” Rena said matter-of-factly, and yelped again when she removed her hands. “They’re gone.”
“They’re trying to get to the Ouija board. The spell only works when your hand is on the pointer.” Abigail reminded her. Rena took a deep breath, holding it for a moment and exhaling as she placed her hand into the air again.
“Who are you?” asked Abigail.
A young woman rested her hand on the mirage of the pointer. The moment her hand hovered over the projection, the remaining ghosts stopped fighting. Almost complacently, they collected themselves and backed away. Tabitha found herself blocked by a line of ghosts, still managing to see the specter pushing the digital pointer about on the board.
“Megan Faverau,” the computer spoke.
Rena didn’t hesitate. “Where are you?”
“Somewhere dark.”
“We are looking for my mother,” Abigail called out into the auditorium.
Tabitha stopped paying attention to the two girls, instead transfixed by a young ghost leaning against a wall in the auditorium. Unlike the others, the boy had no interest in being near the board. No more than ten, he backed himself against the wall, his hands firmly planted against the torn sound-proofing.
“Are they trapped here?” asked Rena. “I mean, can they leave? Are they always there?”
“I don’t know,” Abigail answered honestly.
A crash sounded outside, like the crack of lightning. Another and another followed. Abigail tapped the spot behind her ear, disconnecting from the computer. They searched for the source, but in the dark, only Tabitha could see the crows crashing into the glass, one after another, dying on impact. Several of the large birds struck their wings against the exterior, determined to break into the auditorium.
As if her heart still beat, the witch grabbed her chest, unsure of what was happening. Abigail clutched her chest in a similar fashion. Decades wiser than the fledgling witch, Tabitha understood something in the source code had changed drastically.
The boy.
The wall behind the young ghost had turned black. Creeping through the plaster like veins, a disease spreading itself until reaching the ceiling. Along the vibrant blue of the boy’s face, black lines carved into his skin like tattoos. For however long she had resided in the afterlife, she had never seen a ghost become a remnant like this.
“Something’s wrong,” Abigail said.
“What?”
“I don’t know, something feels off.”
Rena gasped, loud enough that Abigail met the girl’s eyes. Tabitha turned her attention from the dying child. The ghosts did nothing to stop her as she pulled at them, shoving her way into the center of the circle. The pointer slid about the board.
“Hello.” Even the voice of the computer sounded strained.
“Who moved it?” asked Rena trying to identify the ghost.
The woman who had manipulated the pointer before had sunken into the crowd. None of the blue ghosts reached out to touch the pointer. The desperate need Tabitha witnessed earlier had subsided. Now, they stared, fixated by the Ouija board, waiting for the pointer to move of its own accord.
“Abigail,” said the computer without the aid of any ghost.
“Mom?”
Whispers. Tabitha watched as Rena took Abigail’s hand and squeezed it gently. Both remained silent, waiting for the computer to speak. The hushed speaking grew louder, filling the room almost to the volume she experienced when the girls first arrived. Thousands of tiny voices whispered far too quickly for her to make out their hissing. With hands clasped over her ears, the elder witch tried to concentrate on the board.
“Is that you?” as
ked Abigail.
“The wall, Abigail.”
Abigail turned to face the side of the auditorium and the ghosts parted for her, clearing a path to the boy. Tabitha dashed through the crowd, knocking the dead aside and stepped in front of the young witch. The exertion forced the blue to intensify, making her skin pulsate with energy. Holding her hand out to stop the teen, she shook her head, unsure of what trickery was at hand.
“Mom?”
“We are Murmur,” said the computer.
Before Tabitha had a chance to process the cryptic words, a crack ripped through the room, loud enough that even the girls screamed. Cracked in half, the boy’s body peeled away, talons reaching outward, tearing away the child’s blue skin. As the body split, the disease behind the boy withdrew, pouring into the child’s back. Once it vanished, a leg stepped out, then an arm and shoulder. Tabitha recognized the creature the moment it freed itself from the boy’s chest cavity. The elongated limbs attached to a torso with exposed ribs was only half as terrifying as the dog-like head resting on its shoulders.
“What’s that thing?”
“It’s a demon.” Abigail’s words hung in the air.
“Murmur,” the computer’s voice repeated the single word on a loop.
Tabitha watched in horror as the giant dog-headed beast seized the closest ghost, tearing at its neck, vaporizing the poor soul. The remaining ghosts fled. The newest of them moved quickly, turning bright blue as they pushed past the oldest ghosts. The demon grabbed a middle-aged man, snapping its gnarly jaws onto his head, tearing until the ghost blinked out of existence.
The witch didn’t have time to divine if the demon only existed in the ghostly realm. Her hands surged a bright blue as she ignored the million whispering voices and pushed past the carnage. The demon latched onto her waist, picking her up, its canine maw stretching to snap at her shoulder. Thrusting her hands into the demon’s chest, sinking into the black goo, she jerked at the threads of code making the beast and started deconstructing.
Wicked Haunted: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers Page 29