Ghost Heart

by Weston Ochse

  Matt grinned to himself. He’d been scared easily back then. Not like now. No, not like now at all.

  “We’re here,” Reggie announced as she shut down the engine. She stepped off the motorcycle, took off her helmet and shook her hair loose.

  “Place sure has grown up,” Jacket said.

  Raisin nodded. “And how. You ever see such a thing?”

  “Never. In my day this was a dusty old tent city. Nothing like this.”

  Matt looked from the campground to the two ghostly bikers. “What’s so special about it?”

  “What?” Reggie paused as she loosened the sleeping bag she’d tied down behind her. She glanced at Matt, but he was staring over her shoulder.

  “This is the center of it all,” Raisin told him. “It’s a week-long party. All the famous musicians come here. All the bikers, both hardcore and those who do it because they got tired of collecting antique bottles.”

  Matt looked perplexed. “What do you mean, hardcore?”

  “Matt, you talking to your pretend friends again?”

  “Shhh,” he said, causing her to shake her head.

  Raisin frowned and seemed to disappear a little more.

  “Well,” Jacket began, “not all of us bikers are easygoing. There are some who are mean. Criminal even. We’re just like anyone else, really. There’s good and there’s bad.”

  “You gonna sit there talking to yourself or are you gonna get out and help me?”

  Matt unbuckled himself and the dog. Kubla leapt out of the motorcycle, scampered a few yards away, then turned and glared, clearly showing his dislike of the machine. Matt took off his helmet and goggles. He rubbed the skin under his chin, where it was chapped and raw from the strap’s rubbing. He climbed out of the sidecar and pulled his pack out of the space down by his feet.

  “So where’s Ali Baba?” Matt asked, staring at the dark windows of the RV.

  Reggie tried the door, but it was locked. “Darn.”

  “Try saying ‘Open sesame,’” suggested Raisin.

  Both Jacket and Matt stared at him.

  “What? I know the story. I know more than I let on.”

  “Raisin’s right,” Matt said. “Try saying ‘Open sesame.’”

  Reggie sighed. “I told you. This isn’t a fairy tale, Matt. There are no Guardian Spirits and doors don’t open by magic.”

  “There are too Guardian Spirits,” Matt insisted. They’d had this conversation before as he tried to get her to pay attention to Raisin. Like always, she was having none of it.

  “If there are Guardian Spirits, then how come my parents split? Huh?”

  Raisin lowered his head and removed his helmet. “’Cause I’m not their guardian spirit,” he said sadly. “I’m yours.”

  Reggie stared in Raisin’s direction as if she’d heard a voice. After several seconds she turned away, shaking her head. “Come on, Matt. Let’s hide the gear and head on in. I’m starting to get hungry.”

  “Aren’t we gonna sleep?”

  “This is an adventure. You don’t want to sleep through it, do you?”

  Matt had to admit that he wasn’t really tired. The excitement of the adventure was still fresh, plus the idea of food was welcome. He could use a hamburger or a hot dog, or even a piece of pizza with pepperoni.

  Reggie had to pay ten dollars each for them to get in. The man at the gate wasn’t going to let Kubla in at all, and it took several minutes of alternately begging and whining for him to relent. Still, they had to tie a rope around Kubla’s neck and listen to several warnings that at the first hint of any aggression, Kubla would be removed. Then they merged into the press of bodies entering and exiting the Buffalo Chip. Matt felt small next to the hulking bikers. He stayed wedged between Reggie and Kubla, craning his neck to see the faces that belonged to the tattoos that floated in and out of his vision. Although his position kept him from being jostled, he was limited in what he could see. Between long legs or the rare gap in the crowd, he saw the tents on either side of the path. Most were open to the night, their lights drawing clouds of suicidal moths.

  There were leather workers creating pants, jackets and hats. Before his view was blocked, he glimpsed rhinestones being hammered onto a jacket. There were tattoo artists and airbrushers, and jewelers who mostly specialized in silver. There were food vendors and liquor sellers and more—there seemed to be no end to the types of businesses that operated in the campground.

  It was the food that most interested Matt. Everywhere, amid the sweat and the smell of gasoline from the electric generators, he caught the rich aromas of cooking. In between the familiar—fried chicken, pizza, popcorn, BBQ ribs, pretzels and more—even stranger smells tantalized him.

  Reggie, a full head and shoulders taller than him, was able to see things more clearly as she pushed her way through the crowd. “I think I see him,” she said, pointing to where the music was coming from.

  Matt gripped her belt loop and allowed himself to be pulled to the side. Behind him, the throng of people continued to push and pull.

  “Yeah, that’s him all right.” She stopped, then knelt in front of him. “Listen, Matt,” she said. “Here’s some money. See that food tent over there? Go and get yourself something to eat. After I talk to Phillip, we’ll go back and rest.”

  Matt didn’t want to be left alone, but he was getting hungrier with every passing minute. He fought the urge to complain about her running off without him and took the money instead. As soon as he did, Reggie turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  Tightening his grip on Kubla’s leash, Matt steered the dog in front of him to help him get through the crowd. So far, Kubla had only growled a few times. He seemed as overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and scents of the campground as Matt.

  When Matt entered the food tent, the man behind the stainless steel counter pointed to a sign that read NO ANIMALS ALLOWED. Reluctantly, Matt tied his pet to a support pole by the door. Kubla drooled and stared at him with hopeful eyes. He was hungry, too.

  Matt bought two immense pieces of pepperoni pizza with the five dollars Reggie had given him. He went back and gave one to Kubla, who gulped it down in two bites before Matt even had the chance to start on his own. Kubla sat on his haunches and stared hungrily at Matt’s piece of pizza. Kubla’s begging was a good ploy, but Matt ignored it—he was just as hungry as his dog was.

  But before he was halfway through his slice of pizza, shots rang out. One—two—three loud bangs broke through the noise. Kubla jerked at each one, then dropped into a crouch with his lips pulled back in fright. The crowd shifted as well, the sound of the gunshots making everyone turn as they tried to figure out where the shots had come from.

  Moments passed.

  Just as the crowd started to relax, whoops and laughter broke over their heads and three more gunshots rang out.

  That was it for Kubla. He lunged twice, each time the tent shaking as it threatened to come down on top of them. On the third pull, Matt’s knot unraveled and Kubla dashed forward and disappeared into the river of legs and leather boots.

  Matt tossed aside his half-eaten slice of pizza and ran after him. It was like running through a moving forest—the legs were the tree trunks and he ricocheted off one and bounced to the next as his trajectory took him ping-ponging after Kubla. He sprinted for maybe twenty steps before he crashed into something immovable, bounced and fell flat.

  Looking up, Matt saw the largest, fattest man he’d ever seen in his life. The giant grunted with the effort it took to bend and wrap a baseball glove-sized hand around one of the Matt’s ankles. The world upended under Matt as the guy jerked him high into the air as though he weighed nothing. He dangled there, upside down and staring into the acne-pitted face of the man who’d grabbed him. His skin was fish-belly white and his eyes were bright blue. Too-small ears sprang out of each side of his bald head.

  “Buddha, put the boy down,” said a nearby woman. “He thinks you’re gonna eat him.”

  Instead of complyi
ng, the man she’d called Buddha grinned, revealing a set of huge white teeth that to Matt’s upside down vision looked sharper than normal.

  “Buddha!”

  “Little fella knows I’m not going to eat him,” rumbled the giant. “Don’tcha, little fella?”

  Matt gulped, remembering one of Reggie’s jokes when they’d watched a television show about cannibals. “Human,” she’d said with a dark grin. “The other white meat!” Matt didn’t entirely understand it, but he had a feeling it fit his current predicament.

  “He knows no such thing, you big old fraud. Now, put down the kid and go eat yourself a cow or something.”

  Amazingly, Buddha did as he was told. He changed his grip to Matt’s wrist, then carefully lowered him to the ground. When Matt touched, it was on his feet. “I don’t eat kids, little fella, so don’t be afraid of me.”

  Still, the way Buddha said the words made Matt think that eating grownups wasn’t necessarily out of the question.

  Matt watched as the huge man lumbered away, the crowd parting before him. He felt someone’s hand on his shoulder and turned.

  “What are you running from?” asked the woman. She was in her fifties with closely cropped white hair. Under a rhinestone-studded denim vest was a tank top over denim shorts and combat boots. Her arms and legs were covered with hundreds of tattoos. There were even tattoos on her neck. A black bandana was wrapped around her head. Beneath a pair of blue-lensed John Lennon glasses she gave Matt a grandmotherly smile.

  “I’m not running from anything.” Matt scanned the crowd, but Kubla was nowhere in sight.

  “It sure looked like you were.” She gripped his shoulder and pulled him out of the way of a biker who wasn’t looking where he was going. “Come over here before you get run over.”

  Matt suddenly noticed that his guardian spirit was nowhere to be found. In fact, he couldn’t remember seeing Jacket since they’d entered the campground.

  “But … Jacket. Where’s Jacket?”

  “I didn’t see your jacket, kid. Did you lose it while you were running?”

  Matt stared at her for a few seconds, then realized she didn’t understand. With no idea where Jacket had gone, Matt allowed himself to be pulled into the soft, warm glow of the woman’s tent. He accepted the chair she pushed toward him.

  “Folks around here call me Granny Annie. What’s your name?” Her voice was soft and hard, all at the same time.

  “Matt Cady.”

  “Matt Cady. That’s a nicely symmetrical name. Two sets of four, each with three consonants and one vowel, similarly placed. Hmmm.” She pulled out an oversized deck of cards, shuffled them a few times, then placed them on the scarred wooden table in front of Matt. “Cut the deck.”

  Although he wanted to go look for Kubla, Matt did as he was told. They were tarot cards, and he sat up straighter as she placed several of them face down on the board. One by one she flipped them over. She grunted after each, sometimes nodding, sometimes shaking her head. Finally she looked up at him. “Give me your hand, Matt Cady.”

  As soon as his hand appeared, she grasped his wrist tightly and jerked him closer. The glasses slipped down her nose a little as she traced the lines on his palm.

  Matt watched her finger as it tickled along the skin of his palm. “What do you see?”

  She closed her eyes and shuddered.

  “What is it?”

  “You’re in great danger,” she said in monotone, as if it were someone else speaking.

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  “You are helped by powerful forces, but in the end you will be left to save your own life.” Her voice was vaguely singsong.

  Matt tried to pull away, but Granny Annie’s grip was too strong. He felt tears begin to burn at the corners of his eyes. “Stop it—let me go!”

  “You can’t change the future,” the older woman said quietly. Her eyelids fluttered. “Until you become a part of it.”

  Matt stopped trying to pull away. “Then what do I do?”

  Granny Annie’s voice dropped several octaves as her expression slid into one more resembling that of an old hag’s.

  “Baseball dreams,

  Blackbird screams,

  Sunshine beams,

  The bull charges through.”

  Then she let him go, opened her eyes and grinned, once again the grandmotherly woman she’d been before. “Where was I? Want your fortune told, kid? I’m a fortune teller, you know.”

  Matt stared at her dumbfounded. He rubbed his wrist with his hand. She’d gripped him tightly enough to leave handprints, but her eerily pleasant smile made it seem like she didn’t know what she’d done.

  Before he could think of an answer, Matt’s thoughts were destroyed by the sound of a dog yelping.

  Kubla!

  He’d forgotten all about the dog.

  Matt spun, searching for the source of the sound. He heard it again, but the campground outside the tent was so noisy that he had no way of telling where it came from. Through the open tent flap, he spied Jacket striding though the crowd. People automatically moved out of his way, even though they couldn’t see him and didn’t know why they felt they had to step aside. Those who didn’t move shivered as the spirit passed through them.

  Jacket beckoned for Matt to follow and Matt obeyed instantly, leaving Granny Annie and her tent behind as he hurried after his guardian spirit. Before Matt could reach him, Jacket turned and headed in another direction, clearing a path for Matt to safely navigate. Within seconds they had traveled fifty feet, something that would have taken Matt half an hour by himself.

  They turned down a smaller, less-crowded path. Kubla was a dozen feet away, his head down, teeth bared, growl deadly. A large biker wearing a leather vest and a horned Viking helmet stood in front of her, holding a baseball bat in a two-fisted grip. Kubla leapt backward as the bat swung downward, smashing into the dirt inches from where the dog’s head had just been. As the biker raised the bat for another strike, Kubla shot in and snapped at his booted ankle. He danced back and readied another strike as other bikers egged him on.

  “Get him, Bo!”

  “You gonna let him get away with that?”

  “Come on, Mack!”

  “No!” shouted Matt. He ran and threw himself atop Kubla, spreading his arms and legs out to cover him as he trembled beneath him. “Don’t you hit my dog, mister!”

  “That animal bit me,” growled Bovine Mack. “Get out of my way! I’m gonna teach it a lesson!”

  Matt glared at Mack’s wide face. Fierce blue eyes scowled back above a blond handlebar mustache. Two horns sprang from each side of his scarred and dented black helmet, making the biker seem more bull than man. Mack wasn’t big as bikers went, but he was big enough … and far bigger than Matt.

  “I said get out of my way, kid! That dog needs to be taught manners!” Mack raised the bat higher.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Before the man could move, Jacket stepped into him, occupying the same space. The spirit’s grimace was matched by that of the man as they both fought for control of the location. Finally it was Bovine Mack who stepped back, a shiver running the length of his body.

  “What the heck was that?” He peered at the ground he’d just relinquished.

  Everyone except Matt stared at the horned man, not understanding why he’d backed away.

  “You ought not be picking on the animal,” Jacket said, “Much less my boy Matt.”

  Matt grinned at his spirit’s bravado, but the words went unheard by all other ears.

  Bovine Mack reddened as he heard the words Coward! and Yellow-belly! bounce through the crowd. The shouts of encouragement turned into taunts and jeers. He glared at Matt, then gritted his teeth and stepped right through Jacket.

  A smaller man, obviously a friend of his, placed a hand on his arm. “Come on, Bo. We’re insurance salesman from Racine, for God’s sake.”

  “I don’t care!” Mack’s face was red with humiliation. “No one makes fun of
Bovine Mack and gets away with it!”

  He raised the bat and swung.

  But it never hit home. Instead, Bovine Mack ascended, lifted by the very bat he gripped.

  “Big men like you shouldn’t be picking on little fellas and their puppies,” rumbled Buddha. “Big men should pick on other big men.” He held the working end of the bat in his left hand.

  Bovine Mack’s helmet clanked to the ground, revealing a balding, sweaty head. His mouth sagged. A strangled groan escaped from his mouth, heard only by those nearest him. His feet were a full foot from the ground, but he gripped the bat tightly, afraid to let it go.

  “Buddha! I can’t let you out of my sight, can I?” Granny Annie strode and shouldered her way through the onlookers. “Put the man down.”

  “You told me I could eat a cow.” Buddha grinned. “This Bovine Mack, he’s a cow.”

  “Dehorned, by the looks of it,” she said merrily, glancing at the helmet on the ground. She flashed a grin toward Matt and continued. “Still, he’d be too much work to cook. And by the looks of him,” she poked the man in the stomach, “too fatty.”

  Buddha released his grip on the bat and Bovine Mack dropped hard to the ground. The oversized man turned and lowered his head and Granny Annie placed a hand on his chest.

  “I know it’s hard to eat healthy, but I’m not gonna have you dying on me anytime soon.” She dropped her hand to Buddha’s and grasped it. “Come on. Let’s go get you some nice steamed vegetables.” She paused and glared back at Bovine Mack. “You shouldn’t go around kicking dogs. It’s just plain rude.” Then, hand in hand with the giant, she turned and headed back to her tent.

  Matt clambered to his feet, his hand tight around Kubla’s collar. He eyed his fallen attacker warily, then followed Granny Annie and Buddha.

  “Vegetables,” grumbled the giant. As he made a gagging sound, the small woman beside him punched him hard in the arm. Buddha made a show of rubbing the spot, but Matt doubted if Buddha had even felt it.