Transmigration

by Nicholas Maes

  As bad as things were, they suddenly got worse.

  “Who the hell are you?” someone growled straight at him.

  Chapter Six

  “You deaf or somethin’? What are you doin’ inside me, pal?”

  Simon shivered violently. Henry’s kaba was stirring. The effects of the booze were wearing thin and the bum was regaining control of himself. He was confused to find Simon inside him and his confusion would turn to rage soon enough.

  “Answer me! Who are you and why are you inside me? This is my space in case you ain’t noticed! And why are we on all fours in this here alley when it’s spittin’ cats ’n dogs outside?”

  Simon was thinking hard. The alley ran on for five hundred metres and ended in a street that the cops would be watching. Halfway down was an unpaved path that connected the alley to the local park. This park was huge, had lots of places to hide in, and led to a dozen neighbouring streets. If he reached this park, he could evade the police. But they would have to move like crazy.

  “Hey pal! Slow down! I’m an old fogey and ain’t used to athletics!”

  Simon felt repelled. Henry’s presence was rubbing against him, as if they were stuck in a matchbox together. He could practically taste the bum’s emotions, as well as his sweat and rancid breath. His sodden beard was scratchy and could do with a washing.

  “Who are you to complain ’bout my hygiene, eh? It ain’t as if I invited you in. And why the heck is my right hand bleedin’?”

  Simon realized he had to check his thoughts, otherwise Henry would be able to read them. He was about to apologize when a light stabbed near them. He threw Henry’s bulk to the ground. That’s when Henry started to gurgle. He understood his limbs lay outside his control and the realization had him panic-stricken. In his fear he wanted to cry for help. Simon had to stop him. By sheer force of will, he “squeezed” the bum’s kaba — it was as if they were speeding in a car on the highway and wrestling each other for control of the wheel. Simon was able to take it in hand but knew that Henry would soon be stronger than him. What had Cletho said? “Occupancy don’t last long. When a drunk gets sober, de bolkh is expelled.”

  He had to act fast.

  “Listen,” Simon said, “I’ll explain things later. Right now we have to escape the police.”

  “The fuzz?” Henry squawked. “What do they want? I ain’t done nothin’ ’cept loiter a bit.”

  “They think you attacked the Carpenter family. If they nab us, they’ll throw you in jail for sure.”

  “Jail? Lordy. I can’t be nabbed. There ain’t no beer nor whisky in jail.”

  “Then stop calling for help and let’s work together.”

  “Okey doke. But promise me this: you ain’t a ghost or demon, right?”

  Before Simon could answer there were shouts from behind. Two cops were in the alley and closing in fast. Anxious to evade them now, Henry stopped fighting and handed the “wheel” to Simon, who manoeuvred them forward, past brambles, ferns, puddles, and garbage. The rain was driving into his face. Where was that path? It couldn’t be far.

  “You see that fence?” Henry spoke up, reading his thoughts. He was “pointing” left to a chain-link fence.

  “Yeah.”

  “The path is behind it. The government erected the fence ’cause lotsa houses were bein’ burgled.”

  Simon glanced around. The bobbing light beams were getting close and the cops were maybe a minute behind.

  “Let’s climb it.”

  “No way. It must be seven feet and I ain’t no pole vaulter.”

  “Hang on tight.”

  Simon focused especially hard. Bending the bum’s legs and tensing his muscles, he allowed the strength inside them to gather. When the sinew was shaking with the pent-up force, Simon released it all at once. Henry would have screamed had Simon let him. His shatl left the ground like a rocket, arched eight feet, and cleared the fence. A moment later it landed in some bushes, just as Simon intended. Apart from some bruises, Henry would be fine.

  “You maniac!” Henry fumed. “You could’ve killed me!”

  As the old man cursed, Simon hurried them on. The path was maybe three feet wide and lined with fences on either side, behind which were houses and well-trimmed lawns. Simon pictured people going about their business, doing homework, cleaning dishes, watching TV together, dry and warm and safe from the dark. Would he ever enjoy these routines again? What insanity had caused him to buy that rabbit?

  The sound of panting distracted him. A large wooden fence stood to their right. Behind it was a tiny yard patrolled by a dog, a hulking German shepherd. The brute was standing near the fence, its collar clinking and a growl in its throat. It was about to bark and betray their location.

  “Lordy,” Henry whimpered. “That’s one big dog.”

  Simon spied it between two planks. Without hesitation he jumped from Henry to the dog. He sank into it instantly — its vadh was simple compared to Henry’s shatl — and yelled “Quiet!” to its startled soul. He added, “Good boy!” when the kaba complied, then drifted back to Henry again. This took a second and the results were telling. The dog retreated and troubled them no longer.

  “You frighten me,” Henry said. “I mean, the way you gave the bejesus to that mutt. You must be an evil spirit or somethin’.”

  “Maybe I’m a good one?”

  “I doubt that. A good one wouldn’t waste his time on me. I want you out.”

  “Soon. We’re almost there.”

  They were in the park. Night had fallen on its sprawling grounds. The odd lamppost beat the shadows back, but the rain and darkness had the upper hand. The place was too large for the cops to search thoroughly. If they laid low …

  “I ain’t lingerin’ here, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”

  “If we leave right now, they’ll catch us for sure. The cops will be watching the nearby streets.”

  “There are too many exits and they ain’t watchin’ ’em all.”

  Simon paused. He could see the guy was getting stronger with each minute. Angrier too. If he chased Simon out, Cletho would triumph. So how could he evade the cops and at the same time maintain his perch in Henry?

  Behind them he heard barking. The cops had climbed the fence and were creeping by the German shepherd. Any minute now …

  “The fuzz is comin’. So what’s it to be?”

  “Hang on a sec. Let me scout things out.”

  Gathering himself, Simon shot into the air — his sudden weightlessness was thrilling. Climbing thirty metres, he scanned the region. Besides the park’s unending hollows he could see the path and the approaching police, as well as the streets where their partners lay waiting — they were parked on Dinmont, Midlothian, and Ontario. Just east of them was Main Street, brightly lit and packed with people. He could just make out a fancy boutique, an antiques shop, a liquor store …

  A liquor store.

  He flitted back to Henry. Re-entering the guy was like digging through sand. And regaining control required more of an effort, as the effects of the booze were fast receding. He had to get him drunk and quickly. That’s why he steered them to Peveril Avenue. From there they’d hoof it to East 28th and Main.

  “So what’s our destination, ghost?”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t be disappointed.”

  “Okay, buster. I’ve had ’nuff of this crap.”

  They were on East 28th, a block away from Main. Henry was antsy now and squeezing Simon hard. It was getting hard to force the bum to walk in one direction. Every few steps the shatl would stop and Simon would have to wrestle to keep it moving. Even so a leg was dragging and Henry’s arm kept punching out — he’d wrested back control of this limb. They must have been a funny sight. Some pedestrians couldn’t help but smile when they saw a bum wrestling with his inner demons.

  “You hear me? You gotta go!”

  “You’ve been patient, Henry …”

  “You darn tootin’ I’ve been patient …”


  “And I’d like to show my appreciation.”

  “Yeah? How? You ain’t got nothin’, not a body even.”

  “Well, how about a drink?”

  “I oughta punch you for hoistin’ my rear in the air.”

  “Sure. Fine. But how about a drink?”

  “What’s that you said? Is someone servin’ drinks?”

  “You bet. Take a look over there.”

  Simon pointed to the liquor store across the road. His plan was simple. He would get Henry stewed, put his kaba to sleep, then steer him back to the house where he’d somehow take his body back from Cletho. It wasn’t nice to play on Henry’s weakness, but Simon couldn’t think of a better idea. Not if he was going to get his old life back.

  “You shoulda told me earlier. If I’da known you wanted to get me a drink, I wouldn’t have been a stick in the mud, even though you ain’t got business here. So what are we waitin’ for? Santa Claus or somethin’?”

  Far from fighting Simon, Henry helped him walk his shatl across the road. The force of his desire to drink was shocking. If Henry was in any way possessed, the demon was his alcoholism and not Simon’s presence.

  A minute later they were wandering the store and examining the bottles of booze on display. Henry was salivating and smacking his lips. He was like a kid in a candy shop, only this brand of candy was like TNT. Still, the booze would prove most useful to Simon; that was why he urged Henry to choose his poison.

  “I’m fond of Jack and John,” Henry joked. “Mind if I take both?”

  “Who are Jack and John?”

  “Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker. You ain’t a drinker, are you?”

  “I’m sixteen years old.”

  “That so? You seem older than that. I mean, you smell real old, ancient like. But old, young, what do I care? The point is how we goin’ to pay for my ‘buddies’? They’re real good friends but they don’t come cheap.”

  “Leave it to me. Grab hold of the bottles and await my signal.”

  Simon abandoned Henry and wafted to the back of the store, the part reserved for employees only. Ignoring the many cases of booze, he moved into an alcove that was furnished with a table and three chairs. There was a crack in the wall, which he navigated easily. After searching a minute, he found what he was after — a mouse.

  It was nibbling a sandwich that a worker had discarded. When Simon swooped inside it, its kaba was so tiny and frail that it moved aside and let him take things over. Simon laughed as he directed the paws and they responded instantly. But his eyesight was weird. He could discern every object around him but things were blurry, even the stuff nearby. And the colours weren’t normal. He could see blues and greens but the reds were funny.

  He was wasting time. Without further ado, he steered the mouse outside the wall, across the storage room, and into the store. Spying people in the central aisle, he moved into an empty one — it was lined with bottles of wine from Australia. To lessen the chance of being spotted he ran along the join between the shelves and floor, beneath an inch-long overhang of wood. Unlike Henry’s shatl, which was slow and clumsy, the mouse was fast and easily steered. It was like driving a souped-up car.

  He neared a counter with a cash register. The wooden structure was like the Rocky Mountains, the way it rose ninety degrees and towered above him. Its sanded grain contained many abrasions and, leaping upward, Simon grabbed them with his claws. He almost whooped. Mounting this structure was as easy as climbing stairs. In the blink of an eye he’d managed to clear the top.

  The cashier was reading The Exorcist. He would look up every couple of seconds to ensure his customers weren’t up to no good. In particular, he was keeping an eye on Henry, whose clothes didn’t bring the word “respectable” to mind.

  Amazed the cashier hadn’t noticed him yet — he was standing on the countertop — Simon ran at his book. The guy noticed now. With a shriek, he tossed the book in the air. Landing on the counter, Simon scurried to its edge and scrambled down to the tiled floor. Once the mouse was headed to the back, Simon left its vadh and returned to Henry.

  “Hijacking” Henry was far from easy. He was one-fifth drunk and four-fifths concrete — or so it seemed. Simon did finally manage to worm his way inside and swiftly directed the shatl past the exit, with “Jack” and “John” in Henry’s hands and two more bottles in his coat’s side pockets. The cashier didn’t see. His eyes were watching the mouse in aisle four and everyone else was transfixed too.

  “This calls for a party,” Henry cried, clinking his bottles together.

  “But not here,” Simon warned, worried the cops might spot them.

  “Not here,” Henry agreed. “I have a different spot in mind.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Hey, Henry! You ain’t said who you prefer. John or Jack?”

  “I don’t choose between friends. Jack has a woody taste that gets the furnace goin’. John is more like smoke than wood and tastes like courage in the thick of battle. Neither gent will let you down.”

  “De guy’s a philosopher! Someone get Socrates here a lengtha sausage!”

  Simon was antsy. It had been hours since their trip to the liquor store. He’d assumed that Henry would drink himself stupid and allow him to take his shatl over. With that in hand, he would have made his way home and somehow driven Cletho from his body. But the bum had disappointed him. Taking tiny sips of Jack, he’d headed up to Terminal Avenue. When he’d reached the edge of a railroad yard, he’d entered it through a tear in a fence, wandered beneath a metal underpass, and wound up in a large, abandoned clearing. Junk was scattered everywhere: scrap metal, car seats, empty crates, and broken glass.

  “Hey! Don’t guzzle! This booze has gotta last ’til mornin’ — by my est’mit that means ’nudder two hours.”

  “Pass th’ Jack, willya. My pa’s name was Jack. Now dere’s a man who could hold his likker. De demon spirit, my ma used to call it and, shur ’nuff, when he’d filled hisself, it was like a forin’ presence was eruptin’ inside him.”

  “You bringin’ that old subject up ‘gain?”

  “Jimmy’s right. Every time we gather, it’s always the same. Once the booze starts settlin’, we talk ’bout the drunks wid ghosts inside ’em.”

  Henry had travelled here to meet his “colleagues” — that’s how he’d described them, at least. This group consisted of men like Henry, grizzled boozers with no place to go and whose life ambition was to drink themselves sick. But they could be generous. Take Henry, for example. With four quality bottles in hand, his immediate instinct was to find his pals so that he could share this windfall with them.

  Eight “colleagues” had assembled and greeted Henry like a hero. They’d started a fire, arranged seats around the flames, and got a mess of sausages frying, as well as potatoes and sliced up onions. In addition to Henry’s John and Jack, there was wine, gin, and a quantity of beer. For hours the group had been drinking and talking. While the booze was definitely kicking in — two bums were slumped against each other — Henry wasn’t so far gone that Simon could nab him.

  “Those stories are true,” Henry ventured. “I can say so from ’xper’yens. Just today a spook grabbed me and took hold of my limbs.”

  “Is that you talkin’ or your best friend Jack…?”

  “Easy there,” Simon whispered to the bum. “Some things are better left unspoken.”

  “It ain’t either my friend Jack! And how d’you s’pose I got my hands on four bottles?”

  “I figured you cashed in some of yer stocks,” a guy named Jimmy joked.

  As the bums laughed uproariously and passed the bottles again, Simon twisted with impatience. His family would be gone from the house by eight. If he didn’t catch them, he would have to wait until nightfall, at which point Henry would be sober again. He could confront Cletho over at the school, assuming the bolkh would be attending classes, only the staff would never let him into the building, not if he were travelling in the likes of Henry. The long and short
of it was he had to get moving.

  “Hey, Sam!” Jimmy cried. “I see yer knockin’ off togedder wid Gilles.”

  “Yeah, I’m knackered. And Gilles can’t keep his eyelids open.”

  “Take anudder swallow. Dat’ll keep you goin’. ’N pour a drop o’ Jack into Gilles. It ain’t civilized to sit wid us ’n not be drinkin’.”

  “You got dat right,” Gilles mumbled, taking another swallow of booze.

  Simon eyed this pair. It occurred to him that Henry wasn’t the only “ride” there. Any drunk would do, once the liquor stormed his senses. And to judge by Sam’s state, or better yet Gilles’, a ride would be available soon.

  The bums kept partying, only their talk grew sombre. They discussed old pals who’d vanished over the years. Some had died while riding the rails, others because the cold had claimed them, and others because they’d taken one too many beatings. Then Jimmy described a colleague named Angus. A few months back, in the Seattle region, Angus had stolen a truck and crashed into a train, derailing it and killing a dozen people. The FBI said it was the work of extremists, but Jimmy knew the real cause: booze turned bad.

  Other tales followed, of bums who’d acted just as strangely, across the entire continent, the Yukon included.

  “It’s those demons,” Henry said. “They take hold of us boozers. Unless they come ready packed in the bottle.”

  “I don’t believe in spooks,” Jimmy said. “Just the grain that goes into a whisky’s makin’.”

  “There are demons all right,” a guy named Ivan broke in. “I don’t get drunk easy, in case you ain’t noticed, but the folks who do open themselves to spooks.”

  “Like this evenin’,” Henry said. “You wouldn’t believe how high I jumped ’cuz a spook zapped me from deep inside. Eight feet it must’ve been.”

  Again Simon was going to warn Henry, only he noticed something odd going on. There was a tiny movement around Sam and Gilles. Something at their feet was twitching slightly. Simon flinched. It was a rat, a huge one. The odd thing was it was ignoring the food. Gilles was so dopy that a length of sausage had escaped his fingers. Normally a rat would have killed for such food, but not this specimen. It was … distracted.