Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show

by Steven Bryant

  The painful neon glare of the classroom contrasted with the dim gloom of the hallway. Dr. Hull stood before a chalkboard covered with complicated graphs and mathematical formulae. His stringy white hair seemed to glow in the harsh light. After his usual welcome—the professor began each classroom session with a ghost story—he plunged into a session of surprising mathematical rigor.

  “If you let the x-axis be a real dimension in space-time,” he said, “and let the y-axis be the imaginary dimension in which all coordinates are multiplied by the square root of minus one,—”

  The students scribbled furiously in their notebooks.

  “—and if you observe these ellipses here, here, and here, you will note that some overlap, contrary to expectation. In other words, and this is the crux of my Hull Hypothesis,—”

  The students glanced up from their notes.

  “—ghosts walk among us.”

  “No!” the late-night class cried in disbelief.

  “It doesn’t happen continuously or universally,” Dr. Hull said. “But when the calendar contains more odd days than even, or when the moon is ringed with ice, or when the populace is in a jittery mood, then this earth-plane ellipse and this spirit-world ellipse not only intersect, but do so to within a centimeter of each other. Hence, if you were to encounter a ghost walking about in his space-time continuum while the ellipses were coincident, the ghost would appear to be walking about in your space-time continuum, and indeed he would be. For they would, at that same temporal, spatial, and emotional instant, be the same. It’s like television. For months there are stations from distant cities that you simply can’t receive. Nothing on your screen but snow. And then, for no explanation, clarity! You are picking up ‘I Love Lucy’ from St. Louis.”

  The students nodded in acceptance if not in understanding.

  “Questions?”

  Hands shot into the air.

  “Why don’t we see ghosts more often?” asked Physics.

  “I’m certain that we see them more often than we suspect,” Dr. Hull said. “We simply don’t register the fact unless they do something melodramatic, such as hover above the sidewalk or pass through the wall of a castle. The only thing that gives them away is their sunken eyes and their pallor, but that would apply to anyone from, say, Minnesota.”

  “So the old man with sunken eyes who drives the campus bus—” said Physics.

  “Possibly a ghost!” said Dr. Hull.

  “But what about ghosts of people we know?” Physics persisted.

  “An excellent question. My hypothesis is that, even though the time element of the coordinates remains constant, there is an immediate displacement of the spatial or geographical element of the ghost’s coordinates. The entity can only reappear within the nearest spirit-plane ellipse. Hence, when your dear old Aunt Constance pops off in Paducah, Kentucky, she may open her eyes a second later to find herself in a spirit-plane version of Boise, Idaho. It must be a considerable shock.”

  “But what if you went to Boise?” asked Psychology. “Wouldn’t you see her there?”

  “Oh, it happens all the time,” Dr. Hull said. “Suppose you live most of your life in Little Rock, Arkansas. Then business or pleasure takes you to Chicago. You’re walking down State Street, it’s full of people, and suddenly you notice Mr. Travers from Little Rock, your old grade school janitor, bustling along with his coat pulled tight against the wind. But then you remember that Mr. Travers passed on fifteen years ago. And when you look back, he isn’t there at all. Vanished, just like that. Or maybe you see someone else who looked like Mr. Travers. Mr. Travers was no doubt just as surprised to see you, so he took a powder, as they say in the detective movies.”

  “But what about Aunt Constance in Boise?” asked Religious Studies. “Wouldn’t she just get on a bus and return to Paducah?”

  “Not possible,” Dr. Hull said. “If the ellipses don’t overlap, she would not be able to get to Paducah. She would be frustrated in her attempt. The universal laws that enforce earthly and spirit-plane relations wouldn’t allow it.”

  He pulled down a movie screen that blocked part of his chalkboard and clicked a remote switch. The cable led to the back of the room, where the professor had installed a slide projector. A fuzzy black and white image filled the screen. It appeared to be a photograph of a human skull resting on a glass plate. Surprisingly, the skull wore a sombrero. Everyone shifted in his seat at the sight of this strange apparition.

  “As this and subsequent slides will show,” Dr. Hull said, “I finally possess irrefutable proof of my theories. During my recent field trip to California, I encountered not one ghost, but an entire cell of ghosts. My operatives are currently sighting them almost daily, or nightly as the case may be, as they are tracking the migration of the ellipse across the country. This may become the most important field study in the annals of Parapsychology. The quantity of data we’ve been collecting is overwhelming.”

  The students murmured in anticipation.

  “I have a second conjecture, but I shall not be able to prove it until I capture and interrogate a spirit entity,” Dr. Hull said. “I am convinced that a sort of paranormal amnesia sets in just after the crossing over. Hence Aunt Constance doesn’t even attempt to return to Paducah. Just as we humans have trouble accepting that we shall ever die, I speculate that ghosts have trouble remembering that they ever lived. Instead, they adopt a new set of priorities and begin pursuing them with the same intensity with which we pursue our own priorities. They aren’t likely to ‘remember’ their old lives unless there is some strong jolt, such as stumbling across a photo of an old relative, or simply a good bump on the head.”

  “But what about graveyards?” asked English. “In books at least, ghosts are always hanging around their own cemeteries. That would suggest an awareness of their past as well as a shared paranormal ellipse.”

  “Exactly. I hypothesize that the amnesia is temporary, as perhaps are the priorities themselves. Eventually the ellipses migrate until they coalesce and a spirit can return to its origins, geographically speaking. But this may take time, fifty to one hundred years or more. At that point, no one alive will remember the fellow and be surprised to see him walking down Main Street or hanging around ancient burial plots.”

  “But there are records of communication with the dead,” said Mathematics. “By those who did remember. We covered that on our midterm exam.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up. We shall have a guest speaker at our next meeting, a Mrs. Carlyle. Mrs. Carlyle is a medium at the Lily Dale Spiritualist Camp in New York. We’ll see if she can make contact for us. My theory is that true mediumship consists of being able to communicate between non-coincident energy ellipses. A sort of long-distance telephone call, if you will.”

  “Yes!” the students said. “A séance!”

  The professor extinguished the overhead lights so that his slide show could be appreciated. In the darkness, the projector fan hummed and the intense bulb discharged a burning smell. The image of the skull on the screen, like some illustration out of Mexico’s Day of the Dead, seemed to float in the night.

  “And now,” the professor continued, “take a look at this next slide. ”

  * * *

  The following night, a long-distance telephone call was exactly what Lucas Mackenzie had on his mind. Lucas sat alone in the projection booth, high in an upper level of the Gillioz Theatre in Springfield, Missouri. When the theater had been built in 1926, it was the largest movie house in the state, but it was no longer favored by the town’s hotrod set. Although the teenagers who turned out for this evening’s performance were enthusiastic, they barely occupied a quarter of the available seating.

  The Professor’s Spirit Paintings had been warmly received again, as had his Houdini Trunk trick, conducted on this night with Clarice assisting. Yorick also scored gasps, applause, and squeals of delight as a chatty reminder of the French Revolution. But it was Columbine, bathed in bl
ue light, who held the audience in thrall. The ponytailed girls always applauded her fascinating insight, the crew cut boys her fascinating good looks. She routinely held the stage for no less than twelve minutes, and she might hold it longer for this Springfield crowd. Lucas could slip away from his post in the projection booth with no one the wiser.

  Just down the ten steps from the projection booth were the two balcony restrooms, and between them stood an old wooden telephone booth. With no one seated in the balcony, this carpeted upper-level alcove otherwise stood empty. Lucas wasted no time. He hefted the glass jar of coins he had sneaked into the theater and hurried into the phone booth. As the accordion-like door closed, Lucas enjoyed his first moment alone in three weeks, night or day, since his humiliating crash landing outside an Amarillo funeral home. The others had been behaving as if they expected he might try something equally foolish elsewhere.

  “Operator,” said a nasally female voice on the phone.

  “Oh, ah, hello,” said Lucas. “I’d like information, please. For Alexandria, Illinois.”

  Lucas trembled at what he might say to his mom and dad. “Hi, Mom, it’s me, Lucas” would hardly be appropriate. His mom might scream, or faint. Or not believe him, thinking it to be the lowest of prank calls. Or perhaps Katie would answer the phone. She was a full-fledged teenager by now, and would be likely to hog the telephone. It had been, what, four years at least? Should he address them as though he were ten, the age when they last saw him, the age at which they buried him, or as if he were fourteen? How could he have let that much time pass without thinking of them? Why hadn’t he remembered them?

  “I’m sorry,” said the operator. “I don’t show an Alexandria. Perhaps you mean La Grange, La Salle, or Lake Forest?”

  This was ridiculous. What did she mean, no Alexandria? That was where Lucas lived. That is, had lived.

  “I need to speak to the home of James Mackenzie, in Alexandria, Illinois,” Lucas said.

  There was a pause.

  “I’m sorry,” said the operator. “I don’t have an Alexandria. Perhaps you mean Pekin, Peoria, or Plainfield?”

  Time was getting away from Lucas. He would soon need to return to his post.

  “Do you have an Alexander County?” Lucas tried.

  “Of course,” said the operator. “But all our numbers are listed by city. City, please?”

  Lucas tried desperately to think of southern Illinois cities that had been near his hometown. He vaguely remembered Mounds, Mound City, Olive Branch,…

  “Uh, Olive Branch, please. The name is Mackenzie.”

  Again there was a pause.

  “I show no Mackenzie for Olive Branch, Illinois,” said the operator. “Perhaps you mean Higgins, Hightower, or Huffman?”

  Why was this lady doing this? Lucas had only two minutes left. Columbine could be fielding her last question.

  “Uh, try Mound City, please. Mackenzie.”

  “Is this a prank call?” the operator said. “It’s against federal law to deceive the telephone company.”

  “Uh, no, ma’am. I’m just trying to contact my family. Mound City, please. Mackenzie.”

  “I list an Arthur Mackenzie on High Street. In Mound City. Would you like me to connect you?”

  “Please.”

  “That will be one dollar and fifteen cents.”

  Lucas deposited the coins, mostly dimes and nickels. Lots of dimes and nickels. The pay telephone seemingly refused to be filled. There had been over twenty dollars in change, but now his jar of coins was nearly empty. How was that possible?

  “Thank you,” said the operator at last, and, miracle of miracles, the phone began to ring.

  It rang six times before someone picked up the receiver. Whoever it was at the other end said nothing.

  “This is Lucas Mackenzie,” Lucas said. “I’m trying to reach Mr. Arthur Mackenzie.”

  “Do I know you?” said a gruff voice on the line.

  “No, sir. My name is Lucas Mackenzie. I’m trying to reach my parents in Alexandria.”

  “Alexandria?”

  “In southern Illinois. My father’s name is James Mackenzie. I was hoping you knew him.”

  “You don’t know your own telephone number, young man?”

  “Uh, it changes. Please, do you know James Mackenzie?”

  There was a pause as the man thought it over.

  “I know all the Mackenzies within one hundred miles of here,” he said. “There is no James Mackenzie. Never has been, not in the past fifty years or so, at least. I’d have heard of him. You sound like a troublemaker to me. Who is this?”

  Lucas didn’t know what to say.

  “Did you say Alexandria?” the man asked.

  Suddenly it was the operator again.

  “Deposit ten cents more, please.”

  Lucas looked at his change jar. Now it was empty. He was certain there had been a few coins left.

  “Sorry,” he said. He suspected that dark forces were at work, that he would not call his parents on this day. At this rate, he didn’t know if he would ever speak to them again. What were the rules?

  And what would it take to break them?

  Chapter Five

  Wings

  It might have been a board meeting of a large automotive plant, Lucas reflected, except that the plant had stood dark and unoccupied for the past fifteen years, ever since the old Nash Rambler manufacturing operation had moved from Kenosha to Detroit. The ghosts of men who built cars there in the 1920s milled around downstairs pitching pennies. They waved a friendly hello to the entertainers who took the old elevator to the management level.

  Moonlight washed the enormous conference table in silver. So much light flooded in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that the candles were hardly necessary. Alexandra, Belinda, and Clarice buzzed about in white blouses and gray skirts like efficient corporate secretaries, making certain everyone had pads of paper and sharpened pencils in case anyone had a bright idea. The McClatter boys were already bent over their notepads in a heated game of tic-tac-toe. Professor McDuff sat at the head of the table, with Lucas to his right behind a stack of newspapers. Oliver sat to the Professor’s left, with Yorick beside Oliver atop a stack of pillows that the Gilberts had thoughtfully arranged. Eddie commandeered a seat next to Columbine.

  The Professor called the meeting to order.

  “I thank you for coming. An excellent show this evening, I must say. Congratulations all around. And yet you all must have noticed that the Orpheum seats 2200, and we attracted only 291 this evening, one of our lowest turnouts in weeks. I fear this attendance problem will continue to plague us unless we can think of something to do about it. This television that everyone is so absorbed in should have remained a military secret and never have been turned over to the public. The movie theaters themselves have been using such novelties as 3-D and Cinemascope to lure customers back. And even at the movies, ghosts aren’t the bogeymen anymore. Today it’s UFOs and atomic mutations. Perhaps if we review what our fellow ghost show operators have attempted to attract business—”

  That was Lucas’s cue. He stuck his pencil into his hair just above his right ear and rose from the table.

  The Gilbert ladies likewise rose from their seats and helped Lucas distribute the papers around the table. Lucas had collected samples of newspapers from California to Maine, each containing either a review of a ghost show or an advertisement for an upcoming ghost show.

  “Be careful with these,” Lucas said. “I have to sneak these back into the Kenosha Public Library by sunrise.”

  “Thank you, Lucas,” said Professor McDuff. He quickly scanned through the headlines.

  SING SING ESCAPEE SPOTTED IN SCRANTON

  SING SING PHANTOM ELUDES PHILLY LAWMEN

  “Goodness, me,” said the Professor. “They haven’t captured this fellow yet? Perhaps he’s a ghost. It’s a shame we can’t frame some sort of tie-in, such as an on-stage jail esc
ape. Houdini did it all the time.”

  Lucas wondered if this so-called Sing Sing Phantom felt as alone at times as he did. It had been just over five weeks since Lucas had attempted to phone his parents, and he didn’t know what to try next, or when. It didn’t help matters that the Professor openly worried about the longevity of the show. If there were no show, then there would be no afterlife “family” for Lucas to be part of. It would be like being orphaned twice.

  “Ah, well, to matters at hand,” the Professor said. “As I was saying, I propose that we study the latest publicity stunts that our colleagues around the country have been using. Although I would be loathe to purloin any of their ideas, perhaps their efforts might spark our own creativity.”

  With a meaty hand, Oliver fetched his pair of spectacles from within his brown suit jacket and put them on. As he began a study of his paper, Yorick rose from his pillows and hovered over Oliver’s shoulder to read along with him. He sported a gray fedora for the meeting.

  The McClatter boys also operated as a subcommittee, sharing a single paper. Lucas couldn’t help but note that they seemed more engrossed in the crossword puzzle than in new ideas to save the show.

  The others gave their reading matter full attention.

  Alexandra was the first to comment. “Incredible!” she said. “Look at this. The Uncanny Francisco, out in California, has a guy out in front of the theater dressed in a sheet. A sheet! Good golly.”

  “Why must the living insist that ghosts look like sheets?” said Belinda. “Do they think we’re the spirits of their departed laundry?”

  “And why in the world would you cover figures like ours in a sheet?” said Clarice.