by AJ Rose
It turned out the connection Mitch needed to take to Gary Williamson’s soul was easy. He’d settled himself with an e-reader in the park across the street, and when the crew building the bank broke for lunch, he followed them to a deli nearby. The reap was as simple as brushing against Williamson in line and muttering an apology. The guy didn’t even look at him, just offered a grunt to say it was no big deal.
Mitch took his turkey on Italian bread with sesame seeds back to the park, getting comfortable on his blanket. After rearranging the pickles and tomatoes on his sandwich so they didn’t land in his lap, he powered up his book and read while he ate. So immersed in the story, Mitch missed what happened to Williamson. He damn near jumped out of his skin when Gary’s soul came to him, looking stunned. Shouts from across the street rang out as the engines of heavy equipment went silent. He was thankful Gary’s soul had come straight to him so he didn’t have to see the man’s broken body. It saved him the risk of being seen close to another accident, too.
“Time to go, buddy,” Mitch said. Gary shook his head, pointing across the street and trying to talk. The words might have been audible to the dead guy, but Mitch couldn’t hear them. “I know you don’t want to, but in this case, you don’t have a choice. I won’t leave your side, okay?”
It only took a minute or two to pack up his belongings and walk Gary to his Mazda. The whole time, the guy, who in life had been well built and imposing, gestured more and more frantically about the scene of his death. When sirens wailing in the distance got closer, Mitch picked up the pace.
“It’s not a good idea for me to be here when they arrive, so we have to go. I’ll take you to the hospital in a bit so you can say goodbye to your loved ones.”
Defeated, Gary’s shoulders slumped and he got into the car by passing through the passenger door. When Mitch slipped into the driver’s seat, he almost laughed at Gary’s startled expression regarding his new physics, but of course, he bit his tongue. The guy had just died. Laughing was out of the question.
He spent the afternoon at the hospital under the pretense of delivering toys to the children’s ward, which he’d brought in anticipation of the reap. They lingered in the ER waiting room while Gary went through and between his coworkers. At first, he tried yelling in their faces to get them to see him. Then he sat, dejected, as they waited for word from the doctors. Gary’s sister arrived a short time later and was enveloped in the arms of the crew. When someone came to speak to the group, Mitch eavesdropped.
“Gary had several injuries as a result of his fall, but the most serious was a rupture to his aorta. We rushed him into surgery, but the damage was too extensive. Aortic ruptures need to be treated very quickly, and the time it took to free him from the rebar puncturing his left leg worked against him. The extent of his injuries was too great.” Gary’s sister gasped and started to cry. “I’m very sorry,” the doctor finished sadly. “Is there anyone else we can call for you?”
The sister shook her head, her fist pressed to her lips as she closed her eyes and fought her grief. Gary’s friends pulled her to a chair and got her a handful of tissue. A nurse came out a few minutes later with a bag containing Gary’s belongings and a card with numbers Gary’s sister could call for making arrangements.
“I’m sorry,” Mitch said to his ethereal companion, keeping his voice low enough not to be heard. “If you have goodbyes to say to them, you should do it. I don’t know when your door arrives.” He’d already explained in the car on the way over what Gary could expect in the next several hours.
Gary went and sat with his loved ones, and when the sister’s husband arrived an hour later to collect her, the gathered men dispersed as she was led away. More people waited in the chairs around them, but Gary had to watch everyone he cared about leave him behind. There was something so profoundly sad about his expression, his inability to say a real goodbye, Mitch had to swallow a lump in his throat.
God, this sucks so much of the time. He stood and gestured to Gary as inconspicuously as he could. “I don’t know where your door is, but it’ll follow you wherever you are. We can’t really stay here.”
Gary glared at him, pointing through the sliding doors separating the ER from the waiting area. Mitch had to tell him no.
“You can’t see yourself. After what that doctor said, do you really want to? It might make things harder on you.”
The man considered and then stood. The toys had been delivered a long time ago, and Mitch shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked to the exit, keeping Gary’s soul in his peripheral vision. When Gary turned tail and ran back into the ER, Mitch was only a few steps behind.
“Dammit!” he cursed under his breath. His dad had told him this happened more frequently than they liked, so Mitch had better learn to deal with it.
“Hey! You can’t be in here!” a nurse hollered as he barreled past her desk. She must have been new because he didn’t recognize her, so when the lie burst from him, he didn’t think she’d realize it.
“My niece ran through here!” he said over his shoulder. When the nurse came after him, he had to think fast. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize she wasn’t with me. Can you help me look? Little girl about four with brown pigtails, a purple dress, and brown leggings. She can’t have gotten far.”
The nurse went from irritated to concerned. “Did she just come through? I didn’t see her.”
Gary poked his head through several curtains, not finding what he was looking for. Mitch tried to keep a distracted eye on him.
“She’s only four, ma’am,” he said to the nurse. “Not tall enough to be seen over your desk.”
“You cannot look in any of the occupied bays, sir,” she barked. “If we don’t find her immediately, I’ll have to call security and ask you to wait while we search.”
“She was only just ahead of me. Please,” he pleaded. “Her mother’s going to kill me. She’s got enough on her plate with the transplant.”
“Children are not allowed to visit transplant patients. The risk of infection is too high,” she said, joining him in searching. Shit, I knew that, Mitch thought. Gary had found his body and was rooted to the spot beside the gurney. He wasn’t going anywhere, but Mitch had to get him away from here or risk the connection he’d made dissolving.
Why haven’t they moved the body to the morgue already? he thought petulantly. Given the nature of Gary’s death, Mitch would have expected them to have come for him immediately. But it wasn’t like he could ask the nurse if there was a scheduling problem or shift change in the morgue staff.
“That’s why I had her, ma’am.” He let frustration creep into his tone, spinning the story as he pretended to look. “Her daddy’s up with her mother, and I was keeping an eye on her for a few minutes. She was upset and ran when I was trying to buy her a teddy bear in the gift shop. Please, help me. Her name is Addie.”
“Addie,” the nurse called in a soothing voice completely different than the tone she’d taken with him. “Sweetie, you need to come out. Your uncle is worried.”
Mentally, he tugged on the tether between Gary and himself, flexing a psychic muscle he knew needed a lot of strengthening. It wasn’t like he could take it to the gym and do a bunch of reps with it. His dad had told him the only way to fortify it was to practice when he was attached to a soul.
“We have to go, Gary,” he muttered, pretending to look under the empty gurney in the next bay. “If you stay here, your door won’t come for you.” Or it would, but he wouldn’t be around to go into it. He’d have floated off somewhere, disconnected and drifting.
“Sir, I’m not seeing her. Let me call security, and we’ll find her, okay?”
Mitch must have looked panicked, because she was a lot friendlier, showing much more concern than she had when he’d sped past her. Gary stared at his body, the bumps beneath the sheet covering the figure to the chest, the one dirty hand poking out the side. He tried to pull down the covering, but his hand went through it. With what looked l
ike a sob, he turned away, his agonized eyes finally meeting Mitch’s.
“Come on, Addie,” he said, speaking to Gary with sympathy and not a small amount of urgency. “Your daddy’s waiting.” Okay, that just sounds wrong.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you can’t be back here. Let me call security.” The nurse tried to herd him toward the waiting room. As she did, Gary fell into step beside Mitch, solemn and resigned.
“Oh!” Mitch exclaimed, pointing to where a hallway bisected the ER from the waiting area. “I just saw her go down the hall.” He turned to the nurse and took her hand. “Thank you so much for helping me.”
Darting off and keeping a tight grip on the celestial connection, Mitch left the woman in his wake. He felt utterly foolish but had to sell the story long enough to escape the building before the nurse could call security on him.
Once out of her sight, he followed the hallway to another exit and only breathed in relief when they emerged into the fading evening light.
“Don’t do that again, okay?” he said. “I could lose my grip on you, and I promise that’s not something you want.”
Chagrined, Gary nodded, sedately following Mitch to the car. They sat for a bit, taking the situation in, and Mitch gave a fatalistic sigh.
“Your door is coming, but it seems there’s more to your goodbye than the people who showed up at the hospital. Is there anyone else you feel compelled to see right now?” Gary stared at him but only frowned, then dropped his gaze to his lap. “I guess you’re coming home with me, then.”
Sadie was beside herself when Mitch came home, dancing at his feet and sniffing his clothes, then nudging him to the post rising from the end of the breakfast bar to the ceiling where he’d hung her leash on a peg. After taking her outside with his spectral companion not far behind, Mitch considered his predicament.
He had a date the next evening, and it wasn’t unusual for a soul to hang around a few days until their reaper managed to figure out their unfinished business. If ever there was a time when he got irritated over a spirit’s inability to speak on a frequency he could hear, it was then. Hopefully Mr. Williamson would remember something and give Mitch a hint as to what was keeping him locked in place.
What difference does it make? Nate brought his reap with him.
The difference, or so he hoped, was that maybe he and Nate would have a few moments of privacy. He didn’t think he’d be jumping straight into bed with the guy, but he didn’t want Peeping Toms peering over their shoulders if they kissed again. Not like Soul Girl didn’t already see that.
Which reminded him of something. As he shuffled back into his apartment and considered what to do for dinner, he decided to look for recent accidents around town that might explain who Soul Girl was and why she was still with Nate after so many days. He thought he remembered enough about her appearance to recognize a photograph of her as a living person. It couldn’t hurt to search the Internet for Mr. Williamson’s friends and family either. Maybe that would help him guide the guy through the rest of his goodbyes so they could both move on. It was amazing the amount of information a person could discover with the right Facebook profile.
Having settled on pizza, Mitch sat on the couch with his laptop while the oven preheated. Gary meandered around his apartment, looking at his collection of DVDs and wandering from room to room. Mitch was annoyed with someone poking through his personal stuff, but it wasn’t as though the man could move anything around or open drawers. His porn stash was all digital anyway.
Thinking he remembered Nate saying he’d lived in town only since the end of summer, Mitch started in August and worked forward, noting the admittedly few accidents around the area. Without the tourists, there was a lot less for Mitch and his family to do, and he recognized every one of the obituaries in the local paper as either his or his father’s work. Most of his uncle’s deceased had resided at Caperville Gardens.
Maybe she hadn’t lived here. He widened his search to Durango, Colorado, and other small municipalities, and still came up blank. It occurred to him to search on Nate’s name. Perhaps, like Mitch’s botched reap during Serena Clancy’s car accident where his name had landed in the paper, Nate might have something similar. That mention had earned him a reprimand from Divinity, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen to other reapers. Googling felt dishonest, however, and while he did type Nate Koehn into the search bar, Mitch never hit enter to get the results.
I can always look again if I can’t get the answer another way.
Flipping his browser over to Facebook, he looked up Gary Williamson and discovered a cadre of friends and loved ones, but a lot of them were out-of-town relatives or old college buddies.
“Hey, Gary. Come over here and let me know if any of these people are giving you the urge to see them again.”
His charge came out of the bathroom and sat next to him, peering at the screen. Gary hadn’t kept up much with his page, the newest update being from four months ago when he’d taken a vacation with someone who looked to be his girlfriend. Or maybe an ex-girlfriend, judging by the stricken look on Gary’s face when her image scrolled up.
“Her? You need to talk to her?”
Gary shook his head quickly, but pointed to the girl’s name. Mitch didn’t understand. “You don’t want to talk to her?”
Another negative, but Gary more insistently pointed to the girl’s name and the little icon beside it. Mitch clicked it and was redirected to the girl’s profile. She was pretty, mid-twenties, with straight teeth and wide-set eyes. But it wasn’t her Gary was interested in. He pointed to her friends list, which Mitch navigated to and scrolled until Gary’s hand splayed in a stop gesture.
It appeared the ex-girlfriend had a slightly older sister. She lived less than an hour away, in Durango. Gary pointed to the photo section of the woman’s profile, and when Mitch clicked it, he found pictures of a tow-headed little boy with Gary’s eyes, toddling around on chunky two-year-old legs. While there was no link to Gary on the woman’s profile, she wasn’t on Gary’s list of family members and friends, and his relationship status was single, Mitch connected the dots well enough. Gary had been on a vacation with one sister but fathered a child with the other.
“Want to see your son?”
Gary nodded, fighting to keep composure. Who said the dead didn’t cry?
“Can you wait until tomorrow? I have to talk to my dad about getting him to cover my shift at the bookstore.
His companion shrugged and pointed at Mitch as if to say, “You tell me.”
“Your door won’t come for you until your business is finished. If that’s what has to happen, we’ll go to Durango tomorrow so you can see him. I can’t guarantee his mother will let us close enough to the boy, but maybe.” Mitch wasn’t about to approach a child under any circumstances without parental permission. He had enough bad shit being said about him. When kids were involved, they judged first and asked questions later.
The buzzer on his oven dinged, and he retrieved his pizza. Sadie dropped to her belly at his feet, hoping he’d drop crumbs as he sat on the couch and ate with the TV on, volume turned low. He usually avoided the news when he had a soul with him, but Gary made increasingly rude gestures until he stopped on the nine o’clock broadcast. The details of Gary’s death was first in the local segment. A photo of Gary from college graduation, bearing a proud smile and a cap with a tassel, and other shots paraded across the screen. The news anchor promised details of the man’s funeral arrangements would be in the paper in the coming days. After the anchor perfunctorily moved on, Mitch turned back to an airing of The Matrix trilogy.
Chapter 6
In Pursuit of Happy
“Hey, wanna grab a beer and a burger?” Wes asked, standing at Nate’s door still in uniform.
“Can’t. I have a date.” Nate couldn’t help the grin that stole over his face.
Wes raised a brow. “And here I was thinking you’d gone celibate.”
“Well, there aren’t a lot of p
rospects in Caperville to begin with, but hooking up with tourists isn’t exactly appealing either. So I gotta grab the opportunities I can.” Nate cringed inside. To his own ears, he sounded like he was already making excuses for taking Mitch Seeker out.
“I thought all you young college studs were looking to sew your oats far and wide.”
Nate stepped back to admit Wes. “Some of us eventually grow up.” Some quicker than others, when we realize how short life is.
“I guess that happens to the best of us. And you’re right, Caperville isn’t exactly San Francisco. Who’s the lucky guy?” Wes perched on one of the barstools Nate had found earlier that week at a yard sale for five bucks each. They were a bit too tall for the height of his counter, forcing the person to sit hunched over, but he figured he could cut the legs down.
“Mitch Seeker.” He made himself look Wes in the eye when he said it, as much a challenge to the other man to have a problem with it as for himself not to act skittish about it.
“What?”
“I have a date with Mitch Seeker tonight. So thanks for the invite, but I have to get in the shower in about ten minutes. I have time for a beer, if you want.”
Wes gaped at him as Nate rounded the bar and rummaged through the fridge for two bottles of Sam Adams. The small hiss as he popped the tops detonated in the silence. Pointedly setting one in front of Wes, Nate took a long swig, waiting for the fallout.
Wes grabbed the bottle, pointing it at Nate. “You’ve got a death wish, don’t you? Are you hard of hearing?”
“No more than anyone else. I talked to him the other day at the park, and we ended up having dinner. He’s a nice guy, but everyone in this town is so spooked and superstitious, you’ve let that stop you from getting to know him.”
“It’s not superstitious when that family has something to do with literally every single death in and around this town,” Wes growled, draining half his beer in one go.
“Do you hear yourself? Are you really blaming heart attacks and cancer deaths on people? Are you seriously going to pin every car crash or fatal accident on Mitch and his family? God, at least this town doesn’t have a lot of murders, or they’d be in jail, the way you people tell it.” Nate wasn’t in the mood to have this argument now. He really did have to get ready, and after having seen how wary this stupid grab-your-torch-and-pitchfork mentality had made Mitch, it angered Nate. Before, it had been just an interesting story. Now he had a personal stake in it.