by E. C. Bell
That left one more name. Julius Rafferty.
“What do you guys think about Julius?” I asked, and gestured with my thumb over my shoulder at the orderly lounging by the door.
They all looked at him, then back at me. Except for Otto, who looked like he’d been caught by the soothing lure of the TV again.
“Don’t have nothing to do with that guy,” the money thief said. “Especially if you’re a woman.”
“Which I am,” I said. That caused a ripple of laughter around the table, which pulled Otto back to us.
“A helluva woman, am I right?” he asked, much too loud, which caused Julius, who we were talking about, to look over at our table.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said quietly. “Please don’t yell, Otto.”
He looked like he was going to yell again, just to screw with me, until Ralph put his hand on his arm. “Nice and quiet, remember, Otto?” he asked. “So we can finish the game?”
“Yeah, right,” Otto said. Then he looked down at the game board like he couldn’t remember where he was. “Whose turn is it?” he asked.
“Mine,” Ralph said, predictably. He scooped up the dice and shook them, grinning.
“So, why should women be careful around Julius?” I asked.
“Because he’s a pig,” the money thief said matter-of-factly. “He’s always grabbing and touching, and I’ve heard he expects the same in return. It’s terrible.”
“Yes, it is,” Ralph said. He threw the dice on the table and crowed when he rolled double sixes. “But don’t try to tell the rest of the staff about him if he tries anything,” he said as he moved his man around the board, and then scooped all the money in the centre, even though he hadn’t won it. “They won’t believe you. Nobody believes you here.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks for the info.”
“You’re welcome,” Ralph said. He rolled the dice again and cheated his way to one of his own properties.
“Yes, you’re welcome,” Otto said. His voice rose. “Because you want to stay away from that pig!” He turned and pointed at Julius, who frowned, and gestured to a couple more of the orderlies.
“Quiet, Otto,” I said, but he ignored me and rose, pushing back his chair hard. The chair clattered to the ground, causing the two women working on a jigsaw puzzle at a nearby table to squawk and jump away.
Julius and another orderly swooped in and grabbed Otto.
“Looks like it’s quiet time for you,” Julius said.
“You’re a pig!” Otto screeched. “A pig a pig a pig!”
And then he was gone, in a flurry of kicks and punches.
“He never could learn to shut his mouth,” Ralph said conversationally as he scooped up Otto’s money. “Maybe don’t talk to him anymore.”
I nodded. Seemed like a pretty good idea, even from a Monopoly cheat.
It didn’t take Julius long to return, and he tapped me on the shoulder, hard. “Time for you to go back to your room,” he said. He sounded angry.
“All right,” I said, and stood. The rest of the men at the table stared steadfastly at the Monopoly board. “It was nice to talk to you,” I said to them. “Maybe we can play again.”
“Prob’ly not,” Julius said. “Let’s get you back to your room.” His anger had almost eliminated his faux Texas accent, but I did not laugh. He was really pissed, and I figured that Otto had let him know that I’d been asking about him.
I glanced around and saw that every person, living and dead, was watching my eviction. So much for being stealthy. “It’s been a slice!” I said, and waved. As I left the room, I saw that the ghosts were the only ones to wave back. Of course.
When I got out into the hallway, Julius reached for my arm. I didn’t want him to touch me anymore, so I decided to get loud.
“Leave me alone!” I cried, and pulled away. “Get your hands off me, right now!”
That brought out the troops, and I had a small army escort me back to my room. All Julius could do was push me inside and slam the door shut in my face. “You’re in until mealtime,” he called through the door as he locked it. “That’ll give you time to compose yourself.”
Then he and the army were gone, and I was alone.
I had just about three minutes to myself. Just long enough to wonder if any of the answers I’d gotten about my bad guy list had been helpful at all. Looked like most of the men I’d talked to liked Melodie and disliked Willoughby. Except for Otto and his “abilities,” whatever they were. Nobody liked Julius Rafferty. Including me. So, I put him at the top of my list until I had a chance to talk to more patients.
I felt cold and turned to find Phillipa standing just inside my door, her hands on her hips. She kept blinking in and out like a badly tuned television, but I couldn’t tell if it was her, or if the drugs I was on were affecting my sight too.
“I see you met Julius,” Phillipa said. Her voice was so soft, I could barely hear her. That was definitely from the drugs I was taking, because she’d been loud the last time I’d seen her. She blinked out of sight, then slowly returned. “He’s a real prince, isn’t he?”
“That he is,” I said, straining to hear her. “How did you know?”
“Gypsy and Rosa,” she said. “They were in the TV room and saw the whole thing.”
I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me. Looked like the ghost community in here was pretty close-knit.
“Stay away from him,” she said. “And never take one of his gifts. Ever. Know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I do.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s real good.”
“Did he do something to you?” I asked.
I didn’t expect her to answer, because the first time she’d come to my room to talk to me, she’d acted like I wasn’t really there. But this time she kept eye contact and walked right up to me. Like she finally had something important to tell me. But she didn’t speak a word. Just stared at me, as though she hoped that I’d be able to figure it out, just from the expression on her face.
“Come on, Phillipa,” I said. “Tell me about Julius. Did he do something to you?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said. But she kept staring into my eyes, almost like she was willing me to read her mind. Which I could not do.
“Tell me,” I said softly. “You’ll feel better if it’s off your chest.”
“A little late for that,” she said. Then she shrugged. “What the hell,” she said. “Yes, he did shit to me. I was stupid, and bought his ‘I can get you anything in here,’ line.”
“Oh,” I said. I tried to keep my voice neutral, but Phillipa’s eyes snapped angrily.
“Hey, I was in here to detox and I wasn’t voluntary,” she said. “So, the idea of getting a little something to take the edge off seemed like a deal at the time. He was a pig, but hell, I’ve dealt with pigs all my life. He was just another one in a long line. But he never gave me enough, and I couldn’t get him to leave me alone. Finally, I decided that the screwing I was taking wasn’t worth it, so I decided to put a stop to it.”
“Is that when you decided to kill yourself?” I asked.
“Nah,” she said. “I tried to play by the rules, first. But that worked like shit. Maybe if I coulda gotten him fired or whatever. But that didn’t happen, and things got worse for me after that.” She shook her head. “Much worse.”
“Did you talk to someone?” I asked.
“Dr. Parkerson. The shrink.” She looked at me. “Do you know her?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I do.”
“Oh yeah. She’s your shrink.” She smiled. “Tough for you.”
“Looks like,” I said. I gestured at the noose around her neck. “So, you killed yourself because of Parkerson?”
“It was both of them,” she said. “Parkerson for doing no more than giving the bastard a slap on the wrist, and Julius for continuing to be a pig.” She touched the bedsheet around her neck. “It seemed like a better option, at the
time.”
I felt a thin spurt of anger course through the chemical stew that was my blood. She’d killed herself because of Rafferty and my shrink. My shrink.
“Want me to do something about it?” I asked.
“What do you think you can do?” she replied. “You’re in the same situation I was. He can do pretty much anything he wants to you, and nobody—including your shrink—will give a shit.” She stared at me, hard. “I just came here to warn you about him. That’s all.”
“I can handle this,” I said. “Give me two days and I’ll deal with him. Then you and I need to have another talk.”
“About what?”
“About you moving on to the next planeof existence.” She looked confused, and I smiled. “I can help you get out of this place and move on. You’ve been here a long time.”
“Forever, it feels like. What is the next planeof existence?”
“Death isn’t the end,” I said. “You have some decisions to make.”
She half smiled. “I killed myself,” she said. “Suicides go straight to hell, don’t they?”
“Hell isn’t your only option,” I said. “Let me deal with Rafferty first, and then we can talk about what comes next.”
She shrugged. “I guess we can talk. But honestly, it would be better if you just leave Julius Rafferty alone.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” I said. Her eyes flashed and she snarled, like she was ready to do battle. Then she shook her head once, to clear it.
“Leave him alone,” she said again. “It’d just be better for you.” She turned to the door like she was going to leave, then snapped her fingers and turned back to me. “Oh, I wanted to tell you that another one died.”
“Another what?” I asked.
“Another patient,” she said. “I heard you were sitting at her table for meals. Just thought I’d let you know that I heard she had a heart attack.”
My heart jumped. Natalie was dead. And that was another heart attack in Building Thirteen. Jasper was definitely on to something.
But first things first.
Even though Phillipa had told me to forget about doing anything about Julius Rafferty, I couldn’t do it. I had to get him to confess his sins. I knew that he wouldn’t say anything to incriminate himself in my room, because he knew about the video and he was smart enough not to have been caught so far, so I figured he wouldn’t say anything here. My best choice was the rec room. I knew they recorded sound there. Maybe I could provoke him into confessing, or maybe trying something with me. I was pretty good at provoking people, so maybe he’d get pissed and mess up. His confession would be caught by the microphone, and if there was one thing Parkerson loved, it was microphone truth. Then, I’d have him. Hopefully.
It was weak, but it was all I had.
Had he killed Natalie? Maybe, but if so, how had he done it? I didn’t really know how tight security was around the medication but the only ones I’d seen handling meds were the two nurses. Presumably good old Dr. Parkerson had access, too.
Maybe Jasper could gather some of that information for me. If he ever came back, that was. It felt like I hadn’t seen him for days, and I wondered what he was up to.
I wondered if he was still practicing the poltergeist thing. And then I thought that having him able to interact with Parkerson would definitely get her off my back. Nothing works like meeting a ghost. Face to face.
I pushed that thought away, though. It was a bad thought, and I had enough of those already.
Jasper:
Phillipa Has a Plan
I PRACTICALLY TORE that place apart looking for Phillipa so I could tell her about my plan, but I couldn’t find her. I did hear from two of the older spirits about Marie causing a scene in the rec area, and about Julius Rafferty being her orderly. I shuddered. He was a bad one.
“Is she all right?” I asked.
“Who?” Rosa asked. “Phillipa?”
“No,” I said. “Marie. Why would I need to worry about Phillipa?”
“Because we told her about Julius messing with that Marie girl, and she went all crazy on us,” Gypsy said. “That girl scares me, did I ever tell you that?”
“Yes,” I said, and sighed. Phillipa scared everybody. “What did she do?”
“She said she was going to deal with that bastard once and for all. Then she disappeared.” Gypsy shrugged.
Well, none of that sounded good, so I was ready to hoof it over to Building Thirteen, but Phillipa showed up then, in a cloud of yellow and red.
Yellow and red. Fear and anger, in equal parts. If it hadn’t freaked me out so much, I probably would have felt sorry for her. But all I could do was squeak, “Phillipa, we have to talk,” like a little mouse.
“Jasper, we have to talk,” she said, over my words. “Let’s go somewhere where we can have some privacy.”
She glared at Rosa and Gypsy, and they both scurried to the other end of the room and huddled by Franklin, who was staring out the window and ignoring everything that was going on behind him again.
“They can’t hear,” I said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Did they tell you what happened?” she asked, turning her glare on me.
“Yes,” I said. I worked hard to keep my voice from going to the squeaky scared mouse register again, because if I was going to help her, she had to see me as an actual man. Dead, yeah, but still a man.
“Marie’s not as strong as I thought she was,” she said. “She thinks she’ll be able to stop him, but she won’t.”
Marie was plenty strong, but I said nothing.
“And he’ll keep after her until he gets what he wants,” she said. “So, I gotta do something.”
“I might be able to help you with that,” I replied.
“How?”
“I figured out how to touch things in the real world,” I said. “If you want, I can beat up Julius for you. Or maybe teach you how to do it yourself. If you want.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and then almost smiled. It was a terrible thing to see. “That’s a good idea. You teach me how to touch things in the living world,” she said. “And then I can deal with Julius myself.”
“All right,” I said, relieved. Maybe she wouldn’t be mad at me anymore. “When would you like to start?”
“Now,” she said.
“Out in the pasture?”
“I guess,” she said. And then she disappeared in a swirl of red. I was surprised. The yellow had receded appreciably. And I wondered if maybe she’d been afraid that I wouldn’t agree to help her. Maybe she was afraid of more than just Julius. Maybe she was afraid of everything.
Just like me.
PHILLIPA LOOKED OUT of place in the pasture. She rarely went outside, saying she preferred the indoors where decent humans belonged, but I believed that her hatred of the outdoors came from years standing on street corners in short skirts and too-small tee shirts, turning tricks for money she didn’t get to keep.
“Can we get going on this?” she asked, looking around at the grass and bushes and natural whatnot with disgust all over her face. “I only have a little while.”
I wanted to ask why she only had a little while, but I wasn’t brave enough for that. “Learning this could take a few days,” I said. “At least. I barely have a handle on how to do it myself.”
“I’ll give you two,” she said shortly. “So hurry up.” I saw the yellow mixing with the red, and realized her fear was back. She was afraid she wouldn’t learn in time. And this bit of knowledge gave me leverage, which gave me courage I didn’t know I had.
“Why do you have to learn this so quickly?” I asked. “What happens in a day or two?”
She glared at me like she wished she could ram her fist down my throat to stop the questions, but I kept quiet and stared her right in the eye until, finally, she looked down.
“I—I talked to Marie. She guessed everything about what Julius did to me.” She frowned, and her fierce brown eyes burned quick
holes as she searched my face. “Did you tell her about Julius?”
“No,” I said, even though I really couldn’t remember whether I had or not. “I didn’t. What did Marie say?”
“She said that she was going to stop him,” she said. “That I just had to give her a day or two, and she’d get rid of him. But that’s not what I want. What I need.”
“What do you need?” I asked.
“I need to fuck him up myself,” she said. “Just like he did to me.”
I looked at her. Her eyes had softened, and I was surprised to see tears. I’d never seen Phillipa cry before, and it unnerved me. She was the strong one. She wasn’t supposed to cry.
“You’ll teach me quick,” she said. “Won’t you?”
“Happy to,” I said. Anything to get the tears to stop, and for her to get her mojo back. “Let’s start, shall we?”
She nodded, and we did.
TWO HOURS LATER, we were both exhausted. I felt close to disappearing, but Phillipa didn’t want to stop.
“Just once more,” she said. “I almost got it that time.”
Actually, she was doing a lot better than almost getting it. She’d managed to pick up a fist-sized rock and move it five feet in the first hour, and by hour two she was able to carry it around as though it was tucked in her pocket. The best I’d managed to do was make a pencil roll an inch or two. Apparently, she was a little more motivated than I was.
“You’re doing pretty good already,” I said. “And you don’t want to run your batteries down too much. You might disappear.”
“That happen to you?” she asked. I could see that her hands were trembling, and she stumbled more than walked. But still, she kept that rock up in the air.
“Yeah,” I said. “It wasn’t much fun.”
“All right,” she said, and finally placed the rock back on the ground. Gently. She really had complete control of that thing. “Maybe a break would be good.” Then she fell to the ground beside it, gasping like she’d run a hard mile. She was also ash grey. But the red and yellow ribbons that usually radiated from her were gone. Completely gone.