Lethal Takeout

by Ehsani, Vered

  I shifted away from another shadowy arm and said, “Well, I’m glad to see you.”

  “ME TOO. DOWN.”

  “What?” I asked just before Timmy slammed me through the floor and into the earth with a smack on my back that felt like a cannon ball. Timmy pushed us farther down amongst the gently spinning earth molecules until we reached a curving layer of concrete, after which there was open space and no deathmarks.

  “Timmy,” Shadow murmured as we waited for our ghost eyes to adjust to the absolute darkness, “I don’t know how you did that, but thanks. We owe you one.”

  “OKAY.”

  “How’d you get in anyways?” Shadow asked.

  Timmy shrugged, his face as blank as the concrete wall beside us.

  “Hate to break up the good feelings,” I said dryly, “but where are we? And why didn’t they follow us?”

  There was a pause, before Shadow said gestured downward. “Maybe because they don’t like the smell of sewage.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I know I haven’t showered in a few days, but…”

  “We’re floating in sewage,” Shadow interrupted. “This is a sewer line.”

  I looked down. Swirling around our knees was a small river of evil-looking liquid. It probably smelled even worse. With a disgusted, throaty noise, I floated up, followed by the others.

  “Gross.”

  Shadow smirked. “I thought janitors got used to this sort of thing.”

  “Doesn’t make it any less gross,” I said with a frown. “And we normally don’t swim in the stuff.”

  “It’s better than those deathmarks.”

  “Yeah. Barely.” I glanced towards Shadow. “Talking about deathmarks, how come they were more interested in me than you?”

  Shadow hesitated and shifted his head so I couldn’t see his expression. “Maybe they’re racist and prefer white ghosts? I don’t know and I’m not jealous. I’m just glad I can’t smell anything right now.”

  “Uh-huh.” Something about that definitely didn’t make sense, but I recognised a stonewall when I ran into one, so I dropped the conversation.

  A moment passed in silence, before Shadow asked, “Why are we still here?”

  “More importantly, how do we get out?” I added.

  Shadow and I looked expectantly at Timmy, who stared back at us with an equally expectant look. We continued to hover just above the stream of crap flowing steadily down the tunnel.

  Finally, Timmy had a rare moment of inspiration and announced, “DOWN”—and pointed down the tunnel—“THEN UP.”

  Shadow crossed his arms, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Thanks, Timmy, we couldn’t have figured that out without you.”

  “Hey, if it wasn’t for him, we’d still be dancing up there with those shadow freaks,” I reminded him.

  “And if it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have gone in there in the first place.”

  I glowered, my eyes slits of stormy grey. I’m not sure how it’s possible without having blood, but I felt my face flush an angry red. Shadow was right, which in itself felt wrong. “I guess this must be where you hang out during the day. You sure seem to be inspired by the environment.”

  “Really? Well, I…”

  “GO.” Timmy again shoved us hard, propelling us down the tunnel of crap and ending that conversation.

  As I zoomed over the filthy water, I made a mental note: learn how to push bodiless creatures around. I smiled darkly as I glanced down and visualised where I would like to push Shadow.

  How to Have Fun at a Funeral

  We exited the sewer a block down from Chan’s Chinese Chow and the haunted Donut Delight. Timmy started humming with all the musical abilities of a chainsaw. Shadow was still ignoring me.

  I frowned and scratched my chin, resisting the urge to shout at Shadow. I figured I couldn’t afford to lose a friend; I didn’t have too many to begin with.

  “Hey, Shadow,” I said to break up the frosty silence. “Did you notice that one of the deathmarks looked familiar?”

  “You mean the one with the big, ugly nose? Didn’t you say that was yours?”

  “Yeah, it was. I was talking about one of the other ones. And my nose isn’t big.”

  “No, I didn’t notice what the others looked like. I was too busy flying for my life, so to speak.”

  I squinted my eyes in concentration, irritated that I could almost visualise whom the deathmark had been but not quite. With a shrug, I gave up. “I’ll remember eventually,” I said. “Until then, I better go see how Lee is doing.”

  “It’s normal to abandon your living friends,” Shadow noted softly. “Don’t feel too bad, Axe. Your memory may be fading.”

  “My memory is just fine,” I retorted, “I don’t feel bad and I haven’t abandoned her.”

  “You just forgot her.”

  “I just remembered her.”

  “Uh-huh.” Shadow smirked. “You sound a tad bit defensive there, old man.”

  I gave Shadow my Popeye glare, but the tall, dark spook just shrugged it off, like he’d seen worse, which he probably had. Way worse.

  “Anyway,” Shadow continued, “you know the living can’t see us, except babies and some drunks.”

  “Lee can.”

  “Is she drunk?”

  “Nope.”

  “A baby?”

  “Nope,” I repeated. “She just can. Coming?”

  Shadow slipped his hands into his blazer pockets. “Sure, why not. There’s nothing better than haunting old friends, especially ones who can see us.”

  We found Lee slumped on her couch, staring blankly at the TV, the volume turned low. She hardly stirred when I floated in, although her eyebrows did twitch slightly when Shadow and Timmy followed. I introduced them.

  Lee stared at us, sat up straight and said, “You know I don’t like roommates.”

  “Gee, nice to see you too, Lee.”

  Lee shook her head, her braid swishing behind her. “No offense, Cooper, and it is great to see you, but it’s late. I’m tired. Unlike you, I need to sleep. And I’ve had a terrible shift. Thanks to you by the way.”

  I gazed at her, my mouth struggling between a smile and a frown. I settled on a straight line and a bemused tone of voice. “Sorry I died. Musta been a real inconvenience to you, having to take my Sunday shift, eh?”

  “Is that a Chinese noodle on your shoulder?” Shadow asked while Timmy shifted uncomfortably behind him.

  “If it looks like a Chinese noodle,” Lee answered, “then it probably is one.”

  “Why’ve you got a noodle there?” I asked, the straight line shifting into a slight smile.

  “Would it look better on my pants?”

  “It would look better on a plate,” I said.

  “Well, aren’t you tony,” she said.

  Shadow frowned. “No. He’s Axe.”

  Lee snorted. “Tony as in stylish, high-toned.”

  “Lee has a word of the week,” I explained. “Something her dad did to learn English.”

  “Huh. Die and learn,” Shadow murmured. “I’m glad it’s only weekly and not daily.”

  “Get educated,” she drawled.

  “So why is there a noodle on your shirt?” I persisted.

  Lee sighed wearily. “Have you ever gone into CEO Perkins’s office?”

  “We aren’t allowed in there.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  I tapped my bottom lip a moment with a finger, as I thought about how best to respond. “Yeah,” I finally admitted. “Remember Friday? You were sick and no one could fill in, so it was just me. Thanks for being sick, by the way. There I was, all alone, and I noticed the office door slightly open, so I went to close it and…”

  “And you just couldn’t resist a peek, right, Axe?” Shadow snickered.

  “I poked my head in.”

  Lee leaned forward. “Did you notice anything out of place?”

  “Apart from me? Nope, not really. Just a piece of
crumpled paper on the floor beside a metal garbage can. Oh yeah, I thought that was a bit weird.”

  “The garbage can?” she asked.

  “Nope. The crumpled paper. I picked it up outa habit, you know.”

  Shadow perched himself on the sofa and tossed his long legs onto the coffee table. Only an observant person or another ghost would’ve noticed that he floated a finger’s space above both pieces of furniture. “And what did the paper say?”

  “Just some numbers.”

  Lee scoffed. “Come on. You were an accountant and an engineer. ‘Just some numbers.’ What kind of numbers?”

  I glanced at her with narrowed eyes. “Fine. It was one of the summary pages of an audit. But it had some handwritten notes on it that looked…”

  I hesitated, trying to remember why the notes had caught my attention. I remembered reading them. I remembered thinking that I had to talk to Lee about them. I knew there was something wrong about the notes, something important, but the details, so clear before, were blurred in my memory.

  I gulped. It had started. I was beginning to lose memories.

  Shadow rested his chin on one fist and pretended to lean against the sofa arm, looking all serious and meditative, until I looked closer and saw the dark twinkle in his eyes. “So you threw the crumpled paper away and less than twenty-four hours later, you were shot. Very interesting.”

  “Actually, I didn’t throw the paper away.” I paused, struggling to remember why not. “I heard someone coming, so I stuffed it into my pocket and hightailed it outta there.”

  But there was another reason I’d kept the paper, something important, something I was now forgetting.

  “Even better,” Shadow enthused, his dark eyes glittering. “You went into a forbidden room, stole a document…”

  “I didn’t steal anything, Shadow.”

  “Axe Cooper is many things,” Lee commented dryly, “but a thief is not one of them.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think. I picked up a piece of litter. That’s part of my job description. Janitors pick up the garbage.”

  “You went into a forbidden room, stole some garbage and twenty-four hours later, you were shot. Coincidence? I think not!”

  Lee’s thin eyebrows flickered upward. “Who are you? Sherlock Holmes?”

  Shadow sprang up and did a mock bow. “At your service, madam.” He nodded at me. “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

  “Where’s the paper or litter now?” Lee demanded, shifting her tired gaze to me.

  “At home, stuffed in the pocket of my work overalls. You still have my spare key?”

  “Yes.” She yawned. “But I’m not going anywhere right now. I’m beat and there’s the funeral tomorrow morning.”

  “Really?” I tried to remember if any of Lee’s friends had been sick lately. “Who died?”

  “You did.”

  My eyes widened. “Oh yeah. I did.”

  “How easy you forget.”

  “That’s not funny. So it’s my funeral tomorrow?” I gazed up at the ceiling and wondered what it would be like. The funeral, that is, not the ceiling. I’d planted my head in enough ceilings to know what they were like.

  “Can we go? Please?” Shadow asked me, his eyes glowing with fiendish delight.

  “You need my permission?”

  “Of course not,” he spluttered, his face a caricature of mock outrage. “I’m definitely going. But it would be fun if you came with. That’s the ‘we’ part of my question.”

  “Oh yeah, a real party,” I muttered. “What about being all tired with the sun draining our energy?”

  Shadow brushed away the issue and eagerly rubbed his hands together. I realised I couldn’t hear the dry sound of skin against skin.

  “We’ll manage,” Shadow said, his voice brimming with excitement. “Funerals are fun, Axe. Besides, how many people get to attend their own funeral? It’s a real rush.”

  “You’re weird.”

  “And I’m tired,” Lee said, her eyes almost closed. “Goodnight.” She rose to go.

  “Can you leave the TV on?” Shadow asked with a charming smile.

  “Fine.” Lee tossed the remote through Shadow’s head. “But if you’re going to hang out here, do it quietly and don’t make it a habit.”

  “Actually, I kind of like this place,” Shadow said once Lee had left, his gaze fixed on the TV.

  “I heard that,” she yelled from her room and slammed the door.

  Monday morning was cool and cloudy. Shadow rubbed his hands silently and stalked around the living room in impatient anticipation.

  “Cloudy is good,” he told me. “We won’t get tired, and if we’re really lucky, it’ll start raining again.”

  “You know you’re dead when Vancouver rain makes you feel lucky,” I quipped back.

  Timmy didn’t want to join the funeral party, so Lee set off with only two ghosts trailing behind her. On the bus, Shadow did his best to trick Lee into saying something, so that the handful of passengers would think she was some crazy old lady talking to herself, but she kept her mouth firmly clenched shut.

  “She’s ignoring me. That’s no fun,” Shadow announced. “Axe, how do you feel about attending your own funeral?”

  I glanced upward, searching for a thunderbolt to toss at him. I considered riding on top of the bus, but figured Shadow would just follow me there. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “No, seriously. You can’t be fine,” he persisted. “You’re going to see your own body lowered six feet under. You must have some feeling about that.”

  Lee made a scoffing sound. “If he feels anything, he sure won’t be telling you about it,” she said, barely moving her mouth and lowering her head so no one could see she was talking to herself.

  “I see.” Shadow stood up from where he was sitting on someone’s purse and leaned towards me. “So you don’t like to express your emotions? Are you supressing something from your past? Do tell.”

  I soundlessly slapped a hand on my forehead and rubbed my face. “Are you sure you’re not a poltergeist or a paparazzi, Shadow? Because you and Faye have a lot in common. In fact, you’d make a great pair.”

  Shadow shuddered. “I can’t believe you’d say my name with hers in the same sentence.”

  I smiled smugly while Lee covered a laugh with a cough. Shadow maintained sullen silence until we reached the cemetery; he looked more like the scary, mysterious spook that I had first met in the law firm.

  There weren’t a lot of people around my recently dug gravesite. If you excluded the priest and the two gravediggers, there were a total of three, and two of them were ghosts.

  Shadow whistled. “Hey, Axe, what’s this about? Don’t you have any family or… you know, friends?”

  “You’re standing beside her.”

  “What about a membership at the Janitor Club or whatever you people have?” he probed. His eyes sparkled with curiosity, while the rest of him hovered motionless, a dark silhouette against the silvery grey, cloudy sky. “You must have acquaintances who at least hung out with you when they had nothing better to do.”

  “Nope.”

  “How long have you lived in Vancouver?”

  “Three years.”

  “And after three years, you have one friend?” Shadow’s eyebrows knotted together over his nose. “That’s it?”

  “What are you?” I asked in a voice trying to be mild but sounding like soured milk.

  “Sure, but I’m talking about living people. People who cared about you before you died. Just one?”

  “Yup.”

  Shadow leaned back slightly and rested his chin on a fist. “That’s sad, Axe, that’s what it is. Sad. And wrong. Something is not adding up: three years, one friend?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and said nothing. I wondered how long the funeral would take.

  “Fine. Be that way. But this conversation is not over, Axe.” He flew away to check out the grave.

  Lee turned to me, her eyebrows raised i
n surprise. “You haven’t told him, have you?”

  “That door is closed, Lee.” I turned to watch the priest approach.

  “It can’t stay closed forever.”

  “I’ll take what I get.”

  “Axe Cooper, you…”

  I spun around. “What about you, Lee? You want to tell him why none of your friends are here?”

  Before she could reply, Shadow popped out of the grave. “You’ll be happy to hear that your grave meets specifications.”

  “That’s great,” I retorted. “I was really worried about that. Kept me up all last night.”

  “Shhh,” Lee hissed at us and pointed to the priest.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “He can’t hear us, just you.”

  Lee gave me that stern and annoyingly patronising look. She was pulling that I’m-your-elder-so-listen-up trick again. “The minister has started talking.”

  “I think he’s a priest,” Shadow corrected her.

  “Could be a rabbi,” I added, determined to have the last word for once.

  “I don’t care what he is,” Lee snapped and the minister / priest / rabbi stopped mid sentence to stare at her with an expression of mild outrage.

  “Sorry about that,” Lee said and smiled weakly while Shadow threw back his dark head and laughed until I threatened him with more Faye references.

  After a short sermon and an even shorter prayer, the gravediggers lowered the coffin in. As soon as they were finished, the minister or whatever he was finished the job and quickly walked away to the next site on his list.

  “Wow. That is weird,” I said, watching the box carrying my mortal remains disappear into the cold, dark grave. Three decades of life and struggle, and it all ended up in a hole. The other two nodded in agreement.

  “I hear you, Axe,” Shadow murmured. “Why’s he hiding behind a tree?”

  “Did either of you see the minister’s hands?” Lee demanded.

  Then all three of us looked at each other and said, “Huh?”

  I dug my hands into my pockets and studied my two friends. Were they serious? I mean, seriously? We were at my funeral and what were they babbling about?

  “I was talking about watching my body being buried. It was weird. Unnerving. So what has my corpse being buried got to do with a tree and the rabbi’s hands?”