Jim watched his wife turn and retreat through the door. Gunther sensed an aching agony burning through the man. “Damn you, Gunther. What do I have to do?”
“Well, that’s the kind of fire we need.”
Gunther leaned forward, closing the space between them. “Take your car to Darby’s Drag Racing Arena.”
Gunther relished watching the shocked scowl cross Jim’s face. He nodded. “That’s right. The old track where you used to drive every Wednesday night. Just like the glory days. Go to the east parking lot. It’ll be deserted, but you’ll find a yellow ’76 Thunderbird® with a souped-up engine. Park your car in the lot, but don’t park it next to the T-bird. Put it five or six spaces away, any direction. Leave your car, take the Thunderbird®. Got that?” Jim nodded.
“Pick up Crimley and me at his house. From there, we go straight to the bank. You wait in the car while Crimley and I take care of business. If you play it cool, we’ll get away without a hitch. Then, drive us back to the racetrack, and we hop back into your car. From there, we catch the exit to I-65 and drive easy as you please ten minutes north to Michigan. You drop us off the first exit past the state line.”
“Then what?”
Gunther shrugged. “That’s our problem. Ya drive back home, kiss the wife, make up some bullshit story about a late meeting, I don’t care. That’s the deal. That’s the plan. Agreed?”
Jim nodded. “Agreed, you bastard. In the meantime, I don’t need you hanging around bothering me or my wife. So, get the hell out of here.”
Gunther stood. “Not very neighborly of you, Jimbo. Though, under the circumstances, I guess I can live with that. I can live with a lot of things. I hope you can, too.”
He was satisfied all would go according to plan. He threw his head back and finished the last swallow of beer, then stepped into the darkness, leaving Jim sitting on the porch, head still bowed, stewing in helpless anger.
Gunther had already gotten some of his power back.
Chapter Seven
Perionne—Present Day
Later that week, Chip asked if I wanted to sit in on a Dungeons & Dragons game with his buddies. He had plans for a big Saturday night session. I’d known people in Broad Ripple who were into roleplaying games, but I’d never actually played one. I’d seen D&D mocked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns. It involved lots of maps, papers, and oddly-shaped dice.
I checked my calendar—twice. Both times, I had nothing else going on, so by the end of the week, I’d agreed to show up.
I hoofed the several blocks to his house, feeling safe enough in the late afternoon. Chip’s house evoked the family-centric quality of the town: two stories, constructed of solid, red brick with white panel highlights—a design that could have been from the 1930’s, the 1990s, or any era in between.
The white picket fence surrounding the home (actually painted white and made of pickets—the cliché comes from somewhere) had seen better days. Even in the coming darkness, I could make out many spots where the worn wood shone through the pale coating. The wooden planks surrounded a lush, green lawn and a cobblestone walkway that seemed mandatory in this town, including our own yard.
I stepped onto the roomy, bare porch—once painted a dark green but now faded and sun-bleached—and knocked on the door.
Chip answered, a wide grin appearing on his face the moment he saw me.
I returned the smile.
“You’re here,” he exclaimed.
“Uh, yeah. I sort of promised I would be.”
We stood looking at each other in comical silence until he snapped out of his daze to step away from the door. “Sorry, please come in.”
A tiny foyer led directly to a coat closet. Beyond that, carpeted stairs rose up to a loft. From my vantage, I could make out a desk and computer system set up to look out over the railing. A large, oak bookcase dominated the far wall.
Beyond the stairs, we stepped into the unimpressive glory of the living room. All the essential ingredients: couch, chair, and coffee table, with off-white floors and walls tastefully if not remarkably decorated in the modern standards of blasé suburbia.
I lingered in the room, taking longer than necessary to check out the minimal surroundings. Something bothered me—something just on the wrong side of obvious—but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
A handful of photos hung on the wall over the couch.
A larger portrait showed Chip at age ten or so. A blonde woman in her mid-thirties embraced him. Her glistening, brown eyes matched the contented smile on her clear face. Behind them stood a large, hulking monster of a man wearing a blue suit. He grinned into the camera. Large, dark curls topped his head, and he draped beefy hands across the both of them. The flash of the bulb added a shine to his clean-cut features and reflected the only hint of light in his dark eyes.
I shuddered and turned away from the photo, repressing sudden anxiety.
A small group sat in the connecting dining room. A group of fellow Perionne High School peers. Colleagues.
All wearing glasses, they stared at me in hushed expectation.
Six guys.
Six geeks…and me.
Had Joey seen me, he would have kicked my ass on the spot.
One overweight, jolly guy—introducing himself as Phil Jenson—stood up from the head of the table and extended a beefy hand. He pumped my hand vigorously, making my entire body shake.
“You’re the girl who kicked the shit out of Clinty! I don’t know whether to shake your hand or bow down and worship you.”
“Apparently you’re shaking my hand, but feel free to bow down later,” I quipped.
A number of nervous chortles erupted all around the table.
I grinned and felt myself flush. How could I not feel honored at such adoration?
Another guy, this one much skinnier and with a more confident air toward the opposite sex, stepped forward and pulled an empty chair out, motioning me to sit.
I dropped down into the proffered seat, grinning at everyone watching me.
Chip presented me with a piece of paper, my “character sheet”. He’d created the character for me that afternoon—a “pretty basic” one, since I’d never played the game before. I looked the sheet over. Columns of numbers and strange abbreviations.
Chip explained the character was a “10th level barbarian woman with a big sword and no magical powers”. My job: use the big sword on the bad guys—strictly in the realm of the imagination, of course. Sounded easy enough.
Most of the group played magic users, characters requiring a more intricate understanding of the game. So my job was to make up the balance in combat situations.
Though I often floundered, someone would always volunteer information, explain a statistic, hand me an odd-shaped die to roll. As a unit, the group embraced me, eager to make me one of their own. Quite a difference from how I’d been treated since I’d arrived in town.
Before long, I absorbed myself in the Lord of the Rings-type aspect of the adventure.
An hour into the game, I laid eyes on Dad Farren in the flesh. Chip’s Dad would have intimidated me with the sheer massiveness of his bulk, even if I hadn’t been sitting when he entered the room. Dressed in a red plaid, button-down shirt, his face now covered in graying, dark whiskers, he towered over everyone.
In all fairness, he spoke with refined quietness, and gripped my tiny hand in his massive one with practiced gentleness. In spite of this, a shiver ran through my spine. I expected him to growl suddenly and clear the table of books and maps with one swoop of his massive arm. He kept calling his son “Eugene,” but with a name like “Fiona” I wasn’t about to comment. He checked on us occasionally, bringing sodas and snacks, but otherwise leaving us alone as he thump-thump-thumped up the stairs, presumably to work at his desk up in the loft.
He chatted with us briefly during one break. I learned he provided tech support for a fairly large accounting firm, and that his firm had discussed taking on Shaefer and Gerrold. My Mom’s offic
e wanted someone local to handle their payroll, provide accounting software, and oversee their mainframe. Mr. Farren commented on Mom’s professionalism.
I swallowed a response, not inclined to engage a man who, for whatever reason, made my “Spidey-Sense” tingle.
As we joked and played, hours disappeared. Chip “dungeon-mastered,” narrating the action and refereeing battles. Working as a team, we tried to solve Chip’s puzzles and “win” the adventures, but as the night wore on, we grew progressively slap-happy. My boundaries dropped, and I turned flirtatious, character-to-character, with Phil.
I, Daria, the barbarian warrior from Corinthos, stumbled upon a magic crystal embedded in one of the dungeon walls. Being the only person strong enough to pry it from the wall, I claimed ownership of the crystal. So, I carried around a magical charm, dangling on a chain between ample bosoms that bore no resemblance to the real me. I carried in my possession a mysterious object that did “gods-knew-what” —a problematic situation inviting trouble.
Phil played a powerful sorcerer who could identify the crystal for me. I asked for his help, putting an intimidating inflection to Daria’s words.
Phil huffed in a deep, character voice. “Why should I, Magtog the Great, help a barbarian wench the likes of you?” He waved his arms with theatrical flair. “I, Magtog, who can turn sand into diamonds, bring forth cleansed water from the tar pits, and heal all my wounds with but a single touch. What have you to barter with that is of any interest to my greatness?”
My eyes locked on his and I responded with utter seriousness. “Tell me the secrets of the crystal, and I’ll be your sex slave for the night.”
The entire room erupted in laughter. Phil flushed red from forehead to neck, broke eye contact, and let his head drop toward the table into his forearm. He laughed the whole time.
I cracked up myself, and soon we were all wiping tears from our eyes.
Chip stared at me, mouth hanging open, aghast.
I winked at Chip, then watched Phil struggle to return to character as the high and mighty Magtog.
“Uh…I, Magtog the Great, will consider your offer.” A moment later, he said, “It’s a deal.”
Chip shrugged. “Great.” Then, a twinkle in his eye hinted that an amusing idea occurred to him.
“Magtog” recovered some of his previous bluster. “I’ll only tell you what you want to know if I’ve had a good time.”
I quickly referenced my character sheet. “Listen here, wizard. I have a dexterity of 65 and a strength of 73. I think you’ll find me adequate. The only real question is—can your wand measure up?”
A frown fell over Phil’s puffy features. “Well, my dexterity is low, because, you see, when you’re a wizard, you generally don’t need—”
Chip interrupted. “Magtog, roll your dexterity.”
Phil threw the odd-sided dice across the map, squinting at the result. “Uh, I failed.”
“Okay,” Chip said. He turned and addressed me, a sheepish grin spread across his face. “Daria, at about three in the morning, Magtog is asleep, snoring, and uh, finished. Passed out on his sleeping gear. No matter what you do, you can’t revive him.”
“Ah. So, uh, how am I?”
Chip blushed, but kept a straight face. “How bad was your roll, Phil?”
Phil shook his head. “Pretty bad.”
I sighed. “‘Magtog the Great’, indeed!”
The group laughed in hysterics.
Chip pointed at Phil. “Magtog, for the next 24 hours, you’re unable to cast a spell over level three.”
“Level three? I’m a tenth level…” He stopped, shrugged, and grinned. “Oh, hell. It was worth it. Let’s find something I can do right, and identify that crystal.” Phil rolled the dice again.
I reached for a potato chip. “Daria stands up and yells, ‘This one’s done. Bring me another.’” I batted my eyelashes—yes, batted my eyelashes—at the guys staring back at me.
I sighed and grinned. Boys!
Chapter Eight
The game broke up late in the evening. With the bad guys slain and the good guys counting the leftover treasures, we moved as a group into Chip’s living room. He paused to say goodbye to a couple members of the gang who had to head home.
I still had troubles with names, opting to wave and offer a “see you later” to their retreating forms. To my surprise, I’d had a lot of fun and didn’t want it to end.
Phil had driven his own car, and intended to hang out for a bit. He offered to drive me home if I wanted to stay later, and I happily accepted.
The rest of us followed Chip up the wooden stairs, clomp-clomp-clomp-ing the entire time, through the roomy loft. As we passed, Mr. Farren grunted, his face magnetized to the monitor.
Like father, like son.
Chip led us down the hall and into his tiny bedroom. Somehow, the four of us who remained all packed onto his double bed, hip to hip to hip to hip. Chip introduced me to his pride and joy: “My own hand-built, quad-core, 12 gigabyte of triple channel memory, water-cooled system, three linked video cards, and eight terabytes of drive space in a RAID five configuration, plus a sweet 24” LCD widescreen.” Indeed, the monitor was considerably larger than my Mom’s monitor at home.
“I compile my own Linux kernel too, but I have the system set to dual boot to Windows, too, so I can play games.” By his tone, I’m guessing he considered that a bad thing. I nodded, hoping I looked appropriately impressed. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he sure meant it.
The computer came to life with the shift of his mouse. He started off showing a couple of Sci-Fi movie trailers to Phil and the others who hadn’t seen them, yet. While the trailer ran, he opened a second window, fiddled with a DOS screen, and explained to me how he and Phil had made it a practice to hack into local company databases for kicks. Not actually monkeying with the data, just getting in and out. I shrugged. Everyone needed to rebel.
Don’t I know it?
Chip had just conquered a watershed goal—hacking into the First Bank of Perionne and accessing the current balances of several friends and relatives.
Cool. Now we’re talking. “So,” I teased, “why’s a nice kid like you busting into bank records?”
He shrugged, but red crept into his cheeks. “I wanted the challenge.”
I watched over his shoulder as he called up a Sci-Fi Newsgroup and posted a message about some supposed, nonsensical events in the Battlestar Galactica finale—a thread of perplexed e-mails apparently extending back more than a year. I shuddered. As the nerdiness ramped up, I knew I’d have to excuse myself.
Phil, by no means a tiny guy, also had no sense of personal space. Neither did the red-haired geek on the other side of me. Arms and shoulders brushed innocuously against my chest. The bed provided con-veeen-ient close quarters for hard-up guys copping an incidental grope. I gave Phil, at least, the benefit of the doubt. I liked the guy. He, at least, couldn’t help his considerable bulk.
Chip worked, poised over his keyboard, and I saw a glint in his eyes. I sensed he occupied a time and space where he truly belonged.
“Now,” he said, “let me show you my webpage.” The Mozilla™ browser window dissolved into his personal page. He rose and waved a hand for me to sit.
“I don’t want to.” I’d dabbled with creating my own page a couple of years ago. Low-res photo, bio paragraph. A webpage struck me as too much effort for too little result, and mine suffered the same case of terminal boredom as most of the others. Besides, Facebook® was much easier.
“Terminal” boredom, get it? Yes, I’d already been hanging out too long with these guys.
“It’s easy,” he insisted. “You know how to web browse, right?”
I stepped forward and yanked the mouse from his hand.
“Let me drive, smart ass.” I squatted into the proffered chair.
The home page declared:
The Ghost of Gunther Webpage
Beneath the text was a highly-detailed renderi
ng of a wraithlike figure waving a bloody hook for one hand. I noted a scanned photograph of Gunther Stalt, identical to the one in my photocopied article. The text read:
———
Webpage created by Chip Farren. Click Here to leave me email!
** Click Here to Join the Ghost of Gunther Discussion Group!
** Click Here to View the Article Archive!
———
On the one hand, Chip’s research could prove handy for the big test in Hap’s class next week. On the other… “Damn, man,” I said. “You really are obsessed.”
Chip answered, “Actually, Blue, you’d be surprised. I have 1,300 people participating in the discussion group.”
In a town of six thousand? Clearly, a significant demographic shared this insanity.
Phil chuckled. “Boy, he is obsessed. That’s the word for it.” He leaned forward, a bed spring squeaking in protest. “He had me up ‘til three in the morning last month, configuring the chat site.”
The conversation quickly digressed into computer hard drives and blips per second and the latest micro processing speed-zoids or something. The four geeks lost me pretty quick, and the warmth of the combined bodies became oppressive. Rude or not, I had to get out. Besides, the little geeks had gotten lost in the world of Dr. Who and technology. It would be some time before they even noticed I’d slipped away.
* * * *
Leaning against the stair railing overlooking the living room, I stood in somber thought, enjoying the solitude. Ambient light from the small kitchen lit the ground floor.
The solidity of the real, wood floors made for a comfortable place. Still, something didn’t set right with me. I remembered puzzling over it earlier. The walls lacked significant décor, save for a couple of small family pictures. The furniture in the living room consisted of a piecemeal arrangement. Up in the loft, a computer sat on a fancy redwood desk near a large bookcase of mismatched oak.
A large shadow crossed through the open doorway to the pantry. A silhouette blocked most of the light from the kitchen, and I found myself standing in almost complete darkness.
I heard a creak.
A chill ran up my spine, and I knew without looking that Chip’s father had stepped through “western style” swinging doors and into the living room. I suppressed the shiver.
Haunting Blue Page 6