Ghost Guard 2: Agents of Injustice

by J. Joseph Wright

  Whispers and wind all around them. Their hair tussled in the strange and unearthly breeze. Their skin tingled at the static in the air, forming an energy field almost physical.

  The girls couldn’t help noticing the shock of black hair from the deceased woman begin to vibrate on the scrapbook page. Funny too, because the page itself wasn’t moving. Only the hair, and only a little. Then a little became a lot. Bouncing and dancing and spinning. Then, against all laws of physics, it stood on end and, most amazingly, began to grow.

  A tiny lock, only three inches long, became four, five, six. A foot. Two, three, four feet, until a sinewy thread of hair became a flourishing and flowing full head of beatifically baneful tresses. Flowing left to right, top to bottom, becoming a dark cloud of individual fibers.

  After that, a strange and unthinkable thing happened. The fibers formed a figure, a three dimensional shape, long and lean, slender and supple. The shape took on human form, the soft, sleek features of a woman. Wide hips and a curvy waist and the telltale twin mounds where breasts should be. The head and neck and arms were all evident under the flowing and coursing striations of hair.

  None of the girls screamed at what happened next. Not even one peep, which was curious given the sheer and unending terror that had taken hold of them all. It was a paralyzing fear. The unutterable hideousness of what they witnessed made them sit mute, watching the supernatural event unfold as if witnessing the moon explode over their heads.

  Melissa had a moment of clarity borne from the knowledge that she’d done it. She’d summoned the spirit of the doctor’s widow, and now, in full form, the woman was here, before her, waiting for something. Maybe a further invitation.

  Melissa shot to her feet as the hauntingly beautiful woman’s form gyrated slowly and softly, cocooned by a husk of dark hair, encircling her like the fibers on an ear of corn.

  “What’re you doing!” Christy dropped her iPhone on the floor and scrambled to her friend, trying to pull her away from the menacingly hovering entity. A giant spinning and seething tangle of black hair in the shape of a statuesque woman. She had to tread carefully to avoid the specter, and looked away when it became too much, tugging and tugging on Melissa, desperate to keep her friend from getting too close.

  Melissa wouldn’t budge. She was anchored to the floor, feet sunk in concrete. Then, as if propelled by some unseen and supremely powerful hand, she lurched forward, straight for the unearthly manifestation.

  “Melissa! Stop!”

  She wouldn’t stop. She stepped straight into the moldering heap of hair, its sinewy strands closing in on her neck and shoulders, arms and legs, pulling her in with the speed and forcefulness of a monster in some cavernous deep sea abyss. Melissa disappeared into the blackness. At that moment, the most terrifying in either of their lives, both Christy and Heather believed without a doubt Mel was gone, sucked into some preternatural vortex, never to be seen or heard from again.

  Melissa didn’t move or speak or otherwise indicate she was in any pain or suffering from some unspeakable evil. That meager fact alone helped to at least bring the two witnesses, who were paralyzed with fear, back from the precipice of complete insanity.

  All that changed with one, blood-curdling shriek.

  Melissa screamed as loud and as long as either of her friends had ever heard her scream. And that was saying something, since Mel was on the South Ridge Varsity Basketball Cheerleading Squad. Her tenor and her manner told a completely different story than when she would cheer for the Skyhawks, though. Screams of murder, of deathly terror, of desperation from somewhere beyond the grave.

  “Oh my god! Mel!” Christy no longer feared the unknown entity. Call it stupidity. Call it loyalty to a dear friend. She just couldn’t allow Mel to die. She tried reaching Melissa, but when she got close, things changed dramatically. The hair, tangles and tangles of it, weaving this way and that, reverted and reversed upward and inward like someone slurping in a plate of spaghetti. Rapidly the hair disappeared, so fast it was a blur, until Melissa remained, all alone, with nothing surrounding her except her own sense of disorientation. And, just when her friends were counting their blessings that Melissa was okay, she stared at them both and issued a strange statement.

  “Who are you? Where is my husband?” She scanned left, right, up, down, in search of an unseen person. “Where is he!”

  “W-w-where is who?” Christy shook uncontrollably. Heather was stupefied.

  “Emile! My husband!” Melissa’s eyes, strangely, were no longer blue, but deep, dark brown. And they pierced into Christy with the ease of a hot ice pick through brain matter. “Where is he! I need to find him!”

  With that, Melissa, or whoever it was inside the seventeen-year-old’s body, began peering under and over and between things that weren’t even there. She looked up, and her dark eyes grew immense. Her expression was the only thing by which the two other girls had to gauge what was happening. It was all they needed. Terror. Pure and simple. Every inch of Melissa’s being exuded it.

  “They have him!” she screamed, turning and watching some unseen thing at some faraway yet still threatening distance. “They have him! NO!”

  She threw herself toward the door again, and this was where both of Melissa’s friends intervened. Heather rushed and stood in front of her while Christy approached from behind and hugged her gingerly. When Melissa shrugged her off and pushed Heather aside, the two girls got serious, and each took an arm, forcibly keeping her in the bedroom.

  “NO!” she screamed. Over and over she screamed. “NO! I must help Emile!”

  Christy was taken aback by the strange things her friend said, and the way she said it. Somehow they coaxed her into sitting on the chair at her vanity as she continued to babble on and on tremblingly about Emile and saving him from some enigmatic entity.

  “Emile?” Heather tilted her head like a confused spaniel. “Who’s Emile again?”

  “Weren’t you paying attention?” Christy huffed. “It’s Alexandra Petrovic’s husband. The inventor who was supposedly murdered.”

  Heather had already been trembling like a leaf. But now, thinking what she was thinking, she turned into a shuddering fool, teeth chattering so loud Christy heard it. She had an inkling of what was actually happening. Her mind wouldn’t go there. Her fragile psyche denied the possibility. She was genuinely perplexed, and asked the question: “Why is she talking like that?”

  Christy was never one for theatrics, never one for speaking hyperbole or magical thinking. In fact, the whole time Melissa had explained that she wanted nothing less than a connection, a communion with Alexandra Petrovic, Christy had only nodded and smiled and went along just because she was a good friend. She never, in a million years, expected this.

  “It looks like…” she stared at Heather as serious a pair of brass knuckles. “Melissa is possessed.”

  Chapter 3

  Abby’s posterior hit the mat before she knew what had happened. In that brief moment she saw stars. Also in that moment she forgot what she was doing. The blow came from nowhere, fast and hard. As her senses returned, she heard Ruby counting in her made-up language. Then she saw, hovering over her, a gray, swirling outline of a man, sketched in charcoal, shifting like constantly falling soot. Brutus extended a massive arm made of eternally tumbling ash, cascading and disappearing into a fine dust, yet remaining dense and whole. He gestured to help her. She refused. Instead, she jumped to her feet and shook it off, much to Brutus’s surprise.

  “You can stop counting now,” she told Ruby, whose refereeing left more than a little to be desired. The puckish little blob of a thing, floating near the ceiling so she could get a bird’s eye view of the action, only counted louder. Then she plummeted to Abby’s eye level. Her grotesque features—bulbous nose, round cheeks, uneven shoulders, and hunchback—would have frightened anyone who hadn’t seen them before. But Abby had seen her a thousand times. And a thousand times Ruby made her laugh. Not this time, though. This time she fumed at Br
utus for delaying. Brutus deserved a little payback for that one, and she intended on delivering it.

  Ruby insisted upon executing a standing eight count, per the established rules. She was a stickler to detail, an attribute that helped her infect and navigate through electronic systems of all types. Now, though, it was just plain irritating, and Abby let her know with a haughty toss of her long, darkly lustrous hair.

  With a sudden start, Abby cartwheeled twice in succession, sprang off her hands into a high, somersaulting leap, ending with her legs snaked around Brutus’s midsection. Her momentum brought both opponents crashing to the mat, with Abby on top this time. And, this time, it was Brutus who didn’t know what had hit him.

  Pride, and a certain amount of shock, prevented him from reacting much, except to crease his ashen brow and emit a tremendous gust of sooty steam from both nostrils.

  “No hard feelings, big guy,” she stood and held out a hand in the same helpful yet condescending way he had done. And, just as Abby had reacted, he laconically ignored the gesture, choosing instead to inflate like a smoky balloon and rise to his spectral feet in about a tenth of a second. Abby expressed no surprise whatsoever at his mystical swiftness. She’d seen it all.

  The two sparring partners stood toe-to-toe once again. Abby, in her purple tights and oversized gray sweatshirt, bounced nimbly on her toes. Brutus had legs and feet, but he chose to hover slightly, not touching the floor of the basement workout area. Kept him nimble and ready for Abby’s next move. He had the advantage of brute strength and preternatural speed; she had the advantage of cleverness and a wily quickness that superseded sometimes even Brutus.

  Before the fight could begin, Ruby had to issue the okay. And her way of doing so was to dive headlong into Abby’s iPod and cycle through the thousands of audio tracks until she came upon one of her favorites.

  The crunching but catchy opening guitar riffs gave it away immediately. Then the angelic yet naughty vocals confirmed the choice. It was one of Abby’s songs. A driving, fast paced tune meant for times just as this—an intense duel between two opponents who didn’t know the meaning of surrender.

  Brutus, stunned by the sudden ear rending sound, dropped to his feet and stared at the speakers. Abby took advantage and crouched low, dipping into a spin kick directed straight for Brutus’s knees. Little did she know Brutus had set her up. He seized her ankle and, as she had done previously, used her momentum against her as they both toppled to the mat.

  Then, in a torrent of smoky punches and kicks, the two of them split from each other again, pushed apart by their own violence like two magnets. Abby huffed for breath. Brutus faded and blurred slightly. Classic signs of SME deficiency.

  “You sure you wanna keep going?” she smiled, still her eyes exuded hostility. “Your SME looks like it’s slipping.”

  Ruby sped from the speakers like a bullet toward Brutus. Now, instead of happy-go-lucky, she was a bulbous ball of nerves, searching her large and smoky friend over frantically. Screeching and squawking, she pored over him head to toe, squealing something derisive about Abby extinguishing both Rev and Brutus in the same week.

  “Brutus is not extinguishing,” Abby defended him. “And Rev’s just fine.”

  Ruby cackled even louder, asking if Rev was fine, then where was he?

  *****

  Skyline Road had more curves than Venus de Milo, and the Phantom’s silky smooth suspension eased into the corners sensuously. Just like sex. Like sex with Abby. Rev couldn’t get her out of his mind, so the road became his refuge, a fragment from his past that gave him comfort in vexing times.

  Rev was a powerful ghost. With a mere look he could have any woman, living or otherwise, if he truly wanted. His preternatural powers of persuasion were second to none. With them, he could have heiresses and actresses. He could have the sexiest, most attractive women in the world. Anyone he wanted. And here he was, lovesick and lovelorn over her.

  “WHY!” he slammed a solid fist against the steering wheel. It barely shook. Sturdy workmanship, that old Rolls Royce. It didn’t hurt that Morris was behind its restoration and overhaul. He’d gutted the entire electrical system and installed his own mobile Wi-Fi that could drive the car remotely if they wanted. But Rev never kicked in the autopilot. He liked the tactile sensations, the rumble of the road, the thrill of the drive.

  And that thrill, heightened by his angst over Abby, pushed the throttle to the floor. Not a gas pedal. This baby was all electric. And highly advanced. Tesla Motors would be envious if they ever got wind of the power plant Morris had under the hood.

  Morris knew how to build it. Rev knew how to drive it. He drove it hard along a hairpin turn, one of Skyline’s many insane curves on its twenty-two mile course, straddling the hilly verdure on the northwestern boundary of the city of Portland. He stirred up pine needles like swirling confetti as he whiplashed around a turn. The car held up, though Rev sensed the tension in its welded seams and bolted chassis.

  He hit a straightaway with much more momentum than he’d anticipated. He oversteered slightly, causing the Phantom to veer into the oncoming lane. From a blind hill ahead came another car. A rack of lights on the roof and an intimidating front grill screamed cop cruiser, barreling toward the Phantom at breakneck speed. Rev could have done something if he wanted. But he didn’t want. It was his most ardent desire to see what the breather would do. Would he be the chicken? Because Rev wasn’t going to be the chicken.

  Rev stepped on the accelerator, pushing the stakes further. The police car, a four door Dodge Charger, low and sleek and blacked out, hit the brakes hard, tires burning a hole in the asphalt, the shrill screech echoing through the forest hills. Smoke from the burnout plumed into an instant toxic black stew behind the shredding Michelins. At the last second before bumper to bumper impact, the Dodge spun hard left, careening over an embankment and going off-road fifty meters before stopping hard in a dense patch of blackberry bushes laden with pungent, ripe fruit.

  Rev saw flashing brake lights. He also sensed the cop was alive. Pissed, but alive. He knew the whole thing was being called in as he drove away with the first hint of a smile on his face since the last time he saw Abby. At least something made him smile.

  He stopped, letting the cop see him for one brief moment. Morris and Abby would have been mortified. Mahoney would have wanted his ass in a sling. But he just had to do it. He had to let the cop see this car.

  This incredible car.

  The sleek girl looked like a winged bullet. Low to the ground and curved on top with a windshield angled at an ungodly profile. A stealth fighter on wheels, but with the charm and sophistication of a more refined age. Long and lean, a black and silver slipstream of steel with the highest tech under the hood. Rounded headlights mounted on both sides of the prodigious and elegant chrome grille topped by a statuette of Nike, the goddess of speed, ensconced between the front fenders. Fenders ostensibly fashioned by the force of the wind. Sleek and molded into the shape of what swiftness would look like if it were a physical object. An extended engine compartment. The front wheel covers were two solid discs; in back they were the fenders themselves, which curved and bent into an arrow shape with two fins, creating less drag and a ghostly appearance. A phantom. The appropriate name for such a wraithlike automobile.

  Rev grew bored of taunting the cop, so he burned rubber. The electric motor functioned silently and the Phantom streaked away from the scene. Rev was just getting started. Way too much aggression to work out before he could go back and face…her.

  He drove downtown and crossed the Freemont Bridge, taking I-5 through the heart of the city. The lights. Dazzling lights. Downtown Portland shimmered like a crown over the Willamette. As he crossed the bridge straddling the city, on the top deck of a giant span over the river, a curve in the road offered a full and glittering display of those city lights reflecting off the water, recreating the city in a shimmering, inverted, and distorted tapestry of inky velvet.

  He pushed the Phantom hard
, passing cars at over a hundred. The long, sleek frame weaved an intricate pattern of black and silver on the freeway, hugging the river and sparkling in the skyline’s brilliance. He was a supernatural blur to most people, using his own spirit energy to render the car a true phantom of the road. He relished the synergy between his energy and the car’s. Like they were one. If only he had the same thing with Abby.

  Abby!

  He hit the accelerator and the Phantom surged even faster. The Portland traffic became his plaything. It was primetime. Nine PM on a busy Friday, a hot time in the hot city. Summer and sizzle and all that. Two girls in a convertible Miata raced with him. They squealed and cheered when he took the bait after they passed him unexpectedly. Neck and neck, bumper to bumper, they ran along the water, keeping on the freeway and bypassing the eastbound exits. Then, at the last second, just when the girls looked like they wanted him to roll down his window, he veered off to the Burnside Bridge. He heard the audible groan from the girls. They wanted more. He couldn’t do it, though a part of him thought about it. Would serve Abby right.

  He wasn’t out for that kind of thing. He didn’t want another woman. He wanted Abby. He just didn’t know how to get her and keep her. And it wasn’t about the sex…mostly.

  After turning up Broadway, he hit Jefferson. That’s when the trouble started. Red and blues everywhere. Portland’s finest. SUVs and sedans and motorcycles. Even a horse or two. And cops on foot, cops on bicycles, cops lining the street like it was a parade and he was the grand marshal.

  He hit the skids and spun the wheel with his mind. No time for hands. With the sudden one-eighty, he thought he had a clear egress from the police. Then he sensed the presence of even more forces on the corner of 3rd and Main, narrow streets in what was called the Park Blocks. A giant bronze statue of an elk with an eight point rack is all he saw in front of his windshield, rearing behind the cops like a sentinel. But it was the blinding lights that captured his attention. Dozens of them from dozens of angles. Three cars thick, Portland Police, on the doors. Some blue and white, some black. All with guns drawn.