by T Paulin
Dinner time came, and the men in the bar feasted like kings on barbecue chicken wings.
Eli thought he was going to pass out, but around ten o’clock, he got a second wind. Khan sobered up, and the tables turned.
“It’s getting late,” Khan said between yawns.
“You started this,” Eli said. “You can go home if you want.” He turned to the table of guys. “Hey, fellas, what do we do if our friends go home early?”
In unison, the old men joyfully sang out, “Stay and make new friends!”
“You enjoy one more drink,” Khan said. “I’m stepping outside for some fresh air. Don’t get into too much trouble without me.”
Eli raised his beer. “Okay, boss.”
The guys at the table laughed.
Everyone thought it was funny when Eli called Khan boss. The standard for humor set by the day drinkers was not very high.
Another pitcher of beer arrived at the table, and one of the guys said, “Let’s dedicate this round to that miserable old coot.”
The group got quiet, then murmured, “To Charlie.”
Glasses were refilled and raised in toast. Over the clinking, one of the guys said, “You chuckleheads.” Then everyone was saying chuckleheads and laughing.
Eli rubbed the scar on his scalp. He was getting an idea. It was still foggy, but he could taste the idea.
“Who’s Charlie?” he asked.
The oldest and baldest of the men, the one who’d barely spoken all night, said, “He lived up the street in that orange house.”
“Not orange,” said another guy.
The bald man said, “That’s right. Charlie would be rolling in his grave right now if he knew about how those house flippers painted his house purple.”
Another guy cut in, “Good ol’ Charlie loved his Halloween decorations, and he loved his trains. Loved ‘em more than people, but he was okay.”
Everyone nodded and murmured that Charlie had been okay.
“To Charlie,” they said, and clinked glasses again, all looking in the same direction. Eli followed their eyes to a shelf high on the wall, holding part of a model train—the locomotive. It was the same scale as the caboose he’d seen on the mantle, back at the purple house.
The caboose had given him a feeling of familiarity that the toys in the toy box had not. However, it had been cleared of poltergeists. He’d held the caboose a couple of times and Khan had scanned it as well.
Eli got up from the chair and staggered over to the shelf. Operating on a hunch, he reached for the locomotive. He was stopped by the bartender grabbing his arm.
“That’s not a toy,” the burly man said.
“But the locomotive doesn’t belong to the bar. It belongs to a ghost, and he’s inside there right now, I think. I need to touch it. My fingers will let me know.”
The bartender gave him a stern look. “Day drinking is not for everyone, son.”
“I just want to touch the locomotive.”
“I’m sure you do. I think you should be on your way now, son.”
“I’ll go outside.”
The bartender grabbed him by the arm. “I’ll show you the way.”
Eli had never been tossed out of a bar before.
The bartender put some muscle into it, and gave him a memorable toss.
Eli had to run to keep up with the top of his body. Ten yards outside the door, he windmilled his arms to steady himself and come to a standstill. He let out a giddy laugh.
He found Khan sitting on the hood of an old car, leaning against the windshield and gazing up at the sky.
“I got tossed out,” Eli said. “It was awesome.”
Khan kept looking up at the stars. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into any of this. I’ll have to let you go. We’ll come up with a severance package. It might take a few weeks, but I’m good for it.”
“Don’t be sad, Mr. Boss Man.” Eli’s feet tried to trip him multiple times, but he managed to get over to Khan. “Hey, Mr. Boss Man, I figured out a whole bunch of stuff.”
Khan patted the hood next to him. “Sit and be quiet. I’m trying to think.”
Eli attempted to climb onto the hood of the car, but kept sliding off. He suspected the car was haunted. Maybe everything was haunted.
Khan kept talking, almost to himself. “The thing about poltergeists is they don’t like babies or small children.”
“How come?”
“Poltergeists start out as regular ghosts, the spirits of people with unfinished business. But over time, they go mad, and they pick up other para-electrical bits and pieces, or they shatter apart and get put back together wrong. They go backwards, reverting to childlike behavior.”
Eli’s moist palms squealed against the metallic surface as he slid back down the hood. “They don’t like babies, because they want to be the baby.”
“More or less.” He kept looking up at the stars. “Last night, when I thought you snuck up behind me to say those things, I should have known it wasn’t you. I don’t know why I always think the worst of people.”
“It’s because you lie to everyone, so you think everyone else will do the same to you.”
Khan whipped his head to look directly at Eli. Even in the darkness outside the bar, lit only by the neon sign above Vinnie’s, Eli could see the surprise in Khan’s eyes.
“If I lie to everyone, why do you trust me?”
Eli took a run at the car hood and finally got up on it. He turned around to rest his back on the angled window so he could also look up at the stars.
“I asked you a question,” Khan said. “Why do you trust me? I punched you in the face today, and then I threw tequila down your throat. I haven’t apologized for either.”
Eli chuckled. “I’ve never been punched between the eyes.” He blinked up at the stars, which were very blurry tonight. “I trust you because everybody’s got to trust someone.”
“That’s not true.”
“Of course it is. If I can say it, it’s true.”
“You’re a weird guy, Eli Carter.”
“I am a weird guy. Hey, Khan, wanna see my impression of a necromancer? That’s someone who can summon the dead, right? Like… really summon them.”
Khan sat up, propping himself up with one elbow so he could look directly at Eli. “Don’t tell me you’re possessed again. I’ll have to give you another decontamination shower.”
“I’m not possessed, but I have a feeling about my phone.” Eli pulled his phone from his pocket. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have so much confidence in a hunch, but he’d had a lot to drink. He was pretty sure he could get the phone to ring. He was also pretty sure he could fight the bartender who outweighed him by thirty pounds of muscle, but he’d start with the phone thing.
Eli cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled up at the starry night sky, “Charlie! Hey, Charlie, if you want us to finish the extermination job, you have to phone me right now! Do you hear me, Charlie? Phone me!”
Off in the distance, a dog started barking at the noise. Within seconds, all the dogs in the neighborhood were barking. It was the kind of neighborhood where every sixth house had a big dog of some kind.
Eli held his phone at arm’s length, waiting.
All at once, the dogs went quiet.
The phone, which had been dead since that morning, began to ring.
Eli turned to Khan and said, “That’s our client. The ghost who doesn’t know he’s dead.”
Khan frowned. “Our client is a ghost. I knew that. I figured it out ages ago.”
“No, I don’t think you did.”
“I totally knew.”
“You said this was a simple poltergeist job.”
“Well, obviously I didn’t know then. Not at the start.”
“I still knew he was a ghost before you did.”
Khan leaned back again. “Okay, you win. Now answer the phone and tell Charlie he’s dead, and his two poltergeists are a single father and a kid.”
“With pleasure
.” Eli touched the screen to accept the call. “Hello, Charlie,” he said with a friendly air.
Chapter Nineteen
The voice on the phone demanded, “Who is this?”
“Eli Carter. I’m one of the guys you hired to take care of your alleged poltergeists.”
“Right. Well, I’m firing you two chuckleheads. And I’m not paying you a cent.” The ghost-client sounded angry, his metal-tinged voice rolling around like water in a storm drain.
Eli looked over to Khan for some guidance. Khan rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in the universal symbol for getting paid.
“Sir, would you mind meeting with us? It won’t take long, but there’s something I’d like to talk to you about in person. We’re down at Vinnie’s right now.”
“Vinnie’s?” The voice softened. “I, uh, I don’t know if I’m welcome there.”
“Of course you are. Why don’t you come on down? I’ll buy you a drink.”
“No, no, I promised myself I wouldn’t go back. Not after the last few times. They all ignored me. Can you believe it? I’ve known some of those guys for forty years, and they looked right through me like I wasn’t even there.”
Eli got so excited, he could barely contain himself. It was going to make so much sense to Charlie once he found out he was actually a ghost. Everything would click together and stretch out before him, a puzzle solved.
“Come for a drink,” Eli cajoled.
“NO!” The voice came with such power, Eli nearly dropped the phone. His ear was ringing, but he could just barely hear Charlie saying something about unfinished business.
“What unfinished business?”
The voice cackled maliciously. “Soon the house will be quiet, and I’ll be able to find my locomotive and send it for its inaugural ride on the new set. It’s a good thing those jerks at Vinnie’s are so rude, because I’ve had all this time to finish the model. The terrain work is the best I’ve ever done.”
Eli held his hand over the mouthpiece and quietly asked Khan, “Can ghosts really move stuff? Like a model train set?”
“Sure. He’s a new ghost, so he can’t do much, but…” Khan trailed off, then his eyebrows shot up, along with his hand. “The attic. There was a model train set up there. It was huge, too big to take out without breaking it apart. That’s it! The ghost has been hanging around doing his favorite hobby.”
Eli nodded. “And his friends have the locomotive on a shelf inside the bar. They have no idea what they’ve done.”
More cackling came from the phone, sounding more evil by the second.
“Charlie? What’s going on over there? Where are you, exactly?”
“Never mind.” More creepy laughter. “Say, when you were here, did you happen to see a locomotive? I found my caboose already, but I really need my locomotive. You didn’t swipe it on me, did you?”
“Of course not. But I know where it is. Should I bring it over to the house? We can have a talk. Just the three of us. I have some very interesting information about your alleged poltergeists.”
“Why do you keep saying alleged? I’m looking at one of them, right now. Disgusting creature. Slime coming out of everywhere.” He cackled some more, like he was planning something.
“Charlie? That’s a little girl. Don’t do anything crazy. We’re coming right over with your locomotive.”
Eli turned to Khan for confirmation of their plans, but found he was alone on the hood of the car. The phone in his hand went quiet.
Eli slowly slid off the hood of the car. His feet touched the ground just as the door of Vinnie’s bar clattered open. Khan came running out, the locomotive in his hand.
“Start the van! There’s no time to explain!”
Eli could barely stand, much less start the van. He tossed the keys to Khan. The door of the bar cracked shut and then clattered open again. All of Eli’s new day drinking buddies poured out, rightfully angry about a stranger taking the prized memento of their friend.
The van was already moving. Eli had to run alongside it and try to jump in, like he was Indiana Jones. The passenger side door wouldn’t open, but luckily the window had been broken that morning. Eli dove into his van through the open window, arms first. His shoulder hit the bottom of the seat, and stopped his inward trajectory. His legs and feet hung out of the window.
He tried to roll and get himself in all the way, but the pocket of his new cargo pants caught on the door lock switch, and the heavy-duty fabric wouldn’t rip.
“A little help would be nice,” Eli said to Khan.
“Stop goofing around. You’re on the clock.”
“Am I? Is this overtime?”
Khan just kept driving. As they reached the house, he clicked off the lights, killed the engine, and coasted to a stop. Eli grabbed the seat with his hands, pushed himself away, and jumped back out the way he’d come in.
Upright again, he felt great for ten seconds, then he suddenly vomited into the nearby hedges.
Khan patted him on the back. “It’s for the best, my man. You shouldn’t drink on the job. It’s unprofessional.”
Eli heaved three more times, until he was empty.
He wiped his mouth, and with grim determination, said, “Time to take care of that train-loving ghost. Let’s go play choo-choo.”
Khan stood with his hands on his hips, looking up at the dark house. All the lights were out, the residents gone to bed. Eli thought of the jumpy homeowner, with his golf club. They weren’t going to buzz the doorbell and try to explain the situation to anyone—not unless they wanted to get beaten or arrested.
Khan gestured for Eli to follow him to the back of the house. “These old houses usually have external fire escapes. If I stand on your shoulders, I might be able to get up and let us into the attic.”
Eli walked in the opposite direction, over to the living room window he’d broken earlier that day. He pulled at the plastic taped down to the corner, then made a bird whistle sound to call Khan over.
Khan frowned at the plastic. “They should have put wood up if the window guys couldn’t get it fixed today. This isn’t safe.”
“I know. They’re liable to get all sorts of weirdos in here. Hey, watch this.” Eli backed up, took a running leap, and dove through the plastic barrier, just like Indiana Jones. This time, he nailed the landing, rolling to a stop on the living room floor.
Khan climbed in carefully. “No more all-day drinking for you,” he whispered.
Eli got to his feet and fought his way out of the plastic wrap.
Khan stopped to look at what remained of the seedlings they’d hyper-grown in the window. “I feel like I’m forgetting something,” he said.
“You got the locomotive?”
Khan held it aloft, nodded, then turned to move toward the stairs. Eli followed him up, as quietly as he could in his inebriated state. They reached the second floor, where the residents were presumably sleeping. Both bedroom doors were closed. When they walked past the little girl’s room, Eli got a chill up his spine. He wrote it off as the nervousness any normal person ought to feel over breaking into someone’s house for the third time in two days.
They opened the door to the narrow stairs leading up the attic, and Khan led the way.
It was dark in the attic, and they both fumbled around looking for a light switch. Khan found something and flicked it on. Electricity flowed into hundreds of tiny lights, scattered throughout the miniature village that lay before them.
The landscape model was an enormous ten feet wide on the shorter side, and took up the half of the attic. It had been built on a network of tables, so it stood at hip height for easy access.
Both Eli and Khan circled the model with silent reverence.
“Look at the detail on those red barns,” Khan said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, except for at museums.” Eli leaned over a covered bridge. “You know, I may be way off here, but is this a replica of the model from that movie, Beetle Juice?” He gasped. “Loo
k at the little truck. That’s Beetle Juice in the truck with floozies.”
“Floozies?” Khan leaned over with interest. “Huh. I haven’t seen that movie in ages. Was it a train model, or just a replica of the village?”
“I can’t remember, but I own a copy of the movie. You should come over some time and we can watch it. We can call it research, because of the ghost stuff.”
Khan chuckled. “Research.”
Eli spotted a little purple house with green trim. He leaned over to take a closer look. One corner of the house had been painted orange, and a tiny man in an orange shirt leaned over the bucket of paint.
Eli blinked hard. Was the tiny man moving, or was it just his imagination? Could it be? He leaned over the model and whispered, “Charlie?”
The attic was so quiet, like the whole house was holding its breath.
Someone’s screaming pierced the stillness.
Eli and Khan jolted upright.
The scream came again. It was a child. Eli started for the stairs, but Khan caught him with one arm. “Think it through,” Khan growled. “Remember the golf club.”
They held still, listening as the homeowner opened his bedroom door and raced to the child’s room. The handle rattled, and then the man banged on the door. “Sweetie? Open the door right now! Stop playing around.”
She continued screaming, yelling about the orange monster.
Her frightened cries made Eli’s blood run cold. He couldn’t make out her words, but she was screaming about the orange monster in her room, who was sucking out all of the air.
“We have to save her,” Eli said.
“Think it through,” Khan said slowly. “A ghost’s power is the fear it generates. Listen to your heart. Let the fear energize your mind.”
From the floor below them came the thumping sounds of the father trying to shoulder his way through a stuck door.
Eli turned back to face the miniature townscape. He let the tingling in his nerves pulse through his body and up into his head. His sinuses began to sting, as though filled with saltwater.
“Charlie,” Eli commanded. “Are you going to get up here and show us this new model, or what?” Eli reached down into the model landscape with one hand. Like a giant, he easily plucked a tree from a rolling hill. “Charlie, if you keep us waiting, I’ll be forced to rearrange some of this stuff. I’m a fidgety guy, and I like playing with other people’s things. I’m clumsy, too.”