“It’s about to jump, even if it doesn’t get fed,” I said. “Do we have anyone who can trace that amount of energy through time and space to figure out where it goes?”
There was a long moment of silence inside an already deadly quiet time bubble.
Then Screamer looked at me, then Stan, and Lady Luck. “Is that machine pouring out a lot of energy?”
“It is,” Lady Luck said. “And the energy feels very much human, so like the last time, the thing is being powered by the people inside it.”
Screamer then said something that surprised me. “We need Sherri here.”
Now Sherri was one of Lady Luck’s four daughters and Screamer’s wife. They had been separated for some time, a couple of decades from what I understood. But Screamer and Sherri had been working slowly to try to figure out a way to be together. I always knew when he and Sherri had spent time together because he came back smiling.
But at the moment Sherri, who was a superhero, was tending bar in Reno and working for the Gods of Food and Beverage.
She had offered to be part of the team, but until this moment, none of us ever thought to get her involved in any problem.
“Why Sherri?” Lady Luck said a moment before I could.
“She’s developed in the last year or so an ability to sense and follow energy,” Screamer said. “She can trace a person’s energy through a building hours after they walked through it. I think she might be able to trace those monsters, since it’s powered by human energy.”
Screamer pointed to the frozen ghost slots.
“Didn’t know that,” Lady Luck said, nodding. “Interesting new type of superpower. Worth a shot. Hold this time bubble and we’ll go get her.”
Screamer and Lady Luck vanished.
“Did you know Sherri could do that?” I asked both Stan and Patty and Ben.
All of them shook their heads.
“Might be a good power to add into the mix at times,” Patty said.
“We shall see,” I said, nodding. But I agreed with her. I could think of a couple times that might have been very handy.
An instant later Lady Luck, Screamer, and Sherri appeared.
Sherri was wearing basically the same thing she had on the first time I had met her. Tan slacks, white blouse, and an Eldorado bar apron. She had her long, pitch-black hair pulled back tight, which just accented her stunning beauty.
She and Screamer were holding hands, so I was pretty sure he had transferred to her what was happening. And all the background that had happened ten years ago. He could do that with a touch, let her see inside his head what was happening.
As they appeared, she stepped forward, staring at the Slots of Saturn. “So these are the ghost slots you three defeated ten years ago?”
“They are,” Screamer said. “Same damn ones exactly.”
“Let’s see if I can trace them or not,” she said. “Drop the time bubble.”
I did as she asked and the sounds of the casino crashed back in around us.
Instantly the wave of energy powered over us from the pulsing slots.
Sherri staggered back into Screamer’s arms and collapsed as the slots pulsed faster and faster and faster and then vanished, leaving a newer bunch of slots in its place.
I glanced back at Sherri.
She was out cold and both Screamer and Lady Luck were hovering over her.
A moment later all three of them vanished.
“I’ll find out how she’s doing,” Stan said, and vanished as well, leaving me and Ben and Patty just standing there.
“I think I need a rest,” Ben said. “I’ll catch up with everyone later.”
He vanished.
I looked around at the cops and the people who had been watching all this. And watching all of us just vanish out of thin air. I had no idea how anyone was going to explain all this, or if they would even try, but right at that moment I didn’t care.
I jumped Patty and me back to the bedroom of her apartment and stretched out on the bed, not even bothering to take off my leather coat. I used my hat to shade my eyes from what little light was coming around the long drapes pulled closed over the window.
Patty stretched out beside me and took my hand.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said softly.
I just wished I believed her, because if we didn’t, a lot of people were going to die a very ugly death inside a very nasty machine.
To be continued…
Sometimes ten years with the woman of your dreams might be better than no years. But who wins? You or the woman?
A story of love, dedication, and living a lifetime when faced with reality.
I wrote this story a few years back and never mailed it out, at least to my memory or my scattered records. I really like it, liked it when I wrote it. Not sure why it never got sent anywhere, but now it finds a home here.
I’M HER DEAD HUSBAND
ONE
Tall glass, ice, peach schnapps, orange juice, red straw, and a thin slice of orange.
I finished the Fuzzy Navel and slid it toward the woman across the polished wood bar. “Two-fifty,” I said, using my bar towel to wipe water spots off the surface.
I was always wiping up something. This bar might be a smoke-filled dive, but as long as I worked here it was at least going to be a clean, smoke-filled dive.
She dug in her large brown purse, obviously unused to paying for a drink. The older balding guy beside her was making no move for his wallet. He hadn’t said a word, but he stood beside her as if they were together.
After bartending for ten years, since my last year in college, I knew, at a glance, which people belonged in a bar and which didn’t. But way back on my first night I would have bet anything this lady didn’t belong in The Continental Lounge.
And I would have been right.
The older guy she was with was another story. He looked vaguely familiar and a bunch washed out, as if he had spent half his life drinking. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him sliding drunk off of any bar stool in town.
I watched her while she dug for the money. Her dark red hair was conservatively fixed close to her head and pulled back tight. She kept her elbows tucked against her sides, as if opening them up might let everyone know she had tits. She wore a white dress blouse with all but the very top button done up tight. I figured normally she’d have them all buttoned, but tonight she was being daring.
Being in here proved it.
I glanced again at the guy beside her. His face rang bells in my head, but I’d be damned if I could exactly place him. Trying to made my stomach churn.
He was older than her by a good fifteen years and was within a combs length of not having a hair left on his head. He wore what I call the comfortable style: Open necked sweater, no shirt, and soft looking slacks. He looked just plain wrong standing beside the redhead.
Then, while I was looking directly at him, he did the weirdest damn thing. The old dude, just plain as could be, reached down and grabbed her ass.
The woman didn’t even flinch and I shook my head.
The things you see in bars never ceased to amaze me. She laid two bucks on the bar mat and went back to searching through her purse for change. Women who looked for exact change in a bar were no-tippers. Guaranteed. Amazing how cheap some people could be.
Of course, with her I doubted if she knew any better. Yet she stood there letting some old guy grab her ass.
Go figure.
I was still waiting and she was still digging when the bald dude reached up and placed his hand on her left tit. He didn’t squeeze or nothing. Just held it there.
Again she didn’t seem to notice.
“Wait ‘til you get outside, would you?” I said to the guy.
He looked up at me and smiled. “So I’m right,” he said, taking his hand off her tit. “It’s the time.”
He looked at me real carefully. “But I almost didn’t recognize—”
He stopped as she found two quarters and laid them next
to the bills.
“I don’t know what you’re right about,” I said. “But don’t do that kind of shit at my bar.”
“Excuse me?” she said, looking up at me for the first time.
I noticed she had huge brown eyes. Puppy eyes, too big for her thin face. She didn’t strike me to be the type to let some jerk grab a quick feel in public.
“Just talking to your friend there.” I nodded in the old guy’s direction.
She took a quick glance his way, then looked up at me. Her eyes seemed even bigger, and her face had turned a sick white under the light layer of makeup. “You can see him?”
I glanced over at the guy. He was just looking at me, half smiling.
These two were beyond the college weirdos we got in here on a Friday night.
“Two-fifty,” I said, counting the money out loud as I scooped it off the bar and put it in the cash drawer. “Thanks.”
I started pretending to work at something in the well. Rule number one when it came to strange customers. Ignore them. After a while they usually went and bothered someone else.
“No,” the woman said again, reaching across the bar and touching my shoulder. “Please tell me if you can see him.”
“Come off it, lady. Of course I can see him. And don’t make believe you couldn’t feel his hand on your boob, either.”
At that, she got real red and her face went from white to a bright pink that sort of blended right up into her dark red hair.
The guy laughed. “Now you’ve done it.”
The woman whirled and shouted at the empty air about three feet to the guys left, “Keep your hands to yourself and leave me alone!”
She grabbed her drink, stalked over to a table and sat down with such force I thought the chair was going to give way.
Wow. One mad woman.
The older guy was laughing, leaning back with his hands tucked into pants pockets.
“I’m her dead husband,” he said as if that would explain everything. “But she was fiery like that when I was alive.”
Again he laughed as if he had said something funny. “By the way, my name is Dave.”
Full moon. That was it. All the crazies hit the bars on a full moon. Documented fact. This Dave guy proved there must be a full moon out tonight, because he was as crazy as they came. I went back to wiping at the bottles in my well, hoping he’d just move away.
But he didn’t. Instead, he moved over closer. “Don’t believe me, do you?”
“Sure I do,” I said.
Second rule when dealing with a nut case. Agree with them and they smile and go away.
“But you don’t,” he said. “I can tell. And I seem to remember I didn’t either. Which means you didn’t. Which...” He waved at the air. “Oh, never mind. Here. Touch my arm and I’ll prove it to you.”
I glanced up. He had his arm stuck straight out over the bar and was holding it there waiting for me to touch it.
Third rule. Humor them. I reached up to touch his arm just above the jacket sleeve.
My hand went right through.
“Christ,” I said, yanking my hand back.
“See. Ghost all the way.”
I reached out to touch his shoulder.
He let me.
My hand went right though his chest and I couldn’t feel a thing. Nothing. Just like I was sticking my hand out in the air.
I pulled my hand back and glanced at it. Nothing wrong. Hell, now I needed a drink. These idiots were starting to make me see things. Not a good sign.
Especially so early in the night.
“Bet you can’t touch my leg, either,” the guy said.
“No thanks,” I said. Then I purposefully laughed. It probably sounded strained. “Tell me how you did it. You really had me going there.”
“It’s easy,” he said. “First you die. Then you find someone who can see you.”
“Cute,” I said. “Real cute. You want something to drink?”
“Yes, but no thanks,” he said. “I’m afraid I couldn’t pick it up if you made it for me.”
To prove his point, he reached out and stuck his hand through the fruit tray sitting on the bar. Then, for a final show, he put his hand right through a bottle of limejuice sitting beside the tray. I could see his sleeve inside the bottle, tinted green.
He pulled his hand out and held it up. “Believe me now?”
I didn’t know what to think. Part of me wanted to turn and run for the back room as fast as my little shoes could hit the floor. But another part of me was real curious. The part that kills cats won over the part that wanted to take a coffee break.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “What exactly do you want me to believe?”
“That I’m a ghost.”
“Then the answer is no,” I said. “What else would you like me to believe?”
“How do you explain that you can’t touch me?”
I shrugged real obviously. “I don’t do explanations. I make drinks. Besides, there are a lot of people in here I can’t touch. Your wife, for instance.”
I pointed in her general direction. She was staring at me. I waved. She looked flustered and turned back to watch the jukebox and the one lone couple dancing in front of it.
“Hell, go ahead,” the guy said. “She’s single. I’ve been dead a year now. She’s starting to forget me. Soon she won’t even remember that I exist.”
Rule number four with crazy customers. If the first three rules don’t work, be rude to them. That always does it.
“Is she good in bed?” I asked. “Wouldn’t want to go wasting my time with some skirt who won’t even get on top. Know what I mean?”
But the old guy didn’t flinch. He gazed over at his wife and got this faraway look, like he was remembering the first time he got to first base at the old drive in. Then his eyes sort of misted over and I had a twinge of guilt. But only a twinge.
“She used to be real good,” he said, after a moment. “When she wanted to be. No one better. You’ll like that.”
“I’ll what?” I shook my head. This guy had gone way beyond crazy and he was towing me along as if I were a damn trailer. No more.
“Look, if you don’t want a drink, why don’t you move along. All right?”
“God, I’ve forgotten,” he said, “just how—”
“Can you really see him?” The wife had gotten up and stormed back over to the bar. “I can’t believe he followed me here.”
“Lady, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell her I still love her,” the old guy said. “But that I’m leaving now.”
The red head was staring at me as if she hadn’t heard a thing the old man said, waiting for me to say something.
“He said he’s leaving now,” I told her, playing along with their stupid game.
“Is he gone?” she asked, looking around.
“No,” I said, glancing at him.
The old guy shrugged. “I can’t leave. I’m sort of tied to her. Got to stay close. But I guess I could go outside.”
She looked in the direction I had glanced, then back at me. “Tell him I’m leaving. And tell him thanks for spoiling my evening.”
She slammed her drink down on the bar in front of me and headed for the door with short, quick steps.
“Looks like we’re leaving,” he said. “Next time she’ll be alone.”
“Sure she—”
Right in the middle of my snappy answer, he faded and disappeared faster than a puff of smoke on a windy day.
“Shit,” I said and leaned over the bar to check out the floor where he had been standing. Nothing but stains and cigarette burns in the carpet. That did it.
I grabbed a highball glass and poured myself a good solid double shot of well bourbon. I added two ice cubes and a splash of soda, then headed for the back room. I needed a break. It was going to be one damn long night.
TWO
Two nights later, during the slow time between the business drunks from hap
py hour and the regular night drinkers, she dropped back into the bar. The ghost guy had been right. She was alone.
I was cutting lime wedges, getting ready for what promised to be a steady night. She came through the door, paused a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim light, then came over to the bar and sat down on the end stool.
“Hi,” she said, almost too softly for me to hear over the song on the jukebox. “Remember me?”
“Sure do,” I said, sliding a bar napkin in front of her. “Figure out your problem with that guy?”
I glanced quickly around the bar. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
She slowly moved the napkin back and forth in front of her real self-conscious like, as if she almost didn’t remember. Finally she said, “I’d rather not talk about him.”
“Can’t say as I blame you,” I said, making my voice sound as cheery as I could. “He was a strange bird, that one. What can I get for you to drink?”
She looked up at me with those huge eyes of hers and smiled a soft thank you smile. “I’ll try a Fuzzy Navel. I heard they were good.”
I don’t know if it was right at that moment that I fell for her, or if it was sometime over the next few hours as she sat at the bar and laughed at my stupid jokes. But I know that it was right at that moment that I started noticing how really pretty she was.
About halfway though the evening I finally got around to asking her name.
“Alice,” she said. “Alice Rule? What’s yours?”
I didn’t want to tell her, on account my name was the same as the strange dude who called himself her dead husband. So instead of Dave, I said David. She didn’t even flinch. She said she liked that name. Said it was strong and showed character. Maybe it was at that moment that I fell in love.
Hell, I don’t know.
Before she left, I asked her out for lunch the next day and she said yes without even a moment’s hesitation. She said she worked as a buyer for a local department store and I could pick her up there.
We had lunch together the next few days and every night she came into the bar to sit and talk. After a while the place started to seem empty without her sitting on that end stool.
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