Deadhead (A Marnie Baranuik Between the Files Story)

by A. J. Aalto

  I had to cup one hand over the matchbox to keep it dry while pinching it in the same hand so I could use the other to strike a match. It took me three tries to get a flame. Tucking the matchbox in my front pocket, I held the guttering match up to the plant. I heard the screen door slap open and Batten was in the middle of a sentence just as I pinched the leaf between forefinger and thumb and turned it up to look underneath.

  In a tiny green blur, something stick-like and mossy exploded out of the wood, sending splinters of shredded bark hissing into the air and spitting spores that smelled exactly like fried egg yolks. Immediately, my brain offered up the impossible combination of tiny moss monster and yellow eyes, and on the heels of that revelation, a preternatural biology diagnosis: spriggan!

  Dizzy and disoriented as the spore creature spread into my sinuses and started invading my head, I momentarily forgot Batten existed. I stumbled backward, dropping the now-wet match, and fell ass-first into his recycling bin, cans and empty beer bottle clattering beneath my butt.

  The setting sun was suddenly too bright, too bright! If I wasn’t stunned, I’d have questioned this further than just wondering, bright at dusk in a storm? The rain still tapped my shoulders, drizzled down under my collar. Bleary, I put one hand over my eyes and lurched toward the safety of my office, but halfway out of the recycling bins, the scientific part of my brain warned me that all my boxed-up business stuff was not going to help.

  Batten was at my heels then; my muddled senses picked him up not as that hunk I fantasize about constantly but vaguely familiar male human. Deep in my core, I knew that something was terribly wrong, but a wholly separate thing surged to the surface to take control.

  “Marnie?” His hand landed on my shoulder. “Need help? What was that greenish brown fluff?”

  I shrugged him off and dug in my pocket for my car keys as my tongue began to commit mutiny against my teeth. “Nnngggh,” was my reply. I stumbled away from him, aimed my wobbly knees at the alley between his house and the laundromat next door, and threw myself through the chain-link gate toward the curb.

  The newest Buick in my life was a subdued beige color. I couldn’t remember how to unlock the door. My head swam, and I flopped against the car’s wet side. I tried to get into the car as quickly as I could, needing to be away before my intruder could make things worse. I wasn’t quick enough.

  “Marnie!” the familiar man barked. He spun me around.

  “Pollinate me, human!” came out of my mouth.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit,” he said.

  I got the car door open and threw myself behind the wheel. “Pollinate me or die!” I demanded, but it sure as hell wasn’t me making the request. I slammed the door, shoved the key fob in, and backed out of his drive so fast I fishtailed. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him running for his SUV, but I knew he couldn’t fix this. A hospital couldn’t fix this.

  I needed Harry. I needed my grimoire. I needed cookies and milk, but the thought of it made my stomach roll.

  My mouth made a long, loud horking noise without my permission and my head shook like a wet dog trying to shed rain. The creature burrowing into my sinuses and beyond didn’t want milk. Water. It wanted water. Saliva filled my mouth and I had to swallow. Clutching the steering wheel as tightly as I could and pushing the speed limit as much as I dared, I steered carefully through Ten Springs, unsure if the spore-creature squatting in my head had infiltrated enough of my brain yet to control my hands. I leaned over a little to peek at my eyes in the rear view mirror; I still looked entirely like me, albeit a version who really needed to wipe her runny nose. Black-and-blue ghost hair in a messy ponytail, blue eyes maybe a little wider and more harried than usual, there were no outward signs that I was hosting anything more serious than an allergy attack.

  By the time I got to Shaw’s Fist Road, the rain was gone, twilight was teasing the sky, and I was no longer sure where I was going. I knew who I was; my sense of identity was still mostly intact. My direction and motives were less clear. The terrain was vaguely familiar, the rain-streaked forest going by quickly. Habit caused me to slow and turn in at my own driveway.

  I turned off the car then sat for a long minute staring at my key chain. I thought: Keys. Right. These metal things are keys. Then: You got this, Marnie. Shake it off. I launched out of the car and teetered on short, human legs that I wasn’t sure I still commanded. My knees wobbled, and I pitched forward toward the cabin where my companion (Harry, his name is Harry!) might be lighting his first menthol cigarette after waking from rest for the night.

  Two steps. Three.

  The cabin became a brown blur, and I reached one hand out to swipe at the air in front of me as my depth perception shifted radically. Was this thing popping brain cells as it invaded? Commandeering my optic nerve? Another shuffling step and I stalled in place as the ground tilted under my feet. I squeezed my traitorous eyes shut and struggled to maintain control, commanding my body parts to obey me, reminding them who was boss. The spriggan in my head disagreed, and as the spores coalesced into a more cohesive being, it must have pressed up against something in my brain affecting motor functions. My right shoulder shot up and my right leg hooked out to the side, like I was doing a drunken Hokey Pokey.

  Stairs. One. Two. (Harry!)

  The front door whisked open, and one pale hand curled around the edge of it; a shadow figure lurked in the safety behind the door, a force of habit. Harry was awake, and through the Bond, I sensed he was anxious about my arrival and anticipating trouble. I lurched forward again, seeing safety within, the familiarity of the hall, the coats hanging on the pegs, the faded Keds lined neatly with their toes against the wall. Harry swept even further, opening the door wider, and then shut it behind me once I was inside. My left shoulder dropped and that hand flailed up in an inexplicable wave at nobody.

  “That was a quick visit, Dearheart,” he said as I stumbled into the coat rack. “You’re not yourself; I sensed it before you turned up the road. You seem to be in quite a mopple. I expected to be done baking my lemon scones by the time you returned from your playdate with the carrion hunter.”

  I choked on my tongue trying to answer.

  Harry followed me into the kitchen, cocking his head. “My, what a chilly reception. Have I offended you, my pet? I do apologize. You know I mean Our Mark no harm, after all. Why, we are swift approaching a truce, he and I—“

  “You are cold death,” my mouth interrupted him. “You are walking bones.”

  There was a minor mental scuffle as I attempted to regain control enough to shake my head rapidly at him, cutting my hands in a crosswise motion as if I could cancel what came out, but I felt the words strike Harry through the Bond. He adjusted his hurt feelings, even as he tried to comprehend my wonky attitude.

  “And you are confused,” he replied, pacing cautiously to circle behind me. His Oxfords padded the linoleum softly. “Your tongue tells me terrible things while I feel your heart ache to retract them. Why is this, my pet?”

  “You are not human,” the spriggan diagnosed with disappointment.

  “I am better than human,” he parried easily, “as I have repeatedly demonstrated. My, what a funny mood you are in this evening. Did that ham-handed brute knock your darling head on the headboard again?”

  “You are not sufficient,” my visitor proclaimed.

  Harry’s lips thinned. “And you, my philomel, shall experience the chill clamp of the branks if you continue this callous dissection of my UnNature.”

  “The dead will not muzzle the living. You are the End, and only hellfire follows you,” the monster told him in my voice.

  Harry’s irises went from grey to keenly platinum. “And now I know that’s not my MJ speaking,” he said, “because my MJ wouldn’t know what the branks are, and whereas she questions my every word choice, you did not. Perhaps if I had said ‘scold’s bridle,’ as I am sure I have threatened her with that before…”

  I felt my eyes scan him up and
down, and I struggled to keep a hold of his name, though it was beginning to slip away. Harry. Once more. Harry. And then it was gone. An elegant Englishman he was, an Englishman with no name, standing before me in grey flannel trousers and Italian shoes, his perfectly manicured fingers smoothing his eyebrow. The gesture still seemed so familiar, but I could no longer bring his name to mind. It was lost beneath heavy, mossy pressure.

  The invader in me declared with perfect certainty, “You are not what I need.”

  The elegant dead man’s surprised hurt showed on his face as though I’d slapped him, and frustration bubbled up low in his belly soon after; his hand shot out to grab the countertop before he could check himself, and I heard it crack. Pale eyelids fluttering closed, he stepped past me in an effort to collect himself, moving to the oven, to his red apron hanging on the wall, to familiar ground, perhaps to remind himself of the comfort of our routines. Our routines, yes. This, I knew. Baked goods, the dead man’s offerings of affection where he could give no love. How strange that I could know this but not his name. Tears came to my eyes, and they were surely my own. The creature inside me wasn’t concerned about this severing of a partnership as it pushed aside things that seemed insignificant to it.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I do not enjoy hearing such things from my advocate’s sweet mouth. But you are not she. Can you tell me your name?”

  To this, my guest could not reply. It did have a name, but could not make my tongue pronounce it yet, and what came out instead was an aggravated gurgle.

  Two men thundered into the room at the same time from different directions. A young, blond, dead man with long bangs swept in front of half his face appeared in the pantry at the same second that the bulky, dark-haired bully—“A bully,” I said, though they were not my words, “for sure, a real Jerkface, that one,” threw his body into the front hall. Both looked familiar to me, and in my guts, I knew them, but the thing invading my grey cells —“No!” my voice shouted. “I’m me! This is mine!” – didn’t know them, and furthermore, it didn’t want me to remember.

  The elegant dead one held up a calming hand and both newcomers slowed their forward motion, though the Jerkface didn’t entirely stop; his motion was careful, stealthy, and the thing in my head didn’t like it one bit. This one, moreso than the dead guys, was the dangerous creature. He had already tried to use weapons, futile though they had been. It took one more motion for the elegant dead man to stop the jerk in his tracks. It occurred to the spriggan that the elegant one was in charge.

  This was useful information; he was dead, and therefore could not give us what we needed, but perhaps he could be of some use. I felt my body set into motion without my permission, and it moved me like never before; my guest marveled at the flexibility of each limb; we felt long, and limber, and despite this odd constriction wrapped around us (clothing, dummy), we were loose at the shoulders and hips, falling into a sultry swagger.

  The elegant one’s eyes flashed chrome, and he crooked one pierced brow as he watched me come. “My MJ does not move like that.”

  The Jerkface said, “Something flew in her face. Something green.”

  My thoughts scrambled back to the little mossy bits that had exploded up my nose and I pushed my way to the sink, though my visitor still tried to swagger; we settled into a quick, butt-wiggling trot. When I got to the sink, I couldn’t imagine what had brought me there. The fog in my mind was getting worse, much worse. I stared at the faucet and couldn’t remember what the shiny thing was for. (It’s got me, it’s got me…)

  The blond said quietly, “I can hear you, Marnie.”

  I looked at him excitedly. That was right somehow. This dead guy could hear me. The how was muddled to me, and the green entity (spriggan, it’s a spriggan) couldn’t fathom it.

  “Talk to me,” the blond one said. “Say that last part again.”

  Wes. His name is Wesley. I know him.

  “You are death,” I heard myself say, followed by a troubled groan.

  Wesley moved forward a step, his scarred mouth turned down at the corners. “Yes, I’m Wes. You said it’s got you. What’s got you? Marnie, what is it? I missed that part.”

  My stomach gave a queasy shudder and I tried to force my thoughts in that direction, but fuzzy fingers of clogging sentient power were slowing things down considerably. It was like trying to think in a peat bog. Bog... bog... Boggan? No, not boggan... something like that, though.

  The Jerkface moved suddenly, and, before I could dodge, had me by the back of my hair. The faucet fired water under the willpower of his fist and he pushed my face under the spray, angling my neck so the water shot up my nose. The spriggan and I both tried to fight him off, swinging at him ineffectually. A noise came out of my throat that I’d never heard before, an agonized, gurgling shriek that caused both dead guys to bristle, though neither stopped the experiment. Whatever the Jerkface thought was going to happen did not, apparently, since he released me as abruptly as he’d grabbed me.

  I slapped the counter with wet, slippery hands and found no purchase; my shaky knees contributed to a flop onto the floor. Spread-eagle on the linoleum (scorched by a fire bomb, remember? Those black streaks. Hold on, Marnie. I’m still here!), I panted and dripped, hoping I had time to rest. My vision blurred and the room took on a yellowish tint.

  When I looked up, all three men were standing over me, frowning. The elegant one held a rough cloth rectangle in one hand, offering it to me. It (He! Harry! He’s Harry. Oh, Dark Lady, remember him.) pursed his lips in a sad little moue and said, “Good heavens, but this a jolly mess. Take the towel and save on the mopping, poppet. What, pray tell, did you think that watery little gambit was going to accomplish, Mr. Batten?”

  “Flush her sinuses. Hose out the spores. Like that neti pot shit.”

  Rich, derisive laughter filled the room from the two dead ones, and I rubbed my face dry with the cloth.

  “Watering a plant to wash it away; what a positively inspired strategy,” the elegant one said. “It's a wonder you haven't tried bending your neck to slay a revenant. It would be nearly as effective.”

  The blond said, “He’s Harry, Marnie. I hear you. What do we do? What did you mean, ‘scorched by a bomb?’”

  The Jerkface grunted, and shook his head, looking disgusted. “Kill it with fire? Like what Dunnachie tried?”

  Fire? FIRE? Inside our head? Was he serious? Was he crazy? I, we, were almost positive that he was, and needed to escape immediately. The dead guys wanted to help; this one wanted to destroy us. I shot my butt off the floor, balancing on hands and feet, and side-shuffled like a crab to my office. (Grimoire. It’s a book-like thing. It’s got words. Words are for reading. There’s magic words in there.) “No fire,” I said under my breath, and it felt good to assert that. “No fire, no fire, no fire.”

  Three heads poked into the office to watch me crab walk away from them, their faces still etched with matching frowns. The Jerkface’s mouth was working at fighting off a smirk; my temper flared.

  “Fuck your face!” I shouted, and I think we both meant it, the spriggan and I.

  “Flames and ether!” the elegant one exclaimed, cutting his gaze at the Jerkface, whose jaw did a familiar, irritated clench-unclench dance.

  Wesley jumped on it. “The spriggan and I? Marnie, what’s a spriggan?”

  I flipped onto hands and knees to crawl the rest of the way to my herbs cabinet. (It’ll be locked. It’s never unlocked.) I thumped at the doors angrily then shot the blond dead guy a knowing look.

  “Keys,” he said helpfully, but shrugged. He had no idea where these keys were. I did. I knew. We knew. The spriggan was curious, now. I felt a rush of energy and stability as it relinquished some control in the area of my brain responsible for memory and motor control. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I launched to my feet and threw myself bodily into the chair behind my desk, gripping the desk’s surface with both palms. The rolling chair gave a clatter as it shook beneath my impact. I turn
ed on the desk lamp and dragged open the top drawer to shuffle for the little silver bag I kept my cabinet key in.

  “Wes,” I managed to croak, and he was at my shoulder, helping me search, pulling out papers and throwing them to the side. They fluttered to the floor, revealing the bag in the pile. He swiped it up before I could get to it, reading the victory in my mind.

  “Come on!” he called excitedly, like he did when he was a kid, and with crystal clarity I saw myself walking him from house to house on Halloween, his white sheet flying out behind him, his little Converse Hi-tops showing beneath. That memory slammed me in the heart-strings and gave them a hard yank, and tears came to my eyes while the spriggan struggled to understand what was happening to me. I showed it more, remembered my baby brother building dragons out of Lego blocks at the kitchen table while I studied for my biology exams, Wes asking me what color I thought real dragons were, and crying when he heard they were extinct. (Hold onto that, Marnie. Hold onto him.)

  Wesley turned the key in the herb cabinet door and then turned to me slowly, his one good eye filled with tears. Revenant tears, I thought, and was encouraged by the fact that I could peg that. The spriggan, comfortable in its place now, was relinquishing a bit more of me to my own control, maybe out of curiosity. Why else would it be pulling back? Had it not planned to invade me? Was it getting lost inside me? Air Supply's plaintive ballad about being so lost without someone arose in my traitorous brain, and I winced.

  So did Wes, and he shot me an accusing look as he flipped through the key ring.

  The elegant one said softly, “What’s wrong, lad? Do keep us in the loop? Why are you both upset?”

  Wes waved a hand dismissively at it. Him. Harry. My mouth said, “Hush, corpse. We do not speak to death.” The spriggan did not like him. I felt my head turn to face him and the Jerkface, and a quiver of distrust rocked through me. The spriggan didn't trust either one of them. It was willing to explore the blond and our interesting connection, though.