The Angry Ghost and Other Stories

by Peter Spokes

  I sighed. She clearly thought me sicker than I was.

  I was quite happy to tell her about her hands but though I was good with it, I knew she… would not be. I doubted that she had ever visited the kind of land that Michael and I had visited. I still remembered Michael’s words; ‘I so much wanted to find the primitive and primordial world – a place free of the shackles of humanity’s cancerous expansion; and… in Lepșa… I found it,’ he had said.

  He certainly did, I thought. We both did.

  The vulture waited.

  “Doctor…” I started… I had always found some benefits to addressing them with some courtesy.

  “Please, call me ‘Issie’,” she interjected.

  I so hated hypocorism, when a perfectly good name is shortened or otherwise abbreviated. Are we all just too busy or lazy to complete a name?

  Anyway, I looked up at a presumed ‘Isabelle’ or ‘Isabella’ and wondered whether I should be honest and truthful, or just go for the easy option and lie.

  I went with the former.

  “I keep looking at your hands in case they… were to change,” I said matter-of-factly.

  Despite her introduction to me that nothing I were to say would be judged, her expression – I felt – judged me.

  “Change to what?” she asked.

  I paused for a long time wondering as if I had been given a second chance to decide. Should I be honest and suffer ridicule or lie and let the woman sleep at nights.

  I was honest.

  “Claws… long… and sharp… claws…” I said.

  And then, “It’s complicated,” I said smiling as I thought I detected the slightest change on the psychiatrist’s countenance.

  “If they were to change,” I followed quickly, “I don’t think I would have a problem with it,” I said wincing and thinking that maybe I was only making this worse.

  “I cannot explain in piecemeal fashion,” I said.

  “Okay. Tell me your story. I can see you’ve been through… Much,” ‘Isabelle’ or ‘Isabella’ said, her smile now back and her mask re-established once again as she picked up a notebook.

  “You may need a bigger one,” I said, still glancing at her pink and soft – but otherwise human – hands.

  “It started several years ago, when I was woken – as I had… often… by the sound of a howl…” I began…

  Scene 2: The Howl

  Several years earlier

  The howl tore through the fabric of my dreams and I sat upright suddenly.

  I felt my heart pounding against my ribs and drew the back of my hand across a wet forehead.

  Slowly, I rose and walked over to the window and opened it wide.

  It wasn’t a nightmare.

  It was the same feral and suffering cry of pain that had so many times disturbed my nights and haunted my days. It was a single howl and so mournful.

  The problem was that it didn’t exist for it was in my mind and I knew not its origin.

  More oddly was the fact that I knew it was not any kind of hound.

  It was the painful cry of a wolf.

  My parents had worked at a safari park and primarily looked after the wolves. I remembered being shown around as a kid.

  But I don’t remember any wolves suffering so how did this incessant torture come about?

  After several months of disturbed sleep, waking to the painful cry, I became desperate to find the answer or reason.

  My despair was such that I felt it could be useful to immerse myself in the lupus world in the hope that the environment might affect my mental wolf aberration.

  I was aware that due to an earlier ‘amnestic disorder’ – as my doctor had called it – my memory of certain things in my past could be considered fairly accurately as ‘patchy’.

  As I was now finished with the army, perhaps a job at the old safari park could be useful, I wondered.

  Perhaps once familiar with wolves, I’d no longer hear the… howl.

  Though tenuous – at best – I was so anxious to understand the sad brutish wail in my head.

  Three weeks later I had a job as assistant carer to fourteen grey wolves.

  I studied and learned about them.

  Scene 3: Lucia

  Three years later

  Lucia lay on her side as the needle was inserted into her foreleg.

  Despite my determination to get through this ‘end of life’ moment with dignity and decorum, tears ran down my face as I stroked the grey fur and watched the wolf’s unnaturally pale blue eyes slowly close.

  The Pentobarbital would soon stop her heart and she would suffer no more. The tumours were growing faster than they could be removed and so I decided enough was enough. No more knives and no more pain.

  I knew she sensed my presence and though the time finally came when the vet looked up at me, I ignored her and continued to stroke her side.

  Though blind since a cub, her other senses had soon reached a heightened level such that her lack of sight was no disability at all. Her eyes had never lost their azure pigment as wolves would normally do when they grow to adults.

  In a few years, I had aspired to head keeper of the wolf sanctuary at the park, and it was my responsibility to be here but – if truth be told – nothing on earth could have stopped me. Lucia had always been my favourite at the reserve.

  Lucia wasn’t large for a grey wolf, but though she had reached quite a respectable age, she never missed an opportunity to wrestle me as though she were a puppy – growling and baring her teeth in a playful and mock savage manner.

  This was the best thing to do and I was selfish not to have done it earlier.

  I kept repeating this, hoping that the mantra would help me feel better over it.

  No more torment for Lucia though my own pain would continue for – I judged – some considerable time.

  I thanked the vet for taking away Lucia’s pain, and left the veterinary block – and my wolf – behind me, oblivious to all else.

  I heard the howl in my head and I turned suddenly thinking it might be Lucia. But no, she had passed on; and she had never been distressed; I had seen to it.

  I stood beside my car and took several deep breaths before staring down dumbly at the keys in my hand; one was my house key, another was the car key, another was the key to my locker at the reserve, but did any of it really matter?

  I so wanted Lucia back but it wasn’t going to happen.

  I felt such a large part of me was gone.

  I heard a voice in my head telling me to ‘get a grip, soldier’ and ‘take control’.

  But I couldn’t.

  But just then I heard a man’s voice close by.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked up and saw a tall man in an SAS uniform. I still held vague memories of my army days, hence my recognising the attire.

  However, the apparel was a tad incongruous in a vet’s car park, I thought.

  I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the late afternoon’s low sun. The man had a heroic bearing and square jaw that jutted confidently from a well-chiselled countenance.

  “Are you okay?” he repeated.

  “No… not really,” I said shaking my head. “I’ve just had to have a dear friend… put to sleep,” I said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said with what appeared to be genuine sadness. “Many will miss Lucia,” he said.

  I looked up. How did he know about Lucia? But then I remembered that she was a favourite with our ‘wolf-walkers’ who not only gave our wolves much needed exercise, but were paid good money to do it too.

  I couldn’t talk but nodded as I wiped my eyes.

  “I’m Ryker,” he announced with some grandeur. “What say you we grab a coffee?” he said.

  I smiled. He seemed a lot like I was before my…
trouble.

  I nodded to Ryker. “A coffee sounds good,” I said. “I’m Lowell – Freeman Lowell.”

  It didn’t sound very heroic but then neither was I… any more… if ever I was.

  I couldn’t remember.

  Maybe I needed a break from the reserve, I thought. I had come to love the wolves at the reserve but still found my dreams interrupted by the sad howl.

  I had always wanted to write a novel. Perhaps now was a good time.

  Our pets give us so much but the pain of their death made me wonder if it was worth it.

  Although I felt a part of me had died, I decided it had still been worth knowing her.

  I drove us to a local eating house.

  Scene 4: Finished Book

  Three years later

  My hands hovered over the PC’s keyboard.

  Battered and bruised, Ryker lay with his back to the rotting log.

  He could back away no further.

  The creature moved forward very slowly – its fangs reflecting the rays of moonlight through the trees.

  He could smell its stench.

  It snarled and he knew the vampyre was about to lunge.

  Ryker picked up the stake and quickly stabbing its rear end into the dirt beside him, met the creature impaling it. Ryker watched the hell’s spawn continue to snap its jaws for several moments before it weakened.

  It writhed for a further while before finally lying still.

  Another monster was dead and once again Ryker stood victorious.

  I stopped typing and leaned back from the keyboard; another book finished.

  And so ended another tale of my close friend’s exploits in ridding the world of another one of hell’s creatures.

  “Another one done,” I called over to Ryker.

  “I think you are making me out to be more impossibly heroic than is plausible,” he said inhaling on a large cigar.

  I used to smoke cigars but no more.

  “Don’t be telling them that when we get to Bucharest…” I laughed.

  “I won’t be telling them anything… that’s your thing. Do we really need to be doing this?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “It’ll be good for the book sales and my next one,” I replied. “And besides, I’ve been on a ‘Learn Romanian’ crash course – no, really!” I said watching him shake his head.

  I knew Ryker hated book conventions; he much preferred the outdoors and action.

  Though at the time we were not to know, in the following weeks we would get plenty of both.

  Over the last three years I had found myself appreciating Ryker’s presence. He was everything I wasn’t. I didn’t remember my time in the army amounting to very much.

  Ryker, however, had been a member of the SAS working covert operations in North Africa and Iraq. He had been by far a much more heroic soldier than myself with several medals to his name.

  He was one tough hombre, though oddly, he obstinately refused to wear anything other than his SAS uniform.

  Unfortunately, an accident in Iran had put a stop to his military career where coincidentally, my own military service too was terminated.

  Despite a ‘chalk and cheese’ relationship, we enjoyed each other’s company and after several weeks I had asked him to move in with me and he happily complied.

  Looking back, I really don’t know what I would have done without him. When times got… difficult, I relied on him to take the lead.

  If I had known that our time together would be short… well… it’s a reminder to me to appreciate those close to us while they are still here – whether a favourite pet or a close friend…

  “Wait just a moment,” interrupted the vulture flicking between pages. “Your friend is… no longer with us?” she asked.

  I paused remembering the moment when I lost Ryker.

  “Let me finish my story…” I said seriously.

  I wasn’t crazy. I so wanted her to understand that.

  I glanced again at her hands.

  They were normal.

  Scene 5: The Request

  It had rained when Ryker and I had driven into Bucharest; and as we left a day later, it was still doing so.

  By now I had wet mud on my knees and hands as I crouched in the mud and prepared to replace a tyre that blew out only a few miles from Lepșa – our destination.

  Ryker leaned against the car and stared into the rapidly darkening woods.

  It was a shame. Despite the rain, we had made good progress until I had hit something – perhaps a rock – in the road, and I slewed to a halt, but not before the headlights picked out an old signpost.

  ‘Lepșa – zece kilometri’ it said simply.

  So little more than seven miles – at least we had almost made it before our unfortunate turn of fortune.

  The reason for our being on a muddy track, on the outskirts of a barely known village, was thus:

  Earlier that morning, I had been giving a speech to an eclectic mix of individuals that shared the commonality of a strong belief in monsters and demons.

  I was aware of many myths and legends that circulated around this part of Europe, and Romania was a hotspot.

  However, I was not here to ‘educate’ or dispel any ridiculous notions of creatures dark and of legend.

  On the contrary, I was keen to keep the legends alive and, as my increasingly embellished books stated, my friend Ryker had been fighting a diverse mix of the demons of hell for the last few years… or so.

  What’s more, the clear respect and adoration one feels when welcomed to the many book signings or lecture meetings is something that never grows dull. I had been initially quite concerned by the possibility of being interrogated by non-believing – and therefore quite rational – individuals; but all those that were ever in attendance were ‘believers’ in the nonsense.

  On entering the hall, I felt like a movie star as all looked in awe in my direction. I smiled noticing several rather shapely young ladies wearing T-shirts with ‘Ryker is Big Hero’ erroneously scrawled across their ample chests.

  Certainly, my literary works on Ryker’s adventures fighting demons had been most lucrative for the two of us and – I felt – rather clever, as Ryker would never have to prove any of this nonsense. I likened it to the relationship of Holmes and Watson when – after the completion of each case – Watson would put to paper, or in my case a Microsoft word document, the adventure.

  I had the literary and cerebral skills but it was Ryker that had the physical strength and heroic fortitude, and between us we had created several popular novels and though they were unlikely ever to be bestsellers or works of literary merit, they brought in an appreciable income.

  Oddly though, while my readers in the western world saw my books for what they were – a bit of fantastical fun and nonsense – I had gathered a surprisingly large following in eastern Europe who appeared to read my books with a mind more… literal.

  This was of some concern to Ryker as – I felt – with each new published novel, he was feeling more fraudulent.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said smiling. “I believe most think you are simply the protagonist in my books and don’t even exist.”

  I remembered Ryker looking awkward. “Though I’ve never done the things in your books you say, I think it might be worse if they didn’t think I actually existed…” he said.

  An odd thing to say, I thought.

  So, I stood at a podium in a town hall in Bucharest and despite the distraction of the myriad of ‘Ryker is Big Hero’ T-shirts in the audience – I delivered a lecture to the already converted.

  However, towards the end of my talk, I managed to find myself retreating into a corner and shooting myself in the proverbial foot.

  But enough of metaphors; it was as I was just finishing with addressing the fina
l questions when there came one from the back of the room.

  “In my village, there is a… a vârcolac… could you help us?” said an English voice.

  I shielded my eyes with my hand from the lights to see who had asked the question. I sensed some familiarity to the voice.

  I smiled and nodded sagely as I frantically googled on my iPad resting on the podium what I understood to be his word – vârcolac.

  I looked down at the response:

  Werewolf.

  I simply stared at the word as I suddenly grew hot.

  I paused. Was the howl that haunted me an omen? A warning? Not from a past memory but a portent of a future happening?

  I swallowed hard and took several deep breaths before, “Ah, a werewolf… you have a problem with a… a werewolf?” I said.

  “Indeed, I do… we do,” came the answer.

  I looked around at those seated before me. Though I knew they believed in this absurdity, and did not expect someone from the Poliția Română to escort the clearly deranged man from the premises, I still expected one or two embarrassing coughs of awkwardness or whispered words of ridicule; but all the faces turned to me as if the statement was beyond question and its legitimacy unquestionable.

  “Umm… where is this… beast?” I said unsure but going with it.

  “In Lepșa,” said the voice. “About 250 miles north of here.”

  Standing before so many people, I naturally couldn’t repudiate the man’s statement of werewolves and the help he requested.

  Therefore, and quite possibly due to much overconfidence from this afternoon’s veneration, I accepted, though I knew Ryker was not going to be happy when I told him.

  “We will set off at noon tomorrow,” I announced with all the gravitas of Captain Ahab standing on the foredeck of the Pequod before embarking on his search for the white whale.

  There was a cheer from the assemblage and I drew the event to a close.

  I made my way to the back of the room to see who had put me into this spot.

  Then a smiling and familiar face hove into view.