Shadow snickered as he lounged overhead, watching Faye practice basketball dribbles with her own head. “How much time will you give me to answer that question?”
I kept quiet. Most people will tell you they don’t like hospitals. Kids will list schools and the dentist office. For me, the number one place I didn’t want to be in was a courtroom. It doesn’t matter why I’m here. I don’t like it. Too many experiences in rooms like this one. At least this time, I reminded myself, I was on the spectator side of the room.
It didn’t make me feel that much better. I couldn’t stop fidgeting.
I needed a distraction, so I decided to float my theory by Shadow, who had joined us at the courthouse, ‘for fun’. Shadow has a warped idea of fun. He thought my funeral was very entertaining.
“Remember when I told you that the third deathmark at Donut Delight looked familiar?”
Shadow stopped smirking. He didn’t turn to face me but kept staring at the empty judge’s bench. I could see shadows forming around my friend.
“Don’t you dare disappear,” I snapped. “I know where you haunt out. Did you hear what I asked?”
“I remember,” Shadow responded, his voice cooler and sharper than usual. “That was the time when you almost got yourself caught by a deathmark and Timmy had to save you by pushing you into a sewer.”
“You were pushed into a sewer?” Lee muttered through her smiling lips and she laughed a bit.
“If memory serves, you were with me being saved and pushed into the sewer,” I reminded him, ignoring Lee.
“That’s dreadful,” Faye called out as she tossed her head into an empty wastepaper basket near the judge’s bench. “And she scores!”
I closed my eyes, shook my head and continued. “Anyway, I think I know who it is.”
Shadow didn’t stir. His entire form was like a dark statue floating above the seats of the courthouse. At least he wasn’t disappearing on me.
“Fine. Don’t show any interest,” I said, paused and yelled loud and slow, “It’s DD.”
Shadow didn’t flinch. He didn’t show any reaction. “Interesting theory,” he murmured.
“It’s more than a theory,” I continued, eyeing Shadow. I had expected a bit more enthusiasm or interest, even if Shadow was avoiding DD for some unknown reason. “I’m gonna check it out after we’re done here, but the silhouette matches DD’s profile. You know: frog-like bulging eyes, thick, protruding lips…”
“Cooper,” Lee warned.
I shrugged it off. “Faye, can you check for me if she used to own Donut Delight? Matches her nickname too. Two Ds.”
“Sure thing, buttercup,” Faye chirped. “Just as soon as I get this one. By the way, has anyone seen Bob lately?”
“Nope,” I yawned out, while Lee shook her head and Shadow ignored the question.
“Weird,” Faye muttered. “No one has. It’s not like him to disappear like this.”
She floated towards the back of the room, and aimed for the wastepaper basket near the front. It was a long shot and I was glad no one else could actually see a head flying across the room. I wished I was as lucky. Just as she threw her head over, the judge strode in, black robes fluttering like crow’s wings. Faye’s grinning head sailed through billowing black robes and was lost from sight.
“Just great,” Faye grumbled as she zoomed off to find her missing appendage.
“Amazing,” Shadow mused. “She doesn’t need her head to function, which just goes to show that she doesn’t really use it.”
Still puzzling over Shadow’s lack of interest, I swivelled around to face the accused who were being charged for conspiring to commit murder, committing murder and fraud. CEO Perkins, the former employer of both me and Lee, slouched sullen-faced beside The Three Cowboys. There were only two of the cowboy hit men left, but they had kept the name. The third cowboy was dead and gone, sort of. He was definitely dead, but not as gone as I would’ve liked.
You see, the third cowboy must’ve been murdered. When someone dies a violent death, they leave behind a smudge, a dark bit of anger and grief. And that is called a deathmark. In this case, the cowboy had left behind a deathmark with a cowboy hat, a deathmark that had unfortunately evolved to the next level: it was free to move around. The third cowboy’s ghost eating deathmark was now using that freedom to enter the courthouse.
Faye squealed as she popped up through the judge’s bench, her head re-attached to her shoulders. Without another word, she zoomed up and out of the room.
“Good riddance,” Shadow said, his eyes glowing darkly. “I think we should we name it.” He nodded towards the deathmark.
I stared at him, wondering if there was a ghost equivalent of mind-altering substances. “Are you insane?”
Shadow’s eyebrows arched up. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
I snorted, keeping an eye on the deathmark. “Yeah, sure, and while we’re at it, let’s adopt it and take it home.”
Shadow made a tsk sound. “Nice idea, but I hardly think Lee would want that thing lurking around. I’m going to name it…” He paused, staring at the creature. “Ghost Eater.”
“Like ‘deathmark’ wasn’t freaky enough,” I complained as I stared at Ghost Eater looming above the accused. I leaned towards Lee. “Can I fidget now?”
I wasn’t sure if Ghost Eater only had to eat once, or if it had developed a taste for ghosts and wouldn’t stop eating. I didn’t want to get close enough to find out. The ghostly cowboy shadow had no features on its face, but I definitely got the impression it was staring back at us. More specifically, at Shadow. When Shadow moved away, Ghost Eater shifted to watch. It didn’t make any attempt against Shadow, just watched him, its head tilted to one side like it was trying to figure something out.
“Maybe we should follow the poltergeist’s example,” Shadow suggested, his expression neutral. “Before we’re lunch.”
“I’m fine,” mumbled Lee through her tight smile. “Go.”
“Good luck,” I told her and started to leave. I almost flew through Shadow, an experience I definitely didn’t want to have. “Why…”
Shadow held up a hand imperiously and then gestured towards the deathmark. The thing no longer seemed interested in us, but instead slowly slunk towards the judge and then out the wall.
“Isn’t that…?” I began.
“Where Faye flew out,” Shadow finished. “We better follow. She may need help.”
I scoffed. “I thought you didn’t like her.”
“I may not be her biggest fan,” Shadow murmured softly as we floated after the deathmark, “but I don’t wish her any evil.”
“I thought you wished everyone evil.”
“That’s so sweet of you to say that, but whatever gave you that impression?” He smiled the way I’d imagine an African version of the Devil to smile, except not as friendly.
“You are a difficult character to figure out,” I said.
His smile shifted from wicked to grim. “You have no idea.”
Stalking a Friend
Floating several feet above the sidewalk Shadow and I kept some distance behind the cowboy’s deathmark, although I didn’t think the thing would notice if we were standing right behind it. Although still slow, it moved with an energy and purpose that wasn’t distracted by the few pedestrians it walked through. The pedestrians on the other hand convulsed with shivers, pulled their raincoats tighter around them and lowered their umbrellas as if to hide themselves from any evil that the heavy rain might be carrying down.
I peered through the sheets of grey rain and saw a blur of bright blue against the rolling wave of dark umbrellas and raincoats: Faye Random. She was bouncing along the tops of umbrellas, oblivious to the shadowy beast lurking only half a block behind her, its limbs constantly morphing as it oozed along.
“Shouldn’t one of us race ahead and tell her?” I asked. “If that thing jumps at her, we won’t…”
“No, we shouldn’t and no, it won’t,” Shadow said, hi
s voice cool and emotionless. “If we try to get in its way, it might attack all of us. For now, she’s safe. It’s following her.”
“Why?”
He cast an annoyed glance at me. “It’s trying to find the Poltergeist Club.”
I started to laugh. The sound congealed in my throat at the sight of Shadow’s fuming eyes. I really do wonder at times about my choice of friends. “You’re… not kidding.”
“No. Why weren’t there any friends or family at your funeral?”
Talk about off topic.
I scratched my chin. I knew I should never have let him come with Lee and me to my funeral. There’s something I definitely regret. “My Gran raised me until I was nine. After that, I didn’t have any family. Friends… I left them when I left Calgary. Satisfied?”
“Okay.”
“There’s such a thing as a club for poltergeists?” I asked, my mouth twitching. I glanced up at the grey sky, as if the club might be up there somewhere.
“Yes.”
“You care to elaborate, Shadow?”
He stared straight ahead. “No.”
“Sure you do,” I persisted, wondering when he would disappear on me.
“It’s a club for poltergeists.”
“No kidding,” I said dryly. “Couldn’t have guessed that on my own. How do you know about it? Have you been there before?”
He hesitated.
Shadow seldom hesitates. As mysterious as my friend was and as little as I knew about him, I knew that much. He knows what he wants and what he wants to say. Whatever virtues he may lack, confidence is not one of them. Except this time.
“No,” he whispered and then louder, “Of course not. It’s for poltergeists. And now, we’ve lost them.”
“Blast,” I yelled, as my eyes scanned for a flutter of blue. There was none, and the cowboy had disappeared as well.
“This way,” Shadow ordered and zoomed along West Georgia Street towards a modern version of the Roman Amphitheatre: the Library Square.
“The Poltergeist Club’s in the library?”
Shadow grinned evilly. “Where else could they hang out without being disturbed?”
“Must be in the section reserved for history books,” I reflected.
Then again, maybe this was a good location for a unique club. The Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library isn’t like any other library I’ve ever seen or heard of. Look it up when you get a chance. Resembling the Coliseum and taking up a city block in the Central Business District of the city, the library is a nine-story rectangular box, surrounded by a freestanding, elliptical, colonnaded wall that reminds most visitors of ancient Roman architecture.
And all of that is just a fancy description for a ‘really cool Roman building’.
The library loomed above us, a large monument to history, prosperity and literature. But as lovely and impressive as the building was, we weren’t on a sightseeing tour, so we zoomed through the stone.
It doesn’t matter how many times I walk through a wall. I still find it disorientating. Not just the act of walking through a solid substance. I got over that issue in the first few weeks of death. It’s actually being inside the material and the change in space perception that throws me. The wall seems to get thicker when you’re inside, sometimes extending ahead for half a block. There’s a lot of space in between the balls of energy that zap around. Oh, and a word of caution: you definitely don’t want to get hit by any of those balls.
The outer wall of the library looked huge from inside the stone-lined walls. Shadow and I tried to hurry through as we dodged rocky molecules that would definitely hurt if they connected with the energy of a ghost.
“That’s why I prefer to walk through an open door,” I smirked as Shadow cursed a ball that had gone through one ear and out the other. It wasn’t often I get to smirk at Shadow’s expense. Probably better that way. I’m pretty sure his tolerance for people laughing at him is near to non-existent.
We yanked ourselves out the other side and into a glass-roofed concourse, several stories tall, that was an entry foyer to the library. Shadow was still rubbing his ear as we glanced around the busy ground floor, looking for flicks of blue and blond. Before I could make any other snarky comment at Shadow’s expense, we heard a sound that would’ve given me nightmares if I had to sleep.
It was a shriek of soul-consuming terror.
The Poltergeist Club
I froze. A lady dragged her screaming toddler through me, and I still couldn’t move. The scream echoed around us.
That’s the closest word to describe the sound. It was more like a combination of a scream of agony, a wolf’s howl, a boiling kettle, the screech of nails against a chalkboard and a dentist’s drill as it gnaws away at someone’s tooth. And none of the living around us so much as blinked or twitched.
Shadow turned into a black blur as he shot upward through the foyer’s several stories to one of the top floors. I was still working on my Superman flying skills, and straggled along behind. By the time I entered the floor that Shadow had disappeared into, he was nowhere to be seen.
The sixth floor was (according to the signage) the Fine Arts and Music Collection. Wandering along a row of books and DVDs dedicated to architecture and city planning (I guess planning is an art), I kept calling out but very softly. Even though few humans apart from drunks, babies and Lee could hear me, I was in a library after all. Libraries are generally quiet places, and hence my whispering, but this floor was the epitome of silence. I mean, it was on the level of cemetery quiet. Maybe quieter, given what I now know about cemeteries and the not-so-dead dead.
I wondered how many living people made it past the third floor in any given year.
“Over here,” a voice squeaked.
I glanced around and whispered, “Where?”
“Look down.”
I glanced down and saw a vent cover in the wall, near the floor. I lowered my legs through the floor until my face was level with the vent. If anyone had been able to see me, they would’ve seen my head, neck and the top of my shoulders sticking out of the carpeted floor.
I was immensely glad no one was able to see me just then.
Of course, if they had been able to see me, that would mean that they were either dead, or used to seeing such things, or freaking out because they were seeing such things.
“You here? Shadow? Faye?”
“Come through the vent,” Shadow’s voice echoed through the wall, “and stop making so much noise. It’s a library.”
“Since when did you start caring about rules?” I asked as I stuck my head through the metal vent cover. Little metallic molecules scratched at my neck like microscopic bits of paper. I pushed myself fully in and followed the metal ventilation shaft.
Shadow’s head popped up through a vent grating in front of me. “I didn’t start caring. But there’re two places you don’t break rules: cemeteries and libraries.”
He gestured for me to follow him through the grating.
“Is that some universal rule I’m supposed to know about?” I asked, an eyebrow raised sceptically.
“Yes,” Shadow said grimly. “It’s the cemetery and library rule. In here.”
We entered what to human eyes would look like a mere windowless storage room. To ghost eyes, it was party central, with streamers and ghost lights and eerie dance music. Except there was no party going on and the music was drowned out with wailing. A few ghosts floated about in huddles, twitching at any sudden motion or noise. Globs of glowing green gunk floated about.
I reached out to touch one bit of green gunk but Shadow raised his hand as if to stop me. “Bad idea. Those are the leftovers of the ghosts that the deathmark caught.”
Even though I hadn’t eaten in a month, I swear I still felt the contents of my stomach churn. “Ghost guts?”
Shadow nodded. “Two poltergeists. Ghost Eater ate two in one go. Impressive.”
“Faye,” I whispered.
Shadow snorted. “We shoul
d be so lucky.”
“He’d really miss me, that’s what he means,” Faye said as she listlessly floated out from a corner where she had been hiding, her blue dress a bright spark of colour against the drab of darkness.
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “As soon as he realised what the deathmark was planning, nothing could hold him back from rushing to…”
“Shut it,” Shadow snarled.
Faye smiled but without her usual energy. “That’s sweet, sugar. But I think he really did save us. As soon as he appeared, that… thing fled.”
I glanced at Shadow. He didn’t meet my gaze but shrugged, the shoulders of his black blazer shifting slightly. “I startled it, that’s all. And it had had enough.”
He was lying. No, not lying. Just not telling the full truth. I could see it in his posture. I was about to argue when Faye leaned towards me. She sniffed and began to cry.
“One minute we were dancing the salsa and planning on mixing up the boring city planning books with the decorative arts and handicrafts DVDs. Next minute, that beast came out of nowhere and… And it had all these ropy, yucky, oily looking arms flapping about and trying to catch us. And if Shadow hadn’t scared it away… Oh,” she wailed.
A bell rang somewhere in my mind. Dang, I wish those bells would ring louder. I knew there was something about Faye’s description, something maybe important. I was about to question her further, but by now, she was really crying.
“Maybe it got to Bob as well,” she blubbered as she wrung her hands. “You really haven’t seen him lately?”
“Don’t worry about Bob,” I responded. “I’m sure he’s just off on an assignment. Or he found a ghost stage where he could perform Shakespeare and fulfil his lifelong secret ambition to be an actor.”
“Uh huh.” She didn’t look convinced.
“Come on, let’s take you home,” I murmured, offering her my arm. “Nothing we can do here.”
Fatal Secrets Page 7