Three Stories About Ghosts

by Matthew Marchitto

  Marty nodded.

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Marty ran down the stairs, slipping on the trail of blood and meaty chunks left behind by the thing. He heard the man saying to a worried Mrs. Hubbard, “I’m a police officer, nothing to worry about, please stay inside…”

  Marty stumbled out the door, the night’s crisp air giving him solace that he wasn’t in hell. He saw Wallace’s tarp-covered form being stuffed into the back of a van.

  The two BOA agents were there: the blonde woman with the buzz cut and the doughy guy.

  “Don’t you fucking run—” The woman was cut off by Marty dashing away.

  He turned to climb over a fence, but a pair of arms wrapped around him, locking his own arms against his torso. He was lifted off the ground, his feet kicking at the air.

  “Not this time, fucker,” the woman said into his ear.

  She tossed him into the back of a van, where a couple of meatheads glared at him.

  Marty curled up into a ball and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Seven

  A Deal’s a Deal

  MARTY DIDN’T KNOW where they took him. They spoke, but Marty didn’t hear any of it, the words distant and muffled by the fog of his mind. He didn’t resist when they hauled him out, pushed him through a door and down some stairs, then thrust him into a chair.

  They didn’t even tie his hands or feet.

  The walls and floors were cracked concrete. Overhead, a single light buzzed. It made the room feel sterile. The room was maybe four feet by four feet. No windows, no light switch, no mirrors. Marty scooted his chair back and realized a dark stain rimmed a grated drain set into the floor.

  The old, rickety door opened on squeaking hinges. The big buzz-cut blonde woman walked in, dragging a chair behind her. She thumped it in front of Marty and sat with her elbows on her knees.

  She held up the shark tooth dagger. “The hell is this?”

  “A shark tooth.”

  “It’s a big fucking shark tooth.”

  Marty shrugged.

  She popped her knuckles one by one. “Listen, Marty, we know who you are and that you’re fucking around with the Boneman. Make it easy for everybody and just start talking.”

  Marty thought, maybe in a delirious arrogance incumbent of all humanity, that he was made of tough stuff. That he couldn’t be pushed around by a suit, by the government, by anybody. In his mind, he’d puff out his chest, clench his jaw, and not give the coppers a damn thing.

  Marty wasn’t tough.

  He told her everything. At first, his voice cracked, and then it poured out of him in a stream of bleary-eyed tears. He told her about the deal with the Boneman, about the in-betweener, everything.

  Most of all, he told her about Wallace. How he’d always tried to be helpful but didn’t quite know how. How Marty was sure that if someone said, “This is the right thing to do,” Wallace would’ve done it without thinking. How Wallace was afraid of the same things as the living.

  Her glare softened. She leaned back in her chair, her thumb toying with the shark tooth dagger’s edge. “This thing paralyzes the ‘in-betweener’ so he can be sent on to ghosthood?”

  Marty nodded.

  “And anybody can use it?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.”

  She frowned, got up—taking the chair with her—and was out the door. Leaving Marty alone again.

  I really fucked this up. A part of him thought the Boneman would answer, but there was nothing. I should’ve just stabbed him when I had the chance. No deals, no bargaining. Stick it right in his gut, and move on with my life. Not that there’d be much life to move on with after this. Marty bet that Steph and Alhad would never look at him the same again. They’d just see a weird, flaky conspiracy nut. Joe would transcend into a hate-filled deity who could stink-eye so hard Marty would explode.

  I hope Abbi’s okay. He hadn’t had a chance to see her. In a way, he was glad. Better the in-betweener not know that she was associated with him.

  The door swung open, and this time it was the doughy guy. He hadn’t bothered to bring a chair, just pulled the door shut and stood there. He scratched at a couple days’ worth of stubble, looking at Marty like he was roadkill.

  “Must have been, uh, rough seeing what you saw,” he said in a thick French accent.

  Marty didn’t answer.

  “Why’d you run?”

  “I don’t know. You had guns and were standing around one of those things.”

  “Yeah, guess so.” He tossed Marty’s bag at his feet. “Consider yourself off the case. Go home, try to pretend none of this happened.”

  Thank God. Marty grabbed his bag.

  And the memory of a voice reminded him, You made a deal. Marty rifled through his stuff: no dagger. “Where’s the shark tooth?”

  “You’re not getting it back.”

  I made a deal. “I need it.”

  “You can’t handle this. Just go home, forget about it. We’re doing you a favour.”

  I signed a contract in blood.Marty couldn’t let it go: he’d signed a contract with a demon, with a hellish arbiter of ghostliness. If he reneged… I don’t even know what will happen because I couldn’t read the fucking thing.

  Marty needed to get his shark tooth dagger back, to fix this. Not because he was the only one who could, but because he’d signed a fucking contract like an idiot and now the thought of failing made his bowels turn to soup.

  And he’d just told the BOA everything he knew about the in-betweener, and how to stop him. That meant the BOA was going to try and stop him first. Holy shit. I really fucked this up. Marty’s chances of competing with an agency like the Bureau of Otherworldly Affairs was less than slim.

  But fuck, he had to try.

  There was a bang on the door, and the woman’s voice said, “Hurry up, Beaulieu.”

  “Alright, alright,” Beaulieu said. He gestured for Marty to get up. “Don’t dally, or Cavanagh will skin you.” He chuckled to himself.

  Beaulieu opened the door for him. The woman—Cavanagh—her arms crossed, glared at him as he walked back up the stairs into what he assumed was BOA headquarters.

  It wasn’t much. A large open room of concrete stacked with boxes, crates, barrels—wood, plastic, and steel. People with laptops propped on top of stacks of boxes or papers, exposed wires trailing all over the place.

  He scanned the entire mess, but his dagger was nowhere to be seen. Had they already put it in one of those boxes?

  Cavanagh grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the exit. In her belt was the shark tooth dagger.

  Shit.

  He could grab it and run, but he was sure Cavanagh would squish his head with one hand. But there was no other option: he had to do it now or resign himself to the Boneman’s wrath.

  They were at the exit, Beaulieu holding the door open, Cavanagh pulling Marty along. He could feel the crisp night air on his skin; see the streetlight pouring into the entranceway.

  He had one foot past the threshold. Just do it.

  Marty shoved his shoulder into Cavanagh, grabbing the dagger at the same time. Cavanagh grunted, caught off guard, and Marty dashed through the door and into the alley. Beaulieu leapt to follow, tripped on the step, and fell face first onto the ground. By the time Cavanagh had lumbered over him, Marty was around the corner and running into the centre of the Place des Arts square. Marty ran around the fountain and made for the metro entrance. He had a lead on her: if he could get inside a Metro car before her he’d be home free.

  Cavanagh reached the edge of the fountain, but instead of running around it, she stepped onto its ledge and leaped. She landed with a thud on the other side, only feet away from Marty.

  Marty ran through the doors into the Théâtre Maisonneuve, pushing people aside as they cursed at him. He heard an oomph as Cavanagh knocked a guy on his ass.

  He ran through a tunnel of holographic eyes, all shifting and twirling, covering the floor in shifting threads of light. A look
over his shoulder showed him Cavanagh close behind, almost within arm’s reach.

  Marty’s legs pumped, and Cavanagh’s hand extended. She grabbed a handful of his hoodie, but he shrugged out of it, running as fast as his pudgy legs could take him.

  For a second, Cavanagh stood there, the hoodie in her clenched fist; Marty swore he could hear her teeth grinding.

  Marty ran down the tunnel of little stores, the sound of pounding boots just behind him, yanking his wallet from his pants pocket. He hit the turnstiles, slapping his wallet onto the Opus reader, and stumbled through the bars to the stairs.

  Cavanagh didn’t bother with an Opus card: she vaulted over the turnstiles.

  The Metro car’s doors opened, and people piled in. Marty was halfway down the stairs, Cavanagh just reaching the top. He hit the bottom as the doors started to close, and with the last bit of strength he had, he lunged into the Metro car, the doors clipping his shoulder.

  They closed behind him just as Cavanagh reached them.

  Thank God.

  Cavanagh started to pry the doors open.

  Holy fuck.

  But the train started to move, squealing its way down the tunnel. Cavanagh backed off, and Marty breathed for what felt like the first time in a year. He expected to hear a thud on the Metro’s roof, only to look up and see Cavanagh tearing the ceiling open.

  Everyone in the Metro car stared at him. He pressed himself into the corner, head down. And after a few minutes everybody forgot he was there.

  Chapter Eight

  I’m Fine

  MARTY WENT TO his parents’ house. It was all he could think to do. The BOA probably knew about his parents, but there weren’t any black vans in the neighbourhood, so he figured he had a day or two. Or not. He really didn’t know. He just couldn’t go back to his apartment.

  His mom, Izzy, gave him a big hug. She shuttled him inside and insisted he sit and eat, even though he just wanted to go to bed. Her salt and pepper hair was tied into a bun, and as she put an apron on she yelled, “Pat, Marty’s here for dinner!”

  Marty’s dad, Pat, walked out with the loping gait of a wary animal. He hiked up his pants. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Marty said.

  “Nothing? Then why are you here? There’s got to be something, eh.”

  “He just came to visit, he’s allowed to visit,” Izzy said.

  “Visit?” The kitchen’s light gleamed on his dad’s balding pate. “You mean he wants to eat our food. I see how it is.”

  “Pat, stop it.”

  Pat quieted, pulling out a chair. “You just going to stand there? Sit down, I’ll make some coffee.”

  Marty sat, hunched over with his elbows on the table. The flower-patterned tablecloth was rough on his skin. He wiped away breadcrumbs.

  He kept his head down while his parents had a mumbled argument by the sink. About why the coffee wasn’t in the right spot, about how they weren’t expecting him and didn’t have anything prepared, about why he was there at all. Marty pretended not to hear any of it.

  His dad sat down with two cups of coffee, cream, and a porcelain sugar holder. “So, how’re things?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? Just fine?” Pat sipped his coffee. “You hear that Izzy, everything’s fine. Oh, sure, sure.”

  They were silent. Marty sipped his coffee while his mother prepared a pan of lasagne.

  “We should’ve waited until after to have the coffee,” Pat said. “Izzy, why didn’t you say something? Now what are we going to do.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Izzy said.

  Pat leaned in toward Marty, and in a conspiratorial tone said, “Don’t blame me.”

  Marty forced a smile.

  They were silent again.

  Whiskers jumped onto Marty’s lap. Feline eyes rimmed in bright orange fur regarded him, followed by a meow. He scratched her neck and she head-butted his stomach, purring.

  “Whiskers missed you,” Izzy said.

  “Guess so,” Marty said.

  Pat turned on the TV, and for a half hour they watched Pawn Stars, barely a dozen sentences exchanged between them.

  The lasagne was good. Marty didn’t realize how much he’d missed it. He stuffed it into his face with abandon: it was the only thing that made him feel like things might be okay.

  Whiskers kept trying to paw at Marty’s food; it used to infuriate him, but now it felt familiar and comfortable. When Pat shooed her away, Marty felt exposed.

  When they were done, Izzy made more coffee and they all sat around the table, sipping and watching more TV. Marty dreaded what he was about to ask, but he couldn’t go back to his place, at least not for a while.

  Whether because the BOA were after him or because of Wallace, he hadn’t decided.

  He blurted out, “Do you mind if I stay the night?”

  Pat glared knives at Izzy, like it was somehow her fault.

  “You can stay as long as you want.” His mother said it as if she was anticipating an argument.

  Pat turned away. “Really, huh? That’s how it is. Wow.”

  Izzy pushed herself away from the table. “We still have some of your old clothes. Give me what you’re wearing and I’ll wash it.”

  “You really don’t have to,” Marty said.

  “It’s no trouble at all.”

  “I can just stuff them in a bag and wash them at home.”

  “Please, just give me your damn clothes to wash.”

  Marty raised his hands, acquiescing.

  Pat slapped his hand on the table. “Good, more work, eh? Because it’s not enough, it’s never enough.”

  Marty ignored him and tried not to see the way his mother flinched. Instead he went upstairs to his room. After a moment, his mother followed, proffering a stack of clothes.

  A minute later Marty was wearing a pair of TMNT pajamas that stopped at the shins. Izzy scurried off to wash his clothes.

  He sat on his bed, wondering if it had been a mistake to come home. It always turned into an issue, a problem he didn’t know how to fix. He gazed at his walls, still plastered with comic book heroes and pictures he’d printed himself. He’d cut them up to make a hodgepodge fresco that looked like the heroes were fighting each other.

  Out the window he could see their small backyard. A squirrel pranced along the fence, stopped to look for danger, then continued prancing along. From behind the shrubs emerged a shadowed figure, his body thin, eyes sunken, scalp clean shaven.

  It was Gil, the BOA ghost. Gil looked right up at Marty, and shrugged.

  The fuck?

  Marty didn’t have any run left in him. Instead, he went downstairs and slipped on his shoes. Pat was snoring like a diesel engine, slumped on the couch.

  Izzy was in the kitchen doing the dishes. “Where’re you going?”

  “Just the backyard, to get some air.”

  “I have a sweater you can wear.”

  “No, I’m fine like this. I’ll just be a minute.” Marty opened the rickety backdoor, the hinges complaining.

  Gil was pacing in a small circle. He didn’t look up as Marty made his way down the cement steps and across the yard.

  “What are you doing here?” Marty tried to fill it with anger at a stranger stepping onto his parents’ property, but it came out whiny.

  “We have a file on you. I’ve got to be honest, it doesn’t say much. I suppose that’ll change now.”

  Marty looked over his shoulder, trying to spot the black vans and BOA agents. “I guess I can’t hide. So, are your meatheads going to haul me away now?”

  “Meatheads, that’s funny. No, not yet. Cavanagh hasn’t thought to look through your file, and Beaulieu hit his thinking quota last week.” Gil smiled to himself. “You’re safe for a minute, mostly because you’re an annoyance, not a suspect.”

  “Have there been,” Marty swallowed, “more of those monster-things?”

  “Haven’t checked the news? This one’s trending, hot stuff. So far, the theories a
re”—he counted them off his fingers—“viral disease, escaped mutants, radiation experiments, aliens, and diseased alien mutants.”

  “Can the BOA stop him?”

  “Of course we can. The question is, do you want us to stop him?”

  Marty’s hands got clammy. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we know you’re not working with McKinsey.”

  “That was a possibility?”

  “Sure, couple of ghost talkers want immortality. One helps the other along, the other helps the one prep for his death.” Gil shrugged. “Makes more sense than ‘idiot man signs deal with ever-living hell spawn.’ Seriously, no one warned you about ghosts from the deep?”

  “It never came up.”

  Gil whistled. “Wow, I guess this is what happens when you keep your head in the sand.”

  “If you’re not dragging me away, then why are you here?”

  “Why’d you make the deal, sign in blood? It had to be something good. Did he promise you immortality? A comfy spot in ghosthood? To let you see a lost loved one?”

  “Um…”

  Gil tilted his head, waiting.

  “Um…”

  Gil whistled. “Nothing? You got nothing. Well, kid, I’ve been working with the BOA for eighty-four years and you’re only the second chump to get weaselled this bad.”

  “I’m helping people,” Marty said under his breath.

  “What was that you said? Helping people? Somebody died in a house fire, your apartment friend got transformed into the physical manifestation of eternal torment, and now McKinsey is out in the wild with rosy cheeks and a taste for the ever-living. You’re not helping anybody.”

  Marty knuckled tears from his eyes.

  “If you cry, I swear to God I will punch you in the mouth.”

  “I can still fix this,” Marty sniffled. “I just have to find the in-betweener.”

  “There’s one reason why I came here by myself.” Gil jabbed his finger at Marty. “I know that if you aren’t the one to send McKinsey to the afterlife, then the Boneman is going to turn you into sushi.”

  Marty gulped.