by R A Baxter
Jack looked up, then stood and stretched. A clicking noise sounded behind him.
“Don’t move,” said a baritone voice.
Tall, yellow grass blanketed the steep hillside, sweeping through the shallow basin in front of Katie and up the low hill on the other side. She struggled to slow her descent, and Clara passed her by at an even quicker pace. They both fell against three boulders at the foot of the hill, turned, and plopped down, taking heavy breaths. The stone depressed half an inch where they sat. Avard arrived moments later, showing no signs of fatigue.
“You know you don’t have to be tired, don’t you?” He stood in front of the girls. “Yer not in Materia no more. All this tiredness is in yer mind. If you think you have the energy, you’ll have it.”
“That may be true for you,” Katie said. “But I’ve never felt more exhausted in my life.”
Avard stared at Katie and wagged his head. “I’ll give you one minute, then we’re off. Them knights ain’t taking no rests, that’s for sure.”
Katie closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, then she looked at Avard. “Tell me something. You said my sister died in the mine. Is she here? Do you know where she is?”
“It ain’t likely she’s still around, since she got her revenge. Ghosts can’t hold on to their soul once they’ve eliminated their whole reason for holding on to it.”
“It was Abby then, wasn’t it? Abby was the ghost attacking the camp.”
“’Course it was. She durn blew up the research facility, too. Why you think them Ghost Knights is here? She’s been trying to kill Farley since the day she died. She forced him away from his own camp the last four or five years. He only come back when he heard you was coming. He hoped you’d distract her, weaken her obsession with him. Fool thought he’d finally put a stop to her hauntings. Didn’t count on her making arrangements with the Ghost Knights.”
“You’re saying she moved on, but it’s not true. I saw her. I saw her in the mine before it exploded.”
“Can’t say it ain’t possible she hung on fer a day or two, but I doubt them Ghost Knights would be heading out right now if they wasn’t done avenging her. No, you’d do yerself a favor forgetting all about that girl. You wouldn’t’ve liked what you saw anyhow. After all these years, she’d gone plumb crazy with hatred. She’d have done anything to kill Farley. Never thought she’d blow up a whole building, though.”
“She killed Marina, then.” Clara frowned at Avard.
“Nope. She didn’t kill no one.”
“No one?” Clara’s gleeful face showed intense happiness. Katie closed her eyes and reveled in the good news.
“Farley was the only one in the facility when it blew up. Last I heard, he was in a coma. May die any minute. Yer friend, Marina, and them boys, Carl and Tony, they was found sleeping on the ground more’n a hundred feet from their cabins. We all thought they’d died, but someone carried them to safety afore the explosion.”
“Who do they think saved them?” Clara couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice.
“I reckon the same person who let them ghosts into the building. Somebody invited them into the restricted areas where they tore up a gas main and lit it up. Could’ve been anybody done it. Farley ain’t got no friends.”
“Was Abby right about him?” Katie looked away, scowling. “Did Farley kill my sister?”
Avard shrugged. “It was before my time. Farley denies it. He claims she only blames him ‘cause he was the only survivor. He’s got the burns on his face to show fer it. He claims he loved yer sister.”
“I can’t believe Abby would’ve wanted to start a camp that tries to control people’s minds,” Clara said.
Avard laughed. “Yer sister never wanted that. That was all Farley’s doing. Abigail was like lots of kids whose parents work for Intershroud. She learned too many secrets, so the bosses demanded her absolute allegiance. She came up with the plan to create a retreat, an isolated mountain resort where young people could live without joining Montathena Research or other Intershroud affiliates, a place where they could live in peace and not be a threat by Intershroud. Yer father talked Lynch into letting her do it.”
“But Farley had different plans,” Katie said.
Avard nodded and his eyes bulged in anger. “He wanted to use innocent Mentalists to visit the kids in their sleep, to alter their minds so they’d think they always wanted to join Intershroud. I wanted nothing to do with it, no matter how much they offered me, but Farley claimed he’d come up with a way to use Media’s mentalist power without using up her mind. I shouldn’t have believed him. It slowed down the process, but he used her so often, she went from a valedictorian to a simpleton in just five years. I should’ve killed Farley myself. Everyone knew he killed yer sister. It was way too convenient that he ended up with full control of the camp.”
Avard’s expression soured. An assault rifle formed in his hand and he leveled it at the girls. “Enough wasting time! Get up! Them knights’ll be in Idaho by the time we catch up with ’em.”
Katie stood and put an arm around Clara. “This is pointless. They have horses. We’ll never catch up. We might as well go back and look for Jack.”
“Them knights ain’t in no rush. We’ll find ’em. ’Sides, I saw the impressions you just made in that rock. Yer as strong as yer pal, Jack. I’m going to need them knights if I’m going to kill him. Now, keep moving.”
Katie shook her head and took care to watch her footing in the tall grass of the gulley.
Clara walked beside her. “So, Mr. Farley blew up Abby and the others, in cold blood.”
Avard nodded and eased around a log hidden in the grass. “Frost and Murdock wanted the mountains cleared of dangerous mine shafts, so they ordered crews to find the old silver mines. Farley joined Abby’s crew. One afternoon, he led her and six others to investigate that mine back there. No one but Farley knows what really happened, but people heard the explosion for miles around. They found Farley that night, unconscious and severely burnt. The others were buried in the mine. It was much too dangerous to excavate.”
“So, Farley claims it just spontaneously blew up?” Katie shook her head.
“He claimed one of the kids had a cigarette that set off the natural gasses in the mine, which set off the TNT that was lying around. I ain’t convinced, but that’s what he claims.”
“My sister’s bones are still laying there in that pile of rubble?” Katie kicked away a large pinecone in her path. “It wasn’t too dangerous to excavate. I know how Montathena Research works. They just didn’t want to pay for it. They could’ve used the tunnels we entered.”
“Could be, but believe me when I say nobody knew about that entrance ’til yer pal, Jack, led us to it. We all thought the mine had totally collapsed. If Farley’d known about that other tunnel, he’d have found yer sister’s haunt ages ago and destroyed it. She’d have faded away, believing she’d never get her revenge.”
“I don’t understand,” Clara said. “How could Abby fade away? If this is the World of Spirits, where does her soul go when she fades away? Don’t their souls belong here?”
Avard stopped and laughed so loudly Clara’s face turned red. She stopped walking and folded her arms, staring at the ground. Katie glared at Avard. He finally calmed down.
“Young lady, who told you this was the World of Spirits?”
Jack raised his hands high in the air and turned around slowly. A short young man stared back at him, a domed helmet on his head and wearing a dirty green military uniform. A bulky pack hung on his back from straps over his shoulders and his rifle sat fixed in his arms, aimed at Jack’s chest. Faint male voices rolled through the underbrush and two men, equipped like the short man, emerged from around a cluster of pines. Startled by Jack, the first man, a burly black man, dropped the cowboy hat he’d been holding and fumbled for his rifle. He circled to the left of Jack, his gun leveled at his chest. The third man, an older, lanky white man, raised his gun and took a position between
the other two.
“Is this the guy General Farley’s looking for?” The black man made a rapid glance at the short man standing behind Jack.
“I’m not sure,” the soldier said. “He kinda looks Vietnamese, but I don’t see the girls General Farley said would be with him. There are three sets of tracks besides his, but only two of them are as deep as his. I don’t know who the shallow tracks belong to.”
“We better take him in,” the black soldier said. He turned to Jack. “Sorry to bother you, sir. We’re looking for three fugitives who were caught delivering intel to Viet Cong spies. I need you to tell me your name and what business you have here.”
Jack glared at the man. “I’m not Vietnamese, I’m American. And this is Montana! I don’t know anything about intel.”
“Your name?” The black man nodded to the older man, who then lowered his gun and pulled a strand of rope from his pack. He approached Jack and made a circle motion with his index finger, signaling Jack to turn around.
“I’m Jack Park. You have no right to treat me like this.”
“Park? It’s him alright. Tie him up. I’ll watch him while you two find the girls. They can’t be far.”
The short man stepped up behind Jack. “Put your hands behind your back.”
Jack hesitated, prompting the man to grab his right wrist violently and yank it behind his back. Jack yanked his hand back, surprised at how easily he’d freed it from the man’s grip. The other two soldiers glanced at each other and stepped back from Jack. Their eyes widened, and they gripped their rifles tighter.
“What did you do to him?” The older soldier leveled his rifle at Jack.
Jack waved his hand behind him and took a brief glance back. The short soldier was no longer there. “I didn’t do anything. It’s another hallucination.”
Jack looked at his hands and then at the soldiers. “Wait. What am I doing? You can’t kill me. We’re already dead. We’re spirits. You guys died in Vietnam, right?” He lowered his hands and approached the men. They fired. Jack stiffened at the gunfire, but the bullets just bounced off his chest. They felt like tiny rocks.
“Something’s wrong with the ammo!” The black man tossed his rifle down. “Grab him!” The older man rushed behind Jack and wrapped his arms around his neck and chest, then placed a booted foot against his lower left leg. Jack yanked the man’s arm and it disappeared. Turning his head, he could no longer see him anywhere.
The black man pounced a second later. “You’re a traitor!” He took a boxer’s stance and punched hard twice at Jack’s face. Each blow felt like bursts of air pressure, knocking him back a step but caused no serious pain.
Jack swung back and hit the soldier’s raised left arm. The man disappeared. Jack looked around and found no one else to fight, wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing. He stopped to catch his breath, stumbled back to the fallen log, and dropped onto it.
Moments later, the frog hopped out from the shadows of the scrub oaks and grabbed a new walking stick. It stood up and grinned wide. “Well, well, my friend. I’m indeed the most fortunate of amphibians to have secured the companionship of one so powerful. Shall we continue our journey?”
Jack got to his feet. “We need to catch up with the girls. I don’t know what those soldiers were about, but they were taking orders from Farley. He must’ve died in the explosion at the camp and now he’s got people looking for us. Come on!”
Jack started off again, following the girls’ tracks. He tried to walk fast but didn’t have the energy to maintain a brisk pace.
“This is a very tall tree,” the frog stepped around the trunk of a lodgepole pine and gazed at tufts of reddish-brown needles nestled on its high branches. “I enjoy gazing up through these branches. One can never tell what might be up there. There’s a clump of pine needles. I often think it could be a prickly-rodent-who-climbs-trees. They climb trees, you know.”
“You mean a porcupine?”
“Yes. Yes. What else would I mean? Ah, here we come to an incline. What? Do you hear that? Somebody is moaning most obnoxiously in that thicket.” The frog pointed to the gnarly branch of a fallen tree protruding from a small patch of scrub oak.
Jack stopped to look but heard nothing. He walked to the thicket and looked around.
“No, no. Let us move on, my friend. No need to involve ourselves in the distresses of others. It tends to be contagious, you know.”
“Quiet! I hear something.” Jack bent over.
A miniature moan whispered through the leaves, “Help me, please. Augh. Make them stop! Have a heart? I’m sorry for what I did. Mercy!”
Jack pushed aside a clump of leafy twigs and found a black pouch hanging and wiggling, tangled on a branch. “There’s something in there.” He untangled the cord and peered inside, then dropped the bag and stumbled back. A fist-sized block of carved stone rolled out of the pouch, with a tiny, shirtless man chained to it by his hands and feet. The fettered man, not more than three inches tall, had a weatherworn red face and a short gray beard. Blood stained his emaciated body. He winced and writhed in agony as pea-sized magpies circled and dived at him, pecking at his hairy chest.
The frog stretched its legs to see over the branch. “Interesting. Best leave it be. Shall we move on?”
“We’ve got to help him.” Jack reached for the little man, prompting the tiny birds to turn their attack on his hand. He swatted at them and backed away, then nursed a dozen red welts on his hand.
The little man jerked wide-eyed stares at him. “I’ll do anything you ask.”
“Who did this to you?”
“What? Jeb Colton created me. Please, just help me!”
“Okay, give me a second.” Jack pulled his sleeve down and wrapped his hand in the gray cotton fabric of his hoodie. The birds attacked but couldn’t penetrate the cloth. Jack pulled on the chains but couldn’t break them.
The fettered man slapped at Jack’s hand. “Just take me back to Jeb. Put me back in the pouch and take me to Jeb.”
Jack shook his head. “Is that who is with Katie and Clara?”
“I don’t know. Please, just take me to Jeb.”
“I have no idea who that is, but I’ll take you with me.” Jack grabbed the stone, careful not to hurt the little fettered man, and eased it into the velvety black pouch. The tiny birds pecked a few more times at his covered hand, then flew inside the pouch. Jack tightened the cord, tied it to his belt, and stood staring into a valley of tall yellow grass. He marched on until he came across some boulders with two depressions pressed into the top of them.
“The girls were here.” Jack picked up his pace, the frog hopping alongside him.
Minutes passed, and Jack dropped against a tree to catch his breath, careful this time to not tip it over. A familiar female voice reached his ears and he darted to a wall of leafy underbrush and peeked through the leaves. A man stood there, decked out in full-body armor and holding an assault rifle. He paced back and forth in a wide clearing at the base of a steep, boulder-strewn hill. Jack searched the ground and finally saw Katie and Clara resting against the rocky mountainside, surrounded by dense green foliage.
The man glanced toward Jack but showed no sign that he’d seen him.
“It’s Avard,” Jack whispered. He squatted in the cover of leafy shrubs and listened to Avard’s words, awaiting his chance to free the girls. The frog starting to open its mouth and Jack stretched a hand in front of him.
“If you give me away, I’m having frog legs for lunch.”
Avard glared at the girls and shook his head. “It ain’t possible you can be this tired. I never felt so energetic. Just think you have energy. Like I said, this is Essentia.”
“I heard what you said,” Katie said, “but it makes no sense. How can this be the Dream World? I’ve dreamed thousands of times, and never felt like this. I’m exhausted. I’m awake and I’m starving. I’m not dreaming.”
“Believe what you want.” Avard chuckled. “You really thought this was t
he Material World? That ole cave back there would’ve kept you trapped forever if Jack hadn’t started tearing it apart. I don’t know how the three of you ended up with such dream power, seeing how you dented in them rocks just by sitting on ’em. With power like the that, the cave had to get rid of Park just to save itself. Then it led you and me out just to be safe.”
“You talk as if it was alive,” Katie said.
“It is alive. Everything here is alive. That’s what I’m saying. Everything you can see is just Essence particles clinging together in response to our thoughts. Even our own bodies, our Aspects, are only held together by our mental energy.”
Clara perked up. “You’re saying we can create things just by thinking about them.”
“Sure. Essence particles are extremely fine, they say—finer than atoms. When we sleep, our minds can’t stop thinking, so they leave our bodies and come here. Our minds think about things that happened during the day and the essence obeys our thoughts. Billions of dreamers come to Essentia every day. They dream up everything, and everything exists only to be what we dreamed it to be.”
“Then why does it need our attention?” Katie stretched her neck.
“It all dissipates over time. Things in Essentia need our thoughts the same way we need food. The more attention they get, the denser they become, and the longer they can exist.”
Katie watched Clara reach for a dead tree limb and snap it off the trunk. Though she could barely wrap her fingers around the branch, she easily broke it in two. She laughed, her eyes twinkling. “One thing’s certain. I’ve never been able to do that before.”
“We all have our powers,” Avard said. “I could think whatever I wanted if you two wasn’t here thinking something else. If I were alone though, I could turn this whole forest into an ocean. I just can’t overpower yer thoughts that this is a forest.”
“So, let’s just think ourselves to those Ghost Knights,” Katie said. “We can all agree to think that together, can’t we?”