by T. Strange
Harlan took it, wondering if he was misreading the subtle way Charles shifted his stance, almost like he was inviting Harlan to step in closer for a hug, if he wanted to. He probably was. Almost certainly.
After Charles left, Harlan felt a bit conflicted. Nothing made him happier than having a decision made for him, but now he couldn’t help regretting that he hadn’t tried to make Charles stay.
Chapter Eight
Harlan liked routine. Some of the other residents at the Centre had rebelled against it, complaining loudly and bitterly that they needed their freedom, but Harlan had never felt that way. Leaving his predictable schedule, having his whole world shaken to pieces, had in some ways been the worst part of being forced to leave the Centre. Rather than having structure provided for him, he had to come up with it on his own, and he quickly found he wasn’t very good at it.
Grating as Hamilton was, their work together took up a solid chunk of most of Harlan’s days, and it always began promptly at nine a.m. The duration might only be a few hours—or more than twelve, depending on how many problem ghosts they were assigned.
Harlan didn’t honestly mind the longer days. Not only did they fill his time, but he also felt like Hamilton opened up to him towards the end of long shifts, becoming a little friendlier and more personable. He was usually back to his curt self by the next day—sometimes a few days. Harlan was usually given a day to rest if he dispelled more than two or three ghosts.
Most hauntings were easy, quickly becoming almost routine. Harlan found the spirit, talked to it and sent it on its way. A few required a little more force, but none frightened him or were more than he could handle. For the most part, once he’d convinced them they were dead—if they didn’t already know—they were as eager to leave as Harlan was to see them disappear.
When he was home, Harlan watched TV and found he didn’t care for most of it. He liked nature documentaries. He saw an ad for Netflix while he was online and signed up for a free trial membership. He liked it much more than regular TV, but he didn’t have a credit card and wasn’t sure how to get one, so he didn’t renew his subscription.
He emailed the SPCA, managed to track down the flock of pigeons he’d helped rescue and been assured they were all safe, happy and together.
He thought about Charles a lot—vague fantasies of how he imagined Charles would look, naked and sweaty and stroking Harlan all over or tying him down to one of the mysterious pieces of furniture in his dungeon, grabbing a fistful of his hair and holding a paddle over his naked ass…
Tom emailed him regularly, to check in and remind him of various support groups he could join. There were several that were for psychics of any type, both social and supportive, and two that were medium-specific—one for civilians, one for police. Mediums were rare enough that neither group was very large, but Harlan had never been a joiner, and he was quite content limiting himself to contact with Hamilton, ghosts and cashiers.
He’d originally used the grocery delivery service Tom had mentioned, but he’d found that was actually more stressful. They only took cash, so he had to withdraw some from his account, make sure he had enough and calculate a tip. And now that he was accustomed to thinking of the apartment as his, he didn’t like letting strangers in, even for a few brief minutes.
There was a small, fairly quiet grocery store only a few minutes’ walk from his apartment, and he discovered that he preferred wandering the aisles to checking off boxes online. It encouraged him to try food he normally wouldn’t have, enjoying more of his experiments than he’d expected. He started getting at least one box of Pocky every time he bought groceries.
Harlan barely hesitated when he entered the lobby of his apartment building, heading straight for the elevator, exercise be damned. He was tired. He’d spent the whole day walking, going from haunted crime scene to haunted crime scene. The ghosts didn’t stay neatly in place where they’d died. They drifted off in random directions, forcing Harlan to play a frustratingly cerebral version of warmer, colder with his power until he found them. He just wanted to get upstairs to his safely warded apartment and tune out the outside world—living and dead.
He stepped into the elevator and pressed the ‘four’ button. He couldn’t help tensing as he watched the brass doors slide shut, so he closed his eyes and quietly hummed an old Billie Holiday tune to keep himself from clutching the railing.
The elevator jerked, startling Harlan to attention. The temperature plummeted and goosebumps raised on Harlan’s arms, prickling up the back of his neck. He could see his breath, trailing up and away from him in its hurry to escape. He wished he could follow it out of the small ventilation grate in the elevator’s roof. An elevator shaft might be preferable to being stuck in the car with a ghost.
A smell filled the elevator, heavy and unpleasant. It was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
Now, he reached behind him, grabbing at the safety railing. It was slippery with condensation and his hand slid off on his first panicked attempt. He didn’t dare turn around, take his gaze or his concentration away from the malevolent energy brewing in the middle of the car. His hand met metal, but he pulled away with a cry. The rail was so cold that his hand froze to it and he had to painfully tear it loose. It hurt, but he wanted his hands free. Not that they’d be much help, but he could at least use them to shield his face—although a ghost could simply pass through them. He hated the thought of helplessly facing down an angry ghost with his hands pinioned neatly behind his back.
He was trapped in a haunted elevator…again. He wasn’t sure how it was possible. He’d taken the elevator almost every day since he’d first ridden it with Charles. Cautiously at first, in case Charles’ dampening ability was the only thing keeping ghosts away, but no spirits had ever materialized here.
Until now.
“No…no, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Harlan moaned, watching the spirit slowly coalesce.
It shifted from a bitterly cold shimmer in the air to a heavy, purposeful mist, to a large, vaguely human form, trailing an ectoplasmic shroud.
Not all of Harlan’s training had been with docile, harmless ghosts who’d just needed a bit of a nudge to shuffle off the mortal coil.
He’d been as curious as the other kids the first time a massive, unmarked black shipping crate had arrived at the Centre and been unloaded from the back of an equally unmarked black truck.
It had been delivered during one of the regular, academic classes, which were divided by age rather than ability. There had only been two other mediums at the Centre, both much older than Harlan.
He’d sat at his desk while his classmates had pressed their faces to the grille-covered windows, speculating wildly about what might be inside. I bet it’s a lion! Don’t be stupid. Why would they give us a lion?—until the teacher had herded them back into their assigned seats.
Harlan had sat in the middle of the room. He was quiet and non-disruptive, so the teacher didn’t need to watch him closely, but he also had a tendency to daydream, sometimes zoning out completely for minutes at a time, tuning out everything happening around him, so he wasn’t allowed to sit in the back of the room anymore.
He still hadn’t lived down an incident about a year before, when he’d been twelve. While the rest of the class was filing outside for recess, he’d suddenly been overcome by a feeling of complete and utter terror. It hadn’t been caused by a ghost—the whole Centre was carefully warded, the wards updated even more frequently than was technically required. This was a formless, sourceless, all-encompassing fear that left him, huddled and shaking, beneath his desk, with no idea what was happening to him or why.
Within a few days, his teacher had referred him to the Centre’s psychologist, who’d prescribed him antidepressants. Within hours, Harlan had felt the difference. It was as though he’d been living beneath a grey shroud, so light and thin that he hadn’t noticed it until it was gone and he could see and breathe freely. He still had bouts of depression, but it had been reasonably well-managed for years.
Harlan still awoke from nightmares of the warped, twisted spirits inside those black crates—at least half a dozen, from the first until he’d left—but those tests, horrible as they’d been, might be the only way he could save himself now. There was no one else coming for him.
At least, when he’d been in a black crate, he’d known there was an instructor nearby, monitoring his heart rate and breathing, ready to lower a ghost-warded, opaque plastic dome over Harlan if his vitals spiked too high, ending the test. Temporarily.
Here, there was only him. Fuck.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
In, slow.
Out, slower.
He visualized a barrier, a shield of energy between himself and the ghost. He was huddled on the floor in the farthest corner of the elevator, making himself as small as possible. The ghost was between him and the door.
Couldn’t think about that. Shield. Barrier. Protection. A flimsy layer of imaginary light that was the only defense between him and a furious, powerful spirit.
Trailing tendrils of ectoplasm drifted away from the main mass of the ghost, cautiously brushing his barrier, testing its strength.
Knowing what to expect, Harlan braced himself, but it hurt. His pitiful shield shattered, disintegrating into tiny shards of ice that crackled beneath the heel of his shoe as he shifted his weight to evade the tendrils now seeking him. Well, fuck. That had been useless. The Centre’s instructors, like drill sergeants, had stressed the importance of practice, of repeating a lesson until it became automatic—second nature, even in dangerous, frightening situations. They wanted their students to respond properly, even when their bodies shut down with terror. Noble, if unpleasant during training.
Now, the only thing Harlan could picture was Chapter Thirteen—Malevolent Spirits. This was the only time ghosts were called anything other than ‘clients’—to differentiate malevolent ‘spirits’ from the befuddled, harmless ‘clients’.
Nothing else. Only the Chapter title. None of the text that followed, none of the exercises, nothing actually fucking useful.
Sensing his complete lack of defense, the centre of the swirling ectoplasm thickened, forming a howling face. The familiar smell intensified, and suddenly Harlan could place it. He recognized the face—the man on the third floor on the day Harlan had moved in, who’d opened the door when Harlan was searching for his apartment. The one who’d broken the stupid keychain. The smell was his offensive, overpowering cologne or body spray. For the briefest instant, an irrational part of Harlan was convinced he’d somehow been responsible for the man’s death. He’d met Harlan then he’d died. The keychain’s vengeance.
But that was absurd. He knew it was, despite his lingering, needling doubts.
Fuck.
The man had been intimidating enough while he was alive. Now that he was a ghost—and an unusually powerful one—Harlan was terrified. He had to be fresh too, for Harlan not to have felt him before, making it even more unusual for him to be this strong. They’d only met once, but he wasn’t surprised by the spirit’s targeted attack. They tended to be drawn to mediums, and his only previous experience with Harlan had been antagonistic.
The ghost swirled closer, its spectral teeth bared. Harlan flinched, closing his eyes and curling into an even tighter ball, as though his physical size would make any difference to a being that could pass through solid objects. The ability that allowed Harlan to see and interact with ghosts also made him more vulnerable and open to their attacks.
He felt a whiplash. He looked up and saw a spear of ice at the end of an ectoplasmic tentacle cut his forearm a second time. The pain and bone-biting cold were so intense that he screamed. He could feel that deadly coldness creeping up his arm, moving slowly but inexorably. Nothing could stop it. Maybe it was even taking its time intentionally, savouring his pain and fear. Maybe he didn’t want it to stop. Maybe he just wanted to close his eyes…
The cold was past his elbow now. The lash was wrapped around his arm, keeping him frozen in place and drawing his energy, the very life from his body.
The icy feeling reached his shoulder, closing on his heart. If it reached that vital organ, he’d die. He knew that more surely than he knew his own name. He’d be so completely drained that he’d simply lose the will to live. He’d just stop breathing, and the ghost would drink every drop of life from his corpse until all that remained was a frozen husk.
Harlan felt a renewed surge of energy through his connection to the ghost. It was getting greedy, trying to drain him more quickly. Harlan grinned unpleasantly, baring his own teeth. The ghost had made a mistake and fed him some of its anger, its rage. It held him by his left arm, leaving his right free. Carefully keeping his expression blank, his jaw slack, he slowly, slowly slid his right hand into the pocket of his jeans, barely containing a triumphant grin when his fingers brushed the familiar edges of the broken keychain. Moving quickly now, praying it wouldn’t catch in his pocket as he pulled it out, Harlan yanked the keychain free and hurled it at the ghost.
“You broke my keychain!” he screamed. His keys hit the far wall of the car and clattered to the floor. He was suddenly alone in the elevator. The temperature returned to normal so quickly that he gasped, his throat and lungs feeling almost burned by the rush of warm air.
The doors slid open, revealing his helpful neighbour—Jim? Jordan? It didn’t matter right now—standing in the hallway, looking frantic.
“What happened? I heard yelling…God, you look… Here.” J-whatever-it-was offered Harlan a hand, which Harlan ignored.
He was still breathing too fast, too hard, gulping down the blessedly warm air as fast as his lungs could handle. He hauled himself to his feet, using the railing behind him. The cold and fear had locked his muscles in place. He brushed past the man, stumbling in the direction of his apartment.
“You forgot your—” he began, but Harlan had already turned.
He snatched the keys out of his neighbour’s hand, whirled and unlocked his door on the first try.
He was never replacing that stupid keychain.
Chapter Nine
The ghost had been dispelled temporarily, but Harlan knew it would be back. It was powerful enough that Harlan could just feel it through the ghost-wards, lurking on the other side, waiting for him to come out. Still, for now, he was safe. He didn’t have to deal with it yet. He had time to come up with a plan—in the morning, after he’d slept. If he had to, he could run down the stairs and hopefully get out of the building before the ghost could fully manifest. He could get help from other mediums. Of course, it would have been easier and safer if the ghost had been stopped before draining so much energy from Harlan, energy it could now use to attack, but it was too late for regrets. He’d deal with it, the way it was, in the morning.
For now… Barely able to keep his eyes open, Harlan collapsed on the couch, not even taking his shoes off. He opened his eyes, briefly, when he heard a soft knock on his door, but didn’t even bother lifting his head.
It was dark when he woke with a start. He’d been having a strange dream, and it took him a moment to realize that the sound he was hearing was real, not just in his dream. Someone—no, Harlan realized, something—was pounding on his door, a staccato, irregular beat that set his teeth on edge.
He rolled off the couch, landing awkwardly on all fours. His body still felt stiff and uncoordinated, and he grunted with pain when he landed. The fall was farther than he’d expected, but the impact jarred him fully awake. His head pounded a counterpoint to the assault on his door. He’d never had a headache like this, and he was torn between investigating the sound, finding some water and a painkiller and staggering to the toilet. He blinked, swiping a hand across his eyes to clear the sleep grit from them. He was so weak he almost toppled over, unbalanced on only three limbs. He lowered his forehead to the floor to brace himself and immediately regretted it as a sharp spike of pain shot through his head, almost making him throw up.
How long had the ba
nging on his door been going on? Why hadn’t anyone come to investigate the sound?
Forcing himself to breathe slowly and carefully, swallowing frequently, Harlan managed to keep himself from vomiting. A wave of smell reached him, the overpowering stink of the ghost’s aftershave filling his nostrils. What a terrible fate—reeking of cheap cologne into the afterlife.
Harlan gagged and burped unpleasantly but kept the bile down. He decided the smell and banging were more urgent than his headache—and contributing to it. Hopefully, getting rid of the ghost would also help his head, at least a little.
As he crawled towards the door, the pounding intensified. The door actually shook on its hinges, banging against the lock. It wasn’t until he was within a few feet that he saw the cause, how the ghost was able to penetrate the wards even this far. There was a piece of paper shoved under the door, half in the hallway, half in Harlan’s living room. Apparently that was enough for the ghost to break the wards, at least a fraction.
His neighbour must have left the paper, and it had been him Harlan had heard knocking while he’d fallen asleep. It had taken the ghost this long to regroup after its initial attack, but now it had launched another volley at Harlan.
Harlan reached out, tried to shove the paper back into the hall. He wished, not for the first time, that he was telekinetic rather than a medium. He pulled his hand back with a startled cry. The paper was frozen to the floor.
“You sly motherfucker.” Biting his lip, increasingly frightened as the door banged harder and harder, Harlan mentally ran through a list of options. He was on the fourth floor, so he couldn’t escape out of a window. He briefly considered knotting bed sheets together but…he’d never been very good at rope climbing. He’d probably just fall, break his neck and become bunkmates with the ghost he was currently trying to avoid.
Maybe, if he poured hot water on the paper, he could push it out into the hallway before it turned to mush. More likely, he’d burn himself, ruin his floor and the ghost would just use the water to enter the apartment more easily.