Call Me Dreamer

by Ryan Maitland

  “Then we’ll still let Simon take him,” Earl told me in a cold, businesslike, tone. “Simon will think the suspect is crazy and leave it at that. We do not compromise Project Aesop. Clear?”

  “Clear,” I echoed, still not liking this.

  Spookies aren’t really recruited the way other psychics are. They… we are just not that useful, since ghosts are usually pretty limited in their spying capabilities. Earl didn’t recruit me because I was a spooky; he recruited me because I was a mental, that is, I could get into people’s heads from across the globe. If anything, Earl probably wishes I wasn’t a spooky, since then Peter and Wendy wouldn’t destroy his expensive spy equipment!

  The pizza was delivered a short time later and I opened them to discover that Earl had ordered two pizzas! One looked like it had at least five different kinds of meat and was pure greasy goodness! The other looked like it had ham and… pineapple?

  I confess that I was mildly repulsed and yet a little curious… Pineapple just didn’t seem like it would go on pizza! I mean, pizza is supposed to be savory! Pineapple is just loads of sweet and sour!

  “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!” Earl teased, shaking out some pepper flakes on a slice before digging into it!

  I gave his pizza a pass, for now, and grabbed a greasy slice of the meat-filled pizza. The meat wasn’t of great quality, but I think the quantity made up for it! I savored the first slice before coming back to reality with why we were here.

  Earl was already pulling out the copies of the files and spreading them out on his bed, grouping them by victim and placing them in the order that they were killed.

  “Okay, so we have a theory about how the killer is picking their targets,” I started, trying to think this through. “What’s next?”

  “We have a hypothesis,” Earl corrected. “Now, we try to poke holes in it!”

  “Why?” I asked, confused at why we would try to shoot down our own theory.

  “Because if the hypothesis stands up to everything,” Earl explained, going into what I called his ‘lecture mode,’ “then that one must be correct!”

  “Huh!” I shrugged. “I guess that makes sense…”

  “So, if we assume that the killer is a spooky,” Earl muttered softly, seeming like it was more to himself than to me, “then how is he picking his victims?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, thinking that it must be obvious that the killer is picking their victims based on whatever ghost is anchored to them.

  “I mean,” he replied, sounding mildly irritated, “that none of the victims were killed in the same city!”

  “They weren’t?” I asked, lamely. I felt stupid about this later, since I knew one of the victims lived in Amana, and he was the fifth such victim. I would think that even I would have heard about a bunch of other people dying in a cemetery with numbers burned into them, even though I didn’t follow the news at all.

  “They weren’t,” Earl answered matter-of-factly. “Last year, they were found in…” here he consulted the files before answering, “Grand Junction, Amarillo, Fayetteville, and Jacksonville.”

  “And this year?” I asked, grabbing another slice of meat pizza, but eyeing his curiosity of a pizza.

  “So far, just Amana and Iowa City…” he answered, consulting the files.

  “So, what does that tell us?” I mumbled, my mouth full of meat, cheese, and bread.

  “It tells us that the killer is generally moving east,” Earl told me, consulting a map this time.

  “Is it strange that the killer does that?” I asked, thinking of how much effort that would take.

  “Very,” Earl answered curtly. “Most killers stick to their local area, rather than moving around.”

  “Seems like an expensive hobby,” I remarked.

  “Unless he’s doing it while working…” Earl muttered, thinking out loud.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, a little naively.

  “He could be a trucker…” Earl explained. “Except…”

  “Except what?” I asked, trying to draw him into doing what he loved most, explaining things to naïve young girls.

  “Except it’s not really on any shipping route that anybody can see…” Earl answered, taking the bait.

  “Are they close to a shipping route?” I asked, figuring I was asking the obvious.

  “Most of them,” Earl told me, tracing a line on the map with his finger.

  “Which one doesn’t fit?” I asked, taking his advice and trying to poke holes in our theory.

  “The victim in Fayetteville is off the beaten path,” Earl thumped his finger on the map, somewhat dramatically.

  “Maybe the victim moved?” I asked, thinking this obvious.

  Earl stared at me a moment, whispering, “The victim moved? The victim moved!” He scrambled over to the other sheets of paper, scanning through them before shouting, “Yes! The victim moved about two months before he was killed! They used to live in Jacksonville, then moved to Fayetteville! Jacksonville would put them right along the route the killer seemed to be following!”

  “So, if we assume that the killer is a spooky,” I began, echoing what Earl had said earlier. “And if we assume that he finds his victims by… I dunno, wandering around and maybe bumping into somebody with a ghost anchored to them…”

  “Then maybe they chat them up,” Earl picked up. “Maybe pose as somebody that can do them a favor, or offer them a job or something…”

  “Something that would trick the victim into giving the killer personal information…” I continued, seeing the train-of-thought we were both following.

  “Like names, addresses, and phone numbers!” Earl finished, sounding excited.

  “After that, the killer maybe does some research to make sure the victim is guilty,” I added, feeling like I was starting to understand the killer, which unnerved me slightly.

  “Then waits for the right time,” Earl continued.

  “The right time being October,” I reminded him. “When ghosts are stronger, since everyone is thinking about them.”

  “Right,” Earl confirmed, nodding.

  “And then… what?” I asked, losing the line of reasoning we had been following.

  “Then…” Earl paused, considering. “Then, maybe, they pick their targets based on where the killer will be during October…”

  “So, they’re crimes of convenience and premeditation?” I asked, wondering if the two were compatible.

  “Could be,” Earl answered thoughtfully.

  “And what about the paralytic?” I asked, figuring this is where the theory would break down.

  “That…” Earl held up a finger as his eyes darted back and forth as he thought it through. “That might be explained if the killer has a partner…”

  “A partner?” I considered. “One that has access to a highly controlled drug…”

  “Like a surgeon…” Earl finished with a small sigh.

  “So, where does that leave us?” I asked, feeling proud, but a little defeated.

  “Well, we know how he seems to be picking his victims,” Earl reiterated, “but following that lead would mean walking around randomly and hoping you stumble upon someone with a ghost following them around that the killer also ran across…”

  “I don’t like that idea…” I pouted.

  “Well, the alternative…” Earl paused as he stared at me with a slightly mischievous grin, “is to have you scout out cemeteries he’s most likely to use next…”

  “I told you I won’t be going to any cemeteries!” I shouted at him, horrified at the thought of what he was suggesting!

  “Well, otherwise, we got nothing but the doctor…” Earl moaned.

  “Well, why can’t they find the doctor?” I groused.

  “They’ve tried,” Earl insisted. “Whoever the doctor is, they’re hiding themselves well…”

  “Well…” I hesitated, hating myself for agreeing to this, “if we’re right, and he’s using Halloween as a
way of scaring his victims to death… then tomorrow night is his last chance for a year…”

  “Which means we’ll have to wait until after his first victim of the new year before we would have any hope of catching him…” Earl finished, looking morosely at me.

  I gave a loud sigh worthy of Simon and asked, “So, if his last victim was here, in Iowa City, and he’s generally heading east, then what is the next large city east of here?”

  “That would be… Davenport,” Earl answered, consulting the map. “But there’s no guarantee he’ll stop there as opposed to any other city east of here…”

  “What have we got to lose?” I asked, feeling defeated.

  By this time, it was getting to be late afternoon, so we decided that Earl would write up our recommendation to Simon using the laptop he had brought with him. Then, tomorrow morning, Earl and I would drive out to Davenport on a tour of cemeteries. I’d locate the cemeteries the killer would be most likely to use, which is to say those with the most ghosts in them…

  That night, I slept with Mr. Fluffybutt and had nightmares of graveyards full of wailing ghosts…

  Chapter 16

  A Plan Emerges

  I have a confession… Sometime during the night, when I couldn’t sleep, I snuck a piece of Earl’s bizarre pizza, the one with the ham and pineapple on it… It was… okay. The ham and pineapple went together better than I thought they would. I added a few pepper flakes, and it made it better, making it sweet and spicy. It wouldn’t be my pizza of choice, but I wouldn’t badmouth it, either…

  Don’t tell Earl I said that…

  The next morning, Halloween morning as I remember it, I donned my suit, applied my makeup, and clipped my wig in place, becoming the ice-queen Agent Dreamer.

  “Ready?” Earl asked, looking me over.

  “Let’s go,” I intoned coldly, earning me a smile from Earl.

  We drove back to the police station, where I grabbed a bad cup of coffee from the vending machine before entering Simon’s makeshift office.

  “Have you had a chance to read my report?” Earl asked, stepping up to Simon’s desk while I leaned against the wall next to the door, sipping my coffee. “I emailed it to you last night,” Earl added.

  “I have,” Simon sighed, puffing his cheeks out like a frog. “It’s a good theory, but it doesn’t explain how the killer knows some of the things about the victims when we haven’t been able to confirm any wrongdoing from a few of them…”

  “We think the killer has some kind of inside information,” I added from my spot against the wall. Simon glanced up at me as if just noticing that I was there and furrowed his brow in possible anger.

  “So, what is your plan, then?” Simon asked, looking back to Earl.

  “Agent Dreamer and I will head to Davenport to scout out the local cemeteries the killer might use,” Earl explained. “We’ll come up with a shortlist of likely sites to stake out.”

  “Or,” Simon interrupted, looking annoyed, “you could tell us what you’re looking for and we can do the scouting ourselves! It might save you a lot of trouble!”

  “What we’ll be looking for is difficult to explain,” I retorted coldly, kind of enjoying being the bad-guy in this relationship. “I’ll know which ones are more likely when I see them…”

  “What Agent Dreamer means,” Earl added, covering for me while also holding off any potentially awkward questions, “is that she’s got a good feel for the killer’s way of thinking. After all, she was able to decipher the numbers the killer burned into the victims.”

  “Yes,” Simon agreed with a sigh. “But it’s a little suspicious… especially the way she was able to quote the verses from memory… like she knew which verses they were ahead of time, before we showed her the numbers…”

  “If you’re suggesting that Agent Dreamer had anything to do with the murders,” Earl advised him, anger pouring into his tone, “then I can tell you that I will personally vouch for her whereabouts during the times of the murders.”

  Simon glared at Earl resentfully, but finally acquiesced, “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Good,” Earl acknowledged tersely.

  “But,” Simon added with a deflated sigh, “do you know how many cemeteries are in Davenport?”

  “There’s around twenty,” Earl answered, sounding a little dejected, “in and around the city…”

  “And unfortunately,” I added, a note of despair creeping into my voice, “the criteria we have aren’t something that we can look up online… We’ll have to visit each location before we can narrow it down…”

  “It’s your funeral…” Simon declared a little snidely.

  I gave a quiet scoff at his attempt at a joke but otherwise kept quiet.

  “Meantime, I’ll get with the local police to see how much support they can give us,” Simon continued, “and for how long,” he added.

  “No,” I declared definitively. “We’ll only need them tonight. After tonight, the killer won’t try again until next year.”

  “What she means is,” Earl added, covering for me again, “if the killer holds to their pattern, tonight will be the last chance for them until next year.”

  Earl scowled at me after that remark, but I merely shrugged in response, sipping my coffee, trying to look indifferent to his indignation.

  I confess that I might have been enjoying myself a little too much…

  “Ri-i-ight…” Simon drawled, drawing the word out to at least three syllables before heaving another sigh.

  Figuring that was the end of it, I marched out of the office, dropping the empty coffee cup into a convenient waste bin, and walked to the car, ignoring the stares from the other officers in the building.

  Earl joined me a few minutes later with a huge grin on his face.

  “You’re good at this!” he told me in explanation. “I could tell Agent Simon who you really are, and what kind of person you really are, right now and he’d never believe me!”

  “I wasn’t over the top?” I asked nervously.

  “No such thing,” Earl advised. “Not for the character you were playing!”

  I heaved a small sigh of relief and told him, “I just did what you told me. Play the part he expected me to play. I think he filled in the rest…”

  “The most believable lie is the one they come up with themselves,” Earl explained like I didn’t already know this.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I used to do it all the time with Billi…” I shook my head, dispelling the memory of my awful step-mother.

  “Now then!” Earl cheered as he put the car in gear. “Onwards!”

  Chapter 17

  Tour of the Dead

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this!” I moaned miserably after the fourth or fifth cemetery we visited.

  “Hey!” Earl chided, a little put-off at being my valet and listening to me gripe. “You agreed to do this!”

  “You guilted me into doing this!” I accused.

  “It’s the right thing,” Earl intoned solemnly, checking the GPS for his next turn.

  “The right thing sucks!” I whimpered.

  “It often does…” Earl answered wearily. I looked at him and he seemed morose, like he’s had far too much experience with how painful, and unfair, doing the right thing can be…

  “What’s the next one?” I asked, digging Mr. Fluffybutt out of my bag.

  “It’s called Silent Meadow,” Earl answered, glancing at me. “I think it’s one of the bigger ones.”

  “Great…” I muttered sarcastically, hugging my stuffed rabbit and feeling the calming influence it has on me.

  The next one did turn out to be rather large, which meant there were that many more bodies buried there… To make matters worse, I think it used to be the site of a battlefield or a mass grave or something because there seemed to be many more ghosts here than there should be…

  I looked at the scene before me through the wrought iron gate surrounding the land and saw ghosts ranging f
rom accountant-looking types in suits to people in hospital gowns to people in animal skins. Some looked like they were still alive, their skin unmarred by disease or disaster, while others made Mr. Roadkill look tame!

  You see, this is why I don’t watch zombie movies! None of the movies ever comes close to the reality!

  I swallowed back some bile as Earl pulled over to one side in the middle of the rolling hills in the land strewn with stony markers.

  I shakily got out of the car, gripping Mr. Fluffybutt like he was a shield and my only hope of salvation and immediately regretted opening the door. As soon as the… let’s call them ‘residents’… saw me, they immediately started converging on me!

  All of them were wailing or calling for help of some kind…

  There were plenty of calls of, “Help me!” and more than a few wails of “I just want to go home!” along with “I’m not supposed to be here!” and one or two “I’m still alive!”

  I confess that those calls didn’t bother me nearly so much as the various wet, meaty, squelches I heard from the recently dead that still resembled their corpses, which must have needed closed casket ceremonies…

  “Mark this one in the top spot!” I commanded Earl in a panicky breath as I hastily got back in the car and locked the door, closing my eyes tightly.

  Thankfully, Earl took the hint and got us out of there quickly!

  My breath was still shaky by the time we got back on the main road…

  “Damn I hate Halloween,” I muttered under my breath…

  Keep in mind that at any other time of the year, that visit wouldn’t have been so bad… Most of the ghosts wouldn’t have been as well-formed or vocal as they were now and I probably could have gotten by with just scrunching my eyes shut and humming Frere Jacques to drown out the wails of the dead… but not now…

  Cemeteries tend to have more ghosts in them because ghosts tend to anchor to their bodies, or maybe some personal object that was buried with them. Ghosts also tend to crowd hospitals because they might also anchor to the place they died. Both of these are some really good reasons I try to avoid both!