Ghosts

by Robertson, David A. ;

  “What do we do?” Brady asked.

  “I’m thinking,” Cole said. “I remember guards on the way out, around the clinic maybe.” They’d circled around to come out of Blackwood closer to the community housing. “I got through them somehow, I just can’t…”

  “No brain at that point, right?”

  “And I think looking like a zombie must’ve helped,” Cole said. “Probably freaked them out or something.”

  “Was it really that bad?”

  “It was bad enough that Elder Mariah didn’t want you to see me at first.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty bad.”

  “Look,” Cole found a small opening through the bush that he could see the guard clearly through. “He’s pivoting around with the rifle. Point and shoot. I bet if he sees anything…”

  Brady, seeing that the guard was looking away from them, riffed off what Cole had been saying, and tossed a stone. It landed against a tree far from them, sending a loud thud echoing through Blackwood.

  The guard wheeled around and fired at the tree.

  Cole and Brady watched from their hiding spot while the guard stared at the tree for several seconds. Then he went back to scanning the surroundings. Only now with even more intensity.

  “Well, that backfired,” Brady said.

  “Nice try, though,” Cole said.

  “Tell me you have a better idea.”

  “I mean, I have an idea.”

  “Is it better than sitting behind a bush until we waste away and die?”

  “If it’s a terrible idea, we’ll die much faster,” Cole said. “Does that count?”

  “I feel like if we tried to leave at this point, he’d shoot us then, too.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Okay,” Brady said, “so let’s hear it.”

  “I’m coming out!” Brady called while giving Cole an unconvinced side-eye. This followed a rather heated exchange of shout-whispering, after Cole had laid out his plan to Brady. But the argument ended after they came to the same conclusion: it was either do it or stay where they were and hope for a miracle.

  “Who’s there?” the guard asked. He was staring and pointing his rifle in their general direction.

  “Don’t shoot, and I’ll come out, okay?” Brady said. “I don’t have…I’m unarmed.”

  “You come out slow, and you come out with your arms over your head,” the guard demanded.

  Brady did as directed, stood slowly with his hands up, and stepped around the bush and walked towards the guard.

  “Slow like a snail, kid,” the guard said. “No sudden movements.”

  “Buddy, I’m hardly going to move,” Brady said.

  As soon as Brady had the guard’s full attention, Cole rolled across the ground until the guard’s view of him was obstructed by a large tree. He pressed his back against the trunk to slide into a standing position, turned around, then climbed up the tree as quietly as possible, while Brady, careful step after careful step, got closer to the guard.

  Cole stopped climbing when he was thirty feet off the ground, high enough that his movements wouldn’t draw the interest of the guard. Brady was already halfway there. Cole worked to catch up, leaping from tree to tree, until Brady was directly below him.

  “What are you doing out here?” the guard asked Brady.

  “I was just out looking for medicines,” Brady said, his arms stretched high into the air.

  “Medicines? Isn’t there a pharmacy in town?”

  “No, not that kind of medicines—”

  The guard didn’t let Brady finish. He re-adjusted his aim. “How did you get out here?”

  “I walked?”

  Cole heard the guard’s hammer cock.

  “You couldn’t have got past me, kid,” the guard said. “There’s no way past the perimeter.”

  “I mean, you can’t all be super-efficient, can you?” Brady asked. “There’s always a bad employee. Playing cards, having a smoke break…”

  The guard ignored Brady. “Were you here a few nights ago? Was that you, who…” The guard took a forceful step towards Brady.

  “Was that me who what?”

  “Stop right there. Now!”

  Brady stopped, but things were getting too heated. Cole dropped from the limb and landed behind the guard. He did the superhero landing! I swear! The guard swivelled around.

  “That was me the other night,” Cole said.

  The guard pointed his muzzle at Cole, but Cole grabbed the rifle and swung the stock across the guard’s chin. The guard fell, out cold.

  “Cole.” Brady looked up to where Cole had jumped from. “Holy moly.”

  Cole looked up, too. Spotted the limb he’d been squatting on, watching Brady and the guard. “Holy moly.”

  “And you don’t have to heal from that? You didn’t break anything?”

  Brady and Cole kept looking at the tree, both of them dumbfounded. Cole blindly gave his body a pat down, checking for injuries. “I don’t think so.”

  “So you’re indestructible now, or…”

  “I landed properly?”

  “You landed properly,” Brady said. “How does one land properly from that high up?”

  “Well, I’m not going to demonstrate it again.” Cole handed Brady the rifle. “Here. You know how to use it, right?”

  Brady inspected the rifle, rotated it in his hands. “I mean, sure. It works the same as the ones I’ve used. A little excessive for what that guy was doing.”

  “Keeping people out, keeping people in,” Cole mused. “Yeah, doesn’t quite sound like an assault rifle kind of job.”

  “I think Mihko is just excessive, period.”

  “And Reynold.”

  Brady strapped the rifle over his shoulder, and they walked to the perimeter of the community. The sun had begun to fall to the west, and the northern lights, in turn, announced themselves overhead.

  “Have you done more thinking, planning, that sort of thing? I did give you lots of quiet time,” Brady said.

  “As in, how are we going to save the community?” Cole asked.

  “I thought we could start with, like you said, where we’ll be staying.”

  Cole hesitated. He had, in fact, thought of a place to stay, but that place was not one that Cole felt Brady would be okay with. The thing was, he had to be. He couldn’t see any other option. Maybe, he thought, Brady could think of someplace better.

  “I’ve thought about that,” Cole said, “and the only place that works, to me, is Ashley’s.”

  Brady looked surprised, but Cole couldn’t tell if that surprise was also anger.

  “We can’t go to my parents’ place. We can’t go to your place or Eva’s. I just…”

  “No,” Brady said, “you’re right. That’s…that’s where we have to go.”

  “You sure?” Cole asked. “I feel like I suck at making plans.”

  “I’m sure. It’s okay. Maybe it’ll be nice to be there, too. Be around his stuff. Sometimes, it’s good to think about…I don’t know. It’s like Eva keeping that ring you made for her, right?”

  “Except I’m not dead. Not really.”

  “You are to her.”

  Brady couldn’t hide a look of sadness on his face. Would being at Ashley’s make that sadness any better? Did the ring make Eva feel better about missing Cole? Had she thrown it away?

  “I’m sorry,” Cole said.

  “I know.”

  9

  TO THE BATCAVE!

  COLE AND BRADY MADE THEIR WAY under the cover of the treeline to Ashley’s trailer, extra cautious, expecting to see community members, as well as Mihko employees, walking around town. But Wounded Sky was a ghost town. A few guards intermittently patrolled the area, looking for what, Cole and Brady didn’t know. Brady thought that, if what Eva had told him was any indication, they had their eyes out for residents trying to escape. The guards in the forest were the last line of defence.

  “Maybe that’s why people are going m
issing,” Cole guessed at one point, as they hid out of sight while a guard passed. “They try to leave, get caught, and then—”

  “Yeah.” Brady didn’t let Cole finish the thought.

  From where they were hiding, Cole could see the remains of The Fish, and, for the first time, the X. Where Mihko had placed his body to burn the night he’d been murdered. The remains of both structures looked untouched since the fires. The Fish still had a partial wall up, the rest charred and skeletal. Some tables and chairs amid the debris. The X was worse. It looked like a giant fire pit. Ashes the colour of television static. Collapsed and broken wooden beams the colour of charcoal.

  “We should keep moving.” Brady gave Cole a nudge to kick-start him. Cole felt it, but didn’t move. “You okay?”

  Cole wanted to change the subject, badly. Keep moving, like Brady had said. He hadn’t died there, maybe his body hadn’t really been burned there, but it could have been. Somebody had to have confirmed he’d burned to death, and thinking about that, about his body being incinerated, was too much. Thinking about fire. It didn’t matter that he would’ve been dead already. Staring at the X felt like the makings of a panic attack. It wasn’t yet, but he didn’t want to tempt fate.

  “So,” Cole said, “no cell service even this close to the centre of town?”

  Brady checked. “Nothing. It’s like it just got shut down entirely.”

  “It probably did.”

  “It’s not about keeping us safe, this stupid quarantine.”

  “No,” Cole said. “It’s about keeping everything a secret. What they’re doing to us.”

  “Do you think anybody would even care, if they knew?”

  Cole thought about how there was no news after the murders. Thought about what the reaction would’ve been if there had been. “I think some people would. I’d like to think that anyway.”

  “But when help comes, it comes in the form of Mihko.”

  “True. It’s about keeping everything secret, keeping us from getting help, assuming anybody would come.”

  “It’s a moot point, anyway.”

  “Just would’ve been nice to let Eva know that we were coming,” Cole said. “Give her a heads-up.”

  They returned to the edge of Blackwood and started walking again.

  “So how do we contact her? Let her know…you’re alive?” Brady asked. “Any telepathic superpower?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.” Choch and Jayne could hear his thoughts, but that didn’t count. “Really, it’s probably better to tell her in person. If breaking up with someone over text is bad, how’s telling them you’re alive? What emoji would you use?”

  “Good point,” Brady said.

  “We’ll have to wait until dark and go see her.”

  It was funny, Cole thought, that he’d not felt anxious about much since waking up in a coffin, even when waking up in the coffin. Not about facing the guards. Not about how he looked like a zombie. Of course, it was hard to feel anxious when you had no brain, he supposed. But he wasn’t even anxious about coming back to a community that hated him. Not even after hearing Reynold may still be alive. Hardly thought about it when staring out over the remains of the X. But thinking about Eva, thinking about telling her that he was alive, thinking of seeing her again, even thinking about the ring, made his heart race.

  “I miss her.”

  “I know you do.” There was a pause, like Brady wasn’t sure if he should say anything. “She misses you, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Cole, she thinks you’re dead. Of course she misses you. You’re one of her oldest friends.”

  “She doesn’t think that…”

  “No, for the millionth time, she doesn’t think you died the way they said.”

  “Somebody shot me.”

  “I know, you’ve told me that already.” There was no annoyance in Brady’s voice, not until he added, “And I’ve asked you, since we’re repeating old conversations, why you went off on your own. Again.”

  “I didn’t want—”

  “I know you didn’t want her to get hurt, but maybe this wouldn’t have happened, if—”

  “I know,” Cole said. “I know. I just…I wasn’t thinking straight. Everything was so bad. Everybody hated me. I found out that my dad had been killed, and because he was cheating on my mom…I—I—”

  Brady hugged him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to guilt you. I know what you were going through. I know it, but I can’t imagine it.”

  Cole muffled his face into Brady’s shoulder and wondered what Brady would think if he knew all of it. All the Reynold stuff, and the monster stuff along with it.

  They stayed in their embrace. “I just mean that when things are that bad, we need to be closer, not farther away. We’ll always be with you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And not only because it’s pretty cool having a superhero as a best friend.”

  “I’m not a superhero.” Cole scoffed at the thought.

  “Not sure how you define hero, or super, but I’d say you’re pretty damn close, Mr. Reckoner.”

  “The Reckoner.”

  “He says defensively for not a superhero.”

  They paused in the field near Ashley’s trailer, the place where Cole, Brady, and Eva had spent so much time as kids and where Cole had reconciled with Eva before going to the facility with Victor. Cole saw cans on the ground around the large rocks, riddled with bullet holes.

  He lined them up perfectly.

  “You good?” Brady asked.

  Cole adjusted one can, so all the labels were facing out, across the field. “Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go.”

  They navigated the last bit of forested area, between the field and Ashley’s trailer. The broken-down Ford Mustang, overgrown with long grass and weeds in the gravel driveway, the trailer with its new window, and new doorknob. The former broken from a gunshot that killed Ashley in front of Cole, the latter from Cole’s grip when he, Eva, and Brady had come to investigate Ashley’s murder. Nobody was there, and it looked like nobody had been there since Cole had come to gather Ashley’s hockey equipment as protection against Reynold.

  “Well,” Brady walked up the stairs to the front door, “here’s your Batcave.”

  Cole, several steps behind, shook his head with a smile. “Right.” He stopped beside the car. He looked it over, in its sad state of disrepair. There was something reassuring about it being the way it had always been since they were children, how it held good memories. Just like the field. Even the memory of Wayne finding them in the field and giving them shit was a good one, the kind of trouble kids got into. Just normal kids. Kids who’d yet to experience the horror of losing their classmates, teachers, parents.

  “Think we could fix this up, get it running?”

  Brady was standing in front of the door, hand on the handle. “Why?”

  “Just, I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be nice? Drive it around, like we pretended to do. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. We used to take turns at the wheel, make believe we were cruising around Wounded Sky—”

  “And farther.”

  Brady joined Cole in front of the Mustang. “Well, maybe we should, you know?”

  Cole tried to brush it off. “Yeah, with all the other stuff we have to do?”

  “Come on. We can’t save the community every second of every day.” Brady gave the car a kick, testing its sturdiness. “There has to be some time for automotive repairs.”

  “Really?” Cole put his foot on the bumper and leaned against his knee.

  “Then you could cruise out of here, but on your own terms.”

  Cole liked the sound of that. Leaving, coming back. On his own terms. Then, the bumper broke off, and he fell against the hood. Brady helped him to his feet.

  “A lot of work to do, though.”

  “Maybe not if we do it together.”

  Cole gave a pat to the hood, then dusted off his clothes,
only slightly embarrassed. “You’re going to get sick of me, if we do everything together.”

  “It’s like I told you.” Brady pulled Cole towards the trailer. “As long as you’re not relying on me to do your laundry and make you meals and cheer you up and—”

  “Okay, I get it.” Cole gave Brady a playful shove. “It’s not like that anymore, anyway,” he said, turning serious. “I’m focused. I know what I have to do.”

  “You don’t even have a plan!”

  “I don’t have a plan, but I know the goal.”

  Brady sized him up. “You do seem different. It’s in your eyes.”

  Cole put his hand around the doorknob. Unlocked. No doorknob-crushing needed here. He turned the knob and pushed open the door. They stepped inside. It smelled dusty and stale. And whenever Cole came here, it felt too quiet. Not eerily quiet, just that it needed to have Ashley in it.

  “How’s the pill thing going? Okay? Has that changed?” Brady sat down on the futon and pulled out a comic. Flipped through it, but didn’t really read it.

  “I don’t think the anxiety died with me.” Cole sat down beside Brady. “But I don’t think I’ll need those pills again, either. I don’t know if I’ve really thought about them since…”

  “Why not?” Brady exchanged one comic with another on the coffee table.

  Cole took the one Brady had discarded. “It’s just, I’m thinking differently I guess. Like, it’ll always be there, but I’m not going to let it control me. I’m going to control things. I’m driving…”

  “Cruising.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “I can’t get away from it, but it’ll be in the passenger seat.” He flipped through the comic book Brady had put down, The Fury of Firestorm #1. Stopped at a scene where a Native American man, John Ravenhair, broke into a museum and stole a buffalo headpiece and a staff. John Ravenhair became a villain known as Black Bison. “Look at this,” Cole showed Brady the scene. “He declares vengeance on people who stole his heritage.”