Cold Ghosts, Part Four

I'm in a dark hallway. Dirty water trickles under my bare feet. 

            Blood drips from my arm.

            I lean against a gray cinderblock wall, trying to catch my breath. Fluorescent tubes blink overhead.

            Is this a dream? Or a nightmare?

            I look right, then left, then right again, searching for the way out. Shivering. Where's my jacket? Wait— 

            I look down. I'm in a long hospital gown, my feet bare and cold. Where are my clothes?

            I stagger forward, determined to get out of here. Somehow. Bare feet and all. Or at least wake up. I close my eyes. Wake up, wake up, wake up—

            “No." A whispered voice. A cold hand on my shoulder. "Not yet."

            I swing around. What the—

            A tall man with a ragged beard raises a finger. “Quiet."

            Behind him stand more people, in shadows. Men and women, young and old, standing outside the heavy doors that had once locked them in. A cold breeze chills my scalp and shoulders. 

            "Help me." An old man kneels on the floor. A long bloody bandage twists around his skull. "Please?"

            A naked woman stares at me. "You have to help us."

            I rub my eyes. “Uh—who are you?”

            “I’m . . .”  The bearded man hesitates, as if searching his memory. “Martin.”

            Wait, what? “Martin Greer?”

            “Yes. I think so.”

            “But—” How do I say this? “You’re . . . you’re dead.”

            “Yes.” He nods. “For a long time. Help us. Please."

            I blinked my eyes open. What the hell?

            A woman with short black hair in a white coat like a doctor smiled at me. "Relax. Everything will be fine." 

            No. I struggled, but my arms were tied down. Duct tape. I was in some kind of hospital bed. In a hospital gown. I kicked my feet. No shoes, but my legs were free. At least I still had my underwear.

            "It'll be over soon." That came from a short man, almost bald, with a thin beard. "Patty? Increase the anesthetic." 

            "Yes, Dr. Talcott." She reached over to adjust an IV than trickled down into a vein in my arm. "Don't worry, Tom. This will all be over soon. And then you'll feel fine."

            Tom. Me. Tom Jurgen. That was me. Rachel . . .

            "She'll come for you." I gulped. "You don't want to make her mad. Trust me."

            The doctor held a T-shaped instrument over my head. The orbitoclast. I twisted my neck. "No. No . . ."

            The woman—Patty?—clasped a hand over my forehead. "Stay still. It'll all be over soon."

            "No. No . . ."

            The doctor leaned down. "Just relax."

            Then the lights went out. 

I fought against the duct tape in the darkness. It was tight, but the tape was looser on my left hand. I leaned down and caught a strand in my teeth. Come on, come on . . .

            The lights flickered up again. Patty jumped back. "What the—who are you?"

            "Go away!" The doctor waved a hand. "You're dead! Go back up to the hill!"

            Two tall shadows stalked forward. I recognized the man from my dream. He had a ragged beard. The woman was naked. Old. Her skin sagged around her hips. But she clutched the old man's fingers.

            Help us, she whispered. Please.

            I got one hand free and yanked the IV from my arm. I sat up, my mind suddenly clear again. 

            Oh, hell. Rachel was going to kill me. 

            I struggled with the rest of the duct tape. Got it loose enough to pull my other arm free. I rolled over and dropped off the bed. Where were my clothes?

            Talcott looked back at me. "Get back up there."

            "I don't think so." I clutched my arm as blood and fluids dripped down. "Where's my phone?"

            "Dennis!" Patty Jerelle was backing away from the door.

            Two more shadows had joined Martin Greer and the nude woman—one short, with thick shoulders, and the other one as tall as a basketball player. I couldn't see their faces. 

            Then more joined them. Men and women, some of them naked, most of them in rags. And at least one young boy, crying. 

            I staggered up, trying to keep my balance. What was going on? 

            Talcott pointed. "Go back up the hill! Now!"

            The hill. People are buried there. Lots of people. I leaned against the hospital bed. "I don't think they want to go."

            He glanced at me. "Shut up. Patty, put him out again."

            She picked up a syringe from the table behind her. Nervous. She'd have to fight me this time. I crouched, my legs shaking. I'm no krav maga master, but I have been known to fight dirty.

            But Martin Greer stepped in front of her.

            "He can't hurt you!" Talcott turned to Jerelle. "Give that to me. I'll take care of him."

            I didn't wait. Talcott's back was facing me, so I kicked him as hard as I could. In the ass. Like I said, I fight dirty.

            He fell to the tiled floor with a curse. Jerelle dropped the syringe. When she ducked to get it—

            Her shoulder passed through Greer's hip. She jerked back with a yelp, rubbing her shoulder as if it burned. 

            I whirled around. Spotted my clothes on a chair in the corner. I grabbed for my pants and ran.

            The ghosts—or whatever they were—didn't move. Or at least they didn't move fast enough. But I figured I could run through them, just like Jerelle had gone through Greer. I leaned down and ran forward, my bare feet slipping on the tile. I could do this. Run, run, run—

            I expected to hit something. I didn't expect the wave of cold air all around me. It was like running like a waterfall of liquid oxygen. 

            I fell on the floor in the hallway, gasping, and rolled away from a shadowy man in ripped jeans and a shredded T-shirt.

            What the hell? No time to figure it out now. At least they could maybe block Talcott—or slow him down.

            I yanked my cell phone out, hoping the cold hadn't damaged it. Punched numbers. One buzz, two—

            "What is it?" Rachel. "Are you coming home now?"

            "It's full of ghosts." One hand on the floor, I stumbled against to my feet, my knees aching. "You were right. They're buried up on the hill. Someone tried to lobotomize me. Call the cops."

            "Oh for Christ's sake—" She laughed. "I knew you were going to get into trouble. Okay, I'm on it."

            I could see Talcott on the other side of the wall of ghosts, getting his nerve up for a run through them. That gave me a moment to pull my pants on. I searched my pocket as I buckled my belt. I still had my car keys . . . 

            Then I heard the screams again. Real screams. "Help me!"

            I hobbled to the nearest door. No electronic lock, just a metal handle. I pushed it down.

            Click. Locked from the inside?

            I glanced over my shoulder. Talcott lurched forward.

            I pushed the door open.

            A woman lay restrained on a bed, like mine, with an IV in planted her arm, like I'd had. 

            Bandages were wrapped over her skull.

            She didn't seem fully conscious. But she was awake enough to moan, and struggle weakly against her restraints. 

            I didn't have the time—or strength—to help her escape. "Someone's coming," I told her. "Soon."

            Then Talcott burst through the ghosts, but they'd tightened up like a football team on the line of scrimmage. He shrieked as he plunged forward and hit the floor face down. Blood dripped from his nose as he tried to peer up at me.

            I figured he was in no shape to hurt me now. Not for a minute or two, anyway. So I stepped toward him cautiously in my bare feet, keeping a healthy distance.

            "What the hell are you doing?" My voice echoed, louder than I'd expected.

            "I'm trying to help people!" He crawled to his hands and knees. 

            "By cutting up their brains?" I took a step back, wishing for Rachel's Taser. 

            But the ghosts surrounded him. Greer stood a few inches away from my shoulder, as if protecting me.

            "It's the perfect place." Talcott clamped a hand over his bleeding nose. "It's isolated, and the tours are disturbing enough to keep people from wanting to see too much. Look, both of my parents had dementia! They died from it! I thought—I might be able to find a way."

            "So all these people have Alzheimers or something? And you're trying to cure them with lobotomies?" I wondered if he had a little—or a lot—of dementia himself.

            "Dr. Talcott?" Jerelle called from the room. "Dennis? Are you okay?"

            "I'm fine! I'm . . ." He yanked a handkerchief from his back pocket for his nose. "Stay there!"

            "What about the ghosts?" I gazed at Martin Greer's shadowy face. "Buried up in the hill?"

            "They're from before! They're supposed to stay there! But they keep coming out! If anyone came in to look at the hill, they'd find all this! They have to stay there!"

            "They don't want to stay there." I leaned against the wall for a moment, catching my breath. "And neither do those people you've got locked up." Or me, for that matter. "I'll be in my car. Waiting for the cops."

            "No! Wait!" He dropped the handkerchief and somehow pulled himself up, trembling. "You can't! I'm close! I really am close! Wait. Wait."

            The ghosts started to close around him.

            "Wait." I waved my arms at the ghosts. "The police are coming. They'll dig up the hill. You'll get a proper burial. Wait—"

            "NO!" Talcott shrieked as the ghosts moved in on him.

            I couldn't do anything. Talcott was a criminal, maybe crazy, but I didn't want to watch him die.

            Unfortunately, I had to.

            When the ghosts finally moved back Talcott looked like a husk of a human. His skin was gray, his thin hair gone, leaving only a bare bumpy scalp, and his fingers and feet were shriveled. 

            I lurched back and tried not to throw up. Cops hate it when you vomit in a crime scene.

            One by one, the ghosts disappeared, until Martin Greer was the only one left. 

            He looked at me and nodded.

            I nodded back. "You have a niece who asked me to look for you. She'll take care of you."

            He almost smiled. Then, like the Cheshire cat, he faded away. 

So I told the cops everything, like I always do, even though they don't usually believe me. But they did believe in dead bodies. And lobotomy patients, once they saw them.           

            Patty Jerelle invoked her right to remain silent. But she seemed too traumatized about Talcott's cold death to speak much anyway. 

            I was exhausted, wishing I could have invoked my own right to remain silent when Rachel showed up. "You idiot! What did you think you were doing? Wait'll I get you home! You're cooking dinner for a month. And no sex for a month, either! Where are your shoes?"

             We were standing out in the parking lot between our cars. 

            Cari giggled. "Are you all right?" She put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry I got you involved in all this."

            My feet were cold. "I'm fine. It happens. The important thing is to follow up on what's up in that hill. I can help you with that a little, but you're going to want to get a lawyer. It could take a long time."

            "Like I said, I'm kind of rich." She leaned forward to impulsively to kiss my cheek. "Thank you."

            I hoped Rachel wouldn't slug her. She gets territorial sometimes. But she shook Cari's hand. "Tom's an idiot. But you can usually count on him to do the right thing."

            "It's called being stubborn." I opened the door. "Can you drive, Rachel?"

            Cari got into her BMW and drove past the cop cars. Rachel snapped her seatbelt and started up.

            She was silent until we hit the highway. Then she patted my knee. "You okay there, Tom?"

            I shivered. "I never knew ghosts were cold. And I wish I had my socks. But yeah, I'm fine. Just a little freaked out."

            "Good." She punched my shoulder. Lightly. "Jerk."

            "Uh, about that no-sex thing—"

            She snorted. "Okay, maybe a week. Or three days. But you are making dinner for a month. Or two."

            I closed my eyes, ready to drift off to sleep while she drove. Long day. "Deal."

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