Dead to Me

3

After I hung up with Connor, I jumped a cab and headed downtown. Thirteen minutes later, the cab dropped me off at West Eighth and University and I headed toward Washington Square Park. I looked for signs of Connor, but didn’t see him. When I came across a small crowd of drunken late-night tourists fleeing toward Union Square, however, I figured I was on the right track. They jostled their way past me, and I lifted my shopping bag over my head and out of harm’s way. A clamor of footsteps and the crash of metal came from the alley between Sixth and Seventh, and I ran toward it while the last of the tourists snapped a few quick pictures.

The alley was filled with a weak yellow light from high overhead and I slowed as I followed the sound, partly out of caution but also because the last few blocks had winded me. I followed the alley along another fifty feet before it turned right. I rounded the corner and found Connor standing a few feet away with his back to me. Something stirring farther along in the darkness had caught his eye. At my approach, he turned and held a single finger to his lips. His muss of sandy brown hair looked more unkempt than usual and there was a strange white streak an inch wide in it that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him.

“What happened to your hair?” I whispered. Then realization dawned. “You’ve been skunked!”

“You’re kidding,” Connor said with an almost school-boyish glee in his voice. He tugged at his hair, trying to pull it far enough forward to see for himself. “Really?”

“You’re excited about it?” I asked. “Makes you look older.”

“Course I am,” he whispered back, beaming with pride. “You know it’s something special to be skunked, kid. A mark of prestige in the Department. It means you looked the devil in the eye and lived to tell about it.”

“That’s comforting,” I said, feeling for the retractable bat hanging from my belt. “So now you’re in their elite little Hair Club for Men?”

“They prefer to be called the White Stripes, thank you,” Connor shot back.

“I know that, but they’re sooo not hip enough to pull that off,” I said, adamant.

Connor shushed me and sighed before changing the subject.

“You’re late, kid,” he whispered. There was a bit of venom to his tone. “And thanks for saying I look older. You’re all heart.”

I ignored his attitude. “What’s the sitch?”

Connor turned back to the dark and unexplored section of the alley.

“I was minding my own goddamn business walking up University,” he said, “when I heard a scream. It was hideous—like someone getting their back waxed. Then, out of nowhere, this spectral phantasm appears, streaking up and down the alley and scaring the souvenirs right out of a group of tourists.”

I looked at the ground. Shot glasses with the Statue of Liberty on them, “I Heart NY” T-shirts, bootleg copies of cheap Asian porn videos, and postcards showing the New York skyline were scattered all around. There was also an odd assortment of broken clay pieces mixed in with everything, but they didn’t look like any kind of tourist chatchke I knew of. I stepped carefully over the mess and moved closer to Connor.

“What’s with all the broken pottery?” I asked. “Did someone drop their kiln?”

Connor shrugged. He looked distracted and there was a shortness when he spoke. “That was already here before the tourists dropped all their stuff. Maybe it has something to do with the ghost. I dunno. I’m too busy trying not to die right now.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but isn’t this a job for Haunts-General? Ghosts aren’t really my thing. They give me the stone cold heebie-jeebies. I’m not trained for this.”

I eyed Connor’s streak again and ran my hand through my own jet-black mop of hair, hoping it wouldn’t meet the same fate.

“Don’t fall apart on me now, kid,” Connor said. “You had all the training sessions.”

“Training sessions?” I said. I threw my hands up. “The Enchancellors haven’t even covered apparitions with me yet. When I asked one of them about ghosts, they handed me a pamphlet entitled Ten Simple Ways Your Job Will Disfigure You! Nothing I’ve learned at the Department has trained me to tangle with anything like that. If it gets a hold of me as well, the other investigators will be calling us the Skunk Twins.”

“Look,” Connor said. “No one from Haunts responded and I was nearby…”

A clatter that sounded like overturning garbage cans interrupted him. I stared into the darkness, but in the pitch black of the alley there might as well have been an entire army of zombies riding in giant zombie tanks. Still, if it was zombies, I had at least read a pamphlet on them.

Connor spoke again, this time his voice dropping to an exasperated whisper. “I just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time, okay, kid? There were all these people standing around, snapping pictures of the damn thing like it’s some goddamn movie star, so I start moving in on it. It must have sensed I wasn’t afraid of it, because it hauled ass down this alley in the opposite direction, which is what I expected. At that point, I figured it could do one of two things: If it was aware it’s a ghost, it’d just pass through an alley wall and I’d have lost it, but if it thinks it’s still alive, it would feel cornered when the alley dead-ended. It wouldn’t have anywhere to go and I could keep it at bay until Haunts-General showed up.”

Something in the shadows moved closer, but I still couldn’t make out what it was or even where it was. I felt pretty close to useless.

Connor signaled for me to move farther along the right side of the alley. Since he outranked me in the Department and had a hell of a lot more experience, I complied. Connor crept down the other side of the alley, but kept whispering.

“I didn’t expect this phantasm to make a break back up the alley toward me, though. Before I could react, it phased right into me, but I resisted its energy. This spirit isn’t acting like anything I’ve ever encountered before. Something weird is up. Now it’s cornered somewhere back here.”

Keeping a noncorporeal being from passing through an agent hadn’t been covered in any of the assigned reading, handouts, or company e-mails.

“It actually phased through you?” I asked. “What did it feel like?”

The thunderous sound of another trashcan overturning rang out. I jumped, hating myself for reacting like such a noob in front of my mentor. Connor didn’t even flinch. He tugged at the white streak in his hair again.

“You don’t ever wanna feel it, kid. It felt like someone running electrical current straight through me. It was like a billion fist-sized rocks pummeling my body all at once.”

He tugged harder at the strand so he could just barely see the ends of it.

“Nice souvenir of a standard op.” He sighed. “As if I didn’t feel old enough! Well, as least I’m a White Stripe now…”

Saying he felt old was ridiculous. Connor was only ten years older than me, although I don’t know how I would have reacted if I’d been striped. Hell, there was still a chance it might happen before the night was through.

“We wrap this up soon,” I said, mustering the little bravado I could, “and I’m buying the drinks, ’kay? Maybe it’ll cheer you up…old man.”

Connor winced at my words and I started to laugh—but quickly slapped a hand over my mouth. Luckily, Other Division had started me out with a pamphlet entitled Witty Banter to Ease Any Paranormal Situation. In unpredictable and potentially life-threatening circumstances like this, levity really helped an agent concentrate.

“Kid, this job is going to make me old before my time,” Connor said.

“Oh, who are you kidding?” I said. “You’ll be dead long before you get old! Now, c’mon!”

I took the lead and crept down the alley toward the weird crashing sound. Connor groaned and played catch-up along the opposite wall.

Something very close to me rustled—much closer than I thought it would be.

“Incoming!” I shouted.

Something closer to living fog than human flew out of the darkness toward us, and it was only my foolish vanity that saved me. My hair, I thought, and back-peddled up the alleyway, narrowly escaping the phantasm’s touch as a crackle of electricity from its clawlike hands passed inches from my face. The smell of burning ozone filled the air, and I shuffled farther away.

The barest hint of facial features—deep hollow eyes and a gaping mouth that hung low—floated where the creature’s head should have been. Its dead eye sockets bordered on hypnotic. This creature craved the life emanating from me—I could feel it—and it surged with great power toward me. No longer concerned about their breakability, I threw my shopping bag full of the console and games at the creature, and pulled the retractable bat from my belt. With a click of a button, I extended it and swung wildly, but it did no good.

All I could do was stare. Through the ghostly form, I could see Connor standing directly behind it. He was fumbling something out of his pocket, but I had no idea what it was. I was too busy backing away to care.

As I continued, my foot hit something solid, and my arms pinwheeled as I fell. My ass hit the ground hard, and my palms scraped against the pavement. The wetness of the puddle beneath me soaked through my clothes and the clamminess chilled my skin. I crab-crawled backward as fast as possible but it was no use. This monstrosity was going to overtake me.

I waited for its chilling touch, but instead the overwhelming smell of patchouli oil washed over the area…and the phantasm’s smoky form turned from spectral white to reddish brown. It stopped moving and froze in place inches from my face and I wasted no time scuttering out from underneath it. Connor still stood on the other side of it with an empty vial in his right hand. Tendrils of smoke were drifting like a net around the now-still spirit.

He shook the last of the vial over the creature. It wasn’t moving, but that didn’t make it any less intimidating. Connor stepped closer to examine it.

“I don’t get it,” he said, stepping back. “It’s gone totally feral. Usually when a spirit lingers, the humanity in it begins to stretch, become almost cartoonish. I can barely make out the humanity here. I don’t know what would do this to a spirit, what would cause that much degradation. Unless it has something to do with all those broken clay pieces…”

I grabbed one off the ground and handed it to him. He gave it a cursory once-over and slipped it into his pocket.

“Thanks,” he said, circling carefully around the phantasm.

“Thanks?!?” I asked. “For what? I should be thanking you!”

“These things feed on fear, kid. And frankly, I’m too seasoned to go all weak in the knees, so I really couldn’t get the drop on it all on my own, you know?”

I dusted the filth of the alley off me as I stood and moved to recover my now dirty bag of collectibles from a nearby pile of debris. The bag looked like crap from the outside but I hoped everything in it would look better once I was home. I was soaked through and pissed.

“So what does that make me in all this, exactly?” I shouted at Connor. “Bait? That’s it, isn’t it? You knew it would scare the crap out of me, feed off that, and totally forget about you, right?”

Connor shrugged and stoppered the empty vial before slipping it back into his pocket. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

“And what’s another?” I fired back.

Connor slapped me on the shoulder, turning all smiles.

“Calm down, kid. You’ve been an integral part of this operation. It’ll look good on your performance record with the Department. Think of it—the Inspectre might even grant you some sort of commendation.”

“I’m not here to be your personal worm on the hook,” I said, pulling away.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Connor said with a hint of sincerity. “Really.”

Connor leaned toward me and brushed his hair over his forehead. The new streak of white was even more pronounced now. “Look, I don’t like how this went down, kid, or the fact that we’re doing Haunts-General’s work, but what are we gonna do? With all the budget cuts, Other Division picks up the slack. It’s what puts the Extra in the Department of Extraordinary Affairs.”

Connor was right and it really wasn’t his fault. We were overworked and caught up in the red tape of New York City bureaucracy. I let go of my anger. After all, my hair had been spared. Who was I to complain?

By the time Haunts-General finally showed up and decided it was time for them to do their goddamn job, Connor looked ready to pass out. He pointed out the mist-shrouded spirit in the alley to them, along with the strange broken pieces of clay scattered everywhere. I looked like an Olympic medalist comparatively, even covered in a mix of something both sticky and pungent from the puddle. The nappy brown suede of my knee-length trench was a mess, not to mention that it also reeked of the patchouli-scented concoction that Connor had used to trap the ghost. I wasn’t sure which was worse—smelling like a dirty hippie or smelling like garbage. Either way, I was in dire need of a shower.

The pains and aches of my overexerted muscles set in during the ten-block stumble back to my apartment. By the time I hit my elevator, I felt like the Tin Man right before Dorothy used the oil can on him. As I worked my way through the door and across my crate-laden living room, I hesitantly opened the shopping bag. I expected to find shattered circuit boards and soggy cardboard boxes covered in street sludge, but somehow they had survived intact. I slipped the console and games onto the shelf with the rest of my collectibles. Figuring out how to find Kevin Matthews would have to wait until morning. For tonight, I decided to stick with the basics in order of importance: (1) a shower, and (2) sleep.

The night’s events had proven a perfect remedy for the insomnia I had been suffering from earlier. I was exhausted.

I struggled out of my jacket—my arms stuck helplessly to the wet sleeves—as I stumbled toward the bathroom. I was so tired, I felt drunk. My apartment phone rang. A call at this hour meant one of three things: someone I knew was dead, someone from my past wanted money, or worst case, Tamara was calling to talk things through. The first two possibilities were ones I could contend with. Death, for instance, while often unpleasant, was a universal inevitability (except for those rare creatures that we came upon in my role with Other Division). And dealing with the people from my past—seedy though they were—was usually cake. A couple of bucks thrown at their problems (not that I had much these days) could solve most things on a short-term basis for that lot. But talking out my issues with my brand-new ex? That was something I was ill prepared for. I didn’t even know where to begin.

By the fourth ring, I had freed only one arm, but it was enough to reach for the phone. As my hand grabbed the receiver, I noticed the answering machine flashing the number sixteen over and over looking like two beady red eyes. Did I really have sixteen messages after being out for only a few hours? As I hesitated with the receiver in my hand, the machine picked up.

“Just what the hell have you been doing when you come over here?” Tamara spat into the phone. “That’s the only explanation that makes any sense, that you’ve been going through my stuff, you psycho…”

Sixteen messages, I thought. And I’m the psycho?

I turned the volume on the answering machine down as low as it would go, and her voice became a faint hum. I picked up the phone, flipped it over, and shut off the ringer before setting it back down. I’d go through all the messages later, but right now I didn’t think my soul could take it. I knew I’d listen to them all—the yelling, the crying, the pleading—I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I owed it to her to at least listen, but not right now.

I peeled off the filthy remains of my T-shirt. The large white letters across the front were mostly still there with the exception of a missing Y, torn off in battle and reducing the Ramones’s catchy rock anthem to GABBA GABBA HE.

The faint sound of Tamara’s voice was still loud enough that I threw the unit into a drawer and buried it under a pile of shirts until I could no longer hear her.

A lot of people would be troubled by an ex ringing them late at night, but I willingly put up with it. How could I get mad at Tamara over her bad reaction to what was essentially my own freak show of a problem? Many of the women I had dated over the years wanted to label me as commitment-phobic or just plain weird, citing an utter lack of character on my part. But my failure, like any other construction in life, was something built over time, creeping like roots and vines into the very bricks and mortar of my relationships. My power of psychometry was the richest fertilizer for that on the market.

Tamara wanted answers.

I couldn’t give them, but the hope of controlling my power grew every day given my past four months with the Department. As I headed for the shower, I thought about how much I had already changed in such a short time.

After I’d abruptly left the criminal world, I’d been stuck in a long depression as I’d shed my less-than-ethical past, and especially the more criminal element I used to associate myself with. They were real scum-of-the-earth folk that I should have been happy to be rid of, but strangely, cutting myself off from such miscreants left me feeling alone. Turning to legitimate work was a last resort for a criminal like me—anything to keep my mind occupied and my hands busy in a less preternatural way. But I needed a job, a new start. As I flipped through the seemingly endless New York Times classified listings one night four months ago, I’d circled several options, mindfully skipping an all-too-tempting post at Christie’s auction house, but nothing really excited me. There were a million dead-end jobs in the city and few that I qualified for. I started to worry that the only road for me was the one that ended in a ten-by-ten cell. That’s when I saw a light at the end of the job tunnel wedged quietly between RECEPTIONIST and SYSTEMS ANALYST.

It read:

SCRYER

We’re looking for unique individuals for unique growth opportunities!!!

Wanted for detail-oriented, interpersonal casework in a busy office environment. Some travel.

Knowledge of Excel, Front Page, Clairaudience, Clairvoyance, PowerPoint, and Word a must.

Special in-house training program for motivated self-starters. Familiarity with basic armaments a plus.

About our company—Misunderstood but special. About you—Special but misunderstood.

NO Scientologists or actors! Respond Box D3P7-07H3R

I was intrigued. What type of organization would post such a bizarre message—part business, part Amazing Kreskin—that wholly peaked the interest of someone like myself? Clairaudience and Clairvoyance might have turned out to be computer programs, but my gut told me they weren’t. My gut told me reply to the ad.

I left a message the next day, and within a week, I found myself pulled into a world beyond my own personal pains, a world that promised control of what I was and what I could do.

A world, I noted through the crusting liquid film solidifying on my watch, that with only two hours ’til sunrise, was rapidly approaching. I would gladly have traded my powers of psychometry for the ability to turn back time—maybe fly around the world like Superman—all for an extra five hours of blissful sleep.

I mournfully threw my ruined jacket into a basket in the bathroom marked TO BURN. The coat was beyond hope, but maybe I could salvage my dear Ramones tee. I threw it into the bathroom sink to let it soak overnight. Maybe I’d become a trendsetter and soon bootleg GABBA GABBA HE T-shirts would be all the rage.

A shower never felt so good, but it was slow going as my body popped and cracked like that of a ninety-year-old. It took forever to free myself from the street ick I had rolled around in, but eventually time and several shampoos won out. I got out of the shower and toweled off as I ignored a volley of fresh new aches and pains. I gimped myself across the room and collapsed on the lonely expanse of my bed. The Bed That Sex Forgot.

As I drifted off to sleep, I tried with little success to hold back a montage of psychometric flashes of all my old girlfriends having much better and sweatier times in bed with men other than me. Tamara was now part of that list. Some people counted sheep. I counted orgiastic, writhing bodies. I was up to forty-six when calm, dreamless sleep finally engulfed me, and the discomforting sound of Mardi Gras beads rhythmically going shink shink shink faded from my brain.