Deader Still

19

“Dive in, kid,” Connor shouted from up in the tree.

I dove.

As the ice-cold water nearly sent my body into shock, I propelled myself underwater and out across the lake. When I surfaced, I twisted myself around and looked back to shore. The crabs had left Connor alone up in the tree, having preferred to continue after me as the grounded target. All four charged into the water, clicking their claws as they came. I was thrilled, however, to see that, despite chasing me into the lake, the one thing the vicious little crabs couldn’t do was float. They used their back legs to try to propel themselves as a regular crab would, but the weight of their bronze bodies dragged them to the bottom of the lake. As long I kept myself floating at the surface, I should be fine. I watched as each of them sank into the mud of the lake bed below, their claws frantically clicking toward the surface.

I swam back to shore. When I crawled back onto dry land, Connor was just coming down from his tree. I slowly peeled off my coat. It weighed a ton.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, trying to wring it out as best I could. “What the hell just happened?”

I looked at Connor, but his concentration was mostly focused on the lake behind me.

“Kolb,” he said, “just possessed those things. And here he comes again . . .”

I stood there soaking wet, shivering, and turned myself around. Beneath the water, a faint white light started to form, growing like a searchlight rising to the surface. The water bubbled like it was a giant stew pot of WTF, and out of it rose glowing bubbles full of swirling mist, some as large as basketballs. With an alarming pop, the mist broke free and swirled together until I recognized a distinct shape forming. It was the jogger, gasping for air and clawing his way toward the shore. He still acted like he was human and that breathing was an issue for him.

The jogger pulled himself up onto shore and collapsed. His dark wreath of hair was wet, hanging down on one side at least half a foot from a bad comb-over. Everything else on him was wet, too—running shorts, track shoes, and his “Sherlock Ohms” T-shirt. He lay there, sputtering and catching his breath.

“Why is he wet?” I whispered to Connor. “He’s dead. Doesn’t that mean he’s immaterial?”

Connor shook his head.

“I don’t think he understands that he’s dead,” he said. “Mr. Kolb here thinks he’s alive so his spirit is reacting somewhat accordingly. He expected to get wet being in a lake, therefore he’s wet. Didn’t they teach you anything as a F.O.G.gie yet?”

“I am too alive,” the jogger said, forcing himself up onto his knees, “and it’s Doctor Kolb to you. I didn’t go to MIT just for the parties, I’ll have you know.”

He snickered at what he must have thought was some great private joke, then stood up. With care, he scooped the hanging section of his comb-over back onto the top of his head and arranged it. It was a futile attempt at best, looking nothing more than someone with a wet cat sitting up there, but he looked happy with it.

“Sorry, about that, Dr. Kolb,” I said. Politeness was the cornerstone of the D.E.A.’s training manual Deadside Manner . . . or what I had read of it, anyway.

His initial fear from when we had first seen him tonight seemed to be gone, replaced with fascination. He turned away from us and looked down into the water.

“Astounding,” he said. “Did you catch all that? The way my body broke down on a molecular level, and reconstituted itself by manifesting within those four statues?”

“That doesn’t seem odd to you?” I said.

“Odd, certainly,” Dr. Kolb said, his face a mask of excitement, “but think about the scientific implications of this. This is on par with King Midas or the myth of the philosopher’s stone . . .”

Before I knew what was happening, Connor had reclaimed his bubble gun from the base of the tree and fired it at the jogger, blasting him with the spirit binding. The ghost’s face went slack.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Connor said, not really looking like he was. “He was rambling. I need him a little more sedate than that—I’m certainly not going to argue with him whether he’s dead or not.”

Connor had a point. Back when we had found the ghost of Irene Blatt in the coffee shop, she had been pretty adamant that she was still alive, too.

“You were attacked yesterday,” Connor said to him. “You died.”

The jogger, although much more sedate now, still shook his head. “I don’t see how that’s possible. I mean, you are talking to me.”

Connor pulled out his cell phone. He flipped it open and called up one of the pictures he had taken at the scene of the crime yesterday.

“Not to be harsh or anything,” Connor said, “but do you recognize that guy lying there half covered in a sheet?”

The jogger squinted at the tiny screen. His eyes widened, and he nodded. His wet hair fell from its perch and hung off the side of his head again like damp seaweed.

“Hate to break it to you like this,” Connor continued, “but the good doctor? He’s out . . . for good. Someone or something did this to you. Can you think of anyone who would want you dead?”

Dr. Kolb laughed at that. “Want me dead? You’re kidding, right? I’m a scientist. My specialty is developing polycarbonate thermoplastic resins for communications and buildings. Who’s going to want me dead? Someone from a rival nerd consortium?”

Connor looked agitated, but pointed at the camera phone. “Well, scientifically speaking, something made you dead, Doctor. Personally, I’d like to know who. I would think you’d like to know as well.”

Dr. Kolb looked at the picture on Connor’s phone again. He screwed up his face, struggling to remember. If he could recall who had done this to him, or why, I was fairly certain it would be a huge step toward figuring out our case, not to mention helping Dr. Kolb pass on to the next life.

“Anything you can give us,” Connor continued, his voice less harsh this time. “Anything at all, no matter how insignificant.”

“I can almost see it in my mind,” the dead jogger said, still struggling.

While Dr. Kolb gave it a good think, I watched the water for any signs of the crabs, even though the spirit that had been mechanizing them now stood before us. I shuddered at the thought of them crawling back up to shore.

“It was like . . . like a dog,” he said with conviction.

“A dog?” I repeated, then looked to Connor, raising an eyebrow. “Werewolf?”

“Doubtful,” he said. “We’re not even close to having a full moon right now.”

“I said like a dog,” Dr. Kolb said, clearly irritated that he was dealing with two people he felt were his mental inferiors. “Not an actual dog.”

I tried to keep him focused. “Why don’t you describe it to us, then?”

The dead jogger’s attitude morphed as he recalled the creature, his face full of fear.

“Like I said, kinda like a dog, only hairless . . . with sunken red eyes . . .”

Connor perked up at this. Dr. Kolb started to stutter, his fright overtaking him as if he were reliving the experience.

“I couldn’t look away. I wanted to, God knows, but I was paralyzed with fear . . .”

“This creature,” Connor said, “was its back kinda spiny?”

Dr. Kolb nodded. His arms were held out in front of him, trying to push something invisible away.

I moved closer to Connor.

“You know what it is?” I whispered.

He nodded and hit the speed dial on his phone. haunts-general popped up on the display.

“Could it have been a vampire?” I asked. “Can’t vampires take canine form, do that whole shape-shifting thingie?”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Don’t believe everything you see on the SCI FI Channel, okay? Believe me, kid, it ain’t vampires.”