The inbetween, p.32
The InBetween, page 32
part #1 of Painter Mann Series
The spook lieutenants began to head toward the wall where the newly freed group was sitting, just behind me. I spread my arms.
“Nah, man,” I said, hoping the terror that was spinning my ghost stomach wasn’t bleeding into my voice. “You got clubhouses all around the country. This one's closed for business.”
“Yeah,” Bernie said, coming around the other side of the machine. I waited for him to stand next to me so the two of us could take on these assholes together. He didn’t slide up next to me. I glanced over my shoulder. Bernard looked very content hanging back, crossing his chubby arms. “Out of business. So you know, git.”
I mouthed at Bernie, Git?
He shrugged and gave me a faltering smile.
“No, it ain’t,” Calkin said and glided toward me. “Just needs a few repairs. We’ll be back up and running in an hour. And I’ll plug you back in, Painter, so you don’t give me any more trouble!”
From the wall, I heard a voice. It was the young man I’d walked there moments earlier.
He’d gotten back up to his feet, putting a hands out to steady himself. “That’s not going to happen, man.” Next to him, those with the energy to stand slowly did. Two or three dozen people. They weren’t strong, but that many against three?
The odds were in our favor.
Calkin wasn’t feeling the same as me and laughed a big hearty gut laugh, all bent over and hands on his knees and shit. So I squared off and kicked the prick straight in the face, which sent him flying back. Momentarily disappearing in the darkened space, he tumbled a few times then stopped. Slowly he got back to his feet.
I’d weakened him somewhat, but I’d also taken a big gulp of juice from the guy. I was nearly full strength. Ready for a fight. That was when the walls came alight with spooks. At least thirty, maybe forty members of the Ghost Mob slid into the room. Calkin had come prepared.
I was suddenly marginally less ready for a fight.
“Boys, I want you to beat the ever-living shit out of all those gangly spooks hanging out on the wall back there to where they can’t even blink.” His two dudes were back at his side. Not even looking at them, he threw a punch through both of them. They barely flinched.
And with that, Calkin was all juiced up once again.
“Damn and shit,” I muttered.
Behind me, my wingman was right there. “Damn!” Bernard said, recrossing his arms. “And shit!”
I don’t think my boy got out much back when he was alive. But he was trying. And right now, he was in the line of fire as much as I was, standing his ground. So he was all good in my book.
Calkin pointed at me. “This guy, I got.” He came at me, slow and menacing.
The mob began to close in on the spooks on the wall, nearly all of them on their feet now, fists raised. In their weakened state, it wasn’t anywhere near a fair fight. At least not yet.
I held a hand up to Calkin and asked, “Do you remember laughter?”
He slowed to a stop, blinked once, seeming unsure of what I’d said. He cocked his head then looked back at me, an annoyed look plastered on his face. “What?”
I said calmly, “Do you remember laughter?”
He blinked again, slowly, then began moving toward me again. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Behind me, I heard Bernie whimper slightly. “Painter? Come on, man.”
“It’s a code word. Or code phrase, I guess. Technically, it’s a phrase,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “Right, I’ll give you that. Not a word, totally a phrase.”
“You losin’ your marbles, and I ain’t even hit you yet?” he said, raising his fists and grinning wildly. “Code word for what?”
“Ah,” I said, raising a finger in the air. “Code phrase.”
“Whatever. I'm done with you. So get read—”
In an admittedly disappointing attempt at a rock singer’s voice, I wailed, “Do you remember laughterrrrr?”
The walls exploded with light, and ghosts poured in from every direction. At the sight of them, the crew who’d been bearing down on the weakened spooks on the wall spun and recalibrated for these new intruders.
The room began to shake with the screams and yells and calls of two armies about to clash in battle. Over the din, I yelled, “Ghost Mob, this is the Zoo Crew!”
Calkin spun in a circle, mouth hanging open as he watched the melee begin.
“Zoo Crew, these are the assholes who’ve been hurting your people!”
Then the Mob’s leader locked back onto me—
I added, “Time to return the favor."
—and it was on.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chandra stumbled as she fought to keep control of the man she was inside. Brenda was still far too weak to take a swing and began yelling at the defense attorney, willing her to take up the fight.
“Hit him! Hit him with anything!”
Bronwyn was moving, slowly scooting herself back toward the overturned couch. Chandra caught sight of her and took a few steps closer, then struggled again, flexing, twisting. Exasperated breaths were coming from the man in bursts.
The attorney grew bolder, moving faster, scuttling across the floor.
All the while, Brenda was rocking back and forth, trying to generate enough juice to get moving. One blow directed at Chandra and she would have the strength she needed to possibly finish this.
Chandra saw Brenda was gaining strength again and took a half step toward her but then changed tacks.
“I just need a boost, that’s all,” Chandra said, gritting the teeth of the man she’d hijacked. “I snuff you out, friend, and I’m good. No time to draw it out, though. Shame. Would have been fun.” She yelled, almost roared, and began to charge but then stopped.
At first, Brenda wondered if the man, Jan Jorgensen, was regaining control. Taking his life back inch by inch, tripping up the killer inside.
But then she saw what had stopped Chandra in her tracks.
The lawyer—her body busted and bleeding, her ankle so horribly twisted now it would never again be right, the other leg skewered by shards of jagged wood—was now pointing a silver pistol at the man standing in her living room.
“Stay back!”
Chandra balked for a moment then said, “You can’t kill me! I’m already dead!”
Bronwyn found the safety and switched it off. “I beg to differ. But let’s see what a couple slugs in your chest does. See who’s right.”
The voice of her dead friend burst into a laugh. “Ha, yeah, you’ll kill this slob, but I won’t be going anywhere. Maybe”—Chandra took a half step closer—“maybe I’ll slip into your body. That would be sweet! Oh, the horrors I could put you through. I wonder what wearing nothing but a slip down a few dark alleys downtown might bring you?”
“Stay back, or I will shoot,” Bronwyn said, her hands shaking. “You were going to kill me!”
Chandra, frozen in midstep, smiled. “I was angry. You slept with my fiancé. With me still in the room.”
“You were DEAD!”
A nod from the man. “Fine, shoot the guy. Then I slip out of this meat and then into you. Maybe I’ll see what it feels like to put your hand in the garbage disposal? Or pull an eye out with a ballpoint pen. Or get you arrested for messing with some kid. The girls in prison told me all about what they do with those ones.”
Brenda called out, but only Chandra could hear her. “Don’t. You’ll kill him, not her. He didn’t do anything! You can’t!”
There was hesitation on Bronwyn’s face. Then, as if she’d argued the case in her head, the judgment was handed down.
Bronwyn Redding scowled. “I’ll take my chances,” she said, and her finger went to the trigger.
From her right there was a shimmer, a quick swirl in the air. Then a sound erupted, an unearthly “nnnnnoooOOOOO!” As she fired the gun, something hit it, shifting the trajectory, and the bullet only clipped the shoulder of Jan Jorgensen, lodging in a framed portrait of some family member.
Brenda had no idea where she’d gotten the strength, maybe from the pure emotion of it. As she tapped the gun, she rolled, losing her footing, but then popped back up and charged at Chandra again. She clocked the woman, who’d already begun to make a run for it.
“Bitch!” Chandra shouted, smashing into the overturned bar, half bent over it. As she pushed off, the reporter came down again, this time with both hands, and Chandra tumbled toward the wall.
Jan Jorgensen did not.
Chandra went to stand, but, weakened, fell back to the ground.
Another shot rang out.
For the first time, Bronwyn heard Jan’s voice, his real voice. Taking in gulps of air, he pleaded, “Don’t. Please, don’t. She’s… not in me anymore. Oh, Christ, she’s finally out of me.”
The defense attorney wasn’t yet convinced. “How would I know that? I can’t trust you—”
“My name is Jan Jorgensen. I’m sorry for what she did, but that wasn’t me.”
The barrel of the gun lowered. “Where is she then? Gone?”
“No,” he said and looked across the room. “I can still see her. She’s by the wall. Drained. She won’t be going far, I don’t think. Not for a while.”
“What was… the other thing? What hit me?”
Jan looked up at Brenda and began to weep. “Thank you. Brenda, isn’t it? Thank you,” he said and choked on tears. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you.”
Brenda smiled and then realized something. “Wait, you can see me?”
Jan nodded. “I suppose it’s some type of hangover from… whatever that was.” He put his face in his hands and sobbed. “Oh, Christ, all those people.”
Chandra was back on her feet, sliding toward the door. Brenda began to move for her but then realized that even if she had incapacitated her, she had no idea what to do with the woman.
“Don’t worry, old friend! I’ll wait for my moment, and then me and you—”
Jan spat in her direction. “She can’t hear you, you idiot. You’re dead!”
“Fine,” Chandra said. “Oh, it’s going to…”
Brenda and Jan watched as the woman’s expression changed. Her image wavered for a moment, like a weak television signal.
She looked up but not at either of them. “That’s not ri—”
Then she was gone.
Jan waited for a moment for someone to explain. When no one did, he asked, “What happened?”
* * *
Across town, Pete Davis was rubbing his mouth with the back of his fist. He’d finally sat down. Seated opposite him was Alice, grinning from ear to ear.
“I’m still not entirely comfortable with this,” he said. “We should do a full investigation before publishing. Dammit. I should pull that back to drafts.”
“No, leave it. The investigation, yes. You can do all of that. There’s plenty of time for that.”
“I don’t know how you talked me into this. It’s borderline irresponsible. There’s no real evidence.”
“Are you joking? You heard the congressman on the phone. Hell, you recorded the conversation.”
Pete nodded.
Publishing the name of Chandra Withy’s jailhouse killer, even in a small web story just a few paragraphs long, was about to set off a firestorm. Reporters would soon be circling the congressman’s office. Within the hour.
“You know, hate to say it, but part of me doesn’t want to get lapped by any of the other news guys. Everyone will be on this. I need to get a reporter up to speed ASAP—”
“You’ve got a reporter on it already,” Alice said and smiled. “I suppose I can type it up and she’ll be, well, the ghostwriter. As it were.”
The newspaper man nodded and stared out at his city once again.
“The world is a lot weirder than we ever imagined."
“I dunno," Alice said and shrugged. "I always had my suspicions about it."
* * *
Jan stared at the space where Chandra had been as if she might wink back into the room, and the horror would begin all over again.
“Is she gone?”
“Looks like it.”
The man looked down at the rings on his fingers, several chains around his neck, a half dozen broaches pinned on the inside of his shirt.
“All of these people,” he said. “What do I do now?”
Bronwyn fired her gun into the ceiling, and Jan yelped, clutching at his chest. The attorney shouted, “Who are you talking to?”
“A woman named Brenda. Can you give me—”
“I can’t give you anything,” Bronwyn said, lowering the gun but not yet putting it down. “Actually, that’s not right. I’m still not convinced I shouldn’t give you a bullet. But for now, can you call an ambulance so I don’t bleed to death on my living room floor?”
Brenda moved toward Jan and said, “Um, you may want to delay that just by a moment.”
He glanced at Bronwyn, who glared at him. “She does look terrible.”
“Yeah, but you did kill all those people.”
“Not me!”
“The world won’t see it that way.”
His face sank. “Oh. Oh wow. That’s… you’re right. Oh my God.”
“And, just being honest, you’re going to be named as the killer of”—she pointed at the jewelry on his hands and neck and body—“all those people in a newspaper article in a few hours.”
"How do you know that?"
"Because I'm going to write it."
He started to say something but stopped. He then nodded. "What do I do?”
Bronwyn had picked up on the half of the conversation she couldn’t hear. She offered, “You’ll need a good defense lawyer. I could maybe argue insanity? I don’t know. I’ll come up with something.”
Jan thought about it for a moment then said, “You don’t have the best track record, actually.”
“One time,” she said and shrugged. “One slip-up.”
Brenda stared at the lawyer for a long moment and then instructed Jan to ask her why she’d kept the tape secret. The question made Bronwyn chuckle through bloodstained teeth.
“I know, it would have freed her, sure, but I wasn’t kidding about the threats. Not Stephen directly, his people, but he knew. If I’d turned it over to the police, I’d be dead. And as long as I had it tucked away, they couldn’t touch me.”
“So your client rots in jail, then?” Jan Jorgensen said.
“I knew she was innocent. I would have made sure she never got convicted,” the lawyer said, her lip quivering slightly. “Never knew about the prison hit.” She then added: “And don’t judge me, you’re a serial killer! You don’t want my help, fine. But first thing you do is call an ambulance.”
Jorgensen turned to the ghost reporter. “I’m going to have to run, aren’t I?”
Brenda nodded. “But I need you to do something first.”
“I know, call an ambulance.”
“Uh, right. Hold that thought,” Brenda said, and Jan Jorgensen laughed. Then he let out a shuddering sob. The reporter added, "Chandra lost half her strength because my friend knocked out a power station back in Minneapolis. And if he did that, he’s got a bull’s-eye on his back as big as the moon. There’s this type of mob of dead people, and they—”
“Listen, I can’t take any more revelations. It’s freaking me out. But I owe you. Tell me what I need to do.”
“We’re going to the pub.”
“Good, I need a drink.”
“No time for that,” she said. “A friend of mine is trying to stop all the really scary bits of the Bible from happening. Basically, Revelations rewritten by Stephen King.”
“I’m not… prepared for all this. I can’t process it.”
“You don’t have to.” Brenda thought for a moment. “Okay, I also need this weird guy. Well, sometimes he’s a guy, other times he’s a terrifying thing, actually. Do you have a phone?”
* * *
The staff was stumped. They would have to call a locksmith to get into the room at this rate. Also, after a thorough search of the basement of the facility, it seemed the bingo room of the Shady Hills retirement home was on a localized circuit, somewhere in the room.
Which meant they couldn’t turn the music system off from anywhere but behind the door.
When the song began to play once again, the volume so loud it shook the walls, the glass, and even some fillings, the director could only shout, hoping to be heard.
“What triggered this? Off his meds?”
“No, Bethany thinks he got a call from someone. Three-one-two area code."
“Chicago? He doesn't know anyone in Chicago far as I know," the director said to the staffer.
"What did the guy say to him?”
“Who knows? But Mr. Wilner has been in there blasting that godforsaken song for the better part of twenty minutes now! If he wasn’t already half deaf—”
“Get Andy, the locksmith. Not the other guy with the weird teeth. He tears the doors up too much.”
The orderly ran away, hands over his ears.
The director tried again, pounding on the door. “Mr. Wilner! Julius! Julius, you must turn that god-awful racket down!”
The director had been hoping to end the week quietly. And now, he was fighting with a senile, near-dead octogenarian who’d suddenly developed a late-eighties rock-and-roll fetish.
He sighed. “Welcome to the jungle, indeed.”
Inside, Julius was posting notes on an online cloud account but then heard it. Someone was singing along with the music.
Took you long enough. Julius smiled then yelled over the music, “Gary? How fast can you get to Chicago and back?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I spun in place several times, struck hard by the hulking leader of the Ghost Mob. However, as I’d been hit, I’d thrown both arms outward—a spook version of Christ the Redeemer—so that when I spun, the fists of both my hands clubbed Calkin’s chest and shoulders, the concussions sending a thump-thump-thump through both of us.
