Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1) Read online

  Good luck with that one, Gavin.

  I felt an eerie breeze blow behind my neck. I turned.

  One of the teens was blowing on me—like, just standing there like he was blowing on a birthday cake—while the other boys snickered by the giant cigarette mound.

  I stared him right in the face, and gave him my best what-the-actual-fuck facial expression.

  He stopped and stared at me, looking surprised.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

  “Oh…shit…” he stammered. “You can see me?”

  “Of course I can see you,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I…wait…”

  I reached out my hand to give him a shove. Not hard. Just enough to force him to take a step back. As I suspected, my hand passed right through him. His body distorted as though I were waving through a mist. He wasn’t really there, you see. I mean…he was…in a way…but he also wasn't.

  Fuck me, I thought to myself. Another ghost.

  I've come to really hate ghosts over the years.

  The most surprising thing about this ghost—I mean, aside from the obvious—was the fact that this time, I hadn't even stopped to consider that these teens might not be real. I mean, they just seemed so mundane. So ordinary. So typical. And now, already, I was trying to imagine what had happened to the poor little fuckers.

  This—the whole ghost-seeing thing—can, at times, be a little embarrassing. Especially when I’m the only person in a room—or in the street or whatever—who can actually see them. Sometimes, I can talk to one a good five or ten minutes before I realize anything's wrong. Then, when I start to suspect, I do a touch test. As corporeal beings, we living can’t seem to touch the dead. Or, the ghosts of the dead. I'm not talking about dead bodies, obviously. I prefer not to touch those either, but…well…anyway, the point is: when you try to touch ghosts, you pass right through them, temporarily dispersing them like one might wave through mist from a fog machine.

  “Aw, come on, man!” the ghost objected, looking all distorted as I waved my hand through him, and sounding like he was talking under water. “Don't do that. I hate that.”

  I looked toward his two friends, smoking and looking meekly at me from behind the massive cigarette mound.

  “Am I the only living person on this street corner right now?” I asked.

  “Not for long,” said the spirit. “Here comes Deputy Hotness.”

  I turned to see the gorgeous blonde approaching, still smiling from her exchange inside the Grim Morton's. Instead of getting back into her vehicle, she spotted me, and started crossing the street. From this distance I got a clearer look at her face.

  Though I wanted to say something clever, or at least suave, my brain could muster neither. Words failed me. I instead found myself trying to look as cool as I could, and hoping to god she didn’t just see me talking to thin air. I didn't want her thinking I was some kind of nut-case, wandering around the streets at night talking to the voices in his head.

  “You’re looking pretty tonight, Vikki,” said one of the teenaged boy-ghosts.

  “Hey Vikki, come sit with us,” said another.

  “You gonna die anytime soon, Vikki?” said the third. “I mean…I hope you don't. But if you do…you know…I’m just dying to know if you’re my type.”

  You’re already dead, I thought.

  “She’s hot, eh?” said the first boy.

  He’d circled around behind her now. He didn't speak audibly, but rather, he mouthed the words silently.

  I tried my best to ignore them.

  “Stop it. Stop being creepy,” I muttered.

  “I’m sorry, what?” said the blonde, presumably 'Vikki', as she approached me.

  “Oh. Nothing,” I said.

  I threw down my cigarette and stomped it out before I really knew what I was doing. I wasn't finished smoking it. Just a nervous reflex I guess.

  God she's pretty. Too pretty to just be a regular cop in a small town.

  “You know, we’ve learned a few things out here,” said one of the teens. “We may look like teens, but we’ve learned to do a few things, you know? Things you’d like. We could show you a pretty good time.”

  The pretty blonde rolled her eyes, shook her head and smiled at me, sweetly, and slightly embarrassed.

  I wondered if her reaction was to them, or just to me. Could she hear them too? Or was she instinctively feeling eyes on herself, the way pretty girls so often do? I imaged that any self-respecting woman who heard comments like this would probably just ignore them anyway.

  These poor kids really need some game, I thought. Or perhaps what they needed was a little tact. Or maybe just a good smack upside the head. Oh if I were only ten years younger…and dead.

  “You really shouldn’t be out here this late,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m new here. Just got to town.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know who you are. Welcome to Bordertown, Mister Masters.”

  “How did you…um…how do you know my name?”

  “Sheriff Porter told me you were coming with your family,” she said. “Of course I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow. The neighborhood boys aren’t harassing you, I hope.”

  “Oh no, Deputy Vikki,” replied one of the youths. “We just wanted to introduce ourselves. You know us. We never cause trouble.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Vikki replied.

  She laughed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes conspiratorially at me again. I imagined I’d probably never stop causing trouble if I could get attention from this beauty on any given day. Not a terribly good disincentive to deter mischief and misdemeanors.

  Wait a second…

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You can…you can see them too?”

  Vikki raised an eye-brow. “Who? The ghosts?” Vikki said. “Of course I can see them. I wouldn’t be a terribly good fit for the B.T.P.D. if I couldn’t, now would I?”

  “I…uh…don’t know how to answer that,” I said.

  “Cat got your tongue?” said one of the boys.

  “Someone’s got a boy-crush,” taunted another.

  “Shut-up,” I said, trying to stifle a laugh.

  It wasn’t so much that I thought there was anything funny about a bunch of dead teenaged boys embarrassing me in front of a pretty girl whom, yes, I was already trying to devise a way to coolly ask out. But I’ve never—and I mean never—talked to another person who could also see dead people before. I’d begun to worry I was the only one, or that perhaps I was crazy. I often fretted that if I was crazy, I probably wouldn’t actually be able to tell I was crazy, and so I’d finally concluded that because I had the good sense to consider I might be crazy, I therefore wasn’t.

  Vikki—assuming that was her real name—seemed to crack up too. I'd swear she even blushed a little. And there…right there…for just a moment, I thought that anything was possible. This gorgeous blonde, who was, by all means, way out of my league—an expression I hate, by the way, even though I know I keep using it—might just happen to think I was cute too. Or maybe she was just happy, like I was, to meet another person who could see spirits. She didn’t seem half as surprised as I was though. In fact, it seemed like she expected me to be able to see ghosts. Like, why wouldn’t I be able to?

  I was about to introduce myself to her—and, what the heck, to the haunting hooligans too—but then her police radio buzzed.

  “Deputy Valliant, what’s your twenty? Over.”

  “I’m on a ten-ninety-nine at Grimmy's, Steve. Don’t worry; coffee and donut reinforcements are on their way.”

  Vikki smiled at me conspiratorially again and shook her head. I couldn’t get over how intoxicating her presence seemed to be. I just wanted to throw myself at her feet, and it took all my power not to. I was just hoping I wouldn’t blurt out something inappropriate, fighting hard to keep my eyes on her eyes. And, you know, not on her—

  “Vikki, we’ve got a ten-one-eighty at the Milford
farm. Can you go investigate? Over.”

  “I’m sorry, Steve, ten-nine?” Vikki replied. “I’m not sure I’m hearing you correctly. For a second there I thought you just said we had a ten-one-eighty. Over.”

  “That's affirmative on a ten-one-eight-zero. Over.”

  “Oh, fuck,” she exhaled—to me, I supposed, since she hadn’t pressed her walkie-talkie that time. Then she buzzed back. “Ten-four, Steve. I've got Masters with me. We’ll go check it out together. Over.”

  “Received. Thank you. Over,” the walkie squeaked.

  “What the heck is a ten-one-eighty?” I asked.

  “Damn it, Masters! Don’t you at least know your standard police codes?”

  I just looked at her hopelessly and shrugged.

  “It’s a homicide,” she said. “Somebody just called in a homicide.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “Are those common out here?”

  “No,” she said. “Not at all. That's not…shit. Sorry. This isn't how we wanted to break you in. Bad first night. Oh well. Come on. Get in.”

  Now, normally, when a police officer asks you to come with him or her, you’re supposed to ask if you’re under arrest, and what your rights are, and should you be calling a lawyer, etcetera. And in my case, I should at least have insisted on rejoining my family, particularly my father, who actually is a cop. He’d probably be a heck of a lot more useful than I would. But given the circumstances, I didn’t seem to have the capacity to say no to this beguiling beauty.

  I followed Vikki to her cruiser, resigned to getting in. I'd probably have gone anywhere with her. She could have said we were going to Mars, and I'd be like 'okay' even though I don't even own a space helmet.

  Is there life on Mars?

  “Vikki, come back!” one of the boys called out from behind us.

  “You're so hot!” called the second.

  “We love you!” called the third.

  Vikki blushed and rolled her eyes again, in a way that was so damned adorable. It said so many things about her all at once. Despite appearances, she was flattered by the attention, though she wasn't taking it too seriously. To be fair, the boys couldn't possibly be serious either. And Vikki seemed to genuinely care about them. This was a woman with a very big heart. That was my first impression, anyway. There was something about her pretty face and her blond hair, and her one green eye and one blue…I just wanted to get lost in them. Good god, I never thought heterochromia could be so hot! I'm telling you, this girl was getting me high just looking at her. 'Deputy Hotness' wasn't good enough…she was a damn siren! If you'll pardon the pun. At least I think that's a pun…you know…because police use sirens? Never mind. I can't think straight while I'm looking at her.

  I got into the car with Vikki, and together, we pulled out of the parking lot.

  Chapter 5

  I took another look back at the three ghost youths as Vikki drove the cruiser out of the parking lot.

  “Are they always like this?” I asked.

  “They haven't changed one bit since high school,” she said. “They were juniors when I was in my senior year.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I don't know. They disappeared one day. Then, like a full year later, they returned to town as ghosts.”

  “And no one knows what happened to them? I mean, you're the police.”

  Vikki shrugged. “I wasn't the police back then. And anyway, they don't really like to talk about it.”

  “I think I can understand that,” I said, and dropped the subject.

  My eyes spied the payphone on the corner. It looked super-old. Like the way they looked at the turn of the century. And by that, I mean the 19th to the 20th century.

  “So…” I started. “Bordertown has payphones, huh? That's pretty old school. Don't see many of those anymore.”

  “Well, it's not fully functional anymore. You can't use it to make calls outside the town, anymore. So now you can pretty much only use it to talk to the dead. So it's not that useful.”

  I did a double take on the phone booth as we passed it.

  “Wait. You're messing with me, aren't you?”

  She gave me an enigmatic smile. “Of course not. We're supposed to be partners, after all. You're going to need to trust me if this is going to work.”

  Partners? I wondered. What the heck is she talking about? And…talk to the dead? What?

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What do you mean 'you can use it to talk to the dead'?”

  “What do you think I mean? That's not a police code or anything.”

  “So you can use that phone to talk to the dead.”

  “That's right.”

  “And you don't think that's useful?”

  Vikki shrugged. “I talk to the dead every day. Not a lot of new things happen to them, you know? You ask them what's new. They say 'nothing. Still dead.'”

  I nodded. I was still trying to get my head around the idea that I wouldn't be the only person here who could see the dead.

  “Can everyone in this town see the dead?”

  “Not all of us. Everyone in law enforcement, though, yeah. It's a requirement. But it's maybe only about twenty percent of the rest of the town who can see the dead.”

  “Oh. Wait. Then what's the point of that phone?”

  “My point exactly.”

  “No, but I mean—”

  “Well, you can call the netherworld. But not a lot ever seems to happen there either.”

  “Right,” I said.

  I thought about all the possibilities.

  “So like…I could call up David Bowie and ask him if he's floating in a most peculiar way?”

  She snorted a laugh. “Or if he's a star man floating in the sky?” she added.

  “Ha-ha! Yeah,” I said.

  I took a moment to swoon at my companion, and her eyes that almost danced as they watched the road ahead of her.

  God damn I like this girl.

  “I suppose you could,” she said, giving me a double take of her own, a crooked smile forming in the corner of her pretty mouth. “If you had the right extension.”

  I thought about that for a tick.

  “But…like, I don't know…if you had the right extension, could you call just anybody? Like, I don't know…People you miss? Like, people you'd call if you could?”

  Her smile broke, and for a second, I'd swear she was about to cry. I didn't even know this woman, really. It's a wonder she invited me into her squad car, though I imagine, if she had to, she could probably kick my ass. But…what I mean is, I didn't know how much tragedy had befallen her recently. Kind of like I didn't know about Danny's father, or how Danny didn't know about my mother. We've all lost people. How many people had Vikki Valliant lost in her lifetime?

  “When people die, they die,” she said. “Trying to hold on like that? It leads to nothing but trouble. You know? When people decide to pass on to the netherworld, they always do so for a reason.”

  I nodded. I thought about how badly I'd wanted to talk to my own mother for the longest time. I thought about how I never had anyone to talk to about this before now. Where was my mother now? What was she doing? Was she watching over us? Was she happy? Was she proud or appalled by the man I was turning out to be? Did she—or even could she—feel anything at all anymore? Did she still exist anywhere?

  I thought about just how lonely I still felt, now that I did have someone to talk to about it.

  We drove in silence for a while.

  “So…” I started, “do you have those phones all over town?”

  “No. Just there.”

  “Seriously? Why there, next to a Heaven-Eleven of all places?” I asked.

  She shrugged without taking her hands off the wheel or her eyes off the road.

  “Search me. It's just another of Doc Braunstein's wacky inventions.”

  “Doc Braunstein?”

  “You'll meet him soon enough. Actually, thanks for reminding me. We're going to need him.”

>   Vikki punched in a few keys on her dashboard, and then we heard the ring of an outgoing call.

  “Larry Braunstein,” came a gruff, sleepy voice.

  “Hey, Doc. It's Vikki. I hope I didn't wake you.”

  “No, no, of course not. Why would I be asleep at three o'clock in the morning?”

  Vikki snorted a laugh. “I'm sorry, Doc. It's important.”

  “Meh, fargesn es. What do you need?”

  “We've apparently got a ten-one-eighty at the Milford farm.”

  “What do you mean we've got a ten-one-eighty?”

  “Homicide, Doc.”

  “Yes, yes. I know my police codes, Vikki,” he snapped.

  I'd swear Vikki shot me a smug look at that remark. As if to say 'see?'

  And I had to admit it was kinda hot.

  “You need a C.S.I. on the scene?” Doc said.

  “Nothing gets past you, Doc,” said Vikki, winking at me.

  “I'll be there as soon as I can,” he said, then hung up.

  Chapter 6

  Vikki stopped the car at a corn field just at the edge of town and got out. I followed her lead, got out, and followed her to the side of the road. It was dark out here, with nothing illuminating the area but her headlights, the distant lights from the town, and the faint starlight from above. We could see the highway, but I wasn’t entirely sure how she would ever even know what to look for amid the tall corn stacks next to it.

  I scanned the corn stacks across the road. My eyes stopped on something weird. I wasn't sure, but I thought I could see a small figure staring back at me. Yes… There, by the corn stacks, chewing on an ear of corn, was a fat figure with a pair of large, glowing eyes which seemed transfixed on mine. The figure was maybe four-and-a-half feet tall, rotund, and covered with fur. It looked almost like a really big, really fat raccoon dog with mammoth-sized, big, bouncy testic—