Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1) Read online

  My father gave me a look of deep consideration. Then he raised his eyebrows and rubbed his stubbly head and then threw one hand up into the air, as if to exclaim something, but still said nothing. Then he finally smiled, and spoke.

  “Oh those ghosts.”

  “Yeah, dad. Those ghosts.”

  “Okay, so you saw the kids outside the Heaven-Eleven. That's cool. Yeah…I saw them too,” he laughed. “Three of them, right? They started hooting at Raven, and when she wasn’t looking, I gave them my best ‘don’t-fuck-with-my-little-girl’ look.”

  He then proceeded to point a stern finger at me and gave me the look. It was the same look you might get from Dwayne Johnson if you called one of his daughters fat. It was a look that might scare the pants off even a dead person.

  “So you did see them,” I said.

  “Of course! Loud, obnoxious, arrogant, teenage hooligans. I bet that’s the reason they’re ghosts too. Someone probably just got fed up and strangled the three of them.”

  I laughed. Then stopped. I remembered another thing Vikki said to me. Ghosts usually take their corridors of light almost right away, unless something terrible happened to them. So my thinking was, these boys may have died badly, and, quite possibly, alone. I started to feel a bit of sympathy for them. After all, here these ghosts were, with nothing better to do than spend eternity loitering outside a 24-hour convenience store. I mean…that has to be almost as bad as being a living teenager…

  “Dad, that’s not funny. I mean…what if they really were murdered or something?”

  My dad nodded. “Fair enough. But hey, did you meet Ashley?”

  “Ashley who?”

  “Ashley the cigarette monster.”

  “Cigarette monster?” I said. “There was a giant cigarette mound there.”

  “Yeah, that's him,” said dad, nodding excitedly.

  His expression was almost comical. He was acting like a kid who’d just made a new friend. Except that new friend was me.

  “He’s not just a cigarette mound,” my dad added. “He’s a ghost.”

  “He is?”

  “Well…a monster, anyway. I'm not entirely clear on what kind. Seemed rude to ask outright. You didn’t talk to him?” My dad laughed. “Oh my god! He’s hilarious.”

  “No, I was…distracted I guess.”

  “Oh, by Deputy Valliant, huh? Yeah, I bet you were distracted.”

  “Shut up. It's not like that.”

  “Oh, isn't it?”

  I shrugged. “So listen, dad. I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh, this should be good.”

  “You see ghosts…I see ghosts…”

  “Deputy Vikki Valliant sees ghosts,” he said with a knowing smile.

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “You already know exactly what I’m going to ask, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. I've been your father for twenty-three years. I know how you think. You want to come on a ride-along.”

  I made a sheepish face. “So…? Can I?”

  Dad shook his head. “No. You, son, are going to stop making excuses to do something else, and you are going take your sister to school, and then you are going to—”

  “Find a job?”

  “Bingo, kid. Anyway,” he said, shoveling in the last of his, presumably fourth or fifth helping of cereal into his mouth, then standing, “Duty calls. I gotta go to work. Make sure you get Raven to class on time.”

  “Right.”

  “And good luck today,” he called after himself.

  I didn’t respond.

  He stuck his head back in the doorway.

  “You know I mean finding that job, right?”

  “Yes, dad. Thank you. I get it.”

  After my sister’s requisite hour in the bathroom, gothing and/or punking herself to perfection in the mirror—although to be fair, I realize she has only half the number of normally allotted arms for a girl her age—we left for proverbial green pastures. Or, in other words, I walked her to school.

  Chapter 10

  As I walked Raven to school, I noted how different Bordertown looked in the morning light. By night, the town had looked like a slumbering hamlet of pre-industrial revolution pioneers. By day, it looked like some kind of three-ring circus. Complete with freaks. The town was completely bustling with activity. Mostly people running to and fro in animal costumes. And monster costumes. Very, very realistic monster costumes.

  “It's not some kind of early Halloween, is it?” I asked.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Raven.

  “I don't know.”

  A tandem bicycle shot past us, traveling more quickly than any bicycle had any right to. It seemed to be affixed with some kind of sail. One guy riding rode with his mouth open, almost the way a dog might, while sticking his head out of the window of a speeding car.

  “What the hell is this place? Burning Man?” I said.

  “This is Bordertown, I guess,” said Raven. “Stranger than advertised, apparently.”

  “Think there might be any normal people here?”

  “I don't know, Gavin. How do you define normal?”

  “I guess I'm in no position to judge,” I conceded.

  We passed the Heaven-Eleven. The trio of delinquents were still there, puffing away on cigarettes. I didn't miss the fact they were all checking out my little sister either. I was hoping my sister wasn’t aware she was being ogled by a trio of prepubescent, posthumous punks. Well, maybe they weren’t exactly pre-pubescent, but they had all died long before any of them could grow much in the way of facial hair. I found myself wondering where exactly these kids were getting all their cigarettes from. I mean…I was fairly certain they couldn’t smoke real cigarettes.

  Or could they? I've been seeing ghosts for five years, but in many ways, I still feel like I'm new at this. In uncharted territory, as it were.

  The ghosts I knew couldn't interact with material objects of this world. And similarly, I couldn't interact with their material objects either, though it was rare I ever saw one. I remember once, back in Regina, trying to pick up a silver dollar in the middle of the road, only to find it wasn't really there. Then I heard the snickering of a middle-aged, bearded man by the roadside. I asked him why he thought this was so funny. Then a car came speeding off the highway, honking at me. I just barely dived out of the way. That solved the mystery of how that guy died. I presumed he was bored and wanted company, so that's how he tried to lure other “seers” like me to their death. What a prick.

  But then again, I remember reading a book on poltergeists, back when this all first started happening to me. It explained that ghosts can—given enough of time and practice, having almost a limitless supply of the former, and the latter being a mere factor of the former—lift just about anything, despite being almost entirely non-corporeal. Of course, I had treated this book as being about as factual and reliable a source of information as any other fiction book out there. You know, like the Holy Bible.

  Funny thing, that, I remember thinking at the time. I wondered if I could ask these restless spirits about god, and the afterlife. I often got the sense they knew even less about the great unknown than the living did. Or at least, fewer of them had the audacity to pretend to know what came next, as the living so often seem to.

  “Are they still staring at me?” asked Raven.

  “Huh?”

  “The trio of creeps at the Heaven Eleven?”

  I did a double take.

  “You…Raven, you can see them too?”

  Raven gave me a weirded-out look.

  “Yeah…why wouldn't I…wait…are they…are they dead?”

  “Yes!” I laughed. “You can see them too?”

  “Of course I can. We all can. What are you…hey!”

  I felt so energized that I picked up Raven and spun her around in circles.

  “You can see them too!” I chanted. “You see them too!”

  “Gavin!” objected Raven, giggling. “Okay. Ok
ay. Enough. Enough. Put me down!”

  I did as she asked, trying to contain myself. We were both laughing pretty hard though.

  “So first dad, now you? Why didn't you guys tell me you could see ghosts all this time?”

  “Why didn't you tell us, dummy?”

  “Because! Okay, fair enough,” I said. “God. You know…Raven, we really suck at communicating. You know, as a family.”

  “You're telling me. Anyway. Gavin, we all knew there'd be ghosts here. Or did you think that was some kind of ethnic slur?”

  “No, of course n…wait…you and dad knew that this place was going to be full of ghosts?”

  “Yeah! Duh, Gavin…Didn't you bother to read the town charter dad gave you?”

  “Of course I did,” I lied. “I always read everything meticulously beforehand. You know that.”

  Raven just shook her head, chuckling, clearly not buying it.

  We kept walking, and the town just kept getting weirder and weirder. At some point during our walk, we even saw two school bullies playing keep-away with a third boy’s head.

  Finally, we reached the university, which, much to our chagrin, was actually just a single building with a giant plaque in front of it that read “Bordertown University: In Science We Trust.”

  “Well, I guess that’s a refreshing sentiment,” I said.

  “It’s so small,” said Raven.

  “Well, you know what they say.”

  Raven rolled her eyes. “No, Gavin. What do they say?”

  “It’s not the size of the university that counts. It’s the fury of its faculty.”

  She just shook her head. “Gavin, you’re turning into dad.”

  “You take that back,” I said.

  She simply smiled to herself, and looked the university over.

  “Do you want me to walk you in?” I asked.

  “Nah,” she said, looking from one end of the building's façade to the other. “I’m pretty sure I won't get lost or anything.”

  “Oh, it's you, boychik,” came a familiar voice from behind us.

  Coming up the stairs, right behind us, was none other than Dr. Larry Braunstein, the town's walking encyclopedia of colorful Yiddish expressions.

  “Hey Doc,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I teach here,” he said.

  “I thought you were, um, like, a crime scene investigator and ghost consultant or something like that.”

  “Well, yes, I do moonlight in C.S.I. consultation. But it's rare the town needs one. How many murders do you think we have around here?”

  “I'm hoping not a lot,” I said.

  He nodded. “So, you understand, naturally, a man needs a regular day job.”

  “Yeah…naturally. My dad would agree with you there.”

  “And you must be…” Doc stopped and looked at his clip board. “Rivkah Masters. Your father’s told me so much about you already. I’m looking forward to having you in my class.”

  “Raven,” she said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s Raven. No one calls me Rivkah. Except my mother. And she’s dead.”

  “Oh,” said Larry, and stopped. “Fair enough then…” he pulled out a pen from his pocket and changed something on his clipboard, “You want me to call you Raven, I'll call you Raven. Okay Raven, come with me. I’ll take you to our classroom.” He turned to me. “You’re not coming too, are you, boychik?”

  “It’s Gavin,” I said.

  He didn’t respond, but just blinked expectantly.

  “No,” I added. “I already have a degree.”

  Though a fat lot of good it seemed to be doing me these days, I thought about adding, but didn’t.

  Doc nodded, and he and Raven began walking into the building.

  “What are you teaching anyway?” I asked.

  Doc turned back to face me.

  “Paranormal taxonomy,” he said.

  “You mean, like, classification of creatures you find around Bordertown? Like ghosts and…tanukis? And stuff like that?”

  “That's exactly it, boychik. Boy, Raven, we've got a real maven here.”

  “Oh, okay.” I said. “Man, that's awesome…that's really awesome. Damn it…”

  “Would you like to audit my class, boychik?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “Can I?”

  “You can if you think you can,” he said. “You certainly may.”

  I thought about it. What else did I have to do today? I mean, other than find a job like a grown-up. And let's face it…I was about as keen on finding a job as um…I imagine, say, a tanuki might be about squeezing into a pair of women's panties.

  “All right, boychik. Just follow me. I'll take you two to class.”

  Chapter 11

  Doc led us to a classroom of about twenty students. Most of them looked to be a little younger than me. They were probably all about eighteen. Raven's age. Freshman year.

  Raven looked uncertain about where to sit, so I took the initiative and scanned the room for the right place. When considering where to sit, I fell back to the method I'd employed my first time in university. This took into account a number of factors, such as room size, apparent amiability of the immediate crowd beside me and…okay, I'll cut the horseshit. I scanned the room for the girl I thought was the prettiest, and sat down next to her. My sister followed suit and sat on the other side of me.

  The girl I chose to sit beside was long and elegant, with an exposed midriff, blue hair, and a…prehensile tail? She was reading something on her phone. I wasn't sure what exactly, but it seemed to have a coarse sketch of a three-headed chimera on it.

  “Hey there,” I said. “That looks cool. Whatcha reading?”

  The blue-haired beauty paused for a moment, as if to register that she'd just been spoken to, and then turned to look at me. I was met with one of the most simultaneously stunning, and yet terrifying faces I'd ever seen. She appeared to be wearing cat's eye contact lenses, which seemed to glow a faint pink. I couldn't tell if that was a refraction of light, or if they were somehow self-illuminating lenses. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear the tail behind her perked up and wagged like a cat's when she saw me. Kind of like a cat eyeing a bird she plans to pounce on. This girl was a freak! And I liked it!

  “This is the standard Bordertown Bestiary,” she said.

  I stared blankly at her, lost in her hypnotic, luminescent, pink eyes. They seemed to dance somehow with sparkles in the background. I suddenly wondered if I was staring into two disco balls.

  “You know?” she continued. “The course textbook. For the class you're apparently in.”

  “Oh,” I said, snapping back to reality. “Right. Yeah, sorry, we're new here. I'm Gavin and this is my sister, Raven. I'm just auditing but…she's actually in this class.”

  She looked past me at Raven, and then back at me and smiled.

  “Nice to see a few fresh faces here.”

  “Likewise,” I said. “I love your contacts.”

  “My what?” she said.

  “Your contact lenses…I'm just…I'm um…I'm just saying I think they look cool…”

  “Ugh. Humans,” she said, rolling her sparkling, discotheque eyes.

  'Humans'?

  “Wait…what do you mean by 'humans'?”

  “I think she means she's a bit out of your league, dude,” said the guy sitting next to her, on the other side.

  I took a good look at him. He was of average build, with some kind of black emo hairdo which covered half his face. He had an unassuming look about him, aside from the white bull-horns protruding from out his mop of hair.

  That's a weird fashion choice, I thought.

  I hate his kind. One of those guys who waits to be noticed, doesn't, and then resents other guys who don't wait their 'turn' or whatever. Or otherwise just goes straight to resenting the girls for not noticing what a nice white knight in shining armor he is. Prick.

  “Out of my league?” I started, a mask of contempt on
my face. “What does that make you, the goal keep? What sport are we playing, anyway? And here I came to class without my jock strap. Of course that makes me more a danger to you than me really. You might get crushed. Because let me tell you I am huge down there. We're talking, like, I'm big like a tanuki down there.”

  I was pretty proud of my self for pulling that one out of thin air. I mean, I've been here less than twenty-four hours and already I was coming up with great ways to use my expanded vocabulary.

  “Like a tanuki?” asked the blue-haired cutie with the tail. “So…all balls?”

  “Huh? No…that can't be right. Hey, can I see you breastiary?”

  “It's 'bestiary',” she corrected with a amused look.

  “Right. Can I see it? I need to find something with an epic-sized schlong.”

  “Why?” asked the emo goat-man. “Are you some kind of homo?”

  “Yes, I'm a homo. That's why I'm hitting on the girl I just down next to.”

  I turned to Raven.

  “Can you believe this guy?” I said.

  Raven's face was buried in her one hand, and I realized, to our mutual chagrin, that I'd just embarrassed her on our first day of class. Her class, I should say, and not my class.

  And speaking of class, maybe I should show some, instead of being a world class ass.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Gavin, just…” Raven started.

  She put her good hand out to try to gesticulate something, but then gave up.

  “Okay, I'm sorry, Raven. Really, I'm sorry.”

  “I'm Roxanne,” said the cute girl next to me.

  I smiled. “Good to meet you Roxanne,” I said.

  “You can get your own bestiary by connecting to the WiFi network and downloading 'Eerie.'”

  “Eerie?”

  “Spelled E.E.R.I.E. It's the Ectoplasmic Entity Reference Interface Electronica”

  “Oh…and what else can Eerie do?”

  “It knows everything about everything in Bordertown. It's something Professor Braunstein made for easy reference. It's got the bestiary in there…there's a wilderness survival guide. A netherworld survival guide. An interface you can just ask questions. Everything.”