Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1) Read online

  “Wow. Give it to me now!”

  Roxanne smirked and showed me where to go to download the app, then I did the same for Raven.

  I wanted to come up with something clever to say to this total babe with the tail next to me, but before I could, Doctor Braunstein began speaking, and class began.

  Chapter 12

  I half-listened while the doc taught the class, while idly flipping through the various functions of E.E.R.I.E. on my smart phone.

  The bestiary itself looked like it belonged in another century. Somehow, even though it was only scrollable screens on an app, it looked like a real leather-bound book. I opened the 'book', amused by its calligraphous text, and the artwork therein which appeared almost Lovecraftian. It was a veritable tome of the denizens of Bordertown. There seemed to be a page for everything…angels, anubises, arions, asobibis…and that was just the letter A. It went on and on.

  “Awesome,” I said. “Raven, I'm so jealous. Why couldn't we have moved here like five years ago? I'd have loved to get a degree here in monsterology or whatever.”

  “You could always get a second degree now,” she said.

  “Nah, I think I'm overqualified enough for the job market as it is, thanks.”

  I flipped through the pages, looking for an answer to my most-important query. Growing frustrated with how long that might take, I instead took to simply typing into E.E.R.I.E.'s query box: 'What creature has the biggest penis?'

  I got a host of interesting results. Tanukis did get an honorable mention, but the system did find a slough of interesting results too.

  One creature, the liderc, takes on the form of a long-dead lover and proceeds to fuck the literal life force out of its victims. Another, the popobawa, notably a really well-endowed demon, likes to shove his huge wang up your butt while you sleep, until you wake up. Then, when you awaken in the night with an arm-size wang ramming you all the way up to your stomach, he tells you to tell all your friends. Which you do, naturally. Because who wouldn't want to brag about being raped by a demon in the night? Jesus Christ, give me a break…

  There's another entry on the lillisplooshians—not to be confused with lilliputians—woodland pixies who surround you in a giant circle in the woods. They fire mini paralytic arrows at you until you can't move, and then they proceed to have a huge circle jerk around you. Apparently their semen is so high in sodium, that if and when you die—and you do die apparently, since the paralytic agents shut down your respiratory system, so you suffocate while watching a bunch of tiny pixies whack off to your gasping, dying body—your spirit can't escape. Because—and this is another thing I don't quite understand yet—ghosts can't pass across sufficient amounts of salt. For some strange reason.

  I was struck by just how many of these strange creatures seemed to be built around raping people. Was this really the class my sister wanted to be in? Or that I wanted to be in, for that matter?

  I overheard Doc say something troubling. It was about the town in general. He'd been explaining that the town, a community of now several hundred years of age, is a haven for every kind of creature from all corners of the globe who defy 'classical taxonomy.' Apparently, it's just safer this way.

  Of course, maybe part of the problem was, instead of paying attention in class, I'd been reading about a series of rapist demons.

  “But isn't that really irresponsible?” I blurted. “Filling a small town with…well…for lack of a better term…monsters? I mean, no offense, everybody. It's just…I mean, I've just been looking through the bestiary here, and it's like X is the natural predator of Y, Y is the natural predator of Z…And basically everything is the natural predator of humans. I mean, it's like a zoo here, if the zoo had nothing other than lions, tigers and bears. Except even that's not quite accurate because at least in a zoo, apex predators can at least be sectioned off in their own cages.”

  The rest of the class stared at me, wide-eyed. One guy's head seemed to, quite literally, ignite into flames. I looked to my sister, who buried her face in her one hand, looking mortified.

  “That was a faux-pas, wasn't it?” I said sheepishly.

  The professor looked at me flatly.

  “Boychik, just because someone has horns, or a second set of teeth, or acid for blood, that doesn't make him a monster. A monster is someone who preys on the innocent.”

  “But…by that logic, doesn't that make tigers, wolves, and sharks monsters too?”

  “Do you eat chicken and fish, boychik? Does that make you evil?”

  “Uh…”

  “Look, boychik. Maybe what's important isn't so much that we divide everyone, as to come together in a place where we can find opportunities to learn about one another. That's largely why children are afraid of the dark, right? When a child is afraid of the dark, that's normal. It's part of growing up. But then continuing to keep people in the dark, continuing to fear the dark as an adult, that's when it becomes a pathology. That's what needs to stop.”

  “Okay. So why doesn't everyone outside of Bordertown just learn about monsters?”

  “Well, that's the big question isn't it? Let's not get too carried away with the meshuganah ideological…Look, boychik. This place. This town. It isn't here to protect the outside world. It's meant to protect the people you see here from it, all right? You may not know this, but…there are people out there…people outside Bordertown…who hunt us. People who wouldn't hesitate to exterminate every last person in this room. Just for existing. Just for being so different from what they're comfortable with.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn't realize that.”

  I looked around at the supposedly monstrous youths in the room, and realized they were all just kids. Just kids trying to make an honest go of life and fit in somewhere.

  “Here's a little piece of friendly advice, boychik. Before you offend the whole classroom. There is no such thing as a 'regular human.' That's a myth, perpetuated by an ignorant, obtuse, meshuganah hegemony. We are all supernatural in one way or another.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I said.

  “You've spent the last…what…five, ten years seeing spirits? Something that all humans, and oddly something uniquely only humans can do. And you don't think that's supernatural?”

  “Well…I don't know,” I said, looking around. “I mean, can't, like, dogs and cats become ghost too?”

  “Have you ever seen the ghost of a dog or a cat?”

  “Well…I mean…I don't know. I've never been able to catch one if that's what you mean.”

  “No one has. Don't you think that's somewhat indicative that there's something uniquely supernatural about so-called humans?”

  “But…” I started. “But that doesn't make sense.”

  “How doesn't it make sense, boychik?”

  “I mean…it goes against every Darwinian evolutionary principle I know. I mean, humans evolved slowly over time from other primates.”

  “So popular science believes.”

  “It's more than a belief though…I mean, we've got an extensive fossil record of all the creatures going back to point where mammals diverged into dogs, cats, primates, and so on.”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet you only see human ghosts?”

  “That's exactly it, boychik.”

  “But…where did they come from?” I said. “And why don't we see like…Cro-Magnon man-ghosts, and Neanderthal ghosts, and so on?”

  “Now you're asking the right questions boychik. Why indeed.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “So it's…a uniquely human genetic mutation.”

  “That's one theory. Anyway, perhaps we can continue this conversation later. For now, I do have a class to teach.”

  I nodded. “All right. I'm…I'm sorry everyone.”

  I kept my mouth shut for the rest of class.

  Chapter 13

  After class, I turned to speak to Roxanne, the blue-haired hottie with the hypnotic disco-ball eyes and the kitty-cat tail. I had ha
lf a mind to ask her what kind of creature she was exactly. But I wasn't sure if that was appropriate or not. Thinking on it, probably now. I seemed to be putting my proverbial foot in my mouth an awful lot since I got here.

  Roxanne gathered her belongings and got up to go, heading out with the horn-headed emo-boy beside her.

  “Roxanne,” I called after her. “Popobawa.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, turning.

  “It's in the bestiary. I wanted to find something in the bestiary instead of tanuki, remember? I'm basically saying I'm hung like a popobawa.”

  I held up my forearm with my fist turned in.

  “I'm like this,” I added.

  “Ugh,” said Raven, slapping her forehead.

  Roxanne giggled a little, shook her head and turned to go. Her horny (or horn-ed?) male escort just scowled at me, before the two of them disappeared through the doorway.

  Doc came up the steps past us.

  “I'm sorry I argued with you in class, Doc,” I said.

  “No, no, nonsense,” Doc said. “I'm glad you brought that up in here. These are important conversations to have. There's nothing wrong with asking questions. That's what these classes are for. Better you learn it in here than out there.”

  We three stepped outside together.

  In the hallway, I saw a very short man, perhaps only three-and-a-half feet tall, with a goatee and glasses.

  “Dwarves are real too?” I blurted, perhaps just a little too loudly.

  “Wow, Gavin,” said Raven. “Too loud. So loud, and so inappropriate.”

  “No, I just mean…like…what can dwarves do?”

  “Well, for one thing,” said the dwarf, “this particular dwarf has exceptionally good hearing.”

  I gulped as he sauntered up to us. Up closer, I noted he looked a lot like Peter Dinklage might, if he wore a suit and bifocal glasses.

  “As for what I can do, I teach classic literature, creative writing and wood-working.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Cool. Anyway…if you'll excuse me. I have to go…get my foot extracted from my mouth.”

  “You're sure you don't want to enroll, boychik?” the Doc called after me. “You seem like a bright kid. Potentially. You could learn a lot.”

  “I don't know, Doc. I think I've done enough damage here today for a whole semester. And anyway, I've already got one useless degree burning a hole in my pocket.”

  Doc shook his head. “A useless degree…oy vey…”

  I thought for a moment, before turning to go.

  “How much is tuition here, anyway?”

  “It's free for Bordertown residents.”

  “It's…” I trailed off and just stared open mouthed around the building, and then at Raven, who nodded her head. Somehow this confirmation of hers made it seem all the more real. Though I still couldn't quite believe it. “It's free?”

  “Of course, boychik,” said Doc. “You didn't read the town charter?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I should probably get on that.”

  “You think?” said Raven.

  “Shut-up. Man, I've got, like, thirty thousand bucks in student debt, and you're telling me I could have come here for free?”

  “Apparently,” said Doc.

  “Who pays for that?”

  “The community does.”

  “Isn't that a bit…I don't know…unfair?”

  “Unfair to whom, boychik? You think it's fair to put the generation least able to afford an education into decades of financial slavery? With no promise of any job security on the other end? No rational human being would ever agree to that. And then we'd only get the irrational ones enrolling. This seems strange to you?”

  “Well, yeah…I mean…maybe. That just isn't the way things work in the rest of Canada. Or in America, for that matter.”

  It occurred to me I still didn't know whether Bordertown was technically part of Canada or America. I imagined that was probably covered in that charter I still needed to read.

  “But this isn't Canada or America, boychik. This is Bordertown.”

  “And the community's fine with this?”

  “Fine with it? Boychik, when you think about it, when you invest in youngsters getting an education, you're not just investing in their future. You're investing in yours. Say you turn away a youth because he can't afford an education. Maybe that youth was going to turn out to invent a more efficient way of harvesting green energy, or find a cure for…well, whatever's going to kill you. You're a smoker, boychik, so let's say lung cancer. How much of a shtik drek narrishkeit are you going to feel like when you're dying of lung cancer, when you could have invested in that one kid? You didn't just rob him of his future. You robbed yourself of yours. The elders in Bordertown, we understand that. We're all in this together. And expecting students to take on debt so they can be lied to and told they aren't wanted, and that they're in the way…well…it's meshuganah. It's crazy.”

  All I could do was nod. I couldn't believe this guy—no, this whole place—was for real. As crazy as Doc seemed at first, after hearing this, I suddenly felt like he might well now be the sanest man I know. Maybe I'd been looking at the whole jobless thing the wrong way…maybe it was time for me to stop making lame excuses.

  “You wouldn't mind repeating that to my father, would you?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Anyway, I should go, Doc. But I'll think about it. And, um…Doc? Thanks for the class.” I nodded to Raven. “I'll catch you later, Raven.”

  They each returned a slight farewell.

  Then I left.

  Chapter 14

  I spent the next hour or so wandering around Bordertown, getting to know the layout. I wasn’t sure what was more depressing: the fact that I couldn’t think of anything better to do than that, or the fact that it only took an hour before I knew every major landmark of this small, woefully isolated town.

  I headed back to the Heaven-Eleven to restock on cigs. I got a newspaper too while I was there. I stepped outside, lit up a cig, and sat down with the paper.

  I just wanted to mind my own business and read the classifieds, but the smoking ghost-boys had other ideas.

  “Your sister’s a fuckin' hottie, eh?” said one of them.

  “Does she have a boyfriend?” asked another. “You think she could come hang out with us sometime?”

  “She’s got nothing in common with any of you,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked the third.

  “What do you mean ‘what’s that supposed to mean?’” I said. “You’re dead. She’s not. She’s in school. You’re not. I can’t even begin to imagine…no. I don't even want to imagine what you guys think you could do with her anyway. I’m pretty sure you can't touch one another. Pretty sure…”

  I trailed off for a second, wondering about that. Was ghost sex even possible? I shook my head. The point seemed sort of moot. Not to say disturbing.

  “Anyway,” I continued. “It’s not like you could actually get into any kind of relationship with her, let alone first base.”

  “What do you mean?” said the boy with the backwards ball cap. “She’s got one perfectly good hand.”

  “Ha-ha, yeah,” said another. “She could give us each a handy.”

  Say what you will about the crass, inappropriate stuff I say. I would never say something like that.

  “That’s not funny!” I shouted.

  It was far louder than I’d meant to, but jokes about my sister’s missing limb somehow seemed incredibly mean. Especially if they were sexual. Even if she wasn’t here to hear them. I was livid.

  “Don’t you dare ever let me catch you making jokes about my sister’s hand like that again. Ever! I mean it! She’s had a hard life. She feels pain every goddamn day. She doesn’t need complete pieces of shit like you making light of the fact she’s had a horrible accident. And even if you weren’t dead, she’d be way out of your league anyway, because she’s worth about
six hundred of you. And if I ever hear any horseshit like that come out of your mouths again, so help me, when I die, I’m coming back for all three of you, and you’re all getting atomic fucking wedgies.”

  “Fine! Jesus…” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I mean, she really—”

  “Stop talking,” I said, “just…just stop it. Just…shut your stupid mouths. You sound stupid when you open them.”

  I simply glared at all three of them.

  None of them spoke again. I glared a bit longer, long enough for them all to look away, and then went back to reading my paper. After that, the boys seemed to lose interest and drifted off to pester some of the other neighborhood ghosts. There sure seemed to be a lot of them around here. Ghosts, that is. I wondered at the population on the sign—the number 66,000. Was that including, or not including ghosts?

  I was perusing the classifieds when I first heard his voice. The voice of the other ghost. The one I’d apparently missed the first time around.

  “You know, the newspaper’s hiring.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I said, looking towards the pile of cigarette butts, trying to see where exactly it was even creating sound from.

  “The newspaper,” he repeated. “The Bordertown Chronicle.”

  I focused intensely on the mass of cigarettes in front of me.

  “Hey,” he said in a gruff voice “didn’t your daddy ever teach you it ain’t polite to stare?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to…I’ve just never...”

  “Ah, forget it. Allow me to introduce myself. Name’s Ashley. Ashley Pyle.”

  “Ashley Pyle?” I said, and considered the name. “It suits you.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass. Everybody here just calls Ash.”

  “Okay Ash,” I said, nodding like an idiot who’d just put his proverbial foot in his mouth. Yet again.

  “You got a cigarette?” he asked.