The Deadman's Reach Novelette

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Chapter Eight

Unlimited Refills

"Look, here's the deal," the old ghost said to Allen as they turned toward the sound of the charging bear. "You're dead. Well, nearly dead, but I guess you figured that out."

Allen opened his eyes and saw the brown bear snuffling its snout into the old man's container of clam dip. The old man nodded as he spoke. "When you're nearly dead, you are haunted by the beings most deserving of love." The old man reached up and patted the huge muscled hump of the bear and walked down off the curb to go around it. "I know that sounds bass ackwards. You probably figured that post-life you would get to do the haunting, but that's not the way it is and don't ask me why. I don't know."

Allen shook his head. "And you are...?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Bob." The old ghost held out his hand but when Allen reached out to clasp it their grip dissolved. The old man grinned. "You know, I love that. I never get tired of being dead," he tittered.

"What does that button mean: No Irony?" Allen asked. The old ghost shook his head patiently but with a slight gesture of irritation. "This? Well I don't really know. I do know God loves irony." The old ghost sidestepped a family of blacktailed deer walking up the sidewalk. Allen followed as the old ghost kept on. "I mean, that must be pretty obvious. How else can you explain most of human behavior: 'natural' food, wilderness preserves, decaffeinated coffee for crying out loud! I mean, God just loves irony...hates sarcasm...but loves irony."

"Then why does your button say 'No Irony'?"

The old ghost stood flat-footed and stared at him. The black-footed ferret lifted up his head dreamily. "You're kidding, right?" the ghost asked.

"Then there really is a God?" Allen asked timidly.

Bob the No Irony ghost let out an exasperated sigh. "Let's get you really dead first and then we'll go on to the God thing. You're not ready for the big picture just yet."

"Okay. So how do I get all the way dead then?" Allen asked, truly not knowing the answer.

"You have to prove your love for the deserving spirits," Bob the No Irony ghost said matter-of-factly as he sidestepped a group of tiny snail darters wriggling in the damp air ahead of him.

"And how do I do that?" Allen asked, beginning to get a little peeved.

"Hey, fella!" Bob the No Irony ghost shouted. "This isn't an open book quiz, you know! I don't just give out the answers. You have a little bit of responsibility here." "I'm sorry," Allen said, and his voice was soft. For the first time since his murder Allen was going to cry.

"Now don't sulk," the ghost said. He stood back and watched as Allen's shoulders slumped and his lower lip started to quiver. "Oh, cut it out," said Bob the No Irony ghost. "I'll help you. I'll help you. First we have to find the people who made you nearly dead in the first place." He tried to put his arm around Allen's shoulder as they stepped right through a crewman off the Ginny C who was showing a stunned tourist lady his new T-shirt.

Chapter Nine

A Shot Of The Unusual

Allen and Bob the No Irony ghost sat in the back of the crowded gallery. Pietro was going to give a reading from his performance piece that accompanied the "New World Roadkill" show: free verse poetry he called "My Interesting Life with Trees." Outside it was raining hard on the streets of Ketchikan. The bars were crowded with laughing women and the air was filled with the ghosts of the truly dead and deserving.

Allen was only nearly dead, but still he didn't think he could sit through the reading. He watched the assorted crowd of vivid and near vivid living people file into the gallery.

"I don't get it," Allen turned to the old ghost. "If I can only see the ones most deserving of love, why can I see Pietro at all? I mean, the guy is a jerk and a terrible artist to boot."

Bob the No Irony ghost scratched the black-footed ferret around his neck and said, "Well, he may be a terrible artist, and he may even be a murderer, but he must be deserving of at least some love or you wouldn't be able to see him at all."

"Are there a lot of people I can't see at all?" asked Allen, his voice becoming wistful.

"No. Hardly any," the old ghost answered. "But I wouldn't go to any political conventions. It's scary." Allen looked at him, clearly distressed and confused. "I'm kidding," Bob the No Irony ghost said. Then he jabbed Allen with his elbow, or at least tried to but without effect because they both had insubstantial forms. "Look. There's your really vivid girl." Willa walked in. She looked beautiful, and Allen thought he would have noticed her even if he hadn't been dead. She was short and on the stout side, but this evening her skin was radiant and her eyes sparked with a heat that made Allen long to be able to touch her. She was accompanied by the young patrol officer who had been in Allen's apartment in the morning. Willa wore a yellow shirt and a red sweater. The young policeman was in civilian clothes and looked much younger than he did in uniform and creaking leather belt.

Pietro came out and stood between two video monitors. He had a green sheaf of papers he was intending to read from. He scanned the crowd like a maitre d' at an exclusive restaurant, scowling as if he knew they were undeserving of the treat which lay in store for them. The patrol officer got up and went to speak to the owner of the gallery. Pietro's eyes followed him nervously. The gallery owner nodded her head in agreement and gestured toward the back storage rooms. The young patrol officer thanked her and headed down the narrow hallway, where earlier in the morning Pietro had burned the bloody clothes. Pietro edged toward the door.

"I will be beginning soon," Pietro intoned, and the crowd began to settle. He edged toward the door. "But first I have to step outside." And he bolted for the door.

Willa sprang for him, grabbing his ankles, but he broke free into the night where a sad-eyed bison ambled down the boardwalk in the rain.

"Does this mean we don't have to listen to him read?" a woman asked her date, as everyone else happily got up to leave.

Chapter Ten

Weird 'Till The Last Drop

Allen and Bob the No Irony ghost ran through the rainy streets of Ketchikan. By now Allen had noticed he was able to see animals crowding the landscape: fish flying in the air, species nearly or completely extinct walking down the middle of crowded streets. Up to this point he hadn't thought much of it, perhaps because he had been distracted by his own death. But in the dark, the spirits of the animals pressed in around him more vividly: billions of fish, birds and insects, looming in the dark like neon kites, bobbing, curling; halibut, stickleback trout, blackcod cutting through the vertical lines of rain; geese, and cranes, hummingbirds and clouds of winged beetles all nosed in around the edges of the night as if the unseen world were crowded with the spirits of the loving dead.

"Wow! This is weird," Allen puffed as he ran down the slick boardwalk after his murderer.

"Wait 'till you move on," Bob the no irony ghost said evenly and without showing any real strain. "It's awesome."

Pietro ran around the corner of the waterfront bar into a row of tiny houses that were built on the edge of the dock. He slammed the door, yet Allen and Bob the No Irony ghost walked right through.

Cindy was in Pietro's arms. They were kissing, a long and slow embrace that made Allen twitch with impatience. When they broke the clasp, Cindy took a long breath. Allen could hear the rain pattering down on the tin roof.

"They're going to catch me, aren't they?" Her eyes were bloodshot from crying. Desperate. "Pietro, you're a wizard. Do something."

"Do something!" Pietro whined. "I already burned your clothes. I cleaned the apartment. I've missed my reading. Isn't that enough? You know, I got a grant to underwrite that reading. How much more do you want from me?" "I'm going to want your skinny little butt in jail!" Willa said as she strode like a gunfighter into the room.

Cindy turned, shrieking at the squatty, dark-haired woman.

"Keep away from me you...you...ugly person!" Cindy charged, hitting Willa with a force that surprised everyone in the room, both living and dead.

They tumbled out onto the dock and rolled on the wet timbers. "I never loved him. I never loved him," Cindy shrieked, as her blond hair, now mottled with tar, twisted around her head.

The women wrestled across the dock and hit the bullrail on the edge. Willa sat astraddle Cindy's chest and raised her fist to strike. Allen could hear the squelching of a police radio somewhere in the dark. Just as Willa brought her fist down, Cindy arched her back, tumbling Willa off the edge where she fell twenty feet into the black water.

Allen ran down the steps to the water's edge. He held his unsubstantial arms out to the bubbles blossoming to the surface. "Oh God. Oh God...." he mumbled helplessly, as an eerie flatfish with both eyes on one side of its head flew by in the air, dispassionately watching at least half the scene.

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