A Tale in Distress

[Lagmonster]

I've wanted to post this for years, but I never really had a reason to. Then I realized, I don't need one. Ironically, it takes place in the same universe as my previous story, 101M, but...oh...about 85 million years earlier.

P.S. I like feedback; I even like feedback consisting entirely of, "YOU SUCK, LAG!"


A Tale in Distress

Johnathan Tale awoke to a loud, sharp crash, as of breaking glass. He sat bolt upright in bed, frantically reaching for his bedside lamp in the still darkness. His fingers shifted over the bedside table, but whether from nervousness or the darkness, he couldn’t quite find the tiny lamp that had been at his bed side for most of his quiet life.

There was a thump, followed by a muttering, Tale could hear. Some light cursing followed.

Tale lived alone. He had always lived alone. When he went to work, he had worked alone as a key maker. When he got sick, he stayed home, alone. He didn’t mind being alone, even when he got sick. Once, not long ago, he'd become so sick that he'd spent months drifting in and out of sleep; he could barely remember when he got well again. Since then, he'd retired, as business just hadn't been the same.

Another thump. Downstairs! A burglar! His mind raced frantically. His phone was downstairs – no way to call the police. He owned no weapons. He looked around the room; in the darkness, and his own startled state of mind, he couldn’t remember where anything was. Did he have a baseball bat? Yes? No? He thought so…he had one, once. Was it in the closet? He couldn’t remember. Maybe the garage…

This was hardly the first time a burglar had come into his home. For years he’d thought about moving to a better neighbourhood; this one had certainly gone downhill. He was old now, and didn’t need to go out as often. As much as he could, Tale preferred to stay indoors. The neighbourhood had become a scary place, with unfamiliar neighbours and rude, unhelpful people. He was much happier indoors.

As quietly as he could, he slipped off the bed and cracked the door to his bedroom open. Everything in the tiny hallway was dark, but he could see a bright light coming up from downstairs. Whoever was in his house had turned on the lamps downstairs, and was moving about, muttering and cursing. There was a crunch as of someone walking on broken glass, and a loud yelp. They must have broken the window to get in!

Gingerly, Tale inched down the hall to the top of the stairwell. His mind was focused on the noises downstairs; at this moment, to him, even his own house seemed scary and alien – the wallpaper he’d put up as a youth and seen every bright morning, seemed to change colour and pattern as his mind raced, as though through some malevolent force tied to the invader downstairs he was no longer in the comforting surroundings he’d lived in all his life.

He peeked over the stairwell. At the base of the straight stairwell, he could see well into his quaint living room. There, kneeling on the floor was a man. He was kneeling in front of a wide spray of glass shards; a small bouquet of flowers lay in a puddle at their centre. A vase, knocked over by the intruder.

Tale grimaced. He’d always liked vases. He had owned one that his mother had given him, a white vase with butterflies painted on it, not a clear glass one. He’d somehow forgotten about that one. But now it was in pieces across his floor, his normally clean, wonderful hardwood floor – that he’d laid himself, no less.

The burglar picked at the pieces and muttered again. Tale grimaced. His outrage over having had his peace, quiet, home, and property so vandalized and invaded began to overwhelm his initial panic. The man still hadn’t seen or heard him, hadn’t moved. His back was to the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, the foyer was just to the left. If he moved quietly, Tale figured he could slip out the front door and run for help.

He got to the bottom of the stairs and froze. The man was getting up! Tale’s mind was torn – should he run for the door, and risk his back to the burglar? Was the man armed? Should he stay and fight? Not again! He didn’t remember what he’d done the last time this had happened; it had been a while.

Tale panicked as the strange man turned to face him. He was one of those, probably an immigrant looking to break into honest people’s houses and steal their things. Tale had heard about such things on the news, years ago. Tale began to sweat, rooted in place. He could barely remember where anything was. Did he have a knife in the kitchen? Which way was the kitchen? He couldn’t remember.

The strange man looked down at something in his hand – it was a piece of glass from the shattered vase. A huge, wicked looking triangle with a sharp gashing edge. The strange man looked up. He seemed angry, unfocused, staring off past Tale with a grim stare that was focused on nothing in particular. I bet he’s on drugs! Tale thought.

The man began advancing towards Tale. There was no hurry in his step, no charge. The man simply closed the few metres with a purposeful march, his eyes roving to the sharp glass blade in his hand.

“Get out!” shrieked Tale, his nerve broken. “Get out! I won’t stand for this! I won’t!!” The man never flinched, didn’t stop. Didn’t answer.

Two metres. One.

Tale roared; a sudden release of panic, fears, and anger all at once. Something in Tale became strong, became angry. He lunged. The man finally reacted; his eyes widened suddenly, his mouth opened to scream. The large glass shard fell onto the ground. It shattered as it struck, tiny chips of glass, crystalline sand, sprayed out over the ground.


*** ***

The two detectives were tired, one of them just a little drunk. They hadn’t expected to be on duty so late, but when the word came they’d had to drop everything in their respective lives – family, friends – and hustle. They surveyed the living room and its grisly contents, illuminated only by the washing red and blue of the rotating lights on the police car parked outside the shattered window.

The first pulled off a sweaty ball cap and rubbed his temples with his free hand. “If it’s not a genuine victim, it’s a fuckin’ good copycat.” He said.

“There’s too little public info for a copycat, Malone.” Said the other, taking the first’s statement too literally. “It has to be a sixth. Poor guy looks like he was caught in a demolition derby.”

“It’s bullshit that the landlord could get anyone to pay money to live here. Five dead in two years, four of them murders, same house, same method? Now six. Motherfucker must have a snake’s tongue to con people into coming back. Should’a just knocked the place down, put up a crackhouse. Least then we’d know why people were getting slashed.”

“Nothing more to do for now. Let’s get this thing wrapped up, let the boys come in and pick up the pieces, get them to the morgue.”

In a corner, Tale was standing, holding his head, tears streaming down his face. He had so much to clean; all the mess. The furniture was broken. It didn’t even look like it had ever been his, the destruction was so total.

Tale didn’t like the police – they never talked to him, never acknowledged him. They stormed about doing this and that, touching things, and they never came back to protect him before bad things happened to him. He yelled at them; he didn’t mean to, but he was just so scared, and so tired. He yelled at them to just get out of his home, he had so much to clean.

They never listened.

[LadyTevar]

And THAT, boys & girls, is how you do a Ghost Story from the viewpoint of the ghost.

[Lagmonster]

I honestly thought I hadn't telegraphed it well enough.

[LadyTevar]

It was the burglar's reaction that did it, and confirmed by the cops. The bit about how Tale wasn't sure how he survived the last sickness was Checkov's Gun, and very well placed indeed.

[Jeremy]

This is one of the best short stories I've read.

Thank you for posting it!

[Lagmonster]

Chapter 2: Johnny Come Home

Tale blinked his eyes. It was darker now than it was a moment ago. The police were gone. How long had he stood there, sobbing? He didn’t remember. It couldn’t have been that long, but…

He looked around the living room. He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus. One of these days, he’d need glasses, because the world had an indistinct, blurry quality to it. He could just make out where his furniture was, but it seemed foggy somehow. If he didn’t know better, he was in an empty, dusty room and his furniture was just flitting in and out of his imagination. He tried to focus, and he could see his favourite chair and his radio.

Tale took a step out of the corner where he’d been standing…how long? The chair winked out again. Something was very wrong. The mess had been cleaned. At least the police were good for something. Tale shook his head, feeling tired. He thought for a moment that he must be half-dreaming, and that he should go back to bed. He turned to ascend the stairs.

“Eight months, kid.” Said a voice.

Tale spun around. There were no lights on in the living room and the window…the window had been boarded up. With a start, Tale saw his living room clearly for the first time – it was entirely empty. The floor was covered with a fine layer of dust, and nothing but an old coat rack stood off, lonely, in the far foyer. Other than that, the small, plain room was completely devoid of furniture.

Tale sputtered. What had happened? Where was his furniture? Had the police taken it? Then he remembered the voice.

“H…hello?” he called out.

“That’s how long you’ve been out. Eight months.” There was a pause as Tale looked around the empty room, shocked. “I’m over here, doofus.” Returned the strange voice. It was gritty and deep, like the owner had spent a lifetime spent sucking cheap cigars. There was a cough. “If you’ll stop trying to see the real world, you might notice the guy wavin’ at you. Step back a minute, let your eyes unfocus.”

Tale was unaccustomed to taking orders from invisible people. He was, however, a lot more tired than he had been a moment ago. He stared fixated at the sheet of wood nailed up over his broken window.

He stared a long minute, then started to feel tired again. He sat down on the bottom step of his stairwell and shook his head. He closed his eyes and moaned.

“That’s better.” Said the voice.

Tale snapped open his eyes and looked up. He was still in his home, sitting on the bottom step, but things looked…right. The window was fixed, and bright light was coming in. His furniture was back, where it ought to be.

And a strange man was standing in his foyer.

This man didn’t look anything like the burglars he’d found in his home over the past few years. And didn’t look anything like anyone he’d ever known. For starters, the man’s outfit was severely outdated. The man was wearing an immaculate black business suit at least sixty years out of style and a wide-brimmed hat. He had a squat, muscular shape, with short legs and long arms like a gorilla. When he noticed Tale staring at him, the man flashed a yellow smile.

“What, no hello? No onrushing murderous frenzy, kid? What, you are gonna disappoint a guy? I understand, don't worry. After all, you had to have been dying to meet me.” The man grinned. “Aww, don’t bother to get up.”

Tale found, with a start, that he couldn’t. “Maxwell Jape, kid.” He extended a hand, then retracted it. "Oops, kinda forgot there." Jape's eyes were filled with a ruthless mirth.

“What’s…” started Tale. With a flash, the man called Jape waved his hand, and Tale found he couldn’t talk, either.

“Good question. Right to the point. Don’t interrupt me here, kid, I’m like a flea in a tumbling biscuit barrel: on a roll." His eyes seemed to twinkle. “You are, put bluntly, kinda dead.”

Tale rolled his eyes, fighting, sweating, trying to move, to talk, to do anything.

Jape continued. “I don’t really want to explain it for the five hundredth time, so I’m gonna say my peace and let you sort it out on your own.” Jape pointed at one of Tale’s chairs. The chair swivelled as though animate and trotted over to Jape. The man sat, facing Tale as he stared, paralyzed and afraid.

“Now, here’s something you don’t know.” continued Jape, remorselessly. “There are three kinds of being dead. There’s the completely dead. Those are minds that don’t exist anymore. They’re either too old, or they’ve lost their grip on whatever keeps them around, or they weren’t strong enough to continue to exist in the first place.” He giggled. “That’s why you don’t ever see any ghost kids.”

Tale moaned, trying to cover his ears. The voice came through anyway. You don’t HAVE ears. Tale wanted to cry, realized that he couldn’t have.

Jape pressed onwards. “The second type are the honest dead. They’re loafers. Listless rubes who prowl the earth pretending to be alive. They imagine their stuff still exists, tell jokes, pretend to eat, sleep, and play. They can’t touch the living world at all, but they don’t leave it until they become completely dead. That usually happens after a person’s mind gets too foggy. They just get tired of being around. Then they aren’t.”

“Next up we have wiseguys like me. I’m what you’d call the barely dead. They call us J’nn, because when they named us, there weren’t no Englishmen around to correct them. Those of us who aren’t so old call ourselves Chiefs. We’re kinda special. There aren’t many of us. We outlast the others, and we can do things they can’t. We’re only half-dead, you see. Part of us is still alive. Don’t have a way to explain it, but as you can tell, we play with other dead like they’re puppets. There are whole clans of Chiefs out there, collect spirits like you to be part of their own personal religion, or nation, or whatever. And you don’t have no choice. Chiefs can make the dead do anything we like.”

Jape raised an arm. Without thinking about why, Tale did the same. Jape flicked a wrist. Tale bopped himself on the head. For a moment, Tale thought it hurt, but it was just a phantom pain. All in his head. Jape looked amused. Tale just sobbed.

“Buck up. Be thankful, kid. Lot of Chiefs are real nasty customers, make the dead do all kinds of lewd stuff. I’m actually a decent guy. Never hurt anyone in my life who didn’t deserve it.” Jape changed tone again, got serious. “Now, there’s another side to us half-dead. That’s you. Some of them – not many, and they tend to wear down quick to all dead – can’t touch us spirits, but they can touch the real world. That’s you. We saw what you did to those honest men.”

Tale shrieked, finding his voice. “I didn’t do anything to anyone!”

Jape laughed. “You want me to go ask them? At least one of them is honest dead, went home to his grandmother’s place in Wichita. Just a few days’ walk for a guy who doesn’t eat or sleep.” He leaned down, blinked. Without wanting to, Tale raised his head to look Jape in the eyes. “You’re a real special find, boy.” He muttered, “And you an’ me, we’re gonna have some laughs.”

[LadyTevar]

Now this is interesting... a mythology starts.

[Lagmonster]

Chapter 3: Homefires Burning

Jonathan Tale felt like a tool. A literal tool. For the better part of a month, Jape made him stand up, sit down, walk in circles, and dance. It all seemed rather pointless, but Jape insisted that repetition helped him hone his control by getting a good grip on the others’ mind.

Through it all Tale marched like a man in a dream. He neither slept nor ate; the exhaustion he’d felt while flitting between whatever simulacrum of his old life he was in and the pitiable leftovers of the real world he’d left behind – where he’d suffered and caused so much suffering without wishing to – was gone. This was only his body, however; his spirits were damp, like he’d been caught in a heavy rain. The colours drained from his surroundings; they no longer seemed cheery, like home.

Tale could only remember parts of his ‘visits’ back to the real world from the stagnant mental image of it that he inhabited, but he didn’t try too hard. He knew on one hand that Jape encouraged this, that the man couldn’t touch him if he left for the living, but on the other hand, Tale was too deep in self-pity to want to revisit the scenes of his apparent crimes.

But something was changing in Tale. As a man aware of his fate becomes more steadily resigned to it and able to regain control of his life, so to did the very clear picture of his own unfortunate death and unexpected afterlife slowly begin to take root in Tale. The man called Jape was no fool; he started introducing ‘chores’ to keep Tale busily taking care of his ‘home’ in between silly acts, in an effort to keep him focussed on his existence in the other side.

One day, however, when Jape was sitting back in Tale’s chair, ordering Tale to sweep the floor, something happened.

Tale was standing, sweeping. Perhaps it was the mind-numbing nature of the chore. Tale always liked cleaning; he hated a mess. There was something calming and relaxing and purposeful about cleaning the floor, and Tale felt almost calm, like he was doing the chore because he wanted to, rather than because he was compelled to.

Today there seemed to be far more dust on the floor than there should have been. The whole living room floor, to his mind, seemed covered in a thin layer of grey. “Nasty mess.” Said Tale.

Jape sat bolt upright. “What’s that? Huh?” Tale ignored him. The voice of Jape seemed less authoritarian, less imperative to follow. Tale continued sweeping.

Jape stood. “Uh, alright, kid, that’s enough for one day. Let’s go handle something else.” He waved a hand.

Tale continued to sweep, a small smile on his face. Jape took a step forward. “I SAID...” There was nothing else. The dust on the ground, under Tale’s gaze, took on a sharp reality rather than the hazy glare he’d been used to for all this time since the man had walked unbidden into his home. The colours dimmed, and the house took on sharper corners and thick shadows.

Tale blinked, looked up. The furniture was gone. Everything was gone. The board on the window was broken off, and debris littered the floor. To his left, the foyer door was bent off its hinges, and graffiti was sprayed all over his once fine living room walls.

He was vaguely aware of a tug in his mind; the voice of Jape continued like the final reverberation of an echo in the farthest corners of his consciousness. And Tale realized with a start that, if what he’d been told by Jape was at all true, he was really home.

Tale stood there in his living room for what seemed like an eternity. He wasn’t sure what to do, where to go. He wasn’t sure he actually had anywhere else TO go. He knew that somewhere, Jape and possibly other people were waiting for him, wanting him. Tale didn’t like that. On the other hand, he didn’t know how long he could stay here before he felt tired again. What was it Jape had called them? The all-dead. That sounded a lot worse than ghost, spirit, or whatever you please.

After another moment’s contemplation, Tale thought he could begin to hear the faint wafts of music. It started out like an uneasy feeling, as though the sound wasn’t quite sure how to get from the air to his brain, but the more he tried, the more he could make it out. It sounded heavy, like a love song written by drumming barbarians. It was also coming from his bedroom.

He gingerly took a step. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet, but his foot seemed to stop where the floor started. He didn’t float off or fall through the floor. So far, so good. Another step. Three more and he was near the bedroom. The door was chipped, but serviceable. He reached out for the knob, failed, tried again. For the briefest moment he swore he could feel the metal against his palm. Then he took a moment, breathed deeply, and plunged his head forward.

He didn’t meet the resistance he’d expected. Instead, he found himself staring at darkness. A bit further forward, and he was staring into his own bedroom. Better…but…Nothing was left but an old bedframe he didn’t recognize and a smashed chest of drawers. The bedframe had been shoved aside, and on the floor was a scene that made Tale both curious and disturbed.

It was a young man and a young woman; both decked out in black denim and leathers, lying on a sleeping bag and surrounded by lit candles. The young man, likely in his early twenties, was pawing the girl heavily. A thick smell of stale beer and sweat started to penetrate the haze between the air and Tale’s mind, and he could almost feel a tender heat from the candles.

The girl was almost entirely passed out, a glass bottle clutched in one hand and trailing some unimportant booze out onto the floor. The boy was also very clearly drunk, but still at least somewhat focussed on his conquest. He fumbled with her clothes clumsily, cursed lightly, and rolled her over.

Tale had dignity, if not smarts. He was a man of detail and prudence, not wit and wisdom. “Young man…” he started, then stopped. He was sure the young man couldn’t hear him even if he’d been sober. Tale tensed. “YOUNG MAN?” he asked, speaking firmly and directly.

The response was instantaneous: the boy continued to ignore him. Tale looked about; nothing but the two pieces of furniture. He strode over to the broken wooden drawers. On the floor, the boy’s motions were becoming more insistent. The girl hadn’t woken up. Off to one side, Tale noticed a bottle of what looked like medicine that had rolled into a corner. He didn’t know what ‘benzodiazepines’ were.

Reaching downwards, he tried to grab at one of the pieces of wood hanging off of the wooden drawers. He failed, tried again. Now he stared hard. He was beginning to get angry; the frustration was over-writing his general hazy exhaustion, and he struck his arm downwards. He felt a strong impact up his arm for just a moment, and it was enough; the wooden drawer splintered under his hand as though Tale had become a karate master like on TV. The remains of the fractured furniture collapsed and pulverized.

“What the FUCK?” yelled the man, startled. He all but leapt backwards away from the suddenly splintered furniture. In his mad scuttle, he knocked aside a handful of the lit candles that surrounded the makeshift sleeping area. With a burst, the various stains and old wood lit aflame.

“No, shit, no!” yelled the young man. There was a trace of fire on his sleeve, now. On the floor, the flame had quickly spread to the corner of the sleeping bag where the girl lolled, oblivious. With a scream, the young man grabbed at his sleeve, dashing it against the wall.

Everything had happened so quickly; Tale shook himself from the shock and stepped towards the boy. “Let me help!” he said, ineffectually. With a shout, however, the half-drunk boy took off like a bolt, throwing open the bedroom door and dashing outwards. There was a thump, a loud scream, and a loud crash, and Tale looked around to see that the boy had tripped over something…a broom left on the living room floor. The boy did not move, and smoke wafted up from his now-extinguished sleeve.

There was a roar underneath him. Tale looked down and saw himself standing in a nicely toasting fire. He felt nothing, merely startled at the sight of the glowing flames passing in and out of his legs, casting shadows as though he were both transparent and not at the same time. The girl moaned, stirred. There was nothing Tale could do, the flames would reach her in a moment. Tale cast about frantically, saw the fractured furniture. Tale was not a man given to thinking his actions through; when he was scared, he cowered. When threatened, he lunged. When desperate, he moved. And let fortune see him safe.

Tale raised both hands like Superman about to take flight, pointed himself at the outer wall, and charged. There was a momentary drag, as though he was being held back by an incredible gust of wind. He took another step forward, fighting the gale. A curve of cloud appeared before him; there was a loud crack.

With an incredible heave, the wall buckled outwards. Metal and wood that had stood solid even in the face of advancing rot bent out, flew aside, or snapped. In another moment, Tale found himself staring at a two-metre wide hole in his wall, as though a car had been driven through it.

The fire was up the far wall, now, and creeping towards the living room. The girl was only inches from the flame. Tale stood behind her, and shoved. His hands passed through her as though she were nothing, but her weight shifted. Gingerly, a lunge at a time, he struggled, not wanting to blast her outwards, he shoved her. She rolled, scraped, and bounced across the warming floor, choking on the rising smoke. A foot at a time, he shoved her. Finally, as the flames spread faster than he could move her, Tale closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and shoved. Her body went whirling like a pinwheel out of the hole in the wall and rolled end over end several feet onto the lawn.

Tale kneeled, exhausted as though every effort took his breath away, in the midst of the flaming wreck that was his house. He tried to stand up, couldn’t. He tried to take a breath, couldn’t. The sharp outline of the burning room began to waver, and his vision began to swim. Slowly, he swore he could begin to see the outlines of the fire dim, and could almost make out his old bed taking shape in the centre of the room.

“Gotcha!” called Jape.

[Lagmonster]

Chapter 4: Slavery

Tale was back in his house…his old house? New house? What did he call it…the unreal world? Whatever it was, he was in the wrong place – he was on the ceiling. Somehow, when he’d crossed back over, Jape had been there, and caused him to stick to his own ceiling as though it were made of thick molasses. Tale pulled in vain, trying to move his arms and legs.

Below, Jape stared up at him with a grimace. “Kid, you gots a lot to learn about the way things are done around here.”

“My…my house.” Tale sputtered.

Jape giggled. “It ain’t your house, kid. You should have figured that out by now. It was your house, maybe. Then it was the house of a bunch of other people, people you tore apart. Now it’s nobody’s house.” He paused, wagged a finger upwards. “By the way, you rack up quite the count. You’re a real monster, you know that?”

“No…”

“Oh no? Then who’s THAT?” asked Jape, pointing to the bedroom. There, near the door, a young man in black was laying on the floor…THAT young man. He appeared to be breathing shallowly, but he seemed indistinct, almost like a reflection in a pond.

“No…” Tale repeated, sobbing.

“He’s not gonna be around for long, kid. I’ve seen it before; poor constitution. Not even worth waking him up. He’ll be all dead in a few minutes. Just fade away like smoke.”

“Do something!” Tale pleaded.

“Whaddya think I am, God? I couldn’t help him if I wanted to. Frankly, I think the dead have done enough for him today, don’t you?” Tale began crying uncontrollably. “Aw, give it a rest, kid. Look, if it’ll shut off your blubber-fountain, the kid was a serial rapist. Think of what you did as justice.”

Tale just wept, hanging from the ceiling, his shaggy blond hair dangling around his face, getting in his eyes. He never did anything bad to anybody, ever. Nothing he’d meant to. He didn’t know if Jape was lying or telling the truth, or if it mattered. As if reading his mind, Jape continued, loving the sound of his own voice. “Some dead, they have trouble figuring out the ropes. Me, now, I knew I was dead right off. Vinny H put a bullet between my eyes, BAM, dead. And hell, I deserved it. Some of the old guys figure that helped me stick around; the oldest ones are the guys who knew it was coming, who were prepared for it and expected to wake up dead. We got lots of screwed up pigeons around here. Not too many suicides though, turns out they don’t want to exist anywhere.

Now, mostly, guy dies fighting, denying it’ll happen, scared out of his wits and refusing to just lay down and take it, they go all-dead quick. Just can’t handle it; no tenacity. But take a guy who goes peaceful in his sleep, doesn’t KNOW he’s a dead guy, he might stick around for a long time causing problems because, basically, guy thinks he’s still alive, so he goes around acting like it. Guys like that can do queer things. Guys like you.”

Tale looked over to where the young man had been. Now, there was only a faint outline of a man, drawn in haze.

Jape looked pensive, and then waved upwards. “Now, obviously I can’t keep tabs on you if you decide to head back and ruin a whole bunch of lives. I can see the real world, being all half-dead, but I can’t go there. But I figure you for the sort of guy who might rather stick around here and play with a guy like me, than head back there and accidentally shove a bus full of nuns into a river, you see?”

Tale hung on the not-ceiling of his not-house, his mind swirling and at a loss to come to grips with an answer or a plan. He tried to think, couldn’t. His mind was a mess of stutters. So he did the only thing that came to mind; he shrieked, a pealing note of despair.

The result was particularly satisfying – every piece of furniture in his warm, hazy, comforting facsimile of his old life suddenly shook as if trembling in an earthquake. A few paintings fell. But most importantly – Jape stepped back. There was a wavering look about him, and Jape seemed to be considering something. A sour look came over his face, and he lifted his hand. With a crash, Tale came falling down from the ceiling. He lay where he fell; in no pain, not even the breath knocked out of him, but he didn’t want to get up.

Jape looked pensive. He slowly ambled across the floor to Tale’s favourite armchair, and took a seat. For a moment, he stroked his bald chin. When he spoke, it was slowly and with careful enunciation, losing much of his drawl.

“Most people have something holding them back. Could be a wife, kids. People who just want to live, they don’t stick around here – like I said, no tenacity for death. You have to want to do something, being dead, or else you have to not know you’re dead. What I told you earlier was true…guys like you, they burn bright and fast. That’s why you never heard of a haunting that lasts – one or two encounters, guy’s done. That’s because near as I can figure, a guy needs to not know he’s dead to do that kind of stuff in the real world, and it’s not hard to figure out unless you’re a real hermit. Kinda also explains why hauntings persist in remote, vacated places. Less likely a guy’ll figure out he’s dead.”

Jape took a deep breath, gummed his lips together like he wished he had a cigar in his teeth. “That’s why I made sure to show you that you were dead straight off – I needed to see that you’re not just a one-pop sucker. I need a guy like you, because I’ve got things that need doing. Lots of guys here need things done. But you’ll work for me, because I found you first, and I’ve bound you.”

Jape sat back, spread his arms. Some of his jagged mirth seemed to return. “I ain’t heartless, kid. I guess you might say I’m almost sorry for pushing the shock so hard at first, but I needed to see you were a keeper and not going to fade on me. So I’ll tell you what. I’ll rig up a little vacation for you. Help you get back on your feet. You do yourself a favour, hike around, get comfortable. I don’t think I have to worry about you heading back there, I think we both know you’ve given up trying to be alive for a while.” Jape stood, waved sarcastically to Tale, and moved to the door. The door seemed to shimmer as if the outside world was uncertain as to what it really wanted to look like.

“I’ll be in touch.” He lifted a finger. “Oh, and one other thing, kid: Don’t touch the weeds.”


---


The room was thick with cigar smoke. At one end of the cavernous library, a pair of rich dark chairs faced a fireplace in which one could reasonably have cooked an elephant. It housed a modest fire which kept the ancient surroundings warm in the chill winter night. The two individuals who occupied the chairs had their attention turned towards a small laptop computer which sat on a tiny, delicately carved side table between the two. It was powered on, with a simple word processing suite open. All of a sudden, there was a light tremor which shook the table, jarring it slightly. One of the two sitting men took his cigar out of his mouth. “Yes?” he seemed to say to nobody in particular.

Seemingly of their own accord, the keys on the laptop’s keyboard began to be depressed, one after another. “got one”, it spelled out.

[LadyTevar]

Well well... First, it seems that Jape can be hurt by Tate's "banshee wail". Second, Jape's not working for himself, is he.